Anarchy in New Enlgand (8 page)

And there it was, the crack in Barry’s records. Molly jolted to attention as she saw that Barry had used 5,000 units of a particular currency to pay bills in the last two years, while only officially bringing in 2,000 units. Since the currency was introduced two years ago, it was impossible that he had retained some from earlier years. It
was
however possible, that the money was acquired legitimately from the private sale of assets, or investment income – though the latter was unlikely based on Barry’s claim that his hesitation on providing records was due to his investments performing poorly. Molly’s next step would be to check into any sales Barry made of homes, vehicles or other large assets over the last two years, which she began immediately, invigorated by her find. It was like solving puzzles to Molly; this was why she loved her job so much.

Trix sat in his adap, watching TV. He was trying to hold off on getting high for a couple more hours so that he wouldn’t have to buy more drugs that day, and he could save the few dollars he had scrounged together. He was thinking about getting a decent meal for once. Of course his version of a decent meal was fast food – healthier than pre-collapse fast food, but still the worst option out there. When the wall with video ads popped up with an advertisement for the Sandwich Shack, showing a grilled fish sandwich from all angles, complete with fire potatoes and carbonated ice tea, his mind was made up. He flicked off the TV, and left the adap to stop by the Sandwich Shack.

Some Sandwich Shacks were small buildings, while others were just booths or kiosks with one or more stations, but none of them had full time workers. The busiest and upscale locations had a service technician standing by during peak hours, but most were only visited by company employees for cleaning and maintenance. The ingredients were shipped in through vacuum tubes fed directly into fast food units.

It was only one block for Trix to the nearest street kiosk for the Sandwich Shack; just two wall units right off the sidewalk, with nowhere to sit. Trix simply walked up to the screen on the sidewalk and ordered from the digital menu. Everything was automated, and his meal popped out next to him in the cubby with a clear hatch that unlocked when the order was ready. The hatch lifted, and Trix took his meal on the tray, and transferred it into one of the to-go bags provided.

Fried food had never made an immense resurgence since the New Dark Ages and the aftermath when cooking oil was more scarce, and would instead be used to coat potatoes – or more often dandelion root or Jerusalem artichoke – and bake them causing a similar crispy effect. But grilling had been the most popular cooking method after the collapse, over wood fire usually, except inside Food Corp where they still used mostly electric stoves and ovens. Soda had turned into various carbonated beverages from flavored water, to the more typical sweetened drink, as well as a plethora of sparkling juices and concoctions.

Trix decided to take a short walk to eat his meal in a park paved with white stone, on a bench under some oak and maple trees. There was a fountain in the middle made of marble, with the water pouring out of a man’s cupped hands. It was the owner of the adjacent outdoor shopping plaza who had built the park to attract shoppers and allow them to enjoy the scenery while shopping or with their food, and he was vain enough to place his own marble likeness prominently at an entranceway.

Every bite of the fish sandwich tasted so delicious to Trix that he wondered for a second if he was high, before realizing the natural joy he was getting from a simple meal. So he slowed down and made sure to soak in the moment, a rare one that felt good without drugs. It was later afternoon before he got back to his adap, having taken the long way home to enjoy the weather for a nice walk.

He was also trying to prolong his time sober. He had nowhere to go but home, and knew that once he got home he would just get high. It depressed him, only because he had found simple joy in eating his lunch. Even when he arrived back in his apartment, as the advertisements flickered on talking about vacationing in Iceland, he actually scooped some of the trash that was on the floor into the bin, pushed it down with a greasy box, tied it, and threw it down the garbage shoot at the end of the hall. The shoot led to trash pods, transported to waste management facilities through the same main pod system used for travel. He couldn't find any other trash bags though… in fact Trix wondered how he had gotten the last one.

Trix then spent another minute or two making things a bit neater in his adap, although it mostly amounted to moving things from one place to another, perhaps placed in slightly more organized piles. Then he flicked on the TV, grabbed his EZject, plopped down on his mattress, packed up the cartridge, and injected. Trix drifted off imagining himself in a geyser fed natural hot tub and taking a mud bath.

The agents did not wear any identifying insignia. Efforts had been taken to obscure where their pay stemmed from – their pay was kept off the books, as was their job description. The two agents wore suits typical of an investigator, inconspicuous, dark, with mundane silver- colored badges. They also wore sunglasses so no one could tell where they were looking. The sunglasses were screen lensed; the agents had all the best technology and any piece of relevant information literally right in front of their eyes, controlled by thought with EEG detectors. The first time they visited this adap building they followed the GPS on their tiny screens, but this time they remembered where it was.

The two agents could be mistaken for brothers with their glasses on, because they were about the same height, late thirties, average to muscular build, strong-jawed, confident eyes, and a tendency to wear the slightest smirk on their face, as if they were getting the better of everyone they met. Their eyes, apart from the similar tenacity, showed the difference of the two that no one ever saw. The difference that
was
noticed by those who dealt with the two agents was their good cop/bad cop personas, and their hair. "Good cop" was referred to as Agent White who had the lighter hair, blue eyes, and a slightly smaller build, and "bad cop" was Agent Orange, dark haired speckled with gray, brown eyes and square shoulders. They were self branded names that the partners found humorous. They adopted this persona in order to fulfill their jobs, which
usually
bordered on legitimate, but on the wrong side of the line.

They would deliver messages and arrange certain meetings. They would hire particular types of employees for one time jobs, sometimes clean up a mess themselves, or do the dirty work in rough investigations. But officially they had no business with anyone. Those for whom they fulfilled contracts wanted to be able to distance themselves from the agents, if the need arose.

They walked through the wide hallway of the adap with kiosks and shops lining the walls, and took the elevator to the second floor. The advertisements were random, since technology in the agents’ glasses jammed the facial recognition which would have tailored the ads. They walked only a few feet down the hall before stopping in front of a door with chipping paint. Agent White knocked.

Trix was sitting up on his mattress slumped with his back against the wall, staring in the general direction of the TV. He was actually focused behind the TV, distracted by the ad on the screen wall in the background which was promoting some brand of toilet paper. There were some strange animated animals soaring through the sky with a rainbow trailing behind them. The EZject was lying on the floor a few inches away from his upward facing palm which was relaxed on the floor, his left arm hanging off the mattress.

At the first knock Trix didn't seem to notice the slight banging on the door, on the second knock he slowly turned to look at the door, as if he would be able to see through it. His mouth drooped slightly open with a little dried white drool on either side of his lips, his eyes half closed, with each blink lasting longer than usual. Trix felt like each time his eyes closed a wave crashed over his apartment, and as they reopened the wave receded back into the ocean, complete with the shwoosh sound of lightly pounding currents, and the feeling of being immersed in cool salty water with fractured light flickering through.

On the third knock Trix finally responded, "Whoisit?" a bit slurred.

"It's Agent White, open up Trix," the agent said calmly.

There was a pause. "I don't have to let you in," Trix slowly responded without moving, in the same emotionless tone.

"Yea, but you probably want to," Agent Orange chimed in, with a smirk infecting his voice.

Silence. The two agents exchanged a glance and waited.

"It’s a job offer Trix," Agent White added in a tone of comforting a sick child.

Another twenty seconds passed before the door was opened part way, and Trix's tired face, still expressionless peeked out.

"Can we talk inside?" White said in the same tone.

Trix turned and walked into his apartment, leaving the door open for the Agents to come in. He sat down on his bed as the agents glanced around, again exchanged a quick look, and remained standing facing Trix as he lethargically lit a cigarette.

Agent White stood with his hands clasped, arms relaxed. Agent Orange stood with his arms crossed.

"We have a job offer for you Trix, but it's a little more serious than last time. You're not going to be simply transferring a suitcase." Agent White explained. Trix wasn't looking at them. The agents waited for a response.

"So? What is it?" asked Trix annoyed, finally looking up at the agents with bloodshot eyes.

"Well, first..." Agent Orange took an envelope out of his jacket pocket, "We want you to see what we're offering." He tossed the envelope onto the bed next to Trix.

Trix took another drag on his cigarette, and left it in his mouth as he reached for the envelope without excitement. "Jesus," it was an exclamation though subdued and emotionless. "Do I even
want
to know what the job is?" Trix flicked the envelope back onto the bed where Agent Orange had tossed it. A few of the fifteen notes were visible. They were each 100 unit notes from AtlantiTrade.

AtlantiTrade was a worldwide investment firm that traded stocks, bought up currencies, and issued their own currency. It was so widespread with so many various transactions taking place that it was a difficult currency to track, being preferred by those who didn't want anyone to find out where particular funds came from or went. While the notes were coded to prevent forgeries, the codes were encrypted so that AtlantiTrade didn't know which notes had been issued or redeemed by particular individuals depositing or withdrawing them from banks. One unit of AtlantiTrade was worth about 35 dollars. The agents were offering 1,500 units.

"So what do you think Trix, are you interested?" Agent White asked.

"You haven't told me what I'm supposed to do."

The agents hesitated, and glanced at one another. Agent Orange gave a slight shrug to White. "We need some files to be destroyed, and in the process, we need the owner of those files... deleted as well," Agent White explained, while Agent Orange smiled and suppressed a chuckle at White's choice of words.

"Pff." Trix shook his head slowly without looking up and took the final drag on his cigarette, putting it out in the ashtray on the windowsill. "I'm not a murderer," he said calmly exhaling the smoke, finally meeting eyes – or sunglasses rather – with the agents.

"Trix," began Agent Orange, as a coach might begin an inspirational speech to an athlete, "sometimes, there are problems that can't be handled in a normal way. Sometimes... the outcome of
not
going above the law would be worse than the suffering caused by letting things play out on their own."

"Forget it, I don't need your money." It was tempting, but Trix wasn't a killer.

The agents exchanged a short glance. "The money was to make this easy Trix, but we aren't asking," Agent White explained calmly. Trix just let out an exasperated sigh and shook his head once, still staring out the window.

A long twenty seconds passed before any of the three moved. Finally Agent Orange reached into his jacket, and pulled out a large antique metallic finished Colt .45, and grabbed Trix by his hair. Before he knew what happened, the barrel of the gun was under Trix's chin and the loud click of Agent Orange cocking the hammer echoed through the bare room. Agent Orange was speaking loudly now, but articulately – not yelling. His jaw was clenched, and he was sternly instructing Trix.

"You are going to go to the address in that envelope, at the time and date it says. You are going to finish off the lady that lives there, and you are going to take her tablet, and take every hard drive in her house, and delete all her files on clouds. You will then throw the hardware into Lake Quinsig, and take a pod out of New England. Then, you're a free man. Are we clear?"

Tears were building up in Trix's eyes and he made a sound that sounded kind of like yes.

"Are we clear?" Agent Orange was almost yelling now as he yanked Trix's hair back harder and pressed the barrel more firmly into Trix's throat.

"Yes!" Trix managed to choke out, his voice cracking, and Agent Orange immediately let him go, and re-holstered his gun without another word. Trix put his head in his arms, shaking, still sitting on the edge of his bed.

Agent Orange walked to the panel controlling the wall advertisements. He took a discrete card out of his pocket, and waved it in front of the receiver: there was money on the card, but nothing to identify the holder. He brushed through a few options screens, and picked a nice green field with flowers slowly swaying in the wind, and a blue sky with wispy clouds floating slowly by to replace the advertisements on the wall.