The Process Server

The absence of security in the lobby was worrying. It was busy, but it was just the usual collection of galactic business travelers, with no sign of any military.

  We knew why as soon as we got to the hotel’s 12th floor, where at least a dozen guards were lying dead, each splayed in a grotesque position in the hallway.

  The doors to the suite at the end of the hall were open; before we reached them, Evgeny walked out, guiding a young woman by the elbow.

  I said, “I thought you only worked online.”

  He shook his head. “You do what you have to do. Some folks want to talk to this woman.”

  I nodded back over my shoulder. “This your handiwork?” I had no doubt Evgeny had the speed and skill, but he’d never seemed quite that brutal.

  He looked mildly offended. “Bob. Bobby! Come on, man, you know I have more sense than that.”

  “What’s in the suite?”

  He tilted his head slightly and raised his eyebrows. “Well … a couple of things. The Archivist of G’Farg, for one. About a third of his brains, all over the back window, for another.”

  He filled us in on his fight and the assassin.

  “Shit.” Not to be unsympathetic to the Archivist, but at that moment, Jayde and I looked at one another with the same thought. There go 10,000 creds.

  Jayde gestured towards the woman. “Who’s this?”

  The woman interjected. “I’m Hanna Dow. I’m … I mean, I was the archivist’s assistant.”

  I said, “Who’s paying the freight, Evgeny, to bring Ms. Dow in before the Sector Police have talked to her?”

  He shrugged. “You’re joking, right?”

  “We need to talk to her as well. If we can figure out why someone would smoke the Archivist, it might be worth more than the 10,000 creds we just lost on tracking his butt down in the first place.”

  He took a deep breath and thought about it. “You’re welcome to tag along until New Tokyo Station, then I’m heading off world with Ms. Material Witness here, and you can’t be following me. Client has a right to privacy, Bob.”

  Jayde looked ready to interject but I waved her off. “Sounds about the best deal we could expect.” I looked down the corridor at the array of corpses. “We better get the hell out of here. This place is going to be crawling with SP in minutes.”

  I should have said “seconds.” But as the elevator doors opened onto the 12th floor and the SP Spec Team deployed, we were heading down the back emergency stairs to the 11th floor elevator bank.

  Evgeny’s idea. Like I said, you couldn’t trust him, but he sure knew what he was doing.