The gun trembled in his hand as he lifted it up and rested the barrel against the side of his head.
“It’ll all be over soon,” he said.
“Think of your mother!” he also said.
Simon Sr. put the handgun into his mouth and paused for just a moment. Loud sobs were leaking out from around the weapon, muffled and strained.
He pulled the trigger. Beth looked away instinctively as the gunshot rang in her ears. When she looked back, the old man was lying dead on the floor, just beside the coffee table where they had found him.
The holographic projection ended, and the Mendez’s apartment faded away until Peter and Beth were standing in the detective’s office again.
Simon
“Simon Mendez, Jr.,” Beth said as she walked into Marcus’s office.
The redhead furrowed his brow. “Pardon?” he asked.
“The son,” Beth explained. “He’s the murderer.”
Marcus had been in the middle of eating his lunch when she entered his office, so he chewed for a moment while he thought.
“The footage from the cat came back?” Marcus asked.
Beth nodded.
“You’re certain it’s the son?” he inquired.
“It looks like it’s him, Gordon,” she replied. “I’m not certain of anything without evidence.”
“You don’t think the footage could pass up as evidence?”
She shook her head. “It’s too flimsy to condemn someone over. Simon Sr. could have been having a mental breakdown, essentially uttering nonsense before taking his own life. It could have been some ploy on part of the mother. We’re not sure, but we do have a lead now.”
“Alright,” Marcus said, taking a long drink from his water bottle. “What do we know about Simon Mendez, Jr.?”
“That’s why I came to you,” Beth said. “I know you have bits of the details and I have pieces of the story, so maybe we can work together to paint a complete picture.”
“Sounds good to me,” Marcus said. He was partially immersed in his implant as he spoke, probably looking for some file on the suspect.
I hope I don’t look like that when I use my cerebral computer, she thought. She decided that she did not, since the information was sensory rather than internal on her end.
“First off, we know he killed himself,” Marcus said, clearly still searching for whatever information he was looking for. “About twelve years go this next week.”
“We’ve discussed that already,” Beth said.
“But have we?” Marcus asked. “We only know that he committed suicide, and we left it at that. Frankly, there’s a lot of nuance behind it, as with any case like this. We need to be asking ourselves why he did it and how it got us here.”
“Fine,” Beth said, feeling a bit impatient with Marcus’s philosophical droning. “Why’d he do it?”
“We’ll start at the beginning, shall we?” her partner replied. “I’ll send you over the documents I have on hand.”
In less than the blink of an eye, Beth could see the documents forming around in her vision. The pieces and articles she didn’t want to look at just yet hung out in the peripherals, while the ones she concentrated on filled up the bulk of her vision.
“Simon, Jr. got himself a bit of a criminal record,” Marcus started. Beth followed along with the police report. “As you can see, he was involved in the manufacture and distribution of narcotics. We’re not sure which role he played in the deal, whether he was selling or cooking, but we have him on record with several counts of trafficking charges.”
“What narcotics?” Beth asked.
“Fog,” Marcus answered. “Or at least, some early form of it.”
“He was involved with Fog over twelve years ago?” Beth asked. “That would be around the time the drug came into circulation in the first place.”
“I know,” Marcus said. “May I continue?”
Beth waved him on with her hand and picked at a bit of the chips on Marcus’s desk.
“So there was some sort of incident in their ‘lab’ or whatever you call it,” the redheaded man continued. “An explosion happened and a fire broke out. Someone died. The police were called and Simon was the only one they found at the scene. He was found guilty, dead to rights, and sentenced to twenty years in prison.”
“And he never ratted on his friends?” Beth asked. “He surely couldn’t have been working by himself.”
“No, he never cooperated with the authorities on that. He may as well been mute during interrogations.”
“Stupid loyalty,” Beth commented.
“I’ll say. And it cost him everything. His freedom, the life of his nephew, and the love of his parents.”
Beth’s eyebrows cocked, asking the question without words.
“That’s right, the person killed in the fire was Simon’s own nephew,” Marcus said.
A news clipping of the tragedy appeared before Beth. A photo of the boy, no more than fifteen, was plastered at the top of the story.
“His parents disowned him after that,” Marcus carried on. “Said he was dead to them and he was never welcome in the Mendez family again. A year later, he hung himself in prison.”
“Jeez,” Beth said, reaching for another bit of chips. Marcus slapped her hand away.
“So he got installed after all that?” Beth asked.
Marcus raised his eyebrow.
“That’s where this is leading to, right? Simon was somehow installed and it’s his I.I. that killed his parents, right?”
“I’m not sure I’d put it in so eloquent of words, but yeah, that’s my theory,” he replied.
“But how’d he get out of prison? Didn’t he still have time to serve?”
“Yes, but legally, his suicide canceled it out,” Marcus explained. “As far as the courts are concerned, a new person is born when an I.I. is installed. The organic human they used to be dies, and they can either live on with their old identity, or don a new one. Whichever one they choose, the law considers a life sentence to be served when the prisoner dies.”
Beth hummed. “Sounds a bit like a loophole, if you ask me. An easy way out of serving your time and shirking your responsibilities,” she said.
“Perhaps,” Marcus replied, “but it’s not a common enough occurrence that anything has been done about it.
