His Alterations By: Lemons4All Upon entering the room Michael is struck by how calm the man is. He steps closer to get a better look at him. The man has one blue eye and one purple eye. "Why the fuck did you do that to your eye?" "Why not?" The man shrugs and takes a drag from his cigarette. Even with the cuffs on, he manages to move gracefully. "How much of you is altered?" Michael carefully looks to try and see any other outward signs. The man laughs. "Does it matter? The alterations are in places you cannot see my friend." Michael picks up the soft lull in the man’s voice. European, probably French. "But you couldn’t change your accent, could you?" "Not with alterations. Why waste the time? I could just see an acting coach if I cared." The man is bored now, his cigarette almost finished. Michael takes a seat across from the man. "Tell us where she is. We know she approached you at Caesars. Save yourself a lot of trouble. We’ll find out eventually and your refusal to help will only mean suffering." He tries to keep the frustration from his voice. They have had this man, the Tailor, in custody for over ten hours. In that time, law enforcement has not been able to make a positive identification. The tech unit has gone over every bit of footage they could get their hands on. CTV, hotel feeds, casino floor recordings, McCarran’s files, everything from the last twenty days. The man had appeared suddenly outside the Flamingo twelve days ago. Before that time, they have nothing. All his biometrics are inconclusive. He has no fingerprints. This is not surprising. The alteration to chromosome 4q22 is popular. Besides, DNA typing is predominantly used on unchipped individuals. But the profile of this tailor was changed in ways they have not seen before. He carries the tracings of four different individuals. None of which are in the Unified database. His vocal captures were analyzed. No matches. Which meant he strips patterns with an AI. And yet, he has no implant chip, which is illegal. They can hold him indefinitely for that. The Tailor looks around the room and stops to stare at Michael. "What suffering? What will you do? Cage me? Torture me? You must know I have altered my pain receptors." He pauses and picks at a scab on his arm. "It doesn’t matter. I don’t know who she is. Just like you don’t know who I am." "We know she sought you out. She knew you would be at the conference. Did she contact you prior to your arrival in Las Vegas?", Michael asks. "No." Michael looks over at the two-way mirror. He can imagine Joe shrugging his shoulders on the other side. "Did she tell you what she was going to do? Did you know?" "No." the Tailor says. Michael’s voice begins to rise. "A man is fucking dead. Shit is hitting the fan. This woman you are protecting has taken out the owner of Inogene. She has ripped the head off the beast and fucked the neck hole! You will be lucky-" The Tailor bursts out laughing. Michael abruptly closes his mouth; his face is red and he is sure his confusion is apparent. Smiling, the Tailor says, "When I heard the news, I rejoiced, do you hear me? I may not have known what she would do, but had I known I would not have changed a thing! That man deserved to die. Not only for what he represents, but because he is a disgusting predator." Michael sputters, "The rumors were just that, rumors. He-" "Bullshit. He claimed that the videos were fake, that someone had a vendetta against him and tried to smear his name. The girl who died – how old was she? I don’t see you getting incensed by her death. A little girl, the neighbor, breaks her neck falling from a second story window? With nobody home? How long have you been a detective? Even you, with your ineptitude, can see the lies." With careful precision, the Tailor pulls another cigarette from the pack on the table and lights it. The door opens. Joe stands in the doorway and says, "Can I speak with you detective?" With a barely concealed sigh, Michael rises and leaves the interrogation room. He checks to make sure the door is locked behind him. "Why did you pull me out? The guy was just starting to open up." The frustration is apparent this time. Joe grabs Michael’s arm and drags him down the corridor. They continue past the main office and intake. Joe pushes him out the doors into the harsh sunlight. They cross the parking lot and get into Joe’s car. After starting the car, Joe cranks the radio. Classic rock plays over the speakers. The car is sweltering and Michael can feel his shirt getting damp. But he knows enough not to complain. He waits for Joe to drive onto Las Vegas Blvd. "We’re going to pick up some lattes for the techs. Charlie knows we’ve stepped out. I swept the car last night so we should be clear." Joe frowns and wipes the sweat from his face with a napkin. He steers the car towards downtown. "Listen, mate, you have to get away from talking about the vic. You’re getting distracted. Get yourself under control. We’re not handling the murder. We just need to get his statement and pass it on to the feds. Keep the focus on the woman." The car turns into the small corner lot with the bakery. Joe pulls into a spot and turns off the car. "Do you understand?", he asks. Visions of the vic’s dead body come to Michael’s mind. "I’m trying to, Joe. I really am. But none of this makes sense. The owner was shot and the woman is nowhere to be found. What am I supposed to get from the tailor?" "That’s not important. Just get what you can and log it with Central. Let’s go, you’re buying." Joe leaves the car and strides into the coffee shop. After a moment contemplating, Michael follows. * When they return, Michael heads to his desk and reviews the updates to the Tailor’s casefile. There is a new entry on his known authoring. The Tailor has been responsible for 56 alterations – his handle had been confirmed as attached. Along with cosmetic and medical alterations, there were a few non-sanctioned ones. Dealing with things like food crop mods. But one stands out - mass change through aerosol delivery. Michael whistles. This kind of alteration is dangerous. The risk of cross contamination must be incredibly high. Biochip implants, which carry the user’s original DNA profile and are required, have made alterations a nuisance. But still, the modifications are heavily regulated. Changes such as the ones the Tailor is creating are illegal and carry high penalties. The other updates are uninteresting. Mostly statements from con attendees that interacted with him. Michael turns off his computer and goes to the interrogation room. "When did you remove your biochip?" The Tailor had been napping, his head pillowed on his arms, when Michael enters. He lifts his head at the question. "When? I was about 15. Had it done at a local meetup. Hurt like hell." "How did you evade discovery?" "It is really not that hard. Why? Do you need something removed?" He leans back and winks at Michael. Michael ignores this. "But travel, accessing the AI hubs, hell, even buying a sandwich…what do you do?" "Oh, we have a chip, of sorts. Right where they expect it to be." The Tailor pats his upper left thigh. "It is just that ours are not inside us. And they have very different information on them. Some of us are old enough to have an exemption card. Like your partner. The verifying documents are fake of course." "But why go through all the trouble? What are you trying to hide?" Michael is impatient. "Tell me, what did the woman want?" The Tailor doesn’t reply right away. After some time, he says, "She wanted help. I gave her everything I could. All the modifications I had. And every vector delivery formula." "Why did you help her if you didn’t know who she was or what she was going to do?", Michael says. "I didn’t know she would kill the man. As for why I did what I did, it is very simple. The alternative was not an option." There is a tiredness in the Tailor’s voice. He gives a sad smile. "What will happen tomorrow or the day after that is unknown. But what I do know is that I don’t want things to be the same as today. I just can’t accept that. Can you understand?" His eyes lock with Michael’s. Michael frowns and shakes his head. "What will she do with what you gave her?" The Tailor’s smile fades. He keeps silent and lowers his head to his arms. * When the outage occurs, there is no warning. AI hubs go down and even non-neural networks are unresponsive. After five minutes, everything comes back online. It takes another ten minutes for recognition to occur. When the errors start happening people dismiss it as a one off. Something wrong with the uplink or the reader. The readouts show the wrong DNA profile. But after the diagnostic reports come flooding in, panic begins. Seven minutes later, the missile payloads go off above major population centers around the world. The clouds dissipate quickly. Most people don’t even notice. Government officials and scientists scramble to identify what is in the gas. Joe gets the emergency alert first. "What the hell?" He looks about wildly. Kerri is sitting at her desk. Gesturing at his phone, he asks, "What does this mean? Can you check your implant?" Kerri grabs a scanner from a drawer and holds it to her leg. She cries out. Joe hurries over and glances at the readout. It shows the picture of Inogene’s owner. The DNA profile code listed is not Kerri’s. The financial accounts attached are not hers either. She has access to more money than Joe has ever seen. "Joe?" Kerri looks at him questioningly, her fear apparent. An intern nearby scans his chip. He shows the result to them. It has the same information as Kerri’s chip. "This is impossible." Joe turns and runs out of the room. * Michael quietly exits the interrogation and heads to the lobby. He goes outside and reaches for his phone to call his wife. He feels through his pockets and curses when he realizes he left the phone on his desk. He returns to the lobby and waits for the elevator. The doors open and Joe appears. "There you are. Have you checked your chip?" "No, why?" "Jesus, Michael. Did you leave your phone upstairs again? Get in the fucking elevator and I’ll explain." And he does. He tells Michael what he knows. Throughout the afternoon, more information comes to light. They find out that Inogene’s owner had, before he died, given access to the company’s systems; it was also confirmed that he had hurt more than one child. When the AI hubs came back online they overwrote every biochip they could connect to. Which was over 95% of them. Inogene’s database, which was tied directly to the Unified database had been scrambled. No DNA profile was clean. Those crucial four letters had been rearranged in an unrecognizable pattern. There is general chaos throughout the station. People talking on phones, their voices clamoring. Others are glued to a screen, trying to make sense of what it all means. There is a consensus among the talking heads. Nobody seems to know exactly what the fallout will be. There is no official word yet from the government. "Yes. Five minutes. He’ll be ready." Michael ends the call and puts down his phone. He looks at the screen. A missed call alert chimes. He doesn’t want to listen to another voicemail. Lauren’s first message had been slightly accusatory. They’re shared account showed the morning debit. She had tracked his time at the bakery and wanted to know why he was buying so many items. The later messages grew more and more frantic. She was crying, saying she couldn’t see him or connect with his chip. She wanted to know why her chip failed to start the car. "The picture isn’t me, Michael. I’ve tried over and over. Why isn’t it working? The property gate won’t open. Please call me." Michael knows all her efforts are in vain. He picks up his scanner again and aims it at his leg. The same profile shows; it is not his. It is a profile that every chipped person now carries. He stands and walks to the interrogation room. He is numb, his limbs heavy. He stops in the viewing room to observe the Tailor. Inside the room, the Tailor is watching the wall mounted screen. Someone must have decided that even the suspects deserved to know. The Tailor is crying. Sobbing in an uncontrollable manner. His hands cover his face and his whole body shakes. When he lowers his hands, Michael can see the lights reflecting off the wetness dripping down his face. And then the Tailor begins to laugh. He laughs with great gulps of air. It is as if there is every delight in the world placed before him. Dumbfounded at first, Michael is overcome with fury. He quickly enters the interrogation room, flinging open the door. "Why is this all so funny? What is wrong with you?" The Tailor looks at Michael and grins broadly. "Don’t you know? Can you feel it? Or has it been so long that you have forgotten?" The joy in his voice is so apparent. The tears continue to fall. "Things will be different for you my friend. For everyone." "What about for you? I can’t change what is going to happen. The feds will be here shortly. They are taking you." Michael’s chest feels tight. He knows what is to come. "That is okay. It is too late. I have nothing more to give." The Tailor struggles to open the box of cigarettes. There are two left. "Smoke with me my friend?" Michael takes the box of cigarettes. He lights one and gives it to the Tailor. He lights the other and inhales. "What you made, how will it change us?" The Tailor places his hand over Michael’s. "In ways that will right the wrongs. Do not fear. All will be well." The door opens then and three men in body armor enter. They forcefully lift the Tailor out of his chair. He drops his cigarette. Michael goes to grab it but by the time he straightens up they have left the room. He quickly follows but it is to no avail. Before the feds usher him into the stairway leading to the roof, the Tailor glances at Michael. He smiles and winks and then he is gone. * The heat from the day is finally dissipating. The sky is still bright, washed dusky purple by the unseen sun and the millions of lights that line the strip. Michael and Joe walk down the street. Michael wonders what microscopic changes are happening all around him. He slows and turns to Joe. "What now?" Joe stares ahead, then looks up. There are no stars visible, but in the vastness beyond the earth they shine, waiting. "Now we go home. We wait and see what the dawn brings."