Future Crimes Part 42

"Changed my mind."

"Pardon me?"

"The operation," I said.

"I changed my mind, I don't want to go through with it."

There was a beat of silence.

"You what?"

"I said I don't want to do the transplant anymore.

Is that all right with you?"

There was more silence, and then the nurse finally shook her head.

"I'll get Doctor Burgess on the line.

He'll want to know about this right away."

The screen went black.

And I turned away and let the tears come.

Lately the nights seem to have grown more silent in my little cubicle- The ticking of the air filters above me, the distant m.u.f.fled drone of the city outside my windows, and the slow, steady pulse of my own heart are the only sounds. I prefer it this way. I haven't seen Porsche for weeks. Haven't been in the mood for that noise for a while now. Got too much thinking to do.

I read a lot. Started a diary last week, but I forget to write in it sometimes. Mostly I just lie on my contour couch and stare at the hepa niters embedded in the ceiling, clocking endlessly in the darkness, silent sentinels tirelessly guarding against some lethal strain of mush floating into my s.p.a.ce.

Funny thing is, I've never been this happy, going through the motions each day, playing detective, then coming home each night, alone.

So much quiet time.

164 lay Bonwisinga I can feel her touch every few days. It's fading now, but it's still there. It'll always be there. That warm, moist, powdery touch against my ghost-fingers. The sweet, delicate hand of a little girl nestled in my own phantom palm. She'll always be there.

Always.

THE CRIME OF.

TRANSFIGURATION.

by Will Murray Will Murray is a professional psychic and the author of nearly fifty pseudonymous novels in the long-running Destroyer, Doc Savage, and Executioner series. Other short fiction by him is found in Miskatonic University, The UFO Files, and 100 Wicked Little Witch Stories.

THE Chairwoman of the Virtual World Bank vanished on 6/6/66, at 6:66 pm Uniform Global Time, from her 66th floor office at 666 6th Avenue in New NYC. It was the exact minute she wiped her desk system clean, eradicating all ID and health care files, V-money accounts--insuring that, from an economic and political sense, she no longer existed--or could exist--in Beta society.

An FBI team was on site by 11:45 UGT the next morning, vacuuming up latent prints and executing a full systems sift.

"Wiped clean," the technician p.r.o.nounced gloomily.

FBI Special Agent in Charge Gill Murrillo turned to the fingerprint expert.

"Now give me the bad news."

The print-tech finished scanning the office windows

and hit the Sort Function key.

"Processing," the RID chirped.

"Latents match prints found at the prior crime scenes," he chanted.

"Readout: Unknown Alpha Person."

Mumllo lifted his voice.

"Okay. Wrap it up, everybody.

I'm calling in a Divination Team."

The D-Team were air-dropped onto the roof so their distinctive sky-blue jumpsuits and yin-yang shoulder patches wouldn't create a public relations problem with the more militant super-Betas. It was led by a Native American who identified herself in a honeyed contralto voice: Dawn/ Fawn O'Leary."

That made her an Alpha-Beta. Mumllo eyed her holotag ID and asked, "Which one am I talking to?"

"Dawn is my Beta name; in Alpha, I'm Fawn. I'm presently in an Alpha state, so I would appreciate it if you would still your mind until we've completed our Alpha sweep to avoid sensory leakage."

Munillo watched as the team went to work. One took a turn around the room absorbed in what looked like a FIDbox, except the readout cycled through the major and minor arcana of a digital tarot deck. Another dropped into a Theta trance and began describing what she saw in her mind's eye while another D-teamer drew the described face on a tablet with an old-fas.h.i.+oned grease pencil Fawn O'Leary psychometrized the desktop system, caressing it like an ethereal harpist.

After twenty minutes, the D-team conferred briefly.

"She's not dead," Fawn reported.

"Nor kidnapped.

We feel she left of her own free will."

Mumllo nodded.

"That fits the pattern to date."

"She's still on our side of the Rockies, but I sense her ultimate destination is Alphaside," Mumllo grabbed his hand phone

"I'll inform the Director."

"There's more. She underwent a sudden spiritual emergency." Her voice darkened.

"It was induced."

Murrillo disconnected.

"What do you mean-induced?"

"The person with whom she was meeting induced a spontaneous spiritual crisis. This was not a conversion, chakra blow-open, or a typical psychic breakthrough.

Her temporal lobes were artificially overstimulated. I would cla.s.sify it as a high-level transfiguration of some hitherto-undoc.u.mented type."

"Don't tell me she's not re claimable .."

"If you capture her, you will find her Beta brain functions have been nuked. She won't be able to balance a checkbook or drive a light car She will be in a permanent state of bliss, and exhibit other outward signs of Williams Syndrome. And she will be operationally psychic. You might as well let her go Alphaside; she's no longer of any use to Beta society."