Deception Well (The Nanotech Succession Book 2) by Linda Nagata

he warned. With a smooth, electronic whir the panel lifted on a hinge, revealing a hollow beneath. Lot gazed into perfect darkness. A musty odor rose up, worming its way past the seal of his mask. A light snapped on just below floor level. Another electronic whir, and a metal frame rose smoothly out of the hole. The light was fixed to the frame’s top. It shone down on an inflated silver body bag.
    “The corpse will be vitrified,” Gent said. “It will appear glassy and artificial. And it could be badly damaged. We don’t know how she died.”
    Lot nodded, drawing in a long breath to steady himself. Urban stepped up close to his side. Gent reached up to the top of the bag. With his gloved hands he slipped the bag off its hook and flipped the seal. A gush of musty air raced out and the bag collapsed to the floor in a crumpled silver heap, revealing . . . nothing . Lot stared, trying to make sense of the scene that presented itself to his stunned eyes.
    “There’s no body!” Urban burst out, each word sharp-edged with an incredulous anger.
    Gent bent down to probe the empty bag, as if he expected Helena to suddenly materialize there. Lot watched him, his throat dry as he sucked in harsh gasps of air. “ They’ve lost her! ”
    Gent shook his head. “No. This storage cell has a full biological map. She was here.”
    “They found out who she was, then. They destroyed her.”
    “But the record is still here! Look, neural maps!” He waved his hand at a knitted three-dimensional display of intersecting lines on the lower side of the cell’s raised panel. “The record is still here. They haven’t destroyed her. Only the body—”
    Possibilities and suspicions boiled into existence. Lot couldn’t put them into words. Not yet. He leaped past Gent, dropping to his knees on another panel.
    “Lot!” Gent caught his shoulder. “What are you doing?”
    Lot puzzled over the display, then punched in a slow sequence to open the cell. Urban watched him closely. “You think it was just her, fury?”
    Lot didn’t answer, though he could feel Gent’s grip tighten even through the padded vest. He sat back as the panel opened, as the inflated silver bag rose in its frame. Urban reached up to undo the bag. Again, the gust of air. The bag collapsed. Empty.
    Lot stared at it for several seconds before turning to Gent. “Did you actually see any bodies when you were down here last year?”
    Gent let go of his shoulder. He took a step back, his eyes wide. “Yes, sir. We did. We looked at several on the periphery, to check the storage conditions.”
    Urban turned and walked deliberately to the outer edge of the chamber. He bent down, worked at the display on a panel, then stepped back as the aluminum frame rose. He opened the bag to find it empty.
    Lot rose to his feet. “Come,” he said, crooking his fingers at Gent. He trotted back to the entrance. “Do you remember which ones you examined?”
    “We did it randomly, sir. We started with this one, I believe. Yes. That’s it.”
    “Open it.”
    Gent did. It was empty.
    By this time, Urban had cracked six more at random points around the circular chamber. All empty. He stepped up beside Lot. “The bodies were here last year. Now they’re gone. Why?”
    “Authority found something. They heard from him.”
    “Get off it. It doesn’t take ten years to make your presence known. He’s dead.”
    “Then why? Why now?”
    “Maybe it’s you, fury. Maybe they’re scared of you.”
    Lot snorted. Urban was always working on him. Urban valued that cult-leader persona. It could play so well in his hands.
    Gent spoke up hesitantly. “We’re not done, Lot.”
    Lot frowned at him. “You want to finish? The cells are empty.”
    “The data’s still in the panels. We have to know if Jupiter was ever here.”
    “He’s right,” Urban said. “Come on. It won’t take twenty minutes.”
    A camera bee cruised slowly past, its wings buzzing hard to maintain its elevation in the