Shelf Life

by Bob Crosley

  Marcus continued, “Unless we’re diligent, Q prevents us from realizing our first freedom: the freedom of mind! For unless we are free in our minds, we are not free. The great voices of freedom were first free in their own minds… before they could ever lead their people to freedom. When Ghandi was arrested, the many times he was arrested, he was free. When Martin Luther King Jr. was in that jail in Birmingham, he was free. And when the leader of the TRACE resistance, Amos Troyer, was in Transport custody on Earth, he was free. When your mind is free, you are free even when sitting in a jail cell. For most of our fellow citizens, Q imprisons their minds.”

  “So the mighty Transport Authority continues to trample our freedoms. The mighty Transport Authority continues to control every aspect of our lives. But why does the average citizen not care that the mighty Transport Authority tramples on their personal liberty? Because. They. Are. Drugged. And. Entertained! Who is going to care about anything when they’re stoned and amused? Dazed and confused? Oppressed and abused? Not the average citizen, my friends. That task, the role of the rabble rouser, the instigator, that job is left to you and me, my friends. And it is a job we are compelled to take up. For a man aware of the truth but complicit in the lie is the foundation of tyranny.”

  This was the time in the program when the headlines behind Marcus started to include the clues for the date and time of the next show. Jacob almost didn’t notice them anymore, but this time something caught his eye. Something wasn’t right. Twice, the number indicating the date of the next show was wrong. Following the ‘every other day’ routine, the next show should be on the twenty-first. But a twenty appeared instead, twice. And then there was the address. Jacob knew the pattern in the addresses, and knew which one should have been used for the next program. But the numbers hidden among the headlines were off. In fact, they were off by a full address space. Something wasn’t right. He wrote the new numbers down on his sheet to look at later. Marcus was about to wrap up for the night.

  “My friends, I want to leave you with a bit of good news; good news you won’t hear about through official channels, because this kind of news is good for us, but bad news indeed for the Transport Authority. Just last week, out to the east, in a town called Gettysburg, TRACE struck a decisive blow against Transport. It was a hard-fought battle, but in the end TRACE defeated the Transport forces and captured new weapons that will aid the fight for our freedom. Keep fighting, my friends. We will be victorious!”

  And with that, Marcus disappeared, and Jacob found himself back in his workspace. As usual, watching Marcus both excited and exhausted Jacob. He was excited by the ideas and Marcus’s style, but exhausted by what the new ideas implied about Jacob’s life so far and where his future might lead. He closed his BICE connection and looked down at the paper in his hands. There was a puzzle in these wrong numbers, he was certain of it, and he could have stayed up all night to find it. But Jacob’s first priority had to be taking care of his mom, so solving the puzzle would have to wait.

  Chapter Eight

  Jacob’s focus on the puzzle led to researching Internet address spaces. Marcus’s shows followed a pattern as they worked through one address space, but according to that pattern, there should have been one more address they could use before jumping to the next space. But he had jumped anyway. Was the last address in use for something else? And what about that 20 that flashed on the screen a couple times? What did that mean?

  It could mean there was a second show, a hidden show. The 20 flashed only a couple times. Not everyone would have caught it. And the missing address? That must be the address of the secret show. But what is it? Jacob knew his imagination was getting away from him. There were other things it could be, but if it was a secret show, he had to try to see it. He ran through every spy movie he’d ever seen in his head. It was a meeting of Marcus’s closest allies. It was a secret meeting of spies. Marcus is actually a Transport Authority spy, and this was where he met his TA handler. There were dozens of possible reasons for the secret show, and many of them were potentially dangerous for Jacob. But could anyone really find out about something like this and not attend?

  Knowing it would start soon, Jacob needed to prepare. Normally, he did his snooping in anonymous mode, but Marcus’s servers wouldn’t allow anonymous access. He activated his BICE and saw the familiar flash of light. His avatar was pretty obvious, so he entered his workspace and switched it back to the default theme. His avatar became a featureless male character. The dragonslayer was no more. The potions, tools, and dragons disappeared, replaced by clearly labelled buttons. The plains of Gorath became a plain blue background. Jacob thought that if he looked more generic, he wouldn’t make a big impression if he popped in somewhere he wasn’t welcome. It might give him time to get back out before someone identified him.

  It was nine o’clock. The plan was to enter the address and see what was going on. If he found trouble, he wouldn’t waste time going back to his workspace; he’d just deactivate his BICE. He reached for the map in the pouch on his belt before remembering the map, the pouch, and even the belt weren’t there. A little embarrassed, he pushed the “Address” button, entered the missing address and…

  “Welcome, Dragonslayuh!” Marcus’s booming baritone hit Jacob like the Santeras, the strong summer winds that swept across the Shelf. An instant before Jacob pulled the plug, he noticed Marcus’s smile.

  “Mr. Weatherly? How do you know who I am?”

  “It’s Marcus, my friend. And I don’t really know who you are, not by name at least. I just know you’re the dragonslayuh.” Jacob always laughed at how Marcus’s accent altered the word. Marcus looked him up and down. “I liked the other outfit better.”

  “And how do you know that I am the dragonslayer?”

  “Every BICE user has a unique identifier. Normally, no one can see it. The system just uses it to keep track of your identity, no matter how often you change your avatar. I’ve made some modifications to my servers so that I can see the ID number of every visitor.”

  “Is that why you don’t allow anonymous connections?”

  “Exactly. With what I do here, I have to keep track of who’s visiting me. I can’t be too careful. That brings me to my question. Who are you, and who do you work for?”

  “I… I… I don’t work for anyone. My… my name is Jacob. Jacob Alders. I live on the Shelf with my mom. I’m… I’m only eighteen.” Marcus’s implied accusation caught Jacob completely off guard.

  “Well, dragonslayuh Jacob Alders, you know your way around the net. I’m impressed by what you’ve been able to accomplish.”

  “What do you mean?”

  Marcus held his hands close, like he was cradling something, as a glowing ball packed with swirling text formed between them. He turned to face the back wall and threw the ball toward it. When it ‘hit’ the wall, it exploded, covering the wall with scrolling lines of text. The effect was so real, and so impressive, that Jacob needed to remind himself it was all in his head. Literally.

  “This, Dragonslayuh Jacob, is your net activity over the past two weeks. You’ve been a busy Shelf dweller.”

  Jacob bristled at the common City insult for Shelf residents, and Marcus noticed.

  “Don’t take offense, my friend. I’m from New Chicago myself. Only a Shelfie can insult a Shelfie. Am I right?”

  Jacob laughed and nodded. The City was only a few hours away by airbus, but it might as well be another planet, considering the differences between the two cultures. He turned back to the scrolling text. “This is my net traffic. You’ve been sniffing me!”

  Now it was Marcus’s turn to laugh. “Thankfully, not literally. But yes, I’ve been sniffing your traffic. You’ve been successfully avoiding the TA blocks on certain topics. Clever, how you worked around them. How long have you been a net snoop?”

  “A what? What’s a net snoop? I’ve never heard of that.”

  “It’s what you’ve been doing, researching sensitive topics without drawing Transport a
ttention. How long have you been doing this?”

  “Just a few weeks, since I first saw your show. I never even knew the blocks were there until I searched for your name.”

  Marcus laughed. “Well, then it’s a natural talent, my young friend. I could use your help. If you want to help the cause, that is.”

  “How do you know I don’t actually work for Transport?”

  “I checked you out while we’ve been talking. What do you say? Will you help me?”

  Jacob’s first reaction was to say no. He couldn’t risk getting in trouble with the Authority. Who would take care of his mom? Then he heard her voice in his head, talking about curiosity and challenging authority. She’d want him to help. “Yeah, I’ll help. What do you need me to do?”

  “I’m looking for someone, an old co-worker of mine. He’s a Transport Authority interrogator. His name is Gutierrez — Lieutenant Roberto Gutierrez.”

  ***

  Jacob learned Roberto Gutierrez was what his mother would call ‘a piece of work.’ It really shouldn’t have been that easy to get information on an active Transport agent, but Gutierrez had so many successes, and so many scandals, that there were thousands of mentions of him across the net. None of them gave a clue as to where he was right now.

  In his twenty-five years with Transport, Gutierrez was credited with the capture of 178 TRACE rebels or other insurgents. He was also implicated in six scandals where excessive force, or even lethal force, had been used against innocent civilians while he was pursuing rebels.

  The official record focused on the 178 terrorists. Unofficial records, anonymous videos, and eyewitness testimonies all concentrated on the scandals. Looking at news stories over the course of his career, Jacob could see that Lieutenant Gutierrez became a captain, and then reverted to a lieutenant, at least three times. It seemed those higher up in Transport didn’t always like their star interrogator.

  Try as he might, Jacob could find no reference to his current duty assignment. He could track when Gutierez had worked in the City, and then in New Chicago, and then back to the City. But he could not find out where he was working now, and that was the one piece of information Marcus needed.

  Jacob couldn’t get the incident with the Amish out of his head. Eyewitness accounts were consistent, and some referenced a video, but the video appeared to have been scrubbed from the net. According to the video transcripts and leaked Transport reports that he found online, some TRACE rebels, running from Transport agents, hid in the Amish Zone. They were there for several days before Transport drone surveillance determined they were in the AZ. By then, they were in Amish clothes and posing as unmarried Amish men, successfully blended into the Zone.

  ***

  Captain Gutierrez had entered the AZ with a squad of four agents. He’d been tipped off by an Amish family friendly to the Authority that the men were hiding among them. The squad went door to door and gathered every unmarried man, ages eleven to thirty-eight. The men were lined up in the field in front of the Bontrager farm, where Gutierrez addressed the group.

  “Among you are two who do not belong here. They are not Amish. They are men of violence. Now, I know that you Amish are non-violent. And you don’t cooperate with the government. Well… most of you don’t. But a wise man once said, ‘Those who abjure violence can only do so by others committing violence on their behalf.’ Violence committed by violent men like me.

  “I’m here to protect you. I’m here to find the terrorists who would destroy our world if we let them. I am a violent man by nature. I could adopt your ways. I could take each of you into a room and talk to you. Weed out the Amish from the Englischers and find my terrorists.

  “But I can’t do that. I don’t have time. Just as there are those among you who cooperate with the Transport Authority, there are those who cooperate with our enemies. If I am talking to the wrong person, those who sympathize with terrorists will sneak them out of the Zone. So I must be more direct.”

  Gutierrez walked to the beginning of the line of men. He removed his sidearm, placed the barrel one inch from the forehead of the first man and explained. “In front of each man, I will give you a count of three for the terrorists to identify themselves. If they fail to do so, I will pull the trigger. Let’s see exactly how that works.”

  “One. Two. Three.” The loud crack sounded and the echo bounced back off the barns, hills, and even the distant wall, creating a slight rumble. Samuel Hostetler collapsed to the ground. Gutierrez moved to the next man, Abram Schrock. Abram started reciting prayers in Pennsylvania Dutch. “One. Two. Three.” A crack and a rumble. Three of the men in line got sick, one on his boots.

  Gutierrez moved down one man to eleven-year-old Isaac Lapp. The next man in line, Joseph Miller, a mountain of a teen, stepped in front of him.

  “Joseph, don’t,” pleaded Jacob Zook, the oldest of the unmarried men.

  One of the agents flanking Gutierrez swung his rifle around and slammed the butt into Joseph’s ribs. Joseph dropped to his knees and Jacob helped him back into line.

  “One. Two,” Lieutenant Gutierrez resumed his count.

  “We’re here!” Two men further down the line raised their hands. The other two members of the squad covered them with their rifles.

  “It’s nice to see you can be reasonable men.” Gutierrez laughed. “Well, mostly reasonable. Three!” He pulled the trigger. Isaac was gone.

  “This was on you gentlemen. You killed these men. And you needed to see what you have done.” He gestured with two fingers toward the squad members covering the TRACE rebels. They both pulled their triggers. The rebels collapsed, and Gutierrez addressed the remaining men. “Let this be a lesson to all of you. You live under the protection of the Transport Authority, yet many of you betray that gift by supporting and trading with terrorists! This,” gesturing to the carnage in front of him, “is what happens when you support terrorists. You are treated just as they are. I suggest you pray on that a bit.”

  ***

  After that, Jacob needed some fresh air. Satisfied that his mom was in a deep sleep, he went outside and spent a few minutes clearing his head. Upon returning to the apartment, Jacob looked back at all of the information he had gathered, and the realization hit him. “I’ve got you,” he said, to no one in particular.

  Chapter Nine

  Jacob turned everything he had learned about the current whereabouts of Roberto Gutierrez over to Marcus. He used the software that Marcus had told him about to encode the data into a net video and upload it to a popular video sharing site. The data containing his message to Marcus was mixed in with the information from the video. To anyone without the password and the right reader software, it would just look like glitches.

  Fresh off his success, Jacob was having a good day. Rain had settled the dust, so the sky was actually blue. And Mr. Abbas had messaged that he had saved a box of herbal tea. Head high, he was enjoying the walk to the store.

  Jacob even enjoyed the tinkle made by the small, antique brass bell on the door as he entered. Seeing Mr. Abbas at the back counter, he started toward him. “Mr. Abbas, I’m here for the tea. Thank you so much for saving a box.” Determined to get the tea, Jacob didn’t notice the two other shoppers in the store, one to each side of him, both wearing all black.

  “Jacob! Jacob, Jacob. Good to see you. Let me go in back to get that tea for you.” Mr. Abbas spoke louder than normal. He walked through the curtain into the back room. And two men walked out. Transport Agents, in full riot gear. Jacob turned toward the front door, only to see the other two shoppers close in to block his path. One of the agents in riot gear grabbed Jacob by the back of the neck and pushed him forward, hitting his chin against the counter. Jacob bit down hard on impact, and tasted blood.

  “Jacob Alders, you are under arrest for violation of Transport law. As of now, all civil rights are suspended and you are being taken into Transport custody.” Jacob twisted his head so he could see what was happening. The second riot gear agent grabbed his
wrists and bound them together using plastic handcuffs. Jacob struggled and the agent responded by pulling the cuffs tighter, cutting into his skin.

  Pushed down by the first agent, Jacob’s chest was against the counter and his knees were slightly bent. In a single movement, he straightened his legs and twisted his torso and shoulders, trying to break free of Riot Gear One’s grip. He felt the hand tighten on his neck as he saw Riot Gear Two take a small syringe from a case on his belt. He felt the pinch as it slid into the sensitive skin of his neck. Jacob was overwhelmed by the smell of oranges as a massive dose of Q entered his bloodstream. He felt his resistance fade and his vision blurred. When the hand came off his neck, he slid to the floor.

  “Why am I being arrested?” Jacob asked listlessly.

  “What part of ‘all civil rights are suspended’ didn’t you understand? Someone will explain it all to you at the Authority Detention Center.” Riot Gear Two grabbed Jacob by the cuffs and pulled him to a standing position. The sharp edges of the plastic sliced through his skin. As he stood, Jacob felt blood start to run down his hands. The pain returned some clarity to his thoughts.

  “My mother! My mother! She’s sick! Someone needs to take care of her! She has the Wasting!”

  “They’ll send someone for her,” was the cold response from Riot Gear One.

  As he was being pushed toward the door, Jacob could hear Mr. Abbas. “I didn’t have a choice. They didn’t give me a choice. They were going to shut me down!”

  Jacob fought the influence of the drugs in his system and continued to twist and struggle as they led him out the door and into the back of an Authority prisoner van. From the minute he realized what was happening, he knew he must fight them as much as possible, with the unlikely hope of getting free. Because Jacob knew one thing that gave him reason to fight, even if it got him killed.