Retiree 2.0 Page 17

  Rhys took his time, casually walking to the car. He obeyed Derringer’s request, climbing into the car and pulling the door closed behind him. Derringer’s eyebrows were pointed downward, as were the corners of his mouth. He was gripping the steering wheel of the sedan with knuckles paler than the rest of his hands, piloting it manually. As soon as the door shut, the lock clicked, and Derringer accelerated away from the curb and down the street. The SD man said, “Were my instructions to stay away from the port affair not clear enough? I was willing to give you that exploding warehouse yesterday, and I know that your people took the transponder from that destroyed limousine, but—”

  Rhys began talking over Derringer, “I wasn’t there about the port incident.”

  “—now you’ve jeopardized our investigation by tipping off the Chinese.”

  Rhys reiterated, calmly, but firmly, lying through his artificial teeth, “I said that I wasn’t there about the port incident. I was hand-delivering some visa paperwork for one of my coworkers who was too busy to do so herself.”

  Derringer turned left, traveling away from the embassy. Rhys watched the clock on his internal display count off seventeen seconds before the agent continued, “Which—”

  “Wendy Lin. She’s wants to visit her maternal grandparents in Beijing during the lunar New Year festival, and the consulate required some physical documentation that couldn’t be transmitted electronically. I did it as a personal favor.”

  Derringer’s mouth went from a dour frown to neutral, and his eyebrows reversed their pitch, but his hands continued to grasp the wheel. He turned left at the next intersection, circling the block. “I don’t believe you, but I’ll grant that’s a well-conceived lie.”

  Rhys said, “I gather that you have the Chinese consulate under surveillance.”

  Derringer pulled his car into an empty roadside parking space and stopped. He pushed a button on his armrest and Rhys’ door opened again. He said, “You get to investigate the victims and the crimes related to their abductions. Stay away from the Chinese.”

  Rhys turned sideways in his seat, planted his feet on the tarmac shoulder, stood up, and stepped onto the curb. The car door closed automatically, and the car sped off, its tires slipping momentarily from Derringer mashing his accelerator.

  Monday, 10 July, 16:00

  Alana did not have time to greet Rhys as he opened the situation room door. Her Vira pinged with an incoming call from Detective Taggart. She answered immediately, waving Rhys inside, “What is it?”

  Rhys could only hear her side of the conversation as he pulled up a chair with an induction recharger built into it. He heard his Vira beep three times rapidly, letting him know that his batteries were being topped off.

  Alana said, “If the card’s owner didn’t buy the phone, who did?”

  Rhys examined the whiteboard. In the center was a blueprint of a small, commercial building of some variety, which was connected to a slightly larger, open building with large doors at one end. A parking lot with twenty-four marked spaces abutted the buildings.

  Alana continued, “He dropped it in the collection plate? Seriously? Who does that?”

  Rhys watched Alana as she paced back and forth, her perfectly sculpted gams, form-fitting skirt, and slightly over-tight blouse provoking no response whatsoever from his asexual body. He could remember the times they did cause his arousal, often during awkward moments. Despite being mechanical, Alana’s body was a realistic copy of a human female, at least with her clothes on, and quite shapely as well as being athletically toned. She was frozen in time, a snapshot of what she looked like when she died thirty-five years before.

  Alana said, oblivious to Rhys’ nostalgia for lust, “Where in Camarillo? Uh-huh. Go on.”

  Rhys closed his eyes. He found it absurd that he could have had feelings of any kind about a cyborg, and concluded that those memories lingering within his artificially reconstituted mind were doubly absurd.

  Rhys could hear Alana stop pacing. He reopened his eyes in time to catch her jaw dropping again. It did not fall as far as it did when they discovered that the Chinese consulate was connected to the case, but it still reflected an uncharacteristic level of surprise, “You’re shitting me! Are you positive about that...? Yes, I know where that is... Have you talked to the priest yet...? Good. Let me handle that... Yes, that was very good work, Taggart. Take the rest of the night off. See you at the morning briefing.”

  Alana turned and faced Rhys, planting her legs far enough apart to give Miss Manners a coronary. Rhys asked, “Trouble at mill?”

  Alana said, “Trouble at church! Apparently, the phone used to give us the anonymous tip about the port warehouse was donated to the St. Mary Magdalen Catholic Church up in Camarillo.”

  Rhys said, “You say that as if it implies something special about that church.”

  Alana nodded, “It does. I’ve met the priest. His name is Gabriel Stone.”

  Rhys connected the dots, “Let me guess. He’s related to Aaron Stone?”

  Alana resumed her nodding, “Gabriel is Aaron’s adopted son. I met him while I was pursuing his father during my last case. That explains rather tidily how he knew to ask for me by name when he called. I’m going to drive up there tonight. Are you doing anything special tonight?”

  “I was going to ask DI Crabtree if he had any questions about his baseball case, then...”

  “Brett flew out to Boston about an hour ago. I talked to him before he left. I think he’s doing okay, for now.”

  “Then I was going to watch a baseball game on television, maybe vacuum around the bullet holes in my house. Nothing I can’t get out of.”

  “Good. Let’s get started then. You can tell me about the Chinese angle while we sit in traffic.”

  Alana entered a security code and locked the whiteboard in a blank state to prevent unauthorized access. She plucked her mackintosh from the coat rack and draped it over her arm as she held the door for Rhys. She then turned out the lights and locked the situation room door behind her.

  Rhys said, “Let’s stop by the armory on the way out.”

  “Why? We’ve already got sidearms.”

  “Perhaps, but we need to draw some body armor to go with them.”

  “Why?”

  “Because the department got a multi-thousand dollar repair bill when I went to the shopital yesterday afternoon. A basic, covert vest would have prevented that.”

  Alana stood, aghast, “It only comes in flat black!”

  Rhys glanced up and down the corridor, looking for other police officers, but only saw a pair of cleaning robots. He said, “When did you start caring about fashion?”

  Alana’s voice dropped at least twenty decibels, “I don’t care about—”

  “Oh, please. When you replaced your old overcoat the last time you got blown up, you forked out real money for an honest-to-goodness, genuine-label mackintosh.”

  Alana tilted her head to the side, “Oh, it was you who sent it to the cleaners!”

  “Well... Yes. It was all sooty. I thought I’d do you a favor.”

  Alana quickly looked up and down the corridor as well. Then she reached behind Rhys’ head, pulled him close, and kissed him on the lips. She held him for a few seconds, and then pushed him away. She looked up and down the corridor again.

  Rhys was surprised by both the timing and the act, “What was that for?”

  Alana said, “You taste like polyxytate,” as she reached into her coat pocket, pulled out a crumpled tissue, and wiped the lipstick off Rhys’ face.

  “You didn’t answer my question.”

  “It was for...everything. Let’s talk about it on the way to church,” Alana said as she began walking toward the elevator.

  Rhys followed, “You’re not getting out of pulling body armor. Especially not now.”

  “Fine, fine,” Alana said as the doors slid open and she stepped inside, holding the door for Rhys.

  After checking out their armored vests, ultra-thin, lig
ht-duty covert models designed to fit beneath their normal clothing, Ben and Alana entered separate changing rooms to don them. When they emerged, they stared at each other for a few moments before Alana began, “I can see the black edges poking out from around your undershirt.”

  Rhys countered, “Yours flattens your chest noticeably. The buttons on your blouse no longer appear as if they want to pop. Otherwise, I can’t tell.” Rhys clipped his necktie back onto his collar and pulled on his suit jacket, saying “How about now?”

  Alana smirked, donning her mackintosh, “I can’t tell you’re wearing it anymore. It does make your chest look beefier, for what that’s worth, but it also makes that clip-on tie look more like a clip-on. Do I need to show you how to tie a real one?”

  Rhys said, “I’m happy with the clip. If my tie ever gets caught in a wood chipper, it’ll come off instead of jerking me in with it.”

  Alana said, “I see,” as she turned to leave the armory.

  Rhys used his Vira to call his police car while the pair was navigating their way through the hyperactive, ground-floor police precinct with its maze of cubicles, freestanding desks, counters, and checkpoints. Half-a-dozen citizens in zip-tie handcuffs were in various stages of the booking process, with another half-dozen civilians engaged in the process of giving statements or otherwise being interrogated. Equal numbers of uniformed officers went about their duties, updating electronic paperwork, coming, going, or standing around while taking a coffee break. A handful of junior detectives supervised the chaos. In police parlance, the technical term was, ‘Monday.’

  Rhys’ assigned police car pulled up to the station entrance when he and Alana passed through the security checkpoint and passed through the sliding, projectile-resistant polyxytate doors. They boarded the vehicle without a word.

  Alana said, “Car, drive to 2532 Ventura Boulevard, Camarillo, California.”

  The car’s internal Vira replied, “Destination found. The estimated travel time is ninety minutes,” and then it pulled away, deftly navigating its way through the maze that was the Fourth Precinct’s employee parking deck. It left the precinct behind and began making its way through the thickening secondary road traffic. The evening traffic rush in Los Angeles began at around 3 PM and usually lasted until around 8 PM, and the term ‘rush hour’ had become an archaic usage, at least in the megalopolitan area. The flow was much better than it was before the automated traffic system was implemented, but the sheer volume of vehicles, combined with occasional mechanical malfunctions, still caused backups within the urban infrastructure.

  When they turned to creep onto the highway’s entrance ramp, Alana said, “What did you learn from the Chinese?”

  “I learned that SD is watching them. Your buddy, Derringer, warned me off of them.”

  “Are they involved in the kidnappings?”

  Rhys said, “The man I talked to had been briefed, and had someone talking in his ear during the interview. He was aware of their car’s involvement, but he denied any culpability. Said it was stolen. I can’t normally read Asians, but he was an open e-book. I’m tempted to assume that they were behind it all based on his mannerisms. I’m putting together a pet theory as to a motive already.”

  Alana said, “Is it the same as my nascent theory that we’re dealing with government-supported espionage? Maybe even industrial espionage?”

  Rhys instinctively grabbed hold of the panic handle above his door as the car accelerated into the northbound traffic stream, “I think it’s still too soon to write that down as fact, but I’m thinking the same thing. The suspects were stealing thousands of cyborg brains. Robotic and cybernetic technology is globalized now, but the organic brains are still under American control, as far as I know. If the Chinese wanted to reverse-engineer it, they’d need some examples, probably a great many. What do you think would happen if that knowledge went world-wide?”

  Alana had pondered such a scenario often, and there was no delay in her reply, “It’s working here because our laws are so strict. If it went abroad, I think it would spark a civil war in every country it touched, just like it did here. Every nation would tighten its border security since there would be no practical way to know if the body crossing over would be who it was supposed to be. International terrorism and spying would spike. On the bright side, it would be great job security for us.”

  Rhys let Alana’s dire prophesy hang unanswered. Several kilometers passed by before he spoke again, “What was the kiss about?”

  Alana paused momentarily before answering, “Seemed like a good idea at the time. Just forget about it. It was nothing.”

  “I first met you when I was twenty-nine. You impressed me as being mature and level-headed, if a bit cold.”

  “I’ll take that as a compliment, regardless.”

  “I also thought you were very beautiful. That one time when you made tea for me, and you showed me your scrapbook, the prints were almost a perfect match, except that the engineers never quite captured the color in your cheeks.”

  Alana said, “And here we sit, neither of us able to do anything about it.”

  “Au contraire, mademoiselle. We’ve been looking out for one another for over four years, ever since I was assigned to be—”

  Alana interjected, “I picked you out. It was my choice.”

  That surprised Rhys, who had assumed for years that his administrative attachment to Alana had been at random, “Why me?”

  “One day, I was in a staff meeting with Chief Bennett, alongside a table lined with other DIs. You were there, acting in the capacity of a gofer. I noticed that when the Chief told you to go bring refills for the coffee machine, you asked detailed specifics. What kind of sweetener, natural or artificial. What brand of coffee. What type of coffee. What kind of cream, dairy or non-dairy. You remembered all of that and got their orders correct without taking any notes. You had no business bringing coffee to people with the lizard-brained intellect of Maggie MacGruder.”

  Neither Rhys nor Alana said anything for several more kilometers, until their car merged onto the Ronald Reagan Parkway, taking the long way around the Simi Valley Quarantine Zone to Camarillo. Once they had merged into the westbound traffic, Alana said, “The offer to move in with me while your house is under repair is still open.”

  Rhys replied, “At the risk of offering completely unintended offense, I still need some time to myself. I’m still getting the hang of being a synthetic brain inside a box inside a robotic shell. I’m not good company. But back at the station, when you kissed me. Do you—”

  Alana interrupted, “Yes. Yes, Ben, I think I do. And I’m feeling... More than I know how to put into words. My robocat isn’t cutting it. I need to be close to someone, even if it’s just—can I leave it at that for now?”

  The passengers remained silent until the Ronald Reagan Library loomed in the distance, clearly visible on a ridge overlooking the highway. Rhys said, “Having declined your immediate offer of sanctuary, may I have an open-ended rain check?”

  Alana said, placing her right hand over Rhys’ left, “That’s a given.”

  As the car exited onto the southbound lane of the Ventura Freeway, Alana said, “What would you think if I went out to dinner Wednesday night?”

  Rhys said, “If I didn’t know you had a food unit, I’d think you were experiencing cognitive dissonance.”

  Alana clarified, “I mean with another man? I was asked out to dinner tomorrow.”

  “I’m not jealous or anything like that, if that’s why you’re asking. May I ask who the lucky man would be?”

  Alana looked straight ahead at the road and at the dozens of other cars that shared their path, all perfectly aligned in computer-controlled echelon, with no more than a single car length between or beside the others, “Edward Jenkins. The reporter from the Greg Veedock case.”

  “I thought you said he was still a suspect.”

  “He is, but it’s Brett’s... Detective Crabtree’s case now.”

  Rhys
grinned, apparently unfazed, “It’s beginning to sound like I’m in more of a square than a triangle. Do you have a thing for Crabtree as well?”

  Alana admitted, “While you were in Limbo, waiting to be resurrected, I... He reminded me of you. But you’re alive now. He’s taken anyway. He’s not a threat to whatever’s happening between us,” Alana waggled her finger several times, pointing first to Rhys, then to herself. “Is something happening between us?”

  Rhys looked down at the floor mat, “I don’t think anything can happen, which is all the more reason for me to remain in my house for a while. At least until I come to better terms with what I am.” Rhys paused before continuing, “I still can’t cry. My brain feels like it wants to, but I just can’t. Do you have that issue as well, or should I call tech support?”

  “I’m crying right now,” Alana said, tapping the side of her head, “in here, where it counts.”

  Another long period of silence ensued, during which time Alana used her Vira to recall information regarding Aaron Stone’s son, Gabriel Stone. She had not seen him since she met Aaron Stone and ended up being captured. According to the police records, Gabriel had his sentence for abetting his father’s terrorist acts commuted because a subsequent, surrogate interrogation of his mind revealed that he wasn’t aware of what his father was planning.

  Alana closed her virtual data displays when the car began slowing down to turn right into a parking lot. The white bell tower of the faux-Spanish cathedral that was the St. Mary Magdalen Catholic Church was unmistakable, and was etched into Alana’s memory.

  As their police car began searching for an open parking space in the small lot, which had a number of other cars parked therein, Alana’s attention was grabbed by a man bursting through the doorway of the church and running down the steps toward a waiting car whose passenger door was already open. He was holding a submachine gun in his right hand. He leapt into the passenger seat and the car sped off, its sudden, rapid acceleration closing the passenger door.