Wurth got the call at the tail end of a long Friday afternoon. He\u2019d spent the last hour pretending to review a closed file while he watched the clock and decided which bar to visit on the way home, and he\u2019d just gotten up to put on his coat when his partner emerged from the captain\u2019s office.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cHey, Wurth. Cap\u2019n said to see him before you clock out.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cFor fuck\u2019s sake, Cos! You couldn\u2019t wait \u2019til I was out the door?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Cos shrugged.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cWhat, is he running for the boss\u2019 job? We gotta call him AG Pym now?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cYou should go,\u201d she said. And that was all. Seniority had its privileges: Wurth never missed an opportunity to complain, and Cos learned to pick her battles. She didn\u2019t often object, but he didn\u2019t cross her when she did.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Pym was an old-fashioned cop who affected neckties and French tobacco, but he was otherwise a decent enough boss. Wurth found him leaned back in his office chair, smoking a Gitanes and looking down at something in the palm of his hand.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cWurth,\u201d he said, looking up without apparent enthusiasm. \u201cI need your badge and your gun.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cI need to call my union rep?\u201d He wondered if this had something to do with the Kang interview earlier in the day\u2014but Pym wouldn\u2019t have sent him if he hadn\u2019t wanted the man\u2019s cage rattled. The interview had been unproductive, anyway. Cos had already filed a report.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Pym shook his head and beckoned with his free hand. Wurth unholstered the hardware and set it down on Pym\u2019s desk, a little harder than necessary, but the captain didn\u2019t appear to notice. He swept the badge and Wurth\u2019s service revolver into a drawer.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cI needed to collect those, so I could give you this.\u201d He looked down at his hand again, drew on the Gitanes and exhaled a plume of blue smoke. \u201cI\u2019ve been riding this desk close to thirty years. Never seen one of these before.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
He set the thing down on his littered work surface\u2014a jewelry box of glossy gray cardstock\u2014and pushed it across at Wurth, disrupting stacks of paperwork and empty foam coffee cups. Something nested inside on a bed of sculpted polystyrene. A badge, Wurth realized. A shield embossed with a pattern of broken lines and dots representing an idealized circuit diagram. He picked it up, surprised by its heft\u2014a solid hunk of pewter-colored metal with a nacreous sheen that gave off rainbow glints as he turned it over in his hand.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
He set the thing back down, carefully. He\u2019d heard stories of cops getting the call up, of course, but it was always someone\u2019s cousin\u2019s friend, never anyone from your own unit. It was a kind of comforting urban legend, like winning the lottery.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cThis came with it\u2026\u201d Pym was still talking. He laid a snub-nosed Steiner Optics laser pistol down beside the badge, its molded plastic grips glistening black and poisonous. An amber telltale in the receiver winked at him: The gun was still factory-sealed, ready to be coded to his biometric signature. The weapon was military surplus, derived from industrial cutters, miniaturized down to handheld size and able to defeat any personal protective gear on the market, to say nothing of car doors and light-armored vehicles. He had handled one once before, during his SWAT cross-training module.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cIt\u2019s all provisional, of course,\u201d said Pym. He creaked back in his chair. \u201cYou\u2019ll have a whole year to wash out and get your old desk back.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Wurth shook his head. \u201cProvisional\u201d meant specialized training, crash courses in international law and weekend leave on expense account at the finest resorts the Swiss Alps had to offer. The Turing Police Force was not constrained by municipal budgets, or even national ones\u2014they were funded by a consortium of the world\u2019s developed states. Answering to no single government, but empowered by the agreement of all, they were almost above the law.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cJust don\u2019t forget us little people at Christmastime, eh? Change the narrative. Now get outta here.\u201d Pym made a shooing motion and spun his chair around so that his back was turned.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Wurth picked up the badge and the pistol and didn\u2019t look back.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
# # #<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Their day had started like any other in a long, gray series that stretched back for years. Wurth had a decade on the street; Cos had half that, but between the two of them, they\u2019d busted every hustle known to civilization. Mankind\u2019s appetite for prurience and altered states being what it was, a vice cop never lacked for overtime.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
A sudden rainstorm had come pissing down and they\u2019d ducked for cover under a food truck\u2019s collapsible awning to wait it out, sipping foam thimbles of a thick Ethiopian brew like mud. Cos was busily scrolling through a document on her handheld.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cYou have that address?\u201d Wurth took another sip of his coffee, grimaced, threw the cup at the trash can next to the concession window.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cMm-hmm.\u201d Cos didn\u2019t take her eyes off the screen.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cCall us a ride, will you? I think this is starting to let up.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
This time she rolled her eyes, sighed, murmured into the little skin-toned mike adhered to her throat. As the junior partner, she was most often tasked with the minutiae of their daily lives.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Their rideshare arrived a moment later. It was one of the new ones, a nearly featureless teardrop of gleaming smart-metal.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cA real car should have a windshield,\u201d grumbled Wurth.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The car\u2019s door cycled open; its interior offered a bench seat and smelled of industrial air fresheners layered over the stale scent of an old locker room. Wurth motioned Cos to go ahead and sat down next to her. The seat cushion embraced him tentatively, extending pseudopodia about his waist and shoulders.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cAnd real seatbelts!\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Cos gave him a look. \u201cIt\u2019s the future, boss.\u201d The rideshare eased away from the curb and accelerated. Its electric motor ran nearly silent on broadcast power, to Wurth\u2019s mind sounding more like some kind of minor kitchen appliance than a car. Internal combustion was nearly extinct, litigated out of relevance a decade ago.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Cos had put her handheld away, stared forward at the scratched polycarbonate shield protecting the car\u2019s display screen. It was on mute, silently looping an ad for the latest model sexbot. Wurth leaned forward, the seat\u2019s protective tentacles moving with him, and switched it off.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cSo, what do we know about this guy?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Cos closed her eyes, like she was reading notes off a display behind her eyelids\u2014in her contacts, maybe. Wurth had heard that was coming, too.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cTrevor Kang. He\u2019s well-connected. Pym wants us to push him on the donations he\u2019s been getting lately. Big ones.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Wurth shrugged against the seat cushion\u2019s grasp. \u201cSounds like busywork.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cBusywork,\u201d repeated Cos. \u201cYou remember what happened the last time you thought something was busywork\u2014?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
He did remember. Disciplinary hearings were like that. So maybe the word had come down from on high\u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n
He sighed. \u201cFine. I\u2019m on my best behavior. But let\u2019s have lunch first, huh? You feel like sushi?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
# # #<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Cos did not feel like sushi. They stopped instead at another food truck that served curry and rice noodles. The rain had stopped, though the cracks in the crazed asphalt streets still exhaled little plumes of steam. They ate their lunch at one of the folding tables in the lee of the truck. Cos used chopsticks expertly. Wurth ate with a plastic fork and washed away the aftertaste of the coffee with a Tsingtao.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cLittle early, isn\u2019t it?\u201d Cos looked at him sidewise.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Before he could answer they were interrupted by another street vendor, a man in a stained lab coat that had not been white for a very long time. He grinned at them expectantly, plopped a clear plastic baggie down on the tabletop. Two fish circled the cloudy water inside, blinking blue neon.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cBioluminescent, see?\u201d The vendor fished a grimy business card out of his pocket and set it down on the table next to the baggie:<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Dr. Murrow, Veterinarian<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Genetic Tailoring & Custom Upgrades<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cI do all kinds of pet upgrades. Vocal grafts\u2014\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cThat right?\u201d said Wurth. He grinned at Cos. \u201cYou gotta cat at home you wanna talk to?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Cos showed the vet her badge and he ducked and mumbled, swept the fish back into his pocket and hurried away.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Cos shook her head. \u201cThe Feds are still trying to get a handle on CRISPR. I heard they\u2019re going to fund a whole new department. They need to.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cEveryone\u2019s a mad scientist.\u201d Wurth shrugged and took another swig of the Tsingtao.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
#<\/p>\n\n\n\n
After lunch they took another ride to the subject\u2019s address, in a far more upscale section of town. Here the pace of commerce was more sedate, the customers fewer and well-heeled. The address was on the top floor of a midrise office building, near the back. They stepped out of the elevator well into a lobby lined with brass and honed marble, from there into a small formal garden spanned by a walkway of what looked like wooden planks, but probably weren\u2019t.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
A girl in a printed kimono and a broad-brimmed straw hat was combing a little plot of black volcanic gravel with a wooden rake. She looked up at Wurth as he passed, and he caught a glimpse of startled brown eyes in an oval face. He guessed she was no more than eighteen.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cNice-looking girl,\u201d said Cos. She was looking sidewise at him again. \u201cBest behavior, remember?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cWhat? You\u2019re getting paranoid in your maturity, you know that?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Reception was a closet-sized room with an ergonomic standing desk and two chairs in sand-colored suede and stainless steel. Cos went to flash her badge at the receptionist, a tiny Malay girl in a black pantsuit and cravat; with his partner looming over her, she looked doll-like, small as the little groom on a wedding cake. The girl smiled and bobbed her head at Cos and disappeared through the door behind the desk.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Wurth pulled out one of the chairs for Cos and settled into the other with a grunt of surprise. It seemed to fit him perfectly\u2014to his relief, without resort to smart materials.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cHey, we need furniture like this back at the ready room\u2014\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
There was a framed wall-hanging behind the reception desk, and he paused to read the English printing in parentheses below the vertical stripe of Nihongo characters:<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cWalk with a real man one hundred yards and he\u2019ll tell you at least seven lies.\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n \u2014Hagakure<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n He was about to ask Cos what she thought it meant when the receptionist reappeared, still smiling. \u201cMr. Kang will see you now.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n She ushered them into a conference room that mirrored the reception area: minimalist in its design, opulent in its substance. A great slab of polished teak dominated the room, surrounded by more of the stainless steel and suede chairs. Kang was already seated at the head of the table, a trim man in a tailored gray business suit and a white shirt without a tie. He had a mane of black hair, just going silver, and Asian features.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cInspectors Wurth and Cos,\u201d he said. He flashed a brief smile, showing well-kept teeth. \u201cWelcome! I am Kang.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Wurth stared at him. He could not guess the man\u2019s age; he might have been anywhere from forty to sixty.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cKorean,\u201d said Kang, \u201cby way of the Golden Gate.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cI\u2019m sorry?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cYou were wondering what kind of name is Kang. It\u2019s Korean, although my family has lived in the Bay Area for several generations. But doubtless your partner already knew that.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Wurth shook his head. \u201cWell, if it makes any difference, I\u2019m an old-fashioned Anglo. And Cos here is\u2014\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cSpanish and Dutch, if I\u2019m not mistaken. When I became aware that you would be paying me a visit, I had dossiers prepared for both of you. I do my homework just as you do, Inspector.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cBecame aware\u2014?\u201d said Wurth.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The door opened, and the girl in the kimono entered, carrying a tray with a steaming flask and three petite china cups like something from a doll\u2019s tea service. She set the cups out on squares of jade-green ceramic and poured.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cYour health,\u201d said Kang. He sipped from his demitasse.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Wurth was watching the girl leave when Cos dug an elbow into his ribs. Wurth turned to look directly at Kang and said: \u201cShe\u2019s a nice-looking girl. One of the perks of being a guru to the rich and famous?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n He saw then something like anger flash in the depths of Kang\u2019s dark eyes and was obscurely pleased to have needled him. But the expression passed as quickly as it had come.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cShe comes from an old Japanese family. One of the last of the samurai families, in fact. She is my personal secretary\u2026and bodyguard.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cBodyguard,\u201d repeated Wurth. \u201cHow old is she? Eighteen? Twenty?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cThis suite does contain a training hall. Perhaps you would care to try a fall or two? See how the department\u2019s self-defense course fares against traditional jujitsu?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cSmith & Wesson\u2014\u201d said Wurth, and then stopped, conscious of Cos\u2019 fingers digging into his arm.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cI\u2019m sorry, Mr. Kang,\u201d she said. \u201cMy partner is\u2014\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cWell-known for his outspoken demeanor. Yes, I know this, also. It is the reason he has not been promoted further, despite his ability.\u201d Kang waved his hand, dismissing the matter. \u201cBut I did not bring you here to discuss my employees or to teach you the martial arts, as interesting as that might be\u2014\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cJust a minute,\u201d said Wurth.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cPlease, try the tea. It is a really excellent blend.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Cos\u2019 grip on his arm had progressed to the white-knuckled stage, and Wurth shrugged and gulped down the cup. It tasted like tea to him. Better than the Ethiopian brew they\u2019d had that morning, at least.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Kang smiled as if he were very pleased. \u201cNow we can talk,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cI think you are confused about something, Mr. Kang. You didn\u2019t bring us here. And I\u2019ll be the one asking the questions.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cI apologize that I must correct you. But it is really of no consequence how the three of us came to this place. We are all here now. That is what is important. Now, to business\u2014you must have some knowledge of the Turing Mandate?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Wurth stared at him. Kang\u2019s eyes seemed to have become very large, dominating his face. Dominating everything in the room, in fact\u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n With a great effort, Wurth turned his head. Cos was sitting quietly, one hand still on the china teacup. Her chin was resting on her chest, and her eyes were closed. For some reason, this did not concern him.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cInspector Wurth,\u201d said Kang. Wurth turned back to look at him. He could see now that Kang\u2019s suit had been recently pressed, and that his shirt was of very fine-spun cotton, with a high thread count and buttons of hand-carved mother-of-pearl\u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cThe Turing Mandate?\u201d prompted Kang.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cSome high-tech Swiss outfit that babysits AI\u2019s. Keeps \u2019em from getting too smart.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cMulti-national,\u201d said Kang. \u201cBut you are essentially correct. We live in a world of rapidly advancing technology, Detective Wurth. Too rapidly for any one government, no matter how able, to control or even understand. We are at a critical juncture in our history. The new techniques in gene-editing\u2014CRISPR; the ubiquity of broadcast power; and AI\u2026the confluence of these technologies has the potential to upset the order of our existence.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cPreaching to the choir,\u201d said Wurth. His tongue felt thick.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cIndeed. What I have to say should not really surprise you, because you already know it. You are an intelligent man, and an able investigator. Your skills are wasted as a simple detective.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cTell that to Captain Pym.\u201d Wurth smiled dreamily.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cWhat stands in the way of all this? I will tell you something else you already know. It is the Turing Mandate, and their enforcement arm\u2014the one organization in the world that has the resources and authority to act as a brake on these technologies, allowing us to direct their development\u2014\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cVeto power,\u201d said Wurth. \u201cLike the Senate. Only bigger.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Kang\u2019s huge eyes looked momentarily surprised, but the expression passed as quickly as his anger had, earlier. \u201cIndeed. A global stage. You see clearly what is at stake. And that brings me to the reason for your presence here. A man with your abilities\u2014and, frankly, your contempt for authority, a natural catalyst\u2014that is the kind of man we need within the Mandate.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n The eyes grew bigger and yet bigger, until Wurth could see nothing else.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Garick Cooke is a hobbyist writer of speculative fiction, working as a construction estimator during the day. He is a California native, but a long-time resident of Houston, Texas, and a graduate of the University of Houston. In 2021, his first published story,\u00a0“Moon-Eye,”\u00a0appeared in Issue 12 of the e-zine\u00a0Zooscape<\/strong>. (“Moon-Eye”can be read for free on the Zooscape <\/strong>website, or on the Stupefying Stories <\/strong>website,\u00a0where its sequel also appears.)\u00a0Since then, he has had stories accepted to a variety of genre publications, including\u00a0ANVIL: Iron Age Magazine #4<\/strong>,\u00a0Horror Library Vols. 7 & 8<\/strong>, and\u00a0Go West: Frontier Tales<\/strong>. In 2023, his story “Winter Offerings” was a finalist for the Baen Fantasy Adventure Award.\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Wurth got the call at the tail end of a long Friday afternoon. He\u2019d spent…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":64,"featured_media":100042900,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23,3292],"tags":[6,3304,227,3303,3296,3175],"class_list":["post-100042891","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-featured","category-fiction","tag-cyberpunk","tag-detective","tag-fiction","tag-garick-cooke","tag-prose","tag-speculative"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.neondystopia.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/100042891","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.neondystopia.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.neondystopia.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.neondystopia.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/64"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.neondystopia.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=100042891"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.neondystopia.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/100042891\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":100042907,"href":"https:\/\/www.neondystopia.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/100042891\/revisions\/100042907"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.neondystopia.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/100042900"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.neondystopia.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=100042891"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.neondystopia.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=100042891"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.neondystopia.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=100042891"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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