Bastion Science Fiction Magazine - Issue 7, October 2014 Read online

  "Thank you for your time," he says, trying to force the nervous shake out of his voice. "Find a different operator."

  "Is that what I'll have to do? Why not you?"

  "Not a killer," he says.

  "I'm sorry, Mister X," she says, "but I'm afraid that's not up to you."

  She casts the blankets off herself—underneath, she's totally nude, her body wrinkled and angular and withered. Quinn's first response is to avert his eyes, but then he hears her shriek:

  "RALPHY! RALPHY, HELP! HELP YOUR GRAMMA! THERE'S A MAN IN HERE! HE'S HURTING ME, RAPLHY!"

  She's still smiling at Quinn when, moments later, the young man bursts through the bedroom door, swinging a baseball bat.

  Quinn only has time to think, she lied, before everything goes to hell.

  #

  It's hard for Quinn to say exactly what happens next. A lot of things happen at the same time, but as best he understands, it's like this:

  The young man, screaming "Gramma!" bursts through the door with the bat raised, and the old woman flops back on the bed, screaming nonsense syllables of feigned anguish. Quinn is already dropping the SCED and moving toward the young man, inside the swing of the bat to minimize any possible damage.

  The bat glances off his shoulder, and pain blooms there like a lotus. His hand goes inside his left coat pocket. Comes out holding the knife. A flick of the wrist, and the blade swings out and locks in place. The only thing he can think is danger danger, threat.

  Acting on instinct, stress, fear complex, whatever, Quinn crossbars his forearm into the young man's throat and jams the knife through his chest, just underneath the xiphoid process and up into his heart. The young man goes stiff as wood, then stops breathing. Quinn feels a hot wetness on the back of his hand. Pulls the knife out. The boy drops. On instinct, Quinn steps away from the pooling blood on the carpet.

  On the bed, swaddled in the covers once more, the old woman is laughing.

  "Perfect," she says between chuckles. "Just wonderful. My lord. You're better than my surgical oncologist. Thank you for that. Dreadful boy." She sighs. "Well. That went even better than expected. You are quite good at what you do, Mister X. When they find him, and this former body of mine, they'll have to assume it was the work of some random malefactor. Well done."

  He stares at her. She doesn't understand. She doesn't even notice, for a moment. When she does, though: "Are you quite all right?"

  "No." He kneels. Picks up the SCED. Tries to wipe the blood off on his coat. Only half-successful. "Didn't need to happen."

  "Unfortunately, it did. You see, he paid me a visit yesterday afternoon, my moron grandson. I fell asleep, and the selfish little lout took it upon himself to snoop around, looking for money or some similar such. He happened upon my copies of the extraction agreement. The papers. He knew. He would have told everyone. He asked me about it, naturally. Fortunately, I was able to convince him that my extraction wasn't scheduled for another two weeks. He was never much of a reader. Asked him to stay the night. Promised him I would explain everything in the morning, after a good night's sleep. He believed me, and went to sleep like a good boy. Perfect timing, really. I almost couldn't believe my luck.

  "So, no. It couldn't be avoided. I'm sorry for deceiving you, but it was necessary to secure my future. My great escape. You must understand that. Don't you? This was always the plan, to cover my tracks like this, but a botched home invasion, especially one with so much, what's the term? Collateral damage? It's so much more convincing than Gramma got sliced up alone or, even worse, Gramma got herself downloaded and vanished. Things are so much more permanent this way. We're really quite lucky, when you think of it like that."

  He looks at her. "Sure."

  She smiles again. Genuinely. Honestly. Like a grandmother would.

  "I'm glad to hear it. Well. Shall we get on with our work, then?"

  Quinn looks down at the dead boy on the floor. No older than seventeen. Seventeen forever.

  Quinn thinks, all he wanted was to protect his gramma. He died thinking that he was doing the right thing by her. A woman who hated him on an existential, genetic level. Quinn doesn't know if the kid was good or bad, or just sort of both like almost everyone else in the world. It doesn't matter now. All those potentials reduced to a zero. All thanks to a piece of sharp metal stuck into his heart. Thanks to him. Thanks to her.

  He looks up at her again.

  Alma Pearsson, age 91. Great-grandmother. Client number whatever-it-doesn't-matter-anyway.

  Terminal.

  "Sure," he says. "Turn around." She does. "Pull your hair away from your neck." She does that, too.

  He stands at the side of her bed, thumbing the sweet spot where her neck meets her head meets her brain stem. Like a surgeon, or a lover.

  "You really should tell me your name," she says, rolling her neck against his touch. "After I get my new body, maybe I'll let you take me out for dinner and maybe a little extra something. You know. As a thank you."

  "Sure."

  "So? What is it, handsome?"

  He thinks about it. Feels his stress, his fear, his anger buzzing through his body like a series of rough electric arcs.

  "Quinn," he finally says.

  "I like that name," she tells him. The smell of her is overpowering.

  He doesn't say anything.

  "You sure this isn't going to hurt?" she asks.

  Only if I do it wrong, he thinks.

  "Quinn? Did you hear me? Is it going to hurt?"

  He puts the tip of his open knife against the sweet spot.

  He does it wrong.

  #

  Outside, the night air is cool bordering on cold. He's sitting out on the fire escape waiting for a panic attack that hasn't come yet. He keeps thinking about the kid. The look of surprise on his face when the knife bit into his heart. The way he hit the floor right after. The way it made him feel, taking away all those tomorrows. The way he knew exactly what he had to do to fix it.

  Quinn doesn't know if what happened after made it right, balanced the cosmic scales, or if it just made more mayhem. But it feels good to regret something instead of letting that something drown him. Normally, he'd get on with trying to forget this. But this isn't normal.

  He's done a lot of terrible things in his life. Tonight, he only did one.

  He's not having a panic attack, he just feels awful.

  And for now, that's okay. Everything is okay.

  Inside his coat, his phone begins to buzz. He fishes it out and punches Answer.

  "Quinn."

  "Operator, are you anywhere near the client's home?"

  He doesn't pause, not even to think. "Negative, Management. Ran into traffic. Why?"

  "She just went flatline," the voice on the other end says.

  "You sure?"

  "We're sure. She's gone."

  "Alright," says Quinn. Then, "Am I being reassigned?"

  "Looks like there is one job open. Crosstown. Operator called in sick. Yours if you want it."

  "I'll take it. What's the timetable?"

  "Scheduled extraction at... six AM sharp. Can you make that?"

  "Easy," he tells them. "Send me the details." Snaps the phone shut. Pockets it again.

  Three hours to kill.

  Plenty of time to clean himself up.

  Plenty of time to remember.

  ###

  Matthew Lyons is a writer living in New York City with his wife, where he works in corporate advertising to support his pathologically unsafe spending and drinking habits. He is unquestionably a danger to himself, others, and his marriage, and he must be stopped at all costs. Join in the fight against this monster at twitter.com/goddamnlyons.

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