Photo by Moosa Moseneke on Unsplash

Welcome to another edition of Free Story Sundays, where I give you a free short story and all you have to give it is your time. A free short story is the best way to hook you into spending more time with my work. Wriggle, little fish.

This one is another one from the archives. It came out around the same time as I put out Prospero’s Half-Life, and it was intended as a release for the lead-up to that book’s publication. That, of course, was before I realized that no one, not even the people closest to you in life, will pay the slightest bit of attention to you. That’s freeing, in a way. You can write whatever you want! Like this story, about an asexual police officer whose colleagues think it’s very funny to keep assigning him to arrest people that were last seen at the brothel. Also, about the ultimate punishment we could afford criminals – to write them out of existence entirely, and utterly. A little frightening, if you ask me.

But isn’t everything?

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The house’s common room was immaculately kept, full of clean surfaces, clean lines, and clean faces.  It was certainly the tidiest brothel Johannes had ever been in, not that he’d really been in many of them.  From the stories his colleagues told, he imagined most brothels were much more cluttered and septic than Mrs. Barroway’s; every time he came, though, he was impressed by the attention to cleanliness on display: no stains on the furniture, no streaks of dirt on the faces of the women lounging half-clad on it.   

He paused just inside the front entrance, taking the temperature of the room.  There was a lot of flesh on display, none of it attractive.  There was nothing particularly objectionable about anything in sight. He wasn’t a prude, there was just nothing to catch his interest.  He reflected on this as he withdrew a tablet from his pocket.  It was likely why he always drew these sorts of assignments.  The Bureau wanted officers to remain distraction-free, focused on the immediate situation.  He swiped his tablet on, fingered his work portal, and brought up the listing for the day.   

A remarkably ugly face appeared on the screen.  A man with stringy black hair, sunken eyes, thin lips, and a nose that had been broken at some point in the past stared back at him.  He spun the model back and forth, examining the sides of the man’s head for any identifying scars or features.  He had a fat brown mole on the right side of his neck but was otherwise unremarkable.  He shrugged and returned the tablet to his pocket.  The mole would be enough for official identification, and that was enough for Johannes to be satisfied.  

He noticed that some of the women eyed him with open suspicion.  He’d been to Mrs. Barroway’s a few times, as far as he recalled, but he didn’t remember enough of his visits to be sure why they were looking at him in that fashion.  He was there on a job, nothing more.  He wondered if these sorts had a natural suspicion of anyone in a position of authority and dismissed it.  They were fed and clothed off the backs of such people, after all.   

He tried to ignore their stares and looked for the titular proprietor.  He remembered what she looked like, a big sunny woman with coarse brown hair and an earthy set of gestures that put people at ease.  He spotted her near the bar, whispering back and forth with a smooth-featured bartender in front of a set of impeccably displayed liquor bottles.  She looked over mid-whisper and they caught eyes; a guilty flush came over her face, and she finished her conversation with the bartender.   

Johannes approached the bar, and Mrs. Barroway came around to meet him.  She stood in front of him, arms crossed across her bosom, preventing him from walking any further into the house. 

“To what do I owe the pleasure of your visit today, Officer Krenk?”  The words were pleasant enough, but the tone spoke of gathering thunderheads.  Johannes wondered what he had ever done to put these people in such a state. 

“Official business, of course,” he said.  “I’m here in regard to a Mr. Jackson Quick.  A rather unpleasant man, you understand?” 

Mrs. Barroway pursed her lips, and her eyes narrowed. “Of course you are,” she muttered.  Then, a little louder, she said, “What does he look like?” 

Johannes brought his tablet back out, fingered out the portal and the picture.  It would be easier than a verbal description, and he wanted to find the man and be gone as quickly as possible.  The house was nice enough by the standards of the profession, but it still caused a crawling in the pit of his stomach for which he didn’t care.   

He showed her the picture and gauged her reaction.  She closed her eyes immediately and then looked furtively to the left.  Johannes knew a lie was coming, as sure as he knew in that moment Quick was somewhere in the house. 

“He’s a regular,” she said with a sigh, “but I don’t think he’s been here in the last few weeks”. 

“You don’t think,” Johannes echoed, putting on an insincere smile – the type he thought of as his professional mask.  “Are you sure you haven’t seen him in the last few weeks?  Perhaps in the last few hours?” 

Mrs. Barroway tried to avoid eye contact with him, but this was also something Johannes was deeply trained in.  He held her gaze until she crumbled; they always did, even the toughest.   

“He came in this morning,” she muttered.  “I don’t think that he’s left yet”.   

Johannes nodded, satisfied. “As I thought,” he replied.  “Do you know which of your girls is entertaining him right now?”  As the question left his lips, he noticed that another of Mrs. Barroway’s employees had quietly sidled up to their conversation.  He turned his head, startling both Mrs. Barroway and the new woman.  He managed to get a full glance of her in the time it took her to recover from her surprise.  She was young, perhaps only a few months over the legal minimum, clean-scrubbed and baby-faced.  Her blue dress was neatly laundered and free of wrinkles.  It was entirely too tight, of course, and ‘generous’ undersold the amount of jiggling flesh that bulged out at the neckline.  She had perfectly formed red lips and a pair of chipped sapphires for eyes; Johannes found them admirable, if not alluring.  He smiled at her, and she recovered, putting on her own sly, crooked smile. 

“Mr. Officer,” she said with a slight drawl, “I’m sure whomever you’re looking for will be here for quite a while.  Perhaps you would like to relax for a little while?  Any number of us could help you in that task”. 

Johannes looked her over once more.  He was repulsed by her manner and by the jiggle of her display.  He shook his head and caught a surprised, humiliated expression on her face as he turned back to Mrs. Barroway. 

“So, I’ll ask again,” he said sharply.  “Where is Mr. Quick?” 

Mrs. Barroway shook her head at the other woman, her expression mournful. 

“He’s not looking for what you’re offering, Lily,” she consoled the woman.  “Why don’t you go give the tub in the shower room on the third floor a good scrubbing?”  Once again, the words were innocuous enough, but Johannes detected something odd in the way Mrs. Barroway said it.  The girl had turned to follow her orders, but Johannes’ hand shot out and gripped her around the soft mass of her upper arm. 

“Perhaps I’ll go with you to this shower room,” he said.  “It’s been a long day searching after this man, after all, and the dust of the city gets quite heavy”.   

Lily hesitated in her tracks without turning around.  

Johannes did not turn to look at Mrs. Barroway, straining instead to listen for subconscious aural clues.  Her breathing become louder and more rapid; it was all he needed to be certain.  He tightened his grip on Lily’s bicep until it must have been painful for her.   

“Shall we,” he said, not making it a question.  He released her arm, and she darted forward.  He heard a quick hitch in the girl’s breathing, and he felt bad for a moment, but the feeling left shortly.  He was here on business, after all, and he could afford to feel bad later. 

He followed her across the common room.  Every eye was on them.  He kept his eyes straight ahead, affecting a neutral, professional set to his mouth.  Let them stare, he thought.  It’s all they’ll do, and afterwards they’ll have nothing to talk about anyway.   

There was a stairway leading up on the far side of the room.  No elevator, then. A minor inconvenience, he admitted, let her have her revenge.  Lily was seven steps up by the time he put his foot upon the first; as he did so, Mrs. Barroway cried out behind them.  

“You can’t do this!” she shouted.  “It isn’t right!  It isn’t!” 

Johannes spun around, leaving the stairs for the moment.  The other women were staring at Mrs. Barroway in open shock; this was unusual, then.  He narrowed his eyes and began to run scenarios through his head.  Would she try to come after him?  If she did, it would be the end of her; the Bureau gave him a fair amount of leeway when it came to dealing with his targets, and interfering with an investigation was a serious offence.  Would she send her employees after him?  It would come down to the same outcome, only there would be more casualties, not the least of which would be her own operating license.   

He shook his head and turned back to mount the stairs.  She wouldn’t do anything, he knew.  The dice never rolled that way.  Her livelihood, and the livelihood of her employees, would end up being more important than any one regular customer.  

Lily disappeared around the corner as he made it halfway up the staircase.  He frowned.  She had gotten off at the second floor.  He took the rest of the stairs to that landing three at a time and then darted around the corner after her.  He saw her two-thirds of the way down a well-lit hall. She was quick, that much was certain.  He lengthened his stride and caught up within seconds, his feet making barely any sound on the thick carpet.  His hand fell on Lily’s shoulder, and she stiffened under his touch.  He dug his fingers in to keep her from turning around and leaned in close to whisper into her ear. 

“No sudden movements,” he ordered.  “Keep going to where you were going but do it slowly.  Keep firmly in mind that the Bureau allows for collateral damage up to a certain maximum”. 

Lily walked forward at a much slower pace, and Johannes kept his hand on her shoulder while he matched her stride.  His other hand went beneath his coat and found his service pistol.  The grip was weathered and fit his hand with familiar comfort.   

“How much farther?” he whispered.   

“Two more doors,” she replied, her voice catching on the hard d.  “It’s on the left side”. 

“Is it really a bathroom?”  

“No, it’s one of the bedrooms.  Jeena’s.  She’s going to be in the middle of a trick”.  Her voice sped up; combined with the increased tension in her trapezius, he knew she was working herself into a panic.  “Jesus, you have to be careful, please, man, you have to be careful”. 

“Shhh,” he hushed close to her earlobe.  “Stay calm, keep faith, and you and your friend will laugh about it later”.  They passed the first door, and as they approached the second, he pulled the gun out and laid his wrist across Lily’s other shoulder.  “Everything as is normal.  Everything is routine”. 

Lily paused in front of the door, and then knocked an odd-tempo pattern.  Johannes cursed and pushed her forward into the heavy wood.  She scrambled for the doorknob and began to struggle. She managed to get the door to open just before she was crushed into it.  She stumbled into the room and was only kept from falling by Johannes’ steady hand.   

Johannes swept the room visually, his index finger moving from the edge of the trigger guard to a hovering position just in front of the trigger itself.  His breathing slowed, and his mind cleared itself of extraneous thoughts.  The room, however, was empty of living beings.   

He scanned the room a second time, taking in details.  The carpet was new, thick and black, with no stains or markings to mar it.  The bed was sumptuous, all red blankets in disarray and overstuffed pillows cast about the mattress.  On the other side of the room, across from the bed, a wide window had its curtains drawn.  On the fourth wall there was a closet door, but when he began to examine it he caught a flicker in the corner of his eye.  He snapped his vision back to the window and saw it had changed to a generic Tropical Hawaiian scene.  A full, bone-white moon rose over an impossibly clear ocean, and a breeze blew over creamy white sand at the forefront of the scene.   

He squeezed Lily’s shoulder and leaned in again to whisper.  “Where are your friends?” he hissed.  “I know you warned them.  What did I tell you about collateral damage?”   

Lily sobbed but did not reply.  He pushed her into the room, his gun hand steady on her right shoulder.  He looked around the room again.  The closet, of course.  They would be in the closet.   

“I guess I’ll just have to kill you here, then,” he said, loud and with just the right touch of callous regret colouring his tone.  He waited a moment, and then the closet door swung open.  A woman stumbled out of the closet, half-dressed and dishevelled.  She was pale from fear and shaking, but even through that panicking curtain he could still see the strong resemblance to Mrs. Barroway.   

“Please don’t kill Lily,” the woman pleaded.  “Please, let’s just try to work something out here”.   

Johannes allowed himself a slight smile, and the hand holding onto Lily’s shoulder relaxed by a fraction. 

In the next moment pain blossomed in the right side of his rib cage and his breath became scarce.  His hand slid off Lily’s shoulder, and he pointed the barrel of his gun toward the ceiling as he took a step backward.  Lily dove forward and rolled, making it back to her feet with the grace of a gymnast.  Gasping for breath, he brought the muzzle up to point at her. From the corner of his eye he saw the other girl, Jeena, bound toward him.  He hesitated for an instant and later he knew it had nearly gotten him killed.  By the time he swept the gun back to cover the girl, she was on him, her hands gripping his forearm with surprising strength.  The sheer force of her impact drove them both to the ground.  Jeena managed to leverage her position on top of him to get just the right angle to drive the heel of her hand into the wrist of his gun hand.  He stifled a cry, but the hand twitched involuntarily.  The pistol left his hand and landed half a foot away in the long strands of the carpet.   

He brought his other fist around and clipped the girl on the left side of her jaw.  She tumbled off of him, and he heaved himself to his feet, gritting his teeth at the pain that still radiated from his rib cage.  Lily had backed off and was standing near the closet door with her hand on her mouth.   

“You have sharp elbows, girl,” he groused as he bent to pick up his pistol.  When he straightened, he saw Jackson Quick standing beside Lily, a beaten black .44 held to her right temple.  He saw the fat black mole on the side of the man’s neck, and that was enough for him.  He nodded, smiling ruefully. 

“Finally, you appear,” he said.  “I was wondering if you were just going to let these women die for you in your stead”. 

“Of course you would find that to be an insult,” Quick replied, his sneering voice nearly as ugly as his face.  “They’re quite capable.  They just about did you in.” 

“Hardly,” Johannes replied, although just saying it made his ribs hurt even more.  “I suppose you’re thinking to threaten me with the girl’s death?  I have to warn you, it isn’t going to work.  Collateral damage is acceptable by the Bureau up to certain maximum.” 

Quick laughed and pressed the muzzle of the .44 further into the side of Lily’s skull. “I’m not threatening you with anything,” he replied, and Johannes’ ears caught on the knowing lilt he put on the opening syllables of threatening.   

Johannes whirled around and fired on instinct.  Jeena, who had been quietly coming toward him with a bare blade, went down into a crumpled heap.  She curled into the fetal position, and a pool of blood seeped from beneath her.  He wondered for where exactly she had been hit and then dismissed it.  Best to finish this quick and worry about injured combatants afterward.  He turned the gun back on Quick in the instant the busted man had pushed Lily away, a snarl lost in his already-marred features.  Johannes fired twice in rapid succession.  The report of his pistol continued to echo in the air even after Quick had slammed into the wall and then slid to the floor.  A bloody streak trailed down the wall where he had been.   

Johannes wasted no time; he holstered his pistol and walked over to the man’s still-twitching body.  Quick’s eyes were unfocused, but they still seemed to stare into him, to take his measure.  Johannes found himself captivated by them and was unable to break the paralysis. His hand paused in the act of finding the paddles in the inner pocket of his coat.  His breathing slowed, and a great rushing sound seemed to fill his head.   

Here was a man, a collection of flesh and memory.  The flesh was withering away, shutting down through the intervention of enforced trauma, but the memory still remained.  Here was a man with a past built into his own synapses and into the synapses of everyone whom had ever encountered him.  The man was burned into the chemical relays of hundreds, perhaps thousands of other individuals, to a greater extent in some than in others, to be sure.  The shop owner across the street from the brothel, who had confirmed he had seen Quick around the brothel quite often in the last few weeks?  He had a fleeting memory, a grace note image haunting his mind as a transparent image.  The girl, crumpled and bleeding out on the floor nearby, the one who so strongly resembled the proprietor of the establishment?  She likely had a much stronger image of the man programmed into her since she was at least an acquaintance and probably a lover.  Even though his chest was sucking, and his lungs struggled to breathe through the pools of blood collecting in them, he still lived, and would continue to live.  Immortality could only be achieved through the memories of those who lived on afterward. 

“You’re scum, you know that?” Lily spat, and it was enough to break the paralysis in him.  He smiled, and his hand found the paddles.  Immortality could be achieved – but not for those who broke the law in serious ways. 

“I’m scum?” he replied.  He found her vehemence amusing, after a fashion.  “Your friend here is nothing but a common murderer.  Do you know he’s wanted in Iowa for the murder of an entire family?  He just walked onto their farm, killed the lot of them in cold blood, and availed himself of their property for a full week.  He only left because the neighbours finally began to catch on.  He leaves a trail of death wherever he goes, and as far as I can tell . . .”  He gestured at the prone form of Jenna. “It continues to this day”.  He brought the paddles out and up to examine.  They were flat, smooth, white silicone, half the size of his hand and linked by a thin cable made of an ultra-bendable nanofibre.  He ran his thumb over the soft, unthreatening surface of the left paddle.  The power button was always difficult to find. Every examination was like the first time he’d used them.   

“When?” Lily demanded, although her voice quavered, unsure.  “When could he have done that?” 

Johannes blinked at her, and his thumb found the power nub on the bottom of the paddle.  He searched through his brain, taken somewhat aback by the question. 

“Let’s see,” he said.  “I believe this was in the winter of last year.” 

“Ha!” Lily trumpeted.  “I saw him at least once per day all winter.  He was with Jeena starting in the summer, so he’s been here since at least then.”  Her eyes went to the other girl’s terribly still body, and they went wide.  “Oh, Jeena!” she exclaimed, and she ran to her, oblivious of anything else.  Johannes tuned her imploring cries into the roar of the background.   

He knelt and examined Quick’s body.  He checked for breath and found nothing. A quick pulse-check confirmed.  The man was conventionally dead.  He put the paddles on each temple of the corpse’s skull and waited.  There was never much warning; the zinging feel of a slight power surge was the most he ever got.  This time there was nothing.  One moment, the corpse of Jackson Quick was there, and the next it was not.  The paddles fell to the carpet without a sound. 

He stood, blinking.  The room did not look familiar. He felt as though he had seen the carpet, the walls, and the bed at some point, but it was jumbled, as though he remembered it from a dream.  He saw the paddles on the carpet and felt a deep sense of dread sink into his solar plexus.   

So, this again.   

He picked up the paddles and placed them into his coat.  He turned around and saw a scantily-dressed young woman frantically shaking another woman.  The unresponsive woman was half-dressed, and a pool of blood was spreading out from beneath her.   

“Jesus Christ, what happened?” he asked, shocked.  The feeling did not last long. The scenes he readjusted into were always something of a shock.  He crossed the room, and the girl looked up at him, her sapphire eyes wet and confused.   

“I . . . I’m not sure,” she quailed.  She brought her hands to her face; they were shaking, covered with blood, and she smeared some of that dark crimson on her chin and around her mouth unconsciously.  “She’s . . . Jeena’s been shot.  Mister, who are you?  Why has Jeena been shot?” 

Johannes looked around the room.  He hated the feeling in the back of his head, the one that told him he should know where he was but wouldn’t cough up the details on the memory.  There was a hole there, populated by hazy dream-ghosts, objects and faces that floated in and out without ever resolving into anything tangible.  He seemed to have a lot of these kinds of memories lately. 

“I don’t know,” he replied.  “You should get her some medical attention, though, if she isn’t dead already”.  He walked past them, his mind wanting to form answers but unable to.  He opened the door, crossed into the hallway, shut the door, and left them to their fate. 

He took the stairs down, wanting to be out of this building as soon as possible.  A brothel, he was in a brothel.  He’d been here before, a few times, he was sure.  Beyond that, there was nothing.  He came into the lobby downstairs and found that it was empty.  Almost empty, he realized.  There was a middle-aged woman with coarse brown hair standing beside an immaculate bar.  Mrs. Barroway.  He knew where he was, now.   

She came toward him, her face blazing.  “I heard gunshots upstairs!” she shouted.  “I should have known you would be involved!  What have you done now?” 

Johannes shook his head, which was still fuzzy and glossed.  He rubbed at his right temple, trying to coax his brain into giving out some details.  “Someone was shot, one of your girls,” he stated, firm but apologetic.  “Her name is, I believe, Jeena?” 

Mrs. Barroway’s face went white, and she clutched her fist to her chest. 

“Jeena?” she screeched.  “My Jeena?”  She put a quivering hand to her lips.  “Why would you shoot my Jeena?” 

Johannes stared at her, feeling awkward, out of place.  “I . . . don’t know.” 

She pushed past Johannes and went screaming up the stairs.  She punctuated the air with cries of “Jeena!” every few moments.  Johannes wondered if he should go after her.  In the end, he decided that it would be best to slip out in the commotion.  If a complaint was filed with the Bureau, it would be dealt with.  These sorts of matters were always dealt with quickly. 

He stepped into glaring sunlight and instinctively shielded his eyes with his hand.  The bustle of the mid-morning city happened around him, and he found himself as an island in the midst.  The air was warm, the sky blameless.  He ran his finger along the edge of his tablet, considering checking in with the Bureau to close the ticket.  He abandoned the idea, deciding the ticket could wait.  It would be blank, anyway.  It had always been blank.  He stepped off of his island and let the current of human bodies carry him away in whatever direction it chose.  There would be breakfast along the route, of this he was certain.  Breakfast was as good a way to start as any. 

Don’t say goodbye yet!

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