The False Ducks Blahg

   I haven’t written much lately, let alone a blahg.  I’ve been somewhat busy and I’ve been stuck on a short story called “HOW ABOUT YOU, DELBERT ROBINSON?” for a couple of months.  I like the concept and the character but I haven’t been able to flesh out the ending.  Recently, I turned to ChatGPT to see if artificial intelligence could help me get on with it.  That is going to be the subject of a future blahg after I finally finish writing the story for myself.  Watch for it. 

   For this blahg, I want to talk about an old short story of mine that I recently came across.  It was tucked in a drawer of my old desk and when we downsized to a smaller desk, I kept the story with the intention of posting it here.  The big problem is that it was a ten page original type-written story and I’d never got around to digitizing it.  Here’s an example of the front page: 

“Private Investigator of Earth” was the first fully realized short story that I ever wrote.  I think I was around 17 or 18 when I typed it out on an old Underwood typewriter.  I think I might have even submitted it to a science fiction magazine.  I know it never got published because I know now that the story was not that good. 

   I finally scanned each of the ten pages as image files and used an online site to do character recognition and create a text file that I could then edit to one master Word document.  I haven’t corrected many of the spelling or grammar errors and the formatting is the same.  Here’s how it turned out:

PRIVATE INVESTIGATOR OF EARTH

By Scott T. Henderson

     I often recall my first case with fond reminiscence of its vast adventure.  Being the only private investigator on earth, though, has its drawbacks.  I made sure when rented this dump, that landlord put in a new, translucent glass door that bares my name and slogan:  “James Nemesis, Private Investigator of Earth.  Give me the time and I’ll solve the Crime.”  Unfortunately the hinges were rusted and have since then emitted a loud squawking noise when opened.

     I remember that night some fifteen years ago when my new career began.  It was the king of night that you wouldn’t catch a megolan (equivalent to a dog) out roaming on.  What was left of our atmosphere and ozone layer had since then diminished to a point were the remaining people on earth had to dwell in anti–repulsionisms or as well called them bubble, cities.  Our forcefields were provided through the use of pulsating and non—pulsating magnetic degausers (generators) which repelled any alienation gases or chunks of meteorites.  But we still ahd out problems with computer simulated storms which retained what little remaining O2 we needed.  And that night we had one of the dandiest computer simulies since the Gralos Blackhole passed through the earth destroying the African continent.

     I sat fully relaxed, with my feet on the desk, reading the current date issue of Jupiter’s only newspaper, the “Circe Review.”  I heard the approaching, reverberating sound of footsteps on the stairs, a sound which I had not as yet had a chance to become accustomed to.  I quickly straightened up to present myself to my very first client.  The squawking door gave way to a creature not of this planet.  She was a quadro or in scientific names a quadrolife, from the planet Uranus.  In common form I make I a point not to discriminate, besides Uranians are the closest life form in the galaxy resembling an Earth person.  She, as it occurred to me at the time, must have just came from the Shuttle station because she was still wrapped in her uranian fur parka and would have thought twice about wearing it in Earth’s climate.  I gathered from her appearance that she hadn’t came all the way to Earth just to see me.  If she needed my services it was because something had occurred aboard the Shuttle on her flight here to Earth.  I offered her a seat and she began to unravel her story via a tele-translutation device used to translate different languages in to the language most common to the listener.

     As she unravelled her story I eyed her, make a photographic reproduction of her in my mind.  The only other time I had seen a Quadro was in a photographic hologram shown to me at the Academy of Detection, on the sixth moon of the six sun, otherwise known as Titan.  She was very much like any other earth woman except that she had solid ruby red eyes and a life span four times that of any earth being.  Quadrolifes had the ability to survive death three times if killed or to live to an age of about four hundred.  When I first heard  the term Quadrolife I thought of some ugly four headed creature from an old science-fiction movie.  How wrong I was!

     She informed me that her name was Pelline Christe and she was representative of the Uranian Consulate, the supreme peace keepers and law enforcers of the galaxy.  At first this stunned me a bit because I was wondering what the Consulate would want with me.  She explained that she was carrying plans for a solar-laserbeam—cannon to the Earth Consulate but the plans were stolen on her trip here to Earth.  The plans were to be presented to the Consulate and permission was to be obtained to test a working model in the area located outside the existing anti–repulsionisms. The force of this baby could reach such a high intensity that it could wipe out a planet of Earth’s size in less than a minute!

     Now this quadro babe was really starting to scare me with her talk of the Earth being blown up! I asked her why she came to me instead of going to U.N.I.S. located out on Jupiter (U.N.I.S. stands for Universal Nations Investigating Services).  Her answer was that she couldn’t take chances of this story seeping out to the media because if it did we would have total mayhem on our hands! The only ones that knew of the plans were the Uranian Consulate, their designer, and now me. She informed me that she had 48 hours before she had to report back to her Consulate and between that time she was to have informed the Earth Consulate of the existence of such a weapon.  Now I had two things to consider: saving this girl’s job and saving the galaxy.  I was reluctant at first but I decided to take the case. Who am I to give up a chance at being a hero or at least, saving my own neck?

     I told Miss Christe that she would have to stay out of contact with everyone until I had a chance to crack this case wide open. No one should know about the theft otherwise it would invoke universal panic! The only safe place for Miss Christe would be back at my apartment, besides I intended to spend as much time as I could on this case. I knew that there wouldn’t be any sleep for me that night.

     I locked my office, located at 18 King Lane, and headed to the nearest Monorail stop with my head bending in the force of wind being produced as a result of the computer simulated storm. The computers really knew their stuff when it came to conjuring up storms. I had given the address of my apartment to Miss Christe along with the color–number–coordinate combination and implied that she was not to allow anyone in, with the exception of Myself. I hadn’t long to wait for the monorail and quickly boarded it to seek refuge from the storm. My first stop, I decided, was to be the Shuttle station. It was necessary to obtain a list of all the passengers aboard Miss Christe’s flight, its stops, its cargo, and, most importantly, its crew.

     As I sat aboard the monorail I thought how nice it would be to have my old automobile instead of a chauffer driven monorail.  It had been some time since I had last felt the comfort of the wheel in my hands.  Not since the government moved what was once Passaic, New Jersey into this bubble had I even seen a car. The carbon monoxide gas was detrimental to the public’s safety so cars were banned from all anti–repulsionisms, and there was hardly enough 02 for the drivers to survive in outside the bubbles.  If someone wanted to leave the bubble they had to use an anti–radioactive 02 suit but even these were hard to obtain.

     I stepped down from the platform to find myself in front of the Shuttle station, my first stop in the search of an answer for this case.  I had to think of some reason, besides the real one, for wanting to take a look at the list.  I quickly assumed the role of a civilian whose luggage had either been misdirected, lost, or simply been picked up by someone by mistake.

     The story was bought and I soon held the vital information I needed in the palm of my hand. My first objective was to converse with the crew and see if they had either willingly or mistakenly taken the case containing the plans, without making them aware of its contents.   A menial task for me!

     I learned that the flight from Uranus was on a two hour layover here, on earth, to undergo repairs on its anti–gravity stimulation propulsion system.  The crew was in the lounge area, reserved for all personnel, discussing the malfunction of the propulsion system. I listened intently outside the door when the conversation soon switched to Miss Christe and her missing briefcase. How did they know about that?  The pilot mentioned that Miss Christe’s briefcase had been reported missing.  The steward had searched the Shuttle and the station and hadn’t found it, he suggested that it might have been stolen and she should report it to the police. There was no reason for me to remain any longer because it was obvious that this was a dead end.

     I checked the list of cargo but it turned out that the Shuttle was only carrying the passengers’ luggage, on this run, and none of them matched the description of the missing briefcase. The Shuttle had only made one stop, to refuel on the planet Jupiter.  None of the passengers were allowed to leave the vessel while it was being refueled, so I came to two more dead  ends. The next option was to question all the passengers, and I wasn’t looking forward to that because there were 32 passengers aboard the Shuttle that Miss Christe had arrived on.

     I arrived at the home of a William Bascomb at approximately ten thirty, and the other 18 passengers were to be pussycats compared to this one, seeing that I had already questioned that many by that time and had come up with nothing.  Bascomb had just finished a vacation on Uranus and was returning early to take care of some financial problems.  I knocked on the door and hoped that he wouldn’t be angry at being disturbed.  A loud booming voice demanded to know who it was, so I told him my name and profession.  I was suddenly surprised when a hand holding a high frequency laser crashed through a second story window and took aim on me! My nimble legs lept foward and I sprawled out flat on the ground in hopes that the dark of the storm would prevent him from seeing my trembling body. Whether it was my good luck or not I may never know but the beam missed me. I took advantage of the situation and pulled out my stun phaser and fired! Had I hit him? My answer was a beam that tore up the ground two feet in front of me! I had to flush him out if I was to get a clear shot at him, but this proved to be difficult in the dark.  I had an idea!  I fired a shot at the window, that now had a large gaping hole in it.  I hadn’t hoped to hit him, only to get him to fire back. I caught the glimmer of light coming and rolled! I aimed at the spot where the beam had emitted from and fired! Bingo! His scream was all I needed to be sure that I had hit him.  But I was too sure of myself. Oh, I had hit him, but his laser tumbled out the window, hit the ground and fired off a shot at me!  If I  had have moved any faster I would have had a permanent hole in my head instead of one in my hat.  I walked over to the laser and placed it inside my holster while I held my stun phaser in my hand. I was sure that this was the same man who had stolen the plans but I had to move fast because the effects of my phaser would wear off in twenty minutes.

     I gained entrance to the house by smashing open a first story window and crawling through it.  I searched the house but found nothing to tie him in with the theft, but there had to be.  Why else would he open fire on me? I started up the stairs to see to Bascomb when my hand pushed the headmost at the bottom of the stairs back to reveal a button. I pushed the button and the wall in the living area opened to reveal a hidden room! I found a briefcase matching the description of Miss Christe’s. Inside the case was five hundred thousand quidelacs (Uranian dollar equal in value to about two earth dollars).

     Even though Quidelacs were common on Earth, five hundred thousand of them one place, other than a bank weren’t. I came to the conclusion that Bascomb had either stolen this currency or he stole the plans and had already sold them for this amount.    I hadn’t liked the idea of working with the police but I needed some answers that only they could give me. I picked up the police frequency on Bascomb’s tele-audio–visual phone and placed a call to the Sergeant in charge.  As his face appeared on the screen I noticed a large grin was blooming from one of his ears to the other.  He and I were not the greatest of friends because we were always competing. He began to open his mouth to say something but I cut him off, telling him to hold his wisecracks until I had a chance to explain.

     It didn’t take long for a police aircar (nondetrimental to public safety) to arrive, and by that time Bascomb had aroused to find himself being held captive by his own phaser. It turned out that a call from the Uranian police came in reporting a robbery at the Uralian Universal Bank and the description of the thief fit Bascomb to a T. Now where was I? My only lead turned out to be a false one and I hadn’t any idea where my next one would come from.  The police hauled away Bascomb with the money and told me I might as well come with them to collect a reward for the return of the money.

     At the station I collected the five hundred quidelac reward and was readying to leave when the Sergeant called me into his office. Was he going to give me a pat on the back or was he going to bawl me out for not reporting the incident right a way? As I entered the room I was surprised to find a Quadro sitting at the desk with the Sergeant. The Sergeant introduced me to the lady and it nearly blew my mind. Her name was Miss Pelline Christe! She explained to me that her briefcase was stolen and that it contained plans for a solar–laserbeam–cannon.  I interrupted her telling her that she needn’t explain something that I already knew. The Sergeant, to whom I explained everything to in my call, had ordered an aircar remedied to leave for my apartment. We decided to go quietly and that I would enter the apartment win her trust and arrest her.

     As we rode to my apartment, I couldn’t get my mind off of how a quadro, let alone a dame, had pulled the wool over my eyes. The quadro at my apartment was the real thief and the one in the car with us was the real Miss Christe. The thief stole the plans and decided the best way to escape suspicion was to assume the identity of the one whom the plans were stolen from.  She came to me with her phony story because she knew that the real Miss Christe would go to the police instead of a private investigator. What this phony hadn’t counted on was I might run into someone who would send me to the police.  If it hadn’t been for Bascom I might still have been on a wild goose chase looking for the thief who was at this moment in my apartment.  But a fool shall have his revenge, and I was determined to have mine!

     As I rode the elevator to the seventh floor, on which my apartment was located, I hoped that she hadn’t already flown the coop. The police were to take the stairs and bust in had I trouble with the thief. I decided it would be best for me to knock, and her to let me in, instead of  busting in and having her snatch up a weapon in defence. I knocked on the door but there wasn’t an answer, my first thought was that she had fled from her place of sanctum.  I spealed the combination and entered the apartment. I spotted the briefcase on the table and determined that she must be asleep in the bedroom.  Suddenly the door closed and the quadro popped out from the other side of the door with my extra phaser in her hand. She explained that she had been listening to my conversations with a micro–transmitter that she had slipped into my pocket,  and was aware that I was in fresh pursuit of her.  She told me to drop my phaser and to stand with my back to her while she picked up the briefcase, she then demanded that I start walking, with my back to her, out of the door to the left and towards the elevator.  As we left the apartment the police arrived at the top of the stairs, so she quickly swung me around so that she was shielded from the police. We boarded the elevator, the doors closed and that’s when I made my move! I brought back my elbow and nudged the elevator buttons and it came to a jerking stop knocking the phaser out of her hand. I pulled out the laser that I had confiscated from Bascomb, she must have forgotten I still had it, and ordered her to pick up the phaser and hand it to me.  She picked up the laser and threw it at me, knocking me off balance, causing me to missfire the laser in my hand. The beam rifled through the top of the elevator and severed one of the elevator cables; causing the elevator to tilt foward at a ninety degree angle! The quadro began to scream in panic! I asked her what she as screaming about, she would live if she was killed. She argued that she had already been killed three times trying to steal other things, and that this was her last life. I had to think of something!

     The police ran down the stairs and were wondering why the elevator hadn’t came down.  One of the police officers heard the scream and suggested that they should pry the doors open and see what had happened. When those law enforcers caught sight of what happened they were speechless and didn’t know what to do.  One of them yelled up and asked if I was okay. I replied yes, but I was more shaken up than anything.  Just then the idea hit me! I told the sergeant to go up to the fourth floor, because we were stuck between the third and fourth floors. I then asked him to pry open the doors and see how much damage there was to the cables.  He yelled down the shaft and reported that the one cable had been severed and the other one was untouched. I asked if there was any possibility of the cables being fused together again.  His reply was yes but it would take a while to get hold of the right machinery.  I suggested that if he had Bascomb’s laser he could put it on low intensity and fuse the wires. The sergeant lowered a rope and I attached Bascomb’s lasere to it and he hauled it up. He then fused the cables together and the rest was up to me. I pushed every button I could until I finally got the elevator to descend down the shaft. Once at the bottom level the police cut a large enough hole in the elevator, with Bascomb’s laser, so that the quadro and I could crawl out. It felt good to be out of the elevator and I had a better appreciation of the police.

     The police took the phony Miss Christe into custody, the real Miss Christe took the plans to the Earth Consulate, and I collected another five hundred quidelac reward for the return of the plans.

     Yes, that’s it my very first case. Remember if you’re ever visiting Earth and you are in need of a private investigator, just pop by my office at 13 King Lane, walk up the stairs, through the squawking door, and I’ll be there, the Private Investigator of Earth!

The End

   Now, here’s where I loop back to the issue of ChatGPT.  There’s the option to upload your story/writing and have it make it better.  I was offered two options:  A Light Polish or A Modernized Edition.  Here are the two versions of the story by ChatGPT

PRIVATE INVESTIGATOR OF EARTH – light polish

By Scott T. Henderson

I often recall my first case with fond reminiscence of its vast adventure. Being the only private investigator on Earth has its drawbacks, though. When I rented this dump, I made sure the landlord installed a new translucent glass door bearing my name and slogan:

“James Nemesis, Private Investigator of Earth. Give me the time and I’ll solve the crime.”

Unfortunately, the hinges were rusted, and ever since, the door has emitted a loud squawk whenever it opens.

I remember that night some fifteen years ago when my new career began. It was the kind of night you wouldn’t catch a megolan (the equivalent of a dog) roaming in. What was left of our atmosphere and ozone layer had diminished to the point where the remaining people on Earth had to dwell inside anti-repulsionisms—or as we called them, bubble cities.

Our forcefields were powered by pulsating and non-pulsating magnetic degaussers (generators) that repelled alien gases and chunks of meteorite. But we still had problems with computer-simulated storms, which helped retain what little oxygen we had left. That night we had one of the wildest “computer simulies” since the Gralos Black Hole passed through Earth and destroyed the African continent.

I was fully relaxed, feet on the desk, reading the current issue of Jupiter’s only newspaper, The Circe Review, when I heard the reverberating sound of footsteps on the stairs—a sound I hadn’t yet become accustomed to. I quickly straightened up, ready to present myself to my very first client.

The squawking door gave way to a creature not of this planet. She was a Quadro—or in scientific terms, a Quadrolife—from the planet Uranus. I make it a point not to discriminate; besides, Uranians are the closest life form in the galaxy resembling Earth people.

She must have just arrived from the Shuttle Station, still wrapped in her Uranian fur parka. No one would wear one of those in Earth’s climate unless they had just landed. I gathered from her appearance that she hadn’t come all the way to Earth just to sightsee. If she needed my services, something serious had happened aboard the shuttle.

I offered her a seat, and she began to unravel her story through a tele-translutation device, which converted her speech into my language.

As she spoke, I studied her carefully, forming a mental photograph. The only other time I had seen a Quadro was in a holographic projection shown to me at the Academy of Detection on Titan—the sixth moon of the sixth sun. She looked much like any Earth woman, except for her solid ruby-red eyes and her long lifespan—four times that of any human. Quadrolifes could survive death three times or live to an age of about four hundred years. When I first heard the term “Quadrolife,” I pictured some ugly, four-headed monster from an old science-fiction movie. How wrong I was.

She introduced herself as Pelline Christe, a representative of the Uranian Consulate—the supreme peacekeepers and law enforcers of the galaxy. That stunned me a bit. What would the Consulate want with me?

She explained that she was carrying plans for a solar-laser-beam cannon to the Earth Consulate, but the plans had been stolen en route. They were to be presented for approval to test a working model outside the anti-repulsionisms. The force of this thing could reach such an intensity that it could wipe out a planet the size of Earth in less than a minute.

This “Quadro babe” was starting to scare me with all this talk of blowing up Earth. I asked why she’d come to me instead of U.N.I.S. (Universal Nations Investigating Services) on Jupiter.

She said she couldn’t risk the story leaking to the media—it would cause total galactic panic. Only the Uranian Consulate, their designer, and now I knew of the plans. She had forty-eight hours to report back, and in that time she was supposed to inform the Earth Consulate of the weapon’s existence.

Two things to consider: saving her job and saving the galaxy. I wasn’t keen at first, but I decided to take the case. Who was I to pass up a chance to be a hero—or at least save my own neck?

I told Miss Christe to stay out of contact with everyone until I cracked the case. No one else could know about the theft. The safest place for her was my apartment, and I’d need all my time to investigate. Sleep wasn’t in the cards that night.

I locked up my office at 18 King Lane and headed to the nearest monorail stop, head bowed against the wind whipped up by the simulated storm. The computers really knew how to make weather. I gave Miss Christe my apartment’s color-number-coordinate combination and told her not to let anyone in—except me.

The monorail arrived quickly, and I boarded to escape the storm. My first stop: the Shuttle Station. I needed a list of passengers, stops, cargo, and, most importantly, crew.

As I sat aboard the monorail, I thought how nice it would be to have my old automobile again. It had been years since I’d felt a steering wheel in my hands. Ever since the government moved what used to be Passaic, New Jersey, into a bubble, cars had been banned—carbon monoxide was too dangerous, and there wasn’t enough oxygen outside for drivers to survive anyway. Those who wanted to leave the bubbles had to wear anti-radioactive O₂ suits, which were hard to come by.

At the Shuttle Station, I needed an excuse to see the passenger list. I pretended to be a traveler whose luggage had been lost or picked up by mistake. The story worked, and soon I held the information I needed in my hand.

My first objective was to question the crew—discreetly—and see if they’d taken the briefcase by mistake. The flight had a two-hour layover on Earth for repairs to its anti-gravity propulsion system. I listened from outside the lounge door as they discussed the malfunction—and then shifted to talking about Miss Christe and her missing briefcase. How did they know about that? The pilot said it had been reported missing, the steward had searched the Shuttle and station with no luck, and they’d suggested she report it to the police. Dead end.

I checked the cargo list—nothing matched the briefcase. The Shuttle had only made one stop, for refueling on Jupiter, and passengers hadn’t been allowed to disembark. Another dead end. The next step: question all thirty-two passengers.

By 10:30 that night I arrived at the home of William Bascomb, passenger number nineteen. He’d just returned from vacation on Uranus to deal with financial troubles. I knocked, hoping he wouldn’t be angry at the late visit.

A booming voice demanded my name, so I told him. Suddenly, a hand with a high-frequency laser burst through a second-story window and took aim! I dove to the ground, hoping the darkness would hide me. The beam missed by inches. I fired back with my stun phaser—missed—then fired again when his return shot gave away his position. This time, a scream told me I’d hit him.

But his weapon fell out the window, hit the ground, and fired again—burning a hole clean through my hat. Lucky me. I holstered his weapon, still holding my phaser, and broke into the house through a first-floor window.

Inside, I found nothing to link him to the theft—but why else shoot at me? As I started up the stairs, my hand brushed a panel that clicked open to reveal a hidden button. I pressed it. A section of wall slid aside to uncover a secret room—and inside was a briefcase matching Miss Christe’s.

It contained five hundred thousand Quidelacs (Uranian currency, about two Earth dollars each). That much cash outside a bank was suspicious. Either he’d stolen it—or he’d already sold the plans.

I needed answers only the police could give. I used Bascomb’s tele-audio-visual phone to call the precinct. The Sergeant’s face appeared, grinning from ear to ear—we’d been rivals for years. Before he could wisecrack, I told him to hold his tongue and listen.

Soon a police aircar arrived. By then, Bascomb had awakened to find himself held at phaser-point by his own gun. Turns out the Uranian police had just reported a robbery at the Universal Bank—description fit Bascomb perfectly. My lead had been a false one. The police hauled him away, along with the money, and I collected a five-hundred-Quidelac reward for the recovery.

As I was about to leave, the Sergeant called me into his office. I expected a lecture—but was stunned to find another Quadro sitting there. The Sergeant introduced her as Miss Pelline Christe.

That nearly blew my mind.

The woman I’d met earlier—the one at my apartment—was a fake. She’d stolen the plans and assumed Miss Christe’s identity, knowing the real one would go to the police while she could misdirect me.

The Sergeant ordered an aircar to my building. We decided I’d go in first to gain her trust.

As we rode the elevator, I couldn’t get over how completely that “dame” had played me. The fake Miss Christe was sitting in my apartment with stolen plans, probably smug as ever.

I reached the seventh floor and knocked. No answer. I keyed in the door code and stepped inside. The briefcase sat on the table—she had to be in the bedroom. Then the door slammed shut behind me. She appeared, holding my spare phaser.

She said she’d been listening to my conversations through a micro-transmitter she’d slipped into my pocket. She ordered me to drop my weapon and walk out ahead of her toward the elevator.

We reached the elevator just as the police arrived at the stairs. She swung me around to use me as a shield. The doors closed.

That’s when I made my move.

I slammed my elbow into the control panel, jolting the elevator to a stop. The lurch knocked the phaser from her hand. I pulled out Bascomb’s confiscated laser—she must have forgotten I had it—and ordered her to pick up her weapon and hand it over. She threw it at me instead. I staggered, misfired, and the beam sliced through the ceiling, severing one of the cables. The elevator tilted forward at a ninety-degree angle.

She screamed in panic. I told her she’d survive—she was a Quadrolife, after all. But she shrieked that she’d already been killed three times; this would be her last life.

Meanwhile, the police forced open the doors on the lower floor and shouted up. I told them we were stuck between the third and fourth levels. The Sergeant confirmed one cable was cut but the other intact.

“Can you fuse it?” I yelled.

“With the right machinery,” he answered.

“If you’ve got Bascomb’s laser, set it to low and weld it!”

He did. The cables fused. I hit every button I could, and the elevator finally descended to the bottom. The police cut a hole in the side large enough for us to crawl out.

I’d never been so glad to touch solid ground.

The police took the fake Miss Christe into custody. The real Miss Christe delivered the plans safely to the Earth Consulate. I collected another five-hundred-Quidelac reward.

And that was my very first case.

So remember—if you’re ever visiting Earth and need a private investigator, just stop by my office at 13 King Lane. Walk up the stairs, through the squawking door, and I’ll be there—

James Nemesis, Private Investigator of Earth.

———————————

And now here’s the Modernized Edition:

PRIVATE INVESTIGATOR OF EARTH

by Scott T. Henderson (Modernized Edition)

1. The Door and the Dame

My name’s James Nemesis, and I’m the only private investigator left on Earth.

That used to mean something. Now it just means I’m the only fool who couldn’t afford to ship off-world.

My office sits in the bottom tier of what used to be New York Dome — half-broken neon, recycled air thick as regret. When I took this place, I made the landlord put in a new glass door with my name stenciled across it:
JAMES NEMESIS — PRIVATE INVESTIGATOR OF EARTH
Give me the time and I’ll solve the crime.

The hinges still scream like a dying cat every time it opens. Some things you can’t fix with a wrench.

That night — fifteen years ago — was when it all began. A storm rolled through the dome, one of those “atmospheric simulations” that kept the oxygen levels balanced and the citizens nostalgic. Lightning danced on the inside of the sky panels. The city smelled like metal and fear.

I had my feet on the desk, a lukewarm synth-coffee in one hand, and the Circe Review from Jupiter streaming across my wall screen. Then I heard footsteps on the stairs. Real ones. Not the drone of a courier bot, not the shuffle of someone too broke to bother with silence. These were deliberate. High heels. Expensive.

The door shrieked open.

She wasn’t human.

Uranians are rare these days — most don’t bother with this dying planet — but this one looked human enough to make a priest reconsider his vows. Long coat of Uranian fur, silver at the seams, red eyes glowing faintly in the half-light.

I gestured toward the chair. “You must be lost. The spaceport’s three domes east.”

“I’m not lost,” she said through a small translator clipped to her collar. Her voice came out smooth, almost musical. “I’m here because something was stolen.”

That was the first line of a story that would change everything.

2. The Job

She called herself Pelline Christe, a Quadrolife from Uranus — a species that can die three times before it sticks. She didn’t brag about it, but I caught the glint in her eyes when she said it. Immortality always carries a little arrogance.

The story unfolded in neat, careful sentences.
A classified weapon — a solar laser cannon powerful enough to vaporize a planet — had been stolen en route to an off-world research station. The theft happened aboard the shuttle she’d traveled on. The Earth government, still pretending it had authority, wanted it recovered quietly.

And that’s where I came in. The last human investigator with a license that still scanned green.

“I can pay,” she said, sliding a transparent cred-chip across my desk. The numbers on it made my heart stumble.

I pocketed the chip and stood. “Miss Christe, you just bought yourself the best detective still breathing under this dome.”

3. The Chase Begins

The rest of the night was a blur of transport tubes and sensor sweeps. I tracked a lead to William Bascomb, an engineer who’d been stationed near the shuttle’s cargo bay. His digital trail was clean — too clean. That’s how you know a man’s hiding something.

I caught up to him in a maintenance corridor deep under Dome Sector 7. His reflection flickered off the wet metal walls as I raised my pulse pistol.

“Mr. Bascomb,” I said. “You’ve been making expensive mistakes.”

He spun, hands up, eyes wide. “I didn’t take the plans! It was her — the woman from Uranus! She—”

And that’s when the corridor lights cut out.

A jolt of instinct told me everything I needed: I’d been played.

4. Crossfire

The corridor went black. Only the hum of the city’s recycled air filled the silence.
A second later, the emergency strips flickered on—thin red light painting Bascomb’s face the color of guilt.

He bolted.
I fired once, grazing his shoulder. Enough to drop him but not end him.
When I reached him, he was shaking. “It wasn’t me,” he muttered. “She—she swapped the access code mid-flight. I thought she was security.”

“She gave you her name?”

He swallowed. “Pelline Christe.”

That name hit me like a shock baton. My “client.” The real one hadn’t even been here.

By the time I looked up, a maintenance bot rolled past, scanning Bascomb’s wound and dispatching a report to Dome Control. I didn’t wait around to explain. I was already running.

5. Shadows in the Bubble

Outside, the storm simulation was in full effect—rain hammering the inside of the dome, thunder echoing through artificial clouds. It looked real enough to drown in.

I took the mag-line back to my office, my mind running faster than the rail.
Either Miss Christe had a twin, or someone had worn her face like a mask. Quadrolife tech could do that. They had bioprint suits that fooled scanners and souls alike.

When I stepped off the line, the power grid flickered. Half the dome dimmed.
A bad sign.

My office door was already open. The glass still read my name, but the squawk of its hinges was silent this time.

She was there.
Same red eyes. Same fur coat. But she wasn’t waiting—she was searching. My desk drawers were half-open, papers scattered.

I didn’t bother drawing the pistol. “You know, most clients wait for a bill before they break into the office.”

She froze, then turned slowly. “Mr. Nemesis. You’re earlier than expected.”

Her voice was different—cooler, harder.
And I noticed the glimmer at her wrist: a data-key, pulsing faintly with blue light.

“The plans,” I said.

She smiled. “You’re quicker than your reputation suggests.”

6. The Elevator Job

She made for the corridor. I lunged. The data-key slipped from her fingers and clattered across the floor. She dove, I grabbed, and we both crashed through the door into the hallway—her coat tearing, my shoulder screaming.

She hit the elevator button and the doors slid open with a hiss. I followed.
The lift shot upward, fast enough to pin us to the wall.

“Why steal it?” I shouted over the hum. “You could’ve walked out clean!”

“I don’t need to explain survival to someone stuck on a dying rock,” she said.

The lift jerked suddenly, then shuddered to a halt between levels.
Lights went out again. The power grid across the dome must’ve blown.

“Convenient,” I muttered.

She laughed softly. “Not for you.”

She moved—too fast. I felt the crack of her elbow against my jaw and the taste of blood. I swung back, missed, and slammed the emergency override.
The doors pried open just enough to reveal the maintenance shaft—dark, bottomless. Wind from the ventilation systems roared below.

She lunged again, and this time I caught her wrist and twisted. The data-key flew free.

“You’re not getting away with this,” I said.

She grinned. “Maybe not this life.”

Then she threw herself backward into the shaft.

I watched her fall—twisting, shrinking, swallowed by the dark—until there was nothing left but the hum of machinery and the flicker of the data-key at my feet.

7. Ghost in the System

By morning, the dome lights were back. The city looked the same, but I wasn’t.

I turned the data-key over in my hand. It pulsed faintly—an encrypted holofile marked with the insignia of the Interplanetary Defense Council.
I’d seen those seals before. Touch the wrong file and the next knock on your door is an orbital strike.

I plugged it into the wall console anyway.

Miss Christe’s real face appeared.
Older. Sterner. And very much alive.

“Mr. Nemesis,” her hologram said. “If you’re viewing this, you’ve encountered an imposter. The plans for the Solar Laser were compromised en route to Earth. We believe a rogue Quadrolife cell intends to sell them to the Martian syndicate. If the imposter survives, terminate her. If not—recover the plans and deliver them to the Council. Payment will follow.”

The message blinked out.

I looked down at the data-key. The irony wasn’t lost on me—my first real client wanted me to clean up the mess her twin made. Or her clone. Or her ghost. At this point, they all bled the same.

8. Resurrection Protocol

Three days later, I was still nursing a bruised jaw and a bad conscience.
The imposter’s dive into the elevator shaft should’ve been the end of it. But you don’t stay a licensed investigator in a world this rotten without learning one thing: Quadrolifes don’t die easy.

By the time I filed my report, the city’s morgue logs were already glitching. One “unidentified female, Uranian biology” checked in, checked out, then deleted herself from the system entirely. That took more than luck — it took clearance.

I knew where she’d go next.
There’s only one place in the Dome where you can rebuild a new body from a corpse: The Renewal Clinic, buried deep in the medical sector, past the checkpoints and the anti-bio scanners.

I went in under a false ID — “Dr. Smith,” because subtlety is wasted on bureaucrats. The receptionist didn’t even look up, just scanned my badge and waved me through.

Inside, the clinic hummed with quiet machines and the faint smell of ozone.
One of the pods was open, its cradle still warm. The display read:
REGENERATION CYCLE COMPLETE. LIFE 3/4.

“Thought I told you not to follow me,” came a voice behind me.

I turned.

She was standing in the doorway — the same red eyes, the same infuriating half-smile. A little paler. A little dead inside. But very much alive.

“I don’t like unfinished business,” I said.

9. Truth Serum

She circled me slowly, boots clicking on the clinic floor. “You think you know who I am,” she said, “but you’ve got it backwards. I’m not the fake Pelline Christe. She is.”

“Cute,” I said. “You’ll have to do better than that.”

“Think about it,” she hissed. “Who sends a stolen weapon plan to Earth and then hires a washed-up human detective to clean it up? The Council’s dirty, Nemesis. Always has been. I was trying to keep that laser out of their hands.”

I wanted to call her a liar.
But the more she talked, the more it made sense. Governments don’t hire freelancers for top-secret retrievals unless they need someone expendable.

She must’ve seen the hesitation in my face, because she softened.
“You’re good,” she said. “You found me when no one else could. Help me get off this planet. Help me finish this, and I’ll make sure you’re remembered as more than a relic.”

Her words hit something deep. Maybe pride. Maybe loneliness. Either way, I lowered the pistol — a mistake that never goes unpunished.

She moved first, fast as ever, but I’d learned her rhythm. I caught her arm, twisted, and pinned her against the pod. The data-key fell from her pocket, landing between us.

“The only thing I’m finishing,” I said, “is this case.”

She smiled. “Then you’ll never know who you were really working for.”

I pressed the key against the pod interface. The system beeped — once, twice — then flared white as the containment field surged. She gasped, her body dissolving into radiant static. When the light faded, all that was left was the smell of ozone and the faint pulse of a data file reuploading itself into nowhere.

10. The End of the Case

I turned the plans over to the Interplanetary Defense Council the next morning. They didn’t ask many questions, and I didn’t offer any answers. The reward transferred to my account before I left the building. Enough credits to buy a better office. Maybe even a new door.

But I kept the old one.
The hinges still screamed whenever someone came through. It was comforting, in a way — a reminder that nothing lasts forever, not even silence.

Sometimes, late at night, I swear I hear her voice in the hum of the city.
A whisper through the static, soft and amused:

“You’ll never know who you were really working for.”

Maybe she’s right. Maybe the whole planet’s just another client, lying to itself for the paycheck.

But as long as the lights flicker and the dome keeps the air in, there’ll be people with secrets — and someone like me to dig them up.

After all, I’m James Nemesis.
Private Investigator of Earth.
Give me the time, and I’ll solve the crime.

——————————

I don’t think ChatGPT did any better version than I did 45 years ago.  I’m very fond of “Private Investigator of Earth.”  I even recall that I was going to write a sequel with the title “Metamorphosis on Thorax.”  James Nemesis was going to investigate a sort of invasion of the body snatchers case where key government officials had been replaced by some time of clones.  It never got beyond the title and the concept.  I don’t recall much else. 

   Let me be clear, I’m probably never going to write “Metamorphosis on Thorax.”  My friend Bryan and I toyed around with some bedroom recordings on an old cassette recorder where I played Nemesis and he was my assistant, David Blake.  I can’t recall much of that either.  I thought I’d let ChatGPT write the story, it’s not likely I ever will.  Read it for yourself and let me know what you think.  Artificial Intelligence isn’t smart enough to know what I think…yet.

 

Metamorphosis on Thorax

By Scott T. Henderson

I was halfway through a bottle of Martian rye and a halfhearted case of corporate espionage when trouble came knocking — literally.
The glass door rattled, the kind of knock that doesn’t wait to be invited.

“Don’t break it,” I said. “The landlord just replaced that door.”

The door swung open and in stumbled David Blake, wearing a trench coat that looked like it had lost a fight with a garbage compactor. His eyes were bloodshot, his breath a blend of cheap liquor and cheaper regret.

“James,” he croaked. “You still working cases, or just decorating the office with unpaid bills?”

“Depends,” I said. “You paying or confessing?”

He dropped a crumpled folder on my desk. “Maybe both.”

Blake used to be a cop — the kind they make recruitment posters out of before they make examples of them. He’d been on the wrong side of a cover-up, took the fall, and never got back up. I’d thrown him a line a few times, usually to drag him out of some back-alley bar.

I picked up the folder. Inside were holo-prints of a few government officials — faces I recognized from the Earth Consulate network feeds. The captions under each read: Deceased.

“Problem is,” Blake said, unscrewing the top of my rye, “they’re still giving press conferences.”

Chapter One: The Hollow Men

It started small — the way infestations always do. A senator’s aide with no record of sleep in three weeks. A planetary governor whose fingerprints didn’t match his own. A Consulate scientist whose blood crystallized when she was cut.

Blake leaned over my desk, cigarette trembling between two fingers. “They’re not human anymore, Nemesis. They look like it, sound like it — hell, they even bleed like it. But inside…”

He trailed off and took a swig straight from the bottle.

“Inside’s where it gets messy,” I said.

“Yeah,” he said quietly. “Messy.”

He told me all the affected officials had recently returned from Thorax, a mining colony orbiting Glaucus-7 — one of those half-mythic frontier worlds where even the stars don’t stay still.

I poured myself a drink. “So you’re saying someone’s replacing the upper crust of the government with doubles.”

“Not someone,” he said. “Something.”

Chapter Two: The Body That Wasn’t

The morgue stank of ozone and antiseptic. The body on the slab had no organs — just a gel-like substance glowing faintly under the ultraviolet lamps.

“Clone medium,” Blake muttered. His voice was slurred, but his instincts were still sharp — a cop’s nose for what doesn’t belong.

“Thorax-grade silicate,” I said, checking the data chip embedded in the corpse’s neck. “Imported biology. This isn’t cloning — it’s manufacturing.”

Blake shivered. “You ever get the feeling you’re late to a war that already started?”

“Every day,” I said. “Book passage. We’re going to Thorax.”

Chapter Three: The Planet That Shouldn’t Exist

Thorax wasn’t supposed to be habitable, but it never asked permission.
The planet pulsed beneath its own atmosphere — red fog, molten plains, and veins of light like the heartbeat of a sleeping god.

We met Dr. Kira Melanth, the colony’s head biologist, a pale woman with goggles that hid what I suspected were terrified eyes.

She led us through the lab — tanks of amber fluid and shapes suspended within, twitching like dreams trying to wake.

“The metamorphic silicates,” she said. “They’ve begun replicating organic tissue. Not by command — by instinct.”

Blake lit a cigarette and blew smoke toward the tanks. “Instinct to do what?”

She looked at him. “To replace. To perfect.”

That’s when one of the tanks shattered.

A technician screamed as a figure stepped out of the fluid — his own reflection. The thing smiled, learning how to breathe with lungs that weren’t lungs.

Blake stumbled back, gun half-drawn, half-drunk. I fired first. The blast disintegrated the creature — but the residue twitched, glowed, and started knitting itself back together.

We ran.

Chapter Four: The Consulate Conspiracy

By the time we hit Earth again, it was already too late.
The Earth Consulate Tower was sealed off — “quarantine,” they said. The press footage showed calm, collected officials reassuring the public. One of them was Draylin Voss — the same man who’d hired us.

Trouble was, Blake had a holo still showing Voss’s body encased in Thorax crystal.

“We’ve been played,” he said. “We didn’t stop it — we delivered it.”

We broke into the Tower using his old police credentials. They still worked. Maybe the system didn’t care who was alive anymore.

We found Voss in the upper chamber, perfectly still, waiting.

“Mr. Nemesis,” he said, smiling in that wrong, mechanical way. “You’ve brought exactly what we needed.”

“What’s that?” I asked.

He turned his gaze on Blake. “A compatible host.”

Blake staggered, grabbed his head. The veins under his skin pulsed gold.

“Get out of him!” I shouted, drawing my pistol.

Voss tilted his head. “He invited us.”

I fired. The beam hit him dead center. He dissolved into light, screaming like electricity dying. Blake dropped to his knees, shaking.

“James…” he whispered. “It’s still in me. I can feel it.”

“Then we get it out,” I said.

He looked up, eyes wet and distant. “No, you don’t get it. It is me now.”

I raised my gun — but I couldn’t pull the trigger.

Chapter Five: What Remains

That was three weeks ago.
The Consulate’s been silent. The newsfeeds loop official statements from people who don’t blink enough.

Sometimes, when I walk past the old precinct, I see Blake. He stands under the sodium lights, coat collar turned up, hands shaking just enough to prove he’s still human — or trying to be.

He hasn’t said a word since Thorax. Doesn’t have to. I can feel that whatever’s inside him is waiting — patient, hungry, calculating.

Maybe one day he’ll come back for me.
Maybe one day I’ll let him.

Until then, my sign still hangs crooked on the door:

James Nemesis — Private Investigator of Earth.
“If it walks, talks, or bleeds, I’ll find what’s underneath.”

And when the nights get quiet enough to hear the hum of the silicates in the walls, I pour two glasses — one for me, and one for what’s coming.

Because sooner or later, everything changes.
Even the man who hunts monsters.