“All right.”

He entered the password manually, his back to Eve. “Var,” he said and held his pass up for verification.

Var is cleared, the computer announced.

“Show any log-outs for off-site use by Bart for June twenty-third.”

“Make it a week,” Eve told him.

“Oh. Amend to June seventeenth to June twenty-third.”

One moment, please. How are you, Var?

“I’ve been better.”

I’m sorry to hear that. Here’s your list. Can I help?

“Not right now, thanks. There’s nothing for yesterday.” He gestured at the screen. “He’s got a couple of in-developments off-site through the week, but he logged them back in. He didn’t have anything out yesterday.”

“I’ll take a copy of that list, and a copy of any of the programs he took out this week.”

“Oh wow, Jeez. I can’t. I mean, I really can’t just give you copies of stuff we’ve got in development.” His face went from shocked, to pained, to worried. “It’s, like, secret. Nobody but the four of us is cleared to take anything off-site. Benny won’t even do that until we’re about ready to rock it. It’s why he ends up working all-nighters here. He’s nervous about taking something that’s not in the jump out of the building.”

“I’ll just get a warrant.”

“Oh, man. I don’t know what to do. I can’t think straight.” Tears swirled into his eyes before he turned away. “I have to protect the company, but I don’t want to do anything that messes things up. I don’t even know if I can say yes or no. We have to vote on it. The three of us. We’d need to figure it out. Can you let us try to figure it out first?”

“I’ll give you some time. How long did you know Bart?”

“Since college. He was already hooked with Cill and Benny. They hit in, like, elementary, and then we all just… See the logo.” He pointed to the logo of U-Play on the screen. “He’d come up with a lot of fancier ones, really rocking ones, but he wanted this. The words in a square. He said that was us, the square, because it took four of us to make it happen. Can I be excused for a minute? Please. I just want to, um, take a minute.”

“Go ahead.”

As he fled, Eve’s ’link signaled. “Dallas.”

“I’ve got good news and bad news,” Feeney told her.

“Good first, it’s been a crap morning.”

“We were able to dig some of the program details out of the unit. The name’s Fantastical, and it’s coded SID.12-still in development, I’d say twelfth version. It’s got the U-Play copyright, and the date of last edit as of two days ago.”

“Was he playing solo, or was somebody in it with him?”

“The unit’s set for solo, but that’s part of the bad. No way to tell from the disc. No way to tell what the hell Fantastical is as the disc self-destructed when we bypassed the last fail-safe.”

“Shit.”

“It’s pretty toasted. We might be able to get something off it, given a miracle or two. They have to have a copy. No way this is the only one.”

“I’ll get on that from here. I’m going to need a team to pick up the vic’s work equipment. Try not to blow it up.”

“That hurts, kid.”

“Well, it might as well be a crap day for you, too,” Eve said and signed off before signaling Peabody. “I need you to come to the vic’s office, start a prelim search, and keep everybody else out. I’m on my way there.”

“Copy that. I’ve got the salients on these two, and I’ll do runs on the three of them. Are we going to interview the rest of the place today?”

“Better now than later. We’ll keep it to whereabouts at the time of until we do more runs.”

“There’s over seventy of them, Dallas.”

She sighed. “I know. Contact Feeney again. He and McNab and Callendar can come down. They speak geek anyway.”

“Copy that, too. McNab’s going to wet his pants when he sees this place.”

“And won’t that be fun? You here, me there. Now.” Eve clicked off again.

Eve took her time going back. She saw that Var was right-people knew something was up, something was off. Heads turned in her direction, whispers followed her. The place reeked of guilt and worry and just a hint of excitement.

What’s going on, what did they do? Are we in trouble?

She spotted Var coming back from the opposite direction, looking wrecked, and the whispers pumped up to murmurs.

She let him go in ahead of her, then closed the door behind her.

“What’s Fantastical?”

The question was answered with shocked silence.

“I’ll get a warrant.” Eve tracked her gaze from face to face, looking for the weak spot. “And the department e-team goes through every byte of every file. And I shut you down while they do. It could take weeks.”

“But you can’t, you can’t shut us down,” Benny protested. “We have more than seventy people on-site, and all the others online depending on us. And the distributors, the accounts. Everything that’s in development.”

“Yeah, that’s a shame. Murder trumps all.”

“They have bills, they have families,” Cill began.

“And I’ve got the two parts of Bart.”

“That’s low,” Var mumbled. “That’s low.”

“Murder usually is. Your choice.” She held up her ’link.

“We can get the lawyers on it.” Cill glanced at Benny, then Var. “But-”

“Murder trumps all,” Eve repeated. “I’ll get my warrant, and I’ll get my answers. It’ll just take longer. Meanwhile, your friend’s in the morgue. But maybe a game means more to you than that.”

“It’s not just a game.” Passion rose in Benny’s voice. “It’s the ult for Bart, for us, for the company. The top of top secret-and we swore. We all swore an oath not to talk about it with anyone not directly assigned. And even then, it’s only need-to-know.”

“I need to know. He was playing it when he was killed.”

“But… but that’s not possible,” Cill began. “You said he was killed at home.”

“That’s right. With a disc copy of Fantastical in his holo-unit.”

“That’s wrong, that’s got to be wrong.” Paler now, Var shook his head. “He wouldn’t have taken a development copy off-site without telling us, not without logging it out. It breaks protocol.”

“He had it at home? He took it off-site, without telling any of us?” Benny stared at Eve with eyes that read betrayal as much as shock.

“She’s just trying to get us to tell her-”

“For God’s sake, Var, use your head,” Cill snapped. “She wouldn’t know about it if they hadn’t found it at Bart’s.” As she pressed her fingers to her eyes, a half-dozen rings glittered and gleamed in the light. “He was so juiced up about it, we nearly had it down. Nearly. I don’t understand why he’d have taken it out without letting us know, and why he didn’t log it. He’s pretty fierce on logging, but he was so juiced over it.”

“What is it?”

“An interactive holo fantasy game. Multi-function,” Benny continued. “The player or players choose from a menu of settings, levels, story lines, worlds, eras-or they can create their own through the personalize feature. The game will read the player or players’ choices, actions, reactions, movements, and adjust the scenario accordingly.

It’s nearly impossible to play any scenario through exactly the same way twice. It’s always going to give the player a new challenge, a new direction.”

“Okay, high-end on the fun and price scale, but not staggering new ground.”

“The sensory features are off the scale,” Var told her. “More real than real, and the operator has the option of adding in more features as they go. There’s reward and punishment.”

“Punishment?” Eve repeated.

“Say you’re a treasure hunter,” Cill explained. “You’d maybe collect clues or gems, artifacts, whatever, depending on the level and the scene. But you screw up, you get tossed into another challenge, and lose points. Maybe you’re attacked by rival forces, or you fall and break your ankle, or lose your equipment in a raging river. Screw up enough, game over, and you need to start the level again.”