The Anarchists (24 page)

“Wait, let me guess, that’s the girl from your dreams; the Boricua in the sweats?”

He nodded.  

“Surveillance?”

“Off-line in the transport. No witnesses and the record of payment’s already been scrubbed. Fast and clean, for a hack job.”

Madison scoped the area. Cameras inside the traffic signals had a 100-yard rotating diameter focus. Using a palm-sized surveillance device, she made a three-point figure with her thumb, index and middle finger to indicate direction. All three cameras had been disabled. “What are you doing here?”

“I needed to check something out. . .playing a wild hunch.”

“If you hadn’t drawn duty for that government thing, I‘d put marks on you getting benched. You‘d be sitting in a chair getting scanned and poked.”

No thanks,
he thought. “Forensics, got what you need?”

A droid head swiveled all the way around to face Damario. “Medical Examiner Rochester will be in touch with you, detectives.” The droids filed into their Caper and drove away. The ambulance followed. The machines pronounced Ted dead at the scene, while they declared Teanna to be in critical condition.

“D, let’s go. If she makes it, we’ll have to question her.”

“Yeah.” He paused. “Harper and Quinne – they need to come with us.”

Clearly, her partner had a plan. “Alright. Let’s go.”

Within five minutes, the solemn caravan of two ambulances and a Caper screeched to a stop in front of the hospital’s emergency bay doors. Damario and Madison rushed inside behind the stretchers, validating their identity as admission tickets. Harper and Quinne remained. Nothing the officers did indicated that they should do otherwise.

“We just s’posed to sit here, Harper?” Quinne unwrapped a piece of chewing gum and folded it inside her mouth.

“Caper doors don’t open from the inside – at least the ones in the back don’t. So yes, Quinne, we sit here and wait.” Harper folded her hands and exhaled a deep breath. “Tell me about yourself.”

“Uh uh. You first.”

“What do you want to know?”

Quinne loudly chomped for a few seconds. “Harper’s a weird name for a chick.”

“My grandfather loved this old book,
To Kill a Mockingbird
, so he named my daddy after its author. Daddy thought I’d be a boy, so he decided I’d be his junior, and couldn’t be talked out of it. Harper was his name, Charlotte is hers. My middle name is Charlotte.”

“Got any kids?”

“No.” Her answer rang with hints of sadness. “How old are you? Planning to go to college?”

Quinne stared at the glistening condensation on the transport window. “I’ll be 20 this May. Ain’t goin’ to nobody’s college. Too expensive and pointless.”

“What will you do, then?”

She clicked her teeth. “You think I’m on assistance, eatin’ up your hard earned marks? When I worked, they took it outta my check, so I take it when I got to.”

Harper turned her head toward the window, away from her fellow prisoner. She had never known the difficulty of juggling bills, nor would she.

Madison’s shadow and the approaching taps of her work shoes against the pavement broke through the silence. A gust of cold air whisked into the transport when she opened the driver’s side door and closed it after settling down onto the leather seat. This was the last place she wanted to be – babysitting Damario’s merry band of amnesiacs. If he did not return in 10 minutes, she would go in. After all these years, death still did not sit right with him.

“She’s in critical condition and in intensive care,” said Madison with gravity.

“That don’t sound good.”

“It’s not good, Quinne,” Madison replied. “The medical droids don’t expect her to survive the night.”

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

Teanna stirred, opening her eyes to white. Any sound she might hear would be drowned out by nothingness. She stood, though no pressure or weight reported to her back, legs, or feet. The bright atmosphere yielded no sun or source of light to illuminate it. It smelled of nothing – no freshness, stale or distinctive odor. She was alone and not breathing.

“Hello?” The sound of her voice flowed from her brain, drowned in her throat, and resurfaced into the space as a gentle, unintelligible whisper. Her lips failed to move.
Am I dead?
A dozen small burns needled her skin, like a group of smokers had smudged cigarette butts onto her body. She wasn’t dead, at least, not the way she imagined death to be.

Suddenly, a hand touched her skin. Stripped of the ability to move beyond the impulse to blink, she looked ahead. A handsome gentleman in a police uniform appeared in her peripheral vision. The man said something to her, but the voice rumbled like it was underwater. Whatever he said, it carried importance – like lives depended on it. He soon disappeared. In his place came an ethnic mutt of a man who looked to be of Asian ancestry. Worry lined his face in the form of crow’s feet and wrinkled cheeks. Whatever concerns he had clearly brought him deep sadness.

“You’ve done a terrible thing,” he said with compunction.

Teanna understood. His voice resonated in her ears and mind, but she could not directly provide an answer.
What I gone an’ done?

“The strongest human impulse is self-preservation.” His weathered face animated with grief. “We would do anything to save ourselves, to preserve our way of life; others, not so much. You made one such decision.”    

Two things came to mind, both of which she regularly reminded herself to forget by burying them inside of a glass. A tinge of regret shot into her heart each time she thought about it, but she knew the risks. Without those incidents, Teanna had a shot of living a normal, healthy, productive life. Her throat and eyes swelled, sending her into a pit of swallowing blackness.

“I am Stan Witmore, of the pilot medical droid program.” The mechanical head raised and adjusted so that its optical lenses were level with Damario’s eyes. “Teanna Kirkwood’s condition has worsened. A reaction to her anesthesia led to angioedema in her throat and eyes. We performed an emergency cricothyrotomy to give her the ability to breathe and we relieved the swelling in her eyes. She still cannot breathe on her own.”

Damario hung his head. Whatever information Teanna possessed, including the identity of her assailant, would likely die with her. “Does she have a living will on record, Stan?”

“Yes, Detective. We have received it, and it will be executed according to her wishes.”

“Its orders?”

“Do Not Resuscitate.”

Damario held his breath. Stan rolled to the side of Teanna’s bed where the ventilator and machines monitoring her vital signs were located. He imagined the android would perform a complicated operation. Instead, Stan used a mechanical digit to touch an infrared sensor to disconnect the ventilator. 

The Asian man, now a shade older than he previously appeared, opened Teanna’s eyes with his fingers. “You do not have much time left.”

For what? What ain’t I got time for? Who are you?

“You do not know me because I was never born. But I have my father’s eyes. I had a sister once.”

A slender-but-curvy girl appeared beside the man; a female young enough to be his granddaughter. The golden streaks in her hair reminded Teanna of the most beautiful sunrise she had ever seen in Japan. Tears burst from the corners of Teanna’s eyes.

“Do not cry for us, dear one. You are forgiven.”

Teanna regained her mobility. She tightly embraced her children. Gradually, a luminous aura surrounded the trio.  

Thirty seconds after Stan deactivated Teanna’s ventilator, her bandage-patched body exhaled like a deflated balloon. She lay still. The heart monitor abruptly jumped to a flatline.

Damario dropped his head in defeat and turned away. He’d lost her.

“Easy, D,” said Madison, her arm wrapped around his waist. “There’s nothing you could’ve done. Someone got to her before we did.”  

 “I thought. . .”

“Yeah, but I thought you might need me here.”
He’s taking this too hard.

Years of closely working together had endeared her to his habits following the loss of a victim. Madison was a good partner and an even better friend. “Thanks, Shenk.” 

“I’ve already requisitioned her personal effects.” She clung to a clear bag and scoped it at eye level. “Nothing worth noting; a Hristoff clutch it would take me decades to afford, the usual. Makeup, birth control. . .wait.” A gold, thumb-sized disk rolled down the bag’s bottom seam to a corner. 

Madison handed Teanna’s belongings to Damario, who donned a pair of plastic gloves. He reached into the bag for the disk and held it between his right thumb and index finger.
Dr. Miles Chu/CEO Exodus Foundation.
He could not risk placing the disk into evidence and losing it via clerical error. Pocketing it would contaminate evidence and place the investigation in peril. “Jupiter’s back at the James’ house. Give me a lift?”
 

“Of course.” Madison led Damario from the room and out to her Caper, where both Harper and Quinne dozed off. The sudden temperature change and the sound of the lifting and closing of doors roused them both.   

“What happened?” Harper read their expressions, as did Quinne.

“Tell me you got something?” Quinne waited for an affirmative answer.

Damario thought back to the disk. “No. Nothing.”

Madison witnessed her partner’s dismissive face.
Why did he lie?

En route to Harper’s home, about 20 minutes away from the centrally-located hospital, Madison and Damario did not exchange words, but listened to the police scanner.
Quiet.
In their experience, peace preceded storms of relative chaos and anarchy. The white noise lulled Harper and Quinne to sleep in the backseat.

Meanwhile, Madison thought the lack of action had a chance to stick. US President Mateo scheduled a week-long talk with Italy Prime Minister Nandor Adharma. All senior officers were given some sort of street duty starting in less than 48 hours. Open cases would be moved to an “as needed” basis or, in an emergency, be handed to officers of lesser rank. If she and Damario pleaded to continue their investigations, it would have to come on the heels of concrete evidence. They had none. 

In front of the entrance to the James home, Damario stirred the sleeping passengers with a gentle hand. “Harper, Quinne, we’re here.”

“Pull closer, Detective,” Harper mumbled, while waving her hand. “The gate’s sensor won’t pick up my DNA markers this far away.”

Quinne squinted her eyes. “This ain’t my side of town.”

Damario slowly directed the transport past the opening gates and around the property to where he parked. “It’s Harper’s. You’re the next stop.”

Realization evolved into panic. “I can’t go back
,
not after today.”

Harper yawned and stretched out her arms. “You don’t have to. Get your things. You can stay with me tonight. Figure the rest out later.”

“Why you bein’ nice to me? You don’t even know me.”

She brushed off Quinne’s suspicion. “Someone once did the same thing for me.”

Madison released the safety locks on the rear doors and turned her head to face them. “Call us if you remember anything at all. We’ll be in touch.”