Spider Play

by Lee Killough

  Ex-military, Janna judged.

  Not armed like the military, though. The holster on Geyer’s snug hip belt held a Colt Ninja. Worn in plain sight rather than a shoulder harness or holster pocket, the compact weapon looked almost like a toy. No doubt it met Fontana’s dictate of avoiding an intimidating appearance, but Janna wondered how Geyer felt about wearing it. Despite the fact its single magazine could hold the same ammo as larger weapons.

  The violet eyes raked them, pausing at Mama’s sweater with a flicker of something that might be amusement or scorn, before giving them the thin smile of someone forcing herself to be polite. “Mr. Fontana says you have autopsy images you believe indicate smuggling.”

  She resented their presence of course. In Geyer’s place, Janna would, too. Outsiders second-guessing her. Questioning her professional competence and that of her team. Dismissing them as mere corporate security, not real officers.

  Janna handed Fontana a data stick. He plugged it into his desktop and swept aside images on his screen wall to make space for those from the stick.

  As they appeared, Geyer enlarged and studied them . . . from the total body shots documenting the mutilation to close-ups of the tibial implant and its groove. She peered longest at a group she enlarged still more, where Kolb had placed a data stick beside the groove, then partially inserted it to establish the fit, and finished with a scan image of it fully inserted. Demonstrating how stick and groove became invisible.

  Janna said nothing. Even if a comment had been welcome. Geyer’s tightening jaw indicated no need for it.

  Studying the images, too, Fontana grimaced. “Well . . . that’s pretty definitive. But I don’t fault our security. Someone’s just been a little cleverer.”

  Geyer’s jaw tightened still more. The violet eyes smoldered. Resenting Fontana’s unvoiced criticism? Janna guessed that future departing individuals, living or dead, faced an even more rigorous exit scan.

  Fontana sighed. “The question is how to learn what data was on that stick.”

  Mama said, “Determine who had the opportunity to implant the stick and he, or she, might tell us—”

  “A discussion better held elsewhere,” Geyer cut in, “rather than taking up Mr. Fontana’s valuable time.” She collected the data stick and wheeled toward the portal. “I’ll keep you apprised, sir.”

  * * *

  Without checking to see if they followed, she headed out through the module. Moving faster than Nakashima had . . . in long gliding strides like a cross-country skier.

  Struggling to keep up, Janna lost contact once . . . saving herself from floating into the upper bulkhead by catching a cross-section wall.

  On the threshold platform outside, Geyer paused at the edge, making Janna wonder if she intended to dive for Security’s platform on their right and start a pissing contest by daring them to follow her. But she checked and followed the arm of the platform past the cable lift to take the walkway. Moving just as fast as she had in the Administration module.

  Following her, the shaft once again turned into a horizontal treadmill under Janna’s feet.

  Security’s portal had no scan eye and split open with a wave of Geyer’s arm. Free entry only at that point, since they entered a sally port with eight feet or so of solid walls right, left, and overhead, then a transparent final four feet. Ballistic-grade poly, almost invisible mesh embedded in it. Good security.

  Not so the waist-high reception desk she saw stretching left from the sally port to the module’s bulkhead. It had no visible barrier, leaving anyone free to vault it. The dusky-skinned officer behind the desk, attention on something hidden by the wall on their left, appeared unconcerned about his vulnerability. Did Geyer and company feel that safe? Or did the desk, like the Colt Ninja, represent Fontana’s desire for Security to avoid being intimidating?

  The rest of the office visible from the sally port — another horizontally divided module — had the look of a small district station back home. The duty desk. A communication and surveillance center behind it . . . a screen wall with the desk beneath it arcing halfway around an ethereally pale, thin female in its center. A bullpen lay to the right. Albeit without the usual cluttered desks, only standing-height pedestal desks not much wider than the generous screens rising from their bare tops and a stack of drawers in the supporting column. The single officer there at the moment, an Oriental-looking male, peered at his screen while alternately swiping across it and typing on the virtual keyboard extending from it. Cross-section walls behind the com center and bullpen partitioned the front office from the rest of the module, with a central hallway stretching back to another portal. Overhead, ceiling sections extended from each bulkhead to the edge of the cross-section walls . . . leaving a gap between that revealed an area above open to the upper bulkhead. A glimpse of hammock there suggested it might be the station doss, for officers needing a quick nap.

  Belatedly she returned her attention to Geyer, pointing at the interior entry in the left-hand wall of the sally port. “. . . the duty officer will admit you.”

  Yet the scan eyes beside the portal for scib and retina indicated it opened from this side. At least for authorized personnel.

  “Why not give us entry authorization?” Janna asked.

  Geyer produced another thin smile. “Unnecessary. There’s always an officer at the desk.”

  Letting her control their access to the office.

  “Just signal him or her.” Geyer lifted a hand to the officer at the desk.

  The portal slid open.

  On the other side of the wall four small pedestal tables rose from the deck. A dark-skinned female officer tapped and swiped at the screen in the top of one while another female in a floating cloud of draperies frowned at her.

  “. . . only one who had access!” Cloud-fem snapped.

  “We’ll talk to her and check surveillance,” the officer said in the even tone Janna recognized for dealing with difficult civilians.

  Geyer sent the pair a glance, then raised her brows at the officer behind the desk.

  He shrugged. “Her usual complaint, surrounded by thieves.” He sighed. “Good thing she gives ace haircuts.”

  Haircut? Well, that made sense. Of course they must have service positions here in addition to scientists and cargo handlers. Small gears also necessary for the operation of this machine, as Fontana called it. All human, though, and like any population, bound to include paranoid personalities and, despite screening, some with sticky fingers.

  Geyer waved her arm across the reception desk. A section folded in on itself, creating an entry gate. “Let’s scan you into the computer and issue you guide cuffs.” From the desk, she moved back to the com center. “Officer Fox, take care of Detectives Maxwell and Brill.”

  Fox turned, revealing a twisted spine and spindle legs. Instead of standing on them, a loose harness around her hips tethered her to the floor. Thinking of physically limited personnel in the SCPD’s labs and other non-sworn positions, Janna considered how much more comfortable it must be for someone like her working free of gravity.

  Fox peered at them over the visor portion of her headset . . . raised her brows at Mama. “Was it your grandmam or an auntie who blessed you with that? Not a criticism.” She grinned. “We applaud individuality here.”

  An expression on Geyer’s face suggested an inward sigh. “Gemma . . . scan and cuffs.” All business.

  Fox nodded, and following taps and swipes on a portion of desktop to her right, a section of it glowed. “Scib first,” she told Mama, and after he passed his wrist over the scanner asked, “Left eye or right eye?”

  “Left.”

  “Give us a stare. Good. Next.”

  While repeating the sequence with Janna, she paused as an image bloomed on the screen wall. Two husky females — one with blazing blue hair — bared their teeth at each other and grappled in the pulsing light of what appeared to be a bar. Each had a toe hooked under the top a mushroom-shaped table. For stability? In the back
ground, other males and females cheered them on.

  “You have a bar on the station?”

  Fox laughed as her fingers raced over her keyboard. “We do. Flores, Loertz . . . two females fighting in Tesseract.” A second later she touched her headset. “Security. . . . Yes, sir, we’re on the way.” Eyes on the image, she finished processing Janna and produced two guide cuffs she passed across the scanner. “At least they haven’t drawn blood. That’s always a mess.”

  Both still had scratches on their faces and Blue-hair’s coverall had been torn open to the waist. If they started out with headsets, neither wore one now.

  “A brawl this early in the day?” Janna said.

  Geyer flicked her a glance. “Late for some, after their shift.”

  Since the station ran around the clock. Right.

  Mama eyed the fight. “What triggered the image here?”

  “Athena sent it,” Fox said. “Our goddess of surveillance.”

  “Our AI,” Geyer said. “A sophisticated program that identifies problematic situations and suspicious behavior, and can even distinguish between normal and aberrant behavior in a particular individual.”

  “Which she needs,” Fox said, “with some of our uberQs. She sends images she thinks bear watching, and of course alerts us to trouble. If one of our people needs backup, she usually alerts us even before they call for it.”

  So backup could be available . . . as long as Geyer and company chose to respond.

  Fox handed them the cuffs. “These will guide you wherever you want to go and warn you when you’re approaching restricted areas.”

  Janna slipped the cuff on her right wrist. “What’s restricted?”

  “Construction areas,” Geyer said, “and the labs, where the work is not only confidential but often delicate and sometimes hazardous. Also—”

  She broke off with the appearance of another image on the wall that Janna recognized as feed from a bovi. A silent image. Sound accompanying the feed must be going to Fox and Geyer’s headsets. The combatants jerked — reacting to a shouted command? — but did not separate. The onlookers dived away, however. Out of firing range? Because seconds later, the fems jerked apart, first one, then the other screaming silently, limbs twitching. Instantly ending the fight.

  It appeared the Ninjas used Thors.

  “The situation appears resolved.” Geyer turned and led the way down the hallway past a portal on their left with a plaque lettered Chief over T. Geyer to an open portal beyond.

  Inside, a male officer sat cross-legged in mid-air, back against a larger version of the bullpen’s pedestal desks, looking at images on a screen wall.

  “My deputy chief, Captain Ian Doubrava,” Geyer said.

  He lowered his feet to the floor and came toward them, hand extended. Tall as Janna, trim as Geyer, pleasantly good looking with thick, dark hair and eyes too brilliantly turquoise to be natural. But they met her gaze frankly — after a quick approving survey — accompanied by a firm handshake and friendlier smile than Geyer’s. Mama’s expression looked like someone searching his memory.

  An expression that morphed to disappointment when Geyer said, “To avoid any constraints my presence might have on the new eyes the director wants on Chenoweth’s death I’m recusing myself. Captain Doubrava can answer all questions and provide any assistance you need.” She paused for a thin smile. “Let’s just hope the agenda those eyes bring with them is only for establishing the truth.” Handing Doubrava the data stick, she skated from the office.

  Mama’s gaze followed her out. Definitely disappointed.

  After a moment of awkward silence, Doubrava cleared his throat. “So let’s see what you brought.” He plugged the stick into his desktop and like Fontana, pushed aside images on the screen wall beside his desk for those on the stick.

  Studying them, he kept leaning closer and increasing their enlargement, until his face went grim as Geyer’s. “Son of a bitch,” he breathed. “How the hell did our scan miss this?”

  “It was invisible,” Janna said.

  He straightened and turned to them. “The stick in the implant, maybe, but there had to be an incision to reach the bone. Refinements added here make ours the finest scan equipment available. It should have detected at least that.”

  “Our ME said the old surgical scar helped hide it. The critical questions now are,” Mama said, “are who planted the stick, and when.”

  Doubrava blew out his breath. “Right.”

  “Who had access to the body?” Janna asked. “What happened to it from the time of death until it was scanned?”

  Doubrava eyed the images on the wall. “Once Waller — that’s Argus Waller, our chief medical officer — confirmed Chenoweth’s death at the job site, the body was transported up to the hospital for an autopsy.”

  “With just body scans and endoscopy, according to our ME,” Janna said.

  Doubrava frowned. “Opening the body is messy even in a canopy tube like those used for surgery. Yes,” he said, “our hospital does surgeries. It’s a full-service facility.”

  He squeezed a drink bulb suction-cupped to his desktop. The valve in the tube topping the bulb opened, letting a small amount of liquid squirt out . . . turning into an undulating globule as it rose.

  Ah, yes. Janna nodded. “That happened to us a couple of times on the shuttle before we learned how to use the bulbs.”

  “Imagine this as blood and other bodily fluids floating in the tube around the body. Even running a vacuum doesn’t keep the tube completely clear.” Doubrava captured the drop in his hand and wiped it on his uniform pants. “Waller felt that witness accounts and a recording of the accident — which is part of the inquest record — made an open autopsy unnecessary to confirm COD. A recording of the autopsy is also included in the inquest recording. After autopsy, the body was moved to the morgue. It remained there until seven hundred hours on Thursday, when an honor guard of construction crewmates accompanied it up to the receiving bay. There it was scanned according to exit protocol and loaded aboard a shuttle.”

  “So the body was unattended from Tuesday to Thursday morning,” Mama said.

  “Yes.” Doubrava paused, then grimaced. “Yeah. Plenty of time to plant the stick.”

  “Is the morgue locked?” Janna asked.

  “Only with a keypad entry.” His jaw tightened. “If I know the chief, that’s going to change.”

  “Who has the code?”

  He snorted. “Better ask who doesn’t. Doctors and shift supervisors have it. It’s posted in ICU and at the ward desks, and given to non-medical personnel like maintenance techs who need in. This one time Athena — that’s—”

  “The station’s AI,” Mama said.

  “Ah, you already know about her. She alerted us to unusual activity and we arrived to find staff from Food Services bringing in party refreshments to refrigerate on a shelf for a surprise birthday party being given later for Dr. Waller. We have the code, of course. So does Fontana.”

  “Fontana?” Janna said.

  Doubrava smiled. “He doesn’t run the station only from his office. He roams, likely to show up anywhere at any hour, seeing what surveillance can’t show him. Chatting and drinking with personnel from the uberQs in the labs to maintenance techs and the little fem who does nails in the Emporium spa. Feeling the pulse of the station, as it were. It makes him a popular director.”

  Janna imagined so. “It sounds like you admire him, too.”

  “I do. My mother used to extol the value of foot patrols, and Fontana exemplifies that. He knows all the chop.”

  “Your mother was on the job?” Janna said.

  He nodded. “Oh, yeah. And still is. A major case squad detective. My sibs and I grew up with police procedure and criminal investigation served alongside the veggies at our dinner table.” He smiled wryly. “If you think the average mother can sniff out lies and misdeeds, you ought to grow up with Lieutenant Mom.”

  Janna could just imagine.

  “Fo
llowing Fontana’s example, Geyer makes sure we, too, are a visible and accessible presence around the station. Unlike on Earth, when you need an officer here, there is probably one close. Despite our size, we’re a full-service department, including investigations and forensics.” He gave them a sly smile. “Considering the scientific resources available on the station, we might even have a trick or two more than you do.”

  A little dig at the ‘real’ leos, Janna mused.

  “Who investigates?” Mama asked.

  “Mostly I do.”

  “You were on the job, too?” Mama said.

  Doubrava hesitated, then shrugged. “No. Nine years in executive protection.”

  Mama smiled. “That’s why you look familiar. I saw you in a phalanx making a path through the media for Magda Gruenwald after she testified in Orlando Fauver’s murder trial.”

  The turquoise eyes measured Mama with new respect. “Amazing. That was, what, nearly eleven years ago, and you not only recognized us as more than anonymous entities but remember our faces?”

  “I try to be observant.” Mama’s tone attempted modesty but Janna caught a touch of smug in it. “You never know when information can be useful.” He paused. “What made you hire on here?”

  “This.” Doubrava spread his arms wide. “One of my principals, a grandson of Mr. Lanour, visited here and the space bug bit me. I got tapped for investigations on the strength of my dinner table tutoring and observing the Fauver investigation . . . to which in the eight years I’ve been here I’ve added study and practical experience. And on that subject, we were discussing morgue access. Forget who has the code, let’s check surveillance and—”