Love in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction by Judd Trichter

Author:Judd Trichter
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781250036018
Publisher: St. Martin's Press

SIXTEEN

Rampart Division

With his back to the blinds, the old detective blows softly into a hot cup of tea only to fall abruptly into another coughing fit. Each rib-shaking hack feels like a failed attempt to dislodge the tiny pieces of glass from where they’ve cut themselves into the tissue of his lungs. He waits for the fit to subside then uses a handkerchief to wipe away the black ash collected on his desk. That’s what’s coming out of me, he observes. It’s what’s coming out of my pores when I sweat. The by-product of the androids’ energy needs. I am choking to death on robot excrement.

He wipes his face then checks his watch. Half past six in the evening. The precinct has been abuzz since morning when a Militiaman acquaintance discovered the body of Edmund “Pink” Spenser butchered in his apartment a block from Hancock Park. The newsbranes liked the story right away. After all, there are heartbeats in Hancock Park, most of them wealthy, many of them politically connected. The LA Times published two loops of the victim on its cover: the first showed him skateboarding with his shirt off, rippling muscles and shaggy blond hair—a sun-drenched idyll of the sunshine state; the second showed Mr. Spenser with his face bashed in and his arm severed at the biceps.

The day pressed on, the story got the mayor’s attention, which got the chief’s attention, which got the attention of every Tom, Dick, and Mary with a badge, a gun, and a pulse. Lest the city convulse into a spasm of revenge killings, the brass needed a perp posthaste, i.e. they needed a bot.

Luckily, those same newsbranes that broke the story were quick to provide a suspect. It was Revealed! that came up with Plath before the department even knew who she was. According to the tabloid, the female digger was an assassin, an Android Disciple trained in the art of seduction, sent to murder innocent young heartbeat boys at the behest of Lorca. Detectives assigned to follow up discovered Plath was absent from her job at a Melrose clothing store where she was employed via a labor provider. Witnesses from the underground saw her leave the firehouse with Mr. Spenser. A botress at an all-night diner remembered serving both Plath and Mr. Spenser at the same booth. As if that wasn’t enough, the crime scene was littered with screws, hinges, and other parts easily traced back to the serial number listed in Plath’s employment file.

Once the police brass confirmed the findings of the least credible newsbrane in Los Angeles and declared Plath the main suspect in the case, all that remained was to find her. The order was given at the briefing: Find Plath. Dead or alive. Dismissed.

But Flaubert is not convinced.

A small, female retailbot wins a bout of rough and tumble with an experienced trapper? (Yes, the department knew Pink was a trapper. The newsbranes may not mention it, but detectives saw the collection of pinky fingers in Mr. Spenser’s closet.

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