Retiree 2.0 Read online

  Bennett was more subdued, clearly in disagreement with the decision, when he said, “Security Division assumed ownership.”

  Alana raised her voice instead, “SD? After the mess we had with them during the Aaron Stone case back in the spring, they’re back again? Have they considered changing their name to Serial Disasters?”

  “They used the International Anti-Terrorism Act to take over. But there are still a lot of missing persons cases involved that we are going to work on. I assigned Inspector MacGruder to clean up the mess, but he’s going to have to work around Security Division. I don’t want you going near it after you messed it up so badly.”

  “How is apprehending the chopper ring messing—”

  Bennett slammed his fist down hard on his desk, “I’ve got four officers dead! One of them wasn’t saved, and he's dead for good! I also had to pay for a full body restoration for you! Again!”

  Alana shrugged, “We took down four bad guys and broke up the biggest cyber-chopping ring in history. What’s the problem?”

  “We got damned lucky that mech ran out of ammo before he ran out of targets! It takes years to train a good tactical officer. Any fool can commit a crime.”

  “What did I do wrong?”

  Bennett fumed, “You rushed in without enough intelligence, which in this instance, is an intentional double-entendre. You should have waited.”

  “I went with the advice of the SWAT leader. He was afraid, and I agreed, that they might have had the opportunity to destroy evidence if we had waited for more resources to arrive.”

  “You were the authority! You should have followed proper procedure!”

  Alana heard her operating system speak into her ear, “Chief Inspector Graves—”

  Alana glanced to the side, “What—”

  Bennett said, “What—”

  Alana replied, “Sorry, Chief, my Vira was interrupting me.”

  Bennett crossed his arms and waited, in the same disapproving way that a first date might react if Alana had stopped a conversation to answer a phone call.

  The Vira continued, “Your blood pressure readings are registering outside of normal operational parameters during your break-in period. Unless you are encountering unusually high stress factors, you should consider contacting your nearest Zumpco facility for a check-up—”

  “Shut up, Vira.”

  Bennett asked, “What was that about?”

  “My Bitching Betty was telling me I’m about to have an aneurism.”

  Bennett flopped down in his chair and drew his suited forearm across his sweaty forehead, “Then I’ll reserve an ambulance for two.”

  Alana asked, “Are there any more details?”

  “Get them from Maggie. Or from Rhys. He’s Maggie’s assistant now. Are you and he still having it off?”

  Alana protested, “Cyborgs can’t, ‘have it off.’ Not police models anyway. Where’s Brett? Detective Crabtree? I looked for him, but he’s not in the office today.”

  “I gave him the day off as well so he could decompress and talk to the shrink. When trooper Jacobs was killed in front of him Tuesday night, I think it might have shook him up a little more than normal. I want to make sure that he and you are fit for duty before I reassign you. Now, you tell me. Is Crabtree having any issues?”

  Alana said, “He’s an exemplary officer with no problems whatsoever.”

  Bennett said, “Don’t bullshit me. He’s not developing any kind of virtual reality addictions that you know of?”

  Alana wasn’t lying when she said, “Uh, no, sir. Why—”

  “It got flagged by one of the online VR game companies and reported to us because he’s in a sensitive job. It wasn’t a danger warning, but he was logging over twenty hours a week in a game, so they sent us a courtesy message.”

  Alana shrugged, “I wasn’t even aware he played games at all.”

  “You’re his supervisor, so make sure he doesn’t do it on the clock. Things might get worse department-wide. We’re about to issue external Viras next month for everyone who’s not a retiree or doesn’t have a DUI implant. If they use them for personal reasons on their own time, I don’t care, but I don’t want officers using them to play porn games while they’re on duty.”

  Alana was surprised, “Was Detective Crabtree playing porn games online?”

  Bennett waved his hand dismissively, “No, no, nothing like that. It was some kind of fantasy nerd game. ‘Pangenre’ or something like that? Doesn’t really matter. Just keep the kid straight. As for you, I added all of your appointments to your calendar already. Have a good weekend and try not to get blown up again.”

  Alana stood, turning toward the door, but she stopped as she grasped the handle, “Have you had time to reconsider my request to team up with Detective Rhys instead of Detective Crabtree?”

  The Chief was as gruff as he could be, “Yes, I have, and no, you can’t. Your clone told me about how close you and Rhys have been, and it’s against policy to pair up two officers who are romantically involved.”

  “My clone may have been exaggerating when she—”

  The Chief scowled, “I quote, ‘Platonic doesn’t cover it.’”

  Alana was somewhat surprised. She had long known that she harbored feelings for Rhys, but had she clearly underestimated the strength of those held by her previous self. Her recorded memories did not seem to clarify whether those feelings were mutual, “I said that?”

  “Emphatically, as I recall. Now, if that’s all...” Chief Bennett shooed Alana away.

  Saturday, 8 July, 17:10

  Alana was clearly disappointed with the venue, as her flat expression betrayed. When Rhys invited her to go out for the evening, she hoped it would give her a chance to talk to him about personal matters. Particularly, she wanted to extend an offer to move into her home while his home was being repaired. It suffered substantial gunfire damage when Alana’s clone was ambushed by a hostile Joebot while searching it for evidence during the Aaron Stone case. However, sitting in the summer heat at a crowded outdoor sports palace was quickly burying any proto-romantic thoughts she might be having.

  Alana peered over the railing at the more expensive seats below. She noted that they seemed to be color-coded, with red being more socially important than their blue, and the green seats above them being lowest in the pecking order. The facility was already about half-filled, with fans continuing to trickle in. The outfield clock reminded her of just how slowly time can crawl when you aren’t having fun.

  Rhys explained, pointing over the upper deck railing and around the circumference of the Zumpco East Los Angeles Stadium, “There was a big fight over whether to install a dome. The old-school purists won. It’s open to the sky.”

  Alana scoffed, “It’s Los Angeles. It hardly ever rains here. Why would anyone want to cover it up in the first place?”

  Rhys pointed at a row of enclosed skyboxes overlooking the first base dugout, “My guess is that the Zumpco corporate sponsors wanted to sit in the air conditioning. They got their wish, but not the way they hoped.”

  “Aren’t they all cyborgs anyway? Why do they even care? It’s the dry heat. It’s not as if they’ll rust.”

  Rhys leaned back in his chair and smiled, “I guess that’s one of the many mysteries of the game of baseball. What do you think of it all so far?”

  Alana said, “You know I hate spectator sports, don’t you?”

  “Didn’t you play sports in school?”

  “Not team sports. I did track and field. Single-person achievement and the second most boring sport in existence to watch, next to baseball.”

  Rhys stroked his non-existent goatee, “So, you were a loner from the very start?”

  “No... Well... No. ‘Loner’ has connotations in our line of work that I’d sooner avoid. I just don’t like people very much. I’ve met too many criminals in my lifetime, and that goes all the way back to kindergarten if you count proto-criminals.”

  Rhys shrugged, “Maybe you don�
��t like the game simply because you don’t understand it?”

  Alana answered, “Why would I want to?”

  “Well, maybe it would appeal to your detective instincts? Because there are a lot of whys for you to ponder during a game?”

  “Okay, okay. Give me a good example.”

  Rhys pointed at the baseball diamond spread out below them, “Such as, why does the catcher run toward the first base dugout when the batter hits a grounder when the bases are empty? And why does he not do it when there is a runner on second base?”

  “It already sounds like an Abbott and Costello routine.”

  Rhys said, “You’re no fun tonight. Can you try to be a little less negative? I promise I won’t take you to ball games anymore.”

  Alana asked, “Why did we come so early anyway? There’s nothing happening.”

  “Well, you lollygagged, so we missed batting practice. So you don’t get any souvenirs.”

  Alana asked, “What? No foul balls? I hear that baseball generates lots of those.”

  “Assuming you’re not just making a trite joke about players adjusting their jock straps, we’re unlikely to get one here. To get one in the upper deck, you need to be down in the far corners. It’s the physics of the way the ball comes off the bat.”

  “There you go again, assuming that I’m interested.”

  Rhys finally displayed a modicum of frustration, “Well, I apologize for asking you to come to something you hate. I really didn’t know.”

  Declining to surrender her real reason for attending easily, Alana said, “I must have agreed before that battle suit bashed me around. Some people believe they die and go to heaven or hell. I died and went to a baseball game, and the umpires are still out as to which way the elevator was going. What’s so special about this game anyway?”

  “It’s the Twenty-Fifth Cyborg-Human All-Star Game.”

  Unimpressed by the title, Alana asked, “And that means what to whom...?”

  “Once a year, when the leagues are taking a week off, the Cyber League and Human League send their best players out for an exhibition game. It lets fans of both levels of play get to see the stars.”

  “Humans versus cyborgs? Sounds lopsided to me.”

  Rhys said, “It’s not as lopsided as you’d think. It’s true that the Cyber League only lost the game once, and that was last year. But they’ve had a lot of good games that came down to the last out. A couple went extra innings. But winning’s not the point. It’s a celebration of the game and how it’s changed over the centuries.”

  “So, it’s basically fan service, then?”

  “I don’t think that term means what you think—”

  Alana said, “Oh, yes it does, in every sense. How is, ‘giving the fans exactly what they want,’ not fan service.”

  Rhys surrendered, “I’m not going to quibble. The point is that ever since cyborgs started playing, it changed the entire major league structure. Baseball had to reorganize to remain viable, and that meant dividing the game into two tiers.”

  Alana nodded, “As in, Cyber League and Human League instead of Major Leagues?”

  “Exactly. When the first cyborg players came into the game, they unbalanced things too much. It was worse than the old performance drug scandals that started a hundred years ago. But it wasn’t as if the players who had cybernetic parts did it on purpose. The first cyborg player, Tomas Menendez, had to struggle against discrimination to play. It wasn’t as bad as what Jackie Robinson dealt with last century, but the animosity was thick at times.”

  Alana nodded, “I know the feeling.”

  Rhys gave more exposition without being prompted, “At first, the league adopted a policy that restricted the number of cyborgs on the field to one per team, the “designated retiree,” to keep things in balance. Then they expanded that rule to allow teams to field equal numbers of cyborgs. But that caused a backlash from the player’s union.”

  “Let me guess. Reverse discrimination?”

  Rhys was now in his zone, “Yes. Eventually, non-cyborgs were being edged out. That was when the commissioner decided to split baseball into the Cyber League, the Human League, and the Minor Leagues. The minors still have mixed teams under the equal-distribution rule, but once they go to the show, they go onto dedicated teams.”

  “Which only play other teams from the same league?”

  “Correct! Which leads us here to the All Star Game, the one game where both leagues come together on near-equal terms.”

  Alana asked, “How are they on near-equal terms if one side is totally robotic?”

  Rhys said, “Full-cyborgs don’t get tired, and they rarely get injured—well, damaged—so the best players can go all night at the same level of play. Sure, they can run a little faster, jump a little higher, and swing the bat a little harder, but their endurance is their main advantage. On the other hand, humans are better at making micro-corrections to their motor control than cyborgs. It really shows in the pitching. Cyborgs throw a mean fastball, and can hit a hundred and sixty klicks per hour. They’re also good at changing speeds. But they totally suck at throwing junk pitches like curves and sliders. You’ll get to see it tonight. The starting pitcher for the Human League is Phil Robertson. He’s the only active major leaguer who still throws a knuckleball, and cyborgs have one hell of a time hitting it.”

  “Why?”

  “It’s totally unpredictable. Not even the pitcher knows where it’s going once he lets it go.”

  Alana was confused, “Why is that a problem for cyborgs. I can lock my targeting reticule onto a target drone and hit it four out of five times. It’s about the size of a basketball, but the target aspect is about the same size as a baseball at range.”

  “Ah! That’s where the rules of the game come into play. If every swing were a homerun, the game would be boring. So cyborgs don’t get to use any enhancements like radar or targeting systems. At the start of every game, the league runs diagnostic tests to make sure that the fancy electronics are turned off. They have to rely on their skill, which still matters. It’s part of their human memory, so it gets saved, just like our law enforcement experience did. So, effectively, even though the Cyber League is considered to be the real, ‘big league,’ it could not even exist if it wasn’t for the Human League and the Minor League below it developing new players.”

  Alana spotted a flaw in the system, “But if cyborgs can be perpetually resurrected, won’t there eventually be too many players for too few teams?”

  Rhys nodded, “There’s been a lot of discussion about that in the sports media. The player’s union is very concerned that it will drive down salaries even further than it already has. They're worried that eventually, the Major League will be replaced entirely, and there’ll only be the Cyber League. But, it’s really no different from the labor problems with any other industry that employs cyborgs. Eventually, there will be too many people for too few jobs. In a bizarre way, that means that there’ll always be job security for policemen, even if we have to take a pay cut. It’s probably a good thing that you already own your house.”

  Alana was compelled to concede that Rhys had piqued her curiosity. She still did not care at all about the game, but the history reminded her of her struggles to advance as a cybernetic detective in a predominantly human police force, “Interesting.”

  “So, do you still think poorly of the game?”

  “I still hate spectator sports. But this game does seem to have one redeeming characteristic,” Alana waved to a passing vendor robot, “They have hotdogs.”

  The robot, which was styled to resemble an old-timey human hot dog vendor from at least a century earlier, complete with a painted-on blue-and-white striped apron, cried out in a passionless, synthesized voice, “Red hots. Get your red hots.”

  Alana called to the vendor, “I’ll take two, all the way.”

  Rhys was surprised, “They gave you a food unit?”

  Alana smirked, “I’m special.”

  “
The Chief must think the sun shines out your ass.”

  “If so, he hasn’t been around when I purge my waste tank. That isn’t sunlight. We should demand that you get one the next time I get you killed.”

  Rhys did not appear amused by that remark.

  Alana asked, “Too soon?”

  “It really is true what they say about resurrection, isn’t it?”

  The vendor robot handed two loaded hot dogs to Rhys, who offered them to Alana. She took the first one in hand and took a quarter of it in the first bite. She asked, mumbling with her mouth full, “Mmm, so...what do they say about it, and how would they know?”

  Rhys said, “They say that you never know with certainty that the personality will be exactly the same the next time. I’m still trying to decide whether that supports the notion of a soul or not.”

  Alana asked, “How do you think I’m different this time than I was before I was last resurrected?”

  “How to put this delicately... You’re more... Sociopathic.”

  Had Alana not been close to Rhys for many years, she might have taken that remark as an insult. In this particular instance, she saw it as an opportunity to reflect on her last case, “Your definition of ‘delicately’ seems to be in the same ball park as my definition of ‘fan service.’”

  Rhys shook his head, “It’s just a psychological term. It’s not intended to be an insult. I just mean that you seem to be less restrained in your use of speech.”

  Alana said, “When I read through the Aaron Stone case briefs, I came across a transcript from when his son, Gabriel, was interviewed. According to his testimony, Aaron said that I was a soulless homunculus just before he went on his terrorist spree. Aaron drew an extreme conclusion regarding cyborgs, erring on the side of theological dogma and assuming that we were devoid of humanity altogether—that we were actually an abomination to be expunged. So, in an odd way, other people’s resurrections changed his personality. It drove him to commit genocide against cyborgs. I still don’t know why he let me live after he captured me. He did a number of things that were ostensibly contradictory.”