by Linda Nagata
A high-flying asshole, then. But he wasn’t wrong.
After Hurricane Nolo, when the faltering US federal government had failed to release disaster aid, a Chinese consortium stepped in, providing permanent housing for tens of thousands of displaced residents, with mortgage payments not to exceed seventy-five percent of a household’s universal basic income—the monthly federal stipend paid out to every legal American citizen. The only requirement: residents had to abide by a good-citizen agreement that enrolled them in the social rating system.
That was the first stage in an ongoing takeover. Stage two had come with the restoration of Waikīkī. And the completion of stage three was imminent. Despite bitter protest, the cabal of oligarchs known as the Venturist party—presently in power in Washington—had pushed a deal to cede the island in a ninety-nine year lease, in exchange for debt relief and the lifting of economic sanctions imposed against the United States.
Venturist propaganda made Ava seethe: We have no choice but to cut our losses and focus on the heartland of real America! Fuckers.
It was of course coincidence—and not divine judgment—that Hurricane Huko had spawned on the opening day of a conference meant to culminate in a signing ceremony that would ratify the handover treaty.
The gate opened for Ava. She crossed the little bridge, stopping just short of the esplanade. Silently, subtly, she mouthed a question: Dispatch, where am I going?
The subvocalized query generated faint neuromuscular signals that her tactile mic picked up and interpreted. A synthesized version of her voice echoed the question in her earbud.
Joni answered, “Stand by.”
Got it, Ava acknowledged.
The mic activated when it picked up a trigger word or phrase. Ava could get away with thinking Hurry the hell up, confident the sentiment would not be relayed to the operations center.
Her impatient gaze tracked the trio of young men as they strolled off toward the Hotel Taipingyang. She wondered if Huko’s looming presence would delay the signing ceremony. Some small part of her wanted to see the storm strip the value from the pending lease, because maybe then, the Chinese would back out of the deal in a last-minute move to cut their losses.
But that wasn’t likely. Not for a people capable of thinking in the long term. And the hardship Huko could cause to everyone still left in and around the city was incalculable.
Joni checked back in. “Our EP4 is on the ground. Disembarked outside the Imperial.”
“Got it,” Ava said, speaking aloud this time.
On the east side of Waikīkī, the Kalakaua Avenue pedestrian mall had been re-routed to pass behind a string of new hotels—the Imperial Garden among them—a planning decision that had granted them the coveted lagoon-front status.
Ava rolled onto the esplanade with her headlight off. She could do nothing to stop the handover, but she could at least interfere with Robert Bell’s night out.
She turned her motorcycle toward Diamond Head, opposite to the direction the young men had taken. On this stretch of coast, the points of the compass were rarely used to give directions. Instead, Diamond Head and Ewa substituted for east and west. Mauka meant toward the mountains, and makai toward the sea.
Ava moved out slowly along the empty path, determined to allow Robert Bell time to reveal his destination. Footlights lit the way with seasonal splashes of red and gold, while overhead, moonlight filtered through the canopies of trees—all regrown from stumps salvaged out of city neighborhoods abandoned after Nolo.
On her left—below the esplanade and just past the Pacific Heritage—lay the sprawling festival grounds, where the famous Duke Kahanamoku statue still stood. Post-Nolo, the statue had been recovered from the debris, refurbished and resurrected so the Duke, native Hawaiian ambassador of the sport of surfing, again welcomed visitors to Waikīkī. On Ava’s right-hand side, at hundred-yard intervals, narrow pedestrian ramps angled down to the lagoons. Each ramp served as the start of a path that meandered through the dunes and out to the beach, occasionally intersecting. The paths were named for coastal plant species: Niu, Hala, Pōhuehue . . .
Joni said, “EP has skirted the Imperial. Now entering the public access alley.”
From this, Ava surmised that Robert Bell did not mean to hunt on hotel grounds. Through the alley, he could access the coastal park without encountering any questions from hotel staff.
“Who’s on scene?” Ava asked.
“Akasha’s coming up from the beach. Mike’s on foot, a few minutes behind you.”
“Good.”
Joni said, “Robert Bell is walking like he’s late for a date. Crossing the esplanade now.”
“Kīpūkai ramp?”
“Looks like. Yes. You better get up there.”
Despite Joni’s urging, Ava held back. She couldn’t arrest Robert Bell because he intended to commit a crime. Even an EP had legal rights.
She mouthed the trigger phrase, Formal request. And then added: Time?
The system answered: “Two thirty-four AM.”
A predator in search of elusive prey moves slowly, stealthily. But Robert Bell moved with a swift certainty that assured Ava he knew where he was going, and he knew when he had to be there. A two-thirty meet up? Let the victim arrive first . . .
Ava’s own presence on-scene had to be precisely timed.
Now Tammy’s voice spoke in Ava’s earbud: “I think I’ve found the EP’s target. A solitary female entered UA-34 fourteen minutes ago. She has not exited.”
“Thanks, Tammy.”
Ava slowed as she approached Kīpūkai ramp. Lingering in the shadow of an arbor draped in broad-leafed hao, she gazed past the lagoon below, to the dune path, looking for Robert Bell, but he was already out of sight.
She moved to follow, speeding down the ramp. At the bottom, she put one booted foot down, pivoting against it to make the hard turn toward Kīpūkai Bridge.
The susurration of the bike’s tires shifted as she left the tiled path for the faux-wood planking of the low bridge. Below her, the dark lagoon rippled with the flirtations of a lone couple who reacted to her presence with a sharp gasp and nervous giggles.
A light breeze set palm fronds rattling as she left the bridge, creating a coarse white noise that swiftly transitioned into the sinistrous hiss and rustle of wind-stirred dune grass. In another hour, maintenance bots would emerge to noisily blow spilled sand off the path and reshape the slopes, erasing any evidence of footprints. Now though, she heard only the wind’s hiss and the muffled roar of the surf—but in the winding, sound-channeling labyrinth of the dunes that was noise enough to cover even a shrill scream.
Joni spoke, tension in her voice as she said, “The EP has moved off the main path toward UA-34.”
Got it.
UA—short for Unsurveilled Area—designated a pocket of privacy, demanded by popular opinion. Even so, “unsurveilled” was a conditional statement. Though no KCA ground cameras or low-flying drones were permitted in the UAs, eyes in the sky remained. Five hundred feet above the tallest antenna on the tallest coastal tower, an autonomous solar-powered surveillance plane flew a continuous patrol, returning to ground only when forced to by storm winds.
“Okay,” Joni said. “Mr. Bell has stopped. He’s holding a position behind the not-allowed sign. But you need to get in there, Ava, before she gets hurt.”
“I’m on it. Is Akasha ready?”
The young officer had earned Ava’s trust since her transfer to nightshift less than three months ago. She’d proven herself fearless and reliable, equally capable of persuading a grieving old gentleman to step back from a suicide leap, and of taking down a raging drunk twice her size.
Joni said, “Akasha just reached the intersection.”
Ava rounded a curve and saw her, sitting astride a bike. At five-foot eight, Akasha had some height and the muscle to go with it. Her ancestry was mixed, but her round face reflected more of her Asian than her Hawaiian or her European heritage. She wore her long black hair wou
nd tight in a service bun.
Ava rode up beside her, bringing her bike to a hard stop, letting the back tire fish-tail across the sandy path.
Lens-glow from Akasha’s smart glasses hid her eyes, but the hard set of her mouth suggested an imminent retribution—an expression that had intimidated many would-be belligerents. “Looks like the target victim is another Chinese princess,” she said to Ava.
“Yes, and I want an arrest this time.”
“So we let it play out?”
“Just far enough that we can charge him with a crime,” Ava said.
A quirked eyebrow. “You think someone’s setting up these assaults.”
Not a question.
Ava dropped the bike’s kickstand and dismounted. “We need to time this perfectly. Let’s go.”
They loped down the path into the UA, their footfalls soft, stealthy, quieter than the tire noise their bikes would have made. Unsurveilled Areas were cul-de-sacs. One way in, one way out, with a little paved court, two palm-thatched gazebos, and no artificial lighting.
Silence enfolded them as the slopes cut off the wind and the surf’s basso roar.
“He’s moving again,” Joni warned. “Going slow, but he’s crossing the court, closing on the gazebo.”
“We’re right behind him.”
Thirty feet in, the path hooked around a stabilizing wall that anchored the dune’s sandy slope. Ava raised a hand, signaling Akasha to move into the waist-high grass. Stooped low, they resumed their advance.
Now Ava could see Robert Bell. Her smart glasses tagged him, and projected a blue glow around his tall, heavy-set figure. He stood near the center of the court, gazing up as if to admire the stars, pretending he didn’t know anyone else was near. Then he looked down, looked at the gazebo, and moved slowly closer.
A woman’s voice broke the silence. “Lokahi, is it you?” she asked doubtfully.
Robert Bell made his move with shocking speed. He darted into the gazebo. A light flashed under the thatched roof: a dropped phone, its display momentarily illuminating two figures. A clunk, as the device hit the gazebo’s concrete floor. Darkness again. The woman grunted, gasped. A dull smack! and Robert Bell swore.
Akasha burst first out of the grass, yelling, “Down on the ground! Now!”
Ava came a step behind, flashlight out, the bright beam stabbing past the gazebo’s side rail to reveal a dark-haired woman in a short silky dress, scrambling backwards on her ass, and Robert Bell in his shorts and aloha shirt, on his knees, one hand held against his bleeding mouth while he used the other to frantically gesture at a virtual screen Ava could not see.
A faint hum erupted from the dune grass surrounding the little court. Ava closed on the gazebo, with Akasha still ahead, now only two steps from the railing. The woman braced herself on her elbows and kicked out, striking Robert Bell in the nose with her flat-soled sandal. Blood erupted and he squeaked, rearing back. He grabbed at the gazebo’s railing, used it to haul himself up. Then he spun around and staggered out the entryway just as Akasha vaulted in over the side rail.
The hum grew louder as Ava angled to intercept Robert Bell. “Down on the ground!” she ordered, her flashlight beam bobbing wildly as she pulled her shockgun from its holster.
The hum peaked. Then something punched a hole in reality, right in front of Ava. A doubled lightning blast of light and sound.
Next she knew, she was down. Cheek pressed against sandy concrete, sand in her mouth, head swimming, ears ringing, eyes dazzled. Shit.
She’d dropped the flashlight. Its beam stabbed across the court. Sparks of light danced in her eyes, impeding her vision, but from what she could see, Bell was not there—which meant he was behind her, readying to kick her skull in.
She rolled—and discovered her shockgun still gripped in her hand. Instinct guided her finger to the trigger, but Bell was not there. He must have run.
“Akasha,” she called.
No answer.
Ava holstered the shockgun and forced herself to sit up. She spit sand from her mouth and tried again. “Akasha. Report!”
Past the ringing in her ears, she heard Joni making some incomprehensibly muffled demand.
Shit!
When Joni had reported that Robert Bell was lingering behind the not-allowed sign, Ava had assumed he was taking a moment to gather his courage or to confirm that his prey was alone and vulnerable.
Now she knew: He’d been releasing knock-outs instead. The flak-free chemical concussion grenades, carried on reusable micro-drones, were common in police work, but illegal in civilian hands. No doubt he’d pre-programmed them to crawl into position, where they’d be ready to take flight on command.
Ava holstered the shockgun and got to her feet, swaying a bit, relearning her balance as her vision cleared.
Joni’s voice started to make sense again: “Ava. Report! You back with us, yet?”
“Confirm. I’m coming back together.” She stooped to pick up the flashlight, then staggered toward the gazebo to check on Akasha and on the young woman who’d been expecting someone else, not Robert Bell. Guilt bit at her conscience. A crime had been committed and Ava now had grounds to make an arrest, but she’d let Robert Bell get too close. The woman could have been seriously hurt in just those few seconds when he’d had her alone.
Debrief later.
Right now, she needed to get Robert Bell in custody.
Wrenching her focus back to the present, she murmured to Joni, “Where’s our perp?”
“Legging it back up the ramp to the esplanade. Mike’s moving to intercept.”
Inside the gazebo, Akasha gripped the railing, hauling herself to her feet. “That was an ambush,” she growled.
“No, it was a backup plan.”
The civilian sat on the gazebo’s concrete floor, her back against a bench, teeth clenched, chest heaving. A trickle of blood stained the side of her face.
HADAFA whispered: “Subject is Ye Xiaoxiao. Chinese passport, age thirty, agricultural geneticist with Jinhua Agricultural Technologies, social rating +24.”
Smart and competent, Ava concluded. Akasha could handle her. “Akasha, see to Ms. Ye—”
Akasha started to object. The young woman did too. “I am fine!” she insisted, her lightly accented voice low with fury. “You two go and get him! I will talk to you when the monster is in custody.”
“We’ll get him, ma’am,” Ava assured her. “But we need to take care of you.” She met Akasha’s resentful gaze. “And that’s your job.”
Like it or not.
Akasha would rather run down Robert Bell than safeguard his victim, but it wasn’t her choice.
Ava turned and took off, running hard, back to the main path, and her motorcycle.
chapter
3
No way Robert Bell was going to get away. He had to know that. Surveillance was ubiquitous throughout the Waikīkī District, and KCA Security had access to every camera and microphone along the Kalakaua pedestrian mall, in the streetcars, and in the hotel grounds and lobbies. All nearby hotels had been ordered to close their doors against him, and Joni had assigned a micro-drone to track him.
That tracker had audio capabilities, allowing one of the communications specialists to speak to Robert Bell. The stern monologue played in Ava’s earbud as she raced her little motorcycle across the Kīpūkai Bridge and up the ramp to the esplanade: Robert Bell, you have been identified. There is nowhere for you to go. You are ordered to stop. Stop now. Lie face down on the ground and you will not be hurt—
Ava crossed the esplanade, then descended to the grounds of the Imperial, following the route Robert Bell had taken, the way marked with a translucent green guideline projected in her virtual display. Her path veered right, past a no-access sign, into a maintenance alley—where a refrigerated van blocked the way.
She braked hard, back wheel fishtailing. The two men working to unload the van looked up, wide-eyed, until they recognized her. Both were familiar faces.
&n
bsp; “Eh, Ava, who was that guy?” one asked as she rolled forward, squeezing past the van. “What’s going on?”
“Later!” she promised. And then she emerged onto the pedestrian mall.
Coconut palms, imported after Nolo from plantations in the south Pacific, grew in clusters of three all up and down the tiled mall. In between, closed kiosks decorated with holiday garlands alternated with picnic tables, or benches flanked by blooming hibiscus plants growing in concrete containers. The streetcar tracks ran down the mall’s center, with stops every three hundred feet.
A glance up and down the mall showed a surprising number of people out, despite the late hour. Ava estimated fifteen bystanders, every one of them looking east.
She turned that way too and glimpsed the tracker drone’s red flashing light, just before it disappeared mauka, up Paoakalani Avenue. A black-clad officer, tagged by HADAFA as Mike Ching, came running hard from the Diamond Head end of the strip, rounding the corner seconds behind the drone. More chatter from the communications specialist, warning Robert Bell he had nowhere to go.
Truth, that.
Ava set off again, to the sarcastic cheers of a cluster of American tourists watching from a nearby picnic table.
She sped down the center of the mall, riding between the streetcar tracks. Just before she reached Paoakalani, the communications specialist went silent. Ava smiled to herself, thinking Mike must have gotten him.
She turned up the avenue, to find a posse of hotel staff in matching aloha shirts standing guard at the side entrance of the Kahakai Suites. Across the street, on the Diamond Head corner, a huge drop cloth printed with an idyllic scene of swimming dolphins hid the broken face of a still-shuttered hotel.
Beyond those two buildings, the street ended in the ghost fence: a chain-link barrier fifteen feet high, woven with polyethylene bamboo slats to hide what lay beyond.
Ava had expected to see Robert Bell on the ground, with Mike Ching applying cuffs as the tracker drone recorded the arrest. But the stub of a street was empty.