==Characters Introduced in Order of Appearance; Character Status==
Bryan Benson,
A police(?) detective and our leading man, a gigasaurus who loves sports and evading responsibility, possibly taxation too.
Chao Feng,
The First Officer (of what?), and a douchedrinker according to Benson. Inherited stolen artwork from his criminal dad.
Lau,
The captain of Patrick's favorite Chinese sports team.
Edmond Laraby,
The missing geneticist whom the plot revolved around, found dead and dumped in space.
Avelina Pereira da Silva,
Science Director; Head of Environmental Research & Development. Got her full name in Chapter 3. Is probably the mastermind of the conspiracy.
Vasquez,
Not to be confused with Vasquez from Aliens; a player in Patrick's favorite sports game.
Lindqvist,
A sports player not even worthy of description by Patrick. Must be a PCJ caricature.
Ther
esa Alexopolous,
A lieutenant, and a Duty Officer (of what?), sidekick to the Chad Bryan Benson.
Vikram Bahadur,
Chief Constable of the Chinatown District, on par with Bryan Benson. Definitely not a Sikh.
Nibiru,
Not a character, but a black hole on the edge of a solar system. Probably the best character, though, if it's anything like Black Hole Sun.
Devorah Feynman,
Curator of the Museum, wants to preserve humanity's culture by locating and securing authentic works of art. Possibly a facsimile of Patrick's mother.
Constable Pavel Korolev,
Ther
esa sent him to back-up Benson; a rookie that's greener than grass. A true comrade.
Chef Takahashi,
Probably Japanese. Probably a chef.
Magistrate Boswell,
Probably king of the douchedrinkers.
Salvador 'Sal' Kite
Old guy with "war stories"; criminal scum who paid the court a fine and/or served his sentence for participating in a massive art heist.
Old Benny
Criminal scum who has violated the law.
Director Hekekia,
Engineering genius or something. Big Samoan guy who speaks better than Benson.
Dr. Jeanine Russell,
Medbay staffer on the Ark. Dreams about touching Benson's athletic body.
Captain Mahama,
Maybe the Captain of the Ark's crew. Strong old African womanboss.
Sahni,
Another nondescript *Zero Finals* player lol. Still noting her just in case they become relevant.
Madison Atwood,
Bryan Benson's PE Teacher; works as a constable in Chinatown. Didn't make an appearance when Chao Feng was arrested for some reason.
Magistrate Jindal,
A judge that appears to have a perverse desire to do his job properly.
Duty Officer Hernandez,
Another constable belonging to Benson's cadre. Raised concerns about Benson being a nepotist.
Celine DiMaggio,
An art thief. Has Alzheimer's in the future where such diseases should have been wiped out.
Lefty, or Huang
A Japanese(?) man living underground and off the radar.
Mei,
One of the vagrant *Unbound*.
Agong, or David Kimura
Elder of the Japanese vagrants living off the radar on the Ark. Name means 'Grandfather' in Mandarin; was thought to have died of a heart attack after joining the Ark's council.
Mao,
Leader of a splinter group of *the Unbound*. The new lead suspect in the murder investigation.
Barta,
An Ensign on the Ark's Crew. Likes getting in people's way. Probably plays SWAT 4 a lot.
--E1: After a truly terrible outing in the Ark's sublevel, Benson's returning to the station to find out who killed Edmond Laraby, courtesy of Dr. Jeanine Russell's inspection/autopsy. The part in Red here kind of annoyed me but I'm not able to articulate why. Anyone who has followed along a few chapters will probably understand.
More meandering; didn't read much of it, both times, but this is so far the longest chapter in the book at about 5400 words. Let your eyes glaze over like mine because we're nearly two-thirds through this dross. Upon retrospect, the bits I highlighted in Blue and Purple are hardly germane...
but the highlight in Red is. Yet another gross error somehow nobody caught before publishing.
Benson informs Ther
esa that David Kimura lives, which may be relevant later, but I'm really just trying to find something to justify the fact 90% of this chapter has been padding so far.
--E2: Before I get to what we've been dying to see (you can see it for yourself at the bottom of the pic, and it will not come as a surprise to anyone), we get the most abrupt soapboxing from Bryan Benson on Laraby's death, and I wish I could show an example of the face I made whilst reading this.
There are 30 chapters in this book. We are on Chapter 18, out of 20. We still do not have a motive for Dr. Laraby's murder (let alone a fucking GUESS as to one), and
now, of
all times, and after both Benson and Ther
esa fucked like rabbits in his bed multiple times since his death, the victim of the case is being given some kind of mourning here, a little respect in his passing. This is painfully disingenuous. Bryan Benson blurts out that he
"sees himself in Edmond", an only kid with old parents who had to bust ass to get to where he was.
Also, "literally trying to...", "literally", Benson's entire speech pattern changes for no good reason. Oh, just to harp on this a bit more, Edmond Laraby didn't sweat nearly as much as Benson did. Our victim went to school and graduated, sure, but until Director Avelina da Silva championed him/vouched for him, he was nobody and would have remained a nobody because he was an autist who put all his eggs in one special project that da Silva fucking told us was otherwise doomed. Laraby got LUCKY. So did Benson, to be fair, but Benson has actually worked for a living, with his only break coming from a chance meeting with a
*Zero Finals* coach to kickstart his life.
After a tinfoil hat moment, and after all of the retarded build-up suggesting Benson was going to read the fucking tablet and we the audience would experience this massive revelation alongside him, Ther
esa flat-out tells us that
**Chao Feng's skin and blood cells were found under Laraby's fingernails, incriminating him in the murder case.**
Benson isn't surprised by this. Weird, but neither was I, because Chao Feng was guilty as fuck and never should have been released in the first place. Bryan resolves to Ther
esa that he's going to finish this fight, Master Chief style.
--E3: Movement is good and I like movement in a story. Detective Benson yanks Constable Korolev out of bed to assist him in the confrontation with the Ark's Crew. With Devorah probably bowing out of the story at this point I need someone to appreciate and this plucky bastard might just be the real hero of the story by the end.
Anyway, Benson gets an instant warrant from Magistrate Boswell, whom we still have not ever encountered so I don't even know why he has a name, and we're heading to the Bridge. Chao Feng's on duty right now and he's about to have a real bad day. Like me, because I had to read another
*Zero Finals* reference.
This whole sequence with a Crewman holding up Benson is probably another attempt at humor by Patrick or a way to wank off the male character as he's about to lay down the law. I damn it as padding and move on.
Benson and Korolev enter the Bridge; Benson squares off with Captain Mahama and browbeats her and she talks some mad shit in return. I don't like how any of this dialogue is written and I'm starting to feel like Patrick misplaced his characters' voices.
Our protagonist makes it clear that he has a warrant and new charges, as well as evidence placing Commander Chao Feng (commander now? what the fuck?) in an altercation with Laraby prior to his death. There's an unnecessary pissing contest here. The last part highlighted in purple is probably what Patrick wishes he could have done to the Onaforums after doxing them all through the courts.
--E4: PaddingPaddingPaddingPaddingPadding. What's important is that we get to the conference room with Mahama and Chao Feng, and we get a dumbass reference to the Salem Witch Trials.
Here's my reaction to that. This is a schoolyard and Mahama is the tired, pissed off principal who doesn't want to be here but has to mediate between two dipshit kids and their peurile shenanigans.
Mahama puts her foot down and declares that she is going to subject Feng to a BILD (Brain Imaging Lie Detection) scan. We'll find out what that is in a second, but first she dismisses Korolev for a little extra padding. A BILD scan is basically a lie detector test that works because the device required is already implanted in your fucking brain so there's less chance of tricking it. There's some sudden worldbuilding here that should matter but, well, you know... Patrick Tomlinson. Benson even says that the Ark's laws are based on the original UN Charter, so I must assume that the Ark's Treaty mentioned a while back is, lmao, the fucking UN Charter. Christ. Mahama does a
'lol, lmao' when she drops that they've improved the tech since then. After all this shit, Feng is thrown to the gigasaurus.
The first interrogation of our first real suspect begins at Page 110 out of 188 (according to my reader). Mahama walks Benson through the use of the BILD process and the detective takes over. It's hard to tell if Feng's sweating bullets because of the effect of the BILD procedure or he realizes how fucked he is. I don't know why I'm wondering about that.
First things first... Feng denies giving Edmond Laraby the Monet Haystacks painting from his father's illicit collection. The lie detector determined, that was a
Lie.
Benson asks Feng if he arranged for Edmond to be assigned to that luxury home - Feng answers Yes, and the lie detector determined, that he's telling the
Truth. Benson asks why he set him up with sweet digs, but Mahama interjects and urges him to keep the questions to a yes-or-no kind.
Benson asks Feng if he altered Edmond Laraby's personal files before they reached his desk - Feng answers Yes, and the lie detector determined, that he's telling the
Truth.
Benson asks Feng if he murdered Edmond Laraby - Feng, vehemently, answers No, and the lie detector determined, that he's telling the
Truth.
Benson asks Feng if he conspired to murder Edmond Laraby - Feng answers No, and the lie detector determined, that he's telling the
Truth.
Benson asks Feng if he hired someone to murder Edmond Laraby - Feng answers No, and the lie detector determined, that he's telling the
Truth.
Benson asks Feng if he sent the assassin who attacked him after Laraby's body was recovered - Feng answers No, and the lie detector determined, that he's telling the
Truth.
Our protagonist gets frazzled and annoyed by this, snarking at Mahama that the machine may need recalibration. The captain issues a rebuttal, stating that he's simply not getting the answers he expected.
Benson asks Feng if he altered the recordings of the airlocks prior to the disposal of Laraby's corpse - Feng answers No and insists Laraby committed Suicide, and the lie detector determined, that he's telling the Truth.
We're at an impasse here.
Tension rises as Benson gets more direct, asking Feng how it could be a suicide: Laraby threw himself out the airlock then erased the video from space? Bullshit, Commander! Feng doesn't have a response to this, and the BILD process throws an error message that not even Mahama understands fully. Turns out that Feng is experiencing cognitive dissonance and that Benson's questions are confusing him. Hmm.
Benson asks Feng if he truly believes that Laraby committed suicide - Feng answers Yes, and the lie detector determined, he's telling the
Truth.
Benson then hits Feng with a harder question: why did Feng alter Laraby's files before they were turned over?
No answer.
Benson asks Feng if he was being blackmailed by Laraby - Feng answers No, and the lie detector determined, he's telling the
Truth.
Pissed off and deadlocked, Benson fires his first real shot by hitting both Feng and Mahama with the evidence he's got: Feng's DNA was found on Laraby's remains. Both Mahama and Feng are gormless... and the captain demands an answer right fuckin' now.
--E5: Aaaaaaand another shoe has officially dropped.
As Benson turns up the heat, Feng can't stand it anymore, and smacks us all in the face with the biggest of big truths:
**Chao Feng and Edmond Laraby were lovers,** explaining why Feng's DNA was on Laraby's remains. Oh, and the lie detector determined, Feng's telling the
Truth: He altered Laraby's files to erase any mention of their relationship.
I don't have anything to add to this scene that isn't already being marched out before your eyes, but Patrick, being a parrot for left-wing ideology, is virtue signaling really hard with this one and I fucking disdain this reveal on so many levels. If we hadn't already had a bunch of other mega-retarded events occur, on top of statutory rape, I could probably go on an angry rant here about how implausible this horseshit is.
Fortunately, Benson fills in for me.
Benson is rightfully indignant. This motherfucker, at this monumentally critical juncture in human history, obstructed a murder investigation over many long days just so he could stay in the closet. It really calls into question just how much affection there was in their relationship when he assumed Laraby fucking killed himself. Benson says it for me: being Gay is perfectly acceptable in the Ark's society. This is a shitty twist, and it reeks of the author trying to appeal to the LGBT, which is ironic, because if this is meant to inclusively represent the Gays (and it is, because it's Patrick S. Tomlinson), it's a bitter, negative framing that makes them appear to be selfish to a malicious degree. Not to mention, destructive.
But enough of this.
--E6: Benson's still pissed and demands that Mahama run the rest of the Crew through the BILD process, which I tentatively agree is ridiculous but her own reactions (specifically, caring about due process when she twiddles her moustache like a tinpot tyrant several times) piss me off so I end up siding with Benson because we've already crossed several lines and quite possibly committed a few war crimes so what's another inhumanity?
Benson reneges, salutes, and prepares to leave...
but something unexpected happens. The lights go out, the room goes dark - emergency lights and sirens scream to life. Something big is happening...
And it's gonna have to wait.
