The Unsung Frame, page 19
part #2 of The Synth Crisis Series
After his grogginess passed, he opened the door and stepped out of the car and stretched. That was when his ICLs placed a red outline of recognition on an early morning jogger passing by. Dammit, he thought as he recognized Michael Lawrence. He grabbed his duster, slammed the door, and began his own jog to follow.
It was 7:05 a.m., but the sky was still dark, keeping the street lights on. There was a bit of rumbling, and Dhata glanced up, smelling the rain before it began to fall. Always rain, he thought as he picked up the pace, swigging the water as he jogged. Lawrence was ahead of him, at about 70 yards, and with the hills of Atlanta, he wouldn’t see him following.
Dhata was in shape so he was able to keep pace, even though his stomach grumbled from being hungry. There were a few people on the sidewalk, rushing to get out of the rain, but a few took their soaking as they strolled along. Runners loved the rain, especially when the water was cool, but Dhata was wearing too much clothing. It began to make him heavy, but he was out of options. This was his one chance to get the answers he was seeking.
After fifteen minutes of pavement running, Michael slipped onto a pathway leading off into the trees. Dhata followed, focused on the chase, so much so that he missed the sign that read “Parkyn’s Trail.” The muddy path was the color of coffee, flavored with too much cream, and with no drainage it began to flood, damaging his expensive shoes.
They were about thirty minutes in when he got too close and Michael glanced behind and saw him. After several more glances, he picked up the pace, seemingly frightened for his life. But Dhata had spent his years chasing down hools, so he fought past the heaviness and picked up speed.
The trail curved ahead of them, but to the right Dhata saw a drinking station. He reached inside of his pocket, pulled out the tube, then aimed and shot Michael in the leg. The shock hit his left leg, shutting down his motor functions, and he fell face first into the mud.
Dhata placed the tube back inside of his duster, and walked up to Michael and stood over him. “Michael Lawrence?” he asked, and the man stared at him with widened eyes. “My name is Dhata, and I’m a skiptracer. I have a few questions to ask you. Answer them honestly and I will be out of your life. Feed me bullshit and trust me, you will regret it.”
He reached down, pulled him up, and threw him over his shoulder. “Come on, Michael, let’s get you up. I see some dry cover over there.”
The drinking station had a bathroom and several fountains, along with lockers for personal affects. Dhata sat Michael down, then sat in front of him, brandishing the shiny, black electroshock tube. “So, Michael Lawrence,” he said, “Let’s start with an easy question. Have you seen the news on the suicide bombing in Tampa Bay?”
Michael nodded affirmatively, then shivered against the cold. He was already able to move his limbs.
“Good,” Dhata said. “So here’s a tougher one. Do you recognize the synth who did it?”
“H-how did you find me?” he said. He looked as if he was going to be sick.
“Come, let’s walk,” Dhata said. “It’s better for you after a shock.”
He helped him up and they started again down the trail, this time heading back the way they had come.
“I know the man, yes. It’s my worst nightmare. Whenever one of our units does harm to a human being, we are the first to hear about it. I don’t have to tell you the amount of scrutiny we receive from right-wing organizations worried about something like this. Jordan was one of our synths; I helped develop the program that trained him. Sir, trust me when I tell you that we aren’t responsible for what he did.”
“You keep saying ‘we.’ Is that for Akiyama Koch, or is that for you and Conrad Hurt?” Dhata said.
“Akiyama Koch Robotics, sir. I worked there for over twenty years. Hard to not refer to my work as we, considering the amount of collaboration it took. I’m telling you the truth; we aren’t responsible for Jordan—just like a vehicle manufacturer isn’t responsible for a drunk crashing into someone’s building.”
“But you are, Michael. You all developed his brain, the same brain as Tyler Fort, another synth who set out to kill humans.”
Michael stopped in his tracks and looked at Dhata defiantly. His handsome features twisted into something like a painful mask. “Is that why you shot me? You think that I create synths to harm human beings? We only have so much control of the brain once they’re past the initial phase,” he said.
“What do you mean?”
“I mean that the synths are as much alive as you and me. We don’t build them from scratch; all we build is the vessel. Just like you can flip out and shoot innocent runners, a synth can flip out and do something evil. It is why there was so much pushback to them living freely.”
Dhata wasn’t convinced, and he slowed their pace down since Michael was practically jogging. “You’re a brilliant man, Michael Lawrence. Top of your class. One of the brightest—”
“I know what you’re doing, detective, but it’s unnecessary. Plus, you have to have my kind of credentials to work at Akiyama Koch. I’m nothing special, and neither was the vice president. I know that you’ve done your research into me, my classmates, and my career, but I implore you, sir, to listen to reason. We neither had the ability or the say-so to sabotage Jordan and Tyler’s brains.”
Dhata thought about what he was saying and wondered if it was true. If it was then this entire adventure had been a tremendous waste of time. “Here’s my theory,” he said, as he turned to face Michael. “You were coerced by your mentor, Conrad Hurt, to insert a program into the one that was installed inside their brains.”
Michael Lawrence shook his head. “I didn’t have anything to do with this,” he whispered. “C-Conrad is my frat brother, but that’s it. What I did at AKR was my life’s work, and killing innocents wasn’t a part of that. The synths are powered by a universal database—”
“Arch Brain,” Dhata interjected. “Yes, that is the mother, so to speak, but they still need humans to develop the actual brain.”
“That they do, but the coding is complex. It is beyond any of our abilities to do things to corrupt them. If Tyler and Jordan were made to kill, it was after they left AKR.”
They got to the street and Dhata fell behind Michael, urging him to keep walking and not to look back. “Believe it or not, I believe you, Michael,” he said. “But you’re still hiding something, and I intend to find it. What is your relationship with Conrad Hurt, and was he involved with Jordan’s development?”
“He’s a good friend from the old days, though we haven’t spoken in a while. Conrad was the first to see that synth development could be our undoing as human beings. He gave up on being an engineer to pursue politics. He’d joke that whatever we did, he’d make sure that the government kept humanity safe. I thought that he was a sellout, till I saw the news about Jordan Crane. That’s when I realized that he was right.”
“About synths being our undoing?”
“Yeah, in a sense. Not saying that all synths are bad, Christ no, but look at what Jordan did. What if twenty synths did that?” he said.
“What if twenty human beings decided to start blowing up shuttle ports?” Dhata countered. “You sound like the sort of nut that programs synths to do harm. You know why? Because synths doing bad would actually help your cause. You can push an anti-synth agenda if the world was afraid of them. What’s the loss of several human lives when it could mean that synths could be restrained?”
Michael Lawrence pulled up short, then turned around to face him. “My wife’s a synth, skiptracer. What sort of lunatic do you take me for?”
“Not too long ago you would have racists marry women of the group they hated. Human beings are complicated. We can live out a lie, just as long as we convince ourselves that the one we love is different.”
They crossed the street and entered the gate leading to Michael’s community. “I know where you live, Michael,” Dhata said, “and I know where to find you if I find out that you’ve been lying to me. Is there anything else that you would like to tell me, to make sure that I don’t return?”
Michael wiped the water off of his face. “Is there a reason why you thought that I was the one responsible?” he said.
“You were senior developer, the man with the codes. If anyone was to plant a sleeper device, it would definitely be you,” Dhata said.
“A sleeper device … so some sort of program that can be triggered later on. You mentioned Tyler Fort as well, so tell me, did his ‘program’ go off at the same time as Jordan’s? What about Billy Prince, Vernon Ali, or Rebecca Lu? Did any of them get triggered, or are you thinking they’re rigged for different times? Your whole accusation is flawed, skiptracer, if you think about it, since there were several soldiers in Jordan’s troop. The last time I checked the rest of our synths are upstanding citizens living out their lives.”
“Well, I’m not as smart as you, Michael. Where do you think I should be looking?”
“We built them, sir, and then they were sent to the US Military. None of them did anything out of the ordinary before and during their service. All of these awful crimes happened after they left the war. We are not to blame. Something happened to these men.”
“Now that you mention it,” Dhata said, “both men were going to a regularly scheduled meeting. Any clue about that? Do you know about these secret gatherings?”
Michael opened his mouth, but then the front door opened to a synth woman in a jogging suit. “You’re back early,” she said. “Why are you covered in dirt, and what does this police officer want?”
Dhata reached into his pocket and showed her The Unsung badge. “I’m not a John, Mrs. Lawrence, but I need you to know that I’m a friend,” he said.
The slender brown woman stared at the badge, and then her eyes went to Michael’s with a sudden panic. “Is Mikey in trouble?” she asked Dhata.
“He’s been very helpful considering the circumstances,” Dhata said.
“Come inside,” she said. “We’ll get you both some dry clothes, then Mikey and I will tell you everything we know.”
‡Chapter 22‡
Breaking and Entering
In talking to Michael Lawrence and his wife, Dhata learned about, Legion, a not-for-profit organization that helped synth soldiers transition into civilian life. Michael knew the address of one of their meeting places. It was in Tampa, but out in the badlands of Riverview.
The drive back to Tampa was a little longer than he remembered it since he didn’t have the distractions that his own car provided. What he got was a long stretch of boring road, and the only entertainment—besides his music—was the bombed out devastation of the old road, and the newer cars that zoomed past him.
He pulled into the Tampa car rental business a little past 10:00 a.m., and called Lur to ask for the Buick, and to let her know that he had returned with good news. While he sat and waited for the Buick, he tried calling Ariana but she wasn’t answering her phone. He felt a wave of anxiety come over him, and he knew that something was wrong. What could he do? If Cole’s hools caught up with her, he would never find her body.
He tried several more times while he waited until the Buick arrived. Cursing his luck, he drove to the police station, but thought better of it when he got to the parking lot. They would never divulge Ariana’s physical address, and Cole would have people on the lookout.
Getting on the rack inside of the Buick, he scrolled through the calls made in the last few days. When he found her name, he synced CINI’s mapping system, an illegal hack he had installed back when he was a detective. Two of the three calls had come from the station, but the third showed a house in Brandon.
Dhata locked in the location and took to the highway, driving as fast as he could. As he got closer he put the car into auto-drive, pulled out his tube, and examined it. He doubted that a stun shot would be enough, so he opened the dash and placed it inside. He pulled out the case from below his seat, unlocked it with a touch, and took out the revolver.
He barely knew Ariana—they had only just met—but she was a student of Jason. When he’d lost his friend, he felt alone in the world, and it was a void that even Lur couldn’t fill. Ariana was an extension of his friend, and if he lost her now he would be devastated.
He could hear Lur’s heavy accent in his head. “Why don’t we just kill him, baby?” At the time he thought that it was funny, but now he wondered if it would actually come down to that. He pulled up to the side of Ariana’s house, inhaled to calm his nerves, and looked around. The neighborhood was a ghost town, and it was only 4:55 p.m. Even if it was just coincidence that it was this dead, he knew that something was up.
Keeping the revolver low, next to his leg, he hugged the wall and crept to the side of the house. There were a couple of windows so he slid close to one and took a look inside. The shutters were open but all he could see was a queen-sized bed with clothes scattered about. Dhata crept to the back and almost tripped over a dead man with a hole in his chest the size of a baseball.
Shotgun blast, close range, he thought. Clothes and bad hygiene hints at hool. This one was caught off guard. I’m guessing he was waiting … which tells me that his buddies made off with Ariana, or they went inside and got killed.
The back door had a similar hole, so he crept to the side and knocked on it. “Ariana,” he called, then listened for any movement, but there was only silence. He called her name again, then closed his eyes to focus on listening intently. He heard a light knocking coming from inside, so he opened the door and entered.
As the door slid open, Dhata’s old training kicked in and he went from room to room looking for bad guys. There were two more hool corpses, dead from shotgun wounds, but still no sign of Ariana. From the photographs and the SAR paintings, he knew that it was definitely her house. He double backed through the rooms, then checked outside.
Dhata tried to visualize what had happened, so he followed the evidence from the perspective of a hool. So, a shootout happened earlier, but there are no Johns, and the neighbors heard enough to retreat to their homes. Emergency dispatch would have been called, but since these are friends of Cole, he would have asked the Johns to take their time, he thought.
He looked over one body. “She shot you in the back,” he said, then went to the next, who sat slumped against the wall. “You came in after her, but she hit you first. Blasted you against the wall, then she went around the island and killed your man,” he said. “I knew you had a lot of heart, Ariana, but this is impressive if you made it out alive.”
Dhata walked over to the backdoor. “After hitting those two, she ran to secure the backdoor, and that’s when this fool was coming in. Didn’t see her coming but she knew he was there … gave him the business through the door. Good job, Arianna.”
The recreation in his mind more than impressed him; Ariana had put up one hell of a fight. But where had she gone? Her car was still in the driveway, and there was no evidence showing that she’d left the house. He spun around suddenly, hearing the knocking again, and he walked back to the kitchen where he thought he heard the sound.
The place was immaculate, but he used his ICLs and noticed that the pantry had some blood near the panel. Walking over to it, he forced it open, only to run into another door. This one was solid steel, with a locked panel that was malfunctioning. “A panic room,” he whispered. “You shot those three, then ran back here to hide from the rest.”
This panel has been shorted out, possibly by another hool, who opted to lock her inside forever instead of facing her shotgun. This is messed up, he thought, wondering how he’d get it open. He walked back to the front where he could see the road running through the neighborhood.
There was a very good chance that more men would be back, at least to make sure that she was sealed inside forever. He found her rack inside of an office and logged in as a guest, then pulled up the global network to search for tips on overriding a shorted panel.
Nothing made sense for the sort of installation that she had, and the only thing he saw that he could attempt was to take a torch to the door. He went to her garage and looked around for a torch. Ariana had no tools, but she had a fireman’s axe. While the door itself was solid steel, it was built inside of her pantry, so Dhata shouted for her to move back and began to chop out sections of the wall.
It was hard work, but after fifteen minutes, he finally punched his way through. Ariana was inside, but she was bleeding badly, and looked as if she was about to pass out. Dhata cut out enough wall to pull her out, then carried her to the Buick where he laid her down. She had been shot several times and was in shock, but she was still alive and he needed to keep her that way.
Without saying anything, Dhata touched the map and pulled up the closest medical pod. There was one a mile away, on a corner near the highway, so he drove her there, placed her inside, and stood on guard beside it.
After thirty minutes, several squad cars flew by, and he wondered if they were legitimate or more of Cole’s hools. As long as they didn’t stop, he did not care, so he stood his ground and waited patiently for her. After an hour had passed the pod opened up with the readouts indicating that Ariana couldn’t be helped. She was too far gone. She needed a real hospital, and would need cybernetic implants to walk again.
Dhata placed her in the passenger’s seat and started to drive, unsure on what he should do next. “Hold on, kid,” he said, affectionately, and touched her on her arm. She took his hand and squeezed it tightly, which he took as a gesture of thanks. “I’m checking you into the hospital, then I’m going to find Cole, and make sure that he ends up in a cell—”
“Or in a grave,” she whispered.
He drove her out of town, to a small hospital in the Lakeland area. There he made sure that she was admitted, then drove back into town. “Okay, Cole, time to fish you out,” he said, then went to his contacts and called up Aaron. In so many words he told the synth boss that Cole was somewhere operating at large.
