by Alex P. Berg
I inched my eyelids open millimeter by millimeter. I spotted a couple unremarkable bricks walls, one of which I’d apparently befriended. I’d propped myself upright in the corner between it and a dumpster—which explained the smell.
“Where am I?” I asked.
In the alley behind Hallal-peños, said Paige. A couple blocks from the chapel.
“What happened to the apples? And the rain? And the vast expanse of the cosmos?”
Ex-squeeze me?
I couldn’t recall Paige ever being stumped. Apparently there was a first time for everything. I squeezed my eyes back shut as I tried to think. “Sorry. What I meant was, how did I get here?”
I was hoping you could tell me, Paige said. You went off grid for a while.
“I did?”
Yup. Your Brain feed was acting completely normal. I could sense the sermon room, with the ambient music and the Diraxi preachers. You were there for a while, sitting and listening. And then—poof—your feed cut out. I couldn’t even geolocate you. You popped back into existence in this alley. Those thoughts about your headache and Gerrold were the first transmission I got from you since you disappeared.
“Huh…” I said. “So you didn’t see the burning star, or the blobby neurons, or the vast expanse of outer space? Or me losing my lips?”
No… said Paige. Are you feeling alright?
“Sure. Like a herd of Glieseian wildebeests trampled me. But they did so gently. How long was I out?”
About two hours, said Paige.
“Rich? Rich!”
Carl’s voice echoed between the walls and into my ears. I cracked open my eyes and spotted my old pal near where the alley spilled into the street.
“Over here, bud,” I called. “Where’ve you been?”
“At the ethnic Diraxi cuisine place, like you told me to,” he said as he jogged over.
“How were the waffles?” I asked.
“Quit joking around,” he said. “Are you ok?”
“Peachy,” I said. “Now help me up. I’m not sure if my legs work.”
“I’m hoping that’s another joke.” Carl leaned down and lifted me to my feet.
“It is.” I thought. My knees wobbled as I put weight on them. “Didn’t Paige fill you in on what happened?”
“As best she could, but that’s not saying much.”
“You going to take that from him?” I asked my Brain secretary.
It’s not a jab, said Paige. For once, I really don’t know what happened. And your sensory feed is still garbled.
My head throbbed and my knees felt weak. “You’re not kidding, sister. Be glad you don’t have to walk in my shoes.”
Carl put his arm around my torso and helped me toward the street. “You think we should report this to the police?”
“And tell them what?” I asked. “That I woke up disordered and reeking of urine in an alley? I’m sure they’ll believe me when I tell them I have no clue what happened, but I’m certain the nice priests over at the local church did it to me. The lingering drugs in my system will undoubtedly clinch their support.”
“So what do we do?” asked Carl.
“What is this? A date? Do I have to make all the decisions?”
Carl looked at me, his face drawn, the concern clear in his eyes. It was a subtle display of emotion, one I hadn’t expected out of him—the display, not the emotion itself. Perhaps he’d gotten an upgrade on his facial systems at some point along the line.
I sighed. “Look, I’m sorry. I’m just… I need to rest a little. Sit down. Why don’t you call us a cab?”
Paige took charge of that. I leaned against Carl as we waited. The occasional whistle of a full cab zipping by broke the monotonous, low hum of the holoprojectors coming from the strip mall. Over by the Asian-Tak fusion place, an over-served patron made racy catcalls at passersby.
“I told you to be careful,” said Carl in a quiet voice.
“You told me not to do anything stupid,” I corrected. “It’s not exactly the same thing.”
“You know what I meant.”
We let the hum of civilization wash over us, serenading us with its omnipresence. Honks, horns, whistles and music, speech and footfalls, all laid over an ever-present energetic vibration that filled every nook and cranny of populated space. I rarely noticed it. I blamed the allure of mobile Brain entertainment.
Soon enough, a cab pulled over and opened its doors.
“I’m assuming we’re heading home,” said Carl.
I nodded and sunk into the cool, air-conditioned surface of the back bench seat. My headache was improving, but not as fast as I’d hoped. The thin walls of the cab shut out the street noise, but they couldn’t do anything to quiet the rhythmic, pulsing rush of blood through my ears.
“Did you bring any of those Buzzkills with you?” I asked as I felt the cab pull away.
Carl shook his head. “Want to head to a pharmacy?”
“I can wait until we get home.”
Carl kept his eyes on me, still concerned. “Do you think they drugged you?”
I shrugged. “Not sure. My headache is similar to the one I had yesterday after Gerrold’s all-natural aromatherapy treatment, but it’s not exactly the same. It’s more localized, way at the back of my skull. Feels like someone’s trying to tunnel through.”
I closed my eyes again and tried to block out the pounding. I needed to focus, to think—and to remember. What exactly had happened to me? One moment I’d been enjoying the subvocal syncopated stylings of a clerical Diraxi quartet, and the next I’d been floating, incorporeal, huffing apple fumes. Somewhere along there I’d gone missing and helped myself to all the best that a trash-filled alley had to offer. Did the Diraxi dump me there, or did I find my way to the dumpster myself? And did I do anything else while I’d been unconscious? Paige said I’d been out for roughly two hours.
“I think Valerie’s behavior is finally starting to make sense,” I said.
“Excuse me?” said Carl.
I opened my eyes. “We assumed Valerie was lying when she said she had no idea who we were outside her bakery. But you presented two likely scenarios with regards to her behavior that day.”
“Yes,” said Carl. “Either she was lying, or she didn’t remember us.”
“Right. I don’t remember what I’ve been up to or where I’ve been for the past couple hours. Maybe I was in a coma, sitting pretty at the Veesnu chapel, getting indoctrinated, or perhaps I was out causing trouble. We don’t know because I went off grid, according to Paige. It’s pretty clear Valerie’s in knee deep with these Veesnu chaps. Who’s to say when she came to hire us, she wasn’t suffering the same sort of swoon I just did?”
Carl steepled his fingers and rubbed them against the bottom of his chin. “So you’re suggesting Miss Meeks wasn’t aware of her actions when she first arrived at our office yesterday? That she was under the effects of some sort of Veesnu brainwashing? And that’s why she behaved the way she did at her bakery?”
I nodded.
Carl drew his index finger and thumb across the top of his lips, down the sides of his mouth, and under his chin. He kept them there for a moment before shaking his head. “I’m not buying it.”
“Huh?” I said. “Why not?”
“We’ve interacted with Miss Meeks three times now,” said Carl. “Well, you have. I was charging during the third encounter. But I have Paige’s feed of the incident. And Miss Meeks’ behavior was consistent during two of the encounters. The only anomalous one occurred outside her bakery.”
“Well, maybe that’s when she was suffering a walking coma,” I said.
“And in her bewildered state, she decided to do some baking?”
“That makes more sense than her seeking me out and bartering for my services while in the same condition.” I leaned forward in my seat. “Look, back up and bear with me for a second. We’re in agreement Valerie planted the initial piece of evidence in her apartment, right? The token from the arcade?�
��
“It’s the most likely explanation,” said Carl. “Especially considering her behavior this morning, where she pointed you in the direction of the Veesnu cardslip at her bakery.”
“Right. Which means she’s the one who directed us toward Keelok’s Funporium, and the Veesnu chapel in the spaceport, and Fran’s office at Cetie U. Each one of those stops was supposed to be a clue toward something. What the Veesnu chapel implied is obvious—the others less so. But Fran’s a professor of exoneurobiology, specializing in Diraxi brain function. Remember how she said Veesnu is part religion and part science? Maybe Valerie’s been trying to tell us what you so jokingly alluded to. Maybe the Diraxi have made strides in cross-species communication methods. Maybe the Diraxi are brainwashing people, and one of those people is Valerie.”
“And where does Keelok’s Funporium fit into all of this?” asked Carl.
I shrugged. “No idea.”
Carl furrowed his brows and tilted his head. “Ok. Let’s say you’re right, or at least in the general ballpark. Here’s a question for you: why go to the trouble of planting clues in the forms of arcade tokens and cardslips? Valerie sought us out. Why not simply ask for help? And why lie about the whole thing?”
“I don’t know,” I said. “But if she’s being brainwashed, maybe she’s suffering a mental blockage that prevents her from saying. Or maybe she left herself the clues during one of her out-of-body Veesnu experiences. Perhaps she’s unaware of what the Diraxi are doing to her, but there’s a part of her mind, a subliminal element, that’s pushing her to search for answers. Maybe that part or her mind left the arcade token in the sock, hoping the lucid portion of her mind would find it and discover the truth.”
“Those are interesting theories,” said Carl, “but unfortunately, neither of them make sense. If Miss Meeks were suffering a mental block preventing her from telling others about what was befalling her at the hands of the Veesnu, then how is it she came to you earlier today and pointed you in the direction of the cardslip at her bakery? Similarly, if she was only aware of the Veesnu Diraxi’s actions at a subliminal level, how was she able to come to you this morning and tell you the information she did?”
I leaned back into the cab cushions. Carl had a point. None of my theories fully accounted for our varied interactions with Valerie. Nonetheless, there had to be a scenario that explained both Valerie’s selective memory and her inability to directly tell us what was happening to her, and my gut told me the Diraxi and their mind-bending, pseudo-religious Veesnu hypnosis sessions were behind it.
“Rich,” said Carl. “Did you by any chance tell the Veesnu chaplain anything that could’ve tipped him off regarding your true motives for attending his sermon, or said anything that could’ve tied you to Miss Meeks?”
I shook my head. “Don’t think so. I asked a few questions about Veesnu and the chapel, that’s all. Why? What does that have to do with Valerie and her actions?”
“Nothing,” said Carl, as he stared out the window at my back. “But it could have everything to do with why we’re being followed.”
20
“Say what?” I turned around and looked out onto the wide expanse of pavement behind us.
“The silver Feltberry crossover,” said Carl. “Two cars back from us.”
I spotted it. “It’s following us?”
“Either that, or it happens to be travelling to the same tube station we are. I noticed it about a minute after we entered the cab.”
“Well, let’s test your theory, shall we?” I said. “Paige, instruct our car to make a detour. Let’s take the next right, then the second left, then the first right again.”
You got it, said Paige. But don’t blame me if the car throws a fit. You know how much these things hate being rerouted into less efficient traffic patterns.
I snorted. As impressive an achievement as it was to have the entire surface of Cetie covered in interconnected, cross-communicating cabs loaded with visual and geopositional sensors, all humming along smoothly, driven by slick algorithms perfected over centuries, each individual car was dumber than dirt. One couldn’t even order you a pizza if you’d asked it to. But I suppose it was natural for Paige to empathize with them. From a developmental standpoint, she had more in common with the fleet of cabs than she did with me.
Despite her protests, Paige sent the message. We turned—first to the right, then the left, then right again. I kept my eyes trained on the crossover the entire time. It followed us seamlessly.
I turned to Carl, wondering what a pain it must’ve been to tail someone back in the bygone days of yore when cars didn’t drive themselves. “Well, that settles that. We’re being followed.” I smiled.
“And this amuses you?” asked Carl.
“Are you kidding?” I said. “Of course it does. It’s different. It’s exciting. This is the kind of stuff I signed up for when I established my investigation business a year ago.”
“Kind of like waking up in a pile of trash in an alley?”
“You know, in those old novels and vids that inspired me to try my hand at detective work, people were always waking up unconscious in alleys after taking blows to the head. Perhaps that’s a crucial aspect of the profession I overlooked.”
Carl ignored my wisecrack. “What do you think we should do?”
“Figure out who’s tailing us, obviously,” I said as our cab took another left, trying to return us to the main thoroughfare.
“It’s fairly obvious who it is,” said Carl. “Why they’re following us, assuming you didn’t mention Miss Meeks while at the Veesnu chapel, is far more interesting.”
I waggled a finger at my partner. “Don’t assume anything. For all we know it’s Fran or Keelok or even Valerie herself in that cab. Given how this case has unfolded, none of those alternatives would surprise me. Well, Keelok would. But mostly because I don’t think he’d fit very well in the cab.” I glanced out the back window again, spotting the crossover as it followed us around the corner. “Why don’t we flip the script?”
“You mean follow whoever’s following us?”
“Exactly.”
Carl looked at me, his lips pressed together and his eyebrows elevated a hair above sea level.
“I can see you’re not convinced, but bear with me.” I glanced out the cab window. Glossy skyscrapers blotted out much of the light from the solar reflectors, the tall sentinels having replaced Knottington’s sprawling manufactories as our cab worked its way closer to Pylon Alpha proper. “Paige, are there any large public gatherings nearby? Anywhere we might find crowds of people and aliens with which to mingle?”
At this hour? said Paige. Not so much. But if it’s crowds you’re after, we could always head back to the spaceport. That place is always packed tighter than a Meertori transport schooner on its return trip from the asteroid belt.
I hummed noncommittally. “That’s a little far. Anything closer?”
How about the race dome? said Paige. That’s not far from here, and ever since they retrofitted the arena for Querts, there’s been hot action on those shiny, flying buggers around the clock. Whoever colluded with the event staff to bring in the Querts basically handed the arena owners a license to generate their own SEUs.
“Perfect,” I said.
Paige rerouted the car once more.
Carl stared at me. “Care to fill me in on whatever’s going on up there?” He tapped his head.
“Simple,” I said. “We’ll drop you off a few blocks from the race dome. From there, you’ll pretend to go on your merry way, but in reality you’ll follow us on foot. A few blocks later, I’ll exit at the dome proper. The guys tailing us should get off as well. By that point, you’ll be in a position to follow them. You can keep an eye on them while they keep tabs on me. Your surveillance information should help us brainstorm a plan of action.”
Carl frowned, his bottom lip curling so hard it nearly engulfed the top one.
“What?” I said. “It’s a good plan.”
/>
“It separates us,” said Carl. “Bad things happen when we get separated, as evidenced by recent events.”
“Look, just because I woke up delirious next to a dumpster after ditching you doesn’t mean I plan to make a habit of it. I’ll be fine. Regardless, Paige’ll be in constant contact. You’ll know exactly where I am and what’s going on at all times.”
“That’s what I thought last time, too.” Carl leaned into his seat and crossed his arms.
I sighed and turned my eyes back to the blurred cityscape, the muffled whirr of the cab acting as a buffer between me and my sourpuss of a partner. There was no use arguing with Carl. His protective instincts had a way of overwhelming his otherwise logical sensibilities. I couldn’t really fault him for it, though. He had my best interests at heart—or at the cybernetic equivalent of one—but it could still be tiresome to be treated like an eighty-five-year-old child at times.
After a few minutes of awkward silence, the cab pulled over in front of a real estate investments building, its door lifting to allow Carl passage. Bombastic music and effects from the race dome trickled in through the open doorway, bringing with them a wave of warm, Cetie air. As I glanced behind me, I noticed the silver crossover pulling to the side of the street a couple hundred meters behind us.
Carl paused with his hand on the rim of the cab’s exit. “You’re sure you want to do this?”
“What’s the worst that could happen?” I asked.
He gave me a raised eyebrow.
“Don’t answer that,” I said. “Yes, I’m sure. Just stay close.”
Carl left, and the door swung back down. I trained my eyes on the crossover behind us. As the cab whirred into motion, so did the crossover, without anyone having exited.
“So far so good,” I said.
You know, I don’t always agree with Carl, said Paige, but he has a point. Do try to avoid hypnotic presentations and psychoactive drugs this time, will you?
“Wait…are you expressing concern?” I asked. “You’re shaken up over losing my Brain signal, aren’t you?”
