Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada

A dozen men and women filled the room. What would have been a view of the harbor, now had a gray mesh fabric pulled taut, obscuring the panorama. A line of monitors and a few old-school whiteboards faced inward. To the far left the same news channel Hank had been looking at was on, but everybody’s eyes focused on the central monitor. It hung above a low-slung concave console screen where a kid sat in an oversized gamming chair. He wore a royal blue, ATARI baseball cap backwards on his head and his long hair dropped out to the sides giving the appearances of blinders. The incessant movements of his hands and mumbling into his headset looked like he was deep in a multiplayer game. 

A nondescript motorcoach showed end to end on the central monitor. The camera zeroed in on the doorway of the bus. Two small monitors to the left and two to the right showed static images, and two more suspended above maintained split screen viewpoints of the area around the bus. 

A woman in her mid-fifties gripped the back of Atari-boy’s chair. She had an inch of dark gray roots pushing out expensive wheat colored blonde hair that fell around her broad shoulders. A yellow blouse tucked into the waistband of her ill-fitting slacks. Hank cringed and looked back at the monitor.

“Tag him,” she ordered. 

The room fell silent. Things that made a noise, a shifting foot, tapping a finger, the touch of a hand on the back of a chair, even breathing seemed to stop. The queer silence bothered Hank, but it only took a second to recall why. She said, “Tag him,” and the people heard—attention! Even Hank realized he was standing stiffer, frozen in an uncomfortable pose, so he looked around and found everybody still at attention except for Atari-boy. 

“Got him,” Atari-boy said.

All eyes fell on the woman in command. Her astringent voice and the bad hair didn’t dilute her authority. The deference given was all Hank needed to know. She was in charge. 

“Dammit, these are the same guys from LA. Don’t they keep terrorists locked up anymore? How the hell did they get out, and how’d they get across the border in a freaking bus? Shit! Tag everyone. Tell the effing Mounties what you can, but don’t let them know we sprayed them. Fudging Mounties will ignore the criminals and come after us….” She paused mid-rant, grimaced, and folded in half, as if in pain. All eyes were on her as she stood back up with a deep inhale, ready to continue. Holding her back, she said, “Dammit, Sam, does f-u-d-g-i-n-g count too?” 

The man standing just to her side spoke in a quiet voice, “Yes, ma’am. That’s three.” 

“I know how to count! Three hundred bucks. The assholes are going to make go broke. Stupid effing fines. Crap! How’d those language Nazis get me into this contract? I don’t see what the…” 

Hank thought she looked like she was about to choke up a hairball and grinned, thinking it was funny. Smart contracts that penalized certain actions were out of his league. Corporate people were the ones on the hook for social perfection. The classy jobs came with expectations. Never make the Company look bad, don’t get drunk in public, never smoke a cigarette, never tell the wrong joke or say a taboo word. Embarrassing behavior will stain the brand and cost a career. Incorrect behavior is reserved for Hollywood and the victim class. The elite can afford bad behavior, and victims are entitled to it. It was too obvious this woman had gotten in over her head with F-bombs, and now she was paying the price with real-time fines levied against her paycheck.

“I’m the boss. I should be able to say what I damn well please. This behavior modification is bullshit.” She looked at her watch with contempt. The woman’s expressive nature, coupled with the deference of the security people, pushed Hank over the edge, and he let out a chuckle as he considered the comedy sketch, he found himself in.

Willy shot him a severe look. But it was too late. 

“Who the hell are you? And what’s so funny?” the woman asked. 

“I’m Hank. Hank Gunn. Nothing’s funny Ma’am, I’m just dealing with allergies.” He pretended to sneeze into his sleeve and wiped his nose. “Allergies,” he repeated shaking his head and looking away.

She lost interest and focused back on the monitor. As she held up her hand and pointed her finger, everybody’s attention shifted to the door of the bus. The camera angle was perfect for observing passengers as they exited. Most of them had their heads down, but the angle was not from a typical camera mounted on some pole in the parking lot. The view angled upward from curb level, so their faces looked right into the camera. Recognition software instantly identified each person as they stepped off the bus. All had masks and most had hoodies or caps pulled low, but the surveillance AI somehow kept up. 

“Oh, yeah. Survival of the fittest,” the giant man standing in front of Hank spoke up. A glowing ball of light replaced the head of someone stepping off the bus. The person of interest emitted balls of fuzzy light at the shoulders and hands, the hips and ankles. “There’s always a hack.” The glowing balls seemed to buzz out of view and the recognition software moved on. “The wired-body trick… it still works after all these years,” said the giant without apology. 

“Shut up, Fred,” the woman scowled. “Follow that one. Get an analog picture, analyze his gait, have Sherlock pattern it, whatever it takes! I want an ID on that bastard.” 

The upper monitor followed the man from the side and panned around to the back, while the lower monitor continued to show the parade of thugs exiting the bus. 

“So, you’re Hank. Willy’s recruit. Are you ready?” she asked. 

“Ready for what?” Hank said. 

“For God’s sake, Willy. What does your team do over there, anyway? Get him up to speed.” 

Hank followed Willy as he walked to a large stainless-steel refrigerator. They positioned it like it was awaiting installation, a red hand-truck still wedged in against one side. He pressed his hand onto the program screen and pushed on the ice dispenser. The doors opened to reveal an arsenal of small arms and boxes of ammo. To others, it looked like a lot of black guns, but to Hank, they were like old friends. He had shot nothing since he left the service, but this disguised safe had all his favorites—a packed row of carbine rifles, with short, twelve-inch barrels. They were HK417 or maybe the civilian semi-auto version. There was no way to see the selector lever from where he stood. Either way, they were badass, and Hank’s heart pounded.

Judging from the oversized clothing of the security force in the room, he figured everybody already had a concealed sidearm or two, so the few pistols in the armory made sense. They looked like Beretta M9A1s and he wanted one. He wasn’t sure why. Maybe it was because he had carried that sidearm for years, or maybe he didn’t want to be the only one in the room without a weapon.

He could take or leave the last gun in the collection. It was a Benelli M4 Super 90. This shotgun had saved his life, but it was also the weapon responsible for his only battlefield injury. The official report explained a friendly fire incident—a deflected round. All everybody knew was that it caught him right in the ass. He had his back turned and was starting a morphine drip on some guy from a different unit. He didn’t even feel the small round shot enter his body until he felt his own blood drip down his leg. 

The doctor said the wound was so shallow a child could have removed it. When the abundant amounts of anesthetic wore off, Hank had his doubts. The event earned him two days off and a nickname. The junior team reveled in ostentatious displays and someone dubbed him Double-Ought-Butt. Fortunately, that was too cumbersome a moniker and before sunrise the next day, through the unknowable wisdom of Marines, they had settled on calling their injured medic, D’doc. 

Willy reached past all the familiar weapons and pulled out a box the size of a hardcover version of War and Peace. Then he passed Hank a plastic tube of what looked like gumballs and said, “Read the directions and don’t shoot your eye out.” 

They walked down a well-lit hallway with all the doors wide open. Power cords and communications cables traced in and out of doorways and down opposite sides of the hallway. A pattern formed. The number of colorful cables was growing, almost to the thickness of his forearm, all leading to the room at the far end of the hallway. The nerve center of the entire operation and a man standing beside the door with a rifle confirmed it. Willy and Hank entered the room unchallenged. 

They stepped over a thick branch of cordage and Willy said, “No Wi-Fi here. Old-school technology is more secure.” He directed Hank’s eyes out a mesh-screened window to the flat, black-tarred roof where tripods supported directional antenna and microwave dishes. They aimed to all points of the compass, while a compact satellite array gazed upward, shooting for the stars. “Everything’s encrypted, hard-wired, or both. We even bring our own special window coverings.” Then, in a loud voice he said, “Little help here?” 

There was no response from the people in clear sight. Each was facing the entry, but too enthralled with their oversized laptops to notice anything else. Willy bent over and wrapped his fingers over the top of the closest laptop and pushed his nose just over the edge. The Kilroy joke was lost on the irritated operator. 

She pulled off her headphones and said, “What?”

“Hank here needs comms. What’ve you got?” 

She pointed to a table that looked like snack time at the local Montessori school. Deep orange carrots lay washed, still sporting their dark green tops. Cauliflower whiter than a Hollywood starlet’s teeth, and broccoli like the forest filled a large platter. Heavy, brown glass bottles of kombucha sitting in an ice bath alongside pint mason jars of what would have looked like yogurt, except for its rich green color. Willy shook his head, reached over the food offerings, and picked through what he was looking for. Victorious, he held up a small box with outstretched arms, like he had just made a touchdown. 

That caught the eye of the young woman, who did not want to take part in Willy’s silliness. She said, “Bring me what you need. Nothing will work until I scan it.” 

Willy ripped open the box and handed a tiny earpiece to Hank. “Stuff this in your left ear.” Then handed him a watch. “Here you go, Dick Tracy.” He looked at his own watch and said, “Briefing in twenty-eight minutes. I suggest you get up to speed on your new toys in your room. I’ll send you the departure location and you can practice following the map on your watch. That might be the most important lesson you get today.”