Phil Elmore's Blog, page 7

DETECTIVE MOXLEY, Part 19: “We’ll Talk”

The male caught his eye.  The female was right behind its partner. As Moxley watched, the male synthoid reached out, picked a man in a pan hat who wandered across his path, and jerked the man out of the crowd. Mox felt his jaw drop as the synthoid snapped the citizen’s neck.

The body fell to the street. People screamed. A gun opened up from somewhere in the throng, but if it was aimed at the synthoids, they didn’t notice. They started running, shoving people out of the way, smashing men and women alike into the pavement as they hurried after Moxley.

In the riot of traffic and fleeing pedestrians that followed, a hydrogen cycle careened into the pair, drew sparks on the pavement, and exploded in an orange-white fireball. The female managed to throw herself aside, but the male went down under the doomed machine. Moxley had time to see the female tearing into the cycle rider’s throat with her bare hands. He turned and fled.

Run, he thought. Run or die.

He wasn’t going to make it the Redlight. The Lion Arc it was, then. Shifting to his right, he did his best to put distance between himself and the crowd, opting for more narrow alleys that let him switch back left and right, doubling over his own path. The synthoids were fast, but they could not know Hongkongtown like he did. His knowledge of the city’s warrens was the only thing keeping him alive.

The Goop lockup was on Lung Wo, not far from Gunpowder Heights. Traffic around him was as impenetrable as ever. The sidewalks teemed with pedestrians, some wearing the wide pan hats that had become popular in the last year. The rain was in an acid cycle. Weather Control at Peak Tower claimed it was cyclical, but they always said that, just like Structural Engineering claimed the artificial atoll on which Hongkongtown was built was most definitely not sinking back into the Gulf.

He nearly flattened a panhandler as he tried to watch his back and cross the street. The beggar squalled when Moxley grabbed the man’s shoulders to keep him upright. Mox flinched; he knew that sound. Adhesive bandages covered the man’s arms and neck, but there were bone-deep burns on his face over both cheekbones.

“Sorry, buddy,” muttered Mox.

The begger punched him in the stomach.

Mox stumbled, coughing, and kept going. The poor bastard had been a Sleep cook. Moxley had seen plenty like him since Sleep emerged in Hongkongtown. While he was no expert in the process through which the drug was made, it was common knowledge that the process produced incredibly corrosive, often volatile fumes. Cooking Sleep was like defusing a bomb wearing mittens. Sooner or later, you were going to wish you hadn’t.

Overhead, countless drones buzzed and hovered and flitted. The skies were dark and thick with clouds. Street vendors cried for attention, doing a brisk trade despite the threat of rain. The hash stands were always busy. There were soy vendors and noodle barkers, too, most of which smelled wonderful and even as their heavy spices burned Moxley’s nostrils.

Lung Wo receded behind him. He could hear the traffic it bore.  Hydrogen lorries barreling for the Gulf Bridge slideways pushed smaller cycles and pedicabs out of the way. Ground cars and their drivers maintained a steady din with their horns. There was a speed limit in Hongkongtown, but as far as Moxley knew, nobody had reached it. As he made the edge of the Lion Arc, dodging this way and that among the nonplussed pedicab traffic, he once more patted his pockets.

No joy. They had given him his gun back empty at the Goop station, but had kept his reloads. He had to have a weapon. There were gun shops in the Lion Arc. There was everything in the Lion Arc. But he had no cash to buy one. Where did that leave him?

A few drops of rain stung the skin on the back of his neck. Moxley ducked into a noodle joint, dodged the obsequious robot that tried to show him to a table, and managed to push through the throng of dice players at the back. His lungs burned and he was developing a stitch in his side. Too many vape tubes. He was not built for running.

There was a fire door at the back of the shop, which he slammed shut after running through it. The alley behind the noodle joint opened into a cross-work of narrow passageways.

Inside the noodle joint, the screaming started. The synthoids had to be there, ripping through the poor bastards inside, killing anyone between them and their quarry.

Mox fought the urge to close his eyes. He ran on. He needed corners. He needed tight spaces. He could not outrun the creatures in a straight line. He would have to out street them. He had no idea how much time the cycle accident — and the lives of those people in the noodle shop — had bought him, but it couldn’t be much.

He was surrounded by hiding holes. Every block of the Lion Arc was cluttered like this. It was the most popular tourist area in Hongkongtown, boasting every shop and pastime a visitor or local could want. It had to look good, had to be picturesque, to capture the tourists’ imaginations. That meant all the maintenance access and shipping docks, the employee entrances and garbageways, the hooker hoses and the ultraviolet decon bays, were crammed into a warren of alleys behind the storefronts. If he was going to lose his pursuers, he was going to do it here.

The two agents had busted him from Goop custody for only one reason he could think of — the same reason the Sheb imitation had tried to acquire him. They wanted to kill him. That could only mean he was getting close to something—

The female was suddenly just there. She smelled of smoke and looked like she had crawled through a chimney to reach him. He had not even heard her close in. One minute he was squeezing through a metal security gate that did not quite fit the passageway it blocked; the next, his arm was on fire. He looked down and saw the female’s fingers curled into the fabric of his coat above his bicep.

“Harold Moxley,” she said, her voice sweet, almost sultry. “I’d love to speak to you.”

“Dance card’s full,” Mox said, hoping he didn’t sound as scared as he felt. He tried to pull away. She dug in harder. Mox screamed as her fingertips pierced his skin. The sleeve of his coat blossomed crimson as it soaked through with blood.

At the far end of the alley, the male reappeared. He was walking slowly but picking up speed. He was also on fire. Tendrils of flame rose from his shoulders and what was left of his scalp. The creature’s expression was as blank as ever.

Moxley had to get away. He’d never fight them both off.

A bolt of lightning shot across his vision. The pain was that bad. The female was digging her fingers in again, trying to pull him back through the tight opening between the gate and the wall. She was using her other hand to dig into the building behind her, anchoring herself, buying time for her partner.

Moxley snatched his empty revolver from his belt and jammed the barrel through her right eye.

The sound the creature made was not a scream. It was a wet, mechanical sound, completely alien. Her grip loosened and Mox wrenched himself free, leaving a good portion of his bloody coat — not to mention a several hunks of his flesh — in her fist.

Moxley ran for his life.

It was a setup, all of it. He wasn’t sure how Garrison’s security had been compromised, but obviously, it had been. When he had emerged from lockup at the Goop station and the two agents identified themselves, he had felt the urge to run even then. While Jensen or Detweiler — whichever one was the skirt — tried to explain how they had come to spring him, Moxley was already listening for verbal tics. They had heard the report of his apprehension on the LEO band, the pair said. They had queried Goop headquarters, obtained the location, and made haste to free him. Moxley was a hero, they said. He had prevented the assassination of a council member, they said.

Except that they had no way to know that. Only Moxley could have known that Sara Lindsey was a target. Nobody else was looking for that connection. To the Goops, Mox looked insane, even murderous. Unless a piece of the real Siengold turned up, that wasn’t going to change quickly. He had been prepared to cool his heels for a few days until he managed to convince the authorities that he wasn’t part of the problem. But now Jensen and Detweiler were patting him on the head and telling him it was going to be all right? He didn’t buy that for a minute. That was why, the moment they had cleared the Goop building, he had brought his empty gun up and into the bridge of the male agent’s nose. Then he had bolted.

He risked a glance over his shoulder. He saw no one, but he could hear them. Their footfalls were fast and loud in the warren of the Lion Arc’s maintenance alleys.

As he ran, he tried to focus on what had tipped him. How had he known they were synthoids and not the two Human Services agents Garrison had sent? Something in their expressions. The way their eyes had rolled over him without ever really stopping on his. Yeah. That was it. Their faces had been completely blank. Not angry. Not curious. Not intent. Just utterly, totally blank.

He managed to stumble through a salon offering laser scarification and piercings, pushing past the back door, knowing that it would be unlocked.

“Lynn,” he said, breathless, tipping his hat with bloody fingers. His whole arm was soaked. “Honey, you’ve got to run. Run for your precious life.”

“Mox?” said the pretty blonde behind the counter. She was half his age. Her skin was covered in black whorls that made her look like a zebra. “What are you—”

“We’ll talk!,” bellowed Moxley. “Now run or you’re going to die!”

She blanched and hit the front door without another word. He followed her, deliberately turning in the opposite direction once they were in the next alley. The door slammed behind him and clipped his wounded arm as it did. It didn’t hurt. He was starting to feel a little light-headed from blood loss.

He ducked a low-hanging steam pipe that was set at neck-height in the next alley. The humidity curled the hair on the back of his neck. There was no back door to the pocket distillery; it had been bricked up. Mox skirted the structure and passed between it and a PornPod, past a Lotus Club — opiate fumes tickled his nostrils — and into the front door of the haberdashery he frequented.

“Harold?” said Hogey. He wore a fedora twice the size of Moxley’s. A long-barreled pistol was strapped across his chest in a ballistic holster. He was chewing on the end of a well-gnawed plastic straw.

“Get the hell gone, Hogey,” said Mox. “Either get outta here or hide behind your counter. Trouble’s coming and it’s looking for blood.” He went for the back of the shop. The magnetic curtains parted as he jogged through them, putting him in the storage and felt-forming room at the rear of the shop. Behind a stack of felt rolls, he found the exit.  “Go, damn you!” he called back to Hogey.

“Up yours, Harold,” called the hat-maker. As Moxley closed the rear door, he heard Hogey say, “Hey, watch it, that’s my door. You two can’t just barge in here and practically tear the place—”

The last word became a terrible scream. There were gunshots.

Sorry, Hogey, thought Mox.

By the time Mox was a hundred meters from the storefront he wanted, he already had his phone stuck to his face. His breath now came in long, ragged gasps. He could feel his sides cramping and grinding. His face was burning hot and probably blood-red. Didn’t blood loss make you pale? Should he feel cold instead of warm?

“Yeah,” said the voice on the phone.

“Moxley,” whispered the detective. “Jimmy. The favor. I need it.”

“When?”

“Now,” said Mox. He couldn’t look back. The footfalls were close on him. The synthoids were gaining ground again

Don’t look, he thought. Go faster. 

“Like today, now?” said Jimmy.

“Like now, now,” said Moxley. “Run, Jimmy! Get outta the store!”

“Are you Sleepy?” said the voice. “Why would I do that?”

“Just do it, Jimmy!” shouted Moxley. He hit the front door of the shop at a dead run, with all his weight behind it, and practically cracked the yellowed plastic of the front counter when he finally stopped. He saw a plaid sleeve disappear into the back room.

Go, Jimmy, he thought.

The top of the countertop was hydraulic. He wrenched it open. The door slammed shut behind him, driven by the momentum of his charge. The synthoids would be here in seconds.

Be loaded, he thought. Be loaded because Jimmy has no concept of safety.

The rotary barrel crowd gun was illegal throughout Northam. Moxley bled all over the thing as he picked it up in both hands and turned to face the door. The model had seen use only once, during the Steamway Riots. The drill-bombs it fired were not merely explosive; they also bore an electrical charge. Used on Augments, whose bodies were more than a third cybernetic by definition, the weapon’s effects had been… pornographic. Ogs struck by the rounds had been incinerated from within.

The door slammed open.

“Shop’s closed,” said Moxley, and jammed his thumb on the trigger bar.

 

* * *

 

On Vega Avenue, outside Madame Ov’s, a trio of girls stood leaning against the side of the building, watching traffic along the outer ring of the Redlight. They shared vapor tubes liberally dosed with speed or tranqs, as was their wont. Business was slow this afternoon, following the recent raids. It would take some time for the bribe money to trickle down, time for the brothel’s clientele to drift back and resume their normal habits. There would be more than a few dead spots like these. The girls had learned not to complain.

The one named Triica turned to the one who called herself Gaj. The one with the rose tattoo on her face, whom everyone called “Lilly,” shook her head. Triica passed her vapor tube to Gaj, but not before taking a long pull from it.

The paving beneath their feet began to vibrate.

“What the holing—” said Gaj.

“Enviro quake?” said Triica. “Another gimbal imbalance?”

“Look,” said Lilly. She pointed toward northwest. A dense plume of black smoke rose into the sky.

“Something blew up,” said Gaj.

“Something blew up big,” said Triica.

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DETECTIVE MOXLEY, Part 18: “Don’t Come Back”

“Seingold. Seingold!” Moxley called.

Seingold turned. His expression was bland; he was apparently in one of his ignore-Harold-Moxley moods. There was no time to indulge petty grudges. Even the Goops were potential allies right now.  “Harold Moxley,” said Seingold.

“Yeah, yeah, I get it,” said Moxley. “You don’t like me, I don’t like you, some guys are leg men and some aren’t, and a partridge in a pear tree. Look, you got a major security breach right now. I mean right now. I’ve got intelligence—”

“A security breach,” said Seingold.  He stood at the leading corner of a set of geometric barricades that formed a cordon around the stage platform. Sara Lindsey was wrapping up her time at the podium, while the line of civilian participants was shuffling forward. Several government operatives stood at intervals around the platform, none close enough to hear Moxley’s conversation. Seingold seemed unconcerned as he surveyed both Lindsey and the Council seated beyond her.

Moxley swore to himself. It was a pretty good run from the barricade to wear he stood with the Goop. He could probably cover that before somebody shot him, vault the stairs, push Lindsey to the platform floor… but then what? Where was the threat? And if nobody had taken a shot at her yet, when would they? Doubt was starting to creep in. Now that he was standing here, struggling to catch his breath, he wondered if he had put it together correctly. Maybe there was no threat to Sara Lindsey. Maybe Theopolis’ murder was a coincidence.

“Sara Lindsey,” said Moxley, going for broke. “You gotta get her into protective custody. I think whoever offed Theopolis is thinking of taking her down. Maybe even today, at this thing.”

“Sara Lindsey,” said Seingold.  His expression still hadn’t changed. Moxley looked up at the Goop and felt the blood draining from his face.

“Say, uh, you Goops, you’re doing a good job,” he said.

“We Goops are doing a good job,” said Seingold, nodding.

Moxley went for his revolver.  The thing that was not Seingold was faster.  Moxley saw the weapon appear from inside the creature’s jacket.  With nowhere to go and no other options, he fired his revolver from inside his waistband, shoving his elbow back, blowing a hole through his own belt line and into the Seingold-thing’s pelvis.  The explosion, when it came, was strangely muffled, but Moxley felt the wall of heat. It backhanded him, rolled him over, brought the asphalt up to meet his face.

The creature had fired its incinerator.

 

* * *

 

The asphalt came up to meet his face. Moxley felt the sting. It was always shocking when something hit you in mouth. Didn’t matter what it was. There was always the tiniest bit of outrage. You expected to bark your shin or cut your finger or bruise your arm, from time to time. But hey, man, that’s my face. That initial sting was always more shock and surprise than pain.

Moxley felt the two stevedores pick him up by the arms and hang him there, more or less standing.  Fedor, who had worked all over the Red Light, was the Palace’s enforcer, these days.  You mistreated one of the house girls, it was Fedor who taught you the error of your ways.  You got a little too drunk and did some damage inside the casino, it was Fedor who presented you with an invoice.  You owed the Palace money, it was Fedor who came to collect. The man was a head taller than Moxley and built like a glacier. He was slow, deliberate, and cold as they came.

His fists were like bowling balls.  Mox felt the air rush from his lungs as Fedor dropped a casual bomb in Moxley’s stomach. As sparkling motes drifted through his vision, he supposed he should be grateful the goon wasn’t punching the teeth out of his head.

Little things. Always be grateful for the little things, Web had told him.

“Two hundred twenty thousand,” said Fedor.

Moxley struggled to speak.  The two thugs holding him up shook him, which — oddly enough — seemed to help a little. He wondered how many times they had done this before.

“Two,” said Mox. “Two hundred twenty. Yeah. I know.”

“Give me the money,” said Fedor.

“I don’t have the money.”

“You run up quite a bill, Moxley,” said Fedor. “Much money. You pay now. Never come into Palace again. Your credit is through.”

“Yeah,” said Moxley. “Sure.”

“But money now,” said Fedor. “You have had six months. You have had three months extension, too. Money now.”

“I told you,” said Moxley. “I don’t have it. I can’t give you what I don’t have.”

“Then I have to hurt you,” said Fedor.

“Yeah,” said Mox again.  “I know.”

 

* * *

 

Moxley sat on an aluminum bench molded to the wall of the holding cell. While he was unconscious, someone had slathered burn gel on the back of his hands, on his face, and on his neck. The pain wasn’t too bad.  He would look like a lobster for a day or two while the gel did its work. None of the burns was worse than a long morning on the beach during an ozone alert. He’d gotten really lucky there.

He couldn’t figure out if the guard had turned on the wall screen in sympathy or cruelty. The screen sat just outside the transparent barrier enclosing Mox’s cell. Nobody would talk to him, so he had no real clue where he was, but he suspected it was a Government Inspection facility. It might even be the one where Ray Neiring’s office had been. He had never seen their holding cells, so he couldn’t say for sure, but it seemed likely.  The man in the corridor beyond the cell had been wearing a Goop line-troop uniform.

Stuck here with the screen, he could only watch as the news played, over and over, showing the explosion that had all but erased the man the Goops thought was Seingold.

I look fat on screen, Moxley thought for the tenth time. Like, dying early fat, not just too much lunch fat.

“The suspected murderer,” said the synthetic narration, “has yet to be identified by Hongkongtown authorities.”

That part was weird. It was weird that the Goops hadn’t told the press Moxley’s name. Hell, he would have expected them to perp-walk him where the reporters could get a good close-up. There was no reason for them to protect him, or his reputation, and every reason for them to want him pilloried. So why hadn’t they outed him?

The news did say that none of the Council members had been harmed. That was good. If Lindsey was the target, and Mox assumed she was, then he’d at least saved her. The Seingold-creature had reacted immediately when he let on what he suspected. That was enough for Moxley, even if it wasn’t evidence as such.

Having spoken to Seingold, or whatever had probably killed Seingold and taken its place, Moxley also understood why the infiltration units weren’t being used to impersonate the Council members. They weren’t smart enough to do it. One conversation and whoever was asking would know something wasn’t right.

He considered calling Lobby. He wasn’t sure if that would help. For all he knew, they were holding him without bail. Murdering a Goop was pretty serious business. He wasn’t sure how to go about clearing his name—

The transparent barrier slid aside.

“Moxley,” said the Goop in the corridor.  “Move your hide.”

“Move it wear?” Moxley said, standing.

“Don’t know,” said the Goop. “Don’t care.  You’re free to go.”

“What?” said Moxley.

“Don’t come back,” said the Goop.

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DETECTIVE MOXLEY, Part 17: “Rena Terry”

“Geez, Fran, can’t you change that?” asked Moxley, looking up from his corner booth at Row’s. He was nursing a cup of coffee he couldn’t afford, once more absorbed in the dozens of detailed case files Ray Neiring had amassed in the last weeks of his life.  As the waitress continued to ignore him — Row’s was famous for its human staff — Moxley thumbed the face of his phone for the tenth time, automatically redialing Sheb’s ID. He got the same message prompt he’d received nine times before that. Either Sheb had blacklisted Moxley’s number, or the man was already dead, murdered by the whatever-it-was that had stolen his face. Mox had left messages with Government Inspection and with half a dozen other people around town who might have seen or talked to Sheb. He was coming up empty anyway.

The screens in Row’s, meanwhile, were broadcasting a dull-as-toast public Council meeting, some kind of PR meet-and-greet going on at a platform erected near the Wanfujing. Citizens were addressing the seated council members from a podium at the edge of the platform. There was a pretty hefty crowd, and the broadcast was being carried by all of the near-cast transmitters in this part of town. Fran, perhaps belatedly under the impression Moxley could tip her, switched the screen through several of the feeds to which Row’s subscribed. The Council meeting was on each of them.

The sheer volume of the data was the problem. Ray was a methodical, meticulous investigator. He accumulated as much information as possible, some of it only barely relevant, on the theory that it was better to have it and not need it than to come up wanting during a search. Mox was left to sift through all this and wonder if he was wasting his time. Ray’s open case files did not exactly contain a road map to understanding what was going through the man’s mind. Moxley had only a few terse notes and other addenda to give him any clue as to what was significant and what was not.

But the answer had to be here. It had to be. Do the homework, Web would have told him. Put in the time. Find the data. Make the money.

Too bad it was never that easy, Moxley thought, pinching the bridge of his nose.  He had been reading for a couple of hours now and his eyes were starting to water from the strain. He probably needed a refraction treatment.  Yeah, well. He’d once rescheduled a dental appointment five years ago and never showed up. He’d eventually get to that, too.

“Talk to me, Ray,” Moxley said.  “If you can’t tell me who killed you, tell me why they did it.”

“Harold Moxley?” said a voice.

Moxley looked up from the tab and felt his heart jump into his throat.  The two men who stood before him were wearing disposable suits with adhesive ties. The one on the left was a blonde; the one on the right had darker hair. They were both pretty big. They had, in fact, that dolled up back-breaker look to them.  He took a long, slow gulp from his coffee cup, placed the mug down, and let his hand fall below the level of the table as he leaned forward. He gestured with the tab in his left hand.

“Sorry, boys, Larry Gelder, Aitch Kay Gazette,” said Moxley. He started to rise in his seat. “Dunno who you’re—”

“Save it,” said the blonde. He shoved Moxley backward into his both with one big palm.  Then he reached into his jacket — quickly, at first, then slow when he realized what that might look like. His hand, when it came out of his pocket, was holding only a sheaf of prints.  He gestured with it to Moxley.

“You’ve been served,” said the dark-haired one.

“I’m telling you guys, you got the wrong—” Moxley started.  The dark-haired one hit him with a clenched fist, folding him back in his seat, bouncing his forehead off the table. Mox stopped moving for a moment.

“Stop,” said the blonde. “You’ll ruin—”

“Too late,” said Mox, coming up with his revolver in his hand. He shoved himself out of the booth with his weapon extended, pointing the barrel at the dark-haired one’s face.  “Three,” he said.  “Two. One” He jacked back the hammer of the weapon.

“Easy,” said the blonde.  He had his hands up. The dark-haired one looked to his partner, then back to Moxley. He, too, put his hands at shoulder level.

“Self-defense,” said Mox. “You two came in here to strong-arm me.”

“Wait just a damned minute—” said the man who had punched Mox.

“I said shut up!” barked the blonde.  He was older than the dark-haired guy. He obviously knew how these things were wired.  He spared his partner a baleful glance, then offered Moxley a knowing look.  “Okay, Moxley,” he said. “Okay. You win this one.”

Mox knew better than to acknowledge that.  He gestured with the big top-break revolver.  The blonde grabbed his partner by the collar and practically dragged the guy outside.  Mox dropped the gun to thigh level and went to the nearest window. He watched the two arguing.  Eventually they got into a hydrogen lorry parked on the street, argued for a moment more, and then pulled away.  He did not stop watching them until they pulled out into traffic.

“Friends of yours, Mox?” asked Frank behind him. She was holding a glass coffee pot and chewing what had to be a fist-sized cud of gum.

“No,” said Mox quietly. He did not look at her.  “Friends of Rena Terry, I think.”

“Who’s that?”

“Nobody,” said Mox.

 

* * *

“That’s the ugliest dog I’ve ever seen,” said Mox, struggling to stand upright.

Carrie was as drunk as he was.  “I told you,” she said. “It’s not a dog. It’s a prototype.” She opened her mouth and started shaking, her shoulders wracked with silent laughter.  The creature that was not a dog was the most hilarious thing in the world.

“Gem… gemam… generic… genetics,” Moxley struggled to say. “They’re doing, doing some amarsh… some amazing things with generics these days.”

“Genetics,” Carried hissed, laughing so hard he feared she might wet herself.

The animal — and the woman — belonged to Steven Wellman, who was some kind of high-powered research assistant for a designer-genetics think tank back on the mainland. Moxley hadn’t asked too many questions about him. Carrie Wellman had been drowning her sorrows in the same robot bar where Moxley liked to drink. They had started talking. They had continued drinking. She had called a pedicab and taken him home. They had not stopped throwing back booze since they arrived. Empty champagne bottles littered the floor. Moxley hated the stuff, but it was free and there was plenty of it. He was not in a position to complain.

The dog — what was it if it wasn’t a dog? — stared at him from its inflatable pet bed in the corner of the living room. It had a bulbous wattle beneath its throat that made it look like a hairy bullfrog. Its eyes were enormous; one of these was larger than the other, but both of them bulged from its bloated head. It had no perceivable neck. Its hair was splotchy and matted, its limbs stunted. It had six clawed toes on each of its four feet.

“Here, boy,” Moxley said, slurring.  “Here, boy.”  He patted his thigh. The animal that was not a dog stared at him, not blinking, not moving.

A soft thud behind him made Moxley turn. He nearly lost his balance. Carrie had passed out sitting on the floor with her legs under the coffee table. Her forehead was now resting on the table’s glass surface.  She started snoring.

Moxley shrugged.  Snaring one of the mostly full bottles of champagne, he stumbled out of the house, pausing to tip his hat at the animal.

“It’s a dog,” he muttered to himself.  “It’s a dog if I say it is.”

It was a long walk from the shore district back to the Red Light.  Moxley took it one step at a time.  The champagne — he despised it — propelled him.  He did not stop walking until the blinking lights of the Jade Palace caught his eye.

“Come inside,” said the robot barker.  It was a speaker on a pair of wheels. Its body was a cylinder. “Come inside. Money, money, money. Come inside.”

“Money, money, money,” said Moxley, swaying.

“Money, money, money,” said the robot.

“Sure,” said Mox, stumbling past it and through the casino’s doors.

 

* * *

Moxley sat in his booth, rubbing the knot on his forehead.  He didn’t want to hurry out of Row’s. He didn’t want anyone to think those goons had put a scare into him. On the wall screens, the Council meeting was still going on. The woman who now stood at the podium was handsome enough, for an older lady. The lettering on the screen identified her: CNCWMN. SARA LINDSEY.

Moxley blinked.

He had seen the name. He swore he had seen the name.  He picked up his tab, opened up several files, and pawed through them in desperation.  Where was it? There was a connection.

He found it.

Neiring had included a list of Council members and they had voted on a series of ordinances sponsored by the Medical Hegemony. The latest vote in particular had been highlighted.

Sara Lindsey had voted “yes” on the ordinance. So had Councilman Horace Theopolis. The two of them had prevented the vote from getting the two-thirds it needed to pass. A re-vote had been scheduled automatically.

A date was listed next to both their names. It was today’s date.

Theopolis, thought Mox.  The guy murdered by his bodyguard. Somebody he trusted. Probably somebody whose face he was pretty comfortable with.

Today’s date.

Somebody he trusted.

Moxley looked up at the screen, where Sara Lindsey was still addressing the public.

Moxley stood up and ran.

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My WND Technocracy column this week commemorates the site’s 18th anniversary. Read it here in WND News.

DETECTIVE MOXLEY, Part 16: “Not Anymore”

The girl with the platinum hair glanced down at the device in her hand. Left here. Then a right.  Then through the alley and two hundred meters farther on.  She hurried up the street, ducked into the channel between two buildings, and emerged on the other side, fighting a sense of déjà vu.  Hongkongtown was always changing. Hongkongton never changed. It was a paradox that explained many things.

She found herself standing in front of the wafflehouse. This was not a surprise.  The authorities had taped up the entrance again. She ducked the tape easily and let herself in. The interior was dark, but she could sense the vibrations of the machines within.

“My name is Aria,” she said.  “I’ve come to find him.”

There was a long moment in which she might have doubted. She didn’t. A machine that looked like a robot rolled out to greet her.  Its voice was synthetic. Its speech patterns were not.

“He was here,” it said.  “But not now.”

“Will he come back?” asked Aria.

“He might. There’s no way to know. He’s been… erratic.”

“I know,” said Aria.  “Can you tell me anything?”

The thing that looked like a machine raised one mechanical arm. It gestured to the pocket tab she held.  Aria extended the device to the data lens on the face of the “robot.”  The sound of a high-speed transfer was shrill, almost too high to be audible.

“I’ve given you everything I can,” it said. “I regret there is not much. There is financial account data, too. Take what you need for your stay. I wish there were more.”

“It will be enough,” she said.  She began scrolling through the data now on the tab, much faster than most would look.  Her fingers were a blur on the device.  She paused.  “Who is this?”  She held up the tab, screen toward the machine.

“Someone who might help you find him. Someone who has helped before.”

“He’s a good man?”

“That question makes little sense. Hongkongtown.”

“He… has a kind heart?” asked Aria.

“Possibly.”

“There’s no address.”

“The neighborhood is a difficult one,” said the machine-being. “Complex. The address has duplicates in the network, possibly by design. I included an image of the office and the cross-street. Ask around if you have difficulty. You’ll easily find someone who can help.”

“Really?” said Aria.

“Yes. Everybody knows Detective Moxley.”

 

* * *

“Judith?” Moxley asked.  “What are you doing?”

Judith’s face was hard. He had gotten used to it, had gotten used to her protracted sighs, her complaints, her lengthy explanations of his faults. He tried to remember, in that moment, when he had last seen her smile at him. Not one of her fake smiles, either, but a genuine smile. It had been a long time.

She stood on the front step of their apartment in the Quell, a neighborhood that sprawled like mold in the lee of the dockyards and the housing tracts that supplied those. A taxi was pulling up behind Moxley’s hydrogen cycle. Judith wore the baby sling on her chest. Connor was sleeping with his face on her neck.

“Harold,” she said.  “I can’t do this anymore.”

“Look, I know it’s been hard,” he said.  “Web’s going to get me some overtime. Contract work.  We can pull it together. I can pull it together.”

“No, Harold,” she said.  “You can’t.”  She strode past the taxicab driver with her bags, put them in the open trunk, and settled herself in the back seat of the car.  Moxley moved to follow her, but a dark look from the driver stopped him.  This one was in no mood for family dramas, apparently.

“Relax, pal,” Moxley told the driver.  “You’re fare is safe.”

The driver glared, but he got into the car.  Moxley bent near Judith’s window.  She did not put it down.  She looked at him and her expression finally changed.  Her mask of anger, of discontent, became one of pity.

“I’ll let you know where we’ll be staying,” she said. “Don’t try to come visit. Not for a while. I need time, Harold.”

“He’s our son. This is our home.”

She shook her head.  “Not anymore,” she said.  The cab pulled away, cutting off a pedicab.  The drivers exchanged profane salutes.  Moxley stood next to the road and watched the traffic go past.

He stood there for a long time.

 

* * *

When Carol opened the front door, she stopped abruptly.  The children were with her. They were wearing windbreakers.  Going for a walk, probably.

Damn it, thought Moxley.  She’s going to wonder why I didn’t go already. He tucked his tab away, hoping he didn’t look as guilty as he felt. Climbing out the Dayliner, he said, “I know I said I was leaving. It’s a little temperamental. I had to wait for the engine baffles to cool.”  He hoped she didn’t know anything about cars. She had been through enough. He didn’t want to upset her.

“I was,” said Carol. “I mean we were, we—”

“Tell you what,” said Moxley, running a quick mental inventory on the change in his pockets.  “Why don’t I take the kids out for some ice cream? There’s a place around the corner.”

“I don’t—”

“Ice cream,” said Tricia.  “Let’s go out for ice cream.”

“I don’t want ice cream,” said Robby.

“Tricia started for the Dayliner.  Robby looked up at Carol almost accusingly and began leading her back toward the house.

“Uh, okay,” said Moxley. “I guess I’m taking Tricia then. I’ll be back pretty quick. That’s okay with you, Carol?”

Carol shot him a look that Moxley could not interpret.  It was Robby who spoke up.  “It’s okay with her,” he said.  He closed the door, practically shoving his mother through the doorway.

Tricia was already in the Dayliner.  Moxley hurried to catch up with her.  He missed going out for ice cream. It was something he and Connor used to do during his visits.

Climbing into the car, he smiled at Tricia.

“Something’s wrong with your eyes,” she said.

Moxley wiped his eyes with the back his hand.  “Must be an ozone warning today,” he said.

“Must be ozone,” Tricia agreed happily.

Technocracy: Just Call It ‘Antisocial Media’

Read my WND Technocracy column this week, about the nation of smartphone zombies we are becoming — it’s live in WND News.

Coming Soon: MONSTERS, the 4104 Serial Novel

You may have noticed that the 50 entries for “4104,” my serial for 2014, no longer appear on my website. That’s because these entries have been compiled into Monsters, the complete serial novel that is all 50 parts of “4104.” We’ve received the manuscript back from Deanna Hoak, the editor, and now the sometimes lengthy process of formatting both the e-book and paper-book begins. I will of course let everyone know when Monsters is finally available.

My assumption is that Detective Moxley, my serial for 2015, will follow a similar pattern. It will run for most of this year, remain up for a little while after the new year, then come down as it is compiled in book form.

DETECTIVE MOXLEY, Part 15: “Good News and Bad News”

“Carol?” said Mox. “Are you okay? I’ve been standing here for like ten minutes.”

“Yes, yes,” said Carol Latham. “I’m so sorry, Harold. It’s just… I’m sorry. Please come in. Please. Come in.”

Moxley took off his hat and, seeing no place to hang it, simply held on to it.  He felt out of place in Carol’s home, as he always did. The place was auto-cleaned and spotless, scrubbed to sterility. There was not a crumb to be seen in the gleaming kitchen, not a child’s sock out of place. Neiring’s niece and nephew were nine and eight, respectively. How did you raise two kids in an antiseptic place like this? He had always assumed Carol’s unassuming nature was cover, a mask for an iron will and a murderous temper. Neiring had always told him he was crazy.  Carol was just meticulous, he said. Also, she leased a RoomClean, one of those monstrous buglike robots that could repaint your garage when you weren’t looking.  Moxley had never seen one and knew no one else who paid for such a monstrosity. Carol’s husband, Travis, was a securities broker and good at his job.

Robby and Tricia were sitting cross-legged on the living room floor. They both had their hands on the family cat. It was sleeping, sort of puddled between them in an off-white lump.  Moxley remembered the cat.  It was a behemoth, at least twice the size of a normal housecat. One of those genetically modified things the pet companies were pushing these days. Its hair was hypoallergenic — it really was hair, not fur — and the thing was guaranteed not to shed. It was also carefully selected to be docile.  Wouldn’t do to have a twenty-kilo feline tearing around the place with a bad attitude. These were born without claws, but still. They had sharp teeth.

“Would you, would you, coffee?” Carol stammered.  “Would you like any coffee, I mean? I could print some. If you want some. Coffee, I mean.”

“Sure,” said Moxley. “Although your coffee always spoils me, Carol.”  He watched her with curiosity, still standing on the paneled floor of the entryway. His shoes were stained and muddy; he was afraid to track up the joint.  He jerked his chin at the children in the living room. “Tricia. Robby.  How’s school going?”

The children looked up at him and then went back to silently petting the cat.  Well, they’d never been the most polite of children.  Wasn’t his place to lecture them on manners, although his own father would have slapped the taste out of his mouth if he’d behaved that way, especially in front of company.  He shrugged and, as carefully has he could, made his way to the paneled kitchen, hoping he wasn’t leaving any debris on the carpet.  Carol finished filling his coffee cup, spilling some of it on the saucer as she handed it to him.  He took it from her perhaps more quickly than was proper.

“Carol,” he said, “are you all right? “You pop an energy pill or something? Those things will turn you out, you aren’t careful.”

“I’m fine, fine,” said Carol.  She looked at him and, close to her now, Moxley could see the deep bags under her eyes. She hadn’t slept. She’d tried to hide it, but her makeup wasn’t up to the task.

“It’s Ray, isn’t it?” said Moxley, trying to keep his voice low. He glanced to the children and then back to Carol.  “Look, Carol, I’m… damn it, I’m sorry. Ray was my friend. He was probably my only friend in the world. I promise you, I will find out what’s going on.”

“No,” said Carol. “No, Harold, I don’t want you to do that. Please. Just… don’t.”

“I get it,” said Moxley. “I really do.  And I’m not trying to make this worse. But I’ve gottta know. Ray was into something weird.  Whatever this was, I can’t accept that he just went berserk.  There’s something bigger going on here. There’s always an explanation.  I’m going to find it.  Is there anything you can tell me? Did Ray maybe say anything to you? Anything at all.”

Carol put her face in her hands and started shaking.  It took Moxley a moment to realize that she was crying.  He wasn’t sure what to do. He didn’t know if she was crying because of him, or in spite of him.

“It isn’t fair,” Carol said quietly.  “It isn’t fair.”

“I know,” said Moxley.  He put one arm around her, feeling awkward.  “I get it.”

“Please go,” said Carol.  She pulled away, turning her back to him.  “Please just go, Harold. And please leave this alone.”

“Yeah,” said Moxley.  “Okay.”  He wasn’t going to stop, but she didn’t an argument right now.  “Carol,” he said, retracing his steps to the door.  He stole another look at the kids as he said it. They were still just petting the damned cat.  That was weird, but kids noticed when the grownups around them were upset. They acted oddly in response. Moxley sure knew the name of that song.

He let himself into his car and sat down, the wheels in his mind turning. Starting the Dayliner, he paused to let the engine even out a little.  It sputtered badly on cold ignitions, spewing even more smoke that usual.

“Engaged to be ferried,” said the car. “This is a non-parking area.” The playback became his own voice. “Violation, beta sixkiller.”

“Yeah,” said Moxley. “Tell me about it.” His phone began to vibrate. He retrieved it, checked the hologram, and breathed a sigh of relief. It was only Lobby.  “Yeah,” he said again, thumbing the phone.

“I’ve got good news and bad news,” said Lobby.

Mox paused.  “Give me the bad news.”

“I’d rather give you the good news.”

“Lobby,” said Mox.

“All right,” said Lobby.  “The, uh… the thing? You know, that you brought me?”

“Yeah?”

“It’s, uh, gone.”

Again Moxley paused.  Then: “Are you saying what I think you’re saying?”

“I can’t figure it out,” said Lobby.  “The place is sealed up tight. My alarms are intact. Nobody’s come in or out. But the, uh, thing, it’s not here. I don’t know where it went. I don’t know how it went. It just… went.”

“Lobby, this is a big problem.”

“Tell me something I don’t know.”

Moxley sighed.  “Fine, I’ll deal with that when I get there. Search the place again. Look for anything weird.”

“Such as?”

“I don’t know, just weird!” Mox snapped.  “…Sorry, Lob. My ribs are killing me.”  He looked up at the scratched rearview mirror of the Dayliner.  He looked like garbage, in fact.  He realized, then, that Carol was so upset she hadn’t even noticed.  He wished there was something he could do for her. He had never had any siblings. He didn’t know what it felt like to lose a brother.  “You said there was good news?”

“I’ve got Ray’s case files,” said Lobby.

“That’s something,” said Mox. “Send them to me right now.”

“Sending,” said Lobby.  The connection closed.  Moxley switched off the Dayliner, leaned back in the driver’s seat, and wished he wasn’t out of vapor tubes.  His pocket tab began to vibrate.  Lobby was difficult, but he was fast.

Where could the creature have gone? What did its disappearance mean?  It couldn’t still be alive.  He could not accept that. He had blown off half its head. Nobody walked around with half a head, not even a robot. Not if that’s where it kept its brains.

Still sitting in his car in front of Carol’s house, Moxley began pawing through the only link to the last weeks of Ray Neiring’s life.

 

* * *

Carol Latham leaned against the kitchen counter.  Tears streamed down her face.  She looked to the living room, then away.  The mounting feeling of dread would not leave her.  She could not bear the thought of spending another minute in this house.  Not for the first time, she thought of removing one of the kitchen knives from its drawer. The blade probably wouldn’t help her against the children, but she might be able to end her own life.

If they didn’t stop her first.

Tricia and Robby, as if reading her thoughts, stood.  They made a point of watching her as they stalked silently out of the room, down the hall to the bathroom.  They were utterly silent, their expressions completely blank.  Their eyes, though, were angry. They were angry because they thought she was keeping things from them. They would not leave until she answered their questions to their satisfaction.  It was a waiting game now. They were trying to wear her down.

On the living room floor, the cat was still dead.