Chapter Thirteen
Susan climbed out of the car and surveyed their surroundings. Three SSP copters and two squad cars were parked along both curbs of a dark Shelf Two street running along the city’s outer circumference, and virtual police cordons glowed in front of an alley between two city utilities: the reclamation plant and the air processor. Both were nondescript monolithic blocks from the outside, built near the Shark Fin’s outer wall, which she could see at the far end of the alley. The hum of machinery filled her ears, and she sniffed at a curious smell in the air—a strange mix of chemical odors and something similar to cooked meat.
Two pairs of state troopers stood watch on either side of the police vehicles, directing pedestrians and vehicles around the area, and more troopers and drones searched the alley.
“We’re not actually digging through the garbage, are we?” Susan asked.
“Oh, no. Not us,” Isaac stressed before his face assumed a thoughtful look. “Well, maybe Cephalie.”
“Yeah, yeah,” the AC griped, the LENS floating behind them. “Just keep ordering the drone around.”
“Only if SSP needs the help.”
Susan followed Isaac through the police cordon and down the alley, which curved behind the reclamation plant to form a pocket between the outer wall and the plant.
Susan paused at the threshold and took in the place.
The gangsters had done their best to make the space homey. Several overhead lights—none of which matched—shone down on a bizarre collection of sofas, loungers, recliners, mattresses, cabinets, workbenches, tables, and printers. No two were alike, but everything—everything—was in shades of black and yellow, and Fanged Wyvern graffiti covered the walls with giant yellow jaws snapping at the darkness.
Dozens of pipes of varying thickness extended down from the bottom of Shelf Three and ran into the back of the reclamation plant. One of the narrower pipes entered the plant at floor level, and a crude hatch had been installed just above the bend. MacFayden and three more troopers stood around the hatch while a conveyor drone used its tooled arms to probe inside.
Isaac paused next to her and yawned into a fist.
“How long has it been since you slept?” Susan asked.
“I don’t know. When did we wake up on the saucer?”
“Sometime yesterday.”
“Too long, then.” He rubbed an eye with the palm of his hand. “How are you holding up?”
“My body will keep going until it runs out of power, but my connectome needs downtime like everyone else.”
Cephalie cleared her throat and waved at her from atop the LENS.
“Almost everyone else,” she corrected. “At STAND, our superiors stressed the need for regular mental rest, even with our synthetic bodies. I…may not have followed those instructions as closely as I should have, initially.” She let out a small, embarrassed sigh. “And I’ve been told I get…irritable if I skip too much sleep.”
Isaac chuckled. “That, I’d rather not see.”
She frowned at him, not sure how to take the comment, but he was too busy yawning again to notice.
“You know SSP can handle this, right?” Cephalie said.
“I want to know what they find.” He rubbed the side of his face. “But you’re right. Let’s see what MacFayden has for us, then we’ll turn in for the day. We need to check into our hotel at some point, anyway. How’s that sound?”
“No complaints here,” Susan said.
“All right.” Isaac walked up to MacFayden. Graffiti of a giant yellow jawbone chomped at them as they approached. “Anything good?”
“Partially.” She put her fists on her hips. “We called ahead and had the utilities shut down this pipe. It and five other lines feed into one of the main hoppers that perform final sorting upstream of the more specialized reclamation units. It also acts as a buffer during peak hours. I have a team searching the hopper, but given the timing, any evidence that reached it is gone.”
“Then why ‘partially’?”
“Because these kids are dumbasses.” She pointed at the ceiling. “See where the pipe comes out? There’s another hopper up there built directly into Shelf Three. It provides an initial sorting pass for waste coming from upper shelves to the plant, so the line they cut isn’t meant for general waste.”
“It’s already been sorted once?” Susan ventured.
“You’ve got it, and what passes through here is more granular. Or it’s meant to be. Remember how Yang said the towers made a racket going down?” MacFayden knocked on the side of the conveyor with her fist, and it wobbled briefly. “You ready to reel it up, yet?”
“Fewer interruptions would be nice,” said the AC operating the conveyor drone. “But yes. I think I’ve got a firm hold this time.”
The conveyor levitated higher with one arm looped around the pipe for support and the other stuffed deep down the hatch. The flexible, prog-steel appendage contracted like a straining muscle, metal screeched against metal, and the arm pulled a busted infosystem free of the pipe. The glossy white shell was cracked and dangled from an infosystem rack broken into three pieces and connected only by cables, but more than a few rack nodes were still slotted into place and appeared intact to Susan’s untrained eye.
“Just as I thought.” MacFayden’s eyes glinted. “One of the towers didn’t make it all the way to the hopper.” She turned to Isaac. “We’ll sweep the rest of their lair tonight, but chances are this is the main prize.”
“I’m inclined to agree.” Isaac nodded to the lieutenant. “Good work.”
“Don’t mention it. We’ll seal the evidence up and get it back to our lab. You should have a full report in the morning.”
“Great. I appreciate the support.”
“Hell”—she smiled at him—“I appreciate a detective that doesn’t walk all over us!”
“It’ll be interesting to see what Delacroix kept on it.” Susan crossed her arms and leaned against the wall.
“DON’T!” Isaac and MacFayden shouted at the same time.
“Don’t what?” Susan asked, her back pressed against the jawbone graffiti.
“Oh, no,” Isaac breathed with sad eyes.
“What?” Susan asked. “What’s wrong?”
She pulled away from the wall, but something tugged at her back, almost like an adhesive. The resistance wasn’t enough to bother her artificial muscles, and she turned to find strands of black and yellow tar stretching from her uniform to the graffiti. A million pictures of microtech horrors flashed through her mind, and she pressed a boot against the wall and kicked off it so fast she almost bowled Isaac over. He staggered back, lost his balance, and landed on his butt.
“What the hell was that?!” She grabbed her uniform’s shoulder and tugged it forward, granting her a view of her back. Black and neon yellow tendrils of color spread across the smart fabric. “Oh, no!”
She grasped her collar with firm hands, ready to rip the infected coat off. Her arm muscles switched at maximum power, all limiters removed.
“STOP!” Isaac shouted, holding both hands up toward her.
She froze. Black and yellow streaks spread over her shoulders, down her arms, and around her torso, but she held per position. Isaac would know how to combat whatever nightmarish weapon this was, and she would follow his instructions to the letter.
“Help,” she peeped at him.
“It’s okay.” He rose to his feet and dusted his butt off.
“What do I do?”
“Nothing. You can let go of your collar.”
“Are you sure?” She glanced down as yellow and black enveloped her chest.
“The graffiti infected your uniform’s firmware with a virus. It’s a harmless prank. That’s all.”
“But—”
“Please don’t disrobe in front of the troopers.”
She looked around. Every state trooper in the hideout was staring at her, and one of them was doing a bad job of hiding his laughter. She wanted to curl up and hide in a dark corner somewhere, but instead she straightened her posture and slowly let go of her collar. She checked her hands and found no signs of microtech infection. She ran a diagnostic on her epidermis, and all the indicators in her virtual vision lit up green.
“Get back to work, you lazy bums!” MacFayden snapped, and Susan’s audience found more important things to do.
Susan slumped her shoulders and let out a long, shuddering sigh. She kept sighing until she’d emptied her artificial lungs.
The sigh did nothing to improve her mood.
She gazed down at her uniform. She looked like a bumble bee on the receiving end of an electric shock.
Isaac stepped up to her but maintained an arm’s length between them.
“How do I switch it back?” she asked.
“Do you have a way to reload your uniform’s firmware?”
“No. All they gave me was the pattern file.”
“Then it’ll be easiest to toss it and print a fresh one. Also, can you still shut down your uniform’s smart features?”
“I should be able to. The switch is hardwired.” She reached back into her collar and squeezed a tiny switch at her throat. “There. Should be off.”
“Let me test something real quick.” He pressed his cuff against her sleeve, jerked his arm back, and checked the cuff. “Okay, good. No longer infectious. That saves us some trouble.”
“What sort of trouble?”
“We’d have to throw a tarp over the car seats.”
She sighed again and lowered her head.
“Come on.” He patted her on the shoulder. “Let’s head for the hotel. I think we could both use some rest.”
“Fine,” she groaned, and followed him out of the alley. They were almost to the car when Cephalie stopped them.
“Raviv is calling. He wants an update on the case.” She glanced at Susan meaningfully. “And he wants to hear how you’re doing.”
“Can this wait?” she asked.
“He’s the boss,” Isaac said with a grimace. “No point in delaying this.”
“I can think of several points!”
“I know. Let me talk to him first. Maybe we can keep him from seeing”—he gestured up and down Susan’s uniform—“you know.”
He stood opposite Susan while Cephalie positioned the LENS to act as a camera. A comm window opened, and Omar Raviv appeared. He was not smiling. In fact, Susan found it difficult to think of an expression more the polar opposite of smiling than Raviv’s expression at that moment. It somehow went beyond a mere scowl and became something darker, as if all the man’s miseries were pooled in his jaw muscles.
“Isaac,” he grunted.
“Hello, sir.” Isaac smiled. “Still feels weird calling you that, but you are the boss now.”
“You crack that Gordian case yet?”
“No, not yet.”
“You going to crack it soon?”
“Hard to say.”
“Then you’re not free to work on the Apple Cypher case?”
“No, not at the moment.”
Raviv let out a pained exhale and rubbed his stomach.
“Are you all right?” Isaac asked.
“Never better. Why?”
“Just making small talk, I guess.”
“Stay focused. You need to crack this case and get to hunting apples.”
“We are focused, I can assure you.”
“I need everyone hunting these damned apples. Everyone.”
“I understand that.”
“You know something, Isaac?” Raviv leaned toward the screen and spoke softer. “I think this case is getting to me.”
“Why do you say that?”
“I had a dream last night. I was being chased by man-eating apples. You ever been chased by apples before?”
“Can’t say that I have.”
“Don’t let them catch you.” Raviv looked off to the side and shuddered as if recalling something terrible. “They’re slow eaters. Takes a lot of bites to finish a man off.”
“Sir, we’re working as fast as we can.”
“How’s Cantrell been?”
“Fine. No problems to report.”
“Is she slowing you down?”
“No, not at all.”
“Speeding you up?”
“She’s”—his eyes flicked to Susan’s then back to the screen—“still learning our procedures, which is to be expected of someone in her position.”
“Then she is slowing you down.”
“No, she isn’t.”
“Well, it’s not like I can do anything about it,” Raviv said with a shrug. “Commissioner Tyrel tied my hands on this one. You two are joined at the hip as far as she’s concerned.”
“That was my understanding as well.”
“Is she there? Can I speak to her?”
“She’s…around,” Isaac said delicately.
“Then let’s see her. She works in my department. I should at least say hello to her.”
“Yes, but perhaps tomorrow would be—”
“Can she come into view?”
“Technically, yes, though—”
“Then call her over.”
Isaac opened his mouth as if to protest, but then he let out a resigned exhale, clicked his jaw shut, and stepped out of the camera’s field of vision. Susan tried to drain some of the apprehension from her face and rounded her way in front of the LENS.
Raviv did a double take. “Agent Cantrell?”
“Yes, sir?” Susan said with a cringe.
“Is that a standard Admin uniform you’re wearing?”
“No, sir. I’m having…wardrobe difficulties.”
“You best get that sorted out.”
“I intend to, sir. Believe me.”
“I don’t know what kind of slipshod operation the Admin is, but here in SysPol we expect our police to dress professionally.”
“Yes, sir. I know, sir. It won’t happen again, sir.”
“Are you slowing Isaac down?”
“I’m trying not to, sir.”
“Because it looks to me like you’re slowing him down.”
“That’s not my intention, sir.”
“It better not be. Next time I call, I want to hear all about the progress you two are making, and I will see you”—he pointed at her—“in a proper uniform. Is that clear?”
“Perfectly clear, sir.”
“Good.” He made a shooing gesture. “Now go crack this case.”
The comm window closed, and Susan hung her head.
“I think he likes you,” Isaac said.
“Oh, please!” she moaned.
“No, really.” Isaac patted her shoulder. “I’ve worked with him for years. He’s not angry at us. Not really. He just sounds angry when he’s stressed.”
“But when isn’t Raviv stressed?” Cephalie asked.
“Hmm.” Isaac rubbed his chin. “Yeah. Good point.”
* * *
“Hello, and welcome to…” The hotel receptionist trailed off as Susan and Isaac stepped up to the counter. She regarded Susan’s uniform with a doubtful eye.
“I’m not in a gang,” Susan said wearily. “I’m just having a bad day.”
“Oh, I see, ma’am.” The receptionist appeared to recover from her initial shock. “If there’s anything we at the Top Shelf Hotel can do to make your stay here more enjoyable, please don’t hesitate to ask.”
“Room, please,” Susan muttered.
“Kronos Station should have made our reservations.” Isaac transmitted his ID. “Both should be listed under Isaac Cho.”
“Let’s see.” The receptionist opened her interface. “Yes, here you are. Two rooms with an open-ended reservation. Rooms 910 and 912, and Miss Cantrell’s travel case has already been delivered to room 912.”
“Key, please,” Susan muttered.
“Yes, of course. Here are your—”
Susan copied the keycode and shuffled toward the counter-grav tube.
“…keycodes,” the receptionist finished.
“She’s had a really bad day.”
“Yes, I can see that, sir.”
Susan took the tube up to floor nine and palmed the lock open on room 912. She stepped in, looked around the boring, beige chamber, and let out an angry groan.
“What the hell is this?”
Her travel case sat in the middle of the floor. Other than that, the room was empty. No chairs, no desk, no artwork on the walls, and no bed. Not even a charging station for her synthoid. Her internal power could last for weeks without charging, at least at her current level of activity, but she liked to stay topped off. How was she supposed to do that without a charger?
She spotted the delivery port in the wall, walked over, and knocked on it.
“Yes, Miss Cantrell?” the receptionist responded in audio only. “Is something wrong?”
“My room is empty.”
“Umm. Is that a problem?”
“I don’t even see a charger. What kind of hotel is this?”
“I’m sorry, but I don’t understand.”
“What’s there to understand?” she snapped. “How am I supposed to recharge while I sleep?”
“But your room has been furnished according to your preferences. The process is automatic.”
“This is most definitely not how I prefer things!”
“Susan,” Isaac said, his voice coming through a touch softer and more distant. “Did you fill out your travel profile?”
“My what?”
“It’s a form. The station should have sent it to you.”
“I don’t remember seeing anything like that.”
“Check your mail. I’m sure it’s there.”
She opened her inbox and ran a search. Sure enough, she’d received a reminder from Kronos Station to set up her profile, which the station would use when booking her travel arrangements. She’d barely given it a thought because she’d been focused on more important matters, like learning how Themis Division operated and solving the damned case!
“Yeah, I see it,” she sighed. “I didn’t fill it out.”
“Then that’s why your room is empty. Top Shelf belongs to the Ring Suites hotel chain. They all use room preferences, so they print out the furniture and set up your room to order before you arrive. I really like them, because I get to sleep in my favorite bed each night.”
“And I don’t have a profile.” Susan closed her eyes and rested her forehead against the wall. “Hence my empty room.”
“It’s no big deal. We can swap rooms tonight. Just let me grab a pillow and blanket first. I’ll be fine on the floor.”
“No, it’s all right,” Susan sighed. “You need a good night’s sleep more than I do. I’ll rough it out here.”
“You sure?”
“Yeah, it’s fine. Can they start printing me some basic furniture tonight? Maybe a bed and charger? I don’t need much else.”
“We certainly can,” the receptionist chimed in. “Perhaps I can interest you in our deluxe Ring Suites Odyssey package—synthoid variant, of course—featuring artwork and furnishings designed by—”
“No.”
“Or,” the receptionist continued without missing a beat, “I can put in an order for our basic Synthoid’s Slumber configuration. All public domain patterns, so there’s no additional cost.”
“Yeah, that one. Send it up when done.”
“Yes, ma’am. Give me a moment…there. I’ve flagged it as a priority in our system. Each kit will be delivered by drone as soon as it’s finished. Is there anything else I can help you with?”
“No,” Susan grunted. “That’ll be all.”
“Then please have a pleasant—”
Susan closed the channel and put her back to the wall.
“What a damn nuisance.”
She rubbed her face with both hands, then slapped her cheeks and stood up off the wall. The delivery port interface glowed next to her, and she placed a custom printing order and provided a copy of her uniform pattern. She checked the bathroom, relieved to find at least it had been stocked with towels and an assortment of synthoid care products.
SysGov products, though. She eyed the bottles suspiciously. Most formed microbot colonies to actively clean and care for a synthoid cosmetic layer, and at least one listed “self-replication” as a feature.
She shuddered, then shoved the bottles all to the side of the sink. She placed her travel case on the counter and flipped it open.
“Not on my skin.”
She took out her Peacekeeper-approved tube cleaner gel first, poured out a cap full, and swished it around in her mouth before drinking it. It left a spearmint-flavored aftertaste, and she smacked her lips as she stripped off her uniform.
She found the reclamation chute next to the delivery port, balled up the black-and-yellow fabric, and tossed it down into oblivion. She then returned to the bathroom, grabbed her skin and hair gels, set the shower temperature and flow pattern, and stepped in.
Scalding water splashed against her chest, and she began lathering her epidermis with the skincare gel. The shower glass fogged up, and she relished the relaxing heat. The water served no purpose other than to spread the cleansing suds, but there was something undeniably soothing about a long, hot shower, even after her transition, and she reveled in it after her rough day.
She rested her head against the glass and let the stream of water beat against the back of her neck. Her mind wandered through the day, touching on all the dumb things she’d said and done, and she cringed at the memories.
She lost track of time, alone in the shower with her thoughts, but she snapped out of it with a start.
“No use sulking over it,” she muttered to herself, then rubbed her face.
She turned around twice, let the water wash away any remaining suds, then dispensed a gob of haircare gel into her hand and worked it into her scalp. Bubbles fell across her eyes but caused no irritation, and she finished and then rinsed off.
She switched off the water, grabbed a towel off the rack, and looped it around her chest before tucking it in.
“Wonder if they finished the charger.”
She stepped around the corner—
—and froze.
A bed sat in one corner of the room. A black-and-yellow bed with a uniform neatly folded on top. A black-and-yellow uniform with a black-and-yellow peaked cap. Tendrils of alien color radiated out from where the bedposts touched the floor, and the delivery port formed a
black-and-yellow sun on the wall.
She knew what Isaac had said about the virus being a prank, but this couldn’t be normal! She sidestepped around the discolored floor, careful not to touch anything, reached the door, palmed it open, and slipped out.
* * *
Someone knocked on Isaac’s hotel room door.
“Grfrgn mrgr,” he groaned into his pillow.
The person pounded the door so hard he thought it might split open. He rose with a start and blinked around his room with blurry eyes.
“Isaac!”
“Susan?” he grunted. “That you?”
“Yes! Open up, please!”
He checked the time. “It’s one in the morning.”
“I don’t care! I need your help!”
“Okay. Hold on.” His fingers found the glass of water by his bedside. He took a sip, blinked his eyes into focus, and rose out of bed. He shambled over to the door, eyes squinting in the gloom, and palmed the release.
The door split open, and he saw Susan as he’d never seen her before: hair damp, droplets of water glistening off her pale flesh, naked except for the towel wrapped tight around the thrust of her perky breasts. Her lips quivered on the edge of words, but her eyes spoke volumes. The rigid formality of Susan-the-Peacekeeper was gone, replaced with gentle nervousness.
“Uh?” Isaac swallowed dryly. “Hello?”
“I need your help,” she said softly.
His eyes flicked down to her firm cleavage, then back up to her face, and an absurd train of thought formed in his mind.
Those are fake, he told himself, which was ridiculous, because Susan was a synthoid. All of her was artificial!
“My help?” he said weakly.
“There’s a problem.” She glanced back to her room. “And I’m not sure how to handle it.”
Is she coming on to me? he thought. Is casual sex amongst coworkers a thing in the Admin? That seems unlikely, but here we are. Maybe it’s a “work hard, play hard” kind of thing?
“It’s the bed,” she added.
“The bed,” he squeaked, and his mind raced.
He was not—completely—without experience in this area. He’d engaged in his share of hot-blooded, youthful experimentation and had witnessed firsthand the wreckage of relationships ruined by immaturity and inattentiveness. That was simply part of growing up, of learning by doing and—more often than not—failing. But the importance of such physicality had waned as he matured, replaced with a driven emphasis on his education at the academy.
He’d tried to rekindle some of his youthful passion after receiving his wetware at the age of twenty-five. That desire led to an ill-advised tryst with an older—and far more mature—AC, but when the novelty wore off, so too did their mutual interest, and they’d separated only a few weeks in.
Relationships were…something that happened to other people, he’d decided at the time, and he’d redoubled his concentration on his career. Eventually, he knew he would want a family, but he felt no urgency in the matter. He had nothing against the occasional fling, should a suitable opportunity present itself, but those, too, seemed to happen only to other people.
Maybe this is just one big misunderstanding, Isaac wondered.
Susan adjusted the towel, and it dipped lower, revealing a generous portion of moist, pale skin.
She is coming on to me! he thought. But she’s looking at me like she expects something. Oh dear! I never read those cultural files! Are there rules I don’t know about? Will I offend her if I say no? Do I even want to say no? What’s the correct response here?
You should have read those files, Isaac! he scolded himself.
He cleared his throat and lowered his voice an octave in what might have passed for suave somewhere in the solar system.
“The bed, you say. Yes, what about it?”
“It’s easier to show you.”
She took hold of his wrist and yanked him toward her room.
“Whoa!”
So assertive! His heart raced as he let himself be pulled along. I don’t know if I’m ready for this!
They passed through the door, and he stumbled forward into her room. She rested a hand on his shoulder to steady him and pointed.
“The bed.”
“What about…” He trailed off as he realized at last what was going on. “Oh. I see.”
Black and yellow streaks spiraled outward across the floor and one wall, and a gang-themed uniform sat folded on top of a gang-themed bed.
“You sound disappointed.”
“It’s nothing.” He summoned the room’s master control interface. “Can I have a copy of your key, please?”
“Sure.” She offered him the file with an open palm, and her towel slipped a little lower.
Is she doing that on purpose?! he vented on the inside, but he pushed the thought away and accessed the room’s root functions with her key. He triggered an active purge, and the walls, floor, and bed switched to a gray grid pattern before cycling back to their original beige colors.
“There.” He wiped off his hands with a deep frown on his face. “Problem solved.”
“That was it?”
“Yup.”
“You’re mad at me, aren’t you?”
“No, no,” he assured her, and perhaps this was a small white lie. “Just tired.”
“But how did that even happen?”
“Your uniform must have infected their systems when it was reclaimed. Pretty impressive for a gang virus, actually. I’ll let the staff know. They shouldn’t have any problems cleaning up the mess, and I’ll make sure they print you out a new uniform when they’re done.”
“I’m sorry. I really am.” She put a hand to her chest. “I just thought— Well, some SysGov tech makes me nervous, and I wasn’t sure if it was dangerous.”
Her towel slipped even farther, but Isaac kept his eyes locked on her face.
“I understand,” he said. “A lot of this is new to you.”
“You’ve got that right!” she said with a chuckle.
“By the way.”
“Yes?”
“You should probably…” He mimed an upward tug with one hand, never letting his eyes wander from hers.
“I should…” She looked down. “Oh!” Her face reddened and she pulled her towel higher. “Sorry! I didn’t realize!”
“I know. Trust me, I know.”
“I’m so sorry!”
“It’s all right,” he replied dully. “No harm done.”
“This was very improper of me!”
“Don’t give it another thought.” He stepped toward the door. “Anything else?”
“No. And thank you, Isaac. I appreciate how understanding you’ve been.”
“Don’t mention it.”
The door closed, and he slouched down and shambled back to his room. He sighed, palmed it open, and walked in. The door closed, and he spotted Cephalie seated on the edge of the fruit bowl on the table. She giggled, but then she started kicking her legs over the edge, and her laughter crescendoed into an unrestrained howl of mirth.
“You shut up!” he snapped, then headed into the bathroom to take a cold shower.