The Brummie Con

by Jeffrey A. Ballard

  Winn steers us away from the blue heat lightening to the lower right.

  “Mister Ed,” I say, listening on my comm-link to a tilting wind section accompanied with piano as I think of how we’re going to get away. “Can you kill our identification like how the cop snuck up on us?”

  “Yeah,” Puo says. “But if they see your marker switch types on their tablet radar screen they’ll know—”

  “Can you temporarily kill the radar like when you did the push?” I ask.

  “I can push again, this time with a specific command to your hovercar to switch it off. Yeah, yeah that should work. Give me a minute.”

  Winn continues to lurch us around, new and various parts of my body smash into my wet clothes. Ugh. We have a dry change of clothes for all three of us in the small black duffle bag at my feet.

  I still can’t tell if we’re being followed or targeted.

  “Ready—” Puo says.

  “Push,” I say. To Winn I say, “Head for the skylane.” There’s one several hundred feet below us and to the east that’s cluttered with traffic.

  The internal lights flicker out and Winn whisks us downward with a burst of speed, racing to anonymity. The lights don’t immediately come back on—the radar screen is still black.

  “I managed to give you a few extra seconds,” Puo says. He then continues, adding in his Mister Ed voice, “—See what I can do when you don’t rush me?”

  I anxiously grip the door handle and let Puo’s comment slide by. There’s a reason hovercar designers put in radar overlays: humans can’t see above and below the hovercar or through clouds and intense fog.

  Winn continues to accelerate in a steep dive through the formless void—these cop hovercars got some juice. They’re probably designed for heavy impact as well, or so I tell myself as water beads and whips by on the windows with no sign of other hovercars or buildings in the very limited visibility. It’s a low probability to smash into another hovercar in a reckless dive, right?

  The embedded tablet radar screen flickers back on. Our dot on the map is an anonymous gray marker that denotes a radar return with no information, and it looks like we’re just another piece of traffic about to merge. Still no windshield overlay—we wouldn’t want all those other cops to see where they’re going, now would we?

  Winn eases our angle of descent as he spots the skylane just outside the bottom edge of the rain cloud. Visibility is less than a hundred feet in the pouring rain. He pulls down behind a maroon minivan with a school bumper sticker and settles into the flow.

  The maroon minivan immediately slows down. The lone driver puts two hands on the wheel. The driver looks like a teenage kid from behind.

  Puo speaks on the comm-link, “You need to ditch your current hovercar. That cop found you somehow, and their AI is going to sort out the mess soon enough to flag suspicious vehicles.”

  “Yeah,” I say, eyeing the minivan in front of me. “I was just thinking the same thing.” I glance at the radar screen showing the blue-ringed white dots above and behind us. To Winn I say, “Follow the minivan for a little longer, then pull him over.”

  Puo breaks in, “You’re going to pull a hovercar over with a borrowed cop car to make a switch?”

  “Yup.”

  Puo starts like he’s about to say one thing but then says instead, “Well you better hurry up, it looks like the cops are done conferencing and they’re breaking up. One’s headed your way. I’ll look up the right cop verbiage to use.”

  Shit. I glance at the radar screen. The blue-ringed white dots are dispersing in all directions through the mess of traffic.

  “Flip the sirens,” I say to Winn. “As soon as the minivan gets the message, turn the sirens off.”

  Puo says, “Commandeering a civilian vehicle is part of section 10.6 of the Irish penal code.”

  Winn blasts the siren on, painting the back of the maroon minivan in revolving blue lights.

  “Commandeering?” I snark. “Who said anything about commandeering. You’ve been watching too many ...”

  The maroon minivan in front of us breaks into panicked climb to the right.

  “... movies.” I finish. “You got to be kidding me.”

  “What do we do?” Winn shouts, preparing to give chase.

  Uhh.

  Puo starts demanding updates.

  The taillights of the minivan disappear into the dark cloud.

  “Give chase?” Winn asks. Puo continues to ask what’s happening.

  “Everyone shut up!” My eyes are glued to the radar screen. “Let me think!”

  Three of the blue-ringed white dots break off and head straight for the erratic gray dot of the maroon minivan—our own radar screen marked it as contact of interest. Well that was unexpected.

  “Let him go,” I say. “Kill the sirens.”

  The flashing blue lights around us wink out. The other hovercars witnessing this spectacle are no doubt as confused as we are.

  “Set us down,” I say, studying the street below us. “There.” I point to a spot on the street. The street’s post-holiday enthusiasm is damped down from the rain, but most importantly it has a street tunnel that runs through a building providing cover.

  Puo is still jabbering for updates and Winn finally takes pity on him and explains what just happened as he maneuvers the hovercar down into the tunnel.

  “Right there,” I say, pointing to a spot behind a pine-colored sedan. “That’s our switch.” Private vehicles usually don’t have an automatic identification system—score one for privacy advocates. Thanks guys! But even if it does, it’s nothing Puo can’t handle. I can’t wait to change into some dry clothes.

  There’s moderate traffic in the tunnel, both hovercar and foot traffic waiting out the rain.

  Winn pulls up behind the sedan and starts pulling up info about it on the police tablet. No need to pick locks when police cars have wireless entry. Convenient, right?

  “Let me know when you’re ready,” Puo says.

  The cops need a warrant that comes with a unique code to enable the feature to enter a personal vehicle, but that’s nothing Puo can’t bypass—he’s a very liberal judge.

  “Got the info on the sedan,” Winn says. “Clothes?”

  I toss him his dry change of clothes from the small duffle bag at my feet and he starts changing in the cramped front seat.

  I fill Ham in on the plan about the switch while keeping an eye on Winn and thinking I am definitely not changing in front of Ham.

  “How am I supposed to change?” Ham asks, lifting up his handcuffs.

  I slide open the small gap in the metal mesh and shove the squeegee through. “Merry Christmas.”

  Ham shifts to accept it and mutters, “I knew it.”

  “Yeah?” I can’t help myself from asking. “What else do you know, Porkchop?”

  Puo snorts with laughter. “Nice.”

  Ham stares back at me silently, then asks, “Porkchop?”

  “Yup,” I say, rather proud of coming up with the moniker on the spot. “It’s your codename. In case someone is listening in.”

  “You don’t know how to encrypt comms?” he asks disbelieving.

  “They can be broken,” I answer, stifling annoyance.

  “Not if you do it right,” he shoots back. “Amateurs.”

  I clench my fist and try to remember his face smacking up against the metal cage. Too bad we couldn’t do that again.

  The foot traffic waiting out the rain is concentrated near the entrance and exits. The hovercars pass by slowly; Winn has tinted the hovercar windows from the embedded control tablet.

  I pin Ham to the backseat with my eyes. “Listen very carefully to me, Porkchop,” I say. “You have your freedom at my pleasure, and my pleasure only. You are fortunate right now in that to serve my interests, you need to be free. Every officer in Ireland is looking for you right now—”

  “Us—” Ham cuts in.

  “You. They are looking for you.” I resist the urge t
o finger my digi-scrambler and shove it in Ham’s stupid face. “And the only way off this island is through me. Understood?”

  He stares at me silently.

  I continue, “If you try to screw us, if you try to run, if you think I won’t greedily seize a Pyrrhic victory with you roasting in the center while I stand laughing on your shoulders, think again.”

  “I have no illusions about that,” Ham says

  “Good,” I say.

  Ham sets to work on his handcuffs in his cramped lap.

  I say to Winn who is slipping on a simple gold wedding band as part of his disguise, “Watch him, while I go change.” Winn shifts around as I grab the bag at my feet and go up to the sedan (having Puo unlock it for me) to change out of the wet cop’s uniform in the front seat.

  The street is quiet in the middle of the tunnel, except for the hum of passing hovercars. The only smell is that of damp asphalt and dirt, it reminds me strongly of boring days in Atlanta, waiting out the rain and trying to stay dry. The cold, heavy rain splatters against the ground at the ends of the tunnel.

  I change quickly. The low classical music in my ear has me feeling like I’m changing (rather shabbily) for a ball. I linger over a wedding ring of similar style, debating whether to wear it or not. It has nothing to do with Winn, but it doesn’t feel right now that we’re in the moment. After a few more seconds consideration, I slip it on for now and return back to the cop hovercar. Two down, one to go.

  Ham continues to work on his handcuffs. I wish Puo were here to actually watch him. The best we could do was to wirelessly connect the squeegee so Puo could monitor him that way.

  A growing siren seeps in through the wall of rain. Everyone in the car stills. Winn and I share a look.

  “Keep working,” I order Ham, who had stopped to look up.

  Ham redoubles his efforts.

  The siren wails as it approaches. Winn steps out of the hovercar, hefts a large black duffle bag full of scuba equipment out of the trunk (Ham doesn’t know what’s in it) and shoves the bag in the front seat of the sedan on top of the smaller one with the change of clothes I had left there.

  That stunt with making all the blue dots the same identification was an overt tactic. The cops now know we’re in their system. Have they caught the maroon minivan and figured out what happened? I can only imagine how poorly it’s going for that kid.

  “Mister Ed,” I say to Puo, “have they pushed you out of the stable yet?”

  “No,” Puo says. “At least I don’t think so.”

  “Not the time for half-answers,” I say.

  The siren is peaking. Is that a revolving blue light through the rain up ahead?

  Puo continues, “They know I’m in the stable. They’ve shut down the uplink to all the patrols that they know about and switched them to manual. But they haven’t actually found and shut me out yet.”

  “The patrols that they know about?”

  “They don’t know about yours,” he says.

  “Then how did that cop find us the first time?” I ask.

  That’s definitely a revolving blue light.

  “Porkchop, get out of the car.” My eyes are glued to the end of the tunnel.

  Ham doesn’t need to be told twice.

  We hurry to the sedan. Winn opens the front door and fishes out Ham’s change of clothes.

  Another weaker siren joins the first. Was the AI able to sort it out that quickly?

  Ham runs up to the sedan’s back door. “Are you freaking kidding me? I can’t fit between baby seats!”

  Winn shoves dry clothes into Ham’s already cluttered hands and runs around to the front.

  “Who said anything about sitting in the back seat?” I ask, opening the trunk and quickly climbing in in full view of the passing hovercars. “Hurry up!”

  ***

  Ham smells like wet cabbage. I wiggle onto my back to face away from him and save my poor olfactory system from his stench and breath—of which copious amounts are spewing forth.

  Rain pounds the trunk in a wet roar—apparently car engineers don’t soundproof the trunk area. The sirens are so loud it sounds like one of them is right behind us. The sounds nearly completely drown out the music in my ear.

  “Status?” I ask Winn through the comm-link.

  “I’m in a skylane less than a mile from Glasnevin Station—” Winn says.

  “I almost have it,” Ham says through clenched teeth as he works on removing his handcuffs. The backlit squeegee provides a modicum of light for him to work by. There’s not a lot of room in the trunk of a hovercar sedan for two grown adults, but just enough that I can manage to crowd up against the wall and not touch him.

  “Not you, Porkchop,” I say about asking Winn for his status.

  Winn continues, “—There are cops all over the place. They haven’t found the borrowed cop car yet, but it’s only a matter of time. They’re ignoring me for the moment. Traffic’s a mess.”

  “Good.”

  “Good?” Winn asks. “We have a schedule.”

  “Mister Ed—?” I start to ask about finding us an alternative route.

  “I’m on it,” Puo says.

  The electronic churn of the handcuffs unlocking is followed by a heavy thunk against the floor announcing Ham has been successful. He then starts fidgeting and twisting.

  “What are you doing?” I ask, daring to peek over at him.

  “Changing.”

  “Eww. No,” I say. The goob has contorted himself to stick his gut out in a groaning effort to get his wet shirt off. His belly is soft, glowing white by the light of the squeegee and covered in unkempt black hair. Gross.

  He doesn’t listen to me and is still flopping around.

  “Stop!” I say. “You can change when we get to our destination.” And when I’m not within touching distance of you.

  He slows but doesn’t put his arms down from trying to pull his shirt off. “What’s our destination?”

  “The less you know, the better right now,” I say, and mean it. I’m not giving Ham any bargaining chips to play with if we, or he, gets picked up.

  “Have you considered that I might be able to help?” he asks.

  It’s the benign way he asks it that makes me want to clock the conniving ass. Ham is an arrogant, self-involved prick with no manners or regard for people he considers below him, which is pretty much everyone from his point of view. So when he’s being nice, or at least not rude, he’s plotting.

  I consider asking him about the contents of Christina’s squeegee to throw him off, but decide to wait until the appointed time for that question to exert maximum pressure.

  “No,” I say curtly.

  Winn breaks in on the comm-link, “We have a potential problem—”

  “You know,” Ham says, still in his not-rude voice and drowning out Winn, “I’m not without my own resources—”

  “Shut up, Porkchop,” I say.

  Ham continues, trying to sweeten his voice. “—Our goals are aligned for the—”

  “Shut up!” I rush at him. “We have a problem out front!” I jab my finger toward the front. When Ham actually does shut up, I say, “Wilbur, repeat.” Nothing. “Wilbur, are you there?”

  Puo answers in his normal voice, a sure-fire sign something’s wrong, “Wilbur disconnected the comm-link. There’s a police checkpoint at the entrance to Glasnevin—”

  Shit. “Why didn’t you know about it?” I ask. Puo’s in their system.

  “Yeah,” Puo says, “they not only knew I was in their system, but they successfully quarantined me. Pretty good move, actually.”

  “Pretty good move? That’s all you can say?”

  “Well just because we took one on the chin here doesn’t mean I can’t appreciate the skill of the punch. But we’re not knocked out yet. They’re looking for a party of three, last seen as two cops and a handcuffed perp. Not a lone father driving around with two car seats in the back seat, in which a third adult couldn’t even fit between—trunk ex
cluded, of course.”

  I’m about to respond to this when Puo adds, “You better be quiet. If the cops hear voices in the trunk they may become suspicious.”

  “Fine,” I whisper. I then whisper to Ham the situation. He kills the squeegee plunging us into darkness.

  A level of strain descends upon the growing humid air inside the trunk. The rain hammering overhead makes it nearly impossible to make out anything except Ham’s fidgeting two feet away. The music becomes an annoying distraction, but if we’re going to get jammed, the checkpoint would be a place to do it.

  The hovercar slows and starts to descend, shifting my body toward the front of the car until my head bumps into the back seat. I focus on my breathing, as my pulse races. Pay attention to your breathing, the voice from the video says in my head. Let go all your worries and anxieties....

  We come to a slow stop. The rain takes it as an invitation to assault us harder. In brief bursts Winn inches forward for his turn to enter the station. On top of the after-holiday traffic being screwed up by the rain, the cops have now added a checkpoint.

  I’m on my third breathing cycle when the pitch of the steady rain noise changes slightly, followed quickly by Winn’s deep voice mumbling something.

  He’s at the checkpoint. I hold my breath and cock my ear without the comm-link in it to hear better.

  A rain-filled pause. More mumbling.

  I force myself to take a slow, measured breath, and end up wrinkling my nose. Ham is sweating. So am I for that matter, but when I perspire, it’s a lady-like scent of roses, thank you very much.

  At least Ham is quiet.

  More halting mumbling.

  My thigh is starting to cramp at this angle—I’m lying on my back with my legs scrunched up together and twisted away from Ham. The small of my back is begging to untwist.

  The mumbling is getting closer. I can almost make out what the officer is saying.

  Knock! Knock! Knuckles bang on the top of the trunk.

  Oh, fuck!

  The officer is calling out.