Subject: [FFML] [ffml][BGC][Repost/Revised] Rain in the Shadows (1-4)
From: Jerico Mele
Date: 9/4/2000, 8:01 PM
To: fanfic mailing list

After getting some feedback from my prereaders (thanks all) I've done
some revisions on the first three parts and attatched part 4. Mostly
minor things, but some potentially embarassing lapses of continuity.
Anyway, here's the whole story:

Rain in the Shadows
A BGC fan fic

The rain, or the chemical solution that passed for it in Mega-Tokyo, was
coming down pretty hard. Each one was about the size and mass of a glass
of water, and the fair strength breeze put some strength behind each
drop. I pulled my trench coat up a little further, knowing that it
wouldn't really help any.
	"Wong," I barked as we rounded the corner. "Where the fuck is this
place?"
	"Should be a little further," he responded in that annoying tone of
his. He had a rain jacket on, the fuck. 
	"Couldn't we have found a closer spot?" I asked, wiping rain from my
face.
	"Yes," he answered, pushing his glasses up a little further on his slim
face. "But then I wouldn't get to see you all wet." He grinned.
	I grumbled some obscenity and continued on, thoroughly soaked. I didn't
like having to come down to this part of town this late. Hell, I didn't
like coming down here at all, but in the cold dark hours between last
call and dawn it was especially irritating. If it wasn't official ADP
business I'd never be found near this blasted out crack den. 
	"What are we here for again?" I asked as Wong entered a door apparently
at random. He seems to know his way around here a little to well I
thought.
	"A boomer robbery/homicide."
	"And why are the NPD handling this?" I continued, shaking the water off
like a dog. I wasn't too worried about ruining the dank little store I
found myself in, since it seemed to be a little dirtier than outside
was.
	"Can't quite say," Wong answered cryptically, flashing his credentials
to the uniformed officer standing in front of us. I followed suit,
getting a little nod from the officer. I struggled to remember his name
from my days as a normy, settling for a glance at his nametag.
	"Anno-san," I said in as nice a tone of voice as I could manage this
time of night. "Good to see you."
	"You too, Detective," he said, stressing the last word enough for it to
pass for a compliment. "Not too pretty out there is it?" he asked,
nodding his head towards the rain, which seemed to have picked up a
little since we entered the building. Rainy season in Japan, hooray. 
	"Nope," I said, profoundly conscious of the squishing noise coming from
my shoes.
	"Well, it doesn't get any prettier in there," he said, pointing past
the racks of cheap boomer parts and second rate electronics. Through
what had obviously been a secret door at one time was a small room
filled with some seriously kinky items. 
	"Sexaroids," I muttered, too tired to be disgusted. 
	"And crude ones too," Wong added as he stepped through the threshold. 
	He was right, I realized with only a second's worth of looking. They
weren't the 33-S's or even the H-series, but shoddily constructed
knockoffs that barely looked human in the dull light of the back room.
Desperate people bought these things or those with tastes too damaging
to waste money on a real boomer.
	"The owner is, or was, one Akuto Hiroshi. He's got a minor rap sheet
for fraud and some black market rap, but he was apparently bribing the
local officers to leave him alone," a voice from the back of the room
muttered.
	A quick glance revealed a plainclothes officer, an inspector from the
look of him, kneeling over a shattered corpse. He stood and turned,
revealing a tall white man in a clean suit. His face was lean and hard,
a single scar tracing its way across his cheek. Wong got that look on
his face that let me know he was checking the guy out. The other cop
seemed to pick up on it too, his face wrinkling a little.
	Figuring good relations between the normies and the ADP would probably
smooth the jurisdictional transfer, I stuck my hand out. "Leon
McNichols."
	"Daley Wong," my partner added.
	The other took my hand, offering a strong handshake. "Jeff Mitchell,
Special Investigations." He shook Wong's hand, squeezing the offered
hand sharply. Wong took the hint.
	"There was a boomer involved in this?" I asked, trying to sound
nonchalant as I looked at the broken body of the former Mr. Akuto.
Someone worked him over good, I thought, taking in the caved in face and
oddly twisted neck.
	"Apparently came in here and took some stuff," Mitchell replied,
gesturing to a large empty spot on one of the cluttered shelves. "Had to
have looked pretty normal to get in the door without a struggle."
	"Which is why the NPD were called to the scene first," Daley surmised
as he took a better look at the body. "Pretty serious damage."
	"This Akuto guy probably had some security system installed. Could we
try and find what it recorded?" I asked, all ready nosing around the
battered workstation that was nestled on the overflowing desk. I poked
my head out the broken door, following some wires that looked to be less
transitory than the mess that lined the floors.
	"Here's a A/V cable," I said after a second of looking. "Anno-san," I
said. "You got one of those police portables?" 
	"Sure," he said, digging through the field bag. "Might as well get the
cameras out too."
	The shorter cop handed me the fold out computer and went past me,
camera at the ready. Mitchell was coming up behind me, one of the few
people in Mega-Tokyo that could look over my shoulder.
	"How's it coming?" he asked as I found the interface port on the back
of the workstation. My hand rubbed across something wet and sticky, and
when I pulled my hand back I found a small, bloody piece of hair and
scalp, apparently knocked across the room.
	"Evidence bag!" I said, not enjoying the prospect of catching anything
from the dirty looking hunk of beef lying on the ground behind me. 
	After Mitchell tossed me one of the little plastic baggies I slid the
hunk into it. I zipped the seal shut, making sure the yellow and blue
made green, and tossed it Anno-san who was finished with his pictures.
Then I finished plugging the cable in.
	"Here we go," I muttered as I maneuvered my fingers across the
keyboard. "Search: security," I told the computer, the police software
package searching the machine for any data. A small list scrolled down
the screen and I poked the icon on the screen.
	The security program spawned and I hunted for a data review option.
Behind me I could hear Daley and Mitchell talking, with Anno offering an
occasional comment. I finally found what I was looking for, and when I
selected a time frame I found the results password protected. I set the
police portable to cracking it and joined the others in their
conversation.
	"� guess so," Wong was saying, the reluctance in his voice only
discernable from long experience with the detective.
	"Guess what?" I asked.
	"I was just informing Detective Wong that I was planning on sticking
with this case a bit longer. He agreed that we should look into a joint
investigation. I'm sure it would do wonders for the relationship between
NPD and ADP." The way he said that last line made me sure I wasn't going
to like him.
	"I'm surprised Mr. Wong agreed to that without consulting his partner.
But I'm sure he had his reasons," I said, a glance to Wong making sure
he knew he'd better convince me. "Anyway, I guess we'll leave the
autopsy to you guys and bring the hard drive to our Comp Crime
division."
	"Certainly." Outside I could hear the sounds of other officers
arriving, and the clanking noise of one of the Mobile Coroner model
Boomers. Mitchell nodded his head and said goodnight, stepping out of
the little room to talk to the arriving officers.
	"What's his deal," I asked Anno after I was sure the Inspector couldn't
hear us.
	"Special Investigation asshole," Anno said. "He works for some shady
guys, too."
	"Who?" Wong asked, his ears perking up. He was getting that look on his
face like he always does right before he goes off on a tangent. Good
guy, Wong, but he sometimes gets ahead of the facts with his mental
wandering.
	"Just some of the guys who used to run Section 7. You know, the
Spookies."
	"Those weirdoes?" I muttered. "He didn't seem like one of their normal
guys."
	"He came into town a couple of months after you transferred. On loan
from one of the departments on the East Coast of the USA. Can't remember
where from, though."
	I nodded, thanked Anno and walked past the handful of police making the
motions of a serious investigation. None of them wanted to be here
anymore than I did. Wong joined me, pulling the hood of his raincoat up
a over his head. As we ran out into the rainy shadows, I remember seeing
a man across the street, dressed in black clothes which just wouldn't
stay in my memory after I blinked. Wiping the stinging raindrop from my
eye I wondered where he disappeared to, as Wong and I had the street to
ourselves again.

	The dream was terrible enough in an abstract way for me to remember it
after I woke up. That alone was enough to make it unusual. Since I to
Japan I hadn't remembered more than a fragment of my nocturnal
misadventures and they were usually pretty tame. Yet here I was almost
reliving an entire chunk of dream.
	I was standing in a gathering of oddly nondescript men, watching an
itinerant showman playing with what I thought was a hologram projector,
though those around me seemed awed by the mere appearance of glowing
pictures hovering over the bare sand of some ancient desert. I could not
tear my eyes away from the display to examine the rest of my
surroundings, but I wanted to.
	I wanted to run away from the scenes playing out in the man's pictures
though had I seen them in different company I'd probably just laugh at
their garishness. Something about the tone of the pictures set me off,
oddness in their color suggesting an alien element that was frightening.
Blasted landscapes, desolate streets of odd proportions and more bizarre
landscapes were flashed past in cuts that would have done a film student
proud.
	Just before I woke I began feeling a strange sense of longing, a wish
to go into the pictures. I could tell others in the crowd were feeling
the same, some going so far as to inch towards the pictures in horrified
fascination.
	The transition from sleep to full consciousness was abrupt, and it left
me wiping sweat from my face. Turning in the direction of the sound in
the room, I discovered that I
had fallen asleep watching television last night. "Fucking horror
movies," I muttered to the still running television. "Off," I told it,
the holodisplay dying.
	I rolled over on my bed, wanting nothing more than a couple hours of
shut eye before work, but sleep didn't come.

Author's Notes:
	This was more or less a teaser to a story I'm planning featuring the
exploits of Leon McNichols before the Knight Sabers entered the picture
but after his appearances in the AD Police graphic novel. It might even
qualify for an elseworlds, but I don't think it will perturb the
continuity of the series a great deal. Oh yeah, you can blame Biles-sama
and Rod M. for part of this. All the rest of the blame is mine.

Fnord

Part 2

	I got out of bed 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 the police safe
at HQ, 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 breakfast 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 gritted
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 to
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 breaks. 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 SI 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 rogue 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 rogue 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 equipment. 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
with the Prophet Boomer. 
	"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."

Part 3	

	It was dark and we were still stuck in traffic on the way to ADP
headquarters. Wong was going over the reports coming in from the NPD
through the squad car's data link, scrolling down page after page. In
the gray twilight, the city glimmered through the mist. While it was
still raining lightly, it was the best weather we'd had in a week.
	Wong tends to make these little noises when he's thinking, like he was
on the brink of some great leap of intelligence. The little clucking
noises irritate me after a while, but I decided long ago to deal with
them in a civil manner.
	"Wong, will you shut the fuck up?" I belted out as I swerved a couple
of lanes.
	He grunted an affirmative, his expression hinting at a major
breakthrough in the case. I was sure he thought he was on close to
breaking this case, but through trial and error I was betting he was
wrong. He always is on the first try.
	"What do you think?" I asked him, beginning the ritual.
	"I'm not sure," he replied, admitting his own ignorance for the first
time since I started working for him. He'd usually have a theory- "but I
have a theory," he finished.
	If I hadn't been driving I'd probably have rested my head in my hands.
"Let's hear it."
	"I think I'm going to wait a little before I say anything," Wong
murmured, already engrossed in his reports.
	"I think you don't have a clue and don't want to admit it. That way,
when I figure out what's really going on you'll be able to say your
'theory' was right on the money."
	Wong looked up at me, pushing his glasses up on his face a little. He
was giving me that look that said: 'where did that other head come
from?' 
	"Never mind," I muttered, finally pulling off the 'expressway' and down
beside the hulking mass of the ADP's headquarters. I could tell the sun
was setting from the way the clouds were turning a progressively darker
shade of gray, and the rain was picking up again. Just for curiosity's
sake I called up a weather report on the dash monitor. The seven-day
forecast was rain. 
	We pulled into the parking garage, dropped the patrol car off and
entered the building without a word. Wong was still thinking about the
case and I was thinking about how tired I was. Six in the afternoon and
I was ready for bed. I rubbed my eyes under the florescent light and
stepped out of the elevator at Nene's floor.
	Wong and I blinked as our eyes adjusted to the low light of the
Comptroller Room. Perhaps fifty stations were arranged around a central
hologram display of the city. At each station sat a girl of between
twenty and thirty five (the ADP learning that cops respond to young
female voices best) with the exception of Nene, who might still be in
high school for all I know.
	It was sort of like a theatre in the way you had to step down towards
the front, and it took me a second to find Nene's station. The low drone
of noise from the displays and conversation was almost relaxing, not
like the commotion around my office earlier in the morning. Maybe it was
all the girls talking.
	"Busy Nene?" I asked when we arrived alongside her cubicle but still
outside its low walls.
	"Leon-chan!" Nene bubbled excitedly as she looked up from her game of
Quake XVII. I noticed she was a lot further into it than I had gotten.
What else can you do with a police portable on a long stakeout?
	"Any luck with the hard drive, or have you been playing games all
afternoon?" I asked, with the proper amount of disappointment in my
voice.
	"It only took me a couple of minutes to crack the encryption, not that
the data'll do you any good," Nene said, pausing the game and looking up
at me. "The pictures are pretty lame."
	"Can we see them?" Wong asked, stepping a little closer.
	"Sure," Nene said, exiting the game and calling up the media player.
"They were regular fractal format video files," she muttered absently,
"but the quality from the cameras makes them look like something out of
the Twentieth century."
	The screen revealed three grainy images of the front of Akuto's store.
The speakers could pick up the regular sound of rain pelting the door
and window. Akuto was behind the desk, watching GTV on a little
television that I hadn't noticed when I'd been in the shop the night
before.
	I noted the time displayed in the corner of the screen. "We got there
pretty early, didn't we?" We'd been on the scene less than an hour after
Akuto bit it. "How did Mitchell find the crime scene?"
"Doesn't say," Wong muttered as he looked over. "I assume some one
called it in."
"In Gomi?" I asked incredulously. 
There's a shape in front of the door, wrapped in a full-length raincoat
that seemed like more of a plastic cloak. The hood was pulled up around
the head, and as the door opened the figure's face remain hidden in its
recesses. Akuto stood up, not alarmed but merely in greeting. The two
exchange words, too low for the camera to pick up against the noise of
the rain, and Akuto turns woodenly to the rear, opening the hidden door.
	The two go through the door to the secret room, which isn't covered by
any cameras. I guessed Akuto was too cheap to cover it. A second later
there's a shout, followed by a curious ripple that played across the
views of all the displayed views at the same time. It appeared as if the
image itself had been bent somehow by the passage of the ripple, and
returned to normal at afterwards.
	"What was that?" Wong asked as the playback came to an end.
	"You mean the ripple?" Nene said, "I'm not sure. Its not data
manipulation, that's for sure. I went over the code for any signs of
tampering. Probably just hardware failure or interference." 
	Wong nodded seriously as if that were the single piece of data that
might break the case wide open.  I fought down a chuckle. "Got it all
figured out yet Wong?" I asked.
	"Still working on it," Wong replied. "Maybe we should get a health
night. Tomorrow will be a long day. Thank you, Nene-chan," Wong said,
turning to go. "You've been a big help."
	Nene waved, "Goodbye Detective Wong," she said. I turned to go as she
said "Bye Leon-chan!"
	I flinched. "Later, Nene."
	I caught up to Wong a couple of steps past Nene's station. He was
walking with his hands in his pockets, looking ahead thoughtfully. I
think Wong's pretty funny when he starts thinking. I usually look for
the simplest answer; nine times out of ten William of Occam is on the
money. Wong, while in no means prone to flights of fancy, tends towards
the more imaginative in his criminology. 
	I think its because I got C's in philosophy back in college.
	"You really heading home?" I asked him.
	"Might as well. The boomer data comes in tomorrow. The figure on the
playback could be anyone or anything, so it's no use waiting around for
something to happen."
	I snorted. "Hot date, huh?" I asked him. 
	"You wouldn't believe."

	 You get to know someone pretty well when they're you're partner.
Things that would annoy you about someone else are okay with your
partner, because you've spent enough time to know why someone behaves a
certain way. One thing I can never figure out about Wong: he always
seems to know when things are going to happen.
	Something about the way he answered my date question just stuck in my
head as a little odd, so when we both pulled up to the Shiny Robot
Boomer Emporium in the blue collar neighborhood across the city from
Gomi district at three thirty AM, I asked Wong if this was the date he'd
been thinking of. He just smiled and pulled the hood of his raincoat
over his head.
	I think he smiled because I was wearing my fedora, the one my
ex-girlfriend gave me for a Halloween costume. I figured it would keep
the rain off my head, a job it was accomplishing very well, but Wong
could've thought I looked funny.
	We stepped through the automatic doors at the Shiny Robot -fuck it, the
crime scene to greet two uniformed ADP officers, a couple of normies and
a plainclothes Sargent. "Wong and McNichols," the plainclothes said,
standing out against the two paramilitary ADP guys. The two ADP boys
knew me from my early days as a grunt, and they looked amused at the
fedora.
	"At your service," Wong said. "Let me guess, a boomer related
burglary/homicide?"
	"That's what it looks like," the Sargent replied. I read his name off
the badge hanging from his shirt's pocket. Davis, an NPD Sargent that I
didn't know. "The guy's pulped pretty bad." He motioned towards the back
of the store, behind a bunch of overturned boxes. "Let me show you."
	I looked at Wong as we followed our way through the brightly-lit crime
scene, with people crawling all over the place picking for clues. It
struck me as a little odd how much attention this was getting; then
again it was a much nicer neighborhood than I'm used to operating in. 
	"What do you want to bet he's going to be here," Wong asked me as we
approached the body. 
	"No bet," I replied as I looked down at the corpse. Much better shape
than the last one, I thought dispassionately. You get a little jaded
after you see a lot of dead people, and I'd seen plenty. "He'll show up
any minute."
	"There was a response from the alarm system that the victim, who stocks
late at night, cancelled a couple of seconds later. That was two thirty
five. The routine security check by the building's boomer turned up the
body a little under an hour later." The plainclothes was trying to be
nice, which surprised me a little. Generally the NPD gives us as much
shit as possible.
	"Cause of death?" Wong asked as we gazed down at the body. Instead of
the complete caving of the chest cavity as with Akuto there were concise
cuts across the chest, throat and groin. It seemed like there were some
chunks missing from the body, and I made a note to have Akuto's body
checked for missing parts.
	 "Blood loss, most likely." The plainclothes gestured to the partially
dried blood pooled around the body. "No blood tracked around though, so
he probably died quickly and without a lot of struggling." He said it
like it was supposed to make bleeding to death fun. 
	"And what's missing?" I asked, looking to the store room door and its
torn off hinges.
	"Three servitor boomers and a bunch of spare parts. Mostly the new bio
stuff." He meant the biotech boomers coming on the market now, with the
mix of biologically active components and the traditional silicon and
steel. "Strange thing is it took all the stationary in the house. Every
last scrap of unused paper in the house is gone."
	I looked to Wong. Wong looked to me. I made a note. "Is Inspector
Mitchell here, by any chance?"
	"You missed him by a couple of minutes. He was the second on the
scene." My eyebrows went up, and the NPD guy must have noticed because
he added: "His house isn't far from here. You might even be able to see
it from here." He headed to the window, eager to show us this guy's
house. It was odd, even for a late night cop.
	He pointed up to one of the hills at the foot of Mt. Fuji. Landslides
after the Kanto quake had wiped out most of the buildings up there, but
there were still some very old houses in the foothills. "Its right
there," the cop told us, pointing to an old Western style house a couple
of clicks away. As we looked at it the single light winked out, as if it
noticed the attention.
	Wong and I decided to call it a night.

Author's Notes:
	Slow progress, mostly due to work and exhaustion. I'm not rushing the
story on this one, so it might take a little time to develop.
Unfortunately the parts/chapters are a little on the short side for my
taste, especially considering it takes me more than a week each. Anyway,
more of the elseworldish elements will be cropping up in the next couple
of episodes and thanks for reading.

Fnord

Part 4-

	I could tell by the look on the Acting Chief's face the next morning
that I was in for some shit. Wong could tell too; he straightened up
right after he caught the Chief's glare. I asked myself what I'd done
lately and came up with nothing. Todo saved the Acting Chief's, um,
passion, for situations where the Chief's own excitement might cause
physical damage to his person. As in: he might get too pissed off and
have a coronary while yelling at someone.
	"I've got a report from an Inspector Mitchell regarding a lack of
proper cooperation," Oyadama started lowly. This was a bad sign from a
guy who yells more than I do. "He says you had recorder data that you
didn't share with him regarding your current case." 
	I blinked. Wong blinked. "I'm sorry sir," my partner began, "we just
haven't gotten around to getting him the data yet. It has been a hectic
day-"
	"Can it Wong."
	"We'll get him the data right away," I added. "I'll email him as soon
as we leave."
	"Don't bother. He's already had it transferred to NPD. I wanted to
throw you two off the case for getting me on this asshole's bad side,
but Mitchell wanted the two of you to stay on the case." Oyadama gave us
a look that said he had no idea why Mitchell wanted us working with him. 
	Wong was looking at his shoes, performing what I call the
not-quite-fidget while I was returning Oyadama's stare and trying to
think of how Mitchell found out about our decryption of the recorder
data. Something told me he'd be able to find something we'd missed in
it, but Mitchell was obviously up to something. Anyone with enough clout
to get Oyadama all worked up like this had to be.
	"Now, if you'll get back to you're little case and let me get some work
done?" Oyadama said. Wong and I had no trouble translating the phrase to
'get out.'

	We were silent until we made it to the elevator, which was empty. Wong
hit the button to Nene's floor as I swore loudly. "How do you suppose
Mitchell found out about the recorder data?" he asked, beating me to the
question.
	"Fucked if I know," I responded.
	"Erudite as always," Wong snorted. "What I really don't understand
about Mitchell is what he found on the tape that got him so riled up. If
we withheld useless evidence I doubt it would be a cause of so much
concern."
	"Agreed," I said, my own thoughts apparently matching Wong's. A rarity
in our partnership. "So we'll take another look at it with Nene, eh?"
	"I think that would be a good idea." The elevator came to a stop, doors
sliding open smoothly. The faint muzak in the background sounded like
Sinatra twice removed. Funny, I thought, that all great music ends up
filtered for elevators.
	The Comptroller Room was the same as it always was, dark and filled
with a low buzz of conversation. As we made our way down the stairs
towards Nene's station I picked up a new noise. Someone was singing.
Sounded like something from the pop music of the end of the last
century.
	"Five hundred yen says that's Nene," I muttered, drawing a grin from
Wong. "What are you looking at Wong?"
	"Nothing," he returned snidely. "Nothing at all."
	Indeed it was Nene singing. A matchbook size media player was sitting
on her desk and she was leaning back in her chair listening to
headphones, oblivious to our presence. I added a little weight to the
back of her chair by leaning over and pressing the chair down and I was
rewarded with a little shriek as Nene almost tottered over onto her
back.
	"Leon!" she yelped, angry in that cute way that managed to sound
anything but angry. "You could've knocked me over."
	"I'd probably catch you," I responded, looking off at one of the other
Comptrollers a couple of rows back. She caught my glance and blushed,
looking down.
	"Nene," Wong said as the white haired girl got ready to throw a potato
chip at me. "Did anyone talk to you about that recorder data we brought
in yesterday?"
	"Nope. My computer automatically cached it on the main system, so I
guess he caught it with a data search. I still can't figure anything out
about it though."
	"How would Mitchell� I started.
	"He's pretty well connected," Nene said. "After I noticed the extra
activity on the system I did a little searching to find out what
happened. I traced the inquiry to a Jeff Mitchell, formerly of the
Arkham Police Department. His records were pretty well secured so I only
got a little bit of data about him. Six years with the US government
working outside the country, all black stuff I didn't even try to find
out about, three at Arkham PD, two in California and then two years
here. He specializes in cult activity and has a good record of smashing
them up."
	"A cult specialist?" Wong asked, sounding confused. "What does he want
with a Boomer related homiced/burglary?"
	"Can't tell you that." Nene said, obviously proud of herself. With good
reason too, considering she'd found out in a morning more than Wong and
I had in two days. 
	"Now how does that square with your theory?" I asked Wong with a grin.
Wong looked back at me, vaguely troubled, and sighed.
	"Ruins it completely," he muttered. "Perhaps we should take an hour or
so and think about what we know. Lay our cards on the table, so to
speak."
	"Not a bad idea," I responded, looking at Nene. "You taken your lunch
break yet?" I asked.
	"Leon," Nene asked. "Is this a lunch date?"
	"Nope," I replied, looking at Wong. "Just taking precautions, that's
all." Wong just looked annoyed.

	We sat down at one of the simulated outdoor tables in the station's
'park.' Piped in sunlight lit the simple table as the hustle and bustle
of the police station passed by a few feet in front. It was a nice
effect at least.
	"So what do we know?" I asked the table, glancing down at the massive
roast beef sandwich that was waiting on my plate.
	"There have been a pair of boomer related homicide/burglaries in the
past two days with similar MO's," Wong started, munching on his pesto
and mozzarella sandwich. "And similar looking perpetrators," he added,
referring to the playback recovered from the latest burglary, which
showed a similar figure and similar distortions of the playback. The
clerk at the Shiny-fucking-robot-place had died of a heart attack just
like Mr. Akuto, according to NPD forensic reports also just received.
Despite the trouble with Mitchell about the Akuto recording, the NPD
Inspector was still emailing us his half of the case material. 
	"Not to mention the NPD Inspector from hell breathing down our necks,"
Nene added, taking a rare break from the second of three chocolate chip
cookies that the little hacker was substituting for lunch. 
	"I think that our dear Inspector is the key to understanding this
case," Wong said, as if he was stuck in the middle of a Conan-Doyle
novel. "The more we know about him the closer we'll be to understanding
what is going on."
	"I just want to know why a cult specialist is part of this
investigation. As far as I can tell this isn't a cult related case." I
paused, taking a sip of my Kirin. "Why would Mitchell be getting all the
support for a simple murder?"
	"What cults are there in Japan?" Nene asked, finishing her cookie and
chasing it with a long pull from her can of Jolt. 
	"The most famous is probably AUM," Wong said quickly. "But they were
suppressed pretty well after the gas attack in the nineties."
	"There are some old Ainu cults worshipping a snow devil.
Hyouden-no-Oni," I added. "He was in part of the history readings during
my Ancient Asia class in college." Both Nene and Wong looked at me funny
for a second before Wong continued.
	"And some of the old fishing villages in Okinawa have been raided by
the Government for conspiracy charges related to strange Shinto
rituals," he said, screwing the cap onto his bottle of San Pelligrino
water.
	"What exactly does any of this have to do with our case?" Nene reminded
us. It feels odd to be chastised by a girl about half your age. No,
screw that, it feel down right weird. 
	"Probably nothing," I said soberly. I motioned to the boomer waiter
that I wanted another beer. 
	"Possibly everything," Wong countered. "Mitchell or the people above
Mitchell have a better idea of what's going on than we do, otherwise
Mitchell would be in America where the really nutty cults are. If we can
figure out how a research boomer, a rogue boomer and a couple of
robberies have to do with each other� he trailed off.
	"What is it Wong," I asked, a little annoyed at his theatrics.
	"You don't suppose that there'll be another rogue-" he was cut off by
the calm impersonal announcement of a rogue boomer in Patrol Area 51.
The same Patrol Area that the Shiny-fucking-robot-place was in.
	"How did you know what was going to happen?" Nene asked, but Wong and I
were all ready heading towards the Rapid Deployment Office. I guess Nene
had to pick up our lunch tab.

	Our status as Detectives In Charge of Case 017-23-995 allowed us the
privilege of riding in a pair of K-7 that were slung under the RDO's
gunship. Behind us were a couple of RDO flitters, tiny ultralights armed
with rocket pods and laser rifles. They were barely noticeable against
the back light, only illuminated by the pulses of millimeter wave radar
our K suits were pinging out.
	"Remember how to use that thing?" I taunted Wong over the intercom.
	"Well enough," Wong said. The only thing I could get him defensive
about was his low score in the Armor training courses during boot camp.
For some reason he got all tangled up on himself when ever I picked on
him about it. Mega-Tokyo lingered below us, our altitude enough to make
the city look calm and peaceful. 
	Patrol Area 51 was a shambles, broken houses and burning cars
discernable with the K suit's sensor suite. The cause of all the damage
remained hidden in the shadows at the base of the large skyscraper next
to us. The vectored thrust vehicle dropped like a stone, pulling up just
above the ten story apartment building across from the skyscraper. The
sensors picked up motion and heat from one of the side alleys, a rogue
boomer lumbering through the trash that littered the small street. 
	"There's the bad guy," the gunship's pilot radioed us, something in his
tone making me worry for the general sanity of the RDO's troops. "And
he's an ugly motherfucker too," the pilot added.
	He may have been nuts but he was dead on for beauty. The mass of
twisted flesh below was not ugly as much as grotesque. It was a humanoid
model once, its body bloated to horribly amoeboid proportions. Instead
of walking the creature half crawled half flowed its way through the
cardboard and rubbish that littered the passage.
	"Soften him up boys," came the Tactical Supervisor's voice. I
recognized Hageshii's voice from my first tour with the ADP, back when I
worked with Jenna. He'd gotten a lot more pissed off since then, I
guess.
	Softening up consisted of the massed fire of the gunship's main gatling
gun and rocket fire and the flitters's laser barrage. I winced as the
buildings on either side took a punishing volley of stray blasts, even
though the tactical computer labeled the structures 'abandoned.' I've
had too much trouble playing video games to ever really trust a computer
again.
	"Ready for a drop Detectives?" the WSO asked up over the com link. He
was obviously really happy to try and spook the plainclothes. 
	"Yup," I said nonchalantly.
	"Me too," Wong said, though he didn't sound as relaxed as he should
have. 
	"Dropping now," WSO said back and I heard the klunk that marked the
release of my K suit. I was free falling for the briefest moment and
then the drop pack took over. The liquid fuel engine burned brightly for
a couple of moments, stopping the suit's momentum a moment before the
suit hit. Its job over, the pack separated after I touched down. It
thudded to the ground, kicking up water from the gray puddle at my feet.
	"All set Wong?" I asked over the radio.
	"Fine," he said grumpily as his suit appeared from underneath a pile of
garbage. We readied the autocannon in our K-series' hands and followed
after the boomer. Despite the havoc the initial barrage wreaked on the
surrounding area the boomer we were chasing was more or less intact. The
more I looked at it the more similarities I found between this new
boomer and the one that rampaged the streets of the Gomi neighborhood.
As I zoomed in I noticed an odd item embedded in the translucent blob
that served as the boomer's head. It looked like an old TV set.
	"Are you getting those sensor failures?" Wong asked me as the blob
lumbered towards the Shiny-fucking-robot-place. I glanced at the sensor
display then radioed back an affirmative. Mass estimates, volume and
distance readouts blinked an unhappy 'error,' throwing off the targeting
program. "Yes. Where's the rest of the WSO?" 
	"That's strange," Wong muttered. "It's got the same�hing about it as
the last one did." He sounded frustrated that he couldn't call it
something more precise or scholarly but I understood. The way it looked
was, in some way I can't describe, wrong. 
	"Its acting like the other one did, too," I said, meaning its
meandering path and general lack of hostility. This one was bigger and
it just seemed to cause more collateral damage. Speaking of collateral
damage, I thought as the gunship and flitters came back for another
pass.
	"You boys going to shoot it at all?" Hageshii barked from his spot in
the CAS blimp. The RDO boys blasted at the boomer again, knocking the
cement around it all over the place. It seemed like none of the shots
hit dead on and the blasts from the explosive shells just made the
semisolid body quiver. 
	"Doesn't seem to do any good," I replied as the boomer looked up. "It
is a TV," I said. The screen was flashing static, which flashed red for
a moment as the boomer's gaze followed the flyers. An instant later and
all three flyers were a mass of flaming metal, shredded in midair
somehow.
	"Christ!" Hageshii said. "What hit them?"
	"I don't know," Wong said. 
	"Wong, get under some cover," I told him. "He might start caring about
us soon."
	We scampered away from the boomer, keeping an eye on the boomer. "The
rest of the RDO is converging on the rogue boomer," Hageshii informed
us. "Six K suits and a platoon of assault teams."
	"Tell them to hold off," I said. "I have a feeling about this one."
	"If it holds to the pattern," Wong said, picking up on my thoughts.
"There it goes," he added as the massive boomer started loosing portions
of its anatomy. A large chunk of shoulder slid off, taking the arm with
it. I couldn't smell through the K suit but I was willing to bet it
would be the same mix of fish, oil and sulfur. 
	"Fire Team 2, Initiating attack," a voice over the tactical network
said.
	"Hold your fire, Team 2!" I belted. Of course they didn't. The one
thing that amazes me about my coworkers is their utter disregard for
their surroundings. Between the twelve autocannon, assorted small arms
and rockets of Fire Team 2, the entire area around the boomer exploded.
Chunks of concrete bounced down the street, some as large as garbage
can. A piece the size of baseball bounced off my visor at speeds that
would probably have killed me if I weren't suited up.
	"Christ," I muttered as I hunkered down. The autocannon were still
hammering away at the boomer, rounds harmlessly passing through the
creature's body or glancing off its skin. The TV screen embedded in its
head flickered red again, and I watched as Fire Team 2 was obliterated.
It seemed like an invisible hand started squeezing the K suits, their
carbon fiber frames crushing in less than a second. All six fell to the
ground, silent.
	The infantry scattered as the boomer advanced quickly. "Wong, we've got
to help them!" I yelled as I pulled the K suit up.
	"I don't think there's anything we can do Cowboy," he said. He did
follow me though. Ripples played across my display as the boomer began
to writhe, pieces of its body shredding and flying free as the creature
spasmed and died. As the amulance flitters began to filter in through
the rain I glanced down at the puddle of water, boomer and machine oil.
Reaching through the muck I picked up the still intact television screen
that had been mounted in the boomer's head. There was a little sticker
on the side that read Akuto Yoshi in kanji with an address in Gomi. 
	I saw Wong pocket something, the utility door of the K suit sealing as
the rescue crews began prying the rubble off the fallen police power
suits. The rain picked up a notch as we headed towards the newly arrived
command center. I unsealed the suit and stepped out, the raised chest
armor providing a convenient shelter from the storm.
	There was shouting coming from the mobile command center, the kind you
hear when a block of a nice commercial neighborhood is laid to waste and
six expensive K suits are shredded. People seemed to ignore Wong and I
as he joined me outside, under his own armor awning. 
	"Find anything?" I asked him, just catching his glance behind me. 
	"Anything you feel like sharing?" a wry voice said from the command
center. I winced as I recognized it. "Or was it just going to wait for a
little while?"
	"Sorry about that, Inspector," Wong said. "And we didn't find much
here."
	"Some of the stuff that was missing from Akuto's was used to build that
thing," I added. "The television embedded in the head is on the video
playback you got."
	"Interesting mix of components. I've taken the liberty of sending in
some forensic teams," Mitchell looked over at the rubble that remained.
"Very impressive," he said, his tone neutral. I wasn't sure if he was
talking about the damage, the boomer or the ADP's response. 
	"I agree," I muttered. I couldn't stop thinking about how big of an
asshole this guy was. "If you'll excuse Detective Wong and I, we'll be
reviewing this incident in the command center."
	"Have a good night, gentlemen."
	"You as well, Inspector," Wong said sweetly as we headed up the metal
stairs and into the back of the mobile command center. 
	He just nodded, an amused smile on his face. 


Fnord


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