The Doomsday Brunette

by John Zakour

  “Not now, HARV.”

  W’s elongated remaining arm wrapped around me like a droid-ish feather boa and pulled me away from the controls. I got off another laser shot before we tumbled again to the floor, hitting him high in the right leg, where his femur would have been (if he’d still had a human body). The blast cut through his droid circuitry and the severed leg fell to the floor, sparking like a metal hover in a microwave storm. W screamed again but held tight to me as he fell, pulling me back down to the floor.

  “Don’t you see?” HARV continued. “W didn’t kill Foraa.”

  “HARV, he just confessed,” I said, trying to fight my way back to my feet.

  “He confessed to trying to kill her. He didn’t actually succeed.”

  I caught a glimpse of the fast approaching force-field wall through the cockpit window.

  “I’ve got other things to worry about right now, HARV.”

  “T and D is a touch-sensitive poison,” HARV continued. “It has to make direct contact with the skin in order to get into the system.”

  “He put it on her fork,” I said. “She touched the fork.”

  “But she was wearing gloves! Foraa was wearing long black gloves when she touched the poisoned fork.”

  The revelation froze me in my tracks. I sat motionless for a nano, oblivious to the chaos around me as the logic of HARV’s reasoning sunk in.

  “DOS, he didn’t kill her,” I whispered.

  W chose that nano to pull me back to the floor with his remaining arm and then bit me on the shoulder. The jet thrusters were still revving, the jet’s speed was increasing and the forcefield was getting closer.

  “HARV, max-up my armor. This is going to get ugly.”

  I fired another blast at W and cut his droid body in half at the navel. Then I turned and sent a blast into the control panel of the cockpit, destroying it in a cascade of flaming computer-drek. The jet’s emergency alarms sounded a high-pitched scream as the fail-safe program kicked in. The thrusters decelerated and the craft shook like a San Andreas nightclub during happy hour. We slowed, but not nearly enough. We were still headed fast toward the force-field and far too close to stop.

  I tried to shout a command to Ona’s computer to open a window in the field but there was no time. All I managed to say was:

  “Open…”

  But Ona’s computer was acting on its own. It made the decision without me and a nano before the point of impact, I saw the force-field warp itself open, spiraling like water down a drain (only in reverse) to create a hole right in front of our swan-diving hoverjet and we, thankfully, passed through…

  …right into the main entrance.

  Yes, the mountain pass that HARV and I had entered through two days earlier suddenly appeared before me, the holographic hills and rocks blinking out as the flaming, out of control hoverjet burst through them. We crashed through a few simulacra on our way to the ground as well and by the time we reached the guard post and the gathered throng of pressbots, well, let’s just say that the compound’s carefully designed, created and maintained camouflaged secret entrance, wasn’t so camouflaged anymore. And it wasn’t much of a secret either.

  The jet, cushioned only somewhat by the thrusters that were now in full fail-safe reverse, skidded along the mountain pass and belly flopped onto the ground with an earth-shaking rumble of screaming metal and dying engines. We crushed the guardpost and a dozen of the slower-footed pressbots like a steamroller over ripe fruit before coming to rest on the gravel embankment.

  The pressbots, camera’s rolling, all stared at the plane for a nano then, as one, turned their lenses toward Ona’s compound. With the holographic hillside projections disrupted and most of the hard simulacrum scenery destroyed, the compound itself was now in plain view, its purple force-field glittering like a jewel in the sun.

  A few of the pressbots couldn’t take the excitement of finally getting actual footage of the compound and their circuits over-loaded. They fainted like teeny-boppers at a concert. The majority, however, swarmed around the force-field in a desperate grab for footage of an exclusive story that was now fair game.

  And that, of course, is when the police finally arrived.

  Four hovercrafts, sirens wailing, landed in a semi-circle around the smoking remnant of the jet and Tony and eleven of his men jumped out, weapons in hand, and hit the ground running.

  “Hold all fire until my order,” Tony bellowed.

  He pointed his blaster at the cockpit and took cover behind a standard issue personal force-shield.

  “Attention, in the cockpit,” he yelled, “you are surrounded! Come out with your hands up!”

  A handful of the pressbots turned their cameras to the smoking jet as the cockpit roof emergency hatch was kicked open and I slowly emerged from within, one hand held high in the air, the other dragging W’s still sparking android torso behind me.

  “I want my arms back, you barbarian,” W shouted. “They’re expensive.”

  Tony, I think recognized me through the smoke and lowered his weapon (and then rubbed his forehead).

  “Zach?”

  I walked to Tony and laid the still struggling W at his feet as the officers slowly converged upon me. Tony stared at W then at the smoking jet, then finally at me.

  “What the…?”

  I held up my hand to stop the question.

  “Don’t ask. There’s your man,” I said, pointing to W. “Feel free to arrest him. One thing though…”

  “What’s that?”

  “He didn’t do it.”

  32

  I left W with Tony and his officers (I think they sent someone into the jet to get his various missing limbs) and they took him back to the squad for booking. He may not have been the one who actually murdered Foraa, but he made an attempt on her life (not to mention mine) so that counted for something. They were also charging him with embezzlement, grand theft hover and wanton destruction of private property (although he’ll probably blame that last one on me). He also copped to sending the medieval armor after me the day before so, all in all, his capture wrapped up a lot of things.

  Except of course, the mystery of Foraa’s murder.

  But that, according to Ona, was no longer any of my concern.

  Tony had me taken to the hospital and I was treated for a bunch of minor things and then gratefully released. It was evening by the time I stumbled home, with the hopes of enjoying a peaceful evening of self-pity wallowing and second-guessing. But that was not to be, because as I reached for the front door, HARV stopped me with a warning.

  “You have an unauthorized person in the house, boss.”

  I pulled my hand away from the knob and popped my gun into hand.

  “Is it hostile?”

  “I’d say any hostility is of a passive-aggressive nature at best,” HARV said, “but I’m not a therapist.”

  “It’s my Mom?” I said, gently resting my aching head against the doorframe. “I should just runaway now and sleep at the office or something.”

  “I don’t think that will help.”

  “Why’s that?”

  “Because Electra’s inside as well.”

  “What?”

  “And they have your baby vids.”

  “Oh no!”

  I fumbled quickly to get my hand on the DNA lock and open the door. As I stumbled into the foyer, still wrestling with my trenchcoat, I heard the sound of my worst nightmares come to vivid sing-song life.”

  “I’m a little teapot, short and stout.”

  “Oh…DOS.”

  I opened the front door and scrambled into the house, which was now aglow in gory Technicolor nostalgia.

  “Here is my handle. Here is my spout.”

  I rounded the corner into the living room and my fears were confirmed. Mom and Electra were sitting on the couch, laughing hysterically together at the holographic, 3D image of me as a boy, circa 2023. The infamous bathtub performance.

  “He had such a lovely singing voice ba
ck then,” Mom said.

  “And a cute little spout,” Electra added.

  The two of them giggled together like school girls.

  “Okay, that’s enough. Show’s over,” I said as I entered, waving my hands through the holographic image. “HARV shut it down.”

  The images blinked off and the lights came up to normal. Mom and Electra turned to me, a little surprised, but still smiling.

  “Oh, Buttlebug, don’t turn it off now,” Mom said. “I want Electra to see Hey Diddle Diddle.”

  “Si, Chico, that sounds like a good one.”

  “It has a diddle and a moon reference.”

  “No,” I said. “No moon, no diddle.”

  “You’re such a party poop,” Mom said. She turned to Electra, “He’s always been sensitive about his diddle.”

  “Gates, Mom, what are you trying to do, put me into therapy?”

  “I got in town today,” Mom said, “so I thought I’d come over and say a quick hello. Electra let me in and we started to chat.”

  “And before we knew it,” Electra said with a smile, “we were comparing naked videos of you.”

  I felt my pride and dignity shrinking by the minute.

  “Please, no more talking. This day has been bad enough.”

  Mom came over and gave me a hug, which was slightly less awkward than usual and I was grateful that she didn’t squeeze any of my bruises or sprains.

  “I know, dear,” she said. “We saw the jet crash on the vid.”

  “Which network”

  “It’s on all of them,” Electra said, giving me a quick peck on the cheek and a pat on the butt. “We flipped around.”

  “Oh well, at least it’s not an exclusive anymore.”

  Mom gave me a loving squeeze on the arm and went into the kitchen.

  “Tomorrow’s another day, dear,” she said. “Why don’t’ you go wash up. We saved you some dinner. I’ll heat it up for you.”

  I trudged into my bedroom to change my clothes.

  “I grabbed a quick bite at the hospital cafeteria, Mom,” I said. “They named a sandwich after me so I sort of felt like I was obligated.”

  “You weren’t hurt too badly, in the crash were you?”

  “Well, you know. Any landing you can walk away from is a good one, right?”

  “Spoken like a man who has crashed more than once in his lifetime,” Electra said.

  I pulled on a sweatshirt and jeans and joined Mom and Electra in the kitchen just as Mom was setting a bowl of paella at my place. Electra got me a beer from the fridge and I had to admit that for a nano, things felt pretty good.

  I sat down and took a spoonful of paella. I could tell immediately that Electra had cooked it because it was horrible. Cooking is Electra’s one real weakness in life. She is so good at everything else, I think that fate felt the need to balance out all her yin by totally yanging her in the cooking skills department. So, the paella was terrible, but I’ve learned to choke things like that down in the name of love (the beer helps).

  “I warned you about working for Ona Thompson,” Mom said. “That whole family is nothing but trouble.”

  “Well, you can stop worrying, because as of this afternoon, I’m no longer in Ona’s employ.”

  “She fired you?”

  “Let’s just say that she didn’t like the direction that the investigation was taking.”

  Electra sat down beside me and took a swig of beer from my bottle.

  “You yelled at her didn’t you?”

  “I did not.”

  “Did she make fun of your fedora?”

  “That was before she hired me.”

  “She didn’t like the trenchcoat then?”

  “If you must know, she was talking to the press. Spinning the media to make herself look good. She was more interested in that than in the murder of her sister. I can’t believe the ego of that woman.”

  “So, you yelled at her?” Electra repeated.

  “…Yes. Yes I did.”

  She kissed me on the cheek and playfully bit my ear.

  “Good for you, Chico.”

  “Trust me, it’s for the best,” Mom said as she sat beside me. “So tell me, Electra, do you have your own bedroom here?”

  And we experienced then, what one could only call “an awkward moment” in the conversation.

  “So…Mom…” I said. “You still haven’t told me why you’re here in Frisco.”

  “Oh nothing important,” she said, waving me away and taking a sip of her coffee. “Just a little business.”

  “What business is that exactly?”

  “Nothing you need to worry about, dear.”

  “Mom, you haven’t left New Rochester in the past eleven years. All of a sudden you drop everything and come across the country on a nano’s notice. Trust me, that’s going to worry me.”

  Mom took another sip of her coffee and stared deeply into the cup.

  “I’m dying, Zach.”

  The nano was long and horrible, the culmination of fears and nightmares that I didn’t even know I had.

  “You’re dying?”

  “No, not really,” she said, taking another sip of coffee, “but don’t you feel better now?”

  “What?”

  She reached over and gently stroked my hair.

  “I’m here on business, Buttlebug,” she said. “It doesn’t concern you at the nano and, although I’m glad that you still worry about me, as you’ve just seen, things could be much, much worse. So hush-up and eat your dinner.” She leaned close to me and whispered into my ear. “Or at least as much of it as you can. I had no idea Electra was such a terrible cook.”

  “Mom…”

  HARV’s hologram shimmered into display mode, standing on the opposite side of the kitchen table. He bowed gently toward Mom.

  “Excuse me, boss. Good evening Ms. Johnson. Lovely to see you again.”

  “Thank you, MARV.”

  “It’s HARV.”

  “Yes, of course.” Mom was a little stand-offish. It’s funny but, even though she knew he was a computer, I think that she still considered HARV a threat to the future production of her grandchildren. Honestly, I really didn’t want to think about what was going on in her mind right then.

  “What is it HARV?” I asked.

  “You have a call coming in from Ona Thompson.”

  “You tell that test-tube diva that he has nothing to say to her,” Mom said.

  “Mom.”

  “She’s ungrateful, unfeeling and she’s nothing but trouble.”

  I slid my chair from the table and grabbed my beer.

  “I’ll take it in the study.”

  “Zach,” Mom called, “I forbid you to work for that woman again!”

  “Mom!”

  “I mean it. I don’t like the people you’re consorting with. They’re the underbelly of society.”

  “She’s the richest woman in the world.”

  “All right, the overbelly of society, but I want you to stay away from her and that whole crazy family.”

  “I don’t have time for this.”

  “Don’t turn your back on me young man!”

  “That’s enough, Mom!”

  Electra chose that unfortunate nano to call to me as she cleaned the kitchen. “There’s still more paella, Chico.”

  “Please honey, one problem at a time,” I said without thinking.

  Electra turned and shot me an angry glance.

  “Uh-oh.” And I quickly ducked into the study.

  Ona’s face lit up the vid screen like a supernova in the night sky. She spoke softly, and politely, and seemed very genuine in her emotions, which worried me no end.

  “I owe you an apology, Zachary,” she said. “I acted rudely to you this afternoon.”

  “I shouldn’t have yelled at you like I did,” I said. “It was unprofessional.”

  “The computer tells me that you pursued W at its request. And that you put yourself in jeopardy even though you were n
o longer officially in my employ. Thank you for that.”

  “You’re welcome. Sorry about the hoverjet.”

  “That’s okay, I have several.”

  “And the hangar.”

  “Repairs are already underway.”

  “And sorry about the guard post, the state of the art holographic projection system and specially constructed camouflaging simulacra.”

  “We better just stop there, Zach.”

  “I think you’re right.”

  “The Pfauhans hunted down the dozen or so pressbots that invaded the compound after your crash,” she said. “It was quick work and I think the Pfauhans enjoyed it. The pressbots took some footage of the compound but no real harm was done.”

  “I’m glad to hear that.”

  “Which brings us back to the here and now,” Ona continued. “Since it’s clear that W for all his faults was not the actual murderer, I’d like to hire you back to finish the job.”

  “I don’t know if that’s a very good idea, Ona.”

  “You’ll have my complete cooperation this time,” she said. “I’ll do anything you say.”

  “No more interviews?”

  “Splinterviews. But, yes, I’ll do no more of them.”

  “And you’ll work with the police? No more pheromone tricks.”

  “Agreed. But it’s a shame really because I enjoy playing with minds.”

  “No kidding,” I said. “All right. I’ll take another crack at it. I’ll be back at your ziggurat first thing tomorrow morning.”

  “Thank you, Zach,” she said. “You won’t be sorry. Oh, by the way, do you know anything about a sigil?”

  “Sigil?”

  “A symbol or series of symbols that Foraa scribbled down before she died.”

  “How…do you know about that?”

  “Well, there appears to be some mention of it on Entertainment This Nano.”

  33

  “The series of sigils, as seen here in an artist’s rendition, appears to have been scribbled by the late Foraa Thompson just prior to her death. We here at Entertainment This Nano believe that it is a clue of some sort to the identity of Foraa’s killer and currently have our top minds working on deciphering it.”

  It was like something out of a nightmare. The symbols that Foraa had drawn in the wine puddle, nanos before she died, were there on the screen beside Bill Gibbon’s perfectly coifed talking head.