by Mel Odom
“Good to know,” I said.
I downloaded directions to my GPS, and we headed for the murder scene.
Chapter 28
Shreds of Evidence
Back out on the street, I looked around at the bright signage and spotted Tong’s Sensory Carnival ahead and to our left. Two stories tall and wearing neon lights like a second skin, the building glittered like a multi-faceted gem.
When we got to the front door, a guy dressed in black and with a serious expression on his blandly handsome face stepped over to stop us. He was in his thirties and moved smoothly, like a dancer.
“Porter Lam, at your service,” he said. “The Elders told me you’d be coming. They told you what happened to Tong?”
“Just the basics,” I replied.
Lam grimaced. “Well, there’s nothing basic about this. I’ve seen people shot, stabbed, beaten to death. Hell, I’ve even seen a corpse that was so dry and desiccated I coulda sworn a vampire got to it. None of that’s got anything on this. Brace yourselves and go on in.”
I nodded my thanks and passed through the shop door.
Tong’s was a top-of-the-line sensie center. Comfortable chairs sat in front of the latest consoles. Everything was gleaming metal and polished finish.
Except for the huge pool of blood surrounding the dismembered corpse to our left.
Breaking out of the paralysis that gripped me for a second at the sight of the carnage, I walked over to the body. More blood covered the walls and ceiling. Whoever had killed him had wanted to send a message. Or maybe the killer had just lost all control.
All of Tong’s limbs had been ripped from his body. A pile of flayed skin lay beside them. Only the cyberware strands seemed to hold the corpse somewhat together.
“Sweet heaven,” Gobbet said quietly. “I haven’t seen anything like that since Auntie Wong tried to stash some credsticks in a devil rat’s nest. It takes a lot to turn my stomach, but we have a winner today.” She looked away. “This is seriously messed up.”
“I’ll second that,” Duncan growled. “This isn’t a murder. This is more like a…feeding frenzy. If it weren’t for the skin, I’d say Tong stepped on a goddamn mine.”
I turned to Gobbet. “Maybe you can pick up something in the astral. Assense whatever might have done this.”
She looked sick at the thought, but sighed and nodded. “You’re the boss, boss. Man…this is gonna be unpleasant.” She closed her eyes, took a deep breath, and let it out. “There’s no fear here. No anger either. Just this kind of…satisfied feeling. Tong never saw it coming, and whoever did it was professional about it. Which is pretty odd, because nobody’s professional at eviscerating a body as far as I know.”
“You think it was a hit?” I asked.
“I don’t know why the killer was after Tong,” she replied, “but it definitely wasn’t any kind of mindless creature, or even someone particularly passionate. It was somebody who planned this and executed it, and was glad about it.” She looked at the body again. “I dunno. It kinda feels like it was just—business as usual.”
I walked over to get a closer look the blood splatter on the back wall.
“Hey,” Duncan said, “I don’t know a lot about forensic science or all that, but I know what blood looks like when it hits a wall. This isn’t natural.” He stepped up beside me and studied the pattern more closely. “Somebody deliberately smeared blood all over. See how it looks like it’s got paint trails?”
I’d already noticed those, too.
“That’s because somebody used Tong’s body parts like a brush,” Duncan growled.
“So they painted his walls with blood,” I said. “Why?”
Duncan snorted. “Do I look like a psychologist to you? Maybe ’cuz he’s a freak. Maybe he’s one of those sick serial killers that sees their murder as art? I got no clue. All I know is what normal blood looks like on a wall, and this ain’t it.”
“Some people got a bad grasp of art,” Is0bel said. “I knew this guy in Kwan Tung who used to make club music out of stray radio static and PanicButton calls. Called it ‘Crisiswave.’ It was awful.”
I stepped away from the wall and headed to the door at the back. Tong had lived right behind the shop he’d died in. The bedroom was small but efficient: a big bed and comfortable surroundings, with a bathroom and an office off it.
We started searching the rooms.
“I got a safe over here,” Duncan called, pulling open a door on the desk against the wall by the bed to reveal a built-in safe. The safe door stood ajar.
“Anything in there?” I asked.
Duncan rifled through the contents. “A bunch of credsticks, but they don’t have anything on them. The safe’s just open. Green light indicates it was opened with a key fob. No robbery.”
“Maybe whoever killed Tong forced him to open the safe,” Is0bel said from the private office.
“No way,” Gobbet replied. “Tong didn’t see who killed him, remember?” She was searching through the bathroom. “And someone looted his stash. A guy like this wouldn’t keep only empty credsticks in his safe.”
“There’s a Yamaha 95000-V synthsmith in here,” Is0bel called.
“What’s that?” I asked.
“A designer uses it to mix and master simsense chips,” she said. “Several of the drive bays and all of the chipjacks are empty. I’ve got an error message that keeps repeating. ‘Warning: requested files cannot be found. Please return drives to bay and try again.’”
“Can you do anything with it?” I joined her in the room, looking at all the computer equipment standing there in clean, efficient stacks.
“Lemme see.” Is0bel pulled out an ergonomic chair and sat. Her fingers flew across the keyboard. After a moment, she leaned back and watched the screen. “There. I’ve put the drive warning on suspend. It’s in diagnostic mode only, though. Maybe we’ll learn something, maybe not.”
A message flashed across the screen.
>Yamaha SimOS 5.23 systems diagnostics check:
>Memory – OK!
>Drive – Error!
>ASIST Bus – OK!
>Beginning core dump, please wait…
“Looks like Tong was cooking some BTLs here,” Is0bel said. “He’s hacked the controller output cutoffs. The delta levels on simchips are usually about four to five. Six point five for Cal Hots. His delta peaks are pushing twelve.”
None of that made sense to me. “What does that mean?”
“That’s brain-burning territory,” she replied in awe. “And all the drives and chips those BTLs were stored on are missing.”
She took a breath. “I never liked Tong, but it wasn’t because he was a bad guy. I just didn’t like any of the Elders. But if he was cooking chips at delta-twelve, maybe he burned somebody he shouldn’t have. Maybe they flipped their lid and came after him. Or a relative did. The metahuman brain can’t handle this kind of output. It’ll shut down after a few of these.” She paused. “There’s a fellow dwarf decker I know named David A. Fry II. He hates this kind of stuff. Kind of a vigilante who ends people who turn out this kind of product.”
“He’s in Hong Kong?”
“Sometimes. I haven’t seen him lately.” She took a breath. “This doesn’t seem like his style, though. Too violent.”
“Our suspect pool is growing,” I said, not happy with the situation.
“Nothing in the bathroom,” Gobbet said as she walked back in.
I looked around. I was pretty sure we hadn’t missed anything.
“What’s the plan?” Duncan asked.
“Like the Elder said,” I told him. “We hit the streets. See what we can find. And since those drives are missing, let’s concentrate on other simsense dealers in the sprawl.”
None of us tried to look at Tong’s corpse as we left the premises, but none of us could forget that it was there.
Chapter 29
Street Talk
By the time we got back out, the rain had picked up again. I d
idn’t care because my coat covered most of me, and what was already wet couldn’t get any wetter.
We spread out and started talking to the people on the streets. Most of the pedestrians marked us as outsiders at once, and didn’t want to talk. Except for Is0bel. She fit right in.
After a few minutes, she got hold of the rest of us over our commlinks. “Hey, I got somebody here I think you guys would be interested in talking to. He’s a guy who knows some dirt.”
I joined her, and looked at the ork she’d been chin-wagging with. He had a high opinion of himself, and it showed in his knock-off clothing and moussed hair. A goatee framed his jowly face, and he was busy shoving a bun into his face. As I walked over, he wiped one of his hands off and stuck it out at me.
I shook it and felt a little unclean.
“Hey, stranger!” he greeted with a broad smile. “Nice to see you. Zippy Toetag at your service.” Even his street name was picked to be cute. “How are you liking Whampoa Garden?”
“Do I know you?” I tried the approach to throw him off. A lot of guys with Zippy’s patter couldn’t remember everybody they’d talked to.
“We’ve never met before this, but I know exactly who you are. You’re my replacement. The Elders had me autopsy what was left of Elder Gan and Elder Nakamura after they got ripped apart, but I didn’t want to dig any deeper. So since I don’t know you, and I can smell a shadowrunner a mile away, you’ve got to be the outsider they asked to stop the killings, right?” The guy grinned again, obviously pleased with himself.
“Nothing gets by you, does it?” I asked, resisting the urge to be more intimidating. I put out a hand to stop Duncan, because I knew he wasn’t ready for a dog and pony show.
“See?” Zippy tapped his temple. “I have good eyes. A lot of good eyes, actually. If you’re in the market for replacements. Only slightly used, and they come from certified donors, I swear.” He barked laughter. “Man, I kill myself.”
I had to hold myself back. I didn’t much care for organleggers. “Pretty funny,” I said. “You a stand-up comedian?”
“With jokes like that? Are you kidding?” He shook his head. “I’m one of the only trained surgeons around here. I keep the other Whampoans healthy. Got a practice down the road. Blind Chen’s a pretty good cyberdoc, but he’s basically an implant specialist, and that’s it.”
“You don’t look like a doctor to me.”
“I did my residency back in the UCAS. Coulda become a real M.D., too, if things hadn’t gone south for unrelated reasons.” Zippy opened his coat to reveal a cyberdeck that he proudly patted. “I also deck a little, but I’m better at slicing skin than ice. Whampoa Garden seemed a good fit for me.”
“Let’s talk about Whampoa Garden.”
“Sure thing. What do you want to know?”
“What can you tell me about the murders?”
Some of the humor faded from him, like air escaping a balloon. “Pretty gruesome business. Gan died from a broken neck. Looked like someone had wrenched it all the way around, and his arms and legs were cut off. Some skin flayed away, too.”
I nodded. “Go on.”
“Nakamura had his throat ripped out by someone—or something—with pretty sharp teeth. At first I thought it was a devil rat, but the teeth marks were all from something with a humanoid jaw.” Zippy shrugged. “I didn’t look at Yetunde. From what I saw at a distance, it was the same story. Didn’t seem to be much point to it, since I’d seen it twice already. As for Tong, from what Porter told me, it was Gan and Nakamura all over again. You take a look at him yet?”
“Yeah, it’s pretty much like you described it.”
“Damn. I liked Tong. The BTL business is unsavory, but the man had to eat. And his regular sims were great. Generally all-around nice guy. Friendly with everyone. Never had anyone mad at him. There ain’t no justice, let me tell you.”
I tried another tack, since he was being so forthright. “What can you tell me about the Elders?”
“Well, they’re an eclectic bunch, that’s for sure. Where to start…Ng’s the spiritual leader here. She’s the voice of the Whampoans, I guess. A lot of her close friends are really more of ‘followers,’ since she’s something of a priest for the machine spirits. Maybe it’s a cultural thing for people who grew up here, but it’s never called to me. Still, she makes a damn fine pot of tea.”
I nodded to encourage him to continue talking. He was a guy who liked to talk.
“Ip’s the muscle, and has an encyclopedic knowledge of cyber and bioware. Definitely a good guy to have watching your back. Not too friendly, but you know how it is—you get a lot of cyber, people start wondering if you’ll tear their arms off.” Zippy pantomimed lopping his arm off. “He’s got moves straight out of Blood Carnival 3: The Reckoning. Terrible movie, but great fight choreography.”
I’d seen the movie in lockdown on a smuggled-in trid player, and had to agree with his assessment. “What about Tang?”
“I don’t know much about him, but I think he’s got some kind of fetish for automation. Found him cooing over some trids of automated delivery drones in a warehouse once. He works with drones. Has a shop called The Blessed Autofab. He was raving about the efficiency of their movement patterns or something.”
Zippy took another bite of his bun, chewed, and swallowed. “You already know about Tong. Ran sims. BTLs, skillchips. Gan used to be a city planner before he had a nervous breakdown and got involved in statistical analysis.” He took another bite. “Nakamura came from Fukuoka, and was interested in entertainment. Trid, mostly. Spent a lot of time analyzing subliminals in ads.”
He chewed his lip for a moment before continuing. “Then there was Magpie. She was their chief decker. Hot as hell against ice, and built her own hardware. Salty old woman, though. Never met anyone who was quite as shrill or nasty when she was mad.” He grinned. “She was mad most of the time.”
“Did she die too?”
“She didn’t. Maybe a month ago, she just up and disappeared. I went to her shop one day, and she just wasn’t open. Nobody’s seen her since.” Zippy sighed. “Kind of a pain in the ass, too. She owed me some new analysis software she’d picked up.”
“I’ve never heard of Magpie,” Is0bel said. “She must be one of the newer Whampoans. If she was the decker, she would have replaced Elder Gao. He was older than Qin Shi Huangdi’s terracotta warriors. When I was learning decking from him, Gao could barely get out of bed. Still fast as hell in the Matrix, though.”
That caught my attention. “How can you be new and an Elder?”
Is0bel rolled her eyes. “It’s a stupid name. It doesn’t actually have much to do with time spent in the community. That has something to do with it, sure, but it’s mostly about how skilled you are, how good your connections are, and how much you can help everybody here. Shoulda called ’em ‘experts’ or something.”
“Bingo,” Zippy said. “That’s exactly it. She was only here for about three years, but she knew a lot of people all over the Matrix, in Shanghai, in Beijing…all kinds of places. That plus her skill meant she was a shoo-in when Gao died.”
“Why would she disappear?” I asked.
“No idea,” Zippy said. “One day she was here, the next, poof. At first I thought she was just on vacation, since she’d mentioned wanting to see the Kingdom of Hawai’i someday, but it didn’t feel right. She would have at least told me she was leaving.” He paused and stroked his chin. “It seems mighty suspicious to me. Nobody else seems to care what happened to her, probably because she pissed them all off so bad.”
“Is there any place you think I should start looking?”
“You might wanna check out her shop. It’s all locked up, but the other Elders have a spare key. Couldn’t hurt to look around, and even though Magpie was always butting heads with the other Elders, they wouldn’t have any reason not to let you in.”
“What do you mean, they were butting heads?”
“Magpie and the others never saw eye to ey
e. She was contrary for the sake of it. Most of the rest had a grand vision for what they wanted this neighborhood to become. Magpie just wanted to deck. She was only an Elder because they needed someone with her Matrix chops.” Zippy finished off the last of his bun. “The last big argument was between her, Ng, Ip, and Nakamura. It was over something relatively trivial. I think Nakamura wanted to expand the pirate trid business into the Matrix, and Magpie absolutely refused.”
“Sounds like she didn’t care for entertainment taking precedence over business.”
“That’s exactly it. She gave Nakamura an earful, let me tell you.” Zippy grinned. “She said something about not using up valuable bandwidth for ‘trivial entertainment bullshit.’ Anyway, it went from there into this rant about how she wasn’t going to let Tang expand his drone business any further, because it would get too much megacorp attention. They accused her of blocking them just because she could. Which is probably true. Lots of screaming.”
“What do you mean ‘blocking’ them?”
“Everybody needed her Matrix skills for their businesses to run properly. There are other deckers that could handle it—me, say, or Moe Jneibi, or Awiin, or The Isomorphic Claw—but she had the infrastructure. If their project didn’t interest her, she wouldn’t even give ’em the time of day. She’s a real hardhead about having her time wasted, but she figures if she’s not interested in something, it has no value. Kind of a blind spot, if you ask me.”
“Can you let me into her shop?” I wasn’t ready to ask the Elders for the key.
Zippy shook his head. “No can do. Not because I don’t want to, but because I just don’t have a key. You’d have to get it from Ip. He’s taken over all the Matrix infrastructure maintenance since Magpie disappeared. He’s not as good at it as she is—or as I am—but they’re not gonna let anyone who isn’t an Elder take care of that kind of critical stuff.”
It made sense. I thanked him and we stepped away, leaving him there.