Chapter 2: The Next Item

He was moving again, quietly and quickly, leaping fences, occasionally running onto the roofs or garages or porches. He was the ghost, the shadow in the night and he was in a hurry. Someone had found where he lived. Someone had broken into his sanctuary.

Instinctively, he avoided the baleful lights of city lamp posts and private porches, always hugging the darkness even as he ran flat out. His mind was already several steps ahead, one part coldly evaluating his route for hindrances or surprises, the other analyzing the entrances to his home for the fastest, safest way to enter.

It was a scenario he'd never really explored and he kicked himself mentally. He should have prepared for this, should have drilled for this. His lack of preparation might cost him tonight; if he survived it would never happen again.

The helmet, like the armor he wore, was his own design cobbled together from alien tech bought, borrowed, and flat out stolen from the black market. Its face was a thin, sturdy frame of anodized clear plastic. Its outside was a black matte finish providing a one-way mirror effect; he could see out but it was impossible to see in. The plastic visor was filled with embedded micro-electronics that provided him a tactical display as well as ambient light control that darkened the bright sunshine and turned the inky darkness of night to clear green and red images – night vision overlaid with thermal vision. There was also a communications array built within though it wasn't working correctly just yet and was limited to cell and satellite phone communications. The limited computing power in the helmet accepted some minimal verbal commands and the limited rebreather would keep him safe from any gas attacks and even allow him to swim underwater – for a short time.

The armor and helmet were made of two layers of interwoven carbon fiber bundled into a tow and then linked in a chain mail pattern separated by a polymer-latex resin that could disperse kinetic impacts across a wide area; the carbon fiber layers prevented bullets from penetrating and the resin allowed him to absorb blows that would maim or even kill others. Along each of the outer edges of his calves, thighs and arms was a staggered exoskeleton made of long pieces of carbon fiber tows braided together to form single long pieces of millimeters thick, semi-flexible rebar that was stronger and more durable than steel. This bar running over all the major external bones allowed him to block heavy hits without breaking his bones; a similar arrangement went down his spinal column in a three bar setup. His gloves and feet were the same carbon/polymer mesh allowing his fingertips to feel the recessed pips on a die while preventing the possibility of having them crushed in a vice.

The house he approached was dark – but he'd worked hard to ensure any light within would never make it outside; windows were boarded and shadowboxed with weather sealant cutting off any stray light around their edges. The front door was boarded as was the back – but it was done with false fronts allowing him to open them normally. If anyone did get inside, however, the rooms were all empty and filled with rotted wood and the smell of burned plaster. Even the basement looked unlived in.

His house was below, in the sub-basement that shouldn't have existed – and hadn't until he'd repaired that Darjee excavator he'd liberated from the black market. It had taken him but hours to create a new basement under the one that already existed. Even within the sub-basement, though, he'd hidden the entrance to his lab behind a blind door. The lab extended under the house's back yard so no one should think to even look for it from the sub-basement living quarters. The Darjee – hell, the Confederacy itself – would be hard-pressed to find it.

The Darjee. The Confederacy. He knew them for what they were. Puppet masters pulling the strings of the poor to provide canon-fodder for the coming Sa'arm. Though he had no faith in any of the other lies the Darjee or Confederacy had told, he had no doubt the Sa'arm were coming – otherwise, why would those rich bastards with their high, fancy CAP scores be leaving the planet in droves? No, the Sa'arm were coming, the rich were leaving and the poor would inherit the Earth – for the few minutes they could hold it. He had no illusions about their ability to survive; if there was even the slightest chance, the wealthy wouldn't be running from the Earth like a house afire. No, it was like it always was; the rich bought their way out and the poor suffered.

He climbed the back wall almost absently, the finger and toe holds almost familiar in their intimacy. He had decided to take the small entrance he'd created next to the chimney; he'd extended the chimney down to a small fireplace in the sub-basement and included a vertical shaft running right alongside it. The metal rungs were sunk solidly into the walls and the vertical tunnel was clear of all debris, of course; though he didn't use the entrance all that often, he did ensure it was clean and clear fairly regularly.

As he reached the bottom, he took a deep breath; the rungs ended above the sub-basement and the only way down was to leap the 10 feet or so to the floor. Exhaling steadily, he allowed himself to drop and rolled with the momentum as his feet touched the floor. He came up, the long dirks that had been tucked into sheaths on each of his calves out and ready. The dirks were his father's; he'd inherited them after ... after...

He forced the thought back into the damn box and spun wildly, looking for anything out of place. There was nothing. Nothing touched. Not a thing missing from where he'd left it. Absolutely nothing had been disturbed – nothing except the bookcase that served as the door to his lab. It hung open ever so slightly, the barest hairline of light outlining where it hung partially open.

Dirks ready, Cal stalked slowly and silently to the door. He considered his options carefully. There were only two entrances into the lab; this one and one that came from the half burned out shell of a garage out back. Either, however, would give notice to the occupant inside that someone was coming; he'd designed it that way because he'd never expected to have to sneak into his own lab.

Taking a deep breath, heart racing and body ready for violence, he pushed the bookcase further open – open enough to admit him – and then immediately turned against the wall at the side. He waited, waited for some faceless, unknown enemy to tear out of the lab looking for him – but nothing came. There was no sound.

After a moment, he closed his eyes and gathered himself, trying to find the center of the violence within him. For no more than a moment, he stood there, shifting his arms and legs, shoulders, elbows, wrists, knees and ankles, taking stock, preparing. Then, when he could wait no longer, he dove into the room to the right and came up, dirks ready to strike...

... and stopped, dumbfounded.

"Almost 9 minutes," the older man said drily, his deep voice rolling smoothly with just a hint of Hispanic accent. He was leaning back in Cal's desk chair, relaxed, his curly black hair pushed back from his face and his feet up and crossed on the corner of the desk – the only clear spot on the desk, the rest was covered in papers and strange electronics. Like its counterpart in the main, living area part of the sub-basement, the desk was metal; the only difference between the two were the lab one had papers and projects on it while the living-area version was clean. "I was really expecting a faster response."

Cal waited for a heartbeat and then relaxed, stooping to put the dirks back in their sheaths on the side of his calves. "So sorry to disappoint you," he said, the helmet conveying the words outward from an elaborate speaker system.

"Yes, well, I guess we're all getting kind of old," the man said with a wry smile. "Alicia sends her best, by the way. She was wondering if you'd like to join us for dinner tomorrow."

Cal paused a heartbeat, then stood up and removed his helmet. "We both know that Alicia hates me, Rico," he remarked with a thin smile. "I doubt the invitation came from her. Besides, I doubt you'd have broken in here just to ask me to dinner." He stopped, his head tilting slightly. "How did you, by the way? Break in, I mean?"

Rico shrugged and leaned even further back. "I knew where to look. I'll admit it took me a few minutes but then I began to think, 'where would I put a door if I was Cal?' It wasn't in the pantry – which is the first place I looked - but you didn't do a very good job of hiding it in the front closet. You left scuff marks which were a dead giveaway."

"I've been busy," the younger man shrugged, walking over and taking a seat on a stool in front of a workbench. The workbench was covered with meters and circuit boards with strange crystals scattered here and there. It looked like a satellite had thrown up all over it. "I suppose I got a little careless." Cal folded his arms and leaned his back against the workbench, his legs keeping the stool from rolling. "What did you need to see me about, Rico?"

"A few things, really," Rico said slowly, his voice sounding resigned. "The future, mostly."

"The future?" Cal scoffed. "What about the future?"

"The Sa'arm are coming, Cal," Rico said softly.

"I think we all know that," Cal humphed. The Sa'arm coming was common knowledge. A race of insect-like creatures hell-bent on destroying – and/or consuming – everything in their way. "There are a lot of people that don't want to believe it, some that simply won't acknowledge it and others that, for one reason or another, don't seem to care. I think we all know they're coming, though. 7 years now? 8? Armageddon. The end of the world."

"That's my point, mijo," Rico said suddenly, leaning forward and looking at Calix intently. "It doesn't have to be. It doesn't have to be the end of the world."

Calix looked at his cousin aghast and then broke out laughing. "You talking about CAP scores, Rico? Is that it? You think you've got enough money to buy your way out? That's what the CAP stands for, man. CAP-italistic. You fucking taught me that. You need dough to get a high score; that's common knowledge. No money and you're just food for the swarm, man."

Rico sat back quietly for a moment. When he spoke again, it was so quietly that Calix almost couldn't hear him. "What if they're wrong?"

Cal snorted. "They aren't. You know it. I know it. I mean, look around you. How many pick-ups have there been here? I mean in Southwest Detroit? Huh? How many? We both know. Not a fucking one. Oh, they take them infrequently from downtown and there've been quite a few in the suburbs – but not a fucking one in Southwest Detroit. We're the ghetto, man. Nobody cares about us. Oh, sure, there's a couple of guys in school that brag about their CAP; a couple of girls, too. We all know they're lying but they do fool some chica's into spreading for 'em." He grit his teeth, his eyes flashing with anger. "All it is is a big FUCK YOU, cuz. You know it and I know it. The rich get off this rock and the poor are fucking food for the insects."

"Your mom was poor," Rico said softly, his voice strengthening slightly. "She made it out."

"You talking about the whore?" Calix snarled. "Yeah, she got picked up didn't she? Must a spread her legs something fucking FIERCE to get her old ass picked up."

"Don't talk about her that way," Rico said with just a hint of anger. "She was my aunt..."

"She was my fucking MOTHER," Calix said, enraged. The box, the careful box he'd kept the memories of his mother in was blown wide open. "I saw the fucking recording, Rico! I hacked into Fairlane Mall's fucking servers and saw the fucking tape. She was fucking naked almost before that goddamn field went up and she had her fucking cunt around some fucker's cock almost before he could get his pants down! So don't tell me she got picked up scot-free because the fucking whore took on three men and four women - at one fucking time! – before she got her whore ass 'rescued'." Calix was perplexed to find tears in his eyes and was even more amazed to see his hands trembling. "They treated her like an animal, Rico. She fucking became an animal – a bitch for them to fuck. That's not how a person should be treated ... but you see it everywhere..." He paused, trying desperately to gather himself. "They're not people anymore, you know? I read up on it back ... back just after it ... before I saw ... back after it first happened. She's property now. My sisters are property. Hell, from what I understand Mia and Mira have more rights than my mom does right now – at least until they get so-called fucking tested. What shot do they have to make citizens? Huh? They've got no money. They've got nothing."

Rico stared at his young cousin for a few moments, taken aback by the rage and vehemence in his voice. He looked away for a moment, then reached into his shirt pocket and pulled out a card and flipped it on the table. "It isn't what we thought, Cal," he almost whispered. "I'm not sure what it's about but – the rules are – we were – wrong. I was wrong."

Cal stood up and walked slowly to the table, aware of the dank smell of moisture in the air, the small chill of being underground washing across his bare face. He ran his hands through his short, sandy, brown hair as he stepped slowly to his desk. He kept his eyes on Rico, though. He couldn't look at the card. He didn't want to see what he would find.

Finally, though, he reached the desk. He stared at Rico for a time and then purposefully dropped his eyes down.

The card was small, not much bigger than a business card. He picked it up and it felt unusually cool in his hand; almost a metallic feel but not quite. It had a hologram on the left, his cousin's serious face seemingly etched on the metallic paper. To the right were two numbers, separated by a single decimal point. Two simple, solitary numbers that shook Calix to the core.

"6.7?" He asked, his voice raspy. His mouth and throat were dry and he swallowed, trying to will moisture to his tongue. Reluctantly, he raised his eyes to his cousin. "You scored a 6.7?"

"Alicia made me test," Rico said, almost apologetically. "She's – well, she's worried." He leaned back and pushed his hand through his hair. "She wore me down, I guess. I kept telling her the score didn't matter and she kept saying that if it didn't matter, why was I so against testing." He smiled at the thought. "She can be pretty ... persistent ... when she wants to be." He shrugged and looked at his younger cousin. "She wore me down," he repeated.