Synthetica (10 page)

“
-
respect whatsoever. That's what happens in these deadbeat areas –
both parents work all day, their children are allowed to run riot
and are brought up with no respect for the law. It's disgraceful -”
Nox's voice was loud and thick with contempt.

“
She's
just a kid, Quentin,” Officer Hughes' voice was low and soothing.
“And you weren't being entirely reasonable yourself. What was with
the third degree back there?”

Nox snorted.

“
Come
on,” he said scathingly. “She's found in a pool of blood, with
two men dying at her feet, and she just
happened
to stumble on the whole scene? Something doesn't add up there.”

“
You
might be right about something not adding up, but that doesn't mean
she's involved. You've seen the evidence – it was Grayson's DNA on
the brick, not hers,” Officer Hughes said, a little more
forcefully. Nox sniffed, unconvinced.

“
Besides,”
Hughes continued. “You realise that this crime is almost exactly
the same as the Anderson murder? This is the second case now where
both the victim and the murderer have ended up dead. Now, I don't
think that's coincidence either, but that does
not
mean we start threatening teenage girls – is that understood?”

Anais
felt a glow of smugness at the way Hughes' was standing up for her.
Served Nox right, the arrogant, jumped up -

“
Fine,”
Nox said in his sneering tones. “Whatever. Can we just let the
brat go now, please?”

Horrified, Anais heard their footsteps rapidly approaching the
door. She flew across the room and sat heavily back down in her
chair, just as the door slid open and the pair walked back in. She
adopted a look of vague boredom, as though she'd been sat there the
whole time. Nox narrowed his eyes at her suspiciously.

“
Anais,”
Officer Hughes said, and Anais looked round at her. “You're free
to go. I'll escort you out of the building.”

She stood to one side, gesturing through the door. Anais stood up
and walked towards them, keeping her head held high. She
deliberately ignored Nox's stare, well aware of his eyes boring into
her as she passed. Officer Hughes followed her out, and slid the
door shut, leaving Nox alone in the interview room.

Officer Hughes led the way down a long, brightly lit corridor. They
passed pale grey doors, each with a small screen outside it, which
informed passers-by of who was being held in the room and for what
purpose. At this time of night, many of them were blank.

They were almost at the end of the corridor, when Anais decided to
speak.

“
So,
what will happen now?” she asked, aware of how loud her voice
sounded in the empty corridor. “With the case?”

“
We'll
investigate every option fully,” Officer Hughes replied
professionally.

“
But
if the murderers are dead, does that mean that you think there's
someone else involved in these attacks?” Anais pressed. Officer
Hughes turned to look at her.

“
Attacks?”
She raised an eyebrow. Anais realised her mistake a second too late.

“
Oh,”
she said, flummoxed. “Well, I was just thinking before – this
murder, it's very much like the one that was on the HV this morning
– you know, the guy who was found in the river. What was his name?
Anderson?”

Officer Hughes looked at her suspiciously, and Anais did her best
to look innocent. Hughes sighed.

“
You're
very perceptive,” she told Anais, who immediately felt guilty at
the deception. “But I'm afraid that's classified information. I
can't discuss it with you.”

They reached a set of double doors, and pushed through. On the
other side was a reception area, where several people sat waiting to
be seen. A woman was attempting to sign in and report a crime using
the self-service station, which was bleeping at her. A pair of night
securi-bots were stationed by the door, their matt black bodies
hovering in the air, while their bright blue sensors scanned the
nearby area every ten seconds.

“
Would
you like me to arrange an escort home for you?” Officer Hughes
asked, as Anais stepped through the doors.

“
Oh,”
Although it was late and she was tired, she imagined the scene it
would cause if she pulled up outside the flat in a police cab and
decided against it. “No thanks. I'll take a train.”

Officer Hughes nodded.

“
Thanks
anyway,” Anais said, turning to go.

“
Anais.”

Anais turned back at the sound of Officer Hughes' voice. She was
looking at Anais strangely – almost with pity - though for what,
Anais couldn't say.

“
Stay
safe out there,” Officer Hughes said quietly. And before Anais
could ask her what she meant, she flashed her a small smile, and was
gone.

*

The wind had turned distinctly colder.

Anais shivered and pulled her jacket tighter around herself. It was
fully dark and the round moon shone brightly, illuminating
everything it touched in it's frosty light. Her RetCom clock
informed her it was now after half past nine. She squinted up at a
road sign, which pointed her in the direction of the nearest train
station. She hurried down the street and round the corner towards
the station. There was no way after tonight's fiasco that she would
even consider walking home. It would take her a good couple of hours
from where she was, and she had no desire to be on her own again –
instead what she craved was light and people rushing by; anything to
distract her from the dark thoughts that were now flying around her
brain. Plus, it was almost curfew.

Unfortunately, it turned out that this particular station closed at
half past nine on the dot. Being so close to the city centre meant
that it closed earlier than the stations further out in the suburbs.
She swore under her breath and began to call for an auto-cab,
suddenly realising that her RetCom was now fully functional again.
The auto-cab symbol flashed in her vision, informing her that she'd
been connected.

“
Auto-cab
service,” came the smooth voice in her head.

“
Requesting
pick up from...” she squinted up at the station sign. “...Hammond
station. One passenger.”

“
Destination?”
came the detached voice.

“
Newhaven,”
said Anais, shivering as a gust of wind blew past.

“
Thank
you,” the voice was silent for a few seconds. “Your estimated
pick up time is two minutes. Have a good night.”

The call disconnected and Anais' vision cleared.

She sat down on the station steps to wait, wondering whether to
message her parent, Dalla or Xander about her ordeal. But she
decided against it – it wasn't the kind of thing she felt she
could say over a simple message, and her parents and Xander would
freak out if they knew what had happened. She decided she'd tell
them all in the morning.

A minute later, the auto-cab glided up to the station. It's bright
lights flashed over Anais as it pulled to a stop, reminding her
uncomfortably of the police hovercraft searchlight. As she climbed
in, she thought she sensed the tiniest tingle over her ID chip, as
the cab's scanner read her ID information, which would inform it
whereabouts in Newhaven to drop her off. It would also use her ID to
deduct the right amount of credits for the ride from her bank
account.

Anais leant back in her seat, staring out at the lit-up city as the
cab glided along. She could see the Civitas building in the
distance, illuminated from the bottom up. A little further along the
river, the Golden Dome shimmered silver in the moonlight and as they
passed over the bridge, Anais could just make out the floodlit mass
that made up the People's Outdoor Stadium. She tried to concentrate
on the soft light that seemed to come from every building and every
street, but even the gentle nighttime scenery couldn't take her mind
off what had happened.

She blinked, and all she could see was blood dripping in slow
motion from the brick that was held aloft, hear the sickening, awful
sound of brick hitting bone that had already been hit far too many
times. The man's last terrible gargling noise. The way his eyes had
bulged open, terrified, before going dim.

With
a jolt, she snapped her eyes open, unaware that she'd closed them.
Don't
think about it, don't think about it, don't think about it
,
she intoned to herself, trying hard to keep her breathing even. But
it was no use – her thoughts kept returning to the scene of the
crime; only this time, she remembered the attacker's (Grayson, did
Officer Hughes call him?) eyes. Why were they so blank? What could
you do to a person so that they were unaware of their own
surroundings? Drugs? Somehow, Anais didn't think so – his
movements had been too calculated, too precise for him to have been
drugged. Alcohol? Again – although he'd been committing murder, it
was too controlled to have been the result of one too many whiskies.
Mind control? But how, Anais mused, how could you just take over
someone's thoughts and actions like that? Or, she realised with a
sick feeling in her stomach, it was also entirely likely the man had
simply been a psychopath, and he had just collapsed at the opportune
moment. It wasn't the worst explanation she could think of, and yet,
Anais didn't think it likely.

The cab came to a smooth stop, right outside Anais' block of flats.
She got out and walked quickly up to the front door, wanting to get
inside to the safety of her own bedroom as soon as possible. As she
hurried up the path, she felt a certain sense of relief to see that
all of the lights were already off. Her father would've left for the
night shift hours ago, and her mother always went to bed early.

She punched in the code for the front door. It clicked open and she
crept inside the dark living room, closing the door quickly behind
her. She froze for a long moment, waiting for some sign that her
mother was going to come rushing out and berate her for cutting it
so close to curfew. When there was no movement, Anais tiptoed down
the hallway. Her parent's bedroom door was ajar, and she could hear
her mother's snoring coming from within. She carried on down the
hall until she got to her own bedroom, and she slipped inside,
shutting the door gently behind her.

She breathed a sigh of relief. She was home. She was safe. No one
could get to her here.

Anais switched on her bedside light and began to undress, wincing
as she felt the dampness on the lower half of her jeans, and trying
not to think too hard about what it was. She pulled off the rest of
her clothes as quickly as she could and got into her pyjamas. She
stared blankly at the pile of dirty, bloodied clothes on the floor
and made a snap decision. She scooped them all up, minus her leather
jacket, crept back out of her bedroom and down the hall to the
kitchen. She grabbed a recycling bag from the cupboard and stuffed
the clothes in, before tying up the top as tightly as she could.

Anais opened up the front door once more, and went back outside
into the cold. Wanting to spend as little time as possible out in
the dark, she ran barefooted down to the large recycling containers
that serviced the whole block of flats. She threw the bag into the
nearest one, listening to the mechanical grinding noise as it began
to take apart the different components and sending them off to the
right compartments beneath the city streets to be recycled. At that
moment, something made Anais glance up at the moon, bathing the city
in it's cold, ghostly light. And, for reasons that had nothing to do
with the wind, Anais shivered.

He knew they were stupid. He just never realised exactly how
stupid they could be.

It was a brilliantly simple plan, and all it depended on was
these despicable creatures thirst for technology, their insatiable
appetite for the latest trends. If anyone actually stopped and used
their pretty little head to actually think for a moment, the game
would be over in a heartbeat. But so far, so good. And he was glad.
He was having far too much fun to stop playing this particular game
anytime soon.

It helped, of course, that the software erased itself from the
victim's ID picochip when they died so it couldn't be traced back to
him. He wasn't going to deny it, it was a stroke of brilliance.

He hummed to himself as he checked the latest diagnostics. But
his fingers froze above the keyboard, as his eyes skimmed the text
on screen. He refreshed the screen, but it stayed resolutely the
same. According to this information, no new SLPs had gone online in
the last twenty four hours.

White
hot fury flared up inside him. His contact had promised – he'd
promised
– that he'd have no issues in selling the stock. And yet,
according to this data, he'd only sold three. Three SLPs in three
fucking days. It wasn't good enough. It fell woefully below the
expected target that he'd been set. And if there was one thing he
couldn't stand, it was inadequacy.

Daylight was filtering through the thin curtains that were drawn
across the grimy windows, but he didn't know how long it had been
daylight for; he'd been too absorbed in fine tuning some of his
other technology. He didn't care what time it was. Denzel owed him
an explanation. He stood up abruptly, upsetting his desk chair, but
his eye was caught by the glint of silver. He stopped and grabbed
the small box of altered picochips, snapping the lid shut. He pulled
his mask up around the lower half of his face and, clutching the
precious box tightly, headed out of the door.