“So what else you need?” Nelson started pulling out tools from his toolbox, spreading them around him. Ishani looked back at him.
“Did Ash have any enemies here?” she asked, but Ali was already starting to speak.
“What’s this?” he asked. As Nelson worked, Ali had circled around to stand next to Nelson’s toolbox. Now, he pulled out a piece of paper. It was shiny, folded, and bright green.
“Hmm?” Nelson looked over to Ali, ignoring Ishani.
Ishani took a step towards Ali and took the paper. It was a brochure, and the words “Give unto God what is God’s” were written in big, blocky letters across the front. She immediately knew what it was. Ali had a smug look on his face; he probably thought he was hot shit, and she felt like slapping the look off his face.
Nelson shrugged. “I don’t know. Looks like some Wind Changer crock. Maybe ask Sheila. I don’t know where it’s from.”
“Why Sheila?” Ali asked.
“Her folks are Wind Changers. Lord knows her and Ash would get into it over it.”
“Isn’t this your toolkit?”
Nelson shook his head. “We share ’em.”
“Do you know who would bring this?”
Nelson shook his head again. “Nobody on staff I know of is one of them.” He turned back to his work, pulling a box of wires out.
Ishani thought about what she’d just heard. Would one of the engineers be lying about being a Wind Changer? It seemed antithetical, but, she supposed, one of them could be converted. It could have been one of the other staff members she hadn’t met yet, but that also didn’t seem likely. The machinery looked complex, specialized; she would run background checks on the others, but it seemed unlikely anyone but the engineers could have programmed the machinery. She yawned slightly; she wished she’d had more than a small amount of tea to keep her going.
“So, Nelson, back to my earlier question. Did Ash Snort have enemies?”
Nelson shook his head. “Nah, he spent most of his time enforcing regs or gambling with Gregg, and he was really only ever good at the latter. You know, funny enough,” he said, then stopped. His head jerked up, and he seemed to be listening for something.
Her phone went off. A voice came on from the other end, but then her phone blinked and powered down. Out of battery power. She swore, putting it away.
“Shh!” Nelson snapped. He didn’t look at her; instead, after a moment, he jumped up to one of the consoles. His fingers flew across the board. A moment later Ishani heard a slow whine, then a deeper pitch underneath it, and felt a sinking in her stomach, as though an invisible force were pulling her to the floor.
“What the hell is going on?” Ali asked.
Nelson didn’t answer. He pressed his right hand down onto the console and with his left rapidly typed in a multitude of codes. Ishani felt the pressure continue to grow, and she took a step towards the exit; to her horror she discovered she couldn’t move, and she dropped to her knees as the force around her continued to build. Next to her she saw Ali try to move but he seemed to be pulled upwards, and his feet left the ground. The pressure was also inside her chest, and it felt like she was being pulled apart on the inside. She thought of the remains of Ash Snort, and tried to scream. She couldn’t breathe, and nothing came out.
With a gasp, Ishani felt the pressure release. She collapsed. Ali hit the floor hard. Nelson was breathing heavily, his head resting against the console.
“What the hell?” Ishani got out between breaths.
“Power,” Nelson started to say. Then, the console exploded. The spot where Nelson was standing was replaced by a fireball, and he screamed as the flames engulfed him. He ran a few steps and tried to drop but tripped over his tools, and he careened into the space near the generator. Ishani tried to get up to stop him but he stumbled over and fell, his screams reverberating in the space around the generator. After a few moments she climbed to the edge and looked down; his body was splayed out on the floor, still burning, and unmoving.
“Jesus Christ,” Ali muttered, walking over next to her. He was unsteady, gripping a railing.
They stood there for a minute, side-by-side, trying to catch their breath, too unsteady to move. Nelson’s neck was bent at an odd angle, obviously broken. Ishani tried to move but found her legs were weak, and she too put her hands on the railing to keep her strength. She trembled, and looked over to see him trembling too. She tried to open her mouth to speak, but didn’t know what to say. This had gone wrong, so wrong. Nelson had spent more time repeating what he said to Ali to her. What if he knew more? What if he had the key to the whole investigation, and she didn’t get it because she wanted to prove a point about this being her investigation? She looked at Ali, his features all drenched with sweat. This man almost died. She almost died too. And they were no closer to figuring out what happened than before.
Pride goeth before the fall, as the Wind Changers might say. Were they here? What the hell was going on?
The door behind them slid open, and the young police officer she had seen earlier stood in the doorway. His face was purpled and enlarged, but he held his back straight. He walked over to her and saluted.
“Ma’am,” he said, seemingly unaware that anything was amiss. “We have a situation, we—” He stopped. His eyes caught the blackened console, and then they found the body of Nelson below. His eyes went wide.
“Mr. Nelson fell to his death,” she said. “I’ll need Orton to look at the system, see what happened. The generator turned on and almost killed us, and the console exploded after. What were you going to say?”
He swallowed, touching his bruised skin. “Ma’am, engineer Sheila Porter… She’s gone.”
***
Ishani knew she should get some sleep. The two police officers on duty had switched off and were now hunting down Sheila Porter; her name had appeared on a ferry manifest bound for the mainland, and had almost arrived there, but the storm delayed it long enough so that they managed to catch the ferry before it disembarked.
Sheila was not on board. It was disappointing, but nobody was in a mood to give up. All that meant was that she still had to be on the island. It was now six in the morning. A spare bed was offered to Ishani as a courtesy. Instead, she stood in a watchtower to watch the storm.
In the distance storm clouds raged, twisting left and right in a macabre dance that was as potentially deadly as it was beautiful. A bolt of lightning snaked across the sky, and set fire to something in a distant, uninhabited ruin. She knew the ministry would have people watching, making sure the fire didn’t spread. That the danger was contained. She had seen those storms when the generators failed.
Was Sheila a Wind Changer? Had she witnessed the destruction that nature could inflict on them? Had she seen the damage they could inflict on nature, for that matter? So many years of climate change, so many failed warnings, and then, eventually, war. Who would want that to happen again?
A figure came up to the railing next to her. Ali.
“Pretty,” he commented. Ishani nodded, listening to the generators below her bellow.
“They’re powered by solar, and use the heat they produce to feed back into the system. Only a fraction of the energy is wasted, even with the limited metal supply. It’s really cool to watch.” Ali produced a flask from inside his coat, and Ishani looked at him with raised eyebrows.
“Thank God things still ferment,” he continued as he took a swig. He winced a little from the taste, and Ishani smiled.
“You don’t seem like you like it.”
“Not the best,” he admitted, and laughed. “Hey, I’m off my shift, and I nearly died. I deserve a shot.”
“Fair enough.” She smiled. “It would almost be worth taking a picture. Headline: Ministry Man, drinking on job.” She mimed taking a picture using her phone.
He grinned nervously. “You wouldn’t.”
“That depends.”
“On?”
“If you’re sharing.”
&nbs
p; His smile eased, and he passed the flask. She took it and had a swig. It was awful, but it was alcohol. She took another gulp and passed it back, wiping her mouth on the back of her hand. He took it back and looked inside.
“Jesus, you must like it.”
“Not the best,” she replied, grinning. “But hey, I’m off my shift, and I nearly died, so, you know.”
He laughed again. “You’re my kind of girl,” he said, pulling from the flask.
“Oh?” She flushed slightly, but her mouth formed into a smile she hoped was wry. “Are you flirting with me, Ministry Man?” She looked at him. He must not have realized what he’d said, because he looked like a deer in headlights.
“Relax,” she said, holding up her hand. “You can take me out for dinner, but you better hope you have some coffee rations stored up. I am craving that stuff hard.”
He gave a short, dark laugh. “Maybe I’ll ask Ash.”
“Huh?”
“He had a small fortune in coffee rations.” Ali leaned over the railing, looking at the ground below. “Found them in his room. More than he should have.”
“Really?”
“Yeah. Heard the other officers mention it.”
“Weird.” Something was bothering her, and her head started to cloud. She quickly shook her head as if to clear it. “So, he just had them lying there?”
“It was hidden somewhere, I guess. Place looked like a mess. He must not have cleaned for awhile.”
“Weird. He seemed like a real stickler for organization.”
Ali shrugged, draining the flask and making a face. “Hard to say. Some people change between home and work I guess.”
“I guess,” Ishani said to herself, turning back to the storm. The storm was still there, rolling through. The fire that had started was now out, contained, manageable. More lightning shot through the sky but none of it seemed to make landfall. The storm would continue into the Midwest. A few farms would get some needed rainfall, but the storm would abate without killing anyone.
“Ali,” she said. “How do you think he got those coffee rations? You can’t buy them in bulk, right?”
“Nope.” Ali sighed as he spoke. “And you can’t really horde them either. You’re given a certain number and they have an expiration date. Otherwise we’d have people save them up and cash them in, ruin the supply for everyone else.”
“So, if Ash has them, he would need to have gotten them from someone else, right?” The picture was becoming clearer in Ishani’s brain. So beautiful. So simple. Like so many crimes, so petty and stupid.
“I suppose so, yeah.”
Ishani calculated some things in her head, retracing her steps from the day.
“And Nelson said there was a power outage in the dorms?”
Ali thought for a moment, then slowly nodded. His eyes started to widen as he understood the implication. Ishani stood up, pulling out her gun and radio.
“What are you doing?” Ali asked.
“Going to catch a murderer.”
***
“Over fucking coffee rations?” Ishani burst into Gregg Melqart’s room, startling him. He started awake, his hands struggling to get the earphones off his head.
“Wha?” he muttered, looking back and forth between her and Ali.
“You weren’t going to quit coffee, you lost your fucking rations.” She waved her gun at him when he tried to move. He put his hands up. His blanket fell across his chest, dragging the earphones down. “Ash had all your rations.”
“Did not.” He wiped his eyes quickly.
“So where were yours?”
“I, uh, tossed them into the incinerator. Told you I’m trying to quit,” he said, a note of anger in his voice. “That isn’t a crime, is it?”
“Bullshit, they’re worth enough to trade, and when Ash turns up dead and those rations are in his room, and the whole place is roughed up, it looks awfully suspicious.”
“So?”
“So, Ash was OCD about everything. He hated messes.”
“Listen, I was in here, listening to music the whole time.” He gave a deep yawn, and scratched his belly. “Told you that.”
“Oh, were you?”
“Yeah, I was.”
“You’re lying, because there was no electricity in the dorms that night.” She motioned to the wall plug in. “You didn’t have power. Your earphones wouldn’t work. You thought the reserves would be enough but they weren’t. But then again, you’d know that if you were here.”
Gregg’s mouth opened, closed, then opened, then closed. His eyes were clouded, tired. He said nothing.
“No,” she said, “You were too busy rushing back, and you’re too tired to think about those things I’m willing to bet. It takes twenty minutes to get from the dorms to the generators, maybe fifteen if you’re quick. The rooms may not have locks but you made quite the mess looking for those rations.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Gregg said, but his voice was shaky.
“I’m sure,” Ishani said. “You overplayed your hand, Mr. Melqart. Trying to frame Sheila was a nice touch, and I love how you tuned us into the whole Wind Changer stuff—all very nice bullshit—but Sheila isn’t her parents, and as far as killing Nelson, she was genuinely upset and probably still way too drunk to pull that off. We caught the ferry before it hit mainland too, thanks to the storm. Sheila wasn’t on it. I’m sure we’ll find her body, and when we do, I’ll have enough grounds to charge you with murder. Get it? Grounds?” Gregg’s eyes were wide, and he shook slightly as she laid it all out in front of him. “As in coffee grounds?” She spat. “I’m glad they won’t serve you coffee in jail, you dumb fuck.”
She tossed a pair of handcuffs on the bed, and waved her gun at it expectantly. He picked up the cuffs, looking at them as if in a dream.
“Cuff yourself. You’re under arrest.”
***
A couple hours later, they found Sheila’s body. It had been hastily dumped out of one of the windows, and had landed in a pile of brush. Gregg Melqart was in custody and asking for a lawyer, and Ishani was looking forward to going to bed. She waited at one of the island’s docks with Ali.
“Strange it wasn’t better hidden,” Ali remarked. “Everything else looked well planned.”
“He was probably banking on us chasing Sheila off of the island, rather than look closer to home.”
“Bit of a gamble.”
“Mmmhm,” Ishani mused. “But then again, he obviously wasn’t very good at gambling.”
Ali chuckled, and a silence grew for a few moments. In the distance, the ferry lumbered towards the island; it was a small craft, and its solar panels were all they could see from this distance. It was rapidly approaching the island; Ishani checked her watch. ETA ten minutes.
“It was nice working with you,” she said, slowly. “I may have been a bit harsh, so I apologize.”
“It’s fine.” He waved his hand. “You ended up figuring it all out. Didn’t mean to get in your way.”
“Well, you did, a bit,” she said, then, seeing the look on his face, quickly continued. “But you also helped a lot. And it was your observation about the coffee rations that helped me catch him.”
“So, that was a thank you?”
“Don’t push your luck,” she chided, but smiled.
He smiled, and nodded to her. The ferry was closer now, and she could see its bridge, the metal siding, the spray of the motor as it pushed water behind it. They watched it approach, and slowly it drew up to them. It docked, its captain tossing over ropes to tie the craft to the shore.
“So are you out of coffee rations?”
“Huh?”
She looked at him. His brown hair was disheveled, his suit was crumpled, and he smelled slightly of alcohol. But, all things considered, he did save her life. It was worth a date.
“I said, are you out of coffee rations? Or have you forgotten about dinner?”
He smiled, looking once again like a deer in the
headlights. She grinned, grabbed his hand, and pulled him towards the ferry.
***
A native of Niagara Falls, Ontario, Edward Edmonds is a teacher currently living in Saskatchewan, Canada. His works have previously been published in the literary magazines Inscribed, Steel Bananas, and dead (g)end(er). You can find Edward on twitter @ededification if he’s not haunting your local coffee shop.
Amber Waves
by Sam S. Kepfield
Ryan Baumann pressed the firing stud on the electromagnetic gun. The drone tumbled from the sky and was lost in a shimmering gold field of ripe wheat.
“Score one for the good guys,” he said in satisfaction, walking along the dirt and gravel road to retrieve the drone. He had a fire extinguisher from his Jeep, in case the drone sparked or caught fire. The last thing he needed was a fire right at harvest time.
The drone lay in a twisted mess half a mile east. He turned it over in his hands. There were no markings, of course, but he could have Sadie run a serial number check with the FAA in ten minutes. Ryan would bet that it was owned by Phytek. In a control room somewhere in California, there was a blank screen and an alert to local reps to retrieve it.
Ryan stowed the EM gun in the back of the Jeep and resumed his original task, fixing a malfunctioning wind turbine. He climbed the fifty feet to the motor, and began undoing bolts on an access panel. He was on the last bolt when the wrench slipped off the bolt and out of his hands and fell fifty feet to the ground, landing in the tall grass at the base of the windmill.
He swore, and wiped at his forehead with the bright red bandana. It was easily over a hundred today, the fourth day in a row, with the relative humidity not much lower. No rain for three weeks running. Kansas summers had always been bad, and he had thought as a kid they couldn’t get worse. A few billion tons of CO2 and methane had proved him wrong.
It wouldn’t have been a big worry, except that it was the beginning of June, and the wheat that stretched in every direction was ready to harvest. And as if that wasn’t stressful enough, the satellite images from this morning showed a big front moving down from the north, meaning that at best there would be rain, which would turn the hardpan ground to mud and slow the harvest. At worst, it could bring a hailstorm that would flatten his crops. Some things about a farmer’s life never changed.
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