by Adam Thielen
With only four meters between them, he hurled the balloon at the back of the last armed insurgent… and missed. Henry was his name. He was the largest of the kids, portly and tall. A good target, but luck was on his side. Seeing the blob whoosh by, he turned to face his adversary. Taq froze as Henry wound up and unleashed hell.
As the water balloon rushed towards him, Taq felt warmth envelope him and panic strike him. He held out his hand and the balloon stopped in mid-air, centimeters from impact. And with it, his life stopped, too. The other kids, even Eddie, screamed at the sight. Not because they were afraid, but simply because that is how they were taught to react in school.
Taq ran home crying. He considered keeping it a secret, but he was afraid, and needed the comfort only a mother can give. He wanted to be told that it would be alright, even if he knew better. Taq’s mother was young, and his father had left while Taq was still a toddler. She researched how to teach magic self-control and wanted to hide his abilities, but a few weeks later, a MESS counselor came to the apartment and could see Taq for what he was.
While she was allowed weekly visits, nothing would placate him; he was simply too young. The average age of new university students was thirteen. For over a month after they took him away, he would not so much as get out of bed. His world was destroyed, and he was precocious enough to understand all that had been taken from him.
Eventually, he adjusted. He got up out of bed, attended classes, and ate his food. He spoke with his mother every evening over supervised com. As the years went by, calls became less frequent. For his teen years they spoke every week. By the time he turned twenty, he was only calling her once per month, and the conversations had become short and routine.
His mother’s life continued on without him, and she found a husband. Taq even had a half-brother he had never met. Taq took his anger and channeled it into his magical studies, obsessed with the notion that he could someday overpower the system that kept him confined to a campus.
The obsession drove him to forego prudence in his casting. Over time, he gained a reputation as an introvert and savant. He accepted it, and his talent thrived without the distraction of a social life. Annie entered his life, changed it for a short period of time, and then left. She left her mark, but also reinforced the idea that he should not become distracted by other people.
* * *
Taq knew all three of them, or at least knew a little about them. Julie was a thin redhead who was great at academics, middling at magic. Steven, mostly identified by his freckles, was not good at either. And Ross was heavy set, raven-haired, and showed some promise at spellcasting.
“Hey, why don’t you do any sports or clubs or hang out with anyone?” asked Ross.
“Ross!” said Julie sternly, to which he just shrugged.
At this exchange, Taq’s fork stopped just before his mouth. Then slowly completed its journey, sliding back out cleanly. His jaw moved slowly up and down, he looked over at Ross.
“What he meant to say,” Steven started, “is that we are having a party and want you to come.”
“We insist,” bubbled Julie.
Taq finished chewing. Again an awkward silence set in as they waited. He noticed several students intently watching their conversation.
“Listen,” said Taq. “I’m flattered. But I don’t want to be around a bunch of people.”
“You don’t like people, do you?” asked Ross. Julie again shot him a look.
“I haven’t been very friendly,” Taq granted, looking down at his remaining food. “I just resent this place. Being here, being stuck here.” He twirled a piece of processed chicken food product around with his fork. “Hate just doesn’t do it justice.”
Steven looked down at the table, in a show of solidarity for his plight. Ross just continued staring at Taq.
“It’s just going to be us!” Julie said enthusiastically. “Just some games and maybe some food that doesn’t suck. Come on.”
“Even him?” Taq waved his head toward Ross, then flashed a grin. Ross frowned.
“You guys want to know what happened, don’t you?”
“Yes!” Steven practically yelled.
“Okay,” Taq surrendered, deciding that it was time to try something new. “I’ll be there.”
It was as they said, mostly. Games on a smart table, as much fizz as one could stomach. Real food in the form of potato chips and dip. And some very funny stories about campus life. Not exactly a party, but close enough.
Taq gave them a few details on the encounters with the fiend, and even told them about Matthias the vampire, but he embellished his role while hiding the nature of the monster they fought or the role of corporations.
* * *
That night, as Taq slept, two young MESS officers sat outside his dorm room. Robert passed a bag of wafer chips to Sellik. He fished out a broken wafer, frowned slightly, and put it between his lips while fishing out a second wafer. Sellik sat the bag on the ground. He shifted on his seat, attempting some comfort on a chair with absolutely no ergonomics.
“I’m not sure the overtime is worth this ass pain,” he winced at Robert, who had gone into a full slouch and didn’t look up from his tablet.
“I know it’s not,” he replied. “I’m zone now though.”
Robert flipped through a few news feeds using his com projection. In the modern era, networks were heavily controlled with on-site frequency filters. Any private property owner could implement information monitoring and controls. Robert would check private messages or more entertaining networks if he could, but such things are not allowed while on duty. Instead he was limited to news and university approved sites.
He sighed. “You believe what people are saying about him?”
“I believe what Tamra said,” replied Sellik.
“She didn’t say anything.”
“She said he needs protection,” Sellik lazily countered. He sat up in his chair then slouched back down, having lost his comfort equilibrium. “Why would he need protection if some of it wasn’t true?”
“I’ve asked the other guys and this never happens. It’s one of those theoretical things,” Robert ran a hand through his dark hair. “We’re gonna die,” he said. “These mages, they tap into another world. We can’t touch it, and we can’t help them. If something is really after him, it won’t have to go through this door.”
“He does have a window,” Sellik grinned. “We’ve been here for days. You really think we are in danger?” Sellik’s composure remained unchanged. The question was more to keep boredom at bay.
“Posi. But when aren’t we?”
Sellik rolled his eyes. “If it’s a mage like what everyone keeps whispering, you’ll be fine,” he trailed off the end.
Rob went wide-eyed. “Why, cause I’m black?”
“Pfft, you’re barely brown. But yes,” Sellik laughed. They both knew the science. Melanin seemed to absorb the mysterious energies necessary for magical impact, like polonium but on such a minor scale that the effect was difficult to quantify.
“Ass. Hole.”
“It’s a compliment.”
“It’s racist.”
“You’re just gelled over mages.”
“Hell yes I am,” Rob admitted.
“They see me, they are like, ‘oh there’s the easy one, fry him’.” They both laughed. Nervously.
* * *
Kate was invisible for only four seconds. It was all the time she needed to get by the few workers left in the building. Security cameras had already been disabled, and corpsec was busy investigating a disturbance on another floor that may or may not have been completely fabricated. Kate hurried into an office and sat down at a work computer.
As soon as she powered on the console, she knew that it would alert the CEO and security staff. It prompted her for a retinal identification. Kate looked directly at the lens and the prompt faded out, revealing the workstation of the CEO and President of Grapeseed Inc.
Kate’s heart began to r
ace. She sifted her fingers through a projection showing data directories. She couldn’t find it. Where was it? Kate gestured for a search box. She flipped it to the regular expression creator, allowing her to find patterns, and expertly gestured now with both hands. Letters, symbols, and punctuation filled the search box.
The building’s alarm sounded. Kate was out of time. Thousands of files contained the pattern, and she had no time to see what was a false hit. She hurriedly copied them to her neural drive. Standing up, she heard static start to fill the airwaves. In point four seconds the entire spectrum had become noise, but not before she had sent a single message. Fearing any possible exposure to worms hiding in the static, Kate shut down her neural com and began encrypting and hiding the copied data.
Security hurried past cubicles toward the office. Kate stuck a small pyramid shaped device onto the window of the office. Adhesive on one side made a quiet squish. She ducked down behind the desk out of sight of the security team now only moments away. If they didn’t already know where to go, the loud pop from the pyramid told them.
Kate looked at the window. It had barely cracked. She had never stood a chance of getting out. Realizing this, she got on her knees and put her hands behind her back. She was sweating now. Her mind raced and with her network disabled she felt alone in a void. It occurred to her that security might just kill her then and there. She sobbed slightly as the guards approached with handguns trained on her.
One of the men tried to speak on his com unit, which simply squealed in his ear. He flinched and turned it off. The other man walked behind Kate and kicked her onto her stomach. They handcuffed her and dragged her to the elevator. As it descended, Kate forced back a scream and tried not to think of what corpsec would do to find out what she had taken and why. Her retinal display had a command ready in case she could work up the nerve: Execute Cyanide Release
* * *
Taq looked around. He stood outside the General Store. Mild gusts of wind kicked up brown dust from Main Street. It was becoming a familiar site. He walked down the road, nodding here and there at people who seemed familiar. Taq clutched at his chest in pain. Every breath was cautious and shallow, as not to aggravate his injury.
“What is this place?” he asked aloud. “Why am I here?”
This was the fourth dream where Taq was a man named Drew. In the second, he watched through his eyes as he lay in a hospital bed. It was there that Taq began to exert some control over this foreign body. The Drew that had been so in control in the first dream had faded. In the third dream, Taq began to speak for Drew. He left the hospital and knew how to get home. Amy, an acquaintance of some sort from the first dream, would not be waiting for him there.
Each visit to this dreamland lasted longer than the last. He estimated he had been in the old west for two full days this time. At first, he wandered the nearby town simply waiting to wake up. As time passed, he began wondering what his purpose was. By talking to others, he learned he was in a town called Glenpool in the early twentieth century. Taq had not gathered anything useful about who Drew was. He seemed to have no friends, at least none alive. No family had attempted contact. The man was a mystery. Sometimes Taq felt like he was perhaps a scientist of some sort. Drew had many tomes of research and scientific papers at his home, many of them focusing on geology.
In a way, Drew and Taq’s minds were joined together. When in the dream, Taq felt drives and motivations that were partially his and partially foreign. Drew became a role to play, and Taq could feel a need for revenge well up inside him. Taq began to feel like he knew his attacker as well. An oil man perhaps. He felt the desire to find the killer and began to act on it. First he would need to gather information. With few business buildings in the town, he sought out some sort of saloon or hotel. Citizens pointed him toward the Clear Creek Inn. It was easily the largest and most developed property in the settlement. Time to play detective.
The inn’s first floor was a bar and dining room. A small desk was shoved off to the side where patrons could pay for an evening’s stay. Taq started at the bar, describing the man with the goatee to its lone patron.
“Sorry friend.”
“I think I’ve seen him,” interjected the barkeep.
“Who is he?” asked Taq.
“I try to stay out of other people’s business,” he replied. “He was heeled, but folks usually are down here. Didn’t get too drunk, no trouble with the bill. Mentioned riding an iron horse.”
“How long ago was this?” Taq questioned.
“About a week ago I reckon.”
“No name?”
“Never asked, partner.”
Taq rung a small rusty bell on the front desk. A man shaped like a ball with feet opened a door behind the counter and waddled up to it.
“Yessir, may I hep you?” he asked with a slight lisp.
“Looking for a friend,” Taq lied. “Black hat with a flat brim, short goatee on the chin, sort of gaunt?”
“Had a juniper with a goatee stay the other night. No hat, not gaunt.”
“Juniper?” puzzled Taq.
“Mentioned coming all the way from Virginia. Made a whoop about it,” the clerk explained.
“He still around?”
“Checked out couple days ago.”
“Got a name?” Taq questioned.
“Not calling you a bad egg, but I don’t think this feller is your friend. ”
Taq decided he would pilfer the registration book if needed, but would save that as a last resort. He traveled down the hall, stopping at the first housekeeper he saw; a small woman busy changing bed sheets.
“Excuse me, ma’am,” opened Taq.
“Yes?”
Taq recited his description to her. “Seem familiar?”
“No, sir.”
“I think he may be in the oil business,” offered Taq.
“Mmhm.”
“Might be a Pinkerton, or have agency associates?”
“I don’t know nothin’,” she replied. “When I do, I keep my bazoo shut ‘bout it.”
“I don’t mean to trouble you,” Taq assured. “But this is life and death, if you can think of anything at all.”
“Thing is, you in the wrong place. All the big bugs is up north a’ here,” she declared.
Still empty handed, Taq figured the sheriff would be his best bet. The office was attached to the barbershop just down the street. A hint of bourbon lingered in the air. The man at the desk made no attempt to conceal the bottle, nor did he make much effort to wear clean clothing or shave his face regularly. He did however make an effort to hide his hair under a Stetson. Some playing cards were strewn across the desk. Taq had never seen the physical version of cards, and technically he still hadn’t. The badge on the man’s chest made it clear he was the sheriff—that and the fact that he was the only one in the room.
Taq approached the desk meekly. The man looked up from a paper that said in big letters Kansas City Star. He was middle-aged and spoke in a hoarse voice. “What’s the problem?” he demanded.
“Mind if I sit?”
The sheriff nodded.
“I wanted to talk to you about the man and woman shot just outside of town.”
“You’re the man,” he replied. “Deputy was going to meet with you at the hospital.”
Taq pointed at the wound. “Yes sir. I felt well enough to leave.”
“That was a horrible thing and I’m sorry for your loss.”
Taq nodded. “Know who shot us?”
“We have a pretty good idea, but nothing may come of it,” the sheriff answered.
“What? Why? Who was it?”
“Leave this to us. Go home and rest”
“Please, a woman was murdered,” insisted Taq.
The sheriff sat up straight. “A man was nearly murdered as well, but he’s still alive. I can’t aid in any vigilante nonsense. I’ve got to keep the peace.”
“Are you at least looking for the man?” asked Taq impatiently.
“He is gone, and I already told the agency if he shows his face he’s dead,” the sheriff said with grim satisfaction.
“Wait, you are letting him get away?”
“I told you he’s gone,” the sheriff raised his voice. “I can’t run around the state chasing agency men. It’s out of my hands.”
“What is the agency you keep mentioning?” demanded Taq.
“The goddamn Pinkertons of course!”
“Well, can you ask them where he went?” Taq continued interrogating.
“Sonofabitch!” the sheriff stood. “This ain’t New York; it ain’t even Texas. I do what I can but when it comes to the agency, I have to make some exceptions. Oil built this town, built this building, built this desk. Damn it.”
“Thought this was a democracy,” muttered Taq. “But it’s always the same.”
The sheriff took heavy breaths, sucking the air out of the room. The time between each one slowly increased. “Alright, fine,” he breathed. “There’s a marshall who visits Tulsa on the weekend, though he’s likely no use if you got nothing to show him. There’s a Pinkerton staying at the Creek named Winston, but it’s just as likely he’s in cahoots with your man. Take your pick.”
After some questioning around town, Taq found a trip to Tulsa would be expensive and time consuming. He decided to send a wire. “Investigating a murder. Will notify if culprit found.” It would likely be laughed at, but it was better than taking the trip there to be laughed at. Taq was burning through his funds quickly. He had found a lockbox with cash in his house, but if he had more money held somewhere else, he did not know how to get to it. While he could feel familiarity and intuit certain aspects of Drew’s life, he didn’t have his memories.