“Which makes the whole precinct a suspect. Wonderful.” George sighed. “Chief, how do we proceed?”
Chief Norris shot Shireen another death glare before she turned her attention to George. “The case has priority. You keep on digging and I’ll assign finding the missing cell to Detectives Merrigold and Vargas. Anything they find, they report to you. Let’s hope our thief has made a mistake somewhere.”
George looked to Andi, who remembered that he technically was part of their team and should probably give some kind of input, even though he was distracted by all the implications of what had happened. “Fine with me. Can we go now?”
It hadn’t been the right thing to say, judging from the sour look on Norris’s face, but she dismissed them with a wave of her hand. Shireen tagged along, breathing a sigh of relief once they were outside the office.
“I’m so sorry, guys. I promise you I’ll do everything I can to get the cell back.”
“It’s okay, Shireen, it wasn’t your fault. This seems to have been an inside job, and if you weren’t working with outdated equipment, this would have never happened, I’m sure of it. I know how meticulous you are about evidence.”
It was the right thing to say, Andi could see it in Shireen’s eyes. She took his right hand and squeezed it before turning in the direction of the IT department. “Thank you, Andi. This means a lot.”
She hurried away, leaving George and Andi with the broken pieces of their case.
“What do we do now?” George let his frustration show now that they were alone.
Andi rubbed his hand over his face, trying to clear his head without much success. They were backed into a corner, and there really was only one way out. “We’re going home. I need time to think, and I can’t do it here. Too much drama.”
George nodded his agreement, and they left the precinct to get some room to think.
Chapter 19—Through the Eyes of Bugs
EVEN THOUGHAndi had anticipated it, he felt empty inside during the ride home. He was still exhausted from their all-nighter the day before. The confrontation with Chief Norris, the greedy hag, hadn’t helped at all. He was feeling the pressure building to get results concerning the case, and because of it he was facing the one thing he usually tried to avoid at all cost: opening himself up to the arthropods not only in his close vicinity but all over Charleston.
His gut instinct told him that whoever was running the trafficking ring was at least residing somewhere in the area, even though all the people they had questioned today seemed to think he was an outsider. But even if that was the case, the man still had to keep an eye on everything, especially if he was planning to expand, and with a little luck, he would be able to either find the man or at least pick up on some new leads. The price was high, not only in terms of his own physical and mental health but also when it came to his partnership with George. Andi was almost sure George wouldn’t take too kindly to being dragged to several random places in search of a phantom. It bothered Andi in a way he’d never thought possible. In the short span of a week, George had managed to transform himself from the bane of Andi’s work to a partner he wanted to keep and get to know better. But a partnership with such a huge secret at its core was doomed to fail, as Andi well knew. Nobody would put up for long with always being left out of the loop, and rightly so. There was no way around it, though. If it were just about Chief Norris and her unreasonable demands, Andi would have felt tempted to let the case go cold just to show her he wasn’t some kind of dog she could treat like a flea-ridden stray one moment and like a prized champion the next when it suited her and her ego. Knowing what was at stake, he could no longer take that route, which was a pity. He would have loved to see Chief Norris’s face when she realized he wasn’t some puppet on a string. A late afternoon and early evening with creeper-crawlers it was.
He and George didn’t talk much in the car. George was nice enough to drive him to his house, and he refrained from going over what had happened in the chief’s office, which Andi appreciated. He had neither the desire nor the mental capacity to rehash the unpleasant surprise of the cell vanishing. His partner seemed to sense that Andi needed time to digest it all, or he was simply trying to come to terms with it himself. Either way, Andi was glad for the silence. George stopped in front of Andi’s driveway, letting him out.
“I’m going to pick you up tomorrow at seven, okay?”
“Thank you, George. I really have to get my own car back home.” Andi forced the corners of his mouth upward. Judging from the way George furrowed his brows, he hadn’t done a good job.
“Get some sleep, Andi. I’m sure everything will look better tomorrow.”
Andi knew things would be a lot worse for him come next morning, but with a little luck, they would at least have some new leads to make up for the loss of the cell.
“Will do. Same goes for you. See you tomorrow.” He lifted his hand in farewell, and when George pulled away from the curb, he turned toward the house. It was a good day for what he was planning. The spring sun was drawing out all arthropods, causing them to start building nests, to reproduce and fly about. They were more alert, more receptive than during the winter months, which was both good and bad. Good because he would get more accurate information, bad because the battering of images would send his mind spiraling out of control much faster. Andi went inside the house, changed into his favorite yoga pants and a long-sleeved sweater that clung to his body like a second skin. He took two Advils out of the medicine cabinet, along with a bottle of water from the fridge. He’d need both close by once he had the information he needed. After he was done with his preparations, Andi went to the bathroom to take a piss before he lay down on his bed, his cell on the charger and silenced, the Advils and water bottle on the nightstand. He was just about to close his eyes when he remembered something and got up again to retrieve a bucket from the sink under the kitchen. Now with everything in place, he put his head back on the pillow and closed his eyes. The usual thrumming at the back of his head was already intensifying, due to the lowering of his mental shields. Andi inhaled deeply, exhaled, inhaled again. With every breath, he forced the muscles in his body to relax, preparing himself for what was to come. One last breath, expanding his chest so far his ribs hurt a little, and he let go—
The clicking of tiny legs, the rasping sound of exoskeletons rubbing against each other, the hum of thousands of translucent wings vibrating in the air, the pulsing of convulsions in the earth, telling of animals and people and vehicles going past, the irresistible colors of the spring flowers luring in their pollinators, it all rushed into Andi’s mind, burying him under a cacophony of images too alien to really understand. For a moment he was swept away by the flood, desperately trying to regain his footing in the ever-rising tide of what the world would look like if he weren’t in the restricting body of a human. Which he was. He was human. He could never forget that or he would get lost and never come back, his body an empty husk while his mind rode forever on the consciousness of millions of arthropods, dying a thousand deaths a second yet still immortal in their vast reproduction cycles. He had to concentrate, had to find what he was looking for before he gave in to temptation, before he decided he had suffered long enough, before he embraced the freedom hisgeschenkwas offering him. Only it wasn’t freedom, just another form of being trapped, like his human body within its own limitations, like working for the chief without being able to show her the power of his right hook, like wanting to get to know George better without having to open up to him. No, the prisons were all the same at heart, they just looked different, some easier to bear than others. No, he was here on a mission, just a temporary guest, not a permanent resident, no matter how fascinating and terrible this prison was. He was looking for a man with anemia, a man most probably in the vicinity of young blood, of drugs and tranquilizers. The images were still bombarding him, still overwhelming him, but now he knew—or remembered?—what he was looking for. What the flea had given him was only vague, but with the additional information about drugs it got easier. So many dealers in this city, so many addicts, so many corpses, some of which would never be found, never be mourned, never get justice, nothing more than a feast for the worms and bugs, and was that really so bad, sustaining life in death? No, he couldn’t be derailed, he didn’t have much time, couldn’t stay here too long, already his thoughts were getting syrupy and slow, while his brain tried to interpret whatever the arthropods had to tell and oh, the stories they knew, about rich feasts and disappointing food sources, and he was already covering almost the entire city and still hadn’t found a trace of that combination he was seeking, just a surprisingly high amount of people with blood deficiencies, some of them already dying. His time was running out and yet he still expanded his mind, letting more images in even though he already felt them dragging him to that place of no return where his self would dissolve in arthropods, just like his grandmother’s, and he couldn’t think of her right now, he had to concentrate or all would have been in vain. He stretched a bit farther, farther than ever before, leaving the city behind and there it was, like a light in a completely darkened room, like the only star in a black night, the picture of a man, so much like the one he’d gotten from the flea, and there were drugs and the distinct aroma of flesh saturated with tranquilizers, and how much flesh it was, and if Andi hadn’t been drowning in the logic of insects, he would have been sick from knowing what that meant, a different context for humans, another prison, despicable and yet common, and all the ticks and fleas saw were desirable and undesirable meals and wasn’t that much better than realizing what meaning that flesh had? No, he couldn’t go there, couldn’t give in, he had to nail the location down so he could find the place tomorrow, when he wasn’t drowning anymore, when he was Andi again, not a shattered piece of glass, sending its shards in a million directions. He recognized the soil and general shape of the landscape, the huge mansions scattered around, guarded by gigantic trees and wide spreads of dead grass that didn’t offer much in terms of nourishment. Berkeley County. Andi took the different pieces of information he was getting from the earth dwellers, the airborne insects, the ones living in the walls of the house and those crawling through the gardens surrounding it to form a picture of where he had to go. Once he was sure he would recognize it without having to dip into the stream of alien experiences again, he started retreating back to his body. It was hard, so hard, to find his way, to weave through all the useless information, to overcome the feeling of being omniscient, because in that moment, he was, and it didn’t do him any good, because most of that knowledge was useless without context and context came from dipping deeper and he couldn’t do that, he had to come back, had to solve the case to save all those innocent children, had to tell George about the mansion so they could go and have a look and there was his body, looking so delicious and uncomfortable and useless at the same time, his prison, the one he had to actively choose if he didn’t want to get lost and why was it important to not get lost? Yes, the children, George, the case, he had to come back, had to detach himself from whatever this different world, hisgeschenkwas offering him because if he didn’t all would be lost even though he couldn’t seem to remember what all was exactly and he knew that was a bad sign and here was his body and he could feel it again, the painful pounding in his head while his brain was trying to do what no human brain should ever have to endure, the heaviness of his limbs, the coldness of his toes and fingers from lying still for so long—had it been long? Time was always so fleeting, nothing solid he could rely on—the queasiness in his stomach, too much saliva in his mouth, oh he knew what that meant, his body was preparing to get rid of everything it didn’t need in this moment of profound stress, he had to get to the bucket—
Andi leaned over the bed and threw up. It was a miracle he managed to direct the contents of his stomach into the bucket with only minimal spillage. When the heaving subsided after what felt like an eternity—his sense of time was still off—he opened the water bottle, swished his mouth, and spit the water into the bucket before he took another long gulp. The two Advils followed. A quick look at the clock confirmed he’d been out for almost five hours, which wasn’t good at all. He’d never been gone so long, and every time he opened himself up like this, it got more difficult to return into his own mind. Well, he’d made it back this time, and he had brought valuable information with him. Andi contemplated getting up and emptying the bucket before the Advils kicked in, but when he tried to sit up on his bed, his head spun, and he saw black spots. With a groan he sank back onto the pillow. He didn’t like sleeping with the stench of vomit in the room, but it seemed his choice had been taken from him. With some effort, he managed to pull the covers over his body, curling into a ball on his side, the bucket at his back, as if that symbolic gesture could keep the stench from assaulting his nostrils. A bone-deep tiredness overcame Andi, making his thoughts as slow as bluebottles on a cold day. The only thing keeping him awake was the pounding of his head until the Advils finally did their job. Nothing was keeping Andi from going under now, and he succumbed to the temptation of darkness.
THE NEXTmorning, Andi was woken by somebody jostling his shoulder and yelling his name. “Andi! Andi! Wake up! Damn, don’t make me call an ambulance. Are you all right? Andi!”
George’s voice had a frantic quality that made Andi wonder what his problem was. Then his brain finally kicked into gear, the haze lifted from it, and he slowly opened his eyes.
“George. What are you doing here?”
“Thank God you’re awake! What am I doing here? It’s quarter past seven, and I was supposed to pick you up at seven.”
Andi furrowed his brows. “Oh, yeah. Work. Must have forgotten to set the alarm.” He rolled his head on the pillow to look at his cell on the nightstand. It looked very peaceful, attached to its charger. “Sorry. I had a difficult night.”
“I can see that.” George nodded in the direction of the bucket. “And smell it. Are you sick? Do you need to stay in bed?”
The worry almost made Andi smile. Almost, because every movement of his face sent sharp pinpricks of pain into his skull. It wasn’t a full-blown migraine he was dealing with, but bad enough that he contemplated staying at home. Only for a moment, though, before he remembered the high number of delicious flesh the ticks had shown him. No, not delicious flesh, poor victims who needed saving, needed him. He slowly sat up on the bed.
“No, I just need a moment. Can you wait downstairs? I want to take a shower. I’ll hurry, I promise.”
