The Vandal’s Shadow
By: Andrew Nesser
Tags: Mystery, Science Fiction, Futurism, Detective, Fiction

11:17 PM — At the Sundial of Inhuman Involvement

Wyatt Kask stood at his hotel room window smoking a cigar. He waved his hand over a panel, and the sliding door opened to the balcony. A night wind ruffled his gray beard. The Wellington cityscape was like a field of black knives on which the clouds cut themselves slowly. He reached for the glass of scotch on a nearby table, but hesitated, his stance swaying momentarily.

“Service?” he called out.

“Yes, Mr. Kask,” a voice from the ceiling said.

“My scotch moved.”

“I am sorry, your service provider does not comprehend. Please restate your statement.”

“My scotch moved around in its glass. Is the hotel about to tip over?” He looked down to smaller towers, over a hundred stories below.

“No, Mr. Kask. The hotel is engineered to sway under certain conditions. The Wellington area is currently experiencing some mild tremors, but there is no need for concern. All structures in Wellington are built to withstand apocalyptic seismic events.”

“Great. I’m in town less than two hours and already on the brink of disaster. Why must people build cities on fault lines?” Kask took a drink.

“The area has a long history of human habitation, first being settled by Maori circa 1280 of the Gregorian Calendar.”

“Thank you, that’s enough. It was a rhetorical question. What time is it now?”

“Twenty-three eighteen.”

Kask poured another glass and stepped out onto the balcony. The clouds were lit from below by the lights of the city. He released some cigar smoke and then took a deep breath of fresh air. Crowds flowed on the suspended walkways below, and trains shot in and out of black facades at all levels.

“Mr. Kask, you have a call from an Officer Chang,” the hotel service said.

Kask stepped back into the room. “Finally.”

“Would you like me to open the connection?”

“Yes,” Kask said.

“Wyatt Kask?” a human voice asked.

“Yes, this is he.”

“I’m Officer Chang of GU Wellington Patrol. Thank you for coming to the city on such short notice. I’m in the lobby — may I come up to see you?”

“Sure.” Kask put out his cigar and sat in a chair facing the door. A few moments later, the door chimed. “Enter,” Kask said.

Officer Chang was trailed by another officer, both fully uniformed and carrying their spears. The second policeman closed the door behind him.

“Detective Kask, Patrolman Chang.” The first officer bowed. “This is my partner, Patrolman Ngata.” The second one bowed as well.

“Please, I’m retired. You can call me ‘mister.’”

“Oh, of course. And thanks again for coming all the way to Wellington. You’re the closest homicide detective we could find. Is that cursive Chinese?” He referred to the black tattoo running along the center of Kask’s bald scalp, from brow to spine.

“No, Mongolian. Got it in one of the frontier settlements. It’s a reminder of a great debt I owe to someone.”

Chang took a step closer. “Oh, now I can see it’s not Chinese. You must have had many wild adventures out in the settlements. It’s such an honor to meet a frontier lawman, especially a detective.”

“Thanks. Yes, I could tell you some stories you wouldn’t believe. But in speaking of which, I gather you called me here for some rather unbelievable reason. There’s been a murder?”

“Yes sir. Well, we think. We’d like you to confirm.”

Kask said nothing, pouring himself another drink. Chang seemed about to say something, but waited. “There’s not been any murder on Earth for decades,” Kask said after taking a sip.

“Right, you’re absolutely right. That’s why we thought we’d better bring in someone like you on this.”

“Someone like me?”

“With your experience,” Chang said quickly. “I’m sure you’ve had to handle much rougher situations out there in the settlements than anything little old Wellington can throw at you.”

Kask shrugged. “Possibly. Anyway, I’m just retired. I’ve had enough adventure for several lifetimes.”

“And I would take the guess that perhaps the reason you retired to Earth is its comparative safety,” Chang said.

Kask nodded.

“So, do you really want to retire to a world with murder?” Chang asked.

Kask looked out the window, then back at them. “Alright, fine. I’ll help you as long as it’s understood that the Wellington Police owe me a favor.”

“The exchange of favors with public officials is illegal on Earth,” Ngata said.

“Okay, then how about we say the sheriff owes me a bottle of scotch, which he can drink with me when he’s off the job.” Kask stood, finishing his drink. “Well, we’re wasting time. I should look at the crime scene as soon as possible. Is forensics there yet?” He put on his trench coat.

“Forensics?”

“Yes, forensics.” Kask donned his fedora and they headed out of the hotel room.

“I’m afraid we don’t have such a department, at least not for physical crimes.” Triangular sconces threw yellow along the hallway, but somehow it remained dim.

“I’m not surprised.” They reached the elevator and began the silent descent to the main lobby. The elevator stopped once on floor 693 to let on a ball-bot carrying a tray of empty glasses. Its capping module, modeled vaguely after the head of an owl, politely swiveled to face the doors’ interior.

The main lobby was on floor 200. When the three humans stepped off the elevator, the curving window-front showed the interior of a cloud layer illuminated by diffuse spheres of light from other buildings. They headed across the black and gold floor to the arches of the main entrance and emerged onto the public train platform. A train emerged from the fog and stopped shortly after they walked onto the platform, but the patrolmen ignored it and led Kask down some stairs. They emerged onto a small suspended ledge which opened onto another rail line directly below the public train.

“The emergency line,” Chang said and nodded toward a lone, small transporter, sleek for speed. “It’s much faster than what you’re used to.” Chang looked at a randomly changing number on his badge and typed it into an access terminal, interleaving it with a memorized pass code. The access gate slid open, and Chang gestured for Kask and Ngata to board first. They entered the silvery interior and strapped into thickly padded black seats, with Chang in the forward station.

“Patrol Car 9374, this is Patrolman X. Chang piloting. Enter destination: Carter Observatory.”

“Unable to comply,” the patrol car said. “That destination is restricted.”

“Override restriction with Case Code 20486.”

“Destination entry successful.”

Chang’s final command was not oral: he swept a finger in a circular motion over a touch dial, and the transporter moved forward, then quickly accelerated.

Kask looked out at the multicolored lights streaking through the haze. “Carter Observatory. The crime scene is there?”

“Yes,” Chang answered. “It opened in 1941 and closed in 2173, preserved as a non-functional historic site. But in the early 2200s they stopped preservation, and the flora of the Garden began to take it over. No one much goes there anymore. The crime scene was discovered by a surveillance drone hunting for park squatters.”

“You said before that you weren’t even certain a murder had actually been committed.”

“Yes, well, you’ll see when we get there. It’s quite a mess. So, let me ask you. What is interstellar hibernation like? I’ve never met anyone who’s done it.”

“Not that bad. Quite convenient, actually. The process is much smoother now than when it was first implemented by the Central Kingdom Space Administration.”

“So you’re genetically engineered to produce those chemicals?”

“Cryoprotectants, yes. Humans can’t survive the freezing process otherwise.”

“Your clothes are quite unusual,” Ngata said. “Is that what they wore on Earth in your time?”

“No, these were already quite out of date. But I spent some time in a settlement where it was popular for people to manufacture clothes of their choice from various historical periods. I chose this, and just stuck with it ever since. Got some odd looks when I went back to Los Angeles, though.”

Ngata nodded. “Is it true about the level of lawlessness on the frontier?”

“I suppose it’s slightly exaggerated. In one year I solved five homicides in a settlement of fewer than ten thousand people.”

Ngata raised his brows. “That’s quite amazing. But how many went unsolved?”

Kask looked at him directly in the eyes. “I solve every case.”

“Oh …. Why are there so many murders? Crimes of opportunity? Passion?”

“The settler towns have mayoral computers, of course, to regulate material resources. I found that most often the motive involves the power struggles of social dominance. Out there you come to realize that people are just hairless monkeys with very sophisticated ways of killing each other.”

Ngata and Chang exchanged looks, but said nothing else to Kask. He went back to staring out the window. They began to feel deceleration, and the clouds grew thinner. Their patrol car changed tracks and swooped on a downward slope through fuzzy silhouettes of buildings. They were less than three hundred meters above the ground when the car came to a halt at a small platform. They exited, and Kask lit a cigar below the neon glow of a Global Unity Police insignia.

“Sir, smoking is illegal,” Ngata said.

Kask eyed him through curling haze which flickered in the harsh light. “Don’t be ridiculous. This isn’t real smoke, of course.” He got into the transparent elevator and shoved his hands into the pockets of his coat. “Well?”

The two policemen boarded the elevator, and they began their descent to ground level. Emerging from the lowest clouds, Kask could now see a rolling expanse of vegetation, walled by city lights beyond. The elevator slowed below the canopy and stopped on a circular platform. They exited into the Botanic Garden.

“We’d better hurry,” Kask said. “I smell rain coming. Evidence could be lost.”

Chang nodded, leading the way. They stepped onto pavement shattered by grass and walked. The only light now came from the police torches. Soon Kask could make out a rectilinear building ahead, capped with two domes. The entire brick structure was overgrown with vines. They passed the main entrance. Off to the right, Kask could see another old dome up a hill.

“Where are we going?” Kask asked.

“We’re almost there. The body is at the Sundial of Human Involvement.”

“I’ve always found this view to be calming,” Ngata said as they rounded the corner of the old building. The officers stood and looked out over a valley and steep hills beyond, which were only intermittently revealed by the night mist. As an afterthought, Chang gestured behind him.

Kask saw a semicircle of small, cubic stelai surrounding a black Rorschach pattern on the ground. He squatted down and saw that the pattern was formed from a gelatinous substance mixed with chunks of tougher material. He picked up a hard chip of something.

“This is bone,” Kask said.

“How do you know?” Ngata asked.

Kask held it up and turned it over. “See this pattern here? That’s the trabeculae of cancellous tissue.”

“Okay. I’ll take your word for it.”

“But it’s hard to know whether this is from a human.” Kask saw three people, each wearing different uniforms, round the corner of the building as he put the bone chip back into its original place. They stopped a few meters from the sundial, and one wearing blue and gray beckoned to the patrolmen. Chang approached him in response, and they began to talk in low tones.

“What the hell are you doing?” the man in the finely patterned uniform asked. “I thought I told you to wait for me before letting him poke around.” He and the others wore the same formally styled black hats, and they carried no spears.

“I apologize, sir. I thought you would already be here by the time we arrived. Kask hasn’t really done anything yet except a general visual inspection of the scene,” Chang said.

“It looked to me as if he was touching something just now.”

“Well it seems he found a bone chip, but he’s unsure whether it’s human or not.” Chang unconsciously smoothed his uniform. The man waved Chang aside and approached Kask. He looked at him from down his nose.

“Well, you’re Kask, I take it.”

“That’s right.” Kask rose from his crouch.

“I am Deputy New Zealand Regional Chief of Police Haratua. That is Assistant Regional Chief Mahuru, and that is Municipal Sheriff Hakihea of Wellington. We’re allowing you a lot of leeway with this one, but we’ll be watching you closely. This isn’t the wild frontier. There’s an order to things.”

“If I’m stepping on anyone’s toes, I can bow out. I thought I was doing you a favor.”

“Of course, we’re grateful for your assistance — I don’t mean to give the wrong impression. I’m just saying ….” Haratua trailed off.

Kask pointed to a spot in the muck. “There’s bone in there.”

“So this was a person. This is murder then,” Sheriff Hakihea said as he edged closer to Haratua’s back.

“Well, if I make an eyeball estimate of the amount of material we have here, I’d say it looks more like a large animal,” Kask said. “But there’s one way to find out.” Kask removed a small cylinder from his arm-comp and used it to scoop a sample of the material. He placed it back in the receptacle and tapped a few buttons. “Now we wait a moment.”

“What is that? A genome sequencer?” Ngata asked.

Kask nodded. He gestured to the mess on the sundial. “Any idea what sort of weapon could do this?”

Everyone remained silent. Sheriff Hakihea shook his head. “Lethal weapons have been illegal in Global Unity for a long time. They’re pretty rare since the Great Melting laws. Unless this was some kind of industrial instrument, but I can’t fathom what.”

Kask’s armband chimed. He pulled up his sleeve and examined the readout. “Interesting. The genome belongs to no known sequenced species on Earth. However, there are several genetic tags publicly flagged.”

“So you’re saying small sections of the genome are in a publicly available database?” Hakihea said.

“Yes. And doing a search on the web, it links to — a company called Pendant Industries. Ever heard of them?”

“They’re a robot manufacturer,” Hakihea said. “I see their logo on robots all over the city.”

“But why would a robot company have published DNA sequences? What does their website say?”

“Apparently nothing about that sort of thing,” Kask said as he was scrolling through his display. “My original search got a hit on some database, but we can’t really see it. Some proprietary stuff.”

“All right, I’ve heard enough,” Haratua said. “Kask, I want you to go to the head of Pendant Industries and find out what this thing is. Sheriff, you can call ahead to make sure Kask can get in for the interview. Patrolmen, you can resume your normal patrol.” Haratua was about to say something else, but he paused and looked back along the path going around the observatory. A woman approached them, flanked by two patrol officers guiding her.

“What’s this?” Hakihea said when they arrived. “Don’t bring a civilian so close to the scene.”

“Sorry sir,” one of the patrolmen responded. “We think she might be a witness, so we thought you might want to talk to her.”

Haratua exhaled. He spoke to Hakihea. “Take her into the old observatory and have Kask interview her.” Hakihea took the woman by the arm and guided her back along the path, into the abandoned building. Kask followed.

They entered the main doorway, which was already open to the elements, and made their way to a domed chamber. Vines grew on an old telescope and wherever sunlight could reach through the arched slit above.

Hakihea gestured to a cylindrical object near the base of the telescope.

“Sit down,” he said to the woman. She looked at him.

“I’m fine standing, thank you,” she said listlessly.

“It’s not for your benefit. Sit down,” the Sheriff said again. Kask took off his fedora and crossed his arms. The dim light glowed on his smooth head around the tattoo.

She sat on the object slowly, maintaining her straight posture and expressionless countenance.

“What’s your name?” Hakihea asked.

“Evelyn Cai.”

“Occupation?”

“Broker.”

“And what were you doing in this area after dark? Are you a squatter?”

“Do I look like a squatter?” With her eyes, Cai gestured over the expensive clothes which made her body look like a plastic doll. Hakihea stared at her, waiting. “I was working on a hobby. That’s not a crime.”

“And your hobby is …?”

“Photography. I specialize in night photography, particularly.”

“And where’s your camera?”

“About fifty meters above us.” She lifted her hair, pointing to a removable electroencephalographic reader on her scalp.

“Call it down.”

Cai made no indication of her compliance, but a moment later, a small camera drone drifted down through the telescope door and positioned itself between them.

“Land it and turn it off,” Hakihea ordered. Cai did so without protest. “Did you see anything around the sundial tonight?”

“No, I was no where near that area.”

“And your camera? Might it have spotted something?”

“I doubt it.”

“We’ll need to check its hard drive anyway, if it has one.”

“Of course you are welcome to. It does have a light-weight quartz-etching drive.”

“Thank you for being so cooperative, Ms. Cai.”

“Why wouldn’t I be?” she said sharply.

“Well, I don’t know. Some people don’t like to be told what to do. They’re unaccustomed to it in a free society. Or perhaps you feel privacy is being invaded.”

“Privacy? I’ve never understood that concept.”

“Ah, well. It’s just something people say sometimes. It felt like I should say it there.” Hakihea chuckled lightly.

Kask cleared his throat and stepped closer to the two of them. “What type of commodities do you broker, Ms. Cai?” he asked. Cai looked him up and down for a moment.

“Information,” she said.

“What kind?”

“If I told you it might compromise the identity of my clients.”

“So you do understand the meaning of privacy,” Kask said.

“I don’t call it privacy. I call it common sense business practices.”

“So, you’re an ‘information broker’ and it just so happens that your hobby is night photography?”

“It’s not entirely a coincidence. I have a lot of knowledge of imaging techniques from my work. It has led me to artistic applications in my spare time.”

Kask gestured to Hakihea, pulling him away from her; they talked out of earshot near the entrance to the chamber.

“That’s enough time spent on her for now,” Kask said. “We’re not going to get much else from her, and I need to look into this Pendulum thing.”

“Pendant. Sure, I’m done with her if you are. She doesn’t seem to have anything to do with it, anyway.”

“You’re joking, right?” Kask glared at the Sheriff. “She may be right in the center of it.”

“What? How do you know that?”

“Don’t take too much offense to this, but how long have you been sheriff?”

“Almost twenty years. Why?”

Kask paused and then said “Ah, you know what, nevermind. Don’t worry about it. I have my process, you have yours. Let’s just get on with it.”

“Well alright then.” Hakihea walked back to Cai. “You’re free to go now. We’ll contact you later if we think of any more questions. Thanks for your help.”

“And when can I get my camera back?”

“Oh, right. Well, it’ll probably be a couple days. We’ll ring you.” He smiled.

Cai did not change her face. She rose and walked out, her eyes fixed on Kask as she went past him.

Hakihea picked up the camera drone and exited the building, with Kask following. They watched Cai disappear down a path, and then Mahuru approached them.

“Chief Haratua has decided that the sheriff will assist you throughout your investigation,” Mahuru said to Kask. He walked away toward the sundial. “Oh, and you have two weeks to close the case,” Mahuru said over his shoulder.

Hakihea extended his spear and tested the shocking prongs before collapsing it again, then looked expectantly at Kask.

“I plan to be done long before then,” Kask said quietly.