Sour Notes

by Todd C Wilson

  I held the heavy weapon loosely at my side as I stared at Bob. “Because killing shouldn’t be easy. It should be hard, deliberate. Unavoidable.” I could still picture monkey girl coming at me, broken arm flopping. “You were ready to smother Ikur today, choke the life out of him without a second thought.”

  “He was choking you! I saved your life! And I would’ve let him go. Eventually.”

  I nodded. “I’m sure you would have. But the next time you might not.” I hefted Roosevelt and looked at him, slick black metal heavy and cold. I rubbed a finger along the slide, fingertip tracing the engravings. Old Human. A dead language. Dead and gone long enough that most linguists had barely heard of it, let alone spoke it. So old even the name Roosevelt was little more than an educated guess. The gun was an antique and belonged in a museum somewhere, not in the hands of some third-rate detective prone to poor life choices. Old as it was, Roosevelt was built to last and looked like it had just come off the assembly line yesterday. Space knows how much death it had seen. Space knew how much I had dealt out using it over the years.

  “Killing someone sticks with you. Sticks with you for a good long time, changes things inside and not for the better. You can tell yourself it was either you or them, but at the end of the day, it’s just an excuse. Someone is dead and they ain’t coming back. And each time you do it, it becomes a little bit easier and you justify it just a little bit more. Eventually you become numb, the killing so second nature that you’re dead inside yourself.” I jerked my head towards Bob. “I don’t want that to happen to you. If I had my way, I wouldn’t want it to happen to anyone. But the universe ain’t fair, so I do what I have to do. You have a second chance, a rare gift the rest of us don’t get. Don’t waste it.”

  I set Roosevelt aside and put on my gun harness, adjusting it around the bruises forming on my back from the brawl in The Ballroom. I didn’t want to look in the mirror to see what my neck looked like, but I was sure it was just as pretty as the rest of me. I slid Roosevelt into his home-away-from-home, snapping the quick-release closed.

  “Stay here. Keep working on the video footage. Don’t follow me. I’m going to run down a few leads, shake a few trees and see who falls out. We’ll talk more when I get back,” I said, jamming my hat on my head and throwing on my coat.

  “I would’ve let him go,” Bob said in a small voice as I closed the door behind me.

  Chapter 9

  S

  omething Ikur had said stuck with me, and I figured it was worth checking out. A few phone calls later and I was standing on a street corner in my least favorite part of town: the abandoned docks next to the defunct Space Port. Dozens of heavy freighters sat rotting away, waiting for someone to figure out what The Event had done to theoretical physics and get them flying again. Aside from the influx of off-world goods I didn’t care one way or the other if they ever got fixed – hyperspace travel gives me a migraine and makes me more grumpy than usual. Planet bound and proud, that’s me.

  I straightened up as an electric scooter glided towards me, silent on synthrubber wheels. The rider was decked out in day-glow orange, oversized visor completely obscuring their head. The only clue to their species was the extra set of arms and digitigrade legs, which narrowed it down to a little over a dozen races.

  “You lookin’ for some Yellow, shalla?” the Xeno asked, voice distorted by the visor. The head kept turning back and forth, like the owner couldn’t focus with both eyes this close to me. Maybe they couldn’t, which helped narrow down the species a bit. Or maybe they just had a crick in their neck from riding around all day dealing drugs. Hard to tell.

  “Depends on the batch and who the cook is,” I said, stepping closer and keeping an eye on all four of the Xeno’s hands. Not an easy task when you only have two eyes.

  “Fresh batch, righteous squeeze. Ace cook, best in biz. None better, shalla,” visor said, head constantly swiveling back and forth.

  “Sounds good, but I’m really looking forward to some fifty-one. Supposed to be extra-special,” I said casually, playing a hunch. It paid off.

  “Fifty-one, yea, shalla, got that. Cost extra, limited supply.”

  “How limited?” I asked, narrowing my eyes. “I ain’t got a lot on me.” That was an understatement – the last few days combined with Araimer walking off with half the kitty had left my funds severely depleted.

  “Eighty creds, two smacks. Good deal, shalla.”

  I shook my head. “Twenty and one,” I countered, deliberately lowballing to see what happened.

  “Naw, can’t do shalla. Go fifty each maybe.”

  “Forty is the best I can do,” I said, holding up a credit chip between my fingers. The rider took it and replaced it with a small plastic envelope, yellow powder glittering inside. I held it up to the light, shaking it.

  “You packin’, shalla?” the rider asked, his head no longer swiveling back and forth but pointing right at me. One of his hands dipped dangerously low to where I assume a Xeno pistol was located.

  “Huh? Yeah, but only for personal protection. Don’t wanna get ripped off, right?” I closed my coat, obscuring Roosevelt from view. I shook the packet of Wicked Yellow. “Gonna have fun tonight. Like to meet the cook for this batch, thank ’em personally.”

  The rider bobbled his head in what I assumed was a negative fashion and wheeled his cycle around. “No can, shalla. Like said, limited supply. Cook not so ace, gone boom. You want more, you call, leave packin’ at home, shalla.”

  I watched the rider speed off, fingering my packet of Wicked Yellow, batch number fifty-one. Limited supply. Gone boom. Shalla.

  Chapter 10

  “I

  normally don’t do this sort of thing,” Doctor Chasi Binettun III said, dumping forty credits worth of Wicked Yellow into a beaker full of chemicals. The smell of citrus and something spicy filled the room as she stirred the concoction with a glass rod. Setting it on a heating platform, the Quony carefully inserted a sensor probe trailing a long wire, boney arms fully encased inside rubber gloves all the way up to her elbows.

  And when I say boney, I mean bone. With a capital B. While the Quony might be an insectoid race and Doctor Binettun was the undisputed Queen of the Quony in the city, they looked exactly like walking talking skeletons right out of late-night holovid movies. All the bits needed to run a lifeform are still there, just tucked inside hollow, open-form struts. And yes, before you ask, they do whistle in a strong breeze and it’s not pleasant. And whatever you do, don’t stick around for lunch, particularly if you happen to have any brussels sprouts on you.

  “I appreciate the favor,” I said, trying to ignore the sight of her drones doing their job of examining the dead. Binettun’s hive ran the Xeno City Morgue, aka the Boneyard, mostly because they were good at it and nobody else wanted the job. Personally, I thought it was because everyone was scared of what she might do if she didn’t get to carve up the random cadaver now and again. I heard stories about Xenos disappearing only to later turn up missing a few important bits, typically their heads. I didn’t think Binettun was behind it, but her denials rang a little hollow to my ear. Or maybe it was just the way she sounded, talking through all that bone and everything.

  “I’m not doing it for you,” Binettun said, waving off my attempt to be nice. She pointed at her drones, scurrying back and forth between steel tables, cutting and cataloging, weighing and measuring. “I’m doing it for them, for the dead. With so many, someone has to. Space knows the police don’t seem to be up to the task.”

  That was putting it mildly. In the days since the explosion at the Science Facility, the city police had been reeling between issuing press releases and responding to every single citizen complaint they could, trying to show they were on top of things. The news wasn’t pulling any punches, reporting on every move the police made, sometimes before they made it, and not in the most flattering terms, either. The result was a public outcry calling for the Chief of Police’s heads on a stick, both of them. Person
ally, I thought one would be enough, preferably the left one simply because I was partial to blue eyes. Then maybe the remaining head could stop fighting with itself and start making some decisions and get something done for a change.

  A machine dinged, Binettun leaning forward to examine a readout. “Interesting,” she said, pushing buttons.

  “Interesting good or interesting bad?” I asked.

  “Interesting as in unexpected. Large traces of Holmium Oxide, which explains the deep yellow color of the sample you brought me.”

  I sat up. “Holmium? Like in the stuff they use for starships?”

  Binettun nodded, working her buttons. “Yes, but not quite. Wrong isotope. This one isn’t radioactive, thank the Stars, which is good for you and me and everyone else.”

  A stray thought crossed my mind and I chased after it. “Can you check your dead for any that might have any extra Holmium in their bloodstreams or other body fluids?” I got an affirmative nod and asked a follow up question, getting a different answer.

  “No idea, but there is someone who might.” Binettun clacked her teeth together, the Quony equivalent of a grin. On her it looked downright frightening. “He doesn’t like phones, so you’ll have to meet him in person. I think you’ll find him... Interesting.”

  Chapter 11

  “P

  rofessor Chiezis?” I asked, knocking on an open door and peering inside. I did a double take and then swore I was going to get the good Doctor Binettun back for this, and in spades. A large spider-like Xeno with thick eyeglasses turned towards me, a humming noise preceding a synthetic voice.

  “Yes? Who is it? Speak up!” the spider said, waving one of its forelegs impatiently. The source of the humming was a voice box slung below Chiezis’ body, obviously wired in to provide Standard for those of us that didn’t speak spider.

  I entered the room cautiously. I like to think I'm fairly open-minded when it comes to other species, but like most humanoid creatures, I harbor a built-in distrust of arachnids. Snakes, on the other hand, don’t bother me. Shoving my automatic response back inside and telling it to shut up I cleared my throat and said, “Jazz Singer, private detective. I was wondering if you had a few moments to answer some questions for me. Doctor Binettun said you might be able to help.”

  “Chasi Binettun? How is that old pile of bones! Tell her highness that I’m still waiting on her to return my copy of Poisonous Creatures and Why We Love Them. I have some research coming up that requires proper citation, and that is considered the definitive work on the subject.”

  “I’ll let her know the next time I see her. In any case, she said you might be able to fill me in on Holmium Oxide. In particular, the effect it has on various Xenos if they somehow ingested it.” I perched myself on the edge of a chair filled with books, moving a few to clear enough room to sit down. The office was crammed with what looked to be an entire library, enough real paper to start a cozy bonfire if one was so inclined.

  “Not good, not good. Not good at all,” Professor Chiezis said, tip-tapping his way over to a bookshelf. Running one of his paps over the spines, he found the volume he sought, simply by feel. He pulled his find down and I looked closer. Realization dawned. Each book had heavy, raised lettering decorating their cover, which meant the old spider was practically blind.

  “Yes, not good. Some species, not all of course, manifest hyper-aggressive traits after repeated exposure. Accumulative, you see. Causes shrinkage in the primary thallus region, inhibits rational thought,” he said, running his paps over the pages and speaking through the box. “Not uniform, of course. Some species are more prone to Holmium effects than others, manifesting in different ways. For example, they may be less aggressive but instead are susceptible to suggestion. Dosage varies by species, of course.”

  “Of course. Susceptible to suggestion how?” I asked, fascinated despite myself. The professor reminded me of a creepy Zam Ziplose, and I itched to get them together some night for drinks and charades. The two gasbags could swap lecture notes and argue about the merits of arms versus legs.

  “Easy to influence, accept commands as if they were their own ideas, follow others without question. At higher dosages, the subject could cease to function altogether, unable to perform basic motor functions without direct commands. I think, ah yes, here we go,” Chiezis said, dropping the current book onto a random pile and picking up another. For a blind spider he could sure find his way around. “Study done a few years back in ‘78 by the Calments Empire. Not like it sounds, family name. In any case, the ‘78 study clearly showed a direct correlation between the presence of Holmium Amalgam poisoning and outbreaks of so-called zombification, tracking several instances on Inzae-5. In each case the victims presented highly elevated levels of Holmium Oxide in their tissues, some so saturated it was a wonder they were still able to breath without repeated commands to do so.”

  I shuddered. The thought of losing that kind of control was a particular nightmare I never wanted to experience, and if I did, I hoped that someone did me a favor and put a bullet in my head. “Sounds lovely,” I said sarcastically. Inzae-5. The planet sounded familiar for some reason. “They ever catch who did it?”

  “Hmmm, not exactly,” Chiezis said, his paps flying over the pages. “A definitive originating point was never identified, although several theories were put forward, none of which panned out. The accepted conclusion is that the damage was self-inflicted, some sort of juvenile challenge brought on by too much free time and not enough social structure. Public education and governmental oversight of Holmium variants was ultimately successful in resolving the issue. Personally, I think it was started by someone testing the web as a prank, pulling on silk to see what flies they could grab. Sadly, I will never be in a position to research it myself.”

  “Let me ask you this, Professor,” I said, shifting in my seat and trying not to fall off. “If someone was interested in cooking up a batch of Holmium how hard would it be?”

  “Well, Holmium binds easily with other elements, so not hard at all, once you manage to separate it from its binding matrix, of course. Holmium in its natural state exists mostly as a component of various amalgams, outside of a few rare planetoids like those owned by the Calcifor Group and their ilk. Holmium burns readily in the presence of oxygen, so the refining process is tricky. High neutron absorption and magnetic permeability, making the ion-free isotopes useful in hyperdrive engines, not that those are working any more. Pity, really. I miss fresh wild Erbius grubs. The vat raised ones aren’t nearly as good.”

  “I’m sure they aren’t. So, if I wanted to get my hands on some Holmium, what would I do, hit up a starship sitting in drydock and take some?”

  “Oh, my no,” Chiezis cried, the speech box making a warbling sound I took for a laugh. “Not unless you wanted to enjoy a very short half-life. Highly radioactive, you see. Constant exposure to hyperdrive cores will do that. No, if you wanted some pure Holmium these days, you’d have to request it from the Science Facility, and I understand they are very tight webbed about letting any out. Research, and all that.”

  “The Science Facility that blew up two days ago?” I asked, wanting to make sure Chiezis wasn’t talking about a different one. He wasn’t.

  “It blew up? Oh dear. I didn’t know. I don’t get out much, and I never watch the news. Rots the brain.”

  Yep, I was definitely getting Professor Chiezis and Zam Ziplose together.

  Chapter 12

  I

  asked Professor Chiezis a few more questions and then made my escape, promising to bring some Erbius grubs the next time I visited. On the way out my phone rang, Binettun calling with news.

  “So far my drones have identified sixty-seven dead with high levels of Holmium Oxide and the same Wicked Yellow compound as the one you gave me present in their circulatory systems. Of those, over half would be at levels considered toxic for most species.”

  Sixty-seven sounded like a lot, but it was actually in line with what I was expect
ing and paled in comparison to the total number of dead. The pieces were starting to come together, and Binettun provided a few more.

  “I talked with a colleague at the hospital lab and asked them to run the same tests. So far, only nineteen individuals have trace amounts of Holmium in their systems, all at levels that would normally be written off as calibration errors.”

  “Like a contact high.” A thought occurred to me. “Question. When you ran the DNA idents of the cadavers in your morgue, did any come back as spacers?”

  I could hear clicking as Binettun typed on her keyboard, bone against plastic. At least it wasn’t nails on a chalkboard.

  “191,” she said dispassionately, just another number to her. I guess if your job requires you to deal with the dead in bulk, keeping a certain emotional detachment is the only sane way to handle it.

  “So roughly half?” I hazarded a guess, getting a confirmation back for my efforts. Yay me.

  “Next question. More DNA idents. Any flagged as working at the Science Facility?”

  “Of the bodies recovered for far, no,” Binettun said, not even bothering to type. I guess professional curiosity had gotten her onto that one already. “The bulk of the facility completely collapsed and is still too thermally hot to enter,” she explained, anticipating what was about to come out of my mouth. Her follow-up statement surprised me.

  “However, there was one that came in afterwards, a Doctor Kaheck, biochemistry department. Complete respiratory and cardiovascular failure, nothing in the examination or medical file pointing to a reason. Emergency responders on the scene initially assumed his death was related to the facility explosion, but a proper examination put the time closer to the morning before, half a day prior. I wouldn’t have brought it up except my drones repeated his blood work as part of their new command set, and he had elevated levels of Holmium Oxide present along with the same chemical signature as the Wicked Yellow you gave me.”