This will hopefully cascade into an ongoing series for me. The basic premise is that the story unfolds in a near future where the right has been able to control the political agenda for the past several decades. So in addition to playing with the fun SciFi gadgets and how they affect society I get to play with how bad things could get for society if things don't change in November.
Past Scenes
...Necessary to the security of a free state - Scene 1
...Necessary to the security of a free state - Scene 2
It had been a bullet. Probably .45 caliber. The skull hadn't presented any appreciable determent to the hurtling 230 grain bit of lead. It was lead too, soft, unjacketed lead that started to bloom on contact with the skull. It wasn't any of the newer multi-stage ammunition that has been developed by the Army to deal with reactive body armor. Nor was it the older jacketed ammunition that effectively encased the toxic lead in a protective sheath of copper.
No, this was an old round, something they used to call ball ammunition, outlawed for years now. The bare lead mushroomed more and more, almost becoming a liquid as it passed through the soft tissue of the brain. By the time the veritable cloud of lead reached the back of the skull it had blossomed into a roughly circular front of pressure and metal the circumference of a beer can. The hole that the lead exited from was much messier than the small point that had entered the head of the victim.
It continued flying, it's trajectory changed from the straight line that had gone into the victim's head to something careening, twisting, tumbling until it met forty-year-old drywall, then a pine two by four. It embedded it self, mushrooming further as it eventually came to rest in the soft wood.
To the victim the whole process had taken place in less than the blink of an eye. Her final thought didn't even process as a significant portion of her neurons were spattered against the drywall. For the bullet though things were different. It traveled at a paltry 713 feet per second. It's mate, which passed through the victims neck had traveled at 695 feet per second before coming to rest near its sibling. This was slow for a .45 ACP bullet, almost painfully slow.
Connie looked at the bullet that had been pulled from the wall of Moira Nielsen's apartment. They'd said that it wasn't a homicide, which was technically correct. He looked over the crime scene pictures from a triple 'extermination', 'killing', whatever the PD cared to call it this year, or whatever sounded better in the media.
Clones. Connie cleared the screen on the desk he'd been given. He didn't need to see anymore, not right now. They weren't considered human beings by the law, but they sure as hell were to him.
"Constance?" Someone asked, walking into the lab. The headache had been subsiding, but now it was coming back a little. His hands were shaking too. He wasn't sure if it was the crime scene photos or the fact that he hadn't had anything to drink yet today.
"Yeah?" he croaked. His throat was dry. He should drink something. Cophouse coffee was sludge though. He had no interest in that and he didn't have $4 in change for the vending machine.
She was tall, taller than he was used to anyway. She had stark Aryan features, high cheekbones, pointed nose, long blonde hair. You'd think you'd see more women like this in Minnesota, with all the Swedish and Norwegians that had settled here, but the typical Lena type up here was considerably dumpier than this woman. "Foster, Skye Foster," She said, holding out her hand.
"Jim Constance," he said, shaking her hand. Strong too. He wondered if she was enhanced. She was obviously enhanced in other areas.
"They say you're a legend," she started. Stroke the ego 'eh? He wondered at this. He'd met her type in DNI. She was moving up, using who she could, moving people that got in her way, doing what she had to to get enough coverage to move into the private sector in a big way. She was shooting for a directorship at Blackwater or KBR.
"Notorious is more like it," he said. Was she going to use him, or move him? They waited there for a moment, she standing, a mug of coffee in her hand, he sitting on a barstool in front of a large, tilted deskscreen.
"So, what do you think?" she asked, motioning at the deskscreen with her mug.
"I think Lou lied to me," he said. "This sure as hell looks like a homicide."
"Cloneslaughter," She corrected. "You can't murder clones, they have no soul."
"Call it whatever you like, someone got shot and died. That's homicide in my book."
"Well, your book doesn't match up with the State code of Minnesota," she said. "Besides it was three someones."
He turned back to the deskscreen, touched it on. The surface lit up, bringing up the dekstop he'd been working on. The pictures from the scene were a little pile of thumbnails, scattered on the virtual desktop. There was other data there as well, graphics of the apartment, computed trajectories of bullet flight.
"Is this all we've got to go on?" he asked. Normally the SmartNet sensors in a home would recognize a suspected crime in progress and record the event, even messaging it into emergency response. There was none of that data here.
"No, they weren't on the net." She said, sipping. "Just a family of poor clones gunned down. Nothing out of the ordinary really."
"Except for the murder weapon," Connie offered. ".45 has been outlawed for four years now, ball ammo for twelve."
"Probably just some kids that got their hands on an antique," she said. "Like the one you carry."
He bristled a bit at her calling his pistol, safely back in his waistband now that he had a contract, an antique. "That your expert opinion?" He asked.
"I'm not the expert, you are."
"Didja read the coroners report on the force of impact?" He asked.
"Yeah, nothing odd that I saw," she said.
"You wouldn't, largest bullet you've got to deal with anymore is 10mm. That round just isn't made to put a target down. If anything, the characteristics of this guy are similar to the 10 on gross examination." He was getting preachy, but damnit, if the force hadn't dumped ballistics experts in a cost cutting measure he wouldn't be educating this ladder climber.
"What are you telling me?" she asked. So, she was going to use him. He probably shouldn't have expected any less.
"Ain't kids, but I'll have to see the scene, get a feel for it before I know much more." It wasn't true, but she wouldn't know that. Well, he hoped she wouldn't. Lou had given him a week and he was going to collect a weeks pay.
"Let's go then," She said, dropping the mug in the trash.
He pulled a flimsey from the deskscreen, taking the data with him. He crumpled it up and stuffed it into his jacket pocket. Was he up to this? He hadn't been on a crime scene in months. Not since...