Spin (Captain Chase)

by Patricia Cornwell

  “Copy,” ART updates Fran in a text I can see in my SPIES, and I’m close enough to home that I can make out the cobalt glow from my mom’s light pollution, her LED miniblues entwining and spangling anything that doesn’t move.

  She keeps them up all year long, going into overdrive at Thanksgiving, arming herself with the electric topiary shears, strapping on a tool belt, dragging out the extension ladder or cranking up the cherry picker. Memories of my childhood are accompanied by the hydraulic sounds of her rolling around, extending and retracting the boom, raising and lowering the bucket.

  Forever weaving strands of miniblues through trees, shrubs, around lampposts, pilings, fences, chimneys, and the nor’easter from earlier this week didn’t deter her in the slightest. She didn’t take down a single light that I can see as I turn into our long narrow driveway that Dad named Penny Lane. My headlights slash across his handmade sign, and it’s like I’m driving into Saint Elmo’s fire.

  Mom’s space-themed topiary of sculpted bushes seems to have survived the storm overall but they’re not as pristine as when I drove through 4 days ago. The rocket is a bit of a wreck. The family of blue-faced extraterrestrials is badly shaken up like crash dummies when things don’t go as planned. The roundly pruned old boxwood that’s supposed to be Pluto looks more like a tumbleweed or an unraveling ball of indigo yarn.

  All that’s missing are the inflatable Jetsons around the Christmas tree, Yoda as Santa, the Star Trek Enterprise. The winds for sure would have blasted them where no one’s gone before had Mom not opened their air valves, returning them safely to their boxes in the basement.

  The unpaved road that leads to my family’s modest hamlet on the river hasn’t been plowed. But I can tell there’s been plenty of traffic. Dirty snow is rutted and sloppy, with a lot of muddy patches, loose rocks, and leftover autumn leaves that still have their color.

  30

  “CALL MOM, please,” I say to ART, reaching the gravel walkway bordered by sapphire pathway lights, her blue Subaru in front.

  “Welcome home!” my mother says cheerily when she answers the phone, and either she hears me on the driveway or sees me on the security cameras.

  “I’m going to clean up first, promise I’ll be quick,” I reply. “I’ve never felt so dirty and hungry in all my life,” and up ahead, Chase Place glitters like a blue starry universe, our old farmhouse on one side of the driveway, the big barn on the other.

  Electric candles are in the windows, miniblues strung along the eaves, and wrapped around lampposts, fencing and the stump of our favorite tree that got struck by lightning. The boat dock is brightly outlined as if someone went after it with a blue neon crayon, and the zip line that slopes from the barn’s top floor to the river is lit up like an endless strand of sapphires.

  Across the snowy garden is the tiny tin-roofed cottage where Fran lives with Easton and sometimes Tommy, and multicolored lights glow through the living room curtain. She’s always the first to put her tree up, no later than Thanksgiving, and when I was last here 4 days ago, I noticed the front door had an evergreen wreath with a big red bow.

  Dad’s white Prius is in its usual spot near the illuminated pecan tree that’s regularly raided by the neighborhood squirrels he battles. That’s if you ask him, but if you ask the rest of us and truth be told? The spreading gnarled branches are as bare as bones. There’s nothing on them this time of year except strands of miniblues, and not a nut in sight (well, maybe one).

  Defending his empire has become Dad’s major preoccupation, and he baits his shiny steel cage traps with whole pecans he expensively orders off the internet. On the rare occasion that he catches a bushy-tailed offender, off he goes in the car to release it far enough away that it won’t come back (supposedly).

  Parking in front of the barn, I gather my belongings and the 42 shooting journals. I cradle poor Ranger the PONG, and he’s out like a light, not making a whimper. As I near the pedestrian door, motion sensors trigger the front light to blaze on, and since I was home last, the lock has been swapped for an electronic one. And I have no code or key.

  “Ummm, how am I supposed to get in . . . ?” I deliberate out loud as I think, Oh shhhh . . . !

  “Would you like to program a gesture for accessing locks on your property?” ART replies in my implanted earpiece, reminding me of my new abilities.

  “Yes,” and with my thumb and index finger, I make the simple motion of turning a key in a lock.

  Apparently, that will do fine, and with a quiet click I open the door, another light blinking on, the burglar alarm beeping. ART instructs me to use my WAND, and I point my right finger at the keypad. The alarm is silenced, and he turns on the downstairs lights without my asking.

  “Welcome home,” he says what Mom always does. “If you point your WAND, you can reset the alarm,” and I do. “Thank you,” he responds to my surprise.

  “Anytime,” I reply, and squinting in the brightness, I stoop down to unlace my filthy boots, kicking them off.

  Dropping my ballistic vest, jacket and duffel bag on the floor, I set the journals, my backpack and gun belt on a table to deal with later. Nothing much has changed since I was here days earlier, only me. I feel at home and absolutely don’t as I look around at our big open area of workbenches, machines, tool chests, electrical components, the empty car lift, and Dad’s rebuilt ’68 Camaro covered up next to it.

  Vintage automotive calendars are everywhere, and there’s not much we haven’t worked on in here including radio-controlled vehicles like dune buggies and aircraft. We’ve refurbished small planes, old cars, experimenting with sensors and all sorts of autonomous contraptions including PONGs and pieces and parts of them.

  I leave Ranger comfortable and stable on a beanbag near an assortment of less serious orbs, ones that aren’t prototypes but meant to be festive and imaginative, lighting up Mom’s favorite blue. Dad and I were working on them as a special Christmas present for her, and he’s not supposed to leave them out in plain view.

  He’ll ruin the surprise if he hasn’t already, and I head to the stairs where my take-home crash dummy Otto is parked in his wheelchair. He looks the same as when I saw him last, naked as the day he was made, his steel lifting ring protruded like a loop antenna from a hairless pate the same brownish-pink tint as a pencil eraser.

  Slouched with his chest unzipped, wires and cables hanging out, he holds a set of hex keys in his rubbery hands as if trying to put himself back together again. I feel a twinge of guilt that he’s undone and undressed, the dummy beyond his prime when it comes to being banged up and tossed around, wrenched, slammed and bounced.

  Upgraded beyond his capabilities, he’s limited and rigid, and I suppose after being abused for decades, it was only fair NASA decided to retire him, allowing him to come home with me. For the past three years Otto has lived in our barn, trying on all sorts of things for size, new types of sensors, remote controls, accelerometers, antennas, and a variety of smart materials and fabrics.

  He’s been dropped from the roof wearing a ballistic parachute, sent crashing through trees on the zip line while clad in an exoskeleton, upended by his jetpack, thrown from moving vehicles in helmet tests and subjected to extreme temperatures. Just to name a few of his misadventures.

  “You and I are more alike than I knew,” I greet him and he doesn’t answer. “I’ve had done unto me what I’ve done unto you. And thus, the meaning of karma, not to be confused with my sister.”

  His head is turned toward the wall, his empty eyes not looking at me. If I didn’t know better, I’d think he’s miffed, suspicious I’m cheating on him with ART, and I am, let’s face it. I can’t possibly feel the same way about a crash dummy now that I have a SIN inside me, and with each passing hour it’s harder for me to remember what it felt like to be normal.

 
Upstairs in my office, I begin shedding my disgusting clothing, opening a closet, stuffing everything in the upright washer-dryer that makes me think of Pebo Sweeny’s sour-smelling laundry. As I walk past my desk’s array of spectrum analyzers, I’m reminded they shouldn’t be detecting my implanted devices. And they’re not.

  I can see that for myself on the displays, and it seems my invisibility cloak is working just fine. Although I’m still baffled and slightly concerned by Nonna’s reaction. I don’t like that she had a spell, an energy disturbance as Lex called it, and I hope it doesn’t mean she actually detected my transmissions.

  00:00:00:00:0

  ART suggests I point my WAND at the Norfolk pine that Dad and I electrified, and it turns on, casting a lovely glow over my home office.

  The softly illuminated fernlike branches host a flock of recharging PONGs varying in shape and purpose, ranging from pocket size to as big as basketballs. Their attachment to their living spring-green perch is mutually accommodating, the “stem” an electrical current, the recharger and recharging never quite touching.

  Their connection is held fast invisibly, ever so distantly until the signal is interrupted when it’s time for the flying orbs to go to work. Unfortunately, it will be without Ranger for a while, I think sadly, envisioning his shredded shell, feeling I failed to take good care of him. Dad and I both will have to step up our drone testing, and figure out a way to include raptor protection.

  While I’m thinking all this, I’m reminded it probably wouldn’t be a bad idea to give my PEEPS a little juice, and finding them in my backpack, I attach the smart glasses to the perch the same way I would a PONG. Next, I check computer displays showing video feeds from the security cameras that constantly monitor the farm, and ART shows the same images in my SPIES. I scan the house and barn, Fran’s place, the dock, various outbuildings that aren’t much more than sheds, and the areas where we park our cars.

  Everything looks quiet, a couple of deer strolling through the garden, a few rabbits hopping, lights and candles glowing, the moon slipping in and out of wispy clouds. Barefoot and stripped down to my skivvies, I walk into my bathroom, not sure what to do.

  Should I take off my SPIES and CUFF? Will showering and washing my hair cause a problem with my implanted earpiece? Considering I now have devices inside and out that supposedly work in concert with my environment, should I be concerned when taking off the rest of my clothes?

  I worry how much Dick knows, and if he can tell from my transmitted data that I feel dirty or clean, too hot or cold, contented, excited, dressed or not, if I’m daydreaming or thinking private thoughts. No doubt he’s aware that I’m starving and a bit frayed at the edges right now, and I wonder when I’m going to hear from him again.

  I don’t understand why he ignored me at the Gantry, and hasn’t bothered to check on how I’m doing. It seems callous not to offer further instruction after reprogramming me and practically everything I own and have, including my identical twin. Locking the bathroom door, I step into the shower, turning it on, and as Carme’s always saying, you never know how beat-up you are until you stop.

  The hot water drumming down feels like heaven. My neck and shoulders are sore from all my gear, my blood sugar sinking, and I scrub myself but good with antibacterial soap while envisioning the hitman’s trailer. I’m trying not to dwell on what I saw in the garbage can, and the tools in the bathtub or the detailed grisly descriptions I read in the journals.

  I wonder what Dick’s reaction will be when I tell him what happened to Noah Bishop, and if we now have a better chance of clearing Carme’s name and taking down Neva. Except I honestly can’t imagine either happening. There’s nothing I’ve seen so far in the journals that’s definitive, no names or specific places, no records of communications, associates, where he shopped, and who might have paid him.

  I know whose bidding he was doing, and that we’ll likely never prove it. Even if we managed to charge Neva with something that stuck, I don’t believe it would stop her. Dick’s right about that, I decide as I blow-dry my hair, a towel wrapped around me. Still sweating from the shower, not bothering with a touch of makeup, I pad across the narrow hallway with its exposed-beam ceiling.

  I walk back through my office, and into the bedroom where I started living in high school when Carme and I moved into the barn. Nothing’s all that different from what it was, the same posters on the cypress-plank walls. The first landing on the moon, and the Space Shuttle piggybacking on a rocket. James Bond when Roger Moore played him, Lindsay Wagner as the Bionic Woman, and the Dave Matthews Band.

  On a shelf over the dresser is a collection of my dorky trophies for spelling bees, competitions for robotics, computer coding and mathematics, and one of my finer moments when I came in second at a truck rodeo. Throwing on a warm-up suit and thick socks, I grab a weapon-concealing fanny pack, and hurry down the stairs.

  Rushing past Otto, I find my pair of UGG boots, my down vest in a closet. Collecting my gun belt, the journals, Lex’s thumb drive, I carry them to the gun safe in a small back room where Dad has a desk buried in paperwork and drone components.

  “The combination has been changed,” ART lets me know in my earpiece.

  “Well, it sure as shooting should have been after all that’s happened,” I retort in frustration. “But now what?”

  “Would you like me to access?”

  “That would be helpful. But I’d like the combination so I have it . . .”

  “Unauthorized.”

  “Of course it is!” I declare impatiently.

  A series of beeps, a hum and a click, and he enables me to open the heavy steel door, setting the journals, thumb drive, my duty gun inside for now. Grabbing my Bond Bullpup 9 mm pistol, the same as my sister’s, I zip it inside the fanny pack. Thinking of the missing GOD chip again, it’s weird to think of it locked up in here while I had no clue. Dick and Dad knew about it, and I’m betting so did Mom.

  It’s almost midnight when I venture outdoors to the sound of melting ice and snow drip-dripping. Galaxies of minilights glitter and wink, flickering like blue fireflies in swaying branches, and reflected in the river’s gentle current. The pecan tree is ablaze in azure sparkles, and underneath Dad’s shiny new cages look like mean-spirited gifts left by the Grinch, each baited with a generous pile of purchased nuts.

  The shoveled sidewalk is lit up like a runway, and I climb the 4 wooden steps, my feet sounding on the sprawling porch. I walk past the glider settee where Mom used to rock Carme and me in warmer months as fireflies sparked in the dark, and cicadas sawed to beat the band. She’d tell us stories, describing her latest NASA lesson plans, and I’m hopeful those days aren’t gone for good.

  I imagine us sitting out here again or in front of the fire, having a bite of supper the way things used to be when all was good. Emotions stirring, I clear my throat, taking a deep breath. Knocking my special knock on the knotty pine door, I’m aware of another new electronic lock. No doubt all of them have been changed, and my mother’s probably to blame.

  Unless it was Carme who did it. Then again, Dick might have been the influence. Although it could be Dad’s reaction to what’s become of the GOD chip he shouldn’t have told Lex about. I doubt Fran’s responsible for beefing up security on the property since her knowledge is limited to my fabricated origin story. She has no idea why the hitman’s really dead or the danger all of us might still be in.

  “There you are!” the door swings open, Mom hugging me, and I can hear the TV playing in the den down the hall.

  “Something sure smells good,” the aroma of her chili and homemade bread make me ravenous.

  “Let me look at you,” she takes my face in her hands the way she’s always done when she wants to see inside me.

  Her hazel eyes are touched by gold, lamplight shining on her short graying hair
. Strong and capable, she’s in her usual faded jeans and flannel, and a pair of sturdy Chelsea boots that could stand a polishing. She’s what I call outdoorsy pretty, her idea of makeup ChapStick, and you’ll never catch her in high heels or a dress, nothing impractical that doesn’t last forever.

  “How are you?” she asks, knowing full well what was done to me at the Point Comfort Inn.

  “Maybe you should tell me how I’m doing because you should know,” I reply, increasingly suspicious she’s had more to do with my engineering and predetermined destiny than anyone on the planet.

  Mom was right there inside room 1, and later in and out of suite 604 tying me up, tethering me to an eyebolt, feeding and cleaning me, taking care of my every need. As altered as I was, I wouldn’t let anyone else within striking range to hear Dick talk. And I envision his bruised hands, and the cameras inside the room.

  It’s hard to describe how it feels to think my mother has been watching, listening, and surveilling whatever she deems necessary. Invading every part of me, she evaluates and tweaks, tending to her flock while influencing ART right down to him informing me if I’m authorized or not.

  31

  “IT’S NICE weather, the river pretty in the moonlight,” Mom says.

  Stepping over to the coatrack, she informs me that the winds are calm, and it’s not too cold. She sounds a lot like ART, and I can tell when she’s preoccupied by heavy thoughts.

  “I’ve heard a few charters going by,” as she puts on her vintage adirondack jacket, “people night fishing for red drum, flounder. I don’t like boats going past this late. And I’m sorry our driveway isn’t gated. But we can’t live behind walls, may as well be in prison or the cemetery.”