Rinzler: A Noir Sci-Fi Thriller

by Raya Jones

  He read on. The mystery woman — if it was a woman — left Indigo’s home half an hour later, about the time of Indigo’s death, again using Indigo’s ID. She jaunted to a conveyor belt station, 6E Junction. Rinzler made a mental note to visit the place sometime. He had to be seen doing legwork.

  Then he initiated an application for accessing 1Step records to double-check what Acid Burns had already established. The automated procedure of approving the application would take a while. That suited him fine.

  He longed to be in his body. At moments like this, waiting for routines to run their course, he’d loll back in his seat, have a beer, and chat to people. But in his present incorporeal state he could only go on working. He kept on working so as not to waste the voucher.

  According to the forensic lab report, there was no DNA trace of the mystery woman. The crime scene investigation uncovered a single hair that didn’t match Indigo, her mother or anyone else registered as a recent visitor, and traced it to a Teletek citizen.

  Rinzler recognised Kendall as soon as the man’s picture appeared.

  Concerned that he himself might have contaminated the crime scene by carrying it from the Mineshaft, Rinzler checked the timing of the forensic investigation. Kendall’s hair had been discovered before his own arrival there.

  Kendall could probably manipulate his teleport signature to duplicate Indigo’s, but why would he do that? More intriguingly, since OK had evidence implicating him, why was Free Spirit still free?

  Angerford called just then.

  Again, Angerford communicated from an undisclosed site. He spoke hurriedly. ‘Glad to catch you online at last. Another man approached me on the shuttle after the essencist, you must believe me.’

  ‘I do.’

  ‘You do?’

  ‘Absolutely. No reason why I shouldn’t believe you. You are the client. He’s obviously an expert in covering up his tracks. But I’m confident we can help you, although it’s not quite such a small matter and we might not get a quick result.’

  ‘I’ll pay whatever it takes, your top rate, however long it takes.’

  Rinzler felt smirks rising, and wondered whether his comatose body was smiling like a man dreaming. It was a dream come true: someone begging him to take on a top-rate case that could drag on forever. His pinstripe-suited avatar didn’t smile. Business-like, he accepted the job.

  He felt a slight pang of conscience when Angerford thanked him.

  Angerford added, ‘He’s sent me this through junk mail.’

  It was a six-inch tall anime samurai, lengthily reciting in Japanese. It popped up on Rinzler’s virtual desk. Its deep-blue kimono, complete with the Chinese characters for sunrise, was identical to that of the virtual samurai on the outgoing shuttle. Rinzler mumbled, ‘Why?’

  ‘Because he’s Japanese, he said.’

  ‘Is he?’

  ‘Could be, but not nihonjin,’ Angerford replied. ‘He wore a hi-tech black biosuit that looked like a cheap uniform if that’s any help to you.’

  ‘Yeah, thanks, it narrows it down to a few million people.’ Rinzler eyed Angerford with fresh interest. People approached by Schmidt are not what they seem. ‘Do you know what this cartoon is saying?’

  ‘Bushido.’

  ‘Aha. The traditional code of corporate hackers, slavish loyalty to your employers, honour-to-the-death stuff, goes back maybe as far back as the 20th century.’

  ‘It goes back further than that. He’s reciting a 16th century text by Miyamoto Musashi.’

  ‘Was he a famous hacker?’

  ‘They didn’t have computers in…’ Angerford stopped himself, suspecting that Rinzler was winding him up. ‘I don’t think that the fact he’s reciting bushido is relevant.’

  ‘Perhaps Samurai Sunrise wants to remind you of your loyalty to Cyboratics.’

  ‘I’m quite sure he’s not Cyboratics.’

  ‘I guess you wouldn’t need me if he were,’ Rinzler agreed. He wasn’t going to tell his dream client that he had a snowball’s chance in hell of finding out the man’s real identity. Rinzler had been trying and failing since puberty.

  Chapter 15

  Having discovered that Schmidt arrived in P-7 five days before contacting him, Rinzler set up a search of all the local inns and hotels. He keyed ‘Miyamoto Musashi’ into the search. Nothing came up. The man could call himself anything and make himself look like anyone. On impulse, Rinzler sent him a chat invite, using a direct link that Schmidt gave him when they met at the inn.

  To his astonishment, he got an immediate response.

  Even more astonishingly, the man appeared in his true likeness. He stood with folded arms in a featureless booth that could be anywhere, and waited for Rinzler to speak.

  Rinzler spoke a single word, ‘Angerford.’

  Schmidt nodded and waited for Rinzler to continue. It was creepy. Rinzler shuddered and continued, ‘So what do you want me to do about it?’

  ‘Do your job if you’re taking his money.’

  ‘What’s the point?’ The creepy sensation intensified. He’s scouring me, Rinzler realised. The motionless folded-armed man in front of him was a façade. Behind it, Schmidt was working swiftly, speedily manipulating flows of information, delving into source codes and raw signals. Ill at ease, Rinzler went on, ‘But if I take his money it would be deception. I guess I could tell him that I’ll charge on results, no need to tell him that the results won’t happen. What’s the story with Miyamoto Musashi?’

  ‘There are many stories. He was a 16th century…’

  ‘Angerford, I mean.’

  ‘I’ve encrypted a way to contact me into the cartoon.’

  ‘Who does he think he’ll be contacting?’

  ‘That’s what he’s paying you to find out. Don’t underestimate him. He’s already traced the anonymous mailbox I gave him to a ghost of Schmidt Investigations.’

  ‘He didn’t tell me that.’

  ‘He discovered that the agency was demolished decades ago, and must have concluded that it’s a bogus contact.’

  ‘But he hired me!’

  ‘Sometimes a coincidence is just a coincidence. You don’t mention Harvey Schmidt in your résumé.’

  Rinzler pressed, ‘Why should he need to contact you? Is it to do with Fernandez?’

  Schmidt said nothing.

  ‘It was easy to find out how she died,’ Rinzler lied. Fernandez was Angerford’s predecessor. Even the fact that she died has been buried too deep for Rinzler to stumble upon by chance. Someone from the April team had told him.

  Schmidt said a single word, ‘Spart.’

  Rinzler winced. ‘Yes, she’s the one who told me. But it was offline. How did you find out?’

  ‘You two appear together in public places. The body language speaks. I don’t know what she told you offline. If you know how or why Fernandez died, you should tell Angerford.’

  ‘No, I have no idea,’ Rinzler admitted. ‘Are you investigating it?’

  ‘No. Rinzler, I look after you.’

  ‘I know you do. Thanks. Are you going to tell me to erase all traces of my association with Spart?’

  ‘No. If Spart is implicated in whatever has got her former boss killed, hiding your friendship might cast suspicion on you too. I was going to say that I’ve eliminated something from your archives. It’s for…’

  ‘My own protection. I know, I know.’ A thought occurred to him. ‘Were you monitoring me or the April team?’

  ‘Not you.’

  As soon as they signed off, Rinzler discovered that the anime samurai and the elderly nihonjin on the shuttle has vanished from his files as well as any trace of his conversation with Schmidt just now.

  Sometimes a coincidence is just a coincidence, but most coincidences are manmade, Rinzler thought. His mentor was a master of coincidence making.

  Louis Huang was a bona fide resident of Cardiff. He had chaperoned someone off to the deep-space port, and by sheer coincidence returned on the same shuttle as Angerf
ord. The surveillance video showed an elderly black woman in a beige biosuit coming to sit down next to the lone essencist. Rinzler checked her out. She was visible in the spaceport lobbies earlier on. He couldn’t determine the interstellar flight she had arrived with, but that wasn’t odd. People with no corporate ID like her often travel unregistered aboard freighters. Sitting down, she said something to Louis Huang, and he switched off the book he was reading, eager to chat. They conversed. The body language spoke of strangers on a short journey making small talk.

  The only oddity was that the woman activated the security blanket to scramble their conversation.

  Rinzler saw Louis Huang’s expression change.

  Chapter 16

  It was Louis’s first solo excursion outside Cardiff. He’d been briefed that outsiders would mock his faith, tempt him with evil technology, even be hostile. But he didn’t sense any malice from the stranger who came to sit next to him. The man looked like his father if you imagined him in different clothes. Noticing what Louis was reading, the man commented, friendly, ‘You must be dedicated.’

  Louis gladly switched off Essence Teachings and explained that he had to know the volume inside out in order to pass an exam for getting a promotion in his clerical job at Cardiff Gate.

  The man said sympathetically, ‘It’s not written for easy memorising. A hired team of psycholinguists have made sure of that.’

  ‘You’re saying it’s made up?’ Louis braced himself for an ideological argument.

  ‘Someone had to write it,’ the stranger reasoned, matter of fact.

  Louis was still anticipating hostility. ‘You are saying that our book is a sham?’

  ‘That’s not what I’m saying,’ the man spoke quietly, disarmingly. He almost smiled.

  Feeling at ease, Louis told him his name.

  ‘I could make up a name to give you.’ The man gave him none. Data scrolled on a handheld gadget of his. ‘Louis Huang. You are 22. Born on Earth but came here as a baby. Your father is…’

  Louis interrupted, ‘How do you know all that?’

  ‘There are files on all of you. You’re going to marry Lisa…’

  Louis’s expression changed. ‘They know that too? I suppose you’re going to say that the corporations are behind the Human Essence movement. I know that conspiracy theory. What’s in it for them? We ban their products.’

  ‘Not conspiracy. Power and control.’ The man explained that the corporations have backed the Human Essence because the movement is organised like any corporation. It gets people out of the black-market economy and gives disaffected citizens somewhere to go where they won’t cause any trouble. He told Louis, ‘Your marriage application is on file with Cardiff Council, that’s how I know. I’ve accessed Cardiff when you told me your name. If it’s digital I can see it.’ Speaking, he pulled a pin off his sleeve and inserted it into the seat’s console. The entertainment menu was replaced with live on-board surveillance.

  Louis kept staring at him.

  ‘Go on reading your book, Louis Huang. Just don’t believe everything you are told.’

  ‘Then what should I believe in?’

  ‘Believe in what is essentially human, the things that can’t be digitised. Do you love Lisa?’

  ‘I think so.’

  ‘You “think”? You don’t know?’ The man almost smiled again. ‘Then your doubt makes you human.’

  An inexplicable shudder went through Louis. He felt as if he was sitting next to a hidden dragon, a darkly powerful presence.

  Towards the journey’s end the stranger pointed to the surveillance display. ‘You’ll be able to see Cardiff from the portholes in about seven minutes. Go to this one. I want to speak to the Cyboratics man standing there when you’re done.’

  Chapter 17

  Just as 1Step gave Rinzler clearance for accessing their archives, he was yanked out of Spectrum. He was back in his body in the crowded spaceport, and his body was tired, aching, and stomach rumbling. The shuttle service had resumed. Rinzler walked away from the gates, pushing against the flow of passengers and robot porters. The essencist woman he saw earlier was standing near a souvenir stall as if absorbed in the display of tacky memorabilia. He walked up to her. ‘You seem lost. May I be of assistance?’

  ‘Why?’ She stared at him worriedly. ‘Are you an android? Sorry, I can’t tell.’

  Rinzler laughed. ‘No, I’m too ugly. That’s how you can tell us apart. They make them perfect, like that blonde in blue over there, and there, and there too. That’s April. Shouldn’t you be heading to the gates?’

  ‘Yes, I guess so.’ She rapidly walked away.

  Rinzler watched her until he couldn’t see her anymore in the crowd.

  When he turned to go, April was right behind him, ‘her’ perfect face aglow with a perfectly manufactured smile showing perfect teeth. ‘Hello Rinzler, what a lucky coincidence to bump into you here.’

  ‘Give over, April, your units are everywhere. You can “bump” into me wherever I am.’ He strode away, but the android kept pace.

  ‘I have information about Indigo. I suddenly remembered something.’

  ‘Cut the crap, April. You retrieve files. You don’t suddenly “remember” something.’

  ‘Isn’t it the same thing? You seem tired and hungry, Rinzler. It makes you irritable. Would you like me to escort you to the new restaurant in town?’ Rinzler shook his head. ‘Very well, your wish is my command. I’ve retrieved some data that could help you with your investigation.’

  ‘What did you suddenly remember?’

  ‘Kendall was stalking Indigo.’

  ‘What makes you think that?’

  ‘Andronets don’t think. I have sophisticated inference tools,’ April corrected cheerily. ‘Kendall was often in the Mineshaft at the same time as Indigo.’

  ‘Did they know each other?’

  ‘I have no record of them speaking together, and they never spoke about each other with me. But you can see on the archives that he kept looking at her.’

  ‘Thank you, April,’ he said, meaning it.

  He reminded himself that he didn’t have to solve the crime, only to create a reasonable doubt about OK’s involvement. Forensics placed Kendall at the crime scene, and now April was giving him a lead on Kendall’s motive. It was a plausible scenario. Indigo was a gamer. So is Kendall. Perhaps they met in a game. Kendall discovered Indigo’s real-life identity, became obsessed with her, and stalked her until mustering the courage to approach her. He jaunted into her workplace, and they decided to talk in private. There was an argument, a rejection. He shot her.

  The scenario didn’t feel right. The killing was too clean, like an execution. Perhaps their relationship had gone sour online, and Kendall approached Indigo with intent. Was she taunting him? What sort of a person was she?

  Rinzler returned to her place.

  Indigo lived in the ever-present glow of the portals wallpapering her room. Rinzler imagined her absorbed in their virtual worlds, oblivious to her physical surroundings. An escapist, he thought, which was how he regarded chronic gamers. But then he picked up a novelty bottle, the kind that OK gives away. As he shook it, vapours consolidated into a homemade movie of her pet Vesuvians, and Rinzler realised that Indigo had something to live for in physical reality.

  She dearly loved her seven miniature dragons. Her camera followed their flamboyant crested bodies slithering on her floor, stubby wings flapping and scaly tails wriggling. They bumped into things and rolled over with talons flailing, spitting fire, whilst Indigo’s voiceover affectionately named them one by one: Orangestreak Yellow Fury, Bluecrest Dotty Whitewing, Redrod Dozy Brighteye… The movie ended with the seven sisters casting a web in a corner of the room, and huddling into it to sleep. In their group, Vesuvians are almost immortal, rejuvenated by hormones released when they touch each other.

  Rinzler watched fascinated, wishing he could see the little creatures for real. Indigo’s mother had put them for sale. Toying with the idea of b
uying them when he got his home back, he read the advert. Only six were advertised. Orangestreak Yellow Fury was missing.

  The bulletin board wavered and the advert vanished. The last of the Vesuvians had been sold.

  Rinzler ordered curry and beer. It was going to be a long night, day, whatever. He didn’t check the clock. By the time his order arrived, he had started examining the game portals one by one, making a meticulous inventory. Most of them hadn’t been accessed in months, and in some cases the last login was years earlier. If Indigo met Kendall in a game, it wasn’t a game she played from home. Perhaps she switched to the kind of hard-core games available only in licensed places such as Middle Earth.

  Rinzler lay down on the bed and dimmed the light.

  He suddenly realised what was bothering him about the poster above the bed. The Life/Style™ demo had expired, it was no longer interactive, and yet the lawns and trees shimmered faintly.

  Checking it now, he discovered an illegal game encrypted within it. He found the activation spot. The regimental sprawl of cube-like homes set in patches of green lawns morphed into a dark title page. It pulsated with waves of darkness, ominously announcing in swirling text:

  Reluctant Aliens!

  They Are Amidst Us!

  You’d better believe it!

  Play Reluctant Aliens if you dare!

  The Game That Was Banned Because It Tells The Truth!

  Rinzler had heard about it. The game’s premise was that a bunch of alien body-snatchers from a distant galaxy have infiltrated the executive clans and plot to control the human race. The game was banned by the CSG because it was produced and sold by an unlicensed firm.

  Indigo’s last session was two years ago, about the time she got her job on her mother’s team. A few months later she was sent for training in Alpha Centauri, and bought the Vesuvians there. They were not cheap. After buying them she probably couldn’t afford to play Reluctant Aliens anymore. Illegal games charge dearly per session. Yet she has kept the game portal at the risk of a disciplinary action if she were caught. Why?