by Paul Black
“Oh, please! You are such an asshole.” She turned and marched off.
“Mr. Asshole, no dash,” Chaco said to her back. He leaned against the bar and trained his attention on the dark curtains that covered the windows of Deja and Corazon’s party room.
“What happened to your friend?” the bartender asked, setting their drinks down.
Chaco shrugged and picked up his beer. The bartender laughed and dumped the Detroit Dragon into a sink.
Heaven was clearly the place to be if you were rich, chic, and could afford to get up any time past noon. Chaco sipped his beer and watched some of New York’s finest clubbers do what they did best, which in Heaven meant getting as shitfaced as they could and dancing with whomever they could, for as long as they could. And if they weren’t dancing, they huddled together in little cliques. When the musical selection was quieter, Chaco could overhear parts of conversations, which ranged anywhere from foreign policy to a knockdown, drag-out fight over the best handbag designer in Europe.
No one had entered or exited Deja and Corazon’s party room for the last 30 minutes, and Chaco hadn’t seen any evidence of Pavia in the club. He was taking another sip from his beer when Del Mar strolled up with the two Marionettes. He was shorter than Chaco had guessed and had changed into a new costume – the Pope with two hookers, except his mitre had the blinking word “OPEN” running down the front. They stopped and partially blocked Chaco’s view of the party room.
“Agent Chaco, how are you enjoying Heaven?” Del Mar’s demeanor clearly indicated he was Riding, but Chaco couldn’t tell on what, exactly.
“You’ve got a great club, your Eminence,” Chaco said, craning around one of the brunettes.
“Everyone should have a little taste of heaven.” Del Mar smiled and took a sip from his goblet. Its encrusted jewels blinked in sync with his hat.
Suddenly, a bright light flashed inside Deja and Corazon’s party room. It backlit the curtains and highlighted their elaborate Gothic patterns.
“What the hell?” Chaco said, and the light flashed again. He drew his Light-Force, and his holobadge projected.
Del Mar’s eyes almost popped out of their sockets. “Oh dear God,” he said and crossed himself.
The taller brunette saw the Light-Force and screamed. Chaco shoved the smaller brunette out of his way and charged towards the party room. He held his weapon like he had been taught, cupped with both hands, low and to the right. The room continued to strobe.
The bouncer guard moved to stop him but saw the Light-Force and raised his hands in a gesture that said he didn’t want any part of what was going down.
Chaco ran past him at full clip, skidded up to the party room, and slammed against one of its windows. Light flashed again, and he could feel heat against his back. He whipped the curtain aside with the tip of his Light-Force and entered in one continuous motion.
A lone candle barely illuminated the dark room, and as Chaco entered, it began to flicker. Erratic shadows danced across the walls, and he could make out only slivers of details. When his eyes adjusted, he saw Deja sitting on the edge of an overstuffed leather couch. She was staring at the candle, which was in the middle of a large wooden coffee table.
“Dej,” he said, “are you all right?”
Deja sat motionless. Her expression was a mix of shock and fear. As Chaco stepped closer, he noticed that her pallor was gray.
Pavia threw the curtain aside and practically ripped it from its track. He was sweating and out of breath.
“Dej,” Chaco said, ignoring Pavia, “talk to me.” He was now standing next to her; she was still staring. He lowered his weapon and knelt beside her. “Dej, what happened?” He gently guided a stray lock of hair from her face. Her lower lip was quivering.
“Sonny!” Pavia’s voice was edged with panic. “Where’s Mrs. Goya?”
Chaco peered into the shadows. “Corazon?”
Silence.
“Shit, Pavia, I have no idea.” He faced Deja. “Baby, what happened to Cor?”
She didn’t respond.
“Deja,” Chaco said, this time more firmly, “where’s Cora–”
“Marl,” Deja uttered, and then threw up.
21. COMING INTO FOCUS
Deja slowly came to, although she had never really gone unconscious, just ... out of focus. Chaco wiped at the corners of her mouth with a warm towel, and there was a faint smell of vomit, like what lingered near garbage cans after a wild club party. She was sitting in an uncomfortable wooden chair in the middle of a huge restroom. Lamps that looked like torches adorned walls fashioned after a medieval castle. The flames looked real, and the walls appeared slick with moisture, but the room felt cool and dry. Pavia stood behind Chaco, along with three Hispanic chicks dressed like they were going to the prom, though they were well past that stage. Also hanging around was a creepy guy wearing the same sunglasses as the Russian SWAT cops. He was dressed in black leather standing next to a nun ... at least what looked like a nun, if you discounted the piercings. Everybody wore serious expressions, especially Chaco.
“Deja, can you hear me?”
She heard, sort of. “Yeah,” she tried, but her throat was raw and burning. She coughed.
“Hey,” Chaco said, turning to Pavia, “she’s coming around.” He knelt. “Dej, can you talk?”
Deja looked into his face and managed a frail smile. She put her arms around his neck and hugged him. He held her tight and gently kissed the side of her face. Then she started crying. It was more like sobbing, although she had no idea why. She just knew she had to. Inside her, something was releasing – a catalyst that sure felt like guilt.
“It’s okay, baby.... Let it out,” Chaco said softly.
Deja’s mind was spinning as she remembered the party room, the bright flashing light, and the reason for her need to cry.
Pavia’s knees cracked as he knelt. He placed his hand on her shoulder; his touch was remarkably gentle. “How do you feel?” he asked.
“Like crap,” she replied.
Chaco laughed a little and tossed the towel at the base of a trashcan. The girl dressed as a nun walked over with another. He thanked her and began dabbing at Deja’s tears. “Do you want some water?” he asked.
She nodded.
The nun poured a glass of water from a ceramic pitcher and handed it to Deja before bowing slightly and returning to her place.
Deja sipped from the glass, and the cool water washed away the burning in her throat. “Did I puke or something?”
Chaco smiled. “Yeah,” he said. “Kind of all over yourself.”
Deja examined the front of her dress and winced.
“Deja,” Pavia said, giving her shoulder a squeeze, “where’s Mrs. Goya?”
She hesitated, suddenly feeling the stares, and cautiously scanned the room.
“All right,” Chaco said, “everyone out of here!”
As the last Hispanic prom girl left the restroom, Chaco stepped over to the guy in leather. “You too,” he ordered. “And I don’t want anyone coming in here.” The guy actually saluted, and Chaco began to return it before he waved him off. He walked back to Deja, knelt, and gently took her hands.
“Okay, that’s everyone,” he said. “Now, Dej, I need you to tighten up here. What happened?”
“I-I don’t know where to begin.”
“Deja,” Pavia said earnestly, “the next few hours are critical. We need to know what’s going on.”
Deja took another drink of water, then told Chaco and Pavia everything, starting from when she first met Corazon on the jump jet, to the bar with Torres, and finally to her bizarre encounter with Marl on the streets of New York, which she still wasn’t convinced took place anywhere but her mind.
“Okay, then,” Chaco said. “Now, what happened in the party room?”
“I was telling Cor the same stuff I just told you,” Deja said. “I was right at the part about Marl wanting to meet with her and all when the room filled with this unbelievable
white light. It was flashing and popping, and then ...” Deja’s throat tightened, and her head began to throb.
“Dej, honey,” Chaco urged, “come on. I need you to remember.”
“And then ... she was gone, Sonny.... Just gone.”
Chaco and Pavia exchanged glances.
“Deja,” Pavia said, “are you on any drugs?”
“No, she’s not!” Chaco said with such authority that even Pavia was taken aback.
Chaco stood and started pacing. “This is way out of my league,” he muttered. He stopped and folded his arms. “Let me get this straight. We’re dealing with a lovesick clone-thing who communicates inside people’s heads, and who just kidnapped the wife-clone of one of the most prominent businessmen in the country?” He emphasized this last thought with a pointed finger. “I’m going to be fired.” He threw his hands up. “Hell, I’m going to disappear!” He started pacing again.
“Now it’s your turn to tighten up,” Pavia said.
“Easy for you to say. You’re not in the system anymore.”
Pavia rested a hand on Chaco’s shoulder. “Like it or not, this is your case, and we’re losing time.”
“I know, I know.” Chaco took a deep breath. “You told me you might have a way to get to this clone.”
“No,” Pavia said. “I was just posturing. I don’t have dick on this guy.”
“Sonny,” Deja said, her voice back from the dead, “is there anybody in your unit who could help?”
“Exposing all this could be catastrophic,” Chaco said. “If what you say this clone can do is real, then we could be dealing with a whole new type of weapon. No,” he said, shaking his head, “I may need to go to DoD with this.”
“Then you will disappear,” Pavia replied.
Chaco put his face into his hands and began rubbing his forehead. The room fell deathly quiet, and Deja’s heart went out to her lover. He had been so strong, barking orders and taking charge. But now, he looked utterly lost.
“Wait a minute,” Chaco said through his fingers. “Dej, you might be right.” He grabbed his coat off a chair in the corner. “Pavia,” he said, slipping it on, “I need to get into some VirtGear, and it needs to be military issue, not any cheap civilian crap.”
Pavia smiled broadly for the first time. “Now that I can help you with.”
Chaco walked over and kissed Deja on the forehead. “Thank you,” he whispered, and as the two men rushed from the restroom, he said something under his breath, something that just didn’t make any sense.
“Ghost in the machine?”
22. YOU’LL HAVE MY BEST
Tsukahara passionately pressed his lips against Miko’s. They had danced around their feelings for so long that being this close was exciting, yet intensely awkward. He had never felt this way for another girl, and the fact that she didn’t care about his weight only added to the genuineness of the moment.
“Oh, Yoichi,” she said, pulling back to take him in. Her eyes were dark and set a bit close, and Tsukahara loved the way they were slightly crossed, especially when they kissed. It gave her an innocence that he could fall in love with so easily. He kissed her again.
Miko gently pulled him towards her bed. “I have something for you,” she said with a slight giggle. She slipped out of her sandals and neatly arranged them with her foot at the base of the bed. She pulled back the covers, sat, and began unbuttoning her blouse, which clung perfectly to her delicate breasts.
He tried to help her.
“Hey, Tsuka!”
Tsukahara surfaced from his dream to find the soft glow of an incoming holo call hovering at the foot of his bed. The side of his face was buried in his pillow; his cheek pressed against a wet drool spot. He quickly sat up and wiped the side of his mouth.
“I didn’t wake you, did I?” Chaco asked.
“No, sir,” Tsukahara said. He realized the mound in his sweat pants and quickly gathered the sheets around his waist. “I-I had just gone to bed. What time is it?”
“Time to get to the virtlab, agent. I’ve got business that needs your attention ... and only yours.”
As Tsukahara’s eyes adjusted, he noticed the holojection transmission was the type that field operatives used only when they felt their lives might be in danger. It was highly secure and transmitted not only the imaging signal, but the operative’s medical information and sometimes physical location, as well. A shot of adrenaline coursed through his nerves.
“Where are you, sir?” Tsukahara asked. Chaco was in the back of what appeared to be a large car with a girl next to him. She was very pretty and dressed in a businesslike manner with a touch of street chic. She also had crazy hair that shifted colors as the car passed under streetlights.
“I’m still in New York, and, oh, sorry ... this is Deja Moriarty. Deja, Yoichi Tsukahara. He’s the one I was telling you about.”
Tsukahara gave a quick, sharp bow of his head.
The pretty girl waved tentatively, and her hair shifted color again.
“What security level are you with incomings?” Chaco asked.
“The highest, sir.”
“Good, ’cause this assignment is very ‘out of system,’ if you get my drift. I want you to get down to the lab and into some secure V-Gear, and don’t use Davis’s, use mine. You’ll find it in my office. It’s the latest, and we’re going to need all the muscle we can. You with me?” Chaco and the pretty girl suddenly bounced together, which was odd because most major road surfaces had been redone with FLEX technology in their polymers.
Tsukahara sat up straighter and brushed hair off his face. “Yes, sir.”
“I’m sending you the coordinates for our meeting room, along with my office’s security code. If anyone gives you shit about being in my office, tell ’em you’re doing a Code 12 for me. They won’t bother you after that.” Chaco entered the data into his Netpad, and it simultaneously appeared to the left of his image. “Be there in an exactly one hour.”
Tsukahara climbed out of bed and stumbled toward his closet.
“Oh, and ah, Tsuka?”
He snapped to attention. “Yes, sir?”
“This one’s important. No bullshit here. I need you at your very best.” His superior’s heart rate, which was tracking in the upper right of the transmission along with 11 other med readings, jumped.
“Don’t worry, sir,” Tsukahara answered with a slight bow. “You’ll have my best.”
The pretty girl snuggled against Chaco’s shoulder, and he kissed the top of her head. His heart rate lowered.
“See you in an hour,” Chaco said, and his heart rate spiked again.
23. THAT’S COMFORTING
“Where the hell are we?” Chaco asked.
“The Garden State,” Pavia said.
“Pennsylvania?”
“No, Sonny, we’re in Jersey,” Deja said sleepily from the back of the car. She uncurled herself from her nap and glanced at her watch. “And judging by the time,” she said through a yawn, “I’d say we’re south, around ... Atlantic City?”
“Very good, Ms. Moriarty,” Pavia said.
“What’s in Atlantic City?” Chaco asked.
Pavia tapped in a number, and the car’s main monitor activated. The NetCom logo faded in, followed by an image of a tensile little man who looked nervous and strung out. He coughed, and oily black hair fell across his gaunt face.
“You up?” Pavia asked.
“Hell, yes,” the man replied through another cough.
“We’re 15 minutes away, so you better be–”
“I’ll be ready, Oscar. Don’t worry.” The man hacked, and his image cut out.
“He’s going help us?” Chaco asked.
“That guy can out-Net you any day of the week.”
“What’s his name?” Deja asked, inspecting the damage from her nap with a compact mirror.
“Bartas,” Pavia replied.
“Bartas who?”
“Pavia.”
Deja lowered the mirror. �
�He’s your brother?”
Pavia’s jaw grinded. “Yes.”
“You say that like you’re ashamed.”
Chaco read aloud from his Netpad: “Pavia, Bartas C. Age: 43. Born: Mexico City, Mexico. Current Residence: Atlantic City, New Jersey. Ah, here we go. Military Service: Army. Special Ops. Net Operative. Code Reader. Nodal Point Specialist. Data Profiler.” He scanned further. “We have a lot in common.”
“Great,” Pavia said. “You can bond.”
“Wife: Sezja M. Born: St. Petersburg, Russia. Age: 38. Child: Oscar. Born: Washington D.C. Age: 9 ...” Chaco read the next entry to himself.
“What is it, Sonny?” Deja asked.
Chaco looked at Pavia. “Both deceased.”
Pavia kept looking out the windshield.
“Their case, as of this record, is still unsolved.” Chaco slowly pocketed his Netpad.
* * *
Somewhere near the fringe of Atlantic City, Chaco picked up the glow of casino lights reflecting against the underside of low, early morning clouds. It created the illusion that most of the Boardwalk sector was covered by a lambent dome. Pavia exited the Interway and entered a residential area that looked like it might have been a pleasant place to live 20 years ago. He piloted the car for about a mile before he turned into an old storage park, the kind popular when the middle class needed a place to store the excesses of indulgent consumerism. The car skirted endless rows of units that had been converted into residences, although, judging by the trash and general disrepair, Chaco deduced they weren’t for the upwardly mobile.
Pavia edged down one of the narrow streets and glided past roll door after roll door, all painted the same pathetic gray. Each unit had a fixture that illuminated a makeshift front porch – or what passed for one, considering it was just large enough for a chair and, in some cases, an old temperature-based refrigerator.
They stopped close to the middle of the row and parked in front of a unit whose crudely stenciled numbers labeled it “289.”