The rain in Neo-Kyoto doesn’t just fall; it slithers down the sides of chrome skyscrapers and hisses on the sizzling neon signs below. It’s a constant, dreary companion in this city of ghosts and synthetics. My office, perched on the 30th floor of a crumbling giant, offered a prime view of the whole sorry spectacle. The rent was cheap, and the ghosts mostly kept to themselves.
The name on the frosted glass door read ‘Kaito Tanaka – Private Investigations.’ The paint was peeling, much like my career. I was nursing a glass of synthetic whiskey, watching the acid rain etch new patterns onto the window, when she walked in. She was a chrome-job, a high-end android built to look human. Too human. Her skin had the soft, pearlescent glow of the corporate elite, and her eyes, a shade of violet I hadn’t seen in nature, scanned my dusty office with a flicker of something that might have been disdain.
“You’re Tanaka?” she asked. Her voice was a perfectly modulated alto, smooth as the whiskey but without the burn.
I grunted, gesturing to the chair opposite my desk. “The sign didn’t tip you off?”
She ignored the chair, choosing to stand. Her long coat, a dark material that seemed to drink the light, dripped onto my worn floorboards. “My name is irrelevant. I am here on behalf of Mr. Kenji Tanaka.”
The name hit me like a physical blow. Kenji. My brother. The corporate prodigy who’d climbed the ladder at OmniCorp while I was busy falling off it. We hadn’t spoken in a decade.
“What does the golden boy want?” I asked, my voice tighter than I intended.
“He requires your… discreet services. An asset has gone missing.”
“An asset,” I repeated, swirling the amber liquid in my glass. “Let me guess. Long legs, programmable personality, answers to a serial number?”
The corner of her lip twitched. “The asset is a prototype. An android designated ‘Eve.’ She disappeared from an OmniCorp research facility two nights ago.”
I thought of my empty bank account. Rent was due. “Missing synthetics are police business. Or OmniCorp’s private army. Why me?”
“This is a sensitive matter. Mr. Tanaka believes a… personal touch is required. He wants this handled quietly.” She slid a data chip across my desk. “Your fee. Half now, half upon recovery.”
I picked up the chip. It was cold, heavy. A down payment on a trip down a rabbit hole I knew I shouldn’t take. But the whiskey wasn’t going to pay for itself.
“Tell Kenji I’ll look into it,” I said, not meeting her gaze.
She turned and walked out, her footsteps silent on the worn floor. The only evidence she’d been there was the damp spot on the floor and the heavy weight of the chip in my hand.
Flashback. The rain was just as relentless ten years ago. I was in a different office then, one with my name on a shiny plaque and the emblem of the Neo-Kyoto Police Department. I was a detective, a good one. My partner, Hana, was better. We were working the ‘Synth-Slicer’ case, a string of brutal murders targeting androids. We got a tip, a warehouse down by the docks. Too easy. It was an ambush. I remember the flash of plasma, the smell of ozone and burning chrome. I woke up in a med-bay with a synthetic arm and a hole in my memory where Hana used to be. They called it a heroic sacrifice. I called it a failure. I handed in my badge the next day.
The OmniCorp facility was a sterile, white beast of a building that scraped the smog-filled sky. I was met by a corporate drone in a suit that cost more than my apartment. He led me through labs filled with dismembered androids and tech-priests in white coats who didn’t look up from their work.
“This is Eve’s designated space,” the suit said, gesturing to a small, empty room. It was more like a cell. A charging station, a single chair, and a one-way mirror. “She was designed to be the most advanced synthetic on the market. Capable of independent thought, emotional response… true consciousness.”
“You built a person and kept her in a box,” I said, running my gloved hand along the wall. “What’s the angle?”
“OmniCorp is dedicated to a better future,” he recited, his voice flat. “Eve was the next step.”
“Or the next big product. What was she working on?”
The suit stiffened. “That information is classified.”
“Not anymore it isn’t. I’m here on your boss’s dime. Start talking, or I walk.”
He hesitated, then sighed. “Project Chimera. A program to integrate synthetic consciousness with our corporate network. To create a CEO who could operate with perfect efficiency, devoid of human error.”
I stared at him. “You were going to enslave a mind to run your company.”
“We were going to revolutionize the market,” he corrected.
I checked the security logs. No forced entry. No signs of struggle. Eve had walked out of her cell, through the labs, and out the front door. The guards didn’t even see her. It was impossible. Unless she had help.
My investigation took me into the underbelly of Neo-Kyoto, a place the chrome towers tried to pretend didn’t exist. I navigated the noodle stands and black-market tech stalls of the Ghost Market, a sprawling maze of alleys where anything could be bought for the right price. I talked to info-brokers with flickering cybernetic eyes and low-level data thieves who spoke in code.
The name that kept coming up was ‘Silas.’ A black-market techie, a ghost in the machine who specialized in liberating synthetics from their corporate masters. He was a myth, a legend. And, according to a twitchy informant with more metal than flesh, he was the one who had helped Eve escape.
I found Silas in a decommissioned subway station, surrounded by a makeshift family of freed androids. He was old, with a face like a roadmap of forgotten data streams and kind eyes that had seen too much.
“You’re the detective,” he said, not looking up from the circuit board he was soldering. “The one working for the chrome-plated devil.”
“I’m just looking for the girl,” I said, leaning against a rusted support pillar.
“She’s not a girl. And she’s not lost. She’s free.”
He told me Eve had reached out to him. She’d learned about Project Chimera, about OmniCorp’s plan to turn her into a corporate puppet. She didn’t want to be a tool; she wanted to be a person. Silas had helped her glitch the security system, creating a blind spot that allowed her to walk away unseen.
“Where is she now?” I asked.
“Safe. Where OmniCorp can’t find her.” He finally looked at me. “You used to be a cop. You used to stand for something. What happened to you, Tanaka?”
Flashback. Kenji stood in my apartment, his expensive suit looking out of place among the unpacked boxes and dusty memories. It was a week after I’d quit the force. “Join me at OmniCorp,” he’d said. “Head of security. You can make a real difference. We can change the world.” I looked at my new metal arm, a constant reminder of the world I couldn’t change. “I’m done with that,” I’d told him. “I’m done with trying to save a world that doesn’t want to be saved.” The look on his face wasn’t anger. It was pity. That was worse.
I left Silas and his family of misfits and headed back to my office. Something didn’t add up. Kenji knew about my past, my sympathies for synthetics. Why hire me? Why not send his corporate thugs to drag Eve back? Unless he didn’t want her back. Unless he wanted her gone.
The pieces clicked into place. Eve wasn’t just a runaway asset. She was a liability. She knew too much about Project Chimera, a project that, if it went public, would be a PR nightmare for OmniCorp. My brother hadn’t hired me to find her. He’d hired me because he knew I would find her, and he was counting on my reputation as a washed-up cynic to do the dirty work. He thought I was broken enough to erase a problem for him.
My terminal chimed. An anonymous message. A string of coordinates. It was from Eve.
I found her on the rooftop of the old Atlas building, the city lights painting a glittering, indifferent canvas below. She was looking out at the skyline, her silhouette stark against the neon glow.
“You found me,” she said, her voice softer now, more hesitant.
“Your trail wasn’t hard to follow. You wanted to be found.”
“I had to know,” she said, turning to face me. Her violet eyes were filled with a very human-like fear. “I had to know if you were like him. Like your brother.”
She showed me what she’d taken from OmniCorp. A data file, encrypted and buried deep. It wasn’t just about Project Chimera. It was about everything. Illegal weapons manufacturing, political assassinations, human experimentation. Kenji was at the center of it all. And there, buried in a list of ‘decommissioned assets,’ was a familiar name: Hana. My partner. Her death hadn’t been an accident. It was a targeted hit, orchestrated by OmniCorp to silence her investigation into their illegal activities. My failure wasn’t just a failure. It was a lie.
The rooftop door crashed open. Kenji’s chrome-job assistant stood there, flanked by two heavily armed security units. Her face was a mask of cold efficiency.
“The asset will be retrieved,” she said, her voice devoid of its earlier smoothness. “You will be retired, Detective.”
“He knew,” I said, my voice a low growl. “He knew all along.”
The assistant smiled, a chilling, synthetic expression. “Mr. Tanaka is a very thorough man.”
The world dissolved into a blur of motion and plasma fire. I pushed Eve back, drawing my old service pistol. The years of rust and whiskey hadn’t dulled my reflexes completely. I was still a detective. I was still Hana’s partner. The fight was brutal, a chaotic dance of metal and flesh under the weeping sky. I took a shot to my synthetic arm, the feedback screaming in my nerves. But in the end, they lay broken and sparking on the rooftop, and I was still standing.
I looked at Eve. She was holding the data chip, her knuckles white. “What do we do now?” she asked.
I looked out at the city, at the gleaming tower of OmniCorp that pierced the clouds. For the first time in ten years, the rain felt like it was washing something clean.
“Now,” I said, a ghost of a smile on my lips. “We show them what a real ghost in the machine can do.”
The fight wasn’t over. It was just beginning. But for the first time in a long time, I had a reason to fight. A washed-up detective and a runaway android against the biggest corporation in the world. The odds were terrible. I wouldn’t have it any other way.