I turn on my iE’s feed. Every law enforcement agency in the world is on the island now. I think about how the population was only about 300,000 back when Akira was building Ascalon. Counting the float burbs and the scrapers, it’s about eight million now. Add to that the cops that have come in force, I imagine a packed stadium for the Friday Night Prawn Bake. But among this teeming mess is a baby, long gone, our savior’s innocent, tailed, mystery child. I head for my iE. Suddenly, I’m scared and want to see my own baby again.
13
When I was a kid, I had this toy. A doll named Life Coach Teddy whose buttons you could press for him to tell you what you wanted to hear. If I was sad and pressed the heart button, he’d tell me a parable about hope and how everything would get better. If I was scared and pressed the right-arm button, the arm would inflate, and Teddy would tell me that he would protect me. A button for every mood. My dad was already dead by then, and my mom was busy working. I’m not bitching and moaning about that. She was a deep-water glass engineer who supported the two of us on her own. So Life Coach Teddy was just nice to have around when I was by myself. Once, I confided to Life Coach Teddy that I wanted to grow up to be a time hacker so I could travel back to the right moment and save my dad. Teddy said it was a great idea, even though the job didn’t and probably will never exist. Or at least, that’s what Akira told me once.
I’m heading home, wondering what I learned from Life Coach Teddy. He did everything I wanted him to, and it made me happy. In turn, I grew and became a real people-pleaser. Need me to do something for you? I’m on it. Oh, you love me and want to marry me? No problem, I got you. Kids, you say? You want kids? No problem. Want me to train you and show you the ropes? Sure. Need me to exterminate all your potential threats while you’re trying to save the world? Press here, on my right arm. I’ll protect you. Looks like Life Coach Teddy was my role model.
I dock at the float burb. Home sweet home. The wharf lights flicker. The flags are at half-mast. The moors creak, but at least there’s no tilt under my feet. It’s late, and except for the occasional pulse of iE light dancing behind closed drapes, everything is still. My thighs itch, my dry skin getting worse with age. I scratch at the scales and think that this is what getting old is, becoming something more reptilian. Sometimes, I crave sugar like an old lady detective in a cozy mystery.
I head to my unit. It’s quiet here, too. I have no idea what I’m going to tell Sabrina. She used to say, half-jokingly or not, that Akira Kimura was the love of my life. That there was no way I’d be able to shake that kind of love when reminders of her were all over the place. Books, statues, biopics. I would respond by saying that the books and documentaries were missing most of it, or had just gotten the whole thing wrong, and the statues were looking less and less like Akira—I didn’t even recognize her in the newer ones. If Akira had been the love of my life, I argued, the reminders certainly weren’t working on me. Sabrina would smirk and tell me that as real memory of her faded, all that was left was how people wanted and imagined Akira to be, me included. And she was right.
I want to tell her that. It’s the least I can do.
I set the lights on dim, in case Sabrina and Ascalon are sleeping. I take the elevator down to the second of our two floors and head to Ascalon’s room. I tell my iE to open the door just a crack, trying not to wake her. I peep inside. Nothing. Maybe they’ve gone to stay at a friend’s. There are no in-laws. Sabrina’s parents died when she was three, found among the cloudscraper jumpers whose feet I skimmed out of the ocean after the days of Ascalon. God, she hated them for that. She once told me that not only were her parents cowards, but their conviction was weak. If they’d truly believed the world was ending, they should have had the conviction to take her with them. That was when I told her about my first wife and child and the guilt I felt. Not because they left while I was in the military, but because I hardly ever thought about them, and even less so after what had happened to Kathy and John. I told Sabrina that involving your kid in your conviction was overrated.
Creeping around my own house like a burglar, I think about the fact that John would’ve been in his forties right now, probably a better man than me. I dream about an alternate reality where he doesn’t die. Where I’m an old man with a son. Maybe we go on trips together like Akeem and his kids. I envy that fantasy version of me.
I enter Ascalon’s bedroom. Empty crib. No replacement changing table. Maybe Sabrina decided we didn’t need one anymore? Is my kid completely potty-trained, and I don’t even know it? I look down at my hand. I’m holding my rail gun, and I don’t know why. I need to eat and sleep. I’ve been at this for more hours than my tired mind can count. I rub my eyes and tell myself that Sabrina and Ascalon are just away for the night, maybe at Judy’s. Judy has a son around Ascalon’s age, and they do a sleepover playdate once every couple of weeks. Yeah, probably that. But I’ve gotta make sure. I ping Sabrina. No answer. I try Judy. Nothing. Then I realize again how late it is. Everyone’s sleeping, like I should be.
I look up at the wall to my right. A frame. I think Sabrina put it up a week or two ago. I’m embarrassed I can’t remember. A framed picture of Ascalon’s doodles. Nothing coherent. Definitely not watershed. Just evidence that shows an eighteen-month-old can jerk orange, purple, and blue watercolor onto paper.
An eighteen-month-old. I think about Akira’s self-made tomb. The box of newborn bones. Newborn. Not old enough to have made the drawings I threw my knife at before setting everything on fire.
She killed me.
I spin around. No one is there. I check my iE. Again, no recording of the voice. I must be losing my mind. I want to crawl into an AMP chamber and crank it up, maybe get a month or two of sleep. I remember the first time I hibernated in one. The tech told me that every cell in our bodies contain mitochondria, which at one time, eons ago, were a separate organism. At some point, they invaded other living organisms, and a symbiotic relationship was born. They produce the electricity we need to exert energy. We, in turn, provide them a nice, cozy place to live. Now we’re inseparable. They’re wrapped in our RNA, passed down only from our mothers. Sabrina passed hers down to Ascalon, Akira to her daughter.
The picture. Her daughter. There’s something I’m missing. My mind is lumbering in slow circles right now.
Another sound behind me. I turn and raise my rail gun. It’s heavy. A PD drone is looking right back at me. Its LED pupil expands and brightens. I squint, and the drone instructs me to lay down my weapon and put my hands up. If I don’t, it’ll hit me with ninety-five decibels of paralyzing sound. I sigh. I crouch and put the gun down and my hands up in the air. Another drone floats in and cuffs me. Then the chief and a corporal walk in. The chief picks up my gun with a gloved hand.
“This is getting ridiculous, Chief,” I say.
He inspects it. “You look awful. Maybe I should put you out of your misery.”
“It’s illegal for you to hold that. You aren’t licensed.”
The chief nods. He hands the corporal my gun.
“I’m pinging my lawyer,” I say. But I pause—Jerry’s probably still rightfully mad and won’t take the call. I’m also so tired. Maybe I won’t ping. I feel like my mitochondria are on low-power mode, about to flicker off.
“Jerry Caldwell?” the chief asks.
“Yeah, Chief. Jerry Caldwell,” I say.
“You’re a pathetic old man, you know that?”
“What?”
The chief’s iE projects a 3D vid above the bars of the crib. Footage from Jerry Caldwell’s iE.
It’s me walking into Jerry’s bedroom, then marching toward her. I’m holding a knife. I look angry, so angry. Almost unrecognizable, even to myself. I put my hand around Jerry’s throat. Of course, on vid, there’s no green wafting from my hand or her neck. There’s just the hand of a murderous man looking to snatch the breath out of one of his friends. Jerry slaps me twice, and then the vi
d flickers off.
“She’s dead?” I say.
“You’re done, old man,” the chief says.
Oddly, I think of something Akira once told me. There are two types of sunlight, and most creatures on Earth absorb one kind of light to repair damage from the other. Somewhere along the line, humans lost the ability to do this. Maybe because we spent most of our existence hiding out in the dark. Fuck. I should’ve seen Jerry’s murder coming. The greens were there. It was all there except me. I got caught up in Akira’s mess and didn’t even hang back to protect my friend.
“No comment?” the chief asks.
I try my best to pull it together. “You don’t have the rest,” I say. “Or you’d know I didn’t kill her.”
“We have enough,” his corporal says.
Damn Jerry for her lawyer’s reflexes. Once she figured the conversation was about to turn privileged, she cut recording on her iE. And she had complete faith that I wasn’t gonna hurt her. That’s the kind of stand-up person she was. That’s the kind of friend she was. And I somehow got her killed. I begin to worry about Sabrina and Ascalon. “Where are my wife and kid?” I say.
He ignores the question and pulls on his beard, then whispers orders into the corporal’s ear. I think of Kathy and John. And I’m beside myself. “Tell me where!”
“You don’t deserve to know,” the chief hisses at me.
“What the hell is your problem, anyway?” I ask.
“You remember when you were in charge of Akira Kimura’s security? All those people you had arrested?”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” I say.
“My mother was one of them, you fucking asshole. And your protector’s dead now.” He grabs me by the arm and pulls my ear to his lips. “It’s open season on you, old man.”
I should’ve figured Akira had my back all these years without me even knowing it. A lot of people probably remember the things I did and have been lining up, waiting for her to die so they could get their shot at me. But I’m not worried about them right now. “Where in the hell are my wife and kid!” I yell, my wrists becoming bruised and scraped as I struggle against the cuffs. Just more pain I’m causing myself.
“Tell me what happened.”
I stop fighting the cuffs. “Fine. I’ll tell you what happened,” I say to the chief.
“What?”
“Come closer.”
His face inches toward mine. I can smell the musky shampoo he’s used on his ridiculous beard. I try to be careful with my aim because at this point, I’m seeing double from all this fatigue. I smash into his face with my forehead.
Ninety-five decibels crackle in my ears, so I can barely hear the chief’s screams. I’m on my knees now, and through the pain, hope rises. Hope that Sabrina and Ascalon are okay. That I’ll never be able to see or hear green or red again. The pain puts my vision back in focus, and the last thing I see as I’m dragged out of the room is Ascalon’s framed drawing. I wish I’d been there when she drew it. I’m proud in a way only a parent can be of something so wholly commonplace.
Was Akira like this, too? Why did she keep those drawings that—if those bones don’t lie—never should have existed?
The corporal pushes me into the elevator, and we go up to the living room. When we get to the front door, it doesn’t slide open. Like a child, the chief repeatedly stomps his left foot in front of the three stairs leading to the door. Nothing. He finally turns to me. “Stop screwing around and open it.”
I can barely hear him. I see the elevator going back down from the corner of my eye. “It should open fine,” I say.
The chief touches his bleeding nose, then stomps in front of the door again. “Open!” he says.
The elevator comes back up. Must be on the fritz, like the plank outside. The door slides open. Ascalon’s remote-controlled ball rolls from the elevator and into the room. It stops at our feet. I wonder if Ascalon was sleeping with Sabrina in our room. I didn’t even think to check. I look down at the ball. I spent a fortune on it, and it captured my daughter’s full attention for all of one week. Why, all my life, have I coveted expensive things? Building my entire life on debt for this impractical shit. The stupid curved, hyper-ergonomic furniture that surrounds me. Who the hell needs a sofa that can turn itself into a tent? Always gotta buy the latest gadgets. In that way, I’ve always been truly American.
The chief picks up the ball. He looks at me. Ears ringing, I look right back. My cuffs and the PD drone drop to the floor.
“What the—?” the chief says.
The ball swells in his hands. Its bright pink hisses as it transforms into translucent flesh. Me, the chief, and the corporal can’t keep our eyes off it as it grows and grows. Words begin to form on the sphere in red. Am I the only one who can see them?
I am still here.
This is not Akira’s work. I hear laughter coming from the elevator. It sounds like Akira’s laughter, which is surprising because Akira almost never laughed. I glance at the elevator doors, but don’t see anyone there. I turn back to the ball. Something pulses beneath the stretching letters. Something that smells green. “Sabrina!” I yell. “Ascalon!”
The hiss becomes a scream. The explosion that follows is tough to describe. Skin-peeling heat. A thump that shorts all the human circuitry inside me. I don’t know if I’m still alive. I’m sliding down the continental slope into the midnight zone. I feel my heels digging into the cold, deep sand. I wonder if Kathy and John felt the same thing all those years ago. I wonder if they’re together now, waiting for me to join them. I plant my heels hard into the cold, briny sea mud and reach out to grab onto something, anything, that will stop my descent beyond the abyss and into the trenches. I feel alive. So alive that I know I’m not dead, even if I’m not conscious. Maybe a person doesn’t truly feel alive until he fights to stay that way.
14
When I come to, I’m cuffed to a gurney, and my first thought is: handcuffs. That means I’ve still got hands. I look down to check if the rest of me is still there, and incredibly, all of it seems intact. I look out of the SEAL window. I get my bearings and immediately know where we’re heading. Must’ve been there hundreds of times. It’s a rough part of the ocean, about thirty klicks off the coast. Shaped like a giant top, it’s kept afloat by a hydro propulsion system almost as old as me. Its official name is the North Pacific Correctional Facility, but because of its slow spin and inconsistent bobbing in the water’s undercurrents, everyone calls it Vomit Island. Only about five to ten percent of people are impervious to seasickness, and the rest suffer it in varying degrees. On Vomit Island, prisoners make bets on which new inmate will throw up first. The food ain’t bad here, so they can’t even use that as an excuse.
I turn to the cop guarding me. I don’t recognize him—might be a Fed. “Are my wife and daughter okay?”
He ignores me. I feel something wet on my face. “Shouldn’t you assholes be taking me to the hospital first?”
No response. I stick my tongue out and rub it against the edge of my mouth to see what the liquid stuff is. The prickle of iron. Blood.
The guard frowns. “Don’t do that,” he says.
“Am I bleeding?” I ask.
He shakes his head. “You’re licking all that’s left of Captain Kashogi and Corporal Barns.”
I spit that out. “But I’m alive. How?”
The guard looks at me. “I’m pretty sure the superintendent is wondering the same thing.”
“Where are my wife and kid?” I ask again. He just ignores me. I pass out.
When we land and get to the top level, I’m shaken awake, pulled from my gurney, still cuffed, and escorted into an interrogation room. The guard from the transport, who’s on his feet now, is a mountain of a man, jacked on super-protein. He’s not a Fed. He’s Correctional. He stays close to me the entire time. I look around the nearly bare
room—not a friendly one, now that I’ve got human flesh and blood all over my face. They’re gonna go old school on old me. I’m pushed into a chair, my cuffs attached to the table.
The superintendent steps in and sits across from me. He’s in his rumpled dress blues, probably been in them all day. He sees me looking at his coat. He rubs his hands over it, and the wrinkles disappear. I haven’t spoken to the superintendent in years, but he’s still got the beady eyes of a political animal caged by wheel-and-deal steel. “I can let you stew here for the rest of your life,” the superintendent says. He holds up my now deactivated iE. “Or you can give consent to let us look at your iE. I’m surprised you turned it off. Your rights and all. But if you’re innocent, your data can prove it.”
“Want to tell me where my wife and kid are?” I ask.
“Give us your consent first,” the superintendent says. “Sign over your iE data. Just the past two days.”
“How about some medical attention?” I say, although shockingly, I feel fine. Great, in fact.
“This is Akira Kimura we’re talking about,” the superintendent says. “Even if you say no now, we’re gonna get those rights eventually.”
I know exactly what he’s saying. “Fine. Let me talk to the Feds,” I say.
The superintendent stands and sighs. “We lost two good men today,” he says. “Forensics says the IED was crafted to charge in a conical radius.”
“It wasn’t me,” I say. “I never liked the chief, and I feel fucking horrible about the kid, but I didn’t do it. I didn’t kill Jerry either. She was my friend. One of my best. Now, where the fuck are my wife and kid?”
Midnight, Water City Page 10
