The Automatic Detective (5 page)

"I've got nothing to hide."

"Didn't say you did. But the law says I have to let you know."

"I'm on probation," I said. "Thought I didn't have rights. Anyway, I've already wasted an hour and nine minutes standing here."

"Got places to be, Mack?"

I didn't bother lying. Sanchez could always tell. Maybe I should've checked his ear for a hearing amplifier, but I doubted it was as simple as that. He was just a damn good cop.

"Nothing much to tell. Somebody tried to scrap me," I replied.

He glanced down the hall at the men in orange suits and gangly forensic drones gathering evidence. "Made a hell of a mess of it, didn't they?"

"I don't scrap easily."

"I'm aware." Sanchez removed his hat while he put together his thoughts. "So do you think it has anything to do with Megalith?"

I shrugged. "Doubt it. These were high-end drones, but not that high-end. The professor is in the cooler, isn't he?"

"Yep. Just checked. Still tucked away nice and cozy in Moriarty."

Moriarty Asylum for the Criminally Inventive was the cold, dark box where they locked away all the great evil geniuses. Its
stated goal was rehabilitation of gifted, but misguided, intellects. So far, it hadn't worked. There were a lot of dangerous minds crammed in that box, but only Megalith had a grudge against me. Just because the professor was buried under lock and key, didn't mean he couldn't still be up to no good.

"The professor knows my specs, Sanchez. If he'd sent something to do me in, I'd have a few more dings in the chassis."

"Yeah, that's what I figured. So picked up any new enemies?"

Only one came to mind: Four Arms. He knew I could identify him, so he'd dropped by and left some goonbots to scrap me, then dig out my memory matrix and burn it beyond recovery. Only Four Arms hadn't known how thick-alloyed I was.

"Makes sense," said Sanchez. "We'll print a hard copy of his mug when we download the rest of your statement."

"You've got to find this guy," I said. "He's done something with Julie and the kids."

"Got any proof?"

I handed him April's drawing. Sanchez studied the handwritten plea on the back for five seconds. "I'll have shots of the family distributed along with Four Arms."

"That's it?"

He puffed on his cigarette. "What else can I do, Mack? It's not my department. And this city has bigger problems than one missing family. You don't even know if they are missing. I'll check, but I don't think we've gotten any reports yet."

"And when you do?" I asked. "When someone finally notices, what'll happen then?"

"There are procedures, Mack."

"Yeah, I know. A report is filed. Names are added to a list." My vocalizer hissed out the last word. "Procedures."

He got this look on his furry face like he wanted to argue but couldn't.

"Sorry, Sanchez, I know it's not your fault. You're just one cop."

"Forget about it." He put his hat back on as a forensic drone approached. "Give your download to the unit when you're ready." Sanchez tossed his cigarette to the floor and crushed it out. His pocket drone popped out and vacuumed up every last mote of ash with a satisfied beep before hovering back into Sanchez's pocket. "Don't worry about this, Mack. Once your download corroborates your statement, I'll smooth things over with the Think Tank. Shouldn't be a problem."

I wasn't worried about me, and Sanchez could see that.

"Relax. I'm sure they're out visiting family or something. They'll turn up soon enough."

"Yeah. Family," I agreed, doing my damnedest to convince my difference engine that it was a reasonable probability.

He had his pocket drone light up another cig. "Look. It's not my department, but I'll check into it."

That made me feel a little better, but he was a busy cop. I doubt he'd be able to set aside his caseload to search out one family nobody cared about.

"We'll work out the rest of the details later," said Sanchez. "You look like you could use a recharge. You got someplace to stay tonight?"

I had one place to stay. I gave Sanchez the number, and he assured me he'd give me a call once Julie Bleaker and her family were found. I was doubtful, but there wasn't anything left for me to do. I headed over to Jung's apartment. It was only seven blocks away, a short walk. Since every step I took added one-twelfth of a cent to my electrical bill, I caught the omnibus.

Jung answered his door dressed in pajamas with pictures of little sailing ships and pirates on them. My humor model was
barely sophisticated enough to find some absurdity in the outfit, and I might've laughed except I hadn't developed that simulated reflex yet. It was only a matter of time before I did. For now, it saved both of us some embarrassment.

"Little early for bed, isn't it?" I asked.

"I wasn't expecting company."

He turned and loped inside, and I took it as an invitation to follow. Jung's apartment was bigger than mine. He'd been driving a cab longer, and he was good with the customers so his tips were better. Not that much better. I could afford a place like this with an actual separate bedroom and eight cubic meters of extra living space except I didn't need it so paying for it would've been illogical.

"You look like hell, Mack."

"My apartment blew up. I'm springing for a wash and wax tomorrow, but right now, I need a place to recharge."

"Sure." He hopped onto his couch and poured himself some wine.

He didn't ask for details. He was my friend, and stuff blew up in Empire all the time. Mostly labs and research facilities, but it wasn't unheard of for more innocuous locations to go out with a bang. He swished his wine in its glass, put his flared nostrils to the lip, and sniffed. "There's a plug over there." He pointed with his right toe.

"It's only for the night," I said.

"Forget it, Mack. What are friends for?"

He sipped his wine and picked up a book. Reading was all the gorilla did in his personal time: fiction, nonfiction, anything and everything. He appreciated books enough to allot them a shelf occupying two cubic meters, crammed with volumes. I didn't have much interest in reading, particularly fiction. Doc Mujahid was dead on. I didn't have the abstract thinking required to get into it. As for nonfiction, I found a supreme lack
of desire to learn anything new that didn't contribute directly to my functioning. It wasn't in my motivational directives.

According to the doc, that was a poor excuse for not trying. I had the Glitch. I could think outside of my programming, override my directives as illustrated when I'd refused to kill on command. I held a certain vaguely defined respect for life. Exactly how high that respect rated in my personality index, I couldn't say, but it was enough to not step on somebody for bumping into me on the sidewalk. It was enough that I cared a whole hell of a lot about Julie, April, and Holt Bleaker's continued existence. Gavin, I couldn't give one-eighth of a damn about.

"What's with the doodle?" asked Jung.

Of course, I hadn't forgotten the drawing held in my right hand, but it still seemed surprising that it was there.

"It's nothing," I replied. "Mind if I use your fridge?"

"Knock yourself out."

I slapped April's drawing on the refrigerator with the half-melted banana magnet I'd salvaged from my place. I hoped the magnet wouldn't offend Jung. He wasn't as comfortable with his ape origins as he liked to pretend and could be a bit sensitive sometimes.

"Where's your television, Jung?"

"Don't have one."

I sighed. I was doing that a little too much, but it would take a while for the affectation to find balance in my personality template.

"I didn't think you ever got bored," said Jung.

"I don't."

Biological minds craved stimulation either for stimulation's sake or to keep them distracted. Bots were generally fine, able to close those files they'd rather not access. I'd whiled away many a night in my apartment standing in the corner, honestly not thinking about anything.

I couldn't seem to do it now, and every time I tried, that damn Glitch reopened them again. Short of shutting myself down completely for my recharge cycle, I was screwed. Even that might not work since when I recharged my housekeeping programs took advantage of the lack of input to defragment the day's new data.

I dreamed. Not in the same manner of biologicals. My dreams weren't confusing and symbolic. They were replays, tours of my memory matrix, dissections of every single nuance as my evolutionary program sought to adapt to better functionality. Normally, I didn't mind, but I didn't feel up to it right now.

I'd planned on trying to assemble an allosaurus skeleton model for my next doc-ordered project, but that had been destroyed along with my other models, my custom-tailored wardrobe, my refrigerator, my apartment. My nice, uneventful existence. Unbidden, my electronic brain opened the memory file again. I fast-forwarded to April handing me that drawing and froze on those soft, purple eyes, pleading with me to save her but not being able to say it aloud.

I closed the file again, but it was only a temporary reprieve. Unthinking drones didn't know how good they had it.

"You could always read a book," suggested Jung.

"Have you got
Treasure Island
?"

It didn't work.

I'd never tried to read a book. Turned out, unsurprisingly, I read fast. The words flowed effortlessly into my memory matrix, and I was done far too quickly. I read it again from memory a couple of times. Good story, but not capable of keeping me from multitasking on my obsessions: Julie Bleaker, her kids, crushing drones, my exploding apartment.

I admitted defeat, trudged to the corner, and plugged myself in.

"G'night, Mack," said Jung.

"Nighty night," I replied, clicking off.

I dreamt of the fight two hundred eleven times. I repeated my meeting with the doc thirty-six times, my junkyard wrecking session one hundred fifty times. April and her drawing, that moment replayed no less than five hundred and eighty-eight times.

Three hours, six minutes later, I clicked back to consciousness. Jung had gone to bed, so I clomped my way across the room as quietly as I could. I took the drawing off of the refrigerator, turned it over.

FIND US

I stuck it back to the fridge with those two words staring back at me.

"I'll do what I can, kid."

Every passing minute, the odds of something bad happening to the Bleakers increased. I wasn't happy about that, but I was still a logical machine (excusing a misstep here and there from that damn Freewill). Short of wandering around knocking on doors hoping to bump into Four Arms by chance, there wasn't much else I could do but wait until morning. There were too many doors in this town for one bot to cover. Fortunately, thanks to my internal chronometer, I perceived time as a constant. Six hours, twenty minutes clicked by at a steady pace, and never once did it seem to take longer than it should have.

I'll admit I was glad when morning arrived. If only so I could tick off the first step in my current objective list. The next was to let Jung know I wouldn't be going to work today.

"Any reason?" asked Jung as he put on his jacket.

"Personal day," I replied.

He cast a suspicious glance my way. I thought it was suspicious. My facial expression analyzer wasn't geared toward gorillas. "Is everything okay, Mack?"

"Nothing you need to worry about."

"We're not talking about me."

He paused, waiting for me to say something. The nuances of spontaneous conversation sometimes escaped me, so I said nothing.

"Damn it, Mack. I can't help you if you don't talk to me."

I said nothing again.

Jung's upper lip twitched, revealing a single, white fang. Only once had I seen him lose his temper, after someone at work had thought it funny to hide Jung's copy of
Pride and Prejudice
. He'd taken it well enough at first, but the prankster hadn't ended the gag soon enough and found himself facing a frothing, chest-beating, primal beast. No one got hurt, but that might not have been true if I hadn't been there to hold Jung back. After that, no one got between an eight-hundred-pound gorilla and Jane Austen.

Other than that, I'd never seen him any other way but perfectly civilized, buttoned-down, proper. He could be dryly acerbic in expressing his annoyance with the absurdity of the world, but rarely did he actually show it.

"Since you're barely two, Mack, I'll explain how this friend business works. Friends help each other. That's one of the big things about being friends. Otherwise, we're just two guys who know each other."

"You gave me a place to recharge," I said. "I appreciate that, but you don't need to get involved any further."

"Damn it. We aren't talking about what I need." He slapped his thick gray hands against my metal gut. Hard enough to cave in a skull, but not enough to move me. "Forget it. You know, Mack. Even for a ruthless killing machine, you're one closed-off son of a bitch."