Artful Evil

by C. G Harris

  “Coded to my retina what?”

  Before I could finish, a bright light flashed in my eye, and the screen came to life. Alex released her cervical crippler, and I sat back to see a fresh line of text on the screen that read Welcome, Agent Gantry. What can I help you with today?

  “Whoa, that’s pretty fancy.” Alex let go of my head, and I reached up to touch the screen. My finger landed on the word “today,” and a hailstorm of pages popped up, giving me information on everything from today’s weather, the current stock market, to the most up-to-date news.

  Alex slapped my hand down like a toddler reaching for a light socket and grabbed my wrist, forcing me to hold my right hand in the air instead.

  “Don’t touch the screen unless you want the computer to react to whatever it is you touch. The processors will try to intuit what you want based on your past actions and habits, but until it can begin to map those out, the system will be a little erratic. For now, you can control the information content, called windows, with hand gestures, like this.”

  Alex balled my hand up, leaving only two fingers out and swiped them left and right. Pictures and articles on the screen began to move and respond to my movements.

  “If you want something to go away, pinch it.” She demonstrated with my hand and one of the pages ... windows ... disappeared.

  “If you want it bigger, do this.” She splayed my fingers out, and the foremost window enlarged.

  “This is amazing.” I turned and realized her face was inches away from mine. I became overly aware of the way her hand felt on my skin. She continued to stare at the screen, but all I could think about was the closeness of her body, her hazel eyes, and her subtle lavender scent. She tried to show me another gesture, but something went wrong. She let go of my hand, and the severed connection was enough to make me look at the screen again.

  “No, not like that.”

  Windows began to open like the finale fireworks on the fourth of July.

  “Oops.” I leaned back and let Alex regain control of the runaway information while I did my best to get control of my libido. Alex was trying to teach me how to use a computer. I needed to pull it together. Handholding was a turn-on in elementary school. Calm down and be professional.

  My eyes went up to Alex, bent over and sprawled out across me to access the screen in front of her. Definitely not helpful. My mind went to places that didn’t involve any kind of computers ... or clothing.

  I spun my chair to the side and counted wall fibers while Alex regained control of the information systems.

  “All right. Why don’t we start over?” Alex backed up, and the screen had changed to black again, displaying the welcome text once again.

  She went to reach for my hand, but I shrugged her off. “Maybe you could just show me what to do with your hand, and I will imitate what you do.”

  That drew an odd look for a second, but she settled into her chair and complied. “First, what is something or someone we can search? And don’t say ‘Simeon.’”

  She took the words out of my mouth. Fair enough. There would be plenty of time for me to do my own searching once I got the hang of this thing. “How about Zoe? We could do a background search on her. That should be innocent enough.”

  Alex nodded. “Okay. Hold your fingers like this.” She showed me a hand gesture that looked something like hooking the air with my index finger. When I copied the gesture, a text box appeared.

  “The Judas Agency servers pull from a lot more than Wikipedia and Google. We have access to everything from phone records to web histories to traffic cams. We can back-trace someone’s movements through almost any point in time. Our servers save and catalog every bit of information collected from every source on the planet. The concept is almost inconceivable, yet we have been doing it for as long as man has put chisel to stone.”

  Alex looked at me, and I stared back at her, my hand still in the air, finger still hooked, and a blank look in my eyes.

  “You have no idea what I’m talking about, do you?”

  “You lost me at Waikiki.”

  She rolled her eyes and reached out to turn my head toward the screen. “Never mind. Just say Zoe’s full name. It helps to keep a picture of her in your mind too. The system can intuit your intent through your thoughts to some extent as well. It helps to narrow the search.”

  I turned and looked at Alex again, hand still in the air. “You mean this thing can read my mind?” I whispered, as if that would keep it from hearing me.

  “Not exactly,” she said. “I’m not even sure how that part works. All I know is you enter a hard search term, like a name, and then concentrate on who it is you are looking for, and the system narrows your search into usable information rather than giving you every Zoe Grenon ever born in the history of man.”

  “Wow.” I turned back to the screen again, over-annunciated Zoe’s full name loud enough to frighten the wallpaper, then did my best to concentrate on her—definitely not on Alex—and my thoughts from a few moments earlier.

  Alex snorted out a laugh. “I just told you the computer can read your mind, but somehow, you still think it’s deaf.”

  We both leaned into the screen with anticipation. When the first article popped up, Alex squelched her giggles, and we sat there speechless.

  Zoe Grenon, Indicted on Multiple Counts of Domestic Terrorism and Murder.

  Chapter Seventeen

  Alex and I stared at the screen for several seconds in disbelief. I think I read the headline half a dozen times, changing the inflection on each word as if somehow that would alter the meaning. It didn’t. Zoe, our Zoe, was a cold-blooded murderer.

  “Hold on,” Alex said, breaking the silence. “Were you thinking of her when you started the search?”

  She was obviously trying to find ways to discount the impossible headline as well. My eyes went to the mug shot about halfway down on the screen where Zoe held a board with her name printed out in removable plastic letters. I pointed to it, removing any thought that this article had been written about some other domestic terrorist named Zoe Grenon. It was definitely about our friend.

  Without saying another word, both our eyes went to the text on the screen, highlighting the story below.

  * * *

  Authorities today arrested a primary suspect in the Central Heights Apartment bombing. Current reports have the death toll at over two hundred. No survivors of the incident have been found. Zoe Grenon was arrested on multiple counts of premeditated murder and domestic terrorism. She is not expected to be released on bond. A connection between Zoe Grenon’s family and potential gang violence may have attributed to the bombing.

  * * *

  The article went on to describe how an apartment building had been leveled to the ground using a series of home-made explosives. It took weeks for the authorities to sift through the rubble and find everyone. A horrific crime. Unforgivable and unwarranted.

  “Trade me places for a minute.” Alex stood up, no longer willing to watch this catastrophe unfold from the passenger’s chair. “School’s out for now. Let me show you what this thing can do.”

  I got up, and she sat down in my seat while I sank back into the one she had occupied a moment earlier. Her hand hung in the air and began an acrobatic routine of subtle gestures. Pictures and videos started to appear on the screen. News feeds, magazine and newspaper articles. They painted a picture of Zoe’s sister, a social worker dedicated to helping underprivileged kids. She had crossed paths with a gang member and wound up tangled in violence. She lost her life trying to help him, spurring Zoe to take revenge on a massive scale. She had destroyed an apartment building to wipe out the local gang. Families died in the process ... innocent mothers, fathers, children. A few gang members hadn’t been home that night. They survived. They took revenge on Zoe by murdering her family, then they had gotten to her in prison as well.

  Tears welled into my eyes, blurring the words on the screen. Zoe had gone through so much. How could she have do
ne such a thing? I always assumed her time as a Disposable had soured her spirit, but it had happened much earlier. No one could survive an ordeal like that unscarred. So much anger. So much unwarranted death and retribution. I didn’t even know what to say.

  Alex pulled up a series of video feeds. They weren’t something any news channel could access. These were all at odd angles and often filmed with shaky hands. I recognized many of them as security camera feeds; although, I wasn’t sure where the other angles had come from.

  As if in answer, Alex began to explain. “These are a series of pirated videos—security cameras, cell phones, traffic cams—all following Zoe the night she allegedly destroyed the building.”

  I couldn’t help but notice her use of the word “allegedly,” proving she had as much trouble believing this as I did.

  “Here she is, walking up the street.”

  The camera angles became fast and erratic. Some were clear, others were far off and grainy, but there was no doubt every one depicted Zoe walking up the sidewalk on a rainy night. She wore jeans and a red plaid shirt. She was soaked to the bone and kept her hands shoved into her pockets as she went. After a few minutes, she found an overhang and paused. I thought maybe she was waiting for the rain to let up, but the more I looked, the more I realized she was watching something. She stared off into the darkness, her every muscle growing tense.

  “What is she—”

  There was no sound attached to the video, but we didn’t need it. She pulled out her cell phone, and her thumb sailed over the screen, entering a number. We could see in her face the moment the blast occurred. First, she jumped. Then a smile crept onto her lips. Then as the building fell into a pile of dusty blood and rubble, her face changed. First to horror, then sadness, then shame. She stood there watching the whole thing. She never left until the first wave of flashing lights arrived. When they did, she put her head down and headed off, disappearing into the darkness.

  Alex let the image hang on the screen for a moment then pinched her fingers and closed it out. We sat there in silence. Then I sat back in my chair, running my hands over my head in shock.

  “What are we supposed to do with that?”

  Alex spun her chair around to face me, shaking her head. “Not one thing. We never saw it.”

  “What do you mean we never saw it? You don’t un-see something like that.”

  Alex sat forward in her chair, folded her hands, and regarded me with soft eyes. “We dove into her past without asking. This is obviously something she’s not ready to talk about, at least not to us. Until she is, you and I need to respect that.”

  I scowled and rubbed my palms into my eyes. “I just don’t think I can ever look at her the same way.”

  “Me either. So what? Zoe’s our friend. If you want to keep it that way, don’t mention this mess to her. Not ever.”

  I groaned. “Fine.”

  We both sat there in silence for several minutes staring at the grey ... well, everything, then Alex stood up and smacked me on the shoulder.

  “Come on. I have just the thing to get your mind off this mess.”

  I looked up at her and raised an eyebrow.

  “Get up. We’re going Topside. I want to take a look at the site where the train is going to go off the tracks.”

  Alex headed off without waiting for me to follow. I rested my face in my hands. How had this happened? A week ago, I would have said Zoe and Alex were two of the most kindhearted people I knew. Rough around the edges, but they would stand in front of a bus before they let it run down a wayward kitten. Today, Zoe turns out to be a mass murdering terrorist, and my partner wants to one up her by derailing a train into a city. At this rate, I’d be bosom buddies with Hitler by dinner. I needed to figure out how to turn things around or find a way to make some new friends.

  Chapter Eighteen

  “Are you trying to get worse at this?” Alex’s muffled voice came through the wall as she pounded on the outside of an empty hopper car. It was the kind used to haul coal, rock, or any number of other inert commodities, and right now, the car contained me.

  I tilted my head up to the sky and shouted. “It’s not like I’m doing this on purpose.” The echo of my voice rang inside the black walled coal car, making me sound like a whiny, prepubescent robot.

  “Are you sure? Because it sort of looks like you are.”

  I surveyed my situation then backed up to get a run at the slanted ends of the enclosure. Two things became immediately apparent. Coal dust on metal worked something like Crisco on ice, and the slanted side of a hopper car bore a remarkable resemblance to my nightmarish childhood memories of a sun searing slide in the middle of summer playground. The second my feet hit the sloping metal, they shot out from under me, pancaking my body onto the filthy, scalding steel like a hot Gabe omelet. I half slid, half flailed my way back down, trying not to fry any more of my skin than I had to. No, it was not a major wound. And yes, it would heal, but it still hurt.

  When the echoed remains of my escape attempt subsided, Alex tapped on the side of the car again.

  “You doing okay in there? Sounds like you’re wrestling a kangaroo ... and losing. Stop flopping around and get out here before someone sees me.”

  I rolled my eyes. “I’m sorry this is so inconvenient for you.”

  I backed up again, adjusting my acceleration and leap calculations to account for the Teflon coated man fryer and tried again. This time, I was more careful in my footing and made it three steps before my traction gave out and landed me face first onto the steel.

  Fortunately, it was just far enough for me to grab onto the top edge of the rail car. I pulled as hard as I could, and a few awkward slip-steps later, I was off the hot metal and over the side, climbing down the exterior ladder mounted on the car. When I turned to face Alex, she took two steps back and burst out laughing.

  “What did you do? Roll around in the coal dust before you came out?” She snorted. “You would have been better off climbing out the exhaust of a diesel truck.”

  I held up my hands and saw that they were jet black, along with my sleeves, chest, and pants. Even my shoes were covered in the inky dust from inside the car. “This is great. Now what am I supposed to do?”

  We stood in a train yard full of cars and rows of parallel tracks. The only items we had to work with were the gravel under our feet and the open air.

  Alex shook her head as she surveyed the damage. “I even showed you where to land. All you had to do was concentrate on the ground.”

  “Until an open rail car presented itself as a target,” I shouted. “How do you ignore something like that?”

  “You just have to notice it, then let it fall away. You can’t let everything you see dictate where you’re going to wind up in a Splice landing. Sooner or later, there will be a pool of rainwater rather than a rail car or a pile of manure. Hit that and you’re toast.”

  Rainwater acted like a Niner’s kryptonite. Something about the way we’re made up or the way The Nine was put together. If we got caught in the rain or touched rainwater, it was Dorothy and the Wicked Witch of the West all over again. It only happened with the stuff straight from the sky though. Any other form of the wet stuff was fine. I tried to reason out the logic part of that whole thing, but it just made my head hurt. Instead, I made a note to remember. Rainwater bad. And don’t forget it.

  “Well, I can’t wander around town looking like this,” I said. “What are we going to do?”

  Alex thought for a minute, then smiled. “Come on, I have an idea.”

  Chapter Nineteen

  Whenever Alex said she had a good idea, it usually meant the idea was good for her, not me.

  “Hold your arms out wide,” she shouted over the roar of spraying water, and I shut my eyes and waited for the blast.

  The car wash wand she held in her hand hammered me with what felt like a thousand gallons a minute. I had to brace a foot to keep from falling flat on my back. The fabric on my coat rippled and whippe
d in defiance as she blasted away the coal dust. I stood in a pool of black ink as it ran down my legs and onto the concrete floor.

  Alex let off the trigger and hit me in the face with a less pressurized blast of frigid water. I guess I should be grateful for small favors. I withstood the onslaught of water as long as I could, then when it began to feel more like a waterboarding than a washing, I pulled my arms in and held my hands in front of my face.

  “All right, that’s enough!”

  Alex laughed. “Aww, come on. I haven’t had this much fun since we landed in that haunted house together.” She withdrew the spray from my face, aimed it at my crotch, and pulled the trigger again, blasting me again and making me jump.

  “Ha, ha. You are hilarious.”

  Alex burst out laughing and then made a twirly motion with her fingers. “Turn around, so I can get your back.”

  I complied, and Alex finished my torture wash, then hung the wand back in its rack.

  “Next time you have a good idea, remind me to run the other way.”

  Alex scoffed. “I think that was pure genius. I’ll bet you’re barely even damp under all that Gore-Tex.”

  She was right. Thanks to our unhealthy allergy to rainwater, we both had a waterproof adaptation to a Topside safari outfit. Alex wore long boots and a waterproof coat that reached almost all the way to the ground. It hung open most of the time, revealing her t-shirt and jeans, torn in just the right places to display all her tattoos.

  I, on the other hand, wore a lightweight coat and pants made out of Gore-Tex. Alex had spotted the outfit in an outdoor sports store during one of our first trips Topside together. It was a patchwork of brown and orange in ways that made the manufacturer seem colorblind. All in all, I had gotten used to the odd ensemble. I thought of it as my Superman suit without the S ... or the package enhancing tights.