Rinzler: A Noir Sci-Fi Thriller

by Raya Jones

  Chapter 29

  Drumming his fingers on the glass desk, Jeremiah watched a goldfish swim back and forth in a glass bowl. His mind swam back and forth from loathing Rinzler to despising Cyboratics and back to loathing Rinzler. Every 13.7 seconds, the goldfish animation was interrupted with a banner conveying apologies and informing that Rinzler Investigations is closed for renovations.

  An unexpected request for a visitor download snapped Jeremiah out of his reverie.

  Very few people came to his office in person and never did so without an invitation from him. He read the name, examined the security clearance, and authorised the download.

  He switched off the goldfish.

  Rinzler materialised in the spacious office and exclaimed loudly, ‘Hey, this is just like my office!’

  Nauseated by the comparison, Jeremiah remained behind his desk as if the furniture could protect him from vulgarity. He watched Rinzler throw himself down onto the stylish charcoal leather sofa. Security would extract Rinzler in an instant if he made any threatening move, but nobody could protect Jeremiah against the auditory assault of Rinzler’s voice booming across the expanse of the room. ‘I could use images of my own office to make it look as if yours is getting blown up!’

  ‘What’s the point?’ shouted Jeremiah, realising to his dismay that staying behind his desk meant conversing in shouts.

  ‘Precisely! What’s the point of a make-believe bomb?!’ Rinzler shouted back, louder than necessary, reclining with his hands behind his neck and feet on the antique coffee table.

  ‘Your boots!!!’ shrieked Jeremiah.

  Rinzler removed his feet off the table. ‘Sorry! Nice table, is it real wood? I’ve never seen antiques before! I bet there’s not even a computer chip in it!’

  Jeremiah resisted the urge to go and sit nearer so as to converse at a civilised volume. If he did that, it would appear like weakness. Rinzler already had the advantage of surprise. Jeremiah didn’t anticipate a direct confrontational approach.

  He needed time to prepare an improvisation. ‘What do you want?’ he asked to gain thinking time.

  ‘The question is not what I want! It’s why I’m wanted!’

  ‘You’ve misunderstood. Our poster invites you to assist us with our inquiries.’

  ‘Inviting me by promising a reward to anyone providing information leading to my capture?’

  ‘You are elusive. How else can we get hold of you? Whenever I try your office I get a goldfish telling me that the site is closed for renovations.’

  ‘Only since my hotel room was bombed!’

  ‘Your room was bombed?’

  ‘Virtually was. Well, I’m here now. Inquire away!’

  Jeremiah wasn’t used to that tone of voice from persons of inferior status. He took little comfort in the knowledge that he could have Security yank Rinzler out at a click of his fingers. He adjusted his complicated coiffure and mentally assessed the situation in bullet points:

  Rinzler knows that the bomb wasn’t real.

  The scenario was designed to make Rinzler ‘jump’ to whomever he’s working for.

  Goal achieved: Rinzler jumped to Angerford.

  There must be something to make him betray Angerford.

  Thinking fast on his feet while seated behind his desk, Jeremiah gestalt-knew how to do it. The script popped into his head like a flash of inspiration.

  At the click of his fingers, he had a chair materialise in front of the desk. He indicated it to Rinzler. ‘I appreciate it that you’ve come here of your own free will. Please come and sit down.’

  ‘I’m already sitting down!!!’

  Jeremiah deployed a sweet voice that never failed with subordinates. ‘I might be guilty of underestimating you in the past, Rinzler, but your performance of late has been impressive. You must have realised by now that implicating you in the Indigo incident was just our excuse for…’

  ‘How will you clear me?’ Rinzler interrupted.

  ‘Leave that to me,’ Jeremiah reassured.

  Rinzler failed to be reassured.

  Jeremiah said snappishly, ‘I’ll retract the poster at once, it goes without saying. Consider it done.’

  ‘I’ll consider it when I see it done!’

  ‘You’ll have to come and sit over here to see it.’

  Rinzler obliged.

  Jeremiah felt as if he had just won a round in their battle of wits. Pleased, he issued the command to remove the poster, making sure that Rinzler saw the confirmation message.

  Rinzler waited until it was all done before pointing out that it didn’t mean anything. OK didn’t need the poster anymore since he was right here, and withdrawing it didn’t exonerate him. ‘How will you clear my name?’

  Jeremiah told him. ‘There will be a press release formally reporting Kendall’s confession and declaring that OK Justice believes its authenticity. You have my word.’ He saw Rinzler’s sceptical expression, and stressed, ‘My word carries weight.’

  ‘Your word as a product quality officer?’

  ‘My word as a Cordova,’ replied Jeremiah sharply, and then spoke mellifluously, ‘I’m not taking you for a fool, Rinzler. You are a man of the world. I wouldn’t expect you to believe me before you see the press release for yourself. As for Justice, it’s none of their business who has killed Indigo.’

  Rinzler pointed out that it was their business. That’s the whole point of having a justice system.

  The man is hard work, Jeremiah sighed inwardly, but went on with the improvised script. ‘We’ve discovered who teleported outside Indigo’s door. It was…’

  ‘Me?’

  ‘No, no, Rinzler. We don’t fabricate evidence. It was a Monday.’

  ‘Monday killed Indigo?’

  ‘Androids don’t kill, people do.’

  ‘And you think that I shot Indigo with a Monday?’

  ‘There’s no evidence that you did. It requires a highly sophisticated reconfiguration of a Daily to enable it to kill a human. Frankly, I have no idea what skills you have. But I know that you have a friend who can do it.’

  ‘I have friends?’ Rinzler rubbed his chin, thoughtful for a moment.

  Then he said, ‘Do you mean Angerford?’

  Jeremiah nodded. Ambrose, the bitch, he thought in Mitzi’s voice.

  Rinzler smirked. ‘Don’t worry, Mitzi. I have no intention of coming between you two. You have my word as a Rinzler.’

  Jeremiah winced and spoke through gritted teeth. ‘It will go in your favour if you tell me what Angerford is up to.’

  ‘I honestly don’t know. We don’t have that kind of relationship.’

  Jeremiah smiled without moving the corners of his mouth. ‘That’s a shame. Are you aware that you are the only person he’s ever let into his home? The way that Counterespionage will see it…’

  ‘Hold on,’ interrupted Rinzler, ‘why is your military following me?’

  ‘I didn’t say military. Please stop interrupting. The way they’ll see it is that you hired Monday to kill Indigo, and then Angerford made any evidence against you disappear. The way I see it, he doesn’t have to go to such lengths. You could shoot Indigo yourself and Angerford can easily fabricate an alibi for you by planting a false memory in April showing you to be somewhere else.’

  Rinzler paled and asked, weakly, ‘But what’s my motive?’

  Gotcha, Jeremiah thought triumphantly in colloquialism, and told Rinzler that Counterespionage didn’t care for motives or beyond-reasonable-doubt scenarios. They don’t follow Justice’s protocols.

  Rinzler stood up, pert in hand. He tried to press it and discovered that the signal was blocked.

  He put it back in his pocket and sat down again. ‘I’ll take my chances with OK Justice.’

  Jeremiah shook his head. ‘When Counterespionage get their teeth into someone, they don’t let go. I’ll be honest with you: my word doesn’t carry much weight with them. If you help me I can get them off your back.’

  ‘How can you do that?
Your word doesn’t carry any weight with them.’

  ‘I didn’t say that. I said “not much”. Just trust me. I can make it undesirable for them to be interested in you. It’s a clan matter. You must be wondering why I’m going to such lengths on behalf of a junior clerk whose death is of no consequence to anyone.’

  It was a rhetorical question, but Rinzler wasn’t sticking to the script. ‘I assumed it was because she was someone who worked for you and deserves justice like any human being. But I’m starting to wonder. How is it a clan matter? Whose clan would that be?’

  ‘Mine, who else,’ Jeremiah said, wondering whether Rinzler knew about Jan the Pan. ‘It’s highly sensitive and very private, and might reflect badly on, shall we say, a certain Cordova who is extremely influential in Counterespionage. He’s taking a personal interest in Indigo’s death.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Please don’t change the subject, Rinzler. You should ask yourself why they are taking an interest in you. Right now I’m your best hope. Cyboratics won’t help you. If you are working for them they’ll deny any connection with you. And if you’re not working for them, they have no reason to protect you. Permit me to speak a language you understand: you scratch my back…’ He instantly regretted the cliché. He took a deep breath to exorcise the image of bodily intimacy with Rinzler. ‘In other words, you do something for me and I’ll make it embarrassing for them to be interested in you. All I’m asking is some data incriminating Angerford. It will be a chance for you to prove your loyalty.’ That was the wrong thing to say to a non-citizen. ‘I mean, prove that you’re not loyal to Cyboratics.’

  ‘I don’t do corporate politics.’

  ‘It’s not politics, it’s a clan matter.’

  ‘Is there a difference?’

  Jeremiah had to agree. There was no difference.

  Rinzler got up again and stepped away from the chair. ‘I’ve heard enough. Call your military to fetch me.’

  Jeremiah sighed audibly. ‘Sit down for goodness’ sake. I don’t have any intention of handing you over to them. I’m trying to stop them from getting you. I won’t bullshit you saying that I care about you. It’s between me and that distant relative of mine.’

  Rinzler sat down. ‘I hear things in my line of work. But it’s none of my business so I forget things very quickly. I keep forgetting that it’s counterespionage. I keep calling it military. Forgive me for being naïve, but in my sheer ignorance it seems to me you don’t stand a snowball’s chance in hell against the old man, Cordova.’

  Jeremiah blurted, ‘What do you know about Old Man Cordova?’

  ‘Only what I hear. I’ll take my chances.’ Rinzler stood up.

  ‘Sit down please,’ pleaded Jeremiah. ‘If you keep jumping up like that, the security watching us might think you’re threatening me. Killing Indigo was meant as a message to me. It wasn’t Kendall.’

  Rinzler sat down, listening.

  Jeremiah went on, ‘I know who pulled the trigger. There’s a man who does private jobs for Old Man Cordova and he was seen in Proxima recently.’

  ‘Do you have evidence?’

  ‘No.’ Jeremiah sighed audibly. He didn’t intend to tell Rinzler any of that, and yet couldn’t stop himself. A script — another script — was writing itself. ‘He goes by many names but nobody knows his real name. His image is never captured. People who’ve seen him face to face say he’s a small man and claims to be Japanese.’ Jeremiah noticed Rinzler frown strangely, and mistook it for scepticism. ‘I know how lame it sounds. He’s a myth, damn it. Nobody can prove he exists.’

  ‘How do you know he’s been here?’

  ‘He met Indigo the day before she was killed. People saw them together.’

  ‘In the Mineshaft? April is always there.’

  ‘An andronet memory can be tampered with by its analyst. You have 48 hours to get me the evidence implicating Angerford in an attempt to pervert the course of OK Justice. If you don’t, I’ll pass on all the evidence against you to, shall we say, the “military”. Get me something I can take to the CSG.’ Jeremiah clicked his fingers. ‘Your pert will work now. Good day.’

  Chapter 30

  Rinzler jaunted directly to the cheapest inn in P-7, where he now lodged, logged into his office from a workstation in the lobby, and checked out Jeremiah’s story. He knew that Schmidt wouldn’t be captured digitally. He looked for inconsistencies.

  On the eve of her death Indigo spent about an hour at the Mineshaft. Kendall was there, watching her from afar. She chatted with some OK people until they donned the headgear. She stayed unplugged. April came over and they chatted until more people came in and April went to serve them. Another April presently came to join Indigo. The android said something, and Indigo stared at it with astonishment. ‘Are you surprised because it’s not April you’re seeing?’ Rinzler thought at the dead woman on the video. A young woman alone in a bar won’t be surprised if a man she doesn’t know approached her. ‘Maybe you are surprised to see him, because he’s not a stranger,’ Rinzler thought at her ghost, ‘and you are not a quality assurance clerk.’

  Since the militaries were banned, the corporations were permitted to maintain only counterespionage. But for any counterespionage there is espionage. None of my business, he reminded himself to no avail. It was becoming his business. Me and my big mouth. He regretted letting it slip that he ‘heard things’ about the head of military intelligence. Schmidt told him things so that Rinzler could keep away, keep safe.

  The seat in front of the workstation in the inn’s grim foyer wasn’t designed for comfort, and he was still sore from the scuffle with the Ludovic thugs. His physical discomfort aggravated his mental unease. He had no idea what private jobs Schmidt did, but the kind of jobs he’d do wouldn’t include assassination. Rinzler was sure about that. Almost sure. What do I really know about him? Samurai Sunrise could have hacked into Cyboratics and fix Monday to shoot Indigo at the precise moment that he had his reunion with Rinzler in this very inn.

  Rinzler fed more cash into the workstation, and replayed the Mineshaft video. He sought witnesses, someone who might remember an inconspicuous stranger in a black biosuit such as worn by half the population of P-7. It was a long shot. Yet, if a reliable witness said that a man looking like Suzuki had spoken with Indigo, and April ‘remembers’ sitting with Indigo at the same time, that would cheer up Jeremiah no end.

  Rinzler hated the thought of making Jeremiah happy.

  He called Angerford, who confirmed that a unit had been dispatched to sit with Indigo in the Mineshaft on the specified date and time. Rinzler queried how she could afford to hire April so much. Angerford told him that she wasn’t paying. April had a unit to spare. Angerford too was puzzled about it.

  ‘I guess they liked each other’s company,’ suggested Rinzler. ‘But you are going to tell me that an andronet can’t get emotionally attached.’ Rinzler didn’t need Angerford to tell him the implications of a Cyboratics artefact ‘befriending’ an OK spy. None of my business.

  He forced himself to turn to his own business.

  CrimSol sent him a few new cases. He routinely shoved them to the holding box. His mind kept dwelling on things that were none of his business.

  On the eve of her death Indigo went alone from the Mineshaft to an eatery called the Galleria. April wasn’t there. People queued for self-service food replicators. Rinzler spotted Cerise. ‘I’ll be damned,’ he muttered aloud. There was no mistake. Cerise and Indigo knew each other. Judging from the body language, no love was lost between them. The surveillance video played on. Indigo got her order from the machine and took a seat as far away from Cerise’s group as was possible in the crowded restaurant.

  People don’t go there to eat alone. Sure enough, soon someone came in and walked up to Indigo’s table… ‘Your time is up,’ said a gruff voice behind him. Rinzler turned — expecting a grumpy old man — and was startled to face April.

  He quickly blanked the display, wondering how much the
andronet had seen.

  ‘I’m the Management speaking through April,’ the gruff voice informed through the smiling blonde android. ‘This facility is for checking your mail, not for working.’

  ‘It’s a work-station. I can check my mail from my phone, my pad, my… anything.’

  ‘You are supposed to be quick and give other people a chance.’

  ‘What other people?’ The foyer was empty.

  ‘It’s our policy,’ insisted the voice. ‘Twenty minutes maximum per person.’

  ‘But I’m paying and there’s nobody queuing. Who are you? You don’t sound like Management.’ He logged out anyway and collected a small refund in a voucher for the inn’s vending machines. ‘Your vending machines are crap too.’

  April said in ‘her’ normal voice, ‘He has logged out. May I help you in any way?’

  ‘You could tell me why you’re so helpful.’

  ‘I exist to help.’

  Rinzler went to his room and urgently called Angerford again. ‘April, just now, this location?’

  ‘No unit was dispatched there lately,’ replied Angerford. ‘In fact, none since April saw you there on the day that Indigo was shot.’

  ‘There will be a Teletek record of April getting here just now.’

  Angerford explained that he couldn’t legally access 1Step logs without concrete evidence supporting his suspicion.

  ‘Maybe I can help with that,’ said Rinzler. ‘Why don’t you join me for some food?’

  Rinzler was already at the Galleria when Angerford arrived. The place wasn’t as crowded as when Indigo had gone there. They walked directly to a replicator. Rinzler prattled, ‘It’s a revival of an old New Concept. Why have replicated food looking like food when it can look like anything you want it to? You can eat a Mona Lisa melon or The Scream ice-cream, a burger looking like cans of Campbell soup…’ he was reading off the Sample Menu.