“I feel compelled by God to act. The law won’t get repealed if we all sit back and do nothing,” he countered.
“Go forth in peace, to love and serve the Lord. In peace, Mark,” she replied.
“Peace, you say? Come on, Vicki. Who’s more peaceful than me?”
14
“ARRIVING AT DESTINATION” the car said as it came to a stop on the curb. Susan looked out the window and saw the Rancho Bernardo Police Department building. She had been here often on official NSA business, where she was the professional, prepared, well-spoken federal agent. Unlike now, where she worried if her frazzled mind could string together coherent sentences.
There was no time to prepare. The Police Chief was standing at the curb.
“Susan, how are you?” Chief Lori said as she opened the door.
“Lori, thank you. You didn’t need to come outside.”
“Nonsense. My watch told me you were pulling up. I literally walked outside two seconds ago. No problem at all. It is always an honor to have the NSA stop by. How can we help you?”
Susan climbed out of the car, which sped off immediately to pick up its next passenger. She straightened her suit jacket, hoping that the physical act of straightening would somehow translate to her mental state.
Pull it together, she told herself.
“Lori, there was a case yesterday that originated from the middle school. A Chinese family hiding a male in their home.”
“Yes, I know a bit of the case. Is that why you’re here? I can get you with the agents who handled the raid and the arrest. However, the lead agent is in the field right now.”
The two women walked into the precinct while they talked. Lori guided Susan into her office where a comfortable chair sat in front of the desk. She closed the door.
“Is the family still here at the station?” Susan asked.
“Yes, the women are in custody here, in a private cell with the girl. The father is in an isolation chamber.”
“Why would they come here with a man? I’ve been thinking about this case all night.”
“May I ask, Susan, why the NSA cares about this case?”
“The girl has class with my daughter, Sofia.”
“That must have been traumatic for her. So, I’m confused. Is this not NSA business?”
“Well…” Susan stammered. “The NSA cares about any clues as to how the smuggling occurred and if any underground railroads were used. But I’m wondering if something else is happening here. I’m trying to get my head around why a Chinese man would take the risk.”
“Well, he can’t stay in China. They’re harder on male crime than we are.”
“Right,” said Susan. “But why wouldn’t he go to some country in South America where he wouldn’t be an illegal immigrant? If he had the money to get smuggled, he would have the money to buy citizenship in South America.”
“I don’t know enough about the case to answer that. You are welcome to talk with the agents and interview the family, if you want.”
“That would be great.”
They exchanged pleasantries and Lori introduced Susan to one of the agents, who gave her access to the video interviews and documented reports. After 45 minutes of reviewing highlights from the videos, Susan was sitting in a room with the father and an computing device used for translation. “Take as much time as you need,” the agent told Susan as she closed the door.
The man was in shackles and looked afraid. Susan began the interview, with the translation device held between her and the man. Every word she said in English came out in Mandarin Chinese and every word he said in Chinese was transmitted in her direction in English. There was about a fifteen second lag in the translation so the software could resolve context and other language subtleties.
“My name is Susan,” she started. “I would like to help you.”
The man waited for the translation and then looked surprised. After considering her words, he nodded and spoke Chinese. “I would appreciate any help” the translator said.
“According to our laws, you will be put to death. But perhaps there is another way. Perhaps you and your family could go to Venezuela? How much do you know about South America?”
The man perked up. There was a glimmer in his eye. “I would desperately like to be reunited with my family and for us to go to South America,” he said.
“Can I ask why you didn’t go from China to South America first? Why did you come to the USA?”
“My mother lived in San Diego and she was sick. She wouldn’t move to South America, and she couldn’t easily travel alone. We came to be with her before she passed away. We heard that the US wouldn’t bother any men who stayed in the shadows. When I saw that little girl, I knew that there would be trouble, but I had no other place to stay. I was scared that if I left the house, I would be spotted by a surveillance camera and captured. I thought that if I stayed home and didn’t bother anyone, then the US would leave us alone.”
This man risked his life to be with his mother, Susan thought.
“Why did you let your daughter have a play date? Wasn’t that risky?”
“We didn’t let her. We would never let her, and she became angry about it. She said that she couldn’t have any friends and that her childhood was being ruined. So, she decided to bring the girl home from school with her one day. She didn’t ask us, so I wasn’t hidden.”
The man began weeping. The translator continued, “Now she feels terrible about it, and has stopped talking and eating since this happened. She is just a little girl and doesn’t understand. When she was growing up in China, there were still fathers in the home, so this is a cultural shock to her. We should never have sent her to the school.”
“You said that you didn’t have anywhere to go, but what about the underground railroad. How were you smuggled here?”
“I don’t know anything about an underground railroad. My family came on planes with all the legal paperwork. That is why Song started school - we were notified that every girl her age had to attend school. I came over separately. I came from Guatemala to Mexico and into San Diego inside a truck carrying strawberries. I had to see my mother. They told me she was about to die. I came to spend the last few months with her. Then we were leaving. I would leave first for Mexico and the family would come when they could. We were going to Peru. With your help, maybe we can still go to Peru.”
Susan looked at her phone. She had an application installed that listened to voice patterns and watched body gestures to judge how likely it was that a person was telling the truth. The application was about as green as she had ever seen it. This man’s story is real or he is the world’s best liar.
“What can you tell me about the strawberry truck?” she asked.
“I don’t know anything about the truck. I can’t help you with that. They told me to go to a specific location and I went. They said that the truck would pick me up and it did. I got dropped off in a field and the truck drove away. My wife came to pick me up and put me in the trunk of her car.”
“Was there a brand on the strawberry truck? A company name?”
“No, it was an old truck. It was gray and dirty. It didn’t have any letters or markings on it. I don’t know English, so I wouldn’t have been able to read any letters.”
“What about for the return trip? How would you get back to Mexico? Who did you need to talk to?”
After the translation hit him, the man was visibly shaken. “I don’t understand you,” he said.
Susan’s lie detector application went red.
Should I keep asking? This is the link to the UR.
She sighed. “You understand me, sir. I need a name. Who would you contact if you were ready to be smuggled back into Mexico?”
“I don’t know a name. My wife knows, but I beg you not to interrogate her. These people helped us.”
Susan had already read the interview reports from his wife and the answers she had given the police last night to a similar line of question
ing.
“Thank you for your time,” she said.
“Will you help us?” he asked.
“I’ll do what I can.”
TWENTY MINUTES LATER, she was in another automated car, en route to Soldier World. The campus was about 30 minutes away in a city called Carlsbad, north of San Diego. She had ordered lunch to be picked up on the way while she finished up her call with Lori.
“I can’t believe what a softie you are, Susan. I thought all of you NSA types were tough as steel.”
“Tough as carbon nanotubes, when we need to be. But this case is different. That man just wanted to be with his mother on her death bed. I looked it up and they have the money to pay for the deportation. If you send them to Peru, it’s cheaper for the American taxpayer than euthanizing him and deporting the rest of the family to China. His family can pay for all of the transport fees plus the time and materials costs for the police work. It is the fiscally responsible course of action.”
“I just can’t believe this is an NSA request.”
“Well, please… Let’s not bring me or the NSA into it. Can’t you do it with your own authority? The request is for me personally.”
“My boss is always looking for ideas to cut costs, especially when the ideas come from humans and not AI software. Helps us justify our existence, if you know what I mean.”
Susan listened. “So, you’re saying…”
“I’m saying that I’m happy to do this for you, and we’ll keep it our little secret. You don’t want anyone to think that you are weak on illegals.”
“Certainly not. Thank you so much, Lori.”
“Call it a favor. I’ll be asking you to return it soon enough. I have a couple cases over here that could really use some NSA-level intelligence.”
“I won’t forget the favor. And I think it will make my daughter a lot happier. The little things in life, right?”
“You are one surprise after another, Susan. I hope you’re calling from a secure line. I’d hate for a transcript of this to show up on one of your colleagues’ desk.”
They hung up and Susan quickly ordered lunch to pick up on the way. Afterwards, she thought about the Chinese father and his family. She had done something nice for them, a good deed that would dramatically impact their lives.
Too little, too late.
What do you think, Susan? One pardon will offset the all the death?
She considered her past missions and the fatalities. This new project would likely skyrocket her personal body count. Susan didn’t like being responsible for assassinations, but it was part of the job.
Are you trying to build up your good karma bank account, Susan? What a fucking waste of time.
You choose the path, you live with the choices.
It was useless to fight her job. A career with the agency required following the chain of command. And the current leadership in Washington was not afraid to take out the trash.
Clean up the criminal element by any means necessary.
Susan knew her role, her place in the great scheme of things. She had built up a comfortable life for her family. Sofia would have opportunities Susan had never dreamed of. As long as she performed, everything else would take care of itself.
Her phone dinged. She recognized the sound and its meaning. Tapping the button to open the sun roof, Susan saw a delivery drone hovering above the car. It dropped her lunch and flew away. As she opened up the container and smelled the Chinese salad, she caught herself smiling.
I’m not gonna lie. It feels good to help the Mao family.
15
JOEY’S LIFE WASN’T supposed to turn out this way, living in a basement in Dixieville, Virginia, in the shadows of society.
His mother, may she rest in peace, had always let him and everyone around them know how smart her little Joey was.
God bless her, she meant well.
“Joey would be the President one day, just you wait and see,” she would tell the neighborhood. Funny thing is, even Joey knew at a young age that a little fat kid has a hard enough time fitting in without his mother announcing to the world that he is smarter than they are.
He smiled. How he loved that woman. Her heart was in the right place.
Right now, Joey’s heart was not in the right place, but it was where it had to be. This is the long game.
I have to sleep with the enemy for as long as it takes, he thought.
Well, not literally, but the guy I’m looking for will have to sleep with the enemy. Literally.
He had gone through the list in his mind. Of all the worlds likely to contain the ideal escort for Margaret, Support World held the most promise.
Sports World, Soldier World, and Resort World were adrenaline sites. Young bucks start with those worlds and get addicted. If they spend too long there, they change dramatically. Like a powerful drug, these idiots get sucked into a life that only exists digitally, and they are forever incapable of life in the real world.
But a few, very few, have the discipline to balance their VR experiences. Those few tend to congregate on places like Support World, working jobs that emulate real life. They have real conversations with real women every day, helping them out with customer support requests. Real-world problems like their new shoes not arriving on time. Helping the victimized ladies deal with the crushing stress of waiting an extra hour for a delivery. The agonizing pressures caused when a wall screen has a technical problem. Men who work at Support World have chosen to be side by side with real women, where together they face life’s daily traumas.
Some men actually sign up for more hours at Support World than are required. Joey considered this an indicator of a latent desire to spend time with real women. A hunch from a few years ago, it had translated into good business. Some portion of the male population desperately wanted to help women, and Joey intended to profit from it.
God help the poor, misguided suckers.
The problem was, there weren’t many 25-year-old, blonde men that fell into this category. As he scanned the list of avatar profiles he had hacked from the Support World site, logged in under dubious administration privileges, it was a short list. Only twenty blondes, in shape, between the ages of 23 and 28, with blue eyes and above 6 feet tall. Some he could throw off the list immediately, due to IQ scores or the likelihood they would prefer to stay on the grid. But of the remaining candidates, one had the making of greatness.
Where have you been hiding, Mr. Maxime? Why haven’t I seen you here before, my friend?
You might be just what the doctor ordered.
The profile was remarkable. Six foot one, blonde, blue eyes, physically fit, mentally fit…
Twenty-five years old on the dime baby…
Maxime had been adopted from Russia by two loving parents that died in a car crash when he was fourteen. With no immediate family to turn to, he went to the grid ten years ago, one of many young men sent there as part of the FPA. Nothing in his profile indicated that he resented the situation. Surprisingly, he seemed very content. He continued his schooling on the grid and took classes. He got several customer service jobs, most recently in Support World. He dabbled in Resort World and Sports World. Maybe spent a little more time in Soldier World than was healthy. But he worked more hours than most, and all of the hours involved talking to real women.
He’s a real charmer, this guy.
Joey scanned some of his recent conversations. Maxime had an ability to soothe the women he was speaking to. He helped them calm down and get perspective. In no cases did he ever mention the tragedy that had happened to him; somehow he spoke with the customers in ways they could understand and talked them down from their anger over such things as smudge marks on dresses and shoes that didn’t look the same in real life as they did online.
Joey laughed at the idea. Ever since he first read the logs of Support World conversations, he had been amazed. His whole life, he thought women bought these expensive shoes to be attractive for men. Why would they care so much about how
they look in front of other women?
I’ve seen enough. Maxime is perfect for Margaret.
Maxime was perfect for almost any woman. The next question was: would Maxime want to be extracted? Could he be enticed? He seemed to like his life on the grid just fine.
“Hey, De Niro, ya hear me?” Joey said to his wall screen.
An older, Italian male avatar came on the screen. “Fahgettabout it,” the avatar said.
“You ain’t forgettin’ nothin’, wise guy. I got some tasks for ya,” Joey said.
“Whatcha got for me, Joey?”
“Use your AI magic powers and spend some time on this. See this Maxime kid I’m lookin’ at?”
“Yeah, I see him.”
“I wanna break him out of this grid camp he’s in. I need to know what’s likely to motivate this guy?”
“So, the same search I’ve done a thousand times for ya?” De Niro said.
“Yeah. Also, he’s gonna have to knock boots with an older lady. I need to know how big of a problem that might be for him.”
“How much older?” De Niro asked.
“Forty years older.”
“What the fuck?”
“Hey, just be a normal AI for the next few hours and take care of this for me.”
“What else ya got?”
“Like I said, under what conditions might he be interested in an older woman?” Joey asked.
“I heard you already on that one. What else?”
“What kind of grid access would he need to maintain? What does he miss from the real world? You know, how can I entice him to move out to DC with me?”
“DC or Dixieville?” De Niro asked.
“What are you, some kinda wise guy? Yeah, Dixieville, asshole.”
“Just makin’ sure, boss.”
“I’ll be making a snack,” Joey said. “Let me know when you’ve got something good. Spend some time on this. Research at least an hour and analyze at least an hour on top of that.”
Escape The Grid: Volume 1 Page 7
