Clarkesworld Magazine Issue 189 by Neil Clarke

Author:Neil Clarke
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: magazine, science fiction, Science Fiction - Short Stories, science fiction magazine, short fiction, short stories
Publisher: Wyrm Publishing
Published: 2022-06-01T00:00:00+00:00

06.

“Old Song?” I banged hard on the door.

I waited for half a minute, but there was no response.

I went straight to verifying my identity on the retina scanner and entered Song Mike’s office. A long time ago, I’d been his assistant; he never removed my access permissions after my transfer.

The interior smelled of cigarettes. I turned on the ventilation fan and went around the room, making an inspection. The old dossier on the warehouse case lay on the table, flipped through so many times that the edges were curling up. The desktop computer was still powered on. I gave the mouse a shake. A password pop-up appeared on the screen.

Never mind.

His jacket and car keys were missing.

I swore. The bastard had purposefully ditched me. This morning, I’d sent him the information I’d put together and left him a voicemail, telling him to wait for me to arrive at the office. Lu Guotao wasn’t just some mad scientist who’d played with fire and caused the one-off tragedy. If he’d lived last century, before the death penalty was abolished, the crimes he’d committed in the course of his private research into human-passing cybertronic brains would have earned him a hanging.

Even though Song Mike had been tracing Lu Guotao’s tracks for years, I still wasn’t sure if he knew just how terrifying his opponent was. Song Mike was an old-school cop. He wasn’t much good at digging up and collating online resources. And after the higher-ups shut down the warehouse case, he couldn’t have gotten the help of the station’s technicians.

I’d rushed into the station and still been too late.

I could picture how he’d look explaining, I can’t take a woman to capture a berserk killer robot. Heavens, it had been years since he left the front line, and I hadn’t seen him partake in any physical training. Chances were he couldn’t even outfight a street hoodlum anymore.

I pulled out my phone and called the station’s car modification aficionado. “Section Chief Zhang, let me borrow your car.”

The other party agreed readily.

As I drove into the hills, I rejoiced in my decision to borrow a car. The smooth highway had quickly become pitted cobblestone. The city no longer had the money to maintain these distant stretches of the public road network.

Song Mike didn’t pick up any of the calls I made en route. For my part, I tried diligently not to think about the crime scene photos in the dossier for the warehouse case.

Fortunately, I soon spotted his battered Volkswagen parked crookedly on the frontage road.

I stopped the car and felt for my gun. When shooting an android, aim for the stomach, that’s where the power source is—silently repeating my freshly gained knowledge once more, I kicked open the car door.

“Old Song!” I yelled.

My surroundings were dead quiet. Pebbly beach stretched from either side of the highway, from which rose massive boulders. Some kind of invasive species with yellow flowers grew everywhere amid the cracks in the stone.

“I’m here,” he answered, a hint of resignation showing in his voice.

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