THE PRESENT

  ANDROMEDA SKYSCRAPER

  WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 10th. 07.25 a.m.

  The envelope slipped under the door just as the first light of dawn began to filter through the windows.

  Vicky, busy preparing breakfast in the kitchen, heard the faint scraping sound as something slid across the floor and brushed against the entryway rug. Someone had left a small package.

  She paused, coffee grounds poised above the machine, straining her ears for any other sounds. Nothing. Not even footsteps outside, in the building’s hallway. Whoever had delivered it had been careful not to make a noise leaving. Shrugging off her unease, she poured the grounds into the coffee maker and headed to the living room.

  ‘Please wipe your feet before entering,’ read the message on the doormat. Just a few days ago, Adam had quipped, ‘Even the rugs in this apartment are boring.’ The envelope was partially wedged beneath it.

  Her first thought was caution, Careful, it could be a letter bomb. Sure, those tricks are from another century, but there’s always some nostalgic lunatic eager to bring them back. Then she shook her head. Come on, Vicky, leave the paranoia back in your own country, dear. Things are different here.

  The envelope was small and too thin to contain anything but paper.

  Curious, she frowned. As far as she knew, the building superintendent didn’t do door-to-door deliveries. Maybe it was an urgent notice from the management—or the building expenses breakdown Adam had mentioned to Trevor Homam. Then again, who still used printed statements these days?

  She peered through the peephole. The hallway was empty.

  Opening the door, she cautiously leaned out. No one.

  Just as she’d suspected, whoever had left it had taken off in a hurry… Or maybe they were watching her, hidden behind one of the apartment doors on their floor?

  She shut the door and, though something told her there was nothing to fear, went to her room to grab the backpack she’d brought on her last jump to Markabia. From it, she pulled out a small laser cutter and a pair of gloves equipped with special sensors.

  You’re overreacting, dear, she told herself, though it didn’t hurt to be cautious.

  She picked up the envelope with the gloves on and, even before checking the sensor readings, could tell by the weight that it contained nothing more than a piece of paper. She opened it with the laser, and its contents drifted to the floor, swaying through the air before landing on the carpet, covering part of the dull message.

  It was a clipping from a printed newspaper—an oddity in itself—taken from the obituaries section. The photo showed an elderly man, his face weathered and stern. At the top of the clipping were the details: ‘Proxima. August 30, 2110.’ By the Hypercontinental Calendar—used worldwide except in her homeland—it was from the previous month.

  Someone had marked a specific paragraph in red, the one beneath the old man’s photo:

  

  Rodolfo Gutiérrez. May he rest in peace. He died on August 29, 2110, at the age of 88. Surviving him is his wife, Aida Mendoza Gutiérrez. Funeral services will be held at 9 a.m., Friday at the Elysian Fields cemetery. Burial will be made in the same place.

  A cold obituary for a man with a cold expression, Vicky thought.

  Who was this deceased man, and why would someone want Adam—or the both of them—to see this article? Then again, it might have been meant for the previous tenant. There was an easy way to find out.

  After returning the gloves and cutter to the backpack, she grabbed the phone resting on the shelf—the one Adam used for work—and searched online for any information about the deceased.

  The next half hour passed in a blur. She paced the living room, phone in one hand and coffee cup in the other, sipping while scanning every article that mentioned the name.

  “Still here?”

  The question snapped her out of her thoughts for a second. Adam was awake.

  “I slept well, thanks,” she replied.

  Adam let out a resigned sigh. “You know, for a moment there, I had hoped I’d wake up and find you gone.”

  “I made my position clear yesterday,” Vicky said.

  “Yeah… And I made mine.”

  Adam opened a few cabinet doors, still trying to remember where everything was in this apartment. Vicky opened the right one, grabbed a mug, and handed it to him. He took it with a long face, poured himself some coffee, and then glanced at what she was wearing: a sleeveless white shirt and green pants.

  “My ex would be thrilled to know you’re wearing her clothes again,” he commented.

  “Well, going back to my country for a change of clothes might land me behind bars, so your ex will just have to deal with it,” she replied, focused on the phone. “And let her be glad, because I’m not having a good time wearing green; I hate it,” she added, sliding her backpack aside to give him room to have breakfast on the small counter.

  With his index finger still covered in a splint, Adam toyed with the nameplate pinned to the bag.

  “Lieutenant Alioth,” he read aloud, chuckling. “The poor guy must be losing his mind looking for his bag.”

  “He’s not looking for it because it’s right here,” she said, raising her hand, her eyes still on the phone.

  “Ha! So you didn’t just steal his bag—you stole his identity too?”

  “No, dummy. I’m Lieutenant Alioth. Victoria Alioth, Intelligence Officer for the Markabian Military’s Breach Squadron.”

  “Alioth?” Adam repeated. “I thought your last name was Viveka.”

  “It is. Alioth was my name during my time in the Military.”

  “Huh?”

  With a sigh of frustration at the constant interruptions, Vicky looked up from the screen to explain. “When a Markabian officer reaches a certain rank, they’re given a new surname… Y’know, as a symbol of their new family being the Imperial Military and all that nonsense.”

  Adam raised an eyebrow, as if to say, “How fascinating!”

  “Well, ex-Lieutenant Alioth, can I ask why you’ve confiscated my work phone?”

  Vicky held up a newspaper clipping.

  “Do you know this man?”

  Adam craned his neck to look at the photograph. “Rodolfo Gutiérrez. It’s written right there, isn’t it?”

  “I know that, but do you know who he is?”

  “Uh-uh,” Adam shook his head.

  “Someone slipped it under the door,” she said.

  Adam took the clipping.

  “Some kind of door-to-door ad?”

  “Don’t be silly.” Vicky snatched the clipping back. “I looked him up; didn’t find much. How many damned Rodolfo Gutiérrezes do you think there are in this city?”

  “I don’t know, thousands?”

  “Millions!” she exclaimed, indignant. “Why doesn’t your country regulate names better? Finding information on one person is impossible with so many repeats. In Markabia, we approve new names occasionally to avoid this sort of thing. I’m telling you, if that were the case—”

  The author's narrative has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.

  Adam sipped his coffee, letting her rant.

  “Well,” he interrupted, “did you find anything about this particular Rodolfo Gutiérrez?”

  Vicky took a sip from her cup.

  “Next to nothing. He was a real estate agent who spent his final years in a nursing home. I managed to access the facility’s database and identified him through their photo records of patients… Oh, and let me tell you, if all the cybersecurity systems in this country are as easy to breach as that one, any hacker from mine could have a field day here. Hell, I did it with a cheap device like this phone.”

  “Thanks for the heads-up,” he said. “I’ll tell the folks at Homam Enterprises to beef up their firewalls against data thieves like you, just in case.”

  “Anyway,” she continued, “this Rodolfo guy was lost in a mental fog, thanks to severe dementia.”

  “Uh-huh, like seventy percent of elderly people in this vast world,” Adam noted. “So what makes this old man stand out enough for his obituary to end up under this door?”

  Vicky shrugged. “Your guess is as good as mine. Why would someone slip this under the door?”

  “C’mon, Vicky, until less than a month ago, this apartment was rented by an elderly couple. Your guy was probably a relative or acquaintance of theirs. Whoever left the obituary likely didn’t know there was a new tenant here.” Adam grinned smugly. “Did you hear that? I said tenant, singular.”

  “Yeah, whatever. Look, do you know how many leads like this I’ve received in my life? Thousands! How many went nowhere? Tons! But you know what’s the first thing an intelligence officer learns? Never dismiss anything until you’re sure there’s nothing there.”

  “Ex-Lieutenant Alioth, I see that silly clipping has you pretty fired up.”

  She shrugged. “Maybe I’m not an intelligence officer anymore, but old habits die hard. I’m bored out of my mind with way too much free time. What the hell do you want me to do?”

  “Hey, don’t get me wrong,” he said, rinsing his cup. “I’ve got tons of important things to do, like listening to music, hitting the gym, and turning some salty water into steam. It works out great if you wanna play detective for a while.

  “Look, in the contacts list on the phone you’ve confiscated, you’ll find Rita Okinawa—my secretary, the most efficient person I’ve ever met. Send her a text and introduce yourself. Yeah, I did tell her about you; she knows who you are. Ask her for information on this Gutiérrez guy and see what she can find out. Knowing her, she’ll get back to you with everything, down to the zodiac sign of the nurse who used to change the old man’s diapers at the nursing home.”

  Simon sneezed, the sound booming around him, wiped his nose and mustache with his arm, and kept moving down the dim metal corridor.

  A cold draft seeped through the air vent above his head, slipping beneath his military jacket and sending a familiar shiver down his spine. His father used to call that sensation ‘Death dropping by.’ But since Simon had always despised his father even more than death itself, he’d renamed it ‘Dad dropping by.’

  Trying to shake off the icy tickle creeping down his neck, he kicked the metal plates beneath his boots, but all he accomplished was creating another echo.

  When he reached the entrance to the ‘Clinical Laboratory’—according to the old, rusted sign on the wall—Simon hesitated at the threshold, as if afraid the shadows inside might swallow him whole.

  From outside, he spotted the one he was looking for. Shifting his jacket to the side, he revealed his bandaged chest.

  Those bandages hid two significant injuries. One was from Vicky’s heel; the other was from that Adam guy. That one was worse. That bastard’s attack, combining lightning with some eerie, phantom-like flames, had left him with a deep wound and a shortness of breath that might plague him for the rest of his life. The urge to scratch at the scar was maddening, but even the lightest touch made it burn like hellfire.

  “You knew this was gonna happen when you told me to go after that bitch, didn’t ya?” he accused, though his tone lacked the force he’d intended. His voice quivered with frustration, and he was so nervous that he was sweating despite the cold air blowing down on him. Still, he didn’t dare step inside and confront him face-to-face.

  With a swipe of his hand, Simon wiped the sweat dripping down his stubbled face and mustache, waiting for an answer beneath the doorway.

  Inside the room, illuminated only by the glow of the screens and the reflections cast on his expressionless face, stood the A60. Motionless and silent, the Cyclops was facing a computer terminal, one arm extended and connected by wires to a machine that hummed lazily. A point of light pulsed on his forearm, shifting between white and purple, over and over. He appeared to be administering himself an intravenous infusion of raw data.

  “You used me as bait to wake up that sissy boy’s powers, huh? That it?” Simon pressed.

  The android didn’t respond. He didn’t even glance at Simon, as he had done before.

  Simon adjusted his jacket back over the bandages on his chest. He needed to stay calm and watch what he said, even if he knew he was right. Although the android seemed to be powered down, Simon knew better. One outburst too many, and his current boss might decide he was expendable and crush him with a single blow.

  “The gorilla told me you’re the one who stitched up the cut,” Simon said, spitting on the floor. “Well, there’s your damn ‘thanks.’”

  Then, the metallic grating beneath his feet creaked behind him, signaling the approach of someone heavy—someone who would one day, no doubt, bring the fragile structure of this place crashing down with his weight.

  Speaking of the gorilla…

  His partner had arrived: a grotesque figure almost three feet taller than Simon, with a back three times as wide and arms so thick and powerful they could only be compared to—well, to those of a gorilla. Bald, with small eyes, an enormous mouth, and a collection of scars decorating his shiny, hairless skin, the man exuded brute force.

  “Still sleeping?” the giant asked, his voice low and gravelly.

  Casting a sideways glance at the Cyclops, Simon replied, “Androids don’t sleep, dumbass. They recharge.”

  The big guy grinned, revealing his crooked teeth, and cracked his knuckles.

  “Tell ‘im I went t’ pay that pretty boy a visit. ‘Bout time,” he told Simon, turned and lumbered down the corridor, his massive frame barely fitting in the narrow passage.

  Simon chuckled. “Yeah, go on, sure. Somethin’ happens to that sissy boy, the android’s gonna rip you in half,” he warned, but the big guy didn’t listen. Today, like every other day of his life, everyone ignored him. “Dumbass mastodon,” he muttered, spitting again.