Night Shift - Episode 1

The rain was coming down in waves so heavy that the wipers on the ground-car could barely keep up.   The headlights cut through the darkness as the flashing blue lights warned pedestrians to clear the road.   Despite both this and the wail of the siren, the avenue was choked with humanity.   I lit a cigarette and cracked the window, immediately regretting the latter.  The smell of so many bodies pressed into a small space was overwhelming, despite the constant rain.  Shout, curses, and impolite propositions wafted through the air like the smoke coiling inside the car.  Frank grunted and cracked his own window. He wasn't a smoker, but I was driving, so he didn't have much choice in the matter.  He could always get out and walk, but he knew the crowd would tear him to pieces.   There's only one thing that the dregs of New Angeles liked more than killing a cop, and that was putting the body out on display.

I had heard of better days, back before the big quake had slid most of California off into the Pacific.  New Angeles had been built on the remains of the devastation and had boomed in the aftermath.   I didn't know why that was. I had been born here, and never managed to get out.   I couldn't see any reason for anybody to come here, but come they had.  Maybe it was the chance to build a new life.   Or maybe there was just really cheap real-estate.  Either way, the city had become so overpopulated that you could barely spit without hitting somebody.  Jobs were harder to find, so dealing with rampant crime had become another part of running the city.  Most jobs in New Angeles involved serving processed food or providing processed entertainment.  There was no major industry other than the self-sustaining beast of the city itself.

And the most important part of sustaining the beast was diversion.  The Romans had figured that out a long time ago.  Keep the mob entertained, and it will be distracted from how horrible their lives really were.   The same was true here. As the car slowly glided down the street, neon signs slid by like temptations in a Greek myth.  Booze, drugs, music, and sex were all part of the industry.   Glaring purple, yellow, and red neon all advertised pleasures of the flesh. The dregs lined up before these signs, their faces glowing with the promise of distraction as they looked up at those garish monuments of decadence.

"Cattle lined up to feed," Frank said.

I nodded, taking a deep draw on the cigarette.   The flashing blues strobed through the crowd and accentuated the neon glow of the street.  We could have gotten there faster walking, but I liked breathing too much to take the chance.  Finally, we could see other blue lights flashing ahead, and we knew that we were close to our destination.

Frank grabbed the radio from the dash and called in, "Patrol units in sight at 58th and Corvus, unit five on scene."

Garbled static replied, the voice of Martha in dispatch barely creaking through the interference to acknowledge our report.

"Ready?" Frank asked?

"Are you?"

"Nope," He said as he drew his sidearm and exited the car.

I got out behind him, my own weapon still holstered.  There was a crowd around the crime scene, but there was also half a dozen beat cops and an enforcement bot bristling with guns keeping them in check.   Frank lived his life somewhere between caution and paranoia. It wasn't a healthy way to live, but it was prudent given our line of work.

"You should be more cautious," he said to me.

"And you should relax," I said as I tossed the cigarette butt into the gutter.   It floated in the rushing rainwater like an old steamer setting out to sea, then just as quickly was dumped into a storm drain with all the other assorted refuse being washed from the city.

Frank turned in a slow circle, watching the crowd behind us.  The EnBot must have picked up a vibe from him, because it turned its head with those eerie glowing red sensors in our direction. Two large arms swayed over the heads of the officers, the barrels of its heavy guns reflecting rainbow colors from the signs lining the street.

"Put it away, Frank. I think we're covered," I said as I pulled the edges of my coat tighter to block out the chill and the rain.

Frank gave me a sideways glance, but he holstered the weapon.  He favored one of the large caliber jobs, and the thing stood out like a sore thumb.   It was shiny and new, with a polished leather holster.   This was a stark contrast to his old dingy brown suit and wrinkled shirt. I always tried to look good, even though there wasn't anybody to impress.  Still, one felt confident in a pressed shirt and suit.  The gray suited me, as well.   Brought out the color in my eyes, some would say.

The sergeant at the crime scene must have noticed, because she came up to me instead of Frank, despite the other being the older and more experienced of us.   "Glad you guys finally decided to show up.  The animals are getting hungry, and I'm not planning on staying around for feeding time," she said as she pushed her blond locks back from her eyes.  She was soaked from the rain, and even in uniform and body armor she looked alluring.  Her clothes were tight and wet, and they hugged her body in all the right places.  The armor hid quite a bit, but wondering what it was hiding was half the charm.

"Traffic," I replied, jerking a thumb at the crowd.

"What do we have?" Frank asked.

She glanced at him with a scowl, but directed her response to me.   I tried to memorize her badge number.  This one might be worth looking up later.   A little one-on-one debriefing.   I cleared the thought from my mind when I realized she was talking.  "Homicide.   One victim.   Female.  About twenty years old.   Gunshot wound to the abdomen.  Looks like one of those cybersex drones."   She lead us over to where the body laid on the ground, covered by a sheet of clear plastic.

The rain droned on the sheet in an unsteady rhythm, probably not the funeral march this dame had expected.   This wasn't how anybody planed to go; lying in the mouth of an alley with a hole in your gut.  The alley itself was typical.  Back doors to the business on the street, garbage overflowing from cans, and the smell of piss and vomit despite the rain.  Mother nature might be trying to wash this city clean, but it was going to take more than a little water to do that.  I knelt down for a closer look at the victim.

She was a pretty one, there was no doubt about that.  She wore a tight purple dress with a short skirt and matching heels.   Her hair was neon green, and her face was accented with yellow lipstick and eye shadow that glowed with a light of its own.   I pulled the plastic back and turned her head, lifting the hair from the back of her scalp.   Sure enough, there was a port there for a virtual reality system.   A sex drone would plug into the net, and she could screw a hundred men at the same time without anybody ever touching her.   It was pure profit and no risk, and had almost entirely replaced traditional prostitution.  Both trades were legal now, of course, but this was the preferred method.

"So we scan the ID stamp and be on our way," Frank said.  "She was probably just in the wrong place at the wrong time."

"That's why you got called, genius," the sergeant said, "the stamp is gone."

I turned over the dead woman's wrist.  There was a square patch of skin missing where there should have been a bar code tattoo.  Without the ID stamp, we would have to try to identify her the old fashioned way.  If this was just an assault in the street, why would the perp go to the trouble of hiding her identity?   I held my phone over the wound.  The clear screen sharpened the image automatically.   I zoomed in on it.  The cut was precise.   Perfect length cuts, neat angles, and smooth edges.   "Frank, this isn't as simple as it looks."

"Just covering his tracks," he said.   "Bag and tag her, we're done."

"Wait," I said.  Her face was in too good of shape for an assault.  The dress was covered in blood, but it wasn't torn.   There wasn't any blood on the street.   No sign of her being dragged, either.   Other than the hole in her belly and the missing bar code, there wasn't a scratch on her.   I snapped a dozen pictures of the body and its surroundings with the phone, then headed back to the car.

"What the hell, Peterson?" Frank called out behind me.

"She wasn't murdered here," I said over my shoulder as I cupped my hands to light another cigarette.   Climbing into the car, I pulled the door down to close it and hit the ignition.  The electric engine hummed to life and lights on the dash lit Frank's face as he climbed inside.

"If she wasn't killed here, where did it happen?" Frank asked.

I took a long draw and let the smoke drift out as I replied, "That's one question, isn't it?   The other one is:  who the hell is she?  I guess we're actually going to have to do some work."

#cyberpunk #noir #crime #thriller #murder #mystery #sciencefiction #scifi #hardboiled #fiction #novel #episode #episodic #serial