by Shawn Davis
Snowplows never visited this part of town, so he couldn’t expect any help there. Still, he was well equipped for the weather. He remembered how cold he was the night before after escaping from the sewers.
Today, he dressed in layers; two t-shirts, sweater, heavy winter jacket, two pairs of socks, long underwear, thick corduroy pants, hat, scarf, and a pair of thick work boots. He was ready. He figured if he could make it out of the stagnant sewers alive, he could make it through this snowstorm.
The storm didn’t matter anyway. Rayne was obsessed with the mystery. It had a firm hold on his mind and he would not rest until he had figured it out. Besides, he had slept in too late to go to work.
After breakfast, he called his Floor Supervisor, Sinbad, and told him he was sick, but Sinbad simply hung up on him. He was supposed to give at least four hours notice before calling in sick and was scheduled to be at work at 8 AM. That meant he had to leave a message on Sinbad’s answering machine no later than 4 AM. Any sick call after 4 AM was considered invalid. Peter didn’t want to think about what would happen to him when he showed up at work tomorrow.
Rayne descended his apartment steps and stepped onto the snow-covered sidewalk to begin his journey across the city. It took him more than an hour of trudging through the storm to finally reach the Waterfront District. The falling snow had thinned out, but there must have been another two inches of accumulation since he left his apartment building. He wasn’t as familiar with the Waterfront District as he was with Inner City. He trudged around aimlessly until he finally came up with a plan.
Find the ocean, and from there, find Seaside drive. Brilliant. That’s why they pay me the big bucks.
It took another forty minutes to find the building: a colossal warehouse with an office at its center. Peter cupped his hand over his eyes and saw the ground floor of the office section was constructed entirely of clear glass. He walked closer and realized this was so passersby on the street could see the hovercraft displays inside.
Taking a deep breath, Rayne walked across the street toward the clear glass wall of the building, which had immense black letters above it reading “HOVERCRAFTS INTERNATIONAL.” Approaching the double glass doors, he could see clearly into the building’s interior.
Peter stopped for a moment in the middle of the street in silent awe. Through the wall of glass he saw the latest models of the anti-gravitational line. The sleek machines, suspended from the ceiling on invisible wires, looked like sports cars fused with rockets. They reminded him of the late twentieth century Corvettes, but more impressive. The old Corvettes didn’t have the rocket engines in the back or the anti-gravitational bases. Every color imaginable was represented on the showroom floor.
Peter figured he wouldn’t make it through the front door without security being notified. Dressed in his old winter jacket, he was clearly no businessman leaving work early to go shopping for a new ride. Still, he had walked all this way. He summoned up his courage and walked toward the front doors. Rayne had never been in an Exec Business Establishment before and the mere idea of going in seemed like an extreme social faux pas.
Rayne opened the front doors and walked in. There must have been a motion sensor because a salesperson materialized like an apparition from behind one of the large hovercraft displays. The salesperson was a tall, thin, slightly effeminate looking man in his early thirties dressed in an immaculate, black, double-breasted suit. He walked briskly toward Peter’s position by the front doors like a guided missile zeroing in on its target.
“Can I help you, sir?” he asked, haughtily, lifting his eyebrows with disdain upon getting a closer view of Peter’s old, ragged garments.
“I’m here to see….I mean I’m here to return some property that belongs to your company.”
“Return some property? What are you talking about?” the salesperson asked with unconcealed skepticism.
Rayne thought the salesperson looked like he couldn’t imagine how riffraff like himself could possess any of the company’s property.
“It’s a pocket-computer. I found it after the demonstration in the city,” Peter tried to explain, awkwardly.
He felt extremely uncomfortable and out of place in the immaculate sales environment. The polished gleam of the bright blue floor was mesmerizing. He could even see the reflections of some of the hover-car displays reflected in the wide blue floor, swimming in his vision like sleek submarines.
Rayne’s concentration was broken when he heard the sound of shoes striking the floor. He turned to his left and saw a second black-suited man walk out from behind another hovercraft display and stride purposefully toward them. Peter realized the salesperson was not really interested in the answer to his question.
He was just stalling for time until reinforcements arrived.
The second man looked nothing like the first; he was medium height and stocky like a football linebacker with short-clipped blonde hair.
“Can we help you, sir?” the second man asked, politely, with none of the first salesperson’s condescension.
Rayne guessed from his muscular build that he was probably a plain-clothes security guard.
“I have something that belongs to you,” Rayne turned to the second man, trying to sound self-assured.
The serious expression on the second man’s square-jawed face snapped Rayne out of his trance. He was not going to let these guys intimidate him.
“It’s a pocket computer,” Rayne added.
“A pocket computer?” the blond haired security guard asked. “How do you know it belongs to us?”
“Because your company name is all over the software.”
“I’m sorry sir, but I’m going to have to ask you to leave,” the security guard said, guiding Rayne toward the door.
“No, you don’t understand. There are blueprints on the computer,” Peter said as he was ushered toward the door. The security guard halted.
“Blueprints?” His eyes narrowed. “What kind of blueprints?”
“Blueprints for the city of New Washington.”
Rayne was surprised to see the security guard’s eyes widen. His face became ashen as if he received bad news.
“I apologize, sir. Why don’t you come with me?” the guard asked, regaining his composure as he smiled. “We’ll talk about this in my office.”
“Surely, you’re not going to let him into the building?” the tall, thin salesperson asked, stepping in front of them to block their progress.
“Mind your own business, grunt,” the security guard growled at him with blazing eyes.
The salesperson’s eyes widened as he scrambled to get out of their way.
“There’s no need to be rude,” he muttered, walking away and shaking his head.
The security guard led Rayne to an unobtrusive door in the back wall of the sales floor.
“We’ll discuss this in my office,” the security guard said, flashing him another disconcerting fake-looking smile, which Peter found somehow ominous.
Did I make the right decision by coming here? Where is he leading me?
“This way,” the guard said, making a subtle movement with his right hand toward a spot under his arm where a shoulder holster might have been located.
“Sure,” Rayne said, allowing the guard to guide him through the door.
They entered a long, bright corridor flanked by offices on either side. Walking briskly, the security guard stayed behind him. Peter could see the guard in his peripheral vision, but he suspected he was being cautious with him for security reasons. Clearly, the pocket computer was important to him.
They reached a set of double doors and stopped. Rayne glanced right and watched the security guard reach into the inside pocket of his suit. The guard took out a small card and ran it through a scanner next to the door. There was a faint click and the double doors slid open, revealing the interior of an elevator.
“Inside please,” the guard said, gesturing to the elevator.
Peter stepped inside reluctan
tly. He was becoming more and more uneasy about the situation. There were no labels on the elevator panel like in most elevators. They descended an unknown amount of levels and the doors opened. They entered a spacious room consisting of a complex maze of office cubicles.
“We’re going straight,” the security guard said, pushing Peter lightly forward. “Take this right here,” the guard instructed when they had walked fifty feet down the aisle.
They walked another hundred feet and reached another security door. Peter’s uneasiness increased when he realized this door was constructed of solid steel. The security guard went through the routine of sliding his card through the scanner and they went through. They entered another long, bright corridor lined by offices on either side. Following this, they arrived at a wooden office door. The security guard pressed a switch on the intercom beside the door.
“Mr. Connelly, I have someone here to see you.”
“Sure, bring him in,” a deep voice spoke from the intercom speaker.
They heard a faint click and the wooden door swung open as if it had been gently pushed by a light breeze. They entered a large, well-furnished office. A gray-haired man in a suit sat behind a desk on the far side of the room.
“Please, come in, gentlemen,” the man said, waving them into the room.
Rayne walked next to the security guard until they reached two chairs placed in front of the desk.
“Please sit down,” the Exec said, smiling welcomingly.
Rayne couldn’t tell if the smile was genuine or fake. He sat down in the chair closest to the desk, while the security guard sat to the right.
“I’m Rick Connelly, Assistant Director of Operations for this facility. So what brings you here this stormy afternoon?” Connelly asked, leaning forward across his desk.
“I have something that belongs to you,” Rayne said, glancing nervously around the spacious, luxuriously furnished office. His eyes came to rest on a painting by Van Gogh on the wall behind the Exec.
“And what might that be?” Connelly asked, raising his gray eyebrows.
“It’s a pocket computer,” Peter explained, reaching into his inner jacket pocket. The room suddenly felt very warm and he started to sweat beneath the heavy layers of clothing.
“Please, feel free to take off your coat,” Connelly suggested, upon interpreting his guest’s discomfort.
Rayne awkwardly unbuttoned his heavy winter coat, while holding the pocket computer in his left hand. He tried sliding the jacket off, but one of the sleeves caught on the computer.
“I’ll take that while you take off your coat,” Connelly suggested, standing and leaning across the desk.
With his coat half-draped over his shoulders, Peter leaned across the desk and handed the palm-sized computer to the gray-haired man wearing an expensive blue double-breasted suit with a paisley green tie.
He looks like some kind of top Executive for the company. Is the pocket computer important enough to merit me a meeting with a Hovercrafts International Exec?
Rayne slipped his coat off and placed it on the back of the chair. The gray-haired Exec switched on the computer. Peter felt his heart hammer in his chest as he watched the Exec’s eyes widen when the screen came up.
“This computer belongs to Martin Prince?” the gray-haired Exec asked, surprised.
“Yes, it does,” Rayne replied
“How did you happen to come by it?” Connelly asked.
Rayne saw that his eyes were gleaming with excitement.
Or is it suspicion?
“I was at the protest march when Martin Prince was shot. I found him holding this computer after he was gunned down. I figured it might be important, so I took it,” Rayne said.
“You were there when he was shot,” Connelly said. “And you just happened to pick it up and think it might be important.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Okay, fine,” Connelly said, reaching over to an intercom on the left side of his desk. He tore his eyes away from the pocket computer for a second, while he spoke into the intercom.
“Connelly here. I think you’d better get down to my office.”
“Why? What’s up?” an irritated female voice replied from the intercom speaker.
“I think it would be best if you just came down here and saw for yourself,” Connelly explained as he continued to stare at the pocket computer screen as if mesmerized.
“All right,” the unknown voice said.
The intercom went silent and Connelly looked at his guest with a penetrating glare.
“Do you have any idea what you have here?” he asked.
“Yeah, some blueprints for New Washington,” Peter replied.
“Some blueprints for New Washington,” Connelly repeated, softly. “Right. Some blueprints for New Washington. Sure.” He brought his gaze back to the computer screen while he worked the keyboard.
An uncomfortable silence ensued while Connelly typed on the keyboard of Prince’s computer. Rayne shifted restlessly in his chair, glancing around the room at the various paintings. He recognized some of them, but not others. He was pretty sure the large picture on the left wall was an impressionist painting by Monet.
Water Lilies.
Peter didn’t recognize the two small paintings on the right wall. One was of a landscape and the other was a robotic figure descending some stairs. He glanced at the security guard and saw the guard watching him intently. The guard stared coolly at Peter as if he were an interesting laboratory specimen. Peter returned his eyes to the man at the desk, Connelly.
Rayne heard the familiar clicking noise behind him and turned to see what it was. The door flew open and he watched a tall, dark-haired woman wearing a black suit storm into the room.
“What’s going on, Connelly? I’ve been looking through the personnel files and-” the woman paused in mid-sentence as her eyes fixed on the unknown person in the chair across from Connelly’s desk.
“Who’s this?” she asked, striding over to Rayne’s chair and glaring down at him. “He looks like a street person.”
“He’s the one who found this,” Connelly said, standing from his chair and holding out the pocket computer.
Rayne thought the woman had a good-looking face, but he was thrown off by her muscular, athletic body. He could see her shoulder and arm muscles bulging beneath her suit jacket. She reminded him of a dressed-up bodybuilder.
“Where did you get this?” the dark-haired woman asked as she viewed the screen.
“Jane, this gentleman sitting here said he found it on Martin Prince’s dead body,” Connelly said.
“What?” Campion exclaimed as she turned toward Rayne and locked onto him like a heat-seeker.
“I found it at the protest march after Prince had been shot.” Peter said.
The sheer energy and ferocity of the new arrival left him somewhat disconcerted. The tall, dark-haired woman was wearing an expensive business suit, but she looked more like a barbarian queen than a businesswoman. Her gray eyes gleamed with anger as she stalked toward him like a predator.
“Where did you get this!” Campion shouted in Rayne’s face, as she grabbed him by his shirt collar and dragged him roughly to his feet.
Peter was taken off balance by her masculine aggression, which he regarded as contrary to her feminine face and shape.
“Get your hands off me!” Rayne shouted as his uneasiness turned to rage. He used a quick maneuver to knock the stranger’s arms away and stepped out of reach.
“You’re fucking dead!” the woman yelled.
She lunged at Rayne, seized his shoulders, and slammed him against the wall. The landscape picture, which Rayne didn’t recognize, slipped from its perch and fell to the floor. The madwoman locked her hands around his throat and Rayne instinctively wound up with his right arm and punched her hard in the stomach. She bent over from the force of the blow, releasing her grip, but she recovered and lunged back toward him. Rayne prepared to meet her charge and was surprised when the barbarian
woman stopped in mid-air as a pair of arms grabbed her from behind.
“Jane! Leave him alone! We have to question him!” Connelly shouted into the madwoman’s left ear, grabbing her in a bear hug. The security guard had also stepped near the fray, but he appeared to be too apprehensive to join it.
“Martin Prince was my friend,” Campion growled, breaking Connelly’s grip and lunging toward Rayne again. This time, Rayne’s defensive maneuvers were useless as the enraged woman’s hands locked tightly around his throat. He fought to grab hold of her arms and push them away, but the corded muscles beneath the suit jacket were unrelenting.
“Help me you fool! She’s going to kill him!” Peter heard a voice exclaim as if from very far away.
The next thing he knew, he could breathe again and the madwoman had been pulled off him. She continued to struggle while Connelly and the security guard held her by her arms. Rayne thought she looked as if she was contemplating fighting them before starting to breathe deeply as if to calm down.
“No, you’re right,” Campion said, between breaths. “We have to question him. Let me go.”
Connelly let go of her left arm and the security guard followed Connelly’s lead by releasing her right. Rayne watched the tall, dark-haired woman in the black suit breathe heavily as she tried to compose herself. He couldn’t get over her sheer ferocity. He had never seen such rage exhibited by either gender. The barbarian woman stepped back, but he prepared himself for another assault anyway. Stepping away from the wall, he raised his fists.
“You’re right. We have to go by the book,” Campion growled, low and gutturally, like a dog upon viewing a stranger. She continued to back off as if mere proximity to Rayne would cause her to lose control again.
“Take him to the basement,” Jane instructed between deep breaths. “We’ll interrogate him there.”
Rayne glanced to his left and saw four black-suited men enter the room.
“You’re coming with us,” one of them said, ominously.