by Sean Platt
“Thanks, Scooter,” said Leo. Then, when Scooter didn’t leave, he asked, “Did you just want to tell me about it?”
“Nah, Bro!” said Scooter. “I wanted to ask about the rock. It’s making dudes paranoid. Not like I’m some scientist, but…can you, like, analyze it? It gives great buzz, lasts, all that…but I’ve been coming off with a headache, and then you get shit like with James and Milton. I gave ‘em each a boulder, let ‘em mellow. But it’s like they both got the idea that they’re running light, and instead of going with the flow, they got uppity. Paranoid, y’know?”
Leo forced a laugh. Beside him, Leah did the same. Nobody in the village was going to do any analysis, but between Leo’s shortage and Scooter’s fears about purity, that was two chinks in moondust’s armor in a single day. If people were really starting to run low, that could mean trouble on the horizon. Leah was going back into District Zero shortly. Maybe she should pay Dominic a visit, maybe see how much dust she could shake loose.
“I’m sure it’s just one of those things. Nothing to worry about,” Leo told Scooter.
“Maybe.”
“How are you, Scooter? Doing good?”
Scooter’s beard-covered lips cracked. He was all sunshine and flowers; nervousness couldn’t sit on his shoulders for long.
“Good, man. Yeah. Walked to the summit of the east hill this morning and watched the sun rise. Sat and journaled for a while then came back and had breakfast with Carl. I don’t know how the city dwellers do it. Run here and run there, hook up and…”
“Great, great,” said Leo, standing in front of Scooter, hands on his hips.
Scooter seemed to read Leo’s body language. “Okay, man, I guess I should head back and watch those two. They should be fine now, but when you get some new dust, can you let me know? I want to try some next to this batch and see if it rocks different.” He raised a paw of a hand at Leah. “See ya, Leah,” he said, somewhat more quietly.
“See you, Scooter.”
That seemed to seal the transaction. Scooter, suddenly reminded that Leah had been there all along, lost his boisterousness and skittered out. Leah felt her lips press into a small smile as she watched him leave.
With the room clear, Leo turned to Leah and asked her if she wanted to try and track Crumb, as she’d been discussing before the interruption. She nodded then said it was just like investigating a crime, and that the trail would go cold if they waited too long. Leo asked if she could do whatever she needed to do from the cabin in Bontauk, and Leah said no, that the connection was too isolated. She’d need wider access. She needed to be able to reach out into all of the little tendrils touched by the DZ network. She said she could even try using Quark PD’s records now that she had her nanos behind the firewall, but when she mentioned it, Leo expressly forbade it, telling her she’d taken enough risks for a week — that she’d taken enough risks for a year, really.
Leah promised that she’d stick to the unrestricted grid for as long as she could, that she’d use all the spoofs at her disposal, and that she’d be careful. Leo made her repeat it. Leah did. Then Leo made her promise she’d adhere to his definition of “careful” rather than her own. After an eye-rolling moment, Leah finally relented. If Crumb was out there, he’d either be right in public or behind sixteen layers of top-end security. Shades of gray between Leo’s standards and her own probably wouldn’t matter anyway.
“Who do you think Crumb is?” said Leah, donning her backpack. “It never seemed to matter for my entire life. But then you get your ‘feelings’ about him, and I go into his head see what he has inside lockdown, and then he goes missing. I’ve gotta admit, I’m getting curious. Is it possible he just wandered off and is now telling squirrels somewhere about Noah Fucking West?”
“With all of his records gone, and people’s memories erased?”
Leah nodded. “Okay. Then could he be this Stephen York guy?”
Leo shrugged. “I’m sure he had a name, so why not Stephen York? But that doesn’t help any. Because then, who the hell is Stephen York?”
“I did a quick search from the hospital while I was waiting, but wireless out there is shit, and you can’t get a good hack from a handheld. But whoever York is, he’s got a diary. A journal. Somewhere in DZ. In a building with a red roof.”
“Well, that narrows it down.”
“I’ll bet that journal is filled with recipes,” said Leah. “Or a madman’s manifesto. Maybe some crazy poems. We’ve got to find it. There may be limericks.”
“‘There once was a man from Organa…’” Leo began.
“You really think he’s important, huh?” said Leah, reading through Leo’s sarcasm. She didn’t bother to soften it because Leo knew she felt guilty and would go after Crumb with or without anyone asking her to.
“He’s one of us. And he’s got a secret.”
“But is it an important secret? Or is it useless?”
Leo shook his head slowly, swinging his gray braids. “All I know is that he’s one of us.”
Leah thought that was as good an answer as any. She left with a wave and a promise to be careful then headed for the barn to saddle Missy for a ride.
Leo watched Leah go, thinking about fate.
Leo had been born in 1976 — too late to catch the previous century’s hippie movement, but just in time for its leftover spirit. His mother had raised him in cloth diapers, had grown her own vegetables, burned incense, and meditated daily. She hadn’t been totally in the clouds; she made her living as a bookkeeper. But she was spiritual enough for Leo to grow up believing that everything was connected, and that everything truly happened for a reason. Everything he’d seen growing up — in a pre-Beam, pre-Crossbrace, pre-Internet world — had born that out. Every event had a way of looping back on itself, as if life were a story being told by someone who knew how it would all eventually all stitch together.
Most people came to the Organa community Leo had founded by deliberate choice. There were three people, however, who had been placed here, and all had their purpose.
The first had been Chrissy Long, Dominic’s sister, who had bonded Dominic to the Organa movement forever and set one of Dominic’s feet on each side of the thin blue line. Without Chrissy, Dominic might have been a straight cop, skeptical of fringe groups.
The second had been Crumb, also dropped into the community by Dominic. Crumb had been the village’s crazy old mascot for a few decades, but now it seemed he had his own starring role to play. Without even knowing it, Dominic had coincidentally brought them a time bomb, and it was finally ticking toward its end.
And the third person to be placed within Leo’s community unwittingly had been a baby, brought into the mountains in utero by her mother so she could be born without a Beam ID. A baby who had become a prodigious hacker — the kind of talent that could be groomed but never created. Leah didn’t even understand her own gift and never truly had. Accordingly, Leo had sent her to the best academies to learn about computers and codes and language and encryption and systems. But The Beam was ruled by AI these days, and its intelligence had gone far beyond rules and algorithms. It was a kind of emerging consciousness, capable of whims and attitudes and preferences. Leo didn’t understand what Leah did when she spoke with The Beam, but whatever she did, it wasn’t just hacking. It was more like something a spiritualist would do…or maybe even a medium. Leah wasn’t pushing data; she was channeling. And today, if that baby hadn’t (coincidentally) been left in the village once upon a time, Organa wouldn’t have the mind required to speak with the inhuman, giving them access to another realm of existence.
Everything really did happen for a reason.
As Leah climbed onto her brown-and-white horse and rode off down the trail toward the train, Leo watched her go, hoping she would keep believing she’d been abandoned by a mother who didn’t want her.
But if that wasn’t how things were supposed to happen, there was little Leo could do about it anyway.
Dominic stood i
n an empty warehouse that had once manufactured glass, wondering when he’d crossed the line.
He had wanted to be a good cop, and had tried to be one. He could even still argue that he was a good cop (rather convincingly, he thought) and that there were guys out there who were much, much dirtier than he was. Intentions mattered more than anything, and Dominic’s intentions had always been in the right place. Dominic had never been out for himself. He’d never tried to make a profit, or skim anything off the top for personal gain. Every law he’d broken — every shady act he’d committed — had been for someone else. He’d defied Respero and forged records to save his sister then had done it again to save a vagrant who had somehow stirred the sluggish heart inside his too-fat frame. He’d supplied moondust to Organa because Quark and The Beam had too much power and Organa was their only real rival, and he’d let a few of the riots burn longer than they should have for the same reason. Then, once he was in with Organa, he’d had a responsibility to make sure they didn’t get nabbed or into a bind. At the time, they’d been dealing directly with Omar, but Omar was fucking them six ways from Sunday. Dominic had dirt on Omar, and Omar had dirt on Dominic, so he had stepped into the middle to protect Organa’s supply and to keep them in the good fight. He hadn’t done it to make money for himself and hadn’t gained a single dirty credit during his sideline career as a drug trafficker. He didn’t understand what the Organas did with the moondust — whether it genuinely helped them get into a deep enough fugue to do their work or whether they were just junkies like he was — but it didn’t matter anymore. Regardless of what the drug did, the Organas were addicted. In the end, the police captain and the Appalachian hippies were rowing from the same boat. If they ran out of those little gray rocks, they were in for a rough ride. If that happened, they’d be useless to everyone, and would doom his one big cause.
Dominic wasn’t a dirty cop. He was a revolutionary. If anything, he cared too much about the principles underlying the laws to obey them entirely.
He strolled through the warehouse, a policeman’s incapacitator on his right hip. Grandy, when he’d been a cop, had carried a revolver that fired lead slugs. There were plenty of those old weapons still out there, but they were now considered too barbaric for officers of the law. The logic made sense: incapacitators and slumberguns were both more effective than lead-shooters in neutralizing a criminal since the blast cone was larger and even a sidelong hit would paralyze a man. But every time Dominic had pulled his weapon against a criminal firing lead, he’d felt the difference with every heartbeat. He could die. The other man could not. Efficient or not, criminals’ psychological advantage was a bitch and a half.
Not for the first time, Dominic wondered why the only people who had to follow rules were those who made them. And also not for the first time, that inequity made him feel slightly better about doing what he felt was right, even though everyone else — including the police department he’d given his life to — would judge him as wrong.
Dominic heard the crunch of glass then looked up to see Omar walking toward him. The man could walk as quietly as a cat if he wanted, but he said that when he met with people, it was best if they were aware of his approach…except when he planned to burn them.
Dominic’s hand flinched toward the small, pistol-shaped incapacitator, but it was only instinct and hopped-up nerves. He let the hand relax, and Omar smiled.
“Every time, you make to shoot me, Dom,” he said. He was wearing a white suit that would have been ridiculous if it weren’t so perfectly cut. He somehow pulled off a look no one else could, as much the trustworthy portfolio manager he was by day as the kingpin he was by night. Omar’s skin was very black, and his wide grin seemed to float above it. The look was disarming. When most people smiled like that, Dominic’s bullshit meter screamed murder. When Omar did it, the smile was so overt it felt like it had to be genuine, which it almost never was.
“I hate places like this,” Dominic said.
“I keep telling you, I’ll meet you in my office downtown,” said Omar. “You’re almost in my financial manager client base anyway. What do you make working captain at DZPD?”
“Enough,” said Dominic, annoyed. It was strange to have your drug supplier offer to manage your mutual funds and investments, but Omar did have a stellar track record for making rich people richer…while, Dominic felt sure, skimming plenty off the top for himself.
“You act guilty, Dom,” said Omar. “That’s your problem. That’s the difference between you and me. Me, I don’t think there’s anything wrong with what I’m doing. I see needs and fill them. You do the same, but without the sharp edges and without the need for this stuff.” Omar tapped his chest, which Dominic knew had been reinforced beneath the skin with a bulletproof mesh of carbon nanotubes. “You act like a straight man, people will see you as a straight man. On the other hand, if you insist on meeting your partners in a place like this? Well, then you look like you have something to hide.”
“I need dust,” said Dominic.
“Shit. And you blurt things out like that. What’s wrong with you, Dom? What if I were wearing a wire? What if NPS had sent me here to set you up?”
Dominic felt himself scowl, wishing he could be as cool and cavalier as Omar. Omar shot his cuffs, adjusted his band tie, and tipped a stylish white hat perched atop his head. He had a scruffy little goatee and two sliver studs through each ear. Dominic couldn’t pull off anything like it. If Dominic tried to play dress-up, he’d look like a wannabe pimp or a target, or probably both. And while Omar could joke with a smile about getting caught and shot, Dominic stuttered and said everything wrong. God help him if he ever had to deal with someone more intimidating than Omar. Right now, Dominic made money for Omar, and Omar was enough of a businessman to respect their relationship as sacred. Yes, Omar had made it to Presque Beau status by brute force, but the elite still trusted him to manage their millions and billions. Why? Because in the end, business was business. Omar skimmed from his clients and used that plus his legitimate income to fund his moondust and arms dealings, but it was still in his best interest to make money for everyone. Somehow, all of his clients — both on the legitimate and criminal sides — knew it.
“Goddammit, Omar.”
“Relax, Dom. I have your rocks. But you’ve gotta do me a favor.”
“What?” Dominic felt like the vein in his forehead might pop. He didn’t know if he was more angry or afraid.
“You’ve gotta breathe. This here? This is a transaction. It ain’t a drug deal. You’re not doing anything wrong. Well, other than breaking the law.” He laughed. “You ever feel like you’ve been doing something wrong?”
“Just give me the rocks, Omar.”
Omar shook his finger at Dominic. An expensive watch, worn entirely for flash, danced on his wrist. He smiled that disarming smile again.
“You made me come here, Dom!” he said. “Your choice. It’s not like a few Ms take up a lot of space. You could have walked into my office and walked out — just another up-and-comer using my excellent services and bringing his briefcase full of nothin’ with him. So if you want to play dirty, I ain’t giving you shit until you admit to the drama.”
“Okay,” said Dominic, extending his hand. “I’m being dramatic.”
“And that you could have bought moondust from me in my office rather than making me come somewhere like this every damned time.”
“Fine, fine.”
“Say it, my friend! Sing it out!”
“I don’t need to buy dust from you in places like this.”
“And you’re a good man, too, Dom. Are you doing this dust yourself? Are you selling it on the street?”
“Noah Fucking West.”
“Hey,” said Omar, holding up his hands and feigning offense. “I’m just looking out for you. How’s your blood pressure? How’s your stress level?”
“Not good,” Dominic admitted.
“Look at you. I’m a businessman. You die, I’ve got a problem.
You get pinched because you’re acting like a spook, I’ve got a problem. So tell me, Dom. Are you selling the shit?”
“I’m giving it to Organa,” said Dominic. He tried to breathe. This was just like Omar, to rehash things they’d discussed again and again just for an extra glimmer of clarity. Dominic wanted to be annoyed, but like Omar’s smile, his manner was disarming. He made his clients feel confident and strong, and they always felt like they owed him. If someone made you feel good about what you were doing, why wouldn’t you keep doing it? Omar was a self-serving, manipulative son of a bitch who acted differently with every person he talked to, depending on what he needed from them. Omar was always looking out for number one. Dominic knew Omar all too well, but that didn’t change how he felt. You might know to never turn your back on Omar, but it was impossible not to like him just the same.
“You’re a freedom fighter,” said Omar, nodding.
“In a way.”
“You help people. Like your sister. What was her name?”
“Chrissy.”
“You kept her from Respero. Like that old man.”
“I guess.”
“I still don’t know how you did that.”
Dominic took a deep breath and shrugged. “I guess there are benefits to being the chief of police. You have access to a lot of records.”
“Ain’t that right.”
“Yes,” said Dominic, feeling noticeably better and hating himself a little for it. “Now, on that helping people thing, I’ve got a lot of people who are low because Jameson got pinched.”
“I hate to tell you this,” said Omar, “but it serves you right, using Jameson. You should stick with a pro.” He touched his own chest. “You know I don’t fuck around. Not that I’m angry about it, but that’s how I felt when you stepped in to begin with. You’re just an extra moving piece here, Dom. It’s like you don’t trust me. You think I was scamming them, without you here to watch me?”