I hadn’t, of course. I couldn’t. When I had done what I had done, I had known the truth. And I’d been holding tight to that truth ever since. It was, most likely, the only reason that I was not locked up in some corporate-run factory prison. But did I risk telling Hernandez the truth? Did I burden her with the knowledge that I was, as far as the law was concerned, very likely a murderer? Oh, the case was long since closed, and couldn’t be reopened, whatever facts might come to light. I was in no legal danger from anyone knowing the truth. But if I told Hernandez, then it would become her secret to bear—or not—as well. I couldn’t do that to her, couldn’t put that burden upon her. Couldn’t take that risk. So I stuck to the “official” version of events.
“I lost it,” I said. “Seeing the man who was supposed to be her father standing there like that, laughing at me as he abused the girl I loved. I attacked him. I must have surprised him—I guess he was used to blind obedience. This was long before I’d had any actual training, but I was a big, athletic kid. I knocked him down with a couple of quick punches, powered more by rage and youth rather than any real skill. And then I kicked him. A single kick, just to shut him the hell up, to stop that cutting, mocking laughter. It caught him just beneath the chin.” I could still feel the crackle of cartilage crushing under the force of the blow, the shock of pain and the savage satisfaction it brought. “It was an accident. At least, I don’t think I meant to kill him. But the kick crushed his windpipe and, I learned later, the force ruptured his carotid. He was dead within seconds. We were all too shocked, too stunned, to do anything but watch him die.” That much, at least, was true.
“And the ‘mother’?” Hernandez asked, her voice neutral. I almost winced at her tone. I’d heard it before. I’d used it before. It was the tone most cops got when a suspect was confessing to a particularly heinous crime and you had to let them finish before leveling the charges. It was a sterile, neutral, institutional kind of a tone, bereft of any emotion. It wasn’t the kind of tone you ever wanted to hear from a friend.
There was no going back now. “She lost it. Screamed an animal scream. I thought she was going to attack me. But she didn’t. Instead, she went for Annabelle.”
The memory was there, waiting, when I closed my eyes.
Annabelle’s mother stood before her, screaming incoherently, face reddened from the effort. In one hand she held a long, narrow-bladed knife. Part of my mind recognized it as a filleting knife, used to scale fish or cut very thin slices of meat. The needlelike tip had doubtless been the instrument to carve the fine lines of blood into the slopes of Annabelle’s breasts, and was probably responsible for many of the scars that crisscrossed her body.
I should have feared that knife. I should have feared the woman wielding it. But all I felt was an ice-cold rage. I took one step toward her, and her eyes widened. Her screaming shut off midcry, and a calculating look replaced the terror in her eyes. A cruel smile twisted her lips, and she spun without warning.
I had just enough time to raise a hand in denial as the knife blade plunged between Annabelle’s breasts. A violent shudder coursed through her, rattling the frame from which she hung. Her eyes met mine a final time, and I watched, helpless, as the light slowly faded from them.
Annabelle’s mother and I stared at each other, bookended by the corpses of the people we loved. There was no more screaming, now, no shouts of defiance or anger or loss. One of us was going to die. I saw it in her eyes, and had no doubt she could see it in mine. Her fingers were still curled around the knife, and she pulled, trying to yank the blade from Annabelle’s corpse.
The body heaved, bucked, but the blade did not move.
Synthetics were not supposed to be able to defy their owners. Whether or not Annabelle had managed it in life, she found defiance in death. She would not let go of the blade. That almost certainly saved my life. I stepped forward again, now just one long stride from Annabelle’s mother. My hands flexed, fingers curling.
I shook the images from my mind. “The bitch killed her,” I said. “Out of spite. Drove a knife right into Annabelle’s heart. And then she came for me. Maybe I didn’t mean to kill Annabelle’s ‘father.’ Maybe. To this day, I’m still not certain about that. But I damn sure meant to kill her bitch of a ‘mother.’ It was a brutal, dirty fight. She had that stupid little riding crop, and she knew how to use it.” I drew one finger along the corner of my eye, where a small white scar ran. “She almost took my eye. But it was more a toy than a weapon, something designed to hurt, but not injure, not kill, meant for the pain-is-pleasure crowd. I got my hands around her throat, and no matter the punishment she laid upon me, I didn’t let go. It was easy. So damn easy. I could still see Annabelle, hanging there, still and lifeless with the hilt of a knife sticking from her chest. I didn’t let go for a long, long time. When I finally did, I was alone in a room of corpses.”
Chapter 18
“Jesu Christo, Campbell,” Hernandez breathed.
“Yeah,” I grunted. “You can imagine what happened next. I called the cops. I was taken into custody. Fortunately for me, my parents had a good lawyer.”
“Two dead bodies. You don’t just walk away from that, hermano, not with a record clean enough to land a job as a cop a couple of decades later.”
“No,” I admitted. “But everyone in the whole damn town felt betrayed by Annabelle’s owners. Felt like they’d been played the fool by having the sweet little girl turn out to be a synthetic.” My face twisted hard at that. In some ways, I owed those raping bastards for helping me realize the truth, though I would have gladly lived on in ignorance if it meant Annabelle would still be alive. “Still, they couldn’t ignore the corpses. No one cried murder, not when the facts came to light, but they couldn’t just call it self-defense, either. The DA wanted to file for manslaughter.”
“And?” she asked.
“And I cut a deal. Or my lawyer did, anyway. This was a long time ago, Hernandez. We were still embroiled in a dozen different conflicts in every desert and hellhole on the map. The army was hungry for bodies, and I didn’t want to serve any time. So, my lawyer got the DA to agree to an enlistment in place of jail. A five-year stint, at a time when I was almost guaranteed to see combat, and a clean record when I got out. Or be tried as an adult, spend ten years in jail, and have a felony conviction on my record forever after.” I snorted, shrugged. “It seemed like an easy decision at the time.”
“Jesu Christo,” she said again.
“Yeah, well. That’s the background—my background—but that ain’t it, Hernandez. The murders I’ve been chasing? The victims? All female. All synthetics. All horribly mutilated.” I gave her all the details. I told her about Silas and his warnings, about all the leads and dead ends that I’d chased for the past—shit, had it only been two days? I told her the real reasons behind the laws surrounding the disposal of synthetics and the ban on genetic testing. All of it. The only bit I left out was Tia Morita and the blood tests she’d run—there was no sense in implicating the coroner’s assistant in any of it.
“Synthetics are people, Hernandez,” I said at the end. “As much people as you and I, no matter how they were created. People who think and feel and desire. And we treat them like slaves—worse than slaves. All of us, every fucking society on the face of the planet. We claim to be advanced, but we do things to our own that would make our ancestors blush, all under the pretense that they aren’t—can’t be—human. It’s bullshit.”
Hernandez opened her mouth as if to speak, but I kept talking, steamrolling right over her. “You probably think I’m crazy, but I’ve seen it, Melinda. I’ve seen it, for myself. Not whatever irrefutable proof that Silas claims is being suppressed by Walton Biogenics. We don’t even need that, not if we’re being honest with ourselves. Annabelle may have helped me open my eyes, but even without what happened to me, to her, it’s there. The proof is all around us. It’s like I’ve been asleep for twenty years
, and these last few days have finally woken me the hell up. All you have to do is talk to a synthetic—not give them orders, but actually talk to them. Oh, sure, all you’re likely to get is whatever response they’ve been trained—trained, conditioned, not programmed—to say, but look at them while they do it. Really look. You can see the thoughts behind the facade—the fear, and yes, the hate. But can you blame them?”
I was babbling and I knew it. With an effort, I forced myself to stop talking. It took an even greater effort to turn and look Hernandez in the eye. Her expression was...troubled.
“For fuck’s sake, Campbell,” she said with a long sigh. Her hands were wrapped tight around the steering wheel, as if to prevent them from shaking. “You can’t just unload that on me.”
I shrugged, embarrassed. “Well...you did ask.”
“Fuck. This is going to kill our careers, you know. Pensions right out the window. We’re going to have to live on stipends for the rest of our days.” The words came out barely above a whisper, and there was some deep emotion that I couldn’t quite make out lingering beneath that tone. But she had said “we.”
“You believe me?” I asked, struggling to keep the incredulity out of my voice.
“Yes. No. Shit. I don’t know,” she growled. “All that shit about sealed records that Fortier was blathering on about makes sense, at least.” I saw the anger in the set of her jaw, in the white-knuckled tightening of her fingers on the steering wheel. Hernandez was pissed...but I didn’t think she was pissed at me. Or at least, not only at me.
“You don’t have to be a part of this, Hernandez,” I said. “Just drop me off and head back to the precinct. Just...don’t tell the brass what I’m doing.” I didn’t have the right to ask that of her. By the book, she should report me. I asked anyway.
“Fuck you, Campbell. You think I’m just going to leave you here when you think your life is in danger? Do you understand just how much shit you’re in? If what you say is true...Christ.” I could almost see the chain of thoughts going through her head, just as they had for me in my conversation with Silas. If this came out, society had three choices: acknowledge that it was built on absolute oppression and maintain the status quo; stick its collective head in the sand and pretend nothing happened; or outright revolution. And since “society” wasn’t really a singular thing, but rather a bunch of people who would make their own—and almost certainly contradictory—decisions, there was zero chance of anything happening without violence. Probably widespread and likely indiscriminate.
But the alternative was to allow an entire population of people to be completely and totally subjugated, to continue to be stripped of every right that we still dared to call inalienable. I couldn’t let that stand—not anymore—regardless of the consequences. And from the struggle on Hernandez’s face, neither could she.
“I have a synth nanny, you know?” she said, in an apparent non sequitur. “She takes care of Arlene.” Arlene was Hernandez’s daughter. She never said much about her family. All I knew was that she was a single mother and her daughter was somewhere between walking and high school. “It took me years to save up, to afford her. She must have been beautiful once, but she’s older now. Older than me. I’m not sure what she did before. But there’s a look in her eyes sometimes. I told myself I was imagining things. She looks at my daughter with such love. But sometimes, sometimes there’s something else there.” She paused, and a flash of uncertainty passed across her face. “I don’t know, Campbell. In anything—anyone—else…” She stopped again, brow furrowing, obviously reaching for the right word. “I’d call it hate. Deep, deep hate.” She looked at me, and I could see the tears forming in the corner of her eyes. “Not just of me. But of Arlene, too. What kind of life must she have lived, to look at a child with that kind of hate?”
“You know what kind of life, Hernandez,” I said gently. “We all know. And we all close our eyes and turn our heads away and console ourselves with the thought that it’s OK, because they aren’t human. Just things.” I shook my head, disgusted, not with Hernandez, but with myself. With all the years that I had spent silently ignoring a truth that was plain to see, if one only bothered to look at it.
It was Hernandez’s turn to be quiet for a long moment. Then, as if she had made a decision, she checked her weapon with one hand and opened the car door with the other. “Let’s go,” she said.
I couldn’t help but smile as I got out of the car. Whatever else happened, I wasn’t alone.
Chapter 19
The Translantic offices left a lot to be desired.
The building, if it could be called that, was little more than a metal trailer. The door had a flimsy screen feel to it, and I doubted it would have kept out a determined raccoon, much less someone with criminal intent. The interior wasn’t much better. The room within was tiny—though even at tiny it still took up half of the “office.” A door off to the right marked Private must have led to the rest of the space.
There was a single desk, wedged in to one end of the narrow rectangular space with barely enough room between the edge of the desk and the unadorned wall to allow a person to slip through. There were no chairs in front of that desk, nothing to show that visitors were common or even welcome.
A screen sat atop the desk, and behind it sat a rather unprepossessing man. Average height, average build, unremarkable limp brown hair. Even his face held that nondescript everyman quality. He was, in every way, forgettable. If this was my killer, he could disappear into any crowd, anywhere and I’d likely never find him again. I didn’t think he was my killer, though. Something about the way he started as we entered the office didn’t exactly scream “hardened criminal” or even “corporate hatchet man.” More like timid desk jockey.
“Can I help you?” he asked. “This isn’t really a public office, you know.”
We flashed our badges. The shields earned us a nervous twitch. “Are these the offices of Translantic Shipping?” I asked.
“Yes,” he replied cautiously.
“And are you the only employee?” Hernandez asked.
The man shrugged. “I’m the only employee here. At this location, I mean. What’s this all about?”
I ignored his question, and kept asking my own. “What is it you do here, Mr....”
“Eggleston. Adam Eggleston. I manage logistics.”
“What kind of logistics?”
“Arrival and departure of various cargoes,” he said, a note of impatience beginning to creep into his voice. “Look, if you tell me what you want, maybe I can help.”
Hernandez held up her phone. On it was a zoomed and enhanced image of the man who had entered Manny’s shop—the man we knew only as Jeremy Fowler. “Can you identify this man?”
The man glanced at the phone, and the color slowly drained from his face. He swallowed once then cleared his throat. “I’m afraid not,” he said, his voice suddenly too loud in the small room. “Never seen him before in my life.”
As he spoke, his hand dipped searchingly into his desk. It wasn’t the sudden jerk of someone going for a weapon, though my hand instinctively moved to the butt of my service weapon. Hernandez did the same, taking a half step away from me and turning so that she was facing the clerk at more of an angle. Presenting a smaller target.
Eggleston was still talking, almost tripping over his words. “Look, I’ve been more than cooperative here, but I’ve got a lot of work to do. I haven’t seen whoever that is, OK? I really need to get back to my job. And I’ve got a meeting in a few minutes. It really would be best if you left now.”
While he talked, his hands continued to work, pulling a scrap of paper from somewhere in his desk. He scrawled something on it, keeping his body upright, in a weird, awkward position. Keeping, I realized, his hands out of frame of whatever security camera must be watching him. He shoved one hand across the desk, palm down, covering whatever note he had scrawled.
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br /> I took the hint. “Of course, Mr. Eggleston. We’d hate to keep you from your work.” I dug around in my jacket pocket and fished out another card, offering it to him. “My information, in case you think of anything that might be useful.”
He nodded, an exaggerated expression of relief plastered across his face. For my benefit, or the watching electronic eyes? As I handed him the card, I felt him slide the slip of paper into my hand in return. “Of course, Officer. Anything I can do to help.”
I nodded again, curtly. Hernandez did the same, and we turned and went back out the door. Once in the relative safety of the cruiser, Hernandez raised an eyebrow at me. “Well? What does it say?”
I turned the note over in my hand. The ink had smeared a bit, testament to the sweaty palms of the clerk, but it was still legible. It read Container C-347A 22:00. Come alone. I tilted my hand to show the message to Hernandez.
She looked at it and snorted, somewhere between amusement and disgust. “A clandestine meeting,” she grunted. “And you’re supposed to go it alone. Did these people learn to do this by watching old spy movies?”
“Corporate criminals,” I reminded her. “Competent in their own endeavors, I’m sure. But this stinks of a setup. Which makes sense. Manny’s place stunk from the start.”
“What’s our next move?”
I was grateful that she was still saying “our.” I shrugged. “I guess we head back to the precinct, see if anything else has come in. And then I get ready to walk into a trap.”
Chapter 20
The precinct was a bust. My searches were still running, and Hernandez had already exhausted her sources. Neither of us were particularly hungry, but we grabbed some dinner anyway, away from the precinct.
As we ate our burgers, Hernandez asked, “How are we going to do this?”
I shrugged. “We go back to the docks. I go to the container alone, with you close enough to come to the rescue if things go south.”
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