You Know I’m Watching

A “Detectives Chen and Castilblanco” Homicide Case

Copyright 2018, Steven M. Moore

Preface

While I don’t know if there will be another Chen and Castilblanco novel, they still continue to have homicide cases to solve. This little mystery/crime novella describes one of them. Enjoy.

r/Steve

Chapter One

We stood outside the victim’s apartment, but I peered inside from time to time to see if the CSU was coming up with anything.

“Just a lot of blood so far,” said Chen, after losing patience with me and interrupting her perusal of her NYPD-issued smart phone. Useful and indispensable now, but mine was in my coat pocket.

“A shot in the neck can do that,” I said, turning my gaze from the CSIs to the starred window and broken glass on the floor. “We need to get in there and establish the line-of-sight to where the shot originated.”

“They’re looking for that too. That abandoned building across the street would be my guess.” She returned to her smart phone. “We have an ID. The vic’s name is Sharon Hill, and she’s an employee of a small accounting firm with a branch office not far from here. Thirty-two, unmarried, no roommates.”

“Good salary then in this rental market. MBA? CPA?” She nodded twice. “We’ll need to interview that branch’s employees.”

We were reduced to chatting about our kids. Ceci and Pedrito were older than the new addition to Chen’s family, so I had more young antics to talk about. But thankfully we were soon allowed to enter as the CSU packed up. Chen took the vic’s old desk; I popped two Tums and began my rounds in the tiny apartment. Knew the CSIs were thorough, but they sometimes miss little things—like something that’s out of place or hidden away. With a big family and a wife who was picky about décor, I’d leaned a bit about the first, and NYC dwellers were often security conscious.

Found nothing of consequence, though, so I returned to the main living area, parked on one of the stools at the counter of the galley kitchen, and watched Chen.

I soon detected a strong odor. The CSU had taken the kitchen garbage, but the odor came from there. Olfactory memories are generally not reliable, but I knew this one. My wife Pam drank a lot of tea. Checked cupboards. Sure enough, Sharon Hill was a tea addict. Saw some types that I’ve never heard of. My meditation guru wanted me to start drinking green tea, which was only a bit better than the slimy smoothies Chen drinks, but that type of tea wasn’t present in the cupboard. But there were many labeled glass jars filled with imported teas. I made a mental note about the quirky addiction—people’s habits are sometimes useful in a homicide investigation.

Chen, without looking in my direction, interrupted my thoughts. “We’ll have to check with the crime lab about the phone and laptop. I assume the IT people are working on them. But I found something interesting.”

I put on a new set of rubber gloves and took the sheaf of papers Chen offered. The very first one had letters snipped out of magazines that formed the following message: “You know I am watching.” I flipped through about a dozen or so more sheets. Some explicitly described what the sender was going to do to Sharon Hill. Others were just generally threatening. Still others promised to be faithful to her for the rest of the sender’s life.

“She had a stalker. Curious. I thought no one read paper magazines anymore. Maybe the perp’s an older fellow. Why didn’t the CSU find these?”

“Secret compartment,” said Chen, flashing her Asian Mona Lisa smile. I glanced at the desk, one of those old louvered models you might find at an auction or estate sale—I’d attended some with my wife Pam. “Eric loves them.”

Figured. Her husband, ATF agent Eric Kumala, was too uptight and prissy for my taste. Good father, though. “Maybe goes with the job.” Was referring to the fact that, although Eric wasn’t CIA, he was a bit of a spook and worked undercover a lot. Thought a moment. “Perp could be a co-worker. But with all these descriptions of what he wanted to do to her, why shoot her through a window?” Punched a number in my call list to connect to the other half of the CSU. “Find the origin of the kill shot yet?”

“Empty building across the street.” Chen’s guess was correct. I nodded to her. “Third floor. No shell casings, but the dusty floor shows footsteps and kneeling at the broken window. About size 11 shoes, detective. Probably a big man.”

“Take lots of pics, Jamie,” I said, “and send them to Chen and me. Check for partials and DNA too.”

“Already done. We didn’t find anything.”

***

After we finished at the crime scene, decided I wanted to see the sniper’s nest, so we walked across the street. Like many abandoned buildings in the area, I guessed greedy landlords had raised rents so high that no one could afford them. They now sat on decaying buildings waiting and hoping a developer would come along, buy the lot, and put up a highrise. City was constantly changing that way.

The third floor apartment in question would have been a nice place once upon a time. It was similar to Sharon Hill’s, but the lack of building occupants, discounting the rats and cockroaches, had led to its general state of decay.

Saw the footprints and kneel marks on the dusty hardwood floors. Ignored them because we had pics. Went to the window and kneeled, sighting across to the vic’s apartment.

“Vic might have been at her laptop,” I said, “or getting ready to use it. Straight line-of-sight to someone sitting there.” Paused to think. “About a hundred yards or so.”

“They didn’t find the bullet,” Chen said. “I’m guessing a rifle, though.”

“Agreed. Torso’s a bigger target, so the perp might have gone for the kill with a head shot, and it was a little low.”

“Ex-military?”

“Maybe. Or someone who does a lot of target practice.”

(To be continued….)

***

Comments are always welcome.

The Midas Bomb. #1 in the “Detectives Chen and Castilblanco Series,” this mystery/thriller novel brings together the detectives for the first time as they try to solve two homicide cases. The first victim is an old SEAL buddy of Castilblanco; Chen’s case involves a Wall Street banker as victim and her fraternal twin brother, a doctor, as near victim. Discovering the connection between the two leads to a conspiracy involving a hedge fund owner and a dirty bomb. This is where it all started, and the story is more current today than when it was written. Available in ebook format from Amazon and Smashwords and all the latter’s associated retailers (Apple iBooks, B&N, Kobo, etc) as well as in a print version available on Amazon. The ebook version is on sale now at Smashwords for $0.99, but only for a week.

In libris libertas!

[Note from Steve: I haven’t written a Dr. Carlos story for a while. You’ll find plenty in Pasodobles in a Quantum Stringscape and Fantastic Encores!, but here’s another one. It tidies up some things in my sci-fi novels too.]

Old Planet

Copyright 2018, Steven M. Moore

“What’s your take on this, Obregon?”

Carlos Obregon, Chief Medical Officer in the crew of the survey ship Brendan, looked up from his tablet where he’d been watching a demo of a new surgical technique for the ETs called Rangers. It didn’t matter to him that the starship didn’t currently have any of the little fellows among its crewmembers. The doctor liked to keep up with techniques to prepare for all eventualities, and he had saved ET lives as well as Human lives because of this preparation.

Captain Lester Wilson wasn’t smiling on the ship-to-planet widescreen that filled most of one wall in the tent that served as temporary galley and meeting place for the planetary survey team.

“Too early to tell, but Zoltan’s probably right.” He winked at the new Chief Science Officer Zoltan Karnoy. “Team’s going to have to do some precise dating, but the ruins are thousands of years old at least. But why ask me?”

“You’re the senior person down there,” said Lester. “Zoltan’s new at this.”

Obregon saw Zoltan’s frown. New as Chief Science Officer, but the fellow has experience. What’s with Lester? “He’s expressed the general consensus of the scientific team.”

“There’s no residual radiation,” said Zoltan. “There would be, even if a nuclear exchange occurred a million years ago. Self-destruction is out. And it looks to be a good climate for an ITUIP colony.”

ITUIP was the International Trade Union of Independent Planets, a loose confederation. Being a history buff, Obregon considered it modeled after the old European Union on Earth, the Humans’ home planet. But I also know how that ended!

“If it’s such a good E-type planet, why did the previous owners abandon it?” said the captain.

“Maybe they joined the Swarm?” said Zoltan, smiling at the huge screen.

Obregon blasted his own frown toward the scientist. And they say I’m too much the historian! He hadn’t heard that collective intelligence mentioned for a long time. It had played an important role in early near-Earth history.

Lester didn’t ignore the comment, though. “That’s a possibility. Keep checking the planet out for future colinization, but also have some people figure out what happened to the previous inhabitants. We need to be thorough.”

***

“Meeting in the main tent,” Zoltan said, sticking his head into the tent that Obregon used as a temporary sick bay.

Obregon had just finished up a minor surgical procedure on Tialok, their Tali shuttle pilot who also flew one of the three small tricopters used for optical and SAR mapping, among other things.  He smiled at the pilot who was now recuperating in the portadoc. “Lucky you. You’re missing what surely will be another boring meeting.” He patted the big, furry head and tweaked the Teddy Bear ears, but the Tali was still under anesthesia. “Not that I would want to take that kind of fall to get out of a meeting.”

Obregon walked there with Zoltan. George Edgerton, their xenosociologist, was at the head of the table, shuffling some handwritten notes and glancing at his tablet. He had served on Brendan almost as long as Obregon.

The doctor was prepared for a boring session where the science team presented data and tenative analyses of the same. Normally he would stay on board Brendan and send his intern down to a planet’s surface, but Julie Chen, who had been with him for years, had just left to become Chief Medical Officer on another survey ship. They still didn’t have a replacement. Lester’s answer was always, “I’m working on it,” but Obregon hadn’t even seen a list of candidates. He expected it to be a slow process, though. The starships were the fastest mode of communication in near-Earth space, and Obregon compared that to the Pony Express, something else he’d studied about Earth’s history.

George began with his analysis of the ruins, reporting on results from his subteam that included xenoarchaeologists and other social scientists with whom Obregon chewed the fat because of his interest in history, which often related to archaeology.

“We’ve located the ruins of some large buildings that might have been temples,” George said. He described the site in detail and their plans to excavate there for a while. When he finished, Zoltan passed the baton to the survey team leader, a Tali named Wotang.

That was when Obregon took out his tablet and started reading some medical articles. He only looked up when Zoltan directly asked him a question.

“How is Tialock?”

Obregon put the tablet in sleep mode and looked around the table. “He’ll be able to fly us back up to Brendan, but don’t look for him to help with the survey piloting a tricopter. We’ll have to ground one.”

Zoltan nodded. “No problem. There’s more ocean area than land. We’ll cover all of it before George and his minions finish their dig.”

“I can speed that up,” said Riley, the Security Chief. “I can pilot a tricopter.”

“You’ll have to put someone else in charge of the security detail here,” said Obregon. “I don’t want to walk around armed to the teeth.”

Zoltan smiled. “Not much on this planet that’s dangerous, except the terrain at times. By the way, the whole survey team should take Tialock’s fall to be a lesson. Loose shale and stones can be tricky in a 1.2 gravity field.” He looked around the group. “Let’s get back to work. The quicker we finish, the quicker we’ll be back aboard Brendan.”

***

While Obregon did his duty by checking Tialock from time to time, he went out with Edgerton and his group too. He sat on one of the massive marble stones and watched others dig.

“You could help, you know,” said Edgerton, sitting beside him after a few hours work.

Obregon held up his hands. “These do fine work, my friend. None of the crew would want me to hazard any damage to them, not while I’m the only medic in a many parsecs diameter sphere around this planet.”

“Most of the time, only the portadoc’s all that’s needed.”

“And Tialok is an example of when we need more. I need an intern. You should put some pressure on Lester.”

“The captain doesn’t listen to me much. He’s chomping at the bit to get on to the next planet.”

“Now there’s an interesting expression. I don’t suppose you know what it means.”

“As a matter of fact, I do. You’re not the only history buff around here. I’m comparing Lester to an ancient Earth animal called a horse. With the bit and reins, Humans would steer them. I guess the primitives tortured animals back then.”

“When they weren’t torturing their fellow Humans. What’s Xena found?”

A tall woman with short brown hair was waving wildly at Edgerton and yelling something.

“Too far away. If you can get off your butt, let’s go and see what they found.”

***

“I’ll be damned,” said Obregon, admiring the mural on a wall in the temple room the scientists had broken into. “You say you’re a historian, George. Do you recognize these people? Zoltan was right.”

“I don’t, so how do you know he was right?”

“These little fellows called themselves the shipbuilders—in their language, of course. Brent Mueller’s wife Jenny Wong was kidnapped by one of their ships, and they were instrumental in saving ITUIP from that criminal mastermind Dimitri Negrini. After that, they just disappeared. Looks like they made a habit of that. This must be their home planet.”

“That’s quite a bit of extrapolation from very little data,” said George. “And you’re suggesting they joined Swarm?”

“They disappeared somewhere. What’s interesting is that they played important roles in Human history, from the nuclear exchange between Colombia and Venezuela in 2078, old calendar, to stopping Negrini in 3073.”

(more…)

Retiree Number 114 at Pine Hills Manor

Virginia, 2030

Copyright 2008, 2013, Steven M. Moore

Brenda moved along the dim corridor and stopped at room 114.  After checking off the visit on her list, she peeked into the room at her patient.

Rafael, the old retiree, sat in his rocker, muttering to himself.  As usual, he was smiling and staring out the window between thick, wrought iron bars at the bleak Virginia countryside.

She thought he might like winter because he used to ski, but she couldn’t be sure.  Most retirees didn’t remember much with all the drugs they took.  He often drew pictures of skiers, though, especially of children on skis.

“Ready to start your day, Rafael?”  She always tried to be cheery with her patients.

He gave her a dour look.  She knew he was a warm and caring person—he just hated to be rushed.

“What’re they having for breakfast?”

“Oatmeal, OJ and coffee, what else?  Do you want me to come back?”

“No.  I don’t want to disturb either my routine or yours.  Besides, my daughter is coming to visit today.  I’d better spruce up.”

She nodded.  She had known Rafael Reyes for four years.  It was what he said nearly every morning.  The drugs had that effect.  All her patients were docile.

She helped him dress.  He was in better shape than the average retiree in the nursing home.  Lean body, flat abs, not confined to a wheel chair—at seventy-seven Rafael Reyes could pass for early sixties.  Without drugs, he would have been a handful.  With drugs, it was like dressing a sleepy baby.  Under their influence, he would often start muttering in Spanish.  She wondered if those were his secrets.

* * *

Brenda Morgan was Rafael’s only true friend at the nursing home.  He hadn’t established any lasting friendships with other retirees.  Most of them were pleasant enough.

Men outnumbered women.  Both sexes separated into groups as if they were cliques of little schoolchildren.  Some men and women hooked up, visiting one another at odd hours during the night.  The orderlies were happy to provide the necessary pills to make all their parts work.  They preferred happy retirees—drugged, but happy.

Some women would try flirting with him or men would try to involve him in a poker game.  Without being rude, he made them understand he only wanted to be alone.  Most of the time he couldn’t even remember why.  Other times he would remember Gabriela, his ex-wife, or Patricia, his daughter, and know why.  Still other times he would remember his work of a lifetime and know they should avoid him as if he had a contagion brought back from Mars.

Rafael had always been a loner.  About the time new pills were due, he would sometimes have flashbacks to his previous life and knew it had been lonely.  Some of that had been work related, but mainly it was his personality.  Gabriela became a part of that life somewhere along the line and briefly swept away some loneliness, but that hadn’t lasted long.  He had driven her away and his daughter with her.  He wondered where his daughter was and why she didn’t visit him.

As an engineering graduate from Carnegie-Mellon, he possessed skills and credentials that brought him into what Eisenhower, with remarkable prescience for a leader, had called the military-industrial complex.  Its golden era after 9/11 had sent him from SCIF to SCIF, working on a number of black programs, endearing him to the Pentagon, and ruining his marriage.

In less confused moments, he would often find it amusing to remember his travels when he ran into people with whom he had worked closely for a time.  They would not even acknowledge they knew him.  He saw some of those same people here at the nursing home and wondered about that.  He did not find the latter amusing, though; the prevalent emotion was a foreboding he couldn’t shake.

Brenda had encouraged him to work out.  Often, at the end of a workout, and especially when new pills were due, he had his most lucid moments.  It was at those times he knew he must escape.

* * *

“Retiree 114 seems to be having more moments of lucidity.”

Dr. Harold Barnes studied the chart the orderly handed him.  They randomly tested all retirees.  Rafael Reyes’ peaks in lucidity correlated well with dips in the drug levels in his blood.

“Good catch.  I’ll increase dosage a little.”

“Yeah, not too much, doc.  We wouldn’t want to kill him.”

The orderly winked at Barnes who reacted to the man’s insensitive banter with a glare.  He had little use for these people.  They were not nurses in any sense of the word.  Most were lowlifes and cutthroats taken off the street and given basic training.

After he signed a new drug order and the orderly departed, Barnes looked at the pile of folders underneath Rafael’s and sighed.  He hated the job for many reasons, but its paperwork was one of them.

He had 187 patients to look after.  “Retirees,” the National Intelligence Director had called them, but the government said their retirement implied a risk to national security—the knowledge inside their heads was too sensitive.  A new program had been established to make sure that knowledge didn’t fall into wrong hands.

Barnes never worried about the justification for such a program.  For him it was just a good job in bad economic times.  There weren’t many medical jobs they would give a doctor who had lost his license to practice.  And he didn’t have to think too much about being a real doctor, either, because most patients were healthy.  The unhealthy ones were often helped along a little toward a quiet death.  They could only take care of a maximum of 200 patients, so the number had to be controlled.

* * *

Nighttime brought bad dreams.  Rafael would often wake up with a start.  Each dream was a guilt trip.  In them, he could see maimed bodies and sometimes wonder why.  Other times he knew: he had designed weapons.  Weapons to end a war that shouldn’t have started.  Weapons now necessary because the rest of the world no longer liked the U.S.  Maybe the people, but not its policies.

One night he left his room.  Cameras and motion detectors in the room and in the hall alerted security to where he was and what he was doing.  They found him muttering curses in Spanish and took him down.  They beat him, injected him with more drugs, and put him back in bed.

Brenda wondered about the bruises the next day because she asked him about them.  He couldn’t remember.  He seemed to be in a daze.  She had to wonder if he was getting Alzheimer’s.

* * *

Rafael’s desire to escape finally overcame his fear of confiding in someone.  He decided to approach Brenda, his friend.  She wasn’t the only one giving him his pills, so Rafael waited until it was her turn.

He grabbed her arm.

“Which one makes me stupid?”

“Don’t ask me that,” she said.  “I can lose my job.”

“You’re the only one I trust.  I need to escape.”

He waited a few beats as she considered the request.

“It’s two—white and blue,” she said.  “Don’t leave them in the cup.  Pretend to take them but spit them down the toilet.”

“They have a camera in there too.”

Rafael was an observant patient.  She obviously hadn’t known about the cameras in the bathrooms.

“Where?”

“Light fixture.  Covers a full 360 degrees.  Tiny little devils.  Motion sensors too.  We used to have them in some of our SCIFs.”

“You’re going to make trouble for me.”

“Don’t worry.  I can pretend to do number two and flush them down.  I need to stay alert to escape.”

“You’re too old.  You can’t run.”

“But I can walk fast.  I’ve been on the treadmill, rowing machine—“

“OK, OK.  Don’t do anything yet.  I’ll see if I can help you.”

* * *

That night Brenda finished brushing her teeth, stared at her image in the mirror, and made up her mind.  She didn’t like the frown on her face or the lines of worry.  For a long time, what they did at the nursing home seemed wrong to her.

She possessed a top-secret clearance, vetted by the FBI.  As a registered nurse, she could easily find work, but the job at Pine Hills Manor paid thirty percent more, had full medical benefits, and was a half-mile drive from her townhouse.  Unlike the orderlies, she was a full-fledged member of the medical staff.  Dr. Barnes trusted her.

(more…)

Militia Hostage

Copyright 2018, Steven M. Moore

Sullie saw the Jeep Cherokee winding its way along the dirt road, often hidden by pine trees and leaving a dust cloud behind it when visible. He looked at his dog lying on his old throw rug; Fang wagged his tail.

“Looks like we have visitors, old boy.” He reached for his shoulder holster containing his Glock and slipped it on while still sitting in the wicker rocker.

The dog then sensed the approaching vehicle, sprang to a sitting position, and faced the road. Sullie heard the low growl. His dog was a gentle soul—the name was a joke—but Fang didn’t like visitors either. Mostly because he thinks he owns me, not vice versa, thought Sullie.

“Easy, boy. Let’s not assume everyone’s out to get us.”

The Jeep’s driver didn’t seem to be lost. There was only one thing at the end of the road, Sullie’s cabin. He watched it come to a stop, do a three-point in the gravel, and park facing back in the direction from where it had come.

Sullie left the gun in the holster but disconnected its restraining leather strap. He had no neighbors with a car like that, and none could drive like that either. He squinted against the sun and saw a small man get out of the Jeep. Correction: not a man.

“Patrick Sullivan?” said the woman as she approached the porch.

“Maybe. Who’s asking?”

“Victoria Sandoval.” She climbed the steps and offered a hand. “Boston Globe reporter.”

Sullie gave her the once over. Perky. I don’t like perky. She had short brown hair and long legs accentuated by the tight blue jeans stuffed into hiking books. She wore a flannel shirt. Not much makeup. Expressive eyes. I like that. He then was embarrassed. He hadn’t even bothered to shower that morning and had two-day stubble. He wiped some residual bacon grease off his hand and shook hers.

“What do they say? If I knew you were coming, I’d have baked a cake. You’ve come a long ways for nothin’, ma’am. I don’t do interviews. Especially here.”

“I know I’m invading your privacy, but it’s important. It’s not about the scandal. It’s about your daughter.”

“Laura? Have they found her? Is she alive?”

“I think I’ve found her. A woman in Michigan matches the image we’ve generated using age progression software. And, if it’s her, she’s alive.”

Sullie stood, dusted off the pad in the wicker rocker, and motioned for her to sit down. He took a pot of geraniums off an old kitchen chair, dusted it off, and sat sideways to her.

“Give me the whole story.”

“Not much to tell yet. Sheriff from Michigan called me and sent the picture. They’ve been watching a militia up there for gun running, drugs. and human trafficking. In a video, he saw someone who reminded him of the pics in our paper. I sent him the age-progression image, and now he’s even more sure it’s Laura.”

“My God. That was luck.” He thought a moment. “Why are you interested in this case?”

“Two reasons. My Dad was a cop, and he thought you were wrongly accused. No evidence. Just a hunch. The second reason is that Laura’s case caught my attention. Young girl who had no reason to leave is taken right out of her home.”

He stared into the trees. “I always thought she might have had a reason. I was a single father and, as a cop, I wasn’t home all that much. She stepped up and cooked and did other housework when her mother left, but it wasn’t a normal life for a twelve-year-old. And she was starting to flirt with guys. Kind of hard for a father to talk about dating and protecting yourself and things like that. And after the scandal and I was fired, I drank a lot. Didn’t seem to bother her as much as the divorce, but it couldn’t have been good to be around a drunk all the time.”

“That’s quite a confession, but I don’t think she left because of you. All her friends said that she thought of you as her hero for standing up to city hall and BPD brass, not to mention being there for her when her mother left.”

“Some of the drinking was for that too.” He slapped his knees. “That’s past. Where abouts in Michigan? I need to go there.”

“You need to see Sheriff Willis first. He told me that he’s afraid you’ll blast into that militia camp and get yourself killed. That wouldn’t help Laura, you know.”

“What have they done to her?”

(more…)

[An author on Twitter—sorry, I can’t remember her name—gave me the idea for this. Well, not exactly the details, because I changed the story plot a lot while writing it.  We were chatting about Zafon’s two novels involving a bookstore (highly recommended). Stan Brown’s The Legacy, reviewed last week, was a bit of inspiration too. I love bookstores, and I even have some cameos in my novels where I’m a bookstore owner!]

P. Arnold Crandall’s Old Book Emporium

Copyright 2018, Steven M. Moore

Arnie Crandall looked up as the customer put the books down on the counter.  Most of my clients are so old, but she’s not, he thought.  “Can I help you find anything else, Miss?”

“What’s the P stand for?” she said with a smile.

In spite of himself, Arnie glanced at the lettering painted on his shop’s entrance door: P. Arnold Crandall’s Old Book Emporium.  Not a particularly catchy name, but it seemed fitting for that tiny street in Brooklyn.

“Peter,” he said. “My father’s name was Peter Arnold. I’m a junior. I prefer Arnie.”

“An emporium is supposed to be larger than this, you know. I’m lucky you have only a few customers.”

“You’re the only one so far today, and I thank you for coming.” He began totaling her purchases. “This one’s a bit damaged,” he said, showing her the water marks on Spells and Encantations by Ronald Q. Huxley.  All her selections had a similar theme.

“That’s OK. It’s marked down quite a bit, and I’ve been looking a long time for it.”

Interesting.  “You do know these books are only curiosities, right?  None of this works.”

She winked at him.  “Maybe you have to believe it works.”

She gave him a business card.  Agatha Breton-Calais, Attorney at Law.  He figured the office address was about twenty blocks away.

“R&R reading then, I imagine.  That will be $37.63 including tax.”

“You never know, P. Arnold.”

He watched her walk out the door.  The bell only tinkled on entry.  Why is there now a sulphorous odor in my shop?  He took a can of air freshener from under the counter and sprayed a bit.  Maybe it’s the acid found in the paper of those old books?

***

Arnie looked older than his years.  He was only thirty-seven, but with his vest, pocket watch and chain, and wire-rimmed glasses, he could have passed for a non-descript European gentleman from 1925.  His whole life was centered on books.  Even as a kid he was reading when his father wasn’t beating him.  Not that he blamed his father.  Arnie’s mother had disappeared one day, and his father was stuck raising Arnie and his sister.

She was the normal one—not bookish at all.  She worked in an ad firm in Manhattan. She had two masters degrees; he had a PhD in philosophy.  He knew that they had been motivated to study so much to get away from their father.  Neither sibling had married.  Arnie was too shy; Shana was too busy.

He’d found Agatha Breton-Calais attractive, though.  He wondered if she was born Agatha Breton and Calais was her husband’s name. He hadn’t noticed a wedding ring.

He promptly forgot about her as he resumed reading the book he’d been perusing when she’d entered the store.

But she returned three days later.

***

“Mr. Crandall, do you know if Ronald Huxley has written any other books about magic?”

“I can check some databases I use.  I don’t have any in-house.  Please give me a moment, Mrs. Breton-Calais.”  To Arnie, it felt clumsy to say the full name.

“It’s Miss, to use a more genteel terminology than Miz.  My father is a Breton-Calais, and my mother loved Agatha Christie.”

“My error.  Let me check for your author.”  He perched on a stool and logged onto his old laptop.  There were two old comfortable chairs in front of the shop for readers who wanted to lounge a bit or work on their computers or smart phones, so the shop had a Wi-Fi network people could use.  He used it too.  “There are three more books by Ronald Q. Huxley in the public library’s main branch on 42^nd and Fifth.  I don’t know if the author is the same Ronald Q, though.  If so, you might find the books there, not checked out.  I can’t imagine they’re very popular.  Only readers with some strange tastes like ours would read them, I suppose.”

“Correction: my tastes aren’t strange.  His is the only book I bought from you that seems to have authentic material.  I’d like to find this Ronald Q. Huxley.”

Authentic material? “For a case?”

“Yes, in a way.”

Arnie checked his computer again after brushing back his thinning hair.  “I suggest you try a cemetery then.  He’s buried in Boston just off the Freedom Trail before you turn toward the old South Church.”

“I don’t talk to dead people.”

Just checking.  “I was making a joke. About the talking to him, not about where he’s buried.”

“I see.  Does he have any descendants?”

“I have no idea.  He was a Presbyterian minister.  They can marry, so he might have had children, and so on.”

She frowned. “Maybe his descendants could answer my questions.”  She thought a moment.  “Where did you get the book?”

“Let me check on that.  Because I have so many old books, I keep a record of their provenance. Many are first editions.”  He hammered at the keys.  “Loretta Huxley.  I remember her.  A nice old lady trying to make a few bucks from what she called junk before she went into the retirement home.  Hmm.  Huxley?  She could be related.  A distant relative for sure.  Maybe the book came down to her through various generations of Huxleys.”

“You would make a good Hercule Poirot, Arnie.”  He blushed.  “Do you have an address for Mrs. Huxley?”

“She wouldn’t be there if she went into a retirement home.  But we can go check.”

“We?”

“Her apartment building is only a few blocks from mine.  We can ask the super if she left a forwarding address for the retirement home.”  Arnie looked at his watch.  “I’m five minutes beyond closing time.  I’ll walk you there.”

Bold of you, Arnie, to think she’ll want your company.

“That would be peachy, Arnie.”

Peachy?  The last time he heard that word was in the ice cream shop down the street.

***

“Offer me your arm, Arnie,” Agatha said outside the bookstore. He hesitated but then offered his arm. “You’re such a gentleman!”

Arnie noticed some of the other shop owners were watching, those outside smiling and those inside staring in disbelief. He patted her captive arm with his other hand. “It’s a nice evening to walk, and it will be quicker than waiting to catch a taxi on the avenue.”

(more…)

Skeleton Crew

Copyright 2017, Steven M. Moore

Mandy Wang was the first of the six to awake. Others soon followed her from their cryosleep tanks to the shower stalls.

“I feel like shit,” said Guillermo Rivera, the Chilean, sitting on a bench while waiting his turn.

“The shower helps,” said Mandy. “I’ll soon be done.”

When she exited and started toweling off, she smiled at Guillermo. “Don’t get any ideas. We have work to do.”

He shrugged. “In those tanks, it’s like being under anesthesia. You can’t even dream. Cut me some slack.”

Abdul Hakim and Judith Allan looked at each other, smiled, and then laughed. Sam Roberts and Sheila Townsend frowned. The first two waited patiently in their birthday suits. Sam and Sheila had covered themselves with towels.

“Mandy is correct,” said Sheila. “We must follow protocol.”

***

Protocol meant checking all the ark’s systems with the help of the AI, outside and inside the hull of the huge ship. Two readouts that were the most important were the integrity of the huge ten-square-kilometer forward hydrogen scoop and the aft reactors that not only slowly accelerated the ark but provided all the power for life support, even though all flora and fauna except for the six humans was in cold storage, including millions of frozen embryos.

Unless there were problems, that protocol would take six Earth days. After that, the six would rest one day, and then they would return to the tanks for another twenty years.

This was the first wake-period after leaving the solar system. The AI had monitored the events happening on Earth all the time, though. They watched the video records in horror as those events confirmed the necessity for launching the five arks. Most of Earth was now nuclear slag.

“I guess the Christian Union got its wish for Armageddon,” said Abdul. “Crazy bastards. And to think they criticized radical Muslims. Those SOBs now have their Second Coming and reward in Heaven, I guess.”

“It takes two to tango,” said Sheila.

“More than two,” said Mandy. “The tipping point was Christians trying to retake Jerusalem from the Jews and Muslims.”

“We Buddhists,” said Mandy, “aren’t attached to Jerusalem. I never could understand the big deal.  Couldn’t Christians, Jews, and Muslims share the city?”

“Don’t wrap this all up in religion,” said Guillermo. “We all know unscrupulous leaders use religious fervor and hatred and bigotry to further their own fascist agendas. Ever since that crazy U.S. president was elected with that kind of base, we started our descent into the maelstrom.”

“He wasn’t the only one,” said Sheila.

“Earth’s descent into populist tribalism was worldwide,” said Judith. “And those leaders go at least back to the 20^th century where millions of my people were sent to Nazi ovens.”

Abdul looked around the group. “Shall I turn the video off? I’ve seen enough of this collective insanity.”

The others nodded.

***

Governments had tried to stop the international group that had financed the arks, but it had many rich financial backers who were more frightened of how worldwide disputes were going every day that passed.  That group had carefully chosen the six to monitor the ship during the wake-periods. Some in the group of financial backers felt that the powerful AI was sufficient and more than six could sleep through the journey and take over when the ship reached its destination, but others, arguing for an insurance policy, had won the argument for the periodic checks on progress.

But no screening was perfect. All the compatibility measures on Earth hadn’t predicted the psychological stress of interstellar space travel and its effects on the six.

(more…)

[While many of my books lead up to Survivors of the Chaos in the “Chaos Chronicles Trilogy” and are on the same long timeline—in particular, the “Clones and Mutants Series” and the bridge novel, Soldiers of God—I decided that, considering the current political situation in the U.S. right now, a short-story prequel to The Chaos Chronicles Trilogy Collection, just recently released, was in order.  Consider it a funeral dirge for democracy treating how fast my warnings about fascist capitalism are coming true. 1984 missed the point—now it’s the worldwide oligarchy who are the fascists.]

Prequel to Chaos

Copyright 2018, Steven M. Moore

The three hydrogen-powered limos pulled in front of the 202m-tall building on Fifth Avenue between 56^th and 57^th Streets. First to get out were the security guards who created a perimeter to protect their charge from unwanted New Yorkers like the infirm, hungry, and homeless who filled the streets around the tower.  When that was established, Randall Holmes, chief lawyer for GenCorp, stepped down and followed some of his security personnel into the tower.  There he met Daniel Ito, chief lawyer for GenCorp’s main competitor, WorldNet.

“You do pick unusual places to have a meeting,” said Ito, waving a hand to indicate the ornate lobby now a tarnished derelict compared to its original splendor.  “Is this—?”

“Yes, it is.  It possesses some symbolism I find useful for our meeting.”

Ito nodded.  “Let me guess: A phallic symbol of how we’ve screwed the common man, perhaps?” He smiled, but the smile was cold and forced.

“I have no regrets.  You shouldn’t either.  The masses deserve to be screwed.  They’re all idiots.”

“We all operate with that assumption.  Want to make a coordinated entrance for shock value, or should I go in first because you’re the one who set up the meeting?”

“Don’t be petty.  I need to make a call to our fearless leader, so go on up.” Holmes waited until the elevator doors closed and then made his call using subvocalized commands to the wi-fi device implanted in the right side of his head.  “They sent Ito,” he said.

“I think he’ll go along with the plan,” said the GenCorp CEO. “It’s beneficial to all of us, after all.”

***

When Holmes stepped out of the elevator, he had to smile. The corridor that led to the meeting room was in worse shape than the lobby. The frayed carpets had curious splotches on them.  He couldn’t help imagining squatters defecating on the floor.  There are multiple facets to this symbolism, he thought.

His security detail joined the others already present who barely acknowledged his presence. Ito probably had a better reception because he had already sent his security up.  All VIPs are equal, but some are more equal than others, he thought with a smile. He didn’t really give a damn about Ito or WorldNet.

He entered the room and eyed those who were already seated around the huge table—nine CEOs from multinationals looked his way, some nodding slightly, others showing a more curious expression, and still others, disdain.  He took his chair at the head of the table.  Ito was already sitting at the opposite end.

Representatives of the most powerful multinationals on the planet. Can we ensure our future? More importantly, can I guarantee GenCorp’s?

“No introductions are needed,” he said, “so let’s get down to business. We will have to take matters into our own hands if we’re going to survive.  We’ve caused a lot of this general breakdown in world society we now call the Chaos.  We have to come up with a fix.  Is everyone in agreement?”

There were nods of agreement, but Ito’s was less enthusiastic.

***

“The breakup of countries into feuding but large tribal-like groups is the end game of the tribalism promoted by that crazy U.S. president so many decades ago,” the WorldNet representative said.  “While I might generally agree we have to come up with some kind of solution to guarantee our future, why is it only our responsibility to fix things?”

“That psycho admired the fascist oligarchies of China and Russia,” said Holmes, “but our predecessors supported him so that they could all get rich.  As a consequence, America became a fascist oligarchy too and split into different countries just like everywhere else.  We benefitted from that and still do.  We have continued to do so ever since.  But in this Chaos, our profits might dwindle and anarchy is a distinct possibility. Anyone here want that?”  They all shook their heads in the negative.  They all wanted to preserve their place in the oligarchy, which was now entrenched and worldwide. “Then listen to what I have to propose.  Shall we go to the slides?”

That was really a command for the computer to start projecting slides for a talk Holmes had carefully prepared.

***

“My proposal is simple. We have been content to play in the background as long as governments did what we told them to do. With the breaking up of countries and their economic pacts across the globe, that tactic no longer is feasible.” He gave a subvocal command to the computer.  It changed the slide from the first one titled “What to Do About the Chaos?” to the second with bullets outlining his plan.  “We’ll have to refine this plan, so it’s only a beginning, but I think the main ideas are solid.” He began to cover the bullets.  The AI followed his words, highlighting each one as he came to it.

(more…)

Carlos Obregon, medical officer on the starship Brendan, stars in various short stories of mine. You can find them in the collections Pasodobles in a Quantum Stringscape and Fantastic Encores! Dr. Carlos is Sherlock Holmes at times, while his intern Julie Chen often plays the role of Dr. Watson. But are these short stories mysteries or sci-fi? They’re both, of course, for the most part—always sci-fi, but many also mysteries. This isn’t new in sci-fi. Old master Isaac Asimov created the sci-fi mystery, in particular with The Caves of Steel and The Naked Sun, two novels where Earth cop Elijah Bailey teams up with android Daneel Olivaw. Most sci-fi stories have some mystery elements, of course, but putting a traditional crime story in a futuristic context seems to bring out the best of both genres.

One of the best recent sci-fi mysteries I’ve read is Adam Troy Castro’s Emissaries of the Dead. It combines many conventional sci-fi elements into a crime story—weird ETs, strange settings, and an interstellar conspiracy that broadens the scope of merely solving a murder case. Clarke’s 2001 and 2010 are sci-fi mysteries; so is his Rama series until the Rama engineers are outed. My young adult novel The Secret Lab is also a sci-fi mystery. Readers can probably think of many more examples.

Dr. Carlos is an amateur sleuth, of course, and he also takes care of the medical challenges, his main job. The Brendan is in the Space Exploration Bureau’s fleet; the SEB is an agency of the Interstellar Trade Union of Independent Planets (ITUIP), a federation comprised of many near-Earth planets. The evolution of ITUIP starts in the “Chaos Chronicles Trilogy” (now available as a bundle) and continues with Rogue Planet. Dr. Carlos lives at the end of this timeline, far in the future. My goal is to include Dr. Carlos in a future novel as an homage to Dr. Asimov, but the reader can get to know him in the short stories.

Dr. Carlos is something of a rascal who often creates his own problems. He’s knowledgeable about Human and ET history, not a mean feat when considering the lengthy future history of near-Earth space I’ve imagined. He might also be considered an expert on trivia. He drives the Brendan’s captain crazy sometimes, and doesn’t always follow SEB rules. In the long run, though, he creates order out of chaos in the short stories describing his adventures.

While some short stories merit expansion into a novel (the short story, “Marcello and Me,” found in the Pasodobles collection, will become an example), I probably need a more complex plot if I’m going to do honor to Dr. Asimov. Hopefully that’s not a problem—I have many ideas for crime stories, and giving them a future setting should be possible. So Dr. Carlos will probably get his own novel.

I love this character. In some sense, he’s an alter-ego who can have adventures that I can never hope to have. But maybe that’s a characteristic of all sci-fi writers?

***

Pasodobles in a Quantum Stringscape and Fantastic Encores! have new reviews—see my webpage “Books & Short Stories.” These speculative fiction collections are excellent ways to try out my sci-fi for any reader on your gift list—that might be you? Many hours of varied reading entertainment illustrating my belief that short fiction isn’t dead in the publishing world.

In libris libertas!

[While tongue-in-cheek, there’s a serious side to this story. See if you can discover my homage to Greeks. Geez, I love that baklava!]

Special Cargo

Copyright 2017, Steven M. Moore

Cal’Len, my XO, bent over and shouted in my ear. The din in the Zanthian bar required this so I could understand him. The crazy band’s music was mostly loud burps and wheezes with lots of percussion and contributions from many types of the Zanthian’s traditional instruments.

I put my Zanthian Bomb down and raised my eyebrows because he had just told me that a Zanthian had offered a huge amount of credits, including bonuses for all my crew, if we could transport a special cargo to the planet Rak. I’d never heard of that planet. Wondered if it was in the ITUIP.

My ship had a standard mercantile shipping license. The International Trade Union of Independent Planets gave those out as long as the shipper went online and filled out an extensive and boringly bureaucratic computer form, attaching copies of ownership for the starship, but they were often more rigorous in enforcing their shipping rules—read: knowing what cargo was going where. If Rak was under quarantine—that could be for a variety of reasons in addition to health ones—we’d have a hard time even getting permission to lift off.

“Can we go there?” I said to Cal’Len in my loudest voice.

He knew all those ITUIP rules of commerce backwards and forwards. Valuable XO, Cal’Len. He often kept me out of serious legal trouble.

“You’re OK from ITUIP’s perspective, although we’ll have to be careful with return cargo. Aristotle doesn’t have much about the planet Rak on file, but we can haul freight there.”

Aristotle was our ship’s AI. “Does it know how to get us there?”

“The Zanthian client has provided the coordinates.”

“OK. Let me finish this drink. I’ll talk to him outside. The noise here is oppressive.”

After achieving the desired effect with the Bomb, I went outside to where Cal’Len waited with the Zanthian. My XO was about a third of a meter taller than me; the Zanthian was twice my size. Cal’Len’s black skin made a nice combo with his golden parrot-like beak and red mop; the Zanthian was cream-colored with large red spots and a flat face with a big nose—a handsome fellow from his people’s perspective. I was a puny and pale Human in comparison, but I was Captain Rick Cortese, owner of the star-freighter Skyrunner—the name was a translation from Cal’Len’s vernacular, the Sartok language. I checked that everyone had their com devices plugged into the side of their heads. Aristotle could easily handle three languages.

***

“I am honored, Captain Cortese,” said the Zanthian, bowing deeply. The bow doubled him down to about my stature. Zanthians are big! He straightened up. “You may call be Ba’ath.”

I looked skyward about two meters. “What’s in your cargo, Citizen Ba’ath?”

“I’m offering you a lot of credits, captain, and part of that payment should buy me some privacy for my shipment.”

“I’m uncomfortable with that. For all I know you have a nuke in there with a timer or FTL trigger.” The former would be old-fashioned; an RF-controlled detonator would be less so. And an FTL trigger goes off when a starship enters the Nexus to accomplish the faster-than-light trick of hopping through metaverses.

“Not likely. I am part of the cargo. I’m paying for passenger space, that is.”

“So what? Maybe you’re suicidal.”

“I could contract with another shipper.”

Yeah, maybe, I thought, but they probably wouldn’t be as desperate as I am. I raised an eyebrow and looked at Cal’Len. My Sartok friend was good at reading Human body language. I still vocalized my question in Standard. “Is this guy for real?” I looked up at Ba’ath again. “You know we have the right to inspect cargo, correct?”

“Clause number 3.108 of the ITUIP shipping regulations clearly states that diplomatic cargo can only be inspected by remote sensors if the diplomat doesn’t want to allow internal inspection of said cargo.”

I winked at Cal’Len. “You two can have a great time en route discussing ITUIP legalities. Are you a diplomat?”

“Yes, I am on a diplomatic mission to Rak representing Zanth.” He handed me his e-creds. I examined them. “Tentatively it’s a go until we can check with the Zanthian State Department. How big is your shipment?”

“It will fit into your number 2 cargo hold.”

“OK. We’ll meet you at the Skyrunner—“ I looked at my watch. “—in about a standard hour. My XO will have checked your creds by then. You’re responsible for surface transportation and any cranes.”

Ba’ath nodded and bowed again.

***

From the bridge monitor, I watched the crane swing the huge shipping crate into the cargo hold. “I have a bad feeling about this, Cal’Len, but the pay is too good to pass up. Wonder if we can bring anything good back from Rak.”

“I’ve made some inquiries. The planet is rich in rare heavy metals. Rak is not far from where those two neutron stars collided. Lots of heavy metals produced in that volume of space.”

“We’re not an ore ship.”

“It might be worth it if they’re rare enough. We can haul them to the nearest ITUIP planet, clean up the holds, and take on more freight.”

What we do to make a few credits. Poor Skyrunner wouldn’t like all the dirt and mess. “What’s the government of Rak like?”

(more…)

[Perhaps you’ve read about this in Rogue Planet. This story’s about more than the Protocol, though…]

The ITUIP Protocol

Copyright 2017, Steven M. Moore

“Layers and layers of bureaucracy,” said Lars Beltran, the Human.

“The clan model would be simpler,” said Grabek, the Tali.

“I agree,” said Fisher-of-Rivers, the Ranger.

The AI translated what the latter two said for Beltran almost immediately, its voice murmuring into the com device implanted in the side of his head. Of course, it had also translated what he had said into the Tali’s guttural language and the Rangers’ buzzspeak; they both had similar devices.

“How can we avoid it?” said Beltran.

Fisher-of-Rivers, who was balanced on a stool, waved some tentacles. “Good question. You Humans depend on it so much. You’d think you would have found a solution by now.”

“Social layering is required,” said Grabek. “I envision a loose union. Each planet should determine its own organization within the loose set of rules of a federation. The latter shouldn’t have to preoccupy itself with details of planetary administration.”

“We already have our loose set of rules, guidelines that will be enforced to gain membership and maintain it. There are other things the federation should be in charge of—general defense, space exploration for scientific advance and colonialization, and so forth.”

“The present Space Exploration Bureau works well for the latter,” said Fisher-of-Rivers. “I’m not sure about mutual defense. Will the federation get in a bind when one planet feuds with another?”

“Not if the feuding is handled within a multi-tiered judicial system,” said Grabek. “Let’s again discuss the rules for admission. There are a lot of crazy planets in near-Earth space, as you Humans call it. We trade with a lot of them now. I see the federation as more of an economic union, but we need to somehow shield the federation from craziness.”

“Do you mean craziness like the old Tali empire trying to exterminate all intelligent lifeforms other than the Tali?” said the Ranger.

Grabek bristled, but it didn’t show in his orange fur. His anger was signaled by the twitching, independent motion of his ears. His black, leathery face was always inscrutable, and his fur was always carefully preened.

(more…)