Priceless

CW: Contains themes of and/or references to gun violence

I’m Gina Garrison but my friends call me Grift. Not because I deceive or steal things from them. Because I do it to everyone else. It’s not like crime pays. But it pays the bills.

New York City and I tried real jobs and thought I could make a decent living. One day I realized people are far more interested in parting with their own money if I made it entertaining. But I’m no sleaze and nobody touches my body.

At lunchtime, I strode into Magic Bob’s Bistro, an upscale storefront restaurant. Ahh, quiet, ambiance, music lilted over speakers. Aromas of steak, spices, various peppers, and their world-class coffee. I love this place.

Such a contrast to the bustling world beyond the glass, where people strode with concern, cars whisked on arbitrary missions, so much chaos and noise, one must shout to be heard.

Not in here. People can converse in whispers with little effort.

In a window booth sat my best friend Haley Connor. She beamed a smile and waved.

We share the same height and weight, five-eight and kinda skinny. She sports eyeglasses, light frizzy hair, freckles, and a smile that always stabilizes my soul. We met at age six and share the same interests, music, sense of humor, guys, the whole bit. She moved into the city a year ago and now we do lunch twice a week. We’ve double-dated a few times. Nothing lasting.

I threw back my mane of jet-black hair and lowered onto the cushion. “Hey girl!”

“Got some good news.” Haley grinned ear-to-ear like it was more spectacular than good. “Remember Brianna who took that job across town—”

“You beat out the other girl for her spot?” I chuckled.

“Even better,” she said. “Brianna poached her so my boss didn’t have any other options but me. I get a thirty percent increase in pay, Gina. Can you imagine?”

“Good for you.” My deepest soul bubbled for her. She’s a hard worker and deserved it.

We caught up on latest news and our lives. The food arrived and we were halfway through it. Haley’s face blanched. “Uh-oh.”

Five masked men entered the restaurant, each with a gun and a black bag. I don’t recall much of the onset except they told us to stay seated and hand over everything.

Since before I moved here, I’ve been aware of the criminal element. I even carry a leather decoy wallet with coupons, old movie tickets, and twenty bucks in small bills. My real wallet is around my ankle, a Ridge-style flat-wallet with EM-shielding. My only other valuable is a turquoise ring worth about five bucks my grandmother gave me. I pulled it from my finger, stuffed it in my sock, and I put the decoy wallet on the table’s aisle end.

Haley on the other hand, was frozen in her chair and stared at me as if I could solve this problem.

She knows I have no training. I can’t pull a Tom-Cruise-twist-your-pistol-away move and issue clever lines for villainous ears. No, I deceive people. I’m good at creating a story from nothing. For now, I have nuthin’.

“Wallet?” I whispered.

Like a robot, Haley produced hers and set it on the table.

The men moved through the lunchtime crowd like locusts. Inside of a minute, one arrived at our table and scooped the wallets away. He glanced at me.

I made eye contact. I knew better.

He leveled the gun at my face. “Whatchoo lookin’ at girl?” Hispanic voice. And his eyes. Crazy. Like a blood lust. His authority over the others said he was the Alpha. They’d do whatever he says.

I dropped my gaze low as if in prayer and shook my head slow, but I knew he would kill us all. Just knew it. Like the sky is blue. We’re all dead. We just haven’t experienced it yet.

He spun and moved to the next table.

Deep within me, a spark summoned courage I didn’t naturally possess. I raised my gaze to Haley.

She was clearly in shock. Hands trembled, body quivered.

In that moment, I knew I would never see her again. If I rose and made a run for it, they would kill me. If I stayed, they would kill me. They would kill us all.

A madness overtook me I’ve never experienced since. None of my prior deceptions carried life-or-death stakes. I needed a full smokescreen between me and the door.

I slid from the booth and bent my body into a curve from the feet to the shoulders. I cocked my shoulders, curled one arm into my chest with a limp hand, turned to the door, rocked my gait, and dragged one foot behind. If they’d never seen a palsied girl, they see one now.

“Hey!” the leader said. “Nobody said you could go!”

My feet moved one step, another.

His pistol’s hammer clicked. “I’m talkin’ to you!”

I slow-turned and faced his position. No eye contact. No eye contact.

Something told me to slur my voice, like a person with bad hearing who learns to talk with their consonants on the front of their tongue. Yeah, I can mimic that. “You’ah going thoo kill me? What thid I do?”

His buddy at another table said, “Let her go man, look at her.”

The leader wagged his pistol at me and they entered a heated discussion.

Haley still stared at the spot where I’d been sitting. I wondered if she felt betrayal or sadness. But in this moment, her brain was likely on fire and she wasn’t thinking much of anything.

I maintained the palsy facade, turned to the door, and I don’t remember much between me and the glass.

They argued bitterly about who was in charge and all that.

In a breath, I was outside in the city’ chaos, past the restaurant’s windows, and accelerated to a hard sprint, sharp left at the first corner, across the street and into shadows. I made it home on foot.

I was right. The event was all over the news.

Three days later, I’m in a metal chair at a metal table, in a ten-by-ten interrogation room. The giant black window is a dead giveaway. It smells of burnt copper, root beer, and stale urine.

A man entered, six-foot, short hair, gray suit, clipboard in hand, closed the door, and sat opposite me. “Gina? I’m Detective Rainer. Wish this were better circumstances.”

“That’s funny,” I said. “I don’t want to be here under any circumstances.”

“I bet not.” He opened his folder and spread the contents before him. “Not a rap sheet but a lot of complaints.”

“For every complaint,” I said. “I have a thousand happy customers. Why does this matter to you?”

“Magic Bob’s Bistro.” He slid across Haley’s photo still in the restaurant booth, head on the table in a pool of blood. “Your friend, right?” He pushed more photos. “Everyone died that day. Patrons, wait-staff, everyone. Why is that?”

“Why do killers kill?” I said. “You should ask them.”

“According to the restaurant’s video,” he said. “You walked out minutes before. Were you with them?”

“Of course not,” I said. “If you have the video, you know this.”

He stared at me as though to read my mind. He pulled a smartphone, tapped its screen, and turned it to me. A video of the event replayed largely as I remembered it. He paused it when I left the booth. “Why the act?”

“What act?” I said.

“You’re clearly not crippled.” He laid the phone on its face. “What’s up with that?”

“Would you shoot a crippled girl?” I said.

He fidgeted and shuffled his papers. “My daughter has palsy.”

“Would he have shot her?” I cocked my head and bobbed my eyebrows. “Asking for a friend.”

He slammed his fist. “How dare you—”

Another man entered, short gray hair, similar height, dark suit, beckoned Rainer and they disappeared.

My gaze fell on Haley’s photo and my mind compressed. I knew back then I’d never see her again. The cosmos downloaded it and I knew its truth like running water. My best friend. Her first big promotion. So unfair.

Did I regret leaving Haley with them? You bet.

But I lived to regret it. Haley didn’t.

I flipped the picture and stared at my hands. Nothing this bad ever happened to me. And it didn’t actually happen to me. Like I was never there.

The second man re-entered and lowered to the chair. “Gina, I’m Detective Bob Iver.”

I drilled my gaze on his. I didn’t want to say pleased-to-meetcha — this was a lie. Instead, I raised my eyebrow. Maybe he gets it.

“I was unaware of Rainer’s family situation,” Iver said.

“What does it matter?”

“Emotions cloud judgment,” he said. “And in this matter, I need objective, focused effort.”

“I’m with you,” I said. “Now what?”

Iver pushed a photo of me at the exit. “That’s what I see here. Focus. No emotion. Creative presence of mind.”

“Where are you going with this?”

He leaned to me. “Who trained you?”

“Trained me?” Oh, wait, he thinks I’m part of a ring, or a secret society, or maybe my dad drilled me on this stuff? Just wow.

“I don’t know any officers,” Iver said, “with this kind of control. And with a gun pointed at you.” He produced another photo covered with splotchy colors on me and the surroundings. “This filters the infrared spectrum, available on most new cameras.” He produced a similar photo of Haley still alive in the chair. Splotchy surroundings, but Haley’s image washed out like glare of headlights. “See the heat signature? Haley’s is off the charts. But you’re cool as a cucumber.”

Okay, interesting artifact. What I know of heat spectrums I could write on the back of a postage stamp with room left for the Gettysburg Address. “What does this mean to me?” I leaned back and crossed my arms. “Let me guess, you’re gonna interpret it?”

“First, let me say.” Iver gathered the photos. “You’re not in any trouble from us. Do you think these guys will come for you as an eyewitness?”

“You have ‘em on camera,” I said. “What would be the point?”

“Can you sit for some tests?” he said.

Whoa, that was a hard-right turn!

“Schooling proved,” I said, “tests and I have a tattered past.”

“Not a pencil-paper test,” he said. “Brain MRI. Have you ever heard of it?”

Is he kidding? I’m not a science fiction fanatic. Most of my downtime reading is pretty erratic between social media and occasional headlines. Is this a trick?

“To what end?” I said.

“Discover what keeps you cool under pressure,” he said. “Might save some lives.”

Another twist. Help people? I’ve learned over a hard life that humanity isn’t really worth helping. It’s a hot mess from end to end and the winners master the laws of the jungle. He’s asking how we can inoculate people from danger? Sounds like a fool’s errand. Unless—

“What’s it pay?” I said.

He leaned back and folded his arms as if this was unexpected.

“Come on, detective.” I propped my elbows on the table. “You pay consultants all the time. This sounds like a consulting gig.”

Iver smirked and shook his head. “Fair enough. We pay fifty dollars an hour or four hundred max per day unless you’re approved for overtime.”

This doesn’t sound like an inpatient in-and-out test. Maybe they want to study me more than just a scan.

But four-hundred bucks a day is better than any good day I’ve had in a while.

“I could put a toe in the water,” I said. “What’s first?”

Iver led me down the hall, up two floors, and into an office where two nice ladies had two inches of paperwork for me to sign.

Hmm. Light reading for the afternoon?

Two hours later, they whisked me across town to a nondescript storefront. Past the door, aromas of air freshener, ozone, and overworked electronics. Inside awaited a dozen lab chambers filled with wires, equipment, multiple monitors on every wall, the place you go when they want to see everything inside you.

A kind nurse, nametag Elisha, about my height and slender, led me into the second chamber. Clinical odors stung my nostrils. In a darkened eight-by-eight room, instruments and devices surrounded a reclined chair.

She indicated the chair and beckoned. “I’ll attach sensors to you. They’re all passive. No signals enter your body.”

“And shave my head?” I said. “Nobody said—”

She laughed. “Nope. At least not on your first visit.”

I think I’m gonna like her just fine.

She produced an array of wires, draped over her arm like a wig, and applied sensors to my forehead and back of skull. She placed a small cap over my cranium and pulled elastic loops around my ears. “Almost there. Sit back and relax. This is painless.”

“That’s what the dentist said—”

She chuckled. The machines lit, beeped, and three screens ignited with different view of my brain.

“Hmm.” Elisha put her hand to her mouth.

“Is that a good or bad Hmm?” I said.

“Interesting.”

She turned dials and pushed sliders. The views changed in color and contrast.

An hour later, Iver tapped the doorframe. “Are we underway?”

Elisha beckoned him and indicated the second screen. “See that? Her amygdala—”

“Whoa,” Iver said. “English, please.”

“Her emotion center,” Elisha said. “Is enlarged. Based on your observation, I would’ve expected it smaller, inhibiting emotional processing. This large, it apparently processes emotions with greater efficiency.”

“Is that good?”

“The difference between a sociopath and a superpower,” Elisha said. “I’d say, yes.”

Superpower? Score!

Elisha indicated another portion. “Here, her hippocampus—”

“English!” Iver said.

“We have the primary brain,” Elisha said. “And the lower brain, the hippocampus. It’s where all our thoughts go when adrenalin dumps into our bloodstream and shuts down the primary brain.”

“Not Gina?”

“Nope.” Elisha crossed arms. “She’d stay clear-headed. And adrenalin seems to vasodilate—”

Iver raised a comical hand.

“Sorry,” Elisha said. “Opens blood vessels instead of constricts them. A blood test will likely find other compounds. Or what’s missing. Bilirubin for one. It appears in blood after severe trauma. It can even keep blood colored red long after it leaves the body. If she never produces it, she’s likely immune to combat trauma.”

Iver turned to me and bobbed his eyebrows. “Want to earn some more money?”

Is that a trick question?

“Sure,” I said. “What’s the gig?”

“I have a virtual simulator,” he said. “Puts you in the middle of different situations.”

“Won’t help if she’s not in real danger,” Elisha said.

“Hmm.” Iver’s phone chimed. He turned away, seemed to hesitate, and spun toward me. “Forget that. Bank robbery in progress. Hostages and everything.”

“I’m not going inside,” I said.

“No, just observe everyone else.” Iver motioned to Elisha to remove all my wiring. “Let’s get there now.”

So, we traveled in silence to a scene filled with chaos. Snipers on the roof, riot gear, and a hostage negotiator who sounded like an amateur game show host. Twenty minutes in, this was going nowhere.

That surge returned. Reality download into my brain. Like the cosmos called me forward. Only this time, a bad ending if I do nothing.

“Screw this.” I stalked to the bank entrance. Bullhorns commanded me to return. I ripped open the door. The interior’s cool air hit my face with aromas of vanilla, coffee, and old paper. The decor was Modern American Bank Storefront. Sterile and cold.

I drilled eye contact on the perp and strode to him.

He’s a kid, early twenties. Small bag of cash. Impish face drenched with sweat and fingers white on the pistol grip.

“And who are you?” he said. “Another cop?”

“Nope.” I stopped before him, crossed my arms, cocked my hip. “You’re Danny, right? I’m Gina.”

“Okay, what—”

“Let me state some facts. Out there I saw three snipers. The only thing on their mind is which one gets a steak dinner for a bullet in you first. That guy on the bullhorn is helping them put you in the crosshairs. That’s all this is about.”

Danny swallowed. Eyes frozen. Clearly terrified.

“In less than ten minutes,” I said. “Five guys in riot gear come through that door. Same deal. Steak dinner for the first bullet in you.”

“I have hostages,” he said.

“They have independent eyes,” I said. “Infrared and radar. They know exactly where you are. They’re good at what they do.”

“You don’t understand,” he said. “I need this!”

“I can see you’re not with a team,” I said. “So it’s not about the money. I’m thinkin’ it’s about a payday for a loved one, like a medical procedure?”

“My mom—”

“Mom’s die,” I said. “I know firsthand. We grow up faster than we should. These folks have loved ones, too. Would your mom want this?”

He cast his eyes upward and pulled a deep breath. “What can I do?”

“This ends one way for them,” I said. “They all walk free. Now or later. Am I right?”

“Well, yeah—”

“But two ways for you.” I glanced toward the door. “One, leave your weapon here and walk out with me, hands-up. Or two, those guys enter, drop you, and you leave with a tag on your toe marked Return-To-Sender.”

He glanced to the hostages, back to me.

“Clock’s tickin’,” I said.

Seconds dripped like a slow faucet. Like a robot, he dropped the pistol’s magazine, emptied the chamber, set the pistol on the counter, clasped his hands overhead, and we walked out.

I’m thinkin’ I like this superpower.

And the expression on Iver’s face.

Priceless.