Eve On Station

Chapter Seventeen

"We are running out of room in the cells you know," said Sam as Eve walked into Security with LeBlanc slung over her shoulder. "Also, could you please at least stagger when you walk in carrying an 80kg man? It makes us all look bad."

Eve dropped the unconscious man at Sam's feet, "I suddenly feel too week to carry him to the cells, so I'll leave that to you then."

"Me and my big mouth," muttered Sam as she picked up LeBlanc with a small grunt and hardly any more effort than Eve.

"You will have to get Dr. Lee to look at him" said Eve. "I think I broke his nose and we wouldn't want him to choke on his own blood or anything like that."

"Yeah, I didn't think a nose should lie so flat on a face," Sam returned. "I will look forward to another interaction with our head of Medical. That's another one you owe me."

"Also, you might as well process Rose, Mazur and the others from the bar and release them," Eve called after the Lieutenant as Sam headed for the door to the cells. "We can fine them for their part in the brawl, but without any video evidence, there isn't anything we can charge them with, including the assault on Fitzgibbons."

"I'd rather push them out an airlock, Sam called back. "I did get that Earth agent Ferguson in a guest quarter on Plus Six with a guard on the room as you wanted," and with that Sam was through the door and it whisked shut behind her.

"Oh great, so a murder suspect ends up in quarters two levels up from me and presumably nicer ones?" Eve asked Jasmine, pausing to check the name tag and make sure which twin she was talking to.

"Them's the breaks," agreed Jasmine. "Also, I got a message a few seconds ago from a Rabbi Jacobs, who said to tell his future wife, who he described as the blonde with the healthy chest, which is apparently you that someone named Korgan says the room you want is Minus 1955. And on a personal note, I'm disappointed you are two timing Null with the Rabbi."

"What can I say," replied Eve, "the Rabbi is a great cook." Eve looked at the time, "I just have enough time to check that room before I meet Null. Who handles forensics on the team?"

"That's Constable Ernie Fox on this shift," replied Jasmine after a quick consultation of the duty roster on her computer.

"Then have Constable Fox meet me in that room as soon as possible," replied Eve and she made for the nearest lift.

*

Room Minus 1955 turned out to be a fair sized room where the cleaning bots were stored and recharged along with cleaning carts and cases of cleaning supplies. Other than for maintenance, there would be little to no reason for anyone to go into the room, so it made sense as a clandestine meeting place. There was a camera covering the entrance in the corridor and the opening of the door itself would be logged by computer systems, but Eve knew just how unreliable those systems were at the moment. Still, she made a mental note to have the computer records checked by Null, just in case the hacker had slipped up. At first glance, there didn't seem to be anything of use here and Eve was about to call Jasmine and cancel sending Constable Fox when she noticed something odd. The supplies on the shelves were all carefully orientated so that they displayed several lines of numbers and letters. These were meaningless to humans, but would provide the cleaning bots with the contents of the cartons, so they could restock themselves. The cartons would have been placed on the shelves by cargo handling bots that would have the programming to always orientate the boxes with the numbers outward. There were, however, two cartons with the numbers not visible. Eve carefully turned one around and saw a large stain running down the side of the carton and she would have bet anything that it was blood.

"It's blood alright," said Constable Fox when he arrived a few minutes later and ran his scanner over the cartons. They had turned the second one around to find it likewise stained. "The numbers are also out of sequence," he pointed out. "These two belong on a lower shelf with others having this prefix," and his finger tapped the first few digits of the number.