by Matt Doyle
“Mercenary, ain’t she?” Jim babbles from over by Barbara.
“We all gotta get our kicks somewhere,” I say. “Like I said, all I want is some information. You give me that, and I’ll let you get back to your fun.”
“An’ what information would you be wantin’, Detective?” Mark replies.
“I need the names and addresses for the local dealers that have been active in the last month.”
Mark’s body tenses for the conflict that he knows is now coming, and he shakes his head stiffly. “No can do. We don’t give up our own, not to the law.”
I shoot Mark a dark smile. “Let me make this clear. As far as the police are concerned, they’ve got nothing to lose by letting me loose on this. Hell, it was them that gave me your details, Mr. Farlow. You see, if I prove them right, then my client stops harassing them. If I prove them wrong, then they’re grateful to have another piece of scum off the street. It’s a win-win situation for them. What that means is they’ll let certain things slide if I get them a result at the end of it.”
“Threats,” Jim babbles. “That ain’t right, man. You can’t be here. Like I said, man, you can’t be here.”
“Jimmy boy, shut up, man,” Mark growls, keeping his attention on me. “What exactly do you think you’re gonna do to us, hmm? Look around you, Detective. I count two of us awake, an’ one more that we can pull out of the net if we need to. You’re just one chick runnin’ her mouth.”
“Running her mouth from those big ol’ lips, man. She can’t be here. She needs to get gone, man, gone.”
I ignore Jimmy’s cackling and pull my phone out of my pocket. Keeping my body angled squarely towards Mark, I drop my gaze to the screen and load up a photograph, then place the handset on the table. Mark’s eyes twitch down at the display, then back up to me.
The corners of his mouth creep up into a victorious grin, and he says, “I see what you’re doin’. Your phone’s, what, six years old? You can show me all the pretty pictures you want. If you can’t afford a decent handset, there ain’t no way you got one of those.”
The picture is a promo shot of a Familiar, an AI designed for mass production and wholesale. Like most Familiars, this one’s fairly small, only about the size of my head. The vast majority of units are labelled as “Family Class” and function as pets. They’re great with kids, or so I hear, and a bit sturdier than regular animals, but mostly they’re just expensive status symbols. This particular one, though, is primarily a “Protector Class” unit. That means it rushes in like an attack dog, protecting its master with the ferocity of a twister in a shanty town. It’s a pretty little thing, built to look like a beaked gargoyle with bat wings and steel-plated armour. The glint on the tips of the beak, wings, talons, and claws make it clear what its primary weapons are.
“Tell me, Mr. Farlow, do you know who Jonah Burrell is?”
“CEO of FE Ltd. What about him?”
“About a year ago, his daughter went missing…”
“Yeah, yeah,” he cuts in. “Turned out she’d faked her kidnapping to run away with her lover. Daddy dragged her home in disgrace after he proved that the guy had been using her to try to buy a majority shareholding. What about him?”
“You’re right. There’s no way that I could afford a Familiar Unit on my earnings. But ol’ Jonah was real grateful when I handed him my report. If the CEO of Familiar Enterprises feels like he owes you, how do you think he’d repay you?”
Mark narrows his eyes. “What did you say your name was?”
“Cassandra Tam.”
“Yo, Jimmy, look it up.”
I keep my face impassive, my gaze locked on Mark’s while Jimmy mutters to himself and taps away at a tablet. Judging by the nervous drumming of his fingers, time must be creeping by at a crawl for Mark right now. Me, though? I’m enjoying it.
After a while, Jim stumbles over and drops his tablet down in front of Mark. “It’s her, man. News report’s got a picture and everything.”
Mark doesn’t even bother to look at the screen. He just keeps his attention fixed on mine. “You’re bluffing,” he states, the barest quaver sneaking up on the last word.
I give three short sharp whistles, and a window in one of the side rooms shatters, bringing Mark to his feet. The door to the right of the entrance hallway cracks open, and the thing from the photograph ambles arrogantly into the room, the last few shards of glass still sliding from its body while it shakes its wings. It clambers smoothly up the table leg, hops up onto my shoulder, and lets out a triumphant mechanical caw.
“I call him Bert,” I say, using one finger to rub him under his chin. “He’s been staying at FE Ltd.’s offices for his yearly servicing. I needed to pick him up today anyway, so I figured, why not take him on a little trip.” I smile. “Now. How much damage do you think he can do to all your equipment?”
Six
VJ DEALERS HAVE this weird sort of underground unionisation going on. A lot of them hold down perfectly respectable day jobs, then deal in synth stimulants on the side. The way it works is that they all operate from the same stockpile, then run shifts where a handful of people do production, a few others do the selling, and the others take a break. At the end of the month, the sellers get to keep 30 percent of their takings, another 30 percent goes to the production team, and the remaining 40 percent gets split between those on a break and a central pot for buying supplies and funding the team when sales are down.
What they’re doing isn’t entirely legal, but the police stay out of their business most of the time. Aside from having far bigger fish to fry, there are a fair few casual users higher up in the chain of command, and this place is a hotbed for cross-country sales when certain members of the PD travel in for whatever pointless inspections they want to use as an excuse this time.
The good thing about that is it makes my job here a lot easier. After telling Bert to stick close but only come if I call, I cleared the first two dealers in under an hour. I’d already figured that they wouldn’t turn out to be the ones to sell the stuff to the dearly departed Eddie. They were both at the smaller end of things, so their stock had been limited all month. But hey, all leads are worth checking. For all I knew, he could have gone to both and run two smaller transactions, or he could have bought multiple times.
Turns out he didn’t. These two, one guy called Joe and one idiot calling himself L3G3ND, complete with threes replacing the e’s, were more than happy to talk. Turns out they’d been paranoid that the police were gonna come knocking after they read about Eddie’s death, and wanted to be sure that they could prove they didn’t sell him the stuff that killed him. They even gave me lists of their sales to look at. Like I said, I wasn’t expecting much from either of them, but I took photos of the lists anyway, just in case. I think that my visit came as a relief to them.
This next one was where I expected to find my proof. Charlotte Goldman, or Charlie for short, has been dealing for a long, long time, and I’ve spoken with her before when the need’s arisen. Sometimes I come across people in my line of work and, depending on why I came into contact with them in the first place, we keep in touch in one way or another. When it comes to Charlie, I keep it to a “when I need to” basis, without exception. Or I do these days anyway, or else I would have been tempted to go straight to her for information rather than harassing Mark Farlow and his cousins.
The problem with not driving is that, unless I can solve something quickly, I end up walking all over the place, and leave myself tired and grumpy by the time I get near the end of the day. When I’m making a trip that I don’t want to, it’s worse. Luck has kept me from straying too far from the city centre thus far today, but I’m hardly cheery by the time I make it to Charlie’s house on Fenchurch Street. Finding her standing in the doorway, waiting for me with that Cheshire cat smile of hers, doesn’t help either.
“Caz!” she calls. “Still no car, huh? Come on in, I’ve got the coffee all ready to go.”
“Great,” I grumbl
e to myself, and consider calling Bert down to wipe the annoying bounce from her voice.
“Joe called to say that you’d be visiting. He said that you’d been to see L3G3ND too, asking about Eddie Redwood?”
“That’s right,” I reply, sinking into one of her comfortable armchairs. She hands me a full mug, and I nod in thanks, take a gulp, and try to ignore both the burning sensation in my throat and my annoyance at how well she remembers how I like my coffee. I can’t even remember how many sugars she takes now.
“So how are things?” she asks, dropping into the chair opposite and leaning forward, a mischievous curiosity in her eyes. “Sleeping well? Found anyone that can put up with you yet?”
“Look, Charlie, I’m tired, okay? I just want to get my proof that Eddie Redwood was a user, take it to my client, and get paid, alright?”
“See, now that’s why we were never a good match,” Charlie replies, a hint of sadness in her voice, despite the big smile on her face. “You’re far too serious all the time.”
I glare at her and bring my mug up to my mouth, downing another begrudging mouthful. Damn, it’s good, though.
Charlie waits to see if I soften, and when I don’t, she laughs quietly and shakes her head. “I’m afraid that I’m not going to be much help. When I heard what you were looking for, I pulled my records and had a look through them. No Eddie Redwoods at all.”
“He could have used a false name,” I grump. “Or had a proxy come and buy for him. Or bought a bit here and a bit from one of the other two.”
Charlie rolls her eyes. “You know better than that. The people that buy from me don’t buy from people like those two. They either stock up when I’m about or go to one of the other Elite Sellers. As for a false name or proxy, well…” She sighs. “I checked the reported levels that Eddie was carrying. I only made one sale for that much, and it definitely wasn’t to Eddie Redwood. I seriously doubt that he was a proxy either.”
“Who was it?”
Charlie pulls a small bundle of papers out from behind her cushion. She looks at them, and says, “I’m only giving you this because, despite anything else, I still look at you as a friend.” She reaches across to me and adds, “The name’s highlighted.”
I put my mug down on the floor and take the papers. There, in the middle of the page, one name sticks out from behind bright neon-pink highlighter fluid. Devin Carmichael.
“Diu… Fuck.” I sigh.
Seven
I LEAVE CHARLIE with an awkward hug and a half-hearted promise to make time to visit sometime soon and catch up properly. We both know I won’t keep that promise, but I say it every time anyway. We only dated for a year, but I fell harder and quicker than she did. There wasn’t any specific trauma that caused it to end; we didn’t fight, and neither of us cheated on the other, but for the last couple of months of the relationship, we slowly drifted apart anyway. We both saw what was happening, but neither of us did anything to try to stop it. That makes me bitter.
Unwanted trips down memory lane aside, though, she did at least give me what I needed, if not what I expected. Devin Carmichael being involved proves that the death wasn’t an accident, so now I get to tell my client that she’s not batshit crazy. Let’s weigh that one up, shall we? On the positive side, my fee just doubled. Go me. On the downside, this just got a whole lot more complicated.
Open and shut, my ass, Hoove.
Eight
THE ADDRESS THAT Lori gave me was at the opposite end of the city, so I relented and took a cab. We’re in that weird time now that comes after the end-of-work rush hour and before the burst of activity that comes when people start going for nights out. The upshot of that is the journey was quick, if a little overpriced. I’m just glad that the driver didn’t notice Bert perching on top of his roof, or he’d have probably charged me more.
Lori lives in a small bungalow at the tail end of Forster Street, a small community of houses that appears to be an homage to the old world. Sure, the building materials are set by modern standards, but the style is derivative of anything but modern. Honestly, it wouldn’t seem out of place if she had a white picket fence hidden away somewhere. The windows aren’t on lockdown, and the older-style curtains hanging behind the metal sheeting are still open, but the lights are off. If she chose this area because of the vintage style, she could dislike the metal sheets the same as I do, albeit probably for reasons of taste rather than the convenience of spying on potential visitors.
Either that or she’s fallen asleep before shutting up for the night. Given that she’s in mourning, and that her car is still parked just outside the place, that’s probably a good bet. If that’s the case, though, she won’t be asleep for much longer. I give the doorbell a couple of presses, and listen to the simple chime echo through the house. Just to be sure, I give the door a hard round of knocks too. I’d feel guilty, but she hired me to do a job, and to do that, I need to speak to her.
I spot a movement out of the corner of my eye, and turn to look at the house to the left of Lori’s. The kitsch falls of fabric sway a little, and snap shut at a speed too precise to be the work of a breeze. Curtain twitcher. The one hobby that proves curiosity and paranoia never die. I guess that makes me—what? A blind twitcher?
Lori’s neighbour’s door clicks open and a homely looking elderly lady peeks her head around. “Excuse me, dear, were you looking for Miss Redwood?”
“Sorry to disturb you, ma’am,” I reply, turning on my best saleswoman smile. “I was, yes. Is she not home this afternoon?”
“Afternoon? It’s closer to evening now, love.” She laughs. “I’m afraid not, though. Tonight’s one of her meetings down at the Community Hall.”
“Oh? Sorry, but could you point me towards it at all? I really need to speak with Miss Redwood, you see, but I don’t really know the area too well. I tend to stick the Main Street area, and to be honest, I didn’t know there was anywhere like this around here.”
“Not many do, dear. We don’t mind that, though. It keeps the place quite quiet. If you follow the road down that way,” she says, pointing further down the road, “you’ll see it soon enough. The sign’s big enough that you shouldn’t miss it.”
I smile and nod gratefully. “Thank you, ma’am. And sorry again for the disturbance.”
“Think nothing of it, dear,” she says, and makes her way back inside.
I nod up to Bert, who has taken up residence on Lori’s roof, and say quietly, “Stay.” He shifts into a sitting position, mimicking the gargoyles of old that he was designed to resemble, and I start to make my way down towards the Community Hall, nodding politely to Lori’s neighbour as she pulls her curtain back again to wave me on my way.
The road isn’t long, but it does have one glaring eccentricity. The odd-numbered houses from one to twenty-seven go up one side, but there are no houses on the other. I have no idea whether the even numbers were at one point meant to exist or not, and I doubt that the residents do either. The road ends at a small traffic circle, with one road heading back the way I came, one heading off towards the northern city exit, and one heading back south towards my more familiar haunts.
At the opposite end of the circle, the road isn’t long enough for me to call it an exit, but it does head into the car park of what looks like an old storage building. Were there not an oversized sign outside proclaiming the place as the Community Hall, I wouldn’t have even considered that was what lay inside. The cold run-down exterior screams “abandoned warehouse,” not “local social point,” even with the handful of cars sitting idle outside.
Inside is a different story. Just beyond the double doors at the front is an unmanned main desk that could have been taken from any photo of the era when church halls were the centre of every community. There are no crucifixes or other religious iconography, though. God lost his grip on this place a long time ago, and the birth of intelligent AIs like Bert put the final nail in that coffin for a lot of people. He may not be the perfect imitation of life, but
Bert and the others like him are close enough that the more arrogantly inclined of the species finally found their excuse to all but proclaim humans in the developmental industry as godlike. Now, instead of looking to the Bible for guidance, people just flick to the troubleshooting guide in their collection of digital manuals.
Figuring out where to go is easy. Hell, I wouldn’t be much of a PI if I couldn’t guess where the meeting was being held; there’s only one corridor, to the right of the desk, and there’s a lot of noise coming from behind the double doors at the end of said corridor. I wander down and shove the doors open without a second thought.
“Huh.” I don’t know what I was expecting to find inside, but it certainly wasn’t this. The hall is spacious, easily bigger than my apartment times four, and that’s a damn good thing. Tearing around the room are a—what do I even call them? A pack? Yeah, let’s go with that. A pack of Tech Shifters.
I count three cats skulking around the edges of the room and occasionally pouncing on any other Shifters that stray too close to them. When they come near each other, they just keep moving, walking warily, and turning their heads to watch their fellow feline as they pass, with their shiny segmented tails pointed haughtily in the air. Off to the side, two tigers are play-fighting with each other, taking it in turns to raise big metallic paws up to the other’s shoulder and barrelling them over. Once their playmate has been floored, they lunge forward and let the grounded Shifter roll them off to the side so that they can start again. Meanwhile, something that looks like a springbok is bounding merrily across the hall, weaving in out of four steel dogs that are eagerly chasing and fighting over a regular tennis ball, with the victor darting proudly back with its prize and dropping it at the feet of the one other human in the room.
I walk over as the lady launches the ball across the hall, sending the dogs off in a frenetic cacophony of growls, yips, and wagging tails. She looks over to me with a smile, and nods in greeting. There’s nothing too much that stands out about her; she’s pretty much an atypical bottle-blonde girl next door. Either that or all the Tech Shifters running about make her look plainer than she is.