by Lee Baldwin
Next History
The Girl Who Hacked Tomorrow
Lee Baldwin
Copyright © 2013
Exquisite and resourceful Tharcia, at risk in a world where instinctive drives are now unleashed, seeks her mother for a final throwdown. Her only difficulty is that Mom is dead. Through her peculiar mix of technology and magic, Tharcia ensnares a strange entity in a geometric prison. It is not her mother.
When Tharcia finds in her deepest being a secret twin, the future of humanity is about to be reprogrammed. Will there be a collective, agonizing dive into chaos and depravity? Will it reveal humanity’s true purpose?
Or, will nothing change at all, except for the dark fate of one luckless girl?
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Dedication
In memory of Schrader Heizer, 1969 - 2009. One in, all in.
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Whalesong
Imagine.
A young woman dreams in her night of serene wonder. Diving below star-flecked sea surface among whales into deepest black, swimming down as one of them. Calls of joy echo through dark water. Tharcia in this moment understands their song, their secret, spoken thoughts.
Plunging toward black abyss in their thousands, thunder in their ears mounts with rising sea pressure. In ultimate darkness far below, the faintest ribbon of light, stretched taut between past and future. Pink lines, sparked with unknown symbols. The animals dive deeper, the markings resemble written music. Deep in dream, she tells herself, you must remember everything.
The ribbon of symbols a complex tapestry of history and meaning stretches to infinity in both directions. Many whales small below her, dark swimmers, approach the tracery of light. One touches, is consumed as a brilliant flash that ripples the surface, fades and gone. Others touch, flare, and disappear. She is closer, hears music, voices, myriad stories. Glowing lines and symbols fill her universe. Alone now, she is there, and touches it.
Bathed in overpowering brilliance, she is aware of the width and breadth of space, the deep enormity of time, consumes the knowing of all events, thoughts, intentions, beings, all wishes and deeds that have ever been and will ever be. With knowledge of each yesterday and every bright tomorrow through fathomless time, her body dissipates into light.
Tharcia is already sitting up in bed when her mind becomes awake. Her head whirls with fading scraps of dream. Too much to recall, more than human consciousness can hold, she is sick with loss as dream-knowledge slips away.
Stumbles the darkened upstairs hallway, trying to be quiet in the creaky house among silent redwoods. In the mirror glare her hair is wild, mouth agape. She fights to pull the dream reality across the gulf to her waking mind. Like clutching at smoke.
To her mirrored reflection, her astonished lips form the only words she can find. I had no idea.
Total Lockdown
At first it seems like another Homeland Security mass-fear distraction to deflect attention from the latest wretched unemployment numbers, a short news crawl on the major TV networks: Pentagon in Total Security Lockdown. White-hot on the former 5-color DHS threat scale, meaning we are beyond at-risk and currently under attack, so tune to local AM station, place head between knees and fondly kiss your ass bye-bye. This is replaced minutes later by another crawl, a baffle-worded retraction. Threat Levels Normal. Most viewers chuckle sardonically and let it go. The tweet-blizzard fades, traffic choked off by big-iron military counter-intelligence denials, and that seems to be that.
At the regular White House briefing that afternoon, the Press Secretary shrugs off the non-event with a benign smirk. Just a computer glitch during a periodic software update. Contractors were responsible. The briefing eases smoothly toward the jobs crisis.
Among the few who do not regard the event as system noise is Data Analyst Christopher W. Strand, Ph.D., sharply aware of something extraordinary. An independent consultant in Predictive Knowledge Modeling for the Department of Homeland Security, Strand would be among the first to know. His Pentagon office looks directly down on the central courtyard, which the lunchtime crowd has hastily vacated.
Leaving a solitary figure standing motionless near the central gazebo.
Thanks, Mom
Nearly a year after her mother’s death, something taps on Tharcia’s window in deepest night. A fingernail, a claw, the dry husk of something. Bolt upright in her bed, she stares at the dark rectangle. Hairs rise at her nape.
“Mom. Is that you?”
It is October and when Tharcia next awakes the view from her window is cheerful green shaded by tall California redwoods. She occupies a room in the home of a man she calls Clay, or Stuka, a man who knew her mother in high school days and who, both of them came to believe, is possibly her father. Moving in with Clay had seemed such a refuge, her mother’s empty house so bleak with echoed memories.
Each holiday in the year now passed was a torture. Her mom’s birthday, every familiar place, each encountered friend with the same questions and fumbled words, some of them not getting it at all. Tharcia’s own birthday, her twentieth, two weeks away. And days after that looms the anniversary of her deepest loss. Tharcia’s mother Hannah Harrison, a Santa Clara County Parole Agent, practically a cop herself, had gone up against other cops in a spasm of narcissistic rage. Thanks, Mom.
Tharcia’s coloring is more Clay’s than her mother’s. Long blonde hair and blue eyes, soft mouth in a symmetrical face. She’d been a cheerful person, a careful student, focused on graduating in her Journalism and New Media program and mastering the sport of surfing. A fast reader, never without a collection of e-books on her iPad. An outwardly happy girl, equally ready with droll wisecrack or warm smile. But now. Her list of recent search terms reads in part: how to summon spirits, contacting the dead, explain life after death, demons and the afterlife, demons as intermediaries, familiars and ghosts, how to conduct a séance, how to operate a Ouija board, learn a foreign language in 10 days.
Her current project is somehow fully to express her rage. About the mother’s carelessness, the boyfriends, the abuse. The emotional neglect. Everything. The main obstacle to having it out with her mom right now is the fact that Hannah Harrison is deceased. If Tharcia can bring her mother back to life, she will. For the sheer joy of slapping her.
If not for the breakup with her girlfriend, Tharcia would have taken the larger bedroom on the first floor with its ensuite bath, but prefers the upstairs room in this old bunk house where the bathroom is down the hall and winter winds puff ancient dust through warped siding. Her room is decorated with posters of dragons, serpents in dark caverns, large-breasted goddesses with filmy gowns, posters of angels. Her small bedside table is crowded with vials of flower essences, exotic oils, crystals, jeweled pendulums. Cannabis perfume oil in a purple glass bottle shaped like a phallus.
Above the bed, a cluster of pencil drawings and charcoal sketches on paper. Tharcia’s work, mostly faces. A sleeping woman, storm of hair across her pillow, sensitive portrayal of love lost. A handwritten poem beside it.
Candles occupy wall sconces and crowd her dresser along with incense holders, small gargoyle figurines. Balinese and Japanese face masks, fierce protectors, glare from the walls. On the wood plank floor, covered now by her one expensive purchase, a hand-woven rug of Chinese silk, are rubbed-out geometric forms in colored chalk.
Multiple Homicide
Much to the relief of worried Homeland Security officials, a later news item engulfs the tweet-storm that day, exclaiming over the unexpected death of pop singer Annetka, a sublimely beautiful woman with angel pipes, world famous for her many albums, Grammys and Billboard awards, plus Oscar noms for a recent film role. The avalanche of
tweets reverberates globally as people share dismay and grief at their unthinkable, personal loss. Annetka’s latest album, Loan Me Your Soul, goes double platinum within hours.
New York City Police remain guarded about the scene in Annetka’s Park Avenue flat. Bio-suited forensic teams and NYC Homicide officials move through all day, careful to wipe their feet. Although news choppers hover, no press or photographers make it within a block of the entrance. Family are contacted, advised not to travel. Police are silent about clues, witnesses, cause of death. First responders emerge tight-lipped, meeting no one’s eyes. A quiet rumor, better than an educated guess: more than one dead at the scene.
A Simple Request
Weeks later, after extreme social and economic mayhem, weary survivors begin to ask each other what they were doing the day they knew the many random crimes in the wake of the Pentagon intrusion were more than a statistical blip. Cicero Clay will recall what he was doing. He was having another major fight with the girl.
“It does not stink,” she says forcefully. “Besides, it’s my own biz.” Tharcia’s clear eyes throw back a challenge.
Clay faces her with an external calm that masks a familiar interior voice. If this is fatherhood, they can keep it. “Smell it out here,” he informs her. Looking toward the house, Clay gives the air a sniff. “Stinks like road kill barbecue.”
Full voltage from Tharcia’s baby blues. “Of course it does not smell. Chill, dude!”
“Tharcia, I have a simple request.”
Her reply an insolent, so-what glare.
“Could you for once just show up?”
She does not connect with the question, which doesn’t hold back her heated retort. “And could you for once not interfere? It’s my life. Men! Knuckle-draggers don’t care.”
She walks quickly to her small yellow Mazda, a faded reading is sexy bumper sticker on the back. “And stay out of my room, boner boy!”
“What!” Clay strides after her. “I never go in your room!”
Tharcia hops in fast and locks the doors, thinking what if he loses his cool. She’s never seen violence in Clay, but he’s a big guy and hides a quick temper. Through a crack in the sunroof, nostrils flared, she yells, “Stuff gets moved in there. Leave my things alone!”
She exits the clearing with a scuff of tires, heading for the road. Watching her dust swirl, Clay reflects. Yes he had signed up to support her in the loss of her mom. He went through that himself at about the same age. Happy to have her company in the secluded house, for both of them it was a grab at family life denied by harsh circumstance. But the last few months she’s dealt him out of every hand and does little more around the place than wash her own few dishes and shut herself in her room. Besides occasional acrid odors from upstairs, her voice sometimes wakes him late at night, sounding not at all like her.
Crimes of Passion
Santa Cruz County Homicide Detective Junipero Garcia guides his unmarked car along twisty asphalt roads that lead through redwood groves near Henry Cowell State Park. The house he seeks is noted only by a thick redwood plank to the right of the driveway, the words slow children carved into it. Garcia readies to turn in. A yellow Mazda scoots arrogantly past and with a dust trail dashes away up the hill. Another time, he’d give chase.
The dirt road into the lot rises and curves. Just before the narrow track opens out into a wide clearing, Garcia passes another redwood sign, even slower children. The clearing slopes upward to the left. On the high side a metal building with double doors large enough to clear an airplane’s wings. Opposite, a century-old bunkhouse that by slow degrees subsides into the landscape. A man stands in the space as though waiting, longish wheat straw hair, shades, blue work shirt.
Clay stiffens when he sees the unmarked car. He prefers to be out of sight when strangers come calling, not in the open like a tool. He’s had enough contact with law enforcement to last him, though it’s been a long time since a house call. Dude gets out, studies tire tracks in the dirt, looks straight at Clay. Talks into his Bluetooth, finishing a convo Clay can’t hear. Walks up to Clay, stands close.
“Garcia, Sheriff’s Homicide. Cicero Clay?” Waves a shield.
Clay doesn’t blink, just looks at the guy. Makes him as mid-forties, balding, black hair, Gucci shades on a Castilian nose, leather jacket that doesn’t hide a shoulder holster. Needs a shower. Cookie-cutter example of cops Clay has known since his spotty youth.
“You can go light on the Cicero. What do you need?”
“You should be proud of that name.”
Clay waits.
“That your car?” Detective is looking at Clay’s old Lexus Coupe.
“Mm.”
“Car fitting that description figures in an incident last night. Where were you?”
“You get a plate? Where did this happen?”
Garcia takes a half step closer, lowers his voice to a growl. “I’ll ask, you answer. Where the fuck were you?”
Clay can smell garlic fries the dude had for lunch. Now he sees a guy who compensates for his lack of altitude by being tough. Doesn’t much appreciate the overdone persona, but tilts his head at the shop. “Worked on my plane until late.”
Detective glances across the clearing to the metal building, one of the wide double doors pulled partway back, dark inside. “Anybody corroborate that?”
Clay considers. “Daughter.”
“Oh sure, Clay. Never been married, three years in state lockup, paroled two years ago, now you have a daughter? What is she, six months? Where’s the mother?”
“Died. Daughter is nineteen.”
“You have foster papers? She’s underage, right?”
“She’s an adult.”
“You employed Clay?”
“My aircraft parts business.”
“Got a city business license?”
“This is the County, Sheriff. But you already know all these things, because you checked. Now what do you need? Got work to do.”
Garcia looks at Clay, unmoving. Reflected in the detective’s phat sunglasses, Clay can see he needs a haircut. Detective suppresses a tired yawn by clenching his jaw tight.
“Alright. Argument last night at a bar downtown, car matching yours was followed from the location by a black ‘85 Harley. The rider was found this morning deceased, no sign of the bike.” Garcia studies Clay for his reaction. Clay gives him nothing, waits.
“Who was that sprinted out of here in the Mazda sedan? You threatening someone?”
Clay laughs. “Garcia, you got any teen-agers at home?”
“That’s the underage girl lives here, right?”
At this point a switch flips in Clay’s mind. Mental image of twisting the detective’s head around and around until it comes loose. Sees the switch, with effort reaches through rising blood mist to turn it off. A thing he’s working on. Fits of temper counter-productive.
Clay leans down in the guy’s face. “Know what? Either you like to needle people or your facts are fucked up. Do your homework.”
“Cicero,” Garcia says slowly, half to himself.
Clay bristles. “What?”
“You ever read a book? It was your namesake Cicero who most influenced European literature. Should be proud.”
Clay nods, shows nothing. The detective stands rock solid, jaw clenching, pissed that he has to look up at this white boy.
Garcia touches the Bluetooth at his ear, looks down, intent. A buzzy electronic voice. The detective turns away distracted, pointing a finger back towards Clay as though telling him not to move. His walk accelerates as he hurries to his cruiser.
“Jesus,” Garcia spits out. “Murder-suicide? Again?”
Bad Luck Casts a Shadow
Christopher Strand, pacing his A-Ring Pentagon office, looks around in frustration. He can do no more than hold the phone to his ear and wait this out. A mathematician and entrepreneur who sold his first business for $15 million at age 23 and served in the U.S. Special Forces, Strand has little choice other tha
n to shut up and take it. Tommy Kites, A&R man from his client and first investor, Fantasia Records, is streaming an uninterrupted harangue of profanity-laden demands, which orbits relentlessly around a single question.
“Our lead artist is dead, they say possibly murdered, along with others in her retinue, and Next History had no warning for us. How can you justify your retainer?”
Next History, Strand’s well-funded data mining company, has on its client list, along with Homeland Security and the Department of Defense, several individual-artist accounts such as Fantasia, one major bank, a nationwide realty firm, and two hedge funds. At thirty-seven and now expert in the science and strategy of predictive data modeling, Strand’s drive is to capture and model enough Internet information to calculate future realities.
“Tommy, Tommy. Black swan events are impossible to simulate. It was off the grid.” An irritating squawk from the phone at Strand’s ear. He knows who it is. General Solberg wants to talk. Glancing to the windows, Strand is certain what the general wants to discuss, the solitary figure that has stood motionless in the Pentagon’s central courtyard for the last hour. Nothing in Strand’s event clusters showed any hint of that abrupt arrival. Next History is zero for two on the day.
Strand’s dark eyes make out forms of armed men on adjoining rooftops. In the corridor, alarms are going off. Clear the building.
“Tommy I have to go. All hell is breaking loose over here. Evacuating the place.”
“Chris where the hell are you?” The stress intensity of Kites’ voice like acid bile.
Strand is not about to give up his location to a music exec, no matter that he has a dead superstar on his hands. “I’ll talk to you when we have something.”
Strand flips to his incoming call, but the party has either hung up or bumped to voicemail. At his laptop he scans four text windows open with members of his remote staff, private contractors scattered from North Carolina to Vermont. With brisk keystrokes he invites them all into a single window.