Sci-Fi-O-Rama is thrilled to present the first story accepted from our recent Open Call – a tense, near-future scene from Japan-based writer Kaz Morran. Smartly extrapolating from present-day concerns, Kaz drops us right into the action. Tamara is in trouble, but what’s the right way out?
Find out in “Rendered Captive”.
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“Hello?”
“Tamara, I’m in trouble. But just listen, and it’ll be fine, okay?”
“What? Ollie, what are–?”
“I just need you to listen, okay?” He was gasping between his words, fighting off panic. “I’ll be okay but– They want money, okay?”
A man came on the phone. Calm and cold. An accent, maybe Russian. “You heard him? Yes? EtheriumDX. Five hundred ether. Understand? Now, you go to your computer to access your account and I tell you where you’ll send it.”
Tamara leapt to her feet, phone held out like it was toxic. From all sides, every pair of eyes in the open-plan office shifted focus from computer screens to Tammy.
She brought the phone back to her ear. “Who–” her voice cracked. She closed her eyes and tried again. “Who am I speaking to?”
“You can’t ask that.”
Buy time and verify. That’s what the detective had said after last time, back when these situations were rare enough for the cops to care. She released her grip on the edge of the desk. Breathe. “Why are you doing this to us?” But she knew it wasn’t personal. Anyone could be a target.
“You need to get on your computer and transfer the funds. Five hundred ETH.”
“How much?”
“Five hundred.”
“We don’t have that much.”
“Do it now or we kill your husband. Understand?”
She cursed herself for failing to stave off the tears. “Let me talk to him.”
“No more talk. Send the currency.”
“I need to talk to my husband.”
Her coworkers’ faces now showed more sympathy than alarm.
Anger sharpened the man’s voice: “You need to be serious. We will cut this little man’s throat. You understand, yes?”
She moved the phone to the other hand and wiped her palm on her pants. “Yes.”
“Well then?”
“I– Honestly, we stopped using crypto after–”
“Stop lying. Hurry up.”
“Just let me talk to him for ten seconds. Then I’ll send the–”
“You’ll send it now.”
“I don’t know the password for the account. I have to ask Oliver.”
“He doesn’t know.”
“Please. It’s the only way …”
She heard muffled arguing in the background. Not English.
“Ten seconds.”
“Tamara …” said Oliver.
“Ollie, what’s the code word?”
“I’m so scared, Tammy. I can’t think. I– Please, just send them the money. I love you. I don’t want to–”
“Ollie, I love you, too, but I need the code.” He was too hysterical to focus on her words. She kept trying. “The code–”
“I don’t–”
“Not for the account. Ollie, listen to me. What’s our code? You have to say it. Our word.”
“Please hurry. Tammy, they’re going to–”
“The code. Come on, Ollie. Say it!”
“I’m so scared. Please, just send it.”
“You have to say our word.” Tears streamed. “I can’t help you if you don’t say it.”
“Hurry the fuck up!” the kidnapper yelled into the phone. “Time’s running out, bitch. Send it now. Last chance or he dies. Understand? … Understand?”
“Okay. Yes.”
“Now!”
“Okay …”
Her hands trembling, she reached for the computer and began to access their shared account.
“Hurry.”
“I’m doing it,” she snapped. “Tell me who I’m sending it to.”
She typed in what he told her but had to redo it twice because of typos. Then she paused.
A coworker came over to put a hand on her back. Another scribbled a note: Called his office. No answer.
Tamara’s arms went limp. Numb. The only sensation was of her heart punching against the walls of her chest.
The man yelled, “What’s taking so long?”
“I don’t know the password.”
“You lie! Enough …” Away from the phone, the man yelled to someone. A second later her phone chimed, and the man told her not to end the call. “Check the message on your PC.”
A video appeared on the screen.
“Press ‘play’,” he told her.
It was Oliver. Tied to a chair in front of a wall of dark curtains. “Tammy …” Exhausted, sweating, he barely raised his head enough to look into the camera.
Her hand flew to her mouth. She zoomed in hastily only to confirm it really was her husband. At least, it looked like her husband. Sounded like him. Panting hard, he repeated her name and begged her to hurry with the money.
“Ollie, I’m sorry,” she said, tears streaming. “What’s the code word? I have to hear it from you.” He slumped forward and began to weep, shoulders trembling. She asked him again but got no indication he could hear her.
“Kill him,” the man on the phone yelled to his cohorts. “Cut his throat. No more waiting. Do it. We’re done.” And he trailed off in another language.
A man in a mask rushed at the chair and threw a bag over Oliver’s head. Another man appeared with a hunting knife.
“No! Wait, wait, wait! Please. No. I have it. I can– I’ll get the password. Please, just let me–”
“How long?”
“It’s at home. Ten minutes.”
More background arguing on the phone. The video went black. “Make it five. Don’t hang up.”
Tamara parted her coworkers for the door. At the intersection, she made a choice on impulse and instinct to override the autopilot and turn right up 12th instead of left toward home.
Buy time and verify. The code word was the key to discerning a real victim from a simulation, but in the fog and terror of a genuine kidnapping, couldn’t the victim legitimately forget?
“Why aren’t you home yet?” the voice yelled through her phone.
“Almost there.”
The tiny lot in front of Ollie’s building was empty, the employee shuttle gone. She walked briskly through security, scanning the family pass without slowing, past the first rooms, and finally to Ollie’s office.
“Welcome to LMC Technologies …” droned the automated voice.
Out of breath, she rounded the partition at the reception area. Sunlight streamed in through the open blinds.
She stopped. “Ollie?”
From her phone, the voice screamed, “Where the fuck are you? Do you want your husband to die?”
Nobody was in the office.
She thought Oliver would be there. She thought …. Ollie’s voice on the phone–she thought it’d been faked. “Ollie …?” The room was small. She’d see him if he was there.
Her breathing hitched at the sudden growl of the kidnapper’s voice. “Bitch, you’ve got one minute to send that Etherium or your Ollie gets his neck sawed open. One minute, understand? Fifty-nine … Fifty-eight …”
A wall clock drew her focus. 12:16. Lunch break. That’s why they were out of the office. Was it? She didn’t know.
“Okay, okay,” she said into the phone.
“Forty-four … Forty-three …”
She found Oliver’s desk and woke the screen, intending to access their account but froze at what she saw. There, staring back at her from the foreground of Ollie’s work documents, was an open video player.
“Twenty-one …” She clicked “watch again” and as if peering into a parallel dimension saw herself onscreen, in a chair before a dark curtain, tied up and weeping.
–
Kaz Morran is the author of 550AU Buried in Stone and other dark science fiction thrillers.
Follow Kaz on Facebook and Instagram: @550AU
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Header image: original by Quebec-based photographer: Jaël Vallée.
The post Rendered Captive: Fiction from Kaz Morran appeared first on Sci-Fi-O-Rama.