by Nzondi
Lamp’s hand clutched my bicep.
“Don’t,” I said, and took a gentle step away from his grasp. I suddenly had a flashback of Kofi's hand on my shoulder, trying to comfort me after the accident.
“There are some lines we’re not supposed to cross, Xo,” Lamp said, “and what you did, was one of them.”
“There’s no line I won’t cross if, in my heart, I believe I’m doing what’s right.” I slipped the pack of cigarettes back into my sweat pants pocket.
“Even if it’s to go against your family? Sounds like a contradiction waiting to happen.”
“I don’t give a care what it sounds like,” I said, with a wan smile.
I let the silence between us rise in the air and lit my jot, took a few puffs.
“I’m on your side, Lamp. Come on,” I said, walking off. “I’m going to the morgue and wait on the body. I’ll do the autopsy and maybe my findings can tell us what happened.”
“Don’t you want to talk to the guy who saw them?”
I stopped and turned around. “There was a witness?”
“Yep. An old security guard at the plant.”
“Well, where is he?”
“At the station. He’s the one who called 1-9-1 and then swung by the station, right after. You drive? Your brother’s car, here?”
“Uh, no. He junked it. I was actually on a jog.”
“Way out here?”
“Yeah, it’s only six miles from the dojo.”
“Wow, between your running and martial arts, you’re a straight badass, Examiner.”
“Yeah,” I said, feeling sick to my stomach.
Omigod, what exactly did the guard see?
“Well, you can ride with me,” Lamp said.
“Sure. Sure. Um, one sec,” I said.
I deactivated the House of Oware game and made it to the toilet in my bathroom just in time before I got sick.
3
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I stood in the bathroom, staring at myself in the mirror, trying to get myself together. With shaky hands, I tossed two Zonegran pills in my mouth, feeling a panic attack growing inside of me.
There was a witness? Maybe that was just the game, tossing in a little fiction with the facts to make it exciting.
I rubbed my lips with the back of my hand. The taste in my mouth was unbearable. It didn’t help that I had blut on my breath, either. Blut was blood beer. Humans didn’t like it much but ennies like me, we couldn’t get enough of it.
I drank way too much, way too fast, last night.
I rinsed my mouth out with mouthwash, and afterward, braced my hands on the bathroom counter. I held my head down, tried to calm myself, slow my breathing. Whenever I got too stressed out, I reminisced about that time when I scraped my leg on a piece of metal on Dad’s boat. It was only a scratch, but I cried like it was the end of the world. My father took me in his arms and caressed my head. He kissed my boo-boo and sung the Ga lullaby:
Baby, don’t cry.
Where has your mother gone?
She’s gone to the farm.
What did she leave for you?
Yaa yaa wushi-o!
It was one of my most favorite memories, ever. I missed him so much and would sing that song whenever I wanted the world around me to brighten. I inhaled a deep breath.
Okay. You got this, Feenie!
The only way to find out what was going on was to either walk into the real GAF headquarters and ask about the case, and then get humiliated while they laughed my butt right out of there for being a seventeen-year-old asking questions she had no business asking. Or…or go back in the game.
Damn, I have to know.
I went back into my room, crawled on the bed, and with a mere thought, activated the game.
~
I opened my eyes and was back in the game, standing in the ladies’ bathroom of the GAF station. The lavatory was a single. There was one stall, one sink, a baby changing station, and a leather seating area, the width of the bathroom.
Yeah, I’m losing it. If the witness saw Grunt and Kofi dump the body at the water plant, somehow, I know it’s going to lead to me. I have to find out what this guard knows.
I tossed cold water on my face and when I reached for a paper towel, swore I saw something move on the wall. My eyes shot up to the painting that sat above the changing station. The disturbing thing looked like the artist painted it right after having a serious nightmare.
Great. Not now.
One of the reasons why I loved the game was because it actually scanned the host’s mind for their fears and input them in far more grotesque fashion to heighten the stakes of the game. I loved reading horror, therefore the program snatched elements of the stories that were stained in my memory banks and tossed them into the case.
The movie I watched last was called Sisters and was about conjoined twin witches. The painting was a chilling picture of two sisters with one head. They were dressed in identical blue dresses, except one had white ankle socks and shoes and the other one wore no socks and had canvas sneakers on her feet. They were holding each other as best as they could, and her eyes were closed as if trying to bear a painful experience.
I sniffled and bent down to wash my face with water. After a few slow calming breaths, I stared in the mirror while I washed my hands. My hair was a mess. I pulled it up in a ponytail. One of my nipples peeked over the neck of my tank top when I reached up and I pulled my shirt up a bit to cover it. I sighed.
What if the judge saw my brother in that water plant?
I placed my hand upon my head as if my father had reached down from the spirit world and raked his hand through my hair and I wanted to feel his large caring hands. Dad used to massage my scalp when he was alive to soothe me whenever I was troubled. My gaze drifted back to the surreal painting of the sisters on the wall. I took a step back. The eyes of the twin sisters seemed to follow me. It was unnerving, to say the least. I reached for the stack of brown paper towels by the baby station and stepped over to toss the garbage in the trash disposal sitting inside of the counter, all the while staring at the picture.
“Crap!” I said and flinched as if someone had just slipped ice down my back.
The twins in that painting just blinked their eyes!
Laughing at myself, I blinked a few times and shook my head.
It’s just the game giving me a rise.
I had more pertinent problems that desired my attention. Lamp knocked on the bathroom door, giving me one helluva start.
“What are you doing in there?” Lamp asked.
I responded to my partner a little ruder than I intended. “I’m using the bathroom! What do you think I’m doing?”
The GAF headquarters looked like a museum of Gothic horror. It had influences of Mediterranean Revival and ancient Egyptian architecture. Stuccoed walls, doors, and windows in the shape of arches, wrought-iron balconies and large symmetrical façades, and of course as the dark images of my mind helped create, there were surrealist paintings and gothic Gargoyle statues hanging around like demonic creatures awaiting to possess the building and pull every visitor into an eternal nightmare
I left the bathroom and spotted Lamp speaking to the guard in the interrogation room. Butterflies scattered in my stomach, and I blew out a bubbled sigh.
Here we go.
The door squeaked when I entered and both Lamp and the guard’s eyes landed on me.
Lamp gestured toward me. “This is the investigative medical examiner, Dr. Feeni Xo.”
“I hate titles. Call me Xo,” I said, and he nodded.
“I’m Kweku Bola,” the man said.
He had a long white beard. His name, Kweku, told me he was named after the day of the week he was born. He wore an aquamarine dashiki decorated with white leopard print around the collar. By his dress, I gathered he was no longer in work attire.
Standing next to Lamp, I took the coffee cup from his grasp and took a sip. “I hear you had a prett
y interesting night.”
“Saw a pack of those witch dogs. I made sure that none of them looked in my eye, that’s for sure.”
“Let’s just stick to the facts,” I said.
He laughed. “Oh, I see we have a non-believer. They love those kinds of people. Most of the children that have disappeared, I hear was the science type. Did their neural studies with a stick up their behinds like they knew everything and the rest of us were illiterate-minded.”
He was beginning to annoy me. “Look, Mr. Bola—”
“Kweku,” he said, cutting me off.
“Kweku,” I said, swallowing my irritation. “Just tell me—”
“Like you, I’m not big on formalities,” he said, grinning.
I inhaled a deep breath. “Please tell me what you saw.”
“I’ve already told the officers, even got it down in a neural report and sent it to your IGP.”
“Yes,” I said, nodding, “and I’m very grateful, but can you just go over it once more with us? Maybe those guys missed something.”
“Well,” he said, rubbing his beard. “I’d just gotten me a late-night snack of fufu when I heard them witch dogs yipping and yapping. I turned on one of the security floodlights and shined it out there. They couldn’t see me from my vantage point. I was up on the second-floor office but still, I made sure I ducked, as to not give them heathens a chance to do their dog vodun.”
“And then what happened?” I said, losing patience with the man.
“Then! Well, then they left, and that’s when I saw him, or her. I couldn’t tell from being so high up.”
“You’d think you’d be doing rounds on the ground, huh?”
“I just told you, I was having a little bite to eat. Although I shouldn’t have eaten fufu, it’s always rough on my digestive—”
“Kweku!”
That made him flinch. “S-sorry. Like I was saying, that’s when I saw the child.”
“Wait. A child?” I asked.
“Yes, a teenager,” he said, nodding. “But like I say, couldn’t tell the gender, but I can tell you the fellow was wearing a hood, and when I yelled down and shouted that there was no trespassing, the little bugger turned around and looked up. It was an albino.”
“You’re sure about that?”
“Oh, yeah, about as sure as I’m sitting right here and feeling mighty gaseous. That much I know for sure. Had short hair, like a boy’s but soft facial features. That’s why I’m not sure if it was a boy or a girl. Also, the fellow had a really bright backpack on, orange, bright as a baboon’s butt cheeks. The kid ran off when I said something, like fire was burning his, or like I said her, I don’t know, but like fire was in their rump. That’s when I saw what the witch dogs—”
I interrupted. “The dholes?”
“That’s right! Those demon dogs, and what the child was looking at, and I got my shotgun and went down to investigate.” His ashen face turned somber. “Nearly crapped my pants when I saw it was a dead girl. Called the authorities, right away. The rest is, as they say, His-toree!”
“Okay,” I said, walking to the door. “Is that it?”
Lamp backed away from the chair.
The guard looked at us with a delightful surprise. “I’m through?”
“Yes sir,” Lamp said. “But please contact us, if you remember anything else that might be of importance.”
Kweku nodded. “Sure thing. Will do.”
He got up and Lamp escorted him out of our office back into the main GAF room.
“Nice to meet you,” Kweku said.
“Yeah,” I said, my mind relieved but still a million miles away.
I leaned against the door frame and watched the man leave.
He didn’t see Kofi nor Grunt.
Lamp came back up to me. “Hey, maybe your dhole theory works out. Do the autopsy, and we can close this case, and move on to the next one. We’ll both get double bit-credits for solving this case.”
I summoned up a weak smile. “Yeah. I’ll, uh. I’ll get to it, as soon as I get to the coroner’s office.”
“Well, I’m going to get me some brews, and maybe kick my feet up and stream a romcom and eat ice cream until my shirt buttons pop.”
I laughed. “Didn’t take a big guy like you for romantic comedies.”
“Don’t judge. We all have our vices.”
“You’re telling the truth there.”
“Don’t I always?”
I laughed. “Guess so. Hit me in the morning when you’re up. Tomorrow, we’ll follow up on the albino lead. See if we can find any in the area following Kweku’s descriptions. Oh, yeah. I’ll need a ride.”
“Can’t you just take your motorcycle?”
“I need a slave cylinder for my clutch,” I said.
“You know you can just imagine it fixed, and it will be?”
“Yeah, but it’s more fun this way to throw some obstacles in the way.”
“Tomorrow,” Lamp said, gesturing his coffee mug at me. “Wear something more appropriate than a jogging suit, will you?”
I took the mug out of his hand and gulped the rest of his coffee down. “Depends on what you deem appropriate,” I said, gasping when the mug slipped from my grasp and the hot coffee spilled on his lap.
4
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I deactivated the virtual sensory game in my neural implant with focused thought and opened my eyes just in time to see my favorite mug bounce off of my lap and break. An empty coffee mug with GAMER GIRLS DO IT BETTER printed on it, had shattered into a million pieces on the hardwood floor of my bedroom.
I was no longer Xo, investigating medical examiner, like I was in the neurogame, House of Oware. I was seventeen-year-old Feeni Xo, living a boring life in the city of Kumasi. My vision came into a hazy focus on my brother’s faded tee shirt that said JOIN THE GHANA ALLIED FORCES.
“You idiot!” I said. “That was my favorite mug, Kofi! How did you even get into my room?”
Kofi’s large dark brown eyes widened, and his mouth fell agape. His haircut was as fresh as the GAF demanded, but his face was shiny with perspiration. We were both the same age, but he had me by a few months. His eyes narrowed and a crooked grin twisted his lips.
“Well next time you won’t pretend to ignore me when I’m calling you,” he said. “You weren’t really meditating. Your eyes were moving around in your eyelids too much. You can’t fool me.”
“Ugh!” I said, scoffing and leaped to my feet. “Aren’t you supposed to be doing police work or something? How’d you get in at such an early age, anyway?”
“Grunt forged my paperwork.” He pointed at my head. “Is that horse hair or Indian hair?”
I was about to pop him good in his eye when Auntie Yajna poked her head into my bedroom.
“What in the world is going on, here?” she asked.
After dodging in and out of foster homes, and living on the streets for almost a year, Auntie Yajna took me in and treated me like her own daughter. She, Kofi, and the twins were the only real family I’d ever known since my parents died when I was young.
“Kofi broke my gamer mug!” I said, trying to get at him.
Auntie Yajna stood between us, and even if I tried, I couldn’t get around her. She was a hefty woman and had the height to match her size. Kofi stood behind her and chuckled, making me more annoyed at him.
“I didn’t mean to break it,” he said. “It was an accident.”
I reached my arm past Auntie Yajna and tried to grasp Kofi’s shoulder. “Liar!”
Auntie Yajna stepped forward, her buxom bosom pushed me backward into a small stumble. “Now, now, Feeni. I’ve told you about that temper of yours! Give the boy a break. You know Kofi can get about as confused as flatulence in a fan factory. If the boy says he made a mistake, you better believe that he’s well capable of doing just that.”
That made me laugh, and I shook my head. “You got that right.”
“Hey!” Kofi said. “Wh
at is this? Gang up on Kofi day?”
Auntie Yajna grabbed me, and stood by my side, hugging me. “More like Women Unite Day. You better recognize!”
“Feeni is not a woman,” he said.
“Boy, just go on downstairs and make sure the twins are ready. I want to get in the rationing line before it grows longer than a politician’s nose during election time. I can’t afford to be late to work and now you can’t take me to work, I’m going to be on crunch time from now on.”
Kofi crossed his arms and leaned against the door frame. “I’m busting my butt on the force, so you don’t have to work, Mom.” He beat his fist against his chest. “I’m the man of the family!”
“Boy, if you don’t do what I’ll tell you to do, your station is going to have to put an APB of your B-u-t-t, because I’m going to bop you so hard, you’ll be missing for days. Now go check on the twins, and make sure they ain’t up to no good before you go to work.”
“And while you’re at it,” I said. “Do some push-ups. Your chest sounded mighty flat when you beat on it, just now.”
“At least my hair is real,” he said.
“Boy!” Auntie Yajna said, failing to hold in a chuckle. “Get going before I have to tan your seventeen-year-old hide! You’re not too big to still get a whupping.”
Kofi sighed. “Okay, Mom! I’m going!” He left, mumbling, “I don’t know why you don’t make Feeni get them ready. I have to go to work.”
“Because a man needs to learn how to take care of children the same way a woman does, and still work as hard as a mother does, to be a good father.”
I laughed. “He doesn’t even have a girlfriend, and you’re teaching him how to be a father?”
“Look who’s talking?” Kofi said. “Queen vibrator.”
“Watch your mouth!” Auntie Yajna raised her hand at him, and he ran off.
When he left, Auntie Yajna helped me pick up the pieces of my mug.
“You were meditating, huh?” she asked.
“Uh, yeah.”
“Well, I guess that means you’re feeling better.”
I didn’t know why, but I hadn’t told her about the game. Part of the reason was that I knew that no one else had a virtual construct in their neural implants. I’ve asked around, went online and even searched the archive streaming database. There was no such name as House of Oware, which is funny. As long as I could remember, I played the game that only Lamp and I seemed to own on our neural implants. It was my escape, but more than that it taught me all about pathology. One day, I knew I’d be one in real life.