The Machine Detective Read online

  THE MACHINE DETECTIVE

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, organizations, places, events, and incidents are either of the author's imagination or used fictitiously.

  Copyright © 2021 by Greg Dragon

  All rights reserved

  Thirsty Bird Productions

  No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in retrieval systems, or transmitted without the publisher's written permission.

  For more books by the author

  GREGDRAGON.COM

  Contents

  Chapter 1 – Cargo Cult Tunes

  Chapter 2 – Robo-Geisha

  Chapter 3 – Zeppelin and Chill

  Chapter 4 – Key to Paradise

  Chapter 5 – First Lady of Rust

  Chapter 6 – Lunch at Zebots

  Chapter 7 – Synth City Revival

  Chapter 8 – Bjorn Notice

  Chapter 9 – Shakedown at Larry’s

  Chapter 10 – The Nexus Link

  Chapter 11 – Those Ties That Bind

  Chapter 12 – Viva La Vivi

  Chapter 13 – The Vigilante’s Curse

  Chapter 14 – A Is for Anarchy

  Chapter 15 – An Unforgiving God

  Chapter 16 – Becoming Human

  Chapter 17 – Into the Woods

  Chapter 18 – Hard Extraction

  Chapter 19 – Cast-Iron Garcia

  Chapter 20 – To Pluck A Thorn

  Chapter 21 – Dead Bolt Dawn

  Chapter 22 – Red Eye Revival

  Chapter 23 – Concussion Protocol

  Chapter 24 – Cold Dead Eyes

  Chapter 25 – Secret Agent Chic

  Chapter 26 – An Injured Heart

  Chapter 27 – Cypher Girl Lost

  Chapter 28 – Cherchez La Femme

  Chapter 29 – Bloodstained Glass

  Chapter 30 – Resistance Is Futile

  Epilogue – Bioluminescence

  Glossary

  About The Author

  Chapter 1

  Cargo Cult Tunes

  Horns blaring, the atmosphere smoky, a hologram of Pete Rodriguez leaned into a microphone to tell the room, “I like it like that.” They responded with hips waving, hands in the air, sweaty bodies pressed against one another. The sound was ancient, but the reaction was timeless, and that song still moved the people in 2125 the same way it did back in 1966.

  Given the location, none of this was surprising to the people in attendance. Jazz music in a seedy backwater was synth culture all the way. If you weren’t a machine yourself, then you were socking it to a machine, and if you weren’t socking it to a machine, then you were in the wrong place.

  The walls, if you could see them beyond the areas where the strobe light shone, held dingy wallpaper that had seen better days, showcasing a great war among samurai. The art was ancient, and the vast melee covered every inch of the place. Significance? None save for a reminder that this had been a fancy sushi restaurant at one time, but that was too long ago for anyone to remember.

  Neon signs in Japanese, English, German, and Russian decorated the walls near the ceiling. It was a motley collection of street signs, stolen from who knows where, to be given a new life as visual stimuli for stoners. It was a typical underground dive, with a little something for everyone. Most of Tampa’s citizens didn’t even know it existed, yet it was packed to the brim on this particular night. Both synths and humans danced and drank their miseries away, and it was fine because, guess what? They liked it like that.

  Behind the bar, where a spritely synth served watered-down liquor, was a trapdoor and ladder leading down into a secret room. Inside that room, a large, black man lay half-naked on a gurney, while a synth with the look of an older Asian man worked diligently on his cybernetic leg.

  The location and the clandestine nature of the operation was necessary for the procedure. The man, a former detective named Dhata Mays, was augmenting his cybernetic parts with quality black market enhancements. The synth was a part-time doctor, part-time arms dealer, who made house calls for an additional fee. This house call was below the bar tonight instead of Dhata’s home, because Dhata Mays was wanted for questioning by the police.

  “How does it feel, Mr. Mays?” the doctor said, stepping back slowly to examine his work.

  Dhata flexed his foot, then brought his knee up slowly, before easing himself off the table to test its strength.

  “Fucking amazing,” he whispered, slapping his thigh. “I feel twenty years younger. Doc, you’re a genius.”

  “That cyber-leg of yours is top of the line, but flawed because its maker was a hume,” the doctor said. “I won’t ask you how you scored it, but the next time you want cybernetic parts, you should come to a synth, since we’re literally made of the stuff. No hume with a PhD and toolbox could match our skill, but that augment will serve you well. Just remember where you got it from.”

  “Cyber from synths, got it.” Dhata said, performing a sidekick and locking it into place above his head. “I’m a believer. You’re who I’ll call from now on. This enough?” He threw the doctor a UCC chip, and the synth caught it and quickly surveyed the amount on it before flashing the big man a smile.

  “Hell of a bump. You didn’t have to do this,” he said.

  “Well, considering that I no longer feel like I have a spike jammed into my shin, I think I’m getting off cheap,” Dhata said.

  The doctor held the chip up and touched it to his forehead as he inclined his face into the slightest of bows. He was out the door in the very next instant, leaving Dhata to look for his clothes. He had been out for the earliest part of the surgery, but was awake during the patch-up, when the synth had used a surgical wand to seal up the skin and make him whole. The time read 1:35 a.m., but he was wide awake and anxious to test out his new leg.

  He found his clothes in a heap near the back wall, next to an overflowing trashcan that hadn’t been emptied in what smelled like a month. The floor was a concrete petri dish, a virtual soup of memories recording the various uses for this room. He could make out stains of every color, a bit of fur, or was that hair? Some broken glass, a bit of liquid, which could have been piss, and the one counter and sink combination had even more memories that he would rather not know about.

  “This is what you’ve been reduced to, Detective Dhata Mays,” he said out loud as he pulled on his pants and shoes. “Black market parts inside a shitty underground closet. Nice legacy.”

  When he was fully dressed, he reached inside the front pocket of his duster and brought out a section of his last cigar. He cussed when he saw it, then made to throw it on the ground, until he thought better of it and put it inside his mouth. Digging in his pockets for the rest of it, his hands came up with paper and shredded tobacco remnants. Those he threw out, checking his temper, and as he took to the stairs, he put fire to the butt of the surviving third.

  Pulling and puffing it instantly calmed him, and in a few steps, he was back among the music and crowd. Pete’s song was over, replaced by something more recent and soulless. Dhata didn’t mind; he hadn’t come for the music, and now that business was concluded, he set his eyes on the bar.

  He could hear Lur inside his head already, scolding him for buying drinks when he had a full bar at home. But that was the thing about the smart thing, it was always too easy and too boring to consider. There was an empty seat at the bar and a row of liquor above it calling his name.

  Just one for the road, he thought. After all, he had come here on a whim, to take up an offer on the leg, which Lur would not have approved of him doing, either. What was one more thing to piss her off? He’d get a drink to celebrate the successful implant, and then he would be on the road, racing home to his Cuban princesa.

  “Gimme an old-fashioned,” he said as he fell onto the stool, leaning his hulking frame onto the bar as he regarded the synthetic bartender.

  “Here on a case, skip?” the slender man said, washing a glass and placing it down in front of him. “What bourbon?”

  “Anything old, brother. I see a bottle of Jim Beam,” Dhata said, standing up to point out the half-empty bottle of liquor. “Oh, and don’t call me skip anymore, I haven’t worked with the Johns since Ybor.”

  “What, you’re no longer hunting bad guys?” the bartender said, reaching up for the bottle and then making his drink.

  “Didn’t say all that,” Dhata grinned. “No more John cons. I’m in the private sector.”

  “Makes sense for a man of your skills and reputation. You may as well get rich for putting your life on the line,” he said.

  Dhata placed his finger on the credit reader, paid, and tipped him heavily before reaching for the drink. “You make me sound like a goddamn bounty hunter.”

  For a few minutes he sat there listening to the song while he sipped on the liquor, enjoying the atmosphere of it all. The music was so loud, however, that he hadn’t noticed that his earpiece had been alerting him to a call. Eventually an image appeared on his ICL, showing up as a tiny icon in the corner of his vision. Upon seeing it, Dhata assumed it was, Lur, who he had hoped would be asleep, and he panicked at the thought of her knowing where he was.

  Gulping down his drink quickly, he ran out of the club and out into the night where the parking lot was vacant. It was nearly pitch black due to the location, where the synths had powered down the streetlights. As per Tampa law, synths outside of Ybor City had a strict curfew of 8:00 PM and were not allow
ed to congregate in human areas.

  Dhata, walked past the cars to another lot, where he could speak without the music and people exposing his location. When he checked the call’s ID, he saw that it was Ariana Garcia, his contact with the Tampa Police Department.

  “Ariana, it’s late,” he said, smiling in anticipation of her response.

  “I know, and I’m sorry,” she said. “But I needed to warn you before you see it on the news.”

  Dhata stopped pacing and looked around, probing the darkness to make sure he was truly alone. Whatever Ariana was about to drop on him, it was going to be heavy, and time seemed to slow as he waited for what he knew would either be devastating or painful.

  “Who died?” he said, probing.

  “No one you know, but she is tied to a ghost from your past,” Ariana said. “Remember Manton Paradise?”

  “What?” Dhata said, sure that he had misheard what she said.

  “Yeah, I know it’s the last name you would expect to hear in the year 2125, but one of his former wives was in a car accident a week ago and the driver, interestingly enough, was a synth.” Ariana paused as if expecting him to react, but Dhata stood still, listening and studying her feed, which showed her seated inside her car, gesturing wildly as she spoke. “They were together, Dhata. They had luggage and all sorts of evidence that they were much more than just friends.”

  “A wife of Paradise died in a crash with her synthetic lover,” Dhata said flatly. “If you’re expecting me to be shocked, then you’re going to be waiting for a while, unless I’m missing something. Is Paradise behind it?”

  “That we don’t know, but what I didn’t mention is that while you were in the hospital, he was released from prison due to some loophole found by his lawyers. He’s free, Dhata, and this crash wasn’t an accident, at least from what I can tell. There’s evidence of a homemade bomb, and Paradise is a person of interest. I just wanted to give you a heads up.”

  “Paradise is free?” Dhata looked up at the night sky as if the answer would be outlined in the stars. “Where are they holding him?”

  “Hell, if I knew,” Ariana said. “On a snitch farm up north, in god knows where.”

  “I appreciate you calling to tell me about Paradise, Ari, but you didn’t just learn about this and it’s after midnight. What’s up? You in some kind of trouble?”

  “No, nothing like that,” Ariana said, “but there is something else. The crash, like I told you, was due to an explosive, but we’ve been taken off the investigation. It’s supposedly part of an FBI case, so we’ve been instructed to leave it alone. The thing is it stinks. You know what I mean?”

  “Indeed,” Dhata said. “It was a synth and a human woman, the type of thing they want to keep out of the public eye.”

  “Are you currently on a job, or can you look into this bomb to see if we can trace it back to Paradise?” Ariana said. “I know it’s a big ask, but I’m telling you, it stinks, Dhata, and I don’t want to involve Robert or The Unsung. Department is booked and everyone’s suddenly busy, and then there’s the matter of whose jurisdiction it is, since the crash happened in St. Pete. I was hoping that maybe it’s something that we could work together to look into. Sort of like old times.”

  “Old times were good, but you forgot the scary parts, didn’t you?” Dhata said, grinning as he thought about her slight form gripping him closely in fear of falling off a rooftop.

  Ariana laughed. “This time we will not be climbing anywhere together, Dhata Mays. On the stunts, you can do those alone. What do you say, though? It’s for a good cause. No pay, but we can solve a murder and get that psychopath thrown back into prison.”

  “Schedule’s always free for you, Ari. Paradise needs to be in the ground for what he did to me and mine. TPD is worthless. You would think with the damage he did to the department, they would make this a priority, FBI or not.”

  “Hey, I tried to quit, remember?” Ariana said. “Robert asked me to stay, since being on the inside allows you and Lur to stay on the legal side of things. But I am tired, Dhata, and things like this…it just makes me not want to be a John anymore.”

  “I know that feeling, Ari, but stay strong. We’re in this together,” Dhata said. “You need a break is all. A shiftless department with corruption can really beat you to the floor, and I can see on your face that you’re tired. Go get some rest and I’ll call you later. Don’t let the politics and nonsense put wrinkles on that face.”

  “No wrinkles here, old man,” Ariana said, sounding suddenly alert. “If Lur knew how much you flirted—”

  “She won’t, now will she, Ari?” he said, prompting her to laugh out loud. “Send me over what you have on that crash, and I’ll call you in the morning once I’ve had time to look it over.”

  Once he was off the call, Dhata went for a walk, leaving the shadows of the back alley to step out onto the sidewalk of a quiet, well-lit road. He tried to process the news, but his mind kept returning to the rage he’d felt back when he was on the force.

  Manton Paradise was not just some cult leader. He was the god-king of a large tribe calling themselves “the Children of Paradise,” and they prided themselves on killing synths to “keep the Earth with its rightful owners.”

  It was an investigation into a string of murders that had introduced him and his partner Jason Dale to the world of Paradise. That entire episode was the first time he’d met a criminal brazen enough to put a contract on a police officer’s life. It had him ducking and dodging assassins until he could get enough proof to tip off the FBI. Paradise was like a virus infecting any and everybody willing to listen to his rhetoric.

  His words and charisma earned him members across the globe, even in the very same police department that was investigating him. It had taken Dhata and Jason going outside of the law to finally bring him and his organization down. They both lost a lot in the process, and though Jason stayed on as a detective, it was the first step in Dhata’s eventual exit from the force.

  To hear that after all that, the man was free to pick up where he’d left off numbed Dhata to the core. He reached into his pocket for the rest of the cigar, then cursed when he remembered throwing it out inside the room. He blinked hard and held it to activate the clock function on his ICL, and when he saw that it was now 2:30 a.m., he started making moves towards his car.

  “Okay, let’s go over it.” He spoke out loud, recording his thoughts to his implant in case he would need them when he got home. “Paradise is back, so what does that mean for this city? Nothing directly. They likely have him stashed away in California, in a neighborhood of snitches and expats ducking their government. Which means he’s ruling remotely, likely to have a proxy here in Tampa. Same proxy who would have planted the car bomb. Directly, Paradise will be out for revenge; he was in there long, and likely wants some get-back on the people who put him there. That would be me, Jason, and the prosecutor, but Jason is gone, and the prosecutor is a governor now.”

  He stopped to think if Paradise would still have the resources to get at the government. Who else besides me then? he thought. Attacks on synths are about to escalate now that he’s out, and all of his little acolytes will comply. They’ll be coming for me too, so I will need to get word to Lur.

  A cold drop of rain fell on his forehead, so he hurried back towards the direction of his car. Paradise was back, but Dhata was no longer a nobody-detective. This time he had an organization behind him, and a brand-new cybernetic leg. The rain felt good on his bald head as he walked, and he savored the feeling, allowing it to cool his mood despite the danger of too much exposure to the droplets.

  “Let them come,” he growled, feeling the fire of the liquor still in his abdomen. “I’ll be ready, and this time when the dust settles, there won’t be a cushy prison retreat for Paradise.”

  Chapter 2

  Robo-Geisha

  To a synth, the world within the grid is real. While organic humans are able to discern the differences between the dreamlike atmosphere of a virtual world, to a synth it is akin to experiencing a living nightmare with the only advantage being the ability to wake up.

  Hiroshi the cypher was a well-traveled citizen of that nightmare. While other synths avoided the human-made “grid” with all its flaws, Hiroshi learned how to navigate it in order to make a living. Since doing his first job—a UCC transfer theft—he fell in love. The money was nice, and the fame had its perks, but it was the power of tearing down those virtual walls that did it for him.