Charles Stross - Rule 34

“This never happens,” you say as you drop into the driver’s seat and throw Anwar Hussein’s home address at the car’s autopilot.

“Never give an honest cop a clean lead?” Kemal pulls his door shut and belts up.

“Yes, that. We’ll end up breaking up a kid’s birthday party or something. Just you see.” You stab your finger on the blues button, and the light bar starts strobing. The car beeps at you impatiently to put your seat belt on: As soon as you click it into place, the engine turns over, and the car spins in a tight U-turn, then floors the accelerator. With the blue lights flashing, the safety governor is off and the BMW’s autopilot is a better driver than you’ll ever be. It howls along Causewayside, swerving around startled jay-walkers, takes the Cameron Toll roundabout with siren blaring and tyres screeching, then launches itself towards Gilmerton like a guided missile. As the moving map homes in on the destination, you kill the siren and lights with one shaking finger. It’s like running into a wall of marshmallows: The autopilot brakes so hard you’re thrown against the seat belt as it drops back below the speed limit.

“Was that strictly necessary?”

“I really hope not.” Getting the speeding tickets rescinded is a royal pain in the arse if you can’t show due cause. As the car slows and turns into a side street, your specs show you a stack of records hanging over one particular house. It’s not a particularly posh manor, being one element of an English-style terrace row, but it’s got a garden of sorts and three stories and a Velux window up top: You wouldn’t have pegged this particular rodent as being the kind to afford an actual manse of his own, especially after the proceeds of crime inquiry, but appearances can be deceptive. And you’re certainly not in routine working territory, the big sinkhole estates like Craigmillar or Granton, much less the inner-city night-life battle zones.

The car stops. You get on the line to the control room. “DI Kavanaugh and Inspector Aslan here. We’ve got an intelligence lead to Hussein, Anwar”—you drop in his tag—“and are on-site attempting to gain entry to his residence. Stand-by backup request, over and hold.” You keep the connection open.

You get out and walk up the pavement to the front door with the red geomarker twirling over it. Kemal is right behind you. “I think something is not right,” he says quietly. You follow his finger to the front door. It’s ajar.

Someone screams inside, a shriek of inarticulate terror. It only lasts a second before it’s cut off sharply.

Kemal is past you in a hurry as you hit the phone again: “Backup now! Violent incident in progress!” Then you’re after him as he shoulderbarges the door and charges up the stairs. There’s a moment of confusion as you take in the scene—living room off to one side, kitchen off to another, staircase in front, Kemal’s legs punching the treads—then Kemal is coming back down the stairs, arse over tit, tumbling loosely. You shout “ police! ” as someone else comes down with him, lands boot first on top of Kemal, and launches himself at you.

You brace for the impact, fists raised—he’s a big man, vaguely familiar from your lifelog video as you held the door, leaving Appleton Tower— bingo —you try to block but he can outreach you and he’s swinging a wheelie-bag in one hand. He knocks you head first into the kitchen. Things are vague: You try to get your hands up and someone is nagging something in your ear about backup but the door is open and the man is gone.

You gasp for breath for a few seconds, then get back online. “Control, we have an incident. Violent offender, 195, hundred kilos, carrying a suitcase. Attacked two officers, fleeing the scene.” Whatever the scene is. You push yourself up and stumble into the hall. Your head aches painfully. Kemal is lying limp at the bottom of the stairs. “Ambulance needed on scene, officer down.” You lean over him long enough to confirm he’s breathing, then take the stairs.

“Target is the man on the staircase?” asks Control.

“Who else?” You bite back an impolite suggestion. That’s why I was sending you my real-time video feed, idiot. “I’m searching the scene. Pass it to airborne, unable to maintain hot pursuit on foot right now.” Read: Kemal is stirring but won’t be chasing anyone for the next few days, and as for yourself, you feel like you’ve been kicked in the head.

“Roger, calling airborne assets now,” says Control. “Backup arriving by car, estimated two minutes away.”

You hear something from up the next flight of stairs. Panting, you climb them and find Anwar lying on the floor. There’s something yellow in his mouth, and he’s turning blue. Writhing. You realize his hands and feet are tied: the yellow thing—he’s choking on it. For the next double-handful of seconds, you’re busy kneeling down and tugging at it frantically. When it comes free he gasps for breath in deep whooping intakes of breath. His eyes are rolling. You drop the yellow rubber duck and watch as it expands, then look around. You see bedroom doors to either side, a trapdoor with a ladder coming down from the ceiling, and a noose dangling in the solitary sunbeam that slants through the trap and puddles on the perennial victim, lying panting on the floor.

The last handful of dominoes click into place on the board.

You dive down the staircase just as Kemal is sitting up, holding his head. “Don’t go anywhere. I’ve called an ambulance.”

“Don’t need—” He sounds vague.

You hold up a hand. “How many fingers?” He squints at you. “Ambulance, Kemal. Understand?”

He nods, then winces. “Is Hussein—”

“Still alive.” Not for much longer if we hadn’t hurried. It’s a very strange feeling, and a rare one, to know you’ve just directly saved someone’s life: almost counterbalanced by the gnawing fear that by not giving hot pursuit, you may have let a murderer slip through your fingers. You hit the phone again. “Control, Kavanaugh here. The absconder in Gilmerton is on foot and dangerous. Provisional identification as alias John Christie, real name unknown. He may be armed, and he’s wanted for murder and attempted murder, repeat, murder and attempted murder.” He was going to hang Anwar. Fake a suicide. Wasn’t he? The MO is different from MacDonald, but Christie clearly isn’t a regular spree killer. He has no history: He’s like a nightmare that stepped out of nowhere, just as the BABYLON killings began. Which is yet another coincidence to consider at length. Is he here to tie up loose ends, or is he a loose end in his own right? “Cross-reference to the Appleton Tower murder: This is probably the same perp.”

“Control here, please hold.” Blue FLASH alerts begin to scroll up your CopSpace log, going out to every soul on the police net within a couple of kilometres. Seconds later, you hear sirens in the distance. “I’m proceeding with that, Inspector. Is there a warrant?”

“Real-time response.” The paper-work mountain that’s about to hit you would cause your desk to collapse if it wasn’t entirely digital. You begin to climb the stairs to the second floor: “We have an ABH and attempted murder victim here; please confirm second ambulance.”

Hussein is sitting up, leaning against the wall beside an open bedroom door. There are children’s toys scattered on the floor, an unmade bed. His eyes are half-closed. After a moment, you clock that he’s weeping quietly.

You squat down in front of him. “Mr. Hussein. Anwar.” He shows no sign of noticing, which is probably no surprise: Probably in shock, you figure. You bring up the check-list, tell your specs to run a body-temperature scan, but he’s not looking particularly cold, and his respiration’s within spitting distance of normal. “Can you talk to me?”