Page 57 of Across the Universe (Across the Universe 1)

Amy laughs. “Now if there was only a simple way to tell whose fingerprint this was!”

I’m one step ahead of her. “Try this,” I say, kneeling beside her with the floppy from the desk at the end of the aisle. I hold the digital membrane over the fingerprint and press scan. The print shows up on the display in seconds.

“Now,” I say, tapping on the screen,

“all I have to do is match this with the biometric scanners. . . . ”

“Wow,” Amy says under her breath. I grin at her.

The floppy beeps.

“Well?” Harley asks, leaning over my shoulder.

“Mine. I was down here with Doc; that’s my print. ”

“It says ‘Eldest/Elder,’ ” Harley says, pointing to the screen. “It could be Eldest. ”

Amy looks up eagerly, but I shake my head. “We have the same access in the computer—it always shows both our names on biometric scans. But I checked the wi-com locator map earlier, and he wasn’t down here. That has to be my print. ”

“Try some more,” Harley tells Amy, and she eagerly turns back to the door with her brush and powder. I scan every print she finds, but the only ones clear enough to scan are four of Doc’s and twelve of mine. Most of the prints are smudged or overlapped to the point of uselessness.

“Found another one,” Amy says, brushing charcoal dust over the top of the cryo chambers. “Is this you?”

“I don’t remember touching there,” I say.

Amy’s eyes glisten. “Maybe this is the murderer!” she says, excitement creeping back into her voice.

I hold the floppy over the print and scan it in. The print is wide and fat—a thumb. A thin jagged line slices its way through the whorls.

“What’s that?” Harley asks as the floppy zooms in on the print.

Amy looks over my shoulder at it. “Maybe nothing—but it looks kind of like a scar, doesn’t it?”

Beep. Beep-beep. The scan is done.

“Eldest/Elder,” flash the words over the thumbprint.

“Another one of yours. ” Amy sighs, her face falling. She turns back to the cryo chamber, but she brushes the charcoal dust across the surface as if it were achingly heavy.

“You have a scar on your thumb?” Harley asks.

I inspect my thumbs, even though I know there is no scar there connecting the ridges of my thumbprint.

“He could have just had something on his thumb when he touched the cryo chamber,” Amy says without looking up. “Something that got between the surface and his thumb. ”

But I hadn’t touched there.

I know I hadn’t.

Amy picks up the floppy. “Are you sure, absolutely sure, that it couldn’t be Eldest?”

“Positive. Right after we found Mr. Robertson I checked the wi-com locator map. He wasn’t down here. ”

Amy blows air out her nostrils like an angry bull. “I still think he could have—”

I’m already shaking my head, and Amy stops. There’s just no way. Even though Amy’s right about his cruel personality, Eldest simply wasn’t here when the murder happened.

Amy throws the brush down in disgust. “So much for fingerprinting. ”