- Kylaer
- Aug 4, 2007
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I'm SURE walking around in a respirator at all times in an (even more) OPEN BIDENing society is definitely not a recipe for disaster and anyone that's not cool with getting harassed by CHUDs are cave dwellers. I've got good brain!
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I finally finished a thing, here's Doc Eldar #10:
quote:Let me tell you a little story about the most terrifying boss I've ever had. It's a story of an unusual time, during which my boss was under the oversight of someone other than his usual superior, the Monsignor Jeremias, rogue trader and shipmaster of the Ebenezer Majd. Under the oversight of an agent of the Inquisition, no less - despite the fact that my boss was an alien. And since my boss was temporarily in service of an inquisitor, I too was expected to operate with the Inquisition, which was no easy prospect to swallow, considering that by all rights they should have wanted both my boss and myself executed. But where the xeno went, I followed, as my role demanded. I'm fortunate that the demands on me never included actually being able to pronounce said boss's name, as it ever remained beyond my ability to grasp. I called him Doc Eldar.
The Inquisitorial team to which I found myself attached had arrived on the ship via an unmarked shuttle, a civilian model that would have been hard to distinguish from any number of similar vessels in Rihak's orbital zone. The only thing that stood out about it, in fact, was that it sat in the middle of an otherwise completely empty docking bay, in the stern portside wing - considering that the Ebenezer Majd was engaged in its typical orbital business, to have a whole docking bay all but empty was highly unusual. I was relieved, though, that the other inquisitor and his followers must have used a different docking bay, as we saw no further sign of them.
There wasn't any discussion during our walk to the docking bay. I used the time to eye the band to which the xeno and I had become attached. Hirkan and his team had dressed and acted like soldiers - with matching fatigues and body armor - but this was a dissimilar bunch. The inquisitor who led them, as I'd suspected from her voice, was not young. Her hair was going iron-grey, and I put her at late middle age, at a minimum - and older, perhaps much older, if she'd been the recipient of juvenant treatments. She wore a pistol on her right hip and a basket-hilted cutlass on her left, and her stride betrayed not the slightest bit of concern that she was walking with Doc Eldar keeping pace with her, a meter or so to her right.
If the others in the group were maintaining a formation, it was one I didn't recognize. There was a young man in a neatly-kept uniform, without insignia, walking a few strides behind and to the left of the inquisitor; he had a data-dendrite hanging from behind his right ear, snaking down into his collar, and an overgrown autopistol like some gendarmes carried was slung from a strap over his shoulder. He glanced around as we walked, and his eyes would linger on the xeno, but he didn't focus exclusively on him - unlike the man who walked on the other edge of the group. This man was older, maybe in his late thirties, and his attention never left Doc Eldar. His hands never left the grips of the pistols he wore on each hip, either.
A few strides further back, not quite even with each other, were two figures in robes. One was a Mechanicus adept, in a close-fitting working robe, paneled in red and white and trimmed in gold. This adept was so heavily augmented that I could not tell whether they were male or female. Their face was covered in a bronze mask, or maybe their face was the bronze mask, and the mask was not detailed, showing only vague approximations of human features, nothing that gave away any clue of the wearer's origin. The adept had a heavy-lift mechadendrite sprouting from below their right arm, and this was flexed behind their back with its manipulator claw fastened around the stock of an enormous rifle. In lieu of a sling, I suppose.
The last figure was even more of a mystery. Their white robes were voluminous, some kind of ultra-light fabric that billowed with the slightest air movement. The hem of their robe dragged the ground, their sleeves dangled low to conceal their hands, and their hood was fronted with a sheer veil, showing nothing of what was behind it. They walked so smoothly that they seemed to drift over the deck.
Doc Eldar may have accepted all this without a blink, but walking in the midst of the band, I felt like a mouse surrounded by felines. These people, I was convinced, were as dangerous as humans could be; not only Inquisition, but senior Inquisition, in order for their leader to have made Hirkan back down like she had. I had to wonder if even the xeno's nonchalance was an act. Could he really be that sure of himself, surrounded by these people?
After we had all boarded the shuttle, and the hatch had sealed behind us, the conversation began.
"There have been a series of murders planetside," the inquisitor said without preamble, addressing the xeno. "Murders sufficiently unusual that the local constabulary brought them to my attention. The Constable-General was concerned that they might be the work of aliens."
"Am I being brought in as a consultant? Or a scapegoat?" Doc Eldar's voice betrayed no emotion. "I follow the stipulations of nonviolence as specified in my contract, but a false accusation that surely would carry an attached death sentence would render that contract null and void."
The man with the pair of pistols bristled at the xeno's words, but didn't draw. I could see, though, that he clearly wanted to.
"No need for veiled threats," the inquisitor answered, with a slight wave of her fingers. "The murders began before the arrival of the Ebenezer Majd, so you aren't a suspect. Also, remember this: I know exactly what your kind is capable of. And I know that Pax can handle you." She inclined her head in the direction of the fully-robed figure.
"Psyker?" The xeno glanced briefly at the figure before returning his attention to the inquisitor. "I do carry wards."
The inquisitor gave a smile that had no mirth in it whatsoever. "Not a psyker."
Doc Eldar paused, then took a deep breath, nostrils twitching. "One of them? Interesting."
I felt the deck plates shiver beneath my feet as the shuttle lifted off. The cabin of the little craft was less crowded than a typical model would have been. There were only a dozen seats, in two rows facing each other, and since each of them had heavy cushioning and a five-point restraint harness instead of the usual lap-belt, I presumed that the vessel was capable of more impressive acrobatics than it would have appeared from the outside. The rest of the space held racks and cages of equipment, and the iris hatch to the pilot compartment was sealed.
The Mechanicus adept locked their rifle into a waiting slot in one of the wall racks, and made their way to a seat. "Places, everyone," they said, in a voice as artificial as their face, gesturing at the seats. Something about the movement struck me as feminine, and in the absence of any evidence to the contrary, I decided to think of the adept as...if not a woman, then someone who had been a woman once.
The inquisitor took a seat in the middle of one of the rows, and Doc Eldar sat opposite her; I took the seat to the xeno's left, my customary position when operating as his surgical assistant, and the remainder of the group chose seats quickly thereafter. The man whose hands stayed on his guns buckled himself in three seats to the xeno's right - out of arm's reach, and with an unobstructed line of fire. The pitch of the engine noises had been climbing, but I hadn't felt any definite sense of motion overcoming the artificial gravity. Definitely a very well-tuned vessel.
"How long have the killings been underway?" Doc Eldar asked.
"The earliest definite incident was forty-one days ago. The constabulary didn't realize the pattern was out of the ordinary until nine days later, and Hiram has sifted their records and found four more possibly-related incidents going back another twelve days." She nodded at the young man, who picked up the thread.
"The killings have taken place in the city's slums, and the victims have largely been taken from the underclass. The majority of them have carried criminal records, or at least suspicions, of their own. Two of the four possibles, based on the records that exist, are likely unrelated to the current case, but the other two are strongly indicative." He paused for a moment. "Unfortunately, the bodies received only a cursory forensic workup before they were cremated."
"How many have been killed?"
"Twenty-eight that are unequivocally part of the pattern," Hiram replied.
"That've been found," the older man cut in. "That the constables haven't picked up more bodies doesn't mean that there aren't more bodies."
Based on his accent, I was pretty confident he was from Mazaeus, and there was a pressure behind his words, as if he was anxious to finish speaking in order to get on to something more important. The younger man didn't have any accent I could detect, and his diction was very precise. The inquisitor herself had an accent, but it was one I didn't recognize.
The xeno looked at the Mazaean, not seeming to care how it caused his fingers to twitch against his weapons. "You doubt the efforts of the local constabulary?"
"They're reactive, not proactive. They let problems fester instead of burning them out when they're fresh. A string of unusual murders and they don't tie them together until the killer takes out a deep-cover officer and makes them take a second look at all the bodies showing up with -"
"Ollif." The inquisitor's voice carried a weight that belied its lack of volume. "Our consultant will draw his own conclusions after viewing the evidence."
"Is there a body currently available to examine?" The xeno seemed to enjoy challenges, and this would be one unlike that of a surgery, even a critical trauma.
"The latest victim was found eleven hours ago. The body was moved to the morgue, but a detailed autopsy has not been performed," the inquisitor answered. "We already know what will be found."
Doc Eldar's eyes were bright.
The shuttle took us directly to the central headquarters of the constabulary - a building I'd had brief experience with not long before, experience I had no desire to repeat. No-one seemed to notice me as we made our way from the landing platform to the depths of the building where the morgue was located. I'm sure compared to a band of inquisitorial operatives and an alien, a mundane fugitive deserved no attention whatsoever.
Morgues are morgues, wherever you go. The same metal-and-tile construction, designed with ease of cleaning as its utmost purpose; the same smell, never fully eliminated despite all the cleaning. The staff had laid out the body for our inspection before our arrival, and no-one had stayed to greet us. The morgue orderlies had as little desire to be in contact with this crew as I did, but unlike me, they got their wish.
The corpse awaiting us was that of an adult male - his skin had been pale even in life, and his hair nearly as much so. His paleness contrasted with a number of tattoos, most of them done in dark ink, but two done in phosphorescent shades of green and blue.
Doc Eldar paced near to the exam table, eyes darting back and forth. He began reeling off information as if he had a chart to read from. "Twenty-seven years old. One hundred and seventy-six centimeters tall. He would mass sixty-eight kilos if he had blood in him. Time of death, thirteen to fifteen hours ago. He has evidence of previous injuries. A knife wound," he aimed a finger at a narrow scar on the man's left forearm, "sutured by an amateur, approximately six years ago. A bullet wound here," this time indicating the man's right calf, "two and a half years ago. Also not professionally treated." He raised his gaze to the watching team. "Do any records exist pertaining to him?"
"He has been detained on multiple occasions over the past twelve years for involvement in gang-related activity," Hiram offered. "No convictions of significance. Latest arrest was five years ago."
"How expensive are these tattoos?" the xeno asked, gesturing at the faintly-glowing marks under the corpse's left eye and spiraling down his right arm.
Hiram blinked, apparently unprepared to answer that, but Ollif had the information ready. "Pricey. Most of his look homemade, but those illuminated jobs are professional, and the ink's not cheap."
"Yes, his death will not have gone unnoticed," the inquisitor added, seeing the track the xeno was taking. "Constabulary detectives are still searching for his associates. They will be found."
"Go ahead and tell us your opinion of his fatal wound," Ollif growled.
Doc Eldar draped the corpse's left arm across his torso, exposing a ragged incision, looking to me like a slash or a very wide stab.
"This is a ballistic wound," he said after examining the injury for a heartbeat or so. "The projectile is four centimeters across and two and a half millimeters thick. Impact velocity between three hundred and ten and three hundred and twenty-five meters per second. The shooter was behind, to the left, and slightly above the level of the victim." He unfurled a trauma roll and produced a long, slender pair of forceps. After a few seconds of probing into the wound, he withdrew a disc - I couldn't tell what it was made of through the coating of clotted blood, but it had a wave-shaped edge like that of a circular saw's blade.
"You can see why the Constable-General suspected nonhuman involvement," the inquisitor said. "And also why I do not."
The xeno gave a nod, wiggling the disc back and forth with the forceps. "The projectile is made of steel. An unusual weapon, but not one produced by my kind. More significantly, this kill lacks art. The projectile partially transected both the descending aorta and the left atrium, and death occurred within seconds. This murderer is merely making a tally, not savoring each kill to the utmost. This is the work of a human."
The Mechanicus adept spoke for the first time since her brief words in the shuttle. "The microcrystalline structures of the discs I have examined show signs of being subjected to strong magnetic fields. I suspect the weapon is an electromagnetic catapult, operating at subsonic velocity as you estimated. A very quiet device, albeit with a short effective range."
There was a faint click as Doc Eldar placed the disc on the exam table beside the corpse. "Any other information that was obtained from examining the projectiles?"
"Yes. Composition analysis shows that the discs used in the most recent five killings were formed of steel originating here on Rihak. The earlier killings used steel foreign to this planet."
"Have you identified their world of origin?"
"They're from Ytrim Tertius," the inquisitor answered. "Falc made a definitive isotope match, we had samples to compare against. Rihak is not the first planet where this killer has struck, nor the first where we have hunted them."
Doc Eldar's teeth began to show between his lips. "So we are hunting a murderer capable of interstellar travel, equipped with esoteric and - for humankind - advanced technology, who stalks the underclass and kills with no obvious reason or pattern. A murderer who has already demonstrated the ability to elude a determined and skilled pursuit. I am intrigued."
I didn't miss the "we" in his statement. Nor, from her expression, did the inquisitor.
"Other than the constabulary, what resources are at your disposal?" the xeno continued. "Inquisitor Hirkan and his team?"
The inquisitor shook her head. "Silus is here for reasons of his own, unrelated to this investigation. If I asked him for assistance, I expect he would lend his support, even with our recent disagreement - he's a good man to have at your side when you're taking down a door with hostiles behind it. But he's still in need of a few scars' worth of learning...one less, perhaps, after his encounter with you. I do have a sanctionite, but he's proven to be of little help with this investigation - no evidence of psyker activity at any of the scenes, no witch-trails to follow."
The xeno nodded. "Then until there is a fresh scene to investigate, or the constables discover a lead, I will spend time reviewing the existing information. I will need access to the constabulary databanks, and I request -" with a very careful emphasis on that word, I noted "- your own records, including the material gathered on Ytrim."
"Falc and Hiram can provide you with what you need," she said.
She led Ollif and the silent, robed figure away, while the tech-adept and Hiram walked with us on another route through the building, to a mid-sized rectangular room with a pair of data terminals at one end.
"These have unrestricted access to the departmental records," Hiram said, gesturing at the terminals. "I will be able to provide you with our own data as soon as I finish compartmentalizing."
The xeno raised one of the terminals to his working height, nudging aside the intended chair, and set to his task. I tried looking past his shoulder to see what he was reading, but the documents flickered past too fast for me to pick up anything, save a few picts taken of crime scenes, strobing on and off the screen.
Falc and Hiram had taken seats at the table running down the center of the room. He still had his slung autopistol, but the tech-adept had left her rifle in its rack; regardless, I was certain that she was not unarmed, not with all the potential for concealment of weapons offered by her robes. The young man was gazing at the far wall, eyes fixed on nothing in particular, but Falc looked at me and gestured at one of the other chairs.
"You may sit if you wish," she said, her speech clearly enunciated but equally clearly having no organic parts involved in its creation. "Do you have any devices in need of maintenance?" she continued, as I pulled out a chair of my own.
"No, magos, I don't," I replied. My only piece of technomantic gear had been a pict recorder, and I'd lost that, along with the rest of my vacation luggage. I hadn't thought of it until now, and the realization actually stung - not just for the money I'd have to spend to acquire a new one, but because I'd have to learn the new machine's temperament, when I'd already grown accustomed to mine over several years. My recorder had balked at capturing vids, constantly losing focus on a moving subject, but it loved taking still picts of planets from orbit. It rendered the colors of oceans and continents more vividly than they appeared to the naked eye, and a replacement might not be so eager.
She gave a one-shouldered shrug and spread her hands on the table's surface. She had, I noticed, six digits on her left and only four on her right, and all ten were augmetic. None of the adepts that I'd ever encountered among the ship's enclave had gone through such a complete replacement of their flesh. "Acolyte Roundtree is better at conversation with outsiders than I," she said.
I figured she was trying to be friendly, so I sought a topic that would be neutral, something unrelated to the task at hand. My stomach, at that time, gave me an inspiration, as it reminded me how long it'd been since I'd eaten anything. "Would there be anything that I could eat around here, magos?" I asked.
"Eat? Oh, yes, food. I need very little organic nutrition, but there is a cafeteria for the constabulary data-workers one level above us. You can find nutrients there." She handed me a ident card, with "Special Consultant" and a reader code on the front, and gestured to the door. "We will be here when you return." That I would return went without saying.
I found the cafeteria without difficulty, and no-one took a second look at my card. I guessed consultants must have been commonplace here in the headquarters. I took a tray, selected a vegetable salad and a sandwich filled with some kind of thick, savory nutrient paste, and passed over the dessert cake in favor of a bowl of fruit. Fruit was a rarity on the ship; some of the ship's hydroponic gardens grew a variety of fruit species, but their output was nearly all reserved for high officers and luxury-class passengers. I didn't think the items on my tray were fresh from the farm - frozen and transported in from one of the planet's agricultural zones, more likely - but any fruit was something to savor.
Nobody seemed to care as I left with the tray, either. The cafeteria wasn't busy at that hour, I could have taken a seat well away from any of the other diners, but I didn't want to give the Inquisition any extra time to start wondering about where I was.
The tableau in the room had changed slightly from the time I had left. Falc was still seated, working on a device which was disassembled on the table before her, but the xeno was now standing next to Hiram, holding a dataslate in his hands. The dendrite that trailed from the side of the young man's head was plugged into the slate, and his expression remained blank. None of the three said anything as I entered, so I sat and began eating my meal.
As I was starting on the fruit, Doc Eldar placed the dataslate on the table and looked at the Mechanicus adept. "I have identified patterns," he said.
"Excellent," Falc replied. "Describe what you have found. We can compare how your views agree and differ with our own."
Hiram unplugged himself from the dataslate as she was speaking, his expression returning to alertness. "Some of the information we have is incomplete," he added. "Particularly on the killings that occurred here prior to the constabulary recognizing what was going on."
"From the information available, these patterns stand out," the xeno continued, pacing around to the far side of the table, to face the Inquisitorial operatives. "Each identified killing has been committed on a victim who was outdoors, in an area where the buildings extend at least four stories above the surface."
"Low-income habitation districts," Hiram agreed, nodding. "The killer has been very consistent in keeping to these areas, and the habitation blocks are usually built on a standard plan - here, that's a six-level hollow rectangular design. On Ytrim they were solid squares and ranged from four to ten levels."
"Yet the killer has not given evidence of entering into shantytowns or areas of severe poverty where the high buildings have been demolished." The xeno's eyes narrowed. "Despite the availability of victims. And of the killings where autopsy results are able to indicate the location of the shooter, the victim has always been shot from above."
Falc reached along the table, retrieved the dataslate, and brought up a diagram - a wireframe outline of a building, a human silhouette on the ground before it, and arcing trajectories leading back to a cluster of windows on the building's third and fourth floors. "We have noticed this as well. This is reconstructed from a killing that occurred two days ago. We searched all the habs that could have held the shooter, without finding a trace of anything abnormal."
"Yes, I saw that report, and those from the other sites. You have searched thoroughly in each building that may have held the killer." He paused for a moment. "In each building." He pointed at the dataslate, circling his finger to encompass the targeted windows and their surrounding walls. "What of the outside of the building?"
"That murder was witnessed by twenty-six bystanders," Hiram said. "I'm sure you saw each of their depositions. It was late afternoon and none of them saw any sign of the killer."
Doc Eldar began to show the barest hint of a smile. "None of them saw the killer. What do you think about the timing pattern that the killer has demonstrated?"
"There is no identifiable pattern," Falc answered. "The killer has struck in both broad daylight and the middle of the night."
"Day and night, yes, those seem to make no difference. But sunrise and sunset, those periods are avoided. While the sun is within twenty degrees of the horizon, by my calculation."
Hiram shook his head. "Your pattern has holes in it. Victim sixteen was killed just after dawn, and victims twenty and twenty-three were killed at dusk."
The xeno's smile widened. "What was the weather at the time of those killings?"
"Heavy clouds and rain," said Falc. Her bronze features were incapable of showing emotion, but Hiram's eyebrows were rising.
"My conclusions are these," Doc Eldar stated. "The killer is using some form of active camouflage, enabling him or her to hide from view while employing the outsides of buildings as hunting perches. This camouflage is in some way vulnerable to disruption or failure in an unfavorable angle of incoming light."
Falc and Hiram exchanged glances. "The inquisitor needs to be informed of this immediately," the young man said.
I ate the last piece of my fruit, glad to have been able to finish it before needing to hurry back into action.
The inquisitor and Ollif, it turned out, had left the building. We were told that the constables had found some of the most recent victim's associates, and they had gone to see what information could be obtained from them. As we boarded the constabulary grav-car, our driver told us that we would be meeting them at one of the outlying precinct stations.
We never got there. The killer we were hunting decided to interrupt our plans.
Falc was the first to know. She leaned forward and addressed the driver: "Prepare to divert course. The vox net is reporting an incident." She must have had an implanted receiver, as I hadn't heard anything.
"What's happened?" the constable asked. "Nothing's come through on the dispatch channel yet."
"A patrolling servo-skull picked up weapons' fire on audio. It's now on-scene and the casualty appears to match our injury pattern."
"Audible shots?" the xeno said. "The victim must have lived long enough to return fire. Clumsy of our killer."
Moments later, the official word came from the dispatcher, asking our vehicle to report to the new scene. The rest of the team, we were told, would meet us at the site.
The grav-car descended, heading for another of the low-income hab districts. I could see the strobes of other constabulary vehicles already onscene, and a flight of servo-skulls circled above the buildings as we settled to the pavement.
Hiram took the lead as we left the vehicle. Two constabulary vehicles had arrived before ours, one a wheeled groundcar, the other a grav-cycle. The pair of constables were securing the scene, holding their pistols as they tried to keep eyes on every angle. There were many angles to watch - the street was long and narrow, and the looming habs turned it into a canyon. The early-afternoon sun overhead was bright, and near the equator as we were, only scant shadows were anywhere to be seen.
"Hiram Roundtree, agent, Ordo Hereticus," he said by way of introduction as he approached the closer of the constables. Neither of them showed surprise at the proclamation, so I supposed that the Inquisition's involvement in the case must have been known throughout the department. "Your preliminary report?"
"One fatality, right there," she said, pointing at a figure slumped on the sidewalk. "No bystanders or witnesses were present by the time of our arrival. I'm sure there must be inhabitants in some of these habs who saw it, but canvassing will take time. I caution you, sir, that we cannot say the scene has been adequately secured yet."
Doc Eldar slid forward, ignoring the constable's warning. His eyes flicked back and forth across the scene.
"Male, age thirty-two, time of death six and a half minutes ago, suspect cause of death to be injury to the heart and great vessels delivered through a projectile wound located one centimeter to the left of the sixth thoracic vertebra. An identical projectile to the other, I believe. The shooter was located..." He scanned around him, taking in the surroundings, then pointed a finger at a spot between the third and fourth floors of another hab building on the same side of the street, some forty or fifty meters away. "There."
I looked at the corpse. He was only slightly less pale than the victim I'd seen in the morgue, and wore loose clothing, which emphasized the unnatural sprawl of his limbs - no living person except in the deepest unconsciousness would lie like that. Nothing seemed remarkable about his clothing, but he wore a heavy woven-polymer belt, and something about it seemed out of place to me. As I stared, I realized that what was out of place was that he didn't even have loops on his pants for the belt to fit into. So if the belt wasn't for holding his clothing, it had to be for holding something else.
The xeno was standing in the middle of the street, surveying the building where he suspected the shot had been fired from; the two Inquisitorial operatives were beside him, and the constables were setting up warning strobes to keep bystanders away from the scene.
There was something fastened to the man's belt, along his left hip, nearly covered by the hem of his shirt. I lifted the hem, carefully, and something rattled against the pavement as the cloth moved - I picked it up and saw that it was a micro energy capacitor, barely the size of the last joint of one of my fingers, such as might power a pocket luminator or a child's toy. There were at least a dozen of the things, spilling from an open pouch made of the same stiff material as the belt.
The rush of air accompanying a grav-car's descent heralded the arrival of the rest of the team. The inquisitor disembarked some distance away, to avoid disturbing the scene with engine-wash, but made her way with haste to join us, Ollif stalking beside her and the robed figure drifting a few paces behind.
"Those divots in the wall are fresh," the xeno was saying to Falc as I approached. "The killer anchored themselves there."
"I cannot see them from here. One moment." She stood still, and I wondered what she was waiting for - then I realized one of the patrolling servo-skulls had changed its pattern, swooping close to the building to bring its sensors to bear. "Yes, you are correct. Four impact points. Quite shallow penetration into the rockcrete, not enough to support any significant weight. Do you see any other anchor sites?"
"No. An interesting data point."
The inquisitor had gotten close enough to speak without raising her voice. "You've found the location of the shooter? Does it confirm your theories? Falc relayed your conclusions to us as we were en route."
"The killer was located on the outside of the building when the shot was fired, that is definite." Doc Eldar said. "The active camouflage has not yet been confirmed."
"Was the victim armed?" the inquisitor continued. "At least one person was returning fire."
"There were no weapons present at the time of our arrival," one of the constables answered.
"He had a belt pouch full of these," I said, holding out the capacitor. "Seems unusual."
Ollif needed only a glance at the thing. "So he was armed. If his gun's gone, it's because someone took it."
"Explain." The xeno's voice showed intrigue.
"He must have had a las-lock. Flashers, poplights, lots of local names for them. You take a las-cutter, the kind any workshop has a dozen of, and jury-rig a weapon out of it. Converting it to use a portable power supply's the hard part, a weapons-grade cell isn't easy to find. So you set up a siphon to work off those little cells, drain all the energy at once. You can get enough of a pulse to put a hole in someone, sure, but you need a new cell for each shot."
"Did the cells spill, or did you open the pouch?" the inquisitor asked.
"It was open." I had to force out the reply, as being the subject of the woman's attention made me want to sink into the ground and vanish. She wasn't physically intimidating, but her voice and sheer presence made Ollif - who was a dangerous man, if my instincts were at all correct - seem tame in comparison.
She began scanning the buildings again, thankfully looking away from me. "It would seem likely, then, that he was reloading. So, where did he shoot? The audio feed picked up three weapon reports - where are the impacts?"
Doc Eldar found them before Falc and her servo-skulls could. The trio of burned pockmarks were on the third-story wall of a building about a hundred meters away, in the direction the victim had been running from - on the opposite side of the street as the shooter had been located at the time of the kill.
"There were two discarded power cells between the dead man and here," the xeno said. "In conclusion, three locals saw something they believed deserved shooting. They all missed. Unsurprising. They then ran, reloading as they went. I consider my theories about both the active camouflage and its limitations confirmed."
"How can you be sure?" I asked.
He pointed at a spot on the pavement. "That was where one of them was standing when they shot. Look at what they would have seen."
I put myself on the place he'd indicated and stared up and across the street, at the faint marks of fire on the wall. The wall itself was bare, but there was a partly-opened window just above and beyond it, and the glass threw back a glint of reflection from the sun.
One of Falc's servo-skulls hummed past me. The adept herself was standing in the street, the rest of the band in a loose cluster around her. I saw Hiram point at the spot where the impacts had struck, then at the spot where the fatal shot had been fired from. It emphasized just how much distance was between them. The xeno was walking to join them, and so I followed.
"So our quarry's not only invisible, they're also flying," Ollif remarked, his voice full of false cheer.
"Not true flight, I suspect," Falc replied. "More likely subtotal gravity nullification, a suspensor system of some type. Which explains the weakness of their anchors. But they do apparently need the anchors and cannot levitate freely."
"Which doesn't help in finding them. They can dance all over the city and if we can't find some way to track them, they'll laugh at us until it's time for their flight offworld. Again."
"Could their suspensor have an energy signature you could track?" The inquisitor addressed her question to the Mechanicus adept, sidelining Ollif's growing anger.
"If I could scan them once at close range, yes." Falc shook her head. "If I were close enough to scan them, I would be close enough to capture them."
"There are factors on our side," the xeno said. "Specifically, that the killer we seek is curious about our pursuit, and is confident in the supremacy of their technological advantages."
The inquisitor eyed him. "In other words, the killer is watching us now."
Doc Eldar gave a slight nod. It is a tribute to the discipline of the inquisitor and her team that none of them startled, or showed any change of posture at this revelation. I felt my skin start crawling, as I imagined one of those serrated discs flying my way, but I kept my place, maintaining the charade that we didn't know we were being observed.
"Why did you delay sharing this information?" she continued.
"I wanted to see what else could be learned from the scene first. Knowing that the killer has a suspensor system changes the pursuit options, does it not?"
"Where are they?"
The xeno pointed at a random spot on the pavement a few meters away. "Sixty meters past the victim's body, this side of the street, on the building with the orange trim around its windows. They are just on the far side of a fifth-floor window that has one green curtain and one blue curtain."
"Thirty seconds," Falc announced, without any context.
The inquisitor, apparently, needed none. "We'll need cover for the initial moment." She began walking back towards the grav-car she'd arrived in, and everyone fell in behind her.
"Handled," the tech adept said. "And if the killer attempts to flee above the roofline, I will shoot."
"Better alive than dead, but better dead than escaped," Hiram agreed. He tapped his autopistol. "At this range, the rest of us can't support you without endangering bystanders inside the buildings. But I will be ready if needed."
The flock of servo-skulls, I noticed, had vanished.
"Pax," the inquisitor said, very quietly. "Can you take the target?"
"Not...alive." the robed figure replied. I thought it was a woman's voice, but there was something strange in her tone, and her speech was thick as if from long disuse.
"Can you assist, alien?" The inquisitor cut her eyes briefly over to Doc Eldar.
He was showing all his teeth. "I hoped you would ask. Yes."
We had by this time reached the grav-car. The constable who had piloted it had left, to assist the others in completing the perimeter, and its engines were silent. The inquisitor put her hand on the door lever. "Ready, Falc?"
"In position," the adept replied.
"Now."
Falc took a lunging stride towards the grav-car, sinking into a crouch as she did, one knee planted on the pavement. She gripped the bottom edge of the vehicle's frame with both hands and, without apparent effort, tipped it up onto its side - metal screeched and the windows on the down side cracked, but it created a barrier large enough for all of us to duck behind. The adept's lifter dendrite shifted, bringing her rifle around to her front, and she transitioned smoothly into a firing position - an unusual firing position, the rifle held above her own head, so that only it and her hands were exposed above our cover. I had a moment to wonder how she could aim, then I noticed the data-dendrite running from the corner of her right eye to the rifle's scope.
"Target is fleeing. Staying low," she reported after a moment, rising as she spoke to take a more conventional shooting position. Hiram rose beside her, a shoulder brace unfolded from his autopistol, and the inquisitor and Ollif stood as well.
I peeked over the upended grav-car. The servo-skulls hovered in a clump, far down the street, their warning strobes flaring in the red and yellow of the constabulary. And between them and us, there was something, someone sailing through the air towards the far side of the street, visible as a rippling distortion, like frosted glass in the outline of a human. The servo-skulls shifted, keeping pace with the figure, maintaining the lights to disrupt the camouflage field.
"Pursue," the inquisitor ordered.
The xeno was gone, his robes a white blur as he raced towards the target. And the inquisitor's associate - she left her robes behind when she took off, the ultra-light fabric taking a second or two to settle to the ground. She was a jet-black streak...and she was keeping pace with Doc Eldar.
"Between those two, our killer's going to wish you'd sent Roundtree," Ollif said, an edge of dark humor in his voice.
The fleeing murderer touched against the wall for only a moment before springing off again, trying to gain more distance. He or she didn't seem to be able to change directions in midair, and both Doc Eldar and the Inquisitorial agent had noticed this and were hurtling towards the next contact point. They had the speed to get there in time, but the killer would be touching off somewhere around the fourth or fifth floor - I knew the xeno could leap, but he couldn't make that much height, and while I figured he could climb the wall, he couldn't do it at anywhere near the speed he could run.
He did not, for the record, run up the wall. In fact, he slowed slightly, dropping back to trail the black-clad agent as they neared the building. She did run up the wall, making it as high as a ledge between the second and third floors before running out of momentum, and there she crouched, one hand latched onto a corner of the rockcrete, the other held down in anticipation. Doc Eldar hit top speed again in the moments before reaching the building, seeming to spring from the ground all the way to a mantle-hold on a second-floor window ledge. His body contorted as he brought both feet up at once, planting his toes on the ledge, and he reached up as he straightened - and joined hands with the agent.
She threw him.
I don't know how strong she must have been. Falc had flipped the car with no signs of strain, but the Mechanicus adept was nearly all machinery, and she certainly couldn't move with the speed and fluidity of the agent they called Pax. I do know she was strong enough to send Doc Eldar soaring upward, a swinging ballistic launch that took her from a crouch to full extension - sacrificing her balance in the process, but this proved to be of little matter, as she landed on her feet and showed no signs of bother at the fall. And before she had hit the ground, the xeno had hit the floating murderer.
All I could see of that struggle was the rippling of the xeno's robes, as the pair sagged towards the ground, the added weight overloading the suspensor field. I didn't have time to watch closely, as the inquisitor had left cover to run towards the takedown, and I followed with the rest of her team.
When we arrived, the xeno had the killer pinned to the ground, both arms twisted in what appeared to be a very uncomfortable fashion behind their back. Pax, oddly, wasn't assisting. She was, in fact, standing like a statue, facing the wall of the building from close enough to touch. I took in only a few details of her outfit from a brief glance - armored bodyglove, sword, pistol, wickedly-clawed gauntlet on her left hand - and then looked where the others were looking: at Doc Eldar and his captive.
"I found it necessary to damage his suit," the xeno said. "It would have been difficult to subdue him otherwise. But I have not done him harm."
I still couldn't tell if the suited figure was male or female, but if the xeno said "his," I would believe him. The suit's camouflage had failed or been disabled, revealing a sleek technomantic design unlike any I'd seen before - the surface of the suit seemed to be made of tiny fibers, like the striations of human muscle, all wrought of bright silver. Bulges behind the shoulders and across the lower back probably held some of the mechanisms, and an oblong extension of the suit that lay atop the right forearm and ended in a flattened bill with a slot at the tip - that must have been the weapon, the disc-launcher. I noticed that the xeno was careful to keep that arm pointed away from anyone else. The suit's helmet had a full-face mirrored visor, which was closed.
Hiram and Ollif each produced a pair of shackles, binding the man's wrists and ankles while the inquisitor and Falc kept their weapons trained. The xeno rose and stepped away as they completed their task.
The inquisitor stared down at the man, no expression on her face. The mantle draped over her shoulders was embroidered the stylized "I" of her station, leaving no doubt about what she was. "Open up," she said.
With a click, the visor swung loose. The man inside was young - maybe Hiram's age, maybe even a little younger. And if he wasn't on the verge of panic, it was because he was already over the brink.
"My family can pay," he blurted, before any questions could be asked. "I didn't kill anyone important, we can pay the bloodmoney."
"Tell me, then: who is your family?"
The young man opened his mouth, then paused, eyes flicking between each of the figures facing him.
"He's from Mazaeus. Hive Sitalkes, I'd wager, or maybe Arimnes - from the very tip of the spire, either way." Ollif's voice held no warmth for his planetary kinsman.
"I have heard rumors that some of the highest families send their children out like this," the inquisitor said, "as a rite of passage. Never more than whispers, never something solid enough to take action on. But you will provide a foundation for decisive action. Innocent blood is not paid for in coin."
The man's face crumpled as Hiram and Ollif hauled him to his feet. The shackles made him able to take only tiny, shuffling steps, so the walk back to the functioning vehicles promised to be a slow one.
As they made their way, Falc approached Pax - slowly, I noted. The tech-adept pulled a bundle of cloth from a pocket of her robes, and held it out for the other agent to take. Unfurled, it turned out to be another of the enveloping robes like she had worn before, and Pax settled it into place, including the hood and veil, before turning away from the wall.
"All respect to you," the xeno said as she rejoined the band. "I did not believe your kind was capable of such self-control, but yours is superb."
"Your existence...tests it."
Doc Eldar actually stepped away from her.
"Is there anything more that you need of me?" he asked to the inquisitor.
She shook her head, catching the light with the few streaks of red remaining among the grey of her hair. "No. This case is concluded, and a great deal of work awaits us on Mazaeus. Falc will escort you back to the shuttle and up to Jeremias' ship. I caution you, alien: although most of my peers recognize that Jeremias is a resource of mine and give him leeway as such, not all will be willing to do so if you make your presence widely known. And compared to Silus Hirkan, most of them are far more experienced." I heard those last words as "far more dangerous" - which I'm sure was her intention.
"I will follow the terms of my contract. I seek no fame," he answered.
"What do you seek? For one of the ynneas to act as you have is...unheard of."
The xeno's lips twitched. "Answering that question is not required under my contract."
This was hard for me to write, and it probably shows, because I tried to do several things in it that I don't do well. Introducing multiple new characters and trying to flesh them out without getting inside their heads and seeing things from their perspectives, more extensive dialogue, more than two speaking characters - these are all things that I found difficult. Which I guess makes it good practice 
As always, I greatly appreciate any feedback that any of you have!
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Mar 23, 2016 15:09
Its all Erebus' fault. (And then Lorgar)
