by Brian Parker
“Give me the play by play of what happened. Don’t leave any of the details out.”
“No offense, Doc, but what’s your role here?” I asked.
She glanced at the chief and he nodded. “Some people would say that you’ve had a high-stress week when you combine the two attempts on your life, the malicious drugging and resulting relationship with a droid, the false incarceration, four days in solitary confinement and now this incident that could have gotten you killed.”
“Just part of my job.”
“Cut the macho act, Detective. I’m here to help you talk through anything you need to get out of your head so you can continue to be a productive member of the team. If you need it, we can even have Chief Brubaker leave.”
“I’m good for now, Doc.”
“Fine, but I want you to keep an open mind. Especially once you interview Paxton Himura.”
“Just give me the rundown of what happened at Puss ‘n Boots,” the chief interrupted.
I stared at Dr. Jones for a moment, tilting my head slightly so I could see her clearly through my swollen eyes. Why would I need to talk to the shrink after a witness interview? “Uh, yeah. So I took a taxi over to Easytown and was supposed to meet Sergeant Drake, but he was late…”
I proceeded to tell the two of them what had happened at the club and how it went bad so quickly.
“So you didn’t request assistance from the drone?”
“No, sir. It came in to the club on its own and began taking out the threat. It’s a damn good thing it did, too. I don’t know how much more I could have taken from those robots.”
The chief leaned back in his chair and pulled a cigar out of his top drawer. He stuck it in his mouth, but didn’t light it. Instead, he chewed on the end, making a mess of it. “So you’re saying those things could have killed you, a karate master?”
I grimaced. “Krav Maga.”
“Whatever,” he said, rolling his hand with the cigar in it. “These droids are that big of a threat?”
I knew what he wanted. He wanted my professional opinion to shut down the clubs. With a witness here, he could point to me as the person responsible for the shut down and loss of revenue for the city if things went bad.
“I don’t think the average pleasure droid poses a threat to the general population, sir. However, evidence proves they are vulnerable to a cyber attack and that they can be hacked. For the time being, I recommend caution and we should issue a statement to the public about the dangers the clubs could pose since this guy is preying on citizens who visit those establishments.”
“Hmm… A statement,” Brubaker grunted around the cigar. “Yeah, a statement would show that we’re concerned, but ultimately puts the risk in the public’s hands. They know the potential danger they could face; if they choose to go anyways, it would be on them. We could even canvass Easytown with waiver forms or something.”
And ultimately shift the blame away from the city and the department. “Something like that, Chief. But we can’t continue to sit on it. The public needs to know about the serial killer.”
“Alright. I agree with you, Forrest,” the chief stated. “I’ll run it by the mayor’s office and stick them with the political decisions. Now… We have the droid, Paxton, in a holding cell. She’s the reason you were released from Sabatier.”
“She’s the reason?” I asked, confused. “How did the robot get me released?”
“Zach, this is going to be difficult for you,” Doctor Jones interjected.
“I’m a big boy, Doc. I can handle it.”
Chief Brubaker cleared his throat and said, “She set you up from the beginning, Forrest.”
“Yeah, I figured that part out already. I’m just a little fuzzy on the details.”
“She confessed to being an accessory to murder and has details about how your DNA and semen ended up at the crime scene.”
It took me less than a second to make the connection. “Son of a bitch! She collected my semen when we had sex and used that to frame me.”
The chief nodded. “Sorry, son. You’ve been used from the beginning. She’s requested to talk to you.”
Emotions warred within me. Anger, of course; but I also felt pity for what a pathetic creature she was, as well as sadness. While the fact that I’d been played had been out in the open for about a week, I still felt like I’d made a connection with her on some level, and I was upset about losing that.
“Fine,” I replied through clenched teeth. “Let’s go talk to her.”
SEVENTEEN: TUESDAY
She sat in one of our interview rooms, shackled hands resting on the tabletop in front of her. The harsh florescent lighting made her perfect hair shine radiantly azure against flawless olive skin. God, she’s beautiful, I thought and then shut it down. Her manufactured beauty and artificial intelligence were how she’d lured me in the first time around. I was over it.
“Are you ready, Zach?”
I turned to regard the doctor. “Doc, you really don’t need to be here. I’m good to go.”
“Of course you are. However, I’m still here to provide emotional support, if you need it.”
I placed my hand against the cool metal doorknob and took a deep breath before opening the door.
Her head turned instantly. “Oh, Zach! I’m so sorry. Oh my God, did they do that to you in prison?” Her hand shot up over her mouth and synthetic tears welled up in her eyes. “Because of what I did?”
“No. Nothing happened to me in jail. I was in solitary most of the week.”
I sat down across from her and leaned in. That intimidation tactic didn’t work on the droid. She grabbed for my hands to try and hold them, so I leaned back, crossing my arms over my chest.
It didn’t go unnoticed by her.
“So, Paxton Himura, when did you plan on telling me you’d set me up from the beginning?”
“I didn’t know,” she whispered. “This week has been hard on you, Zach, mostly because of my actions, but I swear to you, I didn’t know what I was doing. I didn’t even know that I was just a computer program until you told me on the phone.”
“Yeah, right,” I hissed. “You may have fooled me before, droid, but you won’t do it again. When did you realize you’d set me up?”
“After I had sex with Bobby the day before you were arrested.”
“Who the fuck is Bobby?” I did the math. The day before I was arrested was the day that Jacqueline Wolfe was murdered.
“He’s the droid who worked at The Stud Farm,” she answered coolly. “While we had sex, I felt him suction your semen from inside me and it was like a lightbulb turned on and I realized he was collecting it for a reason, but my body wouldn’t respond to my orders. That’s when the memories of me drugging you came back to me.”
“So, when I told you that you were a droid—while you delayed me outside of Wolfe’s World of Gaming—you acted like you didn’t know, but obviously you knew something since you called me.”
“Once your semen was collected, I felt the person controlling me disengage and draw back. I searched my memories, going deeper than what I knew on the surface, and that’s when I accessed my true, computerized memory and video logs. I realized what had been done to me; I wasn’t prepared to believe that I was a robot.
“I never meant to hurt you, Zach. The speed at which our relationship progressed is so far beyond what I would have normally done.” She laughed. “When I was in college, there was a boy…”
She trailed off, possibly realizing for the first time that all of her memories weren’t hers and had been implanted.
“Congratulations, now you know what it’s like to be mindfucked,” I scoffed. “Now, start from the beginning.”
A look passed over her face. It was hard to describe. Sorrow would probably be the closest human approximation. “The hacker began making subtle programming changes that night you were at the Diva. He’s the one who made me suggest you come to my place for questioning. Afterwards, I thought it was od
d that I’d been so insistent, which is not how I— it’s not how I’m programmed to behave.”
“Okay, so right from the beginning, he was playing me.”
“I’m sorry, Zach. It would seem so.”
“Save it. What about the tea?”
“When you came to my house, I drugged you with a combination of synthaine, sleeping aides and erectile dysfunction drugs. I remember walking down the alley behind Club Megasonic on the way home after meeting you and seeing a couple of synthaine dealers. I fucked them in exchange for the drugs and then added the Amplify to the mix to keep you aroused while you were near me.”
“Did you do this or was it the hacker?”
“Does it matter?” she asked.
“Not in the eyes of the law, but it does to me.”
“None of that was me. I’ve researched last week extensively and not much of the stuff I did that’s directly related to you was completely on my own.”
“So, our conversation at lunch, the play, dinner at Amir’s house…none of that was real?”
“It’s strange. Most of the actions and conversation were me, things that I would have normally talked about or said, but my internal dating clock was advanced about three or four dates. I wouldn’t have acted like that on a first date, or pressed so hard to seduce you.”
I glanced at the video lens and microphone in the room. “So, you admit to posing as a human, drugging me with a combination of drugs that would make my mind sluggish and my body sexually aroused, and then seducing me, tricking me into sleeping with you?”
“Yes.”
“And the ultimate reason was to collect my semen?”
“Yes. He’d tried to kill you and that didn’t work, so he wanted to seduce and then discredit you to get you off the case.”
“Why?”
She shrugged. “I don’t know. Maybe to cause you to suffer or maybe because you were getting too close to the truth. I can’t speak to the actions of a person that I never met.”
“Hmm… If he discredited me, got me thrown in jail, everything I’d been working on would have been put on hold and all of my notes would have been locked up as evidence against me, setting the case back a few weeks.”
I thought back to what the droid in the Puss ‘n Boots had said about the culmination of events this week. “That motherfucker is gonna do whatever he’s been planning to do this Sunday. A setback in the case would have allowed him to complete his cycle, all the misdirection he’s been throwing out there would have allowed him to finish his plan—if it’d worked.”
“Maybe.”
I refocused on Paxton’s eyes, trying to avoid seeing the streaks of black mascara running down her cheeks. “So, you harvested my semen, some hairs and skin cells and then took off to go fuck this other bot?”
“Something like that. I’ll leave out the details, but yes, all of your DNA samples were passed to Bobby. If the shopkeeper was raped and murdered and your semen was inside her, it was Bobby who did it.”
“You called me exactly at the moment I pulled in to the parking lot at Wolfe’s hobby shop, where the murders occurred. You—or the hacker—did that to allow the car’s GPS to show that I was on site for several minutes before I requested emergency services.”
“Possibly. I had an overwhelming urge to call you right then, even though I was embarrassed by what I’d done.”
“Well, fuck me. It seems like I really was played every step of the way.”
“I’m sorry, Zach. If I’d been in control of my actions, it’s likely that I would have never seen you again after I came to the police station for questioning.”
“Yeah, it would have been better for everyone involved.” Even though Voodoo had given me an idea of what to expect, I wanted to hear what she had to say about her current state of programming. “So what’s keeping the hacker from controlling you right now? From manipulating me even further?”
She shook her head. “Once I learned what I am and what I’d done, I requested total control over my programming from Cybertronic Solutions. They granted it to see what I’d do. The first thing I did was shut down all external communications capabilities—which would lock out a hacker—and then I came down to the police station to confess my role in the events of the past couple of weeks.”
“So, what now?” I asked the two-way mirror, where I knew Brubaker and Jones stood watching. “Do we press charges and hold a trial for a droid or what?”
“Neither. I’ve decided on another outcome.”
“I turned back to Paxton, “You’ve made a decision? You’re not in a position to do that.”
“Zach, I want you to know that I really do care for you and that I’m sorry for what I’ve done. I know your life will be much more complicated because of me.”
“Damn right it is,” I answered.
“Please, let me finish,” she pleaded. The artificial tears had begun flowing once again. “I’ve screwed up your life. I wish I could change that, but I can’t. You’ll be investigated for violating the department’s regulations against intercourse with a droid, even though I presented myself to you as a human. Hopefully, they’ll see that you were duped and allow you to continue service to the city.
“Secondly, I’ve given you all the information I have. I provided a video chip of all my memories for the past two weeks. The hacker is good. I tried to find him once I’d been given total control over myself, but I came up empty handed. I wish I could say that I met Bobby at the hacker’s house and provide you with the address, but I can’t. I passed your samples over to the other droid like a hooker in an alley.”
She stood and flexed her arms, the links on the handcuffs snapped like a dry twig. I pushed myself back away from the table with a jolt of pain and grasped the handle of the Aegis at my back, hoping there was enough of a charge left to do something effective.
“Zach, you were the best thing that ever happened to me. I hope that one day you’ll forgive me. Goodbye.”
I watched in horror as she plunged her hand into her soft stomach and then angled her arm up inside of her chest. A small amount of fluid spilled from her body, just enough to keep up appearances that she was human.
She jerked her hand down violently and pulled out a small CPU, wires still trailing up inside of her.
“No! Don’t do it!” I screamed.
Paxton Himura focused her eyes on me and then crushed her memory logs and primary power source.
EIGHTEEN: WEDNESDAY
Jasmin Jones tried to get me to talk to her about my feelings after Paxton committed suicide in front of me. There wasn’t anything to talk about. I’d really liked the woman—who turned out to be a robot—learned of her scam and spent almost a week in jail disassociating my mind between the person whom I’d thought she was and the robot that she truly was. A lying, conniving, whorebot that tried to frame me for murder. I had no feelings for it.
Or at least that’s what I told Doctor Jones to keep her off my back.
The rest of Tuesday was a blur between the pain meds and answering questions from the Internal Affairs detectives who’d chosen to question me about my inadvertent violation of the department’s Immorality Clause after the video evidence of the suicide was released internally to the department. Great timing.
The Immorality Clause, officially item 234.7, subparagraph A of the New Orleans Police Department Standards of Conduct for Officers and Full Time Employees, stated, in part, that officers and employees of the NOPD would not engage in any sexual activity with prostitutes—human or robotic—nor would the exchange of money, goods or favors be exchanged for sexual acts. The remainder of the clause covered various forms of vice and acts deemed inappropriate by the department, including any type of intercourse with non-humans.
In the end, the IA dicks ruled that since I hadn’t known she was a robot and she wasn’t one of the sex droids, then the charges for violating the clause would be dropped. They still placed me on a two week administrative leave with half pay for initiating a
relationship with a witness in an active murder case. The fact that I’d been drugged and tricked into it was the only thing that saved my job; otherwise, I’d have been booted off the force.
Brubaker had me turn in my service pistol and go speak to the human resources office before having the Tortuga take me home.
I was exhausted, once again, walking through my door and had Andi order food while I showered. The warm water felt nice on my battered body and I marveled at how much filth came off of me in the shower, even after the localized sponge bath I’d been given when the hospital ER staff sewed me up. The water was brown around my feet by the time I was finished as my blood mingled with synthetic robotic fluids and smoke film from the burning droids at The Puss ‘n Boots.
A delivery bot stood outside my door when I got out of the shower. Andi authorized my credit card and I took the sack of tacos from it. I carried the bag to the dining table and started to open it when I saw my notes on the pleasure club murder case sitting open.
I picked up the pen, wrote, “SUNDAY,” in big, bold letters and circled it. I drew a line to another area on the paper and scribbled, “FATHER.” The two clues came from one of the droids that tried to kill me.
What did the two of those things have to do with the other?
I wrote, “SEX CLUB,” near the top of the page. Those were the themes for this case—I thought. A large question mark went in the center of the triangle and I traced it repeatedly, thinking.
The Paxton piece had been a matter of convenience to get me off the case, like the Jeep and attack at the club had been, so I dismissed her out of hand. Thinking about it objectively, even the drive-by had been an effort to scare me off the case.
The question mark represented the killer. What did I know about him? He was a world-class hacker, but he also had some sort of connection with the sex clubs. He could have hacked into any of the droids working across the city, but so far, he’d focused exclusively on pleasure droids in Easytown. Why did he only use them?