Chapter 1 Part 4 - Thief to thief

Huston looked at his younger brother with a steady, blank expression. Dallas could have just said he was planning to take on a hundred-ton war mech armed with a squirtgun and a rubber chicken.

“Dallas,” he said, using a tone reserved for small children, “you've stolen our family’s sword. And you're planning to steal a forty-ton, hundred-year old engine of death. And after that you're going to take more from our family? Is that what you, are saying to me?”

“Yep.”

“And I’m supposed to keep quiet about these things. When Father and the authorities question me, that is.”

“Uh-huh.”

“And threaten me with incarceration on Golgotha.”

“Sure!”

“Where survival rate of sentences run just a shade under…” he clicked his holo-keyboard onto the desk and tapped a few lighted keys. “Forty-nine percent?”

“Absolutely.”

“And the reason I’m going to help you here? And don’t play the ‘I helped to meet your wife’ card; that trick doesn’t do second acts.”

“You said it yourself; you’re already an accomplice. You let me in here and listened to me this far without calling the Authority; for some, that’s crime enough. Do it my way, and between Pater’s indulgence and your ability to cover your tracks [you’re ten times smarter than any tech they can use, and we all know it], you’ve got a more than decent chance of getting off cleaner and smoother than a bunny’s butt.”

Huston stripped the oculars off of his head and began massaging his temples. “I can’t believe the level of trouble I’m in, just for being related to you.”

“Well, your life isn’t boring, now, is it?”

“No, true. What do I have to do to get you out that door, so life can be boring again?”

“You want a boring life?”

“Real life is crazy enough, between being married and a parent. You start looking forward almost desperately to the boring parts of life.”

“I’m never going to be that way.”

“No, I’m afraid you aren’t. Back to my question?”

“Easy. I’ve got to commit an actual crime. The kind you do go off to Golgotha for when you get caught.”

“You expect me to help you do that, too?”

“Nope. Just get me to someone who can.”

----

“What do you want me to do, Lord Morgan?”

The official stood at near attention in front of Lord Texas Morgan, crisply holding his datapad in one hand, his other hand holding a crooked finger over the dancing images on it. In the upper right corner of the screen was a glowing, color picture of Dallas Morgan, lines of data streaming below it patiently and without rest.

“I- I’m not certain, Kai. Options?”

“The law, my Lord, is in truth a tad gray here. Your son has damaged and stolen your property. You may thus either press or decline charges against him.”

“And? You have that tone that always has a ‘however’ at the end of it, Kai.”

“True. However, If Dallas, say, destroyed a museum with no one in it, he would nonetheless be liable for a crime against the people, since it was public property he was destroying.”

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“And the sword and trophy case count as public property, then?”

“To my knowledge, Lord Morgan, they’ve never been officially defined in any way. But given that it's part of the symbol of your heraldry and a prevalent symbol to the population of New Avalon, it's quite possible.”

“So, without a specific word from the Civil Council or the Legislature, the sword and case default to being mine alone?”

“Yes, although there may be some who would like to dispute that, and have Dallas brought up on public charges.”

“Viscount Moredead?”

Chief of Public Police Thomas Kai nodded his head. “Lord Moredead has been rather insistent as of late, suggesting Dallas’ increasingly embarrassing behavior is evidence of your unfitness to rule. If a man can’t control his own family, how can he-”

“Et cetera, et cetera. Yes, I know. I’ve heard it in my reports from my own investigators and seen it on the screensheets. Well, it’s his right to question my ability to rule, so long as he doesn’t do anything against the law itself. And as it exists, I’m within my rights to press or drop charges?”

Kai nodded his head.

“Fine. Bring Dallas in for questioning. If he fights you, then put him in a holding cell for bit and let him rethink the direction his life is going in.”

“His own cell, or Gen-Pop?”

“I think it might do him some good to see how good he’s had it. His own cell if he cooperates, General Population if he fights you.”

“Yes, Lord Morgan. Is there anything else I should be aware of?”

Morgan looked away for a second. “Kai,” he said in a soft voice, “you’ve worked for me for a quarter century. None of my sons have turned out as I’ve wished they would. Governing this territory has been easy compared to being a parent. I see laborers and businessmen whose sons don’t disappoint them, but mine do. Where did I fail?”

Chief Inspector Kai relaxed slightly. He had been a slender man in his youth, but too many days behind a desk had put many unwanted pounds on his body. Yet his mind was active, especially when he felt the discretion of the diplomat was more needed than the bluntness of the policeman.

“My Lord, if I may be so bold?” He waited until Morgan had turned and nodded slightly. Nodding back, Kai continued. “For nigh a quarter-century now, I’ve had to deal with sons and daughters who have disappointed their parents. While your sons are not, where you’d wish them to be, none of them have ever as of yet found themselves in the passenger portion of one of my officer’s vehicles, or warming a seat in my detention centers.”

“True. But that is likely going to change for Dallas.”

“Well it might. However, in my time in the Navy prior to my service to your house, there were a very different set of protocols used for a ship in genuine jeopardy of destruction, versus one that needed a course correction.”

“And, in your opinion, Dallas needs that course correction?”

“For every miscreant who requires time on Golgotha, my Lord, I have encountered at least a dozen young men who have the errors of their ways illustrated to them with a night on a hard bed without covers in the company of much rougher companions. Yes, I think young Dallas is in need of a course correction, and will respond to one.”

Morgan looked back outside at the dark landscape. “Have you ever considered the field of psychiatry rather than law enforcement, Kai?”

“It crossed my mind. The pay would have been better, but the uniforms were not nearly as fashionable. Moreover, I wouldn’t have been able to shout at people nearly as much. If there is nothing else, Lord Morgan, I should like to locate to the subject of our discussion, and begin his personal course correction?”

-------

Dallas turned up his collar as he left his frater major’s hab. He looked up and down the empty street, then up at the sky. The field over the fortress city had shielded them from the deep cold that visited the world every night for over a century, and tonight they’d climate-dialed a mild to chilly evening with a touch of breeze.

Fine. He had his contact. He was on the way. And the goodies he’d gotten [mostly willingly] from Huston rattled gently in his pocket, shielded in part by the reflective shoulder pouch that hung against his right side. Undetectable by virtually every scanner in New Avalon, he hoped it’d be enough for the job he had in mind.

He stood on the corner and waited for the mass trans. In theory he could have grabbed his car, but he’d let it stand idle back at his own hab. What he needed to do had to be done as surreptitiously as possible, and even though his Pater did not believe in the constant monitoring of citizens or their private lives, a ground or air car could be too easily monitored, even in a fortress city of a million or so people.

It took longer to move about, but tonight, Dallas was grateful for it. No wanted posters flashed with his face on them in the glowing ad-signs over the taller buildings in the urban core, visible from here high up on the hill of his brother’s place.

The travel took a little over a half-hour; in a city where the majority of people preferred the mass-trans, speed was emphasized. By the time he stepped off the bus Dallas could smell the difference in the part of town we was walking in.

New Avalon was often held up as a model of the balance of freedom and discipline, of what a city could be with a populace dedicated to both personal interests and duty. But even a model city had its miscreants, and they always found a part of any place to congregate. And Dallas had just stepped into one of them for the first time.

He looked at the directions that Huston had beamed to his shielded wristphone. Looking up at the street sign, he nodded to himself and stepped off towards his next destination. If all went well, within two hours he and Secunda could be off to start their new life in the-

“Well, hello there, partner,” said a voice behind him.

Aw, crad. No.

TO BE CONTINUED…