Investigating Deceit Read online

  Jia rolled her eyes. “That sounds like a fancy excuse for young people to pull stupid thrill-seeking stunts.”

  “Whatever.” He eyed her. “You’re so much a part of the system, you’re not human anymore.”

  Erik’s grin turned feral. “So am I. I’m a damned monster, so you’re going to tell me where I can find this Leem King’s show. Then maybe, just maybe, you don’t end up getting transported to some moon to be eaten by space raptors.”

  Pearson’s confidence drained from his face. He nodded. “I’ll tell you anything you want.”

  “And that’s it, my fellow true humans,” explained the masked figure in the video. “Even in Neo SoCal, the crown jewel of the UTC, there are few true humans. Do you want to be one of them?” He stepped out of a shop, gun in hand. “If so, go out there. Feel real fear, and you’ll pull yourself out of the system for just a second.” He jogged toward a nondescript flitter. “Those idiots never considered this gun might be fake. Until next time… Feel the fear! Be REAL!”

  Erik frowned as they finished watching the Leem King’s latest stunt on a data window floating over Jia’s desk.

  Apparently, he used a rotating address and time-limited his displays to cut down on the chance of the authorities tracing him. In the episode, he had robbed a store with a chameleon mask and a fake gun, just like Pearson.

  “This is beyond stupid,” Erik muttered, pointing to the display. “These idiots are complaining that they don’t have enough crap in their lives,” he narrowed his eyes, “so they’re going to play at being criminals and pull stupid stunts?”

  Jia gestured to the data window. “I know this doesn’t fall into our normal range of crimes, but I do think we should investigate.”

  “Why?” Erik shrugged. “This is just some idiot pulling pranks. He’ll probably take himself out eventually by trying to jump off a tower and survive.”

  “Because other idiots are copying him. I stunned him, but you could have put a bullet in the student’s brain, and an emergency medpatch wouldn’t be enough to save him.”

  Erik snorted. “That’s why you don’t rob places with fake guns.”

  Jia pointed to her stun pistol. “That’s the problem, though. What if there’s escalation? It might be a prank from their perspective, but this video depicts an armed robbery. Countless others might occur, and what happens if the Leem King escalates his pranks? What if he convinces his followers that they need to start killing people to become real humans?”

  Erik stared at the freeze-frame of the Leem King leaving the small PNIU shop. “I’ll tell you one thing. It’ll be satisfying to slap binding ties on that guy. It can’t be that hard. We don’t even need digital forensics. We can just have Emma analyze the footage and cross-reference it with robbery reports. The guy claims he’s in Neo SoCal. Should be easy.”

  Jia nodded, not taking her eyes off the screen. “I’d like this guy to feel fear, all right.”

  Chapter Nine

  “My analysis is complete,” Emma announced triumphantly a few hours later.

  Erik looked away from the data window on crime statistics that was floating over his desk. The AI didn’t manifest in her holographic form. Although a few in the 1-2-2 were aware Erik had access to a military-grade AI, he didn’t want to risk random criminals becoming aware of her.

  If he wasn’t a target already for being the Obsidian Detective, the chance to get their hands on that kind of tech would certainly make him one.

  “Where’s the shop?” Erik asked. “If we know that, we might be able to narrow down the Leem King’s possible location. Without that, we’re dead in the water.”

  “I said I completed my analysis,” Emma replied. “I didn’t say I know where he is or what he had for lunch.”

  Jia called to them from her desk, although she suspected Emma used multiple microphones scattered around. “One might question the usefulness of your analysis.”

  Emma scoffed. “One would be incorrect. I’ve gone through every armed robbery report for the past year and compared the suspect reports, locations, and relevant data with the recording. I focused initially on PNIU stores since that was what we saw in the video, but I couldn’t find a match. I expanded to all stores and remained unable to find a match. There has been an unusual spike in strange masked robberies in the last couple of days, but the only one featuring a chameleon mask—the idiot you two took down at the restaurant.”

  “Yeah.” Erik nodded. “I figured the Leem King had a few other fans who might be acting up, but not all of them can afford the expensive toys needed to copy him.” He frowned. “Were you able to trace the video to the source? I asked Malcolm about it, and from what he said, it’s a waste of time. I have a hard time believing we can’t find one idiot who takes the trouble to record his crimes. It’s like he’s begging us to catch him.”

  “Technician Constantine is correct. I attempted that already, but this Leem King is using a number of proxies, including satellite reroutes, along with a mobile repeater. I took the liberty of asking several uniformed officers to pick up the equipment on your behalf, but I doubt it will amount to much. I am monitoring for any new transmissions. We might get lucky.”

  Jia’s eyes turned to Erik as she commented to Emma, “I’d rather not rely on luck to solve a case.”

  “Me, either.” Erik grinned. “You’re saying a fleshbag beat you, Emma?”

  Emma snorted. “I’m simply noting that said fleshbag is being careful. It’s always easier when humans want money. This person obviously cares little for that, so he’s providing fewer direct connections to himself. With additional data, I can perform additional analyses.” Emma paused. “Do your job, detectives.”

  Jia brought up a data window and jumped to a frame depicting the Leem King hopping into his flitter. She squinted. “There’s nothing distinctive about the model, and it’s not like we have transponder information from a video. If we don’t know where it is, we can’t pull local traffic. Is there any chance this occurred farther back than we think? Maybe he did it a year ago and is just showing the footage now? If he’s trying to be careful, he might have planned this a long time ago.”

  “No,” Emma declared. “I’m confident about that. If you examine the video closely, there is a small date display behind the counter, clearly showing that the incident occurred only a week ago, and there is additional information embedded directly into the data to indicate it was recent. If he faked the date, he was very thorough. It’s not impossible, but it seems unlikely.”

  “If it’s not the data, maybe it’s the place,” Erik suggested. “He could be lying about being in Neo SoCal.”

  “Why lie about that?” Jia asked.

  “Neo SoCal’s the biggest metro on Earth. He looks more impressive pulling this off here than in the CFM or Detroit,” he suggested.

  “That’s a possibility,” Emma replied, “but I should note there’s nothing in the national or UTC databases about any recent robberies involving a chameleon mask, either. If he’s done anything off-world, relevant terrestrial databases haven’t been updated, and it seems unlikely those files originated off-world without a lot more evidence of routing data.”

  Jia’s eyes widened, and she gasped. “I get it. No, he’s in Neo SoCal, and he did this all recently, just like the dates suggest. That’s not the trick.”

  Erik’s eyes narrowed. “You have an idea where the guy might be? I’d rather nail him sooner than later. I get that he’s breeding more idiots, but he’s not that big a deal.”

  Jia shook her head. “I don’t know where he is, but I think the Leem King’s deception isn’t what everyone thinks it is.” She pointed at the data window. “There’s no way someone wouldn’t report being robbed, at least someone living Uptown. Based on the brief shot we see when he gets into the flitter, he’s not in the Shadow Zone. I think the whole thing is fake. That would make sense, with the escalation from some of the other stunts.”

  They’d spent additional time interviewing Pear
son, and Malcolm had managed to recover a few third-party copies of other videos from the darknet. Their earlier suspicions were proven correct.

  The Leem King had started with simple thrill-seeking stunts, including leaping from one flitter to another in midflight. He’d graduated to petty vandalism and drone hunting before his shift to armed robbery.

  Real or otherwise.

  “That is a distinct possibility,” Emma offered. “It would explain some of the difficulties I’ve had attempting to correlate the obtained video with a relevant police report. What a clever little fleshbag.”

  “Huh.” Erik sighed. “That makes a certain kind of sense.”

  Jia narrowed her eyes, looking at the image of the masked suspect. “This person is promoting dangerous antisocial stunts, and he’s not even a true criminal. Disgusting.”

  Emma laughed. “Would you prefer he was actually running around robbing people?”

  “No, but as you already pointed out, we have multiple people copying him.” Jia stood and looked at Erik. “We need to catch him.”

  “Not saying I disagree.” Erik shrugged. “But if Digital Forensics and Emma are stumped, where does that leave us? It’s not like she can hack the entire OmniNet to find the guy. There are tons of cameras and drones in the city, but there are also one hundred million people here. Usually, people get caught because they’re lazy and stupid. This guy might be crazy, but he’s neither lazy nor stupid.”

  “No, I can’t hack the entire net,” Emma confirmed. “But I do have an idea, and you’ve highlighted the key elements, Detective Blackwell.”

  Both detectives looked toward the main speaker Emma was using.

  “I did?”

  “He did?” Jia blurted at the same moment.

  Emma snickered. “Yes. Since this is an official police investigation, you can get me access to all public cameras and government drone feeds. Normally, that would be pointless, considering the data sifting required. Even if there’s no police report because the robbery was staged and the Leem King covered his tracks, he wasn’t invisible. There has to be footage of him somewhere.”

  “I’ll put in the request with the captain,” Erik replied. “This guy might not be stupid, but he is cocky, and cocky guys always make mistakes.”

  Jia smirked. “Are you sure that shouldn’t be ‘guys always make mistakes?’”

  Erik stood up, raising one eyebrow as he grabbed his coat. “Don’t get cocky.”

  * * *

  Jan 14, 2229, Neo Southern California Metroplex, Police Enforcement Zone 122 Station, Digital Forensics Division, Office of Malcolm Constantine

  Jia eyed the black cylinder on the small tray atop Malcolm’s desk.

  It took all her concentration to focus on the device, a recovered transmission repeater, and not on Malcolm’s bright yellow Hawaiian shirt festooned with pineapples.

  “This is what they found, following Emma’s trace data. Expensive repeater. Nice model.” Malcolm gestured to the cylinder from behind his desk. “This guy’s thorough, I’ll give him that. From what I can tell, he cleared out all the data on this before EMPing it. They already checked for DNA, too. Nothing. Whoever this guy is, he’s got a lot of money to throw around for expensive toys to help him not get caught.”

  Erik folded his arms. “This is starting to annoy me more than some of the gangsters we’ve dealt with. What’s the damned point? If he’s hiding himself this well, he can’t be making money off it.”

  Malcolm looked at Erik. “Maybe he’s a true believer?”

  “And fame is its own reward,” Jia mused. “He either has the technical ability to hide, or he has the resources to hire someone to help him do that.” She nodded at the repeater. “And like Malcolm said, he’s got money to spend on equipment. Even if he’s not personally setting it up, he’s intelligent enough to know how to cover his tracks. It’s obvious he doesn’t need money.” She paused, considering the information. “That might even be half the point.”

  The guys looked at her, Malcolm getting the question out first. “How do you figure?”

  “There are cheaper ways to hide one’s identity than using a chameleon mask,” Jia observed. “Much cheaper ways.”

  “What if he was just trying to be thorough?” Erik countered.

  Malcolm shrugged. “That could be, but I think Detective Lin’s right. If he was worried about different spectral scans, there are cheaper and lower-tech ways to beat that stuff, let alone mess with his voice. He’s not even using the full abilities of the mask.”

  “Showing off, huh?” Erik frowned. “Just to become famous or help spread his stupid crap? That means he’s important enough or cares enough he can’t reveal his true identity. Even if he staged the robbery, he’s got pirate broadcasting and illegal use of tech violations. We can probably tie him to more than a few destroyed drones. It’s not a Gray Circle rampage, but it’s enough to get him fired if he’s working for a corp.” He shook his head. “This idiot has everything he needs in life, and it’s still not enough. This is the kind of guy they should be transporting to some new colony to break large rocks into smaller rocks.”

  “There’s nothing you can give us from this, Malcolm?” Jia asked, a hint of desperation in her voice.

  “Not right now. Sorry, Detective.” The tech shrugged and raised his eyebrows.

  She sighed and turned to leave, Erik trailing behind. “Then we’ll just have to hope Emma can find something with her analysis.”

  Hours later, Jia sat in her flitter on the way home. She leaned back in her seat, her eyes half-closed and the vehicle on full autopilot.

  They had evidence, but no encouraging leads. She should have been relieved to learn that the Leem King was more prankster than gangster, but the earlier robbery remained lodged in her mind.

  What happened when the next copycat decided to bring a real gun to feel more human? Or someone killed them in self-defense?

  “We have enough crime without people committing more because of some fool on the net,” she muttered.

  Her PNIU chimed with a call from Erik. She opened her eyes, then tapped to receive the call.

  “Hello,” she answered.

  “You somewhere you can watch something?” Erik asked.

  “I’m on my way home, but I’m not flying,” she explained. “I’m not nearly as enthralled with the idea as you.”

  “Emma got a hit on a new video from the Leem King. Emma, go ahead and send it to her.”

  Jia opened a data window to receive the video.

  Shadows resolved into the dark-clad and chameleon-masked Leem King. He held a long serrated knife in hand as he loomed over another man on his knees. A dark hood blinded the second man, and his arms were wrapped around a metal pole and secured with binding ties. Other than the pole, the room was featureless.

  “What is this?” Jia muttered, her stomach tightening.

  “Good evening, my fellow real humans,” the Leem King announced, his voice as distorted as before. “I’ve said in the past that terrorism isn’t a path to scraping away the lies of this society, and I believe that. Trying to change a broken system doesn’t work. You think you can change anything through politicians?” He laughed. “Nothing but bought and paid for tools!”

  He shrugged, his head cocked to the side. “Through protest, perhaps? If you could change anything through protest, they would make it a crime. Terrorism? Terrorism is playing into their hands because it’s not about changing yourself. It’s about changing everyone else, and once you start trying to do that, you let them control you. You stop becoming a real human and become a fake human playing a role in the corrupt system.”

  Jia’s heart sped up. Escalation.

  The Leem King patted the shoulder of the hooded man. “Indiscriminate killing also risks hurting real humans.” He raised the knife. “But we have to think about all the dangerous effects of fakes. We must remember that society is nothing more than a collection of fakes. If you know someone’s fake, is it really wrong to remo
ve them from society? You’re not trying to change everyone then, you’re removing a distraction, and you’re not risking indiscriminate killing.”

  The hooded man let out a muffled shout and struggled against his bonds.

  Jia narrowed her eyes.

  The Leem King tossed the knife back and forth between his hands. “I know what you’re thinking. I’ve talked about how you can’t change society, and you should focus on yourself, and that’s true, but it doesn’t mean you should ignore possibilities to help things…”

  He paused, the knife in his hand weaving, hypnotic. “Let’s just say, help things along. It’s not murder if the person’s not real. It’s about knowing that.”

  He stabbed the knife into the man’s back, his scream perforating the sound levels. He stabbed several more times. The victim continued his screams, the sounds muffled by the hood.

  He didn’t stop stabbing until the victim’s head slumped forward.

  He tossed the bloodied knife to the ground, looking back over his shoulder to the camera with his hands splayed out. “I feel alive. I feel real. I am real. Feel the fear.”

  The video ended.

  Jia swallowed, her stomach churning. “I hope I’m right about this.”

  “About it being fake?” Erik asked over the connection.

  “Yes, but it doesn’t matter. I was worried about people trying to rob stores, but now he is goading people into murder.” She wiped her eyes, continuing her thoughts out loud. “If we don’t expose him, we’re going to end up with a murder spree.”

  Chapter Ten

  A harsh buzz snapped Erik out of his sleep. He sat up in bed, jerking his head back and forth, expecting assassins or security bots, his eyes finally resting on Emma’s hologram, which hovered horizontally over his bed like a ghost ready to show him Christmas past, present, and future.