Else, Part II

Bear with me, I'm massaging post lengths, so this one is a bit shorter. I'm thinking about making the standard post smaller, but putting them up more frequently. Anyway, no cliffie's here, just solid plot obfuscation. New post should be up in a few days.
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Even though he couldn’t feel the movement as the flyvan swooped towards the dull dome surface, Else’s stomach fluttered at the sight of the world suddenly twisting and spinning. Like a kaleidoscope. Up in the cockpit, Jep grimaced, his eyes glued onto the nav monitor. A big white blip was pulsing there, representing the National Police craft tailing them. Routine checkup was what the NPs claimed, according to Jep. Else certainly did not believe that.

The National Police never did anything ‘routine.’ They were the sole appendage of federal enforcement; stalwart defenders of America and New Socialism, and an incredibly paranoid passel of assholes, Else had heard.

Jep’s radio bleeped, and a deep resonant voice sounded out. “CV-10, please put down at the north end of Node 11. Curtail your speed to under forty miles per hour and remember to remain at least three hundred yards distant from the Node at all times.”

“Copy that NP-145, I will comply now,” responded Jep through his headset. “As if I’d ever get closer to a fucking Node,” he added after.

Not one minute later a huge bump showed up on the dome’s surface, still way off. It appeared as if the metallic skin had swollen up to form a huge steel boil, but any little kid could tell you what they were. Nodes were the hallmark of the New England Mall, and the basis for missile shielding technology. In the past, grouping millions upon millions of people together was a huge nuclear bull’s-eye for any rogue state or terrorist group who’d shopped Russian, but that was not a fact any longer. Shielding was an incredibly expensive, limited luxury, but it meant security, and that was all people really wanted in Else’s experience.

There was more to it than that, of course. So much more; twelve years of study would not have been enough to learn all about the geopolitical ramifications, scientific underpinnings and millions of other interesting statistics. What was most pertinent boiled down to this; it was death to go too close to a Node, fly too fast in a Node's general area, or even to sneeze around one. The military types guarding them took almost anything as a potential terrorist threat and fired accordingly, so Else was nervy about getting so close. He supposed it was the NPs trying to get them off balance, for whatever reason.

Jep glided the flyvan down safely though, his forehead only slightly slick with sweat. There was a jolt when they contacted the dome surface, the flier tilted at an angle on the slope. Else reached for the door, but Jep reached into the cab and slapped his hand away. “Are you crazy?” he nearly shouted, “NPs might toss you into lockdown if you get out first. The pricks love making people sweat, and hate it if you try to grab the initiative like that.”

Further discussion was silenced at the hum of anti-grav engines from overhead. A small flier was the sound’s origin, diving down on a corkscrew trajectory. It decelerated suddenly, floating to land soft as a feather next to them. Cyan and sleek, the craft looked to be a two-seater; the type of ship intended for rapid pursuits and air-traffic patrol. Jep regarded it quizzically, and started talking to himself as if forgetting his passenger. “Strange there’s only one if it’s just a patroller. NPs try to surround you, make you nervous. Guess that’s why they had me land so close to a Node.”

Else was about to ask about that too, but was silenced by a roar from two massive gunships swinging in from the south, from the Node. They didn’t land, however, just circled overhead emanating menace from their characteristic bullet shapes. Their underbellies flashed red lights into the expanding darkness while the National Police ship’s cockpit opened up and two officers emerged. White Kevlar with three horizontal red slashes made them instantly recognizable. They were big men – not as big as Else – with close-shaven heads and bluff jaw lines. The biggest, bluffest approached the flier first and pulled open the cab door. Wind burst in, its howling combining with that of the gunships to scratch and tear mercilessly at eardrums.

The NP though, he demonstrated no discomfort. Blue eyes – not like ice or sky, just plain blue – rolled over every detail calmly – from the stained seats, to Jep, and finally to Else. The languorous pace broke then, and the officer flicked a glance at his dreadlocks before the sheer size of this man struck him, and he drew back slightly. One hand came to rest on a holstered pistol, the other pointed to Else. “Step outside the flier, please.” It was a deep, resonant voice; the same which had ordered them down.

Keeping his eyes on that gun, Else complied quickly as he could, and the NP led him several meters off to the side. His peripheral vision picked up the second officer as he clambered into the van, but he forgot all about that when the NP stepped up close to him, so they were barely a foot apart.

“Corporal Else of MSS, my name is John. And that’s all you need to know.” ‘John’ spoke at a conversational volume, forcing Else to strain, even close as they were, to hear over the noise. “We’ve got something for you.”

“A bullet?” Else asked, looking pointedly to John’s pistol, then to the circling military units. “It’s a grand show after all, I’d hate for it to be wasted.”

A scornful smile scurried across the man’s face, but apparently found it an inhospitable place. “Yes, you’re a real comedian, Corporal. A job. You’re going to do a job for the National Police.”

Else opened his mouth, but John ignored him. “Go to Champlain Tourval’s house, like you planned to, and search it high and low. PDAs, minicomps, note tablets; anything that might have something of interest, you grab it. Then you go to 902 Singh Avenue and drop it all off. You’ll receive further instruction there. Tell no one about this – even your pilot just thinks this is a check.”

Long seconds passed after his pronouncement, with Else and John staring at each other while the wind screamed. That, and the blinking red lights from the gunships made it an eerie scene. John spoke first. “Do you understand, Corporal?”

“No!” shouted Else, his head boiling over with bewilderment “are you fucking joking right now? Is this some kind of terrorist sting?”

“Tourval’s. Get there and do what I said,” repeated John, “I can’t tell you why; national security reasons. Just know that if you find enough, we might be able to solve Ellen Dietrich’s murder and discover why your partner was attacked, maybe solve a hell of a lot more.”

“How’d you –?” But Else was cut off by the officer brushing past him, leaving little choice but to follow after. The other officer was exiting the flyvan – leaving a pale Jep quavering inside – and exchanged nods with John. There were a million questions thrashing for attention, screeching to be heard over what now had picked up into a gale, but Else couldn’t pick just one out. He helplessly watched the NPs stroll back to their flier through what was becoming an inky blackness, blackness impenetrable as the situation had grown to be.

There was nothing for it, he supposed. The Police ship’s engines sparked blue and the vessel began to ascend. Else got back into the flyvan, waving off Jep’s inquiry, “They just wanted to know why we were out dome-top so late, tried to put the fear of God into us, that sort of thing. Let’s push on out of here.”

“Alright, hold on to your panties,” Jep said, regaining a little bit of his strut with the NPs’ departure. “I gotta clear our takeoff with the big boys sailing around up there.”

It was a minute’s work before he got the okay from the gunships, and soon Else was back on his way. The flight’s remainder was absolutely humdrum – would have been, if it weren’t for the swirl of confusion making Else’s thoughts thoroughly disjointed. It made no sense, National Police soliciting aid like that. If it were a larger case, or even slightly more interesting, then maybe Else could have bought it, but he smelled something wrong. Maybe Dack was rubbing off on him.

Else, Part I

Not quite as meaty as it should be, but this bit leads into the next, much more intriguing one quite well. I would post the two together but that would be a very long update to read in one sitting.

******

Else woke with a jerk, nearly collapsing his cot. Sweat had seeped into his cotton sheets, making them cling like plastic wrap as he struggled to sit up. Everyone always told him he should buy some normal genilythene bedspread; more comfort and it didn't wrap you up like a mummy. Then they cooed sympathetically when he told them about his rare allergy.

Checking the clock, it read ten minutes past five in the evening, almost a half hour before his alarm set roused him. Else had been having trouble readjusting his sleep schedule to the night patrol shift, and he supposed that having his partner viciously stabbed in the throat with a stylus might not have helped either. He shook his head. There was not much to be done for Dack; the little bastard was safely ensconced in MSS Infirmary, and would not be moving for a week or more. He was lucky to even have that chance though. Else had barely been able restrain Champlain Tourval – the man had been utterly psychotic. So well-dressed and bred, yet he fought like a trained pit bull, nasty and without regard for his own safety. Else had managed to pull him off Dack, but amazingly his stun stick – at full charge – had had no visible effect on the man. They were supposed to incapacitate via the nervous system, but apparently the only way Champlain’s nervous system could be shorted out was bludgeoning his head with a steel baton.

The coffee machine briefly bubbled as its motion sensor picked up Else extricating himself, and a stream of amber liquid squirted out. Fine beans from South America made the aroma wafting towards Else a rich, intoxicating one. No time for coffee though, despite the early hour. He quickly relieved himself in the tiny bathroom branching off his home’s single room, then got his street clothes on and headed out, checking one last time if everything was in its place. There was not too much to be out of place though, honestly; the apartment was where he slept, not where he lived, and its austere furnishings spoke to that.

However, he was satisfied things were in order, so Else departed with a traveling mug of coffee in hand. There was enough time to drink it on the move, at least. The building he exited into was a cramped one; skyscrapers of skinny hallways and low ceilings so more domiciles could be jammed in were typical to Sector Z-12, and this one was no different. It was cheap though, no doubt about it, and Else could just about afford cheap on his MSS salary. Night patrol paid shit.

The lift was working, that was something at this hour. Half the time when Else got up for work power was off, necessitating pounding on the floor manager’s door for ten minutes before the crotchety old man got up from his armchair, grumbling, and activated the elevator. He had meant to contact the owners about that; there was no other way down besides emergency fire exits or grav-jumping, and Else was not going to strap on a harness and leap from the thirtieth floor no matter how badly these people wanted to save on energy.

Ride to ground level lasted a toe-tapping two minutes, twenty seconds passed crossing the tiny lobby and exiting the complex. Four minutes while the Korean street vendor made up some fresh egg rolls for him, ten minutes before Else could find a trolley floating towards his destination, and then fifteen minutes until it got there. Else kept his head down the whole way, eating his egg roll and drinking coffee, ignoring his surroundings. Not because Z-12 was an eyesore – it looked much like the rest of the Zone, and was ten times nicer than Z-26. Prefab edifices painted over in muted hues pushed right up to the limits of concrete streets packed tight with hoverers and wheelers and the garish yellow trolleys like what Else rode. There were no sidewalks, only bridges between high buildings casting shadows over the streets below. Despite that, hawkers and hobos packed into every alcove or free space where a hoverer would not bowl them over, and there were plenty of customers. Every now and then there would be a pair of MSS Officers in blue and grey, most often their tinted visors covering stern faces while they nerve rayed or stun sticked various troublemakers. The Zone, even outside of Sector Z-26, was a tough place.

No, the reason Else never looked up was because he was thinking. Captain Derling had promised an IU would be on the case, but he could not guarantee that honestly. Zone Central dispatched Investigatory Units, not Sector commanders. So Else was cogitating. Thinking that he would be the IU, since, after all, it was his partner who had been stabbed. That was ran like an Olympic athlete through his head when he stepped off the bright trolley, and finally looked up.

To be greeted by a huge wall; the Z-12/26 Sector Partition. Every Sector had its own area defined by these Partitions, which served to reulate travel between. They stretched from ground level all the way up to connect at the huge dome ceiling, more than a thousand feet at some places, serving a threefold purpose. One; to act as checkpoints. Two; to act as supports for the Mall roof. And three; to house government services such as MSS, emergency rooms, fire departments and community centers within their honeycombed interior. Else was stationed at this particular section of the Partition; Section 808, SecCon for Z-26.

Approaching the blank face of it, he slid his ID card through a concealed reader. A section of steel depressed, then folded inwards to reveal a brightly lit corridor beyond. The plainclothes guard always standing nearby nodded him past; MSS went to a great deal of trouble keeping the many side entrances to the Partitions secret, but could never help but making them obvious as brighty glowsticks.

Once inside, the floors and walls left off with plain grey metal, and instead became bright white polymer; headquarters was hard on the eyes, not to mention much more confined than a man of Else’s great size would have liked. Standing at over six feet, his head was shy of the ceiling by about a foot of space, and his muscled frame took up nearly half the width of the hallway. He hastily navigated through what seemed to be a maze of crisscrossing passages and rooms to casual visitors, but was in fact carefully laid out to ensure maximum structural integrity for the dome and Partition while not skimping on useable space. As a result, locations in Section 808 – and every other station Else had ever been in – were wildly spread out and difficult to get to. Fortunately, Else knew where he was going. Not where everything was, certainly, but he knew the one route he needed to take well enough.

Very shortly he came to a room which at first glance looked like an extension of corridor, but that was because blue lockers took up any extra space there was. Else went midway down – the worst area, since everyone had to go through there – and opened up nine nine two. He tossed his travel mug in, along with the now-consumed egg roll’s wrapper, and set about undressing and then redressing into his uniform; strong, high-topped combat boots, baggy jumpsuit fatigue and thick grey Kevlar with ‘MSS’ stamped across the chest in audacious black lettering. The vest bore little similarity to the ballistic armor eulogized in Hollywood treatments of old-time police, however; the company producing had merely capitalized on expired trademarks to give its own products resonance in the marketplace. The result had been wildy successful, but naming rights were secondary to the armor itself; it consisted of microthreaded ceramic, able to absorb a pistol slug from ten feet or a knife thrust at considerably less distance.

Else made sure his badge was securely pinned onto the shoulder strap – “Kind, Courteous, Discreet” was its slogan – and picked his way through the locker room to find Captain Derling. The Captain's office was located directly across from the primary cargo lift, MSS's statement on how proud they were of his accomplishments, to allow constant streams of heavy, expensive equipment be routed just outside his door. Else found it hard to believe the man could even sum up the dignity to come to the station, let alone an hour before the night shift went on the clock as he always did.

When Else entered he found Derling poring over various reports, marking their nanofiber surfaces with his stylus. He was an ample man, filling up his oversized chair, and bags under his eyes made him look horribly tired. The door made a small alerting sound as it opened, and he looked up briefly, frowned, then went back to marking. Else came to attention before his desk, keeping his eyes front. That was tough. The office was hexagonally shaped, and on every wall face monitors blinked; uplinks to the SecCon room, Zone Central, National Police, Mall Supervision, and the Database were all present, if inactive. Sector captains had to stay in touch.

A few moments passed before Derling spoke, and he did not look up as he did. Just kept scratching at reports.“I thought I told you to take the week off, Else? Seeing your partner stabbed is a pretty traumatizing piece of shit. You ought to be resting.”

“Couldn’t sleep, sir,” Else said, and that got a flash of Derling’s eyes.

“Perhaps Puckerly could take a look at you then.” Puckerly was the resident psychologist. Rumor was, he had singlehandedly driven Brock Jordan into retirement after seeing Brok for his divorce. “Maybe it’s PTSD or something like that.”

Else shook his head, causing his dreadlocks to toss about like Medusa. “No, Captain, I mean I couldn’t sleep not knowing about the case. Sergeant Dackory smelled something, sir, and the way things played out, I think he might have smelled something real.”

The stylus slammed down, and Derling folded his hands in front of him, attention fully on Else now. His amber eyes were so deep-set, they seemed black at times. Combined with the bags under his eyes, it made for a freakish sight. “Dack…smells a lot of things. He has an exceptional olfactory sense; in fact, it's overdeveloped. The reason why he’s in Z-26, instead of investigating Senate corruption with the National Police, is because he never smells anything real. The man’s paranoid, Corporal. Besides, this case is pretty open and shut. Tourval attacked him outright.”

“Not that, sir. I meant Ellen Dietrich. She’s still missing according to the Database; I want to investigate. There’s gotta be something more to all this.” Else tried to shut the comment on Dack out of his mind. He had been onto something. Why else would Tourval have leaped like that?

Derling shook his head exasperatedly. “Listen, I’ve got less than a hundred officers on call per night, in a Sector with almost ten thousand people per square kilometer-”

“And a total area of fifteen square kilometers,” finished Else, “but you were going to give me the week off anyway, Captain. So why not just let me go, since you weren’t going to miss me?”

“-and besides,” continued Derling unabated, “I told you an IU would be on Dietrich’s case.”

“Is one?”

“Not yet,” Derling began, disconcerted, “Zone told me they’d be on it soon though. I’m telling you Else, those guys would be pissed if you fiddled around with their evidence.”

“I’m not going to fiddle!” Else said incredulously, “Just have a look around Champlain Tourval’s home, see what I can see.”

“His home?” asked Derling, nonplussed. “That’s in C-Zone, Else. You know we’re in Z-Zone, right? We’ve got no jurisdiction there.”

“Only if I get caught,” Else said with a grin. “Just give me a couple days, Captain, and I can get it done. You know my record.”

“I do,” said Derling doubtfully. “It’s chock full of commendations, which doesn’t make any sense because you’re assigned here and a still a corporal. You must have really gotten on somebody’s wrong side.” The Captain sighed, sliding out a luminescent keyboard and punching in. “There’s your authorization to go dome-top; the Mainway’s are all jammed with construction.” A note-sized blue tablet ejected from a nondescript slot in Derling’s desk, and he quickly signed off.

Else reached out to grab it from his outstretched hand, but Derling pulled it back a fraction. “One more thing, Else. Do not ever nerve ray anybody again, unless there is a clear and present danger. Got me? There's enough pressure on this station without you heaping more on.”

Else nodded. “Understood sir.” He’d expected that. Nerve rays were for riot control; any interrogation extracted after using one was not valid in a court of law. Too close to torture and coerced confession. A good lawyer could tear apart a case if one had been deployed, and if there was one thing the MSS hated, it was a civil rights case.

Derling nodded and let Else take the tablet. But…the Mainways were jammed? From construction? Else wondered at that; infrastructure improvements for Z-Zone had come to a halt thirteen years ago. No problem though, he’d be dome-top and in C-Zone pronto.

******

“Hey there, partner!”

Else inclined his head. Jep was the pilot for the station’s transit vehicle; a huge flyvan meant to ferry accountants, VIPs and anyone else with special business in Z-26 in from other Zones or Sectors. And its pilot was a grinning fool who could not seem to stop ogling Else’s dreads as he talked. “What’re you in need of, Corp?”

“Going to C-06 Jep,” Else said brusquely. “Not long to talk, I’m on limited time.”

“Ain’t we all though,” mused Jep, still beaming and staring. “Alright, hop on in. Not much call to fly this late, I’m looking forward to maybe seeing some stars.”

Else doubted that – it was still July, the stars wouldn’t be out until nine – but kept his silence while Jep opened up the hulking flier. It was painted dark blue, although not the MSS’s shade, and bore the New England Mall’s official sigil on the hood. Two huge, detached hands cradled what appeared to be a rural town olden days America. A creepy image, Else decided as he climbed aboard and strapped down. Very creepy.

There was a hum and a jolt as Jep powered up the grav thrusters and they achieved liftoff. From where Else sat in the passenger cabin he could see the hangar door swing outward, then they were rocketing forward. There was no acceleration pressing him into the seat; fliers could get up to ten thousand miles per hour inside of three seconds, so they had anti-grav buffers all over to keep people from jellying. Over ten thousand of course they couldn’t compensate and you would be crushed instantly, but fortunately all grav engines of a certain class came with limiters so dumbass pilots like Jep wouldn’t kill whole planes full of folk.

They weren’t going close to ten thousand anyway, not in this heap of junk and not in the middle of a dome. Else took one look, seven hundred feet straight down, before pressing himself firmly back into the pleather seat. Traffic just looked like streams of color from up here, and buildings like fat obstructions forcing the flow to part and then rejoin further downstream. He might have puked, if it were not for Jep’s idiot face glancing back at him every few seconds. That monkey would never see him weak.

“Okay, we’re coming up on the sky hatch now. We’ll be outside inside of twenty seconds.” Jep’s voice sounded tinny to Else. Must be the altitude, he thought, his stomach still roiling. The dome ceiling was real close now – one of the huge lights illuminating the Sector nearly burned out his retinas when they flew by. Then, just as abruptly as they had accelerated, the flycan turned vertically. Again, no gravity force them back into their seats, but the whole world flipped ninety degrees and they were heading straight up towards a gaping hole in the dome.

Two seconds later, they were outside the Mall.

“That sight always gets me, no matter how many times I come out here.” Else had to agree with Jep.

Nothing but sky overhead, darkening sky. No stars yet, no moon, but where the sun’s waning light did not reach it resembled the darkness from Else’s wildest nightmares as a child. He had to look away. He had not been born in a dome, but most of his life had been spent in one. The outside – the real outside – made him more than a little nervous. So instead he looked at the Mall, stretching off in every direction except the ocean’s.

The greatest feat of man, it was called, despite there being a few dozen just like it on each continent. Twenty-six titanic sized domes one thousand five hundred feet at their apex, twelve and a half miles in diameter. A dome was its own Zone, and was further subdivided into twenty-six Sectors. Average population density was twenty thousand per kilometer, total area was three hundred and fourteen square kilometers per dome. Over one hundred sixty three million people called the New England Mall their home in one way or another. Else’s in depth knowledge of census data and other trivia got him plenty of funny looks, but it sure put the world in perspective sometimes.

An incessant beep from the cockpit interrupted his reverie. Jep faced the passenger cabin, arching an eyebrow at Else. “Hey, Corp, you got any friends with the National Police?”

“National Police?” They were a bunch of bastards who stole all of MSS’s hard-earned credit, in his opinion. “Not at all.”

“Well, that doesn’t bode well,” said Jep, stealing a glance at Else's hair. “They want us to put down so’s they can talk to you.”

A Dank Place

The world was a dank place down here. Here, in the poor parts of the Mall. The drainage pipes and water reservoirs were rarely ever maintained, and desalination systems malfunctioned more than operated. That meant water seeped everywhere, here, puddling in the cracked streets, grimy bathrooms and broken-down playgrounds.

Once, Sector Z-26 had been a clean, sterile exemplar of what the New England Mall was supposed to be; a huge, domed society built at the bottom of drained Boston Harbor, replete with perilous high apartment blocks and the most chic shopping outlets. The only reason Officer Dackory knew that were all the old posters declaring “A New Tomorrow, Today!” amidst glistening cityscapes. No one had ever had the heart to take those down apparently, and their washed-out optimism barely showed through thick graffiti. Too bad even that does, he thought bitterly.

Dackory eyed one poster in particular, featuring families happily frequenting eateries, except now crude speech bubbles had them spewing obscenities at passersby. Possibly this had been done recently. Officer Dack quickly glanced all round, fingering the brass badge signifying he was a Sergeant of Mall Security Services. Although it did not mention he firmly believed this place was going to consume his soul.

The huge man strolling alongside him down this alleyway was similarly accoutered as a security employee; blue fatigues covered by grey Kevlar, a helmet with bulletproof tinted visor flipped up. He laid a big, meaty hand on Dack’s shoulder, grinning toothily. His way of being reassuring, Dack figured, but it hardly soothed the soul. All around them the stink of corruption lingered; it came from backed up sanitation and infrequent garbage pickup. The night was young yet by Dack's watch, but the Sector’s great overhead lights – dim at the best of times – had already been completely shut off to let the place wallow in gloom. The Mall never wasted power to keep Z-26 lit.

Crude and often fanciful graffiti covered every surface. Not just old posters, but everywhere, even the concrete floor. Why do they even bother with the ground? It's just going to be washed away by the leaks. Thick pipes wrapped over the buildings on both sides, most of them with streams of seawater trickling out, and he could just trace their ascent into the murky air where they married with the main duct suspended over the streets. Those were everywhere too. Both graffiti and pipes were testaments to the folly of building a city below sea level, when the site chosen was supposed to be in the sea. Dack wondered what kind of bravado it took to build a city in a natural harbour. Because he could use some to get his moonbase project off the ground...

“Nice night,” said his partner. Dackory glanced at him; the man had spoke without a hint of sarcasm. Sergeant Else was like that, though. A six foot three negro security officer with dreadlocks, most people were surprised that he was not some kind of government ogre, and it had become a never-ending source of amusement for Dack.

“Of course, it’s never a moist, smelly night down here, oh no,” mumbled Dackory. Else did not notice – or perhaps ignored – his tone, and nodded agreement. Sighing, Dack went back to watching everything, fingering his stun stick. They were searching for any signs of gang activity – aside from the rampant vandalism – off an anonymous tip that had come into SecCon about an hour ago, at seven thirty p.m.

Gang activity, and two men are sent. Dack’s grip tightened around his baton. The stun sticks were two foot long retractable rods, whose internal battery delivered a non-lethal charge to anyone struck. They supposedly incapacitated most people with one swipe, but Dack had seen officers deliver multiple blows to suspects and get wrestled to the ground afterwards. He sighed again, louder than before.

Turning to speak to Else on impulse, he found his partner was not there. Stopping dead, Dack pulled out his baton and activated the weapon; an audible crackle and one blue arc of electricity followed. Dack scanned the alleyway nervously, finally working up the courage to hiss into the night, “Else! Where’d you go, good buddy?” Death could often creep up on security officers very quietly - and very suddenly - in this part of the Mall.

Nothing. Then, from right behind him: “Hey! Look at this!” Dack screamed and spun to face his assailant, stun stick sizzling with energy – it increased charge as its bearer's heart rate picked up. The supposed attacker was just Else though, impassively staring at the little man with a fizzy metal twig. Feeling quite the idiot, Dack put up the weapon and cleared his throat.

“Else, don’t wander off like that; we need to stick together.” The man can move silent as a cat for how big he is!

“I just went right over there,” said Else, pointing toward a small alcove. His face took on a concerned look, which frightened Dackory on such an imposing man. “You’re acting highly erratic, Sergeant. Perhaps breathing exercises will help…”

“Shut up, Corporal,” snapped Dack, pushing past his partner and walking up to the alcove. Of course I’m erratic! He would be too if he knew this assignment was suicide! But he immediately spotted what Else had already; a dark stain on a pool of water. Blood. His knees quaked involuntarily and the grip he held on his truncheon would have crumpled softer metal.

“Corporal, call into SecCon for an Investigatory Unit. I’ll check over the scene.” Else activated his helmet radio and moved off to give Dack some room. Not that he needed much; there was only the puddle, no other evidence of a struggle or what might have happened. And a pen, half-submerged. He squatted down next to the water for a better look; the utensil was caked with gore, as if it had been stabbed into somebody. There was some barely legible writing still visible on it, though, so Dack activated his helmet’s light. “Markwick Industries, Inc,” he read aloud.

“Sergeant, Control doesn’t want to hear about it until you’ve either got a body or a gangbanger, in the flesh.” Dack jerked at Else’s voice, clicking off the light.

He allowed a few moments to pass for his night vision to return before responding. “Of course they don’t. We’re just a show, you and me; they’ve given up on this place, Else.” Dack straightened up, flashing a smile at his partner, who stood in a shadow so deep he could not make out his face. “But I think I’ve found something. It may even be the murder weapon. Ever heard of Markwick Industries?”

Else shrugged. “Sounds like a corporation. Do they still have those around here?”

“A few manufacturing or construction firms. They operate here because it’s cheap. Alright, hold on while I check it out.” Dack put a finger to helmet and depressed the invisible slot over his temple, which flipped back to reveal a miniature interface. He put down his visor, which had already brought up the browser HUD. Quickly typing ‘Markwick Industries’ into the database search box, results popped up instantly. Selecting the first one – the helmet tracked his eye movements to shift the cursor – a company profile splashed across Dack’s vision; Markwick Industries, Inc, primarily involved in skycrane production for modular transportation. A global company. Located at Five Seven Eight Jamboree Avenue, Sector Z-26. Hours of operation: variable. Dack deactivated the browser and put his visor back up to find Else taking a sample of the bloody water. “Ran it through yet?”

Else shook his head. “This stuff’s too corrupted for positive identification, but if we do find another sample there could be sufficient material for fruitful comparison.”

“Sounds good,” Dack said. “Alright, we’re heading to Jamboree Street; apparently our victim, or attacker, worked at making cranes.”

His partner stood up to his full, colossal height, slipping the sample vial into the evidence pouch. Else’s eyes were zeroed in on the end of the alley, though. Dack hesitated, not really wanting to see, but turned. Four shapes were lurking down there, obscured by shadow. He pulled out his baton and extended the steel to its full length. This was probably the gang activity they had been called for. Slowly, he approached the group. “MSS on official investigation. Tell me, have you seen anything suspicious around here recently?”

“Man, we ain’t seen nothin,” said one of the shadows, “and you ain’t neither. Ain’t that right, crew?”

The other shadows chorused in agreement amidst much popping of knuckles and rasping of what were probably knives. “Well, unfortunately we have seen something. There’s a lot of blood down there. Are you saying your crew was not responsible?”

Else’s helmet light clicked on, and the gangbangers shied back from the sudden illumination. Most of them blinked rapidly, a few covered their eyes. The lead speaker stepped forward though, and Dackory saw he was dressed all in baggy black sweater and pants. Typical. His teeth sparkled silver when he spoke. “I tol’ you man, we ain’t seen nothin. And neither have you, or else there is gonna be some blood right here, ya hear?”

Dack grimaced. Else lifted his arm up, a snub pistol shape in hand, and Dack nodded to him. There was a slight buzz, and the silver-toothed homie was instantly sprawled on the ground, screeching and clawing at his skin like it was on fire. Dack switched on his stun stick and waved it menacingly, growling at the other three staring dumbstruck at their tortured leader. “Does anybody else want to hang around? No? Get out of here then, or you’re all gonna beg like he is!”

The three men took one more look at their writhing companion - who was gibbering incoherently for the pain to end by now - then ran. Else switched off his nerve ray and the buzzing ceased, although their suspect took some time to realize the pain had indeed ended. After a few minutes he had quieted down, and Else propped him up against a leaky pipe. His breathing was ragged, but Dack knew there was no lasting damage; nerve rays were an old and proven tech. They caused debilitating pain, like your skin was being dissolved by acid, but left no damage. Unless you count mental anguish.

They slapped him across the face a few times to get his attention, but even when he came to his eyes were hazy and unfocused. “All right hombre,” began Dack, “you tell us why you attempted to waylay MSS Officers. You tell us your name, what you saw here, where that blood came from.”

“B-big man…what the fuck did you to me?” The silver teeth flashed. Dack wondered how some street crawler had managed to afford those; Z-26ers had no money, even the drug dealers.

Else leaned down and pushed the blunt nose of his nerve ray against the gangbanger’s throat. “This is not a question you need to be asking. The question you should be asking is – Do I want to piss off this man by not answering the questions? A man who just put me through a world of agony, and would do it again without even thinking.”

A sob ripped from Silver Tooth’s throat and he tried to pull away from the implement, but Dack got a hold on him and forced his frantic, flickering eyes to lock with his. “I’m not sure what my partner would do if you refused your cooperation much longer. And I very much doubt I could stop him.”

“Okay, Okay!” His voice was shrill with fright. “My name’s Pelido Rojas. Somebody came by our crib, said Jose knew him, and hired us for the job.”

“What job?” asked Dack quietly. “Killing somebody?”

“No man,” said Pelido, pleading, “we never woulda killed nobody man. We were jus’ supposed to keep watch and make sure no noses were stuck where they weren’t wanted. He paid good money man! We didn’t see nothin, we jus’ keep watch for him!”

“What’d he look like, how did he talk?”

Pelido shook his head slightly, as much as Dack’s grasp would allow. “He had a voice distorter man, like you see in spy movies. And there weren’t no way to tell what he looked like; that cat had no skin showing. He wore a nice suit, and a hockey mask.”

Dackory groaned. A well-to-do murderer in suit and hockey mask, the day could not get much better. “Do you know what happened to the body?”

“No. This hombre drove a nice Cassiola A8 though, he coulda put it in there.” Silver Tooth froze then, realizing what he had said.

“So there was a body?” Dack said impassively. “You did see something. Trust me, you don’t want to lie to us, Pelido. What my big man friend here did to you? That was low power.” Else grinned and nodded enthusiastically.

Pelido did not need much convincing though. “Okay, fuck, okay. We waited across the street when the hombre pulled up and got out with some lady and took her down the alley. He wasn’t wearing his mask then but we couldn’t get a look at him. They started kissing while she tried to open up one o’ them side doors, then he…he took something out of her pocket, right, and jammed it into her eye. While he was tonguing her! Fucking gross man, but I gotta say, I admired such a stone cold mother–”

The gangster’s nose was knocked crooked by Dack’s swinging fist, and he was drawing back for another blow when Else seized him in a huge bear hug. “Hold on, Sarge. We need this slime.”

Pelido struggled to his feet and turned to run, but Else let go of Dack and delivered a three second burst with the ray. More screams split the night, a little more nasal than before. This time when they propped him up, Dack chained him to the pipe with force-cuffs. The metal bracelets were attracted to each other by tiny electromagnets, and could only be pried apart by ten tons of force or more. With the blood streaming down his face like Niagara, Pelido sputtered answering questions.

“Then he put the body into his trunk and drove away. That was an hour and a half ago; I ain’t seen shit of him since. But Jose...he told us to keep watch for dumbass cops.”

“Right, who is this Jose?” said Else. He had taken over the interrogation, with Dack standing off a ways, breathing heavily.

“Local kingpin drug dealer, his hands are in everything around here,” Pelido replied bitterly. “If you want a job around here, then you get it from him. Trust me though, you’ll never bring him down, or even see him. He’s untouchable.”

Else nodded to Dack. “I remember a background file from when I was transferred to this department. Jose Murceva. He’s got a hundred guys like this one watching his back, and MSS still hasn’t found any tangible proof against him.”

“Maybe this is why,” mused Dack, “maybe this killer of ours has some connections that keep Jose out of trouble. It's the only reason a guy like him would risk giving his cronies a job like this, with the cops so likely to get involved.”

“That’s…a pretty big leap,” said Else hesitantly, but Dack shook his head.

“You don’t know this place like I do, Else. MSS doesn’t care. So long as the statistics don’t run out of control they don’t have to do anything to clean it up, and there are lots of important people with interests in not cleaning it up. It explains why some suit would be able to use a drug dealer’s protection for murdering his mistress.”

Else did not look convinced, but fuck him, I know I'm right! “Alright, you get ID on this building, see if there’s anything significant there, then call in and tell Control there’s some trash that needs to be picked up. We can file our report tomorrow, after we investigate Markwick.”

Not waiting for confirmation of his orders, Dack exited the mouth of the alley, keeping a sharp eye out for Pelido’s friends sneaking back. There was nobody, however, and he reached their patrol hoverer without incident. It was a square two-seater with broad anti-grav pods and a single emergency light on the white cabin. The craft could attain sixty miles an hour tops, but Dack never expected more.

Within a few minutes Else had joined him inside the cruiser, reporting the building was an abandoned property of Markwick Industries when they had been interested in residential projects and a collection van was coming for Pelido. The hoverer’s engine whirred loudly as Dack engaged the grav pods, and the whole thing lurched two feet off the ground.



Half an hour later they stood in the waiting room of Markwick Industry’s office building with Else carrying a nondescript MSS travel case, waiting for the secretary to admit them into a Mr. Tourval’s office. He was on the phone she said, and had not budged an inch when Dack told her the company might have a murdered employee on its hands. He took it as an opportunity to check out his environs. Stark was the word; there no plants or paintings, and a sad little loveseat was all the furniture, discounting the secretary’s plain desk and chair. There was no paint on the walls, just the bare steel from when this building had first been assembled. Else commented on Markwick operating at nine o’clock at night, but Dack waved it off. “This company contracts worldwide; their file said it was global. Businesses like that often have to keep weird hours, at least at headquarters, teleconferencing with foreign investors and clients in other time zones. So in and of itself, this isn't too strange.”

A few minutes passed. The intercom buzzed for the secretary, and a thin voice told her to let them in. She led them down a blank hallway with a couple other offices branching off it, opening an old-fashioned oak door at its terminus; the first sign of personality the company had displayed so far. Inside, a pale, wrinkly man sat behind a modest wood desk which bore the nameplate ‘S. Tourval, CEO.’ Mr. Tourval smiled frailly and his gray hair looked primed to fall out, but his eyes darted from Else to Dack and back again without the sloth of old age. His voice was thin when he spoke, but it had an undercurrent to it that did not telegraph through the intercom. “How may I help you gentlemen? Sorry about the wait; there was miscommunication with our Japanese retailer that I just had to take care of.” It sounded like there was a steel wire beneath his speech, a kind of hidden strength belying his advanced years.

“We’re here about the possible murder of one of your employees, Mr. Tourval. Have you received any word about a missing worker, sir? We know that she had some kind of access to your property on Fortland Road,” said Dack.

“Fortland?” Tourval said, clearly a little perplexed. “What would somebody have been doing over there? We haven’t even had that site open in ten years. Wait…have you found one of my employees? Dead?”

Dack shifted uncomfortably; he was not a real investigator, and interacting with sources like this made him nervous. “We believe she may have been expecting a romantic encounter, Mr. Tourval, and went to the building for privacy. Please, do you have any information?”

“Well,” the man said, shifting in his seat. The wire backing to his voice quavered, as if Dack had twanged it with his question. “Only a few people had keycards to the Fortland site; myself, my son, and Ellen Dietrich, our Chief Financial Officer. She was in charge of selling the place when we finally got the chance.”

“How long has it been since you last saw Ms. Dietrich?” interjected Else, looming up Tourval suddenly. He had taken off his helmet, saying the dreadlocks gave him a psychological edge.

“Maybe six hours ago,” Tourval said, visibly shrinking away from Else and staring at his hair. “Ellen comes in early most days and checks out early, so that’s nothing odd.”

"Please bring up her DNA records." Else did not make it a request. Tourval swallowed as he accessed his desktop, bringing up Ellen Dietrich's employee file. The law dictated that every employee had to submit to DNA sampling, and that every business had to have their genetic information on hand for verification.

Else set the MSS case he carried onto the desk, unzipping it to reveal a mobile DNA-testing station. He quickly connected the station to Tourval's computer and then placed the vial of blood they had recovered at the crime scene in the tester. Within seconds, it beeped, and a green light came on. Else bent down to check the small display, and looked grimly up at Mr. Tourval. "Forty-two percent match. Not too good, but it's enough."

Dack, meanwhile, had been looking over Ms. Dietrich's file, and noticed a discrepancy. "Mr. Tourval, there is no mention on this database of Ellen Dietrich's residency. None at all."

The old man shrugged, glancing fearfully at Else. "I...I don't know. There are lots of people with access to the database; it might have just been a glitch when they were updating her file. Impossible to determine, I'm afraid."

“Where does she live, sir?” pressed Else doggedly. “We need to know so we can verify if she’s gone missing.”

Tourval was practically writhing in his seat now. “I could harldy tell you where she lives.”

Dack leaned over his desk, fists clenched as he laid them down as the polished surface. “Sir, lying to MSS officers is a serious crime. Now, I ask you again, where does Ellen Dietrich live?”

“With me, actually.”

Dack and Else both spun on their heels to face the new voice’s source, while Tourval shouted shrilly.

“Shut up, boy! She’s gone missing, that’s what they’re here about!”

Standing in the doorway was a slim, handsome man of middling years. Black hair was smoothed back in the current style, and he wore a tasteful grey suit which was obviously tailored. Little nuggets of coal for eyes calmly regarded Dack as he addressed the arrival. “And who are you, sir?”

“Champlain Tourval. Mr. Tourval’s son.” His voice was sleek and confident. “Is what he said true? Is Ellen dead?”

Dack could smell lies and feigned concern from a mile distant, and there was a reeking odor of it here. “Yes, Mr. Tourval’s son. Tell me, where were you approximately four hours ago?”

Champlain shrugged carelessly. “Having a glass of wine with some friends at Windlass Bar in C-09.”

“I see.” Dack’s voice had gone cold. “Well I’m going to have to bring you in for a little while, Mr. Tourval, while we verify your story. If you would please turn around and let me put the cuffs on…”

The coal black eyes never changed, but the smile that spread across Champlain’s face like molasses could only be described as wolfish. “I don’t think that’ll be necessary, Officer.”

Dack cocked an eyebrow at him and reached for his baton, but Tourval moved with no warning and uncanny speed. He had crossed the room before either Dack or Else could react and slammed something sharp into Dack’s unprotected throat. Crimson spurted out onto Champlain’s face, staining the teeth he bared like a starving animal. Then he was gone somehow, but Dack slumped against Mr. Tourval’s desk, trying but unable to draw any kind of air into his lungs. Instead warm, salty liquid flowed down his windpipe, and filled his mouth; he tried to cough to get it out, but nothing came.


The last coherent thought he had was…why?

Mind Moves Mass

Twenty thousand ninety three.

Twelve and one quarter.

Seven hundred forty three point two zero four.

Randomized sequencing accomplished…Disengaging enumerator.

Odieth Maccar leaned back, his face wrapped up in a look of…satisfaction was not quite the right word, since he had not really done anything at all. But certainly gratification that the job had been completed. And completed well, the computer assured him. Ninety-eight point three percent confidence rating, were its exact words in the standard, cool female voice GravuSec consoles came equipped with. Model 09-QJ-G9 was built up to and beyond merely standard, however; its custom-manufactured Teldro Q-Processor was capable of speeds ten times those of a normal quantum computer, and the range of human interactions it was capable of simply dazzled Odieth.

For example, he had clambered into the console control chamber that morning, as he always did, expecting the normal “Good morning, Mister Maccar.” Instead, the thing had made a comment about his weight! “Your body mass index is approaching an unhealthy level, Mister Maccar. Suggestion: reduce caloric consumption and increase exercise levels so that the GravuSec Model 09-QJ-G9 can continue to serve you comfortably.”

Bloody astounding, Odieth had thought. It was the most advanced piece of equipment ever seen, and working at the New Massachusetts Technological Institute, that was saying quite a bit. Although this can hardly be called working. The thought skittered across his brain while he brushed his fingers across the touch screen and pressed his eyeballs up against the retinal scanner. My Masters degree is almost outdated!

A tiny bleep sounded to acknowledge his input had been processed, and then; “Thank you for working with this Model, Mister Maccar. Please enjoy the rest of your day, and consider the health suggestions provided by this unit.”

Climbing down out of the console, he nearly fell on his face. Even after three months and this morning’s incident, the thing never stopped surprising him. He felt like a child playing peek-a-boo. Sighing at his own absurdity, Odieth walked away from the six foot high construction. He did not need to look to envision its jet black surface, so incredibly smooth yet still reflecting no light; it absorbed all. That helped to keep the Q-Processor from freezing, the techies said, although he suspected they only built it that way so it ‘looked cool.’ Techies were weird like that.

The Console Operation Room he strolled across was fairly small, a concrete box just big enough to hold the computer and room for a person to stretch their legs, but the door into it stood wide open, giving it an illusion of space. Which was odd; protocol dictated that when in use all entrances to the COR should be locked tight. Security was getting lax, it seemed, letting the assistants wander around; they must have forgotten the Wyvern incident. Odieth’s lip curled as he remembered the bloody mess that had been. Yes, he would have a talk with Gregory about this.

Once he passed through however, the steel airlock slid shut behind him just as it should have. Odieth was now in a short corridor leading to a second, more pregnable door than the blast-resistant, dust-occluding one behind. This door slid open with a wave of hand over wall scanner, allowing entry into the cavern beyond. Console Operation Control was huge; it had to be. The power drain from five Consoles meant five huge reactors buried beneath New Massachusetts Tech, which meant banks of control panels and gauges and computer monitors to measure and observe anything and everything which could – and inevitably did – go wrong. On a full day of operation – which meant two consoles running simultaneously – there could be up to a hundred people in here, undergrads and faculty, all working to keep the big black monsters running smoothly. Right now there were maybe thirteen tired-looking young people, their faces tinged red or blue or green from their respective monitors; the run-down of a console was much less intensive than the start-up, requiring fewer personnel. Technically, protocol said that all COC staff on duty for a certain console were supposed to remain so until said console was fully shut down. But Odieth thought back on the security airlock and figured most of them were grabbing coffee. Or having sex in a broom closet; he was not very attuned to the habits of students nowadays, so one was just as likely as the other.

He quickly passed by the remaining assistants, avoiding their salutations. Odieth did not particularly want to talk to people who might have been consummating in a broom closet a few hours ago. Instead he hastened by the banks of computers – just ordinary computers running on pathetically outdated silicon chips – and headed to the sleekly oval elevator door. It slid diagonally open for him as he approached, and he was able to step inside the softly lit car without having to make eye contact with a single person.

The door slid back across the car, and he punched in the top flight for destination. Which was ground level, actually. There was no jerk, no hint of movement whatsoever, but the floor lights changed to indicate he was going upwards. One, two, three…there.

There were five levels to the Van Goeghner Building, as this place was named, but only two were accessible to someone without an access pass, and the fifth level was restricted to techies. The top floor that Odieth now stepped into, however, was open to everyone, even non-students. Which he thought was ridiculous. At least this lobby you had to pass security to get in, since the lift was easily accessible. But plush leather upholstery covered numerous chairs and couches scattered around the place, a few of which Odieth believed were occupied by the people supposedly supervising Model 09-QJ-G9’s run-down. It was hard to tell; he was bad with faces. In any event, letting students run amok in Van Goeghner was just as bad as letting tourists do it. Even worse; the students might know how to really break things, not just spill coffee everywhere.

Odieth sighed, before frowning at the shockingly plain woman who approached him. She was Grace Clarkson, and her bland appearance belied a PhD in Aesthetic Psychology. An obscure branch, even in the wake of recent advancements in that field, but Grace insisted Aesthetics were the most applicable for enviro-human interactions, more so than any other.

He wondered what she was doing here. The Psych Department got Model 08-QT-5I on Thursdays, but today was Tuesday, the day for Odieth’s own Physics Department. Masking his curiosity with what he hoped was a warm smile, he said, “Grace, what a pleasant surprise! How can I help you?”

Her response was curt; they always were when someone else spoke first. Odieth pondered whether or not she knew that, and decided on not. She would have altered her behavior if she had. “I’m here to tell you something, about the Consoles, Odieth.”

“You know that subject is highly classified,” he growled, although his smile never broke, “we can’t discuss that here.”

She shot him a glare. “I’m not stupid. I came to take you to my office, where we can talk.”

A few people were beginning to look over his way, and some of them looked as if they might try and approach. Odieth hated that; he had made some significant advances in his field – a Masters doing that rankled the PhDs and made everyone else chuckle, he knew – but now everyone seemingly wanted to congratulate him, or pick his brain. Even pipsqueak undergrads. And since he was also Faculty Liaison for the building – by virtue of being the only one who cared about the rules! – with full access to the place, even more wanted to get something from him. So he quickly acquiesced, even though he wanted to go home and rest. He figured whatever Grace had to say to him would not be good, but ignoring a rather senior member of the faculty like her was done at your own risk - whatever your department was.

She led him outside the building, past the huge blown-up statue of a Console next to a scaled-down model of its reactor, where moronic proletarians gawked at the lewd caricatures of science. History will remember it as an obscenity, he thought, to have ever allowed these people access to this building. They can’t possibly imagine the strides we’re making; all they see are big, complex toys. He piled onto the small hoverer Grace had borrowed from Administration – she had a bad back which kept her from walking much at all, apparently – managing to hide his agitation quite well, he thought.

“You oughtn’t hate them so,” said Grace, and Odieth nearly leapt straight out of his hide. “Without people like that, Earth would be a much more boring place.”

She always startled him like that; her astuteness was incredible. Odieth could recall a story he had read as a child, and although the intervening decades had blurred his memory, he remembered that Sherlock Holmes had been able to deduce things about dirt and such with nearly the alacrity Grace Clarkson read people. Well, it was no use denying. “Boring? Oh, I’d imagine so. We’d all probably be sitting under a perfect blue sky, sipping delicious drinks without any worries about missile shields or radiation dampers.” With that last he pointed above their heads. The New Massachusetts Technological Institute had originally been built as an open-air campus, but eventually the huge gray domes covering most of New England had extended to envelop the school. Gigantic fluorescent lights attempted to simulate the sun’s illumination, but the world was still a starker, darker place than Odieth remembered from forty years ago.

Grace smirked and eyed him sideways. “If it was just you and me, we’d still be a mile down below trying to crack the universe’s mysteries. Me through the brain, you through the particles.”

“True enough,” agreed Odieth. Although if it were just they two, he might never give her the chance.

The last few minutes of the trip passed by without further conversation, which suited him fine, until they pulled up to the sky-scraping heptagon that was Higgins Hall, evil lair of the Psych Department. She giggled slightly when he told her that one, and Odieth could not help but ask himself for the thousandth time what she actually thought of him. Knowing her, it might have even been close to the truth.

He had never been to Higgins Hall before, but they walked without incident. If he didn't count the building itself as an incident. The heptagon was incredibly strange on the inside, as they ambulated through elevators that moved sideways and hallways that at first glance appeared to stretch infinitely but were in fact six yards long, and every single wall was covered with strange and sometimes downright revolting pictures. One mural depicting a mass rape, execution and burial in gory detail nearly made Odieth heave, but Grace merely shrugged her shoulders and walked on. Perhaps evil lair is not so inaccurate, he mused, still tasting bile from that repellent scene.

At long last though, Grace stopped in front of a door which was shaped like a man kneeling – somehow it worked – and bade it open with a wave of her hand. His head nearly brushed the frame passing under, and he was not a tall man. The door shut silently behind them.

Grace motioned for him to sit at a strange padded chair shaped like a dog lifting its leg to urinate, and herself reclined behind a huge, ornately carved mahogany desk. The patterning in it twisted and twirled so intricately that Odeith could hardly follow the whorls, losing one particular sequence of wavy lines and trying to find his way out of an angular maze before finding the lines again. It was quite mesmerizing, and Odeith actually had to ask Grace to repeat her question.

“I said do you like my office?”

"Yes, it’s quite…” Odieth scrambled for adjectives that did not involve ‘unsettling’ or ‘disgusting, and alighted on “…artistic.” In truth, the bizarreness of it all served to accentuate her plainness.

Grace laughed. “Please; there is no such thing as art. Everything is a test.”

“Did I pass?” he asked bemusedly.

The smile wiped from her face so suddenly Odeith thought he might have said something wrong, but the way her fingers began to trace the carving on her desktop indicated something deeper. “Let’s get right to business. You’ve heard of the Red Tigers, yes?”

“You mean the organized student terrorists?” His brow crinkled. “Just a rumor, Administration says. And I can hardly imagine any faculty would be involved with them, even if it wasn’t a rumor.”

“Please,” said Grace, eyes rolling, “We all know Administration lies through their teeth about everything. Remember that one sophomore who got killed by an exploding transistor? They said he had been hit by a hoverer.” At his nearly imperceptible nod, she continued. “Anyway, the Red Tigers are plenty real. And I’ve got proof.”

“What does this have to do with the Consoles?” asked Odieth, his patience wearing thin. Students running around firebombing the bookstores and coffee shops did not bother him, even if it was true they were organized; security was too tight for a bunch of Social Science hoodlums to break past the lift in Van Goeghner.

“Well,” she began, clearly reluctant, before it all gushed out, “there appears to me…a breach in console protocol might have let some of their agents in. Somebody’s been sabotaging our console’s tests, and there’ve been several instances where security lapsed, but Gregory claims everything had been airtight when his men checked it; someone tampered, were his exact words.”

“Gregory would say anything,” was Odeith’s flat reply. “And you shouldn’t blame your own student’s failures in programming and procedure on nonexistent saboteurs. You said you had proof; do you? Anything solid?”

She gazed at him for a few minutes, clearly debating in her head. Then she reached beneath her desk, and he heard the click of what he supposed was a small safe. When she withdrew her hand, it held a tiny disk. She gave a voice command and a projector lowered from the ceiling for her to load the disk into, and then a video popped up on her wall. It showed a COR, plainly empty. The timestamp read last Wednesday at one in the morning. Odieth nearly jumped up from his chair, but settled for saying in a strangled voice, “Grace! You know you broke nearly fourteen regulations by putting a camera in a console room! Even the slightest polarity shift from that thing could potentially…”

She cut him off just as the COR airlock slid open in the video. A person, no skin showing through heavy clothes despite the climate-controlled atmosphere, entered, dragging a much smaller, rather limp individual behind them. Odeith squinted at the two figures as the one hauled the other up to the console and slid a small card into its slot. The black machine immediately opened the main control hatch, but also another secondary hatch attached to the base of the console – a subject testing chamber, Odieth knew, although the console he used was not equipped with one. The limp person was roughly shoved into it and the hatch closed, and the kidnapper – for Odeith suspected that this was not entirely voluntary labwork – slipped into the control seat. Grace paused the video and turned to look at him. “Did you recognize that person?”

“Not really,” he responded truthfully, “they were completely covered up. This is obviously grave business though, why haven’t you taken it to Gregory?”

But Grace was crying. Silently, but crying. That a woman like her, a schooled psychologist, would break down so shook Odieth, but he was by her side momentarily. “Come on now, what’s wrong? I know it’s a shock that we’ve been compromised, but…”

“The person t-they l-loaded into the sub-bject testing ch-chamber?” she stammered, “that w-was me!”

She nearly screamed the last part, and Odieth had to keep a tight grip on himself not to pull away. He began stroking her dull brown hair, murmuring to her like his mother had to him, many years ago. “There, there. That’s terrifying. How come you came to me? Security needs to be notified, immediately.”

“I think he’s one of them,” she whispered. There were no tears now, just bleak fear. “I think Gregory's working with the Red Tigers. How else could they have gotten past all the intruder countermeasures and alarms and...and all of that? It would have taken somebody with the highest level of security clearance, and that’s either Gregory or you. And I know it wasn’t you, Odieth. I know I can trust you.”

He smiled. They had been through all of their college years together here at NMTI, and all their careers, even when he had been forced to switch majors from Neural Psych to General Physics. His professors had described him as mentally unfit for the responsibility concomitant with a modern degree in Psychology. They were wrong. Ignorant, purblind fools.

“Grace, you’ve been abducted in the night; this is very serious. Serious indeed. But since you haven’t yet gone to Gregory, I can’t have you going to him now, which is what I would normally suggest even with your suspicions.” She looked up at him questioningly, but he was already speaking the command phrase. “Mens agitat molem.”

Grace shuddered, her entire body convulsing rhythmically for five seconds exactly. She had been attuned to those words, spoken by either Odieth or one other. With that, she was his. Leaning down to look her in the face, he was greeted by the sight of a woman purely enraptured by his presence. “Oh, it is you! I’ve been wanting to thank you so badly for days now, Odieth.”

“I’m sure you have, Grace,” he said, continuing to stroke her hair. She nuzzled to his hand like a fawning dog. He hated to destroy the Grace he had once known, but this was too important. He would be more careful with her, though. She was worth something even so controlled, unlike the others who were worthless both ways. “Do you want to do me a favor, Grace?”

“Yes. Please let me do you a favor!” The need in her voice was palpable; she wanted to satisfy him.

“Well, there is one student, a graduate student, in this very building. He failed me and let somebody get a video of him doing some very illegal things. Would you mind killing him for me?”
She beamed up at him. “Not a problem at all, Odieth. Anything to make you happy.”

He smiled at her again, eliciting a low moan of delight from the woman. “That would make me very happy, Grace. Just do the thing quietly; let no one know it was you. And don’t forget to destroy this video you showed me. After you’re all done, call me, and we can discuss some other things I have planned."

“That sounds so utterly fantastic. I simply cannot wait!”

And she could not, either. The world was going to be a better place, thanks to the work he was doing, and would now do with her. Everybody happy, always wanting to serve each other, and the maggots getting out of their betters' way. Odieth could not wait for that day to come, any more than Grace could wait to fulfill his merest suggestions.

And to All a Good Night!

There is sort of a blank and empty room through the doorway directly before you. Sort of. Relative to the absolute black of the void stretching infinitely to all sides, looping back on itself eternally, and all the while managing to have zero space for you, that blank and empty room of slate gray concrete is a pulsating metropolis.

How absolutely fascinating, right? Stepping across the threshold, you transfer from immaterial reality to solid fantasy. You’re dreaming after all, and it’s not a particularly exciting one telling by the completely lackluster setting. The room is just a big cube; even the doorway you came through is gone, eliminating the very last detail besides your own body which could possibly be described as anything other than monotonous. But…

Well, there’s always a but, isn’t there? There’s always a big butt, someone might say in an exceedingly drear way, and then chortle afterwards. In any event, this but – or butt, if you enjoy the puerile – is not even so mildly interesting as I failed to make it sound. It’s just that your body, normally so, well, you-like, is now just as terribly drab as this intensely dull room is. You’re wearing gray clothing, amorphously cut; it would fit a man or woman equally well. Your chest is flat – no rippling muscles, no burgeoning melons (as some fatuous sex education teacher might say) and not even any undulating fat folds. Your sex is indeterminate. That would be interesting, if it weren’t for the fact that your genitalia is intact and normal – rather, your figure is just generally…blah. If it weren’t for your nether regions, an objective individual looking at you naked would be hard-pressed to pick a gender.

So, is this some kind of latent body-image issue you’re confronting here, in the most boring part of your brain? Because if so, please move it on over to a spot which could at least have the human decency to incorporate some vaguely snide jocks or lukewarmly picky cheerleaders. Please, because, frankly, my patience is reaching the triple point. I will either evaporate into ether or freeze to a block from sheer inactivity soon. Oh, well, you didn’t think it was a detached nonentity narrating this charade of a dreamscape, did you? No, I am the liquid observer, seeping into every crevice to observe your deepest fantasies.

And if this is the extent of your fantasizing, you are a pathetic example of a human being.

We might as well get some use I guess, else this night be completely wasted. Ahem. This is undoubtedly a subconscious commentary on your world. You feel trapped within the life you’ve built, the schedule you keep and the people you know, but are afraid that outside of it all there’s nothing. You’re tidy and meticulous besides – prone to obsessive-compulsive idiosyncrasies – and these two traits are conflicting, I’m afraid, producing this strange kind of sterilized limbo. Beyond mere insecurity, this touches on social paranoia.

Right, I’m done with that. Depressing stuff, I have to say.

Oops, sorry. I suppose that slipped outside the bounds of professionalism, eh? Sometimes you get that with these revolutionary psychiatric procedures. Isn’t it fascinating though? We can now delve into the human mind – in 3-D no less! – and observe what an individual is thinking and feeling in their subconscious. It’s a huge milestone for humanity, and medicine, and even you I should think. Because the most exciting part, I didn’t even bother to tell you about: Not only is observation possible, but direct neuro-imprinting!

Neuro-imprinting? Don’t worry about that, it’s technical stuff, and we’d hate to bore ourselves with technical stuff, wouldn’t we? I mean, it’s already bad enough in here. No offense.
Oh what the fuck, who cares? You won’t remember any of this anyway. Hehe, that’s right. No, it wasn’t in the fine print; I’m sure a tidy little tit like you read through that quite thoroughly.
Well, let’s break up the tedium, yes? Rhetorical question, sorry, you get no choice in the matter. Now, just to crack open this place – kind of like an egg, except instead of yolk, it’s you oozing out. You might notice that the concrete is melting away – crack open was poetic license on my part – and where there is no more, the previously extant void is no longer present. Ha, extant void! Get the joke?

Whatever; your being upset is part of the natural process of internal rejuvenation. Just like the boiling lava and napalm-exhaling dragons are. Speaking of which, you ought to try and use that shield, and maybe the sword if you’ve got the balls…although I must say I can’t tell if you have, what with that massive codpiece. Maybe there are some latent body-image issues after all, eheh.

Whooee, nearly broiled you there! I wouldn’t worry, this is all for your improvement. It’s for science. And medicine! And many other things, I’m sure.

Now, here’s a fun situation; the tallest tip of the titanic tower, where the princess lay. You did well killing those dragons. I never would have thought you had it in you. By the way, have you noticed the implications of stowing a princess in a tall tower? After all, they’re great huge phalluses of buildings, and princesses are ostensibly virginal, and the ostensibly virginal prince goes in and rescues her from the large penile object and divests her of innocence. It’s ironic. They teach you to look for those things in Psychology College, you know. You would have realized that if you had gone there, like I did. Yes.

Where were…

I see. That girl was pretty attractive, wasn’t she? What’s strange is, even in these most intimate moments, I have a hard time discerning whether you’re a male or a female. Hm. Ah, there we go. Well, that solves a bit of a dilemma I was having. Apparently gender identity is not, in fact, a problem anymore.

But this is fantastic! You’ve shed your shell, and are taking risks. You’re giving into animal instincts, base instincts which you have unhealthily suppressed. This is a grand moment for me; I’ve done my job well. Are you paying attention? This is rather important, after all. Since I’ve done this on a subconscious level, the changes are going to be magnified to an extraordinary degree in your waking state. Lifestyle changes, huge ones. You’re practically cured.

Except for this one last bit, of course. Go ahead and finish up if you’re close, don’t mind me. Yes, total loss of inhibition I see. That’s good. You’ll need that, for what we’re going to have you doing. Hey, everything’s got a price, right? And if the price is right, well, it’s just like that one show people used to think was diverting; you get the prize, at cost. The price is not too high, I can assure you. A new life, new opportunities, new everything; we’ve given all that to you. And a tad more. You are grateful.

Not a question. You are. It’s an overwhelming feeling; I know, I put it there. You won’t feel it now, you might never feel it, but if it ever comes then begging to serve me is the least of what you’ll do.

The bare minimum.

So do please enjoy this freedom we’ve granted you. It should be lasting. Well, if I calibrated everything right; new equipment can be awfully tetchy, you know. Yes, smile nervously. I’ll see you again someday, maybe. In your dreams.