stuff.
“We’ve been reviewing the tapes for December 29th, the night of Mrs. Cooke’s attack. Nothing jumped out as overly suspicious, but we were asked to show you everything.”
Tildascow followed Milano, grateful that they didn’t have to slow down so he could sniff her. The tapes were queued up on sequential monitors. A media tech ran the deck for what seemed like a rehearsed presentation. The UN Security Force was solid.
Milano directed Tildascow to the first monitor, where they’d prepared various angles of Cooke emerging from her room in the Secretariat Building. The raw footage was marked with time code.
KAM5422 UNSECINT 122910 21:56:10 showed Cooke negotiating the baby carriage through her room’s door. KAM5418 caught her stepping through the hallway. On, KAM5401, she pushed the stroller onto the elevator.
“She was staying here?” Tildascow asked.
“Temporarily. She was to move into the Millenium Hotel on the second of January. The hotel was booked for New Year’s Eve.”
Indeed, Tildascow had seen Cooke’s reservation on the computer at the Millenium Hotel. Everything appeared to be on the up and up, but that’s what she’d expected. Despite the suspicious interview, she’d all but eliminated Cooke as a potential perpetrator of this… whatever this was. After all, the woman had been shredded to within inches of her life.
No, Cooke was the first infected, but she wasn’t the one doing the infecting. Still… her prominent standing, the brazen location, the missing kid… it all seemed too measured for a random attack. She was part of a plan.
And there had to be a trail. It started somewhere. If not from Cooke, then maybe the UN.
“Nothing out of the ordinary the whole night?”
“Nothing at all in the interiors,” said Milano. “We’ve left a message for our nightshift custodial manager, but he hasn’t returned and he has tonight off for the holiday. When we hear from him, we’ll put him in touch with you. You can feel free to examine our surveillance footage at your leisure, but we’ve prepared a time-lapse presentation for you, with the exclusion of classified areas, of course.”
“Of course.”
He’d made the time-lapse video sound like a couples’ massage. And sure enough, it held nothing of interest. Security patrolling, custodians cleaning, administrators administrating, and a graduate student reviewing artwork for a thesis.
“Did anything out of the ordinary happen outside?” Tildascow asked.
“Well, there’s no barometer for ‘ordinary’ on the streets of New York. We have a constant flow of eccentrics—homeless persons, tourists, activists, drugged-up wackos and, well, New Yorkers. Nothing in particular stood out, but we do have time-lapse footage.”
“Let me see the exterior of the Secretariat Building, where Cooke exited.”
She watched carefully as the tech sped through the tape at high speed until he found Cooke.
“Wait—go back.”
He rolled the tape back to KAM0233 UNSECEXT 122910 21:09:10, an hour before Cooke emerged through the security gate.
At that moment, a man steps in front of the camera and pauses before moving on.
“Have you ever seen that man before?”
Milano hummed as he thought. “No, not that I recall. We logged him, but I couldn’t see how he might pertain to an animal attack.”
Tildascow seized the image. “Play it again.”
He moves with the precision of a dancer, his keen eyes staring directly into the camera.
She’d seen this man before.
As Milano droned on, she delved into her recollection of the Bellevue Hospital’s security footage, recreating the images through spatial mnemonics. There was Holly Cooke, her master locus. There was Dr. Kenzie. Each detail evoked the next: Nurse Nancy Laurio, the EMTs, the IVs and the monitors, the walkway…
As she hunted him in her memory, Tildascow studied his image on the monitor. Age 38 to 45. 5’ 10”. Dirty and unkempt, suggesting homelessness, but with an air of
“We’ve been reviewing the tapes for December 29th, the night of Mrs. Cooke’s attack. Nothing jumped out as overly suspicious, but we were asked to show you everything.”
Tildascow followed Milano, grateful that they didn’t have to slow down so he could sniff her. The tapes were queued up on sequential monitors. A media tech ran the deck for what seemed like a rehearsed presentation. The UN Security Force was solid.
Milano directed Tildascow to the first monitor, where they’d prepared various angles of Cooke emerging from her room in the Secretariat Building. The raw footage was marked with time code.
KAM5422 UNSECINT 122910 21:56:10 showed Cooke negotiating the baby carriage through her room’s door. KAM5418 caught her stepping through the hallway. On, KAM5401, she pushed the stroller onto the elevator.
“She was staying here?” Tildascow asked.
“Temporarily. She was to move into the Millenium Hotel on the second of January. The hotel was booked for New Year’s Eve.”
Indeed, Tildascow had seen Cooke’s reservation on the computer at the Millenium Hotel. Everything appeared to be on the up and up, but that’s what she’d expected. Despite the suspicious interview, she’d all but eliminated Cooke as a potential perpetrator of this… whatever this was. After all, the woman had been shredded to within inches of her life.
No, Cooke was the first infected, but she wasn’t the one doing the infecting. Still… her prominent standing, the brazen location, the missing kid… it all seemed too measured for a random attack. She was part of a plan.
And there had to be a trail. It started somewhere. If not from Cooke, then maybe the UN.
“Nothing out of the ordinary the whole night?”
“Nothing at all in the interiors,” said Milano. “We’ve left a message for our nightshift custodial manager, but he hasn’t returned and he has tonight off for the holiday. When we hear from him, we’ll put him in touch with you. You can feel free to examine our surveillance footage at your leisure, but we’ve prepared a time-lapse presentation for you, with the exclusion of classified areas, of course.”
“Of course.”
He’d made the time-lapse video sound like a couples’ massage. And sure enough, it held nothing of interest. Security patrolling, custodians cleaning, administrators administrating, and a graduate student reviewing artwork for a thesis.
“Did anything out of the ordinary happen outside?” Tildascow asked.
“Well, there’s no barometer for ‘ordinary’ on the streets of New York. We have a constant flow of eccentrics—homeless persons, tourists, activists, drugged-up wackos and, well, New Yorkers. Nothing in particular stood out, but we do have time-lapse footage.”
“Let me see the exterior of the Secretariat Building, where Cooke exited.”
She watched carefully as the tech sped through the tape at high speed until he found Cooke.
“Wait—go back.”
He rolled the tape back to KAM0233 UNSECEXT 122910 21:09:10, an hour before Cooke emerged through the security gate.
At that moment, a man steps in front of the camera and pauses before moving on.
“Have you ever seen that man before?”
Milano hummed as he thought. “No, not that I recall. We logged him, but I couldn’t see how he might pertain to an animal attack.”
Tildascow seized the image. “Play it again.”
He moves with the precision of a dancer, his keen eyes staring directly into the camera.
She’d seen this man before.
As Milano droned on, she delved into her recollection of the Bellevue Hospital’s security footage, recreating the images through spatial mnemonics. There was Holly Cooke, her master locus. There was Dr. Kenzie. Each detail evoked the next: Nurse Nancy Laurio, the EMTs, the IVs and the monitors, the walkway…
As she hunted him in her memory, Tildascow studied his image on the monitor. Age 38 to 45. 5’ 10”. Dirty and unkempt, suggesting homelessness, but with an air of
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