by Mel Odom
Hansen had been handed the case because I’d already forwarded him the Trina Oakes murder information. He’d gotten the assignment by default because everyone believed the two incidents were related. I knew Hansen wasn’t happy—he’d already sent four emails to that effect.
Everyone seemed determined to believe the attack on me had something to do with Trina Oakes and Adrian Graham. With the murder book on Trina Oakes in hand, Hansen had wasted no time following up on the cred trail Adrian Graham had left. The finances he’d gotten from the woman’s murder and his grandmother’s death were already long gone.
According to the bookkeeping Hansen had already pulled up with the aid of a warrant, most of those creds had gone to Viktor Dobtcheff, a known Russian Mafiya loan shark, through various shell companies. Dobtcheff had a long history of law-breaking, but he hadn’t yet been tagged with murder.
Facial recognition had turned up nothing on the two men in the pursuit hopper. They were unknown variables. That intrigued me. If those men had been assigned to kill me, as I believed they had been, it stood to reason that I would know them.
Or at least, I would know where they came from.
I sat and I pondered.
*
Three hours and twenty-two minutes later, Lieutenant Ormond came through the door.
I started to get up.
“Don’t.” Ormond put out a hand to me. “Don’t you move.”
I stayed where I was, but was curious about the command. I didn’t know why he didn’t want me showing respect for his arrival and his station.
For a long moment, the lieutenant stared at me as if he’d never seen me before. Then he let out a long sigh and wiped his face with a big hand. “Can you tell me what oscillating jet you decided to take a dump in?”
The usage of the word confused me for a moment, until I translated it into the vernacular. “I don’t defecate.”
“You tell me that, but I’ve got a couple city blocks that have considerable damage to them, and a flower shop that’s going to need massive restoration. I’d say that’s evidence to the contrary.”
“I didn’t—”
“Just don’t talk for a minute, Drake. I’ve got a headache as big as this room, and the commissioner is asking questions.”
I started a timer for the minute he’d asked for.
Ormond pulled out the chair on the other side of the table. He put his hand on the built-in scanner and opened files that appeared in holo. The feed came from a 3D news station.
I watched in silence as the sequence showed Adrian Graham’s hopper flying out of control and bumping other hoppers in the aerial lanes. It ended at the flower shop, but there had been several views of the pursuit hopper.
Finally, the minute Ormond had asked for had passed. I budgeted another ten percent for error, which I knew I had not made.
“No one has been able to identify the men that came after me.”
Ormond cursed.
I waited.
“That’s what you want to talk about? Those men?” Ormond shook his head.
“Yes. I am curious about who sent them. And why.”
“Evidently, they were there to kill Adrian Graham. They succeeded at that.”
“I don’t believe that’s what they were there to do.”
Ormond scowled at me. “Oh? Then what do you believe they were there to do, Detective?”
“I believe they were there to kill me.”
“Why would you think that?”
I indicated my clothing, which was filled with holes. I would have the nanobots fix those later, if they weren’t taken as evidence. I would have claimed them as evidence. “I am proof of that line of logic.”
Ormond waved a dismissive hand. “You were just in the way. They wanted Adrian Graham.”
“Why would those men attack Adrian Graham?”
“That’s Hansen’s problem at the moment. He’ll find the reason.”
I chose not to argue with him, but I knew that he was wrong. Hansen wouldn’t find anything of the sort.
“Do you know who I just got off the comm with?”
“No.” I didn’t know how he expected me to know that. There was no way I could possibly know with whom he had been speaking.
“The commissioner.” Ormond tapped his fingers irritably on the tabletop. “Me and the commissioner? We don’t talk so much. I like to keep it that way.”
Many of the other detectives and department heads felt the same way. I thought Commissioner Dawn was a most reasonable leader.
“You approached Michael Dawes this morning.”
“Yes.”
“You were told to stay away from the Dawes murder investigation.”
“Yes.”
“Then what were you doing there?”
“Investigating Brock Thurman’s homicide.”
That threw the lieutenant for a momentary loss. His brow furrowed. “Who?”
“The man Detective Nolan shot and killed.”
Ormond cursed. “We already know who killed him. Your partner did.”
“Whoever hired Brock Thurman is also culpable in the homicide. I was endeavoring to discover who that was.”
“Dormoth and his partner are already investigating that.”
“In the past, there has been no problem with overlapping investigations going on concurrently.”
Ormond’s face darkened. “There is in this case.”
“That was not explained to me.”
Ormond cursed some more. “You deliberately circumvented your instructions.”
“I don’t believe I did.” I could, however, understand how he could get that view of my operations.
“You did.”
I couldn’t argue with his presumption.
“Why did you approach the Dawes family?”
“Michael Dawes was at the L’Engle Hotel the night his father died.”
“So?”
“He went there under an assumed name.”
That caught Ormond’s attention. “How do you know that?”
I waved my chipped hand over the table and uploaded the vid I’d gotten from the hotel. Michael Dawes stood in mid-air over the table. “He registered with security under the name ‘Michael Billings.’” I pulled up the hotel file that showed the vid ID of Michael Dawes entering the building. “I believe he chose the name ‘Michael’ so that if his father called him that on one of the sec monitored floors no one would think anything of it. The ‘Billings’ identity doesn’t stand up to much digging, but it was proof enough against the hotel sec.”
“Why didn’t you give this information to Dormoth?”
“I wished to speak with Michael Dawes first. I didn’t want Dormoth and his partner deflected. In case there was an explanation.”
“Did Dawes have an explanation?”
“I don’t know. When I reached his office, Michael Dawes noted that I was a bioroid and I was summarily dismissed before I had a chance to interview him.”
Ormond leaned back in his chair and folded his arms. “He tossed you?”
“Yes.”
“Did you get the impression that he was trying to hide something?”
I pointed at the 3D image of Michael Dawes floating above the table. “He had already masked his identity. I was already under the impression that he was hiding something.”
Ormond took out his PAD and started making notes, writing directly onto the screen with his forefinger. He worked rapidly. He copied me on his email to Craig Dormoth, telling him I had information pursuant to his case and to schedule a time with me. He then put his PAD away and regarded me once more.
“The commissioner rained frag over me just a short time ago because you ruffled Michael Dawes’s feathers. Evidently, someone young Mr. Dawes attended school with knows some politician’s son or daughter. Or maybe it’s one of the corps IdentiKit is currently doing business with. I don’t know. Either way, the message was clear: we’re supposed to handle Dawes and IdentiKit with kid gloves.”
“Why?” I spoke the question before I knew I was going to.
“I believe the surface answer is that they are victims in the murder of Cartman Dawes.” Ormond blew out an angry breath. “I suspect the truth is more along the lines that Cartman Dawes was involved in something dirty or illegal, and no one wants the corp to take a hit while they’re on the ropes.”
“Why are they on the ropes?” I used the vernacular, though how a fighter struggling against a superior opponent fit this scenario escaped me.
“The terrorist bombing of the proposed Martian branch of the corp rocked the stock prices. Cartman Dawes’s death has further weakened the corp’s position.”
I accessed the Wall Street ticker tape and quickly reviewed IdentiKit’s history. Before the bombing four months ago, IdentiKit had been at an all-time high. There had been talk of the shares splitting. The stocks dropped eighteen percent after the bombing. After Cartman Dawes’s murder, that drop gained another nineteen percent.
That was curious. Then I recalled that Cartman Dawes hadn’t just been the CEO. He had been one of the corp’s primary research and development people. Significant pieces of potential new technology gains had been lost as well.
That caused another thought to come to mind. “Is IdentiKit presently vulnerable to a hostile takeover?”
“I don’t know. Dormoth has already mentioned that himself. He’s going through economic channels. Behind the scenes. We don’t want to stir up anything.” Ormond fixed me with his gaze. “I don’t want you stirring up anything either.”
“I understand.”
“The commissioner isn’t happy with this.”
“I understand.”
Ormond’s gaze softened a little. “How are you feeling, Drake?”
I checked my repair subroutines. Many of the bullet holes in my body were already closed over. Soon, they would be reinforced and more solid than before. “I’m currently at seventy-eight percent efficiency, Lieutenant, thank you. I should be at one hundred percent efficiency in another six hours and forty-one minutes.”
Ormond shook his head. “I wasn’t talking about your physical well-being. How are you feeling about Detective Nolan?”
“She is gone. There is nothing left to feel.”
Leaning forward, Ormond studied my face. Maybe he saw something curious in the way the nanobots were knitting it back together. “You and Floyd 2X3A7C are the only two bioroids I’ve dealt with on a day-to-day basis. I’ve only worked with Floyd occasionally. He’s more or less assigned to work directly with the commissioner. She tells me she has issues with Floyd as well.”
I waited, not understanding his proposed line of logic.
“Commissioner Dawn tells me there are human qualities left in Floyd that were…unexpected. She says that no matter how clean a neural channeling process is done, not everything human is stripped away.”
“Some of the human qualities have to be preserved in order for a bioroid to effectively function. Haas-Bioroid has the highest production values of any corp.” The marketing subroutine kicked in and couldn’t be stopped.
“I know that. I’ve read the manuals on you.”
I had not known that. I’d thought Shelly had been the only one that had done that.
“The commissioner says that there appear to be artifacts left in Floyd that cause him to question his place among humans. Has Floyd talked to you about this?”
“No.”
“Maybe you should talk to him about it.”
“Why?”
“Because I think you need someone who can understand you—and what you’re going through—better than I do.” Ormond shifted in his chair. “Losing a partner isn’t an easy thing.”
He waited for me to say something, obviously thinking that I would, but I didn’t know what to say.
“I lost a partner back when I was on the street.” Ormond’s voice was thicker now, and I knew that his words held pain. “That was twenty-three years ago. He was a friend. Best man at my wedding. My son’s godfather. And he was the guy that helped me through my first divorce.” He sighed. “What I’m trying to say is that we had history.” His gaze held mine. “You and Detective Nolan—Shelly—you had history, too. If something had happened to you, she would have taken it hard.”
“I would not have wanted her to. One of the reasons for having bioroids on the NAPD is to prevent the loss of life on part of police personnel.”
“Yeah, yeah. I get the sales pitch. Save it for somebody else.”
I almost asked him who he would recommend, then realized the command was merely rhetorical.
“What I’m saying is that maybe you’re not quite whole right now either.”
“I don’t see how that can be, Lieutenant—other than the obvious damage.” I waved at my body. “And that is in the process of being repaired. I am fine. Fit for duty.”
Ormond shook his head. “There’s something different about you.”
I did not argue, but I knew that he was wrong. I was the same.
“Haas-Bioroid has contacted the NAPD as well. I just received an email. They want to run a diagnostic on you.”
“It is time for my scheduled maintenance.”
“Maybe so, but they’ve never bothered to schedule it through me before.”
That was most curious. When the regularly scheduled maintenance occurred, it showed up on my personal appointment book. Haas-Bioroid had my shift agenda; they usually brought me in during my downtime. If I was in the middle of an investigation, I went at my earliest convenience. The tech department knew when that was. I checked my email and found no messages from the corp.
“Did Haas-Bioroid say why they chose to go through you?”
“No. But they want you there as soon as I clear you from this office.”
“Interesting.”
“Yeah.” Ormond rubbed his face again. “Are you in any trouble with them, Drake?”
I considered the question. “I don’t see how that can be possible. I have done nothing wrong.” Then I thought about the experience I’d had involving the hotel and the mysterious woman I’d been in bed with. I wondered if that had somehow shown up on an internal diagnostic that had been uploaded to the Haas-Bioroid computers.
“Is there any reason I should hold you here, Drake?”
“None that I can see.”
“All right, then. I’ll let them know you’re on your way. You’re dismissed.”
I stood and walked to the door. Ormond remained in his chair and watched me as I went. I thought, perhaps, he believed he was looking at me for the last time.
Chapter Eighteen
Haas-Bioroid occupied one of the most prestigious locations in Heinlein, the Moon colony. It would be a good half-day’s journey for me from start to finish, but I was used to the trip by now. I got on the Beanstalk at the Root and took it through the Midway to the Challenger Planetoid, where I had to wait for the next ferry to Starport Kaguya on the Moon.
I spent the time on the Beanstalk reviewing my files and uploading new information regarding Hansen’s investigation into the men that had attempted to destroy me.
Hansen wasn’t doing much. Even though I had effectively closed the cold case on Trina Oakes, Adrian Graham was dead. There was no one to prosecute for her murder. Her family would be notified, but they’d shown a lack of interest in her plight when she’d been alive, and after.
According to Hansen’s report, the two men that had attacked me had died of internal injuries. I found that curious, and pondered it intensely.
I stopped for a few hours at the Castle Club to await the arrival of the Challenger Ferry that would transport the next group to Starport Kaguya. The Castle Club was a playground for the elite. Shelly hadn’t liked the place: there was too much cred, too few morals, and not enough security. The NAPD patrolled New Angeles and Heinlein, and helped provide safe travels on the Beanstalk, but that was a lot of area to cover, even with the help of the Space Elevator Authority security mercs, commo
nly referred to as “yellow jackets” because of the yellow suits they wore.
I pulled the files on the two men that had attacked me. Neither had been positively identified. That, too, was interesting. The men had acted professionally, and they had been well-equipped. Their absence from police files didn’t make sense.
I sat at a table in one of the bars in the Castle Club and stared out at space. I thought the view was clean and quiet. All the potential trouble around me was contained inside the Beanstalk. I had mentioned that to Shelly once, and she had laughed at me. I just liked the calm black on the other side of the transplas. A few of the old twentieth and twenty-first century satellites still orbited the Earth, but most of the telecommunications satellites in use now were in near-Earth orbit, floating in easily retrievable and replaceable gas-filled dirigibles.
I called up a newsfeed and checked on stories posted about Cartman Dawes. Information about the serial killer Reynolds and Mack were chasing, as well as the kidnapping of Mara Blake, were immediately more apparent.
Reynolds and Mack were now up to three sites and seventeen bodies. They’d also discovered information that led them to believe they were chasing two killers, not one. Images of the victims paraded past me. There were women and men, and the ages ranged from fourteen to sixty-two. Finding a common denominator was going to be difficult. Still, the case was curious, and I filed the new information away.
Mara Blake was still missing. More information had been revealed about her. She had been one of the pioneers of the latest version of neural channeling. She had written some of the code herself, and embellished code other corps had used, including Haas-Bioroid. MirrorMorph, Inc. had made a comeback in recent years after a five year hiatus. There had been legal entanglements with getting software design copyrights back from Haas-Bioroid.
More information was getting logged about the destruction of the IdentiKit plant on Mars. Lily Lockwell stood in front of a synthed Martian landscape. I knew she wasn’t there. The quickest, and most expensive, trip to Mars took more than two months. She wouldn’t pay that, so the red topography behind her was all fake.
“According to my sources, IdentiKit was in contention for the same government contracts up for grabs as DupliKit, Inc.” Lockwell remained stationary as she relayed her story. Behind her, a window opened up in thin air and revealed a young-looking man with auburn hair, freckles, and a charming smile that fell into place with laser precision. “I had the opportunity recently to ask DupliKit, Inc.’s CEO, Alan Fiest, some rather pointed questions.”
