Sean Williams - The Perfect Gun

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The Perfect Gun

Sean Williams

Out on the freeway, it might have been 1986. It might have been Los Angeles or any other big, American

city during rush-hour, with cars banked up like beached dinosaurs, bleating their frustration and snarling

noxious fumes into the brown-blue air. It might have been Earth.

What it was, was hot, so I rolled down the window of my '54 Chevy and reached out to snatch a snippet

of oven-dry wind. The air was dead calm, like that moment when a body's lungs have finished breathing

out and everything waits to see whether they're going to breathe in again. Time itself was frozen in its

tracks, pole-axed by a solid blow either seventy years away or five centuries ago, depending on where

you stood.

Someone up ahead honked and the line of cars rolled forward. The yellow Nissan in front of me took a

left turn to the freeway, and I followed it carefully. Not careful to follow, mind, but careful not to look

like I was following. There's a big difference, one I'm careful to observe. I may not be the best PI that's

ever existed, but I do know my job: which is, as much as anything else, to look the part (or not to look it,

as in this case), to go through the motions, and to maintain my verisimilitude at all times. If that means

tackling peak-hour on a hot day, heading nowhere, then I have to do it.

The guy behind the wheel of the Nissan, if he knew I was shadowing him, didn't try to lose me. All I

could see of him was a thatch of brown hair barely rising above the headrest of the driver's seat. He

watched the road ahead intently, never allowing himself to be distracted, although his style of driving

showed none of that. He was particularly bad, this day, like a kid yet to earn his license: hesitating at

green lights, full-stopping instead of giving way, swerving whenever anything came within three yards of

his metalwork. Whoever he was, he was new to the city. Of that I was certain, if nothing else.

Despite having tailed him for a week, I knew only a little of his habits. He'd left his hotel at 16:00

precisely, as he had every other day; given his general direction, he might have been heading for either the

city centre itself--a field of upraised towers sprawling on my right--or to the hills on the far side of town.

But he was nothing if not unpredictable. Five out of seven days he'd just driven nowhere for hours,

watching the metropolis thrive around him. Not in the way a tourist does; more as though he didn't

believe his eyes but at the same time couldn't get enough of what they were seeing. On the other two

days he'd visited the museum and the memorials, respectively. When not out and about, he seemed to

spend an awful lot of time sleeping: at least six hours a night, as far as I could tell.

And that was all I knew about him. My employers, whoever they were, were keeping their mouths shut.

Why, I didn't know, but there had to be a reason. Usually there's something questionable in the air--a

crime, an infidelity, a betrayed alliance--and more often than not the question tells me something about

the questioners that they would prefer I didn't know.

Curiosity being one of my major traits, I resolved to find the answer. I had to have something to do, apart

from simply watching.

We turned onto the freeway five seconds apart, his car accelerating slowly to melt into the tide of the

traffic. I dodged a string of network vehicles full of tourists, weaved between their webs of invisible

radars and lasers, and settled two cars behind him. Solo driving wasn't encouraged on the freeway, but it

wasn't forbidden either. No car was without its safety overrides. Even if I or the guy I was following

wanted to, we'd have been hard-pressed to cause an accident, unless it was with each other; all the other

cars would dodge out of danger before we even came close.

The freeway snaked its rumbling way towards the city centre. The wind coming through my window was

still warm, but more refreshing than the oppressive stillness of the jam we'd left behind. Slightly bored, I

reached down with my right hand, flipped on the radio and skimmed across the dial until I found

JJJJ-Digital, the city's most popular station. Request time with Dr Bob was always worth a listen. I

caught the tail-end of an old Devo track I hadn't heard for more years than I cared to count. When that

had finished, Dr Bob announced a brief birthday dedication--"a real feel-gooder"--and another song

came on I didn't recognise.

Trance-like bongos marked time in a reverberant background while a sonorous voice recited weirdness

over the top. Not at all my cup of tea, but ear-catching all the same. My left index finger absently tapped

along with the rhythm while part of my mind clocked the occasional phrase.

The Perfect Gun leaves in a shadow of perfumes.

The Perfect Gun is an illusion on a surface of memory.

The Perfect Gun is a finger resting on the controls of a broken machine . . .

The guy in the Nissan suddenly slammed on the brakes, causing a mass-swerving of traffic in his vicinity.

My automatic collision-avoidance systems took over, swinging me into the next lane to avoid his

red-eyed rear before I could react. I ducked back into his lane as soon as I could and watched him

closely in my mirrors.

He'd wrenched the wheel to the left and headed for the median strip. I did likewise, cursing. If he was

trying to blow my cover, then he had succeeded. Whatever his game was, I had to stop to check it out.

I'd be carried away by the traffic within seconds if I didn't.

The Nissan bumped onto the strip and jerked to a halt in a cloud of dust. One hundred yards further up

the road, my Chevy imitated it. I put it in reverse and backed up towards him. He didn't seem to notice.

He just got out of the car, holding something in both hands that I couldn't quite make out.

When I had halved the distance, however, it suddenly clicked. He was holding a gun. I crouched lower in

the seat, just in case, and slowed my arse-forward approach. Still he didn't see me. He staggered away

from the Nissan and fell to his knees. He raised the pistol.

The Perfect Gun crouches to intercept shadows . . .

I turned my head away the instant he fired, but caught enough to fix the view in my mind forever: his open

mouth swallowing the barrel, his hands clutching the grip like a drowning man, the sudden flash and kick

and the widening of his eyes, the blossoming of red petals as though the back of his head had sprouted a

dark and malignant flower . . .

Traffic stops for no man, but it seemed to slow for a moment then, as time once again dragged its heels.

I braked hard, threw the car into Park and opened the door. The man I'd been following hit the dirt

before I even made it to my feet, but I ran anyway.

The spread-eagled body lay in a widening pool of blood, eyes open and staring at the tainted sky. His

face, the first time I had seen it up close, looked older than I had expected, much like Peter Lorre's had,

late in his career. The back of his head was a bloody mess. Nonetheless, I kicked the gun away with the

toe of my boot when I was within reach and felt for a pulse. Nothing. The guy really was dead.

"Shit." Whoever my employers were, they probably weren't going to be pleased. At the very best, I was

out of a job. Without moving fast, I'd never know why.

I went through his pockets for papers, came away empty-handed. He was as anonymous in death as he

had been in life--but not, I hoped, forever. Reaching into an inner pocket of my jeans, I removed a small,

plastic capsule and scraped a sample of skin from the back of his left wrist.

Then I turned to his car. The radio was blaring the same request show I'd been listening to, although the

song had finished, whatever it had been.

"Have a nice day, y'all," said Dr Bob.

I thanked him, although I doubted very much I would, and called the cops.

The Twentieth Century: a nice place for a holiday, but you wouldn't want to live there. Or die there, for

that matter. Very few people I knew did either.

The city possessed a permanent population of nine hundred thousand, plus a transient population of

nearly seven million. Many of the transients went native for a few months, until they tired of it and

returned to their careers, castes and communities elsewhere in the System. If you were a tourist, the

difference between regular citizen and 'temporary native' was sometimes hard to pick, but the regulars

always knew. We were the ones who had stopped asking questions and just got on with it. We're the

ones with roles to play.

Me, I'd worked the city for five years, having come here originally to stay with a friend, not to sight-see.

Something about the city sucked me in: its fecundity of people, ideas and lifestyles perhaps; the sense of

going up a down escalator; the pre-Trouble experimentation; and the intermingled gloom and optimism.

All this, probably, and more. I loved it.

There'd been a vacancy for a Private Investigator that no one had applied for. Having always loved the

Bogarts, Cagneys and Robinsons of the period, I figured I could do it. The persona wasn't complex--a

mix of cynicism and clichè, with a compulsory penchant for overcoats--and the job itself wasn't

dangerous. Borrowing a name from an old book, I bought a hat and went to work. Most of my cases

involved unfaithful spouses, fraudulent insurance claimants, AWOL contractors and so on--but rarely

anything truly sinister, which the rate of pay reflected. Comfortable work, all in all, role-playing in an

historical sub-genre I'd always loved. Sometimes the limitations of my job frustrated me; more often they

didn't. It's all just part of the game--part of life in C20, the city without a name. And only the most

stringent movie buff would criticize me if I strayed on the odd occasion from the film noir ideal.

So I stayed, stuck like a fly in the amber of the Twentieth Century, more or less. But when I say 'stuck', I

mean willingly stuck--and when I say 'more or less', I mean the city, not me.

Take Police HQ for example: a big concrete block of a building with linoleum floors and ink-stained

wooden desks, complete with ceiling fans and hand-held phones that ring incessantly. Frosted glass

doorways and hatstands. And people everywhere--shouting, crying, demanding, pleading. A scene of

chaos lifted straight from the 1950s.

The anomalies are hidden deeper in the building, but they're there. Fax machines and modems in the

communications room, video surveillance equipment for the traffic maintenance department, a complex

forensic lab circa 2110 on the first floor. Standard police weaponry includes plastic bullets, Colt 45s,

stun-guns and laser-sights; it's up to the cops which they use, depending on the mode they prefer. Just

like every department of the city, personal preference reigns, provided the individual doesn't exceed the

envelope and gets the job done.

With just that in mind, I stepped into the Dep's private office and closed the door behind me.

Bob Tasker stood one rung below the Police Commissioner himself; no one knew his exact title, so he

went by the nick-name 'the Dep'. A big, balding man with a bristling moustache, he sported a brown suit

from the waist down (I never once saw him with the jacket on), the open-neck look and a

peroxide-blonde secretary called Sharon who was apparently addicted to chewing-gum. If he didn't have

a phone in one hand, he usually had hold of a hot dog. On this particular day, he had neither. He was

expecting me.

"Court." He waved me to a seat and leaned back into his own, his belly expanding as though he'd been

inflated. "You're the one with the stiff."

"So the girls say," I shot back automatically, but without smiling. The day's events had left me feeling

flatter than usual. "What a mess."

"You said it." The Dep lifted a thick manila folder with one hand and a grimace. I'd filed the report with a

detective not two hours earlier. "We haven't had a suicide for so long, I forget what to do with them."

I nodded sympathetically and rolled a cigarette. The city's death-rate was zero, barring accidents, which

were rare, and the most serious crime on the books was grievous assault. There wasn't any drug-running

either, although the illegal importation of prohibited technology--known as 'packing'--had taken its place.

Without murder or pushing to keep him busy, the Dep had an easier job than any of his genuine

counterparts, long ago, but that didn't stop him from looking harried. That was his function, after all.

"Any idea who he was?" I asked, lighting the smoke with a wooden match.

"The car was rented under the name of Wallace Derringer, and his description matches the one the

attendant gave us." The Dep shrugged. "But he had no papers on him. I was hoping you might be able to

tell us more. You were tailing him, right?"

"Yeah, Bob, but you know how it works: photo, hotel, orders, and that's it. Don't call us, we'll call you."

"You put a trace on their calls?"

"Are you kidding? That's illegal."

The Dep smiled. "Between us, Court."

I smiled back. "A different pay-phone every time. Different voice, too. When I ran the tapes through a

stress-tester, they came out clean. Maybe too clean. An AI or something is my guess."

The Dep nodded, folded his hands across his expansive stomach. "AIs are expensive," he said.

"Time-share," I responded. I'd considered that too. "Twenty minutes a day isn't going to bankrupt

anyone."

"Perhaps. Heard from them since?"

"I haven't been home to take any calls, but my answering service is clear. Maybe they know already.

Word spreads fast about this sort of thing."

"Ain't that the truth." The Dep grunted, swung forward in the seat until his elbows rested on the desk. "It's

already hit the bulletin-boards. We need to have some sort of statement ready for the morning papers or

else it's gonna look like we're holding something back." He spread his hands. "But what can we say?"

I shrugged. "The autopsy might help."

"Yeah. We'll see what his genome tells us, when the forensic report arrives." The Dep leaned even further

forward, eyeballing me over his jowls. "Until then, you'll notify me if anything comes up?"

"Sure, Bob." I crossed my heart and lied through my teeth. The last thing I intended to do was give

information to the cops, and he knew it. I owed it to my profession, if not to myself. That was why I

hadn't told him about the tissue sample I'd taken from the dead man that morning. "You've got my word

on that."

"Good. Thanks." The Dep eyed me for a long moment, then motioned ambiguously towards the ceiling.

"This whole thing stinks, Court. If you're gonna follow it, be careful."

"Don't be wet, Bob." I tried to act nonchalant. "What makes you say that?"

He shook his head slightly and tapped the intercom on his desk. "Sharon?"

"Yes, sir?" The secretary's voice issued from the tinny speaker, a blonde voice if ever there was one.

Behind her, the throaty roar of an evaporative air-conditioner, deafeningly loud, filled the office. "Can I

help you, sir?"

"Show Mr Welles out," said the Dep. "And turn that fucking thing off!"

"But Bobby," came back the whine. "It's hot."

"Maybe she should wear less," I suggested, and left.

From the 47th floor of the Genotek Building, reclining comfortably in a leather chair at the edge of the

viewing platform, you can almost see the curve of the Bubble; camouflaged well by the skyline and the

foothills to the west, but there all the same. Occasionally, auroral lights flash behind the hills as magnetic

foils guide ships to and from C20's 'airport', but otherwise the sky is clear of humanity's handiwork.

Jupiter was riding high, that night. Above the horizon and to my left were the twin stars of Earth and

Luna, blue and white, huddling close for warmth in the cold-spattered star-scape. None of the other

planets were visible to my untrained eye, and C20 has no moon, of course.

Her smell alerted me an instant before the sound of her footsteps crossed the platform. A mixture of lilac

and honey with a touch of musk. Her scent was a lure, and she knew how it hooked me. But I didn't

turn, not even when her hand fell on my shoulder and her hair brushed my ear.

"Hi, Court," she whispered. "Twice in one day. To what do I owe this unexpected pleasure?"

"Let's just say you've got something I want." I turned then, and our noses touched; she was so close I

could have kissed her. "But it ain't what you think, sweetheart."

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Sean Williams - The Perfect Gun

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