Deprecated

by Michael Karr

  She looked at Grayson. He seemed to be paralyzed by what he saw. For a long time he stood there dumbly, unmoving.

  “It can’t be,” he muttered after some time.

  “Who is it?” she said, her voice coming out in a whisper.

  “You tell me. What does the inventory say?”

  Having forgotten about her abilities, Rylee quickly recalled the list. The augmented vision returned and she read the name aloud. “Lander Vance Wilson.”

  In reply, Grayson’s head dropped to his chest. “How could this have happened?” he muttered.

  “You knew him, then?” Rylee said, immediately regretting it. A stupid question. Of course he knew him. Why else would he look so wretched?

  “I’ve known him since we were just children. No closer friend do—did—I have in the world.”

  Rylee didn’t want to feel sorry for Grayson. That would show she cared, however minutely, about what happened to him. Yet she couldn’t help feeling a pang of sadness for him now. Grayson didn’t deserve this.

  “I’m sorry,” she said.

  Grayson shook his head and laughed. Not a laugh of joy, but a deranged sort of laugh. “He always was a bit reckless, but I never thought—”

  He broke off and they both turned toward the door. Someone was outside.

  TWENTY-SEVEN

  Carmine bristled inside, but held her tongue.

  “I put you on this case because I knew I would get results, Miss O’Connor,” Mr. Steele said, his tone reflecting the hardness in his eyes. “Did I err when I promoted you?”

  Inside, Carmine flinched at the edge in his voice. She didn’t gratify him by letting any of that show on the outside. She would stay calm, confident.

  The CA had called her into his office to receive a personal report on the progress of the case.

  “No, sir, you did not,” she said, voice even. “I will discover who’s behind the homicides. You have my word on that.”

  “I’m glad you’re so confident, Miss O’Connor. But I don’t care one bit about your word. I want results. So far, all I have is important members of our Alliance getting killed right from under our noses. One of my own engineers among them. And now my son has gone missing. What the devil are you doing?”

  Steele slammed the palm of his hand onto his desk.

  Carmine narrowed her eyes and gave him a cold smile. She wouldn’t be cowed this time. She only wished that she was standing, so that Steele couldn’t tower over her like a thundercloud. She filed a reminder away in her PNU to ensure she remembered next time she met with Mr. Steele.

  “We are investigating every possible lead,” she said.

  “Not good enough.”

  “We have a few suspects with probable cause,” she went on unperturbed, “but no evidence yet to make an arrest.”

  “Still, not good enough.”

  “Our forensics team is painstakingly attempting to extract the PNUs in the victims, in case there is a new kind of PNU virus we’re dealing with.”

  “That could yield results. But it will take too long.”

  “We’ve also brought in a young man, an Unenhanced,” she said. Steele raised one eyebrow expectantly. She hadn’t planned to bring up Preston Hyde. Frankly, she wanted to release him. “We received a tip from a member. The young man’s linked to the murder of Commander Michael Pike and Ian Gyles. He may be linked to the other homicides. Possibly a crime ring. From our interrogations, we’ve learned that he didn’t work alone. Though…” she hesitated. How to phrase this without sounding weak?

  “Though, what?” Steele demanded.

  “He’s proved impressively resilient to our interrogation techniques. Thus far, he’s managed to hold out any names from us. We will get them, though.”

  Yes. Now she would ensure she squeezed the names out of him. She’d not yet permitted her officers to use their full arsenal of tactics. Steele didn’t need to know that.

  For a few wordless moments, Steele considered her. She met his gaze. Finally, Steele move from his position in front of his desk to his windows.

  “What’s his name?” he said, still facing the windows.

  “Preston Hyde.”

  Another moment’s silence. Carmine knew that Steele was accessing the young man’s records. A scant record. Most records for the Unenhanced were.

  A minute later, Steele turned away from the window. “Bring him to me,” he said.

  “Sir?”

  “Bring Preston Hyde to me.”

  * * *

  Rylee drew out her pistol and pointed it directly at the door. The door swung open as if in slow motion. In fact, everything around her seemed like it was moving slower than it should. Not herself, though. She moved like a burst of electricity. This wasn’t just adrenaline. The PNU. How did it…

  The form of a person, a lanky boy with bushy brown eyebrows filled the doorway. He wore a white lab coat.

  Her finger moved to the trigger. She hesitated.

  As if from far away, she heard a long drawn out, “stooooooop!”

  The bushy-eyebrowed boy raised both arms.

  “Don’t shoot!” came Grayson’s voice again, this time not quite so far away.

  The boy in the doorway didn’t appear threatening. Rylee relaxed her grip on her pistol and moved her finger away from the trigger. Instantly, time sped back up. The world around her returned to moving at a normal rate.

  “Sorry about that, Ron,” Grayson said. “She has this thing about pointing guns at people.”

  The boy—Ron—looked from Rylee to Grayson, arms still raised, face ashen. His spectacled eyes, which were already opened wide, grew even wider when he fixed on Grayson.

  “Wil—”

  “It’s me,” Grayson said, cutting off Ron. “Grayson. Don’t tell me you don’t remember my name.”

  Ron just looked at him with a puzzled expression on his face.

  “Don’t worry,” coaxed Grayson. “No one’s going to hurt you.” He shot Rylee a disapproving glance. “Come on in.”

  Grudgingly, Rylee lowered her pistol, but didn’t holster it. Grayson may think this scrawny boy with the bushy eyebrows wasn’t a threat, but he was still an Elect. And now that she understood firsthand some of the capabilities of the PNU, she definitely wasn’t about to let down her guard. For all they knew, Ron had already notified the Regulators of their presence. Hopefully, she had frightened him sufficiently, that the thought hadn’t entered his brain.

  Warily, Ron stepped inside and closed the door behind him. For the first time, Rylee noticed that he gripped something in his right hand. Something edible. Bar-shaped, and wrapped in a dark brown wrapper, that was pulled back part way. The letters were obscured. A hunk of the brown stuff was missing. No doubt the missing chunk was being digested by Ron’s stomach at that moment.

  Rylee’s own stomach growled. Ever since Grayson turned her into an Elect, she’d always been hungry. Of course, it didn’t help that rations for the Norms were down to almost nothing. Grayson had explained to her that the PNU required electricity to operate. Using some sort of magical process, it converted glucose into electricity. A fascinating bedtime story for Serghei. All she understood is that she needed more food. Which was just about the worst punishment you could inflict on a Norm.

  “Ron and I went to school together when we were younger,” Grayson explained, as if she cared. “We’re old friends.”

  Taking a bite of the bar in his hand, Ron sputtered out a few intelligible words. “What are you doing here?”

  “I need you to tell me everything you know about the recent deaths…the murders,” Grayson said, his tone serious.

  Ron walked over to the open locker, where Lander’s body lay on the metal table. As he passed, he watched Rylee out of the corner of his eye. “I’m not really allowed to disclose that information.”

  “I know, Ron,” Grayson said. “I respect that. We don’t want to get you into trouble. I’m asking as a personal favor. We’re trying to figure out who’s behind
the killings. There can’t be anything wrong with that, can there?”

  Ron looked back and forth rapidly between Rylee and Grayson, like an animal that can’t decide which of its predators is most dangerous. Rylee felt sorely tempted to use her pistol as a motivator. Although, maybe with someone like Ron, he would just end up passing out.

  Finally, he fixed on Grayson, taking another large bite of his bar. “I’ll tell you what I know,” he smacked nervously. “Just…you can’t tell anyone you were here or what I told you.”

  Grayson held up his hands. “Listen, I don’t want anyone to know I was here either. Or even that you saw me. Do we have a deal?”

  “Deal,” Ron said with a bob of his head and a nervous glance at Rylee. Then he turned back to the body on the table. “This one,” he went on, his tone suddenly becoming more academic, “died of apparent drowning. His body was found floating beneath one of the piers at the docks. Based on the temperature of the water, its concentration of salt and other chemicals, and the amount of flesh decay, I estimate he’s been dead about seven days. No signs of physical injuries which might indicate foul play. Although, if he didn’t know how to swim, someone could have easily pushed him into the water. Unlikely, though.”

  “Do you know if they were able to extract any of his PNU memory?” Grayson asked, moving closer to Lander’s body.

  Ron shook his head. “Dead too long.”

  Rylee noticed that Grayson’s face looked pale. This was still hard news for him to accept. And yet he went on, trying to learn what he could from Ron. “Any evidence of a new PNU virus causing this?”

  “That depends on what kind of evidence you want. No incontrovertible proof. No empirical evidence, anyway. I’m no forensics expert. Nevertheless, to me, all these killings are a little too clean.”

  “How’s that?”

  Ron adjusted his spectacles. “Take Garrison Pike’s death, for example. I have a buddy who works for Regulation. He did the memory extraction and analyzed it. The victim was strangled to death. My autopsy confirmed it. The memory playback confirmed it. A dark figure, face covered, approaches on the street and starts strangling. Two things don’t add up though.

  “First, not a speck of evidence was ever found confirming there was another person on that street with the victim. No footprints, no DNA, no hair follicles—nothing. Fine. Maybe the attacker was super thorough.”

  “Or the Regulators were sloppy with their investigation,” Grayson added.

  Ron chuckled. “I’ll give you that one. How about this, the marks on Pike’s neck…they matched the victim’s own hands.”

  “You think he strangled himself? That’s not possible. He would have passed out before he could finish the job.”

  “Exactly. All of this, to me, suggests evidence of a new virus. Though how it actually works is something I haven’t figured out. Surely, the PNU couldn’t control the victim’s body after he lost consciousness.”

  Rylee shifted anxiously. This conversation was taking too long. What if someone else showed up unexpectedly? Plus, she didn’t believe any of this was going to help Preston. Every moment they spent theorizing about someone’s cause of death, the less time they had to save Preston.

  Still, she held her tongue. She had promised Grayson they’d do this his way—for now.

  “What about the other deaths?” Grayson asked.

  “In my opinion,” Ron said, “Pike’s was the most interesting. Prasad Balay was apparently smothered by a pillow in his own bed, yet no evidence of anyone breaking into his studio was ever found. The memory extraction from that victim was basically worthless. The pillow blocked the victim’s vision.”

  “So, you think the victim smothered himself with his own pillow?”

  “You’re the PNU engineer, not me. Could someone build such a virus?”

  Grayson looked down at the body of his friend, apparently considering the question. “It’s nothing like what I’ve ever heard of,” he said at last. He looked as though he might say more, but he held back.

  “There was a poisoning, too,” Ron continued. “Dr. Mei Lin, entomologist. Died of ingesting chlorpyrifos, a common pesticide.”

  “Couldn’t she have ingested it by accident? I assume she worked with lots of pesticides.”

  “You could argue that it was an accident. Until you look at the amount of the chemical she consumed. Five hundred milliliters. Did she think she was consuming an energy drink? Unlikely. Her colleagues claim Dr. Lin was always extremely careful when dealing with hazardous chemicals. She didn’t even allow workers to drink water in the labs. And yet the poison was found in her coffee mug. Furthermore, unless she guzzled her coffee in one breathless gulp, there’s no way she could have drunk so much chlorpyrifos without noticing.”

  “Unless a PNU virus caused her to ignore the taste,” Grayson said softly, as if talking to himself. “Was suicide ruled out?”

  “No previous signs of depression. Also, from her memory extraction, forensics detected high levels of confusion from the victim just prior to death. And it was a painful one. Lots of vomiting. Had she poisoned herself intentionally, she wouldn’t have been wondering what was happening to her. Additionally, she sent for help.”

  Grayson’s jawline tightened and he shook his head bitterly before speaking again. “Thank you, Ron. You’ve been more than helpful.” Then he turned away from Lander’s body and moved toward the door.

  Rylee followed, watching Ron as she moved toward the door.

  “Ah…one more thing,” Ron said, the timidity in his voice returning. Grayson halted, cocking his head to show he was listening. “If someone should check the access logs for the door…”

  “They’ll show an individual you never saw in here.”

  A frantic laugh—or maybe it was a cough—escaped Ron’s mouth. “Very good. Just checking.”

  Out in the street, Grayson marched forward, steps careless of any possible danger lurking in the shadows or around corners. Rylee hurried to keep up with his long purposeful strides. The bright lights of the morgue having destroyed her night vision, she felt blind in the dark alley.

  “Well, what next?” she said.

  Not stopping or turning to look at her, he simply said, “We go to a party.”

  TWENTY-EIGHT

  “Adrianna says she’ll be there in ten minutes,” Rylee announced as she and Grayson strode through the Slum streets toward Serghei’s place.

  “I’d give her an even twenty,” Grayson said. “Always fashionably late. Everything is fashionable, with Adrianna. Utter nonsense if you ask me.”

  “Does that mean she always wears fancy clothes?” Rylee had caught glimpses of Elect women before. That O’Connor lady, for example. They always looked…different. Like they wanted the men around to notice they were female.

  But the idea of being fashionable was not something Rylee understood. Was it like some of the women she saw in Serghei’s movies? Dressed so that it would be impossible to conceal a gun, ride a motorcycle, or even chase after an Elect?

  “It means,” Grayson replied, “that she dresses in a manner that’s…distracting. Especially at parties like the one we’re going to. You’ll see for yourself soon enough.”

  A thought that gave Rylee that pit in her stomach again. Were they truly going through with this plan? How did she keep letting Grayson talk her into these things? She was supposed to hate him. First the PNU. Now this? Scratching the back of her hand, she increased the pace of her stride.

  “Your friends…” Grayson began tentatively. “Do you think they’ll be a little less…hostile, this time?”

  Rylee shrugged. “Feng will probably still want to shoot your brains out.”

  “Oh, good,” he replied feigning joviality in his voice. “I was beginning to miss having a gun pointed at me every few hours.”

  “Hey!” she exclaimed, shooting him a glare. “Keep that up, and I might not stop Feng this time.”

  “I’m in earnest. There’s no other person on this plan
et I’d rather have point a gun at me than you.”

  “Shut up,” she said, sending him tumbling to the pavement with a shove.

  “See,” he called back to her as she kept walking. “Always charming.”

  And Rylee found a smile creeping onto her lips again.

  They found Serghei and Feng both in the hideout, just as Rylee expected. Feng was testing out the latest version of the brace Serghei was constructing for him. Despite a look of disgust directed at Grayson, Feng remained calm.

  “You mean a girl is coming here?” Serghei said when she told them about their plans. “A female…Elect?” The way he said it, you’d have thought she’d told him the girl was going to be his date for the night.

  “Arriving any minute,” Grayson said. “We need your place to get ready for tonight.”

  “An Elect girl…coming here?” Serghei didn’t register anything else they said. Instead, he went to work tidying up his room. Which didn’t make a bit of difference. Piles of junk still looked like junk, however you stacked it. Of course, to Serghei they were piles of precious junk.

  “Who cares if she’s a girl?” Feng said, plopping on to the couch and working at the straps of his brace. “She’s still one of them.”

  Rylee flinched inside at the comment. Now she was one of them. An Elect. A traitor.

  Five minutes later, Adrianna arrived. A black SUV pulled up to the warehouse. The rear door popped open and a long slender leg, armed with a deadly looking stiletto heal shot out. Grayson dodged to keep from getting skewered. Then a figure shroud in a dark hooded coat stepped out, and shoved a loose bundle into Grayson’s arms. Fumbling with the bundle, Grayson got the car door closed, and the SUV drove off, as silently as an autumn breeze. An electric-powered vehicle. The darkness rendered it impossible to tell for sure, but Rylee didn’t see a driver. She’d heard of the autonomous cars— self-driving—in the Alliance. A few had survived Desolation and were still operable.