“The spiritual also has its laws,” Lloyd told him with a jut of his pipe stem. “And there are consequences for breaking them. They are just as definable as the physical laws your kind puts so much stock in. But there are much more severe consequences for breaking the spiritual laws.”
“If I jump off this balcony gravity assures that I will hit the pavement hard and most likely die. What could be more severe than that?”
“That’s what you need to find out, son,” Lloyd challenged.
“And where is it that I’m to make that discovery?” Kyle asked facetiously.
“That’s a good place to start,” Lloyd said, squinting his eye at the journal cradled in Kyle’s arms.
“So it’s going to give me a lesson in ethics?”
Lloyd held up a hand. “One step at a time. You jump around too much. I thought we were talking about faith.”
“Faith has ethical implications,” Kyle countered.
Lloyd smirked, shaking his head. “My break’s over.” Pushing down on his knees, he grunted as he rose to go. “Take care of that book.”
“I will. Thank you.” Kyle looked down at it in his hands, unsure of what to do with it. He finally decided to slip it up under his coat. Hesitating, he was all too aware that the journal might bite him after all. Before he allowed himself to meditate further on this he quickly tucked it away, holding it snugly in place with his arm.
“Oh yeah,” Lloyd called out.
Kyle jumped, thinking that he’d already gone back in.
“How’d your friend get the shiner?”
“Who? Hank?” Kyle laughed. “He got in a fight during the game last night.”
Lloyd frowned. “Bread and circus,” is what Kyle thought he heard him garble under his breath.
“Huh?”
But Lloyd was gone, leaving Kyle standing alone on the balcony once again.
*****
It was quitting time before Kyle realized it. When he’d arrived at his desk that morning he discovered an assignment awaiting him which drew him deep into I-2. Initially irritable at having to do what he was trying to avoid—at least until he got some definitive answers—he nevertheless quickly forgot about all that was going on in his personal life. If there was one thing interfacing did for a man, distracting him from reality was it.
Riding down the elevator, he adjusted the journal so that he could walk comfortably with it under his coat. As he exited into the main lobby, the darkness outside revealed to him it was later than he thought. He unexpectedly broke out into a sudden sweat as he walked by the security guard positioned near the main entrance.
“Working late tonight, huh?” the guard asked with a dull smile.
“Yeah,” Kyle replied as he tried to keep his voice even. “I should just start sleeping here.”
The guard chuckled. “Have a good night, Mr. Bennett.”
Kyle nodded pleasantly to him and continued toward the door.
“Wait! Mr. Bennett!” the guard shouted from behind.
Kyle halted, his sweat freezing in mid drip. With wildly thumping heart, he slowly turned around.
“I’m really not supposed to do this.”
Kyle cocked his head. He didn’t even know this guy’s name. “Do what?” Kyle asked, trying desperately to sound more annoyed than nervous.
The guard swept the area behind Kyle with his eyes, wearing a boyish expression of guilt. He stuck out his hand and handed Kyle a folded piece of paper.
“What’s this?”
“A pretty young lady left it at the front desk,” the guard confided with a wink. “She said to give it to you when you left.”
Puzzled yet momentarily relieved, Kyle took the slip and shoved it into his pocket. “Yeah, thanks.”
“Between me and you, right, Mr. Bennett? I mean, I know what it’s like to pass notes with the girls.”
“Yeah, sure. Between me and you.”
“And,” the guard added quickly in an annoyingly confidential tone, “if I could be so, umm…bold as to ask a small favor?” He raised himself up on his toes, eyes wide. “You see, it’s like this,” he confided, dropping his voice and leaning in close. “I’m angling for the day shift.”
He paused and rose up on his toes again. Kyle nodded slowly for him to continue.
“But you know how it is. One only gets a promotion around here if someone can put a word in for you…” Here he stopped suddenly.
“Sure,” Kyle conceded, glancing down at his name tag. “Marcus. I’ll see what I can do.”
“Thank you, Mr. Bennett,” Marcus beamed. He began to reach out his hand to shake Kyle’s but thought better of it and quickly tucked his fingers into his belt.
Kyle exhaled heavily as he turned around and proceeded to quickly pass the threshold of ATS. Stopping when he reached the sidewalk, he gazed upward and took a deep breath. It was a clear night, thousands of specks of sparkling light gracing the city with their ageless dance.
He started to call for an auto-pod but suddenly changed his mind. He would take advantage of the pleasant night and simply walk.
6
Kyle’s route took him through a high-end commercial district and subsequently, past several night clubs. It was Friday night and the city was showing off its seedier side.
He passed across the street from where the line for the Fuzz Factory, currently the trendiest after hours destination, snaked its way back half a block. As was typical, the majority of those waiting in the queue were killing time in a neuro-trance. What struck Kyle as he paused for a moment to observe the scene was how the club-goers, swaying back and forth to the low, rhythmic pulse emanating from deep within the secluded sectors of the building, looked for all the world like standing, staring corpses.
This club’s wild appeal was apparently due to its no restrictions policy. Every shade of preference could be found within its walls. Anti-discrimination laws made tolerance obligatory. However, at the Fuzz, the most outrageous and unthinkable acts were not merely tolerated but encouraged. Kyle was well aware from overhearing his co-workers’ conversations of the utter animal-like debauchery that went on inside. What he couldn’t understand was why it was the city’s young elite who preferred the club so exclusively.
Strolling another block, he stopped at a crosswalk and waited for permission to cross. Auto-pods slipped stealthily by, their purring engines barely audible above the night life din. A safety drone appeared in his peripheral, hovering beside him. The hairs on the back of his neck tingling at its presence, Kyle tried not to glance in its direction. Suddenly, the journal he’d almost forgotten about felt like a lead bar under his coat.
“Halt, citizen! You are in the process of jaywalking!” The steel voice boomed forth from the drone two feet from Kyle’s ear. He automatically ducked his head and threw up is arms, cringing at the sheer volume of the command.
In the moment it took him to regain his mental equilibrium, he assumed he was the citizen in question. But he hadn’t moved from the sidewalk. Quickly dismissing the thought, he glanced across the street in the direction the drone was heading.
He noticed the young lady frozen in the street, her eyes rolled back in her head, her body twitching spasmodically. She had no chance. The tires of the auto-pod bearing down upon her squealed as its brakes locked in protest. Though she wasn’t hit at full speed, the impact was enough to toss her up and over the hood, her body slamming against the wind screen. The vehicle came to a sudden halt and she rolled off of the pod onto the pavement with an audible thump.
It could not have been more than three seconds from the moment the drone had issued its warning until the woman hit the ground. Kyle knew she must’ve had a seizure. Under normal conditions, it was difficult to accidentally get hit by an auto-pod. Neuro-chips automatically synced with all the sensors and traffic cams in the immediate proximity. But certain people occasionally experienced adverse reactions to the neural stream. In effect, there could be moments, like this one, when the chip failed to properly
coordinate with its electromagnetic environment.
The traffic had stopped at the four points of the intersection. Kyle sprinted to the scene of the accident. Other pedestrians immediately began to gather from nearby bars and cafés, forming a wide semi-circle around the victim.
The safety drone was flying in circles, alternating its elevation with each pass as it assessed the situation and communicated with the emergency services.
Kyle immediately went up to the body and crouched beside it. He felt her neck for a pulse. It was there, but faint. “She’s still alive,” he exclaimed, glancing around excitedly. He then put his ear down close to her mouth and listened for breathing. There was none. Placing his mouth on hers, he began resuscitative efforts.
There were simultaneous gasps from a few of the onlookers. “Hey, man, are you a doctor?” someone asked.
Kyle didn’t respond. He was again listening to see if his rescue breathing had taken effect.
“Get away from her,” a woman shouted down at him angrily.
“Huh?” he said, confused, pausing before resuming the procedure.
“Get back. You’re not a doctor. You can’t do that,” the woman vapidly insisted.
“I know what I’m doing,” Kyle maintained. “We don’t have time to wait for a rescue unit. She’s dying.”
As he said this he scanned the faces around him. What he observed was a smug wonderment toward the victim and a collective resentment directed toward him. He ignored the crowd and once again bent down to place his mouth over the victim’s.
Suddenly a piercing voice blared out inside of his head, “Cease from your activity, citizen. Authorized medical personnel are on their way. I repeat, stop what you are doing.” The authoritative command seemed to course through his veins. His skull rang, on the verge of shattering into a million fragments. Jerking up to attention, his instincts still urged him to continue. But the imperative to obey orders tugged harder at him to desist. Against his better judgment and innate inclination, he slowly stood, stepped back and waited with the crowd who continued to stare down upon the unconscious form. Blood oozed in dark red rivulets from a gash on her forehead.
Kyle could not explain his actions. A dull hiss, static-like, filled where his thoughts should be, clogging his mind. It wasn’t only the concentrated hyper-sonic sound wave, but also an insistent impulse to obey. Though it took tremendous will-power to stay rooted where he was, he dared not move. Instead he only stood in the ranks encircling the dying woman whose face was now taking on a grayish tint.
The longest minute of his life crawled by, each second stretching slowly into the other. He knew she would die, maybe was already dead. He knew he should’ve ignored the command and continued trying to save her life. And, he understood that he wouldn’t do a thing except stand there like all the others, helpless and afraid. He hated himself for it. He was murdering her by proxy.
It was no more than two minutes before the paramedic pod arrived, sirens blaring as the vehicle rolled up to the curb. Two medics rushed over to the limp body lying in the middle of the street. One did a preliminary check of her vitals and shook his head at his partner. He then pulled a scanner from his belt and swiped it over her wrist for identification.
“Hey, what’s this?” the female medic suddenly exclaimed. Kyle looked and saw her reaching over on the other side of the corpse. With sudden horror he realized what was lying on the pavement. He sprinted back out into the street, determined at any cost to retrieve what he’d dropped.
“That’s mine,” he said breathlessly, reaching out for the journal as the medic stood up with it in her hand.
Immediately on the defensive, she pulled it close to her chest. “What is it?”
“It’s my book. I dropped it when I was trying to help the victim.”
Now more curious than suspicious, the medic glanced down at the journal. Running her thumb over the spine, she told him, “I can’t remember the last time I held a real book.”
“Yeah,” Kyle agreed nervously, not knowing where this might lead. “I’m using it for a project at work,” he offered. “ATS,” he said, nodding toward the not too distant skyscraper.
“I sometimes wish I could read a book resting in my lap,” she said, handing the journal over. “I mean, downloading it directly into your head is great and all, but…”
Before she could finish, her partner walked up with a stretcher. “Let’s hurry and get loaded up,” he said irritably. “I’m supposed to be on break already.”
A police unit arrived before the medics were able to get the corpse into their pod. No one was allowed to leave. Everyone present was told they needed to give an account of what happened from their respective perspectives. Kyle waited his turn as one of the officers made the rounds. The other was busy scanning the auto-pod for his accident assessment report.
Kyle tried to catch his breath, to calm his racing heart. The adrenaline that had flooded his system had yet to completely wear off. He’d managed to discreetly return the journal under his coat.
He couldn’t get his thoughts to line up correctly as concerned his own role in the incident. It dawned on him as the officer asked him the first question that he didn’t want them in order. He was fighting off what his mind insisted he do: face up to what had occurred.
Nevertheless, the authority figure required him to do what he couldn’t bring himself to do by his own efforts.
“Kyle Bennett,” the officer read off of his ACAD. “You work at ATS, I see.”
“Yes, sir.”
“And what brings you this way?” the officer asked, not even attempting to feign professional courtesy.
“I’m just headin’ back to my apartment.”
“From work?”
“Yes, sir.”
Glancing back down at his digital notes, the officer then asked, “I understand you were the one who tried to help the deceased.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Why?”
Kyle squared his shoulders, suddenly feeling like he had the answer that he’d been allowing to elude him. “I have some first aid training. I felt like I might be able to do some good before the paramedics arrived.”
“Are you certified medical personnel?” the officer inquired, frowning.
“No, sir. I just…”
Kyle was cut off before he could elaborate. “You just endangered her life, is what you did,” the cop insisted.
“I was trying to save her life,” Kyle snapped back.
“And look what happened,” was the viscous retort.
“If I’d been allowed to continue, she might be alive,” Kyle returned angrily.
“That is what our investigation will determine,” the officer told him with finality, his hand resting on the butt of his tazer. “We will review all of the data related to the incident. The truth will come out.”
Dropping his eyes, Kyle took a deep breath. “I will cooperate in any way I can,” he said.
“I should take you in,” the officer snapped. “Forget this. Turn around, hands up.”
“On what grounds?” Kyle demanded as he looked up sharply, suddenly very nervous at the prospect of being searched.
“This here badge is the only reason I need.” Smiling maliciously, the cop pulled a toothpick from behind his ear and stuck it in his mouth. “But if that’s not enough for you,” he continued sarcastically, “I believe manslaughter is grounds enough.”
The cop wasn’t a sub, but Kyle could definitely pull a little societal rank on him. Of course, he would be taking a chance doing so. If it only enraged the officer instead of intimidating him, Kyle risked jerking around on the pavement as high-voltage jolts of the cop’s tazer raced mercilessly through his body.
But he suddenly didn’t care. Leaning in close, a move that instantly wiped the smirk of the cop’s face, Kyle menacingly told him, “You so much as lay a fat finger on me, I’ll make one call and you’ll be busting rocks in the Backland before your next shift.”
Pulling the
toothpick from his mouth, the officer’s right eyelid immediately began to twitch. Kyle prepared himself to be slammed to the ground. Instead, the cop actually took a step back.
Pointing a shaking finger in Kyle’s face, he snarled, “In light of your position and security clearance, I’ll allow you to be on your way. In the future, you should avoid doing what you’re not qualified for. You’ll find it will be better for everyone.”
“Yes, sir,” Kyle managed, his legs feeling rubbery. “Thank you for your advice.”
*****
Nearing his apartment, Kyle suddenly stopped walking. He’d completely forgotten about the note the guard had slipped him. It was the very last thing on his proverbial radar.
Fishing it out of his pocket, he held it up to get a better view in a nearby street light before unfolding it. He assumed it was from Sheila; some idea of a joke of hers to write him a note instead of just sending an email. But a peculiar scent wafted up and he knew differently. It was from Katelyn. That was the smell of whatever lotion she religiously lathered into her hands. It was a pleasant smell—maybe lilac—and one he’d never realized until now that he associated with her.
The nervousness that now bathed him was of the welcome variety. He moved into the orb of light emitted by the lamp and opened the note:
Kyle, he read. If you get a chance, swing by my place later tonight. It looks like I’ll be heading out sooner than I thought. Would like to see you before I go. –Katelyn
The words, as simple and unassuming as they were, sent an electric charge firing from his chest down to his feet and back up into his head, leaving him feeling pleasantly lightheaded. He glanced at the time. It was 21:34. Was it too late? Only one way to find out.
He looked up at the nearest street sign to take his bearings. Her place was about eight blocks away. He threw an arm up to signal a traffic cam.
Backland: Insecurity (Book #2) Page 5