by Matt Doyle
Stacy turned up expecting hair-pulling, slapping, and screeching like a fox in mating season. She got a right hook, a broken nose, and a kick that bruised two ribs. Stacy was never the same after that, and the other would-be queens started to back off after her fall. On the downside, the rest of the girls in school became scared of me. Even some of my friends started to distance themselves for fear that they’d upset me. No amount of explaining my plan could fix that. But that was okay. I stopped the worst of the bullying for the duration of my time there, saving a lot of girls a lot of hassle that they never knew would have come their way.
My parents, of course, got called into the school for a talk. While they were there, they admonished me in the way that they were meant to, but when we got home, they asked me what had really happened. I explained everything. While they didn’t approve of my methods, they did understand why I did it. That was when my mother gave me a single piece of advice that’s stuck with me ever since. “Stacy thought that she was the biggest, baddest dog in the yard,” she said. “Then she came across you and learned that there was someone out there who was bigger and badder than she could ever be. There will always be someone tougher than you, Caz, always. Don’t ever forget that, and don’t let yourself think that you’re invincible.”
Maybe I’m just being paranoid, but in my line of work, I tend to find that people dislike me. And there are a lot of bigger, badder, and tougher dogs than me in this city. If they decide to deal with me, it won’t be in a fistfight on a school field. They also won’t rush in, all guns blazing. They’ll take it slow and try not to draw attention to themselves. Probably. If they do that, and the creak of the door doesn’t draw my attention, it will at least mask the quiet little clack-clack of steel talons on the hardwood floor as my clever little security system gets himself into position.
With the early part of the day being set aside for information gathering, I figured that it would be safe to leave Bert at home. Not wanting to have him mistake Lori for an intruder, I shove the door to the apartment open at speed and make sure that I enter first. Lori shuts the door and steps up beside me just as my shiny little guard dog trundles out of the bedroom. He fixes her with his glowing red eyes, tilts his head to the side, and says, “Caw.”
“Lori, Bert. Bert, Lori,” I say, then point a stern finger at Bert and add, “Be nice.”
“Caw,” he says, then wanders into the kitchen and starts to scale the counter.
“Is that a Familiar?” Lori asks.
“He,” I correct. “And yeah. He was in for maintenance when you dropped by the first time, or he’d have met you at the door.”
“He’s adorable. Like a little metal gargoyle.”
“I thought so too,” I reply, smiling to myself. “He’s a cocky little bugger, though, especially if he thinks he’s got you scared.”
“Aww, how could anyone be scared of him?”
“He’s primarily a Protector Class unit, so he can do some real damage if he needs to.” I turn to Bert and ask, “You like to break stuff, don’t cha, Bert?”
“Caw, caw.”
I put my hands on my hips in mock anger and say, “Well, that’s just rude.” Lori giggles, and I turn to look at her. “What?”
“Oh, nothing.”
“No, come on. What?”
“It’s just…you get all freaked out around Ink, but with Bert, you’re like, so comfortable that you’re like a completely different person. I was just thinking that there’s hope for you yet.”
I roll my eyes. “Well, it’s good to know that I’m not a completely hopeless case.” I flick the kettle on, then walk over to the table and pull both the printed summary and the memory stick out of the envelope. We avoided going over the details of the printed sheet during the car journey, just in case anything clicked and the shock drew Lori’s attention enough to make us crash. As a result, the car journey took half the length of time that it should have. Even after her complete disregard for road safety, I did let Lori have a quick skim read in the elevator on the way up to my floor, though. Eddie had had multiple meetings with two people during his last month alive, all of which ranged in length from half an hour to three hours. I wake my tablet from sleep mode and slot the memory stick into the least troublesome of the three USB ports. This one likes to cut out every now and then. The other two like to work every now and then. “You’re sure that you don’t recognise either name?”
“No. I mean, there’s something familiar about Dean Hollister’s name, but I don’t know what it is. And I don’t know Carl Sanders at all.” She pauses, then adds, “It sucks that Eddie didn’t meet anyone on the day that he…”
“Actually, that’s pretty useful to know.”
“How so?” she asks, a hint of hopefulness welling up in her voice.
“It adds fuel to the fire. If anyone tries to shoot the Devin angle down, we can point out some useful facts to combat it. First up, people who use synths tend to inject themselves immediately before or immediately after logging in. Second, when people do accidentally OD, it takes a good hour for the effects to happen, by which time the initial buzz has worn off and the victim has started going about their normal routines. With the amount of Flash7 that Eddie appears to have had in his body…” I say, then spot Lori wince. I smile sympathetically and say, “Sorry. But with those levels, it would have been quicker. Add in that you said he didn’t use at all, and we can safely say that the half hour he was online was how long it took. People don’t just log on to do nothing if they’re using; they want to feel everything. That he didn’t leave the log-in room and there were no initial danger signs on the scans means that he wasn’t looking for a cheap thrill. If it really was an accidental OD, he should have been wandering around, and someone should have seen him. Those are facts that can’t be covered up with the usual media spin that the PD spokespeople use.”
Finally catching up, the tablet cuts in. “Good…afternoon, Cassandra. How may I be of assistance?”
“Copy external media device contents to server six. Primary folder, open case files. Subfolder, Redwood Lori.” The screen flashes up the rotating circle of impenetrably slow processing, and I shake my head. “Sorry. This may take a while.”
“No problem,” Lori replies. “Is it age, or is it just gunked up with bloatware?”
“Probably both,” I concede. We sit in an awkward silence then, watching the circle complete slow rotation after slow rotation. Finally, I ask, “So hey, out of interest, what made you come to me with your brother’s case?”
Relief lifts Lori’s delicate lips into a gentle smile. I’m glad I wasn’t the only one feeling awkward. “You were recommended to me by a friend.”
“Tobias Martin, right?”
“That’s right,” she replies, and leans back into her chair, crossing her arms. The smile remains on her face, letting me know that she’s not upset, and her eyes light up with curiosity. “Okay, Detective, spill. How did you know that I was talking about Tobias?”
“When you came to me with the case, I sort of remembered your name. I thought it was Eddie’s that I recognised, but when I searched my case files, it was yours that I found.”
“Is that right?” She laughs. “And what do your files say about me?”
“Just that Tobias mentioned you when I was interviewing him. I wanted to check for potential suspects for his case, and your name came up.” Lori raises an eyebrow at me, and I shake a hand to wave down any suspicions. “Don’t worry. He was only saying that you wouldn’t have been the one who…uhm…”
“Stole his money,” she finishes for me. “It’s okay. I know about what happened.”
I nod and breathe a sigh of relief. “The reason I brought it up, is that he said something I was curious about.” I look to Lori to see if it’s okay to continue, or if she’s uncomfortable talking about something a friend had said. She tilts her head and beckons me to continue with her hand, so I say, “He told me that you were his Alpha. Or our Alpha. Thinking about it, he de
finitely said ‘our’, so I’m guessing that he meant the social group?”
Lori bursts out laughing, and my jaw drops open in surprise. “You look absolutely terrified,” she says. “Honestly, Cassie, you don’t have to be nervous about asking questions about Tech Shifting. That you’re asking rather than making assumptions or buying into stereotypes is actually quite refreshing.”
I lean back into my chair, mimicking the cross-armed pose that Lori had held before she collapsed into fits of laughter. Try as I might, I can only muster a half-hearted glare to go with it.
“Well, I’m glad I amuse you so much,” I grunt.
“Oh, you really do. We should hang out more after this is all done. I could have some great fun with you.”
I feel a blush rise up in my cheeks, but I’m too slow to do anything about it, and Lori laughs again. Unable to think of a suitable response, I just drop my head to the table in frustration. Lori reaches over and rubs my shoulder playfully, and I feel goose bumps rise under my shirt. I didn’t get that reaction when I hugged Charlie yesterday. But then, I kept myself in “work mode” with Charlie. Has it really been two years since I let myself relax around someone?
“It’s cool,” Lori says, cutting my thoughts short. “This is good for me. I need something to distract me from what’s going on.”
“Oh?” I say, peering up from my hunched-over position. “So I’m just a distraction to you, then. Well, now I’m heartbroken.”
Lori wags an accusatory finger. “Come on, you know I didn’t mean it like that,” she says, and I smile to myself at the mild panic that she’s trying and, most importantly, failing to keep out of her voice. “And heartbroken? Laying it on a bit thick there, aren’t you?”
I cross my arms under my chin, and give Lori my best puppy dog eyes and pout. “I’ll have you know that I’m a very emotional person. Couldn’t you tell?”
We stare at each other in silence, frozen in place, until, finally, we both break at once and start laughing again. “Alpha, Alpha,” I say. “Tell me about this whole Alpha thing before I begin to feel any more awkward.”
“Honestly?” Lori replies, struggling to compose herself. “I have no idea. I guess it’s because I sort of run the meetings. I book the hall, collect any money towards the costs, and just, you know, deal with any issues. I guess I do mediate if there are any clashes, but that really just involves jumping in and growling a lot, making them back off, that sort of thing. I didn’t know that Tobias viewed me as an Alpha, though. I wonder if the others do.”
“You could ask them.”
“Nah, I think that I’ve filled my awkwardness quota for the month.” Lori gives an exaggerated seated bow. “I shall just have to accept my rule gracefully and get on with it.”
“Files transfer complete,” the tablet says, cutting off any reply that I could have given. I slide the memory stick out of the port and start checking that the files are functioning correctly.
The kettle clicks off, and Lori asks, “Did you want me to…?”
“Yeah, if you don’t mind,” I reply, opening the requested information document from its new home in my personal file store. “Tea and coffee are in the cupboard above the kettle, milk’s in the fridge. Mine’s a coffee, strong. Help yourself to whatever you want.”
“Do you have any sugar?”
“I did, but someone threw it all over the floor.”
Lori glances at Bert, and he stares back at her, lowering the strength of his eye lights to make it look like he’s glaring. She shakes her head and looks back at me. “So why’d he do that?”
“The sugar attacked me.”
“Oh, right…wait, what?”
I look at her and give a gentle smile. “It fell out of the cupboard and landed on my head. Bert, deciding that it was clearly some sort of miniature paper-packaged assassin, went for it and nullified the threat.” I shrug. “To be honest, I think he knew full well that it was just a bag of sugar. I hadn’t taken him out for a while, so he was probably just bored.”
“Huh. I didn’t know that Familiars got bored.”
“Not all of them do,” I say, turning back to the tablet. “Protector Classes don’t at all, but Bert has a bit of Family Class programming in him too. I insisted on that. The last thing I wanted was a living weapon wandering around my apartment destroying everything. Now, when he does something like that, I can put it down to him being doglike or catlike.”
“Catlike?” Lori repeats, her voice dripping with mock offence. “I’ll have you know that Ink is far better behaved.”
“Of course she is. That’s why your doorframe was covered in claw marks.”
Lori shrugs. “A kitty has to keep her claws trimmed.”
“She needs to work on her memory too.”
“What do you mean?” Lori replies, sitting back in the chair opposite me. She slides a cup of coffee across to me, and I take a mouthful. It’s not bad, actually. A little lower on milk than I’d like, but I can handle that.
“According to the brief profile in the additional stuff that Jeremy gave us, Dean Hollister is the founder and CEO of six large companies. I’ve done a quick web search and two of them are pretty interesting. The first is Hollister and Holtz, a joint venture with Dieter Holtz. That one’s primarily responsible for bringing software from both men’s other companies together into one grouping. The software in question was Holtz’s NSX and Hollister’s SnapDragon Suite and Light Break.”
“Ah. So what’s the other interesting one?”
“Shift Source Limited.”
“Really? He runs SSL?”
“Yeah. It says here that he was one of the original pioneers of the Tech Shifting concept. Apparently, he designed the prototype systems that allow the plugs and the suits to work together, as well as making a couple of physical adjustments to the general design of the suits themselves. So, chances are you either spotted his name in one of Eddie’s books, or you remembered it from when you bought Ink. Maybe both. Given the books we found in his house, and the fact that the locations of his meetings with Hollister are all virtual world offices, I’d guess that Eddie was trying to get a job with Hollister and Holtz.”
“Would the CEO be present for job interviews, though?”
I cross my arms behind my head and stretch my shoulders out. “Not usually, no, but who knows? Hollister’s a hugely successful multimillionaire. Maybe he’s picky about who he hires and likes to take a hands-on approach to recruitment. The job could have been something high up that fell under Hollister’s direct management, or have been part of a project that he had a particular interest in. There could be any number of reasons for him to take an interest in Eddie. But the files say that he met Hollister seven times over the course of the month, which seems a bit high to me. Again, there may well be a reasonable explanation, but we won’t know for sure unless we talk to him.”
“I suppose,” Lori replies, nervousness creeping into her voice. “Didn’t you say that the guy who was contracted to kill him is expensive too?”
“Devin Carmichael, and yes. Hollister definitely has the means to pay him; we just don’t know if he has a motive.”
“Okay. So what about Carl Sanders?”
I swipe across to the file on Sanders and read silently through the first couple of lines. “Does the name Gary Locke mean anything to you?”
“Gary Locke,” she repeats, drawing the words out. Her eyes narrow, and she clicks her tongue. “Is there a photo of him?”
I nod and spin the tablet around. The picture on the screen is of a man who looks like he’s in his early thirties, but with a vaguely fashionable flop to his mid-length hair. He has a determined look in his eyes, and his designer stubble-covered jaw is set in a relaxed smirk. Lori leans over the table to get a better look, and my own gaze drifts up to do the same.
I barely have time to register my disappointment that she doesn’t seem to wear low-cut tops like Charlie does before she nods, sits back down, and says, “Gaz. Gaz Locke. He was one o
f Eddie’s friends. I think they met in…uhm…college, maybe? What does he have to do with Carl Sanders, though?”
“He was born Carl Sanders but changed his name to Gary Locke four and a half years ago,” I reply, rotating the tablet back towards me and skimming further down the file while I talk. “It looks like he kept his old name for business stuff. Eddie had the same number of meetings with him as he did with Hollister. Do you know if they kept in touch outside the virtual world?”
“A little, yeah. I definitely met Gaz once or twice while I was visiting, but…” She trails off.
“Eddie was a Virtual Junkie and spent more time online than he did offline, right?”
Lori nods.
“When you met him on those occasions, what was Gaz like?”
“I don’t know, really. It was usually a sort of ‘hi, bye’ thing with him.”
“Okay. Is he likely to be friendly if we turn up on his doorstep?”
“No idea.”
“In that case…” I say, turning to look over my shoulder. “Hey, Bert! Looks like we’re going out. You want to tag along?”
“Caw.”
Eighteen
GARY LOCKE, AS it happens, lives only two blocks away from me, in Morton Heights. Like most people these days, he lives in an apartment. The reason for this is that the city was built with the idea of housing large swathes of people in an economical manner, and making it easier for the incoming businesses to encourage their staff to live locally. While you wouldn’t think it to look at her wardrobe, the fact that Lori is living in a bungalow actually places her pretty high on the financial ladder. Whether rented or owned, it’ll no doubt be worth a lot more than my own modest living-quarters-cum-business-area. Throw in her lack of complaint about my fee and the fact that Tech Shifting suits are far from cheap, and you’ve got a pretty good indicator that she’s living comfortably. Whether that’s through work, the inheritance that she and Eddie got from their grandparents, or a combination of both remains to be seen.
