Gina flung her vibroblade out of her wrist and tore along the door frame, then kicked it down. It was a bit over the top—especially considering that inside, all we found was Bertle trimming his toenails over a trash bucket.
“Oh my god!” He flailed backwards, simultaneously kicking over the bucket and knocking a medicine bottle off his neighboring table. Nail clippings and white pills went flying everywhere. “What, now?”
“Don’t move, Bertle,” Gina ordered.
“Okay,” Bertle said. He moved to put down his clippers.
“I mean it! Not a hair.”
“Okay, okay! What the hell is going on? Why is a sword sticking out of your arm? Where’s Donna?”
Alice and I entered the room. “You mean Silo,” I said.
“Who’s Silo? What kind of name is Silo?”
He seemed genuinely confused. Then again, Donna seemed genuinely non-assassin-ish.
“You know perfectly well who Silo is,” I said.
“I know perfectly well I don’t.”
Gina kept the ideal distance from Bertle—just far enough away to keep him from grabbing her, but close enough to use her blade on him if necessary. He just sat there, nervous and confused.
I tried a different approach. “Okay, then. Explain your relationship with Donna.”
He seemed ready to disclose something. “She’s not... who she says she is, is she?” I shook my head. He leaned back and followed through on putting his clippers down. “I thought something was off about her.”
“So, how far do the two of you really go back?”
He let out a sigh. “This is going to sound ridiculous, but... I’ve only known her for a day. We met at the spaceport on Fillion, while bidding for a ride on the Pigeon. She said that for some reason, she needed to hide her identity during this flight. Asked me if I could pretend she was a friend of mine. I told her I was a professional actor, so no problem. I can always use the practice. We made up a quick story about how we were in an acting troupe together, how we’d gotten cut off from the pack. Which was true, at least on my end of things. So she just hitched on to my plight.” He leaned forward in his chair, thoroughly wrapped up in his own story and forgetting that Gina held a vibroblade near his throat. “Really, though. The woman wasn’t very appreciative, was she? You heard her, making our past together sound like some kind of unrequited friendship. What a farce! She made me out to sound like a complete loser.” He looked back and forth between Alice and me, desperate for approval. “Don’t you think she made me out to sound like a loser?”
I broke eye contact and cleared my throat. Alice scrutinized her fingernails.
“That’s what we were really arguing about when you found me wandering the hall. I wanted her to change her tone. Well, all I know is, she doesn’t have what it takes for the life. She would have been a horrible actress.”
“What do you think, Alan?” Gina asked.
“One more question,” I said, looking back at Bertle. “What are you doing in here? Last I saw, you were holed up with Donna in Mannigan and Loche’s room.”
He snorted. “Those bastards kicked us out. ‘But there’s a killer on the loose,’ I said. They insisted we leave, claimed they needed to figure out political stuff. Honestly? They seemed a little too settled in about the whole murder thing. So Donna and I came back to our room. Figured if we got here fast enough, one locked door was as good as another. Only Donna left to go get something from the mess hall. I warned her not to, but she did, anyway. I would guess that’s where she is now.”
Gina sheathed her blade. None of us corrected him.
I stooped down to pick up one of the pills that had spilled onto the floor. Normally, I’d toss Listic up and have her scan it, perhaps recon the room for clues. With a super-enhanced cyborg equipped with all the bells and whistles at my side, such an act proved redundant. Instead, I held the pill out.
“Estropill,” Gina said.
Primarily used for one of two purposes: As a quick recovery drop after a round of instaroids, or as a means of getting more in touch with one’s feminine side. Could have gone either way, with Bertle.
I casually gave him his pill back. “Any sign of Stenson having come through here?”
“Negative,” she replied. “No prints, no blood, no residue. Looks like we have more rooms to check.”
Alice held her stomach. “Can we start with the mess hall? I’m hungry, again.”
“Seriously?” I asked. “How can you think of food right now?”
“I haven’t had anything good to eat for two days.”
“What are you talking about? We had crackdogs just yesterday.”
“Exactly.”
“Fair enough,” I conceded. “All the same, we should check Mannigan’s room, first. It’s on the way.”
Bertle looked at his room’s mutilated exit. “Um, you guys broke my door. Mind if I come with you? It’s freezing in here.”
Alice shrugged. “Whatever.”
She probably had the same thought in mind: If Bertle turned out to pose any kind of threat, it would be easily answered by Gina’s vibroblade.
He grabbed his nail clippers and tagged along behind us, which at that point must have made us the most random team of unlikely crime-solving misfits in space, ever.
∙ • ∙
Mannigan’s room was empty, of course. Nothing but campaign badges and the coffee maker.
“Damn,” Gina said. “They could be anywhere. We have to keep searching.” She looked over at Alice. “Still have to put off the mess hall for a bit. Should check the crew’s quarters, first. Not to mention send out a warning to everyone on the overcom.”
“It’s worth a shot, but I don’t know if the overcom will still be operational,” I said. “Now would probably be a good time to tell you: Alice and I were there, earlier. Found one dead crew member in the dark. Don’t know if it was the pilot or the co-pilot, nor what may have happened to his counterpart. Someone—”
“Put the smack down on Alan,” Alice offered.
“Right. Whoever it was got out before we could identify him.”
“So we’ll be extra careful, then.” Gina flung her blade out again as she walked toward the door.
Something in the back of my head told me to search the room a little harder. But there was nothing there, nothing save that stupid...
“Hey Gina,” I called out. “How big does a net amplifier need to be to get the job done?”
She stopped. “Depends. After scouring the science lab, we believe the prototype was about the size of a hoverbike. But the beta unit was definitely smaller. About the size of, say, a small briefcase. Or a microwave.” I walked over to the game table in the middle of the room and placed my hands on the item Loche had left behind. Gina looked down at it, then back up at me.
“Or a coffee maker,” we said simultaneously.
She approached the coffee maker suspiciously, Alice and Bertle following her like intersecting spotlight shadows. She swiped her blade and cut the top clean off. We peered inside. Either this was the galaxy’s most complicated coffee maker, or it was emitting a subspace frequency in sync with a pirate net.
“Found you, you piece of crap.” Gina took another swipe at the device, cutting it straight down the middle. An orange light that was flashing inside winked out.
Alice took a deep breath. “So, no space pirates, then. At least there’s that.”
“Presumably,” Gina said, sheathing her blade. “But, there’s a chance, however slim, that they figured out how to make another one. We need to be ready with Plan B. We need to find Stenson.”
She turned back toward the door. Alice and I followed her, passing Bertle, who was happy to let the two of us cushion the distance between him and the dangerous woman in red. He looked back one last time at the beta unit, now in pieces, and reflected: “You
know, now that I think about it... I never saw him make a single cup of coffee.”
∙ • ∙
I used the time it took us to reach the bridge for reflection of my own. This whole thing was getting more convoluted than The Big Sleep. There was still more to this situation than what Gina had exposed, and I felt like I was on the verge of a revelation. I only needed to assess the facts, let them percolate in my noggin. Eventually, my head would catch up with whatever it was that my gut already knew.
Back when I was on the force, we used a holoboard to lay out victims, suspects, perps, crime scenes, weapons... the whole mix. It was as though the game of Clue had developed an ulcer and exploded onto the wall. Arrows pointed from head shot to head shot denoting relationships, events were time-stamped and chronologically outlined in the margins, key questions were posted as transparent overlays on top of the images they pertained to. When necessary, we expanded the diagram into a three-dimensional image and centered it in the middle of the room, which allowed us to represent the connections between means and motive in even greater detail. If you wanted to, you could stand in the middle of the image and surround yourself with the crime. Immerse yourself in it. It proved useful to most of the detectives on the force, but I couldn’t say it ever benefited me that much.
Far too many detectives thought of the holoboard as the job itself, like it was necessary to commit to it as part of the crime-solving procedure. I went through a few partners before winding up with Gina. Rather than using the holoboard as a tool, they incorporated it as a mandate. We’d be out in the field, gathering information, and a means and a motive would align themselves during the course of a conversation with an eyewitness or a distant relative. The connection would be right there, on the notepad they’d just scribbled on. But how would they respond?
“We gotta get this intel back to the holoboard. Then we’ll know what to do.”
We relied on computers too much for basic shit. And routines. And procedures. They kept us from realizing the obvious. They interfered with being cognizant, and replaced it with being methodical. Rather than using a holoboard, I preferred to simply think something through while I walked from Point A to Point B.
Anyway, here’s what floated to the top of my mind: Dave was killed by someone who smashed his ribs, then stabbed him with a vibroblade. Up to this point, I’d only encountered one individual on board who fit his attacker’s profile: My ex-partner, our resident femme fatale. Not only that, she had yet to disclose what was in the briefcase we were looking for.
What are you not telling me, Gina?
All the same, there was likely something to be gained by searching the flight crew’s compartment. And there was no point in confronting her when I didn’t even understand my own accusation. So I went along with the plan. We were looking for Stenson. We were looking for the briefcase.
This time, the hatch was locked. “I got this.” I took out Dave’s access card and unlocked it. Just as I was feeling impressed with myself, Gina’s shoulder blades slid out and up in a mechanically unnatural movement, then aimed forward and became a couple of spotlights.
“Cool,” Alice said.
I had to admit, it was pretty cool.
“I’ve got night vision,” Gina said. “But I figured you’d appreciate it.”
We did a reconnaissance of the crew quarters. Bertle gave a wide berth to the dead crew member hanging out the doorway as we explored the kitchenette. The frying pan that had hit me in the face was upside down on the floor. I asked Gina if she could lift any prints from it, but all she could gather were a few skin cells from my cheek. Somehow, I found this rather embarrassing.
We went on to explore another two bedrooms before ending up in the cockpit.
No Stenson.
Alice waited at the entrance while Gina, Bertle and I entered the tiny cockpit.
“What exactly are we looking for?” Alice asked.
“I think we’ve already found it,” Bertle said. “Warmth. I’m never leaving this portion of the ship. Ever. You’ll have to pry me out of here with a giant pair of prongs.” He sat down at a rear chair in the cockpit, at the communications system.
“Any clues available, at this point,” I answered, ignoring Bertle’s comment. “Also, we need to let the captain of the Orion Express know what’s going on, here.”
“Overcom’s busted,” Bertle said. He held up a busted headset.
“Great.” Alice entered the room, despite how cramped it was. “I guess that’s out.”
“Dammit,” Gina added. “Well, it was a long shot, anyway.”
The room was filled with ambient greens and reds from the various monitor screens and control switches. Gina turned off her spotlights, retracted them seamlessly into her shoulder blades, and sat down in the pilot’s seat. I was about to sit as well, then realized someone was already in the copilot’s seat. The body had slid down a few feet, head tipped forward, mouth agape. I felt around on his chest and discovered a gash.
Death by vibroblade.
“So much for the crew.” I drug the copilot off his chair and rolled him to the side. His head flopped onto one of Bertle’s feet.
Bertle flinched, lifting his legs up and turning his chair away. “Really? Another body? Who the hell’s actually still alive on this ship?”
Gina looked at her side of the control panel while I looked at my own. I wasn’t sure what we were looking for, but figured we’d know it when we saw it. Neither of us was a full-fledged starship pilot, but we’d taken basic courses in the GalactiCop Academy. I could fly a personal shuttle, and a freighter’s controls were the same in principle. Then again, maybe CyberOps had loaded Gina with a full piloting program. In mere minutes, they could have brain-burned skill sets into her that would take the rest of us years to master.
“You gather any useful information?” I asked. Lights were flashing, readouts spinning, numbers calculating. Even though the Century Pigeon itself was not flying, it was linked into the primary navigation of the Orion Express. The crew had about as little to occupy themselves with as we did while submerged, but I imagined the readouts proved mesmerizing if you were tripping bile and hoping for something to stare at.
“Nothing out of the ordinary,” Gina replied. “Ship’s following the trajectory that had been laid into it in the first place. Cruise ship’s submersion engine is still running at peak—no alterations have been made based on a potential emergence.”
Something caught Alice’s eye near Bertle. “What about that blinking red light?”
Bertle shifted in his chair to look, but only ended up blocking our view. “I don’t see anything...”
Alice was in no mood, and pushed him out of the way. “That blinking red light! The one that says AIRLOCK OVERRIDE next to it.”
I looked at it. “Could be acknowledging that I used Dave’s access card to get in.”
She shook her head. “I don’t think so. Since you used the card, it wouldn’t be an override. It would just be a standard door opening. Do you really think this light would be flashing just because you opened a door with a key?”
Gina interjected. “Actually, that control’s for the—”
“Good point,” I said, cutting Gina off. “But maybe it’s still flashing from whoever had broken in before us the last time we came in. When we discovered the door was already unlocked.”
“Hey guys, that’s not the control for the—”
“Really?” Alice interrupted. “You think this would still be flashing, even after someone’s gone in and out of this area with a key card?”
“Guys!” Gina yelled. “Shut up! Listen. That is not, repeat, not the control for the hatch to the crew’s section of the ship.” She pointed to a calm green light elsewhere on the main control board. “That one is.”
“Oh,” Alice said. “Then what’s this one for?” She pointed at the flashing red light.
>
“It’s for the main airlock. The one that connects the Pigeon to the cruise ship.”
I scratched my stubble while looking at it. The entire cockpit now seemed to be alternatively brightening and darkening in sync with that particular readout. Ominous, indeed.
∙ • ∙
It was impossible to tell when the override had been activated. Someone could have broken in, killed the crew, and activated it long before the first time Alice and I explored the area. Or Bertle could have accidentally hit the switch after the dead co-pilot freaked him out. Or anyone could have activated it during the time in between.
What it meant was that we now had to widen our search radius for Stenson.
Bertle opted to remain behind in the crew section where it was warm. He also explained—although I have no idea what type of logic he was applying—that since there were already two dead bodies in the crew compartment, there was less likely to be a third. I told him to lock the door to the cockpit until we let him know the coast was clear.
The cold air of the Pigeon’s cargo bay hit us as soon as we exited the crew compartment. Alice rubbed her arms through her jumpsuit. “I almost think Bertle had the right idea.” She looked up at Gina. “You never shiver. You don’t get cold?”
“Cyborg,” Gina replied.
“Right.”
Before we went back to the airlock connecting us to the cruise ship, there was one more place my gut pulled me. It was my turn to decide our next move.
“Follow me for a moment,” I said.
“Shouldn’t we be heading to the giant airlock?” Gina asked. “Where are you taking us?”
“Ken’s room. I haven’t seen that guy for too long, now. He’s creeped me out since the moment I laid eyes on him.”
After a few minutes, we rounded the corner to the mess hall and discovered the door was left open. Not a good sign. Also not a good sign was the trail of blood that crossed the threshold.
Someone was slumped on the ground behind the farthest crappy table. It was not Ken Eggshot, despite this being his assigned room. It was Michael Loche. And, keeping with tradition, he’d been stabbed.
Murder on the Orion Express Page 12