Mystery!

by Chantelle Aimée Osman

  “I do know you,” she said as she flipped the towel over her shoulder, crossing her arms, “which is what worries me.”

  “I’ll be fine.”

  “You know it won’t bring him back.” Her voice was soft, guarded, as if she could slip it in between the fractures in my chest.

  Still, I flinched, her words grating some raw nerve inside me. I threw the last of the bourbon down and shoved the napkin into my pocket.

  “I will never forget that he’s gone because of me,” I said, pushing my stool in, “and I will never stop trying to make up for it.”

  “Henraek,” she called out.

  I blew her a kiss. “I’ll catch up with you later.”

  Carrick Kearney’s apartment building didn’t deserve to be condemned. Being condemned implied something livable in the first place. This stack of reclaimed cinderblock crammed in the heart of Amergin—one of the worst neighborhoods in Eitan—was the rotten tooth that hadn’t yet been ripped from the diseased gum of the city. As I crept through the front door, frame skewed like a rhombus, I worried my weight would upset the careful balance and send it tumbling down on top of me.

  The door was unlocked. Kearney was confident, or maybe just unconscious. I eased it open an inch, glimpsed the edge of a mirror hanging on the wall, powder residue clouded the surface. Through the haze, I saw Kearney’s reflection, leaning over the counter with a bottle of brown liquor in front of him. I pulled my memory kit from inside my jacket and assembled the works, resting it inside the clamshell holder to protect it from breakage, then gripped the knob and threw the door open.

  Kearney turned to face me, but it was more of a teeter than a whirl, half the bottle sloshing in his stomach. I ran forward and slammed into his shoulder hard, spinning him toward the grimy wall. As his body contorted, I flung my arm around his neck and cinched him close, reaching for my kit with the other hand. He swung his foot back, catching me square in my knee, making me drop my kit. The syringe hit the floor with a hollow tink and rolled away. He seized the opportunity, first with his elbow near my throat, then his thumbs searching for my eyes.

  Lucky for me, he was too drunk to aim properly, and though my throat ached from the hit, his hands flew past my face, missing my eyes completely. I cinched my hand on the back of his neck and throttled him downward, slamming his forehead on the floor twice before wrenching his arm up behind him. I kept his arm in place by crunching it down with my knee and flung my hand out, my fingertips barely grazing the syringe. It was enough to make it roll toward me, and I snatched it up, stabbed it into Kearney’s greasy temple, slipping the needle into the cerebral cortex where his memories were stored. He went limp within seconds.

  I lifted his chest so that I could tilt his head, help drain the memories, milky drop after milky drop filling the vial attached to the needle.

  The first few times I’d done this, I’d felt horrible. An abomination of a person. I still felt bad. Most people did nothing to deserve ending up on my list. It was just the whim of the heartless juggernaut that was the Tathadann.

  But this scumbag? I relished draining him and turning him into a husk of a person.

  Normally when I was done, I’d leave two slivers of coal over the eyelids, as a sort of penance, a way to help them with the journey to the other side.

  I didn’t even close his front door, leaving it open for the building’s other vultures to pick his apartment clean.

  I came home to an empty apartment, Emeríann apparently had decided to stay at hers for the night. We hadn’t really established rules for this kind of thing yet, but I told myself it was just because she didn’t want to sleep at my place for a fourth night in a row. Not because of me blowing her off in some stupid quest to right a wrong that had nothing to do with me. And for a while, I believed it.

  I pulled the old ammunition chest near to the couch and set up my memory viewer, flipping on the power. One of the men in my platoon had been a mechanic, and he’d converted an old video recorder using some soldering and two magnetic rods.

  The electrodes crackled and lit up when I inserted the Kearney’s vial. The profile of his apartment materialized in the steam, one of the last memories he had. I had no use for this, so I hit rewind, scanning through his days at twenty-four hours a minute. Siobhan had said Daniel went missing two months ago, which meant two hours till the day in question, but I needed to watch everything in case Kearney had interacted with Daniel after he had kidnapped him.

  Watching this amadan go through his daily life was enough to make me grab the bottle and leave the glass behind. Watching him sell entire wardrobes—mother’s, father’s, children’s—that had obviously been stolen whole-cloth from citizens. Seeing him take that money to one of the local brothels and all the ungodly acts that followed, ensuring I’d never look at a ham sandwich the same way. Seeing the way he acted around girls who should’ve been getting braces, not propositions. I considered turning the needle on myself and draining all this away.

  After two more glasses of bourbon, I finally hit the two-month mark. I slowed the memories down to three hours a minute, then set to watching. A flash of red streaked across the screen. I nearly spilled the rest of my drink, I lashed out at the player so quickly to pause it. Rewound, brought it back, watched again—slowly. The perspective was looking out over a room, a few men standing in the periphery, when the slash of red passed again across the lower half of the screen. It had to be the boy, Daniel. It was the right height, right color, right time. Which left the question: where was this?

  The walls were shiplap, a style you didn’t see often in Eitan. And the men in the edges of the screen wore blue clothing with red piping around the edge, reminiscent of a uniform. Through the window, I could see an old church, one of two the Tathadann had allowed to remain open after declaring all religions illegal. They meant it mostly as a means of keeping citizens sedated, the idea being to allow them to beseech whom they pleased to end the tyrannical Tathadann rule, knowing full well no cadre of gods would be able to displace them. But what was most distinctive was the golden anchor hanging on the wall. It looked like the old maritime warfare museum, decommissioned years ago, after all the water in Eitan dried up and we had no use for a navy. I thought the museum was in Macha, a different neighborhood, but sanctioned warfare was never in my wheelhouse.

  But now I had a location, the last place Daniel was seen.

  I’m coming for you, kid, I thought.

  And again, I believed it.

  The church stood empty, the windows darkened like disheartened eyes, the Spanish moss hanging down over the doorway as if to dissuade people from entering. That didn’t bother me. What I wanted was next door—the maritime warfare museum, a monument to antiquated notions, like so much of Eitan. I stalked around the periphery, peeking in the edges of windows without giving away my position to anyone inside. Because the people in the memory were facing away from me, I couldn’t say exactly who they were. That said, anyone who threw in with Kearney was likely a scumbag of highest—or lowest, rather—order. Still, I didn’t want them catching my scent before I was ready. My hand brushed the knife tucked into my boot, as if reassuring myself. My kit was tucked tight inside my jacket, well protected.

  A display case sat on one side of the room beside a wall into a side room, the other walls festooned with various memorabilia from the long-past maritime days. I didn’t see the anchor inside, which was strange, but I also didn’t see any scumbags, or the boy.

  I’d never find anything from out here, so I crept to the most sheltered window and pried it open, boosting myself up using a crack in the foundation before slipping into the museum.

  The air was as musty in here as it was it was fetid and humid outside. A layer of dust coated most surfaces, featuring streaks where someone had laid a hand or dragged something from a shelf. Staying toward the edges to avoid any creaky, loose nails in the well-worn planks, I crossed over to the doorway into the side room.

  While the main area of the mus
eum was quiet, I heard a dull murmur from the back and pressed my ear to the warped wooden door. It wasn’t voices per se, but some sort of movement that indicated activity.

  I tested the doorknob and found it locked, so I crouched down and began quietly working on the lock with the tools from inside my jacket. After a few minutes, I felt the last tumbler loosen. Ear pressed to the door once again, I listened for any indication that whoever was back there had heard me, but nothing changed. Fingers gripping the doorknob tightly, I eased the door open.

  The back room was more than double the size of the main room, extending beyond the footprint of the museum. The far side was formerly the wall of the church before the scumbags had blown the hell out of it to expand their bunker. I realized that the inside of the church windows had actually been spray-painted black to obscure everything from the street. And that murmuring? It wasn’t voices—it was the hum of a generator.

  But the most chilling thing wasn’t that I had stumbled onto Daniel or some holding cell for abducted children. No, what chilled me to the core was the wooden boxes stacked along the walls, all filled with weapons. Guns. Pulse-grenades. Communication equipment. Medical supplies. All marked with the same symbol: a skull with a knife through it.

  The Cnámh. A paramilitary group who hunted the Tathadann and executed them. Although when I was a rebel we were ostensibly on the same side in fighting the Tathadann, these guys were too radical even for us.

  As if to emphasize, hanging from a ten-foot rope were scores of scalps, some old and dried while others were still fresh enough to drip red.

  There was no way the Cnámh would let someone like Kearney into their organization, but they would sure as hell use him as a middleman to buy and sell what they couldn’t do openly. I wondered if he understood what he’d gotten himself into.

  “You are not who I expected to see here,” a voice called from the mouth of the church.

  I swallowed hard, stood straight. “I’m looking for the boy. Daniel Kearney.”

  “Don’t know him.” Another figure emerged from the shadows behind the first voice.

  “I believe you’re already acquainted with his father.” I gestured toward the boxes of ammunition. “His mother is Siobhan Kearney. She’s looking for him.”

  The second figure grunted. “That means nothing to us. What’s more interesting is you here.”

  “Henraek Laersen, the great rebel hope—”

  “Working for the Tathadann,” the second figure finished the first’s thought. They continued toward me, both wearing the blue uniforms I’d seen in the memory.

  “I had no choice.”

  “You could’ve died like the rest of them. With dignity. With pride.”

  “I wasn’t in a good place, then.” I crept backward, making my way to the door. Though the Cnámh were piece of shit mercenaries, they didn’t traffic in kids. Their violence was political—and sometimes paid for. It was obvious Daniel wasn’t here, and I didn’t want to be either. And now that I was looking at everything in the harsh light of reality, it occurred to me that the brief red flash I’d seen in the memory wasn’t Daniel, but the freshly skinned head of someone whose scalp was now hanging on that rope. Which made me even more eager to get the hell out of the place. “I think your bosses would understand what losing your whole family can do to a man.”

  “Let’s get one thing straight…”

  The voice startled me, even more so when I slammed into the rock of a man behind me. I tried to hide my shock but failed.

  “Cnámh heeds no gods and no masters,” the rock said. “And we sure as hell give no quarter to traitors like you.”

  “I understand wanting my head on a pike. It’s nothing I haven’t heard before.” I held my hands up, heeding them to wait, trying to buy whatever time I could to figure something out. “But I can get access to places inside the Tathadann. Places you could never get. They’ve got scalps for days.”

  “We can get anywhere we choose,” the first figure said. With his scrappy swagger, I took him to be the leader, the man beside him his general. Which meant the rock was pure muscle.

  “And we don’t negotiate with traitors,” the general said. He nodded at the muscle behind him, said, “Take him.”

  Before he finished his sentence, I launched myself forward, getting as far away from the muscle as I could. I hit the ground and rolled up into a crouch, unsheathing my knife as I moved. The muscle lumbered toward me, the gigantic scar starting in the corner of his face and crossing his face before disappearing beneath his uniform giving me no assurance. The leader and his general advanced from the other side.

  I kicked out, cracking the muscle square in the knee. It didn’t faze him at all, instead gave him the opportunity to snatch my leg. His fingertips dug into my calf as he picked me up and hurled me across the room, my body crashing against the broken cinderblock wall. White stars burst across my eyes and a streak of heat tore down the flesh of my back. My knife skittered across the floor. I wiggled my fingers and toes and was at least grateful for that. Beside my hand was a chunk of concrete. It wasn’t a knife but it’d have to do.

  Pushing myself to my feet, I readied myself for their next attack.

  The leader and his general flanked me on either side, wielding extendable batons. At first it confused me, seeing as how they had a whole armory at their disposal, but it made sense after a moment: any errant shot would send the entire place up in a mushroom cloud.

  The general feinted left then dodged right, swinging for my knee to immobilize me. I jumped back, right into the path of the leader’s baton. It cracked against the back of my shoulder, sending more stars across the room. I lunged forward, tackling the general at the waist and slamming him back into the corner of the cinderblocks. He screamed in pain, dropping his baton. I smashed the concrete chunk against his mouth to put him down, then grabbed his baton.

  The muscle was already behind me.

  Aiming for the crotch, I swung the baton behind me, completely missing. The muscle clenched the back of my neck and lifted me right off my feet, turning me around and holding me like some invalid admiring a bunny rabbit before crushing it with his bare hands. His admiring his handiwork gave me a slim opening. I swung the baton upward, clocking him on the bottom of his chin. He stumbled backward, dropping me in the process, and pressed his hands against his head to stop the spinning.

  I lunged backward, moving away from the door but also away from those two. I slammed against something hard on my back.

  The leader advanced toward me, the general coming behind him, blood dropping from his mouth. The muscle had cleared his head, angry veins bursting from his neck.

  When I pushed backwards, my hands felt wooden slats and I realized what it was. I grabbed the first one available and threw it to the ground. An array of pulse-grenades rolled across the floor. I snatched the closest one and pulled the pin, held it above my head.

  “You amadans do not move, understand?”

  “You idiot,” the general said, still advancing. “You throw that you’ll kill yourself too.”

  “But I’ll take all three of you down with me.” I waved it as a sign that I was serious. “What happened to Daniel Kearney, the boy?”

  “We don’t even know who that is,” the leader said. “We’re trying to make a better future for our children, not sell them off for scrap. You might’ve remembered that before the Tathadann indoctrinated you.”

  I started to argue but held my tongue. There was a slight opening of space, headed toward the door. I held the pulse-grenade before me and strafed in that direction, keeping all eyes on these three.

  “You’ve never seen the boy? Never heard anything about him?”

  “I already told you,” the leader said again. His eyes held mine, trying to impart some kind of understanding, like we were both men who had witnessed scores of violence firsthand and knew what fighting for a cause was like. And for a moment, I felt that familiar swelling inside me. Going into battle with my comrade
s alongside me. Ready to sacrifice anything needed to win, to secure a better future for Eitan. Knowing I would be avenged were I to fall. And despite the circumstances, I felt some kind of connection I couldn’t explain in that moment.

  Until his eyes betrayed him, glancing toward the door.

  Toward the muscle, who had edged aside to block my path and was crouched, about to throw himself at me.

  I yelled, but it was too late. His shadow covered me, weight already pushing me down.

  Then I was on the floor, scraping my cheek along the rough concrete, tearing my flesh. I felt my hand hit the ground, my grip loosening during impact, and the grenade rolling free just as his bulk enveloped me completely.

  I couldn’t breathe, couldn’t move. I just pushed fruitlessly against his body, trying to move him to no avail.

  Then I heard a muted whump, then felt more than actually heard. There was a scream, then an explosion, then nothing.

  I had a vision of my father, grilling hamburgers on the small patio behind our house.

  My muscles twitched and I felt something shift above me. Cracking my eyes open, I saw slivers of light. I remembered lying beneath a tree when I was young and staring up at the patchwork sky through the tangle of branches.

  I pushed against the weight and my hand passed through something viscous yet scratchy. It shifted, so I pushed harder, and once my eyes adjusted, I remembered that the muscle had tackled me just before I lost the pulse-grenade.

  I tipped his charred body off me, then scrambled away.

  The room looked largely the same, with a few exceptions. Splinters covered the floor along with bits of smoldering hay, remnants of the boxes that had held the weapons. The wall behind featured a new flash-shadow, the cement scorched from the explosion. But the men who’d tried to kill me, well, even if I’d wanted to harvest their memories and find out what they knew, there wasn’t enough identifiable body mass to tell which part was the head.