T o that Eve could only heave out a breath. "Okay. Benny's place. There were signs of grieving and... simplicity," she decided. "Var's place was clean. Like he was expecting company. He knew we'd need to do a search-he'd anticipated the steps in the game, and he was ready for it. He stocks good wine, fancier food, spends more on clothes and furniture. He opened the door for the cops at Cill's."

"And that... ah. Benny was alone with her. He could have finished her easily. Simply closed off her airway. I t wouldn't have taken much, wouldn't have taken long."

"He got to her first, and stayed with her. Var couldn't do anything about it. He expected to find her dead. I t had to be a shock when Benny found a pulse, but he thinks on his feet-and he had to hope, to believe, she'd never make it through surgery. I t surprised him, and pissed him off when she did. I t showed, just for a second. He's good, a good actor. Most sociopaths are, and all that role-playing's worked for him over the years."

"And you believe he played the role of friend and partner, all these years."

"I t may have even been true, as far as it goes, off and on. The business is successful, he's making a good living with potential for more. I t'll be the more that pushed him, or gave him the excuse he wanted. And the fact Bart could and did overrule him. He's already edging himself into a leadership role at U-Play. T aking Cill out just cements it. Benny doesn't want to run that show. He wants to keep doing what he's doing, so he's not a threat but an asset. Cill could run it, and Benny would side with her. Remove her, and the field's clear."

"All right, say I 'm convinced you're right. How? I 'll agree he could easily have arranged to go in with Bart, it's trickier with Cill as Benny claims he watched her go in, and Var walked on.I suppose he could have circled around, entered another way, intercepted her before she went in the apartment, but-"

"He was never in either apartment, not at the time of the murder or the attack."

"Well then, how did he manage it? By remote control?"

"In a way. Okay, engaging that open mind you carry around with you, the hologram did it."

"Eve, even a flaw in the system-which we haven't found, couldn't decapitate a player."

"Not the system. The hologram. Bart fought the Black Knight, and the Black Knight won. I t cut off Bart's head, and in whatever scenario Cill played, it pushed her, or caused her to fall."

Roarke took another sip of coffee. "Let me understand you. You're suggesting that a holographic image, which is essentially light and shadow, attempted murder and committed it."

"But it's not just light and shadows. Neuro- and nanotech have advanced, and the images produced in holo-programs act and react, according to that program. They appear three-dimensional, appear to have substance. The player's senses are involved and engaged."

"I t's an illusion."

"Right. But with clarity. And, some hold the theory that the wave front could be enhanced further, and the beams increased in power, and remarried to complex VR-"

"Results in burnout and system failure," he finished. "You simply can't create actual substance in holo. I t's replicated imagery."

"You wouldn't have to. But if you found a way to get around the system failure and increase those beams, the enhanced wave front, to channel that increase, you might also increase the power stream of that light. A kind of current that, okay, not actual substance, but an electronic replication of that substance. A kind of laser."

"I t's... hmm." He set the coffee aside, rose to go over and edge a hip onto her desk. "Interesting."

"The jolts you get in the game. Tied in to that illusion of contact in, say, a sword fight with the Black Knight. But, if you've found a way to do this enhancement, to take a jump on the tech trampoline, the sword could, conceivably, cut, slash, sever. Or the current could-in the shape of the holo it's programmed to produce. Or in Cill's case, replicate an impact where those currents, or whatever the hell you'd call them, could inflict the same damage as what they'd been programmed to replicate."

When he said nothing, she shifted. "Listen, laser scalpels cut. Laser blasters, well, blast. Why can't light imagery-essentially-be manipulated to slice and bash?"

"I t would run hot-should run hot enough to shut down the system. To fry it for that matter. But..."

"How come all your hotshot R&D people aren't all over this?"

"Oh, we have some toying with it. But the fact is, on a practical level it's not marketable. You can hardly produce games where the players can go around chopping pieces off each other, or other mayhem. You'd be shut down, and sued within an inch."

Her eyes narrowed. "Then why do you have anyone toying?" And he gave her an easy smile. "You never know what you might find when you're looking for something else, do you? And under certain circumstances, such an application might interest the military. In any case, it's low priority. Or was," he corrected. "And this would explain-"

"A lot. I 've eliminated everything else. This is what's left. And when you've eliminated everything else, what's left should be true."

"Yes," Roarke murmured. "I t certainly should. There's nothing on this technology on any record or comp at U-Play, or on the partners' equipment.

He'll have that private space you're looking for. He'd have to."

"And he'll take the bait there. He'll have to. We'll find it, and when we do, I think we're going to find a lot more than a game." She checked her wrist unit. "Shit. I spent more time laying it out for you than I should have. I need you to program a reenactment of both events, using this theory, so I can use it in the briefing."

"Oh well, then, no problem at all. I can just take that jump on the tech trampoline in the next ten minutes, then take my bows."

"Sarcasm noted. Look, I 've got it started. I t just needs to be refined some."

"I t's not like twisting the top off a tube of bloody ketchup after you've loosened it."

"Too much for you?" She cocked her head. "No problem. I 'll get McNab on it."

"That's bitchy. On here?"

"Yeah, I 've just about got-"

"Go away." He sat, then glanced back at her scowling face. "Now.""Fine. But don't spend the next century fiddling with it. I just need it clear enough to-"

"Close the door behind you, whether or not it hits you in the ass."

"No need to get pissy," she muttered, and closed the door behind her with a sharp snap.

Since she'd forgotten to get coffee before being kicked out of her own damn office, she stopped and snarled at Vending. Machine and technology, not her friends in the best of times, were currently on her short list. She fingered the loose credits in her pockets and considered her options.

"Hey, Dallas." McNab bounced up. "Great minds." He punched in his code, ordered up a T ango Fizzy-tangerine and mango, Eve thought as her stomach curdled. "Here, get me a Pepsi." She shoved credits at him.

"No prob."

"Any activity on the scan?"

"Not yet. We brought a portable down so I can keep my eye on it while we brief. Anybody takes a stab at hacking in, I 'll know it. Here you go." He tossed her the tube. "Peabody says Cill Allen's hanging in so far. Hope she makes it, but I gotta say, I hate she might pop up and say, 'Hey, it was Colonel Mustard in the library with the candlestick' and make it easy after we put this much time in."

"Who the hell is Colonel Mustard?"

"You know, from the game. Clue. You should play it. You'd kill."

"I 've had about enough of games that kill." She considered him as she cracked the tube. He was young, and as into gaming as anyone she knew.

Plus, being a cop, violence was part of his life. "Would you want that? Want to play games where the stakes were real?"

"You mean where I could win a zillion dollars? Oh shit, yeah."

"No. Well, okay, say there's a big cash prize." Because if this thing ever went public, somebody would figure a way to gamble on it. "But to win, even qualify, you had to face off against opponents with real weapons. Real blood, real pain-and potentially fatal."

"So I risk getting my ass kicked, maimed, or dead for money and/or glory? I do that anyway." He smiled, shrugged. "Why would I want to do it for game? Gaming's how you get away from the real for a while."

"Yeah. You're not as stupid as you look."

"Thanks." He lifted his fizzy as she walked away, then clicked in. "Hey!"

She strode into the conference room, nodded as the efficient Peabody finished the setup. She gestured toward the components and screens.

"That's the monitor on the dummy files?"

"Yeah. I f anyone tries to hack in, access the case files, read, scan copy, infect, EDD will know and trace. I 'm keeping my eye on it for a minute while McNab grabs some fluids. The others are on their way."

"Roarke might be late. He's working on something for me."

"Wouldn't mind him working on something for me."

"Excuse me?"

"Hmm? Oh, just talking to myself," Peabody sang. "You know how it is."

Eve strolled over, clipped the back of Peabody's head with the flat of her hand.

"Ow."

"Oh, sorry, just an involuntary reflex. You know how it is." She shifted Var's ID photo from the group on the murder board and set it dead center.

"Him?"

"Him."

"Good. I just won a fifty-dollar bet with myself."

"First, how do you win a bet with yourself?"

"See, I bet myself fifty it was Var. I win, so I put it in my investment kitty. When I get a decent chunk in the kitty, Roarke's going to invest it for me."

"What if you'd lost?"

"Then I 'd put it in the investment kitty, but it's more satisfying to win."

"Okay. Why'd you bet for-against-forget that. Why Var?""A couple things. His apartment was perfect, both times a team went in. Okay, a lot of people are neat freaks, but he'd be the first serious gamer I know who doesn't have a few stray discs sitting around, or some crumbs where he grabbed a snack while he was playing. And he said he'd been playing the night Cill was attacked. Maybe I just didn't want it to be Benny because he really loves her, and if I was wrong about that, it'd be depressing. Who wants to be depressed?"

"Poets," Eve decided. "You have to think they must."

"Okay, other than poets. Plus, Benny strikes me as more of a follower. You have to be a self-starter to pull this off. I think. So if it came down between the two of them, I bet on Var."

"I may need a tissue, my pride waters me right up."

She looked over as the EDD team came in. "All right. Let's get started. Roarke's working on something for me, so we won't wait for him. I 've already briefed him."

She called the first images on-screen while the team settled. "Victim One, Minnock, Bart, decapitated while engaged in play of Fantastical in his holo-room, secured, in his apartment, also secured. Thus far we've found nothing to indicate another entry, invited or forced."

"Nothing to find," Feeney stated. "We have to conclude the killer came in with him, and there's some malfunction with the droid. We're going to take her apart again."

"Maybe not." Eve left it at that until she finished laying the groundwork. "The victim engaged in solo play for just over thirty minutes, starting at level four. We've concluded he gamed K2BK, which through process of elimination would be Usurper. We'll come back to the details of that scenario.

"Victim Two," she continued, "Allen, Cilla, attacked and critically injured while engaged in play of the same game, in her holo-room, unsecured, in her apartment, which was secured. No indications of another entry, invited or forced until her partners, Leman and Hoyt, entered this morning and discovered her on the holo-room floor. After questioning, her partners state her preferred game is Dragon's Egg-a treasure hunt. We'll go into those details shortly."

She glanced at her wrist unit. I f Roarke ever finished.

"Victim Two began at level one, engaged in play for just over two hours. We have her just shy of completing level three. Expert medical opinion based on her injuries, the scans, concludes she suffered those injuries in a fall from perhaps twenty feet onto a hard, rough, and uneven surface."

"Can't be," Feeney disagreed. Absently, he took a cube of gum McNab offered him. "Screws the time line and the entry, and hell, the physical evidence on-scene. The attack went down in the holo-room."

"I agree." Eve stepped to the side of the wall screen to give the team an unobstructed view of the crime scene record. "So how does a woman incur injuries from a fall such as I 've described on the smooth, flat surface of her holo-room? How does a man get his head cut off when all evidence concludes he was alone? The only logical explanation is Bart was killed and Cill attacked by their opponent in the game."

"I f they were alone, Dallas, they didn't have a damn opponent."

Eve shifted her glance toward Feeney. "But they did. Each would have to defeat or outwit that opponent to reach the next level. For Bart, the Black Knight. For Cill, the rival treasure hunter."

"You're saying some holo jumped out of a game and sliced off the vic's head?" Feeney shook his own. "You've been working too hard, kid."

"I 'm saying the killer used the game," Eve corrected. "I 'm saying he used a new technology programmed into the game as the weapon. Enhanced wave fronts, increased power to beams and the haptic system, a refocus of laser angles and light, forming electrons and light source in the shape of the programmed images-replicating substance."

Callendar tilted her head. "Wicked. Wicked freaky."

CHAPTER 21

"That's science fiction shit."

"I t's fiction until science catches up." Eve rocked back on her heels. "Feeney, you work with science every day. Go back to your rookie days and compare them with now. This isn't my area, so maybe it's easier for me to consider the possibility. Nothing else fits. And this? Figuring the evidence, the time lines, the circumstances, the personalities, and the areas of interest? I t fits like a fucking glove."

"There's always some rumbling and mumbling on the underground sites," McNab commented. His eyes shone bright with the possibilities-what Eve thought of as a geek beam. "Way-out theories and applications."

"We got sightings of Bigfoot and little green men on-sites, too," Feeney countered, but he was frowning in a way that made Eve sure he was considering.

"Both vics had minute burns, internal burns, at the site of injuries. We've gone around chasing some charged-up sword. I think we weren't far off. But it only exists within the program.I believe Levar Hoyt killed one partner and attempted to kill another through his programming. Let's take him for a minute."

She shifted gears, back to the comfortable, and outlined her reasons and conclusions on the suspect.

"He looks good for it," Feeney agreed. "You've got a nice pile of circumstantial. But say I came over to this idea of yours, how the hell do we prove it?"

"He's going to tell me. He's going to want to tell me." She paused as Roarke walked in. "Got it?"