Chapter 1

The silence that permeated the narrow hallways of the Last Stop Hotel was suddenly broken by an unusual cacophony of sounds that set many of the tenants’ nerves on edge. Upon hearing these noises, many of the people who were using the hotel as a sort of refuge immediately stopped what they were doing and slowly approached their doors, the majority of them clutching objects that could be used as weapons if the need arose. A great number of eyes looked out through peepholes, keyholes, and any other space that would allow them a clear view of what lay outside their doors, as they impatiently waited to catch a glimpse of what had intruded into their lives. The noise continued to get closer, and some thought they recognized it, but it wasn't until they could see clearly what was moving through the hallways that they began to relax again, though many still stared into the hallway with suspicion and at least a trace of nervous anticipation, as they wondered if their lives were going to be significantly affected by this new arrival.

The squat, battered body of the robotic messenger rattled as it rolled down the hallway of the hotel on a set of retractable treads, occasionally hitting lumps in the carpeting that caused it to rattle even louder. The noise echoed throughout the quiet corridors while the messenger slowly scanned each door it reached with an independent third eye, as it tried to match the number on the door with the names in the hotel registry. At the far end of the hallway it finally found a match and stopped with the sounds of clacking and clanging. Its body creaked as it slowly rose into something resembling a standing position, and its metal arm rose equally slow until it was about an inch from the door, and then the arm swung forward a few times against the pockmarked door before stopping for three seconds, and then it resumed knocking.
This cycle of knocking and pausing it repeated for many minutes, because its primary set of programming told it not to stop until someone accepted the package it was carrying, which accounted for some of the dings and dents in the messenger’s chassis.

A constant knocking on the door of his small hotel room pulled a young man named Jobe Corithese from a deep meditative state. He sat up and scanned the room quickly before looking towards the door. Cautiously, he rose from the bed and pulled a pistol from beneath the flat mattress, before he slowly walked across the stained linoleum floor. Before he even reached the door, he put his finger near the trigger and calmly asked who was knocking.
A tinny, monotone voice outside of the door said, “I have a delivery for a Mr.
Nacalis.” The messenger paused to give the information time to sink in, as was another aspect of its programming, and then it resumed speaking. “According to the hotel registry this room is currently occupied by Mr. Nacalis.”
Jobe sighed and moved his finger away from the trigger. “Just leave whatever you are carrying outside the door and put the delivery charge on my room bill,” he responded with a curt tone.
The words just spoken ran through the messenger’s robotic mind until it comprehended the meaning of them, and then it said, “As you wish, sir.” The messenger’s body adjusted itself until it was back to its original position, and then it touched a panel on its chest and a door swung open on its box-like middle. It pulled out the small package it was transporting, and after gently placing the package on the floor, the messenger noisily rolled away from the door. It kept going down the hall until it noticed a hooded person huddled in the doorway of a room that had been marked off-limits because of a recent homicide. Its eyes flashed as it used its link to the hotel registry’s database to find out if there was a new registered occupant for that room, but gave up after getting a hostile glance from the person it was staring at, which it guessed was a woman based on what little of the face was revealed when the person looked up. Then it noisily rolled down the hallway towards the stairwell, going faster than was usually necessary, and when it reached the stairwell it unfolded a quartet of spider-like walking legs and retracted its treads to allow it to go down the stairs with only minimal difficulty.

Jobe removed the chair he had wedged under the doorknob and slowly pushed the door open while keeping his pistol ready. As he saw the robotic messenger unfolding its walking legs to allow it to navigate the stairs, he picked up the small box, which made a rattling noise as he moved it, and he carried it into his room. After making sure the door was securely closed, he placed the package on an uneven table and stuck his pistol into the back of his pants. Slowly, he opened the small box and found that it contained a Handheld Personal Database.
Jobe cautiously picked up the HPD and turned it on. After it booted up he saw that it contained a data file and a video file. Deciding to access the data file first, he highlighted the file and pressed enter, which opened up a list of names. Figuring that the names would be of some significance after reviewing the video file, he opened up a compartment on the side of the HPD, which contained a pair of cords and an earpiece, and removed one of the cords. After uncoiling it, he plugged one end of the cord into the output jack on the side of the HPD. Then he pushed his long, dark hair to one side to reveal a set of four access ports at the base of his skull, and gently inserted the other end of the cord into one of the input ports. Next he highlighted the file and told the HPD to send the file to an external device, and then he waited patiently, as the information was copied and downloaded directly into his brain.
As soon as the information was inside his head, he plugged in the earpiece, stuck the earpiece in his ear, and accessed the video file. It took a few seconds for the video to load, and when it did there was a male avatar on the screen, which resembled an older gentleman with a long white mustache and mutton-chop sideburns. Jobe didn’t recognize the avatar being used, but that didn’t surprise him much since there were so many available to people. Then he pressed play and the avatar spoke in a digitized male voice that said, “Mr. Nacalis, you are currently being watched by officers of the Global Security Department, and they will undoubtedly break into your room about five minutes after you receive the package I have sent to you. There is a comm-booth approximately a block away from the building you are currently staying in. As soon as you get to it I will know, and I will then contact you. Do not discard this HPD until you talk to me again, or I’ll not be able to track you to the comm-booth.” The message ended, and then the video file deleted itself.
Jobe removed the earpiece and glanced at his watch. He saw that he still had around four minute before the GSD would allegedly arrive, so he switched which jacks the cord was plugged into, and used a menu to access the database inside his head. Then he downloaded some files onto the HPD that he figured he would have a use for very soon. Once the files were downloaded, he quickly disconnected the cord from the back of his neck, tucked the HPD inside his shirt pocket, and grabbed his jacket from the back of a crooked chair. He zipped up the jacket to make sure the HPD would stay inside his shirt, and then he opened the door and quietly stepped into the hallway. As soon as he stepped out, he heard the sounds of heavy boots echoing in the stairwells to the right, and so he ran down the hallway in the opposite direction. He saw glimpses of people looking out the doors he passed, but he didn't bother to warn them, even though most of them were probably wanted by various law enforcement organizations for things they had done in their pasts, too.
From behind Jobe came a voice, which he could tell was being filtered through a helmet speaker. “Stop where you are or I’ll open fire! This is the only warning I’m going to give you!” the person yelled.
Jobe thought about stopping for barely half a second, then kept on running, as he heard the barely audible click of the trigger as it was slowly pulled back, and he heard the bullet sliding into the chamber. After the final click of the trigger, half a dozen light armor-piercing, 10mm shells blasted towards him. He dodged with unnatural speed, diving to one side and rolling, and the bullets tore apart the plaster covering the walls of the cheap hotel. As he finished his roll, he came up on one knee, facing the officer who was firing at him. Without hesitation, he pulled his pistol from the back of his pants, and taking a two-handed grip on the gun, he fired once. As the officer’s bullets whistled around him, Jobe’s single bullet struck the officer just below the knee, right where the leg armor was weakest.
Jobe heard the distinctive sound of bone fragmenting, as the bullet‘s impact sent shockwaves through the officer‘s tibia and patella, and then he ran down the hall towards the only window on the floor that led to a fire escape. He heard more officers trying to force their way past their injured comrade, as he blocked the narrow hallway, and then they too began firing at him, as they gave up trying to move the injured man. However, in their haste to stop the man who shot one of their fellow officers, none of them took the time to aim their guns anywhere more specific than down the hall towards their quarry.
Bullets ripped through Jobe’s jacket, as he shoved his gun into the back of his pants once more, and he felt blood trickling slowly down his body. However, he didn't stop moving, and instead picked up speed and dove through the shattered window at the end of the hall. Landing on the fire escape, he immediately measured the distance to the ground to be at least eight meters and the distance to the roof to be only a little more than three meters. His decision was made in a split second, as he climbed onto the edge of the fire escape and looked up, as bullets tore past him and struck the brick on the building across the street, sending small explosions of dust and dirt into the air as they impacted.
Jobe heard the rusted metal of the fire escape pulling loose from the exterior wall of the hotel, and with all of the power in his legs, he leapt up and grabbed the edge of the fire escape above him, just as the other one detached from the building and crashed into the alleyway. He then pulled himself onto that fire escape, as the rusty metal creaked ominously, and he knew that he wouldn’t be able to use the fire escape to reach the roof without it falling apart as well. So he instead broke the window in front of him and climbed back inside the hotel. He knew he had only precious seconds before the GSD reached the top floor, and he quickly tried to remember where the stairwell to the roof happened to be.
As a group of GSD officers came into view at the far end of the hallway, Jobe recalled where the stairwell was, and he took off running in that direction, which luckily took him away from the officers. He knew that their armor would slow the officers down long enough for him to reach the stairwell, but then he saw a pair of policemen in front of him trying to get someone to open their door, and he knew that they would recognize him if they caught a glimpse of him, so he veered off down another hallway rather than risk a confrontation.
Changing his plans once again, he kicked open the door of the first unoccupied room he came to and went inside. He knew that he would have maybe a minute before someone decided to investigate the sound, so he tried to figure out the best avenue of escape. There was one window he could see from his current position and it gave him a clear view of the next building. He could see a balcony from where he was standing, and he could tell it was anchored better than the fire escapes he had thought to use. So he grabbed a chair and tossed it through the window, and then he ran as fast as he deemed necessary towards the window. Without a second thought, he went out the window, stepped onto the chair and up onto the edge of the fire escape, jumping off just as the police officers burst in through the door. Within less than a second, he knew his speed was adequate for what he had planned, as he caught hold of the balcony and pulled himself up. Then he climbed onto the edge of the balcony and jumped straight up, grabbing hold of the edge of the roof and pulling himself up.
As soon as both feet were on the roof, he took off running, and then he heard the sound of something cutting through the air next to his ear, and he stopped moving. He turned around quickly and saw that there were three GSD officers on the roof of the hotel, and one of them was taking aim at him with a high-powered rifle. Quickly judging the distance, he pulled out his pistol and fired once at the steam pipe next to the officers. His bullet struck true once again, and the pipe ruptured, spraying a cloud of steam around the officers.
As the burst of steam effectively clouded his escape, Jobe ran across the roof and jumped across to the next building. He quickly found the door leading down from the roof and he picked the lock. Then he entered the building, but he stopped just inside the door and pulled off his jacket. He quickly turned his jacket inside out and removed a two-toned bandanna from inside one of his jacket pockets, which he wrapped around his head with the black side out to partially hide his hair. Then he calmly walked down the stairs, and headed towards the nearest stairwell that would take him to the street.
Once he was outside of the building, he calmly walked out into the streets and towards the comm-booth, making sure not to seem like he was in a hurry, though he was in a bit of one. He reached his destination just as one of the booths started emitting a beeping sound, and he picked up the receiver on the fourth beep.
“That took a bit longer than I had expected it to given what we’ve heard about
you," said a voice on the other end of the line, which had been heavily digitized to the point where it would be unrecognizable to traditional scanning equipment.
“It could not be helped. I had to deal with some overzealous officers," Jobe said, as he carefully scanned the area to see if anyone was watching him. He didn't notice anyone paying an unusual amount of attention to him, and so he turned back to face the digital screen on the comm-booth, which still showed only the name of the company that made the comm-booth, which in conjunction with the digitized voice, told him that the person on the other end of the line didn't want to take the risk of being identified. “Now, I have three questions for you before this goes any further. What do you want with me, why did you contact me, and are you the person who sent me the message to wait at the Last Stop Hotel for a package bearing my name?”
“Your questions are all valid and I will answer them to the best of my ability.” A small crackle of static from the owner of the voice clearing his or her throat came through the speaker. “I work for a group of people who’ve recently had relatives
abducted, and I would like to hire you to find them and deal with the people who have abducted them. I was the one who sent you a message that instructed you to wait at the Last Stop Hotel where a package bearing your name would be delivered. And as for why you are being contacted—Well, let’s just say we have a mutual acquaintance who has
used your unique abilities in the not-so-distant past.”
Jobe thought back over the people he had helped recently. The first one that came to mind was a man who wanted him to retrieve some stolen documents that contained some rather sensitive material that would have ruined him and his family. Then he remembered how he ended up getting that job thanks to a chance meeting around five
years ago at a research lab, where he assisted a scientist in smuggling out something that certain people in the military would have used for their own purposes. He thought for nearly a minute about a few other jobs he had taken in recent years, and then he finally said, “Okay. I will accept the job. Since you are were the one who contacted me I am assuming you know how I do business."
The voice on the line quickly said, “I do. Now plug into the port beside the phone and I’ll transmit all of the information you should require for this particular task.”
Jobe pulled the HPD out of his pocket and disconnected the cord, which he then plugged into the appropriate port on the back of his neck. Then he plugged the other end into the port beside the phone and told his new employer that he was ready. As he waited for the transfer to begin, he returned the HPD to his pocket in case he would have a need for it later, and then he shuddered as information was downloaded into his brain at a high rate of speed. The picture on the digital screen changed to one with a bar showing the progress of the download, and the bar began to slowly move to the right.
As the files were being transferred, Jobe looked around some more just in case he was being watched or followed. To his right there was a young man with many colors in his hair, who was downloading financial information onto the hard drive of a small portable computer using some tools for breaking into computer systems. Off to the left there was an elderly man begging for change, but finding few generous enough to give him money. Directly behind him there was a group of people protesting job losses and the government’s refusal to help out the unemployed. Many more people walked past where Jobe was standing, but few even noticed he was standing in front of them, so he turned back towards the digital screen to check the progress on the file transfer.
After seeing that the transfer was still proceeding smoothly, he casually pulled the HPD back out of his front pocket and hooked it up to the terminal using the remaining cord. With the press of a few buttons, he accessed one of the files he had downloaded onto the device, and began tracing the person he had been talking to so that he could confirm their identity at a later time, just in case it might be a trap. Once he had the trace program running smoothly, he returned to watching the progress bar.
Less than a minute after beginning the transfer, the download was finished and Jobe quickly disconnected from the port and hid the cords in his jacket. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw the elderly man being arrested for begging, and the protestors being forcibly driven off by police officers wielding batons, while the young man with the many colors in his hair casually left the comm-booth he was using to steal people’s financial information without anyone even trying to stop him.
The digitized voice returned after a few seconds of distortion. “Everything we have that you will require on this job has been sent to you. Mixed in with the data is a code that will allow you to access an account set up for your personal use while on this job. There is also an encrypted code that can be used if you need to contact me again. Good luck, Joaquim Nacalis.”
As soon as the other end of the line went dead, Jobe hung up the receiver, unhooked his HPD, and joined a group of unkempt people who were being herded away from the area by some police officers. Keeping his head down and being careful not to make eye contact, he followed the group onto a bus that the officers had waiting to take those people away. Once he was on the bus, he took a seat in the back and silently kept his head low so as not to draw any more attention than the people he followed onto the bus.
Less than a minute later, the driver shouted that they were leaving, and the bus
jerked, as he pushed down the accelerator. As the bus pulled away, Jobe spared a glance out the back window and saw two of the police officers watching the bus leave. With a sigh, Jobe leaned back and closed his eyes part of the way in an attempt to make it appear that he was sleeping. Then he pulled a small case of tools out of one of his pockets and used them to carefully disassemble the HPD so that he could find the tracking device that he knew had to have been installed for his new employer to be able to track him to the comm-booth.

Twenty minutes later, the bus made its first stop and Jobe slipped out through the doors in the back of the bus, making sure to leave the tracking device beneath his seat, and he had the door closed before anyone realized what he had just done. Then he made his way down the street to where he knew an old library was located. Twice, he saw armored police vehicles drive past, but he stayed calm and kept walking towards the library located around the corner. He reached it in a few minutes and slipped between the closing doors as someone left the building.
“At least they do not have any cameras or metal detectors," Jobe muttered as he scanned the hallway leading to the main part of the library. He passed a couple of young people looking at old magazines, but he spared them only a brief glance as he made his
way through a veritable labyrinth of towering shelves filled with well-worn books that were still in better shape than the neighborhood the library was in. After many turns that only lead to more shelves, he reached an open area and founds the things he sought; a quartet of computers reserved for research purposes. Fortunately for Jobe, none of the computers were currently being used, and so he sat down at the first one he reached and accessed the database the library used with little effort. Once he was inside the database, he started typing with amazing speed, until he had used the library database to hack into the database of the city’s government. From there he did some more hacking until he
accessed a search program, and then he checked the data on his HPD to learn what the trace program had found. On the screen he saw a telephone number and that was what he ran a search on. The search took less than two minutes, and told him that the number belonged to a prepaid cellular phone purchased from a local company, but it didn't give the name of the person who purchased the phone.
“I should have known this would not be easy,” he muttered to himself, before he hacked into the phone company’s database and matched up the number he traced with the account number of the person who purchased the phone the number was assigned to. Then with the account number committed to memory, he returned to the city database and began running a check on that account, starting with all of the banks nearest to the company that sold the phone.
After some time, he finally had the name of the person who called him. “So it was a lawyer who called me," Jobe said as he left the database he was in and stood up slowly. Following a quick check of his surroundings, he went back through the maze of shelves towards the entrance. When he reached the doors, he removed his bandanna and turned it around so that the green side of it was visible. Then he shouldered the doors open and stepped outside.
He stood along the edge of the sidewalk in front of the library and watched as some vehicles drove past. Briefly, he thought about hailing a taxi to take him into the center of the city where all the people with money worked and lived, but he knew that thanks to a law enacted nearly a decade ago, every driver of public transportation was required to enter their destination into the transit database, and even if they did forget to do that, the tracking devices installed in every form of public transportation would tell the authorities where the vehicle had been since being put onto the streets.
With a sigh, Jobe began to walk down the sidewalk, but before he got very far he saw some police officers stop their vehicle and look at him. Then he heard them mentioning a warrant, and instead of giving them a chance to get out of their vehicle, he ran into the street towards an automated garbage truck that had just stopped to pick up a load. Hearing the officers behind him ordering him to halt, he slid beneath the truck,
and grabbing hold of some pipes running beneath the vehicle, pulled himself up against the bottom of the truck right before it started to move again. The officers shouted profanity, as the truck left and they saw that the person they were after was nowhere to be found.

After hitching a ride on a few other vehicles over the course of an hour, Jobe
reached the center of the city, where run-down buildings were replaced by gleaming towers of metal, plastic, and glass. The newest designs were evident in these marvels of modern architecture and engineering that reflected a desire to reach up towards the sky. Aside from a change in buildings, there were also shining new cars rolling past on well maintained roadways, as they were driven around by people in expensive apparel who had most likely never set foot in the sections of the city beyond the point where the quality of buildings began to degrade. Jobe saw a great many people in nice clothes crossing the streets, as functioning traffic lights kept cars from running down the pedestrians, and he shook his head as he thought about how much money must have been spent on that section of the city alone that could have went towards helping those in the surrounding areas who were barely making enough to survive in the veritable urban wastelands that lay all around, and yet conveniently out of sight of the city’s denizens.
The truck Jobe was hiding on stopped at a light, so he leapt off and went down an alleyway before he was seen. He quickly removed his bandanna and hid it inside one of his pockets, tied back his long hair, and then he reversed his jacket again so that he would look more presentable. A few minutes later, a group of people walked past, totally oblivious to the fact they were being watched from the alleyway, and then Jobe stepped out of the darkness and joined the group of people as they walked down the sidewalk. He made sure to keep his head down and his face hidden from the many cameras he knew were mounted on every signpost, streetlight, and attached to the corners of nearly every building he passed. Another group of people passed next to the first and Jobe broke off from the first group to join this new group of people as they walked in the general direction he wanted to go.
Eventually, he reached the building he sought and went around to the back, where he knew there should be less security. He was pleased to find that his guess was right, and all that protected the back entrance into the building was an access code on the door, which Jobe circumvented with ease. Then with a quick glance to see if he was being watched, he picked up some empty boxes someone had left lying in the alleyway and entered the building. Down the long hallway he went, pretending to be a delivery person, until he reached a directory for the building, and then he looked for the name Douglas, Jamison. He found that this man’s office was on the twentieth floor, and so he found the nearest stairwell and used it.
His ascent was quick and Jobe felt no fatigue by the time he reached the twentieth floor. Once he reached the door he wanted, he pressed his ear against it and listened for the sounds of people, but he didn’t hear anyone, so he opened the door leading out of the stairwells and quickly stepped out into the halls of the twentieth floor. He made sure to keep his face hidden from the view of the cameras with the empty boxes, as he walked across the hallway and entered the first office he came to.
“Cameras appear to scan the hallway from each side,” he thought as he watched the cameras move back and forth. From the shelter of the doorway he timed them and saw that all the cameras were turned completely away from the office he was hiding in for no more than three seconds at the most. So he closed the door before going farther into the office and sitting down in front of the computer used by whomever the office belonged to.
“Let me see what I can do about those cameras," Jobe said to himself, as he bypassed the security programs on the computer and accessed the lawyer’s files. The first thing he took notice of was that he knew some of the people on the lawyer’s list of clients, and many of them were deserving of prison terms that this lawyer was trying to get them out of. Some of them were being put on trial very soon for environmental crimes, and so Jobe tracked down information about the accounts they were using to pay for a lawyer and transferred the balances of these accounts into funds for helping the poor and homeless in various ways including housing, clothing, and feeding.
“Now let them try to hire a lawyer who can get them acquitted," Jobe said with a satisfied tone, as he returned to his original purpose and hacked into the main computer system of the building. He searched until he found the programs that controlled the security systems on the twentieth floor and accessed them. With skillful adjustments to the programs, he made the security measures run a maintenance cycle on themselves that he figured would give him five minutes at the most of freedom to do as he wished. Then he turned off the computer without shutting it down properly, so that it would run a system check before anyone else could use it, which would make sure his tampering wasn't noticed for a short while.
He then stood up and went to the door to see if the cameras were still running, and he found that they were currently in a stationary position and the green lights that were on when they were recording were off for the moment. Quickly, he went down the hall and found the office of Jamison Douglas, but the door was locked. The lock was the same kind that was on the back entrance, and Jobe had little trouble disabling it long enough to allow him entry into the office.
He pushed the door open and slipped through into the dark office. Knowing he had only a few minutes to do what he came to do, he turned on the computer and searched through a filing cabinet as it booted up. The search through the filing cabinet only told him that this lawyer worked for many wealthy people who had dealt with the firm of Wesley, Windham, and Pryce for years. He found much the same thing on the computer, and so he decided to search for anything involving missing family members. This brought up a list of clients who had relatives disappear mysteriously over the last few years, and names of other people who had the same thing happen to their friends and family, some of whom were middle class or lower. He noticed that these names matched up to the ones on the list he was sent with the HPD, and he decided to try to find out more about them, but before he could search further, he heard heavy boots moving down the hallway and he knew that the GSD had come for him, and this time with larger numbers.
“I knew this was too easy," he muttered, as he exited the files and shut down the computer. The sounds of heavy boots got closer and Jobe realized that the door he came in through was the only way in or out of the office other than the thick windows behind him, which he knew were only there for aesthetic purposes and were not designed to be opened. He glanced out the window to see if breaking it and exiting that way was an option, but it looked to be a straight drop to the streets below, so he knew that idea wasn‘t feasible. As the sounds of weapons being loaded echoed through the hallways, he got a feeling much like that an animal gets when it is trapped, but then he felt a small amount of air blowing down on him, and he noticed that there was a vent about a meter above his head.
Quickly, he climbed up onto the edge of the desk and popped the cover off of the vent with one of his tools. Then with amazing speed, he pulled himself up into the ducts and had the cover back over the vent just seconds before the door was kicked open. He gave silent thanks that the ducts had been reinforced to allow cleaning robots to traverse their length without running the risk of the robots’ weight causing any damage.
Looking down through the vent at the officers, he wondered what kind of weapons his pursuers were carrying this time, but his survival instincts told him to escape while he had time and opportunity, and so moving as fast as he could, Jobe slid through the ductwork for many meters until he reached a wall, which he could hear machinery moving behind. Looking through the vent, he saw that there was an elevator shaft beyond. Without hesitation, he knocked the vent outwards and stuck his head out. He saw an elevator coming up and he slid out of the hole and fell a few feet onto the roof of the elevator.
The motor moving the elevator slipped for a moment because of the added weight, but then it caught and let the elevator continue going upwards. Around a minute later, the elevator stopped on the twenty-third floor and Jobe waited until the passengers were out of it before opening the hatch on the top and dropping down inside as silently as possible. Then with a quick look around, he ran out of the elevator and down the hallway, as alarms went off all around him thanks to the people manning the security office spotting him in the elevator. Ahead and off to the right there was a door leading into a stairwell and Jobe went through it. Below him on the stairs he heard the heavy boots of GSD officers climbing towards him, and so he went upwards towards the roof.
Jobe moved as fast as he thought reasonable, as he continued running up the stairs, and he didn’t see any other signs of law-enforcement personnel until he reached the twenty-sixth floor. Then he heard a door being kicked open below him, and he increased his speed.
“Stop and we won’t hurt you!” yelled one of the officers a few flights below, as Jobe finally reached the door to the roof.
Jobe ignored the officer and kicked open the locked door. He ran across the
rooftop and tried to see if there was any way to get down, but he saw none. Then he looked around the building and finally saw some heavy poles sticking out from the west side of the building with signs bearing vapid slogans attached to them. Behind him the door was shouldered the rest of the way open by one of the GSD officers.
“You had best give up now, because the only way down is with us,” the first officer through the door said with gun raised.
Jobe looked at the officers all wearing body armor and he saw that they were armed with automatic weapons that were all aimed towards him. “You leave me with few options, officers," he commented, as he casually stepped onto the edge of the roof.
“This isn’t worth killing yourself over,” one of the officers said.
“Who said anything about killing myself?” Jobe asked before turning around and leaping off of the roof.
After falling for no more than two seconds, he grabbed the first of the heavy poles he came to and swung off of it to the next one. There was a long banner hanging off of this pole, and it stretched across the street to the next building, so he grabbed the banner with one hand and pulled on it to make sure it would be strong enough to support his weight. Then he hung from the banner with one hand while reaching for his pistol, and quickly learned that he must have lost it after jumping off the roof. So he improvised and raised one leg enough to remove a short, thin knife from a sheath on his ankle. He then used this knife to cut through the fabric between the edge of the banner and the metal rings holding it to the pole. As soon as the blade had cut most of the way through the fabric, the banner ripped loose and he swung across the expanse between the two buildings.
By luck more than anything else, he managed to land on a ledge protruding from
the building he swung towards. Once he was balanced on the ledge, he looked around
quickly to figure out his options, as he carefully returned the knife to its sheath. Below, he saw a balcony and he jumped down onto it as a bullet flew past him and struck the wall behind the ledge he was just standing on. The occupants of the room the balcony was attached to saw him landing, and one of them reached for a phone while another shouted about calling the police. Jobe tried to decide his next move, and he thought that maybe he would have to break into the apartment behind him. Then he saw a truck with a covered bed passing below him, and he jumped off of the balcony, falling nearly ten meters onto the cover. He looked up at the officers many stories above him, and then he slid across the cover and swung himself into the bed of the truck, which he quickly learned was hauling scrap metal. His hopes that he had escaped capture again were soon dashed, however, as he saw a pair of police vehicles swing around a corner and begin to follow the truck at a high speed.
Shaking his head, Jobe looked at what was in the bed of the truck with him and saw some smaller bits of scrap metal with sharp points lying around him. He grabbed a handful of these, crawled to the edge of the truck’s bed, and stood up so he could have a clear view of the police vehicles. Then with a quick toss, he threw them in the path of the closest vehicle. This caused the first car to jackknife as its tires were punctured and the second vehicle to swerve around the first and move forward in an attempt to close the distance.
Quickly, Jobe grabbed a length of metal with a jagged end and threw it towards the other vehicle’s hood. He struck where he aimed, as it went through the hood and pierced the battery pack beneath. The second car swerved uncontrollably and slammed into a lamppost, as its electrical system shut down from having the battery speared. Jobe ducked back down beneath the tarp, as the truck pulled onto the road that would take it out of the city, and the truck’s android driver remained totally oblivious to what had just occurred behind the truck it was driving.

About an hour after his escape from the upscale part of the city, Jobe leapt out of
the bed of the truck, as it stopped before making a turn towards one of the many junkyards scattered throughout that part of the city. Beneath the cover of darkness, he rushed down to the end of the street to mingle with a crowd of nervous people leaving a crumbling theater. This crowd he followed for a few minutes, until he heard the sounds of police officers on their nightly patrol. Noticing that there was nowhere else to hide, he stayed with the crowd for nearly a block before breaking off from the group and going down a dark alleyway to the left.
Halfway down the alley, Jobe heard footsteps behind him and glanced over his shoulder to see a uniformed police officer standing behind him with gun drawn. Slowly, he turned and looked at the officer raising the gun to shoulder height. For a moment, Jobe wished that he had not lost his pistol when he jumped off the roof of the law offices belonging to Wesley, Windham, and Pryce. Then he quickly cast the thought aside, since
he knew that even reaching for a gun when a police officer was taking aim would likely
end very badly, and that going for his knife wasn't even an option at the moment.
“I’m taking you in.,” the police officer said sternly. “Drop any weapons you might have and come with me peacefully.” He pulled back the hammer and added, “Or I will have to shoot you and drag you down to the station.”
Calmly, Jobe asked, “Why are you going to take me in?” He looked at the pistol in the officer’s hands and identified it as a police-issue ZERO-2, mostly likely loaded with a clip of fifteen of the standard-issue 9mm bullets. Judging by the position of the toggle switch on the side of the gun, Jobe knew that it was armed and ready to fire, so he decided to stay as still as possible so the officer wouldn't be inclined to shoot him.
The officer took a few steps towards Jobe and held up a piece of paper with a blurry picture on it. “I was given this by a pair of GSD agents earlier today. They told me that the man in the picture is supposed to be arrested and locked up until they can come for him. The person in the picture has shorter hair, but I knew it was you the moment I saw you break off from that crowd of degenerates leaving the old theater.”
“This alley is very dark, and that picture is not very clear. How can you be sure
I am really the person in the picture?” Jobe asked calmly.
Being questioned seemed to annoy the officer, and he yelled, “I just know it’s you! Now drop your weapons on the ground!”
“What makes you think I am armed, officer?”
“I was told that you’re armed and dangerous, and I have no reason to think otherwise,“ the officer replied, as his finger touched the trigger. “Now put your hands up and drop your weapons.”
Jobe raised his hands. “What will you do if I refuse to do what you ask? Will you shoot me just to prove your point, and then find out that I might be unarmed? Are you willing to take that risk? You could lose your job and even go to prison for shooting
an unarmed man. Do you know what happens to police officers in prison? Imagine what
you have seen an angry mob do to an officer, and then multiply that by about eight to ten times. That will give you a hint of what will happen to you nearly every single day and night if you go to prison.”
With his gun shaking slightly, the officer said, “I’m not going to ask you again.”
“Do what you must, officer.” With amazing speed, Jobe swung his left leg up and kicked the gun out of the officer’s hands. Then he slammed the heel of his right hand into the officer’s chest with enough force to put him onto his back gasping for breath.
“You’ll pay for this,” the officer gasped, as he hit the ground.
“Only time shall tell," Jobe said, as the officer’s gun fell into his outstretched hand. He flipped the toggle switch to the safety setting and shoved the pistol into the back of his pants, just as a second officer stepped into the alley with his pistol already out.
“Freeze!” shouted this officer, as he started pulling back on the trigger while moving towards Jobe.
Despite the officer’s shouting, Jobe clearly heard the clicking of the springs inside the gun, as the trigger was gently compressed, and he turned towards the wall five meters behind him and began running towards it, as the trigger was pulled back the rest of the way. He heard a bullet leave the barrel as another one was chambered and fired, but he paid them no mind as he increased his speed. The hot bullets hissed as they cut through the cool air, and the first bullet impacted the wall just as Jobe began to run up it. As the second bullet struck the wall and caused an explosion of brick and mortar, Jobe was already pushing away from the wall with all the strength in his long legs.
“What the hell?” the officer muttered as he looked up to watch Jobe fly through the air. Then he heard something strike the ground behind him, and turned around with his gun ready. However, he didn't move quickly enough, because the gun was ripped from his hand before he completed the turn.
“It is not very nice to shoot at people, " Jobe said before dismantling the weapon and letting its pieces fall to the ground.
The police officer pulled an extendable baton out of a holster on his hip and extended it with a flick of his wrist to its full length of eighteen inches, and then he swung it towards Jobe. His first swing was blocked by Jobe’s forearm, but the next few didn’t even connect, as Jobe effortlessly dodged them. This caused the officer to change his tactics and launch a more brutal attack by aiming for Jobe’s head.
Jobe sensed the coming attack and leaned backwards as the baton cut through the air in front of his face. As he leaned forward again, he hit the officer in the chest with the heels of both hands and knocked him off of his feet, but then he noticed the first officer was back on his feet and had his baton out as well. “This I really do not need," he commented mirthlessly, before spinning around and kicking the officer who just gotten to his feet in the side of the head, putting him down on the ground again and effectively knocking him out this time.
The other officer quickly got to his feet and swung his baton at Jobe, who dove to the ground, rolling out of reach, and grabbing the fallen baton off the ground. When Jobe was back on his feet he was facing the other officer with the baton in his hand.
“You’re not leaving this alley without cuffs on,” the second officer said, as he cautiously moved towards Jobe.
Jobe shrugged and said, “I guess we will find out.” He waited for an attack and wasn't surprised when one was launched against him. After dodging half a dozen swings, he grew tired of dealing with the police officers, so he sidestepped quickly and struck the officer across the back of the legs, just below his knees. The officer was knocked off of his feet and landed on his back, his baton flying from his hand as he hit the ground.
“What are you going to do to me?” he asked in a shaking voice, as Jobe stepped over top of him.
“This," Jobe said before striking the officer in a pressure point and making him fall into unconsciousness. “Sleep well,” he said before sticking both of the unconscious police officers inside a trash bin and closing the lid. He then collapsed his stolen baton and put it into his front pocket. After a quick look around to make sure he wasn’t observed, he quietly walked away from the bin, but paused long enough to scoop up the clip from the pistol he had dismantled and slide it into his pocket. He then pulled on his bandanna again, with the black side outwards this time, and slowly walked to the opening of the alleyway. After making sure no one else was watching him, he stepped out and began to walk down the sidewalk. He stayed close to the wall and tried to avoid any bright lights, as he made his way towards his next destination.

After another hour of successfully dodging the GSD officers and assorted other law enforcement personnel who were patrolling the city in search of him, Jobe reached his destination; an abandoned building that he remembered used to be an arcade before
such places where shut down due to the concentration of potential situations for occurrences of juvenile delinquency, as it said on the sign by the door. He looked around to make sure no one was nearby to see him, and then he ripped the lock off of the door with one quick twist of his wrist and quietly slipped inside the abandoned building. He made sure to close the door securely behind him after he entered, so that casual glances wouldn't reveal anything particularly suspicious.
The inside of the building was dark, but Jobe had no problem seeing, as his eyes quickly adjusted to the lack of light. He slowly made his way over to a virtual reality simulator and picked up the helmet that was used during the simulations. With deft movements he opened up a spring-loaded panel on the side, and found the place where a disc could be inserted to record sessions that people wanted to remember for whatever reason. From a case inside his jacket, he removed a blank disc and placed it into the open space. After closing the panel, he hung the helmet on the hook it was supposed to be hanging from and walked over to the Virtual Reality Generation Unit.
He cleaned off the various plugs and jacks that were once used for multiple players and various attachments, and plugged the ends of two of the cords that still looked useable into the bottom two ports on the back of his neck and into the VRGU. The rest of the cords he knew were unusable, so he took a pair of them out of his jacket and plugged them into the top set of ports at the base of his skull. Then he hooked up the gloves that were used in the simulations and put them beside where he would be standing. Next, he pulled on the helmet and plugged the cords dangling from his head into the helmet and turned on the VRGU. As the system booted up, Jobe pulled on the
gloves and flipped down the visor on the front of the helmet.
At first there was only pure darkness, and then Jobe shuddered uncontrollably as the VRGU began to pull information directly from his brain so that it could project it as a
simulation into the helmet’s visor. He saw a virtual facsimile of his brain in front of him, and so he used the gloves to touch the portion designated as the area where all the
newly downloaded information had been stored. The VRGU then began projecting information taken from that area of his brain, and he saw at least a dozen directories, containing nearly fifty files collectively, waiting to be opened.
He opened the directory labeled Schematics first. Inside were various schematic files for cargo ships, buildings, security systems, and a half dozen other files devoted to the schematics of the veritable city orbiting Earth’s moon, which was known simply as The Rim. After a brief glance at them, he closed those files and searched for some new ones to look at.
He opened a directory called Codes and found all of the codes he was told about
and a few more. Among the codes were access codes for various types of security systems, bank accounts, and surveillance equipment. Deciding to look those over later, he closed that directory and moved onto the next one.
Another of the directories was simply designated Misc, and Jobe opened that one. Among the few files contained in that directory was something called Infiltrator. Jobe studied its structure and found that it was a homemade virus that would attack a system through various infiltration points and disable all security programs that it encountered. The only downside Jobe found was that it could only be used once and couldn’t be replicated because of certain aspects of its design to keep it from being used by more than one person. There was also a limit on how long it would stay active before convincing the system it had infiltrated to delete it.
Before Jobe could access any other files he was warned that the main power had been cut and the backup generator was now running, but wouldn't be able to sustain the virtual reality equipment for an extended period of time. Quickly, Jobe shut down the simulation and disconnected all the cords, putting them inside his jacket, and then unhooked all of the equipment he was using. Once everything was unhooked, he removed the disc from the helmet so it wouldn't be damaged, put it back into the case he got it from, and then rushed towards the front door to see if he was being watched. Off in the distance he heard the sounds of heavy vehicles moving towards his location, and decided to leave through the back of the arcade instead of going out the front, but first he waited to see how the officers were going to deploy so he knew what his options were.
A few minutes later, the sounds of armored GSD officers being deployed along the streets came to Jobe’s ears, and he watched them take up a standard formation to guard the front of the building, like he figured they would. Knowing that they were following standard procedures, he hurried to the back of the building. Seconds later, he heard them entering through the front and noticed that they were all wearing infrared goggles. Certain that he wouldn't make it to the back door before they spotted him, he began looking around for anything that might help him escape the area undetected.
Protruding from the ceiling was the nozzle for an old fire extinguisher system, and the valves running to it appeared to be open. Jobe considered shooting at the nozzle, but he knew that the gunshot would reveal his position, so he pulled the baton out of his pocket and extended it to full length. He brought his arm back, and then threw the baton at the nozzle just as one of the officers stepped underneath it.
The baton spun, as it flew through the air, and then it struck the nozzle, snapping it off where it connected to the ceiling. Without the nozzle to hold it back, a thick, opaque chemical mist sprayed down, and Jobe knew it would cloud the infrared goggles for a little while. He used this opportunity to find the rear exit and kick open the door using enough force to rip apart the heavy metal padlock that was keeping the door closed. Without looking back, he rushed into the night as the GSD officers tried to find their way back out of the building through the blinding mist.
The various sounds of the night surrounded Jobe as he quickly made his way down the dimly lit, litter-strewn streets. He thought about the fact that he needed to find someone to help him on this job, and tried to figure out who he could trust to watch his back and not betray him to the authorities. He could only think of one person that he could even remotely trust, but he doubted that it would do him any good to ask for help from that person after their last encounter years ago, and the rather unhappy outcome of that encounter.
His mind was so occupied on his future plans that he almost missed an arm sticking out of an alleyway off to his left. The only thing that kept him from passing on by was his foot striking an outstretched hand. Jobe paused and glanced down at the hand and arm, which were positioned in such a way as to indicate the person was probably trying to drag themselves away from something. His excellent vision picked up the dark stains of bloody footprints around the body, and he stepped into the alleyway to investigate further. He noticed that there was a dark stain spreading out from beneath the body, which he realized belonged to a young female. Hesitantly, he turned the person over to see the extent of her injuries. He saw that her shirt had been cut open vertically and there were large holes scattered over her torso that appeared to have been made with surgical precision. A quick glance at the wounds told Jobe that many of her organs had been removed, and the smell of antiseptic clinging to the area around the body told him that it had happened recently. The amount of blood splattered around the vicinity of the body told Jobe that the young woman had still been alive when her organs were removed, and she had not been dissected postmortem. Off to the right he noticed a wet spot on the ground that wasn’t blood, and a quick examination told him that it was cold water, likely from condensation caused by some type of small refrigeration unit being set on the ground. Based on the evidence before him, he knew that the young woman who was laying dead at his feet had been the victim of freelance organ harvesters, whose numbers had grown in recent years since the demand for organs had grown due to the deplorable living conditions in some areas, the effects of various chemicals that had found their way into the ground and air in some parts of the country, and the various random acts of violence that many people fell victim to nearly every day. He thought for a few seconds on whether or not he should call the police to report the crime, and then decided against it since they likely wouldn’t take the time to seek justice for the young woman. So instead he picked up her fallen phone and used it to send a text message to one of the news hotlines he had heard about, and that way at least people would know about what happened and the police would have no choice but to put some effort into an investigation.
After sending the message, Jobe looked down at the body again and shook his head at the idea of a group of people ambushing someone and removing their organs just so that they could make money from selling them. He sighed in disgust at seeing a sign attached to a post across the street that advertised places where people could donate organs in exchange for monetary compensation. With a guttural noise, he crossed the street and tore down the poster, shredding it with his hands. Then he tossed the shreds into the air and began to walk away. He didn’t get far, though, before he heard someone shouting at him, and he turned around slowly.
“Hey! What do you think you’re doing?” shouted a male voice.
Jobe completed his turn and glanced at a group of six people who were all wearing long coats. There was a patch in the shape of an eye on each of the coats, and he knew that they were members of one of the vigilante groups that the police had been unofficially allowing to patrol some of the crime-ridden areas so that they wouldn‘t have to send their own officers. Jobe pretended not to hear the man at the front, who appeared to be the leader, and he began to turn back around. Then he heard someone shout out something about a dead body, and he knew that he wasn’t going to be allowed to leave peacefully.
“Did you do that, you sick bastard?” the man at the front shouted. “We don’t put up with that kind of stuff around here.”
Jobe turned around with great caution and looked at the bats, pipes, and lengths of wood that the vigilantes were carrying. “I did not kill her,” he replied.
“Then why do you have blood on your hands?” another of the vigilantes asked as he used a metal pipe to point at Jobe.
Jobe glanced down and saw a smear of blood on his hands, which he knew he must have picked up when he turned the body over to examine it. “I was just checking to see if there was any chance she was still alive,” he replied in as meek a tone as he could manage.
“We don’t believe you!” the leader shouted, as he raised a spiked bat up to his shoulder. “I bet you cut her up like that.”
“Yeah! You’re probably an organ-legger,” another of them shouted.
“I would never cut a person apart like that,” Jobe responded, still trying to seem meek. He noticed one of them approaching slowly while brandishing a length of wood. The young man wasn’t trying to hide his intentions, and Jobe casually moved into a better position to deal with the inevitable attack. “I am telling you the truth.”
The leader shook his head. “I really doubt it.”
“I guess we’ll just have to beat the truth out of you,” the young man said, mere seconds before he swung the piece of wood at Jobe’s head.
Jobe effortlessly ducked beneath the piece of wood, and then he threw himself backwards as someone swung a pipe at him. Before he had time to get to his feet, the leader swung his spiked bat, and Jobe rolled to the side to avoid the blow. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw sparks from where the spikes connected with the pavement, and then he was on his feet again. “This has all been a terrible misunderstanding. I just want to leave peacefully.”
“Yeah, well we’re not going to let you do that. You see, it’s our job to deal with anyone who breaks the law around here, and you‘re one of those people.” The leader spun the bat around a few times.
Knowing he wouldn’t be able to shake them up like he did to the one police officer, he resigned himself to fighting back if necessary. “I really do not wish to hurt any of you.”
“You? Hurt us? That’s a laugh. In case you haven’t noticed, we’re the ones with the weapons here,” the leader said with a laugh.
Jobe thought about the gun he took from the police officer, but he doubted they were enough of a threat to warrant using a gun, and so he just stood and waited for them to attack him.
“You’re dumber than you look,” the man with the piece of wood said, as he swung at Jobe again. However, this time his swing was blocked by Jobe’s left forearm and the palm of Jobe’s right hand struck him in the solar plexus, knocking him backwards and effectively putting him on the ground.
“Screw this!” shouted one of the men who was wielding a pipe. He came in swinging, and was shocked when Jobe twisted sideways beneath his swing and struck him with a kick that knocked the pipe out of his hand and left that appendage numb.
One of the men who was carrying a regular wooden bat swung for Jobe’s head, but missed completely, as Jobe dropped low and took him down with a sweeping kick to the legs. The leader yelled for the other two to attack, but they stood still, and he shouted profanity at them. Then he rushed forward swinging his spiked bat.
Tired of wasting his time with the vigilantes, Jobe put up his arm to block the swing, and he succeeded, but some of the spikes were driven into his arm. He didn’t let any pain show on his face and he stared at the leader impassively while blood oozed around the punctures. “You have managed to draw blood, and so I must now view you as an actual threat instead of just an annoyance.”
The leader looked at Jobe, then at the bat, and then back at Jobe’s face. His eyes got wide, and then he released his grip on the bat and ordered a retreat. Those of his men still standing grabbed the ones on the ground and dragged them down the street as fast as they could.
Jobe watched them leave, and then he pried the spikes loose from his arm. He grimaced in pain as he tossed the bat aside, and then glanced at his injuries. “It is a good thing I heal quickly,” he muttered, as he wrapped his bandanna around his injured limb and resumed heading towards his destination.

After walking the streets for nearly fifteen minutes, he reached a comm-booth and plugged in his HPD. Then once the booth was ready and the HPD was booted up, he pressed the sequence of keys required to transmit a coded message to a specific online bulletin board that he used for sending messages to his partner, and a few seconds later he disconnected his HPD and started walking the streets again.
About a mile later, he turned a corner and walked down a dark alley that led to a dead end. To the left was a rusty door, and Jobe opened it after a quick look around to make sure he wasn't being watched. Behind the rusty door was a keypad that Jobe used to unlock another door, which opened inward when the right code was entered. He then walked inside and closed the door behind him.
Jobe glanced around the dark interior and listened for the sounds of any intruders, but he didn‘t sense any, so he said, “Lights.” The voice-activated lamps responded to his voice, and came on to reveal a small room that contained only a cot, two lamps, a folding chair leaning against the wall, and a long, battered desk cluttered with assorted computer equipment. He walked over to the desk in the rear of the room, grabbing the folding chair from where it leaned against the wall, and unfolded the chair in front of the desk. Then he removed the wig he was wearing and tossed it onto the cot, revealing hair that had been cut close to his scalp until it was only dark stubble. After peeling off the strips of adhesive that had been holding the wig to his head, he sat down in the folding chair.
He removed a small black box out of the top left drawer of the desk. Then he removed and uncoiled some cords from inside the same drawer and plugged them into the four ports on the front of the black box, into the ports on each side, and plugged one in the back that he also connected to a small computer. From inside the top right drawer of the desk he pulled out a small timer and plugged it into the side of the black box. Finally, he turned on the small computer, flipped up the screen, and plugged all the cords from the four ports on the front of the small box into the four ports at the base of his skull, making sure to match up each of the input and output cords with their respective ports.
Jobe used the computer to access a military database currently being run by all of
the governments on Earth. He used some top-secret access codes to break into those systems beyond the ones that civilians were allowed access to, and the timer hooked into the side of the small black box, which was set for five minutes, began counting backwards as he passed beyond the areas of public knowledge.
Moving his fingers across the keyboard at speeds beyond the capabilities of
normal humans, Jobe broke through security measures that the government considered state-of-the-art, and accessed top-secret databases that contained many things the general
public was never supposed to know about, and some things that most of America’s allies were not even supposed to know about. He searched until he found the area that allowed access to files that were used to program the automated constructs the military created
and utilized during the last war, and then he chose the files that he had need of and began to download them directly into his brain.
The timer kept counting down, and Jobe decided to speed up the download by
hitting a flashing red switch on the black box. He was forced to clench his teeth as
information blasted into his brain at amazing speeds, but it allowed him to disconnect from the database before the timer even reached ten seconds. He then pulled the cords from the back of his head, wrapped them around the black box, and began disconnecting everything hooked up to his small computer.
From beneath the cot, Jobe pulled out a pair of large black bags designed for carrying heavy loads, and he carefully stuffed all of his various bits of computer equipment into one of the bags, except for the timer, and then folded the screen down on the computer and shoved it inside that bag as well. He then opened up the other bag and removed a new set of clothes, these ones as unremarkable as what he was already wearing. Then he removed all of his clothes and neatly folded them. He glanced at the spot where a bullet had grazed him and noticed that there wasn’t even a mark, and then he glanced at his arm, and found that there were just a couple of discolored patches of skin to show where the spikes had pierced his flesh. After checking for any additional wounds, he put on the new clothes, and stuffed the old ones into the bag along with the wig. Then to complete the change, he put on a pair of glasses with lens that were just made of regular hard plastic, a few pieces of fake facial hair that would give him the appearance of having a goatee, and a wig designed to resemble curly brown hair.
Now looking like a slightly different person, he opened the second drawer in the desk and pulled out a pistol that looked almost identical to the ZERO-2 he stole from the police officer. He then took the HPD out of his jacket and put it on the desk before sliding the pistol into his jacket and pulling six spare clips of 9mm police-issue rounds out of the drawer. Next, he opened another drawer and removed a portable disc drive and a power cord that he then set on the desk. After that, he pulled out a pair of small speakers that belonged to the computer he already stuffed in his bag. The last thing he took out of the drawer was a small box made of some shiny black metal. The knowledge of what was inside the box made a memory flash through Jobe’s mind, but he ignored it because he knew he didn't have time to think of things other than the task at hand.
Jobe placed the metal box on the desk next to the timer, HPD, and the disc drive. From a small drawer in the middle of the desk, Jobe pulled out a miniature receiver, a cobbled together transmitter, and a cheap motion sensor. First, he hooked the timer and receiver to the HPD so that when the timer reached zero it would automatically activate the HPD. Next, he plugged the speakers into the HPD and turned the volume up to maximum. Then he hooked the portable disc drive to the HPD.
After he had everything hooked up to the HPD, he walked over to the corner of the room and uncovered a small device with little red lights flashing along its length attached to a small brick of something gray that resembled sculpting clay. He flipped a switch to activate the device, and then went to the other three corners of the room and repeated this action with similar devices that were also attached to similar gray bricks. Once all of the devices had been activated, he returned to the desk and opened the small metal box he had removed from one of the drawers. Inside there was a shiny disc with a label that read harmonics, which he gently removed and inserted into the disc drive. Then he copied two audio files off the disc onto the HPD.
Once the chosen files were saved on the HPD, he returned the disc to its case and unhooked the portable drive. Then he put both items into the bag with the rest of the computer equipment and opened up the directory on the HPD that contained the pair of audio files.
“Now to see if the harmonics are correct,” he muttered to himself, as he activated one of the audio files, and listened to a few seconds of the strange, almost musical sounds. As the sounds poured out through the speakers, he glanced at the devices in the corners of the room and saw the red lights beginning to flash wildly at an ever-increasing rate of speed. When he stopped the media player, the lights slowed down until they returned to their normal, slow flashing. “Let’s hope this all works properly," he said to himself as he set the timer for twelve seconds and made sure the receiver was lined up with the makeshift transmitter he had attached to the top of the door with some thick gray tape. Then he spliced some wires together so the motion sensor would send a signal to the transmitter when it was triggered by whichever law-enforcement agency decided to enter the building first. Pleased that everything seemed to be hooked up properly, he reprogrammed the HPD so that when it was turned on the media program would immediately start. Then he set it to play a specific audio file, and shut down the HPD.
Satisfied that his trap would be sufficient to temporarily throw off his pursuers, Jobe lifted the pair of bags and left the room, making sure to close the door tightly behind him after flipping the power switch on the side of the motion sensor. He quickly smashed the keypad on the inner door to make it harder for the GSD to gain entrance, before securely closing the rusty outer door. He heard the barely audible beep of the motion sensor activating, and mentally activated the experimental cloaking program he procured from the military database.
As he gradually shimmered out of sight, he felt a cold chill move through his body, because of the program adapting itself to his physiology. His vision blurred as his body was blended into its surroundings and he closed his eyes to block out the distorted shapes around him. Then once the feeling had finally passed, Jobe slowly opened his eyes. His surroundings were no longer distorted, but everything was now in black, white, and numerous shades of gray. Dismissing the lack of color as a mere side effect of the cloaking process, he quietly walked down the dark alley past an officer wearing standard GSD-issue body armor, who was crouching down behind a garbage bin with his heavy assault weapon aimed down the alley.

Within five minutes of leaving his former safe house, Jobe heard a series of small explosions followed by the sounds of the entire building collapsing straight down, as he had planned it to do when he hid explosives in each corner of the room after first taking possession of it. He allowed himself a little smile of satisfaction at knowing the GSD wouldn't bother him until they had finished the massive amounts of paperwork regarding the explosion. Then he allowed himself another little smile as he heard some stumbling drunks swearing loudly as they saw splashes in puddles, but didn’t see anyone actually stepping into the puddles.
Once he was about a block away, he ducked down an alley and shimmered back into visibility. After making certain that he was unobserved, he adjusted his clothes and his glasses, before stepping into the street and joining a group of curious people who were heading towards the sound of the explosion. Then after moving among them for a few minutes, he made his way to the other end of the street and turned a corner onto the street that would take him where he needed to go.


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Tag der Veröffentlichung: 25.05.2009

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