Identity Theft

The cop shop was a five-story building — it could be that tall, this near the center of the dome — with walls that had once been white, but were now a grimy grayish pink. The front doors were clear alloquartz, same as the overhead dome, and they slid aside as I walked up to them. At the side of the lobby was a long red desk — as if we don't see enough red on Mars — with a map showing the Isidis Planitia basin; New Klondike was a big circle off to one side.

The desk sergeant was a flabby lowbrow named Huxley, whose uniform always seemed a size too small for him. “Hey, Hux,” I said, walking over. “Is Mac in?”

Huxley consulted a monitor, then nodded. “Yeah, he's in, but he don't see just anyone.”

“I'm not just anyone, Hux. I'm the guy who picks up the pieces after you clowns bungle things.”

Huxley frowned, trying to think of a rejoinder. “Yeah, well…” he said, at last.

“Oooh,” I said. “Good one, Hux! Way to put me in my place.”

He narrowed his eyes. “You ain't as funny as you think you are, Lomax,” he said.

“Of course I'm not,” I said. “Nobody could be that funny. I nodded at the secured inner door. “Going to buzz me through?”

“Only to be rid of you,” said Huxley. So pleased was he with the wit of this remark that he repeated it: “Only to be rid of you.”

Huxley reached below the counter, and the inner door — an unmarked black panel — slid aside. I pantomimed tipping a nonexistent hat at Hux, and headed into the station proper. I then walked down the corridor to McCrae's office; the door was open, so I rapped my knuckles against the plastic jamb.

“Lomax!” he said, looking up. “Decided to turn yourself in?”

“Very funny, Mac,” I said. “You and Hux should go on the road together.”

He snorted. “What can I do for you, Alex?”

Mac was a skinny biological, with shaggy orange eyebrows shielding his blue eyes. “I'm looking for a guy named Joshua Wilkins.”

Mac had a strong Scottish brogue — so strong, I figured it must be an affectation. “Ah, yes,” he said.

“Who's your client? The wife?”

I nodded.

“A bonnie lass,” he said.

“That she is,” I said. “Anyway, you tried to find her husband, this Wilkins…”

“We looked around, yeah,” said Mac. “He's a transfer, you knew that?”

I nodded.

“Well,” Mac said, “she gave us the plans for his new face — precise measurements, and all that. We've been feeding all the video made by public security cameras through facial-recognition software. So far, no luck.”

I smiled. That's about as far as Mac's detective work normally went: things he could do without hauling his bony ass out from behind his desk. “How much of New Klondike do they cover now?” I asked.

“It's down to sixty percent of the public areas,” said Mac. People kept smashing the cameras, and the city didn't have the time or money to replace them.

“You'll let me know if you find anything?”

Mac drew his shaggy eyebrows together. “You know the privacy laws, Alex. I can't divulge what the security cameras see.”

I reached into my pocket, pulled out a fifty-solar coin, and flipped it. It went up rapidly, but came down in what still seemed like slow motion to me, even after all these years on Mars; Mac didn't require any special reflexes to catch it in midair. “Of course,” he said, “I suppose we could make an exception…”

“Thanks. You're a credit to law-enforcement officials everywhere.”

He snorted again, then: “Say, what kind of heat you packing these days? You still carrying that old Smith Wesson?”

“I've got a license,” I said, narrowing my eyes.

“Oh, I know, I know. But be careful, eh? The times, they are a-changin'. Bullets aren't much use against a transfer, and there are getting to be more of those each day.”

I nodded. “So I've heard. How do you guys handle them?”

“Until recently, as little as possible,” said Mac. “Turning a blind eye, and all that.”

“Saves getting up,” I said.

Mac didn't take offense. “Exactly. But let me show you something.” We left his office, went further down the corridor and entered another room. He pointed to a device on the table. “Just arrived from Earth,” he said. “The latest thing.”

It was a wide, flat disk, maybe half a meter in diameter, and five centimeters thick. There were a pair of U-shaped handgrips attached to the edge, opposite each other. “What is it?” I asked.

“A broadband disrupter,” he said. He picked it up and held it in front of himself, like a gladiator's shield.

“It discharges an oscillating multifrequency electromagnetic pulse. From a distance of four meters or less, it will completely fry the artificial brain of a transfer — killing it as effectively as a bullet kills a human.”

“I don't plan on killing anyone,” I said.

“That's what you said the last time.”

Ouch. Still, maybe he had a point. “I don't suppose you have a spare one I can borrow?”

Mac laughed. “Are you kidding? This is the only one we've got so far.”

“Well, then,” I said, heading for the door, “I guess I'd better be careful.”

* * *