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Still another had them dressed in costumes, with Cill in a fancy wig that had big rounds of hair at both ears, and a white flowy dress—with some sort of blaster in her hand. Benny wore a kind of space soldier suit, a smirky smile, and held another blaster, while Bart wore a white tunic and carried a glowing tubular sword.
No, light saber, she corrected. Sure, sure, the Jedi deal, the Star Wars thing—like his droid.
She took a closer look at the light saber, shook her head. It just wasn’t the murder weapon.
Other pictures included Var—older now, college time—shaggy hair, sloppy clothes, sleepy eyes. Then the four of them stood in front of the warehouse, with patchy snow on the ground. Each wore a U-Play T-shirt and mile-wide grins as they toasted the camera with glasses of what was likely champagne.
She filed it all away before wandering out. She scanned the area—the glass boxes, the open stairs, the clear cubes, and workstations. Not so much bustle today, but still plenty of movement.
She frowned as she watched the way the sun beamed down and flashed over all the glass—and threw certain areas into soft shadows.
That was interesting, she mused. Glass walls or not, at certain times of the day sections were glared to invisible by the slant of sunlight.
She stopped a guy with a half a million tiny braids before he could whiz by on airskates. “I’m looking for Benny.”
“Um. His office?”
“No.”
“Um. Maybe he went home. It’s a crap day. Yo, Jessie? Benny?”
“Um. I think he was going to Lab Three. Maybe.”
“Lab Three,” Airskate said helpfully. “Maybe.”
“And where is that?”
“Um. Third level.” He pointed east. “That way.”
“Thanks.” She wondered how many “ums” were dropped in the air on any given day.
She took the long way around. No one stopped her, asked who she was, what she was doing. People went about their business, or gathered in little groups with the slash of those black armbands like wounds on their bright colors.
Now and then she noticed someone actually using a swipe card, but for the most part doors remained open.
She spotted Benny through the glass of a lab, its outer wall lined with comps and screens. He seemed to be executing some sort of martial arts kata, mouth grim, eyes shielded by VR goggles.
Good moves, she decided. Smooth, controlled, quick despite his human stickman build.
This one did more than sit in a cube and pretend.
She hooked her thumbs in her back pockets, watching until he made the ritual ending bow.
He jumped when she rapped her knuckles on the glass.
When he pulled off the goggles, his eyes looked dazed and glazed and made her wonder how long he’d been caught in the VR.
He fumbled a little with the lock code, then slid the door open.
“Lieutenant Dallas. I’m sorry, I didn’t know you were out here.”
“No problem. Good form. What level are you?”
“Oh, none.” There was an awkwardness to his shrug that hadn’t been there in the movements of the routine. “Not really. Virtually and in holo? I rock, but I don’t actually compete or practice or anything.”
“You should.”
He said, “Well . . .” And shrugged jerkily again. “Is there something new about Bart? Did you find out who killed him?”
