01.
Cabin
Desmond's attention is divided.
He tries to focus on the words on his screen. It's a book, All Quiet on the Western Front. There are descriptions of injuries, intestinal wounds. The intestines are usually coiled inside the abdomen, and somehow the weapons of this war had brought the intestines outside the living soldier's body. Desmond wonders what sort of weapon would have done that. A bayonet? Shrapnel from a bomb? There are many structures in the abdomen, and in some a wound would prove fatal. Could a man survive with his intestines spilled, sprung from their place, meters of it, on to the battlefield, to be scooped up by the soldier's hands and carried to a medic's station, however many kilometers to the rear of the line?
And what of the medic’s capabilities in that era?
His attention is divided. He should focus on the book, the words, not anatomy, not weapons design.
It's difficult. In a recent session, Desmond discussed focus with Dr. Hamish. There is little to be done, according to Dr. Hamish, while Desmond is still young. It will be a while before his brain develops enough to truly master focus.
Desmond understands. It's like being too short to reach a high shelf. Nothing to be ashamed of, but success will require patience.
Desmond wishes for that focus now. His mind isn't only on the book, on the world and weapons of that era, or the injuries inflicted, or the underlying physiology of those injuries.
He hears a tapping, plastic on plastic. He realizes he’s tapping the back of his screen with his fingertips. A malfunction in the prosthetics?
No. Probably anxiety. No surprise, considering the circumstances.
Desmond is sitting on one of the two small beds in his cabin. It had been Dr. Hamish who had called this room a ‘cabin.’ His room on the other boat had simply been a ‘room.’ The cabin is smaller, but it does have its own bathroom, and it has a window. Dr. Hamish had pulled the curtains closed and told Desmond to stay away while they were still docked to the big cruise ship, the boat that had been Desmond’s home for three years, since he was ten. Once they set off, Desmond sat staring out the window at the ocean until the sun went down.
Desmond takes a deep breath. Interesting the prosthetics would twitch like that. He should mention this to Dr. Gisele.
Desmond taps the screen to bookmark, then taps again to switch it off. The screen reacts with the plastic tip covering the dark carbon fiber of his index finger. The tip is integrated on this version of his hands. On the previous version, they’d had to fit a rubber sleeve over the finger, which was made of metal, so he could interact with screens. These hands are not the same hands he had only three weeks ago.
Desmond stands, raising his arms, beginning the stretches Dr. Florenz called grippers. They're meant to strengthen the forearm muscles, but Dr. Florenz has Desmond do them anyway, even though Desmond has no forearm muscles. Dr. Florenz says they will help with spatial awareness. Here, in this tiny cabin, his plastic and carbon fiber fingers scrape the ceiling. He has to squat down so he can get proper extension on his arms.
Open the fingers.
Close the fingers.
Repeat.
Dr. Florenz had read All Quiet on the Western Front in the original German, he’d said. Desmond doesn’t know German. Only French and Spanish had been in his lessons. German, Dr. Hamish had said, would come later. Dr. Hamish had, in fact, had all of Desmond’s lessons planned out for a long time. This move, though, wasn’t planned.
Desmond holds his arms out at his sides and repeats the stretches. More deep breaths.
They’d taken him from one boat to another, telling him he is going to a new facility to continue his lessons. The move was not a welcomed surprise to Dr. Hamish or Dr. Lynn. They had been arguing, pulling each other aside to whisper so Desmond couldn’t hear. They wouldn’t smile or even look at Desmond.
But Dr. Florenz had smiled openly at Desmond, as he always does.
He heads to the small bathroom to brush his teeth, floss, and wash his face. The water doesn’t affect his hands. The delicate electronics inside are fully protected.
The walls here aren’t as thick and solid as they were on the other boat, and apparently the others don’t know this. Desmond can hear Dr. Hamish and Dr. Lynn. He can’t make out the words, but they sound angry. He briefly considers putting his ear to the wall, but he decides to respect their privacy.
The voices stop as Desmond finishes washing up. He hears a knock on his door.
Come in,
Desmond says, stepping out of the bathroom.
Dr. Hamish enters, followed by Dr. Lynn. Hello,
Dr. Hamish says. They are both wearing heavy coats.
Hello,
Desmond says. Is everything okay?
Fine, fine,
Dr. Hamish says. Dr. Hamish is a child psychologist, and would usually sit or kneel to bring himself down to Desmond’s level when speaking with him. Not today, not since they’d left the other boat. But listen, for the next part of the trip, we’ll need to take your hands off.
Desmond flexes his fingers. He can’t actually feel them move. Prosthetics with that sort of feedback, according to Dr. Gisele, would have to wait until he was older. Why?
Have a seat,
Dr. Hamish says.
Desmond sits on the bed. He looks up as Dr. Florenz enters the room. With the four of them in here, the temperature climbs. Desmond can smell them clearly. He knows their clothes had been storage, packed in boxes and stacked in a closet near the engine room, from the smell of oil. He knows from their breath that none of them had eaten anything today. How’re you doing?
Dr. Florenz asks.
I’m fine,
Desmond says. Why do they need to take my hands off?
Something with customs, I believe,
Dr. Florenz says, looking at Dr. Hamish. It’ll be okay, Desmond.
Desmond nods. He had spent a lot of time with Dr. Florenz. He tended to be the most open with Desmond, most honest. Desmond holds his hands out for Dr. Hamish.
Lynn,
Dr. Hamish says. Dr. Lynn kneels down and begins removing his hands. It’s not a lengthy process, the careful disconnection of the structural and electrical components, but Dr. Lynn is taking longer than usual. There are screws in the plates, just below his elbows, that need removed, and Dr. Lynn is struggling with the tools. Usually, Dr. Gisele is the one who does this. She’s the one who made the hands, this version and the earlier ones. But Dr. Gisele had stayed behind, for reasons no one has explained.
Dr. Lynn drops an Allen wrench, sighs, fumbles for it. Raising the small tool back to Desmond’s hand, she hesitates for second, looks up, doesn’t quite meet his eyes, then resumes her work.
Okay,
Dr. Lynn says. She places the hands into a padded case next to her on the floor. Desmond is left with the dark-colored metal and plastic attachment plates. He’d had these since he was nine. Before that, his arms simply ended in pink stumps. The plates are screwed into the bones, and the skin had been allowed to partially grown over them.
Dr. Lynn closes the case and stands. Now what?
We’ll be docking soon,
Dr. Hamish says, looking at the floor. He is still standing just inside the door, hands in front of him, rhythmically squeezing the fingers of his left hand with his right.
At night?
Desmond asks.
So that’s it?
Dr. Lynn says to Dr. Hamish.
It’ll be okay, Lynn,
Dr. Florenz says. Dr. Lynn doesn’t respond. Her lips are still pressed tight against each other, her eyes still flash wetness. She looks at Desmond, then turns quickly to face the door.
Dr. Florenz walks over and sits on the bed next to Desmond. Listen, we’ll also need you to sleep for this next part.
I’m not tired yet,
Desmond says.
That’s okay,
Dr. Florenz says. He takes a capped syringe out of his coat pocket. This will help.
Are we really doing this?
Dr. Lynn says.
Lynn, please,
Dr. Hamish says. If you’d rather not be here, please wait outside.
Be here?
Desmond asks.
It’s nothing,
Dr. Florenz says. He smiles, then nudges Desmond with his elbow. Are you ready?
Should I lie down?
Desmond asks.
Dr. Lynn pushes past Dr. Hamish and leaves the cabin.
Sure, go ahead,
Dr. Florenz says, standing up.
Desmond lies down. Dr. Florenz kneels down next to him and rolls up Desmond’s sleeve.
Do it,
Dr. Hamish says.
Desmond feels a pinch. This is not his first shot, and as his eyes begin to feel heavy, he wonders why Dr. Florenz didn’t first clean the injection site with alcohol.
He wants to ask, but he can’t talk.
Desmond can see Dr. Florenz turn toward Dr. Hamish before his eyes become too heavy to keep open. It’s done,
Dr. Florenz says.
Desmond goes to sleep.
02.
The Cadillac
Jeremy Cyrus watches the store across the street, the one with the unlit LAWSON’S sign above the papered-over window, and wishes he was indoors. Next to him, Greek watches the store through a rifle scope, and is likely thinking the same thing.
Jeremy had driven the Foxhound to the top level of a parking garage, pushing through the garbage piled up inside the entrance, the remnants of an old stronghold that someone had built into the garage. There's no one here now, just a couple of rusted, gutted cars among the trash.
The garage is close to downtown Philadelphia, but this area, several square blocks of dead commerce and vacant apartments, has seen very little action in the past few years. There might be a few undocumented squatters in the buildings that still have running water. The squatters, if he found any, aren't really his concern. Philadelphia Police can handle them, if they want to.
It's raining and only a couple degrees above freezing. In this part of town, at this time of night, in this weather, no one besides Jeremy and Greek is outside.
Greek is leaning over the railing with his sniper rifle, trying to keep the scope covered with his rain parka. He'd had to pull the parka over his head, leaving most of his body to get soaked.
Jeremy, relatively dry under his own parka, wonders if Greek can see better through the scope. In the rain, the dark street below is an indistinct gray blur. The Cadillac they'd been tracking is a black rectangle, the faint glow of the dashboard barely visible through the windshield.
He turns away from the edge. The adjacent buildings tower over the parking deck, their windows dark. They'd left the Foxhound parked on the ramp, sheltered from the rain by the upper deck. Jeremy can see a lake forming along the low side of the level. The drains must've clogged.
Cold's getting to me,
Greek says. Shaking. We can pop down a level, get out of the rain.
Wall's too high down there,
Jeremy says. He turns back toward Greek. See anything?
Nothing. Car's still out front, engine still running. Driver keeps checking his watch.
Jeremy checks his own watch. A few minutes before midnight. How's the view?
he asks.
Greek shifts position, adjusts the parka. I can see just fine in thermal. Can't get facial recognition in that mode, though.
Jeremy listens to the rain hitting his parka. Really wishes he was indoors. How long have they been in there?
Owl clocked them in at 22:45.
Jeremy looks up, wondering if he can see the owl. Amazing those things work at all in this weather, the spidery plastic drones the Vecidio Corporation had developed for easy urban surveillance. The owls can track individual cars, logging the movements of the city’s million-plus vehicles. The Cadillac below them had been flagged as a ‘vehicle of interest.’ Which meant someone like Jeremy has to come out in the rain and see what the people driving the car are up to.
In the past, Jeremy would’ve simply pulled the driver out of the car and interrogated him, run his identification, put a good scare into him. And usually, far too often, the drivers of the suspicious vehicles were normal, law-abiding citizens. Under pressure from the public, Philadelphia’s city officials had filed complaints with Vecidio, which lead to new procedures regarding searches and probable cause.
Jeremy doesn’t like that. He isn’t a cop. He is an officer in Vecidio’s Security and Intelligence Division. He and his colleagues don’t answer to Philadelphia’s mayor. But their orders are clear. Observation only, unless they have a damn good reason to interfere.
Gametime,
Greek says. Three coming out. One of them-
He makes an adjustment to the scope. One's not showing up in thermal.
Not at all?
He's handcuffed or something,
Greek says. Wearing a hood, I think. I don't see any weapons on anyone. They’re getting in the car.
Let's move.
Jeremy turns and jogs across the parking deck, boots splashing in puddles.
He gets in the Foxhound and starts the engine. Used to be British Army, this thing, with a big diesel engine. The Vecidio Corporation had swapped in their own powertrain and electronics and painted it dark red, Vecidio's company color, some specific and probably patented shade.
Greek gets in the passenger side. Let's hit it.
Jeremy backs down the ramp, swings the front around, and begins descending through the garage.
Greek takes his gloves off and flexes his fingers. He's shivering. This thing have a heater?
Jeremy switches on the heat. Get us our uplink,
he says, driving through the path they'd cleared in the garbage barricade earlier.
Greek taps the screen mounted to the dash. Owl is online, tracking the Caddy.
Which way?
West,
Greek says. Make a right, then a left.
Jeremy turns on to the street, taking it slow.
They stay a good distance behind the Cadillac, letting the owl keep a close eye on it. By Jeremy's guess, the Caddy’s about two minutes ahead of them. The Cadillac is moving slowly in the heavy rain. Jeremy drives, adjusting the wipers. Traffic is light, and Jeremy risks running through a few red lights and stop signs.
Seems like they're backtracking,
Greek says. Or lost. Right turn.
Any idea where they're heading?
Jeremy asks.
None. Take a right.
Jeremy turns. He’s starting to hope this turns into something.
At a red light, Jeremy stops and glances at the screen. He realizes they're passing within a few blocks of the garage they'd just left. Gotta be lost,
he says.
Change of plans, maybe?
Greek says. Left turn.
The Cadillac is heading north-east, roughly following I-95 on surface streets.
Okay,
Greek says after a few minutes. Owl shows the Cadillac stopped behind a row of apartment buildings. We're still a kilometer out.
Jeremy pulls over. It's not a nice neighborhood. Run-down apartment buildings on one side, railroad tracks on the other. What's around there?
he asks. He takes the screen, scans the overhead view of the area. The owl's view lacks detail, but he can see the Cadillac. The view abruptly shifts. They lose sight of the Cadillac, obscured by the nearby buildings. The owl is being blown around up there, but it eventually corrects, moving back so they can see down the alley.
Looking through the Foxhound’s windshield, Jeremy can't see much of anything. The buildings are dark shapes against a gray sky. No movement besides the rain.
Vehicle approaching,
Greek says.
Jeremy looks at the screen. A white rectangle, moving slowly down the alley toward the Cadillac. A reticle appears over the rectangle, vehicle information next to it.
Van,
Greek says. It's a rental.
Switching vehicles?
Jeremy says.
Maybe. I say we just take them. Tired of following them around.
Those are the orders,
Jeremy says.
Tactical prerogative,
Greek says.
Jeremy considers it. The Cadillac had been tagged as suspicious. One of the occupants is bound and doesn’t read on thermal. Most of this neighborhood is abandoned. They'd busted Anomaly cells not far from here. Odds are good the Caddy’s occupants are Anomaly. Good enough, anyway.
Okay,
Jeremy says, and pulls away from the curb. We’ll rattle some cages.
He drives down the street, keeping the speed low so they don’t make too much noise. Once they’re near the buildings, he stops.
Outside?
Greek says.
That’s usually the best way to arrest somebody,
Jeremy says. He opens the door, then reaches back, grabbing his rifle. Leave the sniper rifle,
Jeremy says.
Roger that,
Greek says, and takes pistol out of its holster. You got the light.
Jeremy nods, and they exit the Foxhound. Sticking close to the building, they quietly make their way to the alley. Greek lets Jeremy take point.
At the alley, Jeremy peers around the corner. The van is parked, the headlights illuminating the Caddy. Everyone is outside in the rain, three people standing around the bound man, who is on his knees. Jeremy can see he has a hood over his head.
Jeremy turns back to Greek. Ready?
he whispers.
Greek nods.
Jeremy steps into the alley, switching on the TacLight under his rifle’s barrel as he raises it. Homeland Security,
he yells.
Jeremy sees two sets of hands go up. The third reaches behind her back. Jeremy moves his rifle, pulls the trigger. The woman falls.
Anyone else?
Greek says, coming up beside Jeremy. On your knees, hands behind your head. You in the hood, don’t move.
The two left standing go slowly to their knees. Greek moves forward. Got ‘em?
Got ‘em,
Jeremy says.
My name is Officer Kefalos,
Greek says. I’m with the Vecidio Corporation, Security and Intelligence Division. I am operating under the jurisdiction and authorization of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security. You are being detained for questioning under the Declan-Alvarez Act.
He reaches forward and pulls the bound man’s hood off. Holy shit.
Greek steps aside. Jeremy can see the man’s face.
It’s Officer Marlowe.
Holy shit,
Jeremy says.
03.
The Last Three Clients
Eve’s first client of the evening hadn’t given his name. Most don’t.
The client hadn’t wanted to talk. Or kiss. No foreplay.
Eve doesn’t mind. An easy transaction.
The man is in his thirties, balding, in decent shape. Forgettable.
He’d taken his shirt off as soon as he got inside her room. Pent up. Anxious.
She leads him to the bed, stripping off her dressing gown. She lies down. He steps out of his pants and reaches down, pulling off her panties.
She smiles at him. He doesn’t smile back.
He has a condom in his hand. Lambskin, lubricated, bought from Gretta, probably. He has it out of the wrapper and skinned over his cock in a few practiced movements.
He climbs on top of her. No subtlety in his technique. A bit of wiggling and he’s in.
Eve moans, slides her hands down his back. Enjoying this man, giving him the show he must’ve known he’d get. It’s expected. Demanded.
He reaches back, puts his hand on her hip. Slides it up, slowly, along her ribs.
She closes her eyes. She’d be coaxing him on, were he a different sort of client. Dirty talk. This one isn’t interested.
His hand grips her shoulder and pulls her to the side, letting her roll on top of him, never breaking the connection.
Not so boring after all.
On top, she smiles, digs her nails very slightly into his chest.
She gasps. Clients like that.
Throws her head back, moans. They love that.
He’ll finish soon.
And when he does, his ejaculation seems endless, head pressed back into the bed, mouth open.
She leans forward, kisses his chest. Thank you,
she says, then kisses his cheek.
After a few seconds of heavy breathing, she climbs off, laying down next to him.
The client rolls off the bed and starts dressing.
You can stay longer if you like,
Eve says.
The client doesn’t look at her. You liked that, did you?
I did,
Eve says.
He smiles at her, briefly, before he turns and leaves.
Eve gets out of bed and walks to the tiny bathroom in her cabin. She fixes her hair, touches up her makeup, and gets dressed again.
Eve’s second client of the evening is Jerrad, a regular. He is a meek little man, a cook. Not for the passengers, he would quickly and somewhat sheepishly point out, but for the staff. Eve regularly eats in the staff dining room, though she isn’t really part of the staff. She is freelance, an independent contractor. Use of the staff dining area is part of her contract. The ship’s permanent staff is a mixed bag of ages and ethnicities. Mealtime conversations are in Spanish, Portuguese, Russian. Eve can pick up a few words, never anything interesting.
Jerrad likes to talk. To him, Eve isn’t working. This is social. She can’t place his accent. Mediterranean, maybe. He likes her to be in control, not dominating, just assertive. She gets on top of him, kisses him, smiles at him.
Afterward, they lay on the bed, naked, sweat drying and cooling them. Jerrad always uses the full hour, though the lovemaking, as he would call it, usually doesn’t last more than fifteen minutes, start to finish.
When Jerrad finally leaves, Eve dresses again and wishes she could clock out for the evening. She wants a shower, and to sleep.
Sitting on the bed, she stares at the clock on the screen of the cabin’s tiny built-in workstation. Still another couple hours on her shift. No one else, according to Gretta, works as much as Eve.
Story of my life, she thinks, and sighs. Hard work had paid off in the past. The pay, though, wasn’t the real payoff. A job well done, a night’s worth of high-risk action. Her pockets were full, sure, but the high, the high of action, was always more satisfying than the money.
What a life that had been.
Now, the money is the only payoff. She certainly doesn’t get much satisfaction from the rest of it.
She is still staring at the screen when it lights up. Incoming call from Gretta.
Eve answers, audio-only. Yeah?
Gretta is there on the screen, smiling. In her sixties, with close-cropped gray hair. Used to be an actress somewhere in Europe. Mr. Sterling wants to have drinks,
Gretta says.
Okay,
Eve says. When?
Soon as you can get up there.
Eve looks up at the ceiling. Why now? She knows she can fake sexual energy and excitement. She doubts she can fake social energy right now.
On my way,
Eve says, and breaks the call.
Free alcohol,
she says to the empty cabin, then shrugs.
Why not?
04.
Aftertaste
Trevor sits in the back of the cab, resting his head against the window, staring out at Chicago as it blurs past. Trevor watches people wandering in groups between bars and nightclubs or in couples between restaurants and theaters. Lots of smiles, lots of conversation marked by puffs of steam from their mouths. Trevor can’t hear them through the cab’s window. All he can hear is the talk radio from the cab’s speakers, some show about politics and next year’s mayoral race.
Trevor shifts in his seat, casually moving his Glock along the back of his pants so it doesn’t dig into his lower back. It’s going to be a big night, he thinks. One of two things will happen.
He’ll quit, or he’ll chicken out.
The Glock isn’t loaded. He’d left the magazines and all the ammo back at his apartment, stored safely in the surplus ammo container he’d had since high school. He’d also had the Glock since high school. If all goes well tonight, he won’t need it anymore. He wonders if he’ll miss it, miss the catharsis of disassembling and cleaning it at his small kitchen table. Since arriving in Chicago and joining the Elams’ crew, he’s only had to use it a few times as part of the job. He’d taken it to the local indoor range once a week and shot a few clips’ worth of cheap target ammo, just to stay in practice.
That, he realizes, he will miss.
Jason Elam should be at the workshop. The cab can’t take him all the way there, so Trevor has the driver drop him at the shopping center nearby. Trevor holds up his phone to pay, then gets out, stepping into cold air that smells like French fries and sewage.
The workshop is across the railyard, the sprawling rows of tracks behind the shopping center. To get there, Trevor has to step over a guardrail along the back of the shopping center’s parking lot. The railyard is muddy and dark, almost too dark to navigate. Trevor takes it slow, hoping to avoid slipping and falling into the muck.
He’s worried he’ll chicken out. This kind of work had always appealed to him, being on the wrong side of the law, so to speak. Lately, the idea of stepping out of his apartment at night and never returning, either because he’s in jail or in the morgue, has been eating at him. And not just him. Carmen doesn’t like it.
No, Carmen doesn’t actually know about it. She probably knows more than Trevor’s told her, but she doesn’t know everything. He has to hide from her, lie to her, and the guilt is a big reason he wants out. He can take his time telling her, once he’s done with it.
Quit, Trevor thinks, and don’t chicken out.
It wouldn’t be chickening out, though, not entirely. This work has been his life. Alone, with a partner, with a crew. Can he really stop, cold-turkey? Just for Carmen? They’ve only been dating for a few weeks. What is that against nearly twenty years? The indecision, over the past few nights, had been threatening to drive him to a nervous breakdown.
After spending his nights pacing around his apartment, he hadn’t really come to an easy conclusion. He’d done the mental equivalent of a coin-flip, and here he is. Either life, to Trevor, is preferable to going insane and possibly spending time in the psych hospital. And dwelling on the choice, he knew, would probably land him in Chicago’s
