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Crimson on Copper

An Excerpt from Inhuman Acts

by Tony Greyfox

The interrogation room was small and cramped even when the perp sitting at the single wooden table was your standard, everyday criminal. With this suspect, it was claustrophobic. The air was heavy, stinking of diesel fumes and sprocket oil.

"You understand why you're here, correct?" I said, setting my paws on the table and putting on my best cop glare. My suspect chuffed a small cloud of smoke that made my nostrils burn. Cognition gears clicked in its dome-shaped head. It nodded, yes.

It was telling the truth, I knew that. Automatons can't lie. They're designed to answer questions from anyone who asks, and this one had one hell of a list to answer.

I sat down across from it. The room light glinted off the rounded head plate. Two circular lenses whirred as it focused on me. That blank, empty stare from the copper-toned automaton gave me chills. Especially since the copper was blotted here and there with crimson. Thinking back over the morning's horrors sent a shiver down my spine.

Gore is part of my job. I've seen bloody crime scenes that would send most people screaming into the night. Take a couple of tours during a nasty border war, you see lots of hell.

But this was a little more than I was used to.

The store was an automaton sales outlet. A half dozen of the bipedal mechanicals were displayed around the room in various whimsical poses, holding assorted items. Here, a maid outfit and a broom. There, a hard hat with a steam drill. Modern mechanical workers, just add water and diesel fuel.

But it wasn't the automatons that were the highlight of the room. Instead, it was the rivulets of red dribbling across the floor.

"Hey, Detective." A beat sergeant hopped over to me, careful to keep his big rabbit feet out of the blood. He scratched an ear with one gloved paw and waved with the other nervously. "Got three customers for you. This one and two in the next room. Pretty ugly."

"What else is new?"

I stepped over the blood cautiously, thankful that hyenas don't have long tails like the fox who was busily trying to blot blood from his tail tip.

Contestant number one dangled half on and half off the sales counter. He looked like any other mixed-breed dog, except for the fact half his head was caved in like a deflated balloon. "Holy hell," I muttered, leaning in to carefully examine the damage. "Someone shoot him with a cannon?"

"Ain't no cannon, Smiley, but you aren't gonna believe when you find out what it really was."

I glared at the rabbit. "How many times do I have to go over how much I hate that nickname?"

"Sorry, Detective Faraday." He covered the smirk and pointed to the back room.

There were three figures in the room. Only one was upright. A light flickered and swung back and forth, sending shadows scurrying across the room.

Another dog lay crumpled against a wall. She was the largest source of blood, probably because something had punched a messy hole clear through her belly. "Damn," I breathed, staring at the body for a moment before turning to the third fatality. This one sat sprawled in a chair. From the black and grey tail, it was a raccoon, but visual identification past that would be impossible - its head seemed to have been driven down into the chest almost like it had been dropped upside-down from, say, a mile up.

"What the hell happened here?" I muttered.

"You should ask our special guest," the sergeant suggested.

"And who is...?"

At his gesture, I turned to the other figure in the room. I had shrugged it off as another automaton, in for servicing or some other reason. Taking a closer look, I saw the blood on its claspers and splashed onto its copper.

"The automaton did it?"