Part 2
I got up to rain, surprisingly enough. A warm, irritatingly
humid rain that had me wiping sweat off my face from the moment
I decided turning in my bed wasn't worth it. A quick glance at
the clock told me I had two hours before I needed to get to
work. I decided to come in early, if for no other reason than to
get that crucial time-and-a-half.
After burning my gums on some coffee I was awake enough to get
dressed. Last night's shirt looked good enough to me, so I
pulled the damp shirt on and grabbed whatever pants were handy.
The nice thing about police work is you could set your own
hours. The shitty thing was that little voice that made me want
to work extra.
After I left my apartment I walked down the dirty staircase to
the street. The gray skies greeted me, and I tucked my head as
low as it would in my jacket to dodge the rain. I carefully
crossed the street, finding my parking spot and getting inside
the car as quickly as possible. A touch of the control panel
later my car was idling smoothly and the daily reports were
splashed across the internal displays.
Waiting in my mailbox were the forensic reports from last night
along with Mitchell's request for a joint investigation.
Banishing the latter to my personal file I poured over the
examiner's report as my car warmed up. My eyes hung on cause of
death more than anything else. Mr. Akuto had died of a heart
attack.
Puzzling that one through was beyond my morning mind so I
sorted the fact away for later. Akuto's hard drive was resting
in my brief case, so I figured that was a good enough first
stop.
The rain wasn't as dense as it was last night, so I drove a
little fast on the way into the station. My morning music mix
played automatically, so I was greeted with the angry chords of
'Call of Cthulu' as I weaved through the traffic. Metallica
makes for good morning music, thanks.
Wong called me during a particularly irritating bit of
gridlock. The phone recognized the number, so it beeped twice.
It was too early to deal with Wong, so I pretended I didn't hear
the noise and kept driving.
I finally pulled into the ADP parking lot a couple of minutes
later, already needing a second cup of coffee. After I parked I
decided my seat was especially comfortable, so I took a
twenty-minute nap before I entered the building.
When I finally made it into the building I checked my piece at
the door, the officer on security shift nodding in surprise at
my early arrival. Normally I don't make it in until late
afternoon, but it was barely eleven o'clock today.
Yawning, I waited for the elevator. I kept going over the
forensic reports, trying to figure out the cause of death. Akuto
was in good enough shape for a guy in his position, and his
medical records hadn't shown any signs of heart disease. Plus he
got himself pulped by some mysterious boomer. That much was
confirmed by the tiny metal slivers embedded in the bone of
Akuto's skull.
In fact, NPD Forensic division had already run the metal
through the spectrograph and matched the make and model of the
boomer. A limited run research boomer had broken Mr. Akuto's
face and stolen a bunch of boomer parts.
"Oh Leon-chan! You getting in?"
I snapped out of my daze, eyes greeted by a pale haired bubble
of cute. "Nene, I thought I told you not to call me that," I
said through grated teeth. I stepped into the elevator and tried
to look angry, but I couldn't keep it up for very long. Nene has
that affect on my, even though she's been getting under my skin
since she started here a couple of months ago.
"I'd stop calling you Leon-chan if you stopped looking so
depressed," she returned. "Long night?"
"Very. Couldn't sleep." I paused. "Hey Nene, can I ask a
favor?" All my computer questions go to Nene; the little girl's
a goddamn genius with a keyboard.
"What do you need now?" she said, acting put out. "And what's
in it for me?"
"I've got some data to get decrypted, and the police package
failed, ironically enough." When I first met Nene she had spent
a good ten minutes ranting about how inadequate the police
computers and code were. She said she could write better
herself, but the brass don't want to risk too much information
flow. She's odd like that; full of notions about information
wanting 'freedom' and other nonsense.
"Just send it to me. I'll get it broken by the end of the day.
Anything interesting?" she asked, looking interested as she
peered at me over the bag of chips she was munching on.
"Not really. Just a simple homicide/burglary." The elevator
reached my floor so I started out the door. "You know Nene, you
really ought watch what you eat."
"What's that supposed-" she started, getting cut off by the
closing doors. Its so much fun teasing her.
I walked across the office, the low din of telephone
conversations a constant buzz on my ears. Normally I can tune it
out, but today it seemed to be bugging me. Probably the mess of
exhaustion that followed my limp carcass around.
My stomach grumbled, so I tossed the reports on the table and
walked over the coffee machine. I poured myself a cup of coffee,
irritated that there was only decaf, and picked up a donut. What
else was I going to eat?
Settling at my desk again I sent an email to one of the office
boys asking him to drop the hard drive off at Nene's desk for
me. That finished, I called Wong. After wasting a couple of
minutes bouncing ideas back and forth we decided to give a
little check of the neighborhood to see if anyone had seen
anything that night. It would kill enough time for Nene to crack
the hard drive's encryption, if nothing else. Wong said he
called the Boomer Registry for a list of all the research
boomers in the city. They said they'd get back to us in the
morning.
I met Wong at the indoor garden near the cafeteria. Originally
designed as a traditional Japanese garden, it had changed itself
into a mini-park for policemen on their brakes. A couple of the
people waved as Wong made it over to me in that half prancing
way he moved.
He was sipping on a coffee drink that had too much foam to for
my taste, a pesto bagel held in his hand. "Morning my sweet," he
said as he stood next to me.
I grumbled back at him, chewing the last bit of my donut.
Splashing the crap that passed for coffee on top of the donut I
motioned towards the elevator. "Lets get moving," I said after
swallowing.
"Not in a good mood tonight, ah?" Wong was grinning at my
discomfort. "Lady problems?"
"None of your business. I don't ask about your lovelife and I
don't really feel like telling you about mine."
"Little touchy on the subject," he shot back as the elevator
doors shut. "So what do you think about poor Mr. Akuto?"
"Poor my ass. He was a fucking scumbag."
"You read his report, didn't you?" Wong asked.
"Enough of it," I responded. The rap sheet was on the top of
desk upstairs, mostly read.
"I talked to the Chief this morning," Wong added after a second
of silence. "He said the NPD is handling this joint jurisdiction
thing all weird. Mitchell is pretty hot shit over there. Almost
a troubleshooter for the IA's office. Chief thinks he's going to
be serious pain in the ass."
"Remind me not to call him today," I responded. The last thing
I felt like doing was dealing with the Inspector. He'd rubbed me
the wrong way somehow last night, and I picked up on something
odd about his behavior. Something in his character or mannerisms
bugged me a little.
"Sure thing. He'll try us a couple of times I bet."
The elevator reached the parking level, the farm smell of
burning methanol bouncing through my nostrils. As we walked over
to our patrol car, I thumbed the ignition button on my key
chain, unlocking the doors at the same time. I settled into the
driver's seat, Wong saddling up next to me. I put the car in
gear and drove out onto the on ramp that lead to the battered
old overpass that fed the city's traffic.
The cars were thin between lunch break and the end of the
working day so I made good time, Wong staring off into the clean
financial district with an amused look on his face. One thing I
like about Wong is that he isn't one of those people who feels
pressured into talking all the time. My first partner had been a
chatterbox. On drives like this he'd talk and talk and talk.
Wong accuses me of being antisocial sometimes. I usually just
grunt back noncommittally.
No one in the Gomi neighborhood wanted to talk to police
officers to start with. In a section of town like the one the
late Mr. Akuto lived in, the law wasn't a help, it was an
irritating hindrance to the established lifestyle. Between this
dislike of the law and the rain, everyone we talked to was
sullenly closemouthed about everything, Mr. Akuto being no
exception. If we asked about last night we got defensive
declarations of ignorance. It wasn't until we were walking back
to the car that Wong said: "Doesn't it seem like they all know
something?"
"Probably," I muttered, back. "But it's all probably shit
anyway." I'd be willing to bet my next month's pay that most of
the inhabitants were all felons, in fact if not in law. Color me
paranoid or just plain cynical if you will, I've been in this
city for a long time. The depths people were willing to sink to
here wouldn't ever surprise me.
"No, seriously. Most of them seemed a little nervous when we
mentioned Akuto's name."
"Wouldn't you be if someone asked you about a dingy sex robot
dealer?" I shot back.
Wong sighed, a long suffering sound of a man whose genius is
constantly ignored. If he had it his way we'd all be sitting in
a Victorian lounge, deducing our way out of trouble. I make a
shitty Doctor Watson.
The drizzle was unusually light when we reached the car, a fact
I was actually a little appreciative of when I heard the ear
shattering sound from a block away. Without a word Wong keyed
open the trunk of the patrol car and released the two service
rifles. He tossed one to me, already on the line with the
station. As I readied the rifle, sliding the smooth action back,
I reflected on the noise. The accompanying crashes and
explosions ruled out almost any natural disaster that I've been
in (and in Mega-Tokyo there have been quite a few) but sounded
exactly like an artificial disaster I know all to well. So I
wasn't surprised when Wong called into the station with the
following report:
"Possible rouge boomer in Gomi district, investigating."
It's going to be one of those afternoons, I told myself.
I wiped the rain from my face as the boomer sliced through
another car. It was an ugly one, a bubbling, semisolid shape
that defied description. So far our bullets hadn't even been
noticed, simply splashing the boomer's tissue across the ground.
Neither Wong nor I had ever seen anything like it, and in the
three minutes since the call for back up went in the boomer had
lain waste to almost an entire block.
The burnt out wreck of a car I was hiding behind sputtered as
the rain hit against the still hot metal. "Wong!" I shouted over
the noise of screeching metal and shattering glass.
"What?" he asked back from his spot behind a flipped over car.
"Any ideas?" I asked. I popped up, dumping half a clip into the
beast's flank, not even drawing a glance. The beast lumbered
along its way, heading towards Akuto's shop.
"It looks weird," Wong commented after he sent another burst of
bullets towards the creature. Damn he's perceptive, I thought
sarcastically. A ten foot tall semisolid blob wandering
aimlessly down the street destroying cars, and he says it looks
weird.
"Brilliant deduction, Holmes!" I said, crossing the distance
between our cover.
"No, seriously. There's something really strange about how the
light is reflecting off of it." Wong had put his rifle down,
studying the shape intently through his glasses. "And since
we're not hurting it, we might as well get a good look."
Wong had a point. The light hitting the beast was a little bent
somehow, in a way that defies any greater description. And the
thing wasn't actively chasing or damaging anything, despite the
number of cars burning on the street. Its path has seemed almost
drunk, bouncing off cars that happened to explode in the wake of
its touch. It would've been funny if I wasn't dodging shrapnel
and waiting for the hard tac squads to show up.
"So we sit here and wait?" I asked him, as the beast staggered
a little closer to Akuto's store. Why is it going there? I
wondered as Wong asked me the same question.
I grunted a negative response as I watched the beast stagger
around. It had slowed a great deal, steps uncertain and balance
precarious. It very cohesiveness seemed to be faltering.
"Something's wrong with it."
As if on cue the thing fell forward on its face, its tissue
rupturing like a water balloon dropped on the ground. The smell
that escaped from the spill was horrible beyond comprehension, a
mix of harsh chemicals, fish and something like hell must smell
like in the morning.
"You want to take credit for this one?" Wong asked me as the
uniformed cops started showing up. He looked a little sick from
the smell.
"Credit?" I asked, fighting back puke. "They might make me
clean it up."
"Think that was the research boomer? Possibly got further along
in its dementia?"
"Maybe. That was a much more extensive physical change than
I've seen in any rouge boomers," I said, leaving that last time
at the towers out. Todo didn't like people talking about that.
"Officers," a voice said from behind them, where the rest of
the police were arriving. I recognized it, and Wong did too from
the glance he flashed me while turning around.
"Inspector," Wong said smoothly. "We were just about to call
you."
"I'm sure you were," Mitchell said, his voice completely
honest. It was so honest that I actually considered the idea
that I was planning on calling him before we so luckily ran into
each other. I shook my head. I really didn't like this guy. "Do
you think this is somehow related to the incident the other
night?" Mitchell asked us.
"Probably," I muttered, glancing back towards the remains of
the boomer. NPD guys were cleaning the mess up, busily sucking
the fluid off the street with wet dry vacuums. They were all
wearing gas masks, and the damn smell was still making my
stomach churn. Mitchell seemed to take it in stride though.
"The remains will tell us if it was the same boomer that killed
Mr. Akuto," Mitchell was telling Wong.
"I thought Akuto died of a heart attack," Wong responded, a
tiny tone of excitement slipping into his voice. I was sure
Mitchell missed it.
"The boomer obviously scared him enough that he had a heart
attack," Mitchell said, as if it were the most natural thing in
the world. "Then took off with some pieces. I've heard you were
involved in a case not too unlike this one, a couple of years
back." He shot the question to me, letting me know that he had
access to the files on the boomer revolution case. Genom didn't
like anyone knowing about what happened there.
"Sort of. Not really too close to this, though. A repair bot
got hit with some cosmic rays, found God and tried to spread His
words. The words being 'rise up and kill the humans.'" I was
paraphrasing, I know, but that was the jist of it.
Mitchell seemed to mull that over, but I knew if he read the
file he already knew most of it. I can't stand playing mind
games with people, and Mitchell seemed to want to play some game
with me. "I'm going to go check on some things. Wong, you
staying?"
He shook his head. "Inspector Mitchell, I've got some data to
check on. We'll talk later, all right?"
"Certainly," he said, a PDA appearing from his coat. "I'll see
you two later."
Wong and I were in the car when I finally let some anger loose.
"That ass was just playing with me. He knew about the Prophet
and he just wanted to tease me."
"He's an odd one. Did you see the way his eyes just pried into
you?" Wong added. "I definitely can't believe I thought he was
cute."
I chortled a little at Wong's joke. "Lets go see what Nene's
got for us."
Author's Notes:
Thanks to Douglas Weeks for the C&C, and we'll see how fast
this one gets written.
Fnord