by J. N. Chaney
I considered the answers I had been preparing to his original question about the future. The way that Vance and Remi talked about shaping a world through action. Making choices. I had never longed for any of those things. Not when it all came down to it. Not when I reflected on my choices. I’d spent the last few days in a cell with nothing but my thoughts to keep me company, and in that time, I had found solitude to be a powerful incentive for reflection.
“I did it for the puzzles,” I answered, knowing as I said the words that it was the truth. “I wanted to beat the challenges Evelyn presented. I wanted to let Canton know that he couldn’t get away with something because he had power or influence. I wanted to show everyone that I saw through them. That I knew things about them. That the truth was there, I only had to look. I wanted to prove that I shaped the world around me with that truth.”
Shaw leaned forward in his chair. “I saw something in you back at the school. It was the second time your name had come across my desk. You have an intuitive nature for figuring people out but no discipline. I sent you to Quintell to keep an eye on you. And in three months, you both thwarted and exceeded my expectations. I had hoped to use you to expose Evelyn’s scheme, but you ended up instrumental in its execution.”
I said nothing.
His eyes lingered on me for a long moment, and like Evelyn before him, I could not tell what this man was thinking. He pulled out a card and slid it across the table to me, then flipped it over. The card had a strange symbol on it—an upside-down triangle with a circle inside and a line running through it. “Have you heard of the Constable Program, Alphonse?” the old man finally asked.
The question caught me by surprise, and I stared at the card, searching my memory for it. I had seen it in places, including news reports and different books regarding the Union and certain military exploits across the galaxy, but never had I made the connection. Never had I found the word Constable anywhere near it. “I know it exists,” I said, recalling an article I had come across, perhaps six months back, and a few vague references to the program itself. “I understand that the Constables are a powerful arm of the Union’s military, though their exploits are high classified. Nobody can say for certain who they are or specifically what they do.”
Shaw smiled again. “Astute and spoken with the same blunt charm as everything you say. I know you can deceive and conceal that charm when you want. I saw you do so with Canton.”
“It was for the truth.”
Shaw chuckled. “Indeed. The Constables are intelligence officers of the Union. They have access to information and resources beyond what you may imagine. They work to unravel mysteries and plots with staggering consequences and unparalleled difficulty. They solve puzzles, in short.”
I leaned forward. “I knew you weren’t a school administrator.”
“Did you, now?” he asked with a half-smile.
“I suspected there was a lie in play but couldn’t see how to get to the truth. I just didn’t know how I knew it.” I paused. “It’s always been that way.”
Shaw was quiet for a moment, eyeing me with a look of cold examination. “You have talent, Alphonse. A natural ability that goes beyond that of most others.” He paused again. “But you lack the training to understand it.”
I considered the point. “How do I know any of it?”
“You see things you aren’t fully cognizant of. People behave in many ways, from the acute to the obtuse. You read into their layers and come up with precise conclusions. Micro-expressions, behaviors, word choice—tiny pieces added up to form a person. Through this, you can see their true selves, their lies, their falsehoods. It is a rare gift, and it is something that the Constables know all too well.”
I said nothing, not certain of how to even react. Here was a man like me, I realized, and he had been since the start.
He walked behind me and placed a hand on my shoulder. “You have more raw instinct than many agents have after years of training. Think of how much farther you could reach if you learn intentionally. If you are guided and challenged.”
I tried to ignore the unfamiliar touch and kept staring straight ahead. “You think I can learn all of that? What would be the point?”
Shaw let go of my shoulder and walked back to the other side of the table. “You don’t have to care about the fate of the Union. You don’t have to care about yourself. But I know that you care about people. Your actions in protecting Manson and Gil, your revenge for Vance’s expulsion, the way you refused to blackmail Whiles. Causes are not important to you, that’s fine. Causes are nothing but aggregations of people in motion. As long as you care about people, the Union has a use for you. I have a use for you.”
I considered the pitch and made a decision. “Remi’s family didn’t deserve the Union. If I help, I want two things.”
Shaw brightened. “I love a bargain established from an uneven position. What do you have for me?”
“I want to see Evelyn answer for what she’s done. I promised her that. I also want your assurances that if I find any corruption within the Union, you’ll help me put an end to it.”
Shaw replied without missing a beat. “Evelyn will be found,” he said, no doubt in his voice. “She’ll leave a trail and we will follow, rest assured. As for your second request, if you ever happened upon corruption and didn’t speak out about it, I would be remiss to think you are the person I see before me now.” He smiled. “And I’m so rarely wrong.”
“Good,” I remarked. “What now?”
“Learn and train,” he told me. “Become a Constable.”
“I’ll do it,” I said, a rising heat in my chest as I spoke the words.
“Of that, I have no doubt,” he said, standing to his feet. “But it will take time, Alphonse, and there is still so much that you must learn.”
Alphonse Malloy’s story continues in The Constable Returns, available now on Amazon.
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The Constable Returns
1
Three hundred and fifty-three days had come and gone since I was given a choice to join the Constables or be sentenced for my careless actions on Meridian. In that time, I had grown substantially and now stood nearly 1.8 meters tall. Unfortunately, I still lacked the brawnier muscle definition some of my peers had developed. My newfound height only served to accentuate this, and though I’d become trimmer, I still bordered on gangly.
Due to my less-than-average physique, some of the other Constables-in-training treated me like a Greenie—a recruit still in their probationary phase. It was an inauspicious observation, given the condescension in their voices and looks of disdain. I think their aversion was fueled by the fact that I was unmoved by their attempts to upset me. The only thing that did annoy me was that their jeering tended to disrupt my studies, but I told myself this was temporary, so long as I remained patient and gave it enough time.
Such was the case with any problem, I had found. No matter the issue, enough time and patience could resolve it.
Shaw had certainly kept up his end of the bargain, just as he had promised during our previous meeting in that interrogation room on Meridian after my arrest. In exchange for an acquittal for my part in the neutronium heist, murder of a Union soldier, conspiracy to commit grand theft, and several other charges, I was trained to take my place among the elite Constable agents that protected the Union from internal and external threats.
I had to admit, it was an exceptional offer. In hindsight, I had come to understand my many mistakes. My desire to be challenged had almost led me down a road with no return. Having innate intelligence and a natural gift for observation did not equal wisdom, as evidenced by my previous lack of foresight. I should have known Evelyn would betray us.
The most valuable lesson I learned didn’t come from Evelyn’s treachery, my failure to predict it, or even Remi’s subsequent death. No, the real epiphany had come from Lieutenant Jameson Irvine, the Union sold
ier who had been felled by my hand.
As part of my acquittal, I had been ordered to observe the direct consequences of my actions. I was ordered to watch the holo recording of the Union’s death notification to Lieutenant Irvine’s widow. I’d been ready to dismiss the holo as a silly attempt with actors to evoke a sense of grief and obligation.
But I was wrong.
It was clear from Mrs. Irvine’s reaction that her grief was real. Actors, even the best ones, always had tells. It was one of the reasons I rarely watched holo films unless they featured lots of mindless action—I couldn’t help myself and always picked apart the performances. Mrs. Irvine was not performing.
I attended the funeral via holocam and witnessed the outpour of love and grief from his community, friends, and parents. Watching their grief seemed to infect me, and I felt my chest grow tight and strange.
For the first time, I knew true loss. It had come from my own hubris, and I only had myself to blame. Much as I wanted to, I couldn’t take any of it back or make it right, so I vowed to change myself by making better decisions.
Because of that, I had spent the last standard year honing my skills. The better I was at my job, the more I could change.
The more I could save.
My time in the Red Tower—the Constables’ training facility on the restricted planet Alara—had moved at an exhaustive pace. Each day was split between a sequence of tasks meant to prepare us for work in the field, both alone and in small groups. In the initial months, we were beset by rigorous amounts of testing, each one entirely different from the last. Some were complex puzzles that required logical reasoning to solve, while others called for memory recollection and educated guesses based on limited information.
One test required us to read a seemingly arbitrary selection of text, match the hidden clues to symbols, and finally arrange them in the correct orientation and order on our pads. There were no points given, but afterward the students compared their overall time to see how they had fared against one another.
Most managed to complete them in under a minute. I usually did it in half that. I was not always the highest in my class, although I hadn’t been intentionally underachieving. In fact, I didn’t have to feign ineptitude at all. I was surrounded by peers for the first time in my life. Or very nearly.
There were many practical—and interesting—lessons as well, including how to extract information from hostile and unwilling targets, how to engender trust in potential sources, and how to make snap deductions based on minimal data, something that I had been doing on my own for years.
We also received extensive training in intrusion and security breaching that made Evelyn’s heists seem downright juvenile. Unfortunately, as I’d learned after Evelyn’s duplicity, intelligence and cunning weren’t everything. To round out our tutelage, we learned personal combat and rudimentary firearms training. We were meant to resort to firearms not as a strategy, but as a cover or last resort.
I had landed myself in a Union prison because I was obsessed with solving puzzles, unable to see the bigger picture. Now I’d perfected the art of manipulation to meet a specific goal and completed my training with flying colors. All that remained was a single mission that would elevate me from Tiro to Constable. Each Tiro, the title that marked us as recruits, had to go through a trial by fire, of sorts, in which they completed a mission with their Vetus. The Vetus were Constables who had mastered their craft and were tasked with training their assigned Tiros.
It had been a month since I’d been cleared to take on this first assignment, but so far every mission had proven to be too essential to the Union to risk on an unproven agent or too easy to be a proper test.
In the meantime, I spent my days poring through intelligence report files in the Red Keep, a library data center of the Red Tower. The Red Keep housed an archive of the Constables’ most precious information and the repository of all the details of missions that had been accomplished before.
It was instructional, if a bit dry, to see how agents in the field worked, and I had nothing better to do.
As I read about a particularly interesting case from a mine takeover on a Deadlands planet called Arcadia, I was approached by another Tiro named Max Shelton. We weren’t that far apart in age—I estimated him to be maybe a year younger than me. Like myself, he had a slight frame, though he had yet to hit his own growth spurt.
Max was a Greenie, having only been around for fifty or so days, and I watched his approach with curiosity. As he drew near, I could see from the uncertain gait and hesitant look that he intended to ask a favor.
I waved, a gesture that always seemed superfluous before but that I now understood was a sign of friendliness. “Tiro Shelton, what brings you to my corner of nowhere?”
He laughed nervously at my bad joke as though he was trying to decide if I could be trusted. “I heard you were the person to talk to about… discrepancies?”
When Shelton spoke, I couldn’t help but like the sound of his voice. It was warm and had a kind of lilting drawl to it that reminded me of a cartoon I’d seen once in which farmers had to ward off a swarm of aliens.
“That depends on the discrepancy,” I told him, forcing myself to refocus.
The Tiro nodded, his face a fascinating study of moving mental gears as he regarded me before making his decision.
“I think my Vetus is doing something… illegal.” He said the last word as a whisper, as though afraid someone might hear.
Shelton’s wariness made sense now. Despite my status as an oddball, I’d gained a reputation for rooting out inconsistencies and falsehoods, both in people and data. This knowledge made most of my fellow Tiros avoid me. Still, that hadn’t stopped them from approaching me with their various problems, though I only helped when inaction outweighed the possible consequences. His accusation was a serious one and not the kind one made lightly.
I watched his body language carefully, checking for any sign of deception, and found none.
I shut off the datapad I’d been reading and made room for him to sit. “I make no promises but will do what I can to assist you, Tiro Shelton.”
He gave me a confused look but sat down.
“What is it?” I asked. “Is something I said unclear?”
“No,” he said, shaking his head. “Look, don’t take this the wrong way, but you sound like an AI.”
Now it was my turn to look confused. “What do you mean?”
It wasn’t the first time I’d heard this, it just always seemed like an inane insult, one I’d ignored.
“We’re supposed to be learning to blend and—no offense—but your accent sticks out like a Sarkonian credit in a Union Station Exchange,” he explained, though not unkindly.
I considered his words and decided they made sense.
“No offense taken. Do you have something to show me?” I’d already noted he had touched a slight bulge in his jacket pocket three times as though subconsciously drawn to it.
“Yes. I know we’re not supposed to take anything from the weapons facility, but I needed proof.” Shelton glanced around the library to make sure we were alone before removing a biometric firearm attachment from his pocket and handing it to me. “I nabbed one from the requisitions bin when Range Master Hogan was fixing another Tiro’s fused weapon.”
I studied the small piece of tech without asking any questions. After a few minutes, I’d come up with a simple solution and handed it back. “I think we might be able to help each other.”
A half hour later, we made our way out of the Red Tower through the sky bridge leading to the central bastion, though it would have been faster to take the lifts down and cross through the courtyard to where the firing gallery sat in a separate building. It would have also been the easiest way to track us, had someone been looking for the missing device. Heading into the central bastion gave me the chance to spot and avoid anyone who might be tailing us.
We entered the terrace and were immediately bombarded by noise. Many area
s of the sprawling compound were quiet, bordering on sites of religious contemplation, but the terrace acted as a sort of common area where everyone went to blow off steam. I found myself almost allergic to the chaos of the place and its many vices. Here, Tiro and Vetus could—for a price—find a drink, browse the many shops, or try one of the various food selections located the next level down.
Alara was one of the Union’s best kept secrets, and as such didn’t appear on any star map. Which made sense—if our many enemies knew where to find a large population of Constables, we’d be under constant attack. That meant the Red Tower and all its inhabitants were completely isolated from the rest of the galaxy. All travel to the planet was done in secret, and anyone who wasn’t a fully-fledged Constable completed the trip in a darkened room with no windows or access to the gal-net.
I took a test whiff of the air. I could recognize six distinct dishes and their synthetic variants local to five planets. From this information I was able to deduce our approximate location, and I filed the data away for later use.
Max and I headed for the autoslide that would take us the rest of the way to the facility housing all of the weapons and a large firing range for training. After my fellow Tiro’s comments about me back in the Red Keep, I observed the individuals on the terrace with marked interest. It had never occurred to me that observing the throng of Tiros around me might be a learning experience in itself.
I studied their interactions with each other and the way some of them moved through the crowd of people with remarkable ease. It reminded me of Cams Maevik, the psychometrician from Quintell, and how I’d barely been able to keep up with her. Now I tried my hand at it and began to thread my way through the crush on the autoslide, twisting and sliding into openings without drawing attention to myself until the foot traffic thinned out.
