The Number One Star in the Interstellar Era

Chapter 809: [THE SHADOW WITHIN] (XVIII)

AS soon as they saw the coordinates led to the old water treatment plant, they went straight back to talk to Hale again.

Lewis stepped into the interrogation room. Hale was already there, seated at the table, and his lawyer, Reyes, sat beside him with a clear look of annoyance on his face. Lewis didn’t care one bit about that. He had more important things to focus on.

"The device," he said. "The remote that the person who contacted you gave you. Where is it now?"

Hale looked confused by the sudden question. "It’s gone. It self-destructed after I used it."

Lewis frowned a little. "Can you describe it? Or draw what it looked like?"

Hale nodded. "I can try. But I’m not good at drawing."

Lewis set his Terminal on the table and turned the screen on. Hale leaned forward and drew. When he finished, Lewis looked at the image. His brows pulled together right away. The drawing was rough and missing detail. He really was not good at drawing.

"That will not help much," Lewis said under his breath.

"That’s alright," Stevens said.

Lewis glanced at him. This was the first time Stevens had joined him inside the interrogation room instead of observing from outside, which already said enough about how urgent this situation had become.

Stevens pulled a chair over and sat down across from Hale. "Mr. Hale, don’t worry about making the drawing perfect. Just try to remember minor details. Anything printed on it. Symbols, letters, numbers. Even if you only remember part of them."

Hale stared at the sketch, thinking. "There were markings," he said slowly. "Near the side. I paid little attention at the time."

"Take your time," Stevens said. "Think about how it looked when you held it. Did anything stand out?"

Hale closed his eyes briefly, then reached for the screen again. He added to the drawing, this time writing uneven characters along one edge.

"It looked something like this," he said. "I’m not sure if I got it right."

Lewis leaned in. The letters were messy, but still readable. ZPTV-07. Below it, a smaller line of text.

...thermal...vac...

"What about the symbol you mentioned earlier?" Stevens asked.

Hale drew a small shape beside the text. It was a circle with a thin break along one side. Stevens studied it without speaking.

Lewis straightened slightly. "That doesn’t look like something you’d find on a regular device."

Stevens gave a small nod. "It looks technical."

Lewis looked at the screen again. They still didn’t know exactly what the device was, but it was clear that it was not something ordinary. The remote was likely a trigger for another device or a way to receive instructions without leaving a digital trail.

He turned to Hale. "You’re sure this is what you remember?"

Hale nodded. "That’s the closest I can get."

Lewis picked up his Terminal and saved the image. He glanced at Stevens, and the other met his gaze.

Just by that one look, he could tell they were thinking the same thing.

"If this marking actually means something, Vargas might be able to tell us what it is."

Stevens stood up. "To the coroner’s department then."

***

Vargas stared at the drawing on Lewis’ Terminal. After leaving the interrogation room, they went straight to the coroner’s department and explained everything to her. She studied the screen longer than Lewis expected. He almost spoke, but stopped himself. The way she was focused told him she was trying to piece something together.

After a while, her brows slowly drew together.

Then she reached for her own Terminal and pulled up a database. Her fingers flashed across the screen as she searched. A few seconds later, she stopped.

Her eyes sharpened. "There it is."

Lewis stepped closer. "What is it?"

Vargas turned her screen slightly so they could see.

"That marking," she said, pointing at the rough letters Hale had drawn. "ZPTV. It’s not a brand. It’s a designation. Zero-Point Thermal Vacuum."

Lewis frowned. "You’re sure?"

"I’ve seen references to it in forensic research archives," Vargas said. "It’s not something used in civilian settings. It’s experimental. Mostly theoretical in public records, but some sectors have working models."

She tapped the screen, pulling up a schematic.

"It’s a device designed to rapidly drop temperature to extreme levels, close to absolute zero, within a contained space," she explained. "Then it can reverse the process just as quickly. Freeze and thaw in a controlled cycle."

Lewis’ expression hardened slightly as he listened.

Vargas continued. "If a human body were exposed to that kind of sudden temperature shift, especially at a cellular level, it would cause damage. Not the kind you see with normal freezing. Something much faster and more violent."

She pulled up an image from her earlier findings.

"The intracellular membranes," she said. "You remember what I told you about Doyle’s cells. The jagged microtears."

Lewis nodded.

"It happens when cells are subjected to rapid expansion and contraction. Extreme cold, then sudden thawing. The membranes can’t handle the stress, so they tear irregularly." This time her voice hitched in excitement as she looked at Lewis. "You understand what I mean, right?"

Lewis went quiet. Yes, he understood perfectly. He even understood why Vargas was excited right now. Because she finally solved the puzzle that was bothering her from her autopsy of Doyle’s body.

Marcus Doyle’s body... frozen somewhere, preserved in that state. Then, at a specific moment, released and thawed.

Lewis’s brows pulled together more. "So you think Doyle’s body was kept in that vacuum, and when Hale pressed the remote, it started a thawing process. That made it look like Doyle died much later than he actually did."

Vargas nodded. "That’s what it looks like."

Lewis stared at the screen, his mind working through what it all meant. If Doyle had been frozen before the body was found, then the actual murder did not happen at the scene where they discovered him. In fact, the time he was killed could be much earlier than what they had originally thought.

He exhaled slowly, then another thought came in. "If that’s the case, then where’s the device? Something like that isn’t small. We should have found something at the scene."

Stevens, who had been quiet until now, spoke to Vargas. "Is it possible for the device to disappear without leaving a trace?"

Vargas considered that. "It depends on the model. Some experimental units are designed with containment protocols. After completing a cycle, they can break down internal components through controlled thermal overload. In simple terms, they destroy themselves from the inside. What’s left would be minimal, possibly reduced to residue that wouldn’t stand out in a regular sweep, especially in a place like that old water treatment plant."

Lewis let that sink in. So the device could activate, thaw the body, and then erase itself. Leaving almost nothing behind. How fucking convenient.

Stevens raised a brow slightly, then looked at Lewis. "As I suspected, it seems that Hale is really not the killer."

Lewis did not answer right away. But this time, he did not disagree.

The two of them fell quiet for a moment. Then Vargas’ voice pulled them back.

"Hey, you two. If you are done staring at each other, I think you should take a look at this."