by John Zakour
‘‘We are here to escort you to the prisoner,’’ one of the guards said clicking his feet when he was done.
‘‘Lead the way,’’ I said, pointing forward.
I followed the guards through the entryway and down a long cement corridor. They led me to a high-tech looking door with a slit in it.
I looked through the slot; Shannon was sitting at a table, her hands and feet wrapped in muscle inhibitor bands. She was also wearing a helmet covered in circuitry. My guess was it was the latest in psi-stopping hardware.
The guards punched a few numbers into a panel by the door.
‘‘We’re out here if you need us,’’ one of the guards said.
The door opened. I entered the room. I looked up. There were cameras all around. This was going to be tricky.
Shannon’s eyes narrowed when she saw me. ‘‘I already told you all I know, copper,’’ she said.
I pointed at her, ‘‘Sit down and shut up,’’ I shouted.
She looked up at me. ‘‘I already am sitting.’’
‘‘Good, then just shut up,’’ I said.
Shannon shot Carol an angry glance. ‘‘Why do you have the mind bitch with you?’’
‘‘None of your business,’’ I said out loud. ‘‘Carol, tell her who I am,’’ I thought.
‘‘She called me a bitch,’’ Carol thought back to me.
‘‘Carol,’’ I thought. ‘‘Focus, please.’’
‘‘Fine,’’ she thought back. Carol locked her eyes with Shannon.
‘‘She says if she had her powers we’d both be in trouble,’’ Carol said for all to hear. ‘‘She thinks it’s a trick,’’ Carol thought back to me.
‘‘I need you to talk, no tricks!’’ I said, sitting across from her. ‘‘Tell her not to worry, I’m not an ogre with a Vulcan nerve pinch,’’ I thought.
‘‘What?’’ Carol thought back.
‘‘Just think it, Carol,’’ I thought back. I knew Shannon would have been too ashamed of that incident to ever admit it to anybody else.
‘‘She believes you,’’ Carol mentally told me.
‘‘Are you still claiming to be innocent?’’ I asked.
‘‘I am innocent,’’ Shannon said very loudly.
‘‘She’s thinking the same thing,’’ Carol told me.
‘‘Her heart rate and brain scan patterns say she’s not lying,’’ HARV said. ‘‘Which if she wasn’t a psi, would be telling, but in her case she may just be a perfect liar.’’
‘‘I don’t believe you,’’ I said out loud. ‘‘I want to believe you,’’ I thought.
Carol relayed the message. ‘‘DOS,’’ Carol said, holding her head. ‘‘It’s hard blasting through her inhibitor.’’
‘‘Is there anything else you can tell me?’’ I asked.
‘‘I’ve been thinking long and hard about what happened,’’ she said. ‘‘I think I’ve seen the tall blue-skinned woman who attacked them before with Sputnik’s people.’’
‘‘Sure you have,’’ a very familiar voice said from behind us.
‘‘Oh shit!’’ I turned and there stood the real captain Rickey, along with twenty guards.
‘‘Zach, what am I going to do with you?’’ Tony asked. The hologram cloaking me faded away.
Tony and his men walked us out of the room. Tony was silent as they were escorting us out of the prison. Occasionally he’d look my way and just shake his head. It was one of the longer walks of my life.
We were on the barge back to the mainland when Tony spoke. He focused his concentration on Carol. ‘‘I expect this from Zach, but not you.’’
‘‘Just doing my job,’’ Carol said. That’s my girl.
HARV appeared next to us, dressed in a formal suit and holding an old leather briefcase. ‘‘Actually, Officer Rickey, Carol did nothing wrong. There are no laws preventing somebody from causing somebody to think one person is somebody else, even an officer of the law.’’
I knew HARV was right. Thank Gates that our legal system has been so slow catching up with the advent of psis in society.
‘‘Well, what Zach did had to be illegal,’’ Tony said.
HARV rolled his eyes in disdain. It was a look usually reserved for me. ‘‘If you review all recordings, Zach never claimed he was you. He can’t help what other people assume.’’
Tony scratched his head. ‘‘Even if I was buying this, Zach still didn’t have to play along.’’
‘‘Zach didn’t have any control,’’ HARV said. ‘‘I was trying to get him in trouble, so I forced him to wear that hologram.’’
‘‘Why would you do that?’’ Tony asked.
‘‘I was just testing Zach to see how he’d react.’’ HARV held out his arms. ‘‘So I’m the guilty one, take me away!’’ he said dramatically.
I was secure in the knowledge that the intelligent machine and hologram laws were even more outdated than the psi laws.
Tony focused on me. ‘‘I have to admit they are loyal.’’
‘‘That because they know I’m right.’’
‘‘Even if he wasn’t right, he has the law on his side,’’ HARV added.
Tony groaned. Now he was finally getting to see why HARV is an acronym for Highly Annoying Really Verbal. ‘‘That still gives you no right to impersonate a police officer.’’
‘‘I was testing the system,’’ I said quickly.
‘‘That’s your defense, Zach?’’
‘‘For now.’’ I took a breath to figure out how I wanted to run with this. Tony was one of my oldest friends, but I wasn’t about to go to jail over this, especially when I knew I was right. ‘‘What will the media say when they learn that a simple dick easily got into a high security prison? Besides she is innocent.’’
Tony looked up at the sky, apparently looking for some sort of inspiration, or maybe just for patience. ‘‘What makes you think she’s innocent? The fact that she’s a hot blonde with big breasts?’’
‘‘Well that doesn’t hurt,’’ I said. ‘‘But I don’t get the guilty vibe from her?’’
‘‘The guilty vibe?’’ Tony asked. I heard a few of his men scoffing in the background.
I know it sounded a bit crazy, but truth was, you don’t survive as long as I have doing what I do unless you can sense the good guys, the bad guys, and the ones in between. It’s a gift I have and part of the reason why I still have my original legs and organs.
‘‘Zach thinks he’s gifted with a special P.I. sense, like Spiderman,’’ HARV said.
‘‘It’s true,’’ Carol added, with a slight groan.
Tony put his hand to his forehead. ‘‘I know. But ‘Zach thinks she’s innocent’ won’t hold up in court. DMV, many judges would give her the chair based on that alone.’’
‘‘I’ve always wondered what DMV stands for and why it’s used as a curse word.’’ Carol said.
‘‘You could research it,’’ HARV said.
‘‘I don’t wonder that hard.’’
HARV pointed at me. ‘‘I’m sure he knows.’’
Carol rolled her eyes. ‘‘I’m sure he does too, but I don’t want a twenty minute dissertation about how great things were in the old days.’’
‘‘DMV really doesn’t roll off the tongue, but I don’t like to say hell in mixed company,’’ Tony said. ‘‘I’ve heard it’s quite fitting.’’
‘‘Guys, can we please get back to the case?’’ I pleaded.
‘‘Oh, that’s right, I’m thinking about arresting you,’’ Tony said.
‘‘Not that part of the case,’’ I said. ‘‘Let’s talk about Shannon being innocent. You heard her say she thinks the killer was a Mooner.’’
‘‘Of course she says that. Our profilers have concluded that she was seeing her own image as a way to justify the crime she was committing,’’ Tony said.
‘‘And you think I’m the one who’s wacko,’’ I said.
Tony started to turn red; he does that a lot, mostly when I’m arou
nd. ‘‘Listen, Zach, I’m getting a lot of heat on this one. My bosses want this case wrapped up. Unless you can give me something legit to go on, I’m considering it wrapped up.’’
‘‘Excuse me,’’ HARV said. ‘‘I have an incoming call from Dr. Pool.’’
‘‘Not now, HARV, I’m busy tying to avoid being arrested by my best friend,’’ I said.
‘‘Zach, friends don’t use holograms to impersonate friends and break into high security prisons.’’
‘‘You should write that on a holo-card,’’ I said.
Tony turned brighter red. ‘‘That does it . . .’’
HARV appeared between us. ‘‘I think you both better shut up and listen.’’
HARV’s image morphed into Randy’s in his lab.
‘‘Hi, Zach! Hi, Tony,’’ he said. ‘‘How come I never get to go on the cool boat trips?’’
‘‘Randy, I’m about to be arrested here,’’ I said.
Randy’s eyes focused. He started looking around the room. ‘‘Now what was I going to say?’’ he frowned.
‘‘You tested the video from the council chambers,’’ HARV hinted.
Randy’s frown morphed into a smile. ‘‘Ah, the video. I ran it through many, many, many more filters.’’
He paused, either for effect or because he forgot what he was going to say. Either way, it was annoying.
‘‘And?’’ I prompted.
‘‘Oh, yes, I’ve concluded a body did appear in the room right before the cameras went dead. The body was cloaked and out of phase but I did some magnetic shifting to get a rough image.’’
Randy’s image morphed to the setting of the council chambers. It was filled with busy workers moving to and fro. There was a crack of energy in the middle of the room. That energy took the shape of a tall, shapely woman. Then everything went black.
‘‘See,’’ Randy said, proudly.
‘‘How do we know that wasn’t Cannon?’’ Tony said like a dog with a bone.
‘‘I have video of her in the bathroom at the time. They have cameras everywhere in that building,’’ Randy said.
‘‘How do we know it wasn’t a hologram?’’ Tony asked.
‘‘She left a deposit in the bathroom’s, ah, human waste disposal device,’’ Randy said.
‘‘And you know this how?’’ I asked.
‘‘They save EVERYTHING in that building,’’ Randy said. ‘‘I did an analysis on her, well, deposit and it was hers. Shannon Cannon was definitely in the bathroom when the attack started.’’
‘‘How come your people don’t know about the poop?’’ I asked Tony.
He shook his head. ‘‘When a case looks like such a slam dunk we don’t poke around toilets, Zach,’’ he said, a bit more defensively than he probably hoped.
‘‘Come on, Tony,’’ I coaxed. ‘‘Even you have to see there is another possible suspect here.’’
Tony just stood there.
‘‘Superpowered, female, and tall . . . Sounds like it could be a Mooner,’’ I said.
‘‘Sounds like it could be Elena,’’ HARV said in my brain.
Tony put both hands on his head and started to squeeze. ‘‘Damn, DOS, damn, DOS,’’ he said. When Tony got angry he sometimes reverted to old-fashioned swearing. ‘‘Goddamn, this is not going to be easy. It’s going to take me at least twenty-four hours to get clearance just to consider being allowed to talk to them.’’
‘‘So I’m free to go?’’ I said.
Tony just glared at me. I had made his job much harder. But we both knew I had done the right thing. Now it was his turn.
‘‘You’re under house arrest for at least forty-eight hours,’’ Tony said.
Considering the circumstances, I couldn’t complain.
Tony turned to Carol. ‘‘It’s your job to watch him. Make sure he stays clean.’’
‘‘I have a date tonight,’’ Carol protested.
‘‘Not if you’re in jail,’’ Tony said.
Okay, so now I had both Tony and Carol angry with me but I was free from jail. There was also the first break on the case. I had to consider that a good thing.
Chapter 18
After Carol broke her date, she and I drove to my house in my car. Her car followed us home on autopilot.
I was glad Tony had let me off the hook, at least for now. I was also happy that there was a now a good chance that Shannon Cannon was innocent. I don’t know why I cared but I did.
I was even happier that Carol had forgiven me for breaking up her date. Turned out she wasn’t that thrilled with the guy to begin with. He had begged her to go out with him. It was only the first date and the poor sucker had no idea she was a psi. She was sure that once he found out, he’d go from being infatuated with her to being terrified of her. Melt one ex-boyfriend’s car and it kind of sticks with you for a while.
With Electra on the Moon, Carol and I planned a nice, quiet evening of take-out Chinese and watching old credit-for-view movies in 2-D, the way they were meant to be viewed. We watched The Princess Bride. I had to explain some of the humor to Carol but all in all, I believe she enjoyed it.
We watched, ate, and talked into the evening. It was nice to be able to just hang out without having to worry about work or saving the world. Midnight came and we both hit the sack. All might not have been perfect with the world, but I had opened up the police’s eyes to Shannon being innocent. Plus nobody was trying to kill me, so I was content.
The peace and tranquility that had become my life lasted until 3 A.M.
‘‘Tió, wake up,’’ Carol said shaking me from my bed.
I shot up to a sitting position. I went for the good old-fashioned Colt .44 I keep under the mattress.
‘‘What is it? Somebody breaking in?’’
‘‘No, of course not,’’ Carol said. ‘‘I could handle that.’’
‘‘In that case, what are you doing in my bedroom, at . . .’’
‘‘3:02:54 A.M.,’’ HARV said.
‘‘At 3:02 A.M.,’’ I said.
‘‘It’s now 3:03,’’ HARV corrected.
Carol pulled me out of bed, not seeming to mind or notice that I was only in my boxers. (I guess I should have been happy that this was one of the nights I decided against sleeping in my birthday suit.) ‘‘We have to go, now, before they get away,’’ Carol said. She pointed to my closet and a shirt and pair of pants floated out.
‘‘Carol, what are you talking about?’’ I demanded.
‘‘The assembly from the Moon is leaving,’’ she said.
‘‘They can’t leave—Tony is getting a search warrant,’’ I said.
Carol shook her head. ‘‘They are leaving before it’s issued.’’
‘‘They can do that?’’
‘‘They have interplanetary immunity,’’ HARV said. ‘‘They can come and go as they please.’’
‘‘How are we supposed to stop them then?’’ I asked.
Carol handed me my shirt, ‘‘We’re not going to stop them. We’re going to follow them.’’
‘‘To the Moon?’’ I said.
‘‘Think of it as a way to visit Aunt Electra,’’ Carol said.
In my years of working with Carol I’ve never seen her this worked up, and that includes the time when she turned into a superpsi and almost destroyed the world herself. Even if I didn’t want to go, I knew I had to. Not just for Carol, but for the world. Something wasn’t sitting right with this Moon crowd and I needed to get to the bottom of it.
‘‘How do you know everything isn’t kosher?’’ I asked, though deep down I could feel it, too.
‘‘Some Mooner psi named Elena. She’s so powerful, her mental SOS is ripping through my defenses like a laser through butter.’’ Carol grabbed me by the arm. ‘‘We have to get to the shuttle port and get on that flight to the Moon.’’
HARV appeared. ‘‘That won’t be easy. Due to the conference and the incident, the Moon is closed to all outsiders.’’
‘‘We
’ll worry about those details when we get there,’’ Carol said.
HARV looked at me. ‘‘She’s been hanging around you too long.’’
‘‘Give me three minutes to change,’’ I said.
‘‘I’ll give you two,’’ she replied.
I got dressed and Carol and I headed over to the shuttle port. As we drove through the night we made our plans on how to get on the shuttle. My cover was that I missed my girlfriend Electra and wanted to see her. Carol’s was she had an urge to visit and interact with the psis on the Moon.
We figured they probably wouldn’t be too keen with a couple of last minute Earthers tagging along. We had a plan of action for that, too. We’d complain and make a fuss, a really loud fuss. Chances were, the Moon delegation wanted to make a quiet and hasty retreat. They weren’t going to hassle us that much. I surmised that they would rather let us on the flight than risk slowing down the flight. My logic being that their logic would be that once they had us on their turf, the Moon, they could control us better.
‘‘So that’s the extent of your plan, to whine like girls until they let you on the shuttle?’’ HARV said after I filled him in.
‘‘Hey, I am a girl,’’ Carol said.
‘‘I’m pointing most of my criticism at Zach,’’ HARV said.
‘‘I’m betting anything it will get us on that shuttle,’’ I said.
‘‘Yeah, but what then?’’ HARV asked. ‘‘What happens when we get to the Moon?’’
‘‘The plan is still forming in my mind,’’ I said.
HARV exhaled and rolled his eyes (literally 360 degrees). ‘‘The sad thing is,’’ HARV sighed, ‘‘this is actually one of your more elaborate plans.’’
The shuttle port, like most of the newer buildings, was a tall dome that sat on the outskirts of town where the airport used to be. The shuttle port also doubled as a central public teleporting area. It was kind of interesting how New Frisco was the only place on Earth that had a combined shuttle / teleport port. How did New Frisco become a city of power in the world?
Back in the old days, the early 2000s, Frisco was considered a nice artsy and trendy (i.e. expensive) city, but it always took a backseat to other major cities when it came to actually getting work done. Then, after 2022, when the aliens first landed on Earth, Frisco became a booming center of not just art but commerce and science and government. I wasn’t really sure why. After all, the aliens landed in Kansas. Yet somehow after the aliens revealed themselves to us, Frisco boomed.