Dawn of the Courtezan: Phase 01 (The Eighteenth Shadow)

by Grafton, Jon Lee

  One by one, this family of man and of cyborgs passed through the plain, green wooden door, its faded paint peeling in places. Far above, via a port in the barn’s east wall, their own black, oval security Drone B entered. The egg-shaped robot hovered slowly, flying parallel to the barn’s roof line. It dropped into its docking nest high in the shadows with a pneumatic hiss.

  Then the barn was quiet and empty once more. Save for the occasional flutter of pigeon wings amongst the rafters.

  Chapter 1.11 – The Puzzle Master

  Chief Narcotics Detective Dennis Slopes stared vacantly into his holomonitor. A bald, elderly man in a pure white suit stared back from the other side of the holoconference, orange eyes ablaze. Neither man spoke. Slopes’ gaze was fixed, tattoo-lined eyebrows flitting as though held in a trance.

  After sixty more seconds passed, the elderly man closed his eyes and Slopes gasped, falling back into his cushioned throne chair.

  “That is all the information you have for me, detective?” asked the elderly man, the words disdainful.

  “My knowledge is your knowledge,” mumbled Slopes, regaining his composure.

  “My will is your will,” said the old man. “Find the daughter. No matter the cost. Her powers cannot be permitted to manifest.”

  “My will is your w…” began Slopes, but the holomonitor went dark before he could finish.

  Slopes sighed and drew himself together. Free to rule his kingdom as he liked, safe once more, his lips twisted angrily.

  Why come to me now? I send the pieces to their homes. Not you! I hate…

  A twinge of fear passed through him. He wiped a line of sweat from his bilious cheek, then straightened up and resumed his work.

  A brass plaque mounted above the puzzle desk read, Drinking is not a crime, it’s just against the law… in a red Edwardian font. Slopes grinned manically as his eyes brushed over the message.

  The plaque hung at eye level. The glowing maroon and yellow text was impossible to miss. It hung above a special desk. For puzzles only. No other objects were to be placed on the surface of the puzzle desk! Not a coffee mug. Not a holostylus. Not even a used Kleenex, candy wrapper or elbow.

  Upon this puzzle desk, the exterior rectangle of a moderately difficult, 1,500 piece Montana landscape was now complete, the corners connected. Making the exterior outline of a puzzle come together was the first logical objective. Everyone knows this. It was an accomplishment Dennis Slopes felt was undervalued by his petulant, greedy, eye contact avoiding peers. Slopes loved having his puzzles at the office! He popped an over the counter stym-gel beneath his tongue and smacked his lips as the flavor of maraschino cherries mingled with his saliva.

  Beside the puzzle desk was a normal desk, complete with a standard issue, high res holomonitor. The detective’s tawny back pained him, vertebrae poking through his thin government issue suit. There was little field work any longer, what with the incredible ratio of one COD in the sky for every 1,293 Lawrence citizens. His LPD subordinates and CNED operatives could handle the actual arresting after a drone’s alcovap sweep had ferreted out the boozebum in question.

  Accordingly, Dennis Slopes had descended into the private universe of his office as the years scuttled by. His muscles had turned to wind. The man was able to solve nearly any riddle, but was unable to walk up a flight of stairs without a sensation he could only imagine was the onset of a stroke. His combud had never alerted him to potential cardiac failure. The device was probably malfunctioning. His torso was a withered cliche of desk time nourished primarily on metabolism bumpers and Hemparoo Choco-Truffles. Papery cheeks hung down like windless sails from a bony chin. Every other breath had to be drawn through his mouth because his nose had long since decided it was too far away from his lungs to function. Dennis Slopes wished that mouth breathing and sweets were not available options, but they were.

  At least he could rest easy with the knowledge that while not the most attractive, he was certainly the most intelligent individual in the entire city.

  Possibly the entire Union.

  In the window reflection he could see his bald head, shaved and shining like a sottled moon. Outside that window, the hovstreet corner of 11th and Massachusetts buzzed with its usual Tuesday afternoon vigor. Hovcycles and cars, college students on old fashioned pedal bicycles or hovscoots lined up in an orderly fashion at the traffic LED, waiting to turn left and take Eleventh up the hill to campus. Holotab sporting college students rushed along the sidewalks past hovtruck vendors along with business people, the working citizens, boozebums, unemployed Traditionalists and migrants of every flavor.

  So many citizens. So much sedition.

  He licked his lips greedily. He would have to hit the new hovtruck run by the lesbian with the pretty eyes after work. She had the best potsicles in town. She was nice to him too. Even if only because he was the LPD’s chief narcotics detective, that was all right. Those chocolate flavored ganja pops made you fly! He would be higher than a mountain goat on a subspace to China by the time he got home. His domestic partner, Mrs. Kitters, would be waiting. Being stoned made the sound of her meowing more tolerable.

  Kitty loves to nag daddy.

  “Meow-meow, I’m a cow, don’t peek yet, just be here now,” he said, chasing away the personal thoughts with his mantra.

  It was only ten in the morning and there was oddity afoot! This County Hovroad 1500 report was galling. The lack of intel was… unacceptable! The morning’s events reminded him of the time he had purchased a puzzle and it had been delivered with missing pieces. Also not acceptable!

  “The answer is always there,” he said, staring through sunken eyes at the idyllic urban vista beyond his window. “Meow-meow, I’m a cow, don’t peek yet, just be here now.”

  The constant hovtraffic created an oscillating white noise that soothed his restless mind.

  “Statistics indicate that one in four of you have seen, been in possession of, or consumed alcohol in the last 36 hours…” Slopes said to the citizens stepping unawares past the walls of city hall.

  He snapped another puzzle piece into its place. It was either part of a rock or the beginning of the pond, judging by the completed image on the hempboard box the puzzle arrived in.

  He was stroking his airless, beak-like nose, contemplating this visual conundrum when the computer finally klaxoned.

  The com’s digital voice said, “Wreck site analysis complete.”

  “Mercy, that took long enough. Tell me, Simon, where is our suspect?”

  The computer’s response was bland, “Location unknown.”

  Dennis chuckled to himself, leaned back and ran a lead colored fingernail up his ribs one by one, “Simon I do believe you’re finally developing a sense of humor.”

  The computer responded instantly, “I do not register the concept. Please rephrase.”

  “Oh Simon, maybe I should have permitted you some humor protocols. But that would decrease your efficiency. You realize this, don’t you, you nasty little pile of graphene?”

  “That is correct. Systems operating on my chipset experience a 13% decline in efficiency when required to multiprocess human linguistic novelty.”

  Dennis Slopes huffed, sat up and tucked his mantis-thin legs beneath him, “Simon. I know the suspect is not in any of the wreck footage. But the little brunette slut’s identity is wonked on every stream between here and California. So please don’t toy with daddy. Where is our suspect now?”

  “Location unknown.”

  Slopes felt his pulse quicken, his face turning the color of old blood, “Impossible! Rescan all COD and facial recognition cam data for the last 24 hours. Immediately!” he squealed.

  “A municipality wide FR scan has been completed three times this morning since your arrival at 7:17 am.”

  “I don’t care! Don’t care, don’t care, don’t care!” he sang. “Meow-meow, I’m a cow, don’t peek yet, just be here now! Assemble all new data and run it again until you find her. Find her… now!”


  Detective Slopes realized that he was screaming. His breath had turned heated.

  The com port in the ceiling calmly replied, “Complete FR scan commencing.”

  “Meow-meow, I’m a cow, don’t peek yet, just be here now…” he said his mantra over and over, his eyes pinching shut until he had repeated the phrase ten times.

  It’s the old man’s fault. He hasn’t come to me personally in years!

  When Slopes opened his eyes, they fell first upon the puzzle desk and the growing image he would soon complete. But no! It was too much temptation. He had completed the outline. That was enough. Rome was not built in a yada yada…

  “Simon, get me all updated field data from Sheriff Proudstar’s office.”

  “No updated information available.”

  Dennis Slopes pinched his eyes closed again, “Meow-meow, I’m a cow, don’t peek yet, just be here now…”

  He popped another hemp truffle into his mouth. Bits of chocolate dust littered the corners of his lips.

  “That Dogdamn redneck is a sympathizer, I swear it. Don’t you agree, Simon?”

  The com replied calmly, “There is no evidence to support the theory that the sheriff has sympathies for this fugitive or the alcohol decriminalization movement. Sheriff Proudstar is a decorated war veteran with…”

  Dennis flushed and shook his head, “Simon! Will you please be quiet!? And finish processing that facial cam data. I am fully, sickeningly, disgustingly aware of our good sheriff’s military credentials!”

  The computer was silent. Slopes tapped his desktop causing a holographic track pad to appear. He used his clawed index finger with chocolate stuck beneath the nail to navigate the high resolution, 360 degree aerial image on his flatscreen. This image represented the scene as it was scanned by the first functional drone to arrive.

  The cold stretch of hovroad was a black line neatly bisecting the farmland. The hovroad, he knew, ended fairly abruptly at the city limits where it snaked past the Abner pumpkin farm to the west. But on the holoscreen, it appeared to reach into infinity eastward, thin and straight until it vanished on the horizon. A destroyed 2079 Ford Mustang lay upside down in a field belonging to the Anderson Corn Plantation. The hovcar’s mangled levfans were still, glaring up at an unsympathetic January sky. The vehicle’s emergency collision sphere lay on the opposite side of County Hovroad 1500 in a fallow field belonging to… Purple Tree Farms, a subsidiary of… CannibaGene©.

  Check.

  He squeezed his fingers together, red eyes darting efficiently, and zoomed in on the second sheriff’s drone that had been pursuing the Mustang. There was nothing to see of the first but bits and pieces of plastic, metal and Kevlar flung across the asphalt like a handful of scattered sand. The second drone was half-buried in the soil on the corn farmer’s land. Particle weapon scarring? Particle weapons. Who has them besides a few in CNED? Some very wealthy gentleman or lady hunters. Almost every citizen hunter just used good old antique bullets.

  Meow-meow, I’m a cow…

  Slopes panned back left across the hologram to the second most fascinating part of the scene. There it was. The destroyed chassis of what he expected before noon to be confirmed as one of the Darkpool Laboratories’ cybernetic Coyotes.

  “After seventeen years you show up on the outskirts of my city, little doggie? Why is that,” he asked, slipping another hemp truffle past his lips. “Do, please oh please rise up from whatever foul, fusion powered hell holds you now and tell me your secrets… then you may return to your imploded wormhole and die. Thank you.”

  The robot looked like it had been attacked by a herd of elephants. Elephants with daggers for teeth. Teeth that could rip and crush titanalum?

  Fidos and doggies and Shepherds, oh my…

  “This will not do. No, this will not do at all…”

  He dragged his finger over to the opposite corner of the greasy holotab and tapped, expanding what was to him, at present, the most fascinating part of the evening’s events; a still, 2D Bmod intake holo of the fugitive in question.

  “Tara – A – Dean,” said Dennis Slopes, moistly articulating each syllable. He could feel his mouth flood with wetness, “I know where you come from, honeybunny, but I don’t know where you are. I don’t like that. Not at all. No I don’t. You’re the special piece I’m looking for. You complete the puzzle, don’t you? You and your powers. I will find you and eat up all your pie. I’m going to drench you with cow’s butter and salt.”

  Dennis Slopes leaned back. His swiveling throne easily absorbed the skeletal lightness of his frame. He stared at the attractive, young woman’s holograph. He imagined her in a tennis skirt. He imagined himself 35 years younger. He imagined himself inquiring nervously if she would like to go share an e-joint or jane-espresso sometime. She would turn him down. He knew it. Even when he still had all his hair!

  She would have denied me!

  The woman’s eyes were like black tidal pools fringed with moss. She was beautiful, like many sick people. And now she was running amok in his nest.

  My nest!

  This was just not acceptable.

  “Simon,” he said.

  “Yes, Detective Slopes?” said the com.

  “Send this information over to Ken Sapet at CNED. Tell him I want willing volunteers to start focusing next weekend’s hunts in grids 26 through 30, from the river south to Interstate K-10, and from Prairie Street all the way east to the city limits. Inform Mr. Sapet that we have a big fat rat in this sector. It’s big and it’s fat and it’s not running on its wheel, Simon.”

  “Understood, Detective Slopes. The information will be relayed.”

  Dennis Slopes continued talking, “And say that this rat needs to be dug from its hole. Tell him it needs to be observed. I need to know how it feels, limp in my hands as I rub its fur the wrong way. It needs to be cut upon. Tell him I want to watch it bleed. And then… Simon? Are you listening?”

  “I am listening, Detective Slopes,” said the computer.

  “Simon, when it is completely broken and destroyed, I want to send the rat away to swing a sledge hammer against a rock in the lunar quarries for the rest of its afflicted, unnatural, disgusting life. I want it to thank me personally for the mercy of sending it to Hypatia Five. Is that very, very clear?”

  The computer did not respond.

  Dennis Slopes unfurled his legs, rolled his chair back to the puzzle desk and picked up a new piece, spinning it in his fingers with practiced alacrity. Finding a place for one more couldn’t hurt before he left for lunch. He flipped the hempboard piece over and over as he studied the puzzle’s finished image on the surface of the box.

  He drew his breath in rapidly, his eyes found the spot and he eagerly lunged forward as he snapped the piece into place, “There you go. Daddy found you a home.”

  His eyes then fell to the chaotic pile of a thousand more unplaced puzzle pieces.

  He grazed his fingertips over them leisurely, “Don’t worry, you directionless little rats. You’ll all be on a wheel soon.”

  Meow-meow, I’m a cow, don’t peek yet, just be here now.

  Wikipedia.holo Excerpt (Last Updated 2077.09.11) Regarding Cybernetic Lifeforms:

  The NAUS Federal Government outlawed “the possession and construction of fusion based cybernetic lifeforms…” with the passage of The Martinez Act of 2061 (Constitutional Amendment 222). This ban received strong bi-partisan support and applied to all civilian law enforcement divisions ranging from local police forces to CNED, DEA, as well as the Bureau of Marijuana, Tobacco & Firearms. Clark Alkaline Traction System units, which are sometimes referred to as “battborgs,” have since become the fifteen year standard for AI robots ranging from childrens’ toys to household Fidos and Felixes to artificial police and DEA K9 units. Battborgs typically run out of power in 24 – 48 hours and can be recharged like any device via proximity to a wireless charging pad bridged with the Federal solar grid.

  Non-UN member nations such as Iran, The Sunni
Union, Korea, Russia and Israel permit fusion based cyborgs in all levels of military and civilian law enforcement. The argument for fusion is that it is a superior, stronger, never-ending power source, which ultimately outweighs the high cost of stabilizing a micro-reactor. However, despite the legal discrepancies between nations, the scientific complexity (along with the financial expense) of fusion temporal mechanics has driven the majority of the cybernetics industry towards CATS based units by default.

  Today in the North American United States, fully autonomous fusion powered cyborgs are limited to usage by the military. Accordingly, such creatures are physically restricted to military facilities when not being used for field operations. Each of the estimated 600 DOGS (Dubnium Oxygen Gravotemporal System) units currently utilized for NAUS military ops and training are strictly monitored by the FCC.

  Unlike the Darkpool Labs Coyotes, all fusion based cyborgs produced in the NAUS since 2064 have established safety protocols in place. In layman’s terms, DOGS units are required to have an expiration date of one to five years. Likewise, the systems are designed to shut down under the following contingencies: 1) If the cyborg is hacked with external code attempting to override these protocols or 2) If the cyborg itself attempts to modify its own bios, in which case the Federal Cyborg Commission will intervene according to statute…

  Want to stay up to date on coming releases in The Eighteenth Shadow series? You can sign up for our mailing list HERE or follow Jon Lee Grafton on Facebook.

  Phase 02 – Voices in the Stream is available HERE.

  Phase 03 – Absorption is available HERE.

  An Evolving Glossary of Real Time Terms and Acronyms

  1) 1.9 Day (The San Andreas Geological Disaster of 2041): A massive Southern California earthquake caused by hydraulic fracturing, which kills 1.9% of the antique United States population. Commonly regarded as the unofficial starting point of the Progressive Revolution.