Katherine Lykos

Deceiving Crows

Chapter 1

Thinking like a perpetrator was normally Detective Mavros Gimley’s specialty, but as he scrutinised the almost empty case file in his hand, he could not come up with one good reason why someone would want to steal a thousand year old corpse.

He pinched the paperclip icon from the file and flicked it at the wall which expanded the interactive holo and allowed him to select play. 

The clip showed Carmen DeCont, a woman in her mid 30’s sitting at a small writing desk. She flipped open an early model computer that Mav knew was called a laptop and selected a new writing page. 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 beating of her heart. Blood in the veins, words on the page.

Buried Alive

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.

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. We now stood on a small rise of land in a semi circle.

An unmistakable sound shattered the silence. It had come 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. ‘The open viewing… I think… she moved.’

‘What?’

‘A single flutter, of the eyes.’

I had missed the open casket viewing, choosing to sit it out by pretending to be in need of the bathroom instead. By the time I had returned, the coffin was closed, the ceremony over. 

None of the other guests seemed to have noticed anything amiss.

Nate continued, ‘The funeral people got real mad when I suggested that she might not actually be dead. They told me it was just twitches, happens to dead people, and then they slammed the coffin shut.’

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 to be coincidence. It was unclear what his role was. He wasn’t the undertaker and he wasn’t a guest. 

His huge arms folded across his chest as he barred our view of the burial site. ‘The funeral has concluded.’ 

‘What are you security?’ Nate asked. ‘Weird thing to have at a—’

The man cut him off with a look. 

Nate squeaked out a sorry before walking quickly away, leaving me there with the man. I made to turn, taking one last look at the coffin as it lowered into the ground. A backdrop of spindle-branched waving poplars — the crime’s only witness. 

My face heated. 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, sidestepping the man and sprinted toward the coffin. 

But he was quicker and I felt a tug at my shoulder. 

I jerked my body away and heard the fabric tear. I was off course and couldn’t make a direct line to the coffin without being nabbed. The poplar hedge loomed but I spotted a gap between the trunks. I slid through, my dress billowing, my legs muddying. 

His thick arm reached in and just missed grabbing me. 

I was almost at the open grave. The coffin had been lowered to the bottom. I ran as fast as I could, but before I reached the spot, the bear man stepped in front of me. How would I get to the coffin, open it, and stop the supposedly dead woman from suffocating? 

The man’s open arms were blocking me. He started creeping closer.

My heart skidded. ‘Please, I just want to check that the woman in the coffin is actually dead because my husband Nate—’

‘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!’ It drew his eye, my only chance, I darted, tried to slip past his overbearing frame, but he was too fast. 

An arm swung across my gut, winding me. I couldn’t double over, he had me, squeezed against him in a bear hug. I struggled for air. I tried batting him away but it only tightened his grip. I could hardly breathe. ‘Please, you’re hurting me.’ Pressed up against him I felt a hard line form against my hip. I swallowed, ‘I’ll leave now. I promise.’ 

His reply came as a grunt. He slowly placed me back on my feet. 

I started walking away, then, spun and darted to the grave. His muscled body tracked me but I just managed to slip past. 

I leaped into the open pit, landed hard on the smooth polished wood. Dirt flicked into my face as I turned to peer out. 

The man’s face loomed above me, a dark smudged outline against the grey sky. The headstone stood beside him. The words caught me. Everything stilled. The writing, it said, In Loving Memory, Carmen DeCont. The name. My name. 

What? How? 

Sickness threatened to rise. I stared at the coffin at my feet. It couldn’t be mine. 

My knees buckled, my hands slid over the smooth surface, the answer was hidden beneath a thick lid of mahogany. My nails scraped and clawed at the edges, prying, lifting. 

The wood creaked, groaning timber not made for reopening. Goosebumps coated my skin as I threw up the hinged lid. 

Inside was plush fabric, pink and fresh. Empty. No one, nothing but the lining of the coffin, in wait for flesh and bone, in wait for answers that remained unfound. 

The clip ended with Carmen staring at the title for a full minute before donning it with a name: Buried Alive > Save > Browse > Folders > Dreams. 

Mav finished reading at the same time Carmen finished typing. He opened the door to the horseshoe sitting area, throwing light into the space. With his finger and thumb, he pinched the icon from the wall which reattached to a tenth of its size. He added it back to the almost empty case file in his hand that had the PrivNote: 

Assuming you’ve seen the news headline about this. Let me know your thoughts once you’ve watched the bookmarked clip. Barry.

First, he would speak to the person who discovered Carmen’s missing remains first. He made the call to Dr Eve Portland.   

‘Detective,’ she squinted to her right, ‘Mavros 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 scanning and collating data of tube-grown brains and skulls, 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 the regrown brains and skulls of clairvoyants.’  

‘Correct.’ Frown lines appeared on her forehead.

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 had raised the issue, it was the reason for the call. He’d already been over to the site and spoken with the museum curator who couldn’t tell him anything new, being as gobsmacked as the rest to find Carmen DeCont’s remains missing. 

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.’

Mav had read her statement. It said that she received the necessary clearances to perform the scans on Carmen’s remains, and when she tried to do just that, it came up blank. 

‘Before you go, can you tell me, has there been others who have tried to scan her remains or attempted to gain samples to regrow her tissue?’

‘I have no idea, you’re the investigator.’

The call ended. 

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

A phone icon flashed on the wall, signifying a call from the superintendent. With his finger, he made a tick sign over the green pick-up and answered with, ‘Yo, Barry G.’ 

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 old-school 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.’ Barry shifted in his seat like he had a sudden prickle in his arse.

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 film-makers responsible for her doco. The Obs are the only ones who have gone Back so it’s possible they may have procured a connection with her. I’m about to start interviewing them.’

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

Mav 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, Mav had been half expecting it, having received word eighteen months ago that Dez was fighting the last dregs of his longevity inoculation. There were no guarantees how long the treatment made a person live to. For some, it enabled them to push to half a millennium, while others, like Dez, were wrung out at a little over the two century mark.

Dez asking for him was odd. Normally the inmates requests were ignored, but for some reason Barry passed on the messages. Maybe the superintendent felt it was the right thing to do. It was that exact reason Mav decided to make his way down the “throat” shaft to the sunken prison to pay Dez a last visit.

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 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.

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 enabled the multi-ocular eyepiece to allow vision in the low light. His once muscled frame was now skin that looked like a wet rag strung over bones, with 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 known as Angels of Death 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 and the multi-oculars set to adjust automatically on Clarity HD. 

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. 

As an Ob, 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, give 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.’ His voice came out as a sudden loud croak. Louder than he thought was achievable for him. 

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 his hazel irises. Blackness stared Mav down, and in that moment, he swore he glimpsed the dying man’s soul. 

A second later and the look was gone. 

With a last rattle, Dez’s eyes returned to the ceiling — soulless, empty.

Mav threw off his cloak when he stepped inside his single units pod G576 section, stack #539275, stretching his neck muscles as he made his way to the horseshoe. 

Back. What the fuck was Dez thinking? Take him Back. How could he ask such an impossible thing? And in front of a nub. Take him Back. Even if he fully understood the process of stepping into the past, even if it were up to him to grant such approval — which it absolutely wasn’t — why would Dez want to go back? He was a man of science, what difference would it make where he ended up, in the past or here? Dust is dust, now or then.  

Mav melted down onto the padded floor. Rectangular folders flashed to life beside his thigh. With a finger he sifted through Carmen DeCont’s writing, choosing another piece under Dreams, ranked second by popularity. He flicked it up to play on the circular walls. He stood to watch her write, if this was going to be a thorough investigation, he needed to watch the Obs handiwork too. 

The title: Brain Transfer.

Chapter 2.

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 my family up in an invisible barrier of positive thoughts. I imagine strong, emotional, radiating euphoric beams, that keep them safe, give them good fortune, good luck, good health, harmony, happiness. 

When I fell back to sleep I was stepping along a dark, deadly quiet corridor, past closed doors, searching… but unsure what I was searching for. 

I floated to an open circular room. Padded seating surrounded the perimeter. I sidled into one and when I reclined into the seat, the back of my head pressed into something velvety. 

It was another human, with jet black hair that was soft like lambs wool. I thought it funny that our heads touched back to back. He was silent, like our surrounds, so I kept quiet, turned back around and snuggled into his hair like you might a pillow. 

I wasn’t frightened by the next part, so somehow I must’ve been expecting it, because a pressure began at the nape of my neck. It felt like two hands, fingers spread, thumbs pressing into the joints where the spine meets the skull. 

I waited patiently for it to finish. It was a transfer. Files of retrieved information were being extracted from me. 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 fury mass. It made me realise he hadn’t moved, that somehow the pressure had been created through space, that there had been no physical contact. 

The only logical conclusion I could make was: 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. It was probably similar to studying an animal, or plant, or any other life-form. There were no judgements, just the coalition of info… just the transfer of data.

Mavros ran a hand through his black hair. If only it were possible to upload data from a person’s mind and collate the stored info. As far as he knew, human tissue could be tube grown, people could be cloned and babies could be made, but he’d never heard of the ability to collect those parts of us that makes us us: Memories. 

Shit, if it were possible to see a person’s memories, 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. It was 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, her ears, her hair. His hands came up and he raked them through her image, they disappeared into her skull and he imagined drawing her memories to him. Pouring them 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 Doco Director. 

‘Karl, my name’s Mav Gimley and I’ve been tasked with investigating—’   

‘Dean Karl.’

Mav paused, sizing up the half bent figure who snorted thunder at him from the wall-screen. Oh this convo was going to be a blast. He zoomed in on the man’s face. He was old, even by their standards, Mav could tell. It was to do with 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 of all, their 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 smart ones waited and listened, rather than blurt out those rudimentary thoughts. 

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

Dean Karl threw spindly arms in the air. ‘What do you want to know? I’m not about to recite five 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.’

The Dean 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 as 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… or at least similar sounding names. She seemed to have an obsession with 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 they don’t show the reality of her personal 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 any clairvoyant can be. The messages are written between the lines.’

‘Sounds like you have to be a bit artistic to pull out these so called messages.’ 

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

‘What exactly are you insinuating?’

Mav shrugged, not revealing his enjoyment at every roll of steam the man snorted his way. He shifted his angle. ‘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 Dean’s position particulars such as salary, and more importantly, all of the hours he put in overtime. Mav grinned at the evidence in front of him that contradicted the Dean’s claim. The man didn’t quit being an Ob because of tiredness, the man actually had no life beyond work (something he himself could relate to). 

So there was another reason the bullshitting Dean had switched jobs, and it wasn’t lack of interest in the historic figures he researched. The man seemed almost smitten with being able to observe Carmen. One might even say he was obsessed with the clairvoyant. 

He checked his socials page which brought up thumbnails of the Dean’s posts. There were hundreds. Most were of him sitting at a desk, or speaking in front of a wall-screen. Some showed him holding a trophy or certificate. Mav filtered a search for Carmen and three posts sprang to the top. The first was of Karl’s name on the Obs honorary list in the doco credits. The second was of him and the other Ob involved in the doco filming, a woman named Perla Kiter who Mav knew was now deceased. The third was of the Dean holding up a small jar. More creepy than the way the man looked with a smile plastered on his face, was the description: Best spend of my life — Verified — Mandibular second molar of Carmen DeCont.

Mav shuddered. 

Was Karl’s obsession with Carmen the reason for the lie? He needed to find out, build a case against the man he now placed on the adjoining wall under Suspect 1.