The creature – Metadillus carcaradon, mused David – seemed to drift, not walk, across the path. There was no sound. Until Bruce Shimoda, PhD, whose body was lying near-dead in its cold tomb, burst into view. He was wearing a combination of leather and metal armour. He looked like an American football player. He shouted, “Get some, get some!” He swung a vine-lasso above his head. There was a rock on the end of it. David wondered if might lasso this creature, this metadillo, but he remembered that this world was utterly dark. Bruce had no source of illumination. The rock lasso was his antenna.
The metadillo charged after him. David sat in silence at the base of the tree. He heard Bruce’s war cry and the clang of metal on metal.
He fainted.
Saskia Makes a Discovery
Saskia awoke and wanted to be sick. The world was distorted. Light was scattered somehow. There were shapes. Forces. She was being prodded. She rubbed her eyes. It was a policeman.
She took his baton and pulled it. The policeman pulled indignantly in the opposite direction. They danced until, with a wrench, he reclaimed it. He was breathless. “I could arrest you for that.” He added, “I thought you were dead.”
Saskia pushed herself upright and looked around. She was outside the hat shop. Metal blinds had been pulled down over the frontage and secured with fierce locks. In marker pen, someone had written, “Closed indefinitely”.
She considered her situation. The shop was her only lead. Perhaps she might chase the two men to the airport, but airlines did not permit access to flight manifests without a judge’s warrant. She could not search the shop without a warrant either. Breaking into it was a possibility, but how could she get the records she needed? Customer receipts were not kept on paper. They were held on a computer. Breaking into that would be far more difficult. And there was the additional risk of being caught and losing time in the process.
She needed another lead. She needed to think. The time was 8:15 p.m. She had been unconscious for four hours. The little hat maker had covered her with a blanket.
“Officer, I apologise.” She produced her wallet and flashed her ID. “I need a helicopter back to FIB immediately, please.”
He scowled. She knew that most police officers did not trust private detectives, even if they were in the employ of the state. They saw the job as glamorous and overpaid. “Yes, detective.”
“Help me up?”
He offered the baton.
The traffic helicopter banked sharply and landed on the roof of FIB headquarters. Saskia jumped out and crouched to avoid the whirling blades. Moments later the helicopter pulled away and Saskia took a lift down to the 53rd floor. Once in her office, she walked to the transparent window and asked the computer to play some Vivaldi.
“Which symphony?”
“Four seasons.”
“Which piece?”
“Winter.”
The office was still hot. She had a long, cold shower. Her ear was bruised and rang like a bell recently struck. Her shoulder was grazed.
Half an hour later, she sat down at the desk. She drummed her fingers. She wanted to go home but felt compelled to remain in the office.
“Computer, play the tape again. Go back to 6:34 p.m.”
The wall showed the four cameras. The secretary came into view. Once more, there was a knock at the door. The murderer had arrived. Once more, the secretary went to open it. Saskia leaned forward. The tight angle was frustrating.
The murder occurred. She rewound the tape. The murder happened again. Each time she felt nothing. She drummed her fingers. The polished wood reflected the underside of her hand. She stopped.
“Computer, back five seconds. Forward two seconds.”
The images froze on the murderer as he wiped the knife on the secretary’s collar. “Close up on the knife.”
“What is the knife?”
Saskia thought for a moment. “The rectangular, shiny object oriented at twenty degrees from the vertical on camera one.”
The computer zoomed in. The knife filled the frame. On its surface was a grainy, ghostly image. “Expand camera one so that it fills the screen.” Obediently, the image expanded. Saskia looked at the reflection again. She walked to the other end of the room and squinted to blur her vision. Yes. The knife blade reflected a complex, oval object. It had to be the murderer’s face.
“Computer, can you analyse the image on the surface of the knife?”
“What for?”
Saskia smiled. “Because I told you.”
There was a pause. “For what?”
“I want to have a true representation of whatever is reflected in that surface. Factor in everything: probable surface of the knife, lighting conditions, motion blur, everything. But don’t send this away for analysis. Analyse it yourself.”
“If I send the image away, it will take seconds to analyse. If I process it myself, it will take hours.”
“How many hours?”
“Twelve hours, plus or minus one.”
Saskia looked at her watch. It was eight o’clock. That meant the image processing would finish just before the repair man arrived and, with him, the end of her career. Perhaps her life. The death penalty was often given to murderers and rapists, though lately some murderers had had their brains wiped and sent back out into the community as street cleaners. Saskia shuddered at the thought.
“Saskia?”
“Yes?”
“Should I continue?”
“Yes.”
It would be a long night. She still didn’t want to go back to her apartment. She took an old tennis ball from her desk draw. She hefted it. She bounced it. She threw it at the wall and caught it.
From his frame, Simon watched. His eyes seemed to follow her. They were reproachful. In the corners of the room the computer’s speech recognition cameras remained trained on her head.
The Rendezvous
In David’s nightmare, a dark shape pressed a knife into his throat. He heard a question: “Isn’t he pleased?” He tried to scream but could not; tried to move but could not. Then, abruptly, he awoke to see Bruce Shimoda fiddling with the stiletto that had skewered him, through the throat, to the tree. The sun was high in the
