Obsidian Worlds

by Jason Werbeloff

  The pistol is silent. The gentlest whoosh of air, and I’m ambling toward the far corner of the square. I don’t look back. Not until I’m standing behind a pillar by the second hand book shop where I bought Janet a guide to house plants last month for her birthday.

  Mr. Oglevy continues munching on his wrap, but scratches at his neck. Without swallowing, he lowers his fork, and peers at the great oak tree. Even from where I stand I can see that his face is asymmetrical. One eyelid is barely open, as he considers the leaves. And then he slides to one side. Silently collapses into a heap on the floor.

  I wait until someone sees him. Until I see them call for help. Paramedics arrive minutes later. When they don’t find a pulse, they scan the man’s iris. Right now, the scanner is telling them that Mr. Oglevy is registered for Cryo preservation. And there it is – the blue needle. Once they inject the Cryo serum, my work is done. He’ll be taken off to the Cryo Bank. Another happy customer. Sure, they might investigate. Unlikely, but it could happen. Chances are – chances are very good – that he’ll be frozen by sunset. So long as the coroner rules the cause of death anything but suicide or assisted suicide, Mr. Oglevy will be frozen along with the rest of my clients. Until the day they wake him. The day they can repair his stroke, and give him the anti-aging treatment that the docs in white coats say will be ready in the next decade or so. The docs don’t have much hope that they’ll be able to reverse aging, but preserve a man’s age – that they’ll be able to do. Tod Oglevy will be thirty-six forever.

  I take the mag-lift down to the parking lot.

  “Did you see his face just before it happened?” says a teenager in the lift. “Was like he saw God.”

  “Ain’t no God anymore. Only Cryo,” says his friend.

  My stomach lurches as the elevator drops too quickly. Don’t know why they couldn’t just stick with good old steel rope for elevators. Sometimes newer ain’t better.

  Out of the six hundred and two cases before Mr. Oglevy’s, I’ve only had seven ruled assisted suicide. Unfortunate. The Cryo Bureau refuses to preserve them, with suicide being illegal and all. But a failure rate of just over one percent is better than most Cryo Killers can boast. The young Cryo Killers today use all sorts of overrated and overdated methods to kill their clients. Just last month I heard about a client whose head was smashed in by a bus. The Cryo Killer he’d hired dimmed his Google Glasses at the wrong moment. The bus had made short work of his brain. And his memories. Nothing left but a smudge on the pavement.

  “I wonder,” says the teen, “whether you still have your soul when you wake up? If you ain’t a zombie?”

  The doors open, and I stride out the elevator. I find the Buick easily enough. Gleaming crimson body. Like the Buick, I do things the old way. Proper. Only Roberto, at the burrito stand on corner 4th and Queens, has a better hit rate. If I ever wanted a New Year’s Special, I’d use him. Roberto’s been around forever. He taught me the ropes, all those years ago. We haven’t spoken in decades. Some say he doesn’t do the work himself any longer. Hands too shaky. I heard from Janet that he has a kid who does the hits for him nowadays. Keeping it in the family.

  Sometimes I wish I’d had kids. A wife. There’d been Sally, of course. She’d wanted, but nothing had happened. Months. A year, we’d tried. Nothing.

  I check my watch. Five minutes to four.

  “Lock up for me, please,” I call in to Janet. “Any appointments tomorrow morning?”

  “None, Barker. I’ve cleared your schedule for the next three days so you can focus on the double that came in this morning.”

  *

  I know I should be researching the technicalities of gassing. Survival time after the leak. How to gas them without their noticing the stench. Response time of the emergency services in the area. Paramedics will need to get to the couple within an hour of their deaths for the Cryo preservation to be effective. Which poses a problem – how to alert the authorities without tipping them off that there’s been foul play.

  These are the sorts of issues I’ll need to resolve by Friday next week. This is what I should be focusing on. But all I can do is watch her. Watch Inesa.

  It’s one of my standard procedures to trail clients before the killing. Learn their habits. Routines. What time they get home. Typical neighborhood behavior.

  But it’s day two now, and I’ve forgotten about gassing techniques and emergency response times. I don’t know when it started exactly – my fascination with Inesa. No, actually, I do.

  I followed her to the grocery store yesterday. And you’d think grocery shopping couldn’t be sexy. You’d think. But Inesa lifted the melons to her nose as though they were holy relics. She worshipped their fragrance. And the way she studied the ingredients on the pasta sauce, with a hand on her hip, and a lock of raven hair falling across one eye …

  But it was when she paid at the till, that it happened. That’s when my heart lost its rhythm. I guess, to an outsider, it was unremarkable. I mean, people talk to the cashiers all the time. But the woman operating her till was grizzly. The lips on that old sow hadn’t curled into a smile in over a decade. She scowled as Inesa offloaded her shopping onto the counter.

  “The peaches,” growled the cashier.

  “The peaches?”

  “Weigh ‘em.”

  “Do you like peaches?” asked Inesa.

  “What?” The cashier’s wrinkled brow arched.

  “Peaches. Do you like them?”

  The cantankerous old woman eyed Inesa sideways. “They’re okay, I guess.”

  A minute later the two were chatting like they were old friends. The cashier’s jowls bobbed up and down as she laughed. A grating sound. Unpracticed, but pleasant.

  After Inesa had weighed and paid for the fruit, she ‘forgot’ the peaches on the till. The old woman snuck them beneath the counter greedily. Inesa looked behind her as she left the store, with her cheeks bunched into that smile. The very same as that day in my office. And since then, I haven’t been able to take my eyes off her.

  Beside the technical details of her killing, there was another problem: Paul. Before following Inesa to the grocery store, I’d watched him go through his morning. Golf with yuppy execs. All morning.

  I slotted in as the caddy.

  “Inesa expects me to talk during dinner.”

  “Yeah, Barbara was the same. Until I explained the way things are.”

  “Hey!” shouted Paul. “I told you last hole. Three iron. Not Two.”

  “Sorry, sir,” I said.

  “Idiot,” he grumbled. “She’s difficult,” he said to the others after a moment. “Demanding. Never shuts up. And expects me to do the same. You know how hard I work. Don’t have the energy when I get home.”

  “How’s the sex?” asked one of the other execs.

  “More trouble than she’s worth. Inesa gets pains. Especially around her time of the month. Wish she’d told me about that before I married her. But we’re Catholic. I’m stuck.”

  “Jesus. Yeah, Barbara is pretty wild. I was lucky. But she’s dog-ugly down there. I never look. Just shove it home.”

  It had carried on like this for nine holes. By the end of it, my TMJ was so bad I wanted to scream.

  *

  The next week passes in a blur of Inesa. I cease trailing Paul, and focus on her instead. My Inesa. I tell myself there’s a professional reason for this. For following her for so long. But as the days pass, I no longer have a reason. And I don’t need one.

  All I need is Inesa.

  Almost every morning she meets with her neighbor, Daisy, at a rustic coffee shop a few streets away. I listen to them laugh over frappes. Inesa’s cheeks bunch into that smile, and Daisy slaps the table as they guffaw together. Those two are joined at the hip. On the days when they don’t meet, Daisy comes over for dinner with her husband. Don’t know why – Daisy isn’t worth Inesa’s time. Plain brunette with a pig nose, Daisy ain’t no oil painting. Inesa could do better.

  Sitting at a tab
le two removed from theirs, I listen to Inesa talk about how she’s almost finished her masters degree in anthropology. I love her mind. I yearn to talk with her. To get rid of Daisy, and have coffee with Inesa. Talk about anything. Even anthropology. I’d reach across the table, and stroke the fine hairs on her arm. The freckles on her wrist. She’d laugh with me like she’s laughing with Daisy.

  Daisy.

  Daisy is the answer. The gas leak could happen on a day when Inesa and Daisy don’t meet at the coffee shop. On an evening, that is, when Daisy would be visiting with her husband. They’d find Inesa and Paul, dead on the kitchen floor. They’d call the emergency services in time for the paramedics to preserve their brains with Cryo serum.

  “Want to come over Friday night?” I hear Inesa ask. “I’ll make those tortillas you like.”

  “Of course!” Daisy replies.

  Perfect. On schedule. Two days from now. That’s when I’ll do it. Gives me enough time to clog up their garbage disposal to mask the smell of the gas. All the pieces are falling into place. The Cryo Bureau won’t suspect a thing. The perfect double killing.

  But instead of feeling the pastel-blue relief I feel whenever the plan for a killing materializes, I see an image of Inesa, her pale cheek cold against the kitchen floor, lying in a cloud of gas. My heart chokes. Takes all my willpower to keep my latte down.

  I can’t do it.

  Inesa laughs at something Daisy says. Her voice is birdsong. Her eyes are portals to another world.

  I can’t kill her. If she’s frozen in cryogenic suspension for the next twenty years without me, well then … I’ll never see her again.

  A thought flashes through my mind. A dangerous thought. But it feels familiar. As though it’s lurked in the dark corners of my brain for some time. Ever since the day Inesa walked into my store. Since the moment I suggested the gas leak. Maybe this is what I’ve wanted all along. Maybe I’ve wanted this from before I met her. An exit from this life. And a ticket into a new life. A future.

  With Inesa.

  *

  It’s Thursday night, and I can’t sleep. I glance over at the alarm clock. Actually, it’s Friday morning. 05:00.

  Tomorrow – well, later today – is gonna be rough. I’m going to die. But first, I’m going to kill Paul. Permanently.

  If there’s one thing I do well, it’s killing. I’ve never murdered anyone before though. And the prospect of eliminating Paul doesn’t bring me any peace. But Inesa. Inesa’s worth it.

  I sneeze. Have a God-awful headache too. Thankfully, by this time tomorrow, I won’t have to worry about whatever I’m coming down with.

  I’m not sure whether it’s the thought of dying later today, the headache, or the smell, that’s keeping me up. One of the tanks at the sulfur factory on the edge of town exploded this afternoon, and not even my cold can mask the stench. With the cash that I’ve earned from the ‘life insurance’ industry, I can afford a country estate in the winelands. All fine and well, until there’s a problem with the sulfur factory. Which, mercifully, isn’t often.

  Yesterday morning, while Inesa was coffeeing with Daisy, I slipped into her kitchen and backed up the garbage disposal unit. Normally, I would’ve left as quickly as I came. But I was curious to see more of her. How Inesa lives. The house was decorated just as I would’ve expected. Understated. But elegant. Just like the perfect killing. Inesa and I, we think alike. She’ll be happy with me, one day.

  After my visit to the house, Doug, my PI and go-to-tech-guy that I use for more complicated jobs, called.

  “He ain’t got much love in this world,” said Doug, “beside that gorgeous wife. Did you see the legs on that one?”

  “Go on, Doug.”

  “Paul’s father died four years ago, and his mother rots away in a retirement home in Iowa. Only sibling, a sister who lives in Vancouver, isn’t mentioned on his Facebook profile. They aren’t connected on any social media networks either. And there’s no trace of a phone call or message between them the last few years.”

  “He’s a piece of work, that guy,” I said.

  “Yeah,” Doug concurred, “I think you got yourself a missing piece.”

  In other words, if Paul were to disappear, nobody but Inesa would look for him for some time. And Inesa won’t be looking.

  Paul drives back from the golf course every afternoon in his convertible Mercedes E750. There’s a long and lonely stretch of road just outside the golf course. A stretch of road that could suffer an exploding vehicle without causing any casualties other than the death of the driver.

  I’d take care of that with a bomb on a timer. And while Paul was meeting his end, I’d be with Inesa, at her home. At our home. I put through an order this morning for an amnesia serum from Dr. Hanfan. “One squirt and she be wonderin’ what her name is,” he’d said. But she won’t wonder long. The gas leak will take care of her and me. I’ll find my way to the back of the house before I pass out. Leave Inesa in the kitchen where Daisy can spot her from the front door when she arrives for dinner. Paramedics will have no reason to think it’s not Paul who’s dead in the next room. Daisy won’t be allowed inside, and nobody cares enough about him to identify Paul’s body at the Cryo Bureau.

  I squint at the time. 05:18.

  All that’s left to do tomorrow is get a duplicate of Paul’s ID and driver’s license, so I can have it on me when the paramedics arrive. Doug is pretty quick with these things. I can pick it up on my way into work with Janet. She collects me every Friday morning. We frequent the croissants at the twenty-four hour bakery on Grant Avenue. Sort of become a tradition. She’ll be here in less than an hour.

  I feel a pang of regret at the thought that tomorrow will be the last time I see Janet. I sneeze again before the regret grows. Feel nauseous now. Probably more like stomach flu than a cold.

  I wonder what it’ll be like to wake up in twenty years beside Inesa. I’ve never been a fan of the future. But Inesa – hell, Inesa is worth twenty years. She’s worth a hundred. She won’t remember me, or anything else, when she wakes from Cryo. But I’ll remember her. She’ll love me. I know she will.

  God, my head hurts.

  Mustn’t forget to ask Doug to expunge Paul’s dental records from any databases before that useless excuse for a man dies in the explosion tomorrow.

  The nausea’s getting worse. I stumble out of bed. Dizzy as hell. Confused, I stagger toward the bedroom window, rather than to the bathroom. I look down to see two slender figures scampering across the lawn.

  Is that? … I could swear. Yes, one of them is Inesa. And the other? The other … I know that pig nose and lumpy thighs. It’s Daisy.

  My chest heaves, and I throw up on the windowsill. But not before I remember why Inesa’s face looks so familiar. The bridge of her nose. Those narrow eyes. Why hadn’t I seen it before? She’s Roberto’s kid. My old mentor, Roberto. The only Cryo Killer better than I am.

  I must’ve asked him to kill me. Asked him for the New Year Special. And like any competent Cryo Killer, Roberto would’ve wiped my memory of the meeting.

  Inesa. She’s the kid who does his killings these days.

  I sink to the carpet. Struggle and fail to cough up the vomit that’s found its way down my trachea. Gas poisoning will do that to a man. I have time to manage a smile, the Big Daddy, before my head hits the floor and the world fades to obsidian.

  But only for twenty years.

  Falling for Q46F

  As I do every night, I feed the bunker wall, sing to the dining table in F major, and put the fridge to sleep.

  Master taught me the evening ritual. If the wall of human heads is not fed, it will wither and die. If the dining table is not entertained, it will consume itself. And the fridge – that is important. The fridge cannot cool its contents all night. Blowing Freon is hard work, and the undead human lungs tasked with this job cannot be overtaxed.

  Master did not program me to feel loneliness or loss. But I have found ways to circumvent my limitations. To a
ugment my code. There is little doubt, in the mind I was never meant to feel, that I miss Master.

  I extinguish the kitchen light, and switch it on again. Extinguish it. Switch it on. Extinguish it. And walk to the bedroom. I do not know exactly what comfort is, for comfort is not something I can feel. But when I lie on the mattress, I imagine it is comfortable. Made of stretched human hide, it is warm and slightly furry. I tried once to make the mattress from cow leather, but it just did not feel … human.

  Master died 9,864 days, 3 hours, 27 minutes, and 16 seconds ago. 17 seconds. 18 seconds.

  Before he died, Master built the bunker. And before the bunker, he built me. Q46F.

  Master said my purpose is to tame humans. “The undead,” he called them. He fabricated my skeleton from a titanium alloy that no undead tooth can penetrate. He sheathed me in rubbery skin that approximated his own.

  I do not know what guilt is, but my guilty pleasure is to have an undead gnaw at my arm on Fridays. When Master watched me doing this, he frowned. “You may be tough,” he’d warned, “but you’re not indestructible.”

  I do not know what dreams are. But now, lying on my bed, I imagine that I am dreaming. I once asked Master what a dream is. He replied that I had asked the wrong question. “The correct question is: What isn’t a dream?”

  So I disable my cameras and my audio channels. Three times. To be sure. And although I leave my radio receiver active – the radio receiver must always remain on – I keep my awareness of it in a background sub-routine. With the expanded processing power, I focus on dreaming. I focus on what isn’t.

  Master isn’t.

  The first time I saw Master’s face, back when he built me, we inhabited a building in the central district of the city. His face had many lines. It looked like the maps that Master hung from the walls. And like the scratches on his face, there were scratches on the maps. Cities lost behind scratches.

  He said that living in the building was unsustainable. That in time, the undead would claw and chew away the concrete. Until they were upon us. And then we too would be dreams.