Chapter 9

When the world faded in again, the first thing Chisato noticed was that everything was more lucid than it had been earlier. The second thing she noticed was that she was on the floor in the middle of her room. It was not an empty, quiet room; Celine snored in a bed near the far wall. Still, she found herself wondering why she had gone to sleep there instead of in the soft, inviting bed she normally used. Collecting herself, she stood up. She nearly screamed when she glanced in the mirror and saw the slash across her neck, now darker than before, but out of respect for Celine, she held back.

Where did that come from? she wondered. It looks like someone cut me. What a headache, too!

Chisato's legs nearly gave out from under her, so she leaned against the wall as she hobbled back to her bed. Once there, she saw the bloodied note on her pillow. After taking a drink of the now-cooled cider, she read it.

Chisato,

I do not know when you will be in good enough condition to continue the investigation, but I thought I should mention what I have found in your absence. ERNEST, our latest victim, was done in not by hanging, but by POISON. I found several scrapes underneath his clothing, which I suspect are where the poison entered his body. The scrapes themselves are thin and barely skin deep, but they look almost bruised. I would guess they were made by a knife. The patterns interest me: on the left side of the upper torso, I found only horizontal cuts, and on the right I found only vertical cuts. The two sets were exactly equal in number, though not parallel in direction. I also found two slightly deeper cuts on the shoulders, one on each side. The cutting looked systematic.

I found poison in his blood, of course. It was not very potent, so I suspect the attacker knew he needed more than one shot of it. Traces of it around the cuts tell me he had dipped his knife in it before slashing the victim.

Again, I think this happened long before the killer threw Ernest's body over the railing. At least we know how he was killed now, though I am at a loss to say who did it or why. For a while, I was fooled because the killer actually put Ernest into another set of clothes to cover up the wounds.

I wish you good health, and I hope the situation improves before you wake up.

-Bowman Jean

P.S. I am not sure how coherent you were when Celine and I brought you up to your room, but Celine thought to leave you a drink. I am mentioning this because she deserves the credit for being thoughtful, and if I pretend it was my idea, she might slap me again.

P.P.S. You seem to be in okay health. You'll get better with rest.

Chisato gasped.

Poison, on the tip of a knife, she pondered. And he got me. Not enough to kill. Not as much as Ernest got. Not enough to kill. I'm alive. Why, though? He's done everything else right. How could he be so clumsy with me, when I'm one of the head investigators? It doesn't make…

Chisato's hands clenched shut. It does make sense.

XXX

A furious pounding at the door shook Precis Neumann out of her Nirvana state, right in the middle of an important adjustment to Bobot's programming. She turned her head toward the interruption and growled.

"Precis, it's me!" Chisato's voice came through the wood. "Let me in! Hurry!"

"You?" said Precis. "You're just here to take Bobot away."

"No," said Chisato. "I'm not, really. Let me in and I'll explain. Please, hurry."

"Promise?"

"I promise. Please," Chisato implored.

"Okay, then," said Precis. "As long as Ashton isn't there with you."

"He's not," said Chisato.

This satisfied Precis enough for her to let Chisato in and invite her to sit down. She even felt so relieved at not seeing Ashton that she found herself playing the role of overly polite host: after she locked the door again, she brought Chisato a cup of freshly brewed tea.

"What seems to be the problem?" Precis asked in an absurdly overdone formal tone.

"First," said her guest, "I need to apologize for getting after you earlier. I had no proof that Bobot was any sort of killer, but I needed someone to blame. So I'm sorry."

"It's all okay," said Precis, "as long as you're not defending Ashton the Creep."

"I'm not," admitted Chisato. "I know he should have done a better job at protecting you."

"You're right there," said Precis. "There was a killer in my room the night of every murder up until I kicked the bum out, and he didn't do anything about it."

"I know," said Chisato. "And I think I'm about to catch the killer."

"Really?" Precis's eyebrows shot up an inch. "Who is it?"

"I'm not quite certain yet, but I know how I'm going to catch him."

"Really."

"And I need to borrow Bobot to do so."

Borrow… Bobot? "What for?"

"I think I can use one of his defensive moves to stop the killer cold. I just need access to it to get it set up."

"And you're buttering me up with talk of how I'm right and Ashton's wrong, despite you two working together on this case."

Chisato looked like she had been taken off guard, but she recovered quickly. "No, nothing like that. I just think it's fitting that this whole thing ends by Bobot's hand."

"What do you need him for?" said Precis.

"I want to test out one of his programs. Can you demonstrate Holo-Holograph for me?"

Why that one?

"Sure," said Precis. In a wink, she hopped up from her seat and began piecing her machine back together. Head, body, and legs soon joined together to make one little blood-stained robotic bundle, Precis's pride and joy.

"Just about ready," said Precis. "Let me fire him up."

A few switch toggles and button presses later, Bobot lit up and began pacing in a small circle around his creator. Precis fiddled with a remote control.

"I need a target," she said. She pointed at the side of the bed where Ashton had been sleeping. "How about that pillow?"

"Technically, that belongs to the hotel," said Chisato.

"We're going to be rich as soon as the publishers warm up to my novel, so who cares?" Precis aimed her remote device at the pillow. Unbridled passion for robotics seemed to take over her entire being as she shouted a handful of her favorite words into the remote's microphone: "Bobot, go! Holo-Holograph!"

Bobot swung his right arm in a horizontal motion, slicing the pillow across the side. The follow-up strike came from Bobot's left arm, and then his right, and then his left again. Finally, in a coup de grace, Bobot leaped into a somersault and slashed downward with both swords.

And missed the pillow entirely.

"The target's a little small, I guess," said Precis. "Is that going to be a problem? I really should fix that sometime. I can't get Bobot to target in the middle of his move."

"It's okay," said Chisato. "I've seen exactly what I need to see."

"Great!" said Precis. "What next?"

"First, we power Bobot down."

"Done," said Precis, flipping a switch. "Now what?"

Chisato's face turned grave. "Next, Precis, you'll do exactly as I tell you, if you value your life at all."

Precis watched, mouth agape, as Chisato drew a small but perfectly deadly handgun from inside her jacket.