The Ugly Secrets
"Private detective," just doesn't seem to fit me. I don't wear a Fedora. Hell, I won't put on a hat unless it's snowing hard and then I bust out this old cowboy hat my baby cousin insisted on giving me. He said it made me look like Annie Oakley.
The fact he knew who that was made happy, and made me think my brother isn't such an asshole after all.
Not even the most crooked augmenter would do something like this. Her eyes were glazed and she was filthy, starved and pale. She was catatonic, staring off into space, twitching occasionally triggered by something I couldn't perceive.
The parents weren't the usual upper-class types who were trying to get a bad augmentation out of a rebellious child; throwing money away on a stupid implant that gave everyone cat faces or anime emotions in their vision. They were cleanly dressed, but not flashy. The mother was in the scrubs of a healthcare professional, and the father in the heavy fabrics of a construction worker.
"What happened?" I asked, before asking if they had money. I wasn't a hospital. Paying gigs were good, but sometimes you had to admit that an account of favors could be more valuable.
"She's been gone a week. She came home this morning." The father had that clipped tone of a veteran.
"She's dehydrated, it looks like she walked without shoes.." the nurse mother said. They were both the stoic sort, they kept it together.
"How far, do you think?" I asked as pressed the security key pad into the back room.
"Far." She said.
I pulled a piece of sterile plastic from a role and put over the cot on the far side. "Put her down here," I opened one of the cold cabinets and pulled out a bag of fluid. "Hold this," I told the mother.
I tapped the vein in the right arm in the crook of the little girls elbow. Her veins were buried deep in her pale, thin arms, like worms that had learned about birds. The nurse knew her business and grabbed an IV tube, readying the bag by first shaking the bubbles out and then pressing the saline down through the tube making sure all the air bubbles were out of it.
We started the drip together and I put a blanket over the child.
"So." I said when I was sure the girl was stable. "What do you know?"
...
Amanda Lydecker disappeared a week ago. She arrived on her parents doorstep, her mother was home from a swing shift in an emergency room at Union Memorial. They lived on University Parkway, in one of the row houses across the street from a brick apartment building. Elizabeth Lydecker, the mother, had called Vladamir Lydecker and he had left a construction site, drove 19 blocks north realized he was lost and then drove 8 blocks south to my office in Mt. Vernon.
Amanda was an A student at a small religious school walking distance from her parents house. She was a very smart child, skipping a grade at the Calvert Academy and had already won a grant for college from a science project about the impact of belief on physical pain.
I read her study in smart glass as I rode down town on the bus. It was intense work, consisting of a survey of 50,000 senior citizens nation wide. Her father had earned a neuroscience degree in the Ukraine, but the university was destroyed in twenty-teens and there was no transcript. He met Elizabeth two years after he came to the United States, and he had endured her brutal hours in nursing school and the years of night shifts and months of seeing each other for an hour a day.
They offered me six thousand dollars to take their case.
"What case?" I said. Amanda was home. She was in bad shape, and who knew what it would take to get her back to normal, but that's not a case. She was kidnapped, sure, but what else was there? I brought all this up and more.
"Tell her," Elizabeth said, nudging Vladimir. He shook his head vigorously.
"No, really, I need more than just 'figure this out with no leads,'" I said.
"Are we secure?" Vladimir asked.
I put my finger to my lips, and walked over the Owl Box. It was a handy piece of equipment. I turned it on and engaged all channels and internet service providers. You could feel it in your teeth. In your molars and your fillings. Nothing was getting out of the room.
"The Church of Pain." Vladimir said.
"What?" I said.
"It's real." He said.
"Bullshit." I said. The techno-paranoia of anti-augmentation groups was out of control.
They would often cite dangerous groups, like First Church of the Cyborg who were so boring and moderate it was absurd that the Church of Pain, a group so mysterious that no one had ever met a member so everyone could be accused of being one.
"It's true. They... are from the old country. Church of Pain, that's...just a bad translation. They just called themselves 'the Faith.'"
"Okay, so, they're real. They took her? And did all that to her? I mean, your wife said it looked professional, no infection, clean connections. Nothing physically wrong with her."
"Yes.. but.. you see she is unwell. You... know the cybernetics but..." Vladimir said.
"They ... put things inside her." Elizabeth said.
"They raped her." I said.
"No... no.. they...the implants... the made her... like it..." Elizabeth started crying.
"You have to download her sensory data," Vladimir said. "It's all there, but it's... to much for us to look at. It's our baby girl." Vladimir said.
It's a cold feeling. The need to make something right. The cold you see... is the realization that it is indeed winter for someone. And you know, in your heart and your bones and your knuckles that if you get it just right.
If you find all the pieces.
If you get all the players.
If you find all the bad guys.
You can turn someone's very long winter into spring.
"Just cover my expenses?"
They both nodded.
I know a thing or two more about most things than everyone. I'm a licensed private investigator, yeah. I'm also SYSCO certified, I hold a bachelor's in biology, an associates in sociology and I'm an EMT. Before you ask, I did all that mostly at the same time.
I have trouble sleeping.
It was probably the EMT part that brought parents to my door at three fifteen in the afternoon, a pale child in their arms. They weren't crying, but they moved with purpose.
It was urgent.
In the back room I had my own bio-studio. I had no implants myself, but people would often get the implants and then not take care of them, getting infections which lead to malfunctions and pain. Or worse, they would get shit implants and needed them removed. Get a RFID at a discount and it turns out now someone can talk to them in their head against their will.
I have trouble sleeping.
It was probably the EMT part that brought parents to my door at three fifteen in the afternoon, a pale child in their arms. They weren't crying, but they moved with purpose.
It was urgent.
In the back room I had my own bio-studio. I had no implants myself, but people would often get the implants and then not take care of them, getting infections which lead to malfunctions and pain. Or worse, they would get shit implants and needed them removed. Get a RFID at a discount and it turns out now someone can talk to them in their head against their will.
But this was different.
Not even the most crooked augmenter would do something like this. Her eyes were glazed and she was filthy, starved and pale. She was catatonic, staring off into space, twitching occasionally triggered by something I couldn't perceive.
The parents weren't the usual upper-class types who were trying to get a bad augmentation out of a rebellious child; throwing money away on a stupid implant that gave everyone cat faces or anime emotions in their vision. They were cleanly dressed, but not flashy. The mother was in the scrubs of a healthcare professional, and the father in the heavy fabrics of a construction worker.
"What happened?" I asked, before asking if they had money. I wasn't a hospital. Paying gigs were good, but sometimes you had to admit that an account of favors could be more valuable.
"She's been gone a week. She came home this morning." The father had that clipped tone of a veteran.
"She's dehydrated, it looks like she walked without shoes.." the nurse mother said. They were both the stoic sort, they kept it together.
"How far, do you think?" I asked as pressed the security key pad into the back room.
"Far." She said.
I pulled a piece of sterile plastic from a role and put over the cot on the far side. "Put her down here," I opened one of the cold cabinets and pulled out a bag of fluid. "Hold this," I told the mother.
I tapped the vein in the right arm in the crook of the little girls elbow. Her veins were buried deep in her pale, thin arms, like worms that had learned about birds. The nurse knew her business and grabbed an IV tube, readying the bag by first shaking the bubbles out and then pressing the saline down through the tube making sure all the air bubbles were out of it.
We started the drip together and I put a blanket over the child.
"So." I said when I was sure the girl was stable. "What do you know?"
...
Amanda Lydecker disappeared a week ago. She arrived on her parents doorstep, her mother was home from a swing shift in an emergency room at Union Memorial. They lived on University Parkway, in one of the row houses across the street from a brick apartment building. Elizabeth Lydecker, the mother, had called Vladamir Lydecker and he had left a construction site, drove 19 blocks north realized he was lost and then drove 8 blocks south to my office in Mt. Vernon.
Amanda was an A student at a small religious school walking distance from her parents house. She was a very smart child, skipping a grade at the Calvert Academy and had already won a grant for college from a science project about the impact of belief on physical pain.
I read her study in smart glass as I rode down town on the bus. It was intense work, consisting of a survey of 50,000 senior citizens nation wide. Her father had earned a neuroscience degree in the Ukraine, but the university was destroyed in twenty-teens and there was no transcript. He met Elizabeth two years after he came to the United States, and he had endured her brutal hours in nursing school and the years of night shifts and months of seeing each other for an hour a day.
They offered me six thousand dollars to take their case.
"What case?" I said. Amanda was home. She was in bad shape, and who knew what it would take to get her back to normal, but that's not a case. She was kidnapped, sure, but what else was there? I brought all this up and more.
"Tell her," Elizabeth said, nudging Vladimir. He shook his head vigorously.
"No, really, I need more than just 'figure this out with no leads,'" I said.
"Are we secure?" Vladimir asked.
I put my finger to my lips, and walked over the Owl Box. It was a handy piece of equipment. I turned it on and engaged all channels and internet service providers. You could feel it in your teeth. In your molars and your fillings. Nothing was getting out of the room.
"The Church of Pain." Vladimir said.
"What?" I said.
"It's real." He said.
"Bullshit." I said. The techno-paranoia of anti-augmentation groups was out of control.
They would often cite dangerous groups, like First Church of the Cyborg who were so boring and moderate it was absurd that the Church of Pain, a group so mysterious that no one had ever met a member so everyone could be accused of being one.
"It's true. They... are from the old country. Church of Pain, that's...just a bad translation. They just called themselves 'the Faith.'"
"Okay, so, they're real. They took her? And did all that to her? I mean, your wife said it looked professional, no infection, clean connections. Nothing physically wrong with her."
"Yes.. but.. you see she is unwell. You... know the cybernetics but..." Vladimir said.
"They ... put things inside her." Elizabeth said.
"They raped her." I said.
"No... no.. they...the implants... the made her... like it..." Elizabeth started crying.
"You have to download her sensory data," Vladimir said. "It's all there, but it's... to much for us to look at. It's our baby girl." Vladimir said.
It's a cold feeling. The need to make something right. The cold you see... is the realization that it is indeed winter for someone. And you know, in your heart and your bones and your knuckles that if you get it just right.
If you find all the pieces.
If you get all the players.
If you find all the bad guys.
You can turn someone's very long winter into spring.
"Just cover my expenses?"
They both nodded.
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