The Radioactive Redhead with The Peach-Blonde Bomber

by John Zakour

  The OLED light on the gun flashed green again in recognition of my voice command and I aimed and fired at the glam-die as it came to rest on the floor of the hallway just outside the doorway. The gun shot a blast of electricity across the room that enveloped the die and triggered its payload.

  I shielded my eyes with my arm as the die exploded in the hallway letting loose a silent but intense blast of light. The goons yelled in surprise, which I took as my cue to, eyes still covered, get up and run toward the doorway.

  The effect lasted only a few nanos but it was enough for me to reach the doorway and by the time the light faded, the goons were still off balance and disoriented, which gave me the perfect chance to end things quickly.

  “Heavy stun.”

  The light on my gun flashed again and I fired off three high-powered stun blasts, knocking the three goons out of their knickers (figuratively speaking) as I made a b-line for the exit.

  “Start the car, HARV, and bring it to the entrance.”

  “Done and done, Boss,” HARV said. “Be careful not to hurt yourself on the stickshift when you jump in. Your bruise from the last such escape hasn’t fully healed yet.”

  “Shut up, HARV. You’re killing the moment.”

  * * *

  The firefight with the goons left me with a bit of a moral quandary. I couldn’t call the police on them because they were likely to implicate Enga in the bombings and like it or not, I’d promised Gundervson that I’d keep this quiet for as long as possible. It’s not likely that the police could have held them for very long anyway since there were no actual explosives in the storage unit. And now, of course, Enga would know that someone was looking for her. The goons were definitely a loose end that I didn’t have time to deal with at that nano, especially because all indications were that Enga had built more bombs. Worse still, she had removed the bombs from the storage unit. That meant that she was either storing them somewhere else or, worse, was planning to use them soon. Either way, I knew that we had to find her quickly.

  I let HARV pilot the car while I checked myself for injuries (most of which, thankfully, were minor). As he drove, HARV gave me the rest of the background information he’d dug up on Enga, again flashing visuals onto the car’s interface screen as he spoke.

  “Enga’s formal education is in ecology and environmental science,” he said. “She also received a degree in romance fiction and comparative literature.”

  “That’s an interesting mix. Has she been in trouble in the past?”

  “A number of arrests over the years; shoplifting, disorderly conduct, resisting arrest, 4D graffiti.”

  “4D?”

  “It has a smell.”

  “Sounds like she was working through some anger issues. No jail time, I take it?”

  “Probation mostly. She had good attorneys.”

  “Thanks to her grandfather,” I said. “Any idea what might have caused the rift between her and Gundervson?”

  “My guess is that it was the politics of energy.”

  “Meaning what exactly?”

  “Inga and Enga came from a mixed marriage,” HARV replied. “Their mother Sigurd, Gundervson’s daughter, was a Windy, a proponent of wind power.”

  “Not surprising.”

  “Their father, Gunther Ayeffuul was a Sunny.”

  “A solar energy enthusiast. I take it that Windys and Sunnys don’t get along?”

  “Alas,” HARV said. “They are like the Capulets and Montagues of the renewable energy world.”

  “Or the Klingons and the Romulans.”

  “If you wish. According to the divorce court documents, conflict over energy philosophies is what ultimately ended Sigurd and Gunther’s marriage. The divorce was not a friendly one.”

  “And the children were caught in the middle.”

  “Exactly,” HARV said. “Inga was more closely associated with her mother…”

  “And Enga with her father. What happened to the parents?”

  “Gunther and Sigurd tried to reconcile two years after the divorce but died tragically when the windmill of the house they were in caught fire and collapsed on the living structure, crushing both of them beneath the fiery rubble.”

  “I can see why Enga has a dislike of windmills,” I said.

  “Both daughters came to live with their grandfather at the age of eight. The behavioral problems with Enga began shortly thereafter.”

  HARV flashed one more picture of Enga onto the car’s interface as he finished speaking. It was a close-up of her taken just under six months ago. She was outdoors, walking along a street on a sunny day. Her face was turned up toward the sky and the sun gave her orange hair and her face a nice glow. She wasn’t exactly smiling but she definitely wasn’t her usual dour self. Actually, in this photo she seemed kind of innocent. Yes, her eyes showed some traces of anger, but that was understandable. The kid had been through a lot after all. And yet beneath her angry expressions and the crazy orange hair, I was pretty sure I saw something else. I just didn’t know what it was yet.

  “So, what’s with the hair color?” I asked.

  “A symbol of rebellion, perhaps?”

  “What color is that even? Puce?”

  “It’s more apricot, I think.”

  “No. Not apricot. Maybe tangerine?”

  “Perhaps papaya whip?”

  “Is that even a color?”

  “Regretfully, yes,” HARV replied. “It’s all the rage in New Paris these days. Albeit not as a hair color. Actually, I checked the color against the pantone scale. Officially it’s peach.”

  I stared at the picture a nano longer before it finally disappeared from the screen.

  “I don’t like it,” I said.

  “What, the hair color?”

  “Well, yeah. But that’s not what I mean. Enga has a history of being angry and rebellious but never this violent. Why suddenly now?”

  “Perhaps she’s kept her violent nature repressed all this time and something recently triggered it.”

  “Either way,” I said. “We need to find her soon.”

  “And how exactly do we do that?” HARV asked.

  I pulled the remaining glam-dice from my pocket and held it up gently to the light of day.

  “We start by visiting the man who loaded the dice.”

  * * *

  It didn’t take long to figure out where the glam-dice came from. There aren’t that many bootleg arms-makers in New Frisco. And glam-dice are kind of a specialized item. I had my suspicions but HARV confirmed them by checking the construction of the chips and comparing it to other illegal weapons evidence from the New Frisco Police database. All signs pointed to Bingo Jones.

  Bingo is an old-timer in the New Frisco underbelly, not exactly a criminal but a criminal supplier. He swears to me every spring that he’s turning over a new leaf and going straight. Somehow though every fall he winds up back on the wrong side of the law. He’s like a criminal equivalent of daylight savings time.

  His latest storefront was in New Chinatown in the alley behind a store specializing in Asian herbs and delicacies. I had to buy a kilo of cod milt (don’t ask) and 100 grams of fatt choy (seriously, don’ ask) before the lady at the counter would let me through. The doorway to Bingo’s workshop was reinforced polymer but I managed to knock loud enough for him to hear me.

  “Open up, Bingo. It’s Zach Johnson.”

  “Zach Johnson?” Bingo’s gravelly voice squawked from the other side of the door. “Wow, you’re early.”

  “Huh?”

  “Nothin’. Whattya want?”

  “I’m not having this conversation through the door, Bingo. Don’t make me bust it in.”

  “It’s a new door, Zach,” Bingo replied. “Specially reinforced plexisteel. You’re not getting through it.”

  I popped my gun into my hand and aimed it at the door.

  “Yeah, well, my gun says differently,” I replied. “You have three nanos to open up before my gun teaches your new door so
me old tricks.”

  “You’re bluffing.”

  “I have a super computer as a sidekick, Bingo. I don’t have to bluff. One…”

  “Aw, come on, Zach. I’m an innocent man.”

  “Then it would be a shame to have your door unnecessarily ruined due to a misunderstanding. Two…”

  “All right, all right. You win. Just give me a nano.”

  We heard a hurried scuffling from the other side of the door.

  “He’s going for a weapon, you know,” HARV whispered from the wrist interface.

  “Yeah, I know,” I said, rubbing my eyes. “He’s getting a little predictable.”

  “Sad, really,” HARV opined. “I used to enjoy his bit of local color.”

  “If you’re grabbing a weapon, Bingo, you better have something better than that lame blaster you pulled on me last time. Otherwise, I’m going to holster it on you someplace you won’t like.”

  I heard a clatter and more scuffling from the other side of the door.

  “What? Me? A weapon?”

  The electronic latches on the door slid open as Bingo, his dark face looking a little flushed, opened the door and ushered me in.

  “Whatever this is about,” he said. “I didn’t do nuthin’.”

  “Double negative,” HARV said.

  “He’s right, Bingo,” I said, pushing my way inside. “That means you actually did something.”

  “I hate your computer.”

  “What can I say, he’s an acquired taste.”

  Bingo’s lab was a bit of a dump, ramshackle and dank but I wasn’t surprised. His focus has always been on the contraptions rather than the trappings.

  “So what’s this about then?” he asked.

  I pulled the glam-dice from my coat pocket and stuck it in front of his face.

  “This.”

  “It’s a glam-dice.”

  “It’s a glam-dice that you made and sold to someone who’s been busy using them.”

  “That ain’t one of mine.”

  “Don’t lie to me, Bingo,” I said, pushing him up against the nearest workbench. “I usually enjoy the back and forth. Really I do, but it’s late in the day and I’ve been in a firefight. I have very little patience right now so I’m giving you one chance to do this quick and easy.”

  I’m going to give Bingo some credit here. He really thought carefully before responding. He actually looked torn for a nano as to whether he should do the right thing and come clean or not. But in the end, old habits die hard.

  “I don’t know nuthin.”

  I sighed and grabbed him roughly by the collar of his shirt, spun him around and pushed him hard up against the wall.

  “Wrong answer,” I growled.

  I pinned him to the wall with my forearm and stuck the glam-dice down the back of his pants, where it slid into his boxer briefs. Bingo, quite naturally, got a little nervous at this point.

  “What are you doing?”

  “I’m trying to stop a whack-job bomber before she strikes again,” I said. “You sold ten glam-dice to an attractive young woman in desperate need of a good hair colorist and I need to know how to find her. She’s already rolled a few of the dice, if you know what I mean. I need to find her before she rolls a snake eyes and quite frankly, I’m out of patience.”

  “Not to mention good metaphors,” HARV whispered.

  I popped my gun into hand.

  “Tase me, slow.”

  The gun flashed the green light and a micro-thin cord shot from the gun and latched onto the butt side of Bingo’s pants. The high-pitched whine of an electrical charge building in my gun began immediately.

  “You gotta be kidding me,” Bingo said, his eyes a little wide.

  “The taser blast is on a thirty second timer. You tell me what I want to know very quickly or else you get a very bright and very painful party in your pants.”

  “Really, I don’t know nuthin’.”

  “That’s a shame,” I said. “HARV, how hot do glam dice burn when they explode?”

  “Two thousand degrees Celsius,” HARV replied.

  And that’s when Bingo started talking.

  “Her name is Enga, Enga Ayeffuul!”

  “How do you contact her?”

  “I don’t! She contacts me. It’s all on secure channels. I can’t trace them.”

  “When was the last time you spoke to her?”

  “Today.”

  “Today?”

  “Today! A couple of hours ago. I gave her a bomb.”

  “A completed bomb? Not just glam-dice?”

  “Yeah. She had me put the whole thing together overnight. Someone delivered the Q-5 to me last night.”

  The whine of the charge building in my gun grew louder and more immediate.

  “You gave it to her personally?”

  “Yes! Yes! She took it herself.”

  “You mean she was here?”

  “No. She had me bring it to her!”

  “She what?”

  “I brought it to her!”

  The whine from my gun was reaching a crescendo.

  “Please, Zach!”

  “Where did you bring it?” I shouted. “Where did you give her the bomb?”

  “Her hotel! The Sprocketswerks Hotel!”

  I powered down my gun and left Bingo slouched against the wall, thankful that he was still attached to his ass. He may have said something to me as I ran out but I didn’t hear it. All I heard was the sound of a lit fuse.

  * * *

  The Sprocketwerks is a high-end luxury German hotel almost completely across town from Bingo’s place. HARV had wanted to drive, but I definitely have the heavier foot. So instead, HARV sat his hologram in the passenger seat and made a big show of hanging onto the dashboard when I took the curves. Yes, it was annoying but I had bigger worries. The trip would take about thirty minutes for any sane man to drive it. I made it in eighteen.

  I parked at the hotel loading dock and ignored the shouts of the building manager as I jumped into the freight elevator and started my way up the building.

  “Any idea what room she’s in?”

  “There is no Enga Ayeffuul in the hotel register,” HARV replied “but I found a Sigurd Van de Zon listed. Sigurd, as you know was the name of Enga’s mother. Van de Zon is Dutch for…”

  “Of the sun,” I replied. “She’s a sunny, all right. What room?”

  “Top floor,” HARV replied. “Room fifty-four seven.”

  Nano’s later, I was knocking (a little too hard) on the door.

  “I need you to scan the room for Q-5, the nano we get in.”

  “You really think she’s going to let you in knocking like that?” HARV asked.

  Before I could answer, someone spoke from inside the room; a man’s voice, which surprised me.

  “Who is it?”

  “Room service,” I said, somewhat awkwardly, as HARV quickly threw a holographic bell-hop disguise over me.

  “We didn’t order room service.”

  “It’s um, champagne, compliments of the house,” I said. “In gratitude for your continued patronage.”

  “This is our first time here.”

  “It’s a courtesy we give to new guests.”

  “You just said it was for our continued patronage.”

  “That too,” I said.

  “How can it be for both new guests and continued patronage?”

  “We’re an equal opportunity employer.”

  “What?”

  “Gates,” I mumbled to myself,” is everything today going to be difficult?”

  I popped my gun into hand and aimed it at the door.

  “Move away from the door smart guy.”

  “What?”

  “Hushaboom,” I said to my gun.

  I blasted the door with a low power, silent concussive round that buckled the polymer structure and tore the lock free of the housing. The door flung open and the guy behind it stumbled backward against the wall of the suite’s entryway a
nd then slid down to the floor as HARV and I bull-rushed our way inside. In a nano, I was on top of him.

  The man was young and trim, probably in his late twenties. He was good-looking too, with olive skin, a thick head of dark hair and dark brown eyes that grew very wide when he saw the business end of my gun in his face.

  “Where’s Enga?” I said.

  “How did you know we were here?”

  I stuck my gun hard up against the bottom of his nose.

  “The guy with the gun is the one who asks the questions,” I growled. “Now where’s Enga and where’s the bomb?”

  “Bomb?”

  A quick ray of red light shot from my wrist interface and ran itself over the face of the seriously confused and seriously frightened man as HARV ran a quick ID check.

  “Who is he?” I asked.

  “Rene Al Bazhir Sharif,” HARV replied. “The youngest son of Myron Al Bazhir Sharif.”

  “Myron? Really?”

  “Sharif is the owner and CEO of Osiros Energy,” HARV continued, “a solar energy conglomerate.”

  “Solar energy?” I said. “Gates, they’re in it together.”

  “What’s going on here?” Sharif asked.

  “Shut up, sun boy. HARV, where’s the bomb?”

  “What bomb?”

  “It’s somewhere in the room, boss,” HARV replied. “I’m still pinpointing it. But wherever it is it’s big.”

  “What are you talking about?” Sharif asked again.

  I put my forearm hard on his chest and pinned him tightly to the floor.

  “I do not want questions from you, kid!” I said. “I want answers and I want them right now.

  Where is Enga?”

  “Rene, what’s going on?”

  I turned and saw Enga emerge from the bedroom suite. She was barefoot and wore a thick white cotton robe. Her hair was bound up in a towel. I pointed my gun at her and kept my forearm tightly on Sharif’s chest.

  “Don’t move, Enga. I am not in the mood to shoot anyone else today but I will if I need to. HARV, where the DOS is that bomb?”

  “Bomb?” Enga asked, startled. “There’s a bomb?”

  “Something’s not right here, boss.”

  I pulled Sharif to his feet and pushed him hard into the main room of the suite next to Enga, keeping my gun trained on them both. Sharif stumbled as I pushed him. Enga ran to him and stood beside him, leaning on him for support.