Minerva: A 2069 Tale

“I’ll let the Fates decide what happens to you, how’s that?”

Minerva walked around behind the naked, frozen figure perched on the very edge of the swimming pool. Somewhere in the woods surrounding them an owl hooted in the darkness.

“My stare will wear off in about four hours or so. By then your muscle will be sore, fatigued and very cramped. Maybe you’ll keep from falling in the pool. Maybe you won’t. Maybe you’ll fall in. Then, maybe you’ll be able to swim. Or, you know, maybe not. Any which way,” Minerva stood on her tippy toes and whispered in the taller man’s ear, “we’ll let the Fates decide.”

She went back inside looking for Francis’ girlfriends but they weren’t anywhere to be found. She paused to stop and stare into the eyes of every synth she encountered, every set of CCTV cameras she came across. Her image would still likely be recoverable, even after burning out all the hard drives involved. If Francis died, she’d have questions to answer. Minerva doubted he’d be so lucky as to die on her so she didn’t worry too much about it. She found the Rottweiler’s bowl (Rex was his name) and made sure he had food in it just in case the folks upstairs didn’t get around to feeding him. Her senses weren’t as good as some others but she smelled several strains of cannabis, lots of alcohol, lots of tobacco, some cocaine and some meth in the three floors above. All was quiet though, the night being late.

Lynn had hoped that Minerva would still be up. As she staggered out of the car and towards the front door she didn’t even get a chance to ring the doorbell before the door was thrown open and a thin, strong arm wrapped around her and guided her inside.

“Lynn! What happened?”

Minerva gently but firmly led her friend over to the couch helping her sit. Lynn was marginally taller than her petite helper but then again, pretty much anyone and everyone was taller than Minerva. For all her wiry strength, she was tiny, a hair over five feet in height and eternally on the skinny side.

“I didn’t listen. I didn’t. I should’ve listened.” Lynn kept mumbling over and over but Minerva was pretty sure she understood it all. Once she had Lynn situated she was off to get her some water from the kitchen.

The house was old and small but still managed to be both cozy and colorful. The walls had prints by Cezanne, Degas, Monet, Guillaumin, Renoir, Bazille and Cassatt, especially Cassatt, and Guillaumin. Minerva was a sucker for Impressionism. She loved how the paintings were ‘real’ but yet, ‘not’. Lynn rested on the couch, melted into both it and the throw pillows, the yellow and green and orange ones that Minerva had arranged there. Even though it was a summer night and not at all cold a small fire crackled in the fireplace. Lynn felt it’s warmth and became hypnotized by the flickers of light. She was starting to nod off when her friend returned with her lemon water.

Minerva sat down next to her friend and took her hand. Lynn’s left eye was swollen nearly shut there was a nasty bruise forming on the right side of her jaw. She was still mumbling and shaking.

“Francis,” she repeated, over and over.

Minerva wasn’t sure if she had any female instincts the way humans did. She’d always heard of them but she wasn’t sure if they carried over to her kind or not. Still, she’d seen this coming, she’d seen it coming in her gut, if that’s where one saw the things instinct was supposed to show them. With all the talk she’d heard about instinct, she was still agnostic on the matter. What she did know for sure, from all that Lynn had told her, was that Francis Abercrombie III was bad news.

They sat a while, there on the couch. Lynn sipped some from the water but didn’t drink much. It was clear that she was exhausted so Minerva helped her to bed in her own bedroom, the guest room being too cluttered to be of any use.

Minerva knew all about the Abercrombies, everyone did. The mansion out in the East Mountains, the fabled car collection, all the infamous parties, the helipad, the synthetic housekeeping staff. Lynn told her all about Francis’ charm, his power. He was a man who wanted what he wanted and got it whether it was given or not. He threw money around like it was nothing and actively sought to destroy anyone and anything that got in the way of his personal happiness.

There was the maitre’d at the Artichoke Cafe, for instance, that he’d belittled and screamed at and ultimately got fired for not seating him and his party at the table he wanted right away. There was the pharmacy chain he got to pay for his prescription when the android pharmacist refused to refill it because it was a few days past due. There was the parking attendant he beat up and got fired for scratching his car and the stripper he beat up and threw out of a VIP room for resisting his advances. What Francis Abercrombie wanted he got, end of story.

Minerva opened the garage and got her retro Mini fired up. She programmed the directions in the GPS and let the car do the rest. As she pulled away she talked into her phone ordering the house to lock itself up, put the fire in the fireplace out, lower the temperature to a more comfortable human setting and dim all the lights. She decided it was a nice night for a ride out to the mountains.

It was dark on State Road 337 as she followed it’s twists and turns south. The Ambercrombie’s estate, Manderlay, was tucked away back off the state road, accessible only by a private drive that had never been paved. Minerva’s Mini bounced along slowly as it navigated one turn after another before coming out into the open and in front of the main gate, which was open. Minerva directed her car to pull up to the front of the house and park behind the large Duesenberg four-door parked there, it’s chrome accents catching the starlight and making it noticeable despite it’s dark black paint job.

The butler that answered was a synthetic, which Minerva expected. She could smell the plastics and the wiring that made it run even before it opened the door. He was a high grade model, this one, an Egelman perhaps, or a Gates Mid-Century. He was designed to look younger than she thought a regular human butler should, which she thought was interesting.

“I’m here for Francis.”

The thing at the door looked down his nose at her in appropriate butler-like fashion.

“Mr. Abercrombie is not avail….”

He didn’t get a chance to finish the sentence. Minerva looked him in the eyes and gave him her stare. For a brief moment her eyes flashed brightly with a bluish-white light. The butler’s circuits overloaded. Minerva could smell the smoke being generated and coming out of his ears even if she couldn’t quite see it. Stepping around him, she walked into the grand foyer.

There was a huge, ornate domed skylight above. Marble and granite surrounded her everywhere. She recognized the tiled artwork as Prometheus, chained to his rock, having his liver eaten by a vulture, punishment from the gods for his stealing fire from the heavens and giving it to man. It was an ambitious work Minerva thought, but shoddily done. While it tried for a classical look she felt that all it managed to do was look campy and pretentious.

Minerva headed left through some open doors into a billiard room, another set of open doors ahead led her a small parlor which, in turn, led her to a set of doors leading into a kitchen area. One by one she worked her way through various rooms until she found herself going through a door leading to the outside where a huge Olympic-sized pool awaited.

The back patio had pillars and steps and levels, its marble glowing in the starlight. There was a hot tub off in the distance. Tiki torches were lit all around the perimeter providing light and ambience. A man and two women cavorted at the far end of the pool. Minerva headed in their direction.

A large Rottweiler with a spiked collar growled and started towards her from where he’d been lying off to the right. She stopped, gave it a look and hissed loudly. The Rott stopped in its tracks, sniffed the air, turned and went running off down into the bushes off to the side of the patio.

“Hey! Hey you! What the fuck did you just do to my dog?”

The man at the far end of the pool was shouting. The loud giggling and splashing that had been going on suddenly came to a stop. Minerva walked towards the man and his naked lady friends.

“I’m not here for you ladies. You better be going. Now.”

Minerva was in no hurry, taking her time, admiring the statuary work along the fringes of the pool’s deck. They weren’t great but they weren’t bad either. They were solid attempts at copying classical works. It was clear that the Abercrombies were big on Greco-Roman themes. The works she saw may not have been great but at least they were trying to be classical.

Minerva smiled to herself. She looked around and didn’t see Perseus anywhere. That was a plus.

The man was out of the pool and had pulled on his trunks. Both of the women were coming out now too, getting their suits and putting them on. Francis Abercrombie III wasn’t as tall as Minerva expected but he was cut and looked in tip-top private trainer shape. He walked towards her matching her no-nonsense attitude stride for stride.

Lynn had told her about his blue eyes, his charming smile, the way the young Abercrombie could turn on a personal warmth and make you feel like you were the most special person in the world. Hearing about it had made Minerva wonder if he was a paranormal human in some way but watching him walk towards her then, she realized he was just a man, just Homo sapiens sapiens, nothing special.

“I asked you what the fuck did you do to my dog? You hearing me lady? I’m talking to you!”

His charm wasn’t on right now that much was certain.

“Best be going now ladies, I mean it. I’m not here for you.” Minerva decided to hiss again, making it as loud and formidable as she could.

Francis stopped suddenly. One of his girlfriends screamed. They grabbed what was left of their stuff and started to run along the edge of the pool going the long way around.

“What the fuck?”

Francis was still pissed, Minerva could tell, but he was quieter now. He wasn’t sure what he was dealing with and that tempered his anger somewhat.

“Hello Francis. What I am instant karma, come to get you. Lyndsay Martinez says ‘Hi.’”

Minerva met his blue eyes and locked them. Her eyes flashed bluish-white and Francis was suddenly as still as one of the statues surrounding the pool’s deck. Everything about him was still, everything about him was completely paralyzed, save for his beating heart and his lungs.He could breathe, barely. Despite his body being paralyzed, his heart would continue to beat, albeit incredibly slowly and his senses would continue to register his surroundings but that aside the rest of his muscle groups were completely frozen. Minerva walked up to him and looked him over up close.

“Hmm, you are quite the specimen aren’t you Francis.” She ran a finger along his pecs. “Nice. Very nice.”

“You do know who Lyn Martinez is right? You remember her? A little taller than me? Fuller figured? Pretty? The one you beat up, punched in the eye, punched in the jaw? The one you raped? You know the one I’m talking about, don’t you?”

Minerva grabbed him by the arm and leaned him back, she rocked him side to side and moved him over to the very edge of the pool.

On the drive back, Minerva told the car to play some jazz. Billie Holiday started singing. She told the car to open the sunroof and looked up at the stars above. It was a clear night and she could see more of the universe here, out in the mountains, away from the city lights. Even though it was bitingly cold by her standards, she felt the night had turned out to be quite lovely. Billy Holiday sang about love gone wrong and Minerva thought about this as the car drove itself, she thought about love gone wrong, love gone right, love in all its many shapes and forms.

She liked watching the stars twinkle and the sky move as the car drove on. She didn’t need much sleep, still, she told her house, through her phone, to turn the heat up in the living room to her lowest ‘comfort’ setting. With Lynn crashed in her bed, she’d be sleeping on the sofa tonight. She’d make some tea beforehand and she’d make it her self since she didn’t have a butler.

Slowly, to the sounds of Billie Holiday’s haunting voice, the Mini snaked its way through the East Mountains, back to Alburquerque.