Outlier

by Kyle Harris

  Chaz was in. Front-row seat inside her own uterus. That was a fucking thought.

  The view was murky. And dark. Like looking at the bottom of the ocean floor.

  The pain had lost its edge, but it still burned. She carefully turned the wire to gauge her surroundings, identify anything that matched what the diagrams showed. Big fucking surprise: everything being in black and white made it hard to—

  Fuck. Fuck. The murkiness was the amniotic sac, like an oblong golf ball. She had positioned the camera just right for the night vision to catch what little light there was reflecting off what was inside.

  It…it already looked like a baby. It was misshapen, with a huge, blocky forehead and four stubs for its limbs. It was about the size of a walnut. But that was it. That was it. Her child-to-be. Her genetic son or daughter. Seven months out from being a shitting, crying, permanent mistake.

  Chaz considered for a moment what was on the screen. Then she rammed its stupid fucking head.

  The wire hurt almost as much coming out as it did going in, especially when the camera squeezed through. There was a little blood that trickled out, but not enough to rival her worst period. She was confident that enough damage had been done. Once her body sensed that something was wrong with the pregnancy, it would commence the emergency evacuation. Miscarriage. Then the curse upon her body would finally be lifted.

  Once the wire was out, she pulled the towel up and pressed it against her crotch, and she sat there. The pain had been reduced to a deep ache, but with the high she had right now, it didn’t feel any worse than an upset stomach.

  She lit herself a celebratory cigarette.

  A day and a half later, she woke up at three in the morning with a bad stomach cramp. Then a shift like a bowel movement, but more toward the front. She hurried to the toilet and sat down.

  It dumped out. The sac, the fetus, the fluid, bright red blood. Everything at once. Her dead progeny floated in the same water as all her shits. She flushed and watched it swirl down the drain.

  “Later, bitch.”

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  Patrick Letts was dead.

  Chaz had typed in his name for curiosity’s sake, seeing what it reeled in. The news article about his passing was dated nine days ago—BELOVED HUSBAND FOUND DEAD, WIFE IN SHOCK. The crime scene wrote the whole act: body discovered in the kitchen, large crosswise slash on his neck, a knife nearby with Letts’s fingerprints. As far as suicides went, cutting your own throat took some major balls, so points for that.

  No mention of his niece, which meant Nicola—the wife who had hired Chaz to snoop on him—wasn’t breaking the dam on Letts’s incestuous sidesaddle. The article ended on the note that the police were still searching for a motive.

  Still riding the same hunch, Chaz looked up Garry Ziegler. He was dead too. Double tapped. Though nowhere could she find the identity of the culprit. Some articles alluded to mob ties and debts. Seemed plausible.

  You are not an assassin, Okocha’s voice rang in her head. No, maybe not. But people around her were dying anyway. People whose lives she had gotten involved in.

  And there was another voice in her head: I like to think that we each have our gifts.

  Chaz was starting to think she had found hers.

  After a bowl of dry cereal, she spent the remainder of the morning combing through three days of surveillance. The tether was no problem—like the Pruitts, there were heaps of photos of Israel Kennedy publicly available to build a facial-rec profile. But the pickings weren’t great. The only time Kennedy was not at home or work was when he traveled between the two—and never without his personal bodyguard service.

  Her baseline strategy went like so: memorize his pattern and drop the son of a bitch quickly and quietly without alerting a hornet’s nest of attention. But good fucking luck with that, because the route he took was always crowded. And there was the bodyguard factor—it was easy to imagine popping off three shots and blowing open three heads, but she had never fired a gun, never even fucking held one. Franco was a marksman; Travis probably had firearm training too. They wouldn’t have been hired for the job of protecting a wealthy businessman if they didn’t both carry pieces and know how to use them.

  And once Kennedy reached home, the probability of painting a brain mural tanked substantially more.

  His apartment building, Eddington Tower, was chock-full of motion detectors, door and window alarms, around-the-clock surveillance, body-heat sensors, safe rooms—in other words, a fuck-that kind of job.

  Chaz didn’t care if she was caught. But Kennedy had to be dead first. With so many booby traps…

  No way.

  Then what about the Wehrlein building? She had been inside it; she knew exactly where Kennedy’s office was and how to reach it. And by incorporating satellite imagery with her so-so memory, she could calculate the approximate geographic coordinates of his desk. Knowing those would open up the Project Doomsday option. The approach would be a tight squeeze, though; she would know for sure after some measurements.

  Although, the bodyguard variable would still be in effect. Guards too. She had no idea how many security guards a building like that would have. Maybe one for every other floor? Just a stab in the dark. But it was the best option so far.

  Okay. The Wehrlein building.

  A cross-reference of operation hours and surveillance showed that Kennedy stayed for an additional hour after closing each day—that was her window. Still. Reaching him would require her to infiltrate the headquarters of one of the largest conglomerates in the city and climb thirty-four flights of stairs without getting noticed. If it was only security personnel, maybe. But there were cameras—every hallway, every room, every fucking flight of stairs. If she showed her face inside the building—or even a block away if she was tethered—Kennedy would know. Alarms sound, stealth blown.

  How could she even get close to the building without facial-rec blowing the fuck up? Glasses? Some kind of mask?

  Chaz sat for a while at her desk, hoping the answer would reveal itself like a card from a magician’s hand. But after an hour, she was no closer to solving the problem.

  Anyway, Kennedy would have to wait. Save the hardest for last.

  She opened SAMSUNG-LINK and dragged the LILIBETH1 facial-rec data from her tasker back to her desk. With FACE-MAPΔ open, she converted the topographical data into a three-dimensional mesh. The output window generated a flat-shaded render.

  Chaz sat and stared at the screen. At the face.

  She had never cried. Not in Wheeler, not since. She tried to remember the last time she had cried—not from physical pain but from actual, genuine sadness. Nothing came to mind. At least nothing recent. There was one time, she remembered: her cat, Puff Ball, had died from heart disease. It was a long time ago, back on the Nova Atlas, way before the torture chamber of puberty. She had cried then, cried herself to sleep and cried the next morning. Maybe there was a threshold? But that would mean her dumb fucking pet dying was more emotionally traumatic than losing Libby, and there was no fucking way that was true.

  Where was the grief? The long, lurching sobs?

  On the screen, the rendered mesh didn’t really have much resemblance. With the flat salmon color of the polygons, Chaz could only think of early-model jills. Silicone fresh from the face mold, not yet given a skin tone or makeup. The lighting wasn’t doing any favors either—the face looked more craterous than it had in real life, and there was a dimple on the nose that Chaz didn’t remember being there.

  But it was Libby.

  She sent the mesh file—and a payment—to a local 3D printing company. The automated response said it would be done and shipped to her apartment by late afternoon. Good.

  It would happen tonight, then.

  Before that, an errand.

  Hoogen shook his head. “No can do.”

  “But you’re a drug dealer.”

  “And a fair and honorable trade it is.”

  “Come on, man. I’m out of fuckin
g options here.”

  No way just his lonesome self was slinging meds, Chaz knew. To be a flourishing drug dealer, you needed contacts—suppliers, distribution networks, protection. Success required a fucking business model. Okocha knew that, and so did anyone else who survived for longer than a week with pockets full of pills. And somewhere in that pecking order was a guy or girl who oversaw the weapons. Fifty-fifty chance that Hoogen knew them by name—the other fifty that he knew a guy who knew a guy. She hoped so. After she’d been turned down at the Starry Palace, he was her last chance.

  He looked up at her from his nook, a cardboard bed beside him. It took some fucking dedication to blend in with the hobos, and she kind of respected that. Even with what he was probably raking in, not a dollar had been invested in new teeth. Or clothes. Or getting rid of whatever that stench was.

  “What is sought may already be procured,” he said, drinking from a bottle without a label. “You don’t need to venture to these treacherous realms, askin’ for that which is come-at-able for persons of years fewer than yours.”

  “I don’t have time for a license,” said Chaz. The average wait time was three weeks—she’d looked it up. “I need one now. Tonight. And stop talking like a douchebag.”

  He took another swig like he hadn’t heard her. He wiped his chin and said, “Answer me somethin’: What would you do with a gun?”

  “I don’t know. What would I do with a gun? Does it fucking matter?”

  He rose to his feet quickly. “Okay. Okay, okay. Shh.” He swayed like a flag in a light breeze. “I can do guns. Yes, I can do guns.” He cleared his throat. “The path of the warrior has been shown to these weary eyes, but it allows only a few to tread it. Where it leads I will say, but these ears must hear an answer to a riddle. Then I will obey.”

  Chaz sighed, noisily.

  “Why is a raven like a writing desk?”

  “A raven like a—I don’t fucking know. What the hell does that mean?”

  “Correct. Now listen carefully.”

  The tenement was a few citations past being sanitary. Berms of trash lined the hallways: polystyrene food containers and cigarette butts and plastic sacks. Flies buzzed around the flickering recessed lights. A beggar snored inside a custodian closet. And the corridors had been painted with a gray varnish that would probably outlive the human race.

  Chaz stopped outside the door to 119 at the same time a black jill flounced by. Like a fashion model on a runway, bouncing as much as she was walking.

  “Aimez-vous ce que vous voyez?” she said, twirling for the 360-degree preview.

  Chaz gave her a “Not interested.”

  “Gina approves. Très bon. Would you treat me like you treat her? Would you force me?” She traced a finger along Chaz’s lower lip. “I like being forced.”

  Chaz repeated: “Not interested.”

  The jill smiled courteously and walked on, her rear wiggling like she knew there were eyes on it. She disappeared around a corner.

  Chaz sighed and rapped a fist on the door. It whisked open a few seconds later.

  The twenty-something man was her height, with black hair gelled up in spikes. Everything on him was loungewear—T-shirt and sweats—except for the snakeskin boots on his feet. Jade Jung-sook sang one of her latest solos through speakers somewhere inside the apartment.

  Chaz asked, “You Kruck?”

  The man raised a hand. “He requires the passcode before his sublime abode is open to you, girl-boy.”

  “Bum cheese.”

  “The cheese of the bum. He approves.” Kruck stepped aside. “Permission is granted.”

  The apartment was smaller than hers. Shit, it barely had anything on the cube down at Wheeler. One main room, everything a step or two from everything else. Kruck went over to the wall to her right and pressed something; a fold-out bed angled down on two hydraulic struts. In place of the mattress were about a dozen handguns zip-tied to a base layer of netting. A cheap and concealable display rack.

  “He invites a gander, girl-boy,” said Kruck, lighting a cigarette. “Listen for the one that speaks. Admire the curves. Caress.” He puffed. “You ever felt up a gun before?”

  “Not without its consent.”

  He laughed long and heartily at that. “I like you, girl-boy. I like you. Your sense of humor is jazzed. Look and gaze, and you tell me what’s throbbin’ that heart muscle.”

  This guy’s totally tried to fuck a gun.

  The assortment was divided into two main categories: pistols and revolvers. Chaz realized she hadn’t the slightest fucking idea which would be better. They were all guns. They all fired bullets, right? Would it matter? Skimming her eyes over them, she observed that the pistols were generally bulkier, while all the revolvers looked like they could fit inside one of her coat pockets. Huge advantage. Then again, the pistols had magazines—larger ammo capacity. But how many bullets did she really need?

  She couldn’t believe she was having this mental debate.

  Chaz reached for a revolver in the center, black-painted frame with a wood-grain grip. Her fingers slid comfortably around the notches.

  Kruck emitted a sound like a moan. “Mmmm. Three fifty-seven. Gets a dick hard, don’t it? A real screamer. Cop a feel for yourself and give it a squeeze. She likes that.”

  “You fired one?” Chaz rested her thumb on the hammer.

  “Affirmative. Found it in my pops’s stuff. Ka-blam. Head hasta la vista. I told him to cool his jets, but he didn’t listen.”

  She looked over at him. “You shot your dad?”

  “Took him out. See ya lata sucka.”

  “Why’d you do it?”

  Kruck shrugged. “Cuz his hands. I didn’t like his hands. If you seen what I saw, you woulda done the same.” He nodded to the revolver. “Is it lust?”

  “Yeah. Might be.”

  He came over and sliced the zip tie with a knife. Chaz hefted the revolver in her right hand; it was heavier than she’d expected. There were larger guns in Kruck’s display, but holding that .357 made her feel powerful. Invincible. Like nothing in the whole fucking world could stop her. She peered down the sights at a spot on the wall, pretending it was Pruitt’s dumb fucking face. Bang. A gaping hole between his eyes, his dead body dropping to the floor.

  Is God gonna fix that bullet hole, Pruitt? Better get to praying. Oh shit, looks like you’re dead!

  Kruck gestured for her to hand over the piece. She obliged. “Six doses of lethal injection.” He popped the cylinder out, pushed it back in, showed her where the toggle for the safety was, and cocked the hammer. “Then the finger decides, and the trigger abides. You feel her kick, then you’ll want to rub one out like you wanna start a fire.” He handed the revolver back.

  “Yeah.” Chaz went through the sequence of pretend-loading the cylinder and preparing to shoot. Easy. Then she looked over at Kruck, remembering what he had said. “Your dad—Did you feel better after icing him? After what he did?”

  “Then and every day since,” he said. “That shit baked in the sun too long.”

  She nodded.

  “What about you? I sense some shit needs to be scooped out.”

  “You could say that.” She sighed. “That’s what it feels like. These fucking people hurt someone I knew. And they hurt me.” She looked down at the gun. “This feels like it’s the right thing to do.”

  “Because it is the right thing to do. My pops thought he was bulletproof. Showed him he was soft like apple pie. Because we are all apple pie in front of a gun.”

  Her mind made up, she forked over the cash and bought the .357. Kruck tossed in two boxes of twenty bullets each to go along with the revolver. Chaz didn’t foresee a scenario where she needed forty rounds, but she never turned down free.

  She stuffed her latest purchases into her coat. “Thanks.”

  “Shoot with passion,” said Kruck.

  Sure. Passion. Passion to blow Pruitt and Kennedy to kingdom come.

  She just had to pick up the pa
ckage at her apartment first. Then, lead justice.

  Chaz had the elevator all to herself.

  In her mind, she had taken this ride up a hundred times before. A hundred times of sneaking into the apartment, a hundred times of hypothesizing how large the puddle of blood was going to be. Eliminating the motherfucker felt like a moral obligation. For what he had done to her, for what he had done to Libby, and for the irremovable shit stain he had tracked all over the fucking human race. Taking him out wouldn’t subtract all the evil out of the world, but it was a goddamn start.

  It was right.

  In real life—now—she felt more nervous than excited. Her mind vacillated from one thing to another: the weight of the gun pressing solidly against her hipbone; the noise of the gunshot, and whether it would alert a neighbor or any security system she didn’t know about; if she could get inside the apartment in the first place and remain undetected; if he was going to beg for his life.

  No, she decided. As much as she would like to see him groveling and pleading for his rotten existence to endure a little longer, he wouldn’t. In Pruitt’s demented mind, her killing him would just prove him right—the homosexual demon strikes again.

  It doesn’t matter.

  Thirtieth floor. Thirty-one, thirty-two…

  She fetched her tasker and launched the Project Doomsday program. The timer was set at twenty minutes. She mentally walked through her plan, decided that should be more than enough time, and authorized the go-ahead with her fingerprint. The clock began counting down.

  Up the final few levels now. She pulled out the mask, and she held it. Libby’s blank and colorless face looked up at her. Chaz still couldn’t shake the feeling that the accuracy of the machine-cut plastic was off a bit. But maybe that was because of the blank expression. In her memories—not all, but most; the good ones—the girl was smiling. That’s how she was supposed to look.

  “I just need your help for this one thing,” said Chaz, to the face. “I know they’re your parents, and I’m sorry. But it has to be done.”