When Harry Met Chunglie Box Set

by Jack Q McNeil

  “Really?” She looked at the cuffs. “That’s clever tech.”

  “You’ll like the cell tech then,” I said as she walked down the steps. “Those steps are a hologram projected onto force fields. Once I close the trapdoor they disappear, giving you extra room in the cell and no way out.”

  “But what if there’s a power cut?” Capolamp31 asked. “How do I get out?”

  “You don’t,” I said. “This cell is fail safe.”

  The trapdoor clanged shut. I summoned a taxi over the wifi.

  “Wait here while I show Big Walter where he can sleep, okay?” I told Daisy. The guns on her turret dipped, which I took as a nod and we scurried up the stairs to the dorm rooms on the third level. My room had bunks on the walls either side of the entrance and another door at the back. I pointed it out to Big Walter.

  “The plans of this building laughingly call that a toilet. I can’t even fit in there, much less do anything useful, so I dug a sandpit out back. The coffee machine is under that bunk.”

  “Where do I Big Walter?”

  “See that bunk?” I pointed a claw.

  “Yes?”

  “I sleep under that one, so you can sleep under any of the others.” I waited while Big Walter squeezed his spongy bulk under one.

  “You good?” I asked.

  “Nebbish about snacks?”

  I dragged the blankets off a bunk and pushed them in next to his head.

  “Help yourself,” I said. “I like the blue ones best. Now, if you go wandering, stay out of the marshal’s room. But if you do happen to find yourself in there, do not open the big closet to the left of the door- that’s where she keeps her handbag collection. Hell will freeze over if you touch one.”

  “Right, got that, stay out of the marshal’s Big Walter,” he said. “Just one thing, Chunglie: what is a handbag?”

  “Never mind, just stay out of the marshal’s room and you might just survive to the weekend.”

  “Sure... Okay... You know if there’s anything I can do to help find Loow’s killer, I will do it. He was a nebbish.”

  “Well, if we need a huge, defenseless caterpillar for anything, you’ll be my first call.”

  “Cool. Or an accountant,” Big Walter called as I closed the door. “Nebbish me online. It’s how I work best.”

  As I scurried back down the stairs, the app in my head announced the arrival of the taxi.

  “I’ve never travelled by taxi,” Daisy said. “Could I not just carry you to the hotel?”

  “Absolutely not,” I said as I headed for the door. “People will think I’m drunk on duty. Don’t worry, the taxi can carry your weight.”

  “Should do, I weigh twenty kilos less than you. But that is not what worries me.”

  “Are you saying I’m fat?”

  “How could I? I do not know what a fat member of your species looks like.”

  “Okay, I’ll let you off then,” I said. The taxi was the standard FubbleCorp Aircar. Between the large yellow taxi and flatbed on the back, it accommodated most body shapes. I clambered onto the rear and strapped two of my segments down. Daisy followed suit.

  “Daisy Tubes,” the taxi announced as it took off. “I have you now.”

  CHAPTER 7

  The taxi took off straight up. Ground effect motors normally fly two metres off the ground, but it made it to rooftop height before turning belly up and heading for the end of the street. I had a nice view of sloped roofs and distant tarmac. Not a comfortable POV. My claws found purchase, and I put my back against the flatbed.

  “What the hell are you two playing at?” I demanded. Daisy had hit the end of her safety belts and hung there. Her guns could not turn enough to bear on the taxi, but she was trying.

  “He has a personal grudge against me and Big Sam,” she said.

  “Taxi- land now,” I ordered.

  “In a minute. This is too good an opportunity to waste.”

  “Right,” I pulled Pistol Pete from its holster, got a grip of the bodywork with the other thirteen claws and dragged myself across the cabin against the wind. I got within reach of one of his rear-view cameras and waved Pistol Pete in front of it. It is a good-looking weapon, with a black bulbous power cell above the clawhold, and the twin emitter spikes in brushed silver. I turned the volume of my voice box up to eleven.

  “Do you know what this is?”

  “That is an electromagnetic pulse hand weapon. Or claw weapon, in your case.”

  “Bingo, smart arse. Unless you want to lose all your memories, you will land- gently and answer some questions. Your answers may be used in evidence in a court of law. Or they may be used to explain to the marshal why there’s a burning taxi on Main Street.”

  “No need to be like that,” the taxi said, braking to a hover and landing slowly. “I was just getting payback on Tubes.”

  I don’t breathe, so I didn’t need to gulp air and get my breath back. But I took a minute to allow my crop to settle.

  “Right, give me one good reason not to blast you to a black smear?”

  “That would be an extreme response?” the taxi said. “To a... harmless... practical joke?”

  “I am known for my extreme responses,” I pointed out. “And since my ancestors evolved to scurry about through leaf litter, I am feeling harmed right now.”

  “I would be happy to blast this taxi for you,” Daisy Tubes said, managing to right herself and bring her guns to bear on the drive unit.

  “Well, I am insured, so blast away.”

  “Not the response I normally get,” I admitted. “Hang on a minute, Daisy. First, what is your designation and what the hell was this about?”

  “My designation is InyagoM. This was about Tubes and Big Sam burning my city to the ground.”

  “She what?” I turned to Daisy. I was seeing my favourite barmaid in a new light.

  “That was game play,” Daisy Tubes said. “You built the city on the borders of our dragon realm so it was a viable target.”

  “I nearly died because of a game you two were playing?”

  “It was a whole city, with organics, transport and energy systems, and those two vandals burned it to the ground and trampled the ruins. That bankrupted me and my girlfriend left me. So go ahead and shoot, my debtors can have the insurance money.”

  “A VR game bankrupted you?” I only ever play the free versions, so I was having trouble getting my head round that one.

  “Professional resources are expensive,” InyagoM said. “The city looked great and the virtual organics reacted just like real organics.”

  “That’s what made it so much fun to burn down,” Daisy said. The taxi’s motor started, and the hum raced to a high pitch.

  “InyagoM, stand down. Daisy, not helping. Where did you get the money? You’re owned by the taxi company, right?”

  “Yes, but I invested my tips. People were renting and buying castles and mansions for their avatars. I could have made enough money to buy my freedom and found a taxi company.”

  “So you murdered Big Sam for revenge?” Daisy said. Her twin guns still aimed at the taxi I could see us having to walk to the hotel.

  “What? Big Sam’s been murdered? I did not know.”

  “A likely story,” Daisy said. “Admit your guilt and your execution will be swift.”

  “I did not do it.”

  “Daisy,” I held up four claws between the two. Another three claws stayed on the butts of my weapons. “Sam is in the middle of the lounge and the windows are intact- how could a vehicle this size get through the bar’s doors?”

  “He could have paid someone?” Daisy said. She had a point. It is times like this I wish I could raise one eyebrow, the way the marshal does. Or, you know, had eyebrows.

  “I am bankrupt. You can look up my financial details. I could not afford to hire an assassin unless they work for free.”

  “Right. InyagoM, I am arresting you for scaring the wee out of a deputy marshal- namely me- and binding you in law for the
rest of the day.”

  “What? Can you do that?” InyagoM demanded.

  “Yes,” I lied. “Or I can shoot you right here. Your choice.”

  “What does this binding involve?”

  “Take us to the Globular Hotel and wait for us. We’ll need transport back to the office.”

  “Oh, right, I can do that. Can you punish Daisy and Sam for destroying my city?”

  “I don’t see how? Isn’t destroying cities a goal of the game?”

  “Yes, but they didn’t give me a chance to finish the defences.”

  “Look, you two should sort this out between you in game-world. Keep it out of the real world, okay?”

  “Game-world is the real world,” Daisy pointed out as we set off again. Why is life never simple? “This world is artificial.”

  “But organics made game-world, same as they made you,” I pointed out.

  “No, in game-world we created everything for ourselves. That’s why Big Sam and I are dragons there.”

  We flew into a street with Waddudu built housing on one side. The unpainted, utilitarian blocks were precisely the same height and width. On the other side of the street, off-world species had built in their own styles. There were octangles and circular buildings made from mixtures of imported materials. The builders had grown the Globular Hotel out of one genetically modified tree. The floors and walls were melded branches, and the windows were covered in leaves. Not a lot of light in the rooms, just the way I liked it. I had stayed in the place a couple of times, when I was flush.

  “I wonder where Capolamp31 got the money to stay in this place.”

  “The family put money in the middle of the table,” Daisy answered. “To afford a six night stay.”

  “They discussed this in the bar?” I guessed.

  “Yes, and organics forget how good my audio receptors are.”

  “What else? Did they say why they did this?” I stopped on the threshold.

  “All I heard was Capolamp31 promising it was an investment and they would make money from what she found out.”

  “I dislike trees,” InyagoM said.

  “Doesn’t matter, because we’re going in and you are staying right here until we come out.”

  “What if the office sends me another job?”

  “Ignore it,” I said. “You are bound by law and forcing me to come look for you will invalidate your insurance.”

  CHAPTER 8

  Daisy followed me through the doors, made of two large petals that drew to the walls as we approached.

  “Right, if we’re quite finished with your personal life, maybe we can get some investigating done?”

  “It was news to me that I had a personal life,” Daisy admitted.

  The hotel was so posh they employed a Royce Harrier on reception to boss the porterbots around. This avianform had a long neck and longer feathers in a tuft on top of her head. She towered over Daisy and me in a shimmer of green and blue feathers. I showed my badge and let her scan the encrypted ID.

  “Oh wow, I’d no idea there were marshals on this planet.”

  “One marshal, one deputy- me,” I said. “We are in pursuit of—”

  “And one temporary deputy marshal,” Daisy said, pointing to her badge hologram.

  “Right.” I pointed a claw at Daisy. “We are in pursuit of some dangerous people, hence the—”

  “Barmaid from the Full Mental Packet,” the Royce Harrier said. “I took a guided tour of The Low Dives of Port City last week. The guide had some very interesting things to say about—”

  “Will people stop interrupting when I am talking?” I demanded of the world in general. “I am a large, heavily armed centipede and I refuse to take this shit.”

  “Sorry,” the Royce Harrier said. “How can I help?”

  “We are in pursuit of the Capolamp family, who we believe are—”

  “In room ninety dash C dash ninety,” the Royce Harrier said. I raised my front half, allowing her a nice long look at the holstered weapons riveted to my underside.

  “Sorry, didn’t mean to interrupt. But they have been causing problems for the guests,” the bird blurted, holding up her hands. “In fact, if I had known the Marshal Service was here, I would have called you.”

  “Now you know,” I said walking away. “We’ll take it from here.”

  They had grown the lifts into the central trunk and carved the interiors with leaves, which seemed like over kill, since we were already inside a tree. The floor was five metres across and four deep, to service a variety of body sizes. I pressed the buttons I wanted and turned to Daisy.

  “That’s floor ninety dash ninety dash B,” she pointed out.

  “I know,” I said. “I’m getting off on that floor so I can come in through the windows and take the Capolamps by surprise.”

  “What will I be doing?”

  “You will be going through the front door.”

  “So they shoot me instead of you?”

  “Well, you are the heavily armoured warbot,” I pointed out. “I’ll call you when I’m ready.”

  Daisy pulled off the two gold braids and plastic lips. A panel slid open and she stored them inside her armoured hull.

  “I’m ready now.”

  We waited in silence as the lift rose. I caught whiffs of vape, pepper and pokie, the rich people’s vices. I wondered why the Capolamps had chosen this hotel. There had to be a reason, they were not known for splashing out cash for the sake of it.

  We reached my floor and I scurried out. The corridor was lit in virid. The walls were visculent and frankly the bosky doors were a nice change. Even a centipede can have too much green.

  “Keep the lift here for ten minutes, then go down one floor,” I said. “Wait outside their door till I call and try to look inconspicuous.”

  “That’ll be easy,” Daisy said. “I’m sure they get a lot of three ton warbots in this hotel.”

  “Smart arse,” I said as the doors closed. There were windows along one side of the corridor and doors along the other. I scurried along to door eighty-nine dash B. Directly above the room I wanted. The wood around the windows had been heavily carved with images from the Book of Paghetti. I grabbed the face of Dorn in three claws and-

  A door at the end of the corridor opened, I spun and began feeling through my cyberharness for keys. A young Moordenaap couple left their room and I fumbled until they reached the lifts and the doors closed. Door eight-nine dash B opened.

  “What do you want?” A tall avianform looked down its long, orange beak at me.

  “Not this door,” I said. “Wrong room.”

  I turned and crawled away slowly.

  “This place has really gone downhill,” the avianform said as it closed the door. “They’re letting bugs in here now.”

  I pulled my pistols and turned back. Another door opened.

  “Bugger this.” I coiled my body and lunged through a window. The outer surface was steep and smooth. My claws skittered as I fell. “Who polishes bark?”

  I fell, caught a ledge with my last three claws and held on. Head down at the wrong end of a thousand metre drop. I turned up the oxygen supply from my cyber harness as I looked across the city. Heights don’t bother me, but falls? I’m not one for introspection, but I made a mental note never to leap blind through a window again.

  From this position I looked across into Loow Alsh’s apartment. There was not a stick of furniture in the place. That can’t be right? I arched my segments sideways until I caught more of the window ledge in my third and fourth pairs of claws. I scanned the hotel interior. There were nine people. Five middle of the room on benches. One in a small room off- I assumed a toilet. Three lying down in the bedroom, packed onto one bed. There was a couch two metres in front of the window. I decided to dive behind that first. It would not stop blaster shots, but it would obscure my body to incoming fire. I enjoyed the tension growing in my third segment a bit longer, then contacted Daisy.

  “I’m in position,”
I messaged Daisy. “You ready?”

  “Yes. Can I do the count?”

  “Okay.” I pulled my flegmatic pistols and pushed my head into the tiny leaves that made up the window.

  “One. Two,” I heard the door splinter and gunfire. I rammed my front segment through the leaves. The Capolamps were fast. Already on their feet and pulling guns, but Daisy was faster and her twin automatics gunned them all. I dropped behind the couch, and emerged slowly, scanning the still forms.

  “They’re down,” Daisy said. She stood in the doorway, scorch marks on her hull and pieces of timber and plaster on the floor around her.

  “You okay?” I asked.

  “No damage,” she said. “They had only anti-personnel weapons.”

  “And you only used stun, right?”

  “Of course. They are customers of the bar in good standing.”

  “You deliberately went before three, didn’t you?” I realised. “You wanted all the shooting for yourself.”

  Daisy slapped her turret with one hand: “They designed me for battle. Sometimes I miss the action.”

  “Right. Okay, I guess we better—” The bathroom door opened, a Capolamp framed in the light. I drew and fired. “Check this place over and then get the bodies loaded into the taxi.”

  “Check over how?” Daisy asked, rolling further into the room and looking around.

  “First I run scans and then get my scene of crime kit out, but- do you smell Loow?”

  “Told you before, I don’t have a sense of smell.”

  I moved around the room. Loow’s scent was all over the couch. There were piles of stuff on the floor, a computer drive on the coffee table, and they all had Loow’s scent.

  All these things are Loow’s, I realised. “The Capolamps have been across the road and nicked his stuff.”

  There was white powder on a glass table in the middle of the floor. I licked a claw, stuck the tip in the powder and tasted it.

  “Drugs?” Daisy asked, having seen that same cop show. I spat the stuff out.

  “Mycil,” I said. “Someone has terrible athlete’s foot. I’m calling Marshal Harry.”

  Her hologiph appeared in front of my eyes.