She takes the ID, and murmurs, reflexively, “Don’t call me ‘miss’, Citizen…” she looks at the ID for a long minute, “…Athelstan King.” A quick blink, and she looks at me again.
Whoops. I might have found a History Major. She slides the ID back across the counter. The bill has disappeared.
“Sign here, please.”
I smile, scribble some nonsense on the form, take my quarter baggie, touch my hat-brim, and scoot.
Fred has a tiny little bungalow on the outskirts of San Jose, I’ve been parked down the street watching his house for the last four hours. Nothing trips my professional paranoia, but I’ve a professional dislike for Brownshirts.
It’s not that Cali doesn’t like people leaving the Country, but the ones that they wouldn’t mind leaving — welfare leeches, bums, and general useless layabouts — aren’t going to turn loose of the Gummint free teat. The folks that actually make money, and thus get taxed to a fair-thee- well, Cali quickly figured out that they can’t lose those folks and keep the free Government stuff flowing.
So. Me.
It’s been long enough. I climb out of my rental car, amble (maybe even stroll) up to Fred’s front door, and knock. Before my knuckles hit the wood for the third time, the door is snatched open, and Fred is standing there. Behind him, sitting on the sofa, a pretty woman, face drawn with stress, clutches two sub-teenage children to her sides.
I take off my hat, holding it at belt level — coincidentally putting my right hand next to the .32 NAA semi-auto hidden in the hat — and nod formally to the lady of the house, “Ma’am.”
“Don’t call me…” she stops the reflexive response, and smiles shakily at me.
“Kids. ‘Morning, Fred. Shall we get this show on the road?”
He runs his hand over his mouth, and nods, “Yes.”
I head back to the rental car, pull into Fred’s driveway and on into the garage as Fred raises the door, and then I step back into the living room. “Let me have everyone’s cell phones, please.”
What the vast majority of people in Cali don’t know, is that Cali geo-fences every phone in the country. It’s a simple algorithm, based on the plain and simple fact that people are creatures of habit. It takes 60 to 90 days of carrying your phone around, and the algorithm plots where you’re going to be most of the time. Take your cell-phone outside of your usual hang-outs — how far outside, I don’t know — and your cell-account gets flagged.
Mostly, a travel flag doesn’t get noticed or acted on — however, I’m pretty sure that flags on the accounts of people who make money probably get a reaction. “Reaction” being a Latin word for “Things Are About To Suck For Your Humble Yet Dashing Hero”, so no phones.
“Ma’am, did you call the children in as sick to their schools?”
Her mouth moves, without speech for a second, she swallows, and whispers, “Yes.”
“Good. Do the children have phones?”
“No, we never… no.”
I smile, hopefully reassuringly, “Good.” I step into the kitchen, spot the ‘fridge, hop up onto the counter, and toss her cell-phone into that stupid little cabinet everyone has mounted above the refrigerator. Why is that thing there? Can anyone actually reach it? I hop down, and put Fred’s phone in my pocket.
“Ok, folks, let’s go for a trip!”
We load into the rental car, buckle the kids into the idiot car seats, the family luggage into the trunk next to my backpack, and take off for the rail station. At the station, I look around the parking lot, and find a car with a parking sticker for one of the bigger Silicon Valley computer corporations. Little loop of duct tape, and the phone sticks nicely to the battery compartment of the vintage Toyota Pious. It’ll stay there for a couple of hours, before bouncing loose. Hopefully, in a San Francisco or Marin county parking lot.
There is no way I’m going to pry the Missus from the kids, so I hand her three train tickets, “Second car from the end. Find a seat near the middle, please.” I wave a finger gently in her face, “It’s going to be okay.” She tries to smile, takes a firm grip on the children’s hands, and walks towards the tracks.
I put my hand up, as Fred involuntarily takes a step after his family, “Cameras, Fred. Trust me. This is why you’re paying me a great deal of money.” Rigid, he looks at me, nostrils flaring.
I hand a ticket to Fred, and we walk around the front of the train. As we walk, I recite the day’s headlines from the paper, gesturing, to the four cameras I spot on the way, two men going about the day’s business. On the other side, we step into the men’s rest-room, and out of camera-shot.
“Fred, take a whiz. You need to, you just don’t know it yet. Then go wash your meathooks, and go get on the train. Third car from the front, please.”
The adrenaline is driving him so hard, he’s practically dancing. I hope it just looks like a widdle dance, and he’s out the door headed for the train. Sigh.
When I hear the whistle, I walk quickly, and hop into the train, holding the sliding door and winking at a little Latina, who gives me a slow up and down look and smiles. Even in post-Calexit Cali, women are proof that the gods love us and want us to be happy. There are no cameras on the train, but I’m not looking for cameras. Five minutes early, but expected, Fred comes hurrying down the aisle from the forward cars, and passes me, without even noticing me on the way back to his family.
We’re up to full speed and around the first corner on the way to Modesto, when I get up, and stroll back to the restroom at the back of the car, pause, and pull gently on the door, knock on the door, shrug, and step through into the next car. Pasting a mildly confused look on my face, I go from car to car, finally stopping in the car occupied by Fred and his family.
Taking a seat at the front of the car, I look at my charges. They’re sitting with the kids in-between them, stress clearly visible on their faces, holding hands so tightly I can see the white of their knuckles from here. It’s good to see… a… doting…
Shit.
There’s a Brownshirt on this car. And he’s on the job. Shit. Shit. Shit.
He’s a muscular bastard, bic-ink tattoos visible along his arms up to the Hawaiian shirt over a neutral t-shirt — much like I’m wearing, come to think — with an angular bulge on his right hip, scarred knuckles, and way-too- active eyes.
I take a newspaper out of my backpack, get up, sling the backpack and start walking back down the aisle, lost in the glories of whatever the celebrity du jour was up to. As I got level with the Brownshirt, I artfully stumbled against him, dropping the newspaper in his lap.
He grabs my shirt, lifting me off him, “Dude,” I slur, “I’m… like… wow. Sorry, dude.” I smile at him slowly, and get my balance back, he sneers at me, lifts the paper and smacks me in the chest with it. “Careful, pinche.” He gives me a shove, “Lay off the mota, fool.”
He’s right handed. Thought so, but the pistol might have been set-up cross-draw. I slide into a seat in the back row, tip my hat over my eyes. There was no way he was going to miss Fred and his family, but I could hope. And he spots them.
Well, hell.
Twenty minutes out of Modesto, the Missus gets up with the kids, and walks up the aisle to the next car. In the next car, she and the kids will go into the restroom and shed their bright outer garments, go the second car along and take a seat next to the door. Brownshirt watches them go, and looks really hard at Fred. Oblivious, Fred is staring longingly in the direction his family went. Five minutes later, Fred gets up and goes to the restroom in this car, and steps inside to shuck his orange fishing shirt. Brownshirt watches him go, and when Fred comes out of restroom in an olive drab t-shirt, the Brownie’s eyes go wide, and he gets up, moving quickly down the aisle but too late to stop Fred from getting into the next car.