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One

Here I was, slowly cruising along 4th street, just along the edge of the red-light district, when my comp beeps intrusively. I wait as the old microprocessors churn away, slowly pulling down an encrypted message from the Precinct from cyberspace. The entire process takes nearly a second, embarrassingly slow, even my antiquated PC at home can do better. Then again, the Force has never been known for its stellar technology, or a stellar budget for that matter.

Shit

The message is an urgent, pulsing red on the view screen, whatever this is it isn't just some punks stealing old ladies handbags. The message is fully DL'd, now it's waiting for my identification, so like the good dog I am, I give it.

"Sergeant Chamberlain, badge NO. 1612788"

The comp whirrs for a moment, then authorizes me and opens the message. It's just an audio file, but the voice coming from the speakers has a note of urgency in it.

"Car fourteen, shots fired at The Green Martini, please report immediately, address is..."

I blank out the rest, I know exactly where The Green Martini is, I've been patrolling these streets for eight years, and I know every square inch of it. I'll admit, I'm exaggerating slightly, with the way the City has been expanding there's no way I can possibly keep up with all the development. Even here, in the middle of the red-light district, the shittiest, skuzziest part of town, the City grows like cancer.

I flip on my lights and hit the accelerator, grinning like some stupid kid as my stomach shakes hands with my knees. It's slightly unnerving, the lack of engine noise, but that's what you get from these newfangled electric engines. Call me old-school, but I still reminisce of those screaming, dino-burning, V8's. Sure, the electrics actually have more torque, but nothing said power like listening to the throaty growl of the V8 getting down to business. Still, noise or no noise, my cruiser takes off like a cheetah with a rocket strapped to its ass.

The siren wails as cars and trucks and buses and all the miscellaneous other road-goers dive into the right lane to get the hell out my way.

Taking a right on 97th, my tires loose traction for a second, and the outside tires go up in smoke. The car's comp quickly diverts power to the inside rubber, and with a wail the cruiser straightens out and flies down the street.

A couple more stunt-driver turns and I'm there, The Green Martini, a dumpy little place wedged between two neon-speckled skyscrapers.

I take the liberty of handbrake parking the cruiser, cutting off a bus and making a couple pedestrians have near-death experiences. Who said that working with the cops didn't have its perks?

Speaking of perks, I rush out the car looking to all the world like a modern-day cowboy; one hand on my gun, the other pushing past nosy civvies. A few feet ahead a man rushes out to greet me, his name is Brack, and he's the owner of The Green Martini.

"Brack, s'up?"

He shakes his sadly, "Went down in the parking lot, got one of my girls..." And he waves me to follow him into his business.

Don't let the name fool you, while a title like The Green Martini invokes images of corporate bigwigs making the small talk with young attractive women, of atmosphere and suited men, of class and sophistication, nothing could be further from the truth. In reality this joint is actually a sleazy strip-joint, catering to the City's more unusual tastes.

Brack leads me into his little shop of whores (pun intended). Inside is a seedy strip-joint in a seedy part of town with seedy regulars; the room is dark and smoky, suspicious types gather in the corners like some sort of fungi, and every surface is caked in a thin layer of grease and food and sweat and shit. Dead centre is the Pole, where one of Brack's ladies works the crowd.

Wrapping her long legs around the pole she begins her routine, swinging and dipping, you can feel the heat coming off the crowd as they watch. She licks her fingers and places her hand between her legs and growls softly.

Her tail twitches.

Brack runs a Moddie bar, the part-animal kind I mean, not just your usual triple-jointed ladies that you get Downtown. You know, the kitties with titties. Yet, in spite of the stir she's generating, you can tell something's off.

There's a thin stink of anxiety throughout the room; normally this just means a deal's going down in the bathroom, but this is different. Usually you can actually feel the tension thicken the instant a uniform steps into the room, but today's just the opposite. Now as all eyes fall on me there's a sense of relief, an acute dissipation of apprehension.

I must admit, I'm rather honoured by the reception, small as it is. I'm used to sitting down at the bar and having half the room abruptly vacate the premises; Brack is always telling me how bad I am for business.

While I appear to simply follow the owner out back, I covertly scan the crowd for faces. Five Japs are in the far corner, huddled together like scared rabbits. Across from them are a couple of biker-boys, apparently trying to conceal their faces behind thick clouds of stogie fumes. Up front is a trio of suits, still mesmerized by the sexual acrobatics of the Moddie.

The one I really notice is a loner off to my left; dressed in an average joe costume, he's effectively wearing City camouflage. But he's picked up by my internal radar because of a thick ropy scar on his left cheek and the way his eyes boldly track my every step.

A second later I push through the 'Employees Only' door and he's gone, I seriously doubt he'll be around when I start to take names.

I and Brack push through a small corridor filled with Moddies of both sexes, all of them wearing little except frightened expressions on their faces.

My hand tightens reflexively on my gun's butt, it's easy enough to get your wallet stolen in a crowded place, the very last thing I need is to have some fucking fur-bag getting his paws on my piece. Fortunately, we get out of the hallway and push through another door; this one cleverly marked 'Exit Only'.

Again, call me old-school, but I still remember the days when leaving a darkened building and stepping outside burnt your eyes like a nuclear flash. Not anymore, it's all these fucking skyscrapers. The parking lot and adjoining alley aren't much brighter than the inside of The Green Martini.

Everything outside is a various shade of grey, I feel like I've stepped into an old Charlie Chaplin film. In fact, the only colour here is the vivid red of the blood pool further on. Where's that uplifting organ music when you need it?

Brack leads me through the parking lot through a maze a badly parked vehicles. I feel my upper lip curl into a sneer; I parked my cruiser at 60km/h and still managed to park it better than half these bozos.

I don't bother looking for the victim's car, I already know she doesn't have one; our benevolent-ish government managed to get one think right and hasn't allowed fur-bags the right to drive. Thank God for small miracles huh?

Brack stops and points at a blanket-covered figure lying on the cold concrete, even the damn blanket is a dirty grey. My kingdom for some colour.

I sigh and pull out my camera, snapping pics like some morbid paparazzi. The first thing I notice is footprints in the blood pool, size twelve by the looks of it.

"Whose footprints are these?" I ask.

"Mine," says Brack.

"No footprints leading away from the red stuff, mind telling me how you managed that trick?"

"Took my shoes off," he smoothly answers. "Then I changed shoes, I'll get them for you."

And with that he hustles inside, confident that I didn't see the tears in his eyes. I never understood how Brack got so attached to these things, I mean; they aren't even human for Christ's sake. Turning back to the body I take some more pics, making sure to photograph the corpse from all angles. Putting the camera for a moment, I carefully step into the footprints Brack apparently made earlier, trying to disturb the crime scene as little as possible.

It wasn't too long ago that this evidence gathering would be reserved for the CSI's, but nowadays they spend all their time in the lab trying to keep up with the flood of evidence. Now this kind of dirty work is reserved for us beat cops, at least we all got a pay raise for the extra work.

I pull back the blanket and instantly regret that I did. The Moddie is face down; it's definitely a female because of the long painted nails, and her back resembles Swiss cheese. It's hard to tell the exact number of holes because I lose count after thirty.

I'm not fond towards the fur-bags, but even they don't deserve this kind of treatment. Judging by the exit wounds she got hit by high-caliber slugs too, it's now plain as day that this isn't just some attempted rape gone bad; this was a hit. Not a professional hit, no, this was hard, fast, and nasty.

I throw the blanket back over the body and carefully step back, making sure to step in the footprints. Once out of the gory mess I sit down on the trunk of some econobox and take off my shoes, no sense in tracking the victim's blood all over the place.

To get the blood off my shoes I use some of the most high-tech, portable equipment known to man, Kleenex. Don't laugh, those flimsy white strips of paper will absorb just about anything, and they're great for cleaning out the inside of my boots treads.

A few minutes later and you'd never know I'd just been mucking about in a pool of something's life juice.

Rearming myself with my camera, I stroll down to the alley. Obviously our shooter(s) didn't hang around so that someone could spot them; they'd obviously made a quick getaway.

In the alley there is a pair of nice dark skid marks, maybe from someone getting the hell outta Dodge. The marks start out nice, thick and dark with just a hint of cinnamon (okay, I made the last part up, I haven't ingested a coffee in over two hours now) but then trail off. I still remember enough from the forensics refresher course I took a couple months ago to know that these are beautiful specimens of the species acceleration markus. Hunkering down I throw my dignity to the four winds and sniff like a dog; yep, I can still smell the odour of burnt rubber, these babies are fresh.

The marks or rather the vehicle that made them, travel off to my left, the secondary causeway's on that direction so whoever did this is probably halfway cross the City by now. I figure they hit the second causeway because it's a little stretch of American autobahn, a getaway driver's wet dream.

I take multiple shots of the tread marks, including a couple close-ups. Using my pics I can probably get some disk-jockey to pull up the images, scan them, and give me a make and model within an hour.

There's a bang of steel on concrete behind me, I'm pretty sure it's Brack but I spin and put one hand on my gun. Sure enough, it's the big guy himself, though I use that term jokingly.

Brack is five-six and two hundred pounds even, or at least according to the last update on his rap sheet. He's got a head as round and polished as a hubcap which is offset by a massive handlebar mustache. Wearing a black dress shirt and slacks he looks like he's some Downtown splicer. The truth isn't that far off, Brack runs one of the only joint in the red-light district that doesn't require under-the-counter deals to keep in business, no accounting for people's tastes I guess.

He's holding out a pair of dress shoes the same black as his shirt, Brack isn't a handsome guy by any means, but that doesn't stop him from dressing like a movie star.

I take the shoes from him and turn them over. It's hard to see in the dim light and against the black soles, but there's definitely a goodly amount of blood on these wingtips. I snap a few photos of the tread, and then refer back to the shots I'd taken initially of the scene. Sure enough, the patterns match up, but I take a swab of the blood anyway just to be sure.

"Took you a while to get these Brack, not tampering with evidence are you?" I'm only half joking.

"I had to...collect myself."

I grunt noncommittally. "How longs it been since you called it in?"

"'Bout fifteen minutes."

Since the shooting started?"

"No, since you arrived."

"How long total?"

"Oh...bout thirty minutes."

"Thirty? That's quite a stall there Brack."

He sighs, "I'd think that of all people you'd know how it works down here in the District. You don't step out until ten minutes after the shooting's stopped, won't get your head blow off that way."

I grunt noncommittally again.

"Shit Scott, why you busting my chops like this? You know I wouldn't hurt one of my ladies? Hell, I'd gladly take the heat if it meant getting my hands on the fuckers who did this."

He stares at me and I stare right back, neither of us blinking.

"It's my job to ask the questions Brack, you know that. Just because I know you don't mean I ain't gunna ask you questions."

Brack accepts defeat by blinking and looking away, his features crumpling like origami in a crusher as they come to rest upon the blanketed figure.

"I have to ask the hard question Brack, it's my job." I turn to go back inside. "I'll phone for a body-wagon from the car, pick her up."

I'm almost inside when Brack's reedy voice reaches my ears.

"You never asked her name."

I pause, "Does it matter?"

"Matters to me."

I step inside and close the door behind me.