Fox Hunt (Fox Meridian Book 1)

by Niall Teasdale

  ‘I guess…’

  ‘I know. Quit kicking yourself over it.’

  ‘Does make you wonder what he was doing with gear like that. You think UA is planning something in the area?’

  Fox gave a shrug. ‘If they are then it’s precinct twenty-nine’s problem. I hope, anyway.’

  ‘Not mine, that’s for sure. I’m on medical leave for another week and Canard says I’m off the case after that.’

  ‘Yeah… To be honest, I’d prefer you to Sandoval.’

  ‘His charms aren’t working on you then?’

  ‘He’s charming, sure. Looks good. Comes over as… too eager.’

  ‘Like a puppy in a sharp suit.’

  Fox bit back on the laugh which threatened to burst out. ‘How am I supposed to work with the man with that image floating in my head?’

  Dillan grinned. ‘My work here is done.’

  ~~~

  ‘Did you know,’ Kit said, ‘that thirteen per cent of young people under twenty-one had their first sexual experience with their companion AIs?’

  Fox paused with a forkful of noodles halfway to her mouth. ‘I did not know that. No.’

  ‘The percentage is expected to rise rapidly as implanted computers powerful enough to run AI-threes and fours become more common. You were correct in asserting that that kind of behaviour is normally blocked, but there are a number of commonly available patches which disable the locks.’

  ‘Huh.’ Fox chewed for a second or two and swallowed. ‘Well, in some ways I guess it’s better than the alternative. My first time was a kid named Danny Berkewitz. He had no idea what he was doing and I had almost none, but at least we knew to use condoms. If kids are doing it with their virtual friends there’s going to be no disease or pregnancy.’

  ‘Certain memetic, chastity-oriented campaigns have been initiated based around that aspect of the trend, yes. A number of religious groups attempting to promote “no sex outside marriage” memes believe this is a way of persuading young adults to stay chaste. Others see it as perverse, however.’

  ‘Uh-huh, that sounds about right. Religion has a way of viewing anything to do with pleasure as a sin. It’s one of the reasons I don’t tend to get involved in religions.’ She paused, considering. ‘I’m not big on a lot of the organised memeplexes, actually. Religion, politics, country dancing… You’ve been studying human sexuality, I take it?’

  ‘I have made some preliminary forays into the field. My understanding of the typical metropolitan human suggests that your friend, Mister Berkewitz, was unusual. By the age of eighteen, even a decade ago, most young males were well versed in basic sexual techniques thanks to pornographic imagery on the internet.’

  Fox smirked. ‘We were fifteen. I was two months older than him. However, it wasn’t age that caused his lack of education. I grew up in the Kansas Belt, the Topeka Agri-Zone. A lot of pretty strongly moral people out there. They say you have to believe in something to put up with living in the ass-end of America.’

  ‘Your parents were religious?’

  ‘No, but Danny’s were. I think that was why he was so keen to try out sex. Rebellion is popular with teenagers. My parents…’ Fox stopped and sighed, scraping up the last of her food before continuing. ‘Mom and Dad were always really keen on me making my own way in the world. They said the Belt was the last place you could go where you weren’t constantly watched by the administration, and NIX, and NAPA. They pretty seriously considered packing up and moving off-world a couple of times, heading out to one of the orbital communities or even the Far Belt. Dad used to say, “Tara, a person’s got to make their own mind up about the world, and then they have to get out there and make the world work the way it should be.”’

  Kit frowned. ‘I am having some difficulty in determining how your parents reacted when you decided to join the Army.’

  ‘That’s because you didn’t know them well enough. They had sympathies with UA. They’d bought right into the whole anarchy meme, but I’d seen where it all led to. March of forty-five there was a protest orchestrated by United Anarchy. Various things happened across the whole of Topeka and a friend of mine was caught up in one. She was in a mall when one of the gangs out of the Southern Protectorate came in and took the place over. I don’t know exactly how much of the media stories were true, but I saw some of the bodies before the marshals got everything covered up. I don’t think she had a pretty death.’

  ‘I am sorry.’

  Fox flashed her a grin. ‘It was a while back. I remembered it though. Every time my parents were on one of their “those northern bastards are eroding our freedoms” rants, I’d remember that their idea of freedom left thirteen-year-old girls in pools of blood. When they told me how right United Anarchy was, I remembered that UA had killed my friend. So when I told them I was joining up, I was not really surprised that they told me I was a “traitor to the people of America.” I told them they were hypocritical, useless, toothless, and pointless. We haven’t spoken since.’

  ‘Well… yes. If they believe you have to make your own way, then they should respect your decision, even if they don’t agree with your views.’

  ‘Are you saying that because you’re programmed to be nice to me or because it seems reasonable?’

  ‘Because I find it difficult to reconcile your parents’ espoused opinions and their actions.’

  ‘And that, my dear young AI, is why humans will forever be difficult for your kind to understand. We’re really good at believing two mutually contradictory things at the same time, and seeing no problem with it. We are irreconcilable. But my parents were just performing the way they usually did. They talked a lot, and they planned, and they ranted about freedom. They never did anything. The morons didn’t even use their votes! They kept saying it was useless because the power was all in the north. Well of course it is! No one in the south bothers voting!’

  ‘I see,’ Kit said, and it did look like she was grasping the idea from the way her brows furrowed. ‘You are someone who believes in doing where you are able to do. Your parents talk a lot, but do not step outside their current lives to do anything about the problems they perceive. Even if you do not agree with what they believe, you would prefer they actually did something about it.’

  ‘It’s called “having the courage of your convictions,” yeah. To be honest, I wish they’d realise that the delegative democracy system we have is a little too close to anarchy already, and it’s what’s got them where they are. The thing is that most people have enormous trouble seeing past their own preconceptions. My parents grew up with the idea that “Big Government” was bad, even though what was meant by that term was busy collapsing. To them, the power still resides in the same basic geographical location, it’s still distant, it must be the same, and bad. Anything opposing it must be good, even if that means excusing someone who incites a bunch of thugs to kill children. How did we get from kids humping their imaginary friends to politics?’

  Kit smiled. ‘I assure you that every step was perfectly logical and I have learned more about you, my owner, and society as a whole.’

  ‘Right. Perfectly logical, huh?’

  ‘Trust me, I’m an AI.’

  27th January.

  It was just after ten in the morning when the call came through. Fox saw the ident and connected immediately, and somehow she knew it was not going to be good news even before the man on the other end began speaking.

  ‘Inspector Meridian, this is Senior Officer Frank Marple of the Laconia district office.’ Marple looked, from his 2D avatar, to be typical of senior officer ranks in district offices: he was old enough to have got higher up the ranks but had not and had ended up out in the boondocks.

  ‘Senior Officer,’ Fox replied, ‘what can I do for you?’

  ‘I’m out at the Wolfeboro Retreat. It’s a high-end resort on Lake Winnipesaukee. They usually handle their own security, but they’ve got a homicide and when I ran the basic scans to send through to Boston, they said I shou
ld contact you for this one. Victim has been identified using facial recognition as one Elaine Jean Ross.’

  Fox licked her lips. ‘Single gunshot wound, right eye, probably using an explosive warhead?’

  ‘Well, her right eye and the back of her head are gone.’

  ‘Okay, Senior Officer, I’m going to get out there as fast as I can. Uh, I don’t suppose this resort has a private landing pad?’

  His image looked perplexed for a second. ‘Uh, yeah, I think it does.’

  Airborne over New England Administrative Region.

  ‘So you just called Jackson Martins, asked if you could borrow a vertol, and he said “yeah, sure?”’

  Fox glanced across to the co-pilot’s seat where Sandoval was sitting. ‘He’s civic-minded.’

  ‘Uh-huh.’

  ‘And if we’d gone by maglev and ground transport we would’ve been hours getting there, and waiting for a NAPA vertol to take us would be almost as long. And I can fly this thing.’

  ‘Uh-huh. You’re kind of stung that this guy’s hit Ross.’

  ‘I’m kind of stung that this guy’s hitting anyone.’

  ‘You can’t take this personally though. You need to keep it objective or you’ll go nuts doing this kind of–’

  ‘I’m aware of the need to remain objective, Sandoval. I’m quite capable of turning my emotions off when I need to. But this guy has hit three women in only a few days. This isn’t a professional, or if it is he’s on some sort of weird killing jag. It’s looking like we have a spree killer on our hands, and they’ll probably keep going until we stop them.’

  ‘It’s going to be tough. I mean, I’ve been over the reports and this guy has special ops training or something. Maybe an ex-spook. Adamshi’s security was nothing amazing, but your building has pretty good tech and he got in and out undetected. We’ve never caught anyone on camera around either building who looked suspicious.’

  ‘We have no idea what we’re looking for, but no, you’re right. Special ops is a possibility. He’s used to wet work and he’s been hurt, badly, at some point. He lost at least a hand, probably an arm. Hold on.’ She activated the vertol’s radio with a thought. ‘Wolfeboro Retreat airfield, this is November one three four mike tango requesting landing clearance. Over.’

  There was a short pause and then a voice from the other end. ‘November one three four mike tango, you are cleared for a landing on pad four. Senior Officer Marple will be waiting for you. Over and out.’

  ‘Fast and efficient,’ Fox noted. ‘So, once we’re down I want you to get the two techs we have with us working on the scene. We don’t know how long she’s been dead at this point, and we don’t know how disturbed the site is. We go over that place with a fine filter. I’m going to handle the manager and staff, see what I can find out.’

  ‘Are you expecting to find anything?’

  ‘Well, she was coming here to meet with a man. She did not want her channel colleagues to know who this man was. If I find out nothing else, I want to know who that man is.’

  Wolfeboro Retreat, New England Administrative Region.

  ‘Miss Ross was a very private woman.’ The speaker was a long-nosed, tall man with a highly developed ability to peer down that nose at anyone he considered beneath him. That was possibly everyone. ‘Here at the Wolfeboro Retreat, we value our clients’ privacy, respect it. If they wish to remain off the grid while here, we accept that, even encourage it.’

  Fox did her best not to scowl at the man. ‘Well, Mister Freedmont, if you respected your clientele enough to monitor their health while they were here, Miss Ross would not have been lying there with her blood soaking into your carpets for forty-odd hours.’

  Freedmont sniffed. ‘It’s a matter of choice, as is the matter of who our guests choose to have stay with them. Her male friend was not required to check in and we have no record of who he was.’

  ‘But you’ve seen him?’

  ‘I have.’ Freedmont appeared to consider the circumstances and relent a little. ‘In fact, I do not quite understand their reluctance to make the relationship public. He has been meeting her here for over a year. In this day and age of internet relationships, such regular physical meetings almost constitute marriage. I’m afraid a description would be of limited use as so many these days are blonde, blue-eyed, and attractive. The hair has a reddish tint to it, perhaps a little like your companion’s. Aside from that he could be any one of a million men you see in media.’

  ‘You believe he was in media?’

  ‘Believe, yes. I have no proof of that. It seemed likely.’

  Fox nodded and looked through the door into the room where the two technicians were busy working over the room with sensors and microbots. ‘Hopefully we’ll get DNA out of here we can use to narrow the list of potentials. This was a general-use room?’

  ‘Miss Ross requested it every time she came here. She enjoyed the view over the lake. It was used by other clients between her visits, however.’

  ‘Yeah. I’ll need to talk to any staff you have had on duty here for the last two days, especially the one who found the body.’

  Freedmont nodded, expecting that. ‘Maureen is in our medical facility. Finding the… Discovering Miss Ross was a shock; she had to be sedated. The other staff are on site. They can all be available as and when required and I have an office you can use in the administrative building.’

  ‘Very efficient, thank you. Sandoval, you’re with me. You two, I want any DNA run as a rush job.’

  One of the techs looked back at her, his face obscured behind the mask of his suit. His voice came over their network comms, ‘We’re getting so much of that it’ll take days to get results on all of it.’

  ‘I’ll have my agent assist. I need that information as soon as possible.’

  ~~~

  Maureen was still looking doped when Fox and Sandoval got to the little cubicle she had been assigned. The medical facility was largely meant for customers and it was clean, tidy, and very plush, with all the latest in medical gadgetry. It was kind of nice to note that Freedmont had decided one of his staff should be treated there: Fox had got the distinct impression that the man had a strong sense of social status.

  ‘I should’ve found her sooner,’ Maureen said, her tone morose. ‘The suite wasn’t needed yesterday and we had a bunch of them that needed to be cleaned sooner. I left Miss Ross’s until this morning to give me more time on the others.’

  ‘No one checked that she’d left the site?’ Sandoval asked.

  ‘Not my place to know, sir, but we don’t generally get people staying longer than they should. Policy is to have a room empty for a day after a guest uses it so that we can get everything perfect for the next guest, so if they’re a little late it’s not a problem. Most use ground transport in and out of here and it’s not regulated.’

  ‘Miss Ross’s companion? You saw him?’

  ‘I saw him on Friday, when he arrived. Handsome gentleman. Really beautiful eyes, and he really liked Miss Ross.’

  ‘He was gone by Sunday night, but she stayed on?’

  ‘Sometimes he would stay with her the whole time, but he would often leave earlier. I didn’t see him leave this time, so I can’t say when he did. Miss Ross liked to spend at least a few hours getting pampered before she left.’

  Fox nodded. Checks had shown that Ross had missed an appointment with the beautician on Sunday afternoon, but the resort’s privacy policy had resulted in no one checking on her. ‘Thank you, Maureen. If you think of anything else, please contact NAPA and you’ll be put through to me.’

  ‘You don’t think Miss Ross’s friend could have done that, do you, ma’am?’ Maureen said before Fox could turn away.

  ‘Everyone’s a suspect until we discount them.’

  The girl shook her head. ‘No, he was in love, Inspector. They both were. There’s no way he could have done that to her.’

  Fox gave her a smile and walked out, Sandoval behind her. ‘She’s right, of course.
Ross’s mystery man isn’t the killer.’

  ‘You sound sure,’ Sandoval commented.

  ‘I am. No one’s mentioned cybernetic limbs. Doesn’t mean her friend didn’t commission the murder, but he’s not the killer.’ She frowned as she noticed the time in her virtual display. ‘It’s getting late. The techs left already, didn’t they?’

  ‘Uh-huh. They wrapped the scene and took ground transport into Boston.’

  ‘I’ll call Jackson and let him know I’ll be late back with his vertol.’

  ‘Yeah, well, we wouldn’t want him worried.’

  Fox rolled her eyes as the call went through, but it was Terri’s picture which appeared in-vision when it connected. ‘Terri? Your dad busy?’

  ‘Conference call with Europe and Japan,’ Terri replied. ‘You’re in Wolfeboro, right?’

  ‘Uh-huh. I just wanted to let him know I’d be late back with the vertol I borrowed–’

  ‘Stay over. Bring it back in the morning.’

  ‘Uh…’

  ‘We, as in MarTech, have a corporate suite there and I just checked and it’s free. Stay there tonight and come back tomorrow. Flying after a day interviewing people is not the best of ideas.’

  ‘I’ve got another detective here, Terri.’

  ‘I did say it was a suite, right? Three bedrooms, two bathrooms, hot tub, private pool. I’ll send through instructions to the resort. Stop off and see me in the morning when you drop the vertol off. Bye.’ And she was gone before Fox could stop her.

  ‘Did you have any plans in New York tonight?’ Fox said aloud.

  Sandoval raised an eyebrow. ‘On a Tuesday? In the middle of an investigation?’

  ‘Right. We’re staying here tonight. MarTech have a suite we can use. Terri was insistent.’

  He was smirking when he said, ‘Oh well, if she was insistent…’

  ~~~

  ‘I think I could get used to this kind of police work,’ Sandoval said as he looked around the large lounge of the MarTech corporate suite.