LITMIR.BIZ

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Fuck you bitches.’ He tucks himself back into his pants, reaching for his mouse with the other hand to click away. But not before Cas manages to get in the last word.

      ‘Not with that thing, thanks. But don’t worry, Gavin, we’ve been recording this. You’re going viral tomorrow.’ It’s a blatant lie, but he doesn’t know that. He goggles like an asphyxiating fish. ‘No, wait—’

      Cas shuts the window down and flops onto Layla’s bed, barely missing NyanCat, who opens one eye warily and then wraps her tail over her nose. ‘Oh my God, that was classic. Clas-sic. Right?’

      ‘Yeah, well,’ Layla shrugs. Then perks up with indignation: ‘And you can’t say “retarded”, Cas.’

      ‘C’mon, he had it coming, and please, bitch, it’s just a word.’ She rubs the cat on the top of her head with her knuckle. ‘Don’t you think so, Nyan, baby?’ She lifts the cat up and nuzzles her face. NyanCat treads the air, panicky, and then goes limp and submits, purring. Typical. Not even felines are immune to Cas’s sheer force of personality. ‘I know what will cheer you up,’ she says.

      ‘Watching a movie?’

      ‘Doing another one!’

      ‘Hello, homework?’

      ‘Doesn’t this count as sociology? Gender studies or something?’

      ‘Yeah, sure, I’m going to include it in my college application essay.’

      ‘You probably could, you know, if you put the right spin on it.’

      ‘I’m not some bag of dicks on SpinChat, Cas. You can’t play me.’

      ‘Hey, girls.’ Her mom creaks open the door.

      ‘Mom!’ Layla rips off the mask, which she knows only makes her look guilty. ‘You’re supposed to knock!’

      ‘So you can click away from the porn? LOL.’

      Layla winces with genuine pain. ‘Oh God, Mom! No-one actually says that. What do you want?’

      ‘Hey, Ms. Versado.’ Her friend gives a cheery wave, still wearing her mask. She perks up around Layla’s mom like boys do around Cas’s chest. ‘We were rehearsing our lines.’

      ‘With masks?’

      ‘It helps us get into character. It’s a theater exercise,’ Cas says glibly.

      ‘I was going to offer you cocoa.’

      ‘Yeah, right, Mom. What do you really want?’

      ‘I need some help with my computer. And then I can bring you cocoa. If you’re actually doing your homework and not messing around on the Internet.’

      ‘What’s wrong this time?’

      ‘It’s not connecting. And the machines at work don’t.’

      ‘Don’t what? Finish the sentence, Mom.’

      ‘Work. They don’t work. You are in a mood tonight. Is it boy trouble? Because, you know, YOLO.’

      ‘Mom! God. Okay, I’m coming. Just please don’t speak any more.’ She shoves away from the desk. ‘No prank posting from my accounts, okay?’

      ‘Would I do that?’ Cas bats her eyelids. ‘Bye, Ms. Versado!’

      Layla flings herself down at her mom’s laptop in the living room. ‘What’s wrong with it?’

      ‘I’m looking for pictures of dead bodies and all I’m getting is cartoons.’

      ‘Okay, there’s your problem. You had safe search on. Just type in your search again. What is it?’

      ‘Dead bodies plus animals.’

      ‘I am not typing that. What are you looking for specifically?’

      Her mother sighs. ‘Unusual corpses that might have been reported in the last few years. Animal-human hybrids. Strange taxidermy projects in Michigan or surrounds.’

      ‘Is this the kid?’ Layla glances at the Nikon camera her mom uses to take her own crime-scene photos, the card reader plugged into the USB port.

      ‘It’s a case, Lay. Don’t ask questions.’

      ‘Don’t you have a police database for this?’

      ‘Sure,’ she says, dripping sarcasm. ‘As useful as always. I’ve put in a request to the Michigan Intelligence Center.’

      ‘And your fancy new computers?’ The new Public Safety Headquarters looks like it belongs in TechTown, all gray and blue concrete and glass, with a parking lot big enough to accommodate news vans. Inside there’s a proper reception area with comfy couches and glass cases of memorabilia and trophies, meeting rooms with AV facilities, a gym with TVs above the treadmills, a real coffee machine – and the detectives’ desks in depressingly identical gray cubicles.

      Layla feels almost nostalgic for the old precinct on Beaubien, where she’d hung out, sometimes doing her homework in the corner of her mom’s office with its wood paneling and dappled glass and big black filing cases and a computer that was only good for holding down paperwork. And, yeah, okay, revolting stained floors and the awful interrogation room the size of a broom closet, where people wrote messages on the walls like ‘Emmie, I’m so sorry, I didn’t mean for this to happen, God is love, please God help me.’

      She remembers how shocked she was, at thirteen, seeing a photo tacked up of a dead naked woman laid out like a starfish, the camera aiming right between her legs. Someone had written ‘Killer: Spongebob Squarepants?’ in ballpoint across the top of it. Her mom had pulled the picture off the noticeboard, the red thumbtacks popping out and rolling across the floor. ‘Sorry, beanie. Ignore it. Dumb cop humor.’

      She knows all about that. She comes from a long, proud line on her dad’s side. Her great-grandpappy was a firefighter, his son was a sergeant, and then her dad turned traitor and went private security, even though it’s safer, better paid, with benefits. She knows she’s supposed to continue the family tradition because po-lice is in her blood, but as far as she’s concerned, it’s just testosterone. Like the mind-control parasites you get from cats. Toxoplasmosis. If life is all determined by chemical signals, hers are telling her to move on, little girl, right on out of Motor City. Anywhere but here. Anything but po-lice.

      ‘Our fancy network got a fancy virus,’ Gabi says. ‘Someone was downloading porn and it had a spartan or something.’

      ‘Trojan,’ Layla corrects automatically.

      ‘All Greek to me.’

      ‘Mom!’ Layla cringes.

      ‘The IT guys swear we’ll be back up tomorrow, but in the meantime …’

      ‘Can’t you just fire all the useless cops?’

      ‘There would be nobody left. Come on, beanie, you’re always telling me you can find anything on the Internet.’

      ‘It’s like the universe that way. Constantly expanding,’ Layla says. ‘But it’s mainly creeps and freaks, Mom, I’m warning you.’

      ‘I think my killer would exactly fit those criteria.’

      She pulls up the search results. ‘Well, here we go. Animal-human hybrid corpses. It’s all yours.’

      ‘Great.’ Her mother puts on her glasses and squints at the screen. Island of Dr Moreau, the East River Monster, 25 Creepiest Real Science Experiments, that horrible mouse with the ear growing out of it, a two-headed squirrel in a dress and twirling a parasol, among 307,000 other results that get even weirder.

      ‘What is—?’ Gabi cocks her head. ‘Oh. Right. Is that supposed to be his tail or a tentacle?’

      ‘I’ll exclude furries and hentai in your search terms. Unless you think that’s

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