The Last Case

Chapter 5

I was able to requisition a loaner car from the Central Police garage by lying about needing to get Lucy back to her owners now that were done with her. It took a little fancy footwork to keep the attendant from calling the captain to verify, but I knew the girl on vehicle duty. She has a little thing for me that I didn’t mind using to my advantage.

Snakers are basically just really good drivers, but they are rare. So many people in Hale were complacent with the autonav, myself included. There weren’t many people out there that were able to manually navigate such a close and precarious traffic situation. That Reno guy was a bruiser, not a driver. There was no way he did it without professional help. I had a contact that I made during my previous investigation who might be able to point me in the right direction.

Lucy sat beside me in the passenger seat as we drove toward an area of outer downtown Hale that everyone called the “Borgnine District.” It was named for Davos Borgnine, a man who insisted that independent commercial interests be allowed in Hale. The initial planning of Hale only included industrial and corporate sectors with very little small businesses. Most of the vice-based economy made its residence in the Borgnine District. This included a moderately successful garage for customizing vehicles called Chinos.

It was only about twenty minutes from Central Police to Chinos, and half of the ride was quiet. I was a little concerned about taking it upon myself to strike out to track down suspects. Nouvelle was going to be pissed. But what were they going to do about it? Fire me twice?

At some point in the ride, Lucy looked across to me. “May I ask you a personal question?” she said.

“Sure,” I said.

“It is about your physiology,” she said.

“What do you want to know?” I asked. It had been a long time since I had a conversation like that. The last time anyone asked me about it, I was on Earth. It was a lifetime ago.

“You are physically female, but you present yourself as male,” she said. “I am aware of the psychological and physical reasonings behind this, but my question is related to the availability of treatments.”

“You haven’t asked a question yet,” I said.

“Why do you not complete your transition?”

I shrugged. It was a fair question. Normally when people asked me about that I got a little frustrated, but when Lucy asked me she had a kind of childlike naiveté in her voice and it made me actually want to talk to her about it.

Here’s the thing: The technology is available. It is expensive, for sure. Nothing is completely free on Mars, but healthcare is fairly well subsidized. I remember reading about how things were a hundred years before, even fifty years before, and how much of a struggle I might have had in those days. It was almost a matter of course now. And yet, I still hadn’t gone through with the procedures. There were still risks, and there was the cost, and there was the time off needed for recovery. It was a lot of factors, but they were mostly bullshit.

“I don’t really know the answer to that question Lucy,” I said. “I tell myself that I’m too busy. I’m always too busy to get it done. But at the end of the day, it’s a tough decision to make.”

“Will you consider it once you return to Earth?”

I shrugged again. “I guess we’ll see,” I said.

“The thing is,” I continued. “Everyone that I care about knows who I am. They know me as I want to be known. If they don’t understand who I am, then they probably aren’t someone that I want to know. I stopped dwelling on it a long time ago. I’m sure I’ll get it done one of these days but I’m honestly in no rush. I’m comfortable.”