The Scorpion Game

by Daniel Jeffries

  “Goddamn it,” shouted Hoskin, on the team’s public channel. “Who the fuck was in charge of the putting up the bubble? Huh? Who the fuck was it?”

  A tech flared up on his inner vision, Veyote, a girl with dark orange skin and the six eyes of the Lenari Phyle. Her hair moved as if dancing. The Lenari were known for their empathy, their emotions tweaked and deepened more than almost any other Phyle. They could easily see from other people’s perspectives, so they made great crime scene techs, although their powerfully augmented emotions often got to them.

  “I’m sorry sir.”

  She was already near tears.

  “Goddamn it girl! The birds have been pounding the corpses for the last twenty minutes. Who knows what fucking evidence we lost?” shouted Hoskin.

  “I’m sorry sir, I know I put it up. I know it. I—I checked it twice—”

  “Bullshit. Show me your eye feed.”

  Her crime scene record floated up on his innervision. He blinked a quick search against it and the stream flooded back to her working on setting up the bubble. She had put it on.

  “All right. It looks like you did set it up right. But you weren’t monitoring it.”

  “No, sir. That was my fault.”

  “All right. You gotta monitor these things for that very reason. You understand. The little things matters. They’re everything. You gotta do all the steps, every time.”

  “I’m so sorry sir. I’ll set up another one,” said the girl.

  “No, I have some bubble with me. I’ll handle it. Follow through every time from now on. We can’t afford mistakes. We don’t get a second shot at a scene,” said Hoskin and waved her away.

  The birds still circled close by. A bold one touched down at the end of the bed, at the farthest point from Hoskin. Hoskin glared at it. It got the message and took off, its wings beating the cool, damp air.

  Hoskin picked up the three energy bubble projectors and queried their logs. They didn’t show any sign of a crash. Logs didn’t always show everything, but it struck him as strange. Only if there were a hardware error would they crash without a good log. Maybe the killer still had mites in here attacking the scene? He rubbed it and it flickered on. It wasn’t broken but he didn’t want to take any chances.

  Hoskin called for his hover bag, tossed in the crashed energy bubble projectors and grabbed fresh ones. Carefully he lay down the three projectors around the giant bed and the golden energy sphere enveloped the scene.

  Daniels and Quinlin stepped off the platform and joined him. The energy pulled back to let them in.

  “We can’t afford to have your people’s incompetence wreck this investigation,” said Daniels.

  “Look why don’t you shut the fuck up, man?” said Quinlin. “We don’t need your fucking shit.”

  “I thought we weren’t going to do this dance?” said Hoskin.

  “We won’t do it when I don’t have to clean up after you.”

  “Look just shut the fuck up for a minute. Think about this. Maybe it ain’t a coincidence?” said Hoskin.

  “What are you talking about?” said Daniels.

  “Maybe the killer left something behind, some mites designed to attack the crime scene?”

  “I don’t see it,” said Daniels.

  “Me either,” said Quinlin. “He wouldn’t be able to remote them from outside the mansion. The firewalls around this place would just kill the signal.”

  “Then something simpler. Just the programs that can fit on the mites themselves. Tiny commands, set to go after a bubble shield or tissue around a wound, whatever.”

  “You could do it, I guess,” said Quinlin.

  “For what though?” said Daniels.

  Hoskin thought about it. Then it made sense.

  “Maybe these two bodies are more important than the others? Maybe we focus here?” said Hoskin. He turned to Quin. “Could someone write up something that would focus on just these bodies?”

  “Sure,” said Quinlin. “You don’t got a fuckload of storage in those things though. But you could just set them to stick to a certain area. Attack only stuff in that spot. That wouldn’t take much code.”

  Hoskin looked carefully at the scene, not wanting to miss anything. The huge bed was the size of seven or eight king-sized mattresses. It was made from a red and purple see-through jelly that softened or hardened according to the restlessness and whims of the sleeper. Hoskin could see fat rubies and emeralds floating freely inside the jelly, like fish in water. Solid emerald trees surrounded the head of the bed and sheets of silk hung down from them to shroud the bed’s occupants as necessary, though they were drawn back now. The silk had darkened under the bright afternoon sun. Seven pebble-sized holoprojectors hovered around the bed, all of them off.

  One of the bodies was face down, just like the one on the beach, the other was face up and they were stuck together as if glued. The face down one had his hands bound. The face up body still had a fat erection. There were tiny spikes growing out of his chest, with bits of blood on them. The face up corpse wore a leather collar studded with porcupine spikes. The birds had bitten off chunks of his lips and started on his eyes and eyelids. The missing lip pieces made it look like he his teeth were bared in anger.

  Maybe the mites went to work on the bodies too, accelerating decomposition or just giving off some scent the birds can’t resist?

  Hoskin flashed his bags and a stream of forensics spiders poured out of them, flowing into the air, their backs expanding like tiny parachutes as they drifted down onto the bed. They reared up on their back legs and scanned the scene, sending out sonic waves. Seconds later they broke off, each heading for different parts of the bodies. One immediately went to the blood slicked spikes and swabbed them. Others crawled the faces and genitals looking for fluids: blood, semen, mucus. Still others sniffed the air looking for poisons and combat nano.

  “S&M,” said Hoskin.

  Hoskin’s vision flickered. He dialed up his metabolism again. He was feeling jittery.

  “Yes. Notice the temporary spikes,” said Daniels. “Those can be grown with pills in a very short time for sex play.”

  “And the death woody makes the lover theory look even better,” said Quinlin, with a smile.

  “Though, of course, priapism is not always indicative of a lover’s death,” said Daniels. “We see it most often in hangings. Gunshot, plasma, grazer, laser wounds to the head, blood vessel breaks, poisoning—”

  “Yeah, but it does tell us he died fast and violently,” said Hoskin. “Were the projectors on before?”

  “Maybe,” said Quinlin. “They go off after a bit if they don’t sense anyone around them.

  “See if you can get them on,” said Hoskin.

  “What do you mean, ‘if’?” said Quinlin.

  Quinlin flashed a series of universal codes at the projectors and after a few seconds all of them flickered to life, spraying one-story high holographic streams. In one projection two women in dark, barbaric gear and demon masks were fucking two hooded men doggy-style with one-day dicks that weekend transsexuals could grow then shed. On a second video, five men in raven masks were repeatedly branding a woman bound so tightly she couldn’t even squirm. Her eyes and nose were covered but she screamed with her exposed mouth as the men seared her skin again and again.

  “Polymorph porn?” said Quinlin.

  “Maybe, no real way to tell from what we’re seeing. Morphs usually don’t look alike. Check the signatures on the vids. Look at the titles, see if they give us a hint,” said Hoskin.

  Quinlin flashed more codes at the pebble projectors and a translucent menu floated into each of them, showing run times and movie titles along with creation dates.

  “There” said Hoskin, pointing to one of the titles. “Morph Whores, More Holes.”

  “My son was a vicious little deviant,” said a voice behind them.

  Hoskin turned and saw Michael Anton Childress and two guards walk
ing towards them over a light bridge that stretched across the room like a rolled-out red carpet, about two feet above the floor. The bridge extended in front of him as he walked. He wore a bright green silk evening robe with stylized Chinese goldfish swimming in a wine dark sea. He had a drink in one hand, but he gulped it down and handed the glass to his guard, who tucked it into a trapdoor in his belly. The light bridge made it look like their feet were on fire.

  “Sir, it’s not a good idea for you to be here,” said Hoskin.

  “You watch your mouth. Lord Childress can go wherever he likes in his own house,” shouted the guard on the left.

  “Great. Another fuckin’ rent-a-cop tough guy. You practice that in the mirror?” said Quinlin.

  The guard started, as if he was going to come down off the bridge, but Childress held up his hand.

  “Enough, Eziarch. Haven’t we had enough violence? And I’ve told you before, stop with that ‘lord’ nonsense. The Detective is right. We shouldn’t be here. Even on the light bridge. We’re disturbing the scene,” said Childress. The big man looked down at the tangled bodies.

  “He was a little deviant — but he was my son. Look at him. See what they did to my boy,” said Childress, his beet-red eyes filled with tears, his mouth a deep, upside-down U.

  “Sir,” said Hoskin. “Thank you for using the light bridge. That was thoughtful. But it’s best for you not the see this. I’ll come talk to you after we finish here, if that’s all right.”

  The big man did not look up, only stared at his boy’s bodies.

  “See how they slaughtered my boy?” he said softly. He leaned hard on his cane and breathed heavily. “When he was little he was my favorite. Always around me. Always ‘papa’, ‘papa.’ It was only later that he hated me. Only later he became this.” He swept his hand over the room. “I don’t even recognize some of my son. I’ve never even seen this one.” He pointed at a body on the bed. “Everything he did later, he did to spite me, but I still remember when he was little and he would come sit on my bed and ask me to tell him stories. I still remember when he learned to roll over for the first time.”

  Hoskin let the man talk, let him grieve. He flashed Quinlin to shut down the projectors and the giant porn streams fizzled and faded. Childress said nothing for a moment, only looked at the bodies.

  Finally he turned to Hoskin and said, “You will catch whoever did this, won’t you, Detective?”

  “I will,” said Hoskin, looking right into the man’s eyes.

  Childress nodded and wiped his face with his sleeve.

  “Thank you,” said Childress. “Whatever you need, Detective. I’ve already instructed the datacore staff to give you a dump of everything in the house.”

  “I do have one quick question, if you don’t mind, sir,” said Hoskin.

  “What’s that?”

  “You said you didn’t recognize all of your son. Did you not know all of his Morphs?”

  “No. He brought on new bodies regularly. I lost track.”

  “Thank you.”

  Childress turned and started to walk back across the bridge, his guards following. With his head and shoulders slumped, he walked as if a boulder hung around his neck.

  Hoskin flashed Quinlin. “Have the tech check for Polymorphic atomic sigs on all the bodies.”

  “Why?”

  “Make sure these are all Barrotes.”

  “All right. You got it.”

  Hoskin waited until the man was out of earshot, even out of the range of enhanced ears, and pointed at the neck of the face-up victim.

  “This one was strangled,” said Hoskin. “Look at the damage to the neck tissue.”

  Daniels looked closely. “He ripped the skin up choking him. He could have torn his neck open if he wanted to.”

  “Right,” said Hoskin. “I’m not seeing anything that makes these bodies unique though? Anyone else?”

  “No,” said Daniels.

  “Nope,” said Quinlin.

  “Maybe I just read into it too much?”

  “Machines crash,” said Quinlin with a shrug.

  “Yeah. Let’s have a look at the last body, the one by the door over there.”

  They took the platform out to the last body. It was slumped against the door, struck from behind like the bodies in the pool, the head smashed open. One arm was up, as if he’d been reaching for something.

  “I’m guessing the body by the door is the last guy killed,” said Hoskin.

  “Why’s that?” said Quinlin.

  Hoskin moved the image out of his innervision and turned his hand over so everyone could see it. The pictures of the body hovered there.

  “He got the farthest away. He was trying to run,” said Hoskin. “Look, he made it all the way to the door. He’s got one of his arms out, like this. He was trying to get that thing open. The bodies in the bed, they didn’t know it was coming. I’m thinking this guy saw everything and took off. The killer catches up to him and bam.”

  “I’m not sure how he pulls it off,” said Quinlin. “He had a short window before Dynasty Security got here. One of them would have called out to the Mansion Personality. As soon as he choked out the first kid the others would know. They have a link right?”

  “They share a single distributed brain, I think,” said Hoskin.

  “Okay,” said Quinlin, “so the first one goes down and the others know instantly. No doubt he was augged now. He would have to be fast. Real fast.”

  “No other way, unless you got multiple attackers,” said Hoskin. “Bang, the first kid gets choked out on the bed and the second kid is tied so he can’t get up. They all like it rough so maybe they don’t notice fast enough that the choking went too far and one of them winked out. Before the other kid gets up from the bed, killer hammers him. Bang. Two down.

  “Now maybe the killer is up and running, toward the pool. He’s faster than the others. There’s a scuffle on the beach with three of them and he hurls two into the water. Someone augged up could take three unenhanced guys. The third one takes off, realizing what he’s up against and gets hammered in the back of the head.

  By then the last one’s off and running, knowing he’s in trouble. He calls out to the House. He almost makes it to the door but the killer overtakes him. Bang, he’s down and now the killer can get the fuck out before Dynasty Security gets here.”

  “Yes, but where?” said Daniels.

  “What, you haven’t already figured it all out for us?” said Quinlin.

  “We don’t have time for this,” said Hoskin.

  Hoskin stood for a moment, thinking. Missing something here. Pay attention. See everything.

  “I don’t know. Let’s get down to the datacore and see if we can dig up any good footage,” said Hoskin.

  Hoskin stood for a moment. He looked down at the body again. He still didn’t know what he was missing.

  Well Met

  2458 Orthodox Western Calendar

  5156 Universal Chinese Calendar, Year of the Dragon

  The Starliner "Swiss Phoenix", outside Snowstorm Clan Roving Starship Settlement

  Flakes of dead skin swirled in the dim light of the alley like filthy snow. Venadrik breathed easily in his gilled biomask, the sound echoing in his ears. He looked for the small mark on the wall, found it and stopped.

  “The cleansing fire,” he said.

  The church’s biowall scanned him with a spray of green light.

  “Well met, Sohanat,” said the church.

  Slits ripped in the wall, revealing a door. The door unstitched itself, flecks of its skin tearing free and churning into the fetid alley air. Venadrik stepped inside.

  Today he would play the priest Sohanat brilliantly. He could feel himself melting into the character.

  Two dark green guard drones that looked like armored centipedes crawled along the walls towards him. Above their heads floated the holographic Deos symbol of a red Sun breaking over the horizon. He i
gnored them and threaded through the winding hallways of the massive Lower Edgelands Church of Brilliant Illumination. Outside, where the people met for worship, the entire church was translucent, shimmering, filled with golden light and music. But in here, in the back rooms and maze-like lower levels, the walls wheezed and coughed.

  He tuned his eyes to the Church Personality and it revealed the way in soft light. Holographic illusions made passageways look like dead ends and doors like walls, but he could see clearly. It took almost ten minutes to navigate the hidden paths as doors broke apart and floors opened up for him.

  He came to a hall of thorny, gnarled trees made from what looked like broken bodies and wove his way through them. The realistic sculptures represented punishments in the afterlife. He could hear them whispering. At last he reached a door ringed with holographic fire and descended a spiral staircase. The eyes of the living paintings of the Deos Elevated followed him.

  At the bottom in a low lit room, the evercandles flickering, he found the Supreme Kuros praying, his face pressed to the Wall of Sadness. Contorted faces embedded in the wall wept continually, their eyes streaming tears streaked with blood that stained the dark resin. The entire room was filled with thousands of voices that fought with the ones in his mind, but he pushed them all back. He was so clear now.

  The sudden urge to slash out and stab the Kuros in the neck seized him.

  Alone… hungry for the knife like the cunt for the penis, the way it slides in so softly and silently…no…no…NO…

  ...control…

  He waited, listening to the wailing and the thought fragments. Slowly, slowly, he got them under control. He was above the thoughts now, watching his mind, like a man above the churning sea.

  He knew the Kuros had seen the streams of the party and the religious ceremony of the rich and he knew it spit in the face of everything the Kuros believed.

  “You’ve seen their perversions?” said Venadrik. “The way they mock us? The sickness of their corrupt ceremonies? Their whores? It cannot stand. The time is now.”