Chrono Inquisitor (Gods Be Damned) (26 page)

Shep
took a drink, finishing off his beer, and then opened another one.

“Ms.
Matsuzaki won the contract fair and square. I got no grudges. It was stupid of Julius to tell me the job was mine before it actually was, and it was stupid of me to believe him when I should have known better. Though of course at the time Ms. Matsuzaki was engrossed in another project that wasn’t supposed to be done for another few months. No one expected her to even have the time to put in a proposal, but then that’s what makes her the new star in the biz.”

“Since you brought up Ms.
Matsuzaki,” Ranger-son said with a strange smile, “I understand that she won the contract for this resort eight years ago when you were believed to be a shoe in.”

This is getting worse every minute. Next we’ll be visiting Sam to ask her some questions.

“Yeah, that’s when she first really showed up in the private security field. Took the industry by storm. I mean the tech she comes up with. And at her age. Amazing. Did you know a part of her is in each of us?”

“I didn’t,” Ranger-son said.

“She used to work for ChronoGen. Helped design the security features of the mytes and CerAs.”

I had a sneaking suspicion Ranger-son was lying. If anything he would have done his homework and come across Sam’s record. It’s not like it was sealed.

“Can I be honest?” Shep asked.

“Please do.”

“Just between me and you, I got a schoolboy crush on her. She may be my rival, but she’s also my role-model. It was her theories on taking the human propensity for stupidity out of the CerA/Mnemosyne interface and letting them encrypt themselves that became the basis for their security backbone. She’s practically the reason why hackers can’t jack your mind. Though that doesn’t mean they aren’t still trying.”

I raised a hand to the back of my head and rubbed the nape of my neck.

Fuck! Could Sam be the one who hacked my shit? I’d forgotten she helped build the Crevasse, which means if anyone could bypass it, it’d logically be her. Should I be thanking her then? If it wasn’t for my pad going schizo I would have been blown sky high. Does that mean she knows what’s going on? Is she the hacker? Fuck! This is getting too complicated.

“Do you know anyone who would want Mr. Beit dead?” he continued.

Shep sighed and shook his head. “To actually want someone dead, there has to be something wrong with you.”

“I can understand that, but on the other hand, what about Hitler, or
Kremalakin? Are you saying that you aren’t glad they were eventually killed, or that you wouldn’t have stopped them if you had the chance?”

“Hitler was way before my time.
Kremalakin though…?” Shep shook his head like he was having a hard time sorting his thoughts. He put his hands to his head and stopped himself.

All the sudden it was like I was linked with him. Like I was feeling what he was feeling. I felt an overwhelming emotion of sadness. Felt a knot in my throat. I felt like I was going cry.

Then it was gone. I didn’t know why I felt that way. We weren’t linked so I couldn’t have been experiencing his emotions.

“I was young when his reign of terror began,”
Shep said with an unsteady voice. “He’s the reason why I left college prematurely, signed up for the armed forces. Am I glad he’s dead? Hell yeah. If anyone ever deserved to be killed, it was him. I joined the Trishulas in hopes I’d be the one to put a bullet in his head.”

Two seconds ago it seemed like
Shep was on the verge of bawling, now I was feeling like he wanted to bash some skulls. No doubt about it. Shep was a killer. I could see enough of myself in him to be certain of it.

“Look,”
Shep said, and sat forward. “I’ve killed people. More than I care to admit. But that was ages ago. I was a different person back then. Like I said, to want someone dead, there has to be something wrong with you.”

He was lying. To himself as much as he was to us. He wanted to believe all that death was in his past, but trust me, as a man who’s killed, once you’ve done it, it only gets easier.

On the one hand though, I did have a certain respect for the man. He was a Trishula. I’d wanted to join, but Sam and I had just started our lives together and we’d recently found out she was pregnant with Blyss. Sam had begged me not to fight in the war and I have to be honest, I didn’t even argue.

Instead I got a job at Kala Health & Life Insurance as a data analyst. I escaped the trenches, but in the end I think I killed just as many people as I would have had I fought. On the debatable plus side, I survived. So did Cook.

After Blyss was born, Sam took a job at H+ Innovations. Less than a decade later both our companies got bought out by an up-and-coming business, ChronoGen Technologies Incorporated. In some fashion or another, I’d worked for the company ever since. Same for Sam, except two decades ago she decided to go independent and started her own securities firm, Alpha Guardians.

At times I wondered how different my life would have been had I joined the
Trishulas. Truth be told, the thought didn’t last long. Ninety percent of them had been killed in combat. In the end though, they were the ones who brought down Kremalakin. The man before me was a war hero of the highest order.

Ranger-son nodded in agreement with
Shep’s assessment of taking a life. “I would agree, but you haven’t answered the question. Do you know of anyone who would want to kill Mr. Beit?”

Shep
shook his head. “I wish I could help, but no one comes to mind.”

“Did he ever mention anything about threats made against him?”

Shep shook his head again. “Julius had a temper and definitely burnt some bridges over the years, but never so bad as to warrant someone wanting him dead.”

“What was his relationship like with his wife? Must not have always been easy being business partners. I understand that she sided against him in the decision to use your company over Ms.
Matsuzaki’s.”

Shep
shrugged. “They were like any other couple as far as I know. They had their good times and their bad.”

“Do you have any reason to believe that Mrs. Beit would want him out of the picture?”

Shep laughed at that. “You must be joking. They’ve been together for longer than anyone I know. If she wanted him dead, trust me, she would have made it happen a long time ago.”

“Well then,” Ranger-son said, rising to his feet. “We thank you for your generous hospitality and your assistance.”

Shep rose to his feet. “No problem. Anything I can do to help.”

Except you didn’t do shit, I thought. Neither of you did.

I stood. “Thanks for the brew friend, next one’s on me.”

“I’ll hold ya to it,”
Shep said, and patted me on the shoulder. I’d seen it coming and braced myself, but I stumbled to the side anyway. It was like trying to stand against hurricane force winds. The man was a behemoth.

“But I guess for now, you’ve had enough,”
Shep said with a laugh.

Yeah, like that was the fucking reason. There wasn’t even any alcohol in my system. Besides, I could have drank him under the table. Well, maybe. Two days prior I could have for sure. Before I got my resurrected body.

I smiled and pretended it was funny. Then we said goodbye and went on our way.

What a waste of time that was. I was beginning to wonder if Ranger-son was the real murder. He definitely knew Mrs. Beit. I already suspected they had rendezvoused in the gardens during Beit’s murder, but what if he was the one who murdered him? Say he and
Mrs. Beit were lovers. By her own admission she was the true owner of the company. It seemed to me that her husband’s death would leave her in full control. She didn’t have anything to lose, and if he was her lover, he definitely had something to gain.

If I was going to solve the case, I needed to investigate it on my own. I needed an excuse though for ditching
dickwad.

“Well,” I said, after quickly coming up with a possible plan. “That was…boring. If this is what it’s like to be a Ranger, I’m glad I’m not you. Cook was nice though. Friendly as hell. Think he’s our guy?”

“Is this a game to you?” he said, back to his bitter disposition.

“Sort of,” I said with a grin.

“Well it’s not.” he barked. “We’ve got a murderer out there and we’ve got nothing. No motive. No real suspects. No idea if he’ll strike again.”

“That’s my point. At the moment there’s nothing to suggest that whoever killed Beit has any intention of killing anyone else. Technically we don’t even know if Beit was actually murdered.”

“He was murdered,” he said.

“Oh? You holding back on me now, because last I knew we didn’t even know the cause of death.”

“While we were having beers with Mr. Cook, I got a call from forensics. His mytes killed him.”

“Bullshit. That’s not possible. They’re designed to protect people, not kill them. They’ve got fail-safes and shit.”

“Exactly, and that’s why I say he was murdered. It looks like someone discovered a way to turn mytes into a weapon.”

“But how?”

“Coroner said the Chrono, CerA, and Mnemosyne-mytes all started attacking each other. Said the easiest way to describe it was like an overactive immune response. I say it was like a gods damned civil war. They attacked his brain. Sliced it up into tiny pieces. Could be it was some fluke and he simply ended up as collateral damage, but I think it was intentional. That he was the target.”

“No fucking shit.” I felt a chill course through my spine. Maybe Beit was E3 after all. Or at the very least, a Corruptor. It’s probable he was trying to hack his own mytes and in the process fucked up royally. Triggered some sort of anti-tampering mechanism.

On second thought though, I doubted it. I’d never heard of such a thing. Not that it wasn’t possible. Maybe he was just a really bad hacker and all the other Corruptors knew the way around it. But then why hadn’t I heard of it? I couldn’t recall Sam ever mentioning such a thing.

“Wait a second,” I said, deciding to voice some of my questioning. “That doesn’t explain why his
Arkhive was wiped.”

“True. Techs are still trying to figure out what exactly happened, but their guess is that someone managed to install a virus into the mytes, and that it was this same virus which turned the mytes against each other, but befo
re that happened, the Mnemosyne-mytes uploaded another virus, or maybe even the same one, to his Arkhive, deleting his memories. Techs are hesitant to go poking around. Afraid they might catch whatever the hell it is. With the resorts security systems going offline, his mytes attacking himself and uploading a virus, I think it’s safe to say Beit was murdered, and that it was planned. There’s one more thing, which is why I initially thought you were responsible.”

“
Yeah, and?”

“There was
BabbleBru in his system.”

“
And only Inquisitors have BabbleBru,” I said.

“Exactly.”

“Did you question Noble and Dewhurst?”

“I did.”

“And?”

“Nothing. They weren’t involved. They arrived afterwards.”

I hated to say it, but, “We should talk to Sam,” I said.

“Who?”

“Ms. Matsuzaki, head of security.”

“Why?”

“Because if what you say is true, she’s the only one I know who could do something like that.”

“You think Samsara killed Julius?”

And right there, Ranger-son slipped up. He hadn’t said Sam. He’d said Samsara. And he’d said it properly, with a Sem pronunciation rather than Sam.

I guessed he’d been so shocked by the implication of what I was saying, he’d forgotten to stick to the plan of feigning he didn’t know her that well.

Sure, it’s possible he happened to know how to say it right, but from my experience in the eighty-plus years I’d known Sam, only two types of people knew how to say her name properly. Those who followed Eastern religions, and those who knew her intimately. Ranger-son didn’t come off has the Hindu type to me.

“Not necessarily. I was just thinking that since she was in charge of making sure something like that never happened, well, she’d be someone who could figure out how it was done. And if she can figure out how it was done, there’s a chance she can figure out how to prevent it from happening again.”

“Sounds good to me,” he said.

So much for my plan to get away from him, and my plan to avoid Sam at all costs.

I’d also forgotten about going to my room and changing. That was a big mistake. I really could have used my vault for what was about to happen.

We got on the elevator to go down to the administrative hub of the hotel. Specifically the security offices.

As soon as the elevator began its descent, I felt an overwhelming loss of orientation. My vision started to fade and it was as if my innards were attempting to claw their way out of my throat.

To my surprise, Ranger-son reached out to help steady me. I didn’t want his help. I brushed him away and backed myself up into the corner of the elevator. Firmly pressed against the walls I tried to steady myself as bile worked its way up my esophagus. I massaged my throat as if doing so could ease it back down.

“If you throw up,” he said. “I’m not riding with you ever again.” Emphasizing his point, he stepped away from me, backing himself into the opposite corner.

Because the massaging was helping, I took a moment and scratched under my chin in a sort of ‘fuck you’ manner.

“Either way,” I said, once I felt it safe to speak. “I’m taking the stairs from now on. No more elevators for me.”

He shook his head like he didn’t believe me. “If you insist on running up and down hundreds of stairs, I won’t stop you, so long as you manage to keep up and don’t blow this investigation.”

Me blowing the investigation? Me?!

Suddenly I was feeling a lot better. I erected myself. “Are you fucking kidding me?”

I tried to control myself. Not very well, mind you.

“Is this an investigation?” I asked. “Because it sure doesn’t seem like it to me. What the hell was that back there with Cook? Or Mrs. Beit? It’s like you’re not even trying, yet you keep jumping down my throat about me screwing this up.”

He held out his hands. “Take it easy, partner.”

“Partner?” I laughed. “We aren’t partners. For fuck’s sake, you thought I was the murderer. Oh, and you were all gung-ho when you thought it was me. Do you just don’t care about this case? Was I just an easy target? The Horsemen are on their way. Are you just waiting for them to swoop in and take control? Free you from this burdensome task.”

I didn’t realize it as I was doing it, but during my rant I kept taking a step towards him. I wanted to punch him. I was close enough to him that I could see in his eyes that he knew what I was feeling.

“You’re right. You’re absolutely right,” he said. “We need to talk to Samsara. She’ll explain everything.”

“What are you talking about?”

“I think it’s best if she explains things,” he said. “You seem to be feeling better though.”

Whatever. Speaking to Sam was beginning to sound better than I had thought. I shook my head and went back to my corner.

“I understand you recently had a baptism,” he said.

“So.”

“I hate getting baptized.”

Luckily I was turned away from him so he couldn’t see me suppress my laugh. Decades later it was still funny for someone to say that phrase. It made me wonder who the hell had come up with the terminology anyway. It had probably been some young anti-religious kids and somehow it had caught on.

I heard him laugh behind me, apparently he had a similar thought.

“You know,” he said. “I used to love amusement parks. I could ride the roller coasters sun-up to sun-down. But then, oh, about six years ago, I got an assignment to take down a gang terrorizing a town. Turned into a bloody nightmare. I mean that literally. By the time the dust settled, the lifeguards didn’t think I was going to make it. Now, I can’t ride a roller coaster to save my life. Ain’t got the stomach anymore. Lifeguards say my gut’s a genetic match to what it was. Same with my brain. Mind-mappers say some synapse must have been damaged in the process, even though they ran every test imaginable and say my mind was unaltered.”

Was he playing a psychological game with me? One minute he was a dick, the next, he acted like we’re friends and he’s sympathizing with me?

“Sorry about your head,” he finished.

“Thanks. I guess.” Before I could stop myself, I added, “I’ve actually always had an issue though. It’s not related to baptisms.”

“I know. Thanks for being honest.”

So it
was
a game.

I was about to ask him why he was messing with me when I  noticed that the floor indicator stated that we had reached the second level basement.

“Did you push the wrong button?” I asked.

He turned to see what I was talking about.

A second later he said, “No, I pushed for the lobby. Otherwise my memory was altered, or my CerA is lying.”

The door opened and we peered out into what looked like a dark warehouse. The only lights were those embedded in the floor to indicate the pathways. In the darkness I could see an outline of a large sum of humanoid figures standing still. That’s when I remembered what Charles had told me about the service robots.

He pushed the button for the lobby, but it didn’t light up or give any sign of acknowledgement that it had been pressed. He then pushed the ‘close door’ button, but it had the same lack of effect. Making another attempt he pushed the ‘emergency call’ button. Nothing.

“Taking the stairs doesn’t seem like such a bad idea now, does it?” I said.

He shot a glare at me.

Of course the friendliness wouldn’t last.

“We’ll try another elevator,” he said, and then walked out of our nonfunctioning one.

I followed.

We went to the adjacent one, pushed the call button, and waited for the location light to change, indicating that it was on its way to pick us up. Currently it was on the fifth floor.

It moved to the sixth. Then the seventh, where it paused. He pushed the button again.

The elevator moved back down to the sixth, fifth, fourth, third, and then stopped.

When it began moving again the elevator car ascended.

“I guess we try another one, or we could always take the stairs” I said hopefully.

“Stairs it is,” he said without hesitation. “Question is, where are they?”

Since I’d already used the stairs, and every floor of the hotel was designed around the layout of the elevators and stairs, I led the way.

We walked down a lighted path which would take us to the main staircase. When we got close enough to be able to see the neon sign which said ‘stairs’, we saw the doorway was blocked by standing robots.

“They must have ran out of room and stuck them there thinking no one ever uses the stairs,” I said.

“Well it’s a safety hazard and I’m going to fine the hotel for it once we get to the lobby,” he said.

“We should be able to move them out of the way, or even power them on and have them move.”

When we got to the robots, we tried to move them manually, but found it difficult. They didn’t weigh much, but it was like they were attached to the floor. They simply wouldn’t budge.

“Looks like we power them on then,”he said.

“Now the question is, where’s the power button?”

We each inspected the machine closest to us.

After a few seconds, the one he was looking at made a slight humming sound and the lights in its eyes came on.

“Where is it?” I asked.

“I don’t know. I didn’t find one.”

Then without me doing anything, the one I’d been messing with did the same.

“Maybe they’re designed to power on themselves when they’re needed.” I said, looking into the robot’s eyes.

The remaining eight robots blocking our way powered on. The humming sound coming from them sounded like a bees nest.

“Could you please move out of the way so we can use the stairs,” I said to the robot nearest me.

The machine turned its head and looked at me, and then without warning, it’s arms shot out and pushed me backwards with a force that lifted me off my feet and sent me sailing a couple of meters until I slammed into a shipping crate.

I watched Ranger-son reach for his gun on instinct, but before his hand could make contact with his weapon, the robot nearest him grabbed his wrist and broke it like it was a popsicle stick. He yelled in
agony as the robot then shoved him, sending him tumbling back down the lit pathway.

I scrambled to my feet. Three robots were moving towards me. I went to reach into compartments 14 and 24 to extract my four shock collars, but in the moment I realized I wasn’t wearing my vault.

The robots were approaching and all I had on me was the FireAnt wand.  It was better than nothing, but not by much. It probably had enough juice to take down two bots. They didn’t look to be military or industrial grade, so they should be susceptible to the voltage of the wand. Assuming of course that I could get close enough to use it without them killing me in the process.

I shot a glance at Ranger-son. He was still on the ground. It looked like he was trying to
unholster his gun while cradling his broken wrist. I wished I had one.

“Do you have any
Tazer restraints?” I yelled.

“What?”

“Shock collars!”

He’d managed to get his gun out. I realized then why he’d been having an issue. They’d broken his weapon hand.

“I can’t get to them,” he shouted. Then he fired.

The reverb of the gunshot and ricochet of the bullet hitting the robot was somewhat musical in the warehouse. Sort of a boom-ping-ting-boom.

He kept firing, continuing the music. The closest two robots to him fell.

Something grabbed my shirt and started to lift me. My own attackers had closed the gap. I raised the wand and pressed the tip to the robots forehead. It instantly let go of me. It’s eyes went dark and it collapsed to the floor.

The next robot in line reached for me. I parried and stuck the wand to the side of its cranium. It went down. There was still juice in the wand, but Kali informed me it wouldn’t be enough to stop the next robot, which was almost on top of me.

I’d never fought robots before. So far, so good, but now I was weaponless. I knew I couldn’t fight a robot hand to hand. They were all metal casing and had no weak spots. As for me, I was all flesh with way too many weaknesses.

So I did what any sane person would do. I ran.

I didn’t know how fast they could move. I was sure they could run faster than me, but the way I figured it, if I could reach Ranger-son before they could catch me, I might stand a chance. I needed to get those shock collars.

Ranger-son had exhausted his clip and was attempting to switch it out. He’d taken out half of the robots attacking him, just as I had. Four had come after me, six after him. I guess he was considered the bigger threat because he had the gun. That still left five.

I was almost to him when a robot grabbed his feet. I decided to do a running jump kick at the robot. Not wanting to break my foot, I made sure I sprung off it when I connected. I
backflipped and landed on my hands and feet in a crouched position to the side of Ranger-son.

It’d worked. The robot had let go of him.

“Those restraints?” I said.

They were in a pouch attached to his belt. I retrieved them while he reloaded his gun.

Just as I got all four restraints in my hand I was lifted into the air. The two robots had caught up to me. It had me by the back of my shirt and a leg. Before I could do anything it threw me. Good thing I had gymnastics, parkour, and martial arts training. I twisted so I landed on my feet facing them.

I put two restraints in my pocket and palmed the remaining two in each hand. I charged the two robots as they came for me.  

When I was close enough I dived towards the two. I slid into their legs and managed to put a collar around each of their ankles before rolling away.

Unfortunately, I’d rolled right into the path of another robot who reached down and picked me up like I was a little child.

Luckily, it had grabbed me by the front, so I was facing it. “If you wanted to dance, you should’ve just asked.” I retrieved the two remaining restraints from my pocket. I placed one on the wrist of the robot.

“Anytime you want to give these guys a shock, go for it,” I said.

Ranger-son had exhausted the clip. This time he’d only managed to take out one robot. They’d adjusted their plan and were being more defensive. They’d also decided I was an easier target. They didn’t seem to be going for a killing blow. It’s like we were mice and they were kittens playing with their food.

The robot tossed me to the side. Before I could reposition myself my back struck something. I fell to the ground in pain.

On the plus side, the three robots I’d managed to get restraints on fell to the ground as well.

One robot remained. Instead of going for one of us, it headed for the door. I was fine with that.

Ignoring the pain in my back and with some effort, I got to my feet. I’d dropped the last collar so I picked it up and went to Ranger-son. He got to his feet as well. He was loading his last clip.

“Got any other weapons?” I asked.

“Right ankle,” he said.