by George Mann
“You’ve done some good work here,” he said.
I didn’t like the sound of that. His use of the past tense meant he was about to hijack my case.
Chief Chang gave me a smooth grin. “I’m going to have Juno talk to her.”
“Sure,” I said, trying to sound casual but probably failing.
Chief Chang gave Juno a nod, and the gorilla walked off. I couldn’t believe Chang was pulling this shit. I knew he was still pissed at me, and true, I had caused him a major PR nightmare when I’d beaten that pusher to death, but how was I supposed to know the punk was a minor? I ain’t a fucking psychic.
I stood next to the chief and watched as Juno and Delia Foster began to talk. I kept my mouth shut, no point making it any worse, but damn, did the chief really have to replace me with Juno? Helluva insult that was. Okay, I admit, Juno wasn’t as stupid as people thought, but come on. His only real talent was throwing his fists around. He sure as hell never was much of a detective. Shit, if he wasn’t best pals with the chief, he’d be working the night lockup or some other low-end job where you didn’t have to read much.
The chief and I were too far away to hear what she was saying, but Juno was listening to her intently, nodding his head and acting all serious, acting like a real hotshot. I couldn’t watch this. “Mind if I talk to those witnesses?”
Chief Chang looked surprised. “You haven’t interviewed them yet? I thought you would’ve done that by now.”
Fucking hell. Hadn’t I paid enough? When was he going to quit breaking my balls? Through clenched teeth, I said, “I was about to when you showed up.”
He dismissed me with a wave, like he was a king or something. Shit, I remember when Chang was just a vice cop. Back then, everybody thought he was a softie. He sure could talk the talk, but nobody took him serious. That was before he and Juno partnered up. What a pair those two: Mr. Slickster and Mr. Bruiser. Who woulda thought they could’ve taken over the entire police department? It sure as hell never occurred to me. But KOP was theirs, and these two former vice cops ruled it with a vicious efficiency. That’ll show you what a little determination can do, that and the backing of the Bandur Cartel.
I approached the trio of witnesses—one man, one woman, one midget. “I’m Detective Josephs.
Somebody please tell me they saw who did it.” Nothing but shaking heads. “All right, what can you people tell me?”
The wee one said, “I gotta get back to my troupe. Anybody mind if I go first?” Nobody objected. “I saw the two of ‘em arguin’. I was watchin’ ‘em pretty close.”
“Why’s that?”
“I’m the hat passer, so you better believe I pay close attention to the offworlders. We like offworld tips. Sometimes you can guilt them but good.”
“Could you hear what they were arguing about?”
“No, but they was really goin’ at it. That woman, she was furious. I don’t think I’ve ever seen an off-worlder lookin’ so mad before. And then she stormed off.”
The man, an older guy, said, “Can I interrupt?”
I lifted my gaze from belt level to eye level. “Talk,” I said.
“I was standing next to them, you know, watching the show, and I saw her pinch him.”
“She pinched him?”
“Yep. I saw it clear as day. She was saying she wanted to go back to the hotel, and he kept saying no. Then she tried to take the baby from him, and he wouldn’t let the baby go. He said he and his son were going to enjoy the night. And that’s when she pinched him.”
“Where?”
“On the back of the arm. I heard him say, “Ow.” And then he pushed her away.”
“He pushed her?”
“Yep. He didn’t push her hard. I don’t think he was trying to hurt her, but he gave her a good shove. You know, he was reacting to being pinched was all. That’s when she stormed away.”
“Did he follow her?”
“No. If you ask me, I think he was glad to be rid of her. She just disappeared into the crowd.”
“Then what happened?”
“He was bouncing his baby, you know, trying to calm him down. All that yelling his parents were doing had the baby worked up. Then there was a flash of light, and the dad went over backward. The baby seemed to land on his father’s shoulder before rolling off onto the pavement. Mighty lucky that his father landed the way he did, that’s for sure.”
“Can you tell me where his wife was when it happened?”
The woman spoke up for the first time. “Last I saw her, she was heading in the direction of that fried dough cart down the way.”
“And which way was the victim facing when he went down?”
“He was watching the show, so he was facing the church.”
And therefore, she would’ve hit him in the back, not the chest. Damn.
“Did any of you see any other offworlders nearby?”
They shook their heads in unison.
“How about this flash you saw? Can you tell where it came from?”
More head shakes.
“Can you tell me anything else?”
The midget said, “That’s pretty much it. I know the baby landed on his dad, but he still took a good hit. I went over to pick him up, but by then his mom was back. She swatted at me, yelled at me to get away from her baby. Can’t say I blame her though. She didn’t know what was going on. She probably thought I was tryin’ to steal her baby.”
“Did any of you see anybody go into his pockets?” Three negatives. After collecting their names, I let them go.
I walked back to where the chief was waiting with his enforcer. “Juno likes the wife too,” said Chief Chang.
“I don’t,” I said.
“I thought you did.”
“Not anymore.” I gave them a rundown of the witness testimony.
Juno rubbed his rock of a jaw like he was trying to look smart. “I still think she did it,” he said. “She hates it here. I mean, she really hates it here. Just talking to her, she makes me feel like I’m not a person. It’s like I’m a roach or something, and she’s doing all she can not to squash me. This hatred she has, it’s downright pathological.”
Christ. Now he thinks he can use big words. “She didn’t do it, Juno. Couldn’t have. I told you she would’ve hit him in the back.”
“Maybe she hired somebody. She made a big scene, right? Maybe she wanted everybody to see her walk away so she’d have a hundred alibis.”
“Look at her,” I said. “You see the way she’s holding her baby, right? Even if this fucking zap-per thing could kill him without hurting the baby, you really think she’d take the risk of her baby cracking his skull on the pavement? If she knew it was coming, she wouldn’t have left the baby with him.”
“But, you said yourself that she tried to get the baby from him before she stormed off. She even pinched him, right? Doesn’t that sound like somebody desperate to get her baby back? She knew the hit was coming.”
“Fuck that, Juno. If she knew the hit was coming she would’ve stayed in the hotel.”
“But then she couldn’t have led her husband to this spot, could she?”
“There wasn’t any hit, okay? The witnesses didn’t see any other offworlders around.”
“Could’ve been an offworlder in disguise. Or it could’ve been a local who whacked him.”
“A local couldn’t afford whatever it was that killed him.”
“No, but she could. She could’ve supplied the weapon.”
“She hasn’t even left the hotel since she got here. As afraid as she is, you think she just strolled up and down Koba’s back alleys looking for hitmen? Gimme a break.”
“What’s your theory, Josephs? You don’t think it was a mugging, do you?”
He had me there.
Argued to a standstill, we both looked at the chief and waited for him to weigh in. “Who’s she talking to?” he asked. Looking over, I saw Delia talking to a holographic woman.
Juno said, “I bet she�
�s trying to make travel arrangements. She told me she wanted to take the first shuttle she could get off planet.”
The chief said, “If Juno’s right about her, we—”
“He’s not right,” I interrupted.
Chang gave me a trying stare. “If Juno’s right, we can’t let her leave.”
“You ready to arrest her?”
“No. But maybe we can convince her to come down to the station for questioning.”
Juno shook his head. “She won’t go for that.”
“Okay, then let’s bring her to the hospital. That baby needs to be checked out anyway. While we’re there, maybe we can get a shrink to talk to her.”
Juno nodded his agreement, and the two of them went to talk with Delia. I stayed where I was.
There had to be a simple answer. There always was. Juno was making this too complicated.
Man, I sure could use a hit right about now, a little pick-me-up. Where did Officer Ramos go? That guy always carried a sweet stash.
It popped.
With no warning at all, it just popped. It was like that sometimes. You wrack your brain like mad, and then you stop thinking on it for a minute, and when you come back the answer’s right there, and you can’t believe you didn’t see it before.
Juno and the chief thought they were so damn smart. I walked over to where the body had been and found the broomstick she’d used scare the lizards. Carrying it with me, I approached the group.
I came up alongside Juno and the chief. They were wasting time trying to get her to go to the hospital. She’d never agree. “No,” she said to them. “I just booked a shuttle that leaves in three hours. I’m going to the spaceport.”
“You can’t wait that long to get him to a doctor,” said the chief. “If there’s anything wrong, early intervention could be the key.”
“I won’t go,” she said. “I am not bringing my baby to one of your hospitals.”
I took a look at the baby in her arms. He looked bored. I held out the far end of the broomstick for him.
“But we have an offworld clinic inside the hospital,” said Chief Chang. “Offworld tourists use it all the time. There’s even an offworld doctor who supervises...”
I stopped listening. She wouldn’t go. I knew it.
The baby—Peter was his name—grabbed hold of the other end of the broomstick and pulled it to his mouth. The little guy must’ve been terrified when his parents were fighting. All that yelling ain’t good for a young one.
Delia saw him gnawing on the broomstick and pulled it out of his mouth. Giving me a queer look, she said to Peter, “Icky. Don’t do that. Icky.”
I dated a girl once, a nanny. We didn’t last long, but she knew all kinds of stuff about babies. She said that when babies are really small, they don’t understand things. It’s like they’re born stupid, see? For example, she told me how you can take a piece of candy and put a cup over it, and the baby will think the candy is gone. If they can’t see it, it just doesn’t exist anymore. It’s not until they get older that they know to move the cup to get to the candy.
By this time, I’d completely lost track of the conversation, but based on the tone, it sounded like Chief Chang was getting more insistent. And she was getting more defiant.
I was moving the broomstick in and out now, letting the little guy reach for it then pulling it away at the last second. He was smiling and giggling, experiencing a pure kind of happy.
I wished he could speak. The things I wanted to say to him were lining up in my head. I bet you thought your mom was gone for good when your dad shoved her away. She’d disappeared into the crowd. She didn’t exist anymore. And it was your father that made her go away with an angry shove. So you killed him, didn’t you? Your own father. It wasn’t your fault, kid. Your mother’s a lunatic. She installed one of those souped up self-defense systems in you, didn’t she?
How crazy was that? How could anybody give a baby the power of deadly force? I hoped he wouldn’t remember what happened here. It wasn’t his fault. He couldn’t understand the complexities of human emotion. He couldn’t comprehend the concept of restraint. He was a damn baby!
How could she think she needed to go to such lengths to keep him safe? Was this planet that fucking scary? Had we fallen that far?
Delia was escalating. “No!” she yelled. “No doctors!”
Of course not. An X-ray would show the gear in his head. It would give her away.
She wasn’t going to get away with this. And I didn’t need a doctor to prove what she’d done.
He was still smiling, the little guy. I let him grab hold of the broomstick again, and as he pulled it in toward his mouth, I jabbed the broomstick forward, giving him a good pop in the nose. He was too stunned to react at first. Same with his mother.
Then came the white flash. I went airborne. I flew backward like I’d been kicked by a mule. My ass hit the pavement first, the rest of me tumbling right behind.
I tried, but couldn’t move for a few seconds. It was like my body had gone on strike, my nerves refusing to fire. I kept at it until my muscles finally creaked into life. I forced myself to sit up and sucked in deep breaths that smelled of burnt wood.
Juno and the chief were hovering over me, asking me if I was okay. The broomstick was gone, obliterated. My hand hurt like hell. Holding it up, I watched the smoke drift up from charred flesh. Blood dripped off a splintered remnant of the broomstick that had embedded itself in my palm.
Peter was crying. I could hear him.
I shook my head in an attempt to shake the fog out of my brain.
Cops were all around me, looking on with stunned expressions. Juno and the chief were just staring at me now, their jaws hanging wide open.
I broke into a smile, the cockiest one I could conjure. “That’s right, boys. Who’s the fucking king?”
The Assistant
Ian Whates
As USUAL BY the time we arrived, the underground car park was a desert of asphalt, faded white lines, and inadequate lighting. Our vans were the only vehicles in sight, their headlights chasing serried stripes of short-lived shadow between the ranks of concrete pillars.
The corporate bigwigs had long since abandoned the place in favor of their homes, their fancy restaurants, clubs, and bars, for the company of their wives and husbands, their boyfriends and their mistresses, leaving much-coveted parking spaces free for the likes of us: the Sanitation and Cleansing Technicians. Cleaners, if you prefer.
I always pull up in the same bay—the one with the wall plaque that reads “Reserved,” and then “Managing Director.” As ever, that plaque was the last thing I glanced at before killing the lights.
We piled out of the vans; a human sea of gray-blue overalls, all converging on the service entrance to the building proper.
Here everyone hung back, as if unsure of themselves. In fact they were waiting for me. The name badge on my chest might say “Assistant,” but they all know who’s boss. Except when Gus is around, of course—then I really am just the Assistant.
I waved at the camera; or rather, waved at the front desk security via the camera.
“Hi, Joe,” said the built-in speaker above the door.
“Hi,” I replied with another wave and a grin. The system’s scratchy acoustics rendered the voice anonymous and I had no idea who was on the desk that night, so chose not to risk offense by venturing a name.
The doors hissed open and we went through, with me standing to one side, clocking everyone in as they entered—the best part of a hundred bodies in all.
“Hi, Joe” or simply “Joe” echoed in a myriad of different accents, pitches and timbres as the crew funneled through the bottleneck of the entrance. The register in my hand recorded each and every one as they passed, identifying them via the chip built into their name-badges. Within minutes the flood had become a trickle and then ceased flowing altogether. I checked the register. All those who were supposed to be here were—Kelly and Trev having both called in sick, w
hile Muskrat and Yvonne were on vacation. The only other absentee was Wes, and we all knew about Wes. Out of danger now, thank God.
That was the first duty of the night taken care of. The next priority was to look in on the twenty-second floor—at the time our one major concern. I shared the elevator with Mac, Josh, and a timid blonde girl whose name I can never remember. I checked her badge at the time, of course, but goodness knows what it said.
Mac was in a chatty mood, while Josh seemed more intent on trying to catch the blonde’s eye. Since said eye gazed unwaveringly at the floor, this was proving more difficult than he undoubtedly anticipated.
“Bet you’re hoping for a quieter one than last night,” Mac ventured.
“That’s for sure.”
The previous night we’d been invaded by a swarm of mini-bots, each no bigger than your little finger. Horrible things they were, looking like a cross between a woodlouse and a centipede—all jointed segments and scurrying legs. Pink had spotted them coming in through the ventilation system. We call him Pink because that’s the color of the stripe that runs front-to-back through his bleached and cropped hair. He claims to be a Postmodern neo-punk. Personally I reckon he made that up, because I’ve never heard of any such group, clan, or movement, but he swears otherwise.
Anyway, these bots had come in through the ventilation system. We’ve got the whole thing rigged with a mess of sensors that are supposed to be capable of picking up absolutely anything, but they managed to get around most of those, though not quite all, thankfully.
Pink monitors the ducts and shafts—that’s his bag—and thanks to him we saw them coming. I closed off all the vents in the building, intending to channel them toward a single meeting room on the eleventh floor. Something went wrong and instead of just the one room staying open, half the vents on the floor failed to seal. Before we knew it, they were everywhere. Fortunately there’s nothing too sensitive on the eleventh—just the canteen and a bunch of interview rooms—but we had a devil of a job hunting the little buggers down. Their carapaces were made of some fancy new non-metallic polymer. The only metal anywhere on them was what we presumed to be shielding around their power source, which Pink insisted should not be referred to as a battery for some reason. As a result they were hard to pick up on the monitors, until someone discovered that their power sources— whatever those might be—leaked a very faint energy signal. Once we pinned that down the job became much easier, but they were still tough little so-and-sos and no mistake. See one scuttling along a wall and hit it with something and it would just drop to the floor and keep on scuttling. You had to stamp on them damn hard to do any real damage. Apparently this was all due to the “extraordinary elasticity of their polymer carapaces.” That’s a direct quote from Mikey, one of the tech-heads on the team, after he’d had a chance to examine the remains of one.