by Kevin Bragg
‘They’re music students from the university. I pop down there every now and then hoping to find someone willing to play here. These five agreed and I guess they told their friends about it.’
Curt seemed to downplay this but I knew it was a big deal for him.
He and I went back to our university days. We were in the same year at the University of New London’s Law School. He and I graduated with honours and passed the bar exam on our first attempt. However, he never practised law. I, on the other hand, spent longer than I care to admit as a prosecutor for the city of New London. Curt chased a dream and opened this bar. He’s even managed to get live music in here. I followed expectations and became disillusioned and bitter. Thank God Curt did what he did. 3rd Street has been my home away from home since the moment he opened the doors.
‘Well, keep the drinks coming. It’s been a long day.’
Somewhere in the second set, the gin started to take me down memory lane. The storage device. Transilience. The failure to find anything worthwhile. Setbacks. The character, Fran, from the movie. Charlotte Rennick.
In the background, the trumpeter poured his soul into ‘Freddie Freeloader’. I tried to enjoy it but couldn’t shake the image of Rennick sitting next to me in this same place a few days ago. Another gin and tonic later, I had the touch screen on my smartwatch out and activating the tracking programme on the earrings I gave her. The blinking light placed her in MARA Corp’s R&D building. Not unusual for a person to work late, but it struck me as odd for some reason.
By the third set, I was on doubles and checking my watch every 30 seconds. Nothing changed. Rennick’s dot continued to flash in the R&D building. During the band’s final break, Curt ushered me into a cab and sent me on my way. Through years of practice, I made it up to my apartment, crawled out of my clothes and into bed.
On the nightstand next to me, the red spot that represented my client pulsed like a heartbeat in the exact same place it had the entire night. I struggled to focus on the light for as long as possible; hoping to see it move some place… any place. But it didn’t. Somewhere in the R&D building Rennick stayed. Blinking. Blinking. Blinking.
15
The indistinct outlines of fellow commuters faded in and out as I rushed past them. I took the stairs down to the Red Line in pairs. The world sped up and slowed down on a whim. Sometimes moving at sub-lightspeed and, at other times, like someone had hit the pause button on a remote. I dashed through the entrance barrier and raced to the correct platform.
I got there well ahead of the train’s announced arrival time. And yet I could see it parked on the Blue Line. I ran like the wind for the nearest set of stairs. But before I could make it, the train disappeared, vanishing into thin air. A voice over the PA system called out its departure from the Green Line.
Down another set of stairs, around a corner, down more steps. Relief washed over me when I saw that it hadn’t left yet. I sprinted for the nearest car and slipped in before the door closed on the heels of its all too familiar polyphonic tone.
When I looked around for a place to sit, I discovered I was alone. I peered through the rear window into the next car – empty. As far as I could tell in both directions, they were all empty.
No one else on this train but me.
I took a seat in the middle and stared out the window. Countryside, with lush, green forests and wide hills, rolled into view as we left the city. The world scrolling past me belonged to Emerson or Coleridge, not the dusty, harsh sameness of the Martian landscape. Everything seemed crisp and new, like an early spring day on one of those Earth nature programmes. After what felt like hours, however, the scenery outside became hazy as if some indefinable pall had settled over the landscape.
Eventually, the train stopped.
And, I mean stopped stopped.
End of the line.
Time to get off.
The doors opened.
The power and lights went out.
Curiosity compelled me to exit.
I stepped out onto a wooden platform into a world devoid of colour. A lake in the far-off distance and more hills beyond it blended together in dull sepia tones.
Without any warning, the entire perspective of my dream changed. My face, a mask of confusion, filled up the entire scene like some sort of movie close-up. Suddenly, I began to shrink in the view as the camera tracked away from me. Another spin of my perspective, and through my own eyes I saw the lake rushing closer to me as I sailed through the sky as effortlessly as a hawk. The ground below me passed by impossibly fast. The surface of the lake grew larger. Fear coursed through every fibre of my being, urging me on to an unknown doom.
An old man, ancient and pale, sat in a boat in the middle of the lake. He wore threadbare clothes, a shabby Tilley fishing hat and a dirty beard. I closed in on the stranger in sweeping 360 revolutions. Each completed turn brought me closer to him until I stopped and stared directly into his sunken eyes.
‘Something weird is gonna happen,’ he said, not to me but at me, with a sad, quiet voice.
Cut to an image of the lake.
I see myself, naked and lifeless, slowly descending into impossibly black, cold as death water.
Sinking into the murky abyss.
*
I woke with a start. The icy numbness from the dream chilled me to the core. My head pounded. My stomach lurched. I made a break for the bathroom and dropped to my knees without a second to spare. The pain from doing so never registered.
Each violent spasm of my stomach brought up all of yesterday and anything still in there from the day before. I puked. And I heaved. I heaved until there was nothing left but bile and the echo of my acid-burned throat in the toilet. My temples throbbed under the strain of keeping all of the grey matter inside.
Eventually, my tank was empty. I clung to the bowl with all the desperation of a man lost at sea. Slow, deep breaths brought with them a sense of calm and allowed me to gather enough strength to crawl into the shower. I managed to turn the water on before slumping against the cool tile wall. Water from the overhead diffuser rained down on me. Heat and steam chased away the chill in my bones, but no amount of water in the world could dispel the image of my body being pulled under in that evil lake.
*
I limped into the office and found Pam at her desk reading the Mars News Network site. I peered over her shoulder and glanced at the headline: Police Nab Suspect in Technology Theft.
My eyes hurt too much to read the article, though. ‘Looks like someone didn’t follow the instructions on the envelope.’
‘Indeed, sir. According to the article, a special task force arrested a man in Residential District 3 early this morning in connection to a break-in “at a high-tech facility”.’
‘Are there any low-tech facilities these days?’
Pam glossed over the question and went back to reading. I took the bagel and coffee I had picked up on the way to my office and settled in for an afternoon of doing very little.
While I demolished my mid-day breakfast, I used the time to check on Rennick’s position. Her dot hadn’t moved, or she had left work and returned while I was passed out. Helluva work ethic either way. I didn’t risk trying to contact her. I had to trust she would reach out to me.
*
My assistant’s voice over the intercom woke me from an impromptu nap.
‘Mr Helmqvist, you have a client.’
‘A what?’ I replied like the village idiot.
‘A client, sir.’
‘Oh… right… of course. Give me a second before sending them in.’
I wiped the sleep out of my eyes and met them at the door. I preferred this little ritual to sitting and waiting for them like the school principal expecting the class bully.
The woman who entered was somewhere in her fifties but was trying to pass as a thirty-something. She wore stylish, expensive-looking clothes and even pricier jewellery. You could tell by the look of her that she wanted everyone to know she had m
oney. And with her pert little smile and general air of haughtiness, I also knew that she was probably used to getting her way. I offered her a chair then took my place behind my desk.
She said she needed to have someone investigated. I told her she had come to the right place. I asked who and she said her maid.
‘The maid?’ I asked without trying to sound too incredulous.
‘That’s right.’
‘Let me guess, she’s stealing from you.’ I did a quick take from head to neck. The earrings didn’t match the necklace. ‘Jewellery, am I right?’
Her eyes lit up.
‘Why yes! How did you know?’
‘I’m a regular Sherlock Holmes.’
I don’t think that she appreciated the sarcasm. I pushed for details and she gave them to me. Some of her ‘everyday’ pieces had started to come up missing for about the past three months. I liked that – everyday pieces. As if we all have 5-carat tennis bracelets to wear when we trudge off to our boring, insignificant lives.
I asked why the maid. It seemed a bit too clichéd to be true. No other possible candidate was her reply.
With my elbows on my desk, I regarded her over interlocked hands and played the scenario out in my mind. She seemed like the type of broad who didn’t mind the silent treatment.
‘I’m not going to take the case, Mrs Beaumont.’
That was her name, Elizabeth Beaumont, and she belonged to New London’s upper crust. I had seen their name in the papers a few times. The husband, Kendrick, had made a ton of cash in asteroid mining futures. The Beaumonts also had two kids. A son, aged 17, lived at home. He attended private school in Res 1. A daughter. Aged 20. Attended UNL. Lived on campus in what I imagined to be a pretty swanky set-up. I had seen their names in the papers, too. They were the quintessential spoiled brats, who did spoiled brat things with other spoiled brats.
‘What do you mean that you won’t take the case?’ she asked with a hint of indignation. ‘I’m sure that I can more than cover your fee.’
‘One, if it’s stolen goods, it’s a police matter. You should call them. Their rates are much more reasonable. And two, I don’t think you’ll like what an investigation’ll turn up.’
‘I am quite certain I don’t know what you mean, Mr Helmqvist, and I am absolutely certain that I don’t like your tone. As for the police, I would rather this matter be handled with discretion. It was wrong for Harriet to take my things but I couldn’t possibly stand to see her go to prison over this.’
Man, this was rich. She actually did look offended now. I started to feel like a bit character in a 19th-century morality play.
‘My apologies if you don’t approve of my tone, I get that a lot. Just the same, I’m not going to take the case. Despite what you may think, or claim, we both know that it isn’t Harriet stealing your trinkets, which is probably the real reason you don’t want to get the police involved. It might create an awkward situation for you when it gets out to all your well-to-do friends that it wasn’t the hired help.’
My money was on the son. He had probably gotten into something beyond what his hefty allowance could afford.
‘If you are implying that the thief is a member of my own family, I won’t stand for it,’ and then she actually stood. I fought back a grin at the irony.
‘Fine. Put a surveillance camera in your dressing room and you’ll get your answer soon enough. I’d bet the house it’s one of your kids.’
That pushed her over the edge.
‘You, Mr Helmqvist, are a brute. If this is how you treat all of your customers, then I cannot possibly imagine how you stay in business.’
I had had my fun with her and decided to give her back some of what she had been dishing out. I stood up and affected my own mask of indignation. Maybe I didn’t give a rat’s ass if she liked me or not, but I had a reputation to protect.
‘I do fine, lady. I don’t take cases that involve someone trying to pin a pack of lies and false accusations on someone probably too poor to defend themselves properly. Anyway, you don’t need a private investigator. You need a family shrink. Fire the maid if you want, see if that stops the thefts. But again, I think we both know how that’ll play out. And at the end of the day, all you’ll have done is ruined the life of one person, whose only crime is the misfortune of working for your sorry ass.’
Her cheeks flushed with rage and I think that she would have slapped me right then and there if her dignity would have allowed for it. Instead, she turned and marched out of the office without saying so much as a goodbye.
‘If every day was like this, I’d probably be in the office more often,’ I announced to Pam when she swivelled in her chair to meet my gaze through the communicating doorway. She shook her head in disappointment, and returned to abusing her keyboard.
I sat back at my desk and checked the tracking device. Rennick hadn’t left MARA Corp. I decided it best that I did some work and by that I mean I played Sudoku on the computer. Somewhere on my second hard puzzle, I checked the tracker again. Finally, the blinking dot moved, by the looks of it heading towards the IM. The image of the 3rd Street came to mind and where this all began.
Perhaps she wanted to meet me there again.
Never hurts to be optimistic.
16
The expected phone call from Rennick never came. An hour passed and she never called. The display on my smartwatch never lit up with her name and number. And Pam never patched her through on the office line. The tracking device took her all the way to the IM and stopped.
Something didn’t feel right. I cross-referenced the location of the dot with a city directory to a factory long since abandoned.
What the hell could she possibly be doing there?
I jotted the address down, grabbed my hat and gave my assistant a heads-up as to what was going on.
I drove like an asshole from the CD to the IM. The simulated exhaust of my Nash Griffon rumbled as I negotiated the car through the very precise matrix of streets and cross-streets. Occasionally I checked my location against the address I had copied down.
As I cruised past an endless collection of abandoned buildings, the scene reminded me of photos I’d seen as a kid of Detroit in a coffee-table book my parents always had out on a side table next to the sofa. Once a pinnacle of human achievement, New London’s Industrial and Manufacturing dome was a reminder that our galaxy had become very small, and that there was a virtually unlimited choice of cheap places to set up a business.
*
The faded sign for 1643 Edison clung to a perimeter fence by a screw too stubborn to let go.
‘This must be the place,’ I said aloud for the sole purpose of breaking the eerie silence.
The front gate was open – ‘missing’ would be a more precise term. I guided the Griffon through and cut the engine about 30 metres from the main building. After coasting to a gentle stop, I hopped out and had a better look at the remains of the now-defunct Verne Bottling Company.
High above, a bright flash streaked across the periphery of my vision. I stared up at a perfectly clear afternoon Martian sky. It must have been a malfunction in the biosphere dome. Atmospheric lightning is reserved for places with an actual atmosphere, not here. It didn’t rain on Mars and fluffy clouds did not drift idly by inside, or outside, our domed existence. The best we got was violent storms at ground level that spit dust and static electricity as they roamed the countryside like whirling demons.
However, we did have neglect and I suspected they serviced this district only as much as needed in order to prevent a catastrophe. You would never see anything like electrical shorts (or surges) in the domes of the RD1 or Res 1. But then money has the ability to create those types of grand illusions we associate with perfection.
A noise in the factory brought me back to the matter at hand. This didn’t look like the kind of joint you’d come to for a meeting. It looked more like a place to dispose of a body, or create a body, or both. I knew Rennick was inside somewhere, but char
ging in unprepared would make every other mistake I’d made in my life seem like a blessing from God above.
I walked to the back of the car and popped the trunk. With the push of a button, the same secret compartment I’d used to hide my super-suit opened and I surveyed its additional contents – another pair of bracelets, concussion rifle and a second NEEDLE.
The concussion rifle, I tried to hide as best I could behind my leg. I tucked the handcuffs into my belt. I chambered a neurological round in the pistol and slid it into a shoulder holster. For good measure, I stuffed an EMP round in my pocket. I approached the corner of the building and crept along the exterior wall to a rusty old door about 20 metres away.
The sound of glass breaking into hundreds of shards shattered the quiet. The blur of a figure soared out of the window like a stuntman in a summer blockbuster. He hit the ground running. Out of sheer panic, I brought the rifle around and fired from the hip. The gun kicked in my hands but a blast of pure concussive force hit the guy in the right shoulder.
The blast sent him tumbling into a heap of old metal, industrial cable and broken crates. He stood up and took stock of his situation. By the blood running down his arm, I knew he must have nicked an artery. He shouldn’t have been able to get back up like that. But he did, and he didn’t seem too bothered about his injury. It could mean only one thing: a synth. He struggled to dislodge his right foot from a tangled mass of steel and wires.
In one deft motion, I dropped the rifle, pulled the pistol, ejected the inhibitor cartridge, loaded the EMP and took aim at his chest. It wasn’t until I racked the chamber that he looked up and acknowledged my existence.
The android stood slightly shorter than me with close-cropped brown hair, and blue eyes. A perfect physique peeked out from the torn places in his shirt and chinos.
