I peered through the same window my back-seat passenger had made his dramatic exit from a few minutes ago and didn’t really see anything of note. The main floor of the warehouse had been cleared out long ago. I did, however, see a suite of offices on a second-floor mezzanine that might contain some clues.
I opted to go in through the door. Leaping through a window seemed a little showy to me. In a few spots, giant puddles of unidentifiable liquid pooled and a thin layer of dust covered everything else. The place looked bleak and neglected. How a building in a purpose-built city some 225 million clicks from Earth could ever reach a state like this was beyond me but I’m sure it spoke volumes about the human condition. No matter where we are, no matter what far corner of the galaxy we can find to inhabit, once something has no value to us, we leave it to rot.
Upstairs wasn’t much better. Wiring dangled from the false ceiling as freely as spider webs. Trash and refuse strewn about the offices suggested that they had been used, occasionally, by the homeless and hop-heads alike. I continued on – finding nothing – until I reached the supervisor’s office.
Shackled to a filthy old executive chair sat an unconscious, or more likely dead, Charlotte Rennick. Her head, with her beautiful face and perfect blonde hair, leaned back against the headrest – eyes staring lifelessly at the ceiling. A pair of bracelets similar to the ones I’d used on my buddy in the car held her wrists to the armrests of the chair. Her blouse had been ripped open and a perfectly straight incision ran down her sternum between a flawless pair of breasts. The edge of the cut glistened with a substance that almost resembled blood.
‘Charlotte!’
No response.
I inspected the opening more closely. Like the blood, her skin looked real but not quite real enough. I couldn’t believe I hadn’t noticed during one of our previous encounters. Gently, I pulled one of the flaps back and found the workings of a very sophisticated android. I sighed and let the piece of ‘skin’ go. I would have never guessed in a million years that she wasn’t an actual human. Our conversation in the bar was miles apart from the banter that I had ever had with any other android, including Pam, who possessed some very human-like idiosyncrasies.
How could she not be human?
As I continued to look at her, shame and pity overcame me. Pity because I had let a client get hacked open like this. And shame because I knew then and there that I had liked Charlotte; in a more than platonic way. A lot of guys, and many ladies too, got their jollies off with synths, but not me. I preferred someone with a pulse. In my ignorance, I’d have asked her out, especially if, or when, things went south with Erica. I’d have asked her out as many times as it took to get into her pants and now I loathed myself for even thinking those thoughts.
I looked away from her and scanned the office. Some computer equipment was piled on a desk. James must have used it to transfer the information into his core processor. I also found a smashed-beyond-repair device that looked remarkably similar to the one I’d lifted from Kitterman’s office. A thin layer of the same liquid that oozed out of Charlotte’s chest covered it.
Instinctively, my gaze returned to my client. I had one thing left to do: take a closer look inside her chest. The delicate componentry inside her had been bashed up pretty good. I had no idea if she could ever be put back together again. If she were one of my computers, she’d be scrapped for parts.
After a few more minutes of inspection, I found the spot where the datapad had been installed. I stood back up and laughed long and hard. All this time spent chasing shadows. Putting my neck on the line. And my client had the device in her the entire time. I mean, the damned thing sat in a booth right next to me a couple of days ago. It was genius. If you wanted to keep a record of something as dangerous as the bombing in New York, then why not put it where no one would think to look?
Kitterman had brains alright, but I had the upper hand now. I had the evidence cuffed in the back seat of my car. I looked at Charlotte’s lifeless body and said to her: ‘Corny as it might sound, you were right all along and I’m sorry I ever doubted you.’
I closed Charlotte’s blouse and jacket as best I could. She deserved a little dignity, even if she was a machine. I’d need to grab a pair of bolt cutters from my trunk to get those handcuffs off her wrists. I couldn’t risk someone else finding her but I couldn’t bring her with me either. A person might get the wrong idea if they saw me driving through town with a lifeless body riding shotgun and an unconscious hoodlum in the back seat.
After I had retrieved the data from my man James, I could take it, and him, to Metro HQ. Once I had spun my story to the cops, they could come back here to retrieve her body. The last thing I did before I left her was to remove the earrings and slide them into an outer pocket of my jacket.
I stood hunched over the Griffon’s trunk, weapons stowed, bolt cutters in hand and back turned to the world, when an unknown assailant came at me. I heard the footsteps and had just enough time to wheel around before a guy in a ski mask could take me down with a haymaker. I dodged to my right and responded with an overhead swing of the bolt cutters.
He twisted around the attack and followed with a jab to the midsection. I reversed the direction of the bolt cutters to parry the blow. But, holy hell, this guy was strong. My counter barely phased him. He pressed his assault with a left cross that I managed to sidestep before he took my jaw off.
My sparring companion checked in around the same height and build as me. In addition to his black ski mask, he wore a baseball-style jacket, T-shirt, jeans and a pair of leather driving gloves. All in black. The standard outfit of anyone up to no good. The only talking he did, though, was with his fists and they had a lot to say.
He came at me again with another left. I deflected most of the blow, but it still hurt like a son of a bitch. I swung the cutters again. He flowed past them like a leaf rustling in the wind and chopped my wrist, forcing them loose from my grip. They fell at our feet with a loud clang. At this point, I knew I was in it deep and didn’t see a way out of this fight. I prayed to God that Ski Mask wasn’t entertaining any homicidal notions.
Unnoticed, I reached into my pocket and palmed the earrings. They might come in handy if I survived the fight. This guy didn’t show up, mitts swinging and nothing to say, by accident. He showed up for the same reason I did. Charlotte Rennick.
The trail of crumbs all led back to her. Not to me. But to her.
My attacker let fly an uppercut with his right. I closed the distance to trap the punch with my left arm and practically hugged the guy. We stood there face to face. His breath was even and calm. An obvious sign that this pug could go the distance with a better opponent. I did the only thing I could do: I lunged forward, my cranium leading the charge. At the same time as I attempted to headbutt my opponent, I slipped the earrings in his jacket pocket. The drop went perfectly. However, when our foreheads met, it felt more like hitting a brick wall than someone’s skull. Stars flashed in my vision and my knees buckled.
In my moment of disorientation, the guy paid me back in kind with his own head-to-head strike and absolutely stunned me. He followed with a knee to the midsection and then a right elbow to the head. He finished his flurry of blows with a left jab straight at my already tenderised forehead with a force so hard that it sent me staggering backwards. He pressed the attack.
I fought to maintain consciousness and flailed at him like a drunken sailor. I missed a lot, but by some miracle my fingers hooked the eye holes of his ski mask. I wrenched it off as I continued to stumble backwards. Darkness closed in all around me. He followed with another right to the chest and oblivion swelled up around me.
My opponent stopped moving just long enough for me to get a good look at him. A face I’d seen before. I had seen it recently. I knew that face. I also knew my eyes must’ve been playing tricks on me. Because the mug I saw as the shadows claimed me was none other than Nolan Kitterman.