THE ROOT OF ALL EVIL (Short Story)

“If we manage to catch this offender, she’s going to be the best soldier Kerton has ever seen.”

Chuwen Muller bent over the body of a middle-aged man, careful not to step into the large pool of blood that framed the man’s head. He put his hands in the pockets of his black jumpsuit, pulling the fabric taught over the small pouch of fat that had started to accumulate on his stomach since he turned 50.

“I agree. There was clearly a hand-to-hand struggle, but she managed to overpower the poor tronk. That means she has to be at least two meters tall. Maybe even two point five,” said Olin Fogue, who himself was much shorter, and clad in an impeccable maroon vest and dress pants.

“Yes, well, I was referring to her obvious bloodlust, Olin, not her probable amazonian stature. She wanted there to be a struggle.”

Olin turned quickly and looked at the stained floor, searching for the clue that had inspired his partner’s deduction. He hated when Chu noticed something before he did. Olin looked at the back of his Chu’s bleached blond head, praying that he would continue his explanation without prompting. Don’t make me beg for it…he whined inwardly.

In the background, the ocean reflected shimmery waves of light into the boat cabin they were standing in. After waiting in silence for another thirty seconds, Olin sighed. Chu had been in one of his characteristic funks all morning. He needed this.

“Tell me, Doctor, what have you figured out this time?” Olin asked as he walked over to his partner, doing his best to show only curiosity, and not jealousy on his sharp, bronze features.

Chu twirled around, smiling widely, his semi-hooded eyes forming the shape of two happy rainbows.

“Well, you see, I conversed with the dock attendant earlier. He said he saw a tall woman summon her boat at first light, almost seven hours ago. This sorry man died only one hour ago.” Chu cleverly cultivated a moment of dramatic silence before continuing.

“She was waiting for him, like a tunnel spider in its shaded nest. She could have shot him, as she eventually did, the moment he wandered through the cabin door as dim as a broken Compalm. But she waited. She confronted him. She allowed him to get close enough to her, close enough that they could touch. Bite. Scratch. Only once he was beaten and bloody did she finally shoot a disc through his neck.” Chu punctuated his macabre assessment with a slice of his hand through the salty air.

Olin clicked his tongue. “When did you talk to an attendant?”

“While you were in the bathroom.”

Olin clicked his tongue again, annoyed. “It’s not often they don’t run away as soon as they see us.” The tablet spectrometer in his hand beeped and projected an analysis into the air above it. “Phernamiom B-17 traces on the rubber carpet,” he read. “So we know she definitely has ovaries.”

He folded the tablet spectrometer in half and slid it into the back pocket of his hand-crafted utility belt. “Alright, we’re done here. I want to talk to the attendant too.”

Chu shrugged and tapped his watch, pulling up a holographic screen in the air in front of him as he slowly lumbered towards the cabin door, his mind already elsewhere. The duo stepped off the boat into the bright mid-morning sun.

The two Extractors approached the dock attendant’s wind-shorn booth, Olin walking briskly in the lead, while Chu lagged behind, looking at something on his Compalm. The attendant wanted to flee, but his sense of duty kept him nervously rooted behind his desk.

“Good morning,” Olin greeted the attendant with practiced politeness. “My partner thinks you may have seen the offender.”

The attendant let out a small ‘eep.’ “The really tall gal? She’s the one who did...who um…”

“We believe so, yes,” interjected Chu, closing his screen and stepping forward to address the attendant. “What else can you tell me about her other than that she was tall?”

“She was pretty pale, just about the same shade as you,” he said, pointing at Chu’s white skin. “And red hair, I think.”

“And the boat she boarded, that’s a sealine modified Jesper x45 correct? 3121?” Olin asked.

“Yes, er, yes it is.”

Olin perked up onto his toes, then lowered back down onto his heels. “Judging by the slunch buildup on the topsides, I’d say that boat hasn’t been outside of these dockwaters in over a year, is that so?”

“Um, I’d have to check the logs. I summoned it dockside a couple days ago, at the owner’s request, but as far as I know they haven’t taken it out.” The attendant activated a screen to his left. “You sure do know a lot about boats for an Extractor.”

Olin gave a polite, serious smile. “Of the 14,103 murders that occurred last year on Garron, 43% of them occurred on boats or docks. By refusing to put up cameras, dock owners have made a side profit from providing some of the last public spaces without surveillance. It is a grim business, but here we are.”

“Not nearly as grim as our business,” Chu said, groaning the words more than speaking them. Olin rolled his eyes and waited for the rant that was about to come, a rant he had heard a hundred times before.

“Of those 14,000 murders my partner just mentioned,” Chu began, “10,000 were solved automatically by our beloved surveillance AI. Of the remaining, Olin and I investigated, how many again?”

“82,” Olin said with a theatrical sigh, before Chu had even finished the question.

“82. We were sent to nearly 82 murder scenes, many of them filled with blood and brain matter and human insides, and even one case with some alien insides, and we had to look at it all, very very closely. Then we had to pursue the monsters that had committed these unthinkable aberrations. Well, not so unthinkable in the world we live in today, under a constant state of fear of our neighbors, never knowing if they are who they claim to be, or if they’re an alien tree seeking to suck our consciousness from our cranium. And what do we do with these forsaken offenders when we catch them?”

The lost attendant looked at Olin, who made a rolling gesture with his hand. Chu continued unabated.

“We send them to Kerton. We ship them across the great galaxy to a planet besieged by the Silen hive mind. Not to get rid of them, scus no, Kerton pays us to do it! Those rare people who commit murder are the perfect soliders in the battle against Silen, for It cannot sink Its psychic roots into their sickeningly abnormal minds. Plus, the offenders have already proven to have the unthinkable ability to take sentient life, which they will need to do en masse if we are to win the war against the population that Silen has taken for Its own. But sadly, they are being sent to slaughter, because we can never win against Silen. It will assimilate all of the acceptable minds on Kerton, and kill the rest. And then It will unleash Its full power here on Garron, and we will meet the same fate.”

The attendant’s eyes were as wide as moons, his brain struggling to comprehend the string of obscenities his ears had just heard.

“But don’t worry, I can tell without looking at your Complex Score that you’re average enough to be assimilated. Olin and I though, heh, we’ll be the first to be culled.”

Olin could see this conversation needed to end. “Thank you for your time, um,” he paused to allow the attendant to provide his name, but he only stared blankly ahead. “Ahem. May your path be as predicted.” Olin gave a strained bow and pulled his partner out of the booth.

“You don’t have to be an abno to feel a little crazy these days, eh?” Chu said over his shoulder as Olin dragged him away.

“May your path be…as…” the attendant murmured, too stunned to complete the routine farewell, as he gazed listlessly out to sea.

“Feel better?” Olin asked Chu with an accusatory tone. “I know scaring innocent bystanders usually perks your parts.”

“Not today, it would seem,” Chu replied glumly. Olin couldn’t understand how his partner could speak so nonchalantly about the alien hive mind that threatened to invade their planet.

“Shall we review our recording of the crime scene?” Chu asked as he tapped his wrist to pull up a screen in the air before him.

“I have to go to the bathroom first,” Olin replied.

Chu huffed and started playing the footage, pulling the boundaries of his Compalm’s screen so that it was as three-dimensional as the tiny hovering projectors would allow.

Olin walked back towards the booth, feeling slightly bad about how nervous his re-appearance would make the attendant. The skin ….. [CONTINUE READING]