Avery looked up from her papers, exhausted. All this paperwork. Where did it come from again? It can’t just be that malfunction last week where an unauthorized robot killed his owner, or that escalated drug deal or that grocery store robbery. All those small things that happened over a week, that were no big deal anymore. But even the smallest crime brings paperwork with it. It is not like she wouldn’t enjoy it. She finds it calming that most of the government facilities still run with at least a little bit of paper. Paper does not what it wants, it is not able to harm you on its own. Is that why the taxes are so high? Because the government needs all this money to buy paper for the facilities?
Frank was missing from his place in front of her. She looked around. The police station was busy, mails and phone calls reached the devices in the front row in fractions of seconds, and they all want to be answered immediately. Some witnesses of smaller or bigger crimes were interviewed by different PAIUs, sometimes even real officers. This older couple was still standing at the corner, trying to get new information about their missing daughter.
Avery asked herself why they were still coming here, every morning, demanding information. Just from their clothes, she could tell that these two would have enough money to commission one of those big private security companies. Nowadays, they don’t just offer security in a classical sense, but also private investigators, forensic services and everything the police can offer but more expensive.
She spotted Frank, coming from the small and very empty kitchen. If the chief would have allowed it, he would have just packed his desk and moved it there and only left again when he finally reached his retirement. With two coffee mugs in his hands, he was on his journey back to his table. He does this at least three times a day and sometimes she has to think about this conversation they had once.
“Why have you never took the promotion? I know you have been a detective for a long time, now and I don’t think you are doing a bad job.”, she told him once, on the promotion party of some random rookie she never exchanged a word with.
“Well, because I don’t want to sit behind a desk for the rest of my time and babysitting rookies, like this guy, for the next 30 years”, he took a sip from his coffee.
“But isn’t that your job right now? I thought that was the point of putting an old and a new detective together in a team?”, Avery raised an eyebrow.
“No, no, no, no, no!”, he was looking straight into her dark eyes now. “I am not babysitting you! We are partners, we are equal! You have as much responsibility than I have. I am not here to clean up behind you, I am not your dad.”
When he came across the chief’s office, the door opened. He turned to the gab and listened to what it had to say. He looked surprised before the door closed again.
He put the second mug on Avery’s desk before speaking out. “He wants to see us in his office. He said it’s kinda really important.”
[[Follow him.|Ch 020]]
“I am not joking, this is serious. The Mind of IPR, personally, called and said a hard drive got stolen from his company”, said Andrew Moore, chief of the 15th police station in this dirty old hole. He tried to look calm, but his tone, husky and stressed, made it clear that this was important. Very important, for everyone in the tiny room.
Avery raised an eyebrow. Frank couldn’t believe it, so he spoke up first: “What do you mean, he called us? Has he forgotten the number of this own security company?”
“I don’t like to repeat myself, Detective Ross. This is not a joke”, his head got redder with every minute. “I can only guess why he did it, but if I couldn’t trust my own employees with finding my sick wife in my own company, I would ask somebody else, too.”
[[“And why not ask another specialist?”|Ch 030]]“And why not ask another specialist?” Avery looked very skeptical at the big man, not happy with his explanation.
“Would you ask a competitor to retrieve a hard drive with all your company secrets? He is paranoid in this point and we are not allowed to check out the data anymore anyway.” He adjusted his position before he continued. “He sounded anxious on the phone. I cannot stress this enough how important this is. If we are successful here, maybe we will gain a little bit reputation back and people will start to work with us again, so we are getting control back. Do you understand?”
“Of course, Boss”, said Frank. “We will do our best. How hard can it be to find a hard drive these days?”
“Yeah, what could possibly go wrong?”, Moore laid back in his chair, focusing Frank with his both eyes. “Go to the crime scene first, ask him what happened. Maybe we will actually find something.”
[[Go to the parking lot.|Ch 040]]
[["No, we can't. We have to take care of the paper work first."|Ch 045]]Frank looked annoyed. He carried his disliking for this guy around for a long time now, since the war and the rebuilding. He was one of the big winners. Frank was not.
[[“I don’t get why you love the machines but not their creator.”| Ch 050]]
“No, we can't. We have to take care of the paper work first.” Avery looked at Frank.
He looked at her in disbelieve.
“Are you serious?”, Moore almost felt of his chair. “Okay, sure, go back to your tables then, I will ask Johnson and Williams. They will understand the importance of this situation.”
[[Leave the room.| Ch 055]]Avery was standing in front of the salty sea. The ground was dried out, unable to use the water to regenerate. She turned around. Sand, as far as she could see. She raised her arms. The plastic skin peeled from her arms long ago. She looked at the dirty skeleton. It was shiny, long ago, before the sandstorms rubbed over it. She asks herself how this could have happened? When did it happen?
She was jealous of her old partner Frank. He died before this happened. He was gone, forever. He could be sure that everything he ever experienced was real. It happened. Every touch, every taste every sound was real in his real body. But she was not so sure if she could say this about herself.
There was no escape, so she did it. She waited for a long time, but she did it. She got weak, like now again. She hated herself for this but there was no other way.
She made her way back to Hortus. She looked at the silver cube, in the middle of the desert. All buildings that were here before were destroyed, long ago. She has been sitting here for years, seeing them rotting until nothing was left. In all those years she refused to go to Hortus. Everybody left, except her. But today was the day. She was done with being alone. On her way to the entrance she was asking herself the same question again and again.
She lived in the same city, so was there no way to stop this back then?
[[Was there?| The End]] I don’t get why you love the machines but not their creator”, said Avery as she got into the car. “Aren’t you part of this generation that paid for getting monitored by a speaker and treated the creator of that thing like a god?”
“It’s something personal, I don’t want to talk about it” Frank was sitting with crossed arms on the front seat. “And the speaker guy and the god guy were two different men.”
Avery raised her eyebrow.
[[Start a new conversation.| Ch 060]]
“So, you believe the rumor?”, She asked, starting the car.
“Which one? That the disappearance of his wife is his fault? I don’t think he is capable of that”, he looked out of the window.
[[“You don’t need to be strong to kill a person these days.”| Ch 070]]“You don’t need to be strong to kill a person these days. She was sick, remember?”, Avery never broke the eye contact with the road.
“What are you trying here?”, Frank turned to her. “He is innocent as long as we don’t have evidence that prove something else. He is not my favorite person in this planet, as well, but we cannot allow us to judge him. Yet. We should focus on getting that drive back and then somebody else can deal with his problems.”
[[Continue driving in silence.| Ch 080]]
Avery was driving up the hills to the Glass district. Many high-rise buildings, home of the important companies and rich, visible from every part of the city. The 15th police station was the closest to this district, the station inside of it got overruled by the private security companies, independent or part of one of the other firms. The headquarters of IPR were right in the middle of the district and made all other buildings look like they were designed by a group of first year design students.
[[Park the car.| Ch 090]]It wasn’t that long after Frank and Avery entered the entrance hall of the headquarters of IPR, the most important producer of robots and everything related this topic. It was quiet, in the clean white hall, which was not really made for staying, but impressive enough to admire the modern look for a few seconds. At the end of the hall was the reception, behind that were a wall with elevators, locked behind glass doors. At the reception desk was sitting a young woman with short, dark hair and a fake smile. “How can I help you today?”
“Good evening, we are Detective Ross and Detective Lewis”, Avery tried to introduce herself and her partner, but the receptionist cut her off. “Oh, the detectives, finally. Mister Dalton was getting nervous already. Please follow me.” She got up from her chair and made a gesture to follow her. She stood up from her chair and went around the corner, walking past the elevators.
[[Follow her.| Ch 100]]She placed her hand on a fingerprint scanner to open a single door, hidden on the other side of the employee’s elevators, which lend them to a wall with only one, very simple elevator door. This elevator was already waiting for them. They entered it and she pressed the very last button on the console.
The elevator opened its doors to a small corridor, full of people. The forensics were already doing their work, while some security guards were standing near the elevator, with a bored and annoyed expression on their face, unable to really do their jobs.
Frank was looking around, trying to find a specific person, while the elevator doors closed behind him.
“Is Alan Dalton already here?”, he raised his voice, to make sure it will reach every corner of the room.
“Yes, I am. Hello, detectives, thank you for coming.” A man, slightly smaller than Avery, came closer. He tried his best to look calm, but his messy blonde hair and his stressed eyes said something else.
Always trying to avoid eye contact. He offered a hand, but the detectives refused.
“Is this the crime scene?”, Frank asked bluntly.
“A part of it. The safe room is at the end of this corridor on the left side. This is basically just one of the security systems. It’s like one of those old metal detectors at airports, but the difference is, it detects heat and movement and checks if it fits my parameters. If they are not, the final door to the room will not open and activates a silent alert.”, Dalton explained, while leading the detectives to the safe.
[[“Is that the only security?”|Ch 110]]“Is that the only security?”, Avery asked.
“Of course not. We also have retina and fingerprint scans in the elevator. But before a person can enter that elevator an employee has to confirm that the person is me, with a weekly changing password”, Dalton answers.
“So, you are the only one that is able to get down here?”, Frank looked down at him.
“Yes.” They were now standing in front of the safe, it was as white, like the rest of the corridor. The walls were made of different tiles, hiding small lockers, all closed, accept one on the right side. One of the forensics was scanning the room with a flashlight shaped device, looking for any kid of biological residues that weren’t Daltons.
“Found something already, Hayes?”, Frank asked one of the forensic team.
“I am standing here for 5 minutes, now, Ross, and as you can see this place is not some kind of bloody robbery scene, it’s cleaner as a surgery room. I will inform you first when I find something”, she sounded as stressed as everybody was.
“Do you have any security cameras here?”, Frank turned to Dalton again.
“Yes. I am on the footage”, he didn’t seem to be shocked by this. “But I was not here this morning, I was in Montreal. There is a conference about robot AI, I was invited to take part in a discussion. I had to be there, I needed to show myself in public again.”
“I want somebody to check this footage and alibi”, Frank was looking at some of his colleagues. He turned to Dalton again. “If you weren’t here to take the drive, who else could it be? Any ideas?”
Dalton turned his face to the ground, covering his mouth with his left hand. He immediately looked up again. “It has to be a robot, I can’t think of another option, but I can’t think of a company which would be able to build such a perfect copy of a human. Even our most advanced models are too heavy, and our lightest version is too cold to pass the heat detector.”
[[“But is it possible to fake a voice, fingerprints and walking motion?”| Ch 120]]Avery raised her eyebrows. “But is it possible to fake a voice, fingerprints and walking motion?”
“If you have all those captured already, it’s quite easy, but I can’t think of a situation where I did this”, Dalton answered.
Now, it was Franks turn with asking questions again. “But it is possible to change the performance of the coolers in one of those robots so they can reach body heat?”
“Yes, but the probability of sudden shutdown raises, too”, Dalton stated.
“Ross, Lewis, I found something”, Hayes shouted. She was standing in front of the open locker. “It’s hair. Dog hair? Do you have a Dog, Sir?”
“No? I am allergic to dogs”, Dalton said confused.
“So, it was a robot”, clarified Avery.
“And, of course, an illegal one.” Frank sighed. Suddenly, his whole expression changed. “I hate this guy, why can’t he stop make those things? It’s so unhygienic, using dog hair, building it right inside of The Cube. But it’s the perfect hiding spot, and not the weirdest thing that is going there, I give him that. Great. Okay no time for talking, we need to get him before he decides to hide again.”
On their way to the elevator, Frank was still rumbling. “Seriously, this is the third time this month he is involved with something. Why can’t we put him back into prison again?”
“Because he never knows a thing. I don’t like it either but at least they found something. We know him, it’s a good start”, Avery said calmly as they waited for the elevator.
[[Get back to the car.|Ch 130]]“Aren’t you curious about what is on that drive?”, Frank asked, looking outside of the car’s window, releasing how the architecture changed from district to district. The middle-class ones were always damaged, from the fallout or acid rain damage. A lot of young people live here, working themselves to death in those high-tech companies on the glass hill, while the older ones live with their families in one of those new suburban’s, trying to enjoy what is still left from nature.
[[“Probably some secret code or something. I don’t really care, it will destroy us anyway.”|Ch 140]]“Probably some secret code or something. I don’t really care, it will destroy us anyway”, Avery mumbled, eyes focusing the streets.
Her partner sighs, looking over at her. “How are your parents doing?”
[[“They are fine.”|Ch 150]]“They are fine”, Avery sighed as well. “As fine as you can be with no money and a way too small flat, because in technology, somebody else makes the money, as you just saw.”
Frank felt immediately bad after hearing this answer, he remembered what happen to them. They stayed silent for the rest of the ride. Frank watched the buildings getting more and more broken, abandoned, and empty before he, at the very end of the road, saw The Cube. This one big block made of concrete, consisting of multiple buildings, several levels high, all connected on one way or the other. It was the home of the people who did not make it in the real world. But by the rules and opportunities The Cube provided, everybody could make it to something more.
[[Park the car.| Ch 160]]The two detectives parked the car at the end of the street. The Cube was surrounded by an old construction side fence, supposed to keep people out of this outdated, in danger of collapsing block but this didn’t mean this could ever stop people in need. After the two have found a hole to get in, they made their way up, heading to the north building. They entered through the South-Building. This part was the least occupied, mostly because this building headed towards the city. Avery noticed that more people were in this part since the last time she was here, but mostly young drug addicts, laying around everywhere, getting higher and higher.
The two detectives passed six floors before they could pass over directly to North-Building without entering the West- or East-Building. Those were highly populated and would just attract more unnecessary attention.
After crossing the improvised, rusty bridge they still had to pass 4 floors before they were finally standing in front of an old wooden door. A sign that said “atelier” hung above it. Frank knocked.
“It’s open!”, screamed a husky voice from the inside.
[[Open the door.| Ch 170]]Avery opened the door. There was only one room behind it. It was cold, without much furnishing, but packed with robots and robot-parts, in all kinds of weird shapes and poses. At the end of the room, a man was sitting in front of one of them, working on the wiring, not wasting a single look on the people who entered the room. He finished his work first before turning to his visitors.
Frank started to introduce the two of them. “Hello, Myron, we are detective Ross and”
Myron looked amused. “Hello Detective Ross, long time no see. You decided to knock this time, I see.” He started to move forward them. He was quite huge and skinny, just wearing a bathrobe with an old colorful motive that does not want to fit with the rest of his furnishing. “And you started to use my real name. Did they replaced you with one of those PAIUs or have you just found some manners at the ground of your coffee mug?”
“I can change that real quick again, don’t worry”, Frank answered, swayed from one leg to the other. “We are here to ask you some questions. Nothing more.”
“Well”, Myron crossed his arms. “Go ahead.”
Avery raised an eyebrow.
[["We know you are using dog hair for your androids.”| Ch 180]]“We know you are using dog hair for your robots”, Avery started but she got interrupted by Myron again.
“Installations. I am building art, not just robots. Do you really think I would go through this exhausting process of creation every time just to build some cold skeleton for some zeros and ones?”
“Myron, they are humanoid and fully functional, with false skin, hair, everything. Therefore, they are robots and need to be marked. You have a criminal record for unlicensed and unmarked robot production, and I see at least 3 unmarked heads on bodies in this room so you either cooperate or we are back with an arrest warrant before you can finish your piece of art”, Frank made a gesture towards the robot Myron was working on a few minutes ago. “Just give us some answers, and you are good. Believe me, it’s not worth the trouble.”
Myron looked between the two detectives. He placed his hands on his hips. “Okay, yeah, I use dog hair for my installations. I want them to look as realistic as possible and dog hair is way less expensive than those fancy artificial ones Mister Dalton uses on his robots.”
[[“Have you used or sold Hair in this tone lately?”| Ch 190]]“Have you used or sold Hair in this tone lately?”, Avery handed him a zoomed-in picture of Dalton’s hair.
Myron took the display and looked at it for a long time. He glanced over to the detectives again, then around the room. “Yes, I did. I sold it.”
“Great, to whom?” Frank placed his hands on his hips.
“I don’t know. I don’t ask questions”, Myron looked from one detective to another. “Nobody would hire me if I ask stupid questions. Why, do you think, are people buying unmarked androids?”
“We have experience with that, I already have ideas”, Frank mocked.
[[“Do you have any clues?”| Ch 200]]“Have you used or sold Hair in this tone lately?”, Avery handed him a zoomed-in picture of Dalton’s blonde hair.
Myron took the display and looked at it for a long time. He glanced over to the detectives again, then around the room. “Yes, I did. I sold it.”
“Great, to whom?” Frank crossed his arms.
“I don’t know. I don’t ask questions”, Myron looked from one detective to another. “Nobody would hire me if I ask stupid questions. Why, would you think, are people buying unmarked robots?”
“We have experience with that, I already have ideas”, Frank mocked.
Avery stayed on a more professional level. “Do you have any clues? How did they look like? Any distinctive features?”
Myron looked at the grey and ugly ceiling. “It was some time ago. But I still remember because…” He made a break, walked some steps, turning his back to the detectives. “She was not from here. She was nervous, like she was afraid that someone was following her. She tried to hide it, but her eyes and fists could not lie. Her cloths were too clean. I think she works for one of those tech companies.” Myron turned around again. “She only wanted the hair, nothing more. Usually, people only order complete installations, because they have no idea how to build them. The only people, who only want parts, are some of the other engineers in this building, I know them, and they should move over to South-Building, there is still water, you know what I mean?”
“That you should come back to the point?”, Frank asked without a movement in his face.
“Fine”, Myron sighed. “She knows her stuff, or she would have asked for more.”
[[“Other things?”| Ch 210]]“Other things?”, Avery was quite annoyed by now.
“She looked a lot like you, but with darker hair and brighter eyes” Myron was pointing at Avery.
Frank narrowed his eyes. “Is that all?”
“Yeah, I guess”, Myron shrugged his shoulders.
“Okay, thank you then. If you remember more just call us” Frank wanted to give him his card but Myron refused. “I still have it. Don’t worry about it, don’t waste that much of paper.”
[[Go back to the car.| Ch 220]]As they were back in the car, Frank started to think out loud. “Someone who has the knowledge do modify a robot in a way to pass all those biological locks, also needs to be close enough to get a good idea about how he moves and talks…”
[[“Or a stalker.”| Ch230]] “Or a stalker”, Avery interrupted him. “Or a competitor. You can find all this data somewhere, it’s not that hard. When you want to hurt someone like Alan Dalton, you can. You just need to dig deep enough.”
“We should ask him, anyway. Maybe he has an idea who that was.” Frank started the car.
[[“She would be stupid not to send somebody else to pick that hair up.”|Ch240]]“She would be stupid to not send somebody else to pick that hair up”, she started to search for Dalton’s file in the car’s computer. She called the number she found in there.
Dalton picked up, still looking very stressed out. “Hello detectives.”
[[“Hello Mister Dalton.”| Ch250]]“Hello, Mister Dalton, we got some new information. Do you know any skinny, dark and short haired woman with bright eyes, who has enough knowledge about modifying a robot this perfectly and you to perform a stunt like this?”
He looked to the ground and placed his left hand over his mouth. He immediately looked up again. “Harper Green. She fits the description and works in Department 48. She was acting a little different over the last few weeks. I haven’t thought about her because I believed she was nervous over the non-progress of her department, not because she was trying to rob me. She was here this morning, but she went home already. Your colleagues let her go.”
[[“Thank you for your help, Mister Dalton.” | Ch 260]]“Thank you for your help, Mister Dalton.” Avery ended the call and started to look for the address of Harper Green. “Do you really think a high-level engineer like her would be stupid enough to get everything by herself and build it in her own home?”
“It would make sense to do it alone, so nobody can talk. But what would be her goal? She works for the best company in this world, why would she risk her job for this?”, Frank asked while driving faster to their destination.
[[Get out of the car.| Ch 270]]Harper Green was lucky. She inherited the house of her parents and worked as the chief engineer of the optimization department of IPR. The small house was right before the suburban’s beginning. It was already late when Avery and Frank came up the street, parking the car at the end of the road. It was small and inconspicuous, fitting for this part of the city. They looked around. Nobody to see. When they knocked on the door, standing on the porch, it started to rain.
Harper Green opened the door a bit, wearing comfy cloths and slippers, looking surprised. “Detectives?”
[[“Sorry for the late interruption.”| Ch 280]]
“Sorry for the late interruption. We still have some questions, Miss. Can we come in?”, Avery asked.
Harper opened the door completely, let the detectives entering her living room. It was quite clean, the furniture seemed to be old but well cared for. Harper offered the detectives to sit down on the couch. Frank sat down, making himself comfortable, while scanning the room with his eyes.
Avery was still walking around. There was a door at the end of the room and on the left and right were another door each, leading to corridors with other closed doors, like a normal house, but no luck with getting a look into anything.
“Is everything alright detective?” Harper was looking at Avery, who was close to door at the end of the room now.
[[“Everything is fine by me.” | CH 290]]“Everything is fine.” Avery turned to her. Now, she understood what Myron meant. She was nervous, looking from one detective to another, her hands are uncontrollable clenched into fists. She seemed not to notice it, she was too focused on the detectives.
The detectives interrupted her, everybody in the room knew it.
Frank started the interrogation. “So, Miss Green, where have you been today, at 2:47 pm?”
Harper turned back to him. “At work, in the IPR optimization department. The offices have cameras, you can check the footage if you want.”
“What is your job there?” Frank led forward.
“The Team and I are working on prototypes, based on our current models, to improve them even further.”, she answered truly.
“What does that mean?”, Frank looked confused.
Harper smiled. It was almost a proud smile. “You know… make them lighter, faster, improve their batteries, hacking securities, reliability, sensors, AI. Those kinds of things.”
[[“So, you make them more human?"| Ch 300]]“So, you make them more human?”, Avery came closer.
Harper turned around. “You could say that, yes.”
“What is still there to improve? I have a hard time telling them apart already”, laughed Frank.
She turned back. “People still feel uncanny, especially when they have a malfunction. We have to update the software and try to expand the battery and find more ways to reduce material costs. This has only advantages for the end user.”
“Is it possible, if I bring you, for example, a picture of my dead wife, to get an exact copy of her?”
“In theory, yes, but we need a written agreement of the person you want to duplicate. And we can only recreate the information you provide us. That means if you just give us a picture, we can only recreate that, not her voice, or movements. But this is no job for department 48, anyway.”
Frank was leading forward. “Okay, okay, but if I bring everything. This paperwork, pictures, videos, voice recordings, everything, I could get an exact copy of her?”
She nodded.
[[“About your Boss, Mister Dalton, I assume the company has a lot of footage of him?"| Ch 310]]“About your Boss, Mister Dalton, I assume the company has a lot of footage of him? More than everybody else has?”, asked Avery.
“I don’t know, I think so, since that is the only public place he visits frequently.” Harper formed quotes with her fingers when she said public.
“So, when somebody would have access to all this information, he would be able to build a perfect copy of him?”
“Yes, in theory”, she looked form one detective to the other. “But where are my manners, would you like a coffee?”
[[“No thank you-”| Ch 320]]“No thank you”, Avery couldn’t finish her sentence before Harper vanished behind the kitchen door.
Avery and Frank exchanged a look.
The rain got louder for the time of a blink; you could almost miss it.
Almost.
[[Open the kitchen door!| Ch 330]]Avery stormed through the kitchen door, Frank right behind her. In the sink was Dalton’s head, eyes wide open. On the right, behind the table, was his body, or what was left of him. Wires where his neck and left shoulders were supposed to be. A mechanical arm was on the table over other metallic parts and dog hair leftovers, next to a laptop. The garden door was ajar.
The two detectives ran after her through the dried-out garden, over the fence. They spotted her, at the end of the street, right before she was turning right, towards the garbage dump.
The actual street ended at the entrance, everything after that was just gravel and sand, a pain to run without shoes. Either the ground slips away or the tiny stones will hurt your feed, not a chance against people who were used to this situation and equipped with real, solid shoes.
[[Tackle her!| Ch 340]]When Harper Green was finally in reach, Avery tackled her down to the ground. The drive slid over the ground for a few meters.
Avery closed the handcuffs. “Harper Green, you are under arrest”, but she was not even able to finish before Harper started to scream against the mud: “I did it, obviously! You have seen the Daltbot in the kitchen, get off me!”
“But why?”, Frank was standing behind them, catching his breath. “Why risking one of the best jobs in the world? I know at least five people who would murder for your position, for your life. Why throwing it away like this?”
“Something is wrong! This bastard, he, this thing over there”, she nodded in direction of the drive “his wife. She… he did it!”
Frank picked up the drive. “He killed her?”
“No. Or at least I don’t think he was able to do it. He copied her, her mind, it’s, she’s on it!” Harper spilled mud over the ground.
It hit Franks shoes, so he turned around. “What do you mean?”
“The technology. He did it. That bastard did it. He found a way… to, to doom us all, completely, he signed the death sentence of humanity. We are lost, now. I had to stop him, before he is going to wipe out everything that is left of what makes us human. He managed to digitalize her.” Harper turned her head to Avery. “He managed to build the technology to back up his wife. It’s over now. Mankind is dead. Once he starts to sell it, once we are inside of that, humanity erased itself.”
Frank was right at Avery’s side and helped her to lift Harper on her feed. “What’s on here, now, his wife or the technology to safe her?”
“His wife. Definitely. I tried to get the data but as soon as I connected it to the laptop a program started to delete all of the source code of the files. The data port is so old nobody has adapters for that anymore except him and some museums, it’s madness. And there are probably even more safety mechanisms only he uses. Why would he do such a circus to keep some numbers safe?”
[[“Isn’t everything in your business just some numbers in the end?”| Ch 350]]“Isn’t everything in your business just some numbers in the end?” Avery pushed her over to Frank, before she called more reinforcements to the dump, making sure they bring the rainproof equipment.
[[Wait for the reinforcements.| Ch 360]]Avery looked at the drive in the plastic bag. It had some scratches from that rainy night, but who knows about the inside. Frank was driving up the glass hills, seeing the expressionless look of his partner from the corner of his eyes. He was surprised, that she spent so many thoughts about it.
“Everything will be fine. He will be happy to get his drive back and we can close this case and never worry about it again”, he tried to cheer her up a bit.
[[“But what if it she was right?”|Ch 370]]Avery raised her eyebrow. “But what if it she was right? What if he managed to do it?”
He shifted in his seat. “I, in my personal opinion, I hope he doesn’t. I think she had a point. I don’t think, if that’s really her”, he pointed at the bag, “I don’t think that’s a human. A human is too complex to be stored in zeroes and ones. He got too far if this one is true.”
He parked in front of the IPR building. “But he is paranoid. It’s probably just some outdated circuit diagrams of his ID-Chips and all this thinking was for nothing.”
[[Get into the building.|Ch 380]]This time the receptionist brought the detectives to another, more hidden elevator. When the door opened again, the two lost a little bit faith in their eyes. One meter behind the elevator was a glass wall with a door. Behind that was Alan Dalton, kneeing, in front of some huge, very healthy plants. They looked exactly like the one Franks Grandpa had in his museum. Avery couldn’t believe those were real, but they were. The differences between those and the fake replacements were huge.
Dalton turned around after he finished his gardening. He looked even worse than on their first meeting. His hair looked messy and unwashed, the rings under his got darker and his skin paler. “Hello detectives. Thank you for coming.” He saw their shocked expressions. “You can come in, if you want.”
Frank opened the door, followed by Avery. He could not hold himself together and touched one of the leaves. “Like my memory”, he could not suppress to whisper his thought out loud.
“This is one of the largest private collections. And they are still living, after all those years.” Dalton eyes never left the bag in Avery’s hands. “Can I get my drive back, detective Lewis?”
[[“This one?”| Ch 390]]Avery raised her eyebrows. She took the drive from the bag. “This one?”
“What happened to it?” Dalton was shocked when he saw the scratches over it.
[["“We had to chase Miss Harper Green and she dropped it.”| Ch 400]]“We had to chase Miss Harper Green and she dropped it.”
“How did she do it?”, Dalton asked, still avoiding eye contact. Only eyes for the drive.
“She built the perfect copy of you, Sir”, Frank answered, finally turning away from the plants. “She gathered every piece of recording of you together to build a perfect copy of you. You did a good job avoiding cameras, but those NKHD-cameras do their name credit.”
“No, I don’t believe normal reporters can afford them”, said Dalton after brushing his left hand over his chin. “That test picture of me wasn’t deleted from the camera lab then, I need to find out who her partner is in that department.”
[[“She said something interesting after we got her.”| Ch 410]]Avery raised her eyebrows again. “She said something interesting after we got her.” She came one step closer. “Your wife is stored on this drive.”
“Is that what Miss Green told you?”, Dalton asked quite shocked. “I don’t understand why she has to pull her into this… this mess.” Sadness hit his eyes.
He reached out his hand towards the drive. “Please, this drive is my property. Hand it over, end my nightmare.”
[[Give him the drive back| Ch 420]]
[[“No”| 425]]She handed him over the drive. “I hope you can find her collaborator.”
All live got back into his eyes. “Thank you, detectives.”
“I have one question”, Frank crossed his arms. “Was Green right?”
“Company secrets. I would break my own rules if I tell you.” Dalton looked between the two of them. “Of course not. How should that be possible anyway? She went missing, she still is. And she is alive, I know it. Also, our technology not this far by now, and we don’t have the storage. I don’t think we will witness this leap for technology, if I am realistic.”
The two detectives said their goodbyes, leaving the man alone in his garden.
“See? Nothing to worry about”, Frank said, while standing in the elevator. “You did the right thing. I bet there are some beautiful malfunctions waiting for us on our desks tomorrow.”
[[Smile. | Ch 055]]
Frank knew what she was going to do now. He knew it was his duty to stop her, but he could not move. She was going to do the right thing, without doubt.
Without another word, she dropped the drive. She kicked it through the room, into the ground until nothing more was left then a few pieces.
All Dalton could do was watch her. His sadness gave away to pure terror. He opened his mouth and all he could bring out was a soft, quiet: “Why?”
“You are right. I ended this nightmare before it even started”, Avery looked straight into his eyes. “This was not your wife and you should know this better than everybody else in this room. This was just some program that was supposed to sound like your wife and answer like your wife. Some zeroes and ones that were trained to act like her. But this wasn’t her and would never be as good as her. This was not a human, just some lines of code!”
“I don’t think you understand”, he tried to find a beginning of something, but Avery interrupted him.
“No, I understand. I understand very well what this is. This is the termination of mankind. I don’t even want to know how you did it, this is wrong, and you know it.”
It was barely a whisper, the sound that left Dalton’s mouth. “It’s not the termination of mankind. It’s the next step of evolution. And I did it for the selfish reason of being together with my wife, that I sworn to love to the end of my life. And that is, for the love of god, after hers but I can’t let this happen.”
“Everybody has a time limit and I am sorry that hers was before yours but that is life, and you can’t cheat it.”
Dalton found his voice again. “Cheat? We cheat our whole existence, Detective. That’s the reason why we made it this far, because we are cheating the whole time. We are cheating more than we should, actually. Especially death. Our bodies are not supposed to get this old. Do you think your fellow elderly people are happy when their bodies that can’t do what their minds want? They are prisoners of the tools nature gave us, but this is not enough for us anymore. We need new ones, with longer lifespans. And if we are not getting them, we will build them ourselves. And once we have them, nothing can stop us. We are finally free of all pain and death. No hunger, no thirst, we can leave the oldest burden behind, reaching our full potentials. Living, on this planet, is finally, worth living again” He looked between the two, they looked as shocked as he expected it. “We are doing this for a long time, already: Medicine, prostheses, implants… our achievements. They are our cheating strategies.”
Frank snorted. “But this is over now. She is gone and I believe this was the only copy of her right? To make sure this whole mess, as you put it, cannot happen. We humans will stay blood and flesh, like it’s supposed to be.”
Dalton dropped himself to the ground, between the plants. He looked at his lost wife. “It doesn’t matter.”
Frank couldn’t hear him. “What did you say?”
Dalton looked up in his direction. “It doesn’t matter, now. It may be true that she, in this form, could not replace a human in this world. Not now. But if I wouldn’t have done it, somebody else would. Maybe not today, maybe not tomorrow, but someday. If it’s possible, it will happen and once we have the technology you cannot not use it. You can ban it but if there is a way, come hell or highwater, people will find it and walk down that road. They don’t care where it ends but once they are there, there is no way to stop them. It will happen. I am sure.”
[[Look at him with blank face| The End]]THE END
[[Replay?|Ch 010]]