by Karlin
plastic shoes. The shoes had attached sleeves that zippered up our calves, like a high woman's boot. Though this was not exactly high fashion. Another Velcro strap fastened the top of these shoes.
Bo-Sung spoke through his face mask.
"The suits are made of a special material that does not shed fibers."
I nodded my understanding, not quite certain how to speak in my costume. We went through yet another automatic glass door into another room. I felt my feet sticking to the floor. There was a special blue sticky pad on the floor, designed to trap bits of dust from the soles of our shoes. A wide full-length mirror let me get a view of myself. There was not much to see. People in bunny-suits look remarkably alike. All you see are eyes, glasses, and a bit of eyebrow.
We put on gloves, presumably made out of some lint-free cloth, and then a second pair of long vinyl gloves. The technician, who had suited up with us, helped me arrange the elastic cuffs of my suit over the top of the gloves.
We waited in front of a stainless steel and glass door, guarded by another sticky pad. I could see through the glass into a narrow steel corridor. The technician pressed a button, the door opened, and we walked into an "air shower". There was a loud rushing noise, and blasts of warms air struck us from every direction. All of this in an effort to blow off any dust that we might have on our suits.
Finally, we entered the clean room. The air was cooler there, which was a relief. As it was, my glasses were starting to fog up. Bo-Sung paused for a minute, to let me get my bearings. It was necessary, since I had just entered a world that I never even knew existed.
The room was huge. I can't even tell you how large, since it was crowded with machines whose purpose I couldn't even begin to guess. There were carts scattered all over, loaded with plastic cases full of what looked like stacked dinner plates. Some of these plastic cases were running overhead on a robotic monorail. I could see a few technicians and engineers waiting by machines, and gathered that there were many more people in the clean room than I could see.
The floor was perforated with little holes, reminiscent of the pegboard my father used to hang his tools on. I could see lights and some kind of activity in the space below the floor. The whole room was lit with yellow lamps, providing another eerie touch to this odd world.
"Welcome to the clean room. A boon to modern technology, but a curse to the modern detective. No DNA testing, no fiber matching, no real witnesses – but a very real murder."
I pointed down to the floor.
"What's there?"
"They call it the 'sub-fab'. There are other machines there that service the ones we see up here. There is normally no access directly from there to this room."
A pink bunny-suit, presumably a police officer, led us through the maze of machines.
"I gave strict instructions that no one was to leave this room. We can't keep everybody here indefinitely, as you can imagine. If you need to use the washroom, you have to leave, and go through the entire cleaning process again."
"Are there surveillance cameras?"
"There are some. I doubt that there will be much footage of interest."
I could see his point. A completely anonymous setting, with everybody traveling incognito. Even if we found a blood splattered plastic glove, we wouldn't be able to connect it to the murderer. No fingerprints even on the inside, because of the inner cloth gloves.
I saw a few technicians moving the stacks of dinner plates around. Their bunny-suits were marked in Korean, with the English words 'zero defects' on their shoulders. The plates were the wafers that the chips were made on. The fab couldn't completely stop, even for a murder.
We arrived at the victim in a few minutes. A small bunny-suited figure, presumably a woman, laid crumpled on the floor next to yet another machine, this one helpfully labeled 'Asyst'.
There was no doubt as to the method. Her head had been bashed in by a blunt object. The stain of blood could be seen through the fabric of her hood, though no blood had managed to penetrate the fabric. Another blow against the forensics guys.
There was an obvious candidate for the murder weapon. A flat piece of shiny steel, with a large hole drilled through it, laid on the floor. A flange that belonged to one of the machines. The forensics guys were waiting for instructions. They would have to take it out of the fab for testing. You can't dust for fingerprints in a clean room. It was all basically pointless, though. There would be no fingerprints, and it looked like there would be no blood either.
We stood there silently for a few minutes, each of us making his own professional impression of the scene.
Later there would be autopsy results. I didn't need them in order to know that the blow came from above, at an angle that only somebody considerably taller than the victim could have dealt. The perpetrator must have been fairly strong as well. That flange looked pretty heavy.
I took a closer look at the flange. There was a shiny rubber seal embedded in the flange.
Bo-Sung broke the silence.
"Any ideas?"
"Do you know when it happened?"
"She was last seen alive ten minutes before the body was found. A very narrow time frame for the act. I have somebody tracking down the surveillance recordings. Not that it is likely to help.
"We will of course question her friends and relatives. If it is at all like the last one, we won't find a thing. Just a normal young woman, with the usual relationships."
I pondered the situation for a moment, and came up with an idea, or at least part of one.
"I do suggest one thing. When you have the workers leave the clean room, collect the vinyl gloves from each one, and label them with the worker's name. I know that there is no blood to speak of, and the murderer may have changed gloves by now, but maybe not. And I do have an idea of sorts."
"It is easy enough. Though I am curious as to your idea."
"So am I. It is only half an idea right now."
"Half an idea is better than none, which is where I am right now."
Bo-Sung gave some orders over his phone, while I pondered the situation. There was no doubt that this was murder, not an accident. The fact that this was the second case in this one factory was disturbing. Nothing in the previous victim's background led to any possible motive. If the same was the case here, the circumstances pointed to a serial killer, who killed for the fun of it, or maybe just to prove that he could commit the perfect unsolvable crime.
Committing a second crime of the same type was risky, but if the crime was perfect, why not repeat it? Repeat the crime, repeat the thrill. A low-risk thrill, from the looks of it.
There was something else highly disturbing about the whole thing. Korea has a very low crime rate. Even automobile theft was rare. Sure, there were some scandals involving politicians, but a serial murderer? Unheard of.
Bo-Sung finished his call and looked at me. Somehow I could read the question in the few square centimeters of his face that were visible between the mask and the hood.
"Yes, there is nothing more to see here."
Bo-Sung nodded, and led the way out of the clean room. Leaving the room involved the same complex set of procedures, only in reverse. We were spared the air shower on the way out.
"Interesting?"
"Quite. You know what it looks like."
"Yes. Some kind of a nut. A serial killer. Unheard of in my country."
"I would like to hear the results of the interviews."
"Of course. The critical ones will take place today."
The interviews would be conducted by Bo-Sung's staff. It was possible that he himself would conduct some. I could be of no help here. The language and culture barriers were insurmountable. Back home, I would even try to have officers of the appropriate ethnic group speak to family and friends of victims. Everybody, whether Irish, Polish, Black or Hispanic felt more comfortable speaking to somebody who was more like themselves.
"You will join me to see the camera recordings?"
"Of course."
Our fab guide brought us to a meeting room, where two officers were watching the footage with a digital projector. A few words in Korean, and they showed us the relevant footage, if I can use the term 'relevant' loosely.
The camera was one of ten in the fab, and it was the only one that faced the general direction of the murder scene. We watched ten minutes of film, between the last time the victim was seen alive, to the discovery of the body. There was very little to see.
The victim herself was hidden behind the machines. Somebody larger than her did enter the area, but the place was a maze, and there was no way of knowing whether this person was our suspect, or just an innocent worker, while the murderer had reached the victim some other way. Not that it made any difference. The recording was of the usual black and white low quality that I was used to, and would be of no help in identifying the suspect.
There was a bustle of activity on the screen as the body was discovered and people rushed to help.
"Almost certainly useless," Bo-Sung offered. "I will have these digitally enhanced, but I have no real expectations."
"No. The information that we need just isn't there. How was the previous murder committed?"
"The obvious question. The victim, also a small woman, was strangled with a length of wire that was left on the scene. No blood. Our enemy here is careful. Blood spattered on his bunny-suit would give him away."
"The intelligent crazy serial killer. The worse possible type. The one who is least likely to make a mistake."
"Oh, he will. Eventually. But