DeathWeb (Fox Meridian Book 3) (2 page)

Marie grinned. ‘What’re you working on? I can’t see anything, but–’

‘It’s good you can’t see it. You don’t
want
to see this. It’s a murder.’

‘I’ve seen dead bodies. In this building, as a matter of fact.’

‘Not like this. Someone took quite an exception to Alan B Barker and–’

‘I know that name.’ Marie had started frowning in the way you do when you knew you knew something, but not how you knew it. Also frowning, Fox took a still of the young man, which had not come from the crime scene or autopsy photos, and pushed it into Marie’s sensorium. It helped little. ‘Face rings a bell too, but…’

‘Perhaps I could be of assistance,’ Kit said, appearing beside them. ‘He dated a friend of yours, Janice Potter.’

Marie snapped her fingers. ‘Right. That was… two years ago? He got me into LifeFit, indirectly. He persuaded Jan to try it and Jan persuaded me.’

‘LifeFit,’ Fox said. ‘That’s the LifeWeb fitness app, right?’

‘Oh, it’s more than that. It’s an all-round system for well-being and–’

Fox held up a hand, grinning. ‘Spare me the sales pitch. I don’t even have an active presence on LifeWeb.’

‘You don’t? Hey, you don’t! I know you’re older than me–’

‘By almost a decade.’

‘–but I thought
everyone
was on LifeWeb.’

‘LifeWeb will tell you they are. I’ve got an account and, as I recall, you linked to it, but that’s about it. I don’t subscribe.’

‘I handle her activities there,’ Kit put in. ‘And I use it for data mining more than anything else. I work through the commercial gateway interface rather than the public application.’

‘Wow,’ Marie said, her eyes wide. ‘Now I do feel young. I even run LWOS on my implant.’

‘Which version?’

‘Six point oh VR. It’s the latest implant-ready version they have. The six point one came out when they brought out the LifeWear Sixty-one wearable, but they haven’t done a version of that for implants yet. I heard it was mag. New interface features and–’

‘It’s identical to the six point zero release,’ Kit stated, ‘with a few changes to the visual interface which make no practical difference to usability. The Model Sixty-one hardware is somewhat improved having a second general purpose processor installed, but that has increased the weight.’

Marie pursed her lips. ‘Not a big LifeWear fan then, Kit? Too much of a MarTech corporate girl?’

‘LifeWeb’s products focus more on form than function, Marie. And their fixation on the sale of wearables and sticking with class two AIs is a drag on technological innovation.’

‘If it wasn’t for LifeWeb and the LifeRight module, we probably wouldn’t have the delegative democracy system we do today.’

‘But–’

‘Halt!’ Fox snapped. ‘No politics. Yes, politics includes whether LifeWear is better than any other hardware out there
and
the marketing strategy of MarTech versus LifeWeb.’ She peered at Marie. ‘I’ve yet to be convinced that delegative democracy is a good idea, so you don’t win points for that one anyway, and while you’re right about LifeRight being one of the most popular voting tools early on, the shift in the voting system did as much to promote LifeWeb as the other way around. Not that I was around when that happened, but my parents made sure I knew my political history.’

‘You don’t talk about your parents much,’ Marie said, figuring that was a viable subject shift.

‘We don’t get on.’ Fox frowned. ‘Actually, I’ve no idea whether we get on or not. Things were said when I left to join the Army and we haven’t spoken since. You see, that’s where politics gets you. You end up not talking to your parents for ten years. What about yours?’

‘Oh… they died.’

‘I’m sorry.’

Marie shook her head. ‘Dad died when I was eleven, accident with a malfunctioning agribot. Mom died when I was sixteen and left me a little bit of money, and I thought, “Marie, get your ass out of Sioux Falls and go to the big, bright lights.” And I was lucky enough to get the job with Felix before I ended up on my back.’

Fox gave her a grin. ‘So you’re out of the agricultural zones too? I was born around Topeka.’

‘Got out as soon as you could too?’

‘Personally, I think you have to have a certain kind of mindset to live there.’

‘Uh-huh, but I don’t like speaking ill of the dead.’

~~~

‘We’ve been hearing the same rumours around HQ,’ Dillan said. She was leaning back on the bar of 27Lex, a nightclub which had become something of a favourite hangout, even if none of them could quite figure out why. ‘Canard is rushing about trying to hoover up delegations. Anyone who talks to me about it and sounds like they’re against it, I’ve been pushing them to delegate to you, Fox.’ Dillan was actually wearing a skirt, along with a cropped T-shirt, and the sight had been something of a shock, but then the air had turned humid as the evening had closed in and bare skin seemed a good idea.

‘That probably explains it then,’ Fox said. ‘I’ve been getting various requests to accept delegations from cops all through the afternoon.’

‘And you said you didn’t like politics,’ Marie said from Fox’s other side. She had swapped her boots for heeled pumps, but was still in the same lemon outfit otherwise.

‘I don’t. I just get stuck with it a lot. Helen gave me her vote because she figured I had her best interests at heart.’

‘And I gave her mine,’ Sam added, ‘because I felt her personal and corporate ethics were in line with my views.’ Sam was in black slacks and a black silk shirt, his black hair pulled firmly back from his face, and he looked like an oriental god, probably an evil and seductive one.

‘And that was all fine,’ Fox went on, ‘because I knew them and it all seemed reasonable, but I’m not sure I should be collecting them. I’ve got… What’s the count now, Kit?’

‘Twenty-three detectives, four officers,’ Kit replied, not turning from her examination of the patrons around them.

‘I didn’t talk to that many,’ Dillan said, frowning.

‘I have put aside eighteen further requests which have come through this evening. From the names, these appear to be family members attached to the policemen.’

Fox sighed. ‘Just accept them all for now and make sure we have their IDs. I’ll talk to someone about how to handle this stuff. I think I should probably send something out to them and tell them what my views are. Make sure they
really
want to give me their vote.’

‘And you say you have no head for politics,’ Dillan said, grinning. ‘How’re the house modifications coming along?’

‘Expected completion on the eleventh, but it might take a little longer. Experimental this, that, and the other, you know?’

‘No, but I can’t wait to find out. Can I come see? I’ll sign a waiver or whatever.’

‘Ask Terri. Isn’t she supposed to be here?’

‘Working late. She said she’d be over later. She promised. She made a couple of suggestions about what she wanted to do after so I’m pretty sure she’ll make it.’

~~~

Terri strutted into 27Lex in an almost indecently short, scarlet dress with a very low, cowl neckline and barely any back to it. She looked tired and also like she owned the place.

‘You made it,’ Fox said.

‘I made it. Sorry I’m late, but we just got the deep education programming working for the forensics AIs.’

Fox gave her a quizzical frown. ‘What does that mean?’

‘It means we’ll have trial versions of the AIs available as soon as Poppa can get the prototype hardware ready, but please try to avoid needing Pythia for the next few days.’

‘That’s fast.’

Terri gave a shrug. ‘Two weeks. Setting up a basic AI isn’t that hard, it’s the specialised training. Getting Pythia to do it means she can basically blast them through the training at speed, and they won’t stop for breaks. Training Pythia… Now that took some time.’

‘Wow. I thought I’d have more difficulty with this project.’

‘It’s not over yet. You’re going to need to have some of these things do the work and maybe re-educate them on how to do it the way you want. It’s kind of like training a human, but it can be faster for some things.’

‘Okay. I can work with that. I’ll give Ryan a heads-up on Monday. Now go do something about Helen before she drools all over the bar.’

‘She’s in a skirt. She’s got great legs.’

Fox grinned. ‘Yeah, well, takes one to know one. What doll did you borrow that dress from?’

Terri grinned back. ‘I haven’t been able to get into my doll clothes for years.’

‘You’re almost not in that.’

‘Hush you. Your young redhead can’t keep her eyes off you either.’

‘Ah the burden of adoration.’ Fox watched as Terri stalked across the space to Dillan, wrapping arms around exposed waist and smiling broadly. She noticed Sam sliding away from them too, though she was fairly sure he just wanted a word while the others were distracted.

‘No urges to throw Marie out of a window yet?’ Sam asked, confirming the suspicion.

‘No. Why?’

He gave a slight shrug. ‘We’re all going to be living under more or less the same roof. You I
know
I can put up with. She seems like a nice girl, but I’ve not spent that much time with her.’

‘Her most annoying habit is hogging the mirror in the bedroom so that she can practise her acting. Oh, and wearing really bright colours first thing in the morning. On the other hand, she’s good eye candy, and she’s got her own space for the acting practice when she moves back into your basement.’

‘I can live with that. Isabella says the feedback she’s had from casting has been positive. Our young actress is likely to land something soon. She still lacks a little confidence when she’s in front of a director.’

‘Hard to believe. How can you lack confidence and go out to a club like this wearing an outfit with less cloth than a handkerchief?’

‘She’s got an ex-cop, a bodyguard, and a current cop looking after her here, and all she really has to worry about is wandering hands and lascivious stares. Plus, she’s doing it more to look nice for you.’

‘And when she’s doing a casting call, she’s alone and she’s doing it all for herself. Yeah. But she’s getting there. Little Marie Shaftsbury from Sioux Falls on the IB channels. Did you know she came out of the Kansas Belt?’

‘Uh… Yes. I think she mentioned it at one point when I first got the house. She was babbling a little as she showed me around the place.’

‘Uh-huh. Had a crush on you, but then what girl in her right mind doesn’t?’

‘You don’t.’

‘And what does that say about me?’

5
^th
June.

Shopping was not one of Fox’s favourite activities, but Marie had suggested a walk around the mall levels and it
was
a Saturday afternoon sort of activity. It got them out of the apartment, and bed, which was not a bad thing. Looking at shoes was not so great, but what was actually bugging Fox just a little were the signs of the massacre that had happened there barely two weeks earlier.

There was not much to see. A man had walked through the mall with a missile launcher and an automatic minigun, people had died, and now you could barely tell. The image-enhancement software Fox ran more or less routinely probably showed up more of the repair work than regular people would have noticed, but she could see the scars.

‘You are not looking like a woman enjoying herself,’ Marie noted as she noticed Fox’s reflection in a window.

‘I am. I’m… Okay, so this is where Sullivan had his little spree.’ Fox pointed upward at the frame the window was in. ‘See the fresh sealant there where they had to replace this window? Last time I came through here, this had been shot out.’

Marie peered at the window, saw the whiter-than-usual sealant, but also spotted the bright green, mesh fabric platform shoes with the five-inch heels. They had small fans in the platform soles to force air between your toes, and they were
incandescent
. ‘You stopped him, and you limited the casualties. It was horrible, and I’m going to remember that day as long as I live, but you stopped him and I
have
to have those shoes!’

Fox shook her head and followed Marie into the boutique. Shopping in 2060 was something of an odd affair. Clothes shopping was often doubly so. Frequently what you were buying was the pattern licence for the garment which you could have made up by a fabricator any time you wished. Many of the designs were expected to be worn once and recycled: Fox’s bodysuits followed that mould, as did the socks she wore with trainers. There were still things made from material which was built to stick around, or had sufficient complexity or bulk that durability was important. Shoes frequently fell into that category, so the shop actually had storage in the back for pre-sized footwear.

‘So… It’s an air-conditioned killer-pump?’ Fox said, watching Marie try on a shoe which the assistant said was the right size.

‘Fourteen-centimetre heel and a four-centimetre platform… Not especially killer. And I’ll have cool toes.’

‘Heat rises, naturally,’ the assistant said, beaming, ‘so the coolest air is at your feet and this forces that up through the patented aeration sole.’

Fox suspected that there was a fundamental flaw in this idea which had something to do with sun-baked sidewalks. Pretty soon now, people would be bitching about failures in the slideways as the heat messed up the mechanism; every year the city went through the same complaints as the summer temperature soared. Of course, the people who really suffered, the sprawlers, did not get to complain much, or loudly enough. NAPA would be out in the Sprawl already checking for people who were sick from the heat, or beyond saving. Absently, she wondered what was going to happen with that aspect of the system if it all went private.

‘That sounds suspiciously like bullshit,’ Marie said, ‘but you’ve got a sale anyway.’ She glanced up at Fox. ‘It’s powered by body heat and the pressure shifts from walking!’

‘And you can see all the fans whizzing around when it does its stuff!’ Fox replied, her eyes widening in fake enthusiasm.

‘Sarcasm is the lowest form of wit.’