Rebirth - Chapter Four
Sanna undergoes a test that will determine whether or not she will remain a part of the Church Of The Whole: the treacherous Tavern Test...
“It is not the first time something like this has happened.”
Morinn stared at Ruben, quivering with fury. “A bright young girl has been murdered by your little pet project, Ruben!”
Ruben waved a hand, and Köler shifted his weight in his chair. Ruben glanced at his discomfort, and noted it before speaking. “Had the alternative happened, and your ‘bright young girl’ had successfully sent Sanna to her death, we would not be having this conversation.”
“Her parents are highly influential-”
“Her parents are little more that empty heads with too much money. As far as they will be concerned, their daughter died in a training accident. The girl’s death was her own fault.”
Morinn went bright red. “You-”
“We have the visual telemetry of the incident.” Köler’s interruption stopped Morinn in her tracks. “I know you were close to the girl, Disciple. There is very little that can be done now.”
“You can expel her from training,” Morinn snapped.
Ruben smiled beneath his mask, amused. “Why would I sanction that?”
“Why?!”
Ruben turned to face her. “I will ask you again. Had Rohna successfully thrown Sanna to her death, would you be screaming for her to be ejected from the church?”
“Rohna was not a barely literate orphan!” Morinn sputtered. “She was the daughter of a shipping magnate who is vital to the war effort. Sanders Colony is supplied by his convoys!”
Ruben shrugged. “Another trainee can be blamed. There were twenty girls on the course. Sedate one, take her for psychological conditioning, and expel her. You will not touch Sanna.”
Köler stroked his chin, regarding Ruben with puzzlement. “Why are you so protective of this particular girl?”
Ruben rose and strode to the console that sat just outside the ring of chairs. He engaged the holographic projectors, and connected to the testing records.
“This is the audiovisual data of Sanna conducting the Tavern Test. It is live. The test is happening right now.”
The light from the projectors bent and solidified into translucent shapes. A wall-less room seemed to grow out of the floor, with a small figure at the centre.
The Tavern Test was one that around four percent of trainees passed in some way, and even fewer fully passed. It wasn’t simply a test of deduction, but also a test of instinct. The holographic image of upturned tables and smashed chairs formed one by one, as well as the three bodies. Two were sprawled on the floor, clutching each other’s torn clothes, pressed together as if in the throes of bloody passion. Another had been thrown through a table, which had split in half. A simulated colonial security officer stood close to the bodies on the floor.
The small figure, Sanna, stepped forwards. She blinked around at the mess, trying to take it all in. The scene of the Tavern Test was always a surprise, and was run on every trainee simultaneously. She swallowed down at the two bodies on the floor, and did a double take at the twisted foot jutting out from the remains of the broken table.
“What happened here?” she asked.
The simulated officer looked up. “Eh, looks like a bar fight turned nasty. These two are a mess: one strangled and the other stabbed, but they tore chunks out of each other. That one over there...” He nodded to the body and the broken table. “That one has a broken neck. Looks like she was slammed through the table.”
Sanna licked her lips and nodded. “Okay ... I’ll ...” she hesitated as she looked at the bodies on the floor, and swallowed. “I’ll look at the one over there.”
Morinn scoffed as she watched. Ruben didn’t look at her.
Sanna trudged to the body that had been put through the table and stared at it. Female. Neck twisted around. Ribs and right shoulder blade broken.
“The girl failed every biology test,” Morinn sneered.
“I’m aware,” Ruben murmured.
Below them, Sanna stared down at the body. “How tall is she?”
The simulated officer looked over. “One hundred and sixty one centimetres.”
“She looks thin.”
“Oh ... I guess so, yeah. I don’t have a weight reading. Forensics are coming in soon.”
Ruben watched Sanna look around at the table. “This is wood ... and its not that thick.”
She moved to another table, and in a slow chopping motion, softly brought her arm down on it. The simulated officer looked up at her in confusion. “What are you doing?”
“If she was put through the table ... maybe some of her bones would be broken, but her neck is twisted all the way around. Putting her through the table wouldn’t do that.”
“You put anyone through a table before?”
”No.” Sanna walked back to the body. “Who was she?”
“She showed up in your database as a believer. Says she was a secretary in the office of the Food Distribution Ministry.”
“Good,” Ruben murmured. Morinn scoffed at him again as Sanna walked across to the officer and the two bloody corpses on the floor. One was on top of the other, and both were bloodied. The man on top had his hands limply covering the bottom man’s neck.
She frowned down at them. “And who are they?”
The officer pointed down at the top man. “He’s in private security ...” He pointed at the bottom man. “He’s in the same office as table-lady.”
Sanna scratched her head. “They work together, but this man doesn’t work with them ... these are the two sides of the fight ...”
Ruben saw Morinn lean back in her chair and fold her arms smugly.
Sanna frowned. “Maybe. Were they both believers as well?”
“Uh ... yep.” The officer squinted at his info-screen. “Yep.”
Sanna looked up and around at the bar. “Is there security footage? I can’t see any recording devices.”
“Nope ... this isn’t that kinda bar, you get me?”
“Oh. What kind of bar is it?”
The officer glanced at her. “It’s a shithole.”
“Oh.” Sanna looked down. “Does this happen a lot in a shithole?”
“Um ... yeah. All the time.”
Sanna looked around and sighed. Her shoulders sagged a little.
Morinn glanced over at Ruben, and he leaned forwards, willing Sanna not to give up.
Sanna trudged back and forth for a moment. “So what happened to them? These two on the floor...”
“Guy on the bottom died of asphyxiation, collapsed airway from strangulation, top guy was stabbed and bled out.”
Sanna touched her own throat and half turned away. “So ... I guess they killed each other.”
“That’s what it look like. I mean ... without security, places like this are bloodbaths a lot of the time. It’s open and shut.”
“It’s open and shut,” Morinn murmured at the same time as the simulacra.
Ruben watched Sanna stared down at the bodies, willing her not to give up, but she slowly turned to go. “Then ... I suppose that’s all we can do at this time ... wait for support from forensics.”
“Yep. I can hold the fort here, these two aren’t going anywhere.”
Sanna nodded. It was a small movement. An acknowledgement of failure, even though it wasn’t clear where the failure was. Ruben willed her to trust her instincts, even as she turned around and began trudging towards the door. The moment she stepped through, she would fail. The simulation would cease.
“Come on,” Ruben whispered.
Sanna’s walk was slow and miserable. Her eyes were starting to redden, and she sniffed. She placed a hand on the door.
Morinn leaned back in her chair. “Senior Disciple Köler, do I have permission to begin expulsion procedures?”
Köler glanced at her, then back at the hologram. Ruben watched the girl, holding still at the door.
Sanna glanced over her shoulder. “Did you move anything?”
The officer held up his bare hands. “Nope, no gloves.”
“Where’s the knife?”
Ruben’s fists tightened in triumph as the simulacra frowned and looked around. “Uh ... it’s ... ah, over here, by the bar.”
Sanna walked around the bodies, and approached the bar. “Where?”
The officer pointed to the other side of the bar, and Sanna walked around it. The weapon was a standard kitchen knife, coated in blood up to the handle. It was meant for cutting meat, and it appeared meat was exactly what it had cut.
Ruben watched Sanna crouch beside it, then stand up and look back at the two bodies. She crouched down again, and held out a finger towards the knife.
“Hey, can’t touch that, remember?”
“I know,” Sanna murmured. Her finger stayed an inch above the weapon, tracing over the blade and the handle. The wrapping on the handle was worn and coming off the wood. The stainless steel blade was scored visibly beneath the blood, though the edge and point were still sharp. “This looks old.”
“Still effective.” The officer folded his arms. “What are you thinking?”
“The one on the bottom stabbed the one on top ... do you know where?”
“In the chest, twice, based on a glance. Forensics could say better.”
Ruben nodded to himself as Sanna stood up and pointed at the bodies. “While they were there on the floor?”
“I haven’t finished my preliminaries ... but let’s say they were.” The simulated officer nodded. “If they were, how did the knife get here? You think they threw it?”
Sanna looked at the knife, and back up at the bodies. “The one on the bottom stabbed the one on the top, and then threw the knife away? The one on top was choking him. When you’re choking someone, they don’t just ... let you do it, they fight you.”
The Disciples watched silently as Sanna walked around the bar again, looking down at the floor around her as she walked back to the bodies. The simulacra watched her as well. “What are you doing?”
“The one on top can’t have been stabbed there. There isn’t enough blood around the knife for him to have been stabbed there behind the bar. Look around for blood.”
Sanna crouched next to the bodies again as the simulated officer began looking around at the floor. Ruben watched her quietly, while she paced around the bodies. “Is there a visual record of any of this?”
The simulacra was peering at the ground around the bar. “Huh? Oh, yeah, I have a recorder on me. Everything’s documented.”
“You can take my fingerprints, right?”
“Yeah ... but I wouldn’t touch anything before forensics get here.”
Sanna sighed. “But ... there’s something wrong here. This looks ... it looks like the bodies were put here.”
“There on the floor?”
“Right.”
Ruben stared at the hologram. There was only one way to find out, to gain more evidence, at least without a scanner. He glanced at Morinn, taking some satisfaction in the shade of red her face had started to turn.
In the hologram, Sanna looked around at the officer. “Anything?”
“Nah ... I can’t see anything. No blood, nothing.”
Sanna took a deep breath. “Then come here and help me.”
“With what?”
Sanna looked up at the simulacra, and her lips became a nervous line. “Rolling this body away.”
The simulacra’s face screwed into a sceptical and wrinkled twist. “What? No, we gotta wait.”
“You’re supposed to have gloves.”
“Yeah, well I don’t ... and we can’t compromise the scene.”
Sanna looked back at the bodies, and scratched the side of her head. Ruben tapped the arms of the chair, willing her to say the right thing. “Convince him,” he whispered under his breath.
“Then I’ll do it myself,” Sanna muttered. “You can take my prints, right?”
“Yeah, but...”
“Or I can just tell the forensic team when they get here. No need for you to get in trouble, if you don’t want to touch anything, don’t.”
Sanna reached for the corpse on top, but the simulacra grabbed her shoulder and pulled her back.
“Ow!”
“What do you mean, ‘ow’? You know I can’t let you touch that body.”
Ruben gritted his teeth. “Convince him, Sanna!”
Sanna brushed her hair back. “Look ... the woman who was put through the table ... putting her through the table didn’t break her neck. It’s twisted all the way around. This guy was stabbed to death ... and it looks like he was stabbed on top of the guy who stabbed him, but how did the knife get over there? And if he wasn’t stabbed here, where was he stabbed? There’s no blood anywhere else.”
“Man ... we should just... he was stabbed here, he had to be.”
“Then where’s all the blood?”
The officer sighed. “Come on ... don’t fuck my night up.”
“What do you mean?” Sanna looked down at the bodies. “Look, this is suspicious, you can’t deny that. I move the body, and we see exactly what’s going on here. Look, we can’t see any of the wounds right now. We have a reason to move this body, because things here don’t add up!”
The officer turned away, then paced for a second. “My scanner says he was stabbed, we found a knife, what more do you want?”
“Proof.” Sanna stood up and folded her arms. “Look, I’m moving the body. Blame me if I’m wrong. Your night won’t be fucked up.”
The officer ran a hand through his hair. “Oh, Lord be praised ... fine!”
Sanna grinned, and took hold of the corpse’s arm. She heaved. She was stronger than she used to be, but the man was literal dead weight. Once she lifted the arm, she levered his leg, and rolled him over.
She studied the man’s bloody shirt, stained red and brown from the original light blue. Behind her, the officer snorted. “Satisfied, Sherlock?”
Sanna glanced at the other body, then stared at it. “Yes.”
“Can we wait now?”
“No.” She pointed at the stabbing victim, at the two tears in the shirt. “Stabbed here and here, yeah?”
“Uh huh.”
“Those are nasty wounds.”
“Yep.”
“They’re shorter and thicker than the knife.”
“Ye-” The officer crouched. “What?”
“That knife back there was narrow and the blade was wider.” She pointed at the other body. “And here, look... where’s all the blood here?”
The other man’s shirt was barely stained at all. Discoloured, maybe, but not stained. The marks around his neck were pronounced and deep red.
“You said he was strangled, right?”
The officer nodded. “Yep, but that wound wasn’t made by someone’s hand. Looks more like a garotte.” He stroked his chin. “So ... what is this?”
Sanna looked up at the woman who lay in the wreckage of the table. She then pointed to each body in turn. “Her neck was broken. He was stabbed, but with a different knife to the one we found. He was strangled with wire, not hands, how it looked. Someone, or some people, killed them.”
Sanna paced back and forth as the simulacra stood up. “Okay ... let’s go with that for now, were they killed here?”
“I don’t know.”
“Do you know when they died?”
“Yeah, about ten hours ago.”
Sanna looked around at the walls. “What time is it?”
The simulacra checked his chronometer. “Fifteen-thirty-seven.”
Sanna frowned. “Early morning.”
“They could have pulled an all-nighter.”
Sanna shrugged. “Were they drunk?”
“Uh ...” the simulacra pulled a scanner and analysed some of the blood. “Huh. No. Caffeine, but no alcohol.”
“Two of them worked in the same office. I bet they knew the other one as well. They came here in the early morning ... but why?”
The simulacra shrugged.
“All believers, two from the Food Distribution Ministry, one in private security... okay ... let’s say they came here for a reason ... in the early morning ...” Sanna wandered back over to the door, and peered at the notice that had been written on the wall in chalk. “Four-thirty closing time. They were here after the bar closed. They were either meeting someone, or investigating something.”
“Okay ... what were they looking for?”
“I don’t know ... but whoever killed them wanted to make it look like they killed each other. They wanted time before we found out what they were doing. There’s something wrong here.” Sanna turned back to the bar and stared at every corner, every piece of furniture, every wall. Ruben glanced at Morinn, who had gone from the colour of a tomato to the colour of a beetroot.
“There’s got to be something here ...” Sanna strode back to the bar, and turned to the simulacra. “You didn’t find any blood ... did you find anything strange?”
The officer scratched his face. “I mean, I was scanning for blood... I didn’t see anything. Why?”
“They must have been killed here. Anyone could have seen killer moving the bodies. And there may be more than one killer ... to pose them, break the table, hide the evidence. Are there any other rooms?”
“There’s a pisser, but no kitchen. The barman makes food at the bar, like snacks and sandwiches and stuff.”
Sanna nodded. “Where’s the barman now?”
The simulacra shrugged. “We’ve got people tracking him down.”
“There’s no basement, no storage, anything?”
“I don’t see the door to one anywhere, do you?”
Sanna looked around at the walls. There were, of course, no doors apart from the ones leading to the toilet and the street. “Your scanner ...”
“It’s a bio scanner. I can’t find a basement with it. You really think...”
“I want to make sure.” She looked down at the floor and up at the ceiling. The dirty concrete above was bare, painted a muddy black. No seams, no discoloured patches. The smooth vinyl beneath her feet was similarly stained and sticky.
She looked beneath the tables, seeing nothing but stains of the colony’s dust and clandestinely brewed spirits. It was only when she reached the corner of the bar floor that Sanna noticed something that made her squint closely.
There were lines, wrinkles in the vinyl in among the stains, hidden beneath the corner table and chairs. Sanna crawled beneath the furniture for a closer look. The lines varied in length and thickness, directly parallel to the corner of the room.
Sanna crawled out. “Come here, help me move these.”
The simulacra helped Sanna shift the furniture aside. The wrinkles were up to the corner, almost. They ran all the way out to the edge of the seats, concealed in the shadow of the furniture. Sanna knocked on the floor away from the wrinkles, then on top of them. The second knock was nothing like the first.
“Hey, bingo.” The simulacra nodded. “Cellar door, maybe.”
Sanna worked her fingers into the gap between the wall and floor, and pulled. The vinyl came up easily, and rolled away. Beneath was a triangular door. The simulacra leaned forwards, and took hold of the raised handle.
Below was shadow and darkness, swallowing a twisting stairwell. The simulated officer clicked on a flashlight and shone the beam downwards.
Ruben looked up at Köler and smiled. “How many of the candidates find the door?”
“Half.”
With a smugness he made no attempt to hide, he smirked at Morinn. “And how many find it in this context?”
Köler chuckled. “Less than a fifth.”
The hologram shifted through the floor as Sanna entered the cellar. The room was full of metal barrels and kegs. It was nothing more than a dusty concrete box below the ground. A few support beams lined the corners, and twelve-legged creatures scurried around their spherical secreted, dwellings. They clung to the beams just out of sight.
Ruben watched Sanna cast her eyes around the cellar. This was the vital point. Make or break.
“Hmm... okay...” Sanna squinted around at the bare floor. Her brow wrinkled in concentration. “I can’t see any blood.”
“Yeah, me neither.” The simulacra shone his torch this way and that.
“Can you keep that still for a second?”
“Oh ... sure.”
Sanna turned on the spot, scrutinising every inch. “This is it? This can’t be it.”
“What do you want me to tell you?”
Sanna glared at him and put her hands on her hips. “Nothing. All you need to do is shine the light where I tell you.”
The simulacra held up his hands. “Okay, okay. Where do you want it?”
“High, for now, shining down.”
Sanna sighed at the shadowy room. The floor was covered in dirty footprints, running this way and that, all converging on the stairwell. They branched out from there to every space where there was a barrel or keg, so almost literally every space. The barrels were stacked three or four high, to the ceiling even in one place.
She scratched her cheek. “Follow me with the light.”
She walked up to the stacks of barrels, the flashlight beam at her back. “Can you shine it a little to my left?”
The simulacra obeyed. Sanna peered at the barrels, taking careful steps around the perimeter of the cellar and the stacks that came out further, towards the middle.
“What do you think you’re gonna find?” The simulacra’s voice was purposefully tired and irritated, as it was programmed to be.
“They were killed here, I’m positive.”
“Why?”
Sanna sighed. “It just doesn’t add up otherwise. If I had a scanner, a detailed forensic scanner, I could tell you for sure.”
She reached the stack that was up to the ceiling, and waited for the light to reach her. She looked up and down and sighed. She rubbed her hands through her hair. The officer patted her on the back.
“You can’t win ‘em all, boss.”
Sanna sagged. “I was so sure.”
“Yeah ... I mean, I agree it’s weird. You’re probably right that the bodies were posed. But ... you know.”
Sanna walked back into the centre of the cellar. Her head turned this way and that, desperately looking for some sign, any sign. “No,” she whispered.
She reached out to one of the barrels and slapped it. Ruben held his breath.
Sanna’s entire body seemed to deflate. “There has to be something ... why else would I be here?”
“Hey, boss, I don’t know what else to tell you.”
She stayed still, breathing, eyes tracking around. Finally, her gaze lingered on the far wall, then turned upwards, then back to the wall. “This is a pretty small cellar, right?”
“I guess.”
“Smaller than the room above us.”
“I guess ... what are you getting at?”
“I don’t know.” Sanna took a few steps towards the wall. “Do you think these barrels are all full?”
The simulacra shrugged. “I don’t know. It’d be half and half, I guess, some full, some not.”
Sanna tapped on a barrel. The sound that came back was a dull metallic bump. “Full or not?”
“Sounds full.”
Sanna moved along the barrels, knocking on each one. Halfway along, the sound changed. It became sharper, more full, higher in pitch. Empty. Sanna looked up. Just off-centre, against the far wall.
“Okay ... so from here, I guess they should all be empty, right?” Sanna looked around at the officer.
“Sure. You wouldn’t stack the empty and the full ones together.”
Sanna knocked on the next two barrels in the row, and each one stacked on top of them. All empty. The next one, however was full.
She looked around at the officer, and he frowned. Ruben clenched his fists in triumph.
“Help me move these!” Sanna hissed. She and the simulacra moved the barrels away. Behind them was another door. This one had a key pad to the left, with a basic numerical code input.
“A vault, maybe,” the officer murmured.
“In a shithole?” Sanna whispered.
The officer snorted. “I can unscramble it, I think.”
“Are you sure?”
“Yeah. It’s not a complex code-lock. I can override it, hold on...” He drew a small computer device from a pouch on his belt, and unclipped the pistol from the holster on his belt.
Morinn stood up shakily and made for the door.
Ruben stood and grabbed her forearm so tightly he felt her bird-like bones grind. “You will stay, and you will watch, and you will beg not to be the one she purges to prove her faith to the Whole.”
Morinn’s eyes widened. Shock. Terror. Ruben drank it in like a fine, sweet wine.
Köler raised his hands. “Both of you, be seated.”
Ruben waited until Morinn was sitting once more, before taking his own seat. Turning back to the simulation, he saw the simulacra break the code lock.
“How many find the secret door?” Ruben murmured.
Köler kept watching. “Six percent.”
The simulacra nodded to Sanna, and raised his pistol. “You’d better stay behind me.”
She nodded and the simulacra opened the door slowly. The hologram shifted into another room, where grey, alloy crates sat on top of each other in row after row. Sanna stepped in after the officer, and spotted the pool of blood that had almost completely dried on the hard, dusty floor.
“Be careful.” The officer whispered.
“Check the blood, I’ll check these crates.” Sanna walked on the balls of her feet over to the nearest stack. The contents were stamped on the sides, along with the scanner codes.
Bread. Honey. Whiskey. Carrots. Cheese. Salt. Sugar. Tarragon. Foodstuff after foodstuff. Row after row.
She blinked at it, and looked around at the officer. “It’s all food.”
“And this is the stabbing victim’s blood.”
Sanna tip-toed as quickly as she could across the floor to the officer. “You’re sure?”
The officer waved the scanner at her. “These things don’t lie.”
“A secret stash of food...” Sanna looked up and around at the crates. “The bodies upstairs ... all of them ... well, two of them, were from the Food Distribution Ministry. They deal with food ... they must have seen something strange, and tracked it here.”
“Aha ... smugglers, gotta be.” The simulacra scratched his chin. “These are sealed and insulated for interplanetary shipping.”
“What do we do about it? Are we alone down here?”
“I don’t know ... we’d better sweep the area.”
The officer got up and strode quietly down the row of crates, his gun tracking the shadows. Sanna followed him closely. They reached the far wall, and checked to the left and right. Nothing.
“We gotta call this in,” the simulacra muttered.
“Yeah ... if they’re smugglers ... they must have a starship. They ran.”
The officer exhaled. “Yeah. They’re long gone by now.”
Sanna spun around and stared at all the crates. “Can we work out what ship they used?”
“Umm ... I don’t know ...” Overwhelmed by the case, as he was programmed to be.
“Okay, okay, call it in.” Sanna sighed. She started trudging back to the rest of the cellar, looking at the crates as the simulacra muttered into his simulated transmitter. She read the labels as she went.
“She won’t see it,” Morinn hissed.
“Yes, she will,” Ruben murmured. “She has a curiosity. She has an instinct. And she is beside the bomb now. Watch.”
Sanna froze, and leaned closer to the gap between two crates. “What is that?”
Ruben smiled.
The simulacra looked around and strolled over. “What’s wha... oh shit.”
“What?”
The officer knelt, peering at the device in the gap. “Shit. That’s a bomb. Crude, but not crude enough.”
Sanna knelt next to him. “Can you do something about it?”
“Uh ... I don’t know. I gotta call it in too. Shit shit shit shit.” He continued to curse as he pulled out his transmitter again, hurrying for the door.
Sanna followed, but hesitated on the threshold. “Wait ...”
The simulacra wheeled around. “What?”
“Can we find out what ship these crates were on?”
“We don’t have time for this!”
Sanna looked back, then at the officer. “Give me the scanner.”
“You ... aw, fuck!” The simulacra tossed her the scanner. Sanna ran back and switched on the camera, taking images of the shipping codes on the nearest five crates.
“You gotta hurry the fuck up, boss!”
“Okay!” Sanna sprinted out and through the cellar, following the officer up into the bar. He was barrelling towards the door.
“Come on!”
Sanna hesitated for half a second before taking off in pursuit. As soon as she went through the door, the hologram disappeared.
Ruben stood. Morinn’s eyes were red with fury, and Köler looked between the pair of them, waiting for one of them to do or say something.
“I will debrief Sanna on the result.” Ruben glanced at Köler. “Remind me... and remind Disciple Morinn ... how many candidates have passed the Tavern Test fully? Ever?”
Köler smiled. “Six, including Sanna.” His eyes bored into Morinn. “All five prior became Saints.”