Triple Helix
An adult biopunk novel set in an alternative Victorian London
Chapter One
Police Lieutenant Ariel Farthing stepped over the corpse of the headless male child in the confined space of the arched sewer, and squatted to look more closely at the edges of the wound in the dim light. She thought that the boy was about ten years old, the lack of blood suggested he hadn’t been murdered in the sewer, and that the head had been hacked off with a blunt rusty axe.
‘Who reported it?’ she asked her partner Morgan through the mechanical filter pulled tight over her nose and mouth. The fumes given off by the waste from two million souls in the London metropolis were poisonous to real humans. Only the artificials could come down here unprotected.
‘He did,’ Morgan said pointing to an artificial sewage worker who wore galoshes that reached above his knees, a dark blue overall with Gotha MegaCorps above the Prince Consort’s coat of arms and the name George underneath, and a helmet with a steam light on top.
She directed her next question at George. ‘Have you found the head?’
‘No, no head, Maam,’ George said in his best subservient voice. ‘Searched up and down, down and about, all around, but no head was to be found, Maam.’
They were stood on the narrow brick maintenance walkway at the side of the sewer proper. The child’s body lay at an angle with the severed neck hanging over the edge of the walkway. The water in the curvature of the sewer must have been about eighteen inches deep, certainly deep enough for a child’s head to hide in. ‘Would it sink to the bottom?’ she asked him.
‘They bob up and down, Maam,’ George said. ‘Up and down, down and about, yes. Float and bob, not sink they do, Maam.’
‘Do you see anything, Morgan? Hairs, fibres, footprints, fluids?’ Morgan was semi-artificial – one of the few genetically engineered humans. Among his many modifications, his left eye had been adapted to detect microscopic evidence using infrared, ultraviolet, x-ray, and thermal imaging.
‘Nothing, Lieutenant, which is in itself evidence that the corpse was deposited here by an artificial.’
‘Besides the decapitation, are there any other injuries, Morgan?’
He bent down to scan the corpse.
Ariel could hear the gears, cogs and wheels of his eye shunting between the range of wavelengths.
Chapter One
Police Lieutenant Ariel Farthing stepped over the corpse of the headless male child in the confined space of the arched sewer, and squatted to look more closely at the edges of the wound in the dim light. She thought that the boy was about ten years old, the lack of blood suggested he hadn’t been murdered in the sewer, and that the head had been hacked off with a blunt rusty axe.
‘Who reported it?’ she asked her partner Morgan through the mechanical filter pulled tight over her nose and mouth. The fumes given off by the waste from two million souls in the London metropolis were poisonous to real humans. Only the artificials could come down here unprotected.
‘He did,’ Morgan said pointing to an artificial sewage worker who wore galoshes that reached above his knees, a dark blue overall with Gotha MegaCorps above the Prince Consort’s coat of arms and the name George underneath, and a helmet with a steam light on top.
She directed her next question at George. ‘Have you found the head?’
‘No, no head, Maam,’ George said in his best subservient voice. ‘Searched up and down, down and about, all around, but no head was to be found, Maam.’
They were stood on the narrow brick maintenance walkway at the side of the sewer proper. The child’s body lay at an angle with the severed neck hanging over the edge of the walkway. The water in the curvature of the sewer must have been about eighteen inches deep, certainly deep enough for a child’s head to hide in. ‘Would it sink to the bottom?’ she asked him.
‘They bob up and down, Maam,’ George said. ‘Up and down, down and about, yes. Float and bob, not sink they do, Maam.’
‘Do you see anything, Morgan? Hairs, fibres, footprints, fluids?’ Morgan was semi-artificial – one of the few genetically engineered humans. Among his many modifications, his left eye had been adapted to detect microscopic evidence using infrared, ultraviolet, x-ray, and thermal imaging.
‘Nothing, Lieutenant, which is in itself evidence that the corpse was deposited here by an artificial.’
‘Besides the decapitation, are there any other injuries, Morgan?’
He bent down to scan the corpse.
Ariel could hear the gears, cogs and wheels of his eye shunting between the range of wavelengths.
