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Wicker, Black, Nick, and I all turned around to face where he indicated.

It was the longest of the monitors, the one directly across from Dr. Wicker’s desk.

The view I remembered when we first walked in, of lush, enchanted forest, and deep blue sky, was still there, but instead of the snow-white unicorn, a heavily-muscled, golden-haired, virtual man stood in the foreground. He wore shining golden armor, and a black-feathered eagle perched on his gloved arm. The eagle had just flapped his wings and left the glove when the whole scene vanished.

The screen went briefly black.

When it reformed, the new view shocked me with its solid immediacy. I hadn’t realized just how fake the other view looked until I saw something real in its place.

It looked like an industrial dock.

From the black-tinted windows and glass on either side of the wide-angle lens, I guessed the cameras must be perched on one of the buildings above us.

Delivery trucks stood parked and silent within view, along with forklifts, a row of industrial-sized garbage dumpsters, and what looked like white golf carts. Everything was shut off for the night; I saw no one walking around. A ridged, rusted, loading bay door stood just to the right of a much taller metal staircase, and appeared to be locked.

It had to be the service-entrance to the building, likely in the back.

“Can we go to the murder site?” Nick asked. “In person. Can we go check this area out, after we’re done here?”

Morgan turned to look at him with those raptor-like eyes.

“No,” he said.

Nick waited a beat, probably for him to go on, then grunted.

“Why the fuck not?” he asked.

“The door was open when Mr. Lucian was shot,” Morgan explained, voice flat. “It’s a high-security area of the facility. We can’t allow you to see the inside, even for this. All of the physical evidence was cleared away this morning, anyway.”

My jaw loosened in shock, and maybe from the sheer audacity of his answer. I stared at Morgan, then Nick, who also looked caught between dark humor, disbelief, and utter contempt.

“What…” I said finally. “…the fuck is the matter with you?”

Nick snorted a laugh.

Morgan didn’t flinch. He jerked his jaw back towards the screen.

“You’ll see enough from this,” he said. “There was nothing interesting in the blood spray, and the only fingerprints we found were Mr. Lucian’s. The bullet, as you might imagine, hit with a sharply downward trajectory. It entered the top of his skull, then got lodged in bone below the base of his skull, on one of the upper vertebrae. We can provide that from the autopsy.”

Black, Nick and I exchanged looks that weren’t subtle in any way.

“Jesus fucking Christ,” Nick muttered. “Morons.”

Again, Morgan didn’t seem fazed.

I was beginning to think he wasn’t quite right.

In the head, that is.

Rucker’s head of security stared at me for a few seconds too long, then back at Black.

“Watch,” he said simply.

He touched his headset again.

The video came to life.

A few seconds went by where nothing moved apart from the wind. Whoever worked in that area during business hours had clearly left for the evening.