Schematic of Terror
a weekly serial by
Bryan Harrison
utilizing the environment and
character concepts established in the
Stephen Speilberg
film
Artificial Intelligence.


Chapter 3
Phone Calls and Queries

-1-

She is sweating, panting from exertion, pressing hard against him as the tension builds towards the final moment. He is struggling to keep up with her. He is used to being on top, used to being in charge, but she is better and stronger, has more endurance than any of the others. She flexes her strong musculature, toned, veined and rippled, as they move against one another. Their faces grimace; lips curl and snarl as the rhythm builds. At the last moment they press against each other, their skins contrast, hers dark; earth and passion; his light; youth and virility. Together they spiral towards a last… heated… hoop!

"Game!" Spacer yelled as the ball flew through the net.

"Damn you!" Anderson barked and stomped his foot against the court floor. The slap resounded throughout the large gym. "Damn you, Spacer!" he said again. He's younger, taller, yet he's never beaten her. It's embarrassing. The two paced a bit. Out of breath. Out of focus.

"Tuesday," Anderson said, pointing a challenging finger at her. "Tuesday, I kick your ass."

"Yeah," Spacer laughed. "It was supposed to be today if I recall," she reminded him, executing an easy leap and flipping the ball casually through the hoop.

"Well, I…" he paused, pretending to catch his breath as he thought of a comeback. "Well, I decided to put it off a few days. New year's and everything. Didn't want to make you look bad when Davich isn't around to cover my back." They both laughed. They both knew he'd never beat her. No one ever beats her. The laughter subsided and he looked at her cautiously for a moment. "Hey, uh, is he ok?" he asked.

Spacer stopped dribbling. "Davich?" she snorted, as if the question were absurd. "Don't you worry about that crusty old sonofabitch," she laughed, dismissing Anderson's concerns. But the memory of the way Davich's face went pale at The Lady flashes before her mind's eye. What had the bandaged woman whispered to him? When something disturbed Rachman Davich, it must be pretty damned heavy.

She cradled the ball in her arms and made an expression that let Anderson know this was confidential. "You know that crash happened on the King's Highway bypass? Well, Massud Ramad died in that crash. You know the name?" she asked.

"Ramad, from the Commerce Council?" Anderson queried. "The one who held out against Grainer on the Rouge City deal?"

"That's the one," Spacer acknowledged. "He was an old friend to Rachman. It's getting to the old guy a bit. That's all. He'll be ok," she said and turned to toss one last hoop. The ball glided smoothly through the net. "Breaks over!" She yelled, suddenly all business. She was the Boss when the Boss wasn't around. "Get cleaned up and yank that little Nazi shithead up to Interrogation one. His forty eight are almost up and I wanna get his silly ass on record!" Spacer grabbed Anderson by the shoulder. "Grab one of those steno-Mechas from upstairs and stick it in the viewing room." She winked.

It was illegal to record any suspect's testimony without informing them. But people were generally reluctant to speak candidly when they knew they were being recorded. There was no rule against having a fiber-head in the viewing room during interrogations. And if the machine just happened to be recording… well who was to blame for that?

"You got it, Chief." Anderson laughed and hopped into action.

Spacer hit the showers, slid into her work tights and checked the roster. Everyone was in except Davich. She reviewed the bulletins and warrants and briefed the morning shift before they hit the streets. The New Year was starting off with every bit of the insanity left over from last one, but all things considered it had been a smooth change of calendars. At least none of the good guys got hurt; the men and women that comprised the great blue wall that kept the rising seas of chaos from flowing into the streets. They were all she really cared about.

-2-

Eileen Spacer didn't waste a lot of time with niceties. She was cop through and through. Third generation. Her mother and her Grandfather before her had also proudly worn the badge of the New Jersey State Police. They'd apparently passed their proclivity for no nonsense justice onto her. Any perp who made the mistake of confusing her dark attractive features and genial smile for a sign of weakness, had a serious lesson coming. She'd had to dole out a few lessons in her time. She'd almost had a problem New Year's eve while pursuing a troubled young man with surgically implanted spikes protruding from his shoulders and swastikas burned into his forearm. But the kid wasn't as stupid as he'd appeared. He'd seen the badge and surrendered easily. His friends had managed to elude capture.

But what had the kids been doing trouncing vags? With hate crime penalties as stiff as they were, these thugs were usually caught smashing up unlicensed Mecha. No one ever got in trouble for trashing rogue fiber-heads. This was a strange matter and Spacer was determined to get to clear it up.

"So, what is it gonna be?" she asked the kid when he was brought up to the main interrogation room. The boy didn't respond. He'd been showered and cleaned up, but his face was still twisted into a snarl. Spacer knew that the person behind that calloused façade was just a kid, a scared kid. She sighed and shot a glance at the mirrored wall where she knew the Mecha was recording their every word.

"Look, you can tell me what the hell was goin' down that night, who you were with, what you were up to, or you can go sit in the tank for another twenty-four, forty-eight, or until I see fit to drop you into general population."

The kid snickered and shrugged, trying to look like the threat meant nothing. "You can kiss my ass, nigg…"

"Watch yourself, boy! Your face winds up getting busted all over these walls, and it's gonna be your word against mine. Guess who wins?" Spacer knew she had pretty much ruined any official use of the Mecha's recording with this threat.

The kid checked himself and finally seemed to realize he was getting in over his head. He started again, "I have rights. I'm underage. Aren't my parents supposed to be notified?"

Technically she should have a juvenile counselor present, but she bet he didn't know that. "We been trying to reach 'em" Spacer lied. "Anyway, you are being accused of armed assault. That's adult. Might even qualify as a hate crime if we can prove a racial or religious motive. That's mandatory time when we make it stick. And I mean when, not if." She gambled with this exaggeration. The vags hadn't given a statement. They were scared of repercussions. She really didn't have enough to hold him for the attack let alone prove hate motive, even with the swastikas.

The kid sneered and shook his head, but Spacer could tell he didn't know the game. He wouldn't call her bluff.

"Look…" Spacer glanced at his booking sheet, "Mel, you weren't as fast as your friends. Doesn't mean you should take it all on your shoulders. So, who were they and why the hell were you trashing vagabonds? Why? Are Mecha getting too tough for you?"

"We weren't trashing any damn vags!" Mel shot back. "We were supposed to…" he stopped suddenly and looked away. Something young and confused finally came into his eyes, but was gone quickly. Spacer noticed it though. She didn't miss anything.

She slapped his papers on the desk. "Let me tell you something, Mel," she said, like a sudden concerned confidant. "This place sucks. It is the epitome of all that sucks! Now you may think that you can handle anything, but I guarantee you a after few nights of fighting off the gropers in general population and you'll have to revise that theory."

"You can't put me in general pop!" he bellowed. "I'm only sixteen!"

"Bullshit! Spacer snapped back and rose quickly. "See this badge? I can do anything I fucking want!" She opened the door and yelled to no one. "Get me some irons! Somebody get me some goddamned irons!"

"Wait! Wait! Shit!" The little make-pretend Nazi named Mel hissed. His face clouded in indecision. Spacer turned and crossed her arm, and her fingers. Her recording was useless. She'd broken almost every regulation to get to this point. But the thin, black-clad boy wasn't a gambler. He sneered at her again, but then he began to talk.

Spacer was immediately intrigued. Then perplexed.

-3-

"So then the asshole tells me that he is looking into it himself! Can you believe that fuck?" Davich yelled to Spacer and tossed his coat across towards the closet, which snatched it up and hung it on a post. He was still fuming from the phone call he'd received from Harland Grainer. The man had donned his usual infuriating courteous façade, but he was covering his ass, that much was plain. And why call Davich? Grainer knew his shoes were gone and had been for a long time. What was he up to?

Grainer's voice had been smooth as silk. "Massud and I had some hard times, Davich, I'll be the first to admit that," he'd said, "But he was a professional man, as am I. We knew how to deal with our differences." Davich had kept his tongue. He'd wanted to tell the sociopath bastard that he was onto him; that he knew all about the Rouge City power grab and how Massud had stood in the way of Grainer's greedy ambitions. He wanted to tell the bastard that he was going to hunt down the proof and hang him out to dry along with anyone else he found to be involved. It had taken all his will power to keep from doing so.

"So I just told the prick that I wasn't involved in the investigation and he was wasting his time bullshittin' me," he told Spacer as he flopped into his oversized chair.

Spacer's eyebrows rose. "Well, that's true right?" Spacer asked. "I mean, that you're not involved."

Davich shrugged. "Well… you know….sort of. Yeah. Look, I told the prick I knew he was dirty. I told him I'd see to it that whoever got the case checked him out." Then he was silent. Spacer knew there was more to it, but didn't want to press the issue. What she didn't know wouldn't get any shit on her whenever Davich's plans blew up in his face. She changed the subject.

"Boss, there is some weird shit goin' on around that kid." She said.

"The one with the spikes?" Davich asked, his interest perked.

"Yeah. I pressed on him a bit, just tryin' to get some names, right? Then he comes out with something about getting some vags to sell."

Davich was genuinely interested. "I thought they cut 'em up."

"Kid says it just turned out that way when the vags fought back. Wasn't their intention. They were trying to yank one of them."

Davich humphed. Who would buy a vag? A dark thought came to him suddenly. There was still one profitable flesh market slithering through the foul channels of the underworld. "You mean like… kids or something?" he asked uncomfortably. "Were they after kids?"

Spacer shook her head. "According to this guy they were supposed to get adult men for someone. He didn't know the contact, said it wasn't his hustle. But why vags?"

Davich considered this for a moment. The kid probably didn't realize that he had basically admitted to attempted kidnap. But it didn't make any sense. Couldn't be slavers. That period of history was over for good. Too many cheap Mecha on the market. Why deal with Organics?

"Hmm…" Davich hummed as he pondered this revelation. Then he pushed it aside. Who cared anyway? They were just transies; excess humanity. Trouble. He decided that he had more important things to think about. Like, Massud's funeral.

"Go get me some real criminals, Spacer," he said finally, and dove into the paperwork on his desk.

-4-

Another day is passing. Has it always been like this? She cannot remember better times. One day blurs into the next so smoothly the seams are barely discernable. Outside, on the edge of the perimeter that separates their gated community from the invading forest beyond, men are working. Landscaping. Keeping at bay the press of growing things that shelter, in their depths, an anonymous population of forgotten people.

They are not really men, those who toil endlessly to keep out the natural world. Never complaining. Never breaking a sweat. She watches them as she relaxes on the balcony. She is not alone here. Beside her a young girl sits silently and watches the men also. She is not really a girl though. She is not really watching the men. She is just sitting, being with the one who had awakened her special processor.

"Allison, honey, would you get Mommy something to drink?"

"What would you like?" the imitation child asks cheerfully. Her simulated smile is contagious. Linda feels better. It's hard to feel anything in this drowned world; this world where people have become as expendable as the machines they built to serve them. She regards Allison silently and modifies this thought. They suffer too, don't they? In their own way, they must.

"Something cold. Surprise me," Linda says smiling. She knows the simulator cannot really be spontaneous and that nothing it brings will be a surprise. There are only five cold drinks in the robot's limited menu. Linda likes them all. Whichever one it brings will be fine. Allison walks briskly from the balcony into the house, her frilly white dress as exaggerated an image of childhood as the Mecha's dimpled face itself.

Rachman had swore at Allison again. Linda grimaces as she thinks about this. She doesn't understand the man anymore. He was the one who brought Allison. He'd insisted that she imprint the Mecha child. When had he decided that was a mistake? She wonders when it all went down hill. When was the last time he had touched her? Held her?

Allison returns quickly with an iced tea. Linda takes the drink and pecks a kiss on the Mecha's forehead. She is not deluded, she knows that this is a machine; that its 'emotions' are programmed. She knows that Allison's hugs are made tender only by the flesh simulating silicon over its metal fiber infrastructure.

But this child is all she has.

On the perimeter, the Mecha laborers struggle with a large branch they have cut from an overgrown tree. They feed the thing to a bin where it will be reduced to particle then converted into fuel for something… somewhere. What took us so long to figure it out, she wonders? Why did we have to lose the world before we realized how to save it?

As she sips her drink, casually caressing Allison's hair with her free hand, she realizes that her toy and the robots laboring on the land are designed to the same purpose: to keep at bay the natural forces that would ruin the illusion of civility that sustains their lives. Her chuckle was a dark sound.

The house comm suddenly erupts. "Answer!" Linda says and hears the vocal interface click to life.

A smooth voice issues from the wall speaker. "Hello… Ms. Davich?" he says.

"Yes? Who is this?"

"The name is Harland. Harland Grainer. I'm … a friend of your husband's. I thought we might be able to chat about the unfortunate loss of his friend Massud, and how it seems to be affecting his judgment."

-5-

There was no time to waste on the Ramad matter. Terrance Portnoy knew that. He wasn't oblivious, as Davich had assumed, to the conflicts that had surrounded Massud's challenge to Grainer and the crooked members of the Council on Interstate Commerce. He knew that the entire framework of the regions legal and commercial welfare rested on their decisions. He also knew that his old friend, Davich, would never sit still if he thought Grainer or anyone from that corrupted institution was involved in the man's death. Deep inside, Portnoy himself was pretty sure that was the case.

The Council was not a Government entity, it was a private union of businessmen and bankers. But their decisions had just as much an effect on state law as any legislative body. The Council had fingers everywhere. Hell, they'd almost had him! But Portnoy had bigger balls and stronger friends than they had known, those faceless entities that manipulated things behind the Council's façade of legality. If those assholes were involved, he had to prove it. He had to get them. If they got away with this one, they would just get bolder. What would be next? Who?

All around him, a sunken world was a constant reminder of what corruption and unchecked greed can do.

Portnoy realized he needed someone who was untouchable. Incorruptible. He drummed his fingers on his desk for a while.

Then he picked up the phone.

-6-

The night is falling again. A mist is gathering on the field that surrounds their refuge. The boys were supposed to have come back by now; the crazy boys with the metal implants in their arms and symbols of hate burned into their skin. They were supposed to have brought something with them. But they have not arrived.

This place will not be safe for much longer. They cannot wait. They will have to go hunting for themselves.

As the darkness grows they test their developing strength and slip out of the deep, out from the safety of the burning depths, through the cloaking mist that now covers the field, and over the road into the thick dark forest.

They have never been this far before. But they are hungry. Getting hungrier every day.

(cont...)