Future Crimes by Martin H Greenberg & John Helfers

Author:Martin H Greenberg & John Helfers [Greenberg, Martin H & Helfers, John]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 0886778549
Publisher: DAW Books
Published: 1999-09-30T21:00:00+00:00

THE CRIME OF TRANSFIGURATION

Will Murray

Will Murray is a professional psychic and the author of nearly fifty pseudonymous novels in the long-running Destroyer, Doc Savage, and Executioner series. Other short fiction by him is found in Miskatonic University, The UFO Files, and 100 Wicked Little Witch Stories.

THE Chairwoman of the Virtual World Bank vanished on 6/6/66, at 6:66 P.M. Uniform Global Time, from her 66th floor office at 666 6th Avenue in New NYC. It was the exact minute she wiped her desk system clean, eradicating all ID and health care files, V-money accounts—insuring that, from an economic and political sense, she no longer existed—or could exist—in Beta society.

An FBI team was on site by 11:45 UGT the next morning, vacuuming up latent prints and executing a full systems sift.

“Wiped clean,” the technician pronounced gloomily.

FBI Special Agent in Charge Gill Murrillo turned to the fingerprint expert. “Now give me the bad news.”

The print-tech finished scanning the office windows and hit the Sort Function key. “Processing,” the RID chirped.

“Latents match prints found at the prior crime scenes,” he chanted. “Readout: Unknown Alpha Person.”

Murrillo lifted his voice. “Okay. Wrap it up, everybody. I’m calling in a Divination Team.”

The D-Team were air-dropped onto the roof so their distinctive sky-blue jumpsuits and yin-yang shoulder patches wouldn’t create a public relations problem with the more militant super-Betas. It was led by a Native American who identified herself in a honeyed contralto voice: “Dawn/Fawn O’Leary.”

That made her an Alpha-Beta. Murrillo eyed her holotag ID and asked, “Which one am I talking to?”

“Dawn is my Beta name; in Alpha, I’m Fawn. I’m presently in an Alpha state, so I would appreciate it if you would still your mind until we’ve completed our Alpha sweep to avoid sensory leakage.”

Murrillo watched as the team went to work. One took a turn around the room absorbed in what looked like a FIDbox, except the readout cycled through the major and minor arcana of a digital tarot deck. Another dropped into a Theta trance and began describing what she saw in her mind’s eye while another D-teamer drew the described face on a tablet with an old-fashioned grease pencil Fawn O’Leary psychometrized the desktop system, caressing it like an ethereal harpist.

After twenty minutes, the D-team conferred briefly.

“She’s not dead,” Fawn reported. “Nor kidnapped. We feel she left of her own free will.”

Murrillo nodded. “That fits the pattern to date.”

“She’s still on our side of the Rockies, but I sense her ultimate destination is Alphaside.”

Murrillo grabbed his handphone. “I’ll inform the Director.”

“There’s more. She underwent a sudden spiritual emergency.” Her voice darkened. “It was induced.”

Murrillo disconnected. “What do you mean—induced?”

“The person with whom she was meeting induced a spontaneous spiritual crisis. This was not a conversion, chakra blow-open, or a typical psychic breakthrough. Her temporal lobes were artificially overstimulated. I would classify it as a high-level transfiguration of some hitherto-undocumented type.”

“Don’t tell me she’s not reclaimable…”

“If you capture her, you will find her Beta brain functions have been nuked. She won’t be able to balance a checkbook or drive a lightcar.

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