The Ghost in the Doll (Fox Meridian Book 6) (8 page)

‘Of course, Fox. Is that a problem? If you were given them–’

‘That’s the point. That’s a military inventory code. They were
only
used by the army, and they were superseded by the twenty-three three years after I joined up. They don’t make the LWE twenty-two bioframework any more. So how, exactly, did Celia Partridge get fitted with a pair?’

~~~

Fox walked into Sandy and Drew’s shop at a fast walk. Her urgency drew attention immediately and both proprietors met her in the middle of the shop.

‘You look… determined about something,’ Drew said.

‘Can you get a message to Cable?’ Fox asked.

‘Uh, yeah, sure. I mean, I can call him on teleconference. They have internet access down there.’

‘Yes, I know. Tell him I’m coming down there. I’m going to look into those missing persons.’

‘You are? I thought–’

‘Things change. I think someone’s killing people to harvest cybernetics and biomods.’

‘Harvest…’ Sandy trailed off. ‘That’s crazy.’

‘Maybe, but I found evidence of an old military biomod being implanted into someone recently. They don’t make them any more and they were never supplied to the civilian market. The only way they could get put into someone now is–’

‘If they were taken out of an old soldier,’ Drew said.

‘Right. Look… I’m sorry I didn’t go down there earlier. I was… Never mind, but at least I have more information to work with now. I know what I’m looking for. Tell Cable I’ll be arriving tomorrow evening. I have a couple of things to take care of before I can leave.’

‘Okay. I’ll call him tonight.’

‘Great. And while I’m here, I’m going to need a few things…’

~~~

‘What do you think?’ Fox asked, her grin hidden behind a black scarf with a red skull printed on it which covered the lower part of her face.

‘I… think…’ Andrea began.

‘That it looks oddly practical?’ Jonathan said, frowning. ‘I mean, it’s entirely
im
practical, but it’s weirdly… not.’

He had a point. The bodice Fox had bought was a sort of halter top held across her chest by a pair of buckled straps, not much there, but it was in quite supple leather, comfortable to wear. The back, however, had a broad panel of leather tethered to the bra and belted around Fox’s waist; it had the advantage of stopping spray from the Q-bug’s wheels hitting too much skin. Hand-sewn leather shorts, fingerless gloves, a wide belt with chain detailing, and some quite sturdy boots completed the outfit.

Still grinning, Fox pulled down her scarf-mask and did a slow turn.

‘I think I’ll have to pay more attention to the clothes in that shop,’ Andrea decided. ‘I’ve never tried the dustbowler look. Might be fun and I love that belt. You’re absolutely sure you need to go down there?’

‘I’m sure that, if I’m going to accuse a respected local surgeon of malpractice, I need some solid evidence. I think that I can get it down Tulsa way.’

‘It’s dangerous– I’m being silly. You’re probably more capable of handling things down there than you were, and you did just fine when you were looking for Sandy Bateson.’

Fox nodded. ‘Yes, but you have a point. I’m not doing this lightly and I’m taking precautions. The environment down there is no problem. Hell, I don’t need
any
water now. But I do need power and that could be a problem. I’m pretty sure Cable can hook me up, no pun intended, and there’s a small MarTech site in Tulsa, so I should be fine. And I have a few toys coming in tomorrow to make sure I can handle any local threats.’

‘Toys?’ Jonathan asked.

‘Guns. I promise I’ll bring them home to show you.’

‘There is one threat to be considered which you cannot handle,’ Kit said, appearing beside them. ‘Local weather radar is detecting potential tornado conditions south-west of the city.’

‘Ah,’ Jonathan said. ‘Fox, would you mind going over to Bart’s place and checking that he’s heard? Then we’ll close down the shutters and retreat to the cellar. It’ll probably stay clear, but better safe than sorry.’

Fox nodded. ‘Sure. Bart’ll probably
love
the outfit anyway.’

~~~

The storm cellar under the house was kind of nice. The reinforced walls were painted and the furniture was not quite up to the standard of the lounge, but it was comfortable. It also had power, so long as the house did, so Fox was sitting on the floor with a portable charging belt strapped around her hips.

‘It’s not exactly necessary,’ she said as she settled down, ‘but I’d rather not end up low on charge if something
does
hit the house.’

‘What about sleep?’ Andrea asked. ‘We probably won’t be down here all night, but…’

‘It’s not exactly sleep, more like… memory reconciliation. I can do without it, just like you can. Terri says I’d get slower. My short-term memory is optimised for fast recording as much as recall, so the more there is in it, the harder it is to get something out. I react a little slower the longer I go without.’

‘Are we actually getting any touchdowns?’ Jonathan asked.

‘Yes,’ Kit replied. She was sitting beside Fox because it seemed polite. ‘There has been a single tornado so far, approximately fifteen kilometres south-west of the city limits, but there is another forming and that one is closer.’

‘What’s the forecast for the next few days like?’

‘Cooler temperatures in Topeka should significantly reduce the danger here, but Tulsa is likely to remain on alert for the remainder of the week.’

Fox sighed. ‘Well, I was taught what to look for. Shouldn’t be a problem unless something comes up
really
fast.’ She flashed a grin. ‘And if the worst happens, Cable’s camp has a storm refuge that makes this place look like a shed in the middle of a field.’

Tokyo, 4
^th
April.

Yuriko wiped at her face with a towel as she headed for her shower. She practised her aikijutsu kata three times a week, for an hour, before breakfast. It was a good way of keeping fit, which she supplemented with more conventional exercise on other days, and she had found that it gave her a chance to shut her mind off, giving greater focus when she started the working day.

Her working day began, though she did not think of it as such, as she stepped into the shower and initiated both the water and a display of her favourite local news channel. IB-787 had relatively little bias, and the numbers in its designator were considered lucky, if you believed in that sort of thing. Keeping up with local news also seemed like a useful activity for a detective, which Yuriko did not quite believe she was, but she was working on it.

This morning there was a report of lower fishing catches in the Sea of Japan, and of a failure in the traffic control system which had caused a snarl-up in Setagaya. Crime was on the rise in the Chiba Industrial Zone, but that was hardly news. Yuriko was about to cut the water off and switch to the blowers when something caught her attention.

‘The Niigata police are refusing to comment on the death of an unnamed man yesterday afternoon. Police were called to the man’s residence following reports that he had been attacked by one of his synthetic servants. Later reports have suggested that the attacker was one of Aphrodite Cybernetics’ “Ghost Doll” bioroids…’

Yuriko frowned and switched the shower to drying mode. No one had suggested investigating the Ghost Dolls; presumably it was assumed that BioTek had simply been beaten to the punch. However, Aphrodite Cybernetics had links to the Fukui-kai…

‘…bioroid was apparently shot and killed in the incident. Executives from Aphrodite Cybernetics were unavailable for comment.’

If a company not noted for their biotechnology work was able to create a bioroid, perhaps they had had help from someone. Perhaps that same person had provided them with the information needed to manufacture copied nanodrugs. Perhaps he was still there…

Still a little damp, Yuriko stepped out of the shower and found a short, kimono-style wrap to put on. It was late evening in New York, but she felt Helen-san would forgive her and she wished to discuss the possibility of staking out Aphrodite Cybernetics with her superior.

Topeka.

Fox had commandeered one of the interview rooms in the Palladium building to get her maintenance done. Technically, it meant that someone could be watching from the observation room, but she was fairly certain no one would be. No one had asked why she needed an engineer from New York to handle some routine maintenance either.

‘Sorry to drag you out here, Sonya,’ Fox said, tilting her head forward so that her very own personal technician could plug in a cable.

‘You know you don’t
need
this for almost another week?’ Sonya replied.

‘Uh-huh, but I’m going down into the Southern Protectorate, and I’m not entirely sure how long I’ll be there.’

‘Good enough excuse, I guess. Any problems?’

Fox considered that for a second. There had been one or two adjustments made since her skin had been added. Minor things which Sonya had handled with small tweaks in configuration. Sonya had turned up at Jenner a couple of days after the skinning process and Jackson had taken her through pretty much everything in and around Fox’s body. Despite her relative youth, she was a couple of years younger than Fox; Sonya was one of MarTech Technologies’ senior technicians and apparently some sort of mechanical genius. She was half French-Canadian, a petite sort of blue-eyed blonde with a penchant for pleated skirts and hoodies. Fox figured she was regretting the latter in the Topeka heat. Unlike Jason, she had not even a hint of a French accent.

‘No,’ Fox said. ‘No problems I can think of. This’ll be a good test though.’

‘You’ve got access to power down there?’

‘Should have. I’ll be near Tulsa if all else fails. Did you bring the stuff I asked for?’

‘Uh-huh. It’s all in the van. You planning on starting a war?’

‘No, I just want to be ready for one if it starts.’

Sonya chuckled. ‘Fair enough. Uh, have you tried out that fix I put in last time?’

Fox knew she was blushing. ‘Not extensively. It seemed like you’d solved the immediate problem.’

‘Good…’

‘Uh, next time I see my boyfriend, if he’s still my boyfriend, I’ll do a proper test.’ Sonya was smirking; Fox
knew
she was smirking. The problem had been some rather sensitive regions in Fox’s artificial vagina which had almost caused a seizure when Fox had ‘tested that everything was working.’

‘Okay… Good plan. Maybe you could… record it. You know, make a sensie. For diagnostic purposes, obviously.’

‘I am
not
letting you have virtual sex with my boyfriend. Aside from anything else, Jason’s from the RFQ as well. You’re probably cousins.’

‘That is
terrible
racial stereotyping. We’d be second cousins at worst. There is absolutely nothing wrong with you. Everything’s responding within design parameters.’

‘Great. Let’s see what you’ve got in the van then.’

Sonya unplugged her diagnostic unit from Fox’s neck. ‘More than you asked for, actually. Mister Martins asked me to bring the new pistols out for the staff here.’

‘The production versions are ready?’

‘I guess so. I’ve got pistols for everyone.’

~~~

‘So what’s so great about it?’ Jonathan asked, turning Fox’s new pistol over in his hands.

‘Ten-millimetre, electromagnetically launched micromissiles,’ Fox replied. ‘Jackson managed to get infrared homing into a ten-mil munition. I’ve been using the prototype for a while, but this is the production version, with all the kinks worked out and the bells and whistles added. Like the tactical light on the front there. That’s new.’

Compared to the blocky prototype, the new model
was
sleeker. It was built more like a large, conventional semi-automatic pistol with muzzle vents and an under-mounted tactical light/laser combination. The muzzle vents were, as far as Fox could tell, just a style choice.

‘So it’s a gyroc pistol with an electromagnetic launcher?’

‘Basically. It solves the problem of them being next to pointless at very short range. Most encounters in policing take place within ten metres, and a gyroc can’t get up to speed in that kind of distance. But, if you use a homing round, you can hit a moving target out to a thousand metres
and
deliver various different payloads.’

‘The gophers wouldn’t stand a chance,’ Jonathan said, grinning.

‘Ah…’ Fox turned to a large case she had brought with her. She flicked open the catches and opened the lid. ‘I’ve got your new gopher gun right here.’

In the case, set into packing foam, was a stubby rifle with a roughly triangular front cross-section, and a pair of pistol grips, one with a trigger. It was a bullpup design, with a fairly wide magazine set behind the rear grip. Fox lifted it out and offered it over with a grin on her face.

‘This is our new assault weapon. Over-and-under design with a four-mil gauss assault carbine mounted above a twenty-five-mil, electromagnetic grenade launcher.’ Fox lifted a grenade round out of the case and held it up. ‘I really want to get the chance to try one of these out, however. Optically guided minimissile with a SEFOP, that’s a smart, electromagnetically forged penetrator warhead. You can make it detonate
over
the target and then it chucks a superheated bolt of molten metal down at their heads.’

‘I thought you said a railgun was too much for gophers?’

Fox grinned. ‘This isn’t for gophers.’ She lifted a second grenade out. ‘
This
is for gophers. Thermobaric grenade. Lots of heat and
huge
overpressure. Cooked and pulverised at the same time.’

Jonathan grinned back. ‘You… couldn’t leave a couple of those here when you go, could you?’

‘Mom would have a fit.’

‘Yes… But it would probably be worth it.’

Oologah Lake Camp, Southern Protectorate.

The camp looked much as it had the last time Fox had driven into it on a Q-bug, though that time she had driven up from Tulsa rather than straight down from Topeka. There was still a fairly intact road between the two cities and she had only had to go cross-country for the last few miles, but she was still feeling like the dirt would never come out of her skin.