Category: Short Stories

Short Story: Too Real

~ S.M. Nolan ~ 3 Comments

She’d be at it near-on forty hours by the time it was over. She knew it ahead of time. Weekends like this weren’t uncommon for the chronically unemployed Sonia Rakes. She’d settle in on Friday night, greasy crap-food on one side of the desk, soda and water on the other with a bottle of Jack chilling beneath it in the mini-fridge. While her marathon choice of game booted, she rolled fat joints and blunts to pass the time, mind racing in anticipation of the glory ahead.

To say she was a burn-out would require ignoring the intense passion she wrangled out of herself for each and every imaginary world she eventually conquered. Sure, she was a little overweight, but the chair-sized ass she sat on made her all the more comfortable during the marathon sessions. Even if her pudge spilled over her waist-line, stuck out nearly as far as her free-bagging double-Ds, that just meant there was more of her to love. Besides, she’d long ago abandoned the realm of such social pressures in favor of the confined, fantastical ones she occupied for days at a time.

She sparked up a blunt, took a deep hit, and swigged down some cola home-run style. The cola was swallowed away to allow a plume of smoke emerging from her nose and mouth. Her lungs re-inflated with fresh air and the high trickled in through the back of her brain. The slow immersion of brain into cannabis relaxed her shoulders and chest. She sank into her gaming chair with a deflation that would’ve made “truth” ads jealous.

But this was no ordinary immobilization of inebriated limbs. In fact, it was just the beginning of what had always been the ultimate in relaxation and comfort. Contrary to some opinions, that were no longer popular, getting high only enhanced most things. One of them, at least for Sonia, was the imagination. Gaming was nothing if not stimulating for the imagination.

She booted up, set the blunt aside for a minute, and made the momentary keyboard clacks to put her in-game. With the blunt hanging from a corner of her mouth, she plunged into the post-apocalyptic world of her now-favorite title.

Her avatar was made to look like her; long brown hair, big boobs, and slightly pudgy with green eyes. Most of that pudge had been lost during gameplay by the game’s now-famous strength building system. Many of the game’s mechanics were touted as revolutionary. For an RPG, they were somewhat ahead of their time, even if most had been explored before. Everything had a modifier to it, and every modifier affected a stat; every stat, in turn, gained XP each time it’s level changed, and those experience points then went into an overall character level.

Once leveled, a player could immediately boost stats instead of working them up, and gain new perks that allowed them to take on new challenges or better overcome older ones. It was, for all intents and purposes, a game with refined mechanics that flowed beautifully, to say nothing of its atmosphere, characters, or narrative.

But what set it apart, Sonia knew, was its Artificial Intelligence. She’d barely seen a third of the game, but her awe of the AI was unsurpassed. Whomever programmed the game certainly had the chops to pull off the best work she’d ever seen. Most games’ characters were like cardboard cutouts; at a distance they appeared real, their “lives” full, but the closer you got, the more you noticed they merely wandered along set routes, repeated a few lines of dialogue, and were otherwise one-dimensional.

This game was different, and she’d only begun to scratch the surface of how. Her inebriated mind wandered, wanting to immerse itself deeper in the game’s world before fully committing to a quest that might forward any progress and inch her nearer its conclusion.

She found herself in the center of a small town. It was hardly a town by any standard, really, merely a few buildings forming a three-sided rectangle around a large well. Small shacks and lean-tos kissed the horizon around it, built scatter-shot across fields of mutated corn, tomatoes, and wheat. She aimed for the old-style saloon in the center of the open rectangle.

The whole place was an anachronism, a sort of wild-west area built up along a bombed-out, rural highway neglected into disrepair since the bombs. She liked it for that alone. It was rare to find such attention to detail that even the Non-playable characters’ cultures differed from settlement to settlement.

With that in mind, she sauntered up to the saloon’s swinging doors, but hesitated. An NPC down the wrap-around porch mentioned something about needing to “head ‘cross the wastes for Ban’oover.” Something about his twang intrigued her. He had that friendly sort of sound that put her at ease, made him seem either an easy target, or possibly, a new companion, if she found him to her liking. It was an instantaneous decision to follow him.

She whirled to follow the NPC’s ratty flannel and cowboy boots, gave him a good head-start, then passed by the other NPC he’d been speaking to. It uttered a “howdy” with a slight head tilt as she crouched at the edge of a corn-field, and began to track the NPC. Her stealth skills were only high enough to keep him unaware of her at larger distances, but she could easily keep to the cover of cornfields and rocky, desert roads that would lead to Banhoover.

She kept him at the extreme edge of her visual field, then knowing his intended target, fell back to bask in the world around her. Through the haze of caffeine, liquor, and weed, the hot sun kissed her skin while arid winds carried dust across her path.

A sudden screeching shattered her serenity. She froze, terrified. Her big, anaconda revolver was out, sweeping the horizon for threats. She crouched low to steady her aim, circled in place. The screech sounded again; metal nails on a chalkboard. Her teeth rattled, nerves stabbed by the sound. Something small staggered and swayed onto the road ahead. It weaved left, then right, fell forward. Her weapon sank at the pitiful sight of a massive crow with a bloody puncture in its torso. She swallowed her fears and approached carefully. The screeching sounds came louder, faster with each step.

She crouched again by the bird, examined it carefully. It was easily the size of her torso, and given the wound, near death. Her med-skills weren’t great, but might be enough to help. These types of random events weren’t uncommon. She’d yet to see one in this game, but so much of it was unexplored such an event didn’t surprise her.

The way she saw it, there were two options; try to heal the bird, or put it out of its misery. She’d gotten lucky a few hours into the game, and had been healed by a passerby on a similar road to this. Like the bird, she’d been bleeding out, the world phasing in and out of blackness. She saw no reason not to try and repay the debt to the collective gaming Gods.

With a few hotkeys and clicks, she’d drugged the bird with painkillers, and did her best to patch the wound. A quick flicker of XP, and the sound of a leveled stat told her the action succeeded. The bird hopped up, swayed a little, then examined her with a few tilts of its head. With a running start, it took flight and soared off into the distance. She chuckled, continued along the road.

It wasn’t long before she found the NPC she’d been tailing. More accurately, he found her. He’d hidden in the bushes a mile or so down from the bird. Five minutes of walking were interrupted by him leaping from the bushes. He held a big revolver like hers, trained for her head. A flicker of her HUD said he had a head-shot trained on her.

His shouts affirmed it with the addition of a demand, “Gimme all yer guns, clothes, and cash.” She remained silent, wondering how best to play it. He started shouting again, demanding, “Quit wastin’ time, there ain’t no other way out!”

A shiver shot along her spine as he cocked the hammer on his revolver. It was too real.

“Yeh, you best be shakin’,” he shouted from the beyond the revolver’s business end.

The revolver barked. A bullet whizzed past her ear. She felt it slice the air, buzz in her head. Her stomach dropped. Hairs on her neck stood on end. It was too real.

“I ain’t gonna ask again.” She hit the hotkey to drop her gun. He took a few steps forward, both hands on his gun. “Good. Now the rest.”

Her inventory menu appeared, and emptied at the “drop all” command. A moment later she was standing stark-naked in the middle of a desert road. He approached, licked his lips, chuckled to himself, then knelt to collect the gear in an arm. It disappeared into his hidden inventory as he stepped back again.

“Thank ye, kindly,” he said with a roaring laugh.

Something black flashed past, left him stunned. He growled, swirled around. She stepped back, terrified. Another flicker of black. Then again. More now. A shroud of black encircled him as he swatted at it. The revolver barked until it was empty. The NPC began to scream, flee. Sonia stood, petrified and dumbfounded.

It took a moment for her mind to comprehend the Murder of Crows attacking the NPC. It was almost a full minute before she could move again. By then, they’d brought the NPC down, had him in pieces on the ground. He let out a blood-curdling scream that upturned her stomach, then went silent, still.

A lone crow hopped over, its abdomen recently bandaged. It dropped something on the ground. She picked up a note that read; The crows will remember your kindness. She shivered.

Out of game her breath trembled, “Jesus christ, this is too real.” She stared at the crow, muttered, “Thank you.”

In-game the crow squawked. Sonia’s eyes bulged. It immediately took flight. The Murder followed in sync.

Whatever the hell had just happened, she was certain that bird had spoken to her. More importantly, even if she couldn’t understand how, it heard her. How? She collected her clothes and swallowed the ill feeling in her gut. She redressed, began to follow the road aimlessly, hoping to make sense of what the hell’d just happened.

Bonus Short Story: Never the Same Again

~ S.M. Nolan ~ Leave a comment

The world shuddered in fear when it appeared. It was a ghostly apparition sent from the heavens that no one refused to accept. It was like the shadow that flits at the edge of the eye, but when one turns to look with a start, they find nothing. Except it has never left. It didn’t then, most certainly. Now, I’, not sure we could imagine our lives without it– for good or ill.

I was working a main-line water-repair when it appeared. A few hours before the main had burst in front of a local middle school. We were lucky the summer-time was on us and school was out. If it hadn’t been, people would’ve hated us all the more for blocking the main thorough-fare between ends of the city.

I’d been cracking asphalt with a jackhammer when I looked up. I was wiping sweat from my forehead. For a moment, I thought my eyes were playing tricks. Even in the dead of night, the heat was ungodly. If it had been day my boots would’ve melted to the asphalt. I guess there’s some silver lining there, however minute.

There it was though. Hanging overhead twice the size of the largest the moon could become, and clearly man-made– or rather, made by something other than nature. It had settled into an orbit that allowed it to be viewed world-wide at appropriate times of day.

Humanity breathed together. We were like one organism, together in terror. I remember dropping the jackhammer and almost causing an accident when someone was about to trip over it. He and the other guy carrying equipment between them stopped. They caught my gaze. Five hundred pounds of concrete and other gear toppled sideways like over-stacked books. The ruckus made the job site stop and gaze over at us. They all saw us frozen, staring skyward, then stared themselves.

From what I’ve heard, that was how it went all over. One man or woman was wiping away sweat, or daydreaming with eyes on the sky, or blowing smoke from pursed lips, and caught sight of the massive object. From there everyone followed to look in similar fashion. I can’t imagine how many car accidents, or accidental deaths there were from that event. It was like the world came to an utter and complete stop. From 60-0, and there was no time nor braking. It stopped, and that was that.

People panicked. World-wide, global panic. The stock markets nose-dived. The stores were emptied by doomsday preppers. Martial law was declared in many places. Others were almost completely abandoned by law-enforcement and military, giving rise to local militias of crazy assholes with more guns then brains. At least the more intelligent folks among them prevailed. Some sort of order was necessary, of course, but it was a long time before anything resembling it reappeared.

I remember that first night. It was like we were on the cusp of a precipice. Behind us was this sort of imperfect peace. Ahead, lay a chasm of total anarchy and violence. The job was called off pending this appearance– and more “officially” the loss and damage of the dropped materials. That last part was the excuse, but I doubt anyone would’ve argued about it. I’m not even sure that information was ever received.

We were sent home around midnight. My wife was awake. She’d received a call from a friend working the late shift somewhere. I don’t know where. We never got along, and I didn’t ask questions about her. Point is, my wife was awake, and our little girl was still sound asleep in her bed. What I wouldn’t have given to see her dreams go on forever, so that she might never wake up into the nightmare that was sure to come.

We sat at the kitchen table, across from one another. We’d been friends our whole lives. We’d dated in junior-high, explored each other, broke up, explored others, then started over again Senior year of High-School. Somehow we came out of it with a beautiful daughter, a nice house, toys and luxuries, and an otherwise wonderful life. I wasn’t greedy. Never have been. She’s like me in that way. I guess we jut got lucky, rewarded for our general, positive way of living.

But that night…

It was like we were kids again. We trembled and held each other like inexperienced children. We cried in anger and sorrow like petulant children. Hell, we even laughed and joked the same as we once had, long, long ago. It was all a response to fear. We knew it then, as surely as I know it now.

It’s not something one experiences everyday. This was a complete and total shift of everything we thought we knew. Us as a people I mean, Humanity. Everything from social issues to physics was now challenged. So far as I know, scores of people vastly more intelligent than myself rose to it, and all of them came away stumped. Even that great physicist and sometimes philosopher Hawking only knew what he could deduce from observations, measurements, and readings taken with every known instrument.

I guess they tried communicating with it for a while. All the while the anarchy and chaos were worsening. The faithful said it was the apocalypse. The scientists said it was a baffling mystery. Law men and politicians flocked to one side or the other, adding whether they thought violence was the answer. Personally, I just said “holy shit.”

That was all that would come out. Every time I looked up, I thought about the millions of years of evolution that our species had gone through. I thought about the last few hundred years of technological development, the last few millennia of civilization. All of that had to pale in comparison to whoever– or whatever– had brought this thing here. I still can’t imagine what they’re like, or were.

Billions of years have passed since the Big Bang. The Universe is still expanding. It will, for the foreseeable Eons forward. Even our tiny knowledge base had deciphered that much. We had speculated countless ways of alternate evolution, from the most learned astrobiologists to the most overconfident sci-fi writers, but we’d never had any proof, any indication of where to look.

We suddenly had it then, and we still didn’t know what to do with it. When communication attempts failed, and our instruments had found all they could, an expedition was outfitted. A team of astronauts with a mathematician, linguist, psychologist, and school-teacher in tow, launched for the ISS. They made their rendezvous to procure supplies sent up before them on an automated rocket, then made for the moon-like vehicle orbiting nearby.

We still haven’t heard back much, but we know its empty. There’s a lot to be deciphered and scoured, but there is supposedly a distinct lack of any life aboard. I hope that proves true. I hope those crazy conspiracy theorists are wrong, that there isn’t a cover-up about aliens aboard. I hope, but I’m not holding my breath. There’s something about disappearances these days. They’re too numerous, too obvious. I can’t imagine what the point would be.

We live in fear now. It’s kept us in check thus far, but the way things have turned, it isn’t a stretch to believe it could all fall to chaos again. The governments don’t have control anymore. The militias are more armed and populated than ever, and the water main is still unfixed. I don’t know if things will ever be the same again, but I’m not certain if that’s good or bad. All I know is that my wife and I, and our daughter, won’t be taken without a fight, no matter who comes knocking.

Short Story: Her Hidden Power

~ S.M. Nolan ~ Leave a comment

Tiffany Winter sauntered through the door of her town’s lone department store. Flanking her were three of her best-friends, girls in their own right whom had nothing deeper in their minds then boys, clothes, and celebs. They would argue over and discuss all three subjects nearly incessantly, and none the wiser that Tiffany alone was the only one with a mind above (or rather to them, below,) all of these things. Indeed, Tiffany’s mind was quite unique, but only she knew it. She saw to it too that no-one else did. If they had, her secret would be out.

Most people in her position would fear the other popular girls learning they were actually a brain. That wasn’t Tiffany’s fear. In fact, that was the reason she’d developed the gaggle of slack-jawed plebs that followed her day and night. She somehow possessed both Einsteinian-level intelligence, and hollow-brained grace in a combination that made her socially lethal on a level none could hope to reach.

If she’d been asked, she’d have guessed that the girls that always followed her, and the guys that sought her out, were so intensely stupid they couldn’t comprehend how smart she was. “No matter,” and “No offense,” she’d say, before carrying on with, “Not all of us can grasp that the square root of the speed of light is inversely proportional to the speed and quantity of your intelligence.”

Whatever she meant by it, it certainly wasn’t any normal person’s meaning– even one of moderate intelligence and understanding of the terms therein. Simply, they couldn’t know it. Only she could. That was just how her brain worked. And why should she suffer when it was everyone else that was too stupid to understand her?

She and her gaggle sauntered through the store’s merchandise detectors and toward the “women’s” section. Lately, she and the others had taken to calling themselves women, despite still being teenage girls with less life experience than most insects. All their families were wealthy enough that not even Tiffany, with her fabulous brain, could comprehend living on little to no money. Even if she’d been forced to, she’d have used her secret weapon– the one that no-one knew about– to somehow get her way.

For most girls and women, that secret weapon would be their body, or some special trick of sexual or mental prowess they reserved for themselves. Tiffany had something much greater than that, and she’d known not to flaunt it, lest someone learn of it and the game be up. A proper explanation, she knew, was impossible. It was one of those things that needed to be seen to be believed. That is, if she’d have allowed it to be seen.

After three hours of giggling over boys and different outfits, Tiffany readied to treat herself to the sweet taste of her boon. She and the other girls stood in the check-out line, the gaggle empty-handed, but Tiffany with a cartful of shirts, jeans, dresses, and most important of all, shoes. There were more shoes than anything else, enough that they filled the main body of the cart and its bottom rack, forcing the clothes to hang off the sides and stick out at random angles.

Any onlookers would have thought this a problem. Not for the cart itself, but rather for the girl whom might need so many when she possessed only two feet. There were enough shoes there, an onlooker might suppose, to shoe a third world nation a few times over. Sneakers, pumps, stilletos, flats, boots, dress shoes, sandals, even a pair of cleats or two. The fetish had clearly skyrocketed to addiction levels.

But there were no onlookers around, no balkers, not even a few elderly shoppers to watch skeptically. Thus Tiffany remained free from criticism. For a half hour, the haggard cashier made light conversation as he scanned all of Tiffany’s clothing and shoes. Before he’d looked tired, now he looked outright dreadful. Tiffany and the other girls gossiped with the effeminate man as he grew all the more hunched. Clearly, though his shift had only just begun, Tiffany’s obscene load was wearing on him.

And thus, as the other girls went outside to causally await their leader– spurned not only by Tiffany’s hidden power, but also her wizened insistence– she revealed the power to no-one and the cashier was none the wiser.

He read off an amount in the thousands, a hefty charge even for her parents’ considerable wealth. She met his eyes with a wild look; that was all she need. His face went blank, hypnotized. She made a motion to mock handing over a credit card. He slid the invisible credit card through a reader, never breaking eye-contact. Even the computer was fooled enough to process the transaction. How? Tiffany wasn’t sure, but she didn’t care so long as it printed the receipt.

It did. The long receipt spooled out for near-on five minutes, her and the haggard, effeminate man never breaking eye contact. Had anyone been around, it would’ve given her away. Fortunately, Tiffany had seen to that too– by emanating a mental command that passively kept everyone away from her. Meanwhile, the cashier snapped from his trance, his memory of having swiped a credit-card as recent and solid as it was false.

He tore off the receipt, folded it several times, then handed it over with a smile and a pleasant wish of wellness. She heaved against the cart, steered out to her brand-new car, procured in the same manner as everything else. Her dad had always said she had a way of getting whatever she wanted. If only he knew. If only anyone knew. Then again, if they did, the game would be up.

Tiffany gave herself a sly smile.

She stopped at the car and began to load the trunk. Fleeting guilt bubbled in her gut. It always did. Technically, it was stealing. Then again, if no-one saw it, or knew about it, was it? The feeling was always supplanted by the knowledge of what someone had once said to her, “Use your resources. Be smart. Be proud of you inborn-gifts.” Maybe that person hadn’t meant, “use them to manipulate late the human mind,” but how could they argue with a girl using her talents?

She wasn’t sure what others would’ve called her if they knew, but she called herself a Psionic Thief. Or at least, she would’ve had she told anyone. She never did. Mind manipulation was science-fiction nonsense, no matter what clique you belonged to. No matter, not everyone can grasp that the square root of the speed of light is inversely proportional to the speed and quantity of their intelligence.

Whatever it meant to others, to Tiffany, it meant she could do whatever she wanted, and her hidden power made damned sure she could.

Short Story: Reel-Gun Blues

~ S.M. Nolan ~ Leave a comment

Detective Arnold Foster had been on the force near-on twenty years, but nothing had been like this. He’d done his fair share of high-profile cases and seen enough things to make the average uniform retch, but nothing had ever been so rough. He took off his gray fedora and knelt beside the body, tailored trench-coat falling around him to rest on the floor just beyond the pool of blood.

She lie on her side, arms near one another, left hand clutched half-closed as if sleeping. Everything about her was peaceful, as if lying in her own blood with a gut-wound was just another night of beauty sleep. Even her auburn hair had fallen around her pale-skin like a woman sleeping the greatest sleep of her life. Foster wasn’t sure about that, but it would certainly be the longest.

There was nothing unusual around the scene; no marks on the wrists, no broken glass or furniture askew. Nothing had been thrown, or knocked around. There was just her body and a pool of blood. It was still the most difficult thing Foster’d ever forced himself to witness.

Ali was one of the few friends he had left, alongside the now-primary suspect, her husband. Neither one had ever been the angry type. What had kept Foster on such good terms with them was their glowing love that welcomed him to bask in it. He enjoyed it.

But there was no glow now, just pale skin wrapped around coagulated veins and dead organs.

Foster rose from his stance. He shouldn’t be here, his heart said it, his analytical mind said it. There was nothing to find, and he’d been explicitly barred from the case on grounds of personal attachments. He disagreed with that decision and he doubted the Chief himself could have stopped him from coming.

But the Chief wasn’t there, just a group of uniforms, a few forensics squints, and a few reps from the coroner’s office. Even if there’d been something to find, Foster wouldn’t have needed it. The fact that Sten was missing was enough. He’d been the loving husband that stood by Ali through everything. If he wasn’t here, lying in a pool of his own grief, then he was the one responsible. Foster didn’t need any further proof. The door wasn’t forced, the room wasn’t askew; Ali had known her attacker, hadn’t expected her death. If she had, she’d have run, tripped, fallen, knocked over a lamp– left some sign that it wasn’t the man she loved and trusted.

Foster re-fitted his Fedora, and stepped away from the body. He pushed through some uniforms, passed the ambulance and coroner that helped EMTs to remove the gurney, and headed for his unmarked car. Like him, the Ford Sedan was getting on in years, but remained reliable enough not to be cast out. Its turbo-charged police engine had always gotten him from point A to point B, no matter the situation or urgency.

The Sedan was now the one constant in a world of variables. As he slid in and ignited the engine, it agreed with him. They were a package deal, it seemed to say, two old dogs trying their best to keep up and abreast of all the new tricks. The times had changed enough that technology was often their greatest asset and biggest rival, but today both sensed it was unnecessary. Personally, Foster didn’t need a bold repertoire or an extensive case-history to know where he’d find Sten.

When the Ford rolled up to the edge of the pier, Sten’s pickup was already there. Foster could just see him through the back and front windows of the truck, propped backward against the bumper with his hands in his pockets. For a moment, Foster considered leaving, but Ali’s dead body was too prevalent in his mind. Her supple, vibrant skin was too pale, eyes too closed and dead to let him leave.

Foster checked the reel-gun he’d inherited from his father to ensure it was still loaded. Cleaned, oiled, and fired regularly, it was as near to mint condition as an old thirty-eight could be. Part of him want to aim it through the windows separating him from Sten and pull the trigger. Something about Sten’s refusal to acknowledge his presence made him hesitate. It reminded him of the few times he and Sten had talked office-politics or work-business. Sten was always reserved, quiet, only letting out enough not to defy the NDA’s his software company made him sign. He was always honest, straight as a razor, Foster’d liked him for that.

But now he was jagged, crooked enough to have murdered his own wife then run to the one place he knew he’d be found; Why? Why any of it? Why murder his loving wife? Why make it so obvious? Why stand still when he could run, leave Foster in the dust? The old detective had to know, and there was only one route to the truth.

He slid from the sedan and sidled between the bumpers, reel-gun in hand, to approach Sten from the truck’s right.

“You don’t need the gun, old man,” Sten said as he approached. “I’m still the same man you’ve always called a friend.”

Foster stopped just out of arm’s reach, near the front-right fender, “My friends don’t murder people in cold blood, let alone their loving wives.”

“If you think that, you don’t know your friends too well.”

“What the hell’re you talking about, Sten? You killed Ali, your wife, and all you can do’s be a smart-ass about it? What in the hell’s happened to you?”

Sten finally moved, but only his head and neck. It still made Foster tense, just in case his so-called friend had any designs in mind. “Jumpy today,” Sten said blankly. “Why don’t you come over her, take a load off with me?”

Foster’s mouth half-snarled, “You son of a bitch, you think I’m gonna’ risk my neck for–”

“I think,” he interrupted. “You should hear me out. You wanna’ take me in after, fine. You wanna’ blow my brains out on the gravel, fine, but hear me out. You owe me that.”

Foster remained still, it was enough of a sign for Sten, whom turned his head back to the ocean. He was lost in thought for a long moment before he began with a distant vacancy, “Just before you and I met, I was writing software for a government agency connected to DARPA. Someone in the CIA contacted me asking for a meeting. Two months later, I was field-rated and on my first op. Nine months after that, I met Ali. She’d passed all of our screenings, and she believed every word of my lies. Or at least, I thought so.”

He slipped a hand into his inner-jacket pocket. Foster tensed up again. The hand withdrew, clutching a printed, digital photograph between its fingers. A small memory card had been taped to a bottom corner. He set the photo on the hood of his truck, slid it at Foster, and re-pocketed his hand.

Foster craned his neck to eye it and Sten continued, “That photo was taken two-days ago outside the Villa-Nova hotel. You’ll notice Ali meeting a bald man.”

Foster’s eyes confirmed as much, “This going somewhere?”

“Twelve hours ago the CIA informed me that Ali’s file had been forwarded from a contact in Moscow. Her real name is Ivana Kurleynko, an SVR agent sent to spy on the CIA through me. A contract hit was put out on her by the agency, but I got there first.” He finally met Foster’s eyes, his own sharpened by pain. “I… couldn’t let someone else kill the woman I loved. So I came in, and she saw me, smiled her smile, and blinked. I shot her once and left. I’ve been here ever since.”

They were quiet for a moment, only the ocean and distant gulls willing to force themselves on the scene. They created a background of white-noise that infected Foster’s heart.

He swallowed hard, “How’m I supposed to believe this?”

“All the information you need is on that card, Arnold.”

“You understand I need to take you in ’til this can be verified,” he said, only half believing him.

“Just make sure they don’t try to take retribution on me, you know?”

Unfortunately, Foster did. Wife killers were second only to child molesters when it came to inmate hatred.

“I’ll do what I can,” Foster said, still not sure what he believed.

Sten stepped around the truck. Foster’s followed, pocketing the photo. The two men stopped at either of the front doors and their eyes met again.

“You know,” Sten said. “I guess it’s true what they say, “You never really know someone.”

Foster thought about it, but Sten slipped into the Sedan and took the thought with. He ended up in a mired confusion… just another day of reel-gun blues.