Taking the Highway

by M. H. Mead

  “Full of yourself. You’re not getting my cases.”

  “Yes, I am. I already have the request-to-acquire waiting on my captain’s desk.”

  “Your captain approved this?”

  “I just came to you as a courtesy,” he said. “To give you a head’s up.”

  “I was so wrong.”

  “It’s okay.”

  “So, completely wrong.” She shook her head in mock sadness. “Working with you isn’t fun at all.”

  THE THING THAT ALWAYS surprised Nikhil about the disincorporated zone was the lack of trees. Most of the little buildings had stumps in front of them, some quite large, but the trees themselves had long since become firewood or weapons. There might even have been grass once, instead of the hard-packed dirt and weeds that now poked through the trash. Didn’t the people here like trees? Didn’t they want some kind of canopy? Of course, trees would obstruct the view. Not that there was anything scenic in this wasteland. Still, people needed to see something. Here in the oh-zone, they needed to see out.

  Nikhil tensed at noise across the street. How many people? How close? But it was just a kid, maybe ten or eleven, riding a bike that was too small for him. The bike squeaked and whined, the kid passing through the light spilling out of a house. He turned down an alley between a psychic reader and a barbershop. Nikhil wondered where a kid that young was going this late at night. Didn’t he have to get up for school tomorrow? Or was he one of the unschooled troublemakers causing so much grief down here?

  Nikhil reached into his pants pocket, gripping the envelope of cash, then took his hand out and marched forward, swinging his arms. He refused to be afraid of the oh-zone, even after dark. He didn’t need to jump at every little thing. He would not let his own upbringing or financial circumstances make him insensitive to his fellow human beings.

  Something scurried across his foot and he shied back. Stupid rats. He pounded his feet on the pavement, announcing his presence to everyone, two legged or four.

  At the end of the block loomed the wall—a heavy, dark presence, like part of the night itself. He ran his hand along the brick, trying to find the seam where old met new. It had only been two months since the Council for Economic Justice had blown up this section of the wall, and yet the city had already rebuilt and painted it. From here, it looked like a permanent fixture, tagged with graffiti and probably pissed on.

  He wished he could have gone on that mission. He imagined them setting the explosives, managing the timers, waiting. He could almost hear the boom, feel the fear of the citizens forced to watch their beloved barrier crumbling. Had the CEJ members stood on this side of the wall or on the other side, safely within the confines of the city? Did they run away, laughing, congratulating themselves on yet another success?

  He felt further along the wall, seeking new bricks, new mortar, but couldn’t tell what had been redone and what had always been there. Another rat crossed his path and he stomped his feet again, marching away from the wall and across broken sidewalk. What did it matter? The line between the haves and the have-nots was more than a wall. Even if every partition in the city disappeared tomorrow, the zoners wouldn’t magically be reintegrated into Detroit. Besides, no anchored news had even touched the story, and the spinners claimed that the wall was damaged by criminals from within the oh-zone itself.

  At least he’d been a part of their next operation, even if he was only a lookout. They’d set two fires at the exact same moment, one just inside and one just outside the city limits. Nikhil had watched and waited from the city side, in constant contact with Russell van Slater, the lookout in the zone. Two minutes, five minutes, ten. He heard the sirens and saw the fire trucks racing to the scene, stopping at the border, even though there was no wall there and the road went straight through.

  He’d watched the city fires extinguished with all available manpower while Russell watched empty buildings in the zone crumple into ash.

  The next day, Russell disappeared.

  A car slowed beside him. Nikhil kept his face forward, catching the movement out of the corner of his eye. He walked faster, but did not run. The car kept pace with him.

  “Nikhil!” a familiar voice shouted. “Nikhil, what are you doing down here?” Topher’s round, white face grinned in the lowered window of his Ford Facet.

  Nikhil approached the car. “What are you doing here?”

  “I got worried when you missed the meeting. Thought you might need some backup.” Topher popped the locks. “Hop in, I’ll take you wherever you’re going.”

  “No thanks.” Nikhil waved a vague arm. “It’s just over there.”

  Had Topher followed him? From where, the bus stop? Or before that. Home, maybe. Topher’s appearance was no coincidence. Ever since he’d joined the CEJ, Nikhil had that constantly-watched feeling.

  He understood that. He really did. The Council had to keep tabs on their members. They were under constant threat of infiltration. But he and Topher had been friends since ninth grade. If Topher didn’t trust Nikhil, then Topher didn’t trust anyone. Sometimes Nikhil wondered if he should quit, go join another organization. Problem was, there wasn’t a better organization to join. Nobody dared to do what Topher did. And he was planning even bigger things. Finally, they would get everyone to listen.

  Nikhil looked over the top of the car and across the street. Some lights on, some lights off, eyes everywhere. He felt safer standing next to the car—two men and a vehicle instead of one guy alone. Safer, yet more conspicuous.

  Topher relocked the doors and raised the driver’s window halfway. “Why didn’t you bring your car, man?”

  Nikhil scoffed. “And have it disappear thirty seconds after I park it?”

  “Park it where? Where are you going?”

  “People live here, Topher.” Nikhil started walking. Topher wasn’t his boss, or his wingman. He didn’t need Topher’s permission or approval.

  Topher rolled the car along side him. “I know people live here. That’s the problem.”

  “It’s not the only problem.” Nikhil walked faster, ignoring Topher’s clean new car and its rolling commentary on life in the oh-zone. He walked up the steps of the house, remembering to skip the bottom stair, which looked solid in the dim porch light but was held together by prayer and paint.

  He knocked on the door, then turned to wave Topher off. See? They’re expecting me. Nothing wrong here. Topher gave him a thumbs-up but did not move from his parking place at the curb.

  Several locks clicked and snapped, and the door was wrenched open by a shifty-eyed teenager half a meter shorter than Nikhil. “Oh. Hey.”

  “Hello, Jaden. Is your mother home?”

  “No, she ah. . .” Jaden looked over his shoulder into the house and then back at Nikhil. “She had to go to the clinic.”

  “Pretty late for the clinic.”

  “I mean the emergency. It’s Cassie. You know, the asthma? Ma took her about an hour ago. Told me to wait for you.” Jaden rubbed his fingers across his thumbs.

  Nikhil put his hand in his pocket, then brought it out again, empty. “Tell your mother I came by. I hope your sister feels better.”

  “If you have anything, you know, to give her, you can give it to me.” Jaden rocked from foot to foot. “I’ll, you know, give it to her.”

  “That’s okay, Jaden. Good night.”

  “I don’t mind.” Jaden worried his fingertips faster.

  “I’ll try again later.” Nikhil retreated off the porch and into Topher’s car.

  He settled into the passenger seat. The restraints nestled around him and he nodded to Topher to take off.

  Topher kept his eyes forward and two hands on the wheel. He took one last look at the house, then shot toward Moross Road, driving toward light and traffic and prosperity and hope. “Did you know that guy?”

  “Not really.” Nikhil punched the music and waited for the satellite to find them, dialing it to evening jazz. He pulled the envelope of cash out of his pants pocket
and transferred it to the inner pocket of his coat. “His mother was our housekeeper when I was little. She took care of me.”

  Topher softened the music. “After your mom left.”

  “Yeah.”

  Topher stopped at a red light and turned in his seat. “You can’t help one person at a time. You can’t. They have troubles like cockroaches and stepping on a single one won’t help.”

  “I’m aware.” Nikhil pointed at the now-green light. “I just . . . didn’t you ever feel like you owe someone?”

  “We can’t let this be personal.”

  “I know that.”

  Topher took a hard right turn and punched the accelerator to make the next light. “This can never be personal. Not if we’re going to do what we need to do.”

  IT WAS CALLED THE sweating chair. Other members of Andre’s squad would sit across from the captain and drip. They’d emerge from her office with damp foreheads and upper lips, rubbing sweat from the back of their necks with moist palms. One rookie had left the captain’s office visibly shaking.

  Andre sat with one ankle thrown over the opposite knee, his arms casually at his side, powder dry. Just as at the fourthing stop, confidence stood out.

  Captain Evans tilted her head so far forward that her chin practically touched her chest. She looked at him with the intensity of a nun scolding a third-grader. Listening. Judging. Andre sat easy, refusing to feel like a child. Let her judge. He knew he was right.

  He had just finished presenting his reasons for acquiring the two homicide cases from Downriver. The murders showed different methodologies, which made them look unrelated, but all the victims had been fourths. He had stressed the need to keep it out of the media. If it were picked up by news spinners, it could go viral in seconds. The quicker he could consolidate the cases, the quicker he could quietly solve them, but the detective from Downriver, Sofia Gao—

  Then came the look that had dampened the underarms of even the bravest detectives. “Sergeant, do I understand you have already talked to the suburban forces about this? Because you know, and I know you know, such a request has to originate with me.”

  Andre put on a smile and innocent eyebrows. “Come on, Captain. I would never make a request without your permission. I was trying to save you a headache by feeling out the other detective about her caseload. Most people would be happy to get some work off their desks.”

  “So that’s why you went there yesterday? To feel her out?”

  “I was hoping.” He kept his expression neutral. “I think Sergeant Gao is going to fight us on this.”

  “Ah, it’s us, now, is it?” Captain Evans shook her head, a hundred tiny braids swinging from side to side. “So you didn’t tell her I was already in motion on this? You didn’t tell her you were calling as a courtesy to give her a head’s up?”

  “Where would you get that idea?”

  Captain Evans switched the view of her comscreen so that Andre could see the head and shoulders of a lovely but angry woman. Nothing to do but wave. “Oh. Hi, Sergeant.”

  Even with the volume low, Andre could hear a cold stream of uncomplimentary syllables from the holographic image as the captain lowered her forehead to her palm.

  “Sofia, I’ll be calling you back in a very short while.” The stage went off and the captain straightened the pot of ivy on her desk, a plant that only needed adjusting when she wasn’t happy. “LaCroix, what am I going to do with you?”

  “That looks bad.”

  “It looks worse. How did you get the particulars of her cases without her knowing?”

  Yikes. “I pulled them from the open file database with meticulous searches.”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “Okay. Okay.” He sighed. “I used a downloaded Illudium Q36 and falsified a generic blanket-pass . . . with your . . . signature—I know, I know—” He held up his hands. “I’m in trouble for peeking into Downriver’s case logs, but this was just a shortcut to narrow my search. I didn’t want to bother you with anything if there wasn’t anything to bother with.” And with any luck, we can leave Elway out of this.

  “Then you continued to misrepresent me and my intentions without even a forged signature by telling Sofia Gao—”

  “She was going on and on about how I was going to hand my cases over to her. She hadn’t even put together that they were fourths. She just happened to get them both as unrelated homicides and she’s the lowest on the ladder over there.”

  “You are off the bottom of my ladder and headed for the woodshed.” The captain pressed her fingertips onto the desk as if they were supporting her entire weight. “You do not get to short-circuit procedure whenever it gets in the way. If someone is preying on fourths—” She held up a hand to forestall him. “Yes, I said ‘if.’ You’ve made some interesting points, but you have other cases to clear and a few dead hitchhikers shouldn’t take precedence over them.”

  Andre slammed a fist onto the desk. “That’s the problem right there. Fourths aren’t important. As long as you get to work on time and it doesn’t cost too much, who cares?”

  Captain Evans stood up, leaned over, and very slowly, very deliberately, moved his hand from her desk to his lap. “You’re quite involved with—”

  “Damn right I’m involved! I work as a fourth.”

  “Mmm hmm. Save it, Mr. LaCroix.” The captain didn’t come to Andre’s shoulder, but she was suddenly towering over him. “I’ve been trying to get your attention ever since you came to my department. I’ve been waiting for you to get on fire for a case. I don’t want it to be this one.”

  The way she nodded, brows raised as if daring him to answer implied questions, made the arguments he prepared so carefully feel woefully inadequate. A traitorous drop of sweat broke free and oozed down his back.

  “Because it’s for the wrong reasons,” she added.

  “What reasons would you like?”

  “If you had listened to me a year ago, and dropped this questionable profession, it would make things clearer for me, and a damn sight clearer for you too. Now it’s up to me to decide whether you have a conflict of professional interest.”

  “The police union supports—”

  “I am not talking about your legal right to be a paid rider. I’m talking about the lack of priorities you have shown me time-and-again. Are you the detective on this case or a fourth with a shield and gun?”

  Andre wanted to thump the desk again, but settled for striking the palm of his left hand with the heel of his right. “Nobody else would connect these dead men. Nobody else would even look.”

  “You looked. You found. Gold star for the day. Then you tried to screw over a colleague so you could work on something that sounds a little more interesting than your other cases.”

  “That’s not—”

  “Shut up and let me do the thinking.” The captain fiddled with the buttons on her holostage. “I will kick your request upstairs, through proper channels. Package what you have. Maybe the word of a real fourth will make it more compelling.” The backhanded compliment was matched with an ironic glint in her eye. “Don’t think for one minute I’m going to reassign your other cases.”

  “No. Of course not.” Andre threaded his fingers together.

  The captain readjusted her potted plant, moving it the same few centimeters. She considered him over the top of it.

  Andre shifted in his chair. Now what?

  “Sergeant, when was the last time you were on the target range?”

  “We’re required to shoot once a week.”

  “Uh-huh. I didn’t ask you about the requirement. I asked you when you last showed your sorry face there.” She clicked through menus on her holo.

  Andre felt fresh dampness on his neck and underarms. Don’t look. Don’t look. Don’t look.

  “It says here you last logged into the range fifteen days ago.”

  “I can shoot, Captain.”

  “Prove it. Range. This week.” The potted plant took another two-centimeter journey. �
��You do good work when you’re on the job. Just make sure that you’re on the job you’re given. Dismissed.”

  BELLA TRATTORIA, THE LATEST place to power lunch, felt exactly like the last few places Andre’s older brother had dragged him to. Soft music, high ceilings, everything white and black and chrome. The cuisine changed, but the flavor remained the same. Georgio’s, Café Merlot, Hatashi—once the places to be—had been replaced by Bella Trattoria, just as surely as Bella Trattoria would be replaced as soon as someone more alpha was seen there. Oliver, and the rest of the city council, would scent it on the wind, and the herd would move.

  The hostess matched the décor—white blouse, black suit, and chrome earrings. Her eyes flicked over him, obviously liking what she saw. She apologized for the rain outside and offered to take his drip-hat. “How many will be dining today?”

  “Two.” His implant chirped for attention and with a grimace of apology to the hostess he held up his datapad so he wouldn’t look like he was talking to himself. He moved aside and fielded the call from Jordan Elway, his contact in the technical services division.

  “Hey, Elway.”

  “I heard Captain Evans nailed you.”

  “You heard wrong, my techno-philanthropist. You heard wrong. Things are coming up ro—”

  “How much trouble am I in?”

  “Elway, Elway! Do you think I’d give you up?”

  Elway snorted. “Then how did you explain getting those files?”

  “I told her I used an Illudium Q36 and created a new passcode with her name on it.”

  Silence from the other end.

  “Elway? You still there, buddy?”

  “I thought you never listened to a thing I say.”

  “I listen. I just don’t understand you half the time.”

  “Now you want me to—”

  “Okay! Gotta go. I’ll be in touch.” He folded away the pad. “Sorry about that.”

  The earlier warmth he’d seen from the hostess was gone. She pulled two menus of embossed silver on cream paper. “Our non-tech section is full, but if you’d care for a table in the tech section, I can seat you as soon as the rest of your party arrives.”