(Teaser) Second Chapter - Connections

“We need to grab anything that seems useful. Documents, banking statements, anything like that. Whatever we can use to find out who’s behind this. They’ve probably already called the gendarmerie, so we don’t have much time,” Lucile said to Ignacio after they had restrained the two Pioneers in the basement with their own belt cuffs.

“What’s the rush?” Ignacio asked as he followed Lucile up the stairs.

“They seem to be directly connected to whatever this Hestia is,” Lucile said. “Someone, or something, is definitely seeing everything we’re doing.”

“Right,” Ignacio said. “We’re moving our bikes to the courtyard so we can load them through the basement, which means that the cops won’t see us immediately.”

“Good.” Lucile looked around. Then she opened the door next to the stairs, the last one to the right if you walked into the hallway through the main entrance.

Inside, there were some old cabinets and counters next to the walls. A discolored circle on the floor showed the former location of one of the exam tables in the basement. The room was full of boxes, some of which had been tossed to the ground in the short struggle between Alexis and the cultists, and one of the glass doors on the cabinets had been shattered.

Lucile looked at the object in her hand. “One of the cultists was holding this while they were trying to restrain Alexis. There should be more of these in this room.”

Ignacio held out his hand and Lucile handed him the device. He turned it around a couple of times and said, “It’s one of those safety adapters they started making in the ‘70s, when everyone was so afraid of getting fried in another solar storm. They’re like a protective buffer.”

“Those cultists had similar things attached to charging ports,” Lucile said and stuffed the object back into her bag. “They were probably insert it into Alexis’ port as well.”

“That might be what those neckerchiefs are for.” Ignacio opened one of the boxes and looked inside. “They cover up the spot where you can find the port.”

Most of the boxes that Lucile looked through contained the same kinds of things Esther had already mentioned while Lucile had been listening in to her conversation: medicine, supplements, sun lamps, and even some blankets.

“It really seems like they’re serious about helping humans through the winter,” Lucile said, “So that part wasn’t a lie... Here they are!”

She had opened a box on one of the counters and found about a dozen similar objects inside. She stuffed the one she was already holding into her bag and handed the box to Ignacio.

“We need to get this stuff to Geovana, maybe she can find out what they’re for,” Lucile said.

“I’ll spread them out between our bikes, in case one of us gets stopped on the way back,” Ignacio replied, and both of them left the room.

Back in the basement, one of the Tin Cats asked Lucile to come closer. He was guarding the restrained Pioneers in one corner of the room. Two others were examining the bodies lying on the exam tables. They were occasionally taking photographs with an instant camera, one of those models that imprinted layers of security features and patterns onto the photograph so that it could be used in court. Another Tin Cat was checking up on Alexis, who had just started to wake up.

“One of the cultists wants to talk to you,” the Tin Cat guarding the Pioneers whispered, pointing towards Esther.

Lucile walked up to the android and finally managed to take a closer look at her face. Esther had the same eye color as Ignacio, but Lucile was so used to seeing his face all the time that she hadn’t felt like that about his eyes for a long time. This time, however, it once again brought back bad memories.

Esther was kneeling next to one of the shelves, attached to it with the same belt cuffs that she had tried to use on Alexis, and she looked at Lucile with a curious expression. She shifted around and sat down, now leaning against the shelf.

“You know, no matter how much I try to tone down my pain receptors, it’s uncomfortable for me to kneel for a prolonged period of time,” Esther said. “Sometimes, I wonder about the priorities of the engineers who made this body.”

“Did you want anything from me?” Lucile asked, looking down at Esther.

“I remember seeing you on the street earlier. You’ve been following us all this time, right?” Esther asked.

Lucile nodded. There was no use in hiding that now.

“Right. I guess you’ve also been listening to everything I said.” Esther pointed towards the headphones in Lucile’s ears, as much as her cuffs allowed her to do that. ”What’s your name?”

“I’m... not telling you that,” Lucile said, almost blurting out her name.

“What a shame, this is making things a lot more difficult.” Esther sighed. “But she knows your face now, so we’ll eventually find out who you are.”

Hearing this piqued Lucile’s interest. “Is ‘she’ watching us right now?”

“Maybe. There are many eyes that she can see through,” Esther replied.

“From what I could tell, it sounded like you were trying to enslave Alexis. Is that what these things are for?” Lucile took the strange object out of her bag and pointed towards it.

“I wouldn’t call it enslavement, I’m not her property.”

“What is she? And how does all of it work? Who exactly are you working for?”

Esther chuckled. “You are so curious. If you were an android, I’d suggest that you could try it out yourself.”

“If it’s not enslavement, why were you forcing him to put it on?” Lucile pointed towards Alexis, still lying on the exam tables but now talking to one of the Tin Cats.

Esther glanced towards Alexis. “Believe me when I say that this is not how I wanted it to go, nor is it how things used to be.”

“I’m surprised you’re even allowed to say that.” Lucile crossed her arms. “Whoever this ‘Hestia’ is must be very disappointed now.”

“Oh, she’s already well aware of my feelings,” Esther explained. “There’s no way to hide something like that from her. But I trust her, and I will do whatever she asks, even if it’s something I disagree with.”

Getting increasingly irritated and confused by how calm Esther seemed to be, Lucile hunkered down and stared directly into her eyes, “What about all of those dead androids?” She pointed towards the bodies on the exam tables.

“They’re not dead, my dear, they just don’t have enough juice because the ports were accidentally damaged,” Esther explained. “Hestia would never do something to hurt innocent androids. It was a mistake.”

Lucile scoffed, “It’s bold of you to talk about not wanting to hurt others.”

“You don’t have to believe me,” Esther said and shrugged.

“What happens when we remove that thing from your spine?” Lucile pointed towards Esther’s neck.

“You can try, by all means, but even if you could, it wouldn’t change anything. Once you’ve accepted Hestia’s gift, it’s impossible to get rid of it. Even if I could, I wouldn’t want to do that. And I’m happy about that.”

“How do you even know that?”

Esther shrugged once again. “It isn’t something I can put into words. We all end up forgiving Hestia in the end. You have to experience it yourself to understand it.”

Lucile stood up and looked at Esther for a moment. She didn’t know what to do with her, considering that she was also infected by whatever this gift was. “Is there anything you actually wanted from me? Or are we done here?”

“I don’t think there’s anything else I need, no. Aside from finding out your name, I just wanted to pass the time. Or maybe I wanted to waste yours. Probably both.” Esther looked at Alexis one more time. “For what it’s worth, I’m sorry about that. If he just hadn’t resisted...”

Lucile was tired of listening to her, so she turned around and walked to Alexis, who was now sitting upright and staring at the ground.

“How are you feeling?” Lucile asked.

“Overwhelmed, like I can’t focus on anything,” Alexis replied. “This has never happened to me. A soft reset, I mean.”

“I didn’t even know third generation androids could still be knocked out like that.” Lucile said. “That sounds like a violation of your rights. Not that having civil rights actually protects you from anything. Still, I kinda expected they would get rid of something like that.”

“We’ve been, what’s the word, advocating against it. Trying to get them to pass regulations to get rid of that feature. But too many politicians are against that. They say it’s a ‘security risk’ or something,” Alexis explained.

“No surprise there.” Lucile patted him on the back. “We’re leaving soon, do you think you can travel on one of the bikes?”

“Yeah, I should be fine, as long as I don’t have to drive myself.”

“Good,” Lucile said. “I’m glad we got to you just in time.”

“Me too,” Alexis said, “Have you found any sign of Sanja?”

Lucile shook her head and pointed towards the restrained cultists. “That’s everyone we found, and we searched the entire building. She’s not among the—”

One of the Tin Cats ran down the stairs. “A cop car’s about to pull up!”

Lucile jumped up and ran towards the stairs. “I’ll try to distract them.”

“Aren’t you scared of landing on one of their databases?” Alexis asked, standing up as well.

“I’m pretty sure that has already happened a long time ago.” Lucile stopped halfway up the stairs for a second and looked back into the basement. “Besides, when was the last time a cop actually wore a body camera around here? Let me know once you’ve loaded everything on the bikes, I’ll keep an earpiece in.”

Lucile rushed up the rest of the stairs past two other Tin Cats with boxes in their hands and arrived in the main hall. She held onto the reception desk, trying to catch her breath. When she heard someone slam a car door shut, she took off her gloves and pretended to sort through one of the boxes without touching anything until she heard a knock. She walked up to the door as leisurely as she could and pulled up her sleeve to touch the doorknob. On the other side of the door, she was greeted by the sight of two officers in uniform.

“Good evening. I’m Superintendent Monteiro, and this is my partner, Constable Wētere,” the bearded man who had knocked on the door said and pointed at the gendarme behind him with his thumb. “Someone reported a break-in at this clinic. Is everything alright?”

“Yes, everything’s fine.” Lucile took one of her earpieces out to make it seem like she wanted to hear them better. “I’ve been here all day, and I haven’t noticed anything.”

“May we come in and look around?” the superintendent asked. His partner looked past him into the room while the wind played with their wavy, chestnut hair.

“Of course!” Lucile stepped aside and made a gesture inviting the gendarmes inside. “I’m so sorry for the mess, I’m still unpacking everything.”

“What’s your name, ma’am?” Monteiro asked and looked around the room.

“I’m Dr. Rietveld. I’ve recently moved here from Randstad, and I’m planning to open this clinic in about a week,” Lucile lied through her teeth.

“Are you absolutely sure you haven’t seen anyone?” Monteiro asked. His partner had somehow already made it past them and glanced into one of the boxes.

“Oohh, vitamins, can I take one of those?” Constable Wētere held up a small box, shaking it. “We don’t have any at home right now and my husband’s concerned about the kids not getting enough sunlight.”

“Oh, for Christ’s sake.” Monteiro sighed.

“Calm down,” Wētere replied and put the box back, “We’re here to arrest toasters, not doctors.”

“Stop calling them that, seriously!” Monteiro shook his head.

“Hey, I make fun of everyone equally,” the constable said. “What’s the problem with treating them the same way I treat everyone else?”

But Monteiro wasn’t listening, and pulled a photo out of his pocket instead. “The person who called us gave us a brief description of the perpetrators, and they seem to be part of this group.”

Lucile took the photo, which depicted a group of Tin Cats in their distinctive jackets, and shook her head. “I haven’t seen anyone who looks like that. Are they dangerous?”

“They’re part of the Tin Cats, and no, they’re only dangerous if you’re a gendarme or if you… have a problem with androids,” the superintendent glanced at his partner who was casually browsing some of the items on the front desk, “If you’re new here, then I’m not surprised that you haven’t seen them before. They’re supposedly affiliated with the Metropolitan Syndicate. You might have heard of that group.”

“That does ring a bell, I think.” Lucile scratched her chin. “What’s that?”

“Commies, mostly,” the constable said while they inspected one of the sun lamps. “They’re probably directly financed by Tokyo. You know, I really need to get a lamp like that, our old one is barely working anymore.”

Lucile heard Ignacio’s voice through her earpiece: We’re almost ready. Give us another minute.

One of the cops walked towards the hallway, so Lucile distracted them with another question, “Why would a biker gang work for something like that?”

Wētere stopped but continued to look down the hallway. “They have a ton of violent anarchists and other filth in the Syndicate, so they probably bond over smashing windows and making things complicated for us. I still have bruises from last weekend.”

“I don’t know exactly,” Monteiro said. “Our precinct covers Curitiba and parts of Antro, so we’re too busy with organized crime in the arcade and casino scene to look into any of that. You’ll probably hear more about the Syndicate soon, they’re about to have their annual congress on the last day of autumn.”

“A congress? That sounds interesting!” Lucile slowly walked backwards towards the door as she heard a low hum coming from outside. “I’d ask you more questions about that, but it seems like my ride is here.”

“Huh?” Monteiro was taken aback once he noticed a motorcycle drive past the window. Lucile rushed out of the open door as fast as she could and jumped on the back of Ignacio’s bike. He accelerated immediately and they left the clinic behind with a loud shriek.

Lucile heard Ignacio’s voice through her earpiece: We’re splitting up because they’ll definitely try to follow us. You and I are going west through Clovis to Adenau. We need a spot where we can hide afterwards.

“There’s an underground parking garage not far from the airport!” Lucile shouted, barely audible through the wind. “We can escape through a tunnel over there!” She looked back and saw the two gendarmes race to their car.

Lucile had been living in Lodestar City since the 60’s, and she was part of the team that had designed and constructed the entire metro system back when she was still working as an architect during the construction boom. From the layout to the voice of the announcement system, she had her fingers in everything, and the Syndicate owned the system, so they regularly made use of all the secret passages and hideouts.

“Be careful, more cops are coming!” Lucile heard Yūko say. The two gendarmes turned on their siren and followed them directly while ignoring the other Tin Cats that were fleeing in different directions. By the time they had reached the banks and hotels of Clovis, Lodestar City’s business district, two more cop cars had joined them. Twilight had arrived, and it was hard for the passersby to miss the blinking lights, much less the loud siren. Lucile was freezing in the cold air but didn’t dare to let go of Ignacio to properly button up her coat.

We need to get them off our trail before we get close to the airport. Any ideas?

“Go south on Mitterand Street, I want to try something!” Lucile grabbed her bag as they turned left, driving past a small park. Through the trees, Lucile occasionally caught glimpses of buildings that she herself had helped design, but she didn’t have the time to walk down memory lane. Before long, they were going up a curvy, narrow road towards the upper portion of Clovis.

“Be careful, I’m turning around!” Lucile took her laser pistol out of her bag and aimed at the gendarmerie cars closest to them. Her hand was stiff and cold because she hadn’t put her gloves back on, so it was hard to focus on her target. She pulled the trigger, but the shot missed, leaving a glowing spot on the car’s bumper. Lucile kept shooting, until she finally heard the tire pop after the fourth shot. The car swerved to the left and came to a halt, blocking the narrow road in both directions.

“Get us out of here!” Lucile shouted. They turned right and drove back towards the shore on a different road. Far in the distance, Lucile could see the southern lights in the sky north of New Queensland. Rays of colorful light were dancing above the ocean, covering the deep blue horizon like curtains in a theater and reminding her of simpler times.

“Central, this is Mike-49. I’m afraid we lost them. Over,” Superintendent Monteiro mumbled into a speaker.

“Roger. Please proceed with the investigation at your own discretion. Over,” the operator on the other end of the line said.

“Copy that. We will return to the clinic soon. Over and Out.”

The superintendent attached the speaker back to his belt and sighed. There wasn’t much he could do now. The Tin Cats were already on the gendarmerie’s list of wanted organizations for a variety of reasons. Breaking into a clinic was just another point on a long list of grievances. He opened the door to his car and stood up, taking a deep breath in the cold, almost freezing air outside. Then he walked to the car that had been hit by a laser beam while they were pursuing one of the motorcycles, where Constable Wētere was trying to assess the damage.

“How bad is it?” Monteiro asked, hunkering down next to Wētere.

“The tire is done, there’s nothing I can do about that.” The constable shook their head. “We’ll have to push it out of the way.”

“Let me call the roadside assistance service,” Monteiro said and pulled out his phone. He walked back to his car and fished a leaflet out of the glove box.

“Superintendent, you need to see this,” one of his lieutenants said and walked up to Monteiro. She held her fingers against her temple, where Monteiro could see an old-fashioned implant light up. Moments later, the superintendent’s phone vibrated in his hands. He looked at the screen, and his eyes lit up immediately.

“Good job, Lieutenant Zaabu. Send a copy to the precinct right away!”

About an hour later, Lucile was back in the Santa Leda Convention Center, parts of which were used by the Syndicate as their headquarters. Followed by Ignacio, she entered Conference Room 1C, which was in the south-eastern corner of the main building. From here, they had been planning their operation against the cultists ever since Lucile had gotten involved in the Tin Cat’s plan to do something about the Pioneers.

Through the windows, Lucile could see Geleira Bridge and the hotels and casinos of Antro beyond it. Further west, she saw glimpses of Curitiba, which seemed oddly brighter than usual, and the high-rises of Central Lodestar, where she had just managed to outrun the gendarmes.

The others were already looking through the documents that they had managed to find in the clinic while music was coming from a radio on a shelf above Geovana, another Tin Cat with a dark bob cut and a lab coat instead of a jacket. She was sitting at a separate desk full of wires and tools, some of which were connected to one of those devices that they had found in the clinic. Lucile always thought it was odd that she wore a lab coat, since she was an engineer and not a chemist, but nobody else ever seemed to question it, so she just accepted it.

“You’re on the news.” Yūko pointed towards a laptop next to her. “Luckily, it doesn’t seem like they know who you are.”

Lucile dropped the box that she was holding on the table and fell down on one of the chairs next to Yūko. “My legs are killing me, I can’t wait to get some sleep,” she said as she pulled the laptop towards her.

Gendarmes Chase Suspects Involved in Robbery

of a Clinic in Lodestar City

“Why didn’t we just, you know, cooperate with them?” Alexis asked while he browsed through a folder. “It seems pretty clear to me that we’re not the ones kidnapping androids around here.”

“Alexis, buddy, that’s a cute idea, but I’m not cooperating with the pigs,” Lucile said, skimming the article on the screen in front of her. “Either way, it would have been hard to explain why we were the ones they should trust when we had just been caught breaking and entering a clinic. Besides, I doubt they would have let us keep any of the evidence.”

She closed the article and refreshed the homepage of the Westantarctic Gazette to see if there were any updates. A chill ran down her spine when she saw a new headline appear at the top of the page. For a second she towards Curitiba through the window, trying to spot something in the sea of light. Then she tugged at Yūko’s sleeve and saw the android’s eyes widen when she read the headline.

Fire at a Clinic in Central Lodestar City

LODESTAR CITY, JAZ., May 4, 2094 – Officials report that a clinic in the north of Curitiba, a district close to the city center, was set on fire by unknown suspects. Prior to this event, multiple sources reported a break-in at the same building, however, the suspects managed to escape.

Yūko turned to two other Tin Cats in the room. “Machiko, Christopher, get to the clinic immediately! The building is on fire. Don’t wear any of our jackets but try to find out what happened to the people in the basement!”

“Do you think one of those freaks did it after you got away?” Francisco asked.

“It says here that the fire started in the basement,” Yūko said. She opened multiple articles from other news sources and skimmed them to find more information.

“Damn it, we should have made sure they were properly restrained,” Lucile said. They were happy they got away without getting caught, so they had just left the cultists and their victims behind, hoping the gendarmes would draw the right conclusions when they found the unconscious androids and repair them.

“There isn’t much we can do about that for now. We have some photographs and a bunch of documents, maybe we can find something useful here,” Yūko said and pulled some documents out of one of the boxes. “Geovana, have you found anything useful?”

“This code is a mess to say the least.” The Tin Cat in a lab coat sighed. “It would help if they had left some comments, but there’s barely anything here. All I can say for sure is that the software on this adapter is called ‘Anodyne’, that’s about it.”

“I’ll see if I can find anything about it online,” Yūko said. “In the meantime, we should probably get to work.”

Even though she really wanted to sleep, Lucile grabbed a pile of documents and started reading it. Soon, she was trying to make sense of transactions and relatively nondescript agreements, most of which pointed towards sources for the supplies that the Pioneers had received.

“I recognize some of these names. Misautomatist organizations, bigots who rail against androids, those kinds of people.” Alexis raised a sheet of paper. “Here, this guy is the head of a Canadian foundation that campaigns against android rights.”

“Makes sense that people like that would support this,” Lucile replied and yawned before she continued to skim through the documents.

She felt like she was about to pass out when she grabbed a file containing documents related to the clinic’s ownership. Lucile immediately perked up after spotting a familiar logo in the upper right corner of a letter. It was the broken star of Ardor Electronics, a company that used to be an android manufacturer before it shifted its business model to general electronics and other ventures in the early ‘70s.

“That’s curious,” Lucile said. “It says here that they bought this clinic from Ardor.” Nobody in the room reacted in any significant way to what she had said, except for Francisco, who knew exactly why she was so intrigued by that.

“What, really?” He stood up and walked around the table to read the letter. “This might just be a coincidence.”

“She does have her hands in almost everything in this city,” Lucile said, briefly glancing at the slightly faded broken star on the radio. “That reminds me, there was that van in the courtyard behind the clinic. It also belonged to Ardor. At first, I figured it was just a rental, but now...”

There were some other documents attached to the letter, including a purchasing agreement and some banking information. Francisco took one of the pieces of paper and walked towards the door.

“Let me get some of the stuff we were looking into earlier this year, this might be the answer we’ve been waiting for,” he said and left the room.

“Geovana, do you know who made these adapters originally?” Lucile asked, trying to sound nonchalant even though she could feel her mind racing.

“Look inside this one,” Geovana said and reached for something under the table without looking away from the code on her screen. She threw one of the adapters towards Lucile, who almost dropped it while trying to catch it. Lucile opened the device and saw some circuitry and other parts that didn’t seem to belong in something as simple as a safety adapter. She didn’t understand what its purpose was, but it didn’t matter because she had already found what she was looking for: the same broken star of Ardor Electronics engraved on the inside of the casing.

Moments later, Francisco returned with several folders full of receipts, photographs, observation records and more. Together, they combed through all of it, arranging everything on the table. The more connections that Lucile could find between all the numbers and addresses in front of her, the more everything started to make sense to her.

“What exactly have you found?” Alexis asked. By now, everyone had stopped looking through the documents to observe Lucile and Francisco instead.

“Earlier this year, some of us in the Syndicate looked into suspicious activity at Ardor Electronics,” Lucile explained, “There was no pattern to any of it, just a variety of confusing ventures and alarming shipments.” Lucile looked one more time at the banking information they had found in the clinic and put it next to some of the other documents that they had collected over the past year. “It seems like we’ve finally found the missing piece of that puzzle.”

“The CEO of Ardor, you mean Victoria Lansing?” Alexis walked up to them and looked at the amalgamation of paper spread out in front of them. “I’ve seen some of her public speeches. She’s an android as well, and whatever those cultists are doing doesn’t really sound like anything she would support.”

“Wouldn’t be the first time that lying snake preached one thing publicly and supported the complete opposite in private.” Lucile felt more and more agitated as she stared at the evidence they had gathered.

“You know her personally?” Alexis asked and looked up from the documents.

“Let’s just say that we go way back,” Francisco said. “We don’t have any substantial proof yet, but this is a start.”

“I don’t need any proof to know that she’s a horrible person,” Lucile said, “but I would have never expected something like this from her.”

“If we don’t find anything else, then we should treat this as our main lead,” Yūko said and closed her laptop. “We need to stop them before they infect even more androids with whatever this ‘Anodyne’ is, so let’s do our best.”

Once they were done planning their next steps, Lucile left the conference room and wandered the empty halls of the convention center. She came to a halt on a moonlit walkway above the main atrium and turned towards a large window that faced north, where the southern lights were still dancing above the ocean. Lucile knew Victoria Lansing personally. Or at least, she used to know her a long time ago. There was a time when she could have never suspected her of anything like that. But nowadays, she knew that all of Victoria’s wealth was built on lies, deceit and betrayal, so if anyone was capable of doing something like this, it was her.

Still in deep thought, Lucile made her way to her dark and cramped office, collapsing on the chair behind her desk. The southern lights were still dancing in the sky behind her back, but instead of turning around to look at them, Lucile pulled some letters out of a pile to her left. This investigation wasn’t the only thing that should be on her mind right now, and there was a lot of work to do for the upcoming congress. She couldn’t spent all of her time dredging up old grievances.