by J. N. Chaney
“Didn’t expect that to hit me so hard,” I muttered.
The librarian stepped around the corner. “If you insist on talking to yourself, please go outside.”
“My apologies, ma’am. Won’t happen again,” I said.
“See that it doesn’t.” She walked between some large shelves, seeking other violators of her rules.
I wondered what would happen if I lit up my cigar. The fantasy played chaotically in my mind and made me smile.
“What a difficult person,” X-37 commented.
I chuckled quietly in response and continued to read. The archives didn’t have much. Access to the gal-net was limited but available. I used the semi-anonymous connection to check all the public information sites, reading up to the point I was tried and sentenced to death at BSMP.
Good times.
Was I able to learn anything new about my father’s killers? Of course not. It still looked like a gang hit. For about three heartbeats, I wondered if Callus had merely been attempting to manipulate me to set me off balance so he could kill me.
Then I remembered what the Reaper Corps was all about and believed every word of his declaration. The Union had wanted to know how far I would go.
They were going to find out.
“Are you all right?” X-37 asked.
I nodded, expecting my friend to interpret the movement correctly. It was easy to forget X-37 could read my physical movements as easily as he could interpret my voice. To him, it probably wasn’t much different. Data in, data analyzed, smart-ass and annoying comments sent back to chastise me about whatever.
“Am I crazy?” I asked.
“Not yet. Why do you ask?” X-37’s tone was level, totally non-judgmental in this particular instance.
“Because I talk to myself,” I said, closing the articles about the murder of my father.
“Yes and no,” X-37 reassured me. “Your target has arrived and is reading a paper manuscript near the commons area.”
I grabbed a book at random and moved to a new table. He didn’t seem to notice me, but something set off an alarm bell in my head. Talking to X-37 right now would probably alert the man. Anyone with his skills needed to be careful, hence the reason he worked from a secret workshop and required a personal introduction when considering new clients.
If he’d done his business like a normal, reputable engineer, I could have looked him up on the gal-net and gone to his shop. Instead, I had to play super spy.
X-37 gave me a summary of the book I was supposedly reading in case someone confronted me about what I was doing in the library. Careful to keep my left arm and hand covered with my coat and gloves, I flipped through the pages until Paul Pauls left.
I followed him through the crowd, annoyed at the sudden increase in pedestrian traffic. “X, what’s happening?”
“I don’t know what you mean. This is commonly known as rush-hour. From what I’ve gathered, our target commonly moves during such times,” X-37 said.
“Smart,” I said. It’d been a while since I’d tailed someone and I was surprised at how the population density bothered me. Getting used to an isolation cell changed a person, it seemed. There had been crowds on Dreadmax, but they’d been unified by singular purpose, staying alive long enough to get off the prison station.
This wasn’t at all like Gronic, where people were either working, passed out from exhaustion, or drunk as fuck and giving me problems.
People gathered at a corner and waited for a light. A very polite, prerecorded voice advised when it was safe to go and when it would be best to stop. I saw police officers in perfect uniforms. The boots were either shined or made from a material that mimicked high-gloss shoe polish. Their badges gleamed and they stood with straight backs while they politely greeted passersby.
I took the cigar I’d been chewing on from my mouth and held it down to my side. Part of me wanted to make a smart-ass comment, but I resisted. I had enough difficulty blending with my arm and distinctive vertical scar over my left eye.
The eye itself could also give me away if someone looked for too long, or activated all of its features at once. Otherwise, it appeared natural. More or less. My coat sleeves and gloves covered my arms and hands. In some communities, that alone was suspicious. My physique, while not extreme, could be intimidating. My attitude didn’t help me pass unnoticed, but I made it work.
Months of training and years of practice had honed my skills at becoming invisible in a crowd. I just needed to knock some of the dust off and get my routine down, then no one would see me unless I needed to prove a point.
How did a six-foot-three, two-hundred-and-twenty-pound killer appear inconspicuous? Match the pace of the people around him. Follow the crowd, never split a river of pedestrians by pushing against the current. Stay in the middle. Keep to the shadows. Speak as little as possible. Try not to be a dick.
That last part was the hardest. Patience might be a virtue, but when applied to human behavior, I found it fucking intolerable.
A man did exactly what I was trying not to do, cut through the crowd at a strange angle that forced several people to alter course and mutter apologies, even though they weren’t the ones causing the problem.
People on Layton 5 could be polite to a fault.
I wanted to grab the pretentious stranger and teach him a lesson about public courtesy. But I didn’t. I allowed him to move away anonymously, never knowing how close he’d come to getting throat punched.
“You should calm down, Reaper Cain,” X-37 advised.
“Sorry. That just rubbed me the wrong way,” I explained, simultaneously moving a bit closer to Paul Pauls.
The buildings on Layton 5 were tall and apparently made from nothing but reflective glass. They shined like mirrors when the sun hit them.
The glare hurt my eyes. I avoided looking at the brightest parts of the scene, estimating the size of crowds and keeping track of my quarry. Crowd estimation was an important element of tactical operations. I needed to know at a glance how many people I was dealing with.
“It’s all coming back to me now, X,” I said.
“Glad to hear it. May I suggest following your quarry more closely?” X-37 asked.
I moved through the throng, pausing when I needed to so I could avoid knocking people down. “Way ahead of you. I’d grab him now, but I need to know where his workshop is or I won’t be able to force him to fix me.”
“Unless you’re seeing something I’m not, he is increasing the distance from your position,” X-37 said.
“Yeah, he’s trying to ditch me. And he’s surprisingly good at it,” I said.
My vision suffered a glitch, which I blinked away. This wasn’t unusual. A moment later, pain shot down my spine, driving me all the way to my knees. I knelt there with my face in my hands trying to breathe. It was like every nerve in my body suddenly hated me.
X-37 was trying to talk to me, but I couldn’t think, much less understand what he was saying. His tone sounded urgent, but all I wanted to do was vomit and die.
A hundred years passed before I was able to take a breath. Or a lifetime. Or five seconds. It was hard to tell the difference.
“That was a bad one,” I muttered, listening to the calming sound of waves in my head. “What the hell is that?”
“That’s the soothing sound of waves on a spring day,” X-37 said.
I levered myself to my feet and stuck the Gronic Fats cigar into the corner of my mouth. “Well, turn it the fuck off.”
“Turning off background music,” X-37 said.
“I don’t know if I can do that again,” I said, looking around to see if the cops had noticed whatever had just happened to me. “How long was I down?”
“Three minutes and forty-two seconds,” X-37 advised.
“Really?” I’d assumed it only been a brief moment that felt like longer. The populace of Layton 5 appeared to be organized and civic-minded, but apparently, the sight of a man dying on his knees didn’t inspire any good Sa
maritans to stop and check on me.
“People are very busy on Layton 5. It’s a first-world planet,” X-37 said. “Which is a strangely redundant phrase.”
“Never thought of it like that,” I said, lowering the cigar. As much as I liked the taste of it, it was starting to feel like a waste not to light it, so I put it away and forgot about it.
“I’m sure you’ve noticed, but Paul Pauls has made an effective escape,” X-37 told me.
“Gee, thanks,” I said, looking at each of the subway entrances and trying to decide which one the man might’ve taken.
Instead of a clue as to my quarry’s whereabouts, I spotted the Byron Thane look-alike I’d first noticed on Gronic. “Looks like our friend didn’t make it to Greendale.”
“I see that,” X-37 said. “I find this intriguing for several reasons. I’m not equipped to believe in coincidence unless there is a solid statistical algorithm behind such occurrences.”
“Yeah, that’s what I was thinking. Algorithms. I’m going to follow him,” I announced.
“Of course, Reaper Cain. I expected you would,” X-37 said.
“I don’t like your tone.”
“You never do.”
I shook my head and tried to ignore the limited AI. The closer I came to my new target, the more I tensed up. “What the actual fuck?”
“Do you think that is him?” X-37 asked.
“I remember him being bigger, but memory does that sometimes. My dad is about eight feet tall in my head, for example,” I said, not really thinking about what I was saying. “Sorry. I’m still a bit punch drunk. That nerve-ware flash was bad.”
“No need to apologize, Reaper Cain. There are several rational explanations for this type of psychological distortion,” X-37 lectured, forcing me to ignore him as I was doing more and more often.
“I thought he was bigger, but that has to be him,” I said as I drew closer.
“Whatever you say, Reaper Cain,” X-37 said.
“You didn’t know him like I did. It’s more than just data points, it’s a feeling,” I said, closing the gap between my position and the doppelgänger.
I reached out, ready to spin him around, aware that I’d probably have to strike first and strike hard. The man I thought I’d watched die couldn’t be happy about my inability or unwillingness to save him. At the last second, I stopped, then fell into a pace that maintained our distance from each other.
“What’s wrong?” X-37 asked.
“This man is too young and he’s wearing a gray coat. The guy I saw had a blue coat on,” I said, speaking beneath the noise level of the crowd. “I must’ve lost him someplace. Help me set up a grid, and we’ll check it bit by bit. Maybe we’ll even find Paul Pauls while we’re at it.”
“It could be a reversible jacket,” X-37 said. “You have used such simple and effective techniques many times.”
“No shit, X. Now let’s try focusing and shutting the hell up,” I said.
The search was futile and stupid, a fact I understood even before I started. There were thousands of people heading to work or wherever. The mirage I’d seen was long gone.
“I feel like I’m being watched,” I said.
“Have you experienced the station before this incident?” X-37 asked.
“No. Not even once.”
A group of schoolgirls in blue, gray, and red plaid uniforms chattered loudly as they boarded a bus. That made me think of Elise. “We really need to get to Greendale,” I said.
“Roxo III is the more logical choice, given the amount of technical difficulties you’ve been having. If this individual can’t help you, you won’t have any choice but to go there,” X-37 said.
“Yeah, I get it. Do me a favor and check the CKJ board,” I said.
X-37 hesitated, and I almost wondered if he was stunned to silence. Sure, rendering a computer was supposed to be impossible, but you just never knew. It’d been a long time since we talked about the contract killing.
The contract killers job board, or CKJ, was notoriously invisible and inaccessible on most worlds. On Layton 5, however, it was a joke. Most of the people who visited the site believed it wasn’t real—thinking it was some sort of sick multiplayer online game.
Which made my life easier, because I could probably access it even without X-37’s help.
“I’ve logged on with false information. What would you like me to look for now that we’re in?” X-37 asked.
“Check for recent contracts,” I ordered.
“One thousand nine hundred and twenty-seven contracts located,” X-37 replied.
“Eliminate fake or fictitious, or gameplay contracts,” I told him.
“Ninety-three contracts remaining. Would you like me to check Greendale? Since that’s your obsession lately?” X-37 asked.
“Piss off, you heartless bastard. I’m worried about Elise. Sue me,” I said. “Do Greendale, Layton 5, and Gronic.”
“I located four contracts fitting these criteria. Three are marked classified, unspecified and one is marked juvenile caution,” X-37 said.
A chill went up my spine, which was oddly refreshing after all the other bullshit that had been going on there since my eye went on the fritz. The CKJ board had its own shorthand.
Classified, unspecified meant a government job that no amount of computer hacking could reveal. The specifics literally didn’t exist in the system. It was merely a step toward a step that would lead to meeting a contact who would pay a small fortune in exchange for dirty deeds to be done for the government. I’d been down that road a few times.
Juvenile, caution meant that the target was under the age of eighteen and that anyone with moral objections to such an assassination should not bother to inquire.
“Shall I seek additional information?” X-37 asked.
It was a good question. The first three were clearly hands-off; the slightest mistake when dealing with these types of jobs would draw the worst possible attention from Union agents. As for the juvenile caution job, I wasn’t sure.
My gut told me they were looking for Elise just like they had been searching for her on Dreadmax. I thought I had hidden her better than this, but they were already on the hunt for the girl who had been one of their experiments.
“I understand your concerns for anything involving Greendale, but I’m not sure what the other contracts mean. It could be merely a coincidence that the other jobs were posted for Gronic, Layton 5, and Greendale,” X-37 said. “As much as I hate to admit such a convenient explanation.”
“The juvenile, caution job is probably Elise, but who knows. The other three are for me. Too coincidental to be otherwise. Every place I’ve been or might go has a super-secret entry on the contract killer board related to it,” I muttered, considering which way to go and noticing a slight decrease in pedestrian traffic. The Layton 5 work day was starting. “I would also guess that we couldn’t acquire one of those contracts if we tried. Those are merely a layer of protection for Union spec ops teams operating in civilian areas. Plausible deniability and all that.”
“I was afraid you’d say that,” X-37 admitted.
“What? There was a shootout downtown in a non-military zone?” I asked in a mock public information officer’s voice. “Must have been the CKJ. We only act to serve the people of the Union.”
“Your sarcastic tone does not hide your belief in government conspiracies,” X-37 said.
“I am a government conspiracy,” I countered.
“Good point,” X-37 admitted, no real emotion in his voice.
“We’ll have to start tomorrow. Back at the library, then no distractions this time. If I have another one of those eye-headaches, we’re done,” I warned.
6
As much as I enjoyed the library, there was no way I was spending the night there, so I went back to the Jellybird and microwaved a chicken fried steak and potatoes. Jelly gasped in horror at my food selection. I held up a hand signaling her I didn’t want to be bothered with nutritional data
or health warnings.
“Very well, Captain. I will mute my objections to this wrongheaded course of action. There are so many better options in regard to your caloric intake requirements,” Jelly said.
“Mute means mute,” I said, then began shoveling food into my mouth, waiting for her to take one last shot at my diet under the guise of signing off.
“Of course, Captain. Entering silent mode with medical protocols in standby mode should you gag on that disgusting plate—”
“—of fried crispy goodness,” I interrupted.
I hadn’t realized how hungry a day on the streets of Layton 5 could make a person. I didn’t even have a need for my usual vices. Once I’d sufficiently packed my stomach with happiness, I looked back on the day’s failures without too much regret. I went to the bridge and activated my workstation.
“All done, Jelly. Hope you enjoyed time out,” I said, loosening my belt line to ease the pressure on my stomach.
“Immensely, Captain. What can I do for you?” Jelly asked.
“Where is X-37?”
“He advised me he was performing a systems update and would be unavailable. He also provided me access to several compressed files in case you needed them. I have not opened them at this time,” Jelly said.
“No problem,” I said. “I’d like to contact Elise. Use the farm report network and double encryption. Send a test message first, evaluate for possible intruders or surveillance, then let me know.”
“Yes, Captain,” Jelly said. “I will use extreme caution.”
I flipped through one of the paperback books that I picked up from the library just to justify my visit. The story was intriguing.
“I regret to inform the captain at I was unable to make contact with Elise,” Jelly said.
“You are unable to establish a link, or she didn’t answer?” I asked.
“The link was the best I have ever established with anyone on Greendale,” Jelly said. “She’s not answering.”
“Well, shit.” Static flowed through my vision. I braced for pain, but nothing came this time. “Keep trying. I need to go to Roxo.”
