Cybershot: An Empathic Detective Novel (The Empathic Detective Book 3)

by Jaxon Reed

  He stood up and smiled down at Renard. All onboard were once more under his mental control.

  “Come along, Mama. Texas awaits.”

  -+-

  Friedman said, “If the Governor had listened to me and shot down that plane while it was still in the air, it would have saved us a lot of trouble.”

  Kim, Bryce, and Parker followed at a respectful distance behind Friedman, Nguyen, and half a dozen other high-ranking law enforcement officers. Absently, Bryce tried to scan the emotions of everyone present. But with the drug in his system, his own powers were muted. He consoled himself by considering that everyone else was on the same drug. Even if he had his powers, there would be nothing to detect.

  They passed several officers who had taken up positions throughout the airport, sidearms out and pointed down the corridor. Some held long guns, with extra ammunition magazines within easy reach. SWAT snipers had climbed up in the rafters to try and secure higher vantage points.

  Nguyen said, “She was unwilling to shoot down a civilian scramjet with a child onboard. I can’t blame her. That’s not a decision you get to go back on. Or live down. Not to mention creating something of an international incident on account of it being a foreign plane. With an innocent foreign crew, to boot.”

  Friedman said, “She doesn’t know what she’s dealing with. This is no ordinary child, Director. Dozens, perhaps hundreds of innocent lives are now at risk at this airport because of her unwillingness to take action.”

  “I’m aware of that. However, it is what it is. The decision was made and we will have to take care of things on the ground. We like our due process over here, Agent Friedman.”

  “And what’s that supposed to mean?”

  “It means that I’m aware you don’t have the death penalty in Europe. And yet, when faced with a terrorist, your police always shoot to kill.”

  Friedman said nothing. Bryce found himself agreeing with Nguyen. The “shoot first” policy of European law enforcement had a long history of bypassing their courts’ more liberal sentencing guidelines.

  -+-

  Jacques and Phoebe walked through the jet bridge and entered the airport. Everything seemed deserted. Shops were empty. Rows of seating for waiting passengers stood vacant.

  Jacques said, “Where’s Customs? I thought international travelers had to go through Customs?”

  Phoebe said, “I don’t think they had us disembark at an international gate, dear. This looks like a domestic terminal.”

  A bullhorn barked out, echoing through the area.

  “Stop where you are! Hands where we can see them! Jacques Renard, Phoebe Renard, you are under arrest!”

  Jacques smiled, and reached out in his mind to grasp control of the speaker. His smile faltered and turned into a frown.

  He said, “How did they get Hexenhammer over here?”

  In his mind he heard the whir of electronics and voices transmitted over neural radio networks.

  “Subject in sight. Target acquired.”

  He heard the snick of bolts sliding home and electronic optics humming.

  He concentrated and sent a wave of power toward the electronics. Small explosions ricocheted around the terminal as dozens of digital scopes blew apart.

  Jacques waved his arms up and guns flew out of the hands of all the police he could sense.

  For a moment, confusion reigned as all the officers tried to adjust and scrambled for backup weapons.

  Bryce said, “We’ll catch more flies with honey.” He stepped out of a nearby shop, waving a hand to keep the remainder of his party hidden inside.

  “Jacques! Stop! All we want to do is talk.”

  He walked slowly toward Phoebe and Jacques, arms stretched wide and palms out.

  Jacques gave the newcomer a curious glance. A quick mental scan revealed Hexenhammer in Bryce’s system.

  Jacques said, “Who are you?”

  Bryce glanced at Renard as he stopped a few feet away. He said, “Tell him, Phoebe.”

  “Jacques, this is your father.”

  The boy’s eyes grew wide, and he moved closer to Bryce.

  He said, “You’re my father?”

  Bryce nodded. He reflected to himself that if he were not on the drug, this would be an emotional moment. Instead, he felt nothing.

  Jacques said, “Why did you never come and see me?”

  Bryce looked at Phoebe, who turned very red in the face. He said, “Well, for one thing, I did not know you were born. Nobody told me.”

  The boy turned and stared back at Phoebe, a question in his eyes, with hints of simmering anger.

  Renard said, “Jacques, I told you, it’s very complicated.”

  Bryce said, “Did you tell him you’re not his real mother? Did you tell him what happened?”

  The boy’s mouth dropped open and blood rushed to his face.

  He whipped back to look at Renard and said, “You’re not my real mother?”

  She said, “Jacques, please! I can explain everything!”

  In the distance, they heard a muffled voice further back in the airport saying, “I can’t get a clear shot. The detective is in the way!”

  Jacques released all of his anger toward the sniper who had spoken. The man, hidden in the ceiling rafters, flew backward when the psychic blast hit him. Jacques whipped his arms around in a circle, sending out waves of destructive energy. Chairs and podiums toppled over, and shop windows blew out.

  He pulled his fists in toward his chest, then threw them out. A huge ball of energy expanded outward, blowing over everything else.

  Bryce threw his arms up and tried to roll into the fall as the blast threw him off his feet.

  “Come on, Mama!”

  Jacques led Phoebe by the hand and they approached a shattered window looking over the tarmac. Together they jumped to the pavement, floating down lightly until their feet reached the ground.

  He led her to a parked utility vehicle, opened the door and let her get inside. Then he climbed in and drove off, heading north across the wide expanse of pavement.

  Parker rushed over and helped Bryce back to his feet.

  She said, “Are you crazy, partner? That was foolish. What were you trying to do, provoke a reaction?”

  He dusted himself off and said, “It seemed reasonable at the time. Anybody hurt?”

  Nguyen walked up and said, “Looks like the sniper he walloped is dead. We’re calling in a medic, but right now they can’t find a pulse.”

  Friedman appeared out of the milieu of police personnel rushing about. He said, “I did not expect him to make his exit through the walls. We need to track that vehicle.”

  “Technically, it was through the windows,” Bryce said. “But regardless, we’re going to have a hard time tracking the vehicle.”

  “Why is that, Detective?”

  “Tarmac trucks don’t have tracking systems. They’re relatively primitive since they’re not designed to leave the airport grounds.”

  Friedman shrugged and said, “Then we’ll shoot down any vehicle without electronics that is flying near the airport right now.”

  “That’s another thing,” Bryce said. “The vehicle he took is not a flying vehicle. It’s a terrestrial one.”

  -+-

  Jacques said, “My first time behind the wheel!”

  He punched the accelerator and raced down the wide-open tarmac. His control over Phoebe firmly established, he stifled her inclination to warn him about being careful.

  He slowed down and looked around in all directions.

  “How do we get out of here?” he said.

  Phoebe said, “The airport is south of the city. So, go north.”

  “Which way is north?”

  “It is morning. The sun is in the eastern sky. So, go that way.”

  She pointed, and in the distance they could see a security fence marking the airport’s perimeter. Jacques smiled and punched the accelerator again, setting off in a new direction.

  Soon they rea
ched the fence. Behind it, an open field gave way to a parking lot. Beyond that they could see a road with sparse ground traffic.

  Jacques pushed with his mind, focusing on the fence. A burst of energy blew a large hole through the metal. He drove through, cutting across the grass and aiming for the pavement.

  A moment later, he turned onto the road and continued heading north, picking up speed until they neared a light at an intersection.

  Phoebe said, “Jacques, the camera system. You have to shut it down.”

  He nodded, seeing the traffic cam she pointed at. Stopping at the light he concentrated, feeling out the city’s network, searching for its core.

  A moment later he smiled at her. He said, “There. They’re blind now.”

  The light turned green and he drove further into the city.

  -+-

  Kim sat at an airline rep’s desk near Gate 16, belting out orders. She snapped directions to the officers still at the airport and shouted back at Dispatch.

  “Get me video on all terrestrial roadways near the airport! Put out an APB between Bryan-College Station to the east, and Johnson City to the west. Find that truck!”

  A hologram of Lieutenant Andrews appeared floating above the desk, showing him visibly upset.

  “Ma’am, I’m sorry to say our entire ground surveillance system is out of order. We can’t see anything, Captain.”

  Kim bit her lip in thought. If she were not dosed up on Hexenhammer, she might have been tempted to let out a string of profanity.

  Instead, she said, “Put every available drone in a grid pattern around the airport. Find that truck. When it is located, maintain distance, but don’t lose it.”

  Andrews nodded and his hologram winked out of sight.

  Kim turned toward the people behind her, a group including Bryce, Nguyen, and Friedman.

  Friedman raised questioning eyebrows.

  Kim said, “We’ll find him. We just have to do it the old-fashioned way.”

  -+-

  Jacques pulled into the parking lot of a roadside restaurant.

  Phoebe said, “They’ll be looking for us, Jacques, even with the camera system out. We should change to another vehicle.”

  He nodded as he parked the truck, then watched in interest as a car floated down to the parking lot. Its feet popped out and it landed gently on the pavement. The doors opened and two young college girls climbed out, both sporting bleach-blonde hair, burnt orange shorts and white t-shirts.

  Jacques reached out a hand and they both stopped, frozen.

  “Come on, Mama. We’ll take their car. And them, too. Maybe they can show us the city. Or at least where they live.”

  -+-

  “Your son is one sick individual,” Parker said.

  Bryce followed her down the tunnel to the scramjet. She made the announcement matter-of-factly, with no emotional inflection. He was not offended or upset by the statement, either.

  There is something to be said, Bryce reasoned to himself, for a world with no emotion. You can state the truth without worrying about how others will react to it.

  Inside the plane, a handful of agents and officers combed the cabin. A small cadre gathered around the body of the dead flight attendant in the back.

  The remaining women were crying softly, each one holding hands with another for moral and physical support. The pilot and copilot were standing near the cockpit door. They were not crying, but looked equally upset.

  Bryce addressed them first.

  “What happened?”

  The captain shrugged his shoulders. He looked to be in his mid-forties. He was tall and skinny, fitting the old “beanpole” description, Bryce thought. When he spoke, his French accent came through.

  “I do not know. Our minds, they were taken over, you know? We could not think for ourselves the entire flight.”

  “Are human pilots even needed anymore?” Bryce said. “I thought these planes mostly flew themselves.”

  “Oui, monsieur. The plane has excellent artificial intelligence. But the unions, they are strong, no?”

  The co-pilot spoke up. She was a younger woman, perhaps in her early thirties. She sported a neatly trimmed haircut, kept relatively short under her cap.

  “Besides,” she said, “Nobody wants to fly in a plane that doesn’t have a human at the controls.”

  The pilot nodded in agreement.

  “Somebody will get your statements shortly,” Bryce said.

  He turned toward Parker who spoke with the flight attendants. Parker motioned him to the youngest, a pretty brunette. She looked up at him with a tear-stained face. He knelt down in the aisle to address her.

  “You will have to pardon us our apparent lack of empathy for your situation,” he said. “We’re all dosed up on a drug designed to prevent him from controlling us.”

  “Oh. I wondered why everybody seemed so distant,” she said, sniffling.

  Her English was impeccable, Bryce thought. She carried only the slightest hint of a French accent.

  He said, “What can you tell me about what happened?”

  “Well, he controlled our every move. Except for Nita. She tried to resist him, called him a ‘bastard’ before he gained control. He killed her.”

  Bryce and Parker shared a glance. He said, “That’s good to know. Details like that are very important. What else can you tell me?”

  “He’s just a boy. He doesn’t seem to know much . . . much about women. He . . . made us dance for him in the aisles . . .”

  She burst into tears again. “I’m sorry. It’s just . . . what he made us do . . . just to amuse himself . . . he’s a monster!”

  Again, Bryce considered himself grateful for the drugs in his system.

  8

  One of the differences with the real world and this virtual version of it, Simon thought, was the University of Texas Bell Tower.

  In real life, a gunman killed the receptionist, barricaded the doors, and perched on the observation deck with several rifles, picking off people 231 feet below.

  Drivers pulled over their pickups, took out their own guns and started firing back. But the rampage finally ended when a cop and a civilian burst through the observatory doors, rounded a corner, and shot the gunman at close range.

  That all happened in 1966, Cybershot thought. And in real life, the tower’s observatory had been closed to the general public ever since.

  But here in Metro-X it remained open. At least seven people had tried to recreate the sniper incident in the game, Simon thought. Perhaps more, he had not paid much attention.

  Maybe the Texans know what they are doing by keeping it closed in real life, he thought.

  He waited patiently, looking out at the recreated cityscape below, a virtual wind ruffling his avatar’s hair as he stood near the chest-high security wall.

  The message that had brought him here seemed desperate. Of course, it was text-based. But Cybershot thought he could read through the lines well enough to get a grasp on Renard’s emotional state.

  She’ll meet me here, he thought. And she’ll be on time.

  The door to the observation deck opened behind him. He turned and saw Renard’s avatar approaching, the same one she used before. She walked up to the railing next to him.

  “Simon.”

  “Phoebe.”

  He waited, patiently, curious as to what she would say. What could she say?

  Very little of importance, he decided. Very little that would change things.

  Nonetheless, his curiosity was sufficiently piqued. He would let her speak.

  “I want you to leave us alone, Simon.”

  “You know I can’t do that.”

  “Please, Simon. Jacques is a very special boy. He will change the world! But he has to have the chance to grow up.”

  Simon looked out at the cityscape below and said nothing. In the distance, a bird spiraled upward on a heat column. An eagle? A caracara? Or just a generic bird? Would the programmers delve down that deep in the
details?

  He turned back to her and said, “You know the Courts have not ruled in your favor. There is little point in discussing it.”

  “But you are the Courts’ weapon. You can decide for yourself what to do. You don’t always have to do what the Courts tell you, Simon. You shouldn’t in this case.”

  He said, “Is this the same Phoebe Renard who gave me edicts in the past to carry out? You never mentioned when I was sent to do your bidding back then that I had a choice in the matter, did you?”

  “Simon, please! He is my son. He’s going to lead Europe and the rest of the world into a better tomorrow. Hold off on the judgment a few years. Let him grow and mature and see if he doesn’t make an excellent world leader.”

  “I did that once,” he said, his head jerking toward her. “There was a very powerful male harpy. Not as strong as your ‘son.’ But a late bloomer with enormous powers of persuasion who entered politics at just the right time.

  “Knowing his bloodline, I had the chance to take him out when he was a boy. But the decision was made to let him live and grow up. And do you know what happened?”

  “Simon, please . . .”

  “I ended up in Auschwitz, along with millions of my people. That boy lived, Phoebe, and look what happened.”

  “Simon . . .”

  Tears streamed down her avatar’s face, and he suspected she was probably crying in real life, too.

  “Goodbye, Phoebe. I presume you will be unable to buy a nice new avatar once this one is gone. Where will you get money? How will you make it in the world now that you are cut off?”

  She said nothing, her tears continuing to flow.

  He said, “Don’t contact me again.”

  He slugged her in the jaw and she crumpled. He reached down, picked up her avatar’s body, and hoisted it over the security wall.

  He watched her tumble down, down, down. She hit the ground with a loud splat!