Daleman's Log - 22 / 04 / 2120

Quillian Daleman - Personal Log
22 / 04 / 2120 F.A.

Statistically, most murders go unsolved. Not something that cops liked to highlight to the general public, but a distressing reality of our line of work. Accidents were generally easy; I had cut my teeth tracking down hit-and-runs before I made detective-inspector. Crimes of passion were often messy, the perpetrators unprepared to hide the body. Locked-room mysteries, clever alibis, and bizarrely elaborate **** schemes were the stuff of fiction, and even when they did happen, the police weren't the great deductive sleuths of the simflicks.

Armed robberies gone wrong, gangland murders, hitmen eliminating corporate rivals, serial murderers—those tended to go unsolved. The less connection between the victim and the perpetrator, the fewer leads there were to go on. Forensic science, for all of its advancements, wasn't as magical as the police procedurals and courtroom dramas would have a jury think. **** kits went untested. DNA got contaminated. A bottle of bleach or clever use of a self-cleaning oven could ruin our day, but it also often wasn't necessary. I could have left Arnorson's body on the sidewalk in the right part of town and someone would have disassembled it for spare parts within an hour. Cameras were everywhere, but few people were actually watching live feeds, and getting the rights to view or use the footage was something else, even if the files existed.

Some people just disappeared, and that was that.

The problem with Arnorson is that I didn't need him to disappear. I needed him to be found. The Lodgemaster wanted an example. Why the fucker had chosen my apartment of all places to have a go at me...and all that shit he'd been talking about a dragon, Drake Industries...what the hell was that about?

I shook my head, and winced. My face was already starting to swell. Broken ribs made it hard to breathe. Arnorson hadn't just had augmented strength, speed, and reflexes; he knew how to fight. Thousands of hours of martial arts practice had been on display, and only my own subdermal armor had kept me alive long enough to change form. Each blow hadn't been a sledgehammer, it had been a sledgehammer pushing a nail into my flesh, targeted strikes. Turning bear had thrown the agent off, but only because there were no martial arts designed specifically for fighting a bear in hand-to-hand combat.

The first step was taping my broken ribs. Once I could breathe a bit better, I grabbed my **** kit from the closet. Black plastic sheeting, bleach, razor wire, wet wipes, gloves, hairnet, and mask. Naked, I set about turning what was left of my former partner into a package that looked like something other than a corpse in a bag. I had to scrape his brain off the floor with my dustpan.

The cleaning robot was set to "decontaminate." It was a plain-looking AccuWash Professional. The same kind of spidery beige eight-legged model used to clean crime scenes. Only this one was jailbroken. The average robot regularly received updates from its corporation of origin, and uploaded data, nominally to help them improve their product, really to spy on customers. Mine had no wireless connection, no subscription, no records of what it had cleaned.

Lilja hadn't made a sound. I glanced at the door as I put on some old clothes over my gore-stained form. She was an unexpected complication. Technically a witness. Technically an accomplice. I was hoping I could use that. Later.

I nearly screamed as I lifted the black plastic. Suddenly dizzy and nauseous. Hoping I didn't have a concussion. In the middle of the room I stood, the black package heavy in my arms. Swallowed hard and let the feeling settle as the robot moved over the blood-splatter. In the bathroom, the shower started. I smiled, and left the apartment, careful to lock and arm the door behind me.

If any of my neighbors were watching, they'd see me stepping out with a big bag of garbage. Headed downstairs, towards the dumpster. Except I kept going, taking the stairs to the basement. The tunnels ran throughout the city. Intersected with maintenance shafts, city sewer systems, in a maze that no single system had on record. I'd mapped a route to the Antiquities Recovery Department last night, after the Lodgemaster had given the assignment.

Somehow, I felt a bit of relief that Arnorson had actually thrown the first punch. Not that I doubted my ability to have murdered him in cold blood, but the fact that he'd attacked me, the racist prick, meant there was no pang of conscience from betrayal. And it made what I was about to do easier.

The primary waste outlet from the A.R.D. building was thirteen inches in diameter where it emptied into the sewer. By the time I was done shoving the bits and pieces of Arnorson into the century-old rusty iron pipe, the wastewater had been reduced to a wet, grey drip. The collective piss and shit of his own agency would mask any DNA I'd left on his body. When the toilets clogged tomorrow, maintenance teams would find his corpse.

Which should satisfy the Lodgemaster.

There was a literal weight off my shoulder as I retraced my steps to my apartment. It should be clean now. Lilja should be clean. My gun in its holster brushed against my broken ribs and made me gasp in pain. Hadn't seemed like a good idea to leave it back in my apartment. I didn't think Lilja would get any ideas but this had been a stressful night. Somehow, I imagined the cuntlicking from earlier this evening was off the table.

The Dwarf had drawn the chair from my bedroom up toward the bar. Now that I looked at the living room, I frowned. Our brief fight had trashed most of my meager furniture, left gouges in the wall and floor. She sat there, dressed in the smallest of my clean t-shirts, which hung down to her ankles like a dress, her braids tied back. There was a haunted look in her eyes as she drank more of my booze.

I closed, locked, and armed the door behind me.

"There's still water," Lilja said. "If you want a shower."

"I do, thanks," I said. Ran a hand through my hair. Winced as I touched a tear in my skin. Goopy and sore to the touch. "After we talk."

Her eyes found mine. There was something there that was strange. Knowing. Sympathetic?

The Dwarf held up my phone.

"I read your personal logs," she said. Mouth tight. As if wondering if at any minute I'd turn into a bear and tear her apart, then let the robot clean up what was left. "I know why you did it."

"He attacked me first—" I said automatically, then froze as the import of the words hit me.

"I didn't leave my phone unlocked," I said. Then my eyes narrowed as things clicked into place. "You hacked it. You're a hacker. That shit Arnorson was talking about Matrix searches..."

Lilja nodded.

"It was never just about the money or the sex," she said. "I needed your access to get into the police systems."

My jaw fell open. My head throbbed. I should have gone to a street doc before coming home. But that would mean more questions.

"Okay," I said. I licked my teeth, checking to see if they felt longer or sharper. Stress could trigger a change. "Well, if you read my logs, you know I was going to have to kill him anyway. What you did just accelerated things a bit. But it's over now. Body is disposed of. You keep your mouth shut and we're both in the clear."

Lilja shook her head.

"It's not that simple. Don't you want to know why I hacked you? What I was after?" she asked.

I sighed, and leaned my bulk against the door, but I didn't dare close my eyes, no matter how heavy the lids were. It was the same tone of voice she'd used to talk about my relationship with Vanessë. I didn't need this emotional shit.

"Babe, you had to know from the beginning that I'm a big, ugly dyke cop with a talent for **** and a taste for street meat," I said. "I eat pussy and pay in full, and I'm in deep with some weird fuckers into some ancient shit. You don't want to be a part of that. Whatever you wanted out of me, you got it. I'm not asking you to stay and nurse my wounds and give me a rimjob. I just need to know you'll keep your mouth shut."

"You're smarter than you let on, and you care more deeply than you'll admit to yourself. I need your help," Lilja said. "And you need mine. The shit you're in is weirder and deeper than you know, and I'm in it too."

She paused, took a sip of her drink, and then said very carefully:

"The rimjob is negotiable. After you've showered."

I nearly screamed again as I started to laugh.