—Part One—
Nielson stepped into the doorway beneath the light of ten carefully positioned mag-lamps. The intensity drove spikes of pain into her eyes, but it came too with a sense of relief. A well-lit scene with the astringent taste of iron in the air. She was powerless against the loss of sleep or the headaches that followed, but at the crime scene she could reestablish control.
The body was sprawled on the carpet with a blossom of crimson congealing around the head. Pale skin made paler by contrast. Bathrobe open revealing a specimen bloated by decades of poor dietary choices. Fat, bald, and ugly as hell. Nielson stepped closer to get a better look at the face. Hard to tell what he looked like before his skull was completely caved in.
Two tommies worked on the dead man silently. Light reflecting off their polished chrome craniums.
“So who’s the vic?” she asked.
The automaton regarded Nielson with vacant eyes. Pools of black fitted with reflective glass lenses. She could almost hear the processors whirring behind them.
“Klaus Friedemann,” it said finally, voice grating and monotonous. “Citizen. Born 22 November 2031.”
Nielson stuck a cigarette between her lips and patted herself down for a lighter, taking slow steps around the room and training her eyes on everything in sight. Leather sofa. Overturned coffee table. A paperback novel left open on the floor, as if it had been thrown there, or dropped. She bent to pick it up, noticing the umlauts first.
“You boys dust yet?”
“The dusting is complete.”
She picked up the book and thumbed through it, bewildered.
“Translate,” she said, holding it up to the tommies. Both heads swiveled on noiseless rotors and they sang out in chorus.
“
Adventures in the Great Forest, by Gunter Horstead.”
She dropped the book and saw the cheap lighter on the side table. Moved toward it immediately. Fired the cigarette tip and pulled deeply.
“Agent Nielson. Protocol forbids smoking at a crime scene,” came the fatherly reprimand.
“Agent Nielson writes her own protocol,” Anders said, stepping in from the hallway. The tommies exchanged a long glance, sharing some wireless tidbit, no doubt.
Can you believe these meat-sacs? Or:
How will we maintain the atomic integrity of the premises? Or:
1001111011001.
And then they were on their feet, bodies turning with unnerving precision at the hips and shoulders. Nielson let out another plume of smoke and waited, trying to expect the unexpected. But there were no more reprimands forthcoming. No evasive maneuvers.
“Analysis complete,” said the tommy. “Victim died instantly of cranial collapse at 0200 hours. DNA on premises belongs to Mr. Klaus Friedemann. Fibers on victim consistent with victim’s attire. No foreign substances present. Fingerprints on premises belong to Mr. Klaus Friedemann and Agent Ellouise Nielson.”
Anders let out a snort. Nielson shrugged her shoulders.
The tommies moved past them and towards two others stationed in the hallway to hold silent communion with them. Then all four moved away.
“Wait!” Nielson called after them. They stopped and spun. “What’s the murder weapon?”
The tommy angled its head, calling up information and looking too much like a confused dog trying to parse out the most basic of commands. It sent a shiver up Nielson’s spine.
“Metallic, cylindrical. At least eight inches long with a circumference of four inches.”
And then they turned again and disappeared from the hallway.
