Ultraviolet

by Joseph Robert Lewis

  I didn’t know what to do.

  “Hi there!” I forced a fake smile. “Sorry, but I think you’ve got the wrong Carmen Reyes Zhao.”

  “No, I don’t.”

  “Are you sure? It’s a really common name.”

  “No, it’s not.”

  My mouth moved but I didn’t know what to say. I watched his hands, slightly grateful that at least he wasn’t holding a gun.

  Hands.

  I looked down at my hands, at the black webbed fabric that the printer had made, at the thick fingers of the gloves full of experimental fibers lined with traces of rubidium.

  “Carmen Zhao, you are under arrest for multiple felony counts under the Corporate Espionage Act.”

  He was halfway to me, halfway from the fire escape to the locked door of the stairs. I still didn’t know what to do or what to say. A part of me wished I could go back in time two months and tell myself not to bother making these things. Just don’t do it, and nothing bad would have happened. But I did do it, and now something bad was happening.

  I put on the gloves.

  “Drop that!” Special Detective Frost pulled a small black pistol from inside his jacket and pointed it at me.

  I swear my heart actually stopped. I had never seen a real gun before, not that close, and never pointed at me. Instinctively, I raised my hands in front of me, as if my hands were bulletproof and could magically protect me.

  “Drop the gloves!” he shouted.

  I wanted to do it. I did. I wanted to do anything to make him stop pointing the gun at me, but I couldn’t quite move. I couldn’t tear my eyes away from that little black hole where the bullet was hiding, waiting to kill me.

  He kept marching toward me. The gun kept coming closer, and getting bigger.

  My lip shook. I was barely breathing. And then a little light caught my eye. It was a tiny green dot on the back of the gloves. It meant they were charged. They were on. They were working.

  And for some reason that I still don’t understand, I looked at the man with the gun and I said, “Lux, shield.”

  A thousand tiny lights flashed across the webbed fibers of the left glove and lanced outward in a brilliant laser show of thin violet beams. In half a second, the beams traced the shape of a large circular shield, a sort of Trojan design that I used sometimes in Demon Age 3. If it had been made of steel it would have weighed a ton, but my shield was made of cold photons, and it weighed nothing at all. It was almost perfectly black because the light was all trapped in the object, but it did have a soft violet glow all over that was a little brighter along the edges.

  Damn. Photon bleed at the upper edge of the visible spectrum.

  Well, no one gets it right the first time.

  I was still looking at the inner side of the shield attached to my gloved hand when the man started shooting at the outer side.

  He fired four or five times before I really understood what was happening, and then he paused and we both realized that his bullets weren’t getting through my solid light shield, and I angled my hand closer to my body, more deliberately shielding myself, just as he fired three more times, and then twice, and then five more all in a row.

  I huddled behind the shield, my heart in my throat. But I felt nothing. No impacts, no injuries. But I saw the smashed bullets clinking quietly on the ground at my feet in front of the shield.

  Holy shit, it works.

  I peeked out around the shield and saw Frost reloading his gun, so I turned and punched the edge of my shield against the locked door, and the laser-fine edge sliced through the lock, letting the door swing open. I dashed down the steps, holding the shield awkwardly over my shoulder to cover my back, and its violet edges scraped and shredded the walls behind me as I ran.

  Apparently I had miscalculated how sharp the edges of an object made out of warped lasers could be.

  Oops.

  I got all the way down to the street before I stopped to look back and saw how the damaged walls were falling apart to create a jungle of boards and plaster and metal spearing out across the steps all the way up the stairwell, and it looked like Frost was still way, way up there, fighting his way down through the mess.

  I ran out into the alley behind the building where I found a lot of boxes and trashcans and a dead cat, and I ran.

  “Lux, off.”

  The big black shield with its violet glow disappeared, and I ran and ran and ran until I couldn’t run anymore.

  Chapter 2

  Field Test

  When I finally stopped running I was about eight blocks from home and barely able to breathe. A lifetime of sitting at a terminal or sitting with my phone hadn’t really prepared me for running from the cops.

  My phone. Shit.

  I yanked it out and turned off the GPS, and then with a roll of my eyes, I started walking again. I’d been leaving digital breadcrumbs east, so now I turned south just so I wouldn’t be where they thought I was. It was the middle of the afternoon, so I felt somewhat safe staying in the alleys behind the shops. They were completely empty and too narrow for a car to drive down, so it felt safer. Maybe it wasn’t but it felt that way.

  After another three blocks, I pulled out my phone again and logged back into my printer at the apartment and cleared out the queue of designs so no one would find the specs for the holo-gloves in its memory.

  Then I walked another three blocks.

  I tried to think, I tried to come up with a plan. That’s what you do when you’re on the run, right? You have to stay one step ahead of the bad guys. Except that technically, legally, I was the bad guy. And I knew it.

  And the memory of that gun pointed at my chest just wasn’t going away.

  So I took out my phone, activated the illegal scrambler app that no one was supposed to have but everyone had anyway, and I called a friend.

  Dominic answered immediately. “Hey Car.”

  I tried to smile to sound more normal. “Hey Dom. How are things?”

  “Well, my weight is up and my blood pressure is up and my mom won’t stop coming over here to check on me, but other than that, things are only as bad as usual. How are you?”

  “Oh… Kinda in trouble, actually.”

  “What’d you do, blow all your money at that casino? I told you not to waste your time on that crap.”

  “No, nothing like that. I wish it was that.”

  “So what then?”

  “Well… I’ve got a Special looking for me. Shooting at me, actually.”

  “What!”

  “Yeah.”

  “What did you do?”

  “Nothing. I—”

  “Carmen, what did you do?”

  “I…” I paused and glanced around the intersection before crossing. No signs of cops. No obvious security cameras in the street. “You know the holography project I was working on back at Cygnus?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Well, I’ve been working on it for the last two months on my own.”

  “Seriously? And that’s what they’re pissed about?”

  “I think so.”

  “Huh. So they found your research? Did you post something somewhere?”

  “No. I just… This afternoon I printed a prototype of my holo projector.”

  “Okay.”

  “But I needed some exotic feedstock. Rubidium.”

  “Carmen! Jeez!”

  “I know, shut up!” I rubbed my forehead as I walked down the sidewalk so I could partially shield my face. How long had it been since the rooftop? An hour? Two? If Frost was really working with the cops, then he could have them all looking for me by now. But if he was trying to keep things quiet, keep things in-house, then maybe I had a little more time. “Listen, it works, okay? I turned the projector mesh into a pair of gloves and they can project solid light objects.” Mentally I flashed back to the bullets pinging off the shield. “It works really well.”

  “Great, I hope you have a lot of fun with it. In jail.”

  “You’re not he
lping, Dom.”

  “I shouldn’t even be talking to you right now. Do you know how long I would last in jail without my meds and everything? Less than a day.”

  “This is a scrambled line, you’re fine.”

  “You’re sure?”

  “Yes, I’m sure.”

  “Okay.” Dom heaved a heavy sigh. “Okay, so where are you now?”

  “Downtown. Crossing Charles at the moment.” I ran between two bikes as the light changed.

  “Okay. So what happens now? What are you going to do?”

  “I need to get off the street and hide for a little while. I just don’t know where it’s safe.”

  “Lexington Market.”

  “Seriously?”

  “Yeah. They’ve got so many drug deals going on down there these days, the dealers have hacked all the cameras. It’s the safest place in the city. You know, if you’re a criminal.”

  I winced. I didn’t want to go anywhere near the market. It was one of those places you hear about all your life as a terrible place where terrible things happen. If there was a violent crime on the news, odds are it was near the market. The only place worse than Lexington those days was Pigtown. But Pigtown’s always been scary, so that hardly counts.

  “How do you know so much about it?”

  Dom laughed. “Where do you think I get my meds these days?”

  “Oh. Right.”

  Yeah, I’m not sick. Like, ever. Yet another thing my friends say is lucky about me. It seems they’ve all got congenital this or early-onset that. All of them take at least three pills a day, and it costs them about half of their take-home pay. And it probably would for the rest of their lives. But not me. I’m fine. Always have been. Allergic to peanuts, of course, but who isn’t?

  “Okay, Dom, I guess I’ll head down there and try to find a shady spot to sit tight. I’ll call you later. Thanks.”

  “Watch your butt, Car.”

  So I turned around and headed back west a few blocks and went into the market. Lexington Market was basically what it had always been, according to my dad. It was one long building with glass ceilings and about a hundred little delis, stalls, restaurants, food carts, food trucks, produce stands, noodle stands, butchers, and everything else food-related you could think of, all in miniature and crammed together like one huge cafeteria to feed the west side.

  And it was crowded as hell.

  It smelled like every food imaginable, all cooking together in every sauce imaginable, all at once. Beef, lamb, chicken, Old Bay, crabs, lobster, rockfish, corn, General Tso’s, sweet and sour, barbecue… ugh. Five minutes inside and I had a small migraine thumping away right behind my eyes. The stink of the people jostling all around me didn’t help either. Apparently bathing was one of those antiquated things that only my mother still believed in.

  I meandered into the market, shuffling along with the flow of the crowd, trapped between a large woman in tight pants and a large man in baggy pants, looking for a place to sit, somewhere quiet, out of the way. But if there had ever been tables or benches in the market, there weren’t any more. Every last inch was filled up with shops. So I kept shuffling.

  Halfway through the building I realized how hungry I was. Six days of noodles and two hours of running and walking apparently made for an unhappy stomach. I still had a few dollars on my card, the remnants from my feedstock shopping spree, and without really thinking, I bought a couple Berger cookies and shoved myself into a little gap between two stalls to stand still and eat.

  The fudge was perfect, as always.

  It made me crave a glass of milk, as always.

  After a couple minutes standing still, feeling the energy of the crowd and the white noise and the smells and the sugar in my stomach, I felt a little better. At least a little calmer. There was only one person looking for me, not an army. And he couldn’t track me down, as long as I didn’t do anything stupid. You know, beyond all the stupid things I had already done.

  So I started walking again, shuffling along with the crowd in the general direction of the doors. I had hours of daylight left, plenty of time to walk south past the harbor and get to my parent’s house. Sure, it was an obvious place for Frost to come looking for me, so I’d have to be careful. But there were ways around that. I could hang out nearby and catch my mom on her way to the store, or catch my dad on his way home from work. I didn’t need to actually go near the house. Easy.

  Too bad I never got near the house.

  When I left the market, a handful of people walked out with me, most of them clutching shopping bags full of meats, cheeses, and vegetables I didn’t recognize. But there were also two young guys. Tall guys wearing shiny clothes and talking really loud about some game. I ignored them.

  Half a block later, everyone else who had left the market with me had crossed a street or turned a corner, but the two guys were still behind me, still talking really loud and laughing at everything each other said.

  I walked faster. It was light out, lots of people on the sidewalk, lots of bikes going by, lots of stores open, but still… I walked faster.

  They walked faster.

  “Hey baby! Hey, where you going?”

  I didn’t turn. I just kept fast-walking down the sidewalk, hoping that if I crossed the next street, or got into a crowd, or went by a cop, they would get tired of following me.

  They crossed the street right behind me.

  “Hey, I’m talking to you. Talk to me for a sec.”

  A hand tugged on my coat sleeve. I glanced back and saw a skinny moron in need of a shave, a bath, a breath mint, and some clothing that fit properly. I couldn’t think of anything to say, because I just wanted to tell him to get away from me, so I sort of shook my head and faced forward again.

  I kept walking.

  “Hey, what’s your problem?”

  And suddenly I wasn’t anxious anymore, I wasn’t scared. Suddenly I was pissed. Really pissed. I spun around and glared at the two of them. “My problem? You want to hear about my problems? You want to hear about me losing my job, or my parents freezing in a house they can’t heat, or the asshole who broke into my apartment today and shot at me, or the fact that I’m dead broke, or the fact that I’ve got two jackasses following me around, yelling at me when I just want to be left alone? Which problem do you want to hear about?”

  The skinny one laughed and hit his friend’s arm. “Man, this bitch is nuts.”

  “Lux, sword.” I pointed my gloved hand at his face as a dozen focused lasers sculpted a long black blade spearing out toward his eye. The weapon glowed with a violet haze, like it was smoking. Like it was on fire.

  “Holy shit!”

  Both guys jumped back. In fact, everyone on the sidewalk jumped back, and I saw a couple phones pop out as people stopped to watch me. A taxi veered around a rubbernecker in the road. It was too much attention, way too much, but I didn’t care. I was mad.

  “Call me a bitch again.” I pointed the sword at his friend and then back at him. It was a copy of the sword my paladin used in Demon Age 3, except without the spirit crystals or the… nevermind. It was a big sword, but since cold photons don’t weigh anything, I could hold it in one hand and never get tired.

  They glanced at each other, straightened up, and jerked their chins at me like they hadn’t just pissed themselves. “Psh. Whatever.” They turned and started walking back up the street toward the market.

  And that’s when the glove made a little hissing sound, the sword flickered, and then it disappeared.

  “Lux, sword!”

  Nothing.

  The two guys stopped and looked back at me. The skinny moron grinned. I didn’t like the look of that grin. I spun and started walking again, even faster than before. I was in the shadow of a tall building, and I shivered as a cold breeze blew out of an alley to my side. I strained to hear whether the two guys were following me, but I couldn’t tell over the street noise.

  The shadows! I’m such an idiot.

  I yanked
my gloved hands out of my pockets and hurried to the end of the block so I could get the webbed material into the sunlight.

  Dead batteries. Moron. I could have been charging them this whole time, and instead… ugh, idiot.

  Within seconds of being in the light, a dull red light appeared on the back of my gloved hands.

  Charging. Okay. So now—

  “Hey girl, what’s the matter? No more light show?”

  The voice was right in my ear, so close I could feel his breath on me as he leaned forward to grab my arm.

  “Get off!” I yanked free and ran, ran as fast as I could, crashing my shoulders into nearly every person on the sidewalk as I tried to stay in the sunlight. Now I could hear them following me. Their shoes were pounding on the concrete and they were shouting and laughing as they crashed through the people behind me. And I mean right behind me.

  The dull red light on the gloves turned yellow.

  Good enough.

  “Lux, shield!”

  I spun around as the lasers built the circular shield on the back of my arm and I shoved my fist at the two guys just as they crashed into me. Except they didn’t exactly crash into me. They both hit the shield and slid off to either side, one running face-first into a No Parking sign and the other one slamming into the side of a building. But I didn’t feel the impact at all.

  Just like the bullets on the roof.

  The two guys were both clutching their faces and groaning, and I glanced around myself, seeing yet another ring of silent gawkers pointing their phones at me, taking my picture, recording me and my black, violet-glowing shield in broad daylight.

  “Lux, off.”

  The shield vanished and I dashed into the nearest alley. At the back I had to squeeze around a delivery truck and got some strange looks from a couple guys unloading some boxes, but when I stepped out onto the street again, no one was looking at me or following me, and I started walking toward my parents’ neighborhood again.

  With each step I took, the pounding in my chest slowed and my breathing calmed down. I wiped the sweat off my forehead and made sure I kept my gloved hands in the sunlight.