SINthetic

by J. T. Nicholas

  “Kidnapping isn’t. Trying to kill members of the New Lyons Police Department isn’t.”

  Fowler shrugged. “Well, you can’t be good all the time. And part of the fun is the thought that you might get caught.”

  The man, I realized, was a complete sociopath. He wasn’t just some corporate cleanup man, out to sweep Walton’s mistakes under the rug. He was a bona fide psychopath, a serial killer. Who had found a nine-to-five job doing what he did best. How fucked up had our society become that, from a strictly legal standpoint, he had not even managed to commit a felony—that I knew of, anyway—until taking a shot at me? And this was the man who had taken Arlene.

  “Where’s the girl?” I asked.

  He ignored the question. “You’re not the first, you know. Not the first to pick up a trail. To start looking into the strange disappearances. The deaths. Most of the others were corporate types. In-house investigators trying to find out what happened to their property.” He said the word “property” with noticeable relish, rolling it around in his mouth like a fine wine.

  “The girl?” I demanded again.

  “You’re the first cop, though. Most of the others, they dropped it as soon as they hit the first stumbling block. In a very few cases, Walton Biogenics reached out and offered to replace the ‘lost or stolen’ goods in the name of excellent customer service.” His smile had taken on a dark, predatory cast. “I’ve been pleasantly surprised at the sport you’ve offered, Campbell. Though I understood better once I accessed your records.”

  My records? That sent another little chill through me. I didn’t like the idea of this psycho poring over whatever files were out there on me. Most of the good bits were supposed to be expunged or, at the very least, highly classified, but my time in the military had taught me just how little that could mean. Still, I needed to stay focused. “Where is Arlene, Fowler?”

  “I think,” Fowler said, continuing to ignore me, “that deep down you want to be a hero. Or maybe even a martyr. You have a long list of awards, citations, and medals from your military career. And there was that business in Vegas, of course. Did you think that was what being a cop would be like? Shootouts with the bad guys? How has that worked out for you?”

  It hadn’t worked out that way at all, but damn it, I was glad. All I’d ever done was what I felt I had to do, what I thought anyone with half a heart and a drop of courage would at least try. I’d gotten lucky. I’d survived. I knew a dozen men and women who hadn’t. They were heroes, not me. And I had no intention of being anyone’s martyr. I sure as hell wasn’t going to let anyone else—like Arlene—be one, either. “The girl?” I demanded.

  “Did they teach you that at the academy? The broken record technique? Ask the same question over and over until you get an answer.” He laughed, a mocking little chuckle. “Speaking of little girls, maybe we should talk about Annabelle.”

  The air left my body in a whoosh and my gun was in my hand before I knew it, leveled at Fowler. It took every ounce of control I could muster to not pull the trigger. My arms trembled with the strain, making the sight picture jump and waver. I drew a steadying breath, and got the weapon under control. I hadn’t meant to get to this point, but now that I was here, damned if I wasn’t going to do it right. “Where is Arlene?” I barely recognized the growl as my own voice.

  “Touchy, touchy,” Fowler chided. He hadn’t flinched when I pulled the gun, hadn’t reacted in any way. I’d had more than a few guns pointed at me over the years, and no matter how well you hid it, there was always fear. But I didn’t see any in Fowler. The man really was insane. “You really should put that down. After all, if you kill me here—no matter how satisfying you might find it—you’ll never find the darling little Arlene.” He paused, and tapped at a lip thoughtfully. “Well, you’ll find her eventually, I suppose. The smell might be a bit much by then.”

  I ground my teeth and my gun wavered. Images flashed through my mind: Hernandez’s daughter locked in the trunk of a car, in a freezer, buried alive. Suffocating. Freezing. Starving. And Fowler, the bastard, was right. Unless he had screwed up somewhere along the line, we’d never find her in time. I had come here intending to trade my life for Arlene’s, but I’d at least expected to set her in the cab before Fowler pulled the trigger. He had found a way to deny me even that much.

  There was a piece in Fowler’s hand now. When had he drawn that? It was a sleek job, a .32, probably German. A gentleman’s gun. Just as likely to do the job as the blocky forty-five in my fist. He made a sort of clicking noise with his teeth, flicking the barrel of his pistol suggestively toward the ground. The meaning was clear.

  I was out of options. I had no cards left to play. And my only assurance of Arlene’s safety was the dubious word of a madman. It was a slim chance. But it was the only chance Arlene had.

  I knelt down and placed my pistol on the pavement.

  Chapter 25

  That same smug smile still pulled at Fowler’s lips. “Your backup piece as well. And don’t bother telling me you don’t have one. Your files were quite...extensive.”

  I was getting extremely tired of how much Fowler seemed to know about me. I guess corporate money really could buy anything—even access to Annabelle, to records that should have been not just sealed, but destroyed. I pulled the subcompact 9mm from its ankle holster and dropped it down beside my forty-five.

  “Good, Campbell. If you’d be so kind as to kick those away, we can get this wrapped up.”

  That didn’t sound ominous at all. My mind raced as I stood back up, kicking the firearms toward some point between me and Fowler, but I kept coming up empty. I could rush him, maybe survive, maybe take him into custody. But Arlene wasn’t here. And I doubted I could break him through normal interrogation.

  Resigned to my fate, I lifted my face to stare my killer in the eye. His expression, that smug smile of victory, didn’t change as he began to take up slack on the trigger. “Good-bye, Mr. Campbell. It’s been fun.”

  It might be cliché, but time slowed down. I swear I could see, despite the distance, his finger edging ever closer to the break point that would send the firing pin crashing into the cartridge, igniting the primer and ending my life. Just as I saw, entering in from my peripheral vision, a spinning, shining object that smashed into Fowler’s gun hand just as the shot rang out. Time came crashing back to full speed as a new voice cried out, “Take him, Detective!”

  I recognized that resonant baritone as belonging to Silas. But I was already moving. Charging straight at a man with a gun was suicidal. Whatever Silas had thrown, it knocked Fowler’s gun hand off to my left. So I angled to my right, hurling myself forward, not directly toward Fowler, but at a forty-five-degree angle to him. His gun arm was sweeping back on line, already barking fire as he pulled the trigger again and again. The second my foot hit the ground, I moved back toward him, cutting in on a new line, taking me inside the sweep of his arm. I pushed both my arms in front of me, and they slammed into Fowler’s gun arm.

  He was still firing, the sharp report of gunfire cracking off the alley walls. At the same time, his left hand came sweeping across in an open-palmed strike, aiming for my ear. He never got the chance to land it. My right hand curled under his gun arm, finding the back of his triceps. At the same time, my left hand pushed up, angling the weapon, still firing, well over my head. Fowler’s own momentum provided all the force I needed turn the man almost completely around, while simultaneously tangling his left arm with his right.

  Both my hands shot forward again, sliding down his gun arm until they reached the hand, clamping down around the meat of his palm. I twisted, turning the hand back toward Fowler. At the same time, my knee smashed into the back of his thigh, destabilizing his balance. The pressure on his wrist, combined with the loss of balance, proved too much, and we both toppled toward the ground.

  Hitting mats in the gym was nothing like landing on concrete. Fortu
nately, I managed to position Fowler between me and the ground. There was a disturbing pop from his wrist as my body weight fell on him, and the pistol tumbled free of his grip. He wasn’t done fighting, though. While my focus had been laser-like on his gun hand, he hadn’t forgotten he had another one to bring to the fight. Flashbulbs went off in front of my eyes as his left elbow smashed into the side of my head.

  He was at a bad angle to throw it—if he hadn’t been, it probably would have been the end of it. As it was, the shot knocked me sideways, giving him the opportunity to roll out from under me and plant himself firmly in a top mount position. I had landed on top of something angular and unyielding when I’d rolled—Fowler’s pistol, presumably. But I couldn’t worry about that, as Fowler began to rain blows down at me with his injured right arm. Of more concern, however, was his left hand, which darted to his pocket.

  I kept my own arms active, shedding the fumbling strikes from Fowler’s injured gun hand. But my eyes were more focused on his other hand, which, sure enough, produced a small tactical folder. The knife must have had some sort of fast-deploy feature, because even as he yanked it from his pocket, the blade—three inches of razor-edged steel—flicked open. He held it awkwardly in his left hand, grip reversed so the tip pointed down at me. He plunged the blade down Psycho-style.

  I managed to interpose my left arm—forearm to forearm, not flesh to steel—but the moment we contacted, he pulled back, slicing the edge across my arm. I cried out as the blade cut the back of my arm, and thick, hot blood welled out. He stabbed down again and again. I managed to keep the tip from finding my face or chest, but each strike left a shallow gash along my arms. None were serious; none were even deep enough to cause any real muscle damage. But they were all bleeding, and I had only so much blood to give.

  Fowler cursed. “She’ll die for this, you bastard. More. She’ll suffer. The things I did to those synthetics? I’ll do far worse to that little girl. And it will be your fault.”

  Where was Silas? Why wasn’t he helping? Could he even help, or had his programming—his brainwashing—rendered him senseless? “Fuck you, Fowler,” I grunted in what was, admittedly, not my wittiest reply. “You’re a fucking animal. You need to be put down.”

  He growled and slammed the knife down harder...but with an almost predictable rhythm. We’d been on the ground for only a few seconds, but every strike he dropped was moving across his body, pulling to my left. As he drove the knife down again, I stopped trying to block it. Instead, I threw both of my arms off to the right, creating a triangle in front of me His knife arm struck and slid down that barrier of my arms. As it slipped past my right hand, gliding ever closer to my body, I pulled my right hand back, catching the inside of Fowler’s elbow and causing his arm to fold. My left hand shot out, cupping over the top of his hand, and shoved.

  His arm folded inward, the point of the knife sinking into his abdomen far on the right side. His eyes widened as the blade punched through his flesh. The shocked expression became a scream as I yanked sideways, dragging the blade across his belly and opening a nine-inch gash that went from liver to spleen.

  It was messy. Beyond messy. A river of blood spurted from his lacerated liver, and blue-and-pink loops of entrails spilled from the wound. The fetid stench of shit mixed with the copper of blood—whether from a punctured bowel or from Fowler losing control over his sphincter, I didn’t know. Given our relative positions, the blood and viscera—and worse—poured out directly onto me.

  I gagged at the smell, grunted, heaved, and managed to roll my hips enough to escape from under the still weakly struggling Fowler. I struggled to my feet, trying to ignore the pain from the multiple gashes in my arms and the cocktail of stink assaulting my nose. I managed the former, but failed in the latter, and had to stumble to the nearest wall where I promptly lost everything I had eaten in the last week. When I finally managed to straighten again, wiping a hand stained with what I hoped was my own blood across my lips, Silas was there.

  “Thanks for the help, big guy,” I grunted, not feeling particularly charitable. “And for likely getting Hernandez’s daughter killed.”

  “My apologies, Detective.”

  Something in the synthetic’s voice made me look at him—really look at him.

  Silas looked like shit. A feverish flush suffused his too-pale skin. Beads of sweat stood out on his face, and his mouth was twisted into a moue of nausea. His hands—those big, blocky, dangerous-looking hands—were actually trembling. In fact, his entire body was trembling, almost shaking, with some sort of tremendous effort. But effort at what?

  “I’m afraid I rendered all of the assistance I could when I threw the wrench.” His face twisted even more at the words and for a moment, the shaking got worse.

  Synthetics couldn’t hurt people. I knew that. Everyone knew that. It was a security measure, a last-ditch fail-safe to ensure...product safety...but I didn’t know what happened to a synthetic who tried to hurt someone. After all, it wasn’t supposed to be possible. Their programming—indoctrination—was supposed to make it a moot point.

  Silas had clearly been able to overcome that indoctrination, at least a little. And had paid the price for it. I didn’t have any idea how Walton did it, but the conditioned response to violating the proscriptions against violence looked a hell of a lot like a bad case of influenza.

  “Shit,” I muttered. “Are you going to be all right? And how the hell did you do that in the first place?”

  His massive shoulders rose and fell in something that was half shrug, half shudder. “Let’s just say that anything that can be ingrained into the psyche can be overcome, or at least mitigated, provided one is willing to subject themselves to it and deal with the consequences.” He smiled, though the effort of doing so was writ large on his face. “As for my injuries, you are the one bleeding, Detective.”

  “Fair point.” I looked down at my shredded arms. My jacket was darkened and matted with blood, and felt clingy and sticky against my arms. I flexed my fingers, which sent little crackling tingles of pain from my elbows to my wrists, but everything seemed to be doing more or less what I told it to. “I’ll live,” I said with a shrug.

  “Yes, I suppose you will. And if we hurry, so might Arlene Hernandez.”

  Chapter 26

  Fowler was dead.

  I was neither surprised nor particularly saddened by this development. But I needed to be sure. I also took the time to do a quick search of his car. I didn’t expect to find Arlene stashed in the backseat or locked in the trunk, but I also wasn’t taking any chances. I paused to pick up my sidearm and backup piece, checking to make sure they hadn’t sustained any damage from their ignominious trip across the alleyway. Then I turned back to Silas. It had taken only moments to verify that Fowler had checked out and that his car was clear, but in that time, the big synthetic had managed to steady himself somewhat. “You ready?” I asked.

  “When you are, Detective.”

  We made our way back to the cab. “Get in. And start talking.”

  Silas slumped into the passenger seat and I did the same on the nominal driver’s side. “Do you know where the girl is?” I asked, before either of us had a chance to get comfortable. Covered in blood meant that getting comfortable was out the window. I must have looked like a fucking nightmare. And smelled worse. I punched the keys to lower the windows and blast the heater. The night wasn’t cold enough to warrant it, but I wanted the sensation of air flowing past me. It didn’t do anything for the stench, but it at least let me trick my brain into thinking it helped. I’d had quite enough vomiting for one evening.

  “Perhaps, Detective.”

  I ground my teeth and longed for a steering wheel around which to wrap my fists. As things stood, I had a strong urge to wrap them around Silas’s throat. “You better have more than fucking ‘perhaps,’ Silas,” I grated.

  “An address, Detective. I’ve not been i
dle while you’ve been conducting your investigation. I believe I found the location where the late, unlamented Mr. Fowler performs his...operations.” He rattled off a street address, which I quickly punched into the cab. GPS indicated nearly a thirty-minute drive to reach the destination. That set my stomach churning afresh, but there was nothing I could do about it.

  The car pulled from the curb and I settled back into my chair, drawing a breath. As I released it, I felt some of the tension drain from me. Fowler was dead. Arlene was still missing, but at least there was a chance I could get her back alive. I didn’t delude myself into thinking it was over, or even close to over. Fowler was a tool. Walton Biogenics was the hand wielding him. But at least I could be relatively certain that no one else would try to kill me tonight. And I could be damn certain that I wasn’t just going to let it happen.

  I needed medical attention. Sleep. Food. I needed to make sure a little girl got home to her mother. And I needed answers. The only one I could do anything about at the moment was the answers.

  “How did you find Fowler?” I asked Silas. “For that matter, how did you find me?”

  The broad synthetic looked almost comical crammed into the small seat of the cab. He had recovered both his composure and aplomb, however, and, despite the absurdity of his position, managed to retain even the odd air of dignity that seemed so integral to who he was. “I did not find Fowler, Detective,” he replied. “I did not find the girl—at least not the girl you’re looking for—either.”

  I felt my ire start rising again. I needed to get Arlene home. “Then what did you find?”

  “A different girl. Another lost soul who I believe fell into Fowler’s hands.” He paused a moment, reddish eyes staring intently at me. “But it stands to reason that the other detective’s daughter will be there as well. If not, perhaps we can find something to lead us to her.”

  “Us? You dropped a list of names in my lap and disappeared. When did it become us?”