by D. J. Molles
He felt a tension in his District, in the night, in the movement of these gunship and guntrucks, everyone scrambling around for something, for some reason.
“What the fuck have you got me into now?” Walt whispered to the dark.
***
The place was a small, dark, double-wide trailer out in the middle of nowhere. And the fact that Walt thought it was in the middle of nowhere meant something.
To an urby that spent his or her life in the city, the Agrarian Districts were all the middle of nowhere.
When a grower considered it the middle of nowhere, then it was truly the boondocks.
He’d been to this location before, but prior to that the location had changed twice. They never explained why they changed locations. Perhaps the previous locations had been found out. Or maybe they just switched it up for the sake of obfuscation.
They did not confide in Walt. And he didn’t ask many questions.
He needed the money.
He had a skill that they wanted. And this was at least a bit cleaner than getting his ass kicked for fixing poker games. Cleaner, but the consequences were much higher for what he did now, so that he felt like he was walking a tightrope. He knew he could walk the tightrope, but the consequences if he fell—or was found out—would be death.
Or being disappeared, which was close enough.
Rather die than DTI.
He pulled his truck up to the trailer.
This place was tucked back off the road, at the end of a gravel path nearly a half mile from the road. A single light shown from inside. There was no exterior illumination. An old streetlight sat atop a powerline pole off to the side, but it was overgrown by vines and its bulb was dark and dead.
Walt’s headlights swept across the front of the trailer, and he quickly switched those off.
In the brief flash of Walt’s headlights before he cut them off, he saw a man in a green uniform, standing at the bottom of the front steps.
Walt put his truck into park and killed the engine.
He stepped out. His boots crunched on dirt and dry grass just beginning to come back from winter. The place was overgrown. He supposed they preferred it that way.
He walked in darkness towards the figure on the front steps.
The window with the single yellow light seemed brighter now in the darkness.
A few steps closer and he was before the man at the front steps. He could just barely make out the man’s features in the gloom. The stern face. No smile of greeting. This was all business.
“Walt,” the man said, quietly. “You check your six?”
Walter nodded, shoving his hands in his pockets again. They were cold. Cold from nerves and cold from the wind. “Of course. No tail.”
Sheriff Virgil Honeycutt didn’t look out to the road over Walt’s shoulder to confirm this. Instead, he looked skyward. He held an object in his hand, a monocular, and he raised this to his eye, and then slowly twisted around, scanning the entire sky around them.
A thermal scope.
The drones didn’t give off much heat, but Walt knew their electric motors could make little heat spots in a night sky, particularly on a cool evening like tonight.
After a moment, Virgil lowered the monocular and slid it into a pouch on his side. He still wore his softarmor. The subgun he usually carried on his chest while on duty was not there, but he had a pistol strapped to his leg.
He nodded to Walt. “Alright then. Come on.”
Walt followed him inside the trailer.
When Virgil had the door closed, Walt withdrew his hands from his pockets and almost blew into them, but didn’t want to appear overly-cold, or overly-nervous.
“What the hell did you guys do?” he said under his breath to Virgil.
Virgil locked the door behind them, then turned to Walter with a raised eyebrow.
Walter waved an arm in a nebulous direction. “They’re running around like ants on a kicked nest out there.”
Virgil looked briefly tired. He raised a hand and rested it on Walt’s shoulder, leaning in a bit closer, the way you would with a close friend or family member. “Walter…”
Here we go. Walter clenched his jaw and just barely avoided rolling his eyes. He knew what was coming. He’d heard it before.
“I promised Roy that I’d try to look after you,” Virgil said, evenly. “But if this is getting too much for you, you can always go back to the casinos.”
Virgil knew damn well that Walt wasn’t allowed within fifty yards of a casino entrance. He’d been banned by three of them, straight up, and the others knew his face.
“We’re fighting a war,” Virgil pressed on. “And wars are dangerous. If you’d rather walk and let the CoAx do their thing, then you’re free to do so. I won’t stop you. But I can’t help you much either. You want the pay, you do the work. Just like with anything else.”
Walt sucked his teeth. “Right. I got it.”
“You walkin’?”
“No.”
“So can we get back to work?”
“Yes.”
“Good.” Virgil gave him an amiable pat on the shoulder. Amiable, but always a bit condescending.
Virgil had been Roy’s friend all through childhood. The two of them, thick as thieves. Walt had been the tag-along, the little brother that insisted on coming along. No matter how many years passed, no matter how the age gap shrunk—now Virgil was thirty-two and Walt was twenty-seven—it would always be big brother and little brother.
“Come on,” Virgil said over his shoulder as he walked out of the entryway and through a rundown living room with no furniture but a single folding chair. Beside the folding chair, choosing to stand, was a man in greens that Walt knew damn well wasn’t one of Virgil’s deputies.
To Walt’s knowledge, all of Virgil’s deputies were loyalists.
The fake deputy nodded to Walt as they passed by.
Walt nodded back. He recognized the man from previous times, previous safe houses. He was one of Virgil’s snatchers. One of Virgil’s tight-knit team that did to the CoAx what they did to the resistance.
Took their people. Snatched them like the bogeyman.
Disappeared them.
Virgil had tried time and time again to get Walt to simply drop out of life. Abandon everything. Poof into nothingness and become one of them. Ghosts that haunted the CoAx. People that existed, but didn’t really exist.
Resistance.
Walt had a skill, and that skill could be useful to them.
But Walt knew it meant leaving everything behind. And he simply wasn’t willing to do that.
He was no loyalist. But his Grandpa Clarence had spoken out, and he’d been disappeared. And his brother had spoken out, and he’d been disappeared, too. Before that, two generations of Baucom men had died in the first outbreaks of this bloody, protracted conflict.
Walt knew the costs. And he didn’t want to pay them.
What he wanted, what he fervently wished for, was to be left alone.
Not loyalist. Not pro-CoAx. Not pro-Fed. Not pro-resistance.
Just pro-Leave-Me-The-Fuck-Alone.
Virgil stopped in the hall that led from the kitchen down to what would be the master bedroom. They stood beside the open door to the laundry room and the back door. There was no washer or dryer unit. Just the plugs, some dust bunnies, and a lonely water tube hanging down to the floor next to an old water stain like a guilty puppy that’s peed the floor.
Walt faced Virgil. “Aigh’. What’re we dealing with?”
Virgil nodded to the closed bedroom door. “Chicom. Captain. Name’s Kuai Luo.”
Walt’s mouth twitched, but he said nothing. He kept watching Virgil’s face.
Chinese could be a challenge. Their body-language was not quite as easy for Walter to interpret accurately. He had to think about it, whereas he could read an American like an open book, without thought, everything coming through subconsciously.
But…Walt had done it before. He could do it
again.
What he really didn’t like was the look on Virgil’s face, the slightly pursed look, that was saying I’m not telling you something—I’m holding back a big piece of info.
Walter didn’t say anything else. It was one of those moments where he knew that he should allow the information to come to him, rather than push for it. So he stood there and watched the other man with a pointedly-raised eyebrow.
Virgil shifted. Finally met Walter’s gaze, and accepted it with some careful consideration. Then he appeared to make a decision, and he said the thing he’d been holding back: “It’s a New Breed.”
Walter stared. He pulled his head back. Then he frowned. “What?”
Virgil only nodded in response, a little twinkle of something like savage happiness in the background of his otherwise stoic features.
The import of the words settled on Walter, not suddenly and harshly, but gradually. Like the slow but inexorable pressure of a trash compactor. He reached up and rubbed his temple, realized his hand felt shaky. He slid it down over his face and his skin felt insensate.
“Oh, Virgil…shit.” Walter spun away, then spun back. “What the fuck were you thinking?” he hissed.
Virgil looked towards the closed door again. “Things are very complicated right now, Walter. There’s movement in the different factions of the resistance, and we’re unsure where it’s coming from, and what the end goal is. Some faction—we don’t know who—has already been kidnapping New Breeds.”
Walter was flabbergasted by this. “Been kidnapping them? How? And why?”
Virgil shook his head. “We don’t know. But I mean to ask. If the Fed or the CoAx knows who’s been kidnapping their super soldiers, I think our captain in there might have an inkling.”
The irony was not lost on Walt. This resistance was so fractured and the factions all so contentious with each other, that vital information was easier to obtain by capturing and interrogating enemy soldiers than it was to get from the people that were supposed to be on your side.
But the bigger issue at the moment was the fact that they had a New Breed in custody. An officer, no less. And all of the sudden it was making perfect sense why the CoAx troops were running around 8089 and blocking off the exits.
“How?” Walter breathed. “How did you do it?”
Virgil shook his head yet again. “It was a one-in-a-million opportunity—to get this guy separated from the pack. We had to take it. And we did it. With very careful planning, and some very expensive equipment. And probably with a lot of luck, too. Even then this one almost took us out anyways. I have no idea how that other faction has managed to capture multiple New Breeds. And I don’t know why they’re doing it. But the powers that be are very interested. And that’s why we’re standing here right now.”
Walter swallowed thickly. “Shit. What if the body language is off? I’ve heard their brains are…different.”
Virgil bit his lip, thoughtfully. “They’re just people, right?”
Walter made an unsure sound.
“They’re just people,” Virgil repeated.
“Is your team okay?” Walt asked.
“Ayuh,” Virgil nodded. He put a hand to his chest, almost subconsciously. “Fucker kicks like a goddamn mule. And I almost got shot in the face. But I figure we got off pretty damn easy.”
“Jesus,” Walter breathed. “Anything else I should know?”
Virgil shook his head. “Nope. You ready?”
Walt took a steady breath, then nodded.
He followed Virgil into the room.
Chapter 4
The first thing you do is watch.
You absorb.
As much as possible in the time allotted. Sometimes it wasn’t much. In Walt’s case, it never was.
Everyone was unique. A scratch of the ear could be meaningful. A twitch of the mouth. The way the eyes zipped in another direction, almost too brief to catch.
Or…they could just be the ticks of a nervous person. And everyone had their ticks. But eventually the patterns began to emerge. And it wasn’t that Walt was so special that no one else could see these things, but the patterns just made sense to him far quicker.
The ability to read people could be taught to anyone.
It was just that Walt had never had to be taught it.
For him, it was simply a talent.
Often the things that he picked up on were so slight that he could not articulate them if he tried. But even when he couldn’t put it into words, his subconscious brain knew the truth of what he saw, and it produced a feeling in his gut that was simply beyond positive.
Sometimes explaining what he observed was like trying to explain the color red to a person born color blind. You couldn’t really explain it. It simply was. But Virgil had long ago stopped questioning the veracity of Walt’s gut feelings. They’d proven to be accurate.
His brother had recognized his abilities early on. And, as brothers will do, he figured out how to capitalize on his tagalong brother. Roy and Virgil made it a point to start dragging ten-year-old Walt to their little penny-ante poker games, and the games went from penny-ante to dollars and up, and for a while they were the kings.
But then, of course, people stopped wanting to play with Roy and Virgil and their annoying tagalong brother.
Eventually, the poker games went by the wayside as Roy and Virgil got involved in other things that dominated their time, such as adulthood and working actual jobs. When it was Walt’s turn to start earning money, he hadn’t returned to it. Not until a few years after marrying Carolyn.
But that didn’t last long either.
And so here he was.
In a dim and unfurnished bedroom, in a dilapidated double-wide that sat in one of the many dark corners of their Agrarian District. Because Roy was gone, and it was just Virgil, and Virgil carried the torch, and he’d found another way to capitalize on Walt.
And Walt needed money.
And here in that bedroom, Walt waited, and he watched.
Captain Kuai Luo sat in the center of the room, taped to a sturdy chair. His arms behind his back. Wrists secured. Ankles taped to the legs of the chair. A dark red mark on his left cheek where they’d hit him with a stun-round to incapacitate him.
He was a giant beast of a man. Even sitting down, that was apparent. He filled the room the way a tiger filled a cage. A tiger that was restrained, but you couldn’t help staring at it with a certain dread-filled awe, wondering if it was going to break free somehow, wondering if you could stop it from killing you if it did.
Behind the Chicom captain, two more of Virgil’s snatchers stood. One was a small man with a rat-like face—large, round ears, a long, pointed nose, and large front teeth that became apparent whenever he opened his mouth. The other was a woman with a slight build and short-cropped black hair and kind-looking doe eyes that didn’t match with the large rifle strapped to her chest.
These two did not wear the guise of deputies. They wore old camouflage fatigues. They’d cleaned their faces, but Walt saw the vestiges of face paint close to their eyes and ears and under their chins. Their hair was matted like they’d been wearing hats. Bits of foliage still clung to their fatigues.
Virgil never introduced any of his crew. Despite Walt’s involvement, he was not considered a member of the resistance. He’d long ago learned that any requests for extra information were usually brushed off by Virgil as “need to know.”
He was there for his ability. He was not a part of the team.
Walt turned his attention back to the Chicom. He’d positioned himself off to the prisoner’s right-hand side, and a little forward so that he could see most of the man’s face, but wasn’t in the center of his view. He did not want the man’s attention on him.
Virgil stood directly in front of the prisoner. Close to him. Well inside what you might call “personal space.” Looking down at the seated and bound man, as Walt was sure he was not used to being looked down on.
“You must be thirst
y,” Virgil said suddenly. He looked to the rat-faced man. “Get me a water, please. This gentleman is thirsty.”
“No,” Kuai said.
Virgil smiled. “Of course you are.”
The rat-faced man stooped and plucked a bottle of water from a case of it, lying at his feet. The case already had several missing bottles. They were empty and crumpled up, piled up to the side of it. Four of them, that Walt could see.
The rat-faced man handed the bottle to Virgil, over top of their prisoner’s head. Virgil took it and held it in front of Kuai with a cordial smile. He twisted the cap off. The pop of the seal breaking. A little hiss of air pressure.
“Fresh water, I promise you.”
“I’m not thirsty.”
“You need to stay hydrated,” Virgil insisted. He brought the bottle up to Kuai’s face, placed it almost tenderly against his lips, and tilted it gently back.
Kuai locked eyes with Virgil. He took one gulp into his mouth. Then he ripped his face away and spit it out. “Enough. I don’t need any water.”
“Yes, you do,” Virgil said, the way you might encourage a stubborn child to take their medicine. “You’ve been through a stressful thing today. You have to flush out the toxins.” He looked over the top of Kuai’s head to the rat-faced man, and then nodded.
Rat-face grabbed Kuai by the shoulders and heaved backwards.
The chair tilted, toppled. Crashed into the floor with a loud bang and a grunt from its occupant.
Virgil walked around, still holding the bottle and its cap. “Hold his head still. He needs to drink more water.”
Rat-face knelt and put his knees on either side of the prisoner’s head, clamping it between them.
“Nose,” Virgil said, calmly.
Rat-face grabbed Kuai’s nose in a harsh pinch.
Kuai writhed and growled. But he was bound so tightly to the chair that he wasn’t able to get much movement. He tried shaking his head, but Rat-face had his legs battened tight. He looked down at the prisoner with steady eyes and a steady face. He did not enjoy this. Nor did he shrink from it. It was almost…clinical.
