I Can Transform You

by Maurice Broaddus

  The sheer rock face loomed like a wall next to the road, so close it left little room for driver error. Water seeped from the stones, tears of crags broken by slate screes. Trees lined the other side of the road, a stand of soldiers at parade rest. Evenly spaced, their leaves not yet grown in for the year. With the eruptions of the strange towers and the weird iridescent skies, the Lifthrasir Group planted acres of trees to reclaim the open spaces, stripping away many concrete avenues and long-abandoned malls in favor of retooled landscape. The hills on the fringe of town were still green, deep roads cut into a valley. What were perhaps the remains of a series of towers aborted mid-eruption now sprouted with weeds and outgrowths, like the tentative facial growth on a pubescent boy. The greenery was broken by shelves of rock passed by outside of Ade’s car window.

  It was entirely too claustrophobic.

  Mac couldn’t figure out Ade’s angle. An hand of friendship had been offered, no strings, no requirements. He didn’t know why this man he had never encountered before this case allowed him such access. Didn’t know if he wanted Mac to succeed or be a scapegoat should they fail. Didn’t know what was expected. Perhaps to have a front-row seat for Mac’s final a burnout and then have him trotted out so that all those he had ever bent out of shape while on the LG Security Force could have their moment to point and laugh.

  All Ade offered was friendship, yet Mac felt under attack by the idea. All he knew was that the walls were closing in on him. Flight or fight. The pressure like tectonic plates in the earth shifting, producing jutting spires of coarse anger.

  And fear.

  “If I were telling the story of Baraka’s death,” Mac broke the silence, “I would look for someone who had a really good reason to see him dead.”

  “He had everyone looking for him: the police, Kiersten, Carmillon.”

  “Not everyone.”

  “What do you mean?” Ade asked.

  “The Lifthrasir Group. They were all over Kiersten, but made no mention of Baraka.”

  “Forget it. It’s done. Case is closed. The only story to tell and the Lifthrasir Group is ahead of it, spinning it their way.”

  “We’ve got to do something. Kiersten…” Mac slumped in his seat, not knowing how he planned to finish that sentence.

  “The foundation on which you’ve built your whole life is an illusion. There is more to you than this story you’ve written of yourself, as if all there is to you is this broken-down mope who sleeps in his clothes and bathes in booze.”

  “But you expect me to believe that you see beyond that?”

  Ade tapped his eye and then his head. “I read people.”

  “It’s part of the job. Having that eye helps.”

  “I don’t need an eye to tell me that you never believed yourself to be standard-issue Security Force. You don’t believe the rules apply to you. They’re more like suggestions. Being booted from the force would’ve killed guys who were all about the job, but for you, it fed into your lone wolf/maverick thing you have going on.”

  “I have more fun and fewer rules doing what I do.”

  “I know that’s what you tell yourself. Thing is, guys like you need boundaries or you lose yourselves. Kiersten was a boundary.”

  “You’ve stopped making sense again. Time for a system reboot.”

  “The lies you want to believe about yourself, they had to wither under the reality of her loving you. As you were. For who you were as well as who you could be.”

  “Whatever. You can save that psycho babble shit.” Mac turned away from him, but he still heard a voice. Kiersten’s voice when he was leaving her.

  I’m not the one who hates you. You’re the one who hates you. And I think you’re more comfortable with your hate than you are risking letting anyone in who may love you.

  His hate. At least he still felt something. “I drove her away like I did everyone else.”

  “Yeah, you have a charm about you that enjoys pushing people away. And when you encounter people that won’t be pushed, you don’t know how to deal with them. At best, you sort of resign yourself to being close to them.”

  “Better be careful. These days all I do is lose people who get close to me.”

  “Good thing I got no interest in that. You need a pet. Or a hobby.”

  “Self-destruction is my hobby.”

  “You think I can’t spot a junkie? You spend your days wallowing in self-pity and pumping Stim into your system. Don’t act all shocked. I am a detective, and it wasn’t much of a secret.”

  The blue haze lit up the sky; a neon borealis, like an electric fog cover. The rains had passed for the most part, a wet spring that lingered too long. They wound down the serpentine corridor between the hills as silence settled on them again. Ade kept checking the rearview mirror, not liking what he thought he saw.

  “We’ve picked up a tail.” A set of headlights lit up Ade’s face.

  “You sure?”

  “I’m going to pretend you didn’t just insult my skills as a Security Force—detective grade, mind you—nor my common sense, as there aren’t but a handful of cars out here in the first place.”

  The lights behind them flared as if recognized or giving up the pretense of being discreet. The beams bounded across Ade’s face, the glint from his eye casting his face in steep shadows of menace. He grimaced, mostly annoyed, then hunched over the steering wheel.

  “Get down.” Ade reached over and shoved Mac forward.

  “What?” was all Mac could mutter before the rapid-fire report of automatic weapons spraying at the car answered him.

  Three distinct kinds of fire. A continuous rat-tat-tat over a repeating bang, punctuated by a large burst as if the pursuing truck was auditioning for a percussion trio of firearms. Bullets splattered across the body of the Mantori Grendel, their impact leaving cracks in the glass. The car rocked with each report of the irregular booms and wouldn’t hold up for long under such a concentrated attack. One blast left deep gouges in the door as if a hand sought to punch through to grab Mac. The rear window finally gave way; glass riddled the interior ahead of a swarm of bullets. From deep within the seat well, Ade knocked out the remaining glass above him and fired blindly at the charging truck, hoping to keep them off balance. Mac huddled low in his seat, withdrawing his Cougar PT-10.

  The truck neared, attempting to pull alongside. Ade gritted his teeth in a mad smile, his fingers digging into the soft mat of his steering wheel as if he could will the car to do what he wanted. The road was all but deserted at that time of night; Ade swerved in and out of their line of fire.

  “Hold on. This is about to get ugly.” Ade stomped on the brakes. The car veered, slamming into the truck. The truck ran up the embankment, the jagged rocks scraping the side and throwing the occupants of the truck bed around. The Grendel careened down the hillside. The car made it most of the way down on all four wheels, bouncing and nearly tipping as it sped headlong down the side. However, but the last crest proved too much and the car overturned, toppling onto its side.

  “You okay?” Mac massaged the back of his neck as he sprang up from the backseat, where he’d landed.

  “No, I’m pissed.” Ade unbuckled his seat harness and climbed out the passenger window.

  By the time Mac crawled through the window, Ade was already a good way up the hill, positioning himself for the shooters, ready for them to come after them. Mac had wrenched something in his lower back in the car crash, and who knew how many new bruises he’d be adding to his collection by the morning. In a sore lope, he moved to the lowest tier of trees to keep Ade in his sights. The world spun at crazy angles. His equilibrium was shot, and he needed a minute to clear his head.

  “This way,” a distant voice cried. Mac counted four men, possibly a fifth, but with the blue luminescence playing games with the tree shadows, not to mention his still-blurry vision, he couldn’t be sure. Whoever they were, they were loud and untrained. Thug ’R Us was obviously having a clearance sale on grunt-level hitters. Mac
almost felt insulted that he wasn’t worth digging deeper into someone’s pocket for a quality hit.

  “Over here, you shitbirds!” Mac took wild shots in their general direction. As he only needed to be a distraction, he didn’t try too hard to actually hit anyone.

  This far from the city proper, the azure field above them illuminated the sky the way a snow-covered ground lightened the night sky. The strange glow wreaked havoc on the senses, alternately piercing shadows then deepening them. Unlike the pursuing men, Ade’s eye compensated for the light shifts and targeted perfectly in the pitch black. Ade cleared the shadow of the trees. His twin semiautomatic crowd-control machine guns roared to life. Precise bursts cut down the first two thugs without any effort, splintering bullets through their torsos. The sloped, rocky terrain played to his advantage. The men were caught in their downhill trots, unable to stop in time or do little more than dive for cover. Ade wasn’t in the mood to play coy. The two remaining men slowed, stumbling over the bodies of their fallen comrades. They attempted to draw a bead on him, but with robotic accuracy, he riddled them with shots. They jerked violently at the end of a concise burst, their bodies dead before they knew to collapse. Arms still outstretched, Ade scanned for further movement.

  “That all of them?” Mac asked.

  “No.” Ade trained his weapon on a spot in front of him. “But if he makes any sudden movements, it will be his last. Then that will be the last of them. Drop your weapon.”

  “I’m unarmed. Officer.” The man pointedly said the word “officer” as if reminding Ade he had rules he had to play within. A squat figure with a bulbous belly whose shirt barely covered it. Thick arms, once heavily muscled but gone to flab. A sour face held a lifetime of disappointments through a biker mustache over a gleaming smile full of sin.

  “Detective,” Ade corrected. “On your knees. Lace your fingers behind your head.”

  “Who are you?” Mac asked.

  “Does it matter?” the man responded.

  “I need to know whose mother to notify to pick up what’s left of your body.”

  “Your tone is disrespectful. We do not like…constables…of any sort. Especially those with too many questions.”

  “Any shade of constable irritate you more than others?” Ade asked.

  “You are mistaken. You’re all blue. Besides, I’m not seeing the inside of a cell.”

  “You assume you’re making it to a cell.”

  “We all have roles to play, Detective.”

  “What’s mine?” Mac aimed his gun directly at the man’s temple.

  “Rabid dog needing to be put down?”

  “Another fan club member,” Ade yanked the man’s arms down one at a time and began to cuff him. “Like I said, you have a charm about you.”

  “What’s this about?” Mac asked.

  “This is about stories.” The man grimaced as Ade snapped the cuffs tight. “Every people has a story to tell. When all is said and done, any racial identity is about shared story. A story that defines them and continues to form them. When stories are reduced to law or dogma, their vitality is drained. When people no longer tell or listen to others’ stories, they become locked in their provincial mindset, cultural ghettos of their own making. In fact, when people become so removed from another’s story, they become compelled to destroy those others’ stories, for they suggest other ways of living. Their stories become a threat.”

  “You’re one of…them, aren’t you?”

  The man didn’t reply.

  “So you’ve been watching us? Our investigation?” Ade asked.

  “I’m not watching you specifically. You’re blocking my view as I observe a civilization in its death throes. Wanton sexuality. An addicted populace. By indulging all your so-called freedoms, you lost all sense of discipline. You have lost your center.”

  “Do you understand what this disd is talking about?”

  “Not a damn word. Are you a member of the Carmillon?” Mac asked.

  “Dissident is right. But no, I’m not a member of any group. I avoid politics.”

  “I’m done playing twenty questions with him. I’m dumping his ass in a cell and let the system sort it out,” Ade said.

  The man laughed.

  “Something funny?”

  “You want justice.”

  “I’d settle for you on death row.”

  “You would have to burn down your own house to get to me. Either way, we still win,” the man said.

  The man halted midstep as if he gagged on something. Ade shook him to nudge him forward. The man spasmed, his arms wrenching out of socket since his hands were still cuffed behind him. Falling to his knees, the man was caught by Ade, who screamed at him. Mac dashed over, and they rolled him onto his back. Ade was about to clean the man’s airway when the man’s eyes seemed to dry out. They grayed then shriveled in their sockets. His skin tightened then drew away from his eyes, his mouth a taut, a forced grin. His face split; a crease zipped down as if an invisible blade flensed the flesh from his bone, graying as it went. The flesh smoldered. Ade and Mac both scampered away from it as if not wanting to get any of the man on them, fearing whatever contagion that consumed him. Within minutes, the man’s flesh and bones had been reduced to ash.

  “You ever see something you wish you could unsee?” Mac asked. “Your parents screwing in the bedroom. Your grandma stepping out of the shower.”

  “This make your list?”

  “Do you drink?”

  “No,” Ade said.

  “I’ll have to teach you.”

  The glowing canvas lit the ground with a powder-blue haze, giving certain objects, viewed at the proper angles, a slight diaphanous quality the way oil slicks on water’s surface had a way of looking pretty under the right circumstances. Tonight, two officers stared up at the night sky as they drank from a bottle of twenty-five-year-old Macallan. Kiersten had stashed away the single malt for special occasions, and they drank in her honor.

  “Fuck you, moon.” Mac poured a stiff drink straight into his mouth, then passed the bottle over to Ade.

  “Fuck you, stars.” Ade swallowed.

  “Fuck you, big buildings doing your sausage dance out of the earth.”

  “Fuck you, strange alien blue shit.”

  “Fuck you, police commissioners an’ all you other ball-less sacks of brass shit.”

  “Fuck you, government pricks covering up all your asses.”

  “Fuck you, Lifthrasir Group. And your officious prick CEOs.”

  “Fuck you, you whining pinhead sheep going about your days without a care outside of your own business.”

  “Fuck you, Kiersten for leaving me,” Mac said.

  Ade averted his gaze to give the man space to grieve.

  “Am I interrupting or can anyone join this party?” Chike asked. Elia strode a few feet behind him, white hair sprouting out from under her bowler cap, then leaned against her walking stick. A cross on a necklace dangled from around her neck.

  “You’re late,” Mac said.

  “You’re drunk.”

  “Technically, he’s shitfaced,” Ade corrected. “Which means he’s prone to making monumental errors in judgment.”

  “What about you?” Chike turned to Ade.

  “I’m not even here. I closed my file, turned over all my notes, and went home to await my new assignment tomorrow.”

  “People don’t give a fuck anymore,” Mac started. “Laws are supposed to protect people, not leave them out like bait in a trap.”

  “He all right? What’s he going on about?” Chike thumbed in Mac’s direction.

  “Don’t know. Told you, I’m not even here.” Ade took another swig of the Macallan.

  “Thing is, all the evidence had to be turned in. Case closed. Everything is being buried as we speak.” Mac took the bottle from him. “The end comes not with mighty firing of weapons or grand pronouncements, but with a bureaucrat’s pen. A couple signed slips of paper and everything’s gone.”

&
nbsp; “So now you know?” Chike asked. “The eruptions, the blue haze, Lifthrasir?”

  Mac laughed. “The thing about justice is that sometimes it has to move around the law. Take Spookbot over there. He turned in all of his case notes and turned over the evidence to the deputy chief.” Mac lit up a Redi-Smoke. “I, on the other hand, may have requisitioned a notebook or two.” Mac winked at Chike.

  “That better not mean more paperwork for me to have to fill out,” Ade said.

  “Merely returning unclaimed property to its rightful owner.” Mac turned to Elia. “Does that cross mean anything to you or did you find it in one of your forays?”

  A fine filigree of wrinkles framed her small mouth when she smiled. Such a horrible, alien smile. “Where I come from, there is no concept known as God. There is only life or death. The in-between has no intrinsic value. Attachments are meaningless. We are what we were born to be. I am Xa’nthi, warrior class. My kind are bred for battle. Here on your world, there is more. There is…connection. Meaning. Things worth dying for.”

  Mac tossed the notebook to her. “I trust you know what to do with it.”

  “I have a few ideas.”

  “One way or another,” Mac said, “we need to take the fight to them.”

  Mac waited in the doorway to his apartment. The lights automatically burned to life, illuminating the room to perfect ambience. His place, little more than a hovel, was dark and had a cloying moisture to the air, a faint hint of mildew to everything. He collapsed into his bed, exhausted but not sleepy. A single disheveled comforter covered his mattress. Four pillows were piled at the head of the bed, three more than he needed, but some nights he shoved the others to his side and it left the illusion that his bed wasn’t empty. Nights like tonight, however, that wouldn’t be enough. He needed to keep moving, so as not to have to think. To think meant swelling on the anxiousness that filled his ear. The emptiness. Kiersten occupied a space in his heart. Not a large space. There wasn’t room for anything or anyone to occupy a large space in his heart. The space she took up was more like a wedge, something that propped a door shut, staving off the rushing darkness and loneliness that awaited him once it was gone. And she was gone.