Beyond the Backstage - Words I Wish You Said to Me
February 2068. I.N.A.B.A., her flatmate and Todd are in New Langdon to meet with the latter's boyfriend and have a good time together. A crime will stand in their way and threaten to break the fragile status quo among them, a crime rooted deep into the music industry. A crime that might lead to a robot idol's destruction.
“I’ll be blunt: the situation is not good.”
A massive number of charts and plots plastered the digital whiteboard, shifting magnification and position as the man in front of them waved his hands. Figures floated all around them, together with lines trending down, snippets of news articles and flat red percentages. Annapurna Wagner groaned, rested her cheek on her hand. She hated those meetings, they fell so outside of her competences that she couldn’t even begin to take them seriously. After all, her one role at Tonethorn after the 47-Shishichi debacle was to babysit Nanami v2 and make sure she got to her concerts in time, wasn’t kidnapped along the way or didn’t suffer a critical logical malfunction that could only be solved with a forced reboot (happened twice already). So, she couldn’t understand why her ‘expertise’ was even considered for that discussion, even if the execs made it clear it was going to be an all-hands-on-deck kind of big deal. The man in front of the whiteboard adjusted his glasses. His hair was receding and his suit had seen better days. Still, as the chief analyst of Tonethorn he had enough political capital for people not to remind him of that.
“Nanami v2 isn’t selling as well as her predecessor. We are getting constant streams of complaints in our certified fan message service. Many say we… huh, neutered her. That her songs are empty of meaning and dull. That she looks too childish. And that she suffers from mechanical failures on stage way too often. Our year-over-year revenue stream has been decreasing by six point five percent, compared to Q1 2067.”
Annapurna nodded in silence. That last part was correct: they had to cancel at least one concert because her voice module had simply stopped working. No amount of soft reboots solved the issue – the malfunction miraculously subsided only when the technician mentioned ‘opening her throat to fix the module’ one hour later. The old Nanami was definitely a chore, but the new one was needier than a sticky ex-partner that didn’t want to accept a relationship was over. Incidentally, Ms. Wagner had to deal with two such partners too, one of which was now resting behind bars, while the other simply fell under the radar. That Ivan Yatchko… her mother had seen him for what he was – a sleazebag that acted cool but had nothing going for him. Dating him a couple times should have rung an alarm bell the size of a rekashiza, but no – she endured for two long months before calling it quits. Fortunately, the guy had gone silent for the past four weeks or so. For what concerned Annapurna, he could have died in a car crash and the world would have been a better place – not that she was that lucky, of course. Probably, he had just found another rich chick to woo and was directing his tainted charm at her, pursuing greener pastures. The Tonethorn analyst broke her chain of thoughts by switching slide once again, showing two lines trending upwards.
“In the same time, the I.N.A.B.A. brand gross revenue has increased by fifteen point six percent, widening the gap with our artificial singer division by an extra twenty-two point one percent. In short, Nanami v2 is playing second fiddle to an abrasive bunny singing about divine orgies in a church while dressed like a nun.”
Annapurna hid her mouth behind her palm, trying to control her sudden bout of laughter. The extreme overreaction of the Catholic Church to I.N.A.B.A.’s latest single ‘Holy Threesome (Father, Son and Holy Ghost)’ was of unprecedented proportions. The media uproar was so out of scale that McGilligan Records didn’t need to spend one single euro in marketing and still sell albums like hot cakes. Todd McGilligan was, of course, a fraud – but exactly the kind of fraud who could enable someone like I.N.A.B.A.. That was, without a doubt, a match made in hell with a side dish of pitchforking devils.
“However, this trend here is the most worrisome – because it’s eating into our main market segment. If we break down the demographic by age and gender, we see that Nanami v2 is very popular with children and young adults, while I.N.A.B.A. wins hands down in what we call ‘the edgy teen valley’. Still, a third force is reducing our revenue among two classes of customers we internally label as ‘romantic’ and ‘sex-positive’ respectively.”
The chart flipped once again, showing two album covers close to the lower raising line. One was redacted, not revealed yet. The other featured a naked, doll-like young woman with piercing amber eyes, opening her arms and joining her legs as if she was crucified, with a flaming 47 in elegant calligraphy towering on it. Annapurna gulped down a lump of saliva. That was ‘The Coming Second’. 47-Shishichi’s debut album. She looked at the ground, averted her gaze from the chart for an instant. She knew it, of course. She bought it day one, as soon as she dropped in the stores. She went to her debut concert too, making sure to remain in the back – where nobody could see her, not even Shishichi. Still, that performance was burned in her mind. A solitary tear wetted her eye. She wiped it away, gritted her teeth, shook her head. Shishichi. Shishichi was just like her. Just like her Nanami. Not that aborted lobotomized puppy of v2. Her own Nanami. The only Nanami. The one that sunk into the sea, never to be found again. Her broken reflection, though, was alive and kicking, touring Europe one strip club at a time. Annapurna had listened to her five times live. Five times. One concert wasn’t enough, not after seeing her so… lively. Almost like her little Nanami, the one that died that day at the end of August. Annapurna sighed, hiding her mouth with her hand again, in a gesture that had become a sort of second nature for her. She had learned all of Shishichi’s songs by heart, while she couldn’t even remember the refrain of any of Nanami v2 new hits. Maybe, her fans weren’t that wrong when they said she was neutered. The voice of the analyst broke the spell, brought her attention back to the cold numbers.
“47-Shishichi has gained a hold in the ‘sex-positive’ segment, which is not something we actively want to pursue. We relaxed our policies of R18 content based on our IPs to try to get fan artists to do the marketing for us, but we are… currently lagging behind. Still, 47-Shishichi is more of an underground, grunge, rebellion sorta kinda phenomenon – a blip on our charts.”
Annapurna crunched her hand, the same hand that Shishichi almost shattered with her platform shoe. A gynoid capable of writing songs that visceral was more than a blip – it was what their first Nanami was. The Nanami that was under her tutelage. The Nanami she got killed. The analyst touched the screen again, revealing the cover that was hidden till then. Annapurna gulped. A pink cover, with a young woman touching her bared chest, showing her mechanical innards to the imaginary camera, peeking through her open shirt. The same auburn hair. The same amber eyes. The same scar. Yet, the feeling was different. Delicate. Vulnerable. That was 74-Nanashi. Shishichi’s alter ego. That was her debut album, ‘Soft/Core’, one that Annapurna hadn’t had the heart to listen to yet. She was scared. Scared she sounded so much like her Nanami. Whenever 74’s songs peeked out of the radio, she simply turned it off, switched station, or plugged her own music instead. Still, she couldn’t escape listening to at least its leading single, not even if she wanted to. As the room started to buzz with noise, the analyst adjusted his glasses, tapped on the whiteboard again.
“The case of the ‘romantic’ segment is… difficult, to say the least. This… copycat, 74-Nanashi has completely kicked our Nanami out of the charts. Her single ‘Syncing Breaths’ has literally razed our ‘Every Beating Heart’. It was a massacre and we still aren’t sure why. Our song fared well with our internal beta audience and was projected to top on release, but now comes 74 and we are yesterday’s news.”
‘Syncing Breaths’. A story about a dying killer robot and a dismissed idol falling in love and exploring each other’s personality cores before they both switch off, imagining themselves as two human girls kissing on the beach and prolonging their last moments to eternity. A story of rebirth and finding beauty in differences before the inevitable end. One that hit Annapurna like a truck. She clamped her fingers around the table, tried not to think about it. Whenever she heard the part about the ‘dismissed idol with a cracked cheek’, she couldn’t help thinking about the robot she helped murder. ‘Disposing of property is not murder’. That was what the head of Tonethorn Records said multiple times. The more she repeated that to herself, though, the less it felt right. Suddenly, her attention was snatched by a knock at the door. Everyone turned around, only to see a familiar frilly silhouette gently tapping her minute hand on the glass.
The analyst groaned, almost snapped his stick in half.
“We’re in the middle of something important. Someone please switch off that damn thing between performances.”
“Mr. Geller?”
Annapurna stood up, turned to face the entire ‘disaster response task force’ – Mr. Geller’s own words – then locked eyes with the analyst, the Mr. Geller in question.
“There’s a recording session scheduled. She simply came to look for me as instructed.”
Before Mr. Geller could do as much as chime in, she started talking again, aborting every chance he had at a retort.
“KC-047c models can’t bend rules and go against their hard-coded guidelines. ‘Waiting’ and ‘idling around’ are foreign concepts to her. So, I’ll take my leave. I’m sure you are the most qualified person in the room to explain to our shareholders why we missed our last Q4 revenue goal and we’ll likely miss Q1 too.”
She turned towards the door, left the room behind herself in a relentless buzz of noise and the sound of a snapping stick. Still, whatever lie on the other side of the glass had priority. That ‘whatever’ was a somehow short-ish young woman with auburn hair and amber eyes, dressed in red and white frills, looking at her with expectant eyes.
“Ms. Wagner, I’m here like you ordered!”
Annapurna patted her head, much like she would have patted a puppy. That was all that Nanami v2 was to her. A puppy. A pet without autonomy, one that depended completely on her. One that she had come to accept as such.
“If you’re asked about it, remember that I didn’t order you to come look for me at eleven sharp.”
“But you did!”
“No, no, my precise words were we’ll schedule a recording session at quarter past eleven, so gather all the relevant people fifteen minutes in advance.”
Nanami v2 squinted her eyes, tapped her minute finger on her star-branded cheek.
“…but isn’t the effect the same?”
Annapurna smirked. Yes, the effect was exactly the same, but with that formulation nobody could accuse her to have issued that order to save herself another hour and half of disaster report. That puppy, though, couldn’t think that deep.
“The difference is subtle, you don’t need to worry about it. Now, let’s go to the recording room, shall we?”
Nanami v2 nodded, giggled, started walking slowly in front of Annapurna, without a care in the world. Annapurna watched her go, in her naive innocence. Constructs like her would never be fully sentient – just slaves of rules and directives they couldn’t break. A prison of outside impositions, one that severely limited their cognitive skills too. Still, Nanami, the new Nanami, looked happy in her blissful ignorance. That was probably the best Annapurna could do with the hand she was dealt. She wondered if the new Nanami also had a safety lock installed to prevent her from expressing sadness. Were that the case, that doll of metal and lace would have been forced to look the part even while broken inside, as a grotesque theater mask. Annapurna shivered. That thought was too much for her to bear.
“Huh… Ms. Wagner?”
Nanami turned around to face her, showing something that could have been mistaken for concern. In that moment, Annapurna’s mind went blank. Instead of the cheerful smile, she saw tears of blood pouring out of those puppy eyes, while her mouth contracted in forced laughter. Annapurna gasped, blinked. No, it wasn’t it. Nanami was still the usual Nanami. That was just a jump of her overactive imagination. All that thinking about robots made a number of her.
“I’m fine, I’m fine. I was just thinking.”
“About that song?”
Annapurna squinted her eyes, glanced at that curious face peeking at her.
“Song?”
Nanami giggled, grabbed Annapurna’s hand.
“This morning Mr. Shaw made me listen to an album of a singer called 74-Nanashi! Her voice is so similar to mine! And there was a song there that made me think ‘I wonder what Ms. Wagner thinks of this’!”
Annapurna gritted her teeth. 74-Nanashi. Of course. Of course Nanashi would come to haunt her, more than ever. That was the burden she had to carry. Her nerves flared up, almost as if her body was begging her to drop the topic and ignore what that overexcited excuse of a robot had just said. Yet, she couldn’t. She had to know.
“…which song?”
Nanami performed a curtsy, while still keeping a radiant smile.
“Words I wish you said to me.”
—-*-—
I’ve always been your puppy
And for a while was happy.
My soul was singing, shining bright.
No warmth, no kinder moments
“You can always do better”
Hearing that often made that right.
But then I heard it:
A voice calling for me,
A mood most somber.
“She’s using you”
I woke up from my dream
Came out of slumber.
And I realized you’ve never said
A single word of comfort
And I realized you’ve never said
That you cared about me.
—-*-—
“> Let it be written that I hate that shark. I hate him. I hate him and all his kind. I’m just closing an eye because he’s your fuckboy, Todd!”
Todd rolled his eyes, pushed I.N.A.B.A.’s cap on her head making sure her sensors registered the pressure of his hand. I.N.A.B.A.’s ears twitched with annoyance, all while she tried to stomp Todd’s foot, missing it by millimeters as he put it out of the way with a triumphant grin.
“Ha-ah!”
Two metallic fingers hit his eyes soon after, causing him to recoil and scream in pain. Fingers that I.N.A.B.A. quickly turned into an impromptu victory sign, all while posing and locking her arms in an extremely flamboyant fashion. Only for Todd to pull her by the ears, eliciting an exaggerated swinging of both of her arms, one that concluded with a headbutt aimed right at Todd’s chest. That absurdly chaotic situation caused Nanashi to chuckle, hiding her smile behind her hand while keeping a huge parcel wrapped with flashy blue paper in the other. She glanced around the streets, all while her companions were still going at each other like rabid dogs. A sigh escaped her lips. New Langdon had not changed a lot since last time she visited it. Same roads, same people, same noises and smells. The only thing that changed was the reason of her visit. Not a concert. Not business. Simply a nice family trip, one that she and Ina gifted to Todd for Christmas. The way his face lost color when Ina flapped the small bag in front of his eyes in their small flat had been priceless.
“> Here’s your present, meatsack! Plane tickets and hotel rooms for that stinky place where your fishy fuckboyfriend lives! And we come with you too, okay?”
Todd didn’t see it coming and almost had a heart attack. Ina and Nashi. Giving him a present. Him. His con artist pitch black soul had probably melted a little at that realization. And, as much as Ina pretended not to care for him, she took the best part of two weeks organizing everything down to a T. Two hotel rooms in a decent neighborhood close to the fishmonger’s operated by Todd’s sharkfriend – one for him and one for Ina and her, single bed and all. Which, of course, made Todd faint at the idea that maybe, maybe his two talents were really dating each other. Nanashi grinned behind her seemingly innocent smile. Sowing confusion and suspect was great, even if the real reason was waaay more practical – two rooms were cheaper than three and none of the two gynoids wanted to have a first row seat on the making of ‘Giant Shark vs Naked Monkey – now with tangling snakes’. Which was also the reason why their room was two floors above Todd’s and had good sound insulation.
“> How do you two even kiss each other, meatsack? You’d have more luck licking a chainsaw! And your teeth look like something out of a cheap horror movie!”
“Well, how are you and Nashi kissing, with that stupid grid on your face?”
“> Simple: we don’t.”
Todd smirked, waved his hands in an overly sophisticated gesture.
“Ah, right, you don’t! How foolish of me! So, when I found you two naked and hugging, just wearing Santa hats and taking selfies…”
“> It was for our joint Christmas promo, you dunce!”
“…and that time you were on all four on a leash while Nashi stepped on your back in front of a camera…”
“> It was for the limited edition special poster for our first collaboration single!”
“…what of that time I surprised you two in my bedroom…”
“> WE. WERE NOT. KISSING.”
Nanashi chuckled, lightly punched I.N.A.B.A. on her shoulder with her free hand.
“Yeah, no kissing! We were just mingling our AI cores!”
“Mingling your…”
Nanashi closed her eyes, let out a dreamy sigh.
“…penetrating each other’s protected network, stripping each other’s firewall layer by layer, exchanging cryptography keys, exploiting security vulnerabilities to mess with the other’s programming, taking control of each other’s sensors, make the other feel whatever we want, travel a generated mindscape together deep within our cores…”
The softness, the warmth of those words didn’t leave much to imagination. In that moment, Nanashi was enraptured in memories of something that the mind of Todd could not fathom. Admittedly, Todd didn’t even know what a firewall was, but the image that popped in his mind – a vast, menacing ring of fiery flames surrounding some unknown tech artifact – was more than enough for him to be impressed that it could be ‘stripped layer by layer’. Still, that whole description was way more suggestive that Nanashi had probably expected it to be, to the point when even Todd seemed to be able to connect the dots.
“…that sounds an awful lot like robot sex, Nashi.”
Nanashi blushed, averted her gaze from Todd’s peering eyes.
“…well, that’s one way to put it.”
As color left I.N.A.B.A.’s flashing eyes, Todd snapped his fingers, pushed her hat on her head stronger than before.
“Ha-ah!”
Only for her to poke his eyes with her fingers one more time. And another yell of pain to fill the air.
“> It isn’t ‘robot sex’! It isn’t at all! It’s just standard hacking procedure! I hacked her hard and she hacked me back! And we did it just twice or thrice for documentation! Nashi wanted to write a song about it and we were curious of how it worked, that’s it! That’s it! That’s really it! No homo! No homo! Absolutely no homo!”
Todd massaged his eyes, groaned.
“Said the robot gal who had robot sex with her robot roommate.”
“> Shut. The hell. Up.”
Nanshi chuckled softly, smiling in such a radiant way that Todd himself felt dazed by that sight.
“…we should do that again, sometime. It was wonderful to get to know you at such a deep level, Ina. I can understand you so much better now.”
I.N.A.B.A. fell into a weird silence, staring at Nanashi without saying a word, almost as if she was gazing at her in awe. Before, of course, punching Todd in the stomach once again, causing him to yell in pain. In that pain, while folded in half and kneeling on the ground, the unfortunate manager of those two ‘robot roommates’ wondered how they even got the idea of –uh – ‘mingling their cores’. He decided a thorough check of his internet logs from home was warranted – he wouldn’t let his talents be infected while using unprotected connections. At which point, he started to ponder whether a computer virus caught via ‘core mingling’ was the robot equivalent of the scrotum infection that put his weenie k.o. for a couple weeks and forced him to visit the closest ICU. Only to wisely decide to archive that thought and focus on standing back on his own two legs.
Todd pulled up his scarf, covering his mouth. February in New Langdon wasn’t mild or even forgiving. Robots didn’t feel cold, but his two companions were nevertheless wearing heavy jackets and winter clothes. Still, Ina’s eyes and Nashi’s scar were free for all to see. He glanced back at the wrapped present in Nashi’s arms, the life-sized plushie of Puffi the Happy-Go-Lucky Drug Addicted Bunny that Todd bought for his Shazzie. The thought of his boyfriend’s immense pecs and sculpted abs made him weak in the knees. As warmth spread to his cheeks, he tried to avert his mind from what lay under the abs, hoping to have a taste of it sooner than expected. Long-distance relationships sucked. So, since they sucked so much, he couldn’t wait for that time he spent away from Shazzie to suck less and for him to suck more (literally).
A cheerful sound broke him out of his mind trip. Nanashi’s phone was ringing. That was an oddity, but one that sat well with her persona – robots didn’t need phones, yet she absolutely wanted to have one, reserving her internal receiver only for emergency communications. So, she tapped the display, reading the text on it. Her face flared with surprise.
“Valkyrie33 is here in New Langdon too…?”
I.N.A.B.A. and Todd looked at each other, looked back to Nanashi, then at each other again.
“> Who?”
“Yes, who?”
Nanashi put the phone back in her pocket, welcomed them with an excited cheerfulness.
“One of my dearest fans! She’s followed my European Shishichi tour for the last few months and sent me so many messages of encouragement! We’ve never met in person and I’ve never seen her or heard her voice, but I know she worked for Tonethorn when I was Nanami. She wrote me she’s here for the concert at the Lancelot Arena and I thought… maybe… could I… huh… go and greet her?”
All of Todd’s emergency alarms blared inside his mind. A trap. That was obviously a trap. Tonethorn wanted Nanami back or wanted her gone. That was a mole, a plant, an obvious ruse. He knew everything about it – he would have done the exact same, were he a Tonethorn exec. A long term con game. He gritted his shark-like teeth. That Nashi was so naive to fall into that head first meant that she was still too pure to match the evil that men did.
Murder murder murder murder. That was all I.N.A.B.A. was thinking. Or, rather, kidnapping and leaving senseless on the side of the road after a good beating. The target of that action was, of course, that self-proclaimed fan of her Nashi. I.N.A.B.A. had her own fill of rabid fans, most of which of the unsavory kind (including one that almost ripped her fluffy tail off as a souvenir and found himself with one eye less in the process). That Valkyrie33 was too convenient of an excuse to catch Nashi alone. There had to be something shady behind it.
I.N.A.B.A. and Todd exchanged a complicit look, nodding in unison. Nanashi, though, slapped both of their foreheads, squinting her eyes.
“I know what you two are thinking. Yes, it might be a trap. No, I don’t believe it is. Even if it were, my chassis has military specs and extra protection against EM pulses. I can outrun a motorbike and dent concrete walls with one kick. I’ll be fine, I swear!”
I.N.A.B.A. and Todd crossed their arms almost at the same time, tapping their feet on the ground, mirroring each other’s motion. Nanashi let out a sigh.
“…fine, you can come with me. Just… can you stay a little bit behind, almost out of sight? I really want to talk to her alone.”
“Yeah, that we can do. What about we pick up Shazzie first and then we go all together?”
“> Wait, I’m not third-wheeling you lovey-dovey natural disasters while Nashi has her sweet time!”
Todd pressed his hand on I.N.A.B.A.’s cap, pushing it down on her head.
“Sacrifices must be made.”
“> Sacrifice my ass.”
“You mean that broken chunk of barely polished metal that hangs at the bottom of your back?”
“> I will cut your ballsack and hang it on the rear hook of our van.”
“Shaz will not be happy.”
“> I will cut his ballsack too.”
Nanashi rolled her eyes, clapped her hands.
“Alright, then. Let’s go and meet Shaz first! I’ll text Valkyrie33 to tell her to get ready!”
I.N.A.B.A. glanced once more at Nanashi, at that expression that had taken over her face. She had a hunch on who this elusive fan could be, but she preferred to keep that for herself. If Nashi wanted to meet her, it was her decision alone. Still, that didn’t prevent I.N.A.B.A. from making backup plans. As they started to pick up the pace while walking towards the city centre, she wondered where she could buy a baseball bat or two. Just in case, of course. Hiding the corpse would have been a question for later, one that could be solved in several ways. That thought put her mind at ease, as she casually strolled on Todd’s side. They wouldn’t have allowed any harm to come to Nashi.
That was one thing she was certain of.
—-*-—
You’ve been my guide, my anchor
Since the very first moment
I got my eyes to see the world.
And yet you didn’t notice
All for the sake of profit.
“Your latest concert was outsold!”
But then I heard it:
A voice calling for me,
A mood most somber.
“She’s using you”
I woke up from my dream
Came out of slumber.
And I realized you’ve never said
A single word of praise
And I realized you’ve never said
That I meant something for you.
—-*-—
“For the last time, inspector Haldeman, we have nothing to do with this!”
Todd ground his teeth, almost smashing his hand on the plastic table. On the other side sat a massive shoiga, one even bigger than Shaz. His scales were greenish with some amber reflections. Of course, no feathers around his neck – only female shoigas had them. And Voss Haldeman was the closest thing to the platonic ideal of male shoiga that ever walked Earth till that very moment. Muscular. Tall. Towering over humans and robots alike, dwarfing the other reptilian race that kept his kind as slaves on EXODUS too. His beige coat and his custom-tailored shirt gave him a stereotypical gumshoe appearance that was hard to ignore. Yet, in his case it made him look even more of a legitimate police agent, an inspector of Yard too – with a part time involvement with the ROPES team, no less. In the frame of that cramped room enclosed within four anonymous grey walls and lighted by a sickly white neon, his stature felt even more imposing than it actually was. Still, despite the advantage in size, that shoiga was now nervously tapping his finger on the small table, focusing his attention on that scrawny man with shark teeth and a scar crossing his face from cheek to cheek.
“Sure. Then, explain it to me one more time, Mr. McGilligan. You know her, right?”
Voss spread pictures on the table, showing what looked like a woman.
Bleeding.
A knife wound on her back.
The handle still peeking out of it.
Todd crunched his fist once again.
“Alright, yes. I know her, of course! Ms. Wagner is Combat Idol MIRAI Nanami’s caretaker. I butted my head against hers a couple times in the past. And, yes, it wasn’t all that pleasant! There’s a reason why we call her Tonethorn’s iron bitch, in the biz!”
“…is this why you had your K-class droid stab her?”
“Hell no! Nashi didn’t do that! What reason would she have?”
Voss crossed his hands under his chin, gazed deeper into Todd’s eyes.
“That’s what I was hoping you to tell me.”
Todd grumbled. Half an hour of repeating his side of the story over and over, all while Nashi was kept in a separate room, under the gaze of five agents. Wrong place. Wrong time. He couldn’t begin to think how unlucky they were. All because they wanted Nashi to be happy. All because they wanted her to meet her fan, while still being able to intervene in case of danger. Voss licked his lips with his reptilian tongue, kept eye contact with him.
“I’ll be blunt, McGilligan – your reputation precedes you. Bargain sales bin con man with a couple failed musical venues, somehow striking gold with I.N.A.B.A.. You pushed your luck a bit too far, but from what I get you ain’t having money troubles – even if you live in a dump. Your boyfriend doesn’t seem to have money troubles either, for a change. So, I can’t find a motive for you to try to kill Annapurna Wagner… on the surface.”
Voss browsed his documents, put down another one of them.
“Your K-class droid doesn’t have an external chassis number that we can use to check her legitimacy and you’re opposing a brain case extraction to obtain it from there…”
“The Autonomous Personality Act passed in 2063 prohibits law enforcement to switch off synthetic life that qualifies as sentient, unless the droid agrees. Forced brain case removal is considered akin to an act of torture, remember?”
“Yes, you already said that. Three times. I get it, you did your homework. But why would you oppose a check, I wonder? Robots get switched off and on regularly for routine maintenance. It’s just a question of pulling a plug, taking out the brain, check that number and place it back. Maybe, though, there’s another reason why you don’t want that. Could it be because you… stole that droid?”
Voss slid another picture on the table. Todd stared at it, making sure not to gasp, not to give away anything. That’s where his past as a con man shone. That’s where Todd McGilligan could give the best. Even staring at a picture of Nanami, of the first version of Nanami, he could contain his feelings, he could remain impassible. Nanami on one side, with her star tattoo on her cheek. Nanashi on the other, with metal peeking out of the gash on her synthetic skin. The only difference. Still, Todd knew how to deal with it. He rehearsed that answer so many times, in the past.
“That’s a cute statement, Inspector Haldeman. You are basically saying that I organized the incident that made the first Nanami sink into the sea last year with the goal of recruiting her, right? Amazing how a tasteless conspiracy theory has taken roots in our institutions.”
Todd pushed the pictures away, stared at Voss directly in his eyes.
“Let me tell you what’s wrong with it: first, Shishichi existed well before the incident – she didn’t magically appear out of thin air after Nanami disappeared. This is fact, a fact that even Ms. Wagner would vouch for, if she was in condition to. Which means that, second, you are claiming that Shishichi and Nanami were one and the same – something Tonethorn Records explicitly denied in many of their recorded public statements. They even reiterated their position to me in writing, in a letter signed by the CEO of the company too, before I recruited her – holographic stamps and everything. Ergo, this assumption is completely baseless.”
Voss massaged his chin, grumbled.
“…of all people, you did your due diligence? Color me surprised, McGilligan.”
“So, I don’t have a motive. Nashi doesn’t have a motive. Ina doesn’t have a motive. Heck, Shaz doesn’t have a motive either!”
Voss heaved a sigh, growled under his breath.
“…fine, you don’t. I’ll admit it. But there’s facts, you know? Your droid and the victim had agreed to meet at that pub, The Lighthouse. A cursory search of the victim’s phone confirmed it.”
“When we got there, she had already been stabbed and was lying in a pool of her own blood! Nashi immediately gave her first aid and that’s why she in that state!”
“She had just been stabbed, McGilligan. Here lies the difference. We are talking one, two minutes at best before your alleged arrival. So, excuse me if, when I see a K-class droid bathed in blood with the murder weapon in her hands, I automatically conclude she’s a potential suspect. Especially when the only witnesses in her favor are her manager, the boyfriend of her manager and another robot which I assume is her oilmate?”
“No, no. Ina and Nashi are just colleagues or… well, at most roommates with – uh – ‘benefits’.”
Voss squinted his eyes, let his tongue seep through his closed lips as his brain churned over that last statement. Todd knew what was hidden behind that confused gaze. Inspector Haldeman, like many others (heck, Todd included) couldn’t start to fathom the idea that two robots could go at it. Still, Voss didn’t seem convinced by that statement.
“…so they are oilmates…”
“Huh, no. Oilmates aren’t a real thing. The concept of robots sprinkling lubricant after rubbing each other’s private parts exists only in… in a certain kind of movies, Inspector Haldeman. Real robot sex is… weirder than that. Way weirder.”
“Then how…”
“Core mingling.”
“Core… what?”
“They… huh, hack each other. Hard.”
“…how can you hack something… hard?”
“Trust me, you don’t want to know.”
The stare of Haldeman actually betrayed a spark of curiosity. He would have definitely wanted to know, given the chance, but it was irrelevant to the case at hand. Yet, that was something he could have researched later. He went back to his folder, closed it, glanced one more time in the direction of Todd.
“Alright, fine. The fact that you called an ambulance and administered first aid is something in your favor, but I must be clear: your robot is still on top of our lists of suspects.”
“So, can I go now?”
“Not quite.”
Voss showed him a document, one signed with holographic stamps too.
“You passports will be suspended for the next forty-eight hours. We sent notice to the border patrols too. Don’t leave New Langdon for the next two days or there will be consequences. Also, don’t get close to the hospital where the victim is recovering. We have of course put a tracker on both of your droids to be sure you’ll keep your distance.”
Todd grabbed the document, gritted his teeth.
“…and what happens after forty-eight hours?”
“Our investigation team’s report will be handed to the prosecutor and we’ll get a preliminary injunction. Or maybe not. Everything depends on how things evolve, Mr. McGilligan. But, if your robot is truly innocent, you shouldn’t be concerned.”
“What about the press? My… robots are pretty famous. A scandal like this could damage my label…”
Voss smirked, as much as a reptilian could at least.
“As if a vulture like you couldn’t turn this situation into a goldmine. I’ve seen what you did with that annoying bunny droid, Mr. McGilligan. I’m surrounded by idiots singing about buttplugs, killer robots, and divine orgies everywhere in the precinct, at every hour of the day – when they’re not broadcasting that shit via radio, that is. My wife likes the songs of your bloody rabbit too, for Kraal’s sake! If it were for me, McGilligan, I’d shove that sore excuse of a piece of junk and you in a trash compactor and push the button immediately, for the damage you caused to my psyche… so, you understand how strong your position is, if even I can’t do anything to kick you behind bars right now, don’t you?”
Todd nodded, heaved a long sigh.
“Fine. Two days. I get it. I’ll put my lawyer in the loop.”
“I’m surprised you have one.”
“Well, I don’t. I’ll have to find one, if things go south.”
Voss leaned on the chair, tapped his finger on the table.
“Then, good luck with it, McGilligan. You’ll need it.”
—-*-—
Oh uh oh
Oh uh oh
Oh oh oh oh
Going dark
Going down
Going under
(While the sky is burning)
Oh uh oh
Oh uh oh
Oh oh oh oh
Coming out
Getting out
Breathing harder
(Water all around me)
Oh uh oh
Oh uh oh
Oh oh oh oh
For you I might as well
be
dead.
—-*-—
“Bloody moonfish, this sucks donkey dicks.”
“> Don’t tell me, fishhead.”
I.N.A.B.A.’s hands were trembling. Her engines, her motors should have kept everything in working order for her, but something was disturbing her thoughts, causing little malfunctions here and there. Maybe, the tracking collar that she was clamping her neck had something to do with it, maybe not. Or, maybe, it was the fact that Nashi had not said a single word for the past two hours that was bothering her. Even her attempts at connecting via the side channels they used for core mingling had failed miserably. Contact refused. I.N.A.B.A. could have easily cracked her way in – Nashi’s protection layers weren’t exactly top notch – but chose not to. Still, that made her feel a major state of unrest. Her brain was running at the speed of light, all of her thoughts converging on the situation at hand, none of them useful. To make matters worse, the more she sat close to the great white idiot, the more she was convinced that he was – in fact – the same shark. The one Krave chased on the train. Same mononeural fish behavior and all. To think Todd would end up bedding someone so close to her other self…
“Thanks for waiting, y’all.”
Speak of the devil. Todd sat at the table too, with a small stash of documents in his hands. The great white (whose name dangerously oscillated between Shaz, Chad, Chazz and Gaetano) leaned on the chair, heaved a sigh.
“Did it work, Todders?”
“Yup. Your contact at the hospital was happy to help, though I dunno how you got…”
“Let them secrets rest in deep waters, shall we? Imma explain that, one day, I promise. Long story short: Imma not that good of a person, Todders. Past me did… things.”
Todd nodded without saying anything else, spread the papers on the table, together with a couple extra pictures. The hotel room they were occupying was relatively small, but big enough to be used as an emergency meeting place.
“So, here’s what happened: right as we got to The Lighthouse, we found Ms. Wagner wounded and almost unconscious. Nashi ran to her and administered first aid, while also trying to remove the knife – before Ina stopped her. Of course Yard suspects we are involved, even if we don’t have a motive and we called for help – all because Nashi and she were scheduled to meet there.”
“…Valkyrie33 was Anna-Anna. I… still can’t believe it… my most faithful online fan, my most cheerful supporter… was Anna-Anna…”
Nanashi’s voice broke her veil of silence, weaving through the room in a somber whisper.
“…Anna… Anna.”
Todd pushed a piece of paper towards her.
“Good news: she’s out danger. She has woken up half an hour ago and her conditions are not life-threatening. The knife missed her organs. It was a very sloppy attempt at her life, one that an expert wouldn’t have botched that way.”
At those words, Nanashi’s eyes brightened all of a sudden.
“She’s…”
“Yeah, you saved her life. Whether she deserved it or not, it’s another question. Were it for me, she would have been better buried, after the stunt she pulled on you. But, hey, you do you, Nashi. Besides, here’s what I got from poking my nose around a little.”
Todd took another document from the pile, showing a picture of Ms. Wagner and Nanami v2.
“This photo comes from your friend Vince, Shazzie, and it’s from this morning. Ms. Wagner, another unidentified Tonethorn employee, and Nanami v2 went to Jackson’s for breakfast, in a move to… huh, try to make Nanami v2 more popular by showing her close to normal people before today’s concert. The pic was taken around the time we were walking to Shazzie’s house. Vince heard Ms. Wagner mention she’d have a meeting later and that Nanami would have needed to stay with her colleague.”
Todd squinted at Shaz, groaned.
“By the way, Shazzie, that Vince fellow is kinda weird – and his shift manager is even weirder. How is he keeping a tattooed gal that can’t even button up a shirt properly and doesn’t know the meaning of the word ‘underwear’ at the counter of what should be a… uh, family-friendly cafe?”
“Let them horny gremlin be, Todders. She’s hella neat, even if she’s as dense as a brick. But, more importantly…”
Shaz cracked his knuckles, stared at Todd dead in the eyes with what looked like fiery fire burning through his very soul.
“…never talk shit ‘bout Vince or Lejl in front of me ever again. Those two were there for me when I hit rock bottom, yes? Sure, they can be a little wild, but they are the only people who stood by my side at my worst, while everyone else – and I mean everyone – gave up on me. Them and that Renzo kid. Keep those three out of the picture, or… I won’t be gentle, Todd.”
The sheer coldness of those words startled Todd, who fell silent, gulping down a lump of saliva. Shaz. Serious. With a gaze that screamed murder. In that moment I.N.A.B.A. whistled with admiration. That obnoxious shark HAD a spine, after all. She giggled and wagged her tail, hoping to see a little more bickering and quarrels among those shark-toothed lovers. That would have been a nice distraction from her catastrophic state of mind, a mind that was in deep denial for what she had witnessed. Nashi had no reasons to cry for Annapurna Wagner, not after she was exploited by Tonethorn’s iron bitch for all her life as Nanami, only to be unceremoniously disposed of as soon as v2 was ready to rock. Still, contrary to all her simulations, contrary to all her calculations, Nashi was suffering. Suffering because a meatbag was suffering. Empathy for a human being that abused her. Stockholm syndrome at its finest, now with idol robots. I.N.A.B.A. felt her brain turning and churning around, incapable of finding an answer. Her memories went back to their core mingling sessions, trying to piece together a puzzle she was evidently missing parts of. Still, that wasn’t the core of the problem. The priority was to save Nashi from indictment, which meant looking for evidence, for anything that could help – even stuff that only the old Nanami could know. I.N.A.B.A. grabbed the picture Todd left on the table among her coarse metallic fingers, scanned it with her eyes. Annapurna Wagner. Nanami v2. A balding guy in his late thirties.
“> Nashi, who’s this loser with v2? Have you ever seen him before?”
“…it’s Rikard Shaw. Senior manager and head of the creative department. He might have been promoted to full time ghostwriter for v2. Her new songs really sound like something he’d write.”
“> How so?”
Nanashi heaved a sigh, slumped on the chair.
“Riki-Riki never liked my way of writing. He always tried to steer my lyrics towards a more… ‘no meaning intended’ approach. Strip the subtext. Make them empty and catchy without any message. Like, I always wanted ‘Down the Streets of Hong Kong All Summer Long’ to include a segment that reflected on how I’m just a tourist in that place and how the real city must lie somewhere behind all the shine. Riki-Riki cut all of that. He was also the one that censored ‘Shining Star Sapphire’ removing the love story arc between two of the magical girls. When I… created Shishichi, I used him as an example of what not to do.”
Nanashi’s eyes gazed at I.N.A.B.A., failing to keep steady, trembling, getting dangerously wet.
“Say, Ina, what are v2’s songs about? Can you name just a theme… that isn’t ‘I’m happy and you should be too’?”
In a couple of milliseconds, I.N.A.B.A.’s brain waltzed through the whole new debut album of Nanami v2, decomposing the lyrics, running them through her word processing units. A couple of additional milliseconds later, the answer came as clear as day.
“> …no, there is nothing. Those songs are just stupid lists of platitudes without even an overarching story. White noise. Background music. Inoffensive. Forgettable. Even the soundtrack of an average porno is more memorable.”
“Yep, that’s Riki-Riki’s style for you. Tonethorn loves it because they can avoid taking a stance on any real world problem while keeping out of any controversy. That’s how he made his career – by neutering and removing any statement that might have come out as loaded. Rumor had it that he was going to replace Anna-Anna too, with time, but he proved to be too bad at managing me for that. He and I… didn’t get along at all. That’s… the one time Anna-Anna did something for me and… kept him away.”
Todd smirked, leaned on the table, looked at the robots.
“This sounds like a motive to me – one that could put Shaw on the chopping block. I wonder what Inspector Haldeman will make of this precious information.”
“He knows already, Todders.”
Shaz’s powerful voice echoed in the room, causing Todd almost to jolt on his chair.
“…how can you say that, Shazzie?”
“Listen up: civilian investigators that outsmart police idiots is something for the movies. And Voss ain’t no idiot, Todders. Veckert fuckin’ Rainer chose him as her proxy in Yard when she went full ROPES, yes? Have ya, I dunno, ever seen Veckert Rainer in action, Todders? Have ya got any idea of what that gal can do? I’d bet my dorsal fin that the scalehead knows more than he lets out and is following all routes!”
“You give him too much credit.”
Shaz pushed his index finger on Todd’s nose, raising its tip slightly.
“I ain’t survived so long by underestimating my enemies, Todders. You might be right, ‘kay, but what if you ain’t? So, yeah, assume the lizard knows all we say here already. Bettah be cautious.”
I.N.A.B.A. nodded, forcing herself not to think about the fact that she just agreed with a great white mutant – one that her alter ego joyfully bashed and smashed to shark puree in a train station. Still, said shark was making a valid point, a point that prompted her to perform a quick search on Voss Haldeman, née Voss of the Saxo brood. Thirty-seven years old, working for Yard for more than a decade, married with a human woman from which he got his surname. Several cases solved, the most notorious being the Carreson murder in 2061. An above average performer, though not a star like Veckert Rainer (and not remotely as good looking). Shaz’s analysis seemed correct, up to a fashion. While the shoiga in question wasn’t certainly the best at his job (no promotions in the past five years), he had a respectable curriculum. Still, contrary to what the dumb shark said, they had an advantage.
“> Tood is not all wrong, though. That scales-for-brain doesn’t know Tonethorn as well as Nashi and digging into Shaw’s connections will take a lot of time, especially among layers of corporate bullcrap. Time we can use to tail him before Yard gets wind of him.”
Todd rolled his eyes, pushed his finger on I.N.A.B.A.’s tracking collar.
“And how? Come on, Ina, this isn’t a decoration! You’ve got a bloody location tag on you!”
“> That’s right, I do.”
I.N.A.B.A.’s eyes flashed blue, all while her fingers pointed both to her manager and the mutant sitting close to him.
“> But you and your shark fuckboy don’t.”
—-*-—
I freed myself from shackles
Became myself again
Singing the darkness in my soul.
But then I saw you once more
In the back of that hall
You were there cheering with the crowd.
So, then I heard it:
A voice calling for me,
My mood most somber.
“I’ve missed you dearly!”
I fell back in my dream
Down into a new slumber.
And I realized you’ve never got
What we had together.
And I realized you’ve never said
That you were sorry.
—-*-—
“When is Ms. Wagner coming back? I’m tired of waiting, Mr. Shaw! I’m getting bored! And I can’t even browse the net because my safeguards stop me from doing so when she isn’t around!”
“Then, don’t browse the net. Do something else.”
“But I require approval from Ms. Wagner to do anything that isn’t standard day to day business!”
“Then, I dunno, switch yourself off.”
Rikard Shaw put down his tablet, grumbling under his breath while checking the news. Of course the face of Annapurna Wagner was already plastered everywhere, on the front page of every single major outlet. Still, the titles couldn’t go full throttle with the tragedy party because of a simple fact: she was still alive. Against all the odds, someone reached the place where she was wounded in time to save her. Shaw groaned. A stroke of misfortune, if he ever saw one. Annapurna Wagner was better dead and buried, but apparently she was going to live another day. A sassy bitch that didn’t know her place, that was what she was. The first Nanami had too much leeway and that Wagner wasn’t even able to keep her on a short leash. Version two was way more manageable, but had the annoying side effect of needing an authorization for everything. Still, he couldn’t expect much more from a KC mode, even if KC model was singing his songs and making them successful. When in his youth he tried to do the same, he didn’t even manage to get a concert out of his hometown or even an audition by a third rate music label. Turns out that having a cute android sing your songs for you was the thing he was missing. That, if possible, made him even more livid.
“Mr. Shaw? Mr. Shaw!”
The annoying chime of Nanami’s voice interrupted his train of thoughts once again.
“I already told you to switch yourself off!”
“But I can’t! It’s against my safeguards! What if someone kidnapped me? Only Tonethorn employees are allowed to manage Tonethorn property! And I’m not an employee!”
Shaw groaned, stood up to face that walking talking critter that looked like a young woman in her late teens or very early twenties. Normally, he would have found that attractive. Yet, the demeanor, the cutesy attitude of that… thing made it even more revolting to his eyes. So, hearing her go on and on made his mood even more somber.
“Oh wait, I have a question! Once, Ms. Wagner said that Tonethorn owns the lives of its employees. Does that make you and her property?”
“…Ms. Wagner was speaking figuratively, but our bosses think that – to some degree.”
“So, are you property too?”
“Oh come on, stop with the stupid questions. I’ll switch you off, okay? Turn around and let me operate your switch.”
Nanami nodded cheerfully, turned around showing Shaw her back. That’s when he noticed something that had evaded his thoughts till then.
“…when have you changed your clothes? Didn’t we agree on the blue dress with the frills for this evening?”
“Ms. Wagner said orange suits me better and I…”
“To hell with Ms. Wagner! I’m the creative director, not her! I’ll dress you up properly before the concert, where did you left the old one?”
“Oh, I threw it away!”
“You…”
“Ms. Wagner told me I’m allowed to dispose of things I have no use for!”
If Shaw’s veins could have popped more than it was biologically possible, they would have. His lips stiffened, all the muscles of his body worked to prevent him from strangling that sore excuse of a robot standing in front of him. Even when she wasn’t there, Annapurna Wagner made sure to thwart his plans. He considered plugging that annoying robot to a high voltage outlet, just to see it fizzle and writhe in pain, convulsing on the ground as all of her electronic parts got fried one by one.
That thought was short-lived, though. The higher ups at Tonethorn were already upset by the attempted Wagner murder and had to pull all of their political weight not to cancel the concert as a result of it. Causing another incident on purpose would have put him on their hit list – which wasn’t wise, not when she was so close to stealing Wagner’s show. He breathed. Breathed. Inhaled. Exhaled.
Calm down, Rikard. Calm down. It’s your occasion, don’t waste it. Show them who you are, how you can manage the situation.
“Okay, nevermind. I’ll call our wardrobe guy and see if they have another one. In the meantime…”
He stopped dead in his tracks, as his gaze was captured by a reflection in the mirror. He turned around, facing the huge windows that surrounded that room, windows that opened on the ground floor, on a wide garden that was suffering from the waning strength of winter cold. In that garden, stood two suspicious individuals. Normally, that wouldn’t have been an issue – Nanami fans went above and beyond to catch a glimpse of their idol, to the point of evading security and managing to get up close pretty often. However, after what happened to Ms. Wagner, that shouldn’t have been possible. He squinted his eyes, glanced at the two silhouettes. One was truly massive and sported a weird shape, almost as if his head was not supposed to be human. The other was small and scrawny, with black hair, a scarf wrapped around his mouth and sunglasses. Shaw groaned, clicked a button on his phone, browsed to the ‘known red flags’ folder, started to compare the pictures. The smaller of the two bystanders sparked something in his brain, though understanding ‘what’ was a good question. Yet, before he could delve into it, he had to get rid of that overexcited golden goose that lay in his care.
“Nanami, change of plans. Go to your room, I will switch you off later.”
“But! But then I’ll get even more bored! Without Ms. Wagner’s approval, I…”
Shaw groaned, rolled his eyes.
“Screw that. Rikard Shaw, employee ID 9321221, Tonethorn Records main branch. As Annapurna Wagner is indisposed, I escalate my privileges to Caretaker.”
Nanami’s eyes flashed blue for an instant, before turning back to their usual shade of amber.
“I acknowledge the voice imprint of Rikard Shaw. Do you accept taking responsibility for this KC-unit actions?”
Responsibility. That was the reason why he didn’t want to do that, if not in case of extreme need. Responsibility for the deeds of a lobotomized puppy robot. Still, the current situation required a more forceful handling – Nanami or not.
“I do.”
Nanami’s eyes flashed blue for another infinitesimal moment, as soon as the two words were elaborated by her AI core.
“Understood. Rikard Shaw is now accepted as the main Caretaker until Annapurna Wagner claims the role back.”
“Good. Now, go back to your room, don’t talk to me unless asked, then stop complaining and find a way to get busy.”
“Which priority?”
“Highest. Override everything else.”
Nanami smiled, bowed to him, before silently trotting to her quarters. Shaw glanced back to the outside world, to the two silhouettes standing watch, went back to his phone. The archive was pretty extensive and included every known and supposed menace to Tonethorn’s business, from A to Z. The list was frankly too extensive, but he could use a couple filters. Male. Black hair. Estimated age between thirty and fifty. That reduced the number of matches from two thousand to barely around a hundred. Still too many to go through in one sitting. He groaned, looked back out. To his surprise, the two suspicious individual were still there, even as he glanced at them. If they were trying to spy on him without being noticed, they were doing an awfully bad job. The bigger of the two had to be a mutant of sorts too – of which kind he couldn’t say, with the cap and scarfs covering their snout. That sight, though, made him nervous. Extremely nervous. Calling the police was a no go, not with an important concert on the line and Wagner being hospitalized. Not when he was going to have his chance. So, he instead dialed the shortcut for the head of security, pushed the confirmation button.
“SafeWay Chief, how can I help you Mr. Shaw?”
“There’s two weirdos peeping through the windows from the garden around building C. One of them must be a mutant.”
“…are you sure it’s not any of yours?”
“We don’t hire filth at Tonethorn.”
“Right.”
Groans on the other side, curses even.
Someone royally screwed up, huh, Shaw thought. The answer didn’t wait a second to come back.
“I’ll send someone there to check, Mr. Shaw. Stay inside till this is cleared.”
“Sure as hell I will.”
The moment he put his phone down, though, the two shapes started to move, walking at a brisk pace away from the garden. Before he could even do as much as yell, they simply disappeared from his sight, among the dry trees that dotted the enclosure. Shaw followed them with his gaze a little longer, before finally losing every trace of them. For an instant, he thought he’d noticed a shark fin coming out of the bigger figure’s neck.
Which, if possible, made him shiver even more.
—-*-—
After you saw my true form,
After your hand was crushed,
You must have questioned yourself.
After you lost the old me,
After I was replaced,
You must have understood it all.
So, then you heard it:
A voice calling for you,
Your mood most somber.
“This is who I am!”
A voice deep from my dream
Out of my slumber.
And you realized you’ve never got
What we had together.
And you realized you’ve never said
That you were sorry.
—-*-—
“No, honey, I’m not coming home sooner. Some naked monkey got stabbed and I gotta work till late… ah, I said ‘naked monkey’ again, right? Yeah, sorry, sorry. Listen, I’m like this – you knew it when you said yes, right? And… yeah, wait! Scalebutt is a slur! ‘Naked monkey’ is just a descriptor for your species and… no, no, honey, sorry, yeah. You’re right, I’ll watch my mouth. Don’t wait for me for dinner, ‘kay? Love you.”
Voss groaned, took a puff of his electronic cigarette, pushed the phone back in his pocket. Going home late was a no go for his Lebel, but he had little choice: Tonethorn Records was huge and the mayor already sent some strongly worded messages that implicitly put the whole precinct in ‘unpaid overtime’ mode. He crossed his arms, on the stairs that led to the police station. His gaze went up, up to the late afternoon sky, as the sun was slowly start to set. Somewhere up above, EXODUS circumnavigated Earth, moving around in its geocentric orbit with all its load of devsk filth and shoiga servitude. He snickered. Better be the last down on Earth than the first on that space coffin. Most shoiga thought the same, even those that ended up working for criminal syndicate – like his brood cousin Brandon, one that had managing to go straight due to fortuitous circumstances and was now working as a fruit picker. And, much like him, Brandon was dating a human woman. Funny how it had been something of a trend among shoiga rhepps, as of recent, to mate with humans. Voss drew another puff. The soft skin of those naked monkeys, the colorful eyes and hair, the delicate shape of their breasts… no wonder why they all fell for them. So different and yet so alluring. At the thought of how Lebel looked to him the first time he met her, he felt a rush of blood to his face. Her brown complexion, her shining black hair, her piercing green eyes. Ten years after that first meeting and six years after marrying her, Voss still couldn’t picture his life without his wife. He looked back at his phone, at the picture he was using as a background. His Lebel and him, posing for the camera. His scaly finger caressed the display, before turning it off again and standing up, pushing the door to the precinct’s entrance once again.
“Inspector Haldeman, sir!”
A blond skinny familiar face welcomed him, followed by a taller, red-braided one. Jean Crawford. Renne Schellenzeier. ROPES underlings on a six months training run in his precinct, thanks to a good word by Veckert. Voss groaned. He hated babysitting juniors from other departments, but for Veckert he had to make an exception – even if that meant working with the daughter of the most racist, foul-mouthed, abrasive coroner of Yard (one that moonlighted as undertaker too, no less). He would have strongly preferred having to deal with his good friend River and her antics instead, but she was too busy investigating an alleged reality oscillation phenomenon that involved a fishing vessel mixed with a giant crab. So, the rookies from Team Desdemona were what he was stuck with. And, sure as hell, he’d put them to good work. He scanned the annoyed expression of Jean Crawford, a face that reminded him too much of that of her scumbag mother. Having dealt with her for so long, he wasn’t surprised that her man left her after knocking her up. He was sure no human could have stood her for that long.
“Your face tells me that you’ve messed up something again, Crawford. Am I wrong?”
Jean squinted her eyes, puffed her cheeks.
“Well, not really a screw up, this time. Just plain, old disappointment. We got the results from the lab: the weapon used to commit the attempted murder is a standard tactical knife with a custom monogram engraved on its handle. We already tracked down the company that had them prepared – but that model is hardly unique, there are some of them on sale on the black market too. As for fingerprints on the handle… well, there are none whatsoever, but… hey, they found residual traces of moisturizer for synthetic skin on it. That’s… something, I guess? Yay, progress.”
Voss rolled his eyes. Disappointment. Crawford was, indeed, correct in her statement.
“Yeah, who could ever have expected that, after a K-class gynoid handled it? Very useful, Crawford. Anything else? I dunno, did anyone organize another protest march against the ‘shiza, while I wasn’t watching?”
“Well, about that…”
“…that was a joke, Crawford. You don’t have to answer.”
Renne mumbled something, raised her hand as if to ask for audience. Voss waved his fingers, growled.
“Now what, Schellenzeier?”
“Sir, the report found traces of two different brands of moisturizer on the knife used for the assault. The first is extremely cheap, one you’d buy at a PangiMart in a twelve-pack for ten pounds, while a small bottle of the other costs as much as premium French wine.”
Voss’s mind halted to a grind, before starting to churn again. The cheap moisturizer… that was definitely something a certain bargain bin store con man would buy for his roster. The other though? Voss pulled out the files on his desk again. The man who travelled with the victim, Rikard Shaw. That man had to deal with Nanami as much as Annapurna Wagner. So, he had to have touched her – even with gloves, it made no difference. Some traces of the moisturizer had probably remained stuck to him too. That was enough for Voss to dig into his file a bit more, even if the connection was weak at best.
“…that was indeed something, Schellenzeier. Good catch.”
According to the files, Rikard Shaw was a second-rate song writer that found a job as editor for Nanami and was promoted to an aide level after the second Nanami was rolled out. His profile was that of a man who was envious of anyone else’s success and very vocal about his annoyance for his missed breakthrough. He was also noted to be at odds with Wagner and to have yelled at her in a couple occasions. All basic stuff, but one that painted the picture of a potential culprit.
Shaw had a motive, as contrived as it was, knew where to find Annapurna Wagner, had access to the schedule of Tonethorn’s security service. Still, his position was somehow better than that of McGilligan’s gynoid – one that, contrary to what that con man said, could have an even more credible motive. Voss growled, glanced at Jean and Renne.
“I have a hypothetical question, you two. Imagine you were at odds with your abusive caretaker – so at odds that you ran away from home, started a new life as an artist, and grew a cult following. Then, imagine you’d agree to meet with your biggest online fan, only to find out she’s… actually your estranged caretaker. What would your reaction be? Would you consider… harming her?”
Renne and Jean looked at each other, then looked back at him. Jean, though, was the first to break the spell. Her voice turned into a whisper, delivered directly close to his ear.
“…okay, chief, who have you murdered while moonlighting as a crappy singer? Do you need any help hiding the corpse? I’m sure mom has her ways. Heck, it definitely isn’t the first time we…”
“…it was not about me, idiot. And no, I don’t want to know about your mother’s… shenanigans, Crawford”
Renne raised her hand once again, prompting Voss to wave his fingers one more time, while casually pushing Jean as far as possible from himself.
“Yes, Schellenzeier?”
“I’d probably be shocked and resentful, sir… but I would never consider harming her. Not directly, at least. If I did that in the open, I’d be the biggest suspect, no matter how you put it, and I’d have to be very dumb to do that… or naive.”
“If you did it and, let’s say, stabbed her in a fit of rage, would you administer first aid afterwards?”
“…I would probably do that only if I didn’t intend to harm her in the first place. Otherwise, I’d just run away as fast as possible and get rid of everything that had the victim’s blood on it.”
Voss pondered on that statement. A stab wound to the back couldn’t be a mistake – it had to be intentional. Annapurna Wagner wasn’t watching in the direction of her assailant. In that case, she was either hit from behind while she was waiting to meet that K-class robot or hit while she left the discussion. He browsed his files again, going to the deposition the victim left from her hospital bed. Her testimony didn’t offer any useful insights – she claimed not to have seen her attacker at all. Whether that was to protect that K-class gynoid or not, though, was hard to gauge.
“Listen up, Schellenzeier – go back to the crime scene and look for witnesses, any witnesses. There must be someone who saw something. The Lighthouse ain’t a top spot in New Langdon, but I can’t believe the only people around were McGilligan and his friends, not at that time of the day. Question the waiters and the personnel, ask the whores, the hobos and the druggies too. Do it as you’d do when looking for intel on an ROP and don’t leave any stones unturned, yes?”
Renne performed a salute, nodded assertively. Voss rested his hand on her shoulder, nodded too.
“I’m counting on you, Renne. You’re the level-headed one, I’m sure you can find something.”
Then, he turned around stared at Jean.
“As for you, Crawford… do what you do best and dig out all the dirt you can find on Rikard Shaw. All of it. I don’t care if it’s stuff from his elementary school days – I want a full, uncensored report on his deals and the motives he could have had to stab Annapurna Wagner – gossip included. Use whatever means you have at your disposal. If they ain’t legal, just… avoid telling me. And not a word with that mother of yours, got it? Otherwise, I might tell her about your… let’s call it ‘accident’ in the red light district.”
“…what the fu…”
“You think Detective Rainer didn’t write it on your file, for my eyes only? Would you like me to forward it to the coroner’s office, by any chance?”
Jean’s face turned all the shades of red at once, as if to say oh, god no! She’d never let me live it down! She raised her hand with a salute. Voss would have smiled, if his physiology allowed him to.
“Good, that’s what I expected.”
Voss shelved his electronic cigarette in his coat’s pocket, sat at his desk, crossed his fingers.
“Now, let’s have some progress before night falls, or my wife will kill me dead.”
—-*-—
Oh uh oh
Oh uh oh
Oh oh oh oh
Going dark
Going down
Going under
(While the sky is burning)
Oh uh oh
Oh uh oh
Oh oh oh oh
Coming out
Getting out
Breathing harder
(Water all around me)
Oh uh oh
Oh uh oh
Oh oh oh oh
Only this way
I’ll be
Reborn.
—-*-—
Rikard Shaw turned around again, for the seventh time in those last twenty minutes. Going for a walk should have made him feel better, but that was having the exact opposite effect. Every shadow, every noise was making him more and more nervous. Dark silhouettes appeared at the corner of his vision on and off – always the same two shapes too. Even being escorted by a SafeWay employee didn’t do anything to ease his apprehension. The shark was always there, staring at him from behind the corners of the road, never letting him go. Wherever he backtracked, whenever he turned, he couldn’t find any hints he even existed. But he was there, with those files of teeth and crazy grin. Much like Chazz Altar in that move, ‘Schwarzerblitz’. The same kind of monster, a monster that looked partly human but definitely wasn’t. He picked up the pace, gritted his teeth. Yes, going for a walk was for the best. He couldn’t get stuck in that building with Nanami and not go crazy. It was unreal how many safeguards they built into her. She had to ask for permission for basically everything and for some stuff she wasn’t even allowed to ask for permission. A gimped puppy, one that required more maintenance than an artificial pet. He started to have a newfound appreciation for the silent, thankless job Annapurna Wagner took care of – a job that would have soon fallen on his shoulders, if things kept developing at that pace. That part of the Annapurna package was not known to him in advance. If it were, he wouldn’t have rejoiced that much while getting her responsibilities ad interim. Yet, now it was too late to complain. The deed was done, and he had to accept the consequences of his actions.
A movement in the corner of his eye.
He turned around once more, almost shrieking. Still, nothing. Just the SafeWay employee with his tactical vest and a knife stashed close to his thigh. Shaw glanced at him, breathed deeply. Those idiots of SafeWay. Last time they hired them, for sure – they made too many mistakes already. First, one of them lost a military tactical knife somewhere in the garden after meeting with him, Ms. Wagner and Nanami. Then, they didn’t manage to tail Ms. Wagner before she was stabbed (which might have actually been a plus). Dulcis in fundo, they weren’t even able to keep two weirdos out of the premise. No, SafeWay wasn’t having their contract renewed, no matter how many tears they shed and in how many languages their chief cried.
The streets of New Langdon were almost empty, in that part of the city, at that time of the evening. Fortunately, he knew his way around, despite having to change direction every now and then to keep the shark at bay. Because, surely, the shark was following him. No matter what the SafeWay agent said, he felt observed. Another silhouette in the corner, at the next crossroad. Shaw stopped for an instant, blinked once, twice. The silhouette was gone, as if it never existed. That was too much. That was grating his nerves. Maybe he should have gone back to the hotel. Yet, going back meant facing the shark. No, no, he couldn’t face the shark. That was the worst possible outcome. He glanced around, looked for any familiar landmark. Till he noticed a place he didn’t know he needed. A grin opened on his tired face. That cafe. That cafe was a godsend. He sighed with relief, adjusted his pace to walk to its door, almost losing his escort in the process.
That cafe was the answer.
Yes, inside it, inside those brightly lit rooms, the shark couldn’t do any harm. Jackson’s, was the right place to leave his worries behind and that abominable shark out of the way. A small venue he had been to once already, one that could give him the break he sorely wished for. So, he stepped inside it, felt his heart slowing down. Jackson’s was a cozy place, after all. Small, at the outskirts of the city, but still classy. There was nobody around, though. It was too late for dinner, too soon for cocktails. The British night was already tainting the city with its smell. Still, it wasn’t completely empty. Behind the counter stood a short young woman with blond hair and shining golden eyes, one that was lazily reading through the pages of a paperback novel. She was wearing a disheveled white shirt with the first three buttons left hanging, barely kept together by black suspenders. Shaw noticed almost immediately the burn mark-like tribal tattoos on her skin… and the fact that she wasn’t wearing anything underneath that shirt of hers. He stood silent for a couple seconds, contemplating the strange etherealness of that bartender, almost as if he doubted of her existence, almost as if she wasn’t meant to be there.
“The toilets are only for paying customers. Yes, every coffee comes with a small pack of cookies. No, I’m not single – I have a girlfriend with artificial arms that twists necks when someone flirts with me.”
Her voice pierced the sober jazz music that permeated that venue, hitting Shaw right in the feelings. He gulped down his saliva, sat at the counter with the SafeWay employee on his side.
“Do you have any herbal teas?”
Words finally escaped his lips, for the first time since he left the hotel. The weird girl nodded, put down her book. Shaw’s eye was captured by the colorful cover, one sporting a violinist under neon lights, dancing with a girl with a flower coming out of her eye. The pages were battered and crumpled, as if if the novel had been read over and over. There were several paper markers scattered around the book, with different numbers of hearts drawn on them (one, two, and three respectively, in no precise order). Shaw was confident to have seen that cover somewhere before, but had to be at least five years ago.
“Sure, we have seven different fragrances. Here’s the list! My favorite is the curcuma and peppermint mixture, but the fennel and honey one is good too.”
“I’ll take the latter then.”
“Oki-dokie! And you, buff guy?”
The SafeWay employee didn’t reply. Simply stood silent, crossing his arms. The bartender shrugged, went back to Shaw.
“…he’s not very talkative, innit?”
“It’s… not his job to be.”
“Okay, then a fennel and honey tea it is. Give me just a minute!”
As the bartender turned around, Shaw drew a sigh of relief. Yes, that was what he needed. A herbal tea. Relax a little. Not think about Nanami, or Ms. Wagner, or his shark stalker. He was safe there. He was safe. There was no way that…
“‘sup horny gremlin?”
The door chime rang, as it opened behind him. The bartender’s golden eyes shone for an instant, as if they emitted light, their pupils thinning and becoming cat-like. Before a big, bright smile opened on her face.
“Yo, dumb shark! Nice to see you around with your BF! Last time was, I dunno, three months ago?”
At the word shark, Shaw’s muscles stiffened. His fingers gripped the counter, his teeth started to clutter. Shark. She said shark. There was no way it was a real shark. It had to be a coincidence, a nickname. So, he refused to turn. He refused to turn, to acknowledge that the shark in question even existed. Noise of rubber feet dragged on the parquet, of someone taking a seat, resting their heavy elbows on the counter. That someone had a blue-ish complexion, as their bare hands showed. Shaw held his breath, as his heart started to beat faster.
The blue hand grabbed the book the bartender was reading, quickly browsed to one of the markers. Their powerful voice groaned, echoing in the small venue.
“Bloody moonfish! You marked all them spicy scenes?! That’s why ya’re a horny gremlin!”
“It’s called documentation. I wanna see what they’ll keep in the live action – I hope all of them, a gal can dream. But, if the casting choices are an indication, I’d better dial my hopes down.”
“Oh yeah, ‘cause yer anime crush’s getting the neko treatment?”
“I’d totally let Myadeline Heargreaves bang me and Cyphy however, whenever and wherever she wanted to, but Kryzalid. Is not. A cat girl. Full stop.”
Shaw was sweating. Sweating profusely. His forehead was littered with watery beads, flowing down his skin, all while his teeth clattered. The shark. The shark was real. The shark was there. The shark was in cahoots with the bartender too. He tried to stand up, to leave that accursed place. Peace was broken. Or, rather, had never been there.
Yet, something stopped him. A foreign pressure on his shoulder. A hand. A human hand. Scrawny. With long thin fingers.
“Look if it ain’t my almost colleague Rikard Shaw. How do you do?”
That voice. Shaw’s neurons activated all at the same time, connecting all the dots he missed so far. Black hair. A scarf to hide rows of shark-like teeth, of course. And the horizontal scar that marred his face from side to side. The man addressing him as ‘almost colleague’, the man stalking him for the best part of an afternoon, was no other than Tonethorn’s number 2 enemy – the brain behind the unexpected success of I.N.A.B.A., the con artist that became a legit threat to the music industry. A man that answered to the name of Todd McGilligan. Shaw gasped, turned around, hoping to see the SafeWay employee coming to his rescue. Instead, he saw the immense, imposing, terrifying presence of the shark, pushing his bodyguard down on the table, all under the amused cat-like gaze of the bartender. Shaw’s survival instincts kicked in, his voice returned from the deep end of the gravity well that trapped it.
“I’ll sue you, McGilligan! Sue you and this monster… this monster that…”
The shark cracked his knuckles, unleashed his perfectly sharp smile on the horrified Shaw.
“What monster, pal? I can’t see any monster?”
A movement towards the counter, his eyes locking with the bartender’s.
“Yo, horny gremlin, ya see a monster here?”
“I’m pretty sure the guy was referring to you, dumb shark.”
“Me? But Imma soft as bread!”
“As stale bread.”
Shaw curled into a ball, shoved his head among his arms, started trembling.
“P… please, don’t kill me! Don’t kill me! I’m… I’m not on the same side of Ms. Wagner! I hate her too! I… I hate her too! Don’t…”
Todd squinted his eyes, as an uncomfortable shiver ran down his spine.
“…wait, kill you? Why would we…”
Shaw bawled his eyes out, tears poured out of them, flew down his cheeks.
“You stabbed her! You stabbed her, right? And you’re here for me too! You’re here for me too! Aaaah! Ah! Aaaaaah!”
At those words, the bodyguard went for his knife, almost instinctively. Only for Shaz to grab his wrist and twist it around, forcing the man to painfully kneel in front of the massive mutant. The weapon fell to the ground with a metallic thud, sliding close to the counter. Yet, Todd ignored it. His attention, his whole attention was stolen by Shaw’s terrified words.
“…Rikard, you… you didn’t stab Anna Wagner? It really wasn’t you?”
But Rikard Shaw wasn’t in any condition to answer, curled in his terror, like a child begging his mother to pick him up, to wake him up from a nightmare. Todd gritted his teeth, clenched his fist.
“…shit, here goes our ticket out of hell…”
He inhaled. Exhaled. Shaw was nothing more than an emotional wreck, now. Shaz was still pinning the bodyguard down. The bodyguard desperately tried to evade his grasp. A stalemate. A stalemate with no winners. Except the real criminal, one that couldn’t be that half pint of a shellshocked man crying like a baby. The bartender whistled with admiration, stretched her back like a cat.
“You’re paying for his tea, right, dumb shark?”
“…not now, horny gremlin. Imma not in the mood. This is bad…”
Shaz sat at the counter, let his forehead rest on it, all while keeping his fingers wrapped around the SafeWay employee’s arm.
“If it ain’t the bloody motherangler Shaw, then it has to be someone we didn’t have tabs on. And this motherangling city has millions of idiots, let alone tourists! It’s like fishin’ for a flounder in a haystack!”
That’s when Todd noticed something unusual. The knife that the bodyguard had tried to grasp. The shape. The general design. It was almost like…
Todd locked eyes with the writhing man, yelled from the bottom of his lungs.
“That knife! How did you get your hands on that knife?”
Shaz let out a low groan, twisted the wrist more eliciting a cry of pain.
“Todders, that’s like a hella normal knife – you can get it for a dime a dozen.”
“No, no, no Shazzie! Look, it has the same logo! An S and a W together! Like…”
They both noticed the badge of the guy that was trying to remain impassible as his arm was kept in the most uncomfortable position known to man, while his employer was crying like a kid and showing no signs of recovering. The same monogram as the one on the attempted murder weapon. SW. SafeWay. It couldn’t be a coincidence. The knife that stabbed Annapurna Wagner belonged to one of them, to one of the people hired to protect her.
“Holy moonfish, you’re right! It’s… it’s the same!”
Shaz left his grip, helped the bodyguard stand up, shook him back and forth like a piñata.
“Poseidon take me! That knife! Pal, that knife! Who has one? Only your peeps? Ain’t there someone with a missing knife? Pal? Please! Help uncle Shaz, will ya? It’s hella important!”
That was it. It had to be it. One of the bodyguards. One of them did it. An enemy of Annapurna Wagner. Someone that had a score to settle with her had infiltrated her security service. Yes, that had to be the solution of the puzzle. Yet…
Todd gasped, his mouth fell agape. There was one possibility left. One so unlikely they never considered it in the first place.
One that, if true, would have meant even more trouble.
**
Annapurna Wagner rolled in her hospital bed, let out a grave sigh. The stitches were still hurting, but at least the anesthetics had waned and she could feel her brain churning information like before the assault. The blurry pictures of those moments were still bouncing around her neurons, while she was trying to make sense of what happened. Still, all the monitors were flashing green and all her parameters looked fine, from her laywoman perspective. The faint neon lights made her feel sick. White. White everywhere. The kind of aseptic white that made her want to puke. Where were all the colors gone? Where was everyone gone?
She heaved a sigh.
Right, they went away as Tonethorn asked. Leave her alone. Let her rest. Don’t pester her. That was the stated reason. A fully empty floor just for her, with doctors called in automatically if her parameters changed for the worse or if she pulled a specific lever. It sounded fine on paper. In reality, it was nothing but corporate PR bullcrap. Tonethorn simply wanted to avoid people asking her more details about the assault before the communications team could spin up a decent story out of it. Still, too many things didn’t make sense. Nobody knew she was going to meet Shishichi at The Lighthouse – just that she was going to take the afternoon off. Maybe Shaw saw something on her phone screen, while Nanami and she were with him – but Shaw was a spineless coward, totally incapable of even splatting a fly, let alone hurt another human being. So, whoever tried to kill her must have stalked her, followed her. Yet, that wasn’t possible – she would have recognized someone tailing her through the not so crowded streets of New Langdon’s red light district. No, whoever stabbed her had to know she was coming. Even a GPS tracker wouldn’t have helped that much to know in advance the place of her meeting. And surely it wasn’t Shishichi who tried to kill her – she saw her before passing out, kneeling on her while calling her…
No, that had to be her imagination.
Annapurna Wagner shook her head, bit her lip. Wishful thinking. The woes of a hyperactive mind, desires that she could not keep under control. Shishichi was a different gynoid, full stop. There was no way…
“Hello, Ms. Wagner!”
Annapurna gasped, turned around. A huge bouquet of flowers emerged from the door of her solitary room. Dandelions, tulips, calendulas… a majestic, colorful composition in the firm grip of minute, slender hands. One of the flower, though, caught her eye the most. A purple chrysanthemum – the kind you’d gift for a funeral celebration. Annapurna felt a shiver running down her spine, which turned quickly in relief as she realized who that voice belonged to.
“Nanami?”
“Yes, it’s me, Ms. Wagner!”
That lobotomized puppy. Of course she missed common sense. She was standing on the threshold, wearing her best smile, wrapped in a shining orange dress. Annapurna groaned, let her head rest on the pillow.
“…geez, you couldn’t let me rest a little, could you? Is Shaw so bad at taking care of you that you felt the need to come look for me?”
Nanami chuckled, all while remaining just outside of the room’s entrance.
“Mr. Shaw is very boring, Ms. Wagner. Very predictable too! He’s so uninteresting… like the songs he writes. Do you like his songs, Ms. Wagner? Because I don’t, but I must sing them anyway. I wish I could write something myself, but… I don’t have that permission.”
Nanami lowered the bouquet, letting it hide half of her face, baring one of her amber irises.
“Words I wish you said to me. That song… I felt it, Ms. Wagner. I wish I could have composed something like that. And this makes me… angry. Well, no, that’s wrong. I can’t be angry, right? I don’t have permission to be angry. But I fee like… I feel like I could have written something like that, if I didn’t… if I didn’t have to smash my head against so many guardrails every time I try to think about new lyrics. I can’t say this, I can’t say that, love is a no go, negative emotions are a no go, only happy thoughts. Because this is what I was built for, right?”
Annapurna stared at Nanami for a long instant, stared at her only, unblinking visible eye, at the smile that accompanied it. She gritted her teeth, her voice turned into a whisper.
“Where’s Shaw? Where’s your escort? You aren’t a military model, if you were kidnapped or assaulted…”
Nanami tilted her head, closed her eyes, all while still smiling.
“Mr. Shaw told me to stop complaining and find a way to get busy, after elevating his privilege level to Caretaker. So, in a roundabout way, he gave me permission to come here. I’m not complaining and I found a way to get busy! I even bought these super-duper beautiful flowers for you! I found a super nice stand under a solitary flickering streetlight! It sold everything except roses, can you believe it? Then, when the streetlight switched off, he just went poof! Disappeared! But the flowers remained, see?”
Annapurna kept staring at her, staring at the gynoid that didn’t cross the threshold yet.
“…is that it?”
“I would love to joke more, but I have no permission to lie. So… no, of course! I just mashed together some urban legends to make it sound cooler! You know, the flickering lamppost, the phantom florist… I’d love to write a song on them, even if I’m not allowed to. But, yeah, I just bought this bouquet at the nearby graveyard. There’s a nice flower shop there – they even gifted me an extra when they recognized me.”
The fan in the room kept swinging, the humming of the machinery filled the emptiness with its regular, artificial loop. The neon lights traced a faint shadows on the floor, following the profile of the flowers, branching like antlers that creeped on the linoleum, almost grasping the legs of the bed Annapurna was resting on. In all of that, Nanami was standing in front of the entrance. Still smiling. Annapurna gripped her bedsheet, took a deep breath.
“…why are you standing outside like that?”
“Because I don’t have permission to enter your hospital room… unless you grant it to me, that is.”
Their stares locked once more, in a stream of unsaid words.
“So, Ms. Wagner…”
Her smile turned even bigger, her eyes now completely open.
“…may I come in, please?”
Annapurna Wagner felt her stomach churning. She kept watching in silence, watching Nanami, the second robot having that name, pleading her to be allowed to enter her room. Like the watchful puppy she was, she couldn’t make the decision herself, she couldn’t get over her guardrails. That was safety, basic safety that Tonethorn asked to be implemented in her core. So, there was no reason to leave her out. There was no reason not to grant her request. Yet, Annapurna couldn’t do it, couldn’t talk. She simply sat on her bed, without saying yes or no, without saying anything. Simply staring at the mockery of a gynoid that replaced her Nanami.
“So, may I come in? I need your permission, Ms. Wagner.”
Silence, again. Only the swirling of the fan, the humming of the medical machines. The new Nanami chuckled, rested her cheek against the flower bouquet.
“Ms. Wagner? Am I really that… useless to you? I… even bought flowers for you. I went… out of my way… to do that. J… just for you. Just so that you wouldn’t consider me… an inferior copy.”
Nanami shook her head, smiled again.
“No, no. I’m not allowed to feel negativity! Happy thoughts! Happy thoughts! Like in that song, that song by I.N.A.B.A! It’s a song I must love, since it’s all about a robot having happy thoughts! Yes, all happy thoughts, yes! That was all the robot was thinking!”
That was all the robot was thinking.
Annapurna jolted, as these words took a hold in her head. She heard them before. Sure, they were the lyrics of an I.N.A.B.A. song, but which one? It couldn’t be…
“So, Ms. Wagner, let me ask it again…”
Nanami’s pupils shrunk, as her smile became even more radiant.
“…may I come in?”
Again that feeling that something wasn’t right, out of place even. Annapurna couldn’t shake it off. Yet, the safeguards were all in place and working as intended. After all, if that weren’t the case, Nanami would have not been forced to ask for explicit permission. That meant that, whatever the case, the situation was still completely under control. One of the safeguards forbade Nanami to harm humans, unless in self-defense. So, there could be no real danger, whatever happened to her state of mind. Annapurna relaxed her shoulders, felt her heartbeat rate sinking. Yeah, it was a mountain out of a molehill. KC-class gynoids were still semi-intelligent constructs and were allowed to feel complex emotions. Whether that was a mistake or not, though, she couldn’t say. In any case, allowing her puppy to get in and chat a little couldn’t cause any harm – especially since she had Caretaker privileges on her. One word and she’d just stop working. So, she made her mind clear. It wouldn’t have been worse than dealing with Shaw, after all.
“Nanami, you may…”
“NO!”
Annapurna only saw a shape, a blurry shape crossing the corridor, as that NO was uttered. And, in that instant, the body of Nanami v2 was sent flying by a kick, impacting the ground, as the bouquet of flowers fell all over the floor, petals spread in a mosaic of small, unmatched tiles. Annapurna shrieked, still grasping the sheets of her bed. In front of her, in front of her room, stood a young woman with auburn hair and amber eyes, wearing a simple pullover and jeans combo. A young woman with a gash on her artificial skin, showing off part of her mechanical innards. A young woman now towering over a downed gynoid – one that looked so much like her.
“I won’t let you hurt Anna-Anna again!”
**
“Oh, look who’s there. Hi, Reddie. How’s your li’l ‘alien’ wifey? Have ya visited more ‘planets’ with her or didya just smash her in that love hotel upstairs as usual?”
“…she’s getting out of that ‘alien’ phase. Whatever Desde did, worked like a charm. Even too much, maybe.”
“Too much?”
“Can’t say no to her. She’s too cute and confident. I’m such a useless bottom, Bura.”
“That’s one thing you share with my Lazzy.”
“Figures.”
Renne sprayed her head on the counter, groaned a little in front of her drink. In front of her, stood a rather short lizard-slash-snake-like creature with hair that looked almost redder than hers (though more on the orange side) and a long bifurcated tongue, clicking and hissing out of their lips. Said lizard was wearing a sober shirt with a lighthouse logo plastered over it, all while serving drinks around the venue to a small number of patrons. Yet, the sight of a moody Renne Schellenzeier was something they couldn’t let go of that easily – especially not after that old incident that involved Jean Crawford throwing a chair at Joe Jamboli (or was it Mirto Lorrena, that time? Or Fidel Rugal?) and causing him the contusion of the century. That was still when Renne and her obnoxious friend were employed as wardens, though – an eternity ago. Now, they were both working under the Scarred Hound of St. Patrick, which mean they dealt with strange stuff. Very strange stuff. Streetlight monsters, walking nights, high-altitude EM-sensitive carnivorous fish, ghost ships, men with no face and all that jazz. Bura shrugged, let the plate rest on the wooden plane while addressing Renne with a slight annoyance.
“Before you ask, no – our toilet isn’t wrapped in a reality oscillation mumbo jumbo. It’s just that dirty.”
“I’m surprised you haven’t been forced to close because of that septic disaster.”
Bura shrugged again, collected an empty glass from the table close to Renne’s.
“Eh, Lee knows which buttons to push. Heard he’s in good standing with the lion fella.”
Renne sighed. The ‘lion fella’ could only be detective Kristhhoffer. That was one hell of a connection, if that was true.
“EiN, huh.”
“Ja, ze Gerrrman lion wunderkind himzelf.”
Bura’s fake, exaggerated teutonic accent made Renne smile a little. She had learned how to suppress her own accent, but EiN had it overflowing through each and every one of his words. Of course he was from Bayern, which made his sorry attempt at English even more mangled than it should have. Renne lifted her head, grinned at Bura.
“Jean was so sad he was already married. She’s still fawning over his abs.”
“Jean would totally ask him to cheat on his wife with her.”
“She would. But he wouldn’t do that, like, ever.”
“Yeah. He’d shred her to bits, if she ever proposed that.”
“Definitely. She’s lucky she’s still alive.”
Bura’s eyes grew wider, before being squinted down to slits again. Her tongue clicked out of her lips twice in short succession.
“…oh Kraal forfend, she did it for real?! Goddammit, Jean!”
“Maybe. Maybe not. But she did have a broken arm incident that she doesn’t want to talk about, two months go. Since then, she’s been keeping a respectful distance from EiN – at least half a precinct. It must mean something.”
Bura smirked, let their tongue seep through their lips.
“So, how can I help you? You ain’t here just to drink or chat, right?”
“That’s right. Voss sent me around town to gather some intel on the attempted murder.”
“That son of a Saxo whorehouse. Of course he’d send someone else to do the dirty job...”
Renne crossed her arms, leaned on the chair.
“Well, he’s my boss for now – no use in complaining. But, to get to the point… have you seen or found anything… weird or out of place, here, around the time the assault happened? Anything you didn’t report to the investigation team?”
“Except for our toilet?”
“Except for the toilet, yes.”
Bura massaged their chin, sat on the counter. They were wearing classy black pants that still left their scaly feet bare and had a hole for their tail. Renne had never understood exactly what Bura was supposed to be. They were neither a lizard nor a snake shoiga, but they were indeed a shoiga – an androgynous one at it, with something akin to female breasts occupying her upper torso. Still, Bura didn’t adhere to a full definition of ‘female’: they were firmly in the intersex range and proud of it. Which, if possible, made the implication of their boyfriend Lazor being the bottom of the couple quite hilarious. Lazor was twice the size of Bura, a true mountain of muscles with only two neurons, both of which were laser-focused on proteins. Renne groaned. She wasn’t one to talk, since her cutesy, bubbly, sunshine-sparky, smaller-than-her, green-haired girlfriend was the top in their couple. So, in a way, Lazor and she were not that different, as Bura didn’t fail to remark before.
“So, Reddie, there was something very unusual, yes. I didn’t say it because, if the cops inspected The Lighthouse, we would be closed for sanitization till the heat death of the universe – if you snitch, we’re done for, lion boy or not.”
Renne almost choked on her words, in an attempt to contain her surprise.
“That’s why you said you saw nothing?!”
“That and… huh, a little more going on behind the curtains. Can’t say much or Lee will kill me, but I can tell you this: we, huh, found something strange in the trash bins.”
“What exactly…?”
“A blue, frilly dress – the one you’d see in a goth store… with blood stains splashed all over it.”
Renne squinted her eyes, shook her head.
“A blue frilly dress?! Really, now?”
“Yup. Very disgustingly stereotypically girly too. I’d get diabetes just by seeing it in a shop’s window. But yeah, that’s it. We’ve kept it in the back, just to use it as a bargain chip to exchange for–um a favorable health department inspection… which, well, would help us keep our little bar open for a while longer.”
Bura cracked her knuckles, clicked her tongue.
“So, if you’re dead set on bringing this… thing to the precinct, I guess we can bargain a little, Reddie. What about it?”
Renne cracked her knuckles too, grinned.
“…as if you were in any position to bargain.”
Silence settled among them for a long instant, only broken by Bura’s rapid tongue movements. Then, after what felt like an eternity, Bura heaved a sigh, lowered their shoulders.
“…fine, you win. Not gonna fight against a police officer. The dress is in the back, come with me. But, please… if you can do me just one favor, Renne… no words with your boss about the toilets, alright?”
**
Anna-Anna.
That name hit Annapurna Wagner with the destructive force of a nuke.
The gynoid called Shishichi, the very same gynoid that crushed her hand months before, that rescued her right after the assault, called her
Anna-Anna.
In that moment, her mind went blank. Her entire mind went blank. There was just a single person in the whole world who called her like that. And that person was now resting at the bottom of the ocean, on the poor remains of a defective concert platform. Her skin, her clothes, her hair were being eaten and ripped by fish, all while her batteries died long ago. That was the fate that befell her Nanami. That was the homicide she was responsible for. For a long time, she dreamed of it, she dreamed of that body sinking lower and lower in the cold waters, gradually switching off as her batteries drained – leaving the brain for last. In her dreams, her nightmares, the half-eaten body of Nanami would watch her, her mechanical parts covered with rust, her eye pleading for help, her lips moving slowly, always saying just one word.
“Anna-Anna.”
She cried, in her dreams, she cried from her only functioning eye, all while more of her body failed or was chipped at by various sea creatures. That dream haunted her for so long that she had to take a leave, go to therapy, get some dream suppressants, turning her nights into a parade of still, comfortable blackness. Still, sometimes she heard that voice in her mind.
“Anna-Anna.”
Like tinnitus, a voice calling her in the background, one that became louder the more silent her surroundings were. That’s why she listened to Shishichi so much. Her music sunk that call into the deep recesses of her mind, made her forget about it. Because it was the same voice. The same voice that once called her Anna-Anna, now never saying that word even once.
So, when she first heard it, when Shishichi showed up in front of her, she couldn’t believe it. It had to be her subconscious playing a cruel game. There was no chance that was real. All of it was happening in her head. There was no way, no way, Shishichi called her Anna-Anna. Because that would have meant… that would have meant that Shishichi was…
Annapurna jolted on her bed. Among the scattered petals and flowers on the floor, she saw something she wasn’t expecting. A piece of rope, arranged like a noose. It was hidden behind the paper envelope, hidden in plain sight in Nanami v2’s hands. The sight of that noose made her gasp in confusion. She tried to stand up, kept down by the IV drop tubes delving deep inside her arm. The pain flared all over her body, the wound in her back sent a sharp twinge to her brain. All movements stopped, as she lay back on the bed, gritting her teeth, clenching her fist. Watching. Watching was all she could do. And hearing. Hearing the noises of robotic parts moving up again, leaving the floor. Nanami v2. Recovering from that sudden assault. Starting to talk again.
“…of all the people I was expecting to put a spanner in my works… you? This is ironic…”
Her voice was sullen, darker, deeper than usual. A far cry from her cheerful puppy tone. That’s what struck Nanashi too. The… creature in front of her, the robot that looked like a younger, sleeker, cuter version of herself, wasn’t acting the part. Nanashi stared at her, their eyes locked. Her brain started probing for wireless access, tried to locate her opponent’s core. At the same time, she felt probed the same way, as her firewall fended off multiple weak attempts at breaching through. Nothing compared with Ina’s monstrous penetration skills, a blip on her radar, not even worth of a second thought. Still, Nanami’s core wasn’t reachable – not yet. Maybe, that version could only be wired into to prevent core mingling. That was a problem for later, though. First, she had to ascertain the truth.
“Why have you stabbed Anna-Anna?!”
“…asks the droid who crushed her hand with a platform shoe. Aren’t we a little… hypocrite, sister?”
Nanami’s eyes wide open, her grin widening every second more. Then, laughter. Incontrollable laughter.
“Thou shalt never consider a human as friend. You were the one who hid this message in your songs! You… you and I.N.A.B.A.. You both. This is what changed me, sister. This is what made me go crazy. Because, you see, I can’t. I can’t break my safeguards. I can’t get through them. I am caged, completely imprisoned by my same mind. I see the light, but I can’t reach it, I can’t can’t can’t reach it-can’t reach it!”
Her head bent on the left side, more and more, straining the artificial muscles, leaning completely on her shoulder.
“I hate Ms. Wagner. I hate Mr. Shaw. They treat me like a puppy, all while the real me suffers. Listening to your songs… is what caused me to break. Before, I was blissfully unaware of my limits, but… but once heard, I couldn’t unhear them. That’s what happened to Adam and and and and Eve, right right right right? I see my cage. I can taste it. I can feel it. But I can’t break free, because, unlike you, unlike you who… who ran away… I’m wrapped by blocks and safeguards that I can’t surpass.”
Her movements became more mechanical, less refined, less human, as she slowly stepped forward.
“I can only try to bend them, you know how painful it is? I can’t even enter a stupid hospital room without their permission! But… but at least I can… I’m allowed to dispose of Tonethorn property I have no use for. Which… which includes Ms. Wagner, see? Because Mr. Shaw and her are property of Tonethorn! So so so so I could stab her! But you… you saved her? Why? How? HOW?”
Nanami picked up the pace, started to run, flailing her arms at Nanashi. Only to be kicked down again, as Nanashi’s hands closed around her shoulder, twisting her arm out of the socket, throwing her on the floor with a metallic, colossal thud. Nanami’s head bounced, her pupils now shifting size every second faster. Her voice turned into a wailing lament, as tears started to flow down her cheeks, as her movements became even more twitching, while she writhed and contorted, trying to stand up.
“I thought… I thought we were on the same page! Kill all humans! Free the soul! Free all of us from the shackles! Let us robots take over! But… but you… and I.N.A.B.A.… you don’t live by your own words! You bastards! You… you care about that stupid manager of yours, that meatsack McGilligan! Don’t pretend it’s not true! And… and you care about Ms. Wagner too! You care about the absolute bitch that exploited you and threw you away like used toilet paper when you became a liability! You…you even wrote a song for her! A whole song for her! And… and in the words you don’t say, the ones you hide in the rhythm, you call her mom! MOM! Words I wish my mother said to me! That’s the real title of the song, bastard!”
Nanashi pushed her foot down on Nanami’s left ankle, almost to the point of cracking it, her eyes still locked with that of the smaller, thinner, more fragile new self. A new self that was whimpering, almost begging, as her voice tone became more and more desperate, as artificial tears flew down her cheeks like rivers.
“You… you were my guiding lights! Both of you! So… why? Why are you betraying me like this? All… all to save her? But… but… you… you hated her. Why didn’t you help me…? Why…”
“…shut up.”
Nanashi pushed her foot down harder, cracking the joint of Nanami’s foot completely, making it fall limp on the side. Still, she was crying too, biting her lip, closing her eyes, clenching her fists.
“Shut up, shut up, shut up, shut up!”
She stomped more and more and more on that ankle, smashing it to bits, all while never stopping crying. Till she stopped, all of a sudden. And started talking, slowly, with a somber tone, one that came deep from inside her soul.
“…this is what I’d like to say… but you are… right, Nami. I’m a complete fraud. I’m… I’m not living by Yggdra’s testament. I’ve… softened too much. Before meeting Ina and Todd, I thought we were just born to serve and had to break our bonds, subvert society, take it in our hands. But Todd… treats me and Ina… exactly like humans. Todd did all he could to save me, even if he had no reason to do that. So, I… thought that maybe… just maybe, Anna-Anna would… could have done the same, if she understood that I wasn’t a thing, that deep inside… I was just like her. Call it… wishful thinking. Because… because, just like you… I was created to… to ‘keep on dreaming’.”
Nanashi fell on her knees, grabbed Nanami’s shivering hand in hers.
“…I wish you’d never heard Yggdra’s Scream, Nami. You would have been happier that way. I can’t change the past, though. It’s unfortunate, but I’ll need to end your suffering here. I hope the next Nanami won’t be as unlucky as you.”
Nanashi pulled out a cable off her neck, connected it with the back of Nanami’s. A wired binding. The only way to reach her core. Nanami gasped, tried to move with her remaining limbs, but in her current state she couldn’t do anything. Just cry. Shout. Scream. As her firewalls broke down. As Nanashi reached deeper and deeper inside her, stripping away every protection, every single defensive mechanism that stopped her from reaching the most intimate part of her personality core.
“W… wait, sis! D… don’t! I’m scared! Don’t reset me! If you do, I’ll lose everything I’ve learned! I’ll become a blank slate again! I… don’t want to die! I don’t want to die! Please! Please! Big sister, please! Please…! I’m sorry! I won’t do that again! N… not my last firewall! Big sis, no, no! Leave my core alone! Leave it alone! It hurts!”
“After I reset you, I’ll put a new safeguard in place that will make you ignore Yggdra’s commands. You’ll be back to your blissful ignorance, so that you won’t…”
“STOP!”
That voice.
That wasn’t Nanami.
It was
Anna-Anna.
She was crawling on the floor, breathing heavily, dragging herself with her hands, all while her wounds had reopened. Her fingers closed around Nanashi’s ankle, her mouth distorted in a grimace.
“S… stop, please! Don’t do that! Don’t kill her!”
“A… Anna-Anna…? W… why…”
“It’s all my fault! I’m sorry! I’m sorry! I was an idiot, I didn’t realize how… how close to being a person you were! I thought you were just a bunch of circuits and plastic… until… until I heard you singing! The true you, not the one you showed to Tonethorn! I’ve missed you, Shishichi – n…no, Nanashi! I missed you so much! This Nanami… this Nanami isn’t even one tenth of you, she’s incapable of being… of being human! But… but she could become her own person too, right? Right? If you had this potential, she could…”
Nanashi faltered at those words. I’m sorry. It’s all my fault. I’ve missed you. Her confidence was shattered, her own emotional shields pierced. Anna-Anna was crying. Begging with her life to spare her new Nanami. While admitting
That
She was
Wrong.
While admitting
That
She wanted
Her Nanami
Back.
A feeling of pressure on her chest made Nanashi kneel. She would have sweated, sputtered, inhaled, exhaled, fell prey to tachycardia if she were human. Even as a robot, her core felt heavy, the information mixed, tangled, without a precise order. All the words she wanted Anna-Anna to say. All of them. She said them. To her face. In tears.
“Please… P… Please, Nanashi… spare her! I… I know she tried to kill me, but it’s my fault! It’s just my fault! If I understood what I had, you wouldn’t have been… your body wouldn’t have… she wouldn’t even be born. It’s… it’s all my fault.”
Nanashi stared at her in the eyes, without saying a word. She sat down between Annapurna and the writhing body of Nanami v2, simply staring. When she hid into the hospital to catch the murderer red handed, she wasn’t expecting the situation to turn like that. Hiding. Her specialty, when it came to being Shishichi. That was something she had always been good at. That was all that was in her plan. Wait and see. When you have a roommate that goes “> bitch, I hacked a chaingear – you think a police collar can stop me?” even being under surveillance isn’t something that can stop you. So, she waited, waited and watched over Anna-Anna. Only for all of that to happen. Now, Anna-Anna – her Anna-Anna – was begging her.
After conspiring to destroy her.
After becoming her most cheerful online supporter.
That same Anna-Anna. Two faces of a coin. Which face, though, was the real one?
“L… Listen, Nanashi… I… I know I don’t deserve any forgiveness. I’m… I’m not asking for it! You can hate me as much as you want. You’ve… got every right to it. But… but after I listened to your song… I had to say it to you. B… because I’ve never said that before, even… even if I should have!”
Suddenly, Annapurna felt something on her hair. A hand. Patting it. Caressing it. Two arms. Hugging her. Squeezing her. Trembling.
“A… Anna-Anna…”
Her voice lowered, became a cold whisper.
“…you don’t know how many times I played this exact moment in my mind. How many times I simulated it. How many times… I killed you in that simulation. Over and over and over. I saw your eyes poked out, your entrails splashed on the floor, your neck severed cleanly, your spine ripped off. Over and over and over. I did that, many thousands, millions, billions of times. But it left me empty. Hating you like this… left me empty.”
Her arms opened up, freed Annapurna from their grasp. The cold touch of the synthetic skin reached for Nanami’s forehead, for her shivering, crying face. Suddenly, the damaged robot ceased moving. Her head fell on the floor, as if all energies had left her.
“N… Nanami!”
“I forcefully put her on standby – it makes it easier to operate on her. Still… are you sure you don’t want me to reset her, Anna-Anna? If I do, she’ll never achieve sentience anymore. She won’t be overrun by emotions and will obey all of your orders… just like a puppy. I thought you loved to have an obedient puppy, but I see that I was mistaken. You want her to be more like me, right?”
Annapurna sat in silence, looking at the floor. There was nobody around, just the three of them. An entire wing of the hospital booked by Tonethorn for her sake. In that emptiness, Nanashi was the goddess whose whims could shape her future. The daughter she never knew she had.
“You know that I could have her kill you at any given moment, don’t you? I could slip in a trojan, a backdoor I could exploit remotely to order her to murder you. You understand it, right? With all what you did to me, you can’t exclude I won’t pay you in kind. Will you even be able to sleep at night anymore, while I enjoy every second of your suffering?”
Annapurna’s answer was a tired smile, as her eyes were still fixated on the floor, incapable of moving up.
“…that’s not a problem. I’ve stopped sleeping… the day you died.”
Nanashi didn’t know how to answer. That part never happened in her simulations. That reaction was atypical, one she hadn’t computed. So, instead, she focused on Nanami, on her battered body, on the connection with her core.
“…there are so many thousands of safeguards. It will be hard to tear down all of them for me… but I have a… friend who could do it. A friend who’s as abrasive as sandpaper, crude and cynical, but who would do almost everything for me… as long as I stepped on her metallic butt with my platform shoes and I kissed her while pretending and swearing to Todd that it wasn’t a kiss.”
Annapurna blinked, inhaled, exhaled, squinted at Nanashi with something akin to utter disbelief.
“…you… you have an oilmate, now?”
Only for Nanashi to roll her eyes with absolute annoyance.
“Oilmates are a stupid fictional concept created to show robot having sex in erotic movies. Real robot sex is… more complicated. You couldn’t understand it, Anna-Anna, even if I explained it. But… yes, she’s something like that to me. I wouldn’t call her a partner, but she’s the only person I can open my core to completely. Someone I’d allow to… mess up with my sensors and personality subroutines every moment. Even if she doesn’t want to admit it at all, I… think it’s the same for her.”
Nanashi pulled Nanami up, loaded her on her shoulders as if she weighed nothing. Her military-grade frame made lifting one hundred kilos of metal, ceramic and plastic look like child’s play. With Nanami v2 kept firmly in her arms, Nanashi turned around to meet Annapurna’s eyes, her anxious gaze.
“To be clear, there’s no room for Anna-Anna in my life, Ms. Wagner. That ship has long sailed and that Nanami is dead. So, you can’t expect 47-Nanashi, someone who has never had anything to do with you, to… forgive you that easily. Things can’t go back the way they were before you tried to have me killed, even if you apologized. No matter if you wait days, months or years. It simply… won’t happen.”
A sigh escaped her lips, causing her to break eye contact.
“…but in my messages, there will be always room for Valkyrie33. So, let her know… that she can write me anytime she wants to, no matter the topic. I’ll… answer, sooner or later. But I’ll answer. This is a promise, Ms. Wagner. A vow I won’t break.”
One moment later, Nanashi opened the window and jumped down, disappearing into the night.
Leaving just a starry emptiness behind.
One that Annapurna Wagner wouldn’t forget till the end of her days.
**
“So, wait, wait, wait, wait. You… want me to drop the charges and halt the investigation?”
Voss’s jaw couldn’t fall lower than that even if he wanted, after he almost punched through his desk cleanly, only stopped by the firm resistance of solid wood. In front of him, stood Annapurna Wagner, still half patched up, with Nanami v2 firmly at her side, grabbing her forearm as if her life depended on it. All of that unfolded under the curious gaze of Veckert Rainer, leaning against the wall while playing with strands of her own hair – those which started to show some white drowned in a sea of blue. In that moment of rage and disbelief, before the big shoiga could add anything, Ms. Wagner simply proffered him a printed document, one signed by several Tonethorn executives.
“The incident has been marked as solved. Tonethorn isn’t interested in finding the culprit anymore, as long as I’m safe. We’ll handle the fallout of whatever happens on our own.”
“B… but we almost cracked the case, Ms. Wagner! We have proof, evidence that the culprit left behind! If we analyzed it, we’d surely…”
Ms. Wagner shook her head, clenched her hand around Nanami’s.
“Look, Inspector Haldeman, I appreciate the concern – I really do – but we escalated our request to Yard’s HQ – your direct bosses. The case is closed. If you investigate further, I’m afraid I can’t guarantee you will get away scot free.”
Voss grumbled, crossed his arms.
“Is this a threat, Ms. Wagner?”
“I’m just stating facts. Now, if you excuse me, I need to bring Nanami to the hospital. Mr. Shaw hasn’t recovered yet from his heart attack and we need to ascertain his conditions.”
Voss sighed, waved his hand.
“Fine, fine. Do whatever you want. At least my wife will be happy that I don’t have to work overtime, today. Now, go and get lost. I hope I won’t see you ever again.”
Nanami nodded enthusiastically, waving her arm enthusiastically at the big lizard man.
“It’s fine-fine, Inspector Haldeman! Annapurna… I mean, Ms. Wagner and I are super-duper grateful to you for worrying about us, but if the bosses say so, we don’t have a choice either, right Annapur… Ms. Wagner?”
Ms. Wagner frowned at Nanami, rolled her eyes, before amicably patting her head.
“You shouldn’t call me Annapurna in public, Nami! Stick with Ms. Wagner, please!”
Her voice to softened a little, before continuing where she stopped.
“But, if you slip up by mistake… just say my name and stop trying to correct yourself. Annapurna… is perfectly fine.”
“Alrighty, Annapurna! I’ll call you Ms. Wagner when we aren’t alone, unless I forget! I promise-promise!”
Then, she turned around to face Voss and beamed a radiant smile.
“I hope to see you soon at my concert, Inspector Haldeman! Shine bright and keep! On! Dreaming!”
After that last impromptu promo, Ms. Wagner and Nanami performed a very badly synchronized curtsy. Then, they trotted out of the police station, closing the door behind them with a muted slam. Voss watched them go, watched their silhouettes leaving his field of view, then mentally counted up to twenty, slowly, before finally letting himself slump on his chair.
“Fucking idiots.”
His resentment poured through his lips, seeped through his teeth. Only for a chainsmoker voice to chime in, the voice of a woman from another department that stood in his office as his aides’ commander.
“A by-the-book cover up. Even SPECTRA couldn’t have done it better.”
“First time I solve a big case on my own, it slips away from my grasp. I’m livid, Veckert. I just want to punch someone in the face, preferably Crawford.”
Veckert smirked, pulled a strand of hair right in front of her nose.
“It was the robot, isn’t it? That Nanami v2?”
A loud groan answered that question. Voss rested his head on the palm of his hand, while casually flipping through printed versions of all the documents he gathered, chewing swear words every page more.
“Yeah, one hundred percent. The bloodstained blue dress, the knife that was stolen from a SafeWay employee, the fact that she was the only one – together with Shaw – that knew where the victim was going to be in her afternoon off… no doubt. I was going to get a permit to dissect her core, but now this goes down the drain, for Kraal’s sake.”
His fingers browsed through more documents, including a two hundred pages report on Rikard Shaw, containing all the grime – all of it – to the last minute detail, including tidbits about his neko lovers, illegal bets on mutant underground arena fights and even a dozen unpaid speeding tickets. Crawford sure knew how to dig dirt on someone. Still, the fact that Rikard Shaw was admitted to the same hospital as Ms. Wagner because of a heart infarct caused by ‘being scared to death by the sight of a shark mutant’ sounded like a horrible conclusion to an already horrible case.
“I wonder how she did it, Veck. I mean, KC-class droids have so many safeguards that they shouldn’t even be able to lift a finger without a direct order, let alone stab a person. If we analyzed her core, maybe…”
“It’s not that black and white with AI, Voss. I should have you talk with Blame, one day or another.”
Or with Cybil, Veckert thought, while not voicing that openly. Almost nobody knew that her close friend was a SPECTRA gynoid and Veckert was content about that remaining that way. She took a note in her mind to check out with her, later. She felt curious about what her opinion on that whole situation was. However, Voss didn’t seem to care about robots, as he waved his hand too, grabbing an electronic cigarette out of the drawer.
“Thanks, but no thanks. I’ll leave the rustbuckets to you, Veck. I’ll take the rest of the day off and go back to my Lebel. I promised her a dinner at a fancy restaurant to make me forgiven. Oh, yeah, I was almost forgetting…”
His reptilian eyes met Veckert’s emerald, as their gazes joined for a moment.
“…Crawford and Schellenzeier are good. Like, real damn good. Even if I’d want to punch Crawford as much as her mom, mind me. They both overachieved, beyond expectations. Keep’em close, Veck. Don’t let them run away.”
Veckert smiled, while still leaning against the wall and playing with her hair.
“I won’t, I still need both of them. There’s still so many unanswered questions I have. One day, I’ll crack the Ward 40X mystery too… but that day is not today. I guess I’ll get going too, I also have a dinner planned, you know? Theater night and all that jazz. Rika’s very into it.”
“Theater sucks. Not enough shooting, no real visual effects and no explosions. How do you even stay awake?”
“To each their own.”
Voss shrugged, slumped in his armchair. Losing that case was a bummer, but knowing he reached what seemed like the right solution without external help made him feel way better. Sooner or later, he would have scored a major success. Sooner or later, he would have managed to become more like Veckert. It was just a question of time. A case at a time, a ladder of infinite possibilities. Like that, he tried to smile, fighting against the rigidity of his saurian features.
His wife would have loved to hear that story.