Analog SFF, November 2007

by Dell Magazine Authors

  "Did Flanagan drink?” asked Shad.

  "Darcy's Irish so he has to put away his jar, right?” Shay said scornfully. He glanced at me, then faced Shad as he adopted a completely phony uncaring demeanor, standing slouched upon his stool. “Wouldn't know about Darcy drinkin', sergeant. Surely wouldn't. Don't socialize with the lads off duty. Wouldn't be none o’ my concern anyway, would it?"

  "On duty,” I said. “Did he drink on duty?"

  "Do I look like a stool pigeon to you?” he demanded.

  Shad was back to chewing on his wing. I found a sudden need to rub my eyes. “Flanagan's autopsy,” gasped Shad, “it showed that he'd been drinking quite a bit before he was killed."

  "A wee touch o’ the dew, eh?"

  "He was pissed,” I insisted.

  Tommy Shay raised his right wing. “God's honest truth, detective, I never seen young Darcy take a drink on or off duty."

  "So, the last time you saw him was at the beginning of the patrol, three PM, and the last time you heard from him was before four."

  "Yes."

  "What kind of transmission range you birds have?” asked Shad.

  "About twenty-five kilometers before there's a noticeable drop in signal strength."

  "That narrows it down,” he said sarcastically.

  Shay looked from Shad to me. “What's he mean?"

  "Hell, man.” I held out my hands. “Flanagan could've been in bloody Exmouth for those two transmissions for all you knew."

  Although Tommy Shay felt bad about young Darcy, we got nothing more useful out of him. We detained him, however, until we had a chance to brief Parker.

  After we delivered our report through the open toilet door in Room 914, our aromatic leader said, “There are nine gas guns registered in England. The Manchester Worker's Museum has one, the Imperial War Museum in London has one, the British Museum has two, all four inoperable according to museum curators. The police force museum in Bristol has two, one of them possibly operable. The Royal Diane Museum here in Exeter has one, functional according to the curator. Of the remaining two, Morton Geller, an antique weapons dealer in Leeds, has one. Mr. Geller believes that with the investment of just a few hundred quid the gas gun he has in inventory might be made operable, although he hasn't a clue where to obtain ammunition for it. The remaining gas gun belongs to the Office of the Bishop of Exeter."

  "Whoa!” said Shad, looking at me. I faced the door to the WC.

  "Parker, what about that last?"

  "The lord bishop, Dr. Reginald Koch. His secretary will get back to us about the gun. Apparently they cannot locate it. No one recalls seeing it ever and the last record of its existence is a century old.” Parker punctuated his finding by flushing the toilet.

  Shad looked at me. “That might even be a clue."

  While Parker continued his investigations and sorting through the surveillance videos, Shad and I arranged with Flight Leader Tommy Shay, 712 Squadron Leader Patricia Kwela—a.k.a. “Mother Goose"—and Pureledge Exeter Manager Lucinda Martini for Shad and me to go undercover that evening as ledge marshals, Puss in Boots Flight, 712 Squadron, Royal Pigeon Air Force.

  * * * *

  Since we were new to the service, Shad and I had to arrive at Pureledge two hours early for flight training. Shad put the cruiser down on High Street at Castle, we climbed out, then he sent it back to Heavitree Tower. Castle Street there is a wide park-like thoroughfare given over to foot traffic, mercilessly hard stainless steel benches from another age, the occasional tree, and the obligatory busker or three. That afternoon, despite the chill, entertainment was provided by a kangaroo bio singing “Charlie Is My Darling” with a Scottish accent to the accompaniment of a banjo played by a joey bio located in the ‘roo's pouch. Shad actually coded a fiver into the creditron in the open banjo case at the ‘roo's feet.

  "Tough business,” he explained as he waddled up past Musgrave Row toward the rounded white south-facing side of the Pureledge building. Castle went up the left side of Pureledge, a narrower street named Little Castle went up the right. The pigeon chasing company's building was the southernmost of the buildings bounded by the two Castle streets and on the south by the doglegged joining of Musgrave Row and Bailey. The building itself was a five-story Neo-Georgian structure with multi-paned double-hung windows above and larger display windows at street level the panes of which displayed graphics mostly of Exeter's various buildings and monuments, pristine and pigeon free. A lone “before” graphic showed a beer stone statue of some king, lord, or martyr from the west facade at St. Peters Cathedral, a furtive-looking pigeon behind the statue's right shoulder guarding a huge black nest that extended behind the statue's head and to its left shoulder. Pigeon waste coated the statue's shoulders and folded arms. At the bottom of the poster was printed, “Don't let this happen to you."

  The top floor of the building was set back, the windows forming part of a metal roof. Those windows were open and a group of about forty pigeons exited one of the windows on the left and took a westerly heading. There was something strange about how they were flying. “Shad?"

  "I see it. Don't know what it is.” He glanced back at me. “It's like they're doing a continuous stadium wave in different directions with their wings but I can't follow it with my eyes. Weird.” He waddled the semicircle to the Castle Street entrance and entered.

  The receptionist was a rather attractive human nat in her early thirties named Naomi Foon, according to her illuminated plastic desking accessory. She appeared quite normal in lavender pantaloon and vest business attire, spiked black hair with lavender tips, and matching lavender communications array plugged into her right ear. In fact everything about the sales floor of Pureledge was traditional: liquid crystal walnut paneling, virtual gaslight, plush red algae carpeting, hand-painted ties on the sales agents, and the reek of preserved Albion, which is what they were selling, after all.

  Receptionist Foon took our names and looked over her desk down at Shad. “I don't believe we've ever before had a ducky as one of our flyers.” She batted her feather extended eyelashes and flashed Shad a smile.

  "I'm already in a low paying job and I thought I'd explore some of the other options available in poverty,” he said.

  She nodded vacantly. “We once had a wildebeest bio."

  "Why would a wildebeest want to be a pigeon?” I asked.

  "He was a very old wildebeest,” she explained. Her lavender streaked eyebrows went up. “Not that I'm implying either of you gentlemen are very old.” She looked at me. “I would say, Mr. Jaggers, that you look very young to be one of our flyers. How old are you, if you don't mind me asking?"

  "The bio was grown forty-five; I've had it twelve years. The engrams are...” I had to think for a moment. “The engrams are ninety-three."

  "You look just like Sherlock Holmes—you know, in the old telly flicks? That actor, Basir Redbone?"

  "Hadn't noticed it myself."

  She looked at Shad. “I would say you are a young-looking duck."

  "Ducks never show their age until they find themselves plucked, glazed, and surrounded by chopsticks,” responded Shad curtly. “Where do we go?"

  "Second floor,” she answered. “Good hunting, fellows."

  As we went to the elevator, I asked Shad, “Are you looking for a fight or has that fellow from the Chinese restaurant been lurking around Rougemont again?"

  "Sorry there, Holmes. Things on my mind."

  "Things theatrical?"

  We entered the elevator, the doors formed and hardened, and Shad barked “Two” at the control panel. He looked up at me as the car elevated. “I guess I'm a little torn between work here and going back to doing commercials."

  "Ever since that lizard bumped you out of your advert slot and you wound up in ABCD you've been unhappy, Shad. Now they want you back. I'd think you'd be quite pleased."

  The car stopped and the doors softened and faded. Shad didn't move. “I know. But I've had a ball working with you, Jaggs. I kind of like
Exeter. There's Nadine, of course. Hell, Jaggs, you saved my life out at Hangingstone."

  "I'll not be happy to see you go, Shad, although I will enjoy seeing you on the telly again. You're the only television star I've ever known. Val is very happy for you. So am I."

  "Well, it's been a sincere privilege to work with someone who looks so much like Basir Redbone, wak, wak, w—"

  Shad was staring straight ahead, his countenance frozen. I turned to look at what had captured his attention. We stepped out into the room. The second floor looked like a military officer's club from the midtwentieth century, leather-covered overstuffed chairs, dim lights, a piano mech that played itself, and dozens of posters on the walls and ceiling of fighter aircraft of World War II, with several of the Hurricane but mostly of the Spitfire: Spits diving, climbing, turning, shooting, on floats, and on wheels. The piano mech was playing “The White Cliffs of Dover” and accompanying itself with a familiar sounding female voice. I glanced at Shad and he said, “Vera Lynn,” in answer to my unasked question.

  "How do you know it's Vera Lynn?"

  "I recognize her from the end of Dr. Strangelove when she sang ‘We'll Meet Again.’”

  "Ah, yes. With the nuclear mushroom clouds going up. Nineteen sixty-six?"

  "'Sixty-four,” he corrected. “Get a load of this room, Jaggs. I feel like Errol Flynn in Dawn Patrol.” He nodded his head toward a strange-looking mech who was approaching us silently on soft rubber wheels. She was wearing a starched white dress, white cap, and a short midnight blue cape. The mech's right eye looked human. The left eye glowed green, resembling a night scope with a variety of interchangeable lenses and filters. Instead of fingers her hands bristled with sensors, various tools such as a rubber hammer, tongue depressor, and things that poked, stuck, cut, sewed, cleansed, taped, and perhaps knitted for all I could tell. The most formidable of these instruments was a sensor that resembled a huge rubber finger.

  "I'm Nurse Florence,” she announced in a raspy voice. As she came to a halt, her big rubber finger thrust up toward a poster of a ME 109 going down in flames.

  "I'm just a little duck,” Shad whimpered to the nurse in a tiny voice.

  The big rubber finger retracted and was replaced by a smaller, but still fearsome, digit. “Follow me,” she commanded.

  "Chocks away, lad,” I said to Shad. As we followed Nurse Florence to the examination rooms, the piano mech struck up the Glenn Miller version of “Little Brown Jug."

  * * * *

  After our stasis bed physicals, about which the less said the better, we were escorted to a third floor room which housed approximately eighty triple bunk stasis beds, about half of which were filled with old men, old women, old bios, and at least one very rusty mech. “Two-sixty-four Squadron,” whispered our escort, a tech mech named Watkins. “Them's the blokes you chaps'll relieve once you get in the air.” In the 712 area, along with a woman in her seventies named Mathilda, Shad and I copied into our Hurricane pigeon suits. Watkins ran the three of us and eight other “chicks” directly to the roof where we met Hell's pigeon.

  "You lot will never make it."

  Flight Sergeant Ponsonby marched up and down our file of eleven ledge marshal trainees, his gray, black, and white Spit feathers glossed back, his pink toes gleaming with some sort of gloss, and something resembling a chopstick thrust beneath his left wing. He alternated his growling and barking with the following: “You lot come creepin’ up on me roof from hospital, from the flippin’ dole queue, from bloomin’ Bide-A-Wee Nursin’ Home, or hidin’ out from old bill or the missus happy as you please, all fired up to singe Jerry's tail feathers for Pureledge's tenner, and not a bleedin’ clue how to get in the bleedin’ air. Just look at you feather bags. I might as well be talkin’ to a stack of flippin’ flapjacks—"

  And so on. Once flight sergeant was finished with his set piece, he bellowed, “Staff!” and two pigeons emerged marching from in back of us. Through a series of shouts, bellows, shoves, and curses they herded us over to a skylight. Standing upon the edge of the raised casement looking down upon us was a one-legged, one-eyed pigeon Spit with one droopy wing. The missing undercarriage limb had been replaced by a red plastic peg leg. The missing eye was covered by a black patch held in place by a thin black elastic band.

  "I am Squadron Leader Leslie Haverill, ground commander of Castle Field,” he said in a calm voice. “I, Flight Sergeant Ponsonby, and the staff personnel at Castle Field welcome you to RPAF, Exeter. I know you'll do well here, become part of our rich tradition, and be credits to the Royal Pigeon Air Force."

  Squadron Leader Haverill then read us Kings Regulations pertaining to private investigators, guards, watch officers, and ledge marshals. Curiously enough, besides chasing pigeons and other fowl off ledges, unlike detectives from the Artificial Beings Crimes Division, ledge marshals were actually allowed to detain suspects and make arrests. In cases of pigeon and other fowl bios carrying human imprints, those trespassing on private, company, corporate, or government property protected by Pureledge were subject to arrest using whatever force necessary to subdue said arrestee. Miscreants thus detained were then to be turned over to the Devon & Cornwall Constabulary, Exeter Police Station. There was, in addition, a robust course in beak-to-toe combat during which Staff Foster—a Spit pigeon wearing a tiny set of prescription goggles—mentioned that all those staffing ground and flight schools had been killed in action. That is, their suits reclining in stasis had cacked out. Like Tommy Shay, they had opted to remain in wings.

  "What happened to the squadron leader's Spit?” asked Shad when we were on break.

  "Terrible thing, lad,” answered Sgt. Foster shaking his head, his voice lowered. “A year ago squadron leader used to command 331 of the First, covering Rougemont Castle down to High and southwest to Iron Bridge. Out on the rooftops, towers, and ledges, lads: That's where Jerry is; that's where we expect the attack.” He shook his head sadly. “Danger's all around, lads, everywhere. See, back then we had a brand new pilot officer assigned to 712, lad by name of Kumar. He took to that Spit like he was born to it. Once off the tower and he was airborne. A natural flyer. Only with us a few days, though. Disappeared, he did. They only found a feather or two over by the Royal Clarence. Must've took on a falcon or hawk. Snapped him up quick as Bob's your uncle his parts parceled out ‘mongst Henry and the other hawk chicks in the nest I imagine. Heart of an eagle, young Kumar, but he had the body of a pigeon and the judgment of a scone. You find a hawk or falcon squattin’ in your patrol area, flyer, you call it in. Special Unit goes after the big ones."

  "Haverill?” prompted Shad.

  "Don't be impatient, lad.” He regarded Shad down the length of his beak. “Let's see, then. Squadron Leader Haverill in his pigeon suit was cuttin’ through 712's stasis beds when Kumar went down. Kumar, he slams awake all stressed from bein’ turned into hawk vittles. Wildebeest bio, he was. Sprung right off that bed he did, hit the ceiling, and landed on Haverill all four hoofs a-runnin’ at the same time. Tore up squadron leader proper.” Foster faced me. “Took poor Kumar in his wildebeest suit that night and run him straight off to the wigpicker works, bleedin Happy Valley, they did. Still there, poor lad.” He returned his goggled gaze to Shad. “Pieced squadron leader together but his flyin’ days was done for. Took him out of the air and made him ground commander."

  "Why the prescription goggles, Staff?” asked Shad, nodding toward flight's set. “Aren't all Spit bios genetically coded for good eyesight?"

  "Well, lad, that were a cock-up of me own. I joined back when each squadron did it's own flight training. About eight years ago it was. They sent me straight into the 994 patrol area south o’ the Guildhall. Only an hour or so in the air, lad, then we was on break. I put down on a windowsill by the Catacombs. Nice little stairclimb o’ houses called Napier Terrace. I was recitin’ the flap changes—” He lowered his voice as though passing on official secrets. “The changes was brand new back then. Your flight leader'll fill you in. I was number
five in the flight and it were one, two, three, four, five, six—a flap on me own number, see—then two, one, four, three, six, five—up flap—then two, four, one ... or was that two, one, five—bugger it. Been so long I forget. Anyway, I was recitin’ the changes out loud when next thing I know Jerry hits me with poison gas."

  "Sorry?” I said.

  "Poison gas, lad—bug spray according’ to the tox screen they did on me in hospital. Blinds me and knocked me colder'n January lager, as we say in the RPAF. Next I know I'm in hospital. Findin’ out what happened to me upset my nat in stasis so, Billy Foster the natural man cacked out.” He held out his wings. “Company's gift.” He lowered his wings. “Had to get specs, though, ‘cause the poison fried me corneas. Can't see much with ‘em, but can't see a bleedin’ thing without."

  When Staff Foster marched off to abrade some trainee's ego, I turned to Shad. “We need to know if the scenes of crime officers ever found Kumar's pigeon bio, exactly where the SOCOs found those feathers, and what they did with them. We also need a detailed map of the squadron patrol areas in Exeter. I'm very curious who was living in Napier Terrace eight years ago when Staff Foster caught it."

  Shad's pigeon suit looked at me for a beat then nodded. “Fitness reports and other pigeon injuries and deaths?"

  "Absolutely. Get details, location, and date of each incident. We need police reports and lists of every employee, guest, and residence in each area as well as traffic and private surveillance video archives. Stasis bed consequences, too."

  "You think our boy has been busy before?"