by A. J. Mayall
That should take forty-five minutes. Head to the Bentons’, set up the HandyEye cameras, plug in HubKits into any computer he has access to. Finally, call Suzette to verify the network and come home for a night of watching TV with the monitor on standby.
He snagged his necklace off his bedside table and looked around for his jeans.
He asked the stuffed animal, “You see my pants, buddy?”
The raccoon lay still, a smile on its face as always.
Suzette had once said if Sherlock Holmes talked to a skull, it was fitting that a person of McGee’s caliber of deduction would have a comparable talking buddy. It was the one time she had ever made a negative comment about the stuffed animal. McGee had been ready to sack her over the comment. You could insult his style, immaturity, naïveté, ego, need to play the hero, or habits, but you did not insult the raccoon.
McGee found the pants under his bed, slid them on and tucked away his phone, wallet, and keys. He grabbed his jacket off the hook near the door and put it on as he spun before his full-length mirror. He finished by dusting off his lapels, and checking his short, spiky red hair.
“Let’s do this,” he said as he opened the door. He extended his senses to the local area; everything he requested was set out and passed inspection. He held his arms out and pressed his palms down, lifting off the floor a few inches. Phoenix thrust his right hand out and the various devices lifted and fit themselves into the messenger bag which, in turn, shut. Phoenix rocketed toward the open door, and waved to Suzette as he grabbed the bag.
She looked up from her book, a dry smile on her face. He was gone a second before hovering backwards, peeking his head around the corner.
“You want to stay late and watch the monitors?”
She shook her head. “No thanks, after dinner, I’ll probably stay in a spare room at the hotel.” She didn’t even look up to acknowledge him. “I’ll lock up, and I’ll keep the FogDrive active. If you absolutely need me, call.”
“Okay, have a good night when you close shop.” He paused. “So, whatcha reading? I just finished that new fantasy novel, Seymour of the World. It’s pretty good, I recommend it.”
Immediately, he winced, knowing his recommendation would ensure she’d never indulge in it. She lifted the cover. It was white, with stark, thin black letters. A coffee cup ring stained its upper right hand corner. The author had so many letters after his name, Phoenix wondered if he lived at college or mugged a Scrabble bag.
“The Art of Madness?” He blinked. “What’s that about?”
She sighed and closed the book.
“Phoenix, some of us enjoy reading about things other than whatever is currently popular at the time. This,” she said, motioning to the book, “is a dissertation on the cultural effect of altered mental states throughout the years. It discusses actual medical disorders, and how religious fervor and tribalism have influenced societal progress, for better and worse. It has various essays and studies on the history of psychology and its effects on the collective whole.”
He blinked, staring vacantly.
“It’s a book for smart people who read books by doctors, and not because they have to for a class.” She paused, her smile going wide. Leaning in, she tucked a lock of hair behind her ear and whispered, “You should leave before I call you stupid.”
He scowled and took off into the sky. After a few minutes, he soared above the skyline, hands outstretched at the hips, his trench coat billowing behind him. He rocketed toward the east side of town for the De Vega case.
As he expected, sometimes injured people are honestly injured. Sometimes there is no grand conspiracy or lie. Sometimes people are honestly honest. It was a feeling Phoenix tried to carry with him on every such investigation.
He was halfway toward the Wilson residence when his phone rang. He stopped in midair, reached into his pocket and pulled out his Scarface, the preferred earbud for fliers. He hooked it over his ear, popped in the bud and drew down the adhesive strip to the corner of his mouth.
“I’m midair, talk to me.” He squinted into the distance, trying to remember what landmarks he used last time he checked in on Mrs. Wilson.
“It’s me, McGee,” Suzette muttered over the line. “I’m closing shop in an hour. I have everything filed in hard copy in the inbox by your bedroom door. I also have them on your personal FogDrive, in today’s folder. If you need me, you have my number. If my phone is off, call Grandma Francesca. I’m only saying this because I have a hunch on this one. If those cameras catch what Mr. Benton suggests…I kinda wanna see this.”
Phoenix could hear the dark curiosity dripping from her voice over the phone.
“An hour? It’s the middle of the day. I’m not paying you to ignore the desk,” he muttered, knowing he was about to get an earful.
“Phoenix, Benton’s case was a fluke and insurance cases won’t come in for another week. The only remaining cases open are two obvious non-frauds and what I expect to be the best show we’ve seen in months. Seriously, listen to my hunch. Besides, I wanna beat traffic if I’m going to see my grandma. Not all of us can fly, you know.”
“What’s giving you this hunch, Suzette?” He scanned the horizon for the cluster of streets he used as a waypoint his last visit. Finding it, he flew rapidly to the next destination on his agenda. He heard an incessant tap-tap-tapping on the other end of the call, followed by a squeal like rubbing a pane of glass with your finger.
“Well, I did a bit more research into our dear Mrs. Benton.”
Phoenix grinned, waiting to hear what dirty secrets Suzette dug up.
“She’s mostly clean, but worked in the RMPD before moving to private security optimization. She has some write-ups involving fraternizing with fellow officers, a few more involving cover-ups for some of those officers she had made…’bonds’ with. She took an early retirement to avoid the Internal Affairs investigation into her, ahem, internal affairs.”
“You suspect she’s been continuing these trysts during her whole time with her husband?”
He navigated the skyline, moving to the outskirts of the industrial complex, dropping to the rooftops.
“Suspect? Are you kidding me, McGee? I haven’t even started yet. You know I said ‘bonds’, right? Get this. Everyone she was suspected of being close with and helped out of jams? They’re all lycanthropes.” She read with the sort of glee reserved for sociopaths, or children finding a candy stash.
Phoenix filled in the details. “They’re known for their loyalty and pack mentality. She helped them out, they consider her one of them on a psychological level. I know the police department has a Stygus contingent. Werewolves are regarded highly for their heightened senses and durability on the streets, and risking life and limb for each other. But the idea of one of them risking themselves or their career to carry out an affair on an old coworker?”
He dropped a bit lower, grabbing his camera and plugged it into his fliptop. “Since you’re still there, swipe my fliptop access to the Fog would you? Just checking on Mrs. Wilson before meeting with Benton. I’m going to need you to help me monitor the setup anyways; no leaving early until we are certain the network is up and running, and backed up into the Fog.”
“Fine. One moment. Also five,” she said curtly, her response bitter and cold to him, like he had missed some easy-to-spot answer and she was a disappointed teacher.
“What do you mean, five? Five what?”
He peered through the camera and found Mrs. Wilson sipping sun tea in a garden swing on her patio. Her husband and a grown daughter sat nearby playing cards. She wore the neck brace with a scarf around it. Honestly Honest.
“Werewolves. The idea of one risking it all is stupid, yeah, but five of them and you have a pack making visits to one of their own.”
Silence filled the next few moments as Phoenix watched high above, before Suzette yelled at him, snapping him out of his daze.
“Sorry, Suzette…yeah, okay. Five. Let me handle this, I’ll call you when I m
eet with Benton, and no leaving early without my say-so, traffic or not.”
“Fine. Talk to you later. Jerk.”
“If this pans out, I’ll let you keep a copy of the tape.”
“Hope for you yet. Talk to you soon, McGee.”
He tapped the earbud twice, causing the microphone and wire and roll back up against it. He sat in the treetop watching the family. He wished his family was like that: normal. Before he had become what he was today, the GearWitch.
He thought the name was stupid, and hoped to convince those in The Cloister to let him change it. Name aside, he couldn’t tell anyone how he had become the GearWitch. He witnessed his predecessor’s battle on his apartment rooftop while trying to sneak a cigarette. He could never explain how looking into the complexity of time and reality left a mark on him. It had taken some of him, dulled his senses to the world, made everything bland.
The upside and downside of being the chosen was the knowledge that after death, you went to the Cloister to teach those who come after you, being denied any other potential afterlife. Being a timeless singularity, he knew he was sitting there somewhere in the Cloister, right now, sipping tea or coffee and giving his perspective to his successors somewhere down the rivers of time.
Damn the others, a constant reminder of what was awaiting him. It was an assault on his free will. It was the worst part of the power, not that it hadn’t helped on several occasions. He’d seen ghosts, and he was certain some manner of afterlife existed apart from his guaranteed eternal retirement. He was mentally prepared to deal with oblivion, that things would wind down and end, but he knew better than that for himself. That’s not the path of the GearWitch.
No, for him there was an eternity in the machine, cut off from friends, even if they had to succumb to a void of non-being. He didn’t have the choice to jump in and disappear with them; he had to continue. His name would be stripped from him, then given a name close to his identity, but never who he was for fear of someone doing a bit of looking in on him.
He thought of the others as old fools, relics of a time that had evolved past them. To know where his eternity lay was a sort of torture you don’t come across every day.
The worst of the worst part was the blessing. A blessing, they called it, to have your entire history rewritten upon your death, so the secret of the GearWitch was kept safe and hidden. A handful of close colleagues who wouldn’t be remembered in a few generations could recall their tales, of course. In the end, they would become faded memories of a history left to rot.
This is what Phoenix McGee thought of when he saw families like the Wilsons enjoying a pleasant afternoon on the patio. He saw a fleeting perfect moment not only stolen forever from him, but dangled before him like a burning picture of a loved one, just out of reach. He longed for it; even if he managed to grip it and hold it close, it would be damaged beyond repair.
He dialed the insurance company again, telling them curtly that everything with the Wilson account was checking out as it should be.
In a moment, he was gone, soaring into the air to make the thoughts go away. It was an easy enough task; he dealt with the idea of his mortality at least once a day, when he was alone.
Alone, except for Bouncer, that is.
CHAPTER 3
Darkness. Oh, if only it were darkness. No, there was light. The damned light. It burned in the corneas, cut into the mind and left it screaming, an open wound in the psyche. Among the seven in the room, four if you didn’t count the corpses, was a young girl, no older than thirteen. She had been the most recent addition to the room with its blinding lights. The floor, the ceiling, the walls. Trying to escape by closing your eyes flooded your sight with ruddy orange glow.
“Why am I here?” she asked weakly, for what seemed like the hundredth time. The others shushed her, telling her it was going to be okay. They were lying, of course. The room of light left little hope of any understanding and reason.
The four of them left alive, two men, a woman, and the girl cowered in the cylindrical room. They stayed to the middle. The lights made the walls hot to the touch, making it impossible to know where the exit was.
One of the men, the one who had resided the longest in the room, had stripped the dead of their clothing, to lie on the floor. It wasn’t as hot as the walls, but the heat was still unpleasant. He mused it might, eventually, be hot enough to burn. For modesty and respect, he kept the undergarments on the two men and the woman who had met their end in the room. He didn’t know how they had, or why.
He didn’t know how or why for any of this, truth be told. He didn’t know how or why he was here. He didn’t know how or why the room could shine so brightly. He didn’t know how or why the others had been brought here. He simply was. It was as undeniable as the spots in front of his vision when he tried to close his eyes.
Every few hours, the lights would burn brighter for a moment, forcing them to shield their vision and then bottled water and food bars were tossed in. Peanut butter with chocolate had been the last flavor. They consumed them greedily. The smell of sweat permeated the room as they sat there on the former garments of corpses. They hoped they’d not be made to sit on the dead if the floor got too hot for even the fabric.
“All right,” the man said, as he turned and felt out around him. “I don’t know how long it’s been since I was dumped in this place, but I need sleep. Emma, I tore off a strip of fabric. I’m going to see if a blindfold will work in this damned place. I might’ve left it near you. Can you pass it to me?”
Emma didn’t nod; there wasn’t a point in the room of light. The others heard the woman feel about, pawing at the floor.
“I found it, Todd. Reaching out.” She extended her arm in the direction of his voice, grazing the cheek of the other man in the room before getting it to its intended recipient.
“Thanks, Emma.” Todd sighed and closed his eyes, wrapping the fabric around, looping it thrice, before tying it to his head. He pulled off his shirt to make a makeshift pillow as he lay down.
“Wish me luck. If food gets dropped, you’re welcome to my rations. Well, save me some, I’ll probably be thirsty when I wake up.” He lay still, hoping for some much needed rest.
The others whispered amongst themselves, trying to give him the benefit of silence while he slept, if he could sleep.
Emma felt around the room a bit with her free hand, the other, of course, covering her eyes, and brushed her fingers over the hair of the dead older woman. Todd had said he had done his best to cover the corpses’ faces with their hands, to prevent damage from the heat of the floor. He wanted to give them some dignity, to make sure they could be recognized by their loved ones. Emma thought it was morbid, but this wasn’t the place to worry about pleasantries.
Her attention turned to the girl, Caroline. She had joined them last, only a few hours ago, or had it been days? It didn’t matter; time was only in their minds in this damned room. It grew hotter far slower than she had expected it to. She had assumed there was some ventilation going on, some cooling system, but they felt no breeze, no whir of machinery to tell them how they hadn’t baked to death yet.
“Caroline, how are you holding up?” She felt around and clasped the girl’s hand in hers. Caroline sobbed and Emma crawled to her, hugging her tight.
“You can get through this, just hang in there. They can’t keep us in here forever, whoever they are. Anyways, it’s going to get hot in here. If you cry, you’ll be wasting hydration. I don’t know if what they’re giving us will be enough to keep us going. We have to conserve what little we have.”
Caroline clung to the woman as the fourth living member of the group grunted, having sprawled out. He spoke little from when they entered. He pulled his large body up into a seated position.
“I don’t know about you two, but if they don’t give us access to a bathroom soon, this place is going to be a lot worse for wear.”
Emma curled her nose a bit at the comment.
“Joel, please. T
his isn’t the time for…”
He cut her off, hissing in a whisper, trying to make sure that they didn’t wake up Todd.
“Emma, I’m not joking. We’ve been given a steady diet of those meal bars for God knows how long. I can’t stop how a body works. We need to give serious consideration about this. It’s already uncomfortable in here, and we have no clue how long we are going to be here. I have to use the restroom, fairly certain you’ll have to use the restroom. Hell, Caroline will soon enough.”
He sighed. “Sorry kid, I’m not trying to gross you out, but the fact of the matter is this place is sealed to the best of our knowledge. Urine ain’t gonna make this place smell good, but if we can find a seam in the walls, we might be able to short out the lights.”
Caroline clung closer to Emma, who turned her face in the direction of Joel’s voice.
“How do you expect to be able to see well enough to do that? You tried breaking the lights. Is your hand still hurt from that?”
She was answered with a wince.
“I got an idea, but I doubt you wanna blot out the lights with crap.”
“Joel, I’m certain our captors will give us a means to relieve ourselves.” She stretched out what she could.
“What makes you say that?” Caroline muttered aloud. A grunt from Joel seconded the question.
“The other three, whoever they are…were, were clean. There wasn’t anything on the ground. The floor isn’t messy. You see, when someone passes, the body will…get rid of what’s inside of it.”
Caroline cringed. “So, like, they held them in here until they died, pulled them out, cleaned them, dressed them, stuck them back in here, and put in more people? That’s sick.”
Emma stopped, and stood.
“I have an idea…Caroline, grab a shirt and cover your arms. I’m going to lift you onto my shoulders; tell me if you can reach the ceiling.”