of death back to 0218. We were an hour and eight minutes behind the murderers.
Shelly tapped the holodisc again and triggered the release of the 3D vid. “Either this unit was damaged during the struggle, or the guys that left it behind didn’t know it was faulty.” She looked at me. “Tracing the serial number on it will probably be useless.”
“We’ll do it anyway.” I knelt down and passed my hand only a centimeter above the holodisc. I “read” the e-info on the unit easily, then sent a trace through the licensing databanks.
One of the sec men at the door stepped inside and called for Latimer. “Got a forspec out here. Name is Carmody. Says he’s with Sagan Forensics, Inc.”
Shelly addressed Latimer. “He’s one of ours.”
Latimer nodded. “Send him in.”
*
August Carmody was a lean human in his greying years. He wore the white cleansuit all forspec people wore to crime scenes, and always had a smile and a pleasant word for everyone he worked with. Under his clear hood, his white hair was neatly combed.
“Hello, Shelly, Drake.” He shook hands with each of us. Carmody loved mechanical things and AI programming, so he liked me quite a lot. He often probed me, mentally as well as physically. Shelly didn’t allow that to go on as a general rule because she believed I should be somehow affronted by the man’s interest.
“The ME hasn’t been here, August, so we have to stay clear of the body.” Shelly waved a hand toward the rest of the suite. “Everything else is fair game, though. Sorry you had to find us already in the room. L’Engle security…” She shrugged.
Carmody, however, nodded happily. “Not a problem.”
The forspec cleansuit was voluminous and had dozens of pockets. Carmody knelt near the dead man and began pulling out his crawlers. He didn’t use the CLB—Crime Lab in a Box—that was standard issue for NAPD forspecs. As a contracted special services provider, he used his own tech. NAPD didn’t have the rights to use the tech Carmody had.
Watching the crawlers work always intrigued me. They were small robots, no longer than a man’s finger, and some of them smaller than that. They possessed wheels as well as legs and resembled insects. As soon as Carmody placed them on the ground, they shivered and hooked up into a hive mind orientation. Then, they spread out and began mapping the room.
Using the information they gathered, they’d be able to upload measurements, textures, weather conditions, and more into a 3D replication of the crime scene at a later date. The data allowed investigating detectives to build an exact copy of the crime scene they could walk through in special 3D rooms at the NAPD.
The golden rule of evidence collection was: get it all the first time. There was no way to come back to a crime scene later and get data. Locard’s Exchange Principle stated that anyone entering a crime scene brought some new thing to that scene, and that anyone leaving the crime scene carried something away. The theory was developed by Edmond Locard, a French forensic scientist in the 1920s, and it was still true.
Evidence was important, and the chain of custody had to be maintained. The crawlers bagged and tagged carpet fibers, hairs, and chemicals they found that were incongruent to the environment. Carmody would then analyze everything they found and send his findings directly to the NAPD.
“Drake.”
I looked over at Shelly. “Yes.”
“Let’s get that search going through the hotel sec vids.”
“Sure.” I left the group and went over to stand against one of the walls so I would be out of the way of Carmody’s crawlers. I then accessed the hotel’s mainframe through my internal PAD and went deep into the files.
*
As a bioroid, I could take in a lot more information than either a human or a clone. My receptors ran wide open all the time. When I was interacting with the physical world, I was limited by my body and the laws of physics. But on the Net, I
Shelly tapped the holodisc again and triggered the release of the 3D vid. “Either this unit was damaged during the struggle, or the guys that left it behind didn’t know it was faulty.” She looked at me. “Tracing the serial number on it will probably be useless.”
“We’ll do it anyway.” I knelt down and passed my hand only a centimeter above the holodisc. I “read” the e-info on the unit easily, then sent a trace through the licensing databanks.
One of the sec men at the door stepped inside and called for Latimer. “Got a forspec out here. Name is Carmody. Says he’s with Sagan Forensics, Inc.”
Shelly addressed Latimer. “He’s one of ours.”
Latimer nodded. “Send him in.”
*
August Carmody was a lean human in his greying years. He wore the white cleansuit all forspec people wore to crime scenes, and always had a smile and a pleasant word for everyone he worked with. Under his clear hood, his white hair was neatly combed.
“Hello, Shelly, Drake.” He shook hands with each of us. Carmody loved mechanical things and AI programming, so he liked me quite a lot. He often probed me, mentally as well as physically. Shelly didn’t allow that to go on as a general rule because she believed I should be somehow affronted by the man’s interest.
“The ME hasn’t been here, August, so we have to stay clear of the body.” Shelly waved a hand toward the rest of the suite. “Everything else is fair game, though. Sorry you had to find us already in the room. L’Engle security…” She shrugged.
Carmody, however, nodded happily. “Not a problem.”
The forspec cleansuit was voluminous and had dozens of pockets. Carmody knelt near the dead man and began pulling out his crawlers. He didn’t use the CLB—Crime Lab in a Box—that was standard issue for NAPD forspecs. As a contracted special services provider, he used his own tech. NAPD didn’t have the rights to use the tech Carmody had.
Watching the crawlers work always intrigued me. They were small robots, no longer than a man’s finger, and some of them smaller than that. They possessed wheels as well as legs and resembled insects. As soon as Carmody placed them on the ground, they shivered and hooked up into a hive mind orientation. Then, they spread out and began mapping the room.
Using the information they gathered, they’d be able to upload measurements, textures, weather conditions, and more into a 3D replication of the crime scene at a later date. The data allowed investigating detectives to build an exact copy of the crime scene they could walk through in special 3D rooms at the NAPD.
The golden rule of evidence collection was: get it all the first time. There was no way to come back to a crime scene later and get data. Locard’s Exchange Principle stated that anyone entering a crime scene brought some new thing to that scene, and that anyone leaving the crime scene carried something away. The theory was developed by Edmond Locard, a French forensic scientist in the 1920s, and it was still true.
Evidence was important, and the chain of custody had to be maintained. The crawlers bagged and tagged carpet fibers, hairs, and chemicals they found that were incongruent to the environment. Carmody would then analyze everything they found and send his findings directly to the NAPD.
“Drake.”
I looked over at Shelly. “Yes.”
“Let’s get that search going through the hotel sec vids.”
“Sure.” I left the group and went over to stand against one of the walls so I would be out of the way of Carmody’s crawlers. I then accessed the hotel’s mainframe through my internal PAD and went deep into the files.
*
As a bioroid, I could take in a lot more information than either a human or a clone. My receptors ran wide open all the time. When I was interacting with the physical world, I was limited by my body and the laws of physics. But on the Net, I
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