Latency

by Blaze Ward

  “You going to Florida to rattle some cages?” she asked after a moment.

  “The thought had crossed my mind,” he said ominously. “Zielinski certainly fits that order of lading. And has enough of an ax to grind. Not sure yet, as I only got dragged into this case a few hours ago. Putting some irons into the fire, but they need time to get hot. Decided to take the afternoon off and see if you wanted a play date.”

  “Absolutely,” she smiled warmly. “And maybe after the movie you can stick your iron in my fire.”

  He chuckled and finished off his glass. She did the same, and unfolded in such a way that she ended up draped across him.

  Emmy put both glasses on the floor and was suddenly in his lap like the cat he’d never owned.

  “Lemme guess,” she said in between kisses. “You need the movie to let your brain settle into digesting information. And then you’re expecting me to take you off-line later, followed by dinner?”

  “Hoping,” he countered. “Never expecting. Not with you. Hoping.”

  She smiled and kissed him full. Greyson thought he could feel the purrs in her chest where he held her.

  Before they got too involved, he stood up, lifting her weight as well as his and letting her hang there for a moment before she dropped lithely to the floor.

  She broke from him and walked towards the door. She paused at the chair and grabbed his jacket, putting it around her shoulders for a moment like an opera cape with a twirl before handing it to him.

  “We’ll need this,” she said, looking somehow like a precocious seventeen-year-old for a moment.

  Greyson could barely remember being that old, but that had been nearly thirty years ago now.

  He slipped his jacket on and figured that it would all come back pretty quickly.

  He needed to think. Then she was right. He’d need to go off-line.

  Tomorrow, he was going to start hunting.

  6

  Morning

  Greyson stretched and sipped some more coffee.

  Emmy being Emmy, she’d been up an hour before dawn checking the markets and then out the door with a kiss before he rolled back over and slept until the sun coming through the curtains woke him again. After that, first coffee and an hour at his fold-down table reading whatever he could about the perp and the case file.

  At least as he was getting older, he was keeping in better shape. Otherwise, Greyson was pretty sure a woman like Emmy might just fuck him to death. Not that it would be a bad way to go, but still.

  Late morning now. Lots of snide commentary from Rachel over brunch, but at least they’d found a spot indoors, so he didn’t have to listen for gunshots. Northside joint that was open twenty-four hours, transitioning from night owls to office drones without missing a beat. Dive instead of café, just to get away from everyone as the sun outside threatened to be spring if he didn’t pay attention.

  Rachel was just teasing, though. He’d warned her that he was sleeping in this morning, so she’d done the same and was attacking a late breakfast right now while they discussed details of the new case.

  Greyson didn’t really bother with the man’s name, except as a placeholder. It was obviously a setup of some sort, and Metro PD was handling the local aspects.

  Eventually, he was sure they’d all run into solid dead ends that would bring their case to a grinding halt. The revolver would end up being a custom print job out of some black fab that didn’t believe in maker’s marks. Ditto the ammunition.

  The man had turned out to be a mid-level corporate manager type. Divorced and paying alimony. Couple of teenage kids he probably saw on every other weekend.

  Some things never change.

  Greyson’s grandmother had had the right idea, fifty years ago. A couple wanting to get married should be required to live with each other for at least two years before they could get married and be allowed to turn off the birth control meds. Then they could have a family.

  But only after they had determined that it was a good idea. Too many of the folks he’d gone to high school with had married someone within a year of graduating. Usually a kid either on the way or right after that. Then too many of them divorced within five years.

  Or: Why Greyson Leigh had never bothered…

  No, the shooter himself would be another dead end. Whoever had set him up would have had to make a couple of really egregious mistakes to be tracked, and the rest of this didn’t feel like amateur hour.

  Only the Synth Chip stood out.

  Alien design. Maybe made in an alien fabrication plant, but if you had the designs right, then almost any competent body shop could probably turn it out, from what he’d seen in other cases.

  Greyson was still waiting for Forensics to call in some favors with the Illymus Merchant Guild to see which of the various alien species out there might have done the work.

  Greyson had never been farther off-planet than one of the orbital resorts. He knew there were hundreds of inhabited planets out there, but he was a human cop. Close enough, anyway.

  Ethen had been any number of interesting places, but he hated remembering them because of all the people he’d killed, either to rob, rape, or because he needed an escape from cops like Greyson Leigh closing in on him.

  Rachel was studying him now as he circled ’round the case in his head, like a shark sniffing for blood.

  He just looked a whole battery of questions at her.

  She glanced around, but the dive they were in was mostly empty, in that mid-morning stretch where folks go elsewhere for a coffee break, and haven’t reached even an early lunch.

  He glanced at his comm. 10:13. Weird time of day to be just getting into motion.

  “I don’t know how to ask this,” she finally admitted.

  “Not like you’re going to offend me, most likely,” he countered.

  “True,” Rachel agreed. “So I’ll just kind of drop a turd in the punch bowl and then we can figure it out. Okay?”

  He scowled at the young woman and drank some more coffee.

  “If we need to go off-world to investigate this, is it safe for you?” she asked in a voice so quiet he was pretty much reading her lips.

  Greyson felt the cold hand of Death herself reach out and grab him lightly by the scruff of the neck before giving him a quick squeeze.

  Rachel saw it, too, but didn’t move, except that the light in her eyes changed.

  He could deny everything, but that would be pro forma. She’d just gotten the answer she needed. All the truth there was.

  Greyson wondered if she was about to shoot him with her nerve scrambler. It would be over fast at this range, since he wouldn’t bother dodging.

  He’d be dead. Then Ethen would have maybe a split second to decide if he wanted to join him.

  Then there would be a dead Phrenic body laying on the floor, dressed in Greyson’s clothes.

  Or maybe there was a sniper nearby? Except that they’d need to be in the restaurant.

  Nobody in here gave off cop vibes, even to Greyson’s sense of smell.

  He just stared at her for a long moment, wondering if it was all over now.

  Rachel didn’t move. Just breathed, slow and regular.

  “I don’t like off-world travel,” Greyson finally said in a carefully-neutral tone. “If it came to that, I’d probably just send you to dig after any leads that came up. You’re almost as good at this game as I am.”

  Almost? Yeah, maybe he still had a few tricks to teach Patrolman/Hunter Rachel Lupita Asher, if it came down to that.

  She nodded and picked up her coffee. Greyson remembered to breathe.

  “I could do that for you,” she said evenly, having gotten the answer she was looking for.

  Greyson Leigh wasn’t really human. Or rather, Greyson Leigh’s soul had taken possession of the Phrenic impostor who had originally killed him, and now he was the Deathwalker playing at being a Detective/Hunter.

  Or something.

  Nobody could tell, because Ethen had
let go. Had let Greyson have their body. As long as he did his sheets and laundry every three or four days, and showered daily, the sharp, ammonia smell of a Phrenic wouldn’t ever build up enough that someone could pick it up.

  Not even a dog, unless they were specifically trained for that sort of thing. And only then after they’d held him in a cell for a few days.

  Greyson would burn that bridge when he got there. He and Ethen were already living on borrowed time.

  “Besides, you’re the one that wants to join Scotland Yard,” Greyson reminded her. “I’m just the last trainer you have in Boston before you get your degree.”

  He could tell she wanted to deflect the whole conversation with some off-hand joke, but she refrained. Just stared at him for a long moment.

  “Is there anybody better at this job than you?” she finally asked.

  “No,” Greyson replied after a moment of reflection. “You will be eventually, if you keep at it for another few years and get your degree. And learn everything I can teach you in the meantime. But I’m the best. Not even the dead guys you might mention come close. They were always junior varsity when I was around.”

  “And now?” she pursued.

  “Hunter Bureau loses one hell of a cop when you take the lateral,” Greyson said. “I’ll probably just retire again at that point, unless you need me over there for something.”

  “Would you come?” She seemed surprised.

  “If you were the one asking?” he fired back.

  She nodded.

  “Probably,” Greyson concluded. “Nothing ties me to Boston.”

  “Not even Upkins?” Her eyes got mischievous.

  “Denise and I were a thing a long time ago,” Greyson said. “Before she got serious about becoming Metropolitan. I had too many secrets then to be safe for her. Got more now.”

  “Ain’t that the truth,” Rachel said, but she left it off there.

  Didn’t follow up with the obvious secret. The six hundred pound gorilla she’d brought up.

  The fact that an alien ship or station would subject him to a routine scan when he came aboard. And they would be programmed to look for Phrenic infiltrators.

  The species was fine as long as they followed the rules and subjected themselves to everyone else’s paranoia. It was the rogues that made a lot of those scanners necessary. And the collar that would keep a base-form Phrenic from shapeshifting so you knew what you were dealing with and didn’t have to fear them.

  When you could kill someone and steal all their memories, and even their DNA, you could go anywhere. Do anything.

  Even inspire humans to create the Hunter Bureau, when they needed to stop such killers.

  Greyson didn’t know what such a scan might show. Nobody would, unless he and Rachel decided to break into a black ops body shop and use their scanner.

  Sure, it was his DNA. His memories. His soul.

  Was it in his body? Or Ethen’s?

  Greyson finally decided that she wasn’t about to take him down, so he gestured the girl with the pot for a refill of his mug.

  He was going to burn a lot of calories, if he was about to dig hard into the soft underbelly of Boston’s crime scene for an alien contact that didn’t want a Hunter coming.

  But that was a decision the fool should have made a month ago, when he could still survive what was coming.

  Greyson was pissed and looking for someone to take it out on.

  7

  Fashion

  Rachel wasn’t sure what Greyson’s game was as he drove the big cruiser downtown. The man was counting streets and buildings in his head, obviously, but not even muttering right now.

  Silence, but for the sound of the wheels on the street outside the car. She’d pushed just about as hard as she felt was safe earlier, but he’d handled it with all his usual gruff aplomb and overall fuck you.

  But he had confirmed it for her. Enough, anyway.

  She’d had nightmares after that night. Seeing Greyson Leigh suddenly turn into a base model Phrenic before her eyes, before turning back into himself and chasing down their serial killer.

  She’d been concussed pretty hard when he threw her out of the way of an incoming bolt, but not so hard that she didn’t trust her eyes. Or her memory.

  She’d wondered that night, with a dead Phrenic lying next to a live Leigh, but what if there had been two of them? If the one that had killed Dominguez and failed when she showed up, if that one had gone on and gotten Greyson Leigh before he knew that he was back in the great game?

  But he’d just sat there waiting for her to shoot him, like he didn’t care.

  Maybe he didn’t. Or maybe the Phrenic was in hell now and Greyson was in charge.

  She’d never heard of anything like that, but she’d also never met anybody, of any species, as stubborn as that man.

  And this morning he’d frozen up when she’d asked. Pretty much as big an admission of guilt as you could get without actually speaking.

  And Rachel Asher hadn’t shot him.

  Should she? Everything he’d said and done for the last six months had been pretty much dedicated to making her a better cop. A better Hunter.

  It was like the Phrenic was gone and there was just Greyson. Or maybe this was what pure atonement looked like, where the thing using Leigh’s memories was trying to make up for a life of crime and stupid decisions.

  If the truth ever came out, her name would be mud for not seeing it, so she supposed that there was a little bit of self-preservation there, too, but even Emmy hadn’t stopped her relationship, and she was much closer to the man.

  Rachel shook her head as they pulled into an underground parking garage and started spiraling down to the very bottom. The depths of Boston, as it were.

  Greyson always drove like a race car driver, with a sureness of motion she’d never gotten right. It was like the man had been born to drive.

  Most cars these days were autonomous by default, but he always disabled those circuits as soon as the car started.

  Staying in control at all times.

  Another lesson for her, Rachel was pretty sure.

  Don’t let others think or act for you until you have no choice in the matter.

  Damn it, Greyson Leigh was going to be a pain in the ass, trying to live up to that kind of legend.

  Bottom floor of the garage wasn’t as full as the uppers. But this section of Boston wasn’t honeycombed with tunnels yet. Give it another generation and the alien digging machines would have created a whole second world down here where nobody ever had to see the sun again.

  As opposed to those few who did that now.

  Leigh pulled them into an empty spot and shut the car down.

  “You ready for this?” he asked, but it was mostly perfunctory.

  She nodded and they exited the vehicle.

  Liz’s instructions had been precise, and bizarre. They started right back up the ramp they’d just driven down, but on foot this time.

  Walking.

  One in four of the lights on these two levels were burned out, in spite of the aliens selling them tech that was better than that. Maybe it hadn’t made it this far yet.

  Or maybe it was on purpose.

  Rachel felt like they should have been dressed snazzier, at least for going into the underground itself, metaphorically as well as physically.

  In the old vids from before she was born, the dark future had always been full of rain or at least drizzle. Something to convey an overall grayness and depression.

  Characters wore protective gear, because the rain that fell was largely poisonous and acidic in all those stories, too. Greyson would be in a brown longcoat right now, since he was the hero. Collar up and maybe with one of those weird belts on it that folks did. The ones that they tied instead of buckling, which made no damned sense.

  Hats had gone out in the 1960s. US President Kennedy had managed to kill an entire industry, all by himself, just by deciding not to wear one but she could see Leigh in an old
fedora or something similar.

  She would be the gruff dame, but a pencil skirt wasn’t something she ever planned to own, unless it was for a party where they had to dress uncomfortably. Heels? Gimme a break.

  And they hadn’t done androgynous in those days. Being less than stridently hetero in the late 20th Century was an invitation to get beat up.

  Fucking barbarians.

  Still, Rachel figured she’d be in baggy slacks, maybe with those weird, two-toned shoes. Zoot suit, maybe? Just to completely mess with people.

  “Why are you snickering?” Greyson muttered quietly as they emerged up onto the flat part of the second level and started across the lot.

  She glanced over at the man as they moved. He wore those combat boots she’d liked so much that she owned two pairs now, black like his and her current ones in dark brown.

  Tough slacks for the bit of chill Boston still got, but nothing like heavy wool they might have done a century ago. White shirts, crisp and buttoned. Matching jacket.

  He had two buttons on his and she was stylisher with three, but again.

  “We’ll need to up our fashion game at some point,” Rachel replied.

  She could pretty much smell the sarcastic eyeroll that ensued, and grinned.

  “Kid, I burned all my ties,” Greyson muttered back. “Not buying new ones.”

  “Oh, Greyson, this will go so much beyond new ties,” she giggled quietly. “Might have to rope Emmy into it.”

  “That’s what frightens me, Rachel,” he grumbled.

  They continued across, turning down a little side corridor that was almost completely hidden behind some pillars. Rachel assumed it was a place for maintenance and service folks, away from the natural flow of foot traffic into the lifts and stairs.

  Didn’t want the beautiful people subjected to the ugly spaces.

  Just mutts like me.

  She was a stride back and on Greyson’s right. He was right-handed to her left, so it put shooting hands on the inside, if someone jumped out at them.

  Always plan for violence. Another Greyson Leigh public service announcement.