Murder on the Orion Express

by Nate Streeper

  TAKE YOUR AGREEMENT AND STICK IT.

  With a little elementary sleuthing, we learned that he and his wife had one of those agreements that allowed for extramarital sessions. The wife was presumably okay with it, so long as she had access to unlimited shoes, spa retreats, the pool boy, and the latest in Medically Engineered Age Reduction Therapy. Status on New Gaia was often displayed by the amount of ME-ART one could afford—and status was very important to both of them, along with their facade as a happily married couple. He was, after all, running for mayor that year.

  The news feeds were alive with presumptions masquerading as facts. Everyone assumed his wife had killed him in a snap of jealousy. A person couldn’t walk down the street without a holographic headline about the “Spouse Slayer” manifesting in front of them, shot forth from projectors strategically mounted throughout the city. Autocab radios broadcast the latest updates about the “Mansion Murder” while floating their occupants to their destinations.

  Of course, they had it all wrong. Gina knew it. I knew it. His wife was innocent. Ten seconds into her interrogation, we could tell her tears were real. In spite of their open relationship—perhaps even because of it—she truly loved the man.

  Good luck convincing the news feeds. We relied on facts and intuition, they relied on gossip and sensationalism. Even our precinct’s captain considered it an open and shut case, but given our proven track record, he was willing to let us play it out. Despite the wife’s DNA being on the dagger, despite the term “agreement” being a key word in the blood message, Gina and I kept digging.

  Personally, I thought everyone focused on the wrong word. While they pointed to “agreement,” I pointed to “your.” The way I saw it, an agreement implied two like minds. If the wife felt any differently about the whole thing, it wouldn’t be an agreement at all. It would be a disagreement. My gut told me there was a third party involved, someone who thought poorly of their relationship. And as far as who that person may have been, well... We had a little black book with thirty-six suspects.

  I’ll never forget what Gina had to say about the issue. She had recently broken up with a long term boyfriend. No argument, no violence, no murder. Just a gradual waning, and an eventual, mutually agreed upon separation. We were in our hovercar, on our way to one of the mistresses homes, when she interrupted our silent reverie.

  “You know, they may not all end in murder, but they always wane.”

  “What always wanes?”

  “Relationships.”

  I grunted a mild rebuttal, but her point of view had really struck a cord with me. Margo and I felt like we were merely going through the motions by then. We’d only been married a little over two years, but already she was spending more time at the firm, and I was spending more time on my beat. There was nothing actually “wrong,” but there was very little “right.” To put it simply, we weren’t as excited to see each other at the end of the day.

  “I’ve been meaning to tell you,” I said as we pulled up to our latest investigative destination—a ramshackle home paired with an incongruently expensive, sporty hovercar parked in its driveway. “I’m sorry about you and Sven.”

  “Thanks.” There was a brief moment of loss in her eyes, but she shrugged it off. “It’s okay, you know? Is what it is. Plenty of ships in the dock. Plenty who are better suited.”

  She reached for her door handle, and I reached for her wrist. I was about to say something I couldn’t take back when the woman in the shack, a twenty-something red head, darted out a side door and straight for the backyard, changing her status from suspect to perp instantly. I dropped Gina’s wrist, and we tore after her. She was easy to catch, and nearly as easy to break in interrogation, anxious to claim her love for the tycoon, how dare he not leave his wife for her, all she got was that stupid hovercar and a broken heart.

  Gina asked me later what I was going to say to her in the car, but I told her it was nothing. A foolish thought. She let it go.

  In reality, only we can give purpose to our own lives. But so many of us are looking for purpose through someone else, that one, magic person who can make everything okay. Unfortunately for the redhead, the tycoon was that one person.

  But to the tycoon, she was number twenty-six.

  8

  Locked Door

  There were ten names and a sketch in Dave’s little red book.

  Room #1: Dave

  It didn’t take forensics to determine that he didn’t do this to himself. Besides, he said as much. Unless he accidentally backed into a waist-level vibroblade, this wasn’t self-imposed manslaughter.

  Room #2: Fred Mannigan and Michael Loche

  Mannigan was the politician. Based on our political conversation a few hours prior, the guy had a strong ideology. Despite my initial reaction when Listic told me who he was, the guy appeared to be all heart. His campaign couldn’t be doing well financially if he’s going freight, meaning he probably wasn’t taking in dirty money. Then again, that may have given him even more motivation to do something desperate. Were possible political motives behind the kill? Unlikely. What would killing Dave have to offer him?

  Loche was his campaign lackey. Generally nervous, but also eerily sneaky. The guy either loved his coffee, or loved making it for Mannigan. He didn’t come across as gutsy enough to look someone in the eye when murdering them, but I wouldn’t put a backstabbing past him. Again, the guy had little in the way of motive.

  Mess Hall: Ken Eggshot

  The creepy guy in the black trenchcoat with long greasy hair. He thoroughly enjoyed his egoPad, hadn’t really said much, and knew ahead of time to dress for the occasion—trenchcoats were ideal for going freight. Dave was acting shifty, and he went out of his way to let this creep on board, despite being offered more goola from a different potential passenger. There was definitely a connection of some kind. Possibly a disagreement. Ken was in the mess hall when I ran in to get the first aid kit, but he could have stabbed Dave outside, then gone back in immediately afterwards.

  Room #3: Bertle Kiergigerra and Donna Davenport

  The former was thespian number one. Flamboyant, outspoken, and harmless on the surface. Then again, if he was indeed an actor, he could be acting. And if he could reconstitute his face? Who’s to say he wasn’t actually a fugitive on the run? There was something familiar to me about the guy. Even though Listic didn’t find his mug in the data archives, it’s entirely possible he augmented his features to an extent beyond her capacity to filter.

  The latter was thespian number two. Very low key, kind of boring, really. Also, blunt and irritable. I found it hard to believe she was an actress. She and Bertle acted as though they went back a bit, and it appeared that she didn’t want much more to do with him. Then again... possible lover’s quarrel? In any case, no idea why either of them would want to stab Dave. Each other, maybe.

  Room #4: Alan Blades and Alice Johnson

  Sometimes, being a private detective means imagining some pretty fucked up scenarios, no matter how unlikely or disturbing. I’m not sure how long I was asleep before Dave thumped against my door. Yes, it was possible that Alice crept out of our room, stabbed Dave, and crept back in. It’s also possible that while I was running out for the first aid kit, she finished the job. So she had opportunity. But motivation? No idea why she’d do such a thing. The only scenario that came to mind was that she went out for a snack, ran into Dave, and he tried to get frisky with her. Perhaps turned his own weapon against him, then freaked out and acted like she didn’t know what happened. Still... pretty unlikely.

  Room #5: John Smith and Bliss

  I didn’t really know anything about John Smith, except that his name couldn’t possibly be John Smith, so right away that told me he was hiding something. The only time I saw him was during the boarding process, and the only thing worth acknowledging about the heroic-looking bastard was the metal briefcase g
ene-cuffed to his arm. Gene-cuffs were the best cuffs money could buy. They tapped into a individual’s DNA and were atomically inseparable. GalactiCops used them when transporting extreme criminals—there was no way out of them, aside from cutting your own hands off. I recalled a convict on Fillion who’d escaped by doing just that. A few months later, they caught up with the poor bastard again. He went back to prison—only then without any hands.

  Anyway, people often go freight to avoid customs, and they can slip weapons on board if they bribe the security guard enough goola. Was that a vibroblade in his briefcase? And what was the deal with him sharing a room with Bliss?

  So that was her name. Bliss, the lady in red. Sexdolls are usually boxed up in transit—it was less expensive, and there was really no point in keeping them active and assigning them a room. That is, unless the client wanted to have fun with them in flight. Perhaps he was merely carrying sex toys in his briefcase. John Smith seemed rather reserved, but it was always the quiet ones...

  Despite my self-proclaimed aversion to sexdolls, I found myself imagining scenarios that had nothing to do with the murder and a lot more to do with sex toys, which must have given me a dumb-shit expression because Alice had to snap her fingers in front of my face.

  “Hey Alan, you still there?”

  I shook my head. “Sorry.”

  She took the notebook from me, leaned back in her bed, and soaked it in.

  “So, this everybody?”

  I nodded. “Should be. Well, plus two more. Pilot and copilot. They’re stationed in the crew area.”

  “We need to check on everyone. Let them know there’s a killer on board. Can’t just lock ourselves in here.” She stood up and headed toward the door.

  “Only one problem with that.” I grabbed her arm. “One of them is the killer.”

  She stopped. I thought for a moment. Interlock protocol dictated we let the pilot know right away. It was up to me to follow through. Beyond the Century Pigeon and the Orion Express, there were no reachable authorities. Subspace to normal space communications were physically impossible, so sending a signal to GalactiCop was out of the question. Being in subspace was like being cut off from reality. Might as well be stuck on a train in the snow.

  “Alice, I need you to stay here.”

  She looked over at Dave slumped in his own blood in the corner. “Fuck that,” she said.

  “Seriously, you need to stay here. I can’t have you traipsing around out there with a killer on the loose. I’m going to tell the pilot what’s happened.” I bent down and checked the remaining pockets on Dave’s heatsuit, first reaching around to grab a pair of standard issue vibroknuckles from his back pocket, providing us with a weapon, then into his jacket to unclip his ID card from a loop that lined the inside, providing us with access. I was pleased, though not shocked, to discover whoever had assaulted him hadn’t taken either. Of course, whoever had assaulted him probably wasn’t as aware of the pocket layout of an Interlock Security uniform as I was. But one thing was suspiciously absent: His ORB. It could still be floating around out there on its own.

  After I finished searching his pockets, I wanted to check on his ribcage. I’m no forensics expert, but it was obvious the additional damage didn’t come from a normal punch to the chest. Couldn’t have. I pulled his arms out of his heatsuit’s sleeves and lowered the upper half down to his waist to get a visual, expecting the tell-tale purple swell from vibroknuckle contact, but found no such thing. Just a bunch of crushed and useless ribs—damage well beyond what a fixer pill in a standard med kit could have mended.

  Alice looked over my shoulder. “What the hell? Did he get hit by a hovertruck before someone stabbed him?”

  I grunted in a way that expressed I was as equally perplexed, looked over to our nightstand, and activated our resident crazy doctor. “Listic, On.” She lit up and floated over to us.

  “Yes, boss?”

  “What could have crushed Dave’s ribcage this way?”

  She scanned him up and down, eye fading in and out as she processed, hovering up and down just slightly. After a few seconds, I realized she wasn’t processing anything. She had fallen back asleep in hover mode.

  “Listic!”

  She jerked to attention as she looked brightly back at me. “Sorry, Alan. You know I’m not a morning person. Give a girl a moment to get her bearings.”

  I sighed. Waited. She turned her attention back on Dave, followed through, looked back at me, and made a functionally unnecessary throat clearing noise before saying: “There are 17,436 possibilities that could have led to this.”

  “Give me the top three.”

  “Are you sure you only want the top three? I find possibility number 12,457 extraordinarily intriguing. It involves a maladjusted, mutated elephant that escaped from one of the larger cargo boxes and went on a rampage after being denied food for the estimated 27 hours prior to being put into its cryogenic sleep—”

  “Just the top three.”

  “Okay. Well, number one is that he was hit by a hovertruck.”

  “The other two?”

  “Punched by a person roughly three times stronger than the average person.”

  Interesting. Could mean cybernetically enhanced strength. Or mechanically altered strength from an exosuit. Or genetically modified core strength. Or chemically induced temporary strength. There were so many short cuts to wielding a pumped-up blow these days, it made me wonder why I bothered going to the gym.

  “Or,” she went on, stretching out the word and giving it three sing-song syllables for know-it-all suspense, “he was standing near a sudden hull breach, which caused him to get sucked toward it, only to be stopped as his body slammed into a crossbeam or similar structure. Based on the air pressure in this cargo hold, the impact to his chest could have caused roughly that amount of damage.”

  “Um... Did she say, ‘hull breach?’” Alice asked.

  I was fairly certain we would’ve all felt the repercussions of a hull breach. Unless it happened shortly before or after entering subspace, which may have allowed the jarring sensation to blend right in.

  Hull breaches, though still extraordinarily disruptive to spaceflight, were easily remedied on ships with reactive force fields and nano repair bots, both of which were features I figured the Pigeon crew had ponied up the goola for. But the fix wasn’t instantaneous. If there was a hull breach, the nano bots would still have their work cut out for them for quite a few hours. In the meantime, we could look straight out the hole and through the forcefield that was keeping our artificial atmosphere in check. A gaping hole would be easy enough to spot.

  I stood up. First things first. “Listic, keep your eye out for Dave’s ORB as you and I navigate to the bridge. And for anyone who may try to sneak up from behind and stab me.”

  “You mean this is my chance to hook up with his ORB? Like, a date? Oh, this is so exciting. What should I wear?”

  “You heard the part about also making sure no one stabs me, right?”

  She prattled on about her wardrobe selection. I had no idea what made her think she owned a wardrobe. I had no idea why I bothered wondering.

  I looked back at Alice. “I’m going to see if I can find the origin of incident, then use Dave’s card to access the Pigeon’s bridge. I need to tell the crew what’s happened. They can use the overcom to tell the captain of the Orion Express, and he can send in some armed Interlock guards. Lock this door behind me, this time. I’ll knock three times when I get back.”

  “But—”

  I exited with Listic zipping around my head and closed the door at my back. Alice watched me through the portal. “LOCK THE DOOR!” I mouthed and pointed to the slide lock, then turned and followed Dave’s thin trail of blood. Along the way, I passed by Room #1. Dave’s room. The blood didn’t come from there, just kept going down the corridor, around another corner. What did you
do to get yourself killed, Dave?

  May as well check his room.

  ∙ • ∙

  I swiped Dave’s access card in front of the wall-mounted lock mechanism, and was acknowledged by an automatic door sliding to the right. Dave’s room smelled like the inside of a crusty, moldy sock. There were a few open cans of half-eaten beans, collections of dirt and fuzz in every corner, open drawers with underwear hanging out of them, and a slew of pornographic material strewn about the room. The latter two observations made it appear as though the room had recently been searched. I doubted Dave had a habit of leaving such things all over the place. Was he desperately looking for something he owned, or had someone else raided his room? Probably the former—the door was still locked before I’d opened it and there was no evidence of forced entry.

  “Full scan. Footprints? Fingerprints? DNA traces? Has anyone been in this room other than Dave?”

  Listic zipped around, focusing especially on the collections of dust. “Sure. A few women. About four—no, five—of them over the years.”

  His much bragged about Mile High Club. “Anyone recently?”

  “No one in the past few months. He’s the only one who’s been in here.”

  The only real person, at least. Listic had more difficulty reading cyborg and android leftovers. Sexdoll skin didn’t flake. Their hair didn’t fall out.

  I took his room into account. Such an embarrassing mess, certainly not the way Dave would want to be remembered. Of course, I’d seen much worse when I was a GalactiCop. I’d garner search warrants and rifle through people’s personal belongings for clues and end up discovering evidence of obscure sexual fetishes. Just another way the job changed my perception of people. We all put on such a show of being normal, but the only thing normal about everyone was how abnormal we all were.