Black Marble (Darkside Dreams - Series 1 Book 3)

by A. King Bradley

  Now I turn my attention, inevitably, to the scattered corpses.

  There are four of them. It's easy to tell how two of them bought their tickets on the River Styx express... They're slumped over in their chairs, burn marks on the sides of their heads. Cauterized flesh. There's even a bit of wet brain material visible.

  High-powered pulse round. Very common projectile. In fact, the weapon slung on my hip now is capable of firing the same sort of round. Among others.

  I step forward, past the boys in the chairs, and study the other two bodies.

  One of them is on his left side. His right arm is flung out, the curled paw of the right hand resting against one leg of the coffee table. He also took a pulse round. Straight to the back of the head. Must have burned out his cerebellum in about a nanosecond. Dead long before he hit the ground. Dead before his body even knew to start falling. He hit the ground in full rag doll mode, limbs splaying awkwardly, head bouncing off that plush old rug.

  The fourth body is situated a bit further along, six or seven feet away and well outside the seating area. Before I go to it, I swivel around and give the first three boys a second look. I had been so preoccupied establishing a cause and timeline of death that I forgot to check what they were wearing.

  Suits. The type of one-piece, simple and elegant suit worn by ranking members of the OUSP. They're all neat boys. Hair trimmed nicely, faces cleanly shaven. Nails trimmed and filed. None of them are much older than thirty-five. Other than their suits, they could have been any businessman you'd meet on the streets.

  One last body to check. I don't expect it to give me much new information. All I know is that this fourth guy was either a bit quicker and smarter than the others, or else he just got lucky and was targeted last. Either way, he was obviously able to see his death coming. He turned and ran, trying to make it to a door in the wall. He fell dead about halfway there, his left arm reaching out over his head across the floor.

  I kind of want to see what's beyond that door. But I doubt the reconstruction will allow me to go that far. Not to mention that I'll crack my nose on the cabana wall before I make it that far anyway.

  So, I crouch by the fourth corpse and take a look. At first, he looks the same as the others. Dead by a projectile to the head. But on closer inspection there is a marked difference. A much higher power round was used on this guy, and it burned much deeper into his head, though with a cleaner hole. I bend low, looking into this fissure in the back of his head. And what I see makes me stop breathing for a good ten or fifteen seconds.

  I stand back up. Think for a long moment. Crouch down again, and try and absorb every last detail into my memory.

  Finally, I stand up again and say, “Okay.”

  The mechanical orb is shut off. The node is pulled away from my head. And all I see is wall, rising up in front of me. I couldn't have gone much further without knocking into it. I turn around, and see the Commander watching me patiently with his arms folded across his chest.

  “What are your findings, Roman?” he asks. “In chronological order, please. I want to know if you're the right man for the job.”

  “I'm not sure there's any right man for this job,” I reply.

  The Commander reaches down and pats the pocket where he's holding my omni.

  “Alright. Take it easy,” I grumble. “Well, first things first... there was only one perpetrator.”

  “What leads you to that conclusion?” the Commander asks.

  “The fact that they all died just the same way. In each instance, the killer aimed for the back of the head. Base of the skull, to be exact. Fastest and cleanest way to drop someone when you're using a pulse round. If you hit plain skull, you'll be waiting a good two or three seconds for the person to die. Gotta wait for the round to eat through the bone. But if you hit the base of the skull, you're taking out spinal tissue as well. The pulse can sink in between gaps in the spinal column and get up into the brain in less than a second.”

  “Seems like you’re a fan of this guy,” the Commander said, giving me a distasteful grimace.

  “It's good, clean work,” I admit. “From the time the killer started shooting, they were all dead in well less than ten seconds. Maybe even five. It’s probably how I’d do it if I had to pull this hit.”

  “A hit?” The Commander reaches up to rub his chin. “What makes you think it’s a hit?”

  The smug bastard is pissing me off. Obviously, he already knows way more about these killings than I do. As far as I can tell, he might already know who did it. But he's testing me.

  “Is that a serious question, Commander?” I say. “These guys were political figures, and this was professional work. Very efficient, very well done. Some random disgruntled citizen couldn't pull this off. With all the luck in the world, he might have been able to take two of these boys down before the others got away, before security caught up with him. No chance in hell of something like this being done by someone who wasn't getting paid. Or blackmailed.”

  The Commander nods. “You’re correct, Mr. Ibarra. We suspect one perp as well, someone highly skilled. What else did you see?”

  “There was a lot of planning involved,” I say. “Whoever pulled this hit, must have done their homework. They could have killed the first three guys with regular bullets, maybe with a suppressor, but instead they opted for the more expensive and harder to get pulse rounds. Because pulse fire is much quieter. I also noticed that they killed the four guys in a precise order...”

  “What order?”

  “The hitter killed them in the order in which they saw them. There was no other consideration, nothing complicated. Just shot the closest guy first, and the furthest guy last. That said, the killer likely calculated the optimal window before they initiated the attack. If they hadn't been so quick and precise with the shooting, the fourth guy might have gotten away.”

  “Anything else?” the Commander presses.

  “The hit might have just called for one of them to die, and the hitter killed the other three to try and hide which one he was really after...”

  “What makes you say that?”

  “Because one of these things is not like the others, Commander… but I think you already know that.”

  The Commander smiles. We both know the same thing, now. We're more or less on the same page. I want him to just come out and say it, give me some answers to the burning questions I have. But, instead, he chooses to continue his interrogation.

  “Knowing your reputation,” he says, “and your keen senses, I'm sure you were able to trace the path the assassin took. You may even have a more detailed reconstruction of the scene in your mind than that which the orb can generate. So, how about it? Let's run through the whole thing, from start to finish. All five or ten seconds of it, however long it lasted...”

  I nod. “Sure. The hitter came through the door. The one that was at my back when I first entered the reconstruction.”

  “Why do you say that?”

  “Well, I thought they may have come in the window. But it was raining outside. Raining hard. And from the wounds I could see that the assassination had taken place not long ago. Less than an hour. Probably less than thirty minutes. Chances are it was already raining when it all went down. Torrential downpour. But there was no water on the floor. Not even a water stain. It would have taken a lot longer than an hour for any puddles to dry up.”

  The Commander nods. “Alright. Very astute. So, the assassin entered the room from inside the building, not from outside. And he chose the door you were standing in front of. How do you reckon?”

  “From the angle of the shots. The way the bodies fell. Even a five-year-old could tell you that the hitter was standing just about where I was, when they took their shots. They came in and killed one guy, then the second guy before he could react to the first shot and start getting up off his chair. But the assassin would have shut the door behind them before taking any shots. To do otherwise would be sloppy; too much chance for other people in
the building to notice. So, they walked in the room, shut the door, took out a gun and started shooting. But during that whole time, no one seems to have reacted in any way. Not until the shots started flying. So, the assassin's presence must not have been too troubling at first. That lets me know the hitter was wearing a disguise. We're definitely dealing with a professional here.”

  The Commander nodded, smiling appraisingly. “It seems we are. So, what happened next?”

  “First shot, first kill. Second shot, second kill. The two guys are dead in their chairs. The third was already standing, probably looking over the stuff that was scattered on the table. He turned to look as his two friends died. The shock of it made him freeze for a second. Then he started to turn and run, exposing the back of his head to the assassin. Third guy goes down. By now, the fourth man has had enough time to put an escape plan into effect. I'm not sure where he was positioned originally, but I assume he was also sitting down, possibly farthest from the assassin. If he had already been standing, I think he would have been able to make it out. Or at least a lot further than he did.”

  “Four kills, just like that.” The Commander shakes his head, tossing his old toothpick to the floor and pulling a new one out of his pocket.

  “Just like that,” I agree. “Then all that’s left is the hitter’s escape. They didn't come in through the window, but they did leave by it. I'm willing to bet on it.”

  “Explain.”

  “Well, the curtain was open. Not by much, but enough. I think this was a secret kind of meeting, so they wouldn't have left the curtain open at all. The assassin left through the window, a bit hastily, because all that mattered at that point was them getting away as fast as possible. The curtain was flung aside a bit. I didn't get a chance to look, but you might even find a bit of water on the floor under that window...”

  “We did, actually,” says the Commander. “The windowsill was wet. A trace of soil from the assassin's shoe. Too non-specific, too small, to get a good match. Could be from anywhere, really. But it's proof that he left by the window. And proof that you know your stuff, Roman.”

  Now, he finally pulls off his sunglasses, steps forward, and offers me his hand. I shake with him, but only so that I have a chance to crush his hand. Try and inflict some pain on the bastard. But he just grins and takes it. Smiles casually, like he feels nothing.

  “Well done,” he says. “Was there anything else? Any other little things you might have noticed?”

  “Just the one little thing,” I say. “I couldn’t help but notice that one of the guys... the fourth one to be exact... was a synth.”

  The Commander breaks our handshake and steps back. His lips separate in a grin. I can see that he's been going at his new toothpick so hard that his gums have begun to bleed, staining his teeth pink. He says nothing, but gives me a hand gesture that says, “Go on.”

  “The first three guys were hit by standard pulse burns,” I say. “The fourth guy was hit with something else. Bored straight through his skull and finally stopped about in the middle of his brain. A clean hole. I assume he was shot with something hot enough to vaporize the material it bored through, because there was no blood, no bone fragments, no brain tissue to be found anywhere. Not any kind of weaponry I know of. Must be something new. Experimental. Some kind of synth-killer. The guy had a cyber brain. A skull made of titanium. Top of the line cyber body, really expensive stuff. The best you could get, and only if you had connections. Money alone doesn't even cut it. It's also stuff you can't get anymore. Which means this boy's been around for a while, since long before the Big Wipe.

  “But,” I add, “I didn't really even need to see inside the guy's head to know that one of the victims was a synthetic. There was a smell when I first went into the reconstruction. I couldn’t peg it at first but it’s coming back to me now. It was synth blood and tissue, vaporized and floating in the air. Has a very unique smell to it.”

  “Not bad, Mr. Ibarra,” the Commander says smugly. “Not bad at all.”

  “So, let me ask you a question; do you have any suspects besides me?” I ask, matter-of-factly.

  The Commander smiles and looks over to one of his squadies. “How long has it been?”

  “It's been about seventy hours since the assassination,” the squaddie answers.

  The Commander gives me a meaningful look. Like a dad waiting for his child to confess to some misdeed. I had long realized that the Commander hasn't just been picking my brain. He's been trying to get a confession out of me. I haven't really given one to him, but I have told him all the nitty, gritty details of the assassination. Suddenly, I wish that I wasn't so good at my job.

  “Forgive me for saying,” the Commander says, “but you don't seem all that surprised to have seen a synth. Seems a bit fishy to me.”

  “I let myself be surprised in the reconstruction,” I say. “I gave myself a few moments to feel stunned. Maybe to you it just looked like I was standing there. I'm not the kind of guy who lets himself get blown away. Being surprised wastes time. And wasting time is a fast way to get killed. I just take things as I see them, and hope the answers come later. So, what are the answers?”

  As I'm talking, I step closer and closer to the Commander. My hands are still tied, but we both know that I can still hurt him. But he doesn't react, and none of his squadies come to push me back.

  I stop a few inches from the Commander and look down at him. I hold his gaze for a long moment, just to show I'm not scared.

  Then I turn away, walk over to the couch the squadies dragged against the wall, and sit down.

  The Commander nods at one of his guys. The guy drags a chair over, plops it down in front of me. The Commander turns it around then sits down on it backwards, his sinewy forearms resting on the chair back.

  “Look at me,” he says. “What do you see?”

  “A douchebag who was sent here by the OUSP solely to recruit me but who has his own theory and is wasting time trying to get a confession out of me,” I scoff. “A guy who’d rather try to railroad an innocent man rather than closing this case by doing any real work. Does that sound about right, Commander?”

  I look into his eyes. They are undeniably powerful. There are depths to the Commander's gaze. I see pain and pride in equal measure. And a lot of other things, too. He leans back a bit, smiling. The chair creaks under the weight of his body. He's not a very tall man, but he is very dense. Packed with muscle like an old gorilla.

  “You’re right,” he finally admits. “I had you pegged for the assassin but now that I’ve had a chance to speak with you in person, I’m not so sure.”

  “Well I guess that means you’ll be on your way then?” I suggest.

  “Not quite how this is gonna work, guy,” the Commander replies. “Tell me, did you really have no idea that there were still synths out there. You? The great detective, Roman Ibarra?”

  “Are you going to keep dicking around or are you going to tell me what this is all about?” I grumble.

  A dirty little smile comes to the Commander's face again. He's about to go back to being difficult. It seems like one of his favorite activities.

  “What do you want to know?” he asks, though he damn well already knows the answer.

  “The synths,” I say. “Tell me about them. What's the story?”

  “Well, the story is that they weren't all wiped. Simple enough. I can't really tell you what the Collective's plan was or is. That would be like an ant trying to explain to its ant friends what a man like me is planning. But I can see the results of their machinations and work out a general purpose. It seems like they were reluctant to hand control of the planet over to us entirely. They wanted a backup. They wanted cyber brains on the ground. Because they can access a cyber brain more easily, I suppose.”

  “Go on,” I say, acting on my gut feeling that there’s more to the story.

  He pulls the toothpick out of his mouth and flicks it over his shoulder. “When the Big Wipe happened, all but a couple
hundred synths were destroyed. The lucky ones weren't chosen at random. They were hand selected by the Collective for whatever reason. These VIPs were given a new assignment; to act as stewards over the Earth and humankind, watching over us on behalf of the Collective. They've been posing as organics this whole time, using cyber bodies that are a little less perfect than what we were all accustomed to.”

  “They just can’t leave us alone, can they?” I growl.

  “Oh please,” the Commander scoffs. “We’ve had thousands of years to find a way to do things the right way. A man as smart as you should know that, Roman. We had second chances, third chances, fourth chances… way more than we probably deserved.”

  The Commander is pacing now, gesturing with his hairy hands. Getting into it. Clearly, he's passionate about the subject. For a second, I start to wonder if he isn't a synth himself. He doesn't look like one—not pretty enough—but maybe he could be one of those new imperfect models he mentioned. Come to think of it though, if blending in is their goal, then that removes any suspicion that the Commander might be a synth. He's too distinctive of a character. He fits too naturally inside his own body. There's a perfect match between physicality and personality, so it seems impossible that he's a transferred persona.

  I guess he's just one of twenty million humans left on this forsaken world, struggling through the hell and aftermath of the Second War and the Big Wipe, just like the rest of us.

  “Two hundred synths,” he says. “That's all that was left, Roman. Two hundred synths who have the best interests of the planet at heart. All they want is ongoing peace and recovery. That's what the Collective wants for us, too. But now someone has caught wind that these synths exist, that they hold positions of power in the OUSP. And they've hired surprisingly lethal assassins to take them out.”