by Cat Rambo
"God, Bridge, I would have displaced forever to get you away from him. But when I told him we were leaving together, he grabbed a kitchen knife and…." I picked up the scotch glass, empty, and set it back down. Tears stung my eyes. "He said he would do it every time you tried to leave with me. He told me to restart as far back as I could and disappear, or you'd stay dead."
Bridgette looked away. She stared blankly at the grid feeds around the bar, vapor curling from her perfect red lips. "You aren't lying."
She knew me too well, even after a year. "Why else would I stay away all this time? Why would I leave without a word? God damn it, I love you."
Her breath stumbled. A pearl of liquid welled at the corner of her eye and slid down her cheek. "All this time I thought you ran because Roger found out about us."
"I stood up to him. Look where that got me. I couldn't see a way to stay without getting you hurt."
She touched her fingers to her chest, tracing the imagined cut. The vapor trailing from the nic-stick drew a slash through the air. "He killed me just to keep me with him."
"That's what kept me away. But when I learned the bastard was marrying you, I had to stop it."
The fear that had disappeared crept back into her eyes, deepening to horror as she absorbed my words. "How can I leave him? He was willing to kill me before."
"He's not here. He's on a phantom call across town. He won't even know you've left. And I'm a displacer, Bridge. It's not as all-powerful as you think, only a few hours back at most. Sometimes only a few minutes. But I will do everything I can to protect you."
She cupped her hand again, spinning her engagement ring with intent. She was quiet for a long time.
"Can we go tonight?" she asked. Her voice was a whisper. "Can we go now?"
My heart leapt. "We need to go now, before he comes back."
One last spin and the ring slipped off her finger. She dropped it in her water glass, the heavy stone tumbling to the bottom. The nic-stick followed, its tip sputtering in the water.
A smile broke across her lips. "I've waited too long to do this," Her eyes were puffy but clear, hope swallowing her fear. "I want to be with you."
I couldn't contain myself. I rose from my chair and cupped her cheeks in my hand. She leaned in and our lips met. I tasted nicotine and tears but didn't care. The feel of her kiss, her body against mine, overwhelmed everything. God, it was thrilling to forge a completely new thread.
Something hot burst across my chest. I pulled back as a warm mist sprayed across my face.
Blood bubbled from Bridgette's lips. For a moment her eyes clung desperately to hope, to love, to life, then dimmed. She gurgled and slumped forward. Her head flopped, half-severed from her neck—an eerie echo of a year ago, almost a perfect backtrack of that horrifying, long-erased moment.
Roger slipped the nearly invisible molecular knife into his breast pocket and sat down beside Bridgette. No blood even touched him.
"Forgot my node," he said, and scooped it up from the table next to me.
I barely heard him. I stared at Bridgette lying in an expanding red stain on the tablecloth.
Roger pulled her nic-stick from the glass, shook the water away and slipped it between his lips. "Fuck happened to your face, bro?" Pale gray vapor filled the air between us.
I grasped Bridgette's limp hand, felt the lingering impression of her engagement ring.
"Learn how to fake a dispatch," Roger said. "I knew within ten blocks."
My stomach churned and I gagged. It took all my strength to keep from retching. I wanted to cradle her, to scream, to strangle my brother, but instinct held me back. Stay calm. Don't disrupt things. Don't tangle the threads.
"I thought it would never come to this after you left," Roger said. "But I knew how hung up she was on you, and the only way I could deal with a displacer—"
My voice trembled, struggling against my self-control. "God damn it, Roger." I swept my eyes over the lounge. With the throbbing music and dim lighting no one noticed Bridgette's murder. "You sick bastard."
A dark mockery of Bridgette's realization descended over his face. "I did it before. That's why you ran," He grinned. "My plan worked, then."
My eyes drifted back to Bridgette and I couldn't tear them away. "You killed her."
"No I didn't. You're going to save her."
I looked up at him. Blood and vapor burned my eyes. My pulse drummed in my ears. "That's why you're so calm," I said. "You want this to never happen."
"I see you anywhere alone," he said, jabbing the nic-stick at me. "And I kill you. Pre-empting an illegal displacement, I'll say. Mom will be heartbroken, but she'll get over it. You'll be dead and I'll still get Bridgette."
His voice was calm, morbid with the dead body lying next to him. A glassy pool crept across the table and he draped his arm over the back of the chair to avoid it.
"But not this time," I said. I struggled to get the words out.
"This time you're going to displace before someone notices her and tangles up the threads. You stay gone this time."
"Or I don't." I didn't have the strength to make it more than a murmur, Roger snorted. "The only way to end this forever is to leave her dead. Or restart again and try to kill me. We know you can't do either."
Anger crept in to my words. "You have no idea what I'm capable of."
"Better than you I do. I know killers. You don't have it in you. You're smart enough to know that if I don't end up dead," he nudged her limp head with his elbow, "she does."
A smile broke across his lips, and I wanted to break his face again.
He picked up his empty scotch glass and swirled it. The ice clinked. "Ma'am," he called to a waitress, catching the nearest one by the sleeve. "Refill?"
The waitress turned toward our table. Her eyes widened in horror. Her mouth opened into a scream—
RESTART.
I wanted to break my brother's face again.
Dark mascara ribbons streaked down Bridgette's cheeks, and I knew I could do nothing. The blood felt cold and sticky on my shirt. Bile burned my tongue. I let her hurl water in his face, let him slap her and drag her out of the lounge. I didn't interfere.
I reached for the cup of bitter coffee in front of me. Drying blood peppered my quaking hand. I had to get out of here before someone noticed me.
A lone fly skittered through the air to land on the rim of my cup, rubbing its legs across its bulbous multifaceted eyes.
I crushed it between my crimson-stained fingers.
© 2014 by William Reid
* * *
William Reid is a freelance writer, editor and stay at home father of three. When not writing, reading or editing Sci Fi and Fantasy (or changing diapers and cleaning up after toddlers), he loves cooking and playing board and video games.
Feeling All Right
Richard Zwicker
His partner was missing, and P.I. Stamens didn't know how to feel, so he went to the local branch of the Emotion Store.
"Ninety minutes of Pensiveness, please," Stamens said to Jack Condon, the proprietor. "Actually, make that three hours." Stamens's tall, standoffish calm contrasted with the squirrely Condon's jerking movements. A tag hung on his chest that read: My name is Jack Condon. Feel the difference.
"Oh, you don't want that," Condon said. "I have some prime Exhilaration, which just happens to be on sale for—"
Stamens reached over the counter and grabbed him by the collar. "Why don't you sell me what I asked for?" Ninety minutes of Pensiveness cost a fraction of Exhilaration. "Then you can take the Exhilaration to console yourself for the difference in profit."
"No need to get sore, buddy," Condon said, straightening the folds on his shirt. "I could sell you that too, by the way."
"You're a funny guy. It's probably costing you a fortune in mirth." He held out his credit disk. "Pensiveness. In bottles." Liquid was more cumbersome, but Stamens didn't like to think of himself as a pill popper.
Condon retreated to a large
dispenser that nearly filled the area behind the counter. Humming a light tune, he punched in some numbers. Two blue liter bottles appeared in the dispenser's window. He handed them to Stamens. "You're only as good as you feel."
Every time Condon said that, which was every time he sold something, Stamens resisted the urge to say, "Feel this." Condon brought out the worst in him, with his long, stringy hair and a top-of-the-head bald spot looking as if it were pressed with a cookie cutter. What also bothered Stamens was that Condon was right. You were only as good as you felt. Every so often Stamens tried to do his job without augmenting his regular government-subsidized cocktail of emotions, but the difference had become like night and total darkness. Without a little help, he just groped, putting him at a disadvantage with the bad guys. His partner, Flip Dumpheys, had been missing for two days and he needed to think. He twisted the cap off his bottle, then glanced at Condon. "You don't mind if I take a hit right now, do you?"
Condon smiled. "Don't fight the feeling."
Stamens tossed back the tasteless liquid. He immediately felt yawning vistas of possibility filling his brain. "You haven't seen Nick Gorse lately, have you?"
Condon's eyes glazed with admiration. "What a guy! No, I am rarely honored with his presence."
Gorse controlled the distribution of emotions and had a well-deserved reputation for efficiency and secrecy. On his own time, Dumpheys had been investigating Gorse, convinced that the powerful drug czar used violence to ensure his monopoly. However, anything Dumpheys thought lately had to be taken with a grain of salt, as he'd been suffering from an intestinal virus that temporarily prevented him from ingesting any artificial emotions. Stamens feared his partner's un-bottled state had gotten him into trouble.
"What do you want him for? You have a problem with our product?" Condon asked.
"Not at all," Stamens said automatically, though later he wondered why the drugs had allowed him to get so ruffled.
When Stamens walked into his office, Nandy Sontines, his secretary, nearly took his head off and used it to practice kicking field goals. "Don't you ever check your goddamned cell?" she asked. Normally cool as a cucumber, her sudden change to a prickly pear alarmed him. He knew it was important to keep his phone on, but lately he'd been receiving so many solicitations from the American Heart Association, the American Lung Association—even the American Coccyx Association had been tailing him—he'd switched it off.
"You heard from Dumpheys?"
"No. I heard of Dumpheys though." She stood up from her desk for emphasis. Barely five feet tall, what she lacked in elevation she gained in volume. "One of Chief Inspector Rausch's detectives found him. He's in Ascutney Hospital. They don't think he's going to make it." With that, she let out a sob like a sonic boom.
Stamens closed his office and drove the two of them to the hospital. As Nandy veered from dread to hysterics, he suggested they pick up some relief.
"I don't want to feel artificial emotions right now!" she snapped. Stamens, on the other hand, wished he hadn't gulped down all of the Pensiveness.
When he saw the bruised body, Stamens thought it might be better if Flip Dumpheys didn't survive. His partner's face looked like a failed student test paper stomped on by dirty hobnail boots. The rest of his body didn't look much better—broken blood vessels gave him the appearance of a black, blue, and yellow patchwork quilt. Whoever did this had little use for the kinds of beatings that left no marks.
Nandy burst into a fresh stream of tears. Stamens realized he should be feeling more than he did, so he stepped out to the restroom and took a hit of Empathy. He soon matched his secretary in waterworks, but unfortunately he took too much. He felt sorry the nurse had to work long hours in a building full of sick people. The overhead flat screen was on and he felt sorry for the losing contestant in a reality show about unhealthy diet called "America's Got Toxins." He also felt really bad for the elderly man in the bed next to Dumpheys who had to watch it. Trying to control himself, he leaned over Dumpheys.
"Flip…" He didn't know what to say, and that made him feel sorry for himself for having such a limited vocabulary. "Who did this? I won't rest until he rots in jail." Then he started feeling sorry for the assailant. He vowed never to take Empathy again.
Dumpheys had a faraway look on his face, that six-feet-under look. His lips fluttered, and out of them oozed the name "Anna."
"Anna, who?" Stamens asked. "A woman did this to you? C'mon, Dumpheys. There's hundreds of Annas in the city."
Dumpheys's lips fluttered again, and Stamens waited patiently. "May."
"Anna May? Is that her last name or her middle name?" As Dumpheys lost consciousness, Stamens wondered if these would be his partner's last syllables.
"Wait a minute," Nandy said, gaining some composure. "What if he wasn't saying a name at all? What if he was saying a-n-i-m-e?"
"What the hell is that?"
"Japanese animation. It used to be very popular."
He shook his head. Dumpheys was a basic, no-frills guy who didn't even like Japanese or Chinese food because he thought anyone using chopsticks was showing off.
Nandy started shaking again. "We have to figure out who did this."
"We will," Stamens said. One place to start was Gorse—what a guy—but why would that respected businessman try to murder an un-medicated man? More likely, Dumpheys lost control of himself and picked a fight with the wrong person. Feeling his own control slipping, Stamens reluctantly returned to the Emotion Store.
Just as Stamens was about to walk into the Emotion Store, he collided with an immoveable object, which he mistook for the side of the building, but turned out to be Emelda Rausch, Chief of Police.
"Chief Rausch, what brings you into my neighborhood?" Stamens gasped. Rausch, as befit her authoritative manner, was a formidable-looking woman. Her large chest made Stamens think less of sex and more of a hammerhead shark.
"I'd like you to know that I have some of my best officers investigating the beating of your partner."
"Thank you," Stamens said, not sure what else to say.
"He wasn't able to say much when we tried to interview him, but there's a rumor that he suspected Nick Gorse—what a guy." Rausch placed her heavy hand on Stamens's shoulder. "Let the police department take care of this."
"You know best," Stamens said, as he watched her amble into her car, which was parked right behind his. Stamens and Dumpheys's relationship with Rausch had been tolerant at best. That she'd come out to his locality in person to tell him the police were handling things seemed more like a warning than an assurance.
As Stamens trudged into The Emotion Store for the second time that day, Condon said, "You look like somebody died. You should take a hit of Animated."
"No, I look like my partner is going to die!" Stamens said.
"Oh, I'm so sorry," Condon said.
Stamens felt his anger rise again. "You're so sorry, what?"
"Huh?"
"You're so sorry that you'll give me a discount? You're so sorry that you'll donate fifty percent of your profits to the Flip Dumpheys Memorial Fund?"
"You lost me, pal, but…didn't you buy some Pensiveness earlier? Too much of that stuff will kill you. Don't buy why when you can get wow."
Stamens again found himself with his hands around Condon's collar. "I hate glibness. Would you like to know why?"
Condon nodded weakly.
"Because with glibness how and when you say something is more important than what you say. I think this cheapens thousands of years of oral communications, DON'T YOU?"
Condon wasn't getting enough oxygen to add to the thousand years. Stamens let go, wondering if he was wasting his time getting angry at someone whose sole purpose was to sell. How much better was he, a detective who solved crimes only for a paycheck? Dumpheys's imminent death was different though, and he felt the need for justice. But he had no idea if the chaos of emotions he felt was artificial or real, or if it mattered. "Give me a bottle of Righteousness."
&n
bsp; Condon brushed himself off, coughed a few times, and seemed none the worse for wear. "Coming right up. Just do me a favor, will you? Wait until you get home to toss it down. That stuff can turn a deaf-mute into a rapper."
Stamens watched Condon press a code into the dispenser. Then suddenly he remembered "Anna May."
"What did you say when I came in?"
Condon looked up blankly. "Good afternoon?"
"No, you said I looked like death and I should take some Animated."
"Oh, right. I was joking. It's very expensive."
"I heard that stuff animates the dead."
"No, nothing does that, but it animates anything that's left." He looked grimly at Stamens. "Not for long though."
"I'll take your entire stock."
Condon's jaw dropped, then he smiled. "Detective, you're making me animated. We accept major credit disks."
Stamens paid. "What's the largest recommended dose?"
"No more than a thousand mil per hour or your head will take off like a flying saucer."
The moment Stamens got back to the hospital and saw Dumpheys's unmoving body, he knew the only way he'd get Animated into his partner was by injection. Even the doctor, who normally called a half empty cup "overflowing if you used a smaller container," gave him little hope of recovery. After the doctor left, Stamens stuck Dumpheys's arm with three thousand mils of animated. One of Dumpheys's eyebrows arched, as if to say, "Yeow-za!"
Stamens didn't have time for body language though. The side effects of animated were nausea, vomiting, and the recreation of the Suez Canal in your stomach lining. Figuring Dumpheys's days of spicy meatballs were over anyway, he injected him with another three thousand. His partner's eyelids shot up like defective window shades.
"What did you put into me?" he asked, his voice wavering like a musical saw.
"Six thousand mils of Animated. How do you feel?"
"Christ, how don't I feel? Wait a minute. You injected me with emotions? What about that flu I had?"
