Chapter 2

Precis shivered under Chisato's relentless gaze. Interrogation was not as fun as television made it look. Interrogation in a poorly lit, grungy stockroom in a backwoods hotel couldn't possibly be pleasant, even when the tough questions come from a friend.

"Just what kinds of updates were you performing on Bobot?" asked Chisato. "Be completely honest."

"Pretty big stuff, actually," said Precis. "I've been working on making him more lifelike. Um, not violent, though. And I wasn't anywhere near done yet."

"Are you completely sure that you couldn't have accidentally fixed up your robot so it could attack someone?"

"He can attack, but only when I command him. I was extra careful to put a safety mechanism in place to keep him from doing anything dangerous when I'm not fighting bad guys."

"I just need to be certain," said Chisato. "We don't even know how Leon died yet, so we can't go jumping to any conclusions. Still, didn't I tell you to disassemble Bobot?"

"I did."

"Then why was it in working order just a few minutes ago?"

"It what?"

"I told you to take Bobot apart, but just a few minutes ago, Ernest found it sitting in one piece. He was going to take the disassembled Bobot to Bowman to help him investigate the body. Maybe he could compare Bobot to what he could find on Leon and come up with some hypothesis on how the murder happened. That's not what matters, though. What I'm interested in now is how Bobot was in one piece, even though you say you took it apart."

"It couldn't have been in one piece! I made sure everything was shut down and… and…"

"And?"

"Do you think Bobot could have put himself back together?"

"Possibly. I'm considering the idea."

"That would make me some sort of genius, don't you think?"

Chisato frowned, took a notepad out of her shirt pocket, and scribbled something down. "Yes, it would."

"I mean, if Bobot taught himself how to put himself together without my help, then my artificial intelligence routines must be even more amazing than I thought. Bobot can… learn."

"Indeed, that would be impressive." Chisato scratched her chin.

"I've been putting lots and lots of work into Bobot lately," said Precis. "Every night, I stay up late working on him. He's my passion, you know. Besides Ashton, I mean."

"I don't know that I've ever seen you even talking to Leon," said Chisato. The change of subject startled Precis.

"No, not much."

"Then there's probably no mention of him in Bobot's programming."

"I specifically mentioned him as someone never to target. You know how battles are, right?"

"Crowded. Busy. Fast."

"So I have to make sure Bobot knows not to attack anyone friendly."

"And yet we have a dead body, with a trail of blood leading from the body to Bobot."

"That does look kind of bad, doesn't it?"

Chisato narrowed her eyes. "It does. But there's too much that doesn't make sense right now to go laying any accusations on anyone. All I can say is that Bobot looks very suspicious right now, and I want you to make sure it doesn't have the power to get up and move around."

"What will I do at night, then?" said Precis. "I usually work on Bobot and talk to Ashton. Until I talk too much about Bobot, and then Ashton falls asleep, but then I just work on Bobot."

"Maybe Ashton will be relieved to talk about something other than Bobot."

"Maybe, but he loves Bobot as much as I do."

"Did he tell you that?"

"Yep!"

"Maybe he's saying that because he loves you. Why don't you try something else? And keep a watchful eye out. There's still a killer on the loose."

"Yeah, you don't have to remind me."

"That's all for now, Precis. Take care, please."

Precis stood, make a quick bow, and ducked out of the room, head spinning.

XXX

"Poison," announced Bowman to the room. "Leon died from ingesting a mandrake."

Gasps issued from the gathered party. Chisato in particular looked displeased.

"Where did the blood come from, then?"

Bowman frowned. "I don't know. All I do know is that he had enough mandrake in him to kill a Mithril Eater, and it was half digested. That rules out the possibility of someone stuffing it down his throat after killing him in some other way."

"There's still too much we don't understand," said Chisato. "But at least we know a little bit more than we did. That's a start."

"I'll keep looking things over to see if I can report anything else," said Bowman. "That blood had to come from somewhere."

Dias piped up. "Did you confirm that the blood belonged to Leon?"

Both Chisato and Bowman startled. "Um," said Bowman, "no."

"Why did I not think of that?" said Chisato. "The killer could have been the one hurt. That would explain the blood in the hallway, wouldn't it?"

"But wouldn't someone have heard the struggle?" asked Ernest.

"Not necessarily," said Celine. "Chisato, do you mind if I report what I saw?"

"Go ahead," said Chisato.

"Good," said Celine. "I looked at the books Leon was writing, and I found something interesting on the last finished page of Special Heraldry. Anyone care to guess what it was?"

"Tell us," said Chisato. "And keep in mind that most of us have no training in Heraldry."

"It appears that Leon was not just recording knowledge everyone already knows. He was investigating Heraldic spells of his own invention. He was, in a word, innovating."

"How so?" said Rena, looking interested.

"On the page I was looking at, I saw a drawing of one basic, familiar crest, and another drawing of a more advanced crest, the like of which I had never seen before. According to the text, the new crest was some sort of amplification spell. Combined with another crest, it could increase the effect of a magic spell by a least an order of magnitude. It was an incredible discovery, and it certainly would have won Leon some prestige at the Heraldry research laboratory in Lacour. Unfortunately, it proved to be his undoing. Care to guess why?"

"The other crest was for the Silence spell!" said Chisato.

"Correct," said Celine. "Quite impressive of you to figure that out."

"I pride myself on my critical thinking skills," said Chisato.

"As well you should. But yes, the Silence crest was there. And outside of the book, I saw two Heraldic crest carvings into a star ruby, overlapping one another. Upon closer inspection, I discovered that Leon had been using the star ruby as a testing field for his new Heraldry. And last night, he was testing his amplification spell applied to Silence."

"So even if there had been some sort of struggle, no one would have heard because of the magic!" Chisato sounded inappropriately bubbly. "That's one mystery solved, at least. It also explains how the killer could have gotten into Precis and Ashton's room without waking either of them."

"Do we even know it was a murder?" asked Dias. "Leon could have taken the mandrake by accident."

"It was murder," said Bowman. "My autopsy showed that the mandrake wasn't chewed up. Someone forced it down Leon's throat. Also, a suicide would not account for the blood leading to Bobot's closet."

"What does Bobot have to do with anything if it wasn't the murder weapon, though?" asked Chisato. "That's what I'd like to know. It could have been an attempt to frame Precis, but it would have been a clumsy attempt. Her only connection to the murder was Bobot, and if Bobot wasn't the weapon, then suddenly she has no connection. And I still want to know where the blood came from and why it got where it was. I think it belongs to the killer, but Bowman will have to get back to me on that."

"So you guys aren't going to be accusing me anymore?" asked Precis. "I mean, just think of how I felt, being accused of a crime I didn't commit. And you made poor Ashton uncomfortable."

"Why don't you think of poor Leon?" said Dias. "Until we had reason to believe you were innocent, we had to suspect you. The blood in your closet was a pretty bad sign."

"But…" Precis began, but Ashton squeezed her shoulder and pulled her back.

"It's okay now, dear," he whispered to her. "We all know you didn't do it. And you know I'll keep you safe from whoever the killer really is. I hope so, anyway."

"Ashton, I need you to be more confident now! Make me feel safe! Now, of all times."

"Okay, then," he said. "I promise I'll protect you."

"That's better."

XXX

"Precis," said Rena, "I need to speak with you alone. Would you please follow me?"

"Okay," said Precis. "I'm always happy to entertain a defeated rival."

"I never liked Ashton," said Rena. "We've been over this a thousand times. You two experienced love at first sight. I was a little jealous of you for that, but I never loved Ashton."

"Right. Whatever."

Precis and Rena moved into Rena's room. Rena locked the door.

"Do you get the sense that something is not quite right with the investigation?" asked Rena.

"Well, there's Chisato acting like she's Miss Master Detective, bossing me around and trying to make me confess or something. And Dias is being a jerk."

"Something else, though." Rena sat down on her bed and motioned for Precis to sit next to her. "Do you get the idea that everyone is, well, forgetting something?"

"What?"

Rena fidgeted. "I hoped you would be the one who could understand, but maybe I was wrong in that. You are just as clueless as the rest."

"Aren't I always clueless?" Precis yelped. "What is it? What am I missing?"

"Leon!"

"Of course I'm missing him. He's… Oh, I get it."

"Everyone is running around playing detective, and one of our best friends is dead. Has no one stopped to think about that? Leon is gone!"

"Now that you mention it…"

"And I shouldn't have to mention it! Because of the actions of one individual, Leon will never talk again. He was so young, too. Someone stole his life from him, and from us, and no one seems to care."

"Rena, I think all the running about solving the crime is their way of caring."

"But no one is even sad!"

"I'm sad," Precis shot, suddenly curt. She relaxed a little before continuing. "I'm sad, and I'm sure I'm going to be more sad later when everything sinks in. And I think everyone else is the same way. We just don't want to think about the loss until we get our work done."

"What if someone else dies next, though? What if I die? Will everyone forget me so quickly?"

"We haven't forgotten Leon. If we had forgotten him, we wouldn't be doing all this for him."

"Bowman just cut him up into pieces. Precis, if I die, I don't want to be cut up like that. Not so soon, and not by a friend."

"Bowman is your friend?"

"He's an acquaintance. That's close enough. A friend of a friend."

"He's a dirty, sexist pig. And he keeps staring at you. Doesn't that make you uncomfortable?"

"He stares at all the women, especially Celine and Opera. I suppose that's one more reason why I don't want him looking at me after I die. We're getting off topic, though."

"Sorry." Precis nudged closer to her friend. "Rena, I won't forget you, and neither will Claude. You two love each other, right?"

"Right."

"I know if anything happened to me, Ashton would never get over it. It's the same with you and Claude. Maybe you should tell him that he needs to be extra careful with you while you're scared. I know Ashton owes me some extra comfort until this whole mess clears up."

"Maybe."

"And so I'm going to make sure he's by my side. And I'll stay by his. Because that's what love is, you know? I owe him the same loyalty, and I'll always remember him. And then I don't have to worry about him forgetting me. That's part of love."

"Beautiful speech, Precis."

"Friendship works that way, too. We're best friends, right?"

"Right."

"Then the four of us – you, me, my Ashton, your Claude – we're all going to stick together, to the bitter end and past the bitter end."

"You've gotten all philosophical on me, Precis."

"I do that when I'm worried."

"You should go back to Ashton, then. And I should go talk to Claude."

"That's a good idea."

"And Precis?"

"Yeah?"

"Thanks for reminding me."

"That's what friends are for."