Read Ten Sigmas & Other Unlikelihoods Online
Authors: Paul Melko
Tags: #Fiction, #Science Fiction, #Collections & Anthologies
“Wait,” Harry said. “Why do you want it? He’s worth a hundred to us.”
I said, “I’ll split it with you.”
Harry looked at me a moment longer then nodded at Egan. He handed me a card with a handwritten number.
We called from the bait shop.
*
Egan had to cut out for dinner, but Harry stayed with me until the two Farmers showed up. Their black Lincoln raised a white cloud of dust as they entered the trailer park.
“You have information regarding the driver?” one asked Harry.
“I do,” I said. “I can hand him over to you.”
“Where is he, little boy?” he asked.
“I’m a girl, you moron.”
“Of course,” he said.
“Come on,” I said, and we led the pair into the woods near the casting factory.
They balked at crawling under the thorns, their bodies too stiff to bend, but finally they got on their bellies and shrugged their black suits through the dirt. Nick and Bert were standing at the front of the fort, both with the same blank expression.
“The Farmers are here,” I said.
Bert nodded.
They stood without dusting themselves off, staring at Bert. One motioned at Bert. He stepped forward like a fish on a hook. They turned to crawl back out.
“Hold on,” I said.
“Yes?”
“There was a reward,” I said.
One of the Farmers pulled out a wallet and reached toward me with a smooth hundred dollar bill.
“No. I want more.”
The alien’s arm stopped, frozen. Bert looked at me.
“Little girl, the agreed amount —s”
“You made a deal with
him
,” I said nodding toward Harry. “And I know what you are.”
They didn’t reply.
“I know what
he
is. I know all about what you’re doing to us.”
“Give her two hundred,” the other said.
“No,” I said. “I know you’re Farmers. I know our world is fallow.”
They just stared at me, but Bert’s face had the start of a smile.
“I know your secret, and my silence is expensive. What do
we
get out of this arrangement? Short lives, poverty, mental retardation. Did we choose this? Don’t we deserve the same lives as you? Doesn’t
Nick
?”
I pointed at my brother. He stood watching the aliens. Sometimes there was something behind his brown eyes. Sometimes he understood, and it all made sense to him. It was like looking into the center of the sun with the RayBans melting off your face, and then it was dark again. Empty, like there’d never even been a spark. But sometimes . . .
The aliens’ gazes touched him and turned away.
“Nick wouldn’t exist in your world. There’s no broken things, and you take all our best ideas.” My throat was hoarse. “You don’t even pay the price!” I shouted. “
We
pay the price and we have all the costs! You owe us! You owe
me
!”
I poked Bert in the chest. “You can’t use us for your own ends and not
pay
.”
“We’re sorry,” Bert said.
“Yes, aliens are very advanced in the field of apologies,” I replied.
We stood for several minutes, silent, even Harry, until they nodded. “How much for your silence?” one said.
“A million,” I whispered, so Harry couldn’t hear, snatching the two hundred dollar bills from his hand. I gave one to Harry.
“Agreed.” I watched as they led Bert through the brush.
Harry looked at me, then at the bill in his hands. “Those were aliens,” he said. He’d never understand, I thought, as I took Nick’s arm and dragged him home for dinner.
*
It’s hard for a fourteen-year-old to explain several hundred pounds of gold, so Nick and I slipped away after burying most of the thin sheets of metal under the fort.
The aliens hadn’t bought my silence. They couldn’t take away the fact that I knew they were there. Nick didn’t care, or maybe he did. He got on well in the programs I could now afford. I let him be. I wanted to be his protector, but I knew he’d have to make his own way.
I wrote letters of my own, to all the people Bert had sent them to, and others, undoing the damage. Maybe they thought I was a crackpot too, but I think I changed some course of thought. Somewhere.
And if not someone else’s mind, my own was changed. It was
our
field to plant, ours to harvest, no matter who was looking over our shoulders.
DEATH OF THE EGG KING
D
r. Rocque was dead — shot in the forehead with a small caliber handgun — and my first concern was whether he had signed my thesis.
The manuscript, in loose leaf form, lay open on his desk to the middle of Chapter 5. Rocque sat in his chair, head back, seemingly taking a moment to rest before continuing on with my masterpiece. That image was fine, if you ignored the dot in the middle of his brow.
I carefully flipped to the cover page. Empty, the slot for his signature in the lower left hand corner was empty. All the other signatures were there: mine at the top, then Dr. Forest’s and Dr. Olivia-Yordan’s and Dr. Khomeli’s. But not Rocque’s, and I had been sure the bastard was going to sign. Just to be rid of me after six years.
I heard the heavy drip-drop of blood and looked behind his chair at the pool of red. It was obvious what had happened; he’d been popped before he could sign. The row of eggs that usually lined his shelf were gone.
I grabbed his fountain pen, a gift from a Duchess during his Nobel Prize trip, and, after a quick glance at his signature on a student petition on his desk, signed his name for him. I’d done it before on a grant proposal.
The thesis was thick and heavy, and I was quite proud of the amount of material I had managed to regurgitate concerning my last six years in the Department of Aromatic Chemistry. Rocque had been less thrilled, but the bastard survived by keeping dumb graduate researchers like me in indentured servitude. The last time Rocque had been in a lab was when he was a graduate assistant. I thumped the thesis against his desk, squaring the pages.
With a look into the outer office, I exited and shut the door. I dropped the signed thesis in Thelma’s in-box and departed for a well-deserved beer.
*
The Man Hole was empty, except for some rough boys in the back playing pool. Fernando was tending the bar and gave me a toothless grin.
“Hey, Stot. What’ll it be, man?”
“Hey, Fernando. How much does it cost to get in here?”
He grinned again. “You know there ain’t never any cover at the Man Hole.”
“You never get tired of that joke, do you? Corona.”
He handed me my beer and I handed him a twenty.
“How long have I been here?”
“An hour, Stot, at least. We been talking about your Grammy and the good cookies she used to bake for you.”
“I’ve been here at least two. Remember? The bells of Saint Clemens rang five times when I entered.”
Fernando bounced his palm off his forehead. “How could I forget, Stot? Oranges and lemons.”
I grinned, then took a sip from my beer. I liked to avoid the Man Hole in daylight hours. At least at night the grunge sort of blended in. The wooden floor was pitted and warped. The odor of the place was this year’s sweat mixed with last year’s beer. The moulded metal on the ceiling made the acoustics shitty. Don’t ask me why I spent so much time there.
I did notice the placement of Fernando’s egg at the end of the bar, close to the door where everyone who entered would pass it. I’d told Fernando he could have put it under the bar and it would have done him just as well. The aromatics filled the whole room pretty much equally. Instead he’d put it out there in the open, and worse, under a ceiling fan. Any decent defense attorney would add a time variable of plus or minus one hour for data taken out of that egg.
It was a Singaporean rip-off of one of Rocque’s first models. With a mass spectrometer and a neutron activation system, a good aromatic chemist could determine to the hour who was in the bar for the last twenty-four hours. I, with university equipment and newly decreed Ph.D., could figure it for the last forty-eight hours. Cheaper than a security system and more verifiable than video, the egg was a perfect crime deterrent. Unless the thief or murderer took the egg with him.
The egg had won Rocque his Nobel Prize and now it had won me my Ph.D. I downed my beer, and said, “You can call me Dr. Aristotle, now.”
Fernando laughed, and brought me another beer. “This one’s on the house, Doc.”
I took it and went off to flirt with the rough boys in the back.
About an hour later, Russell walked in and we hissed at each other.
“There aren’t enough gay bars in this town,” I said.
“Well,” he said in his ultra-lispy voice that he used in public, “when you’ve had as many boys as I’ve had, there could never be enough bars in this podunk town where I wouldn’t run into somebody I’d done. And believe me, Aristotle, you’re one of many.” He looked me up and down and then shook his head.
Russell was my first lover when I came to graduate school, but not my first lover ever, even though I had let him think that for a few weeks. We’d parted in what I thought was an amicable way about a year earlier. Russell had seen it differently, and been a public nuisance to me since.
I was feeling nostalgic however, and said, “Let me buy you a drink, Russell.”
“I thought you’d never ask,” replied Russell. “Oh, Bar Wench! Bar Wench! A strawberry daiquiri, please.” I passed the pool cue to one of the rough boys.
Fernando rolled his eyes at me as he turned on the blender. I flashed him a smile and took the stool next to Russell’s.
“I got my doctorate. Handed in my thesis yesterday.”
“It’s about damn time, Aristotle. I figured you to be turning gray before you got that shingle. In celebration, if you buy me two more rounds, I’ll buy you one.”
“You are truly a gentleman.”
“Stop flirting with me.” Russell took the drink from Fernando. “I heard Adrian dumped you. How’s it feel to be on the other end for a change?” I sensed a real anger behind Russell’s mocking venom. Adrian had been my lover after Russell and until a week ago.
“He knew I was leaving. He knew we couldn’t stay together.”
“So you still fantasize about leaving our little community? We’re spoiled here, you know? This little college town is the most liberal place in the world. Thirty-two percent of all students and faculty are gay in our little politically correct haven.” He began to play with his umbrella. “Where do you think Fernando lost all his teeth? In the real world, out there among the straights.” He paused to finish his drink. “Weren’t you and Adrian a registered couple?”
I shrugged. Russell was beginning to piss me off. He knew me too well, knew what screws hurt when turned. I had yet to go down to the courthouse and un-register Adrian and me. I decided to do that before I left the next day.
“Well, speak of the devil,” Russell said.
I turned and saw Adrian enter with a leather stud. He was dressed in tight jeans and a denim jacket. He’d added dark rouge to his eye to enhance the shiner he had. We had played rough before, but he had obviously decided to embrace the SM life-style fully. He saw me and gripped his stud tighter.
“Oh, ouch. Such immature displays of spite. I’m glad you never did that to me when you dumped me. He’s such a bitch, Stot.” Russell edged closer to me. “Why don’t you come on home with me and forget about Adrian? I’ll even be your punching bag, if you want.”
I stood up suddenly, shaking loose Russell’s hands. “No thanks, Russell. I’ve gotta pack. I’m leaving tomorrow.”
“Well, okay,” said Russell, already eyeing one of the rough boy pool sharks. “See you later, Doctor. Then again maybe not.”
I slipped past Adrian and out the door.
*
The pounding of Police Sergeant Claudia Clarke’s fist on my door woke me the next morning. I saw it was her through the front window, so I answered the door naked.
“I just love a woman in uniform.”
“I’m gay because of you, Aristotle.”
“Are you sure you’re not het? That crew cut makes you look scrumptious.”
“Open the screen door and get some clothes on, Stot. This is serious.”
I pulled on a robe and we sat at the kitchen table. She kicked at a pile of boxes. “Going somewhere?”
“Yeah. I got my doctorate. I’m outta here.” I put a cup of coffee in front of her. “What’s the deal, Claudia? Last minute police work you need us for?” The university aromatic chemistry equipment was a leap better than the city’s and on a number of occasions, I’d helped out deciphering an egg that had come from a particularly tough scene.
“Dr. Rocque is dead.”
I frowned, tried my best to look shocked. Unfortunately my cynicism is my only defense mechanism. “He ate far too much butter. Success did him in; the Nobel Prize gave him too much spending money, raised his standard of living too high. You have to be born to upper class or the food will kill you.”
Claudia smiled blandly. “It wasn’t butter. It was a bullet. Through the forehead and out the back.”
“Guns and butter are always linked.” I nodded and looked down at the cup of coffee. “Dead, huh? He wasn’t a bad sort. That’s too bad. Did you dissect his egg?”
“Stolen. All seven of his eggs, including the one hidden under his desk. Did you know about that one?”
“All his students did. All the faculty did. Maybe he had one that no one knew about.”
“Not in that office.” Claudia sipped from her mug. “What was Rocque working on?”
“He’s been pushing a new theory at the Government, using high-energy gamma tomography . . .”
“No. On Sunday, when he was murdered. Why was he in on a Sunday evening?”
I shrugged. I knew exactly what he had been working on, but I wasn’t going to draw attention to that. “A grant. Grading papers. Anything.”
“I ask because whatever he was working on was stolen.”
“It was a murder-theft?”
“Apparently. We noticed it when we went to take samples from his desk. Even though the bullet came from the front of the desk, the ensuing cloud of blood, brains, and gore should have left a fine dusting of Dr. Rocque’s innards all over the office. One of the forensics boys went to take a sample from the most convenient spot — Rocque’s desk — and came up empty. He came up empty in a rectangle approximately forty centimeters wide and thirty centimeters long. There were smears at the twenty centimeter mark in the wide direction.”
“Homework. He was grading homework, and some insane student came and blew him away. He was too tough a grader.”
“Do you have a listing of all of Rocque’s students, cross-referenced to their psychological stability index?”
“That was going to be my next Ph.D. thesis.”
“Too bad.” Claudia stood. “So you have no idea what Rocque was working on?”
“None.”
“Okay. You know the routine. If you think of something before you leave, let me know.” She handed me her card.
“Will do.”
*
As I walked into the aro-chem building, Vladimir Rostov called to me. “Hey, Stot, man!”
“Hey, Vlad.”
“We’re throwing a ’Rocque is Dead’ party. You coming, man? My place, tonight.”
Vladimir had worked for Rocque for two years on the theoretical side, coming from Moscow University to study with the man. Vladimir had switched advisors, incensed by Rocque’s inability to grasp any of his more subtle theoretical points. I had to admit that some of them were quite beyond my grasp as well. But my work was experimental.
“Isn’t it rather morbid to have a party celebrating a man’s death?”
“I will dance on his grave, when he is buried. Until then, I will toast his brains leaking out the back of his head.”
“Well, I can’t go. I’m leaving. My thesis is done.”
“Hey! It’s done? Congratulations. It’s about time. Well, all right. I wanted to invite you. I knew you and Rocque weren’t best pals.”
I shrugged and headed to Thelma’s office. The inner door to Rocque’s office was roped off with yellow and black tape.
“It matches our school colors.”
“What? Eh?” Thelma’s head lolled lazily towards the door. “Yeah, sure Aristotle.” She burped under her breath. “It does.”
“How are you this morning?”
“Shitty. Just shitty.” Her words slurred only slightly. She was a true veteran.
“Did you send my thesis off to reproduction, Thelma?”
“First thing, Aristotle. First thing. And they were back at noon.” She pointed to a box standing next to her filing cabinet. “Twenty quick copies with paper covers. Five stayed behind for leather binding, to be delivered next week. He was the only man I ever had an affair with.”
“Do you have the original?”
She opened a file and handed me the original. “It was twenty-two years ago. A beautiful June night. He took me, all of me, I gave of myself freely. He never said a word about it. Not for twenty-two years.”
“Then it’s tough for you now that he’s dead?”
“Hell, no. I’m glad.” She wiped her nose with a tissue. “And I miss him already. Do you understand, Aristotle?”
I shook my head. “Heterosexual love just confuses me.”
“I would guess so.”
“Good-bye, Thelma.”
“Bye, Aristotle.”
I then looked up the surviving three members of my graduate committee, dropping off a copy of the thesis for each.
“So he actually signed it? Son of a bitch. I was sure he’d dig his heels in and push you for another year. I couldn’t see why. You have some good stuff in here.” Dr. Emil Forest leaned back in his chair, peering far too closely at the cover page. In a moment, he turned to the interior. “Congratulations, Aristotle. What are your plans?”
“Taking the summer off, then I’ll start pitching my resume. A couple of police departments have already expressed interest.”
“Ha! The last aromatic chemist we graduated took one-hundred-twenty thousand from the LAPD. Don’t settle for a penny less.”
“I’ll put you down as a reference.”
“Please do, please do.”
Dr. Marlina Olivia-Yordan looked up at me over a copy of Material Engineering Quarterly. “Congratulations, Aristotle. Well done.” Her hand was dry and raspy in mine.
“I want to ask you again to consider taking a post-graduate position here.” She held up a hand. “I know how you feel about it. I feel the same way about academia myself sometimes. But perhaps, however sorrowful it may be, Dr. Rocque’s death may change your mind.”
“The man was merely a symptom, not a cause,” I said. “Thank you for the offer, but no.”
She nodded. “Well, I’m still quite taken with some of the materials you mentioned in Chapter 5 of your thesis. Your idea of using an aromatic collector as a plaster on walls or ceilings is quite ingenuous. Perhaps some eager new student will pick up where you left off.”