Make A Difference: A Science Fictional Novel Of Suspense [NOOK Book]

Read an Excerpt

CHAPTER I

After breakfast in the canteen at the police barracks, Jeri went back to her dorm and cleaned her teeth. She took a look in the mirror, then went out into the corridor that led to the South Precinct. As she walked she looked at the portaconsole on her left arm. It showed the details of her latest case.

Case assignment: 699-U578DHD Lt Stone J, Det Ahmad F.

Jeri touched the detail icon, and the long narrow screen along her forearm was filled with a summary of the case. The small dense text gave the bare facts in an abbreviated style. When she reached the end of the corridor, the time was 0856. In four minutes it would be time to start another shift. She spoke to the ID unit beside the blank grey door.

"Jeri Stone. Lieutenant. Homicide.'

The sensors extended for palm and iris scans. Jeri put her palm on the plate and stepped up to the lens. There was a moment of light just bright enough to be slightly unpleasant.

"Identity confirmed. Welcome, Lieutenant Stone. Have a good day at work.'

There used to be a time once when Jeri answered the computer voice with a sarcastic 'thanks a lot' or something in the same vein but angrier and less decorous. But those days were gone. Railing against an unfeeling computer had got old a long time ago. Instead Jeri stayed silent. The door slid open before her and she stepped through it into the South Precinct. She made her way to her desk. Her partner was already at the one beside it.

"Yo Fleesh. Got a six nine nine down on the Highway.'

"I'm there.' Fleesh hit a couple more keys and then her workstation switched over to the logout screen. She stood and turned. 'Let's make moves.'

Theyboth coded into their desks to get their helmets out, then took the elevator down to the garage. They coded into their vehicle, car 127. On the screen in front of Jeri, the destination was already in. She touched the proceed icon on the screen in front of her.

"Journey initiated. Destination: eight hundred and twenty Gila Highway.'

The car doors slid down and clunked home, closed. The car moved out of its parking bay. On her screen, Jeri pulled up the details of the case. At 0847, cameras mounted above the South Gate of the protected zone had detected muzzle flashes in tweentown, some distance away down the Gila Highway. OperAnalyst determined that they were most likely automatic fire from an AK-47. The event was automatically logged as a 699, weapons discharge for an unknown purpose, and the case was added to the Homicide Division's case roster.

The exit gate from the garage gate slid open and they glided out, up the ramp and into the police transit chamber of South Gate. The transit chamber's gate closed behind them, sealing them in, and they paused for moments while the automated security scans took place.

"Warning. You are now leaving Willsborough protected zone.'

The outer gate opened and the car pulled cautiously out. Outside the protected zone there was no roof overhead, and the merciless desert sun glared in. Jeri squinted in annoyance. The Gila Highway stretched away south of them, full of people on foot, people with handcarts, bikes, rickshaws, the occasional car.

The car moved forward as quickly as it could, jumping forward whenever there was a slight clear space, nudging forward against a seemingly unconcerned crowd at other times. Overall they moved about as quickly as they could have done on foot through the crowds. Eventually car 127 stopped and said, 'Destination reached. Eight hundred and twenty Gila Highway.'

Jeri looked around. There were no immediate signs of any kind of shooting incident.

"See anything?'

"Nuh ... wait--there.' Fleesh pointed. A little further down the highway was a side-street. Two boys, no older than teenage for sure, stood in front of a market stall holding AK-47s and trying to look tough. Behind them, a man was bandaging a woman's arm. There was blood coming through the bandage.

Jeri touched icons on the screen in front of her, telling the car to advance to the next junction on Gila Highway. They could have walked as fast, but there was no sense in getting out of the car and exposing themselves unnecessarily. When they got there, the four people at the stall were already staring at the car, though they couldn't see in through the mirrored windows. The boys were angry, hostile, the adults resigned.

Jeri touched another icon and the doors slid up. The rank stench of tweentown rolled into the car. Jeri and Fleesh got out. The doors automatically closed behind them and Jeri approached the stall, Fleesh hanging back to cover the street. Four faces looked at her dumbly.

"Police. What happened here?'

"Asshole shot my momma, that what happen!' It was the elder boy.

"Who did this?'

"Snakebite! Me see motherfucker again, shoot his ass!' He waved his AK-47 at nobody in particular, and his brother did the same.

"You leave that to us.'

"You?' the boy sneered. 'Poe-leece? You bitches never do shit!'

Jeri's lips pressed together into a tight line. She spoke again, trying to keep her voice even. 'Well maybe if you tell me about this Snakebite, I can go and arrest him.'

"Arrest Snakebite? Him Cobra! You go fight Cobras? Arrest Cobras?' He spat on the ground. 'You ain't worth shit!'

The man spoke. He sounded surprisingly educated for tweentown. 'The boy's right. We all know you'll never do anything about this, so why are you bothering to go through the motions?'

Jeri bit it down, forced herself to be calm. She looked at the woman, who was sullen and resentful now. 'Ma'am, do you know why this ... what's his name, Snakebite shot you?'

"Wan aiming at me. Shooting at the other boy.' She looked at her wounded arm. 'This just stray.'

"What other boy?'

The woman looked past Jeri, out of the side-street into the Gila Highway. Jeri followed her gaze and saw nothing at first. Then she spotted it. There was a dead body on the ground, on the sidewalk of the Highway. People were walking over it like they would any other piece of rubbish. She drew her pistol and strode over, cursing angrily. People just flowed around her, going about their business.

Jeri went around to the man's head and squatted down. Fleesh came over with her pistol in her hand, pointed up into the air, and stood a little way off from his feet. She watched the street, turning her head this way and that.

The victim was a young man of perhaps twenty, lying sprawled on his back in the dirt. His torso was a mess where it had been sprayed with automatic weapons fire. His olive-skinned face was not damaged by gunfire, though life had obviously not been kind to it. Jeri held her portaconsole carefully above his head and touched the acquire icon. An image of his face appeared on the screen of her portaconsole. Then she made a quick search of his body, but the vultures had already picked him clean.

"Fleesh, stay with the body.'

"I'm there.'

Jeri went back to the car and coded in. When she was in her seat the door closed and the car started to cycle the air, clearing out the foul smell of tweentown, and to scan itself for intrusions. Jeri copied the visual image of the victim's face from her portaconsole to the car. She logged it as an image of the victim in case 699-U578DHD, and it was assigned an evidence number. She requested visual identification. It gave her a number of possible visual identifications, mostly extralegals. Two were registered US citizens living inside the protected zone. She checked the whereabouts of both, and they were both at work inside the walls of the PZ. It couldn't be either of them. Basically the victim was a nobody.

Jeri got out of the car and went back to the stall where the injured woman was in the middle of negotiating a price. Jeri spoke to the man instead.

"Can you tell me exactly what happened? How did the man over there get shot?'

"Well ... I didn't pay too much attention until the shots started. I guess they were having an argument, but I don't know what about. It's noisy in the street you know, and I didn't much care anyway. Then suddenly I heard a rifle firing, AK-47 I'd say, and then Marcie was screaming. After that I didn't pay much attention to anything except my wife's injury.'

"What about the shooter, Snakebite? Where did he go?'

"I really didn't see ... officer, the street was in chaos. The stray shots hit half a dozen other people besides Marcie.'

"What? Well where are they now?'

"Gone home I guess, walked or carried.'

Jeri glanced at the body. 'Nobody came and carried him away.'

The man shrugged. 'I guess he didn't have any friends, any family. Don't think I saw him before around here.'

"And nobody, when this Snakebite guy shot up half the street, nobody shot back?'

The man shook his head and smiled mildly, as if at a child's innocent question. 'Shoot at a Cobra? This is Cobras turf.' He looked down at the elder boy. 'Don't mind what my son said about shooting Snakebite. He's too smart to shoot a ganger. He knows if he did, they'd just come back and slaughter us all.'

The boy glowered at Jeri but said nothing. She tried questioning the other people in the street, but mysteriously nobody had seen anything. Nobody knew who the victim was or who else had been shot. Fleesh shot her increasingly impatient looks, but held back from saying out loud what she was obviously thinking--that this case was going nowhere.

Then out of the blue Jeri's helmet radio chattered in her ear. 'Lieutenant Stone. Homicide and robbery in your vicinity. X-Turf, sixty-eight Clinton Way. Proceed immediately to scene.'

"Received, control. Am in route. Yo Fleesh!'

"I'm there!' Fleesh was already striding over, pushing through the crowd. They coded into the car and Jeri hit the proceed icon followed by two hits on the urgency icon. The urgency level on the screen jumped from one to three, and a muted sound of sirens came in through the roof as the car spoke: 'Journey initiated. Destination: sixty-eight Clinton Way.'

The car turned on the spot and started to push eagerly forward, getting close to the back of a motorickshaw before slowing sharply. Car 127 let out an angry beep, much louder than its siren. The rickshaw driver turned and gesticulated, mouthing irate words that were inaudible inside the car. But then he turned his handlebars and pulled off the road, into a sidewalk full of people. The car made the best progress it could down Gila Highway, siren blaring. A few people moved aside, but despite the noise many more didn't.

Fleesh half-shouted, 'I dunno why you have that siren on. They never move. It just, you know, makes us ... it's like a warning we're coming.'

Jeri sighed loudly and hit the mute icon. The siren went silent, but the urgency level remained at three. As the car made its way forward as best it could along the cluttered highway, Jeri called up the case notes on the screens in front of her and Fleesh.

Fleesh said, 'X-Turf? The bookies? Don't they got Shin-El Sec there? Why they call us?'

Jeri scanned her screen. Case 314-HR43TEW: deliberate killing for purpose of robbery. Drive-by shooting. A lone male was shot and his bag taken by multiple assailants. Reported by Security Officer Harry Motta, Shinamuri Ellison Security.

"Looks like X-Turf's not being robbed. The robbery just went down right outside it, so Shin-El reported it. Naturally they ain't doing nothing about it. Just telling us.'

"Well, you know private security. They ain't paid to--'

"Yeah, Fleesh, I know. Least they got a camera there.'

Jeri accessed Shinamuri Ellison Security and logged into the company's police feed. There was a brief delay before clearance was granted, and then a list of selected items came up. One was labeled 'crime witnessed: shooting, robbery'. It was tagged with the location: X-Turf, 68 Clinton Way. She opened the item.

There was a vid stream. It had started recording at 10:42:13 and was still recording now. Jeri opened the stream. It started with a blur of moving camera. People were running, scattering for cover. And old van, a faded green where it wasn't rust, was pulling away fast. People jumped out of its way. The panning camera settled on the fallen man. He was on his back, unmoving.

He still had his bag. The van had pulled away without taking it. This wasn't a bag snatch. It was drive-by killing, a deliberate assassination.

The seconds ticked on. A young man ran up to the dead body, then another. Two more arrived together a moment later. They were all wearing Slicers colors. They shouted at each other for a moment, and then one of them grabbed the dead man's bag and ran off. The other three followed him.

It wasn't a bag. It was a briefcase, a black rectangle with slightly rounded corners. This was a robbery after all, but no simple bag snatch. It was a premeditated operation with the aim of taking that case.

Jeri stopped the vid stream and reset it to the start. The counter in the bottom corner of the still image showed 10:42:13, the time of recording start. She looked at the street in the freeze-frame. One of the Slicers was ahead of the victim. He was frozen in the act of turning. She started the vid again and he turned to look straight at the victim. He crouched, drawing a pistol and holding it down by his belly, not waving it around and making it obvious. He waited a moment, looking around, taking in the street. Another Slicer came into shot, making for the victim. The first one saw him, and moved in too. Two more appeared, and in moments the four Slicers were all over the dead man.

Jeri stopped the vid stream again and looked at the street outside the car. There were some heavy armored vehicles a way ahead up the Highway, approaching the South Gate of the protected zone, making the road even slower than usual.

"Fuck this! We can get there quicker walking!' Jeri silenced Fleesh's objections with a look, told the car to pause and got out. The doors slid down again when she and Fleesh were on the street. They pushed their way through the crowd, as the car followed. They got to Clinton Way and turned into it. It wasn't as crowded as the Gila Highway, and they could almost get up a run.

Outside X-Turf stood a heavy black combat suit, holding an assault rifle. On its chest was the badge of Shinamuri Ellison Security. The helmet's blank face turned to follow them. The security guard waved but didn't come forward. Out in front of the bookie's, in the road not on the sidewalk as if anybody noticed the difference, there was a knot of people around a prone body.

"Police! Get the hell off my crime scene before I kick all your asses!'

The crowd gave back. A couple of youths wearing Slicers colors looked like they were going to try to tough it out for a moment, but then they backed off like the rest. Jeri hit the record icon on her portaconsole and looked down. There was a man, fairly well dressed for tweentown, lying on his back on the sidewalk. His chest was a mess, four--no, five holes, blood soaking his clothes. Another bullet hole in the upper right arm.

"At crime scene, sixty-eight Clinton, one victim deceased on road. Male, estimate mid thirties.' She held her arm over his face and pressed acquire. On the screen of her portaconsole his face appeared, darkish, somewhere close to handsome. 'Six obvious bullet wounds, five to chest, one to upper right arm. Fleesh, check the wall for follow through.'

"I'm there. You bitches get out my way!' Fleesh glared at the rubbernecks and they moved back. She strode to the wall of the building as though she owned the street. 'Hoy, Jeri! There's only one bullet hole.'

"What?'

"In the wall. Follow through on one shot only. I can't find the rest.'

Jeri grunted noncommittally, then knelt and started to search the victim. Something was wrong. He didn't feel right. She tapped his belly with her knuckles, and it was hard.

"Fleesh, this dude's wearing amour.'

"What?' Fleesh came over as Jeri pulled the victim's shirt up from out of his pants. Underneath was a smooth hard surface of dark grey laminate.

"Body-fitting amour under his clothes.'

"So the piggy was wearing, but trying to look like he wasn't?'

"Looks that way.'

"And they knew.'

"Nnn?'

"Whoever iced him. They knew he was wearing. Amour-piercing slugs, right?'

"I guess.'

"Got fifty says there ain't no exit wounds ... I mean, there's exit wounds in the piggy, in his back, but they hit the inside of his amour. Slugs still be in there.'

"Victim, Fleesh. Not piggy.'

Fleesh rolled her eyes toward the heavens and put on a look of martyred suffering.