The time glowed softly at the edge of her vision.
15:51
Twelve minutes.
Nguyen was struggling to conjugate a response when the grandmother appeared between the two agents. The top of her head didn’t even reach their shoulders. She looked down at Lynn when she spoke. ‘Hai thằng chó đẻ này làm gi`ở đây vậy?’ [‘What are these two sons-of-bitches doing here?’]
Lynn’s spoken Vietnamese was close to fluent, but she kept her translator on when she was working. Though less frequent, this part of town also echoed with Laotian, Burmese, and a hundred Chinese dialects. Smart to be tuned in to those wavelengths.
So the c-glyph whispered the old woman’s sentence into her ear, coming through in English a couple of seconds later. It made it look like the grandmother was speaking in a badly dubbed old movie.
‘They won’t be here long. Can you get them tea?’ Lynn asked.
‘Bác bỏ thuôć độc vô luôn đựỏc nha?’ [‘Shall I poison it?’]
Lynn smiled a small smile. ‘No. Just tea.’ The men were moving their hands to their c-glyphs. Apparently they’d entered the restaurant without their translators turned on.
Lynn indicated a couple of seats nearby. ‘Gentlemen, why don’t you sit down? Drink some tea with us.’
One of the agents answered. ‘No thank you, Miss. We are here to take Mister Nguyen in for questioning.’
‘Now?’
‘Now.’
Lynn leaned back in her chair, used her eyes to indicate the room they were standing in. ‘Here’s the thing. You’re deep in the heart of Cabramatta. Not the safest place in the world for an immigration enforcement agent.’
They looked around the restaurant. Perhaps noticing for the first time the quiet that had descended on it. All eyes in the room focused on them, the atmosphere turning like a corpse in the noonday sun.
‘Gentlemen,’ she said.
They looked back at her.
‘Just smile, grab a seat, and conduct your business politely. You’ll be out of here in a few minutes, no trouble.’
The agents exchanged glances. One nodded. They dragged chairs with faded red seat cushions over to the table, smiling strained smiles as they sat down.
Nguyen cleared his throat, a sheen of sweat on his forehead. ‘What’s the charge?’
The official looked across at him with dead eyes. ‘People smuggling.’
‘Do you have a warrant?’ asked Lynn.
He turned back to her. ‘Are you his lawyer?’
‘No.’ She indicated Nguyen with an open palm. ‘He’s my pimp. Can’t you tell?’
Agent Taylor didn’t seem keen on smiling. ‘People smuggling is a very serious offense.’
Lynn nodded. ‘Yes, I’ve seen the advertisements. Very, very serious—imagine trying to help Vietnamese civilians flee cluster bombing and nerve warfare? China would be livid. And we couldn’t have that.’
The agents suddenly seemed a lot more interested in her. Taylor looked her over and then held out his hand to Agent Baker, who removed a palmscreen from his pocket and passed it to his partner. It looked a bit larger than a regular model, maybe four inches across by six long. The retina scanner he flipped up from the end must have been specially fitted. Lynn cursed inwardly.
‘Would you mind if I did an identity check, Miss?’
She pointed. ‘What is that?’
‘The retina scanner?’
‘That model. That’s official immigration issue isn’t it? An expensive unit, I believe.’
‘Miss. The scan please.’ The agent had one of those voices trained to convey authority. Imbued with one extra notch each of volume, aggression, and confidence.
‘I’m afraid I can’t agree to that.’
His gaze rose from the adjustments he was making to the scanner. ‘It’s the law. We’re making an arrest. You appear to be an associate of Mister Nguyen.’
‘I’m Australian. You have no jurisdiction over me.’
‘Sorry Miss, but we don’t know that until we test it.’
‘That seems a conveniently circular argument.’
‘If you’ve done nothing wrong, then you have nothing to worry about.’
Lynn raised an eyebrow. ‘Ah, the mantra of secret police and peeping Toms everywhere.’
The agent’s professional patina didn’t drop. Not surprising, a person in his position would be subject to a wide range of creative abuse on a daily basis. ‘Like I said—it’s the law.’
‘I read an article about this once. If you run my retina prints, I’ll be listed as present during one of your arrests.’
He responded with a shrug that indicated that while she was right, he didn’t really care.
‘And I’ll be flagged as a person of interest for immigration.’
‘I didn’t design the system, Miss.’
‘Of course not. An empty suit couldn’t design a system so diabolical; your only function is to implement it.’
Still no response. Not a flicker. She sighed and pulled out an unmarked silver cigarette case from her jacket pocket. ‘Do you gentlemen smoke?’
Agent Baker let out a humorless laugh. ‘You think we can afford to smoke on a government salary?’ He glanced around the room, at Nguyen. ‘In fact, I doubt anyone here can afford to smoke. Legally, anyway.’ He looked back at Lynn. ‘Do you have a license for those?’
Her fingers lingered in the open case. ‘I thought you were in immigration, Agent Baker, not drug enforcement. Haven’t you gentlemen got enough on your plate for today?’
The man pointed at his partner. ‘He’s Baker, I’m Taylor.’
‘You people all look the same to me.’
He raised his eyebrows. ‘White people?’
‘Bureaucrats.’
The one on the right planted his elbow on the table, holding the palm screen up at about her head height. The other agent turned to watch the room, hand slipping under his jacket. The patrons, seeing a hated ID check underway, watched him right back. Lynn snapped shut her case, sans cigarette, and placed it on the table.
15:56
‘Here, hold it steady.’ She placed both hands on the palmscreen and held her eye up to the scanner. A small, black metal circle with a red laser dot in the center. She looked into the beam. The red glare caused her to blink.
‘Try not to blink, Miss. It just needs five seconds.’
She put her eye in the beam again, counted to three, then blinked rapidly. A chime in a minor key emanated from the palmscreen.
The agent sighed. ‘Miss.’ Firmer this time. ‘Just place your eye over the beam. Don’t blink. It’s over in a few seconds.’
She failed another three times, eliciting more sighs and even a curse. She smiled sweetly. The smile didn’t feel at all natural on her face, but their displeasure was satisfying nonetheless. On the sixth attempt, she allowed it to work.
16:00
He looked at the results of the scan. ‘Miss Vu. I see you have full citizenship.’
‘I’m aware.’
‘But your parents do not. They are Vietnamese–Australian.’
She sat in silence. Let the threat hang there for a few moments while she studied it. ‘What the fuck does that mean?’
‘Nothing.’ He snapped down the scanner, put the palmscreen in his coat pocket. His flat stare lingered on her. ‘I’m just saying they fall under our jurisdiction.’
Under the table, she slowly slid her pistol from the small holster under her belt buckle. She moved it to her lap, hidden in the shadows, easing the safety off with her thumb. ‘My parents have nothing to do with this.’
Again, those dead eyes. ‘If they’ve done nothing wrong, they have nothing to worry about.’
The grandmother reappeared, placed a pot and two glasses on the table. She glanced down as she did so. From the angle she was standing, the old woman could see the pistol Lynn clutched in her hand. She leant down, whispered close to Lynn’s ear. ‘Bỏ thuôć độc dễ hỏn.’ [‘Poi
son would have been easier.’]
Lynn gave her a small smile in reply.
Agent Baker took one sip of his tea before turning to Nguyen. ‘Time to go.’ He pointed down at the flexiscreen sitting on the table. ‘That yours?’
Nguyen puffed on his cigar. Like Lynn, he seemed to be figuring the best answer to that particular question.
‘Mister Nguyen, is that your flexiscreen?’
Nguyen began to speak, but Lynn cut him off. ‘Yes. Yes it’s his.’
The agent started to rise from his seat. ‘You better bring it with you.’
16:03
A soft chime emanated from the screen. The four faces at the table turned to look at it. No one spoke. A few seconds passed and the chime sounded again, the ideograms on the flexiscreen increasing in brightness, insisting on attention.
‘Mister Nguyen,’ she said. He didn’t respond. He just sat staring at the screen. Her voice was firmer the second time. ‘Mister Nguyen.’
He started and looked up at her.
‘Why don’t you answer your call while the agents here show me that warrant.’
He looked from her, to the screen, over to the agents, then back to her again. He wiped the sweat from his brow with the back of his hand. ‘Sure.’ He put a finger to his c-glyph and closed his eyes.
‘Gentlemen.’ Lynn held out her hand. ‘The warrant.’ She felt surprisingly calm given she was responsible for a crime occurring three feet away that could get her thirty years in prison. She focused on her breathing.
Inhale.
Exhale.
Inhale.
Agent Baker glanced over at Nguyen, who was now mumbling responses to someone only he could see. The agent sighed and reached into his coat pocket, pulled out the palmscreen, and pressed his thumb to it. ‘Verify: Agent Baker, immigration enforcement. Display warrant for Nguyen Van Cam, suspected people smuggler.’
He waited. Nothing happened. He pressed his thumb to the screen again. Still nothing. It was dead. No sound, no light, no signal. He handed it to his partner. The other man looked at the dead screen, then up at Lynn. ‘What’s going on here?’
She slowly slid the pistol back in the holster, eyes on the two men. ‘You tell me.’
The agent held the screen up. ‘All official communications are contained in this, including the warrant. It’s a closed system. It was working fine a few minutes ago. Now it’s dead.’
She leaned back in her chair. ‘Well, I’d say you boys are shit out of luck.’
‘This doesn’t change anything.’
‘I disagree. It changes everything.’ Lynn signaled for the grandmother to come over to the table. She did so immediately. ‘This is private property. Unless you’re conducting government-sanctioned business, you should leave,’ she turned to the old woman, addressing her in the formal Vietnamese mode, ‘Right, elder aunty?’
The grandmother looked at the two men, her eyes sparkling. She found a phrase for them in English. ‘Piss off.’
The agents rose from their seats. One reached under his jacket. The other looked around at the customers, at the faces staring back at him from within the red haze, coiled with silent anger. The agent placed a hand on his partner’s shoulder. ‘Let’s wait outside. Warrant and back-up will be here in fifteen minutes.’
The other man nodded, still staring straight at Lynn. He let his hand drop, looked over at Nguyen. ‘Don’t even think about leaving.’ Then he spun and walked out, his partner right behind.
Lynn turned to the old woman. ‘We need some privacy.’
The old woman set about ushering the customers out the front door. No one needed much encouragement. It wasn’t worth witnessing what was going to happen next.
Soon all that remained was the smoke and the scent of anchovies. That, and two of her men. They walked over from where they had been sitting, one stood behind Mister Nguyen, one next to Lynn. They were big men.
Nguyen glanced up at them, then back at Lynn. ‘We should leave, now.’ He started to rise from his seat, but a heavy hand fell on his shoulder and pushed him back down.
Lynn shook her head. ‘Not yet, Mister Nguyen, not yet.’ She indicated the door with her eyes. ‘Your men in the car outside have been sent away.’
‘What?’
She sighed and folded her hands on the tabletop. ‘You led two immigration agents to our first meeting.’
‘I didn’t know they were following me.’
‘You led two immigrations agents into our first fucking meeting.’ She didn’t raise her voice, but the steel was in it this time.
Nguyen said nothing, just bowed his head and looked at the burnt-out cigar between his fingers.
Lynn pointed at the cigarette case. ‘Fortunately I keep a dot scrambler on hand for times such as this. The one I stuck on the agent’s palmscreen will wipe any record of my retina scan, and freeze the unit until a tech can sit down and unwind the scrambled code. And this,’ she pointed to her nose ring, ‘is a refraction loop. You know what this does?’
He shook his head.
‘To the naked eye I looked normal. But when you take the memory pin from your c-glyph and play back this scene, the area around my face is distorted. The light bent and warped. They’ll still have my voice print, but I can live with that.’
She placed the cigarette case in her pocket.
‘So I’m in the clear,’ she said. ‘You know the laws on human memory. If it doesn’t come from a memory pin playback, it is inadmissible as evidence. What with the frail psychology of natural memory and all that. Those agents won’t remember what I look like anyway. Not if I change my hair.’ She reached up, touching the spikes with her palms. ‘Pity. I quite like this style.’
She sighed. ‘There is, unfortunately, one loose strand. I didn’t activate the refraction loop until after you’d walked in. Those agents,’ she waved at the door, ‘could subpoena your memory pin.’
He stared at her for a few seconds, processing what she was saying. ‘I’ll destroy it. I’ll give it to you even. Right now.’
She shook her head. ‘It is more than that. You’re sloppy, and that makes you a liability. You know the names of the families I just paid for, and—‘
‘—I’ll wipe all my records. You can have every—‘
‘—Enough.’ Her eyes flashed. ‘Enough. You endangered my parents. This isn’t business, this is personal.’ She paused, watching the man squirm under the heavy hands pressed down on his shoulders. ‘That’s the secret, by the way, Mister Nguyen. This business we have chosen—it’s always personal.’
‘What are you saying?’ He struggled to rise. The man next to Lynn stepped forward and drove a fist into Nguyen’s face, rocking the gangster’s head backward. Nguyen sat there for half a minute, one hand clutching the table, the other over his eye. When he pulled his hand away blood trickled down his cheek, the eyebrow split and already swelling.
Lynn indicated the man who had struck him. ‘This is Mister Giang. How is your family doing, Mister Giang?’
A voice, deep and clear, answered. ‘Well, Miz Vu.’
She kept her eyes on Nguyen. ‘They been out here some time now haven’t they?’
‘Nearly three years.’
She nodded. She pointed at the man behind Nguyen’s left shoulder. ‘This is Mister Lac. His family arrived only six months ago. Have they settled in well, Mister Lac?’
‘Very well, Miz Vu.’
‘Did your younger sister get into university?’
‘Yes. She will be a teacher.’ A note of pride in the voice.
‘Good. If there are any problems with tuition, you let me know.’
It was hard to tell in the shadows, but Mister Lac appeared to nod in reply.
Nguyen watched her now out of one eye, fear blossoming behind it.
‘Mister Giang?’
‘Yes, Miz Vu.’
‘Could you take Mister Nguyen out to the back room and put a bullet through his head?’
Giang moved to where Nguyen sa
t and grabbed him by the upper arm. He and Lac hefted him out of his seat. Nguyen stuttered. ‘Wait, What? You can’t kill me.’ Spittle fresh on his lips, his good eye wet. ‘Do you know who I am?’
Lynn stood. ‘Yes I do. You’re a mercenary,’ she said. ‘And I meet people like you every day of the week.’
She nodded at Giang. He punched Nguyen in the stomach, doubling him over as the air expelled from his lungs, his cigar butt dropping to the floor.
That was the last she saw of him—bent over, unable to speak, being dragged from the room.
She turned to Mister Lac. ‘Get my parents. Right now. Take them to a safe house. If they argue—when my mother argues with you—just tell her that their daughter will explain everything in a couple of days.’
Lac nodded and left.
The grandmother walked in as he was leaving, handed over a warm bamboo box. ‘Cỏm của con nè. Bać đoán là con muôń take away.’ [‘Your lunch, child. I guessed you wanted take away.’]
The scent of rice, sharp chili sauce and aromatic mushrooms rose from the container. Lynn smiled a small smile. ‘Smells delicious, older Aunt. Cám ỏn bać.’
Grandmother nodded. ‘Con baỏ trong. Con đi há.’ [‘You take care. You go.’]
‘You too. Con đi đây.’
Lynn straightened, fixing the ends of her hair with an open palm. She faced the front door. Twilight to heat, crimson to blinding white. Lynn hated the world out there.
She reached for the door handle.[GdM]
T. R. Napper's short fiction has appeared in Asimov's, Interzone (several issues), Grimdark Magazine #2, Ticonderoga's Hear Me Roar anthology, and others. He is a Writers of the Future winner.
T. R. Napper is an aid worker and writer. He has spent the last decade living and working throughout South East Asia, and currently lives in Vietnam.
Publisher Roundtable
SHAWN SPEAKMAN, KATIE CORD, TIM MARQUITZ, AND GEOFF BROWN
Small and indie publishing is a rough, fast-paced (for publishers, anyway) game, that provides incredible highs, soul-crushing lows, general impoverishment, and introduces us to plenty of awesome people, like the editors running small publishing houses that agreed to drop by the GdM cyber-office for a bit of a chin wag.
Grimdark Magazine Issue #6 mobi Page 5