Detective Johannes was inspecting the report on one Robert Trappe, 22, Male. The man was an engineer for a certain big corp, and a big shot among his crew. The corporation turned in a missing person signal, after he didn't come in for 24 hours. Seemed like they were right at the brink of a breakthrough in some project. It was typical corporate stuff, and according to Johannes, senseless. He wasn't alone on this case, the corp made the whole department work together, expecting throwing numbers at the problem to solve it quickly.
The office was the definition of clutter. There were workstations crammed into every spot that wasn't just piles of blinking data banks, a centralised cooling mechanism, that weird thing that was department AI analytics server, and even a food and bevarage dispenser, which was empty as per usual.
"Hey Frank, check this out," a colleague called. Johannes stopped chatting with the AI to take a look from the distance too.
"David, if this isn't important I'll beat you up, I'm serious," Frank said.
"It is, this time," David sounded serious.
"The hell? The fuck is this shit," Frank exclaimed. Johannes moved over to the two, leaning on their shoulders to look at the holo. He clicked his tongue.
"What do you two perverts act surprised about," he asked, "it's not like your purchase history's clean either."
Frank and David had a look like they ate a rotten egg, but Johannes had seniority. They switched to being professional.
"Boss, it's not the items, it's the numbers. That's top of the line parts, and nobody needs that many," David explained.
"You're forgetting something, boys. Unless?" Johannes said.
"Unless you're a damned factory. He's either making something on the side and selling, or it's more likely he does something else with them, but I ain't sure what," was the answer.
"Men, your job is to find out. Good luck, I have work to do," Johannes said.
"Sure thing, boss," they said with reproachful eyes.
He returned to looking over Trappe's info, as it might contain a clue on what he was building. If nothing came out of it, he'd look the old fashioned way.
Which he ended up doing. Trappe's bedroom was a mess of diagrams and posters of mechanical parts, a number of haphazardly thrown around manuals; an android in a state of disrepair on the bed. A colleague was setting up for a snapshot of the scene.
Johannes soaked in more details, as he waited.
“It's weird,” the colleague commented. “For such a celebrated corporate lapdog, there's a surprising lack of motivational writing.”
Johannes' sight snapped around, suddenly conscious of the fact. “They said he brings his work home a lot. Then again, lot of people do.”
The technical drawings on the wall were all of a female android head. Various cross sections alongside with pure concept art of an attractive young woman. She had a somewhat solemn expression in all of them.
“I bet having fun with femdrones is part of the job description, heheh. Makes me wonder if he was trying to disassemble the head with a hammer,” the holographer commented.
“Doesn't look like it. Everything ready," the detective urged.
“Sure thing. Starting scan now. Wait a couple of seconds,” the holographer said.
Johannes snapped his fingers, turning the lights off. The tech started up the scan sequence. The room was lit in a range of monochrome light, starting from infrared, all the way across the spectrum to invisible UVs. The final part turned the insides of the bedroom into their negative colours. The split second image held a discrepancy. The negative of the android seemed to be complete, flawless.
Johannes suddenly had an epiphany, muttering: “We've been set up. Grab this thing and check every serial number. I'll go talk to the Chief.”
The Chief's office was decorated old style with wooden pannels everywhere, all smooth and reflective. It was so obvious he was into Noir and old enough for it that nobody really noticed out of pure spite for it. It was of course all minimal, with the pannels hiding all modern convenience. The Chief probably knew what the detecive was here for the moment he saw him enter the building. The old man waved the holo away to make room for Johannes and shot words straight at him:
"Don't pursue this further. We'll just say he disappeared and be done with this," the Chief said.
"Chief, if we don't pursue this further, we'll just get the usual pay," Johannes protested. Actually, he was getting curious about this case. He felt there was something deeper.
"The usual pay is good. We have a loyal client with strict requirements. Don't get creative on me here, and you'll have a loyal superior, get it?" Chief looked rather stiff. Johannes smelled this conspiracy was somewhat unusual. He decided to poke a bit.
"Fine, but ain't it just the usual transfer? I mean the guy was just sold off along with his debts to rot somewhere else. According to procedure, we trace him to an "unknown competitor", snitch to the usual channels, generate the hype with influencers, and get points with the Ministry. That's what we usually do," Johannes reminded.
"Are you probing me, Detective? Fine, I'll bite, but then you drop it, and get back to work. We have a murder case nobody wanted with a deadline tomorrow. Take that shift," Chief made his bid and Johannes nodded.
The Chief then started singing:
"It's not the usual. Trappe is dead, corporate had a problem with him. Seems like he was getting out of their grip, planning something. What that was nobody knows, except himself and those involved. Tiamat's sweeping this one, and you know what that means, right?" Chief said, tapping his finger.
"Got it. I'll wrap the case up and take a whiff in the breakroom. I have a long shift ahead of me tonight, after all. Godspeed, Chief," Johannes said, waving goodbye at the door.
When it slid shut on the other side, his expression turned vicious, thinking Dead my ass, this thing smells like a gourmet dinner served to somebody you hate. There's something I need at Evidence first, though.
He would get to the bottom of this, even if it took away his life.
