11 February 2186

The train rushed towards the platform, still moving at one hundred miles per hour even though it was supposed to be stopping. It whipped up a windstorm around me, stealing jackets away from bodies and sweeping hair across faces. I dragged dark strands out of my eyes with a scowl and cross-checked the time on my tabphone with the messages I'd received. Yes, it was definitely the ungodly hour of five o'clock in the morning. Yes, that was the time Alex had said his train was coming in.

It finally screeched to a halt, so dramatically that anyone not wearing their seatbelt would have been fatally flung across the carriage. I stayed by the walls of the station, waiting among just a handful of others for the doors to open. When they did, even fewer people emerged.

Alex was one of the last, clad in his dark trench coat with a duffel bag slung over his shoulder. When his eyes met mine, my lips lifted at the corners automatically.

He stopped in front of me, and there was an awkward second when I wondered what we were going to do. Our illicit kiss on New Year's Eve had changed nothing between us, and although we had not spoken about it since, we were both aware of it. This was the first time we'd met each other off duty since that night.

"Hello," I settled on.

Alex smiled. "Hello. I didn't expect you to meet me."

There was something about sharing a smile that clicked everything back into place between us. It was like time had frozen over the weekend while he'd been away, and now it was simply picking up where it had left off.

"I missed having you around to help me," I said. "Your aunt's okay now?"

"Yes." A frown touched his features. His eyes were underlined with shadows. "She's at home and on the mend."

"Good. You have a bit of a welcome party back at the station. Dixon, Sebastian, and Cassia are waiting to say hello."

"We're going to the station now?"

"You have a briefing scheduled -- the last few days have been manic. All the crooks crawled out the shadows as soon as you'd gone."

He smiled wryly. "Have you been managing?"

"Your welcome party have been filling in your role between them, and I've had the PRBs at my disposal. Well...at my disposal as much as any PRB can be."

"Maybe you won't need me today, then." Alex slung his duffle bag into his hands and glanced at it longingly.

"Sorry, you'll just have to bring that with you and pretend you've had a good night's rest." I was going to have to pretend, too. "Maybe we can sneak out to Coffee Glitch when they open later."

"That would be nice." He looked up and smiled again.

My heart jumped.

Even though he'd hardly been gone, it was good to have my sergeant back in Socrico.

***

Detective Chief Superintendent Ky Dixon was sitting behind his desk when we arrived in his office, and my sister and DI Sebastian Flynn were arranged in front of him. Why they were about to sit through the briefing, I had no idea. Cassia had simply been my sounding board over the weekend, and while Sebastian had helped me do some legwork, it was nothing Dixon and I couldn't explain between us. If I were them, I'd have still been in bed.

Perhaps Cassia hadn't wanted to be at home. I still hadn't managed to get to the bottom of what was going on between her and Miles.

She turned and smiled at the man looming behind me. "Hello, Alex."

I cleared my throat and sat down beside her. "And hello, Amber."

"Good morning," Dixon said. "Alex, welcome back. Is everything okay now?"

My sergeant sat down next to me. "Yes, sir. Morning, Sebastian."

Sebastian smiled. "Morning."

Dixon tapped one of the three tablets that were hovering over his desk. "All right, let's settle down. We have a lot to get --"

My earpiece buzzed. I shot my governor an apologetic glance and tapped it twice to answer the call. "Rames speaking."

"Ma'am, this is Laney. We've got a body in The Diamond Hotel. Suspected murder."

***

Alex, Cassia, and I abandoned the briefing and rode a tram to Diamond Lane. It was still very early in the morning, and still very dark. The streets were almost empty, and only a few lamps guided our way when we disembarked.

The Diamond Hotel was an upper-class establishment that had grown in the middle of a run-down neighbourhood, and it rose over the dingy flats and struggling shops grandly -- and oddly. Once a mediocre establishment, it now attracted the middle class from all over Britain, creating a wealthy world within its four walls that was alien to the rest of its surroundings. Every floor belonged to the hotel's owner, Jasper Jaydes, who I'd briefly met once before.

We approached the golden-framed doors beneath the hotel sign. They slid open automatically, parting like a curtain over the crime scene.

The lobby was enormous in every direction: high-ceilinged, deep, and wide. There was not one, but two crystal chandeliers; four vintage lifts stationed at the back; three strange bronze figures of naked women among the regal, claw-footed furniture of the snug; and a large oriental rug spread between the sofas and the mahogany front desk. It was as if time had been suspended.

I couldn't see the victim, but half a dozen PRBs were standing behind the reception desk, drawn there like big, black flies. More were walking the grid of the scene. The floor they passed over shone with bloodstains, and some had splashed onto the wall behind the desk. Brain matter was mixed in with it.

"Well," Alex said wryly. "It's good to be back."

***

The crime scene was, in my professional opinion, a mess.

The victim was sprawled behind the desk, her face beaten into a bloody pulp that not even my ilenz could recognise as human. Her hair was thick with it. Her skull was cracked open like a boiled egg. Her brain was everywhere.

Cassia sat back on her heels, her expression grim. "I needn't go over the cause of death. Or hazard a guess at the murder weapon." She nodded at the bloodied weighing scales that were sitting by Alex's elbow. "Given the state she's in, I'd say the murderer continued to attack her after life had expired."

I glanced over my shoulder at the murderer -- a red robot, now powered down and stationary. Jasper Jaydes was standing next to it and insisting that it needed to be arrested. Detective Constable Emily Laney was trying to explain that we could only seize it as evidence because there were no laws against robots. It was the tenth time, and she looked pissed off.

I turned back and crouched beside the victim. "May I?"

Cassia nodded.

The woman was wearing a black-and-red floral dress with a cherry blazer over the top. I put my hands in her blazer pockets. When I felt the familiar, smooth surface of a tabphone, I pulled it out and looked at the name on the lock screen. "Kristina Nixon."

"I'll look up her next of kin," Alex said.

"Thanks." I risked another glance at Kristina's head. "Why such violence?"

Cassia stood up beside my sergeant and pulled her gloves off. "Maybe the robot didn't know when to stop. Do you think it's some kind of fault?"

Even though I hated them, I shook my head. "When robots are faulty, they stop working. They don't kill people."

"Maybe they do now."

"You've been watching too many films." I straightened up. "We should look at the CCTV for ourselves."

Alex was already tucking his tabphone away. "Kristina only has an ex-husband for us to talk to, and we can send Laney ahead of us to break the news."

"CCTV it is, then."

***

Five minutes later, we'd divested ourselves of our forensic suits and were standing in Jasper Jaydes' office. It was situated on the top floor of the hotel, which he'd taken for himself as a penthouse -- or maybe a time capsule. He was sitting behind an oak desk that was apparently from the surface, and the walls were panelled with more wood from the same tree. Worn leather sofas stood opposite us. I wondered how old they were.

Jasper himself was not old. Without looking at his national profile, I guessed he was my age or perhaps a few years my senior. He was slightly on the large side, with a chubby, friendly face, but not so large that he didn't look neat in his blue suit. His tie was straight and pinned to his shirt, and his brown hair was parted perfectly in the middle. He was a tidy and unremarkable upper-class white man living at odds with a city driven by crime, body-hackers, and wild fashion trends.

There was one other person in the room with us, who Jasper had introduced as Brady Haywood, head housekeeper and therefore in charge of the robots who did most of the housekeeping. He was reclining on a leather sofa, looking both at ease and out of place: he was more like a pirate than a housekeeper in a posh hotel. Black hair fell to his shoulders, and a scar ran up his cheek. He watched us closely with golden eyes, and I couldn't tell if they were contact lenses or permanent implants. What I did know was that I hadn't met him when I'd visited the hotel a few years before. Only Jasper had spoken to me then.

"So, you're an inspector now," Jasper said. His voice had a slightly pompous quality. "I'm sure you were just a sergeant when you came here about that thief."

I was surprised he'd recognised me. Perhaps my work clothes had made me stick out in his mind. Today, my idea of dressing smart was to wear a green polo-neck jumper with black jeans and my leather jacket. I stuck out in my surroundings even more than Brady the pirate.

Alex raised his eyebrows at the word just. I grinned. "Yes, I was."

Golden-eyed Brady pulled one leg over the other and lit a cigarette. "You never caught the bastard, did you?"

"No." But no other staff had complained about their personal effects going missing once Jasper had involved us. Sometimes, people just needed a scare.

"I've forgotten the name of your governor," he said now, tapping away on his tablet.

"DI Wilson. He retired a while ago."

"Lucky him. Ah! Here we go."

CCTV footage appeared on his tablet screen from five o'clock that morning. He pressed play, and Alex and I leaned closer.

The footage was HD and included sound. The camera was positioned on the ceiling just above the desk, with a clear view of the entrance. Kristina was behind the desk, glancing between the doors and a tablet. The weighing scales were sitting next to the device. Three red robots stood nearby, like gigantic ladybirds without spots.

Kristina suddenly looked up and turned to the robots. "Cancel the Taylors' booking."

"The Taylors?" I murmured.

"Husband and wife who were supposed to arrive here this morning," Jasper explained. "They never turned up."

"Why?"

"I don't know."

On screen, one of the robots spoke. "Request accepted. Booking cancelled."

"That's Alpha," Jasper said.

"Clock me out," Kristina instructed, leaning towards the robot. It mimicked her so that they were both staring at each other.

"What's it doing?" I asked.

Jasper sighed. "It's supposed to be scanning her face."

The robot shuddered and froze in position.

"Clock me out," Kristina said again.

The robot's eyes flared. Kristina gasped and turned away from the dazzling light. I leaned forward, frowning.

While Kristina's back was turned, the robot picked up the weighing scales. Its voice was no longer synthesised, but human instead, although unrecognisable now that it was playing on a recording. "Kristina... Kristina."

She turned back.

The robot caught her by the arm. "Oh, Kristina. You have been a very bad girl."

She didn't scream as it raised the scales. She looked paralysed with fear.

But when the scales hit her head and blood sprayed, she did scream. She screamed as she fell backwards, and she screamed when the robot clubbed her again. And again. The scales hit her face, her scalp.

Kristina fell silent.

There was a horrible crack as her skull broke open. The robot swung again, and again, and again.

Finally, it dropped the weighing scales, and its eyes flared. I counted the time. Five whole seconds of unusually bright light.

Then it shuddered, and its eyes died. It had shut down.

Jasper paused the video.

"Carry on," I said.

"Go back." Alex spoke over me. "Play the part we've just seen again."

I shot him an inquisitive look. "We haven't even watched her being discovered."

"I want a freeze-frame of the flare. It's important."

Jasper sighed. "Must I play it again? It's horrific." But he took the video back to the moment when the robot's eyes had first flared.

Alex stared at the screen. "Yes. A hacker's taken control."

Jasper twisted around in his chair, his eyes wide. "A hacker?"

"We had trouble with a gang hacking robots in Rosek," Alex said to me. "They'd use them to hold up shops and avoid being arrested. But when you looked inside the robot, the hacker's Xplora identity could be traced."

"Looked inside?" I repeated.

"Yes. It would only take me five minutes to examine Alpha."

Of course it would.

I glanced at Jasper, and he nodded. "Take Brady. He knows where the tools are. Brady, escort the sergeant to the storage room. Use the backstairs. I don't think you'll want to see the lobby again yet."

"See what you can find out about the Taylors, Alex," I added. "We'll watch the rest of this."

Alex and Brady left the office, and I turned back to the tablet as Jasper played the footage again. "When did Kristina start working for you?"

"Ah, let me see... Surely she's been with us for about four or five years now."

A dark-haired man walked on screen. I pointed at him. "That's Brady?"

"Yes," Jasper said. "He heard the screams from his office, where he was working."

Brady stood still for a long moment. Then he strode back out of the frame.

"Where were you?" I asked.

"All the way up here, asleep. I didn't wake up until Brady came."

"Right." I examined the lone, butchered body on screen again. "Could you send me a copy of this footage, please?"

***

Once Jasper had sent the video to my tabphone, I rode a lift back down to the ground floor of The Diamond. Alex was standing by the front desk, his expression dark. He came over when he saw me, and we met in the middle of the lobby, far away from any listening ears.

"Should I take it that didn't go well?" I asked.

"No." Alex rubbed his jaw. "The Taylors are out of the city. They cancelled their trip because they're unwell, and I can't find any link between them and Kristina. As for the robot, whoever hacked it knew how to erase all trace of themselves. The PRBs are going to take it back to the station, but it's a dead end."

I blew out a long breath. "Okay. So..."

An awkward silence settled over us. Suddenly, we were teetering on the edge again, as uncertain as we had been at the train station.

"Look, about New Year's Eve..." Alex's hand moved to the back of his neck. "Nothing's changed, has it? And here we are again, with a murder inquiry..."

"Yes, here we are again," I repeated flatly. "But we can't let this get in the way. So...we'd better get on with it."

He rubbed his neck for a moment longer, then suddenly dropped his hand and straightened up. "Come to my flat tonight. I'll cook."

"What?" I stared at him, wondering if I'd misheard.

"Surely we can share a meal as friends. Perhaps if we can prove that to ourselves -- if we can get used to it..."

"Oh." I blinked. "Yes, right. I get it. If we manage to spend lots of time together not kissing each other, we'll never kiss each other, because it's just not something we'll be in the habit of doing." It did not sound very convincing to my ears, but I didn't have a better plan. Rallying myself, I added, "Dinner had better be nice, then."

"I won't get away with chocolate bars?" A hint of mischief crept into his voice.

Oh, Alex. I desperately tried to fight my smile. "Don't you dare even try, Sergeant."