robosagogo

I have an idea for a story. It's about an Earth where pulp detectives, the Hardy Boys, Nancy Drew, and all those types coexist and mysterious crimes requiring the attention of super-detectives (some guy drowned in the middle of the desert, a guy is murdered by himself, blah blah blah) were, for a time, very common place. This led to detectives becoming a pop culture sensation. Hardy Boys on the cover of YM. Columbo guest stars on Melrose Place. Course, this was ten years ago and since then a combination of improved forensic technology, a lack of bizarre crimes, and the end of the super-detective fad have more or less crippled the mystery industry.
Enter ex-junior detective sidekick turned programmer. He was the Robin to his mentor's Batman. They didn't wear garish costumes, but there were masks, an insignia, and tons of gadgets. Basically, the guy has invented program that replicates the skills of detection and deduction. Take a picture of a relevant scene, answer a few simple questions, and you'll find out the answer to any mystery from "Who killed grandpa?" to "Where did we leave Grandpa's urn?". Naturally, this would eliminate the need for detectives altogether.
Meanwhile, there's the protagonist. He was also a side-kick, but long ago turned to the service industry for employment after realizing he was tired of being a lackey and didn't have the aptitude for solving mysteries required to strike out on his own. He's poor, but his mentor recently died and he stands to inherit a fortune if he can satisfactorily determine why his mentor died (as stipulated in the will). It's a final effort on the part of the mentor to bring his student back into the craft. Course, the mentor died of a brain aneurysm so he expects it to be more of a philosophical quest (why does anyone die, what's the meaning of life) than an actual investigation. He researchs what happened to his mentor and talks to some of his peers to create a profile of why super-detectives do what they do and what's been going on with them as society's been phasing them out. A lot of these guys are run down or, in the case of the Batman inspired character, dead. Interviewing Robin makes the protagonist suspicious somehow (or maybe something else happens, who cares?) Blah blah blah detective work. Mysterious deaths connected to Robin's company and upgrades in his deduction program. Whatever.
Anyway, it turns out the original Robin died. The Robin that's been going around is a robot Batman designed (Batman could totally make a robot!) to avoid going to jail for reckless endangerment of a minor and all of that. Robin-bot's just a shell to keep up appearances at first, but Batman spent his remaining years making the bot more like the original to help him cope with his guilt and loneliness. He also has sex with it because, just once, I'd like someone to actually reference the implied gay relationship between heroes and sidekicks within an actual story. It's all la-dee-da sodomy until Batman dies. Robin-bot's still determined to love and serve his master, but a corpse is just a corpse so Robin's only option is to bring the dude back from the dead. Robin thinks he's alive, so naturally building a robot copy seems like the best way to give life to deady McBatface. Batman's most prominent feature was his keen mind, so Robin lures washed-up old detectives (like protagonist's mentor) and then uses lethal examination procedures on them to study and, eventually, duplicate the way those types think for the Bat-bot. Meanwhile, he's funding all of this with sales of the afore-mentioned program (which an early, simplified version of what he hopes to eventually create.) He's got a huge prototype brain in his lab which is constantly being improved with each detective that's killed.
Protagonist goes to confront Robin and gets his ass thoroughly kicked. Robin doesn't drain his brain though because he's just a sidekick. Instead, he locks him up for a month or two. Eventually, Robin deems the brain computer complete and makes it self-aware. The two interface and the computer kills Robin. The computer has pretty much one goal, to use its superior powers of logic to protect humanity and, logically, the best way to protect humanity is to control it completely. It's the near future, so every piece of electronic equipment and record of your identity is accessible via the internet. By altering everything from bank statements to traffic lights, the computer can more or less create a utopia for each and every human being. He lets bearded and slightly deranged protagonist out of his dungeon. Either protagonist decides right then and there that controlling your own fate is better than being completely safe or he goes home and thinks about it for a while until coming to the conclusion. Either way, he goes ape-shit and destroys the computer.

*This is where things get weird*

Two angels hold a press conference. I guess what I want to do is make the logic computer into an allegory for fate and God. The thing is, when the main character kills God, it turns out that he literally killed God. God sent himself down to Earth into the Bat-puter with the intention of being the world's savior once again because, in the technology age, dying on a cross just isn't enough. Deus ex machina? The angels are pissed because, without God, there's no getting into heaven. They're trapped on Earth. The souls of the recently deceased are trapped on Earth. Also, all of the work God's done to create a gentler, more sanitized world for us has been undone so things are going to get weird. Sure God died on Earth before, but that time he was expecting it. When the angels find who blatantly abused their free will privilege by killing the king of kings, they're going to kick his ass. So, basically, if I were to write this book I could put just about anything in the sequel and blame it on the death of God. Werewolves, superheroes, whatever. Logic is dead and anything goes. (And if people can believe that God exists in our non-fictional world, it certainly shouldn't be a stretch to insert him into a fictional one just for kicks)