Wednesday, 12:20 p.m.
A ray of sun will pass through a gap in the clouds above the green space in the heart of the big city, covered in a slight fog after the rain. The man will move his hands in holographic space, selecting the signal in which he will allow the receiver to see his image via satellite camera, then insert the headset, and wait for the response.
4 rings, and go.
He will look at the two kids out of the corner of his eye, stopping at about twenty steps to chat.
Answer, damn it.
“John. Have you changed communicators?” The overweight man with long unkempt hair will be sitting on a sofa at home, his nasal voice cheerful and friendly.
He doesn’t know anything.
“Richard!” The man on the bench will sigh, brushing his hands through his hair. “Luckily I found you.”
“Well, what’s going on? Any problems?”
A few problems.
“Richard, are you still home? Did someone call you?” Whiley will ask, exhaling.
The hologram will rise slightly on the cushions, and approach in the holographic space.
“What’s with you? No. No one called me. Who was supposed to call me?”
“Richard, you can’t stay home. You have to get out of there. Right away. It’s not safe there.”
The man will laugh. “Sure? Dude, what’s supposed to happen to me in the house? What is it, is a typhoon coming?” he will ask cheerfully.
The man on the bench will start to stand, raising his voice. “Richard, this is no fucking joke! They’re dead!”
“Who, who’s dead? But... but what are you saying?”
“Porter, Sue, Rick, Borman. All dead! We were attacked. This morning.” The man on the bench will lower his voice. “Murdered.”
“Two million. Fifty percent right away. Tonight,” the blond man will cough. “But the weapon must be special, artisanal, out of the ordinary. A work of art. A Nishizawa sniper rifle. Like the ones your father taught you how to build, Saki.”
The woman will stand up, looking suspiciously at the man on the ground. “And how do I know you’re not a fucking cop? An infiltrator? Or an envoy from a rival clan? Oh …”
The man will lift his arms, with one finger raised. Then, with difficulty, he will get down on his knees on the wooden floor. He will slowly uncover the sleeve on his left arm. The girl will approach in one step, clutching the knife, but the woman will subtly raise a hand, stopping her. The man will activate the device in his left arm, pressing a tiny button, and a holograph will fill the space in front of him. Handcuffed hands will move in the air in front of them, extracting folders and files, until they find a program and start a recording. The tidy emptiness of the Japanese room will be filled with holograms scattered in an improvised order. He himself, younger, dressed for war, in a savanna. The recording will show a movie of about fifty seconds. In the tea room, the man kneeling on the ground will be flanked by a younger lookalike, intent on mounting a rifle in the clearing near a centuries-old tree, above the Japanese bonsai. The almost invisible sniper in camouflage will advance into the tall grass near the sofa. Far away, on the room’s white wall, among the Japanese pictures, a black man, dressed as a general, will walk in a village among other men in uniform. The shot, fired from a great distance, will fly through the savanna, crossing the tea room until the black temple explodes in a red spot on the white wall, among the fine prints of the samurai.
“The general was Owanda Mombasi. If you want, I’ll show you his file. A cop doesn’t do that kind of work, Saki, you know. And the rifle was…”
“A Nishizawa .28,” the woman will interrupt, turning her back on him.
She will continue to watch the hologram on the wall before speaking.
The two kids will watch the man from afar as he walks in the flower bed, gesticulating.
“It’s a joke, isn’t it?” the man on the sofa will ask anxiously, pacing on the damp leaves of the flower bed.
Whiley, standing among the yellow leaves, will look at his shoes, the still moist grass, and with his fingertips will reduce the image of his colleague, hiding it from view with the open jacket. “Look.” His voice will be a sigh. “The whole section is gone. I’m alive by miracle. I was out for a second. I’m afraid it had something to do with the section, but I don’t know. You were coming today. There was a meeting today. It must be something to do with that. I don’t know, Richard, but I’d get out of there, out of danger. At least for a few hours, I’m waiting for someone to tell us what’s going on.”
The man on the sofa will stand up, projected transparently onto writing affixed to a stone stela in the middle of the greenery. “Did you call HQ? Do they know anything? I haven’t heard any news so far.”
Whiley will think, then look around, moving another ten steps away from the two students in the park. “Yes, they know everything. They’re doing the checks. I need to call them back soon. Notify your wife and tell her you’re out, come up with some excuse, but listen to me, don’t stay in the house. Then, after you do that, leave the personal display and your communicator at home.”
“Hey, mister! We have to go,” the boy on the road will have his hand in front of his face, shielding his eyes from the sun.
“John, where are you? How will I find you?” the standing man will ask, speaking from the white stone stela.
“We must see each other, speak. But not with the communicators, too risky. You know they find anyone after a while.”
“John, you sound paranoid to me.”
“You haven’t seen how they slaughtered Sue,” Whiley will reply woeful. Silence. The garden will be empty. Whiley will observe a bird on a branch of a conifer. In the distance, in the sky, noise from the airjets on the first level of traffic.
“We haven’t produced one in almost twenty years. Now we have better models. The footage you’ve made could be a montage. I know guys who can do better, and they look dated and real.”
The man will continue coughing, his voice raspy. He will move his hands again, rewinding the scene and pausing it, at another angle, enlarging the image of himself in the savannah, at natural height, until he covers the sofa with grass.
“Yes, could be. But it’s not. I’m a contract agent, Saki. I work for those who pay me. And I’m here to pay for your gun. I can pay you 50 percent right away, as proof. Is the price okay?”
The woman will look at him, laughing down at her elegant sandals in the red African dust.
“And who would pay two million Eurodollars for a rifle?”
“One who needs a weapon that does not yet exist,” the European will say, sitting in the savannah and massaging his neck. “That shot just now, I shot it in East Africa, twelve years ago, from a distance of about 2,650 meters, on a fixed target. Now, I need to be able to shoot a target from a distance probably over three thousand meters. Maybe while moving.”
The woman will laugh again, spreading her arms and then putting her hands on her hips, at the height of the grass moved by the fiery wind. “Such a shot is impossible.”
The man will contemplate for a few moments his visibly younger self, in camouflage alongside him, leaning against the centuries-old tree in the middle of the tea room. Then he will look her in the eye, very seriously. “That’s why I’m here.”
“All right, then. Where will we see each other?” the man will ask in a nasal voice, blowing his nose.
“Do you remember where Helen fell asleep? Just tell me if you understand. It’s about 12:28. See you there, let’s say... in a couple of hours. At 2:30.”
How could he forget? Of course Richard will remember. The two friends had spent a wonderful day there when they were still PhD students. Helen was Rick’s girlfriend then, the third friend. They had often laughed about it afterwards.
“Of course. All right, but wouldn’t it be easier if you came back and talked about it?”
“Now I have to get out of here. See you at 2:30.”
“But, meanwhile, what do I do
?” the overweight man will walk nervously from his living room. “Holy Christ, it’s unbelievable.”
“Sir! Hey, I’m telling you! We have to go,” the boy on the path will insist.
“I must close now,” Whiley will say. “Do as I told you. I’ll call you back soon.”
“I’ll call you back soon.” The man’s voice will ring out from the cockpit of the flying car that will maneuver into traffic above the city, into the outlying transit lines, crowded during rush hour. The Vietnamese woman will look into the side mirrors, consulting the navigator, and observing the colored lines of the laser strips separating the flight lanes. Then the acceleration viewer will fade.
At the entrance of the corridor to the east wing of the darkened white building, on the twenty-fourth floor, the blond man will pass in front of a man standing in front of the elevators, with a gun in the holster under his jacket, crossing the entire corridor in quick steps to stop at the next-to-last door before the meeting room. Next to the door, the blond man will read the sign:
James Daft. Operational Coordinator
“Sir, the on-site team is asking for the line on screen two,” the blond man will say out of breath, opening the door.
225 days earlier
The house will be enveloped in darkness, and the noises of the city of Onna Son will mingle in the rich internal apartment, separated from the street by a pleasant garden, illuminated by night lamps suitably masked in planters. It’s just past midnight, and Palmer will sit on the floor, watching the woman in the black silk dress pace around the room in thought. The girl with the knife won’t take her eyes off his back for a second.
“If you give me an account number, I’ll show you that I’m not joking,” the man will say. “I’m not an infiltrator from another clan, let alone a policeman. I’m a customer, and it wasn’t that easy to find you, Saki.”
The woman will look at him, smiling, crossing her arms. “And what makes you think I have what you are looking for?”
The man will press back on his own display. “May I?”
The woman will sit in the armchair, crossing her legs again. “Please.”
The man will move his hands, limited by the handcuffs, extracting drawings and patterns from the screen, and then enlarging them, pulling their corners with his fingertips in the space in front of him, up to the size of about one meter. Schematics and drawings will appear in the tea room, elaborated with three-dimensional design software. The designs will be quite simple, almost elementary, similar to a child’s doodles, but clear.
“First of all, the compactness. It must be in a briefcase, no larger than the size of a common shoebox. Then the material, it has to be almost entirely made of plastic polymers, no metals. So the weight, the whole thing must not exceed one kilogram, maximum one and a half kilos.”
The man will speak while moving the images, and the woman will follow him with interest, looking at a backlit drawing on the bonsai.
“The breech, the shutter and the butt must be in this compartment. Viewfinder and silencer in this one. Then, of course, I want a double viewer.”
“Double sight?” the woman will ask, spreading her hands.
Daft will rush to the other room, where the muscular black-haired man will be maneuvering in front of holographic space.
“Report. Do you confirm?” Daft will ask.
“Positive, sir. This is crazy. Five bodies in the offices, one in the concierge’s room. We’re sending the recorded images,” the black man will respond, walking in the hallway.
“Give me a picture.”
“A clean job. Professionals. Cancelled recording rooms. We did the fingerprinting; nothing but those of the six members of the section. Deserted offices. Missing hound twelve-six. His communicator is on his desk, as satellite control detects. The only room that seems cleaned out is that of the pointer dog.”
Daft will look at the blond and the muscular man without showing any emotion.
“What did they steal?” he will ask as he approaches the holographic space. “Documents?”
“No, sir, it’s actually a little weird,” the black man will answer as he enters Prof. Borman’s office. “The corpse is in the bathroom, but only one thing is missing from the sled inventory that you now see on screen three, the impulse gun of the pointer dog. It was in a compartment, so someone must have taken it. We did some immediate research on the activation codes, checking the codes with the gun port logs, and the gun is no longer connected to the pointer dog’s fingerprints this morning.”
The man standing in the office will sit heavily in a chair, laying a hand on his forehead.
“And do we know if the codes have been passed on to another possible connection for an activation procedure?” he will ask, voice cracking.
“On the communicator of twelve-six. This morning the gun data passed over to his communication band.”
The sitting man will look at the two collaborators, then head to the screen. “Carry out an in-depth inspection. Fix a control perimeter, gather all evidence, clear the premises, and clean.”
“Connected to the viewfinder. I want to have telescopic vision of the target, without losing contact with the outside world. I will close on the target only in the last thirty seconds, but first I have to look for a panoramic view,” the man will explain.
“Got it.”
“And then, of course, the retractable support tripod, and a position stabilizer for the piece. The barrel must be modular, extendable up to one and a half meters.”
“Magazine or single shot?”
“Magazine. Five shots.”
“Impulses?” the woman will ask, pointing to the pattern of a battery with her index finger.
“Energy cell. Explosive. On contact.”
The woman will reflect for a long time.
“You’re really going to make a nice hole. What good are five shots?”
The man will smile.
“They don’t work. I’m just being preventive.”
The woman will nod, smiling in turn.
“And how do you plan to pass the controls to the box?”
The man will break down the pieces on the screen, projected over the samurai prints.
“As I said, they will be sent to their destination separately. We’ll find a way to ship them in containers of goods similar to the individual parts.”
The woman will get up, walking around the room. In the silence, her sandal heels will resound on the wooden floor.
“Even if you overcome the shipping problem, I think your target will be guarded. Is that right?” the woman will ask, turning her back.
“Very guarded,” the man sitting on the floor will answer.
“And then,” the woman will ask, turning around. “How do you plan to escape satellite detection? A mounted rifle has a pretty recognizable shape at that point.”
“That’s why I have to shoot from far away.” The man will put his hands in holographic space. “Even if they suspect a rifle attack, it’s likely that they’ll form a cordon at a maximum distance of three kilometers.”
The operations coordinator will look at the holographic screen.
“Keep a surveillance team and come back for a full report,” he will say, closing the communication.
He will walk about the room, thoughtful, then he will turn to the blond man, scratching his temple.
“Call the director for me.”
The overweight man will move his long hair from behind his ear, wearing earbuds to prevent the conversation being heard by the cleaning lady, who will be organizing the kitchen a few meters away.
“Yes, I know I said I was staying at home. But I have something to do in the department. You know what they’re like...”
The cleaning lady will see him gesticulating in the middle of the living room in front of his wife’s image.
“It’ll be quick, I think. I’ll correct Jennifer’s homework tonight.” The man will put on his jacket. “See you at dinner. Don’t worry.”
He will take the keys to the flying car and call the elevator to the top floor. “Me too.” He will put the personal display on the table in the living room, leaving the communicator, and opening the front door.
“Ma’am, I’m going out. Close up, will you?”
The twenty-fourth floor of the east wing of the darkened white building will be full of agitated people going back and forth. The chief operating officer, a tall man, with buzz cut white hair, his face lined with wrinkles, will preside over the meeting at the oval table down the hall. A man in his fifties and a brunette woman will sit to his right. In front, the dark-haired man, and to his left, the blond and the muscular man. At both ends of the oval sat the stout middle-aged, well-dressed man and a blonde woman in her fifties, thin and severe-faced.
“Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for coming.”
The man will open an archive in the holographic space, extracting a table that will report the best hundred shots of the last ten years. “No one, to date, has yet exceeded the distance of three thousand meters for an accredited center. In order not to risk it, I’ll have to shoot at least three thousand, as I told you.”
The woman will look at him with a skeptical expression.
“On a moving target.”
“It’s a possibility.”
The woman will walk up to the window. She will open the curtains, looking into the garden three floors below, illuminated by the soft light of the lamps in the flower beds.
“What kind of movement?” the woman will ask, looking at the courtyard walls covered with climbing plants and flowers. “Does speed tend to be constant or highly variable?”
“It tends to be stable. A flying car, if I’m unlucky. If I’m lucky, a magnetic suspension electric car. However, very low speed, and it tends to be stable. At a human pace.”
Futura: Parallel Universes. Book 1 Page 11
