by Mel Odom
I took a step to the side, positioning myself so Tony was more toward the periphery of her vision. I wanted her focused on me, not him. “They argued about finances that night?”
“Yeah. It got pretty ugly.”
That hadn’t been in the reports I’d read, but it coincided with what I had discovered by trolling through Adrian Graham’s bank records. “You didn’t mention this when you talked to the other investigators.”
Simone shrugged and the snake flicked its black tongue. “Finances are a big deal in this business. Trina was making more than Adrian. He kind of saw cred as a community property. He spent his money, and hers, too.”
“She didn’t approve of that.”
“Would you?” As soon as she spoke, Simone put a hand over her mouth. “I guess maybe you wouldn’t know.”
“Not personally, but I do understand that financial concerns are potentially devastating in relationships.”
“Yeah. Definitely that.” Simone dropped her cigarette and crushed it with one of her spiked heels. Tiny orange coals scattered, flared briefly, then winked out. “That was what was wrong with Trina that night. She found out Adrian had gotten into her rainy day cred.”
I knew what “rainy day cred” was only because Shelly had explained it to me. It was cred that the owner had put back for stressful times, or for some dream. I wondered what Trina Oakes had been saving for—a hope or a fear. It would have given me a better understanding of her.
“You didn’t mention this to the other investigators.”
“No.” Simone wrapped her arms around herself. “We’re kind of a closed group here. We don’t like anyone talking to anyone from the outside.”
Tony spoke up in a sarcastic tone. “Can’t get you to shut up now, can we?”
Simone glared at Tony. “That was before I got me a dose of Adrian. The guy is trouble.”
“You were involved with Adrian Graham?” I spoke without accusation.
“For a little while…after Trina…we got together. I thought we’d both lost somebody. Thought maybe we’d do better missing her together than apart.” Simone pursed her lips angrily. “I was wrong.”
“Why didn’t you come forward to the police?”
“With what? The fact that they fought over finances?” Simone shook her head. “Everybody in this business does that. Their problem was that people come here to watch the dancers, not listen to music. They can listen to music at home. But the dancers here? We’re not synthskin, we’re not chipped, and we’re totally human. Maybe other guys got kinks for clones and anatomically correct bioroids, but not our crowd. They like real women.”
Tony snorted derisively. “There’s not a dancer in this place that’s real.”
She cursed at him.
“Do you remember any of the specifics of Trina Oakes’s argument that night with Adrian Graham?”
“Something to do with Adrian’s grandmother.”
“You don’t remember anything else?”
Simone shook her head. “No. Adrian lost his grandma around the same time. She left him a lot of cred shortly after Trina died.”
That was what I had discovered. No one else had caught it.
I looked at Simone. “You have fourteen seconds left on the song. Thank you for your time.”
She nodded.
I turned back to Tony. “Let’s go.”
He led the way, but he was noticeably unhappy about the situation.
*
Adrian Graham danced in the DJ booth high on the wall next to the stage. He had long hair, animated neon tattoos that crawled under his skin like malignant, glowing worms, and wore black and silver clothing that hung on his skinny body. Despite the darkness inside the club, he wore wraparound sunglasses.
Tony walked up the stairs leading to the booth.
“There she is, people: the beautiful Angel.” Adrian’s voice boomed around the club. “Tip her well, and don’t forget about your DJ.” He worked the control panel.
A spotlight appeared on the dancer in the pink boots as she waved to the crowd. A holo spray of silver dust formed around her, then the stage went dark as she gathered up her clothing and her credaccount stick.
“And now…the exotic Simone.” Adrian triggered another musical score.
Mathematically, I could tell the difference in the songs, but aesthetically there wasn’t much. I was certain that both songs sounded pretty much the same to the human ear. Especially to humans that were drinking alcohol and using legitimized recreational drugs.
We topped the stair and Adrian looked at Tony. “Who’s the tin man?” His voice was brusque and shrill.
I could tell from his vocal patterns that he was already influenced by alcohol or drugs, which would render any confession he might give as inadmissible. That was fine, though. I wasn’t there to arrest him. I just wanted to serve him notice that the NAPD hadn’t forgotten about Trina Oakes.
“New Angeles homicide detective.” Tony’s identification of me was tactless.
I didn’t know who the guard approved of less. Tony obviously had issues with Adrian. Perhaps he’d had a relationship with the DJ as well.
Adrian stopped dancing. “What’s this about?”
“Trina Oakes.”
“I’m working, here.”
“I understand that, Mr. Graham. I won’t take up much of your time.”
The man shook his head. “You won’t take up any of my time. Tony, get him out of here.”
Tony held his hands up. “It’s the police. This guy has a right to be here.”
“Doesn’t matter.”
“Mr. Graham.” I spoke without inflection, but firmly. “I want you to make time to come down to the department to answer a few questions.”
“No way. Not without an attorney.”
“That’s certainly your prerogative.” I held up a hand. “I’d like to leave Detective Hansen’s contact information with you.”
“Why?”
“He’s the detective you’ll be talking to.”
“I don’t want to talk to a detective. I told your buddies two years ago that I didn’t know anything about Trina getting killed.”
“I understand that, sir. We want to know about the insurance that was taken out on Trina Oakes by your grandmother.”
Adrian stared at me.
“There appears to be a discrepancy. Your grandmother was in a rest home at the time the insurance was taken out. She couldn’t have done that because you held power of attorney over her estate.” That was what Shelly had missed. She had noted the insurance payment to Adrian’s grandmother, then the transfer of those funds when the grandmother had died two months later, but she hadn’t known about the power of attorney. I’d barely caught it myself. “You took out that insurance, Mr. Graham.”
For a moment, Adrian held his ground. The music throbbed from the aud system around us. Simone danced on the stage. The crowd yelled encouragement as Simone divested herself of her clothing.
Then, Adrian broke. He hurled himself over the side of the booth, dropped onto a table below, and collapsed to the floor with the table. He clawed through the surprised patrons like an animal until he got to his feet.
Tony cursed.
I hurled myself in pursuit and drew my Synap pistol. Until Adrian started to run, threatening to become a fugitive, I hadn’t been planning on arresting him. All I had were questions and a theory.
The cred Adrian had gotten from Trina and his grandmother’s death had disappeared quickly. I assumed he’d been in some kind of financial problems, probably gambling, given his background.
But I didn’t know if all the cred was gone. He might still have enough put back to disappear.
I couldn’t let that happen. I landed on the broken table and the recovering patrons drew back from me and my weapon. I brushed through the crowd, slowed by their presence because I couldn’t hurt any of them.
I waved my pistol. “New Angeles Police Department.” I blared the warning through my PA syst
em and my broadcasted voice rolled like thunder inside the club. “Clear the way.”
Adrian raced for the club’s back door and shoved through. The emergency exit alarm shrilled to life. A few seconds later, I reached the door and shoved my head and shoulders through. My quarry had chosen to run to the left, obviously heading to the parking area where I’d left my hopper. It stood to reason that he had one there as well.
I ran after him, but his lead was too big. A nearby hopper flashed as he activated his keychip. The nose raised as I pounded after him. He threw himself into the vehicle and triggered the hatch closure.
I reached Adrian as he powered the vehicle up and hopped. I reached out and caught the skid that doubled as landing gear and a charging unit. The hopper strained to grab altitude with me hanging from one side, and it fought to automatically correct to a horizontal pitch.
“Adrian Graham, you are under arrest for destruction of private property.” I didn’t know if the club would press charges, but Adrian had committed the crime in front of me, so it was within my power to arrest him. By the time we sorted out the property destruction, Hansen would have my report in his hands and we could work on the murder charges. “Adrian Graham.”
Inside the vehicle, Adrian stared at me, then fumbled in a storage compartment and brought out a pistol. He pointed it at me and pulled the trigger.
The bullet chopped through the acrylic glass; the hopper didn’t have transplas. The impact slammed against my head and took a hunk of synthskin with the round. Blue fluid leaked down my face and occluded my right eye with a sapphire film.
Adrian fired twice more as he jockeyed his vehicle. Fortunately, both rounds missed me, but I recognized that he was endangering the public. By that time, we were thirty meters off the ground and rising quickly.
We slid into the traffic lanes. The hopper’s auto safety programming struggled to bring us into the proper lane, but my shifting weight created problems.
Then, another hopper drifted up from street level and streaked toward us. I barely made out the two men inside the craft before a hatch opened on the hopper’s side and the nose of an assault rifle shoved through.
The gunner opened fire at once.
Chapter Seventeen
Military-grade rounds ripped into Adrian Graham’s hopper and shredded my jacket, thudding into my chest and punching through my body. I raised my free hand to protect my head and more bullets deflected from my arm.
I realized then that the men weren’t there to attack Adrian Graham.
They were after me.
I clung to the landing skid as Adrian banked his vehicle over sharply. The hopper banged against another vehicle in the other lane. The contact jarred me and I almost lost my hold, but I squeezed tightly. The metal crushed a little in my grip.
The attacking hopper banked and persisted in its pursuit. I was relieved that the gunner had stopped firing his weapon.
The other nearby hopper pilots had figured out what was going on and were veering sharply away from the two vehicles locked in combat. Horns blared, triggered by the defensive programming of the hoppers, as well as panicked pilots.
I opened my comm as I twisted. “Dispatch, this is Detective Drake. I require immediate assistance.”
“I have you, Detective Drake. We’re locking onto your GPS now.”
“Affirmative.” I rolled in the high winds. Adrian had chosen to gain altitude in his attempt to shake off the pursuers. We bumped and jostled through traffic as we cut through the levels. “I’m under attack by a hopper.”
“Roger that. I have you in view. I’m trying to identify the attacking hopper. I’m streaming through the street cams but locking on is problematic.”
I twisted and focused on the pursuing hopper. I took vid through my internal recording equipment, which hadn’t been harmed by the bullets that had chopped through my metal body, and uploaded the file through my PAD connection. “I’m sending you vid of my attackers.”
“Roger that, Detective. We’re also arranging mosaic vid from the surrounding traffic cams and vehicle security systems.”
My attackers opened fire again. A line of bullets stitched holes along Adrian Graham’s hopper, chewing through the body and through the acrylic glass. Adrian jerked violently to the side as blood suddenly fountained inside the cockpit.
I holstered my weapon and pulled myself up as the Directive programming kicked in. If I could, I had to save Adrian. Balancing on the skid, I grabbed the door and yanked. I noticed then that my strength was lacking. Some of my internal systems had been damaged. The nanobots inside my body were rushing to repair the damage.
With a metallic squeal of pistol-shot fractures, the door’s locks shattered and it came open. Almost immediately, the wind caught the door and yanked it from my grip, popping it above the hopper’s roof like the gull wing it was meant to imitate. Another hopper came by, moving fast, and slammed into the open door, tearing it from its hinges. The door fell, jerking back and forth in the wind as it was buffeted, getting batted like a soccer ball by the other hoppers.
The attacking hopper struggled to close the distance, but was held off by the thick press of the other traffic.
I pulled myself into the cockpit and pressed a hand against Adrian Graham’s wrist to read his biometrics. His sunglasses were gone. His blood pressure was falling fast and his heart rate was thready.
For a moment, unexplainably, I was back on that rooftop with Shelly dead in my arms. Then I snapped into motion again, surveying the damage, though I knew there wasn’t anything I could do to save him.
One of the bullets had torn out part of Adrian Graham’s throat, shredding his airway and ripping through his jugular. He was bleeding out and drowning in his own blood. He looked at me once, then his bloodshot eyes dimmed and lost focus.
The pursuing hopper came back, closing fast from the rear. Bullets punched through and hit the corpse and me. I settled in at the joysticks, struggling to control the hopper so it wouldn’t be a threat to the other pilots. I had to protect them.
But, that was also out of my control. The assault rifle bullets had taken out the steering, and the hopper veered sharply, bouncing off a large cargo hopper that swatted me aside like a gnat. The hopper went vertical and flipped, before landing upside down on the pursuing hopper.
Since I wasn’t buckled into the seat, I started to fall. I flung a hand against the top of the cockpit and held myself in place. I stared through the acrylic glass nose and the other hopper’s windshield at the two men.
Carbosteel ground carbosteel as the vehicles fought the wind and scraped against each other. Then, the hopper I was in shifted, sliding over the side of the pursuit vehicle. I thought I was going to slide free, and I was concerned about the traffic around us, but the skids tangled and wouldn’t separate. We were locked together.
The other pilot panicked as he fought for control. His efforts didn’t do any good. The hoppers tumbled through the air and slammed against a building, then rebounded and lost altitude rapidly. We hit other hoppers on the way down, but no more than glancing blows.
I was able to hold myself in position in the cockpit and keep track of our path, but there was nothing I could do to stop the tumbling free fall. A moment later, we hit the street and skidded at least a hundred meters till we smashed through the front of a flower shop.
The hopper crunched and came apart. Adrian Graham’s body wrapped around mine, then flopped free as gravity reasserted and pulled the corpse away.
I was on my side and the open hatch was to my left. I pushed free and scrambled up from the wreckage. On top of the hopper, I gazed around at the destruction of the flower shop. None of the workers appeared injured. They huddled in the back near the fresh bouquet displays.
I leaped down and almost fell as damaged gyros nearly gave out beneath me. I forced myself up and raised my Synap pistol as I staggered toward the other hopper.
Outside on the street, two NAPD patrol hoppers descended like predatory birds an
d remained in hover mode, ready to move if they had to pursue one of the vehicles.
“Dispatch, patch me through to the uniforms outside the flower shop.” I closed on the wrecked hopper. “Send emergency rescue vehicles to this location.”
“Detective Drake, this is Officer Frances Miller.” Her voice was strong, certain.
Shelly and I had worked with Miller on three occasions. She was a good police officer, content to work the streets, and had no desire to be a homicide investigator. Shelly had liked her.
“Thank you for coming, Officer Miller.”
“Are you all right in there?”
“Yes, thank you. I have two men in this hopper that attacked me.”
“No one else?”
“No.”
The hopper door on the passenger side had buckled. I slipped my fingers into the gap and yanked it open with a piercing screech.
The pilot was out, blood oozing from a scalp wound, and the passenger was barely lucid. He reached for his rifle. I triggered the Synap and shocked him into unconsciousness.
I didn’t recognize either man.
*
At the NAPD, Lieutenant Ormond ordered me to one of the interview rooms in the detective bullpen. I sat in a straight-backed chair at the bare table in the small room. The one-way glass was in front of me. Usually it was behind me. Sitting there, staring at it, was very curious.
As I stared at my reflection, my face reshaped itself as the nanobots worked. Manufacturing synthskin was a lot simpler than repairing the carbosteel infrastructure of my body—what would be bones on a human.
My repair subroutine kept me up to date on the restorations. I was already back to seventy-one percent efficiency.
I thought most of the damage could be fixed by the nanobots, but I suspected some of it would require a trip to Haas-Bioroid. That was fine, because I was due for scheduled maintenance anyway.
I had been taken into custody. Curiously, I suspected the difference between being arrested and taken into custody was negligible. Seated in the room, I was still able to use my internal PAD to track the investigation into the attack on me.
