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by McClelland, Mark

  "Sorry," he whispered to her. "I was up so late, I needed the sleep."

  "Who is this Arnold Murray character, and who the hell is Nicholas Tate? You look awful. Have you slept at all?"

  Agent Michaels directed another agent to close the doors, and the room fell silent, saving Raymond from having to respond immediately.

  "I'm Connor Michaels. I am an agent of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, and I will be heading this investigation." He paused, his slowly fidgeting fingers the only sign of his nerves. "Now, I don't know what you may have heard thus far, but chances are there is already a great deal of misinformation, so I'm going to run through the events that have occurred."

  He went on to lay out the events of the night before, as reported by Bob and Raymond and as recorded by the building's security systems. He presented the details in a circumspect manner befitting a detective. Raymond soon tuned out, looking about the room. The agents mostly had their eyes closed, probably taking the opportunity to review case data via retinal implants. But everyone else watched Michaels with rapt attention. Raymond noticed a closed metal case on the table in front of Michaels and wondered what it might be.

  No Brody.

  Raymond looked around the room again.

  No police at all—just FBI. And no mention of cooperation with the State Police.

  "We have collected and analyzed all data in the building's security systems," said Michaels. "Here's a brief clip of the perpetrators breaking into the building."

  On the same big screen where Raymond had first seen Michaels that morning, his own carefully crafted break-in footage now played. Michaels narrated the clips. Several people gasped when the footage of the activists destroying the NBCs was played. Raymond looked around the room and felt the collective shock of the team.

  God I hope I know what I'm doing.

  "Based on these recordings," said Michaels, "we believe this was a crime of very focused destruction. The criminals appear to know where they are going, and they do not destroy anything other than these two thus far unused NBCs. It would seem these units were selected because they were not hosting uploaded minds. The perpetrators worked with a degree of expertise uncommon among criminal activists. Thus far, no organization has come forward to claim this as a victory of their own, although many have expressed ideological support.

  "Now, it is Bureau policy—and, frankly, basic investigative policy—to expect inside help in a job like this. I'm not making any accusations here, but I want you all to bear this possibility in mind as you reflect on what has happened here. This is a crime of grave proportions, and any assistance in identifying those responsible will be greatly appreciated."

  Michaels stepped up to the table and opened the metal case. He turned it around so everyone could see its contents. Inside were rows upon rows of plain metal rings.

  "Surveillance rings," muttered Raymond.

  "Did I hear someone say 'surveillance rings'?" asked Michaels. Raymond was taken aback. There was no way Michaels could have heard him from across the room. Raymond looked around for a moment, then realized that Michaels had indeed heard him, somehow. Without waiting for a response, Michaels continued.

  "That's right. These are surveillance rings. As suspects, you will all be required to wear one. Until this investigation is over, you may not take off your ring for any reason. These rings will record and broadcast your location and your heart rate. If you are caught travelling more than fifty miles from the crime scene without FBI authorization, you will be arrested and placed in FBI custody for up to thirty days. Does anyone have any questions?"

  "Yeah," said Anya. "I have a question. What ever happened to civil liberties?"

  "I will say again that you are all now suspects in a Federal investigation. These rings serve to prevent you from escaping due investigation. I will provide you all with documentation explaining your rights, but I want to clear up some popular misinformation regarding surveillance rings. They have no audio or video capture capabilities. They won't record your conversations, they won't record your activities—I assure you, they are in no way an invasion of privacy."

  Anya nodded in false acceptance, and a murmur went around the room. Bob took the opportunity to examine his shoes.

  "Now," continued Michaels, "I will say it again. You are not to remove your ring at any time. If the ring loses contact with your skin, agents will be deployed to locate and retrieve you immediately. Don't take it off in the shower, don't take it off to go swimming. If you do, you're in for a surprise. Removal of your ring with intent to escape FBI surveillance is grounds for arrest and is in and of itself a crime subject to penalty of up to one year in prison."

  Again a murmur went around the room. But as Agent Michaels called people up, one at a time, he met with no resistance. When it was Raymond's turn, his body seemed to move without his willing it to do so. To falter now would be a tacit admission of guilt. He placed his right hand in the silver finger-measurement mitten, as everyone before him had done.

  "Which finger?" asked the agent helping Michaels.

  "Middle." It was as close as he was ever likely to come to giving the FBI the finger, in person.

  A ring was customized on the spot. It was a plain metallic band, still warm as it was slid over his finger.

  "Raymond." It was Bob. Raymond looked up and saw genuine apology in his eyes. "I'm sorry you're so wrapped up in this, and I want to thank you for everything you've done. Since you were here this morning, you don't have to stay for the one-on-one interviews."

  "Okay. Thanks." Raymond started to turn away, then stopped. "Hey, I noticed Officer Brody isn't here."

  "Yeah, she's... she won't be on the case anymore."

  Raymond nodded, as if this made sense.

  "Thanks again," said Bob. "I'll be in touch if we need you here again."

  "You mean..."

  "If you haven't heard from me, you don't need to come in on Monday. The project is on hold."

  "Oh," said Raymond. "Okay."

  He walked the length of the room, back to his spot, spinning the ring, looking at the ground. Inside, he felt as though four new walls of the ever-tightening trap had just fallen around him. Yet, somehow, he was still confident he could escape.

  Anya looked at him expectantly.

  "I've already been through the questioning," said Raymond, "so, Bob said I could go."

  "No way are you getting out of here without some explanation. Raymond, a private investigator came to my apartment looking for you."

  "It's nothing," he assured her. Raymond wanted to grill her for details—what did Murray ask her, and what did she tell him? But he knew she'd sense his concern, his guilt. And what did it matter, anyway? "It's an old missing person case," he whispered, "about this old man I used to work for. That's the Nicholas Tate he mentioned. I just happened to be one of the last people who saw him."

  "Why does that not make me feel any better?"

  Raymond was keenly aware of the presence of people around them, and of Michael's heightened ability to hear.

  "Listen," he said in a lowered voice, "I can tell you about it later, when—"

  "And somehow this has never come up before?" Anya lowered her voice, too, sensitive to Raymond's desire for privacy, but her frustration came through no less clearly.

  "I didn't want..." Raymond drifted off, not sure what to say. He was tired of having his history exposed. "Listen, this isn't the place. Can we talk about it later?"

  "Oh, we're gonna talk. And you're not going to like it."

  She turned and walked away, excusing herself as she slid between people to get to the other side of the room. Raymond watched her go. He wanted to respond with righteous anger, but found himself struck sullen. He noticed Suma looking at him, surprised and questioning. He shook his head and shrugged—as if Anya were being needlessly dramatic. But inside, he felt her justification all too fully, and the shame of it staggered him. Tears rushed to his eyes, and with long strides he fled the room.


  In the hallway, he broke into a run. His office was still off limits, and he wasn't sure where to go. He turned the corner, headed toward the lobby, and saw that there was still a crowd outside. His crowd—for his actions had brought them here. He hated his crowd. He veered to his right, and leaned heavily into the wall, wishing he could disappear.

  He closed his eyes and wiped the scant tears on his shirt sleeve. He pictured himself with Anya, in her apartment, being pushed out by her attacking words as she berated and insulted him. And he, deserving it all, thrust out of the life of this beautiful, beneficent woman. Murray's words, "Do you know who was at your girlfriend's," echoed in his head. He had perceived them as an empty jab, but what if there had been someone else there? What if she had already started seeing someone else, trying to stanch her disappointment by finding someone better? He ran through the list of men in her life and pictured her kissing them, taking off her clothes for them, putting her hand on them as she had him, to see if she made them hard. Hatred and jealousy stirred nausea in his stomach and turned his mouth dry. He felt on the verge of throwing up.

  "Sir, your bicycle."

  Raymond opened his eyes to see a young FBI agent, about his age, offering him his bicycle. Raymond thanked him, and the man discretely returned to his post in the lobby.

  Raymond took a deep breath and started rolling his bike down the hall. He was through with Anya, he told himself—he was headed for a new life. A new life, free of his past.

  As he rolled his bike out the front door, the young agent came to his side, mouthing words into an unseen microphone, and escorted him out of the building. Raymond lifted his head and looked through the crowd, past them, to the trees in the distance, at the entrance to North Campus. He noticed a man moving across the front of the crowd toward him—Murray again—and continued to look into the distance ahead.

  "I saw your mother," said Murray, raising his voice to be heard over chants of "ape-killer". Murray walked in parallel with Raymond, to his right, on the other side of the FBI ribbon. "I went to the Hyde Park Recovery Center. That's where your mother lives—did you know that?"

  Raymond walked faster. Murray couldn't keep up with him, having to push his way through the crowd. As Raymond reached the far edge of the crowd, he swung onto his bike and engaged the motors.

  o-------------------------------o

  Raymond sat in his black silk bathrobe, alone, on his rented black fake-leather sofa, his feet folded underneath him, staring at the undecorated white wall of his Kingsley apartment. The shades were drawn and the lights were off; the darkness was a semi-successful attempt at muting the stark emptiness of his essentially uninhabited space. He looked down at the surveillance ring on his finger, which he had idly been spinning.

  There was a rapping at the door, for about the thirtieth time. When Raymond had arrived at his apartment, he had stripped and gone straight to bed. But he had never quite managed to fall asleep. The loud knocking, accompanied by Murray's south-Chicago accent, had begun just as he began to drift. His wrist relay started going off soon thereafter, with the text message, "I know you're in there."

  "He's not going away," said Raymond to himself. He unfolded his legs, arose from the couch, and padded silently across the thickly carpeted floor to the front door. He left the chain in place and opened it a couple of inches.

  "Murray," he said through the door, squinting at the light, "if you don't go away, I'll call the FBI."

  Raymond felt a cold draft along his thigh and wrapped his robe more tightly around him.

  "I had the good fortune of meeting your mother," said Murray.

  "Yes, you mentioned that. Now go away."

  "Your mother. Don't you want to hear how she is?"

  Raymond looked off to the side, exasperated. Perhaps if the man had a chance to blabber on for a while, he would go away.

  "She didn't have much to say," continued Murray, "but she seemed like a good woman. A good woman who's experienced a lot of pain." He paused, looking Raymond in the eye. Raymond accidentally met his gaze for a moment, then looked away again. "You don't know your mother very well, do you Raymond?"

  Raymond felt a mix of anger and embarrassment rise within him. He focused on keeping a straight face. He noticed that his lips had tightened; with some effort, he was able to relax the muscles.

  "This isn't about my mother."

  "No, no, granted. But you know something, Raymond? You can tell a lot about a person by getting to know his parents. And getting a sense of how he feels about his parents. I had the opportunity to look through the visitation records for your mother, and I didn't see your name. Not once."

  Raymond stood still, trying to show no reaction. "Mr. Murray, I don't appreciate you probing into my personal life. If you want to ask me about Mr. Tate and the work that I did for him, that's fine."

  "She didn't talk about you. I thought that was pretty interesting. You know what she talked about?"

  Raymond looked down at his bare feet, which were getting rather chilly, expecting Murray to answer his own question. The silence was irritating. He finally looked up. Murray raised his eyebrows slightly. Raymond fell for it. His mouth opened and words came out.

  "Okay, what did she talk about?"

  "Death," said Murray, nodding. "She talked about death."

  Again, a long pause. Raymond responded, his restraint failing him.

  "Sure. My mother's probably terrified of death. She's so weak, so selfish."

  "Quite the opposite. I've found that troubled, broken-down people crave death. What terrifies them isn't death—it's dying. The pain you have to go through on the way to death. It's killers who fear death itself."

  Oh, so this is where he's going.

  "Killers," repeated Murray, drawing the word out for emphasis. "As a matter of honor. Or ego. They don't want to end up in the same place as the people they killed. I guess it's sort of a failure complex." Murray shifted his weight, leaning slightly nearer. "Now I'm not talking about thugs or heat-of-the-moment killers. I'm talking about the thinking kind. The kind who rationalize their crime."

  "I'm sure this is all very interesting for you. Sounds like you have a pretty morbid job."

  "It can be morbid. Sure." Murray's attitude changed abruptly, and he took a step back. "I've done a fair amount of homicide work. Lots of bodies." He turned to the side. "Have you ever thought about what you would do with the body, if you killed someone?" The sun glinted through Murray's breath.

  Raymond tightened up. Now more than ever, he knew Murray was looking for a reaction.

  "Um, no? When I was a kid, maybe. You know, kids like to talk about gruesome technical stuff. I remember this kid asking me whether you could vaporize someone with a laser."

  Raymond felt like his answer had come off well. But how sharp was this guy? Could he see facial motions that Raymond couldn't even feel himself making? Did some eye movement or head nod give away the fact that this was, in fact, a matter to which he had given a great deal of thought? Maybe Murray had surveillance equipment that recorded and analyzed facial expressions and verbal intonations.

  "Listen, I'm tired, I'm getting cold, and..." Raymond's wrist relay vibrated. "You're wasting my time."

  Raymond looked down and saw a text message: "Meeting request from Manolo." He looked at it for a moment. This was the text message of a direct contact. Manolo had never contacted him directly.

  "We're not quite done yet," said Murray.

  "I'm sorry, I need to answer this message."

  "I'll just be a few more—"

  "No," interrupted Raymond. "This is ridiculous. There's no reason I have to put up with the third degree from some morbid, pseudo-psychological PI. If you need my help with your case, email me your questions and I'll be happy to answer them."

  "I'll tell you something," said Murray. "I think you know more about what happened to Nicholas Tate, and you should get it off your chest. You're a young man, Mr. Quan. Guilt does strange things to a person. You're a young man,
" he repeated. "You don't want your whole life to be tainted by guilt. Happy people are innocent people."

  Raymond closed the door.

  "Get rid of the guilt," shouted Murray, "or it will define you."

  As Raymond walked to his bedroom, his wrist relay went off again. It was Anya.

  "Hello?" said Raymond, loading the word rather more than he had intended.

  "Raymond, we need to talk. Can I see you?"

  "No. I mean, not right now. I don't need to listen to..." He trailed off, not liking where he was headed. He was automatically trying to make her look like the bad guy, and he wanted to be bigger than that.

  "What, listen to me bitch about how you hide everything from me, how you run—"

  "No, Anya, Anya. No! That's not what I meant. I'm sorry. I feel like I've... reached a turning point."

  "Good for you, Raymond. I hope you have. But I can't take it anymore. I was afraid there was something big behind all the mystery. And there is, isn't there? I should have known better. I guess I thought you just needed to be brought out, to be loved. But I can't take being lied to, being left in the dark. I'm sorry Raymond. I don't think I can spend time with you right now. And I can't see how we're going to do the Thanksgiving thing. I don't know. I think I need to be away from you for a while."

  "Okay."

  Silence.

  "Okay?" asked Anya.

  "Yes. Okay. I can see why you're fed up. You're good and caring and patient. You've reached out to me. And I can't open up. You want a sharing, healthy relationship, and I can't give you that."

  "Yes, that's... pretty much right," she said skeptically.

  "You don't get enough back from me," continued Raymond. He hadn't thought through much of this, but he suddenly felt as though he were holding a model of their relationship at arm's length, describing its obvious flaws. "You want a healthy relationship, and you've found someone better." An accusatory edge slipped into his voice; the model turned to dust.

  "What? What do you mean I've found someone better?"

  "You have, haven't you?"

  "Are you suggesting that I've been seeing someone else?"