Chapter 1: The Police Job
What the fuck is takin’ so long? Brinus, a sixteen-year-old young man of towering height, filled the space in the waiting room of the police headquarters at Saffron. They told me I’d wait only 20 minutes! His messy blonde hair hung in his icy blue eyes, offsetting his ruddy complexion. In his hand, he held his ID, certificate of passing the burglar written exam, and bar license, which he got last week after nine years of studying the law.
He sat at the back of the smoke-filled room. The stinking haze of incense, burnt paper, and charcoal hung thick in the air. The vending machines behind him whirred, and the ID reader of the cigarette machine blinked every now and then, sending green lasers through the haze. Every few feet, embers from cigarette butts burned in ashtrays.
He nervously flicked a metal lighter in a waiting room chair. The lighter felt smooth and soft in his hands, with the metal-on-metal clicking, keeping him busy. He also spent the last hour researching Briggs, the officer giving his exam, learning about his social and private life, and his family.
An intercom rang out, “Number 4546 to office number four.”
Brinus approached the reception desk and handed the droid his ticket. It glanced up from the computer screen and scanned him through the sanitation glass.
“Down the hall to your right, sir,” it said. “Second door down.”
Brinus nodded in acknowledgment.
An officer greeted him as he walked into the room the droid had indicated, and Brinus gave him a nod of acknowledgement as he scanned the space. It lacked the usual opulence of Confederate buildings. Instead of gaudy paneling and decorative furniture, the room was sterile, with plain white walls free of any adornment and cobalt-blue carpeting. The only furniture in sight was a simple wooden desk with plain chairs on each side, a white pull-down screen, and a camera on the desk.
The officer cleared his throat to get Brinus’s attention and held out a hand for him to shake.
“Hello, my name is Detective Officer Briggs. I’ll be conducting your practical today for your professional burglar’s license. Show me your paperwork, two forms of ID, and any tattoos you got.”
Brinus took off his shirt and handed the cop his papers. On his chest was a gear and a monkey wrench with a metal bar; his right forearm was adorned with the red eye that marked him as a member of The Orin Syndicate, and two tattoos—one of a pack of cigarettes and one of an eye-dropper—adorned his left forearm.
The detective looked at the photos on his computer terminal and whistled.
“You’re an engineer with a specialty in metallurgy? You don’t see that every day.” Detective Briggs chuckled after taking the photo, took pictures of the rest of Brinus’s tattoos, then gestured for him to put his shirt back on.
“Are we done?” asked Brinus as he shrugged back into his t-shirt.
Detective Briggs smiled as he continued typing on his computer terminal. With a particular joy in his voice, he said, “You know what comes next because of those….” He pointed at the eye drop tattoo.
Brinus groaned and knew exactly what was about to happen.
The detective took a hair sample of Brinus’s thick, messy hair and swabbed his mouth with a cotton swab. He inserted the swab into a tube of clear liquid, and it turned a deep green almost instantly, showing positive for AA nicotine.
Officer Briggs looked at the drug test. “How long have you been clean?”
“Five months.”
The cop’s eyes narrowed, and the corners of his mouth hardened. “So, when we run your hair through the analysis, it will show four months of no drug use? You know you can go to jail for lying to police at this stage of the exam, right?”
Brinus nodded. He crossed his arms and legs in a defensive posture and frowned.
He put his TriQuarter to the hair sample. It loaded for a moment and blinked a number in a flashing red and green light.
Detective Briggs disposed of the hair sample in a replicator and began typing on his computer. “You’re telling the truth. You’ve still got trace amounts of bliss in your hair, but you’re clean.”
He rolled his eyes and flicked his head impatiently. “Whatever, can we just get on with it?” He was anxious to begin and get the test over with.
“Just a few more moments. What brand of cigarettes do you smoke?”
Brinus was shaking his leg and biting his nails. “What’s that shit got to do with anything? If you’ve gotta know, I smoke Otis Datis Vanilla Reapers.”
“How much do you smoke?”
“About five cigs an hour? Why do ya’ wonna know?”
“For data collection purposes. We just need to…”
After the cop went into his smoking history, he hit send on his computer terminal. Brinus wondered who they were sending that data to, but assumed it was going to the Tarken tea companies.
Briggs stood behind his desk. “Now, let’s begin. You need to leave your cigarettes, lighters, your paperwork, and any tools you brought with you. We will provide you with tools. Ready?”
Brinus emptied his pockets on the cop’s desk. Inside were two packs of Vanilla Reapers, four lighters, a multi-setting sonic screwdriver, and a universal key that could open 75% of locks on the city-planet. He left the office for the mission. He sighed as he entered the cop car.
This is real! I’m in it now.
Almost an hour later, the light from passing cars and the planet’s sun hurt his icy blue eyes. He had a piercing headache, wanted to scream at the cop, and was shaking both his legs and chewing his nails. Briggs made a mental note of Brinus’ physical state. However, he wanted him to sweat a little bit longer to see if Brinus would say anything.
The car itself was self-driving and powered by general AI. It was sleek and shiny, designed for cops and civic workers. This detective’s car was messy and smelled like fast food and sweat. There were empty coffee cups and fast-food wrappers all over the car.
Detective Briggs sighed and rolled his eyes. He said in his detective voice, which was low and gravelly, “Relax, I’m not taking you to jail. Your burglary tools are in the back. I need you to break into a clubhouse for us and take their electronic ledger. Here is the map, the intel, a com device, a skimmer, and a license to commit the following crimes: breaking and entering, destroying property valued at up to twenty-five thousand credits, illegal hacking, and breaking the electronic lock on a computer terminal.”
Detective Briggs noticed the fidgeting and nail-biting. “Here, take a coffin nail. Fuck the rules, you’re already addicted. Anyway, these bikers are not involved in legal crime.” He made a mental note that Ginger Cat went one hour and forty-five minutes without a smoke before he became anxious for one.
The cop pulled a pack of tropical fruit cigarettes and a lighter from his glove compartment. He handed a pack to Brinus, who put one in his mouth and lit it. Brinus smiled and moaned with pleasure as he smoked. His muscle tension melted away, and his anxiety slowly disappeared. Brinus relaxed, his brain fog cleared, and he put his feet on the dashboard.
As he looked at the map, he said. “I see the building has tunnels from the factory next door.”
Briggs snorted in disgust and snapped, “You only have a license to break into the clubhouse.”
He sneered, flashing his teeth in a screw-you smile.
Briggs snorted again, coughed, and curled his left lip in disgust. “We will be there in an hour; the scanner said traffic control is running speed traps.”
Brinus chuckled, putting his hand out of the open window with a cigarette between his two fingers. He sneered, “Fuckin’ cute. Forcin’ self-driving cars into situations to get the driver tickets? What’s wrong? Not gettin’ your quotas this here month?”
Briggs growled and coughed again, and the car went quiet. They both sat in a traffic snarl caused by the AI speed traps.
Brinus sat in silence while the car drove through the traffic. All of these cops are the same. They don’t care ’bout the people. They only care ’bout ticket quotas and money. Brinus turned to Briggs and made rolled his eyes again. Briggs growled but said nothing. Where were they when my last foster mom was abusing m’ friend? He rolled down the window and stuck his hand out to better air out the car so they could both breathe. All they did was remove ’im from the home and brushed it under the rug.
He looked at some fast-food wrappers and saw they were from late-night take-out places featuring junk food. One place was from a vendor called Candi, where there was a variety of popular street foods and sweets. There was also a wrapper from one of Brinus’s favorite food joints. They served fried space pork meat rolls wrapped in dough and fried in animal fat.
The antenna in his hand was a small, square box with a short metal rod sticking out of the top. Brinus hooked it up to his TriQuarter with a USB cable and downloaded the police app. He began configuring the settings he wanted as the car navigated the traffic.
Detective Briggs drummed his fingers on the self-driving, steering wheel and finally turned and faced Brinus. “How did you end up in the syndicate?”
Brinus sighed as he fiddled with the app. “It’s a long story.”
“Just curious. We got an hour and a half to kill.”
“You read my file.”
“I want to know, in your own words, why did you do it?”
Brinus rubbed his neck with his left hand and narrowed his eyes “At the time, I was homeless and working out of a metal shop as a child worker. I mean, yeah, the syndicate’s been good to me, but every day I live with what I did.”
The cop’s eyes narrowed, and the corners of his mouth hardened; “But why? You didn’t have to shoot that man. You could have just stolen the jewelry and left the shop with fifty thousand credits worth of gemstones.”
Brinus laughed, but it was fake, hollow, and forced. “I made a bad choice, and the guy got in my way. Didn’t you read my victim’s imp;act statement? I meant every word of it.”
The cop sighed and said in a frustrated tone, “You were lucky you were so skilled in metalworking; I saw some of the projects you did while you were homeless. They should have tried you as an adult. But you don’t seem to have had any trouble since you joined the syndicate. The fact that you took accountability and made a genuine apology is why you were chosen for the syndicate.”
Brinus turned away from the cop, hiding his face with a TriQuarter. However, Briggs saw his dilated pupils and watery eyes.
“We can change the subject if you want?”
“The syndicate don’t want crazy people. They want a certain personality type. ” Brinus wiped a tear from his eye but kept showing his stained teeth in a creepy, dead-eyed, fake smile. “I don’t wonna discuss it cuz there ain’t nothin’ to discuss.”
Briggs nodded and watched as Brinus manipulated the TriQuarter. He noted Brinus’s discomfort as the conversation in the car ended.
A TriQuarter was a device like a smartphone that used wetware circuitry. It was powered by the electricity of the area around it. It also instantly communicated across the galaxy using quantum entanglement.
A deafening silence fell between the two of them after Brinus shut down the discussion. After a few moments of awkward silence, Brinus commented in order to break the silence, “What do ya know ’bout these here bikers?”
Detective Briggs spoke in his police voice, which was raspy and firm, “For your practical exam, you need to get me the passwords, log-in information, and tracking cookies off of their Safehouse network. Basically, these bikers are smuggling eye drops and space weed into a wealthy neighborhood. The house you need to infiltrate is the red house with the white roof on the first corner of the neighborhood. Neighbors have filed multiple complaints about this house, and we have had undercover cops buy drugs from this home. We got the electronic warrant last week, so you’re good.”
They came up to a checkpoint. There were two regular police units and four cops in uniform. They had blaster pistols, a shock stick, mustard gas spray, and two sets of handcuffs. Detective Briggs showed his badge, and Brinus flashed his syndicate tattoo on his right forearm. The cop scanned it and waved him forward.
As the car drove down the road into a commercial district, Brinus tweaked the settings on his TriQuarter’s app and sat in the seat, crossing his legs.
Brinus snapped nervously after a few moments, “It said that I needed to break into the network data. Does this here neighbor get a lotta sales people?”
“Why do you ask?”
The car pulled onto a side street and drove into a quiet neighborhood. It shut off, and the battery continued running. “We have arrived at our destination,” it said in a monotone computerized voice.
Briggs coughed and rolled his eyes as he came out and stretched. His eyes were red and watery from the smoke as they both stepped out of the car. Brinus leaned onto the car hood and crossed his arms and ankles.
He analyzed his surroundings and then looked around. “I see a discount clothing shop?”
“Yeah, thriftin’s popular with the upper classes.”
Brinus shrugged, snorted in disgust, and made a slight sneering sound. He never understood the why the rich people wanted to role play poverty. Sometimes, thrift stores were the only thing that allowed him to get his back-to-school outfits. Truthfully, the obsession with thrifting was annoying because rich people would buy all of the good clothes
Briggs handed him a coin purse with 1000 creds. “Here is one thousand credits, which is your budget for a disguise. So what’s the plan?”
He looked around again and saw kids playing in the street, couples walking their pets on the sidewalk, and an older couple holding hands and talking about Sunday morning church service. He knew they had a lot of salespeople. The area looked wealthy and clean, with pearly white driveways, milk white picket fences, and manicured lawns with perfect vegetable gardens.
“What’s the time limit?”
“Three hours or you fail the practical.”
Brinus looked around for a moment and then flicked his cigarette butt onto the ground, snuffed it out with his shoe. “I plan on doin’ a salesperson disguise. A neighborhood like this here one’s prolly bein’ harassed to the point no one’ll bother me.”
Briggs crossed his arms and ankles and tilted his cowboy hat over his eyes. “What’s your problem? Soliciting sales under a false pretense is fraud.”
“Relax, officer. I’ll still keep my skateboard shoes and no-show socks so I won’t be impersonating salesmen. I’ll just harass the biker gang, get the skimmer on the cable box, and get out.”
“I don’t like this but I want to see how this plays out. What’s your plan should you run into other salesmen?”
“Go full male Tammie, I guess? I don’t think there’ll be salesmen ’cause today is Sunday.”
“Your time starts now. You have an hour and a half. Good luck.”
Brinus walked across the street to a clothing store on the bottom floor of a three-story row house. The door chimed, and he was greeted by the droid cashier. The store was quiet with only one or two customers looking at the discount rack. There was a no-smoking sign on the wall and pictures of male models and attractive female models over the men’s and women’s clothes racks. Brinus went over to the khakis, picked up his size, and then got a white medium undershirt and a medium white dress shirt, a blue tie, and a black leather belt. He walked up to the counter and put one hundred credits on the table.
“How much fer the nicotine gum?”
“Sorry, sir, you have to be 18 to purchase nicotine products.”
Brinus rolled his sleeve, and the droid scanned his tattoo.
“Sorry, sir, you have to be 17 or older for military personnel or military contractors.”
“I’m quittin’ smokin’.”
“Do you have a doctor’s prescription?”
Brinus produced a fake script from his syndicate doctor, and the droid put a pack of nicotine gum on the counter. “That will be 94.33 credits.”
Brinus put a 100-credit chip on the counter. “Keep the change. I ain’t got time. Do ya’ mind if I change in the booth?”
“Go ahead. Make sure you have your receipt on you when the manager comes to check you out.”
Brinus nodded and then changed out.
After getting his receipt. He went into a perfume shop down the street from the clothing store. It was in a renovated single-family housing unit. Brinus walked in and began looking at men’s cologne.
He found a scent he liked and then grabbed the sample. He started looking for body spray/deodorant. After a couple of minutes, he found a complementary scent to the deodorant and walked up to the cashier, who was a human.
“That’ll be fifty-five credits.”
“On your price tags, it says 15 creds fer each sample.”
“Hey retard. Either pay it or leave. We don’t serve salesmen here.”
She pointed at a sign on the door. No solicitation allowed. Violators will be prosecuted.
Damn. They really hate these here guys, thought Brinus as he popped his gum.
“What if I make it a 60 even?”
“Whatever, just pay and go, or we’ll call the cops,” the cashier snapped with a scowl, puckering her lips in disgust.
Brinus put sixty credits on the table and left. He made his way to a print shop after using his TriQuarter to forge an ID and get a clipboard for security. He walked into a random print shop which had a sun and a tree in the window.
Brinus took a moment to breathe and popped a piece of nicotine gum. He walked into the shop and hysterically cried with real tears and hysterics that rivaled professional Bollywood actors, “I l-lost m-my ID and c-clipboard! I n-need it ’cause it was s-stolen by some k-kid who chain smokes is i-impersonating m-my c-company.” he fell to the ground and sobbed and cried like someone in his family just died.
The shopkeeper came up to him and wrapped an arm around his shoulders. “I’m so sorry. Do you have a company ID and someone who can vouch for you?”
He produced a digital card on his police TriQuarter and the number for Detective Briggs while he faked a full-blown panic attack. “What am I gonna do? I don’t know what to do! What am I gonna do? Oh, supreme creator in the name of the spirits, what am I gonna do!”
The shopkeeper, called Briggs
“Hello?” inquired Briggs.
“Yes, I’m Thomas Greggs. It looks like some kid named Bryan McGinty had his credentials stolen. Can you vouch for him?”
Briggs snorted through his nose and rolled his eyes. “Yes, I can. He’s doing a Sunday sales run for me.”
The Shopkeeper looked up at Brinus and smiled. “Sure, thanks. I’ll get him a new corporate ID.” He terminated the call and asked Brinus, “Do you need me to call the cops and make a report?”
Brinus shook his head. “I’ll g-get fired. I need this here job fer my Aunt Mercy’s medical care. She’s got emphysema!” He cried hysterically again for a full minute, putting on the waterworks. “My aunt’ll die without her medicine if I don’t get my quota! She’s all I got! Please, I beg you!”
The company created a new ID for Alvin Corp. in ten minutes, and then they gave him a new sales book and a clipboard.
Brinus realized his breath smelled like cigarettes once he looked up Alvin Corp. found out they were a smoke-free company that only hired nonsmokers, so he walked into a hotel and up to a cart. After acquiring a clean toothbrush, a bottle of travel toothpaste, some floss, and a bottle of mouthwash, he walked into a public bathroom and brushed his teeth.
After flossing and using mouthwash, he looked in the mirror for a moment. You got this! You trained every day fer this! You need this!
