QUANTUM MORTIS: A Man Disrupted

by Steve Rzasa

  “Interesting. So, they screwed up. By which you mean the container was seized.”

  “Not exactly.” The Basattrian exposed four rows of needle-thin teeth, two above and two below, in his approximation of a human smile. “Your customs agents are reliable so long as they are paid properly. Sometimes, the new players, they try to cut corners. Or maybe they don’t understand that the all-seeing eyes only fail to see when they are given sufficient reason.”

  “I’m astonished,” Tower said dryly. He’d yet to visit a planetary system where the customs couldn’t be bought off. On Rhysalan, customs jobs were seen as a position almost akin to a pension and they were usually reserved for older officers who used them to ease their way into retirement. “I don’t care about that. I’m curious about where they happened to go after they disappeared from customs. I know you don’t get involved in the arms trade, but I’ve heard not all of your fellow Basattrians are so delicately scaled.”

  The alien’s nicitating membranes flickered back and forth twice, and then twice more.

  “What’s the need to know? Why is MCID getting involved in a minor customs affair?”

  “High. I don’t care about the smuggling. I’m hunting a murderer who has killed twice and barely missed on a third try. Not only is he going to kill again, but there are political ramifications. Serious ones.”

  “This connected to that dead Morchardese king-in-exile?”

  Tower shook his head. Bloody media. Well, TPPD couldn’t keep it under wraps forever.

  “You might say that.”

  “And you’re certain about the connection to that, shall we say, missing shipment?”

  “TPPD has one sitting in a secure storage locker right now. We’re absolutely certain. The numbers match.”

  Delbert hissed. “You put me in a tight spot, Graven Tower. Very tight. I have—obligations. Relationships. And if it comes out that I provided you with sensitive information, there would be repercussions. Possibly severe ones.”

  “I know, old friend. But understand this. There is less risk if you tell me what you know. Less risk for you, and less for your obligations. I can lean hard on Customs and trace the path that way, but then everything comes out. You understand, Delbert? Everything. Once I make the official request, I lose control of where it goes or where it ends. If you can give me the name I need, then it starts and ends with me.”

  Delbert opened his mouth as if to say something, but then his powerful jaw clicked shut with an audible snap.

  “Delbert, come on! I don’t care about your nest-cousin’s line into Customs. I don’t care who he’s doing business with on the supply side. I just need to know who the buyer was. Or buyers, if there was more than one.”

  The alien shrugged, extended his middle set of arms and spread his talon-like claws. It struck Tower as a peculiarly human gesture for a Basattrian to make.

  “Doesn’t make any difference, Tower. Understand I cannot help you. Nothing can change my mind. No threats will convince me.”

  He folded his arms again. What was the old lizard playing at, Tower wondered. His speech was stilted and oddly formal. Was the wily old smuggler trying to tell him something?

  “Do you remember One Nine Delta, Graven Tower? I have not forgotten.”

  “Neither have I.” It was Delbert’s identification code at the time Tower saved Delbert’s life.

  The Basattrian made the same strange gesture as before. “However things have changed, Tower, some things remain the same. And I have forgotten nothing. Remember that. Don’t forget it.”

  “So you’d rather have me lean on customs than just give me a simple name? Come on, Delbert, don’t make me do this to you. Don’t make me do this to your nest-cousins and some old Customs agents who are just trying to make their retirement a little more comfortable.”

  “Do what you must, if you still feel it is necessary, Graven Tower.” This time the arms remained folded and the Basattrian closed one eye in an apparent approximation of a human wink. “And give my regards to that clever augment of yours.”

  They didn’t embrace this time. Tower only nodded and turned to go, feeling troubled and let down. Baby summoned him a cab as he pondered the question of going directly to the Customs headquarters on Spoke One or returning groundside and passing on the responsibility to track down the disruptors to Hildy and TPPD. The Trans Paradis police were less likely to dig deep enough to cause any serious trouble to Delbert and his friends. On the other hand, there was a good chance they would find themselves completely stonewalled by a bureaucracy that stood second-to-none in failing to cooperate with the various police departments.

  The cab glided silently up to the curbside, then addressed him cheerfully. “The autotransport system of Beta Station is happy to offer you its services again, Chief Warrant Officer Graven Tower! If you wish to travel to a new location, please inform this autocab now. If you are hungry, please be informed that there are seven food service destinations within three hectaseconds of your current location. Do you wish a list of them?”

  “Tower, where are we going?” Baby said.

  “Spoke Three Shuttle,” he answered both of them. “And shut up. Not you, Baby. You, manic mini autocab driver.”

  He was lying back half-reclined in the back seat with his eyes closed when a thought struck him. “Baby, did you notice Delbert was talking a little strangely? And doing something with his middle arms?”

  “I did, boss. Think he was trying to send you a message?”

  “Maybe. Can you play me back our conversation? Just when he started doing that thing with his arms?”

  An image of the Basattrian was soon overlaid on the view of the station as the autocab sped past warehouses and various entertainment establishments. Delbert made the gesture twice, both times when he started speaking in uncharacteristically brief sentences. There was nothing in his words that struck Tower as unusual, and Baby said she didn’t pick up any subvocalizations or backward maskings that might have contained a secret message.

  “Tower, there is a custom of utilizing the Holy Scriptures for prophecy based on the arrangement of the letters. The Basattrian is intelligent and it is highly unusual that he should speak in sentences of only five words. There could be some simple code concealed inside them. Codes that involve the first letter of a word are common.”

  “So what do the first letters tell us?”

  “The first time, it was DMADT UICHY NYSCC NTWCM. The second time was HTHCT STRTS AIHFN RTDFI. Running them now.”

  Tower waited. And he waited. Before she’d even responded he knew she had nothing. “Okay, give it up, Baby.”

  “Just six million more tries, boss,” she replied, a little curtly. “Give me another decasec.”

  He waited. “Nothing?”

  “Nothing!” Her chagrin was palpable.

  They were just pulling into the delivery and drop-off zone from whence they’d come when a thought occurred to him.

  “Too many letters.”

  “What?”

  “There are too many letters. What if instead of using the first letter of every word, you only use the first letter of the first word of each sentence.”

  “Done hard,” she replied.

  “What’s that?”

  “Thank you for travelling with the autotransport system of Beta Station, Chief Warrant Officer Graven Tower,” the autocab abruptly announced. “Should you require further transportation services, please have your augment reserve an auto-taxi for you at your convenience!”

  Tower slammed the door a little harder than was strictly necessary. “Done hard, as in, hard done by? That makes no sense.”

  “No,” Baby corrected him. “Dunn. D-U-N-N, then hard.”

  “That could be a name. A strange sort of fake name, but I’ve heard worse. Anyone named Dunn Hard on station or downstairs?”

  “No Dunn Hard anywhere, but I do have a Hardwig Dunn… and he’s resident in Trans Paradis. Here we go! Shuttle registries show that he travelled sur
faceside from Beta Station exactly one week ago.”

  Tower pumped his fist. “I love that lizard! I knew he couldn’t be that dense. I knew it! Patch me through to Hildy, will you?”

  Hildy picked up on the fourth tone. “Watcha got, Tower?” she said in a hurried tone that indicated she was busy.

  “I’m on Beta, coming down on the next shuttle. In the meantime, can you bring in a person of interest named Hardwig Dunn and hold him for questioning?”

  “You got a lead on the Mosins? Already? How in the world did you manage that, it’s barely past noon?”

  “It’s a delicate art, Detector, not a science.” He ignored her rude retort. “I’ve got to report into base, so let me know when you’ve got him.”

  “Will do. Enjoy the ride down, Tower.”

  And he did.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  Under a system of violent and hegemonic bonds, someone must superintend and direct operations. Under a system of full hegemonic bonds, persons both natural and artificial are subject to the ownership of others with the exception of the one decision not to revolt against the authority of the owner. Thus fully hegemonic regimes of the sort exhibited in the so-called Unity do not and cannot abolish property, but can only transfer it from one set of owners to another, usually the central authority.

  —from “The Philosophy of Unity” by Wigbar Murvon

  Tower didn’t get the chance to discuss much of the Morchardese case with Major Zeuthen. He had barely begun explaining why he didn’t believe the dead Valatestan was a conclusive indicator of his government’s involvement when the major’s augment interrupted and informed him that General Hagen of the Fifth Motorized Infantry was looking to speak with him about MCID’s investigation into his unit. The major waved Tower out of the office, but not before Tower heard the general addressing his superior in terms that were less than entirely flattering.

  He returned to his office and saw Michel Basha was there, examining what looked like an explosive device on his holoscreen. The sergeant glanced up, saw it was Tower, and returned to what he was doing without so much as a greeting.

  “At ease, Sergeant Basha,” Tower said sarcastically.

  “You ever seen anything like this, Tower?” Basha said, less unrepentant than unaware. The four of them who shared the room were necessarily casual about their differences in rank. “It’s a recreation of the bomb that blew up a pair of Unity diplomats last night. Explosive signature indicates a simple TL-6 ammonium nitrate device, only about five hundred times more efficient.”

  “Where was the bomb?”

  “In their var. They were flying at an altitude of 1,150 meters and the debris killed six civvies below. How you like that for bad luck?”

  “Not so good,” Tower concurred. “Any word on who did it?”

  “Looks like some of our homegrown radicals, except the efficiency punch points to somebody with access to TL-18 plus. Hey, I hear you’ve been hanging out with a nice little blond number with the TPPD. What’s going on there?”

  “I am merely providing all due assistance to the city’s finest.”

  “All due assistance, is that what they call it now?” Basha laughed. “Good for you, Chief.”

  Tower didn’t bother trying to set the younger man straight. All the young grunts had girls on the brain; if they didn’t have excess testosterone, they wouldn’t be in the military in the first place. Instead, he dove right in to the data Baby had assembled on Hardwig Dunn. The results were disappointing enough that Tower felt a headache coming on.

  “He’s got a criminal record as long as my arm.” Tower whistled. “B&E, assault, trafficking in prohibited substances, attempted vehicular manslaughter. No arms dealing, though.”

  “The record terminates four years ago. I find no mention of Mr. Dunn in recent arrests or investigations.

  “Looks like he’s fallen off the wagon. Where is he?

  “That’s just it, boss. It’s not just his criminal record, his entire record is static over that time. His last known address has had three residents since he was there. However I may have a solution.”

  “Wait for Hildy to find him?”

  “It seems Mr. Dunn is a cyborg.”

  “And his implant is registered?”

  “Yes. Mr. Dunn received an Ambidex Four Thousand bionic arm—his right one—four years ago. He also had an ocular implant to replace his left eye, which the database indicates was damaged beyond repair in the same shooting that caused the loss of his shoulder.”

  “That explains the abrupt end to his criminal activities. They got a tag in it?”

  “Yes. I passed the information along to Victor and he says Detector Hildreth thinks she can use it to hunt him down with one of her drones. Want me to patch you in?”

  She didn’t wait for his approval. Suddenly, his holo showed Hildy in the center of a control room, sitting atop a white disc hovering a meter off the floor. Six holo-screens blinked to life around her, washing her with red, blue and green lights. There was a curved railing behind her, littered with auxiliary display screens. “Welcome to the Game of City, Tower.”

  “Nice setup,” Tower complimented her.

  “So, I have the flocks queued and ready to go. It looks as if Mr. Dunn removed the tag out from his arm, but was unaware of the one in his eye. If one of the flickers gets close enough, it will record a hit and we can ID him on the nearest cam, either by visual or face rec. Hold on, here we go!”

  A huge hologram of Trans Paradis sprang to life all around her. Thousands of spires and towers glittered in blue-white holographic light all around. It even projected onto the platform.

  “I’ve got Victor linked to the flicker feed, Baby, so you can play too. You’ve got more horsepower than Victor or the system here, so if you see him first, holler.” Hildy cocked her head to the left. “As we expected, there is no one by the name of Dunn at his current address, here.” A red star blinked to life halfway across the room. The city spun and zoomed in on the structure, a low-rent apartment spire. Even seen in holo-miniature, it made Tower’s head spin.

  “Neighbors indicate Dunn talked about relocating to somewhere on 7th Street just about the same time his record went blank. Flickers are dispersing,” she said. “There’s ten per flock. I have them running facial recognition from the public security scanners as well as any private cams that aren’t locked down or shielded.”

  “Isn’t that a lot more work than having Baby and Victor pull the data?”

  “Maybe, but it’s faster and more thorough. The augments can’t access anything that isn’t connected and most security systems are set up for that sort of incoming attack. The flickers can directly connect to anything that has an interface and they can even bore into hard-wired connections. They’re stupid, but as long as they can get access to the encrypted data, we can decode the stream here.”

  “Maybe he can’t,” Baby told him smugly. “But she’s right, if it’s not on the net, I can’t see it.”

  “That’ll help. Baby, did you scare up any other relevant info concerning Mr. Dunn?”

  “It might behoove us to run comparisons of the dining establishments he was known to frequent. Humans are not the only sentient species prone to establishing regular eating patterns that can be easily traced.”

  Names and addresses scrolled through Tower’s vision. He recognized several right away either because he’d gone there by choice or because he’d been called out to a crime scene in the area.

  Hmm. He pulled up Dunn’s financials, the old records. No idea about the current ones. His income had been on a steady decline. Probably ruled out the more expensive restaurants he had visited occasionally. Dunn evidently wasn’t one for making rash, expensive purchases. In the end, after accounting for three restaurant closings, Tower came up with a list of five places Dunn might still frequent.

  “Hey, Hildy, let’s see if we can combine methods. It’s a long shot, but run these restaurants into your search grid. Give them priority and see how the
y track.”

  Hildy paused, her face a mask of concentration marked by an attractive frown, as Baby streamed the list to Victor. Six orange points appeared on the city map. “Oh. I see. Thanks. I’m sending Flocks Two Six Zero and Two Seven Zero to cover those points. They’ll tap recent security feeds and send the data back here.”

  “Right, I think I get it. Wow, those things are fast!” Quadrant after quadrant was being rapidly eliminated, and more and more areas of the map were turning red to indicate they had already been searched.

  “Yeah, I’m surprised you guys don’t have anything like this.”

  “I assume the Colonel is waiting for when the rocket-equipped version is available,” Tower said. He could feel his pulse accelerate. Sure, the red zones were just flashing lights in a holo, but he could feel something happening. He could almost feel the aerial sensor net tightening as if it was a physical sensation. Surely the fish must be somewhere in the net!

  Come on, Dunn, be a good little fish and show us that ugly, one-eyed mug.

  One quadrant after another turned red as the flocks of microdrones pulled real-time data from cameras whether they were integrated into the city-wide net or not.

  Indicators lit up on Hildy’s board, causing patterns to flicker across her face. “I think we have a hit!” she said, clenching one fist.

  “Flicker Two Six Zero Gamma has confirmed visual records of Dunn at the CastaNova,” Baby said. “Recorded three days ago.”

  Tower smacked his fist into his palm in disappointment. Three days ago?

  “No, that’s all right, that’s what we were hoping for,” Hildy reassured him. “Now we go vid hunting.”

  She zoomed the holo of the city down on to the restaurant. CastaNova was a small eatery about four kloms from the police headquarters, on the 151st floor of a respectable skytower. The neighborhood there was packed full of small businesses and residences, all connected by shielded walkpaths and elevated platforms. It wasn’t a bad part of town, although Tower hadn’t been there more than once or twice.