Burnside's Killer: An Interlude Novella between Parts 1 & 2 (The Hunter Legacy Book 6)

by Timothy Ellis

  The idea was to allow our suspect and Jon to come together naturally, rather than the three of them enjoying a night out, which is what they were supposed to giving an impression of. The dance floor seemed an ideal place where some sort of introduction could be faked.

  A second line dance I'd never heard of followed the first, after which a succession of high energy songs had everyone moving rapidly. Things slowed down for a while, during which Jon took a seat and watched the twins. After a while, they joined him at the table again.

  Ingrid hadn't moved this whole time, but she was dancing after a fashion by herself. She turned down several offers to dance with her. After a time, she emptied her glass, but made no movement to refill it. Time moved on, as dancers came and went depending on what was playing.

  After yet another beer, Jon moved unsteadily back onto the dance floor as a new round of line dancing songs began.

  "Here we go," said Janet, as our suspect moved out onto the dance floor, and took up a position not quite in touching distance of Jon. The twins followed a short time later, but they were too late to be beside Jon, and ended up in another line entirely.

  If I hadn't been on stakeout, I’d have been laughing at the way some of the people in the lines had ignored the available dance steps for their PC's, and were attempting to learn on the go. Ingrid was one of these. Her co-ordination appeared to be adequate, and she was only a half beat behind those around her, although every now and then, she missed a turn, or went the wrong way, and had to recover quickly.

  Suddenly she went down, tangled in the legs of someone next to her, crashing into Jon from his side. He went down as well. The lines adapted around them and kept going while they picked themselves up. Ingrid was apologizing profusely, while hopping about, having apparently sprained an ankle. Jon helped her back to his table, leaving the twins still out on the dance floor. One of them rolled her eyes at the other, they both grinned, and kept dancing.

  A butler droid turned up at Jon's table with a beer and white wine, and the two of them sat there attempting to talk. Jon was very animated, not surprising given the amount he'd had to drink so far this evening.

  "Heads up," said Janet. "We're on."

  Jon and Ingrid were limping towards the door. Outside, a station trolley waited. They climbed on, and it headed for Jon's hotel room.

  Eight

  The monitors all changed to Jon's room. All except one which followed the trolley, and one showing the doorway outside. The two of them were sitting close together, laughing as they rode.

  The trolley dropped them outside the hotel entrance, and they helped each other limp to his room.

  Inside, Ingrid kicked the door shut, and things rapidly changed. She immediately grabbed Jon, and began to kiss him.

  "Pheromone spike," said Janet. "Unknown type too. She's literally saturated the air in there with it."

  "That explains why every crime scene was sex related," I said. "If she's effectively drugging her victims with the first kiss, she has control of the situation from that moment on."

  "Still no sign of a murder weapon," added Jane.

  Ingrid moved Jon over towards the bed, as both of them started removing the other's clothes.

  Outside, the twins appeared at the door, looking like they were watching hollo-feeds as we were. Next to them appeared four security officers, with a medical transfer care unit.

  Once their outer clothes were tossed aside, Ingrid became more coy, turning her back on Jon and teasing him with her bare arse as she removed her bra. She turned back again and laughed as she threw the bra in his face, and then pulled him down into her cleavage.

  At this point, I was beginning to feel uncomfortable. Voyeur wasn’t a part of my normal character makeup. While looking at a naked female was still enjoyable, watching two people go at it wasn’t really my thing. It had sounded clinical while the plan was being devised, but watching it was different to planning it.

  With her nipples hard from Jon's attentions, she pushed him back, squatted down and pulled his briefs off. His dick sprang out, and went hard as she stroked it.

  I looked at the girls beside me. They were intently serious, as if seeing their boss naked and aroused was something so common it had no effect on them.

  Ingrid turned, and let Jon pull off her thong.

  "What the fuck?" exploded out of my mouth.

  "Whoa!" said Jane and Janet together.

  Instead of pubic hair, she had tentacles.

  "Is she an alien?" I asked.

  "Don't think so," said Janet, as a "What the fuck?" came from Jon, as they became visible to him.

  "Get him out of there," I said forcefully.

  "No problem," said Jane. "Unexpected, but nothing to worry about."

  I gaped at her.

  "Aren’t they adorable?" said Ingrid to Jon. "A little gift from my mother. I'll tell you later."

  She grinned at him, grabbed him by the arms, turned him around, and flopped him down on the bed, exactly as she had so many times before. As we continued to watch, she straddled him, and lowered herself down onto his erect dick.

  The tentacles now came to life and seemed to be part of the way she controlled their love making.

  "I think I'm going to be sick," I muttered.

  But in spite of myself, and seeing exactly how so many murders had actually happened, I couldn't stop watching.

  "Weapon?" I asked.

  "Still no sign of one," said Janet.

  The lovers continued on until finally, they both came to an orgasm at the same time.

  "Would you call that faked?" asked Jane with a smirk.

  I didn’t have time to answer.

  Jon's face turned from ecstasy to horror, as Ingrid's became triumphant.

  Nine

  "Got you, you bitch," said Jane, from beside me, and in the hotel room.

  "What?" I yelled.

  Jon was gone, replaced by Jane in full uniform. Her right arm shot up, grabbing Ingrid by the throat, and holding her there. The look of shocked surprise on Ingrid's face was priceless, but she had time for nothing more.

  Janet emerged from the wall, holding a stunner, and immediately shot her.

  Ingrid slumped, but was still held up in place, until Jane rose up, and allowed the body to drop to the bed.

  I stared at the two girls beside me, at the two girls in the hotel room, and back to the two girls beside me.

  "What just happened?" I demanded.

  "The suspect has been taken into custody after attempting murder," said Jane.

  "What murder? They just had sex!"

  "Her body is the perfect undetectable murder weapon. I'll show you when we get to medical."

  "How are you both in two places at once?"

  Before I had an answer, another two Janes entered from the hallway outside, followed by the four security officers, and the transport care unit.

  "You've got to be kidding me! Four of you?" I said to Jane. "What are you?"

  "Now you're getting it," she laughed.

  In an instant, she changed from a girl into a security droid wearing only a black belt. A few seconds later, she changed back. I turned to Janet, and she did the same.

  "You're robots?" I asked, gaping at them.

  "Avatars," said Jane. "I'm one avatar of Jon's ship AI. Janet is the avatar of the station AI. We use programmed mercenary protection suits to appear to be human."

  I closed my eyes and shook my head. When I opened them again, they were both still there smiling at me.

  "So Jon and the twins were never here? It was you the whole time?"

  "Yes," answered Jane. "They're currently on Gold Coast, most likely skinny dipping on a beach. They've been there since just after they returned from the Midgard war. Jon's due in Sydney day after next for the signing over of Nexus to him. I'll send myself a full record of what's happened here, so the me with him can show him the whole event, from the moment I first met you."

  I sighed. Suddenly I felt tired and wrung out
.

  On the monitors, Ingrid was being placed, still naked, tentacles drooping, into the transport care unit. The three Janes in the room shifted into security officers, and they all left. Outside, three of them headed for the carrier, while the other four took the care unit towards the hospital closest to where we were.

  The girls, and strangely, I still thought of them as the girls, turned towards the door, and I followed them out.

  Ten

  At the hospital, they slid Ingrid into a medical scanner unit. She was still naked, and remained out cold.

  "What are we looking for?" I asked.

  "Anything out of the ordinary," said Jane.

  Screens popped up rapidly.

  "There," said Janet, pointing at one of the screens.

  It was showing Ingrid's groin area, the organs beneath the skin, and the tentacles above.

  "What the hell are those?" I asked, pointing at something I’d never seen before.

  Jane grinned.

  "Those are teeth," she said, laughing as I winced. "Very wide, very sharp, teeth!"

  "Ouch!" I yelped.

  Now I knew why she hadn't been carrying a weapon, and why every one of her victims was missing their penis.

  Her body cut them off as an after-effect of orgasm!

  "Now that’s strange," said Janet, peering intently at one of the screens.

  "More strange than vaginal teeth?" asked Jane.

  "Maybe not more strange, certainly as strange."

  "What?" I asked.

  "She has no reproductive organs. Instead, she appears to have a secondary digestive system."

  "She eats dicks?" I stammered in shock.

  "Indelicately put, but apparently so. It explains why none were ever found. She simply walked out with it still inside her."

  I hurried out, found a bathroom, and threw up. I'd seen a lot of weird stuff in my time, but this was an attack on men at the most basic level, and my male ego revolted.

  When I had it together again, I returned to where the girls were still studying the displays.

  "So she is an alien?" I asked.

  Janet pondered for a short while.

  "No, I'd say she was a mutant human."

  "How?"

  "Unknown, but since we know who she is now, you can backtrack her life, and see if it sheds any light on the subject."

  "True. I will." Detective work, for a detective. "How do I get a warrant to enter her ship and access its computer?"

  "You won't need one," said Jane. "If Jon was here, he'd have me doing it already."

  "Is that legal?"

  "Jon is the law here. I've watched him toss a live merc unit out an airlock, and execute assassins on the spot. If he was here, he'd…"

  "Be dead!" I finished.

  They laughed.

  "Not so," said Jane. "His suit would have protected him, even with so little warning. Going into a Venus trap, he'd never have allowed it to be taken off him. And after his last experience, I doubt he'd have taken it off not knowing it was a trap. As sharp as those teeth are, they are no match for the suit. My avatar wasn’t damaged by them in the least, and Jon wears a much superior form of the suit than I use. Had this been real, he'd have committed assassin interuptis. Permanently interrupted. Especially after what he's been through in the last few months. Janet wouldn’t have been able to stop him."

  "And just how did Janet appear like that?"

  "Chameleon programming for the suit. As long as you don't move, it makes you effectively invisible."

  "Damn, I could have used that for stake outs a long time ago."

  "Sorry, very new, and not widely known as yet."

  "So, next stop her ship?"

  "Yes. Janet will do a complete analysis here, and transfer her to the station holding cells."

  "Lead on," I said to Jane, and followed her out.

  Eleven.

  The ship's computer didn't stand a chance. Jane stood at the airlock, extended a probe from one finger, slid it into the emergency data port, and bulldozed her way through the encryption key locking the door. It opened for her, and we headed in.

  In the cargo bay, we found a long range shuttle.

  "Bingo!" said Jane. "This shuttle is a match for proximity of all the murder scenes where the freighter was not there. We have a one hundred percent match for Ingrid with all the murder scenes you know about."

  We high fived.

  On the bridge, Jane again plugged into a data port. While she hacked her way through the computer's database, I searched the living area.

  The robes were full of outfits for all occasions. No matter what strata of society her target, she had an outfit to allow her to perfectly blend in. From clothes alone, it looked like she'd killed in every sector of human space.

  I kept looking. On one wall, was a series of images. Ingrid at various ages, alone, and with different older people. Foster parents I wondered? In the center was a couple, holding a baby. It was the only image with this couple in it.

  I hurried back to the bridge.

  "Can you access records for the Stargazer?" I asked Jane.

  "Stargazer?"

  "Yes. The explorer ship which tried to cross the barrier system which stopped us colonizing closer to the core of the galaxy. Would have been about twenty five years ago now."

  "I've no records…" She stopped abruptly. "Yes we do, this ship has a complete set of media records of the Stargazer ship and mission. What are you after?"

  "Blakstov. Was there a crew member of that name?"

  "Two. Boris and Irina."

  "Any personal records for Ingrid?"

  "Yes. She was born about eight months after the Stargazer made it out of the barrier system."

  "When did her parents die?"

  "Three months after she was born, within days of each other. Radiation induced cancer."

  We looked at each other.

  "I think we can assume," I said, "she was conceived before or during the mission where the Stargazer entered the barrier system, and the fetal tissue was mutated by the radiation which subsequently killed her mother. I wonder if she has some natural immunity to radiation?"

  "It's very possible. Everyone on that ship was dead within a year, except Ingrid."

  I sat there in silence for a while, while Jane returned to sifting through the database.

  "Jackpot!" she suddenly announced.

  "Is that better than Bingo?"

  "Much. As far as convicting her of murder is concerned, she was stupid enough to keep an image of her with every single victim. There's even an image here of her with Jon in the disco earlier. The file of images has way more than your case files. At a guess, she was working as an assassin, or just plain killing men, for a long time before she came onto your scanner."

  I shook my head, wondering if her unique physiology was responsible for the line of work she'd chosen. Maybe the first time she'd had sex had ended with a dead partner, and in spite of her presumed shock, she'd developed a taste for it, and ended up taking credits for it. However she started, she'd been spectacularly successful as an assassin. Until Jane, no-one had even guessed she wasn’t just a weird serial killer, let alone being a female one.

  "That wasn’t the jackpot by the way," Jane went on. "We have all her emails, going back to her original child account. As well as personal ones, she has a series of 'work' addresses, which appear to be drop addresses. Mail in, never any out. We also have her bank records, which include the origin accounts for each payment drop."

  "So?"

  "We have all her connections to her employers."

  My mouth fell open.

  Jackpot indeed.

  "More importantly," she went on, "we have the email for the hit on Jon, and it's completely intact, including all the routing information. No bank deposit, as the kill was never made, so she hasn’t been paid. No up-front payment as far as I can see. But the email alone is information Jon would kill for. Up until now, all the employment emails for the Mercs and assassins
have led no-where."

  "Employers? You mean we should be able to identify who paid for each kill?"

  "Indeed!"

  "Motherlode!"

  What an end to a career this was turning out to be. If this was true, I could retire again on a note no detective had ever been able to achieve before. The simultaneous arrest of the paymasters for two years assassinations would make headline news the whole way down the spine.

  "Copy the data to me please. Looks like I have some work to do."

  "Indeed you do." She grinned at me. "As do I."

  Twelve

  I dived into the emails and bank records looking for paymasters. Janet helped me research what was in there. In most cases, the payments were from holding companies and false fronts, hardly unexpected, but for an AI, the connections back to people were just a matter of brute force persistence. Some of them were not hidden in any way. Like the sports star on Avon who had paid to remove a rival.

  The names which emerged, shocked me to the core. And elated me as I’d never been before. Some of these people had been on our lists of most wanted to prosecute, for decades. Some of them were squeaky clean, and hard to imagine being behind assassinations.

  One thing was for sure, Ingrid had been a superb assassin, but a complete babe in the woods as far as operational security was concerned. The wonder was, one of her employers hadn't disposed of her as an unacceptable risk long before now. Then again, she'd been so successful at remaining anonymous, and constantly moving, perhaps those who had gone looking for her had simply failed to find her. Or if they had, they'd seen a bland trader captain, who barely managed to make ends meet, and made the reasonable leap of logic the assassin was a different person using this nothing as cover.

  One thing was clear though, once the news of her arrest broke, she was going to need very secure containment to keep her alive. Assuming of course, Jon simply didn’t condemn her to death first. But if he did that, he was going to make a lot of law enforcement people down the spine very unhappy. Earth PD at the very least would want to make her trial a public spectacle.