Authors: Will Shetterly

Tags: #Sci-Fi & Fantasy

Chimera (5 page)

"You don't have to try to make me feel worse. I want it back, whatever it is."

Vallejo and Gold were quiet. My bet is their audio implants were updating them on what the lie detection software made of the cat's statements so far. I hadn't noticed any outright falsehoods. Apparently, their software hadn't, either.

"Seeing what kind of luck it brought Gold," Chumley said, "you might've been lucky you lost it."

Vallejo hit play. Onscreen, the cat glanced at the copbot marching toward them. Her eyes were wide with fear or desperation. She shook Gold, then put her fingertips to Gold's throat, then put her cheek beside Gold's, listening perhaps, or hoping to feel a breath. Then she flung her head back. Her mouth opened wide, contorting her face in what must've been a terrible roar of rage and loss.

I started to ask if Gold was really dead, but the cat looked away from the viewer at that moment, giving me my answer. I said, "Any idea what was in the rogue bot's dart?"

Chumley's glance said I should remember that my presence was tolerated, not welcome. Vallejo said, "Standard sleep serum. But not the standard dose."

On the viewer, a train pulled into the station as the copbot reached the bench and peered over it. The cat, crouched by Gold's still body, looked up. The copbot's dart gun swung down toward her.

The cat vaulted the bench, knocking the bot's arm aside and driving the heels of her silver boots into its pristine torso. The bot crashed backward. The cat leaped onto it before it could rise. She straddled its chest and slammed its steel skull against the pavement again and again. One of its optics cracked. So did the tile beneath its head.

The bot flailed an arm, hitting the cat's shoulder. She skidded across the platform toward the subway car's opening doors. A few passengers bolted for the safety of the tunnel, but most stayed huddled in the train: A copbot was struggling to control a chimera. The conclusion was obvious.

The bot rose smoothly and advanced on the cat. She scrambled to her feet and sprinted to the nearest car. The bot fired as she jumped inside. Its darts shattered against the closing doors.

The monitor image cut to the train's interior. The bot jammed a steel arm between the closing doors. They sprang apart, and the bot stepped in. The doors bounced shut behind it.

The train started with a lurch. The cat squeezed by frightened passengers as she ran for the rear of the car. The copbot aimed its dart gun toward her, and a passenger opened his mouth in a scream. Given the crowd and the moving train, any shot at the cat was more likely to hit a human.

As the bot retracted its dart gun into its forearm, the cat continued the narration. "It said something like 'Warning, that chimera has werewolfed.'"

Their worst fears confirmed, the passengers panicked, madly pushing each other out of the way as the cat ran for the next car. Another camera caught her entrance there. A boy fell in the aisle in front of her. She leaped over him. A young man lunged for her arm. His dreams of being the nightly news's hero of the hour died when the cat caught his wrist and shoved him back at the copbot.

She flung open a door marked "Unaccompanied chimeras must ride in the last car." The aisle before her must've been twice as packed as the previous ones. Most of these chimeras—dogs and cats primarily, but including apes, rodents, and swine—wore workers' uniforms: janitors, nurses, doormen, waiters, maids. Though their faces were marked with ID tats or covered with fur, they saw a copbot pursuing a chimera and responded with the same fear that the humans did. Werewolves don't discriminate.

The camera showed the cat plunging into a sea of chimeras that parted madly before her. She knocked the few stragglers aside, only to reach the end of her course. The next door was the last. Beyond it lay the ever-receding, dimly lit tunnel.

The copbot stopped in the aisle and raised its arm. The dart gun extended itself—no chimera would file a complaint about police negligence if it was hit by a sleep dart, and maybe that was all the bot was shooting, now that Gold was dead.

Without looking back or slowing down, the cat wrenched open the final door and lunged through. A dogwoman gasped, then covered her mouth when the copbot turned its featureless head toward her. This was clearly a police matter. It was no business of hers if a suspect chose suicide over surrender.

The copbot ran to the rear door, leaned out, and turned its head from side to side, scanning the darkness for Zoe's body. Then it tilted its head upward.

A silver boot lashed down from above, striking the bot in the forehead. It staggered and nearly fell, then caught the door frame. The silver boot struck again, but now that the bot was braced, it didn't even shiver as the boot heel drove into it. It snatched the cat's ankle to drag her down.

A second silver boot thrust against the inside of the bot's elbow. The metal arm twisted under the impact, and both silver boots drew back up into the darkness.

The bot went through the door and scuttled up toward the roof like a steel spider—

—and Vallejo froze the frame.

"Hey," I said. "Do I deposit two Cs for the next installment?"

Vallejo asked the cat, "What happened up there?"

She pursed her lips and glanced at me. I shrugged. I wanted to know the same thing. She told Vallejo, "We played chase."

"How?"

"There are things to grip on the roof. Maintenance hand holds, air conditioners, stuff like that."

"How long did this chase last?"

"Not long. I got lucky."

"Oh?"

"It fell off."

"Yes. In front of a passing train."

"That was the luckiest part."

Chumley said, "You sure you didn't help it fall?"

The cat glanced downward in a fair imitation of innocence.

Vallejo said, "What happened next?"

"I hung on until the next station."

Chumley said, "Would've been easy to lose the earring up there."

The cat hesitated. "Sure. But it disappeared later."

Vallejo clicked the remote again. Passengers walked quickly away from a train leaving the North Hollywood stop. As it picked up speed, the cat dropped from the roof of the last car to land lightly on the platform.

She stood, brushing herself off. Something bumped her from behind, and she jumped three feet away, crouching as she whirled to face this new danger. It was only a Ti-D-Bot after a gum wrapper at her feet. It swept up the gum wrapper and rolled away.

The cat straightened up and smoothed her hair as if she had intended to jump. She looked around, saw no one in sight, then took something small and dark from her pocket. Walking toward the exit, she fiddled with it like a kid with a toy with moving parts.

She stopped abruptly. The man from the waiting room, in his opaque See-alls, stepped onto the platform. Two copbots followed him. The cat took a step back and glanced over her shoulder. Before she could bolt for the train tunnel, he held out a police ID.

At Chumley's glance, the cat explained, "He identified himself as Inspector Doyle. He said the bot that killed Doc was malfunctioning, and Doc was helping him in an official investigation."

Vallejo said, "Of what?"

"He didn't say." On the viewer, the cat lowered her hand to her side and took another step back from Doyle. "He wanted Doc's earring. I asked him if he had a warrant. He said he didn't want to arrest me."

Chumley said, "Nice guy."

"Yeah." The onscreen cat raised her fist as if to throw down the thing in her hand. "I said I'd rather not see if it broke if I stomped on it. But if he didn't back off, I would."

Doyle lunged for her wrist. The cat straight-armed him, knocking him back into a copbot, and turned to flee. The second copbot grabbed her arm. She jerked free. Something small, dark, and round fell from her hand.

The cat dove for it. The copbots reached for it, too.

The black sphere hit the floor with a click. The bots froze like statues. One toppled onto Doyle, breaking his See-alls and pinning him down.

Vallejo paused the action. Chumley said, "Make a wild guess as to what stopped the bots."

The cat said, "They ran outta gas?"

"Funny. Now think what fun you'll have doing five to ten for concealing evidence."

"What evidence?"

Vallejo zoomed in on the black sphere on the subway floor. Chumley said, "Sure looks like Gold's earring."

The cat said, "I told you. It disappeared."

"In the station?"

"Later."

"Where?"

The cat glared at him in exasperation. "I had it in the station. It's gone now. It disappeared somewhere in-between. Is that so hard to figure out?"

Vallejo said, "We're trying to help you, Zoe."

"Do you take turns at Good Cop, or did he lose today's coin toss?"

Chumley smiled. "Nah, I'm an asshole by nature."

Vallejo said, "Most of Gold's work was in artificial intelligence. What's that suggest?"

I said, "That there isn't enough real intelligence to go around?"

Chumley frowned and asked Vallejo, "Why'd we let him stay?"

Vallejo glanced at me. "Because we're trying to do this like nice guys."

He zoomed out and hit play. Onscreen, the cat snatched up the earring, looked at it with surprise and curiosity, then looked up as Doyle shoved the toppled copbot aside and stood. His broken See-alls fell from his face, revealing faceted sensors where his eyes should be.

For a second, I thought it must be a borgie fashion statement. But if Doyle was a borgieboy, he wouldn't hide optical enhancers under See-alls. He would wear them proudly or leave them home. A human who wasn't borg-obsessed who needed eyes would get donors or synths. Only one reason for Doyle's eyes made sense. No wonder the cops were concerned.

Vallejo and Chumley had viewed the video at least once while we were sitting in the waiting room. The cat had already lived it. I was the only one watching now who was surprised. The onscreen cat must've been as surprised as I was, but she only tightened her lips and narrowed her slitted eyes.

Doyle drew a Beretta Recoilless 9mm from a shoulder holster, aimed it at the cat's heart, and spoke. The cat filled in, "He said I could see why the earring shouldn't get in the wrong hands. I started to ask him if it shut down bots, why it didn't affect him, but I figured that out."

So did I. Doyle wasn't controlled from CityCentral. He was an artificial intelligence passing as human.

Doyle gestured for the earring with remarkably human impatience. The cat tossed it toward him, just a little beyond his reach. As he stretched for it, she grabbed his arm and wrenched the Beretta from his grip.

Doyle lunged for her. She fired, shredding synthskin from his shoulder, baring a network of cables and wires, but failing to slow him. He grabbed her arms and slammed her against a pillar. She grunted, then, bracing her back against the pillar, brought up both feet and kicked against his chest. He flailed backward, releasing her.

She landed easily and aimed the Beretta at him. He stood erect, smiled, then steped toward her. The cat said, "He said he was backed up. He asked if I was."

Doyle took her throat in both hands. She emptied the Beretta into his neck. Syntheskin tore, then polycarbon struts broke away. Sparks fountained like an Independence Day display as bullets ripped through power and data lines in his carbon-fiber spine.

The cat kept squeezing the Beretta even after bullets quit coming from it. Doyle still stood grinning at her, his fingers tight around her throat. If she hadn't been sitting beside me, I would've sworn it was over for her.

Then Doyle's head wobbled. It swung around once. The last of the synthskin ripped from his neck. The head fell at the cat's feet, bounced across the platform, and came to a stop five yards away. The body remained upright, still clutching the cat's throat.

She gulped air as she pried Doyle's fingers away. She jumped back, caught her breath, then gave the body a tentative push with the barrel of the Beretta. The body rocked and fell backward, hitting the floor and vibrating like a frying pan dropped in the kitchen.

The black opal earring lay half under Doyle's severed head. The cat crept up on it, ready for the head to speak or bite or morph into something deadly. A spark spat out of its neck, and the cat jumped aside like, well, a startled cat.

She reached out, picked up the earring, then poked the head with the Beretta. When Doyle stayed dead, she lifted the head high by its hair, peered into its blank eyes, and said something. At our collective glance, the cat, looking a little embarrassed, repeated her line, "Hasta la vista, Yorick."

She dropped the head and ran for the exit. A hall camera revealed a sliding gate blocking her way and a gaggle of frustrated commuters standing in front of it. She jumped onto the gate, scrambled up and over it, and landed among the commuters. The cat said, "I told them you'd think someone'd check more carefully for passengers before shutting a station down."

The monitor went blank. Vallejo turned to the cat. "After that?"

"You must know the rest."

Chumley said, "Indulge us."

"I caught a cab to Crittertown, found a phone, and called Mr. Maxwell."

I waggled my hand. "That's me."

Chumley said, "Honest people would call the cops after something like that."

I said, "Copbots kill her friend and go after her, and she doesn't go to the police? Golly."

Chumley looked at me. "We don't have to do this with you here."

Which was true. I said, "Carry on, McGruff."

Vallejo told the cat, "We have video of you getting into the cab. You say you lost the earring after that?"

She nodded.

"We checked the cab."