Retiree, page 7
Alana then conducted a detailed search of her office, looking for anything that might help her understand what had happened to her, but she could find nothing. That left only two realistic options for her. Either someone else had cleaned up the traces, or she had done so herself. Based on the data purge she performed at her home, she grudgingly admitted that whatever happened, she must have been at least partially behind it. It was bad enough that she did not feel she could completely trust Brett, but now was adding herself to her list of possible suspects.
That must have been why Brett said that he did not have Alana’s full confidence when Bennett was debriefing her on her first day back from oblivion. According to her reconstructed timeline, Rhys died under suspicion of being a terrorist, and then Brett was assigned to her. Someone could have suspected that she was involved and assigned him to monitor her. But then, what was the issue with the robotic motorcycle ninja who had been shadowing her? Indeed, why did Brett fail to identify the robot at the scene? Was it a mere oversight, or was it deliberate? Alana decided to open Brett’s locker and see what she could learn about her new assistant. A police dress uniform hung inside, still in a dry-cleaning bag. On the top shelf was a very old book of the hardcover, printed variety. Curious, she read the title off the spine. To Kill a Mockingbird, by Harper Lee. Based on her very limited time with Brett, she had expected to find something by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. “Vira, the next time I meet Detective Crabtree, remind me to ask him about his taste in literature.”
Alana again sat at her desk and activated the computer interface, which she used to navigate the police database. She was looking for information regarding her incident from earlier in the day. She found the report filed electronically by the police robots that arrived on the scene, but there wasn’t anything useful in it. The summary merely stated that there was a collision between a pedestrian, Alana, and an unidentified motorist. There was nothing specific about the robot, its motorcycle, or the emergency vehicle that cleared them from the scene. There was a separate record of Alana discharging her pistol, which had automatically been placed in the administrative review queue. She would doubtless hear about it from Bennett soon, and would have to justify the shot.
“Damn, Alana,” she cursed. At the time, it did not occur to her to make a video recording of the incident. She would have to go on her own memory if she wanted to know any details, and she could not recall anything that would help her identify her pursuer, other than its being resistant to a low-powered stun attack. Based on that, it must have been a police or military robot of some kind. She quickly searched the database for any records of police robots being disabled earlier in the day, and although there were two positive results, both were clearly from different incidents in different parts of the sprawling metropolis.
The other thing she concluded was that the robot had been following her, and when it appeared at Brett’s, it had probably not been from a close-range tailing operation. It most likely homed in on her somehow, and that could be a problem given that she didn’t yet know why she was being shadowed.
“Vira, call Chief Bennett’s personal phone.”
“Dialing.”
About thirty seconds later, Alana could hear her boss answer, groggily, “Hello?”
“Chief, this is DCI Graves—”
Bennett sighed, “What is it?”
“Chief, I have a favor to ask.”
“Can it wait until Monday?”
“It might be important. I’ve been followed around for a couple of days by an unmarked robot that’s got heavy duty shielding, and I think it might have been using my transponder to track me. I want permission to have my tracker temporarily deactivated.”
There was no hesitation in Bennett’s reply, “Denied. Anything else?”
“Chief?”
“The last time you went off the grid, without permission I may add, you didn’t turn up again until the morning you got killed.”
“What if the same people who killed me two weeks ago are getting ready to do it again?”
Alana could hear Bennett huff over his comm, “Ask me again on Monday. I’ll think about it in the meantime. But for now, the answer is a big, fat, honking ‘No.’ Just be extra careful for a day-and-a-half. Now, good night.”
The chief cut off the call from his end.
Alana checked the time, and it was just after nine-o’clock at night. Was the Chief really so old that he was going to bed that early?
Alana was not tired and definitely not inclined to retire yet. She pondered the situation for a while, and decided to interrogate some of her coworkers for more information. Remembering that Wen Jing was on the night shift, she headed to the cyberforensics department. Wen Jing was on duty alone in the lab, apparently taking inventory or some similar, mundane task that was ideal for a slow Saturday night.
Being intently focused on her computer screen, Wen Jing did not notice Alana entering the room, When Alana tapped her shoulder, she jumped, “Oh! Hello, Inspector. I figured you’d be out with Brett at his birthday dinner. What can I do for you?”
“Wendy, I have a couple of technical questions for you. Is this a good time?”
Wen Jing smiled enthusiastically, “Sure! What is it?”
“To your knowledge, in the last two months, have I or anyone else in the department said anything about having a police transponder deactivated?”
Wen Jing bit her lip as she thought about it, “No. Brett did say something about how you went missing and that your transponder wasn’t working. Is that what you wanted to know about?”
Alana ignored Wen Jing’s question, “What do you have to do to deactivate a transponder?”
“Well, first, I have to get a signed order from a superior officer—”
“I mean how do you actually do it? Is it something you can do remotely?”
“Oh, definitely not. I would have to plug in a hard wire and do it through your firmware. I’d need to get your security code from the manufacturer as well. There’s a final fail-safe too. Your Vira would ask you to confirm a change like that, so if you were unconscious, or asleep, it couldn’t be done.”
“Is this something that could be done outside of a shop if someone else had my code and I was otherwise willing?”
“No—well, probably not. Your security code changes randomly about once an hour. Someone would need to have a fresh code directly from Zumpco, and to get a code, you need a security clearance.”
“Do you have that level of clearance?”
Wen Jing nodded, “Yes.”
“How many people in the station could do it?”
Wen Jing answered, “Five in my department are qualified. Of course, anyone with access to the equipment and with a valid code could do it with rudimentary training. Do you think someone in my department—”
“No, I didn’t mean to imply anything. I was just being thorough.”
“Well, if someone did use the equipment for that, there would be a log file. I can check if you’re worried about it. Only takes a couple minutes.”
Alana did not expect to get any useful information from the exercise, but she nodded anyway. She saw this as an opportunity to learn more about this girl and to evaluate her character. She or one of her coworkers could ultimately decide Rhys’ fate, and she wanted to know that they were competent as well as dedicated enough to help exonerate him.
Wen Jing went over to a primary terminal screen on the wall and made a verbal inquiry with the computer system about the logs she had mentioned, but there were no incidents that could have been attributed to her earlier transponder failure. “I’m sorry, Inspector. That wasn’t much help, was it?”
“On the contrary, Wendy. You just told me that whatever happened to my transponder, it didn’t involve official police resources. That’s one more fact than I had before you showed me this. It also shows me that you’re thorough, and that I can trust you to go the extra kilometer.”
Wen Jing blushed, “Thank you, Inspector.”
Alana pondered the information briefly, long enough to prompt Wen Jing to ask, “Did I answer your questions?”
“So far, but there are two other things I want to mention. First, Brett told me that you’d help him review the evidence against Detective Rhys.”
Wen Jing smiled, “Yes, Ma’am, I did, but we already went over it very closely. I doubt I’ll find anything new, but I’m willing to try.”
“There has to be something wrong with that video. We just haven’t spotted it yet.”
“What was the other thing, Ma’am?”
“What is an SDT? In relation to cyborg parts.”
Wen Jing pressed her index finger against the point of her chin and looked down in such a way that her eyes appeared to cross. “I don’t know, Ma’am. I can do some research into it though if you want.”
“Yes, that would be good. Let me know if you find anything not related to tomatoes,” Alana said, turning toward the exit. She paused halfway through the door, almost forgetting her manners, and said, “Thanks, Wendy.”
“Tell Brett I said hello,” Wen Jing waved as Alana slid the door shut behind her.
Chapter 9
Alana awoke to the sound of her Vira alarm pinging in her ears. Whatever dream-drama had been playing out in her subconscious was lost instantaneously.
She quickly sat up in bed. The fitted sheet was the only clothing that separated her bare, faux skin from the mattress, which was only two inches thick so as not to interfere with her charger. But it was no matter, as she could have slept standing up and not known the difference. Recharging her batteries was the only reason she needed the bed; that and the psychological connection to her lost humanity.
Alana sat still for a while, thinking that if she were still alive, she would be yawning and hitting the snooze button on an alarm clock instead of relying on the virtual assistant in her half-mechanical, half-biological head. But then she would have to rush off to the toilet and be bothered with a host of mundane duties ranging from trimming her fingernails to brushing her teeth to plucking her eyebrows and applying cosmetics.
Despite its many shortcomings, cybernetic existence was much simpler than trying to maintain a biological body, especially after age thirty. Alana never woke up with pain in her neck, hips, or back from sleeping at an awkward angle. She only had to change the sheets about once a month, presuming she remembered to occasionally shower off the dust and seasonal pollen.
As she sat, Alana also thought that she never yawned anymore, and despite medical evidence that suggested yawning was not a particularly healthy activity, she wished she could do it one more time, just to remember the sensation of the inevitable deep breath and involuntary stretching that accompanied the autonomic spasm.
She was also beginning to think that she should not have eaten that apple on the day she was last resurrected.
Alana eventually rose, showered, and donned one of her casual work outfits before opening her office window to let in the morning sunlight. As the rays of light streamed into the house, she saw the same young girl who was playing along the street the previous evening casually strolling up and down the sidewalk, alternately skipping and stopping to kick at the gaps in the concrete with the toes of her dress shoes. The girl was wearing a yellow sundress, and was better groomed than she had been the last time Alana had seen her. Of course, Alana thought. It’s Sunday morning. Her parents must be going to church. The twenty-second century was less than a decade away, humanity had finally unlocked practical fusion power, returned to the moon, planted a research colony inside the Martian moon Phobos, reversed anthropomorphic climate change, and invented a way to guarantee the possibility of perpetual conscious existence, yet still they clung to their ancient superstitions.
It then occurred to Alana that the girl might know something helpful. Pausing only long enough to put on a pair of shoes, Alana dashed out the front door and hurried toward the girl, “Excuse me! Little girl!”
At first, the young lady was startled, but she quickly regained her composure, “Are you talking to me?”
“Yes I am! Can I ask you a question?”
The girl looked around, confused, “Sure. I guess.”
“Were you living here about two or three weeks ago?”
Alana’s interrogative style wasn’t registering with the girl as friendly. She took a step back, as if expecting to be accused of something, “Uh, yes.”
Her years as a military lawyer and decades as a police officer had trained her to intimidate hostile witnesses and suspects, not the chat with the neighbors’ kids. Alana noticed that she was overbearing the child, and she tried to soften her tone. She assured the girl, “Nothing’s wrong—what’s your name?”
The girl was at first reluctant, “My daddy told me not to talk to strangers, and not to tell them my name because they might steal my identity.”
Alana realized that she left her police ID inside the house, but tried to play up the role of public servant to the child, “It’s all right, I’m a police officer. I just wanted to ask you a couple questions about my house—”
“My daddy said that you were a robot.”
Alana stopped as she thought of ways to reply in a way that a young girl would understand without having to go into a long and tedious lesson. The only way around it was through it, “No, honey, I’m not a robot. I’m what’s called a cyborg. I’m a real person with a mechanical body.”
“Can you jump real far?”
“Uh—”
The girl dropped her previous caution, clapping her hands together and saying, giddily, “Show me!”
Alana fought back the urge to reply that she could toss the girl farther than she could jump, but forced a big smile and settled for, “I’m sorry, honey, but I’m too busy this morning to show you any tricks. I just need to know if you or any of your friends saw anybody you haven’t seen before come in or out of my house about two or three weeks ago. Or if there were any new cars you hadn’t seen before.”
Alana’s faux-friendly expression prompted the girl to place her hand over her mouth as she giggled.
“My name is Alana, and I’m a police detective. I live right here. What’s your name?”
“Rebecca. But everybody just calls me Becky.”
“Okay, Becky. Like I asked, do you remember seeing any strange people or cars coming or going from here about two or three weeks ago?”
“Well, I’ve seen you a few times. You’re strange.”
Out of the mouths of babes. “How about other people?”
“There’s that man who used to come by, but I haven’t seen him for a couple of weeks.”
“How old was he? Did he look like he was about my age?”
“I don’t know.”
“What kind of car did he drive?”
Becky pointed to Alana’s police car and said, “That one!”
She was talking about either Rhys or Crabtree.
“Did any other cars come here that you remember?
The girl pointed both of her toes inward while looking down at the ground. She put the tip of her index finger in her mouth and bit down on it lightly, but still firmly enough to create the need for braces in her near future.
Alana prodded, “Take your time. Do you remember seeing any other cars—”
Becky’s face lit up. Clearly, she remembered something, “Ooh! Yes! I remember something.”
“Tell me about—”
“But you’ve got to show me something fun first. Like jump a long way or break a tree in half or something.”
Alana lost her smile, wondering if breaking a little brat in half would suffice. She wasn’t about to perform circus tricks for—but then she had an idea. “Okay, Becky, watch this.”
Alana extended her right hand, rolled up her sleeve, and trying not to make a spectacle for the entire block, fired off a charge from her stun device. When Becky saw the arc of electricity jump between Alana’s thumb and forefinger, she first recoiled in surprise, but then smiled and clapped, “Ooh! That’s scary!”
This was certainly the strangest interrogation Alana had ever conducted, “Now tell me what you saw.”
Becky said, “I saw a truck. I saw a big, black truck.”
Alana smiled genuinely for a change, “Good, Becky. Very good. Now, did the truck have any writing or pictures on it?”
Becky slowly shook her head.
“Okay, did you see anyone get in or out of it?”
Becky suddenly remembered a detail, “The old man!”
“Tell me about the old man. What did he look like?”
“He looked old.”
“How old?”
“Like my granddaddy. Kind of.”
“What does your granddaddy look like?”
“Wrinkly. He’s got gray hair, but not much.”
She could have been describing any one of at least half-a billion men. Alana decided to change her tack, “What did the old man in the black truck do?”
“He went in your house.”
“Did you see him come out?”
“No. My mommy called me back inside for breakfast.”
“So, it was early in the morning?”
Becky nodded.
“Do you remember what day it was? Was it a Sunday like today, or—”
“No. It was in the week. I was off school for spring.”
“Do you remember if it was on a Thursday morning?”
Becky shook her head, “I don’t remember.”
Alana bid Becky to stay put for a couple minutes while she ran back inside and returned with one of her business cards. After extracting that little bit of information from Becky, Alana felt that she needed to have ‘orthodontist’ added to the card when time permitted, but she got something for her troubles.
She told Becky to have her parents call Alana if they knew anything more about the old man in the black truck, or if Becky remembered anything else. Two doors down, a young couple dressed in their Sunday best exited their home and waved to Becky, who excused herself and skipped down the street to meet them.
