The Bloated One
Well-Known Member
Hi everyone,
I got the urge to try my hand at an 'adult' first person murder mystery. Very different from my Tarquin Jenkins opus!
Here is the start of the first chapter. I have gone fairly lightly on the 'noire' style as I don't want to labour it.
As always, I would be grateful for members views. Would you want to read more? Does it grab, or do you find it hackneyed?
TBO
NESTS
“How many nests you found this year?”
The Seflapine's two eyes looked me up and down, its third, a large bulbous bump in the centre of its chest floated motionless, vacant, like an oversized goldfish trapped inside a small bowl. I smiled.
“Not enough.” The pain in my legs seared through me, as the Seflapine’s delicate ten fingered hands scuttled feverishly inside my lacerated flesh.
“This is really going to hurt.” The Seflapine's three eyes locked onto mine. He was enjoying this. I bit hard on the rubber grip and nodded.
“Jesuit Priest!” I groaned, as a thousand lasers knitted and sutured the gory mess that was once flesh and bone.
“Ahhh! You humanoids never could take pain. That's it, you're done...Until the next Femvamp sinks her teeth into you,” said the Seflapine, examining its intricate weaving while delighting in my agony. Through two air holes on the side of its face it grunted loudly, and drooled a viscous yellow gloop from three sides of its mouth. It was the nearest a Seflapine came to contentment. I handed over a thousand draggs; the equivalent of six months Ranger pay.
“I hope it was worth it,” slobbered the Seflapine. I looked at the four, needle sharp fangs lying in a bowl of my blood, and winced. They were well worth it.
“It would help the Federations cause if his dick didn’t rule his head.” I swung round and instinctively leveled my pistol at the door. Through the portal came Andrea, my Ranger partner.
I relaxed. “What took you so long?” I asked, puzzled by her disappearance earlier in the evening.
Silence came the reply, with a look of smug satisfaction. She did smug, very well.
She removed her gun belt and grenades, untied her blonde braided hair and sank into a chair.
“While you were making out with new friends, I was working.” She crossed her long, leather clad legs, put her hands behind her head and sighed. Despite the protection suit, her ample chest heaved invitingly. I had to admit, she was stunning, but I wasn’t into interspecies liaisons. Not again. I had learnt my lesson. The large bag on the floor intrigued me.
“While you were frolicking with those Femvamps, I saw a couple of runners and chased them down. Here, what do you want to do with them, the bank doesn't open for another two hours.” Andrea rolled the bag to me and I looked inside.
“So you took their f****** heads!”
“The bank will pay, trust me,” she said, in a tone of placid indifference, nonchalantly scraping congealed purple entrails from her leather jacket. “Why can't they have red blood like every other damn creature in this universe?” she muttered, prizing off one particularly stubborn wad.
The Seflapine strode over to Andrea and looked her up and down.
“How much you want?” Its voice, shrill and excited.
“They are heads for f***’s sake! You can't repair them? You need something to bind their heads to!” I said, at the frothing, brown blob examining each head simultaneously in its hands.
“Thirty.”
“Twenty five.”
It spat into a hand and thrust it at Andrea. “Yours.”
Andrea shook her head, “Just the money, I don’t do bonding.”
She took the draggs and flashed me a satisfied grin.
“Come Superman, we have another day ahead of us, and the Stratosphere awaits.” I dropped from the operating table and felt the pain shoot through my leg.
“Just take a couple of these, you won’t feel a thing,” said the Serapline, laughing as it offered me a bag of ‘pale blues’. I shook my head and limped for the door.
We left the Seflapine examining the Vampyre heads, like a kid with new toys and made for the exit.
We reached ground level and took up defensive positions. The portal doors opened and we peered out. Through the rancid smog, orange rays from Metagog’s three suns caste eerie shadows on the flat, rubble-strewn landscape. There were no redeeming features to the Netherworld, just the flotsam and Jepson of discarded military conquest and destroyed habitation. In amongst the ruins and pollution, life existed, but not the sort of life you would wish to know about. The intelligencia had moved out en masse shortly after the Great Leap, and lived in self-contained orbiting mansions within Metagog’s stratosphere. Miles below them, in the sprawling, over crowded hyper flats, existed the mundane and urbane majority—the workers. Below them, was Netherworld. When the iteliigencia’s pampered lives were ruffled, it was the Federations 'Catchers' and 'Rangers' who had to delve into the rancid underbelly and find answers.
I spat and took a last, deep breath of recycled air before fitting my ventilator. I disliked the Netherworld. We walked nervously toward the 'Ranger Vehicle', covering each other’s back. If we were to be attacked, it would be now. Shadowy figures moved in and out of the dense, yellow fog. Moans and groans accompanied their fleeting shapes. I used to bring new recruits to the smogs of the Netherworld, for training. Not anymore. I wasn't allowed to come here myself. Not after what happened. The Psychosis Re-Assignment board had made that very clear.
“How's the leg?” asked Andrea, when we finally reached the safety of our vehicle.
“Getting better, should be fine by tonight.” I lied. She shut down the Ranger's force field, giving us enough time to jump into the bucket seats.
The force field generator pulsed on. “Let's get out of this hole,” I said, relieved to have avoided a confrontation with the locals. There was a package on the dashboard. I shoveled it into my coat pocket. Andrea was too busy setting the autopilot to see what I was doing.
I distrusted the Stratosphere about as much as I disliked the Netherworld. I was humanoid, from the south side of the hyper drive freeway, not used to ostentatious wealth, and high living. Centuries ago, my forefathers had come from a small, northern region in a country called England, from a planet called earth. One infamous relative would often say; You get ought for naught in this life. Over time it became my family’s motto, and my creed. My Father put our family’s crest on a plaque, with the motto underneath. After his death, I kept it screwed to my Rover dashboard.
Andrea, my partner for the last two years, was born from a long line of Deluvian Huntresses. She came from a planet a dozen times bigger than earth and billion light years away. She had no idea what I was about.
The Ranger vehicle rose silently into the air and roared into the sky, leaving behind the yellow, sulphurous smog. Andrea hit the autopilot and we joined the thousands of vehicles, stacked in concentric circles waiting to join the Stratobelt exchange. I flicked a switch and music flooded the Ranger.
“What are we listening too today?” asked Andrea, sarcastically.
“Metaphorsis, Mylene Farmer,” I said nonchalantly, knowing full well I’d be medically terminated if the Precinct’s Psychologist knew I was once again listening to Rock music from a bygone age. The rebel within me was happy.
“You took precautions, didn’t you?” Andrea’s concern was touching, but borne from self preservation. I gave her my quizzical look.
“No,not that.” She pointed dismissively at my crotch. “You’ve got as much chance as a three legged Nourn winning the Federation Cup. I just don’t want you getting all oral on me.” She had a point.
“Yeh, I’ve been vaccinated.” Though, the thought of going down on her young neck was interesting.
We passed through the automated exchange, and reached the outer limits of One Stratosphere Mansions in a matter of minutes. Designed towards the end of the 23rd Century, the Mansions were an imposing sight. There were 2500 in total, each one a monument to an individual architect and bio-designer. One Stratosphere Mansions were the brainchild of Architect and raconteur, Rafferty Regan, and our trip was to meet his great granddaughter, Rochester.
Andrea brought the Rover down in the Mansions quadrangle, and we both got out. There was little need to set the Rangers force field. No one living in a Mansion would bother with an obsolete, Class II Rover with unauthorized customizations. I had been offered an upgrade, but I fiercely declined, preferring the retro lines of the Class II model...and my plaque. It was my home.
We walked along cream marbled avenues, lined with a variety of citrus trees and statues of statesmen from many planets. My senses reeled with the sweet narcotic scent of fruit and clean air. Artificial sunlight flooded the avenue, mimicking the rich colours of the late afternoon suns on Terramageon. I was seriously out of place.
“Come on let’s get this over with,” I said, wanting to leave.
Each dwelling was separated from the rest of the inhabitants, no more than fifty to each avenue to maintain exclusivity. They reached the red metal door of Dwelling 35 and I checked the label; it was the Rochester's. A camera whirled and a voice boomed from the door.
“Lady Rochester Selnargwine will see you shortly.” The door opened inward, revealing a small domed anti-room. The bright light and white tiles hurt our eyes, and we both squinted with pain. I looked up at the domed ceiling. It was covered with small disinfectant nozzles. Andrea growled disapprovingly.
Sanitized and disinfected, we moved inside. We unbuckled our weapon harnesses and dropped them in the cages provided, and waited. Seconds later, an Automaton ushered us through the hallway and into a large lounge.
“Please stand.” The Automaton wafted a series five viral investigator in front of us. Satisfied, he turned off the irritating pink light. Preened and cleaned, we were cleared to meet Lady Rochester.
“You may sit. Lady Rochester may be some time,” said the automaton, with one of those plastic, non-committal voices favoured by unimaginative robotic engineers. It waved a paddle at the sofa and we sat.
“Let's not forget why we are here,” whispered Andrea, in a hushed voice, full of suspicion. I smiled, tapped my Police badge and whispered back.
“I know where my heart is.”
“It's where you keep putting your dick that worries me.” I smiled, and blew her a kiss.
Twenty minutes had passed. I looked at the automaton, got up and snarled.
“We are here on official Federation business, and we don’t like waiting.” I emphasized my words with sharp jabs to the Automaton’s chest making its head jerk back and forth with a high pitched whirring sound. I expected Lady Rochester was viewing us through the automaton, and sure enough, almost immediately came the sound of heels tapping on marble. It emanated from the top of a vast curving staircase.
“Yes Officer Morag, we mustn’t keep you waiting”.
My blood rushed south. Two sylph like figures descended the staircase. Two identical, female figures. I looked at Andrea who shot me a perplexed look.
I had seen the news screens and read her Government file. Lady Rochester was a tall humanoid, ex-model, physically enhanced, and honed by her late husband’s bio- cosmetic corporation, but nothing prepared me for seeing two paragons of beauty gliding effortlessly down the staircase.
“Officer Morag you looked surprised. Haven’t you ever seen a clone before?”
I had, but only in science manuals.
“Clones were outlawed by the Federation Council in 2300.” I said, trying not to look too mesmerized by the sight of the Gemini twins swathed in diaphanous silk.
“Oh Pish! You had better arrest us then.” The twins laughed loudly, knowing our jurisdiction didn’t extend to the Stratosphere Mansions.
“Can we get you Officers a drink?” We both declined. The two humanoids moved languidly to a side cabinet, and each poured a drink from a large red bell shaped decanter. It was unnerving to watch flesh honed to such perfection.
“Shall we sit down?” asked one of the twins.
“This is awfully ceremonial standing like this,” concluded the other.
They sank into the leather chairs. My eyes were fixed on the undulating curves of the nearest beauty.
Andrea sighed and opened her evidence bag, producing a long thin bladed knife.
“Have you seen this before?” she asked, offering it to a twin.
“Why, yes? It is an Italian stiletto dagger, made on earth in Florence, Italy sometime in their 17th century. It belongs in my late Father’s collection. How did you come by it?”
“It was pulled out of a Banker two days ago.” I watched for a reaction. If they were feigning surprise they were damned good.
“Do you know this man?” Andrea showed them the banker’s naked body on her pocket screen. They looked at each other, and shook their heads.
“How do you think it got into the banker?” I asked.
“We were burgled several weeks ago? I am sure we reported the incident? The closest beauty spoke sweetly, her cobalt blue eyes glinted disconcertingly. Convenient to have a break-in I thought, but unlikely. The Mansions had their own security and were heavily protected.
“Now Officers, if you have finished we have to leave for a reception.” The twins stood up and the automaton returned.
“Thank you for your time Lady Rochester. We may need to revisit at a later date.” The twins smiled and the automaton ushered us back through the hallway to our guns. We left the Mansion with more questions than answers.
“I didn’t tell them our names, did you?” Andrea frowned and shook her head.
“They didn’t ask anything about the banker; why he was naked, or where he was found. Not curious at all,” I continued.
“They knew we were coming, and about the banker.” She showed me a graph off their heart rates during the visit. “That’s illegal,” I said, “We can’t scan people anymore?”
Andrea ignored my assertion. “I reckon they were the last to see him alive.” I shivered at her assessment. If true, Lady Rochester and her clone were involved in bloodletting, extreme sexual practices, and murder.
“What were they drinking?’ I asked. Andrea looked me in the eyes and passed me her substance analyzer.
“I accidentally turned it on.” The chemical breakdown flew off the screen.
“Blood,” I sighed, putting the Ranger into hyper drive.
“sh*t…sh*t…sh*t!” I cursed as we sped toward the surface of Metagog.
My shoulder had throbbed painfully throughout the meeting. The longer we were there, the more acute it became. Experience had taught me to listen to my shoulder. Being piked by the proboscis of a Transluvian Blaggar Vrestril had left me with an irksome and, ignore at your peril warning system for detecting liars. The Rochester Twins were beguiling eye candy, but there was something awful about them. My shoulder never lied. Behind their refined etiquette, expensive finery and high social standing I felt a dark, brooding, sensuality. A foreboding, but for what I could only imagine. A naked banker, murdered with an ancient stiletto was a good start.
The communicator cracked into life.
‘10-27, Albamarle Court, crime team in attendance’. We were not far from Albarmarle, so we decided to take a look.
The building log showed flat 30002 hadn't been occupied for months. It was only the smell coming from inside that had provoked any interest. A sterilizing crew alerted the Federation Police to the scene inside. Andrea's tanned complexion turned green as we peered inside the white ten-foot by ten-foot pre fabricated box someone once called a home. The room was bathed in an eerie gold light. All regular power had been cut off when the owner’s credits ran out.
As our eyes became accustom to the gloom, we could see in the centre a copper coloured metal container. Slumped inside, covered in liquid was a half submerged body. One hand held a piece of paper the other was draped forlornly on the floor holding a white bird feather. I was puzzled. I saw death everyday, but why would someone be naked in a bowl of water?
“It's called a bath.” A rich baritone voice boomed from the gloom, quickly followed by the rotund shape of Ralph Simmond’s, the Federations Head Crime Scene Technician. He belched a licked his lips. Ralph liked his lunches.
“Popular up until the first part of the 21st Century.” I winced at the thought. How could you sit in your own grime? Simmond's continued.
“It's an elaborate set up. An allegorical murder if you will, based on a very, very old earth painting.” He dabbed his beet red brow and rumbled. He belch again.
“Look at the body position.”
Andrea sprayed on a pair of gloves and looking less green, moved carefully around the body.
“Take a look at this.” Simmond’s excitedly produced a small viewer and thrust it in my face.
'This was painted by a Jacques Louis David, and called La Mort de Marat. The bodies in an identical position, stabbed with a similar knife.” Simmond’s punched his chest with an imaginary dagger and belched again.
“What kind of knife?” asked Andrea.
“Same as before, ornate, probably from earth.” Simmond’s offered up the evidence bag with the knife.
“And, probably from the Rochester collection,” mused Andrea, giving me a cold, suspicious look.
“What?” My tetchy, knee jerk reaction was just what she wanted. Elaborately she cupped an imaginary set of genitals and locked them in an imaginary pair of pants and threw away a key. “Don’t even think about it,” she whispered. I feigned indifference.
Simmond’s, used to our pantomimes, continued. “We haven't processed the letter yet, but I would bet my Federation Pension lottery ticket, it’s a clue.” The timbre of his voice rose with every revelation—It didn’t take long to hit falsetto.
I looked at the painting and then at the Federation's number one crime processing geek and patted him paternally on the shoulder.
“You really must get out more,” I whispered before moving in for a closer look of the piece of paper.
It was late when we finally left Albarmarle and arrived back at the Precinct dock. Andrea was off to the Visualizer with a friend just back from another galaxy. I was not invited. It was a one on, fully consensual re-union, so I left her at the Station and made my way through the heavy traffic back to my apartment, carefully ensuring the package left on my dash came with me.
Inside my apartment, the wall screen was flashing, so I ran through my messages. The usual advertising dross, until Lady Rochester’s trembling voice made my ears prick up.
“Officer Morag, I have something to tell you. I realize it is probably too late, but my clone…Well…I think, I think she has a mind of her own? Can you come over immediately?”
To be continued...
TBO
I got the urge to try my hand at an 'adult' first person murder mystery. Very different from my Tarquin Jenkins opus!
Here is the start of the first chapter. I have gone fairly lightly on the 'noire' style as I don't want to labour it.
As always, I would be grateful for members views. Would you want to read more? Does it grab, or do you find it hackneyed?
TBO
NESTS
“How many nests you found this year?”
The Seflapine's two eyes looked me up and down, its third, a large bulbous bump in the centre of its chest floated motionless, vacant, like an oversized goldfish trapped inside a small bowl. I smiled.
“Not enough.” The pain in my legs seared through me, as the Seflapine’s delicate ten fingered hands scuttled feverishly inside my lacerated flesh.
“This is really going to hurt.” The Seflapine's three eyes locked onto mine. He was enjoying this. I bit hard on the rubber grip and nodded.
“Jesuit Priest!” I groaned, as a thousand lasers knitted and sutured the gory mess that was once flesh and bone.
“Ahhh! You humanoids never could take pain. That's it, you're done...Until the next Femvamp sinks her teeth into you,” said the Seflapine, examining its intricate weaving while delighting in my agony. Through two air holes on the side of its face it grunted loudly, and drooled a viscous yellow gloop from three sides of its mouth. It was the nearest a Seflapine came to contentment. I handed over a thousand draggs; the equivalent of six months Ranger pay.
“I hope it was worth it,” slobbered the Seflapine. I looked at the four, needle sharp fangs lying in a bowl of my blood, and winced. They were well worth it.
“It would help the Federations cause if his dick didn’t rule his head.” I swung round and instinctively leveled my pistol at the door. Through the portal came Andrea, my Ranger partner.
I relaxed. “What took you so long?” I asked, puzzled by her disappearance earlier in the evening.
Silence came the reply, with a look of smug satisfaction. She did smug, very well.
She removed her gun belt and grenades, untied her blonde braided hair and sank into a chair.
“While you were making out with new friends, I was working.” She crossed her long, leather clad legs, put her hands behind her head and sighed. Despite the protection suit, her ample chest heaved invitingly. I had to admit, she was stunning, but I wasn’t into interspecies liaisons. Not again. I had learnt my lesson. The large bag on the floor intrigued me.
“While you were frolicking with those Femvamps, I saw a couple of runners and chased them down. Here, what do you want to do with them, the bank doesn't open for another two hours.” Andrea rolled the bag to me and I looked inside.
“So you took their f****** heads!”
“The bank will pay, trust me,” she said, in a tone of placid indifference, nonchalantly scraping congealed purple entrails from her leather jacket. “Why can't they have red blood like every other damn creature in this universe?” she muttered, prizing off one particularly stubborn wad.
The Seflapine strode over to Andrea and looked her up and down.
“How much you want?” Its voice, shrill and excited.
“They are heads for f***’s sake! You can't repair them? You need something to bind their heads to!” I said, at the frothing, brown blob examining each head simultaneously in its hands.
“Thirty.”
“Twenty five.”
It spat into a hand and thrust it at Andrea. “Yours.”
Andrea shook her head, “Just the money, I don’t do bonding.”
She took the draggs and flashed me a satisfied grin.
“Come Superman, we have another day ahead of us, and the Stratosphere awaits.” I dropped from the operating table and felt the pain shoot through my leg.
“Just take a couple of these, you won’t feel a thing,” said the Serapline, laughing as it offered me a bag of ‘pale blues’. I shook my head and limped for the door.
We left the Seflapine examining the Vampyre heads, like a kid with new toys and made for the exit.
We reached ground level and took up defensive positions. The portal doors opened and we peered out. Through the rancid smog, orange rays from Metagog’s three suns caste eerie shadows on the flat, rubble-strewn landscape. There were no redeeming features to the Netherworld, just the flotsam and Jepson of discarded military conquest and destroyed habitation. In amongst the ruins and pollution, life existed, but not the sort of life you would wish to know about. The intelligencia had moved out en masse shortly after the Great Leap, and lived in self-contained orbiting mansions within Metagog’s stratosphere. Miles below them, in the sprawling, over crowded hyper flats, existed the mundane and urbane majority—the workers. Below them, was Netherworld. When the iteliigencia’s pampered lives were ruffled, it was the Federations 'Catchers' and 'Rangers' who had to delve into the rancid underbelly and find answers.
I spat and took a last, deep breath of recycled air before fitting my ventilator. I disliked the Netherworld. We walked nervously toward the 'Ranger Vehicle', covering each other’s back. If we were to be attacked, it would be now. Shadowy figures moved in and out of the dense, yellow fog. Moans and groans accompanied their fleeting shapes. I used to bring new recruits to the smogs of the Netherworld, for training. Not anymore. I wasn't allowed to come here myself. Not after what happened. The Psychosis Re-Assignment board had made that very clear.
“How's the leg?” asked Andrea, when we finally reached the safety of our vehicle.
“Getting better, should be fine by tonight.” I lied. She shut down the Ranger's force field, giving us enough time to jump into the bucket seats.
The force field generator pulsed on. “Let's get out of this hole,” I said, relieved to have avoided a confrontation with the locals. There was a package on the dashboard. I shoveled it into my coat pocket. Andrea was too busy setting the autopilot to see what I was doing.
I distrusted the Stratosphere about as much as I disliked the Netherworld. I was humanoid, from the south side of the hyper drive freeway, not used to ostentatious wealth, and high living. Centuries ago, my forefathers had come from a small, northern region in a country called England, from a planet called earth. One infamous relative would often say; You get ought for naught in this life. Over time it became my family’s motto, and my creed. My Father put our family’s crest on a plaque, with the motto underneath. After his death, I kept it screwed to my Rover dashboard.
Andrea, my partner for the last two years, was born from a long line of Deluvian Huntresses. She came from a planet a dozen times bigger than earth and billion light years away. She had no idea what I was about.
The Ranger vehicle rose silently into the air and roared into the sky, leaving behind the yellow, sulphurous smog. Andrea hit the autopilot and we joined the thousands of vehicles, stacked in concentric circles waiting to join the Stratobelt exchange. I flicked a switch and music flooded the Ranger.
“What are we listening too today?” asked Andrea, sarcastically.
“Metaphorsis, Mylene Farmer,” I said nonchalantly, knowing full well I’d be medically terminated if the Precinct’s Psychologist knew I was once again listening to Rock music from a bygone age. The rebel within me was happy.
“You took precautions, didn’t you?” Andrea’s concern was touching, but borne from self preservation. I gave her my quizzical look.
“No,not that.” She pointed dismissively at my crotch. “You’ve got as much chance as a three legged Nourn winning the Federation Cup. I just don’t want you getting all oral on me.” She had a point.
“Yeh, I’ve been vaccinated.” Though, the thought of going down on her young neck was interesting.
We passed through the automated exchange, and reached the outer limits of One Stratosphere Mansions in a matter of minutes. Designed towards the end of the 23rd Century, the Mansions were an imposing sight. There were 2500 in total, each one a monument to an individual architect and bio-designer. One Stratosphere Mansions were the brainchild of Architect and raconteur, Rafferty Regan, and our trip was to meet his great granddaughter, Rochester.
Andrea brought the Rover down in the Mansions quadrangle, and we both got out. There was little need to set the Rangers force field. No one living in a Mansion would bother with an obsolete, Class II Rover with unauthorized customizations. I had been offered an upgrade, but I fiercely declined, preferring the retro lines of the Class II model...and my plaque. It was my home.
We walked along cream marbled avenues, lined with a variety of citrus trees and statues of statesmen from many planets. My senses reeled with the sweet narcotic scent of fruit and clean air. Artificial sunlight flooded the avenue, mimicking the rich colours of the late afternoon suns on Terramageon. I was seriously out of place.
“Come on let’s get this over with,” I said, wanting to leave.
Each dwelling was separated from the rest of the inhabitants, no more than fifty to each avenue to maintain exclusivity. They reached the red metal door of Dwelling 35 and I checked the label; it was the Rochester's. A camera whirled and a voice boomed from the door.
“Lady Rochester Selnargwine will see you shortly.” The door opened inward, revealing a small domed anti-room. The bright light and white tiles hurt our eyes, and we both squinted with pain. I looked up at the domed ceiling. It was covered with small disinfectant nozzles. Andrea growled disapprovingly.
Sanitized and disinfected, we moved inside. We unbuckled our weapon harnesses and dropped them in the cages provided, and waited. Seconds later, an Automaton ushered us through the hallway and into a large lounge.
“Please stand.” The Automaton wafted a series five viral investigator in front of us. Satisfied, he turned off the irritating pink light. Preened and cleaned, we were cleared to meet Lady Rochester.
“You may sit. Lady Rochester may be some time,” said the automaton, with one of those plastic, non-committal voices favoured by unimaginative robotic engineers. It waved a paddle at the sofa and we sat.
“Let's not forget why we are here,” whispered Andrea, in a hushed voice, full of suspicion. I smiled, tapped my Police badge and whispered back.
“I know where my heart is.”
“It's where you keep putting your dick that worries me.” I smiled, and blew her a kiss.
Twenty minutes had passed. I looked at the automaton, got up and snarled.
“We are here on official Federation business, and we don’t like waiting.” I emphasized my words with sharp jabs to the Automaton’s chest making its head jerk back and forth with a high pitched whirring sound. I expected Lady Rochester was viewing us through the automaton, and sure enough, almost immediately came the sound of heels tapping on marble. It emanated from the top of a vast curving staircase.
“Yes Officer Morag, we mustn’t keep you waiting”.
My blood rushed south. Two sylph like figures descended the staircase. Two identical, female figures. I looked at Andrea who shot me a perplexed look.
I had seen the news screens and read her Government file. Lady Rochester was a tall humanoid, ex-model, physically enhanced, and honed by her late husband’s bio- cosmetic corporation, but nothing prepared me for seeing two paragons of beauty gliding effortlessly down the staircase.
“Officer Morag you looked surprised. Haven’t you ever seen a clone before?”
I had, but only in science manuals.
“Clones were outlawed by the Federation Council in 2300.” I said, trying not to look too mesmerized by the sight of the Gemini twins swathed in diaphanous silk.
“Oh Pish! You had better arrest us then.” The twins laughed loudly, knowing our jurisdiction didn’t extend to the Stratosphere Mansions.
“Can we get you Officers a drink?” We both declined. The two humanoids moved languidly to a side cabinet, and each poured a drink from a large red bell shaped decanter. It was unnerving to watch flesh honed to such perfection.
“Shall we sit down?” asked one of the twins.
“This is awfully ceremonial standing like this,” concluded the other.
They sank into the leather chairs. My eyes were fixed on the undulating curves of the nearest beauty.
Andrea sighed and opened her evidence bag, producing a long thin bladed knife.
“Have you seen this before?” she asked, offering it to a twin.
“Why, yes? It is an Italian stiletto dagger, made on earth in Florence, Italy sometime in their 17th century. It belongs in my late Father’s collection. How did you come by it?”
“It was pulled out of a Banker two days ago.” I watched for a reaction. If they were feigning surprise they were damned good.
“Do you know this man?” Andrea showed them the banker’s naked body on her pocket screen. They looked at each other, and shook their heads.
“How do you think it got into the banker?” I asked.
“We were burgled several weeks ago? I am sure we reported the incident? The closest beauty spoke sweetly, her cobalt blue eyes glinted disconcertingly. Convenient to have a break-in I thought, but unlikely. The Mansions had their own security and were heavily protected.
“Now Officers, if you have finished we have to leave for a reception.” The twins stood up and the automaton returned.
“Thank you for your time Lady Rochester. We may need to revisit at a later date.” The twins smiled and the automaton ushered us back through the hallway to our guns. We left the Mansion with more questions than answers.
“I didn’t tell them our names, did you?” Andrea frowned and shook her head.
“They didn’t ask anything about the banker; why he was naked, or where he was found. Not curious at all,” I continued.
“They knew we were coming, and about the banker.” She showed me a graph off their heart rates during the visit. “That’s illegal,” I said, “We can’t scan people anymore?”
Andrea ignored my assertion. “I reckon they were the last to see him alive.” I shivered at her assessment. If true, Lady Rochester and her clone were involved in bloodletting, extreme sexual practices, and murder.
“What were they drinking?’ I asked. Andrea looked me in the eyes and passed me her substance analyzer.
“I accidentally turned it on.” The chemical breakdown flew off the screen.
“Blood,” I sighed, putting the Ranger into hyper drive.
“sh*t…sh*t…sh*t!” I cursed as we sped toward the surface of Metagog.
My shoulder had throbbed painfully throughout the meeting. The longer we were there, the more acute it became. Experience had taught me to listen to my shoulder. Being piked by the proboscis of a Transluvian Blaggar Vrestril had left me with an irksome and, ignore at your peril warning system for detecting liars. The Rochester Twins were beguiling eye candy, but there was something awful about them. My shoulder never lied. Behind their refined etiquette, expensive finery and high social standing I felt a dark, brooding, sensuality. A foreboding, but for what I could only imagine. A naked banker, murdered with an ancient stiletto was a good start.
The communicator cracked into life.
‘10-27, Albamarle Court, crime team in attendance’. We were not far from Albarmarle, so we decided to take a look.
The building log showed flat 30002 hadn't been occupied for months. It was only the smell coming from inside that had provoked any interest. A sterilizing crew alerted the Federation Police to the scene inside. Andrea's tanned complexion turned green as we peered inside the white ten-foot by ten-foot pre fabricated box someone once called a home. The room was bathed in an eerie gold light. All regular power had been cut off when the owner’s credits ran out.
As our eyes became accustom to the gloom, we could see in the centre a copper coloured metal container. Slumped inside, covered in liquid was a half submerged body. One hand held a piece of paper the other was draped forlornly on the floor holding a white bird feather. I was puzzled. I saw death everyday, but why would someone be naked in a bowl of water?
“It's called a bath.” A rich baritone voice boomed from the gloom, quickly followed by the rotund shape of Ralph Simmond’s, the Federations Head Crime Scene Technician. He belched a licked his lips. Ralph liked his lunches.
“Popular up until the first part of the 21st Century.” I winced at the thought. How could you sit in your own grime? Simmond's continued.
“It's an elaborate set up. An allegorical murder if you will, based on a very, very old earth painting.” He dabbed his beet red brow and rumbled. He belch again.
“Look at the body position.”
Andrea sprayed on a pair of gloves and looking less green, moved carefully around the body.
“Take a look at this.” Simmond’s excitedly produced a small viewer and thrust it in my face.
'This was painted by a Jacques Louis David, and called La Mort de Marat. The bodies in an identical position, stabbed with a similar knife.” Simmond’s punched his chest with an imaginary dagger and belched again.
“What kind of knife?” asked Andrea.
“Same as before, ornate, probably from earth.” Simmond’s offered up the evidence bag with the knife.
“And, probably from the Rochester collection,” mused Andrea, giving me a cold, suspicious look.
“What?” My tetchy, knee jerk reaction was just what she wanted. Elaborately she cupped an imaginary set of genitals and locked them in an imaginary pair of pants and threw away a key. “Don’t even think about it,” she whispered. I feigned indifference.
Simmond’s, used to our pantomimes, continued. “We haven't processed the letter yet, but I would bet my Federation Pension lottery ticket, it’s a clue.” The timbre of his voice rose with every revelation—It didn’t take long to hit falsetto.
I looked at the painting and then at the Federation's number one crime processing geek and patted him paternally on the shoulder.
“You really must get out more,” I whispered before moving in for a closer look of the piece of paper.
It was late when we finally left Albarmarle and arrived back at the Precinct dock. Andrea was off to the Visualizer with a friend just back from another galaxy. I was not invited. It was a one on, fully consensual re-union, so I left her at the Station and made my way through the heavy traffic back to my apartment, carefully ensuring the package left on my dash came with me.
Inside my apartment, the wall screen was flashing, so I ran through my messages. The usual advertising dross, until Lady Rochester’s trembling voice made my ears prick up.
“Officer Morag, I have something to tell you. I realize it is probably too late, but my clone…Well…I think, I think she has a mind of her own? Can you come over immediately?”
To be continued...
TBO
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blondes? or - and the clones imagery has set me off here - Rachel from Bladerunner?
