Steeled Spies #0: Lions Among the Lambs
The Force's Recon Agent in the Heat of Conspiracy...
In the palm of the black wolf’s hand lay the dying light of a revolution. When the electric death rolled up his back, both heart and mind were claimed in a swift, blistering shock.
The footage revolted the team.
“Before you is the image of Justice served,” came the announcer’s proclamation. The words cut through the smoke-hazed room where a quartet of black-clad gray wolves, and Haven’s arch-vigilante Lita, sat glued to the screen.
Suddenly, a voice came from the sanctum’s darkest corner. “So they got one of us.” The shadowed figure’s remark wafted out on the smoke of his cigarette, a trace of the Transatlantic tongue nestled within.
“The whole man and nothing less,” came Lita’s bitter reply. The 40-year-old dark gray sat backwards in the old wooden chair, her denim jacket slung over the seat’s ear, jeans and tank top peppered with holes. There was a twitch in the punk’s sandalled paw as she itched the back of her neck with coked-out agitation, like a bad case of fleas had come on.
Slowly, the gray stepped out of his corner, a shade lighter than the rest. Roger Steele was rather chiseled for a wolf of any breed, his hard-edged features sharp in the light of Lita’s sanctum. From his full snout and finely groomed fur to the blue eyes that radiated ice-cold analysis, he stood monolithic among the rest. He crossed the room quietly, black shoes silent on the floor. His slacks, blue button-up, and holstered Mauser glided along with him as he pulled a chair up, his own leather jacket hung on its back.
“You say he was playing ball with some of yours—”
“Not mine, Pal,” she cut off, “New kids on the block.” The blood red eyes of the inner-city agent locked with his.
“Another batch of your biker bears?” Steele teased.
“Not quite.” Lita whipped a small disc out of her jacket and flung it his way. “Group’s called Haven Reformation. One of the cats who showed after your time in Forcefield Tower 8X last year. They were small then, but they sure knew how to grow.”
“What was the pitch? Curing cancer, AIDS, or just plain-old world peace?”
Lita smirked. “If technocracy’s cancer, they’re the ACS. Been protesting with us for about a month now. They don’t know the cats we play for, and I know Knox wants it kept that way. We all cool wit each’udda though.”
Steele nodded gently as he loaded the minidisc into his portable viewer. The pint-sized silver machine displayed everything in green text over black:
ORGANIZATION: Haven Reformation SPOKESPERSON: Lucille Devenreaux KNOWN DETAILS: “To the Bright Organic Tomorrow”
Roger stared vacantly at the crumb of data. “You spend a month with friends and they don’t show you the secret handshake?”
“That was the last thing DeVol sent us before the sting.” she replied. “Reported damn-near night and day via telecom that they were doing everything from major demonstrations in Empire Square to fighting for a seat on the Board. His tip-offs got me front row seats to some killer fireworks. The Reformation have been polling like saints, they’ve made public addresses on everything from the increased android population to attacking A.C.E.S. herself. And all he sends us is a three-line disc for a month’s worth of intel.”
It wasn’t long before the realization crept up on the agent. “And if cops had intercepted, they wouldn’t have wiped it.”
Lita nodded. “Or let it through to us, unless it’s a decoy. We’ve tried decryption, digging through metadata, but all we got are those three lines. Something ‘bout these suckas don’t read right to me. Especially when one of my boys gets killed for ‘em.”
“Any idea what the Artificially Controlled Eco-System is thinking?”
His punk handler shook her head again. “Just that Ol’ Mother Acc’s all about uniformity, and we all know what Mommie Dearest does to us rebels when we get too close. She does Ralph ‘til he’s stone dead. She still weakening though. Reports say the forcefield is down to 85% coverage, a 4% drop after your stint in 8X. Guess she had to tighten her iron fist around something.”
“Think this whole thing is like Mulligan and the access codes?” Roger quizzed. “A whistle-blower or a leak between the retrieval and delivery of data?”
“Could be.” Lita sighed. “Not the same cats though, the Reformation weren’t a beada sweat on nobody’s ball sack when you and ‘good ol’ Glenn’ got your goods.”
Roger turned to the fellow grays in the room, all standing tall in their dark ensembles. The four gentlemen cocked their ears when he spoke. “If anyone’s going in, it’ll be me.”
Lita couldn’t hold back her laughter. “Bitch, you got all the street cred of a Happy Meal! The hell you gonna do getting down with hippies like them?”
Before she knew it, he slapped her hard in the snout. Her feral reflexes snapped back with a sharp scratch across his face. He refused to flinch as the blood trickled down his cheek. “We’ll start with scars,” Roger said with a smirk.
The vigilante sat slack-jawed, the wolves in black stifling a collective chuckle.
“You’re lucky I didn’t pull my pal Wildey on you,” she barked. Steele answered with a knowing nod.
“You...crazy SOB,” she guffawed. As they shook hands on his trademark audacity, a sudden burst of static rocked the speakers, and onto the sanctum’s TV screen came the gal of the hour.
“We’re in control of the airwaves now!” cried the powerful, feminine voice. “Brothers and sisters, we cannot live under this tyranny for a second longer! How many more innocent lives must be taken in the name of their order, not ours? How much more blood will be spilled? Let our brother Ralph DeVol not die in vain. Join us for the Bright Organic Tomorrow!”
Roger Steele turned to the television, and was met with the visage of Lucille Devenreux. She was a gray wolf whose features were at odds with her voice. The voice held every inch of ground, the incendiary talk of liberating the “real” wolves of Haven from the technocratic menace rocketing right through the screen. In another life, she might’ve preached the sin out of a congregation in the deep South. But then there was that face.
What a face for a revolutionary to have. Her snout was slender to the point of mousy, her darling deep blue eyes popping off the screen for all to see. Her fur was well-kept, but thick enough to exude that “edge” of not having shit, shaved, or showered in a fortnight. It was the scruff atop that gave her the street cred she needed. Must be quite the sight on the big screens in the Commercial-Entertainment district.
The group stared at her spiel a while longer, the tone shifting away from fire-and-brimstone.
“We’ve made too much progress to stop now! Who revealed the Board’s hypocrisy in the Town Hall? The Reformation! Who declassified the insidious and malicious propaganda of the Newsreels? The Reformation! Who—”
The revolution was not long for the airwaves, for A.C.E.S. regained control of the frequency and began firing off deafening disavowals over the signal. Lita killed the feed with a flip of a switch. “Well then, now you’ve met the first lady of the resistance.”
Steele nodded, throwing on his jacket. “Charming, but I gotta see her from the chest down to make sure she’s real. Get me your contacts and I’ll hook up."
“Caldwell Ave’s your junction, and these are the cat’s you’ll meet.” She passed over a photograph of a red, white, and black wolf, all in their teens. “Charmed again.” he remarked through his teeth.
“Remember, you ain’t too big for their britches.” Lita chuckled. “Leave the parlez-vous français bullshit here. And don’t fall for Lucy too hard either! Bitch is bigger than all us right now, and that’s a target twice as large.”
Roger looked over his shoulder before parting the door. “For? Never. In’s another story.”
It had been twenty-five minutes on the prowl before the connection was made. Steele pulled his sleek black Dodge Charger up to the curb where a couple of kids stood. Black, red, and white, just as promised though not in order, and all a good decade-plus his junior. The denim vests and peace-loving T-shirts averted and attracted all the right eyes. For his part, Steele was dressed in his delinquent best, with steel-capped harness boots and a couple of spiked leather cuffs. The leather jacket was going to come in handy on this one.
“Yo, you the one Lita hooked us up with?” the red wolf started in.
“You got it Mack.” Roger nodded, dabbing the kid up. “Ain’t taking shit like the big nix on Ralphie lying down. Better bite the man than get bit, right?”
“Right on,” he replied. “Sick ride.”
“Bitch got teeth too if you want to rock wit ‘er,” he chuckled.
The trio dove into the black beauty as he revved her up.
“Dig it,” the white wolf laughed, “bitch got more than teeth, she could rock a high-rise to the ground.”
“What names you cats carry with you?” Roger asked.
“I’m T-Bird,” the red wolf started. “J.D.,” answered the black wolf, his voice as deep as he was tall. “Snowball,” the white wolf finished, his timbre a smidge nasal.
“Name’s Jack Flash, brothers,” Roger winked, “Now where’s the powwow?”
“Poin’ ‘er East an’ drop da hamma’,” J.D. replied.
He did just that, the three teens clinging for dear life as he shifted and floored with stock-car precision.
“You finished showing off?” Snowball cut in, his voice cracking.
Roger let off the throttle and coasted the Charger before dropping her down an octave.
“You ride with the Flash, you get the Flash,” he teased. He switched the radio on, quick to drop his favorite classical station in favor of a cool jazz blend. Hopefully that was a good enough olive branch.
“Got that good Cannonball Adderley shit on, hell yeah!” hollered T-Bird. “By the way, that how you got that scar? Drag gone bad?”
Roger glanced into the rear-view, snickering to himself. “You want the story about how I cut myself shaving, or the one about the Fuzz?” His answer came in the form of six eyes lighting up from the backseat.
“Let’s just say,” he chuckled, “coppers don’t take hot-rodders like me like they used to. Used to be a whack over the knuckles and a fine. Couple credits and the like. They wanted a martyr for the street scene. They got me instead.”
The three youths were wall-eyed and gape-mouthed.
“I got one scratch for each fella who laid a claw on me. These three never lived to tell their side. The rest of the room wasn't looking too hot either.”
The teens fell back into their seats as Roger kicked the throttle. “Shoulda seen what I had to pick out of poor ol’ Betsy’s grill when I turned her loose.”
“How the hell you not on a wanted list?” J.D. gasped.
“Oh I am, but I ain’t chipped, and furthermore, I’m probably the last in line compared to you cats. You've been kicking that digital bitch’s ass from here to Neptune the way Miss Devenreux talks.”
“You fuggin’ bet,” T-Bird chimed in, “The Reformation ain’t goin’ nowhere...hey, turn here!”
Roger whipped the Charger down the alley, the slender muscle car gliding up to a steel wall. “This a stickup, or one of ya gotta hit it with the old Double Helix?”
“Hold your horses Pal,” T-Bird chuckled. “Yeah, she pad-locked.”
He swung himself out of the car and went up to a small square on the wall. He pulled a white glove out from his pocket, slid into it, and pressed his gloved hand up against the square. A green ray scanned the paw print before making the distorted announcement of “Access Granted.”
T-Bird strolled back to the Charger before it rolled off into the compound. It was behind those walls that something unfathomable stood before the seasoned spy: they had a block.
An entire city block, or at the bare minimum, a certain computer network had let the place go. Fellow ground cars like Roger’s lined the cracked streets, the steel-and-glass building facades weathered with rust and film. Eye-popping graffiti, realized in blinding strains of pink and green, peppered the landscape.
Roger had kept his holster on throughout the drive, but he was careful before making his next move. “Alright, where do I meet the council? Didn’t realize the pad was this big?”
J.D. snickered in an earth-shaking baritone. “Dog, where you been? Missing newsreels?”
“I like to keep my mind junk-free, friend.”
“Touché,” he nodded.
“Hang a left, lean on her all the way ‘til the end of the street,” T-Bird cut in, “whole council ought to be there at our Town Hall.”
“Including the gal of the hour?” Roger quizzed, turning the wheel and opening the Charger up wide.
“You betcha,” Snowball answered. “Miss Lucille never misses.”
“Is the Kaiser welcome?” he asked, pointing to the Mauser.
“They’ll probably take it at the door,” T-Bird cautioned.
Roger nodded, taking the holster off and sliding it into the glove box. Snowball wasn’t too keen on the gesture. “Why you tucking it away?”
“Just don’t want him to make a scene is all,” Roger said, pulling up to the skyscraper, “A’ight, show me the head honchos.”
He slid into his leather jacket, killed the engine, and pocketed his keys. The entourage exited the car and made their way up the polished granite steps. Even if the rest of the neighborhood was going, it looked like the Reformation wanted HQ up to snuff.
The heels of Roger’s cowboy boots clacked all the way up the staircase as the young wolves followed suit. There was something about seeing it all in the blue of the evening that stirred him. To what, Roger was unsure, but it was as potent a sensation as any he had felt on the job.
He let the trio open the doors for him as he met the guards. It was an odd look for any security detail, sandal-pawed and donning loose-fitting denim, but it made something clear: this was the peacekeeping sect, even with the incendiary protests.
The warmth of the hallway lights led them to an even warmer room, the color bordering on outright orange. In the room sat what appeared to be the whole of the organization. An old college lecture hall, fit for 100 students, and in those students’ stead, 100 activists. Where the usual podium and open floor would be for presentations sat a long wooden desk, each of the main council members for the Reformation holding a seat at the table, with five total comprising their own “Board.”
Devenreux sat dead-center, flanked by two gray wolves on either side. Even as the stands stood packed with all different shades and hues of fur, the optics game from the council was clear as day. They wanted to mirror the homogeneous Board of Haven, but in their heart of hearts, were ready to shake the city to its core.
Most disarming of all: everyone was smiling.
Not in the cult-like, never-ending curl at the mouth’s corners, but in an organic ambiance of joy and uplift. Not a single mind was held hostage in this space.
“Greetings Brothers,” Devenreux welcomed, her robust voice dialed back from the fury of her broadcasts. “Another team player in your midst?”
“Miss Lucille,” T-Bird greeted. “this here’s Jack Flash, from Lita’s posse.”
Roger gave the council a salute and a bow. “Figure you could use all hands on deck. I’ve got a hot rod, a quick hand, and a good head on my shoulders.”
The council were chipper about this new-found punk recruit, Devenreux drawing the demure straw of the bunch. “We thank you kindly, Mr. Flash. I think you’d do well to join us for the evening festival, to see what the Reformation’s all about.”
Roger nodded graciously, taking his seat among the sea of peace signs and jean jackets. To him, it was like being surrounded with dozens of discount Litas. Whether that’s a blessing or a curse was always up for debate with himself.
“I’m pleased to introduce Brother Nathaniel Draco,” Devenreux continued, “Who with some excellent news about his bid for Assemblyman on the Haven Board.”
Draco was perhaps the best dressed of the room, for he had reason to be dolled up in suit-and-tie. He whipped open a tablet and across it was a newspaper headline.
“REFORMATION SHAKE-UP AS DRAKE SOARS IN POLLS”
The room erupted in a fountain overflowing with only the most exuberant of praise. Draco gestured for silence, and once the floor was his, graced the gaggle of hounds with a single phrase: “We’ll see you tomorrow in Empire Square.”
He hit a chord with a voice for radio and a face for the teleboards in Comm/Ent; charisma incarnate. His audience of supporters responded with a roar of approval. “Jack” for his part coughed up a whistle or two, blending in with the crowd. For the moment, everything seemed truly upright. It was almost unfathomable. The crowd was electric, the leaders kindly. It was so organically pristine.
That word, organic.
The word hit Roger square in the head the more he thought about the whole setup. He was in the middle of a real old-fashioned pack in some ways, everyone coming together for one another. They really were presenting themselves as the collective face of the “Bright Organic Tomorrow.”
The thought hadn’t much time to develop when Devenreux cranked the volume down on the crowd.
“Order please Brothers and Sisters,” she said. “We’re all terribly excited. Getting the chance to hold a full-on rally, no holds barred, we ought to be. We even have assurance, considering the circumstances and the contention, that the state will in fact stand down all force against us. They also know the price of going back on their word. We’ve been peaceable and honest, and after weeks of toiling, they finally honor that. I want everyone there to be of open heart, sound mind, and quick wit.”
While the crowd were in total agreement, Roger had to cling desperately to his own jovial facade. This simply couldn’t be. No way, no how, not in a million years could he even fathom A.C.E.S, the Haven Police (what little of the force weren’t automated hovercrafts), or the Board would even allow a protest of any magnitude, let alone one this rebellious. He recalled a debrief on Lita’s “fireworks” while he was on Base in the desert. They certainly weren’t invited to hold the floor in the middle of the Comm/Ent. district, and when the crowd control came out, it looked as bad as the riots that had cost General Knox his arm.
And yet, all this deft analysis was shot down when a particularly powerful receipt was produced.
Draco swiped left on the tablet, revealing a video with a fellow gray, groomed to perfection in a bright white suit. He clicked a button on the tablet’s side, engaging a hologram mode which blew the image up immensely. With a press of the play button, all grew crystal clear.
“This is Henry Beltrami, Current Fifth Chairman of the Haven Board. This video file is explicitly and exclusively addressed to those of the organization Haven Reformation. We the Board strive to do right by our beloved city, and if we have ever been at fault in that, it is in ignoring the voices of our citizens, the ones raised by your organization. Consider this a formal olive branch and sincere invitation to discourse on March 1st at Empire Square from the hours of 1 PM to 4. Don’t walk to us in fear, but in the fearlessness you have displayed in your demonstrations and your convictions.”
Cue the fiftieth round of applause that night, the room at full tilt once again.
And yet, all Roger could taste in his mouth was an invisible honey at the rim of a prospective pot, waiting for hundreds to go diving in and get swallowed whole by the nectar. It was as beautiful a setup as he could have dreamed of. And frankly, one too damn obvious to pull the wool over this many eyes.
Unfortunately, T-Bird could sense his skepticism.
“What Jack, you don’t dig?” he started.
“I dig what you guys do, I just don’t dig those assholes, The Board. I smell their bullshit a mile away most days, and Lord don’t it reek. For God’s sake, how can they go from killing us to opening the doors? Just at the drop of a hat.”
T-Bird looked perplexed, as if the contradictions had never crossed his mind, before a playful glint came to his eye. “You wouldn’t have known about the ace up the sleeve, would ya?”
Roger looked to T-Bird. “Know what?”
The red wolf cackled to himself as the audience’s praise rained down upon the council. “You’ll see at the Festival. It’ll groove ya Flash. Lord will it groove ya.”
Like an electric Shangri-La it stood, the ballroom of the Town Hall flooded with the few hundred wolves who attended the meeting, all enjoying one another’s company. Gone were the business wares of the organization, and out came an earthy psychedelic chic. Gone was the warm orange glow, and out came every color of the rainbow to wash over those in total release. The music was that of an echoing flute backed by a lush jazz orchestra, filling the room with a cool musical mist, made manifest by the very real purple haze wafting from every joint in the building.
The music didn’t bother him, it was the hippie-commune laid before him that Roger couldn’t “vibe with.” For his part (and to keep sane), the gray wolf kept his favorite Mahler symphony running in the back of his mind, the class he pined for now nowhere in sight.
Auferstehung, Auferstehung, he thought to himself, I’ll be needing a resurrection after this gig.
He whistled a melodic line or two, doing his best to keep in key with the song so he didn’t seem too out of place. T-Bird and his gang were hanging around the punch bowl when they spotted the aimless “Flash.”
“Yo Jack, swing over here, brother,” J.D. called.
The poker face was back on and the gray-furred agent took one of the filled glasses in stride.
“How we hanging?” Snowball asked.
“First day here, and I ain’t even got my picket sign ready,” he chuckled, “Hey T, what’s the big tableturner?”
T-Bird cocked his ears to the front door as he looked at his watch. “He’s coming up the stairs...right...now.”
The footfalls came quietly before one of the security detail and Devenreux herself, now adorned in flared jeans, a form-fitting black shirt, and a belt you could see from space, revealed their surprise.
“Brothers and sisters,” Devenreux called out, the room dimming to a whisper. “A friendly reminder that we have a special guest here tonight. The man responsible for all of this happening. Welcome, Mr. 2483.”
To anyone else in the room, the number must have come as a peculiar quirk, but with a raise of his left eyebrow, Roger Steele realized just what he was laying eyes on: his first genuine White Coat.
With over a decade-plus in the field, having only come close to meeting one thanks to the now deceased Glenn Deighton and his access code heist (a meeting thwarted by witness protection), he now stood within ten feet of a custodian for the Artificially Controlled Eco-System. One hound that could take him right to the heart of this living, electric beast, the beating heart of the city itself, should the circumstances align.
The engineer was a black wolf, roughly in his 40s, thick-snouted and remarkably thin, but in decent shape. He wasn’t in his lab garb, but the white button-up, gray slacks, and black loafers didn’t help him to look any less square. The second set of eyes at his snout’s edge weren’t exactly the hippest either, the rectangular framed glasses subtly dented at the top of both lenses. Perhaps most peculiar of all, he wasn’t worrying.
He was putting on a brave face, sure, coming to the commune wasn’t exactly any state worker’s cup of party-line tea after all. It was his ability to stand upright and unflinching, an automaton of a wolf, that puzzled Roger. It could only mean one of two things: they had picked an android out of the lineup, or the agent’s new-found friend had an angle all his own.
“This too is his time for food and drink,” Devenreux continued, “so make him feel welcome. He’ll be back to bed in about an hour’s time.”
She turned the black-furred tech loose among the crowd, an he made his way towards the food with a subtle limp in his right leg. Some smiled, some snickered, but no one went out of their way to sneer. Roger couldn’t take his eyes off the engineer as he made his way to the hors d'oeuvres, but it wasn’t long before T-Bird snapped him out of the trance.
“Insurance deals don’t come much better than this, don’t they Jack?”
Roger chuckled, “You ain’t kidding T, you ain’t kidding.”
It wasn’t long before another set of eyes locked with his—Devenreux’s. She looked at him like she had to pick him up from school after coming down with a cold. He couldn’t figure it, so he played it cool, taking a swig of the punch and vibing to the music outside his head, the gang joining in as she made her way over.
“I hope the evening finds you in good spirits,” she began, pulling her teashade glasses to her snout’s edge.
“Yes ma’am,” the youngsters concurred, Roger nodding with a smile.
“I’m sorry I didn’t get to talk with you personally Mr. Flash; the meeting took precedence as you can imagine.”
With another swig, Roger replied, “Hey, just plain ol’ Jack among friends. I count y’all as ‘em. But yeah, I got the racket, same with the boss.”
“I hope you know we really are torn up about Ralph. Doing that address took the wind out of me. Never been that flaming mad in my life, and I’ve had quite a few outbursts as you may have seen. I’ve always done those broadcasts with passion, never rage. Not until that one.”
“Noneya been taking it out on the guest?” Roger asked.
“Certainly not,” Devenreux said. “It’s beyond the pale as far as we’re concerned. He understands full well why he’s with us.”
“Never broke out, nothing?”
Devenreux cocked her head. “I think you forget just how sharp engineers are, Jack.”
Now was the time to play dumb.
“Well gee! I didn’t put the number and everything together. So he’s a White Coat—and that means he—well got-damned!”
She nodded at every epiphany “Jack” had before chuckling to herself. “He’s a nice fellow really, been a good sport about it too. I helped plenty with that.”
A twinkle came to the leader’s eye, her smile warm as she stood real close to the leather-bedecked hot rodder. “You a gentle sort of giant?” she asked, the half-foot height difference now plain as day.
“Most of the time,” he sheepishly smiled, “I pick fights with folks who pick on my crew.”
Devenreux nodded. “Respectable position to hold.”
“I know we’re here on an R&R mission, Miss Lucille,” Roger interjected, “but I wanted to talk a little about my place here, in the Reformation.”
“And lucky for you, my office is right that way.”
She pointed to the door on the opposite end of the room. With a playful salute to his friends, he crossed the floor with the boss, sauntering right into a surprisingly sparse room. Half-lit and littered with papers, it brought to mind that of his own study on Base, the books on everything from strategy to philosophy splayed wide before his ever-observant eyes.
Here, it was speeches. Lots and lots of speeches, the kinds of rousing and provocative verbiage that was made to move mountains.
When the off-white leader took her seat behind the desk, she started to rattle off some lines. “‘We stand at the precipice, asking ourselves to consider a future of interminable mechanization, to discard the world that once dwelled on our beloved land. A world of true freedom, of authenticity. Of flesh, fur, and blood.’ Can you appreciate that, Flash?”
“The world that once dwelled is my specialty,” Roger grinned, the first genuine smile he had cracked all day.
“What takes you back to it?”
Roger thought for a second, taking the seat opposite of Devenreux. “Seeing what’s become of it. Knowing what I’ve read, and what could be again.”
“So ‘we’re not too different, you and I?’”
The two chuckled at the corniness of the old chestnut before Roger resumed the conversation. “In a way, I just...how to put it? No form of it was ever perfect, but we had a better thing going back then than leaving it all to 1s and 0s. That’s always what I tell myself whenever the despondency hits hardest. Guess I been fighting the good fight for longer than I let on.”
“No, I can see it plain as day,” Devenreux smiled, kicking her sandalled paws up on the desk. “You can look like a punk, hippie, headbanger, whatever your style is. When you got a good head on your shoulders, nothing has to be let on. You just keep doing you.”
Roger nodded as his compatriot turned her attention to other matters. “You said you got heat, back there at the meeting?” Devenreux inquired.
“Hey, quick hand never meant—”
“Hold up Slick,” she giggled. “Never have I ever said it was bad, just that we prefer to keep the peace. Sometimes a slug is what it takes.”
“Well, yeah, I got stopping power.”
“Wanna do security detail tonight?”
Dumbfounded best described the look on Roger’s face. “Just like that?”
Devenreux smiled her mousy smile. “Hey, you got your heart and head in it man, I ain’t holding secrets. Everything you see down in Comm/Ent or on your screens is all we got. Besides, we’re 10 to 1 on good eggs in this crew. The detail’s more a courtesy. Once they handed over the block, ain’t a soul come by that we didn’t want. Haven’t had any kamikazeing either. Only thing we’re keeping under lock and key is our lab rat out on the floor, and even then, he’s going home after the rally in Empire tomorrow.”
So the White Coat was more than a pawn, it seemed. “Tell you what,” said Roger, “put me on the general Town Hall detail tonight, and if anyone needs to swap out anywhere, I’ll fill in. Front Entrance, Hallway Patrol, The Cell, wherever you want me, Coach.”
She swung her legs off the desk before reaching out her hand. “Get back out there and enjoy yourself. Don’t worry about being ‘out of uniform’ when you’re on.”
The night was never the same after that handshake.
He had been on hall duty since 9:30 when he got the call.
“Yo Jack, we need someone to cover the Tech downstairs, one of our guys is real sick.”
Roger looked skeptical when he saw the brown wolven guard walk up to him. “You got someone to keep tabs on the hall?” he asked. The guard nodded.
With hesitance, Roger relinquished the post and made his way to the elevator, punching in the basement.
As he waited in the sterling silver box, fifty things flashed across his mind at once. Everything from the character he played, how to keep it up, the questions he’d slowly trickle out and massage into conversation with the White Coat. He had only so much time before suspicion could grow from any side, so it had to be time spent wisely.
He parsed through his mental milieu as the number ticked down to 3, 2...1...Ground.
Out he stepped into a different beast of a hallway. It was cool, glassy; like stepping into an acrylic block. And at the far end, lying in wait, was the room. He could see clear into it. The black wolf sat idle as the ill white guard was tended to by another brown.
“Here to take over, Chief.”
“Good, dude musta had something raw at the Festival,” the brown guard replied. “Help me get him to the elevator real quick. Our four-digit friend can’t do much between here and there.”
Roger got under the sick guard’s left shoulder, and helped him to the elevator. The brown wolf called out to Roger before the door closed: “I’ll be back down shortly.”
With a nod from his placeholder, the metal doors glided shut. Roger sauntered back to the cell, heels of his steel-capped boots clacking with every step. When he returned to the pure white cell, the black wolf was chortling to himself.
“Yo 24, what’s got ya cracking up?”
The engineer pulled himself together. When he spoke, it came on the back of a voice with the depth of the Marianas Trench. “Oh, just hedged a bet on what took his gut out. My money’s on the prosciutto off the boards, how ‘bout you?”
Roger paused, “Mine’s on the fromage,” he said. “I never could tell how the modules do it, full-synthesis and all that?”
2483 looked up, pulling his glasses to his snout’s edge. “Knowing Ace, she wasn’t exactly pleased with all this. Maybe it’s some half-baked revenge. Bitch is good at it.”
Slowly, the agent found the right buttons to push. “You figure after a couple hundred years, she could whip up shit like cheese, pastrami, the works no problem.”
“Well, part of it was the modules themselves. Take it from your pawn, the Board wasn’t gonna give you assholes the top-dollar real estate.”
“Knew they wasn’t gonna let us anywhere near Empire,” Roger chimed in, “or A.C.E.S., wherever the hell she’s hanging.”
The jailed engineer couldn’t help but chuckle. “This is the part where I’m supposed to spook ya, be all like ‘she’s all around you, everywhere you gooooo!’ But yeah, that shit wasn’t ever in the cards Kid...hell, what’s your name?”
“Jack Flash, you got a better one than that heap of numbers?”
With a sigh, the answer was, “For the purposes of conversation, call me Chet. I got a couple of his records back home anyway...but yeah, they weren’t gonna give you that inside tip. Not far though.”
The last sentence came under hushed breath. Roger pretended not to listen.
“Why you so cool about this?” he asked idly.
Chet scoffed. “The hell am I supposed to be, a wilting violet praying for mercy from ‘ze brave new faces ov ze revolution?’ I’m a grown-ass man. After all is said and done, one of your cats will get in on the Board, I’ll go back to 22 Aca—” He cut off the thought before continuing. “I’ll go back to my gig, and your guy will do enough stymieing to piss ‘em off, make a change, or wake up with a codified wound in his neck.” Roger said nothing.
“Shit, you’re the first of these guys I couldn’t get a rise out of.” the engineer smiled.
The gray wolf returned the favor, looking into the cell over his shoulder. “You don’t get by in my world losing your cool.”
Perhaps there was too much gleam in the agent’s eye when he spoke. Perhaps not. But something about the look stirred Chet. “You’re not? Are you?”
“Are what?” Roger plainly asked, “Mister, I’m supposed to be a hall monitor right now, I’m just holding the fort down.”
The black wolf took a long, deep breath. “Sorry, just...had a spell there or something, Jesus. You don’t get by in my world without looking over your shoulder every five seconds.”
It was a mutual truth both knew too well. He decided to soften “Jack” for Chet. “Hey, uh, I know we’re just kinda new to each other,” he started, “but I think you’re pretty chill. Don’t know if we’ll ever meet again, but hey, for what it’s worth, you got a friend here.”
Chet nodded kindly, “You’re a good man Flash. Better than some of the dogs I’ve seen down here...hell, better than the one’s I work for.”
“Ever want to go into I.T. for yourself?”
“Always thought about it,” came the reply, “But you don’t just leave the WCC. You’re on for life, or you get your head wiped bald. I don’t know how much tech they let you keep in the cranium for freelancing.”
When the muttering of “they better pay me good for this gig” came sliding out of Chet’s mouth, a veil lifted.
He was a plant.
Whether it was to gain intel or to be a pawn on a larger board, this engineer knew he was going to be spending quite some time among the plebs.
Roger feigned a slight deafness, scratching at his ear.
“Got an earbud stuck in there?” the black wolf chuckled.
“Nah, just been a little hard of hearing,” he shrugged. “Besides, I prefer headphones. Nothing like a big pair of cans.”
“You should see the ones we have in the rec room,” Chet snickered. “Noise-canceling dynamite I call ‘em. They zap you if you go over your allotted break time. Nothing harmful, just a”
ZAP.
Roger heard the loudest snap of electricity in his life, a sound he knew all too well. The sound of Glenn Deighton dropping dead at his feet, midway through scrawling his access codes. Whipping around, he saw the black wolf convulsing violently on the floor. He looked around for a way to get into the cell, but he had only one option. He drew his Mauser and blasted the lock. The door shot opened and Roger bolted for Chet, whipping out his pocket intercom.
“Calling all guards, calling all guards, we have a code red with our guest. Medical emergency. If we got any EMTs in the building, swing by the cell ASAP.”
Roger looked down at Chet, the engineer managing to eke out a few words: “I don’t take nitro, kid. Good luck.”
Roger listened for the engineer’s pulse. He was a living being alright, but his heart was rocketing right out of his chest. Faster and faster it went until...nothing.
Another informant dead.
He didn’t have time to process the situation, for when Roger stood up, a rush of guards came surging down the hall. But they weren’t the usual set. They came in black boots and faded black denim. He waved for them, beckoning them to the cell. But the moment the first entered, the gray-furred Agent was met with a crack over the back of the neck.
He was out cold on the spot.
When the pool of black opened up, and Steele was conscious once more, the room he awoke to was nothing, just a harsh light beating down on him.
There was nothing in the room, just the agent, the light, and the chair he was tied to. It could’ve been the size of an office cubicle or a warehouse for all he knew. It could have been the back side of a black hole.
When Roger came to his senses, what few could be stimulated by the space, he soon realized there were no bearings to get beyond his own chair. Look up and be blinded, look down and see nothing but your dusted denim and boots. No odors nor fragrances, no audible hums or hisses, like an anechoic chamber forged to dull every sense possible. The only thing he could feel was the tight grip of the rope around his wrists, arms wrapped over the back of the chair in restraint.
Suddenly, footsteps. Footsteps with no echo, just a dampened click as they drew nearer.
T-Bird was the first to reveal himself, then Snowball, then J.D. All three looked different, for each was dressed like Roger himself. Same button-ups, same black slacks. The darker garments blended into the long shadows cast across the floor. The red wolf was the first to start in.
“Why’d you kill him Jack?”
“I didn’t.”
“We heard the gunshot Jack,” Snowball glibly chimed in.
“To get in and try and save him, he was having a heart attack.”
J.D. walked up behind “Jack” and whipped his head back as far as it could go. “We know it was you, asshole,” the black wolf growled.
For a split second, Roger saw a bit of Chet in J.D., though the raw pain of his grip distorted his view of anything in the room. “What do I gotta do to prove it?”
“You don’t gotta prove it because you can’t,” T-Bird shot down.
“We know what we know,” Snowball chortled. “Ain’t no other way.”
“Alright, give up the ghost asshats,” Roger venomously spat. “You’re all just a bunch of fucking toadies, aren’t you? State-sponsored goons who couldn’t shoot their way out of a paper bag!”
J.D. was fixing to squeeze his brains out, his claws digging into Roger’s head.
“Do you realize what this cost us?” T-Bird started, dropping one boot on the gray’s chest, “He was our bargaining chip, man, and do you think the fucking stooges up at Empire are gonna do anything with us? They won’t want to talk, they won’t want to change. They’ll call us fucking terrorists and throw the whole thing out into the ozone.”
He dug his heel in before landing a swift kick in the gut. The pain rocketed through Roger’s body as he felt his head hit the concrete floor. Snowball kicked him one in the snout for good measure. He got down the floor and looked the gray dead in his eyes. “Now, are you gonna tell us why you killed him?”
Roger spat blood all over his white fur. “Y’know what I’ll fucking tell you?” he seethed. “Your man was a fucking plant.”
J.D. swung the chair back up. “The fuck he talking about?”
Roger chuckled grimly. “He was a plant. However you got him, whatever kidnapping bullshit you went through to grab his ass, it was all staged. It was nothing. He meant nothing.”
The very thought almost refused to register among the three.
“I’ll do you one better: we got to talking, him and I. And you know what slipped out of his lips? 22 Aca. You know what he was about to say? Where he worked. You remember where he worked? On the main floor of the Artificially Controlled Eco-System.”
Roger could see their minds-melting in real-time, Snowball’s in full-blown destruction.
“Could that be Acacia?” the white wolf asked the others.
He never heard their answer, for a streak of red blew his head wide open. Followed by J.D. And ending with T-Bird. All no older than 17, all dead at the 30-something gray agent’s feet.
Out from the shadows stepped the wolves in black. Not his, nor Lita’s, but the guards who had tackled him.
“Looks like we found Ambiorix #2,” one of them said. “Let’s get him to the extractor, I got a feeling he’s got more in him than DeVol ever had.”
Another of the horde chimed in. “Think they’ll finally pull the plug on this whole thing?”
“He’s only the cherry atop the sundae we got planned for ‘em,” the first one replied. “The music stops tomorrow. I think they’ll try another way of weeding these scumbags out after Empire Square. Nothing quite so...glamorous.”
The first wolf, a dark gray, stepped out into the light, the pool having grown substantially since the Reformation teens had entered the building. “Haven’t been sending any notices out to Friends, have you?” he quizzed from across the room. “I don’t have my scrambler on me right now.”
Everything fell on deaf gray ears, for Roger, through the black eye, could only think about finding his piece. He was sure one of the teenaged clowns had taken it, and he wanted a fighting chance against the army of stooges.
He saw a grip protruding from Snowball’s back pocket. The body had fallen just before the chair. He couldn’t be stealthy about it. He’d have to move so fast, every head turned could catch a bullet straight between the eyes.
He felt for the sharpest spike on his leather cuffs. If it hurt, she was the one and by God did the one facing inward on his left wrist sting. Through enough careful shimmying, he could feel the thread of the rope loosen. And with each strand severed, the closer he got to undoing his hands, the more the adrenaline grew within him. But it was something more. Something stronger that brewed within him. Within the depths of his mind, his body, his soul. Something...feral.
It all happened in a blur. With his hands free, he lunged for the gun and whipped it out of the white wolf’s jeans. He freed his legs with a single kick, but took the chair with him, still tied to his chest. He opened fire like he was standing on the front lines. Streaks of bright green crossed the space and struck guard after guard. When fire was returned, the room became a Technicolor war zone, streaks of red, blue, white, and yellow whizzing by. With two reds and a blue, he was able to shed the chair, bowling over at least three wolves with a flick of his back. He had an electric slug for every wolf in the building.
All, save for one.
A streak of pure white careened from out of the black and shaved the tip of the fur on Roger’s right cheek, a stroke away from his hand-crafted scars. He whipped around to see the barrel, only for there to not be a single body left standing in view. Roger went to fire, only for nothing to dispense.
And yet, the silver streaks kept on coming.
In a mad haste, the agent booked it out of the circle of light, blindly dashing into the dark as he looked back over his shoulder.
Into the light stepped...Draco?
Nathaniel Draco, the thin gray statesman, clad in the black garb of the guards whom the agent had felled, took aim once more, only for his own revolver to prove empty.
Roger kept running. Running without care, worry, or a shred of emotion in his mind. He was running to survive. And the second he found the door, he could hear the dampened, hurried footfalls of Draco. Roger kicked the door once. Kicked it twice, and on the third, it finally burst free.
Free into the city streets. The streets beyond the Reformation’s compound. A few lonely hovercars high in the stratosphere passed overhead where Roger stood. He froze, not in shell-shock, but in cold-hard calculation. He checked the watch on his left wrist and pressed down the twin buttons affixed to the digital watch’s face.
He cocked his ears towards the compound and heard two things. The clicking steps of Draco and the sudden opening of the door. The elder gray made a B-line straight for the agent, who stepped into the streets, looking for something to fight the wolf with one-on-one. Not a pipe or shred of rebar to be found.
Guess we’ll do it the old-fashioned way.
Roger threw a fist clean into the statesman’s face, who responded in kind, the two landing blow after blow with the fury of duelling heavyweights. The fisticuffs kept Draco busy long enough for the most beautiful sight of Roger’s long night: his black Dodge Charger.
Soldiering down the street at breakneck speed, the slender muscle car barreled towards the combatants. Roger landed a swift kick to the chest, sending Nathaniel Draco into the streets and under the rod’s wheels in seconds.
The agent slid through the window and into the driver’s seat, a sigh of relief escaping him. “Thank God for P2P location,” he grinned, patting the wheel.
He pulled up a map on the center console of the car, and plotted a course to take him back to the compound. “Alright Beautiful, I got plenty of answers, but just a few more questions burning a hole in my pocket. Let’s get them.”
With a kick of the throttle, the Charger roared down the road, twisting the body of the statesman under her wheels. For Draco, it was the end of a perplexing affair. And for Agent Roger Steele, it was the beginning of a surreal conspiracy.
TO BE CONTINUED