DEADROCK
By Jill Sardegna
COPYRIGHT © 2014 by Jill Sardegna
All rights reserved.
For Debby and Harry,
Deadrock's first friends
Table of Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 1
Planetary Earth Date: 09.08.2115
The wind whistled past Max's ears as he sailed up and up into the blue. Max loved this. He loved the speed, the rush, the feeling of weightlessness. The stillness in his body as he watched the silent prairie drop away from him. He loved that one microsecond when he stopped flying up and just lagged in the air, motionless. He loved it. Too bad you have to be bucked from the back of a horse to get it, he thought.
Because he hated the rest of the experience; shooting down, earth-heavy, wind whipping tears into his eyes, tumbling, flailing, gyrating, clumsy in the effort to meet the ground on friendly terms. With that last inevitable jerk from gravity, Max kissed the prairie with his backside and rolled into the corral fence.
"Sunning your boot heels, boy?" said the old woman leaning on the gate.
Max's tanned face split into an easy grin. "Right, Grandma." He brushed himself off and joined her. She was tall and trim and straight. Max thought she looked regal, like a queen of some lost clan. He liked her leathery face and was glad she'd turned down the government's free facelifts for seniors.
"I thought you'd be watching the time capsule opening," said Max.
"That foolishness? Just another of Mayor Rhoades' campaign stunts," she sniffed.
"Oh, come on, Grandma, aren't you just a little curious about what your old beau is up to?"
"All this hoopla over some old junk locked up in a vault for one hundred years! All they'll find is dust."
"But Leo's on duty. I thought we might catch him patrolling the crowd. Come on, Grandma, can't we watch…just for a second?"
"I swear I never should have allowed you to be implanted," she said, as he raised the underside of his wrist toward the barn and projected the newscast from his thumbnail.
"My, old Rhoadsie looks all done in," she said.
They watched as the Mayor moved to the edge of the stage next to an ancient vault.
"Citizens," said Mayor Rhoades, "I have the honor of opening the Rhoades Time Capsule sealed one hundred years ago in 2015 by my great grandfather, Theodore Rhoades, who, as you know-"
"Get on with it!" hollered someone in the audience.
"Where's Leo?" asked Max, scanning the picture.
The camera panned the crowd and caught two police officers using their stunsticks to break up a fight. A woman hit a green-robed man over the head with a sign reading, "Mayor Rhoades – Four More Years."
"This won't help his campaign any," said Grandma. "Poor old Rhoadsie. Good thing I didn't marry him. I'd probably be sweating up there with him right now."
The Mayor wiped his brow. He took hold of the wheel on the vault and creaked it one full turn. The crowd jostled forward.
"And now without further ado, WELCOME 2015!" he said.
With a flourish he pulled on the heavy door. It swung open and out spilled a skeleton, its bony fingers reaching for the front row. Someone screamed; the crowd shoved away from the stage.
"Oh, Lord!" said Grandma. "Now don't panic, Rhoadsie!"
"Police! Police!" screamed Mayor Rhoades.
The crowd erupted. Police officers rushed the stage. One pudgy officer hauled up a wind cannon and turned it on full-blast into the crowd. The explosion of air sent the Mayor rolling into a SceneCorder operator and knocked them both flat.
Max snapped his fingers and zoomed in for a closer look at the police officer struggling with the mini-tornado. "Oh, no – Leo, is that you?"
The raging cannon nearly pulled the plump officer off his feet as he spun out of control, setting the skeleton dancing and blowing paper money from inside the vault up into a whirlpool above the stampeding crowd.
"Paper money!" cried those in the crowd.
"Grab it! It's real paper money!"
Max and Grandma watched as the mob flowed onto the stage, snatching at bills and trampling those who fell underfoot.
"This is your Mayor! Desist! Return calmly to your homes!" demanded Mayor Rhoades, struggling to his feet. But nobody heard him over the roar of the police sirens, the bellow of the mob, and the howl of the mighty wind machine.
With all the chaos, Max almost didn't see the word, "Contact", flash in the corner of the screen. "I've gotta take this, Grandma," he said, holding his index finger to his ear and his pinkie to his mouth.
The man talking in his ear got right to the point. "Yes, sir," said Max, shaking his fingers to hang up.
"So, I guess they want my boy back," said Grandma. She watched the projection fade as Max waved his wrist.
"Yep, right away," said Max. He mounted his horse, Silicon.
"Stay and have some lunch first," smiled Grandma. "Pulled porcini sandwich?"
"Grandma!"
She swung one leg gracefully over the back of her favorite mare, Gracie. "How much can they need one fourteen year-old boy? I just get you up here and they're calling you back!" They broke into a trot and headed for the ranch house.
"Grandma, I'm a cop. It's my job," said Max.
"Well, you know how I feel about that. You're just a boy. You've got to learn to play – to spend some time here at the Broken Heart. To stop and smell the roses!"
"Impossible!" he said as he kicked Silicon into a gallop. He laughed over his shoulder at her, "How can you smell the roses from the back of a galloping bronco?"
Chapter 2
When Max arrived in New York City, the police squad room was a mess. Officers rummaged through a mountain of bins filled with toys, books, clothing, appliances and other relics of the twenty-first century retrieved from the time capsule. Max ducked as a soft, squishy football whizzed by his head.
"Sorry, kid," called the detective who caught it and tossed it back to his partner.
"Coming through, Deadrock," said the officer leading two forcecuffed green-robed men through the maze of desks.
"Wollman now! Before it's too late!" yelled one Green Robe.
Max shook his head and made his way to the check-in desk, jumping aside nimbly to avoid being hit by a cop brandishing a fluorescent light tube like a saber.
"Watch it, Deadrock!" said the cop.
At the desk, he stood in front of the tall mirror, looked intently into it, and pressed his rein-callused thumb onto the finger pad.
"Sergeant Max Livingstone reporting for duty," he said.
"Welcome back, Max," said EVA. Although EVA (Electronic Voice Activation) was only an electronic voice programmed to respond to a billion possible human phrases, Max thought she was remarkably warm and friendly. Motherly, even. But maybe that was just in comparison to the reaction he got from the humans at work.
"Hey, stand in front of the screen again," said EVA. "I think you've grown since you've been away."
Max's blue eyes lit up. "Do you really think so?" He stood ramrod straight and lifted his chin.
"You're exactly a sixteenth – no, make that
an eighth-inch taller," said EVA.
"Oh," said Max.
I got Dad's dark hair, Granddad's instinct, and Grandma's sense of humor, thought Max. Would it have hurt them to give me a little of their height? All of them six feet or taller, and here I am, a stubborn five feet, two. I'm a leprechaun spawned by giants.
"Well, you've only been gone a week, dear," said EVA. "Grandma still won't let you get the growth hormone beams, huh?"
"No way," said Max. "She says the Livingstone men don't get their height until after the age of eighteen."
"Well, that should be a comfort to you!" said EVA. "Only four more years to go."
"Right," sighed Max. Machines have no sense of time.
Max wove his way through the maze of desks and humanity that made up the squad room. Two hundred officers, their blue stun-proof suits glinting metallically under the lights, worked elbow-to-elbow in the close, window-less quarters. Feels like one of those rooms where the walls slowly move toward one another, thought Max. But then, he always felt that way after spending time on the prairie.
He pulled at the neck of the uniform reptilian suit that clung like a second skin under his shirt. Hot and uncomfortable, it irritated his sunburned neck. He'd have a nasty rash by the end of the day. Of course, he could have worn just the suit and left the outer clothes at home, but only sergeants and higher ranks wore street clothes, so what was a little rash compared to the privilege of rank?
When Max reached his desk he found it piled high with a box of tiny underwear marked "Huggies", a carton of sunflower seeds, a canister of something called Play Dough, a box of plastic (plastic!) bumpy blocks called Legos, two paper movie ticket stubs, a large flat screen of some type, a bag of coffee beans, a flat square box marked Of Mice and Men, chopsticks, a sealed can of salted peanuts, a pair of green giant inflatable hands, a fishing pole, and a box marked "Wii". Wheeee? thought Max. And what about that coffee – it's worth a fortune. He picked up the Play Dough. Some kind of play food, he thought, reading the ingredients. Nope, says it's not for consumption – then what's the point?
"Max, you're back!" said Leo Peterson, his partner, rushing forward to meet him. In his blue stunsuit, Leo looked like a bloated plum. His arms were full of round shiny discs marked, American Idol. "Did you hear about the time capsule?"
"Yeah, I saw it. You had a little trouble with the wind cannon?"
"I don't want to talk about it," said Leo. He ducked his head and began stuffing the coffee and peanuts into a Narcotics evidence bag. Max lent a hand. Leo would talk about it when he was ready. Max felt sure that Leo had taken quite a ribbing from the others about his performance at the ceremony and he didn't want to add to his friend's misery.
Leo was a sensitive soul, and intuitive. That intuition, matched with Max's methodical approach had served the partnership well. They already had built an impressive arrest record.
It helped that Leo didn't look like a cop. His round-shouldered, pudgy, middle-aged body and innocent puppy face were an excellent disguise that had fooled many a criminal. He was the average, decent-looking guy; the one you'd ask to save your place in line or trust to watch your travelcase.
Of course, appearance was Max's asset, too. People looked at him and saw a short, sturdy kid. They didn't know the sturdiness came from strength, or that he could easily lift and sling a fifty-pound saddle onto the back of horse taller than he was.
On first glance, they might take notice of his thick brown hair, the smile that dipped at one corner of his mouth, or his straight, dark eyebrows and the crease between his eyes that gave him a serious look. They might be struck, as many were, by some strange mixture in his face, a mingling of child and adult. Those who looked closer might have seen a trace of something else; a sorrow, or an old hurt that never quite healed.
But most people never stopped for a second look. They saw an average, fourteen year-old kid. A definite advantage for a kid who just happens to be a cop. Max knew adults tend to overlook kids. So a kid can snoop around and be unseen. A kid can be invisible.
Unfortunately, adult cops tend to view kids the same way adult criminals do, so Max often felt invisible at work. Thank goodness for Leo. He didn't treat Max like a kid.
Max sifted through the heap of twenty-first century stuff on his desk and uncovered a face-painting kit, a sack of lawn fertilizer, a rubber ducky, an orange T-shirt emblazoned with the words "The Gap", rowing oars, an electric screwdriver, a poster of a big purple dinosaur, a banged-up electric guitar, a photo of a tall guy in shorts named Jordan, a jigsaw puzzle with a guy in a cap and striped shirt, a paper book called The Runaway Bunny, a whoopee cushion, two wooden ice cream sticks, and four tiny figurines of green masked turtles. Max examined the turtles in his palm and wondered out loud, "How did they know?"
"They all know because they all watched the newscast," said Leo, thinking the comment was directed at him. "I feel like such an idiot! But Max, it wasn't my fault! The cannon switch got stuck on HIGH!"
"Don't worry about it, Leo. I'm sure nobody even noticed," said Max, patting his shoulder.
"Hey, Peterson, I'm thinkin' of cleaning out my apartment. Maybe you could come over with your wind cannon and help me out!" yelled O'Malley from the doorway. Faces turned toward Leo.
O'Malley. The guy never let up, never failed to point out a mistake. Always there to transform a minor embarrassing moment into a major humiliation. Besides, thought Max, the guy smelled like a sour sponge.
"Ignore him, Leo. Maybe he won't come over," whispered Max.
"Nice work, Peterson, and on Intergalactic cable, too," said O'Malley, winding his way to the desk. "They'll be talking about your performance on Alpha Six!"
"Leave him alone, O'Malley," said Max, placing himself protectively in front of Leo.
O'Malley shoved aside a pile of items and sat himself on the edge of Max's desk. He sized up the short, determined boy before him. "Well, if it isn't Deadrock. Back from playing cowboy, eh?" said O'Malley.
"Back from vacation," said Max. From the corner of his eye, he saw that a crowd was gathering.
"Again? Well, I guess they have to give you little tykes lots of time off – for naps," said O'Malley, playing to the room.
"That's not true! He only gets twelve weeks!" said Leo. "Just like all the other sergeants!"
"You know, that reminds me," said Max, "the sergeant's exam is coming up, O'Malley. Are you gonna take it for a fifth time?"
Somebody in the crowd laughed. O'Malley scowled and stood up. "Yeah, well, some of us have had to come up the hard way. Not like certain brats with connections and fancy brain infochips. I have to rely on my mind!"
"I guess that explains your failure, then," said Max to laughter and applause from the crowd. Leo beamed at him.
O'Malley struggled for a clever reply, settled for, "Shrimpfeet!" and stomped off.
EVA's voice rang out over the intercom, "Sergeant Livingstone and Detective Peterson! You've got a slasher in SoHo."
"Let's roll, Leo," said Max with a smile. "We've got work to do."
Outside a SoHo warehouse, Max and Leo loaded an enraged man into the paddycopter.
"Murder is my art! Art is my life!" screamed the man.
"I hate Arts Education Week," said Leo, slamming the door. They ducked under the jetblades and gave the all-clear sign to the pilot.
"They're getting crazier and crazier," said Max.
They climbed the warped barium stairs to the artist's loft and stepped around the coroner who worked over a body on the floor.
"Be with you guys in a minute," said the coroner. Max smiled at the young woman stooped next to the coroner. She returned his smile and bent back to her work.
"Who's that?" whispered Max as they walked away.
"Her?" asked Leo.
"Don't point!" said Max.
"That's Carrie. The new coroner's assistant. Rosie and I met her at the Police Officer's Rave. Nice gir-"
"How old do you think she is?" asked Max.
"
I don't know. Nineteen, twenty."
"Oh. She looks a lot younger."
"You know, Max, Rosie's got a niece you'd really like. She-"
"No thanks, Leo."
Max had tried meeting some of Rosie's nieces. And cousins. And second cousins twice removed. They were all nice enough but they had little in common with a working cop. After all, they were just kids. He preferred finding his own dates. Trouble was, where to find them? Most girls his age were in school. And the New York City Police Department didn't have many fourteen year-old female cops. None, in fact.
Max and Leo stopped to look at a sculpture of a figure writhing in pain and wrapped in strands of blinking Christmas tree lights. Max looked at the art and mentally flipped through the files of his Art of the Twenty-Second Century infochip.
Neo-Catastrophic, he thought. Just like my love life.
"Max, we need to talk," said Leo.
"Leo, I said I'd get my own girls! Gnartz, between you and Grandma pushing me to go to those Teen Meet and Greet Spiritual Retreats-"
"No, Max, I mean we've got to talk about work. I'm worried about the Spinelli set-up. I had this bad dream…"
"Probably just too much of Rosie's algae lasagna, Leo," said Max. He wandered over to another sculpture composed of barbed wired with arms outstretched and head flung back. Leo followed, bouncing his helmet in his hands.
"It was such a frightening dream, Max. I'm afraid something might go wrong during the sting."
"I'll be implanted with a viewer. If anything goes wrong, you'll see it, Leo. Just break in and arrest him."
"There's just so much riding on this…"
Max pulled the moldable helmet from Leo's hands and placed it backwards on his friend's head. "Leo, we're a great team. You've got to trust in us. You'll get your promotion and I'll get mine."
Leo muttered, "Easy for you to say. My grandfather wasn't Chief of Police."
"Thanks a lot, Leo," snapped Max.
"I'm sorry, Max, it's just that sometimes I don't feel like I belong."
"Out of the way!" said the stretcher guider, elbowing Leo aside.
"At least you have a nickname," said Leo.
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