SINdicate

by J. T. Nicholas

  The residents of the LNW were, I knew, a dark mirror to the plight of the synthetics. They were full citizens, with all the rights and freedoms that came along with that status. They had access to all the basic necessities of life; between the BLS, UniCare, and various other social programs, no one fell through the cracks. And yet, even as the safety net had grown, the top of the pyramid had restricted further and further, until the odds against climbing it were so slim that significant percentages of the population had simply stopped trying, convincing themselves that they were content with the lives they had, the things they had been given.

  That contentment, however, seldom lasted more than a single generation. It was the next generation, hungry for something more than mere contentment, that set the tone for places like the LNW. They knew that life, for them, was lacking something. Something indefinable that made it more than the content existence of their elders. Some got out, by luck or by design. But most remained, and all of that youthful energy had to go somewhere. It was why the predictions had been wrong. When the war on drugs had ended in a resounding defeat, the gangs and the violence hadn’t gone away.

  The restaurant—the safe house—was deep in gangland. That came with its share of problems and risks, but it also afforded us a different kind of protection from the abandoned call center. Fifty-plus people didn’t suddenly take up residence within the LNW without someone noticing, but no one was going to call the cops, either. And the cameras that blanked the city always seemed to fail in neighborhoods like the LNW. I’d still moved quickly through the twilight-shrouded streets, avoiding people wherever possible. The eye in the sky might be blinded, but any one of the people around me might be liveblogging, sending a continuous stream of their day off into the cloud—along with a billion other people around the world. Not even the feds could parse that much information, not quickly, but there was no reason to take the risk.

  I slipped the door shut behind me, listening for the metallic thunk of the bolts engaging, and turned to see Silas watching me with those eyes that radiated calm, certainty, and amusement all at once.

  Over the past month, I’d long since abandoned the habit of reaching for my sidearm every time the stocky, barrel-chested albino synthetic seemed to appear out of thin air. Instead, I growled. “I’m going to put a fucking bell on you.”

  He smiled, the barest upturn of the corners of his mouth. “I think not, Detective.”

  “How many times do I have to tell you, I’m not a detective anymore? I got canned, remember?”

  “I do,” Silas replied. “On the other hand, you’re having my people cart bodies around so you can pursue an investigation. I thought, perhaps, you might have forgotten.” He spoke in the same quiet rumble, without the barest hint of accusation, but I felt it anyway.

  “Someone found us, Silas.”

  “Which is why we moved.”

  “Yeah,” I agreed. “But whoever found us left us a nice, convenient warning. Next time it might not be a corpse and an enigmatic note. It might be the fucking riot squad kicking in the door and throwing lead downrange at anything in their path.”

  “I am not fond of these sorts of games, Detective.”

  “No shit. I’m not super excited about playing tag with a killer a week before we start trying to tear down the fucking world either. But whoever did this wants us to look for them, and, presumably, to find them. And if we don’t play along, I somehow doubt they’re going to let it drop. The message is pretty clear, Silas. We find them. Or they find us. Again.”

  Silas appeared to consider that. He turned, his gaze falling over the people crammed into what had been, at some point, the restaurant’s dining room. They sat, packed cheek by jowl, in the rotting remains of booths, or stretched out on cots placed anywhere with enough space. I silently prayed that the bathrooms were functional. If not, we’d have a serious problem.

  “Do as you must, Detective,” he said at last. “But do it quickly. And most important of all, do it carefully.”

  I bridled a bit at that. My life was no less at risk than theirs, maybe even more at risk. But time was running out, and even Silas, under all of that ineffable calm, had to be feeling the pressure. So I gritted my teeth and nodded. “Yeah. Sure. Careful.”

  “In the meantime, one of the refrigerators in the kitchen is still operable. Your…corpse…has been placed there. What, exactly, are you planning on doing with it?”

  “Using it to find some answers,” I replied. “Which means that kitchen is going to have to serve as an autopsy room.”

  Silas frowned. “I did not realize you were qualified to perform an autopsy.”

  “I’m not. I’ll be bringing in some outside help.” I braced myself for the argument I knew would be coming. Not that I could blame Silas. He held the safety of those under his protection paramount.

  But he must have been more unsettled by the appearance of the body than he had let on, because he stared at me with those strange, red-hued eyes. At last, he said, “Be very, very careful.” Without another word to me, he turned and started moving among the synthetics, stopping briefly here and there to chat or offer a word of comfort. He reminded me of a priest—or a politician. Neither was a particularly comforting thought.

  * * * *

  I got the text from Hernandez about an hour and a half later, while I was elbow-deep in an industrial sink, scrubbing years of rust and grime off a variety of baking sheets, discarded flatware, and other implements I thought might be useful in performing an autopsy. Not that our deceased would care overly much about the cleanliness of any potential instruments, but a certain amount of respect was called for.

  After some fumbling with a scrap that might once have been a dish towel, I managed to dry my hands and retrieve my screen. She’d sent me an address and a time, nothing more. Good. Nothing incriminating. Nothing to trip any of the predictive searches that the feds were undoubtedly running on the communications of all my former colleagues. Of course, a tiny, paranoid, and spiteful part of my brain reminded me, if Hernandez had been found out, that was also all the information those same feds would send to walk me right into a trap. Nothing to tip me to the fact that it wasn’t, in fact, Hernandez sending the message.

  I didn’t think that was the case, but better to be prepared, at least mentally, for the eventuality. If faced with sworn officers, what would I do? Could I bring myself to draw my weapon, to open fire on my former brothers and sisters? If the door to the restaurant was kicked in at that moment, putting a roomful of innocents in mortal danger, then, yes, I believed I could do it. But just to save myself? Just to prevent my arrest, and the subsequent interrogation? That was, after all, one of the reasons why Silas only ever told me what the first contingency location was. I had no doubt that if I was taken, that location would be skipped, and whatever information I had would be rendered all but useless. Knowing that no life but my own would be in danger, could I take the life of those just doing their job?

  I didn’t know. I wasn’t even sure what I wanted the answer to be. That uncertainty bothered me far more than the risk I was taking by showing up to meet with Ms. Morita. But I wasn’t spoiled for choices, so I collected my coat, checked to make sure my weapon and spare magazines were in place, and headed for the door.

  The synthetics had already gone to work on the points of entry to the restaurant, installing a variety of makeshift locking mechanisms that would hold out against everything short of explosives—at least for a few minutes. The skill base available in a group of gathered synthetics continued to astound me. In my former life, and much to my shame, I’d tried to minimize my interactions with the synthetics—not out of distaste, but out of the subconscious knowledge that if I paid too much attention to them, I would be unable to suppress my memories of Annabelle, the synthetic girl with whom I’d fallen in love so long ago. The girl who had been tortured and murdered. The girl for whom I had killed two people. Two human
s, if her worthless shitbag “parents” even rated the title.

  As a result of that avoidance, I’d only really encountered two types of synthetics in my day-to-day life as a cop. The first were the true menials—those relegated to positions that, as a species, we used to be certain would be done by machines. Cashiers. Waitstaff. Janitorial staff. Unskilled manual labor. It turned out that slave labor was a much more “cost-efficient” model than researching and developing the technologies needed to replace many of those human workers. The second type, I encountered more frequently as a result of the beats I had worked as a cop. Those were the sex workers, male and female, that walked the streets or worked out of the brothels in the shadier districts of town. But the spectrum of tasks for which synthetics had been trained was broader by far than I’d realized. Among the few dozen that had made their way to Silas, we had skilled carpenters, electricians, and screen technicians, all capable of operating at a professional level.

  They’d made short work of securing the area. They might not be able to fight off attackers directly, but getting to them would be no easy task. I nodded at one of the synths standing by the door, peering out through a narrow slit at the street beyond. Keeping watch for approaching trouble. “I’m heading out,” I said. “Lock up behind me?”

  “Of course, Mr. Campbell,” he replied. There was a slight subservience in his tone that grated on me. All of the synthetics, excepting only Evelyn and Silas, spoke to me in that same way. I understood why—they’d had it beaten into them, in some cases, literally, since their first moments of life. It still made me grind my teeth. “Jason,” I said. “My name is Jason.”

  “Of course, Jason,” he said again, not meeting my gaze. I was reminded, not for the first time, that even if we managed to survive the weeks and months before us, even if Silas realized all of his goals, the synthetics would still have a long, difficult road ahead.

  “One step at a time,” I said aloud, earning me a quick, albeit confused, glance from the synthetic. I didn’t know his name. With few exceptions, I didn’t know the names of any of the synthetics that were, at least nominally, under my protection. Was that a result of years of isolating myself from everyone—human and synthetic alike—to keep my own feelings off of society’s radar? Or was it because of something darker, more sinister, that lurked deep in my psyche, believing that I was, despite everything I knew to be true, somehow superior to them? I couldn’t answer that question. But whatever the underlying cause, I could start to treat the symptoms. “What’s your name?” I asked.

  “Marcus.”

  “It’s the only way we get anywhere, Marcus. One step at a time. Sometimes they’re small steps. Sometimes they’re giant, revolution-sized steps. But it’s always one step at a time.”

  He nodded, but his eyes still held that slight confusion. I offered a smile and began unlocking the bolts and bars that secured the front door.

  Time to take another step.

  Chapter 5

  Exiting the city was getting more difficult.

  The beater of a car that Silas had arrived in and given me the okay to use was, despite its appearance, quite serviceable. He’d disabled the GPS and auto-drive functions so the vehicle couldn’t be tracked, but cops were among the few people left in the city truly trained on old-school driving techniques. I could operate the vehicle just fine, and I knew my way around town without having to rely on any satellites. The problem was the roadblocks. And the protests.

  I couldn’t watch my screen—not with the auto-drive disabled. But I could listen to it, and it was currently blaring my own personal roundup of New Lyons news. The parameters I used to filter the overwhelming amount of information produced and posted online every single day parsed the stories down to only what I cared about. I’d restricted that even further, down to stories about synthetics, the situation in New Lyons, and me.

  “Protests continue across downtown,” the female anchor was saying. “There were several violent clashes as protesters and counter-protesters met. New Lyons PD responded with gas canisters to disperse the crowd. While there were no fatalities, concerns are growing as the violence levels continue to escalate with the approach of the February 1 deadline given to world governments by a synthetic terrorist organization and its spokesperson, former NLPD detective-turned-domestic-terrorist Jason Campbell.”

  I winced at that. “Next,” I said aloud, skipping the rest of the story. I didn’t need a refresher on my own background, even if the news agencies seemed to think the rest of the world did every fifteen minutes or so.

  The male anchor took over. “Traffic woes continue to plague New Lyons as police checkpoints are in operation on all major thoroughfares. Law enforcement efforts to find New Lyons’s most wanted criminal, Jason Campbell, are in full effect. If you’re planning on using any of the highways or interstates, expect delays.”

  I sighed. I could get out of the city without using major roads, but I’d been hoping for more detailed information. There was no telling what other roads might be under interdiction. I would have to take my chances and avoid any traffic patterns that looked like they might be leading to a checkpoint. Which made me wince again. A lot of people in New Lyons hated me at the moment—and I had no doubt that a good chunk of them hated me more for screwing up their commute than any other reason.

  I let the news continue to play as I navigated through the city. The app I was using had a handy feature that automatically promoted stories that were geographically close by, which helped me avoid the worst of the protests and demonstrations. I didn’t encounter any checkpoints, either by virtue of Hernandez’s choice of location—after all, she likely did know where all the checkpoints were, and the most likely route I would take to any given location—or by sheer dumb luck. One was as good as the other in my book. Whatever the cause, I arrived at the arranged meeting without incident.

  The Church of the Awakened Mind sat atop a low hill on the very outskirts of New Lyons, so far removed from the city proper that it blurred the borders between suburban and rural. As churches went, it wasn’t particularly impressive—a simple rectangle covered in cream-colored siding with a tall, narrow steeple rising from the back, maybe twelve hundred square feet in all. An unassuming building in the middle of nowhere. A pair of sconces shed light from either side of the church’s front door, but beyond that, and despite the relatively early hour, there were no other signs of life. Maybe the priest had gone home for the day, or simply sought his bed in a rectory somewhere on the grounds.

  I drove up the small road that led past the church, into the area behind it, where a parking lot acted as a buffer between the church and a modest cemetery. There were no cars in the parking lot, which gave me a momentary jolt of worry. The meeting was supposed to be at eight thirty. With the need to avoid checkpoints and protesters alike, I was running maybe fifteen minutes late. Had Tia Morita arrived on time, waited ten minutes, and left? Or had she been dropped off by a cab service?

  Or had this whole thing been a setup?

  I pulled the car into a spot and killed the headlights. I didn’t immediately exit the vehicle, giving my eyes a minute to adjust to the darkness. A low wall surrounded the cemetery, and though I could just make out an occasional lamppost, none of them were turned on. A cost-saving measure by the little church? Maybe. I eased my forty-five in its holster, my heart beating a little faster. With my left hand, I reached down beside the seat and grabbed a plastic bag that rustled softly as its contents shifted. Then I stepped from the car.

  Hernandez’s text had been nonspecific as to where, exactly, the meet would take place. The cemetery. The address. The time. If everything was on the up-and-up, my best course of action was to wait by the car. If Tia was here, she had almost certainly seen me pull in to the parking lot and would likely be moving in my direction. On the other hand, if it was a setup, teams were probably already moving into position, and staying in one place would make it easie
r for them. I’d already decided that simply getting back in the car and driving away was out of the question—if I did that, my chances of finding whoever had dropped a body on my doorstep would fade from slim to none. So I hopped over the low wall and began to move amongst the gravesites.

  The boneyard was a mix of standard headstones and raised mausoleums. We were far enough inland that the aboveground resting places were more a nod to New Lyons tradition than built that way out of any real need. Right now, for me, they were both a blessing and a curse. They provided me with decent cover from any bad guys lurking in the shadows…but they also obstructed my sight lines, making it difficult for me to see if there were any bad guys lurking in said shadows.

  I didn’t know where Ms. Morita might be, so I moved inward, toward the heart of the cemetery. The place was not so large that finding the medical examiner’s assistant should be a great endeavor, but the poor lighting, obstructed sight lines and my reluctance to call out—I didn’t want to give away my position in the event that this was a trap—made it difficult to see much of anything. But if I was going to meet someone in a boneyard, the center seemed as good a place as any.

  I slipped among the headstones and around the mausoleums, paying more attention to my ears than my eyes, listening hard for the rustle of a leaf or a sharply drawn breath. It didn’t take long to near the center. It would have taken only five or six minutes at a brisk, direct walk. It took me closer to fifteen, moving quietly and taking a more circuitous route. As I reached the inner ring of the graveyard, I eased around the corner of a mausoleum. At the center of the yard stood a large family crypt, probably a hundred square feet or so, with the name Corbeaux etched into the stone above the sealed doors. In front of the doors stood a slim shape, a wash of darker shadow against the night.