Making Contact

Chapter 20

It was a quarter to three in Andromeda, but the city was still bumping with life. Hover cars glided by, their headlamps stretching across the streets, moving up and downtown as if in search of something. From the sky someone could mistake them for mice running around the maze that was the big city, searching for a way out. Some of the small restaurants lining the main road were still open in an effort to combat the big name fast-food chains. Their neon signs were warm and inviting, and the masses streamed in and out of them, picking up late night meals, or for some, a hearty breakfast to start their day. At the corner between Seventh and Eighth, a live band played at a rooftop party with a joyous melody that came down to the street-level denizens in bursts. Past Tenth, a man and woman in clothing so tattered and worn that they could be considered rags, put on a show with an oak fiddle and mismatched drums. Two streets down, a man looked over his shoulder before pulling out a switchblade and working the lock on the entrance to an apartment complex. A few more blocks from there a man's cries of pain were muffled by the rag shoved in his mouth, while another man held him down and thrusted into him from behind while three others stood in a half circle watching, waiting for their turn to use and humiliate their prey. Those who walked by the alley and saw the huddled group quickly averted their eyes, not wanting to add any more complications to their own lives, or to risk suffering the same fae.

Further yet, down the long road that spans the whole of Andromeda, a spiraling circle of black smoke began to form on red-brick. The dark mass slowly expanded as tendrils of darkness stretched out from within, flooding the alley. From the ring of smoke in the wall, the abysmal circle that was the source of the extra shade of darkness in the air, Argyle emerged. With unsteady steps he walked out of the hole in the wall, carrying a naked woman in his arms.

He looked around at the dark alley and felt beads of sweat roll down his forehead. "I'm not built to sweat," Argyle whispered to himself as he felt the cold dampness on his forehead and cheeks. "My skin is not porous." He looked down at the woman in his arms. "Paulina Andrade," Argyle whispered, then looked up at the wall ahead of him, and down through the smoke that wafted about, at the street. His mind superimposed images of the men in blue that guarded the alley when he first arrived in Andromeda, of the small crowd that had gathered to see what was going on in their neck of the woods, and the hovercar he rode in on. He played the images in his head as if they were happening in that moment. He could see himself walk into the group of men and women, and the way the crowd slowly began to disperse as he walked through and flashed his badge.

Argyle took a few steps towards the street while cradling Paulina against his chest, enjoying the feel of her naked body and its warmth through his heavy coat, and the slow beating of her heart, accompanied by the soft breathing that came with sleep. He span around on his heels while the mental image of himself walked up to the spot in which he stood. He could picture Captain Robinson now, looking over the body bag, Detective Morgan looking at Detective Evrin dejectedly while she pulled out a cigarette, and the flash of light that came from the gunbarrel that was trained on him. He looked down at the spot where Paulina had been that day when he arrived at the scene, bagged up and ready to be taken away for further examination, then looked down at the sleeping beauty in his arms as she shifted slightly and rubbed her cheek against his arm, like a child snuggling against her parent.

The wall opposite the abysmal portal that Argyle arrived from was where Paulina was found, nailed to the wall not like Jesus Christ on the cross, or like a butterfly in a clear presentation box at a museum, but like a piece of art. "What better canvas than the body of a beautiful woman?" Argyle muttered to the shadows. His head twitched. "No, that's not right," he whispered, voice tinged with fear and revulsion at the thought.

"This is all wrong. She's dead." Argyle shook his head, looking down at the woman in his arms, then up at the wall, unmarred by the nails that had held her body against the wall, and unmarked by her blood. "Mother," Argyle whispered into the smoke. He looked around as if he half expected her to appear from the depths of darkness. He powered up his communication coil and spoke out for her again, sending the signal out to the network that kept the whole world online, but his voice came back to him from a thousand directions, but in deeper raspier tones that sent a shiver down his spine and made the hair on the back of his neck stand on end. He shook his head at the thought of hair on his synthetic body that was made to be smooth, sleek, durable, and only a shadow of the human form. Argyle shoved away the memories of seeing his hands covered not by flexible metal, but actual skin, and dripping with blood. Such much blood. Red.