Junkyard

by Lindsay Buroker

  “Those are good questions. Unless he’s confident that he’s hidden his tracks so well that we would never discover proof. Perhaps, in hiring us, he wants to show that he made every attempt to find the syrup.”

  “Perhaps,” Scipio said neutrally.

  “I’m going to do more research before sleeping.” McCall patted the dog’s neck and headed for the hatch. “I’d better find some blankets and prepare an area for our guest too.”

  “Our guest?” Scipio’s neutralness disappeared and something akin to alarm—an android’s version of alarm—entered his voice. “I planned to return him to the junkyard before dawn so nobody would miss him.”

  “We can’t kick him out right after operating on him.”

  “It was a minor operation, and there would be no kicking involved.”

  “I’ll make up a spot for him in my cabin,” McCall said firmly.

  Scipio opened his mouth.

  “I’ll keep the hatch shut so he can’t wander into your cabin and find your tassels.”

  Scipio flattened his lips together and looked down at the loafers he wore once again. “My tassels are on the loafers on my feet.”

  “All the more reason you wouldn’t want him finding them.”

  So that was what a long-suffering sigh sounded like coming from an android.

  It was raining the next morning, a warm rain that melted dents and divots in the gray mounds of snow that plows had pushed to the edges of the road and parking area. McCall followed Scipio around the warehouse and the sugarhouse as he questioned the employees who had made her short list. She hadn’t dug up evidence in Dunham’s records of any significant debt—just a line of credit and a mortgage, both of which he paid on regularly each month. She’d also looked up his family members and the business itself. Maple Moon Factory didn’t have a huge profit margin, but it was in the black with no accounts payable outstanding that she had been able to dig up.

  When Louis came in—an hour later than most of the employees—she veered away from Scipio and braced herself to ask questions.

  But Dunham reached him first, scowling as he stomped out of his office. He planted himself in Louis’s path and didn’t seem to notice McCall.

  “You’re late again?” Dunham demanded.

  “Sorry, sir.” Louis’s cheeks reddened as he looked at Dunham’s shoes instead of his face. “I stayed late yesterday, so I thought—”

  “You don’t get to make your own hours, Desmarais. You’re here when the sap’s flowing so you can oversee its collection. That’s your job, not staying in your office after hours playing some stupid game.”

  Louis’s shoulders slumped, and he didn’t argue.

  “If you’re late again,” Dunham continued, “you’re fired. And when you make your weekly sap report to Tate, do it in person. Quit delivering written reports and slinking off before he can ask you questions.”

  “Yes, sir,” Louis whispered.

  Dunham stalked away, bumping Louis hard in the shoulder as he passed.

  McCall, realizing her fingers had curled into fists, forced herself to uncurl them. This wasn’t her business, so she couldn’t butt in. Besides, if Louis felt he was being treated poorly, he could look for another job.

  Except that it wasn’t always that easy. McCall thought of all the jobs her very smart and very talented sister had held over the years, unable to, despite her intelligence, “work well with others.” That was what so many of her termination reports had said in some variation or another. McCall was lucky that entrepreneurship was one of her passions, and she hadn’t minded learning how to market her services. She was also lucky the sys-net made it so she rarely had to do so in person.

  “Are you all right?” McCall stuck her hands in her pockets as she walked closer to Louis, trying to appear non-intimidating, like someone he could trust, not some hired detective. Someone he could trust and talk to. If he had any dirt on Dunham, this might be the perfect time to ask.

  Louis jumped, glanced at her, and jerked his gaze away. His cheeks were even redder now. Was he embarrassed because she’d witnessed him being berated?

  “Fine,” he mumbled.

  “He seems like an ass.” McCall waved in the direction Dunham had gone.

  Louis shrugged. “I’m late more often than I should be. It’s my own fault. I have a hard time getting up. I wish I could work nights.”

  “You stay late often?”

  “Sometimes. The warehouse has a hard-wired sys-net line, so it’s really fast for, uhm, computer stuff.”

  “Games?”

  He shrugged again. “I guess. There are a couple I like that need a fast connection. I consulted on one of them. On the botany stuff. Jungle Conqueror. Do you know it? You have to build your colony before nature encroaches and wraps vines around your structures and spaceships. The vines are more aggressive than in real life, but only slightly. They used Arkadian kroyka vines for their jungle, and those can grow up to twenty feet a day. They have leaves more than six feet long, and if you stand still long enough, they’ll wrap around you. They’ll wrap around anything. And then the leaves turn into pods that capture what’s inside. The kroyka is super long-lived. Botanists have found the bones of extinct animals that were caught up in the pods.”

  “That’s interesting.” McCall groped for a way to bring this topic that he was clearly interested in around to his work. “Did you get paid for the consulting?”

  “My name is listed in the game credits.”

  “Sounds like a no.”

  He snorted. “Yeah.”

  “Is the pay here all right?” she asked quietly, aware of someone driving a forklift past, bringing fresh drums of syrup in from the sugarhouse. How many of the forklift operators were aware of that hole? She couldn’t see evidence of it from here, but someone had placed those drums there at some point. They looked to be stacked at least ten deep along that entire wall.

  “It’s fine. It’s just… This isn’t what I wanted to do with my life, you know?”

  Despite his passion for games, he didn’t appear that young. There was as much gray in his short hair as brown, so he was probably older than she was.

  “Do you think a lot of people here feel that way?” she asked.

  “Maybe. They don’t talk to me much. They don’t care about…” He trailed off with another shrug.

  Kroyka vines and other botanical interests, McCall guessed. Or sys-net games.

  “I imagine that’s lonely,” she said.

  “Yeah.”

  “Have you ever considered getting an android?” She smiled, meaning it as a joke, though she was starting to think of Scipio as a friend.

  His forehead wrinkled. “Androids are way too expensive for me to buy. Have you seen what they cost just to rent?”

  She hadn’t paid for Scipio, so she didn’t know the exact price of an android. He’d asked to work for her of his own accord, and she considered him a free individual who could stay or go as he wished. If only the empire saw him that way.

  “Maybe you could get a dog,” she offered as an alternative, thinking of her furry guest, whom she’d left lounging on a pile of blankets on the ship.

  “My apartment building doesn’t allow them.”

  “Ah.” She hadn’t managed to bring Louis around to what she needed to know, so she decided to be more blunt. “When you’ve been here late at night, have you ever seen anything suspicious?”

  “Like when the syrup was stolen? I didn’t see that, if that’s what you’re asking. I don’t think anybody did.”

  “Except whoever did it.”

  “True. Unless it was androids. Or robots.”

  “Someone would have had to order them to do it,” she pointed out.

  “Unless they went rogue and decided to take the syrup and buy their freedom from this backward moon.” His eyes lit up, as if he could easily envision the fantasy.

  “I think it’s more likely an insider planned the heist.”

  Louis’s forehead fur
rowed again. “Like one of the guards? Or office workers?”

  “Someone with intimate knowledge of the facility.” And the placement of the security cameras and their limitations of coverage, she added silently. “Does Dunham ever stay late?”

  “I don’t think so. Tate, the manager, is more likely to stay if we’re behind or a buyer is coming in late.”

  McCall had looked up Tate. He was a single man who’d paid off his condominium two years earlier and had been funding a retirement account religiously all of his working life. He was in a good financial position, so she hadn’t put him on her list of suspects.

  She drummed her fingers, wishing she could use search queries on Louis’s brain to see if he knew anything more than he was sharing. She glanced toward the hidden hole in the wall, thinking she might get a reaction from him if he was aware of it, but he didn’t even notice. He was studying a crack in the floor.

  “Do you know anything about the dog in the junkyard?” she asked.

  If he went over there every night to feed the dog scraps, maybe he’d seen activity there and not realized what it was. It certainly appeared that the stolen syrup had been toted out that way.

  “Junkyard? Not much.”

  “That’s his name?”

  “Some of the security guys call him that. He just showed up one day, and he’s been barking ever since.”

  Actually, he had shown up one night. But given the hour that ship had come by, she doubted anyone in the warehouse had been around to see it.

  McCall was tempted to ask Louis how long he’d been feeding the dog, but that would require admitting she’d been spying on him—on the entire complex—the night before.

  “One day? Like what—a month ago? A year ago?”

  “Last month, I think.”

  McCall nodded. That synced with the date the ship had come by.

  She was still mulling whether it was possible the dog’s appearance had something to do with the syrup theft. What if he’d been brought in specifically to keep anyone from peering into the junkyard? Such as while drums and drums of syrup were siphoned off and stored over there temporarily? Until a ship or a truck came to transport them to the spaceport.

  She twisted her bracelet around her wrist. Was it possible the syrup was still there? She had assumed it had been removed already, but if the thieves had taken it and then realized security was heightened at the spaceport… Or maybe that Alliance bomb had gone off right as the perpetrators had been finishing up their theft, and they’d been forced to alter their plans.

  But if the thieves had put the dog there to act as a guard, why had they dropped him from that height? He could have been killed.

  “Kind of odd that he just appeared inside a locked junkyard, don’t you think?” she asked.

  “Yeah.” Louis frowned at her, probably wondering about her seemingly random questions.

  “Have you ever—”

  “Desmarais,” Dunham barked, striding out of his office. “What are you still doing inside? That sap isn’t going to hop into the sugarhouse on its own, and we’re way behind on fulfilling this year’s orders now that we’ve lost all that syrup.” Dunham made a shooing motion as he stalked over.

  “Yes, sir.” Louis hustled away, his head down and his shoulders hunched, and disappeared out the back door.

  “He doesn’t know anything,” Dunham explained to McCall, then lowered his voice. “Look, has your android learned anything from interviewing all the security guards? Some of those men are pretty new. I was thinking someone might have applied for the job and had this in mind from the beginning. We just got Mahajan and Peck at the end of autumn. It’s no secret on this moon what maple syrup sells for and what it’s worth.”

  “We’ll confer at the end of the day,” McCall said.

  Dunham frowned. Did he expect her to be doing something more brilliant than wandering around and talking to people?

  She decided to retreat to the safety of her ship and dig deeper on him. It was likely only in her imagination that his eyes were boring into her back like BlazTech rifles.

  Part IV

  McCall found the dog sitting and waiting by the cargo hatch when she came in. She had left it open so he could leave whenever he wished. Apparently, he hadn’t wished.

  “Good to see you up,” she told him.

  She didn’t have any ration bars on her, but he didn’t make any moves to eat her. He even thumped his tail on the deck. Promising.

  “Is your name really Junkyard?”

  He cocked his head and looked curiously at her.

  “Yeah. I didn’t think so. I’m not very good at naming things though. I don’t think anyone in my family was. Our dog when I was growing up was named Buddy.”

  He ran out onto the cargo ramp but paused after only a couple of steps. He looked back at her and wobbled his tail a little uncertainly. It had stopped raining, so that couldn’t be the problem. Besides, if he’d been living in a junkyard, he ought to be used to the elements.

  “You want me to follow you?”

  He ran to the bottom of the ramp, spun in a circle, and looked back at her again.

  “Why not?” she muttered, heading after him. “I don’t have any better leads.”

  The dog raced past the warehouse and straight to the front of the junkyard. The rusty padlock still held the rolling chain-link gates shut. When they’d taken him out for his veterinary services, Scipio had stunned him, picked him up, and jumped over the fence. She imagined footage of a similar event could be used in a brochure toting the strength and versatility of androids.

  The dog whined and nosed at the gap between the gates. He was as big as she was, so there wasn’t any chance of him squirming through. McCall was surprised he wanted to go back inside, especially if he had been trapped in there for the last month.

  She tapped her earstar. “Scipio? I need you out front.”

  “I’ll be there shortly, Captain.”

  Almost instantly, the door to the warehouse opened. Scipio saw her and sprinted over.

  “Are you in danger?” He looked at the dog, then all around the area.

  The dog barked.

  “No, but I need you to lift him up so he can go back inside.” McCall was tempted to simply ask him to break the padlock. It wasn’t as if the missing owner of the junkyard would notice any time soon. She’d looked him up, just in case he should be a suspect, but since he’d been off-moon so long, it seemed unlikely.

  “I thought you wished to let him convalesce inside the ship.” Scipio eyed the big dog.

  “Apparently, he’s done.”

  The dog whined and nosed the lock.

  “Maybe he’s going to lead us to the syrup. I’ve read books where animals were integral in solving crimes.” McCall didn’t point out that they had been children’s books and the animals had sometimes spoken in them. So far, Junkyard’s vocal range had been limited to whines and barks.

  “I am skeptical, Captain.”

  “Just help him in, please. He’s too big to go through that gap between the fence and the warehouse.”

  Junkyard spun in a circle again, then pawed at the chain links.

  “Very well, Captain. But I’ll have you know that the Laundro-Matic 3000 built into the ship is insufficient for removing fur from clothing. I learned this last night.”

  Scipio stepped toward the dog, but Junkyard skittered back.

  “It may be difficult to pick him up when he’s conscious,” Scipio said. “He could attempt to damage me.”

  “Just do it quickly. As quickly as you ran out here. He’ll be too startled to bite you.” It sounded like a reasonable argument to her.

  “Stunning him would be safer.”

  “If you stun him, he won’t be able to lead us to the stolen syrup.”

  Scipio faced her. “Do you believe it’s stored somewhere in the junkyard?”

  “I think it’s a possibility. Nobody’s seen it at the spaceport, and the traffic cameras didn’t show anyone pickin
g up huge vats of syrup in a truck.”

  “The camera footage may have been altered.”

  “Thus far, the thieves haven’t demonstrated that they have any sophisticated programming skills.” She waved in the direction of the hidden hole in the side of the warehouse.

  Junkyard whined again. Whatever he wanted, he was insistent about it.

  “Just jump over with him, Scipio.” She realized she was snapping orders like some military commander and added, “Please.”

  “Yes, Captain.”

  He blurred into motion, and a startled yelp sounded as he lifted Junkyard off his feet and sprang over the fence. The barks didn’t start up until they landed. Then they were thunderous.

  The front door of the warehouse opened, and one of the security guards looked out—Mahajan. He peered straight at McCall. She felt like a criminal caught in the act, but she drew her netdisc and paced, pretending she was researching something and that her perambulations had merely happened to bring her in this direction.

  Judging by the sounds of the barking, Junkyard was on the move. She had been joking—mostly—about him showing them to the stash, but wouldn’t it be nice if that happened?

  McCall wanted to climb over and see what was going on, but Mahajan kept staring at her. Or was he simply wondering what the dog was barking about? Louis poked his head out too. Wonderful. Soon the whole staff would be checking it out.

  She made herself smile and wave, then went back to pacing, willing them to go back inside. If she had to, she would go back to the ship and watch the dog with her aerial cameras, but—

  The two men went back inside and the door shut. Good. She scrambled over the fence and jumped down.

  At first, she didn’t see Scipio or Junkyard. Then, as plaintive a call as she’d ever heard from an android came from atop a stack of tires.

  “Over here, Captain. I am trapped.” Scipio crouched on the stack, peering ten feet down at the dog barking up at him.

  “It’s possible he didn’t appreciate your method of delivering him to his destination.” McCall headed toward Junkyard, poking in her pockets and hoping to find a suitable treat for him. She would have to start carrying ration bars around.