by Jaxon Reed
In a darkened room at precinct headquarters, a dispatcher raised her hand. Lieutenant Deshawn Andrews acknowledged her, his dark skin and bright eyes reflecting light from the many virtual monitors floating in the air.
“Yes, Porter?”
“Lieutenant, Detective Bryce is requesting assistance. Shots fired in his vicinity, one civilian down.”
“Bring him up on the big screen. Let’s see what’s going on.”
Dispatcher Amelia Porter nodded and made some adjustments from her console. A three-dimensional representation of Bryce’s neighborhood floated in front of the room. A flashing blue shield above an avatar represented the detective.
Andrews said, “Is that all we’ve got? Where’s our nearest drone?”
Porter said, “I have Drone 18 en route. ETA two minutes.”
“Bryce is the psychic, right?”
“I believe he’s an empath, sir.”
“Whatever. Patch me into the call.”
Porter made some adjustments, then turned and nodded at him. He said, “Detective, this is Lieutenant Andrews. Do you, ah, feel anything out there?”
-+-
Bryce shook his head, kicking himself mentally for drinking too much and then wallowing in his own thoughts. He focused as hard as he could in the direction of the shooter. Someone was there, on a rooftop nearby, but he could not get a clear read on the emotions. They seemed muted somehow, as if coming in from a distance. What he could feel, in answer to the Lieutenant’s question, was a slight whiff of indignation that things were somehow not working out as the shooter planned.
Out loud he said, “I can’t be certain, Lieutenant. I think someone is on the rooftop about a hundred yards west of my position.”
“Copy that, Detective. We’ll have a drone in position momentarily.”
Bryce risked a quick peek above the car. The victim remained face down on the sidewalk, one broken arm outstretched. It appeared the shooter could not see him from that angle. Maybe the sniper wanted to make sure he had a clean kill?
On a rooftop six stories up, Bryce could barely make out the metallic gleam from a gun barrel aimed in his direction.
A whoosh of air above him signaled the arrival of a drone, a long silver vehicle the size of a school bus with the number 18 painted in white on its belly. Bryce knew it carried the latest in surveillance technologies: multiple cameras, night vision, wall penetration monitoring, and probably a few other classified items. Eyes and ears for every occasion. Everything but weapons.
A spotlight on the drone lit up the rooftop. This was for his benefit, Bryce knew. Officers on the ground did not always have night vision. Bright lights also intimidated suspects.
An electronic voice boomed out from Drone 18, “APD! Drop your weapon!”
Bryce watched the gun barrel swing up to the sky.
Thup! Thup! Thup!
He heard the dispatcher’s voice in his ear saying, “All units be advised. Drone 18 is coming under fire! Repeat, shots fired at Drone 18!”
Another voice said, “Dispatch, two oh-six.”
“Two oh-six.”
“We are on site, with visual on Detective Bryce. Requesting SWAT backup.”
“Two oh-six, SWAT Unit One has been activated. ETA four minutes.”
“This is going to be over in four minutes,” Bryce grumbled.
Then he remembered his new phone with its upgraded capabilities, and the fact it tied into the police system. He said, “Dispatch, can you connect me to two oh-six’s visuals please?”
A moment passed, then the phone’s virtual screen popped up in his field of vision, showing the feed from Officer 206’s bodycam. He could listen in, too, just like the dispatchers back at headquarters.
The officer said, “What is that?”
His partner said, “I dunno, man. It don’t look human.”
Bryce could see a shiny figure holding a rifle. It seemed to glimmer and flow in the spotlight, as if made of tiny chunks of metal holding themselves together in the form of a man.
Its face looked up, straight into the camera, as Officer 206 zoomed in for a closer look. Small metallic pieces the size of old-fashioned postage stamps seemed to float together in the rough resemblance of a face. Two of the pieces serving as eyes were different, Bryce thought. They glowed with a dim orange light. A couple of the squares tented up to make a nose. A slit, a gap between the postage stamps, formed a mouth. Before Bryce could make out more details, it raised the gun and fired again.
Thup! Thup!
Bryce heard bullets bouncing off the squad car.
“Shots fired! Moving in to engage suspect.”
Bryce remembered the new squad cars had energy weapons built in. They were based in part on the ray guns from RajDef that had spilled out onto the streets years ago. These were lower powered, though, designed to stun rather than kill. Lethal weapons in the air were only allowed to the military.
Zzzzzith!
An electronic bolt shot out from the police car and hit the shiny metallic man-shape in the chest. Light rippled across his body and he froze for a moment.
The officer said, “Direct hit. Whatever it is, he should be going down.”
Instead, it turned and ran across the rooftop, moving in a smooth gait as all the squares of metal worked together.
“Hit him again!”
Zzzzith! Zzzith!
More stun bolts shot out from the car, but Bryce could see they missed.
A new voice joined in, saying, “This is one one-eight. SWAT One is in position.”
Dispatch came back on the line. “Disengage, two-oh-six. SWAT Unit One is onsite.”
“Copy that, Dispatch. We’ll hand it over to SWAT One. Welcome to the party, Sergeant.”
Bryce watched as a blue police van seemed to drop out of the sky, landing abruptly on the sniper’s roof. Its back door fell open and a dozen men and women in black body armor streamed out. Some took up defensive positions, looking for more gunmen. Most took chase after the metallic figure.
Dispatch channeled the bodycam feed of the sergeant to Bryce and the officers in the squad car. The sergeant took the lead in pursuing the metal man.
The figure skidded to a stop at the roof’s edge, and peered over, as if estimating how far the jump would be to the neighboring rooftop. Bryce watched through the sergeant’s camera as he closed the distance.
“APD! Drop your weapon!”
The metallic man turned and aimed at the SWAT leader.
Thup! Thup! Thup!
The sergeant dropped to his knees and returned fire on full auto, emptying his gun’s magazine.
Buuurrrrrrp! Buuuurrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrppp!
POOM!
-+-
Bryce stooped down to get a closer look at the thin, square pieces of metal. Hundreds were scattered about the rooftop. Several more had floated to the street below when the figure exploded.
Drone 18 stayed on location, its lights illuminating the rooftop. Most of the SWAT team members waited near the van. Bryce could feel their impatience, and he sympathized. Their sergeant’s name was Diaz and he stayed with Bryce. The detective could sense the officer’s intense curiosity. His team would not be leaving without him, and he was in no hurry.
James Ramos from Forensics walked over to the men with his equipment. Tall and skinny, Ramos wore his Aggie ring on one hand and his wedding ring on the other. This was an indication of his position in the department, Bryce thought. Patrol and SWAT officers would not be wearing jewelry. They presented additional opportunities for injury.
Bryce looked up and raised his eyebrows, forming a silent question.
Ramos said, “Nobody’s been here recently except us, Detective. Us and the pigeons.”
Bryce nodded and pointed at a round, metallic object sitting near the edge of the roof. He said, “How long has that thing been here?”
“It was scrubbed before it was placed, and whoever placed it was careful. I looked it all over with the instruments. Nothing.”
“Wha
t about the gun?”
“Same thing. Completely clean. We’ll run the serial numbers on it, but I’m guessing it’s stolen. The suppressor was made with a 3-D printer. Probably one of those designs the search engines keep ignoring, but they’re out there on the internet. Anyone can find them if they look hard enough. No prints or anything on it, either.”
“And these little pieces of metal?”
“No DNA. No pollen. Nothing. Whoever placed everything here was good.”
“That’s a lot of stuff to not have anything, Jimmy.”
Ramos nodded and said, “We might be able to find out where the metal squares were made. I don’t want to get too deep into the weeds on technical details, but sometimes we can examine the molecular makeup of things and get clues about their origins. Certain factories and processing plants leave telltale signs. Kind of like fingerprints.”
Bryce said, “Alright. We have a recording of where they all landed after the explosion when Sergeant Diaz shot it. I think we can go ahead and pick everything up and take it back to the precinct.”
“I’ll go get the vacuum cleaner.”
Ramos gave a parting grin and wandered off to swap out his equipment, leaving the two taller men alone.
The rooftop door opened and Parker came out. She looked around, picked out Bryce and walked over. As she approached, Bryce reflected on the fact she had kept her figure, even into her late 40s. He knew she exercised daily, and watched her calories. Her shoulder-length blond hair remained the same, too. No gray yet.
He said, “Get an ID on my victim?”
She nodded and said, “Michel Luc Caron. French national. He arrived a few hours ago on an Air France flight from Paris.”
Diaz said, “Sounds like a girl’s name. Transgender?”
Parker shook her head and said, “It’s French for Michael, actually. Fairly common over there.”
Bryce said, “He knew me by name. Heck, he knew me by sight. And he knew where I live, he was waiting for me. But I’ve never seen him before in my life.”
Parker nodded and said, “I’ve got our AI looking through the databases. We’re linking up with Europol, seeing if anything pops up.”
Bryce quirked a disapproving eyebrow at her. She said, “I know you hate Europol, but if they’ve got info then we need to know about it.”
Diaz said, “What’s the matter with Europol?”
Bryce said, “It’s a long story.”
Ramos flicked a switch and his vacuum cleaner started. He walked around, sucking up the little pieces of metal. Parker followed him with her eyes and said, “What happened up here, partner?”
“Yeah,” Diaz said. “What happened up here?”
“You were here,” Parker said to Diaz.
“Hey, I all I did was shoot that thing. I don’t know what really happened. I’m having a hard time understanding it all.”
Bryce turned and pointed at the metallic cylinder on the edge of the roof. He said, “Best I can tell, somebody placed that thing on the side facing my apartment. They also placed a pile of these little metal squares nearby. At the appropriate time, when Michel Caron approached me while I was walking home, the little metal pieces . . . formed into a man shape, picked up a gun, and shot Mr. Caron.”
Parker said, “How is that possible? Little pieces of metal don’t just become a sniper on their own.”
Bryce nodded and said, “If I had to guess, I’d say the cylinder is the key.”
-+-
“The cylinder is the key.”
Bryce and Parker stood in Lawrence N. B. Witherspoon’s office in the basement of their precinct headquarters building.
Bryce reflected on the fact that few things had changed about Witherspoon’s appearance over time. He had gained a few more pounds, but his demeanor remained dour as ever. Thinning dark hair steadfastly refused to surrender in battles against grayness or baldness.
What had changed over the years was the size of the lab and the fact Witherspoon now had several young men and women working under him. Here in his underground fiefdom, new technologies and weapons were put through their paces and evaluated for potential use by a whole team of experts instead of just one man.
By necessity, Bryce knew, Witherspoon increasingly turned the workload over to his underlings. Bryce could sense the worries Witherspoon tried to suppress. Technology continued to grow in complexity while Witherspoon aged. He no longer felt on the cutting edge. More and more he resorted to consorting with the 20-somethings working for him when new things came along.
The cylinder, Bryce realized, represented one of those new things.
“I figured as much,” Bryce said. “But I want to know how it works.”
Witherspoon reached for the cell phone implant under his ear and stopped with a grimace.
“I’m not used to the new model yet.”
Bryce nodded sympathetically while Witherspoon concentrated, making the connection in his mind. He said, “Finney, get in here. Bring that new toy we’ve been playing with.”
A moment later, a young black man stepped into the room. He wore a nametag that read, “Isaiah J. Finney” over his breast pocket.
Finney had a sharp, probing look in his eyes and Bryce immediately sensed an almost boyish enthusiasm for the job. The younger man even held a modest level of affection for Witherspoon, although Bryce suspected Lawrence would be appalled if he knew about it.
Finney carried a small shiny round metallic ball and some other items. Witherspoon pointed at the table, and Finney arranged everything neatly in the center.
Witherspoon waved at the wall, and a hologram video appeared, showing the recording created by Drone 18. They watched as the metallic man shot at the SWAT team and ran across the roof before turning back to shoot again, then exploding in a hail of gunfire.
Witherspoon turned back to the detectives and said, “Now, I don’t want to pull stuff out of my—”
He locked eyes with Parker and blushed slightly. He cleared his throat and said, “I don’t want to speculate too much. So I’ll give you my best educated guess, based on what we know at the moment.”
He reached down and picked up one of the metal pieces. Witherspoon squeezed it slightly from the edges to show its flexibility.
He said, “Most of these things are about an inch long, half an inch wide, and wafer-thin.”
“What are they?” Parker said.
“They are chips. Very specialized computer chips.”
Witherspoon carried it over to the table where the metallic ball sat perched on a little pedestal.
He said, “This is a magnetic resonance field generator. A small one. It generates a magnetic field above and around the globe. So, if I place the chip in its vicinity like so . . .”
He gently let go of the metal piece above the ball. It remained floating in the air.
Bryce noted Parker’s sense of wonder. She said, “Wow!”
“Watch this,” Witherspoon said.
He placed a small touchpad near the globe and said, “The pad is connected wirelessly to the field. When I move my finger, watch what happens.”
He reached down and gently ran his finger from left to right on the pad. The chip moved in the air. He moved his finger in a figure eight pattern on the pad, and the chip followed suit, making a corresponding pattern above the sphere.
Witherspoon looked up at the detectives and said, “So, the cylinder is a much larger magnetic field generator, and the chips were controlled remotely at a distance. I think somebody created a virtual telepresence that could handle a gun.”
“Telepresence? Not sure I’ve heard it called that before.” Parker said.
“Sure. You understand television, where you can see events happening at a distance. With virtual reality technology, you can step into an event at a distance and feel like you’re actually there. Telepresence.
“Now, we’ve done a lot of that in simulations, and it’s been a hallmark of video gaming for decades, with multiplayer games and all tha
t. But it’s only been somewhat recently that we’ve had more practical applications of real world telepresence technology.
“In the old days we could stick a tablet computer on a robot and approximate a decent sense of telepresence. More recently we’ve used holograms, where heads of state can ‘show up’ at important events without actually traveling there. They see and hear everything that’s going on while those present interact with the hologram. By the way, it’s expensive and the department doesn’t like to use it often, but every now and then the Chief will visit a crime scene that way.”
Parker said, “So, let me see if I understand correctly. Somebody set up a ‘telepresence,’ like a hologram only with substance this time, using these metallic chips. The chips created what was essentially a remote-controlled sniper by way of a solid hologram. And with that, they were able to murder Michel Caron from a distance?”
Witherspoon nodded again and said, “Yup. That’s my theory.”
“That is ripped!”
The three older people turned toward Finney, busy watching the video loop from the previous night.
“I think he means, ‘cool,’ or something to that effect,” Witherspoon said. “I don’t keep up with the jargon of today’s youth.”
Finney turned and smiled at everyone. Bryce could feel the awe radiating from him. He said, “That’s just like something out of Metro-X!”
2
Metro-X, Finney explained, was owned by a company called VIR-1 which offered many popular virtual reality games under one roof. Players logged into a central lobby then departed for their desired online worlds. Metro-X served as one of VIR-1’s biggest and most successful games.
“It’s great, man. All the major cities are recreated there,” Finney said. “People can live out their entire digital lives in Metro-X. They make friends, enemies. Some even get married there.”
“Why would I want to go to a digital version of my own city?” Parker said.
“It doesn’t have to be your own city. You can go to New York, Rome, London. Wherever. It costs money to travel, though.”
Bryce said, “So, what city do you hang out in?”
