Changeling

Nestra called it in immediately. Shinoda picked up after two minutes. He sounded exhausted but determined.

“I will be there in forty minutes, Palladian-san. Do you need me to pick you up?”

“Nah, I’m on my way by car. Meet you at the parking lot.”

“Be careful. They might be watching, and if they see you alone…”

“I know. Don’t worry.”

There were only two saving graces in this absolute shitshow. One, they’d noticed now instead of showing up fresh-faced at 9AM like a bunch of amateurish nitwits. Two, Nestra had several more drones around, which meant that they could have caught something. She browsed through the recordings while her real car sped on towards Fifteen. It was getting close to 5AM now which meant she was tired, but at least she’d slept some during twilight. Adrenaline and rage made her human heart pulse with a rigid staccato.

What kind of fucking scum of humanity killed a nice street cook to send a message? What manner of skid mark on the nasty knickers of humanity’s most degenerate could come up with this sort of plan and say, yeah, let’s do this? Old Lin was a nice guy, a fucking food provider. An artist!

She was going to kill them.

Nay, she was going to make an example out of them just like they’d made an example out of him. It was just a matter of finding them. After a cursory search, she did find shapes moving through a passage near the utility tunnels, a place she’d not been to yet. There were four of them. Augs, and not the lower shelf civilian ones. She clipped the vid and shared it with Shinoda. He replied with a ‘seen’ emote. Probably busy. She did get a call on her visor almost immediately after.

“This is officer Kim,” the cold voice said. “I will join you with a team. Only a few people but this is the best I can do.”

“Is it wise for you to show yourself?”

“I have officially been detached to Fifteen as a, ah, coordinator. My cover story will suffice considering we civil servants are always short-staffed. Compared to our workload, that is.”

“Ok. See you there.”

Waiting in the underground parking for ten minutes felt like some of the longest ten minutes of her life and she’d had open fractures. Only when Shinoda roared in with the cruiser did she send her car back home. It might be vandalized if it stayed.

“Palladian-san. We should secure the crime scene.”

“Ok. Give me a moment.”

A quick drone activation revealed a few heat signatures, mostly residents observing them from behind their windows. The hab block was already waking up. Nestra checked and double checked that there were no snipers lying in ambush. After a while, she gave the all-clear. If there was a guy out there with advanced camo and a rifle, they were fucked anyway. The pair of cops walked to the trophy carefully. This time, nothing happened.

“Lin-ojisan. We failed you,” Shinoda lamented.

He was apologetic but reverent when he checked for traps, then when he removed the head. Nestra was just keeping an eye out which let her see the very obvious trail of blood leading up the stairs.

“Follow this?”

“Chotto matte ne? Give me a second, yes?”

Nestra wanted to hunt but Shinoda wanted to follow procedure and she had to admit… he was probably doing a better job. The old detective placed the head in a body bag, then cordoned the area with an ease that spoke of experience. Old Lin’s eyes were closed and the head was covered, which felt a bit like a ritual and made Nestra a little less furious. The ball of anger instead cooled to an arctic bite that gnawed at her, urging her on with controlled rage.

The pair followed the trail with great care to an apartment with the door ajar. Someone had used a morphpick, a special break-in tool that molded into the shape of the key once inserted into a lock provided the lock wasn’t too complicated, which it wasn’t. Really expensive shit to kill an old man. Lin’s body was splayed on the living room’s floor over a pool of congealed blood. The cut on his neck was really clean, the sort made with an extremely sharp blade. At least, he hadn’t suffered. A police hover van landed in the courtyard while they secured the place.

A team of specialists came down to secure the place led by Kim who wore a field vest that made her look cool and professional. She didn’t wait for more than a second before pinging them.

“Report?”

“He was killed in his home. The perpetrators came from a passage leading to the utility tunnels. Perhaps they can be tracked down? At least, we would know where they came from,” Shinoda said.

“Then I have bad news. The body temperature indicates he died about two hours ago. That’s long enough to cross half the district on foot. The utility tunnels are a warren that expands to every nearby hab block, with multiple shelters in case of emergency. Storage space too. And we have reports that more facilities have been… dug by the gangs. We will likely not find whoever did this.”

“There might be more cameras down there,” Nestra mentioned.

“The local residents do not like cameras very much.”

“Ah, Kim-san. I understand what she means. Flash may have installed some security measures. Maybe.”

“We can ask,” Nestra said.

“I have his address,” Shinoda said. “Let’s go, Palladian-san.”

***

Nestra kept drumming on the door for three minutes without tiring. She knew someone was on the other side. Her finer senses had picked up the beeps of some old systems, probably cameras aiming at the door.

“Open up, I know you’re here,” she repeated.

“Fuck off!” a man’s voice finally said.

It didn’t belong to the man they sought.

“We need to talk to Flash. It’s important.”

“I said fuck off… or else!”

A thin robotic arm deployed from above the door. Someone had welded a low-intensity stun gun to the extremity, something Flash had done before and that Nestra had a strong opinion about.

“I’ll zap you!”

“Open. The. Damn. DOOR!”

The stun gun fired. Twin filaments hit Nestra’s military-grade Wellington insulated gear with nothing to show for it.

“So help me Riel I will tear off this thing and shove it up your flaccid—”

The door finally opened on a bare-chested youth displaying tattoos and abs. His thunderous brow glared downward — fucker was at least demon Nestra-sized.

“Lady, if you don’t piss off. Gun dan!”

“Old Man Lin is dead,” Shinoda said. “He was murdered. Mr Flash might be able to help us find who is responsible. I can see that you care for him, sir, but this is a decision he should make for himself,” Shinoda said in a soft voice.

The young man worried his lower lip as he considered the old detective’s request. Nestra took a step back and crossed her arms.

“Wait here. And you wait! No going in!”

He turned around into a cluttered hallway. A thick curtain blocked the access to the living room but not the sound, and Nestra picked up a pair of complaining female voices. Eventually, Flash whispered something. It took another minute for the strange man to approach, wearing his signature neon green suit.

“What’s that about Old Lin. You’re shitting me?”

“He was murdered as an example,” Shinoda said.

“For talking to us.”

“Shit and you come here in the middle of the night? Wah seh you asshole don’t care I’m a gone-case.”

“You have cameras in the utility tunnels,” Nestra said.

“It would be of great help to us if you could tell us what they saw. Old Lin didn’t deserve this. We have to act now or the hab block will suffer.”

“You mean your face will suffer.”

“This is not about our reputation,” Shinoda said sternly.

At the back, the muscled man returned, bulging arms crossed. He was clearly backing Flash up.

“This is about justice. A man helped us and he was killed for it. He didn’t deserve this and you know it. You also know that it’s an attack on you, and an attack on your block, by someone who wants to prove we are all weak. Now, you must decide if you sulk back in the shadows or if you show us all a straight back. You do not even have to leave your house but you have to help us. Please. Point us in the right direction.”

Flash licked his lips, his eyes going from Shinoda to Nestra. He was sweating.

He turned his attention to her.

“Old Lin gave me food, good food too. When I get my hand on them they’ll wish they were outside the walls instead,” she said.

“Ok, look. Okay. There are cameras near important places like the shelter and some storage rooms. I’ll check the footage. Give me your numbers and I’ll send you what I have. I promise.”

“We’ll head there right away.”

“And uh, can I ask? Please don’t tell people I live in a polycule?”

“Your secret is safe with us,” Shinoda assured.

“As if people didn’t know already,” Nestra mocked. “You think you’re being slick? It’s a fucking hab block. Everyone and their grandma knows it already.”

Flash wilted under her verbal assault. Even the guy behind him piled on.

“Told you already.”

“Yeah, and just like me, they possibly couldn’t give less of a shit,” Nestra concluded. “Get me those vids. I can’t fucking wait.”

***

Threshold was built on a maze of underground facilities. Between government-mandated shelters, arcologies, private storages and subways, there was enough below the surface to start a civilization, at least for a while, but District Fifteen had taken it a step further. Corridors expanded in every direction, some showing sheer rock instead of the ubiquitous concrete. Nestra was pretty sure they weren’t up to safety standards. The only concessions to common sense was that the support pillars were intact, and the lack of rooms large enough to host a portal, because portals did appear underground, and gangs didn’t have the means to stop a serious break. The result was an expanding labyrinth of small rooms and narrow passages only large enough for a single person at a time. Haphazardly placed lamps cast weak lights on rusty, pitted surfaces, those that were still working anyway. It would have been hell to navigate without her suit’s night vision and without a guide. Well, an audio guide.

“Passage left is a dead end. That place was dug by the XV gang, named because—”

“Of the roman numerals of Fifteen,” Nestra cut.

She checked the opening. Shinoda was left behind to cover the main corridor. He was still sulking after Nestra made it clear she would go first as the heavy hitter. So was Kim because Nestra had invited a civvie in the group call.

“Wah seh, you are such a wet blanket angmoh girl. You’ll never catch a boyfriend with that attitude.”

“Good.”

Nestra kept going. She didn’t like it. Too many blind angles, too many straight rooms with zero cover. Her only comforts were her drones and Flash acting as Stibs normally would, except his cameras were static and he was a whiny blabbermouth. Sometimes, glass crunched under Shinoda’s feet, making her wince.

“Camera ahead is deactivated,” Flash warned them.

Nestra stopped in her tracks. Behind her, Shinoda checked his gun again. It was a nice pistol with a silvery sheen, and she gave it a good fifty fifty chance that the bullets in there could actually stop an aug.

“What do you mean, deactivated? Since when?”

“Tonight. Checking footage aaaaaaand I don’t see shit. One moment, all good, the next, lights out.”

“What’s there?”

“Intersection tunnel to other hab blocks and a side passage to barracks. Gang barracks. They ought to be empty.”

“Okay.”

Nestra turned a bend in the passage and her little black box beeped. It was the one demon Nestra used to detect cameras.

“You said you have no visuals, right?” Nestra asked again.

“Yeah yeah.”

“Anyone else would have surveillance around?”

“No angmoh girl, this is our turf. XV left the barracks during the purge and we, ah, liberated their stuff. Nothing left.”

Nestra finally reached the mentioned intersection. Two tunnels spread out to her left and right for dozens of meters, their surface completely clear. Steel tracks met in the middle, the defunct remains of the train system that let emergency services carry goods across the city. What tickled Nestra’s interest was a large archway dug at an angle, a destroyed security door blocking the path half-heartedly. Someone had melted the lock. The sheer rock beyond was even more raw and uneven than before but Nestra spotted support beams and enough cables for a good installation. The lights were live and the air smelled faintly of oil and superheated metal. A recent smell. She suspected Shinoda might not be able to pick it up, but instead, he kneeled by the entrance and pointed at what Nestra thought was dust but turned out to be wet soil.

“Tracks. Hours old at most. Mud here, still not dried out.”

“Looks like the barracks were revived,” Nestra muttered.

Kim spoke, and this time her voice carried more concern than mild disapproval.

“Right, there is a decent chance those are our culprits. I’m calling our user squad and putting an end to this operation. The purge left plenty of weapons caches and secondary bases intact, and many gangers escaped the net. Although Nestra’s images are not clear, I believe we may be facing heavily augmented opposition and this could be their base. You will stay put until reinforcements arrive.”

Nestra looked up to see a camera near the entrance, a recent one as well. It was a different model than the cheap shit Flash used. Just like the morphpick, the augs were using high end stuff typically only afforded to corpo security.

A part of her knew they were in way over their heads. When Nestra faced the gangs, she’d been with her team, wearing MaxSec armor and fighting from an entrenched position. This was her in discount gear and an aging detective with a solid aim (according to his file) and no tactical training to speak of. That part was the human side of Nestra understanding her situation from an outside perspective.

Demon Nestra wanted to get at it. She wanted to jump on the prey and tear them to pieces. Bring their heads back as an example. She would tear the chrome they were so proud off from their limbs and shove it in their tender bellies while their friends watched.

The last part of her wondered what the fuck the gangers were thinking. No smart criminal would commit a crime so close to their base without covering their tracks better. They’d smashed Flash’s camera and thought it was enough? What, they were expecting him to be terrified?

Actually, that made a lot of sense.

“Help!” a voice said from the entrance. Male. Panicked.

Nestra and Shinoda exchanged a glance, weapons raised.

“Heeeelp! Please, help!”

Nestra was pretty sure the opposition knew they were here.

It was most likely a trap.

“Don’t go,” Kim said. “It’s a ruse. Someone is trying to lure you in.”

“You know I cannot do that,” Shinoda said.

“Yuuji, that’s an order.”

“I’m sorry, Kim-san. You cannot call me Yuuji and pull rank in the same sentence.”

Kim let out a strange, strangled sound that made even a notoriously oblivious Nestra suspect there might be something between the two. Not that it mattered right now. Threshold police officers were sworn to help people in danger. Honor and legal consequences demanded that they intervened.

“Miss Palladian, please share your drone feedback with Mr Flash. Mr Flash, please kindly provide oversight. You will be rewarded for your time.”

“You two are going in? You siao lah! Crazy! It’s a trap!”

Nestra ignored the complaints. She allowed Flash to take over ‘Nestraguard.exe’ despite her misgivings. Kim was right. She would need all her attention.

“Okay, listen up. The corridor turns left ahead and there are two doors. Right leads to storage. Left leads to living quarters and armory. Both doors are closed. Locked tight.”

Nestra moved carefully. The ground was dirty, though not overly cluttered. She winced when Shinoda’s foot hit a stone.

Something shone in her night vision. She lowered herself to find a proximity device of some sort. Laser-triggered. She pointed it at a paling Shinoda. The corridor ahead led to a wall with a door on either side.

“Angmoh, you got someone running fast towards you from the back! Shit, he’s sprinting. Oh fuck! I… I think it’s too late to run!”

The handle of the left door turned.

Trap: sprung.