Slowly, the conscious world manifested itself as a tiny beam of light. As the light expanded, a voice telling me to get up joined in the fun. I decided, what the hell, I might as well listen and opened my eyes. Immediately I regretted it because with consciousness came pain. Pain in my chest. Pain in my jaw and forehead. Pain in my arms and hands. Pain everywhere.
I shielded my eyes with my right hand and massaged my temples with my middle finger and thumb.
‘Maybe I should go back to practising law,’ I groaned and continued to lie there.
After a few minutes of self-pity, I leaned up on my elbows and had a look around through squinted eyes. No sign of the guy or his ski mask. He must have bolted while I snoozed like a baby. My car, fortunately, hadn’t disappeared, and I counted it as a blessing. But the opened rear passenger door sat on its hinges in an odd sort of way. Out of the back seat lay the sprawling figure of James with most of his electronic guts dangling on the pavement.
I sat up and regretted that, too. The ache in my head increased tenfold. The world around me faded in and out of focus. Details split in two and migrated in opposite directions before converging into one again. I fought through it, managed to roll over on my hands and knees, and crawl over to the dead robot for a closer inspection. Now, I’m no android expert but if I had to guess, I would say the punk who bushwhacked me went for this guy’s core processor.
There went the evidence against Kitterman.
I dropped onto my keister, leaned back against the car next to the lifeless high-tech tin can and tried to get my bearings. I needed to think for a few minutes and, in all fairness, couldn’t do more than that anyway. Anything else hurt too much. I checked the time… Out at least 40 minutes. Looking at my smartwatch reminded me that I had dropped those earrings into Ski Mask’s pocket during the fight. I opened the tracking application and waited for it to acquire the signal. He was on the Underground, heading towards RD1 from Res 3. I watched the dot, transfixed, waiting to see where he would go next but it went dead. ‘Signal Lost’ flashed on the screen. He must’ve found the earrings and smashed them.
RD1.
MARA Corp. Kitterman.
The image of her old man flashed in my mind for reasons that momentarily eluded me. Then it hit me: I saw his face before I blacked out. A dead man had punched me out. And where there was one Kitterman involved, there stood a very good chance to find another.
‘What do you make of that?’ I said to the silent companion lying next to me.
He didn’t respond.
I laughed.
It was all I had in me; to sit there and laugh. It felt good despite the tenderness in my chest and sides. I needed a nice, hearty laugh. When the hilarity of the situation died down, I hauled myself up to a standing position, fighting off the nausea along the way.
A few slow deep breaths and I started to feel on the right side of ‘better’. I went around the mechanical corpse and had a closer look at the car door. The damage hadn’t been too extensive and it could be closed if there wasn’t a body in the way. The Griffon would need some TLC but it’d be alright in the end. That cheered me up a bit more.
I turned my attention to the empty building where I hoped Rennick’s body still lay. No way in hell a third dude would be lurking around here waiting to beat my ass, but that didn’t change the fact that the dump looked even more foreboding than ever. For peace of mind, I grabbed my concussion rifle and staggered towards the same rusty door I had used an hour ago.
The place looked exactly the same. No one had entered since I left, as far as I could tell. Upstairs I found Ms Rennick precisely where I had stashed her. Ski Mask had left both me and her alone. I guess he was only after one thing.
I stumbled my way back to the car and opened the secret compartment. I stashed the rifle and the pistol and the extra cartridge in the space. Next, I scrolled through the list of contacts on my smartwatch until I found Detective Ashdown’s number again. I had to call this one in to Metro because I couldn’t hide my involvement in what went down at Verne Bottling. Two dead androids and a shoddy excuse for being here already put me at a disadvantage. Not to mention, Rennick worked for Kitterman, and I had broken into her place. Another crumb that could lead back to me.
Ashdown’s voice brought me out of my head.
‘Daniel Helmqvist. What can I do for you today?’
His hello was about as warm as a bank teller’s.
‘I’d hate for you to detect a pattern in our recent phone conversations, but…’ I took a deep breath. ‘You better send some boys down to the IM. I’ve got two dead androids at the old Verne factory.’
‘Dead?’
‘Dead, disabled, guts hanging out. Call it what you want but they ain’t hosting tea parties any time soon.’
‘What the hell are you mixed up in this time, Helm?’
Still no real concern in his voice, only the curiosity of someone used to solving mysteries.
‘I’ll tell you when you get here.’
‘Fine. We’re on our way. The old Verne plant, you say?’
‘Yeah. 1643 Edison.’
‘Got it. We’ll be there in twenty. Don’t go anywhere.’
‘I wouldn’t dream of it. You boys showing up with sirens blazing will be the highlight of my day.’
‘Are you in danger?’
‘Not anymore.’
‘No sirens then.’
‘You really know how to take the fun out of everything, don’t you?’
He hung up on me.
Before I hopped into the driver’s seat to await the arrival of Metro I realised I’d made a mistake by stowing away the concussion rifle. The gun would have to figure into my story and I owned a permit for it anyway. The NEEDLE, however, had to be hidden. I didn’t use it and after what happened in the HTS case, Ashdown wouldn’t let this one slide.
I placed the rifle on the hood of the car so as to not make anyone with an actual firearm jumpy when they saw it. The coppers rolling up to a scene in their cruisers and spying some gee with a gun hitched up on his shoulder like a cowboy might send the wrong message. With the stage set, I slid in behind the steering wheel and powered up the car to access the on-board computer. From there, I locked the hidden compartment in the trunk. And, at the same time, scrolled through my music collection for something to listen to while I waited. I settled on Bonobo’s The North Borders.
About 25 minutes after I had spoken to Ashdown, he delivered on his promise. A squad car and an unmarked cruiser came through the gate of the Verne Bottling Company.
No sirens.
No lights.
Nothing.
I shut the music off and pulled myself out of the car. I still felt like I had gone whitewater rafting without a boat but the pain had subsided somewhat. Or maybe I was just getting used to it.
Ashdown, and another detective I didn’t recognise, climbed out of the unmarked cruiser. Out of the other car came two uniformed policemen. No coroner. No ME. No forensic unit. Like I said, no one really cared about how and when a robot bit it.
Ash strolled up to me and regarded me with suspicion. ‘You mentioned two dead on the phone, but left out the part where one was hanging out of your back seat. Care to enlighten me?’
I shifted my gaze over to his minions as they inspected the lifeless robot dangling out of my car. ‘I happened to be in the area. I heard a scream and I stopped to investigate. I entered through the hole you boys just came through and grabbed my concussion rifle.’ I jerked my thumb in its direction. Ashdown’s eyes drifted from me to it. I kept talking.
‘I went up to the building to get a closer look and then a guy comes flying through that broken window.’
I stopped, turned and pointed to the jagged pane of glass. Ashdown walked over to it. I followed.
‘Where were you?’ he asked without looking at me.
‘Over by that door. I told him to halt but he came at me. I let off one round into his chest and sent him into that scrap heap over there.’
‘Did you know he was a synthetic at the time?’
‘No, not until he extracted himself from the pile.’
The detective wrote a few things down on a Mini MIX5, or mMIX5, with a stylus. ‘At that point, what made you realise he was an android?’
‘The way he didn’t bleed, he should’ve been in a bad way. Instead, he took off running like he had missed the bus.’
‘Did he say anything to you?’
‘No,’ I lied.
‘He attacked you and when that didn’t work out too well for him, he tried to make a break for it? Is that what you’re telling me?’
‘That’s exactly what I’m telling you, John.’
‘How did you subdue him?’ he replied as he turned his attention from the notepad to the mound of junk in question.
‘I shot him again in the back. That sent him flying. I closed the gap and hit him again with a disabling blast. That allowed me to cuff him.’
‘Good thing you had that rifle on ya, Helm.’
That was more than a kindly statement of fact.
‘I have a permit for it.’
‘Great. Would you like to show it to me?’
I pulled out a billfold with a PI’s badge on one flap and a small smart-glass screen with all my licensing details on the other. He scrolled through my information like he was looking through a Burberry catalogue and then handed them back to me.
‘You said that you heard a scream. Where did it come from?’
‘Inside the factory.’
‘Did you check it out?’
‘Yeah, after I had the male robot secured in the back seat.’
‘What did you find?’
‘Let me show you.’
I took him in and up to where I had stashed Charlotte Rennick’s body. He looked the scene over – careful not to touch anything – and then inspected her more closely.
‘So you don’t know the victim?’ he asked me, still looking at the place where Charlotte’s chest had been ripped open, pulling a flap of skin back with his stylus.
‘Never seen her before in my life.’
More lies. Layer after layer of lies stacked like a house of cards waiting for the right breeze to come along and send it tumbling to the ground. It wouldn’t be too difficult to prove I knew Charlotte. I had to gamble, however, on the fact that this incident wouldn’t go very far. An inspection of the componentry within Rennick’s body, or into her life, would undoubtedly lead to her connection to MARA Corporation. What James had confessed to me. What happened to James after he told me his secret. The dude who had knocked me out bearing a strong resemblance to Nolan Kitterman. They would undoubtedly lead an investigation straight to Kitterman. She couldn’t let that happen. Rich people like her almost always had politicians in their pocket. She would use them to make this go away. If I played this right, I’d escape any trouble as well. Trouble from the police, at any rate.
He motioned to the door and we left the building.
‘And you just happened to be driving by and heard a scream?’ he asked me again once we were outside.
‘That’s right. Some timing, eh?’ I replied, trying to gauge his reaction.
‘Almost hard to believe, Helm. What were you doing in the area?’
‘I was thinking about getting some lunch at the 3rd Street.’
‘Curt has a menu now?’
‘I didn’t know you frequented the Lounge.’
‘I don’t.’
‘Then how do you know who owns it?’
‘It’s my business to know things.’
‘Of course, you’re a damn good detective,’ I responded with false deference. ‘Anyway, no, they don’t serve food. I had a liquid lunch in mind.’
‘So let me get this straight, you’re in the area on an afternoon drive through the picturesque IM, happen upon a crime in progress, take matters into your own hands, and apprehend this guy,’ he said as he returned to the subject at hand.
‘To a tee. If you type that up on your mini MIX, I’ll sign it and we can all be on our merry way.’
‘I’d love to Helm ’cept there’s just one problem. The guy you bagged is pulled to pieces all over your back seat. Wanna tell me about that?’
‘As soon as I had the perp secured, another assailant ambushed me. We struggled but he laid me out pretty good.’
‘This second guy got the jump on you?’
‘Mmhhmm. He came at me from behind. I had just enough time to defend myself.’
‘By defend yourself, do you mean get beaten until you were unconscious?’
‘How did you guess?’
‘You look like shit.’
I ran a hand over my cheeks and jaw. ‘Pretty obvious, huh?’
He nodded this time.
‘When I came to, I found the scene like this and called you guys.’
‘Why didn’t you call when you first arrived? I can never understand why types like you always have to play the hero. First Berkshire. And now this?’ His tone thick with accusation.
‘Hey! I was working a case the other day and it turned violent. I did what I did today because I thought a woman was in trouble. Anyway, you, of all people, should know better than to call me a hero.’
‘So you knew that it was a woman? You said you’d never seen her before.’
Clever, Ash. Trying to trip me up like that.
‘Maybe I misspoke in the beginning. I distinctly heard a woman’s voice when I stopped to investigate.’
That gave him a moment’s pause.
‘You still should have called the police. This is what we do. This is our job. Not some gumshoe’s with a strong sense of civic duty.’
‘He would have gotten away.’
Ashdown walked over to the mechanical corpse and bent down to look at it closer. ‘Yeah, well, he’s a lot of use to us now. Thanks.’
‘Screw you, John. I followed my instincts. If you don’t like it, then too bad. What’s done is done. How was I supposed to know another guy was lurking in the shadows?’
‘Fine,’ the detective said with a sigh. ‘I know you mean well, but, look, this whole thing is fishy. We have two androids with their guts ripped out and a third person on the loose. Did you get a look at this other guy?’
I shook my head. ‘Sorry, he had a mask on.’
‘Naturally,’ Ashdown replied unkindly. Silence descended upon the scene as the detective looked around for a few more minutes. Everyone else fidgeted, waiting for the next move.
‘I’m going to need you to come into the station, Helm,’ he said at last. ‘We’ll need you to sign another statement.’
‘I figured as much. What about the robots?’
‘Fernie and Ross’ll take care of them.’ He motioned to the two beat cops and they joined us.
‘There is another synthetic in an office on the mezzanine of the bottling factory,’ the detective said to them. ‘Bring her down and load her, along with the one in Helm’s car, into a forensic bus once it arrives. On my way back to RD1, I’ll put a call in for a CSI unit to process this place.’
Normally moving bodies around before forensics showed up would never fly. You don’t mess with a crime scene like that but it’s always a tad different when androids are involved. They don’t get the same treatment as an actual person.
‘Can I take my car?’ I asked with misplaced optimism.
‘Sorry, but we need to dust it for prints and what not. My boys’ll guard it until a tow truck arrives. When lab’s done with it, we’ll get back to you.’
‘I’d like to stay here until your guys are finished with it. If that’s alright.’
‘Why do you want to keep an eye on it, Helm? Afraid of what we might find?’
‘Quite the opposite,’ I replied casually. ‘This is my baby and a pretty rare one at that. I’d hate to see it mishandled.’
Ashdown turned his options over in his mind.
‘Alright, stay here if you want but once they’re done with your car, go straight to HQ. Got it? No stopping anywhere. If you do, we’ll know. We know everything.’
‘Thanks.’ I extended my hand as a friendly gesture. He looked at it, stuffed his hands in his pockets, turned and strolled back to his car.
‘No stops,’ he called out over the unmarked cruiser’s doorframe as he slid into the passenger seat. His partner started the engine, and they left me in a cloud of dust with the two beat cops.
Ross and Fernie cast a wary glance at me, not knowing whether they should leave me alone long enough to grab Rennick’s body.
‘Don’t worry, fellas,’ I said as I leaned on the hood of the Griffon. ‘I’m not going anywhere.’