"Murder In Soho" Part Two

   I reach the Bethany Birdsong Apartment complex in less than thirty minutes. While in my Police cruiser, all autonomous vehicles on the road in front of me automatically pull over to one side. I always like to look out the windows to see the angry elite try time and again to over-ride the program with voice commands. Only about 10% of the populace have that power and I know not one of them reside in Soho.

   The Birdsong apartments are one of the few places still in pretty good shape for downtown Soho. The Bethany family made their money in pharmaceuticals during the 2020s when one pandemic after another whittled down the populace back to the five billion range. I wasn't around back then but my parents were. They said the only saving grace of that decade was the fact that global warming went into remission and a lot of species of plants, animals, and insects made a comeback from near extinction.

   I guess they didn't know how to make enough condos on the Moon and Mars back then.

   I get out of the cruiser and see a police bot standing by the entrance. It doesn't say a word but opens the main doors to the complex for me.

   I ask it, "On what floor and apartment number did the murder happen in last night?"

   "All that information is in your handheld Detective Luna." it responds.

   "I didn't look at it." I sneered.

   "It has long been documented that your techniques are quite different from other Detectives." it stated flatly.

   "Excuse me?" I questioned. "A beat cop bot is giving its opinion on my techniques as a Detective now? Is there something wrong with your programming that I have to send you back to the yard to be disassembled to find out why you are faulty?"

   "Would you like me to send all the information to your neural-net implant Detective?" it said, without a hint of being intimidated.

   "No, that would clutter up my brain. Just tell me."

   "Fifth floor, apartment 532 sir."

   I walk into the complex without saying thank you. It is a machine anyways. It doesn't need to be thanked. It is doing what it is programmed to do. To do what I ask.

   As I reached the elevator doors, I turn around to look back at the bot. Of course it isn't looking my way. He is on duty. It's the AI's job to keep out all the human riffraff that like to to gawk at crime scenes. Hoping they will see something exciting to drown out their tediousness existence.

   I can't imagine why? Today, we don't have all that action or violence you see on those old time classic docudramas. But, they still seem to come out of the woodwork, contaminating and stealing evidence. If word gets out that this is a murder crime scene, kooks will be climbing the outside walls, breaking in through the windows for a chance at a souvenir. So now we have police bots stationed at and around every crime scene.

   Before the elevator door opens, this feeling of, how pleased I am with myself, comes over me. The bot said "Sir" at the end of our little conversation. Did I intimidate him or did it say it to appease me?

   I get inside the elevator, press the fifth floor button and think, It's a machine. It said Sir to appease me!

 This is,

Detective Luna Is A Real Gumshoe

Jim Hauenstein

 

And

 

“The case called for plain, old-fashioned police leg work!”
- Donald J. Sobol -

 

That is my story and I am sticking to it!

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