by Greg Dragon
He ducked as two drones buzzed three feet over his head. They stopped, one in front of and the other behind an ancient fuel burning car. Its driver stomped on its brake pedal.
“Pull the car to the curb,” both drones’ speakers relayed the order from SLD Pollution Control’s headquarters, fifty-two miles to the west. After the driver had parked her car at the curb, the drone hovering inches from her back window shot up into the sky and flew west to its next assignment. The one hovering in front of her windshield moved to the driver’s side window.
“Your car has been disabled by my controls,” the pollution control technician said through the drone’s speaker. “It will be towed away at your expense because our sensors indicated that it is a gross polluter.”
The sobbing, trembling woman exited her car, her only means of transportation for the last twenty-four years. “But I have a doctor’s appointment. How…?” Her sobs choked off her plea.
“You may take the subway trains to your destination. Good-bye.” The drone rose thirty feet and continued its preprogrammed route, searching for other violators.
Brent walked over to the crying woman. She reminded him of his mother.
“Ma’am, I’m heading toward the subway myself. May I walk with you there?” He gently held her shaking right forearm in his hands to steady it.
“Would you, please? I don’t know what I’m going to do. I don’t have the credits to get my car repaired, let alone pay the towing charge.”
Forget SLD, Brent thought. I’m not coming back here even if they say they’ll pay me next time.
10
Because his trip involved crossing state lines, Brent encountered a human being at SLD’s Central Station. She seemed more robotic than any android Brent had met, which led him to believe she was a new generation of androids being introduced as TSA agents.
“Destination?” the agent asked him.
“It’s Big South Fork National River and Recreation Area, Kentucky.”
“Purpose of trip?”
“Cave exploration.”
“Do you possess cave exploration rating and license?”
“Yes.” A copy of the license materialized as a hologram from his glasses. It could project no further than the bullet, germ, and laser proof cocoon encasing the TSA agent.
“Please hold your FSIN card up to the glass.” Brent obeyed and she scanned it. “Is your trip related to research for the degree you are working on?”
“What difference does that make?”
“The government is authorized by the Constitution to regulate all interstate commerce. Your planned crossing of state lines makes you interstate commerce. Answer the question or your trip will be denied.”
“It’s recreational and educational. I’m killing two birds with one stone.”
She turned and stared at him from an angle, searching for any telltale sign. “Using the word killing is forbidden on all modes of transportation regulated by the TSA.”
“I’m sorry. I’m tired. I forgot.”
“Enjoy your trip. Next in line, step forward please.”
“Thank you.” For nothing.
Brent walked through the probe scanner, which searched passengers for weapons, including chemical and biological agents, explosives, and body readings outside accepted limits. A red light blinked and a buzzer sounded as Brent exited the scanner.
“Follow me, please.” A uniformed TSA agent led him to a side room. Its steel door locked behind them after they stepped inside. “Remove your clothing.”
Brent obeyed and shivered while the agent shook his clothing and turned its pockets inside out. She handed them back to him and then searched his carryon bag. While Brent repacked it, she read from a plastic card.
“Because your blood pressure and pulse rates were high, we are required to ask you the following questions. Do you have a medical condition?”
“No.”
“Are you…” Twenty questions and answers later, Brent caught his eastbound train seconds before its doors shut. He dozed off as it reached its maximum 350 mph speed in the desert east of San Bernardino.
Seated next to him was an eleven-year-old boy whose parents chatted across the aisle. His seatmate’s restlessness woke Brent. The boy kept leaning over him to get a better view.
“Hey, mister. Are we in Arizona yet?”
Brent glanced to his right and saw the morning sun’s rays dancing off of the Salton Sea. “Almost.”
“All right.” The boy turned to his father. “Hey, Dad. Give me the map so I know when to get ready to start shooting at them.”
“Okay, son.” The suit clad man opened a briefcase emblazoned with an official looking seal. “Here you go.”
Brent peeked at the two-foot-square map the man gave his son. He squirmed when he saw a seal in its top right corner matched the one on the briefcase. It read: House Committee on Terrorism.
“Hey, mister. Where are we on this map?” the boy asked.
Brent studied the map and then looked through the window. A small portion of the Salton Sea was still visible. “We must be right about here.” He tapped the boundary line separating California from Arizona on the full color map.
“Yay. We’re almost in rebel territory.”
Brent had read the news stories of Congress debating whether to strengthen the Internal Terrorism Act of 2052 because of “rebels.” It had been enacted to restore order when famine first hit the largest cities, then the smaller ones, and lastly, rural areas. The act’s definition of terrorism was broad, including the “hoarding of food.”
Now, forty-three years later, pockets of resistance grew against living lives monitored by robots, androids, computers, and the bureaucrats who controlled them. Moving from Tennessee to San Los Diego to attend college was Brent’s cover story, told even to friends such as Tim Beheard. His real mission included teaching survival skills to rebels scattered throughout SLD.
But regulations prohibiting more than two visitors at a time in any residence had limited Brent’s training sessions. Instead of equipping the hoped-for 5,000 with survival skills, he had trained almost 700 before the coded e-mail ordered him to return home.
“What was that you said about shooting, kid?” Brent asked.
“Dad told me that we’re bound to hit some rebel agitators before we get to D. C.” The boy pointed to the seat in front of him and pulled Brent closer with his other hand.
“The woman in front of us looks like a rebel,” he whispered. “Look for yourself and tell me what you think about her.”
Brent’s eyes widened until more white than color showed. “On our train?” He stretched far enough to catch a glimpse of the suspect and saw a woman dressed in red jeans and wearing an L.A. Dodgers baseball cap. Brent nodded as he sat back down. “I think you’re right, partner. I sure lucked out by sitting next to you. My name’s Brent. What’s your name?”
“William.” Satisfied no one was peeking, he pulled a cylinder the size of a lipstick tube from his white shirt pocket and pointed it at the window. “The rebels will be sorry. Just wait and see.”
Brent studied the metal object, unlike any of the weapons he had ever seen or heard of. “What’s that?”
“It’s a Minder Blinder. One blast can temporarily blind the bad guys. The second blast messes their heads up so they can’t think right and remember what it was that they wanted to do to you.”
“What’s your dad do?”
“He’s a congressman.”
“Hey, why don’t we switch seats so you can get a better aim at any rebels who might attack our train?”
“All right.” William stood and almost landed in Brent’s lap in his haste to gain the better vantage point. “I wanted to ask you to trade seats when we first got on the train, but Mom said it’s not polite. You’re all right, mister.”
Brent settled into the aisle seat as William pressed his face against the window. “That’s quite a boy you have there.” Brent spoke to a man consumed by his work.
“I’m Brent Fulsome.”
“I’m Representative Larry Turner. This is my wife Toni. She runs my campaigns. We like to keep it in the family.” She smiled and waved at Brent. “How do you like my train?”
“Your train?”
“That’s right. Congress is working on a bill to nationalize the entire rail system. Once we do, the trains will really run on time. Just wait and see.”
Their conversation danced around controversy, two strangers trying to be cordial until the noon meal was announced.
“Well, we’ll be heading to the dining car in ten minutes. Care to join us?”
“Thank you, but I like to snack.” Brent lied as he pointed at his bag, stashed on the rack above them. It contained no food.
“Well that’s one thing that will change when we nationalize the railroads. We’re making it mandatory for them to include meals with every fare that’s for trips over 1,000 miles.”
“But won’t that make the tickets really expensive?”
“Nah. We’re subsidizing all of that through the Food Credit Program.”
Brent sighed and pointed at the desert scenes rolling by them. “That’s the Kofa National Wildlife Refuge over there. Have you ever visited it? It’s a beautiful place.”
“No.”
“There’s signs posted everywhere there that say, ‘Do not feed the animals or they will become dependent on handouts and become unable to care for themselves.’ Sometimes I have to wonder if the government has more sense in the way it treats animals than the way it treats humans.”
The politician shrugged. “Look how many people died during the Great Famine. The only way we ended it was to set up the Food Credit Program to keep people from wasting food ever again.” He studied Brent’s hand before wiping his own with a sanitizer tissue. His broad smile revealed genetically engineered incisors and molars.
“I didn’t mean any offense, Congressman. I lost family members during the Great Famine. It’s still a pretty touchy subject for me.”
Thankful that Brent had given up his seat to his son, which meant no longer enduring William’s constant interruptions, Rep. Turner offered to buy Brent’s lunch. Brent relented.
The dining car’s upper third consisted of glass, which allowed the diners fantastic views of blue sky, sand so hot that heat waves distorted the air above it, and green cactus, gray sagebrush, and other vegetation deserts produce. Brent and his hosts were halfway through their meal when the train slowed at the outskirts of Phoenix.
“Look, Dad. Is it them?” William pointed at an overpass the train approached. Along the top of the concrete crossing, figures jumped and danced.
“I don’t know, son. Waiter, who are those people up ahead?”
The waiter craned his neck to see. “Looks like jumpers, sir. Nothing to be alarmed about. The engineer will deal with it.” He turned to resume his taking of orders.
“Jumpers. I’m ready for them.” William pulled the small metal cylinder from his pocket.
As the train passed beneath the overpass, a series of, “thump, thump, thumps,” landed on the dining car. By the time it emerged from beneath the ¼-mile wide overpass, nine jumpers clung to the dining car’s top. Boots, knee and elbow pads, and gloves embedded with super strength suction cups allowed the jumpers to move as if they were spiders above and to the sides of the diners. The male jumpers leered at female diners; the female jumpers winked and puckered their lips at male diners.
Diners ran for the safety of the passenger cars. There, the jumpers could be heard and not seen, their antics blocked by shades pulled down to cover the windows.
William readied his weapon. “This is William Turner. Request voice identification verification so my gun can shoot.”
“Targets must first be identified as threats.”
William pointed it at two of the jumpers.
“Targets deemed sufficient risks to your safety. Voice identification verified,” the cylinder answered. “Facial, eye, or palm identification also required.”
William brought the weapon close to his right eye.
“Eye identification verifies.”
William aimed at the largest jumper, who banged his tungsten helmet against the glass dome until enough of it shattered for him to poke his head into the car. The head banging had produced a bloody nose. Drops of thick, red blood mixed with yellow green mucus dripped from the invader’s nose and saliva from his mouth as he screamed at the remaining diners, seated at a table for four.
“We’re zomboids! Half human and half android and 100 percent crazy. We’re going to eat all of you alive one at a time so the rest have to watch and wait for your turn.”
“Oh no you’re not, Mr. Rebel man. Fire!”
The beam split into two, three inches from the jumper’s face, and entered each eye.
* * *
When the monitor on his console first alerted the engineer that “moving objects are attached to the dining car,” he contacted dispatch at Phoenix Central Station.
“Phoenix Central, this is Trip 10990 from SLD.”
“Go ahead, 10990.”
“Sensors indicate nine Unidentified Crawling Objects have attached themselves to dining car. Please advise.”
“And I thought it was going to be a nice slow day for a change. That’s nine UCOs on your dining car exterior?”
The engineer recounted the moving blobs of light darting about the digital schematic of his train. “Make that eight. One must have fallen off.”
“Okay. Slow train to twenty miles per hour. A drone and rebel sweeper will be there shortly.”
“Please hurry. Sensors indicate one of the UCOs has gained partial entrance through the roof of the car.”
“Affirmative. Control and containment units are on their way.”
The drone arrived first. After matching the train’s reduced speed, it hovered above the dining car and issued the standard warning for such an incident.
“Attention. You are in violation of the 2052 Internal Terrorism Act, which prohibits any action or verbal threat against any mode of public transportation.”
One of the jumpers tore off her helmet and threw it at the drone. It dropped a foot to avoid the helmet as it sailed past.
“Now you are also in violation of seeking to obstruct a drone in the performance of its duties. All of you must exit the train at once and wait for the rebel sweeper to transport you to the detention center.”
“I ain’t no rebel.” The helmetless woman cursed. “I’m hungry, you damn machine. Food for the starving people like me.”
“You leave me no alternative.”
The three-foot wide drone opened its plastic belly and a six pound cube of clear jelly like material splattered onto the shiny dome of the dining car. Within seconds, the quivering cube dissolved. As the slimy film spread across the dome, it removed the grip of the suction cups attached to the jumpers. One by one they slid down the dome’s sides and bounced off of the gravel berms supporting the railroad tracks. A mile to the west, a rebel sweeper lumbered toward them, the jumper who had fallen off earlier already inside of its metal chamber.
The jumper whose head sat anchored inside of the class dome cursed. After the gel released the suction cups holding the rest of his body to the dome’s exterior, it began to flop up and down like a fish snagged on an angler’s hook. While his body thumped against the glass, thin lines grew into cracks that spread as when one steps onto an ice covered pond incapable of supporting the unwelcome weight.
“It’s going to break.” Brent pulled William under the table as his parents also ducked for cover.
The glass hitting tables and floor reminded Brent of the sounds of hail shattering windshields. The sound of the jumper’s bod
y landing on the hard floor sickened him.
The jumper rolled onto his back and moaned. “What happened? Where am I?”
William sprang from under the table and surveyed his trophy. He took a photo of “his kill” to show classmates. “You’re under arrest, Mr. Rebel, for disturbing our dinner.”
“Why can’t I see?” The jumper blinked, rubbed his eyes, and blinked again.
“Because I blinded you with my Minder Blinder. Now I am going to fix your mind.”
Brent yanked William’s arm, which caused the beam to hit broken glass and tile floor instead. “That’s enough.”
After crawling out from under the table, Mrs. Turner screamed. “He’s still alive.” She pointed at the jumper before grabbing William and running for the door to their passenger car.
Rep. Turner stood and brushed off his hand-tailored suit. “Looks like he’s not going anywhere.” He sneered at the groaning figure, still rubbing his eyes and blinking. “Dumb rebels. They’re all the same. Every last one of them.” He stomped off in search of his family, pausing at two tables to finish off someone else’s gin and tonic and another’s whiskey sour.
Brent undid the chin strap and slid the helmet off of the rebel’s head. “You’re going to be okay. Good thing you were wearing Tefbar. It kept you from breaking any bones, best I can tell. What was all that about you being zomboids?”
The rebel sighed. “That’s our way to scare off the passengers so we can steal their food.”
The train began to slow to a stop.
“All we wanted was something to eat. Think I could have something real quick before they take me away?”
“Sure.” Brent searched for a plate holding food not covered by glass. By the time he returned with one, the rebel was sitting up. Within four minutes, he devoured three plates of partially eaten food.
As the train lurched to a stop, Brent saw the rebel sweeper parked to the train’s left. Inside of it the other eight jumpers nursed their injuries from falling off the train. “Afraid it’s time to go.” Brent helped the dazed, but now full, jumper to his feet. His vision slowly returned.
