Core Punch (3 page)

“Do you seek something…” The cold spot had to be some distance off.

“We have some family history here, or I think it was here. Just wondered if I'd see
the
crypt, but the carvings are so faded, there's no way to tell. If I'd known I was coming here, I'd have downloaded a map.” She paused and looked back at him.

“
The
crypt?” Joe asked.

“Oh, this ancestor of ours wasn't buried here.”

Joe blinked. “So
the
crypt is where this ancestor
wasn't
buried?”

“Yeah.”

He considered asking for additional clarification, but his last attempt had not gone well. There were many things, he'd learned, that failed to bridge his alien divide.

She looked around her. “Weird ass place. Our Voodoo Queen is supposed to be buried here, you know. Wish we had time to put some
gris-gris
on her tomb.”

Her grin almost knocked him back a step. He had to smile back. It would have been rude not to, but he felt uncomfortable when she didn't immediately resume her progress toward the cold spot.

“You have a nice smile, Joe.” She tipped her head to one side. “You should let it out to play more often.”

A nice smile? Was that a good thing? Nice felt lukewarm. Though there was little luke about his present warmth.

Lurch seemed to sigh.
Yes, my friend, it is a good thing.

“I will endeavor to do so,” he said, wishing he could match her casual tone. Something in her expression changed though he could not isolate and identify what. His smile faltered. She distracted him when he didn't look at her. Looking increased her distraction factor exponentially and tended to cause a rise in internal temperature, one easily noted by Lurch. Though it tried to respect Joe's privacy, it could not help but notice physiological reactions to outside stimuli. Or be amused by them, which tended to increase the effect. It was unprofessional of Joe to be distracted by her.

As Baker had said to a crime scene tech recently, “Eyes forward, Stigson. We're not here to get hot and bothered.”

Stigson had kept his eyes forward, but heat and bother were inevitable with or without the personal aspect, thanks to the climate in this place. The heat index should have been sufficient excuse to the nanite when Joe experienced his temperature variations, but Lurch seemed able to parse which variation was caused by heat and what was caused by heated.

He glanced—casually he hoped, though feared he failed—to one side, then the other. “It is most quiet here.”

And then it became more than a distraction from looking at Vi. It
was
quiet. Too quiet? The hairs on the back of his neck lifted. Or tried to. Sweat and the heavy suit kept them down, but it felt as if they lifted. The feeling of something ominous was most marked. And easily explained by the approaching storm.

“Even nature is getting out ahead of WTF.” She grinned once more.

This grin was different, more like the ones others used when using the storm's acronym. He had wondered, but not asked. According to Lurch, explained jokes were no longer humorous.

Perhaps she sensed his confusion for she added, “The Hurricane Naming Board got so caught up in being politically correct, they forgot to check the initials before they released the name into the wild. Once it was out, there was no taking it back.”

This did not help as much as she'd perhaps hoped, so Lurch supplied the translation and further explanation, enough that Joe found that not all jokes lost humor upon explanation. He smiled involuntarily and got caught in her intent gaze once more. The air shifted and the wind picked up, reminding them that WTF was incoming and it was no joke.

Vi started a bit. “We should hurry.” She yanked a booted foot out of the mud. “Try to hurry.”

Did she look regretful? Or did he hope she did? It was not as if they had a future together. He was not sure he would have a future. Even his past had become murky, since Lurch moved into his head and launched him on this crazy quest.

Their progress resumed. It seemed harder to walk in the lanes than it had in the tall grasses, possibly because their boots sank deeper into the mud. These paths must have degraded more than those outside the walls, or they had been constructed differently. Some crypts were bordered by low fences almost obscured by weeds or grasses, others bumped up against the path. All were covered in green moss and black mildew, some were also covered in heavy vines. On many he could see outlines of names, but most were obscured despite the attempted upkeep. There was no question that their surroundings added to the growing sense of incoming trouble.

“Shouldn't be far now—” Vi stopped abruptly. “
What
the—”

Joe had a feeling she meant this in the actual meaning of WTF, not the storm name, despite the cutoff at the end. It didn't take the sight of the hovering body bag for Joe to know they had arrived at their crime scene. All he had to do was watch Vi switch to detective mode. She rolled her shoulders, and he knew her gaze would narrow and turn laser sharp. She had the best technology that the NONPD could afford, but her eyes, her brain were, in Joe's opinion worth more than all the tech.

Except me.

Of course,
Joe agreed, though he wondered. Was it possible to know too much? So much one lost the ability to follow intuition?

That is why I have you.

I lack Vi's flair.

You lack experience. The ability to go with your gut. But you are learning.

Would he learn in time? Joe grabbed the kit off the body bag and initiated deployment to secure their scene. The electronic grid would protect the integrity of the scene, though “integrity” did not seem indicated in their present circumstances. The bag launched, tracking toward the body. Once centered over it, it “taped” their scene, the name a relic of a different time, according to Lurch. Then it released a variety of collection probes, including a vid module that would create the 3D scan of the crime scene. Within a minute, all possible portable non-naturally occurring materials had been collected by tiny drones, tagged and secured to the underside of the body bag. The red electronic tape turned gold, an indication that they could now enter their scene. He activated protective hand and face gear. As though it was not already hot enough.

At this point, they did not know a crime had been committed, well, other than the illegal body dump, he reminded himself, though without much hope. At least the tech would enable them to secure what evidence had survived the rain and wind before the storm drenched the scene again. He checked the time, then the storm's progress on his portable tech. Ran the numbers. It must be an illusion that the dark clouds looked closer than the tech showed them to be. The wind had increased, though without cooling anything. It flowed past, weighted with water and heat.

Vi activated her crime scene gear and followed him through the tape where she crouched by the body.

“This guy did not die in his sleep.”

It was true the eyes retained a look of horror that was not comfortable to see. Joe's headset produced a list of just-collected debris. He was not sorry for the distraction from looking at those eyes. The only thing of interest was something called a Royal Crown Cola bottle. And a banana spider. The bot shouldn't have grabbed the spider, though the malfunction did not surprise him. And he was happy not to have to share space with the large arachnid. He looked around and spied the shredded remains of a huge web tucked under the crypt's overhang. There was not much other debris from the scene and little that appeared related to their corpse. The dead man huddled between two small columns as if he'd been sitting on one of the three steps leading to the imposing crypt, and then died, rolling onto his back, with his knees drawn up to his chest. He wore trousers, but his upper torso appeared to be bare. Joe touched one leg. Pushed on it. It gave a little, but was still somewhat frozen to his bare chest. That would explain why he'd shown as a cold spot. The intense heat would boost the contrast.

“Looks like someone emptied their freezer,” Vi murmured.

“Emptied the freezer?” Joe felt some disquiet. And much confusion. The corpse wasn't solidly frozen, but it hadn't shown up on the sensors prior to their leaving District Headquarters. It had to have been dumped between their last scan and the activation of their sensor on approach. Perhaps a window of fifteen minutes? But the partial thaw indicated it had been here longer. Or been allowed to partially defrost prior to dumping?

“In the early days, soon after the city was raised, the bad guys experienced problems getting rid of inconvenient corpses.”

Joe blinked, thinking through this “problem.” He frowned. “They used to bury them.” His brow cleared. “But soil is not deep in the raised city.” Weight issues. The raised city boasted hologram trees because the soil lacked the depth for real ones—a move that had initially been very unpopular until the cost was totaled up and presented to the taxpayers of the time. The cobblestone paths in the French Quarter were also simulated.

“They used to freeze stiffs until they could dump them down here, but that was before we had better sensors. I haven't heard of a freezer dump for a long time.” She frowned, considering. “Years.”

He noted she did not use the words “good” or “effective” to characterize the “better” sensors. He'd have called them barely adequate, but there were higher priorities. He frowned. “Perhaps they hoped to capitalize on the confusion prior to the storm's arrival?”

“Then they seriously mistimed it. No confusion yet.” There was a beep indicating an identity match. Vi's frown deepened. “He's a dirt-sider. A squatter.”

Like those they'd been sent to collect.

“Perhaps he expired and other dirt-siders were fearful the death would cause them problems?” Joe offered the idea without much conviction.

“If they wanted to hide a body, they wouldn't freeze him. That preserves a body. If they wanted to hide him, they'd bury him. Bodies decompose fast in this heat, plus the critters would help them out. Anyway, I doubt a squatter would have access to a freezer. The power grid is patchy down here, especially around the NOO airport where they squat. They only maintain power around industrial areas and farms.” She shook her head.

“Then someone wanted this body found intact.” It was the only logical conclusion.

She sighed. “We'll need to notify HQ, but let's bag this bad boy first, get it back to the skimmer before our power runs out.”

Using her portable unit, she maneuvered the bag until it hovered just above the body. “Pray we have enough power,” she muttered. She punched a button and a web shot out on either side, slithering out of sight under the corpse. When the webs had connected, the body was lifted until it was snug against the bag platform. Vi rotated the bag, so that body rested on top of the platform. This brought the underside of the body into view. The bare back was covered with round pockmarks in an almost regular pattern.

“What the—” Vi began and once again stopped. She stepped close and examined the marks.

Joe couldn't move. He wanted to move. To flee. His body felt as cold as the corpse. But Lurch had locked him down.

Get under control.
Lurch's voice was sharp in his head.

He could breathe, but that was all. He looked down until he was sure he had his expression under control, the one part of him Lurch couldn't help.
I am.

“Curious,” Vi touched one of the marks with a gloved hand. “It almost looks like something burned its way out.” Her frown deepened. “I wonder—”

It took two tries for him to get the words out. “You wonder?”

“Do you remember Calvino's murder?” Joe shook his head. “It happened around the time you arrived, or maybe before? I forget. We didn't handle it. Was Federal because Calvino was a big deal in his crime family.”

“I don't recall that,” Joe said, his throat dry.

“It was kept pretty quiet, because no wanted a copycat, or so they said. A mini turf war erupted right after, too, which sort of took over the news. I only heard about it because my cousin was on the task force. What he described, it might have been this.” She touched one of the spots with her gloved hand. “Curious. I can see why this MO freaked them out.”

I missed it.
Lurch sounded chagrined.

You had to search with care.
Why—?
Joe didn't finish the question. He was not sure what to ask.

It is tired of waiting. So it takes advantage of the storm to test us. Testing
you
for signs of me.

They—
he
had tried to be careful. Lurch was always careful. Joe thought he had been, too.

You have been careful. Hence the test.
Lurch's tone modified to almost amused.
If it has been dirt side all this time, it might be frustrated enough to make a mistake.

Joe had expected to feel relieved when it made its move. He could not resist a glance at the approaching storm.

It always had a flair for the dramatic.

J
oe looked almost
as stiff as their stiff, but Vi already knew he was a bit parsimonious with, well, everything. He was the total opposite of “Big Easy” NON, while still managing to be adorable. At their first meeting, she deduced he was not demonstrative because she was, you know, a detective. He nailed dead pan and mainlined sober. Was the quintessential Joe Friday—both the vintage and the many remakes. That's why she'd tagged him Joe, though she hadn't meant to say it out loud. At least she hadn't called him ET. She had tried to wrap her tongue around his real name. It hadn't wrapped and her throat made a sound like Maw Maw's cat hacking up a hairball. So when he didn't complain about the Joe moniker—and the Garradians didn't cut off diplomatic relations over it—she let it ride.

It was how she rolled. Though periodically Captain Uncle tried to break her of her rolling habit. It was his job, she supposed. Because he was an uncle and not just a captain, she used her Look on him when he tried too hard. Sometimes she had to boost it with the innocent modification, but she tried to wield that power with care. Not that Captain Uncle would ever fall in love with her, but a captain with scrambled brains wasn't good for anyone. She didn't know why her Look worked, with or without the modification. Was glad it did, because it had gotten her out of some sticky situations. And some interesting proposals.

Well, it worked with one notable exception.

She studied that exception. Who was studying their stiff like it held the secrets to the universe. For him, it might. He was that smart. For her, she just wished their stupid emergency gear wasn't hiding his butt. His rear view was one of the few bright spots in a typical crime scene. Or an atypical one.

Which this seemed to be.

She sighed. If she'd ever imagined that she'd be dirt side in a moldy, muddy graveyard with a purple alien, a weird-ass corpse, and an epic hurricane incoming, she'd have called the mind shrinks to have a chat.

She studied what she could see of Joe's profile. His skin wasn't
so
purple. It was more of a hint than an actual tint—just enough to make him a hit at Mardi Gras. The rest of him was a hit any time. The Garradians were known for being real pretty, and Joe was
not
the exception, even in a post-genetic-modification world. Dang. Broad shoulders. Lean hips. Vid star features. Dark hair. Dark eyes. Awesome brain box. Not a relative. That was huge. In addition to Captain Uncle, she was related to about eighty percent of the NONPD. Not that not being not-related to Joe had benefitted her as much she would have liked. If she hit on him and it didn't go well, it
might
cause the intergalactic incident she'd managed to avoid to date. An intergalactic incident would make Sunday dinners at Grand Maw Maw's tense. On the other hand, dating ET would totally boost her cred with the cousins. Easier thought than done. She had no clue what he did with his off hours, which was sad. A detective should always have a clue.

And a detective should know better than to end up this deep in the mud. If the dirt-siders wanted to take on WTF, who was she to deny them their God-given right to be stupid in the face of the unprecedented precedented? Or would that be the precedented unprecedented? She was worse at grammar than she was at math. And she sucked at mud. Which sucked. Literally and figuratively. WTF wasn't here yet and she was sick of it, too.

Time was, according to Grand Paw Paw, when everyone had believed that man caused all the weather problems. Vi'd call it extreme hubris, but her generation had bought into the “man had solved all the weather problems” line of bull. Seemed hubris was catching. And everyone did know—or should know—pride went before the fall. She looked up at her city. Thinking falling thoughts was probably bad
juju
right now. She tried to redirect the thoughts, but it wasn't easy with Maw Maw Nature preparing to pull their pride out from under them. Vi could almost hear her cackling with glee.

She rose, feeling the increase in the wind tugging at her. She released her visor, hoping it would cool something off. It didn't. She frowned at the horizon. “That looks worse than the radar says it should be.”

“We should return to the skimmer.” Joe rose, too, his expression back in the “Friday” zone.

As if Nature's Maw Maw heard him, the wind kicked up some more and the black clouds began to curve in tight, like she was pinging on them.

“Yeah.” Vi nodded, just in case the word wasn't agreement enough.

Being Joe, he didn't hesitate, retracting their crime scene tech as fast as it would let him. Storm aside, if they lingered too much longer, their body bag might run out of power. She did not want to haul it all the way back to the skimmer. Talk about old school. She took a last look at her crime scene, not happy it was gonna get drenched. She'd never liked relying wholly on tech, especially their
crapeau
tech. Would have liked to do her own search. But Maw Maw N and her pet storm were setting the pace today. That she felt their hot breath on her neck was a totally correct metaphor—something she tried to avoid at her crime scenes if at all possible.

Joe dropped the kit on the bag next to the corpse. In its current configuration, the corpse didn't take up that much room. She'd eyed it a bit wistfully. There was room for her to hop a ride, but it had never liked heavy lifting. Ouch. She tried to avoid linking herself with the words “heavy” in a sentence, but it was just that kind of day. She keyed in the return command and the bag rose, making the turn toward their skimmer. It sputtered a bit, but kept going. For now.

Without speaking they started back, though out of necessity, their path was less direct than the body bag's, since they had to stick to the paths. Was it her imagination that the mud seemed deeper on the return? Each sucking step seemed harder than than the last, draining both energy and breath. It let WTF gain on them, too. She glanced at Joe. Something was bothering him. She knew him well enough to know that, though she didn't know what or why he didn't tell her. He was a puzzle wrapped in an enigma wrapped in whatever was more mysterious than an enigma. She needed to quit wishing he'd do something, and then she needed to find a guy to kiss. Even if he asked her out, which did not seem likely, what was the point? The exchange program would end, he'd go home. People did. Especially alien people. She'd heard they considered Earth a kind of slum part of the Milky Way. On the rude side, considering how much the guys from their galaxy seemed to like alien-earth-girls match-ups dot com.

Their dragging, slogging struggle made their shoulders brush together. Well, their emergency gear brushed together. How sad was it that she liked it? The narrow paths of the creepy cemetery were hardly a romantic venue by any definition, but a girl had to work with what she had. Even if she wasn't exactly getting anything for all her work. Except tired. Dang, dirt was hard work. Why did anyone want to live on dirt? It was infused with gravity. And dirt. They had gravity up in the city, but it wasn't so sticky.

Normally she'd be mulling their crime, wondering the whys, wherefores and hows. Today she was worried about finishing what they'd been sent to do and getting the
crapeau
topside again. Would they have time to collect their dirt-siders and get back before the bad stuff hit? Short answer? No clue. If she looked at tech, she thought, sure, they had plenty of time. Then she looked at the clouds looming to the west….

Their skimmer was not rated for anything over 50 mph, nor was it rated for high altitude flying. Probably wasn't rated for low altitudes either. The piece of
crapeau
. She didn't know how it would fare sitting out the feeder band in the mud either. Thanks to the news vids, she knew more about the storm surge than she had two weeks ago. It had been reported on more as a curiosity than a concern, though, since no one was supposed to be down here when it arrived. Even though the water seemed higher going back, this couldn't be surge, not when WTF was stalled off shore.

She tried to pick up the pace, but the mud and water conspired against her. To add insult to misery, it began to rain again. She dropped her face shield. Almost she asked Joe if he thought it seemed worse, but he had the same data she did. Either the data was wrong, or she was wrong. Since this was her first hurricane, she was going with she was wrong. Even though her eyes disputed the data stream. What, she thought she was smarter than the sensors? Than the radar?

“Hope our dirt-siders don't give us any problems,” she muttered. Why hadn't anyone spotted them sooner? Captain Uncle had been really not happy she and Joe were the only ones he could send down. He'd muttered some words that would have had Grand Maw Maw grabbing her bar of soap. He'd given her both a Captain and an Uncle look, the one that meant, get your butt back up here ASAP. Funny how guys never quite got over worrying about girls….

Based on data at the time, though, it had seemed more annoying than risky. But the rate the wind was picking up—they might find out exactly how well their aging skimmer handled in bad weather. She peered through the blurry face shield. Had the bag made it over the last wall—

It shuddered and drifted out of sight. Was gonna guess that was a no. She muttered some of the same words as Captain Uncle. With some difficulty they altered direction.

“Assuming we can get to our dirt-siders, I suppose we won't be allowed to,” he paused, “subdue them?”

Joe tended to be pragmatic about individual rights, one of the many cultural differences she'd been briefed on prior to being assigned as his partner. He'd been briefed on their laws and procedures or he wouldn't have asked the question. She gave it some thought. Technically they were only supposed to set their Glocks to stun when all others options failed. The standard for use was high when there were cameras everywhere, including the inevitable personal devices with advanced recording capability. But dirt-siders tended to be anti-tech. And the sensors had limited capabilities that did not include high-res video. They might get a pass on lowering the standard a bit.

She caught sight of the body bag, resting crookedly on a crypt just inside the wall. She might be getting annoyed enough by the sight to stun a dirt-sider who was slow to cooperate. She grabbed one end of the body bag, Joe grabbed the other, and they pushed up. Her boots retaliated by sinking deeper in the mud. Suddenly she had a new understanding of the term “dead weight.”

“Let's see how much they weigh before we stun them,” she advised.

T
he rain flowed
like a river out of the foreboding sky, reducing visibility to maybe a meter—it was hard to tell with it running down her protective visor—as they wrestled the loaded body bag into the rear of the skimmer. The wind had picked up, pelting them with bits of leaves and twigs, and water swirled around their knees, turning the ground around the skimmer into even more of a mire than when they'd landed. WTF seemed determined to justify its name.

Vi'd seen rain. NON had rain. It had always had rain. Raising it didn't get it out of the rain. Probably brought it closer to the rain. But she'd never seen this kind of rain. She tossed her 72'r kit in the back, leaned against the skimmer to catch her breath, while Joe shed his pack. Man, if it was this bad this far from the eye wall, they needed to make sure they were well up before it got any closer. She hit the hatch control with her elbow. She might have been thinking a few more Grand Maw Maw not-approved words. It took its time lowering. When the hatch locked in place, she headed for the cockpit, leaning into the wind and using the maintenance grips along the side to steady herself in the high water. She clambered over the vestigial wings, glad to be out of the water for that few seconds. The specter of fire ants and other nasty stuff hung over her as she fumbled for the side hatch control.

When it opened, wind and rain rushed in with her. She subsided into her sling with relief. Water cascaded off her and her gear, forming small pools on the floor. Of course, this hatch also took its time locking back in place. The wind and rain were worse from Joe's side, and it was a relief when his hatch locked down. If auto-dry had worked, she'd have used it. It didn't, so she dug out the towel she kept in her personal cubby and wiped off her face shield. When the towel was too wet to do any good, she tossed it back and retracted the visor. Muttering some more words Grand Maw Maw wouldn't have liked. Another time she might have been worried that she knew so many. Since she didn't have time, she retracted hand protection, then applied her attention to the skimmer controls. Time to find out how screwed they were.

Technically, based on the skimmer's specs, they were “fine.” The skimmer supposedly had all kinds of emergency tech, such as instruments-only flying and wind stabilization, oh, and emergency boost. Most of it had died long before the skimmer was gifted to Vi upon her promotion to homicide detective. The aging skimmer was the NONPD's version of a hazing. You did your time, didn't whine, did good work, and you got assigned something that actually worked fifty percent of the time. That was about as good as it got with their budget.

And based on the weather data her portable tech was picking up from the under-city data bouncers, they were also “fine” where the storm was concerned. In fact, it shouldn't be raining yet. She studied the sheets of water flowing off the view screen.

“Do you get the feeling our data isn't updating right?” she muttered, wondering why she was surprised something had gone wrong with this hunk of junk. She'd blame the skimmer slamming to the dirt, but their data had to have been off before that to be this off now.

Joe, working on powering up the skimmer, shot her a look that was almost human. “Yes.”

Vi sighed. She hated being such a girl, but… “I think we'd better call for pickup. This piece of
crapeau
isn't rated for flying in this kind of wind.” Assuming they had a clue what kind of wind it was. Captain Uncle would be pissed she hadn't told him about the course correction. They weren't close enough for her to use her get-out-of-trouble Look on him. And if the wind kept banging stuff into them, well, that wouldn't go well either.