Oversight
Authors: Thomas Claburn
Copyright © 2015 Thomas Claburn
All rights reserved.
ISBN: 0-9861016-1-3
ISBN-13: 978-0-9861016-1-8
For Andrea, Catia, and Tasha.
Table of Contents
CHAPTER ONE
Oversight
S
pectacles lie askew
on the dead man’s face. Sam notices the delicate frames before the gore and absence of eyes. Hate he’s seen in abundance, but rarely rose-colored glasses.
The others share his detachment. It’s early still; morning fog masks the steam from coffee cups. In the mist, men in uniforms laugh among themselves, their insular mirth echoed by unseen gulls. In the city, the sound would be sirens. Here in the Marin Headlands, the dead sleep well.
Sam misses the luxury of sleep. Downtime doesn’t pay the bills. Information does. Sam Crane is a data speculator. He makes his living documenting infidelity, mostly. He dabbles in corporate intelligence too, but has enough sense to sell evidence only on the most trivial infractions; meaningful revelations can get you sued or killed. Specs almost never get prosecuted, but it is a possibility. The epic scope of the criminal code ensures that everyone has broken the law, and thus can be arrested when convenient.
A car passes, slowing just enough for the occupants to rubberneck.
Techs in clean suits are pecking the ground for biological evidence. With their long-necked vacuums stretched out in front of them, they seem to be walking invisible dogs. Silk flowers and simulated grass—the National Parking Service’s bandage for the blighted landscape—crackle beneath their boots. The smell of plastic undermines the illusion.
A moon-faced man with a goatee is directing the operation, straight-handled umbrella tucked firmly under his arm, dark hair disciplined with pomade. He wears a month’s pay in the form of a designer suit. Luis Cisco is the captain of one the more able homicide crews in the San Francisco area. It’s been a year since Sam last saw him, over beers at the ballpark.
“Watch your step,” Luis says.
Sam climbs down into the drainage ditch and takes a closer look at the corpse. An older man. Out of shape. Soft and easily cut.
Gingerly, with hands gloved in latex, he lifts the spectacles. Two wires, candy-cane twisted, form the temples, each of which terminates in a button-sized copper disk. A single wire defines each oval frame. The pink glass lenses are both intact.
“His glasses are in remarkably good shape considering there are two holes where his eyes used to be,” Sam says. “Hardly an accident, I think.”
“Meet Dr. Xian Mako.”
“An eye doctor?”
Luis tames his grin. “An apparently unemployed PhD.”
“He’s not listed?”
“There’s nothing about him in any of the public databases.”
“You get what you pay for,” Sam observes, knowing how much Luis hates being made to feel cheap.
“We found portions of a list that had been posted by the Animal Legal Fund in 2046. There was a picture of him that matched the image we sent out.”
“Tagged?”
“It was. We found his name, degree, and affiliation in the metadata. We searched and got one relevant hit in the GeneTrak database. But apart from his name, all form fields were blank. Not even a valid home address. Interested?”
“I answered your call, didn’t I?” Sam stands and wipes the grit from his jeans. “You seem anxious to hand this one off, Luis. Not even gonna wait for the results of the vid and vac?”
Luis gestures with his umbrella, cutting an arc through the air. “Take a look around. That’s not dust. It’s skin and hair. The slough of a thousand felons. I’d have better luck matching a sample with the floor sweepings in my hair salon.”
“I’m sure you meant to say ‘barber shop.’”
Luis clucks derisively. “You get what you pay for.”
“Don’t like my buzz?”
“You look like a Q-tip.”
“People tell me it looks good.”
“What people?”
“This girl I’ve been seeing.”
Luis smirks. “You must be paying her well.”
Fists tightening, Sam forces a smile and turns his attention back to the corpse on the ground. “Nowhere near what you seem to be earning with your moonlighting.” Seeing Luis bristle, he backs off. “Genetic decoys are the mark of a professional hit. I’ll probably end up chasing my own tail.”
“You’d be doing me a favor.”
“Does this mean you’ve given up on the Solve-O-Matic?”
“No,” Luis says, eyes downcast, “there’s no way I can make my quota without it. And it actually does well if you have some leads. But I like to throw a bit of work to you specs now and again.”
“As much as I’d like to play John Henry to your steam drill, I need more.”
“You want me to beg? I can’t afford another red name on my board.”
Sam grins. “It’d serve you right being busted back to desk duty.” He jerks his thumb at the middle-aged man in a jogging suit waiting by the side of the road. “Did that guy see anything?”
“No such luck. Albert Bear. He found the body.”
“I take it the professor left no funds for an inquiry?”
“Basically. His testamentary file forbids payment for posthumous legal services. He wants to be cremated, no autopsy. Everything goes to a charity for compulsive shoppers. The file is suspiciously scant.”
“You think it’s been altered?”
“Maybe I’m just being paranoid.”
“Well, if he didn’t want an autopsy, he shouldn’t have gotten himself killed. You gonna pick up the tab for that?”
“Yeah,” Luis says ruefully. “Should’ve never answered the call.”
Sam looks more closely at the glasses. “Do the initials ‘J.M.’ mean anything to you? They’re engraved on the frame.”
Luis shakes his head. The rustling of the leaves sounds wrong.
“You know, there’s no registration mark,” Sam observes, holding the spectacles up to the sky. “No bothersome licensing restrictions to prevent resale.”
“Always a bad idea to sell evidence.”
“Unless the price is right. Anyway, it might pique someone’s interest. Mind if I borrow them?”
Luis shrugs. “If you’re signed on as the lead, fine. You lose them and it’s your head, not mine.”
Sam pulls the glove from his right hand. “Sure, but next funded case, you bring me in for half. Deal?”
“You know I can’t do that. Thirty percent gets kicked back to the city. That leaves next to nothing for my crew and me.” Luis brushes a wayward hair from the collar of his designer jacket. “My operating costs are not insignificant.”
“Half of your net, then.”
Hesitating, Luis grasps Sam’s hand and shakes in a way that feels non-committal. “If you close this case.”
“I do the work. You get the credit.”
“It’s the way of the world, Sam.”
Sam pockets the glasses, zips his leather jacket, and returns to his motorcycle on the far side of the road. It’s a turn-of-the-century Ducati, worn but still vital. He guns the engine to hear it sing. Environmental restrictions have silenced newer-model engines, but this bike’s voice reminds him of Louis Armstrong.
Crossing the gridlocked Golden Gate Bridge beneath a swath of fog, Sam addresses his network agent using his helmet mic. “Marilyn, find files on Dr. Xian Mako. Include pay-per-view databases in query. Bid up to $100 per result. Stop at ten. Log listings above that number for future review. Accept signed barter deals if requested data valued at $120 or less exists in my sale directory. Copy results to my private directory at GeoSync Five. Authorize by voice.”
Marilyn Monroe’s voice coos, “Your request has been received, Sam. You sound like you could use some rest. How would you like a weekend in Hawaii? Air West is now offering flights from $3999.”
The network’s voice recognition routine invariably mistakes Sam’s rasp—tuned by cigarettes and exhaust—for fatigue or ill health. He’s been targeted with so many medicinal pitches that he’s beginning to wonder if he might actually be sick.
He dials down the sound in his helmet. The volume control is forbidden by the terms of his helmet-licensing agreement, but it’s a necessity. Many people have a dentonator implanted in a tooth for audio transmission. But those are even worse; they’re specially designed to be difficult to turn off—and they make the wearer easy to track. Buying silence is, of course, always an option, but it’s an expensive habit.
Seemingly random lane closures on the bridge achieve their intended effect, slowing traffic to maximize exposure to projected commercials that seem to play out in the air between bridge cables. Sam tries to keep his eyes on the road instead. After fifteen minutes, he decides to snake, despite the shakedown fines. Dozens of traffic complaints will be waiting for him when he gets home, courtesy of those he’s passed. The slighted drivers will get a dollar each, though they’ll be obliged to pay thirty percent to the city. That much money wouldn’t buy time from a parking meter, but it’s enough to pay down his debt to society.
The fog over the waterfront burns away. Across the bay, Oakland basks in sunlight beneath broken clouds. Sam speeds south on Third Street past soulless Mission Bay apartments toward the last bastion of industrial San Francisco, Hunter’s Point. Old warehouses huddle there, defying the encroachment of Kava Man and Tube Burger franchises.
Maerskton occupies the end of the point. It’s a community of several hundred shipping containers. The contos, as residential containers are known, form a steel hedge maze. A canopy of pipes and wires sprouts from the metal boxes, shuttling sewage, water, and power. Satellite dishes and solar panels stand in for foliage. Tiny lenses glitter on every surface like chorus-line rhinestones.
Sam secures his motorcycle. Across the road, under the watchful eyes of a blue suede dachshund, his neighbor kneels, hacking at the broken asphalt with a spade. “Morning, Jacob,” Sam calls out as he approaches. “How’s the garden coming?”
The little mechanical dog starts barking furiously.
Jacob Gaur doesn’t look up. “Not so well.” Thin as a stick insect, he’s a hanger for his logo-freckled sponsor wear. “Quiet, Duke.” He stabs his spade into the ground and stands like a marionette whose strings have been yanked. Duke scurries backward to keep from being trodden on.
“Does Duke’s bark sound distorted to you?” Jacob asks.
“A bit.”
“I’m going to see Tony for a diagnostic later.”
Sam looks about warily. “Inside?”
Jacob nods and leads the way into his container.
It’s a sty. Bare bulbs dangle over a bird’s nest of wires, circuit boards, and salvaged electronics. A plaid sofa bleeding stuffing looks as if it might have summered in the street for a few years before retiring to a quieter life indoors. Beyond is the kitchen and beyond that, the bedroom, each in a more desperate state of disarray. The walls are decorated with free art subsidized by the manufacturers of products depicted.
Sam removes Dr. Mako’s glasses from his pocket. “What do you make of these?”
“Nice.” Jacob squints, examining the temples. “Old—late nineteenth or early twentieth century, I’d guess.”
“See the engraving?”
“J.M. The maker’s initials, or maybe the original owner’s?”
Sam chuckles. “Why are you asking me?”
“Have you tried to match them on the net?”
“No. I thought I’d ask you first. I rarely get reliable query results when dealing with anything before the turn of the last millennium.”
“Yeah, every time those databases change hands, someone mucks things up in the name of adding value. These are worth a lot, by the way.”
“Like how much?”
“A half million maybe.”
Sam snorts. “Get out of here.”
Jacob points to the copper disks at the ends of the temples. “Because of these.”
“They look like electrical contacts.”
“I think they are.”
“Any idea what they do?”
“A practical joke, maybe?”
“Like a joy buzzer?”
Jacob nods. “Or they could be therapeutic. Doctors did some weird things then.”
“Know anyone who might be able to provide more information?”
“No, but if you put them up for auction, someone is bound to recognize them. Set the starting price low, with an unlisted reserve of one billion, so the sale won’t process regardless of the bid. You’ll end up with a list of antique collectors.”
“So when do you get started?”
“You want me to post them?” Jacob beams.
“You’ve got cred. Buyers know you. When I post, other specs start sniffing around.”
“I can do that.”
“I’m gonna sleep the rest of the day. Then I’ll probably be at Pullman’s starting around seven or eight, so I’ll be incommunicado. But I’ll check in after that.”
“Isn’t Nadi on the evening shift?”
Sam tries not to catch Jacob’s smile. “You fixed for meds?”
Jacob pulls a plastic container from his pocket and rattles it. Drawn by the sound, Duke waddles over and gazes up expectantly.
“One of these days I’m gonna get you an IV implant,” Sam says.
Jacob rubs his arm as if he’s trying to scrub off his skin. “Don’t say that, Sam. You know I hate those things.”
“Whatever. Just trying to help.”
“I’ll let you know when I get some hits.”
Algorithmic jazz issues from the jukebox at Pullman’s Diner, once a CalTrain car. Sam has complained about the so-called music before, but no one else seems to care. Most people can’t tell whether a song came from musicians or mathematics. And with the scrambler on the roof, an audio stream isn’t an option.
In the next booth, a scruffy youth branded head to toe with his sponsors’ tattoos is haggling over the price of his meal. For the imitation designer watch he’s offering in trade, he wants a burger, fries, and dessert.
Nadi holds the watch up as if it’s a dead fish. She shakes her head. “A burger, fries, and coffee. That’s best I can do.”
Over at the counter, a portly man in a business suit is wolfing down a slice of cheesecake. He’s probably got the privacy statement on the diner’s menu memorized; Sam guesses he comes to Pullman’s to keep his caloric indiscretion from fattening his insurance premium. Even at offline dives, there’s some risk of surveillance, but tattling opportunists are at least far less efficient than the company bots that query credit-card transactions.
Sam shifts about on the vinyl bench and waves at Nadi. He turns his attention back to his tablet. Dr. Xian Mako stares back at him from the flex-screen.