The iFactor

by R. W. Van Sant

  “And if we are wrong?”

  “Then an innocent man gets punished and a killer goes free.” Matt said.

  “I like our system better.” She responded.

  “It does provide certainty, except when it doesn’t.” The two detectives come up to a large field scattered with machines and agricultural specialists. The soil was being excavated and moved out in trucks. “I though the forensic investigation was completed.”

  “It was.” Rishards walked up to one of the worker and inquired about the whereabouts of their supervisor. The tired technician pointed toward a mature woman standing in the center of the field.

  “Yes,” the woman greeted them uncordially as they approached. “What do you want?”

  “Just to ask a few questions and to look around?” Matt smiled.

  “Be quick then, we have a lot to do here.” The woman responded.

  “A man died here.” Rishards reminded her.

  “Oh, and you think that’s the worst of it do you.” The woman turned on her. “Look at this field.” She waved her hands.” Ruined, all of it contaminated by human remains. This wasn’t just a murder officer. It was an act of terrorism against the colony.”

  “I’m sorry if this inconveniences you.’ Rishards continued.

  “Inconvenience, no officer.” She took on an even more patronizing tone. “Preventing the entire colony from becoming cannibals is no inconvenience. Now, moving four acres of soil off the fields and preparing another four acres from the dirt of a dead, acidic world, making it fit to accept seeds and saplings so that the colony will have enough food next season, that is a bit of an inconvenience. Charlie! Where is the new soil shipment?”

  “It should be here within the hour.” A worker called back. “They just finished excavating it.”

  “I bet you think we just put the seeds in the ground, like on Earth, don’t you.” She turned to Matt. “Most of the people here have no clue what we have to do to make the soil ready. I have four PhDs dammit. I should be in an office reading soil analysis reports and crop yield projections.”

  “Yes, ma’am.” Matt responded.

  “Why haven’t you found this terrorist yet?” she barked. “This is Sirius, no crimes go unsolved here. Isn’t that what they say?”

  “And no one will now.” Matt assured her. “But there are still procedures that have to be followed. And it would greatly aid our investigation if we could have a few moments of your time.”

  “Yeah,” The old woman sighed. “I’m stuck until the new soil arrives anyway. What can I do for you?”

  “Did you know the victim?” Rishards asked.

  “No, never met him.” She said. “Look, we’ve already been through this with the officers yesterday.”

  “I’m sorry.” He glanced at Rishards. “The questions that I need to ask you are of a more practical nature.”

  “Such as?”

  “The victim was cut into pieces by a laser cutter.” He continued.

  “Yes.”

  “Do you have many of those lying around?” Matt asked.

  “No, we only have a couple, we use then to dig out the large plants and break through hard patches of soil.” She answered. “And we don’t leave them lying about. They are secured in the tool shed.”

  “The blood spot was behind the shed.” Rishards whispered in Matt’s ear. “That’s where the body was cut up.”

  “Yes,” The woman said. “And if that we’re not bad enough, the sociopath put the pieces into the automatic fertilizers. The machines spread the man over four acres of prime growing soil.”

  “Our investigation showed that the tool locker is access secured.” Rishards said. “The victim was responsible for overseeing materials and therefore had access to the shed.”

  “From what I was told, he was a rep from one of the corps, checking on the condition of our equipment so they could put in a bid for the new batch. The man had no business in a farm, but they gave him access anyway. It’s no way to run a colony.”

  “Are the fertilizer compartments of the spreaders locked?” Matt asked.

  “No, the thought that someone would use them to contaminate our food supply hadn’t occurred to us.” The woman answered. “I will of course immediately request that the equipment be upgraded with such security precautions. Are we done?”

  “One last point.” Matt pressed.

  “What?”

  “The cutters do they require special training to use, are they heavy, or clumsy.” Matt asked.

  “Not particularly.” She answered. “I could teach you to use one in a few minutes, but to use one well does take practice. It is not a piece of equipment you’d want to be careless with. If you’re fond of your limbs.”

  “Thanks. We’ll just look around some then we’ll be outa your hair.” Matt told her. “Thank you very much.”

  “Come back when we’re not in crisis mode and I’ll give you a real explanation as to how this operation works.” She walked away as a truck full of soil rolled up. “Charlie! See that this gets to the mulch mixer first.”

  The detectives left the woman barking orders and went to see the crime site. It wasn’t hard to find. It was one of the few buildings in the cavern. Matt examined the security panel on the tool shed.

  “It doesn’t look forced.” He commented.

  “It wasn’t, the victim opened it.” She said. “Or the murderer opened it after cutting the chip from his palm.”

  “Why would he open the tool shed.”

  “Maybe the killer was armed and forced him.” Rishards asked.

  “The killer left the same message.” He said half aloud. “Where is the public terminal?”

  Rishards pointed to a building about a half Kilometer along the road. “Over there is a service building. It has one.”

  “A laser cutter would cauterize the wounds; even so, there must have been some blood.” Matt looked around.

  “The images of the patch of dirt behind the shed indicated quite a bit.”

  “Well,” Matt continued. “It would be really difficult to keep ones clothing free of it. If I were a blood soaked murderer and I didn’t want to go all the way to the building, let alone back to the main dome covered in blood.”

  “Agreed. The killer would have to have changed their clothing.”

  “Then what would I do with my clothes, if they were soaked with someone else’s blood.” Matt started to walk around the building. The dirt all around was recently dug out, to be replaced. “They didn’t bury it or it would have been found.”

  “They brought clothing with them.’ Rishards commented.

  “And took it back with them.”

  “Which means they had to have been carrying a bag of some kind.” Rishards realized.

  “Or a case” Matt added.

  “So let’s go see if anyone remembers seeing someone during the early shift who was carrying a case or a bag.” Rishards headed back to the supervisor, Matt close on her heals.

  “It seems as though the killer didn’t display this one.”

  “Then maybe, the Christian killer theory is wrong.” Rishards sounded vindicated.

  “Or they just changed, their MO.”

  After wandering around questioning the workers, they learned that the victim was killed on the same day that many of the primary schools had been present to learn about colonial agriculture. There were over twenty classes full of children roaming the canyon at the time, all with backpacks as well as teachers and escorts. It was fortunate the body wasn’t discovered by a class full of children The killer planned it well, no one would notice one bag more in that group. It was also the day that the return train had broken down. Matt wasn’t sure how that information could help, but it was one more piece to throw into the box.

  Chapter 25

  For the next several hours, Matt was at his desk. The paperwork involved was worse than it had been on earth. The contact chain data for Kossman and he dove into the documents like a dog going for a bone.
He spent hours following Kossman’s signal. He traced and backtracked everyone that he met, luckily there weren’t many. Even so, there were too many random contacts, none of which coincided to any significant degree with any one on the contact list for Marc Matthews. It was useless; on an isolated colony, everyone is going to encounter everyone occasionally.

  Once they had a suspect, the collected data could be very useful in getting an indictment, but looking through the glut of data was just giving Matt a massive headache. The gaps in information cause by the black-outs made the volumes of information he’d collected all but useless. He continued to pound his head into the data wall until his eyes started to unfocus.

  At least on the contraband front, the situation was better. His smuggler was convicted. None of the judges bought into the defense theory that he'd planted the evidence, or at least didn’t have any confirmation to prove it if they did. The bursar was condemned and pending sentence.

  To reduce his sentence, the man turned on his friends. The man gave the department information on a docking bay’s night guard, who under interrogation implicated another man, Perry’s mystery man. Unfortunately, the guard couldn’t describe the man. Even though he’d met the stranger several times in the park, they always sat back to back on a double bench and hid their voices when they talked. He couldn’t provide any relative details. The guard was very obliging when it came to providing dates and times. Still, now they should be enough evidence to get that warrant. That should make Perry happy. One wall down.

  At least one investigation was going well. Matt slumped back into his chair and looked at the clock on his computer. He’s been off duty for over two hours. He reached in his drawer and pulled out a sealed med packet and pushed the pill through, popped it in his mouth and swallowed, chasing it down with cold coffee. As much as Matt hated cold coffee, he'd been fighting to control his emotions a bit too much as of late. If he couldn't continue to keep them under control himself, then he'd just have to let the meds do it.

  After several more minutes involved in a futile staring contest with his display, Matt rose and grabbed his jacket. He needed to get out and get some ‘fresh’ air. The park shouldn't be too crowded, he thought. A walk might help clear his mind.

  Chapter 26

  Matt learned as he arrived at the park that his previous assumption was wildly mistaken. The park was not going to be a place where he could clear his mind. The park was crowded. He had walked in a celebration of some sort. Most of the people assembled near the amphitheater in the middle of the park. Instead of turning around and heading toward less crowded paths, Matt thought he needed to push himself a little. Crowds of people have been getting making him too anxious. It wasn’t a good thing for someone whose job it was to protect the multitudes. The medication that he took earlier was working well, he felt very little as he walked along the less busy edges of the park. It was easier for his mind to cope with the mass of people when they were mostly on one side of him.

  From his vantage point, Matt could see the uniforms of several colonial security moving in and about among the throngs of partyers, patrolling the area. A closer inspection of the crowd allowed him to pick out several security officers that he knew personally. They were in civilian attire, but walked around with purpose, their eyes scanning the crowds as his did. Matt wondered if the increased police presence was noticeable to the general populace.

  Matt looked at his watch. Another black-out was underway. He closed his eyes and tried to sense anything out of the ordinary. If the part of him that had been exposed to the mind rip, could somehow sense the event as it happened, it would go a long way toward helping to validate Rishards’ theory. He felt nothing, and then he felt relieved. A small army of homicidal burnouts could have destroyed the entire colony. Except that he wasn’t a burn out, they never had to give him the surgery. If it were the surgery itself that caused sensitivity to blackouts, Rishards might still be correct.

  Seeing the increased patrols, however, did not impart a sense of security. Instead, the awareness that a black-out had been occurring for an hour, only filled him with curiosity. The security patrols were unaware, they didn’t have his clearance or “need to know”, but he did. He found their bumbling around in the “dark” nearly comical. The officers would continue to patrol, keeping the masses save, oblivious to the reality of the situation. Still, knowing that for the first time since he arrived on Sirius, the city’s mainframes were not watching every single move he made felt somewhat emancipating. He wondered if that was how the killer felt.

  Matt was drawn to the sound of children’s laughter. He saw a small horde of them sitting before of a portable puppet theater in a clearing to his right. They laughed innocently as a small puppet dressed in a toga was presented boldly on the stage before a monstrous apparition that appeared to be a winged lion with a human head.

  From behind the stage, a familiar, but disguised voice roared as the creature threatened to eat the hero if he couldn’t solve a riddle.

  The children gasped.

  Then the voice asked the riddle.

  “What goes on four legs in the morning?

  And by two legs in the afternoon?

  But goes by three legs at night?”

  The toga-clad puppet rubbed its head thoughtfully as the children gleefully called out answers.

  “A bird” one child called out.

  “A trained dog” called out another.

  “No,” the hero puppet said to the children in the same familiar, disguised voice that was doing its best to sound more masculine and monstrous. The puppet man turned to face the puppet monster and said. “Man! I think the answer is man.”

  “Why is that?” the monster puppet loomed over the hero.

  “Because,” shouted another child. “There are no animals on Sirius.”

  Out of the mouths of babes. Matt thought as a few children giggled.

  “There are fish.” Another retorted.

  “Fish don’t count,” the first child said.

  “Why not?”

  “Fish don’t have legs.” An older child said with some authority ending the discussion.

  “The answer is man,” the hero puppet continued. “Because as babies, we crawl on all four legs. In the middle years of our lives, we walk around on two good strong feet. However, in our old age, we require a cane to walk. The answer is man.” The puppet asserted.

  A child in the front row counted on her fingers and said. “No, my grandma walks on six.”

  “Grandma, uses a walker.” The boy next to her said. “They didn’t have walkers in the olden days.”

  “Argg!” the monster cried. “You have solved my riddle. You may go on your way. Remember, even though you have escaped me, you cannot escape your destiny.”

  The curtains closed and the children cheered and clapped their hands. Some called out for more.

  “The next show will be at four.” The familiar face of Jill Cochetti appeared from behind the stage. There was still some puffiness around her bruised cheek and she wore her make up heavier than before, but Matt could see that her face was healing well.

  “Hi,’ she looked surprised as she looked up to see Matt standing behind the wall of sitting children. “Did you come all the way here just to watch me perform?”

  “Honestly, I didn’t know it was you. You’re good with voices.”

  “Why thank you.” She bowed. “Now if you’ll just tell the critics I can take my rightful place as queen of the ‘the-at-tur’.”

  “I’m sure you’d be great.” He said.

  “Oh, you’re sweet, a terrible liar, but sweet.” She turned and closed the curtains to the puppet theater.” Break time. I’m starving. How about a hot dog? I saw a stand over by the fish bowl earlier.”

  “I was on my way home.” The dream image of her nude body filled his mind.

  “Come on, I’m buying.” She grabbed his arm and gently pulled him toward the large aquarium, which held the colonies fresh fish supply. To Mat
t’s great relief, the crowds were all gathering in another section of the park. “Don’t be so tense, you’re off duty. At ease officer.” She saluted.

  “I’m sorry,” he said. “It’s been a long day. I’d love a hot dog.”

  “Thought you’d see it my way.”

  Matt could see the cart off in the distance. The operator had set up directly in front of the largest of the observation windows. It was a good place. From there a person could eat and watch the fish swim, perhaps even buy more food if not satisfied. Matt’s stomach grumbled and he realized that he had forgotten to eat lunch. They made their way across the grass as the brilliant red light streaked across the cities dome high above them heralding the setting of Sirius Alpha. The sky started to dim as the illumination of the sky was left to dimmer light of Sirius’ companion star. The dimming light was still more than adequate to light their way to the cart.

  “Don’t have sunsets like that on earth.” She said.

  “No,” Matt looked up. “Sure don’t.”

  The amount of security uniforms in the crowd had diminished noticeably, at least to Matt. The augmented patrols were ending, the ‘black-out’ was over. He breathed a sigh of relief. The cities electronic guardian angel was back on line. He didn’t know why, but walking with Jill, a woman he hardly knew, was strangely calming. For the first time since he entered the park, he did not feel like escaping. He had not felt that comfortable around anyone in a very long time. Images filled his mind as they walked. Matt reminded himself that he wasn’t a psychic and dreams were just his unconscious longings prompting him to take chances.

  “Got anything with real meat?” she asked when they reached the stand.

  “Fish.” The vender offered helpfully.

  “Oh, you could at least pretend.” She turned to Matt. “Wasn’t it more fun when no one knew what was in a hot dog? Now it’s all soy and fish.”