Author: Kris Roley

Like a lot of things in The Dregs, it’s not a pretty sight. A block of concrete and neon, with one darkly tinted window on the right side of an unassuming door. A flashing green sign atop the building says The Dock. I stood outside the building for a long time until it occurred to me that the kind of courage I was going to need was on the other side of that door, so I walked in.

It was dark. It was always dark in here, and that might be a mercy considering the kinds of things that went on here. I recognized some other trackers near the back, I nodded in their direction and turned my attention to the bar. “You’re new,” I said to the bartender, “What do you recommend?”

“Leaving,” said a nasal, gravelly voice from behind me. “Kimbal, for someone who swore they were getting out of here, I hear you’re down here a lot.” Stepping out from behind the kitchen wall, a pale stick of a man stood before me, and he didn’t appear to be pleased. “Every time we see your face down here, somebody has to clean up your mess. What did you do to poor Stamp?”

“What did I do? What did—hang on Andrews, that bastard put me through a wall! I didn’t exactly get the deets before he tried to kill me, y’know.”

“Stamp wouldn’t have hurt a fly.” Andrews sat next to me at the bar. “Why he would have gone after you is a mystery.”

“Well, that’s why I’m here.” I looked at the bartender. “Just a pint of whatever the usual around here is.” He went off to draw a pint, and I turned back to Andrews. “Look, we were already into it when he started screaming that it wasn’t him. Then he shut down and…well, he rebooted. Then he pounced on me and was about to get nasty before he completely shut down.”

“Odd,” Andrews was running a finger around the rim of the glass he was nursing. “So something happened to him?”

“Aces. Here’s the headline. Something hijacked his MEMBRAIN implant and wiped him.” I want to show you something.” I reached into my pocket and pulled out a clear rectangle of plastic. Waving my hand over it, it connected to my own implant and showed the image I was thinking of on the face of the rectangle. The screen showed the image of the main board with the word TSUNAMI on it. “This is a scan Pointer made after Stamp shut down. What do you make of that?”

Andrews looked intently at the image on my screen, and I watched as a look of worry overtook him. “Damn,” he said. “I knew that shit was no good”

“You know what this is?”

“Unfortunately,” he replied. “TSUNAMI. It started appearing down here maybe two or three months ago. Didn’t think Stamp was the type.”

I looked up from my drink. “What, is this a drug?”

“Sure acts like one,” Andrews was looking straight ahead at the mirror behind the bar, then turned back to face me. “It jacks into the MEMBRAIN directly, and as near as I can figure it’s a hallucination. I don’t go near the stuff, and I don’t have an implant anyway.”

“You don’t have anything, right?” I looked him over. If he had any augments, nothing was obvious. “No, I always thought it was hideous. I consider it a diminishing of who I am, and who we are. I’d like to stay human. Fully human.” He took a sip of his drink. “Whatever it is, it’s killing people, that much is certain.”

I looked up from the bar and turned to face Andrews. “Ok, but how about this: If it’s a physical interface with the MEMBRAIN port, then why didn’t Stamp have…”

“Have what? Andrews raised an eyebrow.

“Can’t be sure until I get back to home base and do some research, but I don’t think Stamp had anything attached to him anywhere. Not sure I got a good enough look at him, though. I can get Pointer on that while I…ah…hmm.”

“Talk to the cops?”

“Well, maybe not the one I have in mind, but if this is some deadly kind of drug maybe they should know.” I got up from my stool to leave when Andrews put his hand on my shoulder.

“Folks topside aren’t gonna care about The Dregs, Kimbal.”

I reached up to take his hand and squeeze it gently. “I do. I’ll figure it out, or we might have dead augments above and below.” I turned to leave. “Andrews, tell Jack…something.”

“You’re gonna have to face that sometime.” Andrews sat back down and stared at his drink. “There’s less time than we all think.”

The door shut behind me and kicked up a cloud of dust.

——

Detective Peter Robinson can best be described as an anomaly, a thing that should not exist in this time and place. My job is to find things, and sometimes those things are throwbacks, and you’d think I’d have jumped for joy when I happened upon Peter. Technically, he happened upon me, and not particularly gently I might add. That’s a story for another time. We had forged what I think could be called a unique relationship; We annoyed each other considerably, but I could count on him, and he learned that I could be counted on. As I told him once, “I’m not a crook, I’m just a rogue.”

We had a good laugh about that one just before he threw me in the slammer for possession of a combustible engine car. My client wanted it for a private collection, and while I didn’t see the appeal at first, it was a beautiful thing to behold. A light blue 1955 Thunderbird, it was called. Impossibly old, well-kept, and a goddamn homing beacon for the police the second I turned the key. It ended well enough, the client got the car, I got a slap on the wrist, a proper chewing out by Mike, and a relationship with a cop I’m not romantically involved with.

“Heyah, Kimbal,” Robinson was staring at me. I had gotten so lost in thought I broke the sacred rule of visiting Peter at work. I looked down and found my feet on the wrong side of the painted line on the carpet. I looked up to find Peter still staring, but a bit more indignant than a moment ago. “C’mon, man,” he said.

“I was distracted, Peter. I’m sorry.” I backed up to the other side of the line and raised my fist as if I were about to knock on an invisible door. “Knock knock, “ I said as cheerfully as I could. “It’s Kimbal. May I have a word with you?”
Robinson lived for these little moments, I’d bet. He scooted his chair back, stood up, and straightened his shirt and tie. He looked up to make eye contact with me and then turned around to the hutch behind his desk and poured himself a cup of coffee. He took one obnoxiously loud sip of it, lifted his head up as if to savor the moment, took a deep breath, and then turned around to meet my gaze again.

“Hi,” I waved and put on the silliest grin I could muster.

He regarded me for a moment before looking down at his desk. He started picking up files and papers from his desk and turned around to put them in the filing cabinet behind him. I had always suspected most of those papers were for show; he had the only metal filing cabinet I’d ever seen. I asked him once if he knew what kind of price he could get for that antique. “Nowhere near the satisfaction I get out of it.” He replied, almost amused that I didn’t understand why he loved it. Standing here waiting for him, I believe I had a firm understanding.
“Peter, I know we love playing this game more than we say we do, but I think we really might have a problem and I need to talk to you about it.”

Peter locked his file cabinet and looked back at me. “Please,” I said about as humbly as I could. He raised an eyebrow at me as if hearing the word ‘please’ intrigued him. “Kimbal, come in and sit down.” I did as he asked. “Thanks for seeing me,” I figured getting to the point quickly would be in both our interests. “I think there’s a new drug of some kind that’s making its way around The Dregs, and it’s killing augments.”

Peter’s face went from one of vague listening to…well, it got very red. I’d pissed him off somehow. He picked up his earpiece and hit a button on his desk console. “Get up here. Now”. He put his earpiece back on the desk and stared at me. “I’m trying very hard to kill you right now. It would actually be less stress on my heart to strangle you right here than to do what I’m about to do.”

“I don’t understand, Peter. Usually, I know why you’re mad at me.”

Myke suddenly appeared out of the elevator in the hallway. She saw me, and completely deflated. Stopping outside the painted line on the floor, she looked at Peter. “I assume I can just come into your idiotic invisible office?”

“Now is not the time to test me, Hollings.” Myke also got very red-faced and looked up at me. ‘What did you do?”

I took a deep breath. “I did some digging around in The Dregs and I got some information about what happened to Stamp. It’s a wider problem than I thought. I came to see Peter about it. This is the thing?”

She snapped at me. “The THING you’re not supposed to know about, Kimbal!”

“That’s it, I don’t know. Peter, I swear. I mentioned that I got the crap kicked out of me by an augment named Stamp that apparently had this in his system. She gave me no specifics other than to say there’s an open investigation about something related to what happened to me. I know nothing”.

Peter was still silent and very red in the face. I loosened my collar to expose my neck. “I mean, if it’ll help?”

He seemed to calm down a little at that point. “Look, I’m really not here to mess with your day. I had no idea. Let’s have a seat, I’ll tell you what I know.”
“It’s not his day you need to be worried about, Kimbal,” Myke said as she stared a hole through me.

“Getting that message, ma’am,” I replied. “Dig in. Here’s what I know.”

There are some definite advantages to having a significant other who happens to be a detective.  For example, only one of us is technically allowed to have a gun.  Then there are those times when your partner is pissed off and you remember that only one of you is allowed to have a gun. 

“So instead of getting the hell out of there, you…brilliant you, decided to take a closer look at the maniacal machine-man, and then you WONDER why I’m mad?”

I was not really in a position to disagree.  On the way over to Myke’s place I realized only too late that I had reopened a wound from my tangle with Chuckles and bled all over Myke’s carpet.  I needed stitches, and at that moment she had a needle in my arm.  “I don’t want to be ungrateful Myke, but could we have the overly dramatic portion of this conversation after you’re done with the sharp objects?” 

It’s bad enough when someone angry with you has a needle in your arm.  I hadn’t given any thought to an angry person working with a needle in your arm just leaving it there, and staring at you in awkward silence.  “Bad timing?”  I asked. 

“Ya think?”, she closed the wound and moved to the kitchen, and took two glasses from the cabinet.  “The only reason we’re not going to continue this argument is because you got my attention with what happened to your friend.”  She poured two glasses of red wine, returned to the couch, and handed me one.  “He was talking to you and swearing he wasn’t in control before he power-cycled, and then—?

“Then he went even more nuts,” I said.  “But it’s weird.  It wasn’t him when he came back online.  Pointer said his personality was wiped or something.”  

“Yeah, that’s why it got my attention.  I can’t say a whole lot, but there’s an open investigation.” Myke sipped her wine. “However, I’ve heard enough of your story to tell you that it has some similarities to some other incidents.”  

I was about to ask what those similarities were, but Myke cut me off at the pass “No K, can’t go there.  Not sure I was supposed to say even that much.”  I wanted to plead my case, but Myke gave me that one look that I knew was the final word in any argument.  Myke crossed her legs on the sofa, took another sip of her wine, and then cocked her head to one side.  “Hey, I have the wine.  What’s for dinner?”  I blinked.  “I beg your pardon?” 

“So you didn’t bring dinner?”

“Technically, no.  I ordered some takeout?”

“Oh, ok.  Will it be here soon?”  

“Let me check with Pointer.” 

“I translate that as “Let me get Pointer to order the dinner I forgot to order.” 

I shot her a surprised look and excused myself to go to the bathroom.  Closing the door, I tapped the silent trigger on my wrist that signaled Pointer.  “Boss!” 

“Pointer, are you aware that I tapped the silent button to get you?”

“Yup.  Which means you don’t want Myke to know you’re talking to me.”

“What part of silence were you not getting?”

Just then there was a knock on the bathroom door.  “Hi, Pointer.  Would you make sure I get beef fried rice and not shrimp?”

“Sure, Myke,” Pointer said.   I opened the door to the bathroom to see Myke’s face smiling sweetly back at me.  “Do the two of you just plot against me all the time or is this—“

“No,” Myke said.  “Every day.” Pointer said.  

“Great.”  I threw up my hands.  

—-

Dinner was a welcome respite.  I said my goodbyes to Myke and headed for the elevator.   One of the advantages of having a girlfriend who lives in the same building is that you don’t have far to stumble.  Plus, there’s always a neutral corner if a retreat is in order.  That’s probably why we’ve managed to keep it going for as long as we have because even I know I’m best taken in small doses.  I don’t know if this is a related point, but an advantage I thought I had living in an apartment building was the code they gave me when I signed the lease.  I thought that code meant that they wouldn’t let just any old case of meat in the door, but when I entered my apartment I was introduced to a huge pair of arms that latched onto my head and urged me towards the couch.  The arms pushed me down and left.  I looked up and was about to tell someone I was headed to the couch anyway when I realized that there was a second pair of arms in that room, and those were attached to the last person I ever needed to see. 

“Pockets, what the hell?” I yelled.  

“Rollins, the general idea of leaving The Dregs is to not go BACK there.” Pockets moved over to the other side of the couch.  “Especially when you get the welcoming committee you received.” 

“Because your welcoming committee was so much better up here,” I said.  “Tell your buddy his deodorant isn’t cutting it.  Why are you here?”

Pockets shot me a look that was as serious as I’ve ever seen him.  “I’m here to tell you that what you ran up against is a little deeper than you think. It’s not a glitch.” 

“Not a glitch? Damn sure looked like a glitch to me.”  

“I know,” Pockets sighed.  “This is as close to an epidemic as I’ve ever seen in the Dregs, and yet it’s only affecting a portion of the augmented population.  It’s a sizable chunk, though.  The common link appears to be MEMBRAIN.  Every one of them has it.”

“Hang on,” I said, a little confused. “Every one of them?  Every one of whom?”

“Everyone dead, Rollins.”  Pockets said.  “A cubic assload of dead augments.” 

“They all have MEMBRAIN?”  That gave me some pause for a couple of reasons.  MEMBRAIN is a port that is installed behind the right ear that connects to hardware memory inside your brain case.  It’s connected to the part of the brain that visualizes things like memories, and it self-manages.  The port is for memory extraction so they can be analyzed.  Useful in some lines of work, like mine.  You never know when you have to prove where you were, and that was the second reason it worried me: I had MEMBRAIN installed a little more than a decade ago.  It’s an older version, but I never felt like I needed to upgrade as long as it did the job.  Always seemed like way too much fuss, and while I’ve never regretted getting MEMBRAIN, I don’t want anyone messing around with my brain bucket any more than necessary.  

“So let’s start at the center and work our way out.  I have a MEMBRAIN.  Should I be worried?”

Pockets rolled his eyes.  “No, center of your universe, as long as you don’t move back to the Dregs and take candy from strangers, you should be—“

I interrupted him, “Candy from strangers?  What the hell does that mean?”  Pockets smiled, lifted his hands to my eye level, and pulled out a small vischip from an unseen pocket in his wrist.  He did come by his name honestly.  Pockets was a courier of highly sought-after items.  We work together quite often, as I find things and employ his services on occasion to get them somewhere.  Sometimes those clients—and those items—demand a certain amount of privacy.  We’re a good team.  We don’t necessarily like each other, but business is business.  “I’m just gonna leave this here,” he said.  Turning to leave, he stopped at the door.  “I’m not the type to be sentimental, Rollins.  This could be very bad.  You’ll see.  Please try not to get yourself bricked.”

I waited for Pockets to leave, and then went into my little office area.  “Pointer, put up a screen right here.”   A flat holographic screen image popped into view in front of me.  I looked at the vischip for a moment and having determined everything appeared normal, I touched the chip to the screen.  

The screen flashed to life.  It showed a large man strapped to a gurney in some sort of stark medical environment. The camera was being held by hand, and the shooter walked up to the subject and centered on their face.  A metal hand came into view from the other side of the subject’s face and yanked it to the side to reveal the MEMBRAIN port.  Another hand, slender with painted nails, inserted a device into the port and waited 15 seconds before removing it.  The metal hand restraining the face released, allowing the face to re-center to the camera.  It didn’t take long before the subject started trembling, which increased to shaking and then convulsing.  After what I figured was about a minute, the subject stopped and went limp.  The camera pulled back to a full-body view, the subject still strapped to the gurney.  After another minute, the subject jerked back into life, and in one violent movement all but shredded their arm restraints.  Sitting up on the gurney, the subject was attempting to remove the restraints from their legs before the owner of the large metal hand came back into view.  Placing a hand on the subject’s forehead, he screamed in pain before going limp again and tipping over the gurney, his head hitting the floor with the kind of sickening thud that told you that he was no longer metabolizing.  The video flicked off.  

I sat there in silence, trying to process what I had seen.  “Pointer?”

“I don’t know what to say, Rollins.”

I walked over to my fridge and pulled another Neo-Coke out.  “Yeah.” I took a long swig and thought for a second.  “I thought MEMBRAIN was for extraction only.  Can you find anything that says it’s ever been used for input?”  

“I’ve never known it to be, but I’ll go digging.” 

I looked out the window to the neon-colored panorama below.  “That’s disturbing on several levels, P.”  

“I can think of a couple, yeah,”  Pointer replied, and yet I don’t think he knew what I was thinking.  The sheer number of people that could be a victim of this could be massive, almost incalculable.  Even a fraction of that number could be devastating.  But how did it work, and more importantly, what exactly was it?  

To find that answer, I might have to go home again.