3.
Phone Calls and Queries

-1-

She is sweating, panting from exertion, pressing hard against him as the tension builds. He is struggling to keep up with her. He is used to being on top, to being in charge, but she is better and stronger, has more endurance than any of the others. She flexes her strong musculature, toned, veined and rippled as they move against one another. Their faces grimace; lips curl and snarl as the rhythm builds. At the last moment they press against each other, their skins contrast, hers dark; earth and passion; his light; youth and virility. Together they spiral towards a last… heated… hoop….

“Game!” Spacer yelled as the ball flew through the net.

“Damn you!” Anderson barked stamping his foot against the court floor. The slap resounds through the empty room. “Damn you, Spacer!” he says again. He’s never beaten her. It’s embarrassing. He’s taller. Younger. The two pace a bit, out of breath. Out of focus. They smile at each other.

“Tuesday,” Anderson finally said, catching his breath and pointing at her. “Tuesday, I kick your ass.”

“Yeah,” Spacer laughs. “It was supposed to be today if I recall,” she replied, executing an easy leap, flipping the ball casually through the hoop again.

“Well, I…” he paused, still out of breath. “Well, I had to put it off a few days. New year’s and everything.” He watches her cautiously for a moment, then. “Hey, uh, is the Boss gonna be ok?”

Spacer stops dribbling. “Davich?” she snorts. “Don’t worry about that crusty sonofabitch,” she laughs, dismissing Anderson’s concerns. But she does remember the way Davich’s face went pale when the bandaged woman at General had whispered something to him. She wondered about that. When something disturbed Rachman Davich, it must be heavy.

“You know that guy, Massud, the one that died in the crash?” she confided.

“Massud Ramad, from the Mainland Commerce Council?” Anderson queried. “The one who held out on the Rouge City deal?”

“Yeah. That was Rachman’s friend. That’s all. He’ll be ok,” she said executing one last hoop. “Breaks over!” She was all business now. She was the Boss when the Boss wasn’t around. “Get that little Nazi shithead up to room one. His forty eight are almost up and I wanna talk to his silly ass!” Spacer hit the showers and then the roster. Davich still wasn‘t in. She put the morning crew out and reviewed the bulletins and warrants. All things considered it had been a smooth change of calendars.

-2-

Eileen Spacer didn’t waste a lot of time with niceties. She was cop through and through. Third generation. Her mother and her Grandfather before her had proudly bourn the State Police badge. Any perp who made the mistake of confusing her gentle expression for weakness had a serious lesson coming. And she’d had to dole out a few lessons in her time. She’d almost had a problem New Year’s eve with a troubled young man with surgically implanted spikes protruding from his shoulders and swastikas burned into his forearm. But the kid wasn’t stupid. He’d seen the badge and surrendered easily.

But what had they been doing trouncing vags. Those kids were usually after Mecha.

“So, what is it gonna be?” she asked him when he was brought up to the main interrogation room. He’d been showered and cleaned up. But his face was still twisted into a snarl. He didn’t respond.

Spacer sighed. “I mean you can tell me what the hell was goin’ down over there, and who you were with, or you can go sit in the tank for another twenty-four, forty-eight, or until we see fit to drop you into general population.”

“Kiss my ass, cu…”

“Watch it, boy! Your face winds up getting busted in and it’s your word against mine.”

The kid started again, “I have rights. I’m underage. My parents are supposed to be notified.”

“We been trying to reach ‘em” Spacer lied. “Anyway, you are being accused of armed assault. That’s adult. Mandatory time when we make it stick,” she gambled with this exaggeration. They didn’t have enough to link him to the attack.

The kid sneered at this information, but he didn’t know if she lied. Probably couldn’t even read.

“Look …” Spacer glanced at his sheet. “Mel, whatever went down over there involved three of you. So you weren’t as fast as your friends. It’s not fair for you to take it on alone. And what the hell were you trashing vags for anyway. Mecha getting too tough for you?”

“We weren’t trashing any damn vags. We were supposed to…” he stopped suddenly and looked away. Something young and confused was finally in his eyes, but it was gone as fast. Spacer noticed it though. She didn’t miss anything.

Spacer slapped his papers on the desk. “Let me tell you something, Mel,” she said, a sudden concerned confidant, “this place sucks. It is the origin of all that sucks! Now you may think that you can handle anything, but I guarantee you a few nights in general population and you’ll have to revise that theory.”

“You can’t put me in general pop!” he bellowed. “I’m sixteen!”

“Bullshit!” she snapped and rose quickly. She opened the door and yelled to no one. “Get me some irons! Somebody get me some goddamned…”

“Wait! Wait… shit!” The little make-pretend Nazi named Mel hissed, his face clouded in indecision. Spacer turned and crossed her arms and her fingers. The thin black-clad boy sneered at her again. But then he began to talk.

Spacer was immediately intrigued. Then perplexed.

-3-

There wasn’t time to waste on this. Terrance Portnoy knew that. He wasn’t oblivious to the conflicts and behind the scenes manipulations that had surrounded Massud’s insistence on playing by the rules. Portnoy knew that his old friend Davich would never sit still if he thought Grainer or anyone from the corrupted Council on Interstate Commerce was involved in the man’s death. And deep inside, Portnoy himself was pretty sure that was the case.

The council had fingers everywhere. Hell, they’d almost had him! But Portnoy had bigger balls and stronger friends than the faceless entities that manipulated the Council. If those assholes were involved, he had to prove it. He had to get them. If they got away with this one, they would just get bolder. What would be next?

All around them, a sunken world was a constant reminder of what corruption can do.

Portnoy needed someone who was untouchable. Incorruptible. He drummed his fingers on his desk for a while. Then he picked up the phone.

-4-

“So then this shit tells me that he is looking into it! Can you believe that fuck?!” Davich said to Spacer and tossed his coat across to the closet, which snatched it up and hung it on a post. He was still fuming from the phone call he’d received from Grainer. The man had donned his usual infuriating courteous façade, but he was covering his ass, that much was plain. And why call Davich? Grainer knew his shoes were gone and had been for a long time.

“Massud and I had some hard times, Davich, I’ll be the first to admit that,” Grainner had said, silky smooth, “But

we are professional men. We knew how to deal with our differences.” Davich had kept his tongue. He’d wanted to tell the sociopath bastard that he was onto him. That he knew all about the Rouge City power grab and how Massud had stood in the way of Grainer’s greedy manipulations. He wanted to yell that he was gonna hunt the proof down and hang Grainer out to dry with anyone else he found out was involved. It had taken all his will power to keep from doing so.

“So I told the prick that I wasn’t involved in the investigation and he was wasting his time bullshittin’ me,” he told Spacer as he flopped into his oversized chair.

“Well, that’s true right?” Spacer said, her eyebrows raised. “I mean, that you’re not involved.”

Davich snorted and shrugged. “Well… you know…. Sort of. Yeah. Look, I told the prick I knew he was involved somehow. I told him I’d see to it that whoever got the case checked him out.” Then he was silent about it. Spacer thought there was more to it, but didn’t want to know. What she didn’t know wouldn’t get her in deep shit whenever what he had planned, blew up in his face.

“Boss, there is some weird shit goin on around that kid.” She changed the subject.

“The one with the spikes?” Davich asked, his interest perked.

“Yeah. I pressed on him a bit, just tryin’ to get some names, right? Then he comes out with something about getting some vags to sell.”

Davich was genuinely interested. “I thought they cut ‘em up.”

“Kid says it just turned out that way when the vags fought back. Wasn’t their intention. They were trying to yank one of them.”

Davich humphed. Who would buy a vag? “You mean like… kids or something?” he asked.

Spacer shook her head. “According to this guy they were supposed to get adult men for someone. He didn’t know the contact… said it wasn’t his hustle. But why vags?”

Davich considered this for a moment. The kid had basically admitted to attempted kidnap. But it didn’t make any sense. Couldn’t be slavers. That was over. Too many cheap, used Mecha on the market. Hmm… Who cared anyway? They were just transies. Trouble. He had more important things to think about. Massud’s funeral, for one.

“Go get me some real criminals, Spacer,” he said and went to work.

-5-

Another day is passing. Has it always been like this? She cannot remember better times. One day blurs into the next so smoothly the seams are barely discernable. Outside, on the edge of the perimeter that separates their gated home from the invading forest beyond, men are working. Landscaping. Keeping at bay the press of growing things that shelter an anonymous population of forgotten people. They are not men really, those who toil endlessly. Never complaining. Never breaking a sweat.

She watches them while she relaxes on the balcony. She is not alone. Beside her a young girl sits silently and watches the men also. She is not really a girl though. She is not really watching the men. She is just sitting. Being with the one who awakened her special processor.

“Allison, honey, would you get Mommy something to drink?”

“What would you like?” the imitation child asks cheerfully. Her simulated smile is contagious. Linda feels better. It’s hard to feel anything in this drowned world. This world where people have become as expendable as machines. She regards Allison and modifies this thought. They suffer too, don’t they? In their own way, they must.

“Something cold. Surprise me,” Linda says smiling. There are only five cold drinks in the robot’s limited menu. Linda likes them all. Whichever one the child brings will be fine. Allison walks briskly from the balcony into the house, her frilly white dress as exaggerated an image of childhood as the Mecha’s dimpled face itself.

Rachman swore at her again; Allison. Linda doesn’t understand the man anymore. He was the one who brought Allison. He insisted that she imprint the Mecha child. When had he decided that was a mistake? She wonders when it all went down hill. When was the last time he had touched her? Held her?

Allison returns quickly with an iced tea. Linda takes the drink and pecks a kiss on the Mecha’s forehead. She is not deluded. Linda knows that this is a machine. That its ‘emotions’ are programmed. That its tender hugs are flesh simulating silicon over a metal fiber infrastructure.

But it is all she has.

On the perimeter, the Mecha laborers struggle with a large branch they have cut from an overgrown tree. They feed the thing to a bin where it will be reduced to particle and used to fuel something… somewhere. What took them so long to figure it out? Why’d they have to lose the world before they realized how to save it?

As she sips her drink, casually caressing Allison’s hair with her free hand, the house comm erupts. “Answer!” she yells and hears the thing click.

“Hello… Ms. Davich?” A smooth voice issues from the wall speaker.

“Yes? Who is this?”

“I’m a friend of your husbands, the name is Harland. Harland Grainer. I thought we might be able to talk about the unfortunate loss of his friend Massud, and how it seems to be affecting his judgment.”

-6-

The night is falling. A mist gathers around the field. The boys were supposed to have come back by now. The crazy boys with the metal implants in their arms and the symbols of hate burned into their skin. They were supposed to have brought something with them. But they have not arrived.

This place will not be safe for much longer. They cannot wait. They will have to go hunting for themselves.

As the darkness grows they test their developing strength and slip out of the deep, out from the safety of the burning depths, across the field and over the road into the forest. They have never been this far before.

They are hungry. Getting hungrier every day.