6.
The Field

-1-

“Hold her… hold her…” he said, crouching naked, pressing himself against the girl’s prostrate form. Panting, face reddened in exertion and excitement, he cupped his arms under the girl’s body and lifted her tightly against his crotch, sliding deeper into her savaged warmth. “Ahhh… yeah… Yeah!” His legs strained with the weight of her body. He rocked his hips, rutting against the whimpering girl. Her dress was hitched up over her back, her face pressed into the pillows. Her dark skin covered in welts and bruises from her refusal to follow orders.

Another woman stood at the head of the bed. In black mask and dominatrix accoutrements, she gripped the struggling girl’s arms behind her head and twisted. The girl screamed out in pain and was silenced by a rough slap to the face. “Shut the fuck up!” the older woman yelled pulling on the girl’s long back hair. “Shut the fuck up you goddamned little slut!” The woman struck the girl with the whip. “Get her on the floor,” she said to the rutting man, whose excess flesh slapped wetly against the girl’s plump rump.

“Wait… Barb…” the sweating man panted. “Wait I’m almost… almost…”

”On the floor, Ben,” his wife said almost pleading. He always broke the fantasy. She was supposed to be in charge this time. He could never play in character. She swung the whip again.

“Hey! Watch it!” Ben yelled, a sudden red welt growing on his straining leg. “Shit Barb! Watch it with the fucking thing! Don’t hit me! Hit the fucking Mecha!”

“See! There you go again!. Barbara said angrily, black-gloved hands on wrinkled hips. “She’s not a fucking Mecha, Ben!” She turned her attention to the whimpering robot again. “She’s a cheap goddamned little street-whore bitch, and she deserves a…” the woman raised the whip high again.

“Hey,” Ben jumped back, pulling out of the girl-bot. “ Watch it! My bruises are real, dammit Barb!” He stood back on the bed, his stiffened manhood an angry little fingery thing poking up from under his overgrown gut. Barbara looked at him quietly for a moment. Then she had to laugh.

“Well now you’ve ruined it!” she said tossing the whip across the bedroom. “Why can’t you ever stay in the moment, Ben?” She yanked the mask off and sat back into a cushioned chair. “Every time. Shit Ben! Every time,” she muttered to herself.

Seeing the whip discarded, Ben struggled back into a crouching position to finish what he’d begun. Fuck Barbara’s little games. He just needed a few moments more in that warm backside.

The Mecha raised her head, a plea in her Asiatic eyes. “Please M’am. Please let me go. My parents are wealthy and will pay good money to…”

“No, no…” Barbara waved the Mecha silent. “Games over, Maxine. Clean up and prep dinner, ok honey?” Barbara said.

Ben grunted disapproval at this idea, but the Mecha girl smiled an acknowledgment and her welt and bruises disappeared from her flesh as she rose from the bed and left the room.

“Barbara!” Ben said angrily. “I wasn’t finished.”

“Oh give it up!” she said. “Why should you have all the fun? All I ask is that you stay in character and you can’t even… even… God what is that smell?”

Ben just looked at her quizzically for a moment. Then he grimaced. “Yeah… what is that sm…”

Then they both saw the source of the smell. It stood in the doorway to the bedroom. Ben had enough time to scream as he saw his wife’s head gripped and twisted violently by the impossible apparition. He screamed as he heard the bones in her neck disengage and crack, popping snaps muted by muscle and flesh. He screamed as the thing jumped onto the bed with him.

Then he stopped screaming.

Forever.

-2-

“What d’ya got here?” Spacer asked as she crouched beside a local blue who was postured outside a brightly lit house in the middle of the island.

The cop looked his shoulder. Recognized her. Grunted. “Fuck if I know. Somebody heard a screaming inside and some neighbors thought they saw some weird shit.”

“Some weird shit?” Spacer asked, brows raised. “Can you be more specific?”

The local squeezed a jaded glance at her and then caught a look at the desk-looking dork behind her. Was this his backup? “Yeah, “ he said, “Some rich ‘lockup’ fukko bumped his toe and we’re out here to waste the table that got in his way.”

Spacer smiled in spite of the insubordination. This was the field. This was what cops were like in the field. “Yeah… gotcha. Where’s the local security?” she asked.

“Good question,” the cop responded. “There’s an alarm goin off, but it just happened after we got here. Don’t make no sense. We got no answer on the knock. Then seen some shadows inside and the alarms went haywire and you guys show up… that’s the story so far.”

“Your partner?”

The cop gestured to the back area of the house with his chin. “Yours?” he asked, smirking at the black suited smooth faced young man behind her.

“Don’t worry about him. He can take care of himself,” Spacer said quickly and then approached the house. “Call for a scanner and find out where the fucking security is around here!” What kind of lockup was this? There should be private cops all over the place.

“Done and doing!” the local said. He looked over at Erik. “Like ‘em saucy eh?” he whispered with a knowing raise of the eyebrows. “Yeah me too. The sauce makes it slide in easier,” the cop said and laughed. Erik took a nanosecond to ponder a response. Then he winked and grunted.

Spacer drew her weapon as she approached the door. She heard other cruisers arriving as she moved into the shadows of the brush in the front yard of the house. She hoped one of the cruisers had a scanner. They could check for the proximity of warm bodies to the doorways. When she was near the house she wondered how anyone could possibly break into the place. The ground level was a fucking fortress. She checked the ground level windows for any activity and saw none. Whoever was in there could certainly see them. There was probably a damned real-time holograph of the property in there somewhere. She broke the cover of the brush and moved quickly to the front door.

Then she saw a shadow move quickly across the interior of the front room. It was headed for the front portal. She hit the dirt. “Cover!” she yelled to the cops who were now approaching behind her. She heard them hit the ground and heard weapon safety’s clicking off. She rolled away from the lit walkway on which she had been approaching and into a cluster of bushes along the walk.

Then the door slid open suddenly. She aimed. “Identify yourself!” she yelled.

The trembling dark skinned woman who walked into the light was naked except for the torn remnants of a dress that hung around her waist. She tripped as she walked into the large amber lit yard. Then she collapsed face down into the manicured grass. A puff of smoke burst from her head and a small blue flame lit and extinguished against the back of her ear. Something was going down all right.

“It’s Mecha!” Spacer yelled just in case the others hadn’t seen the sparks from their position. Spacer rolled over again and rose to her knees. “It burnt-out! Get me a fucking scanner up here!” she yelled and two of the new arrivals headed back to their vehicles. By now neighbors were standing in their doorways.

Spacer jumped towards the Mecha and checked its head. There was a gash where the spark had erupted. Somebody hadn’t wanted it to remember something. Maybe they could salvage the memory later. She jetted for the door, weapon pressed out in front of her and landed in a crouch at the open portal.

“This is the State police! Get your asses out and face on the floor now. We are armed and ready to kick your ass if you fail to comply!”

“Don’t be so damned dramatic!” a voice came from inside. Spacer took aim.

“I am not fucking around! Get your….” She stopped suddenly and lowered her weapon as a muscular blue uniformed man walked into vision from the interior of the house. His face was pale. It must be the first cop’s partner.

“It’s clear. Whatever went down is over,” he said. “The house has a holo display. Can’t see nobody but you guys… and that,” he gestured to the fallen Mecha woman. He leaned wearily against the wall and smiled strangely for a moment.

“You ok?” Spacer asked not yet holstering her weapon.

“Don’t waste time with an ambulance. Get an investigator. It’s a fucking bloodbath in here,” he said, his eyes wide and disturbed. “A fucking bloodbath.”

-3-

Where the hell was she? Davich paced nervously in his study. He didn’t like the idea of using this fiber-head on the case. He knew there were advantages, yes. Portnoy was right about the honesty. What the hell would you use to bribe a Mecha anyway? And how could you intimidate something that had no sense of being alive? But there were chances too. Portnoy was putting himself on the line by okaying a Mecha in what could prove to be a high profile case. Davich admired that. It showed the man was sincere. But what if they got caught?

Spacer was supposed to being Erik right back after he scanned the debris. He was a pretty real looking job. But not completely undetectable by some observant cop or reporter.

Fuck! Where was she?!

-4-

Erik ignored the questions the local cops had thrown at him. The grunting thing Spacer had recommended was working fine. He scanned the area and recorded everything he saw. Blood lined the interior of the bedroom and coagulated in pools on the carpet. The torn remains of an old woman sat in the chair. Broken shards of bone protruded from her flesh where her joints had been twisted and ripped. On the bed the savaged remains of a man lie still on blood soaked sheets. Streaks of blood, browned by now, ran up the length of the wall.

Erik ran the visuals through his pattern scanners and found cross reference. He calculated the impact of the trauma. The angle of the blows. The strength it would have taken to cause the terrible damage on the bodies. Whatever had happened here had been done by someone… something… stronger than an average Orga. But Mecha were never allowed to hurt humans.

“We gotta go!” Spacer whispered urgently from behind him. Erik turned to see her rolling her eyes, gesturing to the hallway. “Just follow me and talk to no one,” she said. Erik grunted and walked casually behind her through the gauntlet of curious stares from the local cops.

“You guys are gonna hafta call in a local on this… we…uh.. were already on a call and just happened to be in the area,” she said ushering Erik quickly to the front door.

“Are you telling me the State is walking away from this?” one of the locals said incredulously. They were used to the State boys trying to rip every big case that came along. What the hell was up with this? He looked at the quiet guy Spacer was with. “So what’s it about, huh? You’re the first snoop on the scene. You gonna walk on this?”

Erik sighed convincingly and then made a pose of pensive introspection. He fixed the man eyes. Then grunted. He followed Spacer who was making her exit as some more locals pulled onto the site, sirens blazing.

“Let’s get the fuck outta here,” she said as Erik got into the cruiser beside her. “I should’a never let you into the house. Shit. Davich will kill me if I get you exposed.”

“Don’t worry Lt Spacer. It’s not as obvious as you think. These men would have never realized my nature.”

“Bullshit. All you had to do was open your mouth.” She thrust the cruiser into gear and backed away from the swarm of men descending on the house.

“These crimes are related,” he said as they sped away.

Spacer checked him out he corner of her eye. “What?”

“These crimes are related,” Erik repeated.

“Ok, I’m listening.”

“The debris at the crash facility was burnt. Although I did not have time for an accurate scan, I believe the residue came from some form of pressure blaster. Any weapon of that nature would not be easily handled by even an unusually strong Orga. I believe that when I see the ‘other’ debris… “ He smiled at Spacer as he said this. She snorted. He continued, “… I will find that it has large deposits of the same residue.”

“Ok so the events are related in that…. ?“

“In that the damage caused to those people was committed by someone unusually strong. More than one. The level of coincidence considering proximity is too high. In a casual scanning of my database I find that only two similar cases have occurred before in this general vicinity.”

“There were more than one intruder? How many?“

“Two at least, in the house. Perhaps more on the perimeter. But I would have to check the site for…”

“We’re not going back!” Spacer shook her head. “There’s some snoops at the site by now. Someone is sure to spot you. We’ll have to talk to Davich first. I am not gonna be responsible for fucking this thing up.”

“I believe they were Mecha,” Erik said.

Spacer sighed. Could it be? Rogue Mecha? Killing Orga? Oh shit. “The last time that happened was years ago,” she said.

“Haddonfield,” Erik recounted the details. “A lover Mecha inexplicably went rogue, killing a customer and then fleeing. They found him in Manhattan of all places, in the company of another runaway who disappeared with a state amphibicopter. The killing was never quite explained and the lover Mecha was shut down too soon for an accurate analysis.”

“Yeah, I heard most of that story before,” Spacer said. “But I didn’t know it was with another runaway.”

“The other was a prototype of the child Mecha series.”

“Oh yeah, Davich’s wife has one of those things. So why do you think the killers are Mecha?”

“Whoever got past that security did so without triggering any alerts. At this point, I am sure you will find the system for some reason ignored the trespassers. I am also secure in assuming that the security are Mecha and that you will find that they are unresponsive and perhaps have no memory of the time period ion question.” Then he looked at her and his face showed the first signs of uncertainty she’d seen in him.

“The only thing I cannot understand,“ he said, ”is the decayed flesh.”

Spacer’s eye’s grew wide in a silent question. “Flesh?!”

The comm erupted again. Davich’s angry voice come over the line. “Spacer! Tigue! Where the hell are you?”

Erik glanced at the comm and then looked coolly at Spacer. “Partner... we’ve got to get back to that site.”