A woman stands at my elbow. “Ahh,” she says in a disgusted tone, “that’s my machine, you know. I’m already using that one.”
I give her my squinty eyes. She shuts up and backs off.
I hear a little bleep of welcome as the front doors part open.
Drawing half finished. Lucky I know it by heart by now.
Heavy black boots clomping...
“Sir?”
I don’t look up. My lip balm is worn down to a bare nub.
“Sir?”
“He won’t get away from my machine!” the angry woman grumbles to the forcers as they position themselves to either side of me.
One of them reaches to my right elbow. I cap what’s left of my lip ointment just a second before my arm is taken in a gloved hand. I’m turned to face them.
“Hello,” I say.
“Sir, you’ve been reported as a suspicious person. Will you accompany us to Precinct 40 for questioning?”
“Questioning? Suspicious...”
“Sir, this is the second crime scene you’ve appeared at within the past hour. You’re going to have to come with us to Precinct 40.”
The other forcer slings his big weapon out of his way and takes the lip balm from my hand...gives it a look, uncaps it, holds it up to a little vent in his helmet; I hear the hiss of artificial inhalation, then the harmless tube of salve is pushed into my coat pocket, dismissed. This forcer looks me up and down, and I hear a soft hum as his viewer scans me for weapons. Good thing I don’t have my shotgun on me, good thing my pistol was lost to that bird-faced mugger.
“All right, then, sir,” the first officer says. “Shall we go?”
“Might as well,” I mutter fatalistically.
***
PRECINCT 40 IS a squat building of bronze-colored ceramic, with a bronze-colored dome. A suburban police headquarters, it’s fairly small; even has two real trees out front. At first I assume that it’s because the staff of P-40 is small and has no specific sex crimes unit that I have to wait for another team to arrive...but then it dawns on me that since Jelena’s body was found in eight different precincts, her murder transcends the notion of territory.
My wrists are cuffed to the arms of my chair (orange and bolted to the floor like at the Laundromat) and again, I numbly watch a VT to pass the time, ignoring the sobbing mutant cuffed into the chair beside me, his (her?) massive lumpen head hanging heavy with its weight and with despair, dangling flaps of raw red flesh obscuring what passes for his face.
“Mr. Ruby?” says Sergeant Gaskin, who briefly questioned me earlier. I look up to see him approaching me with two other forcers – no helmets, not the ones who brought me in. One of them in fact is in plainclothes...a burly block-like Choom, his huge mouth turned down in a grim expanse. The other officer, in black uniform, is a Kalian female. Gaskin introduces them. “This is Detective Lardin and Investigator Yekemma-Ur, of Precinct 9-B, Sex Crimes unit. They have some more questions for you...”
Saleet shows no emotion. Nor do I. We avoid direct eye contact. I am not surprised to see her. When I was told another team was coming in to talk to me, I think I knew instinctively. At what point did my name come up to her, and how did she feel at that moment? I’m sure she didn’t confess to knowing who I am. But it’s not only to hide our involvement that I avoid her eyes. It’s out of shame, and misery. I know I’ve lost her.
“Come with us, please, Mr. Ruby,” Lardin rasps deeply as my shackles unlatch with a snick. I rise, and walk between him and Saleet into a small interrogation room. My arm lightly, accidentally brushes Saleet’s, and I can just barely detect her patchouli-like scent.
I’m seated. I accept a cup of coffee. Still I keep my eyes off my lover.
“Mr. Ruby,” Lardin grumbles, “what were you doing this afternoon at two crime scenes related to a single murder investigation?”
“I saw it on the news recently, sir,” I reply. “It was on the police netlink site, too.”
“Yes.” Saleet holds up a bundle of papers. My print-outs, taken from my coat when I was initially booked. Crime scene photos. Maps. And diagrams from The Veins of the Old Ones, by the Tikkihotto mystic/mathematician Skretuu. “You seem especially interested in our net site, Mr. Ruby. Especially interested in the unsolved murder of Jelena Darloom.”
“Why is that, Mr. Ruby?” Lardin asks.
“I’ll be quite honest,” I say, dropping my eyes to my oily black coffee. If ever I couldn’t face Saleet, it’s now. “And I’ll even consent to a truth scan. The reason I’m interested in the death of Jelena Darloom is because I was a customer of hers on one occasion...’
“I see,” says Lardin.
“And when was this, Mr. Ruby?” Saleet asks in a dead dry voice.
I look up at her black eyes, oily and steaming like my coffee. “It was before I met my current girlfriend. I was lonely. It was a mistake. I felt badly for the poor girl – she told me she wanted to get out of the life she was in. So when I heard on the news that she had been killed...I guess I became fixated on the case. Here was a person I...I...it wasn’t like I loved her. But I felt horrible about it. I guess...I felt guilty for being one of the people who took advantage of her miserable situation. I guess my interest in her became morbid and obsessive.” My gaze does not waver from Saleet now, or hers from mine. “But I swear to you that I did not hurt her. I didn’t kill her.”
Saleet swivels in her chair to address her partner. “The sperm in the victim was Kalian,” she reminds him.
“That doesn’t mean anything,” he rumbles ominously. “Just because her last customers were a couple of Kalians doesn’t mean they’re the ones who killed her. The killer may never have ejaculated inside her, or even had intercourse with her.”
“He says he’ll take a truth scan,” Saleet says.
“Will you do that right now, Mr. Ruby?” Lardin asks. “Do you waive your right to have an attorney consulted first?”
“Yes, absolutely,” I say. “I have nothing to hide.”
Lardin mutters something to Saleet, stands and leaves the room.
“What are these, Christopher?” my girlfriend immediately asks, her voice no less professional, as she pulls the pages from The Veins of the Old Ones out of my sheaf of print-outs.
“In case you hadn’t guessed, Sal,” I whisper, “I have an interest in occult matters. Everything from folk tales to religion. That’s why I’m always asking you about Ugghiutu. That’s why I was in the Kalian Reading Room. I was just embarrassed to admit to you, before, just how interested I am in these subjects. I didn’t want you to think I’m an eccentric.”
“That better be all you are,” Saleet tells me, narrowing her eyes, which are more terrifying than beautiful suddenly. “Because if you murdered that girl, Chris, I will fucking destroy you.”
“The truth scan will prove I’m not lying about this.”
“A prostitute, Chris. Very nice...”
“It was before you.”
“She was practically a child...”
“Sal...”
“So what were you doing with this occult dung? These pictures?”
“I was saying a kind of prayer at each site where a body part was found. I did all eight of them today, I freely admit. It was a ritual to help her soul find peace. Like I said, Sal...I feel so guilty about...”
I break off as the hulking, powerful-looking Choom reenters the room, holding a small device. Coming to my side, he presses an adhesive disk to the center of my forehead roughly with his thumb. It sticks there like an Indian’s bindi. Then he reseats himself, and activates the truth scan device. Saleet shifts herself closer to him to peer down at it. Her fingers are knotted tightly together atop the table.
“What is your name?” Lardin demands.
“Christopher Ruby.”
“Today did you appear at any of the crime scenes related to the death of the prostitute Jelena Darloom?”
“Yes, sir. I appeared at all eight sites.”
“To what pur
pose?” He keeps his eyes on the device’s miniature displays.
“I feel guilty about having had sex with the victim,” I relate. I can’t see or interpret the truth scan, but I know I’m not lying. “I visited each site because I feel connected to the victim. I admit to performing occult rituals at each site. I have an interest in the occult.” Again, I knew I wasn’t lying. I didn’t repeat the part about the rituals being prayers, though, meant to release Jelena’s soul...that part wasn’t quite honest.
“Did you murder Jelena Darloom?”
“No, sir, I did not murder Jelena Darloom.”
“Do you have any association with any person who might have killed Jelena Darloom?”
“Not to my knowledge.”
“Do you know the identity of the person or persons who killed Jelena Darloom?”
“No sir I do not.”
Lardin lifts his heavy skull to scowl at Saleet. She subtly nods, then turns to me. Though her eyes still shine coldly, she says, “Your story checks out, Mr. Ruby.”
“Great,” I sigh. “Um...so am I free to go?”
“Yes, but listen,” Lardin says gruffly, stabbing a finger in my face. “Stay the fuck away from crime scenes, active or not. I don’t like ghouls...not even conscious-stricken ghouls. You just wasted my time coming up here to listen to your weird obsessed dung.”
“I’m sorry, Detective Lardin.”
“Stay away from unlicensed prosties! I could cuff you for that alone, you know.”
“Yes, sir. I will, sir.”
Saleet reaches across to me and peels the disk off my forehead. I assume this will be the last time her fingers will ever touch my flesh. Her eyes are still as cold and black as her holstered pistol. “You can collect your belongings and go, Mr. Ruby,” she tells me, rising and handing me back my print-outs. “We’ll walk you to the check-out station.”
My new black overcoat is returned to me, as is my wallet. Lardin has drifted off to talk to Sergeant Gaskin. For a moment Saleet lingers and I whisper to her once more.
“I am truly, truly sorry about this, Saleet. I hope you can give me a chance to explain this to you more, later on.”
A beat of hesitation. Then, “We’ll see.” She turns her back on me, and goes off to join her partner.
I leave the dome-capped Precinct 40, and outside night has fallen as though the depths of space have flooded through the very streets of Punktown.
PART FOUR: UGGHIUTU
FOR MY EXCURSIONS I wear my black overcoat because it could be cold down there, though I hate to get it dirty where it’s new. But it helps to hide my shotgun, which is slung over my shoulder on its strap; I can just swing it up into position from under the coat if need be. I have a box of shells in one pocket. In another, various maps of Punktown’s subway network printed out from the official Paxton Transit Authority net site.
I have a new, powerful flashlight. Today I have a can of black spray paint instead of lip balm. I considered acquiring a hard hat so as to masquerade as a maintenance worker, but didn’t know where to get one. After yesterday I really don’t want any more trouble with the forcers, even though they dismissed me as harmless then. Don’t want to push my luck...but I still feel compelled to know if there is any significance to the fact that when the great earthquake hit Punktown twenty-one years ago, the Church of the Burning Eye was at its precise epicenter, and sank into the man-made caverns below the city. It’s a kind of insistent calling I’m hearing in my head or in my guts, and I’ve learned to listen closely to that sort of thing these days.
Under my black coat I wear a white T-shirt on which I spray painted a symbol last night. The symbol is a stylized eye inside a star, with a pupil that wavers like flame at its center. It can’t hurt. It might even protect me. Though a lot of good it did the Church of the Burning Eye.
Another net site I viewed, this one created by a group of self-avowed “urban explorers”, mentioned that the church was “remarkably intact...(existing) almost in its entirety” when they encountered it themselves several years ago, in one of the sections of the subway system that were sealed off and have remained disused since the quake. There was a murky, distant photo of it, which made it look like it lay at the bottom of the ocean, but the authors/explorers claimed to have been chased off by a “big white crab thing” which they assumed must have been a renegade robot. After the Union War, a group of rebellious automaton laborers took shelter in the abandoned subway and sewerage tunnels beneath the city, where they now have manufactured more of themselves, sneaking above-ground occasionally to steal or purchase supplies with money earned from various criminal activities (the Nuts gang, all robots, is one of the most dangerous and legendary in town). But the explorers did note that this was not one of the areas normally associated with the robots, and that they encountered no others.
My maps indicate that the closest I can get to this sealed off area is via the Green Line, the closest Green Line station being the Sumner Bridge Terminal. I pick up a tube near my apartment building to enter the first leg of my journey. Most of Punktown’s subway tunnels are at the same level as the subtown areas like the one I live in. There is another transit system lower than this system – essentially subway tunnels beneath subway tunnels – but the church didn’t drop that far down. I switch to the Green Line, and ride that to the terminal in question.
I pretend to wait on the platform of this smallish station, which has no shops or vending machines like the larger ones. Actually, I’m eying the mouth to the tunnel on my right. The opening is arched, the darkness beyond broken by far-spaced lights for maintenance or emergency, I assume. There is a narrow walkway or catwalk with a railing, again for maintenance or emergency evacuation of tubes, running along the right side of the tunnel, vanishing off into the gloom.
I spot a security camera near the mouth of the tunnel, a couple others in the station, but there are no patrolling forcers, transit guards, security robots. Just a thin scattering of bored people waiting to catch a ride, avoiding each other’s empty gaze. The station smells like a high school gym’s locker room. Massive riveted girders cross the ceiling and serve as pillars. Along the green-tiled walls, animated ads run across long display screens. Right now, a classy-looking ad for the Solon, a legal brothel, with its large staff of better-paid Jelenas.
A bullet-faced train pulls in almost soundlessly. Most of the people waiting with me board, a few depart the hovering vehicle and trot upstairs (there’s not even an escalator on this platform). When the train pulls out there are only two people left with me. Should I make my move now, before more people arrive, or would more people actually be preferable? Is it better to have fewer people to challenge me, or a larger number of people to cover my actions?
While I struggle with my decision, another tube pulls in. On impulse, I make my move now...walking quickly to the end of the tunnel, swinging my legs over the low gate that blocks the maintenance pathway, and ducking into the murk of the subway tunnel itself.
I flatten myself to the grimy tiled wall as the train resumes its journey, the damp warm air of its passing rippling over me like dirty waves, and then it is gone, a distant and fading hiss. There is an eerie, thick silence like cobwebs settling over me, muffling me. I turn and begin to follow the slim, raised pathway, grateful for its railing. Because of the regular lighting strips, I don’t need my flashlight yet. Despite its weight, the strap biting into my shoulder, I welcome the presence of my sawed-off shotgun. Punktown is scary enough upground and in broad daylight. I hope I’m not throwing my life away today...especially on a vague intuition that there might be something to learn at the ruined church of Ugghiutu’s enemies.
The tunnel is not yet cold as I’d imagined it might be, still humid instead. A drop of water plops heavily onto my head as I step through a puddle. Here and there, attached to the wall, are locked boxes that must contain machinery, computer consoles. Pipelines and sheathed cables accompany me for a bit before veering away or disappearing, to be replaced by new on
es, snaking along the tiles like the roots of great trees.
According to my maps, I’ll be encountering another train station soon...the old Steam Avenue Station. But this station has not been used since the earthquake, despite the fact that it sees trains streak past it countless times a day. It’s on the outer edge of the most heavily damaged section of the subway system. Other ghost stations, deeper in the heart of this abandoned sector, are not nearly as accessible...are not visible from the windows of active trains. Some are even flattened, buried under tons of rubble.
Further on, another train comes up on me so suddenly that I crouch down and hold onto the railing as it whooshes past, half to hide myself and half out of instinctive fear of being swept off the ledge. Lifting my head a bit, I see a blur of faces framed in yellow windows. Does a gaunt-faced young woman make eye contact with me? Then, the tube is gone as if it were only a ghost train full of apparitions. A bit shaky, I rise and continue on.
The narrow ledge now opens onto a broad platform, and I step over another gate to reach it. There are enough utility lights on to illuminate this station almost enough for it to pass for an active one. However much graffiti one might find in an active station, however, I’ve never seen walls so absolutely covered in the stuff. Not a molecule of the tiled walls goes unembellished. Gang insignias, lewd cartoons, avowals of love or lust, some truly fine art and lots of random abstract chaos assail me in explosions of color...attesting to the high traffic of “urban explorers”. I was worried about the security cameras witnessing my entrance into the labyrinth, but apparently that hasn’t hampered many before me. In fact, two young men sit on a bench of this station as if they expect their train to pull up at any moment. I hesitate from walking further across the platform when they turn their heads toward me. One sips casually from a bottle of Zub.
I move forward when I see they are disinclined from taunting or challenging me (or even asking me for change). They return to their quiet conversation and I vault over a turnstile to follow a passageway beyond the station’s shadowy automated ticket booths.
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