Gunwitch: Rebirth

by Niall Teasdale

  ‘Thanks… Um, what do I call you if I don’t want to call you Officer Clement all the time?’

  ‘Kerry. Kerry Clement. I never liked it much.’

  Annette smiled. ‘Thanks, Kerry. I think it’s a perfectly good name.’

  He returned the smile. ‘Right. I’ll let you know when I’ve got something.’ And he set off down the avenue at a steady stroll.

  Mickey made a soft noise which Annette could not quite identify and she looked at him. ‘What? He’s a nice guy. I like him.’

  She could have sworn the dog was rolling his eyes.

  7/3/2117.

  Despite Annette’s concerns, Jenny was back on the avenue on Saturday, rather pleased with the haul from an evening with the man in the black car. She did comment that his requests were getting kinkier, but would not be drawn further on the subject and Annette was not inclined to press it.

  On Sunday, Annette was in the industrial zone, viewing workshop spaces. There were several buildings with space available and owners desperate enough to see her on a Sunday. Annette was not looking for anything big, but she knew what she wanted to put in and what the minimum space requirements were. She also knew her likely power requirements and she absolutely had to have a good network connection. Getting everything just right, at a reasonable price, was proving harder than she had hoped.

  The second-to-last property on her list was a bit of a weird one. The building manager showing her around was not looking expectant and Annette was not entirely sure why. She had skipped her street outfit in favour of T-shirt and jeans, so maybe he had expected someone in a suit. Or it might have been the somewhat eclectic building design.

  Someone had, for some reason, put a small shop in at the corner of an industrial unit. It had a standard sort of shop window and door, both of which had heavy-duty roller shutters mounted over them. At the back of a shop floor that was not particularly large, there was what you would have expected was a door onto a storage area, but it actually opened onto a flight of fairly narrow stairs which led down into the basement. The basement had more space than the shop did.

  ‘So,’ the manager said, ‘when they couldn’t get anyone to move into the shop, they refitted and started trying to get a small business to move in. You’ve got three-phase power, fibre connection to the local network exchange, fully tanked walls, solid concrete floor.’

  ‘And you could always use upstairs for office space, I guess,’ Annette suggested.

  ‘Yeah. If you wanted to.’

  Annette scanned over the room, trying to figure out why no one had taken the place. It was a little cool, but… ‘Ah, no heating, no air conditioning.’

  The manager winced. ‘Yeah, that is a bit of an issue…’

  ‘Cold in the winter, hot in the summer. Though you should get a degree of thermal stability from it being underground… I could work with this.’ Her software picked out the sudden perking up of the manager’s body language and expression, not that she needed it to notice in this case. ‘The only problem is the cost. The size is right. I actually like the subsurface location. I’d need permission to drill a couple of channels up to the surface…’

  ‘Probably won’t be a problem, if it’s done properly.’ He was suddenly far too eager to please. ‘And we may be able to negotiate on the price…’

  Annette nodded. ‘I’m going to have to go away and run the figures, of course.’

  ‘Uh, of course. Do you need dimensions or anything?’

  ‘No, I have those. Accurate enough for my needs anyway. I’m quite good at estimating distances. I’ll be in touch.’

  ~~~

  Of course, the money was more than just an issue. There was no way Annette could afford the space the way she was currently making money. She needed an additional source of income if she was going to start work on additions to her systems. That was not going to be easy. She was contemplating possibilities, and largely coming up with nothing, when she spotted Kerry outside her apartment building.

  ‘Kerry,’ Annette said as she approached. He had not noticed her and jumped. ‘You’re out of uniform,’ she added, grinning.

  ‘Yeah. I usually get into that at the precinct. We have our own laundry service.’

  ‘That’s… a perk, I guess. Am I to assume you were looking for me?’

  ‘Uh, yeah. I got the information you asked me to get.’

  Annette flashed him a smile. ‘Okay. Got time for a drink?’

  ‘It’ll have to be non-alcoholic for me, but sure.’

  ~~~

  There was a sports bar on the corner about two blocks west of Annette’s apartment building. There was always a rather loud baseball game on the screen near the front of the place: always a replay from the owner’s collection of classic games since there was no longer a league. The booths at the back, however, were fairly quiet and you could chat without yelling.

  Kerry started the conversation, after putting down a glass of wine for Annette and a soda for himself, by taking an envelope from his jacket and sliding it across the table. ‘You, uh, didn’t get that from me, obviously.’

  Annette retrieved the envelope and vanished it into her bag. ‘I’m not even sure what you’re referring to, Kerry.’

  ‘Huh. You know, I’ve been wondering since I saw you on the avenue… What’s a girl like you doing in that business? Shouldn’t you be in Sky City, making more money than I’ll see in a decade?’

  ‘Hmm…’ Annette looked at him for a second or two. ‘I’m an illegal immigrant. Shouldn’t be here. Where I come from, I’m a fugitive. If they find me, they’ll kill me. So, I needed to be somewhere off the grid, where no one asks too many questions. The only place more off the grid than Queens is Brooklyn, and I have some taste.’

  Kerry raised an eyebrow. ‘Trusting me with a lot, aren’t you?’

  ‘How much trouble would you be in if I told someone about that thing you didn’t give me?’

  ‘Fair point.’ He gave a shrug. ‘I’m not totally sure I’d get more than a private chat with the sergeant, to be honest. Word’s been getting around. I know I’m not the only cop you’ve stopped getting a beating or worse. Your section of Industrial Avenue has been noticeably quieter since you turned up there. The Citizen Deputy Programme hasn’t helped much in this part of Queens. You might not be part of it, but you’re kind of honouring the idea. We need all the help we can get around here.’

  ‘It makes me feel better about myself. This is not how I saw my life going. What about you? Have you always wanted to be a cop?’

  ‘Pretty much. I’m the third generation in the LIPD. My niece is a rookie over in Sky City. If I ever meet the right girl, I’d kind of like to see one of my kids put on the uniform.’

  ‘If it was me, I’d want the uniform redesigned to include some body armour. Back home, the cops wear full-body armour, and they have powered-armour backup. Of course, there’s a reason I ran away…’

  ‘This from the girl who goes out with a pair of pistols, dressed in a corset.’

  ‘I have something… more protective if I need it. I haven’t needed it, and I’d do my best to make sure no one saw me in it if I did. And I’m thinking of reinforcing my corset.’

  Kerry grinned. ‘Oh, I’m sure that’ll make all the difference.’

  ‘You’d be surprised.’ Annette pointed vaguely at Kerry’s chest. ‘What’s the cross for? I’ve not noticed it before.’

  Glancing down, Kerry tucked the small gold cross on a neck chain under his shirt. ‘I don’t generally brag about my religion. You don’t have Christianity where you’re from?’

  ‘Uh, actually, no. I guess you’d say the culture there is… supremely rationalist. No religions.’ In a way, there was: the Cult of Doctor White. Annette did not think bringing that up would help, however.

  ‘Well, I think you’re missing out on something, but I don’t push it. I think someone’s beliefs are kind of private. Personal, y’know?’

  ‘Not exactly, but I can appreciate the idea.
There’s a guy comes down the avenue every couple of weeks shouting about hellfire and damnation. Sarah called him a preacher.’

  Kerry smiled. ‘That’s not the kind of religion I believe in. People used to say that the Damnation Plague was sent to destroy the evils of mankind. Some still do. I don’t believe God’s like that, but… Well, it’s personal.’

  Annette sank the remainder of her wine and smiled. ‘I should get moving. Mickey will be looking for something to devour.’

  ‘Sure,’ Kerry said. He finished off his soda and got up, escorting Annette out onto the street where Annette paused.

  ‘Um… You know, my place isn’t far away and… Maybe you’d like a coffee. Or something.’

  The offer was implicit and Kerry was not sure he had ever heard Annette sound quite so hesitant. He looked at her for a second, but… ‘I can’t… My shift starts soon and I have to get changed and…’ He saw her face fall. ‘Really. I’m going to have to rush a little to get there before the sergeant growls at me for not being early enough.’

  Annette’s expression shifted to more of a quirky grin. ‘I believe you. Nice Christian boy like you too.’ She raised a finger. ‘Rain check then. Maybe after you get off shift, you could…’

  ‘Come over for a coffee?’

  ‘Coffee. Yeah.’

  Grinning, Kerry turned to head toward the precinct building. ‘I might just do that.’

  8/3/2117.

  Mickey had to pull out his best ‘big, sad eyes’ look in the morning when Annette got up alone. It was something of a struggle, but he got her past the part with the metal thing that she put under her chin some mornings.

  He suspected that this had something to do with the policeman she liked because she had mentioned his name a couple of times as though to suggest that Kerry might turn up at some point. There had been scents involved which Mickey had decided not to mention, because he was a polite dog.

  Whatever the actual case, Annette was in something of a sulk when she went out with Mickey to the avenue. Mickey had tried to indicate Annette’s mood to Sarah, but he was not sure he got it across, and anyway, there was the issue of the Missing Jenny. Jenny, who had smelled… not quite right a couple of days ago, had not turned up, and Sarah was a little worried about her. Mickey was a little worried too.

  Annette was frowning a lot. The day was not going the way she would have liked, Mickey could tell. And the cops turning up was not helping…

  ~~~

  Annette had spotted them at a hundred metres, tagging them easily as cops. The woman hid it better, but there was something about her that gave it away. A slim brunette in a pant suit, she wore her pistol in a holster on the back of her belt: it pulled oddly on her jacket as she walked. Her colleague was bigger, a big-framed man with plenty of muscle laid over it. Annette wondered if he was compensating for something because the bulge of a very large handgun distorted the line of his jacket under his left arm. He was blonde, but his hair was short enough to meet armed forces regulations.

  ‘You’re Louise?’ the woman asked as they closed the distance.

  ‘I’m Louise, yes,’ Annette replied.

  The woman flashed her ID and the shield that accompanied it. ‘I’m Detective Lisa Bradley, this is Detective Melch. We’re investigating the death of an LIPD officer and we understand you saw him yesterday just before the start of his shift.’

  Annette’s stomach sank. ‘Officer Clement.’ Sarah let out a little gasp and Mickey covered his muzzle with a paw and whined softly. ‘How did he die?’

  ‘We’ll ask the questions,’ Melch said, glaring at Annette.

  ‘What were you doing with Officer Clement?’ Bradley asked, her tone softer. Good cop, bad cop. Great.

  Annette took her glasses off and glared back at Melch. ‘We had a drink. We talked about why he became a cop.’ Melch discovered that outstaring a woman with no eyes was fairly futile and looked away. Annette turned her attention to Bradley. ‘If you must know, I invited him up to my apartment, but he didn’t have time before his shift. So, I suggested he might come back later. I was pissed off because he didn’t and now… Now it turns out he had an excuse. How did he die?’

  Bradley nodded. ‘The actual cause of death was heart failure, but–’

  ‘He had a laser burn on his chest.’

  ‘Close. The burn was on his back.’

  ‘He was shot with an electrolaser on the lethal setting.’ Annette’s jaw tightened as she said it. ‘Someone wasn’t even willing to face him when they killed him.’

  ‘Those are very high-tech pistols you got there,’ Melch said.

  ‘And they fire ten-mil, gyro-stabilised, multipurpose rounds, none of which cause a laser burn or heart failure. Plus, if I wanted Kerry dead, I’d have done it face-to-face.’

  ‘Right, because–’

  ‘Did Officer Clement mention anything during your drink?’ Bradley interrupted. ‘Did he mention any problems or anyone who might have wished to harm him?’

  Annette shook her head. ‘Nothing. We didn’t discuss his work, but I understood the beat cops weren’t generally assigned to specific cases. No one to decide Kerry needed to be killed over something like that.’

  ‘Yes,’ Bradley agreed. ‘That’s the way it usually works.’ Bradley produced a card from her jacket and held it out. ‘If you think of anything which might reflect on the case, call me.’

  Taking the card, Annette nodded. ‘I will.’

  ‘Damn,’ Sarah said when the detectives were out of hearing. ‘Officer Clement was one of the good ones.’

  ‘Yes,’ Annette agreed, ‘and I have a horrible feeling I might have got him killed.’

  ‘What?! How?’

  ‘I asked him to run a plate for me.’ Frowning, Annette looked up and down the avenue. ‘No Jenny. I need to see her. I’m going over to her place. Keep an eye on Mickey for me. Mickey, you stay with Sarah. Keep her safe.’

  Mickey gave a short bark and shifted his position a little to better guard his charge, and Annette started off in the direction of Jenny’s apartment.

  Sarah looked down at the grey dog. ‘I think she knows who killed him.’

  Bark.

  ‘I wouldn’t want to be them when she finds them.’

  ~~~

  The apartment building Jenny lived in was not a lot different from Annette’s, but she knew that Jenny’s actual apartment was a little bigger, a little better. Terri, Jenny’s daughter, had her own bed, even if it was crammed into the same bedroom as Jenny’s, and there was an actual bedroom where Annette’s was pretty much a single room.

  Pressing the buzzer on the door got Annette nowhere, so she tried Jenny’s neighbour. Jenny paid the woman to look after Terri when she was out and hopefully…

  ‘Yes.’ The voice was a little terse.

  ‘Mrs Wilton, I don’t know whether you remember me. I’m Louise, Jenny’s friend.’

  ‘I don’t know where Jenny is. She didn’t drop Terri off and she didn’t say she wouldn’t.’

  ‘No, she didn’t say anything to us either. Um, Mrs Wilton, I’m a little worried about her. Would you buzz me in? I’d like to check she’s okay.’

  ‘Well… I shouldn’t, but…’ The door clicked open. ‘Thanks, Mrs Wilton,’ Annette said and pushed in, heading straight for the stairs.

  Mrs Wilton, sixty-eight, plump, and grandmotherly, was waiting for Annette at the top of the stairs. ‘You don’t think something’s happened to Jenny, do you? Terri could be in there, unable to help. And there’s no way she can reach the lock.’

  ‘Well, let’s see,’ Annette replied, stepping up to Jenny’s door and knocking. There was no reply, so she knocked again, harder.

  And then a timid-sounding voice came from the other side. ‘Hello?’

  ‘Terri?’ Annette called back. ‘Is that you? It’s Louise and Mrs Wilton. Where’s your mommy?’

  ‘Mommy’s asleep,’ the small voice replied. ‘She’s been asleep a long time. She won’t wake up.’

&nb
sp; ‘Shit,’ Annette said under her breath. She raised her voice again. ‘Terri, I need you to move back from the door, honey. We’re going to come in and help your mommy, okay?’

  ‘Okay…’

  ‘Should I get the supervisor?’ Mrs Wilton asked.

  ‘I’d rather not wait,’ Annette replied. She lifted one of her pistols, stepped back, and fired three rounds into the lock. Then she applied her boot to the door.

  Terri was standing at the end of the entrance corridor, a little wide-eyed but apparently not scared. She walked toward Annette as Annette walked in, heading straight for the bedroom door. There was a smell in the air, sweat and blood, which Annette did not like at all. She picked Terri up, primarily to keep the child’s face directed away from the bedroom, and pushed the door open.

  Jenny was lying on her bed, the sheets thrown off as though she was hot though the room was a comfortable temperature. Her skin was a sickly, pallid shade which was not its natural colour and she was sweating, the droplets glistening in all the areas not coated in blood. Jenny was bleeding from the nose and from a wound on her neck for sure, and it looked like she had also bled from other places which should not have been leaking like that.

  Mrs Wilton let out a gasp and Annette put an arm out to stop her entering the room. ‘Mrs Wilton, get an ambulance here. Tell them it’s a possibly contagious disease. They should treat this as a biohazard.’

  ‘What? But we have to help her!’

  ‘She’s breathing. I can’t help her, and unless you have a degree in microbiology, I don’t think you can. She needs to be in a hospital. Now!’

  ~~~

  ‘You realise I shouldn’t be telling you anything?’ the doctor in charge of Jenny’s treatment said. ‘You’re not her next of kin, or part of the government, or–’

  ‘Her next of kin is a four-year-old girl, Doctor Mitre,’ Annette replied. ‘Someone has to explain to her what’s happening to her mother and I think it should be someone she knows.’

  Mitre was possibly someone’s idea of the perfect doctor. He was tall, not too old, not too young, and he had blue eyes and carefully cut black hair. The effect was a little ruined by the biohazard suit he was still wearing, minus the helmet. He looked at Annette for a second, considering, and then he said, ‘Frankly, I’ve no idea what she’s got. I’ve sent blood to be analysed, but this is nothing I’ve seen before. It shares some properties with the Damnation Plague, but it is not that. Perhaps a mutation… Anyway, Miss Harker is bleeding from her nose and gums, from a rather odd wound in her neck, and into her intestines. She’s exhibiting photosensitivity. Melanin production in her skin appears to have stopped entirely. She’s unconscious, which may be more of a blessing than you might think. We’re treating her with transfusions and antiviral drugs, but… Well, the best thing we can do is pray at this point. If you hadn’t found her when you did, I’m not sure I’d have been able to do anything.’