Athena's Choice

by Adam Boostrom

  June 11, 2099

  39

  Minutes later — or was it hours? — a team of PS officers arrived in Captain Bell's apartment. Quickly, they shuffled in and out of the room, as if in fast-forward. Around Athena, time dilated and contracted. The room spun right-side up and upside down.

  At some point, one of the officers put something into Athena’s hand. “Here, drink this,” she said. The woman’s voice was unusually low and deep.

  Floating somewhere near the ceiling, Athena could see herself below, agreeing to the officer’s command. She watched herself drink down the crimson liquid in a single gulp.

  Then, darkness.

  The NAU Times

  June 11th, 2099

  Tragedy at Public Safety

  CHICAGO — (AP) — Public Safety Captain Valerie Bell was killed tonight in her apartment in what appears to have been a deliberate act of murder. She was 38. Captain Bell first joined the force in 2085, at the age of 24. Her early tenure was marked by fast promotions and numerous citations for valor. Twice, she received the Public Safety Blue Star for distinguished service. Once, during a fire in 2093, she received the Public Safety Lifesaver Medallion.

  Longtime colleagues of the deceased claimed they had never known a greater, or less corruptible, arbiter of justice. Said one: “If you committed a crime, if you put people in danger, she was going to find you and put a stop to it. I don’t think, in 14 years, I ever once saw her back down to pressure from anyone.”

  Captain Bell is survived by her first mother, Sandra, her second mother, Victoria, and her sister Malory.

  Services will be held next Sunday, at Big Sur National Park, where Captain Bell will be laid to rest, with full honors, in the roots of a redwood tree. Henceforth, the tree will forever bear her name.

  June 12, 2099

  40

  The next morning, Athena awoke from a dreamless sleep in the empress bed of her PS guest apartment. On her display flashed a collage of new message notifications. She dismissed them all, unread.

  Sitting up in the bed, she looked at her body to discover her loaned PS uniform had been taken off and a black nightgown put in its place. Without getting dressed, without visiting Aasha for her morning check-up, without even putting on shoes, she climbed from the bed, walked out of her apartment, and entered into the PS elevator.

  Riding down, across, and back up, she soon arrived on the fortieth floor of Public Safety Headquarters. As she exited the lift, about sixty officers stopped what they were doing to stare at the peculiar sight of the distressed girl gliding across the office floor like a troubled ghost. Her eyes appeared half gray and half red, her hair disheveled. Michelle Evans viewed the scene with an upturned brow and a downturned mouth, as Athena approached.

  “What happened?” Athena asked. “Where is Captain Bell?”

  Officer Evans fired a scathing look at the collection of PS officers gawking over their cubicles, eavesdropping. Under her withering gaze, they quickly retracted their heads like polyps of coral.

  Michelle placed an arm around Athena’s shoulder. “Come here,” she said. “Come with me.”

  Clearing a path with her judgmental stare, Michelle led the way back into the same interview room in which Captain Bell had first questioned Athena four days ago. She told Athena to sit and then did so herself.

  “Athena, I’m sorry to have to tell you this…but Captain Bell…she died yesterday.”

  Athena shook her head.

  “I’m afraid it’s true. Someone hacked into her food printer. The apple pie she ate. It was laced with poison.”

  The news washed over Athena like a tsunami from which there was no escape. She couldn’t think. She couldn’t breathe. Her blood stopped flowing.

  Officer Evans reached out with her hand and touched Athena’s shoulder. “No matter what happens, I want you to know that we’re not going to rest until we find her killer — and bring that monster to justice.”

  Athena nodded, absentmindedly, more out of habit than comprehension.

  “In fact,” Michelle went on, “we’ve already pulled the food printer’s logs. It looks like the code used in the poisoning was purchased on the dark web. The buyer was a relative of someone Captain Bell put away last year.”

  “No,” Athena muttered. Her head shook to resist against the new information. “No, that’s not right. That’s not what happened.” She felt the blood returning to every fiber of muscle. “How can you say that? How can you all be so blind? Valerie wasn’t murdered because of some case from last year. It was the genome. We were getting too close to finding out the truth about it.”

  Michelle winced. “You’re so young, Athena. I know this must be a lot for you. I know it must seem like the two crimes have to be connected. But our investigators have found no evidence to support that. The code used in the poisoning shares no characteristics with the code used in the theft. We have to follow the evidence first.”

  Athena’s head collapsed into her own hands. “So what does this mean? Am I supposed to just go home now?”

  “No. No, of course not. Public Safety has arranged for you to stay in your guest apartment for as long as you’d like. Take all the time that you need. When you’re ready to leave, a heli-car will be waiting to take you wherever you want to go.”

  “But the genome,” Athena pressed. “Who’s going to find the genome?”

  “The investigation of the Lazarus Genome was transferred late last night to the commissioner's desk. I don’t know what her plans are for it. She may want to still involve you, or she may not. My suspicion is that she’ll honor Dr. Antares’ public request to close the case altogether. The mayor and about half of Congress have been lobbying us for almost a week to drop it. Everyone is saying our resources could be better used elsewhere.”

  “But you can’t let that happen!”

  “Athena.” Michelle’s voice was firm but kind. “I can’t tell the commissioner what to do. She’s my boss. She’s everyone’s boss. If she wants to close the case, then she’ll close the case. It’s out of my hands.” Michelle got up from the table and headed toward the door. “And, honestly, I couldn’t care less about the genome. It doesn’t matter at all to me if we find some half-finished science-project or not. All that matters to me is that we find the woman who killed our friend.”

  Michelle slid the door open with her finger, “I’m sorry, Athena. I wish things would have ended differently.”

  Nomi James

  February 28, 2095

  Ms. Beaufort, Freshman Creative Thinking Class

  Assignment: What Would Life Be

  Like If Men Were Still Alive?

  Dear Ms. Beaufort, you are in luck because I am going to give it to you straight. Holy god, was this a dumb assignment. It only takes one word to describe what life would be like if men were still alive: annoying. That’s right. There’s your answer. Annoying. If men were still alive, doing what they always did, trying to tell all the rest of us what to do with our bodies, as if their little pea-brains have even the slightest idea, then life would be much, much, much more annoying.

  Maybe you’re too busy teaching, but you should really check out a pre-fever TV-show sometime. That’ll give you a great idea of what men were like. I’d say the best comparison is that they were like the little dog that barks too much when someone comes to the door. Always interrupting. Always making a fuss. Always thinking that their opinion is so goddamn important even when they have no idea what they’re talking about.

  To tell you the truth, it’s a shame my girlfriend isn’t in this class. She’d probably love to write about this assignment for you. She’s a lonely heart, except I don’t think she knows it yet. She’s still trying to pretend that she likes girls. Even to herself, she’s still pretending. But I’ve seen the way she looks at pictures. It’s like men are some kind of twisted addiction for her. Part of her is smart enough to see how bad they used to be, but it just doesn’t make a difference. She still hopes they’ll come back all the sa
me.

  I guess, if I think about it, the real moral of the story here is, when it comes down to it, you just can’t control what makes you happy. We are born the way we are, and we have to learn to live with it.

  June 12, 2099

  41

  The halls of the PSHQ echoed with stares and silence on Athena’s return journey to her guest apartment. She passed silently into the glass elevator, down, across, and back up. When the doors opened again, she discovered a familiar figure waiting for her.

  “Well,” she asked of the figure, “I suppose you came here to gloat?”

  Nomi wore a pair of tight pants and a long-sleeved, white shirt. “It’s good to see you too,” she said. “I read about what happened and got here as fast as I could.”

  Athena walked into her apartment. She stripped off her nightgown and stepped into the same blue and gray dress she had worn her first day working the case.

  Nomi followed her into the room. She paused for a moment to stare at the giant Boschian-triptych painted on the southern wall, but declined to comment on it.

  “If you read what happened, Nomes, then you should have known that you didn’t need to bother coming all the way out here. They’re going to drop the case. I’m supposed to go home now. Everything has turned out just like you said it would.”

  Nomi laughed. “Oh, A, you are so frustrating sometimes.” She turned toward the door and then back, spinning in a circle. Her left foot took a step toward the exit, while her right moved back toward Athena. Her body swayed in both directions before finally stopping in the center of the room. “A,” she said. She grabbed Athena by the shoulders. “Put away your anger for a second and answer me a question. Who is it that loves you?”

  “No one. I’m unlovable.”

  “A,” Nomi repeated. “Look at me. Who loves you?”

  “Probably my mother, I guess.”

  “And? Who else?”

  Athena looked out of her window, then up at the ceiling, then finally into Nomi’s honey-colored eyes. “You do, Nomes,” she sighed. “I know you do.” She cupped Nomi’s face in her right hand. “Let’s go home, ok?”

  “Hah,” Nomi groaned. “I wish that we could. Oh, how I wish that we could! But I love you just too much to let you leave like this.”

  Athena raised her eyebrow.

  “I know, I know.” Nomi nudged her elbow into Athena’s side. “I’m surprised too. But you heard me right. You and I are not going anywhere. We’re going to stay here and finish what you started. Find the genome? Find the person who took it? I don’t even remember.”

  Athena pulled back in suspicious disbelief. “What are you talking about? You don’t even care about the project. You said you hoped it would fail. You said we would all be better off if men never came back.”

  “And that’s all still true!” laughed Nomi. “But I’d have to be a pretty big idiot not to see how important this is to you. And you can’t fight who you are. So if finding that genome matters that much to you, then it matters that much to me.” Nomi rolled up her long sleeves. She turned to exit the room.

  Athena smiled. “You’re crazy. You know that, right?”

  “I know, babe,” winked Nomi. “But seriously, what do we need to do to finish this? The sooner we’re done, the sooner we can go home.”

  “Hmmmmm.” Athena fell into a seated position on the bed. “Actually, it's not going to be easy. We have to get to Colorado. Remember that creepy building I painted a couple days ago? And Aasha said she didn’t know if it was real or not? Well, it turns out that it was real. And it’s in Colorado. In the Greeley exclusion zone.”

  “Ick.” Nomi stuck out her tongue. “We’re going to need some pretty heavy radiation suits for that.”

  “Radiation suits and a private heli-car. It’s against the law to go into the exclusion zone. There’s no way a rental will take us inside.”

  “Ok, ok,” Nomi said. “So we’ve got some problems, but nothing that we can’t figure out. I can buy the suits online, but they won’t be ready until tomorrow at the earliest. And still that doesn’t help us get out there.”

  Athena’s face lit up. “Wait a minute. I think I just thought of something. I know a way to get us the suits and the car we need from someone who won’t mind at all if we use their stuff to break the law.”

  Nomi cocked back her head. “Excuse me? We don’t know anyone like that.”

  “Oh yes, we do.” Leaping up from the bed, Athena practically sprinted out through the door. “Well, hurry up, slowpoke,” she shouted. “Are you coming or not?”

  Susan B Anthony High School

  Detention Slip

  Student’s Name(s): Athena Vosh Nomi James

  Date: Thursday, September 23rd, 2096

  Classroom: Ms. Cunningham’s American History Class

  Reason for Detention: During shared-display time, Ms. Vosh and Ms. James drew a scraggly virtual-beard on Ms. Cunningham’s face for everyone to see — and without Ms. Cunningham’s knowledge. For the remainder of class, they made jokes about her ridiculous appearance, giggling constantly, and disrupting the learning environment for everyone else. Please note that just because the class was studying the California Gold Rush, that did not mean that the beard was “very appropriate.”

  Date for Detention to be served: Tomorrow, Friday, September 24th

  June 12, 2099

  42

  Like a charging buffalo, Athena galloped head first from out of the PS guest apartments skyscraper. She flicked her ring finger to call for a city-car. Inside her head, a plan crystalized.

  Chasing her from behind, in a half-walk-half-run, Nomi quickly followed. “Not going to tell me where we’re going, huh? Very mysterious, babe. I like it.”

  When the city-car pulled up to the curb, Nomi jumped in first to make sure she wouldn’t get left behind. Athena climbed in second, and the car rocketed north. With a craving for the cold sting of rushing air that would remind her she was still alive, Athena lowered the car’s windows. A blast of chilly breeze smashed into her face. It twisted loose strands of brown hair into her eyes.

  “You’re going to have to tell me where we’re going eventually,” shouted Nomi over the windy roar.

  “How about I do you one better?” shouted back Athena. “I’ll show you. We’re almost there.”

  The car lurched to a stop on a posh, tree-lined street in a rich, River North neighborhood. Never before had Nomi seen the gilded skyscraper that towered in front of them. Moreover, it seemed impossible to her that Athena could be good enough friends with anyone who lived inside to ask for such a large favor. However, she had little time to contemplate these doubts, as Athena’s purposeful stride waited for no one.

  In seconds, the gray-eyed girl had already reached the inside of the tower’s marble lobby. Nomi, who had been caught gawking at the building, needed a full sprint to make the express elevator before its doors closed.

  “A!” Nomi panted between heavy breaths. “You can tell me the truth. Have you gone insane?”

  Athena said nothing as Nomi felt the elevator climbing higher and higher into the tower. Finally, it stopped on the eighty-first floor. The two young women exited to find a pair of stately, carved-oak doors staring back at them.

  Athena banged her left fist against the doors.

  “A,” whispered Nomi. She covered her mouth with her hand. “Whose home is this?”

  Almost immediately, the large oak doors swung open to reveal a woman with olive skin and a large scar across her cheek. She dressed in a full-length, black gown featuring a moving cut across the mid-section. The fabric there repeatedly stitched, and tore, and re-stitched itself as the cut orbited in a circle around her waist.

  “This would be my home,” answered Mirza Khan. Her eyes looked clear and white. She looked Nomi up and down, blatantly staring. “So the better question,” she calmly hissed, “is who the hell are you?”

  “Mirza,” Athena interceded, “this is my friend Nomi, and we need your help. Ma
y we come in?”

  A beat passed before Mirza stood to the side, allowing an entrance. She waved her arm invitingly in the direction of the grand room.

  On this second visit, Athena found the grand room completely altered. Four whole marble statues stood tall, one in every corner. The floor lacked all signs of clutter — no discarded clothes, no emptied wine bottles. Dim candlelight glowed from recessed fixtures along the shelving and woodwork. Towering purple drapes shrouded the floor to ceiling windows. The room felt much different when completely absent of natural light — dark and complex like a 17th-century Rembrandt.

  Mirza seated herself and invited the girls to do the same. Her demeanor seemed utterly joyless. “Why have you come here, Athena,” she asked, “on this tragic day?”

  Stripped of her PS information, Athena couldn’t know for sure, but she suspected Mirza to be completely sober. As discreetly as she could, she scanned the room, looking for hidden bottles of alcohol, or other hints of reverie. It seemed impossible to her that none could be found.

  Always sensing the question before it was asked, Mirza keenly reacted to Athena’s unspoken interrogation. “I never drink when I’m sad, Athena,” she explained. “That's a lesson I learned a long time ago. Now, please tell me, why are you here?”

  Athena drew in a breath. “The higher-ups at Public Safety think it was another job that did it, Mirza. They think it was some past arrest, for some past crime, but you and I both know the truth. It wasn’t a life of honest police work that got Valerie killed. It was the genome.”

  Mirza’s face gave no response.

  Athena bit her lip and continued. “I know she was your friend. I know the two of you often worked side-by-side and that you were close. It was obvious seeing you together.” Athena bowed her head out of respect. “I’ve come here today…because I need your help. I need your help to finish the work that we — that she started. You have to help me to find the secret that got her killed. You have to help me to find her killer.”