Rinzler: A Noir Sci-Fi Thriller

by Raya Jones

  Rinzler

  Raya Jones

  With Nimrod Jones

  © Raya Jones 2017

  Raya Jones has asserted her rights under the Copyright, Design and Patents Act, 1988, to be identified as the author of this work.

  First published in 2017 by Venture Press, an imprint of Endeavour Press Ltd.

  Table of Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 41

  Chapter 42

  Chapter 43

  Chapter 44

  Chapter 45

  Chapter 46

  Chapter 47

  Chapter 48

  Chapter 49

  Chapter 50

  Chapter 51

  Chapter 52

  Chapter 1

  Rinzler became homeless the day his luck unexpectedly changed. There was nothing unexpected about his eviction. A backlog of unopened warnings lay in his inbox. There was a final notification. Then the finality of all his belongings packed in two boxes, and a utility robot scrubbing the place clean of any forensic evidence that he had ever lived there.

  Standing in the middle of the empty one-room apartment that used to be home, Rinzler rubbed his chin, aware of stubble and lack of surprise.

  The bailiff told him to leave. He asked if he could move in with her. She winced. ‘You’re kidding me. You have only yourself to blame for getting into debt with CrimSol.’

  ‘I know, I know. For years I gave them nothing and still they want more.’

  He yawned. It was past his bedtime.

  She scowled and then sighed in resignation. ‘Okay, you can leave your boxes in my place for now. It’s for old times’ sake, don’t get any ideas.’

  ‘Thanks,’ Rinzler said appreciatively, meaning it. Her place was tiny like most homes in P-7. ‘It won’t be for long, I promise. I’m in the middle of a big case right now.’ Noticing her roll her eyes, he sheepishly shut up.

  There was no big case.

  His outstanding jobs were the usual missing persons that CrimSol outsourced to him, and a couple of jobs he took on privately. Private jobs usually meant background checks on someone somebody has met online. The missing persons were almost always low-ranking corporate citizens, who probably absconded out of sheer boredom, and Rinzler sympathised with that. He felt he was doing them a favour by procrastinating. Occasionally the missing person’s trail led to gangsters who kidnapped people for body parts, a result that made Rinzler even more reluctant to solve those cases.

  The bailiff asked whether he needed anything from his boxes.

  ‘Eh? Oh, no, no, I’m good,’ he muttered, like snapping out of reverie, and tapped the pocket with his toothbrush and shaver to demonstrate that he had everything he needed for a couple of days. She was waiting to see him vacate the premises. He couldn’t think of anywhere to go. Out of habit he set his pert for the Arcades, the entertainment district, where he’d often go to kill time.

  He pressed Send.

  His thumb hovered on Go.

  He was sorely tired. On reflection, the Arcades and its noisy ambience of commercial jingles, virtual façades and merrymaking, wasn’t a good idea.

  Rinzler put away the pert and walked out of the door, unaware that his fate changed that very moment.

  He barely passed the threshold when the bailiff vanished with his boxes. Rinzler felt oddly relieved. Being homeless is like being on holiday, no need to wash up the dishes or pack away your bed, he thought, amused. He stepped into the secluded courtyard, and the door sealed itself behind him. His biometric signature couldn’t open it anymore. It wasn’t amusing anymore.

  He seldom left his front door in all the years he lived there. Like most people he usually teleported directly in and out of his room. Now he surveyed the courtyard: still boxed in from all sides with rows of closed doors. An EnViro7 menu — a new feature, perhaps to entice residents out — popped up directly in front of him. At a lift of his finger and a subscription charge he could enjoy the ambience of a lively piazza, a sandy beach, snowy peaks, breath-taking nebula or, for an additional charge, a customised virtual environment every time he stepped out of his door. Rinzler walked through the menu. It vanished with a closing-down jingle. The low ceiling was tiled with illumination panels that flooded the immaculate enclosure with permanent artificial daylight. It made his bloodshot eyes hurt and made the place feel soulless.

  When he neared the emergency exit, a security message popped up. Using the exit was prohibited except under disaster conditions such as fire, flood, quakes, bomb alert, gravity malfunction, shield failure under severe Proxima flare conditions — not mentioning the only disaster that would require evacuating on foot: the teleport field going offline. The message reassured residents that the exit was protected against unauthorised entrance from the outside. The place was protected against stray homeless.

  There was a children’s playground and a bench nearby. Colourful slides, swings, and roundabouts stood still and silent as if untouched since being installed. It occurred to him that he could sleep on the bench.

  The logo of the security firm popped up in front of him with an urgent jingle, immediately followed by a life-sized hologram of a uniformed guard who told him that he was trespassing. When Rinzler protested, ‘But I live here,’ the apparition told him that his residency expired 39 minutes earlier. ‘Yes, I know,’ agreed Rinzler, tiredly rubbing his eyes, ‘but what will happen if I walk right through you and lie down on the bench?’

  ‘You really don’t want to do that,’ the guard said with feeling. The hologram morphed into a less-stylized woman. ‘If you do that I’ll have to press a button and yank you out. Some of the homeless we pick up disappear forever.’

  A shudder went through Rinzler. He protested lamely, ‘But I’m not homeless.’

  ‘Technically you are.’

  ‘That’s just a technicality. It’s a misunderstanding with CrimSol. I’m not homeless. You know me. It’s just a couple of days until the misunderstanding is sorted out.’

  Rinzler wasn’t broke but was reluctant to spend on hotels. He needed his savings to keep his one-man agency going. Renting a virtual office in Main Street was costly. Keeping a Main Street signpost was even costlier. His signposted boasted ‘No Job Is Too Small!’ in eye-catching neon animation, and attracted mostly small jobs. Nevertheless, most of them paid. The ‘misunderstanding’ with CrimSol was their refusal to let him buy himself out of his contract. The only way to reduce his debt was to close the cases they had referred to him.

  Standing near a playground untouched by children, he tried to persuade a guard who wasn’t there: ‘But you don’t really have to press the button, do you? You owe me. I’ve found out what
your daughter was up to on Saturday Nights, didn’t I?’

  She pointed out that she had paid his fee in full.

  ‘I don’t mean money. Saturday Nights is not a site for an eight-year-old.’

  ‘Yes, and I’m grateful for that, Rinzler. But sorry, it’s not worth risking my citizenship to turn a blind eye to your trespassing. Do us both a favour and move on.’

  Rinzler eventually arrived at the Arcades that day. He started his homelessness by walking into the claustrophobic maze of alleys and escalators, game bars and boutiques, ceaseless hubbub of jingles, relentless adverts, and a pastiche of animated scenic façades like fragments of imaginary worlds. Spotting a sign he knew, he entered a tunnel he didn’t know. It was long and narrow, illuminated by candles spaced along the walls. The image disappeared when he was barely two steps in. Stumbling into a plastic palm tree placed next to the real doorway, he cussed aloud. ‘Why is this tree here?’

  ‘To save you from bumping into the wall,’ replied a doorman, peeved that Rinzler didn’t ask why a man was doing an android’s job. ‘The tunnel should’ve been aligned with the door. We have technicians fixing it.’

  ‘But why a tunnel? What’s wrong with the tropical beach you used to have? Who wants to see tunnels? We live underground as it is. Why are you doing an android’s job?’

  ‘Don’t ask,’ the doorman rolled his eyes.

  A fortnight later Rinzler was still homeless and still unaware that he was alive because he had changed his mind about teleporting directly to the Arcades. Teleportation accidents are rare but do happen. An ‘accident’ was fixed to happen to Rinzler. Within an instant of his destination appearing on the 1Step Teletek matrix, a Trojan that lay dormant for six days came to life. Someone who happened to input the same destination seconds earlier was suspended, her signal adjusted ever so slightly, and then she was downloaded precisely where and when Rinzler should have arrived.

  But Rinzler changed his mind at the last second.

  He wished he could have changed his mind in time about relocating to Proxima from the distant Ronda star. His relocation was part of the deal with CrimSol. They wanted someone to do the legwork in this sector. He could keep his private agency whilst taking on an annual quota of their cases in return for benefits such as accommodation, healthcare, and school vouchers for his future children should he have any. It made him feel like a corporate citizen, their employee, and he resented that. Most of all he resented the fact that Rinzler Investigations would have ceased to exist if he hadn’t signed up with CrimSol.

  This is your life now, mister. He tried to be philosophical about it and to feel lucky to be alive. He kept his business strictly local and small-time, and no corporate spooks were out to get him anymore. Twelve years in voluntary cryonic suspension ensured that the backlash of the inquiries into Goodwell Mining has run its course. But people were killed, including his client, and people in management lost their positions. Afterwards he couldn’t make a living in Ronda. He was illegally blacklisted. Goodwell Mining has no presence in Proxima. But he didn’t take chances. He had to take himself out of the picture of interstellar corporate politics. He needed CrimSol for safeguarding the picture of being a strictly local business.

  For a few days, he lived in a cubicle in that cybercafé, working steadily to eliminate his debt and catching sleep in his seat, until the manager told him to move on. When Rinzler pointed out that he was paying for the cubicle, she told him they’d charge him hotel tariff if he wanted to live there. He moved to another cybercafé, and then another. He dined out of vending machines and washed in public toilets. He shifted his boxes among acquaintances prepared to keep them ‘for a few days’.

  Chapter 2

  A ferret came to digital life deep in the cyberspace recesses of 1Step Teletek. The Trojan was a brilliant piece of nasty programming, but the ferret was created by someone better. Curious and relentless it sniffed out signals in the ceaseless ripples of cyberspace. It tracked down a trail of quantum events, dug out the culprit Trojan, and devoured it. Afterwards, a Teletek Security CEO said, ‘See? It was worth it.’ He meant the ferret, and said it to very few people, for it was highly classified. It cost them a fortune to hire an outsider specialist to design and install the utility without their own technicians suspecting it.

  Those in the know, scattered across the galaxy, assembled in a teleconference eleven days after the aborted incident. They speculated: if the aim was sabotage, the Trojan could have picked any two victims at random. Users’ paths crisscross all the time. Instead, it lingered in the system for almost a week at the risk of being uncovered. ‘It was waiting for someone specific,’ Security opined.

  The regional CEO, his sister, said, ‘I’m not an idiot. But we can’t just wait for a saboteur to surface.’ She had done some digging on her own and discovered that one of the would-be victims was a junior clerk in OK, a young woman unlikely to have enemies powerful enough to do something like that. It was impossible to identify the other would-be victim. The ID had been mysteriously corrupted beyond retrieval. She managed to salvage only the location indicator of whence that another person was about to teleport. Unbeknown to anyone but its creator, the ferret had a parasite, a flea designed to feed on links connecting Rinzler to any malware found in 1Step. The flea woke up the instant that the ferret detected the name ‘Rinzler’ and erased his ID.

  Her brother suggested that she contracted a local investigator to check out the address on foot, and someone else chimed in helpfully, ‘Get Rinzler Investigations. Their sign says, “no job is too small”.’

  A couple of days later the CEO stood on a small metal balcony in an agricultural facility, overlooking the subterranean plantation. She wore a designer biosuit that gave no indication of her corporate affiliation but disclosed high status by the fact that she could afford it. The place was open to the public but few visitors ever came there, and only robots worked the plantation. She watched a stocky Caucasian in his thirties making his way through the narrow paths between vegetable patches. He was almost camouflaged in his khaki fatigues biosuit. His brown hair was scraggly and unkempt, and he needed a shave. As he ascended the spiral stairway to the balcony, she noticed a bruise on his cheek. She smiled thinly to herself, satisfied. Rinzler looked like a man down on his luck. He’d be grateful for a job and won’t ask questions.

  He started asking questions as soon as he reached her.

  ‘Why here? What should I call you? Do you come here often on business? Why couldn’t we talk in my office?’

  She said curtly, ‘A young woman was supposed to meet with someone a fortnight ago. All you have to do is find out who that other person is. The only intel we have is the residential location from where that individual was going to teleport.’

  The slip to ‘we’ wasn’t lost on Rinzler. He inquired why she didn’t ask her subordinates in 1Step to do it.

  ‘What makes you think I’m in 1Step?’ she demanded.

  ‘You have access to their logs.’

  She fixed him with a steely look and spoke coldly with the habitual disdain that born-executives have for lowly citizens, ‘You are correct, but this is a small personal matter.’

  No ‘small job’ is big enough to take that tone of voice from them, thought Rinzler. Aloud he said, ‘Ma’am, chief, lady, what shall I call you? If I may be candid, this doesn’t sound like a small matter to you. What’s my assurance that this isn’t some secret military matter?’

  ‘There are no militaries anymore.’

  ‘I know. That’s why it’s a secret military.’ He spoke lightly but was serious. Staying away from corporate politics was his survival strategy. ‘What’s my assurance?’

  ‘Name your top rate and I’ll double it.’

  They agreed on terms.

  She instructed him to contact her informally as Ferrari, assuring him that it wasn’t her real name, and paid the advance in cash.

  In the absence of real day and night on the planet, Rinzler declared it ‘night’
as soon as he took leave of his new client. He treated himself to a room in a capsule hotel. The capsule was marginally larger than a coffin, but this was the first time in a fortnight that he had privacy. He promised himself an upgrade to a mid-range hotel as soon as he got a result for the 1Step chief.

  The next morning, according to his private flexible clock, Rinzler woke up refreshed and cheerful, and teleported to a 24-hour Breakfast Bar.

  The manager complained that it was midnight when Rinzler nudged him awake, but rose from his makeshift bed in the backroom. ‘Why can’t you have the android serve you like other customers?’

  There were no other customers. The android was on standby in its alcove.

  Rinzler grinned. ‘I’m not “other” customers, Juke. I need to call in a favour and I don’t mean an edible breakfast. I’ll pay for that.’

  On a full stomach and with a gift voucher from the Breakfast Bar, Rinzler set the pert for the coordinates provided by the 1Step chief. The alphanumeric string scrolling on the tiny screen looked familiar, but Rinzler did a lot of jaunting around town in his line of work. Almost anywhere could look familiar. His plan was to knock on the door, introduce himself as Rinzler of Rinzler Investigations, and say that he’d been hired by the Breakfast Bar to present the gift voucher to the lucky winner of a lottery carried out a fortnight ago: ‘Unfortunately, 1Step wouldn’t release the winner’s name. You know how paranoid they are about falling foul of the CSG Code of Practice.’

  He rehearsed the spiel and pressed Go.

  Materialising outside what used to be his home, Rinzler smiled at the coincidence, then double-checked the time and date of the logged signal.

  He stopped smiling.

  Slowly, stunned, he backed away from the door and glanced over his shoulder. Nobody was around. Trembling, he took out his pad and checked the name of the ‘other’ person that Ferrari had given him: Indigo of OK.

  He didn’t know any Indigo.

  At that moment two things dawned on him like a dark epiphany.