The TRA: there's been another murder, the same killer

The TRA: the scene's been taped off and you've just arrived by rickshaw

The TRA: what do you do?

Hardcastle: Forensics already come through? Ask officer on duty if not apparent.

The TRA: the officer's a young man, but with old eyes underneath the brim of his uniform cap. he tosses his cigarette to the ground and stubs it out before telling you the forensic team should be by in about fifteen

Hardcastle: I have... plans

Hardcastle: I'm gonna walk the scene

Hardcastle: softly

Hardcastle: Crouch  next to the body and let out a deep sigh

Hardcastle: This is the process

Hardcastle: Was she pretty?

The TRA: it looks like she'd gotten some light tailoring done, pretty tasteful stuff really. She had Maryln Monroe lips, which were in fashion this season. A few wrinkles around the corners of the eyes, a downy coating of transluscent hairs on the chin. Nothing another trip to the cut-shop wouldn't fix.

The TRA: There's a couple of smart tattoos on her left shoulder, still pulsing and writhing feebly on the scant electromagnetic current running just under the skin

The TRA: the little light they give off shows a scrap of a word scrawled fresh in the flesh under that arm, but the way she's fallen has obscured it

Hardcastle: Victim is prone or supine?

The TRA: supine, her eyes are still open and are a shade of blue that is almost certainly not naturally occuring

Hardcastle: Hands are visible?

Hardcastle: I glove up

Hardcastle: Pop the buds in

Hardcastle: What's the song I do this to?

The TRA: a New Nuevo Tango number called Black Heart Rum, a sort of waltz time dub, with a bit of those muted, saltwater sounds that were popular a year or two back

The TRA: the synth violin screeches into place and you begin to work

Hardcastle: Alright okay this is just like

Hardcastle: every time

Hardcastle: you do this

Hardcastle: just another synth, broken property

Hardcastle: nothing is everything and everything is worth taking note of

Hardcastle: ever so tenderly lift that arm. check for ports. I want a better look at that tattoo too

The TRA: you remember the words of your old mentor

The TRA: "The true detective places himself at the center of the labyrinth, and lets the crime make its way through to him"

The TRA: she's got the usual line-ins, like almost everyone these days. It looks like she had a data-stream scroll set to run down the inside of the forearm, but it's not running. maybe corporate, then?

The TRA: the blue ink in the red flesh of her armpit reads 

Oh/

how I wanted you to just/

fuck me but then/

I became greedy/

Hardcastle: Someone paid a lot for this piece.

Hardcastle: Was a claim ever filed?

Hardcastle: Whose building are we in? Pop out the dos and check to see who owns this place*

The TRA: you patch into the local nano-feed and your vision swims briefly as the information floats into your field of vision

The TRA: The local scanners pick up that she's organic, which is a bit of a surprise but not totally unexpected

The TRA: the club is owned by an ex vacuum-jockey, seems to be a front for some fairly light smuggling and a fight ring

The TRA: it attracts the old explorers, the rocket burn-outs, the castaways and survivors of a recently passed age

The TRA: they do good specials on wednesday

Hardcastle: Ha! Kzecuchenko would probably say that

Hardcastle: I need to get on the horn and see if he knows who-

Hardcastle: oh

Hardcastle: black suit. black tie.

Hardcastle: funny how you forget where you're coming from when you're caught in the moment

Hardcastle: Check the personnel records. Who's got a gold star?

The TRA: The boys at the station pull up the dossier on an old entradista by the name of Emile Bonavanture

The TRA: seems Emile mostly traded in pretty low-end black market tech, scavenged out of the edge of the Tanhauser Tract a few dozen lights off. He pulled something nasty out on his last run though, killed the rest of the crew and left Emile a little... scrambled.

The TRA: he's good for information though, he's friends with most of the low-lifes around and he'll sing like a canary for a little drinking money

Hardcastle: Let's go see Emile! We're done here. Wrap her up, see if anything comes up in facial. We'll see who to contact

Hardcastle: How's my gun?

The TRA: you've got a Chambers tucked tight into a shoulder holster

The TRA: a gift from Kzecuchenko, part of his vacuum-commando days. The damn thing is a particle-jockey's nightmare, but you've kept it in pretty good shape so there's a good chance you'll kill somebody other than yourself with it if you have to fire the damn thing.

The TRA: You close out the nano-feed and feel the slight whirl of nasea that always accompanies it.

The TRA: The interior of the Black Cat White Cat is huge and open, made to look like an old moderne warehouse club. Bars occupy the two walls opposite the entrance, and there's a few mostly empty tables scattered about

The TRA: the lighting is a little strange, but you can't quite place why

The TRA: Emile's working the bar to the left if you want to go chat

Hardcastle: "Emile Bonaventure!"

Hardcastle: "Questioning"

Hardcastle: "Let's Go"

Hardcastle: How about my other gun? The one I keep in the trunk?*

The TRA: A cut-down 10-guage. Not quite the compact engine of extreme property damage that the Chambers pistol is, but it's also a good bit less likely to violate any known laws of physics

The TRA: Emile pauses with his back turned to you as he reaches up to put a bottle of black-currant gin back on the shelf.

The TRA: he sighs "Let me just close out here, I suppose. The place is fucking dead anyway."

Hardcastle: Get real bad cop coy-mouth on him

Hardcastle: "Oh great! Let's take a step outside."

Hardcastle: "She work here? What ws her name?"

The TRA: as he steps out from beside the bar you get a better look at Emile

The TRA: he used to be well-built but years of ablative radiation took the steel right out of him and left him flabby, with skin thinned to the point where you can see the blood pulsing under it in places

The TRA: "Seen her around a time or two, nobody special. Drank off-world white wine, mostly, I think. Pretty expensive stuff but not the best"

The TRA: he says, as he follows you out

Hardcastle: "You ever get in the ring, B?"

Hardcastle: "I mean mix in just to keep your hands sharp. Just to show them young shits you still got it?"

The TRA: "Not sure I know what you're talking about, detective. Am I being charged with anything or can I go back to my bar?"

Hardcastle: "Nah man nah, off the record you know? Just us guys. You know I used to box a bit. I've been in the heat, I've seen the fear in another guy's eyes when he's too tired to go on. When the money falls and the liquor pours. You know what I'ma talkin' about, B?"

Hardcastle: What are his eyes doing as I act this charade?

The TRA: he looks at you like you just said something really fucking dumb, which is not quite the reaction you were expecting

The TRA: "Alright, strictly off the record have you ever been to a fight here? Those boys could swallow the both of us with a drink of water. Tailored all to hell, I keep my hands off of it mostly"

The TRA: "Messy business. Vic handles most of it"

Hardcastle: Nod a bit, knowing if you bullshit lower than a bullshitter he's bound to tell you how it is

Hardcastle: Get real with Bonaventure. "What happened with the girl?"

The TRA: "What does it look like? She got her throat cut and somebody left her by my dumpster. If I knew anything I'd tell you fucks, believe me it would save me a hell of a lot of trouble."

Hardcastle: "Nah nah nah I think... You know I think you would have seen who she was with. Someone that tooled out like that? She's been more than paid for, she's been groomed, B. Someone put in for her, and I'm not saying it was you, or Ennicio, but I wanna know who she came here with. What the hell was she doing in this hole, and why didn't she get to leave it?"

Hardcastle: Gonna denzel this fountain

The TRA: he looks to each side for a moment

The TRA: "I saw her talking to a tour-guide calls himself Misha a few nights ago. They might've done some kind of deal, they might not have. I dunno Misha, Vic does. You talk to Vic maybe you find the tour-guide, that's all I can do."

The TRA: "I've got a bar that needs tending, you got anything else?"

Hardcastle: "Where's he set up?" Then let him be*

The TRA: "Down by the water, back room of a little cut-shop called Uncle Ezno's. Don't tell him I sent you, alright?"

Hardcastle: I've heard about Vic

Hardcastle: Roll over there. Knock and Talk. Real calm, maybe don't need a warrant.*

The TRA: It starts to come down a thick, pissy rain on your ride over. After you get off, the rickshaw girl, as huge as a horse with all of her tailoring, works some more life into her legs in a cloud of her own steam as the rickshaw's cloud of phosphorescent smart-ads congeals around the carriage.

The TRA: the door to Uncle Ezno's is opened by a little Chinese-looking kid, maybe twelve

The TRA: you see the usual accoutrements of the low-end tailoring trade: protein vats, electron microscopes a decade obsolete, micron-thin myomer needles in hermetically sealed bundles

The TRA: "what you want, cop?"

Hardcastle: "Aw son... Is your daddy home?"

Hardcastle: Show and shine

The TRA: he eyes you up like a miser

The TRA: "you got warrant? if no warrant then fuck off, cop"

Hardcastle: Is the door closing?

The TRA: yes.

Hardcastle: "I just wanna talk to Vic. Now you gonna take me to him or am I gonna have to come back with a warrant and rain hell down on you"

The TRA: he pauses a moment, then ushers you in

The TRA: "touch nothing, Vic in back"

Hardcastle: "Vickey"

Hardcastle: "Guess who?"

Hardcastle: Listen

The TRA: The kid hits you in the back of the head with a pipe spanner

The TRA: you hit the floor like a sack of crap and wake up tied to a chair, God only knows where

The TRA: it's a little concrete room, filled with the smell of standing water, illuminated by a single, old-fashioned light bulb

The TRA: Vic's here

The TRA: "You dumb fucker", he says

Hardcastle: "Ha... You hit me? Figured it might be the kid"

Hardcastle: "Hell Vic... I've been wanting to talk to you."

Hardcastle: Who else is in the room?

The TRA: Just Vic

The TRA: Vic's in a wifebeater and old fatigues tucked into old combat boots

The TRA: he looks like a coyote; lean, hungry and a little insane

The TRA: "It was the kid. He's good help- smarter than he looks but a little over-enthusiastic."

The TRA: "Sorry about that"

Hardcastle: "Hell of a kid, Vic. Go on"

The TRA: "But hey, since I've got you here, and we've both got some free time, let's chat."

The TRA: "I might know a little something about these murders. Tell me what you know first."

Hardcastle: "Look who's just out of the fuggin' academy. How about I tell you shit, asswipe, and you spill who was with the girl that night."

Hardcastle: "You got a cig?"

The TRA: Vic is all smiles

The TRA: he leans down and puts a Royal-Tee in your mouth, lights it with a microfusion torch

The TRA: "no need to be hostile, gumshoe. I don't know names or anything but I might know underlying causes. Step back a bit, perhaps?"

Hardcastle: Suck in hard and tell him how it is. "I know you're connected, connected enough to know I'm plugged up, and that they know where I am regardless of where I decide to stop and shit"

Hardcastle: "So help me out V, who killed the girl. This ain't gotta be complicated. This ain't gotta be guns and broken doors, or your kid in there growing up in the system. I'm guessing she's imported, and if that's the case you just gotta turn me towards the sun and I'll leave you well in my wake"

Hardcastle: I'm saying it as reasonably as the situation allows

The TRA: Vic lights a Royal-Tee of his own, blows smoke up into the cieling

The TRA: "The kids not mine, for starters, he's hired help. But let's engage in a hypothetical situation for a moment."

The TRA: "Say there's a fella runs a fight ring, has a few boys of his own to send in. Say he's got a friend with a couple of smuggling connections, and say one of them brings back some xenocode that looks like it might juice his boys up a little bit. They haven't been doing too hot lately, see?"

Hardcastle: I sit back and puff "I do Vic I really do"

Hardcastle: "Go on though"

The TRA: "Thank you"

The TRA: "Now let's presume for a moment that this code is completely and irrecoverably fucked, and that this is evident from the moment it's unpacked. Let's say that it pours out of the datacore like cold tapioca and crawls into some dumb bint's mouth and starts living in her"

The TRA: "Here's where it gets foggy for this hypothetical fight manager, because at this point our hypothetical broad runs off and gets herself killed."

The TRA: "This is where you come in, gumshoe. I need Xenocrime up my ass like I need a fucking hernia and if they catch wind of this shit they're going to be the least of my problems. I help you out, give you a lead or two and you make sure that none of this touches me."

The TRA: He blows smoke again

The TRA: "how's that sound?"

Hardcastle: "You're always smart, Vic. Your son should be proud."

The TRA: "This wasn't the girl from last night, you understand? The first one. This was the first. Alright? Said she was gonna go see her man up near Perdito street, lives in some townhouse there."

The TRA: "You head up that way maybe you find something out."

The TRA: he holds out the pack

The TRA: "one for the road?"

Hardcastle: "No I don't smoke"

Hardcastle: I step

Hardcastle: Once unrestricted

The TRA: it is so

Hardcastle: Vic's not okay, but he can't blabber before I can report

Hardcastle: Maybe it's better they see me coming

Hardcastle: So more than one

Hardcastle: What number was the girl? 2? 6? More?

Hardcastle: code trafficking is not new, but this was certainly innovative.

Hardcastle: Minimal Cleanup

Hardcastle: I'll go see the other one. Up on Perdito. See if anyone is still looking out for her. Maybe I can follow the breadcrumbs

The TRA: Perdito is currently on the very edge of the upswing of the gentrification cycle. The houses and businesses are run down, just on the edge of having some character and being kind of a shitheap. The style is late aughties moderne; chipped whitewash over dark wood, some rusted iron and bricks the same color. Identically tailored prostitutes, with some fairly high-end work, hail at you from the streetcorners.

The TRA: semi-sentient micro-ads brush past your face like bats, or ghosts, or friendly old women as you approach the townhouse. you mount the stairs and come to the room Vic told you to find; the door's closed but unlocked.

Hardcastle: Knock knock

Hardcastle: "Hello?"

Hardcastle: Crack the door

The TRA: it's an odd apartment

The TRA: looks like somebody knocked the walls down between about four of these upper-story rooms. Each one is square, with a single large window facing the street

The TRA: The walls are covered with little scraps of paper, pinned or taped or held on with magnets to brushed-aluminum picture frames

The TRA: doesn't look like there's anyone home

Hardcastle: Call out once more and step into the apartment. Search room to room, Chambers out

The TRA: your words fall softly around you in the close, warm space

The TRA: The rooms are all empty of furniture, save a hard metal chair and a cot in the last room. There's a strange smell, like ammonia in the air.

The TRA: something brushes the back of your neck

Hardcastle: Turn it!

Hardcastle: Shit

The TRA: your finger tightens just a hair on the trigger of the Chambers

The TRA: but it's just a scrap of paper, come loose off the wall

The TRA: it flutters about in the currents caused by your abrupt movement

Hardcastle: Snatch that. Where's the girl?

The TRA: 

A Neon Heart/

wet/

and red/

disengaged from time/

The TRA: "she's dead" says a figure in the doorframe, a gun leveled at you

The TRA: he pulls the trigger

Hardcastle: If I live, fire back

The TRA: his shot goes wide- adds a new ventillation duct to the wall behind you

The TRA: the Chambers screams like a damp finger across the rim of the Devil's wine glass and tears a hole through the air between you and your assailant

The TRA: it takes out most of the doorframe to his right, two layers of wall immediately behind that and removes his right arm pretty neatly halfway between the shoulder and elbow

The TRA: he falls down the stairs

Hardcastle: Let's go see who's the lucky winner

The TRA: he's in the street, trying to crawl away, but he's losing blood like it's going out of style so he's not gonna be at that for long by your estimation

The TRA: one of the hookers comes to try to help him because holy shit he's missing an arm and she's really not the brightest anyway but a good heart, part of the tailoring package

The TRA: he vomits what appears to be cold tapioca into her face, accompanied by a smell like ammonia

Hardcastle: Good god

Hardcastle: Call them in, get her and carry her down to protective custody

Hardcastle: Product control needs to take a look at what she just ingested

Hardcastle: Is he still speaking? Let's see

Hardcastle: "Hey gucker if she's dead then what got her?"

The TRA: he's breathing weakly, lying on his back. It looks like whatever health department nanos he had in him aren't working because he's still bleeding horribly and he's pretty clearly in shock.

The TRA: "I think..." gasp for air "it might have been me"

The TRA: he dies

Hardcastle: Well shit

Hardcastle: Check the apartment. What about that paper? Anything unique about the cogging on it?

The TRA: The paper is all bits of the poem the killer's been leaving tattoed on the victims. You find the first part you and Kzecuchenko found, on the first victim.

The TRA: 

Send me/

A Neon Heart/

Unarmed/

With a walk like a girl/

The TRA: the paper itself is just paper, cream-colored synthetic wood pulp, with faint blue lines. It came back into style a few years ago- writing on paper. The killer probably bought a bunch when the fad was on and had been using it ever since.

Hardcastle: That's dumb. How dumb of him

Hardcastle: How could he be so dumb?

Hardcastle: There's a point...

Hardcastle: Look

Hardcastle: It's backwards

Hardcastle: They catch it like a bug

Hardcastle: someone comes and cures the wound

Hardcastle: I've been looking at it all wrong

Hardcastle: Who's coming down on them

Hardcastle: We gotta start from the top down

Hardcastle: Get a sample of the regurgitated code- product

Hardcastle: Who made this?

The TRA: You get back down to the precinct and the boys down at the Xenocrime lab are already losing their shit

The TRA: Everywhere you see people with the glazed look that accompanies using the nano-feeds, everywhere somebody running around with a data-tablet, everywhere somebody who needs another goddamn cup of coffee before they can even begin to deal with this shit JESUS

The TRA: Gundersson, the head of their forensic code crew, pulls you aside

The TRA: "Holy fucking shit do you have any idea what you brought in here? This is absolutely insane, we have never seen a single goddamn thing like this and you sent it into the goddamn station you dumb fuck"

Hardcastle: "What the hell are you talking about? It's a juice feed, file and catalogue like always"

The TRA: "The fucking hell it is, this is some kind of... who fucking knows what?"

The TRA: "It's self-replicating, it... for fuck's sake it seems sentient and it can interface with organic life and it's god damn bug fuck insane"

The TRA: "That goddamn hooker about chewed the end of one of her fingers off and has been using the blood to write fucking poems on the walls"

The TRA: "it's all the code seems to want to do"

Hardcastle: What's the speculation? The poem is a carry-over but what's underneath?

The TRA: Gundersson just looks at you exhaustedly

The TRA: "The fuck if I know. This is your goddamn case, seems to me. You look into it."

The TRA: Over the next few weeks you do, and a picture starts to emerge

The TRA: the poem, what's been written, anyway, appears to be a fragment of a fragment of a fragment

The TRA: a piece of cultural debitage divorced from context by species and time, and translated inexpertly into our foreign tongue

The TRA: the street girl in the cell continues writing- they bring her a pen and paper after a while, she won't use a datapad

The TRA: They send a squad down to pick up Vic but it seems he'd already been shot, by who knows who

The TRA: Emile skipped town

The TRA: all grains of sand within the mandala, all turns in the labyrinth

The TRA: a month later another murder, the begining of the poem again or maybe just a refrain

The TRA: 

Send me/

A Neon Heart/

Unarmed/