Snapshot

“I’m part of it,” Davis said. “This is my home.”


The Snapshot is the only thing that is rational. Life is chaos the first time, but if you live it again, you see that it’s very orderly. The system is too complex for us to figure out on the fly. But if I could live here, I could always know what was coming. . . .

“No. You’re from outside. You’re a cop.”

“Doesn’t mean I can’t agree with you,” Davis shouted. “I can help you keep this place together. Make the Snapshot run. It needs to run, right? I have to keep it together, keep it from crumbling, so I can do my job.”

It seemed like the right thing to say, and remarkably it seemed to work. To an extent. The Photographer didn’t run. He shuffled up above.

“You’re a cop,” he finally repeated. “You’re here to stop me.”

“Not you,” Davis said. “No, not you. If we were in the real world, I’d have to stop you. But we’re not, are we? All I care about is keeping this place running. You’re doing that. You’re important. You’re the only one who has figured it out. You can help me. Help me cleanse this place.”

The Photographer started down the steps, but stopped on them, frozen. Uncertain. Davis felt sick, a striking nausea, as the man turned and started back up the steps.

“Wait!” Davis said. “Wait! I can prove it. I . . .” He trailed off, then stepped backward, looking into the room with the tied-up captive. The man reached his hands toward him, wrists bound, eyes pleading.

“I’ll prove it!” Davis whispered.

Just a Snapshot. Not real. This is the only way to save people who are real. Don’t be a coward. . . .

In a trance, Davis raised his gun at the man.

I can’t do this. I can’t. . . .

He’d already done it before with the push of a button. Hundreds of times. Every time he turned this place off.

He shot the man.

The gunshot broke the air. It was louder than he’d expected, and he winced. The man he’d shot slumped backward. This time the bullet had come out the back of the head, painting the wall.

His phone buzzed. He ignored it. He just stared at the dead man, then dropped his gun, shocked at himself.

“Did . . .” the Photographer’s voice called. The man started back down the wooden steps. “Did you just do it?”

“Got to . . . got to protect the Snapshot,” Davis said, his voice trembling. He squeezed his eyes shut.

“You know them for what they are,” the Photographer said, sounding proud. “But you should know, we’re not supposed to kill them. We let the Snapshot do it, like the immune system of the body. Clear them out.”

The Photographer walked up to him. “That one, my uncle, he can’t see. We wait until he’s thirsty, then let him pick a drink. But he can’t read the labels. So the system kills him.”

“I’ll do it right next time,” Davis whispered. “What’s the plan? Who is next? I can help.”

The Photographer licked his lips. “I’m running out of people I can find on the street,” he said. “We’ve got to be careful though. The cops from inside will try to stop us. They don’t understand.”

“I do.”

“Mary Magdalene School,” the Photographer said. “Seventeen children have peanut allergies. I’ve been working out how to do it, so we can be hidden. But if you’re with me, if the cops outside the Snapshot don’t care, then maybe I don’t have to worry. Either way, we move on May twelfth. I’ve found out that—”

A gunshot went off: loud, arrogant, unexpected. The Photographer dropped like a puppet with its strings cut. Davis turned to see Chaz at the top of the steps, lit from below, gun in hand.

“Holy hell!” Chaz said. “Davis, you all right? How’d he disarm you?”

Davis blinked. Chaz, you idiot.

His phone buzzed a long buzz. The alarm.

20:17 on the dot.

Davis calmly picked up his gun. They were a distance from Warsaw, but he’d have to go forward with his plan anyway. It would work, right? It was plausible?

Did he care?

Chaz shoved past Davis and knelt by the killer. “Wow. He’s just a kid.” He looked up into the room with the dead man. “Hell! What happened, Davis?”

In response, Davis raised his gun and pointed it at Chaz’s head.

Chaz stumbled back. “Davis?”

“Goodbye, Chaz.”

“Whoa. Whoa, Davis! What are you doing!”

“Tell me,” Davis said softly. “When you go see Molly in the Snapshot, do you have to seduce her anew each time? Or do you flash your badge, convince her she’s not real, and just take her that way?”

Chaz’s jaw dropped, his eyes wide.

“You do it so quickly,” Davis said. “Every time I visit Hal, right?”

“Davis, think about this!”

“I have thought about it, Chaz!” Davis shouted. “You see this gun? This is me thinking about it!”

Outside, distantly, gunfire went off. The gang violence on Warsaw.

“This gun,” Davis snapped, “came from evidence, IRL. Those shots you hear—someone is using this gun right now to fire on another gang member. I thought, how to disguise a murder in the Snapshot? I could use the same gun we know a gangster had. I could shoot you. Claim it was a stray bullet, and the ballistics will back me up. Nobody will know. They’ll think it was an accident.”

“Hell,” Chaz whispered. Then he sighed and dropped his gun. “I guess you have thought about it.”

Davis held his own gun, palms sweaty, teeth clenched. For once he wasn’t nervous. For once he wasn’t trembling, or breathing quickly. He was angry. Furious.

“My wife, Chaz,” he whispered.

“Your ex-wife.”

“You think that makes it all right?”

Chaz shrugged. “No. Probably not.” He closed his eyes.

Here we are. Need to do it quickly. Davis wiped his brow, gun arm steady.

And then . . . then he thought about second chances. About pretty smiles, about his son.