Chapter 11:

Damage Control

Synth;esthesia


     The entry tunnel to the city marked the highest point in the Atlantean Prison. It doubled as an exhaust to deplete and replenish the atmosphere of the sprawled ultra-structure.

The top of the dome sat 1.2 km beneath the ocean surface. From the clear ceiling to ground level, it measured 1.02 km. The runway jutted out of the entry like a peninsula and led to the Aero deck with all the hangars. Like the manned turrets in the tunnel, the hangar is decked with heavily armed sentries.

To control the emission levels in the underwater Mecca, combustion engines are prohibited past the hangar and each citizen is issued a daily emission allowance. This made any carbon emitting commodity the most limited rations.

     "Ah, shit", the detective exasperated as he and Qion stood by the corner where the VIPs were seated. "This mission is cursed big-time, boss man. Nothing but bad juju!" Qion reacted to Lau's mounting frustration. "Nah, this ain't on us, chief. They probably just gave the order to any employee who was close to the site" Lau said as he observed the corpse, he then added, "You go on, lead Anda's body to Lady Maut's lab AND make sure the other one doesn't die."

He watched half his platoon escort the remaining VIP and Anda's corpse down the cargo ramp. Damn, carbon dioxide poisoning, who would've thought, the detective conjectured. He made his way to the ramp and gave the medics on the hangar floor the signal to collect the dead VIP's body. Poor guy was probably ecstatic to get the word directly from The Zenith, was never even briefed where he was going or why and now he's being bagged, the detective thought.

He reached in his coat pocket to roll a cigarette and gave the rest of his platoon the cue to start moving towards the larger cargo elevator that descends to the ground level. They made two rows on either side of the mech and rifle that's being transported on mobile flat-beds. As the detective finished rolling his cigarette he offered it to one of his men who looked to be the most senior among those around him, the man received it and the detective lit it for him.

     "Thanks boss," the heavy-set man's words muffled over the cigarette butt hanging off his lip. "Yeah. Sorry the mission went south—", the detective's words cut short by the man's waving hand. "It's not your fault, boss. All of us agree, too. No one in hell would've thought Mase would go ape-shit." The detective looked at the man and the rest of his team with sincerity.

"Ol' Gus is right, boss!" Said one of Lau's men in the front. "We did well enough to make sure those Mase-sists didn't get a hold of the suspect", said a voice from the other side of the precious cargo. "He was moving too fast for any of us to make a clean shot," Gus said as he offered the rest of the cigarette to Lau who took it. "Who da fook, thinks of dropping a bloody jet on a building?", said the ginger at the back of the line, before continuing "Dat Mase cunt's got a few screws loose to be such a sore loser, aye lads?" 

Lau took a drag before they reached the elevator and asked his team, "fuck that, who shot Big Daddy in the dick?" The men laughed and Gus answered "Qion, boss! It wiped that stupid grin off Big Daddy's face for a second and we all saw it." Lau let the whole team enter the elevator, he saw the smiles on his teams' faces, a stark contrast to the mood in the carrier. They must've hated writing up reports too, he thought as he finished the cigarette before entering the elevator.

     Compared to the last elevator ride the detective took with Anda before. This contraption ran on electric motors that moved it blisteringly fast and its wide windows gave a clear line of sight of the megalopolis. Aquaneo city spread over 500, 281 square km, almost the size of a country from centuries ago. From the elevator, the view of the three districts was what to be expected of the other remaining districts.

A single district covered roughly 50,000 square km and was divided into 100 city blocks. Each city block had a 500m tall minaret, which was the tallest structure besides the hangar and tubular elevator shaft that linked the Aero deck and the ground level. The minaret towered over the other buildings which cascaded off the central monolith. It was the same for each block and when clustered, it looked as if waves of buildings rippled across the city.

The men in the elevator shot jokes and bragged of their sharp shooting as the ground came closer and closer. Qion's voice came to update Lau on the other team's whereabouts, "boss man, we're on the monorail, en route to Geta District. And Fathi Jaq will meet you in his unit yah. There's a bit of a crowd around the elevator, boss." Lau acknowledged Qion's sit-rep and gave his team in the elevator some orders, "prep for mid-range and CQC, guys. No knowing who's got ideas to steal this tech."

     In an instant, they put on their game faces and took out their assault rifles. Gus unholstered his trusty sawn-off shotgun while Lau readied his hands on one of his revolvers. The elevator slowed to a stop and the doors slid open. Sure enough, the crowd was still there but additional wardens were there to clear the path for Lau and his men to Minaret 1 which was about 800m from the elevator.

The crowd whispered and murmured as they scanned the curious materials of the precious cargo. Lau and his men advanced cautiously with their fingers rested on their triggers. Tension buzzed the air as the crowd gazed on the materials that's rumoured even the Zenith couldn't detect. Lau could read the temptation in the eyes of some in the crowd as the team were halfway to the minaret. He readied to unholster his weapon at any moment. Then a large bang rang in the air.

The other wardens traced the sound of the gunshot. It was Gus. He fired two rounds simultaneously in the air to scare off any preempted motives and swiftly reloaded the barrels with fresh slugs from his chest. He then spouted at the top of his lungs "y'all better not be getting any funny ideas now, you hear!" The crowd started to back off as Gus walked ahead of the group and carried on, "yous got a better chance of nicking this stuff from The Custo cause this lot is dying to just lay some lead!" His monologue was long enough for the team to get to Minaret 1's doors unscathed. Gus lets the team and cargo through the door before bowing to the crowd after his performance.

     Lau gave the 'at ease' signal to the men and they disengaged their weapons. Lau then gave a muted applause to Gus who took the situation by the balls. A number of engineers at the other end of the lobby could barely contain their excitement to potentially be the ones behind the new scientific discoveries of exotic materials the precious cargo could be made of. The central elevator doors of the minaret opened and a square-shouldered heavy-built Custo Haris exited. He had his eyes locked on the anti-aircraft rifle that should have never made its way to the mainland.

His engineers followed him diligently towards the centre of the lobby as the Custo picked up the massive anti-aircraft rifle with more effort than he estimated. "The thing weighs like a bitch", Lau said to the Custo. "Fascinating", the Custo said to himself as he investigated the weapon. He slid his finger on the chamber and a never before seen round ejected. The Custo passed the round to his engineer and signalled the other to study the mech in the lab. Custo Haris faced Lau's men in the lobby and said,  "you all did a fine job. . Get some R&R but stay close. The detective and I have some things to discuss before you can consider yourselves free men."

The Custo with the rifle still in hand made his way to the elevator and Detective Lau followed closely behind. He saw Gus gave him the signal he'd be with the engineers. As the detective approached the elevator, he established a connection with Qion. "We're at Minaret 1, Gus is sticking close to the cargo. I'll be with the Custo." Qion replied with an update of the other team's whereabouts "we just got off the monorail, we be heading to Lady Maut's lab at Minaret 917. I be maintaining an open line, boss man."

The elevator doors shut behind the detective and shot up to the top level in no time. The doors open to The Custo's control centre. The top of the minaret had a vantage point that offered a 360° view. Specialized wardens with razor sharp eyes patrolled the balcony outside to oversee the neighbouring blocks. Once an incident is reported from a minaret, the affected block can dispatch its wardens towards the pinpoint location of the incident. A perfect city-wide panopticon system. A design that complemented its infrastructure; orderly and practical.

     The Custo made his way to a large study table and laid the rifle there. So tell me, Lau. What can you tell me about your investigation? Haris asked as he took a seat behind his table.

"During my time with our suspect Anda Rin, my observations tell me he's completely oblivious to the murders," the Detective answered as he took a seat by the table.

"What's the next step of your investigation?"

"I'll be speaking with Mister Fathi Jaq. If data on the identities of the four organics are really deleted, maybe Mister Fathi could recognize the facial reconstruction data on the four."

"You resorting to pure memory for your investigation, detective? That's a long-shot."

"He's the only lead we got. I need to know too from Mister Fathi if Anda had shown any troubling signs that may indicate violent tendencies during his childhood since data of  organics weren't well logged back then."

"Behaviour Sequence Analysis? Little old-fashioned. And if there's no signs?"

"Then we have only the postmortem to lean on. That is if Tavo manages to access his off-world server."

"Hmm. Why do you think the Zenith approved the circulation of an article on Anda titled 'rampaging suspect shoots Harrier jet levelling a city block'?"

"I speculate 'damage control', sir. Understandable to pin Anda as the villain and report his possession of the unsanctioned weapons. 'A hero turned villain'. Sensational but effective."

"Boss man, tell him the big guy you think Mase did everything big time cause if he can't have Anda and the Trevante, then no one can, least of all, us," Qion's voice over the open comms made Lau shift his weight uncharacteristically and Haris noticed.

"We're lucky the mech managed to take most of the impact from the fall. Anda's neural Augs would've been completely destroyed with a fall from that height, that's our only hope to solve the case" Lau continued.

"Hmm. Log 9, towards the end of Entry 2: 'Tavo may know a way to get it out of Anda'. How do you think that's possible?"

"Well, sir. At that time Anda was still alive, so they could've extracted the data through barbaric means if they had him restrained. Precautionary measures cause no telling what kind of 'Anda' would come out at the end of his Reverie simulation."

Haris stood from his seat to face the window hiding his pondered expression from Lau who continued reporting his speculations.

"If he had weapons that could be concealed, a mech sitting in a sub-basement car park and unrecognized augmentations, I'd be careful too with what Anda may have up his sleeve."

"How did no one pick-up the tech Anda had in his possession?" Haris finally breaks his silence.

"Well sir, if he had discovered extraterrestrial materials in the 90 years since the Trevantes cut communications, no data has been recorded of the materials he found in any server so none of us could pick it up," Lau notices Haris is more concerned about the tech instead of the amount of bodies that are tied to Anda.

"Sir, I'm gonna focus my investigation on what the true intention is behind the mount of corpses and leave the unsanctioned tech to Tavo," Lau continued.

"Our focus should be if Anda developed weapons of mass destruction that could be right under our very noses. Go talk to Fathi and if you come up with nothing, drop it and make sure no one interferes with Tavo's postmortem."

"Understood, sir."

Lau excused himself and took the elevator down. On his way out of the minaret, he noticed Gus and a few of his men lounging outside the laboratories where the mech is. He stepped out and headed to the monorail station while rolling a cigarette. He boarded the monorail and knowing he had a long trip ahead of him to Nero district, Lau placed the cigarette behind his ear and went into standby mode.