Deus ex Machina
By Harris, Mitch, Shaine, and Shatterclaw. Individual rating:
R.
In a secured room far beneath the bedrock of Chicago, three figures in black hardsuits sat with a visitor.
Kathy watched from beneath eyelids raised just enough to reveal a slit of light. The room was filled with smoke, and patterns of light shaped like birds flashed through it. Rather disorienting, to tell the truth. She feigned grogginess, trying to put off dealing with them for as long as she could.
"Ms. Kohl, wake up..."
"I'm awake." She opened her eyes the rest of the way.
"Question and answer time!" Mitch said with great relish.
"You were believed dead." Crimson continued. "Awake is a great elevation of position, now... Tell me, Ms. Kohl, how did you come to be in Chicago?"
"Dead?" She laughed softly. "Oh, yes...her.
"I was born here; didn't you know that?"
"So you know you are a Boomer. What do you do for Mr. Kohl?"
She shrugged. "Not much. Cook, clean...you know the drill."
"No, do tell us: what is the drill in the Kohl household?"
"I have eight unruly daughters to take care of. That's nearly all I have time for."
"They aren't daughters. They're Boomers."
Kathy smiled. "No difference."
"Difference: I can take a Boomer apart and no one will care; if I did that to a human, it would be murder. And if you were destroyed, it wouldn't matter. What do you know about Mr. Kohl?"
"What do you want to know?"
"His brother's daughter has gone missing," Crimson said. "Did he kill her?"
"She's dead?" Kathy whispered incredulously.
"Yes, we found her body last night. Two gunshot wounds with a gun that was registered as his."
"Oh, God..."
"What do you know about that?"
"He kills Boomers all the time." Mitch added. "What's to stop him from killing you?"
"And on the next morning, we find him murdering a half-human Boomer lookalike of his 'beloved' Shaine."
Kathy looked up sharply. "Counting rogues and defectives, he goes through a Boomer every three weeks. Yet in two and a half years there has only been one of me."
"Killing Boomers is legal. Killing the human was not. And we'll see if that changes, Ms. Kohl."
"He was with me all last night; he couldn't have killed anyone then if that's when it was."
"What was he doing?"
She smiled elusively, as if hinting he ought to know exactly what Erik was doing. Let them think what they want to think...it may draw their attention away from more dangerous lines of inquiry...
"He was complaining about the new Shaine Boomer. I tried to tell him she could be fixed but he didn't want to listen."
"He has duplicates of himself; how would you know it was the real him?"
"I know." She paused.
"Complaining about the new Shaine Boomer... Clarify. What was he complaining about?"
"Why doesn't he kill you?" Mitch interjected.
Ignoring both questions, she said what she'd been about to say before they cut her off: "Every time he looks at me I can see how much he regrets letting Kathleen O'Shea go. Just letting his brother have her..."
"So you admit he has killed Kathleen O'Shea Kohl? Do you have proof of this?"
"I never said that. All I've ever heard is that she put a kitchen knife through her chest after Evon disappeared."
"Yes...how easy it must have been, for a small woman like her to break two of her own ribs, then push the knife further in to the heart and bleed to death."
"A human can do it. And not have to break the ribs, either. Are you familiar with a television show called Millennium?"
"No, I don't watch too much TV," Mitch said.
She smiled again. "There was one episode, about a woman who killed her children, then stabbed herself four times through the heart." Her tone was admiring, almost as if she held the character up as a role model. "It's believable enough."
"This is not television," Crimson argued.
"Humans do incredible things when pushed far enough."
"Nor is Erik a Frank Black type..."
"I'd say Erik is more like Peter Watts. He believed he knew what was best for the man placed in his care, and had dreams for his family which were never realized..."
"No one asked. What of Evon Kohl?"
"Evon I don't know much about. He was before my time, I gather."
"How did he disappear?"
She shrugged. "He went out the day before Shaine's birthday and never came back."
"And who were the other Boomers in the house?"
"Well...Stevie, the one I was with, has had medical training. Cullyn handles the mechanical things around the house; Sandra and Eve do regular maintenance - stopped drains and gutters, that sort of thing. And then there's Eleanor, Cally, Sass, and Andrea. They help me."
"And the ninth one?" Mitch stared at her intently.
"A ninth Boomer? Other than me?" She blinked. "There is none."
"What do those last four help you with?"
"Cooking, cleaning...I said that before, didn't I?"
"What do you know about Shaine Kohl, the human?"
"Not much."
"And where is Erik now?"
"I think he went back to work."
"You do know you are next to worthless?"
She just smiled yet again, with a martyrlike expression on her face.
"What does Kohl know of us?"
"Enough."
"Really? Good. He may be worthy yet."
"It's a shame that we will have to send him your last words." Crimson placed one armored fist next to her head.
"Mmm...very well." She leaned forward. "Then let it be I love you..."
Crimson fired his stunner. "No, it won't."
Shaine stood quickly. "Why don't you just shoot her!"
"She may still have some useful information. We don't have a Rep drop in on us every day."
"Then we hack it out of her core. Or use the other one. I'm not going to put up with this!"
"In fact...the last Rep we did have was in pieces. But you're right; we will download her core."
"What? When was that?"
"Four months ago."
"Another of his?"
"We found one wandering the streets, murdering humans left and right... I'm not entirely sure where it came from and the face had been fried off, but the body was too damned close not to be. If I had to guess, I'd say it was either a copy of you or her.
"Do you want the house blown up?"
"Do you really have to ask?"
"Yes."
Shaine shook her head. "I think you know."
"That's not the same." He pulled out a cell phone. "Hello, this is U.S. Marshall Melendez. We have a houseful of illegal Boomers, Replicant subtype. Seven of them. I want them confiscated immediately; the address is 1013 Lake, in Chicago."
Her eyebrow lifted as he finished speaking and hung up.
"They're contraband in the U.S., even for Genom. And the fact that they pass for his brother's wife and child?"
"And in Germany?"
"I can check into that."
"I know. That's been looked into already.
"After we reap the Boomer dry, I want to send her back to him as a shell."
Shaine smiled.
"Maybe something along the lines of her cawing all of the time, and repeating some of what happened here..." He picked up the phone again. "Jinks, send the Stevie Boomer to Erik's office...with a meltdown switch. The kind Carter uses all the time... No, just cawing, and maybe a few other bird noises. ...Yes, like the time Bell fed her raven the bean deluxe from Taco King... Yes, yes, Bell, have fun..."
He looked over at Shaine. "She needs to cut her losses every now and again...which I should cover... Any ideas of what else we can torment him with?"
Shaine shook her head, suitably impressed.
///
Nexus-6 preproduction schedule, S-Class through A-Class production notes...yes, I think that's it. Erik slid the hypercard out of the drive and put it in his briefcase. Then...
Select all, right-click, shift-delete. Done. The files disappeared, then he security wiped the network drive's empty space. Digging through the pile of hypercards on the desk, he soon found the "ADP-safe" copy of the lab's records and copied them to the empty folder.
His work done, Erik glanced at the Replicant lying on the floor, her blonde hair thrown around her face in every direction like a halo. Her face was pale white and marked with black around the eyes and lips; her clothing was newly accented with feathers. Nearby, Kathy lay on a lab table, face down. There was an apple-sized EMP burn in the center of her back.
Damned Stahleraben. His lip twitched a bit as he remembered the sound of their voices, warped to match Crimson's: She's dead, Erik... Over and over and over...
So what do I do...? He put his head in his hands, took a deep breath.
White rabbit... Follow the white rabbit! Oh, Shaine, if only you knew what an idea that is...
///
Lying there between the two of them, Hase wished she could sleep like her Boomers. Fourteen years of the growing effects of Boomer Syndrome and all she really cared about was not being able to get a good night's sleep anymore.
Well, that was probably the Boomer Syndrome, too.
The only comfort in the midst of the dead, dull wakefulness was the cool breeze playing over her bare skin. She imagined the room would be too cold if she left the windows open until morning, but considering the numbness of her body from mid-thigh down, she didn't give a damn.
Hearing her computer terminal begin to chime in the other room, she sat up and tried to rub some additional feeling back into her legs. Crawling to the foot of the bed and then standing up, she realized she could hear music, too: ...Feel pushed up against the wall/And then one day it just almost goes away/You spend lots of time alone...
I left the CD player on again? She shrugged the question off. Didn't matter.
There was a new message in her mailbox, and it was from Erik. She smiled grimly and opened it.
Bunny, I need a new Replicant like the last one you made for me. Please send it down as soon as you can. Also the new weapons on the Nexus-6 are jamming; are you quite sure those designs are correct? Those damned birds have been at it again and I want to get the design up and running as soon as possible so that I can concentrate on my family.
The smile deepened as she typed in a response: I'll have your Boomer for you, but the rest is your problem. Are you quite sure you remember how to fire a gun? As for the little cabbage, I told you she was trouble. Have some fun with those A-Class Replicants I sent you; that should take your mind off of things. Bunny.