A Hard Rain Read online

  I have assigned La Forge and Mr. Data—and everyone else who has engineering or quantum mechanics experience—to work on a way to block the effects of the Blackness so that we can restart the impulse drive. The warp core has been completely shut down for safety, so the impulse engines are now our only hope.

  Section Two: Don’t Ask

  The ride to the morgue in the blackness was a nightmare made real for Dixon Hill. Bouncing through the rough streets, surrounded by four dead bodies, it was everything he could do to keep his mind on why he was riding along on this journey into the depths of the netherworld. The cop driving the truck seemed to pay no attention to speed limits, or bumps, or taking corners too fast. No doubt he wasn’t used to having live passengers.

  Dix hung on to the metal bench with both hands and tried to float with the moves, even though he had no idea what was coming next. He could hear the bodies bumping against the walls in the darkness with each turn.

  Dead flesh against cold metal.

  In the dark, that wasn’t a comforting sound.

  He stopped himself from imagining the truck crashing, the dead bodies flying all around him in the pitch darkness. Instead he focused on what would happen if what was real changed again. If these bodies came back to life, he needed to be with Detective Bell. He needed Bell’s help finding the Heart of the Adjuster, and right now the only chance of getting that was to have his friend come back from the dead, as Redblock’s goons had done.

  Dix didn’t much like his chances. In this world of shifting cold and rain and fog, no rule seemed to be firm, no reality functioned exactly the same from moment to moment. Alive or dead, sometimes the line between the two was thin. It seemed it had always been that way in the city by the bay. But now it had gotten worse.

  The only certainty was that if Dixon Hill didn’t find the Heart of the Adjuster, and get it out of this city, nothing would survive.

  The truck took a hard corner, bounced over what seemed like a curb, and then came to a sliding halt, banging Dixon Hill’s head against the wall enough to make his ears ring. Thoughts of taking the driver by the throat crossed his mind.

  He was rubbing his head when he heard the moan.

  At first he wasn’t sure if he was the one doing the moaning, then the back doors of the truck flew open and it was clear he wasn’t the only live person now riding in the back of this morgue truck. Bullets that had been in the cop’s bodies were scattered around the floor. The blood that had stained a few of the white sheets had vanished.

  “We’re here,” the driver said like a conductor on a train announcing the next station as he opened the second door. Then he froze as he looked up into the truck and saw his passengers.

  Dixon Hill could only imagine what he was thinking, or the nightmares the guy was going to live with. All four of the cops that had been dead were now trying to sit up. Two still had the white sheets covering their faces. That was a sight that would haunt anyone’s nightmares for years.

  The driver made a choking sound and stepped back, his hand on his gun.

  “Nothing to worry about,” Dix said to the poor, startled man. “They are as alive as you are.”

  Dix stood and moved to help Detective Bell out of the wire cot hanging on the wall, pushing the white sheet to one side so his legs wouldn’t get tangled in it.

  “What happened?” Bell asked. “I remember looking up at you in the building doorway, saying something, then it was all nothingness, blackness, like a sleep without dreams.” Bell glanced down at where he had been shot, rubbing his hand over his now perfect suit coat.

  “You and the rest in here were dead for a short time,” Dix said, helping Bell stand and move toward the door.

  “I’m in the morgue truck?” Bell asked, shaking his head as he looked around.

  “You are,” Dix said. “I figure you were dead for an hour at most.”

  The cop on the ground, his eyes twice the size they should be, kept backing up, his hand on his gun, as if shooting someone who had just come back from the dead was going to help anything.

  “How?” Bell asked, glancing around at the other three cops in the morgue van coming back to life.

  “I don’t know exactly,” Dix said, not lying to his friend. “But for the moment, let’s just say death for many people in this town is not a permanent thing. That might change at any moment.”

  “So don’t make a habit of getting killed,” Bell said. “Is that what you’re saying?”

  “Exactly, my friend,” Dix said, steadying Bell.

  Detective Bell half nodded, clearly not understanding, but making the best of the situation, as he always did. Dix knew there was no way he could make his friend understand. They all had to just go with it, as if sometimes returning from the dead was now the reality.

  Actually, it was the new reality in the city by the bay, for everyone but Dixon Hill and his people.

  “We have one major and immediate problem,” Dix said as he and Bell stepped down onto the concrete in front of the city’s morgue.

  At that moment a second morgue truck pulled in, banging over the curb as the one Dix had ridden had done.

  “What’s the problem?” Bell asked, “besides me and the others being alive?”

  Dix pointed to the other morgue van. “I’m guessing that the Undertaker and his gang, combined with some of Redblock’s men, will be back with us as well.”

  Suddenly Bell became a full-scale detective again. He stood up straight, took a deep breath, and then glanced at the cop who had driven the van. “Keep the back of that truck locked!” Bell ordered, pointing at the one that had just arrived. “And where are our guns?”

  “Storage locker right there,” the driver managed to choke out, pointing inside the truck. He looked as if he might throw up at any moment.

  Bell turned around to one of the cops who had been killed, who was now standing behind him. “Get inside the station and get us help out here. Quick!”

  Then Bell pointed at the other two now revived cops, one who was still lying on the bunk. “Get our weapons out of the locker there. Hurry.”

  “What’s the point?” one of them asked. “We shoot them, they just come back anyhow.”

  “Better than us being shot,” Bell said, rubbing the spot on his chest where he had been hit. “Maybe the next time we don’t get a second chance.”

  That got both men moving.

  At that moment the third morgue truck pulled in, followed by a number of police cars, their flashing red lights off.

  “Bell!” one of the cops said as he got out of his cruiser. “I thought you were dead.”

  “I was,” Bell said. “No time to explain now, even if I knew what was happening. All the guys you shot in those two morgue trucks are alive as well.”

  “Not a chance,” the cop said. “I kicked a couple of the bodies myself, just to make sure.”

  About ten cops were now standing, facing Bell and Dix. All of them nodded.

  “Well,” Detective Bell said, “I’m standing here, so you better figure the Undertaker and the rest will be alive as well.”

  Dixon Hill was impressed at how fast his friend took charge, even though he didn’t really understand what had happened. Like any cop, he had seen his share of unbelievable things, and was just treating this like another. He’d figure it out later over drinks down at the corner bar. Probably a few dozen drinks.

  The cold air and the swirling low fog overhead swallowed what little noise filled the streets. The cops just stared at their once-dead friend, not sure what to do, or what to believe.

  Then someone banged something inside one of the morgue trucks. Someone who should have been dead.

  Every cop had his gun in his hand instantly as they spread out facing the backs of the two morgue trucks holding the Undertaker and his goons.

  At that moment a dozen more cops came pouring out of the front door of the police station, their guns drawn. They also took up positions behind the two morgue trucks. Bell ordered that a
few of the cruisers should aim their front lights and spotlights at the back of the trucks, to blind whoever might be in there.

  Finally, when it looked as if everyone was ready, and the lights were on, he motioned for one cop to open one door.

  As the door swung open, it didn’t surprise Dix to see the Undertaker standing there, shielding his eyes from the sudden bright light.

  “Hands in the air!” Bell shouted. “Or we’ll blow your heads off and make sure they don’t get reattached.”

  Every man in the van shot his hands into the air, and ten minutes later the gangsters were all sitting in cells.

  Even the Undertaker had to admit, being in jail was better than lying on a slab at the morgue.

  Fourteen hours before the Heart of the Adjuster is swiped

  Captain’s Log.

  Engineer La Forge informs me that he thinks he has come up with a way to block enough of the subspace waves coming from the Blackness to safely restart the impulse drives for a short time. But there are problems involved. The device uses Auriferite, a goldlike substance we keep in small supply in our stores to help in the growth of different plants and the preservation of some alien plant types. For some reason, this substance, when broken down in the correct fashion, forms a subspace shield against the type of disturbance coming from the Blackness.

  La Forge is convinced we have enough Auriferite to do the job, but only barely. His worry is that he may destroy our only supply if his device does not work correctly. He wants to be sure it will function exactly as he wants it to function. I have told him I agree. He will continue testing, while Mr. Data and the rest of the engineering staff look for other methods to extract us, including setting up a promising adjustment to the deflector screens.

  Section Three: Wet, Spent, and Little to Show

  Grilling Joe “the Undertaker” Morgan was a hot and tiring job. Dixon Hill had long since taken his outer jacket and suitcoat off and loosened his tie. Sweat stained his shirt and he was constantly wiping beads of moisture off his forehead. And he wasn’t even the one sitting under the hot light.

  The Undertaker was a man far too skinny for his black suit. The guy’s thinning hair was plastered to his head like strands of wet string and his mouth hung open like a dog’s, clearly dry and needing water. He smelled of rotting teeth and embalming fluid, a smell that got worse the hotter he got.

  For almost an hour Detective Bell and Dixon Hill had fired questions one after another, like a machine gun with unlimited ammunition. Hill was starting to think that the Undertaker knew nothing more than he claimed. He said he didn’t know who had put the snatch on Cyrus Redblock and killed his men. He hadn’t known about it until an hour after it happened.

  And worse news to Hill, the Undertaker claimed he had never heard of a gizmo called the Adjuster, or a small gold ball called the Heart. And just like with who snatched Redblock, the Undertaker claimed he had no idea who might have the Heart.

  Finally, after Bell had repeated the same question for the tenth time, and the heat of the overhead light had drained the last sweat from the thin Undertaker’s body, he seemed to break.

  “Okay, look,” the Undertaker managed to say, his voice croaking from lack of water, “I give you a name who might know and you leave me alone?”

  “Maybe,” Bell said, his face inches from the Undertaker’s nose.

  “Ghost Johnson,” the Undertaker said. His head dropped forward, as if just saying the name had cost him his last energy.

  Bell stepped back and glanced over at Dixon Hill.

  Dix had never heard of a Ghost Johnson, but it was clear that Bell had. And he didn’t like the sound of the name.

  “You sure about Ghost Johnson?” Bell asked the Undertaker.

  The guy only nodded his head.

  The questioning went on for another half hour, with Bell and Hill getting less and less from the thin man. Finally, when it became clear they were getting nowhere, Detective Bell wiped the sweat off his face with his sleeve and banged on the door for the cop outside to come in. “Take him to his cell. Hose him down first.”

  A big man with a shiny badge entered and walked up to the prisoner, towering over him like a parent over a small child.

  “Hey, you can’t hold me,” the Undertaker complained as the cop roughly hauled him out of the chair under the bright light. “I ain’t done nothin’.”

  “Killin’ cops is a lot more than nothin’,” Bell said, the disgust in his voice clear and very hard.

  “I don’t see no bodies,” the Undertaker said, suddenly having more energy than he had had for the past hour. “Seems you is walkin’ around just fine.”

  Bell laughed. “No thanks to you and your men. You’re goin’ away so we have one less piece of trash cloggin’ the gutter.” Bell nodded to the big cop. “Get him outa here.”

  The Undertaker tried to twist out of the grasp of the cop, but his thin frame was easy to control for the big man. The cop slammed the Undertaker into the wall beside the door, then said, “Oh, excuse me.”

  Bell and the big cop both laughed as the big man yanked the thin Undertaker out of the room.

  Bell flipped off the hot interrogation light and turned on the room’s regular light. Hill slipped on his suit coat and straightened his tie as the temperature of the small room dropped, the heat flowing out the door and into the cooler front area of the station house.

  Hill was glad they had at least gotten another lead. From what the Undertaker had said, if he was to be believed, it was doubtful Hill’s people had found anything in their searches of Redblock’s headquarters and the Undertaker’s building. And right now, with time ticking away, any lead was better than nothing.

  “So where do I find this Ghost Johnson?” Hill asked.

  “You don’t,” Bell said, slipping on his suit jacket and then tossing Hill his raincoat.

  “I got no choice, my friend,” Hill said, standing in Bell’s way.

  “This Heart gizmo is that important, is it?” Bell asked, staring into Hill’s eyes.

  “More than I could ever explain,” Hill said.

  “Not much of an answer for a friend,” Bell said.

  “About all I can say,” Hill said. “Except that I can tell you that it concerns what helped bring you back to life.”

  Bell looked stunned. “You mean whoever controls this gizmo has the power of who lives and who dies?”

  “In a manner of speaking,” Dix said, “yes.” He didn’t want to try to explain to his friend that the life of the entire city depended on finding the Heart of the Adjuster. No point in getting into all that and just confusing the issue.

  Bell pushed past Hill and stepped into the front area of the police station. It felt like walking into a cooler on a hot summer day. Hill saw that Mr. Data and Mr. Carter were both there, waiting.

  Hill put on his raincoat and adjusted the collar as he moved over to Mr. Data. “Any luck?”

  “The search of the Undertaker’s headquarters was interrupted by the police,” Mr. Data said. “The Heart of the Adjuster was not found in Redblock’s headquarters.”

  Bell glanced at Hill. “Doin’ a lot of takin’ the law into your own hands, Dix.”

  “Figured you were busy, so I’d have my people do the legwork while we grilled the Undertaker.”

  Bell laughed. “Yeah, right.”

  “So where do we find this Ghost Johnson?” Hill asked.

  “Ghost Johnson?” Mr. Data asked, looking first at Hill, then at Detective Bell.

  “He’s the only name the Undertaker gave us,” Hill said.

  “I don’t think taking on Ghost Johnson would be a bright idea,” Bell said.

  “As Dr. Trevis Tarrant observed,” Mr. Data said, “‘When there is only one possibility, it can’t be wrong.’ ”

  Hill glanced at Mr. Data. Clearly he had read every mystery he could find. And could now quote the detectives from those books with ease.

  Detective Bell just laughed. “I suppose you might be right.
But understand that with Redblock out of the way, this city is at war. There are goin’ to be dozens of people tryin’ to take over Redblock’s spot as crime boss. Benny the Banger, Harvey Upstairs Benton, Slippery Stan Hand. And the worst of the bunch by far is Ghost Johnson.”

  “And the most likely to have put the snatch on Redblock?” Dix asked.

  Bell shrugged. “Redblock and Ghost hated each other, but they stayed in their own areas and respected each other’s turf. But somethin’ might have changed to make him put the move on Redblock?”

  “Something like the Heart of the Adjuster?” Hill asked, staring at Detective Bell.

  Bell nodded slowly. “All right, we go, but we do this my way.”

  “And how is that?” Dix asked. They couldn’t afford the time to go through official channels for anything.

  “You just let me worry about that,” Bell said. “But we go in just the two of us.”

  Dix patted his old friend Detective Bell on the back. “I’m glad you’re still alive and with us, my friend.”

  Bell laughed. “No more than I am.”

  Twelve hours before the Heart of the Adjuster is pinched

  Captain’s Log.

  I have ordered all nonessential areas of the ship to be shut down due to the recent emergency. For twelve minutes and eight seconds, all ship’s environmental controls were off-line. No crew were injured or in any immediate danger, but the failure clearly illustrates the gravity of our situation.

  Chief Engineer La Forge has asked permission to use a fraction of the available Auriferite to create a blocking barrier around the main environmental controls, to keep them working. He does not believe that such use would jeopardize the possibility of starting the impulse drives.