Here is an early draft of the first chapter of my next book The Ronin of Vine Street featuring Thomas Martel, P.I.:
THE RONIN OF VINE STREET
By: W. H. Mitchell
Copyright © 2024 W. H. Mitchell
ONE
Above the planet Aldorus, the sun rose like a crown over the city of Regalis. The capital of the Imperium was divided into three districts. On the left bank of the Regalis River was the West End district where the royal estates of nobility were connected by wide boulevards with neatly manicured trees. On the East side, the skyscrapers of Middleton lanced the clouds with glass and steel, serving as offices for the megacorporations that fueled the Imperial economy.
To the south of Middleton was the last of the districts. Called Ashetown, it was the red-headed stepchild of the city. While the other two districts were populated mostly by humans, Ashetown was where the non-humans lived. These inhabitants were the poorest of the city and, while sharing the same rights as everyone else, were still viewed as second-class citizens.
In the heart of these slums was a little diner on Vine Street where a man named Thomas Martel was finishing up his breakfast. Although considered human by most accounts, Martel preferred to live and work in Ashetown for reasons that were his own.
Except for Martel, the diner was empty of patrons. A line of stools with avocado-green vinyl seats ran the length of the counter, a kitchen on the other side. Five booths were opposite the counter with full-length windows giving a good view of the poor neighborhood outside. Occasionally, a pedestrian meandered by on the sidewalk. Never human, they kept their eyes focused on their feet and not much else. A gravcar, stripped of useful parts, lay abandoned on the other side of the street. In the second booth from the door, Martel watched through the window, a faint reflection of himself staring back.
Martel was in his late 40s, with dark brown skin and hair trimmed short with a fade at the temples. He had a broad face with high cheekbones and deep-set brown eyes. His beard was short, but it was long enough to see the gray mixed in with the black whiskers. He wore denim pants and a tan button-down shirt. A maroon tie was loose around his neck.
At six foot three with wide shoulders, Martel barely fit in the small booth he shared with his full-length, leather coat bundled on the seat beside him. On the worn veneer of the table, a plate with the remains of eggs and sausages sat waiting to be taken away while a horsefly sat on the edge. Martel shooed it away with a swipe of his hand. An empty coffee mug sat beside the plate.
A waitressbot came from around the counter with a fresh pot of coffee. Humanoid in shape, she was an assortment of chrome and plastic partially covered by a dirty apron with the name Alice stitched on the tag. She stopped at Martel’s table and smiled.
“You want a refill, sug’?” she asked.
“Yeah,” Martel replied absentmindedly and watched as she lowered the pot to fill the mug. She left him alone as he tore open a sugar packet and added some creamer, waiting for the coffee to cool down. When he brought up the mug to drink, he felt something brushing against his lips. Setting the mug down, he saw the horsefly swimming in the coffee.
Martel made a face, but instead of killing the fly, he took a spoon from the table and fished it out. He dumped it out onto a paper napkin and sat there patiently until the insect dried off enough to fly away.
Martel pulled himself from the booth and put on his coat. He took out his datapad and paid the bill at the counter. The waitress waved as the bell over the door jangled as Martel left.
“See ya tomorrow!” she yelled after him.
Martel took Vine north a few blocks until he crossed Marlowe Street where a six-story office building stood on the corner. The building was made from white granite, now blackened by years of neglect, with a bracketed cornice along the roofline. Pairs of windows, seven sets per floor, ran up the side with the windows on the top floor having arches that gave the building a perceptually surprised expression.
Martel went through the main entrance and climbed a flight of stairs to the second floor. He followed a narrow hallway smelling of dust and bad decisions until he reached a door with lettering stenciled on the frosted glass. It read Thomas Martel, Private Investigations.
Martel’s office had two rooms. The front one was a reception area with a coat rack, a pair of padded chairs in brown vinyl, and a plain desk with nothing on the top except a small black box no bigger than an alarm clock. Instead of the time, the box had a single round lens and a speaker. It looked like an intercom, but it was actually an AI that Martel used as a secretary.
“Hi, hon,” the box said in a woman’s voice with a strong Long Island accent that sounded like a chicken being strangled. Martel couldn’t afford an actual secretarybot and had to settle for Dolores, the name he had given her. He was now having regrets.
“Morning,” Martel replied.
“Ya got a cawl from a client,” Dolores said. “Said her name was Suki.”
“Suki? Is she from Little Tokyo?”
“Couldn’t tell ya, hon, but she’s comin’ here at 10.”
Martel looked at his watch. “It’s 9:44.”
“Yeah, ya better get goin’ and brush ya teeth.”
Martel grumbled as he passed through the door connecting the front room with the one in the back, which was his professional office and also where he lived.
To the right of the door, facing south, was a pair of windows and a sleeper sofa with brown leather pockmarked with cigarette burns. On the East wall was a kitchenette concealed inside a cabinet and more windows, and on the North wall was Martel’s desk with a straight-backed chair in front of it. The oak desk was old but had held up pretty well. On top was a computer monitor and a datapad, along with a few miscellaneous items including an ink pen, a paper writing pad, and a stained coffee mug with a chip in it. Behind the desk was a swivel chair and a hook on the wall where a shoulder holster hung. The butt of a revolver with black, rubberized grips poked out of the holster.
Martel crossed the room and opened a window to air out the place. He went to the kitchenette and ran the water, splashing a little on his face. He opened the medicine cabinet above the sink and took out the toothpaste and a brush. When he was done brushing, he put them away and smelled his breath.
By the time the client arrived, Martel was behind the desk and trying to look presentable. He heard Dolores usher whoever this Suki person was into the front room. If she was really from Little Tokyo, Martel wondered what she would be like. He had taken a few cases there, but mostly the Japanese enclave tucked between the Ashetown and Middleton districts was run by the Yakuza, so he preferred to stay away.
The connecting door opened and the client swept into the room, her kimono swishing across the floor and her wooden sandals making a clopping noise. Her robes were white silk with red trim and a pink cherry blossom motif. She wore a black wig with a golden headpiece, partially obscuring a small bun in the back. Her dark eyes were larger than normal and her red lips were a bit too small. Her eyebrows were long and narrow and looked like they were painted on. The rest of her face was stark white, like chalk, but reflected the light because it was made from plastic.
“You’re a robot,” Martel said.
Suki gave a bow and then said in a quiet, polite voice, “Yes, Martel-san. It’s an honor to meet you.”
“It’s just…” Martel stammered slightly. “I don’t usually take robots as clients.”
“Does that mean you won’t help me?” she asked.
“I didn’t say that,” Martel replied. “What can I help you with?”
“My husband is missing.”
“Your husband?”
“Yes,” the robot replied. “I haven’t heard from him in four days. I’m very worried.”
“If you won’t mind me asking,” Martel said. “You’re a Geishabot, aren’t you?”
“Yes.”
“I thought geishas, even robot ones, weren’t allowed to get married.”
Suki’s eyes stared at the floor. “We were married in secret.”
Martel left that information hanging in the air for a while and then asked, “Do you have a photo of what he looks like?”
Suki took a datapad from within her robes. Martel stood and went around the desk to take the pad from her, and it was only then that he realized how small she was, no more than five foot two. She also smelled faintly of jasmine.
The picture on the screen of the datapad appeared to have been taken in a factory or a workshop. The background was out of focus, but there were blurry machines on tables and light coming from a window. A wooden table was in the foreground where a robot was operating a sewing machine with a length of fabric running under the needle. The robot was humanoid, but barely human-looking with white plastic parts only covering some of the underlying mechanical frame. The hands, elbows, and shoulder joints were all visible along with the connecting wires and servos. The head was square with a flat face and only a pair of rounded holes for eyes and a tiny slot for a mouth.
“Is your husband a garment worker?” Martel asked.
“He was a Tailorbot Mark IV,” she said proudly before adding, “but he lost his job when the Mark V’s were released.”
Remembering his manners, Martel asked if she would like to sit down and dragged the straight-backed chair closer to where she was standing.
“Domo arigato,” Suki replied, folding her kimono around her as she sat.
Martel went back to his desk, still holding Suki’s datapad. Once in his chair, he pressed his finger on the screen of the pad and dragged it upward, sending it to his own datapad. He heard it chirp on the desk as the image of Suki’s husband was copied over.
“What’s your husband’s name?” Martel asked.
“He prefers to be called Mark,” she replied.
“How did the two of you meet?”
“Mark did all of the dresses for us at the teahouse,” Suki explained, the smile returning to her face. “He did this kimono,” she said while fanning her robe out a little more across her legs. “He would often come to measure us and talk. That’s when we fell in love.”
“Still,” Martel said, “getting married was quite a risk…”
“It was Mark’s idea, actually,” she said. “He knew I wanted a teahouse of my own, but I could never afford it. Mark said we could pool our incomes together. He was always very generous.”
“But then he lost his job?”
“Yes.”
“So, what did he do?”
Suki looked away and then said, “Mark was very upset. Truthfully, we didn’t know what to do, but eventually he got a job as a day worker in construction.”
Martel raised an eyebrow. “Really?”
“I think he didn’t want to disappoint me — about buying the teahouse — so he thought he had no choice. I told him he didn’t have to do this, but it was something he wanted for himself. He wanted to feel useful…”
Martel noticed that Suki was staring over his shoulder. He glanced behind him and saw the holster on the hook.
“That’s my gun,” he said.
Suki seemed embarrassed to be discovered, but asked, “It’s not a blaster?”
“No,” Martel replied. “It shoots bullets. Most people in Ashetown can’t afford energy weapons.”
“Oh, I see,” she said, genuinely interested. “The Yakuza use guns too, but I didn’t realize why.”
“A firearm is a lot louder than a blaster,” Martel explained. “A big .44 Magnum like Maxwell will keep people’s heads down when he’s fired. That can be useful.”
“Maxwell?” Suki said. “You named it?”
Martel cleared his throat awkwardly. “Yes.”
The robot smiled at his reaction.
“Anyway,” he continued, “when was the last time you heard from your husband?”
“Four nights ago,” Suki said. “He texted me.”
She pointed at her datapad still in Martel’s hand. He swiped to the main screen and opened the communications app. Suki’s last conversation was queued at the top. Opening it, Martel read the last few texts:
| Mark: I’m coming home soon. 7:50 PM | |
| Suki: It’s so late already! How was your day? 7:52 PM | |
| Mark: I’m sorry. They kept our shift late as usual. 7:52 PM | |
| Suki: They treat the robots so badly! 7:53 PM | |
| Mark: I know. It’s probably against labor laws but nobody cares. If I complain, they’ll just fire me and hire another out-of-work robot… 7:54 PM | |
| Suki: You don’t have to work there, you know! I know how hard it is on you! 7:55 PM | |
| Mark: We need the money. Your dream is important! 7:56 PM | |
| Suki: Not if you get hurt! 🙁 7:56 PM | |
| Mark: It’s ok. I’ll see you when I get home. Love you! 8:00 PM | |
| Suki: Love you too! 8:00 PM |
Martel looked up from the screen. “But he never came home?”
“No,” Suki said, shaking her head.
“Can I copy this conversation?” he asked.
“Of course.”
Martel pressed on the screen until the image of the texts was copied and then he moved it over to his own datapad. He reached over his desk and handed Suki’s pad back to her. She took it and tucked it away. When she looked up again, Martel was staring at her.
“Why did you say your husband could get hurt?” he asked her point-blank.
“Are you familiar with the Palatine Heights development?” she replied. “That’s where Mark was working.”
“I’ve seen commercials for it,” Martel said. “They’re converting old Ashetown warehouses into high-priced lofts or something.”
“That’s right,” she said, “but they’re using all robot labor instead of humans or other fleshlings. The trade unions have been picketing at the construction site and… there’s been some incidents.”
“Like what?”
“Intimidation mostly, but a few robots have been damaged.”
“I hadn’t heard about that,” Martel confessed.
“No,” Suki said. “Lady Mayor Chadwick has suppressed the stories.”
“I guess nobody cares about damaged robots,” Martel replied. “Is that why you haven’t gone to the police?”
Suki’s eyes grew wide and angry.
“I did go to the police!” she said, raising her voice. “But as you say, nobody cares about robots. They wouldn’t even file a report…”
Martel grumbled knowingly.
“I’m not surprised,” he said. “The Lady Mayor has them in her back pocket.”
“You were a cop once too, Martel-san?”
“Yeah, for a while. I didn’t like how they did business, so I went into business for myself. How did you hear about me anyway? I’ve done a few cases in Little Tokyo but not many.”
She laughed. “I think you underestimate the impression you made.”
“Oh?”
“You are like a ronin,” she said. “I knew I could count on you.”
“I’m not a knight in shining armor,” Martel replied gruffly. “I’ll be on your side, just as long as you pay me.”
“I understand,” Suki said, “but I know you’ll find my husband.”
“If he can be found,” he said.
“That’s all I ask, Martel-san,” the Geishabot replied. “Arigato.”