Doctor Who_ Original Sin - Andy Lane [21]
She raised her voice. ‘Start record.’
The light began to flash again.
‘Recording started,’ said the bot.
‘Have you got the spike?’ she continued, turning to Cwej.
35
‘The what?’
‘The murder weapon?’
Cwej reached beneath his seat and retrieved a vacuum-sealed bag with the bloodied spike inside.
‘Here.’
Forrester placed it on the table and waved the mindprobe’s sensor over it, registering the item in its memory.
‘All right, bring her over.’
While Cwej had manoeuvred the uncooperative but unresisting woman into one of the chairs, her arms and legs sticking out stiffly in the foam suit, Forrester attached the metal mindprobe contact to the centre of the woman’s forehead.
‘Ever used one of these?’ she asked Cwej.
‘Saw one in a lecture once,’ he said.
‘They always work perfectly in lectures, and never in real life. The early models needed so much power to read anything through the skull that they sometimes screwed around with the memories they were trying to read. These new ones are magic. Perfectly safe. Would you like to try it?’
He shook his head.
‘Fine,’ she continued, ‘just asking. Now, I’ve scanned the murder weapon into the mindprobe. We should now be able to peel back her recent memories, looking for the last time she remembers seeing it.’
‘Won’t that be just now, when I pulled it out from beneath the seat?’
‘Well done. Glad to see you’re paying attention. I can then go back to the time before that –’
‘Just after we first arrived.’
‘And scroll slowly backwards until we find the murder.’
‘If she committed it.’
‘Have it your own way, Academy boy. It’s just a formality. We know she did it.’
Forrester’s fingers danced across the controls. She had operated mindprobes so many times that the procedure was instinctive, automatic. If she had stopped to think what she was doing, she would have lost it.
‘Okay,’ she said. ‘Let’s boogie.’
She pressed the button marked ENGAGE PROBE. Lights flashed on the body of the machine, and the woman’s face creased into a slight frown.
The screen sprang to life with a fuzzy, distorted picture of the table and an empty chair. The mindprobe was on the table: Forrester was standing by the chair. From one side, Cwej’s hand could just be seen holding the vacuum-sealed bag with the spike inside.
‘That’s the most recent occurrence,’ Forrester said. ‘Let’s go back one.’
36
Her fingers danced again across the controls. The screen washed with static, then cleared to show a picture of the area where they had found the body. The body itself was off to one side, out of sight. The woman had been looking at the ground, down the smooth, metallic length of the bot as it restrained her.
The spike was held loosely in her hand.
‘Let’s skip back ten minutes,’ Forrester said, holding down a button. The picture jumped, and settled down to the same state.
‘And again.’
The same.
‘And again.’
Different. The hand holding the knife was slashing down again and again at a sluglike offworlder with a moist, grey body. Its thin, flexible limbs were raised to protect its face. A thin blue fluid was spurting from gashes in its limbs, its face, its body. The knife suddenly changed direction, coming in from the side and catching the victim unprepared. The blade cut right through its eyestalks. Blue fluid fountained down its body. Its tentacular fingers flailed briefly, uselessly, and it sank slowly to the ground.
‘Goddess!’ Cwej exclaimed. ‘That’s gross.’
‘That’s life,’ Forrester said. ‘It’s all recorded here. Soon as we feed the info into centcomp, this lady’ll be for the chop.’
‘What do you reckon she’ll get?’
Forrester reached out towards the mindprobe. ‘Murder? Mandatory brainwipe and indenture to a corporation for ten years.’
‘Yeah, but look at her,’ he protested. ‘She’s juiced up on something. Got to be: just look at her eyes.’
Her finger rested on the DISENGAGE PROBE button.
‘No excuse. Didn’t they teach you anything in the Academy?’ She looked at the underdweller’s blank eyes. ‘Strange, there’s a lot of them around like