Rinzler: A Noir Sci-Fi Thriller

by Raya Jones

  ‘The suntan is a giveaway.’

  ‘It’s the colour of my skin.’

  ‘Well, a lucky guess. I’m staying at this hotel. You must be wondering why I don’t teleport like everyone else.’ It was an opening for her to lecture him about how you die with every jaunt because your molecules are wiped out and new ones are assembled when you’re downloaded.

  ‘No, none of my business,’ she mumbled and tried to push past him. He moved aside to let her pass. She brushed against him in her hurry. Stepping onto the footbridge, she turned back and said very softly, ‘Latifah.’

  He had to ask her to repeat so as to hear it.

  ‘Latifah. My name.’

  She walked away rapidly. Rinzler watched her until she was gone from sight. She didn’t look back.

  He suddenly realised that he’d been smiling all the while. Latifah. He liked the sound of her name. He walked light-footedly into the hotel corridor as if carried by the warm feeling Latifah had left in him.

  Further down the corridor someone materialised outside a door that promptly opened, and the visitor quickly disappeared inside. Rinzler heard movement behind him. Turning, he saw the essencist man head to the exit. The man glanced back and rushed away. It dawned on Rinzler why the man looked familiar. It was Louis Huang, who had approached Angerford on the shuttle before Schmidt. Rinzler was almost sure about that.

  He hesitated in front of his room. Something was amiss. A little voice warned… Rinzler swiped the key gingerly.

  The door started to slide open.

  Something was very wrong.

  Bastards, they took my boxes, flashed in his head as sudden flames leapt at him.

  And then he was somewhere else entirely, grabbing at a cold metal rail that separated him from a bottomless chasm. He stood unsteadily on an uneven stone footpath, his ears still ringing from the blast that raged through Room 209, and wondered whether he survived the bomb. He was in a vast, empty, deathly silent, very cold and dark underworld.

  Weak-kneed, he backed away from the edge.

  To his left, the footpath wound downwards, outlined by tiny amber lights, until disappearing into gloom where installations loomed, darker than dark. To his right, the path ended nearby with steps carved into the rock. The steps led up to a nook with a small shrine commemorating dead miners.

  Further up was an entrance to a cavern.

  Rinzler sat down on the bottom step, feeling like collapsing.

  He had no idea what this place was except that it was at the far edge of the teleport field. The emergency pert was set by default to download him in this ‘safe’ zone, many miles away from any inhabited parts.

  The explosion at the hotel kept repeating itself in his mind with flashbulb clarity: the door starting to open, the boxes aren’t there, a little voice telling him there’s a bomb. He jaunted away so quickly he didn’t even feel the gust of the blast.

  Bastards, they took my boxes. He assumed that hotel security confiscated them after hearing him talk of explosives. His obvious action should have been to enter the room and check, in case the boxes had been moved out of sight by a cleaner. But it happened so quickly. His hand must have tapped the emergency pert a split second before he actually saw that the boxes weren’t there.

  Rinzler was deeply shaken.

  It wasn’t the bomb that had unnerved him so much. He grew up in a mining outpost where the prospect of death by a sudden explosion was a fact of life. In his line of work, he had made enemies who wouldn’t hesitate to use a bomb. There is something honest about a bomb. It’s in-your-face hostility — unlike the slyness of erasing your existence in mid-jaunt. The idea of being erased like that by 1Step scared the hell out of him.

  What shook him was the fact that he teleported.

  He tried to rationalise it. Perhaps seeing those essencists and thinking about terrorists had got him paranoid. Yet he didn’t sense any danger from Louis Huang when they made eye contact in the corridor, and was full of warm feelings towards Latifah.

  Eventually Rinzler took out his regular pert and held it for a long moment, hesitating. It felt like jumping off a precipice.

  Then he gritted his teeth and jumped into the existential void.

  Chapter 26

  Full of existential relief to have arrived intact at the Only Hotel lobby, Rinzler strode up to the front desk and declared, ‘I’m here!’ The receptionist stared at him blankly. Taken aback, Rinzler checked the clock. It was less than an hour since he had spoken with this man. ‘It’s me, Rinzler, Room 209?’

  ‘Is there a problem with your room?’

  ‘Apart from it having been blown apart? Not really!’

  The receptionist glanced at his console, and stonily informed Rinzler that they didn’t need a security audit and didn’t approve of gimmicky marketing. The hotel surveillance showed nothing amiss with Room 209.

  Rinzler stated the bleeding obvious: a video stream can be tampered with. You’d be none the wiser unless you went there in person and saw Room 209 gutted and smouldering with your own eyes. When the receptionist suggested that Rinzler jaunted there to check, Rinzler insisted that a human member of staff came along. When someone was found, he insisted on holding her arm for the jaunt, so that his own pattern wouldn’t stand out. ‘Someone has just tried to kill me,’ he told her.

  Arriving at the Peony Wing he saw with his own eyes no sign of an explosion.

  The hotel worker vanished like a shot.

  Rinzler stood alone in front of the intact closed door like a déjà-vu, except that there was no little voice this time.

  Instead, a dark mood came over him.

  He figured out at once how it was done. An audio-visual sequence was superimposed on physical reality. Someone took an image of an identical room — but without his boxes — and made an animation of it being blown up. They probably included a subliminal little voice telling him that there was a bomb. Almost anyone could do that. The question was who would think up the idea of a make-believe bomb.

  OK would. Jeremiah Cordova, you slimy bastard, thought Rinzler.

  Cyboratics might. Angerford, the fix-it man, he thought.

  Rinzler turned away and walked out briskly.

  He crossed the footbridge and walked into the shadows beyond. ‘Damn, and just as it was safe to teleport again,’ he told Schmidt in his head, and imagined his imaginary mentor retorting that it was no safer or less safe than it ever was. If 1Step Teletek have rigged the make-believe bomb to jolt him into teleporting, why is he still alive? Rinzler agreed. He recalled Schmidt telling him many years ago, ‘Rinzler, you need to know this. Someone wants me disabled but not dead yet. They are going to kill “Harvey Schmidt”.’ The young Rinzler asked what Schmidt was going to do. His mentor replied that he’d let them make their move and then he would make his.

  Someone didn’t want Rinzler dead yet. They made their move. Now it was his turn.

  He found a cybercafé, logged in, and started to rewrite the past the way Schmidt does it.

  The hotel firewalls were a walkover. Rinzler made a mental note to offer the establishment his services when the present situation was over. You haven’t seen my gimmicky advertising yet, he thought at the receptionist. Doctored to his satisfaction, the hotel archives now show the receptionist speaking to a middle-aged oriental man in black. ‘I’m here!’ declares the man, and since the receptionist stares at him blankly, he says, ‘It’s me Suzuki, Room 209.’ The receptionist asks, ‘Is there a problem with your room?’ Suzuki answers, ‘Apart from it having brown carpet? Not really!’

  Rinzler leaned back in his seat admiring his handiwork, and then remembered his boxes. Damn, my boxes, he thought. They were probably intact inside the room, but he couldn’t fetch them because he wanted his unknown enemies to believe that he believed the bomb was real.

  His stomach rumbled.

  As if synchronised with his stomach, a text message came in: Urgent. Meet now. Breakfast Bar. Angerford.

  Angerford was waiti
ng outside the diner. As soon as Rinzler materialised nearby, he started to walk away, motioning Rinzler to follow.

  They walked a short distance down the lane and into a roaring waterfall in a jungle setting. The scenery wobbled, the EnViro7 logo flashed almost subliminally, and presently they stood behind the virtual façade in the unlit doorway of a closed club, invisible to passers-by. It made Rinzler strangely nervous.

  ‘I need to talk with you about the other business,’ said Angerford, folding his arms. He wasn’t wearing his ring.

  ‘I’m listening.’

  ‘You need to tell me, Rinzler.’

  ‘Tell you what?’ Rinzler’s unease increased. There was something spooky about Angerford, something sinister, as if a mask had fallen off.

  ‘Tell me about the other business.’

  ‘I can tell you anything you want, but please meet me halfway. Give me a clue what it is you want to hear.’

  ‘I don’t want to hear about Mitzi.’

  ‘Good. I don’t want to talk about Mitzi.’ Rinzler’s pad chimed just then. ‘Sorry, incoming message.’ He pulled it out.

  Angerford too reached for something in his pocket.

  Urgent. Meet now. My place. Angerford, the new massage read.

  Rinzler instantly hit the emergency pert and didn’t see Angerford pull out a gun. The deadly ray sliced air where Rinzler had stood a split second earlier.

  Rinzler found himself again on the stone path in the vast empty place.

  This time he ascended past the shrine and into the cavern.

  Lights came on as he entered a large chamber.

  It was equipped with basic amenities except food. The vending machines were empty. ‘Beats me why they don’t install a replicator here so that people could make their own food,’ he conversed in his head, cynically knowing why. The economy would collapse. Grocers would be out of business. Gastronomic creativity would die because people would replicate only their favourite items. That’s why we have vending machines that supply only a few items based on market statistics of what most people like.

  He realised he was talking to Latifah in his head, educating her in the ways of the world.

  There was a workstation with unlimited access. He logged in and examined the two messages from Angerford. Both seemed genuine. The second one could have been an automated follow-up in case Rinzler didn’t respond to the first one. There’s always a simple explanation, Rinzler knew.

  And there are always people who manipulate the ‘simple explanation’ they want you to fall for.

  Rinzler focused on facts.

  Fact: after their earlier meeting in the Breakfast Bar, Angerford stayed there fixing the waiter. Then he went home. There was no record of him leaving his place afterwards.

  Fact: Arcades’ street surveillance showed Angerford near the Breakfast Bar a short while ago. Rinzler saw himself arrive there, and the two of them walk into the waterfall.

  A moment later the waterfall flickered and a flash of lightening shot out.

  His blood ran cold.

  He knew instantly: it was another near miss. And this time it wasn’t make-believe. Arcades Security logged the occurrence of lethal gunfire. The teleport signal leaving that spot immediately afterwards had no ID, and its destination was withheld. It was the ‘signature’ of corporate spooks.

  Rinzler’s survival instinct told him to run.

  Run where?

  Angerford’s head appeared in the communication space. ‘Didn’t you get my message?’

  ‘I’ve got both of them, but got confused which one to answer.’

  ‘I only sent one,’ said Angerford, bemused. ‘I’m still at my place. Can you come here now? I need to talk with you about the other business.’

  Rinzler terminated the connection without answering.

  An automated message informed him about the charge per minute for using this workstation. No free lunch after all, he thought. His stomach reminded him that he didn’t have any lunch yet.

  Who was Angerford really? His sinister transformation was the same as Kendall. Reluctant aliens, Rinzler recalled the banned game. Perhaps the aliens are already in our midst. Just because centuries of space exploration have failed to find evidence for sapient extra-terrestrials with body-snatching capabilities doesn’t mean they don’t exist. A shiver ran down his spine and the hairs stood on the back of his neck.

  He swivelled in his seat, heart pounding… ‘I didn’t mean to startle you,’ April said cheerfully.

  Boxes of supplies were materialising at the centre of the cave, and the android started to restock the vending machines.

  ‘Isn’t it a Daily job?’ asked Rinzler, suspicious.

  ‘No job is too small.’

  Can androids be sarcastic? Rinzler suppressed a shudder. ‘There’s a small job you can do for me. Find Kendall,’ he said on impulse.

  ‘Even I can’t do that,’ April replied without ceasing its chore.

  ‘Why? I’m sure he didn’t leave town. He’s keeping himself electronically invisible but he must be somewhere, and your units are everywhere.’

  ‘Kendall is dead. Five days ago he was shot dead in his home like Indigo.’

  Rinzler double-checked. Kendall hadn’t been reported dead. When he pointed it out to April, the andronet replied, ‘Of course not. The killer didn’t want his body to be found.’

  ‘So how do you know? Did you kill him?’

  ‘It’s not logical to kill a regular client of mine,’ April smiled merrily. ‘Is there another small job I can do for you? My tariff is…’

  ‘Pass me a bar of chocolate. Make it two, and a packet of, what is it, peanuts? Beats me why they don’t install a food replicator here. Who uses this place anyway?’

  April rattled off statistics of user demographics.

  Rinzler munched on the snacks, watching the android efficiently and speedily doing its chore. Was April aware of the difference between reporting statistics and telling you that a man had been murdered? Both are just data in its system. The aliens are already in our midst, he thought. Cyboratics makes them.

  April’s story checked out. Almost. Kendall was last recorded teleporting to his home after meeting Rinzler at 6E Junction. That was five days earlier. Shortly afterwards he had a visitor. The visitor’s signal had no ID and the point of origin was withheld. A similar signal departed to a confidential destination within the hour. Then Monday arrived at Kendall’s home, and shortly afterwards left with bulky ‘household refuse’ that could be Kendall’s body. Monday disposed it at a recycling plant.

  The only datum out of place was the fact that Rinzler met Kendall again the day after.

  The tenement block where Kendall lived, or used to live, was not guarded by private security. But his door was within the range of a camera at a nearby factory. Rinzler easily got permission to access their archives. The footage of five days earlier showed a man in a khaki biosuit appear at Kendall’s door. The man glanced over his shoulder. Kendall opened the door and let him in. Rinzler zoomed on the blurred face, applied an enhancement tool, and watched the image gradually sharpen.

  He cursed out loud.

  The face was his own.

  Surveillance records are easily tampered with. But people always prefer the most convenient explanation. It was convenient for someone to make it appear that Rinzler had killed Kendall. Rinzler must’ve done it so as to fabricate Kendall’s confession in order to close the Indigo case, people would say. If you look at this timewaster’s record with CrimSol you’d believe it too. Other people might opine that Rinzler did it because he himself had killed Indigo. I’d fall for that, Rinzler thought at them, except for one thing. If the plan was to frame him for Kendall’s murder, why get rid of the body so thoroughly?

  Chapter 27

  The doorbell rang. Rinzler at last, thought Angerford, blanking out the display of April’s mind. The door monitor showed a stranger standing outside, an oriental man whom Angerford recognised from Roke Steiner’s briefing as
Suhnan, Fernandez’s lover and a freighter skipper who operated in the Centauri region. By now Roke had evidence that Fernandez used to pass information to Moore-Dent CyberTech, and he suspected that Suhnan was her courier. Suhnan hasn’t been back to Proxima since before her death. Perhaps he didn’t know, and wanted to ask Angerford for her whereabouts. Angerford activated the live link to Roke.

  When the door started to open, it occurred to him that if Suhnan didn’t know that Fernandez was dead, he wouldn’t know that Angerford has replaced her and wouldn’t be ringing this doorbell.

  In almost the same instant, he saw Rinzler standing at the door.

  Rinzler chuckled to see Angerford’s alarmed expression. ‘Are you going to let me in or not?’

  Angerford reluctantly moved out of the way. There was no way to terminate the live link without arousing Roke’s suspicion.

  The door closed behind them.

  Rinzler indicated the door monitor. ‘You have it routed via site security, that’s why you saw my Suhnan cloak.’ He went to the bed and sat down, making himself at home.

  Angerford stayed standing, feeling out of place. ‘How do you know Suhnan?’

  ‘I don’t know him. I know about him. Everyone knows about Fernandez and Suhnan. The security guards wouldn’t look twice seeing him in this yard. But since he’s off-world there’s no chance of two of him appearing suddenly in two different places at the same time,’ Rinzler intoned, looking Angerford in the eye as if insinuating something. Whatever it was, Angerford wasn’t getting it. Rinzler said, giving up, ‘So what’s so urgent about the other business?’

  Aware that Roke could hear anything he’d say right now, Angerford said instead, ‘I know you didn’t kill Indigo.’

  Rinzler stared at him puzzled. ‘Who is accusing me?’

  ‘OK.’

  Rinzler kept staring at him.

  ‘Haven’t you seen their new public appeal poster?’

  Rinzler shook his head. ‘But I believe you. That’s just the sort of spiteful thing Mitzi would do. How do you know I didn’t do it?’