José Miguel Sánchez Guitian - Synchro

People started clapping even harder, as if the Rolling Stones had just turned up on stage.

“Synchro? What the hell is Synchro?” asked Guzmán.

“It’s a new technology that changes people’s emotions”, said TJ into the earpiece. “I read about it in a few trend pages. They say it’s the shit”.

“I think this is shit; we aren’t going to stay at a spoilt brat’s wedding. Permission to leave”.

“Denied. We are waiting for something”, ordered commissioner García.

Juno kissed Esther and shook hands with his future father in law. Ramona pressed the screen of her phone and left it on the grass. A circle formed around as if it was a religious ceremony. The drone descended and landed on the blonde woman’s smartphone. It made contact with the phone and at that same instant deposited a black box on the ground. The guests continued clapping hard. Ramona walked back to the spot and took the box; then, she started offering black balls to the people around her.

“What do we do?” asked Álvaro without comprehending what was going on.

“The drone is leaving!” added Cristina, taking out the gun she had hidden in the inside of her thighs.

Ramona could have been a priest. They were all approaching her in search of a black ball that would change their emotions for a while, exactly like a drug.

The drone flew upwards and Cristina, in the middle of a dense fog pointed at the flying object. She shot three times; there were confused shouts and the machine with the helixes fell into the pool.

“Stop! What are you doing?” Guzmán tried holding Cristina.

With the loud sound of the shots came a moment of confusion. Ramona stopped giving away the balls; Cristina advanced around the edge of the pool towards the blonde woman. Ramona drew out her own gun and fired at the armed policewoman who was walking menacingly towards her. The bullet got Cristina in the abdomen and the impact threw her back into the water. Guzmán saw his colleague fall in the pool next to the drone that was starting to sink, and jumped in. The water was already turning red.

The police cars hurried at top speed in the mansion’s direction. They set off the sirens and the stroboscopic lights threw beams of red and blue into the night.

“Ambulance! Agent shot! 9-85!” Guzmán swam to where Cristina was floating. “9-85! Cristina has fallen!”

Ramona aimed at him from the edge of the pool.

“Police, Police!” he shouted from the water when he saw the woman’s gun pointing at him.

Cristina Herrera was floating with her eyes wide open; she felt the impact of the bullet bellow her chest and knew that she was dying. She looked down; Lucas was there, waiting for her in the depths of that mass of water. The child stretched his hand out to reach her. Cristina breathed slowly and placidly; a ghost of a smile appeared on her face. She saw the fog clearing up and the clouds opened to a starred sky. She also felt Guzmán at her side and heard him shout, not at her, but at the blonde model that had shot her, she could not catch the words. She just floated, lulled by the water. She was leaving to the world of the dead and would never return. Lucas pulled her foot from below.

Lucas, her son, was waiting for her. Laura, her friend, would receive her. She was on her way.

Then she felt that they were pulling her upwards but she was still floating. Lucas waited for her in the depths of the pool. They were moving her slowly and she started counting the last seconds of her life: one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine and ten.

“Hello, death” she whispered.

“Cristina!... Cristina!” Álvaro Guzmán was shouting in despair, holding his colleague’s head to keep it out of the water. “Wait, hold on, the ambulance is on its way… hold on a little longer, Cristina”.

The policeman was trying to pull her to the edge of the pool and take her out, but he felt some sort of resistance, as if something or someone was holding her from the depths and pulled her down.

Ramona kept pointing at him from the edge of the pool. An assault police brigade entered the garden and aimed their firearms at the blonde woman. Slowly, she left her weapon on the ground and dropped to her knees, hands behind her neck.

The guests were still looking around in shock and confusion at everything that was going on. Juno watched the situation and walked to where attorney Aster stood, surrounded by lawyers.

Guzmán held onto the pool’s ledge, exhausted; an assault policeman held Cristina by the shoulders and pulled her out of the water, then, he laid her on the grass and placing an index finger on his colleague’s neck, checked her pulse on the aorta. She was still alive.

A medical team hurried into the garden with a stretcher. In less than a minute, Cristina Herrera would be inside the ambulance, speeding desperately to its destination; two paramedics attended her bullet injury to stabilize her vital signs. Her life was slipping away through a bullet’s hole.

Sat at the edge of the pool, Álvaro kept his eyes on the water where the blood was slowly dissolving; the drone rested at the bottom, dark, like a satiated shark. He was breathing quickly, his lungs struggling for oxygen; a consequence of his smoking habit.

Guzmán relived the moment in which he had left Cristina to follow the owner of the ostentatious house. His mind went back to the instant in which he entered the mansion, when he left his colleague alone. He returned to the past.

Guzmán had walked into a room facing the garden where a large group of people gathered in a circle around Don Nassar, then, he went down a corridor from where he could hear animation and laughter. It was empty. He almost bumped into two waiters carrying lobster canapes. He walked on, looking at both sides; further down, he opened a door. It was the bathroom; two middle aged men dressed in tuxedos were handling a few grams of cocaine on a marble ledge. The men looked at him unperturbed:

“Want some?” one of them offered.

Right at that moment, Juno walked in through a door at the back, followed by Ramona. Álvaro moved to the right and stood in front of the white porcelain urinal, he undid his fly.

“Amazing party, Juno!”

“Completely wild”, said the man who was drawing the lines of powder, white as sugar. “Check this out, it’s pure snow… We’re going to spend the whole night skiing, aaaaa-ooooh”, he lifted his head, imitating a wolf.

Juno watched them, he looked at Ramona and nodded.

“I’ve told you before; I don’t want to see that shit in my house”.

Ramona went up to both men, without hesitation, she pushed them, opened the tap, put her hand under the running water and cleaned the surface, dissolving the white powder in the sink. Then, she quickly checked the two silent men’s pockets and found two sachets full of white powder on their coats. She threw them into the bathroom and flushed them away. Neither of them dared question the authority of the spectacular woman who towered over them.

Juno went to one of the urinals to the left of Álvaro, undid his fly and stared at the wall ahead. Ramona stood behind him. The other men remained silent like two boys who had just been told off by their teacher.

“I promised to bring something tonight that you’ve never seen before”, said Juno above the sound of the liquid hitting the white porcelain.

“Oh Juno, we apologize. We did it out of habit, we trust you…”

“Yes, amigo, you always surprise us for the better”, agreed his companion.

Juno did not look at them, he did not answer, but turned his head to his urinal neighbor. Álvaro stared at the pink Carrara marble wall ahead and zipped his pants.

“Have we met? I’m Juno Coentrao”, the man urinating in the uncomfortable silence of the bathroom said.