To Dream

by Lowy, Louis K;

  Sheriff Chili smiled. “Have at it.”

  Acevedo said to Niyati, “He is strong enough to do that, right?”

  Niyati shrugged. “He twisted the ones in my lab, but these are thicker.”

  Acevedo frowned. He said to J-1, “Bend the bars open slowly and stop when Sheriff Chili says to. Got it?”

  J-1 nodded.

  Acevedo said to the sheriff, “Fair enough?”

  “Fair enough.” Sheriff Chili removed his gun from his holster and aimed it at J-1. “But if I think there’s hanky-panky, we’re firing first and asking questions later.” Chili nodded at Bobby. He removed his rifle from a nearby rack and pointed it at Niyati and Acevedo.

  Acevedo took a deep breath. “Okay, J-1, do it.”

  J-1 walked to the bars on his cell door, gripped a pair and tried to pull them apart. The bars remained motionless. Chili glanced at Acevedo and smirked. He relaxed the grip on his pistol. There was a squeak. Chili tightened his trigger finger. The bars started to separate like mirrored half-moons. “Stop,” Chili said.

  J-1 lowered his hands. Chili walked to the mangled bars and felt them. “I don’t know how he did it, but it’s a trick.”

  “You saw it with your own eyes,” Acevedo said.

  Chili rubbed his chin. “Maybe he takes steroids or he’s hopped up on Angel Dust.”

  Acevedo threw up his hands.

  “Do you carry a knife?” Niyati asked.

  Chili raised the corner of his mouth at her: What do you think? I’m a Native American who polices the Everglades.

  “Right,” she said. “Try cutting his skin.”

  Chili removed a Buck Knife from a sheath attached to his belt.

  “Stick your hand out for the sheriff, J-1,” Niyati said.

  “Which one?” he asked.

  “Left?” Niyati replied.

  “Grip the crossbar.” Chili nodded to a waist-high horizontal bar.

  J-1 placed his left hand on the crossbar and held it.

  Chili looked at Bobby. The rifleman stiffened his aim on Niyati and Acevedo.

  Chili pressed the blade into the top of J-1’s hand; lightly at first and then with more pressure. The skin indented and pinked, but didn’t puncture. Chili pressed so hard he grunted.

  Acevedo smiled. He glanced at Bobby, whose eyes jumped between him and Niyati and the knife. Still at his desk, Mitchell stared open-jawed at J-1.

  “His skin is composed of poly compounds and titanium weave,” Niyati said. “It’s about twenty times stronger than Kevlar.”

  “We’ll see about that.” Chili sliced the blade back and forth across J-1’s skin. Nothing. Chili pressed hard. Then harder. He rubbed the blade across his own finger. A thin line of blood came to the surface. Chili felt the side of J-1’s neck and said, “He’s warm. There’s a pulse running through him. It has to be a trick.”

  “You’re thinking like a white man,” Niyati said.

  A muscle in Chili’s jaw tightened. Acevedo suppressed a smile. Bobby and Mitchell shot brief looks at each other. The sheriff studied J-1, and then locked gazes on Acevedo and Niyati. “Okay, you’ve got my attention,” he said from his place on the other side of the bars. “Let’s go through this one more time. Real slow.”

  ~~~

  Chili was back at his chair. Boots propped on the desk like before, rubbing his chin, staring at J-1 through the bent bars. He lowered his feet and turned to Acevedo and Niyati. “Let’s say I believe he’s who you say he is, and everything went down at Ameri-Inc. like you claim it did.” Chili walked to their holding cell. “What I’m concerned about is how do I stop this thing?” He nodded to J-1, who was sitting on his cot.

  Acevedo caught Niyati’s flinch at Sheriff Chili calling J-1 a thing. “From what?” she asked.

  “From taking down my territory.”

  “He’s not evil, sheriff.”

  “No, but the people who control him might be.” Sheriff Chili eyed her and Acevedo.

  “Doctor Bopari and I are in this mess,” Acevedo said, “because we’re the good guys.”

  Sheriff Chili rubbed his mouth. His eyes, the color of unlit charcoal, stared into space while he sifted through the feelings in his gut and balanced it with what his senses told him.

  Acevedo peered at Niyati. She arched her eyebrows at him. He glanced at Bobby, stone-faced, rifle locked on them, and Mitchell, who had stopped his mouse clicking, and was watching Sheriff Chili. Chili’s eyes settled on Acevedo and Niyati. “You got enough cash to settle up with Froggy? I figure about five-hundred in restitution will keep him happy.”

  Acevedo checked his wallet. “How about two hundred and fifty-seven dollars, and a Movado Corporate watch?” He removed a stainless steel black-dial timepiece from his wrist and handed it through the bars to the sheriff.

  Chili brought the watch to his nose and sniffed it. “I don’t know.”

  “It’s a special edition,” Acevedo said. “It cost over six hundred dollars.”

  “It’s used,” Chili said.

  Niyati rummaged through the waist pocket of her smock. She removed two bills and handed them to Acevedo. He glanced at them and said, “Make that two hundred and ninety-seven dollars, sheriff.”

  “Get it to three hundred and I think Froggy’ll go for it.”

  “What do you want us to do, use an ATM or eTransfer?” Acevedo said. “We might as well hold up a neon sign to Ameri-Inc. that flashes ‘Come and get us.’ ”

  Chili shrugged.

  Acevedo and Niyati rummaged through their pockets and dumped whatever coins they had on the cell’s cot. Acevedo added them all up and said, “Counting the change, that brings us to two hundred and ninety-nine dollars and ninety-seven cents.”

  “Hoo, that’s close, but…” he shook his head.

  “What?” Acevedo practically screamed. “Three cents? You’re shittin’ me.”

  Chili raised his chin. “Mr. Acevedo, you’re in no position to question anyone’s bowel movements, particularly mine.” He removed a bundle of keys from his pocket and jangled them.

  Acevedo grunted and leaned against the cell’s back wall.

  “Um, do any of you smoke?” Niyati asked.

  “Mitchell does,” the sheriff replied, “but I keep telling him to quit. It’ll only lead to lung cancer.”

  “Mitchell,” Niyati said. “How’d you like to buy half-a-pack of cigarettes for three cents?” She slipped out her lighter and pack of Gold Flake Kings from her smock.

  Mitchell eyed the exotic gold carton with the red label. He glanced at Sheriff Chili. The sheriff shrugged. Mitchell ventured over to the cell.

  “They’re from India. The tobacco is a honeydew blend. Very smooth. Try it.” She held out a cigarette and her lighter.

  Mitchell studied it a moment. “I don’t think so. I like Kools.” He started to return to his desk.

  Sheriff Chili grabbed his arm. “Ya know, they’d be a good conversation starter with the women. And I bet she’d throw in the lighter, too.”

  Mitchell turned to Niyati and raised his brows.

  “Deal!” Niyati stuck both items through the bars. Mitchell reached for them. She whipped her hand back. “The money first, if you please.”

  Mitchell slipped a coin from his pocket. “You got change for a nickel?”

  Acevedo started to blurt something, but Niyati held her hand up.

  They exchanged the coins. Niyati handed him the cigarettes and lighter. “That makes three hundred dollars exactly, sheriff.”

  Sheriff Chili unlocked the cell and slid the door open. “You can lower the rifle, Bobby.”

  Bobby relaxed.

  Niyati handed the sheriff the coins. Acevedo handed the rest of the money to him. Chili unlocked J-1’s cell and slid it open. J-1 remained seated on his bed. “Does that thing want to get out?” he asked Niyati.

  “His name is J-1,” Niyati said.

  Sheriff Chili nodded once. “Sorry, Ma’am. J-1.”

  Acevedo was surprised at the respect in
his voice, and impressed how he picked up on Niyati’s sensitivity to the phrase. “J-1, do you want to leave the cell?” Acevedo said.

  “Sure. I’d like to explore.” He walked out.

  “What next?” Acevedo said to the sheriff.

  “Nothing. You’re free to go.”

  “We don’t have to sign papers or anything?”

  “You’re thinking like a white man,” Sheriff Chili said, glancing at Niyati. “Would you like lunch before you leave? Courtesy of Old Town, Seminole Sector Roulette Four.”

  Acevedo spread his palms in a query to Niyati.

  “We’d love to,” Niyati said.

  “Bobby, Mitchell, if you need anything, we’ll be at Connie Swamp’s.” The sheriff motioned Acevedo and Niyati out the door. Acevedo stepped into the lightning-white, sweltering day. The first thing he noticed was the thrum of helicopters in the sky.

  Chapter Seventeen

  Date: 2250

  Earth

  Ari’s Golden Cut, Tehran

  A gray-haired waiter in a sailor’s Dixie Cup hat, black-and-yellow-barred tee-shirt and thigh-length tan cabana pants, stepped aside. Rebeka glanced at the steak he had just sliced and nodded her approval. Though the waiter’s countenance was stoic, there was pleasure in his eyes. The waiter removed a champagne bottle from a glistening ice bucket and quietly poured the remainder into her and Xia Ruffet’s glasses.

  “Thank you, Ernest.” Xia handed Ernest a token for two milligrams of GTS.

  Ernest bowed, stepped back and disappeared beneath the shadow of a date palm tree.

  A porpoise leaped not far off from the shoreline, where their table faced. A salty breeze danced through Rebeka’s hair. An ocean liner meandered along the horizon, separating the baby-blue sea from the amber sky. Though the setting sun still reflected hotly off the rippled waves, the temperature was a perfect seventy-three degrees.

  Xia was dressed in a double-breasted reefer jacket. His Homburg hat and suede gloves rested on the table beside him. He smiled and raised his glass. “What do you think, my dear?” His eyes locked onto hers, after a hasty look at her décolletage.

  Perfect, she thought. She had decided on the strapless pink taffeta dress because it revealed her bust at the midpoint, which sent the message, “sexy but not sleazy.” “Actually, Xia, I was hoping for something a little more, well, fin de siècle.”

  His eyes lit up. “Really?”

  God, no. “If it’s agreeable with you,” she purred.

  “Of course, of course!” He motioned toward the date palm tree. Ernest appeared from beneath it.

  “We’d like a Victorian era bar, triple arched with a brass plate in the center arch.” He glanced at Rebeka and winked. She smiled. “Make it cherry and curly birch wood with egg and dart moldings. Fully stocked, of course, and a Brunswick Union League pool table.” Ernest started to say something, but Xia cut him off. “Oh, and a triple disc music box. A Symphonion Eroica. Have it play ‘Cuddle Up a Little Closer.’ ”

  “Mr. Ruffet, it’s impossible on such short notice. This is our busiest time of year. Our virtual-techs are overloaded and with so much going on, our processors can’t possibly handle the—”

  Xia handed him four more GTS tokens.

  Ernest’s eyes widened. “I’ll see what I can do, sir.” He half-bowed and rushed down the shore.

  Before Xia could finish his second toast to Rebeka the dazzling blue and amber landscape faded to gray. Everything except their food, the table, and the two chairs they were sitting in had disappeared. They now sat in a large barroom with an oak floor. Sky and water were replaced with Tiffany chandeliers, mahogany roof beams, tripartite walls with dado paneling and a cathedral carved cornice below the ceiling. The triple arched bar took up one entire side. Unopened liquor bottles stood on the mirrored shelves. In front of the bar were wooden stools. Ernest entered from a backroom. His hair was hair tonic slick and parted down the middle. He was dressed in matching black slacks and shirt. A white bartender apron hung from his neck and was tied around his waist. He walked to one of several brass beer taps behind the bar. “Can I interest the lady in a drink? Absinthe perhaps, or you in a suds, Mr. Ruffet?”

  Rebeka waved him off with her hand.

  “I’ll have the beer. Then we’d like to be left alone.”

  Ernest poured the beer into a large mug. He handed it to Xia and entered the backroom.

  Near the corner of the dining table, which was now carved birch, the pool table rested. “Cuddle Up a Little Closer,” chimed in three-part harmony on the upright Symphonion nestled in the other corner. The room smelled vaguely of cedar, cigar smoke, and cinnamon.

  Rebeka said, “It’s really magnificent, Xia dear.”

  Xia shrugged. “It’s nothing.” The smile that followed said he was pleased with himself.

  Rebeka waited until his ego had settled in. “This has been a wonderful evening.” She reached across the table and rubbed his hand.

  He studied it a moment and cleared his throat. “Would you care to dance?”

  “Do you have anything a little more current?”

  “Ernest,” Xia shouted. “Replace ‘Cuddle Up a Little Closer’ with the Philip K. Dicks’ ‘Total Eclipse of the Heart.’ ”

  The quaint chimes of “Cuddle Up a Little Closer” were replaced with the Dicks’ multi-rhythms and floaty voicings of bright eyes and spark-charged powder kegs.

  “How’s that?”

  Rebeka smiled. “Perfect.”

  The pair stood. Rebeka walked into his arms. They swayed. She laid her head on his shoulder. He kissed her cheek. She turned her face and pressed her lips to his. They stopped swaying, clung together as if glued at the midsection. When their mouths separated, Xia said, “Shall we retire to a place somewhat more intimate, Rebeka dear?”

  Rebeka lowered her eyes demurely. “Yes, Xia.” God, she thought, I wish he’d slap me hard across the cheek.

  “Ernest,” Xia shouted. “We’d like a boudoir.”

  The barroom setting dissolved into a lush, heavily curtained room with a glowing fireplace, a cheval glass mirror, and a large brass bed.

  ~~~

  Rebeka swept her fingertips across Xia’s eyebrow, down his cheek and across his lips.

  He clutched her hand and kissed it. “You were marvelous.” He rolled off of her and onto his back. He smiled at the ceiling.

  “We were marvelous.” She rolled on her side to face him, draped her arm across his chest, and smiled at him.

  “We…”

  Rebeka thought the word lingered on his lips like the final note of a flute solo.

  “Rebeka, I’ve been giving this a lot of thought. You and I have known each other for at least seventy-five years and we’ve always gotten along smashingly.”

  Oh my God, she thought. He’s going to ask me to marry him. It was perfect! She caressed the hair surrounding his nipple and felt his areola tighten. Once we’re together, I’ll see to it in the pre-nup that I maintain control of the company and then it’ll only be a matter of time before I control a majority of the stock and then afterwards, divorce.

  He said, “This has been on my mind for a while, now, and—”

  She lowered her hand and fondled him.

  He shoved it aside. “Cut the crap, Rebeka.”

  Startled, she stared at him wide-eyed. “What’s wrong?”

  Xia retrieved a cigar and a gold, tiger head cigar cutter from a nightstand next to the bed. “Don’t play coy with me.”

  “Xia, I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

  Xia inserted one end of the cigar into the tiger’s razor-lined “O” of a mouth, clamped it shut and sliced the tip. He did the same with the cigar’s other end. “I want to know exactly what went on with that warehouse explosion and don’t give me that carbo-storm malarkey. It’s going to take longer than a month to get the plant up and operating. I’ve got a lot of stock at risk. I want the truth.”

  She forced her eyes to moisten and sat up on the
bed to allow the sheet to fall and expose her breasts. “I should have been totally honest, but I only found out the truth recently. The explosion was caused by a small band of insurgents.”

  “What?” Xia returned the cigar cutter to the stand and retrieved the matchbox lying next to it. “How could that be?”

  “The carbo-storm did play a part. It interrupted our communications. But the real truth is we failed to conceive that a handful of ragtag terrorists could penetrate our defenses. I can assure you changes are being made, and heads have already rolled.”

  “I have no doubt, but why in God’s name did you lie to me?”

  “Because I was afraid you’d sell off your stock. Once that happened other investors would follow. Forgive me?”

  Xia smirked.

  Rebeka couldn’t tell if it was in contempt or in sympathy. “If you sell now, you can make your money before news of the explosion leaks out.”

  Xia chuckled. “You’d love that, wouldn’t you? I throw away my GTS stock, you snatch it up, and that makes you majority stockholder and in essence the ruler of the kingdom.”

  She looked up and frowned. “Don’t be so droll, Xia.” A pathetic comeback, she knew, but the force of his words felt like a blow to her chin.

  He passed the cigar beneath his nostrils like a slim cob of corn, sniffed it and placed one end in his mouth. “If you can’t get the plant up and running at full capacity within six months, you’ll leave me no choice but to—” he lit the other end and took several quick puffs to stoke it “—but to pay a visit to your brother, Herb.”

  She felt a chill worm down her spine. She knew what was coming next.

  “And between the two us with our combined stocks, we’ll vote you out as CEO.”

  “Why? What’s in it for you?”

  “The same as it always is. Wealth, power…and you, my dear.”

  She laughed bitterly. “Me? Selling to Herb will only make me hate you, Xia. Surely you understand that?”

  He smiled. “Of course I do, but let’s be honest, shall we? As I noted, my stock is the key to your taking over Ameri-Inc.” She started to protest, but he raised his palm. “Don’t play denial. Herb’s already spoken to me about it.” He took another puff on the cigar. “But what Herb doesn’t know is—God help me—I’m hopelessly infatuated with you.”