Genrenauts: Season One

by Michael R. Underwood

  King was through the apartment and out the window in a flash, tucking his legs up to hurdle through the window and catch himself on the fire escape.

  Below him, Hernandez dropped off the second-floor fire escape, tumbling into a stack of trash bags covered in snow, doubly cushioned. Hernandez was up and off, moving fast. The chef was in good shape and wore boots made for moving.

  Barely thinking, King hopped the rails cartwheeling his arms and shifting to make sure he landed flat, distributing the impact.

  He hit the trash with a soft and then notably harder impact, exhaling as he landed.

  Remember to thank Roman for helping with the practice, King thought. Just one of the man’s myriad Action Hero skills.

  Time was of the essence, and of course, Hernandez was running the opposite direction from where he and Leah needed to go to get back to the ship. If he didn’t catch Hernandez in four blocks, they’d have to run the entire way back to the ship to have a chance of getting off in time.

  Even an emergency evac would cut it close, since the rest of the team couldn’t just buzz them for a drive-by pickup like they could on the Science Fiction World or other locations. The PPM was good enough to mask their ship as a helicopter, but the engines didn’t allow for that kind of extraction. They’d need a pickup hook, which he did not have.

  King ran the numbers and possibilities as he dodged around joggers, put-upon laborers, and the other unfortunate folk who were out and about in the blizzard that had all but stopped car traffic. Hernandez juked right, started across the street. A car hit the brakes and came sliding toward them, forcing King to either wait, risk getting hit, or run past the car to cross.

  Instead, he bargained that his archetype had the chops to bolster what would otherwise be a terrible idea, and take another page from Roman’s book. The car was only going ten or so miles an hour. He jumped, folding in his coat, and slid across the hood as the car honked and skidded to a stop. King found his feet with only a quick shuffle to catch his balance and continue.

  It wasn’t up to Roman’s standard, but it’d do. Hernandez was only twenty feet ahead.

  “Leah!” King shouted, not able to spare the time to spot her, wherever she was. “Headed west on West Chicago. Go north on Wells and head him off!”

  But with Leah’s stride disadvantage, he had to assume that the job of catching Hernandez was going to fall to him alone.

  Solve the case and endanger your crew or give up to protect your newbie and endanger hundreds, a calculating, pragmatic voice echoed in his mind.

  He rejected the dichotomy and pushed on, picking up his pace and trusting in his Gore-Tex boots to keep his footing even as Hernandez slid across a patch of black ice on the sidewalk.

  Even on Crime World, some people were crappy neighbors and neglected to shovel their sidewalks. Sometimes it was even intentional, an attempt to cause an accident. King slid across one patch, and then bounded over one that Hernandez had caught.

  The chef looked over his shoulder at King and turned at the crossroads.

  King checked his watch as he dashed to the corner. Twenty-three minutes to get back. He was cutting it obscenely close. Even if they made it back, the Council would not be pleased.

  So, if he was going to get dressed down, he might as well secure a successful patch to show for it.

  King grabbed a fencepost and took the corner at speed, launching forward and picking Hernandez’s gray jacket out of the crowd as the man turned into an alley.

  The alley’s driveway was all ice. King slid uncontrollably, and stopped himself with a huff, crashing into the far wall of the alley. His vision shook as he pushed himself off the wall, settling from three images into just one, a panicked man jumping and flailing for the raised ladder to a fire escape.

  “Freeze!”

  Hernandez saw King, then flailed harder. He caught the lowest rung of the ladder and started hauling himself up, more in shape than King had expect from a long-suffering restaurateur. Plot twist, or another part of the breach? He filed yet another detail away for his after-action analysis.

  Not fast enough. King tackled the man off the ladder. The pair went skidding and sliding across the alley, rolling in muck until King stopped them. He grappled into guard position, straddling the chef.

  “Stop. Now. Why did you run? Is it because you lied about Tatiana, because it was you that killed Dwayne Smith? And now you’re, what? Skipping town with the mob payoff?” King nodded at the briefcase askew on the wrought iron landing of the fire escape.

  “It’s not like that! I didn’t mean to kill him!”

  King’s phone buzzed again. Twenty-minute warning. They’d have to run the whole way back or catch a miraculous and probably-dangerous cab ride.

  “But you did, didn’t you? Tell me what happened. You have one minute, or your life is going to get far, far worse.” King pulled a pair of handcuffs out from his belt and cuffed Ricardo, tying the cuffs to the leg of an overladen Dumpster.

  “It should have been me. I should have gotten the executive chef job. I’d been there for longer; my menu was more commercial. But that jackass Refai gave it to Smith. And then the woman, she came to me, got me all fired up.”

  “What woman?”

  “That tall woman. I didn’t get her name.”

  “What did she tell you?”

  “She bought me drinks, listened while I complained. My wife, she doesn’t listen to me complain anymore, says I complain too much. That just complaining never makes things better unless you do something about it.”

  “What did the woman tell you?” King asked, keeping his pulse down, resisting the urge to lose himself in the scene, to cross the line into brutality the way TV cops did so frequently.

  “She said it wasn’t fair. That I should confront him. And then I did, and he slipped, and I panicked. I didn’t kill him, you understand! I was just so angry, so I shoved him. He shoved back, and then the next time I shoved him, he slipped. There was so much…” And with that, Ricardo broke down, the emotions overflowing. He was responsible, but he wasn’t a cold-blooded murderer. No way he took the shot at DeeZee.

  “King! Drop!” Leah shouted.

  King trusted his instincts, trusted his teammate, and hit the deck. He covered Hernandez with his body as they hit the slush, muck and cold slapping his face while a shot rang out. The bullet hit a couple of feet from him.

  King slid behind the Dumpster and drew his gun. He heard Leah behind him, at the mouth of the alley. And at the dead end, standing over the lip of the roof, was a tall woman with dark hair standing beside a chimney. The instigator.

  “Cover, Probie!” King reached his free hand out to Hernandez, trying to pull him behind the Dumpster. King popped a quick pair of shots off at the tall woman, but she saw him coming, took cover behind the chimney. She peeked around the chimney and took a quick shot, an expert-level move—no time to aim or calculate, just pure training and instinct.

  And she hit.

  The bullet hit Hernandez in the gut. King took the corner to open fire again. But she was already leaving, her rifle up from firing position, rolling out of King’s field of vision. She was bugging out.

  She was some kind of pro. What would call for a hit woman? The mob? Using this as a wedge for something?

  Time slowed as King put all the pieces together. Both cases were solved, but only one was resolved. The shooter would get away, or he’d strand himself and Leah here permanently. He weighed the options, smelling Nancy’s shampoo against the crispness of the snow, the moisture in the air against the coppery tang of blood.

  She’d been made; she’d need to reposition. Pursuit was too risky. His duty was to the mission and to his team.

  He checked Hernandez’s pulse. Already slowing. King didn’t have the training to save him, couldn’t even keep him alive long enough for the ambulance, which would take at least fifteen minutes to get there in this weather.

  He saw the two choices unfold before him in fast-forward. Chase the
shooter, close the case. Get his team trapped. They become a team of oddball detectives. He stays with Nancy.

  He fails his team. Fails the Council. Breaches multiply. And then everyone loses.

  And the other path. He chooses his team, leaves Nancy behind again, and keeps going.

  King looked at Leah, remembered his responsibilities, and decided. He kissed his fingers, touched them to Hernandez’s head, and said a quick prayer for the accidental killer.

  He stood, holstering his gun. “Back to the warehouse!”

  Leah was shocked, visible breath coming fast. Her conditioning was questionable. But there was no other option.

  “Run, rookie! Now!” He pointed, picking up speed while watching the ice. They slid back into the street and started hauling ass toward the ship.

  At a slow and ice-laden run, it would take them ten minutes, leaving them maybe eight minutes for takeoff and crossing. It might be enough. It’d have to be enough.

  Leah’s running gait picked up behind him, and he pulled out his phone to call in the murderer. The victim. The dead.

  “Nancy, this is King. The job’s done, but there’s a lot of blood. You’ll need to send a team.”

  * * *

  When King had pitched Leah on the job, he hadn’t mentioned that she’d be sprinting through a blizzard with giant ice patches, racing against time to avoid getting trapped on Murder World in Wacky Detective Town.

  Leah huffed and puffed, trying to keep up with King as they booked as fast as they possibly could back toward the warehouse containing their ship and its rapidly diminishing window of return.

  King had called it in, gave Nancy just enough information to come for the body and declare the case closed, plus his best heads-up description of the Tall Woman. The bullets in the alley (and in Ricardo) should give them the link to DeeZee’s shooter, and with luck, they’d be able to track her on their own. Or if not, they’d come back when the storm cleared and work that case, too.

  Right now, Leah’s job was to keep running, not slip and fall and crack her head open, and to trick her lungs and legs into continuing to function.

  “How far?” she asked, panting. “Because I’m still not a big fan of the sprinting thing. I’m more a power-walking or jogging kind of girl. Didn’t wear a sports bra, you know?”

  Wacky Comedian Lack of Filter is still going strong, she thought, laughing at herself.

  “One mile!” King called at a full voice. His movements were smooth, practiced. He also had an eight-inch height advantage on her, much of it in his legs.

  “Tall people and your cheating giraffe legs!” she answered.

  King didn’t dignify that with a response. Instead, he turned on the comms. “All hands, check in!”

  “This is Roman. We’re standing by at the ship. Launch sequence spinning up. Projections show you cutting it right down the wire. Do we launch and intercept?”

  “Negative. We are coming to you.” King poured on the speed.

  Focus, she thought. You’ve been jogging, doing Genrenauts-brand CrossFit, and eating better. Mostly. Sort of. Commissary pizza had to be better for her than take & bake DiGiordanellos, right? Totally. Her train of thought kept rolling down the tracks even as she tried to get back to the moment.

  King scattered people with shouts of “Police”, shoving aside those who didn’t listen, the few folks still out and about in the still-raging blizzard. Something to do with the dimensional storms. Probably. Maybe?

  Leah was happy for her stompy, mostly comfortable boots, keeping her pace and praying that they could keep avoiding the ice patches.

  She thought back to the coaching Roman had given her to improve her running gait. Breathe in, breathe out. Keep moving. Regular, consistent. Smooth. Her mind flurried off to thinking about the case, putting the pieces together, and ridiculous pop culture references, gobbling up her attention…

  Until she caught a patch of ice and went ass over teakettle, landing hard on the small of her back.

  “Aaaaooowcrap!”

  King skidded to a stop, his hand appearing from nowhere. Leah flailed for purchase, watching the world bobble like she was a doll. King held her hand and started moving. She followed. She moved forward, and the world kept shaking, and then a bit less.

  And less, and she was back.

  Still running. Always running.

  Her lungs burned like she’d sprayed lighter fluid down her throat and then swallowed a torch. Like the circus.

  Keep it together, she told herself, biting her lip and keeping on keeping on.

  They turned the corner and Leah recognized the warehouse.

  “Almost there, rookie. Stay with me.”

  But the end was in sight. She could make this. Totally. But as they ran, she felt her body slowing, like something was pulling against her, increasing her drag. It had to be fatigue, but her imagination spooled out a dozen weird science-fictional reasons—she hadn’t fulfilled her role well enough, or the story was still unsolved and it needed her to stay, or the Tall Woman had caught her with some kind of weird grappling hook.

  But it was none of those. She made it to the warehouse door, which King had opened and dashed inside.

  The room was mostly empty—the thirty-foot-tall tower of the ship, disguised as covered boxes, the field cache in one corner, and the emergency shower beside it. The hatch was open, and Shirin stood in the airlock, beckoning them in.

  King was in the cockpit by the time she reached the base of the stairs, Shirin and Mallery cheering her on. The world was still a bit wobbly, and her stomach felt like it’d been ripped open and then stuffed with buzz saws, but she kept going.

  “Strap in,” Shirin said. “It’s not going to be an easy trip out of here.”

  “I’m coming, I’m coming,” Leah waved a hand at the senior Genrenaut. And then totally whiffed the next rung, leading to her smacking her forehead on the ladder.

  Way to look awesome in front of the team.

  “Screw this world; let’s get out of here!” Leah righted herself and climbed up into the ship. She and Shirin pulled the hatch closed and spun the wheel to seal it, then split up to climb the pair of ladders, one on each side of the ship’s interior. Leah took the nearest seat, then strapped in, her heart (and back) pounding.

  Strapped in, she faced up, like an astronaut in a rocket. Only they’d be going sideways rather than up. Sort of. Leah was still not super-clear on the exact physics.

  King stared at the controls, not moving.

  “King. We have to take off,” Roman said.

  He didn’t move. “We almost had her. She was right there.”

  Shirin opened up the comms.

  “Mid-Atlantic actual, this is Mid-Atlantic Three, taking off.”

  “We read you, Mid-Atlantic Three,” Preeti said through the radio. The signal was already scratchy, like a weak Skype connection. “You have three minutes. Three minutes. The latest readings are with you.”

  “You hear that, King? We need to take off!” Roman repeated.

  “Should have seen it earlier. She got the drop on me like a green flatfoot.”

  Shirin waved Leah up toward King. “He’s getting lost in the role. You have to talk him out of it. He’ll recognize you before any of the rest of us. Play the dynamic.”

  “You have one minute,” Roman said.

  “Not helping!” Mallery added.

  Leah unstrapped and climbed up the ladder. Roman was in the copilot seat. She leaned over from the ladder, crowding her teammate.

  “King. Boss. The case is over. Closed. We kicked everything back to Nancy, and now we have to get home.”

  “I should have stayed,” King said, staring into the distance.

  “She made her choice. That’s what you said. Now you have to make yours. We all leave, or we’re all stuck here. I don’t want to stay; neither do Shirin, Mallery, or Roman. You’re Angstrom King, Genrenauts team lead. Remember? You stay here, we all lose.”

  King looked at her, still lock
ed in a steely gaze. He blinked, leaned back, and then looked at the controls.

  “We’re in the ship.”

  “And we need to leave. Can you fly us out?”

  “Yes. I’m back. I’m here.” He looked to Leah, then to the team. “Let’s get out of here.”

  Leah hustled down the ladder and got back into her seat.

  “Roman, you’ve got my back on copilot. I start to slip back into the archetype, you take over. Shirin, you have our path?”

  “Affirmative. Let’s go home.”

  The ship lurched forward. Leah leaned over to watch as Shirin studied the screen. Shirin gestured to her right. “Twenty degrees right and fifteen degrees down.”

  The head Genrenaut adjusted, and the ship’s nose dipped and banked. Leah held on to her seat as she watched Shirin’s console, trying to exert some control just by knowing what was going on.

  Shirin called out the next set of directions, “It curves gradually to the right and down, then cuts left seventy degrees over five hundred meters, then up twenty degrees.” She typed like the wind, feeding King verification on the degrees and slopes for the best path through the storm. Shirin called the turns and King took them. He was a more deliberate pilot than the others, almost more robotic, but not really; where the other two took joy in the flying, he just did it. Zen-style. No-mind, no distractions. Frosty.

  Which, given how fast Leah’s heart was racing, was a great counterbalance, averaging the team’s heartbeat out to something vaguely functional.

  All the while, Roman barked out the structural damage, hull integrity, and their progress across dimensions. And Mallery kept the line open to Preeti.

  “Up ten degrees, left thirty!” Shirin called as the path through the tube veered.

  “Halfway there. Two minutes. You’ve got it, you’ve got it,” Preeti said through the comms, voice still scrambled.

  King banked again, and Shirin called out the next turn, They’d found her groove. Another three turns came and went, and Leah blinked, double-checking to make sure she was seeing the screen correctly.

  Shirin called “Hard dive, ten left. Now!”

  King slammed the stick forward, taking them into a high-g dive.