The Last Case

Chapter 7

We drove in complete silence. When I told Lucy the news, she took it with the same blank expression that she’d given to the thugs back at Chinos. If I didn’t know she was an android, I would have thought it struck a depressed chord somewhere inside of her. I wondered what she was thinking. What did death mean to her? If he was gone, why was she still tagging along? Would Manish recall her once he found out about his son’s death?

The notification fell to Nouvelle. It was part of the lead inspector’s job to notify the family of the deceased. It was difficult almost every time. Sometimes a spouse, a mother, a loved one of some other type, would just shut the door and mourn in their own way. Other times they wanted to talk about it with the inspector that shows up. They don’t let us leave until they’ve cried their tears and asked about the status of the investigation. Sometimes they take out their anger on us and demand answers that we just don’t have. It’s all understandable, and as inspectors we’re trained to handle any situation. That being said, Nouvelle was going to sit in a room at the HCP and deliver the worst news possible to the most powerful man in the world of industry and his wealthy wife. I couldn’t imagine how difficult it must have been.

The suburbs of Hale are strange. When the freeway exits the busier portions of downtown and the outlying sprawl, the ground starts to become green with grass and trees. It is all artificial of course, but as far as manufactured realism goes, the foliage in Hale is about as good as it gets. The homes tend to get larger based on how close they get to the outer edge of the dome. Dome front property is highly desirable. The swirling sands of Mars battering against the dome, creating its tiny light show, and emitting a soothing white noise of adjusting nanoglass, makes the whole area a favorite among the super rich. It is my feeling that the novelty of Mars will eventually wear off, and when that happens, the central suburbs will become more popular. People will, at some point, want to be away from the light and the noises. Until then, the wealthy remain on the outskirts. The address tracked by Lucy, New Mars Terrace, was closer to the middle class neighborhood of Oak Hill.

All of the neighborhoods in the Oak Hill district have cute Mars related names. There was an Aresville Road, a Curiosity Lane, Viking Circle, Viking 2 Circle, Odyssey Road, and so on. There wasn’t a whole lot of originality and the people that bought these homes when they were sitting in a comfy real estate office back on Earth probably found it very charming.

We turned onto New Mars Terrace. I was watching out through the front windshield and immediately saw a vehicle that looked sharply out of place. The kinds of cars that people from Chinos tended to drive were ostentatious, elaborately painted, and made of all sorts of ridiculous angles to increase streamlining and aerodynamics. The car that belonged to Swansee was not only similar, but was even more ridiculous looking than the usual style.

It was parked on the street in front of a one floor cookie cutter style home that looked almost exactly the same as all of the others around it. The car, a ‘62 Orion Poultice, was painted in a combination of lime greens and neon yellows, and looked like one of those exploded object sculptures. Every panel larger than a few inches was spread out, lifted up, and tilted to counter wind resistance. I’ve seen one of these in motion before. All of the panels shift and move depending on which direction the car is moving. It adjusts for drafting when behind other vehicles, absorbs airflow, and redirects it to cut down on the friction. It was a sharp contrast to the relatively standard looking sedans and low end buggies that populated the driveways of the other homes.

Greyson had ordered the officers to approach with lights down on my suggestion. If we spooked Swansee, and he was able to get into his car, we’d be out of luck. There wasn’t a vehicle on the force that could keep up with one of these souped up burners. That was most of the reason we had to raid Chinos last year. We couldn’t keep up with them when they were on the run.