"Key that log to the dispatcher. Just put the d-card in the phone and dial 9999." The exception to the log was already entered, miked in from his pickup. "And talk to your security people about those service doors. That's city code. Sir." He was polite on autopilot. His attention was on Sheila at the moment, from the other ear, saying they were prepping interior schemas to his helmet view. "Mr. Rozman. Which elevator?" There was a bank of six.
"Elevator B. Second one on your left. That goes to the 48s . . ." He used his fireman's key on the elevator call, and put his visor down. The hall and the elevator doors disappeared behind a wire-schema of the hall and doors, all red and gold and green lines on black, and shifting as the mid-tier elevator grounded itself. He didn't look down as he got in, you didn't look down on a wire-view if you wanted your stomach steady. He sent the car up, watched the floors flash past, transparenced, heard a stream of checks from Sheila confirming the phone-alarm in action, residents being warned through the phone company—
"Lopez is a cardiac case," Sheila said, "hospital's got a cruiser on alert, still no answer out of 4899. Lopez says it's quiet now."
"You got a line on Lopez, calm her down." Presence-sniffer readout was a steady blue, but you got that in passageways, lot of traffic, everything blurred unless you had a specific to track: it was smelling for stress, and wasn't getting it here. "Rozman, any other elevators to 48?"
"Yeah, C and D."
"Can you get off anywhere from a higher floor?"
"Yessir, you can. Any elevator, if you're going down."
Elevator stopped and the door opened. Solid floor across the threshold, with the scan set for anomalies against the wire-schema. Couple of potted palms popped out against the VR. Target door was highlighted gold. Audio kept hyping until he could hear the scuff of random movements from other apartments. "Real quiet," he said to Sheila. And stood there a moment while the sniffer worked, filling in tracks. You could see the swirl in the air currents where the vent was. You could see stress showing up soft red.
"Copy that," Sheila said. "Warrant's clear to go in." He put himself on no-exhaust, used the fire-key again, stayed to the threshold. The air inside showed redder. So did the walls, on heat-view, but this was spatter. Lot of spatter. No sound of breathing. No heartbeat inside the apartment.
He de-amped and walked in. A mech couldn't disturb a scene— sniffer couldn't pick up a presence on itself, ditto on the Cyloprene of his mech rig, while the rig was no-exhaust he was on internal air. It couldn't sniff him, but feet could still smudge the spatters. He watched where he stepped, real-visual now, and discovered the body, a woman, fully dressed, sprawled face-up by the bar, next to the bedroom, hole dead center between the astonished eyes.
"Quick and clean for her," he said. "Helluva mess on the walls."
"Lab's on its way," Sheila said, alternate thought track. "I'm on you, D-D, just stand still a sec." The sniffer was working up a profile, via Sheila's relays Downtown. He stood still, scanning over the body. "Woman about thirty, good-looking, plain dresser . . ." Emilia Frances Nolan, age 34, flashed up on the HUD. Canadian citizen, Martian registry, chief information officer Mars Transport Company."
Thin, pale woman. Dark hair. Corporate style on the clothes. Canadian immigrant to Mars, returned to Earth on a Canadian passport. "Door was locked," he said.
"I noticed that," Sheila said.
Sniffer was developing two scents, the victim's and a second one. AMMONIA, the indicator said.
"Mild ammonia."
"Old-fashioned stuff," he said. "Amateur." The sniffer was already sepping it out as the number three track. Ammonia wouldn't overload a modern sniffer. It was just one more clue to trace; and the tracks were coming clear now: Nolan's was everywhere, Baruque, the sniffer said—
expensive perfume, persistent as hell. The ammonia had to be the number two's notion. And you didn't carry a vial of it for social occasions.
But why in hell was there a live-in smell?
"Male," Sheila commented, meaning the number two track. "Lovers' spat?"
"POSSeL-Q the manager didn't know about, maybe, lovers' quarrel, clothes aren't mussed. Rape's not a high likely here." Stress in both tracks. The whole place stank of it. "Going for the live one, Sheel. Hype it. Put out a phone alert, upstairs and down, have ComA take over Roz-man's remote, I don't need him but he's still a resource."
Out the door, into the wire-schema of the hall. The sniffer had it good this time: the stress trail showed up clear and bright for the fire-door, and it matched the number two track, no question.
"Forty-eight damn floors," he muttered: no good to take the elevator. You got professional killers or you got crazies or drugheads in a place like this, fenced in with its security locks, and you didn't know what any one of the three was going to do, or what floor they were going to do it on. He went through the fire-door and started down on foot, following the scent, down and down and down . . .
"We got further on Norton," Sheila said. "Assigned here eight months ago, real company climber, top grad, schooled on Mars, no live-ins on any MarsCorp record we can get to, but that guy was real strong in there. I'm saying he was somebody Norton didn't want her social circle to meet."
He ran steps and breathed, ran steps and breathed, restricted air, Sheila had a brain for figuring people, you didn't even have to ask her. A presence trail arrived into the stairwell, bright blue mingling with the red. "Got another track here," he found breath to say.
"Yeah, yeah, that's in the log, that's a maintenance worker, thirty minutes back. He'll duck out again on 25."
"Yeah." He was breathing hard. Making what time he could. The trail did duck out at 25, in a wider zone of blue, unidentified scents, the smell from the corridor blown into the shaft and fading into the ambient. His track stayed clear and strong, stress-red, and he went on real-view: the transparent stairs were making him sick. "Where's this let out? Garage downstairs?"
"Garage and mini-mall."
"Shit!"
"Yeah. We got a call from building security wanting a piece of it, told them stay out of it. . ."
"Thank God."
"Building chief's an amateur with a cop-envy. We're trying to get another mech in."
"We got some fool with a gun he hasn't ditched, we got a mall full of people down there. Where's Jacobs?"
"Rummel's closer. —We got lab coming in. Lab's trying to get an ID match on your sniffer pickup."
"Yeah. You've got enough on it. Guy's sweating. So am I." He felt sweat trails running under the armor, on his face. The door said 14. The oxy was running out. Violate the scene or no, he had to toggle to exhaust. After that, it was cooler, dank, the way shafts were that went into the underground.
"We got some elevator use," Sheila said, "right around the incident, off 48. Upbound. Stopped on 50, 52, 78, 80, and came down again, 77, 34, 33, then your fire-call brought it down. Time-overlap on the 78, the C-elevator was upbound."
"Follow it." Meaning somebody could have turned around and left no traces if he'd gotten in with another elevator-call. "Put Downtown on it, I need your brain."
"Awww. I thought it was the body."
"Stow it." He was panting again. The internal tank was out. He hoped he didn't need it again. Sheila went out of the loop: he could hear the silence on the phones. "Forty-damn-stories—" Three, two, one, s-one. "Wire," he gasped, and got back the schema, that showed through the door into a corridor. He listened for noise, panting, while the net in the background zeed out his breathing and his heartbeat and the building fans and everything else but a dull distant roar that said humanity, a lot of it, music—the red was still there and it was on the door switch, but it thinned out in the downward stairwell.