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mcglaviano · 4 years ago

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Subversives

Tomkins scanned his heads-up, monitoring the readout from Criminal Activity Feed. He paced back and forth, his boots squeaking on the floor of the Noncom commons. He needed a collar. Big time.

The CAF was full of stuff, the kind of stuff that, if you handled it right, got you promoted. Sadly, none of it was local. Of course Luna City was petitioning for independence. Again. He snorted. As if that was going to happen. And things looked pretty hot out on the coast. He’d bet real money that the squads out there were having ten kinds of fun. He resented that a little, but there was nothing he could do about it. The coast was well outside his jurisdiction.

But Tomkins’ region was strictly sleepy-time. Nothing but little stuff scrolled past. He’d have to be stupid to field a team for any of that crap. HQ would hand him his ass.

Suddenly there was a ping and a line in his heads-up display went red. He pushed into the detailed report. This looked good. Very good.

Info scrolled past. Analysis pointed to out-of-parameter economic activity in sector F-3. Retail purchases, especially purified water and food supplies were out of whack from what the people in that slum could afford. And fifteen percent of food purchases exceeded baseline quality for bottom tier rations.

That could only mean one thing. Somebody, better yet a whole gang of somebodies, had an unregistered biz going. Somebody was making money, and the money was getting plowed back into the neighborhood. Bingo.

Trouble is, the data wasn’t realtime. Sure Analytics could process with a vengeance, but the data still had to be collected. The clock, as they used to say, was ticking. He needed to get cracking if he wanted a collar.

Tomkins forwarded the CAF alert to Surface Transport and got an immediate confirm. Yes! An armored hovercraft was spun up and idling. He triggered an alarm for his squad and opened their comm channel. “It’s party time, boys and girls,” he barked. “Hovercraft deck stat. We leave in five.”

He sprinted to the lifts. By the time he reached the hovercraft deck, four of his guys were milling around near the rear hatch of an armored urban assault craft. He was halfway across the deck when his fifth guy emerged from the Ready Room.

“Hustle your sorry ass, Marsden,” Tomkins yelled.

Marsden put his head down and sprinted, his heavy boots thumping like pistons. He had his helmet visor up and he carried his beam rifle at left port arms as he ran. The guy looked like a small tank, but he got the job done.

Tomkins followed Marsden into the back of the hovercraft and secured the rear hatch. He slammed his weapon into the rack and took a seat between Marsden and Wills. He beamed the pilot. “Squad secure. Get us moving.”

“Keep your shirt on, Tomkins,” came the reply. “This jalopy stays put ‘til the blast doors open.”

He recognized the voice. Great. Not. Frenchy was his least favorite stick-jockey. They’d be lucky if the dimwit kept the craft right-side up.

An eternity later the blast doors were cranked out of the way. Frenchy spun up the turbines, and the armored hovercraft lurched from the fortress. The city beckoned. A collar was in the offing. Tomkins could just taste it… It tasted like promotion.

Up front, the grunt riding shotgun flipped a toggle on the dash. The siren ramped up, climbing from a low moan to a bone-juddering wail. It repeated, dropping and rising, warning the civvies to get out of the way. Tomkins, heavy in his body armor, swayed on the bench as the pilot fired side jets to kick the urban assault hovercraft around a corner.

The trooper on his left grunted. “I know you’re scared, Sarge, but you need to stop trying to climb into my lap. Comprende?”

“In your dreams, Wills,” Tomkins said.

Marsden, on his other side, barked a laugh that cut off, echoing Wills’ grunt as the massive vehicle swerved hard left.

Tomkins monitored their progress in realtime: ETA in three minutes. He leaned forward and shouted over the whine of the power plant. “What’s your problem, Frenchy? We’re gonna be late to the party. You having trouble maintaining forward velocity?”

“You’re the problem, Tomkins!” the pilot snapped over his shoulder. His voice, coming through his helmet mic, sounded buzzy. And pissed off. “And I’m not French.”

Tomkins pasted a sarcastic grin on his face and gestured, palms up, at his squad. He lifted his eyebrows and bugged out his eyes. “Hear that guys? He’s not French! He wants us to know he’s not French, oui?”

He leaned forward and yelled louder. “You’re the soccer mom, Frenchy. Stick your foot in it and get us to the game before the other kids get bored and go home.”

“I’ll stick my booted foot up your ass. How about I pilot and you stuff a cork in it?”

“How about you stop flapping your gums and fly this bird?”

But the goading had done its job. Frenchy accelerated up the boulevard. The display reading for their ETA dropped like the proverbial stone.

Suddenly, the driver cursed and triggered an array of retros. The armored hovercraft slewed as it carved a chunk from the side of a city bus. The shriek of torn metal brought cheers and jeers from Tomkins’ squad.

That was good. The guys were letting off steam. They’d be calm and focused by the time they reached the target. Keyed up was bad; ready and steady was good. In some ways this was just like a drill, but in one big way this was totally different. This was for reals. For a collar.

Without so much as a hint of warning, Frenchy locked down the binders. The vehicle slammed to a halt, eliciting grunts and cursing from the troop. Tomkins snagged his beam rifle from the bracket and hit the servo controls for the back door. He was on the pavement before the rest of the squad was even on their feet. Out of habit, he thumbed the display on his weapon. It came up solid green; full charge. Time to party.

“Any time now, kiddies,” he shouted as the rest of his squad collected their gear and climbed from the back of their ride. They got into formation and double-timed to the door of a seedy apartment building.

A wave of disgust swept over Tomkins. The place stank of uncollected garbage and filth. Half the residents would be radicals and agitators, the other half bums and other parasites. If it was up to him, he’d order his guys to raze the whole block, torch it and fry anything that tried to scuttle out of the woodwork.

But it wasn’t up to him. Upper echelons insisted on the niceties. It made for better vid. Better PR. Still, he had some latitude and it was time to use it. He triggered the PA function on his comm unit. There was a blast of feedback as his suit amplifier calibrated itself.

“This building is on lock-down,” he bellowed. His voice echoed off the buildings, making his words difficult to decipher. Not his problem. “Shelter in place. Stay away from doors and windows. Anyone caught in the hallways is assumed to be a hostile and will be treated as such.”

They kicked open the front door and stormed up the stairs. The place was a pigsty. Water stains, holes in the plaster. Mildew and rot. Less than half the standard illumination. The whole nine yards.

His troop skidded to a halt outside the target apartment, Ames and Marsden placed the battering ram. They set the timer and stepped back. An indicator light went from green, to amber, then red. The old door shuddered on the first hit and splintered on the second. The third blow ripped the door off its hinges.

Wills lobbed in an infrasonic stunner. Carter tossed in a second one, and the squad took shelter, three on either side of the door. Even with his protective gear, the subsonic pulse made Tomkins’ teeth hurt. Anybody inside would be unconscious, bleeding from the nose and ears.

He pointed to Stevens and Wills and held up three fingers. The men nodded. Three fingers, then two, then one, and they rushed inside.

“Clear right,” shouted Stevens.

“Clear left,” Wills yelled.

The rest of the squad went through the doorway. The stun-blasts had blown out the windows. Heaps of books. A writing desk.

The team took up stations just inside the wrecked entryway. There were two more doors. Carter and Ames took one; Tomkins and Wills went for the other.

It was over in seconds. The apartment was unoccupied. The men gathered in the main room. The place was a mess. A bookshelf, filled to overflowing, covered one wall. A beat-up writing desk stood under the window. The rest of the furniture looked equally cheap and rickety. Probably flea-infested. There was a small bedroom with a minimal bathroom. A tiny kitchen. That was it.

Something moved on the floor near the broken-down sofa. Marsden opened up. Bits of metal and molten plastic flew everywhere.

“What the fuck!” barked Tomkins. “Hold your fire, nimrod; we’re looking for evidence!”

Marsden scuffed his boot on the threadbare carpet. “I just thought—”

“That was a bot. It might’ve had some data… maybe even some recordings. You know, evidence?”

“But it moved, Sarge. And I—”

“How about you stand in the hall outside, hmm? Yell if a rebel army shows up.”

“Um… Right, Sarge… Sorry.”

“Wills. You go with him. Try to keep him from torching any more evidence.”

“I’m on it.”

Tomkins stalked through the apartment. The place stank of old books. And not a single reader in sight. Clever. You can’t track books the way you can networked media.

There were other scents too: machine oil… and the kitchen smelled of unfamiliar spices. Definitely non-standard meals. No security vids. No data ports.

Carter found a well-stocked toolbox, tucked into a niche behind the bed. Tomkins ran a scan on it, hoping for a DNA match. Nada. The perps, whoever they were, had been smart.

Stevens found a pile of gear behind the sofa. Nothing thrilling, just a couple of water purifiers and some personal hygiene equipment, but it was good-quality stuff. What was going on here? Books. Tools. Used gear, all high-end. All unregistered.

Suddenly, it all clicked together. The perps had been running a bootleg repair shop — refurbing gear for the plebes who lived in the slum. That’d let the locals spend their credits on other stuff. And by the look of it, the gear being repaired had been salvaged from better neighborhoods. Hence the boost to local commerce that the CAF had flagged.

Tomkins got a little excited. Maybe they could get some ID off the stuff that was slated for repair. But again, the DNA scan came up empty. This had been one careful bunch of subversives. Hmmm… Maybe they should round up everybody in the building?

He almost called it in, but hesitated, nervous about gambling on the outcome. What if the perps had limited their direct business to plebes in other buildings? HQ wouldn’t authorize hauling in the whole slum. And Tomkins had already shot a big wad with the raid.

Everywhere were signs of hurried packing. Some books had spilled from a chair where they’d obviously been stacked. A closet door hung open to reveal half a dozen empty hangers. Empty drawers, pulled from the bedroom dresser, lay on the bed.

For anyone below citizen class B, information in printed format was a security threat and, therefore, prohibited. He’d found sufficient physical evidence to justify the warrant-to-raid-and-arrest. Confiscation of contraband was good, though it wasn’t worth anything like a collar.

“Those books inventoried yet, Ames?”

“About half of ‘em, Sarge.”

“Let’s see.” He scanned the list. Even a cursory glance revealed titles from the proscribed list. That was something.

And of course the absence of certain things was itself evidence: the lack of vid unit, for instance. The Occupancy Permit, which should have been prominently displayed, was nowhere to be found. Ditto the photo ID. Ditto the permit for the tools. All-in-all, a reasonable take.

But they’d bungled the big catch. Tomkins cursed under his breath. It was time to report in, past time actually. Last thing he wanted was to be late. As if reading his mind, the HQ comm flashed red in his heads-up.

Ice stabbed his belly. “Here we go,” he muttered and opened the channel.

There was a click and a short burst of static. “Tomkins, badge 14159. Confirm,” said a well-modulated, genderless voice.

It wasn’t a human voice… just some automated response system at HQ. His stomach sank. “Um, Yeah… Tomkins confirmed.”

“Is subject in custody?”

He tamped down a burst of irritation. Why go through the charade? HQ monitored the raids. Everybody knew it and HQ knew that they knew. He fought to keep his voice level. Calm and professional. “Negative. I think somebody tipped ‘em off… Anyway, no one was here by the time we—”

“Primary target loss confirmed. Budget impact noted. Forensic team with security backup dispatched. Secure the perimeter. Place sensors with auto-alarm activated and return to base.”

“Ah… perimeter secure order confirmed. But the place is a mess… We smashed the door to gain access, and our subsonics blew out the windows. I’ve figured out what triggered the alarm in the first place. Some of it, anyway. The perps had—”

“Budget impact noted. Forensic team with security backup dispatched. Return to base for debriefing.”

Tomkins swallowed. “Wish we’d bagged ‘em,” he blurted. He grimaced; the words had just slipped out.

There was brief silence. How many levels were listening to the call? And did levels even count any more with a bunch of data jockeys mediating everything?

Of course the system did realtime voice stress analysis. It’d know he meant what he said. That he felt real regret at the missed collar. But so what? Results mattered. Perp walks mattered. Right intentions? Unclear.

“Noted. Results in your sector below median for eighteen weeks.”

Another stab of worry, this one tinged with fear. His throat went tight. He tried to swallow, but it didn’t help. “Yeah, well… Maybe most of the radicals have cleared out. Gone to ground outside the city. Or—”

“Speculation is outside your charter, Sergeant Tomkins. Budget impact noted. Complete perimeter closure. Have your squad off the street and in the transport prior to Forensic team and Security detail arrival. Hand off the crime scene and return to base for debriefing.”

He fought to keep the quaver out of his voice. “Confirmed. See you soon. Maybe the next tip’ll pan…”

His voice trailed off. The comm was already dead.

#storybatch1

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mcglaviano · 4 years ago

Text

The Trap

Sam and his mother stamped their wet shoes on the mat. She juggled shopping bags and fumbled for her keys. The warmth felt good on Sam’s face as he followed her across the threshold. And having a home felt awesome.

He handed off the grocery bags he’d brought up from the car.

“Thanks, hon,” Mom said. “I don’t know how Dad and I got so lucky.”

He grinned and shrugged out of his parka.

She arched an eyebrow and gave him The Mom Look. “Remember to hang up your coat, Sam.”

“Um, okay.”

Arms laden with grocery bags, his mother headed for the kitchen. Worry edged Sam’s warm, safe feeling aside. Mom’s limp looked worse.

Sam chewed on his lower lip and edged toward the hall closet. He reached for the doorknob only to hesitate and pull back. He tried again. This time a shudder passed through his body, leaving him chilled. His heart pounded in his chest and his mouth went dry. He glanced toward the home’s interior, toward the kitchen, where his mother sang to herself as she worked.

He wanted to do what Mom said, really he did. But he couldn’t bring himself to open the door. He didn’t dare. Finally, he hung his coat on the doorknob and scurried up the stairs to his room.

Outside, the storm raged, but the room that greeted him was warm and comfortable. This cozy bedroom had been his very own for almost two years. No metal bunkbeds, no institutional furniture. No mean kids. No scared kids or crazy kids. Instead, he had his own books, his own stuff. He had a mom and a dad. He even had friends at school. Life was lots better now. More than anything else he could imagine, Sam wanted to keep it that way.

With a heavy sigh, he closed the bedroom door and dragged his boxes of Lego® pieces into a semicircle. Within minutes he was immersed in his project. This was his third try. He had to get it right.

At first the work went quickly. From its cavelike opening to the odd, twisty way the blocks tailed off at the back, the pieces snapped together easily. But as the complicated shape evolved, progress slowed. Eventually, his project moved ahead in fits and starts. Several times, he worked himself into corners and had to rip out what he’d done. Each time, he set his jaw, took a deep breath, and tried something different.

Sam squinted, trying to picture the construct’s interior. Occasionally, his eyes burned and he fought back tears. Tears of frustration, tears of worry. “I have to get it right this time,” he whispered, careful to keep his voice soft, masked by the rattle of the storm. “I just have to.”

He remembered other Moms, other Dads. Others who’d wanted him. But it’d never worked out. It’d never had time to work out. And, at eight, Sam knew this might be his last shot at a home and family.

When Mom and Dad adopted him, he’d had been happy and excited but worried. What if he was followed? That had happened before with other homes and other chances for a family. So Sam been vigilant at first. And for a long time, there’d been no signs of pursuit, so gradually, over the past year, his worries had faded. It seemed like they were going to leave him alone… leave his new parents alone.

Then, a month ago, in the dark of the night, he’d been awakened by a faint sound. He sat bolt upright in bed, straining to hear. Something wasn’t right. There was a whisper, a noise that had no place in a safe, happy home. And sure enough, in the weeks following, it had grown worse. His enemies were back, and they got bolder every day.

He recognized the signs. This morning he’d noticed his mother scratching her ankle as she sat in the kitchen with her coffee. Later as she’d pulled on thick socks in preparation to take Sam to school, he’d caught a glimpse of a red welt on that same ankle. And after school, it had scared him when she said her leg hurt as they bustled through the aisles of the grocery store.

And several times in the past week, his father had misplaced his keys. Worse, Monday evening, even though he called her every couple of days, Dad couldn’t remember Grandma’s phone number. Sam had found a bunch of his father’s books pulled from the shelves in the den too. Some had nasty-looking bite marks on the covers.

But Sam couldn’t say anything. He’d tried that before with foster parents and with potential adoptive parents. It had never ended well. Grownups, no matter how kind and patient, just couldn’t believe. He’d learned the hard way: if he insisted, if he pushed too hard, their patience faded. And as they got sicker, their good feelings went away, replaced by something else. Something that led, finally, back to The System.

So it was up to him. If anything were to be done, it would be Sam’s doing. The responsibility felt heavy, like it might squash him flat. But what else could he do? With an effort, he pushed the scary thoughts away and concentrated on his work.

Sometimes he whistled softly. He’d only just figured out how to whistle and needed to practice. He thought whistling might help; in fact, he was almost sure of it.

Sam kept at it all through the rainy, wet afternoon. Working with his Legos. Getting better with his whistling. After a while, warm dinner smells drifted upstairs. He loved those smells. They were filled with the magic of good food. Of a safe home. Of his mom and dad.

Finally, there was a familiar tread on the stairs. Footsteps, heavier than his mother’s, approached. Sam clicked the final Lego block into place just as his father knocked at the door to his room.

“Hey, Dad,” he called, “come see what I built!”

The door swung open, and his father stood in the doorway. As always, his father’s arrival brought with it a feeling Sam couldn’t describe. It felt, somehow, like everything would work out, like everything would be okay. It was a new feeling in his eight-year-old life… a feeling he wanted desperately to protect.

Unlike his mother, who was petite and pretty, his father was a bear of a man. Big, but kind and funny. Sometimes, Sam almost felt like his father would understand his secret. That the big man could be enlisted in the battle. But what if he couldn’t make Dad believe him? No. He’d have to win this fight on his own.

“Hey there, Champ. You have a good day?”

“Um, sure.” Sam pointed to the Lego project. “See what I built?”

His father leaned over to peer at the strange angles, at the color patterns along the sides of the thing. “Say, now. That’s really something.”

Sam hopped up. He hugged his father around the waist. He felt the big man’s hand on his shoulder and craned his neck. When he caught the look on his father’s face, a pang hit his stomach. He knew what was coming.

“So… Son.”

“Yeah?”

“Did your mom ask you to hang your coat up?”

“Um… Yeah.”

“Well?”

“Uh, I can’t… reach the hangers.”

His father nodded. “But there’s a hook on the inside of the closet door. I put it there for you… ’Til you’re taller.”

Sam took a deep breath, and suddenly, despite his resolve, it all poured out in a rush. “There’s spider things in that closet, Dad! Big ones. And they’re bad. And—”

His father shook his head, which sent Sam’s stomach into the basement. The big man’s voice stayed patient, but firm. “We talked about this, Son. Imagination is good. Grand, even. But we still have our responsibilities.”

He nodded. “I know. That’s why I built it.”

“Built what?”

Sam pointed to the Lego project. His father glanced at it, only to return his gaze to him, to look deep into his eyes. The big man started to reply but hesitated. He puffed out his cheeks in a sigh. Nodded.

“So, what should we do?” his father asked, finally.

Hope surged in Sam’s heart. “Um, would you carry it downstairs for me?”

“I suppose I could. Then you’ll hang up your coat?”

Sam gave a vigorous nod. “Yep. You bet. This’ll take care of those boogers.”

“Well, then. I guess we’d better get on with it.” The big man’s knees crackled as he knelt on the floor. “Hmmm… What is this? Some kind of spaceship?”

As his father reached toward the complex object, Sam grabbed his wrist. “No Dad! Not there!”

“What?”

“You can’t touch that part. They’ll smell your hands and won’t go in.”

“Ah. Where then?”

Sam pointed to some flat places on either side of the piece. “There. Hold it there. And there, see?”

His father hesitated, nodded. His knees cracked again as he got to his feet. At last, with Sam trailing behind, his father carried the Lego sculpture down the stairs and into the front hall.

Sam pointed. “Put it on the floor, Dad.”

“Here?”

“By the closet door. A little closer. Now turn it.”

“Like this?”

“Yeah. That’s it. Thanks, Dad. I was wondering how to get it downstairs.”

“Hmmm… So now what?”

Despite feeling like his heart was trying to shinny up his throat, Sam stood up straight and flung back his shoulders. “I’ll do the rest, Dad. You just stand back. And keep watch.”

He took a deep breath and reclaimed his coat. He glanced over his shoulder and met his father’s gaze. The big man nodded, a kind smile firmly in place.

Finally, with his jaw clenched hard and his heart hammering in his chest, Sam turned the knob and flung open the closet door. At first nothing happened, but, just as Sam heard his father take a breath to speak, there came an unmistakeable skittering from the back of the closet. Something moved in the shadowed space behind the coats, behind the umbrellas and slickers.

Mouth dry, Sam fought to summon enough spit to wet his lips. He whistled once, low and soft. The same whistle he’d practiced all afternoon. A shape darted, almost too quickly to see, out of the depths of the closet and into the mouth of the Lego structure.

“What the…?” began Sam’s father.

Dad grabbed his shoulder, hauling him back, away from the closet. Sam twisted free and shook his head. “No, Dad,” he hissed. “We have to keep going. There’s more of ‘em.”

He whistled again. A second shape emerged and then a third. Suddenly, like a flood, they poured from the closet with their legs scrabbling for purchase on the oak floorboards. Sam caught glimpses of misshapen things. Of dark, reddish things that sported tufts of coarse hair. The spiders scuttled toward the Lego structure only to vanish inside. On and on they came until, at last, there were no more.

Sam approached the closet. He hung his coat on the hook. His mouth hurt from grinning so hard, but he didn’t care. He stepped back, pressed the door shut and turned around.

“That’s it?” asked Sam’s father, his voice full of something Sam had never before heard in a grownup.

“Almost. Later, we’ll take it back upstairs.”

“Can… Can they get out?”

Sam shook his head. “Naw. They go… I don’t know. Somewhere else. It’s hard for them to come back. Anyway, you and Mom are safe now.”

He looked directly into his father’s eyes. “But if you want, after dinner you can help me take it apart. So you can see they’re gone.”

The big man nodded. “You bet I will.”

“Dinner!” his mother called from the kitchen.

#storybatch1

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