SINthetic

by J. T. Nicholas

  The land-side harbor offices were much more mundane. Most people never see the business end of ports, which is probably for the best, since there isn’t much to recommend them. A chain-link fence topped with three strands of sagging barbed wire ran for miles, slicing off a neat section of New Lyons. Numerous roads ran through that fence, each with its own security checkpoint.

  The physical security was laughable in a way. The only real purpose of the fence was to mark a boundary. As with most things, the real security came from the cameras, sensors, and scanners scattered about the harbor. A criminal might get in, and even out again, but they knew that the odds of making a true escape with all the watching eyes were razor slim. It boiled down to the fact that law enforcement and city officials were way more worried about cargo coming off the ships than they were about anyone or anything getting into the harbor from the city side.

  Getting away with criminal activity in person was a real challenge in the age of zero privacy. Which made the killer I was after—and Silas, too, for that matter—all the more frustrating. Impressive in their own way, but definitely frustrating.

  The cruiser pulled up to one of the checkpoints and Hernandez spoke a few quick words to the security guard—human, rather than synthetic, since there was a chance, albeit a small one, that a security guard might be required to cause harm to another person. She flashed her badge, and he started giving directions to Translantic’s offices. The gate went up and we got moving again.

  “This doesn’t feel right, Campbell,” Hernandez said as she took manual control of the car to follow the guard’s directions through the winding roads and prefabbed buildings.

  I nodded. “If Walton Biogenics is behind this, they shouldn’t have gone to Manny. And if they did, they damn well should have covered their tracks better. I don’t care how good Manny is—the people at Walton are almost sure to be better.”

  She nodded, but didn’t say anything as she continued to drive through the harbor. We had worked together a few times before, and we had the kind of relationship that didn’t require either of us to be talking. We could sit comfortably enough in silence. But something was different this time. There was a quality to her silence that was almost foreboding. I wondered at that, and then it hit me. Shit.

  “What’s going on, Jason?” she asked. “When Manny said he found a corporate trail, you knew right where it led, right back to Walton Biogenics. But all Walton makes these days is synthetics.” She paused as she threaded the cruiser between two massive container trucks. “What have you gotten us into?”

  I was silent for a moment, pondering my response. I wanted to believe that Melinda Hernandez, the tough, caring detective who had been one of my only real friends on the force, would share my views on synthetics; I wanted to believe that she would be as horrified as I was at the atrocities inflicted by the killer I hunted. I wanted to believe it...but I wasn’t sure I did.

  Coming clean, telling her about Silas, the murders, the conspiracies, all of it...telling her that I believed Walton Biogenics was suppressing evidence proving synthetics were, in fact, human... I could gain an ally. Or, and perhaps more likely, Hernandez could turn me in to the brass. If she did that, at best, I’d get suspended. At worst, I’d get fired, and everything I’d worked toward for the past decade would be taken from me. In either case, I’d lose the auspices and powers of the New Lyons Police Department to help me carry forward with the investigation—though, at this point, I knew that whatever happened, I would keep investigating.

  She pulled to a stop before a metal building that looked like a portable construction office. There was no logo or sign advertising the owner of the structure—the only indication we were at the right place was the number stenciled by the door: 227. Even that looked temporary, the edges of the digits already beginning to curl away from the steel in the heat and humidity.

  I was stalling. Hernandez put the cruiser in park and waited expectantly. The expression on her face said she was ready to wait a long, long time.

  I knew that I had to tell her, but something told me that just going over the facts of the case wouldn’t be enough. I needed to give her more. I needed to tell her the truth, not just about the case, but about me. About Annabelle. I had never spoken those words out loud, never told anyone the truth about the series of events that had defined not just my views on synthetics, but me, and led me down the path to becoming a soldier and, ultimately, a cop. But I knew that, if I wanted Hernandez’s continued help, she needed to know.

  I had to tell her. Everything.

  Chapter 16

  There was no easy way to go about it, no easy way to tell the story. After all, how did one tell a law enforcement officer—even if that officer was a friend—that they were a convicted killer? I certainly didn’t want to just blurt that out, and lose Hernandez before I even started.

  “What’s the problem, Campbell?” she said.

  “Just trying to decide where to begin,” I replied with a shrug.

  “At the beginning,” she said at once. “And then go on to the middle. And so on.”

  I felt a slight smile stretch my lips. “The beginning was a long time ago, Detective. A very long time.”

  “Well, we’re not going one step more until I know what the hell is going on. And I’m sure whatever lead we might find in that office is going to get more and more nervous the longer you wait. Might do something stupid.” She gave me a sour grin. “So you better get on with it.”

  I snorted at that. It was a classic cop tactic, adding a little time pressure to the interrogation. I couldn’t blame Hernandez—she probably didn’t even realize she’d done it. Instead, I said, “When did you meet your first synthetic?”

  “Shit, Campbell. I don’t know. We’re about the same age. They started getting more available...what, twenty years ago? Thirty, maybe? Seems like by the time I got out of high school, they were everywhere, doing all the manual labor.” A brief frown of distaste twisted her features. “And taking over all the sex-worker jobs. Sometime around then, I guess. When I was still in school, but I can’t remember the specifics.”

  “Not many people can,” I said. “Oh, almost everyone who actually owns a synthetic remembers when they got it. Assholes like Fortier can go into graphic details around the acquisition process. For them, it’s like how getting your first car used to be, back before the ride share programs and self-driving vehicles...” I paused, closing my eyes for a moment, thinking back. It wasn’t difficult. The memories were always there, just beneath the surface. “As for me, I met my first synthetic when I was twelve years old.”

  I ignored the pain that stabbed through me as I said the words aloud and fought down the memories that seemed to dance kaleidoscope-like behind my eyes. “I didn’t know she was a synthetic at the time. She was just a girl, a pretty girl in a pretty dress who crossed paths with me when I was wandering around the neighborhood.” I could see her in my mind’s eye, golden locks and dimples and an air of innocence and wonder. She had been—at least to my puberty-clouded eyes—the most beautiful creature I’d ever seen.

  “You don’t see many synthetics that young,” Hernandez said.

  “No,” I agreed. “You don’t. Though I didn’t learn that she was a synthetic until we were both seventeen.”

  “Wait. What?” I saw the barrage of questions that suddenly boiled up in Hernandez’s eyes, but I raised one placating hand to forestall them.

  “Her owners.” I paused. Swallowed. Fought down the flashes of blood and rage and the sudden feel of flesh yielding before the crushing strength of my hands. Fought to keep the pain and anger from my voice. “Her owners,” I said again, “masqueraded her as their daughter, rather than as a synthetic. As far as I’ve been able to learn, they kept the fact that she was anything other than their...their daughter...from the entire town.”

  “But...that’s illegal. And is it even possible? I thought synthet
ics were programmed so they couldn’t try to pass for human.”

  A bitter smile twisted my lips. “Hernandez, if being illegal stopped people from doing things, we’d be out of a job. As for being possible, what does passing for human mean? I never asked her if she was a synthetic. I’m sure nobody else did. She was a little girl—why would they? She certainly never volunteered the information. Probably had been commanded not to. Everyone who saw her just assumed she was a person, like you or me.”

  I sighed. “And she became my friend, Melinda. You may have noticed, I don’t have very many of those. It was a little better when I was a kid, but not much. We lived away from town, the kind of place where there were only a dozen houses within a mile or two, far enough outside the New Lyons sprawl that we didn’t have access to public transportation to get to places. So friends were few and far between and normally only around during school or the infrequent birthday party or get-together. But her family”—my lips twisted on the word—“moved in down the street. So, we inevitably found each other, the way kids always seem to. Started to hang out. Grew close. Grew inseparable. She made me feel good, Mel. Happy. Important. She was always glad to see me, and I was always glad to see her. Her name was Annabelle.”

  I lapsed into silence again, mind drifting back across those early years, before everything had gone so horrifically wrong and our biggest concerns were homework and finding new ways to escape from under our parents’ thumbs. Or so I had thought.

  “Bastards,” Hernandez spat.

  I arched an eyebrow at her.

  “The synthetic’s owners,” she said in response. “To mess with people’s heads that way.”

  I shook my head. Hernandez was right, and more than right, as she didn’t yet know the half of it. And at the same time, she was completely missing the point. “They were that. And worse. But they were good at what they did. They kept their secret. For years.”

  “But why?” she asked. “What was the point?”

  It was something I had considered over the years. I had long since come to my own conclusions, my own answer to the question. “Control. And to feel superior. To feel smarter than everyone around them. To get one over on all their neighbors.” I felt an unconscious snarl starting to curl my lips, and I forced them into a tight line. “They liked to be in control.”

  Hernandez tilted her head, clearly sensing there was more to the story. But she waited. Not patiently. No cop was great at waiting patiently. But she waited nonetheless.

  “Things changed a couple of years later. Annabelle”—it still hurt to say her name out loud—“showed up at my door. Asked me to go for a walk. Ordered me, really,” I said with a sad smile. “I could tell something was wrong. I could tell she was in pain. Physical pain. Emotional pain. But I was too much the dumb scared teen to do anything about it. So I walked with her. For hours. Not saying anything. Not daring to touch her. Sensing somehow that she needed me there, but that human”—I spat the word—“contact was the last thing she wanted. I didn’t get it. Not then. Though it became painfully obvious later.”

  “They abused her?” Hernandez asked, her voice subdued.

  “They raped her, Melinda. I mean, she was just a synthetic, right?” I heard the venom in my words and tried to choke it off, but couldn’t. “It started almost as soon as she turned fourteen. A fourteen-year-old girl, but hey, just a synthetic. In the eyes of the law, she couldn’t be abused. Couldn’t be raped. But she had feelings, Mel, emotions. I could see the fear. The betrayal. The hopelessness, even if I was too dumb to say anything.”

  We were silent for a long moment before I drew a deep breath and let it out in a sigh. “We started dating not too long after that. Fell into it, really. It just seemed the next, natural step, the inevitable progression of our friendship. I should have realized something was wrong, especially when I met her ‘parents’ with their snide smiles and mocking glances. With the long, measuring looks they threw my way, like they were trying to decide if I was the butt of the joke or in on it. I should have suspected something, but I was just a kid, Hernandez.”

  I smiled, the first genuine smile in what felt like a long time as my mind wandered back over those years. “We had some good times, those first couple of years. All the normal teenagers-in-love bullshit that seems so ridiculous now, but at the time was the most important thing in my life. There were signs of what she was going through at home, the abuse, the kind of thing that we’ve been trained to recognize, but I couldn’t see them. Shit. Maybe I didn’t want to see them. Didn’t want to confront that reality.”

  My smile faded. “And then everything changed.” I shifted in my seat, easing the pressure where my pistol dug into my side, as if reminding me of the lethal potential we all carried within us. “When I was seventeen, I killed Annabelle’s parents.”

  Chapter 17

  “What?” Hernandez sat bolt upright in her seat, her eyes, which had been scanning the parking lot, locking on mine. I stared back at her, my face calm, despite the roiling of my stomach.

  “I killed them,” I repeated, forcing my voice to normalcy.

  She kept her stare for a long moment, then drew a steadying breath. “If you murdered them, you couldn’t be a cop. Not now. Not ever. Shit. We’re talking twenty, twenty-five years ago. You wouldn’t be out, walking around. Your ass would still be in jail. So, it must have been something else.” Her expression had taken on a sharper edge, a little anger in it now, a little doubt. As if she was wondering if I was the same person she’d worked with, trained with, been friends with for the past few years. “What the hell happened, hermano?”

  “I went to pick her up at her house,” I replied. “Just like any other day. But when I got to the door, I heard a scream. I was inside before I knew what I was doing, moving up the stairs. There was the sound of an impact, something striking flesh, another muffled scream. It was coming from the door to Annabelle’s parents’ room. I didn’t think. Didn’t make a conscious decision. Maybe all the signs I’d been seeing for years added up all at once. Maybe, on some level, I knew what I was going to find. What I was going to have to do. Whatever the reason, I kicked the door open.”

  I closed my eyes and could see it, as clearly as if it had happened only the day before and not twenty-something years ago. Most of the room was a standard master suite. A large bed, dressers, doors leading to what I assumed were either closets or bathrooms. No carpet here, just a tile floor in a cold, institutional white. Next to the bed stood a piece of furniture for which, at the time, I had no name. Wooden braces formed an A-shaped frame, maybe six feet tall at its peak, four or five feet wide on the long sides, and three feet wide along the shorter edges. Boards crossed the front side of the frame, forming an X.

  Annabelle hung there, arms above her head, legs spread-eagle, bound to the boards at wrist and ankle. She wore not a stitch of clothing, but there was nothing alluring about her nudity. Her pale, revealed skin only served to call attention to the thin red welts raised on her stomach and thighs, and the bright crimson trickles of blood that seeped from long, narrow cuts on the slopes of her breasts. A ring gag had been forced into her mouth, held in place by leather straps. Her eyes widened as I stepped into the room, and I could see the fear in them, the pain, the regret…and above all, the shame.

  I described the scene to Hernandez, as coldly as I could manage, categorizing it like I would any other crime scene, forcing the words out, one by one, and doing my best to choke back the rage that boiled alongside the memories.

  “She wasn’t alone,” Hernandez said.

  It wasn’t a question, but I nodded anyway. “She was not. I didn’t realize it at first. All I could see was the girl I loved, hanging there, naked and afraid. Then I heard the laughter.” My fists tightened until my knuckles turned white, and it took a concerted effort to not slide my hand down to my sidearm, to feel the reassuring weight of its cold lethality.

  “Shit, C
ampbell.”

  “Yeah. Her ‘parents’ were there. Both of them.”

  I ground my teeth and stopped again, in part because the memories were painful enough already, and about to get worse. But only in part. Killing Annabelle’s owners was a secret I had carried for a long time, through both my military and law enforcement careers. I had no doubt that my superiors in the army and on the force had learned some of the details—every good commanding officer, whether they wore green or blue, found out everything they could about the men and women under their command, through every channel possible. My records might have been sealed, but in the digital age, nothing was ever truly forgotten.

  Still, I had managed to avoid any direct conversations around the details of the events that took place upon that day so long ago. And I had never, not even to my parents, divulged the one fact that would have irrevocably altered the course of my life. I killed Annabelle’s owners, yes. But as far as the courts knew, it was an act committed before I knew the truth about Annabelle, before I knew that she was a synthetic.

  I was on her “father” before his smug laughter had finished sounding, true, but at first all I’d done was deliver a good hard right to his face. And he had only laughed harder. His words, diamond hard and with as much soul, were burned into my brain. I could recall them verbatim, even now. “You little shit,” he had said around his guffaws. “She’s a toy. A fucking mule. A synthetic. She’s our goddamned property. And you’re what? In love with her? Going to save her? Might as well be in love with a toaster, you insufferable little puke. Get the hell out, before we call the cops.”