Zosma Read online

  “I need to phone a relative,” Bridget said.

  He hid another yawn with his sleeve and pointed to the CynqueT next to her. “All yours,” he offered and closed the door.

  A neurological diagnosis felt shallow. If the setback linked to her superhuman genetics, which she believed it did, there were two people she knew who had long history and expertise in the field: her ex-boyfriend Russell Ashur and Dr. Rabia Giro.

  Four rings buzzed in her ear. “The number you have dialed is unavailable at this time,” a machine announced.

  “Don’t ignore me,” she said and redialed.

  “Hello, this is Bazzo Sparks.”

  More excited to hear his rural Queensland, Australia twang than expected, she exclaimed, “You tried ignoring me, you little wanker!”

  “Oi, if it isn’t my favorite sis. How the hell do you keep getting my number?”

  “Baz...”

  Muffling his voice, Bazzo asked, “You’re in trouble again, aren’t you?”

  “When am I not in trouble?”

  He exhaled. “Ah fuck. You really got the best timing, I ever told you that? Hold up.”

  Formal greetings, introductions, and small talk plagued the background: meet Mr. and Mrs. so and so, President this, Prime Minister that.

  Bazzo joined at the end, “Thanks for coming, Professor Burgoyne. Dr. Baker, looking good. King Nephthys, how’s your daughter? Just kidding, pleasure to see you, be right in.” He pretended to laugh at a bad joke then said, “Can’t chat Bridg, business in Swedish country. How much coin ya need?”

  “Geez, I don’t need dosh, Baz.” Turning to one side, Bridget stroked her scarred forehead again. “I think the gov’s on my tail. Can ya come get me?” AC’s chill sent shivers down her arms. She climbed onto the bed and pulled her legs in to rest her head on them. The sunset had painted a brilliant orange and magenta layer across a cumulus cloud cluster’s underbelly. “It’s a long story,” she finally said and let loose the secret weapon. A baby voice, the one that had often worked to get her what she wanted. “C’mon, I haven’t asked you for a thing in five years.”

  “We haven’t talked in five years, ya arsehole,” Bazzo retorted in a higher pitch, then went down to a whisper, “I’ll see what I can do.”

  Bazzo Sparks

  Campbell Recovery Center, Ft. Miami, Florida

  “Whaddya mean she’s not allowed visitors!” Bazzo Sparks shouted. “She rang me, and I moved my whole week around to get here!”

  “I’m sorry, sir,” the young male nurse said. “Dr. Campbell says she’s not well enough to have company. Come back next week.” He left the L-shaped desk to commiserate with a slender woman in floral print scrubs.

  “Where’s this doc?” he asked.

  “I don’t know how I’m going to feed my family,” the coworker cried, slumping her shoulders for a much-needed hug from her colleague. “We’ve never had an outage for this long.”

  The male nurse squeezed her. “I didn’t know it spread all the way to Norlando. Cynque news said it was contained.”

  Lightning’s negative charge soaked south Florida’s atmosphere. Bazzo smelled it. He thrived on it. Shame to hear another electrical grid had gone down. Bigger shame to hear no one had done a thing about it. The rumor was that the state’s engineers weren’t paid a reasonable wage to keep up and the Coast Guard’s engineers were for major disaster relief, not day to day labor. He glowered. When lightning struck there, it struck hard, and the people paid for it.

  He looked around. No patients in the waiting room. No security guards. His eyebrow raised. Bingo. Tall guy in a white coat. The nurses still preoccupied, he moseyed toward the stately individual engrossed in a CynqueT.

  The nurse sprang from behind the desk. “Sir, you aren’t allowed to—”

  “It’s okay, Nurse Graves,” the man interrupted and spun to face Bazzo. Creases filled his tight smile’s corners, eyelids stretched taut above his twitching cheek. “I’d be happy to help, Mr....?”

  “Sparks. Mr. Sparks.” Bazzo squinted, chin nodding upward, and asked, “You good, mate?”

  The doctor smiled wider and replied, “Yes, Mr. Sparks. Thank you for asking.”

  On the tablet were Bridget’s full name and blood work results. The man, labeled Dr. Campbell via electronic name tag, tucked his propriety work behind him. “Who were you asking for?”

  Bazzo invoked his expensive etiquette training. “I’m here to see Bridget Sparks. Please.”

  “Oh, I apologize. Ms. Sparks can’t have visitors.”

  “Look, yank, don’t be a dickhead. I’m bloody knackered,” Bazzo blurted out, “I just need to get the bill sorted and we’ll be on our way.”

  Dr. Campbell’s enthusiastic inflections sank into a calm, even depth. “No need to rush, Bazzo, we have plenty of time.”

  “How’d you know my—”

  Snake’s hissing or insect’s buzzing, either sound described molecular mist treading through air.

  “C’mon, Giro, using my fam to get to me? You could’ve sent me a meeting request like the old days.” His hand opened and electric bolts darted across the ceiling, brightening the overhead lights. Dr. Campbell crouched, arms shielding his body.

  Hot grease sizzling in a fryer described the mist’s elimination.

  “What are you talking about?!” Dr. Campbell exclaimed, still crouched. “Who is Giro?!”

  The light trick worked.

  Nurse Graves and two female workers ran to help the doctor stand. Dr. Campbell appeared normal again, flustered, but his features had relaxed. “Don’t worry about me,” he said to his employees. “Make sure the generator wasn’t damaged. If we lose power again... ”

  “If ya lose power again you’d have to call it quits on this dump.” Bazzo grabbed Dr. Campbell’s lapel. “I can either charge the hospital generator, or drain it. Where’s Bridget Sparks?”

  Dr. Campbell declined the onlooking staff’s suggestion to phone the authorities, reiterated the importance of keeping the power on, and dismissed them to their tasks.

  “It’s plenty of trouble keeping this place running as it is.” He gave Bazzo a stern look, said, “Take her, I’ll delete the records,” then exited in a flurry.

  His baby sister stumbled into the lobby’s flickering fluorescent light. “You made it!”

  “What in the bloody hell are you wearing!”

  Her open mouth twisted to a grin. “Still over protective, ay?”

  “Piss off. Get some clothes on and meet me out front. You’re coming with.”

  A tuxedoed driver carted them to the airport in Bentley’s fifth anniversary hydrogen-core-powered model. Spaceship, grey exterior, black leather interior. Bazzo and Bridget weren’t born or raised in luxury, so his silver spoon had taken getting used to. Thoroughly acquainted, he opened a sparkling alkaline water.

  The curious girl he’d taught to fish drew her knees onto the cushion to face him. “Hmm, an even bigger bastard than before, by about twenty centimeters,” Bridget said, sizing him up. “Ya went out and made a man of yourself.”

  Twenty-eight years old. Tailored, Tom Ford suit in navy. Sun baked blonde hair gelled and combed over. Solid gold Cynque. He sank in the seat. “Yeah, yeah. It’s just stuff.”

  Yelling matches with their mother and mental instability stemming from her electric powers drove Bridget to abandon the family at eighteen. From the night their powers arrived, him nineteen, her seventeen, to the moment she slammed the screen door proclaiming she’d “never be back as long as she lived,” his sister had gone from a scrawny, awkward girl to the shape and self-assurance of an older brother’s worst nightmare. Somehow wanting to be a biologist became living the fast life in Sydney, bouts of prolonged drug and alcohol abuse, plus weekend shifts at a strip club.

  “You seem better, stable,” he said.

  She stared at her ice blue heels. “Takin’ it day by day.”

  Chipped nail polish, semi-permanent scars on her face, a criminal record. They’d
gone in opposite directions. He tried to swallow the lump in his throat. “Been a wicked few months for you?”

  “Years.” Bridget’s chin dipped to her crop top’s high collar. “Wicked few years. I done some terrible thi—”

  “Bridg,” he interrupted, “I been looking for ya, ‘bout a year now. Mum got real sick, wanted to heal things up between you two. Ya know, before...”

  “She alright?”

  “Takin’ it day by day,” he mocked. An electric spark darted over his lashes.

  Sniffling, she said, “Five years is heaps of time to not talk.”

  “You were hard to reach, and I don’t mean that as a dig.”

  Over that five years he’d launched a comprehensive private investigation on his dime, adamant about her whereabouts. The Feds shut it down months later, assuring him his sister wasn’t missing, she was taken care of. Disliking the answer, he contacted the last people who’d seen her: old party friends in New York and Los Angeles, the owner of the strip club where she’d worked. Dead ends. Literally. Overdoses, suicides, homicides. So tragic and so easy to cover up.

  Bazzo gazed at well-watered palm trees through tinted windows. “I knew about the Andromeda Project, didn’t know you were in the mix. My boss clued me in. Also said he’d kill mum himself if I did anything to jeopardize the deal.”

  “Mum or me? No brainer really.”

  “Had to pick my battles for sure, but, I made Mr. B promise they’d treat you right.”

  “Alert: Florence Belladonna has used Cynque device 5684,” his Cynque announced.

  He sat up. “Show me where.”

  “Here you go, Mr. Sparks,” it replied, opening the map to her last tracked coordinates location.

  Close. She must’ve collected his gift.

  “Urgent update: the Swedish president counter-signed the agreement,” the device said, then asked, “Is the wire approved for four million euros?”

  “Yes, send to the Swedish National Bank from account ending in 2261.”

  “Right away, Mr. Sparks.” It buzzed. “Transaction complete.”

  “No U-generator for Sweden.”

  He unbuttoned a third button on the white dress shirt and wiped his sopping forehead using the jacket sleeve. In the car’s cool 70-degree temperature, his posh demeanor overheated and unraveled.

  “What’s on with you?” She side-eyed his Cynque and said, “You’re acting, weird.”

  Damn right. He’d penetrated the elite 0.1 percent, a society gated by wealth, status, and association, governing the world and its complicated operations. Socioeconomically, it was the least safe place to be, on the radar. Car bomb attempts to sniper attacks at five-star accommodations to poison in expensive champagne to beautiful armed women. Day in and day out he fluctuated somewhere between invigorated and terrified. Wealth, like magic, had come with a price. And shame on his Bond complex for the willingness to take on its dangers and its perks.

  His enemies’ failure, he chalked up to laziness. The organizations and individuals threatened by his rhetoric hadn’t done their research. Catching the champagne was dumb luck. The other attempts were futile when his power detected anything in a five-mile radius using or producing electricity. Imagine the rhythmic time bomb’s ticking or the heart’s electrical system. A sniper or assassin’s heartbeat had a distinguished crescendo as the time to pull the trigger, or make the kill approached. He knew every note like Mozart’s Symphony No. 40 in G Minor.

  Goosebumps raised the hair on his arms. “Get down!” he exclaimed.

  A bullet ripped through the front windshield and the driver’s skull, killing him, and exited the rear windshield. The Bentley lost minimal speed and veered onto a semi-crowded sidewalk. Its digital control dashboard blinked red warnings, noting the car’s proximity to moving subjects and inanimate objects. The vehicle computer searched for a source of reliable information to correct its driving pattern.

  “Navigation disengaged. Please re-engage Cynque for navigation capabilities,” it warned. Verification for the steering mechanism popped up. Five illuminated green circles in the shape of a hand for fingerprint scanning and one illuminated square underneath for the Cynque.

  Bazzo stretched his left arm around the slumped driver to align his wrist against the square. Each time the car went over a bump, he grimaced and Bridget covered her ears, neither of them knowing whether it was a civilian or something less gruesome. Such obstacles forced the car to give up more speed as he struggled to gain its trust.

  “Please pair Cynque for auto-navigation,” the computer squawked.

  “Hurry!” Bridget shouted, tapping him, “Those idiot folks in line aren’t moving!”

  “Please pair Cynque for auto-navigation,” it repeated, with similar, heightened urgency.

  The Bentley continued to move at damage-inducing speeds. Approaching drivers honked. Car tires screeched. Frightened people yelled. Unfolding havoc muffled by sound suppressing windows.

  Bazzo peeked above the dashboard and scoured the sidewalk ahead. Dozens of desperate citizens stood in their path, waiting in a line at Fort Miami’s primary shelter. For food. For supplies. He prepared his conscience for human bodies’ impact and blood splatter in the event he failed to connect to the system in time.

  “You’ve got to be fucking kidding.” He turned sideways, giving his arm the ability to extend, and wiggled his wrist. “C’mon Cynque.”

  A red beam zipped left to right scanning his device. “Pairing, Bazzo Sparks,” it said, then confirmed, “Welcome, Bazzo Sparks. Please scan finger—” He flipped his hand and held it out in front of the glowing finger shaped circles. “Fingerprint scan confirmed. Engaging navigation.”

  “Baz!”

  “Oi!” Bazzo jerked his hand to the right.

  The wheels obeyed his instruction. Their car swerved, jumped the curb and missed colliding with stalled traffic and the block-long hoard of poverty-stricken Floridians. Bazzo reached over the dead driver and opened the door. “Sorry, mate,” he said. Clicking the seatbelt off, he shouldered the body out onto the pavement and scrambled into the driver’s seat.

  “Engage self-driving measures, Mr. Sparks?” Cynque asked after he slammed the door.

  “It’s a bit late for that, ya reckon!” He ruffled his hair, then steadied his ten fingertips and leveled them to operate the digital steering wheel.

  “I knew they’d come after me,” Bridget said. “I shouldn’t’ve dragged you into this.”

  “Ha, they’re not coming for you. They’re here for me.”

  Bridget Sparks

  Bazzo turned off the rearview monitor, ignoring the blameless lives the self-driving car had taken and the unprovoked damage it had done, both of which called for their acknowledgement, and their apologies. He shunned Bridget’s occasional muttering and anxious swaying and unanswerable questions.

  “The self-driving measure should’ve auto-engaged,” Bazzo said quietly. “Blasted trigger is hardwired.”

  The Bentley’s interior distortion was but a glimpse into what must’ve been the alarming remnants of its frame. Irate onlookers bombarded the sidewalk, Cynque’s to their mouths, undoubtedly giving testimonies and their car’s description to law enforcement. For the second time Bridget was a moving suspect, expecting sirens as she tallied up casualties.

  “Are you good?” he asked her, coming out of shock and easing into denial.

  Bridget nodded.

  “Good. It’s no one’s fault, got it? Don’t let that rubbish in ya head.”

  She picked at her nail polish and nodded again. “Ok.”

  “It’s no one’s fault,” he repeated.

  The ambiguous “they” trying to kill her brother nagged at her. “Are you a fugitive?” she asked.

  Bazzo smirked. “Cynque tells me I’m a CEO, but yeah, me and the yank gov been on delicate terms as of late. I’m not sure that’s what we’re dealin’ with.”

  As if to answer, four blacked-out Suburban SUVs zigzagged lane to lane, cutting of
f vehicles to intercept them.

  “And we are takin’ the freeway.” Bazzo slammed on the brakes and rotated his right hand clockwise. Virtually connected, the digital wheel turned underneath it, spinning them one hundred and eighty degrees.

  Her body hurtled across the backseat. Her spine hit the deformed passenger door.

  “I’d strap in if I were you,” he said.

  She blew her hair out of her face. “No shit.”

  Their perilous drive needed her brother’s full and undivided attention. They drove on the right side of traffic, and the wrong side of traffic, steering clear of head on collisions with quick acceleration and sharp turns. She hauled herself onto the chair as two SUVs snuck from the rear on either side. Agents leaned out their windows, toting energy guns she’d seen at the Andromeda Project.

  Hands by her ears, she ducked, screaming Bazzo’s name as plasma blasted the window, showering her and the backseat with hot glass and molten car chassis. The agents sped up.

  Their gun barrels obtained a clear shot at Bazzo’s skull. With an erratic wheel twist to the left, the Bentley rammed the adjacent Suburban. It swerved, drove up the central divider, and flipped on its roof.

  “Just like in the movies,” Bazzo said, flexing his fingers and pushing them forward. The car accelerated and he repeated the same twisting action to the other side. The second SUV carrying armed agents was crushed in a concrete divider and Bentley sandwich and left in a spinning frenzy.

  The Bentley’s exterior held. Bridget’s sanity, did not. Shrieking carried her clambering over the arm rest and into the passenger seat.

  “Hey, hey, it’s gonna be alright, trust me,” he soothed. His mouth tightened, jaw muscles bulged above the bone. Currents danced across his knuckles.

  The third SUV’s engine shut off mid-intersection, and a bus tore through it. Bridget exhaled, curled toward the arm rest, and peered through the rear window. Big, expensive mess to clean up for a city with a lot of other big messes to clean up.

  Fort Miami’s silver blurred in open highway. She assumed they’d run into a river of never-ending brake lights, but there weren’t cars crammed in bumper-to-bumper traffic on a weekday afternoon. Unusual for a substantial metropolitan.