Tag Archives: short stories

Citizenship

Posted by natechen on

“Do you approve of the citizenship exam in its current form?”

Elizabeth thought about that question. It didn’t seem wise to disapprove of an exam she was currently taking, but she was also being monitored for truthfulness. It was probably best to answer honestly. “No.”

“Interesting. Do you disapprove of a particular part or the exam as a whole?”

At the moment what she disapproved of most was talking to a blank speaker in a wall. With no tone of voice or expression to judge by she couldn’t get any feel at all for how the interview was going, whether she was doing well or not. It put her on edge, although she wasn’t entirely sure that wasn’t the point.

The ideal of total fairness was elusive in the citizenship exam, current thought put as many layers of anonymity were put between examiner and examinee as possible. Even the voice coming from the speaker was filtered to nearly expressionless neutrality and she knew that her own was likewise altered to the point where the person interviewing her had no idea of her gender, place of birth or age.

It still seemed a little silly to her. But at the same time, Elizabeth knew that if she were to test for her citizenship without all those safeguards her odds of achieving success would drop dramatically. That wasn’t her real problem with the exam. “Giving someone the full rights of citizenship just because they reach a certain age seems foolhardy to me. What’s the difference between being born in the United States and outside of them?

“If foreign nationals become citizens by first being green card holders and then taking the citizenship exam, then the children of citizens should receive green cards at birth and test for their citizenship as well.” Elizabeth leaned back in her chair, stared up at the featureless metal ceiling and wished there were something more interesting to look at. “The people are the government of this country, we should check that they actually know how to govern before entrusting it to them.”

The voice on the other end of the speaker was silent for a moment. “That’s an interesting way to put it. Of course, that idea is hardly a new one. But at the same time, there’s a lot of room for discrimination if we were to test everyone.”

“Somehow, I doubt this process leaves much room for that.” Her sarcasm was lost on whoever was on the other side of the speaker, filtered out by legions of computer subroutines. But she found it therapeutic.

“It doesn’t seem that way, no,” the voice conceded. “But there are a lot of places prior to this where things aren’t so strictly monitored. Even now, it can happen here and there. And the process of signing up for your citizenship exam can be full of complications as well. It was bad enough when we only had national and ethnic difficulties to contend with. When you throw in interplanetary rivalries, not to mention interstellar ones, the potential for discriminate is just too great.”

“If it’s such a bad idea, why have any kind of subjective testing in the citizenship exam at all? I’m sure the process could be automated fairly painlessly.”

“To go off of your previous point, what makes you assume that governing is something that is objective, and not subjective?” the voice asked. “I think I’d enjoy exploring that question at length but the time for this interview is almost over. But consider this. Citizenship comes with benefits and responsibilities. The clearest benefit is the protection of the government. So is being part of governing  a benefit or a responsibility? And if it’s a responsibility, should people who have enjoyed the benefit since birth naturally assume a part of the responsibility at some point? Just something to think about.”

There was a click from the door of the interviewing room. The voice came back once more. “You’re now free to exit to the lobby. Someone will be with you shortly.”

Elizabeth got up and stepped out into the brightly lit lobby of the United States 21st Circuit Courthouse on Outer Centauri Station. It was nearly 1400 and she had been awake since 0400, but she didn’t feel very tired. There had been plenty of time for sleep on the long flight out from Mid Centauri syncorbit and the early flight had been mostly empty, so catching up on her rest hadn’t been a problem.

Fortunately the irregular sleep schedule hadn’t hindered her during the written portion of the exam. She felt less confident about her performance during the interview but it was such a subjective thing she wasn’t even sure how a good interview might have gone. With a sigh Elizabeth plopped down on a bench and looked around.

Unlike the much newer Middle Centauri station, Outer Centauri was a relic from humanity’s first push into deep space. Most public buildings she had been in were full of creeping vines and small bushes bred for maximum leaf size and the greatest possible rate of photosynthesis, natural machines dedicated to turning carbon dioxide into breathable air and usable compost as fast as possible. However, the nutrient frames necessary to sustain those plants had to be purpose built into the structure. The Circuit Court building was far too old for such an apparatus, making do with ferns, large and small, growing out of pretty much every place a home for one could be found. She fidgeted with the leaf of a fern growing next to her bench and did her best to ignore her nerves.

Deep space stations had complex and incredibly redundant biospheres designed to sustain human life even in the face of a catastrophic failure of many of their most technologically advanced systems. The contrast to her own life was stark. If she failed the citizenship exam here she wouldn’t have another chance at what she wanted. The exam could be retaken, but not for another year. By then, she would be too old-

“Elizabeth O’Sullivan?” Her thoughts were interrupted by a tall skinny man with the posture of a long time deep space resident. He kept the fingers of one hand resting lightly against the wall and his knees bent, ready to propel himself in whatever direction necessary if there was a gravity fluctuation. Elizabeth stood and crossed over to him and held out her hand.

“I’m pleased to report you passed, Ms. O’Sullivan,” the man said as he shook her hand. “Congratulations.”

“Thank you very much,” she said. “Are you the person who conducted my interview?”

“I’m afraid I can’t answer that,” he replied, his expression suggesting he didn’t think that made sense any more than she did. “Is there anything else I can do for you today?”

“As a matter of fact, yes.” Elizabeth pulled a tab out of one pocket and held it up. “There was a little datawork I was hoping to get filed while I was here in the Courthouse, if I passed.”

“Of course.” He led Elizabeth down a short path between the shrubbery to a small console. It was a jarring sight, and not just because it was nestled between a pair of rather tall bushes to give privacy from the desks and clerks on either side. It was common knowledge that the government still used strictly physical interface equipment, even though almost no one else did. Or, you might say, because no one else did. The very archaic nature of physint equipment theoretically made it more secure. Still, it was odd to see, especially considering why she had come.

The clerk motioned for Elizabeth to have a seat on one side of a desk in a sleek metallic chair. A display folded up and exposed a touch board which he quickly began tapping on. “What kind of paperwork were you wanting to file?” He asked with a smile. “Voter registration? Information request? Or perhaps an action in small claims court?”

Elizabeth knew what a person sounded like when they were humoring her. She was hearing it now. She also knew exactly what to say to wipe that smile off of his face. “I’m here to sign up for the United States Combined Orbital/Deep Space Forces.”

The smile disappeared but he wasn’t shocked like Elizabeth had expected. His expression became blank for a moment, and then got a little sad. “I see. You realize that there are certain pieces of information I’ll need from you?”

Elizabeth held up the phys tab again. “I’ve heard. That’s why I brought this along.”

The clerk nodded, taking the tab and carefully slotting it into his desk computer. “This may take a few-” He stopped as the screen changed. Apparently it hadn’t taken that long after all. After a few moments of looking things over, he cleared his throat. “It looks like everything is in order. Would you come this way please?”

Elizabeth stood up and followed along behind him. They didn’t go back towards the lobby but instead stepped further into the building, following a path into a long hallway, free of the normally ubiquitous plant life, and through a door into what appeared to be the equivalent of a space station’s deep computing core.

Most modern computing was done wirelessly in a very decentralized fashion. But the really number intensive calculations still needed concentrated, high end processing power to pull off. Things like artificial gravity, atmospheric regulation and Hawking generators still needed the close, careful monitoring of dedicated computer subsystems. Elizabeth had never thought that government computing might have similar needs. She wondered if the system she was seeing was the US Government’s primary computing node on the station, or whether this one just served the courthouse. Given the fairly paranoid level of security most governments showed towards their digital records, she was willing to bet this facility just served the courthouse, which made it’s size seem a bit excessive.

As they moved down into the core Elizabeth saw signs that hinted at why the area might be so big. In at least three different places she saw people working to maintain systems that were at least fifty years out of date and appeared to be hooked into the core by mysterious, complex sequences of strange equipment that might have been better suited to Frankenstein’s lab than a modern computing center. The courthouse was obviously using a lot of obsolete equipment still, whether for security’s sake or bureaucratic necessity she wasn’t sure.

The whole room was circular and it looked like all of the clerk’s desks formed a semi-circle around the top. Elizabeth followed her clerk through a series of stairs, catwalks and ledges holding various kinds of equipment down to the ground floor of the core and from there into another office.

A man in the drab blue day uniform of an officer in the U.S. ComODS Forces leaned on a desk there, facing towards the back wall with one hand tapping a command on the desk’s touch screen over and over. He held a diagnostic readout in his other hand and a panel on the wall behind the desk was open and more old-fashioned cables ran from there to the desk. He didn’t look up as Elizabeth and her escort came in.

“Be with you in a second,” the officer muttered. “Trouble with the old networks.”

Elizabeth glanced at the nameplate on the officer’s desk. “Have you tried flushing your desk processor’s mothergel, Captain Rainer? I’ve heard that standard model Gallagher desk computers made in the last decade or so have a bad tendency to develop a memory if it isn’t swapped out every so often.”

The captain finally turned around to look at them, slightly surprised. “That’s right. But we don’t exactly have the budget to swap out something that expensive every couple of weeks, so I have to run diagnostics before I can authorize the substitution. Have a seat ma’am. What can I do for you?”

“I’m here to enlist, Captain.”

He didn’t look at all surprised. “And I’m guessing you want to join the Biocomputing Corps.”

“Yes, sir.” Elizabeth nodded. Her escort handed the captain the data tab she had given him before.

The officer took the tab and set it aside, pulling an adhesive label out of a printing slot on his desk and tearing it in half. He pressed the adhesive side of one half of the label onto the tab while he spoke. “Very well, ma’am. If you’ve been brought this far then you’ve already produced documentation showing that you qualify for admission to the testing phase of the program. While officially biocomps are so rare we can’t afford to turn one away, they’re also expensive enough to build and train that we want to make sure you actually qualify.”

Elizabeth settled into the chair at the captain’s desk. The room had more in common with the blank, sterile interview room she’d been in a few minutes ago than the artfully arranged green lobby she’d just left. The significance wasn’t lost on her. This man was another hurdle along the way. “Do these tests include calling ahead, taking me the long way around and seeing if I can basic computing problems in nearly obsolete computer equipment?”

Rainer paused in the middle of attaching the other half of his label to a device she wasn’t familiar with to give her a hard look. “As a matter of fact, they do. Turning the human brain into a top of the line biocomputing system, whether civilian or military, is a huge investment of time and materiel. And a ComODS biocomp gets more than just the ability to think forty times faster than the standard human with machine precision – you’re going to be at the heart of a warship. So forgive us if we test you in any way we can think of, at any time we want.”

The captain’s tone suggested he was anything but apologetic. He waited for a moment, as if expecting a reaction, then continued. “It’s going to be a long, hard, ugly process. You may wash out, with nothing to show for the time and effort you put into the program but two years spent away form home and a really nice haircut. You may wind up with your brain rewired to smell colors. There’s a very small chance you may become a permanent vegetable. But we need you, so that concludes the mandatory scaring you to death part of the interview. Regulations state that you have twenty-four hours in which to consider whether you want go through with this or not.”

“I’ll keep that in mind, sir,” Elizabeth said.

The captain eyed her for a minute then, apparently resigned to the fact that he hadn’t managed to run her off with a frightening speech, grunted and slotted her tab, label and all, into the computer rig on his desk. As she had expected, Rainer’s computer trouble had magically cleared up an he had no trouble getting the data to load. The captain perused the files with the eye of an experienced paper warrior. “Math aptitude looks good,” he murmured. “Good IQ, high emotional resiliency profile.” He frowned. “What’s this?”

“That’s a gel processor cleanup routine I wrote,” Elizabeth answered. She knew exactly which file he meant as it was the only one he hadn’t mentioned so far, other than the basic biographical data that you would expect to find on any kind of job application. “It enhances the performance of older systems by as much as forty percent when part of a proper maintenance routine.”

“Older systems?” The captain asked, curious.

“Aging systems are at the heart of any peacetime space navy,” she said. “More time is spent maintaining them than developing new systems. Am I right?”

Rainer winced and nodded. “True, although I recommend not mentioning that fact until you reach a position of seniority. And you should probably refrain from ever using the word ‘navy’ except as an insult.”

“Right,” she murmured. “Interservice rivalry.”

“That aside, why did you include it here?”

“Because it’s a part of the application process,” Elizabeth said blandly. “Although it’s not part of the stated requirements. Another one of your tests, I presume.”

“No reason denying that,” the captain said with a shrug. “What I’m asking is how you knew we’d be looking for it.”

Elizabeth sighed. “There’s a lot of different places you can find out,” she said, wiggling a bit further back into her chair in an attempt to keep blood moving. “I’m guessing that there’s some bad advice seeded out there by people like you, and presumably you make sure there’s one or two real sets of guidelines for the test out there, too. Then all that information proliferates through planetary Internets. But in my case it was possible to skip all that data sifting by finding a retired Master Sergeant that had worked to set up the program, then retired. He told me that, at the time the program started, prospective applicants were expected to show initiative in addressing computing issues, and it was likely that that requirement was still in place. Twenty-five years is apparently a very short time in the world of military regulations.”

“And did it ever occur to you that his giving you that information might be prohibited?” Rainer asked darkly.

“No, actually, but it did occur to him. So I pestered him into looking it up, and he was only supposed to keep quiet about aspects of the program which were not made public.” Elizabeth shrugged. “Requirements for applying to the corps was made public, so it wasn’t off limits. I would suggest that you adjust the regulations if you want to maintain the mystery requirement.”

“Yes,” he said quietly, making a note on his computer screen. “So it would seem.” Once he was finished with that, Captain Reiner deposited the tab into a plastic envelope and pressed down on the molecular seal, creating a nearly impossible to duplicate bond that would ensure the documents weren’t tampered with. Then he put the other half of the label into a file. “From this point out you are BioComputing Cadet Candidate St. Claire. By law, you are forbidden to tell anyone of your identity in the BioComputing Corps or even to mention that you have applied. If you mention either of these facts to anyone you will be immediately disqualified.”

“I understand, sir,” Elizabeth replied.

Captain Reinter tucked the envelope away in a drawer. “I’m not really sure you do, Cadet Candidate. But you have twenty-four hours to think about it.”

“I’ll see you tomorrow then.” She got down from the chair and sketched something like a salute, then headed for the door.

——–

Rainer watched the door slide closed and sighed, then stood up from the desk and began closing down computer console. It was time to move back to his regular office. He glanced over at the clerk, who had watched the entire interview quietly from one corner of the room. “You going to come stand as witness when the paperwork’s signed, Sam?”

He sighed and shook his head. “She’s twelve years old, Brian.”

“First biocomp application?” The captain asked, pausing as he collected the diagnostic equipment he’d been using.

“How can you be so calm?” The clerk demanded.

“Like it or not, she’s an adult under the law,” Rainer said. “She passed her citizenship exam and has all the right, privileges and responsibilities that entails. She can join if she wants. And we can’t make a biocomputer out of the brain of someone much older than her. They just won’t be resilient enough.”

Sam shook his head. “Craziest law I’ve ever heard of, when a person not even in their teens can be declared an adult and have their head chopped open. What is this country coming to?”

“People have been asking that since it was founded. At one time kids were locked away from the rest of society for twelve years before they were given any idea how the world really worked.” Rainer slapped the clerk in the back. “Besides, the operation is done by nanotech. No bone saws involved. Come on, I’ll buy you a drink.”

“I think I’ll need it more tomorrow. Do you think she’ll come back?”

“The smart ones always do,” Rainer said sadly. “The smart ones always do.”

Fiction Index

#63 (Part Two)

Posted by natechen on

“Let me see if I have this straight.” Kevin studied the grim faced old man who sat facing him. “You think that I have some inexplicable ability to – what, make funhouse mirrors using only the power of my mind?”

The other man laughed and tapped the picture he was holding. “You disappear entirely from the camera a few seconds after this. Also,” he shuffled through his pictures as he spoke, “you make a spotlight out of nothing here. From the lighting changes we can see in the surroundings after you and Grappler leave the camera’s view it looks like you can also create a powerful flash of light to blind people. My guess is that you can cause light to bend around you, either creating a small bubble of invisibility or functioning as a lens to focus intensity. The ‘funhouse mirror’ effect is just the set up. Am I right?”

“You’re crazy.”

“Mr. Kirishima, during the American Civil War Lincoln found Corporal Sumter, a man who could pick up cannons and fling them, and sent him against Shenandoah, a man who could take a cannonball to the chest and not be moved. Since then talented men and women have served in every conflict in American history, and in every imaginable capacity.” The old man folded up the pictures and tucked them away. “You’re employer heard a German U-boat that was hiding in an ocean current with it’s engines stopped and sunk it by humming under his breath. You are on camera using your ability and we have no reason to doubt what we saw. This is very much not a joke or a flight of fancy. The only question here is whether you have any interest in using your greatest talents or whether you’re content to continue being an aspiring film editor.”

“Film editing is using my talents.” He gestured to his eyes. “Even my unusual ones, although explaining all that would be kind of technical.”

“And possibly involve concepts we aren’t really equipped to understand?” Asked one of the twins, raising an eyebrow.

“Actually, yeah now that you mention it I’m not sure it would really make sense to you…” Kevin absently pushed his glasses up his nose as he thought about it. “Fine. Let’s say I can change the laws of optics.” Kevin kicked back in the sofa and spread his arms in a careless gesture. “So what? I doubt it’s the kind of thing you can duplicate, and not even the Secret Service is secret enough to make someone disappear without raising far more questions than you’re willing to deal with, so you’re probably not here to put me in some kind of secret breeding program.”

“No,” the twins said in a fairly disturbing unison. The one on the left, who seemed the more vocal of the two, added, “Talents enjoy all the human rights of any other person in the United States. The government shuts down those kinds of programs, it doesn’t run them.”

“Right,” Kevin said, not quite keeping a note of skepticism from creeping in. “So, what do you want from me?”

“It’s like this.” the old man got up and shuffled over to the apartment’s small kichen and started rummaging around, looking more like a wise old janitor than ever. “Under normal circumstances this is the part of our discussion where I’d tell you that Uncle Sam looks very poorly on private citizens attempting to serve as law enforcement. Even people like you, with your unique talents, lack the resources and manpower to keep the peace and build criminal cases that can be prosecuted in a court of law. All you can do is scare or beat people into submission. No matter how badly they can twist the laws of physics, vigilantes are a hindrance to a lawful society, not a help.”

Kevin mulled that over for a moment. “Yeah, I guess I can kind of see that. So what part of me is an unusual circumstance? You said you’re giving me a chance to participate, so I assume that means as a Secret Service agent?”

“Yes.” Janitor man leaned back in his chair. “Normally, there would be a lot of paperwork and review involved in sorting out your employment. In fact, invthe past talented individuals were not hired directly by the Secret Service, the management of talents in public service has been left entirely in the hands of an agency we call Project Sumter.”

“I take it that’s no longer the case.”

“No.” The old man steepled his fingers. “A few months ago a person of interest in one of the Project’s cases indicated his intention to cause significant changes in the nation’s policy toward talented individuals and, in the process, implied that with it would come large scale changes in our systems of government.”

Kevin raised an eyebrow. “In other words, you’re looking for a superpowered terrorist?”

“Yes and no. The Secret Service is technically supposed to leave the finding and prosecuting to other agencies. Whether we actually do that with Open Circuit or hunt for him ourselves is something to be decided by people with a higher paygrade than mine.” He found the cabinet that held the cups and pulled one out. “However the Service is interested in building a team of talented people who will be available at all times to respond to situations where Circuit, or anyone else like him who may pop up, might become an issue. We plan on operating on a much different paradigm than Project Sumter.”

Kevin leaned forward a bit so he could get a better idea of what was going on in his kitchen. “I’ve never heard of these guys so I guess that they’re not a widely known agency. I don’t suppose that’s the part you’re planning on changing?”

“No, we’re the secret service for a reason,” he answered, filling one of the glasses with water. “The differences are more in operation and treatment of talents. For instance, the career path for you at Project Sumter would be extremely limited. We hope to eventually have talented individuals at our highest levels.”

“How very open-minded of you,” Kevin murmured.

“Thank you,” the old man said, working his way back into the cramped room where Kevin sat, the water sloshing dangerously as he went. “In addition, we plan to actively locate and recruit talents. Project Sumter knows of approximately four hundred people with unusual abilities currently in the United States. That’s commonly believed to be about five to ten percent of the number of actual talents in the U.S., although there’s really no basis for that figure. It could be much higher or much lower.”

He handed the glass of water to the twin on the left and lowered himself back into the chair with a grunt. “The Project is generally reactive. When some talent does something that draws attention, they swoop in, explain the facts of life, asks them politely to avoid spandex costumes and public displays of their abilities and tells them they can have a job if they really want it. They’re constantly understaffed and overworked and, while that’s made each and every one of their teams very efficient, they simply do not have the budget or manpower to actively seek out talents and recruit them or take steps to prevent large groups of people, talented or otherwise, from forming around troublesome people like Circuit. In the past, that was fine. Now it’s not.”

Actually, to Kevin it just sounded like the burden of police work. “This may sound somewhat naïve, but isn’t reacting to trouble the way law enforcement is supposed to work? You make it sound almost like the Secret Service is about to launch a pogrom or something.”

The old man smiled and said, “Frostburn?”

In response, the blonde with the glass of water gave a practiced flick of the wrist, sending the water leaping up into the air over the old man’s head. Her sister reached out with a snatching motion and there was a soft cracking noise. A second later she held a frozen stream of water in one hand. There was a moment of quiet, broken only by loose bits of ice clattering to the floor, as Kevin stared openmouthed. She tossed the chunk of ice to Kevin, who fumbled it but managed not to drop it. It was clearly a chunk of ice, already melting in the warmth of his hands.

“This is Agent Frostburn,” the old man said, gesturing to the twin still holding the glass. She stepped forward and held it out to Kevin, who absently set the chunk of ice back in the glass. She frowned at it for a second and then it slowly melted back to into a liquid. “Her sister here is Agent Coldsnap.”

He gestured to the tall, wiry man who still stood in one corner of the room. “Finally, we have Agent Hush.”

“Fitting name,” Kevin muttered. “Does he talk at all?”

“Yes, of course,” Hush said, startling Kevin into staring for a moment.

When it was clear Hush had nothing else to add, the old man continued. “You’re free to ask them anything you want about the way the Secret Service has treated them and what they think of our policies and direction and they’ll do their best to assure you that it’s not some kind of witch hunt. And if you don’t want to join, that’s fine. In fact, if you want, we’ll even withhold the evidence of your involvement with last night’s events from Project Sumter so that you can stay off the grid completely. After all, we want your help, not to arrest you.”

Kevin tapped his thumbs together as he thought it over. On the one hand, the Secret Service didn’t seem to have whole lot to gain from staging a ruse like this just to get him to come along without protest. They probably could have just gassed him with something and dragged him off if they were really determined to dissect him, or whatever secret government bioresearch programs did these days. On the other hand, he’d never really expected to do anything with his ability beyond learn all the tricks to it from his dad and possibly teach them to his children if that ever came up. The family secret had been first and foremost just that: a secret. Using it with or for anyone else seemed almost blasphemous.

“To be honest, I don’t know how much I’ll be able to help you,” Kevin admitted. “I don’t really have a whole lot of tricks up my sleeve, other than bending light so I won’t reflect it, and even that’s only so useful.”

“Well, normally that’s where I’d say that there are scientists and more experienced talents who have put a lot of work into understanding your talent and will help you use it more effectively. But,” the old man offered a hapless shrug. “In your case, there aren’t.”

Kevin raised his eyebrows. “Not a talent you thought worth investigating?”

“Not exactly. There are 62 different kinds of known talents in the Project Sumter records, and time and money has been spent researching all of them. The problem is, your talent is new.” He gave that a moment to sink in, then said, “You may not think it’s much, but with a little time and creativity, I’m sure we can work out plenty of ways for you to earn your keep. But more than that, having a totally new kind of talent at our disposal? One no one has seen before, capabilities totally unknown? That in and of itself is an advantage you don’t find every day. Circuit’s greatest gift is preparation. He’s always a step ahead of us – but he can’t be a step ahead of you, because he doesn’t know anything about you.”

“Huh.” So if he joined this almighty janitor and his cronies he’d have to be the trump card. Kevin wasn’t sure he liked the kind of pressure that brought with it, so he hurriedly changed the subject. “So the first order of business is what? Grab this Circuit person at his next robbery?”

“If only it were so simple. The Stillwater Sound robbery, for example. The woman you saw is known as Grappler. She’s strongly believed to be an associate of Open Circuit, you so-called superpowered terrorist.” He pulled a sheet of paper out of his folder and glanced over it. “Do you know what she stole from the Stillwater building?”

Kevin shook his head. “Last I heard, we hadn’t even been let back in to inventory things. It’s my day off, so I figured I’d get the blow by blow tomorrow.”

“Four different kinds of wireless microphones, three large speaker set-ups intended for car stereos, a master soundboard for an auditorium and enough wiring to tie Gulliver to the Empire State Building.”

Kevin snorted. “I assume you mean King Kong, since Gulliver would only be as big as you or me and we’d hardly need to tie him to a skyscraper. All that together would barely cost five grand, ten if it was the really good stuff. Why steal it? If he’s this crazy scary terrorist he has to have the funding to just buy it.”

“Good question,” the Coldsnap said, absently folding her arms over her stomach. “We believe Circuit does have a huge warchest at his disposal. We know he’s committed a number of major robberies over the course of his career.”

“Most likely he just doesn’t want to pay for anything he doesn’t have to,” her sister added.

Kevin blinked and shook his head. “I wish you two wouldn’t do that.”

“What?” They asked simultaneously.

“Finish each other’s thoughts. Speak in unison. Be in the same room at the same time.” They laughed but Kevin wasn’t really interested in them for the moment. He took his glasses off and tucked them into his shirt pocket. “So what’s all that for? Is he going to stage the next Woodstock or something?”

The old man shrugged. “We don’t know. That’s just it, Circuit’s clearly doing a lot of illegal things, but with no clearly discernable pattern so far. He’s too meticulous and rational to be flailing about at random but we don’t know what his endgame is and we don’t have the manpower to investigate all the leads. That’s why we need people like you.”

“Okay, old man, let’s put it all on the table.” Kevin leveled a finger at him. “You have a terrorist to find. The Secret Service specializes in protecting U.S. officials, visiting dignitaries and the U.S. Mint, so I’m guessing the fellow you’re after is a material threat to one or all of those. I have a unique ability that you want on your side. Not to sound crass, but what’s in it for me?”

“For starters you get to actually use your talent for something more constructive than staring at a woman’s chest,” Coldsnap said.

Kevin sighed. “You know, since Frostburn was the person who called me out on it and she hasn’t said anything about it since I would really think you should let it drop.”

“You can tell the difference?” The old man looked over his shoulder at the twins, who were also sharing a startled glance, then back at Kevin. “It took me three weeks to figure it out.”

“Why is that so surprising? You told me the Chief is used to test the accuracy of sonar. You say you realize my gift is optics. So why wouldn’t I have great vision to go along with the other abilities, just like the Chief has great hearing?” Kevin tapped the glasses in his pocket. “You never thought that I might not need these?”

“The possibility did occur,” the old man replied. “But I’m still not sure what gave them away.”

“Lots of things. Even twins have unique fingerprints, pore patterns and whatnot. But the biggest thing?” Kevin patted his shirt. “In a cheap suit the weave of the fabric is rarely matched up in any rational way, the cloth is just kind of laid out at random, meaning if you can pick out pattern of the threads in the fabric telling one suit from another is easy.”

“And you can see all that?” The old man asked.

“Afraid so.” Kevin shrugged and gave the twins a grin. “You might be surprised what you look like when all your blemishes are under a constant close-up. Part of the appeal of working with film is that the camera lens filters most of that out for me.”

The old man leaned forward, his expression shifting from the friendly janitor that he’d been all night to something much more serious. In a instant he had turned into someone grim and a little disturbing, like a weathered hermit that had crawled out of his hole and decided he did not like what he found. “Mr. Kirishima. We know, better than most people, exactly how ugly the world can be, and believe me it goes a lot deeper than a little make-up and some stage lights can fix. You have an ability that gives you a unique take on how to improve things. The Secret Service will give you a better chance to use those abilities in a good way than anyone else in the nation. Better than Project Sumter. Certainly better than Open Circuit.”

As quickly as it came the burst of emotion went and there was nothing but a janitor in a badly fitting suit again. He leaned back into the chair, looking suddenly tired. “I’m not saying that wanting to work in Hollywood is a bad thing. There are a handful of people who have gone there and used it as a platform to advocate for a lot of good things, or made money that was used well. But what are the odds that you will be one of those people? Because if you join the Secret Service I guarantee you’ll be on the front lines within a month. The chance to make a difference, and the opportunity to start doing it soon, is about the only thing we can offer you. The question is, do you want it or not?”

“I don’t get to know any more than that before I have to take the plunge, do I?” Kevin asked ruefully.

“Just that we’re the good guys,” the old man said. “If you didn’t want to be one, why go so far just to stop a minor break-in?”

To his surprise, Kevin realized the man had a point. It also gave him one last thing to find out. “Why are you doing this then?”

The grim expression was back in an instant. “To catch a murderer.”

There were a lot of things Kevin wasn’t sure of, but one thing he knew for certain was that this old man was telling the truth. He held out his hand to the janitor and said, “All right, old man. I’m in.”

“Welcome to Templeton’s Avengers, son,” he answered, shaking Kevin’s hand. “You can call me Darryl.” He shoved himself up and out of his chair and pulled Kevin up along with him. “Now, time’s awasting. Let’s get cracking, shall we?”

Fiction Index

#63 (Part One)

Posted by natechen on

The last thing that Kevin Kirishima expected to find when he answered his door the day after the Stillwater Sound robbery was a set of leggy blonde twins. Certainly not blondes in featureless black suits flashing IDs that said they were a part of the Secret Service.

Sure, when your place of work has been robbed you expect to be interviewed by the police a couple of times, more if you were the inside man, but one doesn’t really expect the Secret Service to show up when a small technology company in the Midwest gets robbed. To say that Kevin hadn’t been expecting the visit would have been an exercise in understatement.

The blonde on the left cleared her throat. “Mr. Kirishima?”

So apparently this wasn’t a case of showing up at the wrong door. “That’s me.”

“Eyes up here, please,” said her twin.

Kevin did as asked, not that he had been looking at anything inappropriate. “There’s no name on your ID,” he said to her before taking a quick glance at her sister’s. “Either of yours, actually. I don’t suppose you’d care to tell me who I’m talking to?”

“Not just yet.” That came from a man standing behind them. Where the twins were blonde and blue-eyed enough they could have stared in Alfred Hitchcock films, he looked more like he should be the wise old janitor in a workplace drama. His hair was still fairly thick, but it was pure white. Lines of gray ran through a beard that looked like a goatee might if you suddenly stopped shaving and let it grow wild for a month or two. He leaned heavily on a metal cane and all in all looked decidedly unlike a Secret Service agent. “Mr. Kirishima, we need to come in and ask you a few questions.”

Kevin removed his glasses and polished them thoughtfully. “Maybe I don’t feel like letting people who won’t tell me their names into my apartment. And if I’ve got my U.S. Constitution worked out right, you can’t force your way in without a warrant.”

The janitor reached into his suit pocket and pulled out a sheet of paper, which he handed to Kevin wordlessly. It was a warrant, of course. What else would it be? Kevin adjusted his glasses once to hide his annoyance and handed the paper back. “Fine. Looks legit. Might as well come in.”

Without waiting for further invitation the twins barged through the door and into the apartment, crossing over each other’s paths as they did so. They took such care to do it while he was watching that it was an obvious ploy to confuse him about who was who. Kevin glared at their backs for just a moment before starting to close the door behind their older companion. He didn’t even get it halfway shut before stopping short.

There was a fourth member of their little group, a tall, thin man with a mournful expression, who looked like he was either Polynesian or perhaps Native American. He gave no indication that he realized he’d almost had the door slammed in his face, made no acknowledgement of Kevin at all, just squeezed his narrow frame through the door and started a long, slow circuit around the apartment, not seeming to pay any attention to what he saw. Kevin snorted and closed the door after making sure there weren’t any other weirdos waiting in the wings. Then he followed his visitors into the apartment’s living room.

Since he wasn’t in any mood to be hospitable there was no point in apologizing for the mess. Besides, on a normal day he was quite proud of his living room. It hadn’t been easy to find and collect all that video recording gear, and some of the older stuff was quite valuable. But with six different video cameras, three TVs, a wall of playback equipment and a nest of wires to connect it all, there wasn’t as much room for living as most people might expect to find in a “living” room.

But Kevin wasn’t most people and he had a feeling his guests weren’t either. The janitor had settled into the only chair, which just left the sofa. The twins had taken up flanking positions behind their boss, the old man, who was clearly in charge, and the quiet man was still blankly staring at the junk in the room, so Kevin took the seat on the sofa where he’d been sitting before company arrived, grabbed the remote and switched off the TVs.

“I’m sorry if we interrupted you,” the old man said in a pleasant tone. “But you understand we wanted to talk to you right away.”

“I guess that makes sense,” Kevin replied. “If I knew what you wanted to talk to me about.”

“A breaking and entering at the place you work,” one of the twins said. “Stillwater Sound.”

“Really.” He leaned back and settled into the sofa. For once he wished the battered furniture gave a little more support. Normally it was comfortable but now he was sinking so far he felt small. With an irate grunt he shoved himself forward to the edge of the couch and said, “I thought the police had that pretty well in hand last night. Why the sudden interest from the Secret Service?”

“We’ll get to that, depending on how things go,” the old man said. “How long have you worked for Stillwater Sound?”

“About three years,” Kevin said. “I started as an intern after college and I’ve been there part time ever since. I just made full time last summer.”

“What brought you to a sound studio?” That one of the twins. She casually waved her hand at his collection of video equipment. “This doesn’t look like recording gear.”

“It’s not. I studied communications but my real interest was production for TV and film. I did an internship with one of the local TV stations. When I graduated,” Kevin waved a hand in the general direction of his diploma, which sat on a shelf beside an old Super 8 video camera, “I went to a job fair where I met the Chief – that’s Mr. Griswald, the owner of Stillwater Sound.”

“And he hired you?” She asked. “Why does a sound studio need a TV technician?”

“Because film is an audiovisual medium,” Kevin said. “Adding a soundtrack, voice-overs, remastering sound, removing background noise, all that stuff is a part of film and TV. And when you’re working with a small budget or amateur stuff video and sound work tends to get done with one piece of software, instead of doing video editing with one program and audio editing with another. The Chief thought it would be nice if we could get a piece of that pie and help out amateur movie makers at the same time, so about six years ago he started recruiting people that knew that end of the business.” He shrugged. “It’s not Hollywood, but it’s a place to start.”

“According to the police report, the break-in at Stillwater was just after seven at night.” The old man flipped open a folder he’d brought with him, turning pages until he found the one he wanted. “Are you usually in the buildings that late at night?”

“Only the last couple of days.” Kevin let himself relax fractionally. The questions so far seemed fairly mundane. The whole set up was really weird, what with the Secret Service agents and the badges with no names, but even if these were just really ambitious reporters he couldn’t see any harm in answering their questions. “If you work for Stillwater you get a major discount on using the studio. A friend, Susan, and her husband have a little New Ageish kind of a band. They do recordings, I help out.”

The janitor made a quick note. “Tell me what you saw when you came out of the studio.”

“You been out to the studio yet?” The old man shook his head. Kevin held his hands up, his palms at a right angle to one another. “It’s like this. The parking lot is a square and the old building is down here.” Kevin wiggled the fingers of one hand. “The new building is over here.” He sketched a large rectangle by the opposite corner of the parking lot. Then he indicated the edges of the lot between the two buildings. “All this is some sort of high tech graywater treatment ponds. Four or five of ’em, to be exact. It’s all very eco-friendly stuff, Federally subsidized, we have it to help pay for the new building. And the Chief’s son is a big believer.”

“Sounds smelly,” one of the twins said.

“There’s something to deal with that, too, so you don’t really notice it except on really warm days.” Kevin dismissed the issue with a wave of his hand. “Anyways, I definitely wasn’t smelling anything, just looking around, you know? And I see someone walking through them.”

The white haired man scribbled a note. “That’s not normal?”

“No, it’s not. The only people I’ve ever seen out there are the people who make sure the whole mess isn’t about to wash away or something. They come out about once every three months, poke around the banks for an hour or so and leave. They’re always in teams, and they never come at night.”

“So this person was alone?”

“Yeah.” Kevin tapped his fingers on his chin for a minute. “Nice looking lady. African-American, about five foot six, dressed in gray coveralls. Also, I don’t think I’ve ever seen a woman in the group before now that I think about it. That’s kind of strange.”

“And you were sure she wasn’t an employee?”

“Stillwater’s big for a sound studio in Indiana, but it’s still a small company. I know everyone working there now and most of the time we hear about new hires before they do.” Kevin shook his head. “She had no business being there after dark and we both knew it. And when you’ve got a stranger with a backpack prowling around buildings with hundreds of thousands of dollars of sound equipment in them you get suspicious fast.”

“According to the preliminary police report you were the one who called security,” the blonde on the left said. “What prompted that if she was just standing around outside the building?”

“Maybe she caught you staring at her chest and started to get mad?” Her sister asked, with a quirk of the eyebrow and the hint of a smile.

Kevin wavered a minute. A hard look confirmed that the one who was asking wasn’t the same one who’d called him out at the door. It was another mind game, not legit banter. Absently he pushed his glasses up his nose and shrugged. “She was a bit far away for that. Anyway, I have the security station at the gatehouse on speed dial and I let them know.”

“How many employees have the Stillwater security stations on speed dial?” The old man asked.

“How many Secret Service agents have no name on their IDs?” Kevin countered, folding his arms across his chest. “Look, I’ve answered your questions with pretty much the same answers I gave the cops-”

“You called security at 7:43 PM,” the old man said, ignoring him. “The initial break-in was at 7:09 PM, and the suspect left the building at 7:35 PM. There’s an eight minute window there that’s unaccounted for.”

“-and I think that’s who you need to talk to.” Two could play the ignorance is bliss card. Kevin went to reach for his wallet and jumped when the thin man materialized beside the couch and grabbed his arm. Kevin jerked away instinctively, startled by his sudden appearance. He’d been so quiet Kevin had almost forgotten there was a fifth person in the room. Best to try and calm things down. “I’m just going to give your boss the name of the detective I talked too after the robbery. I think you’d best come back with them if you want any more questions answered. This whole thing smells fishy and I don’t want to say anything I shouldn’t.”

The old man motioned for his gaunt friend to step back and he did. “Mr. Kirishima, do you know why the owner of Stillwater Sound is called Chief?”

“Well…” That was a matter of public record, so he didn’t see how answering could hurt. “He was in the Navy. Served in the Battle of the Atlantic and later Korea, I think.”

“That’s right. He was a Chief Sonarman when he retired.” The old man leaned back in his chair. “That doesn’t mean the Chief didn’t work for the U.S. Government anymore, though. There’s some jobs you don’t give up that easily. Chief Stillwater just changed job description. He doesn’t wear a uniform anymore and his assignments have more to do with research and development than intelligence gathering, but it’s important work and his talents make him a valuable asset. You might say he’s really made waves.”

Kevin frowned and absently started polishing his glasses again, giving the old man an appraising look. “Are you trying to tell me that Mr. Griswald is using Stillwater Sound as some kind of secret government testing site buried under one of the buildings?”

“Of course not,” the left twin said.

“It’s in the water pits,” her sister added. “He was a sonarman, not a nuclear physicist. He tests sonar equipment under something resembling real world conditions.”

“He what?” Kevin shook his head in bewilderment. “Why would anyone bother bringing sonar equipment this far inland when they could do those kinds of tests just as easily from a fishing trawler or something?” But even as he said it, his mind flashed back to the work crews he’d seen around the ponds every month. Not only were they all men as far as he could recall, but they came with buzz cuts and very good posture. Not typical for a company with a big focus on green technology.

“What’s more important,” the lead agent added, “is that, instead of just being a place to store wastewater, the ponds are actually a national security asset and are monitored as such. I want you to take a look at something.” He fished a set of papers out of one pocket and unfolded them. On the top was a grainy still taken from a security camera feed showing a woman approaching one of the wastewater ponds. From the angle Kevin decided it was probably mounted on one of the light poles in the parking lot. The quality wasn’t good and it had clearly been taken at night. Kevin felt his gut sink. “Is this the woman you saw last night?”

Kevin licked his lips and shrugged. “Hard to tell, as dark as it is.”

“Well, I suppose that’s entirely understandable. How about this one?” In the next photo the woman looked to be running towards the camera, the perspective suggesting it was mounted on the building. A bright beam of light illuminated her from the direction of the parking lot, which looked oddly dark.

Kevin grimaced. “Yeah, that’s her.”

“I see. And this one?” Now the woman scrambled frantically up the side of the new Stillwater building, somehow clinging to the rough concrete with her bare hands and feet.

“Now that looks a lot like someone’s idea of a bad joke.” Kevin shrugged. “I’m not an expert on Photoshop, but I’d guess it’s probably some kind of splice with a movie?”

The janitor raised an eyebrow. “You deny seeing anything like this last night?”

“Of course not. I like to shoot movies, not live in them.”

“I see. What about this?” The next picture wasn’t of a woman at all. It was Kevin, or rather Kevin as he might appear if he was looking at himself in a fun house mirror. His legs seemed to twist, his waist curved at an impossible angle and from the shoulders up he seemed to narrow until his head was half it’s normal size. It looked like he held some kind of portable floodlight in one hand, or at least a beam of light washed out most of the rest of the picture. Like the first, it was probably taken from a camera in the parking lot, although it was likely a different one.

Kevin tried to hide a wince, but the subtle change in expression on the faces of the agents facing him told him he hadn’t been successful. “I don’t suppose you’ll believe that’s another prank?”

“No, Mr. Kirishima, I’m afraid I won’t.” The old man shuffled away his photos and folded his hands in his lap. “Truth be told, I don’t blame you for hoping to convince me that you’ve been the victim of some sort of prank. But the photographic evidence,” he patted the folder, “along with the unusual way Stillwater Sound was robbed and the testimony and unique nature of your employer all point to one conclusion: That it is far more likely that your are an individual of unique talent. And if that is the case, then we have more to discuss than just your involvement in the robbery of a small recording studio and sound equipment dealer in the Midwest. But the fact is, there is more here than just a simple robbery. Even the Secret Service has it’s hands tied by competing jurisdictions, and there’s only so much we can do in this case. Aren’t you the least bit curious about why someone with the peculiar abilities like the Grappler would bother to rob Stillwater Sound?”

Kevin frowned. “Wait. It wasn’t for the sonar gear in the pond?”

“That may have just been a bonus.” The mighty janitor spread his hands. “Of course, a mere civilian couldn’t be briefed on any of the issues involved at all. But under the rules laid out by Project Sumter, people with talents like, say, Chief Stillwater, are entitled to know certain things before they plunge down the rabbit hole. Other agencies, like the Secret Service, aren’t allowed to go prowling around looking for new talents on their own, but oddly enough the Project’s rules don’t forbid us from briefing newly discovered talents we discover when the Project isn’t around. So you have a choice, Mr. Kirishima. Are you a person with unusual gifts, who’s interested in hearing what exactly happened last night, and why, or are you just a normal person who’s content to go back to work tomorrow and never know what happened? Which is it going to be?”

Fiction Index