Leviathan

by Erik Schubach

  Mother was the name of the Leviathan's AI Computer Core, I'm sure it was an acronym back in the early years but to heck, I doubt if anyone knows what it stands for now without having to do a database lookup. Everyone on the world just calls her Mother.

  Control confirmed and I prompted as my brows furrowed when I couldn't pull up surveillance for this section, “I need access to the video feeds, my location for the past thirty minutes, Mother isn't supplying them.”

  Control responded with, “The video feeds went down in that area over an hour ago, they've just went live again forty-five seconds ago. Probably Sprites, the vermin have been mucking up systems in the C-Rings lately.” Then the woman said, “Mab preserve us, the poor bastard.” She must have just seen the victim beside me.

  I looked up to a glowing red light that hadn't been there earlier and shrugged apologetically at the camera, then severed the link so I could get back to work and examine the scene. It was going to be a bitch if the cameras were down since that meant even biometrics and magic imprint scans wouldn't be available either. I noted Graz was still bristling at the vermin comment from Control, as she hovered obstinately with her arms crossed over her chest in the ceiling space.

  I heard a slurping behind me and spun, a gods be damned Vampire had move in and was crouched right behind me, licking up the blood on the deck. It started to blur away when it saw my attention on it, but I slashed out with the baton and stopped it as I blurted, “Stop right there! Consider yourself bound by law. This is a crime scene.”

  It hissed and leaped, trying to blur again, but I was able to catch his foot and yanked him back to the deck. I dropped my MMG, it would be next to useless against a vamp, even at a high charge. It tried to push me back with its superior strength, but I caught his wrists and bent them back hard enough I could feel the bones grinding on each other.

  Then it was in my face, hissing, its pupils dilating, I didn't bother signaling my visor to drop to block him out, and his black eyes threatened to swallow my world. I shook off its attempt to glamour me. Damn Vampires. Luckily, in training, I was one of the few who had a strong enough will that I could blunt the effects of their mental whammy. I saw some of the biggest men, even a centaur be reduced to a groveling lovestruck fool by Gemma, the only Vampire in the Brigade, who taught Defense Against Vampires at the academy.

  She had been everything you hear about vampires, with flawless beauty, grace, and unfortunately, no heartbeat. The whole being dead thing turned me off or she would have been in some of my more interesting fantasies.

  But this guy? I head-butted him, shattering his nose with my helmet, and used the few moments of distraction the healing of the damage would take him to slap a mag-band on his wrist. He looked from my eyes, his rage turning to surprise when he looked down as I smirked and whispered, “Lockdown,” to my wrist console, and the mag-band activated, pulling his arm roughly to the deck with the equivalent of ten Gs of gravity.

  He screeched, and I noted he was nothing like Gemma, if he cleaned himself up, he'd probably be a beautiful man, but covered in grime and blood, his hair a ratted mess, he looked more like the corpse he was than a pretty lure for weak-minded people. Their beauty and grace was how they used to hunt, before the Leviathan.

  He calmed a little and pleaded, “I didn't do this. I'm just so hungry, all that blood getting cold.”

  I looked at him and shook my head. “I know you didn't, but you know as well as I do that consuming any blood outside your daily rations from Med-Tech is illegal. And you're a witness to this.”

  He started to lunge as close as he could with his arm pinned to the deck plate but he screeched and recoiled, pulling himself into a fetal position when light flared around us as bright as a million stars. Well fine, it just seemed like it was that bright in the near-total darkness around us. I blinked away the spots again to see Graz in front of the cowering Vampire, she was holding a little piece of metal fashioned into a blade as she said, “I'm in the ultraviolet spectrum right now you animated corpse.” Then she looked at me, with a self-satisfied smirk. “He was trying to get to your wrist control.”

  I nodded. “I got that, Graz. I have this handled...” I trailed off at something glinting between two conduits on the deck. I didn't see it until the Sprite flared. I took out an evidence bag from my belt and scooped it up. It looked to be some sort of archaic, non-powered surgical implement from a museum or something.

  The Vampire was whimpering and I saw his skin bubbling. Huh, who knew a Sprite could glow in the ultraviolet and could bring down one of the deadliest predators on the world like this. I said, “That's enough, Graz, I need him alive... well alive-ish. We can't have him igniting.”

  The mini person huffed. “Fine.” Then went dark and all the shadows returned.

  I looked at the Vampire as his skin healed and asked, “What did you see?”

  He shook his head as he sat up and tried to tug his arm free from the floor. “Nothing, I heard the screaming and called in the disturbance, these are my halls, where I nest. But then I smelled the blood. By the time I arrived here there wasn't anyone here but the body and the blood... and you ruined my feeding.”

  He was the one who called it in? A vamp as a good samaritan, now I've seen everything. I tended to believe him, and I really didn't want to have to muzzle him so he wouldn't bite me when I took him to processing on my Tac-Bike for his unauthorized feeding.

  I sighed and said, “If I tag you, so I can do any followup questioning later that I may need, then you're free to go.”

  He was just nodding in earnest and I sighed then tapped the code on my console and I heard the radioactive dye inject into his arm that would light up like a beacon on the Leviathan's internal scanners. Then I released the strap and he sat back and rubbed his wrist as I told him, “Now make yourself scarce, the crime techs and coroner will be here any moment. And if I ever hear of you drinking anything other than your daily stipend of blood, I'll rain down upon you like hellfire, do we understand each other?”

  He nodded and said, “Yes, Enforcer...” He left an open question as I scanned him for identity and race, though race was imminently apparent.

  I supplied, “Shade.”

  He inclined his head and then blurred. This time I let him go. I checked the tracking on my wrist console, looked at the surgical implement in the bag, then the corpse and said, “All I wanted was just one quiet day, but instead I find the fifth organ harvest on the world in the past month.”

  “Sucks to be you.”

  I chuckled and agreed with her assessment, “Yes. Yes, it does, Graz. And for a micro pain, you're ok. Your good-intentioned assist is appreciated.” Making sure not to make the mistake of thanking her.

  She shrugged. “I was bored, you ruined my fun back there, so I thought what the heck.”

  Chapter 3 – Remnants

  By the time the techs were done processing the scene, all I wanted was to get to my quarters and sleep for a week.

  I had spent an hour on coms and holo with Control as we tried to coax some sensor or video from the surrounding area to see if we could get a clue as to how our deceased wound up back here and without his horns and whatever was surgically removed from him. We'd have to wait for the coroner's report in the morning to know just what was taken. They'd have to do a Magic Resonance Scan to map every molecule of the decedent's remains to store on Mother. What can't we do today with modern magi-tech?

  A disturbing fact was that the area was devoid of any DNA trace evidence, only the murdered Woodling's DNA was found. Every living thing is constantly shedding DNA when we breathe, when we shed skin cells, and there is transfer whenever we touch something, like the surgical implement I had in the evidence bag, which the techs scanned through the smart-plastic to find no DNA or prints either.

  That in itself wouldn't be so alarming, but when I say they found no trace DNA in the area, I mean, none at all, not mine, not Graz's, not the vampire's... what was his name?r />
  I was too exhausted to check my wrist control so blinked twice to activate the heads up display in my helmet and the data was projected directly into my retina. I winced. I didn't like using it because as I said, I have great night vision so the display was annoyingly bright.

  Ah, here it is... I flicked my finger though the log my armor kept for me automatically, Thase Tanda. I switched to visual logs to see my interaction with him. I caught movement behind him, over his shoulder farther back in the corridor. I narrowed my eyes, and said, “Stop. Go back to index 541.2 freeze. Isolate cross corridor...” I looked at the bulkhead marking and continued, “J-51 and access-way 399. Zoom and enhance.”

  I stared at the display hovering in front of my eyes, there was a shadow half over a life support display panel. Someone was there. “Mother? Can you cycle through light spectrums from this visual scan and interpolate into the visible spectrum?” I almost jumped at the soft throaty alto of Mother's voice. I forgot that since I was using my suit's systems audio would be active too. Her voice always made me a bit nervous, unlike other Artificial Intelligences, she didn't have any of the little telltale indications that she was just a computer, she always sounded far too real to me and I swear her emotions couldn't be just simulations.

  Ok, so she creeped me the fuck out, but despite myself, I really liked her.

  She virtually purred at me. “There you are Knith, you've been ignoring me ever since you arrived on scene. I'd be happy to assist.” At one second intervals, the view changed, ultraviolet and infrared had more detail than the visible spectrum, almost as if it were being blocked somehow. I wouldn't ever have noticed except it had moved, blocking part of the display down the corridor.

  I stopped once Mother went into the extreme infrared range, over one thousand nanometers and said, “There! Can you overlay and clean it up a bit?”

  Her reply was almost chirpy. “You bet. Here you go.”

  When the false color image was overlapped on the shadow I could make out... “Is that a hand?” She sharpened it a bit, and I squinted like it would make me see the light blob any better. But I was sure, there was a pale hand with something that looked like a silver ring shaped like some sort of talon, on the thumb.

  I exhaled, and said, “Save that to the case file please.” Then I asked, already knowing the answer, “Mother, how many races wear silver rings on their thumbs?”

  She chuckled at me. “Anyone can wear a ring on their thumb, Knith.”

  I sighed, and said, “I know, please humor me, you're seeing what I am... best guess.”

  “My best guess isn't admissible as evidence in a...”

  “I know, Mother, I'm just wanting you to tell me what I already know.”

  She sighed, the computer actually sighed at me, and she supplied, “It appears to be a Fae silver Ionga ring. And again, that doesn't mean anything as anyone, even you could wear one.”

  I growled out, “What are the odds?”

  She purred, “No need to get grumpy. There is a five-point seven percent probability that someone outside of the two courts of greater Fae is wearing it.”

  My heart stopped for a moment. Well fuck me sideways and space me naked. Did a greater Fae witness the harvesting and subsequent murder? Were they... I hated where my head was going... were they involved somehow?

  Shit shit shit... I didn't voice that. Just doing that would have Control coming down on me like a metric ton of Fairy droppings. Even intimating that a greater Fae could be involved would get me busted back to mining security and the Fae could punish the whole ring for the insult.

  Instead, I asked, “Possible reasons for the area be free of any trace DNA?”

  She seemed as eager as me to change topics. “I take it you didn't sterilize the area yourself?”

  I sighed. “You have access to my sensors and logs on the case, you tell me...” I paused, I had almost called her a smartass. Just a computer, Knith.

  Ok, she chuckled again and said, “There is a ninety-seven point one percent probability that a sanctum spell has been cast on the area.”

  With a thought, my visor slipped down, sealing airtight, and the hiss of my re-breather venting my CO2 as I exhaled was loud in my ears until the sound canceling magi-tech kicked in. I touched a talisman I had in one of my belt pouches and looked around.

  I could see the spelled gear, and some of the magi-tech the crime scene techs had as they packed up. Then took in the area as a whole and could see two concentric circles extending through the physical walls with some of the most complex sigils pulsing and spinning as the two fading circles rotated in opposite directions, then I looked up to see two matching circles going vertical creating a sphere of magical influence, I didn't know diddly squat about magic, but I knew the difference between Fae and witch magic.

  Any human... any person, could use magic, just like I was doing now, but we required talismans or some other physical tool like potions or a focus to activate whatever spell is imbued in the tool. The only humans who could cast spells were witches, and their magic was inelegant, brute force botches that ate away at their bodies, compared to the finely spun silver artwork of Fae spells.

  Mab preserve us all, a Fae sanctum spell, and a pale hand with an Ionga, or talon ring. I didn't like where this was going. Instead of voicing my growing suspicion, I asked in a hoarse voice, “Logged?”

  Mother said, “Of course, Knith. You aren't thinking that...”

  I cut her off as my visor flipped up into my helmet. “Circumstantial. Can you feed me the case files of the other Harvestings? I want to go over the crime scenes and the coroner reports. Even the gods be damned MRSs.”

  She seemed glad I was looking at other possibilities, just as I was. “Already downloaded into your suit.”

  “Thanks, Mother. Hey, do you happen to know who on the world I can speak with about ancient medical equipment like this one?” I indicated the evidence bag.

  She said, “Hmm... besides the historian at the medical sciences library in the Alpha-Stack, B-Ring, there is nobody 'on the world' who has the expertise.”

  Ok, why did she stress the three words, on the world? Then my heart sank as I muttered like my life was over, “Remnants.”

  “That's why I like you so much Knith, always so positive and upbeat.”

  “Sarcasm? Really? Does that compute?”

  She seemed put out as she harrumphed. Ok, maybe I was being harsh, “I'm sorry Mother, I just hate dealing with those who chose to live off the world. I always feel like I have to check to make sure I still have all my gear after I leave a Remnant. And half of them are on the trunk, not stealing free gravity from the rings.”

  If she were a real person, I swear she'd be smiling as she chirped out, “Well good news, this one is mag locked to an airlock down on D-Ring of the Beta-Stack.”

  An icon bloomed on a schematic of the Leviathan. Fifteen miles inside the ring to a spoke, and then six miles back on the D-Ring not bad. But most people would be heading home or to assigned quarters, so it would take the better part of an hour to navigate the crowds on my Tac-Bike. Or I could... “How far to the closest Jumper?”

  The ring bloomed with twenty icons, one just a mile away. I'd have to lock down my bike here, but the Jump Pods would get me to the D-Ring in a minute or two. I'd have to take a public tram back to the airlock location, but I didn't want to be in that area of the D-Ring when the Day Lights went out.

  I said, “Thanks, Mother, then blinked twice to shut down the heads up and silence her. “You are welcome Knith. I'm here if you need me.”

  As I jogged back out toward my bike, I passed the crime techs loading up a mag-sled, I handed the evidence bag to a young elf woman, who pressed her thumb on my wrist console to transfer the chain of evidence.

  Then when everyone was out of view a blur of light swooped down from the overhead, to land on my shoulder. A squeaky voice asking, “What we doing now, Shade?”

  I looked at the Sprite
. “I'm investigating, you're doing whatever it is you do. This isn't any of your concern. If I need anything else from you, I'll find you.”

  Graz shrugged and said, “Whatever,” but made no move to leave. What was her problem?

  I ignored her and tapped in my location on the navigation console and let my bike do the driving as I started reviewing the nearby video and scan data around the time of the murder on my heads up.

  “So where did you say we were going?”

  My left eye twitched, and I made a point of ignoring the winged nuisance, and then paused the playback when I saw the victim heading through the market, his long curled horns making it easy to track him. He hesitated and looked between some booths and pointed at himself, a questioning look on his shaggy face.

  Then he went between them and I lost track of him as I sifted through differing angles and noted the scan data was reporting nothing in that area... not that it was empty, it was that there was no data, like it was being blocked. Magic again?

  “World to Shade.”

  I exhaled, realizing my master plan of ignoring Graz until she went away wasn't going to work. I looked at her and said, “Going to visit a Remnant.”

  “Ooooo which one?”

  I looked at the info Mother provided. “Mac... one name, no race, no other data... he's not in the system other than the designation as a peddler of antiquities and... information. And his hull number.”

  Graz whistled. “That old null coot? He's stingy with the chit tokens when I bring him grade A...” She trailed off.

  I cocked an eyebrow and smirked and finished, “Contraband?”

  Ok, I had to chuckle at the look of shock and indignation the Sprite gave me as she blinked her oversize eyes innocently, “Contraband? Me?” Against my better judgment, I liked this small person.

  I told her, “Now shush, I'm going over some data.”

  She nodded and mimed zipping her lips and then hesitated and made an unzipping motion. “You sure you're just a null and not a shifter?”