Technomancer (27 page)

“No, not at all. I’m saying that they performed a lot of strange tests in the last century—playing with physics, you understand. It is my belief that they did more than split atoms under this desert. I think they fractured something bigger.”

“Fractured what?”

“I don’t know. A membrane between two coexistent places, maybe. Our world appears solid to us, but really it is more like a liquid. These rips in space—I think they are akin to splashing raindrops. They cause a disruption in the otherwise flat, featureless surface of our reality.”

I shook my head and gulped my drink. His theories were interesting, but I knew they were only theories. I also knew they weren’t helping me. “Can we get back to what happened to Bernie?”

“You said it yourself.
You
happened to Bernie. Everyone you get close to dies.”

I stared at the man’s dark shape. I didn’t like his answer. I thought of Jenna, Holly, even McKesson—I didn’t want any of them to die. They were the only people I knew. Well…I guess I wouldn’t miss McKesson all that much…

“How do I stop this?” I asked. “What should I do?”

“I think I’m getting old.” Rostok sighed. “I shouldn’t be talking to you so much. I think these matters are best left
alone, Draith. So forget them and live your life. It’s time for you to leave now.”

I wanted to rage at him in frustration. I decided to give it one last try. “What does your object do in this place, sir? What power do you have over this domain that makes you so strong?”

Rostok chuckled in the darkness. “Pray you never learn the truth about that.”

“You want to get rid of me to protect yourself,” I said. “Even if I leave now, are you sure you’ll be safe from my curse? I’ve been here to see you twice in the span of a few days. Several events have occurred around the Lucky Seven that needed—cleaning up.”

Rostok was silent for a second. “Tell me,” he said. “What’s the first thing you remember?”

I paused. I’d expected him to become angry. I’d hoped that by poking at his obvious paranoia, I would get more out of him. Instead, he’d switched topics on me and ignored my bait. I almost told him that I could barely remember anything. The accident had eaten up my past. Thinking about it now, I felt more empty than ever. I’d lost all my belongings. If I had a family, I hadn’t been able to find them. The only thing I had was the picture that had survived the accident. Two smiling parents and a baby who might or might not be me. No other clues.

“I don’t remember much,” I admitted.

“Well, work with what you have, then. That’s all any of us can do.”

After that, he shooed me away. I left even more determined to learn the truth.

When I stepped out of the elevator and into the hallway, I encountered the opposition. There stood McKesson and two red-faced security men. None of them was smiling.

“You’ve been in there to see the old man?” McKesson asked me. “You’ve got more balls than brains, you know that, Draith?”

“I’ve heard that,” I said. I looked past the two security guys. They had a gurney with them. A large, lumpy mass filled the body bag on the gurney. “Bernie, I presume?”

McKesson gestured furiously for the security men to take the body down the hallway. They did so, and I had no doubt there was a waiting ambulance outside in the alley. I felt sure the paramedics didn’t have their flashers on, and I doubted they would take the body to the city morgue.

“What do you do in cases like this, Jay?” I asked McKesson. “I mean, do you have a big hole full of bones in the desert somewhere? Or do you have a one-way garbage chute set up
to dump your waste into the world of the Gray Men? Is that why they are so pissed off?”

McKesson laughed unpleasantly. “That would be pretty cool, actually.”

“So, what do you want to do next?” I asked.

McKesson’s hand slipped down to his gun. He did it in a natural motion, as if he were adjusting his clothing. He smiled at me confidently.

“It’s time to take you in, Draith. You’re interfering with my job. Sorry, it’s nothing personal.”

I didn’t plan to turn around and let him snap cuffs on me. He read my eyes, and gave a tiny nod. Neither of us said anything. He made his move, and I did the same. Both of us pulled our pistols out and had the barrel in the other guy’s face.

“No plans to come along quietly, eh?” McKesson asked. He jerked his head toward the elevator. Is Rostok dead up there? Did you manage to take out the old man too?”

I glared at him. “We had this argument when we first met. I’m not an assassin.”

“All I know is that people keep dying around you, Draith. Important people.”

I decided to take a chance. Probably, in retrospect, it was a foolish chance. I grabbed his gun hand with my left and pushed it aside. At the same time, I pushed my weapon into his throat.

There were two dry clicks. McKesson had pulled the trigger. I’m not sure if the gun would have taken part of my face off, if it had fired. It was being pushed off target—but he had fired pretty fast. McKesson must have figured he had to shoot.

“What the hell?” he gasped. For perhaps the first time since I’d met him, I saw real fear in his eyes.

“Your gun misfired,” I said. “Happens all the time. I guess I just got lucky. You should buy the good ammo next time, not that cheap South American crap.” I knew, naturally, that luck had been with me. I’d grabbed his gun with my left hand—with the very finger that wore Jenna’s ring. The ring was, in fact, in direct contact with the metal of his weapon.

He stared at me for a second, baffled. “You’re so crazy. I could have taken your head off.”

“But you didn’t. Now drop it.”

The gun thumped down. Apparently, he was in no mood to try his luck against my weapon. I turned him around and cuffed him with his own cuffs. I tucked his gun into the front pocket of his jacket where he couldn’t reach it. I walked him to a door marked
trash room
a hundred steps down the hall. It was locked, but my sunglasses opened it, and after that the rolling steel doors that let out onto the parking lot.

“Where’s your car?” I asked.

“They’re watching us on camera by now. They know.”

I thought about that. Maybe he was right. “I know they’re watching. But I’m working for Rostok now.”

He jerked his head to look at me. I ignored him. It was hard to bluff a cop, especially this one. Whatever the case, we made it to his car unmolested. I let him sit in the passenger seat with his cuffs on while I drove. He wasn’t happy.

“They are going to fry you for this, you know that, don’t you?” he asked me.

“There’s nothing here to fry,” I said. “I’m empty. I’m a ghost without a past.”

“What are you talking about now?”

I gave him my story, telling him about my missing memories. He stared at me with growing apprehension. Clearly, he figured I belonged in a straitjacket.

“Where are we going?” he asked.

I didn’t answer. I headed south, turned east on Sunset, and pulled over at Sunset Park. It was dark now, and there were only a few kids and weirdos around. I dug in the glove compartment.

“What the hell are you doing?” he asked.

I had figured him for a habitual quitter. I found his pack of emergency smokes and a lighter in the glove box. I took out the lighter. McKesson fell quiet as he watched me. It was as if he suspected I was going to singe his eyebrows with the lighter. I remembered him pulling the trigger of his pistol, and thought to myself he’d look pretty funny without eyebrows.

I took the picture of my parents out of its case. There it was: a baby in a bounce chair. My smiling parents clustered close around me, my dad’s arm extended to full length to get the shot. If that baby was me, I’d never looked happier.

I flicked the lighter. It took three tries to get it to catch. These cheap safety lighters always hurt your thumb. I sat there behind the steering wheel, breathing hard. This was more difficult than I’d thought it would be. I told myself the flame would only mar one tiny corner.

I held the picture in my left hand and the lighter in my right. I didn’t put the flame
under
the picture, but instead brought it down from above to a corner. It took an effort of will, but I touched the flame down to the least interesting corner of the photo. There was no one there, I told myself. The lighter would only blacken what looked like a refrigerator in the background. It would give the picture a bit of character, that’s all.

The flame touched the picture for a half second, then I pulled it away. I was sweating.

“Your family?” McKesson said.

“I think so,” I said, flicking the lighter again. It had gone out.

“Nice-looking couple. You don’t have to do this, you know.”

“Do what?”

“Throw it all away. Burn your past.”

I studied the photo. Was it a little browner in that corner? It was hard to tell. I turned on the car’s dome light and inspected it.

“You know, you’ve been through a lot lately,” McKesson was saying. “People often give up when under heavy stress. I know some people you can talk to.”

I let my hands drop to my lap. “Would you shut up?” I asked. “This is hard to do.”

McKesson’s soft-guy voice vanished as quickly as it had appeared. “All right, asshole. Just tell me straight, are you going to do yourself, me, or the both of us?”

I stared at him for a second. “I’m not shooting anyone. I’m trying to see if this picture will burn.”

Again, he gave me that wary stare. I could tell he still thought I was crazy, but this time, he was certain. I flicked the lighter and held it under the picture again. I touched it there, then pulled away, then did it again. Finally, I held it there for ten long seconds, then I let the lighter go out. I held the picture under McKesson’s nose.

“There,” I said, “see? It’s an object. That’s why it survived the wreck, my burned house—everything.”

McKesson’s eyes traveled from me to the picture and back again. “Maybe it has a coating, or something.”

“No, no, man,” I said. I grabbed the picture again and tried to rip it in half. This act was relatively easy now, as I no longer believed I could damage the picture. The paper
flexed and folded, but didn’t tear. It was like the strongest plastic I’d ever tried to rip.

“You see?” I asked him. “It’s an object. Like your watch. They can’t be destroyed.”

“Who told you that?” he asked. He stared at me like I was some kind of homeless junkie talking about my secret invisible friends. Was it possible he didn’t know all that much about the objects in general?

“Let me show you,” I said coldly, putting the picture against his shoulder. I was tired of people telling me I was crazy. I knew what I knew. I aimed my gun at the picture and made sure there were no organs behind the spot.

“What the fuck are you—” he began.

I pulled the trigger. Inside the enclosed car, the bang was deafening, followed instantly by the sound of the bullet ricocheting and a weird cracking noise. I’d angled the gun so the ricochet wouldn’t hit me, but the moment after I did it, I realized it had been a dumb, impulsive move.

McKesson roared in pain, twisting around.

“You shot me. I can’t believe it. You shot me.”

“Calm down. You’re not hit, and the bullet could’ve just as easily hit me. And look…”

I held the picture up. It was perfect. There wasn’t even a crease. McKesson stared. He looked down at his shoulder. There was no hole—no blood.

“Where’d the bullet go?”

I pointed to the windshield. There was a new star of shattered glass there, right in front of his face.

“It bounced off the picture then punched through the glass. You’ll have a bruise, but you’ll be fine.”

McKesson stared at me, fear battling with anger. Then, finally, he broke into laughter. It was the laughter of a man
reprieved. “You’re crazy,” he said, but there was a look almost like admiration on his face.

I shrugged. “I just have nothing left to lose.”

“You know how much a windshield costs?” McKesson asked, shaking his head and nursing his shoulder.

“So you believe me now?” I said.

“Yeah, but you didn’t have to shoot me.”

“Remember those two dry clicks?” I asked him. “Now we’re even.”

We glared at each other quietly for a second.

“Those dry clicks were a cop’s reflex,” he said finally.

“I’ve felt the same urge. But now we have to work together.”

“So how many damned objects do you have?”

“One too many. I don’t know what this picture does, but I know it was the one I started with.”

McKesson eyed me. “I’ll give you some new information about these things.”

“What?”

“Uncuff me, and I’ll tell you.”

I thought about it, and then nodded. “Truce, though, right? No more guns?”

“OK, Scout’s honor.”

I didn’t trust him worth a damn, and I didn’t think he’d ever been a Scout, but I figured we were even now. I put my gun in my pocket and released him. I watched him warily, expecting to get punched. He rubbed his wrists and his bruised shoulder.

“No wonder the perps hate cuffs,” he muttered.

“Do you have something to tell me, or was that bullshit?” I asked.