by Greg Curtis
“It's the same! Exactly the same! A guilty suspect with absolutely no motive. A trail of evidence pointing straight at him. And an innocent man set up. Maybe that's all part of the bomber's plan.” And then another thought occurred to her. There could be other similarities.
“Did anyone check to see that the man in the station was actually Barclay Hamilton and not another android double?” She reasoned that if they had one why not more?
That drew a response and she noticed the Major flinching in surprise. He turned to the technicians monitoring the feeds and asked the same question simply by raising an eyebrow. Some desperate tapping of keyboards ensued, followed by the technicians studying whatever the holos showed them. A few minutes later came an answer.
“Inconclusive, sir.”
Inconclusive? Annalisse thought about that. And then she realised that the technician was always going to say that. There was so little recorded of the man in the station. The man – or android – had seemed to almost know where every camera was so he could avoid it. They hadn’t found a single clean image of him, which must mean something. The doors would be no use this time. Whether he was an imposter human or an android, they wouldn't have recognised him. However, there was one thing that would.
“The lights! Check the lights! Lights won't turn on for an android.” Androids could see perfectly well in the dark. So if a man wandered through the station the spotlights would switch on and off to illuminate his way through darker areas and save power. For an android only the background lights would remain on.
The technicians again started tapping away frantically to find out if she could be right, until one finally turned back to the Major.
“The lights didn't recognise a biological being, sir.” He sounded almost disappointed.
“Then –?”
“Then it's another trap Major.” Annalisse jumped in again despite it not being her place. “The man has been set up and no doubt the bots – at least one of them – has been reprogrammed to kill him.”
“These are military bots Detective Samara.” The Major's voice rose slightly in anger. There was no chance in all of space that he was ever going to accept that the Navy had fallen down somewhere. That would be an insult to the uniform he wore.
“And we have a hacker with serious skills, Major.” She kept her voice calm. “Policebots are also very secure and the bomber got through their safeties. And as always, nothing connected to the mesh is secure.”
The Major glared at her. His face was a storm of emotions – none of them good. But he finally came to a decision.
“Shards! Stand down!” It sounded almost as though he was chewing on broken glass as he spat out the command. “Alright Detective Samara, we'll play this your way. One officer and his bot will enter the premises and speak with the suspect. The rest will stand back. But if this goes wrong...” He let the rest trail off but it was clear to everyone in the room that it was a threat.
Annalisse was more concerned about sending in a bot with an officer. That was where everything had gone wrong the last time. Still, there were thirty machines there, and it seemed highly unlikely that the bomber could have reprogrammed all of them. The odds were in their favour. She held her tongue for once. Why make things even more unpleasant?
Events went smoothly after that. They watched an officer and his bot walk casually down the path between rows of composting soil, and then past the sheds filled with heavy equipment. Along the way the pair passed workers, all of whom looked at them in surprise. They didn't often see a naval officer and a warbot in the plant.
Finally, after going past the solar incinerator which cooked the alien soil, they approached the plant office and knocked on the door. Tension immediately filled the room, because everyone knew that this was the moment when something, if it was going to go wrong, would.
But nothing did. Instead Annalisse watched as the suspect, far from trying to run or attack them, opened the door and after a moment's obvious surprise, let them in. Barclay Hamilton even sat them down in the waiting area and had refreshments brought. He was showing all the signs of an innocent man and Annalisse breathed a few small sighs of relief. Granted the man looked shocked and even a little frightened – but that was only to be expected.
Then he did the one thing that criminals never did when they were asked questions. He answered them, simply, directly and as accurately as possible. Computers flashed up information and his receptionist brought records as fast as she could. The man didn't seem to have a single thought of resisting. In fact he wanted to help. He'd witnessed the bombing, and he wanted the bomber brought to justice. As he said the crime was about more than just people, it was about the future of the world. Everyone had to eat.
As the interview continued the man provided them with an alibi. It wasn't much of one – he'd been at the plant on the day in question as he was every day. But they could check that out. The plant was fully automated and it knew where everyone was all the time.
Things were going well Annalisse thought. And even the Major looked a little less angry. She would have said relaxed except that she didn't think he knew how to do that. The man was all tension and sharp edges. But there had been no drama, no one had been shot, and no ships had jumped tearing great holes in any buildings. And perhaps they had a new lead. Somewhere in Hamilton's close circle of acquaintances was a traitor who’d sent his biometric data to the bomber. They still didn't have the android, but she had an idea about that too now that they knew there was one.
The officer was a competent interrogator as the Navy would no doubt call him. Having realised that they were dealing with an android copy he'd quickly turned his line of questioning to finding out who had access to the man's biometric data and scheduling. Who could have betrayed him so that an android could be built based on him. The officer was getting all that he needed and maybe a little more. Hamilton was being very cooperative.
After a while Annalisse found herself relaxing and taking the whole thing in like a holodrama. Just as she surmised the others were too. Finally they were making progress. There was a chance they would finally gain a jump on the bomber.
Until the Major gave the order to the rest of the squad to return to base. That was when the operation fell apart.
Instantly he gave the order three warbots stood up and, instead of returning to the waiting vehicles, advanced on the reclamation plant and the office.
It took her a second or two to understand why, just like it took everyone else – but then she did. They were going to kill Barclay Hamilton. It was too late, the man had given his evidence, – but they were still going to do it. They had been going to kill him during the take down. But even though plan A had failed, their programming still said to kill him.
“Shards they're going for the witness!” she yelled it at the Major and he in turn gave orders to stop them and defend the witness. She just hoped his bots had better ability to obey commands than the policebots had. The machines were closing the gap quickly. They were much faster than police models, almost appearing to run across the grass.
Then, an already bad situation became unexpectedly worse as the entire perimeter of the plant became a warzone. Officers fired on the three bots, and they in turn fired back. It seemed their program had been upgraded to include self-defence. Lasers beams filled the air but these weren't the weak units that officers carried nor even the more powerful units the policebots carried. They were military spec'd units which carried a devastating punch.
She couldn't see the laser blasts themselves, but she could see what they hit. Trees exploded and buildings caught fire. Compost rows burst into flame sending huge clouds of black smoke skywards. Even the grass itself was aflame. Most terrible of all soldiers were dying, their body armour no match for the warbots' weapons. As for the machines themselves, they’d begun glowing. All three who had broken away to attack the witness, along with several others.
For the second time in two weeks Annalisse fou
nd herself witnessing officers dying. She heard screams of pain and confused cries of those caught in the battle. And she hated it.
The only good news was that there were only three machines in the breakaway group. That was more than they'd faced before, but it was still only three. Up against a force ten times as numerous they didn't last long, one by one turning bright orange and exploding, sending huge fireballs upwards.
When it was all over, six military police officers were dead and another dozen were badly wounded. Smoke covered the battlefield and fires burned out of control. The compost rows were ablaze, and it looked as if the fire was spreading.
Worst was the silence. People had stopped yelling and crying, a few were sobbing and moaning in pain. More were calling for help. Most said little as they tended to their fallen comrades. Many were confused, looking as if they'd taken blows to the head. Others had tear-streaked cheeks. Medbots and ambulances were no doubt on their way. The noise would return, but at that moment a shocked silence was holding everyone in its grip.
Annalisse was silent too. Even having warned everyone that their enemy was a capable hacker, she hadn't expected a pitched battle. No one had expected any casualties. This was supposed to have been a simple mission to arrest the wrongdoer. Instead it had turned into another melée as their enemy had once more shown his surprising strength.
Still they had their witness. He was alive and well, and no doubt would be motivated to tell them anything and everything he knew. It had been a costly victory, but it was still a victory, and she knew a brief moment of cheer when the holos showed him walking flanked by officers and the warbot, heading towards the waiting floaters. He looked shocked and scared, his face completely white. But he was alive and in protective custody. They had finally won something.
Until another blast came from out of nowhere and Annalisse heard him scream in agony before falling to the ground covered in flames.
Annalisse gasped in shock. Even though the bot which had fired was swiftly brought to the ground in hail of laser beams, it simply couldn't take anything away from the sense of disbelief and failure that overwhelmed her.
It was a failure. They’d been outwitted again. The bomber had sent three bots in to draw their attention, creating a firefight which had killed or injured many. But he had left one back guessing what would happen after. They should have put the man in protective clothing, or taken him out the back. They should have thought of all the possibilities. They hadn't and now another man had died.
There was no chance that Barclay Hamilton was alive. Even the officer kneeling beside him wasn't trying to save him, not even putting out the flames. The chances were that their witness didn't have much left in the way of a chest any longer.
The Major quickly realised that there were things to do. He had a crime scene to secure and evidence to bag. There would have to be a complete forensic and digital examination. He started issuing commands. But really it was too late.
Maybe they would find something eventually, some clue as to why this man had been targeted and who had sent his data to the bomber. Annalisse wasn't hopeful though. The bomber had to know what they would do – if there was anything to find, he would no doubt have plans to make sure that they didn't find it. Annalisse turned away from the holo screens, unable to look at the devastation or at the distant spectators who had once been Hamilton's staff. Soon people would be asking how this could have happened. Asking her. But what could she tell them?
For a brief moment they had had hope. Now they were left with nothing. There no words to describe how great her sense of failure was right then.
Chapter Eleven
Life in the New Andreas Station was quiet these days. No one laughed or joked anymore, and no one boasted of how they would bring down the bomber quickly then return to their real work defending the Commonwealth and keeping sailors in line. Now it was the turn of the military officers to deal with their grief and shock as best they could. There wasn't much to say at such a time.
At least the arrogance had gone. The Navy had been humbled and it was all over the mesh. The biggest military operation on Aquaria in years, and it had turned into a complete floater crash. Everywhere they went these days – most especially the Major – they were hounded by citizen reporters. Everything they said out in the open was spied on. Everything they didn't say was analysed.
It was simply a part of life in this modern age, which she’d long ago got used to. She'd learned to never say anything in public that could be overheard, or anything that could be misconstrued or used against her. But this was different. She'd never seen so many citizen reporters in her life. She'd never had so many people clamouring for comments.
Reporters surrounded the soil reclamation plant too, even though it was now a crime scene and the only people there were forensic technicians. If there was a link between Hamilton and the bomber as there surely had to be, it wasn't going to be found on anything connected to the mesh. So the chances were that it would be stored on holochips, secreted somewhere around the plant, which was why the technicians were hunting high and low for anything that could possibly contain them.
It wouldn't last Annalisse knew, neither the media frenzy nor the broken spirits of the naval officers. And already more personnel were on their way, with more equipment and resources. Major Standish was gone. Although he still lived in his office, and still issued orders everyone knew that the operation’s failure was seen as being his fault. His career was over. He was to be replaced by another, more experienced officer who, Annalisse knew, the bomber would also try to humble. It seemed that humiliating the authorities was a part of the bomber’s modus operandi.
There was also no doubt that he had access to highly secure databases, a fact they couldn't explain. Not just those of the ALEB or bot maintenance programs, the Commonwealth military ones as well. A more seasoned officer from Naval Command was necessary: anyone who had access to those databases was a threat to the Commonwealth.
Meanwhile for her part Annalisse was going back over the details of the incidents, looking for whatever they might have missed. No one, no matter how clever, could have covered everything.
No one was preventing her from accessing the details of the cases anymore. No one objected any longer to her doing her job. People looked at her occasionally when she asked for various files and evidence to be sent to her terminal, and maybe they thought about saying no. In the end no one objected. They just looked at her with bleak eyes, then pressed the buttons giving her what she wanted. Any protests about unapproved police officers having access to secure information would have rung hollow when they now knew the bomber had all the access he wanted. No doubt when the new commanding officer arrived that would change. But for the moment she had a case to solve and that was what she was going to do.
Too many were dead. Good, honest police. Soldiers too. The sharding bastard had to be caught.
When she did finally find her smoking laser barrel though, it wasn't in the restricted files. It was in the background information and she nearly missed it – as had everyone else. Something about a string of letters and numbers on an addendum struck her and she read them again.
A type 23 BLS.
It was listed on Barclay Hamilton's company inventory. She knew that model only too well. Because that was what the fake Doctor Simons android had been. What were the chances that Barclay Hamilton's soil reclamation company had one as well? Not great considering how expensive they were. You could get a bangbot for two hundred thousand credits or a specialist worker android for the same. These models, with enhanced neural capacity, cost ten times that. Emotional intelligence was expensive. But maybe that was a part of why the company had one. It was the perfect employee for dealing with difficult customers. And the police were looking for someone who could have sent Barclay Hamilton's biometric data to the bomber. Why couldn't that someone be an android?
Annalisse let a flush of hope surge through her. She had a lead. A coinciden
ce maybe, but it was more than she'd had before. And she had to know if they had more than just that. She brought up the records for the third android, the one which had pretended to be Barclay Hamilton, her fingers trembling with excitement.
They didn't have much since it had done its very best to avoid the recorders. However, as she read through the list of possible android models it could be - a type 23 BLS was on it. Now she had two of them and a possible third. That was surely more than a coincidence.
That left one more betrayal to uncover. Someone had also sent Dr. Simon's biometric data to the bomber so that a replica could be built. And what was the bet that somewhere in his immediate circle of acquaintances was a type 23 BLS?
It wasn't long before she found his android companion and its model.
Annalisse nearly fell over in her seat when she read it. She sat staring at the data on the little holo unit, wondering whether to laugh or cry. She had her smoking laser barrel and it was burning hot. It wasn't the bots, nor was it a hacker as everyone had expected. It wasn't even the technicians, who were now all being interrogated around the clock. It was the sharding androids! One model of them, corrupted somehow.
“Newman!” She called across to her deskmate. He was military police and had spent ages looking down at her – until three days ago. Now he just looked dejected, his long face even more so than usual. Some of those who had died had probably been his friends.
“Yes.” He didn't bother looking up at her, choosing instead to keep reading the documents in front of him. He hadn't looked up in ages nor had he flipped a page on the holoreader.
“Get Major Standish please. Tell him it's urgent.”
“Get him yourself.”
“I can't!” she said, letting her annoyance show. “He won't see me.” He refused to see anyone while waiting to be replaced and probably demoted after an official enquiry. It was no doubt the shame and frustration which was robbing him of his will as he’d realised they’d been even more badly humbled than the police. He did sometimes let his own people enter his office however.
