Sketches

by Teyla Branton

  This was insane. Where did they plan to go? There was no place but the Coop, not for people like them. Leaving a colony, even temporarily, was impossible without preapproval. And if they managed to sneak out using one of the breaches in the outer wall, how would they survive? They’d be picked up before long without the right kind of ID.

  Reese ran to her bedroom and shoved her three used sketchbooks into a bag, followed by her current one and a few clothes. The bag was only half full when she remembered the water skins under the bed. Those went in next, followed by her two spare pairs of underwear and a pair of sneakers that were missing parts of the soles.

  Had the world gone crazy?

  Jaxon! She wished she could talk to him, explain to him how much she wanted to take back her picture. To unsketch the man. Somehow she knew her picture had caused his mother’s death, that she was responsible for the devastation in his face.

  Before Reese realized she was making a decision, she was out the front door and running over the square of dying lawn to Jaxon’s house. But his door was locked, and all the enforcers were gone. No answers here—and of course no Jaxon.

  She heard a door slam and Cecelia calling her name. Then her dad, his voice loud and angry. She crouched by the edge of Jaxon’s house where an overgrown bush somehow thrived in a foot of dirt. Her father was cursing now, and Cecelia pleaded with him to wait, but their voices faded, floating down the street in the direction of the sky train.

  They’d really left her. Reese didn’t care. She had to see Jaxon. To make him understand that she hadn’t meant to hurt him.

  But Jaxon didn’t return, and neither did her father. After two days of hiding out at the transfer station, spying on her house and Jaxon’s, the endless hunger in her stomach forced her to break in and raid both houses for food. Packing all she could carry, she left the colony through the breach in the outer wall that she and the other kids had found during their explorations.

  Outside, barren land stretched as far as she could see, broken only by an occasional plant and a ribbon of road that cut like a scar across the terrain. She’d have to wait until dark to start down the road or the cameras mounted on the wall would catch her. At night, there were patches of darkness between the flood lights that might be enough to hide her escape. If she ran fast, she’d only be visible to the guards for a few seconds before she was beyond the reach of the brightest beams—if they were even paying attention.

  Her plan succeeded maybe too well. Days of walking and hitching several rides from kind strangers followed, bringing Reese into first one CORE city and then another. She moved on the edges, avoiding cameras and enforcers—or anyone who looked official. Finally driven to desperation and the hunger in her stomach, she dared use her CivID to ride the sky train, which miraculously didn’t bring enforcers down on her. By dusk of the seventh day, she arrived at her great-aunt’s place in Big Horn, where she collapsed on the beautifully manicured lawn. The gardener found her the next morning, chilled despite the heat of August, and brought her inside, where her great-aunt fed her mounds of the most delicious food in a kitchen so large that Reese felt she was still outside.

  It was then she learned her father and Cecelia were dead. A fall from a sky train platform—an accident, the report said. But Reese knew better. Her picture had killed them too.

  Chapter 1

  Location: Amarillo City, Dallastar

  Year: 2278, 80 years after Breakdown

  REESE PARKER WALKED into the Amarillo Enforcement Division in Amarillo City, Dallastar, hoping her hurried step didn’t betray her nervousness. When she’d originally left Dallastar for the enforcer academy, she believed the move would be permanent, but here she was back in the territory where she’d grown up. The minute she’d stepped from the sky train, the memories had returned. Not the happy memories from the second half of her childhood, but the sad and terrifying ones she wanted to forget from her time in the Coop.

  I can do this, she thought, hefting the bag that carried her standard-issue Enforce weapons, remnants from pre-Breakdown days, programmed to function only with her fingerprints. The rest of her belongings, she’d sent on ahead to her new apartment.

  It wasn’t as if she’d accepted this job with any real desire; there hadn’t been any other choice, and no way to remain in New York, capital city of the Estlantic territory. The Kordell Corp, or the KC, hadn’t taken kindly to her linking one of their partners to a drug ring, or the medical enhancing that he was forced to undergo to make him more submissive. They’d taken action in the form of a physical attack one night as she parked her scrambler. She’d survived—barely—and when she was finally recovered enough to return to work, her supervisor had informed her of this transfer that was for her “protection.” Apparently, no one at the New York Enforcer Division wanted to worry about her being ambushed again, or about being with her when it happened.

  At least here in Amarillo City, she’d be drawing, which was unusual. New surveillance feeds meant there weren’t many divisions needing a full-time sketch artist. When identifications or a postmortem reconstruction were needed, most divisions simply called in the CORE Identification Unit, or CIU, that served all of Estlantic.

  Reese had never wanted to work for CIU, despite continuous pressure to do so, which was why she had trained to become an enforcer after finishing her art certificate. She’d wanted to be closer to the action while using her drawing ability. But if forced to admit the truth, her job in Estlantic had so many rules and mundane arrests, she’d felt the life leaking out of her a little more each day, making her question her career path altogether.

  Before the KC attack and this sudden offer in Amarillo City, she’d been ready to call it quits. Returning to the border they shared with the fringers was considered a step down in enforcement, but she was trying to look at it positively. This was where the real action was these days, and it could be one last chance to do what she’d been trained to do. CORE authorities had long suspected that fringers, who were unable to expand their domain into the Desolation Zones because of lingering radiation, wanted to overrun Dallastar and were causing trouble in the area. Here, she had a chance to do some good, to help push the CORE’s borders and reclaim territory lost during the decades after the total economic collapse and ensuing nuclear war that they now called Breakdown.

  But being back here, so close to the Coop and those early memories . . . already she wasn’t handling it very well.

  Inside Amarillo Division, Reese gave her name to the receptionist at the desk, and a few minutes later, the door behind the woman opened. Reese hadn’t expected Captain Vic Brogan, the man directly over all the enforcers in this division, to come himself to escort her inside, but here he was striding toward her with his hand extended.

  Brogan looked like a boxer—compact frame, broad shoulders, dark hair almost a tad too long for regulations, and brown eyes that were deep enough to lose several ex-wives in. He moved with a gait that wasted no movement. She bet he was good in a fight.

  Though she’d talked to him through the Teev, the warmth in his smile was unexpected. “Thank you so much for coming,” he said, grasping her hand in his. The muscles under his shirt rippled with the effort. He wasn’t wearing a ring, and she told herself that noticing only meant she was a good cop.

  “I’m glad to be here,” she responded, somewhat automatically. “Though I was a little surprised you requested me. I’m sure there are many talented people who would have been excited to come.”

  Belatedly, she realized that maybe he had asked other enforcers—and had been turned down.

  Brogan shook his head. “None so good that they have a ninety-nine percent identification rate from their drawings. That’s unheard of, even with our technology.”

  He’d done his research, and that was to be expected, but something in the way one of his eyes quirked upward made her feel uneasy. Probably, he’d also heard rumors of her strangeness, rumors she’d have to work hard to squelch.

  “Well, it he
lps to have such a comprehensive database of our residents,” she said. “Makes finding matches easy once I finish the sketch. But sometimes technology is the problem, so I should warn you now that I do all my initial drawings by hand.”

  “So I heard.” He grinned again. “I know paper is at a premium these days, but we have the budget, so it doesn’t make a difference to me. You can draw in mud with your toes if it gets us what we need. Can’t wait to see you in action. I suppose you’ve heard about the six scientists and Teev engineers who’ve gone missing in the past six months? We can use any help we can get to solve those cases.”

  Her unease dissipated. She was here to get results and she would do so. Brogan or anyone else didn’t have to know how she did it.

  “Come on. Let’s go meet everyone.”

  He led her into the bowels of the division. Everywhere she looked, she saw the same white walls with silver trim that they had back in New York. There would be private offices with holo emitters embedded in the walls, more pre-Breakdown tech, that connected people so they wouldn’t need to leave their offices for meetings if they didn’t want to. Some things never changed.

  Sure enough, Brogan directed her into a large meeting room where the walls shimmered with Teev holo feeds. At least the large table showed they did meet physically at times. He made a few signs in the air, and the Teev feeds came alive, making it look as if a dozen slices of rooms had appeared all around them.

  “Listen up, folks,” Brogan said. “I’d like to introduce you to our newest enforcer. Meet Detective Reese Parker. She’s our new sketch artist, and she’s the best in all of CORE Territories. We’re lucky to have her.”

  Reese pasted on a smile and looked around at the people she’d be working with, nodding and making eye contact, burning their faces into memory. She’d know them all soon, once these first awkward days were behind them. And while her co-workers in Estlantic hadn’t exactly been like family, she’d enjoyed working with them. Or at least some of them.

  “She’s assigned to the Violent Crimes Investigation Unit, but her artistic skills will be available to all departments. Please make her feel welcome. That’ll be all.” Brogan looked at her as the feeds vanished, leaving shimmering white walls behind. “Ready to meet your new partners?”

  “Partners?” Reese felt momentarily off balance. “I understood that I was being hired for identifications only.”

  Brogan’s smile was comforting. “Yes, that’s true, but those don’t always take place at the station, so you’ll need a partner. Two detectives, in fact, so that they can continue working while you’re occupied with identification. Plus, it’ll be more interesting for you to see hands-on what we do here.”

  Reese nodded. “I see.” In New York, she’d had one partner, and their primary job had been to track down juke users—mostly unsatisfied kids who were studying for their required certificates—who ranted about the CORE, held protests in the empty zones, and threatened to overthrow the government. A week in psychological reconditioning or a tour of a welfare colony, and they usually repented of their ways. She’d made detective last year, but in large part those skills had moldered. Brogan was right that partnering with two detectives in Violent Crimes should be a lot more interesting than arresting young dissidents. And more dangerous.

  Maybe dangerous was exactly what she needed to feel alive. Because as hard as the KC attack had been, she had felt more alive during that investigation than she had since leaving the Coop.

  Brogan gestured behind her. “Here they are now. Or at least one of them. This is Senior Detective Garrett Cosgrove.”

  Cosgrove had dark hair and eyes, and he stood a few inches taller than she did. His skin was slightly darker than the usual, and though he didn’t otherwise look Asian, his eyes had a slightly mysterious slant. “Call me Garrett,” he said, shaking her hand. His grip threatened to crush her. He was strong then, and despite his large stomach, he moved like a martial artist she’d once drawn. To be a senior detective meant he was at least forty, but he looked older, closer to fifty, so it probably wasn’t a new appointment for him.

  “Reese,” she returned, firming her hand and squeezing tightly.

  Garrett’s eyes danced as he released her. “Nice to meet you, Reese.”

  “Where’s Tennant?” Brogan asked, a crease appearing on his forehead between his eyes.

  Garrett’s expression sobered. “We got a report of a dead body outside the Fountain, so he’s gone on ahead.”

  The nervous pounding of Reese’s heart took on a different note. A dead body on her first day, and at Freedom Fountain, no less. Maybe coming home wouldn’t be all bad. The Fountain, built outside local CORE city offices to celebrate their victory against the fringers during the battle for Amarillo City, was famous everywhere, and almost revered in Dallastar itself. No wonder her second partner had hurried to the scene.

  Who would dare commit murder so close to Dallastar CORE city offices? Had to be fringers. There would be cameras, of course, but she might be needed to draw something if the camera didn’t have a good angle. Even if she wasn’t needed, it was still much more interesting than chasing jukeheads or being attacked by a vengeful corporation who considered themselves above the law.

  “You want to ride along,” Garrett asked, “or settle in here first?”

  “Oh, I’m coming,” she said.

  Garrett grinned. “I thought you might be. I’ve let shuttle bay know we’re coming. Let’s get you your blues.”

  Brogan turned his smile back on. “I’ll leave you to it then.”

  The dispensing machine in outfitting had already been alerted to her arrival, and two sets of enforcer blues emerged promptly on Reese’s request. She then selected the ankle-length synthetic boots and the larger of the regulation bags for her sketchbooks and pencils. Arms full, she made her way to her assigned dressing cubical where she would store her civilian clothing and the extra uniform she was required to take home with her in case she was called to work during off hours. Unlocking the cubical by placing her hand on the pad by the door, she stepped inside and began undressing.

  All Enforcer “blues” were black, not the color implied by the name, and this uniform was only slightly different from the one she’d worn in Estlantic—primarily because of the Dallastar patch on the shoulder, which sported a solid letter D. The material was bulletproof, and surprisingly light and cool, though there was a short-sleeve version for summer. Shiny strips of vinyl ran up the sides on both the pants and the jacket, and there was a small, built-in connector for her iTeev on her left sleeve.

  Reese pulled on the uniform, pushing the sides shut with impatience and holding it until a solid click told her it was secure. Then she tucked all her weapons into the appropriate pockets and built-in holsters: an Enforce nine mil, a backup .380, a temper laser, a stunner, and extra cartridges. Only her assault rifle would remain here for the moment. She also carried a knife—not standard issue or approved—but authorities tended to look the other way with things like that, and Reese had learned in the Coop that sometimes a knife could turn a fight quicker than a gun.

  On her way out of the locker room, she passed two enforcers who’d obviously been on patrol because she didn’t recognize them from the meeting—and in the past ten years she’d developed a memory for faces. They nodded as she passed, and she returned the greeting, feeling their stares as she left.

  She wouldn’t have minded doing a little staring herself. Maybe here she could start over, perhaps have a relationship. She’d learned a lot about control over the past year, and most of the time when she didn’t have a sketchbook in hand, she didn’t glimpse her colleagues’ secrets.

  Garrett was waiting in the hallway outside, and his pleased glance made her happy she’d hurried, though one of the snug legs on her uniform was twisted uncomfortably. She followed him to the shuttle bay and slipped into the passenger seat of their waiting silver shuttle, tugging on the material covering her leg as she settled.

  Her part
ner’s hands ran over the controls, bypassing the autopilot. “You ever drive one of these?”

  An enforcer shuttle was little more than a large, tetrahedron-shaped car with a hyped-up engine and automatic controls, so driving one wasn’t too different from a regular car, except for the speed capability. “I’ve driven them enough. But we’re more used to scramblers in New York.” She would miss the aerodynamic motorcycle more than just about anything else, and she’d been hoping for the option of using one here.

  “Lot of traffic there, I guess.”

  “More than here, but most civilians use the sky trains. Much faster. And cheaper.”

  He laughed. “Yeah, but squeezed in the middle of all those people.” He shuddered. “Guess I’ve been spoiled working for enforcement.”

  Reese didn’t share his reservation about sky trains, but he was right about the crush of humanity. Two million people crammed into the CORE’s two territories, Estlantic and Dallastar, with most of them on the East Coast. When it came right down to it, she’d chosen to drive her enforcer scrambler to her apartment on all but the coldest of days, and even then she’d only resorted to the sky train if all the enforcer shuttles were in use or were needed for upcoming shifts.

  Garrett was an enthusiastic driver, ignoring the warning beeps of the onboard Teev as he peeled out of the shuttle bay and into the streets. There was enough traffic that he felt the need to turn on the siren, though she probably wouldn’t have. The victim was already dead, after all, and their partner would have secured the scene and any main witnesses by now. They couldn’t change anything by hurrying.

  “Mind if I put down the top?” Garrett asked.

  “Not at all.” She’d pulled her thick, dark hair back into a tight braid for her first day. Something about impressions. She believed her hair was her one great beauty, and securing it made sure people were paying attention to her as an enforcer and not her as a woman.

  The top slid back and folded into a narrow opening on the rear of the shuttle. The wind whipped her face, and she was glad for the long sleeves of her blues.