by Grant Pies
“Imagine what they might do the next time they accidentally break down your door. You don’t want to get on one of their watch lists. These agencies stick together. You go against one, you go against them all.”
“They threw a grenade at me!” Rose screamed, more in frustration than anger. Her voice pleading, like convincing me would accomplish something. Like convincing anyone would accomplish something.
“A flash bang,” I corrected her and gathered her papers. They felt foreign in my hands. Too dry. Too crisp. Too old. I didn’t like most things that reminded me of the past. I handed them back as quickly as I could without dropping them. “It was a flash bang, not a grenade.”
“Well it sure felt like a grenade!” she cried. Part of her forehead looked like it was pulled too tight, like a piece of skin was removed, and the doctors had to make do with what was left. The fact that Rose was attractive before the raid on her apartment made her disfigurement a bit more devastating. She knew what it was like to be looked at for her beauty, but now she was looked at for entirely different reasons.
“It is a non-lethal, non-dangerous means of subduing potential threats with no harm to innocent civilians, and, most importantly, no harm to the agents.” It was a justification I’d heard many times before. Each week a new person came to me for advice on how to counter-sue the Technology Development Agency or the Counter Insurgency Agency, or any one of the endless list of agencies the North American government had created in the last decade. It seemed like a year ago I only met with one person like this each month. Only one person would come in with actual papers in hand. Now it was a weekly occurrence. Everyone was desperate.
“I tell you this not because it’s my opinion,” I told her, “but because that’s what the prosecutor will say in court if you try to fight this, and the judge will agree. The Federal Courts have already ruled that accidental injury from non-lethal devices provides no grounds for a counter civil suit against a Federal Agency, especially when they were effectuating a search of a domicile...whether lawfully or not.” Rose opened her mouth to speak, but I finished my last sentence to ward off any premature argument from her. “Even if it was the wrong domicile, Federated North American Government versus Post. Twenty seventy-one. That case has been affirmed over and over.”
“So what, I’m just supposed to give up?” she asked. She looked at me like I was the judge who had just ruled. “You should see how people look at me now.” Her voice quivered and she spoke softer so her son couldn’t hear. “I lost my job because they said I scare the customers away. I can’t sleep at night, and Marcus has had nightmares every night since the attack.” She pointed to the annoying ball of flesh and germs that was still trying his best to mark up my walls.
I really should paint or something I thought. Maybe a lighter color would make it seem larger in here. Or maybe a plant would add some life. But that was pointless; it would only wither and die in a matter of days with the scant sunlight that trickled into my apartment from the street above. Plus I hated the clutter.
This place wasn’t much, but I was proud of the progress I had made in the last five years. Most of that time was spent debating if I actually wanted to continue on with my life. Everyone wonders what they should do with their life, but few people stop and ask whether life is actually worth living. After everything that happened, I was realizing the answer wasn’t so obvious, if it ever had been. In the end, if our universe is curved and recycled over and over, if we truly relive this same life again and again, with no chance of changing it, then there is no reason to end life early. I would have simply sped up the inevitable, and found myself back here sooner than planned.
There was a narrow banner of glass around the ceiling through which I could see people’s feet moving past on the street. Spending so much time down here, I’d grown proficient at telling a lot from a person’s feet. Their socks and shoes. How their laces were tied, if at all. I could guess someone’s age within a few years based on where their pants fell around their ankles. I watched these feet and conjured up stories for them. Where they were going, who they were going to see. Who they were walking away from.
A man walked by wearing leather dress shoes with deep scratches in them. They hadn’t been polished in a month or more. His short gait was that of a person who didn’t have a definitive destination. I guessed he had worked a comfortable office job up until maybe six weeks ago. Now he was unemployed and possibly lied to his wife about his predicament. He left each day and wandered the streets looking for work until five o’clock when he returned home from a ‘long day at work’. Just as I made my conclusion, and just as the man walked out of my line of sight, he dropped a piece of paper with the word ‘resume’ typed across the top. The man was desperate. Carrying-around-papers desperate. I could probably set up shop as one of those fortune tellers, divining the future from the soles of people’s feet. What was the Latin word for foot? Pedi? Pedimancer, that’s what I’d be.
“Powell? Powell!” Rose waved her hand in front of my face. I snapped out of my daydream.
“Sorry,” I said.
“So what, am I screwed? What am I looking at?”
I refocused my attention on Rose’s situation.
“They claim you assaulted an agent. That’s a third degree felony, but you don’t have any other record. Maximum sentence is ten years in prison, but my guess is they’ll offer you a three-year plea bargain if you agree to drop the counter suit. If your public attorney is any good, and that’s a big if, they’ll get the evidence of the technology in your apartment thrown out, which means the prosecutor would drop the plea down to one year in prison, and maybe a year probation.”
“Technology?” she said. “It was a small server and a printer!” She rolled her eyes; the eyelid on the burnt side of her face struggled to move upward.
“Rose, it was a three dimensional printer, and the server was used to communicate with other computers in your building. That’s a network by the agency’s definition. But, like I said, your attorney should be able to get that thrown out. It was evidence obtained without a warrant. So the only charge that should stick is the assault charge.”
“Every single person in the shittiest slums of Phoenix has a 3D printer.”
I just shook my head. Some things can’t get through to people.
“So what, they can’t use any evidence they found in my apartment because they entered it unlawfully, but I can’t sue them for unlawfully breaking into my apartment? What kind of sense does that make?”
“No one ever said the law made sense, Rose.”
“And what if my attorney isn’t good? What if that stuff isn’t thrown out? What am I facing then?” she asked but probably didn’t want an answer.
“If they really want to make an example…fifteen years total. That’s for the tech and the assault.”
“Fifteen years!” she cried so loudly that even her obnoxious kid looked up from his toy. Her face dropped as much as it could given her scars. The shallow divots in her skin stretched to ovals. “What about Marcus? Who will he stay with?” I could tell she felt like grabbing her son and running until she reached the coast. It was something that few ever acted on, and those that did regretted it.
“Do you have family? What about the father?” I asked.
“He’s better off in an orphanage than with his father. Can’t you just come for the hearing? Just for the first part,” she begged. “Get that evidence thrown out, and then you can leave. Let the public attorney take over from there.”
“I can’t. You know that. I can’t set foot in any courthouse. Even if I could, I’m no longer licensed. I couldn’t even speak on your behalf. Give this to your public attorney,” I told her as I scribbled down the names of court cases that her attorney could use as precedent to get some of the evidence thrown out. The writing on the paper looked foreign. Tiny marks and scribbles. My hand hesitated as I tried to remember how each letter was formed. I couldn’t remember the last time I wrote anything out b
y hand. “Give this to him and tell him that it’s enough to get evidence of the technology thrown out. That’s all I can do for you now.”
Rose stood and gathered her papers. Nicotine-stained fingers stretched around her evidence and indictments. A burn victim smoker. That had to be some kind of irony. She grabbed her son’s arm and yanked him up off the ground.
“Let’s go, Mommy has a job interview soon.” She said. Four steps took Rose to the front door of my apartment. Behind me another door led underneath the apartment building. This apartment was undoubtedly only a pass through to other parts of the building. Something a maintenance worker would have used to store his warm beer and porn.
“I’m sorry I can’t do more for you,” I told her as she walked out the door. Rose turned and looked at me.
“It’s okay, Powell. You’ve helped me a lot over this last year, with…you know, everything.” She waved her hand in the air, conjuring or perhaps batting away those memories. The rent dispute, the child support. “I just wish I could offer you more in payment.” She seemed sincere, but still angry. Unable to direct it to the people who’d caused it, I could see it beginning to take root and rot inside her. I’d seen it enough times before to recognize the signs. Anger like that, aimless and full of hate, can seep and crawl out of people like worms and bugs crawling through damp dirt after a heavy rain. That was what came out of Rose and every other client I saw. It was the same aimless rage that rested inside of me for what the Ministry and Wayfield Industries had done to me.
“Just bring me some of those oranges you grow. It’s impossible to get them that fresh in the stores. They all taste like chemicals. You do that, and we’re even.”
Rose nodded and turned back toward the door.
“Hey Rose!” I said, and stopped her just before she left. She turned again to face me. “When you hit that agent, did you get him good?”
“I broke his fucking nose,” Rose said.
I smiled. “Good for you.”
Rose’s burnt skin wrinkled and stretched as a wide grin pulled across her face. She turned and walked away.
CHAPTER 3
2075
PHOENIX, ARIZONA
Maybe this career was better than working with the Android Representation Counsel. I wasn’t in court, mind you. I wasn’t in the middle of the action, but at least I could help people. Actually help, not just be a placeholder for an opposing view, or a token warm body so everyone could go home at night and not feel like they robbed anyone, or any android, of their due process. And at least I wasn’t there when these people lost. I didn’t have to face my failure like I did in the ARC. I didn’t have to hear the sentence read, or see the defendant’s face as the metal cuffs clicked around their wrists.
The opponent was still the same, always the same; it was Wayfield Industries, the TDA, the Ministry of Science, or the newly-founded Counter Insurgency Agency. But they were all under the umbrella of the North American Government. Naturally every criminal case is the State versus a citizen, but nowadays every civil case was like that too. For every ten criminal cases there was one poor person who thought they could counter-sue the government. They were either too naïve, or just pissed off enough to try and make a case.
A lot of the times that misguided plaintiff had some bottom-rung attorney whispering in their ear about a million-dollar settlement, while they collected a flat fee up front. But one thing was for sure: they didn’t sue because they were hopeful. They never had a slam dunk case. The government never lost. Never. The checks and balances we were all taught about in school were simply a fairy tale, an urban myth. Each branch or agency worked hand in hand with each other to cover any misdeed or outright violation that occurred. With every case I took on, the judicial process for humans started to look more and more like the android court system. A farce, like we were all just playing house. The courts churned defendant after defendant through the security checkpoints, up the crowded escalators, and down the scuffed tile floors. Like a machine whose gears were not only capable of crushing and grinding anything that might get lodged in them, but were made for that specific purpose.
I only did what I could. I jotted down notes or cited case law. I explained the legal process to litigants that didn’t know any better. I increased a person’s awareness, while lowering their expectations. Everyone thinks they have a case. They all think they were wronged or that they are innocent. But they don’t realize that innocence, and right and wrong, don’t matter anymore.
So they came to my office, my cramped office, with a cot and one window. All of them like Rose. They saved every email they received. They printed them out and clutched them like it was their salvation. They jotted notes and timelines; they questioned neighbors on their own; they found articles online that they thought helped their case. They did all of this and then they came to see me. If only they came to me first, I could have saved them a lot of time. I told them none of that mattered. Their only hope was to make a deal and minimize the fallout. Work with the machinery, not against it.
I told them to negotiate a plea bargain or throw themselves on the mercy of the court. Apologize for owning a generator or a solar panel. Claim ignorance that the website they visited was a ‘hive for insurgent groups.’ Beg that they get the minimum sentence for buying a cell phone from a company other than Wayfield Industries. It wasn’t the answer they wanted to hear, or the answer they expected, but it was the only answer that would actually help them in court. Anything else would get them an expedited trial and a harsher sentence.
In exchange for this advice, if that is what you want to call it, people paid what they could. Sometimes it was money, but money wasn’t as valuable then as it once was. Currency was unpredictable. No one wanted to admit it, but our economy was only one misfire away from the collapse of the dollar. Somehow they all thought if they didn’t talk about it, it wouldn’t happen. But behind closed doors, people bartered and traded. They unloaded their dollars as quickly as they could. They gave them to some idiot who either didn’t know better or was just too scared to admit they were worthless.
So most of the time I traded with my clients. They brought food or ran errands for me. Some offered to clean my apartment, but that seemed pointless given the size of it. I only had a handful of belongings and a few pieces of clothing in a tiny dresser. Sometimes my ‘clients’ provided me with a gun or ammunition, or sometimes with prohibited technology like a prepaid cell phone or GPS unit. Many times they simply said they owed me. Most of them would never repay me; most of them would be in jail within a week of leaving my office.
Over the last few years I adjusted my own expectations. I had to accept the fact that I couldn’t infiltrate the Ministry of Science in the same way that my mom did. I couldn’t join the Technology Development Agency, and dismantle it from the inside out. I technically didn’t exist. I couldn’t exist. If at any time Wayfield or the Ministry of Science found me, then they would know I escaped from New Alcatraz. It would unravel everything I worked for, and everything Ellis and Emery, my father and mother, sacrificed themselves for. According to some time movement theories, I may even disappear; vaporize into thin air should they go back and kill or capture my parents in Buford. So far I was still here. I hadn’t disappeared. Not yet.
So that left me with the only thing I could think to do: educate people. Help them avoid capture or lengthy jail sentences. It wasn’t much, but it was something. In my off time, I kept to myself. I stayed locked in my apartment and only went out at night. I pushed my way through the mass of people that spilled from the sidewalks and into the streets. The cars lurched forward not much faster than the pedestrians. Abrupt horns honked at passersby, and drivers hung out of the windows to shout obscenities in a multitude of languages.
Every few steps an angered person would bump into my shoulder, or I’d step on their foot. They’d turn to look at me with a grimace, as if I did it on purpose, and as they spun around again they’d bump into someone else. This third person, turni
ng back in anger, would run into a fourth. And so on, like dominos. The anger rippled through the crowd at a rapid pace until everyone shared a collective hatred for the very crowd we were a part of. It was impossible to pinpoint where the anger and frustration started. It was a cycle with no definitive beginning or end, a constant.
All I could do was clutch onto whatever I was carrying and try not to drop anything with each subsequent collision. We believed we were the only ones acted upon, and gave no thought to how we impacted those around us. We rarely looked others in the eye, and viewed others as simply obstacles to get around.
After I made it back from New Alcatraz, I realized my father was wrong. You didn’t have to live in the middle of nowhere to disappear. People aren’t supposed to live in places like Buford and Ashton. Hidden from most of society, people stand out in those places. In the cities I had no choice but to blend in and disappear. As long as I stayed out of trouble, no one would find me.
Still, each night I lay on my bed and stared at the door of my apartment, a few inches of metal separating me from the street. I listened for the stomping of boots, and waited for my doorframe to bend and burst open. Each night nothing happened, and each night I couldn’t help but feel somewhat disappointed.
CHAPTER 4
2075
PHOENIX, ARIZONA
After Rose came to see me, I lay in the small bed in the corner of my single room. The springs of the mattress poked through the thin worn out fabric, and dug into my back. At one time it may have been plush, but now the old flattened mattress reminded me of the nights I slept in the Yellowstone Conservation Zone on the compacted dirt. The cement walls and floor of the apartment were like the inside of the police interrogation room I found myself in five years ago.
A small round table that could barely accommodate a single hot plate to warm food or boil water for coffee sat next to my bed. Even though I hadn’t used it in months, I couldn’t bring myself to throw it out and make this place any emptier than it already was. To my right, above my head, a pull-up bar was drilled into the ceiling. The bar was worn and discolored where my hands gripped it each day, and directly underneath the bar were scuff marks on the floor from where my feet landed while I did countless jumping jacks and pushups.