Any household with at least one feline member has no need for an alarm clock.
- Louise A. Belcher
Darwin and I were again in the back seat of a vehicle, racing towards the 3p dormitories. He was resting in the small patch of sunlight. My hand was lightly brushing his fur, reveling in our renewed connection. It was only a single night, but even so, I felt that a part of me had been missing.
Mehta was driving us to Selim's apartment. As a mid level scientist, Imanda had earned a small apartment with direct access to the exterior in the mid level Acora Village residence area. Most of the other employees shared a dorm room with at least one other employee. Three Planets Mining and Refining shared its residential section with four other companies: a small shipping and transport company, two separate energy firms, and an agricultural research conglomerate. I suspected that they were all part of the same umbrella corporation, but that fact had little bearing on my case, so I had no inclination to search it out.
We entered the gates of Acora Village in the late afternoon. Mehta used his pass to get us through. Looking through the rear window, I could see that the gate guards were recording and reporting the access. I had a bad feeling about this.
"Let's hurry this up," I said. "We are about to have some uninvited company. How far are we?"
"Another k or so," Mehta informed me.
"Stop here then."
Mehta, pulled the vehicle out of the traffic and slowed the vehicle to a stop. He looked over the seat to me. "What is going on?"
"I want to slow down our visitors. What is the nearest junction to lead to the same building?"
Mehta thought for a moment. "There really isn't one, except for maybe access for construction, but it is closed."
"Good. Get out, we're walking."
Darwin nudged my leg. I looked at him. "What is it?"
He headed to the back of the car and started walking away. He turned to look at me.
"Ok," I said. "Let me know if you see anything." He broke into a loping run and quickly disappeared.
Mehta had a curious look on his face. "He is going to watch for a tail." I smiled at my own humor, though it was lost on my audience. I let it drop.
Rummaging through my bag, I pulled out the false bottom and retrieved my flechette gun. It was a good gun. It had served me faithfully and well.
I turned to Mehta. "Do you have a gun?"
He shook his head, staring with fascination at the weapon I held in my hand. I looked once more with regret at my gun. Oh well, we all must make sacrifices. I pulled out the extra cartridges of flechettes I had packed as well and headed back to the vehicle.
Reaching under the driving console, I pulled open the access panel to reveal the small hydrogen reactor that powered the vehicle and removed the outer casing from the fuel cell. I took aim at the cell, then shot an explosive charge at its shell. The cell was dented but not ruptured. This would require a much more significant explosion.
"What are you doing?" Mehta said, alarmed. He had signed out the vehicle and was responsible for its return.
"A madman has overpowered you and has destroyed your vehicle."
"Destroyed? Wait, no you can't do that." I noticed that he did not argue the 'madman' part of my story.
"Get walking. Better yet, run. We aren't going to have much time alone. I will catch up."
He hesitated and I aimed my gun at him. "Now would be good."
He turned and started jogging down the road side of the road, vehicles passing him at a moderate speed.
I returned to the vehicle again, placing all of the flechettes with their tiny explosive charges up against the damaged fuel cell. Then the gun. Once it was in place, I reached in and pulled out its charge pack. With a sight, I banged the charge pack against the side of the car to reshape it. After a few hits I reversed then slid it back into the gun's slot.
I reached in and pulled the trigger, then closed the engine's cover to maximize the blast. The reversed cell would cause a feedback loop that would eventually cause a small explosion. This, in turn, would trigger the larger explosion of the flechettes, which hopefully would then cause a breach in the compromised fuel cell, and then a much larger explosion. It was crude, I will admit, but if it worked, it would be the distraction that I needed.
I pushed the vehicle back into the light traffic. The few vehicles that were going by swerved automatically to avoid the obstacle that was slowly drifting across the lanes. I started to jog down the road following Mehta, cars whizzing by me. I didn't hear the pop of my gun shorting out, but I thought I noted the bang of the flechettes. I definitely felt the shockwave of the exploding fuel cell, as all the traffic next to me came to a halt. I started running a full speed.
I finally caught up with Mehta as he was still jogging towards one of the clumps of houses. As I passed him, I called out behind me.
"Pick it up, we now have everyone's attention!"
As he caught up to me, Mehta spoke up through his panting.
"You wouldn't have really shot me, right?" he asked.
I still needed Mehta to show me where Selim lived. But I said nothing and sped up again.
"Less talking, more running."
He was muttering. "I can't believe you blew up my car."
"Shall we," I said impatiently. It wasn't terribly kind of me, but we were running out of time and I didn't not want to waste the little we had with explanations.
Mehta pointed to a clump of trees to the north-west, and I took off at a jog. He ran to catch up to me, and we jogged in silence for a few minutes. He led me across the network of paths to a small clump of about a dozen houses nestled in a canopy of old growth trees. Each house was designed to have a different appearance, giving the illusion of individuality. The 'neighborhood' was comprised of a mix of family types, carefully blended by Human Resources to provide the optimal mix of ages and abilities. A few of the houses were divided up into apartments, each with its own access to the outside.
Mehta ran directly to one of them and worked his way up a few steps. I could see that he was getting excited by the prospect of seeing Imanda again.
"Stop!" I called to Mehta as he reached up to key in a code. "Don't touch anything." I was beside him by this point and looking at the keypad. It showed no evidence of tampering, and neither did the door handle. Something was bothering me though. Something was off.
During our training as Finders, we had been thoroughly disciplined to pay attention to these inner feelings. They were, more often than not, triggered by imperceptible changes in the environment, small twitches of a facial muscle or a minute change in air pressure. Our bodies had been tuned to receive and focus on these 'impressions,' to pause and analyze what they meant, and then act from that information, trusting that whatever the outcome, we had followed the Flow.
I waited no more than a second to allow my brain to sort out what my body was telling it. Smell. My nose had picked up a stray molecule and had relayed that information. It was the smell of death.
"What is the code?" I asked Mehta quietly.
He looked at me with suspicion.
"You do not want to go in there. I can handle it, you cannot. The code. We do not have time."
"Five, star, three, six, three."
I waved him back down the stair. I pulled a shirt out of my bag and tied it around my nose and mouth. I really hate vomiting, it is involuntary and uncomfortable.
I keyed the door open and was greeted with a blast of fetid air. The shirt was filtering out some of the stench, but I still had to fight to keep my stomach under control. Someone had died here several days ago, and had been left to rot. I knew who it was without looking, but not everyone trusted their deductions the way I did.
I could hear Mehta violently throwing up at the bottom of the stairs as I entered Imanda's small apartment. It was as if it had be struck by a hurricane. Books, paper and pillows were scattered about the floor, chairs overturned and every soft surface slashed open. Someone had been searching for something. The completeness of the destruction made it likely that they did not find it.
It was the chair in the middle of the small seating area that had my full attention. Tied to it was a small woman, her head hanging down on her chest, her black hair mercifully covering her face. Her blouse had been cut open, leaving her chest exposed, and a vertical scratch from a knife could be seen between her breasts. Above her left breast a narrow horizontal gash had emptied her body of much of its blood, which had dried to nearly black on her stomach and skirts and had pooled around her feel.
I heard a sound at the door and turned to see Mehta running in. Some people never listen. Now this horrific scene would be the last memory he would have of Imanda, overriding all of the pleasant times, tainting the joy of their first meeting. He had not taken two steps into the room before having to turn and vomit noisily into a corner.
I removed the shirt from my face and tossed it to him so he could clean himself up. Then I ignored him, and began a search of the room for any sign of the identity of the attacker. There was something wrong here. There was too much chaos. I thought briefly of the destruction of my own home, the flames licking at the cushions and photos, reflected in Joanie`s eyes.
I dropped into trance and looked again. I could see two paths around the room. The newer one had a distinctly destructive pattern. This second intruder had created chaos for the sake of chaos. He was hiding something. Yes, he. Gregson had beaten me here and had destroyed the scene to prevent me, or some other Finder, from following.
I have already mentioned that we are approaching things differently now. This ability of mine to be able to trace the flow of cause and effect forward and backwards in time only developed after we had parted ways. I was pretty sure that he was confident that he had successfully masked any other traces left in the room. He was wrong.
I continued to follow the stream of cause and effect backward and came down to the killer's path. There was something familiar at this level, a touch I almost recognized. I stored that thought for later and started piecing together the first layer of destruction. There was no doubt that whoever had initially torn this place apart had found no physical evidence of what they were looking for. However, it was clear to me that the search had happened after the murder. Some of the pages and books had been thrown onto the pool of blood, rather than being on the floor then covered with it.
I turned over a few images that had been taken down and cut open. There were various shots of Imanda smiling with friends. I found one with her and Mehta standing in front of the spaceport, arms around each other. In the frame was an envelope which once held two travel vouchers, but now only had one. On a plaque embedded in the frame was an inscription that read "Two Tickets to Paradise!"
I walk over to Mehta and quietly handed him the picture. "Keep this. Get it fixed. Remember her on that day, not on this one."
He stared at the slashed image, curling the parts back into place, nodded then stepped to the door.
"Uh, Finder?" He looked at me, and pointed to the door.
I turned, and blocking half the doorway was Darwin. He also clearly didn't appreciate the stench in the room, but his presence at the door was all the information I needed.
"Thanks for the heads up." I said to Darwin. His arrival had warned me that company was coming. "You had better hide, old friend."