by Brian Parker
“You won’t. They’re all wrapped up, ready to go into the next trashcan.”
When we went upstairs, she took in the cage and the torture instruments. I could see that it was a lot for her to process.
“Wow,” Dr. Jones said, placing her hand over her heart. “This is tough. It looks like they took a page right out of Slavery 101 from the eighteenth century and brought it right back here to New Orleans.”
I didn’t really know what to say. How do I, as a white male, comment on the city’s history with slavery to a black woman? I couldn’t say anything without coming off as a total jackass, so I held my tongue and let her take her time.
“These people are sick. Clones or not, they still have emotions, and they can feel pain.”
I nodded. Not much else I could do.
“Alright. I’m ready to talk to Sadie now.”
We went back down the stairs. Dr Wellington stood outside the door and Sadie stared out the window toward the street. I wondered if she’d ever had a window to look out of since she’d been “born.”
“She’s all patched up,” Wellington stated. “As I thought, most of them are minor and nonlife-threatening. She should be fine as long as she doesn’t have internal injuries that I can’t see.”
“Detective—”
“Holy shit, One Six Four,” I muttered into my microphone. “What is it now?”
“A vehicle registered to Mr. Joseph Kleer is on site with three occupants. Am I authorized to detain?”
“Kleer? That’s the fucker that Voodoo said bought all the clones,” I stated. If I could get this guy, I may have a chance to end the entire investigation right here.
“Yes, detain him,” I ordered.
“Andi, give me the details on Joseph Kleer.”
“Joseph Kleer is a white male, five foot eleven and approximately two hundred twelve pounds,” she replied. “He works at Carryall International, a company that manufactures exoskeletons for industrial use. He is not legally married and has no children. He spends an average of one-point-six hours per day online gambling and thirty-seven minutes on social media sites. His last online purchase was for a three-gallon tub of personal lubricant. He orders meal delivery two-point-seven times a week, predominantly pizza or Chinese takeout. In the last—”
“That’s enough,” I said. He didn’t seem to have a record, or that would have been the first thing Andi told me. If I hadn’t cut her off, she would have gone into every detail that was publicly available on the perp.
“Dr. Jones, I’m going to go outside and talk to Mr. Kleer. According to Thomas Ladeaux, he’s the one behind the torture tourism ring.”
TEN: TUESDAY
I walked through the warehouse and out the side door into a standoff between drone One Six Four and the three men from the car it reported as inbound a few minutes earlier. They stood foolishly behind the open doors of their car, thinking they would offer them protection against the drone. I ducked back inside the doorway quickly.
I’d seen the police drones in action and was nearly cut in half by one up close at the Puss ’n Boots when it was protecting me. A few days later, I’d seen several of them tear into a massive crowd of people when their programming got hacked. The standard police drone was equipped with twin 5.56mm miniguns that would tear Kleer’s car to shreds.
“Put down your weapons,” I shouted, around the edge of the door.
“You ain’t stealin’ our product, man!”
“I’m a cop, New Orleans PD. Put your weapons down!”
“What are you doing here?” a different male asked.
“I’m investigating an illegal gambling ring. Which one of you is Joseph Kleer?”
“Shut up! Nobody tell that pig nothing,” the second person yelled.
“What product are you afraid I’m going to steal?” I asked. “Are you dealing drugs out of this place?”
“No, man,” the first guy replied. “I just meant—”
“Shut up, Hector!” one of them said. “You got a warrant to be on our property, cop?”
“You got a permit for those guns?” I countered.
“We ain’t surrendering, man!”
“The state of Louisiana does not allow citizens to disobey a police officer’s orders to surrender weapons of any type or caliber,” One Six Four stated. “You have five seconds to comply with Detective Forrest’s lawful order or this unit will render the situation safe for the residents of New Orleans.”
The drone paused for a moment and then began its countdown. “Five… Four… Three…”
One of the men opened fire on One Six Four. Bullets ricocheted in all directions as he emptied an entire magazine rapidly into the drone’s armor.
“One,” the drone continued, unfazed by the hits it took.
“You guys need to put them down!” I shouted over the sound of the miniguns spinning up.
“You have refused to comply with a lawful order to surrender your weapons and opened fire on a New Orleans Police Department drone unit,” One Six Four detailed.
It didn’t give them a chance for rebuttal. The guns exploded into action, throwing two hundred rounds into the car in five seconds.
“Whoa!” I shouted. “Cease fire! One Six Four, cease fire!”
The echoes of machine gun fire faded into the night and the barrels stopped spinning. Then, the call I knew was coming sounded loud and clear from the drone in the newfound silence.
“Dispatch, this is Drone Unit One Six Four. Shots fired, current GPS coordinates are accurate. Two perpetrators dead, one severely wounded. Request EMS. Detective Zachary Forrest is on scene.”
Fuck me.
“Acknowledged, Unit One Six Four. Emergency medical services have been notified. ETA eight minutes.”
“Goddammit, One Six Four! Kleer was the key to this fucking case.” I glanced at the bodies. The one severely wounded guy wouldn’t last more than a few minutes. I ran back inside, yelling as I went.
“Doc! You’ve gotta finish up and get her out of here!”
“What’s this all about?” Dr. Wellington demanded.
“We’ve got a whole shitload of cops and EMS inbound. You need to leave if you want to remain anonymous.”
“Damn you, Forrest! I knew something like this would happen,” the old man accused, rushing into the room where Sadie lay on a table. Bandages covered a third of her body and the rest looked like it was slathered in burn cream.
Wellington grabbed his medical bag, slamming it shut. “We’re through, Forrest. My debt to you is paid. Don’t call me again.”
I watched him strut out for a moment and then turned back to the clone. “Sadie, I need you to get up. If I give you directions to an alley, can you go there and wait for me to finish up here?”
“I think so,” she answered.
“Hold up,” Jasmine interrupted. “You’re not going to send this girl out onto the streets. She’d be nabbed in minutes.”
“I don’t have any other choice,” I replied, adding a note of concern to my voice. I wanted Doc Jones to take the clone with her, but she needed to come up with that on her own so it didn’t seem like I was forcing her into a corner.
“Yes you do. I’ll take her to my place and you can come get her once you’re done here.”
“That would be a huge help,” I sighed.
“How long until the party starts?” Jasmin asked.
“Less than three minutes,” I estimated. “You two have got to go.”
I watched approvingly as the psychologist pulled Sadie to her feet and dragged her toward the entrance.
“It’s okay, Sadie,” I said. “I’ll come to Dr. Jones’ house once I’m done here.”
My approval seemed to unlock her feet and she trudged behind the doctor, who pulled her by the hand toward the exit.
“This night can’t get any worse,” I muttered.
I was wrong.
The night could get worse, and it came in the form of six-foot, two-inch Chief Bobby Brubaker. I di
dn’t know how he got word so quickly, or why he was out at 3:30 a.m., but he showed up within minutes of the EMS.
“Are you trying to give me a heart attack, Forrest? Is that what you want?”
“No, sir. I don’t,” I replied.
“Then why are there three dead men and one of my drones offline for evaluation after it followed your orders?”
“Sir, I didn’t—”
“And why the fuck are you out here in the middle of Easytown at a warehouse owned by a company that contributed a lot of money to Mayor Cantrell’s reelection campaign?”
“I was investigating an illegal gambling ring.”
“Gambling? That’s vice, not homicide. Don’t we have enough to keep you busy without you going looking for work?”
“I—”
“I ought to bust you down to walking a beat and take you down a few notches. The fucking union wouldn’t allow it, though. I’m sick of this shit, Forrest. What’s going on with you?”
I decided to lay it out for him. He’d given me leeway to investigate the clone case after all.
“The gambling was a convenient cover to investigate the clone murders, Chief.”
“The clone murders? Are you kidding me?”
“You said if there were other illegal activities going on that happened to coincide with the clones, then you were fine with me investigating it.”
“I didn’t expect a goddamned drone to turn a few guys into Swiss cheese, either.”
“They opened fire on the drone unit first.”
“We’ll see what the gun camera footage shows. If you’re right, that can be defended in court,” he admitted grudgingly.
“There are eight more dead clones inside,” I stated. It had to be said, even if doing so would make him blow his top.
“You went inside this building?” he asked, jabbing his cigar toward the warehouse. “Without a warrant?”
“I had credible information that there may have been more murders.”
“It’s not a fucking murder, Forrest! They’re clones. I can toss my shoe in the garbage and have just as big of a repercussion as slitting the throat on a clone. It’s a piece of property, nothing else.”
“Chief, these things aren’t property. They feel every bit of pain inflicted on them. They can talk, reason, and interact. They’re just like humans.”
“You’ve lost your goddamned mind, Detective,” he fumed. “I gave you the benefit of the doubt earlier. I didn’t expect you to actually pursue this clone bullshit any further, but you have. Nobody gives two fucks about a talking hunk of meat. Drop the issue. If I ever hear you utter another word about clones, you’re suspended—indefinitely. Do you understand?”
I wanted to push back, to throw it in his face that clones were one hundred percent human, but it wasn’t the time. I’d walked too close to the fire with him and he wasn’t backing off the issue. He was firmly in the camp with everyone else it seemed.
“Yeah, I got it, Chief.”
“Goddammit, Forrest. This is a mess,” he muttered. “You convinced a goddamned drone to accompany you on an unlawful investigation. The police department has had a major problem keeping the drone program open after they were hacked last year. Why would you jeopardize that?”
“I didn’t think I was going to get into a fight. The drone was for overwatch.”
“The damned thing did way more than overwatch. You know what? Forget it. I need a report from you no later than 8 a.m. tomorrow morning. I want every detail—minus anything about clones. You need to lock this thing down tight. Give me a reason that you went inside the building without a warrant.”
“Understood.”
“You’re goddamned right you understand. If that report isn’t in my hand first thing in the morning so I can immediately go to the commissioner with the details, there’ll be hell to pay, Forrest. I’m talking about walking a beat in uniform for several months. Cruz can handle the workload.”
He spun on his heel and walked away from me toward the small parking area. I watched as he squeezed into the police cruiser, which looked tiny compared to him.
I glanced at my watch; I only had about three hours to write the report and get it sent over to the Easytown PD station by courier.
“Andi, we need to start working immediately,” I told her over the phone while I waited for the Jeep to pull around the block.
ELEVEN: TUESDAY
I fell onto my couch after the courier droid left. I’d made the chief’s deadline for the report with only moments to spare. The part about the three gunmen was a straight statement of the fact, no big deal. The rest of the report read like a redacted copy of the US Government’s files on UFOs, but it was the truth—minus the part about the clones. It was hard to explain why I was there, my reasoning for going inside the building and then what I didn’t discover inside.
I was exhausted, nearing thirty hours of being awake, and the one or two hours of sleep that I’d gotten after dinner at the Khalil’s had been shitty.
“Fuck!” I exclaimed loudly.
“What’s wrong, Zach?” Andi asked.
“I forgot to ask Tommy Voodoo about Amir’s building when I was there yesterday. I got caught up with trying to find the clones and forgot all about it.”
“I’m sure Amir will understand.”
I didn’t need Andi to try to make me feel better. I needed to make it right.
“Andi, call the Marie Leveau Shipping Company.”
“They are not currently open, Zach.”
“It’s fine. I know there will be someone who answers.”
A soft static filled the apartment as the phone waited to connect. It rang once and then a familiar, singsong voice filled the room. “Marie Leveau Shipping Company.”
“Betty, this is Detective Zach Forrest from the New Orleans Police Department.”
“Good morning, Detective.”
“I need to speak with Mr. Ladeaux regarding a business transaction that he recently made.”
“I’m sorry, Detective. Our offices are currently closed and Mr. Ladeaux is not available to take your call.”
“What time does he normally get in?”
“Mr. Ladeaux’s schedule is not for public release,” she replied.
“I’m not the public. I did him a favor last night, now I need him to return it.”
“He usually arrives within the next hour.”
“That means he’s awake. Connect me to his private line.”
“I’m not authorized to—”
“Can it, Betty. Put me through to your boss.” I wasn’t in the mood for his pet robot to deflect me.
“Please hold.”
Silence filled my apartment once again as the droid put me on hold. I didn’t know if he’d take my call, but I figured the guy owed me. I put that gambling ring out of business and found eight more of his clones—nine, counting Sadie.
The phone line clicked over and a holograph feed projected into my living room of Thomas Ladeaux in trousers and an untucked shirt. A very naked Anastasia walked across the feed and she waved toward me before disappearing out of the camera’s frame.
“Good morning, Detective. You look like you’ve been put through the ringer.”
“Thanks,” I grunted, noting his well-rested appearance. “I wanted to let you know that I found nine more of your clones last night at the site. All dead.”
His face fell. Maybe he was genuinely concerned for the clones and not just trying to cover his ass if this went south.
“Thank you, Detective. That makes…” He trailed off in thought for a moment. “That means there are still twenty-two unaccounted for.”
“Right. Joseph Kleer is dead as well.”
“Did you kill him?”
“He got shot by a drone, but yeah, it’s because I was there,” I admitted. After writing it so many times in the report, I was beginning to think it was my fault that those three men were dead—or Ladeaux’s. “There weren’t any clues as to the whereabouts of the
other clones. You got any more ideas?”
“I’ll have to do some careful digging; maybe I can find out where they’re holding the rest of them.”
“Or if there’s a second gambling site.”
“Yes, that could always be a possibility, I suppose.”
“Speaking of sites, Ladeaux, it seems like you made a business investment a couple of months ago.”
“Ahh, yes.” The bastard smiled. “The Pharaoh’s Tomb—nice place once you get past all the gaudy Egyptian baubles.”
“My friend owns that restaurant. Said you’re tripling the rent on him.”
He frowned. “It’s barely above the market value for a location like that. I have to charge that in order to get a timely return on my investment.”
“He can’t afford that rate, Ladeaux.”
“Then we’ll have to terminate his lease and bring in someone else.”
“You know it’s going to cost a fortune to demo all the crap out of that place. Even then, you may go months or years without a renter. You’re better off leaving the Pharaoh alone.”
“I understand you’re trying to look out for your friend’s best interest, Forrest. But it’s just good business to charge what the property is worth. If he can’t afford to pay it, then somebody else will.”
“Come on. You had zero interest in that property until you found out that it belonged to an acquaintance of mine. It wasn’t even for sale when you bought it.”
“I suppose I could be convinced to keep the rates where they are.”
“I’m already saving your ass by tracking down and recovering the clones that you sold without researching your buyer.”
“True,” he admitted. “It wouldn’t take much for me to help your friend out.”
“What is it that you want?”
“It’s easy. Not even that big of a deal.”
I sighed. “What is it?”
“I want to be given space. Your people are always snooping around my companies, looking for evidence of illegal activities. They’ve never found anything and I’m tired of it; all the constant turning over of my books, property inspections and the like. I’m not dirty—a smart businessman, yes, but a legal one.”