nameless and functionless to the majority of society. Racks with tiny tubes full of air, or glass containers warped into unnatural shapes for purposes beyond reckoning.
Dollews looked back as he led us towards his office. "We've been working day and night to get these results ready for you, Mr. Rake."
Despite him saying the words right over my head, I resisted reminding him that it hadn't been a whole day and night since they got the data. "And what did you find?"
"If you'll just wait until we get to my office, I'll explain everything."
We arrived at a white door with a picture of a baby on it. Whether it was Dollews, his child, or just a random baby there was no indication. Maybe once it grew a beard I would know better.
Inside, the narrow office was almost bare. Shelves ran down either side with nothing but a mug and a few pens scattered across them, though the higher ones were above my visual range. The place looked more like it had been looted than lived in.
"Take a seat gentlemen," Dollews said, walking behind the desk.
I helped myself to the wheeled one and Rake sat in the white plastic one that looked like a large children's chair. If Dollews ignored me, as I was pretty sure he intended to, I could regain his attention by rolling around his office and picking things up.
"Our scan for genetic material revealed a few possible suspects," he said, turning one of the two screens towards us. "Normally, we could tell you which of these people were in the room within a few hours of the crime by the amount of degradation. However, with the extended contamination from outside, we can only narrow it down to who was there over the last couple of days." His eyes darted between me and Rake assessing our reactions, but if he were covering for some mistake made by his lab, I was too ignorant to know what it was. "Most of them," he continued, "are just cleaning staff or guards, but there is one I think you will agree is a promising suspect."
The screen showed a quilla by the name of Vos Peti. A three met long legless reptile with teeth longer than my fingers. His yellow eyes were almost invisible against the backdrop of his skin, evolved to camouflage him in the endless savanna of Vas Bes.
The quilla were the most common native race in Cos. Only humanity outnumbered them, so Peti was not as surprising a suspect as a myuki might have been, but The Kaerosh was amongst the few places the quilla didn't thrive. So totally different to the yellow grasses and stone dry air of the lands they evolved to inhabit, the humid rot that infested the Kaeroshi swamps and cities obstructed their breathing and irritated their skin. Admittedly, if there was one quilla daring to inhabit Clazran's moldy nation, Peti's profile suggested it was him. Freedom fighter or terrorist, he was implacable even by the standards of his species.
"That might explain how he was able to out maneuver the guards so easily," Rake said. "There is probably a burrow somewhere in the compound he used to tunnel in and out."
It added credence to my theory that the guards had injured each other, as they claimed the attacker was human. Vos Peti's profile fit entirely. He was a hardened revolutionary, strong enough to kill Kenrey and the guard, and I even recognized the name from the news. He had killed people like this before, not quite at the level of Kenrey, but close. The one inconsistency was the use of a knife. Quilla didn't need to use weapons to kill unarmed humans. The dexterous fronds hanging in front of his mouth, with which he would have held the blade, concealed two rows of natural knives that could rip Kenrey to shreds like bread in a mincing machine. Considering his time constraints, it made no sense to use a weapon he would find more difficult to use. He could have been trying to implicate a human, but even the briefest net searches while I was still sitting in the office, revealed that wasn't Peti's style. He claimed his victims to increase his profile.
Dollews looked back as he led us towards his office. "We've been working day and night to get these results ready for you, Mr. Rake."
Despite him saying the words right over my head, I resisted reminding him that it hadn't been a whole day and night since they got the data. "And what did you find?"
"If you'll just wait until we get to my office, I'll explain everything."
We arrived at a white door with a picture of a baby on it. Whether it was Dollews, his child, or just a random baby there was no indication. Maybe once it grew a beard I would know better.
Inside, the narrow office was almost bare. Shelves ran down either side with nothing but a mug and a few pens scattered across them, though the higher ones were above my visual range. The place looked more like it had been looted than lived in.
"Take a seat gentlemen," Dollews said, walking behind the desk.
I helped myself to the wheeled one and Rake sat in the white plastic one that looked like a large children's chair. If Dollews ignored me, as I was pretty sure he intended to, I could regain his attention by rolling around his office and picking things up.
"Our scan for genetic material revealed a few possible suspects," he said, turning one of the two screens towards us. "Normally, we could tell you which of these people were in the room within a few hours of the crime by the amount of degradation. However, with the extended contamination from outside, we can only narrow it down to who was there over the last couple of days." His eyes darted between me and Rake assessing our reactions, but if he were covering for some mistake made by his lab, I was too ignorant to know what it was. "Most of them," he continued, "are just cleaning staff or guards, but there is one I think you will agree is a promising suspect."
The screen showed a quilla by the name of Vos Peti. A three met long legless reptile with teeth longer than my fingers. His yellow eyes were almost invisible against the backdrop of his skin, evolved to camouflage him in the endless savanna of Vas Bes.
The quilla were the most common native race in Cos. Only humanity outnumbered them, so Peti was not as surprising a suspect as a myuki might have been, but The Kaerosh was amongst the few places the quilla didn't thrive. So totally different to the yellow grasses and stone dry air of the lands they evolved to inhabit, the humid rot that infested the Kaeroshi swamps and cities obstructed their breathing and irritated their skin. Admittedly, if there was one quilla daring to inhabit Clazran's moldy nation, Peti's profile suggested it was him. Freedom fighter or terrorist, he was implacable even by the standards of his species.
"That might explain how he was able to out maneuver the guards so easily," Rake said. "There is probably a burrow somewhere in the compound he used to tunnel in and out."
It added credence to my theory that the guards had injured each other, as they claimed the attacker was human. Vos Peti's profile fit entirely. He was a hardened revolutionary, strong enough to kill Kenrey and the guard, and I even recognized the name from the news. He had killed people like this before, not quite at the level of Kenrey, but close. The one inconsistency was the use of a knife. Quilla didn't need to use weapons to kill unarmed humans. The dexterous fronds hanging in front of his mouth, with which he would have held the blade, concealed two rows of natural knives that could rip Kenrey to shreds like bread in a mincing machine. Considering his time constraints, it made no sense to use a weapon he would find more difficult to use. He could have been trying to implicate a human, but even the briefest net searches while I was still sitting in the office, revealed that wasn't Peti's style. He claimed his victims to increase his profile.
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