by Greg Dragon
“More what, Sirens?” Tau said, sitting up on the ground with his back to the wall.
“Yeah, Sirens. It was one hell of an opportunity, but now he’s gone and gotten himself killed.”
The pain in the back of Tau’s throat was unbearable, and he swallowed against it as tears began to fall from his eyes. Jovan was reckless, but he was a friend, and the thought of him dead made him extremely sad. It was a lonely feeling, knowing that the one person who understood him was gone. On top of it all was the fact that the love of his life was a female Boba Fett, who hovered over him, a toothless, crying sarlacc pit.
“Tau.” She said his name with a warm intonation. It was such a sweet sound that he almost believed that she was worried about him. “Tau, I need you to believe me that I was never going to turn you in. I wanted Jovan, and it wasn’t to bring harm to him. I don’t know what ICT does with the Sirens, but I know for a fact that they’re not killing you. They may actually be reverting you back to normal, like swapping out your implants.” She jabbed a finger at her head.
Tau wiped his face and looked up at her. “That’s not possible,” he said. “Did you know the whole time that they would be in my apartment? Did you invite me up here to set him up?”
“No, I was working with Jus—the other masked hacker. He’s a fellow hunter and we were trying to bring Jovan in together. He told me about the gangsters when I took that call in the Laundromat, and I was worried that they would kill you, so I kept you inside of my apartment.”
Tau didn’t want to believe Aniya and this guardian angel story she was spinning, but she had no reason to lie about it, so he finally let his guard down. “Why would you protect me? You just said that you’re not taking me in.”
“Because you have a skill that is useful, Tau, and you know how to get to the other Sirens—”
Tau laughed and shook his head, “You want me to help you hunt Sirens, like some sort of genocidal maniac? My friend is dead!” he shouted, scrambling to his feet, determined to get far away from her.
Aniya called after him. “TAU! It isn’t genocide. You guys aren’t a race. Plus you didn’t let me finish what I was saying. The gangsters killed your friend, they want their money. Tau, they will be returning for you!”
6 | The Spider
Tau felt numb as he walked through the hallway, moving slowly without counting his steps the way he always did. When he got to the elevator lobby he didn’t press the button. He stood still, staring at the doors, and for over fifteen minutes he thought of his friend.
I killed Jovan. It was me. They came looking for that money and in my need to fix every damn thing, I hid it away from them. When he finally snapped out of his daze, he reached forward and touched the button. The doors slid opened after a while and he was surprised to see two large men in brown sweat suits.
“You Tow?” the shorter one asked, and it took a while for the question to register. Jovan had been kidnapped by gangsters, according to Aniya, and the two giants in front of him looked out of place for the G.Henna’s. One was enormous, an abomination of fat and muscle fused into mass, and the other was a little smaller but no one would notice this due to his chin.
He looked like a caricature, or a mask. There was no way his face was that long. The two men both had their hands behind their backs, so Tau thought better about answering.
“You guys live on this floor?” he tried, and the chin looked over at the blob.
“No, but we’re looking for Tow. We have a message from his friend,” Chin said.
“That’s funny,” said Tau. “There’s no Tow on this floor.”
“What’s your name?” the blob asked, and he stepped forward to block the door.
“M-my name?” Tau balked and the blob smiled with satisfaction. He moved so fast that it defied logic and put a fat paw on Tau’s throat. The chin stepped up to hold the elevator while the blob walked forward, choking him out.
“TAU!” came a female voice, screaming from the hall. Then there was a sound, like several wine bottles being uncorked at the same time. The blob’s face exploded like a watermelon from a sledgehammer’s kiss, and he slumped over, pinning a gasping Tau to the dirty lobby floor.
Chin was firing from an automatic weapon, and Tau could see Aniya in the hallway firing back. She was lying prone in the corner, where the Chin’s poor aim could never hit. But her bullets were not connecting and the gangster was reaching for another clip.
The entire exchange had only taken a few seconds, but time froze for Tau Fabian. He saw the love of his life in the line of fire, trying to save him from certain death, and there was an elevator, an instrument of his gift, yet here he was, doing nothing. He summoned his strength and pushed the dead man off to the side, then lunged at the chin, catching him in the knees and rolling him back into the elevator.
Tau willed the doors shut and they obeyed his command, but the gangster’s head was stuck in the door. The big man cussed, but Tau wasn’t done, as he sent the car up a floor. The elevator dinged, then rose quickly, and an alarm screamed to warn that the door wasn’t completely shut. But Tau ignored it and kept it moving.
First there was a loud thump, then the sound of bones cracking as the man’s head connected with the ceiling. The elevator was stuck and couldn’t continue, so Tau brought it back down and released the controls.
The lobby was a bloodbath, with bullet holes everywhere, and he could tell that the elevator was broken. Though ICT ignored the Hennas for maintenance, the one thing they would not ignore was the main elevator being shut down. There would be a maintenance crew already en route, and when they saw the carnage there would be cops and he would wind up inside a prison.
Murder and burglary were just two of the charges that he would be dealt in court. He was done; why had he done it? Then he remembered Aniya, and glanced back. It was then that he realized that he had been shot, and he wondered how it was that he hadn’t felt it. Was it the focus that it took to move the elevator, or was it shock from being in the middle of a shootout?
“TAU!” Aniya screamed as she ran over to his side. He had collapsed and the pain was picking up. Maybe I’ll be dead before they can throw me in prison, he thought
Aniya was crouched next to him, studying his thigh where the bullet went in. It reminded him of the morning of Jovan’s heist, when she had been the only one concerned about his glitch.
“It’s pretty bad, Tau, but we have to move. Cops will be all over this place in a matter of minutes.”
“The outside elevator,” he said. “I can get us down and then we can go.”
She helped him to his feet and the pain was enough to make him see stars. He bent the knee of his injured leg so that his foot wouldn’t touch the ground. It didn’t work and he was forced to bear it as Aniya tried poorly to help. She was too small to support his weight, and he was being stubborn. She had saved his life and that was enough. He’d hold his own until they escaped.
When they were on the elevator he sat on the floor as they descended slowly. “Thank you,” he said, and Aniya slid down next to him. She took his hand into hers and placed her head on his shoulder.
“I didn’t mean to hurt you, Tau, that wasn’t my plan. I wish that you hadn’t run out like that.” Aniya exhaled as if she had been punched in the stomach, then stared forward for a time without saying anything.
They were halfway down now when they heard sirens. G.Henna was about to see police presence like never before. Aniya pulled out her phone and gestured on the screen, then began to type rapidly into it.
“That wound is either going to kill you or land you in the system for being treated,” she said as she typed. “The money’s gone, Tau, and even if you wanted to, you aren’t in the shape to go back up to get it. We have to get that taken care of immediately, and the only way to do that discreetly is to go through ICT.”
“What? No way,” Tau said. “They’ll cut my head open to experiment on me.”
“I won�
�t let them do that, not if you’re my partner. You’d be just another hunter that got wounded in action. What do you say, Tau? Come on, we’re running out of time. Look, I’m in deep enough shit as it is. The shooting was on my floor, and I have all my personal items up there. ICT will need to pull a lot of strings to disconnect me from the scene. They’ll want compensation, a lot more Sirens … which I can do if you lead me to them.”
Tau thought about what she was saying and decided that he no longer cared. Sirens had never meant anything to him and his other options led to prison. “Will I be paid?” he asked suddenly, and Aniya smiled in response. “We need to go back up though, Ann, for the money and for Jovan’s computer. He owned a tracker with Siren locations. We will need it for the job.”
“Tau, your leg, you could die—what part of that are you not hearing?”
Tau shook his head and waved her off. “We have to go back. You have to listen to me. Those heists, meeting you, and Jovan’s death,” he mumbled, the blood loss taking its toll. “It has to mean something, Ann. It has to mean something or I’m better off dead.”
David Kelly was all smiles as he bit into his bison burger and chased it down quickly with a fry. Food was his happiness, only second to music, but when combined it was nothing short of heaven.
He was seated by the window in his favorite restaurant, loving on the mix that was being played on the overhead. He touched his receptors and turned them clockwise, pumping up the volume on a Harry Connick Jr. classic.
A screaming baby from a table over made him regret enhancing the sound. He normalized this by flipping out his phone and using a program to lower the volume on everything that wasn’t music. He was in heaven again, and when the black SUV slid into the parking lot, he was so excited that he actually rubbed his hands together.
Stepping out was a tall man in a long black trench coat. He had a woman with him, a shorter twin, with a swagger to her walk that hinted at something akin to danger. He grabbed his shake and sipped it quickly and the thick, cold fluid did its job. Soon he’d be able to launch his record label and tell his manager to kiss his ass.
It had been weeks since he’d seen Tau Fabian, who had become a no-show at work. Both he and Jovan had disappeared, and he was convinced that they took the money and skipped town. The betrayal had sent him into a depression, and his life had taken a turn for the worse. Abuse of pain pills led to constant drowsiness, and he fell while manning the robot’s controls.
No one got hurt the day he did this, but he ended up burning valuable resources. He was fired on the spot, fell into a financial downward spiral, and tried to become the next Jovan. This was a failure, so he sold everything that he owned.
Tau’s message came with promises of money that Jovan had fenced before his disappearance. It was a high, five-figure rake, and enough to give him a second chance at life. He had started shaking when he saw the message from his old friend. Finally things were looking up.
The woman stopped to order something at the counter while Tau walked over to his table. He wanted to hug him, but he resisted. The Tau Fabian he remembered was a germophobe, and wasn’t especially fond of him.
He stood up and extended his hand before thinking better of it. Tau glanced down and David saw that his fingers were greasy with food, but to his surprise a gloved hand shot out from Tau, and he shook it anyway.
“Duo, it’s good to see you,” he said, his smile a warm, alien thing.
“Lich, you have no idea how happy I am to see you,” he said. “Jovan took off and my life went to shit.”
Tau nodded and sat in front of him, then looked back to check on his partner.
“That your girlfriend?” David asked, and Tau nodded with a wink. She was bundled up in black but he could tell that she was attractive.
“So, listen, Duo, it’s really public and there are cameras everywhere. How about we take a ride by the stadium and we drop you off with a new suitcase?”
David’s eyes danced all over Tau’s face, and his ear receptors spun, revealing his concentration. “Ohhh, a new suitcase.” He winked. “Man, I’ve been slow lately. I can’t wait to see what’s in it.” A flash of the old disdain showed across Tau’s sharp features. He had cleaned up a lot and had put on some weight, but he was still skinny in David’s eyes. The biggest difference in his look was the bald head and jet black goatee, and there was a tattoo of a spider crawling out of his left eye.
“What do you do now, Tau? You haven’t been at the plant. Did you go professional? Because I gotta say, you really do look the part.”
“Professional? What do you mean professional?” Tau seemed confused. “You mean like a hitman, or do you mean a corporate suit?”
“Either one,” David said quickly, but before he could say anything more, the girl whistled and they both glanced up to see her motioning for them to leave. David’s palms suddenly got itchy and he followed the couple out to the SUV.
“Take the front. I know you boys want to catch up,” the woman said as they stepped out into the sunlight.
When they got inside, Tau took the driver’s seat and introduced her to David as, “the love of my life, Ann.”
She seemed nice enough but there was a hard edge to her that sent off alarms throughout David’s mind. He decided to ignore it and focus instead on the money that would be coming to him once they stopped. But something was off and he struggled with it, till he realized that there was no security system in the SUV. Normally in vehicles, his mind would connect to it immediately, but this one was extremely quiet. It gave him a claustrophobic feeling, one that he wanted to be rid of quickly.
“Do you like being a Siren, Duo?” Tau asked suddenly, as he pulled out of the plaza and took them onto the main road.
“Yeah, sure, don’t you?” he asked, glancing back to see what the woman was doing. Their eyes met, and he looked away quickly. She was smiling at him, but her eyes revealed something that sent a chill down his spine. “Hey, you can let me out wherever man. I actually live near here,” he tried.
“I could, Duo,” Tau said coolly. “But if you’re being watched, someone could tag my vehicle.”
“Yeah, that makes sense. Where are you thinking to drop me off?”
“How about the Hennas? You can ride the T back. It’s about that time when everyone’s taking their lunch. You’ll look like just another schmoe leaving work with a suitcase.”
David stared at the spider that Tau had hanging from his eye. “New crew?” he asked, pointing to the tattoo, and Tau chuckled and glanced in the rearview mirror. “This old thing?” he said dismissively. “It’s a show of loyalty for snippy back there. As far as crews, I’m done with that nonsense. Jovan was it. Do you know what I mean?”
David watched the road, seeing the cars drift by, and allowed the reality of his situation to settle in. “You know, we studied spiders in school, and I found it really fascinating,” he said quietly. “They lay a web down, an invisible trap, for blind fools to fly into it, only to become the next day’s meal.”
He watched Tau’s eyes float up to the rearview mirror again, as his girlfriend primed whatever it was that would kill him or put him to sleep.
“You know what’s funny?” he said, looking over at Tau. “The females, they eat their own, and in a few rare cases so do the males. You never liked me, we both know it, but I never thought it would ever come to this.” He fumbled nervously for his receptors, turning them down to silence the traffic.
“Widget’s just a kid, Tau. You get what I’m saying?” It was the last thing he remembered before a pinch—like a spider’s bite—was felt in the side of his neck.
Did you like, The Girl on The Elevator?
Read on for an excerpt from, The Judas Cypher. It is a detective story that takes place in a future, similar to Tau Fabian’s.
The Judas Cypher
Moonlight illuminated the parking lot like heaven’s judgment, exposing the sins of any hool foolish enough to do his dirt
out in the open. The night was damp, cold and miserable. Cold for Tampa Bay, and cold for Dhata Mays as he leaned against his off-white Buick looking down at the naked body with a face frozen in an expression of surprise.
“Gon ‘head and roll it over, Jason,” he said, and the detective’s eyes flicked up to meet his. The flashing lights of the squad cars were like a disco ball on the corpse, and they gave his friend’s eyes a look of fire coming alive. “Sorry, Jason, I mean, roll him over … if you please.”
Jason Dale rolled the body onto its stomach, and sat back on his haunches staring at the pale, white back, and the neat fissure that ran from his head all the way down to the top of his buttocks. Jason looked exhausted. It had been a long night since he arrived to examine the body.
Typically when Jason called Dhata out on crime scenes it was the same old, same old: a synth being murdered for body parts, or just for simply existing. Jason would call him out, he would make his statement, then do a little investigation on which gang or hate group committed the assault. That part was easy as well, since he knew just about every gang or hate group. He would crack a few skulls, then someone would confess and he’d get paid.
Dhata’s job wasn’t something that people even knew existed. He was a police officer’s bounty hunter, a skiptracer, an ex-detective who had taken up the charge in policing society’s robotic neighbors.
Ever since the integration of synthetic people into the population, there had been a significant rise in crime—much of it having to do with the recycling of parts. Dhata, who was a detective and a friend to synths, quit the force to work for his good friend Jason. It allowed him to be involved with police work without the corruption and the miles of red tape.
