Chevril nodded. "Right. LiveCorp's got to be the target, hasn't it? Killing Teffera would be a hell of way to get at a small corporation like SimTech."
Toreth thought the same thing, but habit made him argue Chevril's point. "It'll get the sponsor's attention, though. People like the Tefferas live with the threat of sabotage, but the key is risk versus reward. Right now, they can see either there's an active sabotage campaign in progress or the sim's a lousy fucking investment anyway because it's killing users. Either way, the Tefferas might not be the only ones deciding to play it safe by not reinvesting."
Chevril nodded thoughtfully, and Toreth had to admit it didn't sound bad. Damn near convincing, in fact.
"At least the girl's fresh," Chevril said. "Fresher. I'd try her and see if you can get something from that. Actually,
I'd
kick the whole thing back to Justice and let them chase their tails over it." Chevril stood up. The journal slithered to the floor and he stooped to pick it up. "See you later," he said as he straightened. "Oh, listen to this first, though — my prisoner finally turned up. And guess what?"
"She's your long-lost sister?"
Chevril rolled his eyes. "No, of course not. After all that bloody fuss over the m-f, days of filling in forms and Tillotson sticking his pointy nose in, the silly bitch went and confessed, first session. I didn't even unwrap an injector. I could kill her."
Toreth grinned. "Is she annexed?"
"No, they want her alive for the trial." Chevril slapped his palm with the rolled-up
JAPI
. "I tell you, between the bloody prisoners and the bloody management, as soon as I find a decent job, I'm out of here."
As soon as he reached the office the next morning, Toreth read through the interviews with SimTech investors. Prior to Teffera's death, the sponsors and the personal friends of the directors all sounded highly satisfied with the corporation's performance. Now, however, there was a sharp division.
The confidence of the personal friends in the corporation remained unshaken. The only sign of concern came from Warrick's sister Dillian, currently off-world on Mars. Judging by the transcript, she had spent most of the interview quizzing Barret-Connor about how serious the trouble at SimTech was, and whether her brother needed her to cut short her stay and catch a shuttle back immediately. Touching fraternal devotion, or whatever the hell the sisterly equivalent was.
The corporates were, predictably, showing less loyalty. There was a definite edge of wariness. Half of them had refused even an initial interview without sheaves of commercial confidentiality warrants. The rest had issued standard boilerplate stating that their relations with SimTech were commercially unexceptionable, and that they had no knowledge of the current situation that might be of the slightest interest to I&I. If Teffera's death was designed to make investors nervous, it was working.
Or perhaps the killer was selecting sim users genuinely at random, in which case the investigation was probably fucked from the start. Or the sim was killing users. Or one or both deaths were due to natural causes. Too many possibilities.
Much as it galled him to admit it, Chevril had been right.
It had been a mistake to concentrate on the important name. Teffera's death had happened days ago and the sloppy Justice interview techniques had contaminated the witnesses. So now, hopefully not too late, it was time to look more closely at Kelly and pray there was a connection to Teffera.
For some reason someone had singled her out to die. With luck, there would be a link, some evidence leading back Teffera's killer.
Warrick seemed like a good place to start his new angle of enquiry. Toreth hadn't seen the director since the resolution of the code problem, or even had a message from him, which meant that the systems experts weren't making too much of a nuisance of themselves. This in turn probably meant they weren't getting anywhere. More bad news.
He called SimTech and made an appointment to see Warrick. It wasn't strictly necessary, but it was tactful. Slightly to his surprise, Warrick's admin made the appointment without any fuss for eleven-thirty.
Next Toreth pulled up the hypothetical observer record of the sim session and went through Kelly Jarvis's last hours in more detail.
For fuck research, it was very dull. For two hours, Yang sat absolutely still at a table in a bare room that reminded Toreth of the interrogation rooms at I&I. Kelly sat opposite him, stroking the backs of his hands. Twenty strokes in each run, left and right mixed up at random, and then they would pause for five minutes, chatting about work, home and friends. Then Yang would draw his breath in sharply, and tell Kelly the sequence of strokes.
After another pause, they would repeat the process.
It wouldn't make much money as commercial porn, or even adult-themed entertainment.
Toreth skipped through the recording, watching the few sections marked for his attention, although they were nothing more exciting than office gossip. Finally, Yang vanished from the recording, and the room changed. Beautiful white sand stretched endlessly, sandwiched between tall palm trees fringing the beach and a glittering blue lagoon.
Kelly's clothes transmuted into a skimpy bikini, which in Toreth's opinion rather unflatteringly emphasised her flat chest. She used the control panel to install a large beach towel and a low table with a selection of drinks. After a quick swim, she spent most of the rest of the hour building, with some assistance from an assortment of self-powering buckets and spades, a vast and impressive model of a castle in sand, complete with outer walls and a deep moat.
Castle completed, she sat on the towel for a while, drinking the still cold-looking fruit juice and admiring her creation. Eventually she glanced at her watch, called up the control panel again and did something that was presumably the cause of the huge waves that, improbably, swelled up in the lagoon shortly afterwards. Toreth watched, a little uneasily, as they rolled fatly up the beach to break against the ramparts of the castle. A dozen or so, and the castle was obliterated, the sand wiped clean as if it had never been. Kelly smiled, stood up, and the screen went blank.
Toreth sighed. He had a recording of the whole series of events leading up to Kelly's death, and there was nothing to find. Frustratingly, the death must have occurred almost immediately after the end of the recording, if the visor and restraints had never been removed. And, during those few seconds, the access system suggested that no one else could have entered the room.
Despite Warrick's protestations to the contrary, it looked like a sim-generated accident rather than murder. The only evidence that argued against it was the fault in the reception area security system. However, technical specialists had refused to commit themselves to a conclusion of sabotage — the most they were willing to say was that it was possible.
Two deaths and a security failure couldn't be coincidental. Could they?
"Give me a moment, I'll just tidy up," Warrick said.
"Thanks for seeing me," Toreth said as Warrick attempted to clear space amidst the mess.
Warrick waved a folder, dismissing the thanks. "I left instructions that you were to be accommodated at any time. Annoying as it is to have every aspect of the corporation disrupted, I do realise that assisting you is in my — and all our — best interests."
"Thank you for your cooperation." Reflexive investigator response as he watched Warrick moving round the room. He'd forgotten over the last few days how attractive the man was. Not classically handsome, but compelling in a way Toreth couldn't define.
Was it his confidence? Or maybe it was the contrast between his current self-assurance and the still vivid memory of Warrick asking — begging — to be fucked. How does it feel, Toreth wanted to ask, to look at me and remember how much you wanted it? Wanted someone you despise?
However it felt, it apparently wasn't enough to ruffle Warrick's composure now. He appeared utterly at ease, secure in his kingdom. In control. Toreth never fucked suspects — not during the investigation anyway — but the temptation tugged at him now, unexpectedly strong. Not lust so much as a desire to crack through Warrick's defenses. To see him for just a moment as he'd been in the room at the Renaissance Centre.
His cock certainly approved of the idea, waking and stretching.
"I'm not offering a general invitation, by the way," Warrick continued. "I don't want your less proficient subordinates eating up my time with inane questions." Pausing in his tidying, he gave Toreth a slight smile which didn't match his acid tone. "You, however, are always welcome."
He didn't give himself any more time to think about it, nor did he want to. As Warrick turned away again, Toreth took hold of him, pushing him back against the desk, stifling a surprised protest with a firm kiss. After couple of minutes, Warrick pulled back, breathing raggedly.
"Door. We should — the door. Lock it," he said, with flattering incoherence.
Toreth shook his head, not wanting to break the contact or give himself time to consider what he was doing. His hand slid between them, fumbling for fastenings. "We'll just have to be quick."
"I doubt —" Warrick's head went back and he gasped as Toreth's hand closed round his cock. "— that's going to be a problem," he finished in a rush, already reaching for Toreth in return.
It was fast, frantic and unexpectedly satisfying. Afterwards, as more calculating thought returned, Toreth watched Warrick wiping his fingers clean with a tissue and refastening his clothes, and wondered what the fuck he'd just done.
It was one thing to fuck a witness — a witness who was technically also a suspect — before the investigation started. It was still against regulations not to have declared a personal involvement in the case. However, it wasn't a major disciplinary offence, so long as the investigation went well and Tillotson didn't have any other reasons to start hunting for ammunition. This was different. It was, in fact, insane. If Warrick gave any hint of the fuck to anyone . . .
Toreth was still trying to come up with a request for discretion without too much desperation in it, when Warrick spoke.
"I take it," he said meditatively, "that lies somewhat outside standard interview techniques."
Toreth nodded, trying to keep his voice steady. "Somewhat."
"Then I shall be sure not to mention it to anybody." Warrick flashed a brilliant smile. "Although perhaps you should suggest it to your superiors. It certainly puts me in a very helpful mood."
"Thanks," Toreth said, covering both the offer and the compliment. That had been unexpectedly easy. He wondered where and when the payback would come.
Warrick moved round the desk and dropped rather heavily into his chair. "What did you want to ask me about?"
"What? Oh, yes." He took a seat opposite Warrick and set up the camera while he adjusted from pleasure back to business. "Whatever the dead girl was working on."
"Kelly," Warrick said, with a flicker of irritation.
"Yes, of course. Kelly. Tell me about her work." He knew a little about the technical bare bones of Kelly's research from the files but it was always useful to hear what other people considered to be the important points.
If the sudden and somewhat belated interest surprised Warrick, he didn't show it. He paused, considering the admittedly broad request, then began. "Her research was funded largely by P-Leisure. They're a subsidiary of LiveCorp, as I expect you know."
Interesting that, from the sound of it, neither of the Tefferas had called Warrick to tell him about their interview with I&I. "Did she know Jon Teffera? Had she met him?"
"Kelly? I doubt it. Jon very rarely visited the building — as a courtesy we always went to him."
Toreth nodded. "The project — go on."
"As you might guess from the name, P-Leisure are largely concerned with the sexual leisure market. You may be familiar with some of their products." Warrick smiled, without looking at him. "So I'm sure you can see that the sim tech is something in which they're very interested. They're one of our largest sponsors, in fact, and they also fund several studentships. Kelly's project was originally titled, ah,
Changes in human neural cells following exposure to sense-memory stacking
, if I recall correctly. Unfortunate, really."
"Unfortunate?"
"Yes. There didn't seem to be any startling changes that she could find, compared to other types of sim experience. Unfortunate for her project, lucky for us. We're hoping to market SMS in due course, provided that we can eliminate all the safety concerns."
Safety concerns sounded interesting. "So what went wrong with the project? Why did the title change?"
"After the preliminary investigations showed essentially no effect, her university supervisor suggested a change of thesis title, and the sponsors agreed. The new one was
Molecular mechanisms of memory integration after SMS experiences
. More scope for positive results. One of the staff scientists finished off the original project. Kelly was beginning to get some interesting data, although she'd only been on the new project for six months before she . . ." His voice trailed off and he made a helpless gesture. "Before she died."
Something nagged at Toreth's memory, then crystallised into a question. "Six months? There's a disciplinary note on her file from around then. What happened?"
"Ah, yes." Warrick sighed. "That was the other reason for the project change."
"Why didn't you mention it?"
"I didn't think it was important. And it seemed . . . inappropriate. The poor woman's dead, and it was all over and done with months ago."
"Warrick — " Toreth was about to launch into one of his practised and mildly intimidating speeches regarding who decided what was and wasn't relevant, when something stopped him. Perhaps the oh-so-satisfying encounter on the desk only a few minutes ago, or the memory of the previous fucks. Or just the sound of his own voice saying Warrick's name — Toreth was fairly sure he'd said it earlier too, as he came.