I reach quickly for my pockets, where I keep the Citadel ID. Both Grays step back, their hands dropping to their sidearms. The younger one pulls his and I stare down the metal barrel, two meters from my face. “Don’t move!” I quiver at the order, a gene-deep terror of Grays with guns racing through me. “Hands out of your pockets! Hands out of your fucking pockets! Do it!”
I freeze, whole body locking up and trembling. I’m too frightened to even pull my hands out. Hostile eyes stare at me, loathing me, validated that I’ve fulfilled some twisted fantasy of theirs. “Pull your hands out! Slowly! Slowly!” I pull my hands out. The older Gray sees Reds and Browns watching from the crowd. Several are speaking into their coms. One steps our way. The Gray lowers his gun, a flicker of fear in his eyes. The younger Gray doesn’t see the onlookers and rushes to slam me against a nearby wall. He shoves my hands out and kicks my legs apart. With a baton, he scans my body then pats me down and then cuffs my hands behind my back with magnetic shackles. I don’t know what to do.
“No shooter or bomb,” the young one says, still not seeing the older one’s trepidation. “No bracelet either.” He takes my ID out of my pocket and steps back. “Lyria of Lagalos.” He pauses. “Eh, Stefano, look at this.”
“Then she must have an accomplice,” the Gold is saying.
“Did see another Red…” the Green pipes up.
“I saw him too. Gang member, no doubt. Tats, piercings. Look, Officers, can I just give you my testimony or card?” the Silver asks, glancing at a timepiece. “I have a meeting….”
“Rico, take their testimony and IDs.” The older Watchman’s com crackles. He holsters his weapons. “We’ll need a wagon at Promenade Level, 116th and Eurydice. Send crowd suppression. Got some Vox watchers. Could escalate.” To me, “You can turn around, citizen.”
Hands behind my back, I shuffle awkwardly around. Rain’s started falling again. I shiver. The younger Gray looks over my ID. “Citadel staff, eh?” I nod. “Janitorial?” Then he notices the fox sigil to the right of my name. “Telemanus personnel. Second-class clearance. Look at that. That’s why she’s not in the Archive.”
I’m not sure if it’s a question.
“Probably stole the ID too,” the Gold says.
The older Watchman wheels on her. “Citizen, please! Look around you.”
“Do you not know who I am?” the woman sneers. “I’m Agilla au Vorelius, Officer. That’s right. Why aren’t you trying to find her accomplice? She has one. They run in packs, you know. Little savage offworlders gone wild. Nowhere is safe. What’s your name? I’m going to report you to my dear friend Senator Adulius. You’ll be guarding water filtration plants on Phobos with one com call.” She leans forward, her bright eyes narrowing as she reads his badge. “Officer Gregorovich.”
The older Gray pales. “Citizen Vorelius, we’re taking her in….”
“Taking me in?” I howl. “I didn’t do—”
“Shut up,” he tells me with an instinctive shove. I’m so angry and scared I just stumble and stare at the ground. “We’ll take her in and perform a full investigation and get feeds from all the cameras, after we get a warrant. If she helped steal your bracelet, she’ll pay.”
“Good. Good. You should report it to the Telemanus steward. They should know they have a thief in their midst. Not that that would bother Martian warlords. But she should at least lose her job. Must keep the streets clean.”
That terrifies me more than the Grays.
I’m led away as a battered gray flier shaped like a loaf of bread with Hyperion cyan stripes sets down on the street. They open the back up. It’s filled with rows of rough-looking bastards, most tattooed lowColors, drunks and vagrants.
“What’d she do?” an old Red shouts from the bystanders.
“Move along, citizen,” one of the Grays orders.
“Bullshit!” someone else shouts. A bottle smashes on the ground near the officers. “Fuck you, tinmen!”
“Get her in.”
“Slag you…” I hiss, resisting as the Watchmen try to push me into the back of the jail wagon. I feel like a child throwing a tantrum. My face has gone numb. One of them pulls out a stunbaton.
“Get in with your pants pissed. Or get in without your pants pissed. Comply, citizen.”
Flinching, I step up into the bed of the flier and let them push me into a seat between a ragged old Pink with chattering black teeth and a drunk Obsidian with vomit and blood on his flashy racing jacket. My shackles clank as the magnetics lock me into my seat. A deep animal fear rises up in me. I tug at the shackles. “Please. Please don’t…” There’s shouts now outside. The sound of sirens and more bottles breaking.
“Officers,” someone says on the street before they shut the doors. A slim Gray man in an overcoat approaches them. He has a forked goatee and a bad limp in his right leg.
“I’m afraid there’s been a mistake,” he says. “That girl’s a friend of mine.”
“The pickpocket?” the older Watchman asks, glancing at the gathering crowd.
“That’s a ripper!” The stranger laughs. “If she’s a pickpocket, I’m a worlds-renowned art thief! Known her family going on eight years. We were out for a day on the town. To take in the sights. First stop was the Liberty Wing, then Hero Center—tedious, I know. Wanted to show her a bit of my past. Make sure this flashy new generation knows the sacrifices our kin made back in the day.”
“Your past?” the old Watchman says. “Were you a Son?”
The man shrugs as if embarrassed. “We all do our part. Worked the Watch first.” The massive Obsidian beside me snorts phlegm out of the bowels of his nose and spits it at my feet. His cracked teeth smile at me and he whispers something in a language I don’t understand. His breath smells like a Flush tube. Meanwhile, the Grays rattle at each other in military lingo while I watch on, utterly lost.
“What cohort?” one of the Watchmen asks.
“Cohors XV.”
“Serenia Center?”
“Crater town itself.”
One of the men whistles. “A smokejack in the flesh.”
“Then you were a first responder….”
“So they say.”
“Was there too,” the old Watchman says. “Was Thirteenth then.”
“Helluva day,” the stranger replies.
“Helluva day.” The men shake hands.
“Philippe,” the stranger says.
“Stefano,” the older Watchman replies. “That’s Rico. He’s a jackass.”
“So, what’s the flak, Stefano? My friend there looks like she’s about to be that crow’s lunch. And you look like you’re about to be the mob’s.”
“A citizen says your friend stole her bracelet,” Officer Rico says peevishly, annoyed at being left out of the conversation.
“Her bracelet?” The stranger named Philippe laughs. “Did you find it on her?”
“No, but…”
“Then why’s she in the wagon? Rusters ad portas?”
The older one nods. “Citizen threatened to cause a fuss. Threatened to call up the pyramid. Connected, you know.”
“Ah.” The stranger lifts his eyebrows. “A Gold, then?”
Stefano looks ashamed. “You know the story.”
“Same gears, new oil.”
“So it goes.”
“So it goes. How long till your pension?”
“Three. They bumped them all back five years.”
“Bastards.”
“Yut. New recruits ain’t up to scratch. Reds and Browns…even an Obsidian. It’s fuckin’ madness. No discipline. So they’re keeping the old dogs in the kennel.”
“Criminal.”