David Gatewood - The Robot Chronicles

A knocked-over chair lay beside him. Vicky raised her head. A conduit pipe ran along the ceiling just above where the body lay.

The obvious explanation was that Reinhold had tried to commit suicide, the rope had somehow untied from the conduit, and he had crashed to the floor—but not before he’d strangled to death, unfortunately. Or fortunately, depending on how much he’d wanted to die.

Or perhaps his neck had broken—that was often the cause of death from hangings. But from the angle of the body, Vicky guessed not.

She moved into the room for a closer look. Bishop came up behind her, and she glanced sideways at him. His face was impassive. She continued her inspection.

Reinhold was dressed similar to Bishop, in a black one-piece suit, but with a violet insignia on his shoulder indicating he was a member of the Council. He was tall, slightly plump, with pink skin, and auburn hair brushed back from a wide forehead. It was impossible to tell his age, but from the little she knew about him, he had to be over a hundred.

She walked around the body. The man’s arms rested on his chest, his hands fixed in a rictus of claws. She crouched down to peer closer; the nails on both hands were broken as though he’d scrabbled at the wire, but she could see no sign of skin tissue under the nails. So—not so much as if he’d put up a fight, but rather as if, at the last moment, he’d changed his mind and decided that death by hanging was a really bad idea.

“I need my medic,” she said over her shoulder to Bishop.

“Not possible, but I’ll get one of the Tower medics to assist you.”

Vicky wasn’t happy about that. Why the hell didn’t they want her team in on this?

Well, that was an easy one—because they didn’t want more people in on what had happened here. But why was that? Fewer people to bribe, perhaps? But if that was the case, Bishop would have to be involved. And for some reason she hated that idea.

It occurred to her that maybe she was in danger. She hadn’t taken the comm seriously, but they’d presented both a carrot and a stick. While they’d dangled the carrot outright, they’d merely hinted at the stick. Yet she suspected they could pretty much do anything they liked.

Was it too late to walk away?

But she wanted to solve this case.

More than she’d ever wanted to solve a case before.

How dare they try to bribe her? She hated that she couldn’t dismiss the idea from her mind. She’d wanted The Pioneer for so long. God, she was tempted, and she hated that as well.

She straightened and turned to Bishop. “I’ll need to talk to anyone who was working in the building. Can you set me up an interview room?”

“That won’t be necessary.”

She faced him down. “You might be assisting on this case, Chief Bishop, but I say what’s necessary, and I want to interview everyone who was working tonight.”

Something that might have been amusement—if he’d been human and capable of amusement—flashed across Bishop’s face. So he found her funny, did he?

“Other than the Council, there are no humans living or working in the Tower. And of the Council, only Reinhold was in the building tonight. We scanned for life forms as soon as the body was discovered.”

“Oh.” The building was huge. “So who runs this place?”

“All functions are performed by robotics.”

“Everything? Cleaning? Security?”

Bishop nodded.

Years ago, androids had been manufactured to do most of the menial jobs, replacing humans in those positions. Jobs that those in the decision-making process had deemed people would rather not have to do. In theory, it sounded like a good idea. In practice, it had almost resulted in anarchy and rebellion. The truth was, the majority of people wanted to work. People without meaningful employment looked around for other things to do—usually things that involved causing trouble. And how else could they live when the robots had taken their very livelihoods from them?

So the androids had been withdrawn. Certain functions were still performed by robots, of course, but only those jobs that were so dangerous, no human wanted to do them. Apart from them, the only androids in public life were the Stewards, who were exclusively found in the higher-level decision-making jobs, where their superior ethical decisions could result in a better world.

See, she’d read the propaganda.

But obviously in the Tower, those rules did not apply. It made her wonder which other rules were being broken.

“Okay, then I’d like access to surveillance recordings.”

“That I can do. And there is one person for you to interview.”

“There is?”

“Mallory Granger.”

Her eyes narrowed. “The reporter? Why the hell would I want to interview her?” The woman was an interfering bitch who would do anything to make a story more interesting. Her coverage of Vicky’s last case had not been complimentary.

“She found the body.”

“A reporter found the body? Inside the Tower?” Well, at least that explained how the media had gotten hold of the story so quickly. She would wager Mallory had called her friends before she had called the police.

“Yes.”

“And what was she doing inside the Tower?”

“Apparently, she’d been invited here by Reinhold.” Bishop nodded toward the body. “That’s all I know right now. No one has questioned her further. We were waiting for you.”

“Sweet.” Or not. This whole case was starting to stink worse than a rotting corpse in July.

Why the hell would one of the Council invite a reporter—a notoriously biased reporter at that—to the Tower? And just as he was about to kill himself?

Damned if she knew.

Maybe it was time to talk to Mallory.

Mallory was ensconced in a nearby office, smaller than Reinhold’s but comfortable. Two men stood on either side of the door, dressed in security uniforms though they carried no weapons. Inside, the room contained a desk, chair, and a small sofa. Mallory sat in the corner of the sofa, legs crossed, one foot tapping on the tiled floor.

“Ms. Granger,” Vicky said. She dragged the chair from behind the desk and set it at right angles to the other woman. Sitting down, she studied her.

“Am I allowed to go?” Mallory asked. “I happen to be at the center of the biggest story of my career and they’ve taken my fucking comm unit.”

“Not before you made a few calls, I’m sure.”

“I’m a reporter—I report. At least I do when I get the chance. Instead, I’m stuck in here and neither of these two morons will say a word.”

She’d probably been trying to flirt with them. It was the way Mallory worked, how she got information from people, and probably second nature. It wasn’t going to help her this time.

“They’re droids,” Vicky said.

Mallory’s eyes widened and it occurred to Vicky that perhaps she shouldn’t have mentioned that to a reporter. Then the woman’s brows drew together. “How do you know?”

“My superior detective skills. We’re trained to be observant.” Actually, she wasn’t sure there was any way to tell by observing. Any way to tell at all without taking them apart. But it sounded somewhat more impressive than revealing that Bishop had told her that all the employees in the Tower were robots.

Mallory tapped the armrest with a manicured finger. “Yeah, right. So can we move this along? I need to be out of here.”

“Ms. Granger, you’re the nearest thing we have to a witness to a possible homicide,” Vicky said gently. “You aren’t going anywhere for a while.” Relaxing back in her chair, she thought about what her first question should be, decided to keep it open. “Tell me what happened here tonight.”