Prologue
“Oh Jesus Christ woman, stop making such a fuss. You can barely hear it.”
“Barely hear it?! Barely…” Atene lowered her voice but kept her tone the same, while the man on the balcony opposite showed no concern for his volume. The high-rise apartments were spaced only a few metres apart, in one of the busier – but far from busiest – housing estates on the Capital. Generally a nice area too, Atene reminded herself on the days she wanted to throw something across the gap. Or at least, it was generally a nice area: with that bloody shared flat opposite, the value of her own apartment decreased significantly.
Selfish… little monkeys. Even in her mind, she found herself moderating her insults these days. She may as well have broken into song in the middle of a rant.
“It was playing all night last night,” she continued, finding ‘quiet shouting’ to be more of a hiss. “How do you think I keep this place running?”
The man shrugged, in a motion too overblown to be the result of a sober command.
“I work twelve hours a day, every day, and I still have to support my five year-old daughter on my own. I have a very, very small part of my life which is sacred to me, and that’s the time me and my daughter get to rest our eyes and sleep! Her teachers keep looking at me like I’m keeping her up doing chores for me, but actually she can’t sleep at night because her room backs on to you!”
“Oh, keep your… fruggin’… draws on, love…” The man spat as he spoke, one drop of saliva only just falling short of Atene’s railings. She winced.
“I’ll call the authorities.”
“Ooh, the authorities!” The man waved his hands and a snort came from inside the apartment; a fellow piss-pot, apparently, earwigging on what was fast approaching a slanging match. “Piss off!”
“Oi!” Before Atene could respond with something sensible, another voice interrupted her from below. She looked down, and through the grids on the ground saw her neighbour, a tall, bearded man whose name she had never asked, calling up at one of them. “She’s not the only one who can hear it, you know! I’m sick of it! Fucking sick of it!”
“Ohhhhh yeah,” slurred the drunk, “you’re all sick of it, maybe it’s because you’ve got a –“ he burped as he strained to pronounce the next word – “shulit taste in music.”
“No, it’s because this used to be a nice block! Do you want me to tell you about what happened when I moved in ten years ago?”
Feeling a migraine coming on, Atene left the two men to it and closed the door behind her. That shut the argument out, but the music still boomed through, so loudly that the paperwork on the table bounced up and down.
“Sorry about that sweetheart!” called Atene, walking into the hall. “Sweetheart?” She turned into the living room where Sammy was sat when she had left her, but it was as if she had been picked up on the spot and snatched away: her shape was still visible in the chair, her pencil on the right-hand side, and her drawings on the table. Even the rug was kicked up slightly; that little corner Atene always told her off for fiddling with was creased where her foot would have been. “Sammy? Are you in the loo?”
She glanced back into the hall: the bathroom door was wide open.
“Sammy?”
***
The Destiny Institute
“You’re right.” Andy removed the strap from around Autumn’s arm, and studied the readings on the holographic screen closely. Distracted, Autumn watched a bird perched on the shelf where Andy kept some of his compounds: it pecked the wood, leaving another scratch, and shot up into the next canopy. Autumn felt a strange curiosity about the level above them, but also trepidation. The Destiny Institute, in all its organic beauty, was not always the nicest place to explore. “We need to get you under as soon as possible.”
Autumn looked back. “How soon?”
“Now.”
“How soon at the most?”
“A day.” Andy logged something on his computer. The holographic screen vanished. He turned back to Autumn, giving her his full attention. “It can’t be any longer. And if you don’t go under soon – by which I mean, within the next few hours – you’re going to start to feel it. I would really suggest we do this right now, but if you want to go and visit anyone to say goodbye-“
“It’s the case,” clarified Autumn. “I can’t die without solving this case.”
“You’re not going to die.”
“I’m going to die in the world either way. This is a clandestine organisation, Andy; you told me already, my death certificate will be released tomorrow morning. By the time you’ve unfrozen me – if…”
No. I’m not going there. She started again.
“By the time you’ve unfrozen me, Quillon Spiros will most likely be dead after a long and happy life and an even longer list of victims. I need to do this.”
“A few hours,” insisted Andy. “Just a few hours.”
“Barely hear it?! Barely…” Atene lowered her voice but kept her tone the same, while the man on the balcony opposite showed no concern for his volume. The high-rise apartments were spaced only a few metres apart, in one of the busier – but far from busiest – housing estates on the Capital. Generally a nice area too, Atene reminded herself on the days she wanted to throw something across the gap. Or at least, it was generally a nice area: with that bloody shared flat opposite, the value of her own apartment decreased significantly.
Selfish… little monkeys. Even in her mind, she found herself moderating her insults these days. She may as well have broken into song in the middle of a rant.
“It was playing all night last night,” she continued, finding ‘quiet shouting’ to be more of a hiss. “How do you think I keep this place running?”
The man shrugged, in a motion too overblown to be the result of a sober command.
“I work twelve hours a day, every day, and I still have to support my five year-old daughter on my own. I have a very, very small part of my life which is sacred to me, and that’s the time me and my daughter get to rest our eyes and sleep! Her teachers keep looking at me like I’m keeping her up doing chores for me, but actually she can’t sleep at night because her room backs on to you!”
“Oh, keep your… fruggin’… draws on, love…” The man spat as he spoke, one drop of saliva only just falling short of Atene’s railings. She winced.
“I’ll call the authorities.”
“Ooh, the authorities!” The man waved his hands and a snort came from inside the apartment; a fellow piss-pot, apparently, earwigging on what was fast approaching a slanging match. “Piss off!”
“Oi!” Before Atene could respond with something sensible, another voice interrupted her from below. She looked down, and through the grids on the ground saw her neighbour, a tall, bearded man whose name she had never asked, calling up at one of them. “She’s not the only one who can hear it, you know! I’m sick of it! Fucking sick of it!”
“Ohhhhh yeah,” slurred the drunk, “you’re all sick of it, maybe it’s because you’ve got a –“ he burped as he strained to pronounce the next word – “shulit taste in music.”
“No, it’s because this used to be a nice block! Do you want me to tell you about what happened when I moved in ten years ago?”
Feeling a migraine coming on, Atene left the two men to it and closed the door behind her. That shut the argument out, but the music still boomed through, so loudly that the paperwork on the table bounced up and down.
“Sorry about that sweetheart!” called Atene, walking into the hall. “Sweetheart?” She turned into the living room where Sammy was sat when she had left her, but it was as if she had been picked up on the spot and snatched away: her shape was still visible in the chair, her pencil on the right-hand side, and her drawings on the table. Even the rug was kicked up slightly; that little corner Atene always told her off for fiddling with was creased where her foot would have been. “Sammy? Are you in the loo?”
She glanced back into the hall: the bathroom door was wide open.
“Sammy?”
***
The Destiny Institute
“You’re right.” Andy removed the strap from around Autumn’s arm, and studied the readings on the holographic screen closely. Distracted, Autumn watched a bird perched on the shelf where Andy kept some of his compounds: it pecked the wood, leaving another scratch, and shot up into the next canopy. Autumn felt a strange curiosity about the level above them, but also trepidation. The Destiny Institute, in all its organic beauty, was not always the nicest place to explore. “We need to get you under as soon as possible.”
Autumn looked back. “How soon?”
“Now.”
“How soon at the most?”
“A day.” Andy logged something on his computer. The holographic screen vanished. He turned back to Autumn, giving her his full attention. “It can’t be any longer. And if you don’t go under soon – by which I mean, within the next few hours – you’re going to start to feel it. I would really suggest we do this right now, but if you want to go and visit anyone to say goodbye-“
“It’s the case,” clarified Autumn. “I can’t die without solving this case.”
“You’re not going to die.”
“I’m going to die in the world either way. This is a clandestine organisation, Andy; you told me already, my death certificate will be released tomorrow morning. By the time you’ve unfrozen me – if…”
No. I’m not going there. She started again.
“By the time you’ve unfrozen me, Quillon Spiros will most likely be dead after a long and happy life and an even longer list of victims. I need to do this.”
“A few hours,” insisted Andy. “Just a few hours.”
The Dying Detective
Episode 6/6
Blank Cheque
Written by Janine Rivers
“What does he do to his victims?” Atene was sat bolt upright on her couch, still shaking. Autumn brought a tea into the living room, though she suspected that Atene would barely be able to hold it up without inadvertently splashing a whole dotted pattern onto her trousers. It was a nice apartment, Autumn had observed: modern wallpaper, sleek kitchen furnishings, and some stunning décor choices. It was also tiny – two bedrooms the size of closets, a living room the size of a bedroom, and a kitchen that you couldn’t even find. Someone had done the best with the little space they had.
“He takes them to a place,” said Goodwin, obliquely, “where they’re left… on their own. But she won’t feel pain; she’ll probably just slip out of consciousness, unaware of what’s happening around her.” Autumn regarded her boss strangely. It was unlike her to lie so directly.
“Because I’ve seen it on the news,” continued Atene, sniffing. “I’ve seen what they say about him…”
“You know what the news is like.” Goodwin smiled kindly. “We’ll do everything we can, but if we can’t bring her back to you, do your absolute best to banish those thoughts. She won’t be suffering. Now if you’d just excuse my colleague and I for a moment…”
Goodwin gestured for Autumn to get up, and they stepped out into the hall, speaking in hushed tones. The music covered up any careless words.
“We’ve found her daughter,” said Goodwin, matter-of-factly.
“Wait, hang on, what?”
“And I’ve decided not to tell her.” Goodwin peered inside; Atene wasn’t crying, just fiddling with a tissue as she waited nervously. “Since there’s nothing we can do, it’s not worth the pain. Her daughter’s in a bad way as it is and that shouldn’t be her lasting memory of her.”
“She needs her mother.”
“And she’s not even in that room with her – there'd be no way of telling if her mother was there or not.”
“True.” Autumn nodded. “But do we have the authority?”
“Screw authority,” muttered Goodwin. Autumn once again nodded in agreement. “I recorded Peter before he died on my phone. He gave us a full statement. When I went to send the file when I arrived back in the office, it had been deleted. The only thing we had against him, destroyed. He’s playing a long game, and it's time to accept that he's winning.”
***
Quillon turned his computer on, brushing some dust off his desk that had gathered overnight. It was a bright morning in the museum: the leaves along the window were looking perfectly healthy, and sunlight flooded in, bringing life and energy to the paintings.
This morning his eye was drawn to one particular painting – a piece of modern art; some rigid shapes of block colours along some curving, blurring, indistinct lines; a union of clarity and mystery. That was how the brochure described it – that was the tantalising excerpt that made fools pay out their weekend’s earnings to take a look. In truth, thought Quillon, it really wasn’t very good.
The block shapes had rough edges; their perimeters were a little indistinct, and far too haphazard to represent clarity, while the abstract patterns on either side were symmetrical, creating a strange semblance of order in the disorder. Everything any analysis had ever claimed the painting to be was deeply mistaken. It was hard to make any sense of it at all.
Yet three men had died recovering the painting from a disintegrating ship flying out of the Empire. The lengths people would go to for art – for recovering a mere symbol of a thing.
“Where is she?”
“Well, well.” Quillon turned around, seeing the tortured, appalled face of a young woman he recognised from the apartment he had paid a visit to earlier. “And who let you in?”
“Where is she?”
“I saw you on the news.” Quillon casually continued with his work, entering the passcode to his computer. “Tiena something, wasn’t it?”
“Atene.”
“I wondered if you’d come to me. I didn’t do it, you know. I didn’t take your little girl and lock her up and trap her on her own. Though I’ll tell you something.” He leant over the desk, as if having a fairly standard conversation with a chatty customer. “She’ll be dead this time tomorrow. You know how these murders work, don’t you?”
“TELL ME WHERE SHE IS!” Atene grabbed Quillon’s tie and tried to haul him over the desk. It started to throttle him; he was only skeletal, so it would be quicker for him to feel it, Atene had figured. Within seconds, security guards were upon her, and Quillon was left with little more than a red mark.
***
“She’s being held overnight,” explained Goodwin, pulling down the blinds to her office, half to block the rest of the department from lip-reading and half to block out the daylight. Autumn was glad: the case felt better at night, when she was usually at home. In the daylight it was too ordinary – just another procedure, when it deserved to be treated as something more. Something worse.
“It feels wrong. That poor woman is locked up in a cell for doing what anyone in her place would be driven to do, while that… monster… is still out there.” Autumn was already finding herself talking about Quillon with the repulsion that Goodwin had shown when they were first given the case.
“That’s how he works. He picks on the people most likely to break.” Goodwin rubbed her eyes; a combination of sleeplessness and soreness from the crying. “Sammy’s on her way out now. We’re just waiting for the call. It feels wrong, not letting Atene see… like you said earlier.” She sighed.
“We couldn’t let her now, anyway.”
There was a silence. Not an awkward one: Autumn and Goodwin were able to sit in a room together in silence now; their mutual defeat stimulated a subconscious communication of its own.
“Do you ever think...” Autumn considered whether or not to say it. “Do you ever consider just breaking the rules? When you hate someone that much, extreme measures are the easiest. Clobbering some bastard over the head is easier than watching his victims blink out of existence in front of you. The smell of his burning body is an easier sensory experience than the sounds of children screaming. When you’re dealing with a monster like him, is there such a thing as going too far?”
“We’re the police,” replied Goodwin, simply. “It’s our job to say that it is. On your first case you stopped a vigilante killer for that exact reason. The moment you feel entitled and act upon that entitlement, you stop being able to do this job. The rules aren’t there because they’re right – they’re there because if we try to be too right, we end up being dangerously, monstrously wrong.”
“What about just this once?” argued Autumn, almost urging. “After everything he’s put you through? What if you just made those circumstances possible? Put the right people in the right place at the right time? If it makes you feel better you could do the whole thing passively.”
“The Prince of V-3-Apple-7.”
The name sent a shiver down Autumn’s spine.
“One of my most difficult cases”, admitted Goodwin. “He was stabbed to death in his kitchen. And he… now he was a bastard. A proper, proper bastard. The first thing I liked about that case was the killer – I thought, that could have been me. If I hadn’t made that commitment to rules, if I hadn’t, I dunno, decided that the odd bit of banal evil was the price worth paying for upholding justice, I could have been them. I could have made that judgement differently, decided that it’s better to go too far than not to go anywhere at all. And I wondered when I looked at the body… just how close did I get to that? Could that really have been me? In another universe, maybe it was me.”
Autumn tried to think of a response, but become entangled in her thoughts, running each response through her head methodically to make sure it would not give away her secret.
“But of course I did go too far on that case. I let the killer off.”
“Who was the killer?” asked Autumn, innocuously. “If you don’t mind my asking.”
“You.” Goodwin let the accusation hang for a couple of seconds, and then softened the blow with a gentle smile. “It was an easy connection to make, when I looked into his role in the Planet Makers. I didn’t work it out until I’d put the case aside – until you became famous and made your speech. I realised you’d been on that crusade a long time. I realised your connection with Lord Dalta, too – I’m not an idiot. Figured he must have given you the information, wanted to wipe them out for his own ends, but didn’t reveal that because admitting to commissioning a killer would only have extended his sentence.”
“Wow.” Autumn often forgot that the woman giving her orders was once as good a detective as she was – better, in fact.
“I liked you,” admitted Goodwin. “I liked what you stood for. The way you handed Lord Dalta over to the authorities rather than going for a full killing spree. I thought maybe you’d decided to change the way you operated, so I pretended I hadn’t made the connection, burnt the paperwork. And then I made you serve your sentence.”
“You… did?”
“What do you think this is?” Goodwin chuckled sadly to herself. “I put you on that first case knowing full well you’d come back eventually, maybe, I don’t know, that you’d end up here too, stuck on this sodding case with me. That’s enough of a punishment for what you did. You didn’t need prison; you spent years in your own.”
“Well, thank you,” said Autumn. “Not for punishing me, but for having the sense to exercise justice in a way that made something meaningful out of what I did.”
“Do you regret it?”
Autumn considered.
“Look at us,” she said, changing the subject. “Our friend has died. A murderer is on the loose – and I’ve got a day to live. We’re sat here talking about the past.”
“And in years to come, people will be sat in our place, talking about today,” pointed out Goodwin. “It’s all relative.”
***
Autumn sat on the edge of the rooftop; deliberately further forward this time, but with no one to lean on. On a couple of occasions she had been up here with Peter; sharing experiences and saying what they would probably have been lectured for sharing in the building. She kept looking around, expecting to see… something. It was a place made for company, yet her only company was a series of intrusive thoughts; thoughts she was beginning to hope she had repressed.
I’m dying.
The city carried on as normal: this happened every day to someone new. Not only was it ignored, but it was a part of the procedure. It fed the families of the morgue workers, kept the churches busy on quieter days, gave the journalists something to talk about. It would take more than a supernatural force to remove death from the universe; now, it would take a completely different society.
If the Destiny Institute failed in their experiment, Autumn’s body would presumably be burnt there, and her ashes scattered in private. All of this would be possible using machines made for those specific purposes, tried and testing on the hundreds before her, and eventually worn out and replaced after the weight of the hundreds that would follow. And what would her body be? She considered that. Was the prospect of that happening to her body terrifying? After she died, her body would be a lump of dead cells: unable to feel, she’d just be a slab of meat. Everything that made Autumn Rivers who she was would go…
Where would it go? It would not leave her body. All those thoughts and memories would just disappear. Things in the world often stop: they grind to a halt, and slowly drift away, returning in pieces to the world around them. But she would stop in one single moment, no trace of her ‘soul’ left at all. It would be as if she had never existed at all.
I’m dying.
Yet still the thought of cremation was too much. She looked down at her hands, cold and shaking: the things she used to feel the world around her. She looked at them with her eyes; the bridge between the world and her being. And she stretched, feeling her body ache: the vessel of all she was. All of that would burn.
I’m dying.
Her phone rang, startling her. Goodwin was calling, but had decided not to join her on the rooftop. As she went to answer it, it stopped; she realised it was just a text message – for whatever reason, Goodwin could not face delivering it.
Sammy has died
***
Quillon had managed a whole day without being attacked – it was almost a shame. One would expect that after a child being murdered, the crowds would be worse than ever.
Of course, he realised, they were. Which also meant that they had to tighten up security, giving him more protection than ever. He laughed at the irony of that: the worse the offense, the safer he was.
It was night now, and he was alone in his apartment. The guards were only allowed to leave if someone with clearance was allowed in, in which time they stood outside to ensure no one else entered. He thus figured that, based on their absence, someone with clearance had been allowed in.
“Autumn Rivers.”
Autumn stood as she always did at these times; upright with her head held high and her hands by her side, half-hidden in shadows; but a violent seizure broke the balance and she fell to the floor, clutching her stomach. It felt like some creature was writhing inside it, beginning to lash out and bite. This, Autumn realised, was a nicer-sounding alternative: one vulnerable creature was a far sweeter idea than thousands of unstoppable micro-organisms.
“Well if you’re worried I’m going to take you away somewhere and watch you die, I think you beat me to it!” chuckled Quillon, repulsive enough to make Autumn sure it was him, but restrained enough to provide not the slightest modicum of evidence for her case.
Autumn stood up calmly, trying not to follow her instincts and support herself, and pulled her gun out, keeping a steady grip and a reasonable distance from Quillon.
“Oh, I see. You’re here for that.”
“Call for guards and I’ll kill you.”
“You’re going to kill me anyway.”
Autumn smiled. “Eventually.” She pulled up a chair and sat down, masking her exhaustion with authority. “You could just confess.”
“To what?” Quillon returned the smile, causing Autumn to shudder. “I’m innocent. And you’re not going to kill me – you’re the police.”
“I’m also dying. As you observed. Because I was thinking about this, and do you know what convinced me to come back and see you? Goodwin.”
Autumn laughed openly at that and Quillon joined in, assuming Autumn was for some reason inviting him to join the humiliation of her superior.
“Yeah,” said Autumn, as if sharing an amusing anecdote with an old friend. “We were chatting about things and she admitted that she knew about a crime I committed before I came here. I killed someone, by the way.”
Quillon was unnerved not by this revelation, but by how casually it had been offloaded.
“She said she gave me this job as a punishment. And it has been. The things I’ve had to deal with… and like I said, I’m dying. Tonight my life is going to end: the worst thing that can happen to any living creature. If I’ve already been punished then what does that make my death?” As Autumn had expected, Quillon failed to provide an answer. “So if the universe is going to do this to me either way, I might as well give it something to punish me for.”
“That’s not how it works.”
“I decide how it works, have you got that?” Autumn raised the gun to Quillon’s head. Her arm ached already, but she kept it up through the pain. “Me.”
“You have lost the plot…”
“I’m a forensic psychologist,” started Autumn, moving the topic on. She spoke quickly; Quillon tried to pin down whether this was to use the little time she had left to its maximum potential, or just to unsettle him. “Well, that’s what I was first. I can cook up an incredible criminal profile, you know – really pin down motivations. And they just kept asking me to do it for you.” She shook her head as if the concept was impossible to comprehend. “What makes him tick? Why does he do it? And do you know what? I just didn’t care. I don’t care what makes you do it. I don’t care about your traumatic childhood, or about what makes you a person, not anymore. Because you know as well as I do that there’s no stopping you. And you know as well as I do that you do what you do out of choice.”
“No one does anything out of choice.”
“No, everyone does everything out of choice. Sometimes those choices are limited or mistaken, but we always have a choice. And I’m not reducing you to… to a cause. Just as I’m not reducing myself. Because that’s what people always thought when they knew me. Oh, Autumn the psychopath, Autumn the murderer, who does what she does because she lost everything. Yes, that’s what I call my reason – that’s what made the choice seem like a possibility – but I made a choice. My planet didn’t decide to lock my best friend up in a Dalek camp, and the Planet Makers didn’t decide that I was going to massacre a whole species out of revenge. I did. So if you think you can get out of this by lecturing me about criminal responsibility, Quillon Spiros, think again, because I take responsibility for everything I’ve done. And I’m not even sorry.”
Engrossed, Quillon sat down opposite her on the couch, to which Autumn responded by getting back up, staging the room to her advantage. Quillon remained seated, unwilling to acknowledge Autumn’s movement as a threat.
“Death really is the worst punishment. It’s just the worst. There were so many things I could have done… so many places I could have gone.” Autumn clutched her chest, and without realising used the wall to prop her up. Once she noticed, she stayed leant against it; it was already too late to pretend to be in control. “Out there, somewhere, is the perfect planet for me. Somewhere else is someone I would have loved more than anyone has ever loved another being, but I never got to experience that. There’s a food I would have enjoyed more than any biscuit I’ve ever eaten, a song more fulfilling than any I’ve ever heard, and knowledge stranger and more hopefully than any I will ever grasp. Because death is a barrier to all of that. I’d say you don’t understand death but you do: you understand it perfectly. You understand everything that life is and then you go and take it. And that’s why I’m going to break the rules. That’s why I’m going to kill you. That’s why my own morals don’t even matter anymore.”
“You never had morals.”
“You’re right.” Autumn’s eyes gleaned with the acceptance. “I’ve always been this. I’m not relinquishing who I am to prepare for death.”
“Then you die in disgrace. The famous, beloved Autumn Rivers dies a murderer, a coward, and a criminal.”
Autumn sighed. “The famous, beloved Autumn Rivers dies… that’s the worst it gets for me. The words after don’t matter. I’ve never been able to understand that life goes on after my death. But now I do – now I see the suffering that you cause after people die. So I’m to die making the world a better place. Do you know what I think?” She stepped closer. “I think they’ll thank me for it.”
“You’ll still die either way. You still won’t change it.”
“Dying doesn’t matter,” uttered Autumn, “when I get to outlive you.”
As Quillon looked into Autumn’s eyes, he finally understood. The woman in front of him could come to terms with what was happening to her, but that acceptance was destructive. It took violent catharses, wars, and trails of blood. And he was the final key: Autumn’s last bargain. Her last victory.
No good, no bad. Just a winner and a loser.
Quillon turned around, preferring not to look on, and gazed out of his window at the Capital: a world carrying on, even into the night. Perhaps it did end when he died. At the very least, it was never going to change. The forces governing it never did, and minutia never mattered.
“Go on then. K-“
Before he could finish his sentence, the bullet fired into his back, tearing into his flesh, and launching him through the window. The last thing he felt was a seventy-five-floor drop. He landed on a ticket barrier.
***
Andy rushed into his lab. He had planned to stay awake all night, but had retreated to his room to get changed, laid back, exhausted, and fallen asleep. When the news arrived of Autumn’s return, he sprinted out without even combing his hair to meet her.
“Autumn! I told you to come sooner!” His complaint was more out of concern than anger.
“I had… things to do.” Autumn fell back on the floor, hitting her head on the wood, and jerked involuntarily. She was tired, only making vague sense; but every time she started to drift off, she would be woken up by a sudden convulsion; another part of her body turning against her.
“Okay,” said Andy, calmly. “Okay, let’s get you under now.” He flicked a switch on the control panel and the glass gave way, leaving the ice chamber exposed in the floor. Even with all his hope, he could not help but see the symbolism; could not help but feel that he was placing a dead body in its coffin. Yet it spoke to him: urged him, implored him. You’ll save me.
His lab assistant bent down and helped him to lower Autumn into the chamber. Others were beginning to gather round, too: the Institute’s director, and a number of unrecognisable members of staff. Andy wished it was for his work, but knew and accepted that the real reason was a precaution: once-ordinary people paying their last respects to Autumn Rivers in case they never had a chance to again.
Hats were taken off. Heads were bowed.
Autumn closed her eyes, distantly aware of them. The ice was already beginning to draw her into a dreamlike state.
“I don’t normally get visitors…”
Autumn closed her eyes. After a life of protest, her body told her to accept what was happening, and obeying the only person she would ever take orders from, she gave in.
***
Atene stood over the mess. That horrible, horrible mess.
Little over a month after the death of her daughter, she had discovered the Destiny Institute. She had shown an interest in research into immortality, and with her originally scientific background, had been headhunted. The Institute was at its height. That was until that fateful day came.
Now, in front of her, one of her best friends – the brave and brilliant Andy – was spread across the floor in a mess of blood, some his own and some another’s. Close by, another was in an even worse state: a bearded man, who had introduced himself only as ‘the Master’, and whose internal organs were laid out on the floor like pieces of a jigsaw puzzle for someone to arrange. And in the glass, now cracked and broken, was the body of Autumn Rivers.
“They said there was the possibility that she would remain conscious,” said Atene. “That she’ll be trapped in that state; living a nightmare for the whole of eternity, until the end of time itself.” She turned nervously to the scientist next to her. “Could that be true?”
“I hope not,” was the best the scientist could muster. “Either way, the story of Autumn Rivers came to a strange finish. To the rest of the world, she killed a man and was ‘found dead’ in her apartment, after a long battle with a strange illness.” He tried to sound a bit more upbeat; Atene needed it. “She’ll be remembered for decades – the person we never really understood. The hero who did more than we would ever know. If she went mad, she must have had a reason for it. She won’t be forgotten.”
“And Andy? What about Andy?”
“I don’t think he would have cared about that.”
Another man walked in and approached the scientists; a sharp black suit against white coats and red pens, like a splodge of paint on a clean canvas.
“There’s been a change of plan,” he said, in a voice Atene had heard hundreds of times before from a dozen different mouths. “The boss has been replaced. We’re working for someone new.”
“Who?”
The man looked at the mess in front of them, seeming to focus a split second too long on the blood around Autumn’s ice chamber. “You wouldn’t believe me if I told you.” Without looking up, he handed a file over Atene, and she opened it on a bookmarked page. “These are the changes that are being made to the Institute. You’ll be working with us to make those changes.”
Atene scanned over the pages and shook her head, laughing nervously at what was obviously an executive joke. “No way.”
“Miss, if you could sign the paper.” The man handed over a pen. Atene looked up, disgusted.
“Are you kidding me?” No reply: an implication of the negative. “This stuff is insane. You’d… you'd be breaking every rule every scientist has ever obeyed, and if it goes wrong, you could destroy the Empire!”
“The boss is very loyal to the Empire, miss, and has great plans for it. Please read the full document.”
“I’m not reading this!” Atene threw the file on the ground. It bounced off the Master’s liver. “It’s… grotesque! You can’t control this stuff! Who is your boss? I demand to speak to him.”
“She does not speak directly to staff, miss. She has given the instruction to fire any member of staff who refuses to cooperate.”
“Fire me?” cried Atene. “Until you’ve got this fixed, I am not leaving this building!”
“Correct,” agreed the man plainly. “You’re not.” With that, he pulled out a gun, and blew Atene’s head clean off.
“He takes them to a place,” said Goodwin, obliquely, “where they’re left… on their own. But she won’t feel pain; she’ll probably just slip out of consciousness, unaware of what’s happening around her.” Autumn regarded her boss strangely. It was unlike her to lie so directly.
“Because I’ve seen it on the news,” continued Atene, sniffing. “I’ve seen what they say about him…”
“You know what the news is like.” Goodwin smiled kindly. “We’ll do everything we can, but if we can’t bring her back to you, do your absolute best to banish those thoughts. She won’t be suffering. Now if you’d just excuse my colleague and I for a moment…”
Goodwin gestured for Autumn to get up, and they stepped out into the hall, speaking in hushed tones. The music covered up any careless words.
“We’ve found her daughter,” said Goodwin, matter-of-factly.
“Wait, hang on, what?”
“And I’ve decided not to tell her.” Goodwin peered inside; Atene wasn’t crying, just fiddling with a tissue as she waited nervously. “Since there’s nothing we can do, it’s not worth the pain. Her daughter’s in a bad way as it is and that shouldn’t be her lasting memory of her.”
“She needs her mother.”
“And she’s not even in that room with her – there'd be no way of telling if her mother was there or not.”
“True.” Autumn nodded. “But do we have the authority?”
“Screw authority,” muttered Goodwin. Autumn once again nodded in agreement. “I recorded Peter before he died on my phone. He gave us a full statement. When I went to send the file when I arrived back in the office, it had been deleted. The only thing we had against him, destroyed. He’s playing a long game, and it's time to accept that he's winning.”
***
Quillon turned his computer on, brushing some dust off his desk that had gathered overnight. It was a bright morning in the museum: the leaves along the window were looking perfectly healthy, and sunlight flooded in, bringing life and energy to the paintings.
This morning his eye was drawn to one particular painting – a piece of modern art; some rigid shapes of block colours along some curving, blurring, indistinct lines; a union of clarity and mystery. That was how the brochure described it – that was the tantalising excerpt that made fools pay out their weekend’s earnings to take a look. In truth, thought Quillon, it really wasn’t very good.
The block shapes had rough edges; their perimeters were a little indistinct, and far too haphazard to represent clarity, while the abstract patterns on either side were symmetrical, creating a strange semblance of order in the disorder. Everything any analysis had ever claimed the painting to be was deeply mistaken. It was hard to make any sense of it at all.
Yet three men had died recovering the painting from a disintegrating ship flying out of the Empire. The lengths people would go to for art – for recovering a mere symbol of a thing.
“Where is she?”
“Well, well.” Quillon turned around, seeing the tortured, appalled face of a young woman he recognised from the apartment he had paid a visit to earlier. “And who let you in?”
“Where is she?”
“I saw you on the news.” Quillon casually continued with his work, entering the passcode to his computer. “Tiena something, wasn’t it?”
“Atene.”
“I wondered if you’d come to me. I didn’t do it, you know. I didn’t take your little girl and lock her up and trap her on her own. Though I’ll tell you something.” He leant over the desk, as if having a fairly standard conversation with a chatty customer. “She’ll be dead this time tomorrow. You know how these murders work, don’t you?”
“TELL ME WHERE SHE IS!” Atene grabbed Quillon’s tie and tried to haul him over the desk. It started to throttle him; he was only skeletal, so it would be quicker for him to feel it, Atene had figured. Within seconds, security guards were upon her, and Quillon was left with little more than a red mark.
***
“She’s being held overnight,” explained Goodwin, pulling down the blinds to her office, half to block the rest of the department from lip-reading and half to block out the daylight. Autumn was glad: the case felt better at night, when she was usually at home. In the daylight it was too ordinary – just another procedure, when it deserved to be treated as something more. Something worse.
“It feels wrong. That poor woman is locked up in a cell for doing what anyone in her place would be driven to do, while that… monster… is still out there.” Autumn was already finding herself talking about Quillon with the repulsion that Goodwin had shown when they were first given the case.
“That’s how he works. He picks on the people most likely to break.” Goodwin rubbed her eyes; a combination of sleeplessness and soreness from the crying. “Sammy’s on her way out now. We’re just waiting for the call. It feels wrong, not letting Atene see… like you said earlier.” She sighed.
“We couldn’t let her now, anyway.”
There was a silence. Not an awkward one: Autumn and Goodwin were able to sit in a room together in silence now; their mutual defeat stimulated a subconscious communication of its own.
“Do you ever think...” Autumn considered whether or not to say it. “Do you ever consider just breaking the rules? When you hate someone that much, extreme measures are the easiest. Clobbering some bastard over the head is easier than watching his victims blink out of existence in front of you. The smell of his burning body is an easier sensory experience than the sounds of children screaming. When you’re dealing with a monster like him, is there such a thing as going too far?”
“We’re the police,” replied Goodwin, simply. “It’s our job to say that it is. On your first case you stopped a vigilante killer for that exact reason. The moment you feel entitled and act upon that entitlement, you stop being able to do this job. The rules aren’t there because they’re right – they’re there because if we try to be too right, we end up being dangerously, monstrously wrong.”
“What about just this once?” argued Autumn, almost urging. “After everything he’s put you through? What if you just made those circumstances possible? Put the right people in the right place at the right time? If it makes you feel better you could do the whole thing passively.”
“The Prince of V-3-Apple-7.”
The name sent a shiver down Autumn’s spine.
“One of my most difficult cases”, admitted Goodwin. “He was stabbed to death in his kitchen. And he… now he was a bastard. A proper, proper bastard. The first thing I liked about that case was the killer – I thought, that could have been me. If I hadn’t made that commitment to rules, if I hadn’t, I dunno, decided that the odd bit of banal evil was the price worth paying for upholding justice, I could have been them. I could have made that judgement differently, decided that it’s better to go too far than not to go anywhere at all. And I wondered when I looked at the body… just how close did I get to that? Could that really have been me? In another universe, maybe it was me.”
Autumn tried to think of a response, but become entangled in her thoughts, running each response through her head methodically to make sure it would not give away her secret.
“But of course I did go too far on that case. I let the killer off.”
“Who was the killer?” asked Autumn, innocuously. “If you don’t mind my asking.”
“You.” Goodwin let the accusation hang for a couple of seconds, and then softened the blow with a gentle smile. “It was an easy connection to make, when I looked into his role in the Planet Makers. I didn’t work it out until I’d put the case aside – until you became famous and made your speech. I realised you’d been on that crusade a long time. I realised your connection with Lord Dalta, too – I’m not an idiot. Figured he must have given you the information, wanted to wipe them out for his own ends, but didn’t reveal that because admitting to commissioning a killer would only have extended his sentence.”
“Wow.” Autumn often forgot that the woman giving her orders was once as good a detective as she was – better, in fact.
“I liked you,” admitted Goodwin. “I liked what you stood for. The way you handed Lord Dalta over to the authorities rather than going for a full killing spree. I thought maybe you’d decided to change the way you operated, so I pretended I hadn’t made the connection, burnt the paperwork. And then I made you serve your sentence.”
“You… did?”
“What do you think this is?” Goodwin chuckled sadly to herself. “I put you on that first case knowing full well you’d come back eventually, maybe, I don’t know, that you’d end up here too, stuck on this sodding case with me. That’s enough of a punishment for what you did. You didn’t need prison; you spent years in your own.”
“Well, thank you,” said Autumn. “Not for punishing me, but for having the sense to exercise justice in a way that made something meaningful out of what I did.”
“Do you regret it?”
Autumn considered.
“Look at us,” she said, changing the subject. “Our friend has died. A murderer is on the loose – and I’ve got a day to live. We’re sat here talking about the past.”
“And in years to come, people will be sat in our place, talking about today,” pointed out Goodwin. “It’s all relative.”
***
Autumn sat on the edge of the rooftop; deliberately further forward this time, but with no one to lean on. On a couple of occasions she had been up here with Peter; sharing experiences and saying what they would probably have been lectured for sharing in the building. She kept looking around, expecting to see… something. It was a place made for company, yet her only company was a series of intrusive thoughts; thoughts she was beginning to hope she had repressed.
I’m dying.
The city carried on as normal: this happened every day to someone new. Not only was it ignored, but it was a part of the procedure. It fed the families of the morgue workers, kept the churches busy on quieter days, gave the journalists something to talk about. It would take more than a supernatural force to remove death from the universe; now, it would take a completely different society.
If the Destiny Institute failed in their experiment, Autumn’s body would presumably be burnt there, and her ashes scattered in private. All of this would be possible using machines made for those specific purposes, tried and testing on the hundreds before her, and eventually worn out and replaced after the weight of the hundreds that would follow. And what would her body be? She considered that. Was the prospect of that happening to her body terrifying? After she died, her body would be a lump of dead cells: unable to feel, she’d just be a slab of meat. Everything that made Autumn Rivers who she was would go…
Where would it go? It would not leave her body. All those thoughts and memories would just disappear. Things in the world often stop: they grind to a halt, and slowly drift away, returning in pieces to the world around them. But she would stop in one single moment, no trace of her ‘soul’ left at all. It would be as if she had never existed at all.
I’m dying.
Yet still the thought of cremation was too much. She looked down at her hands, cold and shaking: the things she used to feel the world around her. She looked at them with her eyes; the bridge between the world and her being. And she stretched, feeling her body ache: the vessel of all she was. All of that would burn.
I’m dying.
Her phone rang, startling her. Goodwin was calling, but had decided not to join her on the rooftop. As she went to answer it, it stopped; she realised it was just a text message – for whatever reason, Goodwin could not face delivering it.
Sammy has died
***
Quillon had managed a whole day without being attacked – it was almost a shame. One would expect that after a child being murdered, the crowds would be worse than ever.
Of course, he realised, they were. Which also meant that they had to tighten up security, giving him more protection than ever. He laughed at the irony of that: the worse the offense, the safer he was.
It was night now, and he was alone in his apartment. The guards were only allowed to leave if someone with clearance was allowed in, in which time they stood outside to ensure no one else entered. He thus figured that, based on their absence, someone with clearance had been allowed in.
“Autumn Rivers.”
Autumn stood as she always did at these times; upright with her head held high and her hands by her side, half-hidden in shadows; but a violent seizure broke the balance and she fell to the floor, clutching her stomach. It felt like some creature was writhing inside it, beginning to lash out and bite. This, Autumn realised, was a nicer-sounding alternative: one vulnerable creature was a far sweeter idea than thousands of unstoppable micro-organisms.
“Well if you’re worried I’m going to take you away somewhere and watch you die, I think you beat me to it!” chuckled Quillon, repulsive enough to make Autumn sure it was him, but restrained enough to provide not the slightest modicum of evidence for her case.
Autumn stood up calmly, trying not to follow her instincts and support herself, and pulled her gun out, keeping a steady grip and a reasonable distance from Quillon.
“Oh, I see. You’re here for that.”
“Call for guards and I’ll kill you.”
“You’re going to kill me anyway.”
Autumn smiled. “Eventually.” She pulled up a chair and sat down, masking her exhaustion with authority. “You could just confess.”
“To what?” Quillon returned the smile, causing Autumn to shudder. “I’m innocent. And you’re not going to kill me – you’re the police.”
“I’m also dying. As you observed. Because I was thinking about this, and do you know what convinced me to come back and see you? Goodwin.”
Autumn laughed openly at that and Quillon joined in, assuming Autumn was for some reason inviting him to join the humiliation of her superior.
“Yeah,” said Autumn, as if sharing an amusing anecdote with an old friend. “We were chatting about things and she admitted that she knew about a crime I committed before I came here. I killed someone, by the way.”
Quillon was unnerved not by this revelation, but by how casually it had been offloaded.
“She said she gave me this job as a punishment. And it has been. The things I’ve had to deal with… and like I said, I’m dying. Tonight my life is going to end: the worst thing that can happen to any living creature. If I’ve already been punished then what does that make my death?” As Autumn had expected, Quillon failed to provide an answer. “So if the universe is going to do this to me either way, I might as well give it something to punish me for.”
“That’s not how it works.”
“I decide how it works, have you got that?” Autumn raised the gun to Quillon’s head. Her arm ached already, but she kept it up through the pain. “Me.”
“You have lost the plot…”
“I’m a forensic psychologist,” started Autumn, moving the topic on. She spoke quickly; Quillon tried to pin down whether this was to use the little time she had left to its maximum potential, or just to unsettle him. “Well, that’s what I was first. I can cook up an incredible criminal profile, you know – really pin down motivations. And they just kept asking me to do it for you.” She shook her head as if the concept was impossible to comprehend. “What makes him tick? Why does he do it? And do you know what? I just didn’t care. I don’t care what makes you do it. I don’t care about your traumatic childhood, or about what makes you a person, not anymore. Because you know as well as I do that there’s no stopping you. And you know as well as I do that you do what you do out of choice.”
“No one does anything out of choice.”
“No, everyone does everything out of choice. Sometimes those choices are limited or mistaken, but we always have a choice. And I’m not reducing you to… to a cause. Just as I’m not reducing myself. Because that’s what people always thought when they knew me. Oh, Autumn the psychopath, Autumn the murderer, who does what she does because she lost everything. Yes, that’s what I call my reason – that’s what made the choice seem like a possibility – but I made a choice. My planet didn’t decide to lock my best friend up in a Dalek camp, and the Planet Makers didn’t decide that I was going to massacre a whole species out of revenge. I did. So if you think you can get out of this by lecturing me about criminal responsibility, Quillon Spiros, think again, because I take responsibility for everything I’ve done. And I’m not even sorry.”
Engrossed, Quillon sat down opposite her on the couch, to which Autumn responded by getting back up, staging the room to her advantage. Quillon remained seated, unwilling to acknowledge Autumn’s movement as a threat.
“Death really is the worst punishment. It’s just the worst. There were so many things I could have done… so many places I could have gone.” Autumn clutched her chest, and without realising used the wall to prop her up. Once she noticed, she stayed leant against it; it was already too late to pretend to be in control. “Out there, somewhere, is the perfect planet for me. Somewhere else is someone I would have loved more than anyone has ever loved another being, but I never got to experience that. There’s a food I would have enjoyed more than any biscuit I’ve ever eaten, a song more fulfilling than any I’ve ever heard, and knowledge stranger and more hopefully than any I will ever grasp. Because death is a barrier to all of that. I’d say you don’t understand death but you do: you understand it perfectly. You understand everything that life is and then you go and take it. And that’s why I’m going to break the rules. That’s why I’m going to kill you. That’s why my own morals don’t even matter anymore.”
“You never had morals.”
“You’re right.” Autumn’s eyes gleaned with the acceptance. “I’ve always been this. I’m not relinquishing who I am to prepare for death.”
“Then you die in disgrace. The famous, beloved Autumn Rivers dies a murderer, a coward, and a criminal.”
Autumn sighed. “The famous, beloved Autumn Rivers dies… that’s the worst it gets for me. The words after don’t matter. I’ve never been able to understand that life goes on after my death. But now I do – now I see the suffering that you cause after people die. So I’m to die making the world a better place. Do you know what I think?” She stepped closer. “I think they’ll thank me for it.”
“You’ll still die either way. You still won’t change it.”
“Dying doesn’t matter,” uttered Autumn, “when I get to outlive you.”
As Quillon looked into Autumn’s eyes, he finally understood. The woman in front of him could come to terms with what was happening to her, but that acceptance was destructive. It took violent catharses, wars, and trails of blood. And he was the final key: Autumn’s last bargain. Her last victory.
No good, no bad. Just a winner and a loser.
Quillon turned around, preferring not to look on, and gazed out of his window at the Capital: a world carrying on, even into the night. Perhaps it did end when he died. At the very least, it was never going to change. The forces governing it never did, and minutia never mattered.
“Go on then. K-“
Before he could finish his sentence, the bullet fired into his back, tearing into his flesh, and launching him through the window. The last thing he felt was a seventy-five-floor drop. He landed on a ticket barrier.
***
Andy rushed into his lab. He had planned to stay awake all night, but had retreated to his room to get changed, laid back, exhausted, and fallen asleep. When the news arrived of Autumn’s return, he sprinted out without even combing his hair to meet her.
“Autumn! I told you to come sooner!” His complaint was more out of concern than anger.
“I had… things to do.” Autumn fell back on the floor, hitting her head on the wood, and jerked involuntarily. She was tired, only making vague sense; but every time she started to drift off, she would be woken up by a sudden convulsion; another part of her body turning against her.
“Okay,” said Andy, calmly. “Okay, let’s get you under now.” He flicked a switch on the control panel and the glass gave way, leaving the ice chamber exposed in the floor. Even with all his hope, he could not help but see the symbolism; could not help but feel that he was placing a dead body in its coffin. Yet it spoke to him: urged him, implored him. You’ll save me.
His lab assistant bent down and helped him to lower Autumn into the chamber. Others were beginning to gather round, too: the Institute’s director, and a number of unrecognisable members of staff. Andy wished it was for his work, but knew and accepted that the real reason was a precaution: once-ordinary people paying their last respects to Autumn Rivers in case they never had a chance to again.
Hats were taken off. Heads were bowed.
Autumn closed her eyes, distantly aware of them. The ice was already beginning to draw her into a dreamlike state.
“I don’t normally get visitors…”
Autumn closed her eyes. After a life of protest, her body told her to accept what was happening, and obeying the only person she would ever take orders from, she gave in.
***
Atene stood over the mess. That horrible, horrible mess.
Little over a month after the death of her daughter, she had discovered the Destiny Institute. She had shown an interest in research into immortality, and with her originally scientific background, had been headhunted. The Institute was at its height. That was until that fateful day came.
Now, in front of her, one of her best friends – the brave and brilliant Andy – was spread across the floor in a mess of blood, some his own and some another’s. Close by, another was in an even worse state: a bearded man, who had introduced himself only as ‘the Master’, and whose internal organs were laid out on the floor like pieces of a jigsaw puzzle for someone to arrange. And in the glass, now cracked and broken, was the body of Autumn Rivers.
“They said there was the possibility that she would remain conscious,” said Atene. “That she’ll be trapped in that state; living a nightmare for the whole of eternity, until the end of time itself.” She turned nervously to the scientist next to her. “Could that be true?”
“I hope not,” was the best the scientist could muster. “Either way, the story of Autumn Rivers came to a strange finish. To the rest of the world, she killed a man and was ‘found dead’ in her apartment, after a long battle with a strange illness.” He tried to sound a bit more upbeat; Atene needed it. “She’ll be remembered for decades – the person we never really understood. The hero who did more than we would ever know. If she went mad, she must have had a reason for it. She won’t be forgotten.”
“And Andy? What about Andy?”
“I don’t think he would have cared about that.”
Another man walked in and approached the scientists; a sharp black suit against white coats and red pens, like a splodge of paint on a clean canvas.
“There’s been a change of plan,” he said, in a voice Atene had heard hundreds of times before from a dozen different mouths. “The boss has been replaced. We’re working for someone new.”
“Who?”
The man looked at the mess in front of them, seeming to focus a split second too long on the blood around Autumn’s ice chamber. “You wouldn’t believe me if I told you.” Without looking up, he handed a file over Atene, and she opened it on a bookmarked page. “These are the changes that are being made to the Institute. You’ll be working with us to make those changes.”
Atene scanned over the pages and shook her head, laughing nervously at what was obviously an executive joke. “No way.”
“Miss, if you could sign the paper.” The man handed over a pen. Atene looked up, disgusted.
“Are you kidding me?” No reply: an implication of the negative. “This stuff is insane. You’d… you'd be breaking every rule every scientist has ever obeyed, and if it goes wrong, you could destroy the Empire!”
“The boss is very loyal to the Empire, miss, and has great plans for it. Please read the full document.”
“I’m not reading this!” Atene threw the file on the ground. It bounced off the Master’s liver. “It’s… grotesque! You can’t control this stuff! Who is your boss? I demand to speak to him.”
“She does not speak directly to staff, miss. She has given the instruction to fire any member of staff who refuses to cooperate.”
“Fire me?” cried Atene. “Until you’ve got this fixed, I am not leaving this building!”
“Correct,” agreed the man plainly. “You’re not.” With that, he pulled out a gun, and blew Atene’s head clean off.
Want to find out how the story was resolved? Find out in the next series of The Eighth Doctor Adventures, beginning next Monday. Or, if you're reading this at a later date, the story continues under 'Series Three' of The Eighth Doctor Adventures in the navigation menu.