Chapter Three

Carcer Ridge, 25 September 3124

‘If you want my advice, I’d look to a partnership with Helios or Demeter. They are trouncing you in the polls right now and you could really increase your chances if you had one of those guys on your side.’

‘Helios is a fool,’ said Seren. ‘He’s all teeth and charm. He looks good until he opens his mouth, then it’s obvious to anyone with half a brain that he’s not got any brain at all.’

Seren stood up and walked to the window that took up the entire back wall of her office at the top of Petersen Tower, the presidential seat of power in Hildenbede, the central city of Carcer Ridge. The view of the digital city below had taken her breath away when she first saw it, two hundred years before. She had been seventy then, still young and easily impressed by all the delights the world had to show her.

Two hundred years. Where had the time gone?

‘Maybe it’s time to just accept defeat gracefully,’ she said. ‘Bow out before the polls turn against us entirely.’

‘It’s your decision, Madam President,’ said Joseph. ‘But I would recommend against it. How your administration ends will define it as much as everything you accomplished.’

Seren laughed a short laugh and turned back to her old friend. ‘I don’t think we can really talk about accomplishments, can we? In all the time we’ve been here, nothing has happened. I’m President of a world that, despite its fluidity, never actually changes anything important. Who is in charge doesn’t matter, everything continues just as it always has.’

‘Now that’s the voice of someone who has given up.’

Joseph stood up and walked over to Seren, putting his arms around her and hugging her. She returned the gesture and the two old friends stood there for several minutes, saying nothing, comfortable in each other’s company.

‘You know I’ll support you whatever you decide to do,’ said Joseph.

‘I know. Thank you. You’re a good friend.’

Seren pulled away and walked back to her desk. Despite the centuries of acclimatisation to the digital world where information was available in her mind just for the wanting, she had never lost her Earthly roots. She turned on the screen that stood on the huge wooden desk and scanned the latest news reports.

‘What’s this about people disappearing?’ she asked.

Joseph’s expression glazed over for a fraction of a second while he read through the reports in his own mind. ‘I don’t know. There isn’t a lot of information available.’

Seren brought up a barrage of information from the security, defence and immigration departments. None of her ministers had any idea what was going on either. The people the reports mentioned had not left Carcer Ridge, that much was certain. That was all that was certain.

Seren brushed a couple of strands of her short, black hair out of her face and looked over at Joseph.

‘It seems we have one more problem to deal with before this administration is over.’

2

Seren pulled her vision back from her usual first person perspective, looking out through her own eyes, and looked down on herself from a short distance outside her body. She glided around her digital self, checking her appearance before she headed in to a meeting with the Secretary of State for Immigration, who also dealt with the occasional case of a citizen leaving Carcer Ridge for pastures new.

Seren was shorter than the average citizen, standing a respectable five foot eight inches tall by traditional measurements. Her black hair was shoulder length and pinned behind her head with faux oriental hairpins. Her skin was pale, her features a mixture of Irish and Japanese that had been carefully crafted for her by a team of style gurus when she had first entered politics back in her mid fifties.

Looks had been important back then and she had always been very careful to project exactly the right image to make people believe she was just the right kind of strong, upstanding and trustworthy citizen to lead them through the changes Carcer Ridge had needed to undergo if it was to blossom and achieve its full potential as a new nation.

Now change was something the people looked at with suspicion, if they ever even considered it at all. Sure each citizen talked of the fluidity of the digital world, where nothing was stable and everything was destroyed as easily as it was created. Buildings, artworks, even whole communities grew, shone brightly for a few years, and then disappeared; to be replaced by the next fad. To Seren this was not change, this was fashion. Society was stagnant beneath a veneer of creativity, and she hated herself for creating the kind of world where that could happen.

Now, after two hundred years of being the only real choice for President of this nation of self-delusion there might be someone else who could take up the reins. This Demeter person – did they have a second name, or was that passé amongst the ‘in crowd’ these days? – might just be the breath of fresh air she had been hoping for since she had taken office again, becoming only the second President in Carcer Ridge’s long history to serve twenty-five consecutive terms.

Only James Wyatt Stevenage, the second President, had beaten her and she had no intention of trying to match his thirty term reign. Carcer Ridge had been a very different place at the start and nobody had really believed it would last more than a few experimental years once its founder, Professor George Emelius Burrows-Hodgkinson, stepped down and opened the fledgling city state to a new form of “open parliament” democracy. Stevenage had given Carcer Ridge much needed stability, and for that everyone who now called it home owed him a debt of thanks.

Not that most of the citizenry even knew who Stevenage was, now. History was not one of the country’s strongest points. Seren had wanted to change that, to build on the nation’s heritage, but aside from an annual arts festival celebrating all that digital immortality meant to the participants, nothing she had tried had stuck. People in Carcer Ridge did not care for studying history. With most of the important figures from the country’s past still hanging around somewhere, anyone who was interested did not need to look up information. They could just give the people involved a call and go over for a chat.

Seren pulled her vision back to her preferred first person viewpoint and initiated the transfer sequence that took her from her home to her office in Petersen Tower. From her point of view, the transfer was instantaneous. She requested the transfer and the supercomputer array running Carcer Ridge immediately paused her consciousness while it switched her data from the cluster of processors responsible for her home area to the cluster of processors responsible for running the Tower. When the transfer was complete, she was unpaused in her new location. The entire process took less than a second to complete; which from the point of view of a citizen inside Carcer Ridge could seem like up to an hour, depending on preferred running speeds.

3

Dudley Street in the Cheetham Hill area of Manchester had seen many renovation projects over the years and was now playing host to two rows of houses designed by the award-winning architect Giselle de Vann, who had been the architect everyone wanted to work with in the mid 31^st century. The houses were designed from traditional brick and mortar but each was over layed with a layer of stucco to make the buildings appear like they were flowing into one-another.

The result had been praised as an excellent example of how the lower value areas of the city were being beautified and made more desirable to live in but the resultant increase in property values had not lasted once the upkeep cost of the buildings became apparent. It was not possible to easily repair any damage to the houses and redecorating made the house in question stick out from the others in its row, unless the exact same colours and swirls the original designer had used were painstakingly reapplied. As a result, wear and tear took its toll on the street, leaving it a hodgepodge of colours and patched up façades.

The earthquake of 3089 had been the final straw on the back of the donkey that was the Dudley Street Restoration Association; which had worked for years to return the street to its former glory. The cost of repairs became far too great and now only seven of the original twenty-eight houses retained its original stucco covering, the others having been victim to collapse during the quake or suffered under the cheap rebuilding that had gone on during the resultant re-housing program.

Number 17 Dudley Street was one of the collapsed houses. Amongst the wasteland where the former building had stood was a cheap prefabricated “two up, two down” home with two white doors, white window frames and grey faux tile roof. Two doorbells were fixed to the wall between the doors and neither had names attached.

Tom Carter pressed both doorbells at the same time and waited for an answer. A light went on upstairs, then another barely illuminated the frosted glass in the left-hand door. Tom heard footsteps coming down a flight of stairs and instinctively put his hand on the hilt of the taser holstered at the small of his back. No use taking chances.

The intercom buzzed by the door. ‘Who is it?’ a woman asked.

‘Tom Carter, Ma’am. Manchester Police. Open up, please.’

‘What’s this about?’

‘We are looking for Carlos García Arroyo. He’s wanted for questioning.’

‘He’s not here.’

‘Open up, Ma’am.’

‘No. I know my rights. You need a warrant.’

Eric stepped forward and put the palm of his right hand against the flat black panel below the intercom. ‘We have a warrant. Now open the door.’

The door opened a crack. Tom pushed it open fully and stepped inside. The woman behind the door was in her early twenties but looked like a life of drink and smoking had already taken her best years. She took one look at Eric and started shouting.

‘I don’t want no fucking robots in here!’

‘There’s no need for bad language, Ma’am,’ said Eric. ‘We’re just here to ask you a few questions.’

‘Get out, you fucking metal freak. Fuck off back to robot land, you metal bastard.’

Tom tried to keep his voice as level as possible while he spoke but he knew he was on to a losing battle. ‘Madam, if you do not quiet down, I will arrest you for obstruction.’

‘And you can fuck off an’ all,’ the woman snarled. ‘What’s wrong, you too soft to come around here without your calculator bum chum to keep you safe?’

‘That’s enough,’ said Tom. ‘I’m arresting you for obstruction of an officer in the course of his duty. You do not have to say anything but it will harm your defence if you fail to mention, when questioned, anything you later rely on in court. You have the right to legal advice prior to questioning.’

He grabbed the woman’s arm and lead her, literally kicking and screaming, to the back of the pool car.

‘Get in. Mind your head. Now stay here and try to be good.’

He slammed the door shut and activated the suspect locks, preventing the woman from opening any of the doors or windows and turning on the barrier between the front and back seats. With the windows closed, the woman’s screams were dulled to a near-inaudible level.

‘You got that warrant fast,’ said Tom, turning back to his partner.

‘Judge Lewis is a cyborg,’ said Eric, as if that explained everything.

Tom shrugged. It was a different world than the one he had lived in when he joined the force.

‘Let’s get the search over with, then. That bloody woman is only going to get more annoying if we leave her to stew for too long.’

The flat was small, barely room enough for one person; or two if they knew each other really well and were the kind who did not mind sharing everything. There were two mugs on the kitchen counter, which was little more than a breakfast bar stuck in one corner of the lounge, and two dirty plates in the sink. The remnants of a baked bean dinner was on both plates; suggesting to Tom that they were from the same meal.

Conversely, the wardrobe only contained a handful of clothes. Four blouses, three pairs of jeans, two short skirts, and a short black jacket. The drawers contained only women’s underwear, a small selection of t-shirts, two jumpers and enough socks to last a week. Two pairs of shoes, both the same size, were under the bed. The bathroom contained one towel on the towel rack, and one toothbrush by the sink.

All indications pointed to a single person living here. A single person could probably account for two dirty mugs in Tom’s world, but not two plates. A hungry person would just re-use the same plate during the same meal. Two plates meant someone else in the house.

So where were they now? Had the woman been entertaining a guest earlier in the evening? It was possible. No wonder she was annoyed to see the police, then. Nobody here for them to have interrupted when they arrived suggested the evening had ended early for Little Miss Belligerent. Still, that was not Tom Carter’s fault.

‘Tom, over here,’ said Eric. He was holding a book in one hand and gazing intently at a set of shelves.

‘What’s the matter?’

‘Take a look at this.’ Eric held up the book so Tom could read the spine.

‘Book of Elbar,’ said Tom, reading the badly worn cover. ‘What is it?’

‘An occult book. It’s banned outside of academic areas. You need a licence to own a copy.’

‘A licenced book? I’ve not heard of one of those before.’

‘And you call yourself a policeman.’

‘Hey bite me, robot man. This is CID. Cults aren’t my area of expertise.’

‘The Book of Elbar is a restricted text because the cults that use it deal in animal sacrifice, ritual murder and mutilation, all kinds of blood magic and generally being nasty bastards. If that woman downstairs has anything to do with this book, it’s no wonder we found weird shit at Collins’ flat.’

Tom nodded. ‘Okay, let’s get forensics over here then we can get our lady friend down the station for a nice, long chat.’

‘I’ll call it in.’

Eric stepped away and took on a blank look as he started talking to the control desk back at the station via the connection in his head. Tom tried to ignore the building feeling of uneasiness at his partner’s newly robotic status. They had been partners for three years, and had known each other in CID for even longer than that. Eric had always been interested in cyborgs but Tom had never expected him to go all the way and become one.

Did it make him any different a person? Not according to the briefing the squad had been given while Eric was away for six weeks for conversion. Even when he came back, he was just the same old Eric, only slightly taller and very definitely better looking. The old Eric, the original Eric, had been a little podgy and his scruffy hair was always there no matter how much he combed or gelled it. Now he had a swimmer’s build and impeccable grooming.

‘Why stay with what you’ve got when you can take the opportunity to improve it?’ Eric had said by way of explanation. Tom could not help but wonder if the guy had “taken the opportunity” to add a couple of inches to the bedroom department while he was at it. Tom would have, that much was certain.

Chapter Two

Manchester, 24 September 3124 

Tom Carter turned up the collar on his jacket and braced himself against the biting cold of the late autumn rain. The sky was dark but the streets were lit up as if it was daytime by the combined efforts of street lights, shop window displays and the massive video screens that hung from the walls of the ancient buildings surrounding Picadilly Gardens.

He turned around and headed into the block of flats above Rixxy’s Bar and Grill, a name that instantly conjured up visions of a seedy dive if ever Tom had seen one. He hated to be prejudiced but when your home was a run down, student-infested cesspit above a spit and sawdust, slabhead bar then trouble was never going to be far away. Hell, a brutal murder was practically natural causes for people like the late John Edward Collins.

Tom trudged up the steps, feeling every one of his forty-six misspent years by the time he reached the top floor, where an open door and a group of black uniformed police officers was waiting to greet him. Eric Ross, his long time friend and partner, stepped out into the hall and smiled grimly.

‘Lovely night for it,’ said Eric.

‘I don’t think any night is good for a murder, Eric.’

‘Well no, not when you put it like that.’

‘What have we got here anyway?’

‘White male, mid twenties, with multiple stab wounds to the back, chest and abdomen. I’ve got uniform searching for the murder weapon but so far, nothing.’

Eric’s heavy footsteps echoed on the fake wood floor as he walked back into the victim’s flat and lead the way to the body. Tom shook the rain off his coat and trudged behind, taking mental snapshots of the scene as he passed them. A dusty photo frame here, a notebook there; anything that might present a clue once he had more information.

The body was slumped over the side rail of an immersion chamber that looked as if it was custom built. The tank was full of a mixture of blood, water and some weird gunk Tom recognised from his time in physical therapy after he had broken his back on a skiing holiday when he was twenty-six. He hated the smell of that stuff. It was too medical for its own good; and it brought back painful memories to boot.

‘So this is Mister Collins,’ said Tom. ‘He’s older than I expected.’

The victim was in his mid thirties, slightly overweight, and showed signs of a recent leg re-attachment; the scars on his right leg were too fresh to have been more than a few weeks old. Explained the need for an immersion chamber, Tom decided, and if he was living in this area it was likely the custom-built unit was for cost reasons rather than an interest in medical engineering.

Tom took more mental snapshots of the body, noting the pained expression on the face, the broken fingernails on the left hand, and the victim’s lack of body hair. Mister Collins had one blue eye and one brown eye, and a small, round scar on his upper left arm.

‘What do you make of this?’ said Tom, pointing to the scar.

‘Burn mark, maybe?’ Eric replied. ‘Actually, no. Could be some medical thing. Maybe something from the immersion chamber?’

‘What, he’s breathing through a tube in his arm, now?’

‘Not necessarily breathing, no. Some sort of fluid line, maybe a bone marrow transfer.’

Tom nodded. ‘Could be. We’ll know more when Medical get their hands on him, I suppose.’

‘If you’re done with the body, there’s something else you need to take a look at.’

The two men walked to the bedroom, where most of the forensics team were congregating. Tom’s eyes widened as he took in the scene. The blood covering the bedsheets. The strange symbols and diagrams scrawled all over the walls. More weird symbols on the floor. Blood and even more symbols on the ceiling.

‘What the hell is this?’ said Tom.

‘The workings of a diseased mind, I’d say,’ Eric muttered. ‘Nothing like a weird freak case to welcome you back from your holidays, is there?’

‘You’ve been back two weeks already.’

‘Maybe it’s time for another holiday, then. The days are merging into one-another already.’

Tom smiled and turned back to the task at hand. The symbols, freakish as they might be, needed closer inspection. He examined each of the larger diagrams in turn, taking a mental snapshot of each one as he went, then took pictures of the symbols that covered the rest of the walls. He was certain that at least some of the symbols were a language of some kind, but if they were they were in a tongue he had never encountered before.

His in-built translation software was throwing up no clues about what any of the text meant, which unnerved Tom. He was used to having a translation slip into the back of his mind whenever he encountered a foreign language. The sudden lack of translation, conspicuous by its absence, defied his expectations and knocked him out of his routine. Detective Inspector Tom Carter was a man who liked his routine.

‘Any idea what this stuff is?’ asked Eric.

Tom shook his head. ’Not a clue.’

‘Forensics say it’s some cult thing. I’m thinking we need to make a visit to the university library, talk to their theology department.’

‘Sounds like a plan. We’ll do that after the walk around.’

Eric nodded. ‘You done here?’

‘Yeah. Let’s go talk to the neighbours.’

The two men stepped out of the victim’s flat and stood in the hallway for a moment, processing what they had seen. Tom stroked the two day stubble on his chin while he thought about the writing on the wall of the victim’s bedroom. There was something about the way it was scrawled; like it was done in a hurry.

Who scrawls gibberish all over their bedroom in a hurry? Why would you need to do something like that – and do it quickly, too? Was speed important?

There were too many unknowns at that point. If he was going to understand any of this, he would have to learn more about Mister Collins.

The two men walked down the stairs toward the exit onto Picadilly Gardens. Tom could see there was still a crowd outside, eager to see what the police were up to despite the cold late autumn rain drenching them. Some people would put up with anything if it meant they got a free bit of gossip, Tom decided.

Eric fastened his trench coat over his perfectly formed robotic abdomen and stepped out of the doorway into the street. He turned back to his partner and nodded.

‘I’ll take the people out here. You want to talk to the people inside?’

‘Won’t the rain do you more harm than good?’ asked Tom.

Eric snorted. ‘I won’t rust, you know.’

‘Whatever you say.’

Tom looked to his left sighed. It was the first of eighteen doors he had to knock on tonight. He rapped his usual knock-knock-knock-knock and waited for an answer.

An elderly woman in a neat blue suit and a tasteful gold necklace opened the door a crack. Tom held up his ID.

‘Detective Inspector Tom Carter, Ma’am. Manchester Police. I’d like to ask you a few questions about the events of earlier tonight. May I come in?’

2

Of all the people who had been in the slabhead flats that night, four of them were so drunk they were practically unconscious on their feet, two were asleep and the rest were the regular crowd of “deaf, dumb and blind”; although Tom Carter would never actually use that term in front of them, of course. The risk to his career if he was branded an ableist was too great. Nevertheless, that was what everyone on the street called the kind of person who saw nothing, heard nothing and wouldn’t tell you about it even if they did.

So it seemed from the face of it that John Collins was a man who died as he lived: alone. That at least was consistent with the evidence in the flat. The door was locked and bolted with keys still in the lock. The windows were all closed and locked. There were no signs of a struggle.

Tom pulled a packet of liquorice whirls from his coat pocket and popped one in his mouth as he approached the car. It was an old, red pile of junk that was signed out from the department vehicle pool and he hated it. It smelled, it had cheap plastic fittings and if he had his way, he would rather have walked.

He climbed into the passenger seat and offered the packet of sweets to Eric.

‘No, thanks,’ said Eric.

‘What, you don’t eat as well, now?’

‘I can eat, I just choose not to. It’s less messy that way.’

‘No eating and no sex. You’ve making conversion sound wonderful, you know that?’

‘I can have sex, I just-‘

‘-choose not to. I know.’

‘So what did you find out?’

‘Bugger all. It seems the people in these flats don’t talk to each other. Can’t say I blame them, I hardly say two words to my neighbours and I live somewhere people don’t stab you for looking at them funny.’

‘I had a little more luck. The people outside were mainly from the bar under the flats. Apparently our man Collins was in there earlier today, talking to “a guy with a funny accent”. I pulled the security camera footage and came up with two possible men.’

‘We know either of them?’

Eric smiled. ‘Oh yes. One is your old friend Carlos García Arroyo.’

‘Aww come on. He’s supposed to be inside for another twenty years.’

‘Apparently some hero decided to let him out early for good behaviour.’

‘Where is he staying?’

‘His probation worker has him registered to 17 Dudley Street over in Cheetham Hill. Want to start with him?’

‘Damn straight. That little bastard has been nothing but trouble. You can fill me in on our other guy on the way.’