Stav folded his hands on the desk, with one last question. “So Jackson, you guys had no idea who hired you or why?”
Jackson thought this was already wrapped up, but it was a question designed to test if his story was straight. “Yeah, that’s about the same thing I’ve been saying all along. Anonymous transaction on the undernet bounty hunter board. We got half the crypto up front and were supposed to get half later, after calling in our success. The job needed proof of completion. Something intimate from one of the targets. Some hair, a piece of clothing, a severed toe, whatever.” “And where was this proof supposed to be delivered?”, Res asked. “Dead drop. Some GPS coordinates in a fancy part of town.”, Jackson replied.
“Well, let’s keep this worm on the hook. You’re going to deliver proof after a short call to the client explaining why you’re late. We don’t even need to follow anyone or wait near the location to find out who picks it up. Any slick employer won’t go there directly anyway. They’ll send a courier”, Res said. She turned around, walked into the bathroom, and returned with her bra and a clipping of her hair in one hand. “It’ll grow back,” she murmured, and handed the items to Stav. On her bra, there was a simple identification mark. Her initials, embroidered on the clasp at the front.
Stav began cutting Jackson loose from his chair and instructed him to go down the hall to clean up and change into some fresh clothes. There were all kinds and sizes of clean green and white shirts to change into. Jackson was wobbly on his feet from all the adrenalin and it took him a moment to stand up. Stav told Sharp to keep an eye on him and help him take the stairway up and out of the complex. Before they left, Stav had some parting words for Jackson. “This is goodbye. You won’t remember any of the details of what went on here tonight. You’ll never come within a mile of this place. Our names are all fiction. The only reality you’re allowed is that soon-to-be scar on your shoulder. You were fair with us, and this is us being fair with you. Be a little more cautious of the jobs you accept in the future.” Sharp waited for any indication from Stav that gave him carte blanche on how to exit Jackson, but none was given. They were really letting him walk.
After a few hours of rest, Sheepdog and Res both exited 242 and headed back to the office, stopping by the company gym on the lower level to clean up a little first. It was the safest place to be, considering the circumstances. Stav buzzed their comms with a simple message on a private channel.
“Not a word until we splice the courier footage back to the source.”
Stav was satisfied with the post-mortem investigation so far, and he left Dec, Res and Sheepdog alone to get some rest. He wasn’t finished yet, there was one major thread that still needed to be tied off. It was Jackson’s turn. Regardless of how late it had become, Jackson wouldn’t get to rest until this final interview. “Sharp, bring in our patient now,” Stavros boomed, and Stav rolled Jackson into the room affixed to an office chair, parking him directly in front of Stav’s desk. Jackson was coming around again after passing out earlier, with the assistance of some smelling salts under his nose. He looked tired and haggard, sweat-soaked from the night’s consequences, with a mostly-clean gauze padding taped over his artskin-enhanced shoulder wound. “Cigarette?”, Stav offered, doing his best good cop impersonation. Jackson nodded yes, and Stav placed a cigarette in his mouth for him, lighting it with a single strike of a Zippo lighter. He clicked it shut and placed it in his front shirt pocket. Jackson took a long draw off the cigarette and motioned for Stav to retrieve it since his hands were bound. Stav leaned back and let the uncomfortable silence do some of the work for him. He patiently waited for Jackson to say something to break the silence. “Are you guys gonna kill me or what? You’ve done a lot of work just to kill me, but let’s get on with it.”, Jackson cracked. Stav didn’t answer him directly; it wasn’t out of the question just yet, and Stav preferred not to lie. “We probably won’t kill you, but we need you to do a lot of talking. Singing for your supper, as they used to say. Afterwards? We’ll make a decision, and it will be fair. You’re driving; map out how you got here.”, Stav said.
Jackson glanced down, his heart pounding. He took a deep breath, feeling the weight of his situation pressing down on him. Every scenario played out in his mind like a grim chess game. If he gave Stav all the information, he’d become expendable—a target for elimination. But if he held back, Stav would sense his deceit, and the torture would be inevitable. Jackson wasn’t trained for this. He wasn’t a hardened operative; the fear gnawed at him, making his stomach churn. He knew that under pressure, he’d crack eventually.
Caught between a rock and a hard place, Jackson weighed his options with increasing desperation. His hands trembled slightly as he made his choice, throwing the dice and hoping against hope that luck might favor him this time.
“Like I said earlier, this was a contract job. My team basically won a bid on the undernet. An anonymous, encrypted request hit the wire with the target descriptions and an address. There were no treatment instructions other than ‘the subjects should be taken alive and interrogated. No authorization of deadly force’. Once we accepted the contract, we got paid half, suited up, and headed to the location.” Jackson paused and wondered if he left anything out. Stav leaned forward on his elbows, narrowing his eyes as he listened, trying to work out how much of the story was true. “Sure is coincidental,” Stav said, “how an AI just happened to notice all this activity after the plan was in motion.” “I don’t know much about all that fancy future shit,” Jackson shot back, “I figured they had enough digital brainpower to watch anyone anywhere. Which makes me wonder why it kicked in a little late. Was it watching us, or them?”
The question was purely rhetorical. Jackson was buying time. Fifteen wasn’t aware of this team until it noticed the men approaching from outside Sheep’s building. Three armed men disguised as some kind of SWAT team would raise suspicion to anyone on the building’s camera feeds. Jackson was starting to feel like this whole thing was a huge mistake, but bounty hunters weren’t picky. No doubt some other team would have grabbed the targets alive and escaped before Dec had a chance to stop them. This was all Gruff’s fault, and he resented him for it. The pizza man? What a joke; but Gruff fell for that gambit despite calling bluffs all night up until that point. No Gruff, no Dec, no major shoulder injury trying to heal.
Jackson refocused. He already made the decision to stop protecting his crew. They were dead anyway, and he didn’t care to join them. “What else do you wanna know?”, he asked Stav.
Stav started again, not giving Jackson long to think. Memories were faster than lies. “Tell me more about this undernet. An encrypted channel for bounty hunters maybe? How does it work?”
Jackson spilled the beans, describing the structure of the undernet and what bounty hunters and teams needed to do to register, to find jobs. It was like other social media with rankings and bidding. Seemed like a small, easy job, and it would have been if those two weren’t so well protected. Not only did the targets see it coming, but their ex-military friend and his exotic weapons just happened to arrive on time. Even 75% of the way through the job, Jackson and his crew were convinced that they’d be walking out of there unscathed with the targets. Now two were dead; Jackson was seriously injured and he was deep underground in some hidden bunker, completely at the mercy of Stav’s crew. Public opinion had to be against him, but he couldn’t risk sounding too soft and apologetic.
“Like I said, this was just business. No intent on harming the targets; we wanted to get paid the full amount. Things just went upside down. People get snatched every day in this city, interrogated, and set loose miles from home. This wasn’t our first rodeo, but we weren’t stupid…our rifles carried dummy rounds, good for noise and a scare tactic.”, Jackson stammered.
Stav leaned back and slowly nodded. This was the truth; he was satisfied with the story he was hearing. There was an unspoken understanding here. Jackson’s only chance at leaving here in one piece was the truth, and he knew it by now. If they just wanted Jackson dead it would have happened back at the apartment, a mess for Mr. Clean to deal with. Down here, it would be a bigger mess to handle at the expense of giving up 242’s location. It was highly restricted info to even know about this place, let alone access it. Stav yelled at the door. “Res, come in here. Someone wants to talk to you.” Momentarily, the door opened, and Res stood in the doorway holding an ice pack to her cheek. “Well, let’s hear it,” Res said impatiently, “ain’t got all night.” Jackson knew this was the final test. “Listen, we had a job to do, and you shooting me wasn’t part of the job description. I was angry, and it hurt. I’m sorry if I…overreacted. Every action has an equal and opposite reaction, after all.” Res contemplated this half-assed apology for a minute before admitting, “to be honest, I hadn’t planned on shooting anyone either. You spooked me and my training kicked in. I thought it was a life-or-death situation.” Jackson breathed a sigh of relief, like two boxers touching gloves after the fight. “I guess you’ve suffered enough,” she added, “so let’s call it even. We’ll heal.” They would have shaken on it if Jackson wasn’t tied up. Jackson managed a crooked grin and said, “look at us, a couple of victims of circumstance.” “Nah, victim of you smashing me in the face with a rifle butt. You’re lucky you didn’t break my nose. Wouldn’t be as pretty for Dec,” she said as she glanced over her shoulder towards him. Dec was busy tearing into Res’ cooking and didn’t look up.
As the door opened, Dec saw the second man standing in the background, weapon aimed directly at the door. Armed men. Armor. The stakes just went up. Dec thought back to the white van in the parking lot. This was a snatch and grab crew. Their weapons might not even have bullets. At least, not their big guns. Too much noise for a job like this.
“I dunno, like, 50 credits for the pizza, and then, like, uhmmm, maybe 10 credits for the tip, or like, more if you’re feeling generous,” Dec said. “Hang on,” replied the gruff man, before closing the door and fishing through his pockets for the credits. He came up short, and turned to the other two, showing 40 credits in his outstretched hand for them to chip in. The second man made up the difference, and gruff returned to the door. He unchained the lock, and opened the door further.
As he extended his left hand with the credits, he saw Dec standing there, with no pizza. “What the hell? Who the fuck are you, and why are you soaking wet?”, gruff said. Dec replied, “a neighbor, coming to see what all the noise was. I live downstairs.” “Unlikely,” the gruff man said, “get your ass in here. Hands up, slick.”
Dec obeyed, and placed both hands behind his head as he slowly stepped through the doorway. Three men, all armored, looked to be level 3 soft armor. His sidearm wouldn’t have helped anyway, just pissed them off. Sheep was cuffed and hooded, and Res was laying on the floor with a pretty nasty bruise on one cheek and a bleeding nose. He counted in his head, estimating the time before backup showed up, and he planned to be alive after the cavalry arrived. The gruff man motioned to the second man. “Check him out,” he said, as the second man approached him for a pat down. “Easy big fella,” he said, and after patting him down, finding nothing, he said, “now show me your hands.”
Dec set his jaw, and lowered his hands to his sides, both fists clenched tightly. “I don’t like guns, guys. Especially if they’re pointed at me; really makes me nervous.”, Dec said. “Well, that’s too bad, princess. You came to the wrong place at the wrong time. You’d probably be smart to just, I dunno, turn around and leave. Or, you can stay here and add to the body count. Don’t care either way,” gruff said, “your move.”
“I have a better idea,” Dec replied, “how about you guys put down your guns, and I’ll beat all three of you with my bare hands? Or, I can keep stalling, and more friends will show up, then it’ll be a real party.” Jackson chuckled. A three on one fight? No problem. The second man looked at the gruff man for the next step. It was dawning on the gruff man that this guy wasn’t bluffing. He recognized one of the tattoos, snaking its way up his arm, and he knew only the most elite soldiers were allowed to get that design. Still, they had the advantage. “What could one unarmed vet do against three men?”, he thought, “these guys are usually drunk or pilled up to their eyeballs.”
Gruff motioned to the second man to lay down his weapon, as he grinned and got into a fighting stance. Jackson sat his gun on the couch and looked back at gruff. “One more thing,” gruff said to Dec, “show me your palms.”
Dec extended his left fist, palm up, and opened his hand. Nothing. As Dec extended his right fist, palm down, he squeezed. Hard. A brief, electrostatic crackle filled the air around him as three rare-earth magnets, tucked between his fingers, facing gruff, launched at supersonic speed. Before he could even blink, gruff’s body armor had been pierced on both sides by the magnets, leaving three bleeding vertical slits behind. It was a critical wound, and he knew it. “Kill him,” he coughed, as he clutched at his chest and fell to the floor. Dec dove to the right, spit more magnets into his right hand as he fell, and launched a second barrage at Jackson, blasting him in the right shoulder as Jackson was reaching for the gun on the couch, spinning him around violently. Outside the window, somewhere close, an Archer 1500 small drone platform fired its arrow. Glass from the open window shattered as instantly, the second man caught a 2-inch square railgun slug to the chest which punched straight through his back and chest, dropping him like a bag of potatoes. Dec got up and rushed Jackson, tackling him and knocking him out as he was driven into the wall. Res, dazed from the hit to the face, raised her head a little and said “Dec?”, before falling unconscious.
Dec breathed a sigh of relief. They would have killed her.
As Dec approached the dilapidated building, he was honestly surprised that anyone lived there. All those windows, but not many lights on inside. It was halfway abandoned, or looked that way. He slowed his pace to a jog, briefly examining the parking lot for anything suspicious. Nobody was out milling around in this weather, and the most suspicious vehicle he saw was a windowless, white van. It looked new. He checked his comms again and the single-eyed pyramid icon had a number floating above it. 37. The estimated time for backup was 37 more seconds. He couldn’t wait.
He kicked open the lobby doors, and one fell off its hinges and crashed to the floor as he kept moving. “So much for stealth, but this storm is good cover,” Dec thought, checking the coordinates on the comms again to see if anything had changed. He slapped the elevator button, and to his surprise, the doors snapped open. Nobody was inside the waiting car as he charged in and literally punched the number 5. The doors closed just as quickly as they had opened, with a snap, and he was heading up, fast.
The gruff man retrieved two more items from the bag, then turned to Sheep first. “Say ahh,” he said, before shoving a gag into Sheep’s mouth, securing it with duct tape, and pulling the fabric bag over his head. “Comfy? Good.” Next, he approached Res. “Your turn, darlin’,” he said, but Res, stinging from the backhand, spat in his eye instead. “Fuck you. FUCK YOU!”, she yelled at the gruff man, who was grimacing and wiping the spit from his eye. “Jackson, you got any hard feelings left about this one?”, he said, as he turned to face Jackson. Res felt her heart was going to explode now, it was all fight and no flight, and she had no business provoking them further. She just wanted to be out of this whole mess, yet her body seemed to have a mind of its own. “HELP MEEEE!”, she screamed, before Jackson flipped his rifle around and smashed her in the face with the butt stock. She felt her knees buckle from the impact and collapsed to the floor. This was it.
As Dec exited the elevator, he heard a scream, then a thump. “Goddamn it, am I too late?”, he thought, as he walked quickly but quietly to the source of the sound. Glancing at the comms, he saw a number 23 over the triangle icon. He would have to act alone, and he would have to stall. As he approached the door, the comms flashed, indicating this was the place. He knocked gently. No response. He knocked a little harder, and the men inside all pivoted to face the door. They looked at each other briefly, silently deciding who would answer, before the gruff man called out, “Who’s there?”. Dec replied flatly, “pizza”. Gruff slowly approached the door, which had no peep hole, and put an ear to the door, before saying, “You got the wrong place. We didn’t order pizza.” Jackson and the second man trained their guns on the door, anticipating the next move. “Uhhm, the box says 5223 Skyline Drive, unit 512? I’m pretty sure this is yours,” Dec said, “because it’s…like…the only address like this.”
The gruff man was starting to get annoyed. If it was a pizza man, he wasn’t going away. At least, not without a tip. He removed his ballistic mask, laid his weapon behind the door, and unlocked the door, except for a little, weak safety chain. He turned to the others, making a shhh motion with one finger over his lips. He cracked the door open a few inches, the length of the chain, and looked through the gap. “Listen, buddy, I’m telling ya, we didn’t order a pizza. What do you want, money? If it’ll make you go away, I’ll give you a few credits. What’s the total?”, he said.
There was plenty of tension in the air, and Sheep had never been so nervous in his life. They were buying the ruse, but for how long? He had to double-down. “I’ll consider disarming it when I can relax again, and I can’t relax with you goons here. Who the hell are you, and what do you want?”, barked Sheepdog. The gruff man spoke up again; he must have been the leader. “Hey, hey… no reason to be nervous here. We’re all disarmed. A client just needed some answers, and it was suggested that you may not want to give those answers so easily to strangers. We have our own questions. Let’s be civilized here. No. Rash. Moves.”.
They were buying the act. Especially the team lead. His voice had the crust of war and Sheep imagined that he had actually seen explosions like the one he was threatening, and didn’t want to repeat that, ever. He replied, “Vague lies. I want a name.” “Let’s just call him, T-Rex. That’s all we know. You see, you don’t exactly hire a team like this with a listed name. The order goes in, the target is loaded, credits transfer, we show up,” said the gruff man, in a matter-of-fact way. “This ain’t personal, man.”
“You still haven’t told me why you’re here,” Sheep said, “and I’m getting tired of holding this button down.” A few drops of sweat were forming on his brow, and his hand was getting visibly fatigued, shaking a little while he held the joystick button. The gruff man replied again. “Listen, we’re tired of being here too. We were paid to get some info about some kind of video footage. They said you saw something that you weren’t supposed to see. I guess the guy hiding in that footage didn’t appreciate you snooping around. We weren’t gonna hurt you. Not much. Just enough to extract that information, and discourage you from snooping around.”
Res was still balled up behind the couch, desperately thinking of a way out of this. She could take out one, maybe two of these guys, but only if they were off-guard and slower than her. They had the advantage of seeing the room; she could only imagine who was where; there wasn’t even a mirror she could look at from her location. Sheep couldn’t keep this up all night. The longer this went on, the less they would believe him, even though right now, he had them singing like birds.
Dec believed in himself. He never doubted for a second that he could outrun his own estimate. The device estimated he was 60 seconds from the target, and closing fast. Definitely a setback, but not enough time to think about what he was running into. The target looked like a multi-residential unit, and the coordinates suggested she was on the 5th floor. Elevator or stairs? It was a coin-toss, he would decide on arrival. He was also mostly disarmed, which might be a problem, although how big of a problem would be determined on site. As he chugged along, he only seemed to run faster; he felt exhilarated going all out, despite getting soaked from the relentless downpour. Memories of running towards danger during the war mingled in his head. He was born for situations like this; charging headlong into danger, not knowing the odds. Hang in there, Res. I’m coming.
The sweating wasn’t isolated to Sheep’s brow. His palms and everything else were getting involved. Nervous response, nothing he could do to stop it. The gruff man said, “I think we’ve played fair here. You know who sent us and what we want. How about you relax a little. We can all relax now. Nobody has to die.” As the word DIE hung in the air, suddenly, Sheep lost his grip on the joystick. It plummeted to the floor, along with the rest of the cord attached to it, including the end that plugged in to the Atari. Two of the men immediately squatted and covered their ears, bracing for the massive explosion, convinced that the dead man’s switch was real. The gruff man didn’t move an inch. “I fuckin knew it. You were bluffing the whole time. Boys, arm up!”, he yelled, and you could hear the vengeance in his voice. However this was going to go, things had escalated now. The other two men grabbed their guns by the door and drew a bead on Sheep. “Jackson, check the other rooms,” he ordered, and Jackson began searching the rest of the place. Sheep looked defeated and threw both hands in the air as he was ordered to his knees.
The gruff man stepped around behind him and forcefully grabbed one arm before zipping half of a plastic cuff around his wrist, yanking his other arm down to apply the second. “Now we’re gonna find out how much you know, after we take a little trip together,” he said. Jackson announced the other rooms were clear, but upon returning to the living room, he spotted Res crouched behind the couch. “Well ain’t that sweet, he’s got company. Stand up and identify yourself,” Jackson commanded her. More out of panic than anything else, Res howled, drew her firearm and got one shot off on Jackson as she stood up. It hit him square in the chest, and Jackson let out a quiet oof as the bullet hit his armor, flattened out, and fell to the floor. “She’s a spicy one,” said the second man, “now drop your little toy there, lady.”
Res did as he said, there was no point in resisting any further. She was lucky to be alive at that point, and unlike Sheep, she didn’t plan to gamble anymore. Her comms buzzed again, pointlessly. It was a hopeless situation for her and Sheep. The second man approached her and did a quick pat down, making sure she didn’t have any more surprises for them. Jackson grunted, “I think you might have left a bruise. Here, let’s trade.” He backhanded her across the cheek, the reinforced Kevlar knuckles of his gloves making contact with her cheekbone. She winced in pain. The gruff man strolled over to Res with another set of plastic cuffs. “You know the drill. Let’s go easy.” Res relented and slowly placed her wrists together behind her back. It was over. She and Sheep were leaving with these guys whether they liked it or not. The gruff man retrieved his gun and two head covers from his duffle bag. He was taking them away hostage-style. Jackson and the second man had their weapons aimed at Sheep and Res.
Sheep quickly searched the room for anything that looked even remotely like a dead-man’s switch. He didn’t have any old-fashioned remote controls anywhere; everything was voice command now. But he did have something his grandfather once owned that should fool them. He dashed to his bedroom closet and yanked out his gambit. An artifact from a simpler time. An Atari 2600 joystick, with a cord and a single red button. This could work. He quickly stuffed the excess wire up his sleeve and zipped his jacket shut before shuffling back to the front door.
“Ok, this is it. Nobody shoots. We’re going to talk,” Sheep announced, before unlocking the door and slowly turning the handle. Res ducked down and made herself as small as possible, clasping her mouth with one hand, in case any sound tried to escape. She was armed, but outnumbered, and scared out of her mind. Staying hidden was her best defense.
The men in the hallway trained their guns on the center of the door as the handle turned and it swung open very slowly. The lights were on inside, and before them stood Sheepdog, with the detonator in his right hand. It was black and compact, with an obvious trigger, which his thumb was covering. “Easy now, nobody has to get hurt, Sheep,” said the gruff man, who sounded like he smoked cigars for a living. “Everyone, drop your weapons, and step in, single-file. If anyone is left in the hall, come in NOW or get merked with all your buddies here,” Sheep ordered. “Holy shit, he just might pull this off,” Res thought, after hearing the situation change. Exchanging glances, the men sat their guns down just inside the doorway and stepped back slowly before forming a line and marching in, closing the door behind them.
“Is that everyone? Don’t fuck with me!“, Sheep said. He could see their eyes darting around behind the black ballistic masks they were wearing to cover their faces. The tough guy act was working, the men were scared shitless. This was supposed to be a snatch and snitch mission, intel-gathering; nobody was prepared to deal with a suicide bomber. “Yep, just us three,” said the gruff voice. He was a little taller than the other two. “So what’s say you, I dunno, disarm that thing and we can talk? You seem awful tense.”
The quad was losing speed. No amount of pounding on the dash would fix anything right now, but out of frustration, Dec pounded on the dash anyway. Rotor 4 had stopped smoking, and it was nearly white hot now. The rest of the oil must have cooked out of the bearing. At any moment, it was giving up. He did some quick math in his head. At the best velocity, he was ten seconds out. At this velocity, with rotor 4 ready to seize, he’d be on foot, running full speed through the mud towards the destination. This would cost him a few minutes, although the beer in his gut was telling him he could do better, and his adrenaline agreed.
Ffffffffiiiiizzzzzt. CLONK. Alarms sounded and lights flashed in the quad. “Warning, rotor 4, offline. Emergency landing sequence commencing. Remain seated for your safety,” the onboard computer blared over the sound system. Well, shit. He was about to land, and at this point, he didn’t care if the rest of the quad burst into flames. It could burn behind him as he ran. He had to keep making forward progress. The lasers beneath the quad measured out a safe landing zone, then all 3 rotors froze, forcing an instant descent arc. About 3 meters from the ground, they fired back up at full speed, creating a cushion of air to break the fall, before spinning to a complete stop. The canopy ejected, and Dec was out, sprinting to the destination. “This might be a one-man job,” Dec thought, “but just in case, I’m calling in support”. He pulled out his communicator, tapped the destination, and dragged an icon of an eye floating above a pyramid to the location, without breaking stride. Lightning branched across the clouds overhead, and a hard rain pelted him in the face ceaselessly. He felt the thunder in his chest.
Dec was a few beers deep at the Vets table in Meatspace, across town. He suddenly got a message on his comms. Given the hour, and his present company, there was only maybe one person it could be. He checked it.
Dec, it’s 15. Res is in big trouble. She needs your help, now. I’ve sent her coordinates. Hurry.
What followed were GPS coordinates that were extremely specific. Dec hesitated for a second. Genesis 15 was wild, but he wasn’t a liar. “Gotta go play the hero, boys,” Dec said as he stood up and patted his hip. Nothing was there. Either he went to Res’ place unarmed or he left his weapon at her place. He didn’t like those odds; he didn’t know anything about the situation. “Sharp, you armed?”, he asked one of the other vets. “No sir, at least not in here. You know my temper,” Sharp replied, turning back to his beer. “Guess I’m going to have to improvise, if I’m not too late,” Dec thought, as he made a quick visit to some friends before he sprinted to his quadcopter in the rain, which was blowing slightly sideways as it fell.
He jumped in, got strapped in, and tapped his communicator against the dash to transfer the coordinates to the quad’s navigation. Multiple routes were available, and with a few more taps, an emergency beeline route was chosen and he lifted off. He enabled race/crisis mode. “This is stupid,” Dec muttered as the copter flew about 10% beyond its design parameters, heavy raindrops battering the windshield canopy.
The banging at the door continued. “Sheepdog! Open up! You’re only making this worse for everyone. You open the door now, we can talk!”, said the outsider. Res, still peeking from behind the couch, slowly shook her head no. Sheepdog looked like the kind of guy that would fold under this kind of pressure. He was a no-friction kind of guy, and this was textbook friction. Sheep turned his head and stared at the door with his mouth beginning to open. “No Sheep, don’t!”, Res hissed, just as Sheepdog uttered a single, loud word at the door. “Stop!”. “Stop? Is he fucking crazy? When has that ever worked?”, she thought. The banging stopped, and the doorknob quit moving. From the hall, the voice said, “What did you say?”.
Dec was pushing the quad hard. He could feel a rolling vibration traveling through the quad from the front to the rear, suggesting the airframe was getting fatigued. One of the drawbacks of choosing the hot rod version instead of the luxury model, but right then, he needed more speed. The problem with batteries was always weight. You could run a gasoline engine low and the vehicle got lighter as you approached empty. A near-empty battery weighed the exact same as a fully-charged one; heavy. Looking around the interior, the heaviest thing he could jettison was the passenger seat. “Oh well,” Dec sighed, “guess I never used it anyway.” He jammed his hand under the seat and pulled up until the seat started tearing away from the carbon fiber floorpan. He wrenched it loose, and after pulling the emergency canopy open lever, chucked it out and overboard. He was gaining on the location, 2 minutes out.
Res was panicked. Whoever was outside, they were definitely coming in now. Sheepdog just sealed their fate. He stood up and tiptoed to the door. “I said stop. There are lots of bombs in here, and I’m holding a dead-man’s switch. If I drop it, this whole block goes up in flames.” Sheep sounded dead serious; it was one hell of a bluff.
There was some muffled discussion outside. The strangers were discussing their options. “They didn’t say anything about bombs,” one said. “They don’t pay me enough for this kind of shit”, another said. A gruffer voice added, “ahh he’s bluffing. There’s no intel on this guy that suggests he’s anything more than a garden-variety nerd.” Finally, the leader spoke up. “Bull-fuckin-shit, Sheepdog. We’re calling your bluff. Open this door and show us the device. We don’t want to hurt you, so don’t make us hurt you.” They were dressed head to toe in level 3 soft body armor, so anything out of a handgun would thump, but none of them would die. They could afford to play this out.
Back in the quad, Dec was still en route. Less than a minute to target, and he still didn’t know what he was rushing into. It could just as easily have been a prank by 15. He knew 15 talked to Res though, and that was the only proof he needed to justify this high effort rescue. The quad’s vibration had turned into a violent cowl shake and it wasn’t going away. As Dec surveyed the interior, a glowing red chunk of metal caught his attention. Blade number 4, on the right rear, was overheating. He had been meaning to fix that. Too late now. The quad was doomed. “At least it isn’t smoking,” he thought, before it started smoking. Bearing seizure was imminent, and though the quad was safe enough on 3 engines to land, it sure as hell wouldn’t do anything fast. 30 seconds to target…at the current, unsustainable velocity.
“Res, we haven’t had much time to catch up lately. A lot has happened on my end over the past few days. With the approval of our manager, I made a trip on-site to where the missing footage was recorded.” He knitted his fingers together and leaned back a little as Res took the bait. “I wore a serviceman disguise and brought a full spectrum toolkit. None of the surveillance systems in that area were susceptible to tampering on any wireless spectrum. So I probed further, worked out a little deal with the doorman to get a look at the entry logs.”
He continued. “Yes, you chastised me about that before, but at the time, it was my only option. I was in a tight spot and so close to the answer, or so I thought. I guess I didn’t recognize what I was seeing. A man, dressed head to toe in a white, patterned suit. The design was very specific, like mosaic tiles pasted across the entire surface. But the kicker was a matching mask, and I only caught a glimpse of his wrist color because he was so well covered. He stepped out briefly, met with someone outside, then returned to the elevator. I’m pretty sure I saw the invisible man, and in the log book, he was listed as the Relaxed Man. The doorman signed him back in after he returned from his brief exit outside.” The rain began gently falling as the familiar smell of petrichor wafted through the window.
Res looked at Sheep as though he had made a confession. Her eyes widened as she realized just how close he was getting to this. She stammered, “Sh-Sheepdog, you saw the invisible man? Oh fuck. Oh no. No no no. That’s it Sheep, that’s the end. Don’t say another word about this to our manager or to anyone. Promise me. Both of our asses are on the line here, and they’re even closer to the line now. Once the agents review the footage of you in that lobby, it’s only a matter of time before it comes back to you.”
“But that’s the beauty of it, Res. Sure, these agents could pull some splices, and there would be me with the doorman, but still, the invisible man is invisible. To surveillance. They’d never see us in the same room together. The log book was so vague, that if you weren’t there to witness him, you wouldn’t be able to connect the dots. I don’t even think the doorman knows who he is. The log entries I saw mentioning the Relaxed Man were very few. Either he doesn’t live there, or he stays there very rarely. Correlation was hard enough with me being there on-site, and I just happened to be there when he was. Any other day of the week would have been a crapshoot, probably turning up nothing.”
Sheep was pleased with himself, as though he was bragging and talking Res into this whole mess. Res wanted nothing to do with it. She wanted to spend more time with Dec, and that door was left open, but not the kind of time a third visit on this topic would bring. She respected him, she liked him, and here was Sheep, both causing this contact with Dec and escalating it. It was paradoxical. It was also tempting. If what Sheep was saying was true, they really were close to finding out exactly who was in that missing footage. They just didn’t know the mechanism behind why he wasn’t appearing on camera. This wasn’t some primitive disguise to fool one or two cameras. There was literally no footage of the invisible man anywhere, just a few spliced clips where someone should have been. Suddenly, Res had a message on her comms device; she heard it ping from her back pocket. “Go ahead and answer it,” Sheep said.
“I am invisible, understand, simply because people refuse to see me. Like the bodiless heads you see sometimes in circus sideshows, it is as though I have been surrounded by mirrors of hard, distorting glass. When they approach me they see only my surroundings, themselves or figments of their imagination, indeed, everything and anything except me.” ― Ralph Ellison, Invisible Man
Once again, it was Genesis 15. Res’ heart skipped a beat as she began to realize the implication here. Not only did she have agents to worry about, but she had Sheepdog pursuing the invisible man, and Genesis 15 was somewhat aware of what Sheep had been doing. Why was 15 bugging her, of all people, unless…maybe…it wasn’t as uncontrolled and wild as she believed. The quote could also apply to Genesis 15 himself. She often forgot that this AI was just code roaming the net, not an actual person, and she wasn’t interested in all the debates regarding which AI seemed like artificial life. Her mental compromise was to just treat them as individuals. They did exist, not by the strict definition of human existence, but they did live, on some level. That part she never argued. She formulated a reply.
There are a few invisible men; in this world, and on the wire. I know the difference.
She hit send and waited. Sheep started to look impatient, as if he had somewhere to go. “Sheep, it’s 15. He’s been bugging me with cryptic messages about invisible men and ghosts lately. It’s not like we even know each other. Maybe he does this to everyone and I keep taking the bait. I don’t sense any malice here, but I can’t rule it out”, Res said, “does he do this to you?”. Sheep just shrugged and pulled out his device to check it. No new messages, certainly not from 15. “Not really. I think he’s into you.”, Sheep replied. They both grinned as Res’ device pinged a reply.
You’ve got company. I’ll see what I can do, but you and Sheep need to act fast.
Before Res could even reply to the message, there were three heavy knocks at the door. BAM BAM BAM. “Open up, it’s the police!”, a voice yelled from the hall. Res and Sheep exchanged terrified looks as if to say, I dare you to open it. They knew the rules. Keep quiet and wait it out. A closed door is a closed door with no surprises.
Sheep began nervously rocking in his chair, and they heard the sound of something small and metallic scraping across the door handle outside. Are they picking the goddamn lock? It can’t be the police. Res checked her hip. Her sidearm was there, well-hidden and ready to strike as fast as she could present it. She silently mouthed to Sheep, I’m going behind the couch, and quietly climbed over the back. Another knock at the door. “We know you’re in there, and we’re coming in one way or another!”, the voice said again. They could hear a few more feet shuffling also. This person was not alone. Res peeked over the top of the couch, and looked towards the door, where the doorknob was being tested, turned left and right as the scraping sounds continued. “Agents?”, Sheep whispered to Res, and this time Res shrugged. No idea. Her comms pinged again. 15 again.
It doesn’t look like they’re going to give up. Don’t panic. Be cool, like Fifteen cool.
“Sure”, Res thought, “super easy to be cool when you’re floating around in cyberspace.”
Sheepdog spent a little time cleaning up his place before Res was due to arrive. It wasn’t dirty, per se, but it hadn’t seen female company for quite some time. Sheep was too shy, too introverted, to get serious about pursuing the opposite sex, but he didn’t grow up in a jail cell. He knew a thing or two about what women expected in his place. Toilet seat down, with a clean surface. Replaced the TP roll. Paper facing out or behind? Out. Discarded a few little pieces of trash here and there, and polished the bathroom mirror briefly, which had a few specks of toothpaste scattered near the bottom. Next, he addressed the living room, where he spent a few minutes picking up discarded jackets and t-shirts that he intended to either fold or hang up anyway. What else. The kitchen? A quick once-over and everything was in order. This wasn’t a date, he had to keep reminding himself, he just wanted to make it presentable to company.
Just as the grandfather clock began pounding out the eight chimes for 8pm, there was a knock at the door. “Open up, it’s the police!”, Res yelled from the hallway outside. Sheep chuckled and let her in. “Not so loud Res, you’ll freak out the neighbors,” Sheep scolded her playfully as she plopped down on the couch. Sheep approached her and sat in his favorite recliner opposite of the couch, kicking the lever down so it would recline. “Just getting comfortable,” he said, “because I have a feeling this is going to take a while.”
Res stared at Sheep directly for a few moments, working out a witty retort, but nothing was there. She grinned and looked around the room. “You know, I’m not here often, but you seem to be pretty decent at keeping the place tidy. Ugh, I need to use the ladies’ room, be right back.” With that, Res popped up and ducked into the restroom. Sheep knew her all too well, mostly. He mindlessly thumbed the communicator in his pocket for a few minutes until he heard the sink faucet run then turn off. He turned to see Res exit the bathroom, cross the living room, and plop back down on the couch.
“You put the TP roll on backwards. If you had a cat, you’d walk in with a pile of paper on the floor and an empty roll,” Res said with a quick wink, “but I don’t see any cats around here, so you’re good. Funny how life has these little coin tosses that don’t usually make any difference one way or the other.” Sheep wasn’t in any hurry but he was kind of wanting her to get to the point. She was stalling. He said, “you can never guess what your guests will prefer. For me, I usually don’t even snap it into the roller holder. I don’t see the point. But I knew you’d have a preference. Speaking of preferences, have you ever thought about how towels and wash cloths should be folded? It’s an interesting topic, believe it or not. Everyone has their method, and they got it from their parents or siblings, and it’s their way. It seems really trivial, but people are genuinely annoyed when it’s done another way. It’s just a few bits of fabric that just have to fit into a certain space and I figure there are probably… well anyway, maybe it’s not that interesting to anyone else.” Sheep was losing his audience, but he knew when to stop. This was her turn. “Yeah, I’m sure there’s a manual for folding bathroom towels, with US GOVT printed across the top along with a document serial number,” Res said sarcastically. She paused and they both laughed at the absurdity of the topic, which, along with the timing, helped break the tension.
“Sheep, you and I have known each other for ages. We have usually been back-to-back, splicing narratives together, reviewing footage, solving mysteries and triggering actions. I’d say we’re good at our jobs. But,” and she paused to make bookend shapes with her hands, “I think you’ve locked on to something that is more dangerous than you recognize. You picked up on the scent and, like a bloodhound, you’ve actually made some progress sniffing out the source. Yes, I’m talking about the ghost footage.”
Sheep looked at her bleakly, feeling the mood in the room change. It felt like getting laid off, and she was the manager who, unfortunately, had to deliver the bad news. Yet, not before his curiosity was answered. “Res, this almost sounds practiced. You could go on and give me the warning, but let’s fill in some blanks here first. Number one, what’s driving this on your end?”, Sheep asked.
“Let’s just say,” Res said, “there are layers to the organization that aren’t obvious. We have our manager and he has his manager and all the way up, to infinity. There are also people that don’t get a Splicer paycheck like we do, but they still get paid. Off the books, mostly. Who do you think watches us, our manager? He’s just a necessary rung on the ladder. We don’t even need him, honestly. Due to the nature of our function at the company, Splicer can’t really afford to trust secrets and the level of things we access to simple middle managers. There’s another group for that. One of those group members has met with me, twice, and I don’t think he wants to meet with you.”
Sheep enjoyed the candor, the kind of real talk you can only get from coworkers that aren’t eating corporate soup for lunch and regurgitating talking points and vague hearsay which would be safe during testimony. This was the straight dope. She wasn’t sugar coating the message.
“So, am I to understand that this special team, that we knew nothing about before, whose job it is to watch the ASE’s for anything unusual, sent an agent to contact you in person, deliver a warning, and what…warn you again?”, Sheep queried. “If I didn’t know any better, I would expect these to be the rambling delusions of a psycho. Although, I do know better, so I believe you so far. What about the second meeting, though, if the first was a warning?”
“Well,” Res began, as she shifted on the couch, “yeah. It was another warning.” Res was carefully dancing around the whole ‘Dec came over and made me breakfast’ part. “Same agent. He visited me at home, very politely. We had a few drinks and he delivered the message as clearly as possible. He told me, and you, to stop pursuing this ghost. I don’t know what the big deal is, but it is a big deal, that’s for sure. It was also the last warning,” and Res made the shape of an O with one hand as she said, “we have zero warnings remaining. Next, there will be action. When, where, what type, none of that was explained. You know what Splicer is capable of, mostly. I don’t want to be an enemy of this outfit, if I can avoid it. I suggest you do the same.”
“Does Beat know anything about this?”, Sheep asked hopefully. “No, he hasn’t been mentioned. He’s not nearly as close to this thing as we are. In fact, I’m pretty sure he’s as far away as we should be. The less we all know, the better. Whatever is missing from that footage needs to stay missing, and I can’t explain it any better than that, Sheep.” Res was ready to rest her case but she saw the wheels turning behind Sheep’s eyes. He was looking for an angle, he was curious. This had been his pet for a while. Suddenly, he kicked the recliner lever back up, so the chair back sat him straight up, and he leaned forward while staring at Res.
One of them, Terry, eagerly spoke up. “You know what? It just might be possible, but only for this customer. We work on audio visual prediction models, which are trained on the customer starting with the engagement, so the models are kinda already there for other types of predictions. It’s just a different dataset. Can we predict if he’ll win the lottery tomorrow? No. Can we predict how much he’ll make this year based on his stock portfolio? Certainly not. The models are geared towards win/loss scenarios, coin tosses, because the customer is either in danger, or not.” “I see”, replied Beat, catching on to Terry’s train of thought, “so” and before he could finish, another lead cut in. “Sorry for interrupting, Beat, but to add to Terry’s thinking here”, said Beth, “we can’t ignore the nature of the AI for this customer. It’s Genesis, remember? It somehow floats around in time, so it can see a little way into the future, making it perfect for predicting financial transactions. If it knew he was betting half his money on a horse race, it could tell him the outcome, in a way. Think of it like a Ouija board. His hands are on the puck, and Genesis could nudge it towards or away from an outcome, but not very far in the future. Too many variables.”
Beat remained silent, in case anyone else wanted to add to the knowledge base forming here. Then he spoke up. “I’m classifying this call. It’s Secret now. While this is good news, it also sounds dangerous. We don’t want anyone getting the wrong idea with this thing. Genesis has been perfect so far, for as long as Frank has relied on it, and us, and the last thing we want to do is abuse an idea, even for testing.”
“Understood, sir. The answer to the customer, then, should be yes, with a document defining what we consider financial security. Lord, I hope the lawyers don’t get ahold of this. They’d have us for breakfast. I’d go as far as recommending a contractual amendment with the customer, because if we don’t put concrete walls around this, we could get absolutely bombed”, said Terry. “If this goes wrong, we’ll get worse than bombed,” Beat said. “Mark my words. Thank you, ladies and gentlemen, for your thoughtful discussion. I’ll take this back to the director.” With that parting comment, the call ended, and Beat called the director again.
“What’s the consensus then?”, the director asked, as he answered the call. “The leads say it’s possible, to a very limited extent. We may be able to prevent the customer from losing his ass on a short-term game of chance, but we don’t have a crystal ball. They recommended—” and Beat was interrupted again. “Please tell me once they got to this point, you classified the conversation. This sounds a little sketchy.”
Beat spoke up after a short sigh. “Yeah, I know. It raised the hair on my neck, too. Of course I classified it as Secret. They weren’t just making affirmations or suggestions but discussing the possibility of implementation. This can be done, on a very limited scale, for this customer, with his assigned AI. We need a contract amendment also; we have no idea if the customer has or will have intentions to, uh, exercise this function. We sure as hell can’t be liable if he does and it fails.” The director replied somewhat slowly, “it seems like a mixed bag then. Additional liability but also additional protection, and a chance to renew his contract early on top of that amendment. The only problem is that the customer tends to brag about his service, so I’ll ensure that this aspect doesn’t leak out.” “Sounds like a plan, authorized to tell the customer yes, then?”, Beat asked. “Yes. You are authorized. Get a transcript of this call from hard copy services, have it classified as Secret, sign off and I’ll get the ball rolling on the contract tomorrow”, the director replied. Sometimes big problems had quick solutions like this, and Beat attributed that to the strength of their AI team leads.
He activated Frank’s secure comms link. Immediately, Frank answered at an uncomfortable volume.
“Yes yes, this is Frank. You did? I see. Uh huh. Ok. Well, a bit more clarity in the contract would be useful, I would expect an amendment. So to answer my question, the coverage is there? Of course, I have some questions. It’ll be in the amendment? How soon? Tomorrow. Sounds fantastic.” Frank hit the singular button on the comms unit, turned to Rex, and said “it appears that financial security is possible, with some caveats. Guardrails, limitations, whatever you want to call them. They said something about Ouija boards? I’ll know more tomorrow.” Rex’s eyes lit up under the fiberoptic night sky headliner, and he stared at Frank. “How can they do something like that?”, he asked. “I will know more tomorrow. They must revise my contract, but they answered yes, and Splicer isn’t famous for over-selling their product”, Frank said. Rex vigorously shook hands with Frank and asked if the driver could return him home. Frank raised one eyebrow and asked, “But aren’t you hungry?” Rex replied, “I could eat”, which Frank interpreted as, let’s go back to the restaurant and have a nice meal, with this out of the way. That’s exactly what they did, and not another word of this topic was spoken the entire dinner. Frank and Rex parted ways with one word and a handshake. “Tomorrow.”
