J. Robb: Fantasy in Death

“No. No. Things are good. Really good. It’s a happy place. Bart runs a happy place.”

“What about competitors?”

“Nothing, really. Some try to hack in, or try to get a weasel inside. That’s just the way it is. It’s kind of like another game. Bart’s careful. We’re all careful. We have good security. We screen and delouse and realign regularly.”

The door opened. Eve glanced back to see a stunning Asian woman with black hair tied at her nape to fall straight to her waist. Her eyes glowed cat green in her fine-boned face.

“Bens, what the hell? I’m piled up by six, and you’re… What’s wrong?” She rushed in to drop by his side. “What happened?”

“It’s Bart, Cilly, it’s Bart. He’s dead.”

“Oh, don’t be stupid.” She slapped his arm, started to rise again, but he grabbed her hand.

“Cilly, it’s true. These are the police.”

“What are you talking about?” Her reaction Eve gauged as insult as she pushed fluidly to her feet. “Let me see some badges.”

She snatched Eve’s then yanked a miniscanner out of her pocket. “Okay, maybe it reads genuine, but-” She broke off, and her hand trembled slightly as she stared at the name on the badge, then at Eve’s face. “Dallas,” she whispered. “You’re Roarke’s cop.”

“I’m New York’s cop,” Eve corrected, then took back the badge.

“Roarke’s cop doesn’t bullshit.” Cill knelt down, wrapped an arm tight around Benny’s bony shoulders. “What happened to Bart? Oh God, oh crap, what happened to Bart?”

“Is there somewhere we can talk, privately, that’s not the floor?” Eve asked.

“Ah.” Cill passed a hand over her face. “Break room. It’s up a level. I can clear it. But we need Var. We need to hear it together before we… before we tell the others.” She turned, laid her brow against Benny’s. “I’ll clear it and get Var. Just give me a minute. Benny’ll bring you up.” She leaned back, took another breath before meeting Eve’s eyes again. “You do murders. I know that, and it means Bart was… Did they hurt him? Just tell me if they hurt him.”

“I can tell you I believe it was very quick.”

“Okay. Okay. You take them upstairs, Bens, and don’t say anything to anybody until we know what happened.” She cupped his face briefly. “Just hang on now.”

She rose, dashed out.

“What’s your function here, Benny?” Eve asked. “Yours, Cill’s, Var’s. What’s the pecking order?”

“On, ah, paper we’re like co-VPs. But Cill’s GID-Get It Done. I’m GTB-Go To Benny, and Var’s BS-Brainstorm. Everybody knows they can come to one of us or-or Bart if they have an idea or a problem.”

“And what was Bart’s unofficial title?”

“Triple B. Big Brain Boss.” His smile wobbled. “He’s always the smartest one in the room. I guess I should take you up.”

When they arrived, the wall screens were blank, the comps quiet, and the scatter of seats empty. Cill stood staring at one of the several vending machines. They offered fancy coffees, what appeared to be every soft drink on the planet, and a 24/7’s stock of snacks. Eve imagined the AutoChefs were as primed as Bart’s home units had been, and had a low-grade urge for pizza.

“I thought I wanted a power drink, because I always want a power drink,” Cill murmured. “But I don’t.” She turned around. “Var’s coming right up. I didn’t tell him why. I thought… anyway, do you want something? I can just use my pass.”

“We’re good, thanks,” Eve told her.

“You sit down, Benny.” Cill swiped her pass then selected a bottle of water. She pushed it on Benny. “Drink a little.”

She tended him, Eve thought. Not like a lover but a doting sister.

Cill went back to Vending, ordered up a coffee. “For Var,” she said. “He’ll want coffee.”

He came in fast, a stocky man of about thirty wearing the maxi-cargos McNab favored in an eye-friendly khaki, but his well-worn skids were the same stoplight red as his shirt. His brown hair capped short around a face hovering between pleasant and homely.

“Jeez, Cill, I told you I’m buried today. No time for breaks. And with Bart still off-line I’ve got five shitloads to shovel before I-”

“Var.” Cill passed him the coffee. “You need to sit down.”

“I need to move. Seriously. So make it quick and…” He noticed Eve and Peabody for the first time. “Sorry.” His face edged slightly closer to pleasant with his smile. “Didn’t know we had company. Are you the reps from Gameland? I wasn’t expecting you until this afternoon. I’d have been a little more organized by then. Probably.”

“This is Lieutenant Dallas and…”

“Detective Peabody.”

“Yeah.” Cill took a deep breath, then closed the glass door. “They’re here about Bart.”

“Bart?” A quick laugh exploded. “What’d he do? Get drunk and jaywalk? Do we need to post bail?”

“Sit down, Var,” Cill murmured.

“Why? What?” Amusement faded. “Oh hell, oh shit, did he get mugged or something? Is he hurt? Is he okay?”

“We’re Homicide,” Eve said. “Bart Minnock’s been murdered.”

The coffee slipped out of Var’s hand and splashed over his bright red shoes. “What do you mean? What does that mean?”

“Sit down, Var.” Cill pulled him to a chair. “Just sit down. We’ll clean that up later.”

“But this is crazy. Bart can’t be… When? How?”

“Sometime between four-thirty and five yesterday afternoon, in his apartment a few blocks from here. He was found by CeeCee Rove earlier this morning, in his holo-room. He’d been decapitated.”

After Benny’s strangled gasp, there was utter silence. Beside him, Cill went deathly white. Her hand flayed out, and Var gripped it.

“Someone cut his head off?” As Cill began to shake, Benny put an arm around her so the three of them sat on the sofa as one unit. “Someone cut Bart’s head off?”

“That’s correct. It appears he was in the holo-room at the time of the attack, and had programmed a game by disc. EDD is working on removing the disc from the holo-unit. I’m going to need to verify the whereabouts of all of you from three to six yesterday.”

“We were here,” Cill said quietly. “We were all here. Well, I left just before six. I had a yoga class, and it starts at six. It’s just down the street at Blossom. Benny and Var were still here when I left.”

“I think I was here until about six-thirty.” Var cleared his throat. “I-I went home. My group’s got a game-a virtual game-of Warlord going, and we played from about seven to ten. Benny was still here when I left, and he was already in when I got here at eight-thirty this morning.”

“I worked late and bunked here. Some of us were around until seven or eight-I don’t remember, but we can check the logs. I shut the place up, and worked until about one, then I crashed. None of us would hurt Bart. We’re family. We’re family.”

“They have to know.” Cill leaned her head on his shoulder a moment. “It’s one of the steps. You have to take the steps to get to the next level. If Bart let somebody into his holo, he trusted them, or…”

“Or,” Eve prompted.

“He was showing off.” Var’s voice broke, and once again he cleared his throat.

“What might he want to show off? What was he working on he’d want to take home, play with, show off?”

“We’ve got a lot of things in development,” Var told her. “A lot ready to roll out, others we’re fine-tuning. Bart took hard copies home a lot, to play them out, look for kinks and glitches and ways to pump it up. We all did.”

“Then he’d have logged it out?”

“He should have, yeah.” Var stared blankly. “Oh, I could check. I can go check.”