by Lyn Forester
“You’re going to pay Level 11 price just to have it cold?”
“No.” She smirks at him and thrusts the icy cylinder at him. “You’re going to pay Level 11 prices.”
“No way, buy it yourself.” His arms fold over his chest in disbelief and refusal.
“It’s my prize.” She shakes it at him, and liquid sloshes around inside.
A quick check of the price tag on the shelf confirms the price. “I could get you two cases on Level 7 for what they’re charging for one can up here.”
“I didn’t complain when you wanted all those cones of sweet rice.”
His jaw drops open in disbelief. “Yes, you did!”
She ignores his protest and shoves the energy drink into the crook of his arm. “My win, my prize.”
“I hate you so much.”
Her steps bounce as she heads toward the counter at the back, and he can’t stop the smile that spreads across his face. But he frowns again when he joins her in front of the clerk. The can clicks against the hard countertop as he sets it down.
“Will that be all?” The store employee asks. His lip curls, eyes skittering over Drake’s clothing, suspicious of whether he has enough credits for the beverage. Up close, Drake notices how young the kid is. He can’t be that far out of mandatory grade school. Maybe eighteen. The white shirt he wears has a crisp, stiff collar and his striped, red and white apron looks new. A silver pin on his shirt identifies him as the supervisor. Must be a family business, for him to have that position at his age.
“We’d like to ask you a couple questions.” Reagen leans against the counter, playfulness gone as she switches into professional mode.
“What kind of questions?” The kid scans the GoGoNow and gives the payment scanner a pointed look.
With a sigh, Drake swipes his datband over the reader. The clerk focuses his attention on the register until the credits transfer through. Reagen picks up the drink and cracks the top open with a quiet pop. Metallic, sour-sweet cherry fills the air, drowns out the vibrant, fresh scent of real berries.
“Were you working last Wednesday night?” Reagen takes a small sip and sets the energy drink back down.
“Who wants to know?” The kid shoves his hands into the front pocket of his apron, lips compressed into a thin line.
“Investigators, Inc.” Reagen taps the badge that hangs from a lanyard around her neck.
“Oh.” He squints at the badge, leans closer, then pulls a pair of wire-framed glasses from his apron. After a quick confirmation, they disappear once more. Curious. Why hasn’t he had his eyes fixed? With the shop’s prices, his family should be able to pay for a visit to a clan doctor.
“So were you here last Wednesday night?” He asks when the silence drags on.
“Yeah.” The clerk leans around them to make sure no one new has entered the store. “My dad told me not to talk about it. It looks bad for the shop.”
“Has anyone else been in asking questions?” Reagen rolls the can between her hands and takes another sip.
“Just the gossipers. Nothing official. It was an overdose, right?”
Drake ignores the question to ask his own. “The man had a bag of groceries. Do you remember him?”
“Yeah, it was late. He barged in when I was locking the doors. He was in a hurry. I told him we were closed, but he was desperate.” A blush stains the kid’s cheeks; he stares down at the counter.
“Did you notice anything else about him? Anything odd?” Drake had seen the contents of the bag in the holo-projection. He didn’t need to embarrass the kid more by asking what Burgus was so desperate to purchase.
“Yeah, his eyes were buggy and red. And he got super angry that we didn’t have the brand he wanted.” His gaze flickers to the left, and Drake turns to see a small section of the store that shelves contraceptives.
Reagen glances over her shoulder at the aisle and then back at the kid. “More angry than an average customer?”
“Yeah.” He swallows, Adam’s apple bobbing in his neck. “He knocked over a display. I thought I’d have to call the guard in.”
“Anything else?” Drake prompts when the clerk goes silent again.
“He was sweating a lot. Like, all the way through his shirt.” He scratches his nose while he thinks. “He looked kind of red. From the yelling, probably. My dad gets that way sometimes.”
“Anything else?”
“Not that I remember.” The bell over the door tinkles, and the kid straightens, forces a smile. “Thank you for your patronage. Please come again.”
His head bobs as he nods at them to leave. Reagen grabs her can of GoGoNow off the counter, and they turn away. A woman strolls down the center aisle, her dress light and floaty around her body. A basket drapes over one arm, a loaf of bread already inside. She pauses next to the meat cooler and glances at them from the corner of her eye.
When they walk past her, she keeps the display case between them, gaze wary until they pass out of range.
Drake leans close to Reagen, mumbling in a low voice, “Do we look like night pirates?”
“Yep.” The door tinkles as they push through onto the street.
“Burgus had to have taken the Ash before he got to the grocery store.” He takes out his palm-port and brings up a map of the city level. To the left of their yellow dot, past the red dot in the alley, a white dot highlights Burgus’s apartment complex. “He lived close by. He could have gotten the drug anywhere between here and his living unit.”
“Or he already had it at his place.”
“Let’s walk, see if there’s anything suspicious along the way.” He shifts on his feet, glad he bought new shoes. He’d ordered them with the dress Natasha picked out the night before. Ugly and quiet, just like Reagen’s sneakers.
“Yeah.” She moves toward their bikes, ready to break hers down.
Bloop bloop!
A blue disc-bike pulls up to the curb next to their own, at an angle to block them at the front. The guard dismounts, and his wind goggles glint under the holo-sun as he slides them on top of his head.
“I received a call there are people in need of direction.” The blue guard folds his arms over his chest and the azure blue of his uniform stretches at the biceps. “Can I help you two find what you’re looking for?”
Shit, this day just keeps getting longer.
PRIME REAL ESTATE
REAGEN
“This badge gives me the right to access Burgus’s apartment.” I shove my identification in the apartment manager’s face. My tolerance for annoying situations expired twenty minutes into dealing with the last blue guard. It didn’t help that he’d paced us on his disc-bike the entire two-block walk to where Burgus lived.
He’s probably still out on the curb, waiting for us. I’d made a point of memorizing his guard number. That is one grievance report I will be happy to file.
Drake stands at my back, arms folded and hand dangerously close to the psy-gun under his left arm. He’d wanted to go directly to the apartment and break in, but we need to go by the book so later on the guard has no room to file a counterclaim. Now the old man in front of us holds up our investigation even more.
“The apartment was sealed as soon as a time of death was registered. It can’t be overridden without blue guard authorization. Otherwise, next of kin could file a missing items grievance.”
“Investigators, Inc. gives me the same access level as the Blue Guard. You will open that apartment right now.”
The manager folds his arms across his chest, and his face scrunches into a determined frown.
“I say we shoot him for interference,” Drake growls.
“You can’t do that.” The man’s eyes widen as he looks between us in disbelief.
“Actually, Section 14 of Article 9 says we can.” I reach back and unclip my own psy-gun, liking this idea more and more. “Level-one stun is deemed an appropriate method of suppression when dealing with case interference.”
“There’s a blue guard right outside.�
�� The old man points a shaking arm at the entrance, to where the blue ring of energy is visible through the doors.
“I don’t care.”
“Fine, I’ll let you in.” He throws his arms up in the air in surrender. “But expect a heavy fine to be on your record tomorrow morning. They might even take your badge.”
“I’m not worried.” Regretful, I reholster my weapon and glance at Drake. “You worried about a fine?”
“Not even a little.” He shoves his psy-gun back inside his jacket, annoyance on his face. Looks like he wanted to shoot the guy just as much as I did.
“Mr. Burgus had a unit on the second floor.” The manager shuffles toward the silver doors of an elevator. “It’s in a prime location, so the room will be released back to me in a week if no one steps forward. So far, it’s looking good for resale.”
The ride to the second floor goes quickly, and the elevator opens onto a pristine hallway, painted a pale yellow. When we step off, the plush, beige carpeting cushions my shoes. I pull in a deep breath and throw out an arm to block the manager from moving past me.
The stench of excrement and decay fills my nose, faint and masked by the heavier lavender scent put off by the air freshener somewhere in the hall.
“Young lady, you are beyond rude.” The manager pushes at my arm, startled when it doesn’t budge from his path.
“Did Burgus live in 201?” I stare at the door to the immediate right of the elevator.
“Obviously.” The manager huffs. The palm pad glows a steady red, the winged symbol of the blue guard a darker red stamp in the center. Clearly locked. Prime real estate indeed.
“What’s going on?” Drake steps to my side, pushes his jacket back to make his holster easier to access.
I hold up a hand to signal him to wait. I turn to the manager. “Unlock the door, then go back downstairs and get the blue guard. Tell him there’s been another death.”
“There most certainly has not!” The manager steps to the door, digs his fingers into the goo on the palm reader to manually key in his access code.
I nudge Drake and raise a hand to cover my nose. Drake quickly does the same, just in time to block some of the stench as the apartment door slides open. The manager stumbles back, gagging at the cloud of sweet rot that floods out. He bends where he stands, and vomit spews from his mouth. The stench of sour bile joins the existing smell of decay.
Through the open door, I see a desiccated body slumped over a table, back to the door. A glass of wine dangles from the black-tipped sticks of her fingers.
Drake grabs the manager with one hand, drags him through his own pile of vomit, and props him next to the elevator. Through his other hand, his voice comes out muffled. “Go get the blue guard.”
The older man stares at him, dazed with horror, and slowly slides down the wall to sit on the floor. Drake glances at me, and I shrug. He’ll snap out of the shock at some point. No reason for us to wait.
I dig into my satchel and pull out two respirator masks, glad I had the foresight to put them in my bag. Passing one to Drake, I hold my breath and pull the other over my head, fit it snuggly over my nose and mouth. Even through the plastic, the faint odor of rotted meat creeps through. The smell will linger in my memory for days.
We ignore the manager’s moans from his place on the floor.
“We’re going in, aren’t we?” Drake’s breath fogs the mask over his mouth as he asks the question.
“Of course.” I scan the floor to make sure I have a clear path around the barf pile, then stride through the door.
The lights come on as soon as they register my motion, and the room fills with a low ambient glow. Lucky us, the air filters have kept any bugs from getting to the body. Their tiny, hard-armored bodies click against the closed metal air grate, drawn to the scent of decaying meat. The complex would need to fumigate to get rid of all the pests trapped in the vents.
I step over to the body, careful of where my feet fall. Slumped forward over the dining table, her body lies across a dinner plate, the dried remains of rice scattered across a cloth napkin. A second plate sits across from her, the food gone but for a crusty smear of sauce. The stubby wax remains of a candle pool in a vase at the center.
“This doesn’t look like the right setting for taking illegal drugs.” Drake says from further in the apartment. I glance up to see him in the kitchen, a wine bottle in his hand.
I take in the nice blouse and skirt on the body, the pair of heeled shoes, buffed to a mirror finish. Her blonde hair splays in styled waves across the tablecloth. “No, it doesn’t.”
Gently, I grip the woman’s shoulder. Her flesh feels paper thin, dry and flaky beneath my touch. I pull her into a sitting position and push back her hair. The skin on her face, taut across the cheekbones, pulls her gray-tinged lips back into a horrifying rictus. Her swollen, black tongue fills the cavity of her mouth, and the gray around her gums makes her teeth look unnaturally white. I peer into eyes that were once blue but are now milky eyes, shot through with red, and bulging from her face. Black lines bleed from her eyes. I glance down at the arm curled in her lap. In death, she clutches a black velvet box. On her finger, a gold band glints in the poor lighting.
When I lay her back on the table, I make sure her hair covers her open stare. I don’t want her to watch while we search her fiancé’s home.
The wine glass in her hand falls to the carpet, remnants of red liquid splashing out like blood across the clean white fibers. I leave it and cross to the sitting area. The apartment, not much bigger than my own, won’t take long to search. Burgus had a minimalistic taste. The wooden couch with replaceable seat cushions reveals no hidden secrets. The coffee table, a solid U-shape of clear glass with a flattened top, holds no knickknacks of any kind. I run a finger across the cold surface. No smudges. I step up onto the couch to pull the large picture frame off the wall, noting the lovely photo of the rim at night. After a quick search of the metal frame and the wall behind it, I come up empty handed.
“Find anything?” I hang the artwork back on the hook and step off the couch.
“Nothing.” Drake closes the cabinet, finished with his search of the kitchen. He tilts his head and grunts. “Elevator just dinged. Manager’s on his way to the lobby.”
“We need to speed things up, then.”
Together, we move to the back alcove, where a bed rests on a wooden platform. The white sheets, pulled tight and tucked in at the frame, stay in place when we lift the mattress to check under it. A quick search through the walk-in closet and we find a safe. Small and solid, it sits in the corner, the door open to reveal a stack of paperwork and a credit stick. He probably left it open after pulling the ring box out.
I sit back on my heels and look up at Drake. “Did you search the trash?”
“Yeah. There wasn’t much there. A couple food wrappers, but no packets like what you found in the alley with lollipop man’s body.” He peers around the small apartment in appreciation. “Burgus had a lot of really nice things.”
“Yeah.” I stand and read the label on one of the suits hanging in the closet. A clan brand, advertised as self cleaning and virtually indestructible. Even second hand, it would cost four years of clothing credits to buy one. Burgus has seven, one for every day of the week. The real wood furniture and clan crafted glass table would have bought my living unit tens times over.
But his own living unit was small. The layout matches my own living unit, only marginally larger in the bedroom alcove and kitchen area.
“What did he do again?” Drake steps aside to let me exit the closet.
“He was a free floating bar tender for a couple high class pubs.” I brush my fingers over the silky smooth sheets on the bed. Nicer than Drake’s illegal bathrobe. “How did he afford all this stuff?”
Drake’s frown transforms into a wide smile, and he strides back to the kitchen, lifts the wine bottle. “This distributor’s liquor costs seven hundred credits a glass. I bet he was stealing from the ba
rs he was working for.”
“Selling it on the black market and pocketing the credits.” I bounce on my toes. “Halrow smelled like alcohol.”
“This could be the link.” Drake clutches the wine bottle like a trophy.
“Freeze where you are.” A sharp voice comes from the doorway. The quiet hum of a psy-gun fills the sudden silence.
We freeze in place, move just our heads to look at the blue guard who stands in the hall, weapon pointed at the air between us. A slight flick of the wrist could take either of us down. It’s the blue guard we left at the curb. He looks twitchy, like he wants the excuse to shoot us. The apartment manager peeks around his arm, a look of sour triumph on his face.
I pull my arms away from my body, make sure my palms are visible, open and empty. We don’t have time to wait out a three-hour stun.
“I’m going to need to take you both in for questioning.” He lifts a palm-port to his ear. “This is Blue Guard Lewis, badge number L11S2G15. I need a bus sent to my location. Suspects in custody.”
~
The transport vehicle arrives in five minutes flat. Barely enough time for us to make it outside the apartment complex before it pulls up at the curb. Blue Guard Lewis hasn’t cuffed us yet. I think he knows he’d be pushing his luck too far if he tried. But he does keep the psy-gun trained on our backs as he marches us out of the building. I can feel it like an itchy burn between my shoulder blades.
Luckily for us, more blue guards arrive with the bus. The cobalt uniforms that swarm out of the vehicle bring with them a sense of impending peace. While the traffic guards might give us a hard time, the detectives on the force wouldn’t be able to hide behind ignorance when it came to the etiquette expected between Investigators, Inc. and the Blue Hall.
“You wait right here.” The azure-uniformed guard finally lowers his psy-gun, points it at the curb. “Don’t think of trying to leave.”
“Oh, I wouldn’t miss this for the world.” I pull off my respirator mask now that we’re away from the stench of the apartment and line my toes up to the edge of the sidewalk.