“Who, Uncle Blake?” the kid says dismissively.
“Yeah, Uncle Blake,” Jeremin responds back. “Was he living with you in the church basement?”
“Na, he used to show up now and then, but that was a long time ago. He was kind of weird, you know. He now lives in the mountains, eating tree bark or something.”
“And his wife?” Perry butts in, still leaving the visor down over his face.
“Aunt Jo? I heard she died in prison.”
Jeremin steps aside and let’s the teenager pass by.
“About that suit?” the little punk asks again. “When do I get it?”
Jeremin smiles wryly. “We’ll see, let’s not get too ahead of ourselves.”
“Whatever,” the kid answers disrespectfully. “Just make sure it fits.”
Jeremin laughs it off as the kid walks by. How Jeremin didn’t go off on the kid is beyond me.
“What was that all about, Commander?” Perry asks. “Why’d you ask him about my father?”
“Like you didn’t want to know?”
We all head over to the military vehicles. Jeremin orders the kid to climb inside The Beast. He squeezes in between Perry and myself. The convoy begins to roll out, but this time, the Drone Monster flies along with us.
The young teenager is excited to say the least. He keeps on talking, never shutting up. “I can’t wait when mom and Jack get busted,” he shouts. “It’s going to be awesome! So when exactly will I arrive in Santa Verde? Will it be later tonight or tomorrow? Will Valerie Star be there? When can I meet her? Does she really have sex with all the new recruits?”
“Would you shut the fuck up!” Dirk yells out.
Everyone laughs. The young teenager is surprised, embarrassed and probably confused. The kid sinks down in his seat. Here he thought he was a hero, but to us Youth Patrollers, he’s just some annoying kid.
“Commander, this is Wasp One,” a voice comes through the transceiver.
“Go ahead Wasp One.”
“Looks like we’re approaching the kid’s home.”
“All right, park us about 100 yards away.”
We pull over on a lighted street near a gray housing complex. The homes are simple and modest. They’re stacked one on top of the other, built with recycled materials or materials printed out using a 3D replicator. The Beast’s doors open, and we all get out. My visor indicates the location of the kid’s apartment. It’s on the third floor of a five-story building.
“Hey kid,” Jeremin calls out to the teenager. “Why doesn’t your father have an L-Chip?”
“Don’t know, just hasn’t gotten around to it.”
“If we walk in there, he’s not gonna shoot us, is he?” Jeremin asks.
“No, no way.”
“And the door, is it booby trapped?”
“Hell no, I’ll show you. I’ll open it.”
“By all means.” Jeremin stretches out his hand for the kid to take the lead.
We follow him up the stairs to his front door, but when we get there, he hesitates to open it.
“What is it?” Jeremin whispers.
“What if my dad doesn’t want to tell you the location of the gas station?”
“He will, just open the door.”
The kid looks at the Commander for a second and then proceeds to press the code to unlock the door. It opens and he walks inside. A few of us YP’s follow, but most of the squad hangs back.
We enter the flat and right away we can hear the TV blaring. A flickering bluish glow illuminates the apartment. The housing-unit is small, cluttered and dirty. Piles of clothes are everywhere; it smells. A black man sits in a torn up green recliner with his feet propped up. He’s wearing worn out sweat pants and a t-shirt of a college that doesn’t exist anymore. He sits there, watching a pirate movie on an old flat screen. Empty bottles of cheap wine and beer are collected all around the man’s chair.
Beer? I think to myself, where the hell do you get beer? And the wine, only people with L-Chips are allowed to purchase and drink alcohol. He must have stolen it, we could arrest him on possession, but I know that’s not what we’re here for.
The man looks up and notices his apartment is filled with Youth Patrollers. He doesn’t act scared or startled or anything like you’d expect.
“Pause, lights”. The man says. The TV stops and the lights fade up. He squints.
“Bobby?” he mumbles, sounding like he’s drunk.
“Yes dad.”
“Do I see YP’s in my house?”
“Yes, you do.”
“Thank God, I thought I was losing my mind.”
Some of the YP’s chuckle at the man’s response.
“They’re here for mom,” the kid pipes up. “You gotta tell them where she is or they’ll kick the shit out of you.”
The man closes his eyes and leans back in his chair. “Goddamn it, Bobby,” he slurs. “You gotta learn to keep your mouth shut.”
“I told them the truth, Dad!”
“Good for you, Bobby. Good for you… you ungrateful son of bitch.”
“Okay, okay,” Jeremin interrupts. “I hate to break up this lovely father-son chat, but we have some business to take care of.”
“I’m not a smuggler,” the man says, struggling to get out of his chair. “Tell him Bobby, tell the YP I’m not a smuggler.”
“It’s okay Mr. Graham, it’s okay. We’re not here for you.” Jeremin gently pats the man’s shoulder, helping him back down into his easy chair. Jeremin turns to Dagger. “Take the kid outside.”
“Hey, I want to stay,” Bobby protests, but Dagger drags him away. Jeremin turns back to the man, flips his visor up and grins. The man smiles back nervously.
“Now that your boy is gone we can talk more openly,” the Commander says.
“Are you going to torture me?”
“That’s up to you Mr. Graham. That’s totally up to you.”
The man wipes the sweat off his brow.
“We understand your wife is quite the smuggler?” Jeremin continues.
“Yeah, she is quite the smuggler, but I don’t know where she is.”
“That’s not what Bobby says.”
“Bobby says a lot of things. He likes to talk; he talks way too much. He’ll say anything to become one of you guys. He listens to that god-awful no talent Youth Music Singers. Have you listened to that crap? It’s painful.”
“Yeah, I’ve listened to it. It is pretty shitty,” Jeremin smirks.
“You’ve got to understand,” the man goes on. “The kid’s been brainwashed. If I knew where my wife was, I’d tell you, swear to God.”
“Tell us about–Jack?” Jeremin says shrewdly.
“Jack. Jack? What the hell did Bobby tell you?”
“Enough to spark our interest.”
“I don’t talk to Jack anymore. I’m not a smuggler, I already told you that.”
“But you were.”
“Yeah, so.” The man reaches for a beer bottle and takes a swig. “We all were, but I’ve given it all up. I’ve seen my wicked ways and I’ve repented,” he answers with a cynical attitude. “I’m like you now. I hate religious fanatics. I really do.” He takes another swig.
“So you’re like me, huh?” Jeremin says, looking down on him.
“Yep.”
“So what’s taking you so long to get that L-Chip?”
“I don’t know, haven’t gotten around to it.”
“You don’t want the government in your head, is that it?”
The man shrugs his shoulders.
“If you have nothing to hide–there’s nothing to chide. So get the Chip so you can be hip.” Jeremin recites an old slogan from a few years ago.
The man scoffs. “That’s a good one. I haven’t heard that one in a long time.”
“Do you like living here, Mr. Graham?”
The man seems confused by the question. “I guess.”
“You guess? Look around, a one room flat in a gray housing project? This i
s all you could get?”
“You know I can’t get a job, I don’t have an L-Chip. ‘No Chip, get a pink slip.’” The man also recites another old slogan.
Jeremin chuckles. “So you have to depend on your 14-year-old son for everything, huh?”
The man looks away, ashamed.
“That must suck?” Jeremin taunts.
“It beats living in a bombed out church basement if that’s what you’re getting at.”
“No, that’s not what I’m getting at. I’m just looking around here and… Who sleeps in the bedroom? Is that Bobby’s room? It’s Bobby’s isn’t it? It’s his, while he forces you to sleep out here, right?”
The man’s eyes shift back and forth. “I’m allowed to be here. Bobby has the L-Chip, the government has to provide housing and food for him and his parents. It’s the law.”
“Oh, I know the law, I’m not going to take you away. I was going to offer you something better.”
Jeremin reaches inside one of his compartments on his belt. He pulls out a small white card with a green strip running across it. “See this? It’s an I-Card. An Immunity Card with twenty million points on it, enough for you to live on for the rest of your miserable life. You can buy anything you want with it; live anywhere you want, no questions asked. And the best part, you don’t’ need an L-Chip, nothing embedded in your brain. The government can’t go digging around looking for information. Your thoughts will be yours and yours only.” Jeremin takes off his helmet and kneels down on one knee. He holds up the card. The man reaches for it, but Jeremin pulls it back slightly. “Just imagine what life could be like, Mr. Graham. Just imagine what you could have. And all you have to do is tell us where the gas station is.”
The man closes his eyes and sighs. He leans back in his chair and holds on to the armrests tightly. “I’m sorry, I can’t help you.”
Jeremin stands up and grabs a silver framed picture from off the coffee table. “Is this your wife? She’s pretty.”
The man glances up, but doesn’t say anything.
“What’s it like knowing Jack has his hands all over her, touching her, fucking her?”
“I don’t think about it much,” the man says quickly.
“Yes you do, your best friend betrayed you. It’s got to hurt.”
“He wasn’t my best friend.”
“She’s calling out his name. She’s telling him how much better he is than her weak cowardly husband.”
“I’m not a coward, you don’t know me!” the man snaps.
“Yes I do, I know you. You’re a drunk, you’re alone, doing nothing with your life except sitting on a shitty green chair, watching a movie from 80 years ago. Get some balls dude. It’s time to stick it to her and stick it to him.”
“I was running that operation before she…!” the man’s stops abruptly. He rubs his forehead violently, trying to keep his anger inside.
“Before she what?” Jeremin eggs him on.
“Before she…” He still can’t finish the sentence.
“Before she screwed it all up?” Jeremin says with an emphasis on ‘screwed’. The man turns away. “Your wife left you,” Jeremin adds. “She left you with that son of yours, that son of a bitch who never shuts up, ‘Valerie this, Valerie that,’ am I right? It’s enough for you to want to blow your goddamn brains out. But here I am offering you a card that can change it all. You won’t be some weak, scared little man, living in a housing project made of gray plastic recyclable shit, you’ll be a fucking high roller, living in the city where the women will blow your mind.”
The man sits in silence, contemplating, struggling to make a decision. He gets up from his chair and takes the picture from Jeremin’s hand and looks at it. “After Jack and Sharon were… you know,” he mutters. “Bobby took it pretty hard. He ran away, but the next day when he came back, he had an L-Chip in his forehead. Everyone went bonkers. I think they were going to kill him, so I did what I had to do. I took him away, and we ended up here. The Government gives Bobby an allowance to live on. It’s not much, but he holds it over me like I’m nothing, like I’m some kind of dog. It’s horrible. It’s hell on earth. I want to leave him, but he’s my son, he’s my Goddamn son, you just don’t leave you’re son, you know.” The man starts to choke up. “I’m only with him because I have to. They were going to kill him.”
Then Perry steps forward, pushing Jeremin aside. “What if we take Bobby away from you? We’ll keep him safe in Santa Verde and you can live in any city you want.”
The man looks at Perry, but only sees a Youth Patroller in uniform with his visor pulled down. He has no idea he’s looking at his nephew. “You’d do that?” the man says, sounding relieved. “You’d take him away, and I can still have the card?”
“Of course,” Jeremin steps forward. “We’ll take your kid. We’ll take him today if you want. Hell, we’ll take him right now.”
The man closes his eyes. “I’ve been told not to deal with the devil.”
“But sometimes the devil is all you got,” Jeremin says in a low voice.
“You promise you’ll take care of the boy?”
“Like he was my own son,” the Commander adds.
“And my wife? You promise you won’t hurt her?”
“I promise.”
The man sits back in his chair and stares at the wall.
“So, Mr. Graham, you gonna to tell us where they are. That’s how the deal works.”
“Yeah, yeah I know,” he mumbles to himself. “They think that I don’t know but I know. I know where they live. I know exactly where they are.”
“How’d you find them?” Jeremin coaxes.
“I went back to the church basement, but they were all gone. I just wanted to say good-bye, but they weren’t there. They were gone and they didn’t tell me where they went. They didn’t trust me. Then one night she showed up here. She heard that I was looking for them. She stood at that doorway and told me never to go looking for her. She said it was better this way. And with that she walked out of my life. She didn’t even say good-bye to her own son. I was furious. So I followed her. She didn’t know I did, but I followed her. That’s where I saw the gas station. I was going to kill her and kill Jack, and everyone else, but I chickened out. I couldn’t. You’re right. I am a coward. I had my chance, but I couldn’t kill her.”
“Well, today is your lucky day,” Jeremin says. “Lets go get ‘em.”
The man nods. He then leans forward and takes the I-Card, sitting on the coffee table. Then, Jeremin holds out his hand to seal the deal, but the man looks blankly at the out stretched hand. Jeremin cocks his head as his eyebrows rise. The man gives in and reluctantly shakes it. The corners of Jeremin’s mouth tilt upwards.
CHAPTER 15
An empty school shuttle bus arrives outside the gray housing unit.
“Who called for that?” Jeremin asks.
“I did, sir,” Luna answers. “I figured we would need one eventually.”
“Good thinking. You’re the best.”
“Hear that everyone,” she says half joking. “I’m the best.”
Bobby sees the bus and goes running down the stairs to greet it. The doors open and the teenager leaps inside. The kid’s father watches from the window as his son happily departs. It’s a strange moment to witness. I think the man is remorseful, but he’s more relieved than anything. The bus doors close, and the vehicle speeds off into the night. The man whips around to face us.
“All right,” he says enthusiastically, covering up his grief or guilt or whatever he may have. “Let’s get this over with.”
“Good idea,” Jeremin agrees. “Let’s get this over with.”
We all climb back into the military vehicles, taking Mr. Graham with us this time. He sits next to Jeremin while clutching the I-Card. He keeps looking down at it. It’s like he has to remind himself why he’s doing this. We pull away from the curb and head out for the gas station. The man starts giving vague directions. I think he’s having second tho
ughts.
“Okay Mr. Graham, enough of this. Tell us where the gas station is,” Jeremin demands.
“I’m trying, it’s been awhile.”
“Dagger!” Jeremin yells up to the upper deck. “Has the Drone spotted anything yet?”
There’s a structure nearby that could have been a gas station at one time, I’m setting a course.”
We drive for another fifteen minutes or so before coming to a stop. The Drone Monster begins to transmit night-enhanced images to the monitors. We see an old factory, looted and left to die. A gas station from another era is located at the front entrance. Scrap metal and trash are strewn everywhere along the street. My God, I knew the past generation left a mess, but I never knew it was this bad. First, it was the old medical building from this morning and now this.
“So, Mr. Graham, is this the place?” Jeremin asks.
The man looks up at a monitor, wipes his forehead; his hand shakes noticeably. “Um. I don’t think it is. Sorry. Maybe it’s down the highway some more, I don’t know, I thought this was it, but I was wrong.”
Jeremin smirks. “This isn’t the gas station?”
“No, it’s not, sir. I-I was confused. I was drunk when I followed her. It could be anywhere. I’m sorry. If you want the I-Card back, here it is.”
“Dagger!” Jeremin calls up to the upper deck again.
“Yes sir.”
“Have the Drone circle around to get a closer look.”
“You won’t find anything,” the man jumps in. “At least I–I don’t think you will?”
Sitting at the controls, Dagger directs the Drone to fly up to the gas station. The windows are boarded up and the roof that covered the old gas pumps is half falling down. The Drone floats closer, there’s sign that reads ‘SNACK SHOP.’ The Drone continues to move to the other side, revealing a large garage with its doors closed. There’s another sign dangling from a single chain. It reads, “BUY THREE GET THE FOURTH FREE”.
“Are you getting any readings, weapons, anything?” Jeremin inquires.
Dagger looks at the detector on the console and shakes his head, “Not really, I’m getting nothing. Maybe the guy’s right, this isn’t the hide out.”
“Or–maybe there’s a jamming device in play.” Jeremin looks at our guest.
Youth Patrol Page 9
