Writers of the Future: 29

by L. Ron Hubbard

  As I leave for the day, Mary from Accounting blows me a kiss. She usually does this when I wear the goggles. Ava claims Mary likes me and I pause to contemplate asking for a date. I vow to heed the social feature’s suggestions this time.

  She asks me about my day and I tell her it was normal. I don’t mention the absent halo problem. I definitely don’t mention my run-in with Marty. When I ask her if she wants to grab coffee tomorrow, I’m rewarded with a yes.

  I walk with a little more confidence to the maglev station headed for Chicago. Home can wait. The itch isn’t so bad after several hours and the headache is finally starting to ebb.

  If I wore the goggles more often, I could make more friends. Maybe people would forget I’m that “autistic guy” who works in Digital Forensics. Maybe I could be Howie instead of Howard. Howard sounds like an awkward, short, balding old man. Howie has dates on the weekend, friends who meet him at the bar after work. Howie solves cases.

  I stand on the maglev platform and wait for the train to Chicago. The icy air cuts deep into my face and neck. I pull the collar over my ears to cut the chill, but the stubborn New York wind is unrelenting, like thousands of tiny bugs biting at my skin.

  The scent advertisements at the station attempt to sell me hot dogs and roasted chestnuts. They compete for my olfactory attention along with hundreds of other smells that make the acid in my stomach churn. I use the corner of my coat to cover my nose.

  A crowd surrounds me and I move away. People bump against my side to get a better location on the platform. My fingers are numb, so I roll them into a ball and notice my palms are wet. I squeeze my arms against my chest and curl my hands into tight, tight fists. I hunch my shoulders over my arms. I just want a space that is mine.

  I board the train while the goggles control the sensations around me. Without them, the constant flashing of ads projected overhead and the blaring announcements would leave me rocking in a corner. Eddie’s wife was killed in a high-speed train crash. There is a one in five hundred thousand chance of a train crash, which is safer than an electric trolley. I repeat the ratio in my head for the duration of the trip.

  At the Chicago stop, I pull up a map of the city on one of the touch kiosks at the city center. The kiosk offers to direct me to my destination and I accept. I follow the arrows to each kiosk, and arrive at my first death site.

  On a park bench, I replay the siphon render from one Chicago victim. Michael Benson, 28, went out for a jog and collapsed from an apparent aneurism. He tripped and rolled. Another jogger found him tucked between these two wood benches.

  I lie on the ground, try to see what he would have seen. All I observe is peeling paint, trash scraping along the jogging path, and the smell of remnants left by irresponsible pet owners.

  The goggles alert me to three people staring. The body language and facial recognition analysis indicates a woman is afraid of my behavior; a man by the fountain is poised to fight me if necessary. Another man stares at me from the bench. It’s Eddie.

  “Howard, what are you doing?”

  He’s sitting on the bench drinking out of a flask. “Don’t look at me like that,” he says. “Yeah, I followed you. Saw you leave with the goggles on. You never wear the goggles more than you have to.”

  “It’s against park regulations to drink alcohol.” I point to the sign.

  He takes another sip.

  “I found two more siphons without halos.”

  Eddie takes the render of the park death, his lips flat and back tense as if I’ve asked him to undertake an unbearable responsibility. “Once we figure out the problem on these siphons, then you leave this alone, okay? No more going off on your own.”

  This is the closest I will come to an offer of partnership from Eddie. “Okay.”

  We decide to head down to the second site—a middle-class neighborhood with no advertisements projecting in a twenty-block radius due to homeowner association restrictions. The streets are for bikes only.

  I could take off my goggles, but so far today I’ve made a date, boarded a high-speed train and gotten Eddie to partner with me on a case. I can’t afford to screw it up now.

  Our search comes up empty. No new ideas, no evidence of skips like the Turner case back in New York, the one that had me so upset this morning. Now I can’t remember why.

  Eddie examines the case. “This death was ruled a suicide. She stopped taking her medication for depression a month before she died.”

  We now have three cases, each one with a different cause of death, nothing in common on the surface except that none of the siphons have halos. Eddie leans against the back of a concrete bench, crossing his arms. He is bored, my goggles assert.

  Sixty-eight percent of Catholics believe committing suicide will decrease your chances of going to heaven. Father Solomon says that only the highest power can decide on the fate of a soul. Eddie can’t decide; I can’t decide. The breeze whips around my ears and neck and we both shiver.

  “Let’s go back,” Eddie says. “It’s late, Howard. We’ll start fresh tomorrow.”

  He pats me on the back. I don’t cringe away from the touch. I think about asking him to call me Howie. Howie would be friends with a guy like Eddie.

  I wake up the next morning with the goggles on, because I neglected to take them off. The same company that produces the goggles makes contact lenses, like the ones Ava wears. I could appear even more normal at work and around town, and get an earbud for my auditory issues.

  Only problem is I process the memory clips better without the goggles. Which reminds me, I need to review the two Chicago siphons.

  I slide the goggles away from my face, and my eyes flinch at the bright lights. Pain jabs into my head from the empty place, as if I’ve lost a limb. Fumbling, I manage to dim the lights to the lowest setting. I rub my temples and think about Eddie.

  He doesn’t think the absent halos are a problem. It doesn’t bother him the way it bothers me. I hold my arms across my chest, squeezing tight. Sometimes I wrap myself in the blankets like a cocoon, preparing myself for the day, except I don’t emerge a butterfly. I stay a scared, hungry caterpillar.

  But yesterday Eddie took the case. He hasn’t taken a case since his wife died. He usually takes the grunt digital work, and babysits me down in archive.

  I upload the siphons I’ve been analyzing. When I recall the different causes of death on each case, I run a search of all siphons prepared by employees working in departments outside of homicide and suspicious deaths. Four more appear to be missing halos, making seven total siphons missing halos. All seven siphons are shorter and all seven were from cases in the last six months.

  I pin the death sites to a map. No pattern.

  I think about what Marty said, that maybe the victims went to hell and didn’t see the halo because they will not be invited into the light.

  My first missing-halo case, Sera Turner, was a journalist and a musician. She donated money to a homeless shelter and volunteered at a soup kitchen. Sera should have had a halo.

  I pick another file. Michael Benson. Michael was a small-business owner, single, visited a gym regularly, and space-dived once a year. He doesn’t appear to have done anything wrong. Father Solomon says to always assume that someone is good, “lest ye be judged” and all that, so I assume that Michael should have a halo too.

  It’s early, but Father Solomon will be awake. He would know why someone would die without a halo. I call. When the video flicks on, Father Solomon sits in front of a tapestry of the Pentecost.

  His wrinkled eyes and mouth turn down. “Hello, Howard. You are troubled?”

  “Yes, Father.” I want to explain the case, but Eddie warned me to keep it secret. Police protocol. It’s the rules. “What would cause someone to not see the light after death?”

  “Has someone close to you died?”

  “No, Father.”

/>   The tension melts from his shoulders and face. “Ah, you seek the answer to a speculative question and not a spiritual one.” He adjusts his position in the chair, like a teacher preparing for a lesson. “If someone does not see the light, perhaps it is because it’s not his time and he’s not yet dying.”

  The idea disturbs me. The missing-halo victims not actually being dead, their spirits roaming the earth because they have not seen the light. Except the missing-halo victims are dead. Their bodies were processed and deaths documented.

  Father notices me rocking and tries to calm me, but I manage to thank him for his answers and concern. He’s still attempting to soothe me when I end the call.

  The buzzer at the door reminds me to head out to the trolley, so that I won’t be late for work. I like the trolley; it rocks back and forth, and that keeps me from getting nervous. Ava takes the same trolley.

  The morning news projects above the trolley windows. I usually avoid the screens because they make my eyes burn, but the anchor is interviewing Dr. Ennis and Dr. Reg about mind transfers. I bounce my gaze from the screen to the floor before I realize I can focus on the bottom left corner of the screen and the burning is not as bad.

  The anchor leans into the two scientists. “Dr. Reg, you’ve begun a new spinoff on the transfer research. Would you elaborate?”

  Dr. Reg nods, petting two of his fingers along his jawline. “We’ve been looking into ways to use transfers to cure behavioral and mental disorders.” His voice dips at the end, and Dr. Ennis places a hand on his partner’s shoulder. “I’m sorry.” He continues, “The research is very important to me. I had a sister who suffered from bipolar disorder. She wasn’t consistent about wearing her sensory augmentation contacts and ended her life two years ago. Our research will help so many people.”

  I wonder about Ava. She wears her contacts all the time. Why is she still sad? The interview ends before Ava boards the trolley.

  “Hey, Howard,” she says.

  I want to tell her to call me Howie. Then I remember I don’t have the goggles on, so she’s right: I’m just Howard.

  She blows on her coffee. Her breath through the cap hole makes a deep howling sound and I recoil, but she pretends not to notice. Ava never makes me feel different.

  She places her coffee between her legs and fumbles around her purse for a small bag. “I’ve been thinking about the no-halo problem.” She applies her eye shadow and lipstick while she talks. “I did some research about the process—” She puts the makeup away and faces me. I dart my gaze out the window. There is too much stimulation when I look at her hazel eyes, and the red lipstick is too intense. She continues even though I’m not facing her. “It works best if we can get to a body within twenty-four hours after death. The longer we wait, the more incomplete the siphon. That could be what is happening to your siphons.”

  No. My siphons are different. “The siphons I found were all extracted well within the twenty-four-hour time frame. And siphons always have halos.” It feels like seven ghosts are all following me, waiting for me to solve the riddle so they can find their light.

  She leans forward, and I notice I’m rocking. I try to stop myself but I can’t. I’m a caterpillar on a leaf shaking from the wind. The trolley stops and we shuffle off. I hug my arms to my chest. Maybe I should get the goggles.

  “What do all the cases have in common?” Ava asks.

  “I put them up on a map. No pattern.”

  “Not just a geographical commonality, but socially. Where did each of these people work? What extracurricular activities did they participate in? What gyms did they go to?”

  All the questions bounce off my brain. I imagine the ghosts running to pick them up and thrust them in my face. I dodge them, trying to listen to Ava’s advice.

  Eddie joins us as we jog up the steps. “You trying to take my case, Ava?”

  She grins, and I don’t understand why she’s happy. I wish I had the goggles.

  Ava rolls her lips as if she’s trying to swallow the smile before Eddie sees it. “I thought Howard would be on his own,” Ava says. “We both know the captain won’t support the case; there’s nothing to go on.”

  “My favorite kind of case.”

  Ava humphs when Eddie says this, and he stops her with his arm before she goes into the door. I keep swaying while Eddie continues, “I looked up the siphons last night for social commonalities between the victims. Too many hits to really pin it down. Do you think someone could be editing the memories?”

  Ava looks at me.

  I cling tighter to my coat while I fix my gaze on the doorway. “The first siphon could be edited. Siphons don’t skip. The other six—”

  “Six?” Eddie interrupts me. “Wait, there are seven now?” He blocks the doorway as he faces me.

  I flap my hands in the air, thinking about all the siphons without halos, and Eddie is too close. I can smell the gin from last night.

  Ava rubs her hand on my back. “Shh, Howard. Calm down.” She glares at Eddie. “Is the interrogation necessary?”

  Eddie steps away. “Look, he’s the one who wants to look into the siphons; I think it’s a waste of time. The least he can do is update the case file so I can be informed.”

  “He’s not a detective, Eddie,” Ava says.

  “It’s not a case. We don’t have a case number,” I say. Then I repeat, “we don’t have a case number” over and over because I don’t know what I did wrong. Why is Eddie so angry?

  Eddie talks over me. “This whole thing is ridiculous. I hate working in Digital.” He snaps his attention back to me. “Howard, stop it.”

  I stop talking, but switch over to humming. The advertisements flicker overhead so I look at the ground. Maybe I should wear the goggles now. Today is the sixteenth. Eddie is not in a very good mood on the sixteenth of every month.

  Today will be the seventh month Eddie is a jerk on the sixteenth. He will sit in his chair down in archive and watch the unusually long siphon renders from the high-speed train wreck victims.

  He shoves through the entry and heads to archive. Ava guides me through the door too and doesn’t say anything. She explains to Marty that I want to learn how to use the case system for some special job down in Digital. Marty shows me the basics while I rock in the chair next to him. I already know how to use the case filing system. Instead, I think about the absent halos and wonder if I should call Father Solomon again. He could say a prayer for the victims. They should all have halos, even if they did do something bad.

  As Ava leaves for an appointment, she reminds me to look for similarities. I rework the information I have: seven siphons with no halo; seven different types of death ranging from murder to natural causes; no pattern on death location.

  I run all the siphons again for commonalities in the metadata. There are a few hits; most are not statistically significant connections. One connection bothers me: all the victims had mental disabilities or disorders and were prescribed SAT contacts.

  I feel the fluttering in my stomach again and this time I grope around in my coat for the goggles and put them on.

  I think about the connection and what it has to do with the missing halos. The room buzzes with officers going about their day. Phones ring; a group by the water filter laughs.

  The goggles dig into the skin around my eyes. I’ve been wearing them too often. I fiddle with the lenses, pulling them away to relieve some of the pressure. My pulse pounds into the back of my eyes like an angry neighbor banging on the wall to keep the racket down.

  I slip down to Digital Archive. Eddie is working, not looking at train wreck siphons.

  “They were all like me.”

  He doesn’t stop sliding the renders around his holodesk. They move between us like chess pieces. “What do you mean?”

  “They all wore SAT devices.” I point to my goggles.

  He lower
s his hand from the work screen. “Is this why you won’t let it go?” The goggles tell me he is angry because he thinks I’ve withheld information again.

  “No, I noticed the connection. After I ran the seven victims.”

  “Seven victims.” He mutters under his breath something I can’t hear because my earpiece keeps volume low. “When I only had three that coincidence was not that important, but now you say all seven had SATs?”

  “I just said that.” The goggles flash a warning: social mistake.

  Eddie ignores my error. “Not enough. We need more evidence.”

  “They all had consultations with Dr. Ennis.”

  “That doesn’t mean anything yet.”

  “We should search Dr. Ennis’s office or subpoena the medical files of the victims.”

  He laughs. “Come on, Howard, we have to have more than appointments with Dr. Ennis to get our hands on medical files. They all had different causes of death. How do you explain that to a judge?”

  “Okay.” I nod as if I understand, but I don’t. “Okay. We’ll get more information.”

  He puts on his coat while heading for the door. He pats my shoulder and I flinch from his touch. I don’t like people touching me when they’re angry. They might hit me.

  “You’ll figure it out,” he says as he leaves. Does that mean Eddie is no longer helping me? I could ask him, to find out for sure, but I don’t. I should have known better than to try to talk to Eddie on the sixteenth of the month. Ava will listen, except Ava is at an appointment. I try to remember where she was going.

  All at once it hits me: Ava is in danger.

  The goggles detect my increased heart rate, and the auditory feed emits a buzzing sound to calm me. I squeeze my arms around my body because the buzzing is not enough. I pace the room, wondering if I should check on her, and decide to call instead. No answer.

  I go up to the front desk and ask for her, but they tell me she was due back half an hour ago. Nobody seems concerned, just annoyed that she’s not back yet.

  Mary from Accounting has her coat, and her smile is the biggest thing on her face, her eyes squinting to accommodate all those teeth and lips. “Are you ready for our date?” she asks.