8.
What manner of machine is this?

-1-

The dawn came quickly, a bloodshot orb in the naked sky, scouring the barren fields, beyond which Trenton was slowly awakening. It winked at the passing of an occasional cloud and its growing warmth chased a cold breeze over the two investigators. One of them was alert and scanning the site where Ramad Massud has spent his last moments of life. The other was here to keep an eye on him and would rather be elsewhere. Sleeping.

Spacer was glad that at least there was no rain as had been predicted, but would rather be home snuggling up to her favorite all night music feed. Ordinarily she’d just be getting up, prepping breakfast and getting ready for her morning one-on-one with Anderson. Erik never slept. The Mecha had been too excited about its theory (if you can imagine a robot being excited) and had insisted on seeing the crash site. Davich had embarrassedly brought out the missing debris for Erik to scan and the Mecha had not seemed surprised by what it saw. Its theory was rather absurd but neither she nor Davich had had any better ideas and at least Erik’s reasoning was consistent.

Spacer checked Erik out as he walked back and forth across the empty road. In Erik’s mind she knew his… ‘its’ mechanical mind was storing everything. Calculating every impact point and angle. She watched him quietly. Carefully. This one was different from the other machines somehow.

Erik was aware of Spacer’s gaze. She didn’t know how right she was. He was different. He stopped a moment to calculate the distance from where he stood, the place where the car had first been struck by a blast of undetermined origin, to the distant pile of broken stone in the middle of the barren field. He wondered at this. He looked at Spacer a moment and then something else took over his processing for a moment. Something that had been looming in some queue to be dealt with at an appropriate time, came suddenly to the surface.

“Are you lonely, Lieutenant?” he asked.

Spacer wasn’t sure what he’d asked at first and roused herself from her introspection. She eyed him cautiously. “What’d you say?”

“I don’t mean to be inappropriate, but I noticed the high level of solitude in the lives the Orga that I have encountered since I have been…” he stopped then and seemed to stumble for words. Spacer had never seen a Mecha do that before. “… since I… I have been awakened.”

Spacer braced herself against a sudden gust of cold air and her breath did a misty dance in front of her face. “That’s none of your business Erik. I can’t believe you even asked. What kind of Mecha are you anyway?”

“I didn’t mean to be ‘out of line’ as you would say. But I do have a variety of profiles adapted from numerous psychological studies at my disposal.” He walked forward, his face pensive. Spacer found herself stepping backward at his cautious approach. “And according to the same data I use to interpret motivations of suspects, I find that many of your kind suffer from what seems a great loneliness. Take Captain Davich for example. Even in the state of marriage, he isolates himself from his wife and she hides in the shadows of the staircase, spying on his encounters. They seem to live almost like strangers in that large house. And yourself. There seem to be many conflicting motivations just beneath the surface of your words. There is an apparent gulf of…”

“Back off, fiber-head!” Spacer barked, surprised at the strength in her voice and the way her hands clenched in fists and her breath came rapidly. What kind of fucking robot was this?! ” You just mind your job, Tigue!”

Erik studied her face for a moment. His curiosity was piqued. He stored this unexpected reaction as a profile update. Inside his head, thoughts came like a flood of information, but always as a reaction to the world around him. He wondered what motivated these ‘living’ things, how and why they moved through the world and what they sought. And why they would choose to live in pain and isolation when they were so many.

“I’m sorry, Lieutenant,” he said and smiled as he gestured to the field. “Out there, perhaps out of the range of your eyesight, is a cluster of broken rocks and cement slabs.” He turned and pointed out in the other direction. “In this direction, almost precisely in a straight path of fifteen kilometers, lies Evans Isle.” He turned to face her again. “Right here, in between, is the point where the Ramad’s vehicle crashed after being hit by some form of energy focusing device. Through analysis of the residue left on the debris, I have determined that the weapon used to disrupt the course of the Ramad’s vehicle was in all probability a modification of a tube blaster of the kind once used to burn through dense clogs in the sewage disposal pipes and drains that once ran beneath the city. The devices were large and unwieldy… difficult to maneuver. But just about the time they became obsolete there had been experimental versions developed. These were no bigger than a large rifle. Or a weapon that was once known as a ‘bazooka’. The ones who assaulted the Ramads were apparently after the city schematic of the private communities and the codes that would allow them entry. They used those codes to get into Evans Isle. What they were after there, I cannot say without further examination of the site. But I will say that part of our puzzle will be solved by knowing what lies in that ruined field.”

Spacer eyed the field. Inside she was still responding to the words that the Mecha had spoken to her. She had calmed herself as he explained his findings, but still there was a shiver of anger at his observation. “Bazooka?” she asked finally, feigning some normalcy that she didn’t feel. “What’s that?”

Erik shook his head. “They are no more. It was a blasting device that shot an exploding projectile from its mouth. The advantages of it were that it was small and could…”

“This is just the way we are!” Spacer said quickly, angrily, silencing Erik. “It’s not our doing! The world is fucked, has been fucked since most of us were born, and is getting worse all the time. We inherited this shit, Tigue! We inherited this fucked-up world… and… “ she looked out west, towards the thick lining of trees where the growing sunlight was revealing the green and twist of wooden limbs, “…and I think most of us just want to get though the day… ya know. We do what we have to do. We just have to survive till tomorrow… we don’t even know why anymore.”

Erik understood the way in which Orga, in order to deal with a magnitude of emotion, transferred strong personal feelings onto the abstract mass. He waited for her to finish and judged by her withdrawn face that he should remain quiet. He was right.

“So anyway… let’s get on with this,” she said finally, as if roused from some deep thought. ”I’m gonna drag you over to Evans and we’ll hang out till the other snoops have gone, then you can get whatever you can from whatever’s left. We’ll do a search on the history of that field on the way.“ She took a deep breath and smiled. Erik was relieved to see the expression. “Let’s go partner.”

-2-

The gates into Rouge City, statute heads of ambiguous sexuality, are perhaps more impressive when the light emitted by their gaping mouths contrasts with the night sky. In the light of day the effect is not quite the same, but nonetheless one is aware that they have entered another realm, a place quite apart from the rest of the inland, and not just in terms of location.

Harland Grainer was used to the City. He had played there plenty and had been a major part of the special arrangements made on behalf of the investors and the businessmen who made their fortunes in the trade of simulated flesh and the peripheral amusements one found in the City. Harland had even taken his pleasures here on those rare occasions when seeking Orga flesh seemed a time consuming prospect. But he was not here for those reasons today.

“Come with me,” he ordered his driver as he walked up the V.I.P. ramp that led to Dreven Olmier’s lush Rouge hangout. In the lounge he was greeted by a grim looking man in a black suit. The man’s sunglasses did not allow Grainer any close inspection.

“Olmier,” he ordered. “Tell him its Harland.”

The man, if he was a man, nodded his head at Grainer’s Mecha. “Him?”

“Don’t worry about him,” Grainer replied impatiently. “He’ll be staying here anyway.”

The thick bodied man hesitated a moment and then left the room. In a few minutes Grainer heard a familiar accented voice.

“Herlan…” Olmier mispronounced his name in his strange Euro/Irish dialect as he waddled into the room.

“Dreven, good to see ya,” Grainer lied and wrapped the small husky man in a phony embrace. Olmier return the false gesture and smiled thickly.

“Soooo, what brings ya here, Herlan. Bored with the inland? Looking for a quick ‘ya-ya’ or somethin’?” Olmier smirked.

“No… no ‘ya-ya’s” today,” Grainer said, ignoring the man’s pretend accent. It was one of those weird affectations. Olmier was a power-obsessed man who had gotten too rich, too quick. Somehow he’d managed to get himself a seat representing Rouge City’s interests. An appointment that never ceased to amuse Grainer. Olmier was nothing but a hood dressed up in corporate drag.

“Ok, so what the fuck is up with Russo?” Grainer asked accusingly.

“What? What about Russo?”

“Don’t play games with me, Dreven! This shit is gonna put the heat on everybody!”

Olmier gazed confusedly at Grainer. “What shit are you talking ‘bout?”

“Russo’s dead,” Grainer said flatly. To his satisfaction Olmier genuinely flinched. “I have a source. It’s accurate. It was bloody. It’ll be on all the local feeds as soon as the cops finish fighting over jurisdiction.” Grainer eyed Olmier tightly. “What do you know about this Dreven?

The little man’s thick eyebrows raised and he pointed a finger at Grainer. “Hey, watch you self, Herlen. I don know what your playin, but this is no game, eh. You say Russo is dead? I don know a fuckin thing ‘bout it.”

“It’s gonna bring on heat, Dreven. We don’t need any heat after Ramad!”

Olmier shrugged expansively. “Ain’t my heat. I’m clean.” Then the little man sneered at Grainer. “Anyway who are you to be talkin’? I suppose Massud Ramad’s accident was just an accident, eh.”

Grainer ignored Olmier’s comment. “I need some backup Dreven. Something weird is going down.”

Olmier raised an eyebrow. “Backup? Harland Grainer is afraid of someone? No way.”

“Don’t screw around, Dreven. You can keep this one,“ he said, gesturing to the quiet Mecha servant he’d brought in with him. “I need someone trustworthy. Some flesh and blood.”

Olmier smiled, delighted to see the usually smooth and composed Grainer sweating for a change. Then he glanced over at the thick-armed man in the dark glasses. The man stood quietly in the doorway, his face betraying no concern of the matters he was hearing discussed.

“I think I may be able to help you out Herlan,” Olmier said with a smirk.

Grainer followed the little man’s gaze and eyed the dangerous looking man that stood in the shadow of the room.

“Watch this, “ Olmier said with a disturbing twinkle in his eyes. Then he spoke to the muscular man in a series of numbers and coded phrases. The man responded by moving quickly into a fighting stance, his face alert and head moving back and forth as he scanned the room. Olmier smiled again at Grainer and then pointed at the Mecha that Grainer was trading in.

“That’s him,” Olmier said, feigning fear, his finger pointing accusingly at the confused Mecha. “That’s the fucker who’s after me!”

Suddenly, with uncanny speed and grace the thick man moved across the room to where the Mecha stood, unaware of the danger it was in. The muscular man’s arm thrust forward quickly and Grainer thought he could hear the rush of air from the speed of the strike as it caught the Mecha just beneath the chin. Grainer jumped back as his old servant’s head exploded in sparks and scattering bits of metal-fiber. The dead machine dropped to the floor and its ruined head sizzled and popped with electric fire.

“Shit Dreven!” Grainer yelled. “What the hell is that?!” He stepped away from the thing in the black suit. It was still scanning the room frantically, in search of a new target.

Dreven was laughing as he spoke the rapid numbers again and the thing in the sunglasses relaxed and retreated back to its place in the shadow of the room.

Olmier laughed again. “Pretty neat, eh? I just love these things. They can even pass most scans. Not cheap though. Eh?” he said rolling his fingers together in the universal sign of ‘cold cash’.

Grainer nodded slowly. “Yeah… they look like they can do the job, I guess,” he said looking down at the sizzling Mecha. “How much?”

“No… no… not this one. This one’s already imprinted on me, Herlan. C’mon, We’ll get you a fresh model.” Grainer had to step over the ruined heap on the floor as he followed the waddling Olmier to the front exit.

“Get that mess cleaned up!” Olmier yelled back into the room as they left. Then he winked at Grainer. “Getting crazy, eh? Like the old days… the Play Day’s, eh?” he laughed again and Grainer had to admit that the little prick had a point.