by Damien Boyes
“So you’re saying there’s no door?”
“There has to be one somewhere, but we’re not going to find it like this.”
“You have a better idea?”
“Yeah,” she says, hesitates, then jams her bag in my chest. “Watch my stuff.”
Her eyes zig in her head and then fall slack. Her body sways but remains standing.
“Dora?” She doesn’t answer, continues to stare into nothing.
She doesn’t move for ten minutes. I’ve taken to stamping around in circles, trying to generate a little body heat when one of the metal doors opens nearby. A naked man steps out, looks up and down the alley.
“Fin!” he yells. “Over here.”
“Who—”
“Just get over here. It’s cold and this guy’s penis is burning something fierce.”
I jog over to the door, glance back at Dora. She’s still standing there, motionless, oblivious to the world.
The man stands aside to let me in, knees together, flexed like he has to pee.
The room beyond him is small, square, and offers a view from the clouds over the endless sprawl of a fantastical cityscape. It’s like I walked out of the alley and into the top floor of a high rise in Wonderland.
Below us are buildings made of water, a giant mushroom neighbourhood, a stretch of structures that look like sets from a 50’s sci-fi flick, and on and on and on, with creatures of every sort careening past the windows in flying cars or jetpacks or via the wings on their back. My stomach flips at the spacial incongruity, unbalanced by the conflict between what my eyes are seeing and what my brain knows is true.
“Hold the door for me,” the naked man says, blows a kiss at me then collapses against the wall and slides to the floor. I step over him, poke my head back outside. Dora’s already on her way over.
“You’ve been here before?” I say as she sweeps past me and I let the door shut behind her.
“No, but I learned a lot while you’ve been gone,” Dora says with a wink. “I created an anonymous account, booked a skyn and walked out on the guy who wanted to have sex with it to let you in. Easy.”
“Where’s the guy?”
“Upstairs. Frustrated, probably.”
“Good work,” I say. And mean it. I couldn’t have stayed out there much longer.
“I’m not just a pretty face,” she says, smiling from inside her hood. She takes her bag from me and hugs it close.
The room itself is empty except for a janky skyn in a dirty one-piece cramming a burger into his mouth. There’s a take-out bag on the table and seven or eight balled up yellow wrappers on the floor around him.
Once we’re inside and the warmth has penetrated my numbed appendages, I bring my hand up to shade my eyes and immediately feel silly when the elevated vista disappears—it’s all just an elaborate TeleviZ set-up.
I should have known. Once I start looking, it’s easy to find Tz projectors studded throughout the room. An illusion projected directly onto my corneas. A good one too, and way more cost-effective than renovations, but not good enough to hide the old-milk smell of a building days away from the recycler.
Hiding my corneas from the sensors fools the cameras and reveals reality: a dingy room with water-stained drywall, warped wooden floors, and a hidden row of medpods. Five of the pods are empty, but the rest contain a variety of skyns ready for use. A closet full of outfits waits beside them. A flight of stairs on the other side of the room leads to upper floors.
The lone skyn doesn’t seem to notice us, continues obliviously stuffing his face, staring off into nothing.
I drop my hand. A half second later the sensors find my eyes and the magical vista reappears, accompanied by a familiar buzzing sound from above us.
Someone’s noticed we’re here and sicced the drones.
“Shelt,” I call out. “It’s Finsbury Gage. I just want to talk.”
A woman snaps into existence between us and the stairs, her face stern, wearing fatigues and a gun belt. A teenager’s idea of an authority figure. “Gage Gibson and person unknown,” she drawls. “You are trespassing. You have five seconds to exit the premises or lethal force will be employed.”
“Fin,” Dora says from inside her hood. “Maybe we should go.”
I can’t leave. Shelt’s my only link to Dub.
“I’m here to help you, Shelt.” I yell. “Someone killed Dub, you might be next.”
“Three seconds,” the woman says. An ominous trilling, the sound of a swarm of gas-powered weed whackers, echoes down the stairwell.
“Give me your gun,” I say to Dora.
“You can’t shoot your way out of this,” she scolds.
“Shelt’s here. I’m not leaving.” I grab at her bag and she turns away, guarding it. It’s too late anyway.
“One.”
The whirring cranks up a notch as three drones whirl down the stairs, their rotors tilting in perfect synchronicity to stop with us covered from more angles than they need. Their attached weapons are small calibre, short barrels under the control pods, but at this range and with their accuracy, small is good enough. Even if I had Dora’s weapon, I wouldn’t be able to get a shot off before they took us both down.
The skyn with the burgers has finally noticed us and slowed his eating to watch. He likely wasn’t expecting a live show with his dinner.
“Shelt,” I say, raising my hands to the drones. “I just want to talk.”
“That’s exactly what someone who came to kill me would say,” a voice answers, seemingly from everywhere, as if the building itself was speaking. “I get a call from someone with your ID claiming to be Finsbury Gage and Dub’s dead a few hours later. I don’t believe in coincidences.”
I need him to believe me, but I have no proof. Broke into his club with nothing to offer but my word and a head full of empty memories. I’d shoot me if I were him. I offer the only thing I have. “I swear to you it’s me.”
“If you’re really Fin, what did I do the first time you came to group?”
I’m me, but not the me he knows. I shake my head. “I don’t know. But wait—”
The drones each leap forward six inches, and I reflexively step in front of Dora.
“That’s what I thought,” Shelt says. “Get out. Last chance before I perforate you, whoever you are.”
“Shelt, I may not remember you, but you know me—” I’m cut off by the clack of the drones arming their weapons.
“Stop,” Dora yells. She steps around me and pulls her hood back. “Shelt, don’t shoot. He’s telling you the truth.”
The drones hover for a second more and then chirp as the safeties re-engage.
“Dora?” Shelt’s surprised voice echoes in the room. “Jesus, I almost killed you. Is that really Fin? I didn’t know he’d restored, there’s been nothing on the rep-net about it. Where have you been…? Nevermind, just get up here. I’m on the third floor.”
“Why didn’t you do that five minutes ago?” I snap as the drones retreat back up the stairs.
“You don’t stay off-grid for six months by letting your bio/kin get rep-checked every time someone asks,” Dora snaps back, pulls her hood over her head and sulks up the stairs after the drones.
I hang back for a moment, glance over at the skyn with the burgers. He gives me a shrug, nods at the bag.
I give him a half-smile but shake my head and trudge up the stairs after Dora.
StatUS-ID
[a646:d17e:8670:511f::Finsbury/D//GAGE]
SysDate
[06:03:35. Sunday, April 14, 2058]
Dox on our lost time victim gives his address as the penthouse suite of the Larchmount Apartments, a short drive away. Walking distance.
I leave the Triumph at the treatment plant and ride along with Galvan. He lets the pilot drive while he browses his spekz. I suck it up and don’t argue. It’s a short drive. Nothing’s going to happen.
I keep my eyes on my tab to keep them off the oncoming traffic and read out loud. “Ren
e DeBlanc, rich as shit. Rep’s a point nine-two. No wonder we’re out here in the middle of the night.” Point nine-two. This guy’s either a saint or a world-class prick. And saints don’t generally list the Global Bank on their resume. I skip down the page. “Former mega-fund manager and high-ranking member of the GMF. The day he turned seventy-five, he binned his job, his wife and his body. Charming.”
“You don’t get rep like that without calling attention to yourself,” Galvan offers.
“You’re thinking he was targeted? Does the MO fit with any recent anti-Reszo activity?”
He doesn’t need to check, answers immediately. “Not really. The PPP have been quiet lately. Same with Absolute Humanity and the Knights of the Green Shield.”
As Reszos gained in power and prominence, so did their opposition. The People for Purity Party was the first and is still the most powerful anti-Reszo group in the Union. They started with violence—targeted assaults on Second Skyn clinics, one-off strikes against individual restored—but have since grown to represent a sizeable fraction of the populace. They’re especially powerful in the poorer states, with a heavy concentration in the Dixie Bloc. Now that they’ve tasted power, violence only works against them, and they’ve condemned it. Officially anyway.
In the last Union election cycle, the PPP garnered seventeen seats and nearly twenty percent of the popular vote. It’s nice to know there’s an entity out there, an institutional machine with a headquarters and a staff who operate on hundreds of millions in donations, singularly devoted to stripping away my claim to humanity.
What’s even more encouraging is that so many people seem to be cheering them on.
Galvan continues. “We’ve had plenty of random Reszo assaults though. Reszo-owned property damage, anti-Reszo graffiti. But they’re usually one-offs.”
“Maybe we’re looking at a low-stakes serial killer, someone who enjoys the taste of killing but not enough to want to do real time? The amount of lost time we’re talking about, what would you say, two years less a day?”
Galvan shrugs. “If that. The Crown would probably be happy with probation and a few hundred hours community service.”
The cruiser pulls into the circular drive leading up to the Larchmount Apartments, a gossamer and chrome NeoDeco retrofit grafted to the bones of an old junior school. Morning is breaking and the building’s gauzy exterior is catching and amplifying the golden light, doing its best to steal credit for the sunrise.
Building security attempts to take control of the car as we enter the property, aiming to drive us down into the service entrance, but I hit the override and we stop outside the front doors. As if one override wasn’t enough, the building’s secbot trundles out and tries to intercept us. I stand it down with a flash of my credentials.
“I have a theory,” Galvan says as we exit the car. “I’ve been reviewing the files and this is the third consecutive early-Sunday lost time call. The first, Zhoshan Bell, was found in an industrial zone near the freeway, and the second, Carmela Alphons, off a hiking trail in the Greenbelt. Both were in secluded areas. Both were high net-worth individuals and both were hardlocked and left to burn.”
“They’re connected.”
“So it would seem. And there’s more. They both made complaints, then suddenly refused to co-operate.”
“How long in between the complaint and them recinding it?” I ask.
“Two or three hours.”
“Then we’d better get up there before this one changes his mind too.” We enter through the copper-clad front doors. “If we can figure out where he was coming from when he was assaulted, it might give us a place to start.”
“Maybe a midnight stroll on the beach?” Galvan says.
“In fifteen-hundred dollar pants and a pair of shoes tailored to his DNA? I don’t think he was out collecting pretty stones.”
We step into the elevator and seconds later we’re on the top floor.
“How do you want to handle this?” Galvan ask as the doors slide apart on the penthouse lobby.
“You take the lead,” I say. Let’s see what the kid can do.
“Are you sure?” Galvan says, blinking. “I haven’t done many interviews. I’d learn a lot by observing your technique.”
“No learning like doing,” I say, Dad’s voice in my head. “But if you need me, let me know and I’ll jump in.”
Galvan presses his lips together and nods.
DeBlanc’s housebot glides silently up and greets us both by name in a honeyed voice. Our widened reflections stare back from its gleaming golden surface. It’s big, built more for security than housework. Two massive appendages ending in three-fingered, double-thumbed hunter fists hang at its sides, motionless, waiting for an order to move a piece of furniture or tear the legs off an intruder. Two smaller manipulator arms twitch from its thorax, delicate tendrils tasting the air for any hint of need.
“This way, please, gentlemen,” it says, then spins and leads us through the apartment’s rounded foyer and down a short flight of stairs to the huge open living area, where an unbroken wall of gently curved, floor-to-ceiling windows overlooks the jewelled expanse of Reszlieville, like a high-rise view over Oz.
My eyes take a moment to adjust to the overwhelming opulence.
The whole room is washed in gold. The floor is old wood, inset with an angular golden pattern and polished to a reflective sheen. Directly ahead is a seating area with a massive curved couch and solid onyx table with a square footage bigger than my entire apartment. An oval mahogany bar with open shelves displaying a half-mil in ultra-premium alcohol sits off to the left, and beyond that is a long, wooden dining table and about two dozen high-backed chairs all shrouded by a intricate chandelier that could have been designed a thousand years ago to predict the movement of the heavens.
Mirrors are everywhere, making the room seem larger and gaudier than it is.
I man I can only assume is our victim paces barefoot across a white fur rug that looks like it came from an animal that hasn’t existed since rhinoceroses roamed North America, a glass of bubbling amber liquid in one hand and a riding crop in the other.
Hardlocked six hours ago and he’s already deep into a new skyn. It’s tall, svelte, and lightly toasted, with abs smooth and bulged like the carapace of an insect. He’s wearing a sheer robe, a pair of gilt boxers, and nothing else. A golden cuff, so thin it looks like it was painted on, binds his neck.
An artfully dishevelled blonde with translucent skin and stencilled make up is arranged—left leg outstretched, toes pointed, ebony-tipped fingers cascading from her bent right knee—on the low, black and gold, crescent moon couch that could easily seat the rush-hour passengers of a city bus. Her robe is open, and unlike DeBlanc, she isn’t wearing anything underneath.
She doesn’t bother to cover up on our account. She doesn’t seem to be aware of us at all.
Looks like I owe Omondi a hundred bucks.
“For this I pay my taxes?” DeBlanc fumes, his accent slight but noticeably French. He stops, waves his glass at us. Champagne spills down the sides and he brings his fingers to his mouth, slurps them clean. “I am the victim of a terrible offence. This is how I’m treated?”
“Sorry to keep you waiting, Mr. DeBlanc,” Galvan says, stepping forward. His shoes squeak on the floor. I hang back, let the kid work. “We just came from the crime scene. I’m Detective Wiser,” he turns to me. “This is Detective Gage.”
“I know who you are,” he looks up and inward, “L’Inspecteur Bleu, the Rithm Rights Activist with perfect Service Academy record and a nervous disposition, et toi.” He points his glass at me. “Le Convirtir.” I’ve been called worse. Less than an hour ago. “Your lives are public record. I do not care who you are.” His nostrils flare. “I have been wronged. I demand justice.”
“That’s why we’re here, sir,” Galvan says with a mollifying tone. “Why don’t you start by telling us what happened?”
DeBlanc stops, glares like Galvan just called h
is mother a whore. “How can I? My memories were stolen from me. Are you an imbecile? Do you even have a thought in your head for how I have suffered?”
“Of course,” Galvan offers. “My apologies. But if you wouldn’t mind humouring me—what is the last thing you remember?”
He huffs a breath but co-operates. “Yesterday morning. My usual seven-fifteen massage, eight o’clock fellatio and eight-ten pattern-sync. Then this morning, at exactly three thirty-five, I find myself in Second Skyn. I am told my previous body suffered irretrievable damage. Do you understand, irretrievable. Disparu. Poof.” He wiggles his fingers in the air, watches the imaginary smoke dissipate. “Do you know what those nineteen hours and thirty-five minutes contained?”
Galvan answers immediately, with a polite smile. “Other than the part where you were chased, bludgeoned to a hardlock and your skyn set on fire, no sir, I don’t.”
I bite down on a chuckle.
Glavan’s matter-of-fact answer pauses him, but only momentarily. “Nineteen hours and thirty-five minutes of my life are stolen. I want recompense for each and every second.”
“Yes, sir,” Galvan is remaining remarkably patient. The general social awkwardness he exhibits around the station has dissipated. “Let’s get to the bottom of it together. Why don’t you take a seat?”
“Dieu maudit! I do not want to sit,” DeBlanc barks, and as if proving his point, strides over to the bar, rests his riding crop on the counter, hauls a massive bottle from a sweating gold and ivory ice bucket, refills his glass, downs it in one long swallow and then fills it again.
Beside the bucket are two empty glasses resting on their rims and next to them a huge crystal bowl filled with small flashing cylinders.
I catch Galvan’s eye, indicate the bowl on the bar. He raises an eyebrow but remains silent. He can see just as well as I can that the bowl contains hundreds of shyfts, and interspersed with the logos of various above-board merchants are more disreputable Marks, including Xiao’s unmistakable flickering red hanzi.