The Beam- The Complete Series

by Sean Platt

  “I wouldn’t do that to a partner, Dom. You’ll see. What benefits you benefits me. Screwing you over is the worst thing I could do to myself. In fact, I’ll…”

  “One hour,” said Dominic. “The main green on the lower level.” And then he hung up without waiting for a response.

  He pulled the vial from his pocket, opened it, and looked at the tiny rocks inside. He thought about the little bag that Omar would give him in an hour, and how it would fill his vial without brushing Leo’s coffers.

  Dominic looked at his handheld and the connection he’d just ended.

  “You’d better impress me, you slippery motherfucker,” he told it.

  Kate watched Omar as he spoke to the holo rectangle he’d opened in front of him. The mall’s canvas had top-end projectors, but the tasked hologram was less than impressive. It was flat black, read Call in progress through the center, and had a timer below ticking off the call’s duration. Kate wondered why he didn’t close it and talk into his mobile, but Omar was a very specific kind of optimist — the kind who planned on getting what he wanted because he was usually able to talk his way into anything. He seemed to be hoping to wear the man down, and move to visual.

  Feeling a mixture of nerves and irritation, Kate watched the black rectangle, smirking. Apparently, the other end of Omar’s call wasn’t quite as pliable as he was hoping.

  “This is you and me and Kate working together,” said Omar. “Partners, not promises. So you’ll have your control.”

  Kate’s ears perked up. Across from her, Jimmy was still idly sipping his Orange Julius. As she watched, he reached the bottom of the cup, and his sipping turned to a noisy slurping. Omar looked at him with irritation.

  Partners, not promises.

  If she wanted, Kate could probably take heart from that. She could decide that Omar really did see how keeping her alive was better than killing her, and how working with her was better than finding someone new. She could choose to believe that Jimmy wouldn’t end up slipping a blade between her ribs the minute they were in private. She could believe that she might already be moving up within Omar’s organization despite her fuckup on the moon and despite the fact that Omar had to know who she was — or, perhaps more accurately, who she’d once been.

  But this was Omar, and a promise of partnership was only a promise, made to be broken.

  Omar smiled. “Top-notch runner. I’ll tell you why she’s so top-notch when you get here, because it’s nothing I want to say even over your line.” He paused to wink at Kate then to slide his eyes up and down her body, seeming to indicate how “top-notch” she really was.

  But Omar had to know about Doc, right?

  Kate had looked down at her nonexistent tattoo watch to check the time, and Omar had given her that big smile when he’d seen her do it. Except that he hadn’t just seen it; he’d anticipated it. The glance hadn’t given Kate away; it was just the coffin’s nail, confirming what Omar already somehow knew. The answer was so obvious, and yet the big reveal had died immediately and hadn’t been so much as mentioned after it had occurred. But that was Omar for you — always playing games.

  Kate tried to read Omar. She’d been a salesperson all her (his?) life, even before she’d (he’d?) ever sold anything. The most important weapon in a salesperson’s arsenal was the ability to see who their prospect truly was, what he wanted, and what his mood was at any given moment. But Omar was a salesman too, and Omar had far fewer morals than even Kate’s meager handful of scruples. Omar was a big bag of tricks, as adept at hiding as she was at seeking.

  Instead of calling Kate on who she’d once been — and all the history between them, both good and bad — he’d simply announced that he had an idea. A really, really, really good idea. And that was one thing that Kate could read on Omar. He was genuinely enthusiastic about the idea, the way he got when he’d solved a problem that had been dogging him for ages. But he didn’t say what the idea was. He’d just called this person, this “Dominic,” and had started talking to him about moondust. About the moondust that Kate, sitting beside Omar and wondering if she was soon to be summarily executed, had failed to deliver.

  She listened as Omar told the man that he trusted Kate because she had a secret and a past. She listened as Omar tried to convince the man to join them for some undisclosed business. As nervous as she felt, Kate was amused by Omar’s gall. He’d laid out a grand plan, surely constructing a hard-working partnership in his mind, without so much as checking in with two-thirds of the proposed troika. Omar was the kind of man who would draw celebrities to an event by bragging of other celebrities he’d wrangled then go out later and gather his already-promised celebrities by promising those he’d just convinced.

  “Hey, Katie,” said Omar, looking over, “didn’t Jimmy get you an Orange Julius?”

  Kate turned. Omar was looking right at her.

  “Are you talking to me?”

  Omar held up a finger and turned away, touching his ear.

  “I need time to get your shit. And I want to keep Katie with me until I meet with the big, bad police captain, so Jimmy’s sorry ass needs to tag along.”

  Shit.

  Well, that was classic Omar, too. Kate couldn’t believe she’d doubted him. Control of the situation slid smoothly back into his court as Kate realized who he was talking to. The name “Dominic Long” had sounded familiar when Omar had asked the secured canvas for a call; now Kate realized why. She’d seen the name on DZ sector Beam Headlines, heading stories about busts. He was a captain in the DZPD. The kind of person who, moondust sideline aside, might be very interested in a smuggler and a killer. The kind of person who might be interested in Doc Stahl’s past transgressions. A cop crooked enough to work with Omar, apparently, with few boundaries. The kind of a man, maybe, who could take a woman’s dead body and ensure that her murder never surfaced in any official reports.

  Be cool, Kate told herself. He’s trying to get the cop to come here, not reading the cop your stats.

  That was true. And, she realized, so was something else. Kate recognized the way Omar was talking to Dominic because it was how he talked to everyone. He was twirling Captain Long around his finger, driving him into something, manipulating Long just as he was manipulating Kate by making this call in front of her. Omar wanted something from them both, and that meant it had to be a plan complicated enough to keep Kate alive. Why would he go to all this trouble if he was just planning to kill her? Why draw Long to meet if he merely wanted to fink on Kate and tell him her secrets? He could have done that over the voice call already.

  Omar was midsentence when the call went dead, the floating black screen flashing the now-stopped call time and the message CALL ENDED.

  He blinked, laughed, and swiped the screen away. He crossed his legs, made himself comfortable, and leaned back in his chair. Kate had gotten the gist of the conversation and knew the captain was coming. They had time to kill while they waited.

  “Well,” said Omar. “You wanna catch a movie or something?”

  “Are you kidding?” said Kate.

  “Don’t knock it until you try it. Sure, you can watch a movie anytime you want, but there’s something to be said for watching with a crowd.” He pointed. “They have an old theater at the far end. There’ll be nobody there this time of day.”

  Kate just stared.

  “Okay, that doesn’t make sense. We’ve only got an hour. Or do we? What time is it, Katie?” He laughed, looking down at her wrist.

  “Who’s coming?” said Kate.

  “Cop,” said Jimmy. “So watch your shit.” His voice had a level of menace that Omar’s didn’t. Jimmy was a manager and an enforcer. He lacked Omar’s crowd-pleasing subtlety.

  “Partner.” Omar threw Jimmy an irritated glance. “And yes, he’s a police captain. You’d do well to keep that in mind, but we’re all friends here.”

  “Are we?”

  Omar shrugged. “Of course, man.” He laughed. “Sorry. Of course, girl. I’m so use
d to talking to dudes.” He glanced at Jimmy, but Jimmy didn’t get the joke.

  “What are you going to do with me?” said Kate.

  Omar turned to Jimmy. “Hey, Jimmy. Go get me something salty. Cool?”

  Jimmy stood and walked away, toward the huts. Omar turned to Kate.

  “Look, Kate. I’m pretty sure I know something about you. I don’t want to say it out loud because, well, you never know who’s listening, and besides, some things can’t be unsaid.”

  “You just spent ten minutes talking out loud about extortion and Lunis smuggling.”

  “Then maybe I don’t want to make things uncomfortable. Maybe I kind of like the idea of a fresh start. As if we’d just met, which we absolutely just did. Maybe I want to look at your tits and not feel conflicted. Maybe I have plans that, going forward, require me to think of you as the person you are rather than someone you’re clearly not. Point is, there’s something between us, below the surface, and I think we both need to acknowledge it’s there, buried like a mine, just in case. But then I think we let it go. Say, before Jimmy gets back.”

  Kate’s eyes flicked to Jimmy.

  “He’s going to get me Cracker Jack,” Omar said, seeing her glance. “You just fucking watch. I hate Cracker Jack. It sticks to my teeth, and my nanos take hours to clear it all if I don’t get in there with a toothpick. But Jimmy always gets motherfucking Cracker Jack when I let him decide because he likes it and knows he’ll get to eat it all when I refuse. You just watch.”

  Kate watched Jimmy as he stepped onto the grass and into a small tent-like structure promising SUNDRIES.

  “I don’t miss much, Kate,” he said, again emphasizing her name. “There’s shit I’ve figured out that you don’t think I have. Shit I can predict about you and what you’re likely to do as surely as I can predict Jimmy.”

  “Maybe I’m smarter than Jimmy.”

  “I’m wasting my time if you’re not. But here’s the part where I make it not matter, just like that thing we’ve already forgotten about involving the fact that we’ve only known each other for around an hour now. I know you’re thinking of ways to run because you think I’m going to get rid of you. Or you’re thinking about ways to double-cross me. But please, don’t try.”

  She looked at the store where Jimmy had vanished. The way out was in the other direction, and Kate knew she was in far better shape than Omar. She also knew he didn’t carry weapons as a matter of pride. If she wanted to get away before the cop got there, she could.

  “I could outrun you right now.”

  Omar nodded. “I know it. And you know I know it. I sent Jimmy away so we could talk, but also so that you could decide if I’m lying.”

  “Don’t pretend you’ve never lied to me.”

  “I meant right now,” Omar countered. He wasn’t even leaning forward. Kate was. Omar was kicked back with his legs crossed and his hands on the chair’s arms, almost daring her to make a break for it. But that was the test: He’d given her an opening. Did that mean that Omar really meant no harm and wanted her to see it? Or was it one ploy nested inside another — showing her the chance, assuming she’d believe his honesty, but still holding a knife behind his back to use once she’d chosen to believe him and stay? Omar was a knot. Finding all of his ends was impossible.

  “Say I stay,” said Kate. “Why would I?”

  “Because you’re as much of self-centered son of a bi…as much of a self-centered bitch as I’m a son of one. I want you here so you can help me. You’ll benefit, but only because you have to stick around, which ultimately benefits me. You can trust that your well-being helps me be well. Same for you. You don’t have to trust me because you can trust my self-interest.”

  “You haven’t told me what’s in it for me.”

  “Money. A lot of money.”

  “Promises, promises. Tell me the plan, Buckwheat.”

  “Let’s wait for Dominic.”

  “Convenient for you. By the time he shows up, my chance to split will have vanished.”

  Omar inhaled then exhaled.

  “All right. Briefly. I used to know this man named Doc. He used to be cool, then he went and became a total cunt.”

  Kate rolled her eyes.

  “I told him once about big changes on the horizon. I showed him how I’ve got private contact information for Micah Ryan, Enterprise slugger. What I didn’t tell Doc, but that I’m telling you, is that there’s a class of people that Ryan belongs to that others don’t generally know exists.”

  “Beau Monde.”

  Omar nodded.

  “For a group nobody knows exists,” said Kate, “sure seems like everyone out there’s talkin’ about it.”

  “Not as a rumor. As a real thing. A reachable thing. A quantum leap up.”

  Kate knew the privileged class wasn’t a rumor. She had the memories to prove it was real. Knowing she was succumbing to Omar’s slippery wiles, she said, “This guy Doc you knew. Seems he mighta seen something — some technology, say — that agreed with that particular bit of tinfoil-hat paranoia.”

  “Well, I know it as a fact. Through a man I used to know, back when I was incarcerated.”

  “Maybe I was ‘incarcerated’ once too,” said Kate. “And maybe I don’t have a fuckin’ clue who you mean.”

  “It was when I was in Flat 4,” said Omar.

  Kate sat back, suddenly uninterested in running. It was convenient that Omar had met this mysterious man after being transferred away from Flat 16, where she’d done time as Doc, to Flat 4, but for some reason she didn’t think he was bluffing. Omar had spent years there before they’d met again, but he’d never talked about it. Omar talked about everything in his past, but his years in 4 were like a black period of nothingness, as if those tales were too dark to tell. Flat 4 was the most notorious of the Flat prisons. All of them were walled-off, no-rules prisons rumored to have been modeled after a twentieth century film, but Flat 4, situated on an island in the middle of the consolidated Great Lake, was a step above the rest. Flat 4 was home to criminals who were very violent or very high-profile, and the resulting criminal community was a sociological study in and of itself. It wasn’t surprising that a former inmate would have expunged memories of the place from his mind before moving on.

  “You have tales to tell about Flat 4,” said Kate. It wasn’t a question; it was a statement. She handled it like delicate glass, suddenly aware of the need to show some gravity and respect.

  “I’ll tell you later,” said Omar, “but let’s just say for now that I had a very good reason to dig as much as I have. I’ve found a few answers, but I need more. The man I have in mind? Well, I just happen to know how a police captain’s access could get us to him, and how much you, with your new wares, would appeal to him.”

  “Appeal?”

  Omar nodded.

  “So my money comes from bein’ a whore.”

  “There’s more to the story. No. Your money comes from smuggling. We’re tying a knot. It’s all bound together, and everyone benefits. But we all need to see that everyone benefits, and that removing any one of the three of us ruins shit good for everyone.”

  Kate’s chance to escape vanished as Jimmy reappeared behind Omar. Not that it mattered. Omar was right, as his calculations usually were. She’d stay because she believed enough of Omar’s story to believe that she would benefit. Omar would keep her around because that was best for him. When the cop arrived, Omar would weave them together. A team of three threaded together by greed in an unbreakable Chinese finger trap.

  “And what about the dust?” said Kate. “The situation on the moon? This guy Dominic’s need for an emergency supply?” Kate eyed Jimmy as he approached, but it was okay. Omar had already said all of this, out loud, during his phone call.

  “I have some ideas on how to handle that,” said Omar.

  Jimmy seemed to remember something as he entered the circle of chairs then handed Omar a red-and-white box of Cracker Jack.

  “Aw, man, I h
ate that shit,” Omar said, waving it away.

  Jimmy settled into his chair and opened the box with an idiot’s smile.

  By the time Sam had returned to his apartment, put some mac 'n' cheese in the cooker, burned the mac ‘n’ cheese, and gotten his papers into a sufficient nest to cable his laptop and route his connection through Beard’s Neck, Iowa, to access The Beam, he found he’d received another message from n33t.

  did some searching around and saw that integer7 shows as idle on the forums. not finding a trace of him outside null just like there’s no trace of you or me other than yr page. i have some unarticulated trust issues re: him the more i read his old stuff. don’t worry but be careful. have some time today. i’m a good snooper so give me deets of your man and let i7 go if he doesn’t return your mail. hmb w/ what you have asap. and I still don’t trust you. (tmwsd)

  Sam almost laughed. He wasn’t entirely sure how he felt, but vindication was in there somewhere. There was also some fear. Integer7 may have been idle on the forums, but he’d managed a voice call to a mobile chartered by one Samuel Dial, known as Shadow by no one, and that was either very impressive or terrifying. But Integer7 had sounded like he was trying to help rather than intimidate, and that meant that if Sam was crazy, at least he wasn’t alone.

  He began to compose a reply to n33t, already wondering if there were too many cooks with their spoons in the soup. Integer7 was a blunt hammer, and n33t was a precision scalpel. Integer7 was known for smashing, and n33t was known for investigative dissection. Shadow had involved them both because he’d been impatient and had needed immediate answers (as always; he couldn’t tolerate waiting), and the challenge now would be keeping them separate lest one smash the other’s investigation…and, of course, somehow heeding n33t’s reservations about Integer7 while still keeping both informed. Perhaps the best strategy was to play it cool and pretend all was well, which of course it very well might not be. But regardless, at this point Integer7 had a move to make, and it seemed smartest to make the most of it. The best-case scenario was a victory for Null. The worst case was a draw wherein Sam saved his neck through plausible deniability across all parties. Sometimes, if you weren’t sure you could win, it made sense to play not to lose.