<b>Roo'd</b>

# Roo'd

Previous Contents Next

# Chapter #50

The rain has washed the air clean during the night and the next day dawned bright and clear. Fede woke around 4am, having slept soundly thanks to the cold meds Tonx had ordered for everyone from the hotel vending machine. He showered in the tiny stall across from their room, the water turning suddenly cold just as he’d gotten the little plastic package of shampoo open. He emerged soon after, dressed in a one-piece white jumper made of Tyvec. The spun plastic fibers made for a bizarrely thin and warm outfit, and he wondered again why he’d spent his life in jeans and tee shirts. He met Cessus coming out of the room, suit stretched taut against his skinny chest, gonads captured in a neat little bubble.

“This ain’t gonna happen” he wheezed. “I can walk if I bend over, but that’s it. This shit hurts, dude.”

Fede laughed. “I like the hat” he said. Cessus had a surgeons’ cap on, his dreads stuffed into it like an oversized shower-cap. Cessus grimaced and tried to tug the suit into a configuration that made more room.

“Seriously” he said. “No way I can work like this. And besides, security will never believe we’re there for an audit if I look like a clown.”

“Don’t worry about it” said Fede. “Just act like you don’t like it any more than anybody else does.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” asked Cessus.

“I mean you’re fucking ugly like that, dude” laughed Fede. They went back into the room. Poulpe was standing in front of the tiny mirror, adjusting his carefully folded tie. He ignored them completely as he made his preparations, checking his new tape recorder and using tissues from a small plastic package to polish the tiny scuff marks off his shoes.

“You ready to roll?” asked Fede.

“Yes, Feed” said Poulpe. “Do I look like a reporter?”

“Sure” said Fede. “As much as anybody does, I guess. You just have to be the spotter, you know? Don’t kill anyone and they’ll just stare at you like they do every other foreigner.”

Poulpe smiled with thin lips and adjusted his hair again. He’d developed dark circles under his eyes ever since they’d landed in China, and Fede was suspicious that he was using makeup to cover them.

“It is good to be a foreigner sometimes, Feed. You are reminded how much control you have over how others see you” he said.

“Or not” said Cessus from the bed. He’d unzipped the top part of the tyvec suit and tied the arms around his waist before lying down. “Sometimes people see you how they want to, you know?”

“That is not the point” said Poulpe, turning. “Why would you want to focus on what you cannot do? Is it not better to take control over what you can?”

Cessus just shrugged. “Can’t control everything” he said.

“This is true. I must go, to be in place ahead of time. Do not look for me” said Poulpe.

“I hope we don’t hear from you” said Fede. Poulpe turned on him, his eyes narrowing, and he raised his hands in defense. “I mean it’d be better not to hear from you during the run, right? Because that’d mean there weren’t any problems, right?”

“Oh” said Poulpe. “Yes, you are right.”

He examined his tie in the mirror again.

“My apologies. I am not used to this sort of work. I am nervous.”

He turned and left. The room was silent for a long while, the old air conditioner rattling in the background.

“That there is one weird motherfucker” said Cessus eventually. “I don’t like him one bit.”

“Me neither” said Fede. The room was quiet again.

“Okay” sighed Cessus. “Might as well get going. But listen, I’m going to wear my suit like this, okay? Don’t give me any shit about it, we’ll be all right.”

“You worried your wang is going to get tangled up?” joked Fede.

“My ’wang’?” said Cessus unbelievingly. “Are you calling my penis a ’wang’?”

“Hey, you’re the one with the split dick” said Fede.

Cessus shrugged again. “The ladies like it. Don’t be dissing the mods, man.”

“It’s your urethra, dude” said Fede, checking his comm again to make sure he had the route ready. He pulled a dull green backpack over his shoulders, the wadded up clothing inside making for a soft load. Cessus would carry most of the actual equipment. With his goggles on Fede was pretty sure he could pass for a Chinese serviceman, but what did he know? They all looked the same to him.

“You ready?” he asked.

“Ready steady” said Cessus. They marched out of the room, the lock sliding shut automatically behind them. They took a right outside the hotel, following Fede’s map. They walked three blocks and caught a taxi waiting for them there. The driver eyed them impassively through the polyplast window, following the directions Fede’s comm sent his GPS. They crawled through traffic, fumes turning the middle distance into a waving haze. Fede pulled his goggles off in the heat of the taxi, knees pressed up against the back of the driver’s seat. Cessus sat next to him, his head slumped against the window. They stopped at a light and Fede saw a tiny dog look out of a wooden basket an old woman had over her arm and realized he didn’t know if it was a pet or lunch. He let his head slip back against the rear window and stared at the roof of the car.

Eventually they lurched off the main road and down a side street, children in matching blue and grey uniforms running by the car, their laughter muted through the glass. The taxi driver stopped and Cessus paid with cash; Tonx had gotten a bunch from somewhere and wanted them to use it on the run where possible for anonymity reasons. Fede watched the transaction with envy. He’d never really handled paper money before.

They got out and let their GPS orient itself before setting off. They went down a long road behind the school the kids had come from, the ground-floor windows small and barred. They came by a tree-lined street hedged by shrubs and followed it. A block later they found that the shrubs contained a park, and just outside the park entrance was the junction box they were looking for. Cessus unslung his bag and set it gently on the ground before comm’ing Xing.

“Hey, is Billy there?” he asked.

“I am very sorry. You have a wrong number” said Xing.

Cessus hung up. “We’re good to go” he said to Fede.

They’d spent most of the night before going over schematics and working through the process in their heads. Xing had gotten them the equipment, but late, and they’d had to do most of it virtual.

Fede lifted the brown-paper wrapped pieces out of Cessus’s bag and was surprised again at how light they were. He set them neatly to one side of the service box while Cessus made a show of pulling out the right key from a big ring of them in his pocket. He bent over, Fede standing up by his side, and squirted a tiny aerosol can into the keyhole through a thin brown nozzle. Then he hurriedly shoved the key inside, wringing his hand around as though he were trying to shift it. He turned to Fede and blew out his cheeks, eyebrows raised. Fede gave him an empty smile, his mind elsewhere, going over the procedure.

Cessus grasped the key and twisted. The door opened smoothly and Fede could see him exhale. He shuffled to one side and pulled a larger aerosol can out of the bag. He went to work cleaning the expanding polymer out of the lock. Fede stepped forward and pulled on a pair of latex gloves as he examined the locker’s contents.

Five minutes later he had a neat line of sixteen screws lined up along the edge of the locker’s top. Cessus stood up, key in hand, a wad of paper towels tucked into a small plastic sack.

“We ready?” he asked.

“Ready” said Fede. He reached out and grasped the thick, L-shaped tube that relayed the fiber optic signals from the eight huge buildings hidden by the building behind them. Cessus comm’d Xing again.

“Billy” he said. “Billy, man I think we got a problem here.”

“There is no Billy here” said Xing. “You called earlier.”

“Sorry” said Cessus, and hung up. He nodded at Fede.

Fede twisted.

The piece stuck, unmoved, and Fede swore, adrenalin plunging through his system. He heaved on the relay and it sprang loose. Fede fell on his ass and banged the back of his head on Cessus’s legs.

“Fuck” yelped Cessus as he staggered back. He jumped forward and pushed Fede back upright in front of the box. Fede snatched up the replacement relay and fit it in place. Neither of them spoke until Fede had put the last screw secured. He grabbed the doors and swung them almost shut, sidestepping out of the way to give Cessus access. Cessus threaded the tiny hair-thin cable from the replacement relay through the lock before fastening the door shut. Xing had planned this operation a long time ago, knew the specifications for the relay boxes as well as how they were actually deployed in the field. He’d preferred they take the risk, however, so now Cessus fussed with the miniscule fitting, a tiny grey bottle-cap shaped piece of custom electronics. When he had it connected he held it gently in one hand and fished around in his pocket with the other. He pulled out a little pink tube and carefully smeared its contents against the metal plate next to the keyhole. He softly pushed the bottle-cap onto it before counting to twenty and letting his hands go. The bottle-cap stuck.

“Walk” he said, grabbing his backpack and turning smartly down the street. His glasses unfurled, hands disappearing into his pockets. Fede wiped the sweat from his forehead and hurried after, bouncing slightly as he went. They circumnavigated the park.

Previous Contents Next