I have shifted back from the table, forcing my chair against the wall. This is revealing behavior on my part. If I were physically afraid, I could easily have run out of the restaurant. But you cannot run from this kind of fear. The end of the world does not need any component of violence to terrify us. Here is a man of superhuman powers who wants to recruit me into hunting himself.
I make an excuse to break off the lunch. He looks up, nods at me briefly, and returns to his study of the scene of the crime. He does not seem surprised or offended. I feel an intense frustration that he didn’t break and confess. I want to yell at him, rub his face in the evidence: No, you are not Jesus, you are a psychopath. I guess every shrink has wanted to do that from time to time. But I’m not a shrink, I’m a cop. Until now the weirdness of the world has been clearly defined by law and practice. Outside of those definitions I’m as lost as you, R. I stand up, make my apology, stare at him in disbelief. Already he has made those pieces of paper his own. He will find the perp. Using his training and enhancements he will track himself down sooner or later.
What kind of insanity is this? Is he telling me he will murder again, in that same market, as a way of relating to me? When balance fails the mind can go on twisting forever, it seems.
33
If another child dies at that monster’s hands it will be my fault. Fear of future guilt drives me now. At the market I stand among a confusion of people, wild-eyed and mad. Fruits, vegetables, and cheap clothes from China and Vietnam are everywhere for sale along with downmarket cell phones and a lot of plastic covers for iPhone and Samsung products. There is a phone repair stall at one corner, a knife sharpener at another, a seller of red and yellow plastic buckets at a third, and dozens of cheap clothing and shoe stalls in between. The stalls being lawless, no one has the authority to impose order, so that every last inch of the disputed land is occupied rent free. I am wondering how, exactly, I might try to protect every kid in sight. I am sweating in the morning heat. This is stress. Oh, yes, this is stress. I am thinking how much I hate transhumans when my cell phone bleeps: Shit hits fan, Goldman ballistic, meet KKM, food stall now.
There are no customers at the khao kha moo stall, except one who is staring into space. When I draw up a chair at her table she flashes me a momentary glance then continues to gaze. I am instantly irritated. I cough: no reaction. Wearily and shaking my head I pull out my phone and read the SMS aloud: “Shit hits fan, Goldman ballistic, meet KKM, food stall now.”
Krom remains staring dull-eyed into the distance. I try to remember from my teens what gambit works best in reply to this opening. I get up to leave. As I do so, she finally speaks: “She told you I made a pass at her and she rejected me and we didn’t have sex-didn’t she?”
I scratch my beard, stunned, for the moment, at the disconnect with the SMS and my mood. “Yes.”
“You believe her?”
“I’m not sure. I don’t even know if I care.”
“Really? That’s unusual, a man generally cares very much what a rival does with his wife. When the rival is a dyke it makes men crazy.”
She takes out her smart phone and shows me a video that lasts less than a minute. The naked woman on her back is certainly Krom, that is obvious from the full-body tattoo. But as for the tongue that elegantly begins its homage at her feet and leads us up the tom’s right leg all the way to the moist, parted, and panting labia-the identity of its owner is less clear. All I see is some jet-black hair from behind that could be Chanya’s but might just as well belong to another Asian woman. True, there is a momentary quarter profile in which I catch a glimpse of a cheek and nose that look familiar-but there is no certainty. I study the clip with some intensity, though, and replay it a couple of times before handing it back.
“Who was holding the camera?” I ask. Krom looks away. “Chanya never mentioned a third person.”
Krom takes back the smart phone. “Do you want to see the whole video? I’ll e-mail it to you if you like.”
As she speaks she is flashing me little sly glances full of schadenfreude.
“No,” I say. “If you had a clip of Chanya that was recognizable you would have it on your phone. You’re bluffing.” Then another word comes to mind, one that has acquired a special significance recently. “Feeding, aren’t you?” I say.
It is an unusual word to use, but accuracy can startle. Krom blinks several times, and for a moment looks confused, as if she has been called out doing something everyone does. Don’t we all love to see the emotional pain of others? Aren’t we all voyeurs at heart? her look says. Then she sees that I disagree. No, not everyone gets off on that, I signal back, not everyone is a predator of the heart. And now she does that special thing I’ve come to associate with the enhanced: she snaps out of it, goes deep within herself, and in a few seconds she has changed mood and personality. Now she gives me the big welcoming smile. She wants to ignore completely the last few minutes-not to mention the evening she spent with Chanya-so we can be buddies again, quite as if she has not seduced, or tried to seduce, my wife. It seems like a good moment to strike.
“So, Krom, tell me more about being enhanced, how did it happen in your case?”
“Can’t tell you. Classified, for the moment. You’re not ready yet.”
“Something happens, doesn’t it, to people, those very lucky special people who belong to the club?”
“What club?”
“The only one that matters anymore-at least, that’s the sense of the story so far. The club of the enhanced.”
I don’t think it is a particularly brilliant question, so I am surprised when it has the effect of changing Krom’s posture. For a moment I think she is finally going to open up.
“Yes, I guess you could say that. Special is a dangerous word. Different, though. I’d go along with that.” She smiles. “We humans all have a distant folk memory of a time when we could fly. You could say this memory makes all of us miserable, but some more than others: we are the species that fell to earth and lost its wings out of sheer stupidity. But if something happens and by some incredible piece of luck you get your wings back-yes, then when you look at other people you’re looking at what you used to be-”
“A lower form of life?” She purses her lips. “You have the same relish for the sufferings of others as him, don’t you? You are the new aristocracy, you transhumans. Inwardly you are the billionaires in your limos driving through a slum and despising everyone and everything you see.”
She seems to think hard about that. “Yes,” she says brightly. “Yes, that’s quite true. How clever of you to see it so clearly.”
“But you also have the fatal weakness of all winners. You need to feed off emotions you no longer feel, to which you no longer have any right. You are no longer in the human family-love is shut off for you. All that’s left is to despise and destroy the happiness of others. You are a vampire.”
She snorts. “Love? You and Chanya are bored to death with each other. I brought you both fun, danger, knowledge. And I found out about your father’s buddy, da Silva.”
“Yes. Why exactly did you do that? Because you knew how much pain lay down that road?”