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It was New Year’s Day, the first day of the Twenty-second century. It may have seemed like a fresh start for the rest of the world, but Brady preferred the old century to this one. Until last night, he had a business he enjoyed, with the prospect of reaching his own personal goal of being a Green Credit millionaire. Shortly after meeting Bodhi Sattva’s mother, Libby Skye, he chose that goal in her one-hundred-million-dollar mansion - in old money - in Malibu. She coined the phrase a Green Credit millionaire, and he decided that he would wear that tag one day.
He had wanted to look after his best friend, Lucian, for the rest of his natural life. With the splitting of humanity down Trads and Greens’ lines, it was difficult to state with any confidence what a natural life meant anymore. Brady was proud at not only how he had survived this new world, but also how he had thrived within it. He had shaken off his lowlife criminal tag - in his own mind - and achieved the remarkable transformation into a legitimate businessman, as far as Brady Mahone, the Chief Executive Officer, Owner-in-Chief of the most successful Trad enterprise on the United States Western Seaboard. Hell, I might even be the most successful businessman on the planet for all I know.
Brady mulled over his lot as he meandered back in the general direction of the Mahone Ranch. I’ve worked hard. I’ve never slacked. I looked after my friends. I’ve even done some things that people have thought of as being kind. Even Professor Chu treats me like I’ve been a good person - a real good person. And now, they falsely accuse me of rape at home. They even throw my Foster Daddy’s bad stuff in my face. I didn’t deserve that. Even when I go to the Green areas, they treat me like a bit-part-player in a freak show. I can’t even be myself there without being threatened by that SecurityFilm™. I could understand it when I was robbing a store - that was kinda fair, but to threaten to wrap me up just for being angry - or was it because I had the audacity to even just think about getting mad about being treated badly. It sure beats the fuck outta me.
He felt tired, even though he didn’t usually need much sleep. It must be stress. When he returned to his home, he tidied up and thought about taking a nap, but then thought better of it. If it’s a Yellow™ Ceremony Day, there won’t be anybody in Los Banos. It would be a good day to search the place. His thoughts were tinged with disappointment that the Beardon family wouldn’t be there. I liked them, they treated me nice, and they didn’t ask anything of me - not like those fuckers at the Lopez Ranch.
He put his old Green Bicycle and trailer in the back of his empty Hearse. He was just about to go when he spied Old Marvin, his Foster Daddy’s old warhorse of a heavy machine-gun. Brady had looked after it like it was a holy relic. Only antique guns without a Kill-stream switch could fire bullets in this world, and this was about one-hundred and seventy years old by Brady’s reckoning. It was always loaded, just in case. He ran his fingers over the shimmering old black metal, the brass-coloured bullets glimmering in the belt-feed. He sat behind the tripod mounted beast of a weapon and set the gunsight on the billboard which designated the entrance to the Lopez Ranch. He steadied himself, and then he let the bullets fly. It ripped the billboard to pieces. Lucian, Mary-Lou and Amie ran out to investigate the commotion, but then hastily dived for cover as Brady aimed a barrage of bullets over their heads - some went crashing through the upper floors of the house and broke the first-floor windows. Glass was sent flying in all directions.
Billy Big Paws, the dog he had given to Amie, barked furiously in a mixture of fear and warning.
Brady stopped firing and then laughed loud enough for the Lopez family to hear. Sometimes, actions speak louder than words. He got up and strode to his car, and he drove away at the fastest speed his FusionCar™ could attain, spraying a cloud of dust upwards and behind him as it trailed in its wake.
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ON THE OUTSKIRTS OF Los Banos, he noticed the array of parked HeavyFusionLorries™, parked up neatly along Highway 99. It looks like they’ll be spraying the buildings with their NanoShit tomorrow. Good job I came today.
He parked up and took out his Green Bicycle and trailer. He loaded his bag of tools for breaking into the abandoned homes. It took him a while to figure out why the Green Workers were securing the premises. They don’t want any remaining Trads setting up home in them. Brady searched the shops and houses using the Library as his starting point. He made a profitable start. The Library held cupboards of entertainment formats, some even older than the CDs and DVDs he coveted. He examined an old cassette tape, quizzically. He pulled out the tape like the entrails of a rat. Brady was on a roll. At the rear of an old domestic appliance store, he found a section with an old-fashioned Entertainment Department. He thought he would be out of luck when he saw it was the remnants of an old Video Rental Store, but when he searched a little more thoroughly, he came across a cache of DVDs that were probably the earliest versions of the format.
Brady found the tree where he had first met the Bear. He sat down with his back to it and ate his lunch and had his own thermos flask of coffee. In the warm afternoon sun, he found that work, had once again, lifted his spirits. He regretted, a little, his outburst in the morning of unleashing Old Marvin on his past friends and neighbours. I’m still not going back on my decision. They kinda asked for it, and nobody got hurt. He then reflected on his time with the Bear. Was he trying to tell me something? Brady took his time to think over everything that was said on his short time with the Beardon family. He was on nobody’s clock but his own. This family were suspiciously close to John Kane. It goes back a long way. He continued to give the Beardon family his attention while he packed away his lunch and drove around Los Banos on his Green Bicycle. If they were snitches and keeping a beady eye on Brady Mahone for the Big Man, then what would they do? There are always snitches waiting to trap Brady Mahone.
He had selected his bike to travel as there were obstacles in the streets where the Operation Clean-up teams hadn’t reached yet. Even while on his bike, he spotted more decomposing bodies as he weaved his way through the streets. He had to concentrate, and his mind left the problem of the Beardons for a time. He spotted a shop called Old Curiosities and struck more silver-tech. He also had luck at the Town Hall, where he found caches of pre-recorded files which had dates written on them going back to the dawn of the twentieth century. He rifled through the archive departments, leaving documents strewn over the floor in his wake.
I would try to be Brady Mahone’s friend or Bodhi Sattva’s enemy if I were them. That way, they could win my confidence. He considered this. But I’m not really an enemy of Bodhi Sattva, am I? He rode on. He spotted a ransacked jewellery store. I know it’s wrong, but I have a soft spot for the days when all I had to think about was the next heist to plan. He saw a film poster through the front window of a house. It had the appearance of being student accommodation. Although they were usually poor in the traditional sense, they were often the source of rich pickings in these times. He broke in with ease and rifled through the front room’s cupboards and drawers but found nothing. He found a pristine display of Sci-fi films in the bedroom - many of them in boxes of multi-disc sets. He noted the price stickers which were still affixed on them, most of them came from thrift stores. These are worth their weight in Green these days.
Brady’s morning might have started badly, but the rest of the day rescued him from his dark mood. I got the impression the Beardons had their issues with the Kane family, but they made a point about being loyal. Maybe all I’ve heard is all there is.
His FusionCar™ was almost full. These last few days have been super-productive. Shame about all that crap last night with that lying little bitch. He then came upon the Los Banos Police Station. He looked at it deliciously. Sweet. I’m gonna have me some fun here. I ain’t never broken into a Police Station before. Let’s wreck the joint. He took out his tool bag and strode over to the entrance of the Police Station. Who wants to be a legitimate businessman anyway? Time to make way for a bit of vintage Brady Mahone.
He broke through the locks with ease and flung the doors back. The internal doors took a little longer to open, but he was now an expert burglar after breaking into thousands of abandoned homes and businesses. He swept through the rooms, trashing them as he went. He flung chairs through the internal windows, he kicked over anything that wasn’t fixed to the floors. He came across a bank of disused Sattva Systems™ Satellite Phones, a newer version of the one he owned. They had a FusionPowered™ logo on them. He picked up one which hadn’t been unboxed, he glanced over the specifications which stated that they carried a lifetime’s charge due to Sattva Systems™ revolutionary design. The critical thing that Brady noted was that it was a dumb phone in the old technological parlance, but these would be an ideal addition to a Police armoury. He found a hard plastic crate and loaded it up with his new Satts™ and placed them near the exit for when he was ready to leave.
Finding the phones, alleviated his appetite for vandalism. He decided that he wasn’t going to give the Lopez family a new phone. I’ll pass them on to my key associates in the other towns. He moved onto the other rooms in the station. The interview rooms and holding cells were predictably empty. He then came across the Staff Lockers. He jemmied them all open, but he didn’t find much of use to him. It took him back to his last day at Ridgecrest Supermax when the guards took everything they owned, to return to their loved ones on hearing about the Internet Crash and the subsequent riots.
He wandered through the Detective’s Rooms and broke into the drawers. He found notes on the crimes they were investigating. He laughed as he spotted the names of some of his old friends, acquaintances and even cellmates from the old days. He guessed that many of them would be dead by now.
He found one labelled Suspected Fraud and Embezzlement: Sattva Systems™. He opened it and spotted that it came from the Police Department in Boulder Creek. He skim-read through the pages and saw a link to organised crime across the whole State of California. It wasn’t an exciting report to Brady’s eyes, as it was to do with funding and building regulations. I’ll read it later when I’ve got a little time on my hands. He spotted a reference number on a document wallet which suggested that this was one piece of many in this jigsaw puzzle. He took the file with him as he passed through the Training Room and then onto Records and Dispatch. He perused the filing cabinets and racking system - which reminded him of the system back at the ranch devised by Mary-Lou. He pulled anything labelled with Sattva Systems™. He found a trolley and loaded it up as there was so much. He then found a file which had a potted history of Bodhi Sattva. At the back of this were photographs of him meeting with Glenarvon Cole. He didn’t recall him instantly, but he had a nagging feeling that he’d seen this face before. He flipped over the photographs, where they had been seen together in various parts of the world. There were some photographs which had labels attached to them, indicating that these were from the CIA. He then remembered the face from the TV from his last day at Ridgecrest. He was Glenarvon Cole, the leader of the GreenRevs. Brady smiled at the recollection. I was more interested in that pretty red-headed reporter girl with him.
He changed his approach to search for files on Glenarvon Cole. There wasn’t nearly as much information on him - and his known associates. I suppose he was small fry compared to a famous industrialist like Bodhi Sattva. He was just about to leave when he thought about searching for files on himself. Might bring back some memories of the old days. He also wondered whether the Bear was as clean as he appeared. He spent the next hour looking, and he did find plenty of documentary evidence of the life of crimes of Brady Mahone. He laughed heartily at his old mugshots, but he laughed, even more, when he saw the crimes in which he was in the frame for which had nothing whatsoever to do with him.
He did find a couple of slim files on Samuel Beardon the Third, which mainly concerned his association with Bodhi Sattva. He didn’t appear to have been a suspect in any wrongdoing. That wasn’t the case for somebody who he hadn’t planned to search for - Samuel Beardon the Second had stacks of documentary evidence with regards to the disappearance of John Kane. He flicked through the files for several minutes until he came to the reason he was arrested. The last sighting of John Kane had been in McFarland. He had been travelling to his regional office in Los Banos, and he was scheduled to be at an important meeting at his industrial complex in Boulder Creek. Samuel Beardon the Second had been spotted by several witnesses in McFarland, who claimed he was following John Kane. A police officer had spoken to him, and Samuel Beardon the Second, denied the accusation and appeared to move on. He probably lost him when John Kane went to visit my Pops. He placed these files on his trolley, and he wheeled this back through the Police Station.
It took him several trips on his Green Bicycle and trailer to ferry all this documentation back to his Hearse, but he consoled himself with the knowledge that he had plenty of alone time now to immerse himself in this new hobby. This was an unusual investigation for Brady, as he knew who the murderer was. This was a project to connect up the web of the falsely accused.
As he drove back to McFarland, he began to wonder whether the Bear had deliberately engineered a meeting with him because he was still trying to clear his Father’s name. I wonder what he might have found out which could have led him to me?