Rios-Parkinson pushed the button on his intercom.
“Find Larsen and send him in.” He leaned back in his chair and savored the feeling. The material rewards of his position were welcome after so many years of scraping by as an aspiring agitator and academic. The erotic rewards of Amanda and countless others before her were delightful, especially after his near-monastic first thirty years of life. But the power, the ability to take another human being and crush him, to force him through pure terror to renounce everything he loved, was the greatest reward of all.
And he could do that to nearly anyone he wanted at any time he wanted, with just a few exceptions. But someday, there would be no exceptions, no limit on his power. And all of the People’s Republic would look to him and be afraid.
He sighed. Soon.
Larsen, his operations chief, entered the office after a sharp knock and a barked order to “Come.”
“Any indication of internet transmission?” asked Rios-Parkinson.
“No, sir.”
“We do not say ‘sir’ here in the People’s Republic, Deputy. You know this. Your time in the patriarchal military of the former USA was long ago. I expect you to grow and adapt. Am I understood?”
“Of course, Director,” Larsen said. “We’re devoting all of our assets to monitoring for the alert software signal should they attach it to the internet. If they do, we will immediately remotely block it and locate its physical connection.”
“Good. And?”
“Director, we have not reacquired them yet,” he said, anticipating his boss’s question.
“Then make sure you do when they try to approach Amanda,” he replied, mildly annoyed.
“That’s our plan. We have agents around the campus and in her classes. At 10:00 a.m. she has an institutional racism lecture. At 11:30 a.m. she has her self-criticism seminar. We’ll cover her at lunch, but that might be difficult since she usually eats by the plaza, and there is a mandatory rape culture protest for all freshpeople, so we’ll need to be close to her in case they try to use that to cover their approach.”
“Do not let her see our surveillance.”
“I’ve made that very clear to the agents. Most of them will appear to be students. I briefed them myself this morning – they smell very convincing.”
“What about the afternoon?”
“She has her United States Crimes lecture then a People’s Chemistry lab.”
“Will you be able to cover her in the laboratory?”
Larsen shook his head. “It’s a lecture class. They don’t do actual chemistry experiments because hands-on work privileges….” Larsen paused, uncomfortable. “I’m not actually sure who it privileges, but someone, so in the lab class the professor talks about how science is intersectional with issues of gender, race and class.”
“You just ensure that when they find her you are watching, and you do not lose them once you do. They are going to lead me to my hard drive.”
Larsen nodded. “But sir,” he said, unsure how to broach the issue. “What if she refuses to go with them?”
“Don’t call me ‘sir’ again, Deputy.”
“I apologize. It’s hard to rid myself of my unconscious sexism,” said Larsen. Rios-Parkinson raised an eye brow.
“And… racism too.” Rios-Parkinson nodded, then went on.
“Well, obviously I expect her to refuse to go with them and to report them,” Rios-Parkinson said. “When she does, you follow them. But she may feign cooperation to draw them deeper, so be ready to track them if she does. She is extremely loyal to the People.”
“Of course,” Larsen replied. “Of course she is.”
“And when we take them after they obtain the disc, my own tactical team executes the assault. Everyone else mans – I mean peoples – the perimeter and stays back. Are we clear?”
Larsen was well-aware of the sensitivity of the lost hard drive, and equally well-aware of the precarious nature of his own position should the rising star to which he had hitched his career falter. “Very clear. I have a ten-man team ready. I mean ten-person team. Although all the persons are men.”
13.
Westwood was thriving, with stores, restaurants and coffee shops hopping with student business from the campus of UCLA that lay just to the north. To the west was the former veteran’s cemetery, recently built over with new apartments, then the 405 freeway. A wall along the east side of the elevated highway ensured one could not simply pull over to the shoulder and jump down into the sector. If you did not go through a gate past security’s scrutiny, you were not coming in.
Those who came in every day, enduring the long lines and the grumbling guards, were easy to distinguish from the residents. Those living inside the sector were different than other people because they smiled; their apparel was fresh, their shoes not falling to pieces. Those who came in to work, to tend to and cater to their betters, were decked out in drab, worn clothing, at least for the short time that they were walking to their jobs – none of them could bring in cars, even if they had cars and could have found and afforded the gasoline.
A few years before, when the contrast between those from inside and outside of the various special sectors throughout the country became simply too embarrassing to ignore, the People’s Republic imposed a new rule. Uniforms. Upon their arrival at work inside a security sector, the workers would change into a unisex costume of black work shoes, denim pants and light blue work shirts. On their chest, above their left shirt pocket, they would wear a name tag that identified their place of employment. In their pocket they would have, at all times and upon pain of arrest, their identification card showing that they had permission to be inside.
“Imagine being a blue shirt. You come in here every day, work like a dog, see all this, then stand in line for three hours to buy food before you go home to a house with no electricity,” Turnbull said.
“Yay, socialism,” Junior replied, watching a blue shirt step off into the wet gutter to get out of the path of a half-dozen smiling, laughing students.
Turnbull eased the Lexus through the crowded streets, looking for a place to park. Students, the children of the wealthy and connected, wandered along the sidewalks, oblivious to blue shirts manning the kiosks, fetching their lattes, sweeping up the litter the students casually dropped on the ground.
“They seem to have it pretty good in here,” Junior observed.
“Some of them do,” Turnbull said. He hit the brakes – traffic had suddenly come to a halt in front of him.
“What is it?” Junior asked.
The answer came not from Turnbull but in the form of shouts and yelling, clanging and whistles. Up ahead, at the next intersection, past the Mercedes-Benzes and BMWs, they could make out what appeared to be a parade heading east to west in the middle of the street. There were at least 100 people, some carrying signs, a few manipulating giant puppets that bore a passing resemblance to notable officials of the United States. And they were chanting:
“Racism, sexism, we say no! The USA has got to go!”
A middle aged man with a bullhorn and a man-bun walked along at the side of the column, adding his own input:
“Stop rape culture! Silence equals death! We demand liberation from corporate tyranny!”
To the right of the Lexus, in an Apple store, a trio of students took a moment to look up from their iPhone 16s and glance at the passing protesters. Then they looked back down and continued with their feverish pecking.
As the protestors trudged on, a few uniformed PBI officers looked over, disinterested. They made no move to clear the road.
“I think this is a scheduled protest,” Turnbull said. “Every time I’m here, just like clockwork, there’s a bunch of these idiots walking down that street with their signs and puppets.”