It Sometimes Snows In May: A B.E.A.N. Police Novella by Tope Oluwole

 
    Zota sits hunched over a piece of net-paper, tapping and dragging across its heat-sensitive, plasma interface. Four flexible touch displays engulf him while he backs the darkness, with the exception of a blade of daylight cutting through the brown shutters. In the far corner of the room, the natural light reveals a long dead spider plant.
     
                  Computer code fills the displays, while a layout of windowed objects take up the two center displays. Zota glances at the bottom right corner of the display to his far right. An analog clock pops up, and the computer declares, “eleven-forty-six, A-M.” The clock fades away once Zota turns his head back to the code on the screen.
     
                  “Not enough time. Not...enough...time,” Zota mutters as he types away. “Save and snap,” Zota says. An image of a vintage, circular hard disk fades into view on the center-left display.
     
                  “Saving...” The computer confirms Zota’s command. “Save complete. Creating snapshot... Snapshot complete.” An image of a door fades-in on the center-right display, and pulsates with knocking, getting louder. Sweat dots Zota’s forehead and neck. The clock fades-in again with the word, “reminder,” across it’s face.
     
                  “Crap. She’s early,” Zota says. He taps through the computer’s directory structure, flicking through folders with two sets of his four-in-one cybernetic fingers, until he finds the recently saved file. With a pinch of his sub-fingers across the file, “compressing...” says the computer. The knocking is now loud enough that it drowns out the computer’s voice. Once compression of the file is complete, Zota presses on the screen with one of his organic left fingers and drags the file to an image on a mobile device. “Syncing...” the computer replies. Zota clenches his jaw while he reads the progress bar at only three percent, with a duration estimated at twenty seconds. He scrambles in the dark of the room, in his briefs, to find something to put on. “Ow!” Zota stubs his toe on something. A small piece of furniture skids, and something clangs to the ground, then clangs again, before rolling across the floor. Zota tumbles and crashes into something soft. “This better be worth it.”
     
                  “I was just saying the same thing,” a female voice says from beyond the right side of the displays. Zota, still in his underwear, crawls on his hands and knees until he reaches the wall and stands up, facing the light from his now open bedroom door. In the doorway stands a dark and thin figure. The woman steps slowly into the light of the displays, her face weathered with fine lines and a healthy mocha brown complexion baked in. Her boots hit the hardwood floor with a solid clunk as she walks towards Zota. Zota looks over her muscular shape, wrapped in form-fitting jeans in contrast to her green bomber jacket.
     
                  “You...you’re early Ryles,” Zota stutters.
     
                  “No, YOU, are late. It’s twelve-oh-three already. You need to get your server clock checked. Zota glances back at the right corner of the display closest to him, and the clock pop-up and chimes, “eleven-forty-eight, A-M.” The “Sync Complete” message bubble appears over the image of the mobile device. Zota fumbles around his desk, and grabs a thin membrane about half the length of his arm and just as wide. “I don’t appreciate having to come and find you," Ryles says. "You really wanna mess with the Triad?”
     
                  Zota spies the center of the membrane which also reads, “sync complete”, and slaps it across his wrist. It locks and then automatically adjusts to fit, like a band. Zota turns back to Ryles and sees her face is stone; the darkness beneath her eyes, the weariness. “Relax mamita. It’s here.” Zota taps the band on