Last Man On Earth (2)
Boy Mozart
A VERY VERY LONG TIME LATER, AROUND SEVEN-THIRTY IN THE EVENING. MAKE
THAT QUARTER OF EIGHT.
It might have been called something else by other peace officers in the
past; at this point and time, in this place, Carlos and his fellow
officers referred to it as "gawker duty".
When the Department of Public Safety received the call around three that
afternoon, they bundled as many officers as they could into transport
vehicles and delivered them to Bascome Biotech, where a man had just
recently been standing on top of a building threatening to jump. The
man followed through on his threat several minutes before they arrived.
Carlos stood with the other now non-essential officers behind yellow
tape and sawhorses repeating the phrase "Please step away from the line
citizen" until they were hoarse.
Carlos had heard the rumors about how they supposedly kept cameras in
their hats or badges and took videos of the crowds, then looked at them
later and compared them with other crime scenes to see if they could
spot the guy who came back later to check out his work. Carlos found
that incredibly naive--how hard did the average person think it was to
replace an eye?
He moved his head back and forth and mumbled "Please step away from the
line" for about four hours while they scraped the deceased off the
street. After the entire scene was recorded and sterilized, they waited
while the forensics team packed up everything and got ready to go. Then
Carlos felt someone try to push past him.
"Please step back from the line," he mumbled.
"Knock it off, I'm with THE PRESS," said the woman he was blocking.
"Violation of a DPS crime scene perimeter is punishable by a 1000-dollar
fine and up to 30 days in a Correctional Facility," he recited. "Please
step back from the fucking line."
She held up a palmcam and Carlos saw a small flash go off. "What's your
name, Officer? I don't believe you're allowed to speak to me in that
tone of voice."
"You can read my name off of the arrest report--which will be provided
to you pursuant to the Freedom Of Information stipulation in your
Satellite Residency Contract--unless you step back RIGHT NOW!"
Carlos yanked out his Bulldozer--a wide-field stun weapon that used the
body heat of the person at which it was aimed to amplify its effects.
It was used specifically for crowd control, and wasn't intended for use
against a single person. Everyone moved back from the woman who had
said she was from the press, running and screaming for the most part.
Carlos was impressed that the reporter managed to hold on to her
palmcam. She put her hand up and snapped his picture again. "That goes
to my lawyer in the morning," she smiled. "See you in court, asshole."
"Thank you for your cooperation," Carlos said to her retreating back.
"I don't think she heard you."
Carlos turned to face the person speaking to him. It was a short man in
a long beige trenchcoat finishing a synthetic cigarette. He was one of
the newly-promoted detectives, Schencker. He looked at Carlos with a
total lack of sympathy and said "The Press tends to hear what it wants
to hear. Then they're surprised when no one believes what they report
even when the news programs are the highest-rated on the Net. People
just watch the news for the entertainment value, I think. If they want
to be better informed, they go ask their friends." Schencker tossed the
remains of the cigarette into a nearby disintegrator. "Just don't
delete anything the Eye recorded--she might be stupid enough to follow
up on her threat."
"Yes, sir."
He glanced to his left. "C'mon over here, I need an Eye for this bit."
Carlos followed him to the stain on the pavement that used to be a human
being. Other officers had gathered around the body and recorded it for
evidence. Now Schencker was moving off to the left, up the pavement and
closer to the building. He pointed at the ground and said, "Look at
that, please."
Carlos looked down. He scanned the pavement slowly, moving his eyes
back and forth along the side of the building. "What am I looking for?"
he asked.
"I didn't ask you to look for anything," Schencker replied. "I asked
you to look AT the pavement. Later on we'll dee-ell your recording and
run some tracer programs on it, look for DNA or dirt from an uncharted
tropical island or some other forensic crap, I dunno." He backed up off
the pavement and looked up at the top of the building. "The guy was 30
years old. He was at the top of his profession, had lots of friends, a
social life. He had a long future. What the hell drove him off the top
of the building like that?"
"Gravity," Carlos said.
"You know, just because the Department's run by a bunch of assholes
doesn't necessarily mean that's a career path for you."
"Sorry, sir."
Schencker looked down at his shoes, brushing one of his feet against the
sidewalk like a broom. "He was a biochemical engineer. Whatever forced
him off that roof, I think he might have brought it down with him."
The forensic expert systems went over the things Carlos had recorded for
hours. They ran spectrographic analyses and several other tests, all of
which revealed nothing--or none of which revealed everything, Carlos was
unsure. After they'd spent most of the night going over the material,
the detectives filed into a wardroom. Carlos slipped in behind
Schencker and listened to their arguments.
"All right, last time," said one of the detectives. "We have eyewitness
accounts that say this guy was standing all by himself on the roof of
the building for at least ten minutes. We know he was shouting 'we're
doomed' for most of that time. He was obviously despondant, possibly
deranged. He didn't leave a note, his co-workers, his friends, his
family all have sworn statements saying that he hadn't been showing any
signs of depression or suicidal tendencies at any time before yesterday.
He didn't leave a note, but all of a sudden he decided to kill himself.
Unless we can come up with something else that might point to something
other than suicide, we have to close this case in a few hours. Does
anyone here HAVE anything else?"
Schencker's face was so close to a screen he was almost rubbing against
it. "Something happened that day--something big, awful. Something so
bad that it made him snap. It had to be something he was working on--
he'd been in the lab all day. If there was going to be some kind of
disaster--not just deadly, but slow, agonizing, tortured deadly--he
might have decided he had to check out before it hit him."
"C'mon, Schencker, what've they got in there that'd scare someone THAT
badly?" asked another detective. "There are all kinds of redundant
safety systems built into bio-engineering labs: bactericides, two-hour
decontamination sessions both ways, machine-gun emplacements. Nobody's
going to be able to release anything deadly from that laboratory without
going through seven kinds of micro-organic death, and that's just in the
cafeteria." The detective stood up and reached for the door. "I'm
gone. Call me if someone litters or something, huh?"
The others laughed appreciatively. They started to file out one by one,
until only Carlos and Schencker were left in the room. "Gee, just when
I was beginning to feel motivated about my work again," Schencker
muttered.
"What now?" Carlos asked.
"I had a word with your duty sergeant this morning," Schencker replied.
"I have to go back to Bascome and interview the guy's coworkers and
supervisors. I need someone with an Eye to come with me for recording
purposes."
"I appreciate your confidence in me."
"Don't. I asked for you because you're the only officer who's name I
remembered."
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Boy Mozart
Klondike 5 Reality Satellite http://www.klondike5.net