Katchi Hong Tom Foolery

The Securicon Level 8 flashed blue text at the back of my eyeballs using my sunglasses with heart-shaped side panels as receiver. Summoned to the Caribbean. Not a simple "by your command message" seeing as I was seated at the bar of the Kauai Sands Palace bar, sipping my third Mai Tai, my bare legs sticking to the stool, sweat collecting at the cross-heart support inside my gray jumpsuit. I allowed pineapple juice to swirl over my tongue before chewing down the cherry. Fruit. Only thing real these days. That and the vegetables and some local specialties at great cost. I shivered, brushing waist-length silky hair back on my shoulders.

I sucked down the rest of the drink, before chewing an auto-adjuster tab tasting faintly of papaya and chalk. I hated wasting a good buzz but one never ignores a Level 8; people were dead.

I returned to my room, packing my shoulder bag on top of the newly made bed with it's powder blue and white quilt. I took one last whiff of sweet pikake and spicier ginger from the table décor and dashed out, swiping my identity card, status flashing instant checkout approval. An air-taxi blaring oh-wah-oh-way hula and pilot carrying a message board with my name, Katchi Hong, waited outside the lobby.

I rubbed my lower back absentmindedly while they stowed my gear. This would be one of those marathon circuits, no layovers, no spot work, just mile after mile body-webbed seating and sleeper juice.

From Kauai, I hopped over to Los Angelos Metro without any delay, then stumbled aboard the MagLev to Miami by way of the Great Western, fitting in a bit of shuteye before finding a water-express awaited my journey to Grand Cayman Island for my first visit. Every step of the way, Security guards escorted me past the hoi polloi crowds.

I had plenty of time to be curious. I'd scanned the news with my new priority and a key word of death, murder, suicide and all the rest, but nothing came up on the wire free net. The authorities were already covering up. I figured it had to be my three hundred tours of duty that rated me this gig. I'd done nothing else noteworthy, but I would be the record-setting first to break the two-fifty barrier and beyond. I was good. I'd seen everything.

Since McFoodFeed, Inc, the company I worked for as a mechanic Level 12, had streamlined food production world-wide, and it's subsidiary McHealthMD, had nurtured world population to Generation 5 of longevity, there was little reason for most people to work. I did so because I had itchy feet. No health condition that. I just wanted to travel, see new. I was edging up toward an off-world chit, but kept putting it off. There were empty boxes on my cities checklist. No hurry. I had a probable eighty more years to go and the world was a lovely, semi-simulated, semi-uniform place to see.

#

The Singapore Sling Lounge wasn't so pleasant. I sniffed, pulling up my nose at the sweat stench as I entered the dim lit red velvet room hung with fishing net interior. Three stiffs, minds still showing an active brain scan on the doctor's three terminal readout panels, but all bodily neural function absent, slumped over a round hibachi table for twelve. The MD had installed freezer packs on their bodies, perhaps the only reason decay hadn't set in despite the fourteen-hour delay since the first call went in. The plates on the table contained fat-congealed simprawns, three plates of half-eaten dim sum and vegetables sticky with Teriyaki and really reeky vomit despite the stench-squelch foam.

An Evidence Technician from the local Civil Security Bureau blinked off her ultra-violet scanner shield glasses, pulling off half a dozen evidence tape disks and placing them in a pouch.

I looked around for the Detective in charge who'd issued my summons, a man I expected to be red-haired, over-weight and predisposed to wearing Harris Tweed jackets over a rumpled white shirt, from the Securicon signature block.

Detective Pevis Iris entered the dining room through the door to the security booth at mid room. He'd recently lost a good twenty pounds, I guessed. "Ah, Ms. Hong, you have arrived with due speed. Thank you. The doctor's preliminary assessment is food-induced paralysis and poisoning. We fear a terrorist group at work."

I lowered my head in acknowledgment. "At your service, Detective Iris."

A hand wave toward the almost corpses, followed by a thick mustache waggle answered me because a black man caught the Detective by his shoulder and whispered in his ear. Iris blinked, then focused again on me. "While we get the crime scene cleaned up, I'd like you to explain how someone might introduce contaminants into the restaurant. You're familiar with the equipment?"

Like most of the hibachi table's in the lounge, it was the latest model, a Thirteen-CF, the latter initials indicating release and maintenance versions. I was one of eight mechanics certified to perform full maintenance.

Uh-oh. I assessed the Detective through lowered lashes. Were any McFoodFeed employees under suspicion? No matter, my duty was clear. "Table guests could tamper with the food on the plates, that's option one. The hold of the table contains the flavor and texture injectors. That's your second and third source of contamination. Your fourth comes from the kitchen. The main protein-sucrose tanks. And there's a tie off mid-line to each table. Then there's the compost bins and of course, Confederated Labs. They provide the feeder stock."

An Asian man with shaggy hair hanging below a white chef cap burst through the doors from the kitchen. At sight of me, he whirled and took off running out the front doors. Caught us all flat-footed.

Detective Iris recovered quickest, ordering a helicopter intercept from downtown. "What? You know that man?"

My eyebrow still raised in surprise, I couldn't deny it. "Not by name. By reputation. He's one of the Dusty's."

"Say again?"

I collapsed onto a nearby stool, shaking my head and laughing in semi-hysteria. How could he not know of the malcontents of this generation. "Dusty's. Compost crew. Ordered to serve out community sentences in exchange for jail time. Spend half their days head stuck into rotting waste. That stuff itches, smells, gets into every pore. You hack it out of your lungs. Serve too long, you have to re-up to pay for lung rehab. Makes you a lifetime goner."

Big stupid mouth hanging open on the guy. "Yeah?"

I rolled my eyes. "Don't get it do you? If they're behind this, we could all die. Not a shred of food is produced without going through the Dusty's. If they've found some way to contaminate it, we're done for. How will we ever trust anyone of them with our food? Means grand-scale social adjustments. People might have to work. We might have to jail or exterminate them all. This may mean global civil war. Get the politicians involved, man, now, now, now!"

The Detective had the courtesy of blanching, sweat breaking out on his forehead. Good. Scared him a bit, hopefully enough. His hand shook as he fingered his wrist computer. "Upload testimony to the Minister of Defense, the Mayor, the head of Interior." Then he turned to me, jaw jutting in threat. "You, check in. I'll need you on call. They've picked up our Dusty."

I nodded and turned to leave, but not before overhearing him order lab tests on every part of the dining equipment. At my hotel room a half-hour later, I filed my own report for management. Potential liabilities were high. I ordered a salad dinner with live grown seafood just in case.

#

The numb of nap time sleep on my lips competed with the heaviness of my eyes. What had awakened me? Or who? All I could see in the bright light reflecting off the pool patio was blue pants-legs.

"Ms. Hong?"

My brain-filled in Detective Pevis Iris and that was almost as good as caffeine but before I sat up or answered, I sent in my Coffee Nudge order. "Yes?"

"You were explaining to me how you knew the cook at The Singapore Sling?"

Before the waiter reached myself and before I could see the expression on the detective's face, a jab stung my arm. "What?"

His gray bushy eyebrows looked like the scale of justice above his regal nose."Truth serum. Here's the search warrant."

Suddenly I wanted a swim badly but I knew what a lost cause it was to fight authorities. "Old boyfriend. We broke up over our competing views. He told me I sold out the brotherhood when I won a scholarship to college to get my mechanical engineering degree."

"When was the last time you saw Regan Muskit?"

An image flashed into mind. Big bulldozers shoved huge mounds of dark musty mulch beside a gray building and a telephone booth and the hood tattoo. "Regan Muskit? That's his name? I met him through my boyfriend just once. Ten years ago. He called me out of the blue, drunk and babbling about his loneliness. I went to pick him up at the Stirrings in Blue Dale, but no one was there. So I did the obvious, went to the local phone booth to give him a call, and there, poised on the access pad, a handwritten card threatening suicide. Frantic, I called and called and then he came out the work door laughing at his little joke. I hate emotional manipulation. Regan was with him. They took off to get plowed, making fun of me. That was the end." Sickness filled my belly, the sole remainder of the incident. It's hard to love someone and then learn you've been used.

The detective paced back and forth while I listened to the pure notes of falling water from the pool fountain. "And what can you tell me about beans?"

I shook my head, drawing a blank. "Refried? Sauteed? Varieties? Seasoning?"

"Regan or your boyfriend, what was his name again? They ever work with fresh food?"

I clutched the armrests, wanting to hold the words inside but it was hopeless. "Tom Graydon." I stirred restlessly, then got up and put my robe on and walked to the pool and put my feet in. Something inside had triggered, but the thought was incomplete. I shook my head. "There's something I can't remember."

I met Detective Iris' green eyes. He tapped his wrist computer, adding notes about me, no doubt.

"How about bean sprouts?"

Cold swept through me and I gagged. Holding my hands to my mouth, I rushed to the bar and found a garbage can, stomach heaving. It took a few minutes to pass and when I rose shakily, Detective Iris helped me up. "That's quite the reaction to my questioning."

I blinked at him. "Phytohaemagglutinin. Regan and Graydon discussed the toxicity of red kidney beans, especially when sprouted. Induces paralysis and violent vomiting. They tried to kill me with it. Whatever they've done, I'm immune. If so ... I think I know a fix, but I need to work it and get it authorized through headquarters."

"Can you provide us any means of contacting the Dusty's?"

I shook my head no. "Only way to identify members is by the hood tattoo. They hide it in different places I was told."

Detective Iris tapped his wrist computer. "Okay. I'll trust you. To a point. Also listed on the search warrant you'll find that you are advised that you're under twenty-four hour satellite surveillance. We won't lose you. We won't miss any action you take."

Still shaken from my bout of nausea, I could only nod mutely. Maybe that was in my favor and maybe not. Hard to tell.

#

After a good eight hours work on the wire free net and a number of false starts, I thought I had the promised solution to the Dusty's plot-a microwave element that would heat the appropriate medias to a temperature that would nullify the effects of the phytohaemagglutin, the toxic substance in red kidney beans that causes all the ill effects.

Rubbing my eyes, I ordered a late night dinner and finalized my report for headquarters. The main message being that if we kept mum that we knew about the plot, we might be able to foil any of the Dusty's other poison attempts that derived from the mulch or any of the McFoodFeed production equipment sources. Headquarters would have to figure out how to pay for the equipment and installations-my unvisited city list looked likely to fill quickly.

I was just ready to send the message when a knock from the room service robot sounded on the door.

I answered.

It was golden-bearded Graydon with his left twitchy eye. Graydon with his hands on my throat, wrestling me to the couch and sitting me on his lap. Laughing. "Darling, I bet you missed me. C'mon, give me a kiss."

His scent, cigarette smoke with a touch of gin brought back images of love making. Heat flushed through me. I wondered what it was in my physical make up that was attracted. Pheromones? Some after-effect of hypnosis from all those times in our relationship during school when I'd played guinea pig?

Then his lips were moving over mine and my body melted into his all the while my head was thinking, I really needed a knife, gun, anything to kill this guy and get some peace of mind. Maybe he was soft on me and I could manipulate the situation in my favor some way.

His hot breath surrounded one of my ears and I quivered. But his words froze me through to my bones. "You're the weak link, Katchi. You go away, the authorities can't stop us. I'm sorry, but that's the way life is."

Mouth dry, I nerved myself to ask. "You plan to kill me then? Why don't you just get it over with? You've killed me so many times before, what difference does one more make? You want me to beg or something?"

He jerked me closer so his breath sprayed right in my mouth and I couldn't still my jerk away. "You'll do what I say."

I nodded, wishing, oh, please, why is room service so slow.

Of course, he answered, as if he knew every thought I had. "Dispatched room service on the way inside. They won't be showing. Who was the boyfriend earlier?"

Licking my lips first, I decided to lie because I had to hit the send key on my report. "Don't remember his name exactly, he shot me up with truth serum and it..."

"Skip the crap."

"Okay. I wrote it down on my desk."

He jerked me to my feet. "You ain't going nowhere near you computer, chickypoo. Grab a night bag, c'mon. And put on dark clothing. We're tripping out of here. You be sweet to me, you live."

While I changed, Graydon made his first mistake and let go of me long enough to pee. I dashed to my computer and just as I hit the submit key, Graydon dove toward me, knife in hand and ... I closed my eyes.

Heat seared along my flank and water splashed all over my back and then a thump sounded along the skidding table.

I've never felt such pain before and still keep my feet. I wobbled though and felt a breeze come from somewhere close. And when I dared to try to find my open my eyes, the world had turned awfully red and Graydon lay at my feet.

While I wondered if I was okay to bathe or should I call Detective Iris or give Graydon first aid or check my computer didn't fry itself, two robot cops entered and I simply followed orders until I was clean, doctored, debriefed and moved into a new room to sleep a strangely dreamless night.

Next morning, McFoodFeed had shipped my parts and I made the rounds of the half-dozen kitchens city wide before heading to Rio. Then I signed up for my off-world chit with nothing to hold me to this planet. I never cried. I expected too. But sometimes the food we think we need for our soul is better re-purposed as compost.