*** Wally ***
The prisoner had arrived. Wally took a weary glance at the body in the cell. He thumped the sensors and monitors with one hand. “Fucking sensors.” They were reading nothing, no heartbeat, body was little above the surrounding air temperature. He turned and pulled a flip cell phone off the rack, one of about thirty on the shelf. Dialing a number from memory he waited until it was answered and said, “Hey, Dispatch, the sensors in cell three are glitched, nothing working right sense we took down Bonfire.”
“You sure?” Came a male voice on the other end, “I did a complete change out after he burned everything.”
“I even thumped the monitor, nothing, dude.”
“I had Robin in there as a test subject; she came up just fine. How’s our boy?”
“Moving, so you didn’t kill him. He’s not moving around a lot; checked the door. I got it on biological lockdown, he isn’t showing any signs of being able to get out, but it’s only been a minute.” Wally mumbled more quietly, “But who knows if that is working, if the other sensors’ aren’t?”
“I heard that, and the sensors are working, I tell you! I’m twenty minutes out, I’ll swing by and see what I can see.”
“Affirmative. Too bad you can’t teleport yourself.”
“I’ve tried, buddy.”
“Maybe you need to visit Andro in Vegas?”
“Get fucked.” Dispatch ended the call.
Wally put the phone on the ‘needs to be wiped’ shelf for Dispatch to reset later. Turning back to his monitors, he saw the kids looking up into the corner camera, the most obvious camera in the room. He keyed a mic, hoping that it, at least, worked, “Hello in there!”
Shit how did teenagers talk these days? Being fifty seven, Wally battled the language wars every day.
The voice that answered was low and quiet, “Kidnapped again.”
“Whoa, whoa, kidnapping is a strong word, we’re just trying to assess if you are a threat and then what to do with you, if you are.”
“You’re the cops?”
“Not exactly but affiliated with the federal government to keep this region safe.”
“Fuck the feds! Isn’t there a war on, one that you should be participating in?”
“Someone has to keep the heartlands safe, kid.”
“Kid.” The boy repeated.
“What were you doing near the hospital?”
“Walking.”
“Why? It’s a Sunday, don’t you have school or something to go to in the morning?”
“It’s June. School’s out.”
True enough. “Look I don’t want to uh bust your balls, but you gave the cops a scare and demonstrated, well, some shine.”
“They shot me four times.”
“You resisted arrest.”
“Arrest for walking down the street.”
“It is…” Wally checked the clock, an old analog clock that kids these days thought of as ‘retro’, “Just passed midnight, there is a curfew.”
“There is? I didn’t know.”
“You’re parents are probably worried sick. If you give me some details, I can get you back to them.”
“No, you can’t.”
Interesting, an orphan? A runaway? Who knows these days with the drugs on the street and the cartel wars. “Let’s start with a name, a name is harmless, right and I gotta call you something.”
“What’s your name?”
“Wally.”
“Wally? As in ‘Old Man’ Wally of the Denver Defense Force?”
Wally grimaced, “Yeah, actually, that’s me.”
“I thought you retired?”
“I want to, but as I said, there’s a war on and, despite what you might think, I’m not old enough to get my pension yet, so they got me behind a desk doing this.” Wally shook his head, so far in the information exchange he had nothing, not even a body temperature and the kid had his name. I hate my job. “What should I call you?”
The boy shrugged, “I don’t have a shiner name.”
“Your regular name would be fine.”
“I’m not giving you that.”
“That’s quite alright, just choose something I can call you.” Little bastard sandbagging me. Can you read minds you twat?
There wasn’t any response to that, so Wally guessed they hadn’t captures a shiner with mind reading abilities. In fact, staring at the camera more intently something was wrong with the kid. It took him a minute to see it. No facial expressions, barely any movement at all. “So, while you’re thinking of what I should call you, are you alright? Most people, even shiners, can’t just walk away from four shots to the torso. Do you need medical attention?”
“Afraid I’ll turn into a zombie in your pen, fed?”
“Not really.” For the love of Christ I hope not! Wally thought, “However you bleeding out while I watched could inflict a severe amount of emotional trauma on me that I’d like to avoid.”
“You? Who destroyed Joey Killdozer in 1996?” The kid shook his head, “Nah, I don’t buy it, you’re solid and watching me die wouldn’t keep you from sleeping at night.”
Huh, he knows who I am and knows something that happened thirty….THIRTY, has it been thirty years? Fuck I AM old. Wally had been trained to do this job and one thing that both training and experience had taught him was flying off the handle never worked out well. He nodded, though the kid couldn’t see him, “That’s right, about Joey Killdozer. That was a rough one, he about leveled that town.”
“Didn’t kill, or even hurt any small people directly.” The kid said.
“I didn’t know that until after and I was doing as advised by the state police.”
“Fuck Colorado.”
“Whoa now, I’m a native and happen to like it here.” Wally chuckled though, as there were many things he agreed with about that statement. Shit! The mic had been live.
“I’m a native too. Born and raised in Arvada. I died in Thorton in 1994.”
“What now? Say that again? Died?”
“Kidnapped. You can see why I’m not a fan of all this.” The boy waved his hand around the room.
“Did you, did you just wake up from that? Is that why we don’t have any evidence of you in our records?”
“I woke up soon after, watched the killdozer thing on channel five news as it happened.”
Wally was furious typing into the form on a computer, adding details. He could review the tape later and make sure he didn’t miss anything. This kid has been operating thirty-two years under the radar? “You’ve ben active for that long? Why haven’t you come into the light?”
“Never gave it much thought. I don’t feel very shiny if you want to know the truth.”
“Are you a villain? Have you killed people?”
The kid laughed, “No. I never killed any of the small people.”
“What were you doing at the hospital?”
“I was trying to find someone.”
“Outside the hospital at midnight?”
The kid stared at the camera a solid twenty seconds, face unmoving, like a statue, “A bad shiner, I think. I wasn’t planning on confronting them, just gathering information.”
“Why? Leave it to the pros?”
“Not when the pros sideline Wally. That shows just how messed up our society is now.”
Wally tried not to be flattered, it was in the training that sometimes people of interest would try this route to gain favor. Still, it affected him. “Thanks. I appreciate that. Maybe I can help.” He had to remember, it the ‘kid’ wasn’t lying, he was actually four six years old, more of Wally’s peer, if not quite gen-x. “You were fourteen in 1994, born in 1980, you’re an adult, do you look like that because of your shine?”
“What do you think?” The kid nodded.
“I mean it though, what I said, we exist to track the bad guys down. With the war, we are shorthanded and there’s no reason to not help you and…have you help us if we can use you.”
“I already have a team. You gonna let me out of here?”
“I can’t, not just yet, I, we, have to figure out who you are and if you’re a threat, Mr Zombie.” Wally added that last as his gut was telling him the boy, man, wasn’t lying about what happened.
“I don’t like that so much.”
“Give me another name, I have to tell you I’m typing it into your permanent record right now.”
“It’s computers, it can be changed. I’m don’t talking right now.”
“If you say so, I have a buddy coming, when he gets here he might have a few questions.”
“I’ll prepare myself.”
Wally watched Mr Zombie waiting for Dispatch to arrive, after doing a few searched in the police databases he was sure he’d found the kid. For his part the kid didn’t move an inch, it was uncanny. His face was toward the door, away from the camera.
Dispatch came in and asked, “How’s our boy?”
“Man. Turns out he’s a missing person, Mathew Miller, abducted in 1994. Missing ever since. Presumed dead.”
Dispatch shook his head, “Never heard of him.”
“You would have been nine or ten, unless your parents brought him up to you or you happened to see his face on a milk carton.”
“Mom had a thing about milk, it never sat on the counter or table, it was open the fridge, get the milk, pour it, put it back in. I never read anything on it. Wasn’t much of a reader at that age anyway.”
“That’s a shocker.”
“I was into karate!” Dispatch said, “Ka-chaw!” and he mimicked a karate chop at Wally’s face.
Wally didn’t flinch; he knew what Dispatch could do and had nothing to fear from a karate chop from the shiner. Now being teleported into the sun, that would put a damper on his day. “Says he may speak to you, if you want to give it a go?” Wally pushed the old microphone toward Dispatch.
“You couldn’t get through to him? You’re so good with kids, they eat you up man.”
“My star is fading, I’m the next Invincible, going to be locked down as I go insane.”
“It’s Alzheimer’s, not insanity.” Dispatch told him, “Let me have a go.”
Taking the mic Dispatch said, “Hello in there, uh…” he looked at the screen with the file on the man, “Matthew.”
“Who is this?” Matthew said.
“I’m the guy that put you in there. They call me Dispatch.”
Wally thought Dispatch was way too fond of his shiner name for his own good.
“Dispatch, huh? Seems legit. What do you want?”
“Just to find out who you are, what you were doing and why you scared the piss out of two Aurora police officers.”
“They shot me. Not the other way around. I don’t even have a weapon.”
“Some weapons are so obvious anymore. I see their bullets didn’t do much to you.”
“I didn’t make them shoot me.”
“You didn’t stop either, they said you kept coming.”
“The one guy shot me in the back, hard to get away when they are on both sides of you.”
“What were you doing there?”
“Minding my own business.” Matthew said.
“If you’re this kid, Matthew Miller, we could, uh, you know track down your parents call the press, release it to the news.” Dispatch said, “It’d be the story of the year.”
“With the war on?” The kid shook his head. “I wouldn’t even make the third page.”
“What do you want?”
Matthew looked back at the camera in the corner, “Nothing from you two.”
“We’ve got you pinned in there, the sooner we can figure you out, the sooner you can go home.”
“I’m already out. You can’t hold me, no one can. I’m glad we’re not enemies though, I sort had a thing for Wally, back in the day. Wanted to be him. Funny how dreams do come true, just not in the way you expect.”
Wally took the mic, “Shining isn’t all it’s cracked up to be, we know that. I’ll put in my two cents that we are here to help and you’re making it sound like there is someone worse out there we should be dealing with. Let us help you track them down.”
“Then you’ll send Dispatchshit to teleport them here?” Matthew shook his head, “I like you Wally, not sure if I like your buddy, but I’m willing to give him a shot. You don’t want to find this person, could be a woman, for all I know. One thing I know about them; they could probably take either of you apart in an instant.”
“Not you?” Dispatch said, he was mad, Wally could tell.
“They don’t even know I exist. You didn’t even know I existed before Aurora’s finest called me in.”
Dispatch said, mic off, “True enough if he’s been around for thirty years, we either got lucky or he got careless.”
“If he is Matthew Miller.”
Wally opened a screen with a shot of the kid from 1994, both of them compared it with the screen of the kid in the cell.
“Ah, okay, he certainly looks like Matthew Miller.” Dispatch said.
“No DNA, his dad is still alive, if we can get DNA will have an answer in a few days.”
“You going in there, Wally?” Dispatch asked. Dealing with unknown shines was part of their job, but Wally shook his head.
“No, I’d rather not, something about him creeps me out.”
In the room Matthew spoke to the camera, “I’m going to go now. Nothing personal, but I’ve wasted enough time.”
Wally clicked the mic, “If you’re going, look me up on the outside, if you don’t want to fight, I mean.”
“I might do that.” Matthew said, then his body went rigid again.
The two looked at each other. “What now?” Dispatch asked, “He’s still there.”
“Still moving. I guess we wait. I’m done in…” Wally checked the clock, “A little over five hours, then it’s Screen’s problem.”
Dispatch got called out to help deal with a drunken party in, of course, Aurora. Leaving Wally to keep an eye on Matthew. Despite what he said, he hadn’t left, he was still there, but he did seem different. He was moving around, irregularly. He didn’t sit on the concrete slab that doubled as a bed, but did shuffle around like…well, a zombie.
As he turned the station over to Screens he told her, “Got a weird one. Dispatch pulled him in. Name of Matthew Miller, kid that disappeared in 1994.” Wally showed her a picture, and they both looked at a snapshot Wally had taken from the camera in the corner earlier.
Screens was young, approaching twenty-eight. She looked at the monitor and the photos there, then conjured one of her screens, her shine, which had a view of Matthew shuffling around in the cell. “That’s not the same guy, Wally.”
“The hell…” Wally looked at the guy in the cell from her screen, and at the once from several hours and decade ago. “Holy shit, you’re right!” He shook his head, “Well, good luck with him, I’m on to night at twenty-three hundred, hopefully we have this shit figured out by the time I get in. You’re good with computers, maybe you can figure it out with all this data we have?”
“It’ll give me something to do. Mondays suck.” Screens said, it was true, they picked up at night, when the Monday crowd hit the bars.
Wally had to wait three days before Screens found the guy, but then he was old, seventy-nine. Michael Davenport. Died March 30th, 2021. Heart attack. The next day, the reanimated Mister Davenport fell over and became a corpse again. The left him for three more days, just to be sure, before calling in the coroner to collect the very dead again corpse. Two days after that, when Wally pulled up to his house a little after eight in the morning, Matthew Miller was sitting on a chair on his porch.
