The Presence

by Paul Black

  The first drunk slapped one of the other drunks on the shoulder and pointed at the back of Corazon. “Boys,” he declared in a slurred New Jersey accent, “looks like we might have ourselves a silent one here.”

  Corazon nervously began fishing through her purse.

  Chaco and Pavia slowly rose in sync, their hands loose at their sides. Pavia shot a sideways glance, and his look was all business.

  The first drunk leaned down behind Corazon’s ear. “Whose little whore are you?”

  In the low light, Chaco could see Pavia’s eyes moving carefully about. His ex-agent instincts were probably assessing factors like the size of each man, the distance to strike, the exits, the reach threshold, and the potential of lethal force. The guy’s jaw was grinding away.

  Corazon slipped on her sunglasses and hunched slightly in anticipation of what was coming. The first drunk straightened and hesitated for a moment, as if he were summoning all his bigoted courage.

  “I hate fakes,” he said. “Especially the bitches.”

  The word fakes, like “nigger” a century earlier, cut through the silence that had enveloped the table. But before the first drunk could finish the “s” in bitches, Pavia moved with such speed it caught Chaco off guard. He grabbed the guy closest to him with his left hand, while his right dove inside the guy’s coat, probably after whatever weapon resided there. The guy let out a gurgling sound as Pavia’s hand closed around his windpipe.

  The first drunk, startled by Pavia’s actions, stumbled backwards over a four-top of club girls. One screamed, while the others jumped out of the way. The table flipped, sending ice from a Champagne bucket spraying into the crowd around the bar. Before Chaco could move on the drunk with the tattoo, he had pulled out a knife and was holding it against Corazon’s temple. The knife was a German organic one only available on the Black Net. Chaco knew from his classes that it was surgical grade and didn’t show up on older scanners. If they got though this, he’d find the club’s owner and drag his ass in.

  The club girl’s scream brought the whole bar to a standstill and shifted Pavia’s attention to the knife at his boss’s wife’s head.

  Chaco froze halfway around the table. He knew from his training that the look on the knife guy indicated he was riding on Jack, probably right at his apex.

  “Let’s all fucking stand down!” the tattoo guy said, his eyes wild. He shot a look at Pavia. “Let go of Hector!”

  Pavia released his grip and slowly took a step back. He glanced at Chaco.

  “Now,” the tattoo guy continued, “we’re going to exit this establishment in a real natural manner, okay?” His eyes darted between Chaco and Pavia. “And we’ll take the fake here as a little insurance that you boys won’t try anything stupid.”

  Pavia looked at Chaco and raised an eyebrow. For a second, Chaco didn’t get it, but then it hit him: Pavia was going to distract this asshole, so Chaco could make his move. Then Pavia, who hadn’t said a word all evening, screamed a guttural, primal sound, like he was about to tear the tattoo guy’s head off. This move triggered other screams about the club, which distracted the tattoo guy just long enough for Chaco to draw his Light-Force.

  “Drop the damn knife!” Chaco yelled, as he leveled his weapon. The gun’s automatic holo projection hung in the air 5 feet to the side of Chaco. It displayed to anyone who cared to read it his name and agency ID. It moved in sync with the weapon, passing across people at the bar and turning their faces monochromatic shades of green. It’s loading sequence’s high-pitched whine cut through the silent club; some people gasped.

  The tattoo guy’s eyes locked on the Light-Force. “Well, what do we have here? A government agent coming to the rescue of a fake?” His voice had risen to a pitch that made Chaco nervous. He was pressing the knife just shy of drawing blood.

  “We don’t have anything here,” Chaco said, trying to recall his training from his hostage class. “Let’s all be calm, and we can work this out.” He engaged his Light-Force’s loading sequence, and its high-pitched whine cut through the silent club.

  Chaco glanced at Pavia, who was taking another step back. He figured the veteran agent had already sized up his position as being too close to what was jokingly referred to at the academy as the “splatter pattern.” Even if just a little matter of a person shot with a Light-Force got on you, it would continue its debiolizing right up your arm or leg, or wherever it landed. All agents had seen the vid on that process.

  The tattoo guy eyed the holobadge. “So, Agent Chaco, are you really going to shoot me inside a crowded bar at such close range?... Could get a little nasty.”

  Nasty wasn’t the word for it, Chaco thought. More like horrific. The Light-Force was a powerful and highly accurate weapon. Its risk assessment features could calibrate the matter disruption level and automatically minimize the “splatter” effect. But discharging it in a crowded environment was still a risky proposition.

  “Well, agent, what’s it going to be?” The tattoo guy’s forehead was slick with sweat.

  Chaco had to act fast; a person cresting could do almost anything, especially if cornered. He glanced to Pavia for help, but Pavia was regarding him with a strange expression, like he was thinking: it’s your fucking show, so get on with it.

  Chaco cocked his wrist back, like he was going to set the Light-Force down. “I’m not going to shoot you,” he said, and then fired straight up.

  A woman’s scream almost drowned out the cracking sound of the Light-Force. When Chaco’s vision adjusted, he saw most of the patrons close to their table rubbing their eyes from the blast’s intensity. Pavia had pulled Corazon away and stepped in front of her for protection. The only person not reeling from the discharge was the tattoo guy. He was hunched over and staggering around in a small circle as superheated liquefied aluminum, which a moment before had been part of a low-hanging chandelier, slowly cooled over his head and back. It looked like he had been partially snared by a net of mercury.

  “Jesus fucking Christ!” he yelled.

  Pavia took a wine bucket off a table and dumped its water all over the tattoo guy. The aluminum hissed, and the guy screamed. Then Pavia landed a punch to his chin that made even Chaco wince. The bastard crumpled like his skeletal system had suddenly disappeared.

  Chaco leveled the Light-Force on Bobby, and Pavia grabbed him by the collar. He dragged him over to where the other drunk had knocked himself out flipping over the club girl’s table.

  “Here, use this.” Chaco reached under his coat and threw him his cuffs.

  Pavia caught them and immediately pulled the wrists of the two drunks together and activated the restraint. Like a VirtGear unit, it tentacled around their wrists and tightened until their skin turned red.

  “Deja, are you okay?” Chaco said, looking around.

  Deja sheepishly emerged from under the table, her hair in its more familiar tangle of spikes and curls. “I’m okay.”

  She rushed to Corazon and began helping her peel little drops of aluminum off of her coat. It was a miracle Corazon hadn’t been injured.

  The people in the bar, like any good New York crowd, had seen it all and slowly returned to whatever they had been doing. The music came up, and Chaco walked over to the tattoo guy, who was now curled on the floor acting like he was seeing more than stars. Finally, two of the bar’s rent-a-cops stepped out of the crowd and approached. They looked all of 21.

  Chaco knelt. “Those burns look like they going to scar.”

  “Fuck you,” the tattoo guy replied, through a haze of Jack and booze.

  “You need any help, agent?” the taller rent-a-cop asked, his voice cracking.

  Chaco looked up. “He’s all yours.”

  “But, sir, aren’t you going to file–”

  “I said,” Chaco stood and leaned into the kid’s face, “he’s all yours.”

  “Yes, sir!”

  “Is something like this also part of your job?” Corazon asked, adjusting her coat around her shoulders.


  Chaco grinned. “Yes, ma’am,” he said in his best cop voice. “We’re here to protect and serve.”

  Deja came up to his side. “Are you all right?”

  “Yeah, I’m fine.” He looked to Pavia, who was helping the shorter rent-a-cop peel some of the cooled metal off the tattoo guy. “Thanks, Mr. Pavia, your, ah, distraction did the trick.”

  “Always has,” he said. He ripped a rather long sliver out of the guy’s hair. Most of the metal had landed on the guy’s back, but a little had dripped onto his scalp and neck.

  “Tell me, Sonny,” Corazon said. “How is it that you’re able to function so close to the flash? I’m still seeing spots, and I’m wearing sunglasses. You act like it didn’t even affect you.”

  “Third eyelid,” Pavia said. He helped the shorter rent-a-cop lift the tattoo guy to his feet. The kid cuffed him and shoved him through the dance crowd.

  “You’re augmented?” Corazon asked Chaco.

  “We all are, Ms. Goya,” Pavia said, walking up. He pointed to the side of Chaco’s left eye. “It’s called an ocular nictitating membrane. It’s like a cat’s third eyelid, and covers the cornea in an event of a Light-Force discharge. If we fired our weapons without it, we’d be blind by the end of our first year.” Pavia’s eyes went white as if to prove the point.

  Chaco laughed under his breath.

  “Eww!” Deja exclaimed. “Sonny, you never told me you were augmented.”

  Chaco engaged his ONMs.

  “Stop that!”

  “Would it have mattered?” he asked, his eyes green again.

  Deja folded her arms.

  “I’ve got a suggestion,” Chaco said to the group. “I know a great little bar on the Upper East Side. I don’t know about you, but I could use a drink.”

  “If you don’t mind,” Corazon said, “I’d like to go home. This night has been trying. We’ll drop you at your hotel.”

  Pavia took Corazon’s arm and did his barge thing through the bar, although the parting of the people was probably more due to the fact that they wanted to give the government cowboy a wide berth. Chaco had his arm around Deja, and he could sense her apprehension as they followed behind.

  “What’s bothering you?” he asked into her ear.

  “Nothing, it’s just ...”

  “What, that I’m slightly enhanced?”

  “No, it’s more that you didn’t tell me.”

  “Look, it’s not like we go around broadcasting something like that. Besides, it’s confidential. Like I said before, would it have mattered if you had known when we first went out?”

  “No, of course not.... I knew about your connector.”

  “Okay, then. Let’s not talk about it anymore.”

  They walked in silence behind Corazon, but Chaco could still sense Deja’s edginess.

  “Come on,” he whispered, “it’s not like I lied. There’re some things about my job I just can’t tell you.”

  Deja was still edgy.

  “Look,” he said, stopping them in the middle of the dance floor.

  She didn’t look up.

  “I care for you very much, and if you knew everything, it could make it dangerous ... for you.”

  Deja wrapped her arms around his neck. “That’s all I wanted to hear,” she said, and a wicked little grin grew across her face.

  15. LANDSCAPE OF DREAMS

  The maid has accepted the fact that the man in Room 360 never sleeps. She doesn’t bother anymore to make the bed or replace unused towels. She only knows of the guest’s presence by the water decanter, which she refills before each vacuuming. Today, she inspects the tumblers and finds them untouched. She carefully returns the last glass to its original position on the tray, takes in the room’s disuse, and wonders.

  * * *

  Marl lies atop the bed as he has every night. His fingers feel for the blanket’s thread count. Knowing that when he closes his eyes he will be haunted by the visions, he sucks in a long, comforting breath and exhales his fear. Will the emotions surface again?

  Am I designed to feel?

  In the dark, a band of light – probably from a police gunship – glides across the ceiling. His armpits are soaked. Sweat slides down his ribs.

  Another breath, and he prepares for his travels. Tonight will be different, though. He will not confront his visions. Rather, he will range across the landscape of dreams to the home of those brilliant orange rings.

  16. RIDING THE WAVE

  Corazon looked down at the bits of Earl Gray adrift on the caramel skin of her tea. She liked a splash of milk along with a rich spoonful of honey because it made the bitterness more bearable. But that wasn’t how she was supposed to take her tea; she had been designed to prefer one lump of sugar in Darjeeling, not Earl Gray. Dr. Haderous had called it a glitch in her cognitive mapping.

  Once, early in her first year, she had overheard Alberto talking to Dr. Haderous. There had been something foreboding in Alberto’s voice, especially when he said, “Let’s rethink her condition.” But after the call, his attitude toward the glitches changed, and he seemed resigned to topics like “How to Drink Tea.”

  Corazon set the cup on the nightstand and crawled into bed, which to her felt more like climbing. The bed had been one of Kita Goya’s designs, and its mass was a dominant force in the calculated architecture. The room’s temperature was set for 65 degrees – something about the cool nights at one of Alberto’s old vacation homes in Real de Catorce. While this usually let Alberto sleep soundly, it always left Corazon shivering.

  Glitch in the mapping.

  Alberto was gone on business, and Corazon had their New York apartment to herself. She pulled the comforter around her and set its temperature control for 75 degrees, then picked up the virtbook she had intended to start for the last three weeks. It was entitled A Conversation with Your Inner Child. She slid the interface pad out of the reader unit and raised the tiny disc to her forehead.

  “This is absurd,” Corazon whispered. What was the point of talking with her inner child when she had never been one? What she really needed was a book entitled Conversations with the Dead Person You Replaced. Even though she had studied Kita Goya at great length, she would never really understand her ... or her “inner child.” Corazon sighed and threw the reader unit to the foot of the bed. Her eyes grew heavy.

  Three years ago, Corazon awoke to the faces of Dr. Haderous and his team. Even though they were pleasant and caring, it was a strange sensation to spring into consciousness as an adult. No growing up. No adolescence. Just opening her eyes to existence. Of course, it wasn’t like she had woken with a blank slate. Many of Kita Goya’s medical problems, such as her allergies and alcoholism, had been corrected, along with potential problems like her genetic predisposition to breast cancer. They also built into Corazon some of Kita Goya’s more fundamental personality constructs, like her Catholicism. It had been mapped so perfectly that Corazon always had a vague guilt lingering near the threshold of her morals.

  The real achievement, however, was what Dr. Haderous antiseptically termed cushioning. It involved re-implanting certain memories, which was a difficult and controversial procedure, even within the illegal industry of cloning. Nevertheless, it helped Corazon with the harsh impact of beginning life at age 34. The memories weren’t intended to cause her to wake as Kita Goya, but they did give her a little nudge to start. And Corazon was most grateful to have been spared Kita’s last memory of drunkenly falling into the pool, especially when her head struck the coping.

  An arc of cold cut through Corazon, and she pulled the comforter over her shoulders. Nestling against the pillows, she let her mind drift and wondered what it might have been like to awaken as Kita. She often wished that Dr. Haderous’ team had done this instead. Life would be so much cleaner. She rolled over and knocked the reader unit onto the floor.

  Maybe she should be reading about multiple personalities, she mused.

  Or maybe she should just go to sleep. And dream.
>
  * * *

  Corazon awoke to a slight gust of cold air brushing her face. Through the dark, the walls appeared to be translucent: their surfaces rippling in a fluid arpeggio of color and pattern. Even the bed seemed frail beneath her body. Suddenly, a figure coalesced from the shadows. It was a man.

  Corazon wanted to scream, but the fear that would have driven this had slipped away. The man walked around the bed and came to her side.

  “Hello, Corazon,” he said, his lips barely moving and not quite in sync with the words. There was dim light around him that had no defined point of emanation.

  “Hello, Marl,” Corazon said.

  He smiled.

  “Am I dreaming?” she asked.

  “In a sense.”

  Marl moved onto the bed, and she slid back to sit against the headboard. He was wearing the same coat she had seen him in at the bar. Its pattern undulated like the wallpaper.

  “Why are you here?” she asked, surprised at her calmness.

  He hesitated, raised his hand, and let his fingers follow the edge of her face. He delicately separated errant strands of hair. “To understand,” he said.

  “What do you need to know?”

  “What I’m feeling.”

  “What are you feeling?”

  Marl frowned, as if the question itself pained him. “I’m not sure yet, but I know it’s important.”

  Corazon took his hand. His skin felt like warm glass. She thought the light around him brightened. “Why are you here?”

  He leaned close. “You’re in me, and I need to know why.”

  She studied the lines of his face. He wasn’t really handsome; he was something more, something ... graceful. Behind his eyes, she sensed a depth of understanding that seemed limitless. And it frightened her.

  “Don’t be afraid,” he said intuitively and gently squeezed her fingers.