FanFic: White Night -- Complete in 6 chapters

[DezoPenguin]

They're baaaaack! Yes, it's another holiday-themed story featuring my FOmar and RAcaseal pair. Of course, unlike "Trick or Treat" (last chapter posted right on Halloween) and "Heartwired" (last chapter posted in March), this one is over five months late for White Day, and the last chapter will be half a year behind. Such, unfortunately, is life. Too bad I can't think of a short little Labor Day one-shot; that would be a decent gag idea.

Anyway, enjoy!


CHAPTER ONE

The uniformed man descended from the aerovan, checking his appearance in the polished chrome side before doing anything else. The van's seat tended to crumple up the long tails of his green coat, and he liked to present a positive, professional appearance. That done, he got out a package, like all of them sealed in the company's green and white box, and checked the coding against the address data. Yep, right package. Dennys Coyle rarely made mistakes in his six-year career with Diamond Drive Deliveries, and none at all since he'd come aboard the colony spaceship Pioneer 2. A closed environment with a limited population, carefully monitored, was a cakewalk for a veteran like him.

Coyle took a warp platform from the parking dock to the residence building, arriving in a large atrium with a domed ceiling of hexagonal panels displaying a sky scene, banks of ornamental trees in the far corners, and a fountain splashing in the room's center. Nice, he thought. Someone's doing well for themselves. He crossed the atrium to the elevator, where a security panel advised him to halt. He identified himself and the computer checked his data and the package code against what the company had already sent over. Everything appeared to be verified, at least if the display could be believed; the elevator slid open to admit Coyle. He stepped inside, recited the address, and felt the surge of motion as the car slid soundlessly upwards.

The elevator admitted Coyle to a diamond-shaped lobby, apparently in the center of the level, with a door in the center of each of the four walls. Each residence, therefore, was one-fourth of the level. Someone's doing very well for themselves, Coyle amended his earlier thought, thinking of his own two-room residence with kitchen alcove and bathroom. He walked to the correct door and keyed the intercom.

"Diamond Drive Deliveries; package for Ms. Arca Braden."

The security checks from below were repeated before the door opened.

"Thanks. That's for me?"

"If you're Ms. Braden."

"I am." She was in her forties, thin and attractively dressed. Her hair tapered to a razor-edged cut and cosmetics were applied with a careful, not heavy hand, projecting a businesslike and efficient image without sacrificing appearance.

"Then it's all yours. If you'd just indicate your acceptance of the delivery here..." Coyle handed Braden a dataplate, which Braden quickly coded in and returned. "Thanks, here you go." He gave Braden the package, then waited for her to reach for the door control before he, too turned. That was good customer relations, not just shoving a package into someone's hands and rushing off. After all, today's recipient might be tomorrow's sender, and Diamond Drive wasn't the only courier service on the ship.

Coyle was still waiting for the elevator when he heard the explosion even through the soundproofed walls.


* * * * *

"I'm not surprised the military police is having trouble making headway on this case," Donovan Ryland said. "You've got quite a conundrum here." Ryland looked like what he was: a Force, trained in the use of techniques which channeled Photon energy to manifest in real-world effects through his own will. His long red hair pulled back in a ponytail, square-framed spectacles, and green-and-white robes all supported the image of the studious and mystical.

"It's a public relations nightmare," admitted Galen Krone, executive vice president of Diamond Drive Deliveries. He was a well-fed man in expensive clothes tailored to perfectly fit his two hundred pounds. His neatly cut, glossy brown hair and moustache and pink, fresh-scrubbed skin further reflected his attention he paid to his appearance. "The investigation is frozen in the worst possible state."

Android Weinstine Co. Type L/Y-906 (Lyon for short) tipped her head to one side, a mannerism the orange-and-black RAcaseal's personality matrix suggested to indicate curiosity. The movement made the foxtail-like "hair" structure on the back of her head bob.

"Why is that?" she asked.

"The milipol's analysis of the crime-scene evidence established positively that the explosive had been inside the container when it detonated. That proves that we delivered the bomb to the murdered man!"

"Only, as a matter of routine, packages are run through a security sweep to prevent this kind of problem from happening," Ryland reviewed the facts from the police report copy on the dataplate he held. "The company's security logs indicate that the fatal package checked out at every stage."

"That's unusual," Lyon said.

"Setting aside the idea that the victim opened the package and placed the explosive inside it herself, there are a number of possibilities: the original sender somehow shielded the bomb from detection, someone tampered with the security sensors, someone tampered with the computers to show a false negative, or someone tampered with the package after the final security sweep--which occurs, by the way, when the package is loaded onto the delivery vehicle."

"The problem is that regardless of which explanation is correct, Diamond is at fault," Krone explained. "In the two weeks since the incident, business has dropped forty percent! And, since the milipol can't figure out what actually happened, we can't take steps to prevent it from happening again. Our marketing department could do something if we could at least fix the problem, whether it's to upgrade the sensors or expose a rogue employee. That would at least stop the bleeding of meseta. Better yet if we could prove that our competitors couldn't have done anything differently than we did. Pioneer 2 is not a huge market. There's a limited amount of courier business to be done and this could break us, shut us down for good."

"Plus there's the little matter of murder," Lyon remarked.

Krone smiled mirthlessly.

"Of course, that's regrettable, but I didn't know Arca Braden personally or professionally, and I don't work in law enforcement. My concern is the welfare of this company."

"You might even get some positive publicity out of it," Ryland said wryly, "if hunters hired by you crack the case ahead of the official force."

Krone showed his teeth.

"I think we'll get along just fine, Mr. Ryland."


* * * * *

Brightly colored fish swam by behind the transparent panel, their vivid yellows and oranges standing out against the bright blue of the water.

"The coffee here," Ryland decided after his first sip, "is lousy."

Lyon smiled.

"There are advantages to being an android."

"Why pick this place?"

They were seated in a booth on the lower level of the Blue Grotto, a moderately popular nightspot. The ceiling of the circular room was low, with an open area at the center with a spiraling ramp for access to the upper level. The aquarium completely surrounded it, pierced only by the various exit doors.

"I like the fish."

Organics, Lyon was well aware, liked to talk through matters over food and drink. It helped to relax their conscious minds and stimulate clear thought. As an android, though, she didn't consume food, and it always made her a little uncomfortable to be present while others did. It emphasized the differences.

Ryland grinned back at her.

"Why not? Besides, I clearly owe you one for picking this Guild Quest for us."

The android Ranger and human Force had been partners for nearly two years, but it hadn't taken anywhere near that long for Lyon to learn that Ryland liked puzzles and conundrums he would test out his wits on. Their last job had been on the surface of the planet Ragol, clearing genetically altered animals from a cave section so the Lab could set up an experimental waypoint, so Lyon had thought her partner would appreciate the contrast. She wasn't surprised that she'd been right, since she'd calculated and 83.6% chance it would gratify him, but his appreciation did make her feel good.

"Let's go over the police report," she suggested. "There's no sense in us covering ground that's already been thoroughly checked, and we can see what might be worth taking an additional look at."

"All right." He handed her the dataplate. Lyon could have linked to it and directly downloaded the entire contents to her memory, but instead chose to read through it the way an organic would. She hated to link herself to other systems, opening herself to potential hacking; while she'd do it if the job required it would never be a routine practice for her.

Besides, this way allowed her to absorb the data point-by-point, building it into a larger picture while talking things over with Ryland. Sometimes, the process helped trigger new ideas, connections, or paths of thinking.

"Let's start with the incident itself. The victim was Arca Braden, age forty-two, Resource Oversight Director with the Administration. She accepted delivery of the package from Diamond Drive Deliveries on March 14, at 837 beats. Security sensors indicated the detonation happened at 838."

"What kind of charge was used?" asked Ryland.

"It says 'unspecified Photon-based explosive.' Since there weren't chemical traces the bomb didn't have a particular signature. It apparently wasn't incendiary, though." Lyon paused. "This rules out some kind of homemade device, though. Explosives made to use Photon energy aren't like chemical ones, where a variety of common items can be mixed into a bomb. A Photon detonator can't be cooked up in a back room."

"That leaves a lot of sources, though. There's the military, the black market, or the arms manufacturers like Vise Corp."

"What surprises me is the 'unspecified' part. Usually you'd find some forensic trace of what kind of explosive was used. Damage to the crime scene was minor, largely cosmetic. That should be a clue in and of itself."

Photon technology could do that, Lyon reflected--create explosions that could destroy people but leave buildings unscathed. Ryland's pet theory, that Photon was the same power people had used to call "magic" thousands of years past, only now applied scientifically instead of through superstition, made more and more sense in the face of such evidence.

"That is strange. It implies that the device was something cutting-edge, experimental. Which if you think about it, doesn't make any sense."

"Why not?" Lyon wondered. "It seems logical to me."

Ryland sipped his coffee again, then made a face and pushed his glass away.

"The coffee here is really lousy, Lyon."

An inquisitive squid swam up to the glass and peered at them before jetting away.

"Do I complain when you pick somewhere to hang out whose only redeeming quality is the food I don't eat?"

"You have," Ryland admitted, "a point. Anyway, back to the bomb. An ordinary person in a private residential unit is a soft target. Exotic weapons aren't necessary. This was technological overkill. On the good side, though," he added with a smile, "it's a clue. Access to cutting-edge or experimental ordnance is limited. An ordinary Downtown black marketeer, for example, wouldn't be able to provide it."

"So why use it? Is it just a matter of ego?" Hunters had various weapon and tactical preferences, after all. Lyon herself, although a Ranger whose combat skills were optimized for long-range fighting, preferred hand-to-hand battle and had indeed originally partnered with Ryland so that her role would be to indulge that liking. Did the killer just have a fetish for the latest technology and not realize it put him or her at risk?

"It could be. Or it might be an access issue; the killer might only have access to specific kinds of explosives, if it was stolen instead of bought."

"Or perhaps the type of explosive was only incidental to the reason it was chosen."

"I'm not sure I follow."

"The relevant factor might not be the effects of the explosion. The biggest question is how the bomb evaded security sweeps which, while not exhaustive, do seem adequate according to this report. Maybe the bomb was picked for its ability to do that, rather than for what it did when it blew up."

"That's a good point. Do you think that's how the bomb evaded security?"

Lyon shrugged. As an advanced AI, her personality matrix provided for a certain amount of non-verbal communication and mannerisms designed to better fit socially among the organics she worked with.

"I don't have enough data to assign even estimated probabilities to possible solutions." She paused, then added, "it is, however, the simplest solution."

Ryland caught it at once.

"I see. It doesn't require any additional, unusual factors. It's already established that the killer has access to unusual weaponry. This way, he or she doesn't also have to be an expert hacker or be a Diamond Drive employee with access to the system or to have hired one of either. It's a more elegant solution, just not necessarily more likely."

Lyon nodded.

"Here's something that is likely, though. We have a terrorist-style murder carried out using advanced weaponry, which targeted a government official. These all point to the motive being political."

"Conspiracy," Ryland agreed.




<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: DezoPenguin on 2007-09-03 13:42 ]</font>


<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: DezoPenguin on 2007-09-11 13:38 ]</font>


<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: DezoPenguin on 2007-09-17 19:33 ]</font>


<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: DezoPenguin on 2007-09-22 09:48 ]</font>


<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: DezoPenguin on 2007-09-27 16:53 ]</font>

[Freeze]

Very interesting, I'll be keeping an eye on this one.

[Nai_Calus]

I am awesome. http://www.pso-world.com/images/phpbb/icons/smiles/icon_wacko.gif

w00t. Excellent start, as usual. Can't wait for the rest. (Hey, maybe this time I'll stop forgetting to freakin' comment!)

[DezoPenguin]

Glad you're liking it, folks! This chapter features a guest appearance by a canon character who simply doesn't get a lot of play in fiction.

================================================== ===========================


CHAPTER TWO

"We're lucky," Ryland mused, "that the victim was a member of the Administration."

"I'm not sure I follow."

"The police are part of the military chain of command, which means that the Administration is likely to be closed-mouthed about any special projects Braden was working on. Most milipol officers are dedicated to their law enforcement duties, but chain-of-command issues do arise."

"They don't have any real reason to disclose secrets to us, either," Lyon pointed out.

"Yes, but as hunters working for a private, nonmilitary client--and especially given Principal Tyrell's pro-Hunter's Guild stance--they're more likely to be willing to let something slip. The Administration is going to want this case solved, after all. The victim was one of their own. I think that should be our starting point, since it's the angle of investigation best able to point not only to the who, but the why."

"All right. Who is your Administration contact?"

Ryland looked over at the fish tank.

"I...don't really have one."

"You're kidding," Lyon marveled. "You always have contacts." Whether it was an underground computer hacker or one of the power brokers of corporate finance, Ryland had always been able to come up with someone who could give them needed information.

"I know, and you have no idea how much it annoys me not to in this case."

Lyon's own network of contacts was not so well-developed, a natural result of her barely being older than the Pioneer 2 expedition, but in this case she thought she could help.

"I'll handle that part, then. You can approach our fellow hunters, instead. Many of them would be more receptive to an organic asking questions, in any case."

"True...but why would we be asking about Braden with the Guild?"

"Not her." She turned the dataplate back around to face Ryland, though she knew from experience he could read upside down almost as well as she could. "The person who sent the package in the first place."

"Nils Vandsen," Ryland read. "A registered member of the Hunter's Guild, identified as a male human Hunter, age thirty-two. The milipol investigated him as a possible suspect, but he denied all knowledge of the bomb."

By law, hunters enjoyed complete extraterritoriality within the Guild. This meant that they could not be forced to disclose details about a Guild Quest, and that any testimony they might freely offer was inadmissable in court or even to provide grounds for probable cause to open an investigation. The point of this was to protect the clients, so that they in turn would be willing to entrust hunters with sensitive jobs, insuring that the Guild could survive as part of society rather than being forced to sink into the underworld.

This privilege, though, did not prevent hunters from being arrested for any crimes they might personally commit, whether or not they did so on a client's behalf. Since Vandsen had the best opportunity of anyone to tamper with the package, he was an obvious suspect.

"The milipol couldn't push the point, because they couldn't even explain how the bomb could have passed through Diamond Drive's security checks. Without that evidence they couldn't make anything stick and obviously Vandsen knew it."

Lyon tipped her head to one side, a mannerism designed to indicate curiosity.

"You sound like you think he's guilty."

"Well, again, it's the most elegant solution. He was the one person who knew that a package would be sent, so that would give him a reason to try and figure out how a bomb could be hidden in one. Otherwise, the bomber would have had to be waiting on the possibility that Braden would be sent a package."

"That doesn't sound likely," Lyon agreed, "not unless the bomber had a reason to expect a package would be sent."

"No, or unless the bombing wasn't a targeted murder but a random act."

"Terrorist violence? But it's been two weeks, now, and there's been no public statement or any mention in the report of any group trying to claim responsibility."

Ryland tapped his fingers together.

"The Administration could be covering up to prevent a panic if the act were political, or it might be a blackmail plot, in which the killer would keep his or her demands private to increase the chance of a payoff so the government wouldn't lose face."

"I don't think that's likely, Ryland. This is a closed society. Where would the bomber go with the payoff money?"

"Good point," Ryland admitted, "and it took intelligence to commit the crime in the first place, so doing something that stupid would be out of character. We can probably scratch that idea off our list."

Concurring, Lyon flagged the hypothesis as a negligible probability and adjusted her deductive-reasoning algorithm accordingly.

"There's one other possibility," he told her. "It could just be a maniac, an insane killer committing the crime for a thrill. That type might try to claim public responsibility for the ego boost, but might also keep quiet to savor the public's fear and confusion."

Lyon thought that over.

"Yes, that works."

"So we start at both ends and push towards the middle." Ryland glanced over at the aquarium again. "I'm glad you brought me here after all."

"Why?"

He pointed to the tank.

"That's kind of like this case, isn't it? We wrap it all up in our net and see what fish we come up with." He glanced at his discarded cup. "I just hope it goes down better than the coffee."


* * * * *

"I can only offer you a minute," the neatly composed blonde woman said.

"Arca Braden."

She tapped a fingertip against her cheek, then smiled, not at the subject but because she appreciated what Lyon had done.

"Perhaps more than a minute, at that."

Her name was Irene Seda. She was somewhere in her mid-twenties, was reasonably pretty and immaculately groomed, wearing one of her trademark green-and-white skirt-suits. The word Lyon most often used to describe her was crisp; even Irene's emotionalism--and she could be emotional--fell within the neat outlines of what would be expected from her. She was the very best in the world in filling her role, in being what she was.

What she was was the executive secretary to the head of the Pioneer 2 Principal Government, Tyrell's right hand.

"Who are you working for?" Irene asked.

"Diamond Drive Deliveries. They want to know what happened to cut the damage to their bottom line," Lyon said. There was no point in holding the information back; it wasn't secret. On the contrary, Krone probably would have been happy to hold a press conference, to put across the idea to the public. We're as concerned as you are! We're not waiting for the milipol but taking our own steps to find the truth! Trust us with your money!

"Very sensible of them."

A brightly-colored orange bird flew by, silhouetted against the bright blue sky. It was a holographic simulation of a species from Ragol; Lyon had seen one on Gal De Val Island herself. That was the whole point of TropicPark, after all, to present a recreational setting as similar as possible to a tropical seaside. It was a joint project between the Lab and Pioneer 2 Enterprise, the former providing first-generation versions of the VR tech they used in their own systems and the latter the corporate funding.

To someone like Lyon, who had experienced both TropicPark's real-life analogue and the Lab's high-grade VR environment and viewed things with an android's precision, the differences were obvious. The problem wasn't really the equipment, but the processing power of the computers creating the VR sim. The Lab's VR system used Calus, their core AI, to run everything, allowing the designers to create fully interactive environments. TropicPark wasn't like that; the plant and animal life didn't "live" and interact with each other but followed specific programmed routines. In another 1.03 beats, the orange bird would fly by again in exactly the same path, each wingbeat precisely identical to the one from the last time.

Still, for organics who yearned to feel the sand between their toes and trade winds ruffle their hair, it was a reasonable facsimile of the seaside, even to the point that one could swim in the aquamarine salt water of the lagoon. Reasonable facsimilies were a lifestyle standard on Pioneer 2 anyway, from neomeat to synthetic leather to...androids.

Though one might note that some of the facsimilies are actually improvements on the originals, Lyon said to herself, moderately uncomfortable at her chain of associations.

"So what can you tell me about Arca Braden? We can't have you wasting your entire lunch hour, after all."

"Some days I wish I was an android," Irene said. "There's far too much to do each day and too many periodic biological interruptions. But yes, Arca Braden. Her official title was Resource Oversight Director."

"So she was involved in overseeing city maintenance? Power, water, food, that sort of thing?"

Irene nudged a rock with her foot.

"Actually, no. That's Resource Distribution. Resource Oversight is something different entirely."

"Wouldn't it be more efficient to have more distinctive titles?" Lyon wondered. That was the largest problem in organic memory--they tended to remember bits and pieces, not precision entireties.

"Yes, which is why they don't."

"Um...do I need to run a diagnostic on my language-processing subroutines, or did that not make any sense?"

Irene laughed.

"Neither. The point is to try to make Resource Oversight sound like it's another boring bureaucratic agency, when its job is in reality to deal with the Administration's external contracting."

"Oh?"

"She hired hunter teams for various Administration projects."

"I thought that was your job."

Irene shook her head.

"I work directly for Principal Tyrell, but he isn't the Administration as a whole. I only act when the project is under his personal oversight or in an emergency situation. Besides, there's no way that I could handle the workload. Remember that Principal Tyrell is using the Guild to handle the investigation of Ragol as well, and that project includes dozens of hunters. He takes a personal interest when key information is gained, of course, but for the most part it's the Resource Oversight Director who manages the day-to-day connections between the Administration and the Guild."

"I suppose that involved her in any number of sensitive projects that might be compromised by her death."

"Well, yes and no. I mean, she certainly was involved in a wide variety of projects, and some of them are classified, but assassinating her isn't likely to impact any of them. It's not like killing a snake by cutting off its head. In a government bureaucracy, there's always someone else ready to take over, and given the structure of the bureau, it's very unlikely that Ms. Braden had possession of some secret data that wasn't already disseminated to others in the Administration."

"So why kill her?"

A trio of seagulls squawked noisily, their calls startling a Newman child building a sand castle into dropping his bucket.

"That's the question, isn't it? It seems like it ought to be a military police matter, but with politics between the military and the Administration the way they are, suspicion keeps getting in the way of getting things done. I believe that some of the investigation team was actually military intelligence trying to get a look into Resource Oversight's subnet."

Lyon had met Inspector Laleham, the milipol's chief homicide investigator, and knew that on the one hand he would be grinding his teeth in frustration at having his investigation used as cover for a covert operation, but that on the other he would follow chain-of-command orders and let the spooks do their work.

"It's sad," Lyon said. "Here we are, light-years from home, stranded in space, and we're still engaged in political infighting when we should all be working together to try and make some kind of future for ourselves."

"It is sad," Irene agreed. "But the problem is, we all have different dreams for what that future should be."

[Particle]

Well done, good sir! Intelligent, interesting, well written and off the beaten track. It makes a thoroughly good read from all the other more 'kill 'em all!' focussed PSO endeavours.
I'm also quite scared by the similar thinking going on between us. The 'Blue Grotto' exchange, for example, plays out very similarly to a passage in my own fan-fic, even down to when Rylund pushes away the cup displeasingly after taking a drink. And am I correct in saying that your version of the PSO universe has personality sporting AIs (you mention a core lab AI called 'Calus')?
If so, then I think we've just accidently created the same universe. http://www.pso-world.com/images/phpbb/icons/smiles/icon_razz.gif

I genuinely look forward to your next chapter, keep it up!

*Hunts for more by Dezo*

[DezoPenguin]

On 2007-09-04 21:23, Particle wrote:
And am I correct in saying that your version of the PSO universe has personality sporting AIs (you mention a core lab AI called 'Calus')?



It absolutely does. Unfortunately, I can't take credit for it, though, since such AIs are actually in-game canon. Calus, for example, first appears in the Episode I quest "Knowing One's Heart," and then returns to play a huge role in the huge story-mode quest "Seat of the Heart" (in which Calus's personality fragments, and we get into AI-Newman romance and the nature of artificial life evolution. Fun quest.).

(I get into my own opinion on such things, including the difference between software-type AIs such as Calus, Olga, and Vol Opt and the nature of android AIs, in my prior fic, "Heartwired," if you'll excuse a plug.)

[Particle]

Not at all, and you'll have to forgive my ignorance - it's been years since I've played PSO at all, so my in-depth knowledge of such quests are infantile at best. Ah, well.
And I've so far read two of your fics from waaaay back in 2004, the one concerning Alicia Baz and the one involving the black market weapon dealings. Not wanting to cast Reverser on a dead topic, I may as well tell you here and now that I enjoyed both of them to no end.

Consider me a fan. http://www.pso-world.com/images/phpbb/icons/smiles/icon_smile.gif

And if you'll excuse me, I must now search for 'Heartwired'...

[DezoPenguin]

One note, for those of you who might be long-time readers of my stories, is that with this fic I finally gave in and started referring to beat time as the "internal" timing system for the story characters. I'm not quite sure why I never used it before--discomfort, perhaps, with a system that to the best of my knowledge was never used anywhere but PSO (I'm sure their are other places, but none that I've actually encountered or heard of).

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CHAPTER THREE

"It isn't a lot to go on," Ryland remarked after Lyon had related her meeting with Irene, "but at least it does bring one part of the business a little more into focus."

"Which part?"

Their aerocar barked through a turn, following the traffic channel between two open walkways. Lyon was glad that all air traffic on board Pioneer 2 was computer-moderated; the thought of air vehicles swooping and diving amongst the city buildings without some kind of overall control was frightening. The tiny cars flitting in and out as they wove their way through the city in three dimensions reminded Lyon of the fish at the Blue Grotto; sea life seemed to be a theme for the day.

"It makes a little more sense, now, that a hunter would be sending her packages, since she dealt with the Guild on a regular basis."

Lyon nodded, although to her way of thinking that possible connection was almost meaningless without specifics, and they were on their way to see Nils Vandsen to learn those specifics, anyway.

Still, data was data, and could at least help define their search parameters even if not point to a solution.

"I wonder, though..." Ryland mused.

"What about?"

He didn't answer right away.

"Ryland?"

"Oh, just a stray thought."

"What?"

"It didn't occur to you, and I've only met Irene a couple of times in passing, so you're in a much better position to judge that sort of thing."

She scowled at him. One of her partner's most annoying habits was his love of secrets and surprises. While it meant he tackled these kind of investigation cases like a dog after a nice, meaty bone, he had a bad habit of keeping back what he saw as peripheral data--nothing core to the mission at hand, but things that gave him a chance to surprise her with his deductive reasoning.

She also knew that dragging it out of him would probably take more time and effort than was convenient, and probably put a serious strain on their personal relationship. Considering all available data, her decision-making algorithm concluded that there was only a 0.73% chance the process would be worth the consequences, and rejected the option without need for further analysis.

Instead, Lyon did what she usually did: fed all available data about the case, the conversation, and Ryland's verbal hints into a subroutine and partitioned it off. It was the AI equivalent of letting something kick around in the back of her mind for a while. This time, though, she reached a possible answer almost at once.

"Do you really think she meant that?"

Ryland blinked.

"You were wondering if Irene was trying to hint at a possible military conspiracy, weren't you?" Lyon asked.

The Force sighed.

"Yes."

Lyon chuckled.

"There's a lesson for you. Don't play games with your partner!"

"Ah, but once again you've gone and proven that I can trust you to cover my back mentally as well as physically," he riposted, holding up his finger as if making a point. Lyon just groaned.

"Men."

She shook her head.

"Seriously, though, Ryland, do you think it's possible? That the military could have deliberately killed Braden solely to give their people the opportunity to infiltrate the police investigation and gather intelligence, compromise computer systems, and otherwise play their little spy games?"

"It doesn't sound sensible."

"If things had progressed to the point that the Administration and military had gone to covert war status, I would expect that the usual Guild buzz would have some inkling of it. Plus, if they're willing to go this far, why not simply stage an out-and-out coup? Once a battle had started, it's logical to press an advantage, not give the enemy time to regroup."

"Well, a coup might be problematic. There's citizen discontent to concern themselves with, and from a combat standpoint the question of which way the Hunter's Guild would go. The Guild doesn't have the unit cohesion of the military but person-for-person are better-trained and equipped. Thus far since we came to Ragol hunters like us have had an antagonistic relationship with the military while the Administration had acted as the Guild's patron."

"No surprise, since Principal Tyrell is an ex-hunter and his daughter Rico was one of the stars of the Guild."

The aerocar began to slow and as it neared the parking dock for Vandsen's residence building. Ryland selected his preferred docking slot from those available on the car's touchpanel and the autodrive began to guide it into place.

"Quite. The military might not want to pick a fight openly until it can move in with minimal opposition and at least a hint of propriety. Or it might simply be one officer staging an operation without official sanction--a fanatical extremist without a rational conscience in pursuing his or her goals."

Lyon's personality matrix was designed so that she would routinely make associations between observations and memories, in the way organics did. Ryland's last statement immediately flagged the name Dr. Osto Hyle from her memory.

"Or," he continued, "the military is completely innocent of any premeditated involvement and Irene only thinks they might be responsible. Another possibility is that she doesn't think they're responsible but wants to push us towards them for the sake of causing trouble or to drive military intelligence away from Resource Oversight."

"Or," Lyon finished, "you could just be wrong about what Irene was trying to say and the last several beats were all a tangle of speculation based solely on your mistake."

"Yes, well," Ryland admitted with a boyish grin, "there is that, of course."

"So unless we get confirmation, let's concentrate on the leads in front of us...since we're here and all."

Vandsen's residence unit was a typical dual-occupancy middle-class apartment, featuring two bedrooms, bathroom ,living room, and kitchen alcove. The name below his on the address plate, Rich Deacon, was in red letters rather than green, indicating that the lease was in a deceased person's name. Probably Deacon had been a fellow hunter; most hunters didn't share quarters with non-hunters unless they were romantically involved, and a two-bedroom residence unit was for roommates, not a couple.

Ryland tabbed the intercom.

"Yes?"

"Nils Vandsen? This is Donovan Ryland. We spoke by PDL earlier?"

"Yeah, come on in." The door slid open.

Ryland's inquiries, made while Lyon had been meeting with Irene, had turned up very little out of the ordinary about Vandsen. He didn't have a shady reputation or ties to dissident or criminal groups. He wasn't spectacular by any means, but competent and worked well with others, the kind of guy one would be glad to have fill an empty slot in an existing team. He didn't have a particular partner himself, but often worked out of the same pool of six or eight others on various jobs.

Vandsen looked like his ID photo, strongly built, broad-shouldered and narrow-hipped. His shock of bright lemon-yellow hair, too bright to be called blond, looked like it hadn't been combed in a week but was at least clean.

"So this is about the package I sent Ms. Braden?" he confirmed. "Take a seat; we'll talk."

The living room had what Lyon thought of as a kind of masculine cleanliness to it, where the seat cushions were rumpled and dust had built up in hard-to-reach corners and an old stain marked the rug near the kitchen but there was no trash left around, no dirty dishes or discarded laundry around, nothing that demanded immediate attention. She wondered if awarding a gender bias to the assessment was based on the biological structure of how organics perceived and maintained their environment, or purely was from a sociocultural standpoint. Lyon herself, after all, was genuinely female in that her personality matrix was designed to mimic the physical structure of a woman's brain as well as an awareness of (if not necessarily an adherence to) the psychology of a "typical" Coralian female.

"Can I get you anything?" Vandsen asked Ryland. The Force declined, so their host shrugged and fetched himself a bottle of beer from the cold-storage unit. Vandsen then sat down opposite his guests.

"Who's the android?"

"My partner, Lyon."

"Partner, huh. So you're both hunters, then?"

"That's right."

"Wondered when someone'd get around to sending in somebody to do the job right." He flashed them a grin meant to suggest solidarity between hunters. There was a lot of that; while hunters by no means all got along, they were united by the fact that they were the ones who went down to Ragol, who tried to do something about the situation instead of just coasting along in orbit. "Can't say I have a lot of faith in a military that has to hire hunters to clear monsters from an area before they can use it."

That had been WORKS, not the regular army per se, but the principle applies.

"So you're looking forward to this?" Ryland asked.

Vandsen shrugged.

"You figure out who did this, people stop wondering if I'm the type to send bombs in the mail to former clients. I haven't had a Guild Quest in two weeks, and I've got bills to pay."

"You can certainly see why they'd wonder," Ryland pointed out. "You controlled the package's destination and are the only person confirmed to have access to its contents."

"Reasonable from your point of view. Damned aggravating from mine."

"I can't argue with that," agreed Lyon. "If you're innocent, that is."

"What was it that you did send her?" Ryland asked. "You're not denying that you really sent the original package, are you?"

He looked aside and down, a faintly embarrassed look on his face.

"Chocolate," Vandsen finally said.

"You sent Arca Braden chocolate? Why?"

"March 14th," Lyon said, recalling the date the package had been sent. "It was White Day."

"Wait--you were dating Ms. Braden?" Ryland asked at once.

White Day came one month after Valentine's Day, sort of a footnote to the romantic holiday. Tradition said that if someone (generally a female) gave you chocolate for Valentine's Day to indicate their romantic interest, you would give them chocolate back to indicate that you returned the interest. It was, Lyon thought, typical of men's attitude towards romance that the holiday let them make their move in response to the woman's overture. Not all Coralian cultures treated things the same way, but the concept had become fairly widespread, thanks to the marketing departments of greeting card and candy sellers.

Besides which, the people of Pioneer 2 needed all the holidays to generate happy moments that they could get.

"Not me," Vandsen replied quickly.

"But you were sending her chocolate?"

Vandsen took a deep breath.

"It was for Rich."

"Rich...Deacon?" Ryland asked. "Your roommate?"

Vandsen nodded.

"But...isn't he dead?" Lyon said. "His name was redlit on the address."

Vandsen shifted uncomfortably in his seat.

"He is. He died last month."

Ryland looked like his brain was returning the organic equivalent of an insufficient-data, unable-to-complete-task error.

"Then why...?"

Vandsen looked even more uncomfortable.

"Look, it's...Rich was dating Arca Braden. She sent him chocolate for Valentine's Day; it was delivered here, only...only Rich never got it. He was out on a Guild quest already, down on Ragol's surface, and...That was when he died. I...I just felt like it was the right thing to do, you know? A little something for Rich's memory?"

It was sweet, really, Lyon thought. It was no wonder Vandsen was looking so off-balance. He wasn't exactly the kind of person who had long, easy talks about his feelings and the sentimental gestures he took because of them.

"Was this relationship public knowledge?" Ryland asked.

"What?"

"The fact that Deacon was dating Ms. Braden. Was it public knowledge?"

Vandsen looked puzzled.

"Neither one of them was married, if that's what you're thinking of."

"What I'm saying is, that it was possible that people with a casual knowledge of Arca Braden's life would know she was in a romattic relationship?"

"I don't see why not."

"Meaning those same people would have good reason to expect her to receive White Day chocolate!" Lyon caught on to what her partner was getting at.

"Exactly. One of the obvious questions about this case is, if someone tampered with your package, Vandsen, how did they prepare their plan in such a short time-frame? If someone could expect there to be a package, though, it's a different story altogether."

Light dawned on the Hunter's face.

"Yeah, that makes sense, and Rich and I had an account with Diamond Drive for sending packages. Saves money if you do it that way."

"So anyone interested could find out what courier service you'd use. This opens the door back up for a lot of things we'd dismissed." Ryland stood up and extended his hand to Vandsen. "Thanks for the information. You've been a lot of help."

The Hunter took Ryland's hand in a firm grip.

"Anything I can do. That chocolate was supposed to be, y'know, kind of a last farewell for Rich. If you can find who turned it into a murder weapon, just save a piece for me."

[Freeze]

This keeps getting better, great job!

[McLaughlin]

More, I say!

[DezoPenguin]

Then more you shall have!

================================================== =======================

CHAPTER FOUR

"So, this investigation is back to being wide open," Ryland concluded as the aerocar arced away from Vandsen's building. His fingers skimmed over the dataplate containing the milipol report. "I shouldn't be surprised. A homicidal 'mad bomber' isn't an unusual plot in mystery thrillers but not in real life."

"It isn't impossible, though," Lyon warned.

"Yes, but most ordinary citizens had to undergo compulsory psych-screening before joining Pioneer 2. I'm sure that there are any number of sociopaths in high government positions--"

"It's almost a job prerequisite," Lyon noted cynically.

"--but we're talking about ordinary employees of Diamond Drive Deliveries, people who don't get special perks or exemptions from those kind of routine tests."

"That is a good point."

"The only think I can think of is that somehow information came into Braden's hands that required her immediate removal, before it could be passed through normal Administration channels--but no, that doesn't make any sense."

Lyon had spotted the flaw, too.

"Not when the murder method was so dependent on it being a particular date. That doesn't sound like urgency to me."

"No." Ryland exhaled sharply, a frustrated-sounding noise. "No, more like a long-term strategy being put into effect. Someone would have to gather intelligence, plan ahead."

"Could it be something personal? A reprisal from a rival faction for doing something?"

"No, not even Black Paper is stupid enough to pick that kind of fight with the Administration. Covert operations battles take place in the field, not against administrative personnel. I suppose I could have been right the first time and that whomever killed Braden had been prepared for an assassination attempt, choosing one of several options that was suitable to the time and place. Or maybe there was a symbolic reason. Maybe one of the hunter missions Braden ran resulted in someone or something being destroyed in an explosion."

"We need more data to properly judge that," Lyon pointed out.

"What we need," Ryland said, "is to get a look at Braden's job requests."


* * * * *

"You do realize that what you're asking is impossible, not to mention inappropriate." Irene no longer looked friendly or amused.

This time the meeting wasn't a casual one in a public place. Ryland was with Lyon this time, and they were looking across Irene's desk in the Administration meeting room. There were actually three desks, all of them outfitted with computer consoles capable of projecting data on multiple holoscreens. The central one would be Principal Tyrell's, if he were there, with a second empty station to Tyrell's right where Lab representatives were usually stationed during mission briefings. Irene's desk was to Tyrell's left.

The room itself was on the highest spire in the city, very close to the dome itself, and had been designed by some avant-garde architect with transparent walls. Lyon believed the room had originally been intended to be the Principal's primary office on Pioneer 2, but Tyrell had found it both uncomfortable and pretentious and only used it when he wanted to impress people with the importance of a meeting's subject.

"That can't really be true, can it? The impossible part, I mean. Resource Oversight surely must keep comprehensive records."

"I don't think you're helping, Ryland," Lyon advised her partner.

"Those records are confidential," Irene told him. "Moreover, they're also classified."

"Lyon and I are both A rank hunters, cleared to take part in classified government missions."

"Yes, but you're not on a classified government mission."

Ryland grinned broadly.

"We could be."

"Ryland, what are you talking about?" Lyon asked.

"If we'd been employed by the Administration to investigate the murder of Arca Braden, we would naturally be entitled to access Resource Oversight records that might be relevant to the matter."

"That was your big plan? To ask for a job--moreover, one that we've already been hired to do by someone else?"

"Yes, that was my plan."

He still had the grin on his face, and if smugness was capable of emitting energy he'd have been bathing the room in it. Clearly, there was something he'd thought of that Lyon was missing.

At least Irene was apparently missing it, too, so it wasn't painfully obvious.

"Okay, then, Ryland; enlighten us."

He turned to Irene.

"May I assume that it's the Administration's policy that it is unacceptable for the assassination of a bureau director to go unsolved?"

"Of course."

"And yet here it's been two weeks and the investigation has apparently stalled. The police have not been able to establish the weapon used, the means by which the weapon evaded Diamond Drive's security measures, the motive for the crime, or any suspects. Moreover, as you yourself mentioned to Lyon, the investigation had been hampered by the political infighting between the military and the Administration. Bluntly, the milipol is being denied access to information they need for their investigation because of your counterespionage measures, which you need to maintain because of the factional strife."

Ryland pressed the tips of his fingers together.

"What you need is to commission an investigation from someone whom you can allow access to the data. Now, I'm sure there are people in the Administration's bureaucracy who might be able to handle the job, but the truth is that you've outsourced most of your security functions to the Hunter's Guild. With the fall of 32nd WORKS, you're starting to rein in the military, but by no means is it finished in that respect. If you were to use us as the hunters in question, you wouldn't waste any further time posting a request with the Guild, vetting the applicants to make sure they're not in bed with Black Paper or some other group, briefing the team, and having them cover the same ground everyone else already has."

In spite of herself, Irene was starting to smile.

"And what about the problem of vetting you--someone who has already formed an association with someone else in this matter?"

"Someone else whose interests run parallel to the Administration's, not against it. Diamond Drive Deliveries only wants a public resolution to the matter. They don't care about the who or the why of it, and certainly have no interest in secret missions or backroom politics. As for vetting, you wouldn't have told Lyon as much as you already did if we were on any kind of suspect list."

"You have thought this through," Irene said, her smile growing. She tapped a key on her console. "As have I. I just sent an official request to the Guild requesting your services in this matter."

"You had it set up in advance?" Lyon asked.

"I'd been considering it since we talked this morning. We'd have preferred you to solve the case on behalf of Diamond Drive alone, giving us the benefit without having to act openly, but since official action will be necessary to give you legitimate access to the data you need, official action it is."

Lyon shook her head, hopefully conveying a "dazed and bewildered" impression.

"I will never understand politics."

A moment later Ryland and Lyon's PDLs beeped simultaneously, indicating incoming simple-mail. It was the Guild, passing on Irene's request.

"Only five hundred meseta each?"

"Given that this is essentially a favor to you so you can continue the investigation you're already being paid for, Mr. Ryland, I'd say we were being positively generous--not that I blame you for trying."

"You really have thought this through," Ryland echoed with a chuckle. He and Lyon both signaled their acceptance of the job to the Guild.

"This is a serious problem and we treat it that way. Just because some members of the government seem to see Ragol and the issues surrounding it as a game to be played for their private amusement doesn't mean we all see things in that light."

"It's nice to be reminded of that, sometimes."


* * * * *

The Resource Oversight offices were only a single step away from the meeting room, since the warp platform could be tuned to connect to any of the government sections. Not long after, Lyon and Ryland were seated in the office of Acting Director Hans Kohlfield, running through Braden's job reports. Just outside the office were two armed soldiers. Because the building is on security lockdown following the assassination? Lyon wondered. Or in case two freshly-hired hunters turn out to be security risks?

Her touch receptors weren't actually capable of an itch, but that was still how she'd describe the sensation between her shoulder blades that government jobs gave her.

"What exactly are we supposed to be looking for?" Kohlfield asked. A slight, spare man with a raspy voice, his reactions since their introduction had been a curious mixture of hope and scorn.

"Motive," Lyon said.

"Anomalies," Ryland clarified. "Jobs left open-ended, jobs which led to conflict with one faction or another, jobs which led to more questions instead of resolving them."

The Resource Oversight computer wasn't a true AI like the Lab's Calus, but as a high-grade nonsentient was capable of tremendous processing power when properly directed. Several holoscreens were open, one for the master list of Resource Oversight jobs, two for open files being examined, three more for priority lists of examined files. Thus far the sorting wasn't for likely, unlikely, and maybe, but for possible, unlikely, and negligible probabilities. "Maybe" was as good as they were getting.

The speed at which Lyon processed the data--she was much better than an organic as thinking about multiple tasks at once--was far better than Ryland or Kohlfield could have managed, but that apparently didn't keep the Acting Director from complaining.

"Shouldn't she be plugged in directly to process the data more efficiently?"

"Yes, but then I couldn't get you organics' opinions on the data as easily. My function is largely mechanical here; you're offering your subjective judgment." Not to mention that she would connect herself to a computer as powerful as the Administration mainframe only in a life-or-death situation.

"Show me details on 0198B," Ryland cut in, stopping any further argument before it got started. The file tag pulsed on one screen and the report opened on another.

"Expedition to study Photon present on Nebula Montana, Gal De Val Island, jointly sponsored by the Lab. Fieldwork carried out February 2nd-4th. Results inconclusive. Think the Lab is stalling on the details?"

"Could be, but it's unlikely to be relevant. Anything like this is cleared to the highest levels. No point in killing Braden."

"All right." Lyon filed it as unlikely.

"How about 0199A?"

"Surveillance of military operations in No Man's Mines carried out February 8th. That sounds promising."

"Not likely," countered Kohlfield. "This was purely routine, as you can see. Those code flags indicate the surveillance turned up only low-priority data."

"0201B is flagged as 'failed--file closed.' What does that mean?"

"That the mission objective was not achieved, but the Administration has determined that a follow-up is not advisable," Kohlfield explained. "It's usually shorthand for 'someone else's hunters got there first.'"

"Let's see the details anyway," Ryland decided.

"Screen three," Lyon said even as she was filing 0200C and 0202A as negligibles.

"That sounds interesting," Ryland said. "Retrieval of data recorder from seabed research facility sublevels, Section L49. I thought investigation of the Seabed was under Lab jurisdiction?"

"After the WORKS incident, access was renegotiated. The Administration can send teams directly although the Guild is still not permitted to investigate on behalf of private clients without Lab approval."

"That's why Gal De Val quest postings can only be accepted in the Hunter's Guild offices in the Lab section of the ship!" Lyon realized.

"Exactly."

"Oh-oh," Ryland said. "This wasn't a 'someone else got there first' failure. Take a look."

"The hunter died in the attempt," Lyon read. "The body was retrieved by transponder beacon but resuscitation was determined to be impossible by the Medical Center February 14th at 937.04."

"Happy Valentine's Day," Ryland said bitterly. Lyon felt some of the same emotion herself. The situation reminded them both of the very real risks that went along with being a hunter.

"So why was the file closed?" Lyon asked. "There's no indication that the data they were after was compromised, no transmissions from the hunter that third parties were on-site." She scrolled rapidly through the file until locating what she wanted. "Here's an appended note from Director Braden in explanation."

"Her determination was that the risks of pursuing this operation outweighed the purely speculative value of the information that might be gained, and therefore there was not to be a follow-up attempt," Ryland summarized. Three confused people stared at the screen.

"Like hell," Lyon concluded succinctly. "I've never heard of any facet of the government ever coming to the conclusion that anything about Ragol could be outweighed in importance by the risks of retrieving it."

"Short of bringing back a live Delbiter, I'd have to agree," Ryland said.

"There must have been some reason," Kohlfield insisted. "The original intelligence reports which gave rise to the mission probably detail what we hoped to find."

"I don't see any links to any external files. The details are pretty sketchy."

"That can't be. Let me see that." He all but shoved Lyon out of the way and began frantically operating the console, but regardless of what he tried was unable to answer the question. "It doesn't make sense. I can't find any links or references to what set this mission off in the first place!"

"I'd have thought a director's clearance would cover that."

"Acting Director," Lyon corrected.

Kohlfield gritted his teeth at that.

"She may be right," he admitted. "I'm sure that my clearance is only increased in those areas necessary to function in this position. Past records and intelligence data relating to a closed case might well be hidden until my position becomes official."

"I think I may know why Ms. Braden closed the case," Lyon said. "Does the name of the hunter who died look familiar, Ryland?"

"Rich Deacon. Wait, you mean--?"

Lyon nodded.

"Exactly. I think it makes sense that she would close a file down as excessively risky if she'd lost her lover trying to resolve it. My own emotional subroutines would assign a higher degree of danger when performing a risk assessment on something that cost the life of someone I cared for versus someone I did not. Likewise, while the natural response would be to seek vengeance, this type of fetch-and-carry job, with ordinary monsters as the obstacles, leaves no target for anger or revenge."

"So she essentially shoved the mission into an electronic hole and tried to move on."

"I think so. Only, nothing was resolved. The mission remains incomplete and the data unrecovered."

"Meaning that this is a very good candidate for the unfinished business that led to Ms. Braden's murder."

They went through the last month of files quickly, yielding nothing better than a couple of unlikelies. That left 021B as the most probable avenue for investigation--indeed, the only one from among the Resource Oversight files.

"All right, then," Ryland said. "Acting Director Kohlfield, keep working on digging up the groundwork on this file. If we can learn how Resource Oversight generated this job in the first place, it might point to who'd want Ms. Braden killed."

"And what will you be doing while I'm researching for you?" the bureaucrat asked a bit scornfully.

"We'll be doing our best not to add to the body count this mission has already generated," Lyon said, "while we're down in the Seabed facility."

[McLaughlin]

Excellent. I demand more yesterday. (Which is hypocritical of me seeing as I missed my own deadline for the next chapter of my 'fic. >_>)

[Serakor13]

Amazing as usual. Keep up the good work.

[DezoPenguin]

For anyone who's been lamenting the lack of some good old-fashioned violence in the story so far, well, things change for this chapter. I mean, hey, it's Seabed, right? But among it all there's also some interesting details to be uncovered, so it looks like Ryland will have to stop playing Sherlock Holmes for a short while and roll up his casting sleeves.

================================================== =========================

CHAPTER FIVE

"The first hunter who tried this got killed" was never a good recommendation for any Guild Quest, and Lyon and Ryland liked it no better than anyone else. Investigations tended to stall quickly when the investigators were dead. Although the Resource Oversight file had flagged the job as a solo one, this time they weren't going in with anything less than a full team. The remaining two members had to be cleared through the Administration's approved list, but fortunately there were several whom Lyon and Ryland knew and who were available.

They arrived in about three inches of standing water; it was fortunate that liquid dispersed as easily as gas from an incoming teleport. It was equally fortunate that warp platforms were waterproof.

"Probability: rust 73%," stated the massive RAcast, Type G/X-308. Like Lyon, Gowan was a Weinstine model equipped with a high-grade AI and advanced personality matrix. Unlike her, he was a Net freak and a skilled hacker who enjoyed wiring himself to other systems and savoring the rush of data-based communication. He'd picked up a nasty bug on one such mission which had severely damaged his language processor, making it difficult for him to express himself in speech. It was repairable, but would require reformatting much of his mind, so he preferred to live with the handicap rather than lose his memories and personality development.

"That's what you get for tricking your carapace out in all that steel and chrome," Lyon said, patting him on the shoulder.

"He's right, though," said the fourth member of the group. "I can barely breathe, it's so humid here." Perspiration was already beginning to form on her face and limbs, the latter of which her skimpy outfit left largely on display. It was typical among Newman females; some tweak in their artificially-engineered genetics seemed to make them act as semi-exhibitionists. Naomi was unusual, however, in that she was not built like a socially maladjusted male geneticist's wet dream, but had broad shoulders and powerful muscles that did not really match her wide-eyed, pouty-lipped face.

"The climate control is still functioning on the upper levels of the facility, but down here it's barely maintaining a breathable atmosphere, let alone a comfortable one," Ryland said.

"Sooner or later it'll fail entirely," Lyon opined, "and there'll be nothing to slow this seepage." She kicked, splashing water to illustrate her point. "The lower levels will flood, and whatever secrets are still left here will stay that way forever."

"All the more reason not to screw up today," Naomi remarked.

Ryland called on the Shifta and Deband techniques, which worked with the Photon energy in their bodies to enhance their offensive and defensive potential. Lab scientists no doubt could rattle off long strings of equations to explain precisely how the effect worked, but it still reminded Lyon of Ryland's "magic" theory.

As experienced hunters, they'd agreed on their team roles before setting out. Lyon and Naomi were on the front lines, engaging threats directly while keeping the males free to act; Lyon had a gungnir, an advanced partisan-type weapon which in this case featured the additional ability to drain stamina from Lyon and turn it into additional Photon energy to damage enemies. Naomi's massive sword was a Last Survivor, which had been whimsically designed to resemble a combat knife scaled up to a five-foot blade. Gowan, who was basically a mobile artillery platform, would provide pinpoint fire support with his laser, a rifle equipped with a Photon unit that let it freeze targets in ice shells. Ryland's job was primarily healing and support, inflicting damage only as a secondary priority.

Thus they were prepared when the monsters hit them in the very first room past the teleporter. Blue and purple squid, six feet tall and somehow able to operate out of water, advanced with surprising speed, squirming along on bunched tentacles. Naomi stepped forward, deflected a whipping, barbed tentacle with her Photon barrier, and ripped her sword in an arc through the lead group. Lyon was only a half-step behind with her gungnir, and even as she struck a blue haze settled over the monsters, Ryland's Zalure technique working to weaken them defensively.

They didn't last long, and managed to inflict only minor injuries on the hunters in return, which Ryland quickly patched up with a Resta technique.

"Fresh calamari, anyone?" Naomi joked, poking at a severed tentacle with her sword's point.

"Humor: deficient," commented Gowan, sending Lyon and Ryland into hoots of laughter.

"Oh, yeah?" We'll see how you're laughing when you rust solid and I'm the one with the oil can!"

The banter was broken up by sudden splashes, water spraying up as if heavy weights had just been dropped among the hunters. Suddenly, Gowan was knocked sprawling, the laser flying out of his grip. Lyon swung at where the blow had come from only to take an equally savage strike to her side which caved in part of her torso despite her Photon-enhanced armor. Naomi fired off her own Zalure technique a moment ahead of Ryland, the major point not being the effects of the technique but to mark their Photon-camouflaged attackers with its blue light.

"Three of them?" Naomi gasped, parrying a blow from a translucent claw limned in a blue glow.

They were robots, Lyon realized, Sinow-type security robots, designed for stealth as well as power. They were bigger than Gowan, yet had dropped lightly from the ceiling into their midst, given away only by the standing water.

A Sinow's claw closed around the shaft of Lyon's gungnir in mid-swing and wrenched it out of her grip. Its other hand smashed into her with titanic force, knocking her prone. She launched a freeze trap up into the Sinow's face; it detonated and left the robot sheathed in ice. Bring trapped made its camouflage drop, and she could see its bright red body, its hulking manlike form looking more like a deep-sea worksuit for a human or Newman than a combat robot.

Red.

Zeles. Sinow Zeles were the worst of the Sinow-types, stronger, better-armed, and with superior combat programming than even their brutal blue cousins, the Zoas.

The second Sinow was momentarily matched with Naomi, but the third had picked up Gowan and smashed the RAcast against the room's metal wall with incredible power. It hammered his torso again, then raised its arms to deliver a colossal double-axe-handle blow.

With a wordless scream, Ryland thrust both hands at the Sinow and a cloudy purple sphere shot from them into the Zele's body. Immediately, like a snuffed candle, the robot dropped inert into the water, the Megid technique having cancelled the Photon energy of its power source.

Lyon didn't have time to admire her partner's victory, though. The freeze trap wouldn't hold her Sinow forever, so she acted, drawing her Durandal. The potent Photon saber ripped into the security robot once, twice, three times as she took advantage of its paralysis and the Zalure effect to attack its weak points. The ice shattered as she rammed the Durandal home for a sixth and, as it turned out, final time.

The four of them ganged up on the final Zele, reducing it to scrap metal in record time. Ryland conjured up his Resta technique, healing Naomi's nicks and cuts as well as the androids' more serious damage. Indeed, it took two uses to get Gowan back to full condition, and even then his carapace would need cosmetic work.

Easier than a week's maintenance the way a pre-Photon android would require, Lyon thought.

"Thankful: Ryland."

"Yeah, what with all the Deldepths and Ob Lilies and whatnot, it's good to have the Fluffy Purple Ball of Death on our side for a change," Naomi joked.

This time they got to leave the room into a long, dark corridor where the water was up to mid-calf before the banter was cut short, this time by shining energy beams that struck from the far end, fired by what looked like nothing so much as two giant butterflies with black wings striped with bioluminescence. Morfos, they were called, D-cellular experiments gone horribly wrong.

The rapid-firing lasers knocked over everyone but Gowan, which actually was a curse in disguise for him because it left him exposed to additional attacks. Before anyone could even suggest a further strategy, the RAcast took action. What looked like two missile pods floating above his broad shoulders but what were actually his Kama Mag, opened their "mouths" and all of a sudden the world was suffused by prismatic sprays of red and violet light. A giant shape manifested before Gowan, seemingly a huge dolphin with a body striped by the familiar bioluminescence of a D-cellular sub lifeform. The shape exploded down the corridor, crashing through the Morfos, which crumpled and dissolved into violet ichor beneath the water.

"That was a timely Photon Blast," Lyon said, picking herself up.

"Estlla: efficient."

"Still, it can't be a good sign that we're only in the second room and you've already been hammered enough that your Mag's charged a Photon Blast," Naomi said. That was one of a Mag's major powers, to charge its own Photon energy through its sympathetic link with its master when that master either inflicted or received damage.

Ryland and Lyon shared a significant look. A solo operation in this section would have been awful, particularly for a human Hunter like Deacon, whose skills and training worked best in a team with other hunters rather than on a solo mission. It was no surprise that he'd ended up dead.

The remainder of Section L49 was much like the first couple of rooms, with bare metal walls flecked with rust, occasionally broken up by something shattered or twisted--gantries pulled down, glass pillars smashed, pipes torn open. Monsters, too, were present, more of the squidlike Dolmolms and Dolmdarls, rampaging Sinow Zoas, another Morfos, and on two occasions massive and powerful Delbiters, which were kind of like a thousand-pound D-cellular dog with a field-artillery-grade Photon cannon where its mouth should have been.

"Section: cleared," Gowan reported as he put the finishing touches into the last Delbiter, hammering at the rogue bioweapon with a pair of H&S25 Justice Corp. mechguns.

"Yeah, that's it," Lyon confirmed. "We've hit every room, every corridor in this section."

"Wasn't the job to bring back some kind of data recorder?" Naomi asked. "I haven't seen anything like that."

"No," Ryland said slowly, "I haven't either."

"Timing: late?" inquired Gowan.

"Are you asking if someone beat us to it?"

"Reply: affirmative."

"Maybe, but if they did they must be on really good terms with the local monsters to have slipped in without a fight."

"That's a no," Lyon observed.

"You two are so cute," Naomi teased. "Honestly, though, I don't even see where a data recorder would have been supposed to be. Are we still getting paid if this turns out to be a dry hole?"

"What? Oh, oh yes," Ryland said, returning from wherever his mind had wandered off to. "Besides, it's not a 'dry hole,' per se. We may not have completed our secondary mission, but we did a very good job on our primary one." He pushed his glasses up his nose, a smug grin on his face.

"Query: objective?"

"I know who killed Arca Braden, I know how, and I've got a pretty good guess as to why."

================================================== ========================

A better question is, do you? While this isn't by any means an Ellery Queen story, it is, technically, a fair-play mystery. Murderer, means, and motive should all be relatively apparent to you by now (though the latter, as Ryland points out, is more a matter of deduction than proof). Hopefully you'll have fun chewing over the puzzle (or saying to yourself, "Really, Dezo, I knew it ever since Chapter Two! Quit acting like you're Erle Stanley Gardner or somebody.") and we'll see if you're right later in the week!

[McLaughlin]

Is it...Irene?

[DezoPenguin]

All right, prepare to put your curiosity to rest and crow with victory at how cheesily easy the mystery was, because here's the final chapter!

================================================== ======================

CHAPTER SIX

"Target acquired."

"You're starting to sound like Gowan," Ryland said over the link.

"That would make you the first male in history to complain about his female partner talking less," Lyon replied. "Or does that only apply to romances? I wouldn't think so, since feminine interpersonal relationships tend to be based more on verbal communication while men prefer non-verbal interaction, but--"

"I officially apologize."

Lyon grinned.

"I thought you would."

"What's he doing?"

"Buying coffee. Looks like he's going for a table."

Leeson's was a storefront only, without seating, but chairs and tables were set across the shopping arcade against the overlook.

"All right; we'll take him from both sides, and try to minimize the risk to bystanders."

He was just sitting down when Ryland approached the table.

"Ryland, right? How's--"

"Don't get up. Nils Vandsen, you're under arrest for the murder of Arca Braden."

"Don't try anything," Lyon snapped from behind the Hunter, her railgun pointed at his head. Passerby began to shrink away from the sight of the drawn weapon, staring wide-eyed at the live drama being played out in front of them.

"What, like I have someplace on this ship to run to? It's not like I can hang out Downtown, and if I have to be arrested I'd rather it be by fellow hunters than some army goons." He raised his hands slowly.

"All the same, you're a tricky fellow. I'll feel safer if you're in cuffs."

"Suit yourself." Vandsen didn't fight as Ryland linked his wrists with plasmarings. "Running or fighting'd just be proof of guilt, and there's no way you have evidence proving I'm some kind of terrorist."

"You're right; I don't. You murdered Braden for entirely personal reasons."

"Personal...reasons?"

Ryland sat down across the table from Vandsen. Lyon put away her gun and shooed off the audience with a sweeping glare of her blank, irisless blue eyes.

"Revenge," the Force said. "She killed Rich Deacon, so you killed her."

"Rich died on a job."

"He did. A job she assigned to him. A job with no objective that could be accomplished, with no data in the Administration's system which suggests that there was anything to do." Kohlfield had verified that upon their return from the Seabed. He'd been so aggravated by his perceived lack of trust that he'd had Irene root up Tyrell's personal access to the files and still found no hidden flags. "In short, a job Braden made up from whole cloth for the sole purpose of getting Rich Deacon killed in action. You'd have had to be Red Ring Rico to survive that section of the Seabed alone. If that isn't murder, then I don't know what you'd call it."

"Things went bad between them?" Lyon surmised.

"Bad?" Vandsen said. "Yeah, you could say they went bad. For a few months they were all lovey-dovey, but then it went wrong, really wrong." He turned to Ryland. "You know how it is, when you can't stand someone, but you can't tear yourself away, either? I told him, just walk away and leave it be, man, but he couldn't, and neither could she. It's like, y'know, it wasn't good enough to just break up, they both had to win...whatever it was."

Lyon nodded. Her own personality matrix provided for quite a few true-to-life irrational behaviors based upon emotional considerations, though murder was not among them. In that way, she was more aware of what she might be capable of than Ryland, who had only his past experience to draw upon and an organic's imperfect understanding of his own mind.

"Well, at one point she threatened to blackball him from getting any more jobs from the government, maybe even file with the Guild to try and have his A-rank status pulled."

Ryland understood at once what that meant. "No Ragol access."

"Right. For his part, Rich threatened to tell the Administration that she was showing favoritism in hiring based on her personal life--giving better jobs to hunters she dated, that kind of thing. That might have been what did it, what made her decide to kill, or maybe it was something else--I don't know. It's not like she talked to me about it."

"But it was murder just the same," Ryland prompted.

"Yeah. Rich was stupid to take that job, but y'know, stuff happens. Then the delivery guy brought those chocolates from her and I--I just knew, knew Rich wasn't going to come back. Sure enough, he didn't."

"And you decided you couldn't let that stand."

Vandsen looked at him for a long moment. Thus far he hadn't actually admitted guilt. At best, he'd admitted motive, but nothing that said he'd acted upon it. Lyon could almost see the struggle going on in his mind, caution telling him to stay quiet and hope the hunters didn't have any real evidence warring against the psychological pressure to talk, to vent some of the emotional tension that had been powerful enough to make him kill.

It was caution that lost. Vandsen was a fighter, a killer in battle but not by nature.

"He was my best friend, Ryland. We'd shared a res-unit since we left Coral, we'd worked together on jobs, watched each other's backs. You're a hunter, you know what I mean."

"Yes," Ryland said, his gaze turning to Lyon. "Yes, I think I do."

She managed to keep the surprise from showing in her face, the desire not to disturb the rhythm of the conversation winning out over openly reflecting her emotional response, but surprised she was. Ryland considered their friendship important enough that he could imagine herself committing murder out of revenge if she'd been killed?

Oddly, she found it touching.

"I couldn't just leave it alone. I thought and thought about it for a week and a half, until I came up with an idea. It was perfect. It had ironic symmetry--on two levels, besides--and I thought it gave a pretty good chance for me to get away with it, too. I might have been willing to die for Rich, but I wasn't willing to die for that bitch Braden if I could help it."

"It fooled the milipol. Then again, it was a crime only a hunter could have committed, so it probably had to be a hunter to solve it. Soldiers don't work with Mags, so they don't really understand what they're about. You used Deacon's, I assume; it loved its master and was willing to go along with your idea. You can't really talk to them, but it could sense your emotions and get the idea of who you liked--and hated."

Vandsen nodded.

"Yeah. They're smarter than we think. I hear Dr. Montague's even made an android that can talk to them--really talk, I mean, in words and like that."

"Elenor," Ryland agreed. "But how did you get it to charge up a Photon Blast? I thought it was impossible to keep one charged when teleporting back into the Photon-suppressed environment of the Guild areas."

Vandsen grinned.

"It is. I charged it right in my own room. I linked with it, then I just shot myself in the leg, then healed up with a monomate, then shot myself again...after a couple of dozen times, it was all ready to go."

Ryland winced, imagining Vandsen doing that.

"It worked, though. A Mag isn't a weapon or explosive, so it didn't trigger the security scanners, and a Photon Blast doesn't damage inanimate matter so you knew the blast would be contained, not punch through the walls to take out someone next door but be sure of killing Ms. Braden."

"It was perfect, almost like the damage she hit Rich with came back against her. And of course, I had to deliver it on White Day. Her chocolate to Rich gave me a nice, sentimental-sounding excuse to send a package to her, but there was more to it. On White Day, after all, you're supposed to give back to the people who gave to you on Valentine's Day."

"Yeah. I guess Deacon must have been a polite guy, since he returned what he got," Lyon remarked. It drew a faint smile from Vandsen.

"I have one last question," Ryland said. "How did the Mag get out of the residence? The milipol search teams didn't find one."

"It waited around for them to show up, then snuck out in one of their packs."

"Smart little guy."

"Yeah, it is."

No one said anything for a long moment, until Lyon asked softly, "Was it worth it?"

Vandsen appeared to seriously consider the question.

"I'll tell you what. When I get to the other side, I'll ask Rich and Braden what they think."


* * * * *

Romance gone sour and violent death were always big sellers, and details of the arrest in the "White Day Detonation" were all over the online news broadcasts. The talking head who'd replaced Nol Rinale on InfoNet reported the facts with ghoulish detail. Lyon and Ryland watched for a while, then walked away from the kiosk and headed down the arcade.

"I'm surprised InfoNet knows what to do with itself," Lyon said cynically. "They're so used to reporting that the latest conspiracy was only a personal matter I don't know how they're dealing with news where they can actually broadcast the truth."

"Krone's happy. Now that the crime has a face and a story, no one's even mentioning Diamond Drive Deliveries any more except as our employer. The Administration's not too happy one of their own was caught in a scandal, but at least it's a personal scandal, not a political one. And of course, they score points off the military with the "hunters did in two days what you couldn't do in two weeks" sense. Principal Tyrell likes that, because it supports his policy of having the Guild handle Ragol rather than turning the investigation over to the military."

"Even though the murderer was also a hunter?"

"One rogue individual driven to extremes--and, it may be noted, one who competently and efficiently accomplished his chosen task."

Lyon shrugged. It made a weird kind of sense.

"Laleham, I'm guessing, isn't too happy with us, though."

"Fit to chew nails," Ryland agreed. "He understands it's our job, but it doesn't make him happy. Of course, he's probably madder at his own military superiors. Politics had nothing to do with the case, and it still completely fouled up his investigation. You can't fight crime that way."

"Well, the military is supposed to work for the government, not be a rival to it. Too bad there's no one with both strength and integrity to run it any more."

"Yeah, too bad."

"But like you said, this was a crime only a hunter could really be expected to solve."

She considered saying something pithy about the romantic tragedy of it all, but estimated there was a 43.9% chance that this would prompt a wisecrack of some kind. That was far too high a risk. Besides, as the storefronts with their Easter displays clearly showed, the romance season had passed by until next year.

At least for those who, unlike Rich Deacon and Arca Braden, had managed to understand that the line between love and hate, while easily crossed, was still as distinct as day and night.