02 - Neurocop
By Saïd
Translated from the French by Miguel Jacq
“Don’t flood me with details, I’m not in the mood. I want the essential, and I want it right now.”
Commissioner Vangler wiped the sweat running from his forehead. He was at the station when they told him about the robbery. Another one. He stood up without hesitation, switched the car to manual mode and drove off at top speed. Siren hurling, he exited the city, made his way to the coast, and skidded on the burning tarmac some metres from his officers.
“There’s five of them. Only one is known to us, he’s named…”
It was Chappel who had started speaking. The young cop was hidden from the light, but the commissioner had recognised her voice. He listened to her while looking into the distance as he walked, eyes squinting, his back drenched underneath his shirt.
The turbines were switched off. They acted as stadium seating for the seagulls who understood nothing about the distressing situation. To the left, the cluster of grey cubes of the water-bank were half submerged in the sea, a sea not really made for providing any relief from this heatwave…
The commissioner interrupted Chappel.
“What time did they lock themselves in there?”
“Probably last night, chief. They took the agent who came to manage the installation as a hostage, during the night.”
“An agent? Human?”
“I had the water-bank’s directory on the line, he says the humidity’s bad for the droids. So it’s still people who are often given the job.”
“Gee, poor sod.”
“When they caught him, he had time to set off an alarm. It was only this morning, about an hour and a half ago. We’re awaiting your signal to send in the chatbot to start negotiations…”
They approached the ‘U’ formed by three police vans, a bit closer to the water-bank. The way was unimpeded, the news of the robbery still too fresh for onlookers to show up. It wouldn’t take long.
“Launch the bot.”
“About that, chief.. I’m not sure it’s a good idea.”
They’d been joined by several colleagues who were awaiting the instructions.
“Listen. There’s a hostage inside. If we mess up on this one, it’s me who’s going to cop it. Imagine if this guy has kids… public opinion’s going to rain down on me. We’re going to pull him out of there, without making the slightest mistake. So start the comms via this goddamn negotiator bot.”
An explosion rang out. Then a second, then a third again. The police threw themselves to the ground, hands over their ears.
Chappel was the first to get back on her feet. Her head was spinning and there was an atrocious ringing in her ears that took ten long seconds to dissipate. She blinked. The glare of the first explosion had left a coloured trace on her retina which was appearing in flashes across her field of vision.
“You ok?”
The others had stood back up and were dusting off their uniforms.
The commissioner stared at the water-bank.
“Why did they do that, these idiots? They know this sort of place can withstand that.”
Grey smoke covered half of the blackened complex and rose up toward the turbines. The seagulls had disappeared. The thieves had placed explosives on the outside, not the inside. They wanted it understood that they were armed, and they wanted to make some noise.
“I just had them on the line, chief”, said an officer managing the communications. “They’re threatening to blow the tanks, they said they have the means.”
“We can’t afford to lose the drinking water! Trigger the alert!”
“I’m calling the intervention brigade!”, declared Chappell.
Half an hour later, four semi-refrigerated armoured vehicles occupied by the emergency intervention brigade arrived on the scene. Over their heads, the police could hear the buzz of journalist drones and those of others. To hide their plans, their exchanges and the photos they showed each other, they stretched out tarps over the backs of their vehicles. This also had the effect of providing a bit of shade.
The commissioner was deep in discussion with a colleague in black armour when their superior showed up. He was accompanied by a civilian, an old, rather meagre-looking man with a moustache who didn’t seem too affected by the heat.
“Vangler, can I have a word? It’s urgent.”
“Of course, divisional commissioner, I…”
“Do you think you can handle the situation?”
“Sorry?”
“It’s pretty simple, I’m asking if you can handle the situation.”
Vangler breathed in.
“Well, we’re still trying to make contact, but I think we can say that we’re doing our best.”
The superior raised his eyebrows.
“I’d like to introduce Arnold Koseg. He’s the technician who had to do the rounds on the installations in the night.”
“I… sorry?”
“Are you going deaf?”
“But if the technician’s here, then who’s been taken hostage inside?”
“You know, that’s exactly what I’m wondering myself.”
Chappel entered the improvised tent.
“I’ve got good news and bad news.”
She saluted the divisional commissioner before continuing: “The water-bank’s director is here. He knows who’s inside.”
“Is that the good or the bad news?”
“The good.”
Her eyes met those of the technician.
“I think that the gentleman should give us a moment”, she said.
Vangler clicked his fingers in a subordinate’s direction, who led the old Koseg away by the shoulder.
“The bad news is that the hostage is Rose Dewaele, and she’s the engineer.”
“Shit.”
The divisional commissioner muttered while staring at the ground. They were in shock. The worst of the scenarios was in the process of playing out. The intervention brigade chief said: “I imagine I can go tell my men to get back in the trucks and keep cool?”
The superior nodded. The man gave a worried glance at Vangler and disappeared.
“You were going to storm the building, Vangler. You were a hair’s breath away from storming the building…”
“Sir, I…”
“Enough! It’s no longer a minor technician inside, it’s a woman of the utmost value! You’re the one handling the case, Vangler, but if you screw it up, we’ll all be in it!”
Furious, he stormed off. The commissioner asked Chappel, the only one remaining in the shade with him: “Have they spoken with the bot?”
“Briefly, chief. They said they want us to send three tanker-trucks full of water into their quarters. Otherwise they’ll kill the scientist.”
“Goddamn it…”
In no circumstances would the authorities accept filling three tanks under threat. It was the fourth robbery since the start of spring. Not one of them had ended with a single drop of water in the possession of thieves. The worst one had been the third… the bank had triggered a security system which had mixed the water stocks with untreated seawater. The result was undrinkable. So much energy spent producing water for nothing… it had enraged the public authorities, and the media had ravaged them. Such a situation could not afford to happen again. Especially given that here, there was a hostage, and not just anyone.
“Release Neurocop.”
There was a brief silence.
“Chief, are you sure that’s the right thing to do?”
“Theodora… how long have we worked together?”
“It must be six years, chief.”
“So you must know that this kind of decision, this kind of serious decision… I don’t make them without having fully thought it through.”
“I know, chief. I just wanted to make sure you’re considering the implications. We’re going to try to replace the hostage… we’re going to put an innocent person in danger to…”
“To save this engineer”, Vangler interrupted her. “We’re not going to do anything. Neurocop’s going to do it. Tell the others to keep playing with the chatbot, inspector, while the AI scans the profiles and finds us an unlucky one.”
Chappel noted the transition from first name to rank in the chief’s phrase. She had no other choice but to obey him. A bit further away, in a van, a cop launched Neurocop via the computer. It would take several minutes for the AI to analyse the terabytes of data of people existing within twenty minutes’ distance by rapid vehicle.
The commissioner went looking for something to drink, as his head was spinning. One couldn’t turn a blind eye in the search for the exchange hostage. The autopilot was too slow, he ought to drive himself.
He ended up finding a bit of water, and returned immediately to his officers. He stopped behind the open van in which Chappel and her colleague were kneeling in front of the computer, their backs to him.
“So? What’s the address?”
The police exchanged a look, a look which wasn’t reassuring.
“Can you tell me what’s going on?”
“I don’t know how to tell you this, chief.”
The commissioner climbed into the van and approached the screen.
“No way…”
The computer was showing the face of his own wife.
“No way, no way…”
He sat back in the van, leaning against the wall.
“How can it be?”
The officer who was there studied the data collected by Neurocop.
“Housewife, no degree, over fifty years old, IQ slightly below average, physical health in decline…”
“That’s enough!”
“We’re on the coast, it’s much less populated by people in a fragile state, here. The sort that buy houses or apartments all have an IQ of 110 minimum, and have done at least eight years of study. On top of that, I see that.. that..”
“Yes?”
“Well, there’s her cancer, commissioner.”
“I beg your pardon?”
The officer glanced first at Chappel, then Vangler.
“You weren’t aware?”
The chief lurched forward and vomited out of the van via the open back doors.
Chappel asked her colleague to leave them alone.
“Commissioner?”
She helped him get up.
“We can still cancel. We don’t have to bring your wife here.”
“She has cancer, goddamn it. This damn machine said she has cancer.”
“It could be a mistake…”
“This piece of shit doesn’t make any mistakes! It must’ve analysed more info on my wife in five minutes than all the doctors we’ve met in our whole life together. And if she came up first, it must mean she doesn’t have long.”
A bit further away, a police car’s engine started. It was over. They’d go find her. Her name must’ve been passed on, and they’d left the commissioner in the lurch, fearing he wouldn’t follow protocol. No-one was going to take the risk of being blamed in case of failure. They’d exchange his wife for the hostage, and then they’d storm the building. At the very moment he’d given the order to launch Neurocop, he’d condemned her to die.
“She could still make it, chief…”
Vangler tried to imagine his wife, whom they were about to send in by force and lock up with a group of thieves, desperate from thirst and armed with explosives. This vision terrified him.
It only took a few tens of minutes for the commissioner to hear the voice of his wife, struggling feebly with two officers who held her by the arms. The chief left the back of the van and walked under the glaring light towards them.
“Leave us.”
The police let her go.
“Philip.. what are they talking about?”
She fell into his arms as he announced her illness to her, shaken by the coldness of his own tone. It was with this monotonous voice that he announced deaths to the families of victims whenever a drama occurred. She fell to pieces.
If he took her place and exchanged himself for the hostage, he risked dying. If such was the case, the courts would accuse his wife of having influenced him, and the punishment would be severe. She would die in prison. If he survived, he’d lose his job, would be found guilty for having put in danger an individual of priority use, and would waste away in prison while she died on the outside. If he left her to be exchanged, she risked dying during the assault which would follow several minutes later… knowing that, in any case, she only had a few weeks to live.
The worst thing was accepting that Neurocop had already analysed all that. The best solution was obviously to exchange his wife for the engineer.
“Honey, listen to me…”
She knew. She shook her head.
“You’re going to have to go in.”
He signalled to two officers to take her. She shouted, she struggled. In the distance, a doctor got ready to give her something that would no doubt keep her calm.
“This is awful…”, he muttered.
“Chief! Chief!”
It was Theodora Chappel calling him. She was running towards him.
“The engineer is in on it!”
At first, he didn’t follow.
“What are you talking about?”
“We launched the autonomous drone. I saw the images. The hostage, Rose Dewaele, she’s in on it.”
He stood for a moment, unable to move. Then he spun around.
“Stop the exchange! Launch the assault!”
In a few minutes, the noise of boots clamoured in their ears. Within the confines of the bank, a new explosion rang out. This time, a tank broke apart with a dreadful grinding. Disemboweled, it spilled thousands of litres of water upon the complex. This only spurred the intervention brigade on. Blowing the doors off, they surged into the interior. Shots were fired.
Between the police vans, Vangler’s wife returned crying into his arms.
“It’s over.. it’s over.”
Soon the assessment was announced: six dead, including the hostage who was an accomplice, and 800 cubic metres of potable water wasted.
The tension having calmed somewhat, Vangler found himself alone with Chappel. She was folding up one of the tarps which had served as an anti-sun and anti-aerial-photograph shield. Around them, the wasted water had run from the bank over to the vans, staining the hot ground for a few minutes.
“I hope you know what you’ve done.”
She didn’t reply.
“How many of you were there, that saw the compromising images of the hostage?”
“I’m the only one.”
“And the drone?”
“Destroyed in the explosion. My testimony is all there is…"
He swallowed. He ought to have thanked her, but…
“Chappel, there’s a question I dare not ask you.”
She finished the last fold, throwing the fabric over her shoulder to take it over to the van. Finally, she made eye contact with him.
“If you don’t dare, commissioner, then don’t ask.”