The Cowboy of Pinnacle City

by Ferraro, Bretton

  Jon looked down at the flowers he had just kicked. He clenched his fists in anger and let out another, “bah!”

  “Citizen, place your hands behind your head, place yourself on your knees and wait for assistance,” one of the officers demanded.

  Jon reluctantly obeyed the command.

  The two initial officers approached him with their weapons drawn. One officer remained in front of him and kept his weapon pointed straight at him. The other one came up behind him and placed Jon’s wrists in restraints.

  “On your feet, citizen. We thank you for your cooperation. You will now be transported to the nearest detention facility.”

  Jon had the hunch to look back over his shoulder before climbing into the back of the Atlas Grade 2 Enforcement vehicle. When he did, he saw the oafish party member that he had previously encountered standing in the middle of the street, watching and seemingly enjoying what he saw taking place.

  Jon could not resist the urge. He let a big mouthful of spit fly over the back of his shoulder, letting the party member know exactly how he felt.

  “Citizen, you are in violation of jurisdiction code 21 and housing code 23. Spitting is a violation of code 21 and a health hazard under code 23,” the detaining officer announced into Jon’s ear.

  Jon shook his head in disbelief. He took a deep breath and climbed into the back of the Enforcement vehicle.

  It was a long, quiet and painful drive on the way to the detainment center. Other than the chatter that would come over the direct-communication-link, it was a silent drive.

  “So, what’s your name?” asked Jon to the officer.

  The officer said nothing in response.

  Jon shook his head in a sarcastic manner. “Do you say anything other than who violated what code or ordinance?”

  In a seemingly snarky tone, the officer replied, “condescension to an Enforcement officer is in violation of jurisdictional ordinance 137.”

  “Okay, I get it. I’ll just be quiet.”

  Jon rode along with the Enforcement officer for the next twenty minutes, and not a word was spoken or muttered by either of them. He began to let his thoughts take him away from his present predicament. He started thinking about how amazing his drive on the Outband had been – up until his vehicle was confiscated that is. He spent so much time and effort acquiring that convertible, just so he could feel the wind blowing through his hair. He did it so he could see all the beautiful colors of the fall leaves with his own eyes, and not through the glass of his Grade 1 vehicle. He did it so he could feel the little things in life – for a change.

  Was it worth it? Maybe, maybe not. He was about to find out just how much trouble he was in.

  They had made their way through the maze of the suburbs and onto the Capital Highway that not only lead to the center of Pinnacle City, but also was a direct road to the Capitol itself.

  Jon saw the same-old familiar sights; those cold, towering skyscrapers at the center of the city, the giant banner of the Capital emblem, across the length of one of the buildings. Behind the star, on the same banner, was an artistic portrait of the leading party member, seemingly looking onward to the sky. It was a portrayal of Premier Lawrence, the leader of the party and the entire country.

  The banner was found on each side of the towering building at the center of the city – so everybody could see it. It was a constant reminder of the man who was in charge. No matter where you found yourself in the city, there he was, looking onward.

  The silence was abruptly broken by a link from dispatch. A lady appeared on the projection screen of the dashboard. She was quite attractive, surprisingly. She wasn’t adorned with the bionic-cyborg attire that all the other officers had on. She was wearing a white button shirt with a black tie and a black jacket. Her blonde hair was pulled back into a ponytail, and her voice was most pleasant.

  “Attention Enforcement officer 17,” she told the officer who was driving Jon, “We have a disturbance call in section 5 just ahead of your present location.”

  “Cite the disturbance please, dispatch. I am currently transporting an inhabitant” the officer replied.

  “An inhabitant?” Jon thought to himself. For all the warmth they tried to apply to all of their little terms, they were awfully cold and meaningless.

  The pretty voice came back, “We have a narcotics delinquent causing a disturbance. We suspect class-b drugs to be present in his system.”

  “Officer 17 on the scene,” he replied as they came to the scene of the apparent crime.

  The officer slammed on the brakes and fled from the operator’s seat.

  “Citizen!...” his voice trailed off as he ran after the suspected offender.

  Jon sat there in the back of the Enforcement vehicle with a bit of a smirk on his face , not really sure what to do, or even what he could do. He found himself getting lost in thought when the door on the opposite side of the vehicle opened-up and he heard a struggle.

  The officer had found his perp and was escorting him to the back of the vehicle, next to Jon. The man was hurled into the backseat and the door was sealed shut behind him. The officer climbed back into the vehicle and began his drive to the detention center once more.

  The man, who had un-kept and wily hair going in every direction, and dirty, disheveled clothing, sat upright, leaned forward slightly and stared straight at Jon with his mouth slightly agape.

  Jon awkwardly looked at the man for a moment. He then turned his head back to the window as soon as he realized the man was not going to look anywhere else other than directly at him. Feeling an enormous sense of discomfort, Jon looked over at the man one more time and gave an awkward smile.

  “What are you in for?” the man nearly shouted while a bit of spit found its way onto Jon’s face.

  Jon was not pleased. He bit down and held his tongue. “I’m just along for the ride, guy.”

  The man, who clearly had class-b drugs flowing through his system disregarded Jon’s answer and went about staring in other directions.

  After a few minutes they had reached the base of the ominous skyline. Even in the late afternoon with the sun still shining, it felt like it was evening and becoming time to retire. Here in this city, you were always in the shadow of something larger than yourself. Late afternoon felt like the evening, the evening felt like the night, and the night felt like it was the black void of space.

  Jon wasn’t sure where they were going. The Enforcement Center was on the other side of downtown, and they appeared to be heading anywhere but. As the car seemed to have reached its destination, Jon was perplexed. He had been down this street, K Street, a thousand times. He had never noticed anything such as a detainment facility. Where were they headed?

  They pulled up towards what looked to be a ritzy office building. It had floor-to-ceiling windows. Men and women in business attire were coming and going. They pulled alongside the building and came to a gate where a man in a suit was standing guard.

  Now it made sense. The party made sure nobody knew this facility was here. That is to say if you had never been one of its residents.

  The suited man opened the gate, and they went down a ramp underneath the building into a parking lot below. The Grade 2 vehicle came up to a set of steel doors. At the doors were four Enforcement officers, waiting for the two offenders.

  “So you’re actually taking me to jail?” Jon asked the officer. He received no reply. “Come on. Am I really going to jail?”

  “All violators must be detained,” the officer finally replied.

  The four officers, two on each side of the car, opened the doors and escorted the two men out of the vehicle and through the steel doors. They walked down an empty corridor to another set of gates where two more guards stood at attention. They entered through the gates and into a small reception area.

  At a desk just passed the gates sat a lovely brunette. She was dressed with the same attire as the girl operating dispatch.

  “Surrender all encrypted data,” s
he said without hesitation.

  Jon looked at his compatriot in restraints. The man stared blindly in front of himself, and gave no response. Jon then lifted up his wrists which were bound together, presenting his forearm to the lady at the desk.

  She scanned his arm and took his data. A guard came over and forcibly raised the other man’s arm to retrieve his data.

  “If you gentlemen would take a seat, we will begin processing you momentarily,” she said.

  “Gentlemen?” Jon asked her with a curious brow.

  She was not pleased at his question.

  He put his bound arms back into the air, as if to beg her forgiveness.

  He sat down next to the man accused of class-b drugs.

  “So far, this isn’t so bad,” Jon, said to him. Again, the man stared blindly in front of himself with his mouth agape and his hair standing in every direction. “Well that’s what I was going to say,” and he followed it up with a bit of a chuckle as if he was trying to amuse himself. He looked at the receptionist with a smile.

  She was still not pleased.

  A loud snap came from the steel doors behind the receptionist as they unlocked and opened. Two officers came storming out with batons in hand.

  “Citizen, Jonathan Ballard, stand!” they ordered.

  Jon rose quickly to his feet. Whatever light heartedness there was about this situation began to melt away, and he began to feel the weight of what exactly he was in for, here underground, underneath a ritzy office building, in a detention facility with steel doors.

  “Prepare for procedure,” they barked.

  He straightened his back and raised his arms and he just could not help himself, “I’m already locked up, gentlemen. Are you going to cuff me again?”

  His question was met with a prompt baton tip being jammed into the top of his gut. He fell forward, tried to let out a cry of pain but there was no air in his lungs to enable a single syllable of sound to escape.

  Each officer grabbed him by his shoulders and began to drag him through the entrance of the steel doors. He gave one last look to the receptionist. This time she did return with a smile, it just wasn’t the smile that Jon was hoping for.

  The guards dragged him down another corridor. This time it had unmarked doors every ten feet or so. The lighting was dim, and it seemed to be intentional instead of overlooked.

  The officers abruptly turned to their left, swung one of the doors open and dragged Jon inside. They sat him in the nearest chair in front of a brown, rectangular desk. There was nothing in the room other than two chairs and the desk. The room was a dingy green color. After being taken aback by the emptiness of the room, Jon noticed there were not even cameras present.

  This wasn’t an interrogation room. An interrogation implies that the interviewer has to cleverly trick a person into answering questions. This was a room designed to get immediate answers. Jon already felt the panic of who he was going to find sitting in the vacant chair across from him.

  The officers had been gone from the room for some time now and there Jon sat, alone. He stood up and began pacing back and forth around the small room. It seemed they meant to torment him with his thoughts. Or perhaps this was his cell, and they neglected to tell him. Either way he could feel the panic-stricken, shaking of anxiety taking hold.

  What was he in for?

  After another several silent moments, he heard the snapping noise once more. The door had unlocked and began to swing open.

  In walked a man of about the same height but again with a gut that was pushing the limits of the durability of his belt. His hair was brown with a hint of red. He had on the standard green, but he was certainly not a low-level officer. His left chest was adorned with medals and triumphs earned on behalf of Capital City.

  His name badge, under the capital emblem, read, “Greenwald.”

  “Please, have a seat,” he politely said to Jon while motioning him to sit down. He spoke with a faint accent, suggesting that he was merely stationed here in Pinnacle City.

  Jon took his seat. Across from him apparently sat one of the most powerful men in the party.

  “I just wanted to go for a pleasure drive, Officer Greenwald,” Jon said to the man with a tone of disbelief in his voice.

  Greenwald looked up and gave him a smile. He then pulled out a thin binder and reached inside. He pulled out a piece of e-paper. It was like a thin sheet of plastic, but it could send and receive digital bits of information like it was a computer. He sat for a moment, scrolling through information. Then he spoke.

  “It’s General Greenwald and it looks like you had quite the day today.” He looked up and gave Jon another smile. “Are you a trouble-maker or an agitator?” he asked.

  Jon, looking puzzled and becoming more stricken with fear replied, “I, um… I am neither, sir.”

  “It says here you committed six violations today, and you now have a warning on your encrypted data – a warning that will be difficult to get rid of at this point.”

  Jon said nothing in response.

  “You work at the repurposing facility, the very facility where your vehicle was sent. Is it safe to assume that the necessary adjustments to your vehicle won’t be corrected – or at least corrected as they ought to be?”

  Jon shrugged his shoulders. The general could see right through him it seemed. “I… of course I was,” he was cut off before he could stumble on.

  “You have brains Mr. Ballard, but you have no direction.”

  “I was just trying to go for a drive,” Jon stated while nodding his head.

  Greenwald wasn’t moved by his plea. “Violating criminal code 17 is a class-b offense and could end up costing you one year in the facility. A violation of six statutes in one day could end up costing you thirty.”

  Jon could be heard swallowing, “I was just trying to get to the station.”

  “Of course you were.” Greenwald looked down to the paper and began scrolling through more information. “I’m in a good mood today Mr. Ballard, so I am going to give you a choice. I won’t hold you to thirty years for petty offenses. Though I would be curious to know how you got your hands on a modified Atlas vehicle without anybody knowing – or reporting it. You can go home right now, but all of this will be on your data file. You’ll likely lose your job and be kicked out of your living quarters on E Street.”

  “What’s my second option?”

  “You’re a smart fellow. I like smart fellows. Right now, we are holding enrollment for new party members.”

  Again, Jon made a long and loud swallow. He was familiar with the way the party worked. Instead of locking people like himself in a cell forever, they would often recruit them to join their ranks. It was a form of bribery. He would get to taste the life of plenty and would ultimately end up being a voice on behalf of the party, rather than against it.

  “You can go home right now a free man with an uncorrupted data file. You would maintain your residence on E Street. You would keep your current employment status. I think you could quickly move up the ranks and find yourself as a resident of Desporia rather than as a trespasser.”

  Jon looked down at the e-paper. Then he looked back up at Greenwald.

  “Well, Mr. Ballard, what do you say?” After he spoke, Greenwald slid an open box with the party pin presented inside, the traditional lightning bolt through the star.

  2

  A NEW MEMBER

  HE SAT IN A ROOM WITH BROWN WOOD PANELING. In front of him was a thick wood desk, the same color as the surrounding walls. On the desk sat a mirror. It was a rather tall mirror to be sitting on top of a desk. Jon sat on the chair in front of the desk with his arms on the armrests. He sat, lurched, with his head slightly stooping forward. He stared at himself in the mirror, rarely taking the time to blink. A cold sweat came over him. Like the kind he got when he awoke in the middle of a nightmare. He couldn’t stop staring at the new apparel that now adorned his body. It was the standard military green. It was plain and with not much to it.
Under his coat was a tan shirt with a tie of the same color. All that was on his chest was the Capital emblem with his last name underneath on the right pocket, and one small, square, baby blue pin that signified his new arrival into the guard.

  “You just had to go for a drive, didn’t you?” He began harassing himself in the mirror. “Just how stupid are you? Pretty stupid if you ask me. “Now if you screw up, you just go away. Congratulations.”

  Suddenly Jon could feel his stomach rising to his throat. He leaped forward and put his head over the desk. He let out a loud hurl as he began vomiting all over the surface of the desk.

  “Now that’s just great,” he muttered as he scurried to clean the mess left around his mouth.

  Before he could think about cleaning the mess he had made, the door behind him came flying open, and the dim light from the hall flooded into the doorway. Three silhouettes came into view. Two of them entered with the third lingering behind.

  They were two Enforcement Personnel. They both moved to each side of the door and turned back to face each other. The third figure began moving into view. It was Greenwald. He came in, looked at the vomit left behind on the desk and then looked up at Jon, who wasn’t quite sure what it was he should be doing.

  “I was nervous my first day too.” Greenwald said to Jon.

  Jon, looking a bit shocked that the officer was so calm and collected replied, “Is, is that right, sir?”

  “I mean, I didn’t vomit all over the place, but…” he didn’t finish his thought before he began a new one. “Welcome to the Capital Guard of the Premiere. You are officially a party member. If you will, recite the party creed.”

  For a moment, nothing came to mind. Jon panicked as he struggled to remember the line that had been recited repeatedly throughout his lifetime, the line he was forced to recite just hours ago. “I, I uh, ummm, oh – the future is distant. The past is past. Here in the present, we will outlast.” He let a bit of a smile appear on his face. He was just pleased that he could remember under the current circumstances.

  The smile on Greenwald’s face was absent this time around. Instead it was replaced with a look of inquisitiveness. He stared straight at Jon and then slowly pulled his lower lip back into his mouth and bit down for just a moment.