Whatever I did from this point forward was likely to contaminate or outright destroy evidence. Every instinct in me screamed to stop, to not endanger an arrest. But that life was over. If there was any arrest connected with the death of this man, I had a strong suspicion it would be the arrest of Mama Campbell’s favorite son.
I eased two fingers—index and middle—into the corpse’s mouth, grasping the folded paper between my fingertips. I drew my hand back, taking the paper with it, wincing as I felt it pull away from the tongue and roof of the mouth. Then it was free.
A crowd had gathered, though, true to her word, Evelyn had found a couple of synthetics to cordon off the area. Not that it was needed. Not one of the synthetics pressed forward or shouted questions or thrust a screen in my general direction to film the horror. They simply watched and whispered.
I wasn’t their leader. They knew it. I knew it. I held a strange and sometimes difficult position among them. I was respected, sure. I’d helped save Evelyn. I’d stood up to be the face of the New Year’s Revolution. They knew well that anyone who wished harm on the synthetics wished a much greater and more personal harm upon me. But I still wasn’t one of them. They shared a bond forged in adversity that I had only experienced—could only experience—the edges of. No, they did not follow me. They followed Silas.
But Silas wasn’t around. And I was pulling objects out of a corpse like the world’s worst magic act. So, I supposed I could forgive them the whispers.
I returned my attention to the scrap of paper I held. Folded, it was roughly one inch by two. Gingerly, I began unfolding it, violating every rule of evidence procedure I’d ever been taught. Five folds. When I was done, I was holding a standard sheet of printer or copier paper, the kind that had been relegated nearly to antiquity by the prevalence of screens. On the paper was printed two lines of text, in black ink. The first read, “I found you.” The second, “You have everything you need to find me.”
I stared at the words, letting their implication sink in. Despite all of the precautions we had taken, despite Silas’s nearly preternatural ability to avoid the panopticon that blanketed the city, despite never staying in the same location for long, someone had found us. The possibility had been there from the beginning and had grown with each new synthetic that came to our door. You didn’t house and feed fifty people without the risk of notice. But I’d been expecting a battering ram and tear gas or a corporate hit squad. We had plans for that. Contingencies. But we hadn’t planned for a body delivered to our door with a polite note.
The deadline was a week away. And when that deadline came and passed without any decisive action, the revolution would begin in earnest. And we weren’t ready. Oh, we could spill the secrets of the elites faster than they had shed the blood of the innocents. But we weren’t prepared for the storm that would come in the wake of our opening salvo. We didn’t have the ability to stand up to armed attack. All we had was secrecy and guile, at least until we could figure out how the synthetics could shake off their conditioning or until we had garnered enough support among the general population that more people like me—humans who were both willing and able to shed blood—came forward. Our entire strategy was dependent on remaining hidden.
I found you.
With three simple words, the illusion of safety was torn away.
“Shit,” I muttered. I didn’t have time to play detective. I didn’t have time to track down a killer. But I needed to know. We needed to know. Needed to know how whoever had dropped the body had found us. Needed to know where our weaknesses were, where we were exposed. Needed to know what kind of game the person was playing with their, “You have everything you need to find me.”
I knew what I needed to do.
It was time to move again, to activate one of the backup locations Silas had found. We’d have to bring the body with us. Find a way to store it. Preserve it. Which would increase the risk of discovery even more. But I couldn’t leave it behind. Not without making sure we’d gotten “everything we needed” from it.
And then it was time to make a call that I didn’t want to make.
It was time to call the cops.
Chapter 3
“Detective Hernandez.”
It had been months since I’d heard Melinda’s voice, and a smile sprung unbidden to my lips. I didn’t break communications discipline, though. Even talking to me could get her in serious trouble, maybe fired. Maybe much worse. I owed her too much to risk that. So instead, I said, “We need to meet.” No greeting. No identification. I was calling from a burner screen and using voice modulating software that made my voice sound, of all things, like a teenage girl. But I still wasn’t going to risk talking over the open airwaves.
“I understand,” Hernandez replied, her tone light and conversational, revealing no emotion. We’d arranged the protocol months ago, not long after I’d left the force. But this was the first time I’d made contact. Still, she picked up the thread as if we’d discussed it only yesterday. “Our spot by the water, where the screens didn’t quite work. My shift is over at five.” With that, she disconnected.
Fewer than two dozen words, the entire conversation took no more than fifteen seconds. Casual enough that, if anyone was listening, it wouldn’t register as strange. Vague enough that it would be difficult for outsiders to decipher. But it gave me everything I needed. I had a time and a place. In the meantime, I would execute the contingency plan Silas had laid out in the event of discovery. It was going to be a very long day.
At just before five o’clock in the evening, the New Lyons docks were bustling with activity. The port, with its new and ultramodern facilities, was one of the most popular transshipment locations on the Gulf Coast, and stacks of shipping containers formed a veritable maze of cliffs and canyons that could be completely disorienting, even to experienced dockworkers. The entire frontage of the docks themselves operated beneath a massive umbrella of steel beams and rails, along which autonomous cranes ran, using powerful electromagnets to unload ships and move containers about the yard. The setup made the Port of New Lyons one of the most efficient in the world. The network of steel and powerful magnets also made it one of the worst places within the city to try and broadcast or receive any type of wireless signal.
Which was why Melinda had suggested it. Port security was stretched thin, with most of the focus being on shutting down illegal goods coming into the country or legal goods being stolen off of containers. There wasn’t much left to stop a person on foot from simply walking in. Once inside the perimeter, I made no effort to hide, trusting in the electromagnetic interference to keep me safe from the eye in the sky and the white hard hat, suit, and oversized screen I carried to keep the few humans on the premises from asking any questions.
I moved with confidence, despite having only been here once before. The place might have been a maze, but take my word for it: you don’t forget a place where someone tried to kill you. Soon, I stood at a nondescript intersection formed by stacks of metal boxes. The cranes whirred and crashed overhead, a counterpoint to the steady rhythm of the waves and the occasional bellowing horn of a docking or departing vessel.
There was no sign of Hernandez, so I moved close to one of the containers, leaning up against it at a point where I had clear sight lines down the possible avenues of approach. I didn’t have long to wait. Maybe five minutes later, she walked out between one of the steel alleys, her eyes scanning, looking for me, but also exercising the wariness of any law enforcement officer alone in a potentially dangerous situation.
She moved with a sense of purpose, watchful, but confident. She wore a long wool coat—open—over a charcoal pantsuit with a crème-colored blouse, and I could just make out the lines of the Kevlar she wore beneath the top. That was new. Unless they were going out on an active raid, detectives rarely bothered with the body armor. But, then again, things had probably changed down at the precinct. Her dark blue-bl
ack hair had been pulled back into a ponytail—a look that didn’t really go with the suit but made sense if she expected the potential for violence.
In all, she seemed a more alert, more cautious Melinda Hernandez than the woman who had been my friend for years. It was probably smart, given everything that had happened, but it made me a little sad.
I stepped out from the shadow of the container. “Over here, Hernandez.”
She started, hand moving reflexively, clearing her coat and finding the butt of her sidearm. “Jesu Christo, Campbell,” she snarled as she saw me. “Give a girl some warning. It’s not polite to jump out of shadows at people.”
Her tone—halfway between anger and banter—brought a grin to my face. Even on the eve of revolution, some things never changed. “Sorry, Mel,” I said. “Staying out of sight’s gotten to be something of a habit these past few weeks.”
“I bet it has, hermano,” she said. She took two quick steps to me and gave me a brief, fierce hug. Then she pushed me away with more force than necessary. “I always knew you were a stupid motherfucker, Campbell, but damn if you didn’t outdo yourself with this bullshit.”
I shrugged. “I gotta be me.” I meant it as a joke, but there was more than a grain of truth in it. Ever since Annabelle’s death, I had been searching for something. Some greater meaning. Some way to help people. It was why I’d taken every dangerous shit job the Army had thrown at me. It’s why I became a cop. But the entire time, part of me had known I was hiding. Putting myself at risk to protect people while simultaneously ignoring the fact that there existed an entire underclass of people denied any and all protections. My grin faded from my face.
“You’re an asshole,” Hernandez said, bringing me back to my present reality. “Always were an asshole. Always will be an asshole.” She paused, and now it was her face that went suddenly serious. “But you should probably be a careful asshole, Campbell. The brass has got a real hard-on for bringing you in. And they’ve given Fortier the lead on the task force. Slimy fucker’s been riding my ass like a bicycle, too. Half the force is looking for you.”
“Only half?” I said with a false smile. Francois Fortier was everything I hated about humanity, wrapped around everything that everyone hated about cops, wrapped in about seventy pounds of excess fat and grease. He was an abusive, cowardly mole of a man. But even I had to admit he was an able investigator. “Guess I need to try harder.”
Hernandez snorted. “The other half is on constant riot duty. Trying to keep the citizens from burning New Lyons to the ground. Shit. I’m not sure half of them even know what or why they’re protesting. They’re just out for a little bit of the old ultraviolence. And it’s getting harder to tell the sheep from the fucking goats, Campbell.”
“Sorry,” I muttered, not really knowing what else to say. It wasn’t my fault—not exactly. But I had certainly played my part. Change had to come, one way or another. But it tied my stomach in knots to think of good cops—and there were a lot of good cops out there—being put in harm’s way because of me.
“Don’t you fucking apologize,” Hernandez replied, the growl of fury in her voice taking me back. “You don’t owe anyone an apology.” She drew a deep breath and released it in a long sigh. Her eyes met mine as she continued. “All you did was tell the truth. It’s the fucking government that owes the rest of us an apology. And some answers. And some change. And God alone knows what they owe the synthetics. What we all owe them. Shit.” She shook her head, ponytail bouncing in a jubilant counterpoint to the resignation in her voice. It was a resignation I understood all too well. Sometimes, the problems were so big that their crushing weight seemed to smother any possible solutions. “People will figure that out, eventually,” she finished.
“Yeah,” I agreed, trying to sound hopeful, but not really feeling that way. “Yeah.”
Hernandez shook her head again, this time more forcefully, as if the physical act would clear it. “You didn’t call me out here for this, hermano. Not that it isn’t good to catch up, but I’m guessing you need something.” Her lips twisted into a mocking smile. “What can the officers of the New Lyons Police Department do for you this fine day, citizen?”
“I need a medical examiner.”
There was a long moment of dead air. “Jesu Christo, Campbell,” Hernandez muttered. There were only so many reasons I’d be asking for an ME, after all.
I sighed. “Someone dropped a body off on my doorstop this morning. I need someone I can trust to do a forensic autopsy. You know, without calling the cops on me for murder or treason or whatever the charge du jour is.”
“Domestic terrorism,” Hernandez said absently.
Terrorist. I’d been called a lot of things over the years, but that was a first. Given where I’d spent most of my time in the Army, the irony wasn’t lost on me. The line between a patriot and a terrorist was, indeed, a thin one. I shook that thought off.
“Why the fuck did someone drop a body on your doorstep?” Hernandez asked. “I thought you were out of the murder police business.”
“Yeah, well, so did I. But someone is delivering a message, and they managed to find me to deliver it. If they can find us…” I shrugged.
“So can Fortier and his merry band of men? And the feds. They’re involved, too, by the way. Shit. We’ve got every three-letter agency in the book down at the precinct. FBI. CIA. ATF. NSA. Even the fucking IRS. You been skipping out on your taxes, Campbell?”
I shook my head. It wasn’t unexpected, but the array of investigative power aligned against us was daunting.
“You’re lucky they haven’t found you already. When you pulled this shit back in December, I didn’t think you’d make it a week. You must have an angel on your shoulder.”
An angel or an albino synthetic. “Yeah,” I muttered. “Something like that. Look, I don’t know what’s going on. That’s why I need an ME. But it’s got to be someone at least sympathetic to our cause.” I almost winced. I’d never been a man of causes. Causes were things people took up when their real life didn’t keep them busy enough or they wanted attention. Or so I had thought. Now I found myself in the center of a cause, in the heart of a movement. It wasn’t a very comfortable place to be. “I was hoping you could make it happen.”
The set of Hernandez’s shoulders tightened, and she looked away from me. She was silent a long moment. “You’re asking me to help you cover up a crime, you know? I mean, I assume you’re not just going to turn this poor soul over to the authorities when you’re done with him?”
I hadn’t really thought about it, but I knew Hernandez was right. The forensic tools at the disposal of the New Lyons Police Department were pretty good. If the feds were involved, those tools were that much better. If they got their hands on the body, there was no telling what they might discover. Not just about the killer, but about where the body had been. About where I had been. It wouldn’t give them the entire puzzle, but investigations were built piece by piece. I couldn’t afford to give them that piece. I couldn’t ask Hernandez to do that. She was far enough off the reservation just for meeting with me, but that was at least explainable.
“Forget about it,” I said. “I’ll figure something out.” I tried to keep the frustration—not at Hernandez, but at myself for putting her in this position and for not knowing where else to turn—out of my voice, but by the wince I got in return, I failed.
“Dammit, Campbell. I know someone. Maybe. She’s sympathetic, but I’m not sure if it’s to your cause, or just to you.”
That threw me. Sympathetic to me? “Well? Who is it?”
“Morita.”
The named sparked a memory, an overeager medical student who had performed an autopsy on Fowler’s first victim. The first victim I found, anyway. She had been earnest, well-meaning. But young. So damn young, with so much future ahead of her. “Are you sure?” I asked. “We don’t know anyone with…well…less t
o lose?”
Hernandez snorted. “Don’t be an idiot, Campbell. Who do you think is most firmly on your side in all this? It isn’t the entrenched old farts like me who grew up with synthetics. It’s the radical youth, looking to rebel. The only people who are going to take the kind of risks you need are the people who don’t really understand what they have to lose.”
Wars were fought by the young. It was an adage I knew well—one I had experienced firsthand. Hernandez was right. Some of it was ignorance, sure. But some of it was passion. Belief. Hunger for change. Fires that dwindled as the stately march of time consumed their fuel. I didn’t want to risk the beautiful young woman with the promising career. But I needed help, and if she wanted to, who was I to make that decision for her?
Was I rationalizing? Letting my own needs outweigh the right thing to do? Maybe. But the danger to me, to the synthetics, and to the budding revolution was real. Could I put Ms. Morita’s future ahead of all those lives?
“Set up a meeting.”
Chapter 4
Silas was waiting for me when I returned to the new safe house.
Compared to the call center, the contingency location was a more modest affair. It had been a restaurant at some point, though maybe “restaurant” was too grand a name. Dive certainly fit. Officious health inspector’s wet dream was also valid. According to a dilapidated sign that still hung just inside the door, the place had boasted a maximum capacity a bit north of a hundred and twenty souls. The fire marshal must have been popping happy pills, because with half that number of synthetics, it already felt way too crowded.
Like the last location, the windows had been boarded up, but the entire exterior wall—plywood and all—was covered in layer upon layer of graffiti. Some of it was simple tagging, street names, gang affiliations. Some was much more…evocative, not to mention anatomically problematic. The “artwork” was endemic of the neighborhood, a run-down section of New Lyons the locals called the LNW, a callback—if a geographically inaccurate one—to the old days of New Orleans. Most of the residents subsisted on the Basic Living Stipend, hope for a better life having long since been drained from them.
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