The iFactor

by R. W. Van Sant

  “I don’t know. There will be a hearing. Your doctor’s report will prove you are ill so I don’t think the judge will lock you away, but Dales, you’re days of carrying a weapon, or any kind of badge, those are over.”

  “I see.”

  Vanderhaar stood up. “I’ve arranged for you to be released pending a hearing. Don’t leave town.”

  “Yeah, right. Did they find Jill?”

  “Nothing yet.” he responded. “But the blood in the apartment, it was hers.”

  “Okay, thanks.”

  “I’ll see what I can do for you. Maybe we can find you an office job somewhere. I’ll see you at the hearing.”

  “Thanks, “Matt said. “For everything.”

  “Yeah,” the chief said and walked out.

  It would have been better if he’d screamed and yelled and called him an idiot. It was the compassion in Ken’s voice that hurt more than anything else. It meant that Matt was truly no longer an officer; he was a broken thing to be pitied.

  He wondered briefly if a person could volunteer to have their memories burned out. He could wake up every day still a detective, still thinking that he and Jill would be together, that she was alive. He began to envy every burn out he’d ever met.

  They released him shortly after his meeting with the chief. He was given his clothing and possessions, sans badge, gun, and uniform. He left the station wearing an ill-fitting grey colonial maintenance unitard that scrounged. It was probably an indication of his future prospects.

  He walked slowly toward his apartment; intending to lock himself inside, to become the hermit that deep in his heart he wanted to be. All his things from his office filled a small bag. He looked through it as he walked. There was an old picture of himself and Ken from back in Texas, when they were partners. Several notes, all about private matters, since all the official ones had been confiscated. There was a folded paper in the bottom of the bag. He reached in to open it. Ken was probably trying to say goodbye without the surveillance cameras on. It wasn’t Ken’s handwriting, but he had seen it before, on the door of his apartment.

  I’M SORRY, DALES.

  Even though his doctor had him on a heavy regimen of drugs the entire time he was in custody, he could feel himself losing control again. He was out in the open and there was no way to get back to his apartment safely. It was imperative to gain control of the situation. Matt could feel the drugs in his system keeping his emotions from surfacing with full intensity, the intensity that caused him to losing control as he had in the park. Knowing with absolute conviction, however, that an unknown someone really was trying to get you made a fool out of anyone who wasn’t paranoid.

  A few deep breathing exercises helped him clear his mind. The psychopath was still watching him, most likely even as he folded the letter and returned it to the bag. That was fine with Matt. Let the bastard come, he wanted to take him on. Out in the open, however, exposed, the odds were not at all in his favor. Why should the killer, bother? The bastard had won. The villain he had defeated Matt in every way possible, except one. Matt would be waiting when he arrived to take his life. Let the killer watch from a distance, until he was ready to turn the tables.

  The killer had a head start. Matt found a building with a long flat wall and a lawn five meters or so wide between it and the walkway. He leaned against it under the shade of a tree and studied everything around him. He could escape to the either the right or left if he was pressed. Exposed places meant escape routes and he was studying each of them, as well as his fellow colonists as they walked along.

  Once he made it home, he could lock himself in and take more meds to calm his mind and plan his next course of action. It the killer was fixated on him, maybe he could do something to make himself more of a target. Matt wanted a confrontation, he wanted to beat the man to death with his own hands and feel the life slip out of his body. He wanted the killer to know what a horrible mistake they made when they went after Jill. Tears started to well up. He used the loose unitard sleeve to wipe his eyes.

  He stood there unmoving for over an hour. A shift change resulted in a dramatic reduction of foot traffic. Soon there was almost no one on the footpaths and he could be certain that he wasn’t being followed.

  It took Matt quite a bit longer to get home than it normally would have, but he no longer had anything else to do, so he walked the long way, taking paths he almost never traversed. He went blocks out of his way rather than enter a blind alley. Grassy paths were more open than pavement. He even waited in a small crowd at the train station, just to slip away into a patch of nearby bushes when the train came. He was almost exhausted when he finally reached his door. This time the message read,

  THEY ARE COMING FOR YOU. RUN!

  Chapter 44

  The song flooded his mind, the singsong rhythm quickly synced to the cadence of his footfalls.

  Go to sleep and go insane

  Past and future all the same

  When the world turns inside out

  All you’ll do is scream and shout

  The singsong rang through his head, so familiar. He forced the image of the darkened room and the vacant faces singing.

  There is nothing you can do.

  The Trust is gonna come for you.

  He was sure of it. They were coming, the men in the black clothing, from down the hall. There were six of them. The soft sound of their boot falls stirred a memory. Matt remembered being there, he remembered his exact action and he knew one more thing. He knew he would escape.

  The first assailant came around the corner with his gun drawn, held forward. All right then, if he was a psychic freak, he would use it to his advantage. He stood at the corner and waited just long enough to see the gun. Matt’s knee came up into the lead man’s groin, dropping him like a rock. He wished that he could have grabbed the gun, but there was no time.

  The next man was going to leap forward over his fallen comrade with a knife in his hand. Matt’s arm shot outward clipping him across the neck. Two down, but still no chance to get a weapon. The next two were coming together, around their fallen comrades. Each one had a gun, Matt moved by memory rather than thought. Each step he remembered vividly, he knew exactly what to do and the men cooperated by following their parts without deviation. Matt grabbed the next man’s gun arm and swung him around with all his force, clipping his partner across the temples with the pistol. He held the man by the gun arm and used him as a shield against the two who remained. One fired, killing his shield, but shock at killing his comrade caused hesitation. Matt threw the body on him and this time he was able to keep a gun. The weight of the dead man knocked the thug down, he struck his head hard on a wall and collapsed under the weight of the corpse, pinned him to the floor, Matt slid the gun into his pocket. He hoped that there were some bullets left.

  The shooter struggled underneath the body to grab a weapon. Matt jumped at him and kicked him across the face. The remaining assailant managed to stick him in the leg with a sharp object. Matt staggered toward the man, reaching for the gun as the attacker fled down stairs to meet the two other men who were waiting as backup. They moved to the front and rear entrances, covering them with automatic weapons.

  Matt staggered into his apartment and locked the door. He appraised the device that protruded from his leg, there was still a little of the dark liquid remaining it. Fantasia. He pulled the syringe out and smashed it against the wall then proceeded to fill a bag with some essentials; most importantly, he needed a note pad and a pen. He couldn’t escape the way he came in, but he remembered that the fire escape would be clear. His assailants guarded all other exits. When security patrol came around, he knew the men would conceal themselves. If he waited for that distraction then he’d get away unseen.

  From behind his balcony curtain, he could see a small team converging on his apartment, Kramer in the lead. He made his way down the ladder and slipped away into the park.

  The drug’s effects started to cloud his mind. He had to find a
safe place to ride the stupor out. The world around him started shifting as the euphoria swept up slowly. Those bastards had injected him with a strong dose, enough to cause memory loss. When it wore off, he wouldn’t remember a thing. The pen scribbled down all the important information he needed to remember as he walked.

  Control it or it will control you, he thought. The lanes and houses in the quad started to shift and change becoming so much like Dallas. He stumbled around trying to hold on to the real world. He wanted to escape to his beach, but he rejected the images and sounds. Slowly he pushed Dallas away as it tried to take over his senses. The buildings returned to their former shapes and purposes, although he was having difficulty remembering them.

  Matt stumbled as the chant rang in his ears until he found the building he was looking for; the one Jill had shown him only nights before. If he was going into a Fantasia trip, then he hoped that he could lose himself in the crowd.

  The man at the front desk demanded payment for a room. Matt knew that it would be suicide to use his chip to pay. They would track him to his exact location. He pulled the confiscated gun out of his pocket and placed it on the counter for payment.

  “That gun looks untraceable. These are rare, you sure you want to part with it?”

  Matt nodded curtly.

  Okay then, you got six hours. You should be down by then.” the man handed him a room key. “Down the hall at the end.”

  Matt struggled to keep the world together as he struggled down the hall. The room was a bad idea, he opened the first cleaning closet he came to and fell inside closing it behind him. No one will find him in there, he was sure of it. He bunched up in a ball in the corner, pulled a pile of sheets off the shelf to covered himself and surrendered to the chanting.

  His world imploded.

  Chapter 45

  It was the mind rip. All reality simultaneously expanded and inverted. Years of memories, past and future, assaulted his mind. His brain struggled to incorporate all the new data.

  The Fantasia drug had brought down his mental barriers and all the memories and experiences that he had so long fought to suppress burst like a sun going nova in his mind. The ultra-light dilation effect, traveling faster than light, imaginary space, imaginary time, it was his i factor. The factor at which time and space had collapsed, inverted sped up and reversed itself. The cork was off the bottle and the genie flew out like an exploding volcano.

  Apparitions flew at him fast and furious, images far distant and inside his own organs. He could see the effects of the drugs the psychiatrist had been giving him. He saw clearly the beginnings of a tumor in his brain caused by the doctor’s treatments, treatments that the doctor had intended not to cure him but to exacerbate his symptoms. He was sabotaged, he wasn’t weak or broken. The psychiatrist had been poisoning him. His thoughts turned to the alien device in his palm. He knew every circuit; he could sense its connection to the city surveillance system.

  Matt lay under a pile of sheets in the corner. The lint from the thin fabric entered in and out of his lungs. If he focused, he could sense the progression of the drug through his blood stream. He watched its advance from the instant the needle pierced his skin until his liver reduced the last of the compound into harmless molecules. He could sense everything that had happened to his body for the last eight years. It was, however, coming too fast, too heavily.

  Matt tried to sort out the memories attacking his mind. Unlike the exposure during his trip, when all the data assailed him in less than a microsecond, he had had a year to assimilate it into his subconscious mind. Because of the mental re-awakening caused by the Fantasia drug, he had hours to come to terms with the data. Still, the sheer immensity of it assailed his sanity. If he couldn’t incorporate the knowledge, it would destroy him. Enlightenment came slowly. He knew that he would indeed get through the ordeal. He suddenly knew so much more.

  He remembered Dallas, all of it.

  Global climate change had resulted in several decades of drought in America. Along with the destruction in the farms in the southern states caused by the ever-increasing power of tornados, hurricanes and floods had left the most of America in a crisis. Wells and reservoirs had dried up and the once fertile croplands fell prey to year after year of wildfires. Food and water imported from Mexico, Canada and China had to be shipped into the larger metropolitan cities in the southwestern states. All was well for a time, until the shortages started. Companies that contracted with the government to distribute the supplies learned that they could make much more money by guaranteeing delivery to some groups more than others guarantee. Starvation prevailed in large cities.

  In Dallas, the companies started sending old, spoiled, or insufficient amounts to the poorer sections of Dallas and Fort Worth. The elderly and the very young started to die first. In an attempt to save the lives of their families many of the poor resorted to raiding the wealthier neighborhoods for food and water. The governor responded instituting martial law. It was an appalling time. The National Guard patrolled the streets shooting looters on site.

  In the week before the riots, he and Ken were investigating several cases of hoarding; the killing of neighborhood pets for food and one case of cannibalism. The city, hell, the country was pulling itself apart. Emergency relief shipments from the governments of China and Brazil arrived and the feeling was that the worse was over. By the time the relief reached the inner cities, it was all but depleted. The poor were dying. Matt drove through Texas looking at children with swollen bellies and sticks for limbs. Ambulances no longer answered calls, and the beat cops picked up the dead.

  Matt answered a call that a break in was in progress at an abandoned warehouse. His partner was running late. Matt jumped in his car to investigate. He arrived to discover a starving family, a man, his wife and three kids trying to pry open a shed. The man had a crowbar and was trying to pry the container open. He had the lock nearly off when Matt arrived.

  “Hands in the air! Put the crowbar down.” Matt remembered how his gun felt as he pulled it from his holster.

  “I was promised food for my family,” the man said. “I did my job, they promised me food.”

  “I won’t ask again.” Matt moved into a defensive position.

  “Please mister.” his wife, gathered her children around her legs. “They told him if he helped them load the food into the sheds, he would get me some. He worked hard and they gave him nothing. They threatened him.”

  “I just want what’s fair.” the man put the bar down. “I’m not a thief, I earned it.”

  Shots rang out from behind him. Matt dropped to the ground and rolled to face the shooter. From the shadows, a couple of national guardsman emerged with guns held ready. Behind them, his partner followed—his gun drawn.

  “Dammit Dales. You know better than to take off alone.”

  “I don’t think they are dangerous.” Matt turned back to see the entire family dead on the ground, the children’s bodies bleeding underneath the body of the mother who tried to protect them. Matt turned to the guardsmen in horror. “Why?”

  “Looters,” one of them said as he checked his rifle.

  “You killed the children. You bastard. This will be reported.”

  Matt felt the anger flow through him as fresh as it did on that day. He despised those who hurt children, people without conscious, who hid behind the shield of authority.

  “Vanderhaar,” the other guardsman said. “Deal with your partner.”

  “Look Matt,” he lowered his gun and walked up to him. “This is awful. It’s horrible all over. There is a standing order against looters. That man got his family killed by bringing them along. We don’t need to make a big deal out of this, do we?”

  “Hell yes we do, those children were innocent.” Matt walked up to the family looking for signs of life. There was none.

  “What is he doing?’ The first guardsman asked.

  “My job!” Matt snapped. “Stand down or I’ll call for back up.”

  �
�Oh, did he just….” the second guardsman drew back the bolt on his rifle.

  Matt turned with his gun drawn. The guards had their rifles down. Therefore, he lowered his gun. “Back up, this is now a crime scene. Ken, call it in please.”

  “I think I saw a child move.” Vanderhaar moved quickly to check the pulse of the youngest child. He had a gaping hole where the chest had been, but Matt looked anyway. His partner stood up and Matt felt the gun butt on the back of his neck.

  “We pay you to avoid these complications.” Matt heard the second guardsman complain. “I want this taken care of, permanently.”

  “I’ll handle it.” Matt felt the blow to the back of his head. As he fell into unconsciousness, he heard his partner. “He won’t be able to report anything.”

  Sensations of being moved and thrown roughly into his car, followed by the motion of a car and the sounds of sirens; Matt could remember the feeling of a needle entering his skin and the feel of the drug which he now recognized as Fantasia enter his blood. “I’m sorry it came to this Matthew, I really am.” Vanderhaar’s voice broke through the painful haze. “You won’t remember any of it.”

  Matt pulled himself back to consciousness as the drug was beginning to take effect. He was alone in the passenger side of his police car. The radio was calling all available units to gather for riot control. Officers in riot gear ran past his car. Matt opened the door and fell out of the car. His body hurt and it was hard to focus, colors and shapes were not obeying the agreed upon laws of physics. Matt felt for his side arm, it was missing. He moved to the trunk and after several seconds of playing key hole whack-a –mole with a moving lock, he manage to get it open. He retrieved his shotgun and followed the line riot gear clad men dancing toward the line. His mind remained focused. He went to find Vanderhaar.

  He stumbled around behind the police shield wall. It was growing increasingly more difficult to maintain his concentration, but he found his partner in the wall of police officers.