Charles Stross - Rule 34

You are not stupid: You aren’t carrying anything illegal on your person—it’s all in your head. Even your fall-guy phone is only guilty of behaving in a shifty manner. So you do not attempt to flee. Instead, you do as the uniformed gentleman requests and meekly step into the front hall to help him with his enquiries, whereupon you realize that something is very wrong indeed because the walls and ceiling and floor are covered in clear plastic anticontamination sheets, and there’s a scene of crime officer in a bunny suit coming down the stairs. “Will a driving license do?” you ask the cop.

You can see him giving you the quick up and down with his glasses, which is an oh-shit moment. “What’s your name?” he asks.

“John, John Christie,” you volunteer, reaching for your wallet. “Is Mike here? Is there some kind of problem?” You force an expression of worried concern, a little apprehension. Under the circumstances, it comes easily enough.

“A driving license will do. Pass it here, please.” You fumble the card and slide it towards him. Most of the John Christie ID is loaded in your phone, from microcredits to bank accounts—it’s very solid. “Why are you here?”

“I was hoping to see… Mike…” You slow your spiel as if uncertain, even though any fool can tell that something has gone seriously non-linear here. You make an effort to memorize the dibble’s name-plate: PC BROWN, presumably working for INSPECTOR SCARLET of Rainbow Division. Just your luck you aren’t wearing a lifelogger, or you could stand on your rights a little harder—but no, that might not be a good idea. Every instinct is telling you to disengage. Mike’s obviously in big trouble, which means you won’t be hiring him—that’s for sure. You need to get clear before the cops start focussing on you. A factoid pops out of the Mike Blair file and screams for your attention, and you instantly realize it’s a good one. “He said to drop by if I was ever in Edinburgh.”

PC Brown turns your driving license over in his hand, and you can see some flickering in his glasses. He’s got a contactless reader, online to the DVLA database and then back to CopSpace once they’ve authenticated it. The photograph matches, and the license is genuine. He glances back at you and twitches his head, superimposing a head-up ghost image beside your face. Then he hands the card back. “Where did you meet Mr… ?”

“Mike? It was at the Admiral Duncan, in London, about six months ago. Or maybe eight? Or was it after Pride? Anyway, we, er… got to know each other quite well.” You clear your throat. “It’s personal. He invited me to drop round if I was ever in Edinburgh, and I’m here for the next week on business, and I was hoping he didn’t have anything else on for the weekend. Is something wrong?”

Brown’s expression morphs through a whole sequence of emotions as you give him the Big Lie, backed up by some telegraphic wiggling of eyebrows and seasoned with just the tiniest bit of camp. You have not, in fact, ever met Mike (and you hope to hell he’s lying dead in an autopsy room so he can’t contradict you); even if you had, you wouldn’t want to fuck him. On the other hand, the Operation’s files went into quite a lot of detail on the subject of his personal life, and getting off with him after a Pride march in what has long been one of the biggest knocking shops in London is entirely plausible. The Scottish Polis get all red-faced and sweaty at the merest suggestion of locker-room homophobia: It’s amusing to watch the cop switch from investigating-person-of-interest mode to dealing with bereaved significant other in the space of a sentence. (It works even better if there is some latent locker-room homophobia, so you’re careful to lean just a little too close and hold the eye contact a second too long.)

“Is something wrong?” you ask, feigning worry, as he begins to open his mouth. And you know that, really, nothing is wrong. If you were neurotypical and going up against the speech stress analysis he’s watching in his fancy-pants glasses, you’d be in deep doo-doo, getting flustered from all the falsehoods: But you’re not, and the cops’ sexy tech passes the handicap to their side when they get to deal with the likes of you. It’s only if they get you in front of a psych with a PCL-R check-list that you’ve got to start worrying.

“Mr. Christie, John, I’m really sorry.” He takes a deep breath. “Would you like to sit down?” He’s all solicitude, waving you into the spotless kitchen (which is interestingly bereft of forensic turds). “I’m very sorry, but—”

“Oh God,” you say, shoving the “distraught” slider all the way up to eleven. “He’s been in an accident, hasn’t he?”

There’s another cop coming down the staircase, and they’re going into full-on sit-down-and-have-a-cup-of-tea mode, as if they expect you to go into shock. “What makes you think there’s been an accident?” asks Brown, but it’s just a residual autonomic cop reflex—he’s already bought your spiel on outline.

“Mike’s big on water sports,” you say off-hand, then make to look horrified. “Oh God. What’s happened?”

“I’m really sorry.” PC Brown looks sideways at the newcomer, DET SGT GREEN. ( Yeah, right, you think.) “Um. There’s been a, a fatality, sir. We’re still trying to ascertain the precise nature of events.” Which means it wasn’t an accident. “I’m sorry to intrude on your grief, sir. But if you don’t mind, I’d like to take a saliva sample.” They’ve already got your fingerprint biometrics off the driving license: This means they’re serious about logging identities.

You nod shakily. “Sure. Oh God.” You hunch up a little and do the weepy thing—not too much of it, you don’t want to ham it up and tip them off. “I can’t believe it.” Which is entirely true. Mikey’s dossier said he’s never been involved in anything serious enough to warrant a hit—that was one of the reasons you were going to interview him. Walking in on a homicide investigation is classic dumb bad luck. Your immediate task is to stop it graduating into a classic fuck-up, which is best done by cooperating with the cops for the time being. There are forms you can serve later to get “John Christie’s” DNA taken off the database once they figure out that he’s an innocent bystander, then you can retire the ID with a “do not recycle” flag.

Brown produces a sample tube and a cotton swab, and invites you to say “Aaagh,” which you do with alacrity. After which it’s all tea and sympathy, minus the tea, and “we’re terribly sorry, you’re free to go, sir,” after they get you to repeat in front of their specs that you haven’t seen Mike for at least half a year. And why should you not be free to go? “John Christie” is simply a contact whose state-issued biometric ID checks out, who has donated a DNA sample for the investigation, and who is at best an embarrassing distraction from the job in hand.

You leave by the front door and pedal very slowly, being careful to wobble for the cameras until you’re out of sight of the house. There’s been a fatality. Hence all the plastic sheeting and the DNA swab dance routine. We’re still trying to ascertain the precise nature of events. Which means it wasn’t an accident: Accidents don’t call for a detective sergeant to cover the site. Something has gone seriously fucking wrong here, and it looks like you may need to abort the operation, close up shop, and leave town on the schedule you just fed the Polis.

But first, you’ve got a fall-back option.

You bicycle away from the former abode of Michael Blair, your mood very dark. Somehow, all the fun has been sucked out of this venture before it even got started. Number One Client had the supreme bad taste to get himself whacked at a maximally inconvenient time. You’ve still got a job of work to do, but the hotel lost your luggage, and on top of that you’ve got the added vexation of falling within the penumbra of police sousveillance (which will take some work to get disentangled from when it’s time to leave).