by Mich Moore
now. Thank you for your cooperation."
The others in the room stood up and began to file outside. Murphy turned to Broussard. "Mr. Broussard, can you stay just a little bit longer?"
Broussard felt his stomach drop. What was going on? Ice cold fear gripped his testicles. Had they discovered his true identify? If they had, then he would be forced to call Chang. And he would have to return to Redstone. The room grew quite warm, and he began to perspire freely. "Sure!" He couldn't help but glance at his watch. The bus to Toronto left in little under an hour.
Murphy nodded at the officer stationed at the guard desk. Broussard noticed that there was a large orange switch set in the wall behind him. That man then acknowledged Murphy's nod with one of his own, turned sideways, and threw his hand at the switch. An overhead sprinkler system was activated, drenching the unsuspecting men below with a clear liquid. Water? Was this a group shower before incarceration? Almost immediately the suspects began to pantomime pain, pressing their hands hard up against their eye sockets and dancing around the small pools of water collecting on the cast iron floor ...
And then Broussard knew what was about to happen. "NO!" he roared at Office Murphy. But it was too late. A split second later the lineup room became a raging inferno. Broussard watched, horrified, as he saw a several burning hands appear out of the flames and beat futilely against the glass. Eerily, there was no sound. The men being burned alive were surely screaming in agony, but the entire conflagration played out in serene silence.
After a couple of minutes, the flames died down, and air filters began to suck the room clean. Smoke and blackened bits alike were whooshed away into large vents set into the ceiling. Afterwards, two robotic mops zipped in through slots near the floor and began to move back and forth along the floor in a tight grid pattern.
Murphy approached him casually, smiling an Opie smile from ear to ear. "Well, at least now the victims can have some closure. It is frontier brand justice to be sure. Inexpensive and to the point." He paused for effect. "But it works for us. That's the important thing." His eyes bore into Broussard's. "Mr. Alpert, the guy that you slugged last night, chose not to press charges. That's why you're out here." He nodded towards the still smoking lineup room. "And not in there."
"Have a good day, Mr. Broussard, and enjoy the rest of your stay in Chicago." Broussard fairly catapulted from his chair and burst through the double doors ... straight into the arms of Major Hillerman.
"You ready to head back to the hotel, Mr. Broussard?" he asked in his typical laconic tone.
Broussard was shaking like a leaf in a storm. "Yes. Yes, I am."
5
Northern Kentucky, USA
The trip back to Alabama was thus far proving to be both relaxing and uneventful. The Lincoln Hills engineers had had scant time to talk about their plans for Canada, but it was becoming clear that the plan would require much more finessing in order to be successful. The world they found themselves in was definitely not the same world that they had left behind when they entered prison. They would need more time. And much more money.
The buses crossed the Illinois border into Kentucky late that afternoon, changing from I-57 to I-24E. Derek, Tara, and Kuiper were in the back playing poker and keeping the AIs entertained. Chang and Broussard sat up front. Two of the Army Rangers had positioned themselves somewhere in the middle.
Broussard was showing Chang a sketch that he had made of a set of retractable claws designed for the AIs. He explained that it would give them better traction on rough surfaces. Predictably, the manager's response was that the feature was both unnecessary and expensive. They went back and forth about it until Chang gave in and offered to bring it up at the next design meeting with Kuiper and Fields. This made Broussard happier. The stresses of the past three days had cleaned him out emotionally. But now, talking and planning simple mechanical strategy brought him to his home territory where he felt most comfortable. There were a plethora of problems affecting his life that he could not begin to solve; this one, to produce a simple and inexpensive retractable claw on a pressure pad, was something that he could easily find a solution for. And he had Karyn-with-a-y (and Iggy) to thank for that.
Chang said, "I'll put the item in the agenda tomorrow morning."
"Great."
Chang seemed friendly enough, but Broussard could not help but notice the tension in the air. He believed he knew why. "About the party," he began contritely. "I guess I lost it back there."
"Yep," Chang agreed.
"Allan, I'm not going to make any excuses for what happened. It was flat out wrong. I should have just minded my own business. And I hope that you'll put that in your report."
Chang smiled. "I will." The manager's demeanor relaxed considerably. "Neal, you've got a good heart, but you're a hothead. And where some people can put the brakes on their reactions before they become a problem, you can't." The manager hesitated and then took it a needed step further. "You may need to work on that."
Broussard nodded emphatically. "I will."
Chang stood. "Good. I'm going to hold off on including this particular episode in my report for now. We've got too many balls in the air right now, and frankly speaking, the guy had it coming."
The bus's velocity slowly decreased. The highway suddenly began to thicken with other vehicles as all traffic along I-24 gradually lost speed and eventually came to a soft stop. After a few minutes of waiting, people began to exit their vehicles to smoke, make phone calls, and chat about what they thought was going on. Hillerman's voice came over the convoy PA system and asked everyone to exit the buses with the exception of the DAT crew.
When the two Rangers, Lieutenant Colonel Eugene Palladino and Major Mark Clayton, offered to stay behind and keep eyes on the DATs, Chang led the others outside onto the clogged highway. They merged with the other team members from the other Redstone vehicles. Men, women, and children from the surrounding automobiles milled about with looks of mild worry on their faces.
"What do you think?" Kuiper asked Hillerman. "Bad accident?"
Hillerman was pulling tobacco from a package inside his shirt pocket. "Maybe. But more than likely the state border patrols are stepping up their food and drug interdiction campaigns."
As that was a decidedly unsexy explanation for the stoppage, no one gave it much attention until two mounted police officers rode up on them.
The lead officer called out, "You all together?"
Hillerman pointed out his people. "We are."
"Well," the officer replied. "You look like a sensible man, so I'll do my talking to you."
He greeted them formally with a touch to the brim of his hat. "Ladies and gentlemen. I apologize for the hold up. My name is Conrad Brian. I'm a master trooper for the Kentucky Highway Patrol. Folks, two hours ago the states of Kentucky and Tennessee seceded from America to become the fifteenth and sixteenth members of the new United States."
Audible gasps of shock and disbelief rippled through the crowd.
The trooper acknowledged their reactions with a respectful moment of silence and then continued. "You have now entered a territory of the US-AS and as such will have to abide by the rules of this land for the duration of your passage through it."
The two police horses were outfitted with side-mounted computers that were attached to a bouquet of solar wafers. Several long metallic cylinders, joined together with metal clamps and knuckle rods, were mounted on their right sides. Strapped beneath their forelocks were the equivalents of dash cams.
"Are we under arrest?" Tara asked timidly.
"No, ma'am. You have entered an inspection zone—nothing more, nothing less."
"Has any other state seceded?" a male teenager asked.
"None that I'm aware of. If you're continuing on into Alabama, as far as I know it's still under American rule. So no worries there."
Hillerman broke character and turned surly. "Yesterday you were under American rule."
"Yesterday was a long time ago, sir." The state troo
per's response stung. He shifted his bottom in his saddle. "Now. Firstly, I want to assure you that the United States government isn't interested in your politics or your nationality. What we are interested in are any foods or vegetables, plants or animals that you may be carrying out of Illinois. We don't want any unvaccinated critters coming across state lines. We are also interested in any powered weapons that you may have and any illegal narcotics or alcoholic beverages. Kentucky is dry and we aim to stay that way."
Two other troopers rode up and briefly conferred with the first two.
"Folks, it's pretty warm today, so we don't want to take up too much of your time. In about fifteen minutes we're going to release the traffic break and allow people to move their vehicles into a waiting area about eight kilometers down yonder. They've got grub, gasoline, and plenty of clean restrooms. We'll start the inspections about an hour later, and then you all can be on your way."
The four officers spurred their horses to continue spreading their message to the other hapless motorists up the road.
When they were out of earshot, Kuiper sidled up to Major Hillerman. "Major, we can hide the DATs and the guns in the cargo bays for a little while, but without air conditioning in this weather they will soon develop problems."
Hillerman pulled out his cell phone. "Understood."
"Who are you calling?" Kuiper asked.
"Colonel Higgins. He'll want to know what's going