Nuclear Town USA

by David Nell

  Humming from above.

  "Next." I lean back, rock myself back and forth.

  "Miranda Holly: suicide."

  I cough, choking on my coffee. A hazy portrait hangs mid-air. Through watering eyes I gape at the data next to the face to make sure I didn't mishear. Why the hell would Agency route a suicide case my way? Thumb to middle then to forefinger and the official police report appears. My eyes dart across the room, absorbing all available information.

  I take in the rapid flickering of lights, let it flow straight to my subconscious engines of understanding. The pieces of the puzzle arrange themselves with great ease in those far-flung corners of my mind. I don't interfere, just scan with the eyes. When I finish taking it all in the structured end product is passed along to my frontal cortex, and realization dawns on me.

  I understand why Agency gave me Miranda Holly.

  Suicides are easy. Solvable with simple mathematics. But this corpse hanging brightly lit before me is no ordinary suicide.

  Two taps of the thumbs and it's just her head now. The quality is bad, scarce pixilation at the edges, but I can make out her half-closed eyes. Gooseflesh all up my back. It's the strangest pair of dead eyes. No sadness. No fear. I gaze with deader eyes than hers, spellbound.

  My finger twitches to notify Agency. Moments later, a conformational balloon is projected on the air: the case is officially mine. I wait out the streaming of additional information.

  "I've updated your schedule," Descartes says. "You have a funeral to attend tomorrow at 5:30AM."

  I gulp down my second cup of coffee while reading the newly received package.

  Descartes bleeps. It's late and I have to get some sleep. I get up, wave my hand to Descartes, hear him shut all systems down, and drag myself to my bedroom.

  In the empty room a single bed with ruffled sheets waits for me. I fish out a melatonin tab from my back pocket and put it under my tongue.

  I sling myself over the bed like a wrung-out towel, not bothering to undress. The metallic legs creak under my weight. I bury my head in the pillow but all I find there are Miranda Holly's dead eyes. Eyes looking happier than I've ever been in my entire life.

  The robot's legs trudge along the cracked tarmac, shifting weight through micro actuators to compensate for the road's slight sloping. The robot's eyes are mine too, and I use them to gaze across the stretching garden of gray stones. Heaps of flowers rot away next to names in marble.

  We are a thin line of mourners following a hearse, the gloom of the unborn day all around us.

  Behind the humming vehicle walks the immediate family. Her father's eyes are nested in a craggy worn out face, his hands clasped before him. He brushes his handlebar moustache every few steps. Miranda's mother walks next to him, her head wrapped in a black scarf. Both look older than I'd imagined them.

  Second in line is Miranda's sister, Flora, the person who first suspected the conclusions of the police department. The suicide part she agrees with but from what I read in the addendum to the case, she senses something deliberately led her sister astray. She's the submitter of the case to the Agency. Technically, she's my employer. She wears a black gown and a tilted wide-brimmed felt hat with a single gray feather on its side.

  Right behind her is Miranda's cousin. He's a young, sullen boy, hugging a wooden cross almost as big as his torso. The original spelling of Miranda Holly's name is written on the cross in big Cyrillic letters. I notice additional letters. Her parents must've altered her name when the Holly family emigrated from Eastern Europe.

  Behind the cross-bearer is the shuffling crowd, walking two by two, murmuring prayers or looking abstractedly across the graveyard, their contours outlined by the paleness of dawn.

  I walk last in line, behind the entirety of Miranda Holly's family, observing everything.

  Pine trees of human height flank the road which is to lead us to her grave. We walk in silence, slowly.

  I look down and notice the robot's body is appropriately dressed. Even my arms are painted matte black to avoid the usual metallic sheen some might find incongruous at a funeral. A white rose is lodged in my right hand. It comes with each rented body. The agreement's to observe the proceedings from the side so as not to disturb the family, so I don't think I'll manage to get close to the grave. I slow my pace and toss the rose over the pines. Out of a corner of the robot's eye I see it land and break in two on a tombstone.

  Earlier in the morning Flora slipped into the barn where my body was charging up. She grabbed my wrist, her face near mine.

  "Pay attention to everything," she whispered, eyes shifting left and right to the rows of powered down telepresence robots. "I want you to learn as much as you can about her."

  The hearse turns right and the slope evens out. We follow it for a few more minutes until it stops right before the narrow asphalt road gives way to a gravel path.

  The driver walks out and whispers to the mother and father. I zoom in on his lips but don't bother to interpret what he's saying. I'll leave that for the hours of detailed footage analysis. The parents nod. The father pulls out a handkerchief, blows his nose and sticks it back in his front pocket.

  A loud crash. Startled, the cousin almost lets the large cross slip through his hands. The family shuffles about, looking around at what ruptured the silence.

  A claw rises with a grinding sound from the hearse like an abomination. It clicks into place. A grapple descends over the coffin, its prying fingers latch onto little hooks on the lid's side. The gears shift loudly as the winch begins pulling.

  The family parts before the airborne coffin. They gasp as it sways precariously and Miranda's father nervously blows his nose again. The grapple manoeuvres it towards an open grave and gingerly places it on the mound next to the hole.

  The parents approach. A priest draped in black cloth steps out of the vehicle now, clutching the bible.

  He walks to the grave, his robe swaying sideways. The family pulls closer and everyone gathers their shoulders to make room. The priest makes the sign of the cross and a moment later so does everyone else.

  He has a long wavy beard and wears a cylinder hat. He begins to speak in a language I don't understand. Some of the family members cry, others nod silently.

  I steal a glance up at the clear sky. A black wave soars through the dark blue. The bird circles above our heads, wondering. A little bitterness trickles down my throat – bits of the antidepressant pills I took this morning.

  Two flaps of its wings and the majestic bird dives out of sight into the deciduous forest uphill. The sun's soon about to claw out of the horizon, ready to burn.

  While the priest speaks and sings the grappling hook hangs over their heads like the devil's hand. Behind the robot's face I smile.

  When the priest's sermon is done, the gears kick into motion again. People take a step back. The hook's fingers stretch out. It descends on the coffin, picks it up from the mound then gently lowers it into its hole – Miranda Holly's eternal resting place.

  The mechanism retreats back into the hearse and the driver walks in and drives off, leaving the entire family to mourn in peace. The father picks up a rock from the pile, casts it in the hole. One by one, they all line up, throw a piece of dirt over the coffin, cross themselves then file out.

  Two old ladies wait for them on the side, treys in hand, serving a strong alcoholic beverage along with lumps of wheat. The mourning family drinks, toasts, chews on the wheat. The sun's fierceness is starting to make a presence. Everyone's forehead is sprinkled with sweat but mine. Miranda's father goes from person to person to receive condolences. Shuffling about, he dabs his face with the handkerchief and sometimes blows his nose.

  Only her mother is silent. She sits slouched on the marble of a neighboring grave as she watches the workers bury her daughter one indifferent swing of the shovel at a time.

  Flora's gaze meets mine from out the crowd. She nods at me. I nod back. I've seen enough. The robot's body switches to autopilot on my c
ommand then turns around and heads back for the barn to be recharged.

  I remove my helmet. Moiré patterns flicker on its display. One by one I yank out the thimbles. My eyes struggle to adjust to the sudden shift of lightning. The dimness and lifelessness of my workroom make me wish I was back at the funeral. A bolt of pain sears through my temples. The goddamn display resolution. It's too low for prolonged VR.

  I stand up, stretch my legs. A few visual gestures for Descartes so he makes a backup of the recording to the external storage device and I stroll out of the room.

  The overhead light brightens with a ping when I enter the kitchen. Stooped over the Fabber, I click about, looking for a decent pill. I rub my forehead with two fingers while I scour the menus. I click the brand I always take. Red flashes over the screen. Shit. My license has expired two weeks ago.

  "Descartes," I groan, "find me some free head pills."

  He chirps in acknowledgment.

  A brief moment later, he says, "OpenNSAID, developed by HackPharm, an open-sourced Non Steroid–"

  "Download it."

  Descartes relays the downloaded code to the machine and the Fabber hums into motion. It starts whistling like a kettle. Gradually, the noise dies down, and the machine spits out a white pill.

  Without thinking I pop it in my mouth and wash it down with cold water.

  I sit my ass back in my working chair, prodding a finger through the icon of the video recording. In a corner of the room the entire funeral plays back. I swipe my hand diagonally, dragging the video towards my customized analysis software.

  It boots up, shifts the video feed to the background. The software's to scour it for faces, sounds and actions which it then catalogues in a neat database. Rectangular notifications pop up to inform me of new data that it finds. The software translates speech and gestures too and cross-references them in the database to specific faces and sounds.

  I'm not entirely sure what Flora wants me to find or learn from all this. Somehow, I think she just wanted me there. The person investigating her death should pay respects, too.

  While the software goes through the footage, I decide to dredge the networks for any trace of Miranda's online activity.

  First stop's the Streamer, a life streaming and socializing service everyone's using nowadays. I know she has an account. The username and password came with the documents. Her account has been shut down when the company received the death certificate but the data's still in their data banks. We have about a week before the company wipes it all clean.

  I connect to the service.

  "You don't seem to have a Streamer account." A wide toothy grin spreads across my room.

  "Fuck you." I don't need a shitty Streamer account. I'm chained to my devices enough as is.

  The Cheshire grin withers away. A nondescript form strolls into view and I feed it the user/pass combo. The system recognizes the special case so it sends me straight to the data files where an ominous counter in the upper corner counts out the days to deletion. The system offers to transmit them to my machine and I accept. A fluorescent snail pops up, blazing a trail of green slime from one wall to another. Upon the transfer's completion the snail dives in the wall, never to be seen again.

  I flick through her events, moments of the day she'd deemed important enough to share with the world.

  There's the usual night out with the girls hyperlinked to a bar's address. I click on it. Photos of the event spring out. She's drinking cocktails with friends. Toasting. Drinking. Two girls, one blonde, the other of Indian descent. I recognize them from this morning. I make a circle with my hand, select their photos, drag them to my secure case folder. The footage analyzer pings – it's correlated the two girls with faces from the recording. I extract their names from the photos and store that in my folder, too. In the information gathering phase one knows nothing and everything's important.

  A swipe of the hand brings me back to her lifestream. Scrolling down, I see several similar events, and I go through them, too, saving all new data.

  Next I check the messages. Privacy safeguards prevent me from accessing certain messages she'd flagged as secret, but I notice those are few and far between.

  My eyes dart across the message list, skimming those that seem trivial. Most are between her and her two friends, colleagues from Vertex Software – the company where she worked as a programmer – on the subject of that night's bar location or the previous night's nasty looking guys.

  I stop at a message from three days before her suicide. The letters shine like fireflies in the dim room.

  Monday, 8:43PM: Mimi, are you gonna go out with us or what? Are you avoiding us? Will you please just let that bullshit go and come with us and have a drink or some K and just loosen up!

  The content of the next few messages is in the same vein.

  Tuesday, 7:33PM: Jesus Mimi, why aren't you returning my calls? I've been pinging you all day. Even called your desk they said you aren't there but I know you're avoiding me.

  Tuesday, 10:34PM: Just so you know I'm with Jess and we're having a great time at Dexter's. We don't know what's gotten into you but if you feel like coming over, please do. Jess says she won't be sorry if there isn't a pop of K for you if you do though.

  There are no more messages from her two friends after that. There's one last item in the messages section, this time in the sent folder.

  Thursday, 3:21AM: Sorry I've been a bad friend, guys. I'm a bit sad and a bit angry now. Seriously. I don't want to be defined by voyeuristic assholes. Anyways, sorry for being such a mess lately, everything's been kind of chaotic. I'll miss you and I know you'll miss me too, but I have to set myself free. Love you.

  Miranda Holly's last words scroll before my eyes as I drag them to my case folder. The message reads 3:21 AM so this is minutes before she injected that shit into her veins and turned her brain to soup. The coroner's report stated that not a single synaptic connection had remained intact. There wasn't even a way to save her mind. The police reports state that shooting Mush is a very unconventional way to off oneself but that it's gotten somewhat popular recently.

  I summon an agent to comb through the nets for voyeur and suicide and define and all permutations of the words, in case there's a new cult on the block I haven't heard about but it quickly returns empty handed.

  Her two friends' faces float before me. Jessica Bates and Vera Abburi. It's very clear that talking to them is my next move.

  I stretch my arms. It's coffee time.

  But something's weird. I cock my head to the side, furrow my brows. There's an eerie silence. It's been like this for some time now. Maybe the last half hour or so. It shouldn't be silent. My palms on the desk, I look around, trying to pinpoint the change that's making me so uncomfortable. All looks the same. A wave of hot air wafts over my head and shoulders, my neck, back, and the rest of my body. I shiver.

  The goddamned AC. The ubiquitous humming is gone.

  I look up at the ceiling grille. Climbing on my chair, I wave a hand back and forth to see if there's any circulation. Nothing.

  My chest constricts. Invisible hands gently wrap themselves around my neck, their grip tightening with every breath. Yellow blemishes appear before my eyes.

  I prance out of the room, see if it's any better in the kitchen. It isn't. My bedroom's the same. Hot stale stifling air everywhere.

  Shit.

  Okay. Calm down.

  I take a few tentative breaths. Breathe in. I should notify maintenance. Breathe out. They'll send that David or Darren or whatever like they always do. Breathe in.

  "Descartes." Breathe out. "Get me maintenance on the line."

  Breathe in.

  No biggie. Breathe out.

  The line chirps and I sense someone on the other end. Breathe in. I tell them about the AC.

  Breathe out.

  They'll send a guy in twenty minutes. Breathe in. A minor malfunction.

  Nothing to do but wait it out. Breathe out.

  The gu
y they sent isn't David or Darren. Some new worker barely above twenty's checking out the circuit boards in my condo while I draw in slow hot breaths, slumped over the aluminium kitchen table.

  The main circuitry is buried in the kitchen walls behind the cabinets, and he's on his knees, one hand probing its way up to the elbow. The cabinets are set aside and I'm a bit ashamed of the mould and dirt they revealed. His cheeks are puffed, his face red as he's straining to find the right cable. I watch, listless.

  His hand wriggles some more and then pulls out a rainbow ribbon cable attached to a rectangular connector. He licks his lips eagerly, disconnecting the two. Gaze drifting across my kitchen he counts out the seconds in silence, then sticks the rainbow cable back into the connector.

  He gets up, wiping sweat off his glistening forehead with a sleeve. "It's done," he says. "Reboot the software."

  He stands in the doorframe, replacing his network analyzer in the belt loop around his olive overalls.

  "Descartes, reboot the AC," I say.

  We hear the system power down, then, a moment later the humming returns. I close my eyes, tilt my head back in the cool breeze.

  "Oh, man, thank you."

  He grins, showing incredibly white teeth. Little dimples appear in his cheeks.

  I escort him to the door of my condo.

  "Let me get my card."

  He waves me off. "Oh, no need, it was completely our fault. Everyone above floor hundred and two had it."