The Dark Intercept

by Julia Keller

  “There has to be a way,” Reznik said. “A way to figure out their identities. Which will help us find out where they’ve taken Violet’s dad.”

  Silence reigned over the cubicle once more.

  Violet snapped her fingers. The sound wasn’t loud, but it was so sudden that Reznik flinched.

  “Hey,” she said. She turned quickly to Shura. “Some of your mom’s clients—they’re against the Intercept, right?”

  Shura nodded. “Yeah. That’s why I think they’re the ones threatening her. Because they oppose it. Not all of them—just a few. They may even be the ones who attacked her. They wanted her to join them. Work with them. Get something for them during her trips to Old Earth. I don’t know what it was—my parents never discussed it when I could hear—but my mom wouldn’t do it.”

  Violet looked at Reznik. He had caught on to her line of inquiry, and now he resembled a kitten who’d just been scratched in his favorite spot.

  Callahan, too, was nodding. “I think I see what you’re getting at, Violet,” she said. “One of Anna Lu’s clients might have some information about the Rebels.”

  “Okay,” Shura said. “I’ll call her at the hospital. She’s doing so much better now. I can get the names of immigrants. The ones who asked for help.” She gave Callahan a sideways glance. “But if you don’t mind, I’m going to tell her that this is about finding President Crowley. Not about helping the police. She’s not a fan.”

  Callahan shrugged. “Not many people are. Until they need us.”

  * * *

  Marvel Breckinridge. Roger Rodale. Piers Ostrum.

  Those were the names that Anna Lu supplied.

  By the time Shura clicked off her console call, Reznik had already pulled up the files of Breckinridge, Rodale, and Ostrum. He started to type in another command, but hesitated. He dropped his hands into his lap.

  “Chief Callahan,” he said. He voice was oddly stilted.

  “Yeah?” she said.

  “Requesting your permission under the Emergency Police Surveillance Act to access the Intercept files of three civilians for whom we have no current evidence that they have committed—or are about to commit—a criminal act.”

  Violet understood. Accessing an Intercept file with no crime actively under way was a serious offense. Even in these circumstances, when they were working as fast as they possibly could to find and free her father, Reznik needed to follow the rules.

  Ogden Crowley would understand, too, Violet knew. Because he’d written them.

  A police supervisor could override the directive. Callahan, who didn’t like formalities, gave Reznik a frown and an impatient wave. “Yeah, yeah, whatever—of course,” she declared. “Just do it. Go on. Figure out which one’s got the best motive to join up with the Rebels—who hates New Earth and all it stands for.”

  Reznik nodded. His hands returned to the keyboard. With a speed that always impressed Violet—he had a great feel for his computer, an intuitive understanding, as if he and his computer were twins separated at birth who’d been reunited during Reznik’s Intercept training—he pulled up the first image, an image drawn from Rodale’s memory file and reconstituted by the Intercept:

  The ID photo showed that Rodale was a heavy-faced, middle-aged man who had immigrated from Old Earth last year. In his feed, a much younger Rodale watches an elderly aunt die. The shriveled old woman lies upon a narrow bed. She is barely able to draw breath in and out. Rodale’s sobs are copious and loud. At one point he lifts his head and cries out, “Why, God? Why are you taking her?”

  Reznik flipped a switch. The image disappeared.

  “No motive,” Reznik explained over his shoulder to the four people hunched around him. “He might hate the Intercept, but it has nothing to do with New Earth. She died of natural causes.”

  Next he pulled up Ostrum’s feed. The ID photo showed a bald, spindly, shifty-looking man, and when the Intercept unleashed the images of Ostrum’s most excruciating emotional pain, Callahan snickered.

  Ostrum sits at a table with three other bald, spindly, shifty-looking men, each of whom has a sloppy pile of poker chips and a shiny fan of playing cards spread in front of him. It is clear that Ostrum has just lost a great deal of money. The others look sly and elated.

  “Just imagine,” said Callahan, her voice flecked with sarcasm, “having to live with the memory of the worst poker hand of your life. Kind of amazing the poor bum hasn’t killed himself by now. Okay, next.”

  Now Breckinridge’s feed arrived on the screen, fresh from its slot in the woman’s Intercept file, where it had been waiting since it was first collected. Before he punched the key to roll the feed, Reznik gave them the woman’s background. “Thirty-two years old,” he said. “Allowed entry to New Earth six months ago on a hardship visa. Anna Lu helped her get settled in Franklinton.”

  According to her ID photo Breckinridge was large and stolid, with a mass of crinkly brown hair and an unpleasant facial expression, a sort of pinched scowl. With a couple of keystrokes, Reznik accessed her Intercept file:

  Breckinridge is arguing with a cop. This is Old Earth. You can tell by the withered trees, the gray, low-hanging sky, and the face of the cop, etched deeply with vertical lines. The color has leeched out of that face, just as it eventually will drain away from virtually everything on Old Earth, leaving only husks and rinds.

  Marvel Breckinridge is howling. She is shrieking. She repeatedly thrusts something at the cop—a small bundle wrapped in cloth, about the size of a loaf of bread—but he refuses to take it. His hands, both of them, stay fixed on his slab gun. He looks young and uncertain.

  Her crying is louder now. She keeps trying to hand him the bundle. He still won’t take it. He stands there, blinking and stiff. The woman begins to sway. She says, “Please. She’s sick. My baby’s so sick—if you could just take her to New Earth. Please. The doctors there—they can help her. They can save her. I don’t need to go. I’ll stay here. But just take my baby—please, please.”

  The cop finally speaks: “I can’t, lady. There are rules. Unless you have immigration papers, I’m not allowed to—”

  The woman cuts him off with a shriek: “YOU HAVE TO TAKE MY BABY! PLEASE, OH, PLEASE!”

  The cop says, “I’m just here to insert Intercept chips, lady. That’s all. I can’t come back with a baby. Much less a sick one. My supervisor, Officer Stark, would suspend me.”

  She tries again to make him accept the bundle. In the confusion, she drops the bundle into the dirt. The cop quickly kneels down to check on the child. He unwraps the cloth. He discovers a ghastly, rotting corpse. The child has been dead for months. Missip Fever, it seems, judging by the faint orange color on the last intact scrap of skin.

  “Take her,” the woman begs. “Take her to a New Earth doctor. They can fix her there. They can do anything on New Earth. I know they can make her well. If only they will try. If my baby dies now, it’s their fault. It’s the fault of New Earth.”

  The five people in the cubicle were silent as Reznik clicked out of the feed. For half a second, before the wriggling orange algorithms returned, the screen was blank.

  Callahan was the first to speak. “I think we have a winner,” she said grimly.

  28

  Little Girl Lost

  It was very late now—well past midnight—but they found Marvel Breckinridge sitting at the dinette in her small apartment. The place was a plain white box, with one tiny plant on the windowsill.

  “I brought that plant up from Old Earth,” she said proudly, in an eerie singsong voice. The plant was not thriving. Its fallen leaves made a sad little circle around the pot.

  Callahan’s team had punched in the front door and then moved quickly into the kitchen. Violet was right behind them. The chief had agreed to let her come along.

  Between cupped hands Breckinridge held a picture of a baby, a pretty, blond-haired child with blue eyes and a sweet smile.

  The woman didn’t stir, even when all those pairs of h
eavy boots crashed in.

  They jammed around her, firearms at the ready. Callahan led the way. She had to say Breckinridge’s name three times before the woman looked up at them.

  “Yes?” she said. There were cops on all sides of her, ready for her to make a move. She didn’t seem at all flustered by their presence. Perhaps she wasn’t even aware of it.

  Callahan stood across the table.

  “We know you work with the Rebels of Light,” the chief declared. “And we need to know where they’re holding Ogden Crowley.”

  Breckinridge smiled. She seemed to be addressing Callahan but she wouldn’t make eye contact. “I don’t have the slightest idea what you’re talking about.”

  Callahan hitched a thumb into her gun belt. “Don’t do this, lady. Don’t force our hand. We know you’ve been helping them. Give us a location.”

  “All I can say, Officer, is that I believe you’ve made a mistake.” The whimsical smile again.

  When Callahan was angry, she had the kind of voice that didn’t need a bullhorn. “Tell us where the Rebels are.”

  Breckinridge continued to smile. She still held the picture in her hands.

  “We have the Intercept,” Callahan added. “And your friends aren’t here to help you. We realize that the Rebels have found some way to get around it—but they’re not here now. This is your last chance to cooperate.” She gestured toward the picture. “You know what we can do.”

  For the first time, a look of concern crossed Breckinridge’s face.

  “You wouldn’t,” she said. Her eyes widened as they finally met up with Callahan’s. “You wouldn’t.”

  “I most certainly would.” Callahan touched her console. “Reznik,” she said, “we’re ready over here. Deploy the Intercept.”

  Back in Protocol Hall, Violet knew, Reznik was feeding Marvel Breckinridge’s coordinates into the Intercept. She synced her console to the same coordinates.

  The feed was horrific to watch.

  In seconds, Breckinridge began to spasm. Her body shook. Drool flooded her chin. Her eyes grew wild and then they rolled back in her head so that only the whites were showing.

  In her mind, her baby is propped up in the bed. There are no pillows, so her mother has used old coats, bags, rags, wadded-up paper—anything to help the child stay upright. For some reason, being upright helps with the pain.

  The child’s skin is orange. A terrible color. The color of death.

  The baby cries. She cries silently. Her mother realizes that she’s crying not so much for what is happening to her now, but for what will never happen at all. Her child will not get any older. She will never grow up. She will always be this age. She will always be propped up in a makeshift bed in a sad little house in a decaying city under a sullen gray sky in a forgotten world.

  And then, before her mother has a chance to say one more word to her, just one tiny word, she is gone. The child’s head slumps to the side. Her body relaxes and starts to tilt. Her mother screams and cries.

  The image repeats itself, only stronger this time.

  Her baby is propped up in the bed. There are no pillows, so her mother has used old coats, bags, rags, wadded-up paper—anything to help the child stay upright. For some reason, being upright helps with the pain.

  The child’s skin is orange.

  The mother is living the memory of her daughter’s death all over again. The Intercept owns this moment now, and will continue to deploy it, sending it back into the mother’s brain repeatedly.

  She will keep living the pain all over again, and over and over again after that, and over and over and …

  “No,” Breckinridge cried. “No, no.” She finally managed to stop her hands from shaking. “Not again. I can’t stand it. Tell them to stop. Please.”

  “Location,” Callahan said coldly.

  Breckinridge rattled off an address in Mendeleev Crossing. Callahan nodded. “If you’re lying,” she said, her voice as taut as her face, “it’ll be worse next time. I won’t shut it down so quickly. You’ll suffer more. I promise you that.” She touched her console. “Reznik, stop the intervention for now. But keep the coordinates handy, okay?”

  If Callahan had had the time, she could have gotten more information out of this woman. Violet was absolutely sure of that. She might very well have found out how the Rebels were thwarting the Intercept. At the very least, she could have found out what it was that the Rebels sought down on Old Earth, and sought so desperately that they had threatened Anna Lu’s life to get it.

  But first they had to find Ogden Crowley. Who knew what the Rebels were doing to him at this very moment? His will might be strong, but his body wasn’t. He was not a young man.

  Callahan looked down at Breckinridge. The picture of the child had slipped out of the woman’s grasp. It rested on the tabletop. Callahan had no sympathy for traitors. She wanted to twist the knife one more time. She wanted to make this traitor pay—even beyond the prison sentence Breckinridge would receive for conspiring against the Intercept.

  “Cute kid,” Callahan said. “Shame about what happened to her. Oh well.” She signaled to Violet that they were ready to go. It was time to find Ogden Crowley and save New Earth.

  29

  Last Rebel Standing

  They approached the dark, run-down building with slab guns drawn and nerves on high alert. The streets were deserted, swept clean of people by Callahan’s order. There was a stillness in the night air; the slight trembling of the ground beneath their feet seemed more pronounced than ever, as if the Intercept wanted to remind them of its central position in this story. In all the stories.

  “Here?” Garrison said, keeping her voice low. She was the chief’s top lieutenant and she seemed incredulous as she beheld the shabby storefront wedged between two skyscrapers. It was a runt, hiding out amid giants. “In this dump? This is where the Rebels meet?”

  “I guess you’d prefer a sign out front, right?” Callahan shot back. “Something like, ‘Rebels Meeting Here Tonight. Bring a Friend and a Dish to Share.’”

  Violet snickered, which caused Garrison to give her a prolonged scowl. Fine, Violet thought. I don’t like you and you don’t like me. So it’s mutual. Let’s move on. Allison Garrison had short blond hair and hard green eyes that unnerved Violet; she had heard Danny describe her as the kind of cop who secretly enjoyed watching people suffer.

  She and Garrison had clashed during the ride here in the chief’s car. Violet wanted to join the raid, but Garrison argued that she was a liability. Callahan sided with Violet, pointing out that they might need her to identify her captors.

  “This is definitely it,” Danny said. He had called Reznik on his console and requested a heat-signature check on the address. Sure enough, there was evidence of multiple people inside.

  Garrison motioned to her team. They divided into two units and surrounded the building on both sides. Callahan and Danny would make the initial entry from the front, with another unit right behind them. A fourth unit had already taken up positions in the rear. A sharpshooter unit was stationed across the street.

  The Rebels could very well be waiting just inside the door, with slab guns ready.

  “On my signal,” Callahan said. “Violet, stay back. If something happens to you, I don’t want to be the one to tell your father.”

  “Good to know you care, Chief,” Violet muttered back. She felt like an honorary cop tonight, and figured she might as well sound like one, heavy on the sarcasm.

  Callahan and Danny crouched side by side under the blackened window. They double-checked their weapons.

  Callahan gave a silent three-count with her fingers—one, two, THREE—and then she and Danny sprang up and shouldered their way through the door.

  The sizzle and crack of a slab gun discharge came at them with a desperate fury. Danny and Callahan rushed in low and fast, eluding the initial barrage. The inside was dark, but every few seconds, a red tracer of slab gun fire illuminated the space. It was a square room
with nothing in it—except for the shooter, a black-hooded figure down on one knee, holding his slab gun with both hands and firing indiscriminately.

  Danny flew at the shooter, knocking him sideways. They rolled over and over and over, the shooter clawing at Danny’s face, kicking at him. Danny was stronger, however, and he pinned the man’s arms.

  Callahan quickly lit a series of flares. By the light of them she found the shooter’s weapon, jarred loose during the skirmish. She secured it. The unit that entered right behind them was spreading out in front of a door that led to yet another room.

  “Shields up,” Callahan reminded her colleagues. She turned to Danny, who was just rising, tying the shooter’s hands behind his back. “Stay here with the prisoner.”

  Danny nodded. He ripped off the squirming man’s black mask—and discovered that this wasn’t a man at all. It was a young woman. Her face was twisted with hate, her mouth a thin line of pure defiance.

  Another barrage of cracks and whooshing sounds and small explosions ripped through the building as the officers were met by more slab gun fire. From her position across the street Violet watched the action by the light of the flares. She heard shouts and screams. She heard Callahan yelling, “There he is!” And she heard a snarling mess of other voices.

  It was over quickly. One by one, the Rebels were led out by the officers, hands tied behind their backs, masks ripped off. Violet watched as five went by. There had to be more of them, right? Of course there were. They just weren’t here in this building.

  She waited. In another few seconds Ogden Crowley himself emerged from the back room. He was flanked by two police officers who were trying their best to assist him. Her father kept pulling away from them, angry and prideful. He wanted to walk on his own, even though his damaged leg made it difficult. He looked wretched. His face had aged a hundred years in just the past few hours, or so it seemed to Violet. The wrinkles had multiplied. The crevices cut deeper. The skin under his eyes was dark and loose. He was bent over, his back curved like a shepherd’s hook. He didn’t acknowledge Danny as he lurched past him, muttering, spent.