As I've mentioned before here and on the podcast, The Infinite Bard is a promotional campaign I'm participating in with several other writers whom I've met in various workshops and online forums. Others have been posting short fiction every two week as part of the promotion, and you can go to the Infinite Bard's website and read all the great stories that have come before.
But now it's my turn.
Enjoy!
Doppelganger
Someone replaced a little girl with an android made to be an exact duplicate of her.
Detectives Ben Mulkahie and Devin Abrams have to find out who did it, and why, before other kids suffer the same fate.
The ER waiting room could have been transplanted from any hospital anywhere.
Incoming patients sitting in various stages of boredom on cheap chairs surrounding vidscreens as they waited to be called back to triage. Obviously worried families huddling together, looking over at the orderly’s station every few seconds as though willing some news to appear from magic. Triage nurses, with harried looks about their eyes, processing the seemingly endless flow of people. And the orderly holding court behind her counter, a bored and slightly irritated expression on her face.
A chubby man in jeans and a t-shirt turned away from the orderly station as Ben and Devin approached and maneuvered with an obvious limp to a nearby chair, where he settled down with a half-groan to wait.
The orderly watched him depart for a second before turning disinterested eyes on them. “How can I help you?”
Ben fished his badge out of the inner pocket of his overcoat. “Detective Sergeant Mulkahie and,” he nodded at Devin, who had produced his badge as well, “Detective Abrams.”
The orderly’s expression immediately changed, becoming guarded, almost worried. She swallowed and glanced away from them toward the rear corner of the waiting room. “Of course.” She tapped a data pad on her workstation and looked down toward the screen. Speaking softly, she said, “The police are here.”
A brief pause, then she nodded and looked back up at them. “One moment, Detectives.”
“Thank you.”
Ben moved away from the counter. He looked over toward where the orderly had glanced, and saw a couple in their early thirties, well-to-do from their clothes, sitting alone and holding each other close as though afraid something would drag them apart if they let go. Disbelief and fear showed clearly on their faces, the same as on half the other faces in the waiting room.
Ben frowned.
Dispatch had been fairly vague about the problem here; just that the ER staff needed assistance with a patient. Not the sort of thing Detectives generally get sent to. Why - ?
“Detectives?”
Ben turned to find a short, skinny man of about fifty, wearing scrubs with a stethoscope dangling from his neck and an ID badge on his left breast, approaching them briskly. He held his hand out when he came near. “I’m Doctor Jefferson.”
Ben shook hands and introduced himself, and found the doctor’s grip firm but cold.
After exchanging pleasantries with Devin, Jefferson gestured for them to follow him. “Come with me, please.”
They went through a set of swinging double doors, then down a typically drab hospital hallway that turned right after a couple dozen yards. Coming to a halt before the door to a treatment room, Jefferson looked at them seriously. “Neither of you are squeamish, I hope?”
Devin snorted. Ben just shook his head. As many crime scenes as he’d seen over the years...
Jefferson nodded, then pushed the door open and led them within.
“She was brought in earlier this evening. She’d been playing and stumbled off the sidewalk right in front of a car.” The Doctor shook his head with a sad frown and stepped over to the room’s single bed. A small girl, pre-teen from the size of her and mostly covered by the standard white sheets that all hospitals seemed to use, lay there, motionless.
“By the time she got here, her heart had stopped. The paramedics were performing CPR as they wheeled her in, but she was not responding.” He reached her bedside and placed his hand upon her head, which was turned away from the door so Ben could not see her face.
“We got to work on her, but she was too far gone. I had just called time of death when we saw...” Jefferson stopped and, taking a grip on the girl’s blonde hair, he pulled his hand up.
The girl’s scalp and part of her face pulled up and away from her head, skin and issue parting easily. Ben found himself cringing for a second.
Until he saw what lay beneath.
Devin’s sharp intake of breath mirrored Ben’s own.
Light glinted off of silvery metal that the girl’s flesh had covered. Cracked metal. Wires and what looked like part of a circuit board poked out through the crack, and it was clear this was no girl.
“She’s a robot!” Devin exclaimed.
Dr. Jefferson nodded gravely.
“But...how?” Ben asked, breathlessly. He had heard of these sorts of things, even seen one in a museum once. But the construction of androids had been outlawed for decades.
Jefferson shook his head. “No idea.” He let the scalp fall, and again the thing on the bed went back to looking like a normal, dead, girl. The Doctor turned to the wall next to the bed and tapped a control, bringing the wall’s display to life. “But I ordered a full medical scan. The construction is really quite detailed.”
On the wall, images showed the picture beneath the girl robot’s skin. Actuators, pistons, skeleton... Ben lost track of it all.
“That is real skin over the skeletal structure,” Jefferson said. He pointed at a roundish sac-looking thing in the abdomen. “This appears to be a mechanical stomach, and here is a heart.” He pursed his lips appreciatively. “So it could eat and excrete enough to keep the skin alive and appear normal. And look at the skeletal structure. The bones have micro-actuators within them.”
“So she would actually grow,” Devin said, sounding stunned.
The Doctor nodded approvingly. “The designer went to a lot of trouble to make it appear as human as possible.” He paused. “I suspect it would even pass a routine medical exam.”
Ben wet his lips, and found he could not tear his gaze away from the images on the wall display. No mystery why they had been called in, now. “Any idea where it came from?”
The Doctor opened his mouth to reply, but an elderly nurse hurried into the room, interrupting him. She looked even more harried than usual for a person in her job.
“Doctor, the family is asking about her...it...again,” she said, gesturing toward the thing on the bed. “They’re causing a ruckus.”
It all came together then.
“The couple in the corner?” Ben asked.
The nurse glanced at the Doctor, then nodded. “Her parents.”
“Or at least, that’s what they think,” Devin said, his tone suddenly grim.
“And that’s the other reason we called you,” the Doctor said. “I have no idea how to handle...” He let the rest go unsaid.
Ben traded looks with his partner. How in the hell was he supposed to tell those worried people that their little girl wasn’t just dead, but that she wasn’t even a little girl at all?
Yeah, he always got the short stick.
Ben sighed, then straightened, squaring his shoulders. “Let’s get it done,” he said.
* * * * *
“Tell me about the parents.”
Captain Lois Kinsley was nothing if not direct. In her mind, the most likely suspect often ended up being the perp. In fairness, from what Ben had seen this tended to be true more often than not, but this time it was clear she was barking up the wrong tree.
He and Devin stood in her office, a small cube on the third floor of the 16th precinct that she had tried to make homey with a potted plant in the corner and pictures of her family on the walls. It didn’t work, especially at a time like this, discussing a case like this.
“They’re clean,” said Devin. He had been checking that all morning. “We’ve got birth certificates, pictures, videos, financial records... They no kidding gave birth to Emily Westerson eleven years ago last May and have been raising her happily ever since.” He frowned. “Until now.”
The Captain leaned back in her chair and matched Devin’s frown. “So you’re telling me someone took a real little girl and replaced her with this...thing?”
Ben’s turn. He nodded briskly. “I’ve been talking with robotics experts. I guess it’s not very hard or expensive to make a device like that, it’s just illegal. The hardest part would be behavior. Someone would have had to perform a complete neural workup and memory download, otherwise – “
“Otherwise no one would believe it was really Emily,” the Captain finished for him. “So what are we doing?”
“Uniforms are canvassing their building, her school, her friends’ houses, the places she went routinely. Devin and I are going back to their apartment this afternoon. I figure someone must have bugged the place, to monitor the android’s performance if nothing else. Problem is we don’t know how long the android’s been in place, or why, so we have a lot of people and places to check, and that’s going to take a while.”
“Don’t leave any stone unturned.” The Captain’s brows furrowed. “I don’t have to tell you this has some important people very concerned. We’re getting a lot of latitude to work with on this one, but once the press gets word...” She left the rest unsaid, but Ben had no trouble imagining the fiasco that would turn into.
* * * * *
"Ben, look at this."
He turned away from the girl's bedroom window and its view of the quiet suburban street below and moved over to where Devin sat at a small white and pink desk near the head of a similarly colored four-poster bed. Devin had the girl's workstation open and had been sifting through her browsing history while Ben did the physical search.
So far, there had been nothing to show for it.
He peaked over Devin's shoulder at the display and frowned. "What am I looking at here?"
Devin snorted out a half laugh. "IP addresses. Didn't you learn anything in school?"
He'd learned plenty, but that techy stuff always made his head spin. He didn't bother answering; he just kept glowering at the display.
Devin glanced back at him and smirked, then pointed at one line about halfway down the page. "Most of her browsing is the usual things you'd expect from a girl her age. And it's consistent for the last six months. But this is different." He tapped at that line, and an information tab opened up.
Ben felt his frown growing deeper. "Techniplay? What's that?"
"No idea. I've never heard of it before. But she went to it twice two months ago, then again last month, and then weekly starting two weeks ago." He turned in his seat and regarded Ben with a single dark eyebrow rising high on his forehead. "Coincidence, you think?"
Ben crossed his arms over his chest and shook his head.
* * * * *
Techniplay ended up being easy to find. It was listed in the local business directory and located downtown caddy corner from the most popular shopping mall for miles.
Ben examined the place as he and Devin got out of their ride. A two-story white cube, featureless except for a large holosign displaying the company name amid flashing lights and made-up explosions, and windowless except for wide transparent doors beneath the sign.
It looked to be doing brisk business. A steady stream of mostly teenagers, with a smaller number of twenty-somethings thrown in the mix, entered and exited, all chatting away and laughing as they came and went.
Ben shared a look with Devin. "Popular place with the kids, looks like."
"Yeah." Devin couldn't keep the suspicion from his voice. Ben didn’t blame him.
Inside, Techniplay was a single large room with workstations lined up in rows and cubicled off from their neighbors. It looked like any of a hundred different tech cafes Ben had visited over the years, with one exception.
The customers, again mostly kids, all wore a sort of helmet getup that was wired into their workstations. Ben couldn't see any touchpads, holo-interfaces, or old-fashioned keyboards anywhere in the place.
Interesting.
The customer service desk stood to the right as they entered, a white countertop manned by a bubbly young redhead in a tight t-shirt with a picture of a battle robot of some sort on it. She beemed a smile at them as they approached.
"Welcome to Techniplay! How can I serve you today?"
The way her shirt was straining, Ben was sure Devin could come up with a number of fun answers to that question. For his part, Ben was too old to be chasing after floozies like this one. And besides, they were here on business.
He pulled out his badge and showed it to the girl, and immediately her smile faded into seriousness.
"We'd like to speak with your manager, please."
She nodded and tapped a control pad behind the counter. "Just one moment, Officers."
"Thanks."
They turned away from her and went on studying the room and its inhabitants.
Nothing seemed out of the ordinary, except for the age distribution of the clientele. Most tech cafes had a mix of people as customers. But from the look of this place, Devin was probably older than everyone here, which made Ben feel positively ancient.
A couple minutes passed that were punctuated only by the passage of half a dozen young people in and out of the cafe, and then finally a door that Ben hadn't noticed before in the rear of the room opened and a man in khaki pants and a dark blue polo shirt walked out and veered toward them.
He stood out, both from his height and his age. He was only a couple years younger than Devin, so in his mid thirties probably. And he had to be almost seven feet tall. Ben stood a healthy six foot two and he found himself craning his head back to look the guy in the eye when he stopped in front of them.
The new arrival glanced over at the redhead quickly, then looked Ben and Devin over in a manner that said he was sizing them up. Ben tensed; he had seen that sort of evaluation a number of times right before things got ugly.
But then the man smiled affably and held out his right hand for a shake. "Officers. Blake Caldwell."
Ben took his hand and found his grip surprisingly limp for a man of his size. "Detective Sergeant Ben Mulkahie. Are you the manager?"
Caldwell paused to shake Devin's hand before answering. "Owner and general manager. What can I do for you?"
Devin spoke up. "We'd like to speak with you about one of your former customers." He glanced over at a group of youths who were just then walking in the door. "In private."
Caldwell's brow furrowed, but he nodded, that affable smile still in place. "Come back to my office."
* * * * *
"Sorry, Detectives, but I don't believe I've ever seen this young lady before." Caldwell handed Emily's holo-image back to Devin, a contrite expression on his face. "But then, so many people come through here on a daily basis..." He didn't finish the sentence, but instead waved toward the door leading from his rather cramped office back to the main cafe floor.
Ben hadn't expected the man to actually remember her. Still, it didn't hurt to confirm it. "We'd like to access the records of her visits here."
Caldwell blinked, and his lips compressed. "Sure. Do you have a warrant?"
Christ. Not this game.
"We can get one," Devin said, "but that could take a day or two, and time is of the essence in a missing persons case. We were hoping you'd be willing to help us out."
Ben usually let Devin take the good cop role; he was good at it.
But Caldwell wasn't budging. He shook his head, contrition returning to his face. "Sorry, Detectives, but we deal with very sensitive, personal information here, and I take my customers' privacy seriously." He tried the smile again. "I want to help you. As soon as you get that warrant."
Ben suppressed a sigh. "What do you mean, personal information? This is just a tech cafe."
Caldwell shook his head. "We're more than just a tech cafe. We use a unique, patent-pending interface system that fully immerses the customers in their gaming experience." His eyes lit up and a smile returned to his face, but this one was more eager, more...genuine than the one he had plied on them earlier. "It really is a one of a kind system."
"What is it?" Devin sounded genuinely interested.
"I can't go into the details," Caldwell said. "You understand. To keep in simple, we stimulate the customer's sensory neurons so they actually experience the game world as if they were really there."
Devin's eyes widened and he grinned broadly. "I didn't realize that sort of thing had been approved for civilian use yet."
Neither had Ben. He distinctly remembered the full immersion simulator training scenarios he had to run back in his Marine Corps days. They had been good, when they worked. But most of the time the damn things were broken, or some glitch made them freeze up in the middle of a scenario.
He recalled hearing that the Corps had stopped using them for that reason.
They also had been proprietary, and highly classified, military equipment. Something about the security risks inherent in the sensory interface and the simulations themselves prompted the Feds to outlaw their use in civilian applications.
Caldwell gave a little shrug. "As I said, it's a unique system. I assure you, the appropriate authorities are aware of it and have given approval."
Which meant what, exactly?
Whatever. This was all interesting, but Ben wasn't there to talk about the latest in game tech. He could tell that Devin was about to get sucked further into the discussion, though, so it was time to cut this back to brass tacks.
He cleared his throat and stood from the small chair he had been sitting in. "We'll be back with that warrant."
Devin gave him the briefest of confused looks, but stood as well.
Caldwell narrowed his eyes, but his lips resumed their earlier amiable pose. He rose and shook their hands in turn. "I'll look forward to it."
Ben knew a lie when he heard it. And that, right there, was a big one.
* * * * *
The precinct Detectives' office was abuzz with the usual activity as Ben and Devin walked in, after stopping by the District Attorney's office to file for a warrant. They needed to check on the uniforms' canvassing efforts. And besides, Ben had left his lunch in the office's communal fridge.
It just cost too much to eat out all the time.
"What do you make of that Caldwell guy?" Devin asked as they approached their desks, set up opposite each other just like in every cheesy police show Ben had ever seen.
"He's into something dirty. Maybe not related to our girl, but something."
Devin crooked an eyebrow at him. "Nothing wrong with wanting a warrant, bro."
Ben gave him a level look, and was about to reply when the Captain's door swung open and she stuck her head out. "Mulkahie. Abrams. My office."
Christ, what now?
Ben exchanged a long-suffering look with Devin, then stood to answer the summons.
The Captain was not alone in her office when they arrived. A fit man in his early 30s with a mop of black hair and sharp, dark eyes stood at the side of her desk. He wore a bland Navy blue suit, white shirt, and a matching dark tie.
Wonderful. A Fed.
"Close the door," the Captain said, then waited for Devin to comply before proceeding. "This is Special Agent Jackson, FBI."
Jackson grinned in a manner that Ben supposed was meant to be friendly, but only made it to smarmy before stopping cold. "Detectives, great to meet you both."
He even sounded like a jerk.
They exchanged handshakes all around, then experienced one of those awkward silences that always happened when one party was about to say something the other won't like.
Ben cleared his throat. "Ok, Agent Jackson. What's the deal?"
Jackson's smile faded a tad. "I need you guys to lay off Blake Caldwell."
Devin's eyes climbed high on his head. Ben's followed. They traded surprised looks.
"Wow, that was fast. We only saw him two hours ago."
"Yes, well, word gets around," Jackson replied. "We have an informant in his organization. Not ten minutes after you left his place, he started placing calls and shaking things up. The informant was leading us to evidence of something huge, and now that's all been lost." He poked a finger at first Devin, then Ben. "Thanks to you two."
Ben had to restrain himself from leaping over the Captain's desk and beating the snot of the guy. "Now look, you - "
The Captain interrupted, "Just listen, Ben."
Ben cast his best "You Dumbass" glare her way, but the Captain just returned it with her trademarked calm and level stare.
He ground his teeth, feeling his scowl deepening for a long several seconds. But hang it all, she was right. Fighting the Fed wouldn't solve anything.
At last, he nodded, grudgingly, and looked back Jackson's way. "What do you want him for?"
Jackson looked between Ben and the Captain as though assessing the situation's stability. Then, after a moment, he shrugged. "We don't have anything specific. But there's always something shady going on near him, or so it seems. Caldwell has high-level friends in DOD and Commerce. That's how he got approval for Techniplay. Because of those contacts, we've been proceeding very carefully." He raised an eyebrow to accentuate the words.
Ben nodded. "I can understand that."
"So you see why I need you to back off. If he gets too spooked..." He didn't say the rest, but then he didn't need to. Not only would Caldwell close up shop, or change things up enough that the Fed's case would be completely blown, but he would go to his protectors.
And Lord only knows what would happen then.
Still...
"I've got a missing girl here, Jackson."
"I know. We've got a team from the field office coming down to take over in a couple hours. But in the meantime, leave Caldwell alone."
That gave Ben pause. FBI getting involved in a missing person or kidnapping wasn't unusual. But they sure took their time with this one.
"You think Caldwell's business, whatever it really is, has something to do with my missing girl."
Jackson frowned slightly, but didn't say anything.
Damn it. This was no time for interagency shenanigans.
He leaned forward, staring hard at the Fed. "What the hell is this guy really into?"
Jackson's frown deepened. He opened his mouth as if to speak, then stopped and shook his head. "Just drop it, Detectives. This is above your pay grades. Hell, it's above my pay grade." He returned Ben's stare in kind. "When our team gets here, give them what you've got on the case. And let. It. Go."
Jackson turned and gave the Captain a look. She nodded at him, then he walked around the desk toward the door.
Devin stepped aside to let him pass, and Jackson nodded thanks.
Then he left, and took Ben's case with him.
* * * * *
"We're not really going to let the Feds take over are we?"
Ben just looked at Devin, and said nothing.
His partner took a sip from the coffee cup that sat on the table between them, then raised a single eyebrow. "Didn't think so."
Ben hid his determined smile by taking a drink from his own cup.
They sat in a small corner coffee shop about three blocks from Techniplay's building. It was one of those cozy little places that had been passed down through the family for generations, and had the decor and spirit to match.
Or at least, that's what Ben preferred to think. In reality, it was probably brand new, owned by a corporation, and professionally done up to give it that homey feel.
Better to not think about that.
"So what's the plan?"
Ben swallowed and lowered his cup. "Did you see Jackson's reaction when I asked him about Caldwell's link to Emily?"
Devin nodded.
"Tonight we follow him home, and stake him out. Then we keep on following him until he leads us to what we need."
"Might take a while."
"I doubt it." Ben looked out the window toward the street beyond, and the people going about their afternoon activities. "Remember what Jackson said? Caldwell's pulling up stakes, covering his tracks. He'll move quickly, because he knows we're on to him." He sipped at his coffee again. "And that is why he'll make a mistake."
* * * * *
It took less time than Ben thought it would.
The first night was the usual uneventful, downright boring, stakeout routine. The day that followed, just as much.
But this evening was different.
Caldwell had departed Techniplay later than he had last night, and did not go home. Instead, he drove to the far side of town, to a small diner that looked like something out of the sixth decade of the 20th Century, all chrome and neon lights, with booths inside and drive-up ordering stations outside.
Ben felt his mouth watering as he sat in his ride half a block away, watching Caldwell slide into a booth near the front windows through lowlight equipped gyronoculars.
His only dinner was the bag of chips and the cold cut sandwich in the bag next to him. Probably Caldwell was getting much better than that in there.
He glanced away from the gyronocular lenses and down the street, to where Devin sat in his ride, facing the opposite direction.
They had set up this way to minimize Caldwell's ability to make them, and also in case he met with someone. One of them would be able to follow the new guy, the other Caldwell.
And lookee here.
Another guy entered the diner and, moments later, sat at the same booth where Caldwell had just ordered his dinner.
Ben squinted and adjusted the zoom control, to better get a look at the guy.
He was shorter than Caldwell, but that wasn't saying much. Muscular, with narrow features and eyes that constantly moved, scanning the room. He wore a leather jacket over a collared shirt. Maybe had a piece in a shoulder rig. He looked the type to be carrying.
The new guy and Caldwell spoke briefly, and Ben wished he had been able to get an audio bug onto Caldwell's person. But without that warrant, Ben couldn't risk being caught doing something that blatant.
He might be stubborn, but he wasn't stupid.
The two men talked for a short while longer, then, just as the waitress was returning with Caldwell's dinner, the second man stood up to leave.
He hadn't even ordered a cup of coffee.
Ben tapped his communicator, which was woven into the collar of his shirt. "Devin."
"Yup." Devin's voice came through the communicator into the implant in his ear, sounding as though he was sitting next to Ben in the car.
"Stay on Caldwell. I'm going to follow this guy, see where he goes."
"Roger."
The man exited the diner and turned left. Ben lowered his gyronoculars as the man walked past his ride on the other side of the street, and sunk lowered into his seat.
He felt for a second as though their eyes met, but then the man passed him by.
He continued to watch him in the vehicle's rearview as he got into a car, started it, and sped away.
Ben started his car and carefully made a u-turn, then set off after the rapidly-shrinking taillights of the stranger's vehicle.
Who might you be, and what are you up to?
He couldn't help but grin as he drove into the night.
* * * * *
A warehouse on the outside of town, typical in every possible way. That's where the new guy went.
He stopped his car half a block from the warehouse's entrance and strode from shadow to shadow between streetlights.
Ben did not stop driving; he passed the guy as he was walking down the sidewalk, then turned right at the next intersection. He stopped halfway down the block and turned off his engine, securing all the lights.
Then he waited for a moment.
The guy did not come around the corner.
So he had either gone into the warehouse or he'd doubled back.
No way he just doubled back.
Ben got out of the car and hurried to the corner of the building. He reached into his coat and loosened his weapon in its holster, then touched his communicator again.
"Warehouse at the corner of Hollister and Voltaire. What's Caldwell doing?"
Devin's voice came back. "Finished dinner and went home. Want I should come out to you?"
Ben thought it over for a few seconds. It would certainly be better to have Devin along as backup, but it would take a half hour at least for him to get here. And what if this guy was a red herring and Caldwell did something while Devin was away?
"No, stay there. I'll let you know what I find."
"You sure?" Devin sounded doubtful.
"Yeah."
"Rog."
Ben peeked around the building's corner. No one in sight.
He straightened himself and squared his shoulders, then he stepped around the corner and walked toward the warehouse's entrance.
* * * * *
The doors were locked, but no way was he going to let that stop him.
He circled the building, hopping the fence that separated the loading docks at the rear from the side street, and crept up to the garage doors. All were shut, but there was an ordinary door off to the right of them.
Locked, of course. But it was an old-fashioned mechanical lock. Ben knew how to deal with them.
A few minutes later, Ben was inside.
The place was dark, silent, and apparently empty.
Yeah, like hell.
Ben fished into his pocket and pulled out his gyronoculars. He fastened them over his head and turned on low-light mode.
Immediately, the place sprang into view, apparently flooded by green-white light.
The main area was long and broad, probably two hundred feet across and half again as many deep, the ceiling a good twenty feet high. Shelves, mostly empty, lined the length of the building.
But there were no people.
Maybe the new guy hadn't come in here, after all.
Damn.
Ben stalked down one of the aisles between shelves, and spied nothing.
More nothing.
He completed the trek up the aisle and turned down the next one.
Screw this, there was nothing here. Time to get the hell out of here...
Halfway down the aisle, his lowlight vision flared brightly as light shown out, unexpectedly.
Ben froze, dialing back the gyronoculars' gain quickly.
There, back at the rear of the building, where he had just been, and over to the left. Someone had opened a door...
And then the door shut, cutting off the light source beyond.
Footsteps, soft but easy to hear in the silence, moved down the aisle next to the one Ben occupied.
He crouched down quickly, being careful not to make any sound, and scrunched up next to the shelf, trying to minimize his profile in the darkness.
If the other person had lowlight equipment, it might not do much good.
He'd just have to wait and see.
The unknown person continued down the aisle. As the person drew alongside Ben's position, he held his breath, not daring to make even the smallest sound.
And then the person was past, heading toward the front of the building.
Ben remained still until the person reached the front, and opened the door.
As soon as the door closed, Ben straightened and hurried to the back.
Part of his mind screamed for him to just get out the back door while the getting was good, before his luck ran out. He was in here illegally, after all.
The rest of him said to hell with that. He had a case to solve.
So instead of the rear exit, he moved over toward the other door, the one he had missed in his initial scan, the one the mysterious person had come from.
The door was unlocked. The light beyond was out; the person must have shut it off before closing the door.
Ben crept inside and closed the door behind him. Then, doffing his gyronoculars, he switched the lights on.
His breath caught in his throat.
The room was small compared with the rest of the warehouse, only thirty feet by about fifteen feet. And it was filled with horizontally-mounted stainless steel cylinders, with built-in electronic displays showing numerous numbers and graphics that looked oddly familiar.
Each cylinder rested on casters, so it could be moved. And each had a frosted-over window at the end closest the wall.
Ben moved toward the nearest cylinder and looked in the window, and his blood went to ice.
Inside the cylinder was a young man, deeply tanned and handsome. And asleep. Or rather, in suspended animation.
Now Ben realized what the readouts were: medical displays, showing the boy's vital statistics.
Were they all full?
He quickly moved down the room, checking the windows.
All were occupied, save the last three. And in the final occupied cylinder...
He had to call up the picture on his palm computer to make sure, but yes, it was her.
Emily Westerson.
He reached up to his collar to activate his communicator, but froze when he heard a metallic clack behind him, followed by a low voice that sounded amused. And cold.
"Well, well, well. What have we here?"
Ben turned around.
"Eh! Slowly, brother. Don't want a hole in your head, do you?"
He slowed down, but continued turning around.
The new guy from the diner stood there, just inside the doorway. And yep, just as Ben thought from that clacking sound, he held a great big handgun in his right hand, pointed right at Ben.
The guy smirked. "So, what are you? A cop?"
Ben shrugged, inwardly cursing his stupidity at not waiting for Devin's backup but working very hard not to let his consternation show. "Detective Sergeant Ben Mulkahie. You?"
The guy's lips turned upward in a sardonic grin. "Oh, just a guy who doesn't appreciate cops sticking their noses into his business." He thumbed back the hammer on his gun.
Ben rolled his eyes. Like any gun made in the last century or so was only single action. "Being a little dramatic, aren't you? If you've going to shoot, just shoot."
The guy actually laughed. "Don't mind if I do."
Ben leaped to the side just as the gun went off.
It felt like a hammer struck him in the hip, and he spun in mid-leap, landing on his back instead of his side. He slid to a halt on the floor between two of the cylinders, and had a second to inhale before the pain struck him.
He gritted his teeth. With one hand he dug inside his coat for his gun. With the other, he tapped his communicator.
"Need you, brother," Ben said as clearly as he could without screaming.
"Thought you would," came Devin's voice. "Be there in five."
Right then, Ben didn't care that his partner had disregarded his instructions. "Room at the back of the warehouse. Shots fired. Hurry."
He tried to sit up, gun in hand, but his hip screamed out at him and he couldn't rise.
"Come out, come out wherever you are!" said the guy with the gun. He was walking slowly forward, toward where Ben lay.
"Ok," Ben said. He raised his gun and sighted in on the guy's leg, clearly visible between the cylinder's legs. Or he tried to anyway. His hand shook and the angle was awkward as hell.
He pulled the trigger.
Of course, the bullet missed.
But the guy gave a little yelp and scampered off to the side, so at least the miss bought Ben some time.
He pushed with his feet and moved himself further away from the center aisle between the cylinders.
His head struck the wall and he pushed some more, gritting his teeth as he forced himself to sit up.
Well, halfway sit up, anyway. But it beat lying prone.
Where did that guy go?
Ben looked around. He couldn't see his attacker, which probably meant he was crouched down behind one of the other cylinders.
He took a moment to look at his hip.
That was a fair amount of blood, and it was flowing freely. Even if the gunman didn't finish him off, he was going to need medical care, and soon.
He touched his collar. "Where are you, man?"
"Front door's locked."
"Break the fucker down alrea - "
Another shot rang out, and a bullet ricocheted off the wall near Ben's head.
He allowed himself to slide down again, and his throbbing hip seemed to let out its own sigh of relief.
"Backup's on the way," Ben said loudly. He still couldn't see the gunman. "You'd better get while the getting's good."
"So's mine," came the reply. "Want to take bets over who gets here first?"
Crap.
Ben didn't want to take that bet.
He lifted his head and tried to look around again. Nothing... Wait, there. Movement between the cylinders three places down. And -
He dropped his head again just in time for the bullet to miss high.
Immediately, he raised his gun and his head and returned fire. Three shots in the general vicinity of the gunman.
A loud curse advertised that, even if he hadn't scored a hit he'd at least made things tough on the guy.
Ben looked to the right. The next cylinder was empty. The casters near the aisle rolled free, but the ones near the wall here locked. If he could unlock them...
He rolled over onto his side, gritting his teeth at the pain as his weight came down onto his wounded hip. He fumbled with the casters on the legs closest to the wall.
The first, the closest, unlocked with ease.
The farther...
Dammit, the thing wouldn't budge.
He tried again.
Another shot rang out just as the lock flipped.
A hammerblow struck just below his left shoulder blade and Ben cried out. He smacked his face into the cylinder's leg.
That hurt. Somehow, it actually hurt more than his hip right that second. And more than his back, thanks to the vest Ben always wore.
Footsteps behind him. The gunman.
"This has been fun and all," said the gunman, sounding far less than amused. "But..."
Ben didn't let him finish. He took hold of the cylinder's leg and pushed with all his might.
The damn thing was heavy, but it moved easily now that the casters were unlocked.
Slowly at first, but then more rapidly, the cylinder moved away from the wall.
Ben rolled back over onto his back as the cylinder rolled away from him, and was gratified to see the gunman standing there, holding his weapon pointing right at Ben's chest.
The cylinder rolled right toward him, and the gunman's eyes went wide.
He fired just as the cylinder struck him in the side.
The bullet went wide, and Ben grabbed up his gun again.
His shots hit.
Two in the chest, one in the head.
The gunman fell, and that was that.
Except for Ben's hip. That hurt like a son of a bitch.
Loud crashing from outside, and Devin's voice came echoing through the building, calling his name.
Ben tried to respond, but right then all he had the energy to do was lie there on the tile and hurt.
* * * * *
Hospitals suck.
Ben had always known it, even though he'd managed to avoid spending time in them up until now.
But they really suck when you're in traction.
The gunman's bullet had shattered his hip, and though the surgeons had worked hard, it was going to be many weeks before he would walk again.
Hell, he might not ever get back to 100%.
Then again, looking across the room at the face of the Captain, he figured not being able to run any marathons in the future might be the least of his worries.
She was pissed.
"Breaking and entering. Surveilling a citizen without a warrant. Trespassing."
"Interfering with a Federal investigation," added Jackson, who stood next to her, his face making her thundercloud expression look like a sunny day.
"Rescuing dozens of young people." Might as well go down swinging.
Both sets of scowls grew, if possible, even deeper.
Before they could continue, Ben rolled on. "You said yourself he was about to pull up chocks. If we'd waited around, we could have lost Emily and all those others."
From their changing expressions, he saw they knew he was right.
"So you going to tell me what was really going on?"
Jackson, grudgingly, nodded. "In some other less...civilized countries, and on some of the colony worlds, there is a demand for labor."
Ben scowled. "For slaves you mean."
"Yes, slaves. Both manual workers and...other service providers."
Sex slaves, he meant, but he was apparently too delicate to say.
"I'm in a special task force combating trafficking in persons. We'd identified a supply route, but weren't able to determine where and from whom they got the people."
"But you suspected Caldwell."
"His company, yes. Not necessarily him personally. We've encountered other cases of android substitutions elsewhere in the country. You can imagine why we kept it out of the press. We looked at Techniplay because the sensory stimulation he uses requires an intimate understanding of a subject's neurology."
It all clicked together. "And getting that understanding allows them to do a neural workup. Once that's done they could download memories while the kids were playing, without them even knowing about it. All that was left was to snatch one of them up and replace her, and no one's the wiser, right?"
Jackson nodded again. "They target their advertising to teenagers and young adults. The demand is highest for people in those age ranges. Of course, we couldn't shut them down because we had no real evidence, and Caldwell had his friends in high places."
Ben sighed. It was that same old story again. Politics as usual. "Did you get him?"
Jackson frowned and shook his head. "No. The man who attacked you must have clued him in, because he fled that same night. Hopped a private jet and was out of the country before we could even try to have the FAA ground it. By now, he's in a non-extradition country somewhere. But at least we've shut his operation down." He suddenly grinned viciously. "I've heard through the grapevine that those high contacts of Caldwell's are doing quite a tap dance to avoid being named as accomplices. At least they'll be taken down a peg or two."
"And those kids are back home, or soon will be," the Captain interjected.
"All's well that ends well, I guess," Ben said, relaxing back into the mattress of his bed. "If you don't mind waiting until I'm healed to put me in jail, though, I'd appreciate it."
The Captain rolled her eyes. "You know better than that. This thing's all over the net now. No way we could put you in jail if anyone wanted to."
"Yeah, that's about what I figured." Ben looked from her back to Jackson. "So...now what?"
"Now, I get back to work. You managed to shut down this supplier, but there are others out there." He looked awfully tired all of a sudden.
All of a sudden, Ben didn't feel quite so good about himself. How many other kids like Emily and the others were out there, stolen away from their homes and doomed to lives of servitude?
There was nothing to it but to fight on. "Give a ring if you need any help, Jackson." He tried a grin. "But next time, do a brother a favor and fill him in on what the hell's going on before he gets shot, ok?"
Jackson snorted out a quick laugh. "Will do." They shook hands, then with a final, "Take care," he left the room.
The Captain watched him go, then turned accusing eyes onto Ben. "You know you're not to ever do anything like this again, right?"
"What, no more rescuing kids?"
She just looked at him.
He was stupid to not wait for backup. He knew it. She knew it. But was she actually going to make him say it?
The tense silence lasted for most of a minute. Then finally, she shook her head. "Just don't do it again."
"Yes ma'am."
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