WHEN MILSOM SHAKES my shoulder, I think it’s my dad waking me and, for the briefest moment, that we’re driving across the Southwestern American wilderness. I haven’t thought about that journey for years. I sat on a box in the front seat, too short for the seat belt without it. Dad was stimmed and tense, terrified the long, straight roads would make him fall asleep at the wheel. I still had Bear then; I’d held him tight for days of travel, the only constant while everything changed around me.
When I take in the sight of wrought-iron gates looming out of the darkness beyond the car’s headlights I’m fully oriented again and grateful that I didn’t dream about Alejandro. I dismiss Tia’s dialog box asking if I need more prolonged stimulation, as if the mild adrenaline burst of waking in a car with my boss on the brink of the highest-profile murder case of my career to date isn’t enough. I’m alert enough for now. Tia informs me that it’s just before two in the morning.
The gates open ahead of the car and the seating starts shifting itself back into its default orientation. I realize Milsom hasn’t driven us down here, which is unusual for her. I guess she had a lot of admin to attend to on the way. That and the fact her APA would have overridden any request to drive manually after that glass of wine.
The car takes us along a long, winding drive, the kind reserved for the sort of place owned by people who want you to spend the last minutes of your journey appreciating just how rich they are. Either side of the drive is hemmed in by trees made naked by winter, catching just enough light from the car to look like they’re straight out of some cheap horror mersive. The tarmac is covered with twigs, and I see a few broken branches pushed to the side of the road. A storm must have come through.
“There will be some legal documents to sign when we arrive,” Milsom says.
I frown at her. “Send them to me and—”
“They need to be witnessed hard copies,” she cuts in. “The lawyers are waiting up for us.”
“That’s why you came down here with me?”
She nods. “When I’m certain everything is compliant, I’ll leave you to it.” My shoulders drop an inch with relief. I was starting to think she’d be watching over my shoulder the whole time. “But I’ll be checking in,” she adds, as if sensing it. “More often than you’ll like.”
“Like being a rookie again.”
“No, Carlos. Not at all.”
I want to explain what I meant, but I don’t bother. I shouldn’t have been flippant. I’m more tired than I think.
Milsom sends over the digital versions of the contract I’m soon to sign, and when Tia offers to review it, translate the legalese and then summarize it to me, I accept. In seconds a list of bullet points stream down the left-hand side of my vision.
“This contract is . . . insane.” I look at Milsom.
“I know. I reviewed it on the way down.”
“Will it get in the way of how I usually work a case?”
“Not as far as the Ministry lawyers or I can tell,” she replies. “It’s mostly about privacy and ownership of information that emerges from the case, but with three different parties all claiming rights and needs that must be respected, it’s bloated as hell. Just send me anything in the first instance, as you would with any other case of this level. If it looks dicey, I’ll let the lawyers worry about the contractual obligations. As far as I’m concerned, we go in there, we pay these parasites some lip service and then we can get on with our fucking job.”
“Um . . . you know that this is being recorded.” Even if I had a normal contract with the Ministry, we’d still be on the record now, seeing as we’re here on Ministry business.
She grins in a way I’ve seen only once before, and just like back then, I’m glad I’m not the one who has pissed her off. “Yep. I know.”
As weird as all of this is, I’m reassured by what she’s said. I’m used to walking into difficult situations, being in the specialty that I am, namely murder cases that are highly sensitive and complex. These days, “sensitive” means “something that could cause the Noropean gov-corp a serious loss in profits, for whatever reason.” And “complex” usually means “a case that can’t be solved by reviewing cam and local-node data for all of five minutes.” With all the data available to law enforcement these days, it’s more economical to train a very small number of specialized detectives with high-level skills and move them to wherever they’re needed.
Simple cases are handled by local police, as they should be. I never arrive at a place where things are simple or going well. Sometimes it causes friction; the local DI never likes some outsider sticking his nose in, let alone one who answers to a line of command plugged straight into the top levels of the Ministry of Justice. Sometimes they think I’m there to just swan in and make them feel like they can’t handle a case. With this one I don’t anticipate it being a problem. The local police here will have figured someone like me would be sent as soon as the call came through from the hotel. It was probably a relief.
I call up my v-keyboard and instruct Tia to operate in full predictive mode, as is my preference when working a case. It’s tiring, having to filter out a greater amount of information pulled from the Web, but Tia is getting pretty good at working out just how much I want to know. Besides, it means I can look a lot of things up with just a thought, rather than having to v-type or speak. More than once it’s saved my ass in difficult conversations when I’ve had to bluff knowing more than I should have.
Before the hotel even comes into sight, Tia informs me that the handshake with the hotel’s local node has been successful and case protocols successfully implemented. Now every chipped person I interact with will have a notice displayed when they look at me and when they speak to me, warning that any footage recorded either purposefully or passively will be reviewed by the Ministry’s AI and could be used in a court of law. It does nothing to help more subtle lines of inquiry, but it does mean that if anyone tries to film me and send it to those documentary makers, the Ministry will shut them down faster than I could say “piss off.” That’s one of the things I love about this job: when I’m on a case, no one can fuck with the Ministry’s highest-level privacy protocols.
The Moor Hotel is a leftover from a bygone age, a time when people built houses without worrying about ecoregulations and sustainable materials. It’s three stories high and there are more than a dozen windows on both of the upper floors. The roof is tiled with slate and doesn’t even have any solar panels fixed to it. That alone speaks of exclusivity; a portion of the exorbitant costs must go toward the exemption certificates required to maintain period buildings in a manner sympathetic to the time of their construction.
Tia deduces my interest in the building from the amount of time I spend looking at it and provides me with an Augmented Reality overlay as the car slows to a stop. Late-Georgian construction, original stonework, built by a family who made their money from a combination of tin mining in Cornwall and slavery run through Bristol. How many people suffered, how many probably died, so that family could live in luxury? I wonder whether any of the current hotel guests are paying for their rooms with modern equivalents. Less than a second later I have to dismiss Tia’s offer to pull the hotel-guest records for my perusal. I’ll look at them when I’m more fresh.
Milsom gets out and I pull my bag from the boot. The bitter cold and gusty wind make me feel even more awake. Even though we’re standing right outside the hotel there hasn’t been any kind of welcome ping, nor have any details about my room been sent to Tia. Maybe this is what Milsom meant when she said it was old-fashioned.
The car’s door locks make a gentle clunk as we head up the steps to the main entrance. The warm glow spilling onto the steps must be a welcome sight for the usual weary arrivals. For me, it signals the beginning of the hard work ahead.
“Good evening.”
I start at the sound of a real voice as we enter and realize that the door has been opened by a human being, standing there dressed like a character from an RPG set in the early twentieth century. I stare at him a little too long and his smile becomes strained. Tia misinterprets my focus on him and a bio flashes up to the right of his head, which I file for future reference.
“Welcome to the Moor Hotel, sir,” he says. “I hope you enjoy your stay.”
I’ve never stepped inside a hotel with even reception staff, let alone someone paid to just open the damn door. Isn’t that what local nodes and motors are for? All the places I usually stay at on the job are the sort of functional midlevel corporate places where you can go through an entire stay without meeting a flesh-and-blood employee, if you’re happy to eat printed food.
“Ah, Deputy Commissioner Milsom and SDCI Moreno, welcome.”
The female voice pulls my attention away from the doorman, to his relief. I catch up with Milsom, who’s several steps ahead of me, being greeted by the hotel manager.
Even though she looks like she’s in her late forties, the bio Tia displays next to her reveals she’s just turned sixty. Her skin is a dark brown, makeup subtle but effective, her straight black hair pulled back into a no-nonsense ponytail. Her suit is simple, bespoke tailored and made of cream fabric. Her high-necked blouse is open at the collar and the same dark blue as her high-heeled shoes. She cuts a smart figure. I’d expect nothing less at this sort of place.
“Ms. Patel,” Milsom says, “thank you for staying up so late.”
“Please, call me Nadia.” She steps forward and shakes my hand after Milsom’s. “It was the least I could do. I understand you’re going to be in charge of the case.”
I nod.
Her smile is warm and hotel-genuine. “If there’s anything you need, please don’t hesitate to ask.”
“I would like to speak to you first thing in the morning,” I say, aware that Milsom is giving me her “end this conversation” frown.
“I’ll be in my office from eight a.m. It’s just over there.” After pointing out a door on the other side of the lobby, she turns to Milsom. “The legal team is in the meeting room, waiting for you. I’ll show you the way.”
There are potted plants, black-and-white marble floor tiles and framed oil paintings, giving the lobby the feel of a stately home that just happens to have a reception desk in its hallway. It smells of money and cleanliness.
I try to picture Alejandro here, sipping coffee in the bar I can glimpse through glass in a large set of double doors we pass on the way to the meeting room. The mental image seems a mockery of all I knew him to be. Had he changed so much in recent years? There was a time when he deplored these kinds of places and the people who chose to frequent them. It’s easier to imagine his rambling tirade against it, delivered with a softly spoken intensity that made his damning words all the more powerful. He was a man you leaned toward to hear better, a man who would welcome the movement like you were being brought conspiratorially into a huddle to hear a secret that could change your life, when it was just as likely he’d recommend a way to cut a vegetable more efficiently.
It hits me that Nadia saw his body, and I have a sudden urge to find that room and see the crime scene for myself. Why am I being led down a corridor in the small hours of the morning to see a troupe of feckless legal monkeys when I could be getting started? How can days have gone by since his death and even more time be wasted now?
“Is this really necessary?” I ask Milsom quietly. “Wouldn’t it be better to see—”
“Do you really think I’d be doing this if it wasn’t?”
The tone of her voice tells me all I need to know about how frustrating the past forty-eight hours have been for her. The fact she’s had to leave London to deliver me to the lawyers is bad enough. I regret my question.
I use the rest of the time en route to ground my thoughts. I’ve felt on the back foot since the moment she arrived at the apartment, and now, on the brink of starting the investigation, I feel horribly underprepared. Usually I’ve reviewed extensive data before even arriving at a scene, even had conversations with the local officers and got a feel for what to expect. This feels wrong on some deep level. I feel like I’ve been thrown into a mersive without knowing what it’s supposed to be about.
Nadia knocks once on a door at the end of the corridor leading from the lobby and opens the door for us. She stands aside, giving me another one of those “don’t hesitate to ask for help” smiles, and closes the door behind us once we’re inside.
Three men and two women are seated at a conference table and all stand when we arrive. I see that papers have already been laid out along with honest-to-goodness fountain pens. I can’t remember the last time I made a nondigital signature. For a moment I wonder if I can even remember what mine looks like, and Tia “helpfully” displays a copy before I blink it away.
Introductions are made, more for the recording of the meeting rather than need, as our APAs handle digital handshakes and name exchanges by default. I let Tia remember the names and faces for me, disinterested by the suits creating this final obstacle. Two of them are from the Ministry and look the most relieved to see us. One represents the Circle, one the flimsy connection to Europe, and the third Norope. All of them look tired.
“Everything as I was briefed?” Milsom asks the man from the Ministry.
“With one last-minute addition,” he says, firing a glance at the woman representing Europe. Then he looks at me. “You’ll be required to make a regular report on your progress and be available to answer any questions.”
“I was expecting that,” I say, looking at Milsom.
“Not to your superior. To the gov-corps our colleagues represent. In person.”
“But that’s”—I bite back the first five expletives that come to mind—“highly irregular,” I finally say.
Milsom looks like she could kill someone. Neither of the gov-corp lawyers meet her glare. The American representing the Circle looks tense and a little embarrassed when I look at her.
“It’s what’s on the table,” says the European lawyer with a distinctly Spanish accent.
A message arrives from the Ministry lawyer, who has been silent so far, sent to both Milsom and me. Sign it, for fuck’s sake, otherwise we’ll be here another two days.
Milsom’s nostrils flare. “If any of you interfere with SDCI Moreno’s work, it will only delay the answers we all want.”
“It’s just a matter of keeping involved parties informed of progress,” the European says. “And it will all be kept in the strictest confidence. The NDAs we’ve drafted up for the parties involved are robust.”
Milsom picks up the pen like it’s a dagger she’s about to plunge into the woman’s chest and slaps it into my palm. I try to pull off the cap before realizing that it’s one of those heavy, expensive ones that have caps that need to be unscrewed. I feel like an idiot and silently curse whoever still makes these stupid pens just so lawyers can feel special, because it takes a fucking age just to get the cap off. They probably bill people for the time it takes them to do it.
I scrawl my name a dozen times, under the direction of the Ministry lawyer, give an entirely superfluous digital signature via Tia, then press both of my thumbs onto the portable Ministry of Justice identity-verification box to provide a thumbprint with the one on the right and DNA sample from a drop of my blood extracted from the one on the left. I also manage to avoid making snide remarks about their ancient identity protocols. When it’s all done, the cap of the pen screwed back on and the pieces of paper shuffled back into order, there’s a palpable shift in the atmosphere.
“Thank you, ladies and gentlemen,” says the man from the Ministry, and the European lawyer gives a curt nod before practically bolting from the room. The Noropean leaves after shaking hands and the American lawyer does the same. They leave together, continuing some previous conversation about reindeer steak, of all things.
The woman from the Ministry stretches. “What a bloody nightmare that was. And before you start, Deputy Commissioner, we did the best we could to get those assholes out of the way as fast as possible so your man can start work.” She looks at me with tired eyes. “I hope you’re as good as she says you are. I don’t want to have to go through this bullshit again.”
“He is,” Milsom says.
The best that money could buy. I finish the sentence in the privacy of my skull. For anyone else at my pay grade, a compliment from the deputy commissioner would be a welcome rarity. For me, it’s meaningless; there’s no mythical promotion to be craved, no commendation mark that could count toward a performance bonus. Just the pressure to do my job perfectly in order to avoid an extension on the contract. And, beneath it all, my own pathetic need to see the puzzle solved. When it comes to the Ministry of Justice, I am exactly what they want me to be and I can’t do a fucking thing about it.