Wild Fyre (18 page)

“That’s a guy’s name?”

“It can be.”

Ploss closed the trunk and leaned back again. The day was overcast, chilly, and damp. Despite the fresh puddles around, they had felt no rain, just a steady cool breeze from the west. Aster walked slowly across the parking lot towards the road. they had parked between the motel and bar. Since noon, patrons had been trickling into the bar. The motel seemed quiet.

A yellow Datsun pickup turned in and headed for the bar. Aster strolled back towards Ploss.

“My grandfather used to drive a pickup just like that,” Aster said. He nodded towards the Datsun. “He died in eighty-four. I wonder how that lady got fifty years of rust on a thirty-year-old truck.”

The lady he referred to was clearly younger than the truck. She pushed open the squeaking door and stepped out, mashing her boots into the strewn cigarette butts on the asphalt. She didn’t go into the bar—she approached the two men slowly, with her head tilted.

“You should be younger,” she said.

“Pardon?” Ploss asked.

“Two cops drive down unsanctioned from Virginia? You guys are too old to be trying to prove yourselves like that,” she said.

“We’re just curious,” Aster said.

“You must be,” she said.

“I’m Ploss. Thank you for meeting us.”

“No problem—glad to help. I assume I can call you if I ever need any contacts up your way?” she asked.

“Of course,” Ploss said.

“And I’ll make sure that we don’t have any official visitors, but if someone calls us in, then we have to go.”

“Understood,” Aster said. “Let’s get going.”

Leslie nodded and led the way. The two men walked behind her and on either side. They paused at the edge of the highway and then strode across when it was clear. There wasn’t a lot of traffic on the two-lane road, but it ran fast. Leslie didn’t head for the paved entrance of the industrial park. She walked up over the landscaped hill. Aster and Ploss followed.

They were looking at two long rows of buildings. Between the rows they found enough room for a big truck to pull in and back up to the loading bays. Parking for the workers was on the other side of the buildings. The detectives were looking at the commerce side—where stuff was loaded and unloaded.

“Where’s suite fourteen?” Ploss asked.

“Last one down on the right,” Leslie said.
 

“Let’s start here,” Aster said. He approached the first building—suite two—and climbed the short staircase. There was a regular door next to the big garage door. He knocked. After a second, he put his ear to the door and tried to twist the handle. He shook his head.

“Maybe we should go around front?” Ploss asked.

“I doubt you’ll find anyone on a weekend,” Leslie said.

Aster walked down to the next door and knocked. Ploss stood back with Leslie, watching from a distance. Aster knocked on the fourth and fifth. He climbed the stairs to suite eight.

Ploss whistled a quick, sharp burst.

Aster looked up and then followed Ploss’s pointed finger. The man didn’t see them. He set down a brown bag and commenced locking the door of suite ten. Aster walked towards him casually. Ploss ducked between the buildings before he broke into a run.
 

The man was tall and older. His jaw was moving like he was chewing a mouthful of food. As Aster approached, the man turn his head, spit, and coughed.

“Excuse me,” Aster said.

The man whipped around. He wiped brown spit from the corner of his mouth and rose to his full height as Aster walked up.

“Yes?” the old man asked. His eyes darted around—to the door, out to the street, down to the brown bag at his feet.

“Hi,” Aster said, pulling his badge from his pocket, “I’m detective Aster. I’m wondering if you could answer a couple of questions for me?”

“I’m afraid not,” the man said. He bent down. His hair was very thin on top of his head and his teeth were brown-stained nightmares. The man’s long fingers stretched down as he reached for his bag.

Aster kept an officially polite smile glued to his face. “It will just take a second, sir.”

“Oh, all right then,” the man said. He picked up his bag and it shifted in his grip. The bag tipped to the side and Aster reached forward to steady it. The man’s hand darted inside and came back out with amazing speed. Aster closed his eyes just in time.

The old man misted him with pepper spray from a little pink cannister.

Aster’s arm went up and he breathed through the sleeve of the borrowed sweatshirt as he turned his head to the side. He backed out of the cloud with his eyes still closed.

“GET DOWN, ASSHOLE,” Ploss yelled from the other end of the loading dock.

“Here,” a gentle voice said close to Aster. Leslie pressed a folded wet-wipe into his hand.

“Thanks,” Aster said.

“PUT YOUR HANDS BEHIND YOUR BACK,” Ploss yelled.
 

Aster wiped his face carefully before opening his eyes.

“He didn’t get you bad,” Leslie said.

“I know,” Aster said.

Ploss was putting handcuffs on the old man. He helped him up and then sat him down on the steps. Ploss put his gun back in his concealed holster.

“You have no right to hold me,” the old man said.

“What’s your name?” Ploss said. He produced a little notebook from his pocket.

“I refuse to tell you anything. I’ve done nothing to warrant this harassment.”

“You just assaulted an officer after he identified himself,” Ploss said. “Now what’s your name.”

“Arthur,” he said. He pursed his lips and looked, for a second, like a very sad child.

“Arthur what?”

“Russell. Two S’s and two L’s.”

“What are you doing here?” Ploss asked.

Aster approached, holding the brown paper bag. He set it down next to Arthur and pulled the items out.

“I work here,” Arthur said. “These things hurt my arms.”

Aster looked him over. He revised his initial assessment. The man wasn’t as old as he had first appeared. He was maybe in his fifties. He wasn’t as bald as he looked, either. The top of his head was shaved and his roots were coming in darker than the white hair he still had on the sides.
 

“You’ll be okay,” Ploss said. “Where’s your ID?”

“I don’t have any,” Arthur said.

Ploss reached into Arthur’s back pocket. Arthur leaned back, trying to block his access, but Ploss pulled out a wallet. He flipped through it.

“You can’t search me. It’s illegal,” Arthur said.

“Probable cause,” Ploss said. “It says here that your name is Bertrand Russell Arthur Williams. I thought you said Arthur Russell.”

“Those are two of my names. Do you always give all your names to everyone? I think not.”

“No cash, and no credit cards? How’d you buy the pepper spray, Bertrand?” Ploss asked.

“Store credit,” Bert said.

“Where were you going with this stuff, Bert?” Aster asked.

“What’s he got in there?” Ploss asked.

“Candy, coffee, razors,” Aster said, lining up the items on the concrete next to where Bert sat.

“I wasn’t going anywhere,” Bertrand said. “I was simply carrying a bag with my own possessions. What’s wrong with that?”

“He was going to trade them,” Leslie said.

“Nonsense,” Bert said.

“What do you mean?” Aster asked.

“You get those government assistance cards and you can only buy certain staples. People buy those and trade them for cigarettes and booze,” Leslie said. “A lot of it goes on at that bar across the street.”

“You don’t look destitute, Bert,” Ploss said. “Why would you have to trade for tobacco?”

“And he asked the delivery guy for…” Aster said.

“Pipe tobacco,” Ploss said, finishing Aster’s thought. “What are you working on in this building, Bert?”

“We manufacture appliances.”

“Who is we?”

“What does that mean?” Bert asked.

“Give me his keys,” Aster said.
 

Ploss reached for Bert’s front pocket. Bert thrust his head forward at Ploss.

“No biting, Bert,” Ploss said. He held back Bert’s head with one hand while he used to other to find the keys. He handed them to Aster.

“I’ll be back,” Aster said.

There was only one key on the ring. The fob was from a local locksmith. Aster turned the knob and opened the door to dark room. He felt around for the switch and flipped it on. Lights ticked on high overhead. There wasn’t much to see at this end of the room. All the action was at the far end. Aster walked slowly, taking it all in.

Behind interior windows, a set of offices lined the right side of the shop. A little propane-powered fork truck was pulled up to the door marked as the men’s room. Aster veered towards it.

“He’s living in here,” Leslie said. Aster spun around, startled. He didn’t realize she had followed him in. She was looking through one of the windows into an office. Aster walked over.

The desk was pushed against a wall and a small cot was set up opposite. Boxes were stacked next to the cot, functioning as furniture.

“Look at the trash,” Leslie said.

Aster looked. He figured out what she meant. In the can next to the desk, the trash was all wrappers from processed food.
 

“I think he’s living off things he can get shipped here,” she said. “Nearest grocery store is a few miles away.”

“He doesn’t have any money anyway,” Aster said. “The delivery guy said he was dropping stuff off here almost every day. I wonder what he’s been making.”

Aster walked towards the end of the shop where the tables were set up. Whatever it was, the operation was orderly and clean. He saw metal racks at one end, stacked with boxes. Radiating out from the racks were lines of tables, bolted together to form thirty-foot-long counters.

Leslie tapped Aster on the shoulder. She pointed up to the corner.

Aster saw a camera mounted up there. Spinning around, he saw cameras surrounding the manufacturing area.
 

“Who’s watching?” she asked.

“I don’t know for sure, but I have an idea,” Aster said. He walked slowly towards one of the long counters. Down the edge of the counter, black and white tape made a grid of squares. Plastic and metal machines sat at intervals. Aster circled one, trying to figure it out.
 

It didn’t look like the photos he had seen of the drones that killed James Owens. It was square—about the size of a laser printer—and it didn’t have any rotors or gun barrels. Down the line, he saw another machine about the same size that didn’t have any panels attached to the sides. The inside of the machine had lots of wires and motors and stacks of circuit boards. In the back, it had a huge battery.

“What do you make of this stuff?” Aster asked.

“I don’t know. He’s making some kind of machines, I guess,” Leslie said.

“Is he?” Aster asked, walking to the end of the line. Near the end, the boxes were far less assembled, and parts were positioned around the metal frame, yet to be attached.

“What do you mean?” Leslie asked. She came up behind Aster.

“Look at these parts. Do you think a person would arrange them so precisely? These two boxes are about the same state and look—the parts that haven’t been installed yet are in exactly the same spot on the two tables.”

“I had an aunt who was like that. She had to align the silverware around everyone’s plate before we could eat. So what?” Leslie asked.

“I think a machine is building these things,” Aster said.

“Come on,” Leslie said. “Have you actually seen a robot arm? My cousin works at the bus plant in Greensboro. They roll the chassis by and the arm welds on a part. There’s no line here.”

“Those things roll,” Aster said. He pointed to the bottom of the big metal rack. Under the bottom shelf, a row of small metal contraptions sat. Aster walked over and knelt. After he looked at it for a second, he dragged it out to the aisle.

“What is it?” Leslie asked.

“This is an arm,” Aster said. He tugged at a piece of metal on the top of the little box and it rose. A metal arm unfolded from the squat box. With the joints extended, the hand at the end was almost six-feet high. The hand swayed in the air as Aster tipped up the box. “You see—it has wheels that can drop down underneath.”

“An assembly line would make more sense,” Leslie said. She circled the little machine and folded her arms. “On a line you can bolt the base of the arm down, so it has strength. This thing can’t be very strong if it’s on a rolling base.”

Aster let the box fall back to the floor.

“I think you’re underestimating how heavy that thing is,” Aster said.

“So all those little machines under that shelf just drive themselves around and build these things?” she asked, waving at the black boxes on the counters. “Why aren’t they working now? Why not just use people? It has to be cheaper than making these custom robots.”

“Unless you don’t want anyone to know what you’re building,” Aster said.

Leslie and Aster looked up when they heard a door bang open at the other end of the long shop.

“You guys okay in there?” Ploss yelled.

“Yeah, we’ll be right out,” Aster yelled back.

“So what are they building?” Leslie asked. She turned her attention to the black box on the counter—the one that was mostly assembled but didn’t have sides. “It has wheels and a battery, but it doesn’t have any arms like that guy.”

“I don’t know,” Aster said. “I’d like to have my tech guys take a look at one of those things. They’re going to have to settle for pictures.” Aster pulled out his phone and started circling the manufacturing area. Leslie walked the perimeter of the floor and poked her head in doors.

“Hey,” she said. When he looked up, she tossed him a big key ring. “I bet this will get you into some of the other buildings, if you’re looking to conduct a few more illegal searches.”

“Thanks,” Aster said. He returned to the machine on the floor and pushed the arm back down into the body of the box. He slid the thing back towards its spot under the shelf. “Huh,” he said.

“What?”

“Nothing much,” Aster said. “I think there’s a charging pad under there or something. Contacts on the floor that this thing connects to. Makes sense. Did you see a breaker panel around here?”