The Scorpion Game

by Daniel Jeffries

  The last one wheeled on him, a big guy riveted with spikes, but Hoskin caught him with a vicious knee before he could move all his bulk and followed with a quick jab and an elbow to the face that put him down.

  “You all right?” said Hoskin to the shop owner. He was a thin Arclight, a dark-skinned Phyle who all had bright studs of tiny light beads embedded in their skin.

  “Yeah, think so.”

  “It’s all right, I’m a cop. Can you move?”

  Hoskin fast-scanned him and didn’t pick up any internal bleeding or critical wounds, just a few cuts and some bruising, a cracked rib cage.

  “I don’t see anything major,” said Hoskin.

  “I’ll be all right,” said the owner, sitting up.

  “Okay. I’m gonna take your scattergun and keep this place safe while I put out some calls for help. Get in the back. Your store is lost. Don’t lose your life too.”

  Hoskin picked up the light organometallic gun and flicked it to non-lethal. It had a good charge. The shop owner crept into the back. Outside the broken window the riot raged, but it was moving forward, scattering a bit. He could hole up here, wait it out.

  He had find a way to get back to work. And soon. Real soon.

  ***

  The police contained the riot quickly, rushing in with a barrage of riotballs that sprayed Drift over the crowd, a powerful Hypnotic, putting half the people to sleep and slowing a bunch more. The Phyles who Drift didn’t affect got blasted with a gel that hardened in seconds and kept them frozen in place until they could be processed.

  Hoskin didn’t stick around for questioning once the scene was secure. Best if he wasn’t there. He buzzed Quinlin to pick him up but didn’t get an answer. He managed to sneak out the back of the shop and get some distance from the chaos.

  This is what our killer wanted.

  He kept moving.

  I gotta get back to work.

  ***

  His head started ringing, almost as soon as he got back to his apartment. He accepted the call, sending it to his mediawall. He figured the Captain had finally given in, but instead it was Michael Anton Childress, the father of the murdered Morph Barrotes, who flared up on the screen.

  “Detective, I’d like to talk with you. I need your help,” said Childress.

  The man looked ten times as large on Hoskin’s mediawall.

  “Look I don’t have any time and I’m not a detective right now, Mr. Childress. I don’t think there’s much I can do for you.”

  “You’re still a detective to me. Please. You’re the only one I believe can help me. Will you come? Just talk to me at least. Please.”

  Childress’ eyes looked swollen and bloodshot. Hoskin guessed the guy wasn’t sleeping well.

  “All right, I’ll meet with you,” said Hoskin. “When?”

  “Now, if that’s all right. I’ll send a light-limo for you.”

  “Just send a car. I don’t need a limo.”

  “Whatever you like.”

  ***

  As they descended through the clouds, the Childress orbital mansion opened up below him. The aircar featured an old-fashioned robotic driver with a stylized human face. In the early days of automation, people still wanted to feel like something tangible controlled their fates and robo-drivers proliferated. Now just about everyone accepted the driverless car would get them where they needed to go better than they could themselves.

  Hoskin looked down through the car’s glass floor as the clouds swept aside, revealing more and more of the grounds. Gardens and rivers and bright blue pools flowed all over the property. A brilliantly colored forest, purple and pink and yellow, stretched out for miles, its psychedelic canopy waving in the winds. Unlike the Gilead mansion, it wasn’t perfectly manicured and planned. It looked wild and rough. Even the mansion itself seemed as if it had grown magically from the rainforest and just by chance formed a home with thousands of rooms.

  Instead of a landing platform, the car descended into a wide open field, cut into the middle of the forest. The trees were wild hybrids that had been genesculpted and then left to nature’s imagination. Their gnarled and knotted branches wove together and into each other. Zoomed in, Hoskin could see the leaves were nearly translucent and the color was like a fine mist of paint wedged between sheets of glass. The tiny dashes of color moved and swirled inside the leaves, as if dancing.

  A hoverplank waited for him outside the car, piloted by a servo gorilla. There was no security detail this time. The practice of using uplifted animals had faded in popularity, but Childress didn’t seem to care much about current trends. The gorilla’s gold fur, slashed with rivulets of purple, looked strangely noble.

  “I just got it done,” said the gorilla.

  “What?” said Hoskin.

  “The gold and purple. I like how it turned out,” said the gorilla. “Do you like it?”

  “Would it matter if I didn’t?” said Hoskin.

  “Not really.”

  “Then it looks great.”

  The gorilla turned his back on Hoskin with a snort and the platform lifted off and headed through the winding forest paths towards the house.

  ***

  “Mr. Childress is waiting for you in the hot house,” said the gorilla and gestured him in through the large, open doors.

  A wave of dense heat hit Hoskin immediately. Wildly overgrown orchids dominated the room, all of them the size of a man or bigger, their colors preternatural and saturated. Not far off, Hoskin could see Childress sitting in a massive carved oak chair, a few tables and a bar near him.

  Hoskin’s running suit adjusted its porousness to the heat, but it didn’t seem to help much. He walked slowly to where Childress sat under a canopy of weeping flowers. His back was already soaked with sweat.

  “Thank you so much for coming, Detective,” said Childress, looking up suddenly, as if he’d just realized Hoskin was there. “Have a seat, please.”

  “I told you, I’m not a detective right now,” said Hoskin, sitting down in a second oak chair.

  “You don’t believe that or you wouldn’t be here.”

  “You asked me to be here.”

  “And you came because you’re still a cop. You’re a single-minded man. I’ve known a few men like you in my life. You are what you are. I admire that. I’ve never had it myself, but I can still recognize it.”

  “And how do you know that?”

  “I do my research very carefully.”

  “What can I do for you Mr. Childress?”

  “Please. Michael. I can’t stand formalities and put-ons.”

  “Then we’re alike there. What’s this about?”

  The heat pressed down on Hoskin. He felt heavy in his chair.

  “Do you drink?” said Childress.

  “I do.”

  “Good. I like a man who drinks. Nobody really drinks anymore. Such a blunt instrument now compared to what spills from the chemists’ labs, but it still has its merits. Can I make you a drink?” Childress got up and went to the bar. “I like to mix them myself. Machines don’t quite give it—something—it’s missing something. Help me out, Detective.”

  “It’s missing a soul.”

  “Ah, that’s good. I’ve never thought of putting it that way,” said Childress. “What do you like?”

  “Anything with rum or whiskey will work.”

  Hoskin wanted to jump up and just make the drink himself, but he restrained himself. Childress moved slowly, but there was a grace in his movements that Hoskin didn’t usually see in a man that size. He selected a bottle of rum carefully from a long line of exotic liquors in elaborately animated bottles, their labels playing on loops. He poured it and then picked more ingredients: brandy, triple sec, lemon and lime juice. He looked around for a shaker and found it.

  Hoskin liked the man.

  “You strike me as the kind of man that doesn’t do drugs,” said Childress.

  “I’ve done th
em, I just don’t do them anymore, except maybe stimulants when necessary.”

  “Why?”

  “I learned something from a few of them: the psychedelics, the empathics, the X-jumpers. But most just dulled me. I learned what I could and moved on.”

  “How long has it been?”

  “I don’t know. A hundred years or more. Don’t think about it much.”

  “I’ve done drugs daily for the last two hundred years. I have a drug gland that can manufacture almost anything I want in seconds. Anything to change my mood to something better. Frankly, I’ve done nothing with my life but indulge. I spent the last two hundred years ‘pleasure centering’ as my son used to call it. I’ve done nothing since I made my original money. I’ve contributed nothing to society.”

  Hoskin stayed quiet, just listening. He had the strange feeling this was an interview. Childress came back, moving slowly, and handed Hoskin drink. He sat down with a thud and took a long pull.

  “Do you know I once spent almost two years in a machine that gave me a something like a perpetual orgasm? It took care of everything, every need. It exercised me, fed me, cleaned me. I had no thoughts for almost two years, I just drifted in an artificial bliss.”

  “Given the chance, I’m sure most people would have done the same.”

  “Would you?”

  “No.”

  Childress didn’t say anything for a minute. Hoskin waited patiently.

  “It’s no wonder the killer wants to wipe us out. We’ve gone too far. We’re parasites,” said Childress.

  “Every man has the right to choose his own life. Most people would live your life if they could. All I care about is making sure people have the chance to make their own choices, right or wrong. Why did you bring me here, Michael?”

  “I need you,” said Childress. “I’d like you to pick up the investigation again.”

  “Why? You barely know me.”

  “As I said, I do my research, very, very carefully. Unfortunately, I sometimes don’t trust my instincts when it comes to friends and family. It’s simple really. I need someone outside of my circle.”

  “Why?”

  “Because I don’t trust them anymore. I believe Gideon Daniels was one of my son’s lovers. And he didn’t tell me.”

  “How did you find out?”

  “My son’s stream diaries. I found them hidden in the archives. Believe it or not, I never intended for the CII to take over the case when I brought in Investigator Daniels. I should’ve known though. That’s how they work.”

  “Who?”

  “The other families. They wanted full control because they want to catch the killer, kill him themselves and bury everything about the case. But I need to know what happened to my son and right now I’ve got nothing left to lose. If any of the other families find him, I might never know. My memories are already out there for everyone to see. I’ve got nothing left to hide. My son is gone. I need public justice, not the secret justice of the families. And you’ve been on the case since the beginning.”

  “How did your memories get out there too? You’re not dead. Doesn’t fit the pattern,” said Hoskin.

  “I suspect they stole my archive codes from my son’s mind.

  “All right, but there’s still the little problem of I’m suspended. I’m not a cop right now. I can’t even go near the case. So how can I help you?”

  “I’ll make you a member of Dynasty Security, under your own direction. Not even I will tell you what to do or how to do it. It’s your call. Just tell me the resources you need and it’s done.”

  “That’s great, but it doesn’t get me into crime scenes outside of this orbital.”

  “That would normally be true, but I’ve just named you Critical Situations Investigator. Under a private treaty signed by all of the Dynasty houses and Shipwide Governance, each house can name a CSI in the event of a crime that affects multiple families and he must be given access to all the Houses and their resources and diplomatic immunity on the ground.”

  “How often has this treaty been used?”

  “Never.”

  “Well at least we’re on solid ground. A never-tested treaty, a hostile Central Intel and hostile Dynasties.”

  “So you’ll do it?” said Childress.

  “Yeah.”

  “Good.”

  “We start with Daniels. We take a hard look at him. Either he’s aggressively covering up for the families or he’s involved.”

  “I agree. I’ve already prepared an extensive dossier for you. Everything I know about the man. I know you’ll want to get started right away.”

  Two silverback gorilla servos came out of the wild spray of orchids with an ornate box, bigger than a man, covered in gold swirls and mosaic tiles. They gently set it down.

  “This Tangleport will take you down to the armory. We need to get you fitted with some new weapons and defenses, since the police took yours. My Dynasty Security and their insiders at the CII tell me that our killer is augmented. We can’t have you going up against him with nothing.”

  “I don’t need much. I can handle myself.”

  “Why don’t you wait until you’ve seen everything to decide what you want and don’t want. Your choice, of course.”

  “Fair enough.”

  “Go ahead, my master at arms will show you the armory.”

  Hoskin stepped into the box and felt the familiar all body itch of Tangle travel. Moments later, a door opened on the back wall of the portal and he stepped out into a massive room. On the walls, yellow cocoons held row after row of biomechanical armored suits, tens of thousands of them, enough for several brigades of a private army. They looked like mutated stingrays and lobsters and scorpions, heavily modified for mayhem.

  The room felt insectian, hive-like, no right angles, all of it grown and gestated, golden and flowing, woven by invisible insects, their distributed minds working in sync.

  “It gets larger all the time, you know,” said a low, hissing voice.

  Hoskin turned and saw a headless, spider-like creature. It was all limbs, eighteen legs and six arms surging from a central core, muscled and thick. Inside its translucent skin an amber liquid flowed and pulsed, like honey spilled in water, slowly swirling.

  “What does?” said Hoskin.

  “The armory,” hissed the spider, the sound coming from all around it. “I’m Master at Arms, In the Winter Falls the Sun. You can call me Wintersun. Come. I’ve already picked out some things I think you’ll like.”

  “How did you know I was coming?”

  “Mr. Childress always gets what he wants. Come. This way.”

  Wintersun sprayed a dark mist from short, fluted stalks. The mist hung on the wall for a moment and a door appeared. Hoskin stepped through and found himself in a holochamber.

  “Here,” said Wintersun.

  A picture of Hoskin’s body appeared as a large hologram, floating in the air.

  “First, a gelskin suit. The gel is sentient. It grows on you in ten minutes, covering your skin completely. Once it’s grown, you won’t even feel it’s there, yet it can take massive impacts.”

  The hologram came to life. An attacker appeared and blasted the ghost Hoskin with a plasma rifle, up close. The gel rippled and waved. Ghost Hoskin fell back, but maintained balance.

  “The gel’s scattermind is threaded over your whole body,” said Wintersun. “Even with half the gel damaged it functions at almost full capacity. It’s self-healing, helps coordinate your reflexes, absorbs massive hits and thousands of degrees of heat, though it is susceptible to monofilament or fission blade strikes. It links to your backbrain, augmenting its processing power. How many vSelves can you run now?”

  “About five, but I never--”

  “With the skinsuit you can run fifteen hundred. It can also link back to the Mansion’s cores and can run near infinite vSelves on the Mansion Minds, with low latency.”

  Hoskin thought about
it for a minute. Running that many copies of himself seemed dangerous, but he didn’t have to use them and the gelskin would come in handy.

  “Who needs that many vSelves?” said Hoskin.

  “You never know what you might need. Better to have a gun and not need it—”

  “—than to need it and not have it. Right. Let’s do it,” said Hoskin. “What else you got?”

  “Excellent,” said Wintersun. A light panel appeared beneath the spider’s spindly legs, the panel’s glyphs glowing softly. Like a true spider Wintersun moved with a sudden burst of energy, its legs moving rapidly over the glyphs, manipulating them. The hologram of Hoskin shifted. “We’ll replace your gun arm with a multifunction unit. Short and long range weapons. Lethal and nonlethal. It can also form tools and medical augments.”

  The holo zoomed out and showed Hoskin unleashing a fast moving cloud of mites that covered a room in a dark haze. The mites clung to a crowd of attackers, while they screamed and tried to cover their faces.

  “Equally adept at taking out single or multiple attackers,” said the spider.

  The holo showed the arm extending and breaking open. It fired a cluster of smartbombs that scattered and zoomed around corners and hallways, hunting down hidden enemies and exploding in bursts of white light.

  “Nano and electronic countermeasures. There’s also nonlethal assault.”

  The image flipped again and showed Hoskin firing a foam that immediately hardened on an attacker and froze him in place.

  “Heavy assault capabilities.”

  A new image: Ghost Hoskin’s arm ripped open and formed a brutal assault rifle, insectoid, curved and biomechanical, all sweeping lines and ribbed black muscle, that he had to steady with his other hand. He ripped off huge searing blasts of super-heated plasma in bright blue bursts.

  “Plasma. X-ray laser, for invisible assaults. Grazer. And finally smart ammo, at 27,000 rounds per second, adjustable all the way down to five round short bursts. Ammo manufactured in realtime, from nanobar, up to 500,000 rounds per brick.”

  “Stop. I got it,” said Hoskin.

  “All right,” said the spider.