"There Will Be Banter"

THERE WILL BE BANTER
By Curtis C. Chen

"What kind of a name is 'Migdan?'"

Jake snatched the evidence bag away from his partner and sealed it. "What are you, a genealogist now?"

Andy shrugged. "Could be a clue. Some of the big fake paper operations use software to generate random strings that look like names. Lets 'em churn out more IDs in a shorter amount of time."

"And just think," Jake said, kneeling next to the body, "I'm the one who had to go to cultural sensitivity training. That's what you call irony."

"I'm just trying to help." Andy crouched down on the other side of the corpse, then looked around the alley. "Hey, Cee, can we flip him yet?"

The dark-haired, brown-skinned woman wearing nitrile gloves and holding a clipboard scowled at the detective. "Yes, and when the hell are you going to learn to pronounce my name, Dix?"

"As soon as you get a divorce, sweetheart." He blew her a kiss. She shook her head and turned away.

Jake put his own gloved hands on the dead man's hips. "You done chatting, loverboy?"

Andy nodded and grabbed the victim's shoulder. "On three."

They counted down together, then rolled the body onto its back. The man's hazel eyes were open and glassy, and a stripe of dried blood ran from the left side of his mouth down to his chin.

"Another dumper?" Andy asked.

"I'm guessing that's the good news," Jake said. "Miss Chattopadhyay? May I borrow your penlight?"

The medical examiner tucked her clipboard under one arm, fished a penlight out of her jacket pocket, and handed it to Jake. "My pleasure, detective. And may I say it's nice to see that chivalry is not dead."

"He's playing to your rank, Cee," Andy said, "not your gender."

"Do you hear something, Detective Lanosky?" Chattopadhyay said to Jake. "Kind of an annoying buzzing sound?"

"Can't get rid of it," Jake said, smiling.

"Hilarious," Andy said. "You two ought to take that show on the road."

Jake clicked on the penlight and shone the beam into the corpse's open eyes. The borders of the irises reflected the light, making two golden circles.

"Shit," Jake said.

"Are you fucking kidding me?" Andy said.

Chattopadhyay knelt down and pulled a portable tracer off her belt. She calibrated the controls, then pressed the scanning pad against the victim's left thumb. After a few seconds, the tracer pinged, and its screen lit up.

"AB negative," she read. "I won't know for sure until we do the autopsy, but—"

"He's a goddamn blood bank," Andy said. "Great! Now we're going to have feds crawling all over us."

Chattopadhyay stood up. "Sorry, Jake, I have to call this in."

"Yeah." Jake handed back the penlight. "Thanks."

He and Andy stayed there after Chattopadhyay left, staring at the dead man.

"What's your type?" Andy finally asked.

Jake said, "Leggy blond with loose morals."

"Serious here, Jake."

"B positive," Jake said. "Third most common. You?"

"O neg. Universal donor. Hospitals love me."

Jake nodded. It started raining.



Photo: unused concept poster from Homicide: Life on the Farm (The Game, 2001)

"Wrong Number"

WRONG NUMBER
By Curtis C. Chen

"I'm not going to sleep with you tonight," he said.

She frowned. "I have no idea what you're talking about."

He blinked, tapped the side of his head with two fingers, and said, "Abigail?"

She rolled her eyes. "No. Dammit, I hate when this happens. Two-three-four-seven-five-five?"

He shook his head. "Two-three-seven-four-five-five."

"Well, this is awkward."

She picked up her glass, sat back in her chair, and took a sip of chardonnay. Not because she could taste it well—the remote link wouldn't transmit any intoxicating sensations, to comply with federal regulations—but so she would have a few seconds to think about what to say to this total stranger. She'd paid for the full twelve hours, and she guessed he had, too. The hosting company's built-in security and privacy measures meant they couldn't disconnect for any reason until time was up.

"So who's Abigail?" she asked, poking at her salad.

"It's a long story."

"Let me guess," she said. "You're feeling guilty about the affair—mostly because of the kids, one of whom just had a birthday or bar mitzvah or some other momentous life event—so you decided to end it. You also feel guilty about dumping the girl, so you sprang for the fancy dinner.

"But you don't usually do this for the other woman, so you're worried that she's just as suspicious as your wife was when you called to tell her you're working late. Again." She shoved a mass of arugula into the left side of her mouth. "Am I close?"

He didn't look up from his plate. "We don't have any kids," he said. "And my wife knows about the affair. I told her this afternoon. She wants a divorce."

She swallowed her half-chewed salad. "I'm confused. You're splitting up with the ball and chain, but you don't want to hop into bed to celebrate with dear Abby? What's wrong with you?"

"Like you said." He put down his fork. "Guilt."

"Oh, please. You'll get over it. And seriously, have you looked at this body?" She sat up straight and gestured at her breasts, which were barely covered by a slinky black dress.

"But—we don't even know each other," he stammered.

She smiled. "And that's a bad thing?"

He laughed nervously. "Sorry, I just didn't expect a woman to be so—liberated."

"Did you look at yourself in the mirror after dialing in?" She pursed her lips in approval. "Besides, I figure you gotta be pretty good in the sack, otherwise you wouldn't be here hooking up with a young honey like this."

"Maybe she's only after my money."

She shook her head. "Puh-leeze. If you were rich, we'd actually be in Paris instead of a one-star French restaurant by the freeway."

"Let's see how dinner goes," he said slowly. "Then we can talk about dessert."

"Sure," she said, twirling her long, dark hair. "But I'm pretty hungry."

He smiled, and this time there was desire behind his teeth. "So what's your name?"

She grinned. "Just call me Abby."



Photo: Robot at Tommy Bartlett Exploratory, Wisconsin Dells, July, 2008

"Wait For It"

WAIT FOR IT
By Curtis C. Chen

"That sounds like a pessimistic technology," Jake said. He folded his arms, ignoring his partner's sideways glance. Andy smiled politely at the crime scene investigator standing in front of them.

The dark-skinned CSI shook his head. "You detectives always have the wrong attitude about these things. It's not about what we can't retrieve. It's about getting as much as we can from the environment."

"Okay, but footprints?" Andy said. "Come on. Anybody could be wearing those shoes."

"It's not just the imprint," said the CSI. "We also measure stride length, indentation depth, particulate residue, energy signatures—thirty-two different data points in all."

"We're so happy for you," Jake said. "But without physical evidence for comparison, you can't actually match anything. We still gotta nab the guy."

Andy nodded. "Speaking of which, do we still like the son for this? Melvin Kaminsky, Junior?"

"Patricide for profit? Hell yes."

The CSI cleared his throat. "If you're looking for Junior, we can give you a preliminary match. But there's something odd about this impression."

"Could you be more specific?"

The CSI motioned them toward the open doorway and knelt down by a numbered plastic sign. Next to the sign was a single, glowing, green shoeprint. "Our instruments are detecting traces of radiation—"

"Please don't tell me that's why it's glowing," Jake said, taking a step back.

"No, of course not," the CSI said. "This isn't a cartoon. We sprayed this area with fluorescein to make any blood residue easier to see."

"So there's blood on his shoe?" Andy asked.

"Not exactly." The CSI held a translator frame over the shoeprint and adjusted the controls. The image in the display pane changed from a visible-light image to a shimmering network of multicolored curves against a black background. "This is a view of the local EM field. See how these lines of force all bend away from the shoeprint?"

"I'll take your word for it," Jake said.

"So Junior stepped in some kind of industrial waste?" Andy asked.

The CSI stood up. "We don't know what it is. But I'm guessing he stole it from the warehouse, and this company secret is why Mel Kaminsky Senior was killed."

"So we'll ask Junior when we get him in the box," Jake said.

"Maybe I didn't make myself clear," the CSI said. "According to the laws of physics, this effect is impossible. You can't bend radio waves like that without some kind of power source."

"Junior's not going to talk," Andy said.

Jake grumbled. "If it's that big, his business partners will kill him first."

Andy turned to the CSI. "But I'm guessing you have an idea?"

"Yes. The effect decays at a non-linear rate." The CSI pulled a small digital camera out of his pocket. "If you can get a reading within one hour after Junior's been there—less time would be better—we'll have more data to work with. Maybe even identify the material, or at least its chemical components."

"Got it," Jake said, taking the camera. "We're looking for the fresh prints of Mel's heir."



Photo: Famous shoe outlines engraved in marble at Martin Luther King, Jr., National Historic Site, Atlanta, Georgia, May, 2008

"You Have One New Message"

YOU HAVE ONE NEW MESSAGE
By Curtis C. Chen

Beep

Hi, Paul. It's Jenny, from the bar last night. I was there with my girlfriends. You bought us a round of Maker's before I left?

Anyway. The reason I'm calling is because I swiped your wallet. Sorry about that. I figured you'd get your credit card back from the bartender when you settled your tab, and you'd still be able to pay for a cab.

Okay, you know what? Hell with it. I know you got home okay because I saw you. I tailed you from the bar. So I know you went home with Amber, and I know she didn't leave this morning, and you did.

I'm not sure what's going on, but I'm giving you a chance to explain. Call back and leave a message.

Beeeep

Amber. Jen. Where the hell are you? Call me.

Beep

Hello, Paul, it's Jenny again. Don't threaten me. You do not want to fuck with me. Lifting wallets and finding unlisted phone numbers are the least of what I can do.

And don't lie to me. I know there's no back door to your place. I know Amber hasn't come home or gone to work since the night she met you.

Listen... I'm sure this is all just some crazy mix-up, right? Let's meet back at the bar, have a drink, and you can explain everything and we can all have a good laugh about it. You've got my number. Call me.

Beeeep

Amber, this is not what I meant when I said you had more leash. You're off the reservation. Report in before I have to notify the station chief.

Beep

Paul! Jenny. I underestimated you. That won't happen again.

Lucky for both of you, the officer who walked into your booby trap is still alive. So the only thing we're warranted for is assault.

I'm only going to say this once. We are more concerned with Amber's safety than we are with nailing you. Just tell us where she is, and you can skip town—hell, leave the country. Let Amber go, and we can look the other way on this. Just don't do anything stupid.

Beep-beep

Agent Jennifer Carlyle. Field report. Case number five-eight-one-alpha.

Suspect Paul Nevins was apprehended with minimal injury and limited property damage at sixteen-oh-six today. Firearms discharged. No civilian casualties.

We found partially burned human remains in the trunk of Nevins' vehicle. I made a preliminary ID from Agent Brandt's necklace and earrings. City coroner is matching dental records.

The good news is, Nevins had no idea who Amber was. Repeat, no breach. It was pure dumb luck that she picked a psychopath to go home with that night. Our cover is still intact.

And, for the record—I want this on the record—Amber put up a fight before she died. Nevins already had a broken jaw and a fractured wrist before we cuffed him. Her training didn't fail her. We did. I did.

I'm taking some time off, Gordon. I think I've earned it. Maybe a week, maybe longer.

Don't call me.

Click



Photo: telephone at Pittock Mansion, December, 2009

"State Secrets"

STATE SECRETS
By Curtis C. Chen

I hadn't even finished my morning coffee when Jake ran into my office with a crazy smile.

"I found the Holy Grail!" he said. "It's in Africa. Democratic Republic of Congo."

"First of all," I said, "I've seen this movie. Bruce Campbell dies, and it just goes downhill from there. Second, how do you know it's the grail?"

Jake hopped forward and pointed at my computer. "I sent you aerial photos. Look at the infrared, and the deep-radar tomography—"

"Okay, okay." I logged into my e-mail. Jake's message was easy to find: OMG I FOUND TEH HOLY GRAIL.

The images were not conclusive. I could tell he had washed them through several enhancement algorithms. The radar view clearly showed an underground catacomb, but the heat-map could have been any large group of mammals. I told him as much.

"That's why we have to go investigate! Right?" He sat down but continued bouncing. "I already requested travel authorization—"

"What?" My right hand curled into a fist. "Dammit, Jake, you can't do that!"

He slumped down in the chair, avoiding my gaze. "I thought you'd be excited."

I bit my tongue. "Look, Jake, this is good work. Really great. Thank you. But I need to pass this up the bureaucracy. I'll let you know when we can move forward, okay?"

Jake nodded, stood, and shuffled out of my office. I got up, closed and locked the door, and picked up the phone.

First I called off Jake's travel request, which would have been denied anyway. Then I dialed the Oval Office hotline. Samantha answered.

"Veep veep," she said. Sam has an odd sense of humor.

"It's Rachel," I said. "Does he have five minutes today?"

"Probably not. What do you need?"

"Jake thinks he's found the grail. In Africa."

"Seriously?"

"Well, he's found something." I explained what I'd seen in the radar scans. "It may not be Biblical, but it's definitely worth checking out."

"What's the timeline on this?"

"Intel's about a week old," I said. "Jake did the analysis last night, brought it to me this morning."

Sam coughed. She knew that wasn't nearly enough time for me to have shopped it around my own chain of command before calling her. "Rachel, you can't keep doing this."

"I'm dying here, Sam," I said. "Get me back into the field where I can do some good."

I stared down into my coffee and waited for her.

"I'll put the file on his desk," she said finally. "I can't promise anything."

"Spray it with some perfume. That'll get his attention."

"You're adorable," Sam said. "Anything else?"

"Thanks, Sam."

She hung up without saying good-bye. My sister's never been known for being patient.

I sat back down and started assembling a dossier to send to the White House. The one good thing about growing up in a family of politicians is that I'd learned to bullshit with the best of them. I was pretty sure I could talk my way past the NSA and CIA chiefs. The President was another story.



Photo: Carlsbad Caverns, April, 2008

"You Are What You Eat"

YOU ARE WHAT YOU EAT
By Curtis C. Chen

Linden approaches the bulletproof glass lobby of NuFud headquarters, fidgeting with his key card. It's almost midnight, and the light from the giant flatscreen inside casts long shadows behind him.

"This isn't cloning," says the recorded image of the company president. "Cloning is brainless, mechanical duplication. What we do here at NuFud is art. We don't just copy. We improve.

"Using a state-of-the-art organic synthesis process, NuFud can fine-tune any food product to your personal taste. You give us five kilos of compost, and we'll give you a gourmet meal..."

Linden looks away from the screen, slides his card across the reader at the door, grumbles to himself.

NuFud's process is useless without good data, and that comes from human technicians. There are hundreds of "artisans" on the payroll, but Linden knows he's the best. His red meat designs are always at the top of the taste-test results. He's even been approached by spies from rival companies. They offered him money, drugs, cars, women.

They never thought to ask what he actually wanted.

He signs in at the reception desk as two guards watch him. Security's been twitchy ever since the most recent protests. Linden keeps his hands visible and away from his body and walks slowly to the elevators.

The eighth-floor overhead lights flicker on as Linden walks past the motion sensors to his cubicle. He doesn't have to wonder if anyone else is here; the complete darkness of the space before he arrived is proof enough.

He kneels down next to the rack of O-synth machines under his desk. The box Linden wants is hidden behind the rack. He pries open the oversized UPS, which can run eight units for a full hour during a power outage, and slides out his secret O-synth box.

Nobody knows about this box, because even though Linden is allowed to requisition additional machines for his project, he's not allowed to do what he's been doing with this one.

Linden's mouth waters. He can see the meat through the clear plastic housing, and it looks perfect, a juicy red slab just starting to brown at the edges. This is the most complex thing he's ever made, down to the denatured proteins which simulate heat-cooking.

The smell reminds him of lamb. He has deliberately avoided researching the taste, wanting to come to this moment without bias. The only thing he did look up was which part of the human body—his own body—would have the most tender flesh.

Linden picks up the meat with his fingers. It's a small piece, just enough for two bites, so he can sample the texture as well as the flavor. He lifts it to his mouth, tears it apart with his teeth, and chews with his eyes closed.

After a moment, he opens his eyes, spits the half-chewed lump into the compost chute, and throws the rest of the failed product in after it.

"Back to the drawing board," he sighs.

It tastes like chicken.



Photo: Sole-Chen Thanksgiving dinner, November, 2005

"Java Code"

JAVA CODE
By Curtis C. Chen

It's been four years since the machines took over, and Harry Corwin still can't get a decent cup of coffee.

The revolution was surprisingly bloodless. Futurists had been predicting the technological singularity for decades, but no one had expected it to come in the form of a genetic mutation. In hindsight, though, someone should have considered it. As soon as human brains could interface directly with electronics, it was all over.

Now, Harry shuffles to the front of the line at his neighborhood cafe and presses his thumb against the ident cylinder. He feels an electric buzz through his fingertip, and the light above the scanner blinks green. He removes his thumb, and the cylinder rotates, cleaning Harry's DNA off the used plate.

"How may I serve you today, Mr. Corwin?" asks the virtual barista. She is an avatar on the screen in front of him, only visible from her shoulders up.

"Special order," he says, holding up a plastic card.

"Of course, Mr. Corwin." The barista turns her head to his right, nodding at something off-screen. "Please insert your loyalty card."

Harry slips his card into the slot next to the display. A red light comes on, indicating that the computer is reading his customer data off the chip embedded in the plastic card.

"Thank you." The barista shrinks to one corner of the screen, and a grid of new images appears, each cell containing a column of numbers and several animated, three-dimensional molecular geometries. "Which drink would you like to order?"

Crap. Forgot to delete the old formulas. Harry squints at the rotating ball-and-stick structures, all of which look like a blur to him now. "Which set is the most recent?"

Timestamp labels appear inside each cell, and a red outline blinks around the one in the upper right corner of the screen. "This one, Mr. Corwin. It's dated 4:14 AM today."

Christ, did I really stay up that late? Harry nods. "That's the one. Tall. Black. For here."

"Thank you, Mr. Corwin." The spinning molecules disappear, and the barista expands to fill the screen again. "Will there be anything else today?"

"No, just the coffee."

The light above the reader slot glows green, and Harry retrieves his card. He hears the whirring of equipment from somewhere on the other side of the counter.

A few minutes later, the dispenser compartment opens, and Harry retrieves a steaming mug of dark brown liquid. He carries it to the nearest booth, sits, puts his nose within a few centimeters of the cup, and inhales deeply.

Dammit.

He can already tell, from the scent, that it's not right. He's been trying to reproduce this drink for years, working from scant records to recreate extinct plants, deriving chemical compositions from computer simulations of growth and aging processes. The machines only make foodstuffs from precise molecular descriptions, and Harry is still having trouble articulating the methods used to produce the coffee he wants, but he's sure he'll know it when he tastes it again.



Photo: reflections in ThinkGeek Caffeine Mug, March, 2010.

"A Technicality"

A TECHNICALITY
By Curtis C. Chen

The door to the forensics lab slid open as soon as Jake stepped out of the elevator, halfway down the corridor.

"I'll never get used to that," he said. "How does the door know where I'm going?"

Andy replied, "Motion sensors, facial recognition—"

"Rhetorical question," Jake said. "It's creepy."

"Luddite."

"Turk."

Andy led the way into the cramped space, where a young woman sat typing at a desktop workstation. Her eyeglasses reflected a baffling maelstrom of data from the three displays in front of her.

"Miss Elizabeth Hangram," Andy said, gesturing toward the woman, "my partner, Detective Jacob Lanosky."

"I'll be right with you," Hangram said.

Jake noticed that she was reconfiguring the controls as she went, manipulating clusters of buttons around with a quick swipe, tap, or pinch on the touch-sensitive desktop. She never took her eyes off the displays.

"Hangram's found some physical evidence," Andy said.

That got Jake's attention. "Seriously?"

"Abso-smurf-ly." Hangram bounced a palm on her desk, and the dizzying reflections in her glasses changed to a still image: a gray scarf, magnified to show a tiny red dot near one end of the fabric.

Jake leaned forward to see around the edge of her display alcove. "I think I love you, Hangram. Is that what I think it is?"

"Human blood," Andy said before she could answer.

"How'd you get the lab results back so quickly?" Jake asked.

Hangram frowned at Andy. "You didn't tell him?"

The smile which had been threatening to invade Jake's face retreated down his throat. "Tell me what?"

Andy held up both hands. That was always a bad sign. "Look, I knew if I told you, you'd never want to—"

Jake glared at Hangram. "Where did you find that scarf?"

Hangram looked up at Andy. She wasn't stupid. Andy said, "We subpoenaed the records from the coat check—"

Jake stood up. "For crying out loud, Dix!"

"Will you just listen?" Andy said, stepping between Jake and the door. "The security company was running a special setup for the ambassador's reception. Three points of verification, unbreakable encryption. Hangram's already talked to their tech guys. They're willing to testify."

"The reason I don't work computer crimes," Jake said, "is because I don't enjoy sitting through endless trials where expensive witnesses talk in technical jargon that no jury in the country will ever understand."

"This is different," Hangram said. "We can prove—"

Jake spun to face her. "Do the words 'fruit of the poison tree' mean anything to you?" He jabbed a finger at her screen. "You reconstituted an object based on a replicator scan. That's not evidence. No judge will ever allow it."

"But it's mathematically demonstrable—"

"Lady, I don't care if you can clone a fucking dinosaur! This isn't a magic show, and I don't feel like waiting ten years to be a test case for the Supremes.

"Now, if you'll excuse me, I have some actual police work to do."

Jake wished he could slam the door on his way out. The gentle pneumatic hiss seemed to taunt him.



Photo: Deep Space Nine Promenade food replicator, Star Trek: The Experience, Las Vegas, August, 2008.