by John Lane
Weltha and Agnes had found cover in a growth of tall bushes. They got separated. Weltha had her gun out and ready. She carefully tracked through the underbrush looking for both Agnes and the Reaper. The brush was thick, but the children and teens that frequented it had worn paths throughout the park. She was just stepping into an intersection of paths when a woman screamed. She darted down the intersecting path and zigged through a maze of other paths as quickly as she could to get to the screams. When she arrived at a clearing in the brush, famous for teenage liaisons, she had a hard time believing what she saw.
A few moments earlier the Reaper had stalked Agnes through the brush with little problem. Agnes knew the Reaper was closing on her, and she was counting on it. Once Agnes had made the clearing, she broke a small branch of a nearby tree and tucked herself under a bush opposite the tree in the clearing. When the woman Reaper ran into the clearing, she read the sign of the broken branch and looked up, searching for a hiding Agnes in the tree. At the proper moment, Agnes swept the legs out from under the Reaper. She rolled out from under the brush and came to her feet a fraction of a second before the woman, kicking the weapon from her hands. For several minutes, Agnes and the Reaper matched each other blow for blow, parrying each thrust in a close hand-to-hand combat.
Still recovering from her virus and needing gene therapy, Agnes felt her strength waning. She could not sustain this much longer. She didn’t wonder, yet, how she was fighting this well in the first place. The woman got in a blow to her face and drew blood. Agnes took a step back, wiped her face and spat out a mouthful of blood. Glaring at the Reaper, she let out a blood curdling scream and attacked, wildly running at her enemy.
The Reaper caught off guard was terrified. Never in her military career had she faced the ferocity of such an unarmed attack. She snatched at two blades she had hidden on her leggings and made ready to cut down Agnes.
The screams were part of Agnes’ feint. When it appeared she would attack with a full upper body assault and run right into those blades, she dropped into a slide and tackled the woman. Rolling over on top of her, she trapped one blade under the Reaper’s body and broke the arm holding the other blade. Agnes stood, letting her fury carry her through several more lightning fast attacks to the Reaper’s ribs and arms. Agnes thoroughly and expertly disabled her attacker.
It was as Agnes ran for her blade wielding attacker that Weltha came on the scene. For a moment, she thought she might have to rescue the Reaper from Agnes.
Finally, Agnes paused, pinning the woman to the ground with her knee on her throat. “What do you people want from us?” Agnes snarled inches from the Reaper’s tattooed face. The woman just grinned back. “Really? That’s what you’ve got?” Agnes said shaking her opponent roughly.
“The Systems will be cleansed and the true believers rise,” the Reaper spat out at Agnes.
Agnes stood, pulling the bad arm of the woman straight and replacing the knee on the throat with her boot. While she did this, the woman managed to get at another hidden blade. Agnes saw it though. “You’ve got to be kidding me.” With that, Agnes pulled out the goo gun Weltha had given her and shot the woman in the face, zapping her unconscious. Now that the danger had passed, Agnes began to pass out. Weltha caught her as she fell and eased her to the ground.
“If you ever need a job…” Weltha began, smiling down at her.
“I’ll have to let you know,” as she smiled up at Weltha.
*****
Tommy leapt from the catwalk to a lower landing and another set of stairs. These he ran up taking several steps at once. He worked his way higher into the walkway system above the floor of the drum. The “deputy” attempted to keep up with him. Once Tommy reached an upper level, he sprinted along the walkway. This path took him out over one of the three vast windows that let light into the drum. The pull of the drums spin weakened the higher he climbed in the walkways.
Tommy’s pursuer was closing on him. The Reaper fired two warning shots. The darts that whizzed by Tommy’s head were not from a regulation station goo gun. They could kill. With that, Tommy stopped at a down staircase and hopped onto the railing. His soaped boots allowed him to ride the railing down to the next landing. Instead of turning and taking the next level down, Tommy jumped across to another set of stairs going up to the other side of the same walkway.
Reaching into the paint box, which he still carried, Tommy withdrew the goo gun. Still moving fast, he got behind the “deputy” and fire off a shot. The goo connected with the middle of the man’s back, but hitting the fabric of the uniform instead of direct contact with the skin, the Reaper was only stunned. The Reaper slowly raised his weapon square with Tommy’s head. Tommy jumped up. In the lower gravity of these heights, he grabbed a support girder. Several darts pinged off it as Tommy took cover behind it. Spotting a support cable that angled down to the walkway below, Tommy hopped on and glided down.
The Reaper slowed by the goo zap tracked Tommy down from above. As the cable passed directly over the Reaper’s head, he anticipated where Tommy would be and fired. But Tommy wasn’t there. Tommy had jumped off the cable, calculating precisely where to land on the “deputy.” As he fell, Tommy squeezed off several more rounds of goo. With his slow reflexes, the “deputy” Reaper looked back up at Tommy just as the volley of goo hit him squarely in the face. Tommy landed hard, but the Reaper’s body broke his fall.
“Alfred, Agnes and Weltha?”
“They are fine. The real deputies were recovered and those Reapers have been apprehended. I’ll report the location of this one. However, check your six,” Alfred warned.
Tommy looked behind him and ran. “Al, nearest Postal Service Office? NOW!” Several more Reapers, these clothed in long black cloaks, were just coming up the stairs only meters away.
“Not good. It’s on the opposite side of this drum. You won’t make it,” Alfred feared.
“Thanks for the vote of confidence. Try to get some of them off my tail. The rest, leave to me.” Tommy jumped on the railing once more and using that single path, glided along it, pumping his legs like a speed skater on ice. The difference was his feet had to be at that odd angle so his arches made contact with the rail.
He worked his way around the walkways in this manner, staying just out of range of his pursuers, but always within sight. Alfred used avatars to block and take out several of the pirates as they followed Tommy. But each time he took down one or two, they were replaced with more.
Below, Weltha helped Agnes out of the park. She had insisted on walking out under her own power. Once she caught her breath, and had a coughing fit, she seemed to do better.
“I wish I knew where Tommy was,” she muttered to herself. Weltha, hearing this, stopped and pulled out her com-unit. She punched up a tracer application. The sheriff’s shield faded into a map of the station. When she looked up at the walkways to find Tommy’s position over their heads, she wasn’t surprised to see Agnes had already found him.
“I’m going to have to meet this Alfred,” she said to Agnes. Agnes glanced at her with a limp smile that faded as her concern for Tommy returned. “Where is he leading them?” she asked.
“Where else, the Postal Service. I guess he has a message he wants to give them,” Agnes tried a weak joke. “Can we go?”
“Yes, there’s a tram station on this side of the park. I’m not sure we can beat them, but we’ll try,” Weltha promised.
Tommy worked his way to the Postal Service Office using a lot of false turns. He did not want them to figure out his destination and cut him off. Instead he worked his way down to the last level of walkways where they finally cut off his exit. At that point he did the only thing he could. He fired off a volley of goo and jumped the full story to the ground below. There he rolled to dissipate some of the energy. When Tommy stood to run he slipped on a piece of garbage that had fallen out of its container behind a restaurant, twisting his ankle. He stood up and tried to walk. Pain shot up his leg.
“Not go
od, not good,” he repeated this mantra as he limped to the only cover he could find, the open door to the kitchen. The startled kitchen staff stared at him until the head chef rumbled up to him, threatening him with a large knife.
“You do not belong here during the lunch. Leave immediately!” the chef demanded. Even in pain, Tommy’s training took hold. He disarmed the chef flipping the knife around and pointing to the refrigerator door while holding the chef with his other hand.
“Hide, NOW!” Tommy warned them. He opened the door, limping with the knife in one hand and the chef in the other, and ushered the staff into the locker. Last, he shoved in the chef.
“What!? You cannot be doing this! Not in my kitchen!” As the chef uttered the last, several lethal darts whizzed past his nose into the opened door next to him. The chef grabbed the handle and slammed the door shut, heroically locking the staff inside and out of danger.
Tommy dodged behind some hanging pans as more darts pinged into the kitchen, followed by the Reapers. Tommy ejected a spent goo cartridge and replaced it in his gun. He dispatched two more pirates. “Alfred, fire alarm.”
Understanding, Alfred set off the fire alarm to evacuate the costumers in the crowded dining hall. Tommy held off the Reapers long enough for all the patrons to get out. Alfred set off the foam fire extinguishers over the ovens. The slippery floor slowed down the Reapers long enough for Tommy to grab a metal cooking sheet and limp out with the last of the patrons.
Once outside, Tommy saw the costumers gathered across the street and the fire brigade of avatars was barreling down the street. This entertainment avenue had been designed to look like a small Italian village from old Earth. There was a central fountain, and the street looked like cobblestone. “Tommy, I’ve got the avatars. What do you need?” Alfred asked through his earbud.
“Timing and foam,” Tommy answered. As the Reapers emerged from the restaurant, Alfred hit them with sprays of water to delay them until Tommy was ready. It was too dangerous to hold the Reapers here with so many innocent people in the area.
Another of the avatars rolled up to Tommy and offered him a foam hose. Too small for Tommy to ride, Alfred said, “Grab on and foam the stone.” The water hose shut off on the Reapers and the foam hose Tommy held poured foam onto the street.
Tommy sprayed the foam onto the roadway as the avatar pulled him down the street on the metal pan like a ski board. The pirates now made no pretense they were not after Tommy and ran down the street firing darts after him. Tommy wrapped the hose around one arm, sat on the pan to create a smaller target, and fired the rest of his goo cartridge at the pursuing Reapers. They all turned the corner at the end of the block and ran into a dead end.
There stood the welcoming facade of the Postal Service Office. Its graphic eagle and vast storage space were known over the settled galaxy. As the avatar slid to a stop, Tommy released the hose and slid on his butt through the doors. The light on his anklet went from green to red. Hot on his sliding butt the Reapers ran after him, weapons drawn.
Once inside the office, Tommy crashed into the package drop-off counter. He turned in time to see his pursuers follow him into the large waiting room where postal costumers queued up with their packages. The Reapers aimed their weapons at Tommy. With blood in their eyes, they were ready to finish him when the sound of a heavy door slammed.
They turned as one to realize that the high security main entrance had closed and locked with them inside the Post Office. Not only that, a squad of station deputies and several regional marshals from the local office gooed them as soon as the door closed. The Reapers never got a chance to fire a shot. They collapsed to the floor, covered in purple goo.
Agnes, Weltha and the postmaster rushed from behind the counter to check on Tommy. They helped him to his one good foot.
“Ouch, careful,” Tommy pleaded. With Agnes on one arm and Weltha on the other, they helped him to a bench. A Med avatar rolled up and ministered to Tommy’s twisted ankle.
“What made you think to bring them in here?” Weltha asked.
“I know the place. It’s secure. And you told me not to.” He tapped the anklet strapped to his bad ankle. Weltha gave no resistance when the Med avatar requested it be removed. She promptly tapped in the instruction on her app, and the anklet obediently snapped open.
“Is that wise?” asked the postmaster. She was a tall woman with a sever crook in her long nose. A career civil servant and by the books all the way she glared at Tommy with trepidation.
“I think we’ll be alright just this once. He is in my custody, and I believe I’m cooking dinner for him tonight.” Weltha smiled with Agnes at this comment.
*****
Fiht, fiht, fiht, fiht. Tania continued to pop off rounds with her needle gun at the firing range. Once she had emptied her clip, she punched the retrieve button. Her target, a sheet of SMART paper, with the outline of a human form, flew to her along the line on which it hung. Not much had changed on a gun range in hundreds of years, she mused.
As she examined her neat pattern of holes around the target’s heart, she heard clapping. “Very nice pattern, Agent Smith,” Admiral Sutton said from behind her.
“Thank you, Admiral.” Tania responded. “I try to keep certified with my field training when I can.”
Sutton picked up a dart gun and replaced the empty cartridge of needles. “I always found target practice relaxing. It was most helpful when I had something on my mind that was bothering me,” she commented as she took aim on her target. She emptied the clip of twenty-four needles into the target and hit the retrieve button. Turning to Tania, she asked, “Is there something on your mind Agent Smith?”
Tania wasn’t sure what to say. She had given regular briefings to Sutton on her findings concerning Captain Tommy Judson. As she dug deeper, she had become concerned that the data she was seeing was incorrect, corrupt. She looked at the Admiral sizing up her options for a moment and sizing up her boss. “In this business, how do you know who to trust?” She was collecting data.
Sutton wasn’t sure if the data was about trust or the Admiral herself. Sutton almost smiled at the question, “Trust? Is that even a part of the equation?”
Tania considered again before continuing, “Data, people, aren’t they very much the same? Some you can trust, some you can’t. How do you tell the difference, Admiral Sutton?” Tania was not asking in a general sense, she wanted to know how the Admiral decided what to trust.
“Data or people? I used to put trust in people, then when I got disappointed I put my trust in the data,” Sutton answered. “Then I trusted only myself, but even that can disappoint. Now,” Sutton shrugged, “Now I take it day by day. Sometimes I need to trust the data and sometimes the people. What do you trust Smith?”
“I trust that at the end of the day, if I’ve done my job the best I can, I have served a greater good in this universe.” Tania didn’t hesitate to answer.
“What brings on this melancholy today, Smith? Is the job eating at you?”
Tania busied herself taking down the targets while she collected her thoughts. She neatly folded her own and placed it in her satchel with her score and analysis printed at the bottom by the SMART paper. She continued while she examined Sutton’s target. Deciding she had to trust someone, she confessed, “I’m seeing patterns in the data. There are connections between incidents and records of the Wars that, frankly, scare me.” Sutton just let the comment hang there.
Feeling uncomfortable in the silence, Tania handed Sutton the target. “Well, anyway, physical evidence never lies. Your only hit your target once. You might not see any more field work, but I’d be glad to help you with your marksmanship.”
Sutton smiled. She almost laughed when she said, “Smith, you’ll be alright. Don’t always trust your eyes,” She began and pushed the target paper back to Tania. “Keep it. Look closer.” Sutton turned to leave. She paused at the door to the firing range and turned for one last comment, “You will be afraid, and thrilled, and shocke
d. It’s all part of the job. At the end of the day, you are doing your best, because we need you to and better. You do serve the greater good of the universe.” Then the Admiral turned to leave. Tania heard Sutton comment as she walked out the door and into the hall, “Look closer at that target. Let me know if you want me to help you with your marksmanship.”
Tania examined the target more closely and then smiled with understanding. There was one small whole through the eye of the target. It looked like a single needle had passed through that spot. The score and analysis at the bottom was clear, however. Sutton had put all twenty-four shots through that single hole.
Sutton’s message became clear. There was at least one person Tania need trust, at least for today. She carefully folded the target and filed it next to her own, vowing to get in a little more practice before challenging Admiral Sutton again.
Chapter 10: Dinner & a Break In
Deep and fast that’s what she had to do. She had to get in deep and fast. This meant that Tania couldn’t have any backup, and even Admiral Sutton could not know what she was doing.
Her data led Tania to this conclusion. Yes, she thought, some of that conclusion had been her own hubris that only she could do the job. There was code popping up in her data that shouldn’t be there. It all indicated that something else was going on besides a large group of organized pirates. If she traced the code to its primary server, extract it and plant a virus code that should wipe it out.
Tania folded her pants and put them in her satchel. She checked her false ID tags and initiated her own ID wipe. For the next few weeks, there would no longer be a Tania Smith. She took precautions, an encoded file to be delivered to Admiral Sutton upon Tania’s death. She did not know where she would ultimately track the aberrant code or if she would live through it. But she determined by analyzing all available data she had the highest chance of success.