by Gwynn White
“The saddest city in the world?”
It wasn’t clear what Freddy meant by that. Hunter assumed it was a veiled reference to his race. His birth parents were Asian, but his adoptive parents were Caucasian. Both had abandoned him. The only good thing his adoptive parents did for him—the word parents a very loose description—was establish his citizenship. Other than that, he was twice abandoned.
Oddly enough, not the worst thing about his youth.
“What can I do for the federal government?” Freddy said.
Hunter dropped the leather bag and looked through the pockets. He was cold when he arrived. Now he was breaking a sweat. He took off his ball cap and dabbed his forehead.
“Formal attire?” Freddy asked.
Hunter put the salty cap back on. “Travel wear.”
Freddy leaned back, hands laced behind his head. Boredom lay in his eyes. Hunter found his pad of paper, but the pen must’ve fallen out. He patted his pockets and pointed at a cup of pens on the desk.
“A bit old-fashioned for a technology cop,” Freddy said. “Can I see your ID?”
“I’m not a cop. I’m just here to gather intel and send it up the ladder.”
“The government really does care.”
Hunter wasn’t that old, he just looked it. An honest mistake. One that Hunter had stopped correcting years ago. Time was relative in matters of maturity. Hunter’s closest friends knew a lot of living could get done in a short amount of time. Time was a human invention. Like all inventions, it could be manipulated.
He didn’t have a lot of friends, though. Not anymore.
“We follow all matters concerning the Maze,” Hunter said.
“So Mr. Pen and Paper to the rescue.” Freddy flipped a pen at him.
“Something like that.”
Hunter settled back. The pen worked. His reading glasses were in the first pocket he searched. Freddy sighed.
“This is redundant, Mr. Montebank. I already submitted the report. There’s nothing new to tell you.”
“Understood. But we’re the federal government. Redundancy is our middle name.”
“Right.”
“Ms. Sunny Grimm walked into the police station three days ago at about noon.” Hunter consulted his notes. “She made a statement that her son was in her apartment, using a punch with the Maze logo stamped on it. He was unresponsive to physical stimuli—”
“Mrs.”
“I’m sorry?”
“She’s a Mrs. Not Miss.”
“Says here she’s divorced.”
“She called herself Mrs.”
“Okay.” Hunter made a point of writing it down. Not because he gave a shit, but it would make Freddy Kaleb Billingsly hard if he won the little battles. “Before coming here she visited a place called 511 South—”
“That’s the address.”
“It looks like the name of the business.”
“Doesn’t have a name. That’s how they do it uptown.”
“It’s located on the south side. Isn’t that downtown?”
“Uptown around here, Mr. Montebank. Do you know where you are?”
Crankiest city in the world? It didn’t sound rhetorical, though. Freddy sounded like he was really asking, like Hunter didn’t have a clue. He was sort of right. Hunter didn’t know much because, quite frankly, he barely gave a shit about these cases. They always ended the same, no surprises.
It felt like he’d been doing the same thing for a thousand years.
“Duly noted.” Hunter scratched the back of his head. “She goes uptown because someone named Ax told her they could help. The people at 511 suggested she come to you.”
“That’s what the report says.”
“What’s at 511?”
“Body augments, sensory inputs. That sort of thing.”
“Submersion technology?”
Freddy drummed his fingers. “Probably.”
“You don’t know?”
“They’re licensed and bonded, Mr. Montebank. They’re in compliance with federal regulations. I don’t read the inventory of every business in the city.”
“Okay.”
Hunter scribbled on the notepad. Freddy is a shitty detective and very annoyed with me right now, he wrote. He would like me to go away, so I am looking busy writing.
Almost everyone Hunter investigated was fearfully compliant. Freddy was putting up a fight.
This is actually fun.
“So, you took Miss… excuse me, Mrs. Grimm’s statement and escorted her to the apartment and found…”
“It’s in the report.”
“It says here you found nothing.”
“That’s what it says.”
“The apartment was empty, bed was made. No son. No punch. No Maze. No nothing.”
Freddy nodded along.
“You gave her a ride back to the station and put out a missing persons alert. She left somewhat distraught, I imagine. It says here that she hasn’t been back to work since the incident.”
“Goddamn it.” Freddy dropped his feet. “She didn’t come back to the station or file a missing persons alert. Where do you get your intel, gossip feeds?”
“Your office forwarded it.”
“Bullshit.”
“So her coworkers say that’s unusual for her to be missing work?”
Freddy was staring at the ceiling. He threw his weight forward and leaned on his desk. “Put down the pen, Mr. Montebank.”
Hunter stopped doodling.
“Let’s be honest. Mrs. Grimm is emotionally unstable. None of her story could be corroborated. There was no evidence of anything she said. And now she and a coworker have disappeared. A lot of stranger things happen in the city than a woman and her coworker running off together.”
“She and—” Hunter held out his notes “—Donny were a couple?”
“None of my business. I’m sorry to waste the taxpayers’ money flying you down here to read me my report. So if that’s all?”
“Maze incidents are very low in your city.”
“Damn right they are.”
“I mean really low. Like, unbelievably low for your demographic.”
Freddy fell back in his chair. His eyes went up to Hunter’s forehead then stared through him. Hunter resisted scratching his head.
“What do you want from me, Mr. Montebank? Crime is down in our city. Citizens are happy. You can write that down if you want. We’re compliant with all the government’s requests, file all the reports. But if someone wants to run off with a coworker, they’re going to do it. If someone wants to commit suicide, we can’t stop them.
“If some rich asshole wants to sacrifice himself to the Maze and make his family wealthy, he’s going to do it. Perhaps it’s a selfless act that saves her son or a selfish one to make money. I don’t care. The money these people make while going insane is probably more than their life is worth. Who am I to judge?”
He jabbed at Hunter’s forehead. “I don’t know where you come from, but over here we have individual rights, Mr. Montebank. If someone wants to punch a hole in their head, that’s their business.”
“I’m a citizen, Freddy.”
“You don’t look it.”
And he’s racist, Hunter scribbled. “Did you know he was gay?”
“What?”
“Mrs. Grimm’s coworker Donny. He was a homosexual. Or is. No one knows anymore because he’s missing, but it does sort of shit on your romantic angle a bit.”
Freddy sniffed. He knew the man was gay. It wasn’t in his report because he stopped caring. A lot of stranger shit happened in the city than a missing queer.
“Are we done?” he said.
“I’d like to see her apartment.”
“Help yourself. You’re the government.”
“You work for the government, too.”
“I work for the people.”
Hunter wrote that down. Freddy the racist homophobe works for the people. He finished it with an emphatic period and
underlined it with a smiley face and got up to leave. If this was the only exchange he had, the entire trip was worth it.
Hunter’s hand was starting to quiver.
“You understand what I’m talking about, Mr. Montebank. Don’t you?”
Hunter turned in the doorway. Freddy was smiling. It was grim and knowing, spreading up to his eyes. He pointed at Hunter, then thumped his forehead twice.
“You mean this?”
Hunter pulled off his cap and pushed his hair back. A small scar was centered on his forehead, the lump of a dormant stent sealed beneath it, an old-fashioned brand left behind when the needles were large and needed a sleeve to be inserted.
“Folly of youth,” Hunter said. “In fact, I only survived the punch because someone took it out of my hand and made me quit. Sort of what I do for people now. You should understand that, Freddy.”
“Ever jones for another taste? The lick of the silver tongue?”
“You sound like a man that’s been there.”
Freddy massaged a tiny circle on his forehead, clean and smooth. No lump where a stent would be. No scar where the needle would kiss. It didn’t mean he hadn’t tasted newer technology. Punches like Sunny Grimm reported on her son had micro-needles.
“Plastic surgery can work wonders,” Hunter said.
“Then why do you still have a scar?”
“A badge of honor. I’ve been down the rabbit hole and back. Who better to help those still down there?”
“Addicts helping addicts.”
“Something like that.” Hunter shoved his quivering hand in his pocket. “Good luck with your city.”
“Enjoy your stay. You’re going to get wet.”
Get wet? Hunter didn’t know if that was a threat or if that was what the kids called punching the needle. Or maybe Hunter wasn’t up on his racial slurs.
“By the way.” Hunter dialed through his phone and lit up a photo. “Do you have any more pics of the mother and son? Maybe something a little more current?”
Freddy squinted over his desk. “Where’d you get that?”
“Came with the report.”
Freddy stared a few seconds longer then shook his head. Obviously, he’d never seen the photo. He’d stopped caring way before Hunter got there.
He was halfway across the station, counting his steps, thinking of food and checking into a hotel, when he realized he was still carrying Freddy’s pen. When he looked back, the office door was still open, but the old woman was sitting in the chair again.
He decided to keep it.
5
Hunter
After the Punch
Ever stop raining around here?”
“It did once,” the driver said without turning.
The emotional impact of weather was well documented. Suicide rates increased under the long-term assault of dreary skies and bleak forecasts. A place like this should have suicide rates spiked to the ceiling. Either that, or emotional augment technology cured the blues.
Legal or not, if there was anywhere in the world that deserved a free pass to ride the Maze, this was the place. Anything to escape the hopelessness hanging over this city was an act of compassion.
Hunter unfurled the umbrella as he stepped into a puddle. His socks were already soaked, so it mattered little. Everything aside from his underwear was wet.
The building manager met him on the third floor. “ID?” the middle-aged woman asked.
Hunter gave it to her. She examined the photo sans the ball cap, looked back and forth, tried to read the small print, but who was she kidding. Anyone with a false identification would make it past her.
“You know where you’re at?” she asked.
“I just need to look around.”
She unlocked apartment number 300. He thanked her. She waved her hand and wobbled down the hall.
The apartment smelled odd.
It was moldy and pungent. Like something spoiled in the back of a cave. The entire city smelled like that, like a forgotten basement with open containers of bleach. But the apartment especially did. The air was turned off and there was the hint of rotten food. The trash was probably due.
Hunter unfolded his notebook. The pages were damp. He ripped Freddy’s interview off the pad. The notes were fun, but useless. Before going any further, he captured a few shots with the holo lens in his right eye. Freddy didn’t know he was being recorded.
The notepad diversion almost always worked.
His hands were still shaking, but now his legs were, too. A dull ache had joined the itch in his head. His stomach insisted on investigating the kitchen first. The refrigerator had milk and orange juice inside, pickles and lunchmeat. He snatched a loaf of bread and took the heel. No one cared about the heel.
He grabbed aspirin from above the oven, the time blinking in green. Three pills would buy him enough time to get back to the hotel. He took four.
The bedrooms were the same as the kitchen, all normal. The one on the left was obviously the kid’s room. A stack of notes was on the desk, a research project for school. He couldn’t help but notice the title page. A Trip to Foreverland.
“What the hell?”
This was beyond coincidence. Hunter was too familiar with the details of Foreverland. He wasn’t just knowledgeable about that incident. He was a source. It wasn’t impossible that he was researching it for school. The Foreverland incident was a fascination that possessed the world. Hunter was glad to disassociate from it. Freddy hadn’t recognized him because he was a shitty detective. Hunter skimmed through the kid’s handwritten notes and noticed the phone and a tin box with stickers—one with a circling snake eating its tail.
The scales were finely detailed, the fangs clamped on its own body, forked tongue out. An ancient symbol of infinity, the cycle of life and death. A scrap piece of paper was beneath the box.
Only the reflection, you’ll see. Of the one you seek.
Only then you will be, the one who is free.
An amateur poet. Nothing wrong with that. Something rattled inside the box. He started to pry it open when his phone buzzed. Another text.
Who is this?
He cussed under his breath. It was the same number, the one he thought he’d blocked. He blocked it again.
The laptop was sticking out from under the bed. Before he could reach for it, his bowels insisted he investigate the bathroom. They were pushy. Hunter found the bathroom and politely closed the door.
Here’s the deal. All of this probably happened just like she said. She found him in the bedroom, went to the police, something-something, game ended, the Maze people relocated him to the Bahamas or somewhere you can at least see the sun. Which is anywhere but here.
Or she was nuts.
Maze players got wealthy. It would also psychologically wreck the kid. A mere glance at survivors would support that statement. He would be lost in the Maze as long as his body was breathing.
There were those in his department that questioned whether the mind needed the body. Some rumors suggested the Maze freed them from their body and they lived in an alternate reality as real as the toilet he was sitting on. These rumors usually circled conversations about parallel universes and horseshit that had not one shred of proof.
Back in this reality, the one of flesh and bone, you lived as long as you breathed. When you stopped, you ended. Game over.
Of course, with reports of time dilation, the kid might have lived a thousand lives in the Maze and woken up an hour later on his bed and split before his mom got back. Maybe he won and took his money to a sandy beach. Although that doesn’t explain where the mom is, but baby steps.
He washed his hands and face and dabbed his cheeks with a towel. He pushed back his coarse black hair. The circular scar looked like a third eye of scar tissue. Unlike his almond-shaped eyes, it was perfectly round. Hunter had lied to Freddy about it. He’d survived punching the needle, that much was true. But he didn’t volunteer. Someone else did it to him. Hunter had never been i
n the Maze, but he’d argue it was a skip through Candyland compared to where the old bastards had sent him and the other boys.
He kept the scar so that people would know he survived the punch.
If you didn’t have a scar, that meant you never punched. But maybe one day you would. So who better to investigate a case involving a punch than someone like Hunter? Someone who had been there.
Ever jones for a taste?
There was a knock on the front door.
Hunter listened. It came again, softly. The door handle turned. He went to the front door and pulled it open. A slight man jumped back, a manicured mustache twitching beneath an angular nose. Thin lips pulled back to expose perfectly square teeth.
“Who are you?” he said.
Hunter fought the urge to punch the man in the mouth. His hate was instantaneous. It was the face, the jittery mustache, and oily eyes. He reeked of disapproval, wearing it like a cheap cologne.
Hunter flashed his ID. “The super let me in.”
The man studied it like he was preparing for an exam. He looked over Hunter’s shoulder. “I’m Sunny’s husband.”
“She’s divorced.”
“Ex-husband. I’m just stopping by to see if—” He looked past him again.
“What?”
There was some haggling. Henk was his name. He didn’t expect someone to answer the door nor someone to hand him a federal ID. It was all happening so fast.
“She doesn’t answer my calls,” he said. “I was worried.”
“Why do you think that is?” Hunter pulled out his notepad.
“Are you writing this down?”
“Why are you here?”
“I told you I’m worried.” He shook his head, took long paces into the apartment and around the couch, glancing at the kitchen. He looked in the bedrooms. He stopped at the bathroom and grimaced. It wasn’t professional to shit at a potential crime scene, but the police weren’t treating it like one. And it had already been established Hunter wasn’t professional.
“My wife was nuts. Her head was a rock and it never changed.”
“You’re divorced, Henk.”
“Ex-wife. Whatever.”
“You fought a lot?”
