“We’ll get the same response as always, leave it to the Federal Office.”
“He put his icon on the Wire. A notice like that for any synthetic market is enough to justify an arrest.” Arkane waited near an alley where the darkness kept him comfortable, even if most criminals had implants with nightvision capabilities.
“The Government must be working a more important case. The spybots are up, do you see them?”
Kyle strained to hear over the rumbling traffic on the el-roads above. The platforms were being extended and reinforced, stacked one on top of the other to ease congestion, and between them were small robots hovering in pre-set patterns. Each was no bigger than his head, with sensors taking in millions of readings per second.
“There’s another signal, the Government must be tuning in for this one.”
The target was dressed in a hooded trenchcoat of hand-stitched material, trying hard to fit in, as he retrieved a briefcase from the trunk of his car.
“They’re probably waiting for me to screw up,” said Kyle.
“You should use the Sight to document what he’s hiding.”
Arkane designated the settings on his DeluxeVision binoculars. When small dots flashed under the Electromagnetic Resonance Imaging display, he could see through solid objects. “His briefcase is full of money.”
“Get a reading on his synthetics.”
Kyle adjusted the Sight and stayed close to the man as he walked away. “Without respect for original humanity, the rest is artificial.”
“You’ll have to get your own implants one of these days. How is the target scanning?”
“Sixty-percent cybernetics. His left leg is ancient tech, but he could stop in at any licensed office for repairs and nobody spends that kind of cash on minor upgrades.”
“Don’t lose him.”
“Don’t worry,” said Kyle. “I’m efficient.”
“You’re also a CytoHuman, they say.”
“Who taught you that word?” he asked, making sure that his clothes were suitable for travel through the underground. Partygoers as vibrant as neon dressed in orange leather with glitter-strobe accessories crossed the street and entered a dance club, giving him a look inside at the flashing blue lights.
“Genosapien was a label used to denote genetic alterations of humans not made by science. It’s from the Greek root meaning ‘noble birth.’ The prefix cyto was adopted less as a reference to cellular structure than the definition of the word, which is ‘vessel.’ I am unsure whether this is considered to be a gateway for the evolution of your species or as the symbol of a divine incarnation. Either way, these targets will eventually rip one of your arms off, then we’ll see how your opinion of artificiality changes.”
“That’s hilarious...”
“I wasn’t programmed for humor.”
When the hooded man turned back and scanned the area, Arkane knew that he was marked on his visual database. “How many spybots are up?”
“Four.”
“The suspect got me on his scan. With this kind of prey, put up six.”
“The limit is five spybots per agent before requiring Upper Division clearance. The law is the law.”
Kyle watched the target disappear down an alleyway. “Where are they?”
“Above you, set twenty to fifty meters in surveillance formation. They will be accessible shortly. Can I ask you something?”
He looked into his DeluxeVision binoculars again until relay-fuzz become a focused image from a spybot hovering between highrises. “So you were programmed for manners.”
“Special Police Artificial Intelligence Model six-point-one will assist.”
“Ask me anything, and ignore me when you can’t respond.”
“How do you know how someone will react before they do?”
“Instinct,” said Kyle. “It isn’t complicated.”
“Then why didn’t my creators construct one for me?”
“Because it’s unnecessary programming for an Assistant.”
“Your voice changed, you’re lying.”
“That’s a good trick, can you tell me why I’m lying?” He typed on a small keypad on the wrist-monitor strapped to his inner forearm. “I’m blind out here, check the A-Fid. These spybots are old models, note that in your report. I can hear their motors during traffic gaps.”
“Now uploading Ambient Frequency Identification. Do you request a second satellite confirmation?”
Arkane checked his DVs and saw a three-dimensional layout of the entire block. The alley where the target disappeared was hazy with interference and faint outlines. “The Engineer is blocking us. That’s enough for the Feds to arrest him, regardless of whatever cybernetics he’s developing.”
“He stays mobile with armored guards. Do you think you blend into the Flesh Scene?”
Arkane watched the nightclubs from the opposite corner. “Not with a psychologically documented aversion to synthetics.”
“And yet you’re undercover, should I put that in the report as well?”
“It was once a question of philosophy if a robot could act beyond its design.”
“You keep it from us, like your instincts. Humans want to remain unique.”
“And so we do this with our free will, a little compassion in all the perversion.” He saw a restaurant advertising free First World Government funded bioengineered food, which also acted as a hospice for people whose outdated cranial implants had left them as junkyard scrap. In the middle of society, it was buried among Skin Shops selling sanitized and custom-built anatomical androids made for sex.
“If you witness infractions to decency laws, you’re obligated to report them to Vice.”
“The law is the law,” Arkane mocked the AI’s mantra. “The Concubine droids look so real, in their orgies it’s difficult to tell when humans are directly engaged with each other. Luxury does little but distort a free will.”
“And you wouldn’t want your sex-slaves to have a soul. People need a little chaos.”
“Who said that?”
“You did, three hundred and eighty-seven days ago. You said that even intellectual labor requires a destructive stress release. Maybe it was your instinct.”
“Instinct to what?”
“Explain human mistakes. Too much free will is regressive, following your impulses turns you back into animals.”
Kyle’s adrenaline lifted at the sight of the target without his briefcase as he walked from the alleyway. “He’s in the open, that didn’t take long. Initiating ERI, let’s see what the suspect modified.”
“Should I request backup?”
“Keep the transmission to the Feds limited to pre-designated spybots and put the fifth over the target’s vehicle.” He looked through his DVs and checked the criminal’s implants. The readout listed what standard limitations had been removed by the Engineer.
“You must identify yourself before arresting him. The law is –”
“How they keep using civilization against us,” Kyle said as he crossed the blacktop and pulled his silver badge. “Special Police Robotics Division, put your hands in the air!”
The target heard the announcement and pulled off his trenchcoat with his knee-joints resounding from an updated pneumatic equalizer. The biomech with extensive second-use implants made little effort to maintain a human appearance. The red lenses of his eyes reflected the flashing lights of the Flesh Scene before he jumped off a parked car and launched himself onto the ledge of a nearby building.
“And there he goes,” Arkane said calmly. He noticed someone watching him from the corner, and through his DVs he saw a stoic figure change position to avoid detection. “Target is being tracked. He’s on the 405C heading north to Santa Monica.” Kyle hurried to a thick pillar beneath the elevated freeway, where a small keypad asked for his clearance. The voice recognition software attained his identity through Special Police data files and the hydraulic hatch whee
zed open. He climbed the internal ladder while swimming in the vibrations of the traffic. “Did you run the target’s anatomical signature when he removed his hood?”
“He’s had a lot of work done, but I’m scanning the database.”
“Call the emergency service of the 405 el-roads,” said Arkane.
“What does your instinct tell you?”
“The suspect might create a diversion by instigating a traffic accident.”
“Standard ESC should help avoid casualties.”
At the top of the ladder, Kyle opened the maintenance door to the lowest tier freeway. Cars raced by on magnetic levitation at speeds made possible by the aid of intelligence chips, traveling a few inches off the ground and staying so close together that automation was necessary to avoid human error. While the lack of friction left their gliding electric engines as an audible moan, he followed the central divider. “I see the spybots, but where’s the target?”
“Check your mini-map, the criminal codex is being accessed.”
“Has the Skyride deployed yet?”
Across the busy lanes and a gap to the next platform road, he saw the target near reinforcement columns of a construction zone. As the spybots above were keeping their distance from safety lasers to avoid mixed frequency static, the suspect ran into traffic on the adjacent freeway. MagLev traction inhibitors disengaged in the oncoming cars, digging their magnetic rails into the ground to allay the damage of an accident by drastically cutting speed.
When their metal frames hit the concrete and sparked, lasers were triggered that set off flares into the sky to alert the pilots of flying emergency vehicles. Kyle pulled up the collar of his havoc-suit to cover his nose and mouth, then he tapped the initiator on his wrist-monitor and his OmniField chameleon projector initiated. After his outline faded and he was barely visible on the average spectrum, he held his breath and looked for an opening.
While timing his run from lane to lane with the conformity of oblivious drivers, the impact of an accident echoed with breaking glass. Across the freeway, the suspect had been hit and a line of cars screeched to a stop, sequestered by magnets that regulated safety instructions. Traffic was automatically diverted with mandatory speed limits, and an army of tiny swarmbots were deployed from the roadside to clean up dangerous debris.
“The target’s identity is confirmed as Jordan Kepp. He robs armored cars in transit and is the primary reason they now fly decoys for their shipments.”
Kyle reached the gap and checked his DVs. “Just tell me where he’s going. Calculate his movement and formulate a few variables based on his current position.”
* * * * *
Kepp ran across rooftops near Venice Beach. The metropolis was stacked to the shoreline and apartments vying for the ocean were covered in colorful advertising on sparkling billboards. By creating desire without idolizing the object, products were being pushed through commercialism by using vivid lightwaves to attract beyond materialism and gimmicks such as beautiful women, especially after eugenics made them commonplace.
Casting a break in the stream of dancing lights, the mechanical criminal took refuge in the sensory distraction that hid him from civilians. As rain touched the servos in his damaged shoulder, he pushed the exposed wires below the metal casing. With eyes replaced by outdated optics, the circular lenses protruded with a dull red tint and his spiked yellow hair appeared to be fashioned out of ceramics, like the rest of his misshapen bone structure.
From the corner of his vision, water fell around an indistinct outline before Kyle lowered his OmniField mask. “I announced myself before,” he told the suspect. “The charges are mounting for your arrest.”
Through his earpiece, the AI restated protocol. “Standard submission techniques allow the use of your glove. The Hammer is designed to overload circuits with a burst of electricity.”
When the suspect tilted his head to the noise, Arkane said, “If you heard that, you must have other illegal upgrades.”
Kepp looked for an exit. “How did you follow me?”
“I’m good at my job.”
“You’re about to become separated at the waist if you don’t get out of my way.”
He reached for his gun, but despite the target’s unnatural speed, Kyle covered the distance between them and punched him in the chest. Silver circles on his knuckles released a charge stored within the wrist-monitor on his forearm and locked the criminal in position. When the temporary phase passed, his paralyzation quickly subsided and he unleashing a barrage of automatic fire that shattered the billboard’s multi-reflector bulbs.
Luckily Kyle’s OmniField initiated in time and Kepp failed to see the cop dangling from the ledge beneath him. After the suspect was gone, his earpiece clicked, “He was scanned for weapons –”
“Possession of an untraceable firearm,” he said as he pulled himself up and sat beneath the blinking lights. “Add to your report that he acquired it through the Engineer, and include that the Hammer failed to subdue him.”
“Maybe the rain dampened its function. There’s a safety mechanism to protect the user from electrocution.”
“So much for standard techniques of submission.”
“I’ve received orders for you to return to headquarters.”
“I can still catch him.”
“Legal Authority Mandate four-oh-four dictates an order be followed or else an agent might face criminal charges. Your case has been terminated, return to the Skyride Medics and deliver a message to Rowan Merrick. You’ll be bringing him to headquarters with you.”
“You want me to detain a civilian?”
“No, you’ve been ordered to recruit a healer.”
* * * * *
Arkane cleaned out his locker and said goodbye to his coworkers. The Captain was glad to see him going into a job where the system wouldn’t keep his talents chained, since criminals had enough legal help without the IAD starting special inquests to classify the rare genosapien in their ranks. After Kyle joined Odin and an exhausted Rowan in the parking garage, they climbed into the back of an armored vehicle.
“The Strike Team is being assembled,” the Director said as the van started towards their destination. “I should tell you why I’m getting this auxiliary force together.”
Rowan seemed stressed about the responsibilities of his new position. “You need backup, you don’t have to explain why another team would be kept as a secondary unit.”
Scientific advancements made it easy to stabilize and repair the victims of accidents throughout Los Angeles. As a Skyride Medic, his supernatural ability to heal people made the job even less taxing, since people rarely succumbed to their injuries. Merrick knew that dealing with wartime wounded was a completely different kind of violence, however, and survival rates for the OIS were absurd.
They were always handling the most vicious and most capable international criminals, and because the damage inflicted was intentional, their missions had to be kept secret from the public. With a war in Asia, everyone was waiting for an escalation of tension that the First World Government could not contain. Since its creation, altruistic scientists had maintained Anti-Christ Inhibitors on satellites that located radiation waves and used superheated streams of electrons to dismantle the world’s arsenal of nuclear weapons. This began in the first decade of the twenty-second century, but public complacency still hadn’t settled.
“Actually I was approached by an agent of Diplomatic Security,” Odin revealed. “And I thought it was better to be prepared than to scoff at superstition. Once I saw Kyle in action, I started to believe her.”
“What’s the superstition?” asked Rowan.
“She’s clairvoyant. I decided to meet with her after she saved three dignitaries by foreseeing the assassination attempts on their lives.”
Kyle didn’t seem surprised. “We’re not going to like this, are we?”
“She wouldn’t tell me what she saw, but sh
e told me specifically to gather a group of non-biomechs for an upcoming conflict. To my knowledge I had never seen a genosapien before, though you two weren’t so difficult to find.”
“Our success rates are abnormal,” Merrick guessed.
“That’s right,” said the Director. “As a hunter and a healer.”
“I’m going back to my job afterwards,” Rowan declared. “If I wanted your career, I’d have joined the Deep Sea Miners. You have about the same life expectancy.”
“As I assured you before,” Odin continued. “You’ll never come into direct contact with the enemy, and most of the auxiliary unit will be taking a backseat. Our Strike Team will make a show of force to preoccupy the Africa Corps while tracers are placed on their vehicles. If all goes well during the extraction of the Engineer, we’ll be able to follow them back to the Prototype.”
“How much of the Strike Team is artificial?” asked Kyle.
“Their enhancements are legally tuned, aside from justifiable modifications which have FWG approval under these special conditions. For Eperiam Townsend to travel as often as he does, it would be impossible for him to keep adequate security without drawing unnecessary attention.”
Arkane looked out the window and saw the light blue sky glistening off the glass shell towers of the Business District. “You’re assuming that he dilutes inhibitors and re-routes implanted slave-circuitry to be what, an anarchist? If he hates the FWG so much, he would probably work for the Africa Corps without coercion, unless he’s greedy. I watched Jordan Kepp take a briefcase full of money to him.”
The Director frowned. “And have you seen his average clientele?”
“Those files are restricted.”
“Not to me, but there are still blanks in profiles that lack viable leads and the collective case is considered a purgatory investigation. Without key elements it will likely go unsolved. We have to find out what network of business associates is running the Africa Corps, no one believes that Commander John Lothian is anything more than a tactical leader.”
Rowan scoffed. “You think a MegaCorporation might be funding a revolution against the Chinese Government? You’ve been doing this for too long.”
“It’s why the OIS was created,” said Odin. “As a balance to potential infractions of international law. We all know that unrestrained capitalism contains the seeds of its own destruction.”