The Kiribati Test

by Stacey Cochran

  “I really couldn’t say.”

  “You remember which hospital it was?”

  “Might have been County,” I said. “It was here in Phoenix. His wife ended up staying. They’ve got three kids, you know?”

  I could tell Staringer was searching all the county hospitals for the incident.

  He said, “Here it is.”

  I looked at him.

  “Earl Redgraves,” Staringer said, “was brought into Desert Samaritan with a .28 blood-alcohol level in August 2056. Sleeping pills” --his eyes rose up and met mine-- “Pumped his stomach, it says. They let him sleep it off, it looks like. Signed his own release. No visitors.”

  “Yeah,” I said. “He and his wife . . . they could battle.”

  “They’re still together,” Staringer said. He retrieved the window and pivoted it around for me to see.

  “Yeah, they get along,” I said. “As well as most folks, I suppose.”

  “She had a restraining order put on him back in 2048.”

  “That would have been his first wife.”

  Staringer looked up. “I thought you didn’t know him very well.”

  “Well, I mean, we talked.”

  IV

  Sara was kayaking the Shoshone Rapids section of the Colorado River when I stepped into the apartment at 6:37 A.M. I closed the door and looked across the foyer and living room and saw her kayak crest a powerful swell and then plummet straight down into caramel-colored white-water rapids. Water sprayed up on her from the misters, and she let out a wavy, “Shiiit!”

  I walked over to the kitchen counter and placed the keys in a little blue ceramic bowl and watched her navigate the Class III rapids through a section known as “Pinball.” The sound from the audio speakers was loud, and I poured a glass of ice water, pulled up a stool, and watched her.

  Sara wore blue goggles, black shorts, and a gray sports bra that was soaked, and she used the kayak paddle masterfully. I could see her heart rate, blood pressure, and other vital stats in glowing white font in the holo-screen’s bottom left hand corner.

  Her kayak came up over one huge swell, and I saw giant boulders fifty meters ahead, but then the kayak dove down off of the swell, and she was below the line of sight of the boulders. Water sprayed up all over her.

  “To the left,” I shouted.

  Sara paddled feverishly to get the kayak left of the rocks. The audio sound was loud and booming, and I’m pretty sure Sara didn’t hear me. She got out left of the rocks and then started approaching the section known as “The Wall.”

  Enormous, churning, fifteen-foot-high swells blocked all line of sight of what was beyond, but Sara hunkered down in her kayak, balancing her center of gravity and just hung on, riding that kayak like it was a wild bull.

  She grunted, “Ohhh yeah!!”

  She came down off of the first crest, rode down through the trough and was instantly climbing the next swell, paddling powerfully. She leaned back at the crest, and then tucked forward right as the kayak went over the tip and dove like an arrow into the bottom of the trough. Water sprayed all over her, and on the holo-screen she was underwater for a second. The kayak swung around. Sara roared and then dove into a sideways roll. She was upside down in our living room for a second, still underwater on the holo-screen, and she roared “Yeah!!”

  The kayak landed and slid smoothly down the swell and then the water just eased out in front of her nicely and smoothly, a wide caramel-colored section of the Colorado River. Sara was whooping and laughing as though at the end of a roller coaster ride.

  And she slowly got her breath and just paddled nicely and evenly down the last section of the holo-screen program, the river now tame and friendly beneath her kayak.

  “Earl Redgraves is dead,” I said.

  “What?!” Sara turned in her kayak, which hovered magnetically five feet above the floor.

  She saw that I was not kidding, and she slapped the right end of her kayak paddle up to the “Program Off” icon and lifted her goggles from her eyes.

  “Are you serious?” she said.

  I nodded my head. “We need to talk,” I said.

  “Sure,” she said, and she climbed out of the kayak and grabbed a terrycloth towel and began to dry off. “How did he die? When did this happen?”

  All legal residences were wire tapped, and I realized that it was possible that police officials were listening to us right that moment. I walked over to her and whispered into her ear, “It’s not safe to talk here. Let’s go for a walk.”

  Sara leaned back and looked into my eyes. Her expression flooded with worry and dread. She nodded her head up and down.

  “Let me put on my tennis shoes,” she said.

  Ten minutes later, we were three blocks away from the apartment complex. Hover-cars cruised up and down the street. Folks were out walking their dogs. Morning clouds in the sky were clearing to give way to blue.

  We crossed the street over to Bernie’s Coffee and Doughnut Shop, and Sara pulled up a chair at a patio table. I went inside and bought a newspaper, a pen, a lighter, and two bottles of orange juice and came back outside to Sara.

  “Thanks,” she said, taking the juice from me.

  I sat down at the table. There was one old man with a little Yorkshire terrier outside at a table. He was having a doughnut, coffee, and he read the paper. The Yorkie was on a little leash, but it lay curled up near the old man’s feet.

  The temperature was a cool 63 degrees, and the coffee steamed.

  “Last night,” I whispered to Sara. “I was working the fifty-fourth floor, doing my job.”

  Sara just stared at me.

  “Earl comes running up to me, says he’s got something crazy he wants to show me up on the sixty-seventh.”

  “The top floor,” Sara said.

  “Exactly,” I said. “So, we get up there to the top floor, and some CEO’s running around buck naked with three girls half his age.”

  Sara said, “Yeah?”

  “But I’m standing there going, if I get caught, I know this guy. And he ain’t gonna think twice about firing me, right?”

  “You know who it was?”

  I nodded my head.

  “Who was it?” she said.

  I just stared into her eyes.

  “So what did you do?” she asked.

  “I got the hell out of there,” I whispered. “I tried to get Earl to leave, but he wanted to stay and watch. I don’t know, maybe he thought they would let him in on the action.”

  “That’s just like Earl,” Sara said.

  “So, I go back about my business, right. I worked up to the sixty-first by the time I quit.”

  “Four o’clock?”

  “Four o’clock,” I said. “A couple minutes past four, I ride the elevator down to ground floor, just like I’ve done every morning for the past three years. I get down to the ground floor, and there’s cops all over the sidewalk.”

  “Oh, shit,” Sara said; her eyes were on mine like a magnet.

  “Yeah, oh shit,” I said. “Earl’s out there on the sidewalk like a pancake.”

  “What did you do?” she asked.

  “I didn’t panic is what I didn’t do,” I said. “Cops wanted to ask me all kinds of questions. They asked me if I’d mind coming down to the station, answer a few questions.”

  “What’d you tell them about the girls?”

  “I didn’t tell ’em nothing, Sara,” I said. “Not a damn thing. Those girls don’t exist. And that CEO, I don’t know him.”

  “But you know who it is?”

  I looked hard into her eyes, and she realized that I did know.

  I tore off a corner from one page of the newspaper and wrote the following on the piece of paper: “Shhhh. Don’t make any sudden movements. Be calm. They may be watching us.”

  Sara nodded her head.

  And then I wrote: “CEO was Governor’s brother.” And I underlined “Governor” twice so that it was perfectly clear what I was saying. And we both
realized how much danger we were in. John Napoleon, the governor’s baby brother, had had a distinguished career with links to organized crime, and his older sister was the elected governor.

  Sara’s eyes rose up to mine and were filled with dread. Suddenly she started to glance around like an animal that realizes it’s being hunted. Every strange face along the sidewalk could be someone listening to us. Every plain clothes pedestrian, every pair of dark sunglasses could be hiding someone listening in on our conversation. Every glinting shine of a window on a hover-car slowly passing Bernie’s might be someone watching us. A man sat on a bench across the street holding a newspaper in front of him. Was he watching us?

  I held the piece of paper down toward the concrete ground and put the lighter to it. Flames engulfed it in seconds, and the Yorkie’s head popped up from thirty feet away. The old man seemed totally engrossed in his newspaper.

  Sara’s eyes came back to mine, and we just sat there at a patio table outside Bernie’s. We stared at one another, afraid to speak.

  V

  The white limousine was one of those kinds that bend around corners like an electric eel. Sara and I had just crossed the street from Bernie’s when it cruised up behind us and turned right around the corner, effectively cutting us off from behind and to the left. Both Sara and I turned and looked at it, and we tried to keep walking. There was a large brick building on our right, so we had no place to go but straight up the sidewalk. We both heard the mechanical whir of an electric window.

  “Mr. Connors,” a voice came from the limousine.

  I slowed my stride and glanced over my left shoulder. There was a bright looking man with blonde hair and blue eyes sitting inside the limousine. He had laugh lines on his face, and his eyes seemed alert and friendly. Under any other circumstance, he would have seemed very likeable. I gave Sara a quizzical look.

  “Sara and Karl Connors?” the man said, nodding his head as if for affirmation.

  We kept slowly walking along the sidewalk. Sara acted as though she wanted to stop and confront the man.

  “I’m sure this seems strange,” the man said, “and believe me, I don’t mean to invade your privacy. If you’d rather I just go, well, I’ll understand.”

  Sara and I both stopped walking. We looked at one another, then at the man.

  I said, “What can we do for you, Mister. . .?”

  “Putnam,” the man said.

  He smiled and stepped out of the limousine. Hover-cars had to move over into the left lane to get around the limousine.

  “G.J. Putnam,” the man said.

  He smiled and presented a hand for me to shake. He smiled and looked into Sara’s eyes and kind of nodded his head for her very charmingly.

  “What can we do for you, Mr. Putnam?” Sara said.

  G.J. Putnam smiled and raised an index finger up to his lips. He looked almost like an art dealer appraising an interesting, if expensive, painting.

  “What if I told you,” Putnam said, “I could grant you anything you desire.”

  Sara laughed. People passing us on the sidewalk eyed G.J. Putnam, Sara, and I and kept on walking. The limousine idled smoothly, hovering magnetically three feet up from the street.

  “Who are you?” I said.

  “The question isn’t ‘Who am I?’” Putnam said. “But ‘Who might I become?’”

  Sara said, “And who might you become?”

  G.J. Putnam smiled and then said with conviction, “I’d like to become your friend.”

  Sara and I looked at one another, our curiosity piqued.

  “I have a room reserved for just the two of you,” he said.

  “What?” I said.

  “I know, I know, I know,” he said. “It’s presumptuous as hell of me. But I’m a confident man.”

  “Mr. Putnam,” Sara said. “I have classes to teach today. Office hours to keep. Karl here just came off of a very long night shift, and I’m sure he is tired.”

  Putnam nodded his head solemnly.

  “I understand,” he said. “But just hear me out.”

  “Go ahead,” Sara said.

  “Everything’s arranged,” he said. “My people have set up a wireless syntheti-class for you. You can teach your class while you ride with me.”

  “Ride with you where?” I said.

  “Well, to your room of course,” he said.

  “Mr. Putnam,” Sara said. “Our room is in a rundown apartment complex three blocks away from here. I have obligations.”

  “They’ve all been taken care of,” Putnam said.

  “My obligations?”

  “Yes,” Putnam said. “They’ve all been taken care of.”

  G.J. Putnam touched my elbow, and I almost winced away from him. I eyed his hand.

  “Mr. Connors,” he said. “We’re both aware that you can’t provide for your wife.”

  “Why, you son-of-a-b--”

  “I only want to help,” Putnam said quickly. He looked at both Sara and I. He said, “Come with me, and you’ll both be rich beyond your wildest dreams!”

  VI

  “We study the human body,” G.J. said, “the way the world’s best stockbrokers study market trends.”

  The two-lane state highway south of Exit 382 turned into a dirt road ten miles south of the exit. I saw the high rocky Chiricahua Mountains to the southeast standing over two kilometers above sea level, and a field of giant saguaro cacti stretched from the dirt road up into the mountains.

  I sat on the right side of the limousine and looked out the window. We passed an inconspicuous black sign on the right side of the road. It stood four feet up from the sandy ground, and in white letters it said “Nano Tech Headquarters 2.5 Kilometers -- Private.”

  The limousine proceeded another kilometer or so, where we had to stop for a herd of goats that was crossing the dirt road from right to left. One of three herdsmen approached the driver-side window.

  “What’s this?” Sara said.

  “Looks like goats,” I said.

  G.J. Putnam said pleasantly, “They’re blocking the road.”

  The driver rolled down his window, and I saw that the herdsman carried an AK-47 machine gun inside his robe. He said something to the driver in a language that sounded eastern European.

  “He’s got a gun,” I said.

  G.J. Putnam quickly said, “They’re for mountain lions.”

  “A machine gun?” Sara said.

  G.J. said, “I understand they can be quite a nuisance for local ranchers.”

  “Mountain lions,” I said.

  G.J. smiled warmly and put a hand on my knee. “Not to worry,” he said. “We’ll soon be there.”

  The driver flashed some kind of identification to the herdsman. The herdsman took it, looked it over carefully, and then handed it back to the limousine driver.

  He shouted something to his two cohorts, and they quickly cleared the goats from the road. And we continued onward through the desert. The herdsman just stood on the side of the dirt road and glared at us as we passed by them.

  Another kilometer farther, we came to a small guardhouse. The limousine slowed, and a man exited the guardhouse wearing a desert camouflage military uniform.

  “He’s got a machine gun, too,” I said.

  G.J. nodded his head and simply said, “Mountain lions”--he smiled and looked from me to Sara--“nasty business.”

  “What exactly is it that Nano Tech does?” I said.

  G.J. said with bubbly charisma, “Well, our current project involves the human brain.”

  Sara pointed to the west and said, “Watchtowers.”

  And indeed, there were guard towers; they were the color of the desert all around them. They stood thirty feet above ground at quarter mile intervals in the distance.

  The guard checked the driver’s I.D., and he let the limousine continue onward.

  “What the hell is that?” Sara said.

  Up ahead, there was a giant steel gate. It was forty feet high and twenty feet
wide. There was a long sandstone-colored wall on either side of the gate, and I saw coiled razor wire on top of the wall. The limousine stopped at the gate. We waited a minute, and G.J. offered us peanuts and soda.

  Suddenly, Sara said, “I want to get out.”

  “I’m afraid you can’t do that,” G.J. said.

  Sara looked at him. “Why not?”

  “Bad air,” he said.

  “Bad air?” I said.

  “Yes, it’s not healthy to breathe--”

  Sara reached for the door handle, and the doors automatically locked.

  “What the hell?” she said. She pulled on the door handle, but the door did not open. The driver glanced at us in the rearview mirror.

  “They’re breathing just fine,” I said, pointing to three men in white lab jackets that approached the limo.

  “Acclimatized,” G.J. said warmly.

  The three men carried black wands, and they raised them up and scanned the limousine from bumper to bumper. I saw some kind of ultraviolet light shining from the wands.

  “They’re sanitizing us,” G.J. said.

  After they were done, the giant steel gate creaked and moaned and slowly started opening for us. The limousine entered and started up into the mountains. The ride was rough for a few minutes as we climbed higher, and I looked back and saw the desert plains spread out behind us.

  We came to a series of low-lying, black, shiny buildings built into the side of the mountains. It looked like there were three main buildings and two dozen, smaller, cabana-sized black glass buildings. Handsome men and women walked around the grounds wearing white lab jackets. They carried clipboards and seemed happy.

  “Your luxury suite is up there,” G.J. said, pointing.

  The driver came around and opened the door for us, and Sara and I stepped out, followed by G.J.

  “Right this way,” he said, and he led us up onto a concrete walkway.

  “What do you want from us, G.J.?” I asked.

  We walked briskly, but G.J. Putnam turned and smiled. “Just the pleasure of your company, Karl,” he said. “We’ll be putting together a lunch around noon. You may want to shower, take a nap, relax and unwind. Sara, you’ll have a massage therapist, if you would like a massage. You’ll find clothes in your room.”