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Underbox: Twenty-Two
© 2021 by Walter Reimer
Thumbnail art by
capt_hairball
The Americans called back first.
The Embassy had contacted the local police in some place called Savannah, who dispatched a pair of officers to determine if the Saled-Diazes were all right. Hamo breathed a sigh of relief when the Foreign Service Officer, Parsons, told him that the two felines were fine. Mrs. Saled-Diaz, when questioned, admitted that they had lost track of their son when he’d left Milano, but as he was an adult, he was no longer under their control. He had drawn away from them before he’d disappeared.
“Americans, huh?” Joachim said when Hamo relayed the information to him.
The cross-fox was still shaking their head. “I know. Crazy.” The phone rang and they picked it up. “Suleymanoglu.”
“Detective, this is Dr. Addison. We’ve just finished examining the two paws you gave us.” The squirrel had on his ‘professional’ voice, the one he reserved for grieving parents. “We’ve matched their DNA and fingerprints to a couple who were found in Kotor. Italian tourists, married. They were each missing one paw.”
“Let me guess,” Hamo said as Joachim started looking a little green around his snout. “The paws that had their wedding rings?”
“Yes. The Montenegrin police are planning on filing charges.”
“Well, they can wait their turn,” the cross-fox grumbled. “Thank you, Doctor,” and they broke the connection. “Better email the police down there,” they said as they pulled on their jackglove, “and get the information they have on the victims.”
“I’ll contact IT Crimes,” Joachim said, “and see what they’ve figured out so far. You going to have a go at him?”
“Yeah. We have some levers now. Let’s see what we can pry loose from him.”
***
There was an interrogation room set up for suspects that were considered “unpredictably violent.” The table and the chair that the inmate would sit in were bolted to the floor, and there was a metal loop set into the table to hold the small chain between the pawcuffs. Hamo was sitting in the only movable seat, with a tablet computer lying on the table in front of them as two officers escorted Saled-Diaz in.
A few nights in jail with decent food and no drugs seemed to have worked. The feline sullenly sat down and didn’t move as the officers secured his cuffs to the table. “What the fuck’s this?” he asked as the officers retreated from the room. He tugged at the pawcuffs ineffectually.
“In case you forgot, I’m Detective Suleymanoglu,” Hamo said, and the cross-fox recited the usual mantra, naming the suspect and themselves and giving the date and time. “Just wanted to see if you’re ready to talk to me.”
“Got nothing to say.”
“Well, you won’t mind if I talk. In fact, it’s show and tell time,” and Hamo switched on the tablet and turned it around so that the feline could see the image of a smiling feline couple at dinner. The mel and femme had their arms around each other, each holding a flute of champagne in their free paws. “Carlo and Giulia Rossini. Know who these people are?”
“No.”
“I think you should. You had their severed paws in your kitchen.” Briefly, all too briefly, the suspect’s lips drew back, baring his teeth before he looked away. “Why’d you kill them, Manuel?”
Saled-Diaz glared at Hamo. “I didn’t kill them.”
“You had their paws in your kitchen cabinet. I found them,” Hamo said evenly. “They still had their wedding rings on.” They set the tablet down and flicked forward to another set of images before asking, “Why’d you kill them, Manuel?”
“I didn’t kill them.”
“Were they having fun, and you weren’t?”
“I didn’t kill them. It did.”
Hamo raised one eyebrow. “This the ‘It’ that you say killed your parents just to see if it could do it?”
“Yeah.”
The cross-fox held up the tablet, which now showed a middle-aged couple standing in their living room. They were both feline; the woman looked concerned and the man standing beside her had a stoic expression. “We called around. Those are your parents.” Hamo paused a beat. “Your mother was worried about you.”
“It killed them.” Saled-Diaz was shaking his head back and forth. “It said it killed them.”
“So, it seems that ‘It’ lied to you. Maybe, if you help us, we can charge ‘It’ for the murder of the Rossinis.”
“No,” the suspect said, shaking his head back and forth. “It said it killed them . . . it killed those others . . . it will come . . . it will come . . . “ He continued to mutter the same three words as Hamo flicked to another image.
“You really feel sure about this ‘It’.” The screen now showed the wall of Saled-Diaz’s apartment. “I really don’t think much of your interior decorating skills, but that’s just me.” Hamo turned it to face the suspect. “You seem very sure of ‘It.’ What will happen if it doesn’t come?”
“It will come.”
“But what if it doesn’t? Are you supposed to contact ‘It’?”
A jerky nod.
“But we took away your cyberway. What will happen if you can’t contact ‘It’?”
“Don’t know.”
The cross-fox twitched their tail, and the two officers entered at the signal. “We’ll talk a little later, Manuel. Should be time for dinner,” they said as the feline was released from the restraining loop on the table and escorted out.
Hamo shut down the tablet and closed the recording. As they stood up Joachim entered. “He’s more than a little unstable,” the boar said.
The transgender vulpine chuckled. “’More than a little’? We’re going to have a psychologist work on him at some point. But we need to get with IT Crimes.”
“His cyberway?”
“Yeah. If whoever it is behind this wants to contact our boy, it’s probably going to use his implant.”
***
When it was removed from a person, a cyberway looked a little like a mesh sleeve made of silver wire. Saled-Diaz’s looked like a typical specimen, but areas that held interfaces on a J9a model were either missing or were in other locations. Several leads connected the cyberway to a small computer terminal.
“Are you sure that’s safe?” Joachim asked dubiously.
Fraulein Bauer grinned. “Oh yes. That’s what we call the playpen. It’s not connected to any network, so if something had any malware onboard, it’ll have nowhere to go. This way we can examine the code and sort out what happened without it getting into any important systems.” She pointed at the screen, which showed a snaking line of light that seemed to be poking around various blocks that symbolized the terminal’s various programs. “It’s a pretty eager thing, isn’t it?”
“Seems almost alive,” Hamo said. “Our suspect said that whoever is helping him would communicate with him through that cyberway. “Is there any way we can trace it if we allow that to make a connection?”
“That’s going to take a decision from someone a lot higher than me,” Bauer said. “It’s doable, though; we use a tracer when we try to catch high-priority hackers. If we can get permission, we can try to figure out where the brains of this outfit are.”
“It shouldn’t be too hard,” Joachim said with a straight face. “The guy we have certainly isn’t the brains.” He and Hamo both chuckled as the rabbit doe headed off to talk to her supervisor.
A few minutes later, the two detectives watched as Bauer and a senior programmer, a schnauzer named Hauss, prepared to connect the ersatz cyberway to the outside network. When the connections were made, Hauss sat at a monitoring terminal and nodded, leaning back in his chair and looking up at the six screens.
Bauer switched the system on.
On Hauss’ monitor, nothing appeared to happen at first, before the line of light that symbolized the cyberway’s signal began moving through the various networks that made up the cyberbahn. “Tracer’s keeping up with it,” Hauss said, his fingers moving over the keyboard while his eyes never moved from the screen. “It’s heading out of Europe . . . Cairo, Tripoli, Khartoum . . . doubled back to Riyadh . . . “ His voice died away as he followed the signal.
Standing a short distance away and watching as the tracer line bounced back and forth from one node to another, Joachim perked his ears as Hamo muttered, “This is as much fun as watching paint dry.”
“I heard that,” Hauss said.
“Do you deny it?” the cross-fox asked.
The schnauzer raised a paw and gave Hamo the finger. “Okay, the damn thing just bounced off a satellite from Cape Town to Buenos Aires. Whoever’s at the other end of this, he definitely doesn’t want to be found.” He sighed. “And now we’re in Sydney.”
“Richard – “ Bauer said. The rabbit had been practically looking over the schnauzer’s shoulder.
“Hm?” Hauss didn’t look up from the monitors, as the trace made its way to Tokyo before going across the Pacific to Seattle.
“I’m seeing something.”
“What?”
“The code’s pinging away, but it’s also splitting up.”
The schnauzer tore his gaze away from the trace and looked at the screen on his upper right. His eyes widened. “Son of a . . . Hilda, call the shop and tell them to put out a few more tracers. Someone doesn’t want us to find him.” He grinned. “Too bad.”
“What’s going on?” Hamo asked.
“It’s trying to throw us off the scent,” Bauer explained. “Nothing that can’t be handled.”
“Connected!” Hauss yelped. “North America.”
“The shop says that the other two tracers are running. They’re dead ends.”
Hauss grinned, baring his teeth. “Got you, you little shit. United States . . . Western . . . connection made!” Two of the six screens started showing maps, narrowing the trace down to a specific address.
Bauer’s phone rang.
<NEXT>
<PREVIOUS>
<FIRST<
© 2021 by Walter Reimer
Thumbnail art by
capt_hairballThe Americans called back first.
The Embassy had contacted the local police in some place called Savannah, who dispatched a pair of officers to determine if the Saled-Diazes were all right. Hamo breathed a sigh of relief when the Foreign Service Officer, Parsons, told him that the two felines were fine. Mrs. Saled-Diaz, when questioned, admitted that they had lost track of their son when he’d left Milano, but as he was an adult, he was no longer under their control. He had drawn away from them before he’d disappeared.
“Americans, huh?” Joachim said when Hamo relayed the information to him.
The cross-fox was still shaking their head. “I know. Crazy.” The phone rang and they picked it up. “Suleymanoglu.”
“Detective, this is Dr. Addison. We’ve just finished examining the two paws you gave us.” The squirrel had on his ‘professional’ voice, the one he reserved for grieving parents. “We’ve matched their DNA and fingerprints to a couple who were found in Kotor. Italian tourists, married. They were each missing one paw.”
“Let me guess,” Hamo said as Joachim started looking a little green around his snout. “The paws that had their wedding rings?”
“Yes. The Montenegrin police are planning on filing charges.”
“Well, they can wait their turn,” the cross-fox grumbled. “Thank you, Doctor,” and they broke the connection. “Better email the police down there,” they said as they pulled on their jackglove, “and get the information they have on the victims.”
“I’ll contact IT Crimes,” Joachim said, “and see what they’ve figured out so far. You going to have a go at him?”
“Yeah. We have some levers now. Let’s see what we can pry loose from him.”
***
There was an interrogation room set up for suspects that were considered “unpredictably violent.” The table and the chair that the inmate would sit in were bolted to the floor, and there was a metal loop set into the table to hold the small chain between the pawcuffs. Hamo was sitting in the only movable seat, with a tablet computer lying on the table in front of them as two officers escorted Saled-Diaz in.
A few nights in jail with decent food and no drugs seemed to have worked. The feline sullenly sat down and didn’t move as the officers secured his cuffs to the table. “What the fuck’s this?” he asked as the officers retreated from the room. He tugged at the pawcuffs ineffectually.
“In case you forgot, I’m Detective Suleymanoglu,” Hamo said, and the cross-fox recited the usual mantra, naming the suspect and themselves and giving the date and time. “Just wanted to see if you’re ready to talk to me.”
“Got nothing to say.”
“Well, you won’t mind if I talk. In fact, it’s show and tell time,” and Hamo switched on the tablet and turned it around so that the feline could see the image of a smiling feline couple at dinner. The mel and femme had their arms around each other, each holding a flute of champagne in their free paws. “Carlo and Giulia Rossini. Know who these people are?”
“No.”
“I think you should. You had their severed paws in your kitchen.” Briefly, all too briefly, the suspect’s lips drew back, baring his teeth before he looked away. “Why’d you kill them, Manuel?”
Saled-Diaz glared at Hamo. “I didn’t kill them.”
“You had their paws in your kitchen cabinet. I found them,” Hamo said evenly. “They still had their wedding rings on.” They set the tablet down and flicked forward to another set of images before asking, “Why’d you kill them, Manuel?”
“I didn’t kill them.”
“Were they having fun, and you weren’t?”
“I didn’t kill them. It did.”
Hamo raised one eyebrow. “This the ‘It’ that you say killed your parents just to see if it could do it?”
“Yeah.”
The cross-fox held up the tablet, which now showed a middle-aged couple standing in their living room. They were both feline; the woman looked concerned and the man standing beside her had a stoic expression. “We called around. Those are your parents.” Hamo paused a beat. “Your mother was worried about you.”
“It killed them.” Saled-Diaz was shaking his head back and forth. “It said it killed them.”
“So, it seems that ‘It’ lied to you. Maybe, if you help us, we can charge ‘It’ for the murder of the Rossinis.”
“No,” the suspect said, shaking his head back and forth. “It said it killed them . . . it killed those others . . . it will come . . . it will come . . . “ He continued to mutter the same three words as Hamo flicked to another image.
“You really feel sure about this ‘It’.” The screen now showed the wall of Saled-Diaz’s apartment. “I really don’t think much of your interior decorating skills, but that’s just me.” Hamo turned it to face the suspect. “You seem very sure of ‘It.’ What will happen if it doesn’t come?”
“It will come.”
“But what if it doesn’t? Are you supposed to contact ‘It’?”
A jerky nod.
“But we took away your cyberway. What will happen if you can’t contact ‘It’?”
“Don’t know.”
The cross-fox twitched their tail, and the two officers entered at the signal. “We’ll talk a little later, Manuel. Should be time for dinner,” they said as the feline was released from the restraining loop on the table and escorted out.
Hamo shut down the tablet and closed the recording. As they stood up Joachim entered. “He’s more than a little unstable,” the boar said.
The transgender vulpine chuckled. “’More than a little’? We’re going to have a psychologist work on him at some point. But we need to get with IT Crimes.”
“His cyberway?”
“Yeah. If whoever it is behind this wants to contact our boy, it’s probably going to use his implant.”
***
When it was removed from a person, a cyberway looked a little like a mesh sleeve made of silver wire. Saled-Diaz’s looked like a typical specimen, but areas that held interfaces on a J9a model were either missing or were in other locations. Several leads connected the cyberway to a small computer terminal.
“Are you sure that’s safe?” Joachim asked dubiously.
Fraulein Bauer grinned. “Oh yes. That’s what we call the playpen. It’s not connected to any network, so if something had any malware onboard, it’ll have nowhere to go. This way we can examine the code and sort out what happened without it getting into any important systems.” She pointed at the screen, which showed a snaking line of light that seemed to be poking around various blocks that symbolized the terminal’s various programs. “It’s a pretty eager thing, isn’t it?”
“Seems almost alive,” Hamo said. “Our suspect said that whoever is helping him would communicate with him through that cyberway. “Is there any way we can trace it if we allow that to make a connection?”
“That’s going to take a decision from someone a lot higher than me,” Bauer said. “It’s doable, though; we use a tracer when we try to catch high-priority hackers. If we can get permission, we can try to figure out where the brains of this outfit are.”
“It shouldn’t be too hard,” Joachim said with a straight face. “The guy we have certainly isn’t the brains.” He and Hamo both chuckled as the rabbit doe headed off to talk to her supervisor.
A few minutes later, the two detectives watched as Bauer and a senior programmer, a schnauzer named Hauss, prepared to connect the ersatz cyberway to the outside network. When the connections were made, Hauss sat at a monitoring terminal and nodded, leaning back in his chair and looking up at the six screens.
Bauer switched the system on.
On Hauss’ monitor, nothing appeared to happen at first, before the line of light that symbolized the cyberway’s signal began moving through the various networks that made up the cyberbahn. “Tracer’s keeping up with it,” Hauss said, his fingers moving over the keyboard while his eyes never moved from the screen. “It’s heading out of Europe . . . Cairo, Tripoli, Khartoum . . . doubled back to Riyadh . . . “ His voice died away as he followed the signal.
Standing a short distance away and watching as the tracer line bounced back and forth from one node to another, Joachim perked his ears as Hamo muttered, “This is as much fun as watching paint dry.”
“I heard that,” Hauss said.
“Do you deny it?” the cross-fox asked.
The schnauzer raised a paw and gave Hamo the finger. “Okay, the damn thing just bounced off a satellite from Cape Town to Buenos Aires. Whoever’s at the other end of this, he definitely doesn’t want to be found.” He sighed. “And now we’re in Sydney.”
“Richard – “ Bauer said. The rabbit had been practically looking over the schnauzer’s shoulder.
“Hm?” Hauss didn’t look up from the monitors, as the trace made its way to Tokyo before going across the Pacific to Seattle.
“I’m seeing something.”
“What?”
“The code’s pinging away, but it’s also splitting up.”
The schnauzer tore his gaze away from the trace and looked at the screen on his upper right. His eyes widened. “Son of a . . . Hilda, call the shop and tell them to put out a few more tracers. Someone doesn’t want us to find him.” He grinned. “Too bad.”
“What’s going on?” Hamo asked.
“It’s trying to throw us off the scent,” Bauer explained. “Nothing that can’t be handled.”
“Connected!” Hauss yelped. “North America.”
“The shop says that the other two tracers are running. They’re dead ends.”
Hauss grinned, baring his teeth. “Got you, you little shit. United States . . . Western . . . connection made!” Two of the six screens started showing maps, narrowing the trace down to a specific address.
Bauer’s phone rang.
<NEXT>
<PREVIOUS>
<FIRST<
Category Story / General Furry Art
Species Fox (Other)
Size 85 x 120px
File Size 57.5 kB
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