Neon Haze: Snakes and Roses

by Chris Sherrit

  “I’ll go get the doc,” he says turning and exiting up the stairs.

  Dixon takes a deep breath and does his best to push the feelings deep down inside, like he has done his entire life. Forcing himself to use the arm and learn how much control he has; opening the hand and closing it into a fist, after a minute he links his fingers with it, closing the grip and feeling how strong it actually is. A tear creeps out and runs down his cheek.

  Gripping harder he feels the raw strength the arm has. Nearly crushing every bone in his remaining hand. He releases the grip and shakes the pain out before wiping the tear from his face.

  “Ah! I see you’re getting to grips with it quite literally” A foreign accent comes from the doorway. Dixon looks over to see Jimmy enter with the ‘doctor’, presumably.

  “I am Frederick Richter,” The man says taking up a spot at one side of the bed, Jimmy standing opposite.

  “Doctor?” Dixon asks.

  “I was, a former brain surgeon in western Germany before Fenghuang ran me out” His German accent amplifying his contempt for the company. “However my specialist surgical credentials are not recognized here. I’d have to spend ten years learning Halos techniques of medicine.” Rolling his r’s, his tone lightens. “I’ve spent the better part of my life dedicated to medicine, I’d rather help the common man than their executive ranks.”

  Dixon leans up from the bed, moving each finger individually. “Well, you fixed my arm and stopped me from losing all my human juice. We’ll call you, doc” Dixon smiles as he looks at Jimmy and the doctor. Jimmy nods approvingly.

  “Thank you, gentlemen” the doctor walks away from the bed, tapping his fingertips together. “The arm needs roughly two weeks of physical therapy and adjustment to become second nature to you. I suspect you gentlemen don’t have that kind of time to waist.”

  “Not wrong there, doc,” Jimmy says.

  “Well, as long as you take care with it while mashing gangs faces in, then you should be back to full working order within two months I’d say then.” The doc links his fingers and rests his arms in front of himself.

  Dixon looks at Jimmy, shrugs and says “Works for me. I can still pull a trigger” he winks.

  “Wunderbar!” The doctor smiles. “My work appears to be done for now then gentlemen. I’ll give you the room for twenty minutes to collect yourselves and your things. I have an appointment coming in after that by, which time you will have to be gone.”

  “No problems, doc” Jimmy thanks the doctor with a salute. Dixon nods, and the doctor exits up the stairs.

  Jimmy turns to Dixon as the footsteps from the stairs get quieter. “So, after you plugged Chester” Dixon smiles as he recalls the moment, “I swiped these”. Jimmy reaches into his jacket and pulls out the folder containing the paper legal documents, the Fenghuang and Halo logos on the front. Dixon’s eyes light up again, he swivels off the bed and grabs the folder. Splotches of blood stain the folder and have seeped into the pages. Dixon flicks through them as his smile grows.

  “Beautiful” Dixon remarks.

  “While you were out, I tapped into LAF, there’s something else, Dix,” Jimmy says, getting serious again.

  “Huh?” Dixon turns to Jimmy.

  “The database has flagged up a potential threat to Sadie as well. Apparently, Halo noticed her poking around and lingering on files. They’ve issued a warrant for her.” Jimmy looks at Dixon in concern.

  “A warrant? She must have got out and made a run for it. Where would she go?” Dixon’s face breaking from its usual rock like expression.

  Jimmy ponders for a few seconds. “She’s a smart cookie, she probably bolted as soon as she sent the files.”

  Dixon rises from the bed, holding his arm with some care as he extends it. Checking the range of motion, his face cringes a little at the stiffness and slight pain he feels. He tosses the file to Jimmy and grabs his jacket. Gripping the collar and throwing the jacket around himself, Dixon pushes his arm down the sleeve like he’s done a thousand times from muscle memory.

  Jimmy giggles under his breath as Dixon’s arm misses the sleeve of the jacket and folds as he tries to adjust it. His elbow instead goes into the sleeve first. Dixon stops for a second, trapped in his jacket, and looking at Jimmy - entirely unimpressed. He manages eventually to shrug the jacket off his arm and slip the sleeve on. He pulls it tightly around himself and checks his arm again.

  Jimmy walks over to the staircase with a comical butler pose, bowing and gesturing up the stairs. Dixon nudges him as he passes.

  “Ooh, he puts on a jacket!”

  Chapter 16

  Leaving the stitcher’s shop, Dixon looks around, realising they were only a couple of blocks over from Chester’s building, and into an alleyway. Formerly the Chinatown area of the city, it had since become a bit of a slum neighbourhood, the odd shop dotted throughout the streets hidden under the cover of poverty-stricken homes. Black market weapons were rife through this area. Not much surprise that Fenghuang had situated one of their largest towers here for their staff and morally ambiguous people to live in.

  Wasting no time in getting out of the area, Jimmy and Dixon were less focused on not getting shot by a passer-by, but more so on getting to wherever Sadie had fled.

  “You know where she regularly goes?” Dixon asks.

  “She’s your ex-wife, man,” Jimmy says trying to speed around traffic.

  “Don’t know if you noticed buddy, I’ve basically been in a drunk coma for the past few years.” Says Dixon.

  “You think she went home?” Jimmy says

  “No, she’s smarter than that. She’d know not to go there. That’s the first place they’d go looking.” Dixon tries to think, but gets lost in anger.

  After a minute of silence while they two of them think Jimmy pipes up, “Ok, hang on”. He paws at the display, a line fades into view and responds.

  “Detective Kershon, how may I assist,” a polite voice asks.

  “Sadie Knight’s address, give it to me.” Jimmy’s eyes don’t leave the road as he swerves left and right around vehicles and crowds of shouting pedestrians.

  “Sadie Knight, Apartment J, Apollo Gardens” The voice states clearly. Jimmy taps the display again and it fades to darkness.

  “We don’t have any other leads. We go there.” Jimmy says. Dixon tries to think of an argument against it, finding nothing, he agrees.

  Pulling into the neighbourhood where Sadie’s building is situated, the comparison is almost night and day. Nine square blocks encapsulate the tower that Sadie stays in, and each of them looks like their own utopia. Large white buildings stretch to the clouds, some of them split in the middle, being held together by the elevators ascending through the gaps. Trees and exotic looking vegetation fill the gaps also, wrapped in ten-foot thick glass. Every amazing construction looking like some kind of spaceship that was waiting to launch into space.

  Jimmy stops the car outside Sadie’s building. They step out and immediately look at each other in shock, taking huge gulps of air as they realise that it almost tastes delicious. The pureness of everything around them bringing on a calm sense of joy. No wonder everyone walking around the area has a content smile fixed over their face.

  They make their way to the building entrance, both with a slight gape on their faces. A couple of people nearly bump into them, but instead slow or stop in place to pass a polite welcoming pleasantry. Jimmy does his best to keep a somewhat fierce demeanour, expecting that they would have some trouble getting into the building, as they did with the Halo headquarters. Everyone else seemed to be wearing the standard Halo white and blue fashion, making them stick out like sore thumbs. Dixon alone stood out in most crowds thanks to his abnormal size. Strange, Jimmy felt, that after all the effort he himself put into looking good so he could stand out. Now he wished he could blend in.

  “Good day, gentlemen. Please speak to our receptionist Jonie at the desk if you have any enquiries or appointments” A voice grabbed them. Spinn
ing a couple of times they realise that the voice was coming from the building itself. No display with an AI face, no terminal, no drone, nothing for them to focus on. Instead, the entrance and walls themselves warped thin blue lines in accordance with the words. “Please, enter” it spoke again.

  Walking in, they both notice how open this floor of the building is; almost entirely bare save for a few small seating areas and a bank of lifts and stairs on the right-hand side. To the left a desk with a tall smiling woman, seated, staring out like a spotlight.

  “Gentlemen, welcome to Apollo Gardens, my name is Jonie. I’d be more than happy to help you with any questions you have while you are here.” Her voice almost piercing in its attempt to be friendly. Dixon raises an eyebrow, every time he’d been spoken to like that it was either just before he got punched in the face or thrown out of the bar he was drinking in.

  Jimmy smiles as best he can while feeling uncomfortable, noticing how attractive the woman is. Looking young and fresh-eyed, she couldn’t have been older than twenty-three, her white hair perfectly straight sitting on her shoulders almost like a designer hood. Beaming blue eyes stared back with a similar shade on her plump lips.

  “Hi, uh, Jonie.” She turns to face Jimmy as he approaches and leans on the desk, doing his best to look cool. Her almost inhuman movements pushing Jimmy back off the desk, standing and putting his hands into his pockets awkwardly.

  He shakes his nerves “I’m…“

  “Detective Kershon, of the LAF” Jonie cuts him off, her smile wide like a puppet. Her eye implants circling blue digital designs.

  “Right, and this is-“

  “Dixon Callaway, formerly of the LAF. Ex-husband of Sadie Knight, who stays right here at Apollo Gardens”. She flashes her smile in Dixon’s direction. He turns his head away slightly, frowning at the young woman.

  “Is that why you are here? To see Miss Knight? I can contact her right away and announce your arrival” Jonie’s eyes drop behind the desk, her fingers furiously firing away at the keyboard.

  “No, no, that’s alright,” Jimmy says, jumping back a little as Jonie locks her vision on him again. “If you could just tell us the floor she’s on that would be great.”

  Jonie’s head tilts a little bit. If she was actually a robot, this uncanny valley like creation could be about to break. Instead, her head springs back to its original position.

  “It’s a surprise” Dixon grumbles. Stepping closer to the desk, Jonie’s head almost unhinges as she looks up.

  She smiles wider “Certainly gentlemen. Simply take the far right lift at the bank back there, the building will do the rest.”

  Jimmy looks at the bank of lifts and spots the far right one mentioned. It’s already open and waiting patiently. Nobody enters it, instead they all funnel into the other lifts and up the stairs. “Thank you, Jonie. Have a good day” Jimmy says, trying to flirt with a wink as he begins to walk off with Dixon. Jonie’s eyes slowly swivel back to their default position.

  “You think she’s real?” Jimmy mumbles to Dixon.

  “She certainly isn’t normal,” says Dixon.

  “She is gorgeous though.” Jimmy smiles, as they approach the lift.

  “You’re not normal either” Dixon mocks. They enter the lift and the doors close gently. A slight jolt hits them as the lift cabin launches up through the building, the glass chamber giving the full view as they ascend. They pass through a garden chamber and see small animal life living amongst the trees and bushes.

  The chamber slows and halts at the floor with a friendly voice stating “Arrived at destination.” They step out of the cabin and to another large hub like area. White walls, roof and ceiling surround them with the other lift tubes sitting in the middle of the room. Nobody is around and the silence is deafening as they look around, unaware of where to go. A light quickly shoots across the room from several directions. They culminate on the nearest wall and fade into a green blip, flashing slowly.

  “Greeny!” Jimmy celebrates.

  Dixon sighs and follows Jimmy and the lights, “Fuck!”

  Jimmy’s electronic friend leads them around to the other side of the floor and blips a few times at a door. He looks back at Dixon as they arrive, and gestures at the light as it fades.

  “Get a girlfriend already,” Dixon says, as he steps towards the door to Sadie’s apartment. He knocks on the door and it swings open. The two look at each other, Jimmy pulling his pistol out of his holster, Dixon wishing he’d taken his mag rifle. Instead, he grimaces at his new arm, managing to ball a fist, the rubber fingertips creaking as it tightens. His other hand white with anticipation, they push open the door fully, and enter.

  Jimmy leads with his pistol pointed steadily in front. The place isn’t as big as Chester Lopez’s, but is still of a decent size. The biggest difference from the Fenghuang accommodation is the minimalist look. A large living room caters to one white sofa and one white coffee table. Both would no doubt be facing the large window had they not been knocked over.

  Jimmy quickly looks back to Dixon. “You check the right, I’ll check left”. Dixon nods and slides off to the right. A short corridor leads to a kitchen, the countertops only highlighted from the dazzling white by a blue outline. Drawers have been ripped open, cupboards nearly hang from their hinges and their contents have poured out onto the floor. Inching further down the corridor, Dixon finds the bathroom. Again a pure white room with toiletries, towels and cleaning products thrown about the place, the glass wall of the walk-in shower smashed along with the mirror above the sink.

  Dixon exits the corridor again and checks the last door at the end, tossing open the door he finds a simple storage area. A couple of cleaning bots sit on the floor, one of them smashed to pieces. The shelves in the cupboard a mess of blankets and appliances. Finding nothing he turns and runs back in Jimmy’s direction. Finding a large bedroom covered in clothes and nothing else he continues to the last room.

  As he bursts into the room Jimmy whips his pistol up aiming at him. He exhales sharply and lowers his gun.

  “Nearly put a hole in that ugly face of yours” He jokes, Dixon flips him the bird. He stands on the other side of a desk, Sadie’s office looking more torn to pieces than the rest of the apartment. This room stands out more so due to the old furniture littered around.

  “Almost feels like a secret den having all this old wood stuff around”. Jimmy sifts through piles of personal belongings on the large table. Photobooks and picture frames catch his eye as he flips the chair over from the floor and sits down.

  “She always did like old pieces like that,” Dixon says, picking up an old chair that he remembers buying with Sadie a year after they were married. She found it at an old market, Dixon had no interest in going, but she managed to drag him along. Her charm held almost infinite power over him. He preferred the more relaxed sedentary lifestyle at that point; put on a movie with his wife and discuss who the worst actor was over a couple of bottles of wine. When Sadie wanted to go out and seek antiques like this Dixon couldn’t refuse. Seeing her face light up as she blew the dust off of some old hunk of crap would always make Dixon smile. Just when Sadie thought she had swayed him into having an interest for it, they had their first child.

  She saw very quickly that as soon as their little girl wrapped her hand around his giant finger, his heart had been stolen. He still loved Sadie as his wife, but this little bundle of cute smiles was his life now. With the arrival or the second girl not long after, Sadie had fallen in love all over again with the father that Dixon was. A giant beast of a man with the lightest touch for his two daughters. If they wanted to go and play in the garden, they would, for hours.

  Dixon picks up one of the photo albums and sits down in the corner as he flicks through it. Memories of their first getaway flood back as he sees pictures of the beautiful beaches, their trip to Indonesia nothing short of a fantasy. The kind of pictures you’d see in holiday catalogues, the two of them entwined in each other’s arms kissing or
laughing littered the first few pages. As he thumbed further in he paused on one photo. Their wedding night, a large function hall with the light bouncing off the glitter ball above their head. The first dance they had as newlyweds. Dixon could almost hear the song playing in the back of his head. A piano performance by Gavin Degraw of his sombre toned “Belief”. Dixon thought the song quite sad but Sadie showed her interest in the old song, remarking its “beautiful heartache”.

  Jimmy meanwhile, tapped his fingers away on the computer sitting at her desk. Impressed with the performance of such an old machine, Jimmy quickly realised that it had been upgraded with modern parts. Tied into the Halo network it performed without a microseconds pause. He grunts and leans back in the chair.

  “Nothing” He shakes his head and looks over at Dixon in the corner. He still stares at the pictures in the book. Standing from the table Jimmy notices the page his eyes now fixate on. A picture of the entire family wrapped around each other, big grins and laughter fill the scene. Dixon lies on the ground in the garden with Sadie lying on top of him. Rose and Jenny trying to pounce on top of them from either side with childlike innocence.

  “There’s nothing here, buddy. Come on, let’s go”. Jimmy rests a hand on Dixon’s shoulder, bringing him out of his daze. He turns his head up to Jimmy. He doesn’t have the expression of angry pain that Jimmy had seen before when Dixon thought of his family, instead an almost defeated look of desolation peers back at him. He lowers his head to look at the picture again, slowly closing the photo album. He rests it on the desk and slowly rolls out of the chair. Adjusting his jacket he begins to leave the room.

  “What now then?” He looks at Jimmy, hoping for the perfect solution.

  “I don’t know, she isn’t here and it looks like they came looking for her.” Jimmy looks around the rooms as they begin to exit the apartment. “I don’t see any signs of a fight or struggle between people. Looks like they broke in and tried to find something - maybe information. She must have got away”.