bBook Author's Pixie

 

 

Doyle Phoebe Heejanus

     Gangster den called "Deir ez-Zor" — Phoebe trotted toward a cockeyed frame of ceramalloy towering over a flat building that at least had a roof on it. She knew some combine had planned a stadium here, but she couldn't see it in the framework's stark beams and braces. The locker room at its base also appeared unfinished — no exterior paint or landscaping — so it wouldn't normally rate a second look. Today, though, she knew it harbored an infestation in the process of being cleaned out — and smelled like it, too.
     Tanglefog shells had shattered its windows, though that had barely cut the stink of the tanglefog itself. Some safety-break shards had erupted outward and now glistened in the noon sunlight. She stepped inside past a door hanging from one hinge. A long, low shell of a room enclosed a familiar tableau, people trapped by splotches of mixed-green in a variety of poses, most bent toward running, whether toward the fight or away Phoebe couldn't tell, since it had come to them from all sides. More of the harmless shards glinted among the mess.
     Weaving through these living statues, constables, Nurses, and counselors executed the Identify-and-Treat variant of Stage 4, Stabilize, of their Response Pattern. Every one wore mobile Beobachtung, matte-black vests sucking in every electromagnetic wave that hit them, data from which to comb evidence. Her people walked purposefully, using infoplates to match faces with identities, treating wounds with med-tek, asking questions, and occasionally glaring victoriously.
     The constables had broken in as soon as the shells finished spewing their congealing fog. Some shells exploded immediately after penetration. Others waited as they richocheted off walls, guide-tek sending them toward all parts of the room. Lastly, Beobachtung shells bounced once and stuck to the ceiling, indiscriminate, data-collecting eyes on the resulting chaos. Still, her people charged into a precarious situation, far from their formal training, unpredictable from their experience, filled with an enemy known to kill cops and civilians alike easily and zestfully. Phoebe hadn't cared what damage they'd inflicted as long as they contained and immobilized Bande Gastarbeiter without suffering casualties.
     During Commotions, the Assess stage, third in their Response Pattern, called for different work than for Incidents. Instead of evaluating injuries and damage and the effort required to tend them, her people just contained everyone at the scene, normally using dreamsticks, then immobilized them with the appropriate tek, usually manacles. Now, though, tanglefog did both jobs with overwhelming thoroughness, but someone had to visit every square meter of the Site to make sure, hence the risk.
     Only when they knew all gangsters had been contained and immobilized had the constables called for the Nurses and counselors. Together, they initiated the Stabilize stage, processing each miscreant, tending her injuries, peering into his psyche, on their earnest way to convicting Gastarbeiterbande of Severe Violation of as many patterns as they could imply. In time, this process would also tell them if they'd caught all the gangsters.
     Phoebe wanted her own close look at these patternless fools who had caused everyone in her direvnya so much work and misery. Sprawled nearly at her feet, strands of tanglefog frustrating a grab for the door, one such fool lay stretched out and glued to the gray, epox-plaster floor. Swaddled only at the loins and breasts, the mature woman appeared tanned, lean, with well-defined muscles everywhere. An ident-flag flopped from a tanglefog-free spot on the crown of her head; it showed a name and pending charges.
     Phoebe squatted next to the gangster, who roused from sullen boredom. The raised eyes showed some years, maybe close to Phoebe's own age of 129-Tenner, so she glanced back at the trim, firm body ... younger looking ... better looking than her own. A criminal's life should provide such rewards?
     Piqued, Phoebe snapped out a harsher question than she'd intended: "What the fuck do you think you were doing to my town?"
     The gangster rolled her eyes away with derision. "My Governor is my only Authority." Then, erupting, she cried, "All others die!" The tanglefog trapped her lunge. Just as abruptly, she slumped, defeated by more than this tek. Now her eyes showed pain beyond her years. They leaked tears that drained from a mind totally lost. Her collapsed body and crumpled face exposed a beaten soul that had worked off nothing but anger. Without that anger, without the means to act it out, this gangster — no, woman — no, this human being contained nothing, no friends, no family, no self worth loving.
     In her years in counseling, Phoebe had seldom seen such bottomless despair. Even in those cases, she had always found an inkling of ego to nurture, so she could lead the person toward productive independence with discipline and accomplishment. Here, though, first inspection showed no such glimmer.
     Surely, this woman was exceptional even in this band of criminals. Phoebe moved on with her inspection, but she found only more of the same: eyes like those of animals when people used to cage them; anger whose only outlet had been the para-military discipline of these gangs, now completely stymied; despair at the loss of that artificial meaning, and even worse, confusion over the raw gift of Life that continued to plague them.
     Phoebe turned away, breaking off her survey. She'd started it to relish a simple and joyful harvest from the crop of hard work and devotion she had planted. Instead, she'd come up with a handful of brittle, lonely, fruitless, unconnected stalks. She just wanted to fling them as far from her as possible.
     What was that? She halted. A metaphor? I used a metaphor? Where'd that come from? She shook her head to send the odd thoughts flying. I'm more tired than I thought, more ashamed of the damage these gangsters inflicted. She ordered herself, Get moving, work to do: more Sites to inspect. She headed toward the door.
     But she brought herself up short once more. Metaphor or not, the image captured her feelings. She'd marched in here, expecting simple answers and even targets for a little gloating. Instead, she'd found a complex and mysterious abyss that she just did not want to deal with now.
     Never mind. Get going.
     Before she could leave, though, one last duty. She sought out Alaxxchia. Waving away his status report, she clapped him on the shoulder, boomed, "Well done! Tell your people I said so," then spun on her heel and fled toward her patrolcraft.

#


     Gangster den called "Tuol Sleng" — Phoebe toured this den of Gastarbeiterbande, set in the loading dock of an abandoned fábrica. She wended through globs of prisoners. Except for their dress, brief and utilitarian, they wouldn't stand out anywhere in Ganj Dareh. Hadn't stood out, in fact. That's why we didn't know they were here. All ages, except the very old. Many cultures, based on their jewelry, tattoos, and other scars. Skin colors, hair colors, eye colors, of all varieties. Musculature of all kinds, though highly developed.
     Phoebe glanced around the well-lighted room. The gangsters all looked like prime specimens of the human race. But on the inside? Were they all like that woman back at Deir ez-Zor? They must share something in their minds, some twisted sense of themselves and their roles in the world, some justification for their assault on innocents, some explanation for their pursuit of violence. Or could so many people just share a joy in pain and death, the most base of the pleasures inherent in these bodies whose patterns we share?
     She remembered her envy of the body of that woman and regretted it. That achievement seemed to be the only one in her whole miserable life.
     Will we find out what possessed them to attack us this way? Is there a new Pattern for Bad at work here, one we should know about so we can discourage it? How much time should we take trying to find out? Or should we just purge these people, purge them quickly and hard?
     Her counselors were already at work here and at the other dens. Asking and listening just ahead of the constables implementing the Transport-and-Incarcerate stage. They'd continue their work back at the station as well ... if Phoebe gave them the chance. We should find out that "Why," so we — not just Ganj Dareh, but the whole continent, even the whole world — can do better next time.
     With that mental note, Phoebe kept watching from a distance — no point in foisting her presence directly on people as they went competently about their work — as a release crew started the process that would free another tuft of gangsters from their tanglefog fetters.
     One thing that old sea-gull Hei Lelil hadn't provided: a solvent for the tanglefog. A Fundamental Pattern required it to decompose naturally. His developers met all design criteria with a substance whose half-life was seven-kay seconds. Since he thought only invaders would suffer its confinement and would be dealt with summarily and quickly, he saw no reason to extend or shorten this time. However, Phoebe couldn't wait that long to process innocent or guilty. Her Technikers developed a fluid to release people, a tek allocated to only a few in each community. Having lost dreamsticks, she wanted to preserve her only lever over chaos. In these dens, those few drove the release crews.
     Ordinarily — Phoebe snorted at the idea that anything could be ordinary about a Commotion, but then, she shook her head ruefully because they had become ordinary, this exception proving that rule — ordinarily, in the Evacuation Stage of responding to a Commotion, her people directed the release queue into vehicles that carried the chuis to the nearest anshin station and its cells. Here, though, because of how dangerous these gangsters had proven to be, they were incarcerating, then transporting them.
     This release crew laid an unopened cell on the floor next to the first chui of the tuft, a harsh-looking young woman whose every word and limited actions fumed at the situation, yet fear peeked from behind every glare. The other gangsters trapped with her seemed content to let her be their whinepiece.
     The crew chief, To Ru-Iwa Tanipacman, arranged the cell alongside the chui, shoving the flat, heavy rectangle around with the toe of his boot. Colored a pure cobalt-steel blue, its matter-of-fact presence sapped the chui's tirade. Ru-Iwa didn't seem to notice. He poked its start-button with the same toe.
     The cell abruptly unfolded until it stretched long and wide enough to accommodate any standard human. Ends cropped up, one to cradle a head, the other to hold feet and administer confine-tek. Finally, the back side erupted out of its stiff bottom, a smooth, dark-blue wall, connecting the ends and telling the chui that confinement loomed.
     She shut down her venom. Fear overwhelmed anger as she stared at the cell. The other gangsters chirped at her sudden lapse, but that too faded as Ed Loggaster Atari, the crew's Nurse, moved in with a gesture at one of the chui's feet. Dave Theurermiss Ilecomman, the releaser, pointed an aerosol and just enough tanglefog oozed away, settling in a greenish puddle. With these gangsters, the Nurses had decided to start confine-tek early, the first dose of hibernation that rendered prisoners unconscious and pliable. Loggaster drew a tube from the cell and settled its mouth on the bare left ankle. Less complicated than the head-neck area, the posterior tibial vein gave nearly the same speed of access to the heart and the rest of the circulatory system.
     With the first cool suck of the tek, the chui threw back her head and wailed. A moment later, though, the keening faded as the woman slumped within her sticky, greenish, smelly bonds. The other gangsters unconsciously aped her surrender, their drooping gazes locked onto her comatose body.
     Theurermiss plunged ahead, quickly, precisely releasing the limp chui, but none of the others, from the tanglefogged tuft. Crew chief and Nurse stepped in, accepted the load, and directed it into the cell, while Theurermiss sucked the resulting ooze into his recycling tanks. Behind him, Ru-Iwa and Loggaster gently settled the chui while the cell adjusted its interior dimensions to match its resident. They inspected all tek connections, then Ru-Iwa pressed the close-button.
     The cell extruded a front side from the bottom in that same, plain, dark blue, sealing off the ends, then extended a matching top. In seconds, the chui had vanished into a rectangular box of standard length with tabs and slots so it could be easily stacked for transport, then plugged into bays back at the station.
     Phoebe had known how the process worked, seen it demonstrated in life and in video, but had never watched it gather up a zhee-tel and stuff her away before. When Phoebe had created the Commotion variant of their Response Pattern, when she dictated that each and every participant of every instance of "disorderly civil unrest" be Evacuated straight to cells after med-tek, she had not connected that order to this type of ... burial simulacrum.
     Gut it! she told herself. The cells treat their occupants very well. Complete physical examination. Treatment of any and all anomalies. Tuning of all somatic chemicals to optimum levels. Stuff it! The innocent emerge in a day or two, rested and well, many in better shape than they've been in years! Mount it on the wall!
     But the unease did not fold itself away. Fates, I have the right to protect my direvnya against all enemies in any way I choose! Her guilt withstood this attack too ... because she had stolen something irreplaceable from all those customers, guilty and innocent alike. She had stolen time, that quantity unique in everyone's life, allotted by inherited and learned patterns, but guided by Fate. She, of all people, would hate having any time whisked out of her life just for being at the wrong place at the wrong time.
      Phoebe chopped the air in front of her, cutting off her own thoughts. Do I care?
     No, she suddenly discovered. Yes! she ordered, trying to kick-start the endless font of devotion she'd obeyed all these years. But nothing came back. Karoshi had slashed away at it. Ingratitude from those very customers had sapped it further. Low satisfaction ratings stared at her in martyr-red every morning, stifling rejuvenation. Ganj Dareh's Forum enacted penalties. And competition! Two other combines tried to take her contract away from her.
     They can just have it then!
     Phoebe spun away from this conclusion, then stopped once more. The garden metaphor played in her mind again. Give myself whiplash with all these second thoughts. She smiled at this internal quip, but still she wondered, Where does my customer base fit into the metaphor?
     They, in fact, comprised the garden site, soil, weather, macro- and micro-critters in and around the site. They gave her initial conditions. They set many, though not all, of the restrictions on her programs, factors beyond her control that still determined her effectiveness. They defined, indeed, her universe.
     Well, enough of that. I'll just take my ball and go home. Another metaphor, clichéd on top of lame, but again, it captured the gist of her feelings. Only here, the "ball" is my life. Yes, my life could be my own, to direct as I please ... if I just changed the universe I lived it in. Something gave way inside her. Partial release surged gently through her.
     Then, obligation swarmed along her spine, a reflux that started her legs moving again. More Sites to inspect.
     First, though, a more immediate duty, She found La Togosan Mibabigi, the tactician at this Site. No faking necessary, she caught his elbow and smiled into his dark face. "Good job, Togo. Please pass my appreciation onto your people."
     "Will do, Chief." He grinned, showing sun-on-fresh-snow-white teeth that turned his face into a beacon. "Thanks."

#


     Gangster den called "Sand Creek" — Phoebe strode through a tightly woven campus, once an also-ran school for design-tek, now occupied only by wind-deposited debris and those tiny critters the world provided for people to share with, both unchecked by the emptiness of failure.
     As she approached the den, an anshin vehicle, its red-and-white stripes dulled by days of use without time for cleaning, rumbled past. It carried the first load of cells back to the Mount Katahdin Community Station. She waved at the driver who returned it with a tired grin. Out of sight inside the vehicle rode four more constables, just as tired.
     At least that's what her plan for the Sites called for. As soon as the gangster den was secured, the Site Tactician freed up one constable to fetch one vehicle from the pool left behind at the Community Station to avoid any kind of tip to the returning gangsters. Then, as soon as ten percent of the prisoners had been incarcerated, five constables accompanied the first load of cells so they could bring back more vehicles. A slow, careful, expanding process. In time, all their vehicles would be committed to the largest transport in the combine's history. Considering the scale of the operation and her people's exhaustion and unfamiliarity with this type of chui, Phoebe wanted no chances taken.
     Two more cells stood outside the former auditorium like supplies por fábrica, not much to notice except for the unusual blue of the crates. Nothing to tell you that human beings lay dormant inside. Clean, compact. Nothing to tell you that those humans had killed, maimed, nearly destroyed the peaceful lives of a million other humans. Phoebe shook her head in wonder. That such chaos could end in such neatness.
     A clutter of clue-tek lay sprawled beside the former auditorium's entrance. Another sign that everyone was tired. Normally, the dull-as-ore-silver devices would've been lined up neatly. Normally, we wouldn't need so much clue-tek that a line would be necessary.
     The mess reminded Phoebe that her constable's work on this Incident was far from complete. Long seconds from now, when all the gangsters had been incarcerated, they would start mopping up the Site, discovering, acquiring, analyzing, and recording the location for any and all physical evidence, even as small as proteins, that the Site could provide. With Public Beobachtung out of commission, constables had been bringing their own tek to the Sites so they could start Stage 6 of their Response Pattern, Investigate. Ordinarily — again that word — constables could move on to other duties at this Stage, leaving victims to counselors and investigation to the Technikers who handled Beobachtung. That is, in the days before Commotions happened often enough to warrant a name — and a pattern variant.
     No longer. For nearly all Incidents these days, constables stayed on the Site, investigating. Clue-tek immediately, of course, because the organic evidence had already started decaying. Later, after duties and karoshi returned to normal, they might have to canvass the neighborhood, looking for witnesses to the gangsters' activities over the past fourteen or fifteen days. How long have they been attacking us?
     This time, though, Phoebe counted on Central's infraware to correlate data from all the Commotions with the physical and observation data acquired in the gangster dens. Particularly DNA to prove who was where. She expected an overwhelming correlation between the two to provide sufficient circumstantial evidence for the second part of this stage, Indictment.
     But if mobile Beobachtung and clue-tek proved insufficient, they would definitely return for the canvass. The most time-consuming of all evidence, witnesses were also the most unreliable. Though sometimes, they're all we've got.
     One way or the other, she would gather enough evidence to rid society of these, these ... ill-Fated, misguided, and ultimately useless vermin even if she had to pull every override allotted to her.
     A pair of constables emerged, carrying another cell. Inside there, a gangster rested easily, safely, free from all concerns for the time being. While we still have to work. In time, a predictably short time — finally! — the good would rest and the bad would fester in Exile.
     Phoebe watched her constables settle the bulky, blue box on the stack. They made sure it lined up and settled into its place, careful in this case because other anshin depended on that alignment during loading and transport. The extra effort re-assured Phoebe that duty still rode high over fatigue.
     They'll rest soon. They deserve to rest. They deserve to get back to normal, along with the rest of Ganj Dareh.
     She could see that time just ahead for everyone. She'd already started sifting through ideas about how to schedule recuperation, rotating extra days-off through the communities, to allow her people a sense of recovery while still meeting minimal duties. In fact, that allotment suddenly felt so real that she wanted to spread the news here and now. She stepped forward, then hesitated. The move had felt awkward.
     Typically, Phoebe hung back and just let her people do their jobs. She didn't want to imply any doubts of their competence with micro-management. She didn't want to impede the quick and thorough completion of their duties, as they responded to customer needs, so they could get through their work and get home. When she'd been down there in the trenches, she nearly always resented tactician intrusions for all those reasons. She'd determined to avoid that when she'd climbed into the job herself.
     Phoebe did believe in plentiful praise and rewards, but she let those positive motivators flow down through the chain-of-authority, so the appreciation focused on those closest to the people actually doing the combine's work.
     The constables — their names temporarily escaped Phoebe's own exhausted mind — finished their task and glanced around with habitual caution. They saw her and paused, their eyes rendering weary regard, then without further acknowledgment, they turned back to work.
     Suddenly, Phoebe saw her normal remote supervision from their point-of-view. With stinging insight, Phoebe read their minds.
     "What's she do anyway?" they must ask. "Sit in her office, shoving messages around. Jet here and there in her patrolcraft, always at coordination altitude, never down here where the work gets done." Stabbing a quick stare at each constable's profile, she tried for a glimpse behind the tired mask she found there ... with no luck, but she kept hearing the voices. "Oh, sure, we need tacticians on Response Teams, at the Stations, sure, maybe even for each Community, but for the whole combine, nah. What's she do all day?"
     This insight, initially so sharp and stimulating, warped inside her, dropping like a deadweight through her, sucking up every gram of energy. She slumped. Slump broke down into trudge, her feet automatically heading for the patrolcraft.
     How many feel that way? she agonized. All? Most? Surely, Alaxxchia and the other Community Tacticians saw what she did. Surely, she repeated, not at all sure. Can they not see that someone has to make the high-level choices, has to set direction? Devise priorities, allocate resources — accumulate those resources in the first place. Someone has to take choice out of everyday hands who don't want it anyway and make it uniform across the organization. Someone has to focus customer resentment and conduct surges of their disappointment away from blisters and calluses. Someone has to divert corporate meddling and dictates, clamor for recognition and apply any and all praise to those who actually deserve it, not the people they worked for. Someone has to fend off questions from outsiders before they sapped or diverted focus and energy. Someone has to provide the eyes of duty that spur conscience. Someone has to inspire devotion. Otherwise, the job wouldn't get done right. Don't they see that?
     Did she, when she worked down there? No, not until she'd stepped into the role and found all that it required.
     Abruptly, she noticed her direction and her progress. Gut it, feeling sorry for myself. Yea, well-deserved, too. She snorted at her own black humor. Time to give it up then. Can't do the time with that state-of-mind. She stopped walking. The conclusion weighed nothing at all, even lifted the gloom a little. Odd ... but not unexpected.
     That respite gave way to metaphor encore. Where did the combine fit in the garden of her life?
     Tools, she realized easily enough. They give me the means to tend my customers. I couldn't get my job done without them.
     And where would they be without me? she countered. "No problem," she was sure they'd say.
     Her pride snarled like a lazy dog, hardly lifting its head from corner of the porch where it lay. Words something like "They'll find out different after I'm gone" drifted out of the same corner, but she knew that kind of spite never did much good. I'll quit because I want to, not to teach them a lesson. Another surge of release honored those words, the first time she'd ever said, "I quit," even to herself.
     However, I can't give up just now. She'd finish out the patrol, make sure they all knew how proud she was of them. She quirked a smile. And I'll do it in the proper way and I'll keep doing it properly until I'm longer doing it at all. With an end in sight, she breathed more easily.
     She reversed her steps and sighted on the door. Somewhere inside, Erl Appalachian Shaffer would be supervising the careful incarceration of gangsters. Phoebe would pass on praise to sow. Appalachian deserved it, just like the other Site Tacticians.

#


     Gangster den called "Tiananmen" — Five striped vehicles took on cargo, their sides sucked back into their roofs, their conveyors lifting entire stacks of cells at a time. Their drivers waited next to start- and stop-buttons. Another handful of constables, selected to ride back and pick up more vehicles, lounged nearby, catching some well-earned rest between assignments.
     Phoebe walked toward them. They looked back at her, their eyes drooping and sullen.
     Sullen? Before, previous days, even at previous Sites today, Phoebe interpreted those looks as tired, mostly, maybe smoldering with frustration, never sullen. But now, that's how she saw them.
     Are they blaming me? Blaming me for not preventing all these Commotions? For not foreseeing Gastarbeiterbande and rooting them out earlier? For not talking Har Norma out of the Rendezvous? For all the death and fatigue and frustration? Why me?
      Isn't that what tacticians are for? she answered herself.
     She'd tried to be the best tactician this combine had ever known. She'd strapped on the job with ideas based on years of working there, of watching other tacticians, of kibbitzing other combines via Em-Deh.
     When you try to be the best in one thing, that means you're probably not even "good" in other parts of your life.
     Surprised by this random thought, Phoebe halted. Random? Rebellious, rather. Mutinous, even. But they kept coming. When's the last time I wandered over to the stable for a ride through the woods? Took in a show? Read a book? Even cleaned house? When did I lose my life and turn into a drudge, a dedicated, even brilliant one, but still a drudge? Oddly, the questions exhilarated her, like sunshine breaking through after wandering lost in deep woods.
     Phoebe looked up. The waiting constables stared quizzically back at her. She should stay here a while, show her interest, find out what they're really thinking, all the things the "best tactician" would do. Instead, she just wanted to move on, finish inspecting the Sites.
     Then what? She wasn't sure, but it didn't include submerging herself in this role anymore. Still, she couldn't be rude. These hard-working people deserved that, at least. She put on a smile, waved, and broke into a trot toward them.
      "Where's Jer Mangione Rochester?" The Site Tactician.
     The nearest constable — Nol Anbushnell Breakout, if she remembered right — stirred uncertainly. Behind them, the rest craned to watch. Never seen me like this, Phoebe surmised. Well, neither have I.
     Just as their silence stretched, Anbushnell flopped a hand at the boarded-up storefront behind them. "We're still incarcerating," he said.
     "Of course," Phoebe said. "Just a matter of time now."
     "They're not tried and judged yet." The Commotion variants of Stage 7, Evaluate.
     "They will be," Phoebe assured him. There I go, committing to more work. Maybe I'll just let the system take care of itself. Officially, the anshin just administer this part.
     "With the Em-Deh down?" His tone matched his sour expression. Normally, they relied on Beobachtung, funneled back to them through the Mirnaya Direvnya, to make all trials straightforward. When you knew who and where everyone was, and many times, exactly what he was doing, ascertaining guilt was easy. Without the help of the ever-watchful eye, her combine had compensated — What else can you do when Fate hands you shit? — filling the gaps with mobile Beobachtung, clue-tek, and old-fashioned questions. But now, when the Collective got involved as jurors, lack of communication clogged the system.
      Phoebe didn't back off her forced cheerfulness. "We've gotten by so far."
     "Days behind. 'Speedy trial,' remember?"
     "They're well-taken care of."
     "I could do with a little cell-time myself," someone else quipped. Phoebe didn't see who, but appreciated the counter-sentiment. "Rest and a tune-up, no charge."
     Phoebe added, "You'll soon be getting some of that, naturally and with your eyes open."
      "We've heard that before," Anbushnell droned.
     Unformed words pushed Phoebe's mouth open, but she stopped the impulse. Still in the saddle, she'd better practice a tactician's proper patience with discontent. After all, they all had good reason for it. Calling them on it wouldn't help. She just had to get them through into the last stage of the Response Pattern, Prevent. For Commotions, that typically meant Exile for the guilty and a return to normal life for the innocent.
     Instead, she said, "You'll see. Thanks for the good work today." She pointed behind them. "I'll just pass that on to Jer Mangione." And she did as quickly as she could.
     One more Site to go. Harlan should make it easy on her.

#


     The gangster den called "Broken Glass" occupied an empty meadow-daisy-yellow warehouse in a little-used part of the district. Only those storages next to the drome's entrance held freight these days.
     Phoebe didn't recognize the place till she walked toward it. Sailie, she'd remembered, and the name "Broken Glass" had been vaguely familiar, but she hadn't put them together before. So much had happened since that frustrating day. Now, memories boiled through her: Cliff making her mad, Sailie too; just about everything during that can-feel had provoked her.
     Except Harlan, pushing their authority right up to the line, but not over it. She liked his style, then and everywhere else, even when he sassed her.
     He keeps me honest and grounded in the combine's zhuhndí. A figure stepped out of the warehouse. And there he is.
     Harlan sauntered over to his pile of clue-tek and started to paw through it, setting the devices into rows. So, his team inside the building must have incarcerated a third of their prisoners, and now, he could spin off some constables for investigation. He crouched before a dawn-gray backpack, then leaned the handle of its flexible nozzle against it. The meter-wide, sensor-filled mouth formed a dark underline. He reached casually for another. Giving himself a break from karoshi, but making the most of the time. Phoebe approved.
     As soon as she could, she called, "Doesn't it just piss you off?"
     Harlan darted his eyes at her, not his normal stoic pan, scanning the area on his way to noticing her. That did come out differently, not like a boss, but more like a friend.
     "No," he said finally.
     Phoebe planted herself in front of him, hands on hips, and said, "Well, I'm pissed." She tossed her head to take in the warehouse behind him. "We had them here, Bande Gastarbeiter, and we let them skate on by, after dropping only a minor inconvenience on them. No wonder they didn't take us as much of a threat."
     "No, Jefe." He threw a glance behind him, then to the sides, checking those directions, and back to her. "We weren't ready. We were outnumbered. The ratoneros would've killed us then and there. This way, we beat them in the long run."
     Phoebe protested, "And given away their plot? Revealed their existence? The combine would've known what happened to us, gone after the guilty with a vengeance."
     With a grin tucked into the side of his mouth, Harlan repeated emphatically, "No, Jefe." He gave his head a slight shake. "That cover story of theirs would've taken all the load. Back-country savages who steal gems from man-eating pseudo-apes for a living? Give up one or two soldiers for Exile and go back to what they were doing. Your replacement — Alaxxchia? Roca? — wouldn't've looked for anything else. We were too busy handling the Rendezvous. We weren't looking for larger patterns, just trying to get through the day-to-day.
     "Face it: that cagada Sailie knew what he was doing. Too bad he gets to face Justicia de Dios and not ours."
     Catching his point, Phoebe nodded. The constables sent to arrest Sailie had found him dead, throat slit, maybe by his own bodyguards, also dead. Their office's med-tek cart had been smashed against a wall. It probably couldn't have helped anyway, from the extreme injuries the constables had reported. She'd pulled them out of there immediately to help at the nearest Site. Maybe the next tactician would restart the Response Pattern at Sailie's office when she had time.
     Harlan continued, "Every time we adjusted our patterns, they either ignored us because we still weren't a threat or they adapted too.
     "And they had El Diablo's own luck. Even before they came, the Partners had 're-organized' our access to Beobachtung till we couldn't even find our own tukhas on a clear day. But losing the Em-Deh ..." He threw up his hands as though helpless. "Just when we needed it the most.
     "But that didn't stop us. That's why we finally won, Jefe. We just kept coming at them, trying new things, perfecting the old ones." He let the grin spill open. "In the end, they're taking blue naps and we're still walking around."
     His elation waved her pique away. She let it spin off into the past ... with everything else.
     Phoebe changed the subject: "I'm done, Harlan."
     He reacted immediately to the finality in her tone. His eyelids flicked wider. "Aw, Jefe, you don't mean ..."
     Phoebe smiled at his apprehension. At least, one of her people appreciated her. "Not today, but soon." He pursed his mouth. "Gatogrebok's done me a favor, Harlan." The words slid out easily, soothing her, but not him. He shook his head, terse strokes to deflect bad news. "I'm ..." She struggled after a short, but true explanation. "I've ..." He's never overshot himself, never tackled a job too large, too hungry, too negligent of its occupant.
     "It's that Huevones Kanpa," he snapped.
      Kanpa. The name splashed through Phoebe like a slug of spring water on an insistently hot day.
     And she realized that she hadn't thought about him since this morning when he had set their attacks in motion. Kanpa, sweating in some infraware kiva, his body glistening in the dim glow of status lights and holoscreens, his bushy eyebrows furled over the problems of diving into the rawest of Beobachtung data, floods of bits on their way to cyberspace, and taming it enough to produce the most critical of information. Maybe not the only one in the world who could've done it. But the only one I've got. Her dream image of Kanpa, as rescuer on a horse, bolted through her.
      "Uh, Jefe," Harlan prodded.
     Phoebe wrestled with the contrast between Kanpa and Harlan. Harlan, salt of the earth, capable, as loyal as anyone in the combine. Kanpa, on the other hand .... Something caressed her nape, just like Kanpa's fingers had that one time, softly intimate while she seduced not just his body, but his future, to her selfish needs. Needs no longer pertinent, no longer filling her gut with their painful demands, no longer blinding her to other possibilities, possibilities now within reach ... if she allowed herself to go there.
     "Jefe?" Harlan touched her elbow.
     Phoebe blinked her stare-dry eyes and essayed a smile at his concerned face. It seemed to work. "No, Harlan. Kanpa didn't cause any of this." She squeezed his hand in appreciation, then stepped away. "Though he will help me break away from something I should've ..." No, now is not the time to try to explain it to Harlan, but I will try later. "I've brought things as far back to normal as I can. Someone else will have to take it from here."
      Harlan scowled at her, but didn't raise any more protest. On my side, even to the end.
     "I'm going off auto-locate."
     "Yessir."
     "I'll be back tomorrow, Harlan, don't worry. I'll wrap up things nice and tidy for the next tactician. Soon enough, you'll be back in your old routine."
     He'd reset his face into its normal openness lit by his quick, experienced eyes. More loyalty, soldiering on.
     "Maybe after that, we'll talk. You and your family will come over to my place. Take your kids out on horseback. Get to know each other better."
     He wavered then, his eyes and face softening. He took a step toward her, but caught himself. With a brief nod, he said, "Count on it, Jefe."
      "See you around, Harlan."
     He stood there while she climbed back into her patrolcraft and urged it skyward. She resisted her headset with its accustomed spills of information. Instead, she just said, "Central, sign me out, all the way off-duty, no auto-locate." A chime acknowledged. Central would notify her designated alternate, whoever's turn it was in the rotation, she couldn't seem to recall the name. That Community Tactician would make sure the others knew also. Policyware and dutifulness would take care of her combine for now ... and the more-distant future.
     A intangible weight lifted from her for the first time in too many days. "Now take me to Kanpa."
     Acceleration tugged at her joints and guts. Anticipation teased her lips, breasts, and groin. Like she was awakening from a long sleep.

#


     Just like she'd imagined. The kiva, tucked into the Bulk Storage of a Self-Governing Workshop, sweltered. Normally, its enviro-tek would've kept the room cool and humid and dust-free, just the way infraware liked it, but it hadn't been equipped with the excess capacity to handle an industrious techniker for an extended period.
     Kanpa had left the outside door open to help out the tek — contrary to Phoebe's orders. She had dashed through it, fear stoking her already thumping heart, but he was O.K.. He sat on the floor among tall, mute boxes of an uninteresting charcoal-gray, leaning back against one, his llevar butted up against another, its holoscreen a globe of flickering prime colors in between. She slipped quietly in.
     Even though he'd tossed his shirt aside, his torso glistened with sweat, just like it had that night in the stable, a tantalizing reminder of how his passion had ignited hers. Sight remembered touch, slick and hard and earnest. Her skin warmed, eager for more.
     Phoebe stepped closer and whispered, "Hey."
     Kanpa jerked around, eyes at first concerned, then lapsing back into fatigue when he recognized her. "We missed some gangsters," he droned as he dragged his head back to the holoscreen. His unkempt hair swayed with the move, suggesting how it had stroked her thighs, belly, and nipples.
     "Twelve, maybe fifteen," he was saying. "I'm not sure about three of them yet."
     Phoebe dropped to a knee beside him. His scent aroused her more: his specific blends of sweat and spice sharpened recent memories; they also put into her mind other love-making, too far in her past. She would start making up for that now.
     She said softly, "You've sent out IDs on the ones you're sure about?"
     "Of course."
     "The rest won't get far by themselves. Don't worry about it. We're off-duty." She caught his hand in the keyspace, toyed with his fingers.
     He looked up with curiosity that spurred interest as he read her face. "If you say so."
     "I do." She brought his hand up to her breast as she kissed him. He slid sideways, drawing her down on top of him. Fatigue fell away from both of them as they strove to touch as deeply, as eagerly, and as much as they could.
     First a stable, Phoebe thought as she helped Kanpa with her jumpsuit's fastenings. Now a kiva. She helped him lose the rest of his clothes. "We'll have to try this in a bed sometime," she whispered.
      He laughed throatily and eased her back down on the hard floor.