Snooping

Buddy leaned on the table. The dent formed by his metallic weight deepened fractionally as he glared at the two soldiers. Hound sat politely on a chair, his neon-green eyes unblinkingly fixed on the nervous pair.

Sicilia and Reginald were their names, and not only had they been subjected to reprimands from their superiors, but now they were under Buddy’s and Hound’s combined mercy. Buddy had explained to his compeer that in the vid-chronicles he’d watched as a child, the pair of interrogators, called detectives, always played opposite roles. Either amicable, or hostile. He couldn’t recall correctly, but he was sure they called it ‘good cup bad cup’ or something.

Buddy was, of course, bad cup in this grand cup strategy. It was a great way to burn off the frustration that had built up during the verification of his party’s alibis. Everyone had been clean, as expected. The guards not on the scene at the time of the murder had been spread out around the outpost to collect data on the civilians. Ident-code locations could easily be verified by cross-referencing with the data-techs working in the bowels of the outpost. The entire native population of the Alpine outpost was accounted for. It left only the outliers. The Atlanteans, the Purists, and, of course, these two guards.

“Now,” Buddy began, breaking a twenty minute long silence. “We know you two had something to do with the murder, so make this easy on us and spill your beans!” he slammed down a fist.

“Our what?” Sicilia, a shaven-scalped youth asked in honest bewilderment.

“Your beans!” Buddy barked. He brandished his sword and jabbed the tip of the sizzling blade below her nose. He wouldn’t hurt them, but he had been given leave to be harsh.

The boy, Reginald, tensed, and made as if to stop him, but thought better of it.

Hound placed a clubbed paw on the table, and with another he eased Buddy back. “My associate wants you to explain yourselves. It’s all right. Just tell us the truth and you’ll be fine.”

The two guards shared a glance. “Don’t look at each other! Look at him!” Buddy snapped.

The two-cups strategy worked like a charm, and the youthful pair divulged their repeated escapades on watch, and of how, as soon as the outpost was hibernating, they would sneak off and copulate. They had, they pleaded in defense, received a fertility prognosis and were encouraged to reproduce, and saw the quiet hours as their best bet for maximum privacy. About the tampered security feed, they had no knowledge. Only the other had a mostly replaced cognitive system, and her mem-engrams proved their claim.

Upon explaining this all to Antares, as Buddy, Hound and the Atlantean stood in the white noonday sun, the elevated synth-construct nodded sagely.

“I too doubt that they had anything to do with it. I do regret, however, that they have no insight as to who tampered with the feed.”

“Ain’t that the truth,” Buddy sighed, working his copper jaw. “And Hound here can’t place a scent on the guy thanks to something mucking up the overall smell around here.”

“That is a shame, and a mystery unto itself,” Antares said, turning to Hound.

Hound’s ears twitched. “We should interrogate everyone in proximity with the crime, and also persons like shopkeepers and tavern masters,” he said.

“What about the Purists?” Buddy asked.

Antares waved a dismissive hand. “Though my master believes they had a hand in it, I highly doubt one of them to be capable of murder.”

“I still think we should try,” Hound argued.

Buddy worked his copper jaw. “Seems like I got the determining vote.” He stroked his chin pensively, affecting thinking, while in truth he was trying to figure out why his chronometer suddenly glitched into the shape of concentric circles. It had only been a flash, but Buddy had caught it nonetheless.

At length he said, “let’s let Lucia soften them up a bit. She’s organic after all. Maybe they’ll take to her.”

Dog and Atlantean were satisfied with this line of logic and promptly left to interview the shopkeeper. On their way they passed Laocoön’s delegation. The dignitaries were clustered around Rousseau in evident interest.

- - -

Rousseau saw the three walk by, and she was in half a mind to run off with them. The mysterious Atlanteans hadn’t relented in their own personal interrogation, fueled by curiosity, and after explaining all she knew about herself, which was very little, they still seemed to come up with more questions.

Laocoön the sphinx lay before her, forepaws tucked under his chest, eagerly listening to her stories about her time as a See initiate. But each time she’d get into some detail, the Atlanteans would bring it back to her past as a pre-cataclysm service bot.

“Are you sure you are robotic?” Laocoön finally voiced the question all the Atlanteans were harboring.

Rousseau was taken aback. Neither she nor anyone she’d met had ever questioned her nature as a bot. “Excuse me?” was all she got out.

“I apologize for my frankness, but I see no other avenue to voice this curiosity. Truly, the more I look at you and listen to your story, the less you seem a robot. Rather, it is as though you are more akin to us.”

“Nay, I ain’t like ye,” Rousseau said, glad that she hadn’t the blood to blush with. “I’ve my memories, however corrupt they are, and I’m sure that I be a service bot. Or rather, I was.”

“Do you have any proof?” one of the Atlanteans, Appollonius by name, asked.

“I – What d’ye mean?”

“You’ve swapped bodies, but where is your original? You have a few images from the time in what you call casinos, but have you something else? Surely you would have kept some tangible memento of that time,” another, Eretreius, said.

Rousseau’s hand instinctively went to her faceplate. The only physical memory of those times was the brassy mask that she had now cut into tiny segments so her face might move in a human approximation. The relic she had carried for who knew how long. A relic she had kept hidden and secret. Until now.

Laocoön’s ruby eyes saw all. “Ah. That mask, then. Ask yourself, esteemed doctor, is that the face of a bot, or someone else?”

Rousseau crossed her arms below her chest in a self-hug. A gesture she had up till now forgotten completely. “And who might that someone else be, good sir?”

“I admit my ignorance. I merely ask, for in our culture, before we transcend our biological frames, we choose something as a keepsake. An organ, bone, a vessel of fluids, et cetera. Some choose likenesses of their mortal bodies; abdomens, collarbones, but the most common in many houses are faces. Death masks. My house, the house of Petrie, have our eyes.”

Rousseau stared up into the ruby orbs with their concentric circles. “I beg yer pardon, good sir, but how can ye have yer human eyes if one’s the size of me head?”

Laocoön barked a laugh. “Of course these aren’t my originals, but rather cloned facsimiles. This ripple pattern is a signature of our bloodline, and if we should believe in the myths of our ancient forebears, they can see into the realm of spirits, and even allow one to enter,” he said with a wink.

“Can ye truly?” Rousseau asked, now touching the cross beneath her cassock-dress.

“No,” Laocoön shook his head. “At least I cannot. These only serve their function as an identification of our lineage, and the prime symbol of our coat of arms.”

“Speaking of houses and yer ilk, who, if I may ask, was the unfortunate soul that was murdered?”

Laocoön lowered his head, the stripes of his regal nemes glinting as the white light of the sun played off the metal. “She was my second cousin. Marie-Louise the Either. She was her twin sister,” he nodded his head toward the remaining female Atlantean. “Marie-Louise the Or.”

At the introduction Marie-Louise curtsied. Rousseau was struck by how silent the Atlantean’s joints were. No cracking or popping or whizzing. Pure machine perfection.

“I be terribly sorry for yer loss, m’lady. I’m sure Mr. Limbo will find whoever took yer sister.” Rousseau curtsied in response. “Is there anyone in particular that would like to see yer sister gone?”

The orphaned twin shook her head. “Not that I can think of. Back home, we are only a minor branch of the main Petrie line. We have not the eyes. We aren’t even the eldest, so there would be no point in killing one of us.”

Rousseau lowered her eyes. “There be no point in killing anyone,” she said, then looked up from under her brow. “But, excuse me, it sounds like ye’re defending yer own? Shouldn’t ye be suspecting someone not Atlantean?”

Marie-Louise stiffened, but before she could speak, Laocoön broke in. “I must elucidate you on our customs before you draw the wrong conclusions. Back in Atlantis, the houses vie for dominance in more ways than one. Violence is looked down upon, but in lower echelons of society some still favor brutality over civility and guile. Our lineage is more recent than the most ancient houses, so our fate is to be subjected to those unsavory possibilities. Us Atlanteans are accustomed to being revered for our knowledge when in population centers outside our native land. Few dare harm us. I speak not with vanity, but with knowledge of our value. The wastes, and the betwixt lands are, of course, a different matter. Hence our first thoughts and suspicions were directed at ourselves.”

Rousseau leaned her fists against her hips, elbows spread. “Then why’re ye blaming the Purists? Thems be harmless unless they’re attacked.”

Laocoön smiled, but only with the corners of his mouth, and nodded patiently. “We held an inquiry within our ranks. My coterie allowed free-flow of their consciousnesses and memories with mine. I found nothing incriminating in any one of our thoughts.”

“The Purists do not have the same luxury.”

“Hence the detective work,” Laocoön said, readjusting his paws.

“Aye,” Rousseau mumbled.

- - -

Jean and Jaques sat by the bar counter. On the other side was a man with a hulking black combat replacement arm. His hair, if it was his own, was a matted gray, and a long faux moustache dangled from the corners of his mouth like tufts of moss.

“You seen any strangers around lately?” Jean asked, leaning on the countertop with his adult arm. By now the other was close to the size of a ten-year-old’s. They were lucky that asymmetry wasn’t uncommon on Dead Earth.

The man narrowed puckered skin that went for eyelids over his amber machine orbs. “Other than you, the Atlanteans, and those damn Purists, I’d say yeah, plenty.”

Jaques interjected with a softspoken, “I think my associate means anyone suspicious. Doubtless you heard of the murder. Did anyone come in last night who seemed strange, said strange things, or with blue fluids on their clothes?”

The barman raised the bare skin over his eye. His brow scrunched into a tight harmonica of wrinkles. “Blue fluids you say…”

 Jean leaned further forward. “So you’ve seen someone?”

“Not someone. Just when all the hubbub was going on out there,” he pointed with his big black right arm, “I went out to see of course. There were some footsteps around the dirt there by the steps leading up, and then a blue handprint on one of the railings. Based on them prints I think he was deep in an intoxicant program or just plain drunk. Never came in. Took me an hour to scrub out that blue stuff. Why? You know what that stuff was?”

 “And they didn’t come in?”

The man shook his head. “Take it they’re the killer then?”

“Atlanteans bleed blue,” Jaques explained. “Whoever it was who came here was most likely the culprit, yes.”

The barman tugged on his moustache. “Shit. Well, I’ll keep an eye out for blue stuff and keep you or the guards posted.”

“That would be best, thank you,” Jean said.

As they got up, Jean bumped into a man who had just sat down and grabbed an amino-slime cable. A few curses and apologies were traded, and afterwards the barman went to wipe up the drop that had spilled from the hose nozzle. Before he erased it from the countertop, both Jean and Jaques saw that the splash formed a crude circular splotch, almost looking like concentric circles.

- - -

Lucia shuddered. The eight Purists kept staring at her. Their matted eyes seemed to pierce her skin and flesh and cut the bone beneath. She had only once met Purists before, in Roma Prima during her initiation into the See ranks. There had been a large pilgrimage to Saint Peter’s Cathedral, and had been the talk of the town. Lucia and a few other initiates had snuck in to see the weird bald people, only to be caught and spanked.

This early association of being near something she shouldn’t lingered even now. A phantom pain of the stick the rector had used on them played on her buttocks.

At length Brother Superior Misha spoke. “I take it you’ve been sent to keep an eye on us?”

Lucia nodded. “Please do not take offense. The Atlanteans also are under watch. You are not the sole suspects in the murder.”

“Nor do we assume so,” said Misha. “We had no hand in the affair.”

Lucia scratched her scalp. Her black hair was starting to be long enough to cover her skin. She hadn’t expected the pilgrimage to be so easy to handle. After she had introduced herself and explained her intentions, they had simply nodded and continued in their prayers and supplications. Now that they were done, their strange unemotional gazes were honed on her. They had an annoying way of keeping conversations to a minimum.

Unable to control herself, Lucia grimaced as the emotive enhancer tugged on her gray matter.

“What is wrong with you?” Misha asked.

“It’s nothing.”

“You seem in pain. Why?”

“I’m fine, really.”

“Please tell us what ails you. Is it radiation sickness? We have medicine for that,” another, a woman by her voice, chimed in.

“Thank you, truly, but I—” Lucia sucked in air through her teeth as a surge of molten lead shot through her veins. Her eyes bulged and an unexplainable giddy sensation crashed over her like a tidal wave.

“You are clearly unwell,” Misha said upon witnessing the minor spasm.

Lucia eyed the Purists. Not one of them looked horrified, disgusted, piteous or even curious. Emotions she had come to expect from people who saw or learned of her tragic circumstance. They just watched her like cyber-owls from atop a rafter. Indifferently expectant.

She saw that their one-track mind wouldn’t let up until she told them, and so she did. Upon relating her history and the details of her unfortunate diagnosis, the Purists were silent for a long moment. The only things that had a semblance of motion in that time were the flickering orange candle-flames licking the sterile air from their corpse-wax towers, and the coiling incense that wormed its way up to a hazy domed ceiling where frescoes and icons of holy men were occluded by a scented veil.

Misha, quite uncharacteristically for a Purist, placed a hand on Lucia’s shoulder. “Dear child. Your pain is our pain. The mistreatment you have suffered in this world is precisely why we travel and preach. Perhaps you would have been one of us if your parents had not thought you alien without augmentation. Fret not. If another spell comes upon you, we shall see to your well-being. Though your beautiful body has been cut and grafted, we see you, in spirit, as one of us.”

Lucia could never imagine herself as one of them, but given her situation, she would have rather been anything else or given anything to be as unfeeling as the Purists. “Thank you,” she said.

 She had to calm her mind before the enhancer misinterpreted her welling tears as something else. God only knew where its winds would blow her.

The groaning of wood and rusty hinges seized her attention. Glad of the distraction she turned to see the doors crack open. Buddy, Hound and the towering Antares entered. Lucia let out a sigh of relief. Even though they hadn’t been as bad as she had presumed, the Purists’ company was difficult to weather alone.

“Howdy, Lucia.” Buddy slung his wide hat on his back, allowing his cabling hair to limply jangle down to his shoulders. “Apologies if we interrupted something.”

Lucia nodded a greeting and waved off the apology. When she turned back to the Purists she noted that one of them had taken a step back. It wasn’t uncommon for normal folk to shift their weight or position, but Purists tended to stand or sit in place as still as statues. The slight alteration in their static configuration was as plain as an oil stain on white sand. Then she noted something strange. On that Purist’s sleeve were dark stains. Dark, blue stains.

“Excuse me,” she said, pointing at the man or woman. “Could you step forward, please.”

The Purist’s eyes were locked on Antares but jumped to Lucia for a second when she spoke. Realizing they had been singled out, the Purist took another, more conspicuous step back.

Misha turned. “Sister Alina, what is the matter?” he asked.

Lucia felt a giggle rumble up her throat when she saw that Buddy was edging his hand toward his atomizer. Hound’s ears were back and Antares was staring down the Purist named Alina.

The Atlantean whispered, “I think we found our killer.”

Alina turned on her heels and bolted toward the back exit.

The second chase was on.

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