The Immorality Clause (18 page)

“No thanks, I’m driving.”

He chuckled at my pun. “Ah, I heard about the incident at the Causeway. What on earth were you doing way out there?”

“Fishing trip.”

Ladeaux returned and set a glass of amber liquid on the table in front of me. “Hope you caught something.”

“I’m really not in the mood for a drink, Ladeaux. The last time I accepted a drink from a stranger, I ended up getting drugged.”

His eyebrows shot up. “Oh, do tell, Detective.”

“Like you don’t know.”

“Let’s just assume for the minute that I have literally no idea what you’re talking about. I thought you wanted to talk to me about robots, not drugs.”

“Does the name Paxton Himura mean anything to you?” I asked.

His lips pursed and he took a sip of whatever he’d poured himself. “That’s good,” he mumbled. “Paxton is the manager at The Digital Diva. I’ve known her for ten years and—”

“Cut the bullshit, Ladeaux. She’s a fucking droid.”

“How did you find out?” He seemed genuinely surprised by my statement.

“Urine sample.”

“Ah, that’s good detective work. I’ll have to talk to the company about that flaw.” He took another sip. “But why—how—did you get a sample of her urine? She isn’t a suspect in the happenings at the Diva, is she?”

“You tell me.”

“I wouldn’t believe that one of my robots was a suspect,” he answered. “But I do have some information that may be of interest to you.”

“I’m listening.”

“I became frustrated with your investigation, so I sent the droid’s video from The Stud Farm to my contacts at Cybertronic.”

“You’re sharing evidence with private companies?”

He stared me dead in the eyes while he took a large swallow from his drink. “It’s my video; I can do with it as I please.”

He wasn’t entirely accurate, but he wasn’t wrong either. Technically, I could bust him for interfering with an investigation, but if he could provide me with any usable information I’d let it slide. “What did your company find?”

“In good time, Detective.” He smiled, reminding me of a snake right before it sprang on a rat. “You didn’t answer my question about how you got Paxton Himura’s urine—not to mention why you would even want to.”

I clenched the muscles in my jaw. If I told him the truth, he would forever have something on me.

It didn’t matter that over the course of the car ride to the Dockyards, I’d decided on going to Internal Affairs as soon as possible, he would still have that piece of information. I’d decided that if I informed IA of my transgressions, then there might be a chance that I wouldn’t get fired for violating department regulations.
Yeah right, and Voodoo is an innocent man
.

“That’s a police matter, Mr. Ladeaux.”

“I can have her memory accessed.”

“Go ahead,” I challenged.

He tapped a few keys on his desk and a projected rendering of Paxton’s memories appeared in the space between us. Several men’s faces came and went; I could tell that she was sitting at her desk in the Diva. “Let’s see, here’s our victim,” Ladeaux said.

Charles Wolfe’s fat face appeared and I listened to the business transaction between the two of them. Even in the projected image, his beady eyes gleamed in anticipation of his purchase. He paid for the Amplify and Paxton swiped his credit card to preauthorize his encounter with the robot, Kelly.

Ladeaux tapped a few more keys and the images ran at three time’s normal speed until Paxton stood up from the desk. He slowed the video to normal speed.

“Since you didn’t know she was a droid, you haven’t seen these pieces yet. Don’t worry, we’ve examined them, there’s nothing here, but it should help to fill in any gaps that your questioning didn’t answer.”

She stood in front of room one fifty-two and placed her hand over a panel outside the door. The locks disengaged and the she turned the handle, pushing the door inward. The view filled with gore. Paxton recoiled into the hallway and pressed a button on her watch. Flashing red lights filled the image. Shouts of men from the other rooms were clearly audible. She turned and strode back down the hallway to the front.

“You’ve seen everything else in the Diva… Let’s see.” He fast-forwarded the video to the next day until my face appeared at Paxton’s apartment door. “Oh, you naughty boy.”

“Is it standard practice for your droids to invite men back to their apartments?” I asked, ignoring the beep of my phone in my pocket.

“Paxton Himura is the first CS01 model, another prototype. So, in truth, I don’t know what she’s capable of.”

“She’s just the latest in a long line of sex bots. How different could she be?”

“No. The CS01 is so much more than a mere sex droid, Detective. They will be the absolute top of the companionship industry. The CS01 models will live as humans amongst our population, implanted with a wide assortment of life memories, no two will be alike. They will fulfill the needs of lonely men and women everywhere without the hassle of dating and dealing with extended families. Totally programmable personality types, from submissive all the way to combative, depending on the purchaser’s desire.”

“Sounds like you’ve done a lot of research on this model. Thinking about buying another one?”

He laughed. “Oh no, Detective. I’m an investor in the CS01—the sole investor, under exclusive contract to develop them with Cybertronic Solutions. We will revolutionize the sex industry.”

“What, running robotic prostitution establishments aren’t doing it for you anymore?” I sneered.

“On the contrary, it’s very lucrative, Forrest. But, there’s always the risk that some uptight, God Squad, conservative politician will shut us down under the guise of wholesome family values or some other ludicrous platform. The introduction of companion droids will be a substantial paradigm shift to our collective psyche—” He inhaled sharply. “Oh, here’s the good part.”

I glanced away from Ladeaux’s face and focused on Paxton’s video feed. The images of us having sex cast odd shadows and bursts of light on the wall. Paxton’s whimpers of simulated pleasure and my guttural moans of passion filled the air, evidence of my error in judgement.

“Impressive work, Detective.”

I stared through the scene at him. “Fuck you, Voodoo.”
Shit, I’d let him get to me
.

“Looks like you were the one doing the
fucking
. Now I know how you had the opportunity to collect her urine sample.”

“Okay, you got me. I had sex with her. I thought she was a human.”

“But she was still a witness in an investigation… This changes things between us.”

“No, it doesn’t. You’re dirtier than the shit oozing out from under your droids’ toenails after a gangbang.”

“Maybe,” he countered. “But you don’t have video evidence of any of my alleged dealings like I do of yours.”

“You listen to me,” I hissed. “I won’t be blackmailed or threatened by you. You don’t have anything on me and I’m already going to talk to people in the department tomorrow morning.”

“Seems like you’ve got it all figured out then, Detective.” He stood and refilled his glass.

“So, you know about what I did, now tell me why your droid drugged me. Was it to lower my inhibitions and make me vulnerable? Was that what you programmed her to do?”

“Even though I have your nuts in a vice, I’m telling you the truth when I say that I don’t know what you’re talking about. The only thing I’ve programmed Paxton to do was to work as the manager at The Digital Diva and to live as a human. She doesn’t even know that she’s a robot.”

As far as I could ascertain, he was telling the truth. “What do you mean she doesn’t know?” I asked.

“It’s part of the testing protocol. We want to see how well the programming and AI is in the CS01. If she can survive for a year on her own, then she’ll be a resounding success and that data should allow us to go to market.”

“You son of a bitch. That’s cruel.”

He laughed. “She’s a computer program, Detective. She doesn’t have feelings.”

I’d told Andi the same thing the other night when I was mad at her for interfering with my personal life, and I was ashamed that I’d treated her that way.

“She thinks she does, though,” I muttered.

“It’s a program telling her how to react. I’m interested about this alleged drugging though.”

I explained quickly to him about the discovery of synthaine and sleeping medications in my system and that Paxton had administered them to me in the tea the day I went to her apartment.

“To be honest, I don’t know what she did that for,” Ladeaux stated. “I’m in the middle of a potential billion dollar deal; I wouldn’t screw that up with playing around with a cop’s head.”

Heaven help me, I believed him. She’d decided to drug me on her own, but why?

“So you’ve created this whole fake life for her, why couldn’t we see the lack of credit history or fake school diplomas when we accessed her files?”

Ladeaux smiled as video from yesterday morning’s escapade through Paxton’s point of view began to play between us. Droplets of water flew against her camera lenses. “Because they’re not fake,” he replied. “Paxton Himura is a real person who works for Cybertronic Solutions. She’s been given a year off to do basically whatever she wants to do on the company’s dime, the only stipulation is that she doesn’t use her personal accounts, everything has to be done on the company’s credit.”

“How does she get around sensors or travel?”

“I have no idea. Maybe she’s staying home writing a book. The idea is for the droid to be as human as possible and for her past to stand up to more than a cursory examination.”

“Who’s monitoring her records?” I asked.

“Somebody at Cybertronic, I’m sure. It’s really not my concern, though.”

“Well, that ‘somebody at Cybertronic’
is
concerned. They tried to kill me after I began digging into her past.”

“Hmm… Interesting.” He tapped a few keys and then looked up. “There, I just sent a message asking who the programmer is that’s responsible for keeping an eye on Paxton’s personal history.”

My phone beeped again, but I disregarded it once more. “Thanks. Let me know as soon as you find out. I’d like to talk to them.”

“Of course, Detective.” He savored the video for a moment and then clicked it off. Thankfully, the image of my body pressing Paxton against the shower wall as water cascaded across us faded. “Is there anything else?”

“You said you had other information to tell me about the video from The Stud Farm,” I reminded him.

“I want to help our fine New Orleans Police Department in this investigation,” he said slowly. “Because, I am a contributing member of the community and all.”

“Yeah, yeah. I’m sure,” I scoffed “What did your people find out?”

He smirked. “The NOPD computer techs didn’t notice anything odd about the video we sent them?”

“No. They determined the video to be authentic.”

“Amateurs,” Ladeaux muttered while he tapped a few more keys.

This time, the video of Mark Barilla and his robot escort sprang to life. I saw Barilla open his backpack and pull out a bag of several large buds of marijuana and a bong. He poured water into the container and crammed one of the buds into the end. He flicked a lighter and placed it against the weed. The victim took six deep drags from the mouthpiece and then began choking as the droid watched him die.

I’d seen it twenty times before. “Yeah, so? I’ve seen this video already.”

“But you said that your people thought the video was authentic and untampered with. It’s not.”

“What?”

“Here, watch.” He repeated the video and displayed a complicated string of numbers alongside it. “These codes are proprietary. Only Cybertronic Solutions systems can recognize them.”

I watched the numbers as he’d indicated. They changed steadily, increasing as the video played. “These numbers, they correspond with time?” I surmised.

“Basically,” Ladeaux said. “Their main function is to keep track of recorded time for Cybertronic Solutions that can’t be changed by a hacker.”

I tapped the air on the opposite side of the newer numbers where a series of digits that I’d already seen scrolled by, matching the Cybertronic numbers. “Then what are these?”

“That’s the official timestamp, but those can be altered. You’ll see here in a couple of seconds.”

I watched as the victim pulled out and wiped the droid’s synthetic fluid from his dick with a tissue. He told the robot to sit tight, that he wanted to wash up before they relaxed. The robot watched him go into the bathroom and then the Cybertronic numbers jumped and they were thirty-five seconds ahead of the official timestamp.

“Son of a bitch,” I muttered, not directed at my host this time. “Can you replay that segment?”

“Of course.” Ladeaux wasn’t as adept at the video playback function as Andi, but he was decent.

The same thing happened again.

“The video’s been tampered with,” I muttered in disbelief. I’d been certain that the police tech guys were the best around. Now I knew better.