CHAPTER THREE: HIDDEN INA STRANGE WORLD
"I'm sorry." The heavily made-up mortal woman held a handkerchief to her face and sniffed loudly into it. "He seemed fine when I talked to him. When I left him that night I never…never…"
"Thought he was going to be murdered?"
The woman looked shocked. "Murdered?"
"Did he appear well when you left him?"
"Yes. Was it burglars? I know he had quite a bit of electronic stuff in that store of his."
Gwen shook her head. "An employee testified there was nothing taken," she said.
One avenue destroyed, though it was never one we really took seriously, Hamish thought, watching; he had followed Chesebrough to the police station, and waited as they had taken down his statement before dismissing him with a recommendation to see a psychiatrist and not leave town. Watching this woman be dealt with in turn had seemed like the best possible course, and he had chosen to stay to watch.
"I'm sorry. I can't help you. We had words—he still owes me alimony, you know, he hadn't paid in weeks, he said it was because he'd opened the new store and everything and business was slow, but if he's got enough money to open a store he's got enough money to make the payments, as I said. So we yelled at each other…"
"Owed you alimony?" Gwen asked.
"Yes, we divorced eight years ago. Just after he'd started working for that videogame company and never finding the time to come home."
"When did you get married?"
She asked a series of questions after that, on the subject of Lavinia's relationship with the dead programmer. They had met each other in college—Hamish tried and failed to imagine her as a student—and she had dropped out; she'd divorced him thanks to his spending too much time at work—on a videogame they called Ace Lightning, Hamish realised with some surprise—and then she'd finished her qualification and was working as a journalist in Lancaster. It had been the first time she'd seen the programmer in months when she turned up on his doorstep, to check on the progress of various demanding letters he had received regarding money he owed her.
"What happened during your visit?" Gwen asked.
"He let me in, after a while." She sniffed. "Have you seen the state his place was in? He'd really gone downhill. But he bothered to ask me if I wanted coffee."
"Did you see him drink anything?"
"No, I refused, because I didn't want to waste any more time going after him in small town hell." She sniffed again and dabbed her nose delicately with a handkerchief, as if remembering her role as the bereaved, Hamish thought. "He asked how I was—there was some small talk, I think he was trying to avoid the subject—and then I got down to business, and he told me he couldn't afford the payments because of the new store and I'd have to wait." She paused. "I shouldn't ask, I know, but I really have to get back to work soon. I don't suppose he made any provision for me after his death?"
"He never updated his will from nineteen eighty-five—the year when you got married, I believe. You receive all his assets."
Lavinia looked surprised and, Hamish thought, rather shocked. "Oh. I didn't know he hadn't…that is to say…I…" She took a quick, sharp breath.
"You were the last person who saw him alive," Gwen said steadily. "Are you sure you don't want a lawyer?"
"Yes. No. I…" Another pause, and to Hamish's surprise she actually seemed to be holding back real tears when she said the next words. "I didn't kill him."
"Chuckdude?" Elementa knocked on the door again. "I'm not here to hurt you."
A rather pudgy human boy leaned his head out of the window. "You have to go away. I can't talk to anyone."
"You know as well as I do that if the case isn't solved, the results could destroy this world and your friends," Elementa called. "A human is dead. Don't you want justice done?"
"You don't know what you're talking about and I don't know you," the boy yelled back. "I don't feel well. Leave me alone."
"Would you prefer it if your friend Ace was here?" Elementa summoned her flyer with a flick of her wrist and leaped on.
"No. No, I wouldn't." He slammed the window just as Elementa reached it, and quickly drew the curtains with a snap.
Elementa rapped on the window a few times, but there was no sound from inside.
Code, rule one hundred and twenty-five section three: unless unavoidable, do not alert native attention in the outlier worlds. Code, rule sixty-eight: refrain from property destruction wherever practical. Detectives' Code, rule seventy-three: jurisdiction in the outlier worlds grants power of interrogation, but steps of force may not be taken unless serious harm to others is otherwise unavoidable…
"It won't harm you, kid," she said, rapping again.
Again, nothing.
"Can you tell me where to go, then? I stand for justice without prejudice. Tell me where I can find the person who murdered a human."
Nothing, then finally a muffled voice: "Carnival. Go there. Get those freaks."
Elementa sighed.
"You're right. I should go there. But I'll be back."
The curtains did not so much as flicker as she disappeared into the sky.
The cloud cover was gathering over the town, and Elementa felt free enough to use the weather to hide herself as she made her way to the Carnival of Doom. If the evils had indeed killed the mortal, they would be gloating; it was usually within the psychological profile. Then again, the new villain, who had, according to rumour, entirely dominated the Carnival of Doom during a brief, recent sojourn in the Sixth Dimension, was something of an unknown quality. His origins, for one thing, were entirely a mystery—and it was suggested that his goals were not nearly so obvious as mere world domination. Elementa was sure the ones about his twelve tentacles and fangs were exaggeration, though.
Elementa landed quietly on the roof of the Haunted House, using a gargoyle for camouflage in case any human passed by, and quickly slipped a length of long, thin wire from around her wrist which she inserted into a gap between the tiles. She placed the other end of the wire, which looked rather like it had a jellyfish attached to it, over her ear, and listened as the Lightning Bug scrabbled its way into the building, seeking out any voices and suspicious noises.
Humans chatting, a pair of humans yelling in what Elementa realised after a second was mock-fright, loud giggles, a yell about a 'bone-man', creaks of machinery, and then a high, cold voice speaking…
"A mortal died. What concern is it of ours? I did not even know of his worthless existence."
Lord Fear, Elementa knew. The most powerful villain of the Sixth Dimension. This was what she needed to know.
"You do not know of the mortal machinery for settling such things?" A different speaker this time, the voice lower. A laugh. "Even I would not have thought you such a fool, Lord Fear. The mortal world means nothing to me, but I at least was programmed to be wary of the trap of mortals sniffing out this place, until we have such power as to forever rid us of their influence."
"And just what did this mortal have to do with us, Kilobyte? Or should I say, with you?"
The other speaker was Kilobyte, then. The newest deadly villain on the block. And it seems he has something to do with the mortal.
"It is not your concern, as the mere fact that he is dead is not mine," the other voice responded quickly. "What is your concern is that should the mortals investigate the Carnival of Doom, they will find nothing."
And the plot thickens, Elementa decided. What did pass between Kilobyte and the mortal? It appears he is sufficiently concerned about the mortal's death and the resultant exposure not to have risked all this…
"It was not I who gave the order a few months ago for the riot to take place in the carnival, Kilobyte. Nor did I kidnap the mortal science teacher in broad daylight."
Someone else gave orders in Lord Fear's territory? The thought ran against everything Elementa had heard about the villain, and she was more shocked than she was willing to admit. Who—or what—was this Kilobyte?
"And had you not betrayed me at that time, we would be ruling this wretched world by now. Instead we are forced to hide like rats in a trap as it is the mortals' chance to prowl."
If he indeed killed the mortal, at least he regrets the deed being found out, Elementa thought grimly.
"We can take care of a few meddling mortals." A third voice joined the conversation, fruity and rich with a cockney accent. "What we do not need is some silly squid telling us how to do the job properly."
The talking demon staff, most likely; Staffhead they called him.
"You would be a fool to try to betray me a second time," Kilobyte said swiftly. "I have enough power to destroy you completely. As I should have done long ago."
If they fight now it will attract mortal attention, Elementa thought. Let it be empty threats so the truth can come out before we are all destroyed.
"Yet you have not destroyed me—or, I might add, the traitor. Why is that, Kilobyte? Losing your touch ever since you returned from the Sixth Dimension?"
Traitor? To whom does he refer?
"We have roughly the same goals. And it was partly due to that mortal's efforts that Lady Illusion is under my control."
She betrayed Lord Fear? Elementa wondered, realising the earlier reference. What other constants about the world she had come from had changed?
"So that is why you are concerned with him. You needed to rely on a mortal's services." Lord Fear burst into laughter. "That is what you have become, Kilobyte. Powerless, compared to me. It is long past time I regained my own carnival."
Sounds like there really is a fight starting, Elementa thought. Prognosis: highly negative.
"The slime blobs inhabiting the Third Dimension are powerful compared to you," Kilobyte snapped. "I told you, do not presume to challenge me."
Intimidation technique. Will that work, against Lord Fear?
"I'm sure that if she is as loyal as you claim, she'll be quite willing to show up to defend you. I admit, I'd love the chance to eliminate you both. Leave Lightning until last. He should be easy enough to defeat. And from there, I can steal his amulet pieces and take over this dimension. Remind me why I need you again, Kilobyte, please?"
Correction to prognosis: extremely negative.
"I'll fight you on my own terms, not on mine. For now, the humans have infected our space. We are not going to attract attention that could destroy us…" He gasped, as evidently a shot was fired.
My responsibility is to maintain secrecy in the outlier worlds and to the truth. I have no choice but to intervene.
The place was considerably untidier than Hamish was used to; he wasn't naturally tidy himself, but Knight regulations and his term at the Academy had forced him to start living up to some basic standards. It was an ugly house, though, painted in a peeling shade of dark brown and standing squat at the end of a street; the table was piled with odd-looking mortal science devices, and papers were spread all over the chairs.
The teacher's rather tattered looking briefcase was placed on one of the paper-strewed chairs, and Mr Chesebrough walked to the refrigerator to pull out a bottle of something.
"I'm an alien," Hamish said calmly, and watched the science teacher jerk in panic as he looked around for the source of the voice, perhaps not even noticing that his bottle had smashed on the ground. He wasn't going to find the voice's source. If Hamish showed his true form, he might well have been recognised as a Lightning Knight (and that game Lavinia had mentioned sounded awfully suspicious); this way, Hamish's capacity for intimidation would be considerably greater than that of his normal form, and the teacher's mutterings about aliens dismissed a second time. Something in his conscience suggested that this was a rather cruel course of action, but he decided that this would be the most obvious way to find out the truth, as per the Detective's Code.
"Show yourself!" the teacher gasped, grabbing a long piece of metal with a rather dull point on the end and waving it around in the air.
"You won't be able to see me. I'm an invisible alien," Hamish said, surprised at how firm his voice sounded. He ducked in order to dodge the human's flailing. "I'm not going to hurt you. I just want to ask you a few questions. You're very intelligent, right? You said the aliens wanted to probe you." He decided to try a bit of flattery; the man struck him as less intelligent than delusional. He'd briefly reminded Hamish of his projectile-weaponry teacher, Hippocrates Bolt, otherwise known as Hypocrite Bolt, but the later had been in possession of all his senses and abilities.
The word produced an immediate reaction in the man. "No!" He dropped his makeshift weapon and crawled under a table. "You want my brain! Don't probe me! No!"
"I don't want to probe you," Hamish said. "To tell you the truth, I'm not exactly sure what that is." He tried to make his voice as gentle as possible, and started to feel guilty about using his powers in front of a human who was so clearly scared of their kind of people. It wasn't fair.
"Leave me alone! Don't try to kidnap me again! I need the Earth!" He was seriously distressed, Hamish realised; whatever had been done to him (the villains, most likely) couldn't have been nice.
Hamish sighed as he realised there was only one thing he could do.
He let the invisibility field go, and appeared before the human in his real, and less-than-imposing, form. "Sorry about that, sir," he said. "I only want to talk. Really. I'm harmless, I failed Practical Combat first two semesters at the Academy. I just need to know exactly what you saw when you left Rick Hummel's house on the night of the twenty-fourth."
"You look like the other one who came to my school," the teacher said, still sounding hysterical. "How do I know you're not going to harm me? And you lied about being invisible. Young…young man."
"I thought it would be a good way to talk to you," Hamish said. "I didn't think anyone would believe you if you talked about invisible aliens." Putting it in those terms made it sound wrong,manipulative and disturbing. This wasn't the right way to solve the case and impress Elementa. "I shouldn't have done that. I'm sorry. Can we talk now?"
"No. Leave my home, and don't come back. I'm not talking to you."
"Aliens killed someone on the night of the twenty-fourth of May, between ten in the evening and three am," Hamish said. He wasn't telling the entire truth—it might, for all he knew, have been Lavinia after all—but he had a hunch it was what he'd need in order to get through to the human. "I need your help to find the alien who did it so that I can save my…my planet," he added in a sudden fit of inspiration. "All we really want is to go back there; there was an accident that flung us here." That bit was actually true, for Ace and Sparx anyway. "Some of us want to stay here and take over your world, but we're not all like that. I'm what you people would call a policeman on my world. I'm just trying to find out who killed the human so we can all go on with my lives. I want to get justice done and make the truth come out. It's my job, and it's what I believe has to happen. It's what I always wanted to do, to solve crimes and right wrongs, and if I can I'll solve this one." He stopped talking, somewhat conscious of having said too much.
"And you're not going to hurt me? You're going to protect me from the…evil aliens?" A flash of rage crossed the teacher's face. "Mark Hollander promised to protect me from them. They kidnapped me and put me in a cage. I'm not going to trust you, and if you're a good alien you'll leave my property right now." He crawled out from under the chair and drew himself to his full height, slightly taller than Hamish, who noticed it with chagrin. "You don't look any older than some of the morons I teach every day. I don't have to tell you again, do I, cretin? Go away, and don't even think about letting any of the others come near me."
"It's my job not to let you get hurt," Hamish said. "And if you won't say anything more about what you heard the victim say, then I'll leave." He turned to go.
"Good. Leave."
There was a pause, and then the teacher started talking again. "I told him what was good for him, you know. Told him that if he kept consorting with aliens and using weird machines I don't even understand he'd get what was coming to him. He laughed, and forced me out of that hole he calls a store. He said that he would get what was coming to him, and he was looking forward to it. Anyone that stupid almost deserves it. I have students like that, and I'm telling you they don't improve as they get older. But I'm more intelligent than that. I warned him, and he didn't listen. It was his own fault."
Hamish, who had reached the door, turned, and nodded. "Thank you. Sir," he added. "That was what I needed to know."
He made sure he had left the house before turning invisible again—he didn't want to show off his powers again in front of the human, it would probably have alarmed him still more—and walked in the direction of the Thunder Tower. The teacher hadn't told him much more than he'd told the police, but at least there were a few interesting pieces of information.
He said he never saw another "alien" there with the victim.
The victim was happy about something on the night he died.
Who had killed him, then? And why? And when had whatever-it-was—virus, energy drain or whatever—been applied to Richard Hummel?
A/N: Thank you for all the reviews, and I'm sorry it took so long to update.