An empty highway, night, the dark punctured here and there by anemic sunlight bouncing off indigenous salt deposits.
And now, headlights.
One red, the other, reddish-green.
Inspector C, a small colony investigator, extinguishes the fading cigarette and pulls up to a sign that says, “W LCOM TO HE MEGA S HERE.” In the passenger seat, his wife, B, dressed in black druid [imitation] robe, reading a book with the title obscured.
“You reckon this is the place?” he asks, squinting at the flickering neon.
“Uh-huh,” she replies, interrupting a page-turn to pull in her collar.
“I guess that book must be pretty engrossing.”
“Cold.”
“What’s it called again?”
“I’m cold, C.”
“Right. Of course you are.” He leans down, adjusts the temperature controls, relights the dead cigarette. “Cold as a fucking hologram.”
***
Inspector C has come to the MEGA SPHERE to investigate the unsolvable, which, in this case, is the brutal murder of a local engineer, found naked and slashed in a hotel bed, with sordid photos scattered around her corpse. According to bot forensics, these photos imply, one, pathetic nostalgia, and, two, that the victim was brazenly adulterous [the other woman in the pics appears far too enthused to be her husband].
“A real spider’s web,” mutters Inspector C, pulling out pocket binoculars and going through each image to check that it is in fact the dead woman and not his wife. The fringe looks similar, as does the air of boredom, but those positions, that level of flexibility? He goes through them one more time just in case. And then a third time. And a fourth. “Simply Outer Rim thoroughness,” he assures the coroner trapped in the ceiling mirror, “nothing more.”
Finally satisfied that it’s not his B, the fresh import departs the crime scene and drives home through garish, colored streets. On the way, he spies several men in trench coats, stationary, sinister. Fires up an old cigarette. Checks the photos again under green auto-light, inside a deserted parking lot. Whispers something inaudible, possibly Italian. Stubs out the cigarette. Flicks a nail at the windscreen mirror. Exits.
His B, resplendent in black cloak and blacker vibe, greets him at the kitchen door with hands tucked behind her back. A pair of black velvet gloves sits on the counter close by, one turned in on itself. Suspicious, thinks Inspector C, but not enough to stop him moving past without comment.
“Tough day, my little squirrel?”
“Generic.”
“You didn’t get that murder case, did you?”
“That?”
“I saw it on the news. Poor girl.”
“Engineer.”
“Why do these inner rim men do such things?”
Inspector C halts in the corridor, scratches his neck. On the wall nearby, a painting is missing. Allegory of Winter // Varo. One of his favorites.
“Do you know anything about that?”
“Of course not. I despise the cold.”
“And, if I happen to open the bin, I assume I won’t find-”
B smiles lopsided, pulls apart the belt of the robe.
“It’s not, is it?”
“I’m gonna go and sink into the bath, rewatch episode nine of my Xxun serial. If you’re not due back at the station, or the yacht club…or your dear Varo’s holo-statue…you may consider joining me.”
“Now?”
“Parts willing.”
Inspector C shakes his head. Stares at the painting-less space on the wall. Shakes his head a second time. Mutters Fucking Xxun. Tears off his trench coat. Rips through B’s druid robe. WOUNDS. MIRRORS. WHORES. ADULTERY. Reels back against the artificial Queen palm in the corridor. Lights a wrinkled cigarette. Smokes a quarter of it, fierce, confused. Spits at the shadow in the wall-screen. Leaves without another syllable.
***
At/In/Of the station, the Chief, who may be a mirage, insists that Inspector C not remove his trench coat until the murderer is caught.
“Understood,” replies Inspector C, pulling up a kite-sized collar.
“Alas, you’re the best man for the job.”
“Hmm. You tell that to the press yet?”
The Chief mutters back press as if it’s a new word then stares off at a part of the station wall clearly missing a painting.
Stuck for clues, Inspector C does the same.
“You married, Chief?”
“Hmm.”
“Widowed?”
“Kind of cold in here.”
“Divorced?”
“And drab. Eerily so. What did you say?”
***
Later, out on the streets of the MEGA SPHERE, things regress, linger, suffocate, and worse. Neon signs cease glitching. Steps are chosen over elevators. Residents threaten to hug each other, throw black sheep out of high-rise windows.
Cop lights, cop shadows.
Feral screams.
Inspector C watches from the inside of a gigantic robot prostitute as local officers don Berti masks and proceed to round up the usual suspects: drug addicts, drug pushers, hippies, ex-hippies, extroverts, non-agented rappers, etc. The results are inconclusive. Half have alibis for the time of the murder while the other half wields the dummy knife like amateurs.
“This is a waste of time,” whispers Inspector C into the ear of the incongruously urbane Professor C, who takes it as a personal insult, flits outside for a bit, shakes dust off his trench coat, sprays on motor cologne, saunters back in and says, “in the most basic of terms, this killer is a pervert.”
“Founded on what?”
“The autopsy I performed earlier. Psychology reports. The fact that the victim was nude and in good shape. You see, there is something incredibly erotic in the act of destroying a vulnerable, female corpse. Female body. A nude one. That’s what they say at least. Have you met my assistant, G? He’s a pervert, too.”
“In what way?” asks Inspector C, picturing a younger version of himself flailing wildly in a paddling pool full of blue-skinned witches.
“The keeping of photos after autopsies, of women in particular. At first, I thought he was selling them to magazines, as a side hustle, but then I remembered that print media does that kind of thing in-house. Then I confronted him directly and he assured me it’s nothing.”
“Should we believe him?”
“As much as you do your own wife. Or mine. When she was alive. Poor, little mouse.” A flick of the nail against grey velvet. “Shall we go get a drink, talk more about the case?”
“I love my wife,” mutters Inspector C, following the pathologist’s trench coat out of the station and over to The Bluer Bar, where they slump down onto impossibly red sponge and watch a stripper thrust a mannequin’s crotch at the audience. When the crowd starts to boo, she quits, heading to the nearby pod-line and collapsing into a two-mirror booth all by herself. Seconds later, a shadow enters, man-shaped. Pulls a razor from a trench coat and smiles, mouth split in three.
***
“If only she’d finished her shift,” says Inspector C, holding the photo up to the stripper’s face and confirming that it is not his wife.
“Well, at least we know it’s not you or I,” says Professor C, smoking a vintage-brand cigarette in the corner, trench coat pulled in tight against his reflection.
“Do we?”
“Unless one of us walked quickly to the pod-line and already had the razor concealed in his pocket. But then, I hate walking fast. And you’re not a pervert. And we weren’t apart for that long…were we?”
Inspector C faces the wall-mirror and closes one eye, picturing a castle tower with a topless Rapunzel, throat cut abruptly from behind by a man in the guise of his wife. Who he loves very much and would never refuse to have sex with in a bath tub.
Zipping up the trench coat until it pinches at his stubbled chin, he turns on all abjections and exits the booth, leaving the crime scene to a blank-looking Professor C.
Outside, onlookers aware of the latest murder throw asteroid-grown tomatoes at the coated cop. Then engineering manuals. Then copies of engineering manuals. Then engineering tools. When an unusually large micro-resonator strikes him on the side of the head, he spits on the ground, draws his gun and fires at the nearest trench coat.
The man inside falls on a sewage grid, spitting blood, shrieking up at the neon reflection of his assailant to do something, help him for fuck’s sake.
***
“It’s hopeless,” Inspector C says, placing his revolver on the desk and then picking it right back up again when the Chief tells him he’s not suspended. “Eight women slaughtered, all naked, all of them adulterers. And a whole MEGA SPHERE full of perverts, any one of which could be the killer.”
“What you need to do,” replies the Chief, sketching out a red ribbon around the photo of the latest victim, “is do something.”
“I’m tired.”
“Find a pervert who is also capable of killing.”
“I don’t like being here.”
“Ideally, one of those reporters outside, but a random vagrant would suffice.”
“I wanna go back…to the Kuiper Belt.’”
“That’s a big neighborhood. And about as exciting as New Vicenza. What does your wife think?”
“Nothing. I love her very much.”
“Then go home and tell her that.”
“What about the case?”
The Chief adds the finishing touches to his ribbon, leans back in the battered leather chair. “Let’s just put it on ice for now. See what happens with the next victim. Hopefully the killer will mess up and drop his ID or something.”
“Understood.”
***
Back home, Inspector C receives a phone call from the killer, who claims that his wife, B, is cheating on him with a re-animation insurance agent.
“She wouldn’t…”
“And that makes her my next target, comrade. Unless you would like to slash her first?”
Inspector C hangs up. Zips the trench coat down halfway. Stares at the amateur modelling pics his wife has put up in place of his beloved Varo. Her dressed in that silly Xxun anarchist costume, reclining on the sleek metal cover of a state-of-the-art Graviton Emitter. A male scientist holding a clipboard, pretending that he isn’t actually thinking about having sex with her. And not just in the missionary position. From the side. From beyond. With a photo of Inspector C peering in from the window, rain-lashed, coatless, praying for-
In the bathroom, splashing noises.
Picking up a camp axe from the camp axe drawer, Inspector C pushes open the grimy auto-screen, waves away the vapor, squints at the naked figure reclining against the back of the tub. There is a single arm outstretched, beckoning him over.
He advances without thought, chopping downwards, again and again and again and again, flinching when the blade connects with bathwater instead of flesh.
“Why…” slurs Professor C, clawing at steam, oozing out blood.
“I love you,” replies Inspector C, eyes wide shut as he drops the axe. Confused, euphoric, defeated, blank, adulterous. He returns to the phone, dials the Chief’s number and informs him in a neutral tone that the case is finally over.
“You caught the guy?”
“Tired.”
“It’s really the right one?”
“Wanna go back.”
“Okay, okay, I trust your instincts. Tell us where the body is and I’ll send Professor C over to take a look.”
“He’s already here,” says Inspector C, dropping the receiver and walking back into the bathroom, where the water in the tub is serene and bloody, and the corpse of Professor C is stretched out in a drunken starfish pose on the red/white tiled floor.
Fearing reprisal, the Inspector picks up a razor and slashes at the axe wounds, then takes off his trench coat and uses it to cover the body of the man who would’ve cheated on him eventually. Then pulls it off and draws out his phone. Loads up the camera. Begins clicking.
Begins clicking.
Begins clicking.
Clicking.
Begins trench coat.
Loads up cheat.
Draws out clicking.
Body of the phone.
Loads man.
Begins clikkkkkkkkkkkkkkkk-
***
Back at his other home, the wife, B, greets him as a minacious silhouette, asking if he’s interested in buying re-animation insurance.
“How much?”
“The serial I’ve been watching, my Xxun nomad anarchist thing, they do it in that too. That’s where it originated from. Fiction to Real. The villain’s obsessed with it.”
“How much?”
“Ah…the price. Not entirely sure. But I’m positive it’s not expensive. At all. And it’s really quite a useful thing if you think about it, the possibility of accidents and death and other such morbidity.”
“Okay.”
“Wait, you mean you’re seriously gonna consider it?”
Inspector C peers into an empty pack of cigarettes. Crushes it. Steadies himself with a shaky hand against the kitchen wall.
“Are you okay, little squirrel?”
“Tired.”
“Did you find that killer you were looking for?”
“Wanna go back.”
B nods, letting out a soft purring noise, and then continues nodding and nodding and nodding until a blue glitch rearranges half her face and the rest evaporates into object nothingness.
In the other room, a telephone rings.
Inspector C ignores it at first then moves slowly forward and picks up the receiver, saying what instead of hello.
“B? That you?”
“Yes.”
“Wah, are you sick? Your voice sounds like gravel. Anyway, I’ve got the night off, so how about you come over here and take a look at my insurance deals? And by insurance deals I mean sex. Gods, I’m horny. That body of yours, the druid robe thing. You will come, right?”
“Of course.”
“Great. I’ll go change into the Cholan warrior costume. Let me know when you’re downstairs.”
“I love you very much.”
“Err…yeah, me too. Don’t be too long, okay?”
Inspector C puts the phone back on the hook then lifts it up again. Closes one eye and pictures past things. Slips out his tongue and licks the receiver. Wraps the cord around three fingers and then rubs those fingers against his groin. Unravels the cord and walks to the closet. Pulls out a new trench coat and puts it on.
Glares at the thing in the mirror.
Leaves.
— Oli Johns is Psycho Holosuite.