Scarcity

by Robert Calbeck

  Tanya, now free of tape, tackled Luthor in a hug.

  “I love you,” she said repeatedly into the crook of his neck through sobs. Her body heaved as she struggled to breathe over her tears. By the time she broke contact her eyes were red and her cheeks were stained.

  “I can’t believe how well that worked,” Michael said. He stared disbelievingly at his open hands.

  “What did you throw?”

  “The entire tray of potassium. Since it reacts with water, I thought I could distract him with an impromptu grenade.”

  “Quick thinking.”

  “I only hoped to distract him, I didn’t think the reaction would be powerful enough to knock him down!”

  Tanya clenched her fists. “Will you two stop being such goddamn scientists and figure out what the hell just happened!” As soon as the words had flowed out she clapped a hand over her mouth, eyes wide. “I… I didn’t mean to say that.”

  “If ever it is okay, it is now.” Luthor said, holding her close. Tanya had a strange peculiarity with cursing. She prided herself on never saying ‘God’ as a curse. It was in the Ten Commandments or something. For her to curse in such a manner indicated that she was well beyond the breaking point. But death and murder could do that to people.

  Michael seemed to be losing his body’s steadying epinephrine surge and had started crying. They were big, pitiful man-sobs, the kind of lament Luthor wished he still had inside him. Crying got the pain out. Now the only kind of catharsis available was a heart rate that was three times higher than usual and a mind full of terrible memories. Michael’s eyes leaked tears and his voice quavered. “Eli…he’s dead. It’s all my fault.”

  Eli was dead. Luthor had killed two others. Everything had changed.

  #

  They had arranged Eli’s body as peacefully as possible on the office floor. His hands were folded across his chest and his legs straight. A blanket covered him and pillows braced his head, failing to fully hide the gruesome exit-wound. It just didn’t seem real. He had been so alive, so passionate; he cared about everyone in his life. As Tanya cried, she found herself wishing she had known him better.

  Tanya longed for answers, but none appeared. The two dead men didn’t provide any clues either. The one in the hallway had held nothing of note to identify him or indicate his true purpose. All they knew was that he was a young, muscular, south Asian man with a smog-load of firepower on him. Apart from his high-tech bullet proof vest—'Gelvar’ Michael had said— he had a pistol and a fancy-looking machine gun strapped to his back, not to mention a dozen clips of bullets—or were they called magazines? She couldn’t remember. And two grenades.

  The other body looked like something from a bad vampire movie. Water from the destroyed sink had mixed with the man’s blood, greatly exaggerating its quantity. The red water spread from the body in a giant swath. He was similarly equipped with gelvar and a miniature armory.

  “No! Not this!” Michael yelled. He picked up the brown satchel soaking in blood water. It was the bag that held their presentation computer. “Why did he have to grab the goddamn laptop?”

  They had elected to not copy the research before the presentation to any other devices as a security precaution. The only other copy was back in Illinois. Luthor always said the reactions and cyclotron data were too hopelessly complicated to remember, they needed that data.

  Slowly, Michael lifted the gray computer out of the blood-soaked bag. “Damn it Luthor, I told you it was stupid not to have a back-up with us!”

  Luthor’s head drooped visibly. “How bad is it?”

  “I can’t tell.” Michael turned the computer over in his hands. “Looks like the bag kept most of the water out. Qwiz could probably fix it.”

  “We don’t have Qwiz.”

  “Then we wait until it dries out and hope it turns on.”

  “That is our only copy of the research. How are we going to present our findings if it’s ruined?”

  Michael put the computer down on the table, his eyes red and puffy. “Not that it even matters. Eli is dead!” His pain and guilt were as evident as the blood on the floor.

  But it wasn’t Michael’s fault. Tanya mentally listed half a dozen things that could have changed the outcome. For that matter, if they hadn’t come in the first place, he would be alive too. But, ultimately, he should never blame himself for the actions done in cold blood by another person. Michael hadn’t pulled that trigger, how could it be his fault? Tanya tried to concoct the best possible arrangement of words to help Michael, but Luthor interrupted. His own demons seemed to blind him to the fact that his intern was drowning in grief.

  “We came half-way around the world to present,” he said. “We have been working years for this opportunity. And if men are willing to kill to steal 126, it shows us just how important our presentation is!”

  “I just never imagined a situation where we would be fighting for our lives, Luthor,” Michael said. “I haven’t had to see that since the Culling…” he trailed off, apparently not wanting them to hear his voice crack again. Tanya couldn’t blame him.

  “Then imagine this: finally we would live in a world where another Culling is impossible. 126 can ensure there’d never be another food shortage and people won’t freeze to death in the winter because they can’t heat their homes. We’d be able to make enough medicine to stop plagues; kids wouldn’t have to hunt rats on the street to survive. Think of a world where we don’t have to go to war and kill each other over resources. If we can get that computer to work, all of that becomes a reality in a matter of years!”

  Luthor picked up the soggy laptop. “It’s long past time that we called carbon police. While we wait for them to arrive, maybe we can dry this thing out.”

  “The carps aren’t going to like this.” Michael said. “Three dead bodies. This isn’t going to look good for us.”

  “We will explain what happened. Forensics will clearly show their bullets killed Eli. We just have to pray they will let us present in the meantime.”

  “I think we might need to revise our expectations,” Tanya said quietly.

  “What do you mean?” Luthor asked.

  “I mean, maybe we should forget about presenting. At this point, our goal should be to stay alive.” Tanya felt a hole open up inside her, all her hopes sinking into its blackness.

  She couldn’t believe this was happening, yet she understood where it led. Neither Luthor nor Michael seemed to have put the pieces together, so she continued. “Don’t you see? Two men with grenades and Uzis came in here willing to kill in order to get your research. These aren’t scientists trying to steal fame. This is much bigger and more dangerous. Whoever is behind this, is well-funded, well equipped, and ruthless.”

  “They each had a Gelvar vest, ” Michael added. “I’ve only heard of Special Forces having those.”

  Luthor swore.

  “Whoever wants this is powerful enough to afford their own armed forces,” Tanya continued.

  “Then why did they only send two?” Luthor asked confrontationally.

  “Maybe that’s all they could afford at the time, or maybe they didn’t expect a couple of scientists to be able to kill two men armed to the teeth. I don’t know and won’t speculate. But it would be foolish to assume they won’t send more once they find out these two failed. carps aren’t going to help us much. We need to get out and we need to do it now. Before somebody else comes in here and kills us.”

  “Before they kill us?” Michael said. “Luthor, we have to call Qwiz!” Michael frantically pulled out his cell phone. “They thought Eli was you, Luthor! They knew your name. They probably know everything about you by now. Like where you live. What if they send people to your house while Qwiz is there? We can’t let him die too!”

  Chapter 5:

  Aurora, Illinois, United States of the West

  An ominous red LED glowed on Qwiz’s canvas sandals. It beamed out of a transparent panel on his towering computer. The machine was unseemly
in size, unwieldy in its sheer computing capability, and a glutton for power. Just the way he liked it. Thanks to his speedy solid-state drives—four 2-terabyte units linked in RAID 0 to be precise— it booted in seconds, and Qwiz had yet to ever see a loading screen on any game. The muted whine of the various fans that helped cool the electronics spun together like an orchestra. Another red LED, visible through the clear side panel of the tower, illuminated the rectangular, nickel-coated copper heatsink sitting on top of twin 16-core Intel processors. He had overclocked them to 5.1 ghz, possible thanks to an aggressive water-cooling array that siphoned off the excess heat. He had named the ultra-powerful machine, Norquist, after a legendary sword he’d read in a story as a kid.

  He harmonized with the fans with rapid clicking of his mouse and long strings of crisp clacking from the mechanical keyboard. The keyboard was another old piece of technology, like all the components of his machine, but he preferred the high raised buttons with their responsive mechanical switches to the modern slim-line or touch screen counterparts used everywhere else.

  Qwiz was old school and not ashamed to admit it.

  Three blazing screens, arranged in a semicircle, cast dancing shadows in the dark room. Each screen’s 30-inch surface was crammed with four times the pixels of modern displays its size. Society had quickly abandoned the ESHD format as energy prices soared in the ‘20s. It was simply too energy intensive for processors and video cards to render images that detailed. As a result, the monitors were something of an antique, but still provided unparalleled resolution, so Qwiz had kept them. He had always preferred monitors to VR; they didn’t give him vertigo. At his house he had three other identical screens, doubling the size of his display. It took four of the most powerful video cards ever created all working in tandem to power his full set up. Today he only had two of them activated to save money. Admittedly, he wasted all of his spare income to power this beast, but that didn’t mean he had to be wasteful and use all four cards when it wasn’t strictly necessary.

  But this time he wasn’t spending his own money on energy. Luthor had asked him to watch his house and had given him permission to bring over his computer and use his power. All that free electricity, just bubbling up from that machine in the basement, just waiting to be used. It couldn’t hurt to turn the other GPU’s on too, right? No, I promised Luthor I would watch his house. I will not ferret away extra power for a few extra frames per second. He’s selling it to make money. It would be the same as stealing. Temptation overcome, he clicked his mouse rapidly and watched the head of another monster explode.

  Qwiz was on the front-end of a late-night video game marathon that could easily stretch all the way to the morning. The game of choice tonight was Devolution. Qwiz had not played the game before, but was intrigued by the concept. An unknown source was causing people’s DNA to devolve, reverting normal humans into base, mindless, half-animal monsters. His character led a team whose job it was to find the source of the devolution and stop it.

  “Oh Shit. Qwency, help me!” cried Bill, his video-game buddy and long-time friend. They lived next to each other in a large apartment building outside of Chicago. Bill provided the Mountain Dew and Qwency paid for the power to play the games. They made a good team. Even though Bill was almost three times the age of Qwiz, they had become good friends. Bill was one of the few who had been willing to look beyond Qwiz’s Korean heritage to see the man underneath. Most everyone else just saw a racist caricature: another greedy member of the Chinese block who had incited World War III over Antarctican oil. Qwiz hated the racism. He had nothing to do with the war. He had been 14 when it had started. Bill had never cared that he was Asian. Qwiz never cared that Bill was old.

  Bill looked over to Qwiz in a panic. “Hurry, the Rhinovar’s eating my face!”

  Qwiz ignored the unholy predators slashing away at his own life and sprinted to save Bill.

  “It’s too late,” Bill said. “Just save yourself!”

  “I never leave a man behind!” Qwiz shouted. Real heroes gladly sacrificed their lives to save their friends. Qwiz had never had the opportunity to be an actual hero, but he had no intention of letting his friend die in a video game if he could help it. He digitally pulled out a very large gun and wailed away at the Man-Rhino on top of Digital-Bill. The beast shuddered and collapsed; Bill limped away with less than 10% health. Qwiz turned and fired at his own assailants. They clawed him viciously, but with his last bullet, Qwiz managed to put them down. His character too limped away, with barely 2 hit-points to rub together. The icon indicating that they had just reached a check-point flashed on the screen. They had made it.

  The gray-maned man heaved a sigh of relief and paused the game. “Sorry, I need a breather after that one. That son-of-a-goat almost had me.”

  “I thought you said it would take more than a mere monster to take down the mighty Stone,” Qwiz said. Bill insisted that everyone call him Stone. Apparently, it had been a nickname he had received in Iraq after he had charged alone into a building occupied by terrorists. According to Bill, after he was done there were four dead terrorists. His commanding officer gave him the name Stone at that point, referring to the quality of his man-parts.

  “That was no mere Monster.” Bill said, “that thing was at least half Rhino.” Unexpectedly, he wrapped the younger man in a bear hug. It hurt.

  “What was that for?” Qwiz asked.

  “You risked your life to save my ass back there.”

  “It’s just a game.”

  “It’s the point of the thing. If we were ever in a war together, I know you’d do the same thing.”

  Qwiz blushed slightly at the compliment. “I don’t know about that—”

  Bill cut him off. “But I do. I’ve been there. I’ve been shot at; I’ve shot at people. I can tell when a guy is going to lay it on the line for me or not. You would. No matter what it cost you.”

  “You think so?”

  “Does shit stink? Hell yes, I think so. Qwence, you got more character in the tip of your dick than most men have in their entire selves.”

  Qwiz didn’t know how to respond to that one. “Thank you?”

  Bill threw back his grey head and laughed. Raspy laughter filled the small apartment. His voice was ragged from a lifetime of sucking on every form of rolled up tobacco that was legal. And probably more than a few other things that weren’t. Its jagged tone had a certain endearing appeal for Qwiz.

  “I miss having you next door. How long are you going to be over here house-sitting for your co-worker anyway?”

  “Luthor is away overseas for another few weeks. And I’m not really house-sitting for him. He just said I could use his house for power while he is gone; so, I moved my computer over here.”

  “Generous man, that Luthor, with the way you run electronics.”

  Qwiz felt the urge to tell his old friend about the new power source Luthor had devised. It was just sitting there wasting current while no one was living there. It wasn’t actually so generous to give Qwiz something that was free anyhow. He suspected that the real reason for asking him to watch the house was to ensure that no one would discover his invention before the International Energy Conference and steal his credit. Regardless, Qwiz had sworn never to tell anyone about the new element or the generator. Qwiz prided himself on always keeping his promises— that’s what it meant to live by honor.

  “Yes, very generous.” It would also easily save him a week’s salary to not power his own computer for the next month. He had a number of things he planned to purchase with his burgeoning financial margin, including Devolution 2.

  Luthor had been saving a tank-full of carbon credits himself. By selling off some of the energy he was able to take both his girlfriend and his intern to the IEC. He had used the 126 at home instead of work, out of concern for its security. Luthor had been completely paranoid about that. Qwiz could only imagine the bureaucratic paperwork and documents required if he had built his generator at Fermilab; then he would have
shown his hand too soon. There would have been no way to give it away for free once the politicians got a hold of it. Qwiz respected Luthor’s selfless decision, if he succeeded, Qwiz might be able to actually speak with his Father again. Unexpectedly, Luthor’s phone buzzed on the counter.

  “Pretty damn late for a phone call.” Bill said. “Do I need to make myself scarce? Is it a booty call?”

  Qwiz gave his old friend a withering look, and Bill laughed again. Both of them knew very well that Qwiz wasn’t the sort of man to play fast and free with women. It wasn’t an honorable way to treat them.

  He pulled the still-buzzing phone off the countertop. The meager power-saving display read “International call.” It had to be Luthor—or his father, but there was no chance of that... he had been stuck in oil-greedy China since before the war. They were father-greedy too, never letting Qwiz speak with his own dad without rampant censorship. He remembered it was Luthor’s phone anyway—definitely not his father. Luthor had left the phone so Qwiz wouldn’t have to pay international phone rates. Qwiz did some quick mental math and realized it was barely 5:00 am over there. He quickly answered the call to find out what had caused them to call so early.

  “Hello L—”

  “Quiet!” Luthor snapped. Something was clearly wrong.

  “Sorry—”

  “I don’t have long so please just listen. We’re in trouble. Deep trouble. Somebody broke into the lab early this morning and tried to steal our 126.”

  Qwiz was stunned, Luthor had taken extreme measures to ensure the intellectual security of his research. He had personally asked Qwiz to encrypt his computer data so it would be impossible for anyone to hack into it. Qwiz had done an excellent job of that. “How did they even know about it?”

  “I have no idea. And that’s what scares me.” Luthor stopped talking. Qwiz waited for him to continue. “They murdered Eli.”