’Neath Quicksilver’s Moon by Jaye Michael
Chapter Fifteen ― Changing Moon

 

¿Hasta cuándo, oh simples, amarán la simpleza, Y los burladores se deleitarán en hacer burla, Y los necios aborrecerán el conocimiento?

— Proverbios 1:22

How long, O simpletons, will you love being simple-minded, and you tricksters delight in trickery, and you fools hate the truth?

—Proverbs 1:22

 

 

It was night and I could see a large and calm lake, reflecting the moon. Black mountains rose around it. I arrived from between two of these mountains, I looked at the lake and the moon, and that was it, nothing else happened. ― Georges Simenon

A Recurring Dream

 

 

Hisashi Yamaguchi reflected on the job he had to do as he stood staring at the door. Killing Jack Webster would be child’s play, of course, since he lived in a bad neighborhood, in a cheap cubicle apartment, which was equipped with a laughably thin plastic door whose only distinguishing feature was that it seemed newer than the other doors in this hall. He considered for only an instant, then quickly scanned the door with a sensor application loaded into his communicator, pulled out a thin length of durasteel and sprung the ludicrous excuse for a lock, then walked inside, closing the door behind him with a faint ‘snick’ as the spring lock engaged.

He glanced around the room, noting the lack of personal touches. Aside from a scraggly plant by the solitary window, which made scant use of the grey light that trickled in through the filthy plastic pane, there was almost nothing visible which gave any hint about the man’s personality or habits.

Through the window, the opposite wall of the narrow air shaft was barely discernible, and the faint outline of a similar window directly across from this one showed that it was perhaps five feet from one side of the shaft to the other, all of which data was filed away in Hisashi’s mental model of the potential target.

He touched nothing inside, simply noting the size and likely purpose of openings in the interior; the horizontal fixture which folded out to became the bed-shelf, the dingy Kitchen-Niche cubbyhole, a brand popular more than fifty years ago, and the various drawers and combined clothes and storage closet of a typical city dwelling. There were no interior toilet or bathing facilities, and he’d noted the communal showers and restrooms at the end of the hall, so there wasn’t even any place to hide, once his quarry had entered. Impassive, he listened for any sounds of movement in the hall, than slipped out from the room again, pulling the door shut behind him, professionally contemptuous of the illusion of privacy and protection it offered. Of course most modern doors were plastic, because real wood, or even thin extruded durasteel, was fantastically expensive, but this door was flimsy even by modern standards.

No, Jack Webster would be no trouble at all. The real problem was that Tom O’Hare, Jack Webster’s immediate supervisor, and likewise on his target list, was a virtual recluse who lived in a gated and well-guarded “security community,” and killing Webster would put him instantly on guard, making O’Hare’s assassination infinitely more difficult. Not impossible, of course, for a man of Hisashi’s unique talents, but tricky. ‘The most subtle trap is the one which is never seen until it’s too late,’ he thought to himself, then turned to retrace his steps down the hall and out toward the street, where his driver waited. He’d have to arrange some ruse — or even another fatal “incident” — to draw them both out into the open at once, as they had been in Wyoming, so as to net both birds in one net.

He paused in thought for a moment, just before he reached out to open the entry door, and then he smiled and nodded, and made his way into the street.

“So, Jacko, feeling fine and hearty after your little vacation in the great outdoors?” O’Hare leaned back in his office chair, hands clasped behind his head, and waited for an answer.

O’Hare was smiling, an expression Jack was a little leery of, after seeing how cheerfully he’d ripped Manelli’s life into tiny little shreds. At the time, he’d been angry at Manelli himself, but in retrospect he felt a little guilty. He’d have been happier taking the little prick out into the alley and settling their differences mano a mano, handed out a few bruises — maybe more than a few, considering that he’d had his crew gang up on him — and then they could have gone out for a beer. No hard feelings. Manelli, for all his failings as a man, was ‘on the job,’ and a brother cop in a tough job. Things got out of hand sometimes. Heads got busted. Everybody knew that. You had to ride it through, and for all he knew, O’Hare had set it up because he was furious about Jack turning off the damned communicator, had wanted to ‘teach him a lesson,’ and then repented of his little ‘overreaction’ when he saw the end product, an angry Jack who was quite prepared to shove Thomas O’Hare and his crappy little job right up his own ass. If so, he’d callously set Manelli up to take the fall, because Jack was useful and Manelli was not. But now Manelli was a corpsicle, one of a stack of frozen human bodies headed out toward the stars, Procyon in Canis Minoris, to be exact, to be revived in seventeen years or so. Earth Two was a miserable place — or so Jack had heard through the grapevine, despite the cheery name and the enticing ‘documentaries’ on the vids — a planet in an relatively unstable orbit around a binary system, and as cold as a witch’s tit, as the saying goes, but with incredible metal reserves that made it a treasure trove for an industrial civilization.

The worst of it, though, was his memory of the shock and grief the man had displayed when O’Hare had manipulated him into abandoning his wife. He hadn’t thought a thing about it then, had even gloated at his enemy’s downfall, but now … now that he’d met Barbara, he realized that — for all his faults — Manelli had loved his wife, and that O’Hare had manipulated the poor schmuck into deserting her without a word — simply because O’Hare was annoyed — and that Manelli had probably heard the same rumors about Earth Two that he had, and had wanted to spare her that misery at least. He’d liked O’Hare before that, had enjoyed working for the man, but now ….

“Jack?” There was a hard edge to his voice.

Jack jerked himself back to the here and now. “What? Oh, sorry, Sir. I’m still a little foggy — didn’t get much sleep after the ‘red-eye’ flight back from Wyoming.”

“Well, that doctor seemed to want to keep you around to poke at you some more, so it took me a while to spring you. I had to call in a few favors.” Now O’Hare looked smug.

For the first time, Jack realized that he knew next to nothing about the man, aside from his often-repeated boast of having been a ‘beat cop.’ ‘But a ‘beat cop’ wouldn’t have turned on a fellow officer so quickly,’ Jack thought, ‘wouldn’t have turned another cop’s wife into an actual widow — for all intents and purposes — without batting an eye.’ At the time, he’d thought O’Hare was doing Manelli a favor, making sure his wife was ‘taken care of,’ but now he thought about the woman herself, of how she must have felt when she’d opened the door to two grim-faced officers in full dress uniform, and Jack could almost feel the blood drain from her face when she’d realized …. He shook himself again. “Yeah, well, he liked poking needles in my ass, I think. He had enough tissue samples and blood drawn to build himself a ‘Mini-Me’ from what I left behind, if you’ll pardon the expression, considering where he took most of his samples from.”

“Don’t care that much for doctors myself. Always pokin’ and pryin’ where they shouldn’t be.” O’Hare seemed more theatrical than homespun just then, and Jack was quickly becoming cynical, less his boss and sometime apparent friend than just another suspect, from whom he could expect as many lies as might seem profitable at any given moment.

Jack said, “So, where are we in the investigation? Anything turn up while I was otherwise engaged?” and then leaned back to observe. Did he detect a little hesitation, a shiftiness that indicated a mental calculation that weighed outcomes and costs more carefully than mere truth.

“No announcement, no, which doesn’t fit the first attack, but does the presumed attempt on Ortíz, although he still denies that anything really happened. He says, and I quote, ‘The poor animal was hurt and suffering, so I can hardly blame him is he acted out his pain.’ Claims the dog is as good as new, fully recovered, and sincerely thanks us for getting him laid, which doubtless did wonders for his morale.”

Jack winced. If he lived a hundred years, he might eventually live that little episode down. He answered grimly, “Well, it seemed like a good idea at the time, and certainly convinced me that he was ‘just’ a dog, despite a miraculous increase in social intelligence, which no one has ever explained, no matter how happily everyone seems determined to cover the dog’s ass with sly winks and ‘No comprende, Señor’ shrugs.”

“Well, some days are like chicken salad, as me old dad often said, and some days are like chicken shite,” O’Hare performed his little ‘Old Sod’ pantomime. “So let’s move on. I’m fairly convinced that the terrorists are still going after Senators, and perhaps their aides, who openly oppose any liberalization of our colonial laws, so I’ve had a list prepared of likely targets who might bear watching, as well as another list of Senators who actually favor a more relaxed approach.”

“And this helps us, exactly how?” Jack asked with considerable cynicism. “Last I heard, we have neither budget nor staffing to handle any sort of full coverage.”

O’Hare nodded, unfazed, even smiling. “And we still don’t, but what we can do is contact each World Senator’s personal head of staff and tell them about our new ‘Rapid Response Team,’ — which has already seen action in Wyoming — and offer help with any future investigation, as well as suggestions on increased security, if the Honorable Senator believes this might be helpful.”

“And again, this helps us exactly how?” Jack raised one very sceptical eyebrow.

O’Hare blinked, unused to anything less than compliance, however smart-alecky that compliance might be. “Well, perhaps not at all, but it puts us in a better position to respond with effective force when we finally discover what the hell is really going on!” By the time he’d finished, he was pounding on the desk with one fist, and his jaw was jutting.

Jack said calmly, “What bothers me is that Senators Ortíz and Bihar were once on exactly the same side as Senator Joseph Chillings, who was actually killed in the latest attack. Now they’re not. This is starting to look like internal ‘maneuvering’ between warring gangs of Senators rather more than an external threat from the colonies. As Doctor Nesquith pointed out back in Wyoming, the notion of colonial ‘rebels’ carrying out any attack on Earth is ludicrous, because communications are tightly-controlled by the authorities. In fact, Senator Chillings was directly responsible for Quicksilver, which has turned out to be a lot more valuable than everyone thought it was when Chillings got handed what turned out to be a ticket to instant power and wealth.”

“So you’re saying that the assassinations were plotted by the Senators themselves, but against their private ‘enemies lists’?”

He nodded his assent. “Assuming that Chillings wasn’t plotting against himself, we have to ask ourselves who benefits. Go ahead; take a random guess about exactly who took home the ‘pot’ in this little game of poker.”

“Ortíz and Bihar?”

“Exactly.” He pursed his lips and placed his thumbs and fingertips carefully together. “They had a small piece of the original pie, which magically grew to become the whole megillah, and suddenly, Quelle suprise!” He mimed throwing up his hands in astonished surprise. “Their formerly fawning support for the harsh policies of Chillings and company, which netted their small piece of the pie as a gracious ‘reward for services rendered,’ is now transformed into ‘enlightened support’ for the colonials, and a genial paternalism that reminds me of ancient remakes of The Waltons.”

“But how do they benefit in the long term? The current system has generated tons of cash for the real stakeholders just the way it is. Why change it now?”

“That’s another piece of the puzzle, I think, and of course I can’t actually prove any of it. Guess what else Ortíz and Bihar have up their sleeves?”

“Enough with the rhetorical questions, Jack, cut to the god-be-damned chase!”

Jack was unperturbed. “They have a team of scientists working on a replacement for the Skinner Drive, but using Quicksilver-based technology to go translight. If it works — and it looks like it will, because the two of them have put together a consortium which is even now building a fleet of passenger starships with staterooms and dining facilities. — you’ll be able to go out to the colonies and back about as easily as the European colonial powers in the Eighteenth Century could get to the Americas and back, a month both ways, just time enough for a leisurely vacation and close enough that ‘Colonials’ are going to start being treated like citizens, and start taking a real interest in local politics. It’s also close enough that prospective colonists can go out and take a look, so it’s not a one-way ticket like it used to be.”

“I’ll be God-damned. The run-up to the damned American Revolution!”

“Exactly, and the Bolivarian revolution in South America, eventually Ghandi in India, and finally the African rebellions, and then Southeast Asia and the global fall from grace and civil unrest that eventually took down every European nation as a world power.”

“And Ortízes power base is in Central and South America.”

“And Bihar is equally influential in the Indian sub-continent. Last time around, Latin America and the peoples of the Indus played second fiddle to the English and their successors. This time around, it’s beginning to look like someone is reshuffling the deck for a new hand. So three guesses where Chillings got his Mojo.”

“North America?”

“Bingo. And guess where the next attacks will likely come from, and towards whom they’ll be directed ….”

“The ‘friends’ of the colonies?”

“More than likely.” He wondered for a moment which side O’Hare was on, assuming — as he did now — that it wasn’t necessarily that of the angels. “I think you should stand your little lists on their pointy little heads, because they present a threat assessment that now represents the enemies of civil society, and a so-called ‘safe list’ that closely conforms to those most in danger, because Chilling’s real pals are going to be very, very worried, and they’ve got a lot to lose.”

It occurred to Jack Webster that O’Hare’s ‘safe list’ might also be considered a deliberate ‘hand’s off’ list, which might as well clear the way for an assassin as ensure that ‘resources weren’t wasted.’ ‘Oh, what a tangled web we weave, Thomas O’Hare, me foine Boyo, when first we practise to deceive.’

World Senator Anaïs Foucault called out to her seven-year-old daughter, “Zoé! Come look at the baby lamb!”

“Où est-il, maman?” Zoé cried out, running to see.

“English, darling, as a courtesy to our guests.” She smiled for the camera.

“I’m sorry, mother. It’s diff …difficult to remember sometimes, when I’m having fun.” She was apologetic, but not much. The baby animals were a lot of fun, after all.

The Senator was in the Washington DC Urbopolis visiting the Metro East Regional Zoo with her daughter, Zoé, as a publicity appearance after her successful meeting with World Senator Ortíz to discuss a French superconductor factory for the European market. Earlier in the day, they’d held a joint press conference to disclose the financial details of the arrangement, but this visit was meant to provide threedee coverage for the ‘family’ timeslots, and was carefully crafted to provide a seamless follow-on onto Luz Calderón’s Natural Quicksilver travel series. In fact, Ms. Calderón was slated for a guest appearance in the clip, in which she’d explain how different planets had different ecosystems, but there were beautiful living things everywhere, and lots of exciting things to see.”

One of the technicians motioned to her. “Senator Foucault! We’re live in five minutes. Ms. Calderón will be checking in within a few moments. You’ll see her on this monitor,” he gestured to a portable wall vid, about ten feet tall by thirty feet wide, “so just interact normally. We’d like her to lead in the clip, and then you can cut away for your prepared remarks.”

“Of course. You’ll give me a ten-second warning?”

“Yes, of course, Senator, and then a five-second count.”

She nodded her assent, and then called to her daughter, “Zoe, come say hello to Madame Luz! She’s calling all the way from Quicksilver!”

The monitor flickered and then cleared to a normal threedee view, but much larger than most people had in their homes. The background of the zoo itself was composited into the scene, so it would look as if they were chatting together in the same outdoor setting. Then Luz stepped into the scene. “Hello, World Senator Foucault, it’s such a pleasure to meet you in person. Is this your daughter Zoé? She didn’t wait to hear the answer, but knelt down immediately to talk directly to the young girl. “Salut, ça va, Zoé?”

“Trés bien, Madame Luz.”

Luz glanced up to see the Senator’s slight frown. “I see that we’re supposed to talk in English, dear Zoé, which isn’t quite as much fun, but it’s all part of the game we play here. Most of the people in our audience can’t speak French, for some strange reason, so we’ll pretend we can’t either. Is that all right?”

“Of course, Madame. We do it all the time, even at home.”

“We’ll do fine, then, Zoé. Are you having fun at the zoo?”

“Oh, yes, Madame Luz.” She smiled. She knew Madame Luz, from the children’s show, Mercure du matin, in its French version, primarily for the Canadian market, but also carried in France, Belgium, and parts of Africa and the Carribean, Quicksilver Morning in English.

“Good. We’ll try to make this fun for everyone.” She stood up smiling, and greeted the Senator. “Madame Senator, it’s so good of you to make time in your busy schedule to see us. We’ll be going live in a few moments, but I always like to chat a bit beforehand, to get to know one another a little before we have to start thinking about who else is watching and what we’re supposed to say.”

“I understand, Ms Calderón. I see we have something in common.” she gestured with an almost flirtatious downward glance toward her abdomen.

Luz dimpled. “In a little more than a month, the doctor says, and a girl, just like yours, so we have that in common too.”

“I didn’t know, seeing you in the vids, whether it was part of the show, or real.”

“Quite real, I assure you, and she lets me know that she wants out quite regularly.” She grinned. “She’s my first, so this is all quite an adventure for both of us.”

The two women smiled at each other in that instant camaraderie a shared experience can bring.

The technician interjected, “Ten seconds, please,” and started counting silently, holding up both hands and folding one finger at a time on his left hand until he reached the last, and then continued aloud with the fingers on his right hand, “Five, four, three ….” finishing on his fingers alone until he pointed his forefinger alone with a slightly more abrupt emphasis to mark the start of the take.

Luz said, “Good morning, everyone. We have a really exciting show planed today, because we have three very special guests, World Senator Anaïs Foucault and her daughter Zoé, as well as another special friend, a baby lamb that was just born here at the Metro East Regional Zoo.” She looked over at the Senator, who seemed to be seated right beside her, Senator, would you mind telling us what brings you here to the zoo?

“Not at all, Ms Calderón, would you mind if I call you Luz?”

“Not at all, Senator, I feel as if we were friends already.”

“And please call me Anaïs, Luz. As you well know, our two worlds are growing ever closer, and I’m here in the Washington DC Urbopolis to sign an agreement granting an old French firm, Groupe Industriel Olivia Dior, S.A., exclusive access to a portion of Quicksilver raw materials for the production of commercial quantities of room temperature superconductors for the EuroMarket, joining several other companies in serving their own regional markets.”

“Could you explain, Anaïs? I know some of our viewers won’t understand exactly why this is important.”

“Well, Luz, the special Quicksilver superconductors are making it possible to achieve tremendous savings in energy, for example, so our power companies can transmit power directly to homes and businesses with no transmission loss and much lower costs for the consumer. We also use these special wires to make very tiny electronic devices, so if your communicator was manufactured within the past year, it probably does five times as much work now, and has at least twice to five times the battery ‘talk time’ as last year’s models did.”

“I understand the new communicators are much better than the older models as well, Anaïs.”

“That’s right, Luz. The new devices are able to pack enough processing power into the same size that many now offer simultaneous translation services, voice-to-text note-taking, and voice-controlled browsing. A lot of people with big fingers are thanking their lucky stars.”

Luz laughed very prettily. “When perhaps they should be thanking Quicksilver, shouldn’t they?”

“I’d have to agree, Luz,” the Senator answered with a smile. “We haven’t even scratched the surface of what can be done with this technology.”

“And speaking of scratching, Anaïs, I’ll bet our viewers are just ‘itching’ to see what natural wonders we’ll be seeing today, but first, we like to see a small part of Earth’s natural wonders, the miracle of birth and motherhood, a subject I seem naturally to be drawn to lately.”

One of the zoo’s animal handlers had the lamb ready to be brought before the camera and Luz had just glanced at it when her eyes widened slightly and she continued without a moment’s hesitation, “But first, we have to cut away for an important bit of news.” She was counting on the fact that whoever had planned this wanted everything on camera and live. Her staff would handle the filler while she whispered, “Anaïs, Zoé, we’re going to play a very important and special game right now. I want you and your mother to play hide and seek behind my desk,” she gave Anaïs a very meaningful glance, “so drop to the floor right now!” Then she said, “Security! Get that animal off the stage now!” She glanced quickly around. There was a durasteel waste container near one end of the walk in front of the stage. “The waste bin!” she pointed. “Now!”

One of the Senator’s security detail had acted quickly enough to rush from the side and bowl the zoo handler and the baby lamb off the stage, but not quickly enough to reach the waste bin when the lamb exploded and both Anaïs and her daughter screamed. Luz quickly reached for power, but there wasn’t much in this controlled and largely sterile environment, so she simply tried to push the force and direction of the blast away from the stage and threedee crew and up into the air. She was only partially successful. She did, however, manage to see the single onlooker who wasn’t reacting normally, as if he’d expected the explosion, and used her own desktop controls to zoom in on his face; he looked Japanese, and his face was as hard as stone.

She used another of her controls to feed his picture to the security team. “This is your assassin! Try and capture him alive, if you can.”

Then she turned to Anaïs and Zoé. Both were safe behind the heavy interview desk, although splashed with blood — not their own — and frightened. “Anaïs, Zoé, don’t get up yet, because we’re still playing hide and seek and some bad men may be trying to find you, but you’re safely hidden now.” Zoé was crying. “Hush, mon petite.” She wished that she could fold them both into her arms, but her mother’s sheltering arms would have to do for Zoé. Anaïs was already whispering words of comfort, and petting her little girl to soothe her, but the girl was still frightened, and Luz was very angry. ‘How dare they target a little girl, her mother, and how especially vicious to use an innocent lamb as a murder weapon.’

She called Senator Ortíz on his direct line. When he picked up she didn’t spare any words for social niceties. “Jamie, there’s been an assassination attempt on Anaïs Foucault and her daughter Zoé. They’re both unharmed, as far as I can tell, but I’m feeding you a picture of the assassin, because I imagine your security team may be better-equipped to handle the threat than Senator Foucault’s. One of her team is dead, through personal bravery and heroic efforts to protect his charges, and I’d like to offer any financial assistance his family may need in addition to what would normally be provided. They were guests on my show, a show for children, so I take this very personally.”

“Thank you for telling me, Luz. I recognize the man, a very powerful ‘enforcer’ for one of the Japanese criminal gangs, so I think that I’ll be able to put my finger on the man who pulled his strings, if not necessarily the man behind that man. I’ll pass this on to Jorge, who will know what to do. I take this very personally too, because Anaïs Foucault is my friend, and any man who targets women and children is beneath contempt.”

“Thank you, Senator. Right now, I have to get back to my show.”

“Best of luck to you, Luz.”

“And to you, Jaime. Have Jorge take especial pains for me, if he will.”

“I’m sure he’ll be pleased to do so, Luz. His own children watch your show.”

Next she called the Director of Quicksilver Morning, Ishmael Sinclair, and said, “Ishmael, can you take my feed? I’d like to make an announcement before we go back to fillers.”

“Of course, Luz. I knew that you be with us as soon as you possibly could be. You’re a trouper, girl.”

“Thanks, Ishmael. Can you count me in?”

“Not a problem, Luz, in five, four, three …”

“Hello, children, and parents too. I wanted to assure you that World Senator Anaïs Foucault and her daughter Zoé are perfectly safe and unharmed. Unfortunately, a very bad man tried to hurt them today, but some very brave men stopped him before he could do so. I know that many of you will be seeing this on regular news programs as well as here, and they may not be as concerned for what’s really important as we can be in our little corners of Quicksilver and the world, so we can go to sleep tonight knowing that all our friends are safe and sound, and that the man who tried to hurt them will be caught very quickly, so that he doesn’t try to hurt anyone else.”

“Because we’re very busy right now, cleaning up the mess the man made, and seeing to the safety of everyone who was visiting the zoo today, we’re going to be showing some pictures of fun times we had in the recent past, so we can remember that the world is filled with wonderful things and very kind people, even if — every once in a long, long while — we encounter someone who’s not so nice.”

“I’m going to let our announcer tell you what happens next, because I have to talk to Zoé and Senator Anaïs Foucault now, and see if they need anything else. So all of us here at Quicksilver morning wish you a fun rest of the afternoon, and sweet dreams, my very dear friends. I’ll see you tomorrow. Bye bye!” She waved at the camera and smiled for the cross-fade, holding for a long beat, just in case someone missed a cue.

“We’re clear, Luz, and thank you.” Ishmael said.

“Thanks so much! Now cut me back to the stage, please.”

“Rightie-o, Luz. You’re live right now.”

Not much had happened, although some of her crew was on stage now and helping Zoé and Anaïs to clean up. Someone had brought tea. “Anaïs, Zoé, I wanted to let you both know that I’ve told everyone who was watching that you’re both safe, so they don’t worry, but I also wanted to offer you, Senator, the opportunity to make a public statement for immediate distribution to the regular news media. My cameras and studio crew are completely at your disposal.”

“Thank you, Luz, and I would like to make a statement as soon as possible.”

“Any time you’re ready, Anaïs. Do you need make-up or a change of clothing?”

She thought for a moment, and then said, “No. I’ll go on as I am. Will you feed directly?”

“Yes. It will be up on the wire directly for auction to the networks, but I’ll carry the traffic at no charge. Oh! I wanted to tell you that I notified Senator Ortíz directly, because I thought that he might be a target too.”

“I know, Luz. He’s already been in touch with me, concerned about my welfare, and that of Zoé. He’s having some of his own security staff come in to augment mine, just in case, so thank you very much again.” She hesitated slightly, then said, “Can you tell me what you saw that made you think we were in danger? It seems like a miracle that we weren’t harmed, and that there were so few casualties, since it was such a powerful bomb.”

“Of course, Anaïs. I saw a man at the back of the crowd, standing well back, which seemed strange, since everyone else was crowding close to see the show, and his affect was odd as well, neither hostile nor enthusiastic, but somehow blank, a trait I associate with sociopaths, and then I saw that the poor lamb was acting oddly, listless somehow, and I just had a presentiment of danger. I passed on a very high-def video feed of the man himself, enough to capture his body metrics and physiognomy, as well as his movements when he ran away, so I have every hope that he’ll be captured soon.”

“I understand, Luz. You’re une voyante, une sorcière.”

She smiled. “So they say. I do get feelings some times, and I do pay attention when I do.”

“For which I give thanks.”

“Just give a heads-up to the floor director and he’ll give you a count when you’re ready.”

“I’m ready now, Luz.”

The floor director stood by the camera as the red light went on to show that it was patched into the feed, or would be on the fade-in. “Ready, Senator?”

She nodded.

He raised one hand. “Then five, four, three, ….” and signalled the cue with a short jab of his forefinger.

The Senator began, her face grim and her jaw set. “Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen. As you can see, reports of my death have been slightly exaggerated.” She smiled very briefly and paused for reaction, then continued, “Early this afternoon, just a very few minutes ago, a prominent figure in an organised criminal gang tried to harm both my young daughter and myself with a cunning, but viciously cruel, explosive device, heedless of the danger to innocent bystanders, to women and children enjoying an outing in the center of a great nation, in a craven blow aimed at all our hearts.” She bowed her head slightly, as if to gather her thoughts, and then looked up again, square into the unblinking eye of the camera.

“We were saved because of the quick-thinking of our hostess, Luz Calderón, a brave citizen of another world, who noticed the murderous villain as he stepped forward to attack and took immediate and effective actions to safeguard all our lives, although one valued member of my staff — who leaves behind a wife and two young children — was killed while trying to secure the bomb in a place of safety, fulfilling his duty of care and concern for others. In the end, it was with his body, with his very life, that he smothered the greatest force of the explosion. Hundreds of people in the crowd, and I myself, owe this heroic man our lives, and we must never forget him. Edward Adams was his name, which means ‘happy guardian’ in the original Old English, and happy indeed is the Heavenly reward of those who lay down their lives for their friends. Edward was a loyal friend and guardian to all of us, even those of us who’d not had the good fortune to meet him, and proved his love with the last full measure of devotion.” Once again, she bowed her head, as if in prayer or sorrow, and then looked up again, but with her head lowered slightly, this time definitely in sorrow.

“To compound his crime, this … this sniveling coward murdered an unarmed zoo worker who had freely donated his time to help to entertain your children and mine, and yet his precious life, dedicated with such tender concern and love to others, was callously snuffed out in an instant, after burning so brightly as an example to us all.” She shook her head slowly from side to side, visibly moved by the loss of this young man, then faced forward again in determined and implacable anger.

“We know exactly who did this, and who they were working for, the cowardly crew who crave constant control over every aspect of our lives, who seek always to lead us away from freedom, from dignity, and from self-respect. They will not succeed! And we will bring them to justice! We demand freedom for all of Earth, and for all the worlds! These bright new worlds, filled with life, flung like a chain of precious jewels against the endless darkness of the barren void, are our children, our place of refuge and succor! Liberté! égalité! fraternité! Liberty, equality, and brotherhood, for one and all!”

Jack Webster was in O’Hare’s office again, but wasn’t feeling particularly intimidated. O’Hare was pacing back and forth, worried about something he wouldn’t, or couldn’t, share. ‘Oh, and it’s a foine mess ye’ve got yerself into, Tommie-boy, a foine mess indeed.’ He smiled to himself, a cynical clarity suffusing his entire history with O’Hare, who he’d once respected. But Anaïs Foucault’s name had been prominently placed right at the top of the list of Senators the department ‘didn’t have to worry about,’ and Jack no longer wondered if it was an accident. Now, he wondered who else was going to die before his boss and the men who owned him were through.

“Well?” O’Hare was glaring at him.

“Well, what, Mr. Bossman?”

“Aren’t you going to say ‘I told you so?’ ”

“Not me, Mr. Boss. It’s plenty obvious. It’s never been about ‘freedom for the colonies,’ it’s been about who rakes in the dough for most of the major players, although I have to admit that I’m fonder of Ortíz, and maybe Foucault, because Ortíz at least offered me a free puppy, and Foucault gives dynamite speech. I might take him up on that puppy, though since it looks like we might be shut down, so I’ll have some time on my hands to house train him. It could be fun. I’ve always wanted to retire in disgrace.”

“Dammit! You wise-ass little putz! We’ve got to do something!”

Jack looked at him in sarcastic confusion. “You’re kidding, right? Even with mystical oriental powers to cloud men’s minds, and a sorcerous cloak of invisibility we can’t fight duelling Senators. Wasn’t there an old rock-a-billy song about that? ‘You don’t piss into the wind; you don’t dribble beer on the Batman’s cape; and you don’t mess around with Senators.’ I think that’s how it went ….” He wrinkled his brow. “Not that I wouldn’t like the power to cloud men’s minds ….” he said reasonably. “Is Tibet still there? Or was it Shangri-La? One or the other. Maybe my new dog can find it for me ….”

“Get the fuck out of here, you little punk! I’ll call you when I need you.”

“You do that, Mr. Bossman, but I have one tiny question.”

“What!?”

“What happened to the blarney Irish brogue, me foine boyo?”

Jack barely got the door shut behind him when O’Hare’s bronze paperweight hit it with a heavy crunch as it splintered the real wood panel. “Tch, tch,” he observed to himself. “Missed me by a mile.” He hit the stairs, not the elevator, because he didn’t trust his old boss not to try a few more dirty tricks. “Ah, well. Tomorrow is another day.”

Jack Webster’s eyes opened wide, abruptly. It was the middle of the night, maybe three … four … in the morning, after closing time, because that always generated a little buzz and shuffling through the building, as people straggled home. He was suddenly wide awake, and something had invaded his consciousness, a niggling feeling, some sort of disturbance in the smooth flow of … energy? Whatever it was that he was feeling, it was evil. There was something rotten and mean near him, but not in the room, although he didn’t know quite how he knew it.

He reached for the little secret shelf he’d carved into the wall, craftily-concealed by a drooping concert poster from his youth, then his hand crept inside as his fingers first found his neurolizer, and then his slapjack, a little ‘equalizer’ designed to encourage an opponent in a rough and tumble fight to quickly become either unconscious or battered enough to surrender, but without leaving too many marks. The higher class of criminal these days sometimes invested in grounding armor that was proof against a hand-held neurolizer — unless one managed to jab them in the eye — but brute force was always effective.

As he quietly rolled out of bed, he mentally thanked Manelli, because before the late night ‘visit’ by Manelli and his thugs, the bed had squeaked loudly when he got up in the morning. Impelled by fear, inspired by O’Hare, Manelli’s wrecking crew had paid for a professional interior makeover, and his fold-out bed was now as solid and squeakless as the Rock of Gibraltar.

Now he was up and standing near the Kitchen-Niche, with not a chance of hiding, since he was a bit bigger than a coffee pot, but slightly behind the door at least, partially concealed if it opened, but not too close. If one hugged the corner, the bad guy could stick a shiv in your ribs before you knew what happened, or throw the door back against you, trapping one in the corner to await the bad guy’s leisurely attentions. Since there was no particular cover, he willed himself into watchful stillness, prepared to take any advantage offered, or to respond to any sudden assault.

He couldn’t really hear anything, since the presence he felt was more an absence of sound, a hole in the subtle texture of creaks and plastic sighs that characterized the normal ambience of the building.

Now he heard something springy unfold from some secret place and approach the lock of the door; he heard it slide in, then a faint ‘snick’ as the lock was slipped, and then silence again. He could hear the silence as the man — it was a man — outside the door listened for a response to that tiny sound. Jack made none, but waited.

Then the door crept open, and Jack could see a deeper shadow against the darkness, and the man drifted through the open door like smoke, his hands upraised in a curious posture … he held a goddamned sword!

The hairs on the back of Jack’s neck lifted of their own accord and he hoped it wasn’t audible, because the bad guy was still slipping silently toward Jack’s bed.

Suddenly, the man whipped his sword down to where Jack’s head would have been, if he’d stayed where he was, and Jack lunged out from where he stood and smacked the bridge of his nose with his slapstick as hard as he could, hearing the first sound, the man’s nose breaking, well before he heard his sword bury itself in his pillow. In a burst of speed, he waved the slapstick like a feather, and every time it touched the man something broke. It was as if the man were standing there, waiting for the next stroke of the club, until he smacked the man right on the frenum between his nose and his upper lip and the man dropped like a stone.

Quickly, he took up the man’s sword, holding it not so much with any idea of wielding it, but only to have control of it so it couldn’t be used against him. Then he grabbed his cuffs from the little table near his bed and had his arms trussed behind him and double locked in one smooth movement, just like they’d practiced it in classes, only better. Because he didn’t trust him, he used his second pair to catch first one ankle, then the other, threading one leg through his linked arms before snapping the last cuff shut.

He still wasn’t moving, so Jack turned on the light.

Damned if he wasn’t dressed up like a Halloween ninja, except Jack had some idea that this one was the real deal. Now, he was even more cautious — he’d seen the movies — and used his sword to lever the guy over, then just the tip of it to lift off his weird ninja mask.

Jack blinked. It was the guy who’d tried to blow up Senator Foucault and her girl, what’s-her-face, Zoi. He reached over him again, carefully, and picked up his communicator, then hit a hot key. He listened for a second, then said, “Dispatch, this is Jack Webster, badge number Q-704725, currently unassigned. I need a wagon and a squad at my home address, double quick if you don’t mind. The guy’s locked up tight right now, but I don’t trust him not to get out, since he seems to be one of those ninja guys, and you see them cut through steel bars with plastic playing cards all the time, at least in the threedees.”

He listened for a while, then said, “Assault with a deadly weapon on a peace officer for a start, B&E, carrying a sword or knife with a blade longer than five inches, brandishing same in a threatening manner, attempted murder with same, possession of lock picks and burglary tools … I’m sure I can think of a few other tidbits for his sheet while I wait.”

He listened again. “Oh, yeah. He’s got a want on him. He looks a lot like the guy who tried to assassinate Senator Foucault just this afternoon … well, yesterday afternoon by now, and killed those guys with a bomb, so you can add that to the list as well, two counts of capital murder, attempted murder of a government employee, assault on a legislator … Jeez, it’s the middle of the night. Can I just hand the guy over and you guys just look up everything he’s done.”

He listened again and rolled his eyes. “Ok, I’ll wait here.”

Jack looked over at his brand new rock solid bed and noticed that the asshole had put a big gouge where his head would have been. He glared at him, felt like kicking him, but didn’t. “Schmuck!” He wasn’t going to get any more sleep tonight either.

 

 

Jack Webster steeled himself to knock on the door, and didn’t have enough time to compose himself before it was opened by a woman with what seemed to Jack to be a face frozen into anguish by grief and sudden loss. Belatedly, he realized that she wouldn’t have even been allowed the closure of seeing her husband’s body, of touching him for the last time, since he’d been simply ‘disappeared.’ He tried to swallow, his mouth gone dry. It took him two tries before he was able to say, “Mrs. Manelli?”

“Yes?”

“My name is Jack Webster. I’m a cop, and I knew your husband.”

Her eyes opened wide, and she somehow seemed to know what he was about to say. “You know Paulo?”

“I do, or did, and I know where he is ….” He wanted to say that he was Manelli’s friend, although of course he wasn’t, but the woman’s fragile vulnerability tempted him to say it anyway, because it was a tiny crumb of comfort he might have offered, if he’d managed to say it sooner. In the end, he said nothing more, ashamed of his former anger, and of his own part in this travesty, however unwitting.

“He’s alive?” She didn’t seem very surprised by that for some reason, despite the inflection of her pro forma question, but Jack had thought that she might not have been. Even separated from her by so many millions of miles, even though he’d never even held her hand, he felt Barbara’s warm presence in the Universe always, as real as if he’d just left her waiting in the patrol car outside.

He didn’t know exactly what to say, although he’d practiced saying it often enough on the way over. “Well, yes, unh, sort of …”

Copyright © 1993, 2010, 2011 by Jeffrey M. Mahr

All rights reserved.

 

DEDICATION:

To my loving wife, Betty. She completes me.

 

 

Copyright © 2011 Levanah