Thoughts of his iEye brought him back to the missing pub. It was at least possible that I.T.F. had found it by other means. It was also possible that they had destroyed it before today; he didn’t know the ambient ground temperature and the scent of smoke might linger for weeks. It was all possible...
His thoughts turned to Asha Ishi’s warning about a coming war, and information about the multitude of little conflicts that started World War III began to pop up via his implant. He fought the desire to read, interesting though it all was, and instead stared at Eva 2.0, asking himself what it would mean if his crazy partner actually wasn't crazy. There were bigger questions, but for some reason his brain became fixated on more personal ones. Was it wrong to be fantasizing about an andromorph? He'd been perfectly content to peruse the catalogue of andromorph sex dolls, and he’d never had a problem leching over his digital newsreaders. If Eva really was one of them, why should it be any different?
That was just sex, his mind replied. With Eva, it's more than that. It had a point. Plus, if the Red Hands really are andromorphs, she’ll want to kill or subjugate all humans, his mind continued, raising another good point. That would surely put a strain on any relationship.
The catalogue brought his wandering mind back to Toskan and he could feel the blues threatening to descend. Before he’d sunk too far, the cat appeared again and began nuzzling up to him. He smiled as he stroked her, even though he knew she had only come to collect her nightly chunk of chicken-like protein, dug out from inside a sweet and sour ball. She knew the way the game was played though. She had to endure some affection first. Kitty somehow pulled him out of the spiral and he sat back watching Eva 2.0 as she talked about various events and disasters, none of which had anything to do with andromorphs, conspiracies or impending wars.
Part IV: Runner
Chapter 24
Asha Ishi moved in tiny, shuffling footsteps as they took the lift down to the basement and Hammell asked himself why she would choose this moment to enter stealth mode. Something was afoot. For her to even ask him - ask him - to follow her, albeit after some pontificating at her desk interspersed with surreptitious glances in his direction, something had to be up. The lift opened and they stopped suddenly at the same moment, seeing a newly installed double set of reinforced steel doors. They turned to look at one another as the outer doors opened and an android appeared; an armoured hammerhead blocking their way.
“I.A. Ishi, I.A. Hammell,” it said, “you cannot enter the laboratory. There are sensitive tests running inside. Please state your business.”
“My business,” Asha Ishi said, “is none of yours. I’m here to see Stein.”
“Dr Stein will be contacted your behalf,” the android said. “Please wait.”
Asha Ishi did as instructed, her face blank, but Hammell knew her well enough to know that she was seething. Fortunately for Stein, he didn’t keep her waiting long.
“What’s this?” the doctor asked as he scooted past the statuesque sentry. “I.A.s? Haven’t you all been fired yet?”
“What’s this?” Asha Ishi asked, looking the hammerhead up and down.
“That’s an android.”
“Are I.A.s barred from the lab now?”
“Don’t get your back up, Asha,” Stein said. “Even I’m not permitted inside the testing lab anymore. We can’t risk losing a conviction because a human was in the lab, contaminating evidence with their DNA and various… juices.”
Hammell and Asha looked at one another again, having exactly the same thought at the same moment: Stein was on borrowed time too. Hammell wondered if he knew it.
Unslinging her colossal rucksack from her back, Asha Ishi removed something from inside, holding it out towards the doctor. It was an evidence bag, Hammell saw, and his eyes widened as he realised it contained the knife from the dock. How did she find that? The last time he’d seen it was when he’d kicked it away into the mud while she had been laying unconscious.
Stein looked down his nose at it. “No evidence number. No case file. And it has been… fondled. It’s inadmissible as evidence.”
“Test it anyway,” Asha Ishi said as she took out another evidence bag, this one containing a familiar looking brick. “This too.”
“Test for what exactly?” Stein asked, still making no move to take the bags.
“Abnormalities.”
The doctor rolled his eyes theatrically. “There is no test for abnormalities,” he said, as if physically pained at having to converse with mere mortals. “There are hundreds of tests I could run. Thousands. Which do you want? The Seamus Test? The 12 to 80 test? The Griper Procedure?”
“Test them,” Asha Ishi said, “in exactly the same way you tested the underwear.” She turned her head and looked at Hammell as she spoke. “The knife has blood from the same… subject.”
“Fine,” Stein sighed as he turned back towards the lab. “Jennifer!” he called out, linking his hands behind his back as he leaned towards the bags. “At least you’ve brought useful samples this time. Do I want to know how the blood got there?”
“No.”
The android still hadn’t appeared, so the lanky man turned around and tried again. “Jennifer? Where is she?”
“I want you to run the tests personally anyway,” Asha Ishi said, again thrusting out the bags towards the doctor, who was becoming noticeably flustered.
“Me?” Stein said. “It’s not even possible now. And it would invalidate them.”
“Even so.”
“Jennifer?” Stein called out, desperately now, and Hammell saw that there were actual beads of sweat beginning to appear on his forehead. “I don’t know what’s got into her recently.”
“You didn’t re-set her, did you?” Hammell said and the doctor’s face gave him away. I knew it.
Asha Ishi grabbed Stein’s arm suddenly and forced the evidence bags into his hands. His face went from pale white to sickly green.
“We’ll be waiting,” Asha Ishi said. “Out here.” She gave Stein a little encouragement to help him back towards the lab and he disappeared, muttering to himself, the evidence bags pinched between as little of his thumb and forefinger as he could get away with.
Asha Ishi was pacing the corridor, as close to agitated as Hammell had ever seen her. He himself leaned against the wall, trying to appear casual. In spite of the troubling nature of her methods, he was glad she had decided to bring him in, to show him the proof that she wasn’t just a senseless lunatic; she had reasons for what she did, however misguided she might be. We'll soon know for sure, he thought. If Asha Ishi was right, then there would be something different about andromorph blood and Stein would find it. There would be no questions, no ambiguity, after this morning.
Hammell had to stop his foot from tapping; he could feel his own tension increasing with every passing minute. “They need to get a bench out here,” he said, just to break the silence, “if we have to wait outside now.”
Asha Ishi turned her head towards him but didn’t deem his comment worthy of response.
After an hour or so, there was movement in the lab: The hammerhead stepped aside and Jenn emerged holding a glass with Stein following behind, head bowed, looking for all the world like the android’s pet human. He was wearing rubber gloves, Hammell noted as he pushed himself off the wall.
“So?” Asha Ishi asked expectantly.
“So….” Stein said as he looked down at the glass which Jenn was holding out for him, licking his lips as he pretended to read.
“So… what?” Asha Ishi asked, her impatience getting the better of her.
“What do you want to know?”
“Abnormalities!” Asha Ishi exclaimed. “You know what I’m asking.”
“Well,” Stein said with a small sigh, “a few things are off from the sample on the knife…”
“Such as?” Asha Ishi asked and Hammell thought that he’d never seen her this animated.
“It’s from a woman, obviously,” Stein said. “She has a
lot of cell damage and peptide nucleic acid damage, quite a few errors in DNA replication...”
“In layman’s terms,” Asha Ishi said. “Does it mean…?”
Stein looked up. “That this blood came from an older woman than you described.”
“That’s all?”
“That’s all,” Stein said, nodding to let the android know it could lower the glass. “Both samples were normal, as far as there is such a thing.”
“But… They have to be…” Asha Ishi said. “There must be some mistake.”
“Not from my side.”
“Could there be no way to tell artificial blood from real blood?”
“Unlikely,” Stein said.
“But you can’t say for certain.”
“Well,” Stein said, considering, “it’s true that the historical data we have on artificials is sketchy. Everything was forcibly destroyed at the end of World War III, for obvious reasons. But there would have to be differences, or else they’d just be humans by other means, wouldn’t they?” He grinned as he looked from Asha to Hammell and back again. “I didn’t spot any serial numbers.”
Nobody laughed and Stein shook his head, clearly thinking his talents were wasted on these people.
“Maybe the tests were faulty,” Asha Ishi said.
The doctor’s smile dropped. “There was nothing wrong with the tests.”
“Did you run them yourself?”
Stein hesitated. “I told you before, I’m not allowed inside the testing lab. I monitored from outside-”
“Androids ran them?” Asha Ishi asked, latching onto it. “Androids linked to Providence?” She looked to Hammell for support. “Then we can’t trust the results.”
“It’s precisely because of that that we can,” Stein said.
“Asha,” Hammell said quietly and he could see the desperation in her black, dead eyes. For Asha Ishi, this counted as a wild display of emotion.
“I ran your little tests and played your little games,” Stein huffed as he turned back towards his lab, Jenn nipping in before him, “but I won’t have the integrity of my lab questioned just because you don’t like the results.”
Asha Ishi turned to Hammell and just for a second he thought he could see a tear forming in her eye. Before he could be certain, she stormed off.
Chapter 25
When he returned to the cupboard, Hammell found one of the Commissioner’s shadows outside waiting for him. He threw back his head and groaned aloud. The android led him up to Yun’s office, where he found Asha Ishi already present, pressed tightly into the corner of a chair, looking in dangerous mood. Pulling out the chair next to her, he sat down to face the big man, who was flanked by two more of the Commissioner’s rapidly expanding collection of shadows. Neither of them could fit directly behind the desk; Yun spread out to a truly improbable width.
Is today the day? he gulped.
The chewing out began and Hammell’s mind automatically began to filter it out. “...your continued pursuit of Eva Valentine led I.T.F. to a major Red Hand operation,” Yun said eventually, causing Hammell’s brain to re-engage. “So you get to keep your job. For now.”
Hammell kept his face impassive, avoiding giving away even the slightest hint that he was relieved. The androids turned their heads inwards towards the Commissioner simultaneously. This isn’t what they expected.
“But you’re on your last warning,” Yun continued. “Any more disobedience. Any more mysterious accidents befalling medics-”
“I.A. Hammell must be fired,” one of the androids said, butting in.
“That’s not your decision,” Yun replied without looking at it.
“It is not yours either, Commissioner,” the android said. “The regulations state-”
“I know the regulations,” Yun said, cutting it off, “but because of this man, we struck a major blow to the Red King.”
“That is irrelevant.”
The big man spun around in his chair to face the android. “How would it look in the media if they find out we fired him for it? He’s staying. End of discussion.”
The androids turned their heads back to face forwards and Hammell fought to hide the grin that was threatening to escape on his face. Go, Yun!
“What about me?” Asha Ishi asked quietly and a Hammell felt a sudden chill rush down his spine. The Commissioner hadn’t mentioned her once.
“You,” Yun said, “are not so lucky.” He cleared his throat and spoke formally. “Asha Ishi, your contract has been terminated. Your badge and your access to polnet have been revoked. You have ten minutes to collect your belongings and return anything in your possession which belongs to Interpol or the state.”
“Wait,” Hammell blurted out, surprising himself, “she was just as responsible as me for finding that warehouse.”
“Unfortunately, in this case, that really is irrelevant,” Yun said. “She committed aggravated physical assault and assault with a deadly weapon. I’m sorry, Asha. You’ve been tried and convicted on both counts.”
The two androids behind Yun stepped forwards as guns popped out of their wrists; every android seemed to be armed with a real gun these days, even the administrators. One produced a set of plastic cuffs from a compartment in its thigh as Asha Ishi’s eyes darted around the room as if searching for a way out. Hammell would’ve put money on the fact that she’d fight, but she became utterly still as the androids bound her.
“I.T.F. killed everyone anyway,” Hammell attempted, using Asha Ishi’s own argument.
“I have no jurisdiction over I.T.F.,” Yun said. “Theirs is a military remit. Ours is not.”
“That’s some pretty fine legal hair-splitting. She’s convicted of assault on two people they’re allowed to murder two minutes later.”
“They didn’t kill the woman,” Yun said.
Hammell had to cough to cover his reaction. He tried desperately to think of some other argument, but deep down he knew it was pointless. He was arguing with the messenger here. The decision had been made higher up and there was nothing Yun or anyone else could do about it.
“How long is the sentence?” Hammell asked as the androids pulled Asha Ishi up and began leading her away.
“It doesn’t matter,” Asha Ishi said as she disappeared through the door.
There goes another partner, Hammell thought. There goes your last partner. There were too few I.A.s left now for them to work in pairs and still cover all shifts.
“YOU!” the Commissioner said, pointing at Hammell with sudden ferocity.
“Me?” Hammell mouthed, pointing to his chest.
“You will do exactly as I say from now on. You will stop looking for Roy Brown, or anyone connected to him. If you have any further intel on the Red Hands, you will hand it over to Captain Nieder immediately. Then you will sit at your desk, quietly, and will not move again until you clock out at the end of your shift. Is that clear?”
“What about the toilet?” Hammell asked. “Can I go to the toilet?”
“No!” Yun exploded. “You cannot fucking go to the fucking toilet!”
Hammell sat in his chair watching the main office through the blinds. There were more people around than there had been for years - I.T.F. Agents, mainly - but he was feeling more detached than ever. When Providence had first gone online all those years ago, he remembered thinking that he couldn’t have felt much more hamstrung. How wrong he'd been. Maybe this was this some kind of revenge for all the years of aggravation he’d given Yun; to be contained in a form of prison, an I.A. in name only, a man without purpose. The Commissioner surely had to know that would be a slow and painful death for a man like Hammell.
Pulling up a skywall display, he located the alert, which had only just been revealed to the wider police force. How many other secret projects does Providence have? Asha Ishi had been sentenced to twenty years on a chain gang, where she would be worked to the bone cleaning and repairing the society she had wronged. To some extent, he felt sorry for her, but he also kne
w that she’d made her own bed. He was however moderately surprised to find that he would miss her as he stared at the empty chair across the room. Even a moody, paranoid, borderline psychotic partner is better than none.
Sitting back in his chair, he picked up an elastic band and began twiddling it around in his fingers. Something was nagging at him about the whole thing - the same thing that bothered him about The Fox and Crow. How had they caught her? Had Stein reported the bloody objects she had brought to him? Even if he had, how had Providence known for sure that an assault had taken place? How had it known Asha Ishi had been the one doing the assaulting?
An alarm sounded, breaking into Hammell’s thoughts. Physical bells were ringing within the building, he realised. His first thought was that it was a fire, but then skywall displays all over the building should have been switching on automatically to direct people to the nearest exits. Swiping Asha’s alert away, he connected to polnet, only to see the alert pop right back up again, having turned red again.
“Hello,” Hammell said to himself as he pulled up a live security feed from the cells on the lower levels. “What’s going on here?”
From what he could make out, Asha Ishi was in the process of receiving her prisoner transfer slacks down in the temporary holding area. Somehow she had managed to escape her handcuffs and knock over her guards. She was free for a moment, but then three additional androids moved in to restrain her. They quickly had everything in hand, pinning Asha Ishi between them. Then something dropped from her hand and there was a sudden flash. The camera went dead.
She’s going to run.
Leaping out of his chair, Hammell sprinted through the door and up the stairs to the crisis centre, where I.T.F. Agents and androids were already frantically calling up displays, trying to pick Asha Ishi up on Providence. An out-of-breath Commissioner Yun appeared on the mezzanine, one of his shadows in tow. “Find her!” Yun bellowed. “Lock down the building!”
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