Curse of the Full Mental Packet

by Jack Q McNeil

  The marshal swiped left on Daisy’s badge and it turned off.

  “Go home,” she ordered. “The Marshal Service does not have gunfights for fun.”

  “I could say sorry?” Daisy tried.

  “But it wouldn’t mean anything,” Marshal Harry pointed out. “Because you are a decommissioned warbot that wasn’t programmed with the concept.”

  “True.” Daisy turned and rolled off back to the Full Mental Packet Bar. I backed up a step.

  “I can see how this might look bad,” I admitted.

  “Can you? I’m not sure you understand the concept of sorry, either.”

  “I’m not sorry. They tried to eat me—”

  “But you knew that would happen, and instead of calling me to go in your stead, you went in ready for a fight. So, in a way, you are still to blame for this lot.”

  I asked the question that had been worrying me.

  “Are you going to take my badge, too?”

  “That would be difficult, since it is riveted onto your head,” the marshal admitted. “And it would leave me short staffed at this difficult time. Go back to the office, I will have to think about this.”

  I’m not good at reading people, but I caught an angry vibe off Marshal Harry. I pulled the holo-photo from a bag on my cyber-harness and held it up. The cute little faces and the price tag were visible through the evidence bag.

  “The Capolamps stole this from Loow,” I said. “No one knew Loow better than Doc. I think she can tell us what the price tag is about.”

  “No I can’t. Can I go now?”

  “Leave this with me,” the marshal said, taking the photo. “Go home.”

  I went home. For the first time in months, I felt lonely walking through the streets of Port City.

  CHAPTER 10

  The lights were off in the office and I left them that way. The Spaceborne Jazz coming from the dormitory level was a puzzle until I remembered Big Walter was up there. I crawled under a desk and snoozed.

  The marshal, Long Barnacle and Isamary returned two hours later. They smelled of ash and sweat. She stopped halfway to the stairs, but spoke without turning her head.

  “I must admit, the arrogance of those amphibi-forms grates on my nerves,” she said.

  “They’ve always been like that,” LB said. “They walked on land before anyone else and act like that makes them better than the rest of us.”

  “Are you sure it’s okay for us to stay here tonight?” Isamary asked. “We could find a hotel.”

  The marshal completed the walk to the stairs, turned. “Head up to the dorms, Isamary. Your Dad will be along later.”

  “Oh?” LB asked. “Why can’t I head up now? It has been a long day, and I’m not used to all this walking.”

  “Chunglie is under my desk, he’s waiting to talk to you.” She marched on up the stairs. I didn’t know what to say, she has never not spoken to me before. I reared my head level with LB.

  “Did your cybernetics record what you saw today?”

  “Of course,” LB said. “I’m not poor, I have good quality implants.”

  “In that case, play it for me on the office holo-projector.”

  “Well in that case.” LB emphasised the words as he dropped into the marshal’s chair and wriggled himself comfortable. “What is there to drink?”

  I keep a selection of stimulants for visitors and opened a flask of chilled pureed onions for myself. I took a long draught while LB set up the projector.

  “This has alcohol in it?” he asked, picking up a glass of brown fluid.

  “Yes. It’s a human drink called whisky. People send it to the marshal, but she never touches the stuff. We’ve got a fair sized collection of bottles.”

  LB knocked back the glass and refilled it.

  “Not bad. I can definitely help you dispose of those bottles. Okay, on with the show.”

  The grey walls of the office disappeared, and we were out in the sunshine. A handsome centipede with an impressive red brush looked up at us. Seen through LB’s eyes, the marshal looked smaller and thinner than normal, and Isamary looked bigger with lustrous hair.

  “You think a lot of that boy, don’t you?”

  “Yes, but don’t tell him. I don’t want him catching my inflated ego.”

  “Seen this bit,” I said. “Fast forward.” The view jiggled as LB followed the marshal through the streets, occasionally jabbing a finger in the right direction.

  “Seriously, I’d no idea we would walk so much,” LB commented. “What does the marshal have against taxis?”

  “Her kind evolved walking across a wide savannah. I think she misses it.”

  We jogged up to a low rent building. It lacked basic amenities like windows. LB pressed play and everything slowed to normal speed.

  “His wife told me he was here,” holo-LB said. “Just a stack I’m afraid.”

  He walked along a line of steel doors, stopped at the one marked DD and punched 009 into the attached keypad. Distant machinery whirred and clanked.

  “This is your farmer friend?” I asked, to fill the silence. There was a small voice nagging at me over the fall out with the marshal and I didn’t want to listen.

  “Um, not really a friend,” LB admitted. “I buy his crops more as a favour to the rest of the family.”

  The machinery stopped and LB rapped on the door with a fist. The door was yanked open. This Moordanaap was tall, thin and angry, the room he occupied only slightly larger than he was. He wore a leather bag strapped to his waist and a blaster under his arm. His back against the rear wall and sitting on a toilet, the rest of the room would be filled in by holo-projectors.

  “Go away!” He slammed the door.

  “I’ve never seen a Moordenaap that thin before,” I said.

  “Liquid diet.”

  Holo-LB thumped the door again. “Soggibiscuit, this is Long Barnacle your old family friend. Try to remember.”

  The door opened slowly.

  “Long Barnacle, what are you doing with- whatever this is?” Soggibiscuit asked.

  “I am Marshal Harry Ward, my species is Homo Sapiens. I have some questions about last night. When did—”

  “No,” he growled. One huge hand touched the blaster grip. “Who are you to ask me questions?”

  “A Marshal Service officer, performing her duty to uphold the law.” Marshal Harry has more patience than I, and will keep repeating the same information in different ways until it enters the head of the recipient. I prefer to reset the conversation with a sharp rap across the head in question.

  “Talk to Marshal Harry,” Holo-LB said. “You owe me money, Soggibiscuit, and I don’t want to see you tossed in a jail cell.”

  “Honour code says we don’t back down to aliens.”

  “Honour Code says we respect the law,” Holo-LB pointed out. “And the Marshal Service is the law around here. Plus if you pull a gun on her, there’s a deputy that will come round and put you in the ground.”

  “You know me well,” I admitted.

  “Marshal Harry winced when I said that,” LB pointed at the holo-figure. “Take note of that?”

  “Soggibiscuit?” Marshal Harry whispered out the corner of her mouth.

  “It means He Who Is Tall and Loud,” Holo-LB answered.

  “And you are living in this... box?” Marshal Harry stuck her head over the threshold, looked up and round. Not that there was much to see.

  “All I can afford, now that Loow Alsh is gone.”

  “So you know he’s dead?”

  “Yah. Somebody heard lawmen talking upstairs. That’s why we bolted. Nothing to do with us.”

  “That was myself and my deputy,” Marshal Harry said. “Did it not occur to you that your witness testimony might be helpful?”

  “No.”

  “Who heard us talking?”

  “Just... someone,” he shrugged.

  “I bet it was Doc,” I whispered. “She has hearing like a Snooth.”

  “True,” LB sa
id, pausing the playback. “But you know this is a recording? The marshal can’t hear you?”

  “I know that, smart arse. I was just thinking out loud.”

  “What surprised me was, this seems to be the marshal’s first stack hotel. Don’t they have these on Earth?”

  “Not sure. The marshal says all the interesting and exciting people left for the stars centuries ago. It’s just a backwater now, so maybe not.”

  LB started the playback.

  “What brings you to town?” Marshal Harry asked Soggibiscuit.

  “Got crops need selling,” he said. “So Loow’s really dead?”

  “Afraid so. Someone blasted him in the lounge.”

  “Had to happen,” Soggibiscuit said. “Loow was a loud-mouthed idiot.”

  “Loow was a good friend,” Holo-LB growled.

  “Shoulda kept his mouth shut. Stead of bragging about- about stuff he shouldna bragged about.”

  “What kind of stuff would that be?” Marshal Harry asked.

  “Just general... stuff.”

  “Were you in the bar last night?”

  “Yes, I sold my crops to Long Barnacle and then we drank to celebrate. Until after two am when we went to bed in the basement.”

  “Hah,” Holo-Isamary said. “You call those crops? The gnarly bera are all gnarl and no bera and the skinny dippers are too skinny. No one but my father would buy those crops.”

  “No one but me could sell them,” Holo-LB corrected. “And then Soggibiscuit’s cubs would starve.”

  “There’s nothing wrong with my—”

  “Did you remember anything,” Harry interrupted in her calm, firm voice. “That could give us an exact time of death for Loow?”

  “I used the toilet around five am,” Soggibiscuit volunteered. “Loow was sitting on the bar with his gun, fast asleep. Big Sam was standing by the front door.”

  “Thank you, that’s useful,” Harry said. “And is that the only weapon you have?”

  “Only weapon I need,” he bragged, patting the pistol’s grip.

  “That’s a Monstrophalic 38,” I said. “Couldn’t shoot a hole in tinfoil.”

  “Story of Soggibiscuit’s life,” LB said. “A lot of noise and nothing to back it up.”

  LB fast forwarded us to the next scene. An office building with a variety of species coming in and out. Mainly arthropods. That meant exoskeletons and lots of legs. I grabbed the remote and pressed slow-mo as a fine eight-legged specimen walked by. A real queen.

  “That’s a Guossa,” LB pointed out. “They snap the heads off their lovers before mating.”

  “She could be worth it. Right, who were you here to see?”

  “The money lenders,” LB snatched the remote back. “Listen, I have questions. Like, are humans telepathic?”

  CHAPTER 11

  “Not that I’ve noticed,” I admitted.

  “Then how does the marshal know what she knows?”

  “Like what?”

  “I’ll show you.” LB slowed the recording as we arrived in an outer office. There was a glass case of sports memorabilia against one wall, with holo-pics of winners, plus trophies and medals, covering the rest of the wall. A low table on the opposite wall displayed antic weapons.

  “Hey, that’s me and the Queen of Shaws winning the Autumn Gaiety dance competition. Tough night.”

  “I remember. You were two falls down against the Bronki sisters when you got that submission in the final round.”

  I shrugged four shoulders: “Like I said, tough night.”

  When viewing a recording through someone’s eyes, the POV darts all over the place. But it seemed like Holo-LB and Isamary were standing back to back in the middle of the room. There were three Tooyr, with guns strapped under each armpit. The marshal reached the receptionist’s desk and asked to see the boss.

  “You are doing this all wrong,” I told LB.

  “What now?” LB threw his hands in the air. They went a long way, before landing in his lap.

  “You should stand between the marshal and those Tooyr.”

  “Hullo,” he emptied his glass and swallowed, “they had guns, and we didn’t?”

  “Doesn’t matter,” I shook my head. I would have attacked one of the side men and kept his back to the other two. But I watch a lot of action flicks. “You were there in my stead. That means you protect the marshal.”

  “She seems able to take care of herself.”

  “No excuses.” I pointed from the marshal to the three thugs. “She is the smallest person in the room. One of those Tooyr could crush her just by falling over.”

  “Okay, I will take a note for the future. To be honest, in my young day I would have fancied my chances against three Tooyr, but my joints aren’t up to... dancing... like they used to.”

  “Enough of the bragging, on with the show.”

  The POV followed the marshal and so did the three bruisers. They entered the inner office. It was decorated in green plush; the floor covered in thick moss and the walls splashed with lichens. For Tooyr, the lichens doubled as art and snacks. The stag seated at an imposing desk at one end of the room, wore the fingerless gloves of a money lender and the white stockings on forearms and shins of a lawyer. He had the intelligent look of a Tooyr with brain implants and upgrades.

  “That’s a shyster and a half,” I said.

  “You must loan me your language app,” LB said. “The vocabulary is fantastic.”

  “I’ll hook you up with my app guy.”

  Marshal Harry stepped up to the desk. I admired the desk, it was dark Nagla wood. I could spend a happy month gnawing my way through it.

  “Hello, I am Marshal Harry Ward the 23rd, these are Deputy Long Barnacle and his son.”

  “I am Sloong Windied, at your service, and these are my... personal assistants. How may my we assist the only marshal in the city?”

  LB paused the recording.

  “That was a blatant attempt at intimidation,” he said. “It was in his tone.”

  “Didn’t work on the marshal, though,” I said. Isamary was the heaviest lump of muscle in the room and he looked ready to run. LB noticed me looking over his boy.

  “His generation never fought the wars we did,” he said. “But I like it that way.”

  He pressed play.

  “I am investigating the death of Loow Alsh, I believe he was a client of yours?”

  “More than a client- a friend. We spent many evenings sipping single grush and discussing the latest ev—”

  “But first and foremost he was a client... who owed you money.”

  “I am not just a business man, I am a lawyer, and as such I intend to call every word that passed between myself and Loow confidential.”

  The three assistants sauntered in behind the marshal. Holo-LB squared up to the lead thug and matched stares.

  “Two points—” Marshal Harry said. I reached over and pressed pause.

  “That’s not how you do it. You intimidate those three dumplings by promising to drop their boss first.”

  “The marshal doesn’t seem to like that kind of talk.”

  “I don’t talk. I make my intentions clear in my body language. Behind Marshal Harry’s back.”

  I pressed play. There were right angles in Marshal Harry’s back and shoulders as she wandered over to a wall. That told me there was a head of steam brewing. The wall had holo-portraits of spaceships, with the name and registration of the craft along the bottom. “Point one, your client is dead, so I don’t believe client confidentiality applies. Point two, he was murdered and you say he was your friend?”

  “I played tagie-toe with Loow for years, but this is business, the details of which had no connection to his death.”

  “You say?” Marshal Harry stuck her chin out. The fuse had reached the explosive. She strode behind Sloong Windied where a holo-pic of a huge Tooyr with twelve point antlers took up most of the wall. The pic was larger than life. “I suppose even money lenders can’t get paid off by dea
d people.”

  “Exactly,” Windied said, standing. “I am glad you realise this and can now lea—”

  “Unless the punter can’t pay, and then money lenders make an example of them.”

  “Ah... I fear you have just overstayed your welcome, Marshal. My personal... assistants will now assist you to the curb.”

  Marshal Harry spun, held up one hand and stated:

  “Stop. If you three value your freedom, you will not move.”

  “How does she do it?” LB whispered.

  “Do what?”

  “Those three leg breakers just stopped in their tracks. But as you said, she is the smallest person in the room.”

  “It’s her tone. She means what she said. If they’re not careful, she will raise one eyebrow at them.” As a survivor of the eyebrow, I shivered.

  Marshal Harry grabbed the frame and swung the portrait away from the wall, revealing a wall safe.

  “How did you—” Windied demanded.

  “Tell me what Loow Alsh and you were into, or I open this vault and broadcast the contents to Marshal HQ via my cybernetic implants.”

  “The security of that safe is well beyond the abilities of a mere human—” Windied stated. Marshal Harry punched a code. The door failed to open and Windied’s grin widened. “To break.”

  “He’s in for a nasty shock,” I said. Not a question. The marshal punched the keypad, the door clicked and Windied leapt to his feet.

  “You have no right to look in there. That is my personal property.”

  “You know the law,” Marshal Harry said. “You can keep a marshal out unless I have a warrant. But let a marshal in and anything I look at is fair game.”

  “Your cybernetic implants are broadcasting to Marshal HQ?”

  “Yes. So talk or I drop a load of trouble on your shoulders.”

  “Boss, we could still throw them out,” the lead thug pointed out.

  “I’ll drop you first,” Holo-LB said.

  “Yeah, we both will,” Isamary said.

  “You couldn’t drop eggs, cub,” Lead Thug said.

  Holo-LB stepped forward and unwound a punch that staggered the Tooyr. The Thugs Two and Three raised their fists.