Somebody once said [i]Comedy is tragedy plus time[/i]. Sounds about right. Can't really remember who it was who said it, but that's not important. If I looked it up it would probably be Poe, or Lincoln, or Odin. Not really worth the effort.

As I observed the chunk of meat stuck on the wall I thought that my life would probably be a killer joke in a century or two. It's a good reason to record this stuff. Would be a shame if the future generations lost this comedy gold. Those little shits should see what I had been through.

It was truly marvelous how the piece of meat had managed to stick there for so long. Three hours had to be some kind of record. I now was kinda curious how long it could stay there.

I took a step back and said, "Hey, City."

A nearby pipe began to vibrate and the voice of City answered. "Yes, detective Barrows?"

Damn, had she a sexy voice. One could fall in love with her. A lot of people did, poor bastards. I knew better, I had known her enough to not fall for it. I had seen her dark side for too long. "When will you clean up here?"

"I will start the moment the scene has been recorded."

Who was I kidding? I was one of the miserable losers that she had seduced. Did being aware of it improve my situation or did it simply mean that I was too desperate to do something about it?

I decided I would think about that another time, possibly with something strong to drink. There were more pressing issues at the moment, like the fact that I would never satisfy my curiosity about that little piece of organic matter clinging so stubbornly to the wall.

Well, that and the three victims in the alley behind me.

Ah, from the sound of it Rubberduck had finished adding the contents of his own stomach to the local decor. I glanced over my shoulder and saw him cleaning his mouth with a tissue-paper.

Seemed like I had another couple of minutes before he was ready. I turned to the wall again. "City, this scene is very important. Can you delay the cleaning up till we close the case? Or at least until this thing falls down."

"I fail to see why I should do that."

"It's very important. You know, I have to feel the scene to do my job."

"Detective, this request is completely unreasonable."

I turned to the entrance of the alley where a camera was floating. I pouted and said, "Pretty please?"

I heard her sigh. That was usually a good sign. It meant I would have what I wanted. It may have been petty, but small victories are what carries one through the day. "I will keep the scene intact, detective."

I knew it. "You are a sweetie."

"I know."

I turned around and went to Rubberduck. I pulled out a bottle of antiemetics and handed it over to him.

He looked at the bottle then at me, then he frowned. It was adorable. "Detective, you could have given them to me before."

"You could have brought your own. But don't worry, I'm not holding that against you. Throwing up builds character." And it weeds out too, but that was better left unsaid. I pulled out a paper bag from my other coat pocket and offered it to him. "Candy?"

He shook his head, then swallowed two pills.

I shrugged. "Suit yourself." I fished out a red candy, threw it in the air and caught it with my mouth. I liked red, it had always been my favorite. It had even improved when they decided to drop the act about giving the flavor some kind of relation to fruits and accepted that red candies tasted like red candies. Facing the truth sometimes was the best thing to do.

There was a click and City said, "Recording complete. You can access the core of the scene now."

"Thank you, City." I swiveled on my heels and took a step toward the mess in the alley. Dozens of small cameras, spectrometers and other assorted instrumentation I couldn’t even name flew away. "Now, Rubberduck, time to earn whatever they pay you."

He stepped to my side. "My name is Gjokaj, detective."

"We'll see if it is." I surveyed the alley. "You know, I kinda understand why you felt a bit uneasy."

The city had a lot of faces. She changed often and she changed fast. Newer blocks were warm, clean and really boring. Old streets tended to be often nicely renovated and had a bit more life. The one were we standing in was from the rebellious teenager phase, the one nobody wanted really to talk about. Naked concrete walls rose for fifteen stories. Wires and pipes in thick bundles connected buildings housing automated factories. The pavement was made out of plastic tiles that allowed easy access to the hidden bowels of the City and probably needed some urgent maintenance. There was no trash around, but that was usual for the poorer blocks. Here nothing stayed unrecycled for long. Dirt and grime, on the other hand, was abundant and coated everything. And then there was the crime-scene.

In the middle of the alley, far enough from each exit so that nobody would notice anything, somebody had painted ground and walls using blood and guts. You could see the enthusiasm that had gone into it by looking at the spots of body fluids on the third story of the buildings. The silver threads of artificial nervous systems surfaced here and there. I doubted they could be recovered. The piece of meat that had fascinated me was a small part of the carnage in front of me. I could vaguely recognize three bodies, and at least two of them were humanoid. Couldn't be really sure about the third one.

The worst part was the smell. Probably. I hadn't really been able to smell anything in four years. A Little side effect of a batch of bad designer drugs. I sooner or later should have it fixed, but at the moment I was thankful that I had only to see the stuff. Weird how you can get used to images of gore faster than to the smell.

I put the bag back in my pocket and clapped my hands together. "Well, Rubberduck, lemme see how you would manage this mess."

He stood straighter and said, "City, did you see what happened here?"

"Officer Gjokaj, did you see what happened during your last bowel movement?"

I chuckled. "Nice try, I can admire trying the easy way first, but if the City sees it happen they don't call us. At all."

"I am aware of that, but the protocol still requires us to ask." He looked at me. "Should we return to the department to examine the recording?"

"Not yet." I scratched my chin. "You have to get a feeling for it. Tell me what we know about the victims."

"Feel it?"

"You'll get it, sooner or later. Now, about the victims, what do we know about them?"

He seemed baffled. "You have access to the files too, Miss."

This would be fun. "Yeah, I know. I also call you Rubberduck till you prove otherwise, so tell me what we know. The abridged version at least."

Rubberduck got the thousand-mile stare of people accessing their retina projections. "Very well. The victims were three IP Citizens: Lovecraft, Moorcock, and Shelley."

"Never heard of them." I started to slowly walk around, being careful to not step on bits of citizen.

"Old IPs. Were made self-aware during the first wave of Awakening." A brief pause. "It seemed they were at the center of controversies regarding the personhood of Fictional Characters. Appeared in front of the Senate even."

"Oh, that." That was the reason I had never heard of them. I had gone to great lengths to avoid the whole thing. Raging idiocy gave me headaches and senate hearings were usually the pinnacles of pain-inducing, moronic argumentations. "Who'll inherit their rights?"

"Nobody. They were already public domain when they became sapient. It was the reason they were in the first wave."

Something was bothering me. The blood should have pooled, instead, it was only coating the pavement. "Are there any big projects involving those IPs on the horizon?"

Rubberduck took a few seconds before he answered. "Nothing. Currently, all the major entertainment players are developing fresh concepts. Most of the valuable IPs have acquired personhood status and are self-managing. Working with them implies extra-costs." 

"Means we can probably exclude Disney's hit squads. Those are usually a headache. Carry on." No tracks leaving a bloody trail that got away from the scene. They had probably used some flying device to disembowel the guys. I looked upwards.

"Some financial problems. Seems they had problems finding a niche in the the current economic situation. A couple of years ago they have been the poster-children both for the Universal Rights movement and, for opposite reasons, for a large cadre of bio-chauvinist think-thanks." I could hear him almost spit out the last word.

There were cameras both on the streets and on the roofs of the buildings. "Bio-chauvinist? Do I hear some opinions there?"

He went stiff. "No, detective. I simply summarized the conflict. You asked for the abridged version." It was almost too easy to prod him. He wouldn't survive for long if he reacted this way to the smallest accusations. Internal affairs would love him. He continued, "I hope I didn't offend you, but the term bio-chauvinism was correct here. Many of the groups I intended are—"

"Would you notice a blood-covered, saw-wielding, flying drone?" I would tease him later, and in the meanwhile, I could leave him steam a bit in doubt.

He blinked. "I think so."

"Yeah, me too. City, you didn't see something flying out of here, right?"

"I may not see everything, but the cameras around here work." She seemed almost offended by the insinuation.

"I had to ask, you know, for the protocol." I walked in the middle of the massacre. "They don't look like they exploded, right?" I didn't see any burn wounds, nor was there shrapnel in the floor or the walls. The bodies laid in different positions. No central origin for the wounds could be recognized. "I'm pretty sure we can rule out suicide. No, somebody went personal on this poor losers and then disappeared."

Rubberduck got glassy eyes again. He was reading more of the dossiers. "They were recently involved in a lawsuit regarding reproductive rights of non-biological intelligence. Specifically, regarding the current limitations about spawning, forking, recombination, and non-humanoid body types. It was class action to relax the standing regulations and allow IP Citizens access to official structures. They lost but it reignited the discussion about the issues. Do you think the murder was politically motivated?"

I stared at the pavement. Something irked me. "City, were there any claims about this?"

"No, detective."

"Rubberduck, were this three at the head of the class action? Or were they at least some figureheads?" 

"No, they weren’t. I see some activism, but nothing out of the norm." He briefly paused. "It seems they reduced their engagement in the last years. Although they stayed together after the first wave and the senate hearings."

The panels, that was it. I waved to Rubberduck, gesturing him to come here. "I think I found something. You have some gloves, right?"

"I can go to the car and grab them."

"Nah, not necessary. You can wash your hands later." I bowed forward. There it was, a hair-thin fissure. "City recorded the scene. You can't really damage anything." I looked up to him. He had become paler. I sighed and said, "You should also take another pill."

He shook his head and stepped forward. When he arrived at my side I pointed at the panel and said, "Lift that up. And believe me, you need this. You'll see a lot of worse shit in your time here, so get used to getting your hands dirty." I stood up and stepped back.

I had to admit I was a bit surprised, Rubberduck was really reaching down to the panel. I would maybe have to promote him to having a name. He pulled a knife out his pocket and stuck the blade in the fissure. The panels were pretty solid but light. They still used them in construction, as far as I knew, only they disguised them nowadays.

Gjokaj was sweating. I had some doubts it was because of physical exertion, and I feared for a moment that I had pushed him too much. At the end he removed the panel, leaving a three feet per side large hole on the floor. Below I could see a data-access terminal to the high-speed infrastructure of the City and a ladder disappearing into the darkness below. Blood had dripped down, which explained why it hadn't accumulated, and there were prints on the pegs. A couple of cables hung limply from the terminal, and there was a hijacker still connected to it.

I patted my partner on the shoulder and asked, "City, can you feel this particular terminal?"

"No, I can't. Maintenance will be there in three minutes."

I heard a splat and looked up. The piece of meat had fallen from the wall. "The first question we should have asked should have been [i]why here?[/i]"

[hr]

I sipped my coffee looking through my report. I would have liked something stronger, but the rules regarding alcohol on the job were still horribly limiting. One would think we would be better in this day and age, but nope, couldn't have that.

I closed the file and turned to Gjokaj. "So did they find him?"

"Yes, once we told them what to look for the traces became evident. Poor kid was in the sewers and munching on rats. Rats filed a criminal complaint, but considering the boy is six hours old it shouldn't stick. He has been taken to the hospital. They had to sedate him and there will probably be some psychosurgery, but they should be able to heal the damages. Can't have four hundred fifty pounds of panicking child biting the doctors."

I smiled. "Poor little bastard. But I see you are having the right attitude to it. Maybe we can make a cop out of you."

Gjokaj rolled his eyes. "There will be a legal mess. As far as I know he's the first Sapient-born story coming from a three-way IP recombination, but personhood is practically certain."

"Nice, but not our problem." He huffed and looked away. I had a rule about not worrying about newbies, or at least about letting them working out their issues themselves and with the department consultants. But then, truth be told, I always sucked at following rules. "You don't look happy. We solved your first case, cheer up!"

He stayed silent for almost a minute. "I fear that this will fuel opposition to a reform of reproductive rights. We kinda need that."

"Maybe. maybe not. I'm only sure that it will pull the morons out from the woodwork." Yeah, politics, won't touch that for all the optimistic new partners of the world. I finished my coffee. "City was a bit pissed that they stole processing power. Stopped doing her sexy voice at me, which is a shame. There will probably be a security upgrade soon, so don't rely too much on the metro. Man, I really hope it won't come out from our budget." I stood up, walked to Gjokaj and patted him on the shoulder. "You did well."

"I didn't do anything."

"You saw one of the faces of the City and you are still here. It's a beginning."