Machine City: A Thriller (Detective Barnes Book 2)

by Scott J. Holliday

  30

  Adrian Flaherty watched the two quarters roll along the boxcar floor. Once they stopped moving he looked up. Before him sat Lieutenant Detective Franklin and a man he vaguely knew. A doctor? He looked to his left to see Joanna and Amanda there, clutching each other with tears on their cheeks.

  “Jo?” Flaherty said. “What’s happening?”

  “Daddy!” Amanda said. She hopped from her chair and hugged her dad.

  Joanna stood. She approached her husband slowly, eyes searching his face. She knelt down next to him.

  “What is it, honey?” Flaherty said.

  Joanna reached out and placed a hand on his cheek. She leaned in and kissed his lips. Her touch was light and soft, tentative as a bird. She smiled. “It’s you.”

  “Leo’s machine,” Dr. Hill said, using his cane to help him stand. “Where is it?”

  Flaherty looked up at the doctor. He blinked and shook his head when he realized he recognized the man, after all. Not a doctor, but Detective John Barnes.

  “You’re supposed to be dead,” Flaherty said.

  “We needed that version of Barnes,” Franklin said, “the one inside you, to believe he was dead, else he’d never let go.”

  “The machine?” Barnes repeated. “Where is it?”

  “In the toolbox,” Flaherty said. “Back of my truck.” He threw Barnes his keys.

  Barnes hobbled toward the boxcar door, leaning on his cane with each step.

  “You’ll get him home?” Franklin said to Joanna Flaherty.

  She nodded.

  “He’s still confused,” Franklin said. “Keep him calm, let him rest.”

  “I will.”

  Franklin and Barnes left the boxcar.

  31

  Barnes shoved one of Flaherty’s keys into the toolbox in the bed of the booted truck in Roosevelt’s parking lot. The top popped open. He threw back the lid to find a machine among the boxes of nails along with a tow bar and drill. His elbow pits went cold, his scalp tingled. He pulled the machine out of the toolbox and set it in the truck bed. He rubbed his hands through his hair.

  “Sure you can do this?” Franklin said.

  “I have to,” Barnes said. He looked at his partner. “Don’t I?”

  “We can find someone else,” Franklin said. “I’m sure Gabriel Messina has a lineup of Sect members who’d love to hook in and help Little Cher. Maybe even Messina would do it himself.”

  “No,” Barnes said. “She may not have that kind of time.”

  Franklin didn’t disagree. He picked up the machine and walked toward the front door to Roosevelt’s. “Come on.”

  “Right behind you,” Barnes said.

  Franklin went into the bar.

  Barnes hopped up and sat on the tailgate, cringing at the pain in his shoulder. Six years had passed since his showdown with Calavera. The wounds had healed into ugly scars, the shattered bones replaced with titanium implants. The doctors said the pain would eventually fade, but Barnes knew better. The voices in his head might be quiet now, but the death of a dozen or more life presences leaves traces.

  Death doesn’t heal.

  He pulled out his phone and typed a text to Jessica.

  I have to go back under. Cherry Daniels.

  Three little dots appeared below his message, indicating she was replying. Barnes looked up as he waited. In the distance were the projects on Keisel Street. Machine City. A pumping heart of decrepit buildings pulling in innocent people, pushing out insanity. A living example of why the machine had been outlawed. A census taker walking those halls would find himself on a nightmare trip. Everyone was a movie icon, a high-profile athlete, a reality-TV star. Men were women, women were men. Adults were children and vice versa. Come back through a half hour later and they’d all be someone else.

  His cell buzzed with Jessica’s reply.

  Save her.

  Barnes put away his phone and started toward the bar. The place was desolate, having closed its doors to the public a half hour before. Generally it turned into an after-hours cop hangout until dawn, but Franklin had asked that they clear the venue out. On the way over he’d called in a favor on their old tech, Warden, asking him to come help administer the machine. Warden had moved on to a clerical position at a city building once the machine was made illegal, making it years since Barnes had seen him.

  Franklin came out before Barnes arrived at the door. He said, “We got a problem.”

  “What’s up?”

  “No serum.”

  “You’re kidding.”

  “Nope.”

  Barnes turned around to think. He leaned on his cane and gripped the bridge of his nose. “There’s that memory shop over on Fenkell. They gotta have serum.”

  “Gonna be closed at this hour.”

  “Does it matter?”

  “Go,” Franklin said. “I’ll wait here for Warden.”

  Barnes drove to Three Aces on Fenkell, situated across from his childhood haunt, Mancino’s Diner. The scent of bacon wafted across the street as he tore into the memory shop parking lot.

  Most of the time there’d be protesters out front, Melodians and Brittanians, but all was quiet since the shop was closed. For propriety’s sake, Barnes checked the front door. Locked. He peeked inside through the plate glass. Memory shops were generally set up like tattoo parlors—the walls covered in art, a few comfortable chairs with machine kits at the side, drinks and snacks for sale. This one was no different. He’d marginally hoped to spot some kind of contact information so he could get ahold of the owner. No soap. He could call dispatch and run a check to find the proprietor’s name, but arousing that kind of suspicion would force Captain Darrow to bring down the hammer. The precinct policy was no machine usage, ever.

  This trip would have to be a backdoor operation.

  Barnes went around back with a mind to shoot through the lock, get in, snatch some serum, and get out, but it appeared he was the runner-up on that thought process. The back door of Three Aces had been pried open. The jamb was bent and mangled, the door still open a quarter of the way.

  Barnes drew his weapon and approached slowly. He pushed the door open with his elbow, gun aimed inside the store’s back room. The lights were off. He focused his eyes for movement but found only black shapes, boxes, and shelves.

  He called out, “Police!”

  “Oh, shit,” a whispering voice said.

  “Dude,” another voice said, “we gotta run.”

  “Don’t run,” Barnes said. “Just chill out. I’m turning on the lights.”

  “Fuck that!”

  “No,” Barnes said. “Not fuck that. Relax. You have a chance to do something good here tonight, understand? You have a chance to save Little Cher. Stay put and shut up.”

  No answer.

  Barnes reached over and flicked on the lights.

  Two protesters stood before him. One was a Melodian, the other a Brittanian. The Melodian held a crowbar in one hand, the Brittanian, an ax. About their feet were the scattered remains of three or four machines chopped and beaten to death. Artificial hearts were cracked on the floor surrounded by pools of serum, like white blood. Most of the bottles of serum on the shelves behind them were punctured and drained, but a few remained intact.

  “Look,” Barnes said, gesturing with his head toward the remaining bottles, “I just need some of that serum right there. That’s it.”

  The Brittanian plucked a bottle off the shelf. He raised his ax blade. “This?”

  “Yes,” Barnes said, realizing the two could take out the remaining bottles of serum with one combined swoop. “Don’t get smart. Throw it over and I’ll walk away, say I saw nothing.”

  “No,” the Melodian said. “You’ll use it on a machine.”

  “To save Little Cher,” Barnes said.

  “Who cares about Little Cher?” the Melodian said. “She’s dead by now. We’re trying to stop scum like you from riding the machine.”

  “Scum like me?” Barnes said,
moving his aim to the Melodian. His shoulder ached from keeping the gun steady. His knee burned. “That’s cute coming from a guy sporting a reverse Mohawk, hanging out with another guy dressed as a teenage girl.”

  “At least we’re honest about who we are.”

  Barnes checked the guy’s left hand, saw a wedding ring. “You got a wife and kids? Where are they right now? What are they gonna do while you’re sitting in a jail cell for the shit you pulled here tonight? Vandalism. Destruction of property. Sure you’re being honest with yourself?”

  The Melodian sneered. “Don’t talk about my family.”

  Barnes turned his aim toward the Brittanian. “And what about you, pigtails? Is that rouge on your cheek? Eyeliner? What’s your name?”

  “Fuck you,” the Melodian said, answering for the other. “That’s his name.”

  Barnes kept his eyes on the Brittanian. The man glanced at his partner and then back at Barnes. He said, “My name’s Randy.”

  “Randy, I’m giving you an opportunity to avoid jail time and save a little girl’s life. Just give me that bottle.”

  “Don’t give it to him, Rand.”

  “Randy,” Barnes said, “look at my head. Look at my hair. Do you see shaved temples? No. Because I’m not a munky, okay? Look at my badge.” Randy looked down at the badge hanging chest-high from a dog-tag chain around Barnes’s neck. “I’m a cop, and I’m trying to do the right thing here. Think I want to go back on that machine? Think I—”

  “Wait,” Randy said. “You’re John Barnes, aren’t you?”

  Barnes nodded.

  “You caught Calavera?”

  Barnes switched his handgun to his right hand, used his left to pull back his shirt and reveal the scar above his heart. “You’re goddamn right I did.”

  Randy tossed him the bottle.

  Barnes pushed through the doors into Roosevelt’s.

  “Hey, Barnes,” Warden said, offering his hand to shake. A few years older now, Warden’s features had softened. His eyes were less intense, less jaded. His hair was cropped short, and his skin was glossy pale. Broken capillaries could be discerned around his nose. An addict for sure. Maybe a munky?

  Barnes shook Warden’s hand, handed him the serum.

  They’d already set up the machine on the cushions of a long booth. Warden brought over the serum bottle and attached it. The fluid gurgled as it emptied from the bottle into the innards of the machine, filling the artificial heart.

  “Do I want to know how?” Franklin said, indicating the bottle.

  “No.”

  The serum was attached, the needle and tubes were ready to go, and the suction cups were clean and glistening. The table was cleared for Barnes to lie down.

  “Take a look,” Franklin said. He pointed at the machine’s small screen. “There’s only one local file that has never been transferred.”

  Barnes examined the list on the screen. A file named Bliss displayed a zero in the Transfers field, while the other files numbered in the hundreds. In the Plays field, however, the number on the Bliss file was more than a thousand.

  “You ready?” Franklin said.

  Barnes looked at his partner, who was now holding a set of battery-operated clippers. Barnes chuffed and shook his head. “Flaherty thought he quit the force, right?”

  “Technically, that was you,” Franklin said. “Near as the tech boys can figure it, you took over completely while Flaherty was working on his kid’s jungle gym. You mentally blackjacked him and decided you were a construction worker.”

  “Why would I do that?”

  “Do what, blackjack Flaherty?”

  “Quit.”

  Franklin held his partner’s eyes for a moment and then said, “Because this shit is goddamn hard.”

  Barnes looked off. “I talked with him, man. I got the feeling he knew some things he couldn’t possibly know. I mean . . . I couldn’t possibly know.”

  “Like what?”

  “How could I, or that version of me, be aware of anything that happened to me after Calavera? Richie, Jessica, it was like he knew them.”

  “You said it yourself,” Franklin said. “The new personality doesn’t understand that the host body’s memories aren’t his own. Think about it. You and Flaherty are about the same age, been married about the same amount of time. Hell, your kids even go to the same school. It’d be simple to confuse his own memories with the kind of life that version of you wanted.”

  “It’s the life I hoped for when I thought I was dying.”

  “Exactly. And then, presto-change-o, you’re walking around in a body living precisely the life you dreamed. It wasn’t confusing. It made perfect sense to him. To you.”

  “But he saw me with Jessica,” Barnes said. “How could he not recognize . . . I mean . . . how could I not recognize me?”

  “He saw what he needed to see,” Franklin said, turning up his palms.

  Barnes took a moment, and then he said, “If we can’t save this girl, I’ll have killed her. I took Flaherty off track when he was about to nail this bastard.”

  “No,” Franklin said. “A different version of you did that.”

  “But it was still me.”

  Franklin gestured at the machine. “Can we focus, please?”

  Barnes rubbed his hands through his hair. “All right, let’s go.” He peeled off his jacket.

  Franklin flipped on the clippers and got to work. In a matter of minutes Barnes was once again bald. He rolled up his right sleeve, lay back on the table, and closed his eyes.

  “Want this?” Warden said.

  Barnes felt something small and light on his chest. He opened his eyes. A dowel-rod bit. He placed it into his mouth and crunched down on the wood. He breathed evenly as Warden attached the suction cups and brought the needle toward his arm. His hands were shaky.

  “Should I sing?” Warden said.

  Barnes shook his head, eyes on the needle.

  “Here we go,” Warden said. His shaky hand went calm as the needle approached Barnes’s skin. A prick of the skin and the needle found the vein. The cold serum traveled up Barnes’s arm and through his body.

  Warden turned the dial.

  32

  The scents of rope and wood and paint. Stage lights in the rafters. The man sat backstage on an overturned milk crate, elbows on his knees. From his vantage point Barnes could see some of the kids in the audience with their happy catatonic stares as a life-size Eddie Able gesticulated before them. A wave of nostalgia washed over Barnes as he recalled The Eddie Able Show and its characters, its sets. He and Ricky with their butts on the edges of cheap furniture, action figures and Hot Wheels cars around their feet, dropped at the precise moment the show began to air.

  The man was filled with happiness. A sense of completion and acceptance. He reminisced that he’d found a home in the studio, a place to belong. The producers liked him. They said he was good with his hands and that he understood what kids wanted. They’d even listened when he spoke up during the preproduction meeting.

  “What’s Eddie’s sign-off?” the show director had said.

  “Let’s just keep it simple,” the actor in the Eddie Able outfit replied. They’d just run through a final dress rehearsal and he’d taken off the fiberglass head, was holding it under his arm like an astronaut with his helmet. He was handsome and tall, and he had great teeth. The actor turned on his high-pitched Eddie voice and added, “So long, kids. See you next time. Don’t grow up too fast, okay?”

  “We tape in a half hour,” the director had said. “If that’s the best we’ve got, we need to roll with it, but . . . damn, I wish we had something more memorable. Anyone?”

  The cast exchanged looks and shrugged shoulders.

  The man raised his hand.

  The director looked at him. “Leo, what have you got?”

  Barnes felt an uprising of Leo’s fear, felt his sphincter loosen. “I just think . . . ,” Leo said, looking around fearfully. “I just think. That no kid. Rea
lly wants. To get old.”

  “Okay,” the director said, “and?”

  Leo looked at the man who would play Eddie Able. He was perfect. Leo wanted him to say great things, wanted him to be extraordinary. Leo opened his mouth to speak, but his jaw just quivered.

  “Come on, buddy,” the actor said, “spit it out.”

  “Leo,” the director said, “if you’ve got something, let us know. Otherwise, we—”

  “Wouldn’t it. Be bliss,” Leo said to the actor. “If you never. Got old. Like me?”

  The actor turned to the director.

  The director smiled. “I kind of like that.” He patted the actor on the shoulder. “Try it out.”

  The actor slid on Eddie’s fiberglass head and backed away from the assembled crew. “So long, kids,” he said, waving to an imaginary audience. “See you next time.” He waggled a finger in admonishment. “Don’t grow up too fast, and hey, come to think of it . . .” He tapped his lips, tilted his head, and said, “Wouldn’t it be bliss if you never got old, like me?”

  Leo’s heart had hopped with each syllable of the actor’s phrasing, each utterance. It was as though the sun had risen in his chest.

  The cast exchanged smiles and nods.

  They loved it.

  They loved him.

  Darkness and silence.

  “End of transmission.”

  The Vitruvian Man test pattern.

  Please Stand By.

  33

  “Mort Jenkins,” Barnes said. He was sitting on the edge of the booth table at Roosevelt’s, holding his bit in one hand, rubbing his head with the other. His teeth ached. His mind was filled with fog. Warden removed the suction cups from his temples.

  “WXON news anchor, right?” Warden said.

  Barnes nodded. “He’ll know our guy.”

  “How?” Franklin said.

  “The Eddie Able Show,” Barnes said. “Jenkins was the man in the suit.”

  “We already covered that,” Franklin said. “The crew, the cast, everyone.”

  “This guy, Leo,” Barnes said, “he was there. We don’t need everyone. Just Jenkins. He’ll remember.”