Murder in the Fabric

by Andrew Jennings

level employee is suddenly thrown across a highway. He needed to visit SciTec. George couldn’t help but glance at the wall as he entered the room. In a sense he was a slave to it. They all were.

  “SciTec. Who’s up for it?” he said.

  “I’m in.” Alice said.

  The car swung out of the underground garage of the fun palace up into the bright light of Docklands. Taking a left to Footscray. Not the central district, or St Kilda for SciTec. As the bright, shining future it took a new path and built its headquarters far away from its competitors.

  Alice did a rapid catchup on the corporate history. Creation stories. Myths. It was long enough ago, and in a place not known for its critical press. Unlikely that out of Shanghai would spring a criticism or a correction.

  // Oscar

  It wasn’t meant to play out this way, Oscar thought. Natalie had quickly steered him in the direction of a taxi, back to her flat. Nodding to her flatmate as they crossed the lounge, she was a woman on a mission. In seconds she had shed her clothes, dived under the covers. He didn’t need encouragement, but he found himself underneath her, with those eyes locked on his. She tilted up, onto her hands and he was transfixed. Despite being smaller, she was stronger, and she was not going to let go.

  In the darkness he didn’t dare look at his phone. She wasn’t snoring, but was breathing heavily on the pillow. He looked across. When he thought of what he was actually doing he was suddenly wracked with guilt. A new feeling. For so long he had been living from contract to contract, from place to place. Somehow the ruthlessness came more naturally to him in a foreign location. Here it was all so bloodless. He had begun to remember the old Oscar. Dangerous thoughts. He dared not share them with Mia.

  In the early morning her eyes swung open.

  “You didn’t disappear. I was sure you would be gone when I woke up.” she said.

  “Would you rather I was?”

  “Of course not.”

  “Don’t you have to go to work?” he said

  “Sure. You?”

  “Yes. Soon.”

  He was struggling to hold the cover. An actual software company, in Footscray. What if she decided to visit? He was so unprepared. He could say that the security was too tight, and meet her in the streets. She moved closer. He was totally unprepared for the eyes. Lost in them.

  // George

  Alice swung into the SciTec forecourt. A largish building overshadowed the front courtyard. It wasn’t clear what to do with the car. The doors swung open, and a young man with a badge on came out. He gestured toward a parking spot.

  George and Alice were escorted into the foyer. Through a series of gates, much like you would at an airport. Although these scans were new to George. Clearly the latest, looking for anything that transmitted, or anything that had the capability.

  “What was all that about?” George said as they were in the elevator, with their escort.

  “Anything. Everything. For a nondescript company they seem to expect highly equipped visitors.” she said.

  They were ushered in to an office on the eighteenth floor. All shiny surfaces and empty space, it seemed the size of a football field.

  A tall, male person in an extremely dark suit greeted them.

  “Xu Wei” he said.

  “I’ve assembled the people that worked directly with Peter. We are all just so upset, as you can imagine. Unfortunately we have two people off sick.”

  His voice was almost perfect in its Australian accent. The profiles told George that he originally hailed from rural China. Somewhere he had taken the time, or the training, to perfect the sounds. George looked across at Alice, and she gave him a ‘don’t misbehave’ look.

  They were ushered into a conference room.

  “Thank you for giving us your time.” George said. “I am sure you are all shocked by this. But we need your help.”

  He looked around the group. They were as ashen-faced as you would expect.

  “Anything. Anything out of the usual is of value to us.” George said. “What was he working on?”

  Xu glanced down the table. George thought that it was like a warning sign, as in don’t even think about it.

  “Security.” he said

  “I gather the whole division is devoted to security. That includes drones, city-wide systems, ...I’m reading from your website.” George said

  “He was a key person. We moved him around a lot.” he said

  George paused. He thought about doing the ‘murder inquiry’ speech. But he doubted that on its own that wouldn’t shift anything around here.

  “Enemies?” George asked. “Any disagreements at work?”

  “Peter wasn’t the type to get into arguments.” the male opposite answered. Similar age to Peter.

  “You are?”

  “Mark Abromowitz. We worked together most of the time.”

  “How would you describe Peter?”

  “He was a detail person. You have to be. It only takes one missing part, and it all collapses.”

  George felt like he was at a funeral. Normal people suddenly mutated into angels. Somehow all those shitty things they had done vanished. He looked along the line, to the end. A woman of indeterminate age, somewhere from 30 to 40. He caught her eye, and just for a moment he thought he saw something.

  More questioning of a nondescript nature. More banter. Then they were on their way out of the conference room. He caught sight of the woman making for the exit, in the directions of the toilet. Quickly he whispered to Alice “follow her”

  “The toilets?” Alice asked

  “Just over there” Xu replied.

  As Alice entered the toilet one of the cubicles was occupied. She could clearly hear the sobbing. But as soon as the cubicle occupant became aware, she stopped.

  Alice and Steve made their way back out to the foyer.

  “Did you catch her name?” George asked

  “No. But I got a photo.” she said.

  “Brilliant. Upload it to Steve.”

  George messaged Steve:

  “Get the wall to chase all intersections between that face and the victim.”

  It would take a while. Match the face, then search surveillance footage, then look for matches where they in close vicinity. No doubt a long list of them arriving at work. But the sobbing was all he had to work with.

  // Oscar

  Oscar walked back along the Yarra in the early morning light. How was it that he felt totally lost in such familiar surroundings?

  Mia smiled. She could see from his disheveled appearance the success, but also see how disoriented he felt.

  “Your new career not quite what you thought?” she said.

  “I doubt that anyone would complain. But yes, not exactly what I anticipated.”

  “How’s that?”

  “She’s a handful.”

  “But she’s in the best hands. Yes?”

  Oscar slumped in front of a monitor. Wishing that everything in life was as abstract as computers Mia busied herself with cultivating and feeding the online presence. Much like the care of a tiger, she thought.

  Then there was another incoming from the backers. She looked across at Oscar, making sure that he didn’t see the screen. Then it was time for a walk through Southbank, to another dead letter drop. A radius to penetrate, a bluetooth connection to make.

  It was growing. Another recruit. Jesus he was young. Mia fixated on the image. Since when did they start to look like they had just graduated from kindergarten?

  // Mia

  Like a dance of birds. She headed for the open space at the western end of Docklands, on the bike. With the scarf and the glasses, suitably anonymous. He also. Of the tens of moving commuters circling in the open space, he was one, and she was another. They circled, trying to decide whether it was safe to stop moving. Watching for a movement in the drones overhead. Once satisfied, they sat on a bench.

  “Offer you couldn’t refuse.” she said.

 
“Huh?”

  “When you were recruited. They put you in a position where joining was the only option.”

  “Not at all. They contacted me, mentioned a job. It looked interesting.”

  Flexible, she thought. Different approaches for different targets. Still, he was definitely in.

  “You like it?”

  “Sure. But they are super-secretive. I know they are in the secrets business, but it gets a bit ridiculous.”

  Tell me about it, she thought.

  “Hardware. You comfortable with that?” she said.

  “Absolutely. It’s my thing.” he said.

  “Well you won’t have trouble with this then.”

  She opened up the cardboard box, and put one of the chips on the table. He picked it up, read the numbers. Which seemed to mean something to him.

  “Drone guidance systems. These are good. But what are we going to do with them?” he asked.

  “They sent a briefing. Where was it?” she fiddled with the pad, and finally passed the note to him.

  He sat back and went through it carefully. Mia looked out over the city, with the sun glinting over the bay. It looked so beautiful.

  “They look authentic.” Michael said.

  “At the prices they charge, they should.”

  “But they are not. Copies?”

  “More than copies. We can program them.”

  “Seriously? We tap in and change the code.” he said.

  “Even better. We show the drone a picture and the mode changes based on what we have programmed in.”

  Michael turned the chip over.

  “So all we have to do is substitute the chips. But don’t they do integrity checks?”

  “These will pass the sort of checks they do. ”

  // George

  By the time George and Alice were back at the fun palace, the wall had assembled a vast array of footage. As he expected, most of it was of