Glass Shore

by Stefan Jackson

  I crouch behind a precarious stack of newspapers and peek around the column to get a look down the hall. No sightlines, so I listen.

  Nikki, stuffs the bundle of precious documents into her black messenger bag, snaps the catch and cinches the strap.

  Nikki says, “These documents are more important than me. Keep the documents safe and secure above all else.”

  So the cold side of my mind says I don’t need her breathing to get paid. I’m sure I can find a market for what she holds dear in that black messenger bag. Of course the warm side of my mind says I must honor our original deal, using all my resources and going to any extreme to keep her alive and well.

  Now I hear one … two … three … distinct sets of footfalls ascending the near stairwell. This is a close-quarters confrontation. I feel the situation works to my advantage.

  I motion with my free hand for Nikki to stay low and train my gun toward the top of the stairwell. I have a damn good idea what these guys are here for. Secure the files that Nikki took possession of just moments ago. Astronomical odds against something else of value being hidden in this indoor dump.

  These guys were either in tune with the same beacon that brought Nikki and me here, or they followed us here.

  I’m sure they have orders to kill first and don’t ask questions later. That’s something I have to respect. I was trained the same way. Follow orders. Be quiet.

  A bright yellow POD emerges from another room and floats chest high down the crowded passage. I blast its eye and duck back into the room, covering Nikki. The Peace Officer Drone fires rubber pellets then ejects a short burst of foam upon stacks of newsprint. The POD hums in mid-air, inert, senses dead and out of ammo, it falls to the floor and a moment later the foamed fused tower of newsprint crashes atop it.

  Great, now I have to clear the exit.

  “Stay low”, I tell Nikki as I spring up and return to my former position.

  I set my foot on the POD / paper blockage and force it away from the door. Now, I’m loath to do it, but I use my hands to shove the pile down the hall, opposite to the exit stairwell. It’s like relocating mud in the rain yet I eke out enough space for a smooth exit. Okay, smooth is not the appropriate word but we can get over the heap and out of the room.

  I look about, as best as is allowed by these narrow sightlines.

  The lead man appears at the top of the stairs. I fire my gun. The bullet hits him in the chest and he lights up a bright orange and staggers back a step.

  Shields, of course. Conventional weapons are useless. I put my gun back in my shoulder holster.

  “Alright, you know you can’t hurt us so c’mon out,” a husky-voiced solider states.

  “Confirm Sarge, we got resistance on the second floor. POD is down,” another voice says.

  I hear more feet ascend the stairs. I look at Nikki. I try to calm her with my eyes. I put on my black leather gloves.

  “You know, Apollo, you’ve got style,” she says with a grin, “That Torque blue shirt is slamming but you’re the prissiest Black man I’ve ever known.” Nikki smiles at me as she looks away from my eyes to my gloved hands.

  “My hands take care of me. I take care of my hands.”

  “Yeah, okay,” she chuckles.

  I cut her laugh short when I pull out my Bolt. I place the slender black metal unit in the palm of my right hand. Nikki’s eyes narrow with concern as the Bolt melds with the glove. I’m pretty sure she has never seen this type of weapon. It’s a specialized firearm and illegal for anyone to own. The weapon channels my Qi into a physical force. The angrier or more aggressive I am, the more potent the charge. A Bolt works well underwater and in zero-g, and as long as I’m breathing I can keep shooting. Aside from my wits, it’s the best damn weapon I own.

  Nikki stares at the Bolt. “What is that?”

  “This will penetrate most body armor and incapacitate the solider.”

  “Most”, she replies calm and easy.

  “Yeah, most, as in majority. These guys don’t look like regular army. They look like an alphabet group. They may not be that well-equipped.”

  I step out into the hallway and twice push the trigger on the silent weapon. One pellet strikes the chest of the soldier in the foreground and the second pellet slams the other soldier in the head. Both men crash to the floor with violent urgency: like hyper-kinetic voodoo dancers that first lose skeletal support and then motor skills. I fire two more pellets, striking the next two soldiers in line and they both drop with the rapid energy of ruthlessly discarded marionettes.

  Four quiet bodies clog the travel-challenging hallway.

  A soldier yells, “He’s got a Bolt”, and troops kiss the steps. A couple of soldiers spray the second floor with bullets. It’s a flash outburst because the soldiers realize that firing into dense newsprint produces misty confetti that clouds the hallway.

  Nikki sneezes as the funky confetti cloud rains down upon us. I’ll need a very long hot shower in order to clean off the stink of this place. Nikki sneezes again, then stands and walks toward the far set of large windows. I watch her pick up a stack of newspapers and then toss the pile through the windows.

  I hear footsteps rush over the stairs, away from us.

  “Smart girl. That may buy us a moment.”

  “That’s the plan,” she replies. She pulls a tiny vial from a small pocket on the front flap of her bag. She yanks the cork free and spills the liquid from the vial over stacks of paper. She smashes the vial to the ground. The smell of kerosene fills the room. Nikki pulls out a lighter and sets flame to the wetted papers. The fire envelops the paper with an envious passion. Blue and orange flames, slow and deliberate, licking and reaching and teasing the ready pulp. The flame expresses nasty greed and want and hunger, the cornerstones of a good romance. I’m a content voyeur as I watch the fire consume the literary graveyard.

  “Get me outta here, bodyguard,” Nikki says with an easy smile on her lips and hard urgency in her eyes. That’s Nikki. Little Miss Fun.

  I grab her hand. “Step lively and stay close to me. And don’t be shy about stepping on the men lying in the hallway.”

  “Are they dead?”

  “No.”

  “When will they recover?”

  “Long after we’re gone.” No need to burden her with the fact that recovery from a Bolt strike is a long and painful process. Unfortunately Bolt strikes don’t kill. Damage depends on the shooter’s energy, with bodily harm ranging from severe muscular degeneration to extreme neurological dysfunction.

  We walk over the soldiers without pause. Nikki doesn’t seem to have a problem with it. I keep my Bolt at the ready as we hit the metal stairs quiet and quick. Behind us white smoke chokes the hallway and swirls thick above us as we hurry downwards.

  Ground floor. We turn right, toward the rear of the warehouse.

  I hear erratic flapping of wings, drawing my eyes up to see a pigeon erupt into flight – and one soldier standing on a rusted metal gangway overhead – as she looks down at Nikki and me. I fire first and tag her in the chest. She drops with livid ceremony causing her gangway to creak and slide, threatening to break free of the rusted network of catwalks. I take Nikki by the bicep and sprint away.

  A soldier appears out of nowhere. I punch him in the face, shattering the plastic shield of his helmet and sending him to the floor in a bloodied heap.

  We hurry over broken glass, chunky charred drywall, blackened splintered wood and blast-strewn paper, making a flash departure through the ugly new cavity in the side of the building. The perimeter of the cavity is still burning blue and enlarging. This is the signature damage from an ETU. It’s a sonic unit and its initializing burst is what put Nikki and I on our ass minutes ago.

  Nikki stays in step with me as we run from the building. I slow a step, and arm whip Nikki so that she’s now running in front of me.

  It’s quiet, dare I say, serene. Sunny and cool with puffy cumulus clouds overhead. I hear birds. This feels weird, like an out
of body experience. Yet this is Long Island, farmland or countryside, whatever you want to call it. I’m city. So if it’s not concrete, glass and steel, it ain’t right.

  I glance back and see white and black smoke rolling from broken windows of the old warehouse. No soldiers in sight. Wait. Someone in a long black coat emerges from the left. Now two other men appear and stand next to the first. They watch as Nikki and I run away. A black mot comes to a quick stop behind the trio and hovers in wait.

  We approach a chain-linked fence that is a few heads taller than me. Nikki scrambles over it with a hop and flip motion remnant of a dog-faced Marine. For me, it’s a simple a two-meter hurdle.

  We hop into my mot. I tap the green icon on the dashboard then slam my foot on the accelerator and we’re racing off through farmland. I disengage the Bolt from the glove, remove both gloves and stash the unit in my coat pocket. We’re less than a minute from the expressway. Once the mot is on the grid I can amp it up and get the hell away from here.

  I check the rear view monitor as Nikki turns around in her seat and looks out the slender rear window; we do not see a pursuit vehicle. Yet I know they’re back there and coming hard.

  In the near distance, Manhattan radiates like a kaleidoscope, thanks to a bright midday sun striking massive panes of faceted crystal that adorn better than ninety percent of the city’s skyscrapers. Coming up fast, the wide sleek expressway gleams with huge static holographic adverts that fold over and form a tunnel over the expressway. We fly through a black and white advert of Marilyn Monroe running down a snowy old Manhattan street, smiling and laughing, warmly clutched in the folds of her smoky black full-length Thurby belted trench coat. London collection. Thurby – Style Is.

  We hit the expressway and I accelerate to three hundred and sixty clicks.

  “How fast can you go?” Nikki asks as she looks out the window at the blurred countryside. At this speed the motion adverts look like stutter-still shots. But you can still make out the logos.

  “I reworked the guidance matrix, so I can rip up the road.”

  “Okay. You seem to be in control. We’re not being followed are we?”

  “Sure we are.” I check the rear view monitor for the millionth time. Nikki studies the monitor as well.

  Increasing to four hundred and eighty clicks.

  “Where we going?” Nikki asks.

  “Right now, toward the city. I figure we….”

  In the rear view monitor I see something long and mean roaring up from the rear. I accelerate to six hundred clicks.

  “Damn,” Nikki states as she stares at the rear view monitor.

  “It was just a matter of time. Sit still.” I tell her.

  We zoom down the expressway at better than eight hundred clicks, flowing around the lawful traffic like hot wind through wheat. Nikki is cool but I can see that her left hand clutches her seat, while the palm of her right hand rests flat on the dashboard. All bets are off on whether or not she’s breathing. The long black mot is not gaining any ground; yet I have a feeling it’s not for lack of want. My mot is bored out to plus eight. That’s a beefier power block than official pursuit vehicles.

  Passing midtown exits. “Going into lower Manhattan. We have a better chance of disappearing there,” I inform Nikki.

  I brake and pull the wheel hard right, now, sliding sideways along the expressway. Nikki and I pitch forward and to the left. Traffic passes over my mot like water flowing over a stone. I hold the wheel at pitch and accelerate. My arms are leaden. Such mean tension, fighting the flow. Those same forces also hold Nikki and me in check. It’s like being hard set in a frozen mold. Zero movement.

  Much too late, the trailing mot performs the same maneuver. The trajectory of my mot allows us to exit the expressway at ramp five. The other mot is forced to exit at ramp four or three. Sure, the other mot could back up, but the grid has buffers to limit all movement queer of the flow. It would take five times longer to back up than to exit down stream and work back via other avenues. Of course, the other mot will radio our exit to other units, but now I have a moment to think.

  Or not. The mot once behind is now ahead of me. I watch a man in a leather jacket lean out of the window of the leading mot as it also performs a sideways sweep. The man in the leather jacket aims a weapon at us that I’m not familiar with and at the moment I’m not interested in learning what it is.

  I set the wheel straight. My mot aligns with the grid. I disengage the collision buffers and punch the accelerator.

  “Oh-no – are you crazy?”

  “Yes,” I reply as we slam into the tail end of the lead mot and mister leather coat lurches forward, nearly falling out of the window of the spinning mot. As we speed by, I see a pair of hands clutching his pants and leather coat, keeping his ass from a nasty fate, still, his weapon discharges, just missing to the right rear of my mot and so blowing a small crater in the macadam. Chucks of charred black road spray across the expressway. I hear and feel many small pops against the right side and rear of my mot – the right rear quarter window of my mot shatters, spitting glass shards into the cabin. Nikki flinches but doesn’t yell. I accelerate and restore the safety functions. In the rear view monitor I see traffic continues uninterrupted, flowing neat and smooth over the large hole in the expressway. Seems no damage suffered by any other mot.

  I see Mr. Leather Coat’s blast-battered mot is at a complete stop. Nice.

  “Yes!” Nikki pumps her fist as she studies the monitor.

  We exit at ramp three and I set the mot to auto-drive. It’s best to go on the grid while driving in the city. The gentle slope onto the turnaround of the Manhattan Bridge is a buffer zone, slowing my mot to a crawl for vehicle inspection. We face forward so the beams can perform an eye scan. Soft red beams sweep the exterior and interior of my mot. If we don’t allow an eye scan, security measures will kick in and my mot will come to an immediate stop.

  This is a big surprise, no seizure ensues and we keep rolling but I feel we’re not clear. I’m sure Mr. Leather Coat reported our exit point so converging units should hit us in seconds.

  5

  Manhattan.

  The fabled city of gold, realized.

  The streets and sidewalks are unsoiled level planes. The massive glass skyscrapers are tall, clean, masculine, and gleam like diamonds during the day. This city is all business. Be it a restaurant or data recovery service, law practice or photography, you must be burning with brilliance or the death of your business will be immediate. No learning curve for debutantes. In this city stress is a basic food group, a base element with a better distribution system than air.

  Canal Street, Chinatown, is wide and luminous and whirling with life. Bright banners in Chinese, Korean, Thai and dozens of other Asian languages, flashing colored neon, and frenetic adverts compete for what little space is left in your mind. The sidewalks and crossways are thick with beautiful young men dressed in either jeans, t-shirt and jacket with plain kicks, or tailored suits and patent leather shoes, and fabulous young women oscillating from classic demure in long dresses, pearl necklaces and slender heels to screaming metal bitch in micro mini-shirts, steel pierced flesh and thigh-high platform boots. I realize that it’s lunchtime for those who lead a normal life. Every restaurant, curb waiter, short grill and noodle shop is deep with customers. Delicious smells roar across Canal. My stomach gives me a quiet pinch. I want something to eat.

  “We have to ditch this mot,” I state.

  “Yeah…” Nikki studies the street signs. “Get us to the Lower East Side.”

  “What’s the plan?”

  “I have friends in low places. I know someone that deals in stolen mots. So I’ll ask a favor and get us a new rig with a certified grid signature. It will also be a good place to collect our thoughts.”

  I look over at her. “I had you figured all wrong: thief, hacker, arsonist, exotic dancer, black marketer, what’s next? Grammy winning recording artist?”

  Nikki smiles, laughs a little. �
�You knew the job was dangerous when you took it,” she says. She pulls her phone from her bag.

  The large advert on my left states that Commons Recycling is looking for qualified applicants in recollection sciences. Work Proud. Work Earth.

  “Hi, Lover,” Nikki says, speaking on her phone. I don’t get upset. I know she calls everyone Love or Lover. I was her lover last night and will be in the future. “I’m hot and need your help,” she states with no hint of desperation.

  I check my rear and side monitors. For reasons I can’t fathom, the authorities haven’t stopped us. Not even the courtesy of an impolite tail. Aside from people and mots, the only thing I see is advertising. It’s all the time and everywhere. Small, medium, large and oversized floaters saturate the city. Above me I see the fabulous pop singer Pana Ryni offering fresh bottled water courtesy of the Adirondack Cooperative. On my left, a large advert of veteran stage actor Winston, touting the virtues of Municipal Savings and Loan. At my right, the advert states that Son Vincent has the solutions to secure my financial future. I hate advertising.

  “See you in a moment, Anton. Thanks again, Love,” Nikki clicks off. “Turn left on Essex, then right on Grand,” she instructs me.

  I didn’t see it coming and that’s a shame. I’m trained to prevent this type of attack. I feel a spritz or two upon my neck, and right side of my face. I think it’s also in my hair. I turn to see Nikki holding a small vial of rage by Sancóme. Smells of cinnamon. I want to protest but I must admit it’s better than warehouse stink.

  “Kinda potent,” I say.

  “Kinda necessary,” she replies.

  I nod in agreement. She studies the map displayed on her phone. I guess the blinking red dot is our destination. I check the monitors again. Expecting an ambush at any moment.

  “There,” Nikki points to a gap between the apartment buildings on the left, about a half block up the avenue.

  I press the left turn button as I near the gap. Oncoming traffic compensates by humping over my intended path. A stop alert appears at the gap for pedestrians. The sensible wait while others rush across. And of course . . . I have to brake for the old lady.