The Great Game

I checked my Overlook search. It was still rolling along happily, churning out hits. Lots and lots of hits. A nasty sinking feeling crept over me. I opened the log, and stared. The first three days of the search, he stayed local. Then eleven days ago, Hallet had been registered flitting in to San Francisco. And Boston. And Tampa. And Milwaukee, Vancouver, Columbus, Las Vegas, Austin and Detroit. All before midday.

Hell’s teeth. How many damned Hallets were there?

I needed to find out if anyone else was tracking Hallet. He might have just slipped under the radar. Hopefully one of the larger agencies had noticed his movements though. They might have some useful answers, if so.

Overlook wasn’t showing any case flags, but that only meant no-one was tracking him openly. I logged into the Washington system and pulled up Hallet’s file there. No flags there, either. Damn. It was just us, then. I flagged it myself, and tied it back to my Overlook search with a safely bland note about ‘anomalous movements’.

I had a quick skim through the Washington data. There wasn’t anything there I hadn’t already been briefed on. He was nobody, just a low-rent guy who dabbled in the odd bit of trouble.

I jumped slightly as a call came in.

“Taylor.” It was Ransom, and she sounded unhappy.

“Hey boss. Look, about…”

“Later. You need to get out to Devonshire and 8th right away. Tell me what they’ve got down there as soon as you know.”

“Uh, OK. But…”

“Now, Taylor.”

“Right.” I closed the connection, grabbed my coat, and got going.

It took about twenty minutes to get out to the location. Local forces were being cagey; all they’d say was that there was a body. It was a fairly cheap area — cut price clothes, small grocery stores, take aways, electronics shops, that sort of thing. Lots of gaudy LED lighting.

I pulled up near the scene perimeter, flashed my badge, and got waved through. The officer pointed me to the side of a small gyros place, as if the knot of people and the flashing bulbs wouldn’t have given it away. I walked over to the group.

“Evening guys, I’m John Tay…”

The words died in my throat. It was Hallet, partly. His face, for sure. But the body was melted and stretched, like warm toffee. It flowed out from the chest, belly and thighs, horribly slick, until it melded into a second set of body parts. Ripped clothes surrounded the whole mess, and the stench was unbelievable. I stared at it for a long moment, too stunned to feel sick.

One of the officers nodded, slowly. “Yeah.”

“Is it one body?”

The guy who had nodded looked up me sharply. “Two, as best we can tell. Any ideas?”

I shook my head, and opened a comms line to Ransom. All I got was a nasty whine. What the hell was going on now? All my sensors were green, so my kit was working normally. No sign of a connection error. A glitch at her end? I tried Control, and then Clark. The same.

Shit. If we were being jammed…

I looked back to the officer. “Are you connected to your base?”

He went vacant for a moment, and then nodded. “Yep.”

“Try calling DSP, will you?”

“Sure.” Then a moment later, he frowned. “They’re off-line.”

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Today’s photo is Lane by kmndr.