J. Robb - Fantasy in Death

She adjusted the screen, putting her two victims side-by-side.

Partners, she thought. Friends. Those words, those concepts meant different things to different people.

History, shared interests, trust, emotion, passion. All shared.

Shared business, profits, work, risks.

Both attacked during play, in their own secured homes. One dead, one hanging on by the skill and efforts of medical science-and maybe her own grit.

No weapons, no signs of forced entry, no trace other than the victims’.

Add the timing, yeah, add the timing in there, too.

People were always finding new ways to create and destroy, weren’t they? It’s what humans did. Technology was a tool, a convenience, and a weapon.

She walked over to answer the knock on the door. “Thanks for coming, Morris.”

“It’s nice to get out of the house now and then.”

He wore black, as he had every time she’d seen him since Coltraine’s death, but Eve took hope from the flash of the shimmering red tie that the leading edge of his grief had dulled.

“I need you to look at these pictures and the medical data, and give me your opinion on the cause.”

“I’d do better with the body.”

“Well, she’s not dead yet.”

“That’s fortunate for her. I might point out you’re in a hospital, and there are likely doctors wandering around who tend to serve and assess those not dead yet.”

“Yeah, the ones working on her are busy. And I don’t know them.” Trust, she thought again, the solid base of friendship. “What I’m looking for is your opinion on how this twenty-nine-year-old female incurred these injuries.”

She turned to the screen, ordered the image of Cill on the holoroom floor.

“Ah, well. Ouch. You say she’s alive?”

“So far.”

He moved closer, tilting his head. “If she lives, I hope she has an exceptional orthopedic surgeon on that leg. Enhance that for me. A bit more,” he said when she complied. “Hmm. Now down to the ankle, same leg,” he told her after a moment.

“You can run it. Take your time.”

As he went section by section, injury by injury, she swiped the Friggie for two tubes of Pepsi.

He grunted in thanks, and continued. “You have her scans?”

“Yeah.” Eve ordered them on-screen, then rested a hip on the desk as he studied, as he worked.

“She’ll need the god of all neuros,” he murmured. “And even then I’m afraid I might see her on my table. The head injuries are the worst, and the rest is very nasty. If she gets her miracle, they’ll have to replace that kidney at some point, and the spleen, and she’ll require extensive PT for the leg, the arm, the shoulder. She’s got a lot of work ahead of her. Brain damage is another risk she faces. She may live, but it may not be a blessing. Still, it’s a wonder she didn’t snap her spine in a fall like this.”

“A fall.” Eve all but leaped on it. “Not a beating.”

“A fall,” he repeated. “The contusions, the breaks, the lacerations aren’t consistent with a beating, but a fall. She landed primarily on her back, with the impact shattering that elbow and twisting the leg with enough force to break the bone. A hard, uneven surface, I’d say from the type of injuries. Broken concrete, rocks, something of that order.”

He glanced back at Eve. “I’m sorry. Where was she found again?”

“Here.” Eve brought the image back on-screen, watched Morris frown.

“A smooth surface. She didn’t incur those injuries by taking a tumble on that floor.”

“Could she have been moved, and dumped here?”

He shook his head. “I don’t see how she would have lived through it. Look at the blood pool. She certainly would have bled profusely at the point of impact. Moving her would mean more blood loss. Added to this? No, I don’t see how that could be.”

He took a drink from the tube, frowned again. “This is annoying. I feel I’ve let you down. Let me go through the scans and data again.”

“No, you haven’t let me down. Your findings mesh with mine.”

“Do they?” He angled away from the screen, taking another sip as he looked at Eve. “Are we going to explain to each other how this twenty-nine-year-old female managed to fall onto a smooth surface and incur injuries consistent with a fall of-I’d say-at least twenty feet onto a rough and uneven one?”

“Sure. After I get someone to explain it to me.”

“Well, I love a mystery. Still, I hope she lives so she can tell you herself. It’s rare, if ever, you and I consult over someone with a pulse. Tell me more about her.”

“She’s one of the partners of my last victim.”

“Ah. The head job. Holo-room.” He gestured to the screen. “And this would be a holo-room as well.”

“It would. Hers. In her apartment, which was secured. She was, by the evidence on-scene, playing the same game, though it may have been another scenario, as the first vic.”

“Consistency is often an advantage. Burns? Does she have internal burns at the site of the injuries?”

“I don’t know yet.”

“Let me look at the scans again, enhanced. If we can get a strong enough picture, I might find them. I wasn’t looking before.”

“Help yourself. It used to be you had to do everything on a comp by hand, right? Fingers on keyboard only. No voice commands, no smart screens.”

“When I was a medical student we keyboarded nearly everything, and had only just begun to use palm scans routinely for diagnostics. Holo wasn’t yet considered reliable or cost-effective for teaching or diagnostics. I remember as a boy we-ah, look here. Do you see this?”

She moved closer to the screen. “What am I supposed to see?”

“Along the leg fracture-the shadows? Dots really. So small, so faint. But there.”

“Burns.”

“I’ll give you five to ten. See, yes, see, there all over her. Every point of impact, every wound, difficult to separate as she’s so badly damaged. This, here, yes, here, on this shoulder wound, they show more clearly.”

“Where he cut her.”

“I agree it could very well be a knife wound. Or, like your previous victim, a sword. I’d want to see it in the flesh, so to speak, take measurements, do an analysis, but from a visual like this, a sharp blade. And the burns-those minute internal singes. Fascinating.”

“She’d have been armed, too. But she wouldn’t have known it.”

“Sorry? How would she not know?”

Eve shrugged, her eyes on the scan. “Just a whacked theory I’m working on.”

The door opened. “Dallas. Oh, hey, Morris. Ah, you’re a little early,” Peabody said to him. “The vic’s coming out of surgery. The doctor’s coming out in a minute to give us the picture.”

“I need to shut down here, then I’m on my way.”

“I’m interested in your theory, whacked or not,” Morris said when the door closed. “When you’re ready to share.”

“I need to run it by another expert. You’ve made it seem a little less whacked.”

“Always happy to help.” He glanced at the screen before Eve shut down. “I hope I don’t have the pleasure of meeting her.”

“The human body stays pretty much the same, right? Technology changes and science advances. This one? She started out tough, so that’s her advantage. Now it’s up to technology and science to pull it out.”

“Not just the body, but the spirit. Technology and science don’t hold a candle to the human spirit. If hers is strong enough, she may stay not dead yet.”

The partners paced now, wearing a groove in opposite sides of the room. If she’d gone by visual alone, she’d have concluded both were utterly exhausted, holding on by those thin threads of hope, faith, and desperation.