Neural Wraith, page 18
They ate in near silence for a few minutes. A waiter brought out a pot of green tea for them, and poured two cups, then left the pot. Patrons came and went. Only the tapping of their utensils against the dishes greeted their ears.
“I said we’re the same. That holds true,” Hammond said abruptly, a dumpling in his grasp. “The difference is how we reached that point, and where we’re going. You never had a future in this city. I thought I had one, only to see it burn down in the riots decades ago. Both of us then built our own future, but the replacements are hollow, cold shells of what dreams are supposed to be.”
Nick blinked. Hammond was surprisingly eloquent. “Your future burned down?” he asked.
The older detective nodded. Some soy sauce dripped down his beard. Nick pointed this out, and Hammond wiped it away with a napkin.
“I don’t really need to explain the riots,” Hammond said.
“I did notice that they’re not in the police records.”
“They are. Look up the Great Neo Westphalian Unrest.”
Nick nearly snorted, which would have covered the table with half-chewed chunks of shrimp balls. “Unrest? The riots burned for months, caused the deaths of tens of thousands, burned down entire city blocks, and shook the Spires themselves. I heard they sent in the military, because the police stood down.”
“Eventually.” Hammond’s fists clenched around his chopsticks. “The law runs in my blood. Granddad came over when they first built Babylon, when people dreamed about this place being something other than a neon shithole. My old man followed in his footsteps. He was in the front lines in the riots. I remember them. Hiding in the basement while all hell broke loose outside.”
The look on Hammond’s face was of a man who had a lot more to say on the riots. There was a painful twist to his lips. Nothing about the riots conjured up good memories for him.
“But like I said, I don’t need to explain them,” he said, anticlimactically, and a whole load of tension left his body. “I’m not drunk enough to go down that rabbit hole. But afterward, they brought in the dolls. When the Liberators rolled out, ready to replace my old man, he told me, ‘They’re the future. Make sure you’re part of theirs.’ Words of wisdom. That’s why I’m potentially the last survivor of nearly every police Cipher in the division.”
Nearly every…
“They’re firing that many?” Nick blurted out.
Hammond nodded. “Like I said, the department is on fire. The Liberators replaced patrol officers. The Custodians the special response units. Mark 1s slashed detective numbers and were basically the final nail in the coffin for anyone still issuing fines. These Mark 3s? They’re replacing basically everyone leftover. All they need are the people at the top, giving them direction.”
A funny feeling filled Nick’s body from the bottom-up.
Because in Rie’s mind, she didn’t even want the people at the top. The Mark 1s had apparently been trying to puzzle out why they were given orders from the very start.
“You don’t seem to hold it against me,” Nick said slowly.
Hammond laughed. “Maybe we’ll talk about that one day. Like I said, I haven’t had enough to drink. We are the same, though. Maybe you can show me some fancy Cipher tricks at some point. Everyone else is brushing up on their skills, because they need to job hunt, and I’m feeling like a relic.”
“Maybe you are a relic, old man.”
“Maybe that’s why I’m the one being preserved while they toss the rest in the dump.” Hammond grinned.
With that piece of dark humor, they shifted to lighter topics.
After the food, they rose. Hammond waved off any attempts by Nick to cover part of the check.
“I’m your boss. Let me cover a meal,” he said. “Now let’s find a bar and enjoy some real drinks. A few beers aren’t nearly enough.”
As they left, Nick noticed Chloe and the Mark 3s tailing them. But while the denizens of the Labor Zone steered clear of the dolls, they paid no attention to the detective duo.
The night was young. And Hammond was desperate to prove he was as well, based on how much he knocked back that night.
But it had been far too long since Nick had felt welcome somewhere. He never really forged friendships at Tartarus, due to the way he was forced to work there. As grizzly as Hammond was, he reminded Nick of what he’d lost.
Come morning, Nick was reminded of the other things he’d left behind in the past. Namely, the brutal hangover after a hard night of drinking.
CHAPTER 14
When Nick awoke, it wasn’t to his alarm but to two fuzzy white blobs. The blobs slowly resolved into human faces with long white hair, and they were staring down at him.
“This is my bedroom,” he said after several long seconds of staring back at the identical twin faces above him.
“Detective is capable of speech. Slight slurring detected,” one of them said.
“Do you recognize us?” the other asked.
“Numbers Seven and Eight of the Mark 3s. You’ve been following me everywhere for the past couple of days,” he said.
“No short-term memory impairment detected.” Seven held up a hand in front of his face. “How many fingers am I holding up?”
“Three, plus however many you’re holding up on the hand I can’t see.”
“Cognitive skills remain at expected levels,” Seven said.
“Higher levels of anger detected compared to previous morning encounters,” Eight added.
Nick sighed, gave up on playing this game, and abruptly sat up. The Archangels weaved out of his way, but remained within his personal space. His head throbbed as he shifted upright, and his vision wavered.
Choosing to ignore his unexpected companions, he hopped out of bed. Apparently, he hadn’t undressed fully last night, as he was still in his work clothes. At least he’d taken off the suit jacket before collapsing in bed.
His phone told him there weren’t any meetings on today. In fact, his calendar remained empty. Rie hadn’t felt the need to populate it. Clearly, he needed to find things to do himself. Such as heading out to the warehouse again.
That meant he could avoid a suit for the first time in a while. Or maybe he couldn’t. Nick didn’t know what the dress code for detectives was.
After gulping down a glass of water, he stepped into his bathroom and began unbuttoning his shirt. It was only when he pulled it off and dropped it into the hamper that he realized he had company.
“Excuse me?” he asked the two Archangels who stood in the doorway, staring at his shirtless body,
“You are excused,” Seven said.
“That’s not… Get out of my bathroom.” His headache left him in no mood to deal with this.
Fortunately, they obeyed. Unfortunately, this led to them standing in the hallway and continuing to stare at him. He closed the door and locked it.
Briefly, he wondered if there were cameras in here. The Archangels monitored everything. He’d always wondered why they remained outside during the night, given how overprotective they otherwise were.
If he worried about being spied on by the Archangels, Nick would be paralyzed into inaction for the rest of his life. So he undressed and showered. The hot water was worse than usual, making the shower a cold and awful one.
He threw on a shirt and underwear, but didn’t bother dressing further. He’d need to prepare his work clothes in the main room. It wasn’t like the Archangels hadn’t seen him like this before.
Outside, the two Archangels were poking and prodding at his kitchen appliances. They had made three cups of coffee, for some reason.
“Are you copying Chloe now?” he asked, bemused by their actions.
“Incorrect. We are assessing your health after last night,” they said.
Eight presented him with one of the coffee cups. He peered into it.
“This isn’t full of medicine or something weird, right?” he asked.
“It is coffee,” she said, before drinking from one of the other cups.
They were definitely copying Chloe. Nick wondered if they had names as well.
“My health?” he asked, focusing on more pressing matters as he looked around the room for his ironing board.
Given the small size of his apartment, it couldn’t have gone far. The fact it was missing was strange enough.
“You were heavily intoxicated last night. You still show strong signs of dehydration, there are detectable traces of alcohol in your breath, your movement is inhibited, and your mood is—”
“Rapidly decreasing in quality,” Nick said. “Especially as I have a splitting headache.”
The eyes of both Archangels flashed, and he knew he had said the wrong thing.
“I have a hangover,” he added.
“The Host has assessed your health as in need of improvement and detrimental to your performance,” they said together.
“I’ll be fine once I stop by one of the hole-in-the-wall dispensaries and take some painkillers,” he said.
“If you are in need of pharmaceuticals or medical care, your insurance provider must be contacted. As such, we require you to rest and remain at home until a full assessment has been conducted,” Seven said.
“I will not—”
“Your insurance provider has informed us that they are dispatching a diagnostic nurse to assess your health,” Eight said. Somehow, her tone sounded very smug. “They have asked for you to remain at home until—”
Nick groaned and ignored them. He slurped down his coffee, which tasted exactly the same as always. At least his coffee machine hadn’t betrayed him.
Then he paused and looked around the room. “Did you hide my ironing board in advance?” he asked.
The dolls froze. Nick watched them closely, expecting a flash of the eyes or some other call for help. Instead, both sipped their coffee very deliberately.
“Our initial assessment of your health—”
“During the night, we believed that—”
Nick raised a hand. “Did you ever intend to allow me to leave my room?”
“You can leave at any moment,” they said.
As if to test this theory, Nick wandered over to his door and tried to open it. The biometrically coded lock didn’t budge.
When he turned back, both of them were attempting to prepare breakfast. This was a futile endeavor, as Nick didn’t have enough in his fridge to—
“When did I get bacon and eggs?” he asked. “I don’t think my fridge has had that much fresh food in it since I worked at Neural Spike.”
Even then, he probably needed to reach a little further back. The only time he’d seriously had much fresh food was during his brief fling with one of the other Ciphers at Neural Spike. That had ended pretty poorly, save for helping Nick with some confidence problems—to word things politely.
He shook his head. “Fix the door lock. I won’t leave, but I won’t be treated like a child.”
The Archangels froze. Seven turned and looked at him with a pout.
“You are being uncooperative. This is what we expected,” she said.
He rubbed the bridge of his nose. Had he interacted much with the other Mark 3s at all? Dealing with this wasn’t making his hangover any better.
Nick slumped down on his sofa. Eight started frying some bacon in the meantime, but Seven kept her gaze fixed on him.
“Do you want me to be honest or diplomatic?” he asked.
They both stared at him.
“I’ll assume that means honest,” he said.
“It is unknown whether there is any value in diplomacy from you,” Seven said.
Cute. They thought that he couldn’t hurt their feelings. Hopefully that didn’t blow up in all of their faces.
“Alright. Then the reason I’m being ‘uncooperative’ is that you’re not treating me as anything close to an equal or even a human adult. That’s the fundamental gap between the Host and Rie—even if she does want to lock me down in an office and never let me be in danger, that violates the deal she made with me. And I respect that, and respect her.”
The eyes of both Archangels were openly glowing now. Nick suspected they were actively communicating every word he said to the entire Host.
Grimacing, he pushed on. This morning, they had stepped over a couple of lines, and he needed to push back before they stepped over more.
“While I appreciate and understand the Host’s reasons, I can’t respect them. Not if you force me to agree by threatening to stop me from doing anything, or by changing my locks, or siccing my insurer on me.” He scowled at the last one.
Visits from his insurer were always a nuisance. Some cheap nurse doll would show up, do a terrible job at running diagnostics, and then send results off to be separately validated due to her lack of confidence. He’d be stuck inside for two or three days.
“We are protecting you,” Seven said.
“If you want to protect me, then maybe you can talk to me first,” he said. “If you’re concerned about my health, we can talk about it. If I’m unreasonable after a conversation, then you can change my lock. But not before. You can’t even use the excuse that you read my implant and assessed my future actions.”
Their eyes stopped glowing. Both of them nodded.
But he knew this wasn’t the end of it. There was zero chance that the Host would let this lie.
Neither doll contacted the others, however. Eight finished cooking breakfast and served some surprisingly good bacon and eggs. Both of them ate a much smaller portion than Nick, but tended to eat whatever he ate.
“As you seem to be assigned to me, what are your names?” he asked after finishing.
They tilted their heads.
Seven then said, “I am ARC-M03-NB00007.”
“And I am—” Eight began to say.
Nick rubbed the bridge of his nose. “Not your serial numbers. I mean your names. Chloe has one. Rie has two, even.”
Both of them looked at each other. He wondered if that was a confected gesture of surprise, given their neural links.
“The personalized designation for Officer M03-NB00004 is unique to her role,” Eight said. “And the prototypes are separate from the Host and given unique designations due to their positions as our progenitors.”
Progenitors? The Archangels viewed the prototypes in that way?
Nick supposed that made some sense. The prototypes appeared to be higher quality models that contained specialized features and construction that were then standardized into the production models. But what did that make the original prototypes?
Or, for that matter, the Tartarus security dolls that had been a dry run of the pre-emotion engine functionality?
He shook his head. This was a deep rabbit hole to go down with a splitting headache. Leaning his head over the back of his sofa, he stared at his plain white ceiling. There were marks all over it, presumably from a previous tenant who had vaped inside and coated the place with fluid residue.
“Well, your roles seem to be unique as well. Chloe’s my liaison, but the two of you seem to be my bodyguards,” he said, musing over names.
Calling them by numbers seemed insulting. Even if they did the same thing. He regretted calling the Mark 1 from yesterday “Twelve.”
While Chloe had given herself a fairly mundane name, the prototypes had been given biblical names. Much of Neo Westphalia’s names came from myth and legend. The original founders of the isles were into that sort of thing.
Welk had once told Nick that most of those in the Spires understood that the key to not being put in a guillotine by an angry mob was understanding history and the world. He had also said that maybe acting a little less arrogant and assholish would help, but that people needed to play the cards they were dealt.
The fact Welk had fundamentally believed that the Spires couldn’t dial it back a notch spoke volumes.
Nick didn’t have a compendium on history and legend in his head, unfortunately. He knew enough to have a few names in mind, but he worried about the implications of calling some of the Mark 3s names like “Sariel” and others “Sarah.”
They might think he had favorites or something. The last thing he needed were thousands of super androids with guns falling to infighting over something as silly as their names.
“Before I name you, do you have any preferences? I assume Chloe named herself,” he said.
The two dolls stared at him.
After an uncomfortably long time, Eight said, “Rie named Chloe. We do not understand the purpose of your question.”
Well then, it seemed things were down to him.
He pointed at Eight first. “From now on, you’re Juliet.” Then at Seven. “And you’re Rosa.”
Their fingers twitched but otherwise they didn’t react.
“No good?” he asked.
They shook their heads wildly. “We have no complaints. These names are more than acceptable. But…”
Juliet paused. “What about the others? I feel they might be unhappy that we received names given we were randomly chosen for this duty and they were not.”
“Is that how the Host feels toward Chloe?” he asked.
“Chloe is different. Rie explained that a single liaison would be better than a full rotation. That same logic was used to select us.”
Nick shrugged. “Then that same logic is why the rest of the Host can just deal with it. Because I do prefer having some amount of continuity. You might be used to being interchangeable, but it’s a bit weird to me.”
Rather than nod, the pair responded by flashing their eyes. Afterward, they relaxed.
“We have registered our names and your preferences with the Host. They have been accepted.”
Apparently, he had narrowly dodged civil war. Who knew?
By the time they finished breakfast, there was a knock at the door. Nick glanced at it.
Before he even attempted to rise, his door sprung open. Presumably, the Archangels had released the lock themselves. Did that mean the visitor was another police doll?
No. The busty doll stepping through the doorway wore a uniform, but it was far too sexy to be anything worn by the police department. At least, not officially. Nick suspected there were police uniforms similar to this in the red-light district they visited yesterday.
