Truscott was still there and he continued: My right ankle was set, protected, and held in place with a balloon cast. The chip in the cast would monitor the swelling and adjust the cast accordingly. The ankle would heal. With assistance my hearing would be fully restored. Once my brain recovered from being thoroughly sloshed around in my brainpan, the headaches should subside and the fuzziness in my vision ought to clear. In addition, a grief therapist was waiting in the wings simply keen to deal with my roast duck problem, nudge nudge.
There are times when one hears something so coarse, vile, or outrageous one automatically assumes one has heard incorrectly. “Did you say ‘roast duck’?”
The man smugged up, apparently quite pleased at his little joke. “We understand when they sent an ambulance for you they sent the chef from a Chinese restaurant for the duck.”
“That duck was a bio and my partner.”
“It was a duck suit, however.”
“He was named Guy Shad, he was carrying a human imprint, and he was a detective sergeant in Artificial Beings Crimes.”
“No offense, Inspector. Just a little joke. Lighten the mood a bit? Just an amdroid suit, right? Not the end of the world, is it? Must’ve looked like that though when it happened, eh? Ah-hah-hah-hah.”
If my head hadn’t been aching so terribly, I would’ve throttled the wanker with his own stethoscope.
“One last item,” he said. “Your hearing implant: Do you prefer normal or wireless?”
“What?” I was still mentally occupied, contemplating murder while I could still reasonably pull off a diminished capacity plea.
“Your bio isn’t equipped with wireless, but I wanted to let you know the option is available. The current hearing implants for your model all come with the latest wireless interface. If you prefer we can attempt to locate a pair of the old implants—wirelessless, eh?” He preened at his lame wordplay, making me reconsider the prohibition against ABCD detectives in Britain carrying guns.
All the forensic mechs come with wireless, which is how I knew I preferred normal. I abhorred even the idea of someone unbidden ringing me inside my own head. Shad, whose bio came with the latest of everything technical, always teased me about refusing to change. “In Artificial Beings Crimes,” he once said, “we have John Dillinger, a gorilla, a bloodhound, a duck, and a dinosaur.”
I was the dinosaur. I’m not certain why, but I chose the wireless implants. I could always disable the wireless function if my sanity was threatened.
A few marks on a chart, another deeply offensive attempt at apologizing for any of his possibly insensitive remarks concerning my “dead bird,” then trusses-for-less mercifully departed. Truscott was replaced by my boss, Detective Superintendent Marvin Matheson. Entering the room with him was a young constabulary detective who said he was from Okehampton Station. He introduced himself as D. C. Frank Storel.
As my dead-cop-replacement meat suit model resembled Nineteen forties actor Basil Rathbone, Matheson’s even earlier replacement bio looked like old-time American gangster John Dillinger, which was much appreciated by his wife. Much appreciated by Shad, too, principally as a target for his humor. Couldn’t recall Shad’s jokes just then. Not much of anything seemed funny except the new face.
Storel was a human natural who resembled a twenty-first-century Middle Eastern historical figure whose name I hadn’t managed to retain. He was short, thin, puny looking, his mousy brown hair brushed forward, his face displaying uncertain intentions of growing a beard and moustache. He wore a butternut colored windbreaker over a buttoned up necktie-barren white shirt. Raised eyebrows and a permanent simpleton’s grin on his face completed the picture. Instead of evidence of brain damage, his facial configuration was, one hoped, merely a stab at putting me at ease. Matheson sat in a chair next to my left side. Storel remained standing at the foot of my bed.
The superintendent leaned toward me. “D. C. Storel has a few questions.”
“Indeed.”
Storel looked down into his chip pad. After ID formalities were concluded, he asked, “Do you know where the bird was standing when the dud went off?”
“His name is Detective Sergeant Guy Shad,” I said.
“Sorry, Inspector. No offense.”
“Has that been determined?”
He looked up from his pad and grinned even more widely. “Sorry?”
“Indeed. Has it been determined that the explosion was an artillery shell? A dud?”
“Of course...” The grin faded and he looked confused. “Well, what else could it’ve been?”
“D. C. Storel, that explosion might have been an IED, a land mine, a booby trap, a bomb, a robotic missile, or movie set special effects for a British remake of No Time For Sergeants. Perhaps we’re getting too bleeding close to making that first contact with alien lifeforms and this was some half-arsed Nebulan bugger-eyed monster’s way of warning us the hell off!”
“Steady,” warned Matheson quietly as he placed a gentle hand on my forearm. It was silent in the room for a long moment, D. C. Storel’s face a rosy hue. I was a little warm myself.
“What exactly caused the explosion, Inspector, has yet to be determined,” said Storel. Mercifully his grin was gone. Although not more intelligent, his frown made him appear less stupid.
“No,” I answered him.
“Sorry?” he said, frowning more deeply. From grin to grimace in five-point-three seconds: Welcome to Jaggers’ World.
“No,” I repeated. “I don’t know where D.S. Shad was standing when the explosion happened. I wasn’t looking in his direction.”
“I see,” he said, looking once more into his palm. “And where were you?”
I answered him, and with additional questions from Storel I eventually came to realize he was filling out an accident report. I just wanted the ordeal over with as soon as possible. I answered the stupid questions, made no more comments, and closed my eyes when he finally left.
“Jaggers,” said Matheson at last, “are you all right?”
“Okehampton is treating it like a range accident.”
“Forget Storel, Jaggers. ABCD is pulling out all the stops to investigate this tragedy. We’ll get to the bottom of this.”
“A four-key organ doesn’t have all that many stops to pull, does it, Superintendent?” I opened my eyes, rolled my head gently to the left, and described what happened out at Hangingstone Hill as best I could and urged him to have my bio reader tapped to download my memory record of the event. “Then start the inquiry at this end by tracing the original call. No one out there in the north end of Dartmoor ever heard of a dead bio on Hangingstone Hill, Superintendent—not at Okehampton Station, nor at the army camp. Find out who rang us with the report and from where. Anything left of the cruiser’s computers?”
He slowly shook his head. “I’m afraid it’s hopeless. Whatever hasn’t been burned, melted, or shattered has been vaporized.”
“Any backups of Shad’s engrams anywhere?”
“Nothing we can find. D. C. Parker inquired of North American Biotron—they produced Guy Shad’s duck bio for those American insurance advert producers. However, Shad failed to have his engrams on file there or anywhere else.”
“Are you certain there’s nothing in the tower mainframe?” I asked, already knowing the answer.
Matheson’s eyebrows arched. “None of us have our engrams copied into the computer, Jaggers. I suppose we ought, but it’s not like our end of law enforcement is violent. Not usually.”
“Who is out at the scene?”
“Parker was out there today alongside Constabulary Scientific and Technical. What they picked up out there seems to confirm what Storel said.”