Chapter Text
“Hello, I have an appointment with Dr. Emil Rodriguez?”
The security guard at reception looked up at Arthur and squinted.
“I’m guessing you didn’t hear.”
“Hear what?” Arthur asked, annoyed.
“Dr. Rodriguez was found dead last night.”
Arthur replied with a long moment of silence. “Dead? He can’t be dead, I was supposed to meet with him…” He allowed himself to trail off before he gave away anything he shouldn’t. “Do you happen to know how he died?”
The guard shrugged. “Suicide.”
“He killed himself?”
“That’s what they say.”
Arthur seriously doubted the veracity of that conclusion. He looked around the entry hall of the Dreamlands Industries research building while coming up with a plan as quickly as possible.
“I hate to do this, but I was supposed to pick up a package from him today. Nothing related to any of his research, I assure you, simply something of mine that he accidentally took last time we saw each other. I don’t suppose that I could pop back to his office and grab it?”
“Yeah, I can’t let you do that.”
“Please, sir, it won’t take long.”
The guard sighed. “Alright. But I have to go with you.”
“Perfectly fine,” Arthur lied. He allowed the guard to bypass a number of biometric scans, then the doors behind them slid open so that the pair could enter the research labs. While the guard was distracted, Arthur quietly whispered commands to his Receptor.
“Parker, record everything you see.”
“Request acknowledged.”
In the edge of Arthur’s vision, where his Receptor displayed information regarding their surroundings, he could see the red recording circle appear.
With that, Arthur followed the guard into the research labs of Dreamlands Industries, purveyors of the latest and greatest in Receptors and Smart Tech. PRKR was one of theirs, after all, but that didn’t mean that it couldn’t be used to record the inner workings of their company.
Not that there was much to see; the labs were concealed by frosted glass and excessively sealed doors. All Arthur and PRKR could see were expansive hallways complete with a few meandering scientists and engineers until they arrived at Dr. Rodriguez’s office.
“Alright, here’s his office,” the guard said, opening the door with a keycard. “Grab your stuff and let’s go.”
“They keep things locked up tight here, don’t they?” Arthur asked casually as he entered the office, surreptitiously scanning every surface so that he could play it back later. Presumably nothing had been moved since Emil’s death, given the organic nature of the mess.
“Can’t have the latest secrets getting out. I know your Dr. Rodriguez was working on something for the new Receptors coming out next month.”
“Yes, I heard him mention that,” Arthur lied again. Truthfully, it had been some time since he had seen Emil. A few years earlier, Arthur had helped him verify his assumptions regarding his cheating spouse - one of the less interesting types of cases as a private investigator, though the most common one.
So when Dr. Rodriguez left Arthur a message stating that he needed his help with something else and didn’t know who else to call, Arthur had expected a similar situation with marital drama or the like. He certainly hadn’t expected to learn that Emil killed himself. Which made this one of the more interesting cases.
Despite society heavily leaning on digital interfaces, there were a number of papers scattered around the office, and Arthur made sure to stare over them so that PRKR could record their contents. Besides that, however, there was little else that he could discern while the guard watched his every move. In the end, Arthur grabbed a drink tumbler from next to the computer and held it up triumphantly.
“Here we are, this is what I was after.”
“Couldn’t live without your favorite travel mug, huh?” The guard asked as he let Arthur out of the office and pressed a few keys to lock it up behind them. 8-4-3-4 , Arthur noted.
“You know how it is. You let someone borrow it one time, and then you never get it back. I was starting to get insistent.”
“I get it. You have a backup but it just doesn’t sit in the cupholder quite right.”
“Exactly! And the lid doesn’t seal all the way.”
While the guard seemed to be mocking Arthur’s idiosyncrasies, he happily leaned into it. If he was remembered as the weird friend who was obsessive over his tumblers, then he wouldn’t be remembered for poking around where he didn’t belong.
“Anything else?” The guard questioned when they returned to the foyer.
“No, that’s it, thank you so much.”
“Sorry about your friend.”
“Thank you, it’s… quite a shock,” Arthur admitted.
“Well, have a good one.”
Arthur let himself out of the building and waited until he was a few blocks away before he instructed PRKR to stop recording.
“Alright, once we get home, I want you to upload that recording to my computer. We’ll go over everything. Something smells.”
“That is just the smell of the city.”
Arthur let out a single chuckle. “That too. Carcosa smells lovely in the summer. Let’s get home.”