CHAPTER THREE
Trooper Randal Parks of the Saturn State Police couldn’t shake the feeling that something was wrong. This wasn’t his first corpse while working for the SSP. He wasn’t that green, but it was the first corpse that made him go “hmm” in a meaningful way.
He focused in on the corpse of Esteban Velasco once more, and his avatar bent down as if taking a closer look.
He wasn’t physically in the room. More to the point, he didn’t have a physical body to begin with, being a purely abstract entity. He’d transferred his connectome from the police quadcopter to the Atlas HQ’s infostructure shortly after he and Sergeant Boris Chatelain had arrived, and that was the first time he’d gone “hmm” to himself during this call.
That first “hmm” wasn’t related to the crime. At least he didn’t think it could be, but it didn’t change the fact that the abstract environment within Atlas was one of the most barren, depressing virtual realms he’d ever visited. No style. No personality. No flair. Just an endless black plain with a dark gray grid stretching out to infinity beneath a black sky. Why would anyone want to work in such an environment?
The few ACs he encountered inside didn’t bother to acknowledge his presence, and their simplistic avatars—mere glowing points moving from node to node along the grid—made him feel unwelcomed and out of place, since his avatar was the only object with any sense of realism in the stark expanse. He wore the dark green of the SSP with a cap over his dark green eyes. He’d once considered changing his sandy brown hair to green as well, but that might have been pushing it.
Back in the victim’s office, he scrutinized the corpse through a combination of the local infostructure, the feed from a disk-shaped SSP conveyor drone, and the senses of any physical citizens who’d set their wetware to PUBLIC, which was exactly zero since only the sarge was present. Parks could see the room through his eyes, too, but that was over a secure link shared between them and the drone.
The corpse reclined unnaturally in the chair, jerked back and somewhat to the side by the weapon’s discharge and the secondary detonation of the shell. A fist-sized hole had been blown out the back of the man’s head, splattering bits of brain, bone, and hair in a conical pattern behind the desk and up the back wall. The gun sat on the desk, the end of the barrel slick with saliva.
“Welp.” Chatelain stuck his thumbs behind his belt. “I think we have the cause of death figured out.”
“No note,” Parks said.
“Excuse me?”
“He didn’t leave a note.”
Chatelain ran a finger along the edge of the desk. He came across a sticky sauce spill underneath a plate and wiped the goo off on his pants.
“Anything local?” he asked Parks.
“I checked the desk infosystem and ran a search through the unrestricted parts of the company’s infostructure. No note.”
“Not every guy who kills himself leaves a note.”
“He was legally obligated to write one.”
“Somehow”—Chatelain gazed down at the corpse’s open mouth and vacant, rolled-back eyes—“I’m guessing that wasn’t a priority for him.”
Suicide was technically legal within SysGov, though it was by no means encouraged from both a legal standpoint and a societal one. SysGov was a culture where synthetic bodies and abstracted minds left people virtually immortal after they transitioned into a post-organic state, and it was inevitable that some citizens would yearn for the exit door as the centuries rolled by.
Saturn State law required any citizen planning an act of self-termination to submit their plan for government approval before carrying out the act. Parks had some serious doubts about the wisdom behind said law, but he supposed it had been put in place as one more measure to discourage citizens from taking their own lives.
As for how such a law could be effectively enforced, the politicians had left it up to SSP’s “discretion,” for what little sense that made.
“No note means we should investigate further,” Parks stated.
“What? Are you kidding?”
“No,” Parks replied, somewhat defensively.
“He clearly blew his own brains out.”
“The victim did not declare his intent to die.”
“He did that when he stuck the barrel in his mouth!”
“Which happened under suspicious circumstances.”
“Suspicious!”
“The company had just landed the biggest contract in its history, and he’s the lead engineer on the project. Why would he kill himself after receiving news like that?”
“Who knows what was going through his head?” Chatelain let out a quick snort. “Besides the bullet, I mean.”
“This doesn’t make sense.”
“So what? One piece of good news doesn’t mean jack in the long run. Everyone’s got problems, and who knows how deep his ran? The motive could be anything. For one, his wife could have been sleeping around.”
“Ah!” Parks perked up. “Good thinking! Should we interview her?”
“Uhh, how about this? How about I file the report with the station, which will declare this an open-and-shut suicide, and you”—Chatelain knocked on the conveyor drone’s hull—“can collect the body for processing. All hundred or so pieces of it.”
“I—”
“Don’t worry. If something weird happened here, the autopsy will spot it.”
“But—”
“Hop to it, Rainy. That body won’t bag itself.”
Chatelain stepped through the virtual police cordon over the door and headed down the corridor.
Parks returned his focus to the body. He switched his avatar off since there was no one physically left in the room. Alive, anyway.
“Hmm,” he murmured, unsatisfied with where his disagreement with the sarge had ended.
But he had his orders, so he interfaced with the drone, set its operational mode to evidence collection and corpse removal, then specified the work area. The drone floated over to the rear wall, and its two flexible limbs began the tedious process of collecting the victim’s brain spackle.
Parks watched the drone’s progress through its own sensors as it placed each piece of flesh or cut-away blood splat into separate sealed containers, which it then stored in an internal rack. It would take some time for the drone to complete the evidence extraction, and Parks used the delay to mull over what he knew about the suicide.
He understood why Chatelain had been so dismissive. The what of the death seemed painfully clear, barring an unforeseen piece of evidence turned up by the forensics review.
But that wasn’t what bothered him; it was the why that continued to stick in his mind like a splinter. Why would Velasco kill himself? And not just kill himself, but do so after receiving news of the winning bid?
Death didn’t have to come invited or need some special meaning. Lives began and ended all the time, but Parks couldn’t shake how something felt off about this one. A suicide following bad news made logical—if morbid—sense to him. A suicide following good news? Not so much.
But Chatelain would be the one to file the report, and so that would be the end of it.
Unless . . . Parks thought as a second possibility came to mind. Chatelain would be the one to file the state police report, but there was the possibility of a federal look at the death.
He opened a personal folder with all the presentations and manuals he’d received during basic training and ran a search for “SysPol.” The search flagged a single document, and he opened it and skimmed through it until he found the entry he was looking for.
I was right, he thought. Any member of the state police can request assistance from SysPol, regardless of rank.
The connection string for the support line stood out in vibrant text.
He considered his next actions carefully.
This might tick the sarge off, he thought. But will it be worth it?
“Hmm.”
He didn’t know the answer to that question.
He placed the call anyway.
“SysPol Support,” the dispatcher said warmly. “Good day to you, Trooper Parks. How may I be of service?”
“Umm, hello.”
“Hello.”
“Yes, umm.” Parks cleared his nonexistent throat, which was purely a delaying tactic as he composed his thoughts. “I’d like to put in a support request.”
“I can certainly assist you there. First, are we dealing with an active emergency?”
“No, nothing like that.”
“Always good to hear. What sort of issue are we looking at, then?”
“We were called out to Atlas HQ for a death by gunshot. Initial impressions are it’s a suicide, but I’m not so sure. I’d feel better if someone from SysPol could take a deeper look at this.”
“Sounds like a job for Themis Division. One moment while I open a new case. Can you send me the call record and any other pertinent files? I’ll attach them to the case log.”
“Sure thing.” Parks grouped all the files he had together and transmitted. “Sending them your way.”
“And . . . received. Thank you. Are you making this request yourself or on behalf of a superior?”
“Myself. Why? Is that a problem?”
“It’s not so much a problem as a matter of priority. SysPol resources are limited, and we do take the requestor’s seniority into consideration when allocating resources. Since there is no active emergency, you may experience some delay before Themis Division can dispatch a detective or specialist to your location.”
“Oh, I see.”
“Though, there are a few measures you can take to reduce the delay. Is there a sergeant nearby or—even better—a lieutenant who can endorse your request?”
“Umm, no,” Park replied, choosing his words carefully. “No one I can get to endorse it.”
“Then, do you have anything you’d like to add to the case file before I forward it on to Themis?”
“No, that’s all I’ve got so far.”
“Understood. Your case is now in the queue. You can expect follow-up instructions from Themis once the case has been assigned.”
“Got it. And thank you. You’ve been very helpful.”
“My pleasure, Trooper Parks. Have a pleasant day.”
* * *
Parks waited for the drone to finish, ordered it back to the quadcopter, then transferred his connectome. His perception of the physical world blinked from Velasco’s office to the copter’s tandem-seat cockpit.
Chatelain sat in one of the chairs, which he’d spun around to face the cramped cabin, a deep scowl on his face as he rapped his fingers on the top of a knee. Parks appeared in Chatelain’s virtual vision as his usual avatar seated across from him.
“Hey, Sarge.”
“Hey yourself, Rainy.”
“Drone’s finished. Should be back here with the body in a few minutes.”
“Is that so?”
“What do you mean?”
“Oh, nothing.” Chatelain shrugged his shoulders. “Nothing at all.”
“Is something wrong?”
“What makes you think something’s wrong?”
“You seem a little off. That’s all.”
“Well then.” Chatelain leaned forward until his face almost touched Park’s. “Maybe it’s because my partner called SysPol behind my back!”
Oh dear, Parks thought. He knows. How could he—
“I’m guessing by your dumbfounded face you don’t know how this works.”
“Uhh.”
“You see,” he began in a conversational tone, even though his eyes were pits of fury. “If you’d ever put in a support request before, you’d know one of the first things the call center does is set up these annoying automatic updates for everyone. And that includes all the troopers on the original call.”
“Oh dear.”
“Which means I received one of their little messages right after you finished.” Chatelain drummed his fingers on the dashboard. “Care to explain yourself?”
“I thought they might be able to help.”
“That wasn’t your call to make. It’s mine!”
“I’m sorry, Sarge, but I don’t see the harm in being thorough. This suicide doesn’t sit right with me, and I’d feel a lot better if someone were to take a closer look.”
“You only think that way because you haven’t had to deal with SysPol before.”
“That doesn’t mean I’m wrong.”
“Doesn’t mean you’re right either.” Chatelain let out a heavy sigh. “Look, you’re new, I get that. I remember how I was when I started out, just a regular bundle of optimism and energy, ready and willing to help everyone. Before I came to grips with reality. Before it sank in that not everyone can be helped, and not every story receives a happy ending.”
Chatelain opened an abstract window and pulled up the alert from SysPol. He scrolled to the bottom and tapped the highlighted connection string.
“What are you doing?” Parks asked.
“Fixing your mistake.”
“SysPol Support,” a woman said over voice chat. “Good day to you, Sergeant Chatelain. I see an existing case number referenced in the call. Give me a moment to pull up its status. Ah, here we are. Looks like the case hasn’t been reviewed for assignment yet. How can I help you?”
“I need to cancel the support request.” He shot Parks a fierce eye. “My partner placed it by mistake.”
“Sarge—”
Chatelain made a sharp slashing motion across his throat.
“Of course, Sergeant,” the dispatcher said. “I can take care of that for you. Can you please give me the reason for the cancellation?”
“Lack of communication between me and my partner. We weren’t on the same page when he called earlier.”
“I’ll put that down as ‘incomplete information.’ Since you’re Trooper Parks’ superior, you have the authority to close his support request yourself. Please confirm you wish to close it.”
“Yes. I want it closed.”
“Very good. I have appended the case with your cancellation request. Is there anything else I can help you with today?”
“Nope. That’ll do it.”
“Then have a good day, Sergeant. SysPol Support out.”
The comm window vanished, and Chatelain turned back to Parks.
“I’m going to let this one slide just because you’re new at this, but if you ever pull shit like that on me again, I’ll make sure it ends up on your permanent record. You can argue with me all you want. I’m a big boy. I can take it. But once your superior makes the call, that’s that. Get in line or get out of the force. Have I made this clear enough for you?”
“Yeah, it’s clear.”
“Good.” Chatelain switched on the quadcopter’s rotors. “Now let’s get this corpse back to the station.”
* * *
Mitch hated meetings.
Which wasn’t surprising, since there were a lot of things he hated, and he wasn’t shy about sharing his ever-growing list of disdain with those around him. For one, he hated when people asked him “Mitch what?” as if they found the simplicity of his name offensive.
Which, he considered, was perhaps a form of symmetry since he found most names from his fellow abstract citizens to be pretentious drivel. What was wrong with “Mitch?” He saw no reason for anything fancier. It was the name he’d chosen to identify his artificial connectome. What more did he need? Certainly not an example of audible diarrhea like “Quantum Luminary” or “NeoHawking.”
He let his actions speak for themselves, without the baggage of frivolous word association. It was one of the reasons why he preferred to keep to his own quiet corner of the Kronos infostructure. The solitude allowed him to focus on what was important, which was overseeing the many Themis departments under his command so that they continued to shove their boots up crime’s figurative ass.
He loved that part about his job the most, especially the look on a criminal’s face/avatar when he/she/it was brought to justice. It represented the moment when a measure of beautiful order was restored where only chaos had once reigned, and it was as sweet to him as a tall glass of ice water at the end of a long day working in the sun.
He didn’t drink, of course. Didn’t eat either, virtual or otherwise. He’d never seen the point in integrating with some walking meat terminal so he could experience the physical world through shared organic senses. Why were so many of his fellow ACs obsessed with “eating food” through the senses of an integrated companion? What was the point? The solar system would be a better place if everyone would hurry up and abstract already, but he’d accepted long ago that for all the advancements in medical science, there still wasn’t a cure for dumb.
He’d been rereading one of Horace Pangu’s books recently. His most famous one, in fact. It was titled A Tale of Stars and Meat, and it advocated for the complete virtualization of the human race. The book was one of his favorites, and he tried to find time to reread it once a year.
Mitch’s austere views extended to his choice of avatar for this meeting. As a being of pure data, he could manifest in the meeting with any shape he wished. His fellow superintendents often criticized him for his rudimentary approach to avatar selection, but what they didn’t realize was he took extra care in selecting the most annoyingly simplistic designs he could find.
Today he’d chosen a large circle suspended over his seat at the conference table like a yellow full moon, complete with exaggerated eyes and mouth. The face wasn’t smiling or frowning. Rather, it was locked in a dull expression, neutral and unimpressed.
His fellow superintendents all sat at the table physically, most of them old enough to have transitioned into synthoids, along with a virtual representation of Colonel Raj Heppleman from the SSP, who’d joined their meeting remotely from the Second Engine Block. He’d spent the entire meeting complaining.
“Well, Mitch?” Ishii Takuya asked pointedly, arms crossed as he glared at Mitch’s expressionless hover-face. “Got anything to add for the colonel?”
Ishii was head of the Kronos’ Arete Division, in command of SysPol First Responders in the Saturn State. He was a bicentennial in what Mitch assumed was meant to be a “ruggedly handsome” synthoid body clad in the red of Arete Division. He was also no fan of Mitch’s methods or personality, and the feeling was very, very mutual.
Mitch had a lot of opinions about Ishii, most of them negative. For one, the Arete superintendent had a truly obnoxious habit of scheduling meetings for pretty much everything, as if talking about a problem was somehow the equivalent of solving the problem.
“No,” Mitch replied. “Not especially.”
His avatar’s mouth didn’t move with the words.
“If the Themis superintendent doesn’t,” Heppleman said, “then I do. This lack of results is intolerable. We informed SysPol of these disappearances nearly two weeks ago, and what do we have to show for it? A big, fat zero. That’s what. The city council is breathing down my neck on this one. They’ve been doing their best to keep public perception of the case under control, but sooner or later we”—he made a sharp, all-inclusive gesture around the table—“need to show them and the public we’re not sitting around picking our noses!”
“Colonel, please.” Ishii put on a forced smile. “We’ve demonstrated for you how seriously we take this problem. Arete has dedicated a full department to supplement the city’s own police force.”
“Throwing more people and equipment at a problem is a start, but where’s the progress? Where are the results? Where are our missing people?!”
“I’m sure it’s only a matter of time, Colonel.”
“And what about Themis?” Heppleman demanded, eyeballing the floating yellow face. “What about the investigation itself?”
“Mitch?” Ishii asked with a raised eyebrow. “Care to field this one?”
“Appropriate resources have been allocated to the case,” he answered simply.
“Yes,” Heppleman scoffed. “One additional detective!”
“And support staff,” Ishii said.
“Hardly a meaningful addition!”
“I disagree,” Mitch said.
“And why’s that?”
“Because you, like everyone else at this table, seem to be in a state of perpetual confusion.” The table sucked in a collective breath, but Mitch continued before any of the others could cut him off. “And that’s because you fail to grasp the difference between quantity and quality. Tell me, Colonel, what matters more? That we throw large numbers of aimless head count at a problem, or that we put the right people with the right experience and support in the right place? Which do you believe will produce the best results?”
“This case has been poorly staffed from the start.”
“You raise a point I’ve already conceded,” Mitch said. “Yes, we underestimated the extent of the problem, and the initial resources we allocated were insufficient for the task at hand. However, that issue has been rectified to my satisfaction.”
“Your satisfaction?” Heppleman sneered.
“Indeed. The Themis department now has the right people on the case. What more could you possibly want?”
“How about some damned progress? What are you doing to solve the case?”
“Nothing at all.”
“And why is that? Your colleague from Arete is practically tripping over himself to help us out, and yet you insist on sitting this one out?”
“That’s because I’m not a micromanaging jerk.” Mitch didn’t say the words “like the rest of you here.” He thought he showed considerable restraint with that omission.
“Ex-cuse me?” Heppleman said.
“Listen, Colonel. Management, at its core, is a simple vocation. Either you have the right people working for you, in which case you should trust them to do their jobs, or you don’t, in which case you should replace them. Or at the very least give them tasks that better match their lackluster skills.”
“Then you don’t believe this case warrants your personal attention?”
“No. It doesn’t.”
“I think what my colleague is trying to say,” Ishii said, “is all of us here have to be attentive to all the issues in the Saturn State, not just your own case, and that we must apply our time accordingly.” He shot Mitch a stern eye. “Isn’t that right?”
“Sure,” Mitch said. “You can think of it that way if it makes you feel better.”
His avatar changed for the first time since the meeting started, snapping from its bored expression to a toothy grin with wide, exaggerated eyes. A detached thumbs-up appeared beside the face.
Heppleman snorted.
“Perhaps there’s more we could be doing,” Superintendent Fergus Kayson offered, speaking up for the first time in the meeting. He wore the black of Argo Division’s patrol fleet. “I could move one of our larger cruisers down to Janus and position it near the Second Engine Block. From there, it could provide logistical support for the other divisions. Its presence would also serve as a clear visual reminder of how seriously we’re taking the problem.”
“An excellent idea,” Ishii said. “Colonel?”
“At this point, I’ll take whatever I can get.”
Mitch didn’t pay much attention to the rest of the meeting, mostly because the presence of the Argo cruiser would serve no practical purpose other than to “show people how much we care,” and that sort of style-over-substance decision-making held its own slot on his list of disdain.
He transferred back to his work area once the meeting wrapped up and began processing his mail, starting with a review of any unassigned cases. He worked through the newest messages, rejected a couple nuisance calls that Dispatch let slip through and forwarded the rest on to different departments depending on location, capacity, and the nature of the case.
He was near the end of the list when he stopped, his workflow halted by an unusual support request. Not because of the nature of the suicide case—the fundamentals seemed straightforward enough, at least on the surface—but because of the call record. A Trooper Randal Parks had placed the initial call, which was unusual in its own right. Troopers rarely placed such calls themselves unless it was an emergency, and a room temperature self-termination didn’t qualify. Even stranger, his sergeant had canceled the request almost immediately.
These two facts sparked Mitch’s curiosity. SSP troopers tended to reach for the simplest conclusion, and this suicide might be an example where the new guy saw something his more seasoned partner didn’t. Or didn’t want to see because of the extra work it entailed. Not all SSP troopers shared this lack of attention to detail, whether deliberate or otherwise, but it was a common enough trait to be a problem for Themis detectives.
The two troopers were flying to Janus, so Mitch sent them new orders, routing them back to Atlas mobile headquarters where they would await the arrival of a Themis detective. He checked the caseload of the departments working on or near Janus and forwarded the case number to Omar Raviv for assignment.