Investigating Deceit

by Michael Anderle

  She hated how quiet the AI could be. Sometimes she wondered if Emma was purposely trying to ambush them in the middle of a conversation.

  “Of course, I’m right,” Emma insisted.

  Erik groaned. “Just what I need, two women convinced they’re right about my personal life.”

  Jia swiped away her data windows to view him unobstructed. “You never explained the details of why you have such a poor relationship with your brother to me.”

  “It was a long time ago,” he admitted. “The short version is, I used to be a roughneck and a troublemaker.”

  Jia smirked. “Used to be?”

  He made a face. “I mean, when I was young, I got in a lot of fights. I believed I was a big man, and I didn’t like it when I thought someone was disrespecting me. I did a little juvie time, nothing huge, and no prison.”

  Jia stared at him, surprised. “I…see.” She grimaced. She didn’t want to sound like Rose.

  Erik shrugged. “It’s no big deal. They beat all that out of me in the Army. The Army needs soldiers, not thugs, and soldiers have discipline.”

  “Okay.” She made a circle in the air with her hand to get him to continue. “What does this have to do with your brother?”

  “Shortly before I joined, I got in a little scrape,” Erik explained. “For once, it wasn’t just me being a punk. Some guys were messing with a woman who did not want their attention. I ‘encouraged’ them to respect her personal space, but the owner of the bar I was in didn’t appreciate that I’d trashed half the place kicking the guys’ asses. The cops had to take me in, but they made it clear the minute I got processed, I’d be let go. Just needed bail. I called my brother.”

  “And?” Jia asked.

  Erik chuckled ruefully. “He showed up and laid into me. Said I was a piece of trash, and my parents had given up on me.” He paused, his eyes focused deep into his past. “He told me that the best thing I could do was sign up to be a laborer on a frontier colony so they could pretend I didn’t exist.” His eyes came back to her. “Refused to bail me out at first, but finally broke down. He told me to stay away from him and my parents.”

  Jia looked down, feeling his pain. “I’m sorry.”

  He shrugged. “I think I would have been less pissed if it hadn’t happened after that particular incident. I thought about it and decided there was nothing left for me on Earth. My family was pretty poor, and my brother had a shot at being something. You know how it goes in corporations. Social screening might have kept him out of a good job after school if I was still around, so I left. Joined the Army and volunteered for frontier tours.”

  “You never tried to contact him again?”

  “The thing is, I did try to keep in contact with him, but when I sent him a message, he told me, ‘You finally did something for others, so keep it up—but stay away.’” Erik’s finger stabbed down on his desk. “That really, really pissed me off.” He leaned back in his chair. “We barely talked after that, and I didn’t talk to my parents much. I ended up on a lot of distant worlds and on the move. Connecting seemed kind of pointless, with all the troubles, and not worth the time. I stopped caring about coming back to Earth. Next thing you know, the years had passed, and my parents were dead. I was too far away to attend their funeral.” He snorted. “I think my brother held that against me, too.”

  “You’re both different men now.” Jia managed a soft smile. “It’s been a long time. Don’t you think it’s time to reach out again?”

  “Maybe you’re right.” Erik nodded. He furrowed his brow, then tapped his PNIU. His eyes moved to the side. “Just got a message. What are your lunch plans?”

  “We just got here,” Jia observed. “And I had breakfast not all that long ago.”

  “Sure, but you’ll probably want to hear this. Keep your calendar clear.”

  A few hours later, Erik and Jia sat in the MX 60 with a conspicuous man in the back seat. Their passenger’s bright pink Hawaiian shirt was covered with flamingoes and women in bikinis. Jia was half-convinced satellites could pick him out from orbit. They were officially on their way to have lunch at a restaurant a few kilometers farther out than their normal haunts, but the trip would give them several minutes of complete privacy.

  Emma’s hologram form sat beside the man, whose name was Malcolm, a near-permanent smirk fixed on her face.

  “You said you had something for me?” Erik asked.

  “It’s kind of useful, but it’s kind of not.” Malcolm whistled once. “Sorry, Detective.”

  “Anything is better than nothing,” Erik countered.

  “I’ve been poking around here and there. It never sat right with me how and when that Halcyon lab blew up, so I’ve been watching them as much as I can.”

  “And?” Erik wanted to prod him with one of the charge sticks a few of the officers back at the precinct had lodged up their asses, that made them walk so stiffly.

  “And I dabbled in some areas and servers that maybe I shouldn’t have.” Malcolm swallowed. “Nothing that can be traced back to me.”

  Jia frowned but didn’t say anything. She was still trying to figure out where the line lay for investigating the conspiracy.

  “Aren’t you the bold one?” Emma chuckled. “Even I’m wary of doing that sort of thing.”

  Malcolm lifted his chin, pride on his face. Man had scored a small victory against the machines. “I grabbed a few minor records here and there. They don’t prove anything big, but I learned a couple of things. That place was obviously doing research on top of whatever else they were doing, but here’s the weird thing. They’d been emptying it out for a while before it blew up, and they started on a date you’ll find interesting. June 15, 2228.”

  Erik’s jaw tightened. “Just when I’d gotten back.”

  “Hey, you know, it could be a big coincidence, but there are a lot of coincidences piling up around you.” Malcolm licked his lips. “A lot of bodies, too.”

  “True enough.” Erik’s hands tightened on MX 60’s control yoke. “That’s good to know, Malcolm. It’s not useless. It means people have been watching me since I got here. Probably before.” He looked to his left before changing lanes, the smooth movement of the Taxútnta providing an emotional response that touched the basic animal part of his brain. “Anything else?”

  The tech shrugged. “One other thing. It was a brief portion of a memo relating to them moving out equipment. Before you ask, I don’t have the files anymore. I copied them to a proxy server to read before deleting them. Not leaving any trails for terrorist assassins or whoever’s involved in all this. The encryption on what should have been routine cargo records and a single memo was insane.”

  Jia gazed at Erik. “Maybe you should tell him the whole story. If he’s hacking corporations, he deserves to know.”

  Malcolm shook his head furiously. “I’ve told you before, I don’t want to know. I think plausible deniability will let me help you while keeping me from getting tossed into the ocean.”

  “Your call,” Erik replied. “But thanks.”

  “You are a smart one, aren’t you, Technician Constantine?” Emma chuckled. “For a fleshbag.”

  Malcolm turned to her and blinked. “Excuse me?”

  Jia looked over her shoulder at Emma. “‘Fleshbag?’”

  “Blame Detective Blackwell,” the AI explained. “Once he used the phrase, I couldn’t contain my delight.”

  Jia rolled her eyes, and they ended up looking at her partner, who was doing his best to pay attention to the traffic. “As long as someone’s enjoying this.” She turned to Malcolm. “What else did you find? What did the memo fragment say?”

  Malcolm took a few deep breaths and rubbed his hands together. Fighting conspiracies didn’t seem to sit well with him. “It said, and I quote, ‘Don’t worry much about the Tin Man. Just continue the relocation of Wonderland. We don’t need Alice and her friends finding it.’”

  “I assume this is another thing that humans understand better than I d
o.” Emma frowned. “Their coded statement confuses me because it mixes characters from different classical stories.”

  Erik glanced at Jia. “What do you think?”

  She gestured to his arm. “It’s rude to say so, but you’re technically a Tin Man. I interpret the message as meaning there’s someone else out there looking into this, and probably not the people you’re already working with.”

  Erik nodded. “That’s what I think, too.”

  Malcolm closed his eyes. “Hey, this is intense. I’m so hungry now. I’m sorry, that’s all I’ve got. But it kind of sounds halfway useful, from what you’re saying.”

  “Very useful,” Erik agreed. “If there’s someone else out there investigating this, it might be easier for me to pull off a few things.”

  “We don’t know if they’re on our side,” Jia countered. “The enemy of my enemy is sometimes just another enemy.”

  Emma nodded. “Wise words.”

  Erik snorted. “I don’t care. I’ve got a lot of bullets to spare.”

  Chapter Eight

  There were few things in the galaxy better than a fresh, piping hot beignet. Erik loved them enough that he’d take them cold or at room temperature, but the texture of a batch right out of the fryer could not be beaten.

  He bit into one, savoring the sugary-sweet taste.

  A few days had passed since the discussion with Malcolm. Nothing new had arisen with the conspiracy, and Erik and Jia had investigated and solved a minor theft case within one day. The Shadow Zone criminals might be getting more vicious and cunning, but the Uptown lawbreakers had seemed to reduce their intelligence (since, Erik concluded, typing “lose their damned minds” was inappropriate in written reports) as desperation grew.

  For now, though, Erik didn’t care about anything other than enjoying the pastry in his mouth. He didn’t care about the dense crowd of diners having breakfast and coffee.

  Jia noted he was barely aware of his own partner across the table from him. She laughed, pointing a fork at him. “Do you need to be alone with that pastry? I keep expecting you to moan.”

  Erik swallowed. “Maybe I should. It’s damned good.”

  “What kind of Chinese food you like?” Jia asked with a curious glint in her eye.

  “Huh?” Erik downed another bite before responding. “I don’t know. Mostly stuff that’s tasty. I don’t care what people say. I can’t get past the smell of century eggs.”

  “If you had to pick a favorite, what would it be?”

  “Beijing roast duck,” Erik answered. He rubbed his chin, still thinking. “Hard to go wrong when something has a lot of protein.”

  Jia blinked a few times. “Beijing duck?”

  He eyed her. “Why is that weird? You don’t like it?”

  Jia shook her head. “No, I have a lot of fond memories associated with that dish.”

  “Do you visit Beijing a lot? Everyone says you have to go there to get the best duck,” he asked, taking another bite. She shook her head as he rolled his eyes in pleasure.

  “No. Not really. Most of my relatives live in other places.” Jia smiled. “Mother isn’t one to do a lot of cooking, but that is one of the few dishes she prepares well. It was a rare treat when she made it for us.”

  Erik’s eyes narrowed. She seemed satisfied with his answer.

  That concerned him.

  A woman’s mind, especially the mind of an intelligent woman like Jia, was like a deceptively calm ocean with no waves. All it required was one riptide to take a man out if he wasn’t careful.

  He couldn’t save himself if he didn’t know why she was interested. “Why are you—” he started. His eyes grew large, and he peered over Jia’s shoulder. “What the hell?” he finished as he pushed back his chair, rising.

  Jia matched his movements, grabbing her stun pistol and whipping around without saying a word.

  People shouted in alarm. Several rushed away from the foyer. A man dressed in solid black stepped through the front door, rifle in hand. A white mask covered his face, the striations indicating it was a chameleon mask.

  The disguise effectively blocked most spectra, but it was an expensive toy for someone entering a random mid-tier restaurant.

  “Listen up, you maggots!” the man shouted, the voice distorted behind any plausible attempt at recognition by the mask. “This is a robbery. I’m taking your jewelry and your PNIUs!”

  Erik whipped out his pistol. “NSCPD!”

  Jia pulled out her stun pistol, her eyes narrowing on the man.

  “Put down your weapons, you servants of a corrupt system,” the robber demanded. “You fake humans. Drop them, or people will get hurt.”

  “You see what I’m holding?” Erik growled in response, moving forward. “This isn’t a stun pistol. You fire that gun and hit someone, and I guarantee you’ll take bullets.”

  “Just surrender,” Jia ordered, coming up beside but stepping away from Erik. “You picked the wrong place to rob. And what kind of idiot takes people’s PNIUs? You do realize we can track those, don’t you?” She snorted in disgust.

  “I’m freeing people of their umbilical cords to a corrupt system.” The man backed toward the door, his head moving to the left and the right before he threw the rifle at a nearby waitress and twisted. She yelped and ducked.

  Jia nailed him in the back of the neck with a stun bolt. He groaned and tumbled to the ground, his body stopping the door from closing.

  “Is everyone all right?” Jia called, looking around. “Does anyone need emergency medical treatment or an ambulance?”

  Confused and relieved murmurs spread throughout the room. Some of the customers were shades paler than they had been a few minutes prior, but no one was on the ground.

  Erik stomped over to the stunned suspect, put away his pistol, and pulled out a binding tie. He zipped the man’s hands and yanked his limp body into the air. “I can’t believe you would try to rob one of my favorite beignet places,” he told the non-responsive guy. “I’m assuming you didn’t know, so I’ll chalk it up to you being the unluckiest idiot in Neo SoCal at the moment, rather than the stupidest.”

  Jia holstered her weapon as she came up to him, waving a negligent hand at the limp man. “Is this what you were talking about when you suggested things would get worse before they got better?”

  “Hey, unless you want to convince the Purists to allow genetic engineering, I don’t think we’ll be curing humanity of stupidity.” He moved the suspect out of the door. “Can you watch him for a moment?” he asked as he walked toward the gun. Something seemed off.

  Erik crouched and picked up the weapon. He inspected it closely. “Huh? Can’t tell if he’s brave or even stupider than I thought.”

  “Why?” Jia asked.

  He held up the rifle to show it to her. “This isn’t a real gun.”

  Erik glared at the suspect bound to the chair, sitting across the interrogation room table. DNA ID had confused the detectives more. They’d expected a scumbag who had somehow slithered up from the Shadow Zone, but instead, the suspect was Pearson Darmon, a clean-cut young university student with an internship at a major engineering firm. Not exactly the standard criminal profile for armed robbers of restaurants.

  He had no priors, and the closest he had gotten to the law was a cousin who was a CID agent.

  “Do you have any idea how much trouble you’re in, Pearson?” Jia asked.

  “I didn’t do anything,” stammered Pearson. “It wasn’t even a real gun.”

  Erik and Jia exchanged glances and snorted simultaneously.

  “You can’t be that ignorant,” Jia continued. “We have all sorts of laws about people who threaten others, whether or not the weapon is real, and you announced it was a robbery, too. Just because we stopped you, it doesn’t mean you get to claim you didn’t do anything wrong. Armed robbery, terrorist threats, possession of a chameleon mask without a proper license, resisting law enforcement, threatening law enforcement… I can keep going.”
/>   “And ruining my beignet breakfast,” Erik added.

  Pearson’s face scrunched in confusion. “That’s not a crime.”

  Erik slammed a fist on the table so hard it shook. “Says you.” The suspect winced. “If someone put you up to this, now is the time to offer them up. If we tell the prosecutor you made our jobs more difficult, they might decide to charge you with everything my partner listed.”

  Pearson slumped forward and groaned. “I wasn’t going to hurt anyone. I just wanted to feel it, you know?”

  “Feel what?” Jia asked. “We did a tox screen on you. There are no unusual substances in your bloodstream. You can’t play this off as you being high.”

  “No, no. Natural high.” Pearson lifted his head. “Like the Leem King.”

  “Leem King?” Erik growled. “You’re a damned Grayhead?” Erik pushed back from the table in annoyance. “I’ve had enough of you idiots.”

  “No, no, no. This is so messed up.” Pearson shook his head. “I hate those guys. They’re freaks and terrorists. The Leem King’s not an alien or a Grayhead. That’s just the name he uses for his show. It’s kind of a joke since he’s all about people being real humans and not fake humans.”

  “Show?” Jia frowned. “What show?”

  “It’s a dark net show. I’m sure it’s all sorts of illegal. I heard about it from a guy at school. The Leem King is the real deal. He says we’ve lost touch with what it means to be human because of all the technology and corporations and stuff.”

  “So he’s some sort of terrorist?” Jia asked.

  “No!” Pearson sounded annoyed at that point. “He says, screw all terrorists. Killing people doesn’t make you more human. It makes you an animal. He’s all about helping people reach their true potential by challenging themselves.”

  “Meaning what, exactly?” Erik asked.

  Pearson licked his lips and leaned forward. “You can’t control other people, you know? Not really. You can’t control the system. It’s too big. It stretches across the galaxy. All you can do is free yourself by challenging yourself. Risking your life for nothing but the thrill. That way, you strip all this stuff away. All the fake stuff that smothers your humanity.”