by Mel Odom
Just then, I got another ping on the chimera tattoo. This time it belonged to a case where a man had been accused of the contract murder of a code designer eight years ago. The victim’s name had been Rachel Giacomin.
I pulled up the murder book on the case.
Rachel Giacomin had been working for MirrorMorph, Inc., a small code-specific corp that had been subcontracted to Haas-Bioroid at the time. MirrorMorph had done a lot of the work on the new generation of neural channeling that had produced Floyd and me, as well as the latest wave of higher-end bioroids.
At the time of her death, Giacomin had been one of the leading programmers, a person that the field looked to “for greatness” as a nosie had put in a piece on her.
She’d been thirty-one, young to have been so widely recognized in her field, and attractive by human standards. Shelly had forced me to learn those because features mattered in some investigations, often providing motivation. Giacomin had dark brown hair, pale green eyes, and a heart-shaped face that had obviously been remade by a plastic surgeon’s laser. According to her background check, she’d also been promiscuous.
During the first part of the investigation, Giacomin was believed to be the victim of a lover, a tryst that had gone badly wrong. That had been the operating theory from the beginning. But, although seven current and past lovers had turned up in total during the investigation, all of them had fully corroborated alibis during the time of the murder.
Gradually, the climate had shifted to a professional hit, though the primary motive remained that of a lover: someone who had gotten jealous or that Giacomin was blackmailing—though that view was never supported.
I noted that those scenarios were put forth by the lead investigating detective, a man whose career was spotty at best. I knew Louis Blaine and I didn’t like his ways. He’d been with the NAPD for twenty-five years, fifteen of them as a detective, the last three of them as a sergeant. Shelly had despised the man at times, and pitied him at others. During the few times we’d talked about Blaine, Shelly had said that he’d been a good cop, but he’d just gotten caught looking the wrong way one too many times.
Other detectives felt that Blaine “could be bought on every day that ended in y.”
I’d had no dealings with the man other than to see him in the hallways occasionally, or at a full role call when a big case was on.
According to Blaine’s report, he’d investigated an ex-soldier who’d turned mercenary and also looked good for the murder. Unfortunately, the suspect had turned up dead from a drug overdose in a seedy hotel room and the case had died with him.
I pulled up the ancillary files because the soldier angle was something I couldn’t ignore.
I read about Malcolm Gardener and there was nothing specific in his file that would attract much attention, except to note that he’d served on Mars.
And he’d had a chimera tattoo.
When I pulled up the file image on Malcolm Gardener, I found myself looking at Dwight Taylor.
The man had had three names, and he’d now officially died twice. I was pretty certain he wasn’t coming back this time.
Something tugged inside my consciousness and suddenly I wasn’t in my living room anymore.
Chapter Twenty-Five
I stared at the transplas dome over the city for too long. The black-haired woman beside me yanked my arm and called me a name. I thought it sounded like “Simon” but I couldn’t be certain. Too many things were going on at once.
“What are you doing?” She glanced at me with worry, then looked behind us.
I checked the rear vids and saw a second taxi hopper was streaking along our vapor trail, closing the distance. One of our pursuers leaned out with a weapon and opened fire.
For a moment, I wondered what the bullets would do if they struck the dome; then I remembered that the domes were made of transplas and were virtually indestructible to small arms fire. They had to be. As much civil unrest that fomented on Mars, the colonies wouldn’t have lasted a day if the domes hadn’t been reinforced. Nothing less than a laser cannon could get through them.
I throttled down and sent the hopper into a steep dive through the traffic. Back on Earth, I would have been bouncing off other vehicles, just as I had when I’d been in the hopper with Adrian Graham. But now my hands were steady, and I saw a path through the hopper lanes that existed only for a brief second. I didn’t hesitate, and even though my reflexes were naturally fast, I was intrigued by how quickly I decided to pursue the avenue of escape that was presented.
I powered through and barely pulled up again in time to keep from smashing against the street. The hopper’s front bumper smacked the street hard and came up before landing back on its wheels. I shot out a hand and caught the woman before her face smashed into the hatch.
“Thank you.”
Satisfied she was once more safely seated, I turned my attention back to the steering. I didn’t know where I was supposed to go, and I didn’t know where we’d find safety.
I made a hard right turn around the next corner and felt the traction of the tires slip away for just a moment. They screamed but maintained purchase.
Blood still leaked down my side from the wound. I needed to get it taken care of. I knew I was bleeding too much. My mind was already bouncing around inside my skull and I knew I was in danger of passing out.
The feeling didn’t make sense, then I remembered how I’d felt when I’d gotten shot in the face in the underground service area. I hadn’t been able to control my faculties then, either. I didn’t like the discomfort created by my inability to control myself.
A second hopper came out of nowhere and hammered our borrowed taxi hopper from the side. The woman screamed.
I jockeyed the controls as the second vehicle continued bulling us across the street. Instead of trying to maintain control on the ground, I powered up the engines and lifted into the sky. The pilot of the other hopper didn’t know what I was doing until it was too late to try the same tactic.
We were airborne.
The woman took out her PAD and glanced at it. She looked at me. “Your men know we’re in trouble.”
I didn’t know who my men were. If I had men, why weren’t they with me? With us?
“They’re setting up a trap.” She pointed ahead. “Go forward two blocks, then turn left.”
The taxi hopper reappeared and came streaming toward us. I powered up again, flipping the hopper into a horizontal keel as the other taxi hopper put its wheels down and landed on us, trying to force us back to the street.
Working the controls, I managed to partially slide out from under the other hopper, flipping it over when it tried to outmaneuver an approaching hopper. Instead of getting clear of the situation, though, I powered again into a lateral move and slammed their taxi hopper into the building beside us.
Pedestrians below heard the wreck and looked up, then started scattering as pieces of the hopper rained down over them. The hopper’s safety measures kicked in, but it was too little too late. The pilot and the passengers were jettisoned twenty meters above the street. Even with Mars’s lesser gravity, I knew that most of those people weren’t going to survive the fall.
I made the turn where the woman had suggested.
“Lose some altitude. They need you to mask them from the pursuit vehicle.”
I dropped further, only a few meters above the street now. Forty meters ahead, I spotted a group of men coming from an alley and setting up in the street. Two of them had anti-tank weapons. All of them had sidearms and assault rifles, and they moved with military precision.
I covered them, staying low so I’d be in the field of vision of the pursuit craft. When it came around the corner, the attacking hopper screamed down out of the sky like a vulture, easily overtaking me. The two passengers had their weapons shoved through access ports and were firing non-stop. Several rounds hit the taxi hopper I was piloting and chewed right through.
Juking the controls, I slid to the right a
nd flipped the hopper onto its side to provide the men waiting below with a clean shot. The two men with the anti-tank weapons fired immediately, giving their weapons only a few seconds to signal target lock.
An instant later, the warheads from the two weapons locked onto the pursuing hopper and turned it into a roiling orange and black cloud of destruction. The boom caught up to us and washed over the hopper. Bits and pieces of the pursuing hopper drummed against my stolen vehicle. The heat soaked into the hopper and triggered the air conditioning into cycling on.
The woman breathed a sigh of relief.
But then the hopper shuddered and the joysticks turned to slush. I tried to maintain control, but the taxi hopper was maneuvering like a pig on ice. I didn’t know where that expression had come from, but it was suddenly inside my head and the imagery fit.
We dropped to the street in a steep glide that didn’t promise anything good.
“Hang on.” I reached over to slam my fist against the emergency landing button, not really expecting anything. Instead, the hopper’s interior swelled with airbags that conformed around the woman and me like we’d been enveloped in a bunch of grapes. They also prevented me from seeing how close we were to the ground and if anything was in our way.
We hit the ground and bounced, came up again, and slammed into what I believed was another hopper. Carbosteel screeched and screamed from the contact. We skidded for a short while longer, then came to a sudden stop against an immovable object.
The taxi hopper’s nose hatch blew free and the pressure from the airbags went away as they spilled out of the craft. I knocked more of the bags out of the cockpit and glanced over at the woman. She had a bloody lip and a cut on the side of her nose, but otherwise appeared to be unharmed.
She looked at me groggily. “We’re alive?”
“Apparently.” I forced my way to a standing position, then stepped over the hopper’s side onto the street. The hopper had smashed against a casino. A crowd had already started to gather, and I was aware that not all of them might be neutral. Our pursuit from the hotel had been dogged.
I reached back into the hopper and helped the woman out of the vehicle. My side was soaked with blood and I knew the wound was still bleeding. Some clotting was starting to take effect, though, because the flow was diminished.
Or maybe I was running out of blood. I wasn’t familiar enough with being inside a human body to know.
Dazed and not at peak efficiency, I took the woman by the arm and headed into the casino. Safety lay in small places, environments that I could control, until I worked out our escape.
But I didn’t have the first clue about how I was going to escape from Mars.
Faces bearing colony tattoos drew back from the woman and me as we staggered into the casino. A trio of sec men approached us with weapons drawn. I reached into my coat pocket for the pistol I had there.
“Don’t! Get back! They’re with us!”
I glanced toward the voice and was intrigued to learn who it was.
Dwight Taylor, clad in lightweight street armor and carrying an assault rifle, shoved through the crowd.
Seeing him there, when he’d died in my arms only three days ago, was mesmerizing. I stared at him, noticing how much better he looked. He appeared relaxed, not frantic.
Not bloody and dying.
He grinned at me confidently.
I raised my pistol and pointed at his face.
Taylor came to an abrupt stop and lifted his hands. “Hey. Hold up, brother. We’re all friendlies here.”
Brother? There had been no mention of a brother in Dwight Taylor’s files. He’d had three sisters. He’d been the youngest child in the family, the one his father had continued to hope for. He’d followed in his father’s military footsteps even after his father had died fighting the Martian terrorists.
“Just chill, man. Take a breath. You’re going to be okay now. We’ve just got to get you fixed up. Do you scan me?”
The woman reached over and placed her hand on top of my pistol. Gently, she forced the weapon down. “It’s okay. He’s a friend.”
I sagged and the casino revolved around me. I barely maintained my footing.
Dwight Taylor pulled one of my arms across his shoulders to lend support. We headed toward one of the elevators. “I told you, man. I told you that Haas-Bioroid would turn on you. You can’t play hardball with that corp unless you’re holding a lot more than we have.”
I listened to his words and struggled to make sense of them. Then the world faded to black.
Chapter Twenty-Six
Someone is in your house. Someone is in your house.
I became aware of my flat’s surroundings at the same time the premises’ security protocol kicked the warning through my mind. I was seated in the only chair in my living room, exactly where I’d been when I’d been reviewing Dwight Taylor and Rachel Giacomin’s files.
A man lounged on the windowsill opposite me. “Are you awake now, Drake 3GI2RC?”
“Bioroids don’t sleep.”
The man smiled. I’d recognized him at once, not just from Haas-Bioroid, but from the rags as well. Thomas Haas was a media darling and solid cred for any nosie smart enough, or lucky enough, to ride the coattails of one of his escapades.
Nineteen years old, he was medium height and thin, but with broad shoulders. His features were Asian, from his father, but his mother, Director Haas, was Caucasian. He had the same honey-colored red hair as his mother, but his was longer, trailing down to his shoulders. He’d also had it lightened in streaks. His brows were artificially darkened, drawing attention to his olive eyes behind pink-lensed sunglasses. He was smooth and sleek, with a fashion model’s body, and he was proud of it. He was wearing an umber-colored jacket with fur trim over a mauve shirt. Low-cut leather pants hugged his hips. Two strands of gold chains hung from his throat and onto his chest, left bare by the unbuttoned shirt.
He attended Levy University. During his extended tour there, he’d caused a lot of trouble. He’d been kicked out of three fraternities, but the others were all eager to accept him to their ranks because Thomas Haas came with a black credaccount provided by Haas-Bioroid.
“I know bioroids don’t sleep.” Thomas Haas crossed his ankles and smirked at me. “I know a lot about bioroids.”
Of course he did. He was majoring in computer science, and he had access to some of the best minds at Haas-Bioroid.
He hadn’t come alone, either. Three men, obviously bodyguards, stood in the room as well. What was normally a very empty space suddenly seemed crowded.
“What I don’t know is what makes you so interesting.” Thomas reached under his jacket and took out a narc-stick that provided a mild hallucinogenic to the smoker.
“I’m not interesting.”
Thomas lit the narc-stick with a small gold lighter with an embossed nude on it. Once it was lit, he waved the smoke away. He made a show of looking around the flat. “Based on your inferior living conditions, and your recent career path at the New Angeles Police Department, I don’t think you’re interesting, either.” He paused. “But my mother does.”
That was news to me. I sat forward in the chair, resting my elbows on my knees in a move designed to show interest and encourage further discussion.
The three bodyguards shifted and their hands touched their hidden weapons. None of them spoke, but the message was clear: if I moved toward Thomas Haas in any way, they were going to take me out.
“So, I had to ask myself what makes you so interesting to her.”
“Have you figured it out?”
“No.” Thomas blew a stream of smoke.
“How do you know she’s attentive to me?”
Thomas smiled. “Because I spy on my mother. It’s a survival skill.”
I waited.
“Tell me why you think she’d be concerned about you or what you do.”
“The only thing that comes to mind is my job at the NAPD.”
“Which you don’t
seem to have at the moment.”
“I’m going back on the schedule in two weeks.”
Thomas grinned and shook his head. “Nah. She’s never been a fan of police work. She tends to avoid it.”
“Have you ever heard of someone named Rachel Giacomin?” I didn’t like revealing my cards, but Shelly had sometimes demonstrated the value of tossing a pebble into a body of water and watching the ripples. I was intrigued by the woman’s murder, and why Dwight Taylor’s death had been faked. It would have been simple, more streamlined, to have killed them both.
Then again, Dwight Taylor was dead now, and I still had no idea what he’d been doing on Mars. If he’d really been there, because I knew I hadn’t been.
Thomas took out his PAD. “How do you spell that name?”
I told him, wondering if his inquiry was going to trigger more ripples from yet another pebble. I had no way to control all the variables or outcomes at the moment. This was different than how things usually went in an interview room or during an arrest. It was an intriguing way to work.
After only a moment, Thomas looked up from his PAD. “Dead woman. Worked as a subcontractor for Haas-Bioroid.”
“Yes.”
He shrugged. “I don’t get it.”
“Neither do I.”
“Then why did you ask?”
“Because you can get deeper into Haas-Bioroid than I can.”
“How did you get this name? You hadn’t even been created at the time the murder occurred. I was just a kid.”
“Rachel Giacomin’s name came up in an investigation I’ve been working on.”
“The one involving your dead partner?”
I nodded.
Thomas took another drag on his narc-stick. “How?”
“You know I was gunned down in an underground supply chamber a few days ago.”
“I got the memo. My mother wanted to scrap you. Her public relations team said no, that if she allowed you to go down like that, she was admitting that her big detective bioroid program was a loser. She couldn’t have that.” Thomas smiled. “You’re turning out to be embarrassing.” He pointed the narc-stick at me. “I like that about you. We have something in common.”
