Serial Killer Vs. E-merica E-Book

Robert Jeschonek

• Herausgeber: Pie Press
• Kategorie: Fantasy und Science-Fiction
• Sprache: Englisch

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2019

Beschreibung

A serial killer is murdering E-Congress! Virtual reality e-representatives form a more perfect union in a future America of a hundred states. Until someone reaches into the computerized Congress and murders them one by one. Only Nevada, the e-rep sergeant-at-arms with a shadowy past, stands a chance of tracking the killer. But the trail grows deadlier with every step Nevada takes. America's digitized government might rule from a virtual Capitol, but e-blood runs thick in the hallowed halls. When the killing stops, will Nevada make America's high tech tomorrow safe for e-democracy? Or will a terrible secret pull the trigger on a nation's hopes and dreams? Only "Acirema the Rellik" knows for sure. Don't miss this exciting tale by award-winning storyteller Robert Jeschonek, a master of unique and unexpected science fiction that really packs a punch.

Leseprobe

Serial Killer Vs. E-merica

A SCIENCE FICTION TALE

ROBERT JESCHONEK

Contents

Also by Robert Jeschonek

Serial Killer Vs. E-merica

About the Author

Special Preview: Six Scifi Stories Volume Four

SERIAL KILLER VS. E-MERICA

Copyright © 2023 by Robert Jeschonek

http://bobscribe.com/

Cover Art Copyright © 2023 by Ben Baldwin

www.benbaldwin.co.uk

This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are products of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

All rights reserved by the author.

Published by Blastoff Books

An Imprint of Pie Press

411 Chancellor Street

Johnstown, Pennsylvania 15904

www.piepresspublishing.com/

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Also by Robert Jeschonek

100th Power Book 1

100th Power Book 2

100th Power Book 3

Blastoff!

Cosmic Conflicts

Gray Lady Rising (with Annie Reed)

In a Green Dress, Surrounded by Exploding Clowns and Other Stories

In the Empire of Underpants and Other Stories

Battlenaut Crucible

Scifi Motherlode

Sticks and Stones: A Trek Novel

Serial Killer Vs. E-merica

The great state of Missouri lay across the Speaker's bench at the front of the House of E-representatives, wrapped in the American flag.  His eyes and mouth gaped, and his arms and legs hung over the sides, dripping blood on the carpet below.

"Oh, God," said Connecticut, her shaky hand hovering over Missouri's motionless chest.  "He's not breathing."

Manitoba stood on the next tier down and wouldn't come any closer.  "Is there a--what's it called? Heartbeat?"

Connecticut lowered her hand, then jerked it away.  "That's in the throat, right?" Nervously, she scrubbed her palms on her smart red pantsuit.  "Or is it the arm?"

That was when Nevada had finally had enough.

Without a word, he pushed his tall, lanky body through the crowd on the floor of the House and charged up the steps to the Speaker's bench.  Without hesitation, he pressed two fingers against the side of Missouri's throat.

"No pulse."  Nevada said it loud enough for the whole crowd to hear.  "The Speaker of the House is dead."

A great gasp went up from the crowd--the computer-generated, artificial intelligence-driven avatars of ninety-eight of the one-hundred states of the United States of America.  Though they didn't have flesh-and-blood bodies and shouldn't have feared being murdered in the physical sense, the evidence of dead Missouri had left them all shell-shocked.

"But how?"  Connecticut slipped off her gold-rimmed glasses, let them hang by the diamond-studded chain around her neck...then slid them back on a second later.  "And why?"

Nevada pushed up the sleeves of his tuxedo.  He took Missouri's head in his hands and turned it gently to one side, exposing a gruesome wound.  "Blow to the back of the head." Accepting the wound for what it appeared to be instead of what it was--an electronic simulation of a wound--he looked around for a simulated weapon that could have caused it.  "What did it and why, I don't know."

"What are those?"  Connecticut pointed at bloody marks on Missouri's left arm.

Nevada put Missouri's head down on the bench and took a look at the arm.  Wiping some of the blood away, he realized the marks followed a familiar design.

Someone had cut a number into Missouri's arm.  "One hundred," said Nevada. "It's the number one hundred."

The crowd murmured and moved restlessly.  Nevada could tell the e-reps were confused because they usually acted more decisively.

They were A.I. avatars of the United States in the year 2300, guided by the aggregate preferences of the human electorate in the world outside.  Perfectly attuned to the people they represented, perfectly immune to corruption, they never hesitated or doubted themselves.

That was why their confusion was unusual...and it didn't last long.  As Nevada examined the body on the Speaker's bench, three of the e-reps broke from the pack and stormed toward him with jaws and shoulders set.

Sinaloa, in the middle, flipped his red-lined bullfighter's cape over his shoulder.  "This is impossible." An American state since Mexico had disbanded twenty-five years ago, Sinaloa cultivated an air of insolence and false bravado.  "What we see here is the product of a server malfunction."

"Exactly."  South Africa tossed his glossy blond hair beside Sinaloa.  "This is a bug. The Developers will fix it."

Nevada rubbed the stubbly cleft of his chin and met South Africa's blue-eyed stare.  "Like Idaho?"

South Africa straightened his khaki safari shirt and looked away.  So did stocky Kamchatka, the recent Russian convert, who had followed him up the steps.

Sinaloa glared.  "I hear that Idaho might have been someone else's fault.  Not the Developers."

A cold, threatening smile spread across Nevada's face.  He knew exactly whom Sinaloa was talking about.

He was talking about Nevada.

"Then maybe you'd best be careful."  Nevada adjusted his gold pinky rings and cracked his knuckles.  "Just in case he can hear what you're saying."

"If, by some wild chance, the same person is responsible for this crime, I hope he does hear me," said Sinaloa.  "I want him to know he won't get away with what he's done."

"Tell him yourself, when you catch him."  Nevada started to walk away.

"I won't catch him."  Sinaloa snagged Nevada's shoulder and held him in place.  "You're sergeant-at-arms of the House, aren't you?"

Nevada sighed.  "As of twenty-four hours ago.  What makes you think I'm ready to catch a killer?"

Sinaloa let go of Nevada.  "We all know you've done this job before."  He tightened his bolo tie, pushing the turquoise slide higher into the neck of his black silk shirt.  "Five years ago, yes?"

"So what?" said Nevada.

"So you've got experience," said Sinaloa.  "Not just with being sergeant-at-arms, but with losing e-reps on the job."

Nevada felt the urge to clock him in the face.  Idaho had been his greatest failure, his darkest moment.

His deepest love.

"You're better qualified than any of us.  You have more motivation to solve this than anyone," said Sinaloa.  "You have quite a lot to prove, don't you?"

Nevada smirked and loosened the collar of the frilly shirt under his tux jacket.  "You just don't want to get your hands dirty. None of you ever do."

Even as he said it, he knew Sinaloa was right.  He knew what people thought of him. He knew he had a lot to prove.

And he knew he would take the case.

* * *

"Missouri and I walked out together," said Antarctica, her beautiful silver eyes staring into space.  "He went back in for some papers he'd forgotten." She tucked her long, platinum hair behind her ears, and a single tear rolled down her pale cheek.  "That was the last time I saw him alive."

Across the table, Nevada watched Antarctica's reaction closely.  She was the last person to have seen Missouri before the murder, and that earned her a spot on the list of suspects.

She was also a sweet kid, and Nevada didn't buy her as a killer.  She was the youngest e-rep, in fact, from the newest, hundredth state; Antarctica had joined the U.S.A. only one year ago, in 2299.  Strikingly beautiful and shining with inner light, the junior Congresswoman gave Nevada an impression of innocence and honesty, not wiles and lies.

For a moment, Nevada looked away from her, directing his gaze across the chamber at the bloody Speaker's bench.  While Nevada interviewed witnesses in the back of the room, other e-reps were up front, clearing the crime scene.

"Did he say anything unusual?"  Nevada flicked his eyes to Antarctica, then back to the cleanup crew.  They'd already removed Missouri's body, but the blood was another matter.  Soap and water didn't exist in the digital realm, so the e-reps couldn't scrub out the soaked-in stains.

Antarctica adjusted her white fur wrap.  "Just small talk about today's vote."

As Nevada considered his next question, his fellow