by Jaxon Reed
Marley looked almost as tall as Jake, maybe a couple centimeters shorter. With high heels, Fonteneaux decided, she’d be taller than him.
Taller than me, too, Jodi thought. And I’m younger than both of them.
That was not unusual in the Navy, where Fonteneaux had been in charge of people older and bigger than her.
She shook Montoya’s hand next and said, “I’d like reports on any pressing issues, updates on longstanding cases and anything else either of you think I need to know by tomorrow morning. I’d like to hit the ground running.”
Both nodded.
Applegate said, “The big thing right now is those bank robbers that hit the Sex Workers Union today. News Center is calling them the Black Goggles Gang. One of your people apprehended a guy yesterday, but they shot up the local muni precinct to get him back.”
Fonteneaux nodded. She said, “You’re right, we’ll probably have to jump into that, especially if OPD can’t handle it.”
“They wrecked a cop car in hot pursuit before disappearing today,” Applegate said. “The cops are okay. But so far, Muni isn’t doing very well.”
“Alright. Keep me informed. I’m bringing in another person from NID as an assistant director here. She can take over one of these vacant offices. I’ll figure out who needs to fill the others later.”
With that, Fonteneaux turned and walked toward the large double doors. They opened for her, and closed behind her after she walked through.
Inside a very large office, a window served as the entire far wall. An exceptionally nice desk, three meters long, dominated the wall on the left. A sitting area featuring a leather sofa and several chairs filled the other space in the room. A door paneled the same as the wall opened to a private bathroom. Peeking in, she saw a shower and tub as well as a water closet hiding the toilet.
Everything looked open and airy.
Fonteneaux sighed and placed the box down on her new desk. She started pulling things out, including small picture cubes. When she placed them on the desk, holos of her husband and two children appeared, smiling at her.
She walked around and sat down in the luxurious executive chair.
“PLAIR, find Detective Wilcox and get her here ASAP.”
“Will do, Director Fonteneaux.”
Outside the closed door, the receptionist bot attended to a call over the neural net.
Montoya and Applegate stood in silence for a moment watching the double doors which were now shut.
In a soft voice, Montoya said, “How long do you think she’ll last?”
“I give her three months. She’ll be gone after the election.”
They both continued watching the doors for a moment, thinking different thoughts.
Finally Applegate said, “How much damage can she do in three months? That’s the real question.”
11
The clamshell doors slowly lowered while Ginger Storm popped the canopy on her car. She crawled out and noticed Edge and Marx enjoying beers on the leather sofas.
She turned to the backseat and grunted, pulling out a big bag of credit tokens. She dragged it over to a pile the two men had made with their own bags near the couch.
Edge said, “I was afraid we’d have to go into a cop station again and rescue you.”
Stormy’s lips curled up.
“The pigs got too close trying to shoot me down. I gave them the slip.”
Marx looked up from his beer bottle and said, “We can’t keep doing this. We’re supposed to stay hidden! We’ve got every cop in Diego looking for us at the moment. And if they probe long enough, they’ll figure something out.”
Storm rubbed her nose and regarded him coolly.
She said, “You worry too much. We’ve taken steps. I may not have thought of everything, but I have an insurance policy for us. And remember our escape routes, in case of emergency.
“Now, you boys help me count the money. Let’s see if we’ve got enough to meet Dirk’s demands.”
-+-
Dirk was a pseudonym, Stormy thought. It was the name of the male lead in a cheap skin holo named Lucky Lou, which was famous for being bad. In fact, Lucky Lou offered some of the worse dialogue and plot lines of any holo, and many old movies to boot.
But then, Ginger Storm was a made up name, too. So she could hardly blame the man they were going to see.
The three took a sedan this time. It looked lean and long, and it was far more expensive than most cars flying around out there. But it was a different model than the sports cars they had been using. It was red, not black. It also had room for several bags of credit tokens, which were stuffed in the trunk and in the backseat next to Marx.
Tokens are the coin of the underworld realm, she thought as the car skimmed over the warehouse district and discreetly joined a stream of traffic heading away from Eastside. She turned the car toward the Projects, the poorest part of Octavia.
Her mind wandered while she drove.
Why the AIs continued to allow anonymous transactions, she had no idea.
Well, that’s not true, she thought. She knew why. Because anonymous purchases facilitate freedom. If the government knew what you bought, they could control you. They could dictate what you can and cannot buy or sell.
Thus, at some point the AIs decided that credit tokens should continue to exist, decades after almost all money had been effectively digitized.
Even StarCen, in charge of the League, allowed credit tokens. And the League was not exactly free. It was far more socialistic than the Republic.
Whereas the Republic offered its citizens a life free of onerous rules and regulations, for the most part, the League provided much more stringent parameters for living. In the Republic, government left you alone by design. In the League, the government poked its nose into your business. Yet, even there, credit tokens were encouraged.
They were not easy to counterfeit, but the AIs did not track them. They remained truly anonymous currency.
And that is all the better for us, Stormy thought.
She kept a hand on the wheel, not trusting PLAIR and hoping to avoid contact with the Republican AI as much as possible.
The kilometers ticked away, urban sprawl lighting up below in the dusk. They covered the distance rapidly.
No one said anything, caught up in their own thoughts.
Stormy worried about bringing Marx along, since his face was known to the police now. She made him wear a visor. But she needed both the men in case there was trouble. Having Marx accompany Edge outweighed the risks, as far as she was concerned.
The holo map in her windshield flashed a yellow circle. Slowly, the circle moved closer to the center and grew larger. Stormy adjusted her steering.
“We’re almost there,” she said. “Make sure your faces are covered.”
Marx nodded in the back seat and pulled his visor down.
Edge, who had put off wearing his visor for as long as possible, placed one over his head.
Stormy made a motion and pulled her own visor down. It allowed full vision, but no one could see her face.
She broke away from the stream of traffic as the circle grew bigger on the map. Soon, it surrounded a building down below and flashed again
She circled the building. Like most of the surrounding ones, it looked in dire need of repair. The structures here appeared abandoned, marked with the telltale signs of urban blight.
“There’s a flat spot in that corner over there,” Edge said, pointing to the rooftop.
Stormy nodded and said, “I don’t want to park on the street in this neighborhood, if I can help it.”
She eased the craft down, going vertical the last few meters as the car’s legs popped out.
It thumped onto the rooftop. Everyone inside stared out at a building that appeared to be suffering from extreme neglect.
Bird droppings collected in spots all over, covering everything in white splotches. Broken appliances and debris littered the surface. Dirt, dinginess and neglect spa
nned across the rooftop as far as the eye could see in the evening gloom.
A stairwell entrance, marked by an old fashioned door on hinges, stood about 50 meters away.
The door opened, and an old man stepped out.
“That’s him,” Stormy said. “Let’s go.”
She stepped out of the car with the men. They closed the doors and she made a twirling motion, securing the vehicle remotely with the money still inside.
Slowly they wound their way through litter and scrap metal piles to meet the old man heading toward them.
When they drew close, everyone stopped. He stared at them for a moment with a little smile on his wrinkled face.
He stood dressed in a natty bathrobe and slippers, wearing pajama bottoms. His hair looked unkempt with wisps of gray floated with the rooftop breeze.
Yet, despite his dirty and worn appearance, he regarded the visitors with an air of superiority.
“Well,” Dirk said, unfazed by their visors. “We meet again.”
Stormy nodded and said, “We have the money you asked for. Hand over the tech.”
The old man smirked while holding the lapels of his bathrobe as if it were an expensive suit coat.
“It doesn’t work that way. You know that. I’ll be counting every credit in that car over there before we go any further.”
He made a slight motion to the right with his head, and four thugs stepped out from hiding places on the roof.
He nodded to the left and four more appeared.
“I have you outnumbered two to one.”
“Fine,” Stormy said.
She twirled her finger in the air again, and the car unlocked itself.
“Have your boys go pull them out. Don’t forget the trunk.”
Dirk made a motion with his head and two of the thugs headed toward the car. He watched as they retrieved several black bags out of the back.
“I seen what you all did at the bank and the Sex Workers building. Cool stuff. Heard you shot up a PD too, but you lost a fella there.”
Stormy gave him a blank look behind her visor.
She said, “Don’t worry about us, Dirk. Just give us that tech.”
One of the thugs ran a scanner over all the bags, now piled up beside the car.
“It’s all here, sir!”
“Very good. You’ll get your tech today. Now, let’s see . . . where did I put it? Oh yeah, here it is. In my robe’s pocket.”
He smiled at her in a leering way, and pulled out two necklaces with small metal amulets attached.
“Do you know how a framer works, young lady?”
“No idea. Why don’t you tell me? After you hand them over.”
“It comes preset with some generic faces, but you’ll want to find a secure terminal and come up with your own. You know, there’s only so many basic facial types. Then once they’re programmed in, you just slap it and your face’s cellular structure rearranges electronically. What do the kids say these days? It’s ‘electric.’ Personally, I think the term ‘cool’ never goes out of style. And this is very cool tech.”
Stormy reached out and grabbed the two necklaces.
She turned without another word and headed back toward the car. The thugs moved to grab the black bags and take them inside.
As she walked away, Dirk called out to her.
“Sorry you lost your boy in the police station! Hope he was worth it.”
Stormy ignored him and climbed into her vehicle along with the two men. She started it up, and rose vertically a few meters before swinging around and heading toward the traffic streams.
Dirk smiled, watching her go. Then he looked at all the bags of money she left him and smiled even more.
He said, “It was certainly worth it to me.”
12
Wilcox stepped out of an autocab in the street near the entrance to the AOJ Building.
She approached the doors and noted the guard bots were newer models. In fact, they looked like Verberger X99s.
It made sense that the company would continue winning government contracts now that the war was over, she thought. A few minor adjustments and a battle bot could be adapted for civilian law enforcement.
Mentally she examined their electronics as she walked by, scanning for identification numbers and other telltale signs programmers left behind.
Her suspicions were correct. Their internals were virtually identical to the X99s, a model she had studied extensively before leaving her unit.
The bots made no effort at controlling access to the door, but inside a droid receptionist manned a barrier system.
AOJ personnel simply walked through a door to the right, but visitors had to wait and speak with the automaton.
Wilcox dutifully took up position in the line and waited patiently for her turn.
A few minutes later, she faced the receptionist.
“Name?”
“Gina Wilcox,” she said, flashing her holo badge.
“Purpose of your visit today, Detective Wilcox?”
“I have an appointment to see Director Fonteneaux.”
Gina felt a signal go out from the bot, tracing it upstairs as it electronically reached out to a counterpart on the 10th floor.
The bot there signaled her approval and the door swished open.
“Elevators are to your right, Detective Wilcox. Have a good day.”
She walked through and found herself in a large open area. A coffee bar took up one corner of the lobby and a deli offered food and drinks in another.
Tables and chairs and sofas allowed employees to mix and mingle. Down a hallway, she caught sight of a gym.
Everything on the first floor seemed to be geared toward food and recreation. She noticed some regular folks there, too. AOJ agents were interviewing them in a relaxed setting over coffee. Others were giving interviews to reporters. Real ones, who still existed since they had to write up the stories read by artificial anchors on the holo.
After taking it all in for a moment, Gina headed to the right and the elevator bank along that wall.
“Sarge! Omigosh! Hey, Sarge!”
She turned and saw a familiar black-haired brown-eyed face staring at her as a man in his early 20s ran up.
“Boggs!”
He stopped and gawked. He looked like he wanted to hug her. She stood taller than him by a few centimeters, and since she used to be the First Sergeant in his platoon, all of this contributed to a burst of uncertainty now that they were civilians.
She laughed and gave him a hug, breaking up the awkward pause.
“It’s so good to see you, Boggs!”
“What happened to you, Sarge? First there was that accident in the warehouse on Juventas. Then they said you were on some secret mission or such. We never saw you again.”
“Well, it was a secret mission. I can’t really talk a whole lot about it. But what happened to you? You’re not still on Epsilon, obviously.”
“Nope. Discharged, honorably I might add. I decided to join the Agency. I’ve been going through the Academy the last few months.”
He beamed proudly at her, and Gina could not help but smile back at the young man.
“That’s great, Boggs. How far along are you?”
“I’ve got finals next week. If I pass everything, I’ll start my first year the following week. What about you? What are you doing here?”
“Well, I’ve been at Naval Investigations since the end of the war, helping out over there. Recently the Navy dissolved NID and she was appointed to Director of AOJ practically the same day. She asked me to come along and help out over here.”
Boggs’s face registered his surprise.
“Wow. Upper management. Don’t forget us small fry down here at the bottom of the barrel, Sarge.”
Gina smiled again.
“You can bet I won’t. Hey, what happened to Jamieson? You two were inseparable.”
“He went into law enforcement, too. But he went off and got his private investigator’s licens
e, can you believe that? Jamieson is a PI now!”
“Huh. That’s odd. What’s he do, track down cheating spouses and such?”
“No idea. But we got to get together, Sarge! I’ll call Jamie and we’ll have a beer. After finals!”
“Okay. Ask PLAIR to find me. I’ll put you on my approved list of contacts.”
The two parted ways, Boggs heading back to a table while Wilcox walked to the elevators.
Neither one noticed a third person, a man wearing a plain blue suit and pretending to read a holosheet floating near his face. He sat at a nearby table and did not actually look at them the entire time they spoke.
But he heard every word.
He finally glanced up, his eyes following Wilcox all the way to the elevator.
Since he did not use any electronics at the moment, she never noticed him.
13
Gina Wilcox stepped out of the elevator pod and onto the restricted top floor of the AOJ building.
A particularly attractive android with blonde hair and blue eyes sat behind the receptionist’s desk and smiled at her.
Some guy must have picked her out, Gina thought.
“Good afternoon, Detective Wilcox. I’m Molly, Director Fonteneaux’s assistant. I am a Verberger RB 1300 belonging to the Agency of Justice. Please go on in.”
Wilcox nodded and walked around the desk, heading for the wooden doors opening outward for her.
Sitting behind a gargantuan desk, Fonteneaux looked up when she walked in. Wilcox took a seat in front of the desk and looked around at the large opulent space.
“Nicer than your old one, Boss.”
Fonteneaux nodded. She reached into her box of personal belongings and pulled out an old fashioned pen and some paper. She looked meaningfully at Wilcox for a moment, locking eyes with the younger woman, then scribbled a note.
She stood and handed it across the big desk. Wilcox took it and read, Check for bugs.
Wilcox nodded in understanding, and began spreading her senses out. Immediately she picked up a tiny transmitter.
She stood and walked over to the desk’s far corner. Kneeling down she could see it attached to the overhang, an object the size of a square centimeter and thin as the sheet of paper in her hand.
