Perrin liked to play detective even as a child. After a private eye rescued his abducted parents, it only reinforced his desire to follow in her steps.
He honed his skills, used magic and technology to solve crimes, and opened his own private agency. But Perrin had no way of knowing that his very first client would put him against one of the most powerful enterprises on both planets, send assassins after him, and bump him into a most unlikely ally.
Failure is not an option, for not only will his foes give him a most gruesome death, but also put thousands of people at risk of getting dissected, experimented on, and being used as fuel for a dark magical ritual.
Perrin liked to play detective even as a child. After a private eye rescued his abducted parents, it only reinforced his desire to follow in her steps.
He honed his skills, used magic and technology to solve crimes, and opened his own private agency. But Perrin had no way of knowing that his very first client would put him against one of the most powerful enterprises on both planets, send assassins after him, and bump him into a most unlikely ally.
Failure is not an option, for not only will his foes give him a most gruesome death, but also put thousands of people at risk of getting dissected, experimented on, and being used as fuel for a dark magical ritual.
13016-04-13
The yellow sun is slowly moving down, but it’s far from being gone. Both moons are high in the sky but won’t truly shine for a few more hours. Perrin’s ears are occupied by the quiet buzz of his flying car, but his eyes, wide with awe, are devouring the view far below.
Like how some trees that grow close together eventually fuse into one thick tree trunk, so it’s impossible to decide if a few trees grow close to each other or if it’s one weird tree, the Skytree Four follows exactly the same formula.
Shining with bright lights, five or so glass-and-steel buildings grow closely from the soil way below. First, they raise straight up, then twist and bend, weaving around one another in an intricate dance, finally fusing into one enormous structure. The higher Perrin gazes, the wider the skyscraper becomes, for it branches out and spreads around like a gigantic tree crown
that nearly touches the clouds, condemning square kilometers of the ground below to be in its shadow. But unlike a tree, the top of this crown is flat, hosting several landing pads, glass-roofed pools, sports grounds, public telescopes, and relaxation areas.
“They’re landing. Finally.” Jani-Fe’s ringing metallic voice reaches Perrin’s ears, returning him to reality. “Unless they’re faking it. Damn. It would’ve been so much easier if we could just track their communicators instead of tailing them in person.”
About 30 centimeters in height, like any Meora, she’s sitting in her cute little Meora chair strapped high enough to the passenger seat of the flying car so she can look through the windows. Her magical teal mono-wing that looks like a shining triangle hovering close behind her back partially goes through the back of the chair. Her silver eyes intently stare into the little laptop hooked to a metal arm bolted to her chair. Her pale-blue right hand is quickly typing something on the keyboard while her left hand is holding her communicator. Clad in a long, unbuttoned silver coat with teal accents, she is the epitome of focus.
“You know you wouldn’t want to live in a world where your communicator can be tracked, Jani. But why didn’t they turn off their car’s transponder?” Perrin kicks back in his leather driver’s seat, playing with his long, neatly combed, ash-white sideburns. His gray eyes follow the pictogram on the map, for it’s impossible to see their target through the window from such a distance. There should be no pictogram. Why do they send out their coordinates like every flying car is supposed to? Criminals usually break this rule.
“Either it’s a trap,” says he, “or they are truly clueless that someone can possibly be onto them.”
“Ten points it’s a trap.” Jani-Fe gives him a weird almost-smile.
Perrin looks into her silver eyes, and confidence overflows in him. She’s got his back, and he must return the favor.
His lips curve. “You’re on, Jani. My ten points are on that they’re clueless.”
Her teal lips smile back; then her attention is back on her screen. The gentle hum of the flying car fills the air. Too many thoughts. Too much hatred. If those fuckers indeed abducted my parents all those years ago… Perrin’s fists crack. They won’t reach the reeducation center alive!
“You studied laws, not me. Why can’t we arrest them now?” Jani-Fe breaks the silence.
“Because all we have is Ishla’s diary and someone’s encryption key. Sure, the diary describes her murders and tortures in exquisite detail, but her defenders may say she’s read the investigation reports, and that’s how she knows so much. Since she and Iven are lawyers, it makes sense they have connections. The more evidence we have, the better.”
The Meora glances at him. “So, what, each of her crimes has to be proven individually?”
Perrin sighs. “Yep, and we have close to nothing on her partner. It would suck if Ishla’s sentenced, but Iven walks, don’t you think?”
Jani-Fe curls her lips, nodding.
“Well, they ain’t leaving.” A small swipe on the screen gives the map a third dimension. The lawyers’ flying
car is still parked on one of the landing pads on top of the Skytree Four.
A nod from Jani-Fe, and Perrin’s barely tanned hands start to operate the wonderfully crispy and heavy stick and pedals, directing his flying car towards the landing pad next to the one their target used.
The car’s wheels touch the concrete with a quiet THUM. Jani-Fe unbuckles; her teal wing glows a bit brighter, changes its shape a bit, and propels her out of the open window. Perrin checks his trusty black pistol — a Quiet Raptor IV by FineArmaments, capable of both melting steel with its plasma shots and stunning opponents by spitting tiny supercapacitors. The amulets are securely on his neck, and enough ammo is in his myriad of pockets.
He looks at the map again, and the target is still there. As Perrin steps out of the car, the cold wind of this altitude sends shivers down his body. The air itself is a lot thinner this high up. As he buttons his long, dark-brown coat, Jani-Fe zooms towards him and sits on his shoulder. The magical hum of her wing reaches his ear, for the wing probably goes through his head.
“Nobody’s on their landing pad,” she says. “But the roof’s packed: the pools, sports courts, jacuzzis… Too many people around to feel just the two of them.”
“And that’s the next lesson, my almost bicentennial apprentice. It’s rarely easy to find people.”
“Pfft!” Jani-Fe raises her arms. “Teach me, then, dear professor!”
Enjoying the goofiness in her robotic voice, Perrin focuses on looking around. Fake trees covered in pretty lights are everywhere. Muffled funky music reaches their ears, for there’s a huge, glass-roofed jacuzzi between them and the second landing pad. Everyone’s either naked or in a swimsuit. No clothes are on the floor. The screen above a small elevator on the inside says it’s not moving. No one in the water or on the beach chairs around it looks like the killers.
Perrin’s gray eyes move, and his glasses open the place’s layout. Yes, looks like those two landed close to the elevators. Are they going down, or is their goal somewhere on the roof?
Ignoring the gazes of the jacuzzi swimmers, the investigators jog and glide around the glass structure toward the second landing pad. Four flying cars there look typical. Only the number plate on a slick, angular, ash-white beauty betrays their target. The windows are not tinted. No signs of damage or modifications.
“Is it rigged?” asks Jani-Fe, unwilling to fly closer.
“You think they would risk the lives of all those people just to blow us to pieces?” Perrin meets her eyes.
The Meora’s teal eyebrows jump up. “Is this a serious question?”
“Yeah…” Perrin shakes his head, looking down. “Dunno about Iven, but Ishla enjoys killing. Come on…”
He jogs around the landing pad towards the elevators. Their stainless-steel frames are immaculate. The bright screens above each elevator show that none are moving at the moment. There are stairs on the right — the lawyers could’ve…
CHUNG! GRRRRR! CLACK!
The loud mechanical noise startles the investigators, instinctively making Perrin conjure a yellow magical shield…
Fuck!
Two steel floor panels on both sides of the elevators open up, allowing two huge automated turrets to resurface. A high-pitched whine slashes their ears as the turrets’ barrels spew red plasma bolts.
Feeling Jani-Fe reinforcing his shield, Perrin zooms away. Each plasma hit shakes his mind, driving his heart rate faster and draining his energy. Each hit sprays plasma everywhere, making the floor around him hot and red.
Perrin dives behind an array of air-conditioning machines like a sack of sweaty laundry. Ignoring his protesting muscles and foggy head, he presses his back against the warm steel. Jani-Fe almost crashes onto the cold floor next to him. Boiling rage keeps her going but obscures the details of the world with a scarlet veil.
As they hoped, the air-conditioning array is shielded. Seeing this, the turrets stop firing, leaving the investigators to enjoy the peaceful low hum of the units.
“Don’t fucking tell me it’s a coincidence!” Jani-Fe wipes the sweat from her forehead using the sleeve of her coat. Her teal, shoulder-length hair is all wet, sticking to her pale-blue skin and making her look somewhat dangerous and fierce. Her boiling rage makes her voice even more modulated than usual.
“Okay, I won’t…” Perrin takes a huge breath. “I wonder… Do they know we’re after SkilletJill’s killers? Or do they think it’s about the White Book?”
“I’ll make them talk.” Still enraged, Jani-Fe feels the arcane field concentrating around her. Breathe, dude, or you’ll hurt Perrin… “They may run any minute. We have to catch them somehow!”
Perrin stares at the map in his glasses. “That jacuzzi is quite close, so I don’t think destroying the turrets is safe.”
Jani-Fe’s eyebrows jump. “The swimmers there must’ve already left using their own elevator.”
“But what if some are left?” Perrin looks at her. “We can’t risk it!”
“Well…” She cranks her head up to see his face. “If we get to the turrets, I can hack into them. They would not attack one another, so using one turret as cover would work. But hacking will take at least half an hour.”
Perrin shakes his head. “By then, those two would figure out their turret idea didn’t work.”
“You think they haven’t run already?”
“Let’s assume they know we won’t give up. It would make sense for them to kill us right here and now. If the turrets fail, they may at least weaken us, allowing them to finish the job.”
The Meora shakes her head. “So just call security!”
Perrin’s eyebrow jumps up. “What if it’s on their side?”
“Then, call your buddies at RiversideSec.”
“They would have to clear with the locals. That would take time.”
“So, what do you propose?” Jani-Fe rushes to her feet. “I don’t think simple invisibility spells will work on those turrets.”
“Hmm…” Perrin plays with his long, ash-white sideburns as he thinks. “I don’t think a building like this would have smart turrets. Showing them a hologram of my body blown into pieces may put them at ease. As the turrets deactivate, Ishla and Iven may come to search our car and remains. Or they’ll just jump into their car and escape. Either way, that’s when we’ll take them.”
“But making such a hologram would take time.”
“No, Jani. I have it.”
Jani-Fe opens her mouth to speak but then shakes her head. “Why am I not surprised…”
“I’m prepared for any pickle, obviously.” Perrin grins.
A few taps on the screen of his communicator, a few swipes, and the file is located. Cold silver holoprojector, fished out from the inner pocket, neatly fits into his barely tanned hand. Perrin clicks the button and beholds his twin, who is standing on the roof beside them. The clothes are a bit different, as well as the hair length, but it may just work. Perrin adjusts the size, brightness, and color levels until his doppelganger looks like he’s lit by the setting sun, not by an artificial light. After all, the lawyers may come up to take a look.
“Here we go.” He takes a deep breath, conjuring a shield around them and feeling Jani-Fe’s reinforcing it.
A click of another button, and the doppelganger jolts away. Two steps, and the sea of red blinds them. With ringing ears, the investigators feel the ricocheted chunks of plasma hit their shield. The firing dies off as suddenly as it started. Next to them lay realistic chunks of meat and burnt clothes.
“I’m not gonna ask where you got the references,” Jani-Fe exhales, unable to look away.
“And now we wait,” says Perrin, careful to keep the projector pointing in the right direction.
Seconds pass. Jani-Fe dives deep into her focus, trying to feel someone coming. Nothing. Then… Something electrical comes into her feelings.
WUUUUM, Clank! reaches their ears.
She raises her eyes to Perrin, but as he looks equally perplexed, she zooms upwards, peeping around their cover.
“The turrets are down,” she says telepathically and looks around. No signs of danger.
The screen above the closest elevator comes to life, and she lets Perrin know. Friend or foe? she wonders.
A pleasant POOM, and the doors slide open.
“It’s them,” she whispers, assuming position near Perrin’s shoulder.
Footsteps.
“Would you look at that!” exclaims Ishla’s voice. “I wonder what he was trying to do.”
“No time for this!” Iven’s voice answers. “Let’s hurry. The security will be here any second.”
Their shadows are closer and closer. Perrin has his pistol on the stun setting, aiming at the remains of his doppelganger. One more step…
“Trap!” Ishla yells.
This word propels Jani-Fe upwards. With both hands, she throws a ball of lightning bigger than herself. The lawyer’s shields hold. Fireballs, slugs of compressed air, and everything she can come up with rain down on them. And as they turn around to face her, Perrin steps out of his cover.
As it spews out a silvery-white blast, the recoil from his pistol makes him more focused than ever. Ishla stumbles from his hit, but her amulet gives her enough protection. She tries to throw him away with a gesture, but one of the amulets on Perrin’s neck prevents it. Her pistol spits out death, but Perrin hides behind his old
cover.
Iven’s shield is hit by
Jani-Fe’s magic. “Split out!” leaves his mouth.
But as they try it, Perrin peeks from his cover, shoots, and hides again. Jani-Fe moves erratically in the air, dodging attacks and focusing on always making her attacks different. Come on! You can’t conjure the correct shield every time.
Perrin shoots and sends fireballs at the same time. Jani-Fe throws fake plants, cans, toolboxes, and everything she sees at the lawyers while continuing her onslaught of magic.
“Arrgh!” Iven cries, crashing on the ground.
Perring shoots again.
Crrack!
Jani-Fe’s lightning bolt goes through a shield against fire, and Ishla falls on the roof, joining Iven, who was hit by a massive pot with some fake plant.
Perrin re-checks that his pistol is set on stun and shoots both of them. The lifeless jerks are all he sees. He hits his enchanted rings against one another, focuses on what he wants to do, and channels the change of the arcane field toward Ishla, wrapping a shining golden thread around her. Jani-Fe does the same thing to Iven, but she has no rings, so it requires more time and concentration.
The thread disrupts the arcane field around it, so the investigators are reasonably confident that the lawyers no longer pose much danger even if they’re faking being knocked out. Breathing easily, unable to hide his grin, Perrin steps forward and handcuffs the lawyers.
POO-POOM
Perrin and Jani-Fe dive behind the air-conditioning machine. A few long shadows, created by the elevators’ light, move slightly, then stop.
Reinforcements? How many?
Perrin’s eyes meet Jani-Fe’s. Full of resolve, already with a fire ball floating near her hand, she nods, infecting the PI with confidence. He raises his pistol and readies his shield. Whoever these newcomers are, they won’t take them down easily.
The vibes of this book are really great. I love the film noir type setting and the roguish detective character in Perrin. There's also an interesting mix of fantasy and sci-fi elements with fleshed out world-building details - the Meora people, in particular, add a lot of depth to the culture as well as being vital to the plot, and Jani-Fe (a Meora) was my personal favourite character. I enjoyed her and Perrin's dynamic and I could really visualise them in this world.
However, I did feel that the mystery elements of the story lacked intrigue as there was very little tension or emotion to anything being uncovered. For example, early on in the story Perrin is asked to look for a missing person, and pretty soon after this he discovers them dead. We don't have any real time to care about the missing person and the discovery of the body didn't make me feel anything. It's just another lead in a series of clues that move us forward in the story without making me invested in it.
For me, there wasn't a build up of tension and perhaps this was because the story focused on explanation rather than teasing the reader chapter by chapter. One chapter literally ends with Perrin saying, "Okay then. Please tell me more about your collective, and we'll see." Which is just not the kind of line that makes me desperate to know more as the tone is so contained and the stakes are non-existent. If the chapter had ended with some dramatic pre-initiation ritual Perrin needed to do in order to prove his interest in joining the collective, that would have heightens things. Not only by putting Perrin in possible danger, but letting us know that maybe Perrin's act isn't being believed by the collective, or showing how suspicious of an organisation it is and thereby making us suspicious of it. Chapters in general didn't end with any sense of danger but rather a resolution to the dangers or problems the characters faced during the chapter. (Note: there are two chapters towards the end that do have a sense of danger, but it's a repeated cliff-hanger with two consecutive chapters ending with the line "If they're still alive.")
Another aspect that dampened the intrigue was that the developments in the case were often explained to the reader through characters going back and forth over everything. Such as when a character goes over the background of the Meora people - telling us why the organisation was against the Meora people joining them, how people reacted to them, what the fears around their creation was and just all the context a reader might possibly wonder about. Only we aren't left time to wonder. Another example is when Perrin and Jani-Fe need to infiltrate a complex. It's a big mission with a lot of obstacles, but instead of the reader having a chance to feel the impossibility of the task, we're told step-by-step how they can achieve it. The mechanics of the plot is laid out to the reader time and time again.
Overall, the prose is good and the characters are fun and even the setting itself has enough to interest a reader, but a detective story - in my opinion - lives and dies by its mystery and unfortunately I wasn't invested in the case.