Fan Fiction ❯ Probing the Depths of the Sea ❯ One-Shot

[probing the depths of the sea]

by Matthew Adair

There are a million stories in this city of Crossroads.

Well, actually, the figure is probably on the order of fifty-seven million stories, one for every man, woman, alien, whatever calls this citadel of sprawl its home. And maybe there's even more than that, if people have more than one story to tell.

That would be my case at least. I'm a private investigator in one of the more lower-class districts on the fringes of the city's core. People come to me and I take their problems and attempt to piece together the information that will allow them to find a solution or, at the very least, a resolution.

People joke and, reveling in their pop culture references, call me "Mr. Negotiator" but that's a load of crap. I don't negotiate and I don't discuss. I find things for people. I am a human search engine.

For instance, there was the matter of the previous Friday. A stocky man with a stony face and a disposition to match entered my office. He calmly charged at my desk and dropped a photo of his upon it.

"Excuse me, sir?" I asked, staring up at him.

"This person," he replied, speaking like a newspaper. A rather heavily accented newspaper at that. Obviously he wasn't from around here, or rather, he hadn't been in Crossroads long enough for it to be diluted by the city's diversity of speech patterns. "I need you to find this person for me."

I sighed. These requests came in often. In the tangled mess of Crossroads City, it was particularly easy to lose someone and never find them again. More often than not I would be hired by some young man or woman looking to find the lost object of their affections.

This case, however, was clearly the child of different motivations. "You should know, sir," I answered politely despite his demanding voice, "I generally ask as to the reason my clients seek out my services."

The stone-faced man made no change in his expression. "I have unfinished business with him. Find him and direct me to him."

He chose then to drop a well-weighted briefcase on my desk, opening the locks to reveal the rows of paper money held within. "I believe these will cover the fees for your services." They would, in fact, more than pay for my services. But when someone drops that much cash on my desk I can't help but be suspicious. Pre-programmed alarms went off in my mind and my face began to look noticeably more irritated.

"Who are you, anyway?" I asked, rising out of my chair only to discover that I barely came up to the man's neck. "That's an awfully large sum of money to be carrying around such a poorly-reputed part of town. What kind of unfinished business," I demanded, holding up the photograph, "do you have with this guy anyway?"

Granite-man's face shifted into a smirk, as though he took pleasure in pushing the buttons of others. "My name is of no consequence to you, nor is my job here." He took the photo from my hands, placing in back on the desk as he tapped on it, causing every knick-knack on the surface to shake around. "I am contracting you to find this man. You have been paid. I expect you to carry out your contract."

He immediately turned to the door, not bothering to wait for any answer from me. "Sure," I muttered, slouching back into my chair. "Whatever you say."

-

It rains here often in Crossroads City. From a purely scientific point of view, the dismal weather in this metropolis probably hinges on its latitude on the planet and the air and water currents flowing along the shoreline.

For those who have lived her long enough, there is a far simpler explanation: the rain is a last-ditch effort of heaven to make something good grow in this careless, selfish city.

I kept studying the photograph the stony man gave me as my only guide. The subject in question was a young man, mid-twenties at the oldest but probably closer to his late teens. His face was tight and business-like behind a pair of dark sunglasses. Brown hair flowing from the crown of his head surrounded his face, providing a frame for him grim look.

It wasn't much of a lead to work from. I'd spent much of my time crawling from government office to government office. The municipal government and the Nexus Corporation-- the true masters of this monument to urban nightmares-- easily maintained their reputation for being as unhelpful as possible. The only real revelation came from visiting the orbiting immigration office, high atop the Crossroads Tower.

"I need the identity of this man," I told the receptionist after being shuffled around the Hub for an hour. "I'm a private investigator on contract to obtain contact information for a client."

The woman nodded as she took the photograph. "We can analyze the photo to match it to anyone who's entered the city legally. It should only take a few moments." Not missing a beat in her well-oiled routine, she fed the image into the scanner. "Can I help you with anything else while you wait though?"

Shaking my head, I quickly retreated to one of the plain milk-white walls. The answers came just a few moments later, just as was promised. According to the city's database of immigrants, the man in the image was one Alexander Sergivich Constantinov, age twenty-nine. Beyond that, however, much of the record was empty. Mr. Constantinov, whoever he is, is obviously not a busy man.

Either that, or he had something to hide from the government.

What it did have, however, was an address for a place of residence. Constantinov lived relatively far from downtown on the boundary of a local commercial district and block of middle-income housing. 'People farms', as the bigwigs in the Babelesque skyscrapers of the inner city liked to call them.

The house itself was an old business warehouse that had been converted into a single housing unit. The building's owner had disappeared from all city records so completely that even his or her name had disappeared, but it remained listed at Constantinov's address.

I wasn't sure what to expect as I stepped out of my car. I knew nothing of my client, who could be anything from an innocent man to a petty thief to a absolute lunatic to a mob target.

It was times like these, I muttered to myself, that I wished I carried a gun.

Carefully ascending the front steps, I reached out to try the door. Nothing; the place was locked ip tight and the lights inside were out. It was late, after all. Stone-man had entered my office around mid-morning, and most of the day had been spent traversing the city. Now, as I knocked at the door, it had run well into the evening.

"Asleep, maybe," I told myself. I went to step back into the rain to try the house's phone number recorded with Constantinov's record when my eyes caught on large, red block print.

ABANDONED.

Groaning, I leaned against the entryway wall opposite the civic notice thrown up by Nexus Corporation. Abandoned. Constantinov-- as well as anyone else who might have shared this enormous block of a building with him-- had long since moved on without updating their records. Without a fresh lead, finding him would prove as futile an exercise as finding a specific grain of sand on a beach many miles long.

I shook my head, returning to my car. It was late and I was hungry from working all day. But more importantly, at least importantly for my mental health, I needed a strong drink.

-

Jim's, down on the corner of 32nd Street and Andrews Avenue, is my prefered place to drown the worst days out in liquor. It wasn't upscale like the lounges perched high in the city's heart, but it was certainly no dive. The old man who owned it, a welcoming face in this selfish city, prides himself in keeping the place as inviting as a bar can be. He certainly succeeds at it, the place standing as an island of humanity in the sea apartment block slums surrounding downtown.

The old man gave me a nod as I entered, looking up from a conversation he'd been having with one of the bar's more frequent visitors. "Ah," he said with a grin, "Dick Tracey's in for the night."

I laughed at his favorite nickname for me as I dropped myself onto one of the barstools. "I don't feel like much of detective tonight, old man...I hope you have enough of my favorite up on the shelf."

Nodding to his previous customer, the old man turned back to the many shelves the held the majority of his stock of liquors. "Brandy, right?" he asked, then chuckled at his own question while pouring a shot. "Of course. You don't drink anything else in here."

"Yeah..." I sighed, tossing back the shot.

The bartender brought over a chair, sitting backward in it as he leaned against the counter. "Well now, what's botherin' you tonight?" he asked me as I stared over the rim of my glass. "I know you deal with some asses in your line of work, and it looks like you got another one."

I took another drink, humming to myself. "I was hired by this huge bastard this morning. He wanted me to dig up the location of some guy with just this photo he dropped on my desk."

"And you didn't tell him to scram?" the old man asked, reaching under the counter to get me a larger glass. "I'm surprised. You usually throw out idiots like that. It's not like your allergic to turning down a client, you know."

The old man had a point. I usually turned down anything that came from anyone I didn't trust innately. Especially cases that came down to me from places like Nexus Corp. and their arena fights. The souls who clashed in that monstrosity that overlooked the east city were sorry souls as it was, usually, and I wanted no part in that venture of ruining lives.

"This is different though," I answered after another drink. "I swear this guy was trying to threaten me. Plus he dropped a huge amount of money on my desk, and that always sets off red flags. I didn't want to tangle with this guy until I knew what I was dealing with."

The old man nodded slowly, sitting back some in his chair. "Interesting..." he mused. "I know there are mob families in Crossroads..."

"I don't think he's a mobster. I've dealt with their type before and they're usually far more subtle in their attempts to bully people."

"Which rules out a city corporation or Nexus, then...hell, those are practically like the mob anyway." I could sympathize with the old man's attitude towards the suits downtown. I'd come to his aid on numerous occasions every time he needed to defend his bar from being bought up by the city. "The trouble is, who else here has got the muscle or the free cash to push you around?"

Shrugging, I rolled my glass with a finger, watching the liquid slosh around in the bottom. "Someone from off Nexus, that's for sure. He didn't sound like he came from here. That could be anyone though." With access to an infinite array of possible universes, a person wanting to keep in the shade could come and grow from a nearly infinite array of places and times.

The old man mused to himself, biting his lip. "You said the guy gave you a photo, right?"

"Yeah..."

My hands riffled through my coat pockets and set the photo out on the counter. The old man blinked, scanned over, the photo, and stared at me. "What is it," I asked, perplexed, "What is it?"

The old man nodded to his left, direction my attention to a man seated down the bar from us. "I believe that's your man," the old man told me, though he didn't need to. The man's profile matched well enough with the image in the picture for the two to be the same person.

I turned towards Constantinov, walking away from my stool to find a closer seat. "Excuse me," I started, "Mr. Constantinov?"

The man glanced up at me, glaring over his sunglasses at my presence. He made a sound somewhere between a snort and a hum, which I took to mean 'proceed with caution'. "I'm a private investigator here in this district. I was hired to find you."

Constantinov turned towards me, leaning on one elbow as he looked over me-- presumably to see how easily I could be disposed of if it so struck him to do so. "Really now?" he muttered back in an accent similar to the stone man, rough and coarse, "And who is it that wishes to find me? I have many enemies, it is very hard to remember them all."

"He didn't give his name." I answered as I slid the photo in front of him. "Just this photo, as well as a phone number on the back."

Constantinov took the photo and examined it, then reached into his pocket to produce a thin, wallet-like item. "Interesting," he mumbled to himself, comparing the photo to an image in the ID sleeve. "So he's still out there. Interesting indeed."

"Excuse me?"

Returning the photo, Constantinov turned back to the bar, motioning for the bartender to bring the two of us a second round of drinks At least, it'd be the second round for me. "The man who hired you...he was a former employer of mine, when I worked in the Committee for State Security."

The name was utterly foreign to me. "The what?"

He slid his ID sleeve across the counter, briefly uncovering the emblem printed on the cover. I'd never seen it personally but the city's vast public libraries, containing information from a multitude of universes, had provided me with enough of an education for me to identify the sword-and-shield crest. "You worked for the KGB?"

Constantinov nodded. "It is not something I am proud of...my boss and I parted ways on what one could call 'poor terms'."

"So I see..." But I was left to wonder why this would be an issue so many years later, in the present day. Why was it still fresh in their consciousnesses? Whatever the nature of their last encounter, why would it matter now? "Violent, I presume."

"I shot his arm off. Then I rant west." Constantinov frowned, replacing the ID back in his pocket, watching with subdued amusement as the shock hit me. "I should have shot his head off instead."

No wonder he kept a low profile.

"It was not senseless violence," he added, raising his glass of brandy to his mouth. "Not at all. I have been told of an idea called 'karma'...you are familiar with it, hm?"

The religious awakening of an assassain. This I wanted to hear. "You mean the idea that all things in the universe, good and ill, balance out?" A gross oversimplification, maybe. The gurus would surely wring my neck later, but it was good enough for my question.

"Yes, that is it." Constantinov nodded, raising himself off his stool. "That is it exactly. He robbed me of something, so I did the same to him." Dropping a few bills in the hand of the old man, he nodded to me as he headed to the door. "It wasn't perfect. But I will discuss the matter with him at my convenience, not his."

"Sir..."

"Good evening, Mr. Investigator. Try not to be drinking yourself stupid, alright?"

The bells rang over the door while I dropped my head back onto the counter. Somehow, I always seem to reconsider my career choice every time I come to this old bar.

-

"So," the stone man smiled, approaching me the following morning at the location he gave me. "Have you found the information I requested?"

I'd considered all morning how to reply to such a question before placing the phone call to set the meeting. If Constantinov were right and this thug worked or had worked for the KGB, I could find myself in hot water. Lord only knows just what he could do to me should I fail to cooperate.

However, I didn't feel as though it would be right to tip the bastard off to Constantinov's whereabouts. Whatever the offenses had been that these two had committed against one another, I knew that perpetuating this vendetta on the tone man's behalf would result in a great injustice for Constantinov.

That, I told myself, I just couldn't stomach.

"No," I told him, looking him in the eye to assure him that, yes, I wasn't lying. Which I wasn't...at least, not completely. "All the records the city has on Mr. Constantinov point to dead ends. He no longer lives at his listed address, and his records have no means of reliably contacting him."

Paradoxically, the stone man smiled even more. "So, he has disappeared into this sea of foolishness," he said, staring out along one of downtown Crossroads' main avenues. "It seems I will be needing to dive deeper to draw him out of the abyss."

I did my best to hide my annoyance with this scheme of his. "I assume you'll be wanting your money returned."

"Do not bother. I have more than enough wealth, and you have performed your duty as asked."

The stone man turned away, crossing the avenue with his back to me. "Farewell, sir. I do hope that we will both find success in our future endeavors."

Frowning at his hidden face-- knowing full well he was probably still grinning like the bastard he is-- I turned the opposite way. "Well," I answered back, not caring if he could hear me or not, "I hope some of us will."

[fin]