J. Robb: Fantasy in Death

“How?”

“Efficient. Plus she doesn’t look like a droid. She doesn’t have any of the tells, like the occasional stuttering, the blank stare while it processes data. Definitely cutting-edge there. I know she didn’t actually feel shock and grief, but it seemed like she did. It did. She asked me if someone would contact his parents. That’s active thinking. It’s not droidlike.”

“Or it’s careful and thorough programming. Let’s find out more about U-Play. You don’t get a trilevel in this neighborhood for chump change. Let’s find out who gets the money, and who’s lined up to take over the company. We need to know what he was working on. And who was as good as he was.”

She paused, looked around the room again. “Somebody got in here, got past the droid, got into that holo-room without leaving a discernable trace.”

She only knew one person who’d be able to pull that off-and she was married to him. Maybe Roarke would know another.

“Priority is to get that disc out of the holo-room unit, run it.”

“E-team’s on the way, and so are the sweepers. One of the uniforms got all security discs for the last twenty-four.”

“You keep on the room-by-room. I’m going to notify next of kin via ’link. We’ll see what EDD can do for us, then we’ll pay a visit to U-Play.”

She took a few moments after the notification to let it all settle. She’d just crushed the lives of two people she hadn’t known existed less than an hour before, Eve thought as she sat on the side of Bart Minnock’s bed. They would never really be the same, nothing would ever be as it had been for them.

Murder did that. Took lives, crushed others, changed still others forever.

So why had someone needed or wanted to end Bart Minnock’s existence? And why had they chosen the method used?

Money. Jealousy. Revenge. Secrets. Passion.

From all appearances, he had money, she thought, and ran a quick, standard financial. Okay, he had money, and U-Play was a strong, young company. Her first instinct was to take CeeCee at her word. No jealous exes. But money often generated jealousy. Revenge might come through a competitor, or an employee who felt shafted or underappreciated. Secrets, everyone had a few. Passion? Gaming had certainly been the victim’s.

Method… Murder during game play. Kind of poetic in a sick way. Decapitation. Sever the head-the brain-and the body falls. Minnock was the brains of U-Play, it seemed from her quick run. Would the body fall without him? Or was someone ready and waiting to slip in and take over?

Whatever the answers, the method had been bold, purposeful, and complex. God knew there were easier ways to kill. It was very likely the killer was just as serious and devoted to gaming as his victim.

Eve heard McNab before she saw him. if he’d been a teenaged girl instead of a grown man she’d have called the sound he made a squeal.

“Holy jumping Jesus! This place is iced to the cube!”

“Settle down, boy. This is a crime scene.”

She caught Feeney’s reprimand, but she recognized the edge of excitement in his tone. The EDD captain and her former partner wasn’t just a grown man, she thought, but a freaking grandfather.

Still, maybe e-geeks were always kids under the skin.

“Somebody should say something. Like a prayer.”

And they’d brought Callendar. The reverential whisper made Eve shake her head. Maybe she’d expected more from that source as Callendar was female.

She went to the stairs, looked down at the three of them. She saw Feeney’s grizzled head-the ginger and silver-McNab’s eye-searing orange cargo pants, and the sunburst pattern of Callendar’s shirt.

“When you’ve finished being awed and gooey, maybe you could mosey on up here. We’ve got a pesky little murder to deal with.”

Feeney looked up, and Eve saw she’d been right, there was a flush of excitement on his usually mopey face. McNab just grinned, and the little bounce in his step had his shining blond ponytail swaying. Callendar at least had the grace to look slightly sheepish as she hunched her shoulders in a shrug.

“This place is a cathedral to all that is E and Game,” McNab called up.

“I’m sure the dead guy up here would be thrilled with your approval. Holo-room, third floor.”

She headed up herself, then paused a moment when she saw Chief Medical Examiner Morris hadn’t sent one of his team for the on-scene, but had come himself.

He looked good, but then he always did. His slick black suit missed being funereal by the touches of silver in the cord braided through his long queue and the subtle pattern of his tie. Still, he seemed to wear black more often these days, and she understood it was a subtle symbol of mourning for his lost lover.

It had been his life Eve had crushed one morning in the spring, his life she knew would never be quite the same because of that loss.

He must have sensed her for even as he continued to examine the body, he spoke. “This is something you don’t see every day, even when you’re us.”

“That’s what I said.”

He looked up then, and his exotic face softened, just a little, with a smile. “But then people often lose their heads over murder. When the data came in, I wanted to see for myself, on-scene.” He nodded toward the head. “From the spatter and pool, it appears that part of him left this part of him in a hurry, went splat-”

“Is that a medical term?”

“Of course. Splat and roll. It’s fate’s little jab in the ribs that the face landed up and toward the door. It looks like the poor bastard died before he knew his head took wing, but we’ll take all of him in and see what we see.”

“A lot of force to decapitate that clean, and a damn sharp blade.”

“I’d agree.”

“The girlfriend’s about five-two, maybe a hundred and ten fully dressed. She wouldn’t have the muscle. A droid could do it.”

“Possibly, if the programming was altered and enhanced.”

“I haven’t come across anything that says self-termination, but a logical theory, given the circumstance, might be he wanted out, wanted out in a flashy way. Programs the droid. It does the job, disposes of the weapon, resets the security. It feels like bullshit, but it’s an angle.”

“People often do the incomprehensible. It’s what makes them so fascinating. Was he in play?”

“Apparently. Whatever disc he had going is fail-safed, still in the unit.” She gestured to the controls. “EDD’s heading upstairs. Maybe he had the droid in play, too, and something went very wrong.” But she shook her head, slid her hands into her pockets. “And that wouldn’t explain the droid reprogramming itself. It’s cutting-edge-ha-ha-according to Peabody, but that’s beyond any edge. Droids require a human operator to alter programming.”

“As far as I know, but then I don’t know much about this sort of thing. In general, human-replicate droids strike me as mildly creepy and just a little pitiable.”

“Yes!” She pulled her hand out of her pocket to point at him. “Exactly.”

“And since they don’t do the incomprehensible without that human operator programming it, they’re just not that interesting.” Morris shrugged as he got to his feet. “You should ask your expert consultant, civilian. He’d know whatever there would be to know, I’d think.”

“I’ll see what the department geeks have to say before I tap Roarke.”

“Whoa.”

She turned to see the aforesaid geeks step in.

“Big whoa,” McNab repeated. “Now that’s a large fucking shame. Bart Minnock, boy genius.”

“I always figured he’d come out ahead.” Callendar winced. “Sorry.”