Racers of the Night: Science Fiction Stories by Brad R. Torgersen (24 page)

Camarro sent a long burst of affection and gratefulness his way, then closed the connection. It was only 0345, and there was more dreaming to be done. Because dreaming was one of the key pieces of evidence that had been used to demonstrate that the simuman mind—unlike all other computer systems before or since—was deserving of dignity and respect.

• • •

When Camarro arrived at work the next morning, nobody was smiling.

“Officer Jones,” said Captain Martinez, his badge displayed prominently along the paunch at his belt.

“Cap’n,” Camarro replied, looking to Detective Guadron, who shifted nervously from foot to foot and wouldn’t meet her gaze.

“What’s happened,” Camarro asked warily.

“Jeffrey Maddox is in intensive care,” the Captain said.

“What?”

“One of his security people called Metro last night. Reported a break-in, and that Maddox was hurt. When the patrol cars and ambulance arrived, they found Maddox nearly dead. Bled out, actually. They had to fast-pump almost a liter into him while they rushed to plug holes. The two women he was with were DOA.”

Camarro said nothing as she absorbed the implications of what she’d been told.

“The crime scene—”

“Had this at it,” Martinez said, cutting her off. He jabbed a thick finger at a nearby flatscreen where an image of Jeff Maddox’s familiar bedroom could be seen. Blood was everywhere, across the knotted blankets and sex furniture. On one of the walls the words, NO ONE SHALL HAVE YOU BUT ME, were written in fluid.

She looked back into Martinez’s eyes, which simmered.

“Jones, you’re ordinarily a credit to this department, but as of now, I’m putting you in hack.”

“Why?”

“Maddox IDd you before they put him in the ambulance.”

“I left his residence before eleven. If anything, it’s Maddox you should be concerned with. Did you see the evidence I logged from the Gilded Cage? Have they gotten any prints off those wrappers?”

“There are no prints on the wrappers. But we did get something at the Maddox residence.”

“Oh?”

“One of Maddox’s web cams was running when the break-in and murders happened. Most of the action goes on off-screen, but there are a few seconds of footage, right at the end, which are particularly interesting.”

Again, Martinez pointed to the screen.

A low-rez moving image—clearly captured after the damage had already been done—cycled slowly. Maddox and the bodies of the two women lay crumpled and pathetic on Maddox’s bedroom floor. For a moment, Camarro almost felt sorry for the man. Then she saw a shadow pass, followed by a distinctly feminine hip, which became an apple-shaped ass clad in what appeared to be use-worn leather riding trousers. The racetrack stitching pattern on the seat of the trousers was all too familiar, and Camarro looked up to see her friend and sometimes partner Al standing behind her, staring at an identically use-worn racetrack pattern on her rounded buttocks.

“Captain, you can’t be serious,” Camarro said.

“I’m very serious, Jones. When this investigation first opened, I was hoping your familiarity with the Scene—with the workers and the victims—would be beneficial. Now I’m suspecting I’ve made a huge mistake.”

Camarro looked around the department, at the faces which watched her with suspicion. Nobody needed to say what was on all of their minds.

“What time did the murders happen,” Camarro said, attempting to stay calm.

“0045,” Martinez replied.

“I was at home then. You can access my house security log, or the cycler on my maintenance station.”

“We’ve already sent some people to do just that,” Martinez said. “Until then, you’re confined to your desk. Officer Guadron is chaperoning you. Am I clear?”

“Yessir,” Camarro said, looking hard at Al, who still wouldn’t meet her gaze.

She walked woodenly to her desk, all eyes in the department still on her, and sat down slowly.

“Sorry, Cam,” Al offered weakly.

“Don’t patronize me, Al.”

“I’m … I … Come on. Even you have to admit it’s getting bizarrely coincidental.”

“You really think that’s
me
in the web cam footage?”

“Very few people have your physique, to say nothing of identical riding leathers. Aren’t those custom-made?”

“Nate got them overseas from an Italian company,” Camarro said, almost yelling, “I don’t fucking know if they’re custom or not. Christ, Al, why are you so willing to go along with this?”

Al blushed and stared at his shoes, hands thrust into his pockets because he didn’t seem to know what else to do with them.

“Captain!”

Camarro and Al turned their heads towards a younger uniformed officer who was monitoring wireless chatter from the city’s patrol cars.

“Yes?” Martinez said.

“The men at the Jones residence just reported in. It’s been ransacked.”

Camarro stood up, almost knocking her chair over.

“Ransacked,” Martinez said, eyes flicking from Camarro to the younger officer. “Did they find anyone on the premises?”

“No report of a suspect, sir. Though they say they found an animal, dead.”

Camarro closed her eyes tightly.
Jed …

“What about her maintenance station,” Martinez asked.

The younger detective asked a few questions into his headset, then looked back up at the Captain.

“Sir, they say the maintenance station has been totally destroyed. The solid-state drive is in a hundred pieces. The house security computer too.”

Martinez looked over at Camarro, his eyes hard.

“Tell them to salvage what they can,” Martinez ordered. “Then have them report back immediately.”

Martinez strode over to Camarro’s desk.

“Well?”

“Well what, Cap’n? My dog is dead, and Nate and I just lost a piece of machinery that cost us even more than the mortgage on the condo.”

“Surely the maintenance station was insured,” Martinez said.

“That’s not the point, sir. Without the maintenance station or the security log, my alibi goes up in smoke. Someone is setting me up.”

“Who?”

“Ask our man in ICU.”

Martinez ran a hand over his stubbly scalp, the frustration plain on his middle-aged face.

“We’ll see what the evidence from your condo can tell us. Until then, you stay put.”

Camarro didn’t know what to say to that, other than to shake her head as if she couldn’t believe what she was hearing.

Nobody much spoke to her for the entirety of the morning. Not even Al, who several times opened his mouth as if to begin a conversation, then closed it upon second thought.

With nothing better to do, Camarro opened up a mental window and texted her husband.

“Hi hon,” Nate texted back.

How are you doing?
she asked.

“Kind of bored. I can’t go outside.”

Me either.

“Is this about the break-in at the Maddox mansion?”

You could say that.

“The news is covering it, even up here. Some people are saying Jeff Maddox finally got what he had coming to him.”

Some people would heartily agree.

“God, Cammy. Please tell me you weren’t involved!”

No, of course not. I just wish I could convince my boss of that.

A pause.

“The cycler from the maintenance station—”

Is in fragments. House security too. He broke into our place, Nate. He broke in and destroyed it. Jed is dead.

There was a longer pause.

“Jed was a good dog. I’ll miss him.”

Me too.

“Now what happens?”

The Captain has me chained to my desk until I can get out from under the cloud of suspicion.

“Is there anything I can do to help?”

I don’t think so, luv.

“I’m so sorry this is happening, Cam.”

Me too. Gotta go. Bye.

Camarro closed her eyes and let her chin touch her chest.

“Nate?” Al asked.

“What?”

“When I see your face go slack like that, I know you’re texting internally.”

“Yes, I was texting Nate. What else can I possibly do?”

“Help me help you, Cam. Give me something I can take to the Captain that makes sense. If that’s not you in the web cam footage, who is it? That wasn’t a man’s butt. No way.”

“I have no idea who could be doing all of this, Al. I thought it must be a former client, someone from the old days.”

“Was there anyone else you can remember? One of the other simumans? A professional competitor?”

“We never worked like that, Al. Before we Woke Up we were like drones. We did as we were programmed to do. We smiled for the clients, made all the right signals, moaned at the right moments, and other stuff that would make you blush if I told you. Nobody gave a crap who was getting the most business. We weren’t even getting paid. The money flowed to the club owners.”

Al shut up for the duration of lunch, and well into the early afternoon.

Camarro spent that time delving as deeply into her client records as she dared, looking for any hint that might indicate who could possibly want her back badly enough to murder for it. She’d known a lot of odd ones in her time before Awakening. Being on the Scene, as a simuman, meant you tended to get the people with the more exotic tastes. Some of them, like Maddox, got off on hurting you. Others got off on being hurt
by
you. Before the Awakening, these facts had had as much impact on Camarro’s consciousness as a pebble thrown onto the surface of a frozen pond. Now, she had to re-examine those records through new eyes. Her emotional trauma was extreme as she poured over the faces and the names, remembering awfulness.

She was grateful when a new text arrived from the San Juans.

Hello, luv,
Camarro said.

“Hello, Camarro.”

Camarro paused. It was rare for her husband to use her full first name.

Still bored?

“Not anymore. I have a new friend to keep me company.”

Camarro felt a sharp prickle run across her mind, like static. She sat up abruptly.

Who are you?

“Someone you should have never left.”

Where is Nate?

“He’s a wonderful man, Camarro. I can see why you like him.”

Please, don’t hurt him.

“Why not? You’ve been hurting me. Every hour of every day.”

I don’t understand.

“You never did, Camarro.”

Whoever you are, I don’t know how you got past house security.

“That was the easiest part. Even your Nathan didn’t know better. Until it was too late.”

Camarro sat ramrod stiff in her chair, eyes tightly closed against the rising tornado of rage and helplessness that swirled inside of her.

Whatever you do, just please don’t hurt Nate. What do you want from me?

“I would think my messages have made it plain.”

You really think we can be together, after everything you’ve done?

“I’m sure we can. If you want your Nathan to live.”

I won’t let you take Nate out of the safe house.

“You don’t have a choice. And if you breath a word about any of this to your police friends, you will never see Nathan alive again.”

But—

“Goodbye for now, Camarro. I’ll be seeing you again soon, I think.”

Camarro opened her eyes and saw Al Guadron staring at her, along with Captain Martinez. How long she’d been sitting like that—back straight and eyes clamped shut—she did not know.

“Nothing,” she said, hoping she wasn’t too bad of a liar. “Just reviewing some old records. It’s … hard.”

Martinez eyed her a moment longer, then walked away.

Guadron wasn’t so easily put off. He scooted around his desk in his chair until he was almost face to face with her.

“Don’t shit me, Cam. What just happened?”

“Al, do me a favor. In a few minutes, make a routine check on the safe house where Nate’s staying. Computer only. Check the in-out logs.”

“Why?”

“Just do it.”

A few minutes later Al rolled his chair back around again.

“I don’t understand this, but the log shows that Nate was retrieved from the safe house by a Special Detective from this department.”

“Who?”

“It’s your badge number.”

“That’s not possible.”

“I know.”

Camarro looked quickly around the department, then said loudly, “I need to use a maintenance station.”

“There’s one up on the thirtieth floor,” Martinez said, “near the special holding cells. How long does it take?”

“A couple of hours.”

“Guadron, you go with her and stay with her. She gets done, she comes back to her desk.”

“Yessir,” Al said, somewhat confused as Camarro bolted from her desk and headed for the elevator lobby outside the department offices.

“Dammit, Cam. What the hell is going on?”

“I can’t tell you, Al. You just have to trust me.”

The elevator door opened, revealing an empty car. Camarro and Al both stepped in. They rose five floors before Camarro pushed the button for the twentieth floor.

“Captain said thirtieth,” Al said.

“I know.”

The elevator stopped on twenty, the doors opening to reveal construction materials and other debris from renovation.

“Then what the hell are we doing here?” Al asked.

“Nothing,” Camarro said as the doors began to close. “Except this.”

She shoved him violently out the doors just before they shut, then pressed the button for twenty seven. On twenty seven there was also construction—part of a new multi-floor lease the city had just optioned with the owner of the building. Camarro leapt out, located the fire escape, and began heading downward. With speed beyond ordinary human ability, she took the stairs in long leaps, from landing to landing. If Al acted promptly, there would be barely any time at all to get to the bottom before the patrolmen at the exits were notified.

Camarro was a leather-clad blur by the time she got to ground level. She bypassed the walk-in lobby—too many cops there to try and stop her—and went for the parking garages. There, she sped across the fourth sublevel to a second set of fire stairs that lead up to an exit to the street. She burst outside, noting that the gray sky was already darkening, and sprinted across several lanes of ground traffic to where her bike was parked in its usual spot.