The Beam: Season Two (56 page)

Mason spun, a tablet in his hands.
 

“Captain Long!” He sounded caught, as if what Dominic had found both hands full of was his dick. “I’ve been trying to reach you!”

“I know that, asshole. My mobile is clogged with your fucking mail. What, I can’t leave the station? I’m the only one here who can make decisions?”
 

“We’ve been proceeding as well as we can, sir. I was just trying to keep you updated, as you asked me to do when you left. You said, ‘Danny, let me know if anything crazy happens and you need me.’ That was what you wanted me to do, sir.”
 

Dominic shook his head. “Noah Fucking West. Yes, but did you need to run to me with every little thing? I was…”
 

“Apologies, sir,” said Mason, keeping his eyes averted as if Dominic were the pope, “but these all seemed warranted. The big warehouse fire. FDDZ is still fighting that one, sir. Chemicals and stuff. Hazmat teams are on the job, and the fucking EPA is all up our ass about…”
 

“The EPA?”
 

“Because of the pollution, sir. Apparently, it’s noxious.”
 

“Idiots. What about the city filters? They’re double-thick with purifiers anywhere it’s zoned industrial. They fed the MSDSs of every chemical in the plants through the local Beam node when the factories opened, then update quarterly. The AI tells them what filters to put where and what kind to stock them with.”
 

“Yes, sir. But the EPA seems concerned about wind conditions in…”
 

“Wind?”
 

“Yes, sir. It’s blowing the cloud across the bridge. And that’s the other thing. There’s a bunch of protestors from some environmental group down by the river, all worked up over poisoned fish.”
 

“Who the fuck is eating fish from the Hudson?”
 

“They’re worried about the fish for the sake of the fish, sir. Not for eating.”
 

“Fucking hell. And why hasn’t anyone contacted Biofence about stopping the wind?”

“They’re backed up, sir. Apparently, there’s a rash of lattice-related issues today. They keep saying they’ll get to us.”
 

“What the hell is the EPA doing?”
 

“Checking filters, sir.”
 

“Because they know better than AI? Noah Fucking West. Don’t these people know their business? You can’t walk through this city without inhaling a hundred bots the fucking EPA put on the wind to follow the breezes. The filters along the wind’s path will light up. It’s not a problem.”
 

“I know, sir, but we’re still being inundated with requests for permits…”
 

“Permits?
We’re the fucking police!”

Mason’s face was beginning to flush with the effort of talking so much. How this fat shit could run down criminals, Dominic had no idea.

“No, the permits from the factories. That’s what they want.”
 

“Why? Search the fucking Beam!”
 

“That’s what I said. But they keep yammering on and on about something I can’t get because I’m worried about the assholes asking for more permits, about the riots…”
 

“Rioters don’t have permits!”
 

“Apparently, one of them started as a demonstration? I forget which one. Anyway, there’s a civil rights lawyer in your office about that, and…”

“You let someone into my office?”
 

Mason waved his hands in a gesture of negation. “No, no, no…outside your office. He says he needs to speak with you immediately about police action on-scene at the Flatiron riot, and…”
 

“What does police action have to do with permits?”
 

“Sorry, sir. This isn’t the permits thing. That’s another issue. The lawyer is here about the Flatiron riots. I sent you mail about it, if you just want to…”
 

“Just fucking tell me!”
 

“Oh yes, sir; sorry, sir, the Flatiron riot, sir. The one with the kids? See, there were these kids on their way back from a museum trip, and they got caught in the middle of a…”
 

“Okay, I know about that one.”
 

“I sent you mail, sir.”
 

“I know.”
 

“All the details you need.”
 

“I know, Mason,” Dominic said, trying to hold his temper. “And what about this lawyer?”
 

“Oh. Apparently, the NAUCLU is arguing that the use of nano swarms by the riot police was excessive and is asking for action against…”
 

“Motherfucker.”
 

“Yes, sir. But he’s claiming that the keepers should have…”
 

“Motherfucker!”
Dominic yelled. He pushed past Mason, knocking him against a desk, shaking a terminal screen on its foundation. He’d seen that motherfucker Omar right fucking there, and yes, there he was now,
right
fucking in the middle of the fucking police station, walking right the fuck across the floor like he was fucking king of the fucking…
 

But when Dominic reached the spot where he’d seen Omar, the man vanished. Dominic stopped so short that Mason, who’d pursued him across the crowded room, rammed him from behind.

“What the hell?” said Dominic.
 

“Oh, that’s another thing, sir,” said Mason, nodding toward the corner. “Quark is helping. Sorting some of the conflicting data.”
 

Dominic looked toward where he’d seen Omar, now realizing that the man had been walking in place. The station’s corner had been converted into a tidy section of Quark, complete with a holopad and — Dominic wanted to groan — the same two Quark PD officers who had done such a fantastic good cop/bad cop job of interrogating Leah a few weeks ago. They were sitting behind a desk like celebrities at a signing. The desk itself was an insult. It was ten times shinier and brighter than any of DZPD’s analog furniture, its surface lit with Beam data. The two officers (clerics, if Leah was right) were scrolling through screens faster than any human normally could, and still Dominic knew they were only doing their little search display for the benefit of the officers clustered around holding tablets. Quark and its AI could operate at the speed of light. They were only slowing down to speak with humans, while their fancy life-size holopad projected top priorities in full 3-D behind them in a loop. The Omar hologram Dominic had seen was just one segment from maybe a dozen in the rotation. Others included riot footage, the warehouse fire, and several violent scenes Dominic couldn’t place.

“Who let them set up here?” Dominic asked.
 

“Gregor, sir.”
 

“Gregor can’t authorize Quark coming into our part of the station.” Dominic felt his blood as it rolled to a boil. Chaos in the station was one thing and his pressure to solve the moondust situation was worse, but the presence of Quark police here was an insult beyond measure. They were posturing. There was no need for QPD to set up in Dominic’s space; they had half of the fucking building already.
 

“We couldn’t reach you, sir, and they offered to help.”
 

“I was off-grid. I couldn’t get a signal.”
 

“Well, anyway, our biggest problem hasn’t been the incidents themselves. The problem is coordination and deployment. Things happened in a rapid-fire chain in your absence. For a while, we’d move officers in one direction just to have something else erupt from their prior location. Then the question became: Did it make more sense to dispatch more cars from here or to shift men and women in the field already? Were older events winding down or not? How many officers should we leave at each location, if any? With so much happening all at once like a wildfire, it was tricky to coordinate it all and…” He gave Dominic a sheepish look. “Well, they have such better machines, sir.”
 

“They
are
machines!”
 

He’d screamed too loud. The clerics looked over, fixing Dominic with blank stares.
 

“Okay, okay,” Dominic said, trying to make sense of it all, thinking of what the Noah personality in Quark’s annoying diagnostic hallway would say about his blood pressure now. “Why are they in our part of the station?” He looked at the holopad, again catching a fully rendered Omar. Why was Omar on the best-of reel? Didn’t Quark get the memo that he had ratted out a bigger fish to save his own neck? And didn’t Quark know that that same bigger fish was staring at their stupid hologram now?

“It was mainly for access, sir,” said Mason, moving to put his bulk back against Dominic’s side. The buttons on his uniform shirt were straining, as if desperate to escape. “Our people kept going in to Quark to talk, deliver them information, or whatever. The hallway was slowing them down and holding things up. So they came here.”
 

“And set up like celebrities. With their flashy but unnecessary shit, to turn our people’s heads and wow them.”
 

“Sir?”
 

“Never mind,” Dominic said. “Are they helping?”
 

“Oh, of course. Models of efficiency. I’ve gotta tell you, it’s making a lot of the guys here re-think their opinions about Quark PD. Maybe they really
can
be partners. We’d never be able to handle all that’s happened without them.”
 

“Maybe they could handle it on their own,” Dominic said. “Without us.”
 

“Sure, maybe!” said Mason.
 

Dominic looked at Mason with loathing. But before he could launch an assault, the handheld buzzed in his pocket. Dominic looked down and saw with no surprise that at this infuriating moment, the call was coming from Omar. He declined it, letting the handheld fall back into his pocket.
 

“Fine. Fine,” Dominic said.
 

“Oh, and you got a holo from someone at NPS.”
 

“What about?”
 

Mason looked shocked. “I don’t know, sir. It was private. We just noticed the ping. I wanted to make sure you unbuffered it so you didn’t miss the notification, what with all the chaos.”
 

“Oh. Sure.”
 

“In your office, sir.” He pointed. Dominic knew where his fucking office was and wanted to tell Mason as much but stopped himself. It wasn’t common for DZPD to hear from NPS, and Mason, if Dominic had to guess, was equally awed and nervous. It was as if Mason thought he might be lashed if Dominic missed his message.
 

“Sure. Okay.”

He walked away without saying more and entered his office foyer. The NAUCLU lawyer stood to greet him, his manner important and bustling, but Dominic ignored him, entered his office, then closed the door. He pushed a button to black out the windows then took a long moment to enjoy the soundproofed silence. It would be tempting to stay in his office forever. He could stare at the blacked-out windows, seeing nothing. He could sit behind the soundproofed glass, hearing nothing. Just another peaceful day at the station.
 

With a glance to make sure the room was secure, Dominic moved his hand toward his canvas — the terminal that looked like a kid’s toy compared to what Quark PD had brought to show off. A
poor
kid’s toy.
 

Before he could bring up the NPS message, Dominic’s handheld buzzed. Omar again. Dom declined the call, and the screen flashed with a large picture of Omar’s middle finger. Dominic ignored it.
 

“Canvas, bring up the buffered holo message from NAU Protective Services. Give me A/V, no holography. Read me the identifier.”
 

The canvas said, “Message is from Smith, Austin, NPS badge number 417884. Received today, 2:14 p.m.”
 

“Play it.”

The holo played. Dominic watched on his dedicated terminal. It was intended as a hologram, but Dom knew just how pathetic the station’s projectors would make it look. Besides, watching on the screen was suitably masochistic. He could watch Austin’s image on his small screen and torture himself by thinking about how every person in the city above the line would be able to watch a similar message on a proper Beam surface. Everyone but the cops. And really, why should the cops get budget appropriations? The people had Quark to protect them.
 

The hologram ended. Dominic fished into his pocket, where the vial with the nano bug had been stored until he’d rubbed the microscopic dust under Leo’s table.

“Yes, fucker,” Dominic told the frozen image of Austin at the end of the message. “I planted your fucking bug, thus proving I’m on nobody’s side.”
 

He let his head hang. He still had dust to steal.
 

Things would definitely get worse before they got better.

Chapter 4

Sam had downed two double-quad hypercaffeine lattes (nonfat, no foam) between finishing with n33t and deciding that there was no further point in sitting at Starbucks and wearing a target.