Fred took the keys out of the bus's ignition, locking the steering wheel in the straight-ahead position. He got up, sliding his ample girth past the steering wheel, and strolled slowly towards the back of the bus, singing, "We're going to the river! The beautiful, beautiful river! We're going to the river!" He gestured broadly to help get them in the spirit. "Come on, kids. Sing along. We're going to the river!" The kids towards the front of the bus saw the river coming up straight ahead of them and started screaming. The bus was also accelerating so it could burst through the ramp. He'd set a 45 lb. lead disk he ferreted out of the gym on the accelerator. Maybe if he'd gone with a thirty-five pound weight the kids would have had a chance to get in the spirit of the thing and there'd be less screaming. Ah well, soon God would correct for all their mistakes in life.  

Mistakes. After fifty-something years, three marriages, adult-onset diabetes -- which he was told was entirely his fault -- and fathering twenty-seven kids whose names and faces he scarcely knew that were the legacy of sewing his oats in youth and never looking back, he figured he had made more than his share.

*** 

Johnny hit play on the vintage boom box he'd picked up at the Army-Navy store, been to Iraq and back, and lived to tell the tale. It was the perfect companion for his flight off the top of the skyscraper down to the street below. He pressed play to cue his theme music. 

Spiderman, Spiderman,  

Does whatever a spider can  

Spins a web, any size,  

Catches thieves just like flies  

Look Out!  

Here comes the Spiderman.  

He flattened his Spiderman tee shirt against his chest by pulling at the bottom, and off he went, shooting webbing. Only... 

Shantel, just finished purchasing her bagel and cream cheese from Hole in One Bagels, stepped out onto the sidewalk, delighted to see there was no traffic coming either way. Usually she'd have to wait ten minutes at least to find enough of a hole to make a break for it. As she hurried to the edge of the sidewalk she kept hearing the Spiderman theme song. 

Is he strong?  

Listen bud,  

He's got radioactive blood.  

Can he swing from a thread  

Take a look overhead  

Hey, there  

There goes the Spiderman.

The body of the senior citizen that landed in front of her, face down, was wearing a Spiderman tee shirt. It took a second or two for her eyes to relay the facts to her brain past all the denial, and a couple seconds more to hear her screaming inside her head before the sounds came out her lips. She emptied three, maybe four lungfulls of air before the old man started to peel himself off the asphalt. He was thoroughly pancaked from front to back. It was like watching a mural crawl off a wall, only from the side; he might have been three inches thick worth of paint. "Don't worry, I'm good," he said. "Everything's just peachy." 

"Johnny? Is that you? Johnny..." the man with the shaved flat top head said, holding on to Spiderman; Flat Top had military written all over him. Even from her shell-shocked state, Shantel could tell that much.  

"Ma'am," Flat Top said, turning to Shantel, "could you stop screaming, please? Johnny was always a bit hard of hearing on a good day. All those damn IEDs in Afghanistan." Flat Top shook her to get her to stop screaming. She seemed able to once he was touching her and she could feel the reassurance of his strong arms, his confident, in-control demeanor. The way he'd thrown himself into the crisis situation without so much as taking a breath... yeah, this guy was military, had to be, in all likelihood a drill sergeant. Flat Top was wearing camo fatigues. From her hysterical state, she took that as proof he'd know what to do. 

*** 

Gary released the shell-shocked woman, who was more than a little done in by Johnny's nosedive from the top of a skyscraper, only to land right in front of her. He went back to his friend. "Don't worry, Johnny. I've already called for an ambulance. We'll get you put back together." He shut off the damn Spiderman song; it was starting to grate.  

He looked up at traffic coming both directions at the change of lights. "God damn it." He waved his hand and slid the lead cars into blockade position, overriding their in-car computers and issuing new instructions. He kept the road clear up the side-street for the ambulance as he took control of its auto-nav as well, overriding the driver at the wheel. The poor guy was good, he just wasn't working with on-board city-wide GPS as Gary was.  

He gazed up at the sky scraper Johnny had jumped from, shaking his head. "Johnny, you were the last one I ever expected to go off the reservation." 

From the sounds of the sirens, the ambulance was pulling up. The ambulance braked and both the driver and the med-tech riding alongside him hopped out before he could spit. Nothing wrong with their reflexes. "What the hell is this?" the driver said. "Why isn't he dead?" 

"He's military," Gary explained. "We can last like this on the battlefield up to a few days, make sure we have a chance to ignite our implanted plastic explosives to take out the bastards who did this to us."  

"Plastic explosives?" the med-tech ride-along said. 

"Yeah, can take out half this city-block from here. So I guess it's a good thing Johnny's not feeling particularly vengeful for whoever sold him this bill of goods that he could fly." 

The two med-techs took a cautious step back. "Ah, we're not rated for this. Can you tell us what to do?" 

"Here, hold his hand, I'm getting tired keeping him balanced upright. Beyond that, he's good to go." 

"You want us to give him any pain killers?" Ride Along said. 

"Nah. He's pumping out his own morphine right now. Higher than a kite. Of course, I'm guessing he was that way before stepping off the ledge." 

"I've never known one of you guys to go wacko before," the driver said, looking up at the skyscraper. Then he turned to Johnny and said, "Forgive me, Sir, that was very unprofessional of me." 

Gary waved him off, lit up a cigarette. "Johnny was never one for not calling a spade a spade. And you're right, I think this is the first time one of us has gone a bit soft in the head." 

"Your mind chips are safety rated like thirty levels beyond ours," the med-tech said. "They're supposed to work without missing a beat even after being subject to a one kiloton explosion, aren't they?" 

"Yep, we're Triple-A beef, no doubt about it. What you rocking there, pal?" Gary said, eying Ride Along. 

"Any number of MDs, PhDs," Ride Along said. "Can do onsite surgery with a straw and a pair of chop sticks." 

"Not bad. Ever think of going military?" Gary took a deep drag on his cigarette.  

"Nah. The wife says I'm too wired now when I get home. Can't imagine..." 

"Yeah, got ya. We don't push having girlfriends and wives back home like we used to," Gary confessed. "And what about you?" he said to the driver. 

"Wirelessly interfaced with Google Maps, 9-1-1, Mario Andretti driver's upgrades, plus can keep pace with this guy," he said, pointing to his partner, "most days. Just can't pioneer medicine as needed on the fly. Have to work with whatever's on the internet databases. Open-source file access only." 

Gary nodded. "At least that way you'll be out of hock and have the house paid before you're sixty." 

"That's what I was thinking," Driver said. "My partner here is a lifer like you. He'll never quit. Hey, how did you upstage my Google Maps tie in?" 

Gary smirked at him. 

"Oh, yeah, dumb question, I guess," Driver said. "Didn't stop to think for a second that the urban warfare maps would be a good deal better, the ones with military access only." 

"Did you call the bomb squad?" Ride Along asked, "No offense. Your friend might come out of the Spiderman fog and think he's back in Afghanistan." 

"Yeah, called them and the police. Would have called the FBI too, as something stinks here. I'll be damned if I have it hanging around Johnny's neck to be the first man that busted our perfect record. I'm praying for a good conspiracy and looks like you have a good conspiracy guy on the force, Rake." 

"Oh yeah, another dinosaur. I love that guy," Driver said. 

"No point in getting the FBI involved yet with him aboard," Gary said, "just slow things down, with all the jurisdictional give and take. That'll be just lead to that many more internet files being locked down and shut off from public access. Even my kind of access."

*** 

"What the hell happened here?" Rake said. He could tell at a glance they were still fishing bodies out of the river-children's bodies.  

"The bus driver-that's him over there on the stretcher singing Take me to River..." Rake glanced over at the portly gentleman handcuffed to the gurney. "He decided to take himself and the kids to the promised land. Drove them all straight into the river." 

"Let me guess. He was the only one who was chip-enhanced," Rake said. 

"Yeah, this was a Catholic high school. They don't go in for that chip in arm shit, far less chip in brain, mark of the beast and all that." 

"Why'd they allow the driver to be chip enhanced then?" 

"Safer that way. Doesn't fatigue, so no chance of falling asleep at the wheel. Doesn't drink, and if he did, the chip would neutralize the alcohol. No way of being a child molester, the chip would automatically chemically castrate him, if somehow he managed to escape the grueling pre-screening. Honestly, chip-enhanced is the way to go for bus drivers. Plus he's got on-mind sat nav, Which saves more gas than cruise control." 

"Okay, stop selling the guy already. Not sure there's enough salesmanship in the world right now to convince me he was worth the investment."  

"What do you think made him go light in the loafers?" 

"That's a derogatory remark against gays, you Neanderthal. Still, I get your meaning well enough. He had to be safety rated nearly as high as those chip-enhanced military guys." 

"Yeah, the odds being what they are, figured this was the case for you. Has to be a conspiracy, right? Someone trying to get us to doubt the safety of these things, maybe stop people getting the chip enhancements? Has to be a religious nut job. What do you think, Catholic or Protestant?" 

"You mind leaving the conspiracy nut stuff to me, Darrel? On you it just sounds off color, like you hate all religious types." 

"I do hate all religious types. I'm racist and sexist and ageist too." 

"Let me guess, they were afraid to give you a chip enhancement." 

"Something about having to agree to being lobotomized first." 

Rake laughed. "I kid you not," Darrel said. "What's the world come to when a racist, sexist, dot, dot, dot, redneck like myself can't escape the same grief he dishes out?" 

Rake studied the latest body being dragged out of the lake, shaking his head. "This is going to get a lot of media attention. Great way to get the word out on defective mind chips. Yeah, should definitely shorten the line some to Doc Holiday's office." 

"How's that blond bombshell doing anyway? You tap that yet?" 

"Stop with the nonstop charm already, Darrel, you're making me feel like I've lost all my swagger. Besides I'm too old for her." 

"Like hell. They did away with aging like when, in the 2030s? This gen's nano isn't worth shit, but it can give you a hell of a face lift, and put some serious wood in your pecker. The on-mind chips-I guess we have to start calling them on-arm chips now-can just take over more and more of your higher brain functions as the biological part of you checks out." 

"You mean long after I'm dead she'll still be making love to phantom me, digitized, photocopied, x-ray proof, bomb-proof, and personality upgraded too." 

"If you ask me, she's getting the better end of the deal. Not like you can appreciate a good thing when it's staring you in the face." 

Darell looked at the other officers on scene. "What's with blacks and playing cop, present company excepted, of course, you were a detective before the pattern became obvious. First sports, now cops and firemen. It's like we have something to prove. Maybe it's like those Native Americans who work on top of bridges, you know, and skyscrapers as part of their macho culture. Maybe we need to play hero to work out all our internalized racism from generations of white oppression." 

"I really need to get away from you before you start sounding sensible." Rake looked up at the media helicopters pulling in and then looked down at the media vans pulling up. "Perfect timing. I can't be showing up on camera, or they really will think it's a conspiracy and then I'll have more heat on me than I need. Make sure the driver gets over to Doc Holiday at the hospital for a complete examination of that chip." 

"You're going to bring the head of the city's chip upgrade department, in the leading upgrade hospital in on this? Talk about taking unnecessary heat." 

"Yeah, well, that kind of heat is good for me, as you just got done implying." 

"Got ya," Darrel said nodding, "glad to see some blood is finally flowing to that head of yours, old man." 

Rake put as much distance on him and the crime scene as he could. From his beeping cell phone he could tell it was just going to be a change of venue.

*** 

"I don't fucking believe this," Rake said, his jaw hanging open at the sight of "Spiderman." He looked up. "And now media helicopters? They'll be jumping off building tops themselves at the thought of missing the chance to get this on the evening news." 

Gary said, "I'm overriding their onboard computers, same for the media vans." 

Rake glared at him. "You're a handy guy to have around." 

"I guess I should tell you, Johnny there, debuting today as Spiderman, is loaded with enough plastic explosives to take out half this city block." 

"Charming. Everyone but him and you, I'm guessing." 

"That's right, sir." 

"You don't have to sir me. I'm retired from the services. Long time now." 

"Yes, sir." 

Rake shook his head. "If you're doing all this for Johnny, I'm guessing he's one of yours." 

"Yes, sir. Military chip enhanced. This just can't happen. It's not possible. And I need you to prove a conspiracy on this one, for the good of the corps, sir." 

Rake chuckled. "I'll do my best, colonel. I'll start with whatever classified DARPA files you can get me on his chip. I don't have that kind of access anymore. Not sure I ever did. You only get so much playing three star general." 

"I'll get you what I can. You need a hard copy or you want me to download what I find as I find it to your chip?" 

"Hard copy. God forbid I have anything taking up room up in my head I could devote to spewing out more conspiracy theories." 

"Yes, sir."  

Rake was walking around Johnny, expecting him from up close. "This is amazing. How's this guy still alive?" 

"Not really alive, sir, more like walking dead. Figure he can last two maybe three days like this. Part of our upgrades, to give us a chance to wait for strategic assets before igniting the on-body explosives." 

"I see there have been some improvements since I've been off the battlefield." 

"You have no idea, sir, and I'm guessing you don't want to." 

"You're probably right. Civilian life's made me soft. Doubt I have the stomach for it anymore." Rake shifted his attention back to the colonel. "Can he answer questions in this state?"  

"Doubt you'd get much coherent, sir? You're talking to a guy who as of a few hours ago was convinced he could fly." 

"All right, let's get him over to Doc Holiday. She's going to love me today." 

"I thought you two were in love fulltime. Sorry, I guess that's a pretty poor joke." 

Rake made a sour face. "How is it the whole city knows about me and her when we don't even know?" 

"Are you kidding? The city's top chip-doctor? And the city's top conspiracy nut? You guys have more hidden cameras on you than Judge Judy." 

Rake chuckled. "Judge Judy? She's still going strong?" 

"The chip-enhanced version, of course. Ratings have only picked up in recent years." 

"I thought we had all those spy-cams shut down with the appropriate security software." 

"Stop, you're killing me with these one-liners. Honestly, it's not the toughest hack to get around the security protocols." 

Rake gave the nod to the two EMTs. The bold one, the driver, took Johnny by the hand, while the meek one stood a respectful distance back holding his hand out as if that was going to stop the premature blast wave from vaporizing him. Maybe "Spiderman" wasn't the only one off his meds today.

*** 

"Hey, Doc, tell me, how do I look?" 

"As fetching as ever," Holiday said, stroking "Spiderman's" forehead as he lay on her examination table. 

"Hey, you aren't the coroner, are you? Seems like every time I die I have to walk some newbie examiner through her dissection. And they hate it when their patients talk back to them." 

She smiled. "No newbie, soldier, and no coroner, either. Just want to check out your chip." 

"I bet you say that to all the chip-enhanced guys." 

She laughed. "I was going to say you think you can stop hitting on me long enough to get a probe up you, but I might have to rethink that line." 

"Yeah, I think that's my line. Yours is something like, 'Don't go to pieces every time I walk through the door!' Or, here's one, 'You think you look bad, you should see the steam roller." 

"All right, wise guy, I can tell you're feeling better already..." 

"Yeah, whatever that is you gave me..." He made a whistling sound which could have sounded better considering his compromised wind pipes. "Can I get it to go?" 

"Just tweaked your chip a little." 

"You hacked my chip? Seriously. You have some serious street cred, doc. Hey, while you're in there, could you make yourself a red head. I prefer red heads." 

"First, how about you answer some questions, like what's with jumping off the roof?" 

"Ah, that. It seemed like a good idea at the time." 

"And now?" 

"Can't explain it. It's like something came over me. I hate superheroes. Always used to make fun of them on the battlefield. 'Real Men Fight Wars. Sissies Wear Spandex and Fly around All Day.' Things like that." 

"How do you want to go out, soldier? I'm going to have to pull that chip soon." 

"It can hold on to my personality intact. Makes for a better black box effect come time for debrief. Just don't destroy the chip, that way when they roll out that digital nirvana they've been talking about, you can upload me and I can live forever." 

"And the body?" 

"You might have to hand me over to the military for disposal, doc. I'm really hard to destroy. They like evidence after the fact that they can examine. My nano is a few generations ahead of what's on the market. Details are classified, or course. As is that little bit I told you about what my mind chip can do. Appreciate you keeping that one to yourself." 

She smiled feebly. "Will do, soldier. I'll turn you back on from time to time so we can continue to get acquainted." 

"That's real nice of you, doc. I guess I'm really talking to you through the computer, huh? God, feels so real, like I can still really talk." 

"Yeah, you got out one line on scene, I'm told, with what little air was still in your lungs. Or might have been some on-body speakers they built into you as a way of luring your victims over before igniting your C-4. Haven't had a chance to do an autopsy yet." 

"You this nice with all the mass murderers?" 

"Get some rest now, soldier. You've earned it," she said, shutting his real-world interface algorithms down so she could concentrate on the work at hand. Johnny was a little too distracting and had a way with women even in death. 

"Anything yet?" 

She jumped out of her skin, let out a yelp, and turned to see Rake, who'd just come through the double doors. "No. I got distracted talking to the dead vic." 

Rake pursed his lips. "I'll try and remember what era I'm in and not send you off forthwith to the looney bin." 

She bent over to take out the chip and he held her back. "They got the explosives out of him, right?" 

"Yeah, the bomb guys did that on site. They were gone before you got there." 

"I must be getting old. There was a time when I would have inferred as much." 

She finished digging the chip out of the inside of the soldier's skull, at the very apex.  

"Hell of a place for a chip, these days," Rake said, "especially for a military upgrade." 

"He's got chips all over him, major redundancy. That way if he gets blown to hell, whichever ones survive the blast can continue soldiering on." She put the chip in her hand under the microscope. "The nano-attachments just tunnel their way to the explosives if there connections have been severed, which is unlikely, being as they're buckyball tube tunnels, harder than diamonds, yet more resilient than rubber. Most of the time they just scurry along the tubes to see the explosives go off on cue." 

"When did you become such the expert in cutting edge military tech?" 

"I took a look at the chip under the scanners before interviewing Johnny. I'm guessing it has a lot more to tell us, assuming I can get past the security safeguards. The military isn't exactly known for letting its hardware fall into the wrong hands. Each of these chips might have nano explosives sufficient to take out this room and everyone in it if we breach its casing." 

"Let's just take it on faith someone still figured out how to hack his chip despite all the safeguards. I'm less concerned about how they did it than why. So as far as I'm concerned you can put that chip on ice for now. And if you do get overly curious, sic a surgical bot on it. Surprised they haven't retired you yet for one of them." 

"You can bet they're thinking about it, especially now that, with this latest chip design, just about any idiot can stick in a chip and just check the monitors and wait to be told how they're doing."  

"I guess they still need someone around for when something does go wrong, in those rare instances, who isn't part of the system." 

"You talking about yourself or me?" she said. 

"What about 'Take Me To The River' guy? His chip should be a little easier to get into." 

"Took his chip out a couple hours ago. He's still singing that song. Had to put him in the other room." 

"Anything?" 

"Can't say yet. I'm cross-trained in electronics and computer engineering, of course, to the PhD level, can build chips of my own from scratch in a pinch. But not exactly my area of expertise. I'm more like the car mechanic than the engine designer. And these days, even car mechanics are heavily reliant on software and hardware provided by the manufacturers." 

"Stop making excuses. I know you're just a computer hack as opposed to hacker." 

She smiled. "As far as I can tell his chip is working perfectly." 

"So the hack was self-erasing, in and out without leaving a trail." 

"That's certainly one possibility. The other is he just went loony. The chip they put in had nothing to do with who he was as a person. It was just inserted to make him a safer driver." 

"They prescreen all these guys pretty heavily, don't they? Hell, even for a cross-walk attendant these days." 

"Sure, but you know how it is. Live in Big Brother land long enough, learn to play the game. Gets so even a child knows when to lie and when to tell the truth." 

"Maybe if we just had one of these John Does instead of two," Rake said, "being taken out of commission at virtually the same time. What are the odds, especially among their kind of chip security upgrades?" 

Holiday sighed. "Less than zero. Not this close together. Maybe if they were found worlds apart. Even then, the odds would be pretty daunting. Get better action playing the lotto." 

"So it's conspiracy time again?" 

She shrugged. "A statistical anomaly does not a conspiracy make." 

"Here's what I'm thinking. They don't want any more people upgrading. Time to slow demand to a trickle." 

"We're back to this again." 

"Hear me out now. If I'm right, two things will happen in short order. People will start dying off by all sorts of means. Got to get rid of the bodies somehow. Can't have a bunch of unupgraded people walking around who are just too dumb to take care of themselves and too expensive to support." 

"Not too expensive." 

"Maybe so, but these guys live on margins like you said. Why reduce the amount of money that could be poured into R&D for your next chip prototype?" 

"And the other thing you're expecting?" 

"Why they'll start selling tickets to digital nirvana, of course. The two have to go together, because you want to pressure those people who are dying off to upload. No point in writing a bunch of algorithms pretending to be real people when you already have them on hand. You could save the computer power that way for something else." 

"So you're expecting plagues, pestience, famine, weather wars, more genocides, more ethnic conflicts..." 

"Oh, yeah, full out Armageddon, and I'm thinking by lunchtime. These people don't do anything half-assed." 

She emitted a two in one, grunt/laugh combo that was the result of trying to stifle all out hysterics. "You know, I can help you with your paranoia," she said.  

"If by that you mean you can give me more of it, you can schedule me for surgery today. In my world, doc, there's no such thing as having enough. You can bet our worst nightmares pale by comparison to what's actually going on out there." 

She sobered some at the thought. "I don't know, Rake. I'm a long way from climbing aboard that crazy train. And good luck proving your case by the nightly news. That shit you're talking about is their stock and trade. My mother has been using it to prove it's End Times for thirty years now. There's always a drought or a famine or a genocide happening somewhere." 

"Maybe I should date your mother." 

She had to put her hand over her mouth again to stifle her laughter.  

"If she was on to their endgame before me, she's probably an even better paranoid. I never stopped to think their endgame may have kicked in thirty plus years ago. Makes sense if you're going for the long con. That way if you gradually open up the faucet rather than cranking it to full all at once, easier for people to buy it's just the times we live in, you know, where things inevitably go from bad to worse." 

"Wasn't the talk back then about the privatized military complex turning warmaking from statecraft to pure for profit corporate welfare?" 

"How better to cover up the real conspiracy with a shadow conspiracy that is even more believable?" 

She took a deep breath and let it out. "Take a break from the paranoia, Rake, for my sake." 

"Yeah, I suppose I owe it to you to come up for air once in a while. But this matter is a long way from being settled." 

"How about pizza and ice cream at my place?" 

"You still trying to get in my pants?" 

"I can't help but be attracted to the one man who doesn't want to get into mine." 

"Sure, why not? Maybe if I felt less lonely I'd be less inclined to fill my time with paranoid delusions. The price I pay or an overactive imagination." 

"Well, don't detox too fast, or your chip will shut down. They're designed to go dormant in the event the person has second thoughts about being all he can be, and he decides to evolve in another direction." 

"Little worry about that."