Incarnate- Essence

by Thomas Harper

  “Don’t bother,” Landon sighed, “you’re just going to lie. It doesn’t matter, anyway. I’ve had a lot of people coming by to ask me about Dewitt and Van der Meer lately. Dewitt’s supposedly out of town. Van der Meer disappeared after that shit with those kids.”

  “The trafficking ring?”

  “Yeah,” Landon said, “when the news hit that they were doped to stay young and Van der Meer vanished, I…I went back through our records. Those kids were doped with tech we developed. Dewitt’s been weirdly mum about the whole thing in her daily memos. And that sniveling nerd Van der Meer must have- hey, I know you.”

  I said nothing.

  “Are you…are you that kid?” she said, “the forty-eights? The one that,” she stuck up her middle finger, “from the meme,” she laughed, the cackle betraying her age, “then if you’re here, it must be true.”

  “What’s that?”

  “Dewitt was involved in the human trafficking ring,” Landon said, “I knew it, that stupid cunt.”

  “So, you weren’t involved?” I asked.

  “God, no,” she said, scowling, “I couldn’t do anything that monstrous. I don’t think that dork Van der Meer would be either. But I’ve always had my doubts about Dewitt.”

  “Didn’t you two start NexBioGen together?”

  Landon sighed, “it was a business relationship. I barely knew her. Hell, I don’t even know her that well now, after all these years. But goddamn she was good at getting capital. I had three failed startups before she contacted me. Since then I’ve never wanted for money. I guess now I know why.”

  “Do you know where she is?”

  “No,” Landon shook her head, “she’s never around. I always talk to her online. This is the first time I’ve ever been to her house, despite the fact she lives only like four miles away.”

  “Was Dewitt involved in the LoC bombings?” I asked.

  “What I’ve learned in the past few days,” Landon said, “I wouldn’t be surprised if Dewitt was involved in nine-eleven and the JFK assassination. Why the hell would she bomb some farmers and shit in Colorado?”

  “One of the bombers,” I said, “told me he was doing it for a woman in Kansas.”

  “Maybe you oughta show ‘em a picture of Dewitt,” Landon said, “see if he recognizes her.”

  “He died right after I got that out of him,” I said, “the same way the Shift makers we raided in Mexico did. Nanoparticles replicated till they choked off his blood.”

  “Ouch,” Landon winced, “doesn’t sound like anything we made. There are nanofabrication companies here in Kansas, though. Maybe one of them?”

  “I don’t know,” I said, exhaling slowly, “do you happen to know what the hell all this stuff is?” I signaled to the rows of servers.

  “Damned if I know,” Landon said, “but we have a server farm just like this in the basement at headquarters. Had it updated to this kind a couple years ago.”

  “Think it has to do with the trafficking ring?”

  “No idea,” she shrugged, “why would it?”

  I pointed at one of the servers, “we found one of these in the house we liberated.”

  Landon’s eyes widened, “you did? What was on it?”

  “It was wiped,” I said, “cleaner than any hard drive my people have ever seen. Like it was brand new.”

  “Cha-rist,” she said, throwing her arms up and letting them drop, “are you saying we might have a football field sized server farm of fucking child porn in the basement of headquarters?”

  “I don’t know what might be on them,” I said, “aren’t you the CTO?”

  Landon cackled again, “yeah, technically. I should be CEO, but Dewitt insisted it be her. I liked the sound of CTO, anyway. It meant I could spend more time in the lab.” She looked around the room again, “my fingerprints are in here now. All over the servers at headquarters, too. The CSA is just itching to find someone to take the heat off of themselves for this goddamn sex trafficking ring. They’re never going to believe that I didn’t know anything about this fucking mess.”

  “You could get out ahead of it,” I said.

  Landon looked back to me, expression equal parts skepticism and hopefulness. “You have a plan?”

  “I’m beginning to formulate one,” I said, “but if you could give me access to your company’s system, I could find out what Dewitt was up to. Put the information out before the CSA has time to cook up their own version of events.”

  “How do I know you wouldn’t just sell me out?” Landon said.

  “What would I have to gain from that?” I said, “I just want to know who else was involved in this.”

  Landon stared at me for a moment without moving before finally nodding slowly. “You want to pin this on Benecorp, don’t you?”

  “I want to know who was behind it,” I said, “regardless of who it actually was.”

  “I know you forty-eights had it in for Lind since the beginning,” she continued, “I don’t personally know ‘em. Saw ‘em at a conference once a few years ago. That Chinese guy he always hung out with gave a talk about Solberg-Morse interfaces.”

  “What are you getting at?”

  She shrugged, “Fuck Lind. I’ll get you in our system.”

  “At the risk of pushing my luck,” I said, “why are you trusting me?”

  “What choice do I have?” Landon said, “if you sell me out, the result’ll be the same as if I did nothing. The CSA will lay the blame at our feet, and my being CTO means I’ll get the brunt of the blame. I’m just playing the hand I got.” She sighed. “What do you need me to do?”

  I reached into my pocket and pulled out the LAN turtle. “Connect this to Dewitt’s office computer.”

  Landon scoffed. “No way I’ll get in there.”

  “Why?”

  “The place is protected by private security,” she said, “and the CSA runs a damn extortion ring. Their thugs’ll be alerted to anything I do in the building. Christ only knows what Dewitt would do.”

  “You’re too scared,” I said.

  “You don’t have to make me sound like such a coward,” she said, “but yeah. Especially if everyone’s gonna think I had something to do with that disgusting child sex trafficking ring.”

  “Fine,” I said, “maybe you could install it between your own router and Wi-Fi antenna. It’ll log everything coming to and from your computer. Then try getting in contact with Dewitt.”

  Landon scoffed. “Let me guess, you were gonna put this in my house after you did Dewitt’s?”

  I shrugged. “Will you do it?”

  “Yeah, sure, why not,” she said, “if it’ll help clear my name…you’ll help clear my name won’t you?”

  “If you didn’t do anything wrong,” I said, “I’ll be glad to clear your name.”

  Colonel Reynolds picked me up several blocks from Dewitt’s house. We made our way through the city, taking an indirect path, before getting on the highway to leave. This time city police officers manned the checkpoint. They made us get out of the car so they could use a handheld device to scan our RFID chips and use facial recognition software. I stood, nervous, as an officer leaned inside the booth arguing with someone over his mouthpiece. It took several minutes for him to come out with a frown on his face and tell us we were allowed through.

  “What d’you think that was about?” Reynolds asked after we finally took off, heading west, the car getting onto the freeway and accelerating toward cruising speed.

  “Jurisdictional bickering,” I said, “seems rampant around here.”

  “CSA thinkin’ the Wichita police are bein’ too slack, I take it,” he said, poking at his face as he looked in the rearview mirror, scowling.

  Reynold’s face was altered with the same injections of a polymer I had. His face was rounder, giving him a chubby appearance in the cheeks and chin, the brow thicker and nose wider. He had allowed his wiry dark hair and mustache to grow out for a few days, shaving the rest of the stubble from hi
s face. I couldn’t help but chuckle when I looked at him.

  “Yeah, laugh it up,” he said, “You ain’t lookin’ much prettier.”

  “Your wife see you like this before leaving?” I asked.

  The car evened out at around two hundred twenty miles per hour over the newly paved US 54 – four lanes going one way and four the other – a ‘gift’ from the CSA that even anti-CSA officials couldn’t pass up. Traffic was sparse as late afternoon surrendered to evening.

  “She was there when the doc was puttin’ it in,” he said, leaning back into the seat, “don’t wanna get shot steppin’ into my own house.”

  I grunted, “at least it looks natural.”

  “Don’t feel that way,” he said.

  “Never used this stuff before?”

  “Never had no cause to be changin’ what God gave me,” he said, “you wouldn’t go screwin’ up a Da Vinci, would you?”

  “You’re a real Vitruvian Man,” I said.

  “I’m not sayin’ no one should do it,” he said, “but I really don’t understand why people do.”

  “You mean the transgenic crowd,” I said.

  Reynolds shrugged, “no offense.”

  “You never wanted to be a different person?”

  “When I wanna be a different person, I get a pint of bourbon.”

  “Well, for some people, gene doping is their bourbon,” I said.

  “And for others, it’s Shift,” he said.

  “You see the quarantine there?”

  Reynolds shook his head, “it’s a damn shame.”

  “My contact said people from the LoC are shipped there.”

  “Sometimes,” he said, exasperated, “they like to make a big deal about it, sayin’ it’s cuz Shift is legal in the LoC. But it’s a lot fewer people than they make it out to be. And usually people who have family in Kansas or the CSA.”

  “So, it’s not because the LoC lacks the infrastructure?”

  Reynolds tensed his jaw, “we have a lot less shitheads in the LoC than they do over here. You wanna know why? Cuz it’s all legal. We got farmers growin’ marijuana. Poppies. Coca. Instead of shitheads we got cokeheads and dope heads. Ain’t nothin’ good about that, but a dope head that can get his mitts on some dope knows not to touch Shift. And dealin’ with that is a helluva lot better’n dealin’ with shitheads. Makes it so hospitals and insurance companies can devote a lot more attention to these less harmful drugs.”

  “Just asking,” I said.

  Reynolds sighed, “Sorry. It’s just…I’ve just spent a lotta fuckin’ time answering to accusations from outside the LoC about the Shift epidemic. That was always one of the big issues stickin’ in everyone’s craw about the LoC’s lack of government. Like they’re doin’ such a bang-up job takin’ care of it, throwin’ ‘em in rundown neighborhoods and fencin’ ‘em in.” He took a deep breath, exhaling slowly. “At least the whole Christmas Crossing thing gave ‘em somethin’ else to gripe about for awhile.”

  I smirked, “well, I’m glad we at least helped you out of that.”

  He grunted, “Except now it’s all about givin’ safe haven to terrorists.”

  “They’ll probably never leave you alone about anything,” I said.

  “They don’t even leave their own people alone,” he said, “wouldn’t expect ‘em to do the same for us.”

  “You’re talking about the police state?”

  “I’m talkin’ about religious persecution,” Colonel Reynolds said, “I moved back to La Junta for a time when the devolution act was passed, just after the secession referendum here in Colorado. The CSA went religious. Now, don’t get me wrong, I’m a Christian man myself, but religion and government are oil and water. Folks should be free to follow their own faith. They still claim to allow freedom of religion in the CSA, but the folks that moved here after the devolution…I think before I came back out to Cortez, over half my church was folks who moved there from the CSA.”

  “How is it they persecute them?”

  “Maybe persecute is too strong a word,” he said, “but the CSA wasted no time legislatin’ straight outta the bible. Passed laws restricting marriage to one man and one woman. Outlawed abortion. About outlawed divorce. Lots of decency laws, blasphemy laws, what have you. Teachin’ creationism in school. Doin’ away with religious tax exemptions for non-Christians.” He shook his head, “don’t get me wrong, though. Just as many people was movin’ into the place as was movin’ out. Lotta people love those new laws. Even more hated what was goin’ on around where they were livin’.”

  “Like in the PRA?”

  “The PRA was the same music, different dance,” Reynolds said, “right after the devolution, PRA government bloated up like a prized hog. All manner of public services. Raisin’ the minimum wage. Heavy taxes on the rich. Free this and free that. Tunna ‘social justice’ laws. Caused ‘em to lose a whole helluva lotta business. People smarter’n me say that if it weren’t for their war with the Shift gangs and bickerin’ with the CSA, the PRA might’ve gone belly up by now.” He paused, looking somewhat amused at this. “When the LoC was still dealin’ with its own issues early on, we heard a lotta the anarchist crowd prattle on about war bein’ the health of the state and all that. That’s one thing the capitalists and syndicalists could always agree on. Now the PRA’s makin’ a good case for that up there.”

  “It is,” I said, “Every government needs people to believe that the government has a legitimate right to rule the people. The CSA gets its legitimacy from claiming to be Christian, and the PRA from spreading ‘social justice’.”

  Colonel Reynolds nodded, “you sound just like them anarchists.”

  I smirked, “You get many from the PRA down in the LoC?”

  “They deal with ‘em more up north,” Reynolds said, “in the Republic. Despite their open borders talk, the PRA’s even more paranoid about folks comin’ and goin’ than the CSA, if you an believe that.”

  “The PRA moved on Minnesota the way the CSA is moving on Kansas,” I said.

  Reynolds nodded, “It’s a pissin’ contest. Problem is, we’re liable to get some on us, too. But I got enough on my plate with all the refugees from down south that I don’t usually think much about what’s goin’ on back east.”

  “Still getting a lot of new people showing up?”

  “Yep,” he said, “soon I figure people in Cortez will be wantin’ to move along as the drought keeps creepin’ further north.”

  “All the construction there makes it look like everyone’s planning on sticking around,” I said.

  “Shortsighted,” he shrugged, “people were buildin’ condos in Miami up until all the huricanes battered down the levees a few years back. Now the whole city’s nothin’ but a briny swamp.”

  I nodded. It was true that people could often ignore a problem until it was staring them right in face. The people who will feel a volcano causing earthquakes for months and only run when it finally erupts. Or the people who think their society is incapable of collapse only to see it happen within their own lifetime. It was a pattern I witnessed too many times to count. The assumption that stability will last. That those in charge were intelligent and capable and would never let things get too bad. Bad things only happened to other people because they were too stupid to avoid it. Even the people still moving into Cortez probably looked at Miami and laughed about how foolish they had been. And yet it would almost certainly-

  “Anyway,” Reynolds said, “we got all the paperwork done and everything. We’re officially a private contracting company lookin’ for work.”

  “Any hassle getting CSA approval?” I asked.

  “They were actually the easiest,” he said, “seems they’re always lookin’ to hire more contractors. Was the Kansas folks that don’t trust private contractors.”

  “Guess that makes sense,” I said, “my contact says he knows people that can raise security concerns in Topeka and Kansas City. Wichita is likely where Goodwin will be transferred.”<
br />
  “You’re dead-set on doin’ this in Wichita,” he said, more a statement than a question.

  “I want to take care of the NexBioGen and Tory Goodwin situation all at once,” I said.

  “You think the CSA’s gonna come down on Kansas after all this,” he nodded.

  “I think it’s entirely possible the CSA will dissolve the Kansas government completely,” I said, “and do just about everything except officially annex it before the election.”

  Reynolds raised an eyebrow. “Thought you were hopin’ to boot the CSA outta Kansas. Get ‘em off our backyard.”

  “That’s where Tory Goodwin comes in,” I said, “he’s our bullhorn about every corrupt thing the CSA is doing. It’ll put international pressure on the CSA’s expansionist ambitions.”

  Reynolds grunted. “I think you misunderestimate just how vast Gabriel Mitchell’s ambitions really are. He’s buddies with a lotta big-wigs. Unlike Gibson up in the PRA, Mitchell knows how to gladhand with political types.”

  “You think this Tory Goodwin mission is a wasted effort?” I asked.

  He shrugged. “If I’m gonna be honest, I think the LoC ain’t long for this world no matter what we do. Kansas’ll be annexed after Mitchell is re-elected irregardless of what we do.”

  “So, why are you helping?”

  He sighed, looking out the window for a moment. Flat cropland surrounded us on all sides, filled with genetically modified corn. It was the same dark, almost black husks I passed through in New Mexico. Large lumps bulged from the shoots where giant corn cobs incubated inside. In addition to the political climate, Kansas also benefitted from the changing natural climate. With fast-growing plants and ideal growing conditions, they were able to grow almost six corn crops and five wheat crops every year. That was just one reason the CSA wanted to annex Kansas so bad. It was-

  “I’m gettin’ to be an old man,” Reynolds said, keeping his gaze out the window. “I grew up when the United States was actually united. At least that’s what I thought when I was young, anyway.”

  He paused a moment to watch the countryside fly by us out the window. After a minute he spoke again. “Both my grandfathers fought in ‘nam. Both got purple hearts. People spat on ‘em when they got home. One went full-on hippie afterwords. But neither of ‘em ever stopped lovin’ their country. Three of my great-grandfathers fought in the second World War. One of ‘em died in Italy, never havin’ seen his daughter – my grandmother. One took shrapnel in Belgium that earned ‘em a two year stay in Paris as an MP. One was saved after the USS Helena went down in the Pacific. Incredible stories…heroic.”