5. Divergence

Detective Sciarpa adjusted her eyeglasses as she fired up her car. She tried to recall the day she’d helped enlist Henry Harper. Damn fool, if memory served. Amid a slew of other questions, she had rounded their interview off with a half-joking “Can you piss clean?”

He’d simply nodded.

“You’re working for us, then,” she’d said.

It wasn’t standard protocol to ask. Employees were never tested in this way. In fact, users made some of the best trainers and harvesters if they stayed lucid enough to be reliable; easy to pay, easy to please. Yet Sciarpa always loved seeing the reactions she garnered from this particular query, and always thought it made her sound tougher than she felt.

Hank had been hired years back when Sciarpa was still a fresh face in the government ranks. She’d since moved up the ladder and into law enforcement. A recent graduate to private consulting, Sciarpa emulated the old school---P.I.’s from the days before such independence became undesirable and obsolete. Her good standing and prized intuition allowed her to get away with it.

It was now close to 3 in the morning. Ryan Kesseler was on his coffee break when Sciarpa walked into his cubicle.

After his supervisor, Cohen, had dispatched the helicopter teams, he’d flashed a toothy grin at Ryan and said, “Get your lady friend on the line. We need her to go over and meet the squad at that yokel’s house to try and clean the place out. Have her come here first, though.”

Ryan had grimaced. Not because he feared a sharp retort from the detective upon waking her in the middle of the night; Sciarpa was an insomniac. No, it was a bit more touchy than that.

Sciarpa had a way of flirting that got under his skin more than it pleased him. She liked to give the impression that she and Ryan shared a lengthy and somewhat sordid history. They did not. But that never kept the other watchers and even his supervisor from chuckling and muttering at him whenever she came by.

Sciarpa had merely been Ryan’s trainer when he’d first taken the watcher position straight out of school. They’d shared a few lunch dates, but nothing serious. She’d been on her way to better things, he’d realized. Outstanding performance on some project or other had gotten her promoted to the police squad before they’d known each other a month. He never even got her first name, and hadn’t bothered to ask since.

Besides that, Sciarpa was pretty and fit and in her mid-fifties. Something about the fact that he was attracted to a woman nearly 20 years his senior bothered him, though he wasn’t sure why it should. He couldn’t say whether she’d ever been truly interested in him, either. But as it was, he presumed she just enjoyed being able to make him fidget and trip over his words whenever she saw him. This happened only a few times a year when she was called back in on special assignment. Like just now.

Ryan barely wasted time with pleasantries before motioning the detective over to one of his monitors.

“Like I said, it’s 217. Gonna have to go pay a visit to his cabin, see what’s up. Have yet to verify how many kids he had, or still has, running around out there. Surveillance we were supposed to have around the place has been disabled for some reason. But we’ve been to the other residence. Got the girl that shot him.”

Sciarpa pursed her lips. Her eyes widened with interest. “She the one he kept all these years?”

“Yeah, she failed out of his training pretty early on, but he still held on to her.” Ryan paused, then asked, “Is that even allowed?”

Sciarpa shrugged. “Couldn’t say. Hardly ever happens. Suppose it doesn’t matter now.”

“The team we sent also picked up a boy.”

“Non-lethal force?” The detective raised a thin brow.

Ryan’s eyes were glued to his monitor. “I can hear the sarcasm just dripping out of that remark.”  They both knew the “non-lethal force” order was at best a suggestion and a formality. “Team blew the house clean away.”

He pulled up the recording for her. Sciarpa eyed it critically.

“This is the footage of him, then?  The natural?”  

“Yeah.”

“Well just because that kid---“

Ryan wasn’t in the mood for discussions. He reined his temper in. “Don’t start with me, Carmen San Diego. We have a job to do. And you sure took your sweet time coming out here, so we need to move.”

As Ryan understood, Carmen San Diego was a diabolical mastermind in a kid’s program years and years ago, when kids and broadcasting companies still went for that sort of thing. He didn’t really know much about her except that she was terribly clever and insisted on committing her diabolical deeds in a big red trench coat and heels. Ryan liked to think the nickname captured  his aggravation at the fact that Sciarpa always seemed to look much too dressed up for work.

She seemed not to notice. “What’s all this ‘we’ business? You can’t go leaving your post, solider. Stick to your guns, burn the midnight oil and all that.”

“Anyone ever tell you not to mix your metaphors?” He hunched over his workstation. “I don’t know what else I’m supposed to show you over here. Go to Cohen’s office; he’ll brief you.”

“Already been, and what do you suppose he said? That you get the rest of the night off to come and have a ride with me in the cop car.”

“Now why the hell would he say that?” Ryan rubbed his forehead.

“Beats me, but I wouldn’t argue. If all your trainers keep dying out on you, there won’t be much else left for you to watch. C’mon, Cohen says he’s got someone to take over for you. Let’s go.”

As Ryan numbly gathered his things, he considered ditching Sciarpa and just going home to bed. Damn, he hated the night shift. But if his supervisor Cohen really had specially picked him for this gig, there might be a bonus involved. Ryan doubted it was a dangerous assignment, even if it was strange.  He’d also been watching Hank for a long time. The prospect of seeing the man’s house and the remnants of his training operation up close piqued Ryan’s curiosity. With a resigned sigh, he quietly followed the detective out of the office.

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Penny noticed that the little boy had been placed on the same aircraft as her. One of the officers was trying to separate him from an oversized flashlight---it wasn’t going well.

Penny recognized the device as the one the kid had been carrying when he and Hank had emerged onto the porch of the house. For whatever reason, the agent hadn’t tried to take it away from him while they were on the ground.

Up until now, the child had been quiet and reserved. He’d shown little reaction to the sight of his father’s shredded body and his destroyed house. Now he was howling and clutching the flashlight to his chest. The only intelligible word that escaped him between his shrieks was “no!”

Finally, the agent gave up the fight. The boy ceased screaming immediately. After catching his breath, the man directed the two children to a small cabin in the back of the ship. This vessel was much larger than a typical helicopter, Penny thought, though she’d never seen one up close.

The man said nothing to Penny and the boy except the repeated assertion “It’s going to be all right.” When Penny finally found her voice, she grasped at the officer’s armored elbow and asked, “Where are we going? Where are you taking us, huh?”

He answered her more loudly than before. “It’s going to be all right.” The man shook her off before exiting and sealing the door to the room.

Penny slumped to the ground under a small window. The cabin was comfortable--stocked with some cushions, sleeping pallets, and a little food. Exhausted, Penny sought sleep for a few minutes, but only found herself able to toss about on the floor.  

She eventually sat up and studied the little boy, who was not asleep either. His face was haggard and he didn’t blink. He just glanced out the window as open fields began to turn into highways beneath them.

Penny scooted closer to him and warily held out her palm, offering a handshake.  She made sure to speak in a soft tone. “I’m Penny.”

The child’s face scrunched up as he took her hand, squeezed tightly, and pumped it up and down a few times. “I am Kai,” he murmured vaguely. He didn’t look at her.

Penny shifted around awkwardly on the floor after he pulled his hand away. The boy did likewise, curling his legs up so his knees reached his chin, then hugging himself tightly around the ribs.

“I’m—I’m real sorry about your pa,” Penny whispered.

It took Kai a long while to answer. “I do not know why they did that.” His voice shook. “I miss him a lot now.”

Penny was good at shaking hands, but not at putting her arms around anyone or offering any other form of comfort. Instead, she stuttered as she tried to begin several responses, each seeming more foolish than the first.  “Y-you don’t talk like most kids hereabouts. Where d’you go to school?”

Kai seemed not to hear her. He gaped at her awhile in mournful surprise. “You killed that man,” he said.

Penny choked. “Yeah, yeah I did. I think he was going to hurt you.” She paused. “Is there---is there anything he said to you to make you go with him?”

“He was going to take my baby sister. I did not want him to take my baby sister. But now she is dead, too.”

Penny opened her mouth to answer, but fell silent. Kai turned his back, pulled his knees up again and rested his cheek on top of them.

Penny did the same. Although she couldn’t hear it, she guessed that Kai had begun weeping. She stared out the window as the sound of the blades beat into her head and her own tears made splotches on the rolled- up cuffs of Hank’s overalls. Penny never cried unless somebody else did first.

She peered into the dark space ahead of her, trying to spot the moon. Instead, she saw the other helicopter veering away and bearing west. Before she finally let her eyes drift closed, Penny’s instinct was that she and Kai were speeding toward the city while the other whirring black shape was headed in the direction of her house.