Charles Stross - Rule 34

As you approach the doors, the constable on duty moves to intercept you. You tag him with your ID, and his attitude changes instantly. “You’ll be wantin’ the ninth floor, Inspector.” His expression’s grim. “SOCO are already inside. Anything you need?”

“Do you have a positive ID on the victim?” you ask. It’s a long shot, but sometimes word of mouth spreads faster than CopSpace.

“Nothing I’ve heard. Sorry, Inspector…”

He’s clearly uncomfortable, so you get out of his face fast, past the wedged-open and sheeted-over door (they’ll be sniffing for DNA and fuming for fingerprints in due course) and into the lift. Fragments of blue evidence-capture gel, still tacky, adhere to the control face-plate. As it rattles and squeals its way up to the CS department, you idly roll a blob of gel between finger and thumb, then dispose of it in a jacket pocket. (One of the sundry expenses of your job: having your suits altered so that the pockets are real. A detective can never have too many pockets, your uncle Bert told you. He wasn’t wrong, but a quarter century later, the fashion industry still hasn’t caught on to the existence of female cops.) Kemal is tap-tapping one knuckle on the side of the lift.

The door opens.

SOCO have tubed the corridor in blue plastic, taping the end to the walls about a metre from the lift-shaft. They’ve deployed a couple of battered plastic gear crates as an improv boot barrier, and there’s a bunny-suited civvie waiting for you both with the necessary kit. It’s not a drill you forget easily: boots, gloves, mask. “Where’s the scene?” you ask.

“It’s in Room 509. Follow me.” You trail the crime-scene bunny down the blue plastic rabbit-hole. Bot-sized bulges whir and hum behind the billowing walls, moving slowly as they sample every nook and cranny, mapping and recording.

There’s an unpleasant taste in your mouth as you approach the cloacal end of the warren—the tubing stops abruptly just past MacDonald’s office. The open doorway of Room 509 is covered by a transparent blue caul. “Shit,” you mutter. Kemal picks up on it, too: You see him tense out of the corner of your peripheral vision.

“It’s all here,” says your Girl Guide, blinking innocent peepers that have seen far too much. She gestures at the opening. “We havena officially ID’d him, but if you can help—”

“We were here less than two hours ago,” you say. “Can I see?”

“Sure. We havena finished uploading the map into CopSpace though—there’s no much bandwidth in these old uni buildings—you’ll have to use your eyeballs.”

You approach the membrane and peer through it. Then, after a moment, you step aside and make room for Kemal.

You swallow bile. It’s Dr. MacDonald, of course. He’s slumped backwards in his chair, mottled bruises around his throat exposed to the tripedal camera bots as they delicately step around the room, scanning everything. Fumes of cyanoacrylate smoke rise from a fingerprint blower in one corner; blue laser light flickers as another robot systematically scans the dimensions of the room. There’s something wrong with MacDonald’s hands.

“I can ID him,” you say. “That’s Dr. Adam MacDonald, Department of Computer Science, Edinburgh University, and a person of interest to BABYLON. I interviewed him earlier this morning in this very office, less than two hours ago.”

“I, too,” Kemal adds. “What is wrong with his hands?”

Bunny-girl’s eyes narrow queasily. “Did you not see? The sick bastard who did this started to peel them. Used sodium hydroxide first, to hydrolyze the subcutaneous fat. I’ve never seen anything like it!”

You swallow. “Did you find the, uh, the…”

“Tha gloves? No luck so far. We’ll be looking, though. Maybe he wants them for biometrics.”

You take a deep breath. “Where’s everyone else? Up or down?”

“Up.” Bunny-girl points at the ceiling. “You’ll be wanting to take the stairs.”

Back over the boot barrier and up the stairs, you follow the blue police tape to a common room, where a handful of SOCOs and uniforms are busy working their drones. (Humans aren’t welcome in crime scenes these days: too much risk of evidence contamination.) The inspector in charge, DI Terry—you know her: efficient, good middle manager, married with two kids, not your type—comes over. “Liz. Inspector Aslan. What brings you here?”

“Dickie MacLeish thought we ought to look in, seeing we were here two hours ago to interview the deceased,” you say, taking no great pleasure in her abrupt reaction. “He’s Dr. Adam MacDonald, Department of Computer Science, Edinburgh University, and we were here to interview him as a possible material witness with knowledge bearing on the BABYLON investigation. I’m sorry, we had no idea someone was going to whack him like this. Otherwise, I’d have brought him into protective custody.”

“You’re certain it’s connected?” She raises an eyebrow behind her specs.

“Oh, come on ! How often—”

“Correlation does not imply causation,” Terry says drily. “Just saying. But I’m not betting against you: I just think we’ll need something more than coincidence before we hand it to the Procurator Fiscal.”

“Okay, how about this? Do we have the entrance security-camera footage yet?”

“It’ll be in the can as soon as the warrant’s signed off by the Sheriff’s Office. Give it another hour.” She looks as impatient as you feel.

“Oh. Well, then.” You spot Kemal opening his mouth, and add, “We’d better be going. We shouldn’t keep you. I’ll formally report the positive ID as soon as I get back to the office.”

“Excellent.” She turns her back on you: not being rude, just taking a call from higher up the totem pole.

“Inspector Kavanaugh, shouldn’t you—”

“Hold it.” You beckon Kemal back towards the staircase. “We have a connection. Are you ready to follow it?”

“John Christie. Yes? And the next person on his list is…”

“Our friend Mr. Hussein.”

Kemal is two steps ahead of you on the stairs, hurrying on down. You charge after him. “You think Christie is a fixer. For whoever is trying to stop ATHENA from arranging fatal accidents for netcrime nodes.”

“Whoever, or whatever.” You’re finding breath hard as you descend past the third floor. “I’m going to call Dickie. Let him know.” Your phone dials as you take the stairs two at a time. “Inspector—”

Dickie’s voice buzzes like a rusty dalek: “—eport. What’s BZZT situation?”

“Positive ID, the victim is MacDonald. Need the doorway-camera footage to be sure, but I believe the perpetrator is this Christie character. Preliminary ICIU legwork on MacDonald shows a relational connection to another person of interest, Anwar Hussein. I’m on my way there stat. Requesting backup.”

For a miracle, the voice channel is able to overcome the lack of bandwidth. “Backup? What for?”

“I believe our murderer is tidying up loose ends relating to BABYLON.” The full story will have to wait for a briefing room and a dog and pony show. “I think Hussein’s life is in danger, and I’ll be wanting a protective-custody order. Worst case, I may be walking in on another homicide scene.”

“You—” Even over the phone, you hear Dickie’s brain crunch into a different gear. “Roger.” Old-school, very old-school. “Okay, I’ll notify South Side Control that you’re in play and put someone onto the paper trail for—isna Hussein on probation? That’s a quick-and-dirty option if you need it. Call me when you get somewhere.”

“Thanks. Bye,” you gasp as you crunch down the final steps from first floor to ground, and stumble out into the lobby. Then it’s a quick march through the gaping doorway and out to your car, which is still sitting right where you immobilized it.