by Matt Doyle
I nod. “Did it this morning. You?”
“Last night.”
I swallow a mouthful of water and make my way to one of the plastic chairs scattered around the centre of the room. “Say, did you notice anything…unexpected about the LV?”
“Other than smashing the lighting not working, ya mean? No. Why’s that?”
“I don’t know.” I sigh. “I could have sworn there was something obvious right in front of me when it attacked, but my brain was so fried by the light show that I couldn’t tell what it was. Then, last night, I had this dream. Or a nightmare. The LV was there, but it was female.”
Donal chuckles. “Sounds like someone’s been reading too many vampire romance novels. Seriously, though, I didn’t get any feeling that the LV we fought was a female, if that’s what you’re getting at.”
I snort at myself. “It’s stupid.”
“Nah, not really.” Donal takes the chair next to me. “Sometimes, the subconscious picks up stuff we don’t realise. But this time, I think you’re barking up the wrong tree.”
“Fair enough,” I reply. There must have been something else. Something I’m missing. “Hey, I never asked. What rank are you?”
“Does it matter?” he asks, shooting me a curious look.
“Not really, I was just curious. I know Hoove said you’re the Marshal of the TS Unit, but I didn’t think Marshal was an actual rank here.”
“It’s not. It works fine as a title, feels like it fits, ya know? But if you want to get technical, I’m a Sergeant. Bec’s my supervising Lieutenant.”
“Bec?”
“Rebecca. Hanson.” Realisation creeps onto my face, and Donal’s follows suit. “Ah, feck. She hadn’t told you?”
“Nope. I’ve asked a few times but figured she just doesn’t like it or something like that.”
“She doesn’t. Most people don’t know it either, ’cause other than the Captain, no one in the station is high enough ranked to access her files. I think she likes to make a game of it; see who can figure it out, yeah?”
“It’s okay, I won’t let on.” I take another careful sip of water and add, “I’ll just save it up in case I want to surprise her.”
Donal laughs out loud, and it’s a thick, gruff sound. “Ya know, it’s a shame you don’t work with us more often. I like ya, Cassie. Just don’t go doing anything to piss off the wrong person.”
And on that ominous note, the door opens and Corporal Devereaux, Captain Hoover, and Doctor Sanderson file in. Hoove moves to the front of the room, looks around and asks, “Where’s Lieutenant Hanson?”
“Here,” she says, walking in and taking up residence next to Devereaux.
“Okay, good,” Hoove says. “First up, Dean Hollister. Anything to report?”
“He said what we saw sounds like one of the early versions of the Boost Jump system, but it was probably taken from the net.”
Hoove frowns. “The net?”
“The Redwood case,” I clarify. “Whatever Eddie Redwood left on Hollister’s systems ran some early tests itself by posting confidential planning files on some dingy little sites, apparently. Hollister volunteered to provide evidence of it, but tracing who downloaded the plans would be a nightmare.”
“We’ll take that as a closed avenue for now then,” Hoove replies. “At least until we check the validity of what he sends us. Okay, in that case, Doctor Sanderson, you’re up.”
“Yes, of course.” The Doctor stands up and moves to the front of the room to join Hoove. The last time I saw him, I was still pretty out of it, but not so much that I shouldn’t have noticed at least something about the man. Looking at him now, it appears he’s just that unremarkable. The jacket he’s wearing is a simple lab coat, and it hides his body well. Plain glasses, neatly brushed-back dark hair, and a face placing him in his early forties. That’s it.
Sanderson clears his throat and begins, “Mary Warner was, as the file will state, attacked in her home. To reiterate what was said at the hospital, I cannot divulge the nature of the operation she was scheduled for but can assure you it was nothing to worry about. She has been booked in for a long time. If you feel it prudent, you could request the information through official channels, but it would, frankly, be a waste of your time.”
“I’ll be the one to decide that,” Hoove says, an air of impatience tinging his voice. “Get on with it, Doctor.”
“Ah, yes. Well. During her X-rays, we found traces of something in her arm. Now, I wasn’t originally scheduled to carry out her surgery, but I pulled a few strings when she was found to be a victim of our mysterious bloodsucker. This allowed me to remove the fragments that had become embedded under her skin.” He reaches into his pocket and pulls out a small plastic pot containing what appears to be a handful of shards of a transparent material.
“Glass,” he confirms. “Now, this wouldn’t be unusual, under the circumstances. The attacker came in through the window, after all. However, this was strange, as upon closer examination, I found there to be two different types of glass present. One was consistent with most windows these days, but the other…well, it looks far more similar to the glass that was recovered from the scene of Miss Tam’s attack.”
“So, we think she may have managed to avoid having her blood taken?” Devereaux asks.
Sanderson nods. “It appears likely. I took the liberty of leaving the tracker in place, just in case. As I understand it, the vampire did try to sample Miss Tam’s blood again, yes?”
“Tried,” Donal says. “And failed.”
“Well, even if they now give up on that particular sample, it certainly looks like leaving Mrs. Warner’s tracker in may prove fruitful.”
“Seems that way,” Hoove replies. “Has she said anything about the attack yet?”
Sanderson shakes his head. “She arrived unconscious, as I understand it. Under normal circumstances, we would not have gone ahead with her operation, but I felt it could be justified in this instance.”
“That’s not how hospitals work,” Hanson comments.
“No. But falsifying paperwork in extenuating circumstances is. I did examine her first to assess the risks.”
“You do know that if anything happens to her, at least in relation to the procedure you carried out, I will happily throw you under the bus before I let your methods jeopardise this investigation, don’t you?”
Uh oh. From the look on Sanderson’s face, he wasn’t expecting that response from Hoove. The matter-of-fact way he said it made it even clearer he was serious too. The doctor swallows hard and sputters, “I am trying to help the investigation, Captain Hoover, not impede it.”
“Just making you aware,” Hoove replies and gets to his feet. Sanderson gets out of his way and sits back down, leaving Hoove to stand alone at the front of the room again. “Regardless of the legal ramifications of his methods, I will acknowledge that Doctor Sanderson has presented us with an opportunity here. The two questions we have to ask are one, is a repeat attack likely, and two, how do we take advantage of this?”
“Given the second attempt on me,” I tell him, “I’d say there’s a good chance of it. What we can do without her consent is going to be an issue, though.”
“Agreed,” Hanson chimes in. “What are the chances of her waking up any time soon?”
The room goes silent, and all heads turn to Doctor Sanderson. It takes him a moment to realise he’s expected to answer. Finally, he says, “Uhm…that is difficult to say. We’re not yet sure why she isn’t conscious. I have a few blood samples being looked at to try to figure that out. Oh, there are no signs of the proteins in her either.”
“Fecking proteins,” Donal grumbles.
“Okay,” Hanson says, undeterred. “My recommendation is we place the victim under surveillance to see if she wakes up. If it doesn’t happen soon, and no attack comes, then we make it less obvious. Hide out in the hospital, and spring a trap.”
“Tinted contact lenses will sort the light out,” Donal says. “
Last night proved that. We still need to figure out what happened after I smashed the fangs, though.”
“This gives us some time to work on it,” Hanson says and turns to Hoover. “Captain?”
“It’s all we’ve got at the moment. Okay, Corporal Devereaux, you go with Sanderson and take up the first run of surveillance until we can get a proper system in place. The rest of you head out and try to figure out what we’re facing here.”
“Head out where?” I ask.
“Wherever you think will be useful,” Hoove replies, the frustration clear in his voice. “Dismissed.”
IN THE END, Donal, Hanson and I decide to convene down in the TS Unit training room to run through a plan of attack.
“I don’t like this,” Hanson says, hopping up onto a table near the door. “Sanderson’s potentially really screwed this up for us.”
“I know,” Donal grunts. He points at me and says, “Now, you, you’re a wily fecker. There was always the chance you’d do something to get away if someone attacked you, but as far as we know, Mary Warner is a regular civilian. Unless she got real lucky, she must have spotted something before the attack, or how’d she manage to avoid having her blood taken?”
I shake my head. “I think you’re reaching. What you’re saying makes sense, but we haven’t got anything to back it up. I mean, I still don’t know for sure what happened after the LV tried to take my blood.”
“Sounded to me like the anonymous caller startled him,” Hanson interjects. She shrugs. “He probably panicked and tripped or something. The way the jump boot things work must make them pretty bulky, right? Easy trip hazards right there.”
“Maybe,” I reply. “How did we hear about Warner?”
“Alarm system tripped when the vamp crashed through the window,” Donal says.
“There’s your answer,” Hanson sighs. “If there was a squad car near enough to the apartment, the sirens could’ve driven him off before he finished.”
Donal nods. “Probably. I still would’ve liked to have spoken to her before we go much further. I don’t like that taking the light show out of the equation didn’t stop this guy from fecking me up.”
“So, any thoughts on what we do now?” I ask.
“Donal’s right,” Hanson replies. “We need to prioritise figuring out how else our fanged foe attacks.”
“Then…how about you guys work on that, and I’ll check out Warner’s place?” I ask. Hanson and Donal glance at each other, and I clarify, “I’d have never thought of the Dazzler angle, and I doubt I’ll come up with anything else down here. If there’s something useful at the house, though, I’ll find it.”
Donal rubs his stubble thoughtfully and comments, “I guess it’s unlikely he’d attack again so soon, even if it wasn’t daylight. And we do need to sort out the contacts if nothing else. Hanson? You have seniority here.”
Hanson crosses her arms and considers it for a moment, then says, “Yeah. Yeah, makes sense. Keep in close contact, yeah?”
That last bit was directed at me, so I nod, and wave my goodbyes before heading out the door.
MARY WARNER LIVES on the Western side of the city in an unremarkable house on an unremarkable street. A walk around the outside of the building shows there’s nothing out of the ordinary to be found, at least superficially. The house is built like many others, has the same security shutters on the windows. There’s no garden, but there is a back door that looks as sturdy as the front door. The only damage visible from the outside is the glass window at the back of the building.
“That the shutters weren’t down means the attack happened early,” I note to myself. “Either that or she’s like me and doesn’t like pulling the shutters. Good job there isn’t an enforced security curfew.”
A quick check tells me the doors are locked, so I make my way back around to the broken window and pull out my cell phone. I log into the server for the case and find the official ID file stored in the main folder. With the code displayed on the screen, I hold it up to the scanner by the holographic police tape and wait for the red lights to turn green. They don’t. This is a simple system. Each holographic tape line acts as a tripwire. If I cross it without official access being granted, it’ll have the same effect as I’m guessing breaking the door in would: it’ll summon the cops. Which would be both a pain and a waste of everyone’s time in this case. So, I call Hanson.
“Cassie? You found something already?”
“No, I can’t get in. The tape is up, but it’s not responding to the case clearance on the server.”
“Really? Hold on…” I hear some tapping in the background, and Hanson comes back, “Can you read off the code on the side of the projector?”
I lean in, careful to avoid breaking the projection, and say, “A-B-seven-five-P-two-zero-dot-C-C.”
“Some idiot typed the second C as a V,” Hanson says. “There. It should be working now. If it doesn’t, give it five minutes, and try again. If it still doesn’t work, call me back, and I’ll manually shut it down when you go in.”
“Thanks, Hanson,” I say, and hang up. I reload the ID and hold it up to the scanner. This time, the lights flash and turn green.
Smiling, I pull myself up and, carefully, climb through the broken window. Inside, there isn’t much to see. Sure, there’s still some broken glass on the floor, but there are no signs of a struggle in the small kitchen I’ve climbed into. I load up the official report and skim through it, confirming it was always this way, and nobody had done a tidying job. Does that mean Warner didn’t hear them smash the window? I guess she could have been listening to music, or sleeping, maybe?
I make my way through an open door to a living room. According to the report, this was where Warner was found, unconscious on the floor. She is the licenced owner of a small handgun, which was found a few feet from her. Looking around, there’s no sign of a struggle here either, so it’s probably a safe bet that she didn’t get to use it. In fact, the only sign of damage is a broken digital picture frame in front of a small table by the stairs. I pull on a pair of gloves—one of the perks of official investigations—and pick up the frame. It’s a recent model, which means the screen is pretty tough. If it was simply knocked over, it wouldn’t have ended up like this.
I frown. “Two options. Warner must have been upstairs, to begin with, heard the window go, and came down to investigate. Either she tried using the frame as a weapon, then made a grab for the gun afterwards, or the LV broke the frame on purpose. But why would he do that? To make sure she knew he was there, maybe?”
I keep the frame in my hand and head upstairs. There’s a modest bathroom at the top of the stairs, a storage cupboard built into one wall, and a bedroom. It’s the bedroom I head to, where I find a tidy double bed, a wardrobe, and a desk with a computer on it. One drawer is slightly open. When I glance in, it reveals a spare clip for a handgun. “The gun must have been up here. Warner’s gun was near enough to her that it likely spilled out of her hand during the attack, but far enough from the stairs that…” I run through the situation in my head a few times and shake my head. “No, if she’d been disarmed and then gone for the frame, the LV wouldn’t have thrown her closer to the gun. He must have broken the frame.”
The next thing I notice is that the standby light is flashing on the computer’s base unit. The screen light is matching it, so I chuck the broken frame onto the bed, give the monitor screen a quick tap, and pull the computer chair out to slip into. A holographic keyboard loads up in front of me, with a big red flashing message reading “Locked.”
I look up at the screen, expecting the touchscreen to have the space for a pattern registration, but find myself hit in the face by a red light. I realise too slowly what’s happening and push myself away from the desk a little too late. An electronic voice drifts over the speakers, stating, “Retinal Scan complete. Unauthorised access. Please input manual code.”
“Diu,” I grunt, as the screen loads up the pattern recognition screen I expected, ac
companied by a thirty-second timer, creeping its way down towards zero.
I’m not going to get many shots at this… Everything’s tidy. Even the bed is still immaculately made…a tidy shape…
I swipe my hand over the touchscreen monitor, trying a square, but it tells me that this is incorrect.
What did that article last week say was the most common one? A spiral?
It isn’t a spiral either.
The countdown reaches zero, and the screen goes dead. Next, there’s a pop, and the base unit starts to smoke. I slap my forehead. It won’t be a fire hazard, but this is a fairly popular security system these days. The computer is now fried. Great.
Frustrated, not to mention slightly embarrassed I didn’t notice the clear retinal scanner on the top of the monitor, I pull out another drawer on the desk and start rifling through the contents. I spread the neatly filed papers over the bed. Most of them are print copies of bills. Right in the middle is a tenancy agreement that shows Mary Warner’s moving-in date as being a little over a week ago. Her previous address, as shown on the accompanying letter, is…in California?
“Didn’t Sanderson say she’d been booked in for her surgery for a long time? I guess it could have been a specialist thing and she moved here to make it easier to access? No, that doesn’t make sense. If it was a specialist surgery, she wouldn’t want the stress of moving first. Or would that be less stress, knowing she was near home? Let’s see what else we have.”
I pull out another wad of papers and find an official visiting slip for the New Hopeland Prison, dated a few days ago. Now, who was she visiting…? “Malcolm Castleford?”
I drop the paper on the pile and frown, bringing my fist up to my face. Why would she be visiting him?
My eyes stray to the broken picture frame. The report didn’t mention a check on the computer, probably because the cops on hand wouldn’t have known about the LVs so wouldn’t have been looking at anything other than the room the attack took place in. That would have been left for the eventual investigating officer. But it didn’t mention the frame being checked either.
