Replica (Original Work)

Chapter 2 - The Wreckage of Civilization

Cutter and I stepped out of the warm storehouse and into the cold morning air. A small white cat walked by, a stray, and looked up at me expectantly. I bent down and scratched behind its ears before sending it on its way with a light shove of my foot.

"Amazing anything lives out here," I said. "Nothing but steam, concrete, and the odor of burning garbage. I bet even the rats hate it."

"Looks dead alright," Cutter said. "If we're lucky we might find some squatters, I wouldn't count on much else."

"Old fashioned detective work is dead, you just can't admit it yet."

Cutter finished his cigar and threw it to the ground before crushing it with his boot. "You don't need to remind me." He paused and looked into the air, nostalgia tracing its way across his face. "We may as well get started."

Another Hexadyn car rolled up on the curb as Cutter and I set out. Pierce and Boones, no doubt. Sure enough, the two men stepped out of the vehicle, and shuddered a moment from the sudden chill. Brandon Pierce was the third youngest member of SID after Eva and I, at twenty nine years of age. He had an upbeat way about him, and stepped forward to greet us cheerfully.

"Looks like quite a case," He said.

"It looks like a mess," I replied.

"You two heading out for canvassing?" Boones asked. Rick Boones was a by the book, thorough, but disagreeable man who I happened to like least among my compatriots. He was ex special operations, counter terrorism, and it came through in his mannerisms. I wasn't sure why he was transferred from an active combat role to special investigations, but I supposed we could use the experience.

"We should split up, teams of two." He said. "You two take down street to the left, Pierce will take the right with me."

"If you're sure you can keep up with me, old man," Pierce said, to which Boones responded with a grunt.

We agreed and split up there. Cutter and I gave our task due diligence, but neither of us expected to turn much up. Most of the adjacent buildings were empty. We walked up the street, knocking on doors, attempting to ring buzzers, most of which didn't work, and glancing down alleyways.

We did find one woman too poor to live anywhere else, in one of the bottom floor vacancies. She had set up shop in a old storefront, dealing in junk. I tapped on the glass door and she came to the front and opened up. She looked weak, tired, and old enough to have seen the great crash, the consolidation wars, and decades before them. She probably wouldn't offer much resistance to questioning.

"And who might you two be?" She said. "You look too fancy to be customers."

I pulled my identification from my coat pocket.

"Hexadyn Special Investigations. Did you happen to see anyone suspicious around here last night? There was a break in down the street, and some company property was stolen."

She whistled. "I didn't imagine the big boys had anything out here anymore. No, I'm afraid I didn't see anything. I did hear a ruckus down there around midnight though."

That was that. One person nearby and all we were gonna get was that she "heard a ruckus". I handed her a piece of stationery with my contact information at work, told her to call me if she remembered anything useful, and we left the place.

"Think she knows more than she's letting on?" Cutter asked as we continued up the street.

"No. She's got no reason to hide anything. Just another sad soul stuck in the wreckage of civilization."

We doubled back and Cutter spotted somebody moving down an alley to the our left.

"Hey!" I said. The figure in the alley looked up and bolted, prompting me to give chase. Time to put these properly functioning muscle enhancements through their paces. I gained on the figure as he rounded a corner. I could make out it was a he now, and none too keen to talk to us.

I followed him around the corner and found myself panned in the face with a piece of lumber. There wasn't a lot of effort behind it, this guy clearly didn't mean to hurt me bad, but it was still a chunk of wood in my face. I fell backward as the man took off running again. Cutter caught up with me by the time I got to my feet.

"Amateurish, Luce'. Now I'd imagine he's gonna get away."

The man rounded another corner halfway down the alley.

"Like hell he will." I ran full tilt after him, ignoring the pain in my face and the blood running from my nose. I rounded the corner to see him scramble over a pair of dumpsters packed into another alley too small for them. I ran at them and leapt, clearing one, then jumping again off the closed lid of the second, after which I fell on the man like a sack of pissed off bricks.

When I collided with him the two of us hit the ground and rolled into a set of trashcans that hadn't been emptied in the last decade. I wasn't too happy to have my clothes stained with years old garbage, or to be rolling along the befouled street itself, but in my line of work you do what you have to. I grabbed him by the collar as I got to my feet and he attempted to scramble away, then threw him back to the ground.

"That's for that stunt with the two by four," I said. "Who are you and why'd you decide it was a good idea to run?"

He spat next to my foot. "I should ask you the same thing bitch. Why you chasin' me?"

He had a filthy face, and beat to shit clothes. Probably a squatter from somewhere around the area.

I picked him up by the neck of his tattered shirt. "Because there was a robbery about a block from here. Last night. Maybe you know something about it?"

He shifted his gaze to the side, away from my eyes. "I dunno nothin'."

"People who don't know anything don't run."

"Man I live in Oldtown. Somebody yells 'hey' you don't just stop."

"Fair enough point, but I don't buy it. Now, I'm not police, I'm corporate. You know what that means?" I balled up a fist and held it to his face as he squirmed to get loose of my grip.

I could read the fear flashing across his face. The man probably been roughed up by corporate investigators before.

"Look, I can't tell you nothin'. They'll kill me."

Cutter caught up with us again, carefully climbing over the dumpsters I'd jumped.

"Man, you don't let shit go," he said.

"This guy knows something," I said. "Maybe we should 'bring him in'."

Cutter smiled and went along with the act. "Ah yeah, for 'questioning'."

The man was quaking now. I turned back to him.

"You aren't getting out of this. Now, who's gonna kill you?"

"Them three geneboys what robbed that place. They said they'd know if I talked. They'd kill me."

"Geneboys? So they were identical?"

"Big identical white guys. Scary big. I saw em' bust in while I was lookin' for scraps."

I grabbed the man's chin and turned his head to get a view of his ear. "You probably don't even have a phone, much less a neural interface chip. How they gonna track you genius?"

"I guess I didn't think of that."

I let go of him. I figured even if he ran now, I'd gotten enough out of him.

"These 'geneboys'," I asked. "They have a company car?"

"Blank white van, looked too old to even have an autodrive. I dunno if that helps."

"It really doesn't. But I'll tell you what, since you were at least slightly helpful, I'll let you off for attacking me this time. Normally that'd earn you at least one broken bone. Now get out of here."

He obliged, running off and disappearing around another corner.

I dusted myself off as I turned to Cutter.

"Well, we've got something useful at least."

He looked at me and took out another cigar. "Yeah?"

"We know for sure the perpetrator is a rival corp."