After Life (Power Reads Book 2)

by Dean Crawford

  ‘He was a recluse, right?’ Han added.

  ‘He was,’ Arianna replied. ‘He took very few visitors, and even I only travelled to his house once every fortnight or so.’

  ‘Why?’ Han pressed. ‘What was his issue?’

  ‘I can’t say,’ Arianna replied, ‘but I can say with some certainty that he was not suicidal the last time I spoke with him.’

  ‘Which was when?’ Myles asked.

  ‘Barely an hour ago.’

  ‘And he gave no indications of being depressed?’ Han asked. ‘Did he reveal anything to you that might have suggested concerns for the future, for family or friends?’

  ‘Nothing,’ Arianna insisted. ‘He had no other family, or many friends for that matter. In fact he was quite upbeat and had arranged for us to meet for lunch today at The Ivory.’

  ‘The restaurant?’ Han asked. Arianna nodded without speaking. ‘Hell of a place,’ Han observed. ‘Amazing that somebody with all that wealth would choose to take their own life, especially when they’ve got an upload waiting for them anyway. Why rush?’

  ‘My father had absolutely no intention of uploading when his time came,’ Arianna pointed out. ‘He was as opposed to being a holosap as I am.’

  Han glanced at her collar. ‘So we understand.’

  ‘What’s that supposed to mean, detective?’

  ‘Alexei Volkov was one of the earliest financial supporters of what became Re–Volution,’ Han explained. ‘He backed out just after The Falling overcame the population, never explained why.’

  ‘Because it was an unholy mess,’ Arianna replied. ‘Alexei knew the difference between science and idiocy.’

  ‘Idiocy?’ Han echoed her. ‘I guess being beamed up into immortality is only idiocy if you don’t like it. Odd, though, how Alexei commits suicide right after a bomb hits the Revo’ building, don’t you think?’

  Arianna stared at Detective Reeves. ‘You seriously think he did it,’ she said flatly.

  ‘Or you did,’ Han replied, ‘because you were the last person to see him alive.’

  ***

  6

  The mansion was located on the Embankment, with a small mooring behind security gates blocking access from the Thames. No boats were allowed due to the smuggling that plagued the city, a black market trade in items from the dangerous wilderness beyond the river sought by the rich and obtained by criminals willing to risk infection travelling into the forests. Arianna got out into the chill air, surrounded once again by flashing hazard lights that reflected off the mansion of glass as though it were a gigantic kaleidoscope, rainbow hues contrasting with the grey sky.

  Han and Myles led her past the police cordons and into the mansion.

  White tiled floors and minimalistic polished steel furniture dominated Alexei’s refuge. Canvasses of impressionist works hung in flashes of colour on the otherwise sparse walls as Han led her up a spiral staircase to the second floor.

  The harsh taint of smoke and chemicals stung her throat as they reached a corridor that led into the north wing and the master bedroom. The fittings near the door were charred and crumbling, everything cast in shades of black. Arianna slowed as a forensics team in white overalls and masks moved past them, and a uniformed officer guarding the entrance to the bedroom waved them through.

  Arianna saw the smouldering bed almost immediately, dominating the far end of the room. A charred square of brittle metal springs draped in loops of white foam that had been hosed in from outside. A cold wind gusted through the room where the fire crews had deliberately fired projectiles through the toughened windows to gain access for their hoses.

  Draped across the skeletal metallic bed was the body of Alexei Volkov. Arianna choked back a sob of grief and loathing as the smell of burned flesh coated the back of her throat with something slimy.

  ‘Breathe slow,’ Han advised her. ‘Your brain will adjust soon enough and scrub the smell from your mind.’

  ‘And the memory?’ she coughed.

  ‘That’s there forever I’m afraid.’

  Arianna edged forward and saw that Alexei’s corpse was charred beyond recognition, a blackened hulk of scorched tissue scoured of any recognisable features.

  ‘Are you sure it’s Alexei?’ Arianna asked, tears blurring her eyes.

  ‘Forensics have taken blood samples from his core,’ Myles answered for Han. ‘They’ll probably check his teeth too to confirm the identity.’

  ‘There was no sign of forced entry,’ Han added, ‘and no security alerts from the home’s systems. It looks like Alexei died here alone.’

  ‘Did he upload in time?’

  ‘Re–Volution’s people got here at the same time as the emergency services,’ Myles reported. ‘His implant signalled them as soon as Alexei’s heart stopped beating. They got him wired up once the fire was out but we don’t yet know if the transfer was completed. It took the fire crews several minutes to control the blaze and gain access to the body.’

  Arianna closed her eyes in regret. ‘The heat might have damaged his brain. If they couldn’t upload him, we won’t know what happened.’

  ‘Which is why you’re here,’ Han explained. ‘Did Alexei present any indication that he was going to commit suicide despite what he said to you about meeting for lunch?’

  ‘None,’ Arianna replied firmly. ‘He was an extremely wealthy man but he came from a very poor background. He used to tell me about his childhood in Siberia. He was the eldest and only survivor of three children. He knew how lucky he was to have this life, and spent most of his time donating to and supporting charities across the globe before The Falling. It’s part of the reason why he supported early work into holonomic entities – he knew the pain of losing siblings, and wanted to prevent others from having to go through the same loss.’

  Han nodded and scanned the grim scene with a practiced eye.

  ‘The problem I’ve got is that this blaze was started deliberately by somebody,’ he said. ‘It burned with incredible ferocity and speed, which means an accelerant was used. But we have no evidence of anybody entering or exiting the building.’

  ‘What about the security cameras?’ Arianna asked. ‘Wouldn’t they have seen something?’

  ‘First place we looked,’ Myles said. ‘Nobody on them. Alexei was alone.’

  ‘Then why the suspicion?’ Arianna asked Han. ‘My opinion is just that, an opinion. Maybe there were things that Alexei did not want to share with me, fears or emotions or regrets that he buried deep inside that eventually caught up with him?’

  ‘Maybe,’ Han agreed, ‘or maybe those thoughts were planted inside him by a psychologist.’

  Han looked down at her for a moment. Arianna coughed out a bitter laugh.

  ‘Seriously? You’re saying I’m a suspect?’

  ‘Right now everybody with a connection to Alexei Volkov is a suspect.’

  ‘That’s more than ridiculous,’ Arianna gasped. ‘I was nearly blown into a million pieces less than an hour ago! I hadn’t been in this house for several days! How on Earth can you suspect me of murdering him?’

  Myles stepped forward and produced a data–roll. He slid the glossy electronic screen onto a charred bedside table and pointed at the documents glowing inside it.

  ‘Is it true that six months ago, on your thirtieth birthday, Alexei Volkov gifted to you the promise of an upload?’

  Arianna struggled to speak. ‘Yes, it is.’

  Arianna had been stunned when her reclusive philanthropist father revealed that he had reserved her a place as a holosap. The cost of a place was equivalent to about thirty years’ of her salary, far beyond her means. For most people an upload was merely the stuff of dreams, like a win on those old fashioned lotteries that used to operate in better days. Alexei had said that although he understood her opposition to uploading, she was the only heir to his fortune and as was her nature would probably seek to help others before helping herself. He had insisted: no upload, no inheritance, and written it into his will.


  Arianna had never wanted Alexei’s money, an inheritance that most people would gladly have killed for. She had occasionally fantasised about handing out his billions to the poor and the needy living in the rat–runs of the East End, but somehow the thought of doing so had always seemed like a betrayal of Alexei’s hardships, the jewel of his determination cast away to others less able.

  Alexei had begged her to agree, if only to protect his fortune from the government who would no doubt attempt to claim it in his absence and her refusal. Accept, he had said, and at least you will be able to control its distribution.

  Arianna had been implanted with her revised chip two weeks later.

  Every single person in the city possessed a chip, implanted between the frontal lobes of the brain when the recipient was aged four years, as a requirement by law. The procedure was simple and painless, the chip slightly smaller and shorter than a matchstick and inserted under local anaesthetic. Standard chips performed two main functions: firstly, they monitored a person’s location in the city. Second, they monitored their body’s vitals and kept a watch for the first tell–tale signs of The Falling, signalling an infection inside the city and triggering an immediate quarantine signal to law enforcement.

  Advanced chips performed a third function via bio–neural networking. Two biological growths extended gradually from the top of the chip into the frontal lobes of the brain, providing a natural link between the human brain and the chip. The link recorded every facet of the person’s daily life through the signals processed within their mind, a sort of mobile Big Brother, which was then stored by Re–Volution. Should the person die, and be fortunate enough to possess an upload, the data was then uploaded into a holosap. The brain, scanned in tremendous detail during the initial download, was then rebuilt and the memories on the chip inserted as part of the program.

  Immortality, forged in binary code and stored forever.

  ‘And is it true,’ Myles went on, ‘that the upload would be automatically verified to you only upon Alexei’s death?’

  ‘Yes,’ Arianna said, and sighed. ‘Alexei disliked holosaps as much as I do, so he held back on activating the upload, something which I did not question at all.’

  Han gestured to the billionaire’s corpse lying on the remains of the bed. ‘Maybe something changed for you?’

  Arianna felt a surge of liquid anger flush hot down her spine.

  ‘Don’t you think that if I was going to kill him I’d have just shot him in the head?’

  ‘That would be an obvious murder,’ Han pointed out. ‘This is much more ambiguous. The use of the accelerant could have been by Alexei himself, but we just can’t be sure. That means it is a suspected homicide.’

  Arianna gaped at him as she struggled to understand why she would even be under suspicion on such lame evidence.

  ‘Alexei was old,’ she uttered. ‘He would have died eventually, probably of natural causes. If it was the upload I was after all I had to do was wait. And how could I have got in here and burned him when I was sitting on my arse with bleeding ears several miles away across the damned city?’

  Han raised an eyebrow in interest at her tirade. ‘Which you escaped from just in the nick of time, and I didn’t tell you Alexei’s time of death, Miss Volkov.’

  Arianna laughed again. ‘Call yourselves detectives? The bed is still dripping with retardant foam, the room stinks and you guys are both clean shaven which suggests you’re fresh to the case.’

  Han and Myles exchanged a glance. ‘There are other detective teams,’ Han replied. ‘Foam hangs around for days, as does smoke, and I shave every morning.’

  ‘Then we both have a shaky theory,’ Arianna shot back.

  Han grinned. ‘Except that we both know you’re capable of murder, Miss Volkov.’

  Arianna stared at the detective for a long moment. She felt her lips quivering and hot tears beading on her eyes.

  ‘How could you know that?’ she managed to ask. ‘That’s personal information. You have no right to…’

  ‘We attained warrants almost immediately,’ Myles cut her off. ‘In the case of any mortality or fatal accident, we have the right to suspend personal confidentiality orders if there is sufficient suspicion of foul play. The swift and uncharacteristic nature of Alexei Volkov’s apparent suicide was considered by the Attorney General sufficient to warrant data retrieval on any persons either related or closely affiliated with the victim.’

  Han Reeves spoke softly.

  ‘It’s my bet that we will find evidence of an accelerant, perhaps somewhere in the remains of the bed, that could have been placed there to ignite beneath the victim. More to the point, The Falling will breach the city eventually, and anybody without an active upload will likely be abandoned, just like people were when London was quarantined.’

  Arianna staggered sideways slightly and put her hand down on a scorched table top that still felt warm to the touch. Detective Han Reeves’ voice reached her as though from the opposite side of the universe.

  ‘We know about your husband’s death,’ he said, ‘and that you escaped conviction on the thinnest of alibis. Miss Volkov, I’m sorry to say that you are the only person who had access to this room, a motive to kill Alexei Volkov and a likely will to do so.’

  ***

  7

  Bayou La Tour, Louisiana

  Gulf of Mexico

  ‘Air lock activated, please check your HazMat suits and air cylinders.’

  Marcus D’Souza tried to ignore the cloying heat and glanced down at two pressure gauges attached to a utility belt on his suit and saw them both reading acceptable levels. As he did so, a smaller man with a balding head and dressed in a quaint tweed suit and patterned bow–tie head walked slowly around him, checking that his Hazmat suit was sealed.

  ‘You ever think about switching that tweed for something else?’

  Dr Reed shook his head as he examined Marcus’s boot bindings. ‘No. I loved it.’

  Marcus didn’t miss the doctor’s past tense reply.

  Dr Reed stood up, and in the heat his projected image flickered slightly. Reed had died some years earlier from The Falling. Or, to be more accurate, the British expert in infectious disease had decided to take his own life in Gabon after becoming infected during a research mission. The Falling’s flesh eating nature tended to attack brains as well as everything else, preventing upload for those deeply infected, and Reed had decided to take no chances. As a valuable field research scientist, his upload had been sanctioned and paid for by the British government.

  ‘All seals are secure,’ Reed said as he stood up. ‘You’re good to go, as you Yanks say.’

  ‘Okay Kerry, let’s do it.’

  The voice of Dr Kerry Hussein, Marcus’s companion in the remote field station, echoed through his protective headgear.

  ‘Doors opening in five seconds. Take care out there.’

  Moments later, the airlock hissed as air pressure from within drove a breeze out into the muggy heat of Louisiana’s burning skies. Marcus walked swiftly out into the bayou and turned, giving a camera above the airlock a quick thumbs–up. The airlock doors hissed shut again and he was alone but for Dr Reed’s holosap and thick clouds of insects buzzing lazily on the hot air.

  Marcus turned and looked out across the bayou.

  Through rolling banks of bugs flowing like rivers through the air he could see the distant and crumbling city of New Orleans, a monument of city blocks and roads shimmering in the heat, and closer by the virtually unrecognisable town of Lafitte. Even from a mile away he could see that the buildings were caked in filth and thick vegetation, windows broken and the roofs of smaller buildings either sagging inward or already collapsed beneath the weight of foliage.

  The forests and the swamps had reclaimed the cities far faster than anybody could have imagined, mostly down to the fact that there were no longer any herbivorous mammals left to consume them. Likewise, the insects thrived with no birds to pluck them from the air o
r rodents to hunt them on the ground.

  ‘Let’s go,’ Dr Reed said, his voice sounding small in the wilderness. ‘You’ve only got an hour’s worth of air.’

  Marcus heard his own breathing rasp as he sucked in blessedly cool air from his compressed tanks, that air already filtered and cleaned in the laboratory. His suit had the capacity to filter air directly from the environment around him, but neither he nor any other researcher working in one of the many remote stations around the world fancied taking that chance, not with a pandemic as virulent as The Falling.

  ‘This way,’ he said.

  Dr Reed followed Marcus, who had a small digital display projected onto the clear visor of his head gear. The display was of a grid system laid out over the terrain before him, each grid representing an area of land that had already been searched, sometimes with small chunks of text denoting discoveries of interest.

  Marcus headed through the grid toward its edge, where an old road ran through the bayou toward the looming city nearby.

  ‘Any sign of life?’ Marcus asked.

  Kerry Hussein’s voice came back to him from the compound.

  ‘Nothing yet but keep your eyes open, the heat’s affecting the sensors.’

  Marcus nodded to himself inside the headgear, and glanced to his right to see Dr Reed pacing alongside him.

  ‘You’d better take the lead,’ Marcus said, ‘in case anything nasty jumps out at us. Head for Lafitte.’

  Dr Reed obeyed without question, despite his greater experience as a scientist. The simple fact was that since becoming a holosap Reed was automatically required to obey Marcus, a living human. Although Marcus enjoyed being the senior scientist, he knew that the reasons for the altered pecking order after death were more to do with practicality than discrimination: as a holosap Dr Reed could not physically manipulate anything in the world around him. However, it also meant that he could not be infected by The Falling, or harmed by any other of the many nasties, as Kerry named them, living in the bayou.