Accelerated

by Heppner, Vaughn

  “You’re making people nervous,” I said.

  Harris snapped his fingers. “They are obsolete, Homo moronus.”

  “So what are they doing at Polarity Magnetics?”

  Harris leaned toward me and spoke in a conspiratorial whisper. “Do you have any idea of the energy expended during the accident?”

  “A lot,” I said.

  “An imprecise term, but apt nonetheless. To duplicate the accident is far beyond the powers of Polarity Magnetics or even the Shop. No. Cheng’s approach is different: biomechanical instead of with nonbaryonic matter.”

  “Biomechanical,” I said, “as in cyborgs?”

  “Not in the way you think, but that strikes the dartboard near its bull’s-eye. I could tell you more. Before I do, however, I would like a dollop of information for my efforts. I’m here to barter, not to give away for free.”

  “Go on.”

  His grin tightened. “What did Kay bring you on June 12?”

  He knew what, I was certain of that. Seeing the bikers here, and their tattoos, I was certain it had been Harris’s men on my boat and his man with the needle. Maybe the junkie who had tried to grab Kay’s purse had also been his man. If that were true, did he ask me about the box to try to throw me off? I decided to play along and find out what he really wanted to know.

  “She brought a box,” I said. “Now what’s this about biomechanical?”

  Harris studied me and nodded slowly. “Information for information. How big was the box?”

  I held my hands so and so, showing him.

  “The biomechanical process is through microprocessors,” he said. “They are microscopic silicon chips, infinitesimal nanoparticles. Particle accelerators ‘beam’ the data fixture onto the chips. The chips are smaller than a pinhead by a factor of ten thousand.”

  “Accelerators like in Switzerland?”

  “Heavens no,” he said, “nothing so grand. What was in the box?”

  “Insurance,” I said. “You’re telling me they surgically insert the nanoparticles into people?”

  Harris shook his head. “Injections put millions of them into the bloodstream. Many of the chips are tropic-related: heart, lung and liver, all over the body. It increases health, strength, bone density and possibly speed, too.”

  “Are there any negative side effects?”

  “If so they are unknown to me.” Harris cleared his throat. “What exactly was in the box?”

  I eyed him. “A large metallic cube.”

  “Ah, indeed, indeed,” he said, his grin twitching. “And this cube is where?”

  I smiled. “Nice try. How did you call me here?”

  He sat back, eyeing me more closely. “It is at this juncture we reach the delicate point of our bargain. I can impart fantastic knowledge to you that none of the others possess.”

  “Likewise,” I said.

  “Oh, but truth serum could unlock your secrets, my dear fellow.”

  “Truth serum still works on the accelerated?” I asked.

  His fox’s grin slipped a bit. “You surprise one, Gavin. Is it intelligence you exhibit or animal cunning?”

  “Did you ever watch Star Trek?”

  “Eh?” he asked.

  “The original series, with Kirk, Spock and Bones.”

  “I’ve seen the newer flicks.”

  “In the original series, Kirk beat Spock at chess, even though Spock had superior logic.”

  “Pap for the masses, I’m afraid,” Harris said. “Spock would win every time.”

  “Think of me as James T. Kirk. It will help prevent your asking asinine questions.”

  Harris’s bushy eyebrows lifted. “I’ve upset you.”

  “You’re boring me with wordiness. Either get to the point or I’m leaving.”

  “Once I tell you about the call, you shall tell me the whereabouts of the cube?” he asked.

  “How did you happen to be in San Francisco when Kay showed up at my boat?”

  “I’m afraid you don’t own enough information for me to tell you that, unless you wish to know this instead of the calling.”

  “I see these bikers,” I said. “They’re just like the man who tried to stab me with a needle. They’re like the other two who invaded my boat.”

  “Hmm, yes, that was unfortunate. I had not realized that you’d grown in ability. I thought the others… Well, I made a mistake that day. I should have come to you immediately. You are here, however, so there was no permanent harm committed.”

  “You forced me to kill two people,” I said.

  He waved his hand in dismissal. “You are far above their petty laws, believe me. Their deaths, I absolve you.”

  I studied him a moment, and saw that he was serious. “Okay, thanks,” I said.

  “It is a small matter.”

  His arrogance had grown exponentially since Geneva. “How were you able to call me with your mind?” I asked.

  His grin intensified. “Self-interest always wins out, eh? I have your word then? If I tell you, you will tell me where the cube is?”

  “If I think you’re telling me the truth, yes.”

  Harris slapped his right palm onto the table. “I’ve stumbled onto an amazing discovery. It explains so much. Do you know that in the past people thought of themselves as werewolves or vampires? There have been sightings of abominable snowmen, while others swore to the truth about elves.”

  Was he serious? Had the change turned Doctor Harris insane?

  “The exposure altered our DNA,” Harris said. “It shifted us into creatures of the night. I’m certain that in the past, explosive solar flares poured massive radiation and perhaps even nonbaryonic matter onto people. That outpouring changed them as we’ve been changed. Oh, not in the same way,” he said with a wave of his hand. “Yet think about vampires. They reputedly possessed great strength, night vision and an ability to fly. It likely meant they could leap like human grasshoppers, and the primitives supposed it must have been flight.”

  “You’re saying we’re vampires?”

  “No, no, you’re missing my point. I’m saying these ‘vampires’ were like us. What I’m saying is that alterations have occurred in the past. The sun must have been the source, the solar flares in particular.”

  “What does that have to do with your calling me here?” I asked.

  Harris sighed. “I’d hoped you’d possessed a modicum of scientific curiosity.”

  I wanted to tell him that massive doses of radiation killed people. It didn’t turn them into vampires. Or maybe everyone had missed seeing all those vampires in Hiroshima in 1945. Harris struck me as a strange mixture of brilliance and nuttiness all swirled into one.

  “I suppose it is interesting,” I said. “Kay’s death and what they’re doing at Polarity Magnetics… I’ve become so preoccupied with it that I missed seeing what you’re saying.”

  “Yes, yes, perfectly reasonable. But at least you see the possibilities now.”

  “It has a mad logic of its own, doesn’t it?”

  “Precisely.” Harris leaned toward me and lowered his voice. “Armed with this new knowledge, I began to understand something about what had happened to me. I should expect extrasensory abilities. Then to my delight, I discovered them.” His grin was huge. “Do you know that if a man, or a woman or child, speaks your name in earnest while in shadows and the radius—I haven’t discovered the limit of the radius. Perhaps each of us has varying degrees. The point is this. You can hear, in your mind, the speaking of your name.”

  “Why in earnest?” I asked.

  Harris slapped the table, leaned back and barked a “Ha! I wish I knew. That’s an excellent question. Are there latent telepathic powers within each human? I frankly doubt that’s the answer. I suspect it has to do with the underlying source of the universe. Scientists have hotly attempted to weigh and calculate such matter, but it has eluded their measurements. My theory is that vibrations are stirred within the unseen mass. Our ears or minds perhaps have become
tuned to these vibrations. Not sharply tuned, but our ears have been unstopped. How exactly this process works, I haven’t deciphered yet. I am in the crude phase of understanding, simply recognizing the phenomenon without being able to explain it.”

  “You called me here by speaking my name in shadows?”

  “Earnestly speaking it,” Harris corrected.

  “And you believe that called me?”

  “As you said earlier, you are here.”

  “Does it have to be another accelerated person doing the speaking?” I asked.

  “Oh, you’re a quick fellow, Gavin. Yes, I believe so. Although—”

  He stiffened, and his head swiveled sharply. It seemed then that he saw through the walls. Harris hissed between his teeth. “We have seconds left, I’m afraid. Quickly now, where is the box?”

  I frowned.

  That agitated Harris. “Tell me. You promised.”

  “I did promise,” I said slowly.

  He tried to match my stare. Then he swiveled his head again, as if glancing through the walls. He grabbed his bowler hat and umbrella and slid to the edge of the booth.

  “Are you foresworn, Gavin?”

  I had given my word, and I hated lying. “I dropped the cube in the ocean.”

  “What?” he said. “What possessed you to do that?”

  “Information for information,” I told him.

  “Where in the ocean?” he asked urgently.

  I picked up my shot glass, holding it before my eyes, twisting it this way and that. “Why the hurry?”

  “I’m not ready for a confrontation with them yet,” he said. “I will speak with them once I have overwhelming power. Then I will root them out, every single slimy piece of them.” Harris thereupon slid out of the booth and strode for the rear exit.

  Bikers, their women, the waitresses and the bartender watched him.

  I took a last gulp of the Scotch and slid out of the booth.

  Harris departed out the back door. Immediately, the bar’s attention focused on me. I looked a few of them in the eye. Bikers paled and glanced away. Maybe they thought I’d frightened Harris. Except for the heavy metal music from the jukebox, silence reigned in Neil’s Grill.

  I kept wondering who had panicked Harris. When I opened the front door to look outside, I got my answer.

  -14-

  Several things puzzled me. The first was how Harris had known. Had he seen through the wall?

  I didn’t buy his vampire theory. The world was crazy about vampires and Harris had caught the bug. Me, I only liked vampire stories where someone staked the undead creature through the heart, turning him into ashes in his coffin.

  The idea that the accelerated could call each other by speaking the person’s name in shadow and in earnest—

  Seeing that I had an immediate problem, I shelved the idea. An armored Cadillac DeVille was parked beside the Harleys. Jagiello’s two dark-suited killers had exited the car. The Chief was inside in the back, safely behind bullet-resistant ballistic glass. Jagiello sat behind the wheel, with his door and window closed.

  The muscle drew PDW 7.92 VBR-B Compacts. The assassin with slicked-back hair screwed on a sound suppressor and pulled out the pistol’s extractable buttstock.

  It was an interesting weapon. It looked like a bulky pistol and it could be used as one. Really, it was a modern machine pistol, with a foregrip mounted on a picatinny rail, meaning the shooter could use two hands for steadier fire. A selector switch let the shooter use semiautomatic or full auto fire. They were made in Belgium, constructed of polymers like a Glock and these likely used armor-piercing rounds.

  I could hardly believe the Chief had come at night in a single car to take on Harris and a bar full of bikers. I had no doubt sawed-off shotguns and other weaponry sat in some of the Harley saddlebags. Some of the bikers inside were probably already packing.

  Why would Harris leave?

  As I stood in the doorway, thinking about it, motion caught my eye. Across the street were several old buildings, several of them two-story and some three. I saw vest-armored snipers setting up in some of those windows. They tried to stay in the dark, but to me they were gray and very visible, especially as they set up their deadly rifles.

  Did the Chief want Harris or was this for me? If it was for Harris, did the Chief mean to simply execute him?

  “I should kill you and collect my bounty now,” a biker said. I hadn’t heard him sneak up on me. He pressed the muzzle of a gun against my head. It was a .357 Magnum Colt Python, with a four-inch barrel. “Now walk out there before I change my mind.”

  “This is a mistake,” I told him.

  “Shut up!” He pushed the gun harder against the back of my head, forcing it forward.

  I concentrated then. I was sure that going outside meant my death by a Shop sniper. The biker—he must be the reason the Chief had known Harris would be here. I wouldn’t be surprised to learn the biker had been turned and offered a large amount of money for tipping off the Chief.

  “Get outside!” the biker shouted, pushing harder.

  I stiffened my neck muscles so my head didn’t budge.

  “I’m not going to tell you—what the hell?” he asked.

  The bar turned dark. It was my doing. There was some light coming from outside and from the neon sign in the window. The darkness was a momentary distraction, and it was probably all I was going to get.

  I jerked my head aside and heard the hammer click. An instant later came a terrific, ear-shattering boom. The heat of the bullet’s passage told me I’d survived by less than an inch. I swiveled around fast, with my head ringing. The biker—a thin man, with a pockmarked face and missing several teeth—tried to realign the Colt Python. I slammed a fist into his gut. He let go of the Python as his body curled around my hand and then he rocketed backward onto the floor. I dove, and I heard a retort like an engine backfiring. Then I heard several more. The door and the frame sprayed bits of wood as armor-piercing bullets drilled small holes.

  Bikers bellowed in rage and fear. Some jumped up in the dark, brandishing weapons. Others dove to the floor.

  By holding my concentration, I kept the lights dark in the bar, and now I included the neon sign. A dull throb had already started in my head. Before too long, it would become a sharp pain and then I would scream in agony.

  I moved through the bar, avoiding people.

  The shots had stopped, and I wondered if the Chief would send the two assassins into here.

  When I reached the back door Harris had used, I released my hold on the lights. They flared into brilliance again.

  Then I opened the back door, and I expected shots to ring out. Shadows and darkness reigned here, however. I moved like a dark blot in the shadows, and I sprinted along the side of the bar. I didn’t know if the Shop had developed the technology to see me when I was like this, but I acted as if they could.

  Then I saw a gray shape move on a rooftop. I had no doubts it was a Shop team.

  I darted across the alleyway. No shot came. It had to mean they couldn’t see me. I was in my element now. Maybe I was like a vampire. I was a living shadow, a part of the night, moving in its underside.

  It didn’t take long before I was behind the old building, at least behind it in relation to Neil’s Grill. I climbed onto a dumpster, reached a service ladder and eased myself onto the roof. There they were—two Shop snipers in black clothing. One knelt as he spotted through a range-finding scope. The other lay prone on the roof, with his night-scoped rifle aimed at the bar.

  The roof was composed of tarpaper and small gravel. It crunched as I moved across it. The spotter heard me first. He turned, saw me and clawed at his holstered gun.

  I shot him in the face with my Browning. I had too much fear of Shop commandos to try to play games. The man wasn’t an innocent, but a killer many times over. He pitched over the edge of the roof, falling below so he hit with a thud.

  “Don’t do it!” I shouted, rushing the shooter.

/>   He froze prone on the roof. There was a jack in his ear and a microphone clipped on his shoulder for easy speaking.

  I knelt on his back and shoved the Browning behind his ear. Then I tore out the ear-jack and put it in mine.

  “Answer me,” Jagiello said. “What just happened?”

  I pulled off the microphone next, clicking it as I said, “Put the Chief on.”

  “Gavin Kiel?” Jagiello asked in my ear.

  “Hurry,” I said, “or I’m killing this one, too.”

  A moment later, the Chief whispered through the ear-jack, “What have you done?”

  “I don’t like people shooting at me. Your spotter tried, and he died.”

  “Where are you?”

  “I’m not talking long,” I said. “Why did you try to kill me just now?”

  “You compromised my inside man.”

  “He pulled a gun on me and tried to march me outside to you.”

  “You must surrender to me immediately.”

  “If you see me,” I said, “you can kiss your life good-bye.”

  Several seconds passed before the Chief whispered, “I told you to stay out of Long Beach. You have disobeyed me.”

  “We’ve been over that.”

  “Do not make me hunt you, Herr Kiel.”

  “Wrong, sir, don’t make me hunt you.” I pressed my knee harder into the sniper’s back, as he’d been getting edgy and moved slightly. “You have an armored vehicle, I noticed. Where was it on the night of Kay’s death?”

  “You suspect me of murder?” the Chief asked in surprise.

  “How many killers do you have out here tonight?”

  “You must use your reason, Herr Kiel. If I had ordered Kay’s death, she would not have stumbled before a truck. After the impact, she lingered in death, and possibly spoke about things I would wish kept silent. If I had ordered her killed, one of my men would have accomplished the fact with a bullet in her brain.”

  “Then tell me why you had her body shipped to Geneva.”

  “You are mistaken. I have done no such thing.”