Rinzler: A Noir Sci-Fi Thriller

by Raya Jones

  ‘Forget the pert, I have one.’

  ‘But, sir, it’s free.’

  ‘Fine, I’ll take whatever is free. Can you make the suite looking exactly like this one? Work in patches that look like decaying nano-fabric.’ Rinzler swivelled on his heels so that the rep could take a picture. When the man protested that their fabrics never decay, Rinzler said sharply, ‘Can you do these patches or do I have to buy Kappa Eco again?’

  It was risky to wear faulty gear in an environment prone to life-support failure, but even riskier to flaunt a brand new Mu Tashi in the Greys. He had to pay in advance. The rep informed him that the customization would take three days. Rinzler said he’d let them know where to deliver it.

  He queued for a booth again and then contacted CrimSol to find out his new address. They referred him to a housing company. The housing man told him that they didn’t know the address yet. Rinzler was livid. ‘What do you mean you don’t know? I was told that CrimSol are providing me with accommodation!’

  ‘Yes, you are on the waiting list. It could take…’ the man consulted something, ‘only two months in your case. CrimSol has put in a good word.’

  ‘I can’t wait that long!’

  ‘I’m sorry for your inconvenience but you’ll have to take it up with your corporation. We can only provide premises to the next on the list.’

  Rinzler took it up angrily with CrimSol. They said it wasn’t their fault that the recent quake had left hundreds in need of housing, and it wasn’t their problem that Rinzler was running out of friends with whom to stash his boxes for ‘a few days’.

  When he finished letting off steam, Rinzler sat back and considered his options.

  He had one client left.

  Again, the 1Step chief calling herself Ferrari stood on the small metal balcony overlooking the plantations, wearing a pure white Mu Tashi biosuit and watching Rinzler arrive. He had shaved and showered, but his hair was longer and scragglier, and his biosuit was in bad repair. As soon as he was within earshot, she demanded to know why he didn’t have a result for her yet. She intended to deduct penalties for the delay.

  Rinzler met her glowering gaze steadily and told her that he had found out who it was right away. He folded his arms and leaned against the banister. ‘What am I supposed to think when I discover that the person you’re after is my very own self?’

  Her expression told him that it was news to her.

  He went on, ‘If you check the address you’ll see that I used to live there. But I’ve never heard of this Indigo until you told me her name.’

  She considered the matter and decided to believe him. ‘Have you discovered who’s behind it?’

  ‘Would you like me to look into it, same terms and conditions?’

  She glanced at him with surprise. ‘Haven’t you been trying to find out all this time?’

  ‘Hacking your archives would be a violation of my license. It took me all this time to ascertain that I wasn’t the target.’

  ‘That must be a relief to you,’ she said coldly. ‘We’ll pay your full fee with a small bonus for personal distress.’

  Rinzler understood. It was hush money. 1Step couldn’t afford to have their vulnerability exposed. He wondered unhappily how desperate they were to ensure his everlasting silence. One day he’ll jaunt somewhere and never arrive. Who will miss him? None of the people he was friendly with would miss him. Cerise will get annoyed when he doesn’t collect his boxes, and eventually get rid of them. He wondered whether she liked him enough to wait a month.

  It dawned on Rinzler that in the whole universe, only one person cared enough about him to investigate his disappearance. ‘But can you prevent it?’ he asked Schmidt in his head.

  Chapter 23

  Rinzler checked into a mid-range hotel that promoted itself as the Only Hotel in the Arcades. Anywhere within the urban teleport field could be ‘in’ the Arcades at the touch of a pert key. The promoters of the Only Hotel didn’t mention that the site was distributed across several miles in clusters of rooms slotted wherever there was space to build. Only the main entrance was physically in the Arcades. Guests usually jaunted in and out their rooms.

  He didn’t feel like leaving the room. Here he could log into his office lounging on a clean soft bed. He ordered food in. He relished the comfort, privacy, and not being on the move all the time. On the second day he had Cerise send him his boxes, and although he didn’t unpack them, the room felt like home.

  On the third day his new suit arrived.

  The following day he put it on and strolled out of an emergency exit at the end of his corridor. He wasn’t risking teleportation in case 1Step made him disappear. He walked along twisting alleys and across catwalks, climbed emergency ladders, and finally reached the Arcades. Then he walked some more in the maze of lanes.

  It took longer than he had estimated to reach the Breakfast Bar.

  The place was empty as usual. Emptier: the android waiter was nowhere in sight, and Juke didn’t peer out of the backroom.

  Angerford sat at a corner with his arms folded and a closed toolbox on the table in front of him. He said nothing when Rinzler took the seat opposite. When Rinzler mumbled an apology for being late, Angerford shrugged it off and muttered conversationally, ‘New suit?’

  Rinzler exclaimed, indignant, ‘How can you tell?! It was meant to look exactly like the old one. Cost me a fortune! I thought they’d done a pretty good job on the designer rot.’

  ‘It doesn’t have the rotten stench anymore.’

  Rinzler grinned. ‘So what’s up, mister? Hey, where’s the service? Can’t you fix a Gen-2?’

  Angerford spoke calmly, but Rinzler sensed underlying tension. ‘It’s a stolen android. Someone tried to upgrade it with an incompatible Gen-3 nodule.’

  Rinzler chuckled. ‘That explains the attitude. He thinks he’s too good for this job.’

  ‘Are you?’

  ‘Huh?’

  ‘Too good for the jobs you do,’ Angerford murmured ever so softly that Rinzler had to stop chuckling and strain to hear him. Angerford went on speaking in his normal quiet voice. ‘Your friend Juke went to fetch the correct part for me. He said it might take a while shopping in the Greys. I can’t legally order a component for a stolen unit.’

  Rinzler nodded, liking the guy.

  ‘We need to talk, Rinzler.’

  ‘No kidding. You call me asking to introduce you to the manager of a lowdown diner just because you feel like fixing his stolen android — who’s going to believe that?’

  ‘Anyone who knows me,’ Angerford said matter of fact.

  ‘I see. That explains why Wye Stan has sent you here. You’re going to fix what Fernandez has broken,’ Rinzler said jokingly, and was intrigued to see Angerford appear startled.

  Angerford asked flatly, ‘What do you know about Fernandez?’

  Rinzler shrugged.

  Angerford let it drop. ‘If you teleported with an April unit to Indigo’s home, it wasn’t April.’

  ‘It was April. There’s only one April in her hundred bodies.’

  Angerford stroked his ring lightly and consulted the sphere of whirling data in the palm of his hand. ‘Right now, 167 active units, 17 on standby, 28 in repair, and 6 unaccounted for, presumed stolen. It could be one of those.’

  Rinzler shook his head, dubious. ‘Anyone operating a stolen unit would do it for profit. April didn’t charge anything for helping me with my inquiries. In theory, it could be someone who doesn’t want me to find out something about the case. But it wasn’t. The killer has confessed. Why do you really want to see me?’

  ‘It’s my job to check out incongruities in April’s logs.’

  ‘And we had to meet in secret for a routine inquiry about your andronet? I’ve walked miles to get here!’

  ‘You walked?’ Angerford was genuinely surprised. ‘You didn’t have to cover your tracks on my behalf. We are not meeting in secret. I’m logging this meeting.’

  ‘Then why are we mee
ting here of all places?’ demanded Rinzler, thinking, why are we meeting at all?

  ‘I wanted to fix the waiter.’

  Rinzler almost believed him.

  After Rinzler left, Angerford remained seated, wondering whether Rinzler could possibly know about Wye Stan, what did Rinzler know about Fernandez, and did he know who the stranger on the shuttle was.

  Most of all, Angerford wondered what to tell Roke Steiner about Rinzler.

  He worried about Roke’s methods of dealing with ‘issues’ like Rinzler.

  Chapter 24

  Jeremiah didn’t need a private detective to find out Ambrose’s real identity. He had a junior in his department do it. He had Acid Burns investigate the intrusion into his Life/Style domain. Jeremiah sat in his office with pieces of the puzzle laid out before him:

  An internal report confirming that Ambrose is Angerford, the new Chief Analyst for April Proxima.

  A memo about Angerford’s previous assignment, February Mars.

  Acid Burns’ report revealing that the intrusion into his home originated in the April andronet.

  The piece of paper he received during that intrusion, informing him that his own deputy, Jan, is a blood relative of the rulers of Cyboratics.

  Jeremiah could see the whole picture. Cyboratics suspected that Fernandez used to spy for OK. Angerford rigged their second meeting in the Whodunit-3010 so as to hack Jeremiah’s home and send him the tipoff about Jan. Cyboratics tipped him off so as to create mistrust and confusion in his division. They were wrong about Fernandez spying for OK, but the information about Jan was correct. He had it corroborated. He wondered whether Jan knew.

  His finger danced on the silver strip on his desktop.

  Rinzler’s report, forwarded to him by CrimSol, opened up next to the other documents. It contained Kendall’s confession. The confession didn’t make sense unless Cyboratics knew about Kendall’s role in Jeremiah’s project. The only other person who knew about it was Jan. It almost pleased him to think that she sold out to Cyboratics. He never liked that woman, and now he felt he understood why.

  Rinzler’s report exonerated OK from foul play only if you didn’t know that it was Jan who set up the bogus ronin organization to lure Kendall. It would be a tragic irony if Kendall killed her daughter because he believed she was his rival. Except that as far as Jeremiah knew, Jan had never told Kendall that he had competition, let alone mention Indigo. Surely Jan wouldn’t let her own daughter be killed, thought Jeremiah — not so sure anymore. The woman has the Pan genes.

  The best-case scenario will be Jan’s suicide, he thought. It could be arranged. A suicide note will tell about her inconsolable grief over her daughter’s death. Medical evidence of her depression could be retroactively fabricated.

  Except that nobody who knew Jan would believe any of that. The woman didn’t shed a tear over her daughter’s death.

  For a brief moment Jeremiah entertained the hypothesis that Jan had Indigo killed so as to sabotage his project. He dismissed it. If Jan really wanted to sabotage the project, she would have waited until Indigo is installed in 1Step.

  One thing continued to baffle him deeply. How could Angerford predict that he, Jeremiah, would log into that game demo? As far as Jeremiah recalled, it was a spur of the moment decision on his part. Then he recalled that Jan had advised him to check out Indigo’s tray. Following her advice has led to his first meeting with Angerford a.k.a. Ambrose.

  He checked through the covert surveillance he had put on Angerford’s place. A twisted smile crept over his face to see Rinzler leave Angerford’s home. Someone in Division.53 has taken the initiative to check out the connection between the two men, and discovered that Angerford recently paid Rinzler Investigations. Rinzler’s invoice listed the payment against ‘Mitzi’.

  Gotcha, thought Jeremiah colloquially at the image of Rinzler captured at the courtyard outside Angerford’s door.

  He drummed his fingers on the glass desktop. Rinzler had to be dealt with.

  Chapter 25

  Rinzler’s long walk back to his hotel room took him past the Only Hotel’s entrance just as a young man carrying a satchel came out of there. He was slight-built, with delicate oriental features, and overdressed in heavily padded non-nano clothes. There was something familiar about him. He darted a glance at Rinzler and dashed into an alley next to the hotel like a man looking for somewhere to urinate.

  Rinzler leaned against the wall opposite and waited, bathed in the glow of cosmetics adverts playing above him on the wall.

  When the essencist didn’t reappear five minutes later, Rinzler crossed the lane.

  The short alley led into a utility yard.

  The yard was empty but for a few trash bins, a broken robot and litter on the ground. Rinzler’s boot scattered a heap of leaflets. Curious, he picked one. Activated by touch, it started to tell him in a tinny female voice about the visionary twins: ‘Born into the executive caste, Jane and Jim rejected the elitist creed. They used their inheritance to set up the Human Essence movement. The Twins have spoken: “The decadent technologies of our age are hungry for resources. They disturb the Cosmic Balance. We humans have a place in…”’ Rinzler let it fall to the ground and the pamphlet shut up.

  Whoever has thrown away these leaflets didn’t intend to spread the Twins’ Word peacefully, he suspected.

  An arrow sketched on a wall pointed to a crack between the buildings.

  Those graffiti arrows were all over town, created by the ‘alternative’ communities, people who wanted to move around without teleporting. Rinzler was grateful. The official map of P-7 wasn’t designed for pedestrian use. It clustered places by their function, not geographical proximity. Now he stared at the arrow, pondering whether to risk following a man who might be a terrorist.

  A burst of glow from the adverts out in the lane suddenly flooded the yard, and on instinct Rinzler swivelled on his heels.

  The hairs stood on the back of his neck.

  Schmidt gazed directly at him from across the lane, larger than life.

  The uncanny moment passed.

  The face of the middle-aged Japanese man, which filled the alley’s opening in vivid colour started to fade away as the advert played its loop. Rinzler knew that it was the official portrait of Suzuki, the president of Phyfoamicals. He wondered what Schmidt would do if confronted, ‘Are you a Suzuki?’

  He imagined Schmidt’s eyes narrowing like a silent warning.

  Rinzler entered the hotel lobby. A human receptionist looked up expectantly. The man’s thin pallid face arranged itself into a cordial smile. ‘How can I…?’ he started warmly. Rinzler activated his license, which transmitted his details to the hotel system, and the receptionist’s smile vanished. He finished coldly, ‘help you?’

  Rinzler inquired whether someone looking like Suzuki of Phyfoamicals had recently stayed there.

  ‘Execs don’t stay here,’ the receptionist informed haughtily, giving Rinzler a pitying glance for being so naïve.

  ‘He’s not one of them, he just looks like a Suzuki,’ Rinzler explained patiently. The receptionist asked for the guest’s name. Rinzler said impatiently, ‘If I knew what false name he’s used I’d check your register myself.’

  ‘Sorry, can’t help you.’ The receptionist got busy at a console in front of him.

  Annoyed, Rinzler demanded, ‘Do you ever take notice of who’s coming and going here? There was an essencist here just now, did you notice?’

  ‘Yes, he’s a guest.’

  ‘A guest, really, how could that be?’

  The receptionist met Rinzler’s gaze steadily. ‘They pay cash and can stay as long as they don’t flaunt their propaganda on our premises. Good day.’

  ‘That doesn’t rule out Quintessence terrorists,’ insisted Rinzler. ‘Do you know what he’s up to in his room? Have you checked?’

  ‘Is this part of your investigation?’

  ‘Your security sucks, and I speak as a guest in this hotel. I don’t feel
safe here.’

  Suddenly concerned, the receptionist consulted his console. ‘Yes, Room 209, Peony Wing. I trust everything is to your satisfaction, sir?’

  ‘No, it isn’t! Your security worries me. Do you have any idea what your guests are up to? Yesterday I brought some storage boxes into my room. How do you know they’re not full of explosives? How do you know that I’m not plotting to blow up the port or something?’

  ‘You wouldn’t be telling me that if you were.’

  ‘I rest my case. If terrorists have explosives in their room, they wouldn’t tell you and you’d be none the wiser. You have our details: Rinzler Investigations. Pass it to your manager. We offer security audits at a competitive rate.’

  Rinzler strode out.

  He went through the crack at the back of the backyard, and then followed the graffiti signposts. He climbed down ladders and squeezed through gaps between buildings, sometimes brushing against raw rock.

  A level and a half down he emerged into a gloomy ‘open’ space crammed full of crisscrossing cables, catwalks, and the skeletal remains of the urban railway. The conveyor belt thundered distantly. Nearby, a suspension footbridge led to a hive-like cluster of buildings. A perfunctory sign over an emergency exit spelled out PEONY WING in neon pink.

  It felt like coming home.

  The building’s exit opened before he had a chance to swipe his key. The essencist woman he’d seen at the spaceport walked out.

  She stared at him anxiously.

  Rinzler laughed. ‘I’m not following you. It must be destiny. I’m Rinzler. My name,’ he explained when she kept staring at him nervously. He was blocking her way. ‘Rinzler of Rinzler Investigations, a freelance investigator, private detective. But I’m not investigating you. Weren’t you on your way back to Earth?’

  Her large black eyes widened in panic. ‘How do you know I’m from Earth?’