Liquid Cool: The Cyberpunk Detective Series (39 page)

"What's that?" I asked.

"That's you," the johnny said, beaming. "Cruz, the People's Detective. The Detective of the Revolution. Liquid Cool Rules Metropolis!"

All I began to say was, "What the--"

When I got back inside, my Pops opened up his jacket and he was wearing a T-shirt of me. My Ma had one in her little purse. Even the Wans opened up their jackets to reveal they had them on too.

"What the heck."

"They're selling them in the lobby and on the street in front of the building," Dot said.

"I'm being franchised." I looked up. "Phishy!" I looked at PJ.

"Don't look at me, boss," she said. "It's exactly what he would do. You're a public figure now so you better get used to it."

"Public figure? I am not a public figure. They can't franchise me."

"Oh,
non
. We're stupid!" PJ ran to her mobile computer. "We need to be franchising you too. I'll have a shopping portal up on our virtual storefront in five minutes. We'll sell the official Liquid Cool T-shirts, and hats too. I need to get paid so this will bring in a steady income stream."

"How are people franchising me? What's going on? I'm a private person."

My parents and Dot's burst out laughing.

"Why am I being laughed at? Laughed at by even my own parents."

"You need to catch up on the news," Dot said.

I shook my head.

"Boss!"

"What?" I yelled back.

I walked over to PJ's home workstation and she pointed to her mobile computer.

"Wait, what did you did you just have on the screen?"

"Nothing."

"I saw 'Le Liquid Cool.' What's that?"

"It my on-screen translator."

"It's not 'Le Liquid Cool' or 'El Liquid Cool' or anything else in front of it. It's Liquid Cool."

"Boss, forget that. Here's what I'm showing you."

I looked and looked again. "What the--"

Above Metro Police One and City Hall were five spaceships! It was just like you'd see in a classic sci-fi movie only this was very real and there was nothing cool about it.

I had held up my hand and turned my head. First, I was told the city's police, not the people, were rioting in the streets. Then I was seeing Up-Top spaceships hovering above the city's seat of power. Now, the police were in Concrete Mama's lobby, ostensibly to get me. I just walked back to my guest room.

The door was shut only for a few minutes, before there was a knock.

I opened it and there was my Pops.

"Where you going?" he asked.

I didn't answer.

"You can't hide in here. Once the toothpaste is out of the toothpaste tube, you have to brush your teeth, even if you already did."

I started laughing. "What does that even mean?" He joined in. "You are a Kendo master and philosopher all of a sudden. Who are you? And what did you do with my Pops?"

"Boss!"

PJ's yell made us both look out in her direction.

Phishy was back inside and standing with her. From their faces and everyone's else's--Dot, my Ma, the Wans--it was not to be good news.

"What now?"

"The good news is that you've sold 50,000 Cruz T-shirts in 30 minutes from your new Liquid Cool virtual merchandise market."

"Why did you call me?"

"The police are here," Phishy answered.

"We know that already! The police are here. To do what?"

"They want to see you."

"Phishy, are you insane?"

"No cops in my place!" PJ yelled.

"I already had one guy try to shoot me."

"It's their union leader. He says it's urgent."

"You want me to meet with him?"

"Yes," Phishy replied.

"You don't like police, why would you want me to meet with them? They're here to arrest me. The Mayor and the Police Chief said they'd get me and that's why they're here."

"Cruz, you need to see the news," Dot said.

"Yes," PJ said. "Toute suite."

"Yes," Dot said. "Toute suite."

"What's toute suite?" Phishy asked.

"Phishy, focus. No, I'm not doing that. There is no way, no how I'm meeting them."

"They're on our side," Dot said.

"What are you talking about?"

"They're rioting at City Hall, but they're not with the Mayor or the Police Chief."

"They're on the people's side," PJ said.

I had a splitting headache at this point.

"Their union leader is waiting for you. His name is Wilford G. Jr."

I stopped. "Wilford G.?"

"Yes, why?"

"It couldn't be," I said to myself.

"Wilford G. was your father?"

The police officer was escorted to PJ's place by dozens of johnnies. I had my own sidewalk johnny army at my disposal, courtesy of Phishy, all of them wearing fedoras. My Pops stood on one side of me with his sword, my parents-in-law from hell stood on the other side. PJ had her rifle and my Ma was standing behind me so I couldn't see her hands but I knew she was packing. I thought the detective industry turned me into a quasi-criminal, but it seemed like it turned everyone around me into quasi-gangsters.

The man was forty-ish and in his dress blues.

"Yes, he was. Died at 92."

"He didn't mention anything about family."

"You mean his books?" The man smiled. "He never did. He kept us private when it came to his work. Never even had pictures of us in his office after seventy years of work. You read his book?"

"I own his book."

"Oh, you're the one purchaser. How to be...." The emotions were welling up inside of him and his eyes teared up. "Yeah, we miss him. Best there ever was."

My attitude towards him was different now. He was the son of my adopted mentor.

"I'm not sure I can be of any help though. As you can see I'm trying to hide out."

"Too late for that," he said. "The revolution is in full swing."

"Revolution?"

"Well, that's what it's being called. There's not one police person on the streets. The criminals have free reign."

"Then your men have to get back out there."

"My men?" He grinned. "I'm the union leader, that's all. Not one of us moving until the Mayor and Chief are gone. And they're not going. We were going to rush Police One, but then the Up-Top spaceships came in to provide them with protection. They have about 10,000 Interspace police. Numerically nothing compared to us, but their digital technology is far more advanced than our analog tech. My faction that wants to wait is growing weaker. At some point, we'll take our chances and attack. Whoever wins, it will be a bloodbath and, ultimately, that means the criminals win and the people lose."

"What do you want to talk to me for then? This is beyond me. I'm just one guy who read your dad's book and thinks he can play detective."

"I think you're doing far better than that, but I just have one question before I answer yours. The allegations you made on that interview show. How did you know there were no tapes? How could you possibly know that?"

"I reasoned it out. The police were out in force for the shoot-out and the kidnapping of that girl was within range of your body-cams. You all would have seen the kidnapping happen and the kidnapper. You wouldn't have sat on that footage, so I took a guess that there was no footage to sit on. Which meant some kind of conspiracy was going on."

"That was a big, big gamble on your part."

"Not really. Just logical reasoning with my bit of knowledge of procedure. Also, I was at the CIC myself. They keep the originals of all body-cam footage, not Police One. Most people don't know that. All the footage of the incident was not there, none of it."

"Conspiracy, indeed. And only two people would have the authority to quarantine the footage." Wilford G. Jr clenched his teeth in anger. "That cuts it. We're going in to get the Mayor and the Chief today."

"Can I ask another question?"

"What?"

"Are all police..." I stopped and looked at everyone. They were all hanging on my every word. "Maybe we should talk private."

"No!" everyone yelled out. They had a front seat to the biggest conversation in the City.

"Just ask the question."

"Police body-cams. They are always recording?"

"Always recording?"

"And it's monitored live?"

"Yes. Everyone knows that."

He stopped. He realized what I was saying.

"Oh my God," Wilford G. Jr. yelled out. "They're all in on the conspiracy that killed our officers!"

Part Nine

Monkeys, Spaceships, and the Watch Conspiracy

Chapter 57: Run-Time

When you approach your forties and can say you knew someone when you were both barely out diapers, then that's a hell of long time. You've known them forever.

My Pops was right. Hiding time was over. I put Dot in charge of parent protection, PJ in charge of keeping everyone in her apartment, and Phishy in charge of Concrete Mama security, which was greatly aided by Wilford G. Jr. stationing fifteen police cruisers around the building. I left PJ's place with Wilford G. Jr. and we were joined up with several police waiting outside.

Wilford Jr. was a seething mass waiting to explode with the information that I revealed. He only promised me that he'd keep it from the rank-and-file because I convinced him that before we set the city on fire, we owed the people of Metropolis to find out for certain who everyone involved in the conspiracy and cover-up was. I was going to be the detective and he, the police officer, and we'd investigate the crimes to a conclusion. I got to him to agree to that.

Like clockwork, a video-call was routed to our police cruiser and we postponed my visit with the widows and widower of the fallen police officers who wanted to meet me. We flew to Let It Ride Enterprises where Run-Time was waiting for me. On the way, I did catch up on the news that I had tried to avoid. I wanted to hurt the Mayor and the Chief but ended up setting in motion a chain of events that no one could predict the end of. Who knows how many people had been and would be victims of criminal punks because there were no
police on the streets, because of me. Within an hour of my "performance" on Holly Live's
news interview show, the Police Chief's inner circle confronted him in a private meeting. During that meeting, the Police Chief was fatally shot and two other captains were shot. That same day police officers began walking off the job, taking their police cruisers and weapons with them. By nightfall, all 500,000 had quit and had surrounded Metro Police One.

In the old days, you could set building on fire but it was a world of monolith towers that couldn't burn so the police dumped enough trash around the building and set it ablaze. They also barricaded the Mayor and staff in City Hall. The Mayor called a State of emergency, which was unprecedented by itself, but went a step further--he called in Interpol, who agreed to take control of the City and arrest the police. That started a war and now there was a stalemate with five Interpol spaceships hovering above City Hall to protect the buildings and the Mayor who had not been out of the tower in five days. The City was holding its breath.

Run-Time looked like he hadn't slept in five days. "Let me ask you," he began, "do you understand what has been set in motion?"

"You mean, what I started."

"You said it."

Run-Time warned me, but I didn't listen. I did acknowledge that he understood the politics of things better than I ever would. However, I knew that fact profoundly now. I was the cause of the chaos. All because of ego. Would I ever be able to sleep if people died because of my ego?

"The Mayor and the Chief were going to destroy my life. I know that they were going to let a kidnap victim die. I know that they were going to let a psycho cyborg criminal get away to kill more people and do more violence."

Run-Time shook his head. "You don't."

"Is this one of those 'see the big picture' speeches? Run-Time, you've known me practically all my life. I don't care and never have cared about the 'big picture.' I'm a simple guy. Did you scratch my car or not? I don't care about the socio-economic forces that led to your father losing his job and your parents turning to a life of crime and beating you up and you becoming a bad person. I don't care. Did you scratch my car or not? Did you kill that old man or not? Did you run down that girl in your hover-car and flee the scene of the crime or not? If people spent more time with the 'little picture,' then the 'big picture' wouldn't be so screwed up."

Run-Time was always Mr. Optimism, even as a child. But the man who stood in front of me was so far from that it scared me. He stayed quiet for a moment. I don't know if he was trying to think of the best response or was just plum tired.