Quantum Nightmares, page 15
Since Fergie’s oculus was connected to the car system, the kids’ face on the screen was replaced with “Incoming Call: Boss Man” before they got the call on their eyephones.
Fergie answered immediately. “What happened?” he said.
“Dunno.” Jennings was unusually calm for having just blown the element of surprise and potentially letting the biggest fish of his life off the line. “I suspect other agencies have moles on their payroll for moments like this.”
Fergie and Johnson both turned off their oculus and used the dash.
“Where are you?”
“Outside the bond’s home.”
“That’s good,” Jennings said nodding with a smile. “That’s very good.”
“How much time you think we got before Philly RPCD sends their BH’s?” Johnson asked.
“Well, they’ll call first, of course, following procedure—making sure it’s real,” Jennings said. “I can buy you guys some time, but to be on the safe side, I’d say you have an hour max to make the bond.”
With a sense of urgency, they got out of the car.
The sky was filled with delivery drones, zigging and zagging across the blue sky like a patched quilt.
Fergie always avoided looking at the sky, because the flying devices, the exhaust lines, would incite anxiety in him, deep and uncontrollable. No one knew about his past-life PTSD and he’d rather it that way. He always kept his eyes at ground level. He walked past the stunning, exotic Calvin Klein holophoto and very nearly tried putting his hand through her, she looked so real.
A drone the size of a basketball descended slowly, its familiar beeping a tribute to its cargo predecessor—the delivery truck. It carried a package in its mouth like a stork delivering a baby. It descended to the doorstep of the apartment building where the soul bond lived. When it was a few feet off the ground, it dropped the package perfectly at the doorstep, then shot vertically up at dizzying speed, stopped midway up the sky, the AI traffic control allowing for a series of other drones to pass, then it continued its silent ascent into the clouds. Soon it was out of sight.
They walked over the package into the front entrance. There hadn’t been a homeless person in Philly—or the world for that matter—in many decades. The 3D printed filing cabinet apartment complexes were as close as you could get to being poor.
The hallway smelled of ammonia and rotting fruit.
“Meetcha at the top, brotha,” Johnson said. He removed the small kinetic service weapon from the holster and started climbing the steps two at a time. Fergie waited at the bottom, babysitting the elevator, just in case.
Six minutes later, Fergie got a call on his eyephone. Johnson was breathing heavily, sweating. “C’mon up n’join the party,” he says.
Fergie entered the elevator and ascended to the forty-fourth floor.
They met outside the soul bond’s apartment, the air electric, filled with looming celebration—two-hundred-million dollars’ worth of celebration.
A geriatric woman answered the door. She wore an old, loose, Amish-style dress that trickled down to her ankles, covering everything but her face and hands. Her snow-white hair was in a bun, her glasses perched on the bridge of her nose. Her head was tilted, looking at the men before her with her chin to her chest. Her eyes and nose were the bright red of frostbite. She clutched a wet handkerchief in her left hand, squeezing it so hard her fingers were white. Very clearly, she’d been crying.
Johnson looked to Fergie for guidance. He’d prepared himself for any number of resistances, mostly physical, but he never considered having to deal with a crying elderly woman who was a dead ringer for Tweety Bird’s granny from the Looney Tunes, which he used to watch whenever he visited his grandparents in Wyoming. They never had cable, just an old relic called a DVD player, with a select few DVDs. The Looney Tunes collection being his favorite.
Fergie stepped forward. “I’m very sorry to bother you, ma’am,” he said, “but does Lena Paul live here?”
The woman’s wrinkled face contorted grotesquely, an utterly perfect mask of heartbreak. With wobbly knees, she lurched forward, grabbing her chest, and very nearly fell over. Fergie stepped forward and supported her inside. He set her on a recliner.
She lifted her arms to the sky and wailed, shaking her arms as if she were banging on a cellar door.
“Is there anything the matter, miss?” asked the young Johnson.
But Fergie sourced the look on the woman’s face as grief, and he knew what the next words out of the woman’s mouth would be—
But when did it happen? Fergie thought. How did it happen?
Just as Fergie was about to ask the particulars, a white flashing light obstructed his vision. He knew who was calling on his eyephone. He raised a finger and said, “One minute, ma’am.” He turned around and answered.
“What’s going on?” Lieutenant Jennings had a concerned look on his face, his brow furrowing like a pug. “The soul bond blipped off the screen for a few minutes, then reappeared. The techs say they’ve never seen anything like that happen to a living person.”
Came back, Fergie thought. That would mean that—
Johnson was putting the pieces together, too—the heartbroken woman before them, the blip in the ether, the reappearance, Lena Paul—the soul bond of the Ace of Spades, had died and already, within a matter of minutes, reincarnated somewhere else in the ether.
Johnson’s stomach turned cold; a stone formed in his throat. They were so close. He was so close—$54,000,000. He’d already done the math and after paying taxes and fees and alimony, that was his cut— $54,000,000. He wanted to scream. He wanted to—
The old woman hunched over and faceplanted with a loud thud.
“What was that?” Jennings asked.
“Huh,” Fergie grunted.
Johnson bent over and checked the woman’s pulse; she didn’t have one. With malice in his heart, he flipped her over, preparing to initiate CPR. The woman had a picture frame clutched in one hand and a rolled-up piece of paper in the other.
Johnson snatched the paper and gaped at it—
It was a wrongful death form for Lena Paul, citing negligence by a drunken anesthesiologist, who blew a .40 at the time of his arrest. Contact information for lawyers, etc.
Somewhere in the back of the apartment a door opened and closed, then tiny feet scurrying across the hallway.
“What was that noise?” Jennings said impatiently.
Johnson peeled the woman’s cold hands from the frame and gasped at what he saw. He lunged forward and handed Fergie the picture frame, then started for the hallway.
“Well, sir,” Fergie said as he dropped the picture frame and bent over to pick it up, “Lena Paul and her guardian—”
Fergie fell silent. He couldn’t believe his eyes. In the picture was Lena Paul smiling happily, with her arms wrapped around another little girl that looked exactly like Lena Paul—her twin sister.
Johnson bumped into a little girl where the hallways and the living room meet.
“I’ll call you back, sir.” Fergie blinked three times, his mouth practically on the ground, his mind racing.
Two of them?
“Granma?” The little girl started for the old woman. She fell on her, her ears on the woman’s robust bosom. “She’s not breathin’, mista,” she said, looking at Fergie, tears already starting to punch her eyes. “Help her!”
She prostrated herself on the woman and cried hysterically, her tiny shoulders shaking.
Johnson and Fergie looked at each other. Johnson blinked twice, waited a beat, then blinked once. His DM popped up in his vision. Simply by thinking, he wrote his partner who was standing three feet away.
Are you thinking what I’m thinking?
Fergie shrugged, annoyed. We call the medics and hit the bar to drown our sorrows? he thought.
We can still make the bond, Ferg, Johnson thought. We pull a switch.
Are you crazy? How the hell would we do that? Even as the words left his mind, Fergie realized, it was possible, even probable that they’d get away with it.
We make the arrest now. Put the crown on her, and that’s that. She’d be comatose for eternity.
Or until—Fergie couldn’t finish the thought. It was too dark to even conceive. He felt dirty to even consider it. But he did consider it.
When Congress adapted the laws for the sociopath gene, the decision was made to waive the criminal’s right to a fair trial. After identification was made, the person would be immediately detained by a crown device, then shipped to California Federal Penitentiary where they were placed in a cryogenic tube, and from there, they would no longer be a problem for society, frozen in a cryogenic state, kept alive indefinitely, unable to die, and therefore, unable to reincarnate and spread their evil across the globe.
The more Fergie thought about it, the more he realized they could get away with it. No one would know until the new Lena Paul died again and blipped off the map, and, by then, Fergie and Johnson would be dead, reincarnated somewhere else, as someone else.
Lean Paul’s twin threw her head up to the sky and started head-butting her grandmother’s chest. Fergie’s heart ached for her. Within a matter of hours, she’d lost a sister and her grandmother.
What if she’s got parents, Johnny? Fergie thought.
“Hey, kid, do you have any other family?” Johnson said, bending over.
She looked up, her face covered in drool and snot, a confused look in her eyes.
“Parents, aunts, uncles—anyone?” Johnson said, beads of sweat forming on his brow.
She shook her head then laid it back down gently on her grandmother, her tiny arms wrapping around her, squeezing, holding on, not wanting to let go.
Johnson wasn’t Chromosome 23 deficient, therefore he wasn’t a sociopath, but he lacked a certain degree of integrity that a man in his position should value. Cunningly, he used her being an orphan as ammunition to serve his will. No parents. No brothers. No sisters. No one will know the difference, he thought.
Fergie shook his head. What if HQ sees Lena Paul’s death on the news?
There’s twelve billion people on the planet, Ferg. HQ doesn’t give a flying fuck about some random girl dying. And thanks to the liberal’s fear of backlash on families, Johnny Q public doesn’t know the names of the soul bonds, only their rank. To us, the select few, she’s Lena Paul, but to everyone else, we arrested the Ace of Spades. People that know them will just think the twin’s the Ace of Spades.
What about the checks? Fergie thought. Twins’ DNA aren’t exact, and the ocular scans, fingerprints, dental records. None of them. None of them would match up.
“Hey, kid,” Johnson said, “d’ya have a holophoto of your sister somewhere?”
Without looking up, the kid pointed to a 3D projector sitting on the middle table.
Johnson’s eyes grew big, wicked. He licked his lips, nodding, thinking.
Okay, he thought. We get the ocular scans from the holophoto, we get the DNA and prints from her toothbrush, we—
We can’t fake dental records, Johnny, Fergie thought, tugging at strings, fully aware of what the response would be.
—Cut the shit, Johnson thought. She’s a minor. Ipso facto, fuck a dental record.
The little girl looked up, the heartbreak on her face punching holes in Johnson’s plan.
“Aren’t you gonna help my granma?” she asked. Then the heartbroken look transformed to one of sudden inspiration. She licked her lips then started blinking her eyes and it was obvious what she was doing—
Lena Paul’s grandmother didn’t play favorites, she sprung for both grandchildren to get their oculus systems put in today.
With the DNA, prints and ocular scan, we have enough to make the bond now, before anyone else can crown her.
“Hello,” the little girl said, her eyes behind a milky-white incandescent glow. “Is this the am-boolince?”
Johnson sprang to action. He reached in his back pouch where most cops carry handcuffs, but where RPCD bounty hunters keep their crown—a metal device that almost looked like a queen’s crown, slim, circular, shiny, with a light in the middle that would turn green when activated so that it looked like a shiny emerald. When applied and activated, an electrical current intercepted the synapses firing to the wearer’s nervous system, inhibiting thought.
From there, they experienced nothing but darkness, forevermore.
Nothing but darkness—a thought that finally made Fergie get on board with the devious plot. It was a win-win situation, really. If they got away with it, they’d be able to retire. If they didn’t—something Fergie secretly hoped happened—then we’d get crowned and would spend the rest of our lives in still darkness.
The thought was exhilarating.
Fergie had instinctively stepped forward to stop Johnson’s advance. But now, he stepped aside and let Johnson creep up behind the girl and place the crown upon her head, the electrical pulse cutting the feed to her oculus.
Her eyes stayed white, and she stood straight, standing, waiting to be herded to her cryogenic cell.
They both blinked twice, waited a beat, then blinked once.
There was only one thing stopping Fergie from committing entirely.
“There’s just one thing,” Fergie said. “If we make the arrest, then that would mean—”
“Then that would mean the new Ace of Spades will be running out there freely, spreading their evilness across the globe.” Johnson finished the thought for him.
Fergie nodded slowly, squinting his eyes, thinking, digging deep, wondering if he was capable of such a diabolical act.
“And even when the new Lena Paul gets her oculus and gets her adult teeth,” Fergie said, thinking aloud, “there’d be no way to confirm their identity, because everyone will assume it’s a glitch in the system.”
“‘That’s not possible,’ they’d say,” Johnson said, his arms raised at his side, his head shaking, feigning worry. ‘“The Ace of Spades is already crowned in Cali.’”
Johnson lowered his arms, smile bigger than a full moon.
Wiggling his eyebrows, he said, “There must be something wrong with the system.”
Fergie shook his head, tears forming in his eyes.
“We can do this,” Johnson said. “This can be done.” He nodded and started for the holophoto to secure the ocular scan. It turned on with a low hum. The screen saver was the same picture that was in the frame that the old woman clung to.
Johnson laughed, then, “Shit, she looks just like the picture, I betcha no one even looks at the checks.”
Fergie stepped toward the holophoto. They looked so real, so happy.
Johnson reached in the inside pocket of his blazer, retrieving his standard issue scanner—a long, skinny, tubular device that could easily be confused for eyeliner or lipstick, if not for the small lens that covered the top inch.
Fergie watched with a detached sort of horror as Johnson took a guess and scanned the girl on the left, a red laser emanating from the end of the device, scanning left and right like a small spotlight. It blinked red. He shrugged and scanned the eyes of the girl on the right, scanning left and right, then, it blinked green.
Fergie was lost in abstraction. He thought of his old friend Lucas Piper, the poor fuck was crowned, standing in a cryogenic tube in California Penitentiary.
We’d be cellmates, old friend, he thought.
There was a hard knock at the door, then, shouts, “RPCD, you have thirty seconds to answer the door, or we will utilize force.”
Johnson turned off the holophoto and ran to grab two toothbrushes from the bathroom—one light pink and the other bright pink. He scanned the bright pink along the handle, and this time, he was a first-time go. He touched the bristles of the toothbrush to the edge of the device, and it confirmed that the saliva matched the DNA to the Ace of Spades.
He threw the toothbrushes down the hall and looked at the door that was knocking again, announcing, “Ten seconds or we will be forced to use our kinetic weapons.”
Johnson looked at Fergie. “$200,000,000,” he said, his eyes big with excitement, and permission. He looked like how Fergie’s daughter looked last summer when she was begging him to spend two weeks in Cancun.
“Lemme do the talking,” Fergie said, nodding.
“Five, four …”
“You’re the greatest partner alive,” Johnson said with a big smile.
The K-3 service revolver, or, the Kinetic Three, was a small weapon the size of a .45 pistol, with a muzzle that was an inch long and the girth of a four-inch pipe. It was the best non-lethal weapon used by police departments, and government agencies the world over. Created by a Black man from Chicago, who, as a kid, witnessed his father get shot twenty-three times, the kinetic weapon released a wave of energy that mimiced the force of a car slamming into a wall at forty-five miles an hour.
“Lest no child be orphaned.”—was the mission statement for the man’s company, making him richer than Winchester or Smith and Wesson.
The doorknob blew out, and two bounty hunters from the Philadelphia branch of the Reincarnation Pre-Crime Division burst into the room with smiles on their faces and dollar signs in their eyes, a short-lived sentiment as they stopped a foot in the house.
Fergie was walking hand and hand with the soul bond. With the other hand, he had his RPCD badge extended. “Sorry, boys,” he said. “Maybe nex’ time.”
Johnson walked behind them, smiling.
The bigger of the two bounty hunters stepped forward and said, “Wait’a minute, now. Did you confirm the—”
“Checks?” Fergie said. “Show ‘em, Johnny.” He picked up the speed a gear.
Johnson showed the green-lit scanner, his face like a kid telling their parents, “See, I told ya so.”
The man blocked the path anyway, not ready to let go of a $200,000,000 soul bond without a fight.
“D’you know who I am?” Fergie was staring the man down.
The man swallowed hard and nodded.
“It would behoove you to step aside, son,” Fergie said. He pivoted and waved an open hand like a game show model showing off merchandise. “It is very clearly her.”
