Preying for keeps

9

The cold chill of death soaked into Jack Skater even as the elevator dropped through the Lone Star Security Services building to one of the basement levels. When the doors opened up, the stench of chemicals and blood surrounded him despite the efforts to cover it over with pine and lemon scents.

"Follow the purple line," Paulson ordered, giving him a shove to get him started.

Skater glanced at (he floor and found a thin rainbow of colors traced across the linoleum. Locating the purple one near the center of the dozen or so colors, he started forward. The tile was cold underfoot, and the air was chill, crisp.

Men and women, human and meta, passed him in the hall, all dressed in white lab coats over their street clothes. Only a few gave him a second look. The orange jumpsuit made him stand out in the sterile environment. He flexed his cuffed hands behind his back in an effort to keep the circulation going.

He followed two lefts, then a right, ending up at a door as black as obsidian. The small lettering in the upper-right corner announced Richard Means, Ph.D., Forensics.

Nina swiped her passcard through the maglock and the door opened.

"Go," Paulson said, shoving again.

Skater went with it. He was deep inside himself, holding tight where no emotions could touch him. Maybe he'd already accepted Larisa's death; he wasn't sure. Maybe it was just that too much had happened. The numbness felt permanent, like nerve-death.

A small anteroom held a short black female who barely gave them a glance when they entered. She was studying diagrams on a deck. "Hello, Lance, Nina: Doc's inside waiting on you.

The smell filling the room was cloying and made the air thick in Skater's chest. He had to force himself to breathe it.

The only other door was to the left. A steady electronic whir came from it. Skater walked toward it, watching as more and more of the gleaming machinery covering the walls came into view.

A chromed ball hung from the ceiling, nearly two-dozen articulated arms jutting out from it. Each of them ended in another piece of medical hardware: scalpels, forceps, needles, bone saws, and a chest spreader.

"Doc," Nina said, staying back from the slanted table where a burned and blackened corpse lay stretched out in unclothed vulnerability. "We were told you had a confirmed idee."

Dr. Means sat in a chair at the comer of the room facing them. A helmet was fitted over his head, hardwired into the computers behind him. Rectangular glasses covered his eyes.

On the armrests, his hands played over a series of buttons, toggles, and joysticks. "I'm pretty sure of it."

In response to his movements the ball descended over the corpse and two of the articulated arms whirred smoothly into motion.

Skater felt Paulson's heavy hand drop onto his shoulder, pushing him closer. He stopped a few steps away and tried to breathe as shallowly as possible. Burned flesh seared his nostrils.

One look at the charred face let him know the corpse had once been Larisa Hartsinger. Somehow, the flames had caramelized her beauty, creating a hard, chitin-like exoskeleton of her face. The shell was smooth, a deep burnished ebony with an undercurrent of dark red that gave off a glow around the edges. Her hair had been burnt off, leaving her skull with black stubble.

The long, slim body was ravaged and twisted by fire. Incisions had been made to allow different medical apparatus passage. Three of the arms on the surgical ball rummaged inside the corpse, one of them making sucking sounds.

"There's the face, of course," Means said. "The Crime Scene Unit made a tentative idee at the scene when they recovered the DB."

On the wall, one of the monitors flared to life. A picture of Larisa juiced the pixels.

"I got this from the Department of Licensing when I found out the DMV didn't have anything," Means said. "Because she worked as a dancer at SybreSpace, I knew Hartsinger would probably be registered. Some of them aren't, but Amanda Silvereyes runs a pretty tight ship."

Skater watched the monitor, keeping the memories at bay. The twisted thing on the lab table wasn't Larisa. Larisa was gone, hopefully to a better place, but he didn't know if he believed that.

The image of Larisa on the monitor shrank and moved over, making room for a view of her burned face. The eyes were open in the picture, looking like ice cubes that had gone gray with age, fixed in a thousand-meter stare.

"I ran tests on the DNA," Means said. "I was able to match the skin tone from pigmentation. I did the same for the hair and eyes."

The caramelized version of Larisa's face lightened up, taking on a more human appearance. The gray eyes turned deep hunter's green.

"She'd had her eyes altered," the coroner said. "I was able to pick up enough of the traces of the cosmetic modifications to get a match on the color. I took a sample of her hair, also modified, from inside her scalp and made that match."

On the monitor, the burnt version of Larisa suddenly grew hair the coppery red color Skater remembered.

"This is what she looked like before she died," Means informed them. "I can show you what she looked like a few years ago. Before the cosmetic changes."

A third picture popped onto the other screen beside the other two. The girl in this one was not as pretty as Larisa. The bone structure was the same, but different. She was definitely slimmer, maybe anemic. Her eyes were a doe-brown, and her hair was mousy brunette, thin and plastered to her skull.

Skater had never seen that Larisa. It was like looking at a stranger. Except that he could see the other Larisa waiting to spring forth out of this one.

He was suddenly aware that there was so much he'd never known about her, that he'd never let her know about him. During the time they'd been together, he hadn't thought much about it. Life was to be lived now.

But standing there, looking at the three pictures of her on the coroner's wall, standing in front of her mortal remains and knowing she hadn't died an easy death, Skater fell the loss. It ached inside him, cold and hard and edged.

"You run a check on her?" Paulson asked.

"Yes. It's all in my report. The SIN was hers from birth. She has a mother still living in the sprawl. I assume you'll want to talk to her."

Skater didn't let the surprise show. Larisa had never mentioned a mother. But neither of them had been exactly forthcoming about their secrets.

"Yeah," Paulson said. "We'll talk to her. But I think we've already got the doer in custody."

Means slipped his head out of the helmet. Even sitting in the chair, Skater could see that he was tall. He had blond hair and blue eyes, and a lantern jaw. The guy could have been a news anchor on the trid. "Did you check him out for magic?"

"Came up negative," Nina said.

Means nodded. "Then you've possibly got one of the doers. This woman was shot first, then fried with some kind of fire blast."

"This guy's a shooter," Paulson said. "We didn't turn up a partner."

"Someone else was involved," Means said. "That woman was hit with a spell that left her like that. Whoever killed her wanted her identified, maybe as a warning. Was she connected?"

"Not anywhere that we could find," Nina said. "But working the dance floor at SybreSpace, she could have been. We're still looking."

Skater let the silence that followed draw out for a time, then, "What about the baby?"

"What baby?" Paulson demanded. "Nobody at the scene mentioned a baby."

"Ask him." Skater nodded at the coroner.

'There was no baby found at the scene," Means replied. "But my tests show she'd given birth within the last three weeks."

A knot Skater hadn't known was inside him suddenly came loose. He breathed a little easier. Maybe some part of Larisa was still alive.

"Was there anything in the Montgomery files about a baby?" Paulson asked his partner.

The troll flipped through her notes. "No. The apartment was leased in Hartsinger's name only. The rent was paid to the Montgomery account by the first of the month ever since she moved in three months ago."

"She was making the payments?"

"Yes," Nina responded. "From an account with Garrison First."

"How old was the account?" Paulson asked.

"Three months."

"Amazing, huh?" Paulson asked sarcastically. "Can we trace the money that went into that account?"

"I'll make a note."

Without giving the appearance of listening. Skater memorized every word. He'd been set up. The team had been set up. Now, it was looking like Larisa had been set up, too. He still didn't know if she'd known his head was being put on the chopping block.

"What do you think about this?" Paulson asked, turning to face Skater. "You think your girlfriend could have made the kind of nuyen she needed to live in a place like the Montgomery from her salary and tips?"

"She was a good dancer," Skater answered. But he knew the high life wasn't something Larisa would have been comfortable with. She liked having people she could talk to.

"Damn sure doesn't look like it now."

With some difficulty, Skater managed to let the comment slide by. His grip on himself was tenuous, and he knew it could snap at any time if he wasn't careful.

"How did you know about the baby?" Nina asked.

"I saw the crib," Skater said.

"Nobody mentioned a crib," Paulson said, looking at Means.

The coroner shook his head. "After that fire, it's hard to say."

"That where you got the teddy bear you had on you?" Nina asked.

"Yeah."

"Any special reason for picking it up?"

"I figured if the baby got scared, the teddy bear might calm her."

"Her?"

Skater nodded. "The baby is a girl."

"You're sure about that?"

"I saw the room before it burned. It was made up for a little girl. The clothes were all for a girl."

"So where is she?"

"I don't know." Skater tried to answer in a neutral tone, like it didn't matter. He thought Nina might have seen through it.

"The baby could have already been gone," Means said as he poured soykaf from a thermos. "Larisa Hartsinger had been dead at least an hour before the fire got to her."

"You're sure?" Paulson asked.

The coroner nodded.

"You want to tell me about it now?" Paulson said, disgusted.

Skater just looked at him. "I'm tired of talking."