Rinzler: A Noir Sci-Fi Thriller

by Raya Jones

  Angerford’s head jerked involuntary towards the speaker.

  The man’s eyes narrowed to slits.

  Angerford turned back to the porthole. By now the spaceport entrance was visible in a lacework of lights. ‘Why a samurai?’ he asked lamely.

  ‘I’m Japanese.’

  ‘Are you CSG?’

  There was no answer.

  Angerford turned around.

  There was nobody there.

  Two days later Angerford decided to hire a private detective. He saw a Main Street signpost to Rinzler Investigations.

  Chapter 10

  Rinzler argued with Schmidt in his head, ‘My only success in life is not being dead yet.’ Moments like this brought it home: getting thrown out of the backdoor of a cybercafé by an android thug. Thursday, with its literal sense of time, couldn’t compute that Rinzler was a minute late leaving the premises because his pert malfunctioned. Scrambling up to his feet in the dark alley, Rinzler discovered that the pert didn’t work because he’d forgotten to top up his 1Step account. He tried to top up. An automated message advised him to confirm his ID at his service provider’s office. He needed a portal to Spectrum to do that.

  Nursing his bruises, he advanced warily down the tunnel-like alley. The place was pitch-black away from the dim light of the café’s emergency exit. His boot kicked something hard that rolled away tinkling. He stepped on something soft that screeched. He almost slipped on something slimy that squelched. Reluctantly he switched on his biosuit light. The monochrome glow emanating from a chest strip made him a potential target.

  This was the Greys, a fragmented domain of disconnected passages leading nowhere. No thoroughfares existed anymore in the age of teleportation. The Greys became rips and tears in the urban fabric, spaces forgotten betwixt and between places where citizens lived, holes into which only the disaffected and unfortunate fell.

  A couple of fallen people were asleep or perhaps dead at the dead-end of the alley.

  Rinzler turned around and retraced his tracks.

  Buildings had sprouted illegal annexes of nano-architecture that moulded itself into gaps, blocking off the alley in the other direction too. Overhead was the bottom of the next level up. He could make out the faint outlines of closed emergency hatches. Some had ladders leading to them.

  The third hatch he tried was unlocked.

  Rinzler cautiously pushed it open and then pulled himself up into an empty corridor. A wall light switched on. A rat scurried away. The corridor had airs of an abandoned commercial site. The light behind him switched off, and another light switched on ahead of him. He walked as quietly as he could, although any sound was drowned by a constant roar that filled the corridor. The place was near the industrial conveyor belt, a leftover from the colony’s mining past and still used for local freight.

  The corridor ended with a hinged door, slightly ajar, opening into a dark hall that used to be a warehouse. Only the rank smell of decaying nano-architecture filled it now.

  Rinzler was about to enter it — and froze, sensing a slight gust of air.

  Three men materialised in the hall.

  Ceiling lights turned on at once. The men’s shadows danced on walls and pillars, making the motley decay seem alive. Their feet scattered trash and thick dust. Two of them wore gangster tattoos and accessories. The insignia of Lex Ludovic flashed on their cheeks. The third seemed terrified. He was a small pale man with a lime-green tuft of hair and the yellow biosuit of a Teletek engineer. The Caucasian goon grabbed him with both hands, and slammed him into the wall, pinning him there. A pert dropped to the floor. ‘You can afford to jaunt but can’t afford to pay back Boss Lex?’ The black goon crushed the pert with his boot.

  ‘My pert, hey, it was my personal pert!’ protested the man pinned to the wall. The man pinning him sneered, ‘Look at it this way, Free Spirit, now you don’t have to spend on teleportation anymore, you can pay what you owe the boss.’ He released his hold roughly, and the two jaunted away.

  Free Spirit picked up his useless pert and examined it with dismay, shaking his head. Then he started to limp towards the door.

  Rinzler stepped out directly in front of him. ‘It’s a dead end back there, mister.’ Rinzler smiled friendlily, putting on his thickest Ronda accent to put the man at ease. People are more comfortable with folk from afar. Gangsters tend to be home-grown. ‘I need to get out of here too. My pert’s out of credit,’ he told Free Spirit.

  ‘And it asks you to confirm your ID in person? Bummer. You need a portal. You don’t want to go out there,’ The man jerked his head towards a doorway in the other direction, his lime-green tuft wobbling. ‘It’s the Ludovic compound there. Who are you? Never mind,’ he said rapidly, not expecting Rinzler to tell him anyway, and added miserably, ‘I need to get out of here somehow.’

  ‘You’re Teletek. Don’t you carry a works pert?’

  ‘Yes, but I left it in work. Tell you what, I’ll top up your pert for one jaunt and you let me hitch with you to the Mineshaft, how about that?’

  Rinzler grinned. ‘It’s a deal, mister.’

  The Mineshaft was a dim and grim grotto that looked as if it was created in a brainstorm by designers who believed that residents of a post-mining colony would want a mining theme. There were seats fashioned like anvils and tables made out of rusty cartwheels turned on their side with a sheet of plastic on top. Threadbare couches and comfortable seats were added like an afterthought with little regard to the designer’s concept. Subdued trills and blips, muffled jingles, and the distant rumble of the conveyor belt filled the place. People came there to log into OK NiteOut Frames. Holographic ads flickered on and off like staccato reminders of real life in virtual environments. A sparkling rainbow fountain, the logo of Spectrum City, swirled in and out mid-air every 8.9 minutes, and the faces of people slumped in NiteOut oblivion acquired a rainbow glow for 7.01 seconds.

  As soon as Rinzler and Free Spirit materialised there, the hostess — strawberry blonde, perfect bodied in a sleek electric blue biosuit with the Cyboratics logo — approached them with a radiant smile. ‘Hello, Kendall, nice to see you back so soon!’

  ‘The name’s Free Spirit now. I’d like the Harem Hoots again, V.6-R. Yeah, get me that one, April. I’ll sit over there.’ He headed to a vacant couch.

  ‘Certainly. Make yourself comfortable! Plug in. The latest upgrade of Harem Hoots is already uploading for you!’ April called after him, and turned to Rinzler, ‘And for you? What can I get you?’

  ‘Information,’ Rinzler replied, activating his badge. It transmitted his ID and license to the April andronet.

  The unit in front of him responded in the eager manner of androids, ‘Gladly! It will be my pleasure to assist you with your inquiries, Rinzler.’

  ‘Yeah, yeah,’ Rinzler muttered gruffly, ‘When you’re ready. No rush. Serve the customers first.’

  He didn’t have anything to ask the andronet. It was an excuse to sit down for a while without paying or being told to move on. He found a seat fashioned like an anvil next to a rusty-cartwheel table. The clear plastic top was opaque with thick ochre dust in which glasses had left their marks. A life-size shimmering rep for grocery wares detached itself from a wall portal nearby and glided through furniture and patrons. The OK logo appeared briefly on the portal and gave way to a public appeal poster. It showed the deceased Indigo. Then the picture changed to a woman last seen with her. The poster promised a generous reward in OK gift vouchers to anyone providing information about her identity.

  April came and sat down with him, eager to assist him with his inquiries. Another identical April was serving customers. It meant that the andronet had dispatched a unit specially to assist him, that’s how eager it was. If April were human, Rinzler would have suspected an ulterior motive. He was intrigued nonetheless. ‘You are losing business to help me.’

  ‘I’m happy to be of service to the community. I know Indigo very well. Or should I say knew her since she is dead now?’ It was th
e cyber-mind speaking. Its mobile unit flashed ‘her’ hostess smile at Rinzler.

  ‘Why do you think I want to ask you about Indigo?’

  ‘I’m the improved April. I’m designed to anticipate men’s wants and desires. Indigo used to come here a lot.’

  ‘It’s not her I want to ask you about. The man I arrived with, Free Spirit, Kendall? Tell me about him,’ Rinzler said on impulse. He had no interest in that man. April told him a predictable sorry story about a low-ranking citizen of little ability becoming addicted to escapism beyond his means.

  Rinzler rubbed his chin meditatively, feeling the abrasive stubble. He needed a shave and a wash. He was tired and hungry. He had spent the last few days in that café, wasting overpriced cubicle time trying to track down the movements of a ghost. So far he found out only when ‘Sherlock Holmes’ had checked in and out of that inn.

  April was saying cheerily, ‘I can help you in many ways. You name it.’

  ‘Food?’ suggested Rinzler. The Mineshaft sold only nibbles. ‘Don’t bother with drink.’ The place sold only water, which was changed into the experience of wine or beer in brains of patrons plugged into NiteOut realities. Sleeping in the Mineshaft was prohibited. ‘I need to find somewhere to stay and work,’ he told the android.

  ‘I know just the place for you!’ April rose to its feet and offered an arm for Rinzler to hold on to, so that they could teleport together.

  Chapter 11

  They arrived in a private room, walls and ceiling covered with interactive posters of games and demos. ‘But someone lives here,’ protested Rinzler.

  ‘It’s a fully furnished vacant apartment that OK hasn’t reallocated yet,’ April informed him.

  ‘This is Indigo’s place! I can’t stay here, it’s a crime scene.’

  ‘You are investigating the crime,’ the andronet logically pointed out. ‘You are authorised to be here. I checked the regulations. You’ll find in the CSG Charter Zeta 0.1/33 Footnote 7 to Clause…’

  ‘I know, I know.’

  ‘Would you like me to activate the Live Reco for a reconstruction of the crime scene in its original state?’

  ‘No thanks. I can do that myself.’ A rancid odour hung in the air. The smell of death, he thought, though he knew it wasn’t. The smell of foul play… ‘What’s this smell, April?’

  ‘Indigo kept Vesuvians. Don’t worry. Her mother had them removed.’

  That explained the numerous scorch marks. Those creatures were a fire hazard.

  At last the android was gone.

  Rinzler felt uncomfortable, as if trespassing. ‘But she is dead and I have nowhere to go,’ he silently told his inner Schmidt. Nevertheless, it felt indecent to lie down on the dead woman’s bed. He lay stiffly on his back, fully clothed, and stared at the ceiling. Directly above the bed was a poster-demo for a Life/Style™ from the 20th Century Nostalgia series. It showed an artist’s impression of a Typical Small Town in an aerial view: a neat geometrical sprawl of identical homes surrounded by bright green lawns and trees. She must’ve liked it very much to hang it over her bed, thought Rinzler, wondering about the young woman. She was evidently an avid player of heavyweight games, the kind that required advanced hacker skills.

  The lifestyle demo was past its expiry date. None of its features were interactive. Rinzler stared at it for a long time, musing over who would want to pretend to live in a make-believe world, who could even afford to install it and buy all the period paraphernalia that came with the lifestyle package. Indigo couldn’t.

  He closed his eyes. ‘An android wouldn’t understand why it feels so wrong to sleep in her bed,’ he drowsily thought at Schmidt.

  ‘Don’t be April’s fool!’ Schmidt, dressed like the samurai on the shuttle, spoke in a voice like a peal of thunder.

  The dream-like hallucination shook Rinzler wide-awake.

  His mind started churning oddities.

  How could an android freely teleport into a crime scene in OK territory?

  Restless, he checked his mail. There was nothing yet from Divison.53.

  Indigo had customised the domestic wall-portal to Spectrum, P-7’s virtual city, to look like a subterranean tunnel with sunlit green vegetation visible through its faraway mouth. The public appeal for information about the woman who might be her killer shimmered amidst various OK bulletins and memos styled like graffiti on the rocky walls. Rinzler looked for the headgear to enter the portal, and found it under a green sash amidst the clutter on the bedside table. He put it on and entered the virtual city.

  He rarely accessed Spectrum this way and almost never through portals in public places. Public portals automatically teleport the user’s comatose body to a holding hall. He was nervous about leaving his body unattended ever since a missing person case got him on the wrong side of a body-snatching gang.

  For now, his body safe in the privacy of the crime scene, he made his pinstripe-suited avatar appear at his 1Step provider and reactivated his account. Then he stepped into the front lobby of the OK showroom and demanded to see Jeremiah Cordova. The computer-generated receptionist changed into a woman who introduced herself as Acid Burns, the team leader in charge of the Indigo investigation. ‘Apologies for the delay in sending you the information,’ she said.

  ‘All you have to do is to touch Send,’ Rinzler pointed out.

  ‘We’re still learning how to reference items of evidence correctly as per your regulations,’ she retorted.

  Rinzler smirked and his avatar smirked with him. ‘Go ahead, Acid Burns. Make my day. Take all the time in the world. My brief is to uncover any foul play that OK has committed against the deceased CrimSol client. Your delay tactics are precisely the evidence I need. It’s a real pleasure doing business with you.’

  He transferred his stream of consciousness to his office and caught up with chores. There was one new potential client, calling himself Angerford. Rinzler’s background check confirmed the man’s credentials. Angerford was a chief in Cyboratics and could afford to pay the fee for finding out the identity of someone he had met in a casual encounter. Rinzler sent him a text reply, provisionally accepting the case and requesting a small non-refundable advance.

  Angerford replied almost instantly in text that the credit transfer was done and he’d contact Rinzler in about ten minutes.

  Reluctant to stay in the dead woman’s place, Rinzler topped up his pert credit, jaunted to the spaceport, and settled in a communication booth by the time that Angerford contacted him from an undisclosed site.

  People who want to check on a casual encounter don’t go to such lengths.

  Angerford’s face flickered into view. He immediately told Rinzler, ‘He approached me on the inbound shuttle nine days ago.’

  ‘Why did you wait so long?’

  ‘You took a week to reply to me.’

  ‘Oh.’

  Angerford, letting the matter drop, said ‘I’d like you to access the on-board surveillance record. I was standing by a porthole before landing. You’ll recognise me. This is my true face.’

  ‘And then what?’ asked Rinzler, accessing the flight’s archives.

  ‘Copy his image to me. That’s all.’

  ‘No job is too small. If you wait online I’ll have a result for you in a moment.’ Rinzler forwarded the playback until he spotted Angerford by the porthole. He saw the essencist approach, exchange a few words, and leave. He copied the sequence to Angerford.

  ‘That’s not him,’ replied Angerford.

  ‘Shuttle surveillance is easy to tamper with. He might look different. For a little extra I can find out his name and where he lives, although it might take a day or so,’ offered Rinzler, who already had the passengers list.

  ‘The essencist was there too. He told me he lives in Cardiff and I don’t care what his name is. Someone else approached me after him. He was older and wore a biosuit.’

  ‘The video shows you standing alone the whole time after…’ Rinzler already got the essencist’s name — Louis Hu
ang — but Angerford wasn’t paying for it, so he said, ‘after the essencist left.’

  ‘You’ve got to believe me. He was there. He was real, really real,’ Angerford insisted anxiously as if to convince himself.

  ‘If you say so. You are the client. But I need more information. And the tariff goes up to Band B. This isn’t a straightforward job anymore. But not to worry, sir, no job is too small.’

  ‘I’ll pay whatever it takes. I can’t stay online right now. If anyone asks please say that I’ve hired you to find out about someone I met in a multiplayer game, Whodunnit-3010. I’m in the game domain now.’

  ‘Who might be asking? If it’s your employers you’re trying to double-cross…’

  ‘It’s a personal matter. Probably nobody will ask, but if anyone does…’

  ‘It’s more than my license’s worth to lie about my jobs.’

  ‘Fine. I’m hiring you for this job too. Please keep it in the lowest tariff band and don’t prioritise it. I’m transferring the advance to your account. She calls herself Mitzi, her avatar is a Marilyn Monroe template.’

  Rinzler grinned. ‘Sounds gorgeous. Are you sure you don’t want me to prioritise her?’

  ‘She’s probably an ugly old man.’

  Chapter 12

  Angerford disengaged from the OK demo after signing off his conversation with Rinzler. He removed the headgear and remained seated, sunk into a floor cushion, watching April work Middle Earth. The games dungeon fanned into several alcoves, recesses and niches. Fast but subdued music played at the background. There were no intrusive adverts. Middle Earth was not cheap. Serious players who could afford it came there to play exclusive editions. Angerford had chosen a seat that allowed him a good view of the central area so as to observe April in action. Next to him sat an older man in a designer biosuit that didn’t give away his corporate affiliation. He too removed his gear now, darted a glance at Angerford, and jaunted away.