by Ric Beard
Fueled by bean power!
He laughed to himself. Miranda shot him a confused glance and looked back at the tablet.
She was quiet now, but take her iPad, get her excited about something, allow her to inhale a sufficient breath, and it could be an hour before she stopped jabbering—and you wouldn’t detect a stoppage for oxygen intake.
William was the elder of the two by two years, and he saw Miranda as his charge. He was with her at night when their parents were at the lab doing only God knew what, to God knew who, for God knew what purpose.
He patted his sister’s leg and Miranda looked up. She furrowed her eyebrows.
“Why are you touching me?”
“I’m going to stretch my legs.”
“‘Kay.” She turned back to her tablet. “Still doesn’t explain why you’re touching me.”
“You wanna walk to the swings with me?”
“What am I, ten?” she asked without looking up. “No thanks.”
“Then come sit in the shade with me.” He reached toward the front seat and pulled the keys out of the ignition to emphasize her lack of options.
“I don’t want to. It’s hot. And Dad doesn’t like it when you mess with his car.”
“Whatever. I have my permit. I think I know how to safely turn off a car.” He pushed a finger into her shoulder. “You’re pale. Some sun would do you good. C’mon.” He slid out of the car, swung the door shut behind him, and started walking.
“I have fair skin!” He heard her yell.
After a moment, he heard a car door close. William knew she would follow. He turned and smiled until she caught up.
“I probably couldn’t tan if I wanted to. Ever hear of melanoma? What’re you grinning at?”
“A numbskull.”
“Bite me.”
William guffawed and put his arms around his sister’s shoulder as they walked across the parking lot toward a grassy area with a play set her parents had installed years ago.
She shrugged his hand off.
“Too hot.”
They voted unanimously to sit in a shady spot under an ancient oak tree.
“Hot,” she repeated.
“It sure as shit is.” This brought a snicker from his baby sister, so he said it again. “Sure as shit is.”
“You’re horrible.”
William poked Miranda’s leg and looked up at the top floor of the glass building, where his parents would soon be finishing things up. He worried how Miranda would take it when she learned their tropical trip to paradise would be the first in a series of hops across the globe.
The sun eased behind a fluffy pair of white clouds as the smell of cut grass came on a breeze.
William pointed at the cloud pair.
“Look, a girl’s butt.”
Miranda held a hand above her eyes.
“How do you know it’s a girl’s butt?”
He contemplated his response.
“Because I’m a guy and I want it to be.”
“Typical.” She shrugged. “But reasonable, I guess.”
The tinted windows framing the building caught the sun’s light just right for a moment, and William thought he could see his mother standing inside.
The children jerked suddenly as the windows bulged and shattered outward in a deafening explosion. The building shook, and a black and orange fireball ejected glittering shards of glass and debris raining down into the parking lot. William threw Miranda backward and rolled onto her, covering his head with his arms as debris fell to the ground all around them.
Book One
Part One
Miles Copeland
Triangle City
Chapter One
A Whole Lotta Talk
Day 1
Tuesday, Mar 19, 2137
Late-season flurries danced with a pulsing breeze that pushed them across the frigid night. The man in the black wool coat pulled up his collar, lowered his fedora against the wind, and turned the corner. Jon Abel tapped the frames of his SmartGlasses until they switched into night vision mode as he watched from beneath the awning of a cafe across the street until the man passed out of sight. The street-level dusting blew around his ankles like frozen white ash as he hurried into the frigid open air and crossed over at Washington and Park. Counting off a few ticks as he reached the corner, he threw a quick glance over his shoulder and turned up the side street. The man in the long wool coat was already halfway down the block, holding his hat against the wind as he trudged away from the business district. His gait was purposeful, like he had somewhere to be.
Jon stared at the back of the man’s hat. Miles Copeland was a slippery prick. In a recent speech, the mayor had described Copeland as a ‘cyber terrorist and an instigator of discord’ working for the group that called itself The Underground. Of course, they hadn’t known his name then, only his narcissistic handle, Tremor.
Like we should shake in our boots or something, asshole!
The anonymous tip that put them on Copeland’s trail had proven out. The man behind the mask who’d been terrorizing the citizens and their government for the last few years was finally going to get a little payback. The mayor’s elite squad of enforcers had spent those years a step behind Copeland, and tonight was the night they were finally going to catch up. Jon Abel saw it as an honor that the mayor hand-selected him for the duty, and he was more than happy to take out the trash.
The mayor wanted it clean. No trials. No podium from which to preach the travesties of government as Copeland did on the DarkWeb. His infiltration of the government access channel had been the last straw. Abel had been able to see the poison in Vaughn’s eyes at the idea of citizens walking in the shopping district and seeing Copeland’s masked face on the jumbo screen questioning the mayor’s ethics, calling him a corrupted strong arm, and calling his elite officers like Abel a goon squad. Sure, it was mostly true, but that didn’t excuse his belligerence. The shock at discovering Tremor was one of the city’s employees—working in the cybercrimes division, no less—sealed Copeland’s fate. The mayor’s orders left no room for misinterpretation. Abel hadn’t even bothered packing his less lethal pulse weapon for this job. It was fusion pistol all the way for the anarchist.
Abel looked around as he traced the man’s steps across the street into the old world sector, pulling his hat low to avoid identification by the city’s surveillance cameras.
The concrete sidewalks of the old world sector felt strange underfoot when one was accustomed to walking on the solar ones found within the modern city limits. His footfalls were louder and Abel had to accommodate. The long, worn buildings here created a wind tunnel of the street, the tiny flakes of snow whipping and slashing around him. The few streetlights standing against the erosion of the ages didn’t work, but his SmartGlasses adjusted. He heard a whir and looked in the direction from which it came.
A Security Services bot.
The bot’s fat, white dome reflected the sparse street lighting across the way as it hovered above the solar sidewalk where Abel had crossed over. Those nosy bastards at the controller’s station dispatched bots when people’s hats or masks prevented the web of cameras from identifying their wearers. But this bot was on the edge of its perimeter and the controller wasn’t likely to force a bot off its beat. They were stretched thinly enough as it was.
There were five sectors in the town that hadn’t been modernized and weren’t yet under city surveillance, but the founders—including the late Jim-by-God-Johnson—who laid out the design for the wall had been practical enough to include them within the wall’s perimeter for long term growth. Otherwise, the wall would’ve had to be knocked down each time the city wanted to expand, leaving citizens exposed to badlander attacks.
Multiple cameras failing to identify Jon Abel might spawn a report to the controller’s station, but he doubted the oddity would garner attention. It was winter. It was snowing outside. People wore hats. Resources were stretched thin. The bots were built by hand and the
mayor didn’t like replacing them, so they stuck to their routes. It was always possible the controller would send the bot across and do the I.D. manually, but those guys had enough screens to watch, enough balls in the air that they were likely to just dispatch the bot for the I.D. and forget about it. The bot stopped across the street from Abel and seemed to look at him, but Abel’s hat was still low, and he tucked his chin as he turned the corner to follow Copeland. He looked over his shoulder and watched as the bot turned up a side street, moving back in the direction of the business district.
The streets here were deserted, except for a few homeless under a plastic canopy down one of the side alleys. They were huddled together trying to absorb heat from a half-barrel fire large enough that Abel’s SmartGlasses auto-adjusted against the glare. He walked beneath the rusted-out metal of ancient fire escapes towering over cracked asphalt roads that hadn’t been maintained in over a century. To one side he saw a large round metal door leading to an old-world trash chute. Perhaps he could make Copeland disappear there. This sector was not even on the renovation map yet; he wouldn’t be found for years. Plus, it was too dark here for the small cluster of homeless to see without SmartGlasses.
Fortune smiles!
He nodded to himself. He would go with that unless a better option availed itself. His fusion pistol couldn’t hold enough charge to disintegrate Copeland entirely, but there was no telling how much would be left for Abel to dispose of until he did the actual deed.
The problem was there was no Copeland. Abel swiveled his neck and looked around. Nothing behind him except for the orange glow of the fire down the alley he’d passed. There was another alley ahead on the left, but it would be a dead end like the last one. Abel put his back to the wall and sidestepped until he could peek between a trash compactor and a recycling bin across the alley, giving himself as much distance as possible in case Copeland was hiding between them. With the glasses, he’d see the space between the two utility boxes better than in broad daylight, when a shadow would have been cast between the two.
But there was nothing there. He turned his head back to the left and felt a whiff of air as a fist swung past his face. Abel ducked and pivoted, winding up a punch. Straightening his legs, he brought the force of a devastating uppercut into Copeland’s chin, sending the smaller man staggering backwards to the ground. Then he thrust the barrel of the fusion pistol toward him.
Copeland propped himself up on one elbow and rubbed his chin with the other hand.
“Guess you won’t be doing a lot of jabbering now, will ya?” Abel asked.
“What?” Copeland shook off the stun from the blow. “Oh, you—”
“You’ve got a big mouth, kid. I’m gonna close it for ya.”
“I guess you do that for a lot of guys, don’t you, Jon Abel?” Copeland asked loudly.
Abel’s head jerked back at the sound of his name and he squinted at Copeland.
“Yeah, I know who you are!” Copeland yelled as if having to talk over the wind. “The Underground knows all of you! We have a list!”
Why is he yelling? Abel thought.
“What, are you surprised? You think we just blog and run our mouths without knowing who we’re dealing with? We know about you and your partner, Jack Stevens—”
“I guess it doesn’t really make a difference, though, does it, Tremor?” Abel cut him off with a shrug. “Cut the head off the snake and all.”
Copeland laughed, pushing the sound from his diaphragm.
“You guys really take the trophy! I’ve been working right under your noses for five years! It must have really pissed the mayor off! Public enemy number one spouting off to the citizenry while working two floors beneath your office! That’s gotta sting!”
“You’re awful chipper for a guy who’s about to lose a body part and die painfully.” He raised the weapon.
“I’m ready to die, Abel! How about you?” Copeland smiled and glanced over Abel’s shoulder. Only then did he lower his voice. “And by the way, you hit like a girl.”
Abel followed Copeland’s gaze over his shoulder and saw a tall, gaunt man with bushy unkempt orange hair and a thick, nappy beard. As Abel turned, the man saw his weapon and held up his hands, stepping backwards.
“Okay, man. We don’t want any trouble. I’ll just go right back—”
Abel’s shoulders dropped and he sighed. “Couldn’t just mind your own business, huh? Had to come and see?”
After a few heartbeats staring into his bloodshot eyes, Abel resigned himself to using some of the pistol charge on this street rat. There’d be more of Copeland left to carry to the chute, but one had to acclimate. He raised the gun and saw the homeless man’s eyes go wide beneath his mop of red hair, turning his head away and showing Abel his palms as he raised his hands to his face.
A sudden jolt of pain shot up Abel’s leg from his right knee and he yelled as he lost his balance and inadvertently pulled the trigger on his weapon. A line of green light arced from the weapon and clipped the homeless man, who gasped as it seared a small gash into his shoulder. Abel hit the ground hard and the pistol skipped across the concrete like a rock on a pond as Copeland sprang to his feet and pursued the weapon. Abel tried to recover, getting onto one knee, but the one Copeland had kicked wouldn’t support weight. A jerk of Copeland’s head sent the homeless man running back down the alley and Abel’s fusion weapon was now leveled on its owner.
“I hate you guys. But I still wish you hadn’t put me in this position. Unlike you goons, I don’t get my rocks off on hurting other people.”
“Yeah?” Abel said, falling back onto his ass, rocking to and fro with his arms wrapped around his busted knee. “What do you know about it, asshole?”
“Janice Reeves.”
“Who?”
“She’s the woman your partner roughed up while you covered for him. Her crime? She didn’t pay you on your little side enterprise collecting protection from the shop owners in the business district. Right out of the old-world playbook. And you don’t even have the class to remember her name.”
“Cowards like you are good for one thing and one thing only. A whole lotta talk.”
Copeland stepped closer and focused his aim on Abel’s head. “I’m not the coward who preys on innocents and hides behind a badge.”
Abel laughed. “What the hell is a badge? No one’s used a badge in a hundred years.”
“I was being metaphorical. You use your position to stomp on the weak and when people like me call you out for it, you swing your weight even harder. Janice Reeves felt your weight. James Cartwright felt it. Jules Wagner felt it. Should I go on?”
“A whole lotta talk, coward.” Abel kept his head bouncing to keep Copeland’s attention on his face. He slowly moved his hand toward the inside of his coat. “You sound like such a do-gooder, talking about ‘innocents.’ You’re hardly an innocent yourself. I mean, what good do you really do? You cause discord. You and your precious underground movement rant and rave, while no one cares. But that doesn’t stop you from trying to bring down the city. Well, I got news for you, Tremor; the city works just fine without you because people like me protect it.”
“Protect it? That’s laughable. You frame people for crimes they didn’t commit. Get them excommunicated!”
Abel’s fingertips reached for the sheath under his coat.
“You’re a powerless cretin without the courage to take off his mask. I should’ve pulled the trigger and burned you to dust.”
Abel felt the cold steel brush his fingertips and smiled as he stared down the barrel of the fusion weapon aimed at his face.
Chapter Two
Just a Shoulder Wound
Miles Copeland slipped to the side as Abel’s arm swung toward him and a sliver of silver flew through the air, but the knife sliced through his wool coat, causing a shock of pain. The initial spasms from sliced flesh were followed by the sensation of warm liquid flowing from above his left elbow. He cringed and swung back toward Abel. The la
rger man was struggling to get to his feet but failed to sustain weight on his injured knee and fell back onto the snowy, cracked asphalt with a thud. When he settled, Abel’s opposite hand slipped back inside his jacket.
Fuck you, Jon Abel.
Miles sneered at the pain in his arm, leveled the pistol, and pulled the trigger. A bright lime blade of fusion energy split Abel’s face in half and ate its way across the flesh, disintegrating the muscle, tissue, and bone into green dust as it rippled across his jaw. As the roots of his teeth melted away, they fell out of their sockets and popped divots into the snow below. Abel’s smoldering hat slowly followed the eroding surface until the energy burned out and its remnants hooked onto a protruding nub of spinal cord. When the body finally gave in to gravity and tumbled into the frosty surface of the street, the hat rolled off.
Marie would be pissed that I killed him.
Of course, she would. Marie hated killing unless it was absolutely necessary, and The Foundation had elected her leader all those years ago, partly out of respect for her moral code. You didn’t make the world a better place without some sense of what you were fighting for.
What Marie doesn’t know won’t kill her. Besides, who knows when I’ll even see her again! Abel was a waste of good people’s oxygen.
Miles reached down, tipped the hat so it covered the cauterized wound, and flipped the man’s coat tail to the side. Reaching inside, he pulled out the throwing knife and shoved it into a pocket inside his coat. Yanking his Tab from his hip holster, Miles typed in a quick message before turning down the alley and walking away, his hand wrapped around his bleeding elbow. The sleeve was soaked in warm blood and a glance at his palm brought a wave a nausea.
