Impulse Control

Hands in the pockets of her trench coat, she surveyed the scene and said nothing as she did so. Sokoth scratched his chin with three fingers and grunted his so-far observations. "They made a mess," he said, "But they didn't take anything so far as we can tell."

"They took a man's life," Dawson corrected, not turning to the sergeant but probably imagining his dirty look.

"We pulled the inventory files," Sokoth went on. He slapped Brandt's chest and muttered, "Show her the files."

Brandt approached and offered her the datapad they were stored on. Dawson took it and scrolled through the contents quickly, stopping only twice before handing it back.

"They stole something that wasn't kept in the system."

Sokoth didn't try to hide his surprise. "Any idea what?"

Shrugging, Dawson scanned the room a final time. "If I had to take a guess, I'd say probably orichalcum."

"What?" the seargeant sputtered. "Nowhere in San Francisco is zoned for that kind of industrial process!"

"Which explains why it wouldn't be in the system," Dawson went on. "But the materials are all here, as is the equipment. Also explains why the insurance policy on the building was so high."

"Drek..." Sokoth muttered. He was a mutterer, sergeant Sokoth. "When the corporate court finds out they were synthesizing orichalcum without a permit I'm going to have auditors on my back by the pack of them! Hey, who owns this place anyway, Brandt? Tell me it's not one of ours!"

Dawson started walking out of the lab with Brandt and Sokoth in tow. She stopped at the desk to look some more at the dead accountant. They'd cut open his throat and left him to die on the floor.

"But that's not the only reason they came here," Dawson went on, inclining her head towards the body. "Notice anything odd about this murder, sergeant?"

"I'll admit," Sokoth said testily, "I suspect foul play. What do you want me to say, Dawson? The man's dead! Drek, his throat is open wider than his mouth."

Using both hands to push the tail of her trench coat back, Dawson slowly lowered to a squatting position to look at the body more closely. This revealed the gun holstered on her hip, a hand-cannon railgun. State of the art, not to be on the market for another few years yet.

"So it is," she concurred. "So where's his blood?"

Sokoth started. "What?" he sputtered. He was a sputterer, sergeant Sokoth.

"A wound like that typically leads to massive blood loss," Dawson pointed out.

"Usually about all of it," Brandt said.

"So where did it go?" she asked again, pointing to the cheap tiled floor around him. It was spattered with a few flecks of bloody spittle here and there, but Dawson was right--there should have been a puddle of a diameter twice the size of the man's body. Instead there was nothing.

"You're saying they... stole his blood?" Sokoth marveled in obvious disgust.

"As surely as they stole his orichalcum," she concluded, standing up and making her way out of the lab back under the tape.

"How am I supposed to track orichalcum that isn't on the record?" Sokoth complained. He was a complainer, sergeant Sokoth.

"You said that man was an accountant?" Dawson asked. "Try to find out who he worked for before this and send me the data. I wouldn't bother with the orichalcum for now, if it stays in the city it'll turn up sooner or later."

Back outside, Dawson looked up at some of the apartments towering around the Applied Reactions lab building. Sergeant Sokoth was too preoccupied to follow Dawson's gaze but Brandt saw that her eyes soon settled on a window with its tint fully darkened.

"You check the surrounding buildings?" she asked.

"Why would we do that?" Sokoth said dismissively. "The murder was in here with the burglary!"

"Never mind," Dawson replied. "I'll contact you when I know more. Get me the info on that accountant, anything you can dig up."

"Will do, detective," Brandt put forth, pulling out his commpad to start the process. Dawson put her hands back in her pockets. Rather than walk back towards her sleek black Firebird, she started walking along the street towards the north side of the apartment building, looking for an entrance.

Brandt watched her go with a small sense of awe. The woman's investigative abilities were even more remarkable than her sense of style.

"Hey, answer my question!" Sergeant Sokoth said loudly. "Who owns this place, Brandt? I want to know what I'm in for."

Brandt looked down and checked his gathered notes. "Says here they're a branch of Espirit industries, based out of France."

"And who do they work for?" Sokoth pressed. It was, to be fair, a legitimate question.

"Near as I can tell," Brandt said, squinting, "They're currently a subsidiary of Aztechnology."

"Great!" Sokoth rumbled. "Just the perfect thing to help me sleep! You may as well get me another soykaf, Brandt!"

= = =

Dawson walked along the dark street with both her eyes and her ears open. The scene in Applied Reactions was far from the goriest she'd witnessed, let alone unraveled, but it looked to be in the shadow of something bigger. And it was hard to get much bigger than unlicensed orichalcum. There was big money in chemistry and big money tended to attract all kinds looking to turn a profit.

The apartment building across the street from the lab was like a thousand others Dawson had seen since coming to San Francisco back in '61, the main distinguishing feature being that this one hadn't fallen over... At least not yet. It didn't appear as if it needed much convincing to get started. As she started climbing the stairs she heard the telltale signs of slots being opened in doors as people peeked out to see who was creeping around. Her heavy boots made echoing noises on the faded, dirty concrete but she could still hear the quiet whirr of cameras swiveling on their posts in corners or above doors, watching as she walked by on her way to the room she'd identified from the ground. She wondered if it would be worth it to find out who owned this building, but who would admit to owning such an eyesore? Anyway it was probably off the record, like a thousand other buildings had been since the Imperial Marines had made themselves at home.

Stopping at the door, Dawson reached slowly for the handle to test the lock before noticing that it had been burned out, indicating that someone had already hacked it, then just closed the door behind them after going in. Looking left and right down the hallway to confirm she was alone, Dawson drew her railgun and flicked the safety off before quietly opening the door with her free hand.

The interior was dark, lit only in part by what was now coming in through the hallway. The standard run-down rathole nine stories up with a good view of the only thing a person would see for their entire life. There was some furniture but it looked to have been around since the days of the occupation and nobody cared enough to redecorate.

But there was a small cluster of green, pink and blue lights blinking in the otherwise total darkness, right beside the window frame that had been tinted so deeply as to stand out. The rectangle of illumination from the hallway didn't reach far enough into the room to make it to the window, so before going in further Dawson reached into her coat and pulled out her flashlight. The beam it provided when clicked on had been intentionally dulled so as to not be blinding, instead revealing details slowly and gradually. She pointed it towards the window alongside her gun.

The room looked no better for having greater clarity but it did let her see the woman slumped beside the window with her back to the wall. She was an elf, and by the look of her outfit a member of the Ancients, if the stylized "A" on her sleeveless top was any indication. She looked young but with the stopwatch complex in play she could have been born in the 2010s and her body wouldn't show it.

The implants in her head looked modern though, marking her as a decker in case the solid visor over her eyes didn't. One side of her skull was shaved and a pair of ports, one circular and one square, were installed in her shaved skin. The other side of her head had a mess of silky green-and-white hair that looked long enough to be flipped onto the opposite side if she had the mood for it.

In the circular port was a cable, jacked into her cybernetically augmented brain and trailing down over the shaved side of her face, into her lap and then shortly after to a current-generation deck set on the floor beside her.

Dawson approached, seemingly unnoticed. Once she was close she squatted down and examined the decker: the elf's breathing came in short, shallow gasps that probably weren't providing sufficient oxygen to her body. Sweat beaded every visible part of her skin and soaked through her shirt in the center between her breasts and under her arms. Before the detective's eyes, the elf's fingers twitched as if reaching for where the cable was connected to the deck.

Shifting her gaze down to the deck, Dawson suddenly caught the scent of burning plastic. Against what she knew was probably her better judgement she reached up to the elf's head and, taking hold of the cable in her skull, pulled sharply. The plug came free with a small shower of visible sparks and the elf took in a sudden deep breath, body convulsing once as her motion control was restored.

"Take it easy," Dawson said softly. The elf's hand flew up to the visor and flipped it on top of her head to rest in her hair, revealing cool melon-green eyes rimmed with exhaustion. Her chest began heaving at once and Dawson set down her flashlight to reach into her coat to pull free a small chrome flask. Keeping her gun drawn, she bit the cap of the flask and pulled it off, offering it to the hyperventilating elf. Rather than object or show suspicion the elf accepted it immediately, allowing Dawson to tip the flask's contents into her mouth and throat.

She coughed once and then swallowed, working her tongue in her cheeks afterward. What was that? she mouthed.

"Water," Dawson informed her. "You've been sweating, from the looks of it, for quite a while. That thing you were jacked into smells like it's been melting for the last few hours. You're probably dehydrated and I need you to be able to talk. Get some air."

The elf seemed to relax just a little, swallowing audibly a few times as Dawson looked her over for injuries. When those melon-green eyes finally opened up again and settled on her, Dawson spoke.

"You might be under arrest so only say something you think won't incriminate you." She held up her gun and lifted her brows as if to ask Understand?

The elf gave Dawson an appraising look of her own and slowly nodded.

"Good. Earlier tonight someone across the street at Applied Reactions was killed, and whoever killed him took a bunch of orichalcum that they weren't supposed to have."

As Dawson spoke the decker's eyes followed the motions of her lips carefully but she offered no comment. Never say anything if you don't have anything to add.

"That's the street perspective of this crime," Dawson went on, "You've got the apartment side of things. I'm trying to avoid asking pointed questions so you can answer without sounding guilty. How long have you been up here? You won't convince me this is where you live--the tech in your head alone tells me you demand better, even if you can't afford it."

Taking another deep breath, the elf finally spoke. Her voice was high and smooth, suggesting she was probably of the genuinely younger variety of elvenkind. Those who hadn't yet been battered into cynical diatribes that would make an ork sergeant blush.

"Five hours, forty four minutes and counting."

"And how long has your deck been melting?"

Gritting her teeth, the elf answered at a lower volume. "Four hours and fifty-eight minutes."

Dawson thought for a moment. "Did someone double-cross you? Leave you here to die?"

No answer was forthcoming so Dawson raised her free hand in apology. "Wrong way to ask. If I hadn't come along, what would you have done?"

Looking away in obvious shame, the elf muttered. "I was forty-five seconds from my cranial web being compromised. The heat feedback would have killed me in seconds after that."

Dawson raised her brows at that. "Good thing I didn't stop for that soykaf on the way here."

"Thanks," the elf spat, making it sound more like a curse than anything else. "More kindness than I'd ever expect from a human."

Pointing at the decker's shirt, Dawson asked "Been in the Ancients long?"

"What's it to you?" was the terse reply. Dawson shrugged as if it was barely anything at all.

"Wondering where your gang-mates are. Wondering if one of them set you up."

Pursing her lips, the elf opened her mouth a few times to start talking but couldn't seem to decide on what to say. Finally she settled on, "They don't know I'm here."

"Not wise to run the shadows without people you trust backing you up," Dawson chided.

"Am I under arrest?" the decker said through gritted teeth. Dawson afforded her a small smile.

"I haven't decided yet. It might be arrest, in which case sergeant Sokoth on the street downstairs is going to want to spit donuts at you for the next twenty-eight hours straight before someone in a suit shows up to shoot you in the back of the head and rule it a suicide, it might just be extra-judicial protective custody where I do my damndest to make sure your suicide is at least as suspicious as possible."

Against her will, against her learned racial prejudices, against her suspicious nature as a decker and a ganger and a criminal... the corners of the elf's mouth curled up in a wry smile.

"I get the impression I don't just get to walk away."

"Someone tried to kill you," Dawson said, "And when you go on to be not dead, do you think they won't try again? Not usually how this sort of thing works."

"And how are you gonna to protect me?" the decker asked. In reply Dawson lifted again the gun in her hand, drawing the elf's melon-green gaze.

"But there are better methods," Dawson admitted. "Such as: out of sight, out of mind."

Standing up, Dawson checked the derelict bathroom and under the decaying mattress for any possible stray evidence while the decker collected herself. She regarded her half-melted board with a mix of relief, irritation and confusion.

Dawson watched her for a moment and then asked what she did not believe was a pointed question. "Is it bad?"

The elf looked at her and then back to the destroyed piece of tech in her hands.

"Worse than I realize," she admitted softly.

= = =

Dawson bade the elf to hide out of sight behind a burnt-out garbage can while she pulled the firebird around. She half-expected her to be gone by the time she returned but she seemed to understand the gravity of her situation or at least least how limited her options were.

When the firebird stopped and the passenger gull-wing door opened up, the elf looked into it with obvious surprise. She'd probably never been in a car before, let alone one as nice as Dawson's.

"Well?" the detective asked. "You're invited, get in."

Looking down at herself, the decker started to try to rub some of the filth from the seat of her pants that had stuck to her when she'd slid down the wall onto the apartment floor, as well as tapping her shoes on the curb.

"It's fine," Dawson told her, failing to suppress a smile. "Get in, before someone sees you."

= = =

Dawson's qualifications made it legal for her to tint the windows of her vehicles past the point where anyone could see into them, which was useful for moving sensitive targets. The ballistic-resistant glass and energy-diffusing metal body of the firebird also added a sense of well-being that otherwise wouldn't have been present.

"You must get paid well to be able to buy something like this," the decker said, somewhere between envious and impressed.

"Not quite," Dawson confessed. "The firebird was a parting gift from my old employers at Knight Errant. They own General Motors, you know."

The elf cast a nervous glance in Dawson's direction. "Yeah? What did you do for them?"

"Shot people," Dawson said casually. "A lot of them. Mostly imperial marines."

Upon hearing that the woman's expression changed into one of interest. "Here, in San Francisco? You fought against Saito, the Protectorate-General?"

"I pulled a trigger for a paycheck," Dawson corrected, and a moment later realized she'd said it more harshly than she'd intended. She looked to her right at the elf, saw her interest in what she was saying and tried to button up what she'd been saying.

"By some odd chances I just happened to be better at it than most of the people I was doing it with. Nothing more."

"So you never found the cause?" the decker questioned. "You never cared what the protectorates were doing to metahumans?"

Dawnson worked her mouth while her eyes watched the road ahead. "Not at first," she said. "By the end I think I did. We all... bleed the same, when we're shot. I saw enough of that to last me a lifetime."

The elf continued to watch her in silence for a full minute.

"What's your name?" Dawson eventually asked.

"My handle is Hollowheart," the woman said. Dawson scoffed.

"I asked your name, not what your avatar is called. You do have a name, right?"

Obviously annoyed, the elf pursed her lips in thought for a moment, either trying to decide to share it or just trying to remember it.

"Alenia," she said eventually. "And don't ask for my family name."

"I wasn't going to," Dawson said. "I'm assuming the Ancients are your family. If you go back to them, will they protect you? Will they be able to?"

Alenia hesitated in answering. "They'd try... I don't think they can."

"Help me get to the bottom of this and I'll be as lenient as I can be."

Looking at her with a cross expression, the elf asked "And how lenient is that?"

"Depends," Dawson replied. "Did you kill anyone?"

"No!" Alenia denied. After a moment she regained her composure and cleared her throat to talk again. "No. I was only there to access the building's security remotely through a backdoor they told me was present. I shut off the cameras and disabled the alarm circuits so no one would respond right away."

"Sounds standard enough," Dawson speculated. "When did it go wrong?"

"When I tried to exit the system through the same backdoor. Countermeasures appeared where there hadn't been any before and torched my deck before I could evade. The feedback would have burned a hole in my skull if you hadn't come along.

"Don't mention it. You think someone set you up?"

"I know they did," Alenia said savagely. "Someone must have remotely disabled the IC when they knew I was coming in to cut the cameras and alarms, then turned it back on right afterward so it would kill me."

"Nobody would ever have connected you to the murder," Dawson said. "You would have sat in that apartment for weeks before anyone found you."

The elf was slow to answer. "I know. I knew it, the whole time I was sitting up there after my deck burned up. I thought I was gonna die, and worse I thought I was gonna die for just twelve-hundred nuyen."

"That little?" Dawson asked. "I used to make that in two days of guard duty."

Admitting freely her shame, Alenia asked "The job where you shot people?"

"Yeah, that one," Dawson replied. "And no one ever paid me and then shot me in the back, either. Perhaps the one good thing I could say about it."

"Maybe I should change careers," Alenia said in a mocking tone, affecting a deepening of her voice to make it sound more similar to Dawson's. Dawson couldn't help laughing, and despite her obvious attempt to annoy the detective, Alenia couldn't help but smile as well.

"What I do isn't any safer. And the pay is barely better. If we were smart we'd both get into the soykaf market."