Katherine Lykos

Deceiving Crows

Chapter 1.

Mavros placed down the folder that contained some of Carmen DeCont’s most notable work and closed the door to the horseshoe sitting area, throwing the small space in darkness while he played the bookmarked section of the Ob’s clip.  

Carmen sat at a small white writing desk and flipped open a laptop. Her finger tapped on the mouse, working fast to open the program and select New. She began a sprint, her fingers sliding over the keyboard, eyes glazed on the screen, pumping out the text as if in rhythm to the pumping of her heart, blood in the veins, words on the page.

Nate followed me as I shifted around the suspended casket. I caught the broad man opposite watching me. A chill breeze cut through the black fabric of my dress and snaked around my legs. An unmistakable sound came from the coffin, a single rap on wood, knock. Nate glanced at me wide-eyed. He leaned into my ear, his breath colder than the air around us, ‘I’m not sure if what I saw was real. The open viewing… I think… she moved.’

‘What?!’

‘A single flutter, of the eyes.’

Nate and I were only a handful of people to attend the reclusive woman’s funeral. She died suddenly from a stroke after a five year battle with dementia. I hadn’t seen the open casket viewing, having chosen to sit it out and pretend to be in need of the bathroom instead. By the time I’d come back, the coffin had been closed up and the ceremony over. We now stood on a small rise of land in a semi circle with the other five guests, none of whom seemed to have noticed anything amiss.

‘Did anyone else see? Are they investigating? Maybe she isn’t actually dead.’

‘The funeral people got real mad when I said something. They told me it was just twitches, happens to dead people, and then they shut the coffin.’

My hand flew to my mouth. ‘Oh my god. What if… We have to stop them burying her!’

The watching bear of a man came to stand near us, too close for coincidence. His huge arms folded across a wide chest as he barred our view of the burial site. ‘The wake is up the hill.’

Nate and I shared a look. We made to turn. I took one last look around the man to the coffin as it lowered into the ground, a backdrop of spindle-branched waving poplars the crime’s only witness. My heart pumped wildly, I couldn’t let them do it, I wouldn’t. The thought of what might be happening turned my stomach. The very worst of the worst, being buried alive. 

I took off, sprinting sideways. I couldn’t make a direct line to the coffin without being nabbed. A gap between the trees, more like a hole, at ground level. My dress billowed as I slid through, muddying my left leg. I shimmied the rest of the way until I was out, a thick arm reached for me, his hand clasping the air where I had just been. I was almost at the coffin which had been lowered to the bottom of the rectangular pit. I ran as fast as my legs would go, but I wasn’t going to get there. The bear man would cut me off before I reached it. My thinking turned frantic, how would I get to the coffin, open it, stop the supposedly dead woman from suffocating? 

He was almost upon me, I ducked just in time and slipped away from his lunge. I veered left, away from him, away from the dying woman who could be beating fists against the timber lid right at this moment. I bolted to a circular pond with a railing around it. A stone wall with thin crisscrossing vines was at my back. The man blocked the only two exits with open arms. Trapped.

He started creeping toward me, a growl rumbling through him. My heart skidded. ‘Stop,’ I said with a raised hand. ‘Please don’t hurt me. You’re so much bigger than me. I just wanted to check that the woman in the coffin was actually dead because my husband—’

‘Don’t concern yourself in matters that aren’t yours to be concerned with.’ 

‘I can’t stand by while someone’s buried alive!’ I feigned looking over his shoulder, to a person that wasn’t there, ‘Nate, quick!’ It drew his eye, my only chance, I darted, tried to slip past his overbearing frame, but he was too quick. An arm swung across my gut, winding me. I couldn’t double over, he had me, pressed against him, wrapped me into a bear hug. Both panting hard. He squeezed my ribs. I tried batting at him, my punches probably like a pat to help an itch. He held tight, his grip so strong, too strong, I could hardly breathe. His face became level with my chest. Then I notice his hands spreading across my back as he lifted me higher, my dress had fallen off one shoulder and my lace bra became exposed. His eyes were glued to it.  

This could be a chance. I grabbed his thick hair and breathed lust into his face. We stayed that way for a moment, his eyes boring into my half exposed bosom and my hands clutching his hair. ‘Put me down,’ I whispered, ‘Please, you’re hurting me.’ Pressed up against him I felt a hard line form against my hip. I swallowed, ‘I’ll go up to the wake. I promise.’ 

He grunted as he placed me back on my feet. I started walking up the hill, then, spun and darted to the coffin. His muscled body tracked me but I was quicker off the mark. 

I leaped into the hole, dirt flew up to greet me. The man’s face was a dark smudge outlined by the grey sky. The headstone loomed beside him. The words caught me, I peered at them not really seeing them as everything went still. The name, In Loving Memory, Carmen DeCont. My name. 

What? How? 

Sickness threatened to rise. I stared at the coffin at my feet. It couldn’t be. My hands slid over the smooth surface, the only answer to be found, hidden beneath that lid of thick mahogany. My nails scraped and clawed at the edges, prying, lifting with everything I had. The creak of wood, the groan of what isn’t made for revisiting. The timber yawned as I threw it up. And there, inside was plush fabric, pink and fresh, it looked back at me. Empty. No one, nothing but the lining of the coffin, in wait for flesh and bone, in wait for answers that couldn’t be found. 

Carmen finished and went to the title. Stared at it for a full minute, then donned it with a name: Buried Alive > Save > Browse > Folders > Dreams. 

Mavros made the call to Dr. Eve Portland.

‘Detective,’ she squinted to her right, ‘Mr Gimley.’

‘Mav will do.’ The particulars were on his upper right split wall-screen. ‘So give me the run down, you’re conducting research for a behavioural science paper?’

‘That’s right. I’m collecting data of past brain scans to compare posterior cingulate cortex sections with bone and skull analysis to discern whether physiology plays a role in predictive forecasting rather than, or as well as adaptions to environment.’

‘So the old nature vs nurture thing right?’

She pursed her lips, ‘In a nutshell.’ 

‘You’re studying brain scans and the skulls of clairvoyants.’  

‘Correct.’

He might have to work a little harder on the flattery if he was going to get her to be more willing to share. ‘Sounds like interesting research, when you’re done, send it to me, I’d love to read it.’ 

Her lips moved from flatline to non flatline, it wasn’t a smile, but it wasn’t a frown either, he would have to live with that. ‘When I finish, now that I’ve had this major setback.’

‘Tell me about it.’ He was glad that she initiated the problem, which was the reason for this conversation.

She sighed, ‘There are clairvoyants and then there is Carmen DeCont.’ She eyed him with a side tilt of her head, a question.

‘I’ve heard of her.’

With a shrug she said, ‘Look I don’t know what you want me to tell you that I haven’t already said in my statement. I’m sorry to be blunt, but I have a lot of work to get to, especially since I need to replace a major gap in my research.’

‘Before you go, can you tell me, has there been others who have tried to scan her remains?’

‘I don’t know, you’re the investigator.’ The call ended. 

He said to the now blank wall, ‘Point taken.’ 

He’d already been over to the site and spoken with the museum curator. They couldn’t tell him anything new, being as gobsmacked as the rest of them to find Carmen DeCont’s remains missing. 

A phone icon flashed signifying a call from the superintendent. He answered with, ‘Yo, Baz.’ 

By way of reply, the moustached man on the wall in front of him asked, ‘Anything?’ 

‘Not yet,’ How much did the man think he could achieve in a single morning? 

‘What do you think, we dealing with a straight up grave robber or what?’

‘Too early to know, the curator reckons no one has disturbed the site,’ he shrugged, ‘I need more time.’ Obviously.

‘Hmm, you saw the bookmarked piece I sent you?’

‘Yeah, seems the woman predicted her own future.’

‘Perhaps.’ 

Mav had the feeling there was something deeper that Barry was keeping hidden. ‘If it’s not a grave robber, the next finger goes to the Obs. I’m about to start interviewing them.’

‘Right,’ he scratched his chin. ‘I got word that Dez isn’t doing well.’

He tensed, ‘And?’

‘He’s been asking for you.’ They stared at each other for a beat before the superintendent continued, ‘Up to you if you want to go.’  

It wasn’t a great shock, he’d been half expecting it, having received word almost 2 years ago that Dez was fighting the last dregs of inoculation. For reasons he never fully understood, Dez asked for him. Normally the inmates requests were ignored, but he decided to do what felt right and made his way down the steps of the sunken prison to pay Dez a visit for the last time. 

He wasn’t in his usual alcove, he’d been given the mercy of a four walled cell, and lights that were dimmed to help the man find the darkness beyond when ready. Dez stirred in the single bed and Mav adjusted the multi-ocular eyepiece to allowed vision in the low light. The man’s skin was a wet rag strung over bones, eyelids that were wrinkled clam shells closed to the ceiling. One mushroom remained, ejected from the side of a warped nose, its stem bowing toward the middle of his face. Even from where Mav stood, he could make out the deterioration of the gills, a sure sign that death knocked. The last time he’d paid Dez a visit he’d had at least five fruiting bodies across various parts of exposed skin, all different forms of fungus sprouting from his hands, neck, face. It was a sign back then, once the sprouting stage began, the end was near. 

His breath rattled and Mav came nearer, keeping his hood up, the multi-oculars adjusted automatically to give him clarity. Dez was probably beyond speaking, so he said, ‘I’m here for you.’ And he meant it, he wouldn’t have come otherwise. The man before him was good, he was a good man who had done a bad thing, not the other way around. He knew plenty of people, like Carne, who were bad but did good things, not so much good things, but things that were considered good, like tracking down people like Dez who were deemed bad. 

Dez had been, like the majority of the population, an academic, and not just any academic, he was an Ob, a position earning one of the highest if not the highest regards of respect. They were weavers of a person’s life, threading and compressing years of noteworthy achievement into a doco like the forming of a piece of art. It took years of dedication and hard work to forge the story they wanted to tell, non-frilled, blunt and at the same time captivating. Dez specialised in producing the biographies of historically significant figures within the field of macro-biology. And it was in that capacity that he fell in love with the past and felt the need to stay in it, resulting in being captured, sent here, and concluding his time as a total and utter fuckup.

Another rattle, this time Mavros was sure he heard his name on that breath. He came closer, placed a hand on the bony shoulder, ‘I’m still here.’ Dez seemed to settle back into himself, at least the rattling became more of a rasp, so Mav figured, he would keep talking, and gave the man a rundown on his latest investigation, because hey, it wasn’t like Dez was going to spill the beans of confidentiality. 

‘Pick-me…’

Mav startled at Dez’s voice. ‘You know I can’t pick you up,’ he left out the words, you’re bones are way brittle man. 

‘Back.’ 

Mav’s head emptied of blood as the word sunk in… Back. ‘You can’t go Back. I’m sorry—’ He paused when those clam shells cracked open and onyx pearls latched onto him. Dez’s pupils dilated, then seeped into the whites.  Blackness stared Mav down, and he swore that he glimpsed the dying man’s soul. A moment later the look was gone and with a last rattle, those eyes returned to become fixed to the ceiling and empty. 

He threw off his cloak when he stepped inside and tossed the multi-oculars on the bench, stretching his neck muscles as he made his way to the horseshoe. 

Back. What the fuck had Dez meant? Take him Back, how could he ask such an impossible thing? Take him Back. Me? Even if the decision was his alone to make, which it absolutely wasn’t, for what purpose did he want to go back? Dez was a man of science, what difference did it make where he ended up, in the past or here, dust is dust, now or then.  

Mav melted down onto the padded floor where the rectangular folders flashed to life at his movement. With a finger he sifted through Carmen DeCont’s writing, choosing another piece under Dreams by popularity, then flicked it up to the circular walls. He stood to watch her write, if this was going to be an investigation into the Obs, he needed to watch their handiwork too. The title: Brain Transfer.

I was doing my usual protection spell, (it’s not really a spell, I’m no witch) sending out my tendrils of love through the darkness, wrapping those babes up in an invisible barrier of positive thoughts, strong, emotional, radiating euphoric beams which I envisage brings them good fortune, good luck, good health, harmony, happiness. 

When I fell back to sleep I was searching a dark space, unsure what I was supposed to be looking for. Rows of shelves, corridors, all quiet. I kept walking until I came to an open circular room, padded bench seats around the rim. I took one up, sidled in and found that my head touched something velvety. It was another human, with jet black hair that reminded me of lambs wool. I thought it was funny that our heads touched back to back. He was silent, like the place, so I turned around again and snuggled into his hair like you might a soft cushion. 

I wasn’t frightened by the next part, so somehow I must’ve been expecting it, because a pressure began behind me, his soft hair became two hands, fingers laced around my head, thumbs pressed into the joints where my spine met my skull. 

I waited for the transfer to complete, like I was plugged into a computer, being uploaded, it didn’t hurt, it wasn’t scary, it was a simple matter of patience. 

When the pressure subsided I turned, expecting to see the mysterious face of the mysterious person, their fingers pulling away from my head, but what I saw was only the black fur of that head, no more. I realised that he hadn’t moved, that somehow the pressure had been created through space with no physical contact. That’s when the only logical conclusion entered my mind: this was not a human, but an alien made to look like one. Still I did not panic, I wasn’t shocked or frightened, I internally shrugged.

I don’t know what the upload contained (what info the alien dressed up as a human received from me), but I have the feeling it was nothing bad, and probably similar to researching an animal, or plant, or any other life-form. There are no judgements, just info, just data.

Mavros ran a hand through his black hair. If only it were possible to look inside another person’s mind, he’d probably be out of a job. He toggled the paused clip to a spot where Carmen had stood from the desk, her eyes shot forward for that one millisecond before she turned. He closed the door to the horseshoe cubical so that darkness engulfed him, giving them more intimacy, just the two of them, from the projection of the invisible Obs. He spun her image around, positioning her exactly where he thought the top of her head would reach if she were really here, just below his nose so that if he leaned forward his lips would brush her forehead. 

Staring into those dark frozen eddies, he studied the shape of her lips, her neck, ears, her hair. His hands came up and he raked them through her image, they disappeared into her skull and he imagined drawing her thoughts to him, into his mouth where his saliva pooled, tasting her neurons mixed with fluid, a vampire extracting knowledge. 

Only one of the Obs responsible for Carmen DeCont’s doco lived. No longer an Ob, he was now Dean of film at University Alba, holding the prestigious role of Ob Trainer. ‘Karl, my name’s Mav Gimley and I’ve been tasked with investigating—’   

‘Dean Karl.’

Mav paused, sizing up the half bent figure who invisibly snorted thunder at him. Oh this convo was going to be a blast. The man was old, even by their standards, he could tell, it was in the eyes, the edges in particular that held the key, windows with peeling frames. The soul of Karl wrinkled and quaked, old bones pressed by a storm. 

‘I’m investigating the disappearance of Carmen DeCont’s remains.’

‘Marv is it?’

‘Detective Mav.’ 

‘I’ve heard about this, what’s it got to do with me?’

It would forever remain an interest of Mav’s, these initial reactions, he could write up his own paper on knee-jerks and what they said about a person’s personality, their insecurities, weaknesses, fear, and most importantly, their overall lack of emotional intelligence. Whether they were a potential suspect, alibi or informer, when it came to investigating a crime, it was the more switched on humans who thought before they spoke, the ones who waited and listened rather than blurt out those rudimentary thoughts. 

‘Tell me about going Back, to see her.’

He threw spindly arms up, ‘What do you want to know? I’m not about to recite 5 hours of her life’s doco for you. Go and watch it if you want to know about the real her.’

Mav resisted the urge to fold his arms across his chest, he wouldn’t give the little snot the satisfaction that a bully would get from the action. ‘I’m yet to watch the whole thing, I was hoping you’d give me the trailer version.’

He huffed, ‘Very well, if you are so ignorant. Carmen DeCont only started to receive recognition as a clairvoyant hundreds of years after her death. There have been others before and after her who have made predictions that came true, but they either didn’t write them down or weren’t gifted as she. Her fictional novel, set in the future was the first to find its credit, having not only predicted technologies but names of notable scientists throughout, or at least similar sounding names. She seemed to have an obsession about the future, and we are blessed with the added bonus that she was for lack of a better word a natural story-teller. Her short stories, dreams, memoirs and poetry all show glimpses of her and her predicting talents, but not the reality of her life. I won’t go into it, you will have to watch the doco if you want to know more.’

‘What do you mean similar sounding names, were her predictions not straight up clear cut?’ 

‘As clear cut as a clairvoyant can be, the messages are written between the lines.’

‘Sounds like you have to be a bit artistic to pull out the messages.’ 

The Dean bit, hard and sharp on the bait Mav dangled, he would keep his personal opinions to himself about clairvoyant abilities, if he were being truthful he would admit that he thought it was all a load of shit, that people found patterns when there weren’t any just because they craved to find whatever it was they sought. 

‘What exactly are you insinuating?’

Mav shrugged, not revealing too much of himself or the enjoyment at every roll of steam the man snorted his way. ‘So why’d you switch jobs?’ 

The Dean squinted, ‘Being an Ob is tiring to say the least. Now, if you don’t mind, I’ve given you the trailer version as requested, I must be off.’

Mav was already searching on the split wall-screen when the call ended, it didn’t take him long to find the position particulars such as the man’s salary, and more importantly, all of those hours he put in overtime. He grinned at the evidence in front of him, the Dean didn’t quit being an Ob because of tiredness, the man actually had no life beyond work (something he himself could relate to). The Dean was bullshitting. There was another reason he had swapped jobs, and it certainly wasn’t lack of interest in the historic figures he researched, the man seemed almost smitten with the memory of being able to observe the clairvoyant. Whatever the reason, he needed to find it, build a case against the man he now placed on the wall under Suspect 1.

Chapter 2.

There were certain clearances that needed to be run through the station’s system, and his last bit of research for the day had him heading over there in his floater. It was an old 40K model DVM, which meant it didn’t have some of the newer luxuries like a massager, but he told anyone that hassled him, who the fuck wants to be relaxed and massaged before plunging into a station where cutthroats greeted you. In which he usually got the response he was after: silence. No one woke up of a morning wanting to deal with them. They were created well, fuel for nightmares, he heard that sick bastard Kiev proudly tell. Cutthroats were thankfully left for the new recruits to shutdown, the cop shit-kickers, of whom he had been up until just a few months ago.

He parked on a designated X and got out not bothering to watch his vehicle get shuffled down into a vacant spot amongst the stack. The dust was particularly bad today which had him rotating a wheel at his forearm to one notch back from the furthest setting. His cloak tightened, fastening the hood over his hair and ears, projecting a transparent film over his face, and closing off all exterior openings which left just his hands and boots free. Sure enough, as he entered the building, the arrow was pointing to stew on the rating index.  

The elevator doors slid home and the whirring of the air filters started up. He loosened the cloak and removed the hood. Once the nub scanned him and gave him clearance he was able to select the floor. The lift clunked and rattled the whole way down. Sounds that were made worse by the added grit in the atmosphere, no matter what the latest promise, the dust couldn’t be kept out, not completely. As long as the lift got him to where he needed to be and out again he didn’t really care. 

The doors protested open and he was met with a crowd of noise. he quickly side-stepped out of the way for a trolley-load of offline cutthroats which were being wheeled into the lift fast, to be sent to part-reclamation down at below basement level 10. 

‘How’s handsome?’ 

He turned to a woman with burgundy lips and cobalt hair who flashed teeth that had been sharpened to points. She reminded him of a blue iguana which was mostly to do with the colouring but also the spines, not that spines were teeth, but hey, you couldn’t help what the mind made up (you could help what you revealed to people though). ‘Terri the radiant bouquet, what’s happening?’ 

She grinned up at him while pirouetting a single finger across his chest, ‘Wanna meet up later?’

‘Umm,’ Every part of him said no (well not every part, there was that sweaty region which jumped up way too easily with yesss). ‘I’ve got a fair bit of work to get through with this new investigation, but some other time.’ He clamped down any desires by picturing those teeth poised around his knob, ouch.  

 Her pout gave way when one of the cutthroats that was getting strapped to a trolley rebooted itself and spring-boarded free with a razor slicer attachment straight at one of the young recruit’s jugular. Blood spurted in an arc as the body hit the floor. Ten cops flew into action. Terri thumbed the taser from her belt and aimed it at its metal chest. She shot, just as the machine was about to turn her scalp into a flapping blue cap. 

An electric charge zapped over the silver cutthroat, coating it in a firework display of sparks that popped and fizzled the unit’s entire core, turning it stiff and unmoving. No one would be able to touch it for some time, not until the dregs of electric charge diffused. A team of knee-high bot cleanaways came through to tape off the area and take away the body of the latest cop casualty. 

Terri was barking at no one in particular, ‘This is why we double and triple check their CPU. Don’t give me that look Delary, I know you were in charge of the shutdowns here.’

Delary had one hand cupped around her own throat and the other pressed over her open mouth. Mav slunk away, heading to the end of the hall, away from the sudden sounds of vomiting.  

Inside his office which was barely longer than a four-man urinal he sat at the desk and said ‘Hey SeekR.’ Nothing happened, the wall remained a grey blank. He frowned at the nub, a round ‘eye’ on the wall at hip height, ‘Search…’ he waited for a whole three seconds before muttering a profanity and kicking himself out and backwards on his chair and into the hall. ‘Adam, you there?’

A pock-marked man with blond hair smirked from a doorway five down, ‘Maverick, what can I do for you.’

He breathed heavily out of his nostrils to dissipate the steam accumulating in his head. ‘Are you having issues logging on?’

The smile broadened and his eyes lit up which confirmed Mav’s suspicion. ‘What have you done?’

Adam put one of his crimson long nailed fingers on his bottom lip, ‘Me? Oh I might have changed your log in phrase.’

It was the end of a long day, the last thing he felt like doing was playing games. ‘I’m going to find your floater in the stacks and run my knuckles along both sides.’ To make his point clearer, he flexed his right fist which brought the mod’d titanium bolts to the surface. 

‘Alright alright, calm down, no need to get pissy, just a joke.’

Mav said through gritted teeth, ‘The phrase.’ It wasn’t a question.

‘Pansy.’