Nocturnal

Robin Has House Guests

Emma ran to the apartment door, skidding across the hardwood floor as she slid to a stop. She jammed her nose at the base of the door, her tail moving faster than her butt could manage. Usually, the dog barked like mad when someone knocked — but not when that someone was Bryan.

Robin opened her apartment door to a bleary-eyed Pookie and an intensely focused Bryan. She’d seen Bryan like that before, usually on a big case, usually when he felt he was tightening the noose on a suspect. Emma barked once at Pookie, then alternately turned in circles and threw herself against Bryan’s legs.

Bryan reached down and picked the dog up, holding her under the front arms. Her rear legs dangled, unmoving. The position looked uncomfortable, but he’d always held Emma that way and she didn’t seem to mind. Her tail moved a mile a minute and her tongue flicked at Bryan’s face.

“Oh, knock it off, Emma-Boo,” Bryan said, turning his face away. “I missed you, too.”

Pookie stepped in and gave Robin a hug. “Robin Bo-Bobbin, how are ya?”

“I have no idea how I am,” she said. “And I still don’t know what happened in the morgue.” She leaned in and spoke quietly: “John’s already here. He’s pretty upset.”

Pookie sighed. “Yeah, I’m sure he is. I didn’t give him much of a choice, you know? I bet he hasn’t been out at night in six years.”

Bryan let out a huff of disgust, set Emma down and walked into the dining room.

Was he really that insensitive to John’s phobia? “Pooks, what’s Bryan’s problem?”

“Mister Fearless doesn’t have much tolerance for us mere mortals.”

Robin crossed her arms. She didn’t like the thought of Bryan being that callous. “Well, Mister Fearless seems to have developed some fears of his own.”

Pookie nodded. “That he has, my dear. You tell John about the Zed chromosome like I asked?”

“I did. I’m not sure if he believes me. I think he’s waiting for a punch line or something.”

“Yeah, it’s a regular laugh-riot,” Pookie said. “I think we should get this party started.” He held out a hand, gesturing ladies first.

Robin walked into the dining room. Bryan was already seated at the table, as was John Smith. Emma’s front paws were on Bryan’s thigh, and she kept pointing her nose up to kiss his face. Bryan basically ignored it, letting the dog do her worst. John still hadn’t taken off his dark-purple motorcycle jacket. His chin hung down to his chest, and his helmet was right next to his chair as if he wanted to keep it close in case he needed a quick getaway.

Pookie sat, as did Robin. She suddenly realized how messy the apartment looked — dishes in the sink, dog hair on the carpet. She knew she had more important things to worry about at the moment, but still … Bryan’s first visit here in six months, and she hadn’t had time to pick up for him. He was so focused, however, she probably could have painted the place pink for all he’d notice.

“Robin,” Pookie said. “You got any beer?”

“It’s three in the morning.”

He smiled. “It’s happy hour somewhere.”

Bryan stood and walked into the open kitchen. He grabbed a bottle opener out of a kitchen drawer, then reached into the fridge and came out with four Stellas. He opened the beers, passed them around before he sat down again. He did all this with automatic ease, like he’d never moved out at all.

“Zou’s crooked,” he said. “We know it for sure.”

John lifted his head and crossed his arms, making his leather sleeves creak. “What, exactly, do we know?”

Bryan looked at Pookie.

Pookie shrugged. “Tell ’em. They might as well know what we’re asking of them.”

Robin listened as Bryan talked about what had gone down in the private autopsy room. The more he said, the angrier she became. When he finished, Robin had an urge to find Chief Zou and punch her right in the nose.

“So she used the word prison?” Robin said. “That was her actual word?”

Bryan nodded. “Not a lot of gray area.”

Robin believed Bryan and Pookie, and yet … the concept of Chief Zou threatening her own people seemed beyond the realm of plausibility. “Can she do that? Could she cook the books and get you accused of something?”

Pookie laughed and shook his head. “Hey, Robin, you like that guy Metz?”

She nodded.

“So do DAs, judges and juries,” he said. “What do you think will happen if the Silver Eagle delivers evidence that implicates Bryan?”

Robin said nothing. She wanted to say Metz would never do something like that, but after what she’d seen in the morgue a few hours earlier, she wasn’t sure.

John nodded. “Pookie’s right about that. Heck, Metz could get Jesus thrown in jail. All right, Terminator, looks like you’re screwed if you don’t back off. So back off.”

Bryan shook his head. “Vigilantes don’t get to decide who lives and who dies. I don’t care if it sounds corny — I took an oath to uphold the law, and that’s exactly what I’m going to do.”

She knew that was no idle promise. The look in his eyes … he was going after the chief of police, the mayor of San Francisco, the chief medical examiner and anyone else who had helped them. He wanted it so bad she could almost see it burning off of him like a corona. What was it about this case that made it so deeply personal to him?

Hadn’t she put her career in jeopardy enough for one night? She could just ask them to leave. Robin had worked her ass off for years; if that effort wasn’t already lost, it surely would be if she helped Bryan and Pookie go after Zou. Not just Zou … they would be going after Metz as well. Metz, her mentor, her friend. But if Zou and Metz were crooked, if they were covering up murders, how could Robin ignore that?

“Hypothetically, let’s say John and I help you,” she said. “What would you need from us?”

Bryan again looked to Pookie. Pookie leaned forward, spoke directly to John.

“Mister Burns, we need your help, but it doesn’t look like Zou knows you’re involved yet. You back out now, you’re probably fine. But if you keep poking your long, hooked nose into things, Zou will be on you like ugly on a baboon’s ass.”

John stared back, thinking. “What happens if she finds out I’m helping you guys?”

“I think you lose your privileged position in the Gang Task Force,” Pookie said. “She might make you walk a beat in the ’Loin.”

Robin hissed in a breath. The Tenderloin was where John had been shot.

John looked down to the table. “I have trouble even leaving my apartment,” he said. “Took everything I had just to drive here. If it wasn’t for Zou, I wouldn’t even be a cop anymore.”

Robin’s heart broke for the man. Pookie and Bryan were asking him to put everything on the line against a woman who had backed him in his time of need.

John sighed and nodded. “I owe her, but I won’t stand behind her if she’s breaking the law. I’ll help.”

Bryan smiled as if he were pleasantly surprised. He tipped the neck of his beer bottle toward John. John raised his own bottle and they clinked — the equivalent of a blood contract in man speak, apparently.

Robin felt a bit of shame. She was a doctor; she could get a job anywhere. If this went wrong, John’s career would be over, and yet he was willing to do the right thing. She had to step up.

“I’m in,” she said.

Bryan leaned back. “Robin, we just need to bounce ideas off you. It’s okay. You don’t need to get involved.”

Her feelings of shame shifted to anger — she’d forgotten about Bryan’s misplaced sense of chivalry. John got a beer clink, but Robin wasn’t valued enough to help with something this important?

“Getting involved is my decision, not yours,” she said. “If Zou is playing judge, jury and executioner, then … well then fuck her right in her fucking fucker.”

Bryan glared at her, but John started giggling, a soundless thing that only moved his hunched shoulders.

Pookie raised his eyebrows. “Hey there, sailor, you just arrive on shore leave or something?”

Robin felt her face flush red — they were laughing at her? “You guys swear all the time.”

Pookie nodded. “Yes, but we’re trained professionals. Dropping three f-bombs in one sentence is punching above your weight class.”

Bryan wasn’t laughing. He shook his head. “Robin, Zou is done with warnings. Things might get physical from here on out, and I can’t let you be part of this.”

“You can’t let me? Oh, I’m sorry, should I be wearing my burqua and averting my gaze from you brave men? Or maybe can I run to my bedroom, toss on a nice gingham dress and bake all you brave warriors some cookies? Because that’s where women belong, right? In the kitchen?”

The room suddenly felt uncomfortable. Bryan just wanted to protect her, sure, but he didn’t own her. Robin was the only one who understood the depth and breadth of the Zed discovery, and how that information might help catch the other killers.

“Well then,” she said, “since you three wild stallions are going to play lone wolf, I guess you don’t need to know what I’ve figured out in my pretty little head.”

“Hold on there,” Pookie said. “First, that’s two animal metaphors in one sentence. I think that’s against union regulations. Second, I am also not wearing a burqua, so Bryan doesn’t speak for me. I’d find your help to be most excellent.”

Bryan turned on him. “Do you mind, Pooks? This shit is going to get bad. You want Robin getting hurt?”

Pookie shrugged. “Of course I don’t want her hurt, but she’s a big girl. She’s smart enough to understand the risks.”

Robin gave Pookie a single nod. “Thank you, oh elevated one.”

Pookie winked. “Plus, you got a hot ass. What cop team is complete without a hot ass?”

Bryan stared at her. He chewed on his lower lip for a moment, then nodded to Robin’s right. “That purse on your chair, you take that to work today?”

She looked down at it, then understood what he was saying. “Yes, dear, that is my purse and yes, dear, I am packing heat.”

“Show me.”

God, this man could be infuriating. She unhooked her purse, reached in and pulled out her Kel-Tec P-3AT handgun. Bryan had given it to her on their third date. Nothing spells love like a subcompact .380. The gun weighed only half a pound and was just over five inches long. She could even get decked out for an evening on the town and put the weapon in a clutch, the perfect accessory for the nightclubbing girl on the go.

She ejected the magazine, then pulled back the slide to pop out the round. She held the weapon butt-first and offered it to Bryan.

“Happy?”

He looked at the weapon, but didn’t take it. “Happy that you’re armed, yes. I’m not happy that this could put you in harm’s way. But I guess you’re going to do what you’re going to do, so can we at least try to keep you off Zou’s radar?”

Robin remembered how Zou had been standing right behind her, and how that had scared her silly. Staying off of Zou’s radar sounded like an excellent idea.

“Yes, Daddy, I promise to be a good girl.”

“Nice,” Pookie said. “Now that we’re done with invitations, Robin, do you think you could say daddy again? I think I jizzed in my pants a little.”

“Me too,” John said. “More than a little, actually.”

Robin sighed. Responsibility and immaturity were not mutually exclusive traits, it seemed. She slid the magazine home, racked the slide to chamber a round, then put the P-3 back in her purse.

“There will be no repeat of the daddy incident,” she said. “I’ve got some mind-blowing stuff to show you, and it might impact what you decide to do next. Mind if I go first?”

All three men nodded. Robin walked to a cabinet drawer and grabbed a pad of paper and a black pen. She sat back down at the table.

“I’ve been trying to process all the weird genetic info we’ve found so far,” she said. “First off, the guy we had in the morgue today, that was Bobby Pigeon’s killer. So where were the wounds from Bobby’s gun? They were there, two small scars on his chest — I think the bullet wounds healed.”

“Hold on,” John said. “Maybe I’m late to the party, but you can’t heal a bullet wound in a few hours. Trust me, I know.”

“We’re dealing with something new,” Robin said. “Blackbeard had the Zed chromosome. We have no idea what that chromosome is or what it codes for. We already know we’re dealing with people who are strong, have abnormal muscles, abnormal bones, may have abnormal mouths, and have an internal organ no one has seen before. Based on the observed data, I have to make the hypothesis that the Zed chromosome also allows people to heal very fast.”

Bryan’s fingers drifted to his forehead, fingertips tracing the line of three black stitches.

“There’s more,” Pookie said. “Tonight I saw a guy jump from a ten-story building to a four-story roof, and that jump was across a street. Two lanes, plus parking, plus sidewalks. Sixty feet at least. I saw him land, roll, and he was fine. Oh, and he carried a bow and was wearing a cloak like Robin Hood or something.”

That was impossible, yet Pookie clearly believed what he was saying. Bryan believed it as well.

John looked at Pookie, then at Bryan, then at Robin. “If the three of you are messing with my head, just tell me now. You win, I lose. A new chromosome? A guy who can jump across a street?”

“In a cloak,” Bryan said.

“Like Robin Hood,” Pookie said.

John rubbed his face. “Yeah, sure. In a cloak. Like Robin Hood.” He tapped the table twice with his finger. “From this moment on out, if you say ha-ha, we punked you, I will probably shoot someone in the face.” He turned to Bryan. “And yes, Daddy, I’m definitely packing.”

Bryan leaned back and laughed. “Shit, Black Mister Burns, maybe you’re not so bad after all.”

“It happened,” Pookie said. “John, you and I go way back. You’d know if I was bullshitting. Am I bullshitting?”

John stared at Pookie. Robin waited and watched. She couldn’t believe the story, but why would they lie? Pookie must have misinterpreted what he’d seen.

John sighed and sagged. “You’re not BS-ing, Pooks,” he said. “At least that much is true.” John turned to Robin. “Well, keep going. Might as well let me hear all of it.”

She could try to explain physics to Pookie later. For now, she had real information to share.

“I’ve got a theory,” she said. “The fact that Blackbeard had no testicles got me thinking.”

She drew a box on the pad, then a vertical and horizontal line through it, making four smaller squares. Across the top, she put an X above one column, a Y above the other.

“A Punnett square?” John said.

Robin nodded. “You use this to predict the outcome of a breeding experiment. Men and women have two sex chromosomes. A sperm or egg cell, known as a gamete, gets just one of those chromosomes. Bryan, know what this XY represents?”

“A man,” Bryan said. “He can give an X, or a Y.”

“That’s right.” She drew an X on the outside of each of the two left-hand boxes. “Pooks? Know what the XX represents?”

“A woman,” he said. “With gigantic hooters and questionable moral judgment. Oh yeah, I took Biology 101, girlie.”

Robin laughed and shook her head. “Sure, Pooks, sure. It’s a female, so her gamete can only carry an X.”

She put the letter from each column header into the boxes below it, then added the letter from each row header, “So we wind up with two possible combinations of XY, two of XX. On average, half the kids will be male, half will be female. Got me so far?”

All three men nodded.

“Now we saw that the Blackbeard was just that, a guy. His sex chromosomes were Zed-X. Normally, the Y chromosome codes for male, but testicles or no testicles Blackbeard had a beard and a penis, so he’s a guy. That means the Zed chromosome has to have some elements of the Y chromosome.”

She drew a new four-squared box. She drew XZ across the top, then on the left she drew two Xs. She filled in the squares, resulting in two with XX and two with XZ. “So, if Blackbeard had functional sperm — which he could not have had without testicles — he would produce these possible offspring. You guys see the problem with this?”

Bryan pulled the pad in front of him. “There’s no YZ,” he said. “Oscar Woody’s killer was YZ.”

“Bingo,” she said. He’d always been so good at putting pieces together. “To get a Y-Zed, we have to have a female who can provide a Zed chromosome.”

Pookie reached out and tapped the pad. “Couldn’t the YZ — Oscar’s killer — couldn’t that be a female?”

Robin shook her head. “In primates, every instance of a Y chromosome means male. This includes XXY, which is Klinefelter’s and for the sake of argument is always male, and XYY syndrome, which also results in a male. We have to assume that Oscar’s killer is male, not female.”

Robin drew a third Punnett square, this time with three columns and two rows to make a total of six squares instead of four. “That brings us to Rex, who is X-Y-Zed. Every one of his sperm cells had what is called non-disjunction, which means they had two sex chromosomes. Primate sperm cells are supposed to have just one.”

Above the columns, she wrote XY, XZ and YZ. On the left side, she drew Xs next to the rows. She turned it so the boys could see.

Bryan leaned in for a closer look. “If someone like Rex had a child, the child gets … what … one chromosome from the mother, two from the father? The mother would always provide an X, and all his children would have three sex chromosomes instead of two, right?”

Robin nodded. “That’s right. Three sex chromosomes is called trisomy.”

Bryan again pulled the pad in front of him. “Well, since the only other two Zed examples we have are not trisomal, that means someone like Rex couldn’t be their father.”

“You got it,” she said. “So, if Rex mates with a woman …” She pulled the pad back in front of her and she filled in the six boxes: two XXYs, two XXZs, two XYZs. “The XXY is Klinefelter’s. I have no idea what an X-X-Zed would be, but maybe it’s a female version of Rex. We know Rex was an X-Y-Zed, so at least in Rex’s case, X-Y-Zeds appear to be normal people.”

Bryan stood and walked to the kitchen. “So Rex could make more Rexes,” he said as he pulled four fresh beers from the fridge. “But someone like Rex can’t make an XZ or a YZ.” He opened all four bottles and passed them out before he sat. “So what makes those combinations?”

“Now for the really crazy part,” Robin said. She’d walked them through the other Punnett squares to introduce the basic concepts. Now they were ready for the bomb to be dropped.

She turned to a fresh piece of paper and drew a box with two columns and three rows. She put an X and a Y above the columns. To the left of the three rows, she drew an X, a Z and then a second Z.

Pookie rolled his eyes. “Sorry to be a downer, Robin, but this is kind of boring. Can you get to the point?”

“I’m almost there,” she said. “Just bear with me. Say the father is a normal male” — she circled the XY — “and the mother is X-Zed-Zed” — she circled the XZZ. “Let’s say that — unlike Rex — this X-Zed-Zed mother can give only a single chromosome to her gamete” — Robin filled in the squares as she talked — “then you can get the X-Zed combination of the Blackbeard and the Y-Zed combination that killed Oscar Woody.”

“Ewww, that’s nasty,” Pookie said. “You’re saying the two killers we know about, they have a mutant-Zed-chromosome mommy who is getting it on with regular dudes?”

Robin nodded as she finished the Punnett Square: two XZs, two YZs, an XX and an XY. “You could even wind up with normal boys and girls. But what you couldn’t get is another X-Zed-Zed. There’s only one way to get that. Now, at the Oscar Woody killing, someone painted Long Live the King on the walls, right?”

Bryan nodded. “Yeah, and I think Rex is the king in question.”

She looked at John. “You were waiting for a punch line? Here it is, but I don’t think it’s all that funny — if you have a king, maybe you also have a queen.”

Robin flipped to a new page and drew — three columns and three rows for nine squares total. “So, you take a king” — she marked the columns XY, XZ and YZ — “and a queen” — on the left side, she marked the first row X, the second and third each with a Z — “and something interesting comes up.” She filled in the boxes, making an alphabet soup of combinations: two XZZs, two YZZs, three XYZs, an XXZ and an XXY.

She circled the two XZZs.

Bryan looked up, the expression on his face one of shocked realization. “If the XZZ is a queen, then the only way to make a new queen is for her to mate with a king.”

“Exactly,” Robin said. “If this is the way it works, then you have a eusocial structure with a breeding pair.”

John shook his head in annoyed denial. “Wait a minute. Kings? Queens? Not like English royalty kings and queens but like … termites? Eusocial means one breeding pair producing all the offspring for an entire colony, like ants and bees, right?”

Robin nodded.

“Rex and the others are people, which means they’re mammals,” John said. “Eusocial creatures are insects.”

“There’s at least two species of eusocial mammals,” Robin said. “The naked mole rat and the desert rat. They have a single queen, breeding males, and the rest of the colony are sterile workers.”

Pookie pulled the pad in front of him. “I could live with fleshy-headed mutants, I really could, but come on … a king? A queen? Besides, ant colonies have more than just kings or queens, they have workers and drones, right?”

“Right,” Robin said. “Those are called castes. There’s one more caste you didn’t mention. Blackbeard had no testicles. He was sterile, couldn’t have passed on his genes to a new generation. But he was strong, he was dangerous, and he could heal fast, which would let him recover from damage. Guess which caste is most likely to get damaged?”

Bryan stared at her. His eyes widened. He leaned back. “Holy shit.”

Pookie looked back and forth from Robin to Bryan. “What? Come on, tell me.”

Bryan sagged in his chair. “She’s saying Blackbeard is like a soldier ant,” he said. “Soldier ants can’t breed — they just live to protect the colony.”

They all sat in silence. Robin felt better for having shared the strange hypothesis. It was the only thing she could find to explain the limited data they had.

Pookie took a long drink of beer, then let out a belch. “Attack of the ant-people,” he said. “Awesome. Just awesome. But then what’s with the costumes?”

Robin picked up the pen, started making a random, back-and-forth doodle on the pad. “The costumes might be there to hide physical deformities. We really have no idea what we’re dealing with. The thing is, I think those teeth marks on Oscar Woody were exactly that — teeth marks. Not some tool designed to look like teeth. If that’s true, we’d be talking about someone with a wide mouth and two big incisors, so big you’d see it instantly. Maybe the masks and blankets hide more physical abnormalities?”

Bryan shook his head, so slightly Robin wasn’t even sure if he knew he was doing it.

John drained his beer in a long pull, then set the bottle on the table. “This new chromosome means we’re talking about a specific people, a genetic and possibly ethnic minority. As far as we know, someone is wiping out that minority — genocide — and Amy Zou is complicit in that act. Maybe there’s a damn good reason these ant-people have stayed hidden.”

John brought up a good point. Technically, the Zeds weren’t a separate species, not as long as a queen could breed with normal men, or a king could breed with normal women. They were human … sort of. But what if they were all killers?

“We don’t know enough,” she said. “We need to find that vigilante. Zou won’t give us information, maybe he will.”

Bryan pulled out his phone, tapped it a few times, then held it out so everyone could see — it was a picture of the bloody arrowhead. “I watched Metz clear out the computer system. All of that data is gone. I’m betting they won’t let any of us anywhere near the bodies of Blackbeard, Oscar Woody or Jay Parlar. We won’t be able to search Rex’s house. That means this arrow is our only lead. Pooks, I think we have to go back and talk to the guy who literally wrote the book on the subject.”

Pookie nodded. He reached into his wallet and pulled out a white business card. There was nothing on it but a phone number. He called, then waited for someone to answer.

“Biz, this is Pookie. Sorry to clog your booty-call phone with a non-booty-call message, but we need to see you. Call me back ASAP.”

Pookie put the phone away.

“Who was that?” Robin asked.

“Mister Biz-Nass,” Pookie said. “Your friendly neighborhood Tourette-syndrome-afflicted, throat-cancer-surving fortune-teller who speaks with a voice box.”

Maybe he wasn’t making up the thing about the guy jumping across the street, but she knew damn well that one was bullshit.

Pookie turned to Bryan. “Bri-Bri, it’s three-thirty in the morning. I suggest we don’t sit here and wait for Biz-Nass to call us back. Everyone is cashed out. I need some sleep, Bro. Let’s all go home and hit it in the morning.”

Bryan’s jaw muscles twitched. Robin knew he didn’t want to wait for even a second, but he trusted Pookie.

“All right,” he said. “Tomorrow.”

Robin saw the three men out.