Chapter Fourteen
Grandpa Ed performed ‘Maple Leaf Rag’ from the Scott Joplin Song Book on the classic oak console piano. Grandma Louise sat on the sofa four chapters deep into a Harold Robbins novel, taking a break from her kimono knitting project. Eight-year-old Liam sat on the floor, constructing a country cabin from a bucket of Lego.
“We’re eating dinner in ten minutes,” called out Robert Sullivan, Liam’s dad and the son of Ed and Louise. He was setting the table in the dining room, laying out plates, napkins and silverware. In the kitchen, his wife, Tracy, prepared a meal of ham, green beans and scalloped potatoes that filled the small California home with sweet aromas.
As Grandpa Ed played the opening notes of ‘The Entertainer’, a loud BANG BANG BANG erupted at the front door. The interior of the house immediately went silent. Then:
“Shit,” Robert said under his breath. He exchanged a worried glance with his wife, who stood frozen in the kitchen. Grandpa Ed backed away from the piano. Grandma Louise put down her book. Liam remained on the floor, clutching a piece of Lego in his fist.
Robert grabbed his electronic tablet from the counter and called up the security camera aimed at his front porch. He saw four men wearing identical dark suits. One of them carried a black medical bag.
Robert rushed into the living room. “Hide,” he said. “Now.”
Tracy quickly stepped inside the kitchen’s food pantry. She moved a large coffee can to reveal a silver latch. She unhooked the latch and pushed a broad wall of shelving inward. It opened like a door, revealing a small interior compartment the size of a walk-in closet.
Without a word, Grandpa Ed, Grandma Louise and Liam entered the hideaway. Tracy closed the shelving unit on them, careful not to spill its contents. She moved a few food items around to conceal the cracks where the secret door didn’t cleanly align with the frame. It had to look as natural as possible.
The banging continued, followed by a loud shout: “Robert and Tracy Sullivan, we know you are in there. We have the authority to force entry.”
“You gonna be okay?” Robert whispered to Tracy.
She nodded.
“Act natural.”
He left her side and stepped into the front entryway, where he disengaged the locks and chains, shouting, “Hold on. Just a minute.”
Robert opened the door.
Four men, in two layers of two, faced him. They did not smile.
“What’s this all about?” he asked.
“We have reason to believe you are harboring illegals,” said the senior-looking man of the foursome. His hair was thin and silver.
Robert’s expression turned quizzical. “Here? You must be mistaken.”
“Who lives at this residence?”
“My wife and I. We’re compliant. Do you need to test our chips?”
“This isn’t about the two of you. Our records indicate your parents, Edward and Louise, also occupy this house.”
“Goodness, no. They left years ago. They moved to a retirement community in Scottsdale.”
“And your son.”
“My – my son?”
“You have a son, Mr. Sullivan. Where is he?”
“How – how dare you….” Robert began to stutter. “You know he’s deceased. He was killed in a car accident. Check your records. Why are you coming here, making these accusations?”
“May we come in?”
“No. This is my home. My wife and I are about to sit down to dinner. Go back, check your records, I’m sure you’ll find—”
“We’re coming in.”
The four men entered the house, pushing past Robert. They split off into different directions and started investigating each room.
The silver-haired man stepped into the living room and studied the piano. “I haven’t seen one of those in ages. We heard music as we came to the door. It was very good.”
Robert nodded. “Yes. We enjoy music.”
“So you play?”
Robert hesitated slightly, then nodded.
“Play for me now.”
Robert felt a sinking feeling inside. They were toying with him.
“We’re eating dinner. I’m not playing the piano.”
“Was it you that was playing?”
“Yes.”
“Then sit down and show us.”
“I’m afraid I don’t do command performances.”
“And…” said the silver-haired man, looking down at the floor, “you also play with Lego?”
“Those are from when my nephew was visiting. He was in the middle of creating something, so we left it. We didn’t want to break it up.”
“I see.” The silver-haired man stepped over to the dining room table. A stack of plates sat at one end. He ran his finger along the side of the stack and counted.
“One, two, three…four…five.”
Robert said nothing.
The silver-haired man also looked at the collection of silverware and napkins not yet arranged for place settings.
“All of this…” he said, “…for two people?”
Tracy stood in the doorway that connected the kitchen with the dining room, giving Robert a worried look. He turned away from her.
The other investigators reconvened in the dining room. One of them said, “We’ve searched the house….”
“Yes, well, not thoroughly enough,” the silver-haired man said.
He stepped closer to Robert. As he did, he removed a handheld controller from his pocket.
“Mr. Sullivan, we are with the California Department of Citizenship. We report to the federal bureau. This team here is dedicated to Thousand Oaks and some of the neighboring communities. Our mission is one hundred percent compliance. You and your wife are in compliance. You have the chip. You are legally enrolled in your country. However, our records indicate your son is not compliant. He needs to be chipped. You have been contacted about this many times. You received your first warning, your yellow warning, and then your red warning, which places you in the category of harboring an outlaw.”
“Our son is dead,” Robert said firmly. “This is very painful. Why must I keep explaining it?”
“You must keep explaining it until the truth comes out.”
“You’re a bunch of bastards,” Tracy said from the kitchen doorway.
“I see,” said the silver-haired man. He looked down at his handheld device. He poked at it a few times, and then Tracy was screaming.
She clutched her head in pain and fell to her knees in agony.
After five seconds, the pain stopped abruptly. She gasped and choked on the hardwood floor.
Robert took exactly one step toward the silver-haired man and got no further, immediately slammed by a powerful wave of nausea. He clutched his stomach, retching. He crashed into the dining room table, upsetting the stack of plates, which fell to the floor and shattered.
The intense nausea evaporated after five seconds.
“We don’t have to play this game. We can arrest you on the spot as an agitator and put you in solitary mindset. Do I make myself clear?”
Robert nodded, eyes watering.
“So, are you going to show us where you’re hiding the illegals? I’d really rather not go to the trouble of tearing up this house if you could simply point a finger.”
“You can melt the inside of my head for all I care. You’re not forcing your technology where it isn’t wanted.”
“Bad answer,” the silver-haired man said, and he sent a powerful electric shock across Robert’s body. Robert fell to the floor screaming uncontrollably. Tracy rushed to his side, shouting for them to stop.
Then Grandpa Ed stepped into the dining room with Grandma Louise and eight-year-old Liam behind him.
“That’s enough,” he said.
All eyes shifted to the seventy-five-year-old man. He scowled with anger and fatigue. “Stop hurting them. I won’t allow it.”
“Well, well. Grandpa has come out of hiding,” the silver-haired man said.
“I’m sorry,” Grandpa Ed said to his son. “I know how strongly you feel about this, but it just isn’t worth it. If they want to put us all on some stupid tracker, then let them do it so we can be left alone.”
“But, Dad, that’s the thing. Once they do it, they won’t leave us alone. Ever again.”
“Save your family arguments for later,” said the silver-haired man. He motioned to his three team members. “Let’s get this taken care of and move on.”
The investigator with the medical bag brought it over to the sofa, placed it on a cushion next to the ball of yarn, and unbuckled the metal latches with two hard snaps.
He extracted a black, handgun-like device with a long barrel.
Robert, still on the floor, buried his face in his hands. “Jesus….”
Tracy started to cry.
The man with the shooting device stepped up to Grandpa Ed, who accepted his fate with a hard glare and deep frown. The barrel of the device touched upon the back of Grandpa Ed’s head, just below the base of the skull.
A loud PPHHTTT sounded, and he staggered from the impact. In a swift and efficient injection, the chip had been planted in its proper location.
“Let’s give it a test,” the silver-haired man said. He looked down at his handheld device. “Chip number 454C21309X2. Let’s send you a giggle.”
And, literally, he did just that.
A gentle smile came to life on Grandpa Ed’s face and then he chuckled lightly, face relaxed in a soft haze of amusement.
“Not so bad, is it?” The silver-haired man stepped over to Liam and Grandma Louise next. Tracy continued to cry.
“This won’t hurt a bit. Trust us.”
* * *
Later that evening, the silver-haired man arrived at the regional compliance headquarters in Oxnard. He met with his superior, Grady Bruckner, a ruddy-faced, middle-aged man with a tie. They stood in a room filled with monitors providing a satellite view of portions of Southern California. The electronic images of various neighborhoods sparkled with points of light representing the presence of individuals logged into the government tracker.
“We chipped three more illegals. The Sullivan residence in Thousand Oaks, 165 Woodland Drive. I’ve uploaded all the details and some notes. There was resistance, but they came around.”
“Let’s make sure they’re fully registered.” Bruckner spoke in a steady monotone. He studied one of the monitors and manipulated a pad of controls, drawing a closer look at a single residential block.
Bruckner nodded with satisfaction. “The house at 165 Woodland. One, two, three, four, five.” He called up their names and read them aloud. “Robert, Tracy, Edward, Louise, Liam.”
“Yes, that’s them.”
“Good work.” Bruckner moved over to one of the other monitors. He stared into it. “We experienced a blink out today.”
“Another?”
Bruckner tapped a small keyboard and called up an archived recording of an earlier live stream of the satellite tracking system, focused on a particular residence in Camarillo at exactly 14:10 hours. Two points of light moved slowly on the property and then, abruptly, they both went dark.
“What’s that? A chip malfunction?”
“No,” Bruckner said. “These two individuals, Greg and Ellen Jensen, simply disappeared from society. They went off the grid.”
“But it’s fatal to remove the chip.”
“Something else is happening. We’ve had sixteen blink outs in this territory in the past two weeks. People disappear. Their light goes out on the tracker board, and they can’t be found.”
“It’s a federal crime to go off the tracker.”
“There’s a vulnerability in the system. The number of blink outs are low, but it’s creating alarm all the way back to Washington.”
“We’re assuming these people are becoming fugitives?”
“That’s how I read it,” Bruckner said. “We’ve ordered special resources, bounty hunters, to go find these missing persons. As you make your rounds, I want you to be on the lookout for anything suspicious.”
“Absolutely.”
Bruckner stood back and looked around the room at the large stacks of monitors pulling real-time information on the presence of chipped citizens, identifying their precise whereabouts from satellite views displaying varying degrees of closeness. The tracking boards sparkled with points of light like a galaxy of earthbound stars.
“We want everyone accounted for,” said Bruckner. “It’s for their own good. We leave no man, woman or child behind.”