The Liquidation Order

by Jett Lang

  The Liquidation Order

  By Jett Lang

  The Liquidation Order. Copyright © Jett Lang 2015. All Rights Reserved.

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication can be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, without permission in writing from the author or publisher.

  Edition: July 2015

  Table of Contents

  Welcome to Paradise

  In Transit

  Shake Up

  Heartland

  Ice Queen

  Father’s Keeper

  Fallen Angels

  Convalescent Home

  Love Nest

  A Girl and Her Robot

  Acknowledgments

  Welcome to Paradise

  Immigration Processing was a white marble atrium. It was open to the desert on one end and secured via a laser defense weave from the floor to the reinforced steel roof on the other. Unnaturally tall armed guards, padded in gel suits, stood watch over the procession of pre-dawn arrivals, an undulating brown-grey human mass, their clothes torn and ripped by the elements. Bare feet and ruined shoes tracked sand on the previously immaculate floor – a mess the janitorial branch would begrudgingly reconcile. Hidden among the gloom of metal rafters, dark-lensed cameras zoomed from one windswept face to another. There was no tension detected on most of them; only a singular blend of passive relief.

  Yet something was amiss.

  The woman assigned to monitor the situation from above knew this. Screen-glow painted her pale features multicolored as she leaned forward on her elbows. Standing beside her and staring down at the crowds, the sturdy and tan-uniformed head of immigrant security. For the sixtieth time since she arrived, he combed his fingertips across his sparse sideburns, producing an irritatingly loud scratching in the near-quiet of the room. She ignored it the best she could, pressed her slender index finger to the front-top touchscreen’s magnification panel and slid it to three hundred percent.

  A hawkish man stood amid the crowd. His face was strikingly unblemished despite the environment outside. Green eyes, bushy black beard, and clad in an oversized and wind-wracked desert robe. He kept his gaze on the security checkpoint along his barred-off aisle, his hands at his sides. Occasionally, he would steal a glance off to either the left or right.

  She held the magnification for Camera Three on him, then turned to locate whoever he was signaling.

  It was a matter of seconds.

  One was an average-looking woman, paced a couple steps ahead in the aisle on his left. The other was a child, maybe ten or twelve, in the right aisle. Both were wearing bulky overcoats, the boy’s draping comically behind him on the dirty marble floor. She set Camera Three, Five, and Eight to tracking mode.

  “I see the suspects,” she said, breaking the long silence. She delighted in the start she gave the security chief.

  He tugged his uniform straight and about-faced. “That family appears to match the description.” He consulted his chart. His speech tapered off into incoherent muttering as he nodded at his hardcopy. Then, “I will make the call.” When he tried to walk toward his radio, she grabbed the back of his jacket.

  “Wait. We’ve had family bombings before – it’s nothing new,” she mused. “Your records show three in the past ten years, with only the first one successful. Those last two attempts failed after security put electronic detectors at the outermost checkpoints.”

  “Your point?”

  “These people,” she began, and pointed to the trio on the HD displays, “are carrying undetectable explosives, which means they’re after a very specific, very high value target. Other than that, the report only specifies the bombers’ appearance.”

  “But my men scanned and checked them by hand. Maybe this is a false report.”

  “It’s not. I can assure you of that.”

  “Can you?” He raised an eyebrow. “This could be a bad call.”

  “A bad call would be rejecting my decision.”

  “We should double-check. I don’t want to detain these people on incorrect data.”

  “This isn’t up for discussion. At all. I’m not here in an advisory role,” she said. “You’re not going to bring them in; you’re going to let me handle this.”

  The chief raked over his cheek – sixty-one. “We cannot detain them without unnecessary risk.” Reluctantly, he turned and looked down into her crimson eyes. “But you were not sent here to capture them.”

  “My company does not condone–”

  “I’ve heard the stories about your company,” he bristled. His hands dropped to his sides, balling into fists.

  “You’ll have to enlighten me. I’m not familiar with gossip.”

  “Don’t play cute with me. I’ve been protecting this city since before you were a twinkle in your father’s eye.”

  She didn’t blink. “You’re being foolish.”

  “Excuse me?” The chief placed a foreboding foot forward. As he spoke, she detected traces of whisky on his breath. “You will show me the proper respect when you are in my station.”

  “No.”

  He went from mildly upset to actively hostile. The sinuous muscles on his neck tightened. His face was red.

  “If you lose your temper with me, it might cost you more than just your job, chief. Keep that in mind while you caress your sidearm.”

  The mention of his hip-mounted pistol made the fingers of that hand twitch back, repelled by an invisible force field of consequences.

  “I have read about you, you know?”

  He didn’t have a reply for her, so she went on: “Joined the security division after twice failing your assessment, worked your way up from a listening post communicator to chief of security in this nice, air-conditioned command center. What a relief it must have been to finally escape the desert after all those years living on the fringes of civilization.”

  Was that a flicker of fear she saw morphing over his features? Yes, she thought it was.

  “This city can be very kind, but it also has another side for those who don’t follow its rules. And right now, you’re not just disregarding me; you’re disregarding the rules that protect everyone.”

  She wasn’t sure that he was going to respond to her. He turned his head and stared at the huddled lines below.

  “I don’t want to see my own people hurt,” he whispered.

  “Then give your men the order to stand aside and let me do my work. Can I count on you for that?”

  “Yes,” he said. He bent over to the use the radio behind her. She removed herself from the swivel chair and made for the door.

  From a coat rack in the corner, she plucked her dirtied hoodie, putting it on as she punched the exit combination. Under the hood, she hummed an upbeat corporate anthem.

  The chief cleared his throat deliberately. She glanced over her shoulder at him. “I want them alive, Queen. Can that be done?”

  “I’ll see what I can do, chief.” With that, Queen depressurized the heavy steel door and let in the sound of a thousand pidgin-speaking refugees.

  She descended the unpainted metal walkway, heard the door hiss shut behind her. The groveling masses came nearer and nearer to eye-level. Over the course of several hours she had studied the formation of all twenty-one immigrant lanes. While the outer lanes were filled with more submissive individuals – the closeness of the rifle-wielding guards helped keep foreigners docile, she was sure – the inner and middle lanes generally enjoyed a much higher volume of discont
entment.

  These people, knitted together in mutual misery, sent their upheaval through the ranks like a wave – its ripples dying down upon reaching the outermost lane. The three potential bombers were located dead center in lanes ten, eleven, and twelve. Navigating through the throng would take up too much time, and the suspects would be well aware of someone on the approach. Shooting into the crowd was out. So, she needed to make sure this happy little family was delivered safely through to the city and tail them. A risky gamble, but she saw no alternative. If the information of a threat had come down sooner, then maybe security could have intercepted the trio at the outdoor checkpoint and Queen would still be sleeping soundly.

  No such luck, though.

  It was easy to blame the Counter Insurgency Specialists for a bungle like this, but she knew it was pointless: Sorting through piles and piles of death threats and bomb scares for the truth was far from quick work. Analysis and reaction – those were not instantaneous. Even with the near-limitless augmentation available, the mind and body was still of human make.

  When she reached the base of the walkway, she notified the watchman, told the vat-grown giant to radio in his superior up yonder. The guard grunted assent and mouthed off dialogue vaguely resembling what she had conveyed. She moved on, keeping well away from the laser grid at her right. Her sight was firmly fixed on the custom’s stations. Rows of immigration staff scrambled to maintain order. Here, an armed security member was shoving back a jacked-up, foaming-at-the-mouth refugee. There, a testing official shook his head solemnly, slipping a red-marked quiz back across a stainless steel table.

  Toward the middle, where the masses were particularly daring, the cacophony became riotous, the distribution of personnel at a reasonably increased amount compared to the outer lanes. The guards were larger, meaner, and wizened by the experience of dealing with the desert’s most quarrelsome sociopaths. Two guards acted as gatekeepers for a third, who would escort one processee at a time to boothed-in Data Specialists for documentation, then farther back to the Evaluation Specialists.

  Queen admired the latter, not only because of their lack of armor, but their tranquility; they underwent long and grueling hours of training to achieve their placid demeanor. The result was an unflinching examiner. If a refugee refused to take the prescribed test, an Evaluation Specialist would pleasantly talk him or her through the benefits of cooperation. In the event that violence flared, the Specialist would either subdue the aggressor with a high voltage electric rod or bare-handed. The summer months were particularly eventful for both methods, the heat playing against untrained tempers beautifully.

  Unfortunately, the quizzing tables were bereft of spectacle. The trio sat separately along their respective lanes, a Specialist seated across from each with arms folded and mouth bordering on a smile. The man, woman, and child appeared to be racing through the questions, flipping through page after page.

  Queen claimed a chair nearby. An off-duty Specialist cleaned the watch-face on his wrist. His regulation button-down dress shirt (white) and black suit pants were neatly pressed, his complementing tie a medley of neutral Polka dots.

  “Hello, Queen,” he said in an amused and far-away voice. He did not look up from the watch.

  “Hello, Bill. Can I have a favor?”

  “My, it’s been a whole week since I’ve heard that. I’ve almost caught up on my backlog.” He placed his red kerchief in his breast pocket. “Almost.”

  “A yes or no will suffice.”

  Bill breathed in deep, exhaled. “Yes.”

  “Those terror suspects have to be rerouted. They’re going to pass evaluation with flying colors, which will put them on the fast-track to our fair city’s garish heart.”

  “Poetic. Where would you like them led?”

  “A quiet spot with minimal infrastructure, ideally,” she said.

  “Missus Creeper, you are dreaming,” Bill replied. She gave him a stare that made him specify: “Pick one or the other, because I can’t give you both. The people in the Factory District are either at work or asleep, which means you can expect mostly clear streets. The Entertainment District is–”

  “Always packed. Right,” she finished for him. She stole a glance at the trio. They were on the last page of the test. Queen clicked her tongue.

  “I’m gonna need an answer.” Bill flashed a grin that would have been charming in any other instance.

  “You’re gonna need a dentist,” Queen said. “Factory. And I need you to get me on one of the refugee trains.”

  “We have direct feed into those trains, and security personnel onboard. Your being there is redundant.”

  “Not in this case,” she said. “Can you do it or not?”

  “I can, but if things are so severe that you have to tail them, then maybe we should detain them here. Simpler for my records that way, too.”

  “I don’t want to cause a scene here.” She brushed a rogue strand of hair from her eye. The strand was so white it was practically invisible. “And besides, when have I ever tried to make your life easier?”

  Almost sweetly, he said, “You’re a real bitch, Queen. I sometimes wonder why I deal with you, but then I remember how much they pay me.”

  “You told me this a month ago. I’m in no mood for broken records. Get your ass in gear and repay me.”

  “I service to live.” Bill bowed and went about the arrangements.

  As he whispered into the ears of his coworkers, Queen arose and went for the city entrance. The blend of laser and glasswork cast a festive red hue on the interconnected office complexes in the distance. Neon-lit acronyms and corporate slogans were visible even behind the overlapping defense network, her eyes drawn to one prominent skyscraper in the central hub. Its twin-towered design was connected at four points between, the lowest at ground level and the highest upon the roof – a mirrored-in skybridge. In contrast to the neighboring structures, this building flaunted no cornea-burning lettering. Instead, its reflective windows absorbed the lights below and beside, warping logos and advertisements across its surface. That was home for Queen; residence and workplace. The amenities it offered were essential for a woman of her status. She needed to maintain that status at any cost, and that meant standards had to be upheld. Failure to live up to those standards was grounds for termination, and termination was by no means an option for her.

  She had bills to pay.

  Queen swiped her CID card over a waist-high reader pole. A disembodied female voice with pep out the wazoo chirped, “Citizen identified. Welcome to New Paradise. Have a safe and productive day.” The section of lasers in front of her deactivated, a glass panel swishing upward. Chill air prickled at her face.

  “Hey, wait up,” Bill said.

  “Something wrong?”

  “No, but I thought you should know those refugees requested Factory as their destination. Grades like theirs, they could get into Business or Entertainment.”

  “I see.” White puffs of breath. “Was there anything else?

  “That’s it,” he said. “This whole thing seems off. I’d be careful out there.”

  “I planned on it.”

  From a far table, a nasally voice screamed, “The answers good man! I know it’s good!” The ensuing struggle echoed through the atrium.

  “Duty calls,” Bill said with stoic resignation. “Talk with you later?” His footfalls were already joining the cacophony by the time the question left his mouth.

  “Yeah,” Queen said to no one. “Later.” She tightened her hood and stepped out into the light-drenched darkness. The metro wasn’t far.

  ※

  Queen entered the cold, white-tiled tunnel leading down to the train reserved for the transportation of refugees. Those with citizenship had private and public means of their own, ranging from ground and hover-taxis to a separate system of bullet trains snaking around the vast districts of New Paradise. Just this morning she had taken the visitors’ train to the Immigration District, and now, thankfully, sh
e would be heading out to the conclusion of her assignment. Already she could feel an electric thrill ramping up within her, putting her nerves on edge even as she waved her CID over the turnstile scanner and drifted over to an unoccupied metal bench situated near the entrance stairwell.

  Surrounding her were bundles of refugees, an armed detail of imposing grunts, and a few scattered citizens speaking in low voices to friends or family in the rabble. It was common practice for former refugees, having established themselves in Paradise, to come in as spokespeople for the city. Between the harsh desert life and the one the city allowed, it was an easy sell, and the state paid well for a good word from any newly-minted citizens. In a place where currency was the means to survival, rarely did anyone turn down the chance to play the mouthpiece, successful or no.

  “This is the smartest move you can make,” were the words of one citizen standing off to Queen’s right. The group gathered around him was all silence and stares. “No better living in any direction, and the career opportunities for hard workers like us are through the roof.” Murmurs shot through the crowd, some hopeful, others skeptical.

  After assignments in the frontier regions of New Paradise, she marveled why anyone in their right mind wouldn’t prefer the safety these walls provided, the convenience offered by the hundreds upon hundreds of square miles of infrastructure that kept the metropolis functioning efficiently. Those with doubts were often the oldest refugees, adapted to the desert; both its unforgivingly hot days and its freezing cold nights. But even the ignorant recognized the wisdom their rehabilitated kinsmen espoused, eventually.

  “And don’t forget, you can change professions here as much as you wish; we are not locked into our rigid disciplines anymore. We choose what we want to be – anything we want to be. You apply yourself and pass the tests, then the city is open to you,” the man continued, and his doubters lapsed into brooding silence. Their misgivings were still plain in their uniformly black eyes. In time, those eyes, too, would succumb, and they would join their brother in overseeing another group of sand-wrecked immigrants.