Nic Brooner was an anomaly because most New Cali police were automated. Identical replicants known as Tommy Cops, but the detectives on the upper floors, like Brooner, were still flesh and blood. Fallible living creatures with human instincts and emotions that the machines lacked. If the ruling elite could replace him, he was certain they would, but the AI didn’t know how to crawl inside a sophisticated outlaw’s mind. Not like a seasoned detective could. Hardcore criminals were too unpredictable and illogical.
He could see the coastline in the distance from downtown. Brooner could just make it out through the yellowish-brown smog. His view included the oil derricks along the beaches, and south of the airport, the refineries, burning off hydrocarbons in luminous flaring that was visible for miles. If he stood behind the dirty glass and craned his neck, he could see the tall smokestacks of a coal burning power plant in the Zhonghua Pacific Terminal. The harbor district was owned and operated by the Chinese government, though the New Cali Directorate still used it for commerce. To the north, close to the mountains, he could see the lofty arcologies where the elite lived. The ruling class in their nouveau, self-contained living spaces. Luxury 15-minute habitats that relied on fossil fuels for energy. Brooner thought the elite were double-talking hypocrites, but he kept it to himself. He was, after all, part of the system, and he wasn’t going to blow a good thing because jobs weren’t that easy to come by. Nowhere City was proof of that. The basin east of the Wall was a hellish nightmare. Dilapidated slums and shanty towns ruled by vicious outlaw gangs.
Brooner was a younger man when the economy imploded. He didn’t look so sallow and haggard before the nation at large evolved into a balkanized mishmash of independent city states. The federal bureaucracy was still based on the Atlantic Coast and maintained control of the military bases, including the large installations to his south, but most of the interior had descended into lawlessness.
The New Cali Directorate was an autonomous plutocracy. Democracy was dead. The urbanized coastal basin was ruled by a small group of ultra-wealthy individuals known as the Melrose Committee. Zero carbon ideology had been refuted in favor of full exploitation of fossil fuel resources. The prolific solar panel farms and wind turbines of earlier times were banned by the authoritarian government, and modern hydrogen fuel cells became a rare commodity. It was easier to find gasoline and diesel fuel in the basin.
The Committee was unabashedly corrupt. Favorable policy decisions could be purchased if the offer was high enough.
An extended Southwestern drought had brought draconian water mandates to the region. The Chinese government constructed a desalinization plant in the Zhonghua Pacific Terminal, but the quality of the finished product was low and the cost high. Groundwater in the basin was exhausted. The wells had gone dry. The flow through the Los Angeles Aqueduct was vastly diminished, and what was left of the Colorado River flowed through a pipeline. Another plutocracy, the Rocky Mountain Imperium, controlled the water at its source, and the New Cali Directorate was their sole remaining customer. Once thriving cities in the interior deserts had been out-bid and cut-off along with their tourism and agriculture.
Brooner brought up a file on his computer monitor. An image of a 113-year-old woman appeared on his screen—Colleague Mother Cynthia Zen Waverly, the focus of a current investigation. Much of her body was rebuilt. Her hands were advanced prosthetic devices. She’d received a neural implant at 80 to keep her cognition from deteriorating as she aged, and she’d also been through multiple organ transplants, including a new liver at 92, and a new heart at 97. Both of her knees and one of her elbows were replacements as well, and her face looked ghoulish from multiple botox injections and cosmetic surgeries.
Waverly was CEO of the Eden Stacks at Mellowbreak Beach, an independent city-state a hundred miles to the north. The Eden Stacks were owned by the Guardians of the Perpetual Sunrise, a socio-political cult. Dr. Liang Hao, Supreme Illuminator of the Eternal Dawn, was the group’s spiritual leader, and Waverly was the chief executive officer. She was the one responsible for the business end of keeping the Eden Stacks functioning on a day-to-day basis, and she had a reputation as a ruthless administrator.
Brooner had compiled a dossier on Waverly that went back in time more than a century. Her birthname was Harriet Carol Bankard, and she grew up in New Cali when it was still known as Los Angeles. In an average middle class family in the San Fernando Valley. She was offered a job in pornography when she was 19. A born exhibitionist with few inhibitions, she was a natural for the work. She changed her name to Suzy Hongo and worked for various producers in a variety of genres. There was money to be made in sex work, and she bought a condo in West Hollywood and started her own business with a production studio and website.
She had an obsessive personality and developed a cocaine addiction. Trouble befell her pornography business when online piracy began cutting into her profit margin. With her high dollar lifestyle and drug addiction to maintain, she turned to illicit drug trafficking. She bought large quantities of cocaine and heroin from a Mexican drug gang and used her condo to market it. The heavy cocaine use gave her an illusion of invincibility. She became reckless. Before long, she was arrested for selling drugs to undercover agents. Tried and convicted, she was sentenced to ten years in a federal prison.
Suzy Hongo was in her mid-thirties when she was released. It was apparent that she’d managed to hide a significant amount of money following her arrest, and she used it to start a prostitution business. She scouted the bars and boulevards for talent and pimped young male prostitutes to a high dollar clientele. According to Brooner’s research, she continued doing business through the successive decades and avoided further difficulties with law enforcement. The circumstances that led to her joining the Guardians of the Perpetual Sunrise were unknown, but it was likely she was one of the founding parties. And at some point, she’d changed her name once again, from Suzy Hongo to Cynthia Zen Waverly.
New Cali had a quasi-red-light district between downtown and the Wall. Prostitution and limited drug dealing were tolerated if the technically illicit operations stayed in the prescribed zone. It gave the elite a way to shop for drugs and prostitutes without having to cross the Wall into Nowhere City. The district was heavily surveilled, and the purveyors were scrutinized by AI software with facial recognition technology. Brooner could look up known actors and gather information about what they were up to.
He was checking current surveillance footage when he saw an abduction take place. It was late in the evening, and a car pulled up to a known prostitute, a young male streetwalker named Philo Cristaldi. Two men climbed out of the vehicle and while one of them was talking to him, the other placed the delivery end of an auto injector on the back of his neck and pulled the trigger. Apparently, it contained a powerful drug, because Cristaldi passed out within seconds and the two men hustled him into the back of the car and drove off.
After further investigation, he gained enough information to approach his superior. Captain Heigle’s office was on the floor above him, and he rode an elevator to meet with him. The brass were flesh and blood, but Heigle’s receptionist was a replicant. Brooner exchanged pleasantries with the robot and went inside the office. Heigle sat behind a cluttered desk. He was morbidly obese with a permanently flushed face.
“I identified the two actors. Both are security specialists in the Eden Stacks, and the abduction fits in with stories I’ve been hearing about the place on the street.”
“Stories, Brooner? You mean, gossip?”
“Hear me out, Captain. The two goons are bodyguards for one of the cult leaders, Cynthia Zen Waverly, a convicted felon. She did ten years in the federal lock-up for drug trafficking when her name was still Suzy Hongo.”
“I’m familiar with Ms. Waverly. She has connections in the local hierarchy, and the drug case you’re referencing is ancient history. From a past era.”
“She’s been promoting prostitution for wealthy clients ever since.”
“The Eden Stacks are out of our jurisdiction.”
“But kidnapping is a serious offense and it’s taking place here in New Cali.”
“So, you think Waverly is involved in the Cristaldi abduction?”
“I know she is.”
“Make your case.”
“I talked to a street contact who told me what’s going down…Waverly is running what she calls a fantasy floor in the Eden Stacks. Providing the elite with prostitutes and drugs, and she has a thing for young men. Waverly had a replicant built that mimics her looks when she was 22. She’s able to take control from a remote location and experience everything the robot is experiencing virtually. She’s putting on sado-masochism shows through the younger appearing proxy, and apparently things get rough.”
“Once again, Brooner, the Eden Stacks are out of our jurisdiction. Beyond that, you’re relying on unsubstantiated rumors.”
“But she’s abducting the sex workers here in New Cali, transporting them out there, and holding them against their will as unpaid slaves.”
“What evidence do you have?”
“The surveillance file.”
“That doesn’t prove Waverly was involved.”
“I know she’s dirty.”
“Look, Brooner, I’m not saying you don’t have something, but I’ll need more than hearsay from an unreliable witness to pin anything on Waverly. She has serious connections in the hierarchy, so I’ll need concrete evidence before I approach a prosecutor.”
Brooner returned to his office. He’d keep working on the case when his schedule allowed, but he knew it would be a tough one. Waverly visited New Cali occasionally, and more than likely transported her victims back to the Eden Stacks in the Guardians’ private jet, but he was certain she would avoid being placed at the scene of one of the abductions. Probably arranging air-tight alibis, like social engagements with her elite customers.
Arresting one of the goons in the act was likely the best strategy. Pile on the charges and offer him a way out. He revisited Waverly’s dossier and checked out the image. 113 years old and still breathing…She should have been dead a long time ago.
He mothballed the Waverly file and checked his inbox. He’d been assigned a new case. A felony theft suspect was downstairs in a holding cell. Lyric Tyne, a morning drive air personality from KNEX FM. She wasn’t quite famous, but he’d heard her voice before, on his way into work. The Tommy Cops had brought her in, but she’d need to be advised of the charges by a live human before she went before a judge. That was what the statute said.
AI did most of the work at KNEX except the voice-over. They still needed Lyric Tyne for that, because the machine sounded boring and flat. No human character or sense of humor at all. Once the listeners realized it was an automated voice, they changed the channel. Or turned the radio off completely and listened to an audio file instead, so Lyric still worked mornings at KNEX.
The AI selected the music and programmed the commercial content of her show. Lyric sat in the booth with her headphones on and watched the computer screen for her next cue. Her microphone keyed automatically, and the word: LIVE, illuminated in neon yellow, appeared on the display, along with a digital clock counting down the seconds to 0.00, when the machine regained control of the broadcast.
She looked scared to death when Brooner entered the interview room. She was 27 and an attractive woman, even in the baggy orange jumpsuit.
Brooner sat down at the sterile table and skimmed through the file. Printed pages on real paper. “It appears you’ve been cheating the self-serve kiosk at the grocery store for a number of years now.”
“It’s possible I may have made a mistake or two.”
“According to the Tommy Cops’ report your alleged mistakes have been in the hundreds, Ms. Tyne. You see, the store recently installed an advanced software program that links security camera and cash register archives. The information I have here says you’ve made it a habit to defraud the system by entering lower priced produce codes for higher priced items…On almost every visit, and you’ve been patronizing the same store for six years now.”
Lyric looked terrified. “I’d like to plead not guilty and arrange bail.”
“Because you have no arrest record and it’s a non-violent offense, I’m going to recommend the court release you on your own recognizance.”
She heaved a sigh of relief. “Thank you, officer.”
“That’s Inspector, Ms. Tyne. The officers are all automated.”
“Of course. Thank you, Inspector Brooner.”
“I’ll have the Tommy Cops take you over to the courthouse to see a judge and you should be home in time for dinner.”
□□□
As Philo gained consciousness, he struggled to remember what had happened. Two men approached him on the street, outside the night club. One of them had engaged him in conversation while the other slipped behind him. Then there was a sharp pain on the back of his neck, like a bee sting. Piecing together what happened next was difficult, but he was certain he’d been drugged. He vaguely recalled riding in an airplane, a fast one, maybe a jet.
The door swung open and a figure appeared. At first, he thought it was a young woman, but then he realized it was a replicant. Though it appeared lifelike, he could see joint lines on its neck and jaw, and the skin on the machine’s face looked too glossy to be real. The replicant wore a black latex catsuit and carried a whip.
“Who are you?” Philo was fully awake now. When he swung his feet over the narrow bed and sat up, he realized he was naked.
“You may address me as Mistress Cynthia.” Unbeknownst to Philo, Waverly had full control of the replicant. She was three levels above him, and her head was enclosed inside a virtual reality helmet suspended from the ceiling. She listened to his speech through the replicant’s ears and spoke to him through its mouth.
“Where are my clothes?” He rose to his feet and reflexively held his hands in front of his bare crotch.
“You won’t need clothing here, grub.” The replicant took a step forward, pushed Philo’s hands away, then firmly grabbed hold of his testicles. When he tried to pull away, the robot clamped down with an iron grip and chuckled. Three floors above him, Waverly could feel Philo’s cojones in her hand through her neural implant.
“Ow, that hurts!”
“The pleasure is all mine.” Waverly smirked and the robot acquired an evil grin.
“Where am I? What am I doing here?”
“You’re on my fantasy floor in the Eden Stacks. You no longer have free will. You’re my property.”
“Your property, my ass!”
The robot yanked on his testicles hard enough to make him cry out in pain. “You’ll do as you’re told, grub. Cooperate and you’ll survive. If you continue to resist me, I’ll snuff you out like a spent candle.”
“Okay, all right. I’ll cooperate!”
“As a worthless grub, your job is to provide pleasure to me and my clients. Now go in the shower and wash yourself.”
Philo was stunned to say the least. He’d play along with whatever it was that was happening to him, but he’d need to find a way out. The sooner the better.