Hounds of the Underworld

CHAPTER 2

CHAPTER 2- Pandora -

Penny wishes she didn’t have to come straight back to the lab. Grubbing around in the detritus at Fletcher Enterprises has left her feeling grimy. Crime scenes always do this to her. A shower would’ve been nice: a good scrub using a shower brush and a decent dose of 4-chloro-3,5-dimethylphenol soap, with its antibacterial properties and distinctive pine smell. She sighs as she pushes open the door to the lab with the back of her hand. She’ll just have to make do with a box of antiseptic wipes instead. Inside, she deposits her satchel and the bagged samples on the bench, taking care that the little bowl doesn’t roll off onto the floor. Just a glimpse of the bowl’s crudely carved rim reminds her of Matiu, and instantly her hackles rise. That i***t. What did he have to go and touch it for? Penny could’ve throttled him. She’d said stay out of the way.

Stay. Out. Of. The. Way.

What’s not to understand? But no, Matiu can’t even get that simple instruction right. And what was the deal with his ridiculous paranoia over this little bowl…?

Penny stomps to the cupboard and takes a lab coat off the hook. Too big. This must be Beaker’s spare one. Jeepers. What is it with guys today? How many times has she told him to hang his lab coats on the right? Replacing the lab coat on the correct hook, she slips on her own, just as the coat-hook culprit comes out of the chemical store.

“Hey, you’re back.”

“You know, Beaker, some days you astound me with your powers of observation,” she says, laying it on, but they both know there’s no malice in her words. Why berate poor Beaker for her problems? Truth be told, it’s lovely to come home to the lab and find him here, like a loyal sheep dog, waiting on the porch. And Beaker is loyal: the only one who really supported her when the s**t hit the fan. She knows that kind of devotion shouldn’t be exploited: it could come back to bite her. Besides, Beaker deserves more. It’s not his real name, of course. A scientist called Beaker? Hardly original. Grant Deaker is the name on the payslips, but Beaker’s passion for bench-work, together with a striking resemblance to the century-old cult figure, made freshly famous by the animated show that ran on MTV in the 2030s, means no one calls him anything else, not even his mother.

“So, how’d it go? Did we get the contract?”

Penny can almost see his tail wag. Pulling her lab stool over to the bench, she sits down and leans on her elbows. “Seems like it.”

“No way. How?”

“Gee, Beaker,” she says wryly. “Thanks for the confidence.”

“I didn’t mean it like that. You know I didn’t. I meant how did they—”

“Find us? Cordell, apparently.”

Beaker’s eyes widen. “You’re kidding me.”

Penny shakes her head. “Nope.”

A frown. “You sure there isn’t a catch? There’s got to be a catch. Cordell doesn’t do anything for nothing. He’s so…calculating. I can’t believe that you—” Beaker breaks off, his blush as red as his hair.

Pretending not to hear his last comment, Penny makes a show of sorting through the labelled samples on the bench. “I don’t think Cordell was doing us any favours. It’s more about taking some heat off LysisCo. Apparently, the department has seventeen—no, make that eighteen—cases on at the moment. And that’s just on the southern side of the city. The way the police super told it, there’s an epidemic of brutality going down, and only his department to hold back the floodgates of hell.”

“In conclusion, there’s too much work on so Cordell’s thrown us his dregs.”

“Probably, but beggars can’t be choosers, Beaks.”

Ain’t that the truth? The last time Penny checked it—just this morning after breakfast—her bank account was running precariously low. She figures she has enough of her savings to last maybe another month. After that she’ll have to let Beaker go. Sell off the equipment. Admit defeat. She doesn’t want to have to do that.

And give Cordell the satisfaction? Like hell.

“Pand—” Her head snaps up. “Sorry—Penny—what exactly are we working on?”

“Oh, yes. We haven’t got much time. It’d be helpful to have some information before I interview the victim’s…” Is Fletcher a victim? Is he even missing? Penny doesn’t know. She trails off. Instead, she removes the adhesive samples from her satchel. “There’s this blood…”

Beaker c***s his head.

“You’re certain it’s blood?”

“Uh-huh,” says Penny. “I did a presumptive test at the site: took a swab and tested it with TMB and peroxidase. Lovely blue-green colour indicating the presence of a haem group. So, at least we know it’s blood.”

Beaker c***s his head again. Penny smiles. That consistency is one of the things she likes about him. He may not be able to tell his coat hooks apart, but Beaker is a stickler for method. There’s always a chance of false positives with indicator tests, which means the substance sampled might not be blood at all.

Beaker is cheery. “Want me to do a crystal confirmation?” he asks.

Slipping off the lab stool, Penny shakes her head. “Microscope’s quicker.” She lifts off the dust cover and turns on the apparatus, then sets about preparing a blood slide, chatting to Beaker as she works. “It was like something out of a TV show. Locked room. Blood—” She pops the slide on the stage and sets the clips, then corrects herself. “Possibly blood everywhere. And the weirdest thing, there was no body. I thought it was creepy, but it completely freaked Matiu out. And I didn’t think anything shocked him much.” She twists the objective into place, then fiddles with the fine focus. “Well, it’s definitely blood because we have erythrocytes, leukocytes—quite a few of them are neutrophils… Hey, Beak, look at this.” She moves aside to allow her colleague a peek down the eyepiece. “Check out the erythrocytes.”

He steps back. “I’m not sure I know what I’m looking for.”

Penny leans in again, adjusting the magnification up for sharper focus. “I don’t know. I guess I’m out of practice using these old light microscopes, but I thought I saw a central pallor in these red blood cells.”

“You think the sample might not be human?” Beaker edges her out of the way. “The size looks OK. Biconcave. 7μm.”

“Possibly a dog? Their red cells are comparable to ours.” Although how a dog might be involved, Penny couldn’t say. Still, it seems the case might not be as sinister as they first thought. If the blood found at the scene is all of canine origin—and they won’t know that until they’ve checked all the samples—then it’s possible that the only victim could be someone’s pooch. Horrible enough, although in that case, it would mean that Fletcher is only missing, and not murdered, and Tanner has one less case to worry about.

But Beaker is already off after a stick, heading towards the chemical store, delighted to have something to chase. “No sweat, Penny, I’ll check for dog erythrocyte antigen. That way we can rule it out.”

“I’ll make a start on the clothes, then.”

He waves his hand in agreement. “Put some tunes on, will you?”

A minute later, the two of them have their heads down working, Gen Zedders’ latest remix blasting through the lab.

“Penny?” Beaker says, an hour and a half later. Penny can hardly hear him over the grumbling of her stomach. Damn, she’s missed lunch and Matiu should be here soon. Meanwhile, all she’s managed to do is eliminate his dirty great thumbprint from the bowl. Although, to be fair, it wasn’t particularly hard. There were only two sets, and Penny would bet her flailing bank account the other set belongs to Darius Fletcher.

“This sample is definitely canine blood.” Penny c***s her head. “There’s no question. It tested positive for DEA, and I ran a DNA fingerprint, too.”

“The new machine run OK?”

“Yeah, great. Did the job.”

That’s a relief. The Breadmaker™ bench-top DNA typing machine had been the biggest single capital outlay Penny had had to fork out to set up her little lab, but these days, with so much analysis dependent on DNA typing, she was banking on the purchase being a good one. Investment on a price per use basis: it’s the same way she justifies spending money on decent jeans, and the reason there’s only cheap FirstWorld supermarket make-up rolling around in the bottom of her bathroom drawer. It also explains why her bank account is emptier than a beer keg at a high school leavers’ party.

“But you should have a gander at this,” Beaker says. Penny turns off the light-box and follows Beaker to his workstation where he pulls up a screen. He steps back and gestures at her to take a look.

- Matiu -

The Commodore speeds across Auckland Harbour Bridge. A freight truck crawls past in the opposite direction, sickly sweet biodiesel fumes funnelling into Matiu’s nostrils as they pass. Apart from that, there are few cars to be seen. Aside from logistics carriers, public transport operators, cops, the unusually wealthy and drivers like Matiu working for companies with lucrative government courier contracts, most people don’t have the means to burn up fuel jaunting around. If you can’t bill for it at the other end, you probably don’t take the car but a biodiesel bus, or a solar-powered train. One of the benefits of family. Even with his past, he still has a solid job doing something many now consider a luxury.

The motorway slides by, typically quiet. Matiu tries not to think about the pool of blood, and the voices that swarmed him when he touched the bowl, but he suspects it will continue to haunt him. For how long, he doesn’t know. Until he can forget it? Or until he’s put whatever was in that sucking pool of darkness, screaming his name - screaming every name - to rest, somehow?

Further thoughts are put on hold as his tablet pips on the passenger seat.

“Yo,” he answers, and the tablet opens the call in speaker mode. Matiu has never liked that neural implant s**t the rich kids have been getting injected between their ears. He could afford it—Mum and Dad could afford it for him, anyway—but he has enough voices in his head already without adding any more.

“Matiu, it’s Erica. Did you forget our appointment?”

Fuck, Matiu mouths silently. Erica frowns on him swearing. “I’ve had work on. Didn’t I message you? Sorry.”

“I suppose the work logs will back you up?”

Matiu smiles. She doesn’t miss a trick, Erica, and she’s kinda hot for a white chick, but this time his alibi will hold water. Today has all been about bona fide work engagements, and nothing more. No need to blackmail Penny into hacking the logs and making them say what he wants them to. Not this time. “Sure will. Been at a murder scene this morning.”

That shuts her up, for a second anyway. “I’ll make a note to follow that up, you know I will. Where are you now? I’ve got a slot open this afternoon.”

“No can do, I’m afraid.” Matiu shakes his head as he eases onto the Manukau off-ramp. “Got an important pickup from the airport to drive up to Auckland Council HQ. Then I’m back on call for the murder investigation.”

“Well, don’t you just have the exciting day job?”

More exciting than a probation officer’s, he wants to say, but he’s learned it’s best not to wind Erica up. For all his freedoms, she still has the chops to make his life hell if she wants to. “Look, can we say tomorrow, eleven-ish? I’m heading over your way to see Ma—” He cuts himself off mid-stream, remembering who he’s talking to. He fakes a cough. “Tomorrow. I can come by tomorrow. That OK?”

“Be here.”

“I will.”

The call cuts off, and Matiu takes a deep breath as he swings down towards the airport. A couple of dark blips bob through the sky, at the end of the runway that used to be for the international jets, back in the day when jet fuel was affordable. Probably experimental photovoltaic aircraft. The near end of the airport is cordoned off for government operations, and the rest operates as an aero club for mad scientists trying to reinvent the wheel, so to speak, without the luxury of gasoline. Poor deluded sods. All that hope and enthusiasm, chasing a fool’s dream. The Golden Age of cheap oil is over, man. The sooner some people get that into their heads, the better.

Matiu’s early. He parks on the hill outside the security zone. No point being the Māori boy hanging around the airport, the bored rent-a-cops watching him sidelong, any longer than necessary. So he gets to watch the Chinese naval helicopter thunder in, its rotors throwing a hundred-meter-wide shadow across the grass and water around the landing zone. Somewhere, maybe five miles offshore, Matiu imagines the PLA warship that’s steamed down here at great expense to transport this diplomat to Aotearoa. What else will it be doing while it crawls up and down the coast? Sure as s**t won’t be idly waiting for their VIP to come back from his meetings and diplomatic receptions.

But, once again, it’s none of Matiu’s business. Spying on other nations still happens, maybe now more than ever; it’s just harder to move people around than it used to be. Matiu sees it, like a fly on the wall, but paying attention to s**t like that is asking for trouble. Or to get yourself disappeared.

As the bird settles on the tarmac, Matiu pulls the Commodore onto the road. f**k the politics, he’s just doing his job and keeping his nose clean. As he drives through the checkpoints, he tries not to think about the bowl, the voice. The rage that flowed up out of the darkness, the hunger.

The way the dark had looked at him. Like it wanted him to look back.