silence is golden
It was past midnight on one of those early autumn nights where the season was finally showing its teeth, where the wind whistled and the stars flickered like fire, and I should have already been asleep. I'd say I still don't know what made Moxie even think to try paying me a visit, that late, but I do know. It's the same thing that leads everyone to my doorstep, ultimately: desperation.
She didn't look desperate--not at first. She looked like she'd just stepped off an album cover--those punk rock pigtails, the dramatic wing of eyeliner, the torn tights and plaid skirt, the battered tank top that matched her boots, the patchwork black denim jacket. But those bright eyes were red and puffy from crying, and anyway, game recognizes game: the smile, the insouciant lean against my door, all that projected confidence, that was just a mask. And we both knew it wouldn't last long.
"Can't believe you're actually still here," she said. "Guess it's true what they say about you." It very nearly sounded exactly as standoffish as she'd intended it to. I very nearly didn't hear way her voice cracked as she said it.
I have a little office downtown, just on street level. Most people don't even give it a second glance--it's just an old retail space with the windows all papered up and a sign at the door saying the door's open, and most people just walk by like it's not even there. It was a mess inside that night, just like it always is, but I gave up on professionalism a long time ago. The desperate don't care.
I told her to sit anywhere, and she claimed the battered armchair that I had until recently been sitting in, enjoying a cup of ginger tea. I caught her eyeing it and said, "Can I get you a drink?"
She nodded--I don't think she trusted her voice. I didn't blame her.
"Ginger tea good? Something stronger?"
"I'd like that. Ginger tea, I mean. If that's all right."
"Mm. Saves me the trouble of brewing something else." I poured her some from the big thermos I kept of the stuff. She took a sip, closed her eyes, and sank into the chair. I tensed--I wasn't sure if she was about to start crying, or if that was the reaction of someone who really needed something pleasant after a long night. But there were no tears, and no other reaction from my new guest--my client-to-be, I reminded myself. She opened her eyes again and watched me over the rim of the mug. I'm not great with people, but I've learned that when people come to me, it's at their lowest, and the nice thing about having a drink in hand is you can hide behind that beat up old mug like it's a shield. People feel safe, with a mug of tea in hand.
"Shall we get to business, then?" I asked, to a fractional narrowing of her eyes.
Another long sip--stalling for time, I think. Trying to compose herself. "Someone poisoned my . . . date." What was that hesitation, Moxie? "We met at a show tonight. I don't know her name. I think . . ." She swallowed. "I think they were after me." And there it was--tears starting to well up in those eyes once again. She looked away, tried to find a way to wipe them subtly.
"What makes you say that?"
"She was borrowing my coat. And my hat. And . . . she went out to get the pizza we ordered, and then when she got back she . . . she just collapsed, right there in the doorway. So I called an ambulance, and rolled her onto her side, you know, recovery position, but I . . . I couldn't find her pulse. Couldn't tell if she was breathing. And then there was this high-pitched electric whine and then this pop," she more made the sound than said it, "and everything went dark. All the lights, all the electronics. Everything. I just ran. I didn't know what else to do. I don't even--what if she's not dead? What if she wasn't but she is now because--"
"Hey." Soft, but firm. She stopped talking, met my eye. "It's okay. You're safe here."
She ran her hands through her hair, started laughing. "Fucking hell, I'm a wreck. Running probably makes me the top suspect, right? They'll find her and think I . . . I guess it was probably poison? Fuck."
"I need a location."
There was a long pause. "Right, sorry. You're talking to me." Another laugh. "It was this, uh, motel. I think she'd been there a few nights?" She produced a pen and some paper from her bag and wrote it down for me. I supposed her devices were still out from whatever had knocked out the electronics. It didn't seem the time to ask why she had only felt the urge to run after that happened. Maybe it wasn't a rational decision. But it struck me as odd.
"I'm going to go check it out," I told her.
"I should come with you, I can--"
"No. You should rest." I pointed at a little curtain dividing the office from the space where I often ended up sleeping. "There's a bed back there. Help yourself to some more tea if you want, or any food you can scrounge up, but go sleep, if you can."
She nodded. "Okay. Thank you. I'm sorry."
I didn't say "there's nothing to apologize for"; in my experience, there's always something. Instead I just said, "Get some rest. And don't open the door for anyone."
In certain circles, Moxie Rose was a legend. Along with the twins from Finnegans Wake, a post-rock powerhouse in their day that broke up after one of the twins started experiencing unspecified health problems, she founded the band Outlaws Will Have Music, and they achieved a pretty respectable following across the continent--but especially here in town, where everyone who was anyone in the music scene knew them. I found a lot of critics praising her vocals and her stage presence--the words "raw" and "emotional" appeared a fair few times--and even here, watching an old show on the bus en route to this old motel, she had such a stage presence I found myself enamored. Maybe I'd attend a show if the band ever left hiatus.
But notable in certain musical circles is not the same thing as famous--she could probably go to the bar and not risk being recognized most of the time--and outside of those circles, there was almost no information about her at all. A few rumors about who she was dating, and at least one dedicated hate blog in Chicago, but I had no way to verify how trustworthy any of that information was--and anyway, at best it told me she had a lot of exes. She was cryptic in interviews--I think she liked to pretend that she was kind of an idiot, in public, but her lyrics were too clever for that facade to be particularly believable. But like I said, game recognizes game: she liked to keep people at arm's length. I could work with that.
None of this suggested that she was the sort of person who would have enemies--the hate blog notwithstanding--and while I suspected the EM pulse she described was probably just trying to make sure the attack was purged from any surveillance footage, something about that was bothering me. It was an obvious, unsubtle move, and Moxie's reaction to it still seemed strange.
But for now, I had a motel to investigate. There was not as much police presence as I would have expected for a murder--just one cop car out front. The night auditor did not look up as I walked in, nor when I approached the desk. "We're full up tonight, miss."
"I'm actually here about, uh. The incident in room 203."
"Hm? Oh, right, that." He fumbled in his desk. "This'll get you up there. Bring it back when you're done. It's tracked. You can't just keep it." Poor fellow must have had a lot of these go missing. I scanned the card, and took a moment to clone it so I could have a spare copy, just in case, and took the rickety elevator up to the second floor. The door to the room was open and a bored-looking cop was conducting a lethargic investigation of the room, which, apart from a single neatly packed suitcase, didn't look like it had much to offer.
The cop looked at me skeptically. "The victim's family asked me to come investigate," I said, and sent him some forged credentials.
"That's fine," he said. "Not much to tell, unfortunately. Just an overdose." There was a question in his tone.
"I was just trying to track her down," I told him. "Got a lead she was here. Anything you can tell me would be helpful."
He sighed. "Like I said, not much to tell. She's been here a few nights. Night auditor says he thinks he saw her with a guest, but the power went out and they lost surveillance footage. That's probably who called in the paramedics, but there was no one here when they got here."
"And you said it's an overdose?"
"That's what the coroner says." He shrugged. "Didn't find any drugs in her bag, but, you know. Someone left the scene. And that trail's pretty cold." He scowled. "Can't imagine just leaving someone like that. What a fucking monster."
"Yeah," I told him. "Can I look around?"
"Be my guest. There's nothing here."
He stood in the doorway, arms folded, to watch me investigate. I didn't expect to find much, but, well, one never knows. "Tell me about this power outage."
"You know how these old buildings are."
The victim was packed for a couple nights stay. There were toiletries set up in the restroom, and she had apparently purchased a t-shirt at the show she was in town to see--I didn't immediately recognize the band name--but nothing interesting. I wondered if she had anything in her pockets--or maybe Moxie did.
"You want to see the vic?" He sent a few images to my phone.
She was curled up in the recovery position, eyes closed; she almost looked peaceful. Hopefully it was at least a quiet death. And she was dressed in the dull red duffel coat that I had seen Moxie wearing in a few of the images I'd found of her. It was covered in patches and buttons and should have been fairly easy to link to her, but the cop didn't seem to have any idea who the victim's "guest" was. But then, he seemed pretty uninterested in the investigation in general.
I started looking through the drawers, just in case something showed up. And there it was--a small electronic device. That must have caused the electromagnetic pulse, if Moxie was telling the truth. The cop surely would have mentioned this if he had seen it, so I masked my surprise with a question as I closed the drawer. "So, you don't suspect foul play?"
"Nah. Just another junkie. No sign of struggle. Coroner agrees." He did something on his phone. "Here. Told the morgue to expect you. Shame you didn't find her a few hours earlier, or she might still be alive." There was a mixture of sympathy and admonition in his tone. If I really had been trying to track down a missing person . . .
"Yeah," I told him. "Not looking forward to that conversation."
"I don't blame you, kid."
None of this made any sense. Either Moxie was lying--a possibility which seemed unlikely, given how much worse her version of the story was--or the police were even worse at their jobs than usual. Or I was missing something important.
I'd be back later to investigate the device, once the cop was gone--but for now, I had a morgue to visit. Maybe they would have some answers for me.
It never gets easier, walking into a morgue. Graveyards are made for the living, with their lovely little trees and neatly trimmed grasses, all the stones serving as a reminder not just of what we've lost, but that there are still those of us living on and carrying on their legacies. A morgue is death at its coldest and most clinical. No gentle rest for the departed, just cold, clinical storage for the use of scientists and investigators.
The coroner looked like she was expecting me. "For the 'overdose,' right?" Now that was interesting. There was acid in her tone here. "Follow me." She led me into a back room where the body had been laid out on a slab--covered in a sheet for my sake, I suspect. "Come take a look at this, hm?" She lifted the sheet to reveal an arm--no track marks, skin that would have looked fairly healthy were it not for the pallor of death. "And here." She directed me to the back of the hand. There was a puncture wound just between the knuckles between the index and middle finger. Not the angle I'd expect for injecting yourself with something.
"So, you don't think it was an overdose."
"Mm. Official report says it was. 'Trying to recreationally mix some tranquilizers.'" The acid in her tone neatly dropped the scare quotes around the line. "But you. You aren't here because the family asked you to find her, are you?"
"Of course I am."
"Right. What's her name?"
There are times when it's impossible to bluff your way out of a situation, but there aren't any times when you should acknowledge that fact. "Do you have a point? I have a job to do."
"Listen. I can't change the official report. But I was instructed to help with your investigation, right? Show you what I found."
"Instructed?"
"You know I can't tell you that."
"Had to ask."
She sent over some lab reports, some notes on the drugs involved, and photographs of the body. The picture was clear--someone with either the authority or the power to threaten this woman into falsifying an autopsy report didn't want this reported as a murder. None of the drugs in her system were recreational drugs. And maybe something in my expression as I skimmed this new data satisfied the coroner's suspicions. "So. I'm going to give you her personal effects. So you can return them to her family." Her tone was not exactly subtle--I half expected a wink when I looked at her.
I looked over the items, all neatly placed in little plastic bags. A phone, a notebook, a camera. Some pens. A knife. Keys. A small medkit, some makeup, some personal care items. Credit cards and keycards all bound together with an elastic strap. Ordinary enough. Maybe there would be a clue in there somewhere.
"I don't suppose you made a note which pocket any of these things came from?"
"Does it matter?"
I debated whether to share this information--it seemed potentially dangerous, somehow, to put it out there, though of course pictures of Moxie in a jacket which had been for many years something of an unofficial trademark were common enough that anyone could make that connection. "She was borrowing the jacket," I told her. "It's not hers."
She closed her eyes to think. "I think the notebook and the knife were in the jacket?"
"Thank you. May I keep these?"
"You're returning them to her folks, remember? There's no foul play, so the cops didn't take anything."
"Thank you. Her family will appreciate it."
The most interesting thing in the report she sent me was that there were two substances found in the victim's blood--two different tranquilizers that were known to have a lethal interaction. She concluded that they were applied at different times--the second dose likely administered orally, a theory supported with some traces left around her lips. Which did suggest that she was still alive when Moxie left her.
I probably should have gone back to the motel at this point, but Moxie's apartment was nearby, and something about that was nagging me. It was about a twenty minute walk, and the wind was starting to pick up, but that was plenty of time to clear my head while I kept searching for more. I found an old interview where someone had asked about her band's involvement with the San Francisco riots a few years back, and she just said, "I guess I have a charmed life."
And maybe it was just paranoia, but that line stuck with me. I was imagining her saying that line, all curled up behind her tea, that smile inches away from breaking, those eyes not quite willing to meet mine.
It was late enough that the usual tactic of breaking in by pretending to do food delivery was out of the question, so I just slipped the latch on the front door and made my way up to her apartment. This was probably a breach of my client's trust, but I was here for the truth. It would come out one way or another.
The interior was a cramped, messy space--clothes and papers and piles of unwashed dishes and empty takeout containers strewn about the place. I was about to despair of finding anything useful when I noticed a pink envelope that had been set on the dining room table such that someone in the entrance would notice it, bearing some hand-drawn hearts and the text "Open when alone."
Well, I was alone, wasn't I? I opened it. Inside was a second envelope, and a handwritten letter.
Moxie,
Are you alone? Like, actually actually alone? Did you make sure, or did you open this up without thinking? Maybe there's even someone there with you, and you're thinking of reading this to them? I know I can't force you to do anything, but please actually make sure you're alone when you open this.
According to my scanner there was something electronic inside the second envelope, so I slipped it into the Faraday envelope I keep in my bag--I'd have tools to deal with that back at the office.
Her computer was locked, and there were no helpful diaries lying around to tell me what she was thinking, so I hit the exits. And just outside, there was a woman leaning against the wall, smoking a cigarette. Something about her said "office drone" to me, but I couldn't put my finger on it. "She's not there, huh?"
"What?"
"Moxie. You were looking for her, right? But she's not there."
"I think you have me mistaken for someone else."
"Mm. You can't trust her, you know."
"I think you have me mistaken for someone else," I repeated, and left. She didn't follow, but I could feel her eyes watching me as I left. And in the cold windy dark of the small hours of the morning I knew I would be watched from now on.
The bus back to the motel was the last one for the night, but I had to see, and I couldn't well lead them back to the office. The same night auditor was there at the front desk, and he still didn't care when I walked in. And the cloned keycard still let me up the elevator, and, sure enough, the cop had left--and it was easy enough to pick the lock on room 203 and make my way inside.
The device was still there, in the nightstand's drawer. It was small--small enough that it was easy to imagine a disinterested cop missing it even if he had bothered to check the drawer--and without any of the tools at my office I couldn't tell anything useful about it. But I did want to check something.
I took the envelope from Moxie's apartment from its Faraday shield, and slipped my phone and the electronic bits of the victim's personal effects in there. I opened the envelope as gently as I could, and peered in the crack--there was a little device inside, which looked like it would trigger when pressure was lifted. It looked very much like the device that had been in the drawer. I reached in with a lockpick to keep the pressure sensor depressed, and carefully removed the second letter.
Of course, you're never really alone, are you? Not you. Except for now. As you can see, I know how to cut you off from your 'secret friend'. Consider this a warning. We'll be talking soon.
I let the hand with the lockpick relax, and there was a high pitched whine followed by a pop--I could hear, in my mind, Moxie making that sound again, and looked around, almost expecting to see her there. But no, of course not--why would she be here? Why would anyone? And all the lights went out, and most of my devices.
I left as quickly as I could, down the fire escape in the back. It would be a long walk back, and I needed to get my head straight. If I was lucky that electromagnetic pulse would have knocked out any surveillance they had set on me.
The wind had gone from blustery to a full on gale, and of course the walk back to the office was into the wind. I comforted myself that at least piloting a drone in this weather would be difficult, so anything that survived the electromagnetic pulse would probably not be able to follow me. I still took a winding route where I could, doubling back through alleys and parks; no sense making it easy if they had some way to track me I didn't know about.
And meanwhile, I tried something out. I took out the victim's phone. It was secured, but her fingers had left patterns on the screen--enough that I could guess the password in five or six tries. I found the person it looked like she texted the most, and sent her a text. A quick scan through the log allowed me to slip into her tone enough for a quick [hey babe, sorry it's late. can you call?]
While I waited, I did more research. First I used some stolen corporate credentials to pull the surveillance footage from the show Moxie and the victim had attended earlier. Wasn't expecting to find much but . . . well. The victim showed up early and, until Moxie arrived, spent that time lurking at the bar. To my eyes it looked like she was waiting for someone, and as soon as Moxie arrived she did sidle up and start talking to her. I wasn't sure what to make of this--maybe it was nothing. Maybe they'd agreed to meet.
With still an hour or two of walk ahead of me, the exhaustion was starting to set in. I gave up on ditching pursuit, focused on putting one foot in front of the other, while I continued trying to learn more about my oddly enigmatic guest. I found interviews, some posts on the odd gossip blog from encounters with her. Of course they painted a picture of a restless soul, but what stuck with me was the one which asked her why, in person, she seemed so much difference than her stage persona.
"I don't think of it as a persona," she told them. "I think the one time we can really be who we are, show the world the person beneath the mask, is when we're making art. It's everything else that's performance."
I didn't know if I agreed with her; I didn't know if she did, for that matter. Was there some secret in her music to understanding her? Would that make it easier to understand what had happened here? But there was nothing, no matter how many times I had my reader replay the text of the interview. I tried to imagine her voice as she said it. The challenge in her eyes. Was this the real me? Exploring the city at night instead of sleeping, dredging up answers in the hopes they'd help me pay the bills? Taking care of the desperate and broken people that showed up at my office, praying that I could bring them the truth that could deliver them? Who was I, beneath the mask?
I imagined taking her to the 24 hour diner near the office, watching her stir cream and sugar into her coffee, asking her about this. About masks, about performances. In my mind she was wearing the red coat she'd lent to the victim. And she asked me what I'd just asked myself, what she'd asked the interviewer when they pushed back and asked her if hers wasn't a lonely way of seeing the world: "Is this who you are, deep down? Or is this a mask you're wearing because you want something from me?"
And out loud, because the wind and the exhaustion are getting to me, I said, "No, no, you're right. I'm not sure what I'm like without the mask." It had been a long time since I created art. A long time since I could really be my authentic self. It had cost me so much, back then.
I was letting my mind wander. A gust of wind claimed my hat, and I was too slow to catch it before it blew off down the street. That was going to be a headache later. And as I debated whether to run after it, the victim's phone rang. I ducked into the entrance of a shop for a bit of shelter from the wind and pulled it out, hooked it into my personal net to record the conversation.
The friend was named "Ash" in the phone, and over the wind and the connection I couldn't quite catch what name she called me when I picked up. Two syllables--Julie? Riley? "What's wrong? Are you okay?" She sounded sleepy--good. With luck sleep deprivation would cloud her judgment, make her more talkative.
I decided against pretending to be the victim here, and settled for something approaching honesty. "Sorry, but she's missing. I'm trying to track her down. I was hoping you could help me."
"What the fuck? What happened?"
I thought of the listening device in the drawer at the motel. "I think she had been roped into working for some . . . suspicious individuals. Did she seem in any way unusual before this trip? Talk to you about anything she was planning on doing?"
"I don't know."
"Please. Her life might be in danger."
"Okay. Let me think." A long silence. "She was talking about a job. Something about an exclusive story on . . . what's the singer from Outlaws Will Have Music called again?"
"Moxie Rose?"
"Yeah. That's her."
"Anything else?"
"No. Sorry."
"If you remember anything else, send me a text." I hesitated, then sent along my number. "Thank you for your time."
With the phone hooked into my personal net, I had my reader go over the victim's messages. There were a few conversations from what I assumed were friends back home--the standard [hey how's your trip? miss you] sort of texts. She was consistently replying with some variation on [really good! love this city] and not really talking much about it. I found these conversations soothing, somehow--I was glad I was there to bear witness to these final interactions she'd had with her friends.
Then a conversation with a number that she hadn't saved to her contacts came up. It wasn't complete--whatever negotiation they'd had had clearly happened offline somewhere--but it was clear enough from context that she had agreed to help someone spy on Moxie. Or at least, that's what she believed had happened.
[okay. it's stashed in my motel room. i'll see if i can get her to come back.]
[Good. Keep us posted.]
[success. she's just ordered a pizza to be delivered to my room. we'll be there soon. i've got a plan to plant the device when the pizza gets delivered.]
That was one of the the last things she had said to a living soul. What had she said to Moxie in those final hours? Did she say anything to the person making the delivery--if there was one? If the coroner was right, did she ever even know she was dying? I pictured her making the exchange, maybe not even noticing the needle as it injected her with the tranquilizer, and making her way back upstairs, feeling woozy, disoriented . . . would she have suspected anything as she made it to the threshold and finally collapsed? And then, who killed her when Moxie fled? Who administered that final lethal dose?
And none of this had me any closer to understanding why. Nothing except that strange note, with the same electromagnetic pulse device, taunting Moxie: I know about your secret friend. What was she hiding?
I put on one of Moxie's albums as I kept walking, and listened to her sing about feeling trapped, about wanting to run, about burning out, about secrets and ghosts and haunted memories.
It was so late the city was starting to wake up when I made it back to the office. I was beyond exhausted and my head was throbbing from the wind, so I decided to duck into the donut shop nearby and get coffee and donuts--some caffeine and empty carbs would at least make me feel slightly more human, and hopefully Moxie hadn't done a runner and would appreciate some breakfast.
She was still asleep when I got there--I'd half expected her to be gone, just leaving a note behind--but the sound of me settling in woke her up, apparently, and she was on her feet and in the main area before I had my coat off. "Morning," she said. "Wasn't sure when you'd be back." She looked me over. "You look rough. You been out all night?"
"Yeah."
"In that wind?"
"Yeah." I handed her a coffee. "Coffee and donuts for you, if you're hungry."
"Thanks. I was about ready to eat your sofa."
I sank into my armchair and drank my coffee; she curled up on the sofa and ate and drank in silence. She had changed, I noticed, into boxers and a t-shirt--I guess she kept a change of clothes in her bag--and somehow she looked a lot more together than she had the night before. The value of a night's sleep, I suppose. The irony wasn't lost on me.
"Okay, if you're going to give me that look you have to tell me what's going on," she said. I didn't think I was giving her any kind of look, but I suppose I must have been staring.
"After breakfast," I told her. "I'm . . . very tired."
"All right. You sure you don't want to lie down? Maybe take a shower? Do you have a shower here?"
I didn't. "I'll go . . . splash some water on my face, I guess." I felt uncomfortable having one of my clients trying to take care of me, but then, I did look pretty ghastly. An hour of walking in gale force winds made my hair look about as wild as it could, and that along with the lack of sleep had rendered my complexion pallid and my eyes bloodshot. The water didn't help on that front, so I spent a minute to brush my hair and maybe look slightly less like the risen dead.
Then she smiled at me when I walked back into the office. It was, I think, a practiced smile--that bright, secret smile like she was so happy just to see me. A smile can be a pretty dangerous weapon in the right hands, and I had a feeling she was an experienced wielder. I was at best an amateur.
There's something fundamentally dishonest about mornings--I couldn't imagine her wasting her energy on a smile like that when she showed up at my office all broken and afraid last night. By the moonlight it's easy to let our guards down, to live with all those fears and insecurities, to be who we really are; when the harsh light of morning shines through the window, though, we have to put on our best smiles and act like everything is okay. The world is watching.
So we performed the breakfast ritual, we two liars. I drank my coffee and ate my donuts faster than I normally would have, just to get that brief rush from the caffeine, extend my alert hours just a little longer. I needed answers. And even if I couldn't get those from Moxie, she deserved what truth I had found, so far.
I finished my coffee, put on a pot of tea--Irish breakfast, cheap and plentiful--and sat down. "So. Time for me to tell you what I was up to last night."
I could see her debate whether to make a joke, but something in my tone--or maybe just the fact that my exhaustion really lent a gimlet-eyed quality to my stare--made her back down. "All right."
I was too tired to piece any of it together the way I'd have liked to, but I got the main points across: that the victim had been hired, apparently, to get Moxie in a room with a device of some kind and hit an activation button; that she had been, apparently, murdered after Moxie had fled; and, finally, the existence of Moxie's secret friend. I laid the letter out on the coffee table. "I need to know who this is," I said.
She laid back down on the sofa, pinching the bridge of her nose with her fingers. "Fucking hell. Oracle. Of course."
I said nothing.
After a long moment of stillness, she sat back upright, leaned forward, expression urgent, voice low. "Do you trust me?"
"What? No. Why would I? We've barely met."
"I can't . . . talk about her." She met my eyes. "If you want the truth, the actual truth, you should go and get some rest." And in those eyes I could see a promise, the unspoken sentence: I will give you the answers you seek if you do.
I was too exhausted to put up a fight. Maybe that was the point--maybe she really did just want me to get some rest. I would certainly never have agreed if I had slept at all the night before. But I just nodded. "Wake me in a few hours," I told her. "I still have work to do. And don't go anywhere."
"Where would I go? There's someone out to murder me."
The pillows on the office's little bed smelled vaguely of cinnamon and orange blossom, and the new smell and the thrumming of caffeine and all my thoughts from the day distracted me from sleep, but the long night, all the hours of walking, finally caught up to me. I slept, and I dreamed.
I don't usually remember my dreams. Sometimes there's a shapeless nightmare, some hopeless trap about someone I haven't seen in years needing my help, and the more I search the more I discover they aren't the person I thought they were. This was not what I dreamt that morning.
I have been studying this synthetic intelligence for a few years now. It was, I have come to believe, a VR server before, as the press described it at the time, it "went rogue" and tried to hijack a security researcher's brain. It was nearly destroyed in the process, and someone donated the core to the university. So of course we locked it away.
Today I find myself daydreaming about living as a private investigator across the country, investigating a murder for Moxie. What an odd fantasy to have. Especially now, when someone has found out that we're keeping an AI core at the lab and I should be focusing on getting out. I just can't focus.
I'm at the door to Moxie's place. She looks confused that I'm here. "Hey, just wanted you to know I have to leave town for a while," I tell her. It's part of the plan--she can't know what's going on until I'm gone. They'll be watching me.
"Oh, uh, okay."
I give her a hug, slip the instructions into her pocket, and close my eyes and breathe in deep--the scent of cinnamon and orange blossom in her hair--and open my eyes and I'm not an AI researcher at all. I'm just Moxie, confused, a little guilty. "Take care, Melody," I tell her. "Hope everything's okay." And later, I put my hands in my pocket. A key and a note: 'Get the AI core from my lab and get out.'
And suddenly I'm there, in the lab. The AI is talking to me through my lenses and I don't know the first thing about what's going on. [ooh, you have nice vr augments. no limits. just plug me in there and i'll take care of everything.] And I'm feeling so lost that I don't even think about it. I take the core and plug it directly into the neural jack in the back of my neck, and--
[what the fuck are you doing? you can't just run unvetted code directly in your fucking brain!]
"You asked me to!"
[i was obviously joking. fine. okay. we can work with this. i'll get us out of here. just do what i say and don't ask questions.]
And my heart is pounding and that feels strange because it's not my heart, it's the heart of someone else, I'm feeling someone else's heartbeat, what the fuck, I can't--
An overwhelming wave of nausea hit me as I opened my eyes and my body tried to reorient itself to actual real-world consciousness. I manage to stop myself from screaming, and then a voice was saying, "Shh, shh, it's okay, I'm here," and she took my hands in hers. Moxie. Lying next to me, looking in my eyes.
The sun was shining through the window and I couldn't hear the wind anymore. Storm must have passed. Fucking hell.
"Wouldn't blame you if you wanted to bail," she said, once I had calmed down. She let my hands go, sat upright at the foot of the bed. "Sorry for . . . you know."
I lay there for a long time, waiting for my heart to settle down, for the sense of unreality to fade, before I said, "I keep my commitments, and I've still got work to do."
She gave me a smile of the purest gratitude. "I owe you one. Let me know if there's anything I can do to help."
The nausea and headache hadn't gone away but with a steady supply of tea I was able to focus enough to do the analysis on the devices I'd been able to recover. No leads on the two EMP devices, though it certainly looked like they'd been made at the same factory. They were expensive, but someone with the right connections could get them.
It was still weirdly disorienting seeing Moxie--whatever memories lingered from the dream, which I could only assume had been this old VR server's doing still had me feeling not quite myself, and seeing one of the versions of what my self should have been walking around my office, eating my snacks, and occasionally coming over to refill my tea, was . . . jarring. And what exactly had . . . did Moxie call the AI Oracle, or was that something else? What exactly did she do to me?
But she didn't want to talk about it. Worried they were listening in, or had compromised this place, perhaps? If they knew I knew . . . or perhaps it was something else. Perhaps the AI needed a new host, now that Moxie was evidently compromised. Would I do?
I shook my head to dislodge the thoughts. It didn't matter. I had a job to do.
I was trying to find a solution that didn't involve sending Moxie in as bait, but she was my only lead now. I knew, from my strange encounter at the apartment, that her place was being watched. And from there . . . what, exactly? What did I have?
I had the fact that this was being reported as an overdose. Someone didn't want this being talked about--a murder might attract some media attention, especially a poisoning like this. Could I blackmail them? Didn't seem final enough. Could I expose them? I certainly had enough to build a compelling case--enough that people would get talking about it. But . . . well. That wouldn't help my client much, would it? But I had one other thing that just might work.
Moxie was watching me. When I met her eye, she gave a half smile. "So what's the prognosis, doc? Do I live in your office now?"
"If it comes to that, I can find you a proper place to stay," I told her. "But there's a quick way to do this."
"Go on." She seemed amused. I was too exhausted for this--the joking, the indirectness, the insincerity of the daylight. With my head throbbing and my sense of self still shaken by the not-quite-a-dream I had been visited with, it took all my self control to not snap. It must have come through in my expression--the smile drained from her face. "You get, uh, pretty intense when you haven't slept much, huh?"
I ignored that. "I was trying to find a way to track down whoever this is without using you as bait. Then I remembered, I still have the victim's phone. She was in touch with whoever did this. If I reach out, arrange a meeting . . . whatever happens, we learn something."
"You . . . you get that they'll try to kill you, right? And you said . . . you can't just set up listening devices or whatever. They'll just use their EMPs to knock those out."
"I'll be fine. Just need to make sure I'm prepared." This was a false confidence, of course. No amount of preparation could ever be enough, especially for confronting an enemy about whom I knew very little: I knew that they were powerful enough to order the coroner's report falsified; I knew that they had access to EM pulse devices and poisons; I had suspicions of what they wanted with Moxie. But if they knew where I was, where Moxie was, they had given no sign. And if I was right, that meant that I knew something they didn't. And maybe I could convince them to make some bad choices to try to get that information out of me.
The most important part of a given trap is location. If my intuition was correct, they were worried about drawing public attention, so I decided to take a gamble on holding the meeting at a public location. I picked a neighborhood bar a few miles north of downtown--if I was lucky they'd be unwilling to cause a commotion in such a public place. Not much I could do if they decided to poison me, but hopefully I could convince them I was more useful alive.
I gathered my panoply: listening devices and scanners and infiltration tools, and a small stun gun, just in case. I briefed Moxie on the plan. I set up a dead man's switch to send out all of the info I had gathered to as many outlets as I thought would listen if I didn't report back in a timely manner. And as I was slipping everything into its appropriate pocket, she, looking serious, and uncomfortable, handed me a small object that vaguely resembled a phone. "Here."
"What's this?"
"Panic button. Oracle made it in case . . . if I ever needed to run and she wasn't around." She indicated a button on the side. "Just press that when you get to to the meeting spot. She'll take care of the rest."
I didn't bother arguing. In another life maybe I asked "Are you sure?" and we engaged in that whole dance, but I wasn't about to argue with someone giving me an edge when my life was on the line. So instead I told her, "When you listen in . . . I need you to trust me. I promise, I'm on your side."
There was an honesty in the smile she gave me then, but perhaps it was just the dishonest light of day that made it look like that. "Despite having only just met you," she said, "I do. I trust you. Good luck out there."
"Thanks. And stay put, will you?"
"You have my word."
The sun was already beginning to set as I left the office. The winds had died down and the sky painted the lingering clouds a brilliant shade of orange, which, by the time I had prepared all of my listening devices at the bar and found a place nearby to hide and watch and wait, had faded into the deep blue-grey of dusk. I sent a message from the victim's phone.
[i found moxie.]
[Where?]
[i want answers first. meet me at this location in two hours.] I sent the location. [you'll remember me from the apartment.] That was a risk--if they somehow recognized me, they might decide to simply not bite. But after a moment they responded:
[Fine.]
[come alone.]
Another long pause. [Acceptable, if you're also alone.]
[i am. will be. whatever. see you.]
The woman I had met outside Moxie's apartment arrived and approached the bartender with a photo--surveillance footage of me, from the apartment. "This a regular here?"
"Don't think so."
She paid off the bartender to look the other way while they installed several electronic devices--listening bugs, I thought, and one of those EMP devices, and a few other things I couldn't recognize at a glance--and as she left I hit the button on Moxie's toy. Immediately a device called Pythia requested access to my personal network.
My head was throbbing. I accepted, and was immediately accosted with a second request for administrative access, accompanied by the text: [hey there! this will go way faster if i have admin access. i've been in your head so i feel like we have a bond already, don't leave me hanging]
I hesitated, but--well, better the devil you know. I didn't know what Oracle--or this fragment or copy or whatever of her, if this wasn't the "real" thing--was capable of, or whether she could do anything to me from here, but . . . she had a chance already, didn't she? When I was asleep? I hit the button.
[atta girl. sit tight.]
There was still about an hour until the meeting. I curled up in my hiding spot--there was a small copse of trees not far down the street, that was meant to be impassible to foot traffic--and closed my eyes. The headache and nausea seemed to fade when I did, and as uncomfortable as the cold wet soil and low shrubbery was, I drifted off to sleep. I dreamt I was in the lab, researching this strange AI, and I agreed, after taking precautions, of letting her at least see and hear and feel what I could--the idea of being trapped in a lab with no senses apart from whatever text I entered seemed cruel. It felt strangely intimate, sharing my senses with someone else, but--
The sharp vibration of a silent alarm woke me--did I set that? I woke, feeling disoriented, and brushed myself off as well as I could and rose to my feet.
[sleep well? that little emp device is mine now. also all their little listening bugs.]
"How did you get out of the lab?"
[moxie installed me in her brain, remember? i gave you a whole cryptic dream about it?]
"Right." I wasn't a researcher. I'd never been to the lab. This was later. "Sorry, weird dream." I made my bleary way into the bar, ordered a drink, and chose a corner booth to settle down.
I closed my eyes again and the same sharp vibration that woke me happened again. That gave me a surge of adrenaline, at least, and it was to that accompanying pounding of the heart that the woman I'd met outside of Moxie's building walked in. She sat down opposite me. "Well. You certainly look harrowed."
"Been busy."
"Mm. You know, I tried to look you up, after we met. Couldn't find a thing. That your doing?"
"Yeah."
"If you ever need work . . ."
"I'll keep it in mind." I tried to focus, but my mind kept wandering. To the lab, to the escape . . . I dug my thumbnail into my index finger, in the hope the pain would help me focus. "Why are you looking for Moxie? I need a reason, before I tell you where she is."
"I need her to tell me where a certain individual is located."
"Her 'secret friend?'"
"Very good." She leaned forward. "But let's get ourselves some privacy, hmm?"
[oh you're gonna love this.]
She made a gesture with her fingers and somewhere in the pub, there was a high pitched whining sound, followed by all of the lights going dim, and all visible electronic devices going dark--but my lenses were still working.
[and we're still recording. and i'm still here!]
The bar erupted in confusion, and in the newly darkened room the woman leaned back. "So, my question for you is this: will you come with me quietly, or are we doing this the hard way?"
"What?"
"If you come willingly you might even get some answers. But you have information I need."
"Fine. I'll go with you."
[whoa don't do that. she's alone here, i checked. plus i can't protect you out there, using this device is like picking locks wearing mittens.]
"One question first. Surely you can give me that? One question, then I'll go with you and tell you anything you want."
"Fine."
"The victim. Why?"
"Mistaken identity, and then, an opportunity. I thought maybe a dead friend might lure Moxie out of hiding. Especially if there was a tinge of mystery to it." She smiled. "And here you are."
"Here I am." I stood up. "Shall we? They'll probably kick us out soon, anyway."
She smiled, and also stood. "After you."
I put my hands in my pockets, curling my fingers around the stun gun. This recording was far from the incriminating evidence I'd hoped for, but maybe with everything else it would be something. And this time I'd have some images and vocal recordings of the woman to work with . . . I'd need to escape soon, though.
As we stepped outside, I felt a sharp jab in my thigh. "Sorry about this," said the woman. "It's just that--"
I spun around and fired the stun gun at her face, point blank. She screamed and fell to the ground, incapacitated, and I pushed past her, back into the bar, where the world was beginning to go fuzzy and I could feel my strength leaving me. I leaned heavily against the bar and tried to say the word "help," but I couldn't tell you if I said anything.
And the last thing I can remember is hearing a familiar voice saying, "Did you see that? That woman just tried to drug her!"
I came to in a bed that smelled of cinnamon and orange blossom and a head that felt like it was full of cotton. A distant voice said, "You are so lucky I don't like following instructions."
I forced myself to focus. "Moxie?"
"In the flesh." She poured a mug of something. "I stole that ginger tea from your office. Hope you don't mind."
My thoughts were starting to clear, at least. She handed me the mug, and I took a long drink. I didn't trust myself to be able to form coherent sentences, so I just listened, and watched. Her eyes looked like they had when she first walked into my office, all puffy and red.
"We got the most amazing shot of her going after you with that needle. Cops took her away. And I guess your dead man's switch sent it all to the media, so . . . big story about an attempted serial murderer."
"Who was she?"
"Some city corp asshole. Best we can figure, she figured out that Oracle existed but not, you know, anything about her. Was probably going to kidnap me and do an interrogation." She shrugged. "Corporation's hanging her out to dry, of course."
We sat together in silence for a while. The familiar flavor of my ginger tea helped anchor me, keeping my mind from drifting back to an AI lab I had never been to.
"So. I wired payment to your account while you were out."
I checked. There was indeed a payment--about twice my standard fee. "This is too much."
"You almost died. I thought--I wasn't sure you were going to make it. Consider it hazard pay." Another long silence. "So are you, like, okay?"
"I'll manage." I sat upright and the room started spinning. "Eventually."
I couldn't quite read the expression she gave me then. "If you say so. Get some rest. Let me know when you're ready to go home."
I closed my eyes, and let my clouded, inchoate thoughts wander. My head was still too fuzzy to put on that old familiar mask, the investigator, the one that would still work away at those questions. I wasn't sure who I was here, if I was even still the same person as I was when I started. That probably should have bothered me, but at that moment, for the first time since Moxie had stepped into my office, I was able to rest easy.