by Jason LaPier
Runstom sat quietly for a moment. Forty potential murder victims. He was definitely going to miss the rest of the Sirius Series. “No,” he admitted in a low voice. “But there’s a first time for everything.”
They took a short-range cruiser from their precinct, located in the asteroid belt between Barnard-4 and Barnard-5, down to the surface of Barnard-4. The third and fourth planets of Barnard’s Star were the only rocks in the system deemed suitable for dome construction; which is to say, they lacked hospitable atmosphere, but they had gravities somewhere in the vicinity of ten meters per second squared, give or take, as well as minimal natural magnetic fields. Since B-4 was the primary client for their precinct, their station was in an orbit that paralleled the planet’s orbit pretty closely and they were coming out of subwarp to make their approach within a few hours.
The planet wasn’t much to look at. Runstom watched the surface scroll by on one of the tracking monitors as they descended through a landing trajectory. It was gray and lifeless, pock-marked with craters and nothing else, until the first city came into view. The habitable structures weren’t the first thing he saw, of course, but rather the massive atmospheric processors that protruded tube-like into the sky. He knew nothing of how they worked, other than by extracting minerals and liquids from deep under the surface, turning them into oxygen, water, and other useful things, and expelling byproducts into the airless vacuum that surrounded the complex. A kind of temporary atmosphere was created in that immediate space, a mix of toxic clouds and precipitation that boiled off in the lack of air pressure as it dissipated across the planet’s surface. It was this mess that began to haze into the monitors as the cruiser drew closer to its destination, and Runstom could only just make out the lights of the city below as they approached.
Mass murder. Murder of any kind was rare enough in the domes. Even other violent crimes such as assault, rape, destruction of property, and so on were lower than they’d ever been. He leaned away from the hazy lights of the screen and scratched the back of his neck, glancing around at the other officers as he did. They joked and bullshitted like they were going on an outing, but he could detect the tension behind their banter. None of them were prepared to deal with something like this. Runstom included himself in that thought, but somehow he imagined it may be worse for him because he couldn’t help but take it so seriously, more so than any of them. The others spent their lives floating from one day to the next, waiting for the next vacation, waiting for eventual retirement, but Runstom had always wanted more. He’d spent his whole life waiting for a case this big. And now that it was here, all he could think about was how terrible it was that so many lives were snuffed out in one strike. Families. He brought his hand from around the back of his neck and up to his forehead, which was warm to the touch. The idea that such an event could be an intentional, malicious act caused him to sweat.
This was the job. This was why he was in ModPol. They couldn’t bring those lives back, but they could find out who did it and give the people of B-4 some justice. He pushed the anxiety down with a thick swallow and began to rehearse crime-scene procedures in his head as a way to occupy his thoughts.
The cruiser docked at the surface spaceport at about 5:30AM local time, a good three hours after the incident. Ground transport wasn’t quite so speedy though, since they had to land at the main port in Blue Haven and then lug their equipment from there to the mag-rail that ran out to the sub-dome called Gretel. Blue Haven was a very densely populated mega-dome, and in the mix of vehicular and human traffic, it took them another two hours to reach the mag-rail station.
The mag-rail itself was pretty quick, once they finally got on it. They were inside Gretel after a scant, eighteen-minute trip. The sub-dome was still set for nighttime shading, so most of the residents were asleep and it wasn’t nearly as crowded as the main dome. They managed to grab a hover-cab and get over to the checkpoint outside block 23-D in about ten minutes. A few Blue Haven officers were there, as well as some emergency personnel. Also hanging about were a few groggy LifSup operators, griping about being dragged out of bed.
“Welcome to Gretel, officers,” said one of the Blue Haven officers as he directed some others to help the ModPol team with their gear. “I’m Officer Nate Jenkins.” He nodded to each of them in turn. Runstom could never get used to the pale, almost translucent skin of the B-foureans, which was compounded by their low-gravity height that had the effect of making them always seem to be looming from above. He nodded back, then made a show of looking at the indicator lights on the wall just outside the maintenance door that led into the block. “Pressure’s back on in 23-D,” Jenkins continued. “They just gotta stabilize and then you can go on in. Med techs’ll be goin’ in with ya. Check for survivors.”
“What are the chances of someone surviving?” McManus asked, arching an eyebrow.
“Well, the air here on B-4 is pretty thin,” said one of the emergency medical technicians, a middle-aged man with long, but well-groomed, white hair. “The artificial atmo in the dome would have rushed out pretty quick with the top blown like that. So you’ve got a pretty good chance of immediate asphyxiation for anyone who didn’t get a lungful of air when it happened. Then there’s the drop in pressure, so we might see some decompression sickness – you know, the bends – and maybe some embolism.” He looked at each of the blank faces of the ModPol officers. “You know, pressure drops … boiling point drops … body fluids start to bubble,” he said, pushing down on an invisible scale with his hands. “The bubbles can block off arteries and keep oxygen from getting to the brain.”
“Yeah, not to mention stuff flyin’ around like a fuckin’ tornado,” chimed in one of the Life Support operators, the last word dissolving into a cavernous yawn. Runstom tried to give the cluster of operators an inconspicuous once-over look. They all looked tired and they huddled together in an almost defensive formation, like a pack of wild animals. They whispered to each other and snickered quietly in between yawns and grumblings.
“Yeah, there’s that,” one of the other med techs said, a skinny woman who looked too young to be attending a crime scene. “We’ll probably see a lot of lacerations, blunt force trauma, that kind of thing.”
“People inside housing units probably had a better chance,” the first med tech said. “Especially if they were in a small, closed room. Anyone who is alive, we gotta get to pretty quick, in case they’re suffering from hypoxia.”
McManus leaned into Horowitz. “Do I wanna know what that means?” he asked in a low voice. She didn’t look at him, just shook her head slowly. “Hey, pal,” he said loudly, addressing the pale-skinned Officer Jenkins. “What’s the layout of this place?”
“Well, let me show you,” Jenkins said with an unnerving smile. He took a step toward one of the monitors on the wall and pointed. The screen was mostly black, save a few thick, green lines forming a tic-tac-toe grid. Inside each of the squares were lighter lines, grids within the grid. “Block 23-D is a typical sub-dome block.” He pointed at one of the smaller squares inside the bottom, left-most square of the main grid. “Four small residential units form a square, their backyards coming together, separated by fences.” He traced a couple of the light-green lines and said, “Around each side of these squares is a narrow avenue.”
Jenkins leaned back from the monitor and made broad motions with his finger, saying, “Nine of these squares themselves form the block, three rows of three. In the middle square, there’s a supply store and a little community garden.”
“Bing. Block 23-D,” said an extremely calm, disembodied female voice. “Pressure stable. Oxygen level stable.” A bunch of the indicator lights that Runstom was pretending to look at turned a welcoming green.
“Ah, there we go,” Jenkins said. “We’ve got atmo. The other systems like the vital-scanners are still off-line. But it’s safe for you folks to go in.”
Runstom was still thinking about the operators. “These guys all just woke up. Where’s the LifSupOp on duty
for this block?”
McManus glared at him, but Horowitz said, “Hey yeah. That’s a good question.”
“Ah, uh.” Jenkins pointed a finger in no particular direction. “Your uh, detective. Detective Brute?”
“Detective Brutus,” McManus said.
“Right, Brutus. He told us to take the Op on duty over to the BHPD station and put him in holding until someone can interrogate him.”
“You mean question,” Horowitz said. She turned to dip her head slightly and look Officer Nate Jenkins in his gray eyes. “You took him in for questioning.”
“Oh, no.” Officer Jenkins smiled broadly. “We arrested him.”
“He’s a suspect,” one of the other Blue Haven officers said with a touch of pride in his voice. He went back to doing an impersonation of a statue.
“That’s right,” Jenkins confirmed, cheerfully. “Our only suspect.” He nodded once, as if the book were closed on this case and looked around at everyone for a moment, then at the wall with all the green lights on it. “Well, as I said – you folks are all set to go into 23-D now. We’ll be here if you need anything.”
Horowitz smirked at him. “Thanks for your help,” she said overly cheerfully, beaming an obnoxious smile and wide eyes at the B-fourean. Jenkins, apparently unaccustomed to sarcasm, or more likely, unwilling to acknowledge it, simply nodded and smiled.
Runstom was about to ask the B-foureans another question when McManus suddenly slapped him on the back and shoved a CamCap into his gut. “Stanley. You get to be Porter.”
Runstom clutched the headgear. “It’s Stanford,” he muttered, and carefully placed the unwieldy helmet with the camera attachment on his head. A jacket accompanied the CamCap, coiled wires connecting the camera to bulky sonic and magnetic sensors, a transmission antenna, and multiple battery packs. Runstom shrugged into the jacket and felt twenty kilos heavier.
It was customary for ModPol detectives to attend an initial crime-scene investigation remotely. Runstom was pretty low in the pecking order in his precinct and seemed to get stuck wearing the Remote Detective Unit more often than anyone else, except for maybe Halsey. He was generally pretty annoyed by it, but this time he couldn’t help but to feel even more annoyed that Brutus and Porter weren’t present in the flesh. This was a goddamn mass homicide, not vandalism or petty theft.
Once they got inside, it was a real mess. Debris lay strewn everywhere. Little single- and double-seated hover-cars hung about at awkward angles, their frames split or badly bent. Shards of unidentifiable plastic and metal stuck out of the artificial turf of the yards like crooked, multicolored fangs. A tree-like air scrubber lay precariously across two rooftops, the surface of its metallic branches gleaming dully in the low light, its plastic root system splaying out into the sky over the avenue. The ModPol officers congregated in the Southeast corner of the block, near the maintenance access door, med techs in tow.
Horowitz was staring back at the entrance. “Those motherfuckers are useless, you know that?” she said to no one in particular.
“B-4 cops act like their job is public relations,” McManus agreed immediately. “Like criminal justice’s got nothing to do with it.”
“They act more like fucking waiters than cops,” Horowitz said.
Runstom kept his mouth shut, but he had to agree. The pale-skinned B-fourean officers were trained to be the face of the dome government. The crime rate was so low, particularly in the sub-domes, that the cops really were there for PR more than anything else. Smile and make people feel welcome and protected, that’s what they were good at. Runstom wondered if he was feeling thankful for the local force’s incompetence. The truth of it was, if domer cops were any good at doing actual police-work, he’d always be stuck back at the outpost, perpetually orbiting a slow circle around Barnard’s Star, watching HV and reading about other people’s cases. He kept his somewhat inappropriate glass-half-full optimism to himself.
“Alright, listen up.” Detective Brutus’s voice came crackling out of the Remote Detective Unit that was wrapped around Halsey, who looked as uncomfortable in his gear as Runstom felt. “Everyone pair up with a med tech and take a quadrant. We’ll take this one. McManus, you take the Southwest. Horowitz, you take the Northeast. Runstom. Take a stroll through the garden and see if you can find any – Halsey! Check your CamCap. I can’t see anything.”
“Uh, okay, boss,” Halsey said, looking over his connections with clumsy motions.
McManus turned back toward the maintenance door. “Hey!” he shouted. “Can you guys switch it to daytime?”
The murmur of voices emanated from the other side of the doorway. After a minute or two, one of the operators croaked out of a hidden speaker. “Okay, here comes morning.”
The night sky started to lighten, and as it came into view, the dome seemed to flex and ripple like water. After another minute it was a brilliant, light blue-green hue, radiating light and illuminating the avenue and revealing dents and scratches on the residential units on the corner.
“What color clouds do ya want?”
“We don’t need any clouds!” McManus shouted. “Just leave it like this, that’s fine.” He looked at Halsey. “That better, Detective?”
“Huh?” Halsey blinked.
“Yeah, much better,” Detective Brutus’s voice crackled out of Halsey’s jacket. “Runstom!”
“Yes, sir?” Runstom turned to face Halsey.
“Go to the garden and check it out. I doubt you’ll find any survivors there, but make note of any bodies. Then go up to the Northwest quadrant.”
“Yes, sir,” Runstom said. Halsey seemed to be interested in something sticking out of a nearby yard and turned the CamCap away. “Um. Excuse me, sir. Detective.”
“What is it, Officer? Halsey, turn back around so I can see Runstom!”
Runstom motioned to the CamCap on his own head. “Detective Porter? He hasn’t connected yet.”
“What?” the speaker crackled before erupting into a sudden burst of static. “—wah—drant and look for bodies. Remember, warm or cold, make sure the med tech gets a full scan. Let’s move, people.”
Runstom looked at McManus and then Horowitz, hoping one of them would offer guidance without his asking for it. McManus ignored him, motioning to one of the med techs and then marching off. Horowitz slapped him on the shoulder. “Have a nice walk in the sweat-suit, Runny. You,” she said, pointing to a med tech. “Let’s go.”
Halsey was taking one of the other med techs into the nearby unit on the corner. Runstom looked at the remaining med tech; the one he thought was too young to be at a crime scene. She was a scrawny, pale girl with large beady eyes and thin, fidgeting fingers, and would have been a few inches taller than Runstom if not for her slouch. “Hi,” she said, sticking a cold hand into his. “I’m Roxeen.”
He shook her hand in one up-and-down motion and then pulled away. “Officer Stanford Runstom.” He shifted the weight of the jacket around, but it only seemed to make it worse. She peered at him as if he were a specimen under a microscope. “Alright, let’s go, Roxeen.”
The garden was a shambles. Ex-garden, really. All the plants had been sucked out of the ground. Half the irrigation system lay in a tangle of pipes in the middle of a nearby avenue. Somewhere in the center of the once-garden-muck was a yellowish blob.
“That’s a body,” Roxeen said, pointing to what Runstom was already looking at. “Let’s go scan it.”
He nodded, still looking at the body. They began trudging through the slimy mixture of dirt and vegetable pulp. The broken stalks and vines and mashed fruits gave off an odor that to Runstom just smelled like food, and it started to make him hungry. As they got closer to the body, his appetite vanished. The corpse was bloated and bruised. Purple and yellow flesh was only partially covered by the tatters of what was once clothing, maybe some kind of jumpsuit, uniformly gray in color.
“Looks like they got the worst of the decompression,” she said, her scanner already in hand. She stalk
ed toward the corpse with morbid fascination.
Runstom took a step and suddenly found himself with one foot submerged in the muck. “Ah, goddammit,” he said, trying to pull his foot free. The weight of his jacket shifted and his other leg dropped, the mud reaching his knee. “Oh, come on.”
“Oh my,” Roxeen said, coming over to help him. She took his hand and pulled weakly, making no headway.
“Help me get this jacket off,” he said, struggling with one of the sleeves of his burden. “Porter’s not even here and I’m lugging this goddamn thing all over the place.”
“What’s Porter?” she asked as she helped him pull out of the sleeve.
“Detective Porter. The guy who is supposed to be watching through this goddamn camera on my head. The reason I’m dragging around an extra twenty kilos of weight here.”
They succeeded in getting the jacket off him, Roxeen pulling on it by one sleeve and falling backwards, dragging the equipment through the mud. After a few more minutes of fighting to get his feet out of the muck and fighting off her attempts to help, Runstom managed to curse and pull himself free.
A few minutes later, they were standing over the amorphous and splotched corpse. Patches of the yellowed skin were marked by uniform squares of red. Roxeen bent forward to run her scanner up and down the length of the body. “Yep,” she said with an unnecessary air of authority. “This one got the worst of it.”
She rattled off all the conditions already speculated by the lead med tech, and then some. Runstom looked up while she talked. He saw only blue-green sky. Despite the chaos surrounding them, the block was eerily calm. “The main venting doors are probably right above us somewhere. Why didn’t this guy just get sucked out onto the planet’s surface?”
“Oh yeah,” the med tech said thoughtfully as she stood up. “I think there are some kind of protective grates or something between the inner and outer doors.”
