by Dan Wells
“If he even remembers?” asked Marisa. “If he doesn’t shoot us on sight for losing his djinni?” She slumped down next to Sahara, resting her head against her friend’s, and stared at the ceiling with her. “Let’s look at this from a different direction: We know that Zenaida had ZooMorrow genhancements, right? No Mantissassin eyes, but something. Enough that ZooMorrow’s trying to protect it, and cutting-edge enough that they still consider the tech to be a proprietary secret fifteen years later. So: What if she stole it from them?”
“That doesn’t seem very smart,” said Sahara. “They have creepy Mantissassins to come and kill people who do that kind of thing.” She thought about it for half a moment, then sat bolt upright in the waiting room chair, sending Marisa sprawling to the side. “Holy crap. ZooMorrow has assassins.”
“Exactly!” said Marisa, pulling herself back to a sitting position. “Assassins who are more than capable of killing three gang enforcers all in the same day—if they had a reason to. And since their primary reason for doing anything seems to be protecting ZooMorrow’s interests, what if they killed the Maldonado enforcers for having the same technology Zenaida did?”
“Wait,” said Sahara, “you lost me. What does this have to do with stealing?”
“Sorry,” said Marisa, “these pieces came together a weird way in my head, so I’m retelling them to you in the order that makes the most sense.”
“No you’re not.”
“Okay,” said Marisa, “think about it like this: Zenaida had a job at ZooMorrow, as some kind of scientist, so maybe she had access to the tech and started stealing it to help soup up the Maldonado soldiers for the war with the Severovs. They were desperate—they’d do anything to win, and to protect their family from a rival attack. And then they won the war, but ZooMorrow figured it out and came to claim their proprietary tech. In a police station they can just take it, like Bennett did with the hand, but out there on the street, especially against a trained fighter, they had to ask more forcefully. ZooMorrow sent in the brute squad, Zenaida knew they were coming, and she tried to run.”
“This . . . actually works really well,” said Sahara. “I think you’re onto something.”
“Thanks,” said Marisa. “I have all my best ideas at three a.m.”
“We need to verify it,” said Sahara. “And we’re in exactly the right place—the police keep files of every murder they investigate, including the DNA tests of the corpses. All we have to do is . . . damn it.” She closed her eyes. “All we have to do is hack into the frakking police station, which we’ve already tried and failed at how many times?”
“We could just ask,” said Marisa. “We’re right here.”
“And they’re going to show them to us why?” asked Sahara. “We’re teenagers, not detectives.”
Marisa blinked to open a search window. “I bet I could register us as private detectives inside of five minutes, tops.”
“And the police still won’t care,” said Sahara. “We don’t need legitimacy, we need . . . influence. Money or power or . . . Anja. We need Anja.”
“Tapping into Anja’s power and influence means using Anja’s dad,” said Marisa. “He doesn’t like us, and he especially doesn’t like us when we drag his daughter and/or his company through a police station. He’ll never agree to help us. But there’s someone who might. . . .”
“Ugh,” said Sahara, rolling her eyes. “Don’t say Omar.”
“Omar,” said Marisa. “He’s gotten us info before, including from the police. We know he can do it, and we know he’s motivated.”
“We’re calling on him too much,” said Sahara. “You’re calling on him too much. The only reason he’s not the single most untrustworthy person we know is because we also know the rest of his family.”
“He’ll help us,” Marisa insisted. “He wants to find out what happened to Zenaida even more than we do.”
“So call him,” said Sahara, “but I want it on the record that I oppose this.”
And that’s where Marisa hesitated. Talking about Omar’s help was one thing, but actually asking him for it was another. Their goals were aligned, but he was still miles away from sympathetic. Let alone trustworthy.
And yet . . .
She wrote a quick email message, explaining the DNA records and why they wanted to see them, and sent it with a blink.
A moment later Detective Hendel opened the door to the interrogation room, and held it open while a pair of uniformed officers led Andy Song down the hall toward the overnight cells. She let out a sigh, then walked toward the girls.
“Looks like you can go,” she said. “He wanted to press charges for breaking and entering, but his house computer shows that he invited you in, so . . . you’re good.”
“What did the house computer say about the smashed bioprinter?” asked Sahara, looking perfectly innocent.
Detective Hendel smirked. “Nothing, and neither did Song. Turns out that that particular device was reported stolen about six weeks ago, and Andy claims never to have seen it before in his life.” She shrugged, and added airily: “I guess we might never find out who smashed it.”
“It was already smashed when we got there,” said Sahara. “I’m pretty sure.”
“So,” said Hendel. “You’ve given your reports, we’ve taken your statements, and you’re done. The city of Los Angeles thanks you for your help in solving this crime. I can get a squad car to drive you home if you want.”
“We have a question first,” said Marisa. “And I know it’s a weird question, but: we need to look at the DNA files of three people who were murdered fifteen years ago.”
“Are you kidding?” asked Hendel.
Marisa smiled as sweetly as she knew how. “No?”
“I can’t release police records to just anyone off the street,” said Hendel.
“They relate to this case,” said Sahara.
Hendel shook her head. “This case is closed.”
“Are you kidding now?” asked Marisa. “We still don’t know who killed Zenaida!”
“A car accident killed Zenaida,” said Hendel. “Fifteen years ago.”
“But—”
“This case,” said Hendel, cutting her off, “was about a severed hand. We thought it was a murder, but it was an unlicensed bioprinter. Case closed, job done.”
“But I saw—” This time Marisa stopped herself. Claiming to have seen a ghost, or whatever it was she’d seen, would only make Hendel trust her less. “There are still too many loose ends,” she said instead. “Why did ZooMorrow take the hand out of your custody? How did the world’s most inept black-market bioprinter get hold of fifteen-year-old-corpse DNA?”
Hendel leaned in closely, lowering her voice to a distinctly conspiratorial pitch. “Yes, I know there’s more to this,” she said, “but what do you want me to do? We’re barely functioning as a law enforcement agency as it is; megacorps have all the real legal power, and they’ve put substantial pressure on my bosses, who have put that pressure on me. A murder I can investigate, but thanks to Andy Song, this is no longer a murder investigation. It’s out of our hands.”
“Who put pressure on you?” asked Marisa. “ZooMorrow?”
“I’m not at liberty to say.”
“They’re probably the killers,” said Sahara. “They can’t just stop you from investigating them.”
“If there’s something to find, I’ll find it,” said Hendel. “But this case is closed. Go home and go to sleep.”
A message popped up in Marisa’s vision, bouncing cheerfully for her attention. Omar. She blinked on it, and found six short words:
Done. Tell me what you find.
What had he done? She hadn’t even known he was awake.
“I’m looking for a Ms. Carneseca,” said a voice. Marisa looked up, bewildered, and saw a police officer standing next to her with a clear glass tablet.
Sahara pointed at Marisa. “Right here.”
“I’ve been instructed to give this to you,” sa
id the officer. “Three murder files: Gonzalo Sanchez, Ricardo Guzmán, and Ingrid Castañeda.”
Marisa smiled.
“Hold up,” said Detective Hendel, putting her hand on the tablet. “Whose orders?”
“Straight from the top,” said the officer. “Chief Grace.”
“Thank you,” said Marisa, and took the tablet from him, gently pulling it away from Hendel’s hand and tapping on the glass to wake it up. It was a standard data slate—low onboard memory with a rechargeable battery, designed for on-site collaboration. The police didn’t want to send old files to anyone’s djinni, where they could make or edit a copy, so they shared it temporarily through devices like this. The screen showed three files, and Marisa tapped one. It opened into a giant cascade of data, and she bit her lip in confused frustration.
“Do you actually know how to read a police file?” asked Hendel.
“I do not,” said Marisa, staring at the numbers and fields and abbreviations. “I can’t even see the guy’s name.”
Hendel sighed. “I don’t know how you did it, but fine. You got your files. Come into my office and let’s at least make sure you use them correctly.” They followed her down the hall to the same office Marisa had sat in before, and Marisa laid the data screen on the desk. Hendel sat behind it, tapped it quickly in a few key places, and looked at them expectantly. “What do you want to know?”
“The DNA records,” said Marisa. “We’re looking for any kind of genhancement or gengineering or anything like that.”
“From ZooMorrow?” asked Hendel. Sahara nodded, and Hendel looked down at the slate. Her fingers practically danced across it, tapping and swiping and moving the data around. A moment later she furrowed her brow, frowning at the screen, and her tapping became more intense. She paused on something, read it intently, and looked up at the girls with an impressed nod. “Well then. This is the first of the three records—Gonzalo Sanchez—and portions of the DNA information have been redacted, under, believe it or not, federal statute 7o.3482. The same one ZooMorrow claimed when they took Zenaida’s hand. Protection of proprietary technology. So this doesn’t prove Sanchez had genhancements, but it’s pretty hard to read it any other way.”
“Check the other two,” said Marisa. She didn’t dare to say more, worried that the spell would break and the detective would stop helping them.
Hendel looked back at the screen, tapping her way through the reports. “Second says the same thing,” she murmured, and then a moment later: “Yeah. All three.” She looked up. “Who are these people?”
“Enforcers in the Maldonado crime family,” said Sahara. “As I’m sure you noticed, they all died on the same day as Zenaida.”
“Yeah,” said Hendel. “That’s pretty suspicious, isn’t it?”
“Can you look up accidents as well as murders?” asked Marisa. “Can we see if Zenaida’s DNA had the same redacted info?”
“We’re in this far,” said Hendel with a shrug. “May as well keep going.” She turned to her own computer screen, directly tied to the LAPD database, and called up the records of Zenaida’s fatal car accident. She studied them for a moment, then shook her head. “Nothing. Which . . . makes no sense. Hang on.” She tapped again, searching for another set of records, and then another, and displayed all three side by side. “Look: the DNA tests from the severed hands—or I guess the bioprinted hands—are redacted, just like those other three. ZooMorrow did it at the same time they took the hands away. But this old DNA test from Zenaida’s car accident isn’t even touched.”
“Does it have any genhancements?” asked Marisa.
“No,” said Hendel, “but it’s more than that. They’re not the same DNA.” She tapped a few buttons. “See? The comparison software doesn’t even think they’re the same person.”
“Maybe they’re not,” said Sahara. “Do you have anything you can compare this to? Like a . . . I don’t know, one of Zenaida’s old hospital visits or something?”
“I can get one,” said Hendel. She swiped the three DNA tests into the corner of her screen, and then went online to connect to a hospital. She smiled as she typed. “Police don’t have a lot of authority anymore, but we’ve got plenty of access. These records are sealed, but with the right authorization . . . Got it.” Another file opened on the screen, and she clicked her teeth idly while she read it. “Postpartum checkup from three years before the accident. Mommy Zenaida and Baby Omar are perfectly healthy, and this DNA test . . .” She tapped it, bringing it alongside the other three, and then ran a comparison of all four together. It cycled for a moment, then beeped and lit up in bright green and red.
“Even I can read that,” said Marisa, looking at the screen. “The DNA from the hospital visit matches the DNA from the two hands. That’s the real Zenaida. The DNA from the car accident is someone else.”
“But that’s ridiculous,” said Sahara. “How can the police not know who died in a car accident and who didn’t?”
“You have to consider the situation,” said Hendel, hiding the other files and focusing on the accident. “First, this was fifteen years ago. Standardized DNA testing was common but it was still new; we probably didn’t have anything from Zenaida on file at the precinct. On top of that, the actual identification of the corpse was done at the hospital, not by the police; they probably just ran the DNA and filed the test away without looking at it, because see this? It says she was dead on arrival. There was nothing they could do, so they didn’t do anything.”
“Then why did they say it was Zenaida?” asked Marisa. “Somebody else died in that car accident, and we’ve thought it was the wrong person for fifteen years.”
Hendel pointed to an entry field in the report. “It says the identity was determined visually. See here? Two people.”
Marisa held her breath.
“Who?” asked Sahara.
Hendel turned to face the girls. “Francisco Maldonado and Carlo Magno Carneseca.”
FOURTEEN
“So . . .” Sahara stared at the computer screen. “Is Zenaida alive or not?”
Marisa was too stunned to say anything.
“I don’t have enough evidence to say,” said Hendel. “We know that she didn’t die in this car crash, but beyond that? We have no information to work with.”
“But if you had to guess,” said Sahara. “I mean, she must have gone into hiding, right? How else could you interpret this?”
“That’s a big leap of logic,” said Hendel.
“No it’s not,” said Sahara, leaning forward. “ZooMorrow was trying to kill people who were using stolen genhancements. Zenaida was the one who stole them, and obviously had some herself, so she had to go into hiding to stay alive. Carlo Magno and Don Francisco covered for her, identifying someone else’s body as hers so that ZooMorrow would stop chasing her.”
“That answers a lot of the questions we’re finding,” said Hendel, “but we have no evidence for it.”
Sahara’s eyes widened in disbelief. “Then how do you explain it? Any of it?”
“I can’t yet,” said Hendel.
“This is the only way that makes sense,” said Sahara. “ZooMorrow gave up looking for her, and everyone thought it was over, until somebody stole her DNA data and sold it to Andy Song, who let it get out and it ended up at a crime scene and you ran a test and boom: ZooMorrow knows she’s still alive and all hell breaks loose.”
“You might be right,” said Hendel. “It’s a fine theory, given all the data we have. But ‘fine’ is a long way away from ‘solid,’ let alone ‘actionable,’ and I have to do things by the book. And you shouldn’t be doing things at all, no matter what strings you can pull to get a look at our files. I’ll investigate more, when I can, but you’re just kids, and you’re kids I already told to go home and go to sleep.”
Marisa shook her head. “But if Zenaida’s still out there—” She stopped suddenly, interrupted by a message from Omar. She blinked on it:
Sergio knows I called the police, and he�
��s mad as hell. He must have an informant in the station. Get out now.
“Mierda,” said Marisa.
“What’s wrong?” asked Sahara.
Marisa’s eyes went straight to the door. “Sergio Maldonado’s on his way here.”
“The Mirador police chief?” asked Hendel.
“He’s Don Francisco’s son,” said Marisa. “He found out that Omar pulled some strings to release those DNA files.”
“He has no authority here,” said Hendel. “This is South Central. Though if he’s got ears inside my station . . .” She grumbled angrily and stalked to the door. Marisa and Sahara followed, and heard angry shouting before they were even halfway down the hall.
“. . . doesn’t matter,” said a male voice. “This is out of your jurisdiction—”
“She’s my mother!” shouted Sergio.
“What’s going on here?” demanded Hendel. They rounded the corner and found Sergio in a rumpled uniform, yelling at the officer at the front desk. “Maldonado, is there something I can help you with?”
“What’s she doing here?” asked Sergio, pointing a finger at Marisa. “She has no right to look through those files.”
“I agree,” said Hendel, calm but firm. “I told her no, but the order came from the top of the chain. Chief Grace herself.”
Sergio sneered. “Because my idiot brother said the family wanted her to have them.”
“Then it sounds like you should take this up with your brother,” said Hendel, “not yell at my officers.”
“I don’t know how you do things down here in South Central—” said Sergio, and Detective Hendel cut him off before he could finish.
“We do them the right way,” she said.
Sergio continued as if she hadn’t interrupted: “But in my precinct, we look out for each other. You should have called me.”
Hendel stared. “To get your approval on something the head of the LAPD already approved?”
“As a professional courtesy,” said Sergio.
“Oh, grow up,” said Marisa. She was too tired, and too scared, to have any filter on her words. “There’s a world outside of Mirador, and you’re not in charge of it.”