Ctrl Alt Dlt: chapter 3 part 1

Chapter 3

Paperwork had consumed his life. In the mourning paperwork for Espionage, Weapons Development, and Economic Growth and Recovery. In the afternoon paperwork for Resources, Commission, The Navy, Army, and Marines, as well as daily reports on important projects in all these groups.
And at night there was security paperwork, then bed, though his sleep was troubled, if it came, that was. But today was the first time that he had not minded. Long gone were the days when he too was permitted to go on missions. But there was some very interesting news flowing in today, the other side had found their second, and he was curious, very curious, about how this would be handled by all sides.
The Hackers had to be very careful with this one, as it was their only chance at decent continuation, and judging from the information gleaned he would by suspicious of everything immediately, for public handicaps often breed extra senses. Not that it mattered, this Karry Glare would probably have forgotten before they even tried to take the computers, and if not, maybe he could be captured. He smiled at the thought, that would put Odysseus in his place.

* * * * * * * * * * *

“No,” James had to think fast, if Karry wasn’t approached exactly right, then they could lose him. “My name is James”
“Do not patronize me, I recognize you, and I have never ever forgotten a single face, not in my entire life.” Karry seemed ashamed to have let that slip out, but after James gave a shrug, Kerry only frowned. This is bad, he recognizes me. But from a dream, who would have thought that he would even bring that up. He remembered Brick talking to him.
“He’s sharp,” Brick had said, “and if we don’t interfere with him he’ll go far. So don’t under estimate him. Remember that he, too, is a man of true humanity. Oh yes, he’s a sharp one, so don’t be surprised by anything he says, or he’ll jump to conclusions about you, in college he took a psychology course and a dream interpretation course just because he had some extra time, so don’t, I repeat, DO NOT UN-DER-EST-E-MATE HIM. It is vital to his recovery, which is drastically important.
The rest of the day was spent with Karry quizzing James on street names, fastest routs to random places and procedures. At 10:00 pm Kerry either got bored or ran out of things to ask him, but he gave a great sigh and said, “Very good, now do you have any questions for me?”
A highly unorthodox idea came to James. “Yeah, where is the bathroom?”
“Take a left down the hall and then another left once you reach an intersecting hall, then walk down the hall and go into the first door on the left. Got it?”
“Got it, thanks.”
Once in the bathroom James took out his cell and walked into a stall. He pressed a button on the top of the closed cell and a holographic face of his partner, Fly, showed above the cell phone.
“What?” said Fly’s face. Fly was short, but his long face, gaunt with exhaustion, did not hint to it. His hair was copper red, echoing of his Scottish ancestry. “What’s wrong? Why are you callin’ meh?” Fly’s voice was fast and worried, as usual, but something about his voice made the hair on the back of his neck stand on end.
“Calm down, your speaking like a Scot… you haven’t done that since the last time a raid went to hell. What’s wrong?”
“Why are you calling meh? This is supposed tah beh a simple plan, in and out, it’s a bloody ra’treval, for the sake of the Iliad! Or is it even him… damn, I thought wee ‘ad et this time.”
“Nothings wrong, and it is him, everything is going fine, except…”
“Ach’cept wot! Huh-hum, sorry… Except what! Nothing good ever comes of except.” His voice was controlled, and James could tell he was getting excited and wanted good news about Karry.
“Except that he isn’t exactly taking a liking to me. Are you sure your background check is right? Didn’t cross examine his known encounters or something?” There was a long silence. Oops, thought James, “Not that I’m saying your equipment is faulty, or that your history, but… are you sure he doesn’t have any enmity with Brits?”
Fly’s voice came calm and indignant, “Three things, one, your bloody,” James was not lost on the irony, “right that I did my job good and correct. Two, no I can’t be sure he didn’t meet a nasty Brit on the streets, but I know that he didn’t make any form of foreign contact until he was 20, when he made friends with a Spaniard, one we both know to well, and they haven’t sent mail, email, or placed phone calls to each other since about the time we found you, five years ago. And three, if you’re incapable of hiding your accent, then it’s your own damn problem!”
“I can suppress my accent well enough to fool most people, but Karry Glare is sharper than most people. So it would be really helpful to know about any mitigating factors. And if you don’t have any new information, then how about a new plan of action?” Of course, James already had one.
“You’ve got something in mind, I know it, tell the Genie what you need, and he’ll use his magic fingers.” Fly was a technology specialist, specifically communication, and was often unbearable when he was in his element. But James decided to play along.
“May I have my three greatest desires?”
“Only if your greatest desire is to broaden your knowledge of the past, present, and person.”
“Right, now, I seem to remember something about a robbery tomorrow.”
“Yeah, theirs (he practically spat the word out), at 7:00 pm.”
“Damn, you sure, I mean, oh just scratch that question. Could you talk to Brick about getting Karry in by 6:00, Karry owes him time anyway, I doubt he’d be too suspicious.”
“Okay, but, his and your shift doesn’t actually start until 9:00 o’clock, not normally at least, you know that, don’t you?”
“Yyyeessss,” James was a little confused at the question so he asked, “why?”
“Oh, nothing, it’s just that he’ll be runnin’ on half steam, and he’s going to be less than friendly.”
“Oh I know that, just make sure it’s a direct order for him to be working, and a suggestive order that we’re where we need to be.” James turned off the phone, flushed the toilet with his foot, washed his hands and made his way back to Karry’s cubical.

* * * * * * * * * * * *

5:00 pm, 5:00 pm, 5:00 freaking pm. Karry hadn’t even been plagued by the dreams and yet he was at work at goddamn 5:00 PM! Suddenly a very loud presence made itself known.
“What’s wrong Glare? You look dead on your feet.” It was Rammet, why is he here? Karry asked himself. The dull thunder of sleepiness was eating away at his rationality. He isn’t even on duty today. And why do I have to deal with the obnoxious little bastard?
“Crap, man! Gressin finally called in time!” and without even waiting for confirmation on his theory he ran off towards his office.
Damn stupid arrogant old son of a Mother…
“Officer Glare, sorry I’m late,” James looked in worse shape than Karry felt, and suddenly Karry was feeling better. “I only got the message at 4:30, I ain’t even showered nor shaved.”
“Then why do you sound so freakin’ cheery?” Kerry was still feeling grumpy at losing a good three hours of sleep, and as he had a new outlet…
“If sleep is only a way to recharge for work, and my work is play, then what is there to recharge? Besides, the Chicago Bull’s got their asses kicked by Miami, and I made 70 bucks off a bet.” James was grinning broadly and Karry couldn’t help but laugh at the way his lopsided grin looked on his bedraggled face, maybe he won’t tear him a new ass hole.
“Whatever, look we have an… unusual rout today. Doubtless it will be fun, and you’ll probably have a great time, but it’s a one time thing, so don’t get too excited when you see the rout.” Karry was watching him for signs of surprise, or anything, really, but there was nothing in his eyes except an eagerness for the day to come.
Karry handed James the folder on their way to his cab, and as he read the little pink sheet that gave their rout, his face fell.
“Why the sh’ney do they want us to run this rout? There hasn’t been a major crime in the area since 2010. I mean, it’s a high level bank that has its own security team better trained than most of the NYPD, why the hell do they need us?” James was visibly frustrated, but in such a way that made Karry suspicious while he had no reason to be. But he was suspicious, after that three minute bathroom run, Karry’s danger senses were flaring. His hands were wet, he could see, but there was no sheen of the last bit of soap that holds on with a death grip, so either his partner was a slob, or wasn’t using the bathroom. So he had made a mental note to not shake his hand and to keep a closer eye on him.
“So, any hobbies?” asked Karry. “Other than gambling.”
James threw a relived look at Karry for initiating friendly conversation. Suddenly Karry felt a pang of guilt for not actually caring. So little in his life had required social interaction that Karry had fallen almost completely out of touch. A flash and an image of an old worn down man whom Karry had sworn he would never be or act like came to his mind and then Karry felt ashamed for his idle attitude towards James when he obviously needed friendship. Now Karry was surprised, he had never had such a large emotional inburst. And it wasn’t finished, because now he felt wary of James, of someone with the power to actually cause Karry Glare to feel shame, pity, and fear (and on their second meeting no less). And it wasn’t as though Karry wasn’t gifted at idle speech, he talked to people every day that he honestly couldn’t give a shit about so why did he feel this way about James. All of these thoughts had occurred before James answered.
“Yeah, I make my own toys, for one.” And at Karry’s obvious confusion James amended himself. “Custom jobs, like I have a trebuchet in my apartment, and I made an entirely unique pistol, two modes, Semi and Full Solar.” That got Karry’s attention, only a couple of dozen crafters in the world could manage that (though Karry never really understood the point of a pistol that could make its own weak beams barley strong enough to pierce armor). “I also have a few other things under construction, but I never speak of unfinished projects. What about you?”
The question surprised him as much as the emotional inburst had a minute ago. “No, not really. I do a lot of random research on the web, but other than that I just haul up in my apartment.” Karry started the car and pressed the tracker button. “Do you know what that is, James?” Karry asked, gesturing towards the tracker.
“Of course.” James sounded annoyed and bored with the question, “It’s the tracker, tells HQ that we are on call and where we are. If a car is ever found out to have run with the tracker off without a good fucking reason, then the officers on call while it happened are imprisoned for a minimum five years on top of whatever other crime they may have committed while the tracker is off, but why they don’t just trigger it to the ignition is beyond me.” Kerry shrugged off the sublime question because he didn’t know himself.

* * * * * * * * * * * *

It was 6:50 and James was starting to get nervous. He had quite enjoyed the last one and a half hours. Kerry and he had covered many different subjects, everything from Karry’s cat Lunars to where James had gone to school. Just when Karry seemed to be taking a liking to me, too. Oh well, guess he’ll really like me after this. The thought made him nauseous with guilt
“So, I already told you I come from an orphanage, what about you? Your parents? James, YO James.” James was pulled out of his morbid reverie by this question and Karry had pushed him into the ravine of thought that was his parents.
“They’re a couple of rich assed Virginians, with pure British ancestry. I had to get out before I went crazy!” James did not want to discuss his family with Karry, that topic tended to lose him friends before he had the chance to make them.
His parents owned the one of the most controversial companies in the world. Sometime in the early 1990’s a new drug was developed, Serodiepinalix, also known as SerumX. This drug had the same effect and pure ecstasy that heroin had but without loss of brain control. SerumX also had all of the side effects of tobacco. James’ parents learned of this drug and invested heavily in it. In 2015, they developed a final product and marketed it to the general public directly after it was approved as a “safe.” consumer drug.
This, as James learned quickly, meant that the dosages were week enough that even someone who was allergic to it couldn’t die of an extreme reaction, preemptively saving The Company billions of its dollars in law suits. In two years the general public had access to it in the form of quid’s, smokes, needles, and even inhalants. James’ parents had marketed SerumX as the next cigarette, and all but a few cigarette companies had merged with the SerumX, resulting in a board of 6,000 stock holders. 68 people and not one of them had the integrity to even speak out against the foul nature of their product.
The only people who even smoked cigarettes nowadays were old folks who had built up a strong chemical dependency for nicotine, of which there was none in SerumX. And all through his childhood he thought that his parents were doing the right thing. The thing that broke his faith in his parents was when a reporter caught him when he sneaked out by himself. The reporter asked him what he thought about SerumX, and then introduced him to a young boy whose parents had died of lung cancer caused by SerumX. From that day on, everything to his chores to his education had merely been the means to an end, the end being getting away from his family. But they weren’t really his family anyway, sure that woman gave birth to him, but, as he later learned from his friends, that meant nothing.
After a long pause, in which Karry was groping for another topic and James was brooding over his parents, there was a click, click static, which always accompanied the car radio. Then the generic women’s voice came to them with an announcement.
“Bank Robbery on the junction of...” as the coordinates were given Kerry swore and exclaimed they were right on top of them, he pressed the tracker again to log that he had accepted, as many officers would, and turned around with the sirens on.
James was very nervous right now, one mistake could kill his friend-of-a-thousand-worlds, and the worst was that the mistake was something that only Karry could prevent. He tried to remember what his eyes had seen on that report of this raid, five men, wasn’t it? All of them lower status except their leader, who was still low status. What about equipment? Full-auto guns, grenades, a bomb to get into the vault... oh crap, what kind of bomb? The car was peeling through to get there, lights turned green before them and the traffic yielded, his plan in motion, James could think of nothing but that he had just made a huge mistake.
Karry lightly smacked James on the face, apparently Karry had been talking to James since they started toward the Bank.
“What?” James said rather calmly, the sting of the slap was jut starting to set in.
“We are almost there and you are in dreamland, that’s what!” Karry was annunciating, like he always did in time of stress, “Now, do you know what to do when the car stops? If so, tell me.”
“I am to pull out all the weapons I can and get the smoke grenades in the glove box, and I am to give you cover while you run to this side of the car!”
“Wrong, that is what I will be doing, you will get out and roll under the car.”
“But the book says...”
“If you live by the book, you will die because of the book, now do as I say!”
The car skidded to a stop and James hurled himself out of the car and then scuffled under the car, to get next to Karry, who had parked the car so that they could escape, if they needed to, without entering the crossfire. It took several minutes to get to the other side of the car and there was no sound of gunfire just yet. When he was finally on his feet, he noticed that they were not the only ones there, there was one other car, a little closer to the bank and to the left from where they were. Neither of them could see the owners of the vehicle, but they might have found shelter elsewhere, that or they went in, but no cop on the force is that stupid.