Author: Alastair Millar

“How many victims?” This was the fifth case in under a month, and Commissioner Jones was apparently taking an interest; he’d come down to the scene in person.

“Four, sir. Three here, one in the consulting room,” said the keen but clearly nervous field officer.

“Alright, walk me through it.”

“Same MO as last time sir,” she said. Good grief, thought the senior man, she could be my daughter. Or even granddaughter. “Our perp came into the waiting room, ignored the two synths there to make the place look busy, and headed over to the welcome desk.”

“Probably saw what they were straight away.”

“How sir? These are public security models, they look entirely human. The doctor had been taking precautions since the Neo-Luddite riots last year.”

“Contact lenses seeded with ultra-high efficiency upconversion nanoparticles, Sergeant. Special ops use them. If you’ve got the money and know a well-connected black marketeer, you too can see how cold synths are in infrared.”

“Didn’t know that, sir.”

“We try not to advertise it,” he replied drily, “in case people get ideas. Anyway, then what?”

“He said something to the bot, and didn’t like the answer.” The receptionist had been a more traditional, metal-faced mechanical. “He got animated, and the clankers stood up to intervene. Then he pulled out an EMP-pulser and nixed all three. Took out the surveillance net at the same time – the control box is in the ceiling about our heads.”

The Commissioner rolled his eyes. “Stupid place to put it.”

“Yes sir. He accessed the doctor’s office using the manual door override. It’s stuck dilated open.”

“So I see.” They walked through into the next room. It was a mess. He could see that the physician was a Lopez-Bannerji 56c – a skilled, top-end model, its innards shielded from electromagnetic radiation.

“Didn’t use an EMP here.”

“No sir. Looks like he had an electric paralyser to overwhelm the metallic Faraday filaments in the fakeskin, and fried everything inside.”

“Mmmm. A standard 200K volter would do that.”

“Yes sir. Then he took a hammer to its head.” Flying fragments had damaged the diagnostics equipment nearby. The body was irretrievable, the brain clearly beyond recovery. “Very thorough. Someone with a grudge, probably. Clearly strong too.”

“Facial rec?”

“No sir. Disruptive makeup and prosthetics, we think. But we’ve started checking which local construction and work crews have been replacing real people, just in case.”

“Excellent. Well, I can see you have things covered. Carry on, Sergeant. I’ll see myself out.”

Once on the street, he exhaled. Folks were being put out of work by units not even made here, he mused, and opposition to their kind being allowed in at all was growing. But what did the government do? Move incidents like this up from ‘property damage’ to ‘murder’, that’s what. Not surprisingly, those opposed were starting to take a stand. Still, there were no clear leads or ID today; the assassin was a careful professional, and it looked like they were going to get away with it.

Meanwhile… ‘Real people’? ‘Clankers’? A bit of sympathy for the attacker there, perhaps? He’d have to keep a quiet eye on his junior colleague. Perhaps subtly suggest to her that cops were in line to be replaced next; K9 units had already gone robotic, after all. The resistance could always use new friends. A happy thought.

He smiled, made a mental note to pass on congratulations for a job well done both to her and to the Organisation, and headed for his groundcar.