Paranoia was my pet, I realized, and I was totally down with that. For one, it weighed a lot less that Grayson did, even if the feeling was probably taking years off my life in worry. Speaking of taking years off a life, I needed to get Grayson back to Manhattan to hopefully catch Rennie before he died of premature old age.
I headed out into Queens as the flames rose up high behind me, Grayson as helpful as ever lumped into my arms. I made a mental note to charge Rennie extra for hefting the beast around, and for my dry cleaning to get all the fur off me. I’d break it to him gently, being the nice guy I was. After all, if old age didn’t kill him, there was still the possibility my pricing would, and nobody wanted a dead client.
It was bad for business.
* * *
Fantasy author Anton Strout was born in the Berkshire Hills mere miles from writing heavyweights Nathaniel Hawthorne and Herman Melville and currently lives in the haunted corn maze that is New Jersey (where nothing paranormal ever really happens, he assures you).
He is the author of the Simon Canderous urban fantasy series and the Spellmason Chronicles for Ace Books, a division of Penguin Random House. Anton also hosts The Once & Future Podcast.
In his scant spare time, he is a podcaster, a sometimes actor, sometimes musician, occasional RPGer, and the worlds most casual and controller smashing video gamer. He currently works in the exciting world of publishing and yes, it is as glamorous as it sounds.
God Needs Not the Future
Jason Sizemore
Raindrops bled down the windshield of the old Winfield taxi parked along the curb of Fifth Street. A streetlamp hunched overhead, blasting a sodium-yellow haze, its light casting a crawling tattoo of shadows across the hard-angled face of Eleanor Bennett. Her gaze, unseen, scanned the chaos outside the car: police tape, deputies draped in yellow ponchos, the manic whirling of emergency vehicles, the usual crowds of protesters. A preacher on the radio predicted end times, but then, didn’t they always?
The passenger door opened and an umbrella sprang open. A hand holding money reached in and paid the driver.
“Dr. Bennett, thank you for coming out.”
Eleanor flipped up her collar. “Just so you know, Detective, I’m billing you double my usual rates.”
“And here I thought I was getting a friend’s discount.”
The man held out a large hand that she accepted as she climbed out of the taxi and underneath the protection of his umbrella. Eleanor tucked her hands into the pockets of her grey wool coat, steeling herself against the stiff breeze.
Walking in such close proximity to the detective, she caught a sniff of strong whiskey and cinnamon. “James Grant, you devil, starting the party without me?”
“Never. Just, you know, celebrating.”
“The divorce?”
“When nothin’s going right, you dream up your wins, right?”
Eleanor stayed quiet. Her abilities made the damage in the detective’s heart all too clear. But they also exposed James’s feelings for her: the increased heart rate, the slight rise in body temperature, the well-hidden nervous edge in his voice. She did her best to ignore the signs.
They approached the bloodstained doorway of a five story brownstone. Forensics was doing their best to gather evidence in the downpour, but from the look of things, the whole scene was a wash.
“It started here…we think the android walked right up to the door and knocked. When the tenant came out, a fight ensued.”
Eleanor looked around. “This doesn’t look like a fight. More like a mutilation.”
“You know what I mean.” James tapped a black pen impatiently against the back of his notepad. “Our best guess is the tenant, a Mr. John Robinson, didn’t notice that his visitor was an android. You know how it is these days.”
“The android wouldn’t have used violence unless somebody had infected it with a virus or one of its behavioral chips overloaded.”
“Right,” James said. “Or somebody attacked it.”
“Twenty-three people?” Eleanor paused. “What’s the data rats say?”
James’s unshaven face looked away, staring into the darkness as though the answer lurked out there, just beyond the shadows. “They say it’s clean.”
“Unlikely.”
The detective shrugged.
“Any CCTV or security cameras?”
“All local businesses report their video footage has been wiped. We’ve got uniforms canvassing for eye-witnesses.”
“Is it possible an EMP tripped the android’s wire?” she asked.
“Not my area of expertise, doc. I presume not, or the data rats would have remarked on it.”
They went up the steps that passed under the bloodied arch of the doorway. The scent of blood, shit, and piss hung like a rancid cloud. Eleanor covered her nose and mouth with the sleeve of her coat, fighting the urge to vomit. Naturally, over the course of her career as a detective, she’d seen plenty of messy crime scenes. But this one pegged the meter.
Crimson scarred the walls as though Jackson Pollack had entered, dipped his brush in a pool of fresh red paint and proceeded to have a freak out. Streaks, blotches, chunks of gore. The remnants of a pair of bodies lay in the hallway. They looked more like a botched chophouse job on a dairy cow than they did human remains.
“I›m afraid this isn’t even the worst of it,” James said. “Do you wish to see the rest of the house? Or do you want to go straight to the android?”
Eleanor nodded at the stairwell. James grimaced. “Leads to another bathroom and the kids’ bedrooms. And the family dog, torn limb from limb.”
“No,” she whispered, “I’ve seen enough.”
“Then let’s meet your new friend.” James led her to stairs descending into a basement. She glanced down, witnessing a hive of activity—men and women in lab coats, the police, a fireman, and two equipment techs. She noticed more blood smeared on the wall leading down, punctuated by small handprints. At the corner of the landing, she paused to look at a severed hand, separated just past the wrist, resting on the carpet. A bit of yellow paint encircled the body part.
“Goddamn it, Chuck, I told you to get this shit off the floor before I brought her down.” The swirl of movement stopped and all sets of eyes moved to look at her and James. She knew most of the team. Now she looked down, unable to make eye contact. Dark memories started bubbling forward like sewage through a steel drain.
“Detective…” Eleanor lightly touched James’s elbow.
“I know.” James stepped forward. “I need all of you out. Now.”
A man in a powder blue lab coat snorted. “Like hell, you say. This crime scene has not been processed. We’re going nowhere until all of us to a man are finished.”
James let out a long sigh, as though he’d fought this battle a number of times before. “Look, you know the parameters of this crime…we’ve got an outlier case and in cases like these, I have explicit command. Like it or not, that means when I tell your ass to jump, you ask me how high.”
“Then being an outlier, we should be doubly cautious with the crime scene.”
“Fine.” James took out his cellphone and dialed a number. “I’ll ask the chief what she wants us to do.”
Chuck raised his hand in a submissive motion. “Christ, how cliché are you? We’ll clear out so you and our old pal can have some quality time.”
The men and the jackets filed out past Eleanor and James, followed soon by the fireman and the cops. One uniform remained.
“Are you waiting for a treat, Officer Johnson?” James asked.
“No sir, I’m here to maintain the chain of custody for…” At this, the cop nodded to something out of sight from Eleanor’s angle of vision.
“Come on,” James said.
When they reached the bottom, Eleanor noticed the carpet had been covered with a clear plastic sheet. Blood squished underneath as they walked over it.
More carnage. Was that a tooth embedded in the wall’s plaster?
“This is him.”
“Him? Androids don’t claim gender,”
“This one is a ‘he’ by its own reckoning. He. It. The thing was talking non-sense, so we switched it off. Before that it kept yelling that he was a person, a man, and deserved compassion and love and whatnot. To be safe, I read the thing its Miranda rights.”
“Always thinking ahead. That’s why you get to hang out in rooms with teeth-lined walls.”
“Perk of the job.”
Eleanor gaped at the blood coating the android’s disembodied head. The thing had straight brown hair combed in a neat part to the left. Nose, ears, and mouth showed no irregularities. Two severed plastic tubes (presumably one for its esophagus and another for its thorax) poked out from under the stretched skin of the neck. Colored wires spread across the table that led from internal circuitry within the head.
“Why did the murders create so much…evidence?”
“It tore the twenty-three victims apart limb from limb. Like a kid torturing a bug.”
James touched Eleanor lightly on the shoulder. “The sooner this is finished the sooner we get you out of here.”
She nodded.
“Johnson, try being useful and switch on this mechanical asshole.”
She heard a click and then she felt it immediately. Not just the slight whirring of gears and machinery, but something more abstract. She gasped and nearly fell to her knees when the android’s eyes popped open.
James moved to catch her.
“I’m okay.” She stood up straight, eyes wide and disbelieving. “Let’s just say the test response you’re paying for is positive.”
“Are you sure?”
She looked at James. “Can it talk, you know, with its head detached from its body?”
“When it finishes booting up, you’ll want to stuff a sock in its mouth.”
Eleanor leaned forward to get a closer look at the head. It stank of bearing grease and faux-skin. Android servants were richy-rich toys. She’d never seen one up close. This one could pass as human in dim light.
“Good afternoon, Dr. Bennett,” the head spoke. “My name is Clark. It is a pleasure to meet you.”
She jumped back and bumped into James.
“Whoa, there. It’s just a head without a body. It can’t hurt you.”
Thoughts filled her mind. Terrible memories. Children without arms. Arterial spray.
“Detective, I would like to remind you that I am not an ‘it’, but a ‘he’. You are being impolite.”
Eleanor stepped forward. “How are you doing that?”
“Model 23J-21 androids contain vocal equipment built—”
“No, not that. How are you reaching my mind?”
“I am a conscious male.”
Eleanor barked out a laugh. “Nonsense.”
“Dr. Bennett, you sense me empathically. Would that not speak to my consciousness? Records indicate that is why you were brought here, to test the veracity of my claim.”
James and Eleanor looked to each other.
“What records? Are you tapping into our networks?”
Clark ignored the detective’s question.
“Dr. Bennett, less than three years ago you were quarantined and tested. Science did not believe that a human could possess your ability.”
“But that’s it, exactly, I am human. You’re an artificial construction with a mind programmed by a bunch of software nerds.”
“And you believe you’re an organic construction brought to life by an omnipotent entity. I ask of you, which one do you think is more likely?”
A cellphone rang. James answered and stepped aside.
The android smiled, its bright white teeth a disturbing sight. “Life entered my body. Perhaps human programming created my consciousness. Perhaps it was your omnipotent being. Maybe I am, like you, an accident of evolution.”
James gripped Eleanor by her elbow. “Philosophy class is over, El. We got to go.”
“Good bye, Dr. Bennett,” called out the android.
* * *
The heavy wipers of the Chevy Impala screeched back and forth across the windshield. In the passenger’s seat, Eleanor leaned her head against the window, watching as they traveled to the riverside port district. Along the way, she saw hundreds of homeless souls. They huddled under leaky green aluminum lean-tos, the best the city could offer its vagabond population as the rains kept falling and more and more people lost their jobs and their homes to the water.
“Hey, you’re smudging up my window.”
“Sorry, I know how much you hate that.” She used the sleeve of her coat to wipe the grease away, leaving a larger, cloudier smear in its place.
“How did this wacko hear about the android?” she asked.
“These days, nothing stays secret for very long. The android knew you were coming. Maybe we have a mole in the department?”
“Maybe he had something to do with it?”
“The android?”
“No, the pastor.”
“Doubtful. He’s a preacher, of course, has connections within his congregation, but high level contacts in the technology classes?”
Eleanor looked over to James. Headlights from a trailing car highlighted a small rectangle of his face via the reflection in the rearview mirror. The constant waves of attraction she felt from him had been momentarily displaced as he concentrated on driving and her questioning. It provided a rare moment for her to assess her feelings about him. “Do you miss working homicide?” he asked.
Eleanor took in a breath. “No. Once my ‘superpowers’ kicked in, it became a bit much. All those thoughts of shooting people.”
“You wanted to shoot people?”
“No, but most of our department did.”
James slowed the Impala as they approached the protesters. People banged on the windows and shouted obscenities as they pressed inward. Eventually, they had to stop when a group of rioters pressed in front of them and wouldn’t move. They slapped the car’s hood in defiance.
“Here, take this.” James offered a berretta in a stiff brown leather holster.
“You know they took my carry license. I can’t take your gun.”
“It’s my spare. And today, you’re a cop, and cops carry guns.”
“So this is like the Old West, where the sheriff deputizes the town loser for some thankless task?”
The protesters rocked the car. He glared at her. “You’re one of the good guys here, no matter what happened, El. Besides, we’re not getting through that crowd without a bit of firearm assistance.”
She took the gun and clipped the holster to her belt.
The frenzy of the crowd made sweat bead on her forehead. Their anger and fear threatened to overwhelm her. Abiding by department rules was not the reason she did not want the gun. “It’s now or never.”
“Okay, let’s go.”
James pushed open his door, holding his badge high in his left hand, his service weapon in his right. “Central PD, make room people, make room!” They fought their way forward and met at the front of the car.
“Did they warn you about the crowd?” Eleanor asked. Her head buzzed and she gritted her teeth. The rain quickly soaked through her wool coat, weighing her down.
“They did.”
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
“I needed you here.”
Her hand gripped the butt of the pistol tightly, but it remained holstered.
As they got closer to the scene, other detectives and officers helped press back the crowd. A tall, fair-skinned man in his mid-40s that Eleanor had never seen before approached.
“Dr. Bennett? I’m Lieutenant Grappin. This way, please.”
By now, she could hear the preacher. His deep baritone voice echoed through the downpour and washed over the crowd.
“The Nephilim were on the earth in those days—and also afterward—when the sons of God went to the daughters of humans and had children by them. They were the heroes of old, men of renown.”
She spotted the preacher standing in the tower of a mobile harbor crane. In one hand he held a Bible, in the other an electronic device. Six men in white suits stood motionless on a shipping container held over the roaring river by the crane’s spreader. A congregation of men and women wearing soaked white robes stood around the yard singing the gospel standard “Wading through Deep Waters.”
Lieutenant Grappin leaned into her to speak over the noise. “That’s Pastor John J. Thompson of the Holy Communion Baptist Church up in the tower. Preacher John, as he’s known around the community, holds the spreader release in his hand. He pushes a button, and the six men take a swim. He says the Nephilim speak the word of God and they have commanded him to make this sacrifice.”
“Nephilim? The fallen angels of the Bible?”
“I guess.” The detective wiped rainwater from his eyes. “We think he’s talking about the androids.”
“Clark isn’t the only one?”
Grappin hesitated. “He’s the only one so far. We need you to find out if the pastor is telling the truth. It might be our only shot at shutting down the android networks before more attacks occur.”
“Can’t we do that as a preemptive action?” Eleanor asked.
The detective waved at the crowd. “Look at them, doctor. If word gets out, we’ll have a riot on our hands.”
“So the Lord said, ‘I will wipe from the face of the earth the human race I have created—and with them the animals, the birds and the creatures that move along the ground—for I regret that I have made them’,” the preacher bellowed.
“The rains,” Grappin said. “His congregation’s convinced we’re in the end times.”
“Didn’t God promise never to destroy the earth with water again?” she said, looking at James.
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