7.
A Density of Trees Beyond the Shore

-1-

The young man in the dark suit walked across the hall connecting Rachman’s study to the rest of the house. Linda watched him from the darkness of the stairwell. He stopped a moment at the entrance and seemed to glance in her direction. There was something familiar about him. Had she seen him before? His eyes, striking even from this distance, surveyed the darkness. Could he see her? Rachman bellowed from the room then. “Erik!” he said. Then that annoying woman, Spacer, rushed in and ushered the man into the room. The door closed behind them and she heard Rachman’s voice raised and angry.

Linda considered going down for a listen. What could they be going on about at this time of night? In the end though, she thought better of it. Still, she wondered who the handsome man was. Did he have something to do with the investigation into Ramad’s death? He seemed a bit young for a snoop.

Linda turned to go back to her room and saw Allison standing at the top of the stairs. Hmm, how long had she been standing there? Linda hadn’t even heard the child slip up behind her.

“Time for bed honey,” she said softly, patting the Mecha child’s tender cheek as she passed. She turned when Allison didn’t follow. “Allison?”

Still the robot-girl stood quietly, staring down at the closed entrance to Rachman’s study. Linda saw something odd in her eyes. A peculiar intensity in the manner in which she watched the door. Was she listening to something that Linda couldn’t hear? “Did you hear me, Allison?” Linda asked cautiously. Allison finally turned to look at her.

“I heard you Mommy,” she said in a singsong voice. She smiled and reached out to take Linda’s hand. As the two walked into the gloom of Linda’s self-imposed solitude, the little Mecha’s head turned to look back over her shoulder. There was some new question in her eyes. Some new concern.

-2-

“What the fuck were you trying to do, Spacer?!” Rachman yelled, his face red with anger. “Trying to end the investigation before it started?!”

Spacer suffered Davich’s anger quietly. She’d seen her boss like this plenty before. She knew it would pass. Then she would explain.

Davich paced across the front of his desk, silencing the two with his glare. “What the hell would you’ve done if there was a fire fight? He can’t even carry a weapon let alone use one on a human, dammit Spacer! What if… hey…” Davich turned his attention to the Mecha, “…did anyone notice? Erik, did anyone check you out?”

“No sir, “ Erik said. “And if I may offer, I believe that…”

“Your beliefs are not fucking important, Tigue! Get this! You are a risk! You are here to record and analyze data related to one specific fucking case. You are not here to play cops and robbers with the big boys! Do you get that?!”

Erik could not process the man’s anger, it was completely counter productive. “Captain Davich, I understand you’re upset, but there are factors involved in Lieutenant Spacer’s decision that you…”

“You don’t understand shit, Tigue!” Davich cut him off. “We have to work around regulations here. Regulations that have been put in place for good fucking reasons! Regulations that…”

“Restrict the removal of evidence from a crime scene?”

Davich couldn’t believe what he’d just heard. Spacer stifled a snicker and eyed Erik curiously.

“Sir.” Erik added a moment later.

There was silence for a moment more. Neither Spacer nor Davich had ever heard a Mecha so openly challenge Orga’s assumed authority. Especially one designed to function in such an official capacity as Erik Tigue.

Davich’s mouth opened and closed uncertainly. “What are you talking ab…” he started to lie and then remembered who he was talking to; what he was talking to. “Well, I… it wasn’t a crime scene at the time and… hey, that is not important or relevant to this discussion, Tigue! And don’t you ever interrupt me!” he said, regaining his composure.

“Captain Davich,” Erik continued coolly, “this tirade is completely unproductive and unnecessary. The fact is, my mechanical nature is undetectable under casual scrutiny. Especially in the confusion of a fresh crime scene like the one Lieutenant Spacer took me too.” Erik gestured to Spacer. “She had no choice, Sir. It was a priority call. We were in the vicinity and furthermore it has assisted me to some degree with the case. I believe they are related.”

Davich was still stunned by the Mecha’s sudden insubordination. Was this some new model? Was that why Portnoy had brought him in? He calmed his breathing, uncomfortable with his own anger. Wondering at its source in a rare moment of self-introspection. The machine was just doing its job, after all. “Related?” he asked after a tight moment.

Erik nodded. “There are factors involved in both situations that allow me to hypothesize, at least at this initial juncture, that these cases might be related. I could have ascertained that idea if we had not been commanded to return here. If Lieut… if my partner, had not been so afraid of revealing me and damaging the investigation that it intimidated her from making her own decisions.”

Davich raised his hand to silence the machine but he checked himself. The Mecha was right. Spacer wouldn’t have known herself, that Erik was a machine if he had not made an obvious hint. And when Davich had first been introduced, Tigue had been waiting in the room with other officers while Portnoy had been in his office. None of the other cops had noticed. He dropped his hand and his eyes shifted back and forth between Spacer and Tigue. “What’s this… hypothesis?” he asked, calmer now.

Spacer stepped forward. “Do you remember those kids we drug in New Years Eve? The ones who busted up the transies?” she asked.

“The little Nazi with the spikes on his shoulders?” Davich snorted at the memory of the thin boy with the implants. Spacer nodded. “Yeah, what about him?” Davich asked.

“I told you that he’d slipped up and let it out that they were looking to bag some vags for someone. We passed on it because it didn’t make sense, right… why kidnap vags? But there might be a connection with Ramad’s death.”

“How?” Davich asked, genuinely intrigued.

Spacer looked at Erik. “It’s his theory,” she said. Davich fixed the Mecha with skeptical eyes. He’d worked with Mecha before. Back in the day. For all their practical abilities, they had poor understanding of human nature. They made lousy profilers, generally working from elaborate, but limited and presumptive profile models, and their logic couldn’t be any better than that of their programmers.

Erik saw the hesitancy in the Captain’s eyes. He understood that Davich assumed that he was here to simply gather and process data and leaving the snoop work to Orga, as Mecha had been used in the times before the backlash . But Davich was wrong. He’d never worked with a Mecha like Erik Tigue before. No one had.

“Well,” Erik started. “It’s not really a theory yet. Just a hypothetical relationship between the events. But it goes something like this…”

-3-

The scene at the house was the worst they’d witnessed in a while. Well, except for maybe some of the violence inflicted on the vags, but most cops didn’t usually count the vags in their calculations. And the violence that consumed the scores of runaway Mecha was way below their radar.

They had followed the path of blood from the back of the house down to the point where it disappeared, at the eastern edge of the island where the restless surf beat against a gathering of rocks surrounding a small dock. They found another security Mecha there. It was as unresponsive as the others that had been found idling around the island, as if lost. The cops didn’t have a lot of sympathy for the residents of the island; wealthy people who’d rather use cheap Mecha than employ Orga guards. Whatever had happened here probably would not have gone down like it did if they had used humans. But no one would go as far as to say they deserved it. All the same, knowing glances and smirks were exchanged among the cops and the snoops that showed up when it was found that the security Mecha had apparently malfunctioned. But what caused it?

When the Mecha at the dock was revived the cops found out a boat was missing. The sun was coming up, but there was not yet enough light to see clearly across the stretch of water between the island and the mainland.

Patrol units were sent to the bridge to shoot spotlights over the water. Nothing. A Coast Guard unit was called. There was a unit in the vicinity and it rushed over. But the effort turned out to be a waste. They found nothing.

An hour later, in the light of the new day, the missing boat was seen rocking in the waves on the shore underneath the bridge. Anxious cops rushed into the shadows beneath the bridge, weapons poised, safeties off. But the boat was empty.

In the dirt of the shoreline there were footprints leading into the density of trees beyond the shore. Just like on the bridge, in the house and at the dock, there were tiny bits of decayed flesh in the prints. A couple of snoops arrived and gazed uncomprehending at the sight. Something very strange was going down. Something they’d never seen before.

-4-

“Ben Russo and his wife are dead. Murdered. Just came in on the morning wire,” the gruff female voice on the comm spoke in hushed tones, pausing occasionally when a chewing and swallowing sound would come over the air. “Weird stuff going on… apparently they had a flesh-bot and the cops found some kinky shit, you know… whips and stuff… hold on…” the line went dead for a moment. Grainer swore. What the fuck was going on now?

“Pull off here, and turn around,” he told his Mecha driver. “Head for Evans Isle.” After a moment the comm clicked back into life.

“Anyway, where was I… oh, so Russo and his wife, Barbara, you probably seen her at the Council get-togethers… they’re getting into some bondage stuff and somebody whacks ‘em pretty hardcore. Takes out their Mecha too. Source sez blood was everywhere. Real gross. And something’s not right about it, but the cops ain’t talking. So… look, I gotta go. Clear this call off your log, Grainer. You owe me.”

“Understood, “ he responded. The line went dead. Grainer felt a tightness he was unfamiliar with. Ben Russo? Dead? What the hell was going on? Reprisal for Ramad? No… no… That didn’t even make any sense. Ramad had played a clean game. This was too big for anyone he knew. It was too big and too stupid. Ben Russo wasn’t a low-profile player. He’d been around too long. This wasn’t good.

Grainer was used to using Mecha as his security. It wasn’t like the old days. The ‘Play Days’. People generally followed the rules now-a-days. But somebody was getting rough. Too rough. Mecha couldn’t be trusted in this kind of situation. Not any legal Mecha anyway. He’d need some back-up. Some real body guards. The flesh and bone kind.

“Skip the Island,” Grainer told the driver. There were some people he needed to talk to fast. “Head for the state line. We’re going to Rouge City.” He leaned back into the cushions of his luxury cruiser. He sighed. “Ben Russo,” he muttered incredulously as the city of Trenton receded in the mirror. The shit was gonna hit the fan now.

-5-

It is silent in the darkness of the wood. Out of necessity they had traveled during the light of day, at least far enough to find shelter in the densest sections of the trees and brush where even the transients had not settled. They hid there while copter flew over and scanner beams shot into the shadows. The scanner would allow them to see the living things outlined in the various arrays of light invisible to the Orga eye.

But the scanners were useless. The unnatural travelers could not be seen by the devices.

Sunset had eventually, mercifully come. They had set out from their hiding place into the gloom. Their mission had been successful. They had found what they sought and now there was just one more thing need be done. Something that the crazy boys were supposed to have done but they had proven to be untrustworthy.

They navigate the night easily. The black of the forest night does not hinder their movement. Soon they come upon a settlement. It is an old trailer from the trucks that used to go to and fro on the old highways. Someone lives there now. The watchers hear men’s voices. Three. Maybe four at the most. This is good. There is laughter and someone is singing. The sound carries into the darkness, making no sense to the deadly specters. They wait.

After a time the voices grow quiet. The Orga are going to sleep. The waiting is over and they move quickly through the brush to where the trailer lies quiet now.

Then there is a sudden flurry of activity in the night as large shadows move against the trees, cast by the firelight from the back of the truck. Screams break out. Men’s voices, babbling like terrified children. Then they are silenced one by one.