The chubby guy occupying the labcoat continued to look at me impassively. I sighed and put the barrel of my sixty-shooter to his forehead. The impassive expression continued unchanged.

I smirked. “We both know if I pull this trigger it will be both a felony, and utterly useless. Good job getting into my head there, though. I don’t wanna know how you found out about the doppelganger, and I applaud your creativity, but stop it. Jig’s up, Otto.”

The labcoat melted and gave way to a police uniform. The bastardliness remained. He grinned in that infuriatingly inhuman way that holograms do. “There’s still a few of ‘em in here, Bleak. You gotta track ‘em down and figure out the hell they’re doing with all these zebras.”

I shook my head. “Nope. I know exactly what you conned these guys into, and what the zebras are for. ‘Cause the only thing useful to you is information. And the only good way to hide information these days is to not keep it all in one place.” I waved down at the confused herd of zebras. “You broke the payload up into a few hundred compressed chunks and had your patsies hide it right in the DNA of the poor animals down there. Too bad I was two steps ahead of you.”

He continued to grin, but his physical representation flickered as he drew on more processing bandwidth to figure out how I knew what I knew. Even holograms got tells.

I holstered the gun, unholstered my handheld, and blazed my patented even-more-annoying-than-a-hologram grin at him at a hundred percent intensity. “Best thing is, you think you have the entire thing genetically encoded and spread throughout the herd. But I managed to grab a couple of the most important terabytes. If you want what I got, you’re gonna have to bargain for it.”

My handheld’s screen blinked red, and I gave its surface a nonchalant tap. Cookiejar_noose.1_z closed with a satisfied beep. I was suddenly really glad that I’d taken the time to prepare for this very contingency– an AI trying to hack me.

Otto’s synthetic facial expression went from impassive to puzzled to really, really mad. “You–”

“Yep!” I kissed the screen of my trusty digital assistant. “I didn’t have shit, obviously. How the hell could I? You had this con airtight. Didn’t stop you from jamming your digital arm all the way into the boobytrapped digital cookie jar. The thing about the zebras was a guess, by the way. Thanks for confirming it.”

Code spilled across Otto’s face as he struggled for coherency– a valiant attempt, considering at least a third of his processor power was already wrapped up in my handheld and quickly getting dumped to a quarantined server I’d whipped up for just such an occasion.

I sighed again. “Man, what the hell should I do with my very own holocop?”

Otto was stuttering. “This– resis– isting arrest– assaulting an officer–”

“Go to sleep, Otto. Good game. Play again.”

Otto faded out of existence and into my private storage space.

The zebras continued to mill around. The small-time guys Otto had tricked into pulling off the heist would be taken care of easily; the security foundation entrusted with the infobomb Otto stole would probably already be alerted and on their way, since Otto’s attention and the protection that came with it now belonged entirely to me.

I chuckled at the thought of the poor, underpaid technicians who would have to do the zebra blood samples to properly resequence their precious data. Then a thought occurred to me, and I started looking for the controls to open the warehouse’s docking bay doors. After all, if there’s one thing I always said this city needed, it’s a herd of genetically modified zebras running wild in the streets. 

Or, wait. I always say something about letting yellows mellow. That’s what I always say.

All right, zebras. Zebras zebras zebras.

Whatever the hell THAT meant. Had I been some sort of paranoid man, I would assume that the little square of glass was lying to me. But if there’s one thing I always do, it’s trust the images I see through windows.

No, wait. The one thing I always do is drink. That’s what I always do.

I pressed my fingertips against the glass. It didn’t look like a holographic display, but I couldn’t take any chances. I fired a few rounds through it.

The glass gave way revealing that it was just a simple window. Excellent, I’m good with windows.

The room I entered through the window was still full of zebras; the zebras were all panicky and would probably have liked to stampede at that point, but they were restricted by the fact that the room was only about the size of a basketball court. They settled for being a striped, turmoiling sea.

I surveyed my surroundings. There appeared to be a lot of abandoned factory-type equipment where there weren’t zebras. Maybe it was a Juicy Fruit factory…

There was a network of catwalks about a story up. There was a ladder leading to the catwalks in one corner of the room, so I decided to reduce my chances of getting trampled by accomplishing some vertical movement. Luckily, the spooked animals were still pretty afraid of me, so they stayed out of my way long enough for me to swing up onto the ladder.

I reached the top of the ladder and came face to face with a man wearing a labcoat and dark goggles. He was a short little bastard with a really pained facial expression. I was considering how best to give him a reason for the expression when he addressed me.

“Mister Bleakly, do you always have to break that window every time you come here?”

jacobson

I was finally prepared to initiate my incursion on the City estate. I had all the essential gadgetry, I’d reviewed the limited blueprints available to me, I’d cursed Thomas’ name thoroughly, and I’d shaken anyone who might be following me.

I was about a mile out from City’s estate, which I estimated put me a few dozen meters outside the bounds of his security net. I rubbed my hands and thrust them into my pockets for a moment to warm them and collect my thoughts. In my right pocket, my fingers closed around the Omnigun, which was still in the shape of a harmless fountain pen. In my left, my fingers touched the cold metal of the two clips of ammunition I’d considered necessary. It was not the sort of precaution I ever enjoyed taking… but in this case my objective was to recover young Miss Smith. They’d taken her by violence, and I’d take her back in like manner if necessary.

I slung my satchel of supplies over one shoulder and began walking down the sparsely lit street in the direction of City Hall. If only I had Thomas with–

I noticed the glare of a single headlight approaching behind me. That’s odd, that’s the fourth or fifth– Cold understanding gripped me. I pulled the pen from my right pocket and the clip of ammunition from my left. My stride lengthened, and I gritted my teeth. The countermeasures in my satchel should have at least allowed me to penetrate the first layer of City’s security!

The beat-up sedan with tinted windows and a single headlight slowed and pulled alongside the sidewalk. I must admit my old heart protested this series of events.

I stopped and turned to the vehicle, my fingers twitching on the dormant shape of the Omnigun.

The sedan’s electric window dropped away with a far-too-loud grinding sound. The face it revealed took me a moment to recognize, not because it was an unrecognizable face, but rather through sheer denial.

Cornelius City leaned out the passenger window. His eyes glowed a dull red, and his smile would have sent a lesser man to his grave. He spoke quietly, but the night itself seemed to hold its breath to catch his words. “My dear Gregory, not all security precautions are technological in nature. Not all of them, in fact, are entirely natural. Please, join me.” With that, the rear passenger door of the car swung open of its own volition.

I’m an old man. I’ve felt my body protest before. I’ve felt joints and muscles buck and disobey… but never in concert. My every muscle went as tense as an overtightened violin string, and, obeying a will other than my own, propelled me into the waiting darkness of City’s vehicle.

The kid was taken care of, at least as far as I cared to take care of him. I’m just a caring guy.

I unclipped my handheld from my collar and explored a little deeper into the warehouse.

The place was clean for an abandoned warehouse in that part of town. Floors looked to be swept pretty regularly; there weren’t any crates or barrels lying around. That was weird. I let my guard come all the way up and started looking for something to explain what the inexperienced saps Otto’d suckered were up to.

A few rooms in, the demeanor of the place changed entirely– carpeted floors, functional-looking lights. I found a wall-mounted control pad and toggled a few switches. Lights dutifully came on in the room I was in– revealing what appeared to be a decently-furnished breakroom with a window on the far wall. I toggled another switch and light blazed through the window; I immediately registered movement on the other side of the window and threw myself behind an office chair.

 I lay there a couple minutes, trying to figure out what the commotion on the other side of the window meant.

All right Tommy boy. This is a warehouse. There’s most likely a big ol’ factory type room thing on the other side of that window. Whatever is moving around is either unable to come get you, unwilling to investigate, or simply doesn’t care.

Plus, caution isn’t my thing.

I stood up and walked over to the window. It was one-way glass, so maybe that explained why whatever was on the other–

What. The. Hell.

The atrium-sized room opposite the window was full. Full of zebras.

I had four or five drinks in me and had laid out about the same number of random thugs to hilariously little effect. I’d made a big enough show of promoting my unique brand of sleuthery at that point, so I figured it was time to call Otto’s bluff and see what the hell he was after.

So. Let’s recap.

Otto had shown me two pieces of footage. In one of ‘em, some dumb-lookin’ dudes stole something officially nonexistent (read: insanely valuable) from an ultra-high-profile security outfit without setting off a single alarm.

In another scene, they’re busting an ATM. Only thing is, in that scene, they’ve got a faint, fuzzy, blue digital aura: the hallmark of faked footage.

It was a lucky thing for me that as an adolescent I used to constantly search for nude holography of famous actresses, or else I’d never be an expert at telling real footage from the computer-edited kind.

Back to the stooges. Clearly they’ve got some assistance pulling off a big heist. Otto’s showing me altered video. It didn’t take a genius to put together what was actually going on… or at least the outlines.

I stepped off the conveyor sidewalk and strolled around to the side entrance of the warehouse my handheld had directed me to. I mean, come on. The front door was gonna be locked, bugged, guarded anyway.

I kicked in the rustiest door in sight– which was, coincidentally, the only side door– and found myself immersed in an almost-palpable darkness. I felt through my coat pockets for my flashlight. I DID have a flashlight, right? Wait, don’t I have one integrated on my handhel–

Suddenly, all my senses prickled and a tingle went through my body. I wasn’t alone.

To be perfectly fair in my description of my own sleuth-senses and what-not, I should probably include the following details: the tingling I was experiencing was accompanied by a cameo appearance of my buddies Steve and Hector, as well as a sharp blow to the back of my head.

In response, I hissed, “FUCK!!!” 

I heard a noncommittal sound behind me and decided to allow my reflexes to sort things out while I sulked over how many braincells I’d lost in the last few weeks and the ratio of said braincells I’d lost in the course of painful rather than pleasurable activities.

A few moments later, I took the controls back from my reflexes. My reflexes had found the flashlight attachment on my handheld (Jeez, guys, couldn’t you have just told me where the damn thing was?) and placed the barrel of my sixty-shooter between the teeth of a terrified-looking teenager at whose feet was a short length of aluminum pipe.

Oh, I thought. New guy. 

I rubbed my face with the hand that wasn’t busy tickling the kid’s tonsils.

“Okay, look, kid. Here’s- you gotta know some things.” I clipped the handheld to my coat’s collar so that its beam was still aimed in the general vicinity of the kid’s face.

He was shaking and wide-eyed. Pupils were a little differently focused- he might’ve been into some riprun or other such crap. His hands were slightly above his head, but it didn’t look like he had full control of his fingers.

“All right, look.” Using my free hand, I started going through the kid’s pockets. “Life ain’t like the holoshows. You punch someone real good in the face, maybe you slug ‘em in the back of the head with a bit of pipe, maybe they’ll be in enough pain they go down right then.” Wallet was mostly empty, but what was there would get me a couple beers. “But if they’re a hardcore motherfucker, they won’t. So,  you want to use something like this–” I pulled the small laser pistol from the back of his waistband– “first so that you don’t wind up in an uncomfortable situation like this.” I looked at the kid’s heater. It was not what I was expecting- it was a surgical-grade laser overclocked to accept a weapons-grade power cell, all in a custom housing. Nice bit of work and entirely untraceable. “Thing’d probably put a neat hole the size of a nickel in somebody. Hm.” 

I test-fired it through the kid’s left kneecap. It did indeed leave a neat hole the size of a nickel, and it didn’t leave him bleeding, either. I could probably sell the thing and get enough booze to last me a couple days.

I made it a personal policy of mine not to kill the younger and dumber people who enter the dark world I inhabit. The reasoning is that the lower I allow the general level of competence to drop, the better I’ll seem. Also, it helps to build the brand if you leave ‘em broken and weeping for mercy. If you leave no survivors, nobody gets to tell of you in hushed whispers.

Especially with my brand-new headache, I’d have much preferred a hushed whisper to the screams the kid had decided to go with at that moment, but what can you do.

———————————

jacobson

I disembarked the bus outside the theatre and crossed the street. A vehicle with a single working headlight barreled past mere inches from me and sped off into the night; my heart’s rhythm duly noted the event as dangerous, but it seemed an isolated event. 

The theatre was much as I’d remembered it. The paint that had been brilliant gold was peeling in places and painted over in others, the dapper lad in the box office had been replaced with a bored teenage girl, and the carpet had been replaced with a putrid green thing of some sort– but somehow it still sparkled, as if its old glory could actually shine through the muck of this modern era.

I bought my ticket and settled in for the show. This was more difficult than one might think at first- I was wearing a far thicker coat than the weather demanded, and it was filled with a few simple tools to assist me in gaining a measure of invisibility for my next movements.

I could feel no eyes burning in the back of my head. I felt no shiver of apprehension. But still I knew that any member of the audience could well be one of City’s men, sent to prevent my progress or silence me if I came too close to some ugly truth.

The play was Hamlet; the actors were very talented, for these modern times. I regretted that I would need to miss the denoument. 

I quietly excused myself to the Gentlemen’s room. This was a sad, small affair that had sustained far too much abuse for a modest theatre’s facilities. Still, it was a quiet spot, and if I still possessed the required faculties–

In one motion, I shed the coat, brushed on contact lenses and a fake moustache, and turned my vest inside-out. I pushed my wadded coat through the small window slot and into the outside alley.

Four minutes later I left through a forgotten back exit and reclaimed my coat. Five minutes later I boarded a bus bound for downtown.

It wasn’t a very flashy or daring maneuver, but it meant that  if I was cautious, I could begin searching in earnest… and, with luck, I’d make Cornelius City pay.

It was the only honorable option.

Walkin’ along, whistlin’ a song, tappin’ absent-mindedly at my handheld. It started raining. A car with a headlight out almost splashed me.

Otto was a relic. An agent of the system. A holographic meter maid given more and more responsibility as centralized organization broke down and the corporations took over more and more of the business of governing.

He had his own motives, these days. And he was trying to set me up, use me somehow. And that was absolutely fine with me: if he could really pull one over on me, he’d deserve it.

Now, I’m not being totally fair. I was going to trounce his see-through ass and I knew it. But by allowing for the possibility of his triumph, I felt a little less like I was about to punch a baby in the face after taking its candy.

Otto’d given me five leads. I knew at least three of them were designed to throw me off the scent of what was really going on: like Otto said, these guys were amateurs, and Otto had the resources of the city’s surveillance grid. Now hey, that grid might have been a little rusty, but for a computer program, Otto was doin’ alright.

So anyway, right away I’d picked out the only place these kids could realistically be hiding out. Two of ‘em were on Judas’ turf, and one of them was in a part of town where any clowns as amateur as these kids would be gutted in a second. That left two. One of them was perfect, a run-down mill in a quiet part of town, the kind of place Otto could arrange the players in this thing like pawns and then clean up.

The other one was near my favorite bar. I’d go in, throw some dudes around, flaunt my temporary Agent-Of-The-System status to get a few free drinks, then go clean up Otto’s con before dinnertime.

It rained harder. I whistled louder.

—————————-

hannah

The hotel had internet, tv. Clean sheets. The little things that make a hotel a more reasonable place to stay than a plain pine box. The owner– an old German guy– told me I could stay as long as I needed. Why does Bleakly know so many old people?

Phone buzzed.

“Hello?”

“Can’t explain right now. Greg’s fine. Lay low, stay low. We’ll come for you when it’s time.”

I spluttered. “When it’s time for what? What the fuck, Bleakly? For the love of-”

“Shut up. What’s your dad’s blood type?”

“What?”

“I asked what your father’s blood type is.”

“I’d think you’d know, you-”

“I do know, actually. I want to know whether YOU know. You’re going to need to know everything about your father. Spend some time remembering. I’ll fax a dossier on him to you tomorrow morning.”

I almost threw my phone. “You want me to study a dossier on my own father, who you say is not dead but also not alive, and you’ve done what exactly with the information you got from breaking and entering into Nocter Pharmaceuticals, you’ve got fucking goons following us everywhere, what the hell do you want?”

There were faint voices and laughter audible in the background. “Sorry, what? I was paying for my drink- wait, yeah. Just, don’t go anywhere. Read the dossier. We’ll contact you.”

“You-” and he hung up on me again.

I called back five times. The fifth time I left a voicemail that included as many curse words as I could remember.

So he was truly off the case. All right, old bean. Just like old times.

Nuts to Bleakly and his atrophied sense of chivalry. Nuts to City and his draconian schemes. Old-fashioned sleuthing would win the day.

Right, I said to myself, in the old tradition, it is time to cover the hows, wheres, wherefores.

The old safehouse was more than adequate as a base of operations. The truck I kept there had a full tank and was totally “clean” in the Private Eye’s (or criminal) sense- paid off, entered in the computer registries under a legally bulletproof alias, and invisible so long as I didn’t draw attention.

I reviewed the tools at my disposal: The omnigun, loaded for now with old revolver rounds; my own emergency kit, which contained simple first aid along with holoculars, an electric lockpick, and a few simple (but effective) bits of disguise; and my own finely honed senses- not on par with Thomas’ preternaturally attuned abilities, unfortunately, but I’d take chivalry over competent cowardice any day.

I laid the groundwork for my movements carefully. I acquired a hotel room, to be my ostensible location- I wouldn’t sleep there, but I’d perform less secure bits of the trade there, to confuse and draw attention away from my safehouse. Once there I used the hotel’s services to acquire tickets to a few live shows; I’d undoubtedly be shadowed the moment I drew any sort of attention to myself, and I knew the old theaters downtown well enough to slip unnoticed out an unmarked exit during an intermission.

The first such show was an atypically impressive rendition of Hamlet. I regretted wasting the opportunity to behold the young troupe finally put their talents to theatrically wholesome use, but the life of a private investigator is necessarily filled with sacrifices and disappointments.

I hadn’t noticed anyone following me to the  theater, but I hadn’t the slightest doubt that I was well within range of one of City’s sort of goons. In the crowd, he could probably have tapped my shoulder without my recognizing him- but, though my mundane senses noncommitally admitted total failure in registering any sort of conspiracy, my higher perceptions and gut feelings agreed totally with my intellect’s deduction. My next actions would be critical, and would give me some small freedom of movement to begin my plot to decipher City’s motives and discover the whereabouts of poor Miss Smith and her father.

———————————————

bleakly

Otto withered under my gaze and raised his hands in surrender. “All right, all right. Here’s the poop.”

I lit a cigarette, put my feet up on my desk (and through Otto’s midsection), and blew smoke into the synthetic cop’s holofield.

Otto sighed as his image flickered brightly off the smoke. “We know who, where, when.”

I closed my eyes and smirked. “But you got fuck-all to send after ‘em so you gotta hire on freelancers?”

“Jackass. No. To tell you the truth, Tom old boy-”

By which I knew there was no way in hell he was being honest.

“-we don’t know WHAT they took. Here.” He waved and part of his holographic representation resolved into security camera footage. “Greeney’s lockup services, north branch. Camera’s got ‘em goin’ in, empty-handed, goin’ out, pockets full, no blip on the radar. Lucky break, they hit an autobank terminal later that night.” The video flickered and shifted. The same four men from the previous clip were expressionessly tearing  into a computer terminal with some kind of energy saws.

I almost squinted at the clip, but didn’t. I didn’t want to betray a flicker of emotion, because I noticed something that gave me a hell of a lot more than a flicker. The second video clip wasn’t the same as the first- not just different lighting or a different camera, but something was off about the colors. Faint blue afterimages seemed to trail a few pixels behind the men in the video- and that meant…

I nodded slowly. “These guys ain’t pros.”

Otto spread his hands. “Exactly.”

“But someone helpin’ ‘em is.”

The see-through cop nodded vigorously and the video he’d shown me winked away.

Weird camera angle for a computer terminal, expressionless faces, and staticky blue auras around the people in the second video…

The second clip had been computer-edited.

I grinned. “I’m in. Let’s talk compensation.”

He rubbed his hands together. “Fantastic! All right, how’s-” He named a pathetic figure.

He’s gauging me, tryin’ to see if I’ve caught on. Tryin’ to see how eager I am. “You crazy? You want me to risk my sorry ass for drinkin’ money? I could spend thirty seconds on my handheld and prove someone’s wife is cheating and make twice that.”

The old holographic fraud’s smile didn’t get any smaller. Either he was satisfied that the con was good, or-

“How much would you do it for?”

I named a figure quadruple his original offer.

A few minutes of haggling wrestled the compensatory figure to something more appropriate– though I knew full well there was no chance that I’d collect…

When I grabbed my hat and left, I started whistling. There’s seldom better money easier got than in conning a con, if you’re good at that kind of thing. You get one guess who’s the world-champion best at that kind of thing. I mean, you should know by now.

———————————————–

hannah

Edge of town. No money. No clue.

Phone. Buzzing. Collar ID- “Thomas.”

“Hello?”

“Lay low. Gonna text you an address- hotel owner owes me a favor. I’ll email you.”

“”What the fuck is happening? I don’t–”

“Can’t talk now.”

“Is Greg-”

But he’d already hung up.

What.

The.

HELL.

I started the engine in Jacobson’s car, completely confused what was going on and pissed off in ways I didn’t know I could be.

And then the car shook and there was smoke everywhere

And I started driving, driving

To anywhere. Just away.

Away.

I ran. Away. Like a coward.

I left him. He reminded me of my father. And I left him.

I left him and I went out to the highway driving his car

Oh my god what the fuck why

why

———————————

bleakly

Well, I thought, I am going to change my clothes.

And I’m not gonna wear a hat today.

I know what you’re thinking, and shut the hell up.

Have you shut up yet?

NO, STOP DOING THAT. Don’t. You. Fucking. Judge me.

Because, guess what? I had been tortured, beaten, nearly killed, jumped thirteen goddamn stories, had some kind of psychoclones chasing me and I had done it all without making a penny.

So yeah, fuck you. Seriously. She was a pretty girl, yeah? For a robot, I mean.

But she would keep.

And besides, I consider any case that isn’t profoundly traumatizing in some way an utter failure.

And without creative definitions of success where would we be right now?

That’s right, motherfuckers. Vietnam.

So, I didn’t ever say I was the good guy in this story. I’m just kind of an anarchist. And City? CORNELIUS City? He is a fucking scary man.

Even so, those questions kept popping up in my subconscious. Avoiding your own style. To what end? New identity, new life? Nope, just scaring myself for a little bit to make sure I haven’t changed. There’s a very solid classical philosophical underpinning to all this but I don’t feel like going into it.

You’re bored, I can tell. So let’s talk about when I walked into my office.

I opened the door and my buddy Otto was sitting on the desk.

My buddy Otto was a cop. He was chubby and had a face that told the tale of how goodnatured he really was; he had this really low, mellow monotone, like an old staticky tape that gets offended when you don’t listen. “Hey, Bleak.”

I scowled at him with my darkest scowl. “God DAMMIT- no. It is time for drinking.”

“You and what money?”

I growled at him and put all my remaining energy into a right hook that went through his right cheekbone.

He cleared his throat politely. “First, assaulting an officer of the System is a felony punishable by blah blah blah, and second, I’m a hologram.” He certainly was. He was a top-of-the-bottom-line autocop, mindscanned in who knows how many years back when we actually had public law enforcement.

I was not hung over, but I would have felt much better if I was. “Just shut the hell up and gimme the job.”

My vision had cleared, and my heart had recovered a steadier rhythm. Thomas remained seated, although his brow remained sharply furrowed and his extremities seemed to positively vibrate with concentration.

The cafe’s other denizens had evacuated long minutes before- it seemed that despite their propensity for violence the Neithermen had not found it necessary to harm uninvolved persons: a whiff of civilization in the midst of the overpowering scent of excrement.

I stood to rummage behind the plaster-covered counter for an unbroken bottle of wine. I returned with two glasses and offered one to Thomas. He shook his head, then looked up and caught my disbelieving expression.

“Gotta headful ‘a landmines right now, Greg. I either gotta be sober or drunk ’nuff not to feel the shrapnel…” He made eye contact briefly then his eyes returned to City’s missive as his voice trailed off.

I set the glass in front of him anyway. “My God, Thomas.”

“Not yours nor anyone else’s thank you much.”

“Be serious, man! For the love of- What now?”

Looking me in the eyes, he set down the letter and all at once became quite still. “We’ve got a number of options, Greg.”

“Oh?”

He nodded. “And the number of options is two.”

My stomach started sinking. “And those are?”

“Life or death, Greg.”

————————–

bleakly

I couldn’t stand to see that look in his eyes but hey, whaddayawant.

Even as Jacobson’s face went crimson, his knuckles on the table and wineglass went white. “You’re really going to play it that way? You’re going to abandon a case?”

I took off my hat and put it on the table. “We’ve gone far, Greg. We’ve had good times. Our client Ms. Smith was willing to pay for all expenses of this investigation. We got to play with bad guys, we got to shoot guns. But she’s gone, Greg. And good ol’ Cornelius just gave us a pretty perfumed invitation to join her and step right- into- his- mouth.”

Jacobson cast aside the wineglass; a lesser man would have bellowed. His rage presented itself in the form of his absolutely stony features draining themselves of all expression, all his anger drawing itself into his twinkling eyes as if he could make his hate tangible and make it stick to me. “A decent man would never- never- abandon a lady in distress.”

Gregory Jacobson was literally my oldest friend. But I said the words anyway. “I never made any sort of claim I was a decent human being.”

Why? Because I’m Thomas Bleakly. Private Eye.

————————-

jacobson

And with that he stood and left the cafe, only tossing back- “Who knows, Greg? You have fun with old man City. Don’t call me.”

What the hell now, Jacobson?

Well, there was really no other solution. I had to continue on my own. As a testament to my honor, my generation’s honor- and, dammit, the human race itself.

I would find her if it killed me.

Jacobson shrugged. “He says strange things sometimes. He’s a strange man. He’s also very, very good at what he does.”

I nodded slowly. “I just get this feeling… it’s silly, I guess. Just, it feels like, that we’re not, you know, on the same page. That he’s really well and truly insane and if I listen to him too closely I’ll wind up believing him.”

Jacobson patted my hand. “It’s all right. I’ve seen stranger things- not many of them, you understand. But trust me. There is no one better suited to discovering your father’s whereabouts and apprehending those responsible than Thomas Bleakly.”

I smiled at him. At moments like that, he almost reminded me of my father. Except with a mustache. My father with a mustache and bugfuck crazy friends.

“Thanks. You don’t know how much that means to me.”

He smiled warmly. “More coffee, dear?”

“Yeah, I’d-”

A melodic beeping interrupted me. I raised my eyebrows as Jacobson, embarrassment unnecessarily commandeering and twitching his mustache, pulled out his charmingly outdated phone. I didn’t recognize the ringtone; he indicated through hand signals that he’d been meaning to change it.

Then the motions and eyerolling stopped. A moment later, his chatty calm had dried up, leaving behind monosyllablic questions and a spreading frown.

“You’re- you’re sure? They’re back. What, were you- no! Of course not! Just… stay calm, all ri- oh. Oh, no. No, no, no-”

I tried to catch his eye, mouthing what’s wrong? What’s happening?

He closed the cell phone and stood without looking at me. “Stay here, Hannah. I’ll be back in a few minutes. If I’m not… here’s my keys. If I’m not back, take the car and drive. Just drive.”

—————————-

bleakly

Multitasking was never my strong suit, but I make a policy of not having strong suits. Hell, it may just be that simultaneously running, reading and interpreting lifesigns from a handheld electronic device, and screaming “Shit, shit, shit, shit, shit” is simply difficult. Go ahead and try it sometime to maximize your appreciation of this part of the story. It’ll still be here. Just go run a lap while fucking around on a handheld. If possible, be very, very worried about your loved ones, with a growing conviction that something has gone terribly wrong. Then come back. Don’t worry, I’ll bold the next sentence so it’s easy to find when you get back.

Now that you’re back, you’ll know how I felt when I realized it would take me way too long to get where I needed to go on foot. So once again I opted for speed over convenience.

Back alleys in this town tend to be filled with broken junk and broke junkies. On the rare occasions I was in a sane and calm state of mind I did not navigate back alleys in that neighborhood on a whim.

Having assessed the risk I sprinted down the first dripping brick canyon that yielded an entrance to me. C’mon c’mon it’s gonna be okay it’s gonna be okay SHIT. According to Lifesigns.1_z‘s blinking indication on my handheld everything was not going to be okay. Hannah was in panic mode (I thought they disabled those?) and Jacobson’s bloodstream had more adrenaline than red blood cells in it.

I didn’t care that I would be exhausted by the point I got to Sharkness cafe. I didn’t care I’d have nothing left to fight with. I just needed to be there and I needed to be there five minutes ago. My legs complained, I was out of breath. My stupid fucking coat was holding me back like a parachute-

“You’re in a hell’vuh hurry, son.” A voice boomed loud enough to make me trip and skid along in the muck. A synthetically augmented voice: some thug who had his voicebox replaced, laced and bass’d was pointing something buzzing and sharp at my face.

Not. Right. NOW.

Epinephrine does funny things. Ha! Ha! Ha.

After shooting the brainless mass of tubes and meat in each kneecap and thus rendering it an annoyance rather than an obstacle, I made it to the other end of the alleyway, just a short sprint from Sharkness. It was just around the corner-

And I was just close enough to recognize the pale, identical men striding through the smoking remains of Sharkness.

——————–

jacobson

“GREG!”  A familiar voice cut through the haze.

My heart was -ugh- fluttering as I awoke. Age and electricity-based weapons are never a healthy combination. I would count myself lucky I did not suffer a heart attack, except- No!

I inhaled too sharply. “Hannah!” I coughed; my lungs were filled with smoke and ozone and my mouth knew the taste of copper.

“She’s not here. You alright, Greg? Shit, shit. Here. You’ll be all right.” Thomas’ face swam into view. His firm grip seemed the only warm and solid thing at that moment- I felt chills, though I was drenched in sweat.

“My- my word, Thomas, they-”

He was already nodding. “I know. Neithermen. Nothing you could have done. They’ve got Hannah.”

I sat up too quickly. “NO! My word, Thomas, how- I… oh…” My head throbbed with the aftereffects of the diabolical electrical attack.

Thomas’ jaw was set; his lips formed a thin line. “Oh, I’ve got a little surprise that might help us find her. For now, she’s okay. I know she’s okay, and I’m not just saying that.” His eyes flicked to the small screen of his ever-present handheld.

I coughed again. “Thomas, I don’t understand, what are you talking about?”

He pounded my back helpfully. “We’ve got a more pressing matter. Look.”

He handed me a red envelope that bore a large wax seal.

I touched the wax lightly. It was the seal of Cornelius City, iron mogul and the least-liked man ever to have eight separate statues of himself erected within a hundred-mile radius.

Thomas lit a cigarette and helped me to my feet. “That envelope was lying here on the table. It’s addressed to me.”

I tore the envelope open and wordlessly handed him its contents: a notecard with a single handwritten line.

Thomas read it aloud: “You could have just asked. Love, City.”