Class Fives: Origins

by Jon H. Thompson

What the Hell, he thought.

  He raised a foot, placed it on the edge of the ramp, and shoved down.

  Like a piece of aluminum foil, the ramp bent sharply with a loud, sudden squeal.

  Lifting his foot, Roger saw that the ramp was now almost “L” shaped, one end still attached to the rear of the truck opening, the other end almost parallel to the ground for half its length.

  Have a nice day, asshole, Roger thought, continuing to stare at the man inside the store, and then smiled pleasantly.

  He climbed into his car, cranked up the engine and pulled toward the entry of the parking lot. He didn’t see that the delivery man was now frantically waving his arms at the confused and frightened clerk and demanding he call 911 immediately.

  I really shouldn’t have done that, Roger thought. Oh well. Guess I’m not going to be shopping here any more.

  He turned into the road and pushed, gently, on the gas pedal.

  John Kleinschmidt glanced down at the speedometer, assuring himself that he was just within the speed limit, and ordered himself to relax, leaning back against the seat and raising a hand to wipe it over his face before propping his elbow on the sill of the open window.

  What do I do, he wondered nervously? What do I do?

  He hadn’t thought to prepare for something like this and he inwardly chided himself for his complacency. Just because everything had gone smoothly for so long now, he’d gotten careless and sloppy and that made him not only angry at his own stupidity, but also immeasurably tired.

  You had to go and try to be a hero, he told himself. Had to stick your nose in where it didn’t belong, get your stupid ass involved in something that was none of your business and look what happens.

  Okay, he ordered himself, calm down. Think. One step at a time.

  First, he knew, would be to see if he could work out some kind of story that would explain that little adventure in that damned liquor store yesterday. Geez, he moaned internally, why did I have to do that? Why didn’t I just get out, walk away? But no, I had to stick my nose in and now – Now what, he suddenly wondered? Was he some kind of suspect? But suspected of what? Ok, so he’d smacked the dumb bastard with his own gun, maybe knocked him cold but surely –

  A sudden wave of icy fear flowed over him.

  Had the guy died? Had he cracked his skull or something? He hadn’t hit him all that hard, had he? Just enough to knock him cold, that’s all.

  Ok, he told himself, first thing. Get a newspaper. Check for some kind of notice about it. Find out if the guy was really hurt bad or just wound up with a nasty headache.

  And, he considered, if the guy hadn’t been hurt too bad, try to find a way to justify what he’d done. He could say he’d caught sight of the guy walking up to the door already reaching into his pants to position the gun. No, that wouldn’t fly, he told himself. They’d ask him what if the guy had been a plain-clothes cop? Or some kind of security guard? How could he know that in fact the guy was going to shove the gun in the clerks’ face and demand all the cash in the register? How could he know that when the terrified clerk had hesitated a fraction of a second too long that the guy would pump a bullet clean through his forehead?

  He knew, he reassured himself, because he’d seen it happen. Standing not five feet behind the gunman, feeling his own body spasm in shock at the noise of the shot, watching the body of the clerk crumple to the floor on the far side of the counter. Hell, he could still remember the taste of the gun smoke in his mouth. And if he hadn’t managed to jump back as the guy finally sensed him standing there and was already turning, the gun swinging around toward him, he’d probably be dead himself right now.

  Ok, he thought, he could have jumped and simply walked away before it all went down, but how could he have done that, knowing that a man would die if he distanced himself from it? He’d had to do something. Catching the son of a bitch the instant he walked in the door was all he could think of, and all he had time to manage.

  But how would he explain that to the cops? Maybe, he considered, he could say he’d seen the guy drive up, park, pull out the gun, check it for ammo, then get out of his car, shoving it into his pants at his back. Isn’t that what those types did on TV and in the movies? Wasn’t that an unmistakable clue that a robbery - and perhaps worse - was about to go down? Or was that just movie bullshit?

  Christ, he thought bitterly, what a fricking mess.

  And he was already planning to hit the track this week-end. Well, he supposed he could still do it, hopefully pick up some quick cash.

  Despite the tension of the current circumstances he couldn’t prevent himself from grinning slightly. Hitting the racetracks was, after all, what passed for his job.

  Yes, it was stupid and kind of a cheat, but it was what he did. And he really wasn’t doing anything bad, wasn’t stealing anything. Not technically. After all, someone was going to win, right? All he did was make sure it happened to be him. And whom did that hurt? But he had long ago stopped dwelling on that aspect of things. I mean, he couldn’t let himself be constantly responsible for everybody else, could he? He had to watch out for himself.

  Ok, he admitted, maybe he did cheat, just a little bit. But that wasn’t stealing.

  And it really was the perfect application for his bizarre ability. He just had to use it carefully, not get carried away, that’s all.

  Ever since he’d realized he had this thing, he’d wondered how he could make use of it, and it had finally hit him that time he’d headed down to Atlantic City from where he had been living in Hackensack, up at the grubbier end of the state of New Jersey.

  And it was so simple.

  He would go to some racetrack, greyhounds, trotters or thoroughbreds, it really didn’t matter, and would wait until the running of the first race of the day. They were fast races, usually no more than a couple of minutes. Another minute to post the results. Three minutes or so. If the payout was big enough, or some long shot came in at big odds, he would find a quiet corner, jump back and then make his bets. In a way it was like fishing by knowing exactly where the fish were going to be at exactly the moment the hook dropped into the water above them. You couldn’t miss.

  The only thing he had to be careful about was that doing too many jumps too quickly caused him mind-numbing headaches.

  One time he had capitalized on five unexpected long shots in an eight race card, and by the time he collected the last of his winnings he felt like he would throw up the whole way home.

  That was when he made his first mistake.

  Up until that point he had been careful, always betting moderately, pocketing the majority of his win from each race and only making a limited bet on the next, so that at the end of the day the ten or twenty thousand he’d won had been spread out over numerous races and would go undetected on anyone’s cheating radar. And as long as he rotated tracks on a regular basis, used different betting counters for each race, he was never memorable enough to even be noticed.

  But after that heavy day of jumping he became more cautious about extending himself. So the next time he hit the track he’d lucked into a massive long shot with the first race and decided to bet everything he’d brought with him. The result was almost a hundred thousand. And suddenly he was having to fill out tax forms and getting his name and identity recorded, and he realized he could never return to this particular track.

  That was when he had begun his travels, driving around the country, working his way through the dog tracks in Florida, the various trotter races in the Midwest, and now he had arrived here, in California.

  He had intended to hit Hollywood Park and Santa Anita before moving on to Del Mar. He had been putting it off for some time now and his remaining cash had dwindled considerably. He had just enough put by to make one big killing on a single race and then disappear for a couple of years, maybe head out of the country and see what Europe had to offer in the way of pickings. And racing season was about to end.

  So what to do? How to work his way out of w
hatever complication he’d brought on himself this time?

  He sighed, leaning back in the seat and raising an arm to draw his hand over his face once more.

  Maybe it would be best to just go talk to the cops. He hadn’t done anything really wrong, after all. Maybe he could talk his way out of it. And if he couldn’t, then what? Take off again? Move out of state?

  “Idiot,” he muttered at himself and reached to flick on the radio, instantly flooding the vehicle with loud, jangling rock music. “Mr. Hero,” he said. “Dumb ass.”

  He drove on, into the afternoon.

  Dan rolled the mouse and watched the cursor zip across the screen to the icon for the virtual form in which to record his experiences of the day’s patrol. Another half hour, he told himself, and he could get out of here, maybe get home in time to catch the last quarter of the game on TV.

  The Lieutenant stepped out of his small office, flipping through the manila folder, pausing to scan the pages for snippets and phrases that would provide him with the gist of the many paragraphs of rather unimpressive prose that made up the report.

  “Sinski,” he called over.

  “Yes?”

  “On this liquor store assault, what’s this about the surveillance camera?”

  Dan sighed.

  “It was glitched.”

  “It was what?”

  “The image stopped about two minutes before the assault. Tape was blank after that.”

  “How’d that happen?”

  “I haven’t a clue. Crappy equipment, maybe.”

  The Lieutenant grunted, cast a glance back into the folder.

  “You didn’t talk to the last plate?”

  “No sir. Wasn’t home. Apartment manager’s supposed to call us next time he sees him.”

  “Well, you need to go check it out again in the morning.”

  “Sure thing.”

  “I want to put this one to bed quick.”

  “Right,” Dan responded. “Oh, by the way,” he added, looking up from the screen, “Is the DA gonna violate the victim?”

  “That’s up to him. But it’s a weapons charge so I’d bet yes.”

  “Total dumb ass. He just gets out and the first thing he manages to do is violate himself. How can people be that stupid?”

  “Who knows. But if they weren’t we’d be out of a job.”

  “Right,” Dan added thoughtfully, returning his gaze to the bright white of the empty form on the screen before him.

  It was kind of weird, he pondered again. It’s like the guy who decked him knew Peter Morales was going to hit the store before he ever stepped inside and got the chance to pull his piece. Did he know somehow? Maybe he knew Morales, knew he’d already done who knows how many more stick-ups. A friend, maybe? Pissed off accomplice?

  He looked over to where the other man was already turning languidly to reenter his office.

  “Lieutenant?”

  “Yeah?”

  Dan pondered a moment before speaking.

  “The clerk said something funny. At first I thought it was because of his lousy English, but now…”

  The Lieutenant turned slowly back.

  “That bit about seeing the perp jump across the room a couple minutes before it went down?”

  “Yeah. Only not so much ‘jump’. He said it was like he disappeared from one spot and popped up in another.”

  “What, you think the clerk was maybe smoking something in the back room?”

  Dan shook his head thoughtfully.

  “No, he wasn’t high.”

  Dan turned fully to face his superior.

  “He said that the guy was coming up the aisle on the left toward the counter, where the beer was, and he was starting to get up from his stool to meet the guy at the register, and then the guy was just gone, and a second later, he steps around the right aisle to just inside the door, where the drink coolers were. What do you think that was all about?”

  “Don’t know,” the Lieutenant responded. “Don’t much care. Maybe he’s a magician.”

  “Right. Or a ninja. I hear they can do that kind of thing, too.”

  The Lieutenant folded the report closed.

  “Well, go be enlightened first thing tomorrow, all right?”

  “Yes sir. Should we just bring him in? Let one of the gold shields do the questioning?”

  “Just find out where he was at that time. If it doesn’t feel right, use your own judgment.”

  “Yes sir.”

  The Lieutenant turned and stepped back into his office.

  Dan returned his attention to the still-blank form on the screen before him.

  Finish this one up and get the Hell out of here, he told himself. But maybe, some time tomorrow, swing by the liquor store and get the clerk to clarify what he thinks he saw.

  Dan was the kind of cop who trusted his instincts, and in this case, as ordinary and unspectacular as the aborted robbery was, something just didn’t feel right. In fact, it really felt… creepy. And if there was one thing Dan couldn’t resist, it was creepy.

  He lifted his hands, settling his fingers on the keyboard, and glanced down at his notebook. He began to type.

  2

  A Looming Threat

  Dr. Marvin Henry was a complete geek, and proud of it. He was enjoying his second year as an Associate Professor of Astrophysics at the small, private and very prestigious university and finally beginning his own research, the passion that had gripped him since he’d first heard of the concept in a particularly progressive high school science class. The moment he’d heard about the very concept, his mind had caught fire and he’d dedicated himself to searching for the solution to this new, great mystery.

  It was called Dark Matter, but no one, not even the cosmologists who first postulated its existence, could say what it might be. And no one, ever, in the history of the world, would ever see it, touch it, taste or smell it. Like a black hole, it was beyond viewing directly. In some senses it didn’t even exist in this universe.

  It could only be observed by its effect on things around it. It had first reared its magnificent head when physicists discovered that, in direct contradiction to the laws of motion, the stars at the ends of the spirals that formed the Milky Way galaxy were rotating around the central mass far too rapidly. And the only way they could make the familiar, well-worn mathematics work would be the presence throughout the massive collection of circling stars of more matter than actually could be seen. Stunning amounts of matter. And since the mathematics were never, ever wrong, then that additional mass, perhaps a half dozen times more than could be observed, must be there, existing in a state that somehow placed it beyond our ability to perceive.

  Dark Matter.

  And Marvin wanted to find it.

  Unfortunately such esoteric knowledge held little immediate practical, that is to say, commercial value. So in order to obtain the funding for his own research, he had agreed, along with the University itself, that a very impressive grant from a government agency would allow him to spend a part of his time on his passion, and the balance maintaining an obscure but important observation post on behalf of a little known department of the Pentagon. This not only paid for his research, it also granted him a surprisingly high security clearance and direct contact with some very important people, within the government and without.

  Marvin settled down in the plush swivel chair and reached out to poke the keyboard and start the evening's data collection.

  The computer emitted a small, obedient beep and began compiling. Marvin leaned back and sighed, fixing his attention on one of the bank of computer screens before him.

  He supposed it was, in its own way, a necessary task, though what practical good could come out of it he couldn’t know. Perhaps, he considered, there was one, and even his clearance was not high enough to discover what it might be.

  His eyes flicked to the red phone sitting on the corner of the desk. A smile tugged at the corner of his lips when he considered that he could,
at any time he wished, pick up that phone and a direct connection would be made with a small, continually manned desk somewhere in the Pentagon, just outside Washington, DC. And depending on what he said into the device, he could be walking into the Oval Office of the White House by this time tomorrow, to break the news to the President of the United States that the Earth was doomed.

  The program was kept very quiet, funded out of the seemingly endless and untraceable cookie jar that was the annual United States military budget. Its sole and total purpose was to keep an eye on the Heavens, endlessly watching for any body of significant mass that might unexpectedly decide to direct its course toward the only known world where life existed.

  Data from every major observatory across the planet was, deliberately or unknowingly, feeding pure information into the bank of computers that was the brain behind the screens he now stared at. Every object visible in space, every photograph, every captured radio wave, every reading, came here and was gobbled up by the software that digested it and spit back its conclusions.

  The whole endeavor had only become possible two years ago when a half-crazy computer genius at the university’s computer school developed a program that could do the phenomenal high-speed calculations to make sense of the almost infinite volumes of data pouring into it continually from around the globe.

  It knew, to within millimeters, the current position in space relative to the other bodies of mass in the solar system, of every single celestial object ever observed beyond the planet Earth. It could tell, with uncanny accuracy, the future direction of motion, and speed, of each of those objects. It could even predict exactly when and where one object would encounter another for impressive distances into the future.

  It was, quite literally, the planet’s early warning system for total destruction.

  Marvin recalled the chill that had crawled its way up his spine when he’d learned how small a celestial object could be to guarantee the complete extinction of all life in the world. A chunk of rock, no larger than the island of Manhattan, could slam into the surface at many thousands of miles an hour, literally vaporizing everything it encountered on impact for thousands of miles around. The shock wave and explosion of heat alone would encircle the planet and char everything it encountered to ash. Depending on the density of the rock, it could quite literally shatter the Earth into a drifting cloud of rubble, wheeling through space.