by Alex P. Berg
“But,” said Kriggler, undeterred, “I didn’t have the same legal standing you do. Sanika and Hari had divorced long ago. Unless he’d secretly been married, which is highly doubtful based on everything you’ve told me, then your man Busk’s next of kin would be his mother who hired you to investigate his passing—or his life, rather, but close enough. The point is, you have a stronger case to make to Busk’s bank to give you his records than I did with Hari’s.”
“Despite working in this field, I’m not much of an expert when it comes to the law,” I said. “Carl, is this accurate?”
He eyed Kriggler for a moment before turning his blues on me. “Mostly. You have a stronger case than Mr. Kriggler did, but Helena Busk will ultimately be the only one with authority to access Lars’s accounts, including his records. If you’re looking for an official statement of record, she’ll be the one to have to pursue it. And I feel I should once again point out you haven’t told her about her son yet. At this point, I’d be surprised if she hadn’t heard from the police, but perhaps they’re still waiting on confirmation from their DNA test.”
I felt a pull at my heartstrings. “I know. I told you I’d tell her, and I will. Today. I promise. I’d still like to try and confirm Lars’s identity through our own DNA test first, though.”
“Then we should get to it,” said Carl. “I don’t feel right about withholding this information from her.”
Kriggler sat forward, waving his free hand at us. “No, no. Forget that. That’ll take too long. What you need right now is to contact the bank. Sweet talk them. Give them the old one-two. All we really need to know is if Lars’s government work stipend was making it to his account, and if not, where it was going. We should be able to get that. I can talk you through it.”
Carl gave me a wary glance. I took note, feeling a similar way.
“Look, Kriggler,” I said. “Even if that’s the path I wanted to take, I couldn’t. I don’t know which bank Busk did business with.”
“Dang it.” Kriggler stood and began to pace again, coffee mug in hand. “Well, there has to be a way to find out. We’ll run some queries on the public servenets. Hack into his Princess profile. Something.”
There’s an easier way, said Paige.
I’m listening, I said, keeping the conversation to myself.
According to the Meertori building manager, Lars’s apartment building takes payment by direct deposit. We greased his palms once. I imagine he’d be willing to talk again given another monetary incentive.
I’d already planned to make a return trip to the apartment complex to search for traces of Lars’s DNA, so why not kill two birds with one stone? The only question was whether or not to include Kriggler.
I took a sip of my coffee and thought. Ultimately, curiosity won out over cautiousness.
“Grab your hat, Dirk,” I said. “We’re going to take a field trip.”
18
Our car slid to a stop in front of a narrow skyscraper, at least a hundred stories tall but probably not more than twenty meters in width. A sheet of solid glass ran up its façade, gradually twisting along with the building to give the structure the appearance of a corkscrew. As the wall of glass spun, the side of the building became the front, almost as if the building turned its buttocks toward the wind, thumbing its nose at the elements the entire time. I gulped.
It’s perfectly safe, said Paige. With a width to height ratio of one to twenty five, it’s nowhere near the skinniest high rise in Pylon Alpha, let alone the rest of Cetie. There’s a seven hundred and fifty thousand kilogram tuned mass dampener up around the ninetieth floor that provides stability against seismic events, and that corkscrew appearance you’re so worried about decreases shear loads from high winds by evening out the forces on the sides.
Your scientific reasoning isn’t going to do anything to assuage my acrophobia, I said as I stared at the structure.
Since when are you afraid of heights? said Paige. You’ve never had a problem on the space elevator, or during flightwing operation.
The space elevator is attached to an asteroid orbiting Cetie, I said. It’s not going anywhere. And I wouldn’t be worried about ascending this thing if I had a flightwing suit. Then I could fly instead of fall.
“Hey? Can we move? Or are we going to sit here cooling our heels for the next half hour?”
I shifted my gaze inside the cab. Kriggler still sat in the seat across from me, for better or worse. I still hadn’t determined which of the two it was.
After leaving my apartment, I’d travelled with Kriggler and Carl back to Lars’s apartment complex. It took us a while to find the Meertori building manager as he didn’t initially respond to the chime in the downstairs lobby, but eventually we located the guy napping underneath a stack of boxes in the back. Given the fact that we’d roused him from a peaceful slumber, I’d assumed he’d be less than thrilled to see us, but the exact opposite was true. His respirator obscured his smile, but its clanking and wheezing couldn’t hide the eagerness in his voice. Likely he saw SEUs swimming through his eyes upon our approach.
Unfortunately for us, he’d improved his bargaining abilities. The information and access we’d been after didn’t come cheap, but after a heated bartering session, my money ultimately spoke the loudest. Upon delivery of his promised payoff, the Meertor delved into his building’s data files, procuring for us the name of Busk’s bank. He also personally escorted us to Lars’s room and let us in.
Miraculously, the contents hadn’t been touched. I’d expected a guy of the Meertor’s caliber to have gutted the place and sold the belongings within minutes of the cops leaving, so either the police had left specific instructions for him not to or I needed to revisit my faith in alienity. Either way, I was glad to have brought Carl with me, and not only because Kriggler’s personality bristled with all the warmth of his native Cetif. Whereas it would’ve taken me ages to comb through Lars’s carpets in search of a stray hair, Carl, with his various sensors and improved optics, was able to find one almost instantly. We’d packaged it and sent it to a lab for testing—but not before I broke down and admitted I needed to follow Carl’s advice.
I made the call. Sharing the news with Miss Busk hadn’t been easy, and her tearful response only made it worse, but I’d needed to do it, even if I couldn’t yet confirm beyond a shadow of a doubt that her son was indeed dead. Honestly, she took the news better than I would’ve if I’d been in her shoes. After talking her through what I knew, she thanked me and told me she’d pay me for my efforts to answer lingering questions about her son’s death. I graciously declined. The case had become something more to me than that. It always had been, more or less.
Of course, after that emotional exercise we still weren’t any closer to discovering who, if anyone, had stolen Lars’s identity, so with Kriggler hovering over my shoulder and coaching me as if I were a child, I’d called Lars’s bank and demanded to speak to a live human. Eventually, the automated systems put me through to a lovely young lady by the name of Grace who did her namesake proud by putting up with my long-winded spiel and Kriggler’s persistent interruptions. While she couldn’t provide me with the actual records of his account, upon receipt of my contract with Helena and notice of Lars’s death, she was at least able to walk me through many of his account details—namely that he, like Hari, was beyond broke and that his government stipend payments were being rerouted to a different account. Apparently, a bank by the name of Tau Ceti Consolidated Credit Corporation, or TCCCC, was now getting the payments. The whole thing sounded fishy, and not only because no self-respecting bank would fashion an acronym with that many C’s.
So it was we found ourselves in the car outside the twisting, narrow high rise. According to the biz listings, TCCCC’s Pylon Alpha office was located inside.
I waved my hand at the building. “After you.”
The doors puffed open, and Kriggler stepped out first. Carl and I followed him, the Cetie heat blasting us
fully in the face as we did so. I hazarded a glance at Kriggler as we walked toward the high rise’s entrance, but other than a single trail of sweat weaving from his brow down to his collar, he didn’t show any outward signs of discomfort. The guy was a rock. Perhaps extended exposure to Cetif’s climes had frozen the rest of his sweat glands shut.
Together, we stepped into the lobby, a classically furnished space with lots of glass and brushed aluminum. A lovely blonde receptionist—a droid based on her lithe figure—sat at a wide, barely-there Pseudaglas desk, her legs crossed primly with her arms resting atop them.
Kriggler approached her. “Hi, doll. We’re looking for the Tau Ceti Consolidated Credit Corporation.”
She pointed to the elevators in the middle of the lobby. “Penthouse suite, floor one twenty one. Enjoy your visit.”
“Thanks.” Dirk nodded, gripping the brim of his hat as he tipped it toward the droid. I gave the lady a halfhearted wave and followed Kriggler.
A few folks milled about the base of the lobby as we waited, most of them dressed in business casual Hempette short suits or the occasional form fitting, vented Spandette power blouse for the ladies. A few of them joined us in the elevator, but they all exited on lower floors. After a long stretch of waiting, our lift dinged and spit us out.
The TCCCC had the floor to themselves. A sign with the company’s name hovered over a doorless entryway, ushering patrons toward another receptionist’s desk similar to the one from the lobby in size but thick, dark, and opaque, built from an expensive hardwood. Another droid stood behind it, tall, thin, wearing a crisp white suit jacket and a million SEU smile. He welcomed us with his demeanor, but as we approached him, it was the rest of the bank that caught my eye—and not for its opulence.
Apart from the reception desk, the place was thoroughly mundane. No exotic potted plants or free-standing fountains. No golden filigrees on the molding or finely carved statuettes. Not even any displays, holo or otherwise. But the office’s minimalist nature went beyond the aesthetic. I didn’t see any self-service kiosks, nor did I spot any staff, either tellers, investors, or managers, beyond the single, smiling droid in front.
A single door stood in the wall behind the droid, though I noticed a fire escape set into the wall at my far right. A low hum cut through the air, almost subaudible, but I felt it in my chest.
“Welcome to Tau Ceti Consolidated Credit,” said the droid as we approached. “My name is Florian. How may I be of assistance?”
Once again, it was Kriggler who took control. “Hey, pal. Dirk Kriggler. This here’s my acquaintance, Rich Weed. We’re here to inquire about a couple of accounts.”
“Kriggler and Weed,” said Florian. “Hmm. We don’t seem to have any Richard, Rich, or Ricky Weeds in our servenets. And is that Kriggler with two g’s? Because if so, I’m afraid we don’t have any of those either.”
I secretly thanked the droid for his choice of stated nicknames. “We’re not here for ourselves. Lars Busk and Hari Gupta. We understand they have accounts with you?”
“I’m sorry, sirs,” said Florian. “But I can’t share confidential information about clients, including whether or not we even retain certain individuals as clients. It goes against government mandated privacy rules for our sector. I’m sure you understand.”
Kriggler glared at me. Perhaps I’d thrown a wrench in his master plan by revealing our victims’ names too early.
“No, you, ah…misunderstand us,” he said. “I’m an investigator. So is Rich, here. You process Cetie government stipend payments, don’t you?”
“Of course, sir,” said Florian. “As a fully licensed and accredited banking institution, we provide all our members with a host of services, including unlimited deposits, withdrawals, and transfers to and from other approved member institutions. Can I interest you in opening an account?”
“Cut the crap, bot,” said Kriggler. “Busk and Gupta are dead. Their families hired us to investigate their passing. Each of their primary bank accounts had dipped into the red, but for some reason, both of them used your firm to process their government work stipends. So where’d that cash go, huh? Their families have a right to know.”
“I’m sure they do,” said Florian, his smile never wavering. “But as I already mentioned, I can neither confirm nor deny the identity of our clients, much less divulge any data regarding their financial transactions without a warrant—one delivered by an agent authorized to execute it, which despite your self professed status as an investigator, I suspect you don’t qualify.”
“Oh, this is about authorization? Why didn’t you say so? Let me see here…” Kriggler reached a hand into his coat, digging for something—perhaps his investigator’s license. “Ah, there we go.”
He pulled back his hand. Steel flashed, and he leveled a pistol at Florian’s chest, a combination pulse and projectile weapon with a narrow profile and a high density battery pack set in the grip.
“Dirk!” I said, taking a step back. “What the hell do you think you’re doing? Put that thing away!”
Well, that explains the heavy coat, said Paige.
Carl held up his hands in appeal. “Please. Listen to Rich. Violence isn’t going to solve anything. You have to realize that.”
Kriggler kept his arm extended, the pistol gripped tightly. He glanced at me out of the corner of his eyes. “Shut up. You’re the one who botched this confrontation in the first—”
Florian dove across the desk. Several things happened in concert. Kriggler’s eyes widened. The bot swung an arm with superhuman speed. Kriggler mashed on the trigger. Shots rang out, brisk projectile cracks followed by electric crackles. Florian collided with Kriggler, and the pair rolled across the floor. More shots. More crackles. An alarm sounded from recessed speakers, and a bright red light began to flash above the elevators.
“Kriggler!” I said. “What the hell did you do?”
The private eye disentangled himself from Florian. The latter wasn’t moving.
“He attacked me,” said Kriggler. “He swung for my neck. You all saw it.”
“Are you insane?” said Carl. “He’s a droid. He’s incapable of attacking you. He must’ve been trying to disarm you to prevent an accidental discharge.”
“Bull crap,” said Kriggler, holstering his pistol. “Check your feeds. That blow was going to hit me.”
I opened my mouth to side with Carl, but Paige stopped me. Rich. He might be right.
The feed from a few seconds ago flashed in front of my vision. Florian, flying through the air in slow motion. His arm pulling back, swinging forward. The arc on it. The first of the pulse projectiles hit him, and his body jerked, sending his arm low into Kriggler’s shoulder before impact.
I couldn’t believe it. He must’ve planned on changing the trajectory. Bringing his hand down to grasp the gun.
I blinked, banishing the replay only to find Kriggler dragging Florian’s frozen form across the floor to the door behind the desk. “Uh…what are you doing?”
The alarm kept blaring, and the light above the elevator continued to flash. “My pulse pistol put us on lockdown. I should’ve realized there might be a gunfire sensor in here, seeing as it’s a bank. That’s what happens when you get sloppy. But no point in wasting the opportunity. Should be a few minutes before police arrive. Give me a hand.”
I glanced at Carl. He looked as lost as I did and possibly more morally torn.
Kriggler dumped Florian on the ground in front of the door, which blinked open. “Whoa. Proximity sensor. We’re in luck. Must not be tied to the security alarm. Let’s go.”
“Where?” I asked, but Kriggler had already disappeared into the room beyond. Hazarding a glance at the elevator, I followed him.
Beyond the entryway, I found the source of the pervasive hum. A tightly packed servenet room, with only narrow corridors between the nets, each of them buzzing merrily. Vents at the top of the room blew cold air in, but despite their efforts, I f
elt a sweat coming on.
Kriggler knelt next to one of the nodes, a small electronic device in his palm. His eyes had glazed, but his fingers tapped efficiently at the device’s display.
“Rich.” Carl stood behind me. He nodded at Kriggler. “I think that’s a skimmer.”
I blinked. “What the heck is that?”
“Seriously,” said Kriggler, his fingers still moving quickly. “What kind of PI are you?”
“One that adheres to the law,” said Carl.
“Get off your high horse, princess,” said Kriggler. “We’re private. We do what we have to to get the job done.”
“Maybe you do,” said Carl. “We hold ourselves to a higher standard.”
“Look, it’s not as if I’m using it to steal people’s personal information. I’m trying to solve what happened to Hari, same as you are with Busk.” Kriggler stood and pocketed the device. “I’ve got what I need. Not everything, but a few hundred accounts, Hari’s and Busk’s included. Follow me.”
He pushed past me and Carl, heading back into the reception area.
“Follow you?” I said. “Where? The elevators are locked down, remember?”
Dirk didn’t respond, walking toward the fire escape. Amazingly, it opened in response to his touch. Either it hadn’t locked due to some obscure fire code regulation, or Kriggler had teased it open with his less than legal gadget.
I raced after him, Carl behind me. “You’re going to climb down a hundred and twenty-one flights of stairs to get away? Even if your heart doesn’t give out, I think they’ll intercept you at the bottom.”
“I’m not headed down,” he said. “I’m going up. The servenets were on a secure comm link, a line of sight transmitter of some sort. I’m betting it’s on the roof if my skimmer’s power draw sensors read it right.”
The roof?
“Oh, hell no,” I said. “I’m not going up there. You can help yourself to a windswept death if you so desire, but I plan on living for another century or two.”
