“I’m not saying what I did was right, Allen. I’m saying that sometimes you have to do what you need to do, not what you should do.” I took another swig, thankful that I’d saved it. “Besides, I don’t see you reprimanding the guy with the Typewriter in the Packard.” I smirked. Allen didn’t. Humour, right. “But you’re right … I could have killed someone. Someone innocent.”
“You could have killed four civilians with reckless firing of your illegal firearm. Instigating the shoot-out also could have caused severe injury and property damage from those criminals firing shotguns in a civilian centre. I can see why you are no longer officially part of the police force.”
That one stung. It was right, but it still hurt. I was getting reckless. Too reckless. That must have been why Robins had assigned Allen to me. It was there to keep me from blowing my lid and getting my name on the FBI’s Most Wanted list. Or, maybe to ensure that I couldn’t be tied back to Robins. After all, if they dug deep enough — and they wouldn’t have to go far, thanks to the metal man next to me — they’d find many illicit dealings between the commissioner and me.
A few minutes of silence followed, and more hair of the dog. The hooch was good, dulling me. But why couldn’t I shake this uncomfortable feeling, like I’d shaken so many others?
Because Allen was right. I’d gotten too reckless. I’d put too many people in danger, myself included. I probably would have gotten my old partners killed if they’d stuck around me after I threw their asses out. Allen sounded like a recruit, listing all his concerns straight from the book. Shit, Allen sounded like I had back when I’d joined up at the 5th almost a decade ago. I hadn’t been much different from the machine when I’d first gotten my badge. Seeing it from an outside perspective, it really did look a lot worse than I’d thought. I’d been teetering on an edge I hadn’t even noticed. Maybe Allen was my safety harness. But all harnesses eventually wore out. What had happened to turn me into such a piece of shit? Had the city gotten to me? Or …
No, I definitely knew what had pushed me over the edge, but of all things, I didn’t need to think about that right now. I hoped to God, or whatever it was up there, that Allen wouldn’t experience what I had. Or what any of us at the 5th had experienced. The ghost that had sent me off the deep end could very well have been the same machine that Morris and Belik had Red-eyed to shoot up the speakeasy. If it was, if I saw it again, would I even be able to pull the trigger?
Allen was different. The fact that I was able to scare Allen — not programmed scared, but human scared — was another point in its favour supporting the claim that it wasn’t just a machine. It was also an indication that my personality was so godawful I could frighten almost any form of life, even artificial.
Allen didn’t look at or acknowledge me for a long time, perhaps out of respect, allowing me to reflect on my own mistakes. Or perhaps out of fear. But finally it said, “Tell me, Detective, what engagements did you take part in during the War?”
“Excuse me?” That was a question I hadn’t been prepared for.
“You mentioned at the diner that you were in an engagement during the War. I was curious about what you did.”
I sat up and combed through all the memories I had hidden away. Nothing like a bloody trip down memory lane. “I was part of the Cleanup Crew, 2nd Battalion, 1st Manual Corps. My only major experience in battle was during the Siege of Strasbourg. After that, a few weeks later, the first Automatics came off the line, and we were all out of a job and headed home.”
“Tell me about the War, Detective.” The metal man wrapped its arms around its legs like a child. For all I knew it would analyze my every response. Or maybe it actually wanted to know. Textbooks didn’t do those horrors justice. “It seems you have some built-up anger from the War, as many veterans do.”
“It ain’t because of the War, if that’s what you’re wondering about.” I had to laugh. I could barely function, yet it was still grilling me for details. “On that day, the brass wanted to put tanks down on the field and try to push through the Austros’ blockade. They had these big fucking things called Diesels — they were like Manuals, but they stole the Allies’ tech and made these things run off of diesel fuel instead of Tesla Batteries. You know what a Manual is, I hope. Fortunately, the tanks had Manuals backing them up, to draw most of the fire. I was in a transport tank, and they let us out in a trench. I watched the metal suits walk over us, the gunfire was …”
Fuck … the sound. The sound was deafening, like the buzzing of bees … bees whose sting was deadly.
“It was overwhelming. The Manuals were dropping left and right from the machine gun fire, and I was supposed to either reload them or drag the operators out of the metal carcasses. I watched one get chewed up, another get blown apart and vapourized when its Tesla Battery got penetrated. It was hell.”
“Were you victorious?”
“We were. The tanks rolled in and stomped on the positions, and I got a few bullets across the stomach as a souvenir. After the
