by P. S. Power
“I take pictures of people, portraits and the like. Some landscape and art photos. I... I can see how this might prove useful, but I wasn't ready for it. You had to finish my work, because I couldn't...” He shook slightly, taking deep shuddering breaths.
Gwen touched his arm, surprised when he didn't pull away, then remembering that she looked different now. Normal. “We asked a lot of you today and didn't give you any time to prepare. Next time you'll be ready and make it through the whole thing. As for being shaken by this... well, good people should be. Eventually you learn to not let it show, but it always gets to you. Not one of these men doesn't feel this. Soon they'll start making inappropriate jokes to cover how horrible they feel, how it makes them just a little sick to see. Don't think for a moment that this is easy for anyone else here, they just have more practice hiding it, that's all. I'm not knocking that either by the way. Anyone that could walk in here and see this and truly be alright with it isn't anyone you'd want at a crime scene.” Patting his arm, she let him take the cameras and go, presumably to develop the film.
Peals, having heard, walked up to Bethany and Gwen, a considering look on his face.
“That was insightful. Is death so common a thing where you come from that you know this? Most people don't understand how hard this really is on the investigators.” He waited for her to answer, looking at her eyes as if searching for something.
Pausing for a second, she decided to just jump in and explain herself.
“I've lived my life seeing such things on television. I'm afraid that all of this, this whole world, is so odd that I keep saying and doing things based on that, on the fiction I grew up with, because I've got nothing else to work from. I'm adrift in a new land with no context at all, so I keep having to grasp at any little thing I can to hold together.” She started to shrug, then flip her palms up like she'd seen him do several times now. It was a forced move from her, but the man got it at least. Shrugging just didn't mean anything here.
Instead of chastising her, the man gave her a look that seemed approving, as if she'd said something brilliant rather than just admitting how out of her depth she really was.
She'd noticed this several times now, she realized. She'd do something obvious, to her at least, or perfectly normal, like helping out Bethany, and the people around her acted like this was something special. Could they be responding to her looks, she wondered, rather than her actions? Whatever the cause, it seemed a lot different than what she'd grown up with.
Bethany asked her if they could go and check on geologists now, recommending they go to Western University, since it would be the closest place that had dedicated geologists of any sort they could call on. That name sounded familiar to Gwen. After a moment she realized that the man she'd met shortly after waking up, Grainger, had given her numbers for him there.
Digging through her little bag, which held only several small cards and about thirty dollars of the money that the solicitor, Grimes, had given her, she found it quickly and pulled it out. The card stock seemed heavier than what she remembered people handing out back home, the paper had almost the same texture that the money did. Rag paper then? She'd have to find a book on it or something if she could. Did they have free libraries here? She wondered. If not, maybe she could find one that would let her join for a fee.
“Here we go. This card, it's for Doctor Professor Grainger, he's the one that checked my story originally, something about radiation he said his specialty was? That's not it, it's one of the your odd words...” She read the card. “Radiatives, it says here. At any rate, perhaps he'll know someone in the geology department so we won't have to hunt for them in person?”
Bethany looked surprised for a moment, as if she'd done or said something odd again. After a few seconds Gwen thought she understood. Radiatives. That was one of those things that everyone simply knew, wasn't it? She'd heard the word herself several times now, but didn't know what it meant at all.
“Most sensible. Let's find a telestator and see if we can connect with him.” The other woman started walking down the street toward a row of small shops. Finally she pointed up at a sign, brown wood with painted white letters. It didn't have words, just a capital letter T with an S laid over the top of it, a logo of some kind, Gwen guessed.
Gwen entered the small shop behind Bethany, who marched firmly up to the front desk. Once there she pulled out a medallion connected to a chain that looked like a pocket watch. It seemed vaguely iridescent, looking a bit pearl-like on the surface as she held it up for the thin older man behind the counter to get a good look at.
“Constabulary Detective, I need to use your telestator for case related information gathering.” Her voice sounded firm and commanding, as if she'd brook no argument from the man. He wiped his hands on the front of his white, heavy apron, as if drying them due to sudden sweat.
“I haven't done anything wrong,” he said, looking scared suddenly.
Gwen saw that he seemed awfully nervous about something, beads of sweat forming suddenly on his forehead, even though the room itself felt fairly cool to her. Playing a hunch she turned to Bethany. “Could you go into telepathic mode for a moment please?” She asked the other woman, who complied instantly her face going slack.
She turned back to the man, who only now noticed her, she realized, having been so focused on the detective before.
“Tell me,” she said to the man. “What is it you're trying to hide from us?”
Before he could answer, Bethany spoke for him, picking the information up from his mind, just as she told Gwen she'd do in this state.
Awesome.
“Illegal canned goods shipment from the Northern Sector. Didn't go through all the legal checkpoints.” The Westmorland detective's voice had no expression to it.
Gwen nodded.
“I see. Anything else? Is there anything else you're hiding from us?” She leaned into the man, knowing that it wouldn't really menace him, probably seeming comical instead.
“He's thinking about touching himself at night, when no one is around. He thinks of men while doing so.” The flat voice seemed to cut into the man who sobbed a little, a single gasp.
Gwen thanked Bethany and asked her to return to her non-working state.
“So,” Bethany said to the man. “Illegal goods? That would be a fine that could ruin your whole business, you know.”
Looking down, the older man nodded.
Gwen looked at both of them and cleared her throat from behind the detective.
“You know... Bethany... I think that maybe, just this once, we could cut this man a little slack, if he promises to get rid of the canned goods before we come back? In... let's say a week? Especially if he gives them away to the poor or something, without making a profit off of it, I mean, as long as the goods are safe and all?” She didn't know how the Constabulary did business here, but remembered the detectives helping her hold Mr. Wright for her threats the day before. It seemed the rules here were a good bit different than back home, or at least more flexible at times.
Bethany glared at the man, as if she wanted to have him thrown in prison immediately and demanded his name and telestator number, which she wrote down on the small pad that she carried in her bag, slightly larger than the one Gwen carried, she noticed. He complied, eyes downcast the whole time, defeated looking.
“Now, my friend here seems to feel you deserve another chance. I'm not certain I agree, but I'm willing to give you that chance, just this once, because she's spoken for you. Don't disappoint us and don't bother trying to fool us about where the goods go. Agreed, Mr. Pender?” Her face bore a vulpine grin that would have scared Gwen if it had been pointed at her. Apparently the store owner felt the same way, and agreed instantly. In fact he went to the back after pointing out where his telestator was, to box up the illegal canned goods he told them. If it were her world Gwen would have worried that the man had run to get a gun, but Beth didn't seem worked up at all. Maybe people just didn't do that here?
When he left the room, Bethany turned to her and gave her a wink and mouthed the word later. Then turned to a device that looked like a series of steel balls, each about the size of a grapefruit balanced on a lacquered wooden dowel about an inch in diameter. It had five of them and took up the top of the small table it stood on. About two by three feet Gwen guessed, eyeballing it.
Bethany told her what she did at each step, so that Gwen could use one herself in the future, if she needed to. The other woman pointed as she went.
“See this button? It connects to the crystal pack, those are what power it, actually they power almost everything, unless you do it yourself, so you should learn more about them if you can. Push the button and you engage the device. Then just put your hand on top of the second sphere over, away from the button, and speak to the operator when she comes on. Like so.”
Pushing the button and placing her hand carefully, the other woman waited. After nearly thirty seconds a voice came out of one of the spheres, or so it seemed to Gwen. She couldn't tell which sphere it came from though.
“Telestator operator, how may I help you, sir or ma'am?” A woman's voice, sounding as clear as if someone stood right there with them.
“I'd like to be connected to Western University, thirty-nine, sub c, please. Calling for Doctor Professor Grainger. Please inform him that he will be speaking to Constabulary Detective Westmorland, thank you.”
A small sound that seemed like “urk” came out of the air, but nothing else did. After about a minute a man's voice boomed at them, sounding familiar to Gwen from the other day.
“Good afternoon. Is everything alright? I believe we met, briefly, in regards to Miss Farris and that awful mess. Is... everything alright there?” His voice held trepidation, as if he didn't want to know the answer if it was bad news.
“Good afternoon, Doctor professor. Yes, all is well with Miss Farris, indeed it's her idea that caused me to contact you. Without discussing Constabulary matters on an open line, I can tell you that we would like to speak to a geologist if possible and wondered if you knew any at your university that you could provide introductions to?” This said she waited for a reply.
A soft chuckle came from the air in front of them, Gwen almost certain it actually came from the air itself not one of the spheres, now that she had a chance to listen for a few moments. The sound quality seemed excellent, but the bulky machine took up a lot of space for what was essentially a telephone, or possibly a radio of some kind. Still, she tried to memorize everything Beth had done, just in case it came up. Being able to use the phone seemed potentially important to her. Repeating to herself a single word several times as she did so, Gwen made herself remember everything.
Adapt.
They arranged to meet at the university in an hour, Bethany breaking the communication by simply lifting her hand off the second sphere.
On their way out of the store, the owner rushed from the back, calling out his thanks to them and promising to deal with it within the day, even though they'd given him a week. To Gwen he seemed oddly grateful, considering that she'd probably just cost him a good bit of money.
Bethany smiled at her as they walked away.
“That was a kindness. By rights he should have a half dozen auditors descending on him as we speak to confiscate everything he owns. Not that I care about that end of things personally, since all I'm responsible for is my current case. Still, he got lucky and he knows it. Plus you didn't mention his penchant for men...” She looked at Gwen curiously.
This, Gwen could tell, would be one of those cultural things she needed to learn and probably fast. “Is it... illegal here? Homosexuality I mean? Where I come from, that kind of thing is just, oh, personal choice really. I didn't mention it, because I don't see it as important if that's what he wants to do. Plus, he just thinks about it, so that sounds pretty harmless, all things considered. ” Worried that this could offend the other woman she waited for an explosion or an icy silence to come.
Once again she found herself the recipient of a chuckle instead.
“It's not illegal at all, though some people still frown on it. It makes them uneasy, especially if they secretly harbor such feelings themselves but don't wish to admit it. The man only worried that his wife would find out and sue for divorce. He seems fond of her, even if not sexually attracted all the time. I know that he didn't understand why we ignored that, since it was his larger concern. It's interesting how different our cultures are, isn't it?”
The woman linked arms with her as they walked down the street, finally stopping under another sign. It had a P with an L overlaid in gold letters on a brown background. Gwen looked around, seeing a few people standing nearby as if waiting for something, all of them staying at least six feet away. She started to go on alert as a man in brown stared at her, expecting attack, but instead he smiled and looked away when he noticed her looking at him.
After a few minutes, a machine about the size of a railroad car drove down the street, being pulled by a larger version of the cart that had pulled the car, the lorrie, the day before. The main compartment was a bright red with green trim, the whole thing looked elegant for, what she realized, was public transportation. A public lorrie? That would explain the sign.
The men held back, waiting for all the women to board first. Bethany flashed her medallion, causing the driver to sit straighter and mumble “ma'am” as she strode past. He didn't try to take a fair from Gwen either, a kind of borrowed aura of authority apparently passing to her and, she thought, the woman walking on behind them. The seats, a green leather, weren't soft, exactly, still it was better than walking she thought. Especially in the shoes she'd put on that morning, which worked well enough with Katherine's outfit, but weren't really designed for moving around very much, they pinched her feet a bit and she could tell blisters would form if she tried to go more than a few miles in them.
The trip took most of the hour they had, she realized, not moving over twenty miles per hour at any point and stopping every two or three blocks for people to get on and off. No one exactly hurried to get on either. To request a stop you rang a little bell, she saw each of the brass poles that ran from floor to ceiling down the middle of the wide walkway had one about six feet off the floor.
Finally Bethany stood and rang the bell closest to them, signaling their need like a few others already had.
As they walked to the front of the vehicle to get off, the man that had watched Gwen before suddenly reached out and hit her, he must have aimed for her kidney and missed, hitting her backside instead. A clumsy open palmed blow, that or some kind of dim-mak intended to incapacitate somehow, a nerve strike or maybe just a distraction so that she wouldn't expect the next move? She didn't leave him the chance, just hoping he didn't have too many buddies on the public lorrie for her to handle. Her left hand dropped instantly, grabbing his right, managing to catch his little finger as she walked forward, pulling him from his seat.
Spinning, tearing his hand to the side, bending the pinky finger back hard – since bending it back didn't really hurt that much she'd want to use a lot more force than with some other moves – she kicked him in the throat, not hard enough to kill, even with the hard pointy toe of her shoe, just enough to make it hard to breath, or at least that's what she'd been going for. She wasn't used to this body yet, so it was harder to judge force exactly than it would have been at home. The man mewled in pain a bit, so his throat still worked, she guessed.
“Who are you!” She yelled at him suddenly, flipping his hand over so that she could get a wrist lock on him instead of just bending a finger back. Bending his wrist forward, she knew, would hurt a lot more. It got him to roll over onto his back on the lorrie floor.
“Who sent you!” She yelled, stomping the man with her foot in the sternum, hard, several times.
Bethany laughed at her.
Chapter nine
Bethany kept laughing even after they left the transport, she'd go silent for a few second
s, fighting for control, then burst again. Finally, after several blocks of this, Gwen glared at her long enough to get her to stop for good.
The detective straightened her jacket, pulling the hem down and shifting it side to side, as if the laughter had caused it to become disarrayed. While still heavy and durable, the colors on this outfit were brighter – a deep reddish tone – than the dull brown she'd been wearing the first few times they'd met, and still looked professional. Gwen's own outfit looked more like a party dress, or something you'd send a girl to prom in, she realized. She'd picked it because it had been toward the front of the chest of clothes, a strange thing that stood upright and had the things hanging inside, like a tiny wardrobe rather than a suitcase.
“Alright, chuckles, what did I miss there? Why let him go like that? Did he hit me by mistake or something that I didn't notice?” She asked this innocently, really feeling baffled by the whole thing. For some reason this made Bethany laugh more. Even the other people on the bus had hidden smiles from her after the initial event itself.
