Flashback

At first, out of practice with tactical and having never practiced with this quality of tactical, Nick made the rookie’s mistake of stepping around and squeezing between the human forms in the crowded room. Then he shook his head ruefully and began walking through them to get where he was headed. The solid-looking three-dimensional digital maquettes didn’t object.

In one corner, a stocky, handsome, sandy-haired former Google exec wearing saffron robes was explaining the karmic glories of Total Immersion to five or six rapt young people. Nick remembered the guy—Derek Somebody. He’d been on Sato’s Top 18 list of witness-suspects yesterday morning… but Nick hadn’t been paying much attention then. He remembered now that he’d had to drive up to Boulder to interview the Buddhist-robed jerkwad at the Naropa Institute there six years ago. Derek Somebody was a total flash addict whose goal was to relive every second of his forty-six years of life in a total-immersion flashback tank. The goal was satori via flashback.

“The murder floor is like this, too?” Nick asked while trying to remember the name of one of the more spaced-out men here standing in the small kitchen area and holding a glass filled with amber liquid that obviously had just come from a solid, real-world bottle of expensive-looking Scotch.

“Yes.”

“Jesus,” said Nick, remembering the crime-scene and autopsy photos. “Wait, has Mr. Nakamura seen all this?”

“Of course,” Sato said in tones that couldn’t get any flatter. “Many times.”

“You did this for your private investigation,” said Nick. He realized how dull-witted he sounded… no, was… but didn’t feel apologetic about that. He had damned good reason to feel a little slow this morning.

Sato nodded ever so slightly. The big security chief was following Nick around the large living area and smaller kitchen space. He showed no hesitation at walking through people.

“In that suit,” said Nick, talking just to shake the cobwebs out of his head, “you remind me of Goldfinger’s guy… Oddjob.”

Sato showed no sign of recognition and Nick mentally kicked himself for trying to make conversation. The rule of cop life—hell, of life—was that you don’t try to converse with your own armpit or asshole, so don’t try with ambulatory surrogates of same.

Nick sighed and said mostly to himself—Still, if Mr. Nakamura keeps seeing all this and visiting his son’s freshly murdered corpse upstairs, it must be…”

Nick froze. He turned slowly to stare at Sato and said, “Why, you miserable motherfucker.”

One of Sato’s dark eyebrows rose a few millimeters in query. Otherwise, the big man showed no expression.

“You sure in hell didn’t get all this detail from witness statements or memory,” said Nick.

“Perhaps some witnesses volunteered to submit to flashback before describing details?” suggested Sato. Detairs.

“My ass,” said Nick.

Sato folded his hands over his crotch in the ancient posture of funeral directors, military men at ease during a dressing-down, and security men trying to disappear into the wallpaper or drapes behind them.

“My ass,” repeated Nick for no other reason than he liked the sound of it. “You were here. You were on all three floors that night. You know how to observe better than any so-called witness there that night. You went under flashback—probably for weeks of sessions—to see and record all this incredible detail so you could give it to the VR programmers. You did.”

Sato said nothing.

“It is illegal for all Japanese nationals to own, sell, possess, or use flashback, either in Japan or when traveling abroad,” said Nick. “And, if convicted of the offense, the only punishment a judge may impose under Japanese law is death by lethal injection.”

Sato stood there calmly.

“You motherfucker,” repeated Nick, also just because he liked the sound of it. And because it was overdue. But he also hesitated in his newfound advantage. Why on earth would Sato give Nick such life-and-death leverage over him?

The answer was—he wouldn’t.

Nick walked quickly from room to room, passing through frozen forms without hesitating. This is simultaneous. In all three rooms and the kitchen, what one could see of the other rooms was occurring at the same instant. Even if Sato had gone under the flash, he couldn’t have recalled what was occurring simultaneously in different rooms here on the first floor, much less what might have been happening on the second and third floors.

Not for the first time this miserable morning, Nick Bottom felt like throwing up.

Sato nodded as if reading Nick’s thoughts (again) and handed Nick two blue-glowing earbuds.

Nick set them in place with a sick dread at what would come next. And it did.

Sato pressed an icon on his phone’s diskey and all the digitally re-created three-dimensional people around him and in the adjoining room came to life. Just the ambient roar of party noise made Nick reflexively throw his hands over his ears. With the tiny earbuds set deep, that obviously didn’t help much.