“Such as?”
“A machine with a soul, perhaps. I haven’t seen many Blue-eyes working in the Force these days.” He placed a hand on the roof of the car and hoisted himself up. He might have a point, but I wouldn’t give him the satisfaction of hearing me say so. “Be seeing you, Constable.”
I could have retorted, but then he’d have kept talking. I watched him enter the station, probably to tell Robins all about the massacre and how it was “being handled” by the FBI. As laughable as the statement was, Robins would have to keep a straight face so that the real investigation could continue away from the Black Hats’ prying eyes. After Masters had disappeared into the precinct, I kicked the Talbot to life and rolled into the street.
FBI, Automatics, cop killings. They were usually few and far between, but when odd things did start to happen, they always piled on top of one another. The first thing I had to do was run that serial number I’d gotten, but I couldn’t do it at a police station. I’d have cuffs on me the second I walked into any other precinct besides the 5th. There was only one other place where I could run this number.
Maybe they’d be more helpful. Or at least complacent.
CHAPTER 4
MY DESTINATION WASN’T TOO FAR AWAY, though it took longer than it should have to drive there, what with the traffic that congested the streets day in and day out. You could see it from anywhere in the Lower City. Hell, you could see it from the mainland on some days.
To call the monstrosity that was the GE a “building” almost seemed disrespectful of the engineering that had been required to build it. The square footage of the building encompassed more city blocks than many believed necessary. But it had to be big, since it was the central Control Point for the entire Plate and, therefore, for the Upper City. Looking upward, I could see the massive slab of metal moving downward several dozen meters. Small mechanical spokes acted like fingers as the Plate crawled down the building. The snowfall was late this season, and so the Plate had only now started moving to prepare for the onslaught of snow. If the Plate stayed up as high as it was usually, the sheer weight of the snow would cause mechanical issues. Some regarded this building as a lighthouse for those of less desirable status, bringing money back down to the workers and taxpayers who dwelt alongside me. However, others said it was a wall that blocked them from the sun and from the rich spaces and luscious opportunities of the Upper City, and that corroded the thin line of tolerance drawn between man and machine. After all, GE was the heart of the Automatic market, eclipsing even Detroit.
Beside the main building was a tall structure about half its height: a parkade, one of the largest ever built, for all the people who came to work for GE each day. Parking in there would be inconvenient, though, so I decided to use the executive parking lot, a small gated lot at street level. Both the size and security of the lot could be explained by the fact that not many executives wanted to be caught dead in the Lower City — and I had to agree. This wasn’t a place for bigwigs. I opened my glovebox and removed a large aluminum plate that gave me the right to commandeer a spot, placed it on the dash, and exited my car to approach the building on foot. Hopefully if any guards came by to check up on the cars in the lot, they wouldn’t look too closely at the numbers on the aluminum plate. One of the security guards patrolling the area spotted me. I flashed my badge, and he gave a nod and let me be. The guard’s head was encased in a thick helmet designed to deflect rifle rounds and a similarly thick coating of Kevlar and body armour. I just hoped that the guard was human. GE was the last company in the Lower City that still employed Blue-eyes, so it was possible it could be a bulletproof machine under all that armour.
The lawn in front of the main door of the factory was a dozen meters from the street, with grass that was green and luscious despite the lack of direct sunlight. With the money the company made, it seemed they could afford honest-to-God UV. Night-shift workers were exiting through the main door in the opposite direction to me, going off to scrounge up some street meat during their ten-minute break before returning to their twelve-hour day. GE always touted their dedication to the working class, even going so far as to allow the assembly-line workers to use the building’s main entrance, which made them feel more human. And those underpaid slaves needed all the respect they could get.
I crossed under the massive arch of the doorway, whose rustic stonework was peeling away, and a silver and white gleam from the interior shone onto my face. In this area, the old-fashioned and modern architecture of wood and stone had been pushed aside to make way for the steel and white of the Upper City. The foyer of GE felt like the interior of a spaceship from one of those outrageous movies and was a marvel to look at, let alone stand in.
The reception centre sat under a triplet of magnificent statues each more than thirty feet high. The first figure was the CEO of GE, great leader of the Automatic industry and owner of the Upper City J.D. Rockefeller. To the right of his
