dochermes

"Keep a Close Eye On Your Robot"

7/8/2016

I.

"It's a disgrace when you can't count on a ROBOT to be on time!" Gabby grumbled. Tapping one foot, backs of her hands against her hips, she pouted and exhaled sharply. At the entrance to Central Park at 59th Street, Gabby had been waiting for more than forty minutes. Only a few inches above five feet tall, slender in her baggy jeans and green polo shirt, her angry fuming was unconsciously cute rather than intimidating. The round gamin face under the curly brown hair, big brown eyes hidden by oversized sunglasses, just was not threatening.

At a wheeled cart nearby, Timothy Limbo was buying sodas and two hot pretzels with mustard. He managed not to smile because he knew that would annoy her further. They had been best friends since grade school. A bit under six feet tall, wearing his usual outfit of biker boots, worn-out jeans and a black leather jacket over a white T-shirt, Tim was friendly looking enough that people even in Manhattan started casual conversations with him. His mop of butter-yellow hair was way too long at the moment, hanging in his eyes.

He handed her a pretzel and watched as she bit off a huge chunk, then had to break off a smaller part to chew. "Doesn't she have her own phone?" he asked.

"Of course. Not only that, she can receive and send calls herself without a phone. She's got built-in wi-fi." Chewing grimly, Gabby added, "But she's not answering."

Turning to look in all directions, Tim asked, "Is she wearing the Elspeth get-up? The black wig, the lipstick, all that?"

"Yeah, it's her day to be Elspeth. Sometimes she passes as me, sometimes she's my supposed 'cousin.' I'm getting worried, Tim. What if something happened to her?"

Tim scoffed. "She's got a titanium alloy chassis. She can tie my motorcycle's handlebars into a knot. What could happen to her?"

"I didn't want to say anything, but she's been getting whacky again. Not menacing. Megan said the targeting and aggression has been completely removed. She's safe as a teddy bear. But she's making those random snarky comments again."

Popping open a can of root beer, Tim considered before carefully saying, "We know her original programming. Getting that all expunged must have had some effect."

"Yeah. She's an Infiltrator. She was meant to impersonate me to assassinate you and your team. But come on, Tim, she's been my roommate for almost a year. She's harmless. She wasn't able to put out a mouse trap. I'm worried for her, not about her." Gabby began a more manageable chunk of the pretzel and peered up and down the street. "Hey, Tim, how about sending a few of your little ghosts to look for her?"

"Sure, why not?" Going over to sit down on the low stone wall that encircled the Park, Timothy held out both upturned palms. Almost invisible in the afternoon sunlight, two swirling tornados materialized above his hands. They swooped around him like excited hummingbirds and flashed off in different directions. "Let me follow what they see, we'll find your robot pal."

Working on a chunk of the soft pretzel, Gabby dropped down next to her best friend and got comfortable. "I was so glad when Megan brought her back to me. I was really resigned to not seeing her any more. And I'll be honest, my pal seemed to have exactly the same personality and everything, for a while but then she started acting all whacko and sarcastic again."

"Mmmm," Tim responded vaguely. His concentration was divided between what the two caspers were perceiving, an experience roughly comparable to looking back and forth from one video screen to another. "Nothing yet...."

She knew that far-away tone. Trying to get his attention when he was following his friendly ghosts would only be counter-productive. Gabby fretted, not so much about the Infiltrator getting in danger as in its true nature being exposed. She crumpled up the paper napkin and realized she hadn't even tasted the pretzel.

( the rest of the story )

"What Makes You Think I Am Here Now?"

4/26/2016

I.

Between the overwhelming joy of her first real date with Evan and all the sensory stimulation of the Battle of the Bands, Gabby had almost forgotten about her sarcastic robot.

A practically perfect late April afternoon, warm but not TOO warm, sunny and breezy, with all the trees around Geischen Park in full bloom, provided the best setting she could have asked for. In the corners of the Park, four bands have been set up and were blasting away. Her favorite was Thunderstorm In Your Eyes, the Scarab tribute band, but the lite-rap Uncooperative wasn't bad and she was warming up to even the genre she liked least, the death metal group Smegma. She hadn't given the once famous but now sadly declined Country Western singer Margarita Melanie a chance yet. With Evan close at hand, she wandered from one band to the next. Each group had collected a stable core audience. Most of the crowd was wandering about at random as different songs caught their ear or they spotted people they knew.

Everything was adding up to her bliss. Gabby had gone to the trouble of having her admittedly frizzy brown hair tamed and styled the day before. She had on her absolute favorite purple jeans, the white linen blouse with the puffy sleeves and the most comfortable sneakers she owned. At five one and maybe a bit too thin for best pulchritude, Gabby was very appealing without being a head-turning stunner. She kept glancing up to see cute guys smiling at her. It was great. So far she had only finished one of the red Solo cups of beer and nibbled on one stick of very salty dried beef but the day was early.

Evan was even shouldering her admittedly heavy overloaded handbag, the brown leather one with the gold chain. He was tall and thin in tight pants and a black T-shirt over a long-sleeved white pullover. Between the tight buzzcut of black hair, the warm brown eyes and lopsided smile, he was having no trouble winning her over. So far, they were still in a get acquainted phase but she felt that was about to change for the better. "Hey, notice something about that bathtub?"

That puzzled her. A row of Porta-Johnnies had been set up, with the expected lines in front of each. On top of a white shed which looked like it would contain lawnmowers and yard tools, someone had hoisted a full sized bathtub. A hand-lettered sign read TOSS YOUR CHANGE UP HERE. Many in the crowd were already blazed enough that they cheerfully were flinging any coins they had put into the tub.

"I don't understand, " she said after a moment. "What do you win?"

"That's what makes me laugh. It doesn't say you win anything. It just says to throw your money up there."

"Oh. Oh-hoh-hoh, I get it," Gabby chortled. "After the concert, they climb up there and collect a nice amount of cash they got for free. Oh, that's diabolical."

"Thank you, thank you," the singer for Thunderstorm In Your Eyes announced over the speakers with a squawk of feedback. "Great to see such a turnout. Remember, over at that booth, our manager is selling our T-shirts and CDs and other great stuff you can't live without a second later, so grab them up before they're all gone. And now, remember this one? A little dancin' anthem called 'Watching You Come Back'..."

As the band launched into the familiar number, a large percentage of the crowd did indeed start to dance. The smell of spilled beer and the pong of pot being smoked behind the trees seemed such an inevitable accompaniment to that music that Gabby grinned at the odor. The aroma of old school rock, she thought.

But, as before, remembering her Infiltrator robot brought her attitude crashing down again. Built by the remnants of the John Grim criminal empire, the Infiltrator been constructed to look and sound exactly like her. True, its original agenda of assassination had been reprogrammed so thoroughly that the robot was no danger physically... but somehow its innate aggressiveness had found a new outlet in sarcasm of the most insolent kind. Lately, the constant snide remarks had been turning into rather surreal random observations. Gabby had been forced to argue with her Infiltrator and order it sternly to remain behind in Manhattan and not attempt to get in Evan's car with them for the ride up here.

What kept popping up in Gabby's thoughts was that she had forgotten to take the keys to her own car with her....


( the rest of the story )

"Third Generation Unicorn"

12/8/2016

I.

"I could have a different cookie every day, I like the oatmeal raisins best but they are all so good, I would eat any one of them. Even the dry old scones. If we came here every day, you could have your coffee and I would have a different cookie every day and we would both be so happy, doesn't that sound like a good idea--?"

April Whitaker had turned into a chatterbox well before her fourth birthday and now the deluge of conversation showed no sign of slowing. Often it was just her narrating in great detail whatever had happened to her that day, but recently she had been proposing a lot of 'what if' and 'how come' questions. What would Daddy do if a dog got in our car, what would happen if she cut her own hair, why do people say 'bless you' when someone sneezes?

Securing her in the child seat in the rear of his canary-yellow Jetta, Cory Adams did his best to keep up with the flow of questions and observations. He was not by nature particularly chatty, although he had to admit April's mother sure was. The daughter took after Ashley so much that strangers smiled when they saw the two of them out together. April had the same platinum-blonde hair, pale blue eyes and cleft chin of both her mother and her grandmother. Cory saw almost nothing of himself in his daughter but who knew how she would change as she got older?

Cory himself at thirty-four was presentable if not amazingly good-looking the way his girlfriend and daughter were. He had wavy black hair and dark brown eyes, a pleasant but unremarkable face, and he had kept himself in reasonably good shape despite spending most days trapped in a cubicle preparing presentations on new smartphone features or pretending to listen at motivational meetings. Just forty minutes on the treadmill at the gym he had to pass anyway on his way home seemed to do it. Ashley said his best feature was his smile, especially when he was trying to get away with something but she sometimes remarked how proud she was that he still wore his belts at the same notch as when they had met.

Satisfied that April was snug and safe in her seat, Cory got behind the steering wheel and answered her questions about why cats don't like to get wet. That seemed to give her something to think about and she was quiet for a minute. He reached up to his sun visor and turned off the security alarm that Ashley's friend Megan had installed recently. As long as the tiny lights blinked green and blue, everything was okay. If they stayed on or turned red, it meant that someone had been in contact with the car for more than fifteen seconds and he was supposed to be on the alert for trouble.

That reminded him of the defense panel. As he started up the Jetta, Cory reached under the dashboard and swung down a black plastic panel that had a horizontal row of four toggle switches and a red button. He studied it for a second, made sure he remembered what each switch did and clicked the panel back up out of the way. As much as he loved Ashley's adventurous spirit, he was grateful she had dropped out of the Midnight War, at least until April was older. He wanted as little to do with the weird and the paranormal as possible.

Pulling out of the shopping plaza, he realized that they had been at the Barnes and Noble for over three hours. It was a great place for April to blow off steam checking out the various toys and games and activity kits for children. Today she had been obsessed with dinosaurs for some reason and the girl working that section had been incredibly patient describing how the various dinosaurs had lived and acted. She assured April that no one had ever seen a live dinosaur but yes, maybe just maybe in some jungle somewhere a few really old dinosaurs were still walking around. In fact, April was wearing her latest favorite shirt that day, a green T-shirt from the Museum of Natural History that showed the skeleton of a Triceratops.

Hitting the Long Island Expressway, Cory Adams glanced at the rear view mirror and saw April had dozed off. Well, she had gotten up extra early that day and the interior of the car was warm on the sunny December day. Feeling it was stuffy himself, Cory wound down his window partway. He let her nap. They would be home in another thirty minutes and the silence would do him good. As long as Ashley didn't call him, in which case the ringing of his phone would roust April. Today Ashley was supposed to be in Manhattan, visiting with her friends from the Kenneth Dred Foundation. Ashley was still a member on reserve duty, and had been called three times in the past year, always in the middle of the night to rush out to handle some menacing creature or maniac. It was like being married to a police officer or a firefighter, he supposed.

Her old teammates all called her Unicorn, and he knew all about the actual Unicorn horn she carried everywhere in a cylindrical leather sheath. But, although he knew about his girlfriend's adventures in the dangerous Midnight War, he had never been affected directly by her former career.

Nearing the South Fork peninsula toward Montauk, Cory was on a relatively deserted side road. Ashley's mother Mary Cassidy owned quite a few acres out here, with a plush four-story house that just missed qualifying as a mansion. Cory, Ashley and April had been living in the family house while the mother generally stayed at her apartment in the Tribeca neighborhood in Manhattan. While Cory wanted for his little family to establish itself in its own home, he had to admit this arrangement did allow them save most of their combined income. College for little April seemed so remote but it was only thirteen years away if one thought about it.

From the corner of his eye, he spotted something coming up behind him fast. It was a black van with tinted windows, moving way over the speed limit. Cory grumbled under his breath. On either side of the road was nothing but flat dry dirt and some brush. He hit his right turn signal and pulled over to the side of the road, slowing down to a roll. If this guy was in such a hurry, let him pass. The last thing he needed was someone right on his tail the next ten miles.

Catching him completely by surprise, the van got ahead, then swerved over and blocked him. Cory had slowed down enough that he could brake in time but he felt a surge of pure anger. He had a four year old in the back seat! What was wrong with this guy? Cory started to put the car in reverse, intending to back up and get away from this maniac.

His heart almost stopped. A red pick-up truck had pulled up bare inches behind him. He was boxed in. Cory felt so panicked he could hardly breathe. He pulled down the defense panel under the dashboard but none of the gimmicks seemed useful. One discharged thick black smoke and another triggered a blinding strobe light set in the rear bumper. Another switch changed the way the tail lights looked. They were all intended to discourage pursuit. He had just enough presence of mind to press the red alert button and then his door was yanked open and he was smacked across the face with a gun of some sort.

This couldn't be happening. Cory Adams stared up at a tall man wrapped in a white raincoat with a face entirely hidden behind a full-head white cloth mask and topped with a white fedora. Even the hands were concealed behind white cotton gloves so no skin showed anywhere.

In that situation, Cory froze motionless and could not have acted no matter what. He had no idea what to say, what to try. He had never been held up before. He had never even been in a fistfight, his life had been as peaceful as anyone could have wanted. Cory stared at the gun pointed in his face and vaguely realized it was not a normal firearm. The weapon had a long flaring rubber muzzle like a fire extinguisher and there were two metal canisters the size of bullets fastened in front of the grip. What the hell? A gush of stinging white vapor spewed from the weapon right into his face and that was the last he remembered.

( the rest of the story )

"Not Even Close To Nowhere"

8/11-8/13/2016

I.

"We've hit rock bottom before but this time we're digging under the rock," Perry grumbled. Steam had stopped pouring out from under the hood of the fourteen-year-old Ford Taurus but there was not enough light to see what was wrong anyway. Under the stars of a Utah sky without a moon, strange twilight showed enough for him to see his cousin. She was rummaging about in the trunk.

"Here's the flashlight," Kari called out. "Batteries are as dead as a week-old fish stick. It figures, it figures. I wonder how close we made it to Salt Lake City, anyway."

"Look around you," her cousin yelled. "Highway for a hundred miles in front of us, highway for a hundred miles behind us. We're not nowhere, we're not even close to nowhere!"

Everyone thought Perry and Kari Costigan were twins, but actually they were cousins born to sisters who actually were twins. Kari and Perry had been born a week apart in the same hospital. Both cousins were about five feet ten, thin and a bit coltish at nineteen. Both had curly reddish-brown hair, dark green eyes and long narrow faces with upturned noses. They could wear each other's clothes and sometimes did.

"Anyway, we don't have any tools and neither of us would know how to use 'em if we did," she pointed out.

"You got a point," Perry admitted ruefully. "No cell service way out here, my phone's not even showing one bar."

"Damn damn damn. Nothing has gone right for us. We're broke until we reach that job offer in Salt Lake City. The woman said she would front you a week's salary once we turned up. My cards are maxed out. All I have is a single and some change in my pockets."

"I've still got that twenty in my shoe..."

"That stinky thing!" Kari laughed. "You've been walking on it for so long I bet it's imprinted on your foot."

"Not enough for a tow truck, even if we could call one." Perry leaned back against the battered Taurus with its strip of rust around the rear wheelwell and the driver's outside rearview mirror held on with black electrical tape. "You're the smart one, they say. What's your best idea?"

Kari Costigan put her fists on her hips and turned to gaze back in the direction from which they had been driving. She was wearing baggy jeans with one knee out and a blue checked flannel shirt with the tail hanging down behind her. "Um. Hmm. Well, we know there's nothing back that way. We drove since dawn and saw nada along the way. So our chances of finding something up ahead are unknown but probably better."

"Almost zero is better than actual zero? I suppose. Maybe some lonesome farmer will think you're hot and give you a ride while I have to sit in the back with the chickens."

Kari laughed. "At least you'd finally make some friends." She reached around in the back seat of the Ford and handed him his backpack, while getting her own gear. All she had brought was the bookbag she had used in high school and those six months at the community college, now stuffed with clothes. "I guess that's everything."

"Didn't I have a can of Red Bull?"

"Aw, I drank that while you were snoozing," she said. "Sorry, I was driving and needed the caffeine." She shouldered her bag and started hiking, and after a second's hesitation Perry followed her. It was chilly out on the desert at night, a real change from the suffocating heat of the day that had killed their car. They walked along in silence for a while before Kari began, "If we had stayed with my Dad after the divorce-"

"Don't get into that again. His new girlfriend was in your class at college, for God's sake. The last thing she wanted was the two of us around and Dad is so hopelessly whipped he went along with it. If we make it to the city, your Mom's pal at the bakery promised us jobs."

"Big thrill. Large charge," she said. "I don't really want a boring life baking bread and icing cakes! I want some excitement... Wait. Hold still."

Puzzled, he stopped in mid-stride and came over next to her. "What now?!"

"I heard something. Out there." She put her finger to her lips. "Listen."

The hissing was not loud, but it was unnervingly close. They could see nothing. Without a word, both cousins started walking quickly and broke into a full run as the hiss followed them. Heavy footsteps scraped in the dry earth nearby.

"Oh God oh God," Kari breathed, taking the longest strides she could.

"A.. big snake? No, it can't be, it's walking." Her cousin turned his head to glance back and screamed. "Don't look, Kari! Run!"

Suddenly there was a horse-drawn wagon in the road directly in front of them. They had no idea how it had appeared there. The ten-foot-long wagon was wood painted off-white, with a red gingerbread-style roof and symbols on both sides of the outline of a row of horseshoes in red as well. Sitting on the front platform with his feet on the buckboard, holding the reigns of the single white horse, was an old man with silver hair down to his shoulders.

"Hurry, climb in the back!" he ordered them sharply. "The door's open."

Frantic and confused but not inclined to hesitate at the moment, Perry and Kari ran around and scrambled in through the unlatched door at the rear of the wagon. The door slammed shut by itself behind them, they heard the stranger make a clucking noise and the horse swung around to pull the wagon back in the direction it had been coming from.

"Yes, I hear it, too, Senior. Never you mind. The crawling ones couldn't catch you on their best day." The silver-haired driver in the old-fashioned frock coat leaned back over his shoulder to talk through the open panel behind him. "Are you children all right?"

"Yeah, yeah, we're okay... but," Kira hesitated. "But look at the inside of this thing."

( the rest of the story )

The Tiki Death Masks"

9/1-9/3/2016

I.

Just before dusk, with the red sun low over the ocean, a strange black helicopter landed on a remote beach in the Pacific. The craft bore no identifying numbers or logos and no external lights, and it descended with a total silence that was eerie. Someone standing almost within reach would have heard nothing more than a whisper like a breeze passing by.

As the rotors slowed to a halt, the hatch on the right side slid open with a hiss as pressurized air escaped. A mismatched couple hopped out onto the fine white sand. The man was a exceptionally muscular specimen several inches over six feet in height, with dark curly hair and a thick beard covering a weathered face. He wore tan work boots, jeans and a plain white T-shirt stretched tight over bulging pectorals and biceps.

Next to him, staring gleefully at the Pacific, was a petite woman only a bit over five feet tall and thin in build. She was dressed in a longsleeved tunic and pants of grey sharkhide with the rough side outward. A sullen pug face under short white hair broke into a delighted grin.

"Look at that, look at that!" she said. "Galvan, I must dive in!"

The big Melgar placed a restraining hand on her shoulder. "Steady, darling. We have to listen to our captain's briefing first."

"But the sea calls to me. I must go."

"Just a minute, Jin," came a voice from the copter. Striding around to join them was a dark-haired woman in a snug black outfit of boots, snug pants and a waist-length jacket. Holstered at her right hip was an odd-looking pistol with an extended needle-thin barrel. Lauren Sable Reilly was captain of their KDF team and her words carried unforced authority.

Standing next to the small blonde, Sable said, "Hold on. I'm afraid that once you get in the water, we won't see you again for a few days. You have a habit of disappearing into the ocean."

"Well, yes...." Demrak Jin admitted. In the increasing light, it could be seen that she was not quite Human. The stiff white hair had a texture like seal fur and the wide flat face with its cloudy blue eyes did not belong to any nationality found on the surface. She was a Gelydra from Ulgor.

Next to her, Galvan squeezed her shoulder reassuringly with a hand almost as big as her head. "This is like telling an eager young colt not to run, I know. But you can muster a little patience, Jin."

Disembarking from the rear of the stealthcopter CORBY came the two remaining members of the KDF team. Both wore black field suits like the one Sable had on. Timothy Limbo was a skinny young man with a mop of butter-yellow hair hanging into an enthusiastic face. Joycelyn Garimara was a slim woman with the smooth dark skin and thick hair of her Aboriginal tribe of northwest Australia. They lined up next to Galvan and Jin to face their captain.

"Oh man, Hawaii!" Timothy gloated. "Finally we go someplace decent. After we're done with this case, maybe I need to stay in Hawaii to keep an eye on the situation."

"Keep an eye on the cute wahines prancing up the beach, you mean." Joycelyn's tone was acidic enough to cut through metal.

"Aw, have a heart," he said. "I grew up in Vermont. Those winters....ACK! Snow to your chin, the pipes in the house always froze and the cars wouldn't start. Let me have some fun."

Staring out at the ocean, Sable allowed herself a smile. In her forties, she was older than the members of her new team. Her dark eyes watched Timothy with genuine affection. "Tell you what," she said at last. "Save a few of your personal leave days and we'll drop you off in Honolulu for a three day weekend."

"He'll just get in trouble," Joycelyn muttered, but the way she affectionately swatted the blond youth on the shoulder showed no harm was meant.

Galvan had folded thick arms over his massive chest and was gazing down the beach from where they had landed the CORBY. "I have not been here since the war," he reflected. "Early 1944. That was when I wore a garish costume as a 'mystery man.' I broke up a spy ring of Japanese agents posing as Nisei. How quickly the years go."

"Good thing you're a Melgar with their extended lifespan, Galvan. Otherwise, you'd be a wreck sitting in a wheelchair and mumbling to your nurse." Timothy Limbo laughed. "You look maybe forty-five but you're really a hundred and fifty."

"One hundred and forty-two years old," the powerful Melgar corrected him. "Years enough to make so many wrong choices..."

"Team, let's focus on the mission." Sable swung around to face her crew and they unconsciously lined up four abreast to face her. "The Governor contacted us two days ago. Unofficially and off the record as usual, but something weird and terrifying is going on in the outer islands. Something Midnight War."

"About time," Timothy said. "Things have been way too quiet lately."

Sable raised an index finger to shush him. "We are on Hanaue, one of the islands farthest out in the chain. By law, no settlements can be erected here and visitors need special permission to explore. But it is here that the HPD suspects Grandfather Kahuna has been hiding."

Jocelyn Garimara had been staring at the scenery. The CORBY had landed next to a steep rise of land where the beach gave way to rain forest. Now, as she tentatively rubbed a frond from the bush nearest her, she said, "Excuse me, captain. Haven't you noticed something odd? Why is the vegetation so dry and lifeless?"

They all looked around them in surprise at her words. It was true. The trees and bushes were oddly brown and withered. As Jocelyn bent the frond, it snapped and crumbled in her hands.

"That IS strange," Timothy added. "I was expecting Hawaii to be more lush. Like you see it on the National Geographic specials. This island looks like it's been through a drought."

"Very astute," Sable said. Their captain raised a hand to get their full attention. "I suspect it's a side effect of Grandfather Kahuna's gralic magick. His spells have drained the actual lifeforce from this island... just as he has stolen the lives of all eleven of his Human victims this past month. Five men, four women, two infants."


( the rest of the story )