Chimera

by Will Shetterly

  Most of the customers had fled the main room. Onstage, the cat was climbing a side curtain. Below her, the bear roared and ripped the curtain down, and I figured the fight was over for both of us. But the cat kicked out, releasing the curtain. She landed lightly beside us and rose with a side kick to the orca's chest that knocked him off me.

  I scrambled across the floor, snatched up my SIG, and aimed it at the charging bear. Proving he was smarter than he looked, he halted.

  I glanced at the cat. "Thanks."

  She nodded. "Likewise."

  Her eyes were golden brown with black slitted pupils. They suited her. Her jaguar hair fell in tangles around her face. The tip of a pointed, lightly furred ear protruded from her wild locks. She gave me a defiant look and tucked her hair behind her cat ears.

  We backed across the deserted room toward the front door. Arthur's three guardians watched sullenly. I kept my pistol high to remind them that what some people called the great equalizer should be called the great promoter: with the gun in my hand, I was the most deadly species in the room.

  I told the cat, "I don't work for chimeras. Nothing personal. It's my policy."

  She said, "Fine. Where's my refund?"

  She had me there. I couldn't think of a way to get out of the job that would leave any white showing in the poor knight's armor. "All right. One day's work."

  Police sirens approaching Wonderland cut off any response she might've had. We turned our backs on Arthur's pets to run for freedom—too late. Steel fire walls dropped soundlessly in every window and archway, sealing the room.

  Bruno and his buddies trotted toward us. I spun around with the SIG to let them know that nothing was going to happen to us until we'd talked to the cops. As they skidded to a halt, I said, "Why don't you boys wait on the far side of the room?"

  They didn't like that, but when Bruno nodded, the other two gave in. All three retreated.

  I whispered to the cat, "I'm not a priest or a lawyer. If you've done something illegal, don't tell me."

  She pulled a tissue and something else out of her pocket, keeping them close to her body. "Can you hide this?"

  I thought she was hiding the second object from Bruno and Co., but realized later she was keeping it out of sight of the casino's surveillance system. I let her drop it in my hand.

  While she vigorously scrubbed her forehead with the tissue, I glanced down at what she'd given me: A perfectly spherical black opal with two thin gold rectangles passing through it like knives, attached to a gold earring hook. The opal and its rectangles looked like something from a Beverly Hills jeweler, but the earring hook looked cheaper. There was a small imperfection in the solder joining the hook to the opal, as if someone had altered or repaired it in a hurry, without the skill of the artist who created the opal and its intersecting rectangles.

  I nodded at the black opal earring. "What's this?"

  "That's what I hired you to find out."

  "Did you steal it?"

  "No."

  I pointed at a smudge of make-up on the cat's head tattoo on her brow. "You missed a bit."

  "Thanks." She scrubbed the tissue across her forehead again.

  This wasn't the time to push for answers. I opened the Infinite Pocket and released the SIG. It flew into the shimmer of space at my wrist as if sucked by a supermagnet. I dropped the earring in after it and closed the Pocket.

  The cat watched the process with an eyebrow raised. "How did you get that thing?"

  "A long, dull story. Sorry about your watch."

  "Counterfeit. Twenty K in Ensenada."

  She didn't crack a smile, so I didn't, either. "Huh. Which means I only owe you half a day's work."

  "Sure. If you want to reimburse the cowboy for the watch."

  "Hmm."

  "A full day?"

  I nodded. "A full day."

  The fire walls rose. Two copbots entered, followed by four human cops, all with sleepguns out and ready to fire. I put my hands up. The cat kept staring at the bots as if she was ready to run without warning. I elbowed her, and she imitated me.

  A hard-looking Asian woman stepped forward. "I'm Sergeant Ling. You two look guilty."

  I lowered my arms very slowly, so she would have plenty of time to tell me to keep them up if she wanted to. "Can't go by appearances, Sergeant. We wanted you to know we're not armed and would do nothing that might seem threatening to a guardian of public safety." If you think it's hard to say that with a straight face, you've never had to deal with a police force provided by the lowest bidder.

  Behind me, Arthur said, "He has a pistol in an Infinite Pocket in his wrist."

  Well, in Arthur's place, I wouldn't have done me any favors, either. I grinned as he came up beside me. The effect was spoiled when a copbot grabbed my right arm and jerked up the sleeve, revealing the pale circular scar on my inner wrist.

  "Open it," Ling said. "Carefully."

  "Damn," I said. "It's jammed." As Ling frowned, I added, "Don't worry. It'll stay closed."

  Ling said, "It better."

  I said, very nonthreateningly, "I'm a P.I. I'm licensed to carry. Want to see the ID?"

  She did. I drew the card from my hip pocket with my left hand and gave it to her. The second copbot stepped in front of me for a blink test. When my soulful browns jibed with CityCentral's records, the bot stepped away and nodded at Ling.

  She handed the card back to me. "Doesn't say anything about an Infinite Pocket."

  "Or anything about where I can carry."

  "If a gun appears while we're around, you'll carry it up your ass. Sideways." She looked at the bot holding me. "Let him go. Trank him if he gets annoying." Then she asked Arthur, "What's the story?"

  I massaged my wrist as I glanced at the overturned furniture and the torn stage curtain. I had the feeling that my day's work for the cat would consist of sitting in an L.A. county cell trying to look like I didn't need a boyfriend.

  "We don't serve critters," Arthur said. "When I asked her to leave, she and her friend decided to make trouble."

  I thought it was decent of Arthur not to mention that the cat had been passing. Then I realized he had nothing to gain by revealing it now and could always mention it later if it seemed useful.

  Ling glanced at the cat. "Scan her." As a copbot read her retinas, Ling asked Arthur, "Do you want to press charges?"

  He looked at me. "You broke a table."

  "With my back," I said.

  "Can you pay for it?"

  "You know I'm good for it—"

  "Right."

  "I can't make money in jail, Arthur."

  He considered that. It's not precisely true. Even before trial, you can join a prison work force. But they pay a hundred dollars a day, and food, laundry, and rent cost ninety-eight. It's a great system for prison barons, but not so good for creditors.

  "True." Arthur turned to Ling. "Thanks for responding so promptly, Sergeant. The club won't be pressing charges."

  Ling nodded.

  I said, "We're free to go?"

  A copbot stepped up beside Ling. "Sergeant?" It put its head by her ear, and she glanced at the cat.

  The cat looked around the room, then at me. I shook my head slightly. I would help her against Arthur's little carnivore club. I wasn't about to take on L.A.'s finest, what our Libertarian mayor proudly calls "the best police that money can buy."

  Ling said, "Zoe Domingo?"

  The cat said, "Yes."

  Ling looked at Arthur and me. "She comes with us."

  The cat said, "Don't I get any say in this?"

  Ling looked at her with surprise. "Where are you from?"

  "Minnesota."

  "Oh, yeah. They passed some kind of critter rights bill, didn't they?"

  The cat nodded.

  Ling said, "You should've stayed there."

  "I'm here as a visitor—"

  Ling said, almost kindly, "We won't sell you, girl. Not if you're innocent, anyway."

  The cat glanced at
me. That was my third and final chance to drop the case. But she had helped me with Arthur's pets when she didn't have to. I said, "I'm responsible for her."

  "You haven't been doing that great a job." Ling shrugged. "All right. You can come along. But you're both getting searched, and any activity from the Pocket will be treated as a potentially lethal threat. ¿Comprende?"

  I raised my arms. A human cop patted me down, then smiled a bit too much as he headed for the cat.

  Ling said, "I'll do it," and searched her. They didn't find anything interesting on either of us.

  Arthur said, "Would you mind taking them out the back way?"

  "Not at all," Ling answered, and I remembered that the casinos are major contributors to the Police Officers Association.

  Bruno and his friends with fangs smiled as we passed. I ignored them and asked Ling, "What do you want her for?"

  "Questioning."

  I glanced at the cat. She looked away.

  As we went through the back doors, a band began a Ragtime Revival tune in the main room. Chimera janitors and cleaning bots hurried in to tidy up. Within a few minutes of our departure, customers would once again be happily presenting their hard-earned money to the priests of the gods of chance.

  A cruiser pulled up in the alley to meet us. Its doors sprang open, and Ling said, "Hop in." The cat and I climbed in front, the doors closed and locked, and the cruiser drove silently away.

  I looked back at the cops in the alley. "She didn't even wave."

  "Can we get out of this thing?"

  "If for some reason we wanted to—" I met the cat's slitted eyes. "—we'd find the windows are shatterproof and the drivebox can't be opened without special tools. But since we're just trying to help the police with some problem they have, it's reassuring to know that we're safe in here. And if, God forbid, something put us in danger, we're fortunate that the car's microphones will pick up our cries for help."

  "My. That is a relief." The cat leaned back in her seat, brought her knees up to her chest, and hugged her legs as she watched L.A. speeding by the window.

  I watched the scenery, too. I know this town well, but it was odd to travel the streets without stopping to pay to use any of them. The cruiser slid into the automated lanes of the Ventura Tollway, and we raced silently at 200 hundred kilometers an hour toward downtown.

  Chapter Two

  It was a night for back doors. The next on the tour belonged to the new police headquarters. Two cops, one human, male and beginning to wrinkle, and one bot, sexless and stainless, met our cruiser. There's nothing impressive about the rear entrance, beyond the fact that its smooth surfaces must be easy to clean. Below a Christmas wreath, someone had slapped a small sticker on the glasteel door that read, "Garbage in, garbage out."

  The copbot directed us through the building with simple commands: "Forward." "Left." "Halt." The cat kept me between her and the bot, and she watched it constantly. A few states had banned copbots, but I couldn't remember if Minnesota was one.

  The human cop never said a word as we walked a long hall, then rode the elevator. Since we weren't exactly prisoners and we weren't exactly guests, his compromise between intimidation and civility was that all-purpose emotion of the underpaid civil servant, boredom.

  They left us in a small waiting room with a holovision set. I looked out. A copbot stood at attention in the hall. I tried the door. Locked.

  The cat dropped onto a couch and said, "Any idea how long we wait?"

  "They have any reason to be nice to you?"

  "No."

  "Me, neither."

  So we watched HV. Adam Tromploy, KCAL's digicaster who seems as artificial to me as any human news anchor, gave us the day's events, starting with the proposed Chimera Rights Resolution. It was facing fierce challenges in the U.N.'s General Assembly; the likelihood of passage was "not good."

  "Some surprise," the cat said, curling up on the couch and closing her golden eyes. "Like the genomeries would free their property out of the goodness of their hearts."

  The next news item brought her to the edge of the couch—a werewolfing in an Italian restaurant in New York City, the fifth in that city this year. The restaurant's security-cam caught most of the action:

  A shaggy apeman in a busboy's uniform was carrying dishes through a room filled with human diners when he staggered. His tray slipped from his hand. Plates, glasses, and cutlery clattered onto the hardwood floor as he doubled over, clutching his chest. Customers turned and stared. A human in a white jacket, probably the maitre d', hurried up to him, looking angry. Then the apeman reared up. Before the human could speak, the apeman snapped the guy's neck, threw him against the dessert cart, and tore into a man and a woman at the nearest table.

  In less than thirty seconds, the ape killed four humans and a dogwoman waiter who tried to stop him. Her sacrifice gave everyone else time to get out. When the cops arrived, they opened fire with bullets, not sleep darts. The first shots barely slowed him. He tore open a copbot before he finally fell under the hail of police fire.

  As medics carried out the dead and wounded in the background, a man in a bloody shirt gave the usual werewolfing victim's spiel: One, it attacked anything that moved. Two, how could anyone want to give critters equal rights when one of them might begin a killing spree at any time?

  In the interest of the appearance of balanced reporting, some guy came on with a subtitle proclaiming him a real scientist. He gave the usual chimera expert's spiel: One, statistically, genetically enhanced creatures are not significantly more likely to go berserk than humans. Two, we've given chimeras our virtues; should we be surprised if they have our vices, too?

  The cat's eyes closed again when Tromploy began talking about AIs competing for the world chess championship in Jerusalem. I could've dozed then, too. The contest may've officially been between Indigo 74 and AI-LL23C, but it seemed more like free advertising for Chain Logic and Apple IBM, the companies that designed them.

  I looked out the door again. So far as I could tell, we had been forgotten. I said, "Why me?"

  The cat answered without opening her eyes. "I didn't take you for the philosophical type."

  "I wasn't asking why I had to have my game interrupted—"

  "Which you would've lost anyway."

  "Without getting in hock to you."

  Her eyelids flicked open as she gave me a sideways glance, dark slitted pupils at the edge of golden eyes. "Refresh my memory. When did I force you to take all of my money?"

  One point for the cat. I turned back to the HV.

  We watched the usual unpromising news about efforts to restore the ozone layer, and another border dispute between North and South California over homeless people heading north for welfare benefits. The Chief Justice announced that the Supreme Court would consider whether the laws of the Arizona theocracy were in violation of the First Amendment, Arizona's Christian Party governor announced the state legislature would consider whether the Supreme Court was in violation of the Decentralization Amendment, and the President's spokeswoman said no Federal troops would be sent to impose the will of nine old men and women on the free people of Arizona. Then the chairwoman of one of the human football leagues complained about the growing popularity of the chimera league, saying that for their safety, chimera players ought to wear helmets and padding like their counterparts in the human leagues.

  "Que altruist," the cat said.

  When Elvis and Marilyn sims began singing about the cocaine being back in Coca-Cola, I turned to the cat and tried again. "What I meant was, why'd you come to me? Or is that something you'd rather not talk about now?"

  "I called some other agencies. The first three were very friendly, until they heard I was calling for myself, not my owner."

  "You've got an owner?"

  "No. I called four more detectives with the camera turned off. None of them would work for cash."

  "Why'd you think I'd be any different?"

  "I was calling from a bar in Crit
tertown. The Tavern of Dr. Moreau."

  It's a small place on Lankershim with cheap beer, no decor to mention, and every Tuesday night, a house band consisting of four chimeras and a human on sax that played the finest wildsong in L.A. They didn't welcome humans, but they didn't discourage us, either—one afternoon, I overheard a chimera ask, "What's a skin doing in a fur bar?" and the weaselman behind the counter answered, "Keeping his tab paid up. Which is more than I can say for some."

  I didn't think anyone at Moreau's knew my name, but the cat anticipated that question. She said, "I asked the barman if he knew any detectives who would work for chimeras. He said there was a skin that might be worth a call. He dug your card out of a big glass bowl, some kind of drawing for dinner for two at Beauty and the Beast's. That's when I got your recording."

  "I hope you put the card back in after you called."

  She smiled at that. "Relax, Mr. Maxwell. I did."

  "Call me Max."

  The smile faded.

  "Or don't, Ms. Domingo. You're the client."

  She nodded. "It's nothing personal. You have a policy about working for chimeras. I have a policy about humans with policies about chimeras."

  "I broke mine."

  "Because you can't afford to pay me back. If you'd known what I was, would you have taken my case?"

  There were a lot of things I might've said. I settled for the truth. "No."

  "I don't see any reason to compromise my principles, Mr. Maxwell."

  "You're claiming the moral high ground, when you presented yourself as—" I remembered that the room had to be bugged and stopped the sentence there. I glanced twice at the ceiling to remind her that they would love for us to give them something useful.

  She glared at me, breathed once in exasperation, then breathed again more calmly and said, "I needed to get to you as soon as possible."

  "Ah. Necessity is a principle now."

  "What would you know about necessity?"

  "I know that principles you abandon in the face of necessity don't deserve the name."

  "That's easy for a human to say, Mr. Maxwell."

  I looked at my watch. Zoe Domingo would be my client for another twenty-two hours and ten minutes. I said, "Did I mention I get eight hours off for sleep, an hour each for meals, and as many bathroom breaks as I want?"