The Suspects
With the strange characters that Alan had met so far, he was beginning to think he was in a bad mystery novel where everyone did it. It was also beginning to look like Zapper didn't know Catherine as well as he thought he did. The private sources, the research she had been up to... and this secret meeting with the Reaper, most of all, and she had never told them anything...
It was now a few hours after their first meeting with Falconetti, time which the others had used to update Miki and Sparks of the situation, of how Zapper had enlisted the hacker's help in decking into Catherine's mind. Miki was understandably curious as to how someone could look into another's mind without need for psychic abilities, while Sparks had still expressed his distrust of the whole idea. Naturally his words had made Zapper highly nervous, though he had done his best not to show signs of nerves in front of the dwarf. This was the first of this type of procedure he had ever witnessed in person, so he was understandably less than confident as they crossed Catherine's ward and went to her ICU, carrying two sets of VR rigs. Alan imagined that he felt even less confident when they walked in on Dr. Burton and Joey Falconetti in the middle of a blazing row.
"I said no, Joey!" Burton shouted.
"Oh, you know you want to, Tanya!" Joey replied, mockingly. "You know you want to!"
"I don't want you here!" Burton yelled over him. "I don't want you in this hospital!"
"You gotta let me do my thing!" Joey replied. "I can find out what happened to this babe! Besides," he continued, advancing slowly on the doctor, his voice barely more than a snake-like hiss, "you always call me in on these things. If you don't this time, it's gonna look bad."
"No kidding," Burton retorted. "You think it's an accident that Rigden brought her here?"
It was clear that Burton had said the wrong words, for Falconetti's expression suddenly changed into barely-restrained rage.
"Fuck Rigden!" he yelled. "Should've clipped his wings years ago! I know he's gonna try and pin this whole fuckin' thing on me!"
"Or me!" Burton replied, looking agitated. "Which is why we do this my way, and I say no!"
"No what?" Zapper suddenly spoke up, sounding murderous by Alan's estimation. The elf looked furiously at the doctor. Alan had never seen him so mad.
"Hey, LeRoi and friend!" Joey said, in a tone that was a rough estimation of friendliness. "Tell Dr. Burton here to let me save your friend."
There was an uncomfortable silence for several moments, as Dr. Burton shuffled awkwardly while Joey gazed at Zapper expectedly. Alan thought it best to stay out of this argument.
"What's Falconetti talking about?" Zapper asked the doctor, sounding like he was really forcing himself to keep his tone civil.
"It doesn't matter," she replied indignantly. "I'm not letting him do the procedure."
"How long have you all known each other?" Alan suddenly chimed in. He had to admit he was curious about how deep the connections were between Rigden, Burton and Falconetti, and just what sort of impact it would have on Catherine's fate.
"Look, changeling," Burton replied. "I don't know what LeRoi's been teaching you, but that's personal. It has nothing to do with Powell's case, believe me."
Zapper seemed to decide that Burton couldn't give any other information, so he rounded on Falconetti next.
"Can you really do this?" Zapper asked him. "You know, decking into her mind?"
"I wouldn't be here if I couldn't, LeRoi," Falconetti replied. "If I could get at it, there's a chance I could restore her memory."
"It's not that simple," Burton interrupted. "For one thing, you don't know for a fact how much of her essence she's retained. For another thing, you'll have psychological ice to deal with. You'd be fighting her mind! The strain could kill her!"
Zapper gazed over at Catherine's comatose body. He was looking anxious, but there didn't seem to be any indication he was going to give up on the idea.
"You knew Rigden years ago, right?" Alan quickly asked Falconetti.
The hacker nodded. "He was a very different man then," he said. "He used to be a scumbag, and now he's a scumbag with a badge."
"So why would he try to pin the murders on you?" Alan asked.
"Well, he's gotta pin it on somebody to make a buck," Falconetti shrugged. "I guess he thinks I'm an easy target." He let out a dry laugh, but Alan couldn't help but feel that there was something neither of them were telling him. Rigden seemed to have a big hold over them both somehow.
Zapper snapped himself out of his thoughts to address Falconetti. "Is your method dangerous?" he asked.
"What, are you kiddin'?" Joey snorted. "Of course it's dangerous! We're not talking about accounting databases here! Decking into an organism's a lot harder than hacking a machine. You can't be overridin' shit, you've gotta watch where you're diggin' around. With all those emotions and memories, it's potentially very damagin'." He looked slyly across at Burton, who just gave a disapproving look. "It's worth the risk though," he finished.
"How do you figure?" Zapper asked.
"I can rebuild her memory," Joey replied. "I can make that image of the Reaper so real it'll look like it's breathing. You'll be able to stare the killer right in the eye."
"Well, that'd save Catherine and anyone else the Reaper had on his list," Zapper said, addressing Burton. "What's the real reason for not allowing Falconetti to do this, Burton?!"
Burton looked at him wryly. "Do I detect a little Rigden in the reporter's line of questioning?" she said. This just prompted Zapper to look murderous, and Alan was sure that he would have to restrain his colleague before too long.
"Fine," Burton stated, throwing her arms up in surrender and then checking her commlink. "Do any damn thing you want. My shift's over, so I'm going to the gym." With that, she marched straight out of the ICU and headed off down the corridor.
"Good!" Falconetti yelled after her, looking highly amused. "You're lookin' a little flabby there, Tanya! Tighten up those buns, baby!"
Zapper didn't look sorry to see her go either. Alan only hoped that she wouldn't refuse to treat Catherine from now on because of all this.
"You ready?" Falconetti asked Zapper suddenly, taking him by surprise.
"What?" he asked. "We're going to deck Catherine's brain now?!"
"Damn straight!" Falconetti smirked. "You're gonna really get to know your girlfriend now! Here's the deal. With both of us being in there, it'll take everything I've got to maintain a link between us and to isolate a pathway into whatever's left of her consciousness. If her brain starts throwing IC's at us, you're gonna have to fight it. Think you can handle that?"
There was a pause, as Zapper turned this over in his mind. To Alan, this sounded highly risky, and he was half-afraid something was going to go wrong and make things worse for Catherine.
"I think I can," Zapper responded.
"Alright," Alan said. "I'll just stay here and hold the fort."
"Right," Falconetti nodded. "You can monitor how well Catherine's doin' on the ICU's systems. The minute she looks like she's goin' under, send a pulse through LeRoi's commlink and he'll get it. With any luck, it won't come to that."
With that, the two of them set the VR rigs to work with the ICU. It was quite incredible the speed at which the two hackers worked to set it up. Within moments, both were slipping the VR rigs over their eyes and preparing to enter Catherine's mind...
***
Once the initial log-on process was complete, Zapper could not believe his eyes. He and Falconetti, back in that strange ringmaster garb, were flying over a bizarre alien landscape, with fleshy tendrils poking out of the soft ground. A purple sky loomed overhead, blasted by constant thunderstorms. It was clear that Catherine's mind was in a state of great turmoil.
As he watched, several fleshy red blobs suddenly launched themselves out of the ground, shooting straight at the two. Thinking fast, Zapper launched his avatar's countermeasure programs, in the form of laser blasts, to blast the strange blobs apart.
"Catherine's IC's!" Falconetti yelled. "Keep 'em off me, while I get a fix on your girlfriend! There's definitely somethin' there!"
Zapper only hoped that he wasn't damaging Catherine's mind in any way through this. He was sure that Alan would alert him should anything go wrong, but who could tell when dealing with the human mind?
After several tense moments spent shooting down the IC's, the blobs suddenly became increasingly numerous, as Catherine's mind fought desperately to fight off the invaders.
"I've secured a pathway, LeRoi!" Falconetti suddenly shouted. "Lemme get a piece of the action!" He gave a high cackle as he suddenly pulled a knife out of his cloak. He dove straight into the horde of ICs and began hacking them to pieces with his knife. After several moments of this, the ICs finally stopped appearing, and Falconetti returned, triumphant. He pointed Zapper towards a large monolith, the top of which rose high into the storm clouds overhead. When they flew up and reached the top, they saw Catherine herself, lying unconscious on what looked like an organic bed, bathed in purple mist.
"Here's what you gotta do," Falconetti said, "Burton and Gabriel have been feeding them as much of her personal background as they can. You need to bring her up to speed on what she knew when she was attacked. Use the information about the Reaper that you think she may have known; that'll help her rebuild her memory. Right now she's not even moving; the more information she gets from you and Burton, the more she'll remember, the more she'll be able to tell us."
"She looks..." Zapper sighed. "She looks so real..."
"That's because everythin' you're seeing right now," Flaconetti explained, "is streaming right from her brain, unmediated by any software. That's her, as her own mind's eye conceives herself. Be prepared; when you get close to her, you're gonna change. You'll look just as real."
Indeed, as Zapper approached the unconscious Catherine, his avatar form melted away, replaced by his real self. Catherine was wrapped tenderly in a white dress, her blonde hair seeming to shine as brightly as the sun itself. If he was being honest with himself, Zapper had never seen her more beautiful than she looked now. Away from the ICU, it looked like she was merely asleep rather than in any pain.
After admiring her for a moment, Zapper decided to log out of Catherine's mind and let Alan know that they had been successful. So he mentally withdrew himself and logged out. Back in the real world, he pulled off his VR rig, panting after such a strenuous mental workout.
"Any luck?" Alan asked him, looking concerned. Zapper was so breathless that he could only nod in reply. Beside him, Falconetti was pulling off his own rig, looking very pleased with himself.
"Not bad for a first-timer," he said, sneering. "Was it good for you too?"
Zapper grinned. "You kicked ass in there," he said.
"No shit, Sherlock," Falconetti replied. "Now if you'll excuse me, I've got about a month of dirty mags to catch up on." With that, he walked straight out of the ICU chamber, placing the rig on a table.
"Let's see if this has done any good..." Alan muttered, walking out of the ICU chamber and back into the ward. He crossed to the computer monitor where the fuzzy image of the Reaper had been shown. The image had definitely changed. Now the resolution had improved slightly, and he thought he could now see the shape of a head beginning to emerge. It was clearly still too early to tell, but Falconetti's little procedure seemed to have done some good.
"Just wait, Mr. Reaper," Zapper muttered behind him, "we'll get you yet! Let's head down to the morgue and tell Styzyack the good news."
When the two got to the morgue, however, it wasn't Styzyack waiting for them. Instead it was a much younger man, with curly hair, who now looked very panicky.
"Hey!" he shouted. "What are you two doing here?! This place is supposed to be off-limits to unauthorised personnel!"
"I'm Cale LeRoi, and this is Mike Anderson," Zapper stated so promptly it was like he had rehearsed it. "We're from the Seattle Herald. Who are you?"
"I'm..." the pathologist muttered nervously, actually glancing down to look at his ID badge. "I'm Bob Eccles, the new pathologist, and I'm... I'm... I'm not to speak with either of you, Mr. LeRoi."
"What are you talking about?" Zapper asked, annoyed. "Where's Styzyack?"
"His.... his wife..." Eccles stammered. "He's on a leave of absence. His wife dragged him off to Wyoming this morning. He'd been... well, this case had put him on-edge, and his wife decided that he needed the vacation. Now can you please both leave before I'm seen talking with you two?!"
Zapper threw his arms up in surrender, and motioned for Alan to follow him out of the morgue. Alan noticed that the elf now looked deflated; they seemed to be fast running out of friends on this case.
***
Though it was beginning to get late in the day, Zapper decided to stop off at the police station to see if there were any more developments. When he and Alan arrived at the front desk, Rigden walked roughly past them, scowling at them on his way out. At the front desk, Brandon was shaking his head.
"What's got him riled?" Zapper asked wryly.
"He's doing an interrogation today," the dwarf replied. "Some chiphead who he busted for possession. I take it you're here regarding any new developments?" The two reporters nodded.
"We got a few," he continued, "but nothing's getting us closer to the Reaper. Earlier today Rigden pulled two cops who had been on the Reaper case since the beginning and replaced them with new guys. That's bound to set the investigation back."
"That doesn't make any sense," Alan commented.
"That's what I say," Brandon nodded. "I know, tell me about it!"
"What's the word in the precinct about Falconetti?" Alan quickly asked. Zapper looked outraged; he was half-afraid questions like that could land Falconetti in prison and put Catherine in jeopardy again.
"Word is that outlaw's mixed up in this somehow," Brandon replied. "Rigden's pulled all of the hard copies on all of Falconetti's records and he's had passwords put on all computer files. There must be something there he's looking for."
"Or maybe something he's trying to hide," Zapper muttered.
"What do you know about the Hamilton Watford murder?" Alan asked, taking great care to ignore Zapper rolling his eyes.
"I didn't follow the case," Brandon said. "I don't know much about the guy except that he did some work for the precinct some years ago."
"What kind of work?" Alan asked.
"Rigden hired him about two or three years back," the dwarf said, "to build a virtual firing range for cadet cyberspace training."
"So Rigden already knew him?" Alan asked, looking puzzled.
"Best guess," Brandon said. "That was why he was so keen to take the case, even though he had his hands full with the Reaper."
"Very interesting, I'm sure," Zapper replied, sarcastically. With that, he spun round, sweeping his hand across the desk as he moved to grab Alan's shoulder, and led Alan back out of the front office to the walkways. He glared at Alan for a moment like he wanted to say something, but instead just snarled as he headed down another walkway. Alan stood for a moment lost in thought, then decided to explore the police station a little.
Down one of the walkways, he found himself near the interrogation chambers. Remembering what Brandon had said, he saw that one of the rooms was occupied, but the viewing room next door was empty. Slipping inside, Alan sat down on a chair, pressing a button that caused the metal plate covering the window looking into the interrogation room to slide aside. Inside was Rigden, stood firm, glaring at a man with long shaggy hair and wearing what looked like a filthy T-shirt and trousers, with slip-on shoes. Alan recognised him as one of the chipheads he had seen at Falconetti's apartment building only a few hours earlier.
"I'm not a fucking dealer, man!" the accused was muttering in an unconvincing manner. "Those were legal dosages for my own personal use! I'm holding down like four jobs at once, man! I need the fucking mental clarity, okay?!"
"We'll see how much clarity you have when I'm done with you," Rigden snarled. "Those senior citizens you sold those BTLs to had severe arterial hypertension. Five of them popped blood vessels in their heads!" He walked behind the dealer's chair, as the dealer looked completely devoid of guilt.
"Now talk, fuckhead!" Rigden shouted, and proceeded to slap the dealer on the back of the head. Alan was rather alarmed by this showing of police brutality.
Unfortunately Rigden spotted him. It seemed that the glass wasn't like in the old days, where the accused couldn't see into the viewing chamber. The detective marched up to the glass, cigar in his mouth, peering through at Alan with narrowed eyes.
"What are you looking at?" he snarled. With that, he hit a switch just underneath the window which brought the cover back into place. Once that was done, Alan heard a sudden series of loud crashings and bangings coming from the interrogation room.
Pressing the button on his side again, Alan drew the cover back, and saw that the room was now a mess. The table and chairs were all over the place. The dealer was sprawled on the floor, bloodied and bruised, while Rigden was in the process of kicking the dealer in the stomach.
"Had enough?!" Rigden shouted.
"Okay, okay!" the petrified dealer suddenly yelled, throwing his arms up in surrender. "I sold those BTLs! Not my fault they had blowouts!" His expression then changed from fear to anger. "What are you making a big deal outta this for? It's not like they weren't ready for the big sleep!"
"It's touching to see you care so deeply," Rigden sassed in that growling tone. "They say that underneath the skin of every junkie runs the blood of a poet. I wouldn't know; I'm just a cop who loves his job!"
It was then that he turned to the glass again, looking irritated that Alan had opened the cover again. He marched over to the glass, shaking his hands.
"No performance now, changeling," he snarled. "I'm in rehearsal." With that, he closed the cover again. Reasoning that it was best not to risk incurring the detective's wrath for a third time, Alan walked straight out of the viewing room and headed back to the central elevator to wait for Zapper. Presently, Zapper appeared, looking very pleased with himself. He headed straight into the elevator and motioned for Alan to follow. Once they were outside the building, Alan rounded on him.
"Where did you disappear to?" Alan remarked.
"You know when we were in the front office?" Zapper stated, grinning. "Well, I swiped Rigden's key card from there. The idiot must have left it there in his temper. It got me into the secure locker in the archives... and look what I found in there."
He brought up his commlink, showing Alan a series of files that he had scanned into it. One of them caught Alan's eye.
"Is that...?" he asked, with wide eyes. Zapper nodded.
"Rigden's personnel file," Zapper exclaimed. "It's got all his awards, his disciplinaries, and most importantly his address. 1432 Mouston Street. It's a good bet Catherine's commlink is there!"
With that, there was a sudden beeping noise coming from the commlink. Looking excited, Zapper brought up further documents in the commlink.
"What now?" Alan asked, now looking annoyed. He half-expected Rigden to come walking out here and catch them poring over stolen documents.
"The decryption's complete on part of Catherine's notes!" he said. "Look!" With that, he held the commlink up so that Alan could read the entry:
"1. Can this killer really be a modern-day Jack the Ripper? Like his namesake he eviscerates and brags about it in crazed letters to the public. Like his namesake, he holds a city in terror. The police are powerless to stop him. He strikes without warning and vanishes without a trace.
"I suspect the Reaper is one of three people; Vincent Rigden, now the chief detective on the case (could he have given Goldstein HMHVV deliberately? Will have to investigate), Tanya Burton, the Medicog cyber-surgeon, or Joey Falconetti, a legendary deck cowboy with a criminal past. I must investigate these three and learn anything I can about them."
"Thank you, Catherine!" Zapper exclaimed. "Now we have our list of suspects!"
Alan couldn't help smiling at his friend's sudden renewed hope. It seemed they had narrowed down their search considerably. He couldn't deny that those three exhibited some very strange behaviour, and if Catherine had suspected them it was small wonder they had taken a special interest in her case. Now all that was required was for one of them to be caught in the act.
***
The list of suspects wasn't the only thing that Catherine's journal had provided. She had written other entries too that had been decrypted:
"2. While in Burton's office, I noticed an old college text called 'Advanced Notional Mapping'. There's an inscription inside. It's a slim chance, but it could be a lead.
"3. Soap delivered as promised. I can learn even more about Rigden, Burton and Falconetti if I dare. I've taken measures to hide what Soap delivered. Using the book 'The Women of Whitechapel and Jack the Ripper' seems appropriate. If everything works out I'll be rich over this. At first, I didn't have two nickels to rub together. I lived in a ratty slum for half a dozen years. That will never happen to me a second time."
It sounded to Alan like Catherine had held a great deal of ambition. It was small wonder that she had taken this case so heavily, if she was pursuing it with such vigour before.
After some hacking, Zapper had found out that 'Soap' was the Matrix alias for a hacker called Stewie Beckett, a shop owner in town. They assumed that this had been Catherine's contact on the Reaper case. Zapper had looked very annoyed at this, for it seemed Catherine was willing to go behind his back so that she could get all the exclusive leads. He was out of town at present.
The clue about the hidden data had also sprung them into action. They had stopped off at Catherine's apartment. Luckily it seemed the apartment was open again, the police being unable to find any further clues from the supposed crime scene. Looking in the book Catherine had mentioned, Zapper found a tiny data disk, which he inserted into Catherine's terminal with some trepidation. After a few moments, an equation suddenly appeared on the screen:
46Xsquared ∕ 7INV = 5
"Huh..." Zapper muttered, looking disappointed. "Catherine was never any good with numbers..." Then suddenly his eyes widened, as if the light of understanding was dawning in his eyes.
Still confused, Alan followed him back to the newsroom. It was a spacious area, and since it was so late everyone else had gone home. Zapper marched straight over to Catherine's desk, and started pressing buttons on the calculator on the desk. At first Alan wondered why Catherine would have such a thing, until Zapper pressed the buttons 4, 6, Xsquared, the division button, 7, INV, the equals button and 5. The calculator suddenly opened, revealing what looked like a glass eye and a cigar band concealed inside. Zapper smirked in satisfaction.
"A neat little place to store surveillance bugs, don't you think?" Zapper asked. "Catherine's giving us a trail we can follow. We can use these to spy on our suspects." With that, he grabbed the bugs and tossed one – the one shaped like a cigar band – to Alan.
"You head to the police station and shove that among Rigden's cigars," he said. "I'll head to the Medicog and find a place to hide this. We'll meet there."
"Since when did you become the leader?" Alan asked, wryly.
"Since I got us going somewhere with this investigation," Zapper replied in a snarky manner. "Let's go."
With that, while Alan headed to the police station, Zapper arrived back at the Medicog. Unusually he found the reception desk empty upon his arrival; he must have caught them between shifts. It was then that he noticed that a swipe card was lying on the desk, with Dr. Burton's name on it. Zapper picked it up, making a tutting noise.
"People are so careless," he muttered. "Ah well, saves me from having to hack anything."
With that, he headed up to the wards, this time heading to the left upon stepping out of the elevator. Just before a cordoned-off area was a door leading to Dr. Burton's office, and using the card Zapper was able to get inside easily.
The office was a comfortable-looking room, complete with a shelf filled with books and various medical models. Among the various nick-nacks, Zapper noticed an anatomy model of a human skull, which he felt was a very strange thing for a cyber-surgeon to have. Removing one of the eyes from the model, he replaced it with the eye-shaped bug, which fit like it was made to go there.
Gazing on the shelf, Zapper also noticed the book that Catherine had talked about. The copy of 'Advanced Notional Modelling' was written by a Lillian Beck at Seattle University. The inscription Catherine had mentioned turned out to be an autograph:
"To Tanya Burton, happy travels in cyberspace! Lillian Beck."
Curiosity getting the better of him, Zapper scanned a number of documents on Burton's desk for good measure. One of these was a memo pad, one of the notes on which read like this:
"Keep Rigden out of the Medicog and away from Powell. What does he know? Will have to take control of the situation."
Whatever was going on here, Burton was in it deep, just like Catherine had said. It seemed she was trying to impede Rigden's investigation. All three of them – Rigden, Burton and Falconetti – were at each other's throats. He also found himself getting curious about her school days, and then remembered that Rigden had graduated from the same university according to his personnel file. He was willing to bet good money that Falconetti had been there too.
As he headed out of the office, he contacted Alan on his commlink.
"Ryuu?" he said. "Change of plan. Don't bother coming to the Medicog. Something new has just come up. Meet me at Seattle University tomorrow. I think I'm beginning to see the connection between our suspects. I'll tell you all about it tomorrow."
Assuming that Alan hadn't got himself arrested, he knew his comrade would get the message. He decided to head for home, thankful that this day was much more successful than it had looked like being.