Shadow Memories: A Novel (The Singularity Conspiracy Book 1)

  Shadow Memories

  The Singularity Conspiracy: Book 1

  Nicholas Erik

  Watchfire Press

  Copyright © 2014 Nicholas Erik. All rights reserved.

  Published by Watchfire Press.

  This book is a work of fiction. Similarities to actual events, places, persons or other entities is coincidental.

  Watchfire Press

  P.O. Box 9056

  Morristown, NJ 07963

  www.watchfirepress.com

  www.nicholaserik.com

  Cover design by Stefanie Fontecha

  www.beetifuldesigns.com

  Shadow Memories/Nicholas Erik. – 1st ed.

  Print ISBN: 978-1-940708-45-4

  e-ISBN: 978-1-940708-44-7

  Novels From Nicholas Erik

  The Rapture

  The Last Dreamer

  Island Daze: The Complete Series

  The Singularity Conspiracy Trilogy

  Shadow Memories (Book 1)

  Shadow Space (Book 2)

  Shadow Sunset (Book 3)

  The Singularity Conspiracy Omnibus (Books 1, 2 & 3)

  The Astonishing Adventures of Kip Keene

  The Emerald Elephant (Book 1)

  For a complete list of titles, visit nicholaserik.com/books or your favorite online bookseller.

  1

  It’s a Case

  This goddamn dog, man.

  “Turn left, Kurt,” Cassie said, voice shrill, waving her arms towards the end of the beach, “Jesus fuck, run faster and send him over here.”

  Lungs burning, I changed course, taking a sharp angle towards the Labrador. It responded according to plan, gunning it towards Cassie, falling right into our trap. She was waiting, and with a well-practiced toss of the net captured our prey.

  The dog panted, whining about its loss of freedom. A hundred yards back, I splayed out on the sand, face pointed at the sun, drawing sharp breaths of delicious oxygen into my chest. In, out, in, out. The pain began to subside; this was more my speed.

  Someone cut into my sunlight, throwing a bit of shade over my body. I opened my eyes, but I didn’t need to. I could tell from the smell who it was. Cassie. And the dog, who smelled awful.

  She nudged me in the ribs with the toe of her boot, green eyes catching slivers of the afternoon sun.

  “Let’s take this beast back, all right?” The dog barked, like he agreed with that notion, black head rocking back and forth.

  “I’m not putting that thing in the truck,” I said, “it smells half-dead.” I rolled over, wishing I was upwind.

  “Get him,” she said, “get the lazy bastard.” She slackened her grip on the dog’s collar, and it licked my face, rubbing its fishy muzzle against my beard and clothes.

  “You gotta be kidding me,” I said, leaping up in record time, trying to brush the stench off. All that did was make my hands smell like a fish market in the middle of a heat wave. “Goddamnit.”

  Cassie laughed, and the dog leapt on me. The things I went through to make a living. She’d managed to remain clean-scented throughout this entire chase. I was soaked in sweat, having ran after this animal from Ocean Boulevard—Seaside Heights’ main drag—all the way down to the beach.

  I sighed and began walking to the car. The jingle of a collar behind me indicated that they were following.

  “I’m gonna go back to picking locks and snatching wallets,” I said once I’d situated myself in the paint-stripped truck, “there has to be an easier way to make a living.”

  The dog reared its large black body back and barked, hanging its head out the window as I drove away from the shore. I looked at the center dash; the clock indicated that it wasn’t too late to collect our payment. The owner had better have all the cash.

  2

  Not My Dog

  “What do you mean, this isn’t your dog,” Cassie said, her voice rising, body tensing, “it matches the picture you gave us.” She shoved the 4 x 6 glossy print into the guy’s gut. The colors were fading because it’d been printed on someone’s inkjet, but even with the subpar quality, you could tell: this was the dog. It had a lightning-like white swath down its back, just like the one in the picture.

  The creature, for its part, was dancing about, happy to be home. Denny Harmond, client turned lying son of a bitch, was trying to pretend like the animal was crazy or stupid. It may well have been, but it also knew where its bread was buttered.

  “No, you see,” he responded, his low whisper taking on the tenor of a whine, “it looks like him, I’ll give you that. A dead ringer. But it just isn’t Lucky—”

  At the sound of its name, the beast reared into action, redoubling its dancing efforts like a college student at his first dubstep concert. Aural ecstasy. It wagged its wiry tail against my legs. I moved to the side to avoid the thumping.

  The guy laughed and shrunk back a little. “I see he’s an excitable fellow. That’s how I know he’s not mine.” Another voice filled the bright, summery air, reverberating through the thin walls and quiet air of the slummy neighborhood.

  “Denny,” one of those classic smoked-too-many-cigarettes roars called, “that dog better not be coming back.”

  Denny shifted in the doorway, like he had to go to the bathroom real bad.

  “Look, guys,” he said, “what if I just give you fifty bucks—”

  “Fifty bucks,” Cassie said, throwing her elbow into his throat and backing him up against the door, “the deal was two hundred cash.”

  Not only did I smell like a bag of sweaty dicks, it looked like we might not even get a full cut for the trouble.

  “All right, two-fifty,” he said, voice strained, “and just make sure that Lucky gets a decent home, all right? Don’t do nothing bad to him or give him to some asshole, please?”

  “Yeah, sure,” I said. Cassie swooped in to pluck the motley assortment of bills from his grubby fingers. “We’ll take care of it.” An extra fifty. Didn’t see that coming. But I’m not one to look a gift horse in the mouth.

  “Thanks…” He gave the dog a forlorn look. “Bye, boy.”

  The beast whined a little, knowing that this was it, the end of a chapter. The tearful farewell was cut short by Chainsmoker McGee, though, shouting down the stairs.

  “If I even smell that nasty thing on you, Denny, you and your limp cock are out on the street before the end of the damn hour.”

  He shot us an embarrassed look and rubbed his throat where Cassie had persuaded him to pay up. Denny didn’t have anything more to say, so he just shut the door. I didn’t envy him, being railed on by women from all sides.

  I looked at the dog, and he looked back at me, nuzzling my leg. This time, I put him in the bed of the truck. He didn’t seem to mind, although that didn’t seem to help the smell inside the cab all that much.

  If my truck were nicer, I’d have cared more.

  Cassie slapped a hundred bucks into my hand and put the rest in her back pocket.

  “Hey,” I said, “he gave you two-fifty.”

  “Be happy you’re getting a hundred. I didn’t see you getting tough back there, Tinkerbell.”

  “I was holding the damn dog. Delegation of labor.”

  “Delegate this,” and she grinned, flipping me the bird.

  I yanked the parking brake and sped back to the office. I needed to get cleaned up before the bar closed.

  3

>   Fox

  “He can’t stay, Kurt,” Cassie said, arms folded, eyes spitting diamond-sharp warning shots over my bow, “find someone to keep him.”

  The dog put his face on the couch and looked up at me with sad eyes. He’d grown on me. A couple hour-long baths will do that. We’d bonded over our shared inability not to smell like shit. A quick web search and trip to the store later, and I had enough supplies, by my estimates, to clean a hundred nasty dogs.

  But all the lemon and tomato juice in the world didn’t get rid of that faint smell of raw, unadulterated stink from his happy mug. Mine neither, although I wasn’t as content with the situation. Cassie wouldn’t come within ten feet of us.

  “We promised Denny, though,” I said, scratching the animal’s big black ears, “besides, I have some great names for him.”

  “Kurt,” she said, in that tone she used when things were about to move up a few heat levels, “I’ll give you the twenty-five bucks. Even split. You just can’t keep—”

  “I’m appalled you think I’m for sale.”

  “I know you’re for sale, asshole.”

  “You think that too, Jackie Robinson? You think that, boy?”

  “Why Jackie Robinson?” She gave me that look that I assumed was reserved for retards and, well, me.

  “In honor of breaking the Seaside Heights’ color barrier.”

  “You can’t be serious.” She rolled her eyes and started to head back to the kitchen. No further input was forthcoming on her end.

  “Oh, or maybe—”

  “Keep the damn dog,” she said, “I get it. Me and the dog are the only two things that aren’t white in this fucked up backwater town.” She paused. “But I already broke that shit. For the record.”

  “Well, more like half broke it—” Cassie was half Native American on her mother’s side. I never asked for further details, and she never told.

  “Kurt?”

  “What?” I asked, looking at the dog. He shot me a you shouldn’t have said that look. But then, I didn’t need him to tell me that.

  “Please shut the fuck up.” And with that, she went into the bedroom and shut the door.

  Sex was out of the question. Again. So was the bar; I didn’t clean up good in general, but going out like this, well, even I had standards.

  “Looks like it’s just you and me, bud,” I said, hopping up next to the furry body. I scanned the room, looking for something to do, locking eyes for a moment with an ugly figurine on a nearby shelf. We needed to up our interior decorating game; I had no idea why Cassie insisted on keeping the mutant-looking thing.

  “Another night on the couch. It’s cool. Sex is overrated.”

  I flipped through the channels, but nothing was on. “What about Fox?” I asked, looking at the dog. The beast perked up its ears, like it liked the idea. “Yeah, that’ll do. Fox. I’m Kurt, but most people call me Desmond.” He licked my face in response.

  At least someone liked me.

  4

  Debt

  Morning came. I checked the office’s voicemail—which also doubled as our home voicemail—but, as per the usual, it was empty. No one had anything for us. The air was thick, like extra-chunky peanut butter. I turned on the fan next to the refrigerator and stuck my head in the freezer.

  “Don’t do that,” Cassie said, wearing nothing but her panties. Two weeks I’d been out on the couch. You can’t do that to a man; it’s downright cruel. She shut the freezer door, but not before I yanked my head out of the way. My reflexes could be downright cat-like when they needed to be.

  “Fine.”

  “What the?” I heard a clanging noise. She’d tipped over the bowl I’d left for Fox. “Dogs don’t drink milk,” she said, her voice rising to a boil and then some, “they eat meat. Goddamn meat, Kurt.”

  “I knew something was wrong when he didn’t like it.”

  “You’re unbelievable.”

  “That was all we had.”

  She clenched and unclenched her fists, over and over, considering whether or not to take a swing at me. I was considering how I was going to dodge any blows thrown my way; in the back of the kitchen, up against the wall, with no way of escaping, I didn’t like my chances in a head-to-head showdown.

  Cassie sat down on the couch, dark brown hair sticking to her face. Crisis averted. I sighed, but it was premature. Fox yelped.

  She’d sat on him.

  “Christ,” she said, sounding like she’d sat on a landmine, “this goddamn dog, and you, you useless piece of—”

  “Let’s not get personal now,” I said, trying to keep a little spring in my voice, “after all, you aren’t your best this morning either, sunshine.”

  My answer was the new iPod dock I’d purchased the week prior, aimed at my head. I ducked. As I said before, cat-like reflexes. The dock, it wasn’t so lucky. I winced as it exploded against the wall.

  “We’re bleeding money. We’re in debt up to goddamn here.” She jumped and touched the ceiling, like I was a preschooler who needed a clear-cut visual demonstration. Good call on her part. “The only people who call us are bill collectors and assholes who don’t want to pay.” She shot a look at Fox, who was staring back at her. “And the thing is, I used to have a good job. I used to be going somewhere. And now, I’m stuck with—”

  I got serious for a moment. “Oh, now you’re stuck with an ex-thief who’s too immature, who doesn’t work hard enough. You know what, Cass? Screw you and your sanctimonious bullshit. That’s right. Sanctimonious. I read that in one of my phonics books, you cunty fucking cunt.”

  She stood staring at me across the kitchen’s island, unsure where to go from here. My breathing slowed. Her eyes met mine, and that’s when it happened.

  We did what we happened to do best.

  Right there, plates and days-old dishes crashing to the floor as we contorted and grunted on the counter.

  “Look away, Fox,” I said, when I caught the dog staring at us, wide-eyed.

  “Shut up, you fucking idiot,” Cassie said between pants, and I obliged, just like a good boy, keeping on with the task at hand.

  5

  A Real Case

  I was no longer in the dog house and could now sleep in my own bed. It was nice to curl up next to a real human. This was how it went; hot and cold, just like the seasons. Even when it was freezing, you still loved life—and that was the same way I felt about her. Maybe more so. I’d just have to enjoy summer while it lasted.

  “Kurt,” she whispered, before deciding to take a more aggressive tact. “Kurt!” My wallet bounced off my head and skittered behind the bed.

  “Mmmhhhhrarg?” It wasn’t a question, just my half-asleep way of pretending that I was listening. A tennis ball glanced off my cheek, and then a giant fuzzy mass leapt on the covers, landing a crushing blow to some very valuable assets.

  “Jesus, are you crying?”

  “No,” I said, trying to regain my composure. “Maybe.”

  “We have a job.” The pain must have short-circuited my brain, triggered a hallucination. We hadn’t had a job in, well, a week, since old Fox had become a permanent—if useless—member of the team. And before that, drought would have been too kind a term to use for our lack of work.

  “That’s impossible.”

  She ignored my skepticism and went on with the details. “Be at Manny’s in twenty. There’s someone that wants to talk with us.”

  “Manny wants to hire us? That old bastard says he wouldn’t—”

  “No, that racist ass wouldn’t give me water if I was dying in the desert. We’re meeting someone else. An acquaintance of his.”

  “I’m sure this new guy’s a real winner,” I said, rolling over, only to be greeted with a mouthful of dog hair and an eyeful of bright sunlight. “What’s he want?”

  “That’s what we’re g
oing to find out,” she said, rising up from the ground. “I’ll see you there.”

  “Where are you going?”

  “Don’t want to be late. Bad customer service.” She gave me an affectionate—at least for her—slap on the back, and then was out the door.

  “Hell of a woman, that one.”

  Fox coughed and tried to hack something up on the pillows.

  “You watch your mouth,” I said. “You’re still on a trial run here, man.”

  6

  Otto

  Manny’s Hardware Store. Hadn’t been there in years. My old man used to do odd jobs for Manny, some decades back. They could both commiserate about how all the “spics” were taking over California, ruining the landscape, taking their jobs. Never occurred to the two of them why they were poor as dirt—and had even fewer friends—was because they subsidized the local watering hole like the government subsidizes shitty corn.

  There were still Confederate flags hung all over the store in every corner. You’d think that this was the deep South circa 1822, but no, it was good old 2014 in a little California shore town. The Beach Boys sure as hell never sang about chasing waves or girls in Seaside Heights.

  Manny was behind the counter, and watched me as I came in. Cassie was already there, looking like she was going to kill him.

  “Well, if it ain’t the Tomahawk Chucker’s fuck-toy,” Manny said, trying—and failing—to put a little bit of a Southern drawl into his California easy does it voice, “y’all ain’t welcome in here. Don’t need your dirty money.”

  “Don’t worry, Masta,” Cassie said, tone hardened with a sarcastic, razor-sharp edge, “we don’t have nuthin’ to spend.”

  “You sassing me, girl?” In his haste, Manny forgot the accent charade. He took a step from behind the counter.