It only took fifteen minutes to consume the 2,800 calories that had been piled up on his plate, and the coffee hit the spot, bringing him out of his funk. Ariana came through the door not long after he had scraped the last potato up to savor its flavor on his tongue. She wore an asymmetrical dress with straps showing off her toned arms and legs. Her hair was a spiky bob, and on her feet were a pair of black motorcycle boots. If he didn’t know her personally, it would be hard to believe that she was a seasoned detective with the Tampa Police Department.

  “Ordering food before your guest, Dhata Mays. I always took you for a gentleman. Was I wrong?” She walked over to greet him with a kiss on both cheeks, squeezing his biceps as if to check if they were still there.

  “Hello, Detective, you’re looking well,” Dhata said, and she fanned him off playfully before plopping down across from him.

  “This place is neat, though a touch on the dirty side for a place serving food, don’t you think?” she said.

  “It’s fomeal, not a real 1,000 UCC Prime Rib,” Dhata said, and before he could say more, Lyn came over and placed a tray with two croissants and a cup of piping hot coffee in front of Ariana.

  “See, you are a gentleman,” she remarked as she sniffed at the croissant. “Never doubted you once, Dhata Mays.”

  He kicked her boot beneath the table. “Eat your food, smart ass.”

  She acquiesced and started munching on her pastry, taking slow sips of coffee as he relayed the events of the morning before the car chase. He told her about his fear that he had been set up, and his plan to ask around for the synth who had been with Ida that night. Ariana took it well, not even scolding him for going to the building alone. She ate the second croissant as she watched him talk, then finished the cup of coffee before sitting back and sighing.

  “I don’t think you were set up,” she finally said. “I think that by going into her apartment, armed, you alerted one of the neighbors to call the Johns on you. The hool you had guiding you would have a reputation of being purchased by robbers, Johns, and whoever had UCCs to spare. They saw you following him in, all big and bad the way you do, and they didn’t know if you were a bounty hunter or a gangster. Did you see any synth detectors at the entrance to those stacks?”

  “Good question,” Dhata said, “but I didn’t see any. Guess Paradise thinks that no synth would be dumb enough to walk into any building that he owned.”

  “So, there’s a chance that the boyfriend was living with her up in that apartment,” Ariana said. “It’s not like the others would have known what he was without detectors.”

  “Yeah, it’s possible, but Ida didn’t seem the type to sneak a synth onto hostile territory like that. If you’d seen the photos, you would see where I’m coming from. This woman was drunk on the Paradise punch, up until he got thrown in a cage. Not to mention, the apartment hadn’t been lived in for quite some time, though she tried to make it look tossed, even going so far as to bust out her own window,” Dhata said.

  “Sounds like she was fleeing from the compound then. Do you think it had anything to do with Paradise getting out?” Ariana said.

  “I don’t know,” Dhata shrugged, “but I aim to find out tonight once we get a crack at that rack. By the way, I’ve been meaning to ask. Where do you want to take this, Ari? Before, we would team up to solve one of your cases, but this isn’t even on the TPD radar. Both of us want Paradise gone, but is that enough to risk your cover as a detective, and my invisibility since I’m technically supposed to be gone?”

  Ariana spread her arms. “Because it’s something to do? We’ve been on ice, what, for like two months without so much as a peep from The Unsung? Paradise is out, and back to his evil schemes. This one is for you, Dhata. It’s a chance for us to put a potential threat of yours away for good. You forget that I owe you? Consider this making us even, and we get to work together again. You have to admit that you and me, we make a good team. We get shit done.”

  “That we do, and if I’m being honest, I like being back in the field, and Paradise being behind this mess makes me even more fired up. How are things at the station?” he said, settling even further back into the couch.

  “Crazy,” she said. “You know how it is. Human trash and synth psychopaths keeping us busy at every turn. Cases ramped up once the synths regained their rights to due process. Now the Johns that used to pass over the synthetic vics are having to at least file the paperwork, so the lazy shiftless either quit or moved to the Midwest where things are slower. The upside is that now I don’t feel alone about caring for these people, with you, Lur, and The Unsung backing me up. I’m sort of lonely and out of place there, though.”

  “Want to move into the zeppelin with me, Hiroshi, and Lur?” Dhata said.

  “Oh, Hiro’s here?” Ariana said, perking up.

  “Not you too with the crush on that stiff cyber dandy. I’m ashamed of you,” he said.

  “What? He’s fine. You think that Lurita gives him all that time just because she likes wading through code? Better hurry and marry that girl,” Ariana said, flagging Lyn over to refill her coffee.

  “There you go,” Dhata said, trying his hardest not to panic at the concept of marrying again.

  “No disrespect intended, Dhata, but what the hell is wrong with you?” she said after Lyn was gone and she had taken another sip from her mug. “Hiding from the Johns is one thing, but a high-speed race in that fancy car of yours, endangering civilian lives? You’ll be lucky if you aren’t on a bounty board for a reward by now.”

  Dhata bowed his head and stared at the chipped-up wooden surface of the table plastered with washed-out stickers and old chewing gum.

  “You don’t have to tell me,” he said. “I feel like hot garbage right now. Hell, I’m still on a hundred after all that excitement, and I’m not proud of it. Old habits die hard, and when I got a hunch, I just moved on it, thinking that Key Haven would be little more than a slum. The place is still jumping, and you know me, I wasn’t about to drive all the way out there just to turn around. Those St. Pete Johns probably ran my plates, but my G11 isn’t standard. Hiro hooked it up.”

  “Let me guess. Random ID frags, pumped out from a modder on the grid to confuse any and all police scanners? Imaging paint as well too. ELED?” Ariana said, her large brown eyes still driving lances into him.

  “Shit, Ariana, you have me pegged for the average hool,” Dhata said, offended.

  “Am I wrong though? You’re a not-so covert agent for The Unsung, and still licensed as a skiptracer working for us Johns. All it would take is one smart detective to connect the dots to know that was you, modder or not. That done, and what do you think will happen? Huh? You’re already wanted for questioning. You are dangerously close to becoming too hot to stay in Tampa Bay.”

  “Tokyo was a nice escape for a time,” Dhata mused absentmindedly, swirling the contents of his mug around. “Maybe it’s time Lur and I take our show beyond this city, permanently. I’ve done enough for the citizens here, and I doubt anyone can tell me otherwise. Right now, the thought of those big-ass skyscrapers and action makes me want to go. I feel hollow here, and old. The things that used to make me care are gone, starting with Jason.” He let out a heavy sigh. “There’s nothing but poverty in this place, and shiftless Johns making it hard for good detectives like you to make a dent. If not Japan, then maybe Cuba. Maybe Lur and I can finally remove that variant impostor from her father’s home.”

  “So, you’d leave your outlaw lifestyle and zeppelin just to go pick a fight on Cuban soil?” Ariana said, loud enough to get the attention of everyone within earshot. “Oops, that was loud, but do you hear yourself?” She kicked him below the table. “You two aren’t going anywhere, and if you do, you had better take me with you. It’s not up for debate. Think I want to be here by myself while the department keeps me buried in unsolvable cases? No, just ... be careful is what I’m saying.”

  “Thanks for caring,” Dhata said dryly, smiling at her sudden discomfort.

  “Don’t be an ass.” Ariana stared at him now as if he was across from her interrogation table. “Think I have any other skiptracers on speed dial?”

  “You know, don’t take this the wrong way, Ari, but I can still remember how frightened you were on that rooftop we scaled at Ubretek. Still can’t believe we pulled off that stunt, but the scars on my legs and back won’t let me forget it. Since that night … no, since the break-in, when you had that shootout with Cole’s hools, I can’t help but feel responsible for you somehow. I need to know that you’re good at all times, like a family member. Do you find that odd?”

  “No,” Ariana said, her eyes looking past him as she reflected on the events of that night. “Not at all. We’ve got that survivor’s bond, I think. That night at Ubretek, we both should have died, but here we are. You were strong and kept me going on that roof, but you were just as frightened as I was. I could tell.”

  “Yeah, me and heights don’t get along,” he admitted. “But Lur and Hiro were relying on us. We had to get it done, or they would have bought it too.”

  “Hell of a thing to remember, Dhata. I was enjoying our talk, but man, my heart’s just a pumping, thinking about that night. Why bring it up?”

  “No reason, really. Just that catching up with you now, you know, it crossed my mind, and we don’t talk,” he said.

  “You had your shot, and you chose the cypher, Dhata,” she said, taking advantage of their awkward air to put him on the defense. “Talking about me being frightened, when what you’re probably remembering is how I held onto you. So what’s really on your mind?” she said, batting her eyes slowly above the rim of her mug. The tension between the two of them had always been boiling, and Ariana loved to tease him whenever she saw an opening.

  “You’re reading it wrong,” he said, breaking her spell, and she burst out laughing so loudly that he almost became embarrassed.

  “Alright, old man cut the shit. What’s the plan?” she said, smiling, as she sat back and toyed with the silver cross around her neck.

  “Going to look through that rack. Well, Lur will, and I’ll send you what we find, if anything. Then, I don’t know. Make a few calls to see if I can get the identity of the synth that was with Ida. I’m curious as to how long those two were an item. Once I learn who he is, I can start connecting the dots to see if this assassination links back to the Children of Paradise,” Dhata said.

  “While you’re doing that, I will see what they know over in St. Pete,” Ariana said. “If it turns out that they know who you are, I’ll give the heads up and do what I can to veer them off. Dhata, you can’t do this again. This isn’t 2105 where you had the Tampa Police Department behind you.” She reached forward to touch his hand, and let it linger before pulling back to take another sip from her mug.

  “I’ll be smarter, don’t you worry,” he said, flashing her a smile and exhaling heavily from the memory of their last, deadly mission.

  Chapter 7

  Synth City Revival

  After leaving Zebots, Dhata decided to take a walk through the streets of Ybor City. Things had changed since last he had been there, shooting it out with his enemy, now that all the smaller gangs had been either wiped out or had thrown the towel in to Aaron Tang.

  Aaron was a synth gangster, but an intelligent one, who had impressed Dhata with showing that he was much more than a quick pistol draw and a temper. Ybor City had always been a ghetto of sorts for Tampa Bay’s third-class mechanical citizens, with no oversight by the government, as long as they stayed “down there” and out of the human-populated areas.

  Since the explosion of the inner-city civil war between anti-synths and Ybor’s gangsters, however, the government changed its stance, and was slowly accepting that the synths were there to stay. Restrictions on where synths could come and go were loosened, though it was still dangerous for a non-human to show up in certain, police-enforced communities.

  At the end of the war, Ybor was a devastated, ruined section of the city, whose infrastructure was too far gone for the city to devote resources to rebuild. With the synthetics having repaired the atmosphere, and certain sections of the city to be habitable once more, the citizens of Tampa owed them a debt, so they gifted them the ruins with a promise that they would never try to shut them down.

  Synths were artificial, but the A.I. that powered them, birthed them, and made them sentient, was still a mystery to the humans, and now too powerful for them to remove. Arch Brain, as it was called, had turned out to not be just a supercomputer connected to the world, but a virus, with her tentacles in every portion of the grid that humanity now relied upon.

  Efforts to remove the synths once they had fixed the world had been taken on by the government and the United States military. This was before Dhata’s time, when human beings were still of the mind that they were the masters of the Earth. Soldiers had started in on places like Ybor, shooting the androids and destroying their manufacturing stations. This only lasted a day, however, until the Arch Brain responded, shutting down the grid that powered the entire world.

  For months, the death toll rose as humanity returned to a dark, wet world of eternal rain and expended resources. World leaders were angry at the United States and implored the administration to come to terms with their synthetic citizens. Out of that, the synthetics became recognized as citizens, and the Arch Brain, through a representative of the synths, was given a guarantee that never again would they be set upon by any government.

  Many people in Dhata’s time didn’t know the history. They had been born and raised around synths, and despite their views, had come to accept that they were a part of life, like the broken sky, crime, and virtual neighborhoods. Ybor was a slum, barely a shadow of its former self prior to the war. The synths that lived there hadn’t bothered to build, and instead lived inside the ruins, rigging up lights and barely clearing the roads.

  Three years ago, Aaron’s predecessor—a gangster named Peyton Ace—was the boss of all bosses in the synth world and ruled the city through violence and a strict code of segregation. Humans weren’t allowed in, except for Dhata, who had always had a relationship with the rulers of the synthetic underworld. He and Peyton had established a rapport, until circumstances forced the old skiptracer to put the former synth boss down.

  When Aaron Tang assumed the throne, Dhata and Lur had helped him keep it, which came with a promise that Ybor would always welcome them as friends. Back then, the city had been in ruins, but now the streets were clear, and several buildings actually looked new. Above the streets spanning the buildings now were new power lines with light fixtures and signs advertising various things hanging from them. As Dhata continued staring at them, however, he could see that several drones were patrolling the area.

  We’re no longer at war, but you stay ready, don’t you, Aaron? Dhata thought to himself, impressed with everything that he was seeing.

  It had all come so fast, but that was the type of velocity that synths were capable of when inspired. He reached the end of the road, where a barrier had been constructed to separate the newly developed section from the old ruins, so he stopped for a moment to rest his legs as he stared out at the Ybor of the past.

  “War is a motherfucker,” he whispered as he took in the twisted skeletal buildings that were barely standing. Only synths and the desperate would be willing to live within those ticking time bombs of collapse, and he could still remember a time when he had been one of them.

  Climbing over the hood of a rusted old Volkswagen sedan, he was immediately approached by several muscular, electroshock-wielding toughs.

  Dhata was surprised by their appearance. Not because they were armed, or the fact that they materialized out of nowhere, but because two of their number wore visible augments, which was uncharacteristic of American synths. Unlike Japan, where synths lived among the people as citizens in their own right, the local synths had assimilated and did everything they could to appear human.

  One of the synths that stood menacingly in front of him had a head that resembled a biker’s helmet, large, black, and bulbous, with vents at its base where several wires ran down his chest to disappear inside his black racer’s jacket. Instead of an electroshock tube, this one had a sword that was almost as long as he was tall. He reminded Dhata of Hiroshi, who would wear a helmet that kept him jacked into the grid, with little care given to his outward appearance.

  The other three looked and dressed like humans, but their hostile expressions softened when they recognized who Dhata was.

  “Ace isn’t here, boss,” the bike helmet said, in a surprisingly soothing soprano with a hint of a Japanese accent.

  Dhata still couldn’t get over the fact that Aaron had chosen “Ace” as a nickname when it was the surname of his predecessor, Peyton Ace. If it were anyone else, he would have chalked it up to homage, but with Aaron, it was never so deep. Chances were he simply liked Peyton’s name, and when the boss died, decided that he would take it for himself.

  Aaron, like all synth crime bosses, was slightly off and dangerous, but compared to Peyton, he was easy to deal with, and Dhata liked that his ambitions dealt with cleaning up his city. With Peyton, things were temperamental, since the synth only cared about himself. He was a pimp and a stim pusher who kept Ybor in the dregs without a thought to make things better. Aaron was rough around the edges when it came to his speech and demeanor, but he was a brilliant tactician, and a good leader for his people.

  “I can call him later on, but tell me how long you all have been with A-Squad?” Dhata said.

  The bike helmet turned to look at her comrades. “Since the beginning, a little over a year. What do you say fellas?” A chorus of confirmation was passed about before she turned back to Dhata and repeated, “A little over a year, John. What makes you ask?”

 

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27