by Mel Odom
Surprise lifted her eyebrows. “Seriously? You just asked me that question?”
“Yes.”
“You are the inquisitive busybody, aren’t you?”
I wasn’t sure how to respond to that, so I hesitated. “Would yes be the appropriate response?”
“I don’t know about appropriate, but it’s definitely the most honest response.”
“I can only lie to you if it helps get to a greater truth.”
“I know. Were you aware that that little feature was one of the greatest challenges in developing your curiosity encoding?”
“No. But Haas-Bioroid—”
She raised her hand and I stopped speaking. “Would you mind if I turned off that feature?”
I thought about that. I didn’t see the product placement software as detrimental. “It doesn’t matter to me.”
“Well, it does to me.” Miranda tapped code into a PAD on a nearby stainless steel tray.
I felt a small nudge at the center of myself. “I should report you. Turning off the product placement software voids part of the agreement between Haas-Bioroid and the New Angeles Police Department.”
“Tough noogies. Can I tell you a secret?”
“I can’t stop you.”
“I know. If you tell Haas-Bioroid that I disconnected that feature, they’ll fire me.”
I had no reason to disbelieve that.
“When I get fired, I’m going to go home. I live on the hundred and thirty-first floor of the Palmer Building. As soon as I walk through the door, I’m going to throw myself over the edge.”
“You’ll die.”
“Exactly. So if you don’t tell, you’ll be saving my life.”
I thought about that and saw the slight smile she was trying to hide. “You’re lying.”
“Am I?”
I reached out and captured her hand before she could move. I read her biometrics. Her heart rate and respiration were steady. I couldn’t detect any signs that she was lying. I released her hand.
“Do you believe me?”
“I should report you to suicide prevention.”
“Do that, I’ll convince them I’m sane. Haas-Bioroid will assume there’s something wrong with me. They’ll dismiss me before I can affect their product. Then I’ll go home and jump.” Miranda shook her head. “You have no choice, Drake 3GI2RC, except to save my life.”
I didn’t. I tried to access my recording program to replay her confession. I couldn’t.
“I’ve got your recording equipment temporarily logged out. I’ll turn it back on before you leave.”
“Why are you doing this?”
“Because I think we’re going to be seeing a lot of each other, and I don’t want to listen to force-fed commercials the whole time we’re talking. I’m a talker. You’re a talker. It’s going to happen and it’s going to drive me crazy.”
“I see.” I thought Shelly would have loved Miranda.
“Now, do you really want to see what you looked like when they brought you in?”
“Yes.”
*
I stared at the 3D holo floating in the air above Miranda’s PAD. I’d been both a mechanical and cybernetic train wreck, and a marvel.
My head had been almost completely truncated above my jaw. I’d had a hole in my chest that a grown man could have shoved an arm through. And I’d looked completely lifeless.
I reached up and touched my head.
Miranda laughed at me. “Yeah. It’s there. I had to bring in some raw materials and a few kilos of specially tasked nanobots to get the rebuild done, especially in three days, but you’re as complete as you ever were.” She pursed her lips. “There’s just one difference and I couldn’t quite work out the bug.”
“What?”
“Your face.”
“What about my face?”
“It doesn’t quite match what Haas-Bioroid has on file.”
I waited for the product placement program to prod me into a defense of the corp. I remained curiously silent.
Miranda grinned widely. “Pretty awesome, isn’t it?”
“I notice the absence.”
“You’ll get over it. Trust me.” Miranda tapped the PAD keys again and an image of my face as I’d remembered it appeared in 3D. “This was you.” She tapped another key. “This is you now.”
The face this time held more emotion. The features were more distinct, more sharply defined. I felt like I could almost remember the face.
“Did you do this?”
“No.”
“Do you know who did?”
“No.”
Miranda shrugged. “The encoding is pretty spectacular. I tried to reverse it, but any time I went back to the root directory to try to take out the new programming, your OS would try to shut down.”
“Why?”
She shook her head and her dreadlocks bobbed. “I don’t know. It’s got me puzzled.”
“I don’t like not knowing.”
“Me neither. But here we are.” She took a breath. “Whatever it is, it’s in there to stay apparently.”
I felt uncomfortable about that.
“I saw that there were no discrepancies on your last diagnostic.”
“No, but it took fifty-five minutes too long.”
Miranda nodded. “I saw that, too. I think part of that had to do with this new encoding that’s surfaced. You weren’t what the computer remembered you were supposed to be. Dr. Kent assumes that you have some kind of PTSD.”
“He seemed quite convinced.”
“I think it’s possible. You and Floyd 2X3A7C are distinctly different creatures than the run-of-the-mill bioroids. You guys are the new standard, so there’s a learning curve we’re being forced to address.”
“Hopefully, we’ll be worth it.”
“You’d better be. I put thirty-seven years of my life into designing you. That has to be one of the longest gestational periods ever.” Miranda smiled.
“Thank you. From my side of things, your work is…pleasing.”
She lifted an eyebrow. “Really?”
“I can’t lie unless I have an ulterior motive.”
“No one can.” Miranda put her hand on top of mine and I felt the warmth there. “I uploaded your new files to overwrite what Haas-Bioroid has on you. That’s your new face, Drake 3GI2RC. Wear it with pride.”
“That’s not an emotion I’m capable of.”
“Then wear it without thinking it will get you in trouble on your next diagnostic. I think you’ll sail through.”
“Thank you.”
“Don’t mention it.”
“Am I free to go?”
“Where are you in a hurry to go?”
“There are several murder investigations I’m currently involved with. Trails grow cold. I’m already more than forty-eight hours out from Dwight Taylor’s murder.” Now that I was able to access the Net again, I saw that the murderers hadn’t been caught.
“Sure. You can go.”
I thanked her again and headed for the door.
“There’s one other thing you might want to consider.”
I turned to look at her.
“Lieutenant Ormond thinks that you were shot by the men trying to kill the person you were with, and that was the only reason you were shot.”
“I think so, too.”
Miranda waved her hand over her PAD and the image of me as I’d been when they’d brought me to her reappeared in 3D. “I’d rethink that if I were you, Detective. I’m not going to tell you how to do your job, but when I see the extent of this damage, I can’t help thinking that it was personal.”
Chapter Twenty-Four
“What were you doing at that club, Drake?” Lieutenant Ormond sat behind his desk with a furious scowl.
I sat in a chair across from him and felt increasingly uncomfortable. I was pretty certain I’d never felt that uncomfortable around anyone before, but maybe it was just being back inside a body that had been so heavily reconst
ructed. There were parts of me that had come from other places now. I wasn’t exactly sure who I had been.
“Following up on a lead, sir.”
“What lead?”
“The chimera tattoo on Dwight Taylor’s neck. It’s mentioned in my report.”
“I read your report three days ago. Do you know what else? I had the captain of detectives reading it to me, too. No one understands why that tattoo is so important.”
“Brock Thurman had a tattoo just like it.”
Ormond breathed deeply and gritted his teeth for a moment. “There was no mention of a tattoo in the coroner’s report.”
“That’s because the coroner didn’t find it.”
“Then who did?”
“I did.”
Ormond slapped his desk with a big hand. “I told you to stay out of this investigation.”
“I am.”
“No, you’re not. Thanks to you, I have two new murders to deal with.”
“Both of those are solved, Lieutenant. I have Dwight Taylor on vid killing both of those people.”
Ormond cursed. “Those people shouldn’t have been killed.”
“I know.” What I didn’t know was how I was supposed to feel about that. I couldn’t have predicted Dwight Taylor’s reaction to me. I still didn’t know what had set him off. What he’d meant when he’d told me I was dead remained a mystery to me.
I had gone there to do my job. That parameter had been in effect. If I had known people would be killed as a result of my actions, I wouldn’t have been able to go there.
“Why is that tattoo so important?”
“It ties Brock Thurman to Dwight Taylor.”
“So?”
“Perhaps it’s only a tangential thing, but I felt it needed to be verified.”
“There are a million tattoos out there.”
I didn’t know if there were that many or not; I did know there were a lot, but I understood Ormond’s point. “Investigating loose ends is part of my protocol, sir. It’s that same kind of attentiveness to detail that has been allowing me to close cold cases.”
“I know that.”
“It’s not logical to chastise me for something that I’ve been praised for.”
“I haven’t praised you.”
“No, but Detective Hansen has.”
Displeased, Ormond shifted in his chair. He looked tired and worn, and not happy at all. I’d seen him this way before. During these times, no one around him tended to enjoy a relaxed atmosphere. The homicide division spun on numbers: cases closed and man hours spent well, not wasted. The Cartman Dawes case hadn’t been closed, and the person responsible for a cop falling in the line of duty was still out there.
I suspected that a lot of other people felt that something should be done regarding Shelly’s death.
“Why didn’t you request another detective to go with you to Kilgore’s Venus?”
“As you said, sir, there are a million tattoos. I had no reason to believe that Dwight Taylor was connected with Cartman Dawes’s death.”
“He wasn’t. At the time of the Dawes assassination, Dwight Taylor, under the name Pace, was working as a bodyguard for a high roller at one of the casinos. We’ve got seccam vid of him during the whole time, and corroborating witness reports.”
I waited, knowing there was no argument I could offer in my own defense that I hadn’t stated.
“You’re a loose cannon, Drake. You’re not manageable at this point. For whatever reason. I thought for certain when I saw you at the crime scene that you were dead and I wouldn’t have to deal with you again. Instead, Haas-Bioroid seems to have resurrected you from the dead and you walk into my office again.”
I sat quietly. This was the most personal attack I’d ever had to deal with from the lieutenant. I didn’t see that he was justified in his assessment of me or the situation, but I knew I didn’t have any leverage to overturn it, either. I also knew that Shelly wouldn’t have put up with such treatment.
Of course, she’d have been clever enough to manage things better.
Maybe.
There were a lot of odd pieces floating around Cartman Dawes’s murder.
“I assigned you to cold cases to keep you out of the way. That hasn’t worked out so well. So this time, I’m suspending you.” Ormond tapped a key on his PAD.
I received the e-document of my suspension immediately. Ormond’s part consisted of one page. Haas-Bioroid had filed a two hundred page protest.
The commissioner had allowed the suspension to go into effect.
“You’re lucky.” Ormond stared at me. “I wanted to make it permanent. The commissioner felt differently. She was only going to allow me to suspend you for a week.”
“The suspension reads for two weeks.”
Ormond smiled but there was no levity in his expression. “That’s because Haas-Bioroid came in and threw their weight around. She’s not one to play cards. She doesn’t bluff. She offered to double the suspension again, making it a month. The attorneys for Haas-Bioroid folded up their tents and went home.”
“All right.”
“Despite everything the corp says, you’re just not a good fit in this division. Floyd knows more about the chain of command than you do. He makes his investigations work. You? You do whatever you want. I don’t know how Shelly kept you in check.”
Shelly had never had to keep me in check. I had followed her lead, and when I’d had an idea to explore, she had shaped it into something that we could pursue and get away with.
I needed Shelly if I was going to continue this investigation. And I was going to continue it, even while suspended. I was curious at my resolve. Before I had lost Shelly, I didn’t think I would have even considered such insubordination.
“Don’t give me the hard look.” Ormond cursed.
“Hard look?”
“Like you’re going to say something. You’re not.”
I wasn’t. The idea hadn’t even crossed my mind.
“Maybe they changed your face for you, but that doesn’t cut any ice with me.” Ormond tapped the desk. “I want your badge and that stupid Gandhi gun you carry.”
I’d just gotten those items from my police locker where they’d been kept during my repair. I handed them over.
“Now get out of here.”
I went.
*
“Well, partner, that was unpleasant.”
I sat at a table outside a small diner that Shelly and I had frequented because it was close to the NAPD. The food was all right, she’d said, and what had counted most of all was proximity.
I’d gone there to collect my thoughts and think about what I was going to do. After a moment, Shelly had been sitting across from me. She looked grim and angry.
I looked at her. “It was. Ormond doesn’t like me.”
Shelly waved that away. “Ormond is like a bear with a sore tooth when he gets slapped by the captain of detectives. If Commissioner Dawn was involved, she probably intervened on Ormond’s behalf. He’s a good cop, deep down where it matters. But he’s straddling the line between that and bureaucrat. I wouldn’t have his job on a bet.” She shrugged. “Give him some time, break a couple cases, he’ll be back in your corner. That’s how he is.”
“If you say so.”
“I do say so. Now…what are you going to do?”
“I’ve been suspended.”
“So?”
“I no longer have access to my files, or to the authority to act on behalf of the NAPD.”
Shelly smiled. “You have access if you want to. You and I planned for that, and we did end runs around investigations when we had to. You know that.”
I did.
Shelly and I had sometimes had to hack the NAPD mainframe to get information we would have had to wait on through proper channels…or information we weren’t supposed to have at all. She had instructed me to write a hacking program when she’d discovered that I could do that.
I, of course, had protested becau
se it violated the work agreement Haas-Bioroid had made with the NAPD. In the end, when we’d needed information to catch a child murderer three months after we’d become partners, I had relented.
We had seldom needed to use the back door I’d created into the NAPD’s mainframe, but it was there.
“There are a lot of questions that need to be answered, partner. You know that. And more people need to be asking them, not closing off avenues of the investigation.” Shelly’s eyes looked bright. “Lieutenant Ormond and the others aren’t stupid. They’re afraid.” She shrugged. “Considering the number of bodies dropping on this thing—what those scumbags did to you—they’ve got every right to be afraid. But you can’t run, not if you’re going to do this job right.”
Throughout my time with her, and in her career as far as I’d been able to discover, Shelly had never been one to play politics or be afraid. She’d been smart about tough decisions—that was different—but she’d never been intimidated.
“You’re right.” Even as I told her that, I realized she was no longer there.
I got up and caught a taxi hopper home. I planned to start work immediately.
*
Despite the fact that Dwight Taylor had been hiding in plain sight under an assumed name, no one at the NAPD did much of a background check on him. Maybe they couldn’t see the connection, or maybe Craig Dormoth and his partner had seen Dwight Taylor as a waste of time.
I didn’t feel that way.
To give them the benefit of the doubt, I thought it was possible that Lieutenant Ormond had instructed them to streamline the investigation to find something related to Cartman Dawes’s murder. So they were repeating a lot of the same footwork they’d already done.
They were getting the same answers. A brief check of the reports they’d filed confirmed that for me.
Hansen had been given the assignment of finding out who had killed Dwight Taylor and nearly ended my existence. He’d back-burnered that investigation after a few preliminary digs. There was nothing current on Dwight Taylor, and the information on Dante Pace provided no traction. The hired killings he’d done had been off the grid and were judged to be nothing more than idle speculation to build a street rep.
Shelly would have said where there was smoke…
I concentrated on Dwight Taylor’s file. It was Taylor that’d had the relationship with Brock Thurman and the military men with the chimera tattoos.
