Inside the office were all the suspects, looking our way, plus two armed marshals lining the walls. 221B sat at her desk, looking every inch the Queen Bee.
“Must you stage this melodrama in my office?” she asked, looking down her muzzle at us.
“Yes. Because the story involves you,” Marshal Harry said. “The real you, behind that armour-plated wall.”
“I am intrigued,” she admitted.
Everyone involved in the case was seated before 221B’s desk. The marshal walked around the desk and stood at one corner, facing most of us.
“At first glance,” she said, “this story begins with the poisoning of Mr cruisOVO in a restaurant.”
Someone snorted. I glanced round, but everyone was looking at the marshal with their serious face on.
“I said, `At first glance’,” Marshal Harry repeated, “but, in fact, this all started much earlier, back on the Qoh Modes’ homeworld, when it became the fashion to clone rich people.”
mapoTHER crossed her arms and seemed to collapse in on herself. cleoroCASS reached over and hugged her. I felt sorry for them, marked as less important by an accident of birth.
“berOVO had clones, so I suppose it was just damn bad luck he was on board a space yacht when it crashed. Or was it? We know the Auld Gowk syndicate were after him and he was about to lose his wealth and his life, so him dying in an accident was an odd coincidence.”
“You’re about to tell me,” cruisOVO said in a muted tone, “that my murders were not about me, aren’t you?”
“Afraid so,” Marshal Harry said. “They were about the money. I believe your grandfather made sure you missed the flight so all the family wealth went to one person.”
“But he was dead when we read the will Why would he care?”
“Is he dead?” Marshal Harry asked.
“As far as I know,” cruisOVO said. “I mean. I mean. Well, everyone died in that crash, didn’t they?”
“But his clone disappeared around the same time as the accident that killed your whole family.”
“I see… I see what you are saying.” cruisOVO struggled to process what the marshal was telling him. “No, I’m not seeing it.”
“A young body, with its own identity, living in a backwater part of this planet,” Marshal Harry intoned, “disappeared from there and turned up in the city a while later.”
“Yes. So?”
“So the plan was to use clones for spare parts. Surgeons could even do a whole body replacement.”
“She’s trying to tell you,” I interrupted, “that your grandad is alive and well and murdered you three times.”
“I can’t believe that,” cruisOVO said. “We always got on so well, and he knew nothing about hacking computers and robots.”
“He didn’t need to,” Marshal Harry said. “The computer hacking was a red herring to put us off his scent. If someone hacked the robot server in the restaurant, that alibied all the people present around the table. So after he spat a poison capsule into your second portion of food, his accomplice wiped the memory of the servobot to make it look like a hacker covering his tracks. In fact, it is much easier to make a bot reboot itself.”
“I didn’t do it,” mapoTHER said. “I keep telling everyone I’d have to be suicidal to do that.”
“Right, it wasn’t you,” Harry said. “It was him.”
Heads turned from the pointing finger to the small Qoh Mode personal assistant.
“You’re kidding,” cleoroCASS said. “This guy doesn’t have the guts for murder.”
“leaCHER doesn’t,” Marshal Harry nodded, “but this is berOVO in a new, younger body.”
Someone gasped. mapoTHER slid to the floor and no one caught her. I looked round at cruisOVO. The silver egg drifted towards the ceiling. I guessed they had both fainted in shock.
“They are about the same size,” I said. The marshal walked to leaCHER’s side and held up a scanner.
“I am leaCHER and you can’t prove otherwise,” the little Qoh Mode said, throwing his shoulders back and sticking out his chest, which impressed no one. “I admit I am a clone, raised me in that backwater, but that’s all I admit to.”
The scanner overlaid a hologram of leaCHER’S bones on his face. There were parts in red and parts in blue.
“This scanner shows bone growth,” the marshal said. “You’ve had your face altered. Only berOVO would need to do that. You didn’t want to be recognised by your grandson or the Cabal.”
“Rubbish, I am leaCHER. That is all I am.”
The marshal put down the scanner and unrolled the family holo-pic. “This is a photo of berOVO’s clone. You changed the face, but if you look closely, there are three birthmarks on the neck that are identical.”
“That just proves I am a clone and changed my name.”
“We also can’t prove you were the Qoh Mode who worked at the haulage company. Can’t prove you were 221B’s personal assistant a few years ago. Don’t even have any evidence that you were the one who poisoned Mr cruisOVO,“.”
“You’re doing it wrong,” I hissed. “We’re not supposed to tell the suspect what we don’t have. That’s why they have lawyers.”
“There is one piece of evidence that proves only berOVO could have done all this, but I’ll reserve that for a moment and cover why you kept murdering poor Mr cruisOVO.”
“Hardly poor,” leaCHER spat. “He is the richest man in this star system.”
“He was, yes. And he married a clone who has no legal standing.” Marshal Harry nodded to mapoTHER. “So in a very unOVO act, he had the family lawyer set up an automatic cash transfer. The moment 221B received news of his death, it moved a large portion of the OVO family wealth into mapoTHER’s accounts.”
“No. But… no, that didn’t happen,” mapoTHER said. She looked confused. “Two million simoleons is not a large portion of the family wealth.”
“I set it up to leave you ten million simoleons,” cruisOVO said. “Enough to give you financial security but not enough to be noticed by auditors.”
“That’s my cue.” LB stood, stretched, and stepped up to the desk. He held up his mini projector and demonstrated graphs moving shares and cash around. Luckily, I sleep with my eyes open.
“To summarize…” I woke with a start and checked the time. LB had been lecturing on bendy accounting for over an hour. Heads were down, eyes closed. The Tooyr boyfriend snored. But LB carried on talking, waving his arms around with enthusiasm “The AIs moved cash and shares into these accounts. From there, leaCHER moved them to his own accounts and companies. You have less than thirty million simoleons left. Complicated and brilliantly executed bendy accounting. Would have taken an AI to work out the routes the laundered cash took.”
“But that can’t be right,” cruisOVO spluttered awake at the bad news. “My lawyers and accountants would sound the alarm if that much money disappeared.”
“Which is where 221B came in,” Marshal Harry said, opening her eyes wide and pointing at the armoured wall with a thumb.
“Why would I help a strange Qoh Mode? I revered my family.”
“Good question,” Marshal Harry said. “Glad you asked. Chunglie, is there a hidden door in this room with an attached bioscanner?”
“Hold it right there,” 221B said. “You need a court order for an invasive scan like that.”
“We have an open warrant from the Queen of Shaws,” I pointed out. “Your thugs fired upon her egg vaults.”
“I didn’t order that,” leaCHER said. “I couldn’t, since I was in your protective custody.”
“Yup, that was your accomplice,” Marshal Harry said, “trying to erase the history of that body.”
I brought up my cyber dashboard and ran all the scans I could. There were power conduits in the eastern wall that didn’t seem to connect to anything. I got up close to the wall and sniffed out dried saliva.
“You,” I pointed a claw at the suspect, “lick this red tile.”
“Not going to and you
can’t make me d—”
I reared up, grabbed him by the neck with two claws, and shoved him face first into the wall. “I’m a heavily armed angry centipede,” I said. “Go with me on this one.”
He stuck out his tongue and licked the tile. There was a click and a door swung open. The only person who didn’t look surprised was the marshal.
“I’ve been in this office thousands of times,” cruisOVO said. “And I never knew that door was there.”
“That’s just the maintenance access to my servers,” 221B blurted. “Nothing of interest in there.”
I shoved leaCHER through the door and followed him. I’ve spent time on casino moons, but the room beyond was an education in the sexual pleasures, even to me. Dark red walls were coated in an absorbent material. The floor was sticky. One wall was solid armoured plate. LB, cruisOVO, and mapoTHER followed us into the room and stood this side of the door with their mouths open.
“Hang on,” I said. “If that’s 221B’s servers out there, who is this?”
“The dark side of 221B,” Marshal Harry said, entering.
“You got that right,” 221B agreed, blocking the door.
A bed took up the middle of the room and had three androids on it. They were all female, but only one was Qoh Mode. The other three walls had racks of clothes and strange implements. I spotted a rack of different sized whips.
“This was in the secret room on your space yacht,” Marshal Harry said. She pointed at the armoured wall; there were some green indicator lights in a strip. “And that is the real 221B. Created in secret and kept hidden on the yacht—an AI system with no ethics to hold her back. This is the system that laundered the Auld Gowks’ money and ordered the hits on the clones.”
I noticed clothes hung on little triangular frames. “Odd, I thought only humans wore clothes.”
“Pretty much,” Marshal Harry said. “They must have played at being human. White wedding dress and a groom’s suit. Nice.”
“I enjoy the texture of the cloth,” 221B said.
“I’ve always played games.” leaCHER stood up straight. “This has been the best one of all.”
I picked up a black rod with leather straps attached to it. I wondered if it was a weapon.
“Put that down, please,” Marshal Harry ordered. She was blushing beetroot, so I guessed the thing had something to do with sex.
“What is it?”
“S’called a strap-on,” she said. “Please put it down. A four-metre-long centipede with a strap-on is not an image I want in my head.”
“Strap-on what?” I put it back.
“Shut the door,” leaCHER ordered. 221B closed the door with that body on the outside. That meant we could not expect back up from the marshals out there.. “Cover my escape.”
The three androids were damn fast. They were off that bed and pulled pistols from a wall holder in the time it took Marshal Harry to pull the cotton waste from her pocket and jam it in her ears. She had her eyes closed. I took that as my cue to draw Trembling Bob.
“That won’t stop me,” 221B said. “I have three android bodies and you can’t take all of us.”
I pointed Trembling Bob at the armoured wall and pulled the trigger. It was as if a million voices cried out `Bob!` and were suddenly silent. There was a hole in the building where the armoured plate and servers used to be. Sunlight flooded the room.
“What the hell just happened?” leaCHER demanded.
“Chunglie used Trembling Bob to shoot through the armoured plate and destroy 221B’s servers. I’m afraid that was the only way to stop her killing us.”
“What?” leaCHER asked, rubbing his ears.
“You didn’t give me time to get the cotton waste in my ears,” LB moaned, shaking his head. “I can’t hear a thing.”
“What?” leaCHER asked.
“Trembling Bob saved your life and you’re moaning?” I asked.
leaCHER pulled open another secret door. I drew a pistol. LB snatched cruisOVO and wound his arm back.
“Not a chance, matey,” he roared and threw. The silver egg caught leaCHER on the back of the head and stretched him out across a short corridor.
“Nice one,” I said. “I would disintegrate the bas—"
“No need for that kind of language,” the marshal said as she pulled cotton waste from her ears.
“He murdered his whole family, his own clone, and then tried to kill all the other clones,” I pointed out. “If he is not a bas— I don’t know what is.”
mapoTHER ran into the secret corridor, scooped up the silver egg, kicked the prone figure twice, and backed away.
“Sorry about throwing you,” LB said. “You were just the first thing in reach.”
“No offence taken,” cruisOVO said. “I’d happily take a swing at the bastar—nasty man—if I could.”
“Thank you for not giving away our secret,” mapoTHER said to the marshal. “Come on, honey, let’s go home.”
You’re not supposed to leave a crime scene, but I didn’t have the heart to stop them.
“What secret?” I asked the marshal.
CHAPTER 23
The Mother of All Mothers convicted leaCHER for the three murders of cruisOVO, the destruction of the family yacht and family, and fraud, later that evening. Insects don’t waste time. The ACM lounged in the marshal’s chair, looking happy. An odd expression on a Tooyr.
“How did you know about that hidden room?” she asked the marshal.
“It seemed reasonable that someone as devious as berOVO would keep the records of his illegal enterprises well hidden. The secret room on the space yacht was the ideal place. And I know you can’t download a deep learning system, so they must have taken the servers. I had Chunglie look for it right under our noses because berOVO would want it nearby. ”
“On the architectural plans we found,” the ACM said, “that room is labelled PR.”
“Play Room,” Marshal Harry said. “Funny how sex, power, and money go together.”
“Does anyone want to know how I opened it?” I asked.
“You knew Qoh Modes use their tongues for bio recognition? It’s been a long week, Assistant Chief,” Marshal Harry mumbled. She struggled to keep her eyes open. “If you don’t mind, I’d like to head up to bed.”
The ACM nodded and I followed Harry to the stairs.
“But what’s their secret?” I asked. “We know mapoTHER is a clone, so what else is there?”
Harry laughed and kept walking.
THE END
When Harry Met Chunglie Box Set Page 35
