Left Hand Issues

I awoke with a start to the crash of something hitting the kitchen tiles. I hate being startled awake. The red numbers of my digital alarm clock glared at me in the darkness. Three AM, this had better be good. 1

I sat up in my bed, listening. As my mind became fully aware of my surroundings the thought registered, 'Something’s missing.' I surveyed my room. Everything seemed in its place, until my sweeping gaze settled on the empty re-charge jack on the bedside table. 2

A groan issued from my chest. My LEFT HAND was gone, again. I threw the blankets I had been peacefully sleeping under off of my body and swung my bare feet out of the bed. Black thoughts about the inefficiency of the TDD’s maintenance team bolstered my foul mood. Whatever happened to the practice of flesh and blood partners? 3

Since the wars, we’d lost so many agents that there weren’t enough pairs to cover our territory. To compensate, Technical Development Division had assigned us each a Logistic Electro-matter Field Transmitting Holographic Articulation Neuro-interface Device; a LEFT HAND. They were the pride of the Center’s technological accomplishments, and the bane of my good night’s rest.4

“Of course,” I growled to myself as I slipped on a pair of house shoes, “I would get the one with schizophrenic circuits.” It crossed my mind that I might need my 38, but another crash from the kitchen commandeered my attention.5

Moving down the stairs and through the hall to the kitchen, I could see a reflection of blue light coming from the entrance to the kitchen. As I rounded the corner, a flying saucer narrowly missed my temple and shattered against the door frame. The kitchen lights were off, but the LEFT HAND was surrounded by the blue energy that identified her as a level four hologram. I ducked into the kitchen as an airborne tea cup sailed through the space I had just been occupying. 6

“Kinda early, Jo,” I said, nonchalantly flipping the switch that illuminated the room. 7

She focused her holographic green eyes on me and smiled innocently. “Early for some is late for others,” She quipped. Another piece of flatware came hurtling in my direction. 8

I dodged the projectile. Ceramic carnage littered the tile. “Why are you massacring my mother’s china?”9

Jo took another saucer from the leaded glass hutch and launched it at my head. “C’mon, Mac,” she teased. “You’re the detective here. You tell me.” 10

‘Why me?’ was the thought in my head as I sidestepped the flying object.
Jo tilted her head in challenge, waiting for my answer. Her long strawberry hair fell over her shoulders in wavy tendrils. She had a figure that suggested her creators were lonely techies who didn’t have time for real human interaction. 11

I made a mental note to discover time travel and go back to assassinate the idiot who had figured out how to turn light into solid matter. It was he I could thank for the china missiles I was dodging.12

“Jo, I’m tired,” I said through clenched teeth. My patience was wearing severely thin. “Can you stop throwing dishes at me and come up stairs please?”13

Hologram Barbie lowered the relish dish she had been intending to hurl. For a brief instant, I saw hope of going back to sleep. Then the instant was over. 14

Jo’s image shimmered for a moment. The sweats and t-shirt she had been wearing were replaced by hip hugging black cargos and a black tank top. Her red hair had been gathered into two low pony-tails. It was really rather becoming, in a commando kind of way, except for the twin hand guns she had pointed at me.15

I dove behind the island counter as bullets tore from the barrels of the weapons. ‘Great,’ I thought. ‘I’m about to be murdered by a projection in my own kitchen.’ 16

“Mac,” Jo called sweetly. “Why are you hiding?”17

“Oh, I dunno, because you’re an insane piece of technology?” 18

I peaked around the corner of the island. She was sitting on the hutch like a Barbie gargoyle. She was toying with me. 19

I tried to activate the voice failsafe, “Unit 589-67. Initiate emergency protocol, Directive One.”20

Jo responded with an eerie singsong computer voice. “Unable to initiate emergency protocol. Directive One is disabled.”21

“Fuzzel Monkies,” I muttered.22

“Try something else!” The psycho hologram called cheerily.23

‘What else is there?’ was my next thought. It was time to change tactics. “Say, Jo, there’s something I’ve been dying to ask you.”24

“Now’s your chance,” came the sweet reply.25

I rolled my eyes. “To die or to ask?”26

“Both!” She shot back. Another bullet ricocheted off the counter top above my head. Thank God for granite.27

I inched back from the island. There was a butter knife on the floor amid the ceramic rubble. If I could just get a finger on it…28

“How is it that you can project bullets? Why don’t they disappear when they leave your holographic energy field?”29

Jo adopted a formal British accent. “Elementary Detective Wilkins. Only one of these guns is holographic. The other is… actually it’s yours!” She was laughing at me now.30

“Well, that explains it.” I felt a cloud of imbecility descend upon me. I also felt my fingers wrap around the discarded butter knife. ‘Alright,’ I told myself. ‘Time to shoot the dice.’31

“Jo,” I called, changing my tone from “light conversation” to “emotional episode”. I intended to see how smart this piece of equipment really was. “There’s something you should know before you kill me.”32

I peeked up over the island. I figured if she really intended to kill me she’d have done it already. Of course, I’ve been wrong before. “There’s something you don’t know about me, Jo.”33

My LEFT HAND sat there, her weapons pointed casually at my head. “I know everything there is to know about you, Mac,” She countered cockily. 34

Standing up to my full six foot two inches, I said pointedly, “Not everything.”
I waited for a count of two seconds then I switched gears. “Have I ever told you that black is definitely your color?”35

Jo’s face showed more confusion. “No…”36

“I’ve always liked you in black. It brings out your eyes.” I took a step toward her and altered the subject entirely. “Did you know the Nile River runs south to north?”37

Her holographic aim faltered a bit. “No it doesn’t.” 38

“Oh yes, yes it does,” I countered, edging nearer. “The crocodiles get giant purple spots on their noses in the winter.”39

Jo stared at me as if I had just sprouted a purple spot on my nose. I could almost see her neuro-interface smoking as it tried to decide where I was going with this. “What are you saying, Mac?”
I smiled slowly. My plan was working. I was within reach of her weapons. “I’m saying,” I said quietly as I slipped one of the guns out of her hand. “That monkies are not allowed to wear bow-ties to government functions.” 40

I tossed the weapon across the room. It vanished in mid-air; Hologram. I groaned inwardly, ‘Can’t a guy catch a break?’41

Slipping the other gun out of her other hand, I moved in for the final act of my amazing one man show. “Jo, don’t you understand?” I pleaded in desperate tones, looking deeply into her now blank eyes. “The flamingos are complaining! There is not enough snow!” 42

Inwardly congratulating myself for my brilliant idiocy, I lifted the locket suspended by a silver chain at her throat and turned it over. I inserted the butter knife into the groove that bisected the piece and gave it a clockwise twist. Instantly the red haired, green eyed spitfire in front of me disappeared, leaving only a palm-sized box of technology in my left hand. 43

I carefully placed the cube in the dishwasher and closed the door. “I’m going to bed,” I said aloud. “Be a dear, Jo, and do the dishes?” I pushed the start button, turned and picked my way back through the debris field that was my kitchen floor. 44

As I lay down in my bed and pulled the blankets over me, a happy sigh issued from my chest. Everything was as it should be, right down to the empty re-charge jack on the bedside table and the faint whirring of the dishwasher on the pots and pans cycle. 45

The red numbers of my digital alarm clock beamed at me in the darkness. Four AM, this was going to be good.