SF in The City Anthology (13 page)

             
“In that case, I’m going to need to transfer these samples to my scanning force microscope. It will still have enough resolution for my purposes, and I am more used to it.”

             
“It’s less safe,” Freja was becoming increasingly annoyed with her employee’s demands. “Plus you can’t afford to drop one of those vials, or we’ll have to seal off this room. As I’ve said before, I’ve been exposed to this chemical already, but we have no idea how much is needed to cause insanity.”

             
“I also need more live animals for my experiments. Could you please bring me some additional Wistar rats?”

             
“Anything else you need my highness?” Freja made a mock bow.

             
“That will be all.”

             
“Baer, you’re in charge while I’m gone,” Freja thought to her massive lackey, “I’ll be right back.”

             
“Speaking of which,” Taisei said to Baer awkwardly, once Freja had left the room, “could you help me move these vials.”

             
“But Taisei, couldn’t you use the robo…” Howin shut her mouth as soon as she recognized her friend’s plan.

             
The toxicologist kept an extra emergency mask in the top drawer by the room’s hand washing station. As Baer approached, Taisei opened the drawer slightly, readying himself for his move. He was glad Howin had confidence in his unspoken plan, given that he still didn’t fully understand it himself.

             
“Now I’ll just open it like this,” Taisei pushed a button on the Neltranch, and the glass viewing window popped open. “You take that crate, and I’ll grab this one,” the young man pointed at the vials’ containers.

             
As Baer reached for his crate, Taisei pretended to do the same, only to grab a vial and throw it into the large man’s face. At the same moment, the scientist reached back and threw on the emergency mask.

             
Shocked, Yejoon pulled a Koschei 430 semi-automatic pistol out of his blue trench coat and aimed it at Taisei. What the panicking thug did not account for was resistance from his hostage. Howin pushed her captor into the shelf next to them, causing him to fire a single shot, which missed Taisei and punched a hole in the wall across the room.

             
Howin ran for the door through which Freja had exited the room, and she headed for the nearest emergency exit. Taking advantage of the chaos, Taisei ran through the door, which led to an adjoining laboratory, behind him. He took one of the vials of The Scent out of Space with him.  

             
An angered Yejoon pulled himself to his feet and decided that the toxicologist would make for a more beneficial target than the girl. As he ran for the nearby door, he nearly tripped over the thrashing Baer. The enormous man foamed at the mouth and attacked his partner, whipping about from random seizures.

             
“Stay back!” Yejoon fired his weapon twice, the depleted uranium bullets shredding the advancing man.

             
The remaining thug thought for the first time about the possibly of contaminated air, and smelling a sickly sweet aroma around him, he clamped a hand over his mouth and nose. Running from the room, he felt a little dizzy, but not enough to keep him from blasting the man who killed his partner. Not that he had a deep friendship with Baer. It was just unprofessional to leave an ally unavenged.

             
His pursuit proved more taxing than he imagined. Yejoon had travelled through multiple rooms before he caught a glimpse of the fleeing Taisei in a chemical storage room. It was a relief to catch sight of the pencil neck. Yejoon had worried that his target had left the building, yet the moron had cornered himself in this place. There was only one other doorway leading out of this room besides the one the thug guarded, and it was up a flight of stairs, a pathway Taisei couldn’t take without being shot.

             
The toxicologist turned to look at the approaching pursuer a mixed expression on his face. Yejoon drew an electro-truncheon from his belt.

             
“I don’t want to hurt you. Come on back, and you won’t be punished,” Yejoon brandished the weapon menacingly, the sparks rising to its tip shone brightly.

             
“Well, I don’t want to harm you either,” Taisei answered sincerely.

             
“I’ve got a mask on,” Yejoon pointed at his face. “That vial in your hand can’t hurt me.”

             
“Actually,” Taisei looked like a man ready to commit a murder he wished to avoid “this will.”

             
Yejoon noticed his surrounding danger too late. He was standing in the middle of a walkway that possessed a trap door for dropping materials into a vat of chemicals below, and Taisei stood by the control pad that activated it. By the time Yejoon tried to jump out of his predicament, the toxicologist had pushed the ominous red button on the control panel.

             
The chemicals used in producing fragrances were often combustible, just as Howin had said and as the hapless Yejoon found out. Plunging into a vat of peleite, the goon’s nonlethal weapon still shot forth sparks. A large ball of fire shot up from the basin, igniting other nearby tanks. As the room shook with explosions, Taisei made for the exit his assailant had kept him from, aware that Smithson’s Ol’ Factory would soon be burned to the ground. 

He exited the building near the artificial river, which the company used for dumping unwanted manufacturing by products. As he was just about to laugh in relief at his escape, his heart sank at the sight of Freja holding a small firearm to Howin’s head.

              “You managed to save a vial,” the scent designer smiled cruelly. “I’m so proud of you.”

             
“Let her go,” Taisei said with less of a heroic intonation than he would have liked.

             
“What do you have to threaten me with?”

             
“If you don’t let Howin go, I’ll drop this sample. You’ll leave with nothing.”

             
“Walk over here very slowly,” Freja said commandingly. “When you are half way here, I’ll send Howin over to you, and we can all walk away from this okay.”

             
   “Don’t trust her Taisei!” Howin struggled as the other woman’s thin but strong hand released the grip on the back of her neck. “She’ll kill both of us anyway!”

             
“I’m walking your direction,” Taisei said with both his hands up, the vial hanging precariously from one of them. “Please don’t shoot me.”

             
The exchange was pulled off without a hitch, but as Howin predicted, Freja did not keep her word. Once she had the vial securely in her hand, the scent designer shot Howin twice in the chest. Taisei’s eyes widened as the woman he had known for years fell to the ground in a puddle of blood.

“Well I didn’t shoot
you
,” Freja scoffed.

“What are you going to hold over me as a threat now?” Taisei looked through hot tears at his friend turned enemy.

             
“I can always find another toxicologist, but none quite as good as you. If I can avoid killing you, I’ll do so. If you attack me, I’ll shoot.”

             
Taisei didn’t have to. A burst of sound like thunder sounded from Smithson’s landing area. The toxicologist gaped in disbelief at the imposing vacuum where Freja’s head used to be located. As her body fell across Howin’s, Taisei’s boss dropped the vial from her lifeless hand, and it rolled down a steep incline into the river.

             
Looking at the two dead women before him, Taisei perceived an oppressive feeling of guilt descending on him. He had saved each of these friends before, but not tonight. The Scent out of Space was gone, and any evidence for its existence probably burned up in the factory’s fire. Not only that, Taisei had just escaped death thanks to someone with a powerful weapon, and he did not know if that gun was now leveled at him.

Turning to look at the source of the gunshot, Taisei was shocked to see the pilot and copilot descending the hill to his location, a “mulcher” cannon slung over the man’s shoulder. When they arrived and stared at the bodies, the mysterious man was also the first to break the silence.

“The CA is going to be here any minute now,” the middle-aged fellow said. “We would very much appreciate it if you came with us Mr. Mori. Your testimony can help us break the back of Central Authority.”

“Testimony?” Taisei looked at the man and woman in confusion. “How does one testify against the government?” 

              “This is Patty Plattson,” the man pointed to his copilot. “You may have heard of her.”

             
“I thought you looked familiar,” Taisei snapped his fingers. “You’re a charactor. Aren’t you supposed to be missing?”

             
“If the CA had its way, she would be,” the pilot stepped forward. “Thanks to plastic surgery she looks a little different does she not? We are forming a group to oppose The City’s government, and you will be helpful in doing so. As a matter of fact, we’ve been undercover for the sake of recovering evidence of xeno-scents. You are the closest thing to evidence we will find I imagine.”

             
As VTOLs from Central Authority’s police force arrived on the scene, an aerodeslizador could be seen fleeing the scene, if one looked to the sky rather than the burning factory. Fortunately, the officers did not see the lucky trio flying away.

             
“I never got to thank you,” Taisei said from the back seat of the vehicle. “One of your identities has been made very clear, but who may my pilot be?” 

             
“Ángel Ehrlichmann,” the man up front answered.

             
“So, you’re my
guardian angel
,” Taisei laughed awkwardly.

             
“Something like that,” the pilot responded with a pleased smile, happy that someone had seen him as more than an enemy of the state.

***

              “Mr. Husher, we are not pleased to hear of the recent debacle with Smithson’s Ol’ Factory,” the voice of The Club’s chairman Mimrod Dybbuk rang through the skull of the CA’s head of intelligence.

             
“I have the situation under control,” Og Husher thought back, as he reflexively clenched his teeth.

             
“If the
invasion
is to take place on our timetable, you will have to avoid fiery explosions amongst our supporters’ factories, eh Husher,” Sally Rod, another of The Club’s members, chimed in. Her mental calling voice was as annoying as her physical one.

             
“Geneticists will soon have the ‘invaders’ ready for action, and our engineers have everything set,” another member named Carron Kakkoi spoke up. “The xeno-scents would have added to the effect. It is a shame that PurliuScent is not onboard with our program.”

             
“They will be…
soon
,” Og cracked all his knuckles with a sound rivaling a young boy’s first experience with firecrackers.

             
Once Og’s annoying superiors signed off, the man lit up one of his famous cigars. He needed to relax, or he’d wind up killing the very people who put him into a place of power. The Club ran Central Authority, and the CA ran The City.

             
“Sir, we have some new information for you,” the voice of Captain Drescher entered his superior’s head.

             
“What is it?” Og thought back.

              “We’ve identified the man who has been interfering with our operations. His name is Ángel Ehrlichmann. He doesn’t have a history of anti-government sympathies or a criminal record, but he’s now part of a conspiracy against the CA according to our sources. He’ll have the toxicologist we lost tonight.”

             
“You’re sure? What about Patty Plattson?”

             
“We now know that this Ehrlichmann saved her and probably has her hidden somewhere.”

             
“Very good captain,” Og exhaled a dramatic puff of smoke, “Let’s go catch ourselves an angel.”

Episode 7: “Copy Rites”

In all earnestness, Grace Sequelae had few material possessions in her ground floor apartment. Life in the Gorse, one of The City’s most infamous ghettos, had never been easy on her or her family. At the age of 42, Grace’s father died of a heart attack. It seemed like such a foolish way for a man to die in this modern era. He wasn’t overweight, nor was his daily routine stressful, at least in comparison with most Gorsers. His early departure from the world taught Grace a lesson she would carry for the rest of her life – “you never know when you’re gonna die.”