Neon Goldfish: HoloCity Case Files, #3

By S.C. Jensen

One wrong move, and she'll be feedin' the fishes...

When Bubbles Marlowe discovers a jaw-dropping bounty on a pair of stolen diamonds, she agrees to find the jewels and bring the thief to justice.

But she soon realizes she's not the only one after the infamous ice, and the competition is brutal.

The case takes a turn for the depraved when she finds out the true reason the diamonds were stolen.

By the time she gets wise, she's in way over her head…

 

 

**Neon Goldfish is the third stand alone mystery novella in the HoloCity Case Files series, a companion collection to the Bubbles in Space series.**


Blade Runner meets The Fifth Element in this eccentric cyber-noir thriller series about a bleak world ravaged by corrupt leaders, mega-corporations, and crime lords… and the washed-up detective who might be the only one crazy enough to take them on.

Bubbles in Space is a darkly funny mashup for fans of space opera, cyberpunk, and hard-boiled noir thrillers. Delve into the secrets of this gritty future world, and buckle up for an adventure full of unusual characters, dark humour, and non-stop action.

• Language: English
• Publisher: S.C. Jensen
• Release date: Sep 21, 2022
• ISBN: 9798215654064

Book preview

ONE

The air hung thick in my office that day. It poured in through the cracked window like liquid honey, sweet in a rancid kind of way and a little yellow. We hadn’t had rain in nearly a week and HoloCity’s smoggy breath had begun to settle between the buildings in opaque puddles. At first it clung to your ankles like a beggar wanting your last credit. Now it was creeping up the side of the building to let itself in through the glass as if it had been invited.

I’d been watching the haze for about half an hour when I finally mustered the energy to get up and crank on the handle—no auto windows in this joint—but when I stood, a shadow fell over the etched glass door. From the hallway, the sign read Bubbles Marlowe: Private Investigator. The door handle turned slowly, as if it, too, was gummed up with the sticky air. There was a click. And the door swung inward.

A woman filled the doorframe like she meant to come inside but wasn’t quite sure the room would hold her. Her hair, yellow at the roots and shifting to orange, red, pink and purple in cascading waves, was pinned back by an expensive pair of VisiLens glasses. She wore one of those new sheer body suits that picked up on near field communications from passers by to fill it in. If you were really into haut-couture, you might see the latest Cosmo Régale runway styles. If you fancied yourself some kind of chrome-core head banger maybe you’d see black organic plant-leather and shiny silver implants. I didn’t know. I couldn’t afford the NFC upgrades on my tattler, so all I got to see was a whole lot of woman barely covered in shiny technet fabric squeezing herself past my doorframe.

Holy Origin, Marlowe. She cursed as she angled a hip and popped her ample bottom into my office. I hope you’re not paying more than three-quarters rent on this unit. I think it mighta shrunk in the wash.

I grinned. Haven’t see you in a while, Sunset. How’s biz?

She wiggled the rest of herself past the frame and kicked the door closed behind her.

Oh, you know, she said and waved her hands up and down her body like a showroom salesperson—which wasn’t too far off from the truth. I’m keepin’ myself in fillers and fashion, but that private island in the Sapphire Sea still eludes me. How ‘bout you?

I stepped around my desk and pulled out a guest chair. Same. But the fillers and fashion aren’t so easy to find these days either. You got a job for me?

She teetered towards me on shoes that were never meant for walking and sank into the chair with a sigh. She pried the heels off with her toes and rubbed her arches.

Close the window, baby, she said. I get enough of that greasy yellow stink at street level.

It’s bad, I said, and cranked the window until it sealed with a hiss. I can hardly remember it ever being so bad. But I didn’t think you had to work the street anymore these days. Don’t you have enough volunteers for window duty?

Sunset ran one of the most profitable escort services in the Grit District. People came from all over the city to peruse her catalogue of special interest flesh. Cheetah-girls and reptile-boys, androgynous androids, half-human half-machine... Which half? That’s up to you, too. If you could dream it up, Sunset could find someone to make that dream come true, for a price.

Now she shifted in her seat and rubbed her pinched, red feet with plump, glittered fingers. Her sunset-coloured hair fell over her face so I couldn’t see her expression. Her shoulders slumped.

An evening with the original Sunni Delicious is out of most punters’ price range, she said, her voice a little tight. Still its good advertising to show up in the display every once in a while.

I lowered myself into my chair and pressed the knuckles of my flesh hand against the palm of my metal upgrade. The joints crackled like coals in a trash bin fire. I said, Is Willis in trouble again?

Sunset blew a multihued strand of hair out of her eyes and swung the rest of her mane over her shoulder. She had a pretty, cherub-like face that belied the steely core that had driven her from a life as low-rate pro skirt to a hard-edged business woman.

Willis has got himself in a bit of a bind with one of Mr. V’s bookies again. She sighed. I’m trying to help out, without helping out, you know? Crossing V in my line of work would be— She made a slicing motion across her plump throat and stuck out her tongue.

Sunset should have gotten rid of the fool last time he bit off more than he could chew, I thought, but she figured he was something worth saving. Who was I to judge. It wasn’t that long ago I was in a worse place than Trick Willis and his half-cred card games on the wrong side of the tracks. So I said, Is that what you’re here for?

Her amber-coloured eyes glittered.

That depends, she said. You ever hear of the Blue Diamond Cufflinks?

I leaned back in my chair, put my ragged boots up on the desk, and pulled a piece of electric pink chewing gum out of my jacket pocket. Do I look like the kind of broad who knows anything about diamonds? Or cufflinks for that matter?

Sunset leaned forward, the sheer technet fabric straining against her oversized chest. She said, It’s a new story, with old roots. V keeps it pretty hush-hush. Started probably thirty years ago now, back when Mr. Vermillion was just a runt named Sol Leander working under the heel of some long dead king pin. You’d have been a kid.

I love a good bedtime story, Sunni, I said. But they don’t pay the rent. Not even on a three-quarter size unit like this.

I popped the gum into my mouth and nearly cracked a tooth biting into it. Stale, just like everything else in my life.

This one might, if you’d bother to listen. She held out her hand and motioned with her fingers that I should give her a piece too.

I flipped her one with my thumb and said, Watch your dental work.

So back then, V—or Sol—was sweet on one of the skirts in my circuit. She unwrapped the foil using her long, glittery fingernails with a surgical precision. She popped the gum into her mouth and rolled it around her mouth, sucking in her cheeks. She said, Pretty little thing named Radical Andy—the androgynous type, harder to find back then, high demand. Way out of little Sol’s league. But I guess the kid must have had a thing for Sol, too. Spent a few too many unpaid hours with him for Boss’s liking. You wouldn’t remember Boss. Mean sucker. He figured Andy owed him for downtime. Andy figured he was allowed to choose his own hours. I’ll let you guess who won that fight.

Our star-crossed lovers were not meant to be, I said.

We found Andy strung up on a street corner with his money-making bits stapled to his chest and little Sol weeping at his feet like on of those paintings up at the Last Humanist Church of the Mezzanine Rose, you know?

I chewed around the bitter taste in my mouth. I wish I didn’t.

You and me both, she said. If Sol—Vermillion, that is—knew there was anyone alive who had witnessed him that day, I’d be the one strung up on the corner if they could find a lamp post strong enough to hold me. That’s one of the reasons I got into fillers, you know? There’s no way Mr. V would ever mistake me for that skinny, scabby vetch I was thirty years ago. And I need to keep it that way.

Are we going to get to the point of this story, I said. Or are you just here to curdle my breakfast?

Sunset slipped her feet back into the heels and tightened the straps around her dimpled ankles. Then she crossed her legs and bounced the technet-wrapped limb like she was priming a pump. She rolled her eyes to my ceiling as if she was looking for ears that might be dangling from the floor above. Then she said, This is what nobody else knows. I watched Sol take down Andy’s body. He dragged him to one of those places that runs a grease-and-burn, you know? They get rid of the leftovers from the organ harvesters and black market docs. Make bodies disappear for anyone who can afford it.

Cushy treatment for a pro skirt, I said. Why would he do that? And how could he afford it?

Sunset shook her head and pierced me with those amber eyes. Her cheeks flushed pink. "The how, I know. Found out a few years later, he indebted himself to some highbinder. A debt he’s still paying today. The why, I can only guess. Figured it for some religious thing. Weirder still is the what."

The what?

What he did with the body afterwards.

I snapped the gum between my teeth and stared and the