Next History: The Girl Who Hacked Tomorrow (3 page)

The
barrage continues for half a minute. Abrupt silence and drifting smoke. The solitary figure gazes easily around. Strand and Solberg look at one another intently, no words for what they’ve just seen. The general opens the door, the police step in. As Strand gathers things into his large briefcase, he glances at his chat. His team had continued the convo without him. But the last line from Sami, somewhere in Washington, is five minutes old. The others are waiting. Strand reaches for the keys.

sami
: boss, we have convergence pointing to the south atlantic

stranded99
: what’s the heat?

sami
: semi hot. dataset is marine radio chatter, texts, photos

stranded99
: any correlations?

One of the
PFPA tries to grab Strand by the arm. He shrugs away with a snarl and angrily mouths,
just a minute
.

sami
: solo. all fresh traffic on this - a research vessel encountered a whale. waiting for base hq orders

stranded99
: why are we interested?

sami
: the whale has writing on it

stranded99
: writing! what the hell does it say?

sami
: linguists on it now. will advise. it’s in Japanese.

At his office door,
Strand takes one last look at the brightening scene below. The bullets have left untouched the masculine figure who stands quietly still. Nothing marks the courtyard landscaping, the paved walkways. Of the several hundred powerful rounds, there is no trace. The last thing Strand notices is the shadow. The sun is coming out. Stretching away from the unknown visitor, in the same direction as lacy shadows of autumn trees, a broad dark shadow lies across the yard and breaks a dozen feet up the interior Wedge 3 wall.

The
dark stain does not resemble a man in any way.

Detective
Junipero Garcia sits in his unmarked Sheriff’s cruiser, watching a mechanic’s shop and tapping keys on a swivel-mounted laptop. A tablet computer rests on the seat. Garcia’s state of detached disbelief is helped along by the fact he’s not been home or slept for twenty-eight hours. His eyes are gritty and the shirt once fresh sticks now to his underarms. The passenger-side floor is a litter of coffee cups and takeout wrappers. Thinks about a hot tub at the Tea Room downtown. As if there were time for such pleasures.

Right now he’s
dealing with an expensive car abandoned near San Jose, deceased female in the trunk. No identification, vehicle registration missing. San Jose Homicide asked him to visit this body shop in Santa Cruz. Evidence items in the car. Garcia watches a man park a tow truck, cross the lot to a roll-up door.

Garcia
steps up to the burly mechanic in the work bay. The interior of the shop smells of motor oil, ethylene glycol, spray paint, sweat. Distant clang of metal.

“Hey, no customers in the…”
Guy’s voice trails off as Garcia holds up his shield, hooks a thumb at the door. Man looks around to see who’s watching. They stand beside Garcia’s cruiser.

“I
’m looking for a Mark Hermon, Shadowbrook Lane Santa Cruz. Got ID on you?”

“That’s me alright, what’s up?” Hermon reaches for his wallet.
Garcia says nothing, slaps the ID on his tablet, which reads it and beeps, displays a short rap sheet. Minors, no outstanding warrants. Guy lives alone, separated, grown daughter.

“
Says here you were arrested on a GTA four years ago. Case dismissed.”

Hermon makes a face. “My cousin got arrested. I was removing
her car from the impound, with permission. It was a mess. They dropped it later. You mean that still shows in the system?” Hermon doesn’t know the detective’s tablet computer is recording their conversation, matching his speech patterns to known voiceprints, converting spoken words to written text, highlighting stress markers in Hermon’s voice.

Garcia
ignores the question. “Reason I’m talking to you, Mr. Hermon, we found an abandoned car in San Jose. Your shop’s job receipt in the car and your fingerprints everywhere.” The detective doesn’t mention print evidence, not Hermon’s, found in the passenger seat. Or the lovely corpse.

“What car is it? Might have worked on it.” Hermon breathes easier. Kind of shit
that could happen to any mechanic.

Garcia
taps the screen, brings up a slideshow, photos of a pricey black two-seater.

“Yeah, I seen that. Didn’t work on it here.
Road call. Woman calls us, fancy hotel in Pebble Beach, can’t get in her car. Boss dispatches me with the rig, I make the drive. Shitty traffic that day. We have the codes, but still it takes me a while to open her up. Stolen purse she said. Expensive job. I got it open, she used her valet key and left.”

“How did she pay?”

“Cash ticket. Tipped me too.”

“
Can you describe her? Take any photos?”

“
No sir. Amazing looking broad. Rich. Tall, long dark hair. Edgy.”

“Edgy
how?”

“Stood out of sight while I worked, kept looking around.
Laid a patch going out of the parking lot.”

Garcia
strokes his screen, shows Hermon a photo, close-up, a woman’s face. “Recognize this person?”

Hermon’s features
tighten when he sees the image. Beautiful face, eyes half-open, mouth slack. “Oh no way. She dead? What the hell happened?”

“This is the woman you helped with her car?”

“Gotta be. What the hell happened?”

Garcia
has no intention of revealing cause of death to a possible person of interest. The photo does not disclose that the head was severed from the body. “What we’re trying to find out. We’ll need to see the job sheet. Did you notice anything inside the car, any detail you can give me?”

“Smelled nice
, perfume in there, expensive briefcase. There was a restaurant menu on the console. Had something written on it, a phone number.” Hermon’s gaze does an orbit of the parking lot.

Garcia
quickly consults the case file, scans the crime scene inventory. No restaurant menu. San Jose Homicide could have missed it. He’ll check. “Was anybody with her, any belongings in the car suggest another person?”

Hermon shakes his head. “Luggage in the trunk, pair of shoes on the passenger side. Girly ones.”

“This menu. Did it look like a takeout menu, or a flyer? How would you describe that?”

“Oh it’s a typical thing, takeout menu. I knew right a
way where it’s from though. Sea Snake Brew Pub, down Murray.”

“If you’ll just provide me a copy of the job ticket, that will do for now. Of course, I may have to talk to you again. And…”

Hermon grins. “If I think of anything else,” with shaking fingers he accepts the detective’s crisp white card.

“Of course, Mr. Hermon.”

Parked now in front of the brew house, Garcia ponders. Pub won’t re-open for a couple of hours, he called the emergency number on the door, got a recording, phoned the Santa Cruz PD, was given the same number. They offered to open the place up if that’s what he needed, but no, not a warrant, just wants to talk to someone on shift, see if his Jane Doe was in the place. A dispenser of take-out menus is mounted outside the door. Could mean another dead end. But the mechanic mentioned a handwritten phone number.

So
who is she? San Jose Homicide ran her photo through the FBI’s face recognition database. No hits, they said, except for a woman known to have died seventeen years earlier.

Garcia
pages through chat traffic from his department. Usually confined to Santa Cruz matters, some messages concern the superstar murder, that one-name singer. Annetka. New York City. Grisly crime, complete lack of motive, clues or usable evidence. NYC Homicide cops out there stuck for the moment, watching TV talk shows for leads. Garcia doesn’t envy them.

Of more immediate interest to
Garcia is the bloom of local cases that’s flooded his team’s caseload. Road rage collisions, murders, shootings, beatings, scalding by teakettle. Not counting the Jane Doe in the trunk of a fancy car, he has seven new cases since yesterday. Very unusual for late in the year, nothing so graphic as the New York case. Garcia desperately needs to sleep, preferably after a very hot shower. At least an hour before he can talk to restaurant staff at the Sea Snake. He grimaces. If the right ones are even on shift today.

Scanning news feeds, he sees that other
states show unusual violent activity. Arsons, a rash of suicides, murder-suicides. It’s not outside the range yet, but pushing. And a storm of tweets and feed items clusters around the Pentagon. Apparently, they have a visitor who’s unwilling to leave the courtyard.

A single word surfaces in
Garcia’s bleary consciousness:
swarm
.

Tharcia
drives fast and reckless through shaded bends, semi-listening to the CD in her player, a language course that’s supposed to teach her French in 10 days. She cannot justify her anger toward Clay. Pissed at herself for losing it.
Why?
He’s such a laid-back, easy target. Also she’s hit a roadblock with her psychologist, a somewhat stiff older woman recommended by a friend of her mom’s, who tried to convince her that slow traffic en route to their session was her fault. If Tharcia could trust the woman, she might work up resolve to speak the truth. Her friend, the Psychic Althea, who she’s seeing this morning, is more of a comfort. world-wise, goddess-sexual in her sultry manner.

A warm day for
Fall, scent of wood smoke fragrant among the trees. She parks in front of Althea’s shaded house, early for her session. Closes her eyes, wills her brain to focus on the language lesson. Brain does not do her bidding.
What the fuck do I want?
Lash of anger at her mother. Tharcia raises her head and lets go a screech of rage. The sound reverberates loud in the small car. Looks around startled, laughs. Decides to knock although too soon. The Psychic Althea opens the door in a flowing robe and matching headscarf.

“
Hello, Tharcia. I expected you’d be early. Would you like tea before we begin?”

“
Whatever.”

Althea’s small studio, draped with Indian hangings
, incense-laden air. Over tea, Althea reviews their progress through months of sessions together. A history of Tarot throws, rune interpretations, yarrow sticks,
I Ching
readings, Ouija boards, dowsing Tharcia’s energy aura with pendulums.

Althea had explained carefully during past visits the
Seven Planes of the Psychic Realm, depending on energy, vibration, and the occasional separation of cause from effect. She had hinted that time itself may become disjointed, rearranged. Shuffled like a deck of Tarot cards, she said, in the presence of powerful events. The Seven Planes include matter manipulation, such as materialization of things and people, ‘psi’ powers like telekinesis, clairvoyance, and mind-reading, psychic healing and remote healing, heavenly visions, ethereal communications, near-death experiences. And, the plane Althea herself lays claim to, the Psychic Guide Plane.

She’d
been careful to caution Tharcia that the Psychic Realm is called by some a world of illusion. People spend years, entire lifetimes, chasing phantoms but finding little spiritual growth. A regular meditation practice will eliminate those empty trails, Althea tells her. For some there are distractions of glamor, hunger to be seen as special, wanting to show off an air of mystery, and speak to the departed. Tharcia winces at this last warning. She’d told Althea she seeks to contact her mom, not through some parlor seance, but in actuality. There are things she must hash out with her dead mother. Althea had nodded with a serene smile, cautioned her that it was difficult work, and they had spent many hours together pursuing that goal. Profitable hours, for the woman in robe and headscarf.

“
We’ve been looking at your past to see what earlier lives delivered you to this present. You shared with me that some of your dreams have the imagery we find in near-death. The lighted tunnel, the music, a loved one waiting. We are seeking the crack between worlds that opens to where your mother waits eagerly for you. Today I recommend a Psychic Healing Touch.” Althea silently calculates what she can charge for this new treatment, over how many visits. The girl seems to have money, or is disinterested in hanging onto it.
Good.

“
How will that be different?”

“
Think of it as a massage with energy exchange, concentrating on your chakras. Psychic healers all agree that clothing disrupts the energy field. So today I will request that you disrobe, just as you would for a sports massage. In fact, for a small additional charge, we can do a massage after, if you wish.” Althea bestows a smile of fructifying warmth. She will not mind touching her hands to this girl’s bare flesh.

“
Unless there is skin contact between Healer and Seeker the effect is cut off. It’s common to feel shy about it, but you are safe here.”