Man and Machine (TWS)

Sounds to me like changing tacks might be helpful; the How Do You Make a Voicebox Explode tack seems dead for now. I like the idea of either:

1. checking on his activities and purchases, along with checking in on whether the mysterious stranger has been found yet
2. investigating his Netcom and looking into whether King has been found yet.

Check up with Detective Walden Olivera about the implications of this case on the Bioticists before reviewing the list of patients.

You decide to head back to HQ, to see the lab workers and check on a few leads. It’s obvious that this part of the investigation is going nowhere fast. Maybe having some more angles to work with will bring some new light to the facts you’ve gathered thus far.
You bid Doctor Munroe goodbye and head out the back way, avoiding the protesters out front.

---

NASBELB Headquarters is, to be honest, a rather unimpressive building, considering it coordinates law enforcement for the entire city. It’s a tall, drab skyscraper, unornamented but for the vast holo-signs identifying it, and for the ads that float about it, vying for the attention of passing drivers. The Bureau’s insignia is two crossed swords, overlaid with a circular shield, the shield being engraved with the Bureau’s initials. The badges assigned to officers, however, only incorporate the shield itself, which you always thought was a little odd.

You park on one of the middle levels and walk over to the elevators.

You turn to Evan. “I’m going to talk to Olivera, if he’s here. Would you mind running down to the lab, and seeing what they’ve got for us?”

Evan nods. “Sounds good.”

“Oh, before I forget…” You pull out the victim’s NetCom and hand it over to Evan. “See if there’s anything useful on there. It’s from the victim’s luggage.”

Evan looks at it curiously, then puts it into a coat pocket. He moves off to another elevator.

You do the same, taking the elevator up several floors to the Civil Protection Unit’s offices.

You flash your badge at the officer on duty at the front desk, and he nods you on through. You walk down a short hallway to the main office space, where a number of desks are arrayed across the room. A few people glance up at you curiously before going back to what they were doing. You look around for Olivera’s office, and see it on the opposite wall, a windowed door with Olivera’s name on it. You walk on over, and are just about to knock on the door when you hear a gravelly voice from within.

“Come on in!”

Shrugging, you do so.

He looks up at you, smiling, from his desk. Olivera is a few years older than you, you’d guess, but still quite fit. Short and, for lack of a better word, stout, he’s built like a bulldog. His dark hair has only a few traces of silver in it, and his face is clean shaven, and almost fatherly looking. He furrows his brow for a second before snapping his fingers and saying, “Detective… Case, right?” When you nod, he continues, “Hah! Never forget a face. What can I do for you, Detective?”
You take the seat he gestures to.

You decide to plunge on in. “The reason I’m here concerns a murder down at the hopper port in East Central, that happened this morning.”

He frowns, an expression that doesn’t really seem to fit his genial face. “I’ve only heard a little bit about that. Sounded bad, though.”

“You could say that. Our victim’s throat exploded.”

Olivera’s eyes widen. “What.”

“Tell me about it. It looks like he had an implant, a voice box, that was somehow sabotaged.”

“And it exploded? That’s just about the damndest thing I’ve ever heard.”

“Hmph. I came to you because I suspect that there’s a chance this could have been intended to rile up the bioticists.”

Olivera’s frown returns, deeper this time. “Ugh. Well, if that’s the intent, then it would certainly do the job. How much do you know about the bioticists?”

You shrug. “Just what I’ve heard on the news and around HQ.”

Olivera nods. “Then you’ve probably just heard about the small timers, the protesters, those types. And they’re a problem. But the biggest worry is the core of the group, the inner circle. Whereas the underlings support them for any number of reasons, the inner circle has an almost cult-like feeling to it. We haven’t been able to get a whole lot on them, but what we’ve seen and heard isn’t good. They’re very well organized, very paranoid, and zealously devoted to their cause, which is the removal of cybernetics from our society, in its entirety.”

“I hear you’ve had trouble infiltrating the inner circle.”

“Yes. They’re damn suspicious, and far too clever. I don’t know how they do it, but they always seem to spot our agents a mile away, no matter how careful we are.” He shakes his head. “But back to your question, it’s hard to say how they’ll react when news gets out. Oh, the inner circle will no doubt make a bunch of noise about it, and there may be some staged protesting and such that they openly organize, but we should probably be more worried about the street level members in this case. As I said, they join for a variety of reasons, but they’re very devoted to their cause, and they aren’t as disciplined or organized as the inner circle. I doubt there’ll be any violence so long as this is an isolated incident, but if it isn’t… we could face riots, belligerent protest in front around the major cybernetics companies buildings, or maybe even targeted violence against those with implants, in the most extreme case. And the inner circle would make a big deal out of asking their followers to be calm and comply with the authorities… while they no doubt fan the flames in secret.”

“Then I suppose we’d better make sure it remains an isolated case.”

Olivear smiles without a whole lot of humor. “Please do. Just in case, I’ll put in some calls to the higher ups to see if we can put extra surveillance on known members, and on any place where they’re likely to target. Maybe we can keep it from getting out of hand if it does get that far.”

“Sounds like a plan.”

“Oh, here.” Olivera flicks on his NetCom and sends you something. “My personal contact info. If you need any more info on the bioticists, just give me a call. Or, if you have anything that might help me…”

“Will do.”

You both stand up and shake hands.

“Thank you for your time.”

Olivera nods. “Any time, Detective. Any time.”

As you leave, your watch vibrates. You open it up, and find Evan has sent you a message.

Get down to the lab ASAP. You’ll want to see this.

Well, that sounds promising.

You head on down to the homicide lab. Evan is waiting for you as you get off of the elevator. He wordlessly gestures for you to follow. You tail him to one of the examination rooms, where most of your victim’s cadaver is lying on an autopsy table. You see the tell-tale wavering of a clean field around it. The medical examiner and her younger assistant are here, looking at a holodisplay on the wall. It shows… well, a bunch of funny circley, squiggly things, in red and black. You assume they came out of the victim. You… weren’t a biology major, obviously.

“Ah, Detective.” The medical examiner beckons you over, and points at the display. “I think you’ll find this interesting.”

You look at the display for a moment. “Yes, interesting. Very. What is it?”

Evan smiles softly and says, “Our murder weapon.”

“What?”

He points at one of the black circles. “Nanomachines. They must have been used to reconfigure the victim’s implant and force it to detonate.”

“What!?” You can’t hide your shock. “But I thought nanotechnology wasn’t in production!”

“It isn’t.” The medical examiner sounds mildly annoyed, which in your experience seems to be the tone she reverts to when she doesn’t understand something immediately. “There are only a few companies that even experiment with nanotechnology. They’ve gotten some interesting results, but nothing to warrant mass production or widespread use. And these… these are highly advanced.”

“The doctor has checked them against every resource we have. They don’t match any manufacturer’s known hallmarks, they don’t have any kind of identification, nothing we can trace.”

“I’ve been looking through patent files and any documentation I could get my hands on for hours.” The medical examiner shakes her head. “I haven’t found anything.”

“We do know how the nanites got into the victim’s system, though.” Evan walks over to the body, and turns over the left hand.

You lean closer, the clean field’s wavering membrane making it difficult for your eyes to adjust. You don’t see anything.

“Here.” The medical examiner’s assistant brings over a magnifying glass, and holds it over the body’s left palm.

There, in the very center, you can just make out the most minute of pinpricks.

“So that’s how the nanomachines got into the victim’s body?”

Evan nods. “And, I think you’ll recall Miss Whitaker saying our mystery suspect ran into him and then helped him up. How much do you care to wager that he used his left hand? Unfortunately, there weren’t any fingerprints to recover. That would have made things much easier…”

Interesting. So, it looks like your unknown suspect somehow injected you victim with nanites while “helping” him up at the hopper port. Which means that he must have access to some very high-tech resources. You don’t exactly find this comforting.

“And it was definitely his implant.” The medical examiner sounds unhappy with her discovery. “The voice box was mangled, and there were burns in the tissue around the epicenter that happened before our victim’s death. The concentration of nanites in the area is much higher than anywhere else in the body, too.”


“What else have we got?”

“Well,” Evan begins, “I checked the victim’s NetCom. Unfortunately, there wasn’t much to find. His bank account hasn’t shown any unusual spending outside of the tickets for his trip and a few things that turned out to be luxury items and new clothes, presumably for said trip. There weren’t any unusual phone calls, in fact the only ones in the last three weeks were to Miss Whitaker, the clinic, and the hopper port. His NetMail was mostly filled with advertisements. All in all, it didn’t look like he used the Com very much, which is probably why he left it in his luggage.”

“That’s somewhat disappointing.”

“Yes.”

“What about our mystery suspect? And that King guy Whitaker mentioned?”

“King was easy. He’s actually one of the lead programmers for the Simulacrum. Donovan Bolton is his real name. Apparently he’s quite good. He’s only twenty-seven and he already runs an entire unit.”

You grunt.

“Our mystery suspect has been less easy. There was nothing last I checked.”

You decide to go check how the researchers are faring. You leave the examination room and walk to a nearby tech room. There are several researchers here, bent forward with their noses almost touching their displays, flipping through information far faster than you can follow. Researchers are almost universally pale, a fact that isn’t helped any by their sterile white uniforms. All of them have cranial implants of some type, and their heads are shaved to make them easier to keep clean. Their eyes are augmented as well, meaning they, among other things, can look in two directions at once. To be honest, ‘searchers always gave you the creeps. As you watch, two of them begin subvocalizing to each other across the room, their silent conversation not distracting them from their work for even a second. Evan walks over to one young woman sitting in the corner and gently touches her on the shoulder. One eye swivels to regard him for a second before going back to her work.

“Detective E5-715. It is a pleasure. I see Detective William Case is accompanying you. I assume this concerns the violent decapitation of Dirk Anderson at East Central Hopper Port Number Three Three Four Seven.” Her voice is flat and almost uninterested, and not for even a second does she cease typing or reading.

“Yes.” If Evan finds this as weird as you do, he gives no indication. Neither do you, for that matter. Professional conduct and all. But still…

“You have already been given all information regarding Donovan Bolton also known as King. Unknown subject remains elusive. Appearance matches no known criminal on file, I must search commercial facial recognition databases. It is… tiring. Please wait.”

Evan steps back to stand next to you. You both watch as the researcher does her work. After a few minutes, she holds up one hand and beckons you over. As you look over her shoulder, she pulls up a picture or your mystery suspect.

“Toby Rayt. Age thirty two. Currently unemployed. Last known residence, West District, 3742 Procyon Square.”

That far west? Not a nice part of town.

“No criminal record. No known family members. No known associates. The lack of information leads me to believe that this identity is engineered. I will attempt to uncover more intel. It may take some time.”

You nod, but Evan gestures for you to wait.

He turns back to her. “We received a list of patients from the clinic where the victim worked. Could you go over it for us.”

“Send it to me.”

Evan does so. She pulls it up in a smaller window to the side, scans it quickly, and begins opening several other windows and beginning more searches.

“If you find anything, let us know.”

She swivels an eye to look at you. “Of course.”

You sensed, perhaps, just a tinge of sarcasm, there.

Well, you’ve gotten a couple of breakthroughs, anyway. Now, you just have to decide what to do next. Obviously you’ll want to check out Rayt’s place before long, but you could also track down Bolton and talk to him. And there may be things you want to check on here before you go.

SpoilerShow

it's a good thing you guys like to read because
WORDS WORDS WORDS

ALL OF THE WORDS

But on the plus side, plot development!

Fun Fact: Evan and Case often split up when Case is going to talk to/interview someone, because Evan feels like he makes people nervous. Which is true, in some cases. Being scrutinized by a person who sits perfectly still, and doesn't need to blink or breathe, can make a body just a smidge nervous. Evan finds this somewhat embarrassing (except when he is using it to wring information out of a suspect), so Case usually asks him to go take care of something else.