He stepped out, dried off, and put on a pair of work coveralls. Then he went into the death examination rooms.
They were chilled, but not as cold as the area where the bodies were stored. He had yet to find a better way to preserve the corpses that didn’t compromise something—not that keeping them cold kept them pristine—but he was used to what the cold did.
Okilani was still at the Kimura death scene, and his other assistants didn’t realize Hranek had returned. He liked it that way. He wanted some time to examine the new corpse himself.
As he approached the corpse storage drawers, a holographic screen flared yellow, offering him choices. He had a full list of every corpse in the building, including the unidentified ones that had been here for months.
The latest corpse, in keeping with custom, was marked with its arrival number, composed of the date, time, and the code for the location from which it was recovered. It also had a second standard identifier: Female, Fiskett Falls [Rockwell Pool], Pending Identification.
He tapped the screen for that corpse. The screen brightened as it approved the request, then disappeared. One of the drawers opened as a nanobit gurney appeared below. The gurney rose, attached itself to the bottom of the drawer, and then the drawer’s bottom opened, automatically transferring the corpse.
Some corpses were too fragile for that maneuver, but that fragility was always logged into the system. (If it hadn’t been, whoever had logged in the corpse would have been fired immediately.)
The gurney made its way to the examining theater. He followed.
There were dozens of theaters in the series of death exam rooms that went deep into the building. During his entire tenure, he had only used three of the rooms and a handful of the theaters.
It always unnerved him a little. Ever since he started here, he wondered why the Fleet builders felt they needed so many examination rooms. Was building a sector base that dangerous? Or did catastrophes happen on a grand scale back when this particular base was built?
Or had there been something in the history of Sandoveil that had required dozens of rooms, and some enterprising tech had revived the nanobits so that they built even more rooms?
As he watched a corpse head to the proper theater, he always wondered about the history of this place. He used to vow to look it up, but he never had.
He had a hunch—which he would never explain to his assistants—that he was afraid of the answer he would get.
The death examination theater mimicked the operating theater in the hospital here. Once all the pieces were in place—here it was the corpse and the assigned death investigators; there it was the patient and the medical team—the walls would close around the examination table. Standard equipment boxes would rise out of the floor unless the death investigator programmed for more exotic tools.
Hranek had no idea what he would need yet. He knew that this corpse had been found in water, but he knew nothing else about it. He didn’t even really know its identity, and he was trying not to think about the possible identification.
He dipped his hands in a solution near the door. The solution cleaned off his own sloughing epidermis. Then he slipped his hands in the first round of gloves. These adhered to his skin and had little impact on his sense of touch. He used that sense a lot while working with corpses. He liked to feel what was going on inside a body. It told him a lot.
The gloves also took readings from the body—everything from the DNA (always a double- and triple-check) to the chemical composition of the areas he touched to an examination of whatever fluids were left inside the corpse. Each blood cell was analyzed, hormones (those that hadn’t decayed) examined, and bones measured.
In some ways, his tools did much of the work for him, but he still found human interaction with the corpse essential. Sometimes an area caught his eye, a discoloration that the first scan missed or a small cut that, along with some other injury that caused massive bleeding, might have gotten overlooked.
He had to step down to get into the death examination theater proper. He walked over to the corpse as the soft lighting fell upon it. The lighting, set at the same level at this stage for every corpse he saw, provided information as well.
The light rose from the floor, the ceiling, and the sides of the gurney itself. He could change the intensity any time he wanted. He wouldn’t do that yet.
He wanted to look at the corpse in the most familiar setting possible—at least to him.
The assistants hadn’t undressed or cleaned her yet, according to his instructions. He wanted to do that. He found things at times when he carefully handled and cleaned a corpse.
This one had seaweed flopped over one arm. The skin was bloated still from the water, but it seemed to be intact. There were small creatures in Rockwell Pool that liked to nibble on soft flesh, and they hadn’t taken any bites out of this corpse.
That alone told him that she hadn’t been in the water long.
The still-soggy clothes dripped on the black nanobit surface. Water pooled on the floor until he gave the command for the receptacles there to mop it up and store it. He would see what microbes were there—again, later, when he had the chance.
He studied the corpse for a moment, tilting his head, taking in the entire thing. Small female, with brown hair, wearing yellow and red, just like Glida Kimura preferred.
The shaky identification must have been based on the size of the corpse and its clothing. Because the face was unrecognizable. It looked a little too flat, the nose sideways, and the eyes milky.
The damage to the face seemed off, unless the corpse had landed face-first from a great height. Even then, that kind of damage should have shown up in the neck and shoulders—obvious compression injuries.
He didn’t see any, although that didn’t mean anything. The compression injuries just might not have been easily visible.
Still. He stared at that face. In all of his years here, he had never seen any corpse that fell from the top or one of the overlooks at Fiskett Falls land primarily on its face.
Often the corpse would land on its torso or back, but the body would take the brunt of the injury before the face had any impact. And even then, the impact wouldn’t smash the features the way they were smashed here. Even if the face collided with a sharp rock, the injury wouldn’t be even. It would be more severe where the collision happened, often leaving a rock-shaped imprint on the face itself.
The injuries were always different if the corpse had been alive when it had gone off the Falls. People who jumped often went feet first and stayed upright on the way down.
People who were tossed usually went head first, and rarely could right themselves. There wasn’t enough distance.
People who were unconscious when they went off the Falls landed on the planes of their body—torso front or back or the sides as the body spun.
Never the face.
He started there, before he even dealt with the clothing. He gingerly touched the forehead and cheekbones. They were squishy beneath his fingertips, not rigid like they were supposed to be. He ran his fingers along the bridge of the nose (squishy), the edges of the eye sockets (squishy), and the hinges of the jaw (squishy).
Gingerly, he touched the mouth. His fingers could have pushed inside if he wanted to. There didn’t appear to be any teeth. The jaw itself didn’t feel squishy. It had been shattered in the way that a jaw shattered when someone was punched in the mouth.
He removed his fingers, then had the gloves check the corpse’s DNA. The result took a moment longer than he expected, and when it arrived, it was deeply unsatisfying.
Subject Unknown.
To be thorough, he compared the DNA to Glida Kimura’s DNA. The gloves reported that the DNA on the corpse had no alleles in common with Glida Kimura. They weren’t relatives, although they were of similar builds.
He paused over the corpse with that news. The clothing was unusual enough to catch anyone’s attention. No one else in Sandoveil dressed like Glida Kimura.
/> And Glida Kimura—or someone of that same build—had just killed Kimura’s wife.
These were not coincidences, but he didn’t know how the puzzle pieces fit together. And he wouldn’t know until he did a closer examination of this corpse.
He stepped back, removed these gloves, and contacted his assistants. He would need someone here to observe and perhaps finish the investigation when he had to head off to the dive.
He had a lot of work, but he welcomed it. For the first time in years, he was intrigued enough by something to let it consume his entire attention.
He smiled, knowing that a smile later would be deemed inappropriate by his staff. He couldn’t very well explain to them that he lived for moments like these. He loved the challenges of the work. He had thought he would encounter more challenges here, but he hadn’t.
Until now.
THIRTY-EIGHT
SHE WASN’T LATE for the meeting after all. Virji found the security office with ease. She had never been here, not in all her years coming to Sector Base E-2. If there had been some kind of security problem that the Captain of the Ijo had to attend to, the security people had come to her.
The security division of the sector base was filled with activity, even though it was the middle of the night. Probably because of the theft or destruction of that runabout and all of the breaches.
Dozens of people filled the corridors, walking somewhere with great purpose.
All of them glanced at her, running their gazes from her face to her toes and back to her face again.
They had some kind of scanning equipment over their eyes or activated by their eye movement. She knew that every time they glanced at her, they were checking to see if she belonged here.
She did, just in a different way than they did. The moment after they identified her, they would look down or look away. She outranked all of them, and apparently, they figured that out as well.
The head of security’s office was at the end of a tangled maze of corridors. If Virji hadn’t had specific instructions on how to find it, she wouldn’t have been able to.
The door opened as she approached and an androgynous voice welcomed her by name, instructing her to take the first left, which she did.
She found herself in another maze of corridors, all apparently leading to meeting rooms. The door to one room opened.
Gian Nicoleau, the head of security, stood near the entry. He was a short man with black hair peppered with gray. His weak chin and prominent eyes were his most distinctive features, and probably led people to underestimate him.
He smiled when he saw her, but the smile wasn’t a happy one. It was apologetic and thoughtful at the same time.
Heads of security, she had found, were diplomats as well as the smartest people in the room. Nicoleau was no exception.
“First,” he said, “let me apologize for—”
“No need.” She didn’t like apologies. Apologies tried to close the door on an event, rather than move forward. “I think this is more than a simple theft. I would like to speak to you alone.”
He frowned ever so slightly. Apparently he, like her, wasn’t used to being ordered about. Then he glanced over his shoulder at the room itself. Her gaze followed his.
Half a dozen people sat at a round table, tending to small screens before them. All except Wèi. He was watching her and looking nervous.
When her gaze met his, he nodded just a little. She didn’t know him, so she didn’t know exactly what he meant. She assumed he meant he had the DNA she had requested.
“Let’s bring Mr. Wèi as well,” she said to Nicoleau. Nicoleau raised his eyebrows in surprise but said nothing. He seemed to understand she had some kind of agenda.
She appreciated that.
But she wasn’t going to discuss it in this corridor, so close to the room filled with people.
She asked, “Do you have access to a secure system somewhere in this little maze of rooms?”
This time, Nicoleau’s smile was genuine.
“As if you have to ask,” he said.
He led her past two more doors, sweeping one open. The room lit up as they both walked inside. It was identical to the room she had been standing outside of. It had a round conference table that could fit at least ten people, some shelves and a sideboard, and all kinds of equipment built into all of the surfaces.
“Make yourself at home,” Nicoleau said. “I’ll get Wèi.”
Then Nicoleau disappeared down the hallway.
Virji stepped deeper into the room. The round table was a great design. No one sat at the head or the foot. There was no automatic leader in a room like this.
It felt a little close for her tastes, which she supposed someone who hadn’t been aboard a DV-class ship would have found odd. But most of the public rooms on the Ijo had windows that either showed the corridors or nearby rooms or had views of space. She rarely shielded the portholes when the ship was just traveling from one place to another. She liked the ambient light of deep space, and the view of distant stars.
She liked thinking about the possibilities.
This room had no possibilities. Even with the lighting up, it felt dark and oppressive. For the first time since she had come here, she realized just how deep underground she was.
That usually didn’t bother her, but now it did.
Maybe because she wasn’t just visiting on the way to somewhere else. Maybe because, for the first time since she’d been coming to this sector base, she would be having an official meeting here.
Virji took a deep breath. She had never spoken of the events on the Ijo to anyone outside of the command structure of the Fleet and her own team. Some of the details she’d been asked to keep to herself, and some—ones she had learned years later—she had never shared with anyone, except to update the already-existing file on Sloane Everly.
It felt odd to discuss Everly now.
Nicoleau returned with Wèi. Wèi looked at the chairs around the table as if he was so exhausted all he wanted to do was sit down. Maybe he was. It had already been a long night for him.
But Virji couldn’t sit with this news.
“Did you check Glida Kimura’s DNA?” she asked Wèi.
Wèi glanced at Nicoleau, as if asking for approval to speak. Nicoleau executed the tiny half-nod of command, the one that most people never saw.
Wèi walked to the nearest chair and sank into it. Apparently, he had taken Nicoleau’s nod to mean that he could do what he pleased.
Virji crossed her arms and looked down at Wèi, waiting.
He licked his lips. “We got the DNA from her home.” He glanced at Nicoleau, addressing this next part to him. “We really weren’t authorized to do it, but we felt we had to—”
“We’ll deal with the technicalities later,” Nicoleau said curtly.
Virji wondered if he had been briefed on all the aspects of the incident. She liked to think he had, but she doubted it. When there were this many layers of command, information always got lost.
“You were right to be suspicious of it,” Wèi said to Virji. “The DNA we got from the house—and we took a lot of it—wasn’t a match to the DNA we had on file for Glida Kimura.”
“If her DNA profile at the base didn’t match her actual DNA,” Nicoleau said, “how did she function here?”
“Well, that’s the thing,” Wèi said. “She used three different profiles.”
He swallowed hard, and squared his shoulders. Virji wondered if DNA recognition fell under his purview or if Wèi just didn’t like giving bad news to his superior.
“The first profile was the one she used to apply for the job. We ran that—or rather, someone did. She’s been here so long it was before my time with security.” He sounded relieved about that, at least. So maybe this was about his relationship with Nicoleau.
Virji glanced at Nicoleau’s face. His expression hadn’t changed. He had mastered that blank look most people who were effective in command had.
“The second
profile was actually hers,” Wèi said. “She had uploaded it separately shortly after she was hired. It overrode the initial file, at least for security identification throughout the base. So she didn’t need to use trickery or anything. She could touch a screen and it would properly identify her as Glida Kimura. If that is proper, I mean.”
He looked at Virji for confirmation of that.
“We’ll get to her identity shortly.” Virji wanted to hear the rest of this.
Wèi nodded. “The third profile—well, it’s not really fair to call it a profile, because she didn’t use it as hers. It belongs to Rhonda Touré. She has access all over the base, so no one thought twice when she entered the labs on the anacapa level.”
“What can you tell me about Touré?” Virji asked.
Wèi shrugged. “I don’t have much interaction with her. She works a different shift. I couldn’t find anything in a cursory search of her files. I couldn’t even find evidence that she and Kimura had much interaction.”
“She looks like Glida Kimura,” Nicoleau said. “Same height, same hair color. She was probably chosen for that reason.”
“But you don’t know that,” Virji said.
“I don’t know it,” Nicoleau said. “You can rest assured we’re going to start tearing about her life and associations as soon as this meeting ends.”
Virji didn’t even feel any empathy for the woman. If she had no real connection to Kimura, then Virji might spare some sympathy. But until Virji knew for sure, Touré was an accomplice and should be treated as such.
“Have you brought her in yet?” she asked Wèi.
“No.” He looked up at Nicoleau, clearly panicked. “Should I have?”
“Yes,” Virji answered, even though the question wasn’t aimed at her. Anyone connected to Kimura should be in custody until they knew what exactly was going on.
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