The Easytown Box Set

by Brian Parker

  Ladeaux slapped the desk lightly. “I love talking shop with you, Detective, but I’m a busy man and you didn’t come here to learn about sex droids. You were discussing your raids on the cybernetic enhancement facilities, what is it that I can do for you?”

  “Do you know a Farouk Karimov? He works for you here in the Dockyards.”

  “Hmm…” Voodoo tapped his screen and said, “Farouk Karimov.”

  A holographic rendering of Karimov appeared over the desk between us. He used his hands to rotate the image, spreading his fingers to zoom in on the hologram’s face.

  Shaking his head, Voodoo tapped a folder icon which brought up a few strings of text. “Says he works as a stevedore in Warehouse Six and Dock Four,” he said. “Never seen him before. What did he do?”

  “His name has come up a few times in connection with an ongoing investigation and I’ve been unable to talk to him at his residence.”

  “His file says he’s at work today.” He hit a few more keys and a map of the complex came up. “We’re here,” he stated, showing me the Marie Leveau Shipping Company headquarters on the hologram. A line shot from the headquarters, following along several roads and pathways until it terminated at a warehouse. “This is Warehouse Six.”

  “Thanks,” I said. “Mind if I go over there and ask a few questions?”

  Voodoo leaned back. “I wouldn’t have shown you where it was if I wasn’t okay with you going down there.”

  “Alright. Thank you, Mr. Ladeaux,” I said, standing. “I’m gonna go down there, have a look around, and ask some questions. Nothing major.”

  Voodoo stood up as well. He leaned across, stretching out his hand. “Please don’t shoot the place up, Detective. It’s bad for business and hell on the insurance.”

  I shook his offered hand; I owed him that much with all the help he’d given me. “I’m not going down there to get into a fight,” I assured him. “But Karimov owes me some serious answers about a few things and I intend to get them—today.”

  SIXTEEN: THURSDAY

  The Jeep wound around the Dockyards’ narrow roads toward Warehouse Six. The road was gravel, as most of the entire area seemed to be. From what I could tell as I looked out the windows, the roads were little more than pathways made from giant shipping containers, laid out like a maze. The containers towered above me two or three high in most places.

  The path was relatively straight-forward with only a few turns that were different from what Tommy Voodoo had shown me. The shipping containers had been rearranged into the winding corridor that I found myself in now, making me wonder when the last time the CEO had left the headquarters building to check on his employees.

  The Jeep did a decent job of navigating the shipping containers, but there were a few times when it had to stop, reverse and go back the way we’d came from to try a different route. I felt vulnerable in that corridor for the entire time I was in there. It wouldn’t take much to block it off and then someone could take their time to eliminate a threat against them. I hated being in the shadows of those containers.

  It took about eight minutes for the Jeep to get to Warehouse Six. The massive, grey cinderblock building seemed indistinguishable from the others I’d seen through gaps in the shipping container walls other than a large number “6” painted above the hangar-style doors. A constant stream of large tractors carrying forty-foot containers from a cargo ship moved in and out of the warehouse as smaller forklifts darted around and between them, placing smaller containers in semi-trucks lined up to haul the goods to their next destination. It appeared to be a carefully choreographed dance, with the participants narrowly skirting disaster at every turn.

  The larger containers were being unloaded from a ship flying a Japanese flag; nothing interesting there, other than the fact that they’d had to sail completely around South America to get here. I assumed it was cheaper than disgorging their contents on the West Coast and driving them overland to the Midwest. But what did I know. It may have just been more convenient.

  “Andi, can you run a track on the ship being unloaded now?”

  “Sure. What are the hull identification numbers printed on the side of the ship?”

  I read a long string of numbers and she came back instantly, telling me the boat was registered to a shipping company in Kitakyushu, Japan. Their cargo manifest stated that they were bringing in containers from various technology companies, including one that specialized in robotics.

  After observing the controlled chaos before me, I directed the Jeep to park about three hundred feet away from the warehouse. I decided to walk the rest of the way in, that way my car wouldn’t get crushed by an errant tractor or dropped shipping container.

  I dodged the tractors with the forty-foot containers, learning quickly that they couldn’t see an individual on the ground around their cargo. The more-numerous and smaller forklifts were harder to avoid, but they could also see where they going, so I didn’t feel they were nearly as dangerous as the bigger ones and chose my path to the doorway based on where they were.

  The sun from this morning had carried over to the afternoon and I was sweating slightly by the time I pulled open the door to what I assumed was the office. New Orleans would guarantee I got wet one way or another.

  It took a moment for my eyes to adjust to the dimness inside the building. When they did, I realized I’d walked directly into a short hallway. Three doors on either side led to smaller offices and a doorway at the end bore the sign “Hard hats required beyond this point.”

  “Hello?” I called out.

  “Yeah? Come on in. Third door on the right.”

  As I walked down the hallway, I realized the doors on the left weren’t offices as I’d thought they were. One was a break room and the other two were restrooms. The first two doors on the right were closed and unmarked. That only left the last doorway, which was open.

  “Hi,” I said to the fat, balding man behind a desk stacked high with memory drives, files, and empty food containers.

  “Can I help you?” he asked.

  “Yeah. I’m Detective Zach Forrest from the NOPD,” I replied, showing my badge. “I’m looking for a worker that the company headquarters says works in this warehouse.”

  He grunted. “Okay. Who you lookin’ for, pal?”

  “A stevedore. Guy named Karimov. Farouk Karimov. You know where I can find him?”

  “Aww, Christ! What did that dumb sonofabitch do now?” The guy didn’t even try to hide his disgust and anger that painted his face.

  “Does he have a record of creating problems for you?” I asked.

  “He’s lazy as all get out, but not really a problem-maker, I guess. He misses about three or four days a month, but the damn union is so tight that I can’t fire the guy. He’s always got some excuse that’s part of the excused absences section of the union contract. I swear. One day I’m gonna catch him lying about an absence. That I can fire him for.”

  “Where’s he at now? I need to speak to him about a few things.”

  The chair squeaked pitifully as the foreman shifted his bulk, rotating the chair until he faced a grossly out-of-date computer screen that had to be at least fifty years old. He tapped a few keys on an antiquated plastic keyboard and hundreds of icons appeared on the screen. He moved around some strange device connected by a wire that made the cursor on his screen move until he clicked on a file folder. Then he scrolled through an alphabetical list of names, resting the cursor over Karimov’s name and then he clicked again.

  All of the dots disappeared except for one, moving slowly across the screen. He used the device to chase the dot until the cursor was over it and he clicked down. “Says he’s in a smaller forklift inside the warehouse right now, moving cargo from a container over that way,” he gestured toward the far left corner of the warehouse. “Oh, you’re in luck, it’s a yellow one, so just look for a yellow forklift and then stop the guy when you see him.”

  “Thanks,” I replied.

  “No p
roblem. I hope you bust that slacker so I can fire him and get a decent worker in here.”

  I didn’t bother to shake the foreman’s hand, I really didn’t have time to get sick from whatever was growing in that man’s office. He turned back to whatever he’d been doing when I walked in, and a strange sucking sound came from behind me. Not gonna look back at that, I told myself.

  I don’t know what kind of luck the foreman thought I had, but telling me to look for a yellow forklift was like telling a beekeeper that you wanted to find one particular bee. Yellow forklifts zoomed by in all directions. About the only other color that was as prevalent as yellow was a dark green. The rest were blue, red, and an occasional white one. At least my search was narrowed in half.

  I’d only seen Karimov in person once, and that was from far away during the riot against droids. I’d seen his mugshots and identification card photos and a video of him at the Liquid Genesis when it got attacked. As I stood there, swaying slightly to avoid the closest of the forklifts, I wondered again at Karimov’s connection with the mass shooting that left thirty-two people dead and another sixty-plus injured.

  Corrigan worked for Karimov, and he got his weapons from Terri Solomon. There were lots of cryptic files at Solomon’s shop indicating that “K” purchased cybernetic upgrades and weaponry. It was circumstantial, at best, but I knew without a doubt that the letter referred to Karimov. So why, then, did Solomon’s two bodyguards shoot up the club where he was at? It didn’t make any sense.

  Too late, my mind registered a yellow flash barreling straight toward me.

  The edge of one metal fork glanced off my hipbone as I dove sideways to avoid impalement from the yellow forklift. When I landed, pain exploded across my pelvis. Even that glancing blow had been enough to shatter my hipbone.

  I struggled to get up, but my leg wouldn’t respond. Out of my periphery, I saw the forklift wheeling for another pass. I dragged myself as quickly as I could, trying to make it to the cover of a pallet stacked high with boxes. I thought that if I could put it between me and the forklift, I’d—

  What? Get crushed against the side of the pallet? I chided myself.

  I rolled onto my back, abandoning the foolish effort to crawl away, and drew my gun. The yellow forklift that had hit me was coming toward me fast. I lifted my arm wearily, aiming at the Plexiglas windshield. A smear of bright white from the lights overhead marred the surface, obscuring the driver, so I couldn’t tell who it was.

  I fired once, twice, a third time at where the driver should have been, but the machine kept coming, undeterred by my ineffectual bullets. There wasn’t enough time to switch to the Aegis.

  I was going to be crushed.

  “Shots fired, boss,” Andi’s voice came through my earpiece. “Do you require assistance?”

  I ignored her; there were more pressing concerns at the moment. I cried out in pain, pushing through the physical anguish as I threw my body out of the path of the forklift. It passed by so close that if I’d been wearing my raincoat, it would have ran over the hem.

  My stomach churned, and my vision swam. My body was reacting to the trauma. If it shut down on me, I was a goner.

  The forklift began to turn again and I fumbled for the Aegis, but my fingers couldn’t grasp the handle. They did, however, accidentally push against where my hipbone should have been, sending new waves of agony through my body.

  “Pretty sure my hip is crushed,” I groaned, hoping Andi was monitoring closely.

  Squealing tires announced that the forklift had completed its turn and was bearing down on me. I didn’t have the energy to move like I had a moment ago. I tried, but my body refused to respond.

  So this is it then? I asked myself. All those years of work, just to give up now? Get up! Kick this guy’s ass!

  The pep talk strengthened my resolve and I tried to move again. My body still wouldn’t react. The lower half of my body had simply stopped listening to what I told it to do.

  I stared helplessly at the yellow blur bearing down on me. I was done for.

  Then, another forklift slammed into the side of my attacker. The yellow forklift skidded sideways, and its wheels left the ground as the second machine began lifting its forks. In seconds, the momentum had taken over and the forklift that had hit me toppled sideways, crashing to the warehouse floor onto its side.

  A man leapt from the machine and ran toward the back of the large building. He quickly disappeared between the lines of tractors and shipping containers. From what I could tell, he was slim, average height, and had dark, slicked-back hair. No way of telling if it was Karimov.

  I yelled, trying to get the other workers to stop the fleeing attacker, but they couldn’t hear me over the sounds of the heavy machinery.

  “Andi, call an ambulance and a couple of black and whites.”

  “Got it. How badly are you injured?”

  “Can’t move my legs. Hip broken.”

  A woman stepped out of the forklift that had saved me, and walked over to where I lay. She eyed my gun warily and said, “Hey, mister. You ’kay?”

  “Yeah,” I croaked. “I’m not dead, thanks to you. You saved my life.”

  I wasn’t dead, but I felt like it. I

  “Twer’t no thing,” she said, smiling. “What’d you do to get that guy all riled up?”

  “I’m a cop,” I replied through gritted teeth. Don’t pass out. Don’t pass out. Don’t pass out. “Needed to talk to him…” I took a deep breath before continuing. “About his possible connection with a murder.”

  “Oh. You’s out here causin’ trouble,” she grumbled. “No wonder he try to kill you. I let Bobby know you’re here, but I don’t have no business with the cops.”

  “I’m not—” I stopped myself, grimacing as I tried to sit up. No dice; my body wouldn’t let me move. I was used to people not wanting to be around police officers, and especially not wanting to be seen helping one out. This woman had saved my life, but she hadn’t known I was a cop.

  “Thank you for saving my life, ma’am.”

  “Mmm hmm. I go get Bobby.”

  I watched her hop back in her forklift and zoom past me toward the office. Within seconds of her entering the office, a series of flashing yellow lights set into the ceiling began to rotate high above me. Then, all the forklifts, tractors, and trucks stopped moving. I couldn’t tell if the operators shut down their machines or if they were somehow centrally controlled. It didn’t really matter, what did count was that hundreds of angry workers dismounted their equipment and formed a semi-circle around me. If they weren’t moving cargo, they weren’t getting paid, and they weren’t moving cargo because of me, the idiot lying on the floor.

  “Uh, hi guys,” I offered weakly.

  The angry questions began immediately, demanding to know who I was, what I was doing there, and how I got hurt. “Andi, ETA on those black and whites?”

  “Three minutes until they reach the Dockyards.”

  Great. This mob could tear me apart in that time.

  Bobby, the fat, balding foreman I’d spoken to earlier appeared, riding on an industrial hoverskiff. He had the workers clear a space around me. “Now what’d you go and shut down my operation for?” he asked.

  “I have a knack for—”

  “He a cop!” a woman’s voice rang out. I looked to the source and saw the lady who’d helped me walking back from the direction of the office where her forklift was shut down like all the others.

  The angry crowd became menacing. Bobby abandoned his attempts to talk to me and began speaking to the workers.

  “You fellas get back to your stations,” he ordered. “As soon as I can scoop this guy up off the floor, we’ll get back to work.”

  Angry shouts answered him. “Pig lover!” “Company man!” “String ’em both up!” “He goin’ after Farouk.”

  That last one was from my lovely female savior, who’d turned out to be not so cooperative after she found out who I was.

  “Now, now,” Bob
by said, holding up his hands. “Unsanctioned gatherings are grounds for immediate dismissal. The union has agreed to that stipulation. This is all just a misunderstanding.”

  “He gon’ try to stop the kickbacks,” someone shouted.

  That seemed to do the trick, breaking the hold that the threat of firing had over the crowd. They began to advance toward me.

  The ear-shattering screech of rending sheet metal stopped everyone in their tracks. Above us, a police drone rocketed through the hole it’d torn in the roof. It settled on spindly legs between me and the angry workers, narrowly missing Bobby.

  “Citizens, you are ordered to disperse,” it stated, the words amplified by the large, open warehouse. “Threatening a police officer is grounds for termination.”

  The drone didn’t mean getting fired from their jobs, and the workers understood immediately. They retreated backward several feet, casting angry glares my way.

  “Detective Zachary Forrest,” the drone continued. “You are being evacuated from this situation. Do not resist.”

  I didn’t have time to protest or warn the drone about my broken hip. It wrapped several rubbery tentacles around my legs, torso, and midsection. I screamed in anguish as the tentacles tightened around my waist. Then the drone lifted into the air and shot upward through the hole in the roof.

  I passed out before I had the opportunity to enjoy the clear, blue sky above.

  SEVENTEEN: SATURDAY

  “Like hell, Drake,” I spat, sitting up gingerly in the hospital bed. “I’m going back in.”

  “Detective, you don’t need to. SWAT has this.”

  “I didn’t go through surgery and two days of regenerative genetic stimulation to sit on the sidelines while someone else did my job. Karimov is my responsibility and I started this whole mess by not bringing him in when I had the chance.”

  Admittedly, the ‘chance’ I referenced was ended by me getting my right hip broken in six places by a six-foot length of steel, but that was beside the point.

  “That’s a bunch of macho bullshit, Detective. And you know it.”