Phew… okay. Meant to give an update sooner than this, but things just took a while to process.
I’d been working on cracking who Deck was for a full day, but everything I’d pulled was coming at a dead end. I’d managed to trace him to a couple other pen names scattered across the country--would you believe “Solitaire” was one of them after all--but beyond that, nothing. He was good at hiding himself, which implied more experience than I’d been counting on.
So there I was, sitting in my abode with Castilles’ upkeeper Adelpha as well as Dant, sharing what info we could scrounge together. On days like this I’d be waiting for the next case to show up at my door, but this time it was the current one: Deck stood at the door with his usual flair. To just about everyone’s surprise, though, he was here to help us.
As I’d suspected, he wasn’t working alone. Someone was after Castilles, and Deck had started to realize that handing our emotionally vulnerable friend to a shady mad scientist character wasn’t his smartest life choice. With a natural grain of salt, my gang and I followed him to a seemingly abandoned complex.
The moment we walked in, the thing started reeking with suspicion. A brittle chair had looked like it’d been knocked over, but without as much as a knick on the wood, and a light scattering of dust covered the floor but not the objects on it… it was clear that the complex was meant to look abandoned, but was anything but. Our villain wasn’t likely to be expecting a pair of humans and bots, but our eyes were peeled for traps regardless.
Taking the stairs is always a calculated risk. It was clear that whoever was running the place was a sadist to anyone, bot or man, and he was definitely the kinda person who’d like to make us regret trying anything clever. These kinds of guys are regular control freaks, and that means they want to stay at least two steps ahead of you. This makes them predictable, but then they rely on you relying on that, hence them staying two steps ahead instead of one, so you have to rely on their reliance on your relying on their predictability and subvert the subversive, thereby taking the obvious route to surprise ‘em. So we deftly avoided whatever traps were anywhere except the stairs, and headed straight into the lion’s jaws.
Once we reached the real lobby, the “abandoned” facade vanished. Instruments littered the walls, with an oddly clean-swept floor even by an evil lab’s standards. How quickly the illusion vanished meant our villain, who I’ll be calling “Hectic,” was either a total chowderhead or wanted us to know that our discovery’s no problem if he offs us before we can get any word out to the world.
As if in answer, the next door we opened revealed five broken-down drones, their cases covered in horrifying rust. I know I get a lot of human readers who think it’s silly that some bots hate rust, but imagine your blockbuster zombie movies, but someone bitten doesn’t lose consciousness and just has to live with decomposing. Gives me chills every time. Seriously, I don’t know how other bots can stand even seeing the stuff.
The speakers blared on, and we heard the voice of Hectic. After a typically non-subtle threat, he clicked off and the rust-covered drones activated. Our weapons guy decided this was the perfect time to go look for Hectic, so that left the rest of us to deal with the drones and rescue Castilles while we were at it.
Er, Cast. His name is Cast now. Still getting used to that.
For confidentiality (and for other reasons I’d rather not get into), I won’t say what happened just yet, but once we found Cast, we discovered he’d undergone a few… upgrades, and with his upgrades he renamed himself, since his old name didn’t fit anymore.
Anyway, we left Cast with his upkeeper, so who should be around to distract the drones but Dant and myself. Not gonna lie: it was harrowing. (Which makes human readers not getting the rust thing even worse, because human body horror sells like nobody’s business.) To cut to the chase, at one point Dant got caught by one of the things and I had to get him out of it. A detective’s life can’t be all glamour; reading any of the pulps will teach you that. I’ve absolutely no desire to repeat any of it, but Dant and I both made it away.
Shortly after, we came across Deck, who quickly explained that Hectic had started a countdown to EMP every bot in the facility, Cast included. We dashed out the building in the nick of time, seeing that Cast and Adelpha had made it out shortly before we did. The EMP no doubt shorted out the drones, but we didn’t care. I’d have to investigate the scene of the crime, although a reunion like this wasn’t the time.
Still, Cast is home, and he’s safe. Deck’s former employer, the man behind everything, managed to slip away, but I have a sneaking suspicion he’ll be back sooner rather than later.
I owe it to Cast and everything he’s been through to find this man and bring him to justice, so I will make it my mission to do everything in my power to expose him for all his twisted crimes.
From everything that’s happened so far, this case will put me to my limits. It might just be the greatest case I’ve ever solved… or will solve, that is. When the day comes, I’ll be ready for his return. I have to be.
For the time being, we can rest and attempt to return to whatever normal we can find after everything that’s happened. With everything that has happened, we’ll certainly need it.
And you guys… Dant, Cast, thanks for being around. I’ve learned that I can’t do this on my own. I need someone to listen to how smart I am, and you guys are just the best at that.
Case closed.
