A9 Pariah (Patreon)

Brand new scene for Executioner's Gambit!

A3 New Lodging
A4 Argument
A5 Introductions
A6 Under Your Tongue
A7 Doctor Visit
A8 Pharmacist

Edit: Looks like I skipped a scene, so I added what I missed onto this existing scene. Sorry about that!

———

Tori grumbled quietly to herself as she walked. She’d hoped that only a few individuals might have had access to the poison—that would have greatly narrowed her suspect list. But if anyone could have grabbed it while the pharmacist was distracted, then everyone was still a potential suspect.

Still, Harti had expressed her concerns that someone could have used one of the pharmacists’ strands to gain access, so that merited a little digging. Sadly, without Security Chief Tipohee granting her access into the crew’s records—or cause reasonable enough to convince a judge to grant her access—she didn’t even know which crew members were pharmacists!

She wouldn’t have access to that information … but others would. Pulling out her strand, she scrolled through her contact list until she came to a photo of the skinny administrator. “Hey, Holly?” she asked when he answered. “I got the sense this morning that you might be interested in helping me find The Executioner. Did I read that right?”

“Wow!” said Holly, with surprise evident in his voice. “Would I be…? I mean, do you need my help?”

“Do I?” she yarped. “I need all the help I can get, and as things stand, you’re like the only friend I’ve got aboard this ship—other than Druka, of course.” She winced slightly, worried that she might have overdone it. Holly seemed like he had friend potential, but she’d really only known him for just a little bit. To call him a friend was stretching the truth rather thin.

“Well, geez, Tori!” he said, “I’d be glad to help. Where do we start?”

She released the breath she’d been holding and smiled. “Hrm. There’s so much to do. I suppose the best place to start would be in gathering information. I’ve been interviewing the crew. Would you mind looking some stuff up for me?”

“Looking some…? Do you mean accessing the crew’s records?”

“Yeah,” said Tori. “I had a buddy on my other ship who was an administrator, and he could access lots of crew information. So, you should have access privileges that he did.”

“Oh, uh, I don’t…” Holly mumbled. “I don’t know how to look up crew information.”

“Not a problem. It’s easy,” said Tori, despite the fact that she’d never done it before. “I’ll explain in a sec, but can you jot this down first?”

“Yeah, one sec. Let me tab to a notepad,” he said. After a brief pause, he added, “Okay, go ahead.”

“First, ask the computer for a list of all the pharmacists, assistants, managers, whatever, everyone who would have access to unlock the pharmacy.”

“Everyone who can unlock the pharmacy…” he repeated slowly and quietly while he typed up his notes. “Okay, got it.”

“Then, run that list of names back into the computer, and get a list of all their home addresses,” she said.

Again, he mumbled while typing. “Got it.”

“Then run that list of addresses back into the computer and get a list of everyone who lives at any of those addresses.”

“Oh…” he whispered softly as he typed. “Then what? Run that new list through the computer again?”

“Yeah, exactly,” said Tori. “Pull up everything you can access on all those geroo. Dump it in a folder and send me a copy. That will give us tons to read and study.”

“So, you think the killer is living with one of the pharmacists?” he asked.

“Don’t know,” said Tori. She paused and looked around, getting her bearings. “The poison was stolen from the pharmacy, and all those geroo had easier access than the rest of the crew, so it’s a good place to start.”

“Gotcha,” he said. Then a pause. “So, you said this is easy? How do I—”

“Step one,” said Tori, “find a computer administrator, system operator, or anyone who works in IT. Step two, show them the list and explain that it’s your first day as a Company Administrator and no one has shown you how to look stuff up. Step three, ask them to show you how, so you’ll be able to do it yourself next time.”

A longer pause this time. He said, “That’s pretty clever, Inspector Tori.”

Her ears grinned wide. “Give me a yell when you’ve got it, Administrator Holly, and maybe we can brainstorm up what to do next!”

“I’m on it,” yarped Holly as he hung up.

Tori leaned back against the corridor wall for a moment, taking a chance to think about the few facts she’d collected so far. There wasn’t much to go on just yet, and with all the popular support The Executioner had gathered, there could easily be others helping him out.

However… she thought, the theft of the quinalbarbitone, and the first murder would have predated the killer’s popularity! So, it’s unlikely that anyone would have been helping him at that point. In other words, those first few events in the case were surely the most important, the most revealing.

Tori wanted a place to sit and be alone with her thoughts for a bit. She considered returning to her freshly acquired apartment or grabbing an empty conference room, but decided instead to buy a soda from the deck’s central marketplace and indulge in some people-watching for a bit while her thoughts mixed and coalesced.

Not interested in anything to eat, she hobbled to the nearest food cart, but the vendor’s reaction surprised her. The vendor, a gal in her thirties with a drab yellow coat, watched Tori approach with ears raised in alarm, but then she suddenly turned away, focusing instead on the cart parked beside her own.

Tori waited for a moment, but the yellow gal didn’t turn back around.

“Hello?” Tori asked, confused. When the vendor continued to ignore her, Tori grew increasingly irritated and upset. She went as far as waving her paw between the two vendors and shouting, “Hello? Can I order a soda, please?”

The rusty red geroo realized she was being intentionally ignored, and she stood there in shock and silence. Since the accident, she’d encountered a wide variety of reactions to her appearance: fear, revulsion, pity, and even ridicule. Often, strangers would struggle to ignore her ruined face and treat her as if she’d never been injured, only for momentary lapses of concentration to reveal their true feelings. But despite all that, she’d never had anyone ignore her.

“What in the hells is wrong with you?” she said in a voice bordering on a shout.

Then, stunned and seething with anger, she stalked off to the far side of the market to put as much space as possible between her and the rude vendor.

She stomped her way to a noodle vendor, but as she drew closer, the vendor’s ears fell lower and lower. “Can I please order a soda?” she asked as politely as she could manage, despite the urge to growl and complain.

The vendor, an orange-furred fellow with a creased whisker, lifted his lips in a snarl. “Piss off,” he hissed.

Tori was so surprised that she fell back two full steps. “What?” she whispered, not expecting such venom.

“You heard me, Investigator,” he snarled at her. “Piss. Off.”

Oh, wow, she thought. Word really does travel fast. Of course, as the only living cripple aboard the ship, she would be instantly recognizable, but she never could have guessed that she’d face such naked hostility just for trying to bring a killer to justice!

Without trying any other vendors, Tori scampered away the best she could through tear-filled eyes. She hurried to the sanctity of her own apartment, slammed the door, and flopped down on the bed, face-first.

How did I sink to this point? she wondered in the dark room’s gloom. Miserable, hated, manipulating, using friends, hurting witnesses, and making them cry… And for what? Dr. Amhela was never going to give her the surgery she needed. And even if she delighted the captain by solving the case faster than expected, the commissioner wouldn’t care. To the krakun, an injured crewman was a detriment to the ship, not an asset in need of help. The commissioners didn’t care about any geroo unless the ship needed them.

And nobody needed Tori. Oh sure, Druka loved her, but he certainly didn’t need her. In fact, he’d be better off without her. Did the case need her? Perhaps. But was that a good enough reason to keep on living?

She wallowed in self-pity until the blanket was wet with tears, then she sat slowly up and sniffled, taking a moment to build herself back up. “No, damn it,” she said aloud, “I’m not going to give up without even speaking to the commissioner.”

Admittedly, the last time she’d spoken to a krakun had been an unmitigated disaster. It was, after all, how she got injured in the first place. But risk remained at this point? The accident had left her so fragile, that even a flick from a krakun’s claw would probably do her in, solving everyone’s problems once and for all.

Or … it was always possible that not all krakun were as bad as Sarsuk. They were, after all, people. And at the deepest level, people care about other people. That was the thing that separated people from…

She wasn’t quite sure where that last thought had been leading. Separated people from animals? Did one kerrati treat another poorly? Separated people from machines? Aziz was an AI, and he tried to treat people well. Separated people from monsters like The Executioner? Perhaps, but if the killer was so awful, then why was he so widely loved?

Tori washed her face and drank a little water. She tidied up her fur the best she could and then headed out to find anyone who had witnessed Raksa’s murder. Without security’s reports, she knew almost nothing about it other than it was the first.

And she was the ship’s investigator, damn it! Whether the crew liked her or not, she had the authority to interview anyone she damn well pleased. And if that meant stopping random geroo in the corridors and asking if they knew where the first murder took place, then so be it.

———

Reviewer's link: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1Q42dLMW8AJ1AVflxxBI8nFCi66RhOJLWgeUq4nXr-Qk/edit?usp=sharing

Thoughts?