Chapter #28Bodies of Evidence by: Seuzz   "Get Knotts and the elves down here," you bark. "Now!" Patterson hurries out.
You stop the monitor—no point recording the vitals of a corpse—and run it backward. Very far you have to search to find any signs of life: not until you hit the twelve hour mark, meaning that Muniz perished shortly after being stored away. You check all the support gear, and find it's all working smoothly, just as it should. Only it's trying to keep a corpse alive.
Five minutes later Knotts and Plante hurry in with Patterson. Your boss orders you and the other ex-jeep to wait outside.
"What did you tell them," you ask.
"That Muniz was dead when we pulled him out."
"That's all? You tell anyone else?"
"No, and Knotts only told Plante in the elevator on the way down here. Oh, Jesus, if I fucked up yesterday," he groans.
"How much of the work did you do?"
"All of it. Liu supervised, but it'll be my fingerprints on everything."
* * * * *
Knotts immediately convenes an emergency board of inquiry, consisting of herself, Plante, and you, after Muniz is quietly taken to a lab where Bennett and his lads can look for the cause of death. The first witness is Patterson, who for the first time since you've met him looks upset. With as much detail as he can muster he describes the procedure whereby he and Liu put Muniz in storage. He stoically admits that he did all the work and that Liu never once touched the body. "He told me what to do, brought me the supplies. But I'm the one who made all the connections." Nor does he give the impression of trying to shift blame when he says that Liu was very careful about watching. "He checked everything I did, explained what I was doing and what it do to Muniz. He seemed to know what he was doing, and it matched what I'd been briefed on during training."
Next is Liu. He has not been told of Muniz's "accident," so he is puzzled but forthcoming when Knotts asks him to describe yesterday's procedure. He gives a very fast account at first, and when Knotts asks him to take it again more slowly and thoroughly he asks if something went wrong. "Muniz had an adverse reaction, but it'll be okay," Knotts lies. That takes some of the confidence from him, but he tells almost exactly the same story as Patterson, with more detail: a story in which Patterson did all the work while Liu explained and carefully scrutinized the procedure. If it hadn't ended in Muniz's death, it would be a textbook case of how to handle such a training session.
Your board then goes to the medical lab to hear what Bennett has, if anything. It's grim: neural failure induced by an overdose of hyperzolpidem, the base chemical used in both the snoozeguns and the freezing units. "They used the wrong kind of cartridge," he says, holding up a metal cylinder the size of his thumb. "The weapons and the suspension tubes both use cartridges that are the same size and hold the same charge, but the weapon cartridges are built to release large quantities in two separate doses, while the suspension cartridges release ten small doses. That's why a snoozegun can double as both a disabling and a lethal weapon. If you shoot someone twice in quick succession, you'll kill them, and that's basically what happened here. Instead of getting small doses to lower Muniz into a permanent inertial state, he got two big doses that sent him to us."
"And who thought it was a good idea to make these cartridges interchangeable," you sarcastically demand.
"I dunno," says Bennett. "Talk to the manufacturer." The manufacturer, of course, is another Fane unit.
"But how did a snoozegun cartridge get down into the freezer?" Knotts asks.
"I hope you're not asking me that," says Bennett.
She ignores him and turns to you. "Was this an accident waiting to happen? Or sabotage?"
You give her a skeptical look. "Are you suggesting that either Liu or Patterson was walking around with a snoozegun cartridge, on the odd chance he could use it if someone got put into storage?"
"One of them could have picked up a cartridge while taking Muniz to the freezer," says Knotts.
"They left together with Muniz on a gurney. One of them would notice if the other had taken off to get something."
"Then let's go ask if either one did that."
So you return to the top floor. Both Patterson and Liu—the latter more white-faced than before, having heard now what happened to Muniz—insist that they were together at all times and that neither of them took a side-trip to an office.
* * * * *
So Knotts is very gray in the face when your trio troops into Dey's office late in the afternoon to report on the debacles of the last thirty-six hours. Of course, the boss has already heard about the loss of Stoddard; news of Muniz's death only increases his irritation. (You'll say this for the man: He doesn't get angry, only deeply annoyed.) "We're going to have to put everyone into deep Patterning, of course," Knott concludes.
"Oh Christ," he says. "Not this again."
"We want to be certain that—"
"That what? That morale hasn't fallen low enough?"
"With all due respect, Mr. Dey," you say, "but what fucking clue have you got about our morale and how to handle it?"
He only makes a face at you. "I can read the signs and I can guess what they mean, and I can also guess how people are reacting and are going to react. Paige, you have to concentrate on the fact that the enemy is out there, not in here. I will grant that we have had a run of, to understate things, hellaciously shitty luck, but—"
He ticks items off on his fingertips: "Chernov's death, outside the office. Stanfill and Lamb, kidnapped outside the office with Crazy Ivan's connivance. Carrero and White, eliminated outside the office by Cupcake. Stoddard, kidnapped by Cupcake, again with help by Crazy Ivan. Every case has occurred outside the office, and known either to be the action of known adversaries, or carried out using known methods. I'm not even counting the assault that Kipper and Patterson survived."
Knotts has listened patiently, and she replies calmly. "But Muniz died backstage, in one of our most secure facilities, under circumstances that don't match the M.O. of any celebrity, and which could only have been perpetrated by a member of our organization."
"Or it's an accident," says Dey. "One of the weapons cartridges was accidentally mixed in with the suspension cartridges." He taps at his keyboard. "And I've just given myself a memorandum to ask Nepenthe for a redesign so it doesn't happen again."
Knotts's voice rises. "It seems like a huge coincidence that there should be this kind of accident on top of what's been going on, Julian. Why do you have to keep denying that maybe—"
"That maybe there's a boogeyman out there?" Dey's voice rises in tandem with Knotts's. "Sure, blame it on Scotty," he cries out, and you and Knotts both blench at the name. "Did a mission go haywire? Scotty got in the way. Did secrets go missing? Scotty must have stolen them. Did a drunk operative slip and crack his head on the corner of a sink? Scotty pushed him!
"I've told you, Paige," he says, silencing her interruption. "There is no such person as Scotty. He's just a projection of your own guilty consciences. Some create God in their own image, but others create the Devil. You and the rest of your team have done unto others, and it frightens you, so you imagine an even worse version of yourselves who can do the same unto you, who actually does do unto you."
"Why are you so sure there's no such person as the Devil?" Knotts demands in a hoarse voice.
"Because I know who and where the Devil really is," Dey retorts as he lights a cigarette. "I get up every morning and see him in the bathroom mirror, looking back at me with a hungover look on his face until he can get some coffee in him. Come on, Paige," he says, and takes a deep drag on the cigarette. "Don't tell me you didn't suspect I've been the Prince of Evil all along."
* * * * *
"The Devil's greatest feat was convincing people he doesn't exist," Knotts mutters to you in the hallway afterward. She doesn't stop you from following her into her office. She drops into her chair and hunches at her laptop.
"What are you doing now?"
"Sending an email to Argos. They won't find anything, but I want that house in Swanley— Oh, just perfect!"
"What?"
"Browser crash. And there goes the operating system." She sighs and rubs her eyes. "I swear, I—"
Then she freeze and goes very pale. Something about the way she looks tells you there's no point in asking what the problem is. You just move around to look at her screen, and she doesn't stop you.
The laptop has faded to a yellow hammer and sickle displayed against a red background. It flashes a few times, and the laptop powers down.
Then every light in the office blinks off. You have the following choice: 1. Continue |
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