Divided- 2120

by Brian Savage

  Jack tapped no, and said, “Security Access,” out loud. His implant displayed several options in bold black type across his vision. He selected bypass and drew a circle around the display screen in front of him. Due to their positions within the Corporation, agents were allowed certain security bypasses, programed into their implants. At one point in time, it had included nearly every physical security system in the country. It had remained that way until a few rogue agents had decided to use this access to knock off private lending houses. After that, all security bypass requests were carefully logged.

  The holographic display turned a shade of red, with the word “processing” superimposed over top. A few moments later, the “processing…” was replaced by “complete.” The second set of glass doors slid open to their right and the two agents made their way across the tiled foyer to the rounded glass elevators.

  Tapping the lit number four on the display screen, the agents were greeted with an advertisement for Implant Vacations, a new trend where users could be “sent on vacation” without leaving the comfort of their own home. The advertisement promised a week’s worth of fun, all for a low price, and during a normal night’s worth of sleep. “Completely safe and secure.”

  “Have you ever tried one of those?” Brant asked.

  “No, you?” Jack replied.

  “Yeah, went to the Bahamas. It was pretty awesome. Even got a bikini-clad beauty to go with me.”

  “A real one?” Jack asked.

  “No, a part of the program, but you can’t tell when you’re there,” Brant said, putting his hands into his jacket pockets.

  Jack was slightly disturbed by this notion. It reminded him of what the old man had said, “How can you know what reality is if there is something in your head writing it for you? That something not being your brain.” Definitely not something he was ever going to do.

  “That’s kinda scary,” Jack said.

  “Why?” Brant turned to Jack.

  “If you can’t tell, how do you know you aren’t still on vacation?”

  Brant turned back to face the advertisement, searching for the right words. He looked troubled now. He dismissed the thought and bounced up and down on the balls of his feet a few times. “I wish this elevator would hurry the fuck up.”

  “The elevator probably won’t open until the advertisement is over. A way for the condo complex to get some of the building costs covered,” Jack said.

  “I heard about a kid who died playing one of those completely immersive games,” Brant said, still idly watching the ad. “He spent two straight days playing his game, never coming out of the feed. He died of dehydration.”

  “Natural selection,” quipped Jack.

  “There is a rumor going around, though. His friends playing with him said that he had died in the game—shot or blown up or something. They say his brain couldn’t differentiate between real life and the feed. His brain just shut down when he was killed off.” Brant stopped bouncing on his heels.

  “Here’s one for you,” Jack said with a smirk on his face. “How do you know that this isn’t the game he was playing?”

  The doors slid open to a small entryway, ending the advertisement and the accompanying conversation. They both stepped out onto the dark brown tile. As they turned to make their way down the hallway and further into the apartment, they were stopped by a floating yellow hologram all too familiar to them. The hologram, scrolling the words “caution” and “police,” ran from one side of the hallway to the other.

  Jack and Brant continued through the “tape,” which turned red momentarily as they passed. A head popped around the corner at the end of the hall. “Agents!” the floating head shouted, disappearing quickly back into what Jack assumed would be the living room. They came around the corner and stopped. A huge open living room, with spacious kitchen and dining room, opened before them. A fireplace was the sole feature in the walls of glass. All the furniture was ultra-modern and looked barely used, almost pristine. Officers throughout the apartment were in various stages of picture taking, finger-print dusting, or evidence collecting, but they all stopped mid-activity to stare wide-eyed at the agents. An older-looking officer in plainclothes yelled at the rest to get back to work and stood from where he had been kneeling, next to the body of what Jack recognized as Harraves.

  “Detective Snow,” the older, heavy-set man said, extending his hand to the agents. “What can I do for you?”

  Jack and Brant took turns shaking the detective’s oven mitt of a hand. “Is that Joshua Harraves?” asked Brant, nodding toward the body.

  “Yep, that’s him. Didn’t know he was tied up with the socialists,” Snow said turning toward the body. “Makes sense now, I guess.”

  “We don’t know that he is,” said Jack, following Detective Snow a few steps behind, trying to maintain conversational distance. “In what way does it make sense?”

  “Suicide. One shot through the temple,” the detective made a finger gun, placing it to his head and firing it. “Being offended by everything and living in a world so against your point of view is tough,” he added sarcastically.

  “We don’t know if he’s a socialist,” Jack said sternly.

  “Then what the hell are you doing here?” The detective had sensed the growing hostility, and responded in kind.

  “He is…was a person of interest in an investigation we are conducting on the attack that took place yesterday,” Brant said, stepping forward and slightly ahead of Jack, effectively separating the two. “We just had a couple questions to ask him.”

  “Well, ask away then.” Detective Snow laughed, looking around. The younger officers nearby smiled obediently. Jack figured Snow was the type that ruled, what small kingdom he had, with an iron fist and thought himself much more important than he really was. There was a reason a detective was given suicide duty; it was usually because there wasn’t much detection needed in cases like that. He looked around the room.

  No forced entry that could be seen, the elevator hadn’t been tampered with, and what appeared to be a handgun in an evidence bag on the table. Jack stepped forward, toward the body on the floor. The body was face down on the floor, with the head turned to the right. Jack could make out a small hole on the right temple, and the right eye bulged outward. Entrance wound, he thought to himself. The entire right side of the face was covered in blood.

  The blood beneath the head pooled to Harraves’s left. Jack turned around. He could make out the fine mist of blood spray on the grey walls. He looked back to the floor-to-ceiling glass, and the balcony just on the other side. “Was the balcony door unlocked?” he asked.

  Snow looked up and squinted to the far side of the room, “Yeah, I think so,” he said, before turning his attention back to the holographic readout he was holding.

  Jack walked over to the door in the floor-to-ceiling glass. It didn’t slide like most modern doors, but swung out with a push on a metal plate on the inside, and a pull handle on the outside. Jack noticed the inside of the glass door was wet. He looked down to the floor. A small rug, most likely for wiping your feet after spending time on the rainy balcony, was damp, with a small puddle of gathered water. The door but must have been open for a while, Jack thought.

  “Did anyone go out on the balcony?” Jack turned, addressing the room. He looked from face to young face. Most likely students, earning credits, he thought. They still weren’t quite used to interacting with agents. He was just a person.

  “No, no one went out on the balcony—why would they?” Detective Snow snapped, agitated that his authority was seemingly being challenged in front of his young and easily influenced squad.

  Jack didn’t answer. From the window, he could see the body. The angle matched the fine mist of spray on the far wall. At this distance, he reasoned, there was little chance of being covered in the trace evidence. Heck, if he made the shot from outside on the balcony, there was no chance. Jack closed his eyes. He pictured Harraves walking toward the hallway to the ele
vator, the balcony door open, letting in some fresh air. He raised his weapon as his target crossed the opening of the door, and fired his shot. Harraves fell. He made his way into the apartment, wiping his feet so as not to leave wet footprints. He made his way to the body. Harraves was face down, looking to the left. With the blood covering the right side of his face, his head must have been flipped the other way when he first fell. Jack knelt down and turned his head the other direction. The black metal implant blinked no more.

  Jack opened his eyes. Brant was watching from across the room, with his hands in his pockets, face grim. The guy must have shut the door on the way out, a small attempt at alleviating any possible suspicion at a balcony intruder. Too bad for him it rains all the freaking time. Why did he need to flip the dude’s face over? Jack wondered as he made his way back across the room. They shot the guy, eliminating a name off the list of possible suspects, but what did he need with Harraves’s face? Maybe to compare him to a picture? The exit-wound side would be much harder to identify from, he knew from experience.

  “Someone killed him,” Jack said to Brant, throwing a thumb over his shoulder at the body.

  “From the balcony?” Brant asked, unsurprised at Jack’s deduction.

  Jack nodded. “He flipped Harraves’s head over,” Jack said, “but for the life of me, I can’t figure out why.” Jack turned back to the body. Detective Snow was eyeing the agents suspiciously.

  “What are you talking about? This is a suicide, plain and simple,” he said from where he was kneeling. His height from the ground and the almost pouty face he wore made him look like a chubby toddler on the verge of a tantrum. Kid gloves with this one, Jack told himself in his head.

  “Someone shot your guy, from the balcony. The door had been left open. Whomever it was then came into the apartment and turned his face over. That’s why there is all that dried blood on the side that’s facing up. When he left, he shut the door,” Jack said, pointing from the bloody face to the glass door.

  “No fucking way,” Snow huffed. A small crowd of the officers had inexplicably drawn closer as the tone of their boss’s voice had taken an edge they knew too well. “The guy shot himself in the side of the head, blood splatters everywhere, he falls down, the balcony was already shut.” Detective Snow struggled to push himself off the floor to his full height.

  “There’s a small puddle at the door where rainwater came in,” Jack said, monotone and controlled.

  “Bad seal,” the detective sneered in answer.

  “The blood all over the right side of the face?” Jack asked.

  “Like I said, shit for brains, he shot himself; blood goes everywhere.” The detective’s face was red.

  Jack was trying to figure out if the detective was testing him or stupid enough to actually believe the words coming out of his own mouth. He decided that the detective knew he was right but needed a way to save face in front of the young officers he was in charge of day in and day out. Jack didn’t like giving anyone an escape route.

  “You know I’m right,” Jack said, “but I’m sure you would just hate to have to admit so in front of all these young, eager officers willing to grovel at your feet as you recite stories about how it ‘used’ to be; how much harder it was and how you were an amazing young officer when you were their age. You sit there basking in the adoration they have for you, never fully admitting to yourself that they couldn’t give a shit less about you and are really just listening to your stories so they can get a nice little letter of good conduct for their class that same afternoon. Can’t get an ‘A’ without one, huh?” Jack said, turning to the nearest young officer, a female who turned away, hiding her face behind her camera. “I’m guessing that the only reason you are even still on the force is that you’ve spent enough time shoveling shit as a meter maid that you know enough of the right people to guarantee a job where you can’t embarrass anyone or fuck too much up.”

  The silence was deafening. Brant had watched the detective hunch lower and lower as Jack’s solemn monotone voice beat him further and further down. Detective Snow might have been standing, but his spirit was sitting right back on the floor in pre-tantrum pose.

  “The only reason you haven’t asked us to leave is that you’ve seen just enough of these suicides in your tenure as a detective investigating them, that you knew something was up with this one. You were hoping that we could drop enough hints that you could pretend to figure out how this guy got murdered, and cop it off to all your lackeys that it was your idea. Chances are, every single goddamn student that isn’t here today is still going to hear how the great Detective Snow figured out the suicide was really the perfect crime in disguise.” Jack took a breath; he had said far more than he meant to.

  “Boss, what about the girl?” Brant said, stepping forward. “She could be a target, too.”

  “You’re right.” Jack raised his voice a bit and said, “Everyone, stop what you are doing. This is a D.I.E. crime scene now. Go home. Leave any evidence you have already collected.” Jack pulled up the commands for a voice call using his implant. He turned, not bothering to address detective Snow, who still sat dejectedly by the body.

  “Yes, we need a forensics team to my current location,” Jack said as they walked back down the hall to the elevator.

  Brant followed behind, not really paying attention to what Jack was saying. At the far end of the hall, in front of a small table and a painting, hung a red balloon that floated up and down, bumping along the ceiling. Propelled by strange drafts or a heater vent, Brant couldn’t tell. He felt that something was off, though. Jack stopped in front of the elevator, and Brant almost ran in to him.

  They stepped in, the balloon lost to sight.

  Chapter 8

  They were back in the gasser, Brant driving with a sense of urgency. He had accidentally bumped the backs of people’s legs a few times now. Each time, they angrily turned, only to quickly move out of the way at the sight of the agents’ vehicle. Brant congratulated himself sarcastically at improving the public perception of D.I.E. as they rushed along at a stop-and-go pace.

  Jack was still on the audio feed, attempting to have an agent team head to the address of the last techie on the list. “The address is 3032 Downing Street. Name Aeralyn James. We believe that she may be in danger and is a person of interest in our ongoing investigation. Yes, we are in the First Ring.” He paused. “Yes, we are on our way there, it just might be faster to send a team in an aerial.” Jack gritted his teeth. “Okay, if the person of interest is dead when we arrive, I will personally have you in front of the review board.”

  Brant turned his head and looked at Jack. He had never heard him use a threat like that. I might never be surprised again at the end of this case, if it keeps up like this, he thought. Things disappearing, people dying but not being dead, and now his partner using the review board as a threat. Shit was getting real.

  The review board was really the only way a person could be removed from their position outside of being terminated. A review board could be called when there was enough evidence for the suspicion of someone just not cutting it where they were. If you were called in front of a review board, they would review your current position, your performance, and your current personal minimum wage. If any of these were found to be outside of equilibrium, one or all of them could be adjusted with some serious consequences.

  Brant remembered the one time he had been called in front of a review board. He had stopped to assist a driver of a gasser, who had been struck by a suspect vehicle who was fleeing from a robbery. He had saved the driver’s life but had allowed the suspect to escape. Lucky for Brant, the delivery driver had been some well-connected person’s brother, who in the end had effectively ended the review with a word. This hadn’t stopped Brant from sleepless nights, unsure of where his life would go, if the only thing he had ever done or studied for would be taken away. Worse, if they had decided that what he had done had damaged the Company’s reputation, was detrimental to one of th
eir metrics, or had caused the Company as a whole harm, it could have been found that a debt was to be paid. A debt he would have been paying off until the day he died.

  “Then I will have your supervisor sit next to you during your review board, so he is ready for his own review board immediately after.” If there was a phone in his hand to slam down, Jack would have crushed it. To Brant, he said, “No dice, how far are we?”

  “Five minutes,” Brant said, feeling the shared anxiousness. Jack noticed the quick blinking of Brant’s implant.

  The air became unbearable in the gasser. Jack felt like time was slowing down. The seconds ticked down like molasses rolling over frozen concrete. At the same time, the feeling that his body was revving up for speed threw Jack into a tailspin of emotion and adrenaline. He focused on his breathing; four seconds in, four seconds out to curve the physiological changes he was going through.

  “It’s the tall brick one, on the left,” Brant said through clenched teeth, indicating the building.

  Before he could say anything else, Jack had jumped from the slow-moving gasser and was running toward the building. He weaved between groups of people and bowled head-long through others. A feeling of dread had been building within him and was more than he could take, sitting in the vehicle. Something bad was about to happen to the girl. He didn’t know what, but he had to get there. He could hear Brant close behind him, yelling at the throngs of people as they ran through the rain.

  Jack ran up the four steps in front of the building and through the first set of doors sliding open. He assumed the next set would be similarly locked as at the previous condo complex they had just visited, so Jack didn’t stop. Instead, he pulled his arm up and across his face, leading with the sharper point of his elbow. He hoped he had enough speed built up, but was at the point of no return as his elbow contacted the glass before him.

  He faintly heard the shatter of the glass and the rain of shards upon the tiled floor between the loud beats of his heart in his ears. He didn’t register any pain in his arm but hoped that it was the jacket activating its built-in defense and not the adrenaline masking a fractured humerus. He looked up and noted the lit sign pointing toward the emergency stairway, and did his best to run while avoiding slipping on any glass shards. A small cut above his eye bled heavily into his left eye. He ignored it as he slammed into the stairwell. He heard Brant slip on the glass and come down hard as the stairwell door rebounded shut with a bang.