by John Zakour
“Congratulations,” I replied.
“There are seven million young people living in California who are between the ages of thirteen and eighteen.” There are another seven million between the ages of nineteen and twenty-four.”
“Okay,” I said.
“Sexy Sprockets, as you know, is wildly popular with young people ages thirteen through eighteen. She has been popular for five years. Which means that every fan she had during her first year of popularity is now over eighteen.”
“Voting age.”
“Exactly. That’s a base of seven million people right there,” Spierhoofd said. “And as you may know, Ms. Sprockets has some political aspirations.”
“You mean running for governor?”
“So she told you about that?”
“You’re not saying that you seriously think she could win, are you?”
“As I said, she starts with a core base of seven million fans within the state. Add to that any bleed popularity she has in the twenty-something demographic, crossover appeal with virile middle-aged men, dirty old men …”
“And the gay community.”
“She is huge in the gay community. Eighty percent of San Francisco would vote for her on the kitsch factor alone. Put all that together and her winning an election becomes a very real possibility.”
“But Sexy as governor?” I said. “I mean, it’s laughable. The media would have a field day with just the idea of it.”
Spierhoofd sat back in his seat and turned his gaze out the window.
“Zach, I once did a film about a chimpanzee who could invent things.”
“Genius Loves Bananas,” I said nodding. “I remember that one.”
“During my first campaign the monkey who starred opposite me in that film backed my opposition. At a press conference, he threw his own feces at one of my campaign posters.”
“That’s right,” I said, smiling. “That was hilarious. Um, sorry.”
“My campaign was joke material for every late night HV show and every stand-up comedian on the west coast. But two weeks later, I won the election by ten percentage points. My point here is that the voters of New California are intelligent enough to see through the media distortions and make sound, informed choices on election day.”
“What?”
“Oh, I’m sorry,” he said. “That’s one of my prepared campaign lines for press conferences. I went on autopilot for a nano. What I meant to say was that the voters of New California …”
“Are idiots.”
“Exactly. If I became governor under those circumstances then who’s to say that Sexy can’t do the same?”
“So, what does this have to do with Sexy’s death threats?”
“Two months ago a campaign aide of mine prepared an e-paper about the serious threat that Sexy posed to my reelection campaign. The paper was sent to one thousand of my wealthiest and most influential supporters.”
“Why do I not like where this is going?” I said.
“The paper was meant to be a fund-raiser but the language was, shall we say, a little too flowery.”
“How flowery?”
“I believe it referred to Ms. Sprockets as a painted faced harlot bent on destroying all that I had built over the past six years and …”
He paused and took another drag off his cigar.
“And?” I asked.
“And that she must be stopped at all costs. Apparently, one of my supporters took this sentiment a little too seriously.”
“How do you know?”
“Because two weeks ago my office received an electronic letter saying that soon Ms. Sprockets would no longer be a threat to my regime.”
“Your regime?”
“Did I say regime? I meant administration.”
“One of your supporters hired an assassin?”
“That is my belief.”
“Are you certain?”
“In politics, Zach, a wise man can never be certain of anything. But yes, I’m certain.”
“Which supporter?”
“That I don’t know. The e-mail was anonymous. We tried tracing it but had no success. It used very sophisticated masking technology.”
“So it could be any of the thousand supporters?”
“Correct.”
“I’m guessing you didn’t report any of this to the police.”
That question didn’t even warrant an answer. Spierhoofd simply puffed his cigar and blew a couple of near perfect smoke rings.
“And you don’t have copies of the e-mail you received or the paper your aide sent to the donors?”
“They were deleted under the new plausible deniability act that I recently signed into law.”
“Nice coincidence,” I said.
“I do what I can,” he said with a shrug. “I’ve sent your office a list of the supporters to whom the initial paper was sent. That will narrow your list of suspects.”
“Yeah, all the way down to a thousand,” I said. Well, Mr. Governor …”
“I thought we agreed that you’d call me Hans.”
“With all due respect, that was before I knew about all this.”
“Fair enough.”
“I appreciate the heads-up on the assassin and all but since it’s clear that I kind of have my work cut out for me now, maybe you should just let me out here and I’ll catch a cab home.”
Spierhoofd nodded and touched the console again.
“Take us down please, Franz. Mr. Johnson will be getting out here.”
I felt the limo slow and begin its descent. A few nanos later we were on the ground (though my head was still spinning from what I’d just heard).
“Thank you for meeting with me tonight, Zach. I wish you luck in your task.”
“Thanks,” I said, opening the limo door. “One question though. Why are you telling me this now? Why not just let it all play out? Let the police capture the assassin, or even let the assassin kill Sexy. Either way, you’d win.”
“I’m a man of principle, Zach.”
“I can tell.”
“If I let someone kill Ms. Sprockets simply because she’s a pop singer who wants to be governor, then what’s to stop someone from killing another candidate perhaps because he’s black, or Hungarian?”
“Or a former soap star,” I said.
“Exactly. That would lead to anarchy.”
“You’re all heart, Mr. Governor.
I took one last long pull on my beer, set the bottle down on the armrest, and stepped back into the night. The limo door closed gently behind me and the hover took to the air with a whisper. I let the night air wash over me for a few nanos, savoring the serenity. Then HARA’s hologram popped up beside me.
“Want me to flash a little leg and flag down a ride?” she asked.
“I’d rather you tell me that you recorded my conversation with the governor,” I replied.
“You want me to replay the whole thing or just the parts that are felonious?” she asked with a smile.
“You really are getting the hang of this aren’t you?” I asked.
She shrugged her shoulders, gently pushing her red hair up at the sides. It caught the moonlight with its luster and for a nano she looked absolutely radiant.
“A girl’s gotta have a hobby.”
21
I got home a few hours before dawn, crawled into bed, and slept soundly for all of, oh, seven or eight minutes. The rest of the time I spent staring at the ceiling and trying to figure out which of the governor’s supporters had taken out the hit on Sexy. When I did manage to fall asleep, a little after dawn, it didn’t last long because I was awakened by the sound of a break-in. Actually, it wasn’t so much the break-in, just the plain breaking, that woke me up. I heard a crash from downstairs as though something hard had shattered.
“HARA,” I said, opening my eyes. “Did you hear that?”
“Of course I heard it.” HARA responded.
“Is there someone in the house?”
&nb
sp; “Yes.”
“How come the house alarms aren’t going off?”
“That’s a long story.”
“What?”
Break-ins at my house used to be relatively commonplace. My profile, after all is a little high. I have a lot of fans, which makes me popular. I also have a lot of enemies, which ironically also makes me popular.
Unfortunately, popularity doesn’t equal wealth in today’s society, which means that I can’t live in an ultra-secluded neighborhood that’s inaccessible to the general public. So I do the next best thing. I equip my modest (yet comfortable) home with the most ripping edge security technology that Randy can produce (at cost). Most of it is experimental stuff, prototypes, so there are occasionally a few bugs in the system (which is one reason, for instance, why I no longer have a pet). But Randy’s stuff is generations ahead of even the best commercially available security, so I’m usually fairly safe. All that, of course, made me wonder how someone had gotten into my house on that particular morning.
I heard more sounds of destruction from the lower level. This one sounded like glass or ceramics breaking (violently).
“What’s going on?”
“You better go see for yourself,” HARA replied.
“Fine. Where’s my gun?”
“It was dead after last night’s action. It’s still recharging.”
“Where’s the backup then?”
“Trust me, big guy. Your gun won’t help you here.”
More sounds of destruction sounded downstairs.
“What do you mean? Someone is ransacking the downstairs and …” the realization hit me (and the news was worse than I expected). “It’s Electra isn’t it?”
HARA’s hologram appeared at the foot of the bed, dressed only in a holographic replica of one of my button-down shirts. Her hair was a little mussed, as though she’d only just awoken. She nodded as more sounds of breaking stuff wafted up the stairs.
“Okay,” I sighed, rolling out of bed and grabbing my robe. “I guess I should talk to her while I still have some possessions to save.”
“Good idea.”
“And you’re going to need to dress more demurely if you want me to live.”
Where should I begin with Electra?
She’s brilliant. That’s a start. She’s a gifted surgeon with a mind that’s sharper than a laser-honed scalpel. She is astute, well-read, speaks seven languages fluently, and has a heart as big as the hole in the ozone layer. She is beautiful beyond compare; both her face, which is finely sculpted, and her body, which is well-shaped and well-toned. She has great inner strength, which comes from her upbringing in New Costa Rica and great physical strength which comes from her many hours at the gym and at her local dojo where she still hones the kickboxing skill that made her New Central American champion not too many years ago. All in all she is a paragon of humanity, a woman for whom one could only wish and about the best person that I’ve ever known.
Now the downside (it’s short but deadly). She can’t cook. She snores (just a little). She has no interest whatsoever in twen-cen music. And she has a temper. The reason that I don’t own fine furniture is because furniture never lasts long in my house. No matter how well made it may be, it inevitably succumbs to Electra’s volatile and destructive ire.
I came down the stairs and found her in the living room, cracking the arm of my futon couch off the main frame with a vicious side kick.
“I’d offer you some coffee,” I said, “if you haven’t started in on the kitchen yet.”
“I just did the chairs,” she replied, cracking the other arm off the couch. “And some of the dinnerware. I wanted to make sure I had some sharp objects handy.”
Her face was a little flushed and covered with a thin sheen of perspiration, which made her complexion glow. A thin strand of her dark hair dangled over her face and she kept pushing it aside as she destroyed the couch. She was working hard, which meant that, although her outward demeanor was calm, there was some major rage underneath. I swallowed hard and tried to act casual as I ducked into the kitchen and poured two cups of coffee.
“I was actually starting to like that couch,” I hollered to her from the kitchen.
“Good,” she replied and I heard the sound of more polymer cracking.
I took a deep breath and reentered the living room. The couch was now officially in pieces. She hadn’t ripped open the actual futon or anything, but that wasn’t her style (which is the primary reason I bought the couch to begin with).
“Here,” she said, walking toward me with a large piece of the couch’s frame in her hands. “Hold this for me.”
“I’m not going to hold it,” I said.
“I’m going to be kicking in your direction, Chico,” she said. “You can be holding the target or you can be the target. Your choice.”
“Fine,” I said, setting the coffee down on the (still intact) end table.
I held the meter and a half polymer board vertically in my hands and extended my arms to keep it as far away from my face as possible.
“I’m guessing you’ve been watching the entertainment news?” I asked.
Electra did a quick spin kick and snapped the board in two.
“You didn’t tell me you were going to be her bodyguard,” she said.
“Why else would Sexy Sprockets need me?” I asked. “You think she wants me to be her backup singer?”
Electra picked up one of the pieces of the board she’d just broken and handed it to me. I took it and held it out again.
“And, of course, you had to take the job,” she said, cracking the board in half with another kick.
“I’m being sued by the owner of the Kabuki Palace,” I replied. “I need the credits to settle with him. It’s either that or I do the reality series with Rupert Roundtree.”
“Of course,” she said, picking up another of the board pieces and handing it to me. “There’s always a perfectly logical reason for why you have to hang around with a young, beautiful, famous woman.”
“It’s not like I’m alone with her on a desert island or anything,” I said. “She has other bodyguards too.”
“Who are also young and beautiful.”
“Carol’s with me as well.”
“Let’s not even start on that one,” she said, motioning for me to hold the board up.
The once two-meter-long board had been halved and halved again by Electra’s kicks. It was now less than four hundred centimeters long.
“It’s too small to break, honey.”
“Then you better use it as a shield,” she said, winding up.
“This is not my fault!” I said, holding the board and turning away.
Her fist went cleanly through the board and stopped about five centimeters short of my face. I could see a small drop of blood on the knuckle of her index finger.
“That’s right,” she said, fist still in my face. “It’s never your fault.”
And she left without another word.
22
I didn’t move for a few minutes after Electra stormed out; partly because I was afraid to, partly because I half expected her to come back, and partly because I really didn’t know what to say. I screw up a lot when it comes to our relationship. I freely admit that. But this time it seemed to me that she was the one being irrational and, quite frankly, I wasn’t comfortable being the rational one in the relationship. So, like I said, I simply stood there.
“I think she wants you to go after her,” HARA said, appearing beside me, dressed now in her business attire (tight blouse, short skirt, and heels).
“No, she doesn’t,” I said, trying to sound more knowledgeable than I felt. “She wants me to stay here and think about what I’ve done.”
“And what is it you’ve done?”
“DOSsed if I know,” I said. “But I’ll apologize for it when I figure it out.”
I turned around and headed back up the stairs, nearly tripping over the maidbot as it rolled into the living room and
began cleaning up the mess.
“I’m going to need to speak with Sexy to bring her up to date on what we know,” I said. “It looks like I’m going to need to be with her twenty-four/seven for the time being.”
“That will do wonders for your relationship with Dr. Gevada,” HARA quipped, her hologram floating up the stairs in front of me.
“Tell me about it. Have the maidbot pack a few days worth of clothing in a case for me. I’ll throw it in the car. And call the furniture store and order a new couch.”
“You want something sturdier this time?” HARA asked. A small steno notepad and pen appeared in her hand as she took mock notes.
“Get the same model,” I replied. “If Electra can’t bust up the couch, she might take her anger out on me instead. I’m going to take a quick shower and shave. We should be ready to roll in thirty minutes or so.”
“Have you always had that much chest hair?” HARA asked, looking up from her note-taking.
I have to admit, that question sort of stopped me in my tracks. I looked down at my chest, which was somewhat visible through my open robe.
“What?”
“I just don’t remember you having that much hair on your chest before.”
“It’s roughly the same amount as I had yesterday, if that’s what you’re asking.”
“Have you ever thought of having it trimmed?” she asked. “It’s a little thick.”
“I don’t have time for this,” I said, rolling my eyes (and tightening my robe).
“Do you find that women find a hairy chest attractive?”
“HARA!”
“I’m just wondering,” she continued, following me down the upstairs hall. “I would assume that a less hirsute pectoral region would be more pleasing.”
I stopped at the bathroom doorway and turned to her.
“I am showering and shaving … my face!” I said. “I’ll be ready to leave in thirty minutes, at which time, I want no more talk of personal grooming. Understood?”
“You’ll wear a tie though, right?” HARA quipped. “Because I don’t think an open collar would be a good look for you today.”
