The Radioactive Redhead with The Peach-Blonde Bomber

by John Zakour

  “Okay,” I said. “But don’t put all three of them at the same table.”

  “A fine idea,” HARV said.

  We heard the sound of distant thunder then, which struck me as odd since the early evening sky was completely cloudless. It seemed to make HARV a little uncomfortable as well.

  “And, um, have I mentioned yet, that you’ll be checking out this evening?” he asked.

  “No,” I said. “You skipped that part.”

  “What’s going on?” Electra asked.

  “Well, you see, it’s kind of a funny story really.”

  “You mean funny-haha or funny-odd?”

  “Both actually. It seems that the pilot episode of Let’s Kill Zach was pirated and illegally put on the net.”

  “Oh, no.”

  “It’s become sort of a cult hit, especially here in Costa Rica,” HARV continued. “So much so that the premier Latin American network, Holomundo, is planning a Costa Rican version. It’s called Matemos a Zach.”

  The rumbling sound grew louder and it was clear to us now that it wasn’t thunder. It was coming from the forest to the south.

  “Oh, well,” Electra sighed, getting to her feet and tying a wrap skirt around her bathing suit. “It was fun while it lasted. But I was getting a little homesick anyway.”

  Our hovercraft, with HARV remotely piloting, pulled up neatly beside our lounge chairs. I slowly got to my feet and limped toward the passenger seat.

  “Yeah,” I said. “I get a little antsy if I go too long without someone trying to kill me. Matemos a Zach did you say?”

  “Correct,” HARV said as he held the hover door open for me. “The show was to be very representative of the Costa Rican culture. In the first episode, droids were going to be pelting you with spherical granite bolas.”

  I settled into the hover and fastened my seat belt as Electra revved the engine.

  “Sounds like first rate entertainment,” I said. “It’s a shame we’ll miss it.”

  Electra gunned the hover and we sped off down the beach, a cloud of pure white sand in our wake and bloodthirsty reality show producers on our tail.

  “By the way,” HARV said, his hologram leaning forward in the rear seat of the hover, “did I mention that I plan on bringing a date to your wedding?”

  “A date?”

  “I’m allowed, aren’t I?”

  “Of course you are, HARV,” Electra said.

  “Good. His name’s Guy,” HARV said. “He’s a fashion model from New Milan.”

  “Guy?”

  “I realized recently that I prefer men,” HARV said. “That’s not a problem, is it?”

  I smiled, eased the hoverseat back just a bit, and watched the sun set a glorious red and orange over the sea.

  “No problem at all, buddy. No problem at all.”

  My name is Zachary Nixon Johnson. I am the last private detective on Earth.

  And my life rocks!

  The Peach-Blonde Bomber

  The Peach-Blonde Bomber

  The late night sky above the city was clear with a sultry breeze coming in from the New Frisco bay. The stars were out in the pre-dawn sky, their cool white lights only somewhat muted by the neon and halogen glare of the city itself. Yes, a lovely night all around…

  Unless of course, you were careening through a windmill forest in a speeding hovercraft at ninety kilometers per hour racing toward a wind turbine eighty meters in the air. That kind of thing sort of kills the mood pretty quickly.

  “Can you please at least try to keep this thing steady, HARV?”

  “We’re not doing this in a vacuum, boss. I can’t control the wind-currents coming in from the bay, and I’m not the one that brought the high pressure front in from the Northwest. I’m also not the one who over-ruled my suggestion of retro-fitting this hover with military grade stabilizers.”

  “Yeah, I’m regretting that a little now. Look out!”

  HARV banked the hover hard to the right to avoid an oncoming laser blast and then spun the craft up and over as we sped past the body of a massive windmill tree. My stomach sort of went up and over as well, if you know what I mean, and I had to choke back what I think was part of my lunch.

  “At least ease up on the barrel-rolls,” I said.

  “Aileron rolls.”

  “What?”

  “The aerial maneuver of a full 360 degree revolution around the craft’s horizontal axis while maintaining an uninterrupted horizontal path is called an aileron roll. A barrel roll is a maneuver that takes the craft in a helical or corkscrew path along the line of direction. It’s a common mistake made by those unfamiliar with aerial combat.”

  “Frankly, I’m not appreciating the difference at the nano.”

  “I didn’t think you would. But I’m incapable of ignoring such an obvious erroneous reference.”

  “Of course you are.” I grumbled.

  Okay, I’m getting ahead of myself here, I know. But stories like this are won or lost with the opening hook, so I had to make that first bit worth the price of admission. Hopefully I have your attention now so let me back up a little and fill in the backstory. My name is Zachary Nixon Johnson and I am the last private eye on earth. That’s an interesting title, I know and I’m sorry to say that I can’t take the time right now to explain it all to you. So you’ll just have to take my word for it so we can move things along.

  The year is 2056 and I consider the human species to be currently going through its gawky adolescent phase. We’re smart, developing, and on the verge of maturing into something brilliant. Unfortunately for us we’re still clumsy, irresponsible and driven more by our hormones than our common sense.

  My home turf is the city of New Frisco. It is a city full of wonder and spectacle, an art-deco themed real-life metaphor for the world itself. Gloriously sculpted skyscrapers and air-highways define the skyline while pockets of crime, corruption and the rest of society’s ills lay unseen in the shadows. Yeah, we have our share of humankind’s dark elements. That stuff never completely goes away. But I guess I shouldn’t complain. That’s what keeps me in business after all. People always have problems that need solving and when the problem is complicated, dangerous, bizarre or any combination of the three well, that’s when they call me.

  This particular day began simple enough. I took a meeting at the home offices of an alternative energy company called Big Blow, Inc. They specialized in, you guessed it, windmill technology and wind power. Lately they’d been having troubles with cats in their trees. That’s slang of course. In the vernacular of 2056, the phrase “cat in a tree” refers to an energy thief staging a hack attack on a wind turbine tower.

  In New Frisco, the land along the old Cabrillo Highway by the ocean is lined with over four hundred wind turbine towers. They’re massive, multi-armed windmill trees that spin crazily in the Pacific winds twenty-four/seven, three sixty-five, pumping gig after wind-fueled gig into the city’s grateful yet ever hungrier power grid. The trouble is that juice-craving junkies have started tapping the lines to siphon off the energy and sell it on the black market. It’s called “catting.”

  Catting is primarily a thrill-seeker crime. The people who resort to it are the outdoorsy types who have gotten bored with things like sky-surfing, para-gliding and free-fall ping-pong. They are thieves looking for adrenalin as much as electricity, which is why they’ll scale a 100 meter tower with a hack pack just to pilfer a few gigs of juice (often making their escape via jet-pack or hover board). It’s not the kind of case that I usually get offered, or one that can afford my fee, so I was curious as to why they were calling me about this. But it had been a slow month and I felt the need get out of the office.

  The Big Blow offices were in a high rise downtown. The windmills on the rooftop made it easy to find. My meeting was with the company’s founder and CEO, Jouldphaart Gundervson. And in the elevator on the way up, HARV ran through background with me as he does at the start of every case.

  “Gundervson has run the
company since its inception over forty years ago,” HARV said, his computerized voice only slightly tinny as it emanated from the computer interface that I wear on my wrist. “He was born in the Netherlands in 1972. He built his first windmill in New Frisco in 2016. The company now holds the wind-power contracts for all of New California and has an estimated worth of a billion credits.”

  “He sounds like an enterprising guy.”

  “On the face of it, yes,” HARV replied. “But upon closer look, he’s clearly not that savvy a business person.”

  “How do you mean?”

  “He’s kept the focus of the corporation entirely on wind energy,” HARV replied, “never branching out into other forms of energy production such as solar or geo-thermal as many of his competitors have done. As a result, other companies have surpassed Big Blow in value, market share and industry influence.”

  “Maybe the guy just likes windmills.”

  “Too bad it’s to his detriment. Looking at the company’s earnings versus debt ratio, Big Blow would be a ripe target for a hostile takeover by any of its larger competitors.”

  “Well, let’s just hope our business with them is wrapped up by then,” I said.

  HARV, by the way, is my AI assistant, although he’d probably take offense at that description: the use of “artificial” as a modifier of his intelligence as much as the “assistant” part. He’s a mega computer, created by a good friend of mine. He is perhaps the most advanced computer on the planet and, as you can imagine he helps me out quite a lot. No one does research or can dig up dirt like HARV. He’s tapped into every public database on the planet and can hack his way into most of the private ones. There isn’t a lot of information that can hide from him for very long which, as I’m sure you can imagine, is quite a boon to a private eye.

  I like to think that the reason HARV is currently in my service is that I’m the only one who can stand him (he can get pretty annoying at times). But part of me thinks, oddly, that the reason he works with me is because he likes me.

  I connect remotely with HARV through various computer interfaces. He can easily patch into any interface nearby (and in today’s world, there’s never a shortage). The most convenient interface though is the one I wear on my wrist, as was the case at that particular nano. It lacks a little in privacy but it does the trick.

  * * *

  I cast another glance at the screen of the interface and scanned through the basic information that HARV had listed for me. But it was hard to get past Gundervson’s first name.

  Jouldphaart.

  “So Gundervson is Dutch,” I said, scanning the data printout on the interface screen. “That explains the name, I guess. The first name is a sort of a head-scratcher though. Yald-phairt?”

  “Not quite,” HARV said. “The J is silent and the o-u is traditionally pronounced as a long o. Also the double a is meant to be more of an ‘ah’ sound”

  “So it’s…Old-phart?

  “Unfortunately, yes,” HARV replied.

  “Really?”

  “Really.”

  “The guy’s name is old-fart?”

  “It is an unfortunate translation.”

  “Old-Fart Gundervson?

  “Yes, his name is Old-Fart,” HARV said with a little annoyance. “Now can you at least pretend you have more maturity than a ten year old and prepare yourself for the meeting? We’ve arrived at our floor.”

  “No promises,” I said with a snicker. “Old fart.”

  “Oh, please” HARV sighed. “This from a man named Johnson.”

  I like to keep HARV hidden from most people, especially clients, so he keeps quiet in most meetings, even though he’s always active, aware, and recording most things. So, as I sat in Gundervson’s office, I knew HARV was keeping a watchful eye over everything.

  The office itself was spacious and well-appointed with fine furniture and décor. It was, however, a little eclectic; largely because it was filled with windmills of all shapes and designs from various eras of history. There must have been over a hundred of them in the office altogether and all of them were spinning. Most of the windmills were models but a few of them were actually power generating. One was connected to the computer, another to the wall screens and several others powered the office lights. Of course the windmills could only generate power if they had sufficient wind so the building’s ventilation system was cranked up pretty high. As a result, the office was a little on the breezy side (you know kind of like how a sewer is a little on the smelly side).

  Gundervson was a tall, thin man, relatively spry for his age, with a full head of white hair and a thick white mustache. He wore a finely tailored suit with a bow tie that had four loops rather than two. I realized after a nano that it was shaped like the four sails of a nineteenth century windmill. Yes, Mr. Gundervson definitely had his eccentricities.

  The surprise was that Gundervson wasn’t alone. A beautiful young woman stood beside him in the office as I entered. She was tall and curvaceous, with thick blonde shoulder-length hair the color of pale gold. The creamy white skin of her face accentuated the blue of her eyes and the fullness of her lips. The tight ivory sleeveless dress that she wore accentuated everything else. Actually, the word beautiful doesn’t really do her justice but I’m going to stick with it for now.

  Gundervson introduced her to me as his granddaughter, Inga Ayeffuul (pronounced eye-full, which was appropriate). Although Gundervson was the acting CEO of the company, Inga worked as the executive VP and ran the day to day business. And it was clear as we spoke that Inga definitely was the real deal. She was poised, intelligent, well-spoken and fully aware that she was all of the above. She was also a bit of a flirt, which had me both flattered and worried.

  Once we dispensed with the small talk and pleasantries, we moved on to business.

  “So Mr. Gundervson…”

  “Please, call me Old Fart,” he said.

  “I’d honestly rather not. Let’s um, just keep it professional for now.”

  “So you’ll call me Ms. Eye-full then?” Inga asked, a coy smile playing at the edge of her lips.

  “I…will if you want me to, I suppose.”

  She smiled fully now, clearly enjoying my discomfort.

  “Call me Inga, please, Mr. Johnson. It will be less awkward for both of us.”

  “Agreed. And you can call me Zach,” I said with more than a little relief. “But let’s talk about your catting problem.”

  “It’s not really a catting problem, I’m afraid,” Gundervson said. “It’s much more serious than that.”

  “How much more serious?”

  “It’s terrorism,” Inga said.

  “Inga, please,” Gundervson chided.

  “Let’s call it what it is, Grandfather,” she said firmly. “One of the reasons that we’ve reached this point is that you’ve refused to acknowledge the problem.”

  “Now is not the time for that discussion,” Gundervson replied, a little angrily.

  “Why don’t we start at the beginning,” I said.

  Gundervson sighed. “Three weeks ago one of the Cabrillo windmill trees was catted and then exploded. We thought at first that it was some kind of malfunction. However, another tree was destroyed in the same manner the following week and two more the week after that.”

  “Our investigators have found traces of explosives at the sites,” Inga added. “Q-5 plastique, military grade.”

  “That’s pretty serious stuff,” I said. “How come I haven’t heard about any of this in the news?”

  “We’ve kept the incidents quiet for…a number of reasons,” Gundervson replied. “We’ve reported them to the authorities as overloads caused by unusually high demand from the power grid. We’ve been cleaning up and replacing the trees quickly in order to make things look like routine maintenance rather than…”

  “Rather than the catastrophe that it is,” Inga added.

  “Inga.”

  “If word gets out that Big Blow is under this kind of
sustained attack, the city will drop our contract,” Inga said, turning to me. “And if the New Frisco contract fails then other contracts will follow. This could ruin us.”

  “We need you to find the bomber, Mr. Johnson,” Gundervson added, “and quietly end this.”

  “Do you have surveillance footage from any of the incidents? Something that would help us narrow down the list of suspects.”

  Gundervson frowned and turned away. “That won’t be necessary,” he said.

  “Unfortunately, we know who the bomber is,” Inga added.

  “What?”

  Gundervson sighed and hit a switch on the console. A fan popped up from a hidden chamber in the table and began blowing air onto a small table-top windmill at the table center. The windmill began to spin wildly, powering up a holographic projector.

  “You, uh, really like wind power, huh?” I said.

  Gundervson ignored me as holographic images came into view before us. They showed a young woman, about the same age as Inga, although far less glamorous. She was dressed in blue overall knickers, with a long sleeve light blue shirt beneath. She wore white knee socks, crazy pointed shoes and a dark blue painter’s cap covering a cascade of hair that was an odd shade of orange.

  “I take it you know who that is?” I asked.

  The words were clearly painful for Gundervson to say.

  “That is Enga.”

  “Inga?”

  “Enga, my granddaughter.”

  I pointed toward Inga beside me.

  “I thought this was your granddaughter, Inga.”

  “She is.”

  “Then who’s that?”

  “That’s Enga.”

  “Inga?”

  “Enga.”

  “Inga?”

  “Enga.”

  “Inga?”

  “I’m Inga,” Inga said, rolling her eyes and annunciating clearly. “That is Enga. She’s my twin sister.”

  “Your sister is the bomber?”

  “We may be twins but we clearly have our differences,” Inga said.

  “I’ll say.”

  “Enga has always been a bit of a rebel,” Gundervson said. “She’s misguided. Like a windmill with a broken sail.”