Factory for the World
(Meta note: the main character's technology are based on another piece of fiction.)
Factory for the World
Garrett took the train to arrive at Caulfield Industries like the 1,000 others who worked for Mr. Caulfield. Clad in the standard grey GDF uniform without insignia, the would-be inspector made sure all of the forms were in order on his digital clipboard. It was important that absolutely everything be perfect about his appearance and his purpose -- until nightfall.
He reflexively grabbed a hold of the hand-rail above him as the magnetic train started its acceleration. It was 0 to 60 in one minute and then up to 120 in the next. Since the five car train was fairly well packed, and conversations between long-time associates were starting up, he decided to check his equipment one more time.
He told the digital clipboard to make a note, and said the words quietly facing it. "Simone and Company want their transistors checked for tolerance in new embedded radio circuit."
The words appeared on the screen, but more importantly, the pea-sized radio in his ear answered, "radio check acknowledged, Agent K, please confirm."
As procedure dictated, he took another note: "P.J.R. wants accuracy verification of experimental nanoprocessors."
His left ear acknowledged the confirmation, but his right ear heard the voice of a rather short rat next to him.
"Did you say nanoprocessors?" she asked.
"Yes," he answered, "I'm inspecting for the GDF today."
"Oh," she said, "I'll probably be seeing you later, then. I'm Dr. Esther, in charge of that line."
The bobcat smiled. "Karl Garrett. Nice to meet you."
They bowed briefly without standing up.
"I've never understood why the Global Council can inspect us," she added, "since we're privately-held."
"Well, I'm here because contracts with the GDF require periodic inspections. But anything else I find with other products will still be brought to the Council's attention."
"Figures," she sighed, "and they call this free enterprise."
Garrett looked at her with surprise. "You don't think free enterprise includes fraud, I hope?"
"Well no, but these inspections seem to me like The Council thinks success is automatically suspect."
"Nonsense," he reassured with his best smile, guessing what an inspector might say, "if good businesses were suspect, then they would be audited. That's not my department. I believe in free enterprise, and Mr. Caulfield should be allowed his electronics monopoly -- so long as I keep inspecting him."
She didn't say anything in response so he left it there.
Only as the train drew close to its destination could Garrett see the actual size of the city. It was almost the size of the one he had just left, but of 1,000 instead of 5,000. Most of the space he could see was made up of long buildings designed for manufacturing, filled probably with more robots than living things. Every single rider beside him was an engineer, physicist, researcher, or mathematician. He was the only inspector -- the only clue that Mr. Garrett was actually Agent K.
Due to the law that all military activities had to be reported within 48 hours, he had to get in, do his mission, and get out before it had to be reported. The theory of the Global Council was that this would limit the scale and scope of the military's activities in a generally peaceful world; but it also meant that legitimate goals requiring secrecy were much more difficult.
By now, the train had entered a terminal, and was almost to a stop.
"By the way," he asked her, "where is the general manager's office?"
"Right up the elevator, talk to the guy at the desk," she answered politely.
"Thank you," he bowed, and once the train stopped, went straight there.
When he got off, he was shown to an elevator separate from the elevators and moving walkways everyone else was taking. It was around a corner from the platform, and only could hold two, or one with a large suitcase. He showed his inspector's card to a badger at the desk, who activated the elevator, and rode up with him.
The 10th floor was where they got off, at a long series of executive offices. Herman Caulfield met them at his office door.
"Mr. Garrett," the panther smiled with a bow.
Garrett bowed more deeply, to show respect.
"I am surprised you are back so soon," Hermann added.
Garrett took a moment to realize what he meant. "Oh you just had an inspector? Well I'm here," he said politely, "verify that these 800 parts meet the standards specified by the GDF, to be specific."
Garrett offered him the list, but the manager didn't look. "I'm sure you have a job to do, and you will do it well."
Hermann pressed a button on his desk, and a rather sharp looking cheetress walked in. "This is my secretary, Rianna," he introduced, "You seem to be unfamiliar with my enterprise, so I will send her with you."
It was the last thing Garrett wanted, but easily nodded and smiled.
"Nice to meet you," was all Garrett said.
He looked at her, and she smiled -- in a slightly unusual way.
"Very well, I won't keep you longer," Hermann brushed.
Garrett walked out of the office to the elevator. She followed him a little too close. It made Garrett wonder how much of this was part of the hospitality Mr. Caulfield gave every inspector. The shadow probably was, but he also wondered if the veiled teases were too.
Eventually, they went the way of the dwindling crowd, up a different elevator that led to a small network of glass-enclosed walkways between several adjacent buildings. As Rianna pointed out the visible, and nodded acknowledgement to an occasional passing engineer, Garrett focused on where his target could possibly be. When they arrived at the first factory floor, he was perplexed that none of the buildings they has passed through seemed to be large enough.
Garrett did his best to examine the nanotube splicing machine while hiding the fact that he had never seen one before. He looked at the screen's current work order, and typed the current part number into his hand-held computer. It told him their specifications, but he was embarrassed to find that he didn't know how to ask the machine to verify they matched.
After looking back down at his pad, and pretending to double, then triple, then quadruple check the numbers, Rianna filled in, "the menu is down here." She brought it up, and it displayed the correct numbers.
"Yes, thank you," he said with a fake smile.
One machine at a time, he looked at the active work order, found it on the list, and everything checked out. He was actually relieved, despite his clenched jaw, because he was not instructed how to handle a spec failure.
When he got around to the far end of the floor, and no one else was nearby, Garrett decided finally to ask Rianna about her behavior.
"May I ask why you keep looking at me like that?" he asked.
"Sorry," she said coyly, "I just have a thing for bobcats."
That was the last thing he needed. Garrett decided to rebuff her slowly. "Well, I wouldn't even think about someone with a degree," he replied coldly. "Do you have one?"
"Two, actually. Materials engineering and accounting."
This was a surprise. It was hard for him to keep his irritation out of his voice. "Then why are you a secretary?" he demanded.
"Because it's better paying than either of those. Everyone who works here has an ownership stake, and I got picked. Besides, it's less work to be a secretary than a scientist."
"Everyone owns it?" he repeated.
"Everyone gets at least one share. It's how we're paid. It makes for better money than salary, I can tell you."
"Money again," Garrett wryly remarked as he walked on, "everyone here thinks about money."
"Think about the bias in your sample," she stated matter-of-factly, "employees working at the largest privately-held firm on Giaya. You might as well ask employees at the Currency Reserve what they think about. Not that one," she added when he looked at a machine, "that one can't make the right structures."
"Thanks," he replied. "How many of the others can't make bucky balls?" he asked.
"I don't know, but not many."
That was not the answer he was looking for. His feelings of ineptitude made it hard to keep the concern for his personal safety at a distance. But failure to do so would make him act on that fear -- and that would expose him.
To placate it instead, he asked caustically, "are you going to follow me around this entire time?"
"I'm afraid so."
"Worried I'll damage something?"
"Mr. Caulfield is actually more concerned about an audit triggered by a mistake," she replied calmly.
"Well then, the least you can do is be useful. When we get to the next floor, why don't you just pull up the numbers for me?"
She nodded, and walked ahead of him to the next building over, with identical machines.
It did not make the data entry any easier, but at least it made things go faster, and eased Garrett's mind. He wasn't quite sure whether it was the scrutiny, which he habitually disliked based on his occupation, or something else. But it at least got two more floors done in an hour. He had arrived in the late afternoon, since the inspection would normally take several days, and he was now ready for a meal.
"How about dinner?" he asked.
"Sure. Cafeteria's this way."
He followed her all the way back to the train terminal, down one of the more popular halls, to the building immediately adjoining it. The bottom floor panned out into a large area with tables -- but no food line.
They picked a table, and after selecting their orders on a computer terminal, had their food brought to them.
"That's rather fancy," he remarked with feigned interest. It was a verbal tick; his occupation made him suspicious of anything he ate while on a mission.
She didn't react, possibly seeing through his attempt to be impressed, but he wasn't sure. He used the silence to convince himself to eat a rather large sandwich, with artificially grown meat. It was at least of a grade that he was able to tell it was supposed to be chicken.
She was sent to follow him. What for? Surely they could not suspect him already -- a possibility he dared not entertain, lest he get jumpy. "Why're you a secretary again?" he asked, to try and probe this question a little.
"Much easier than being a scientist, as I said. I can still review things for Mr. Caulfield, and I can stay in the know with long lunch breaks."
"How long?"
"Well, today, however long yours is."
Garrett cracked a smile. "Yeah, I thought so. I won't rush you then."
He did an experiment: he looked at her for a little too long, just to see what would happen. Sure enough, her eyes got stuck on him. It was certain about her "thing" for bobcats. He might as well play along, and see if he could turn this situation to his advantage.
He blinked somewhat too dramatically, and looked back at his nearly-eaten sandwich. "So, uh, let me see," he mumbled and checked his computer too awkwardly, "next on my list, I need to see what your QA equipment looks like."
"Would you like a tour?" she suddenly asked.
Deciding not to let the opportunity go by, he gave an awkward smile and extra hesitation. "Uh, sure," he said.
She got up shortly after that, and took him down the hallway again.
"You don't think Mr. Caulfield will mind?" he prodded.
"You might as well try to find something more interesting than inspecting equipment. After all, you'll be here for 2 or 3 days."
No he wouldn't, but no one knew that.
"That reminds me," he asked, trying to move things along, "where do I sleep?"
"We've got some rooms in this building, down on the ground floor. But I can show you that later, right now is the tour."
Garrett could only hope there was more suggestion in there than it sounded like. If he could get her undressed, it would allow for more effective interrogation.
To his surprise, the tour was over an hour of non-stop walking. She was a little out of breath, and that made him wonder if it was suspicious for him not to be. He was briefly shown all of the factory floors, arranged in a giant group of buildings, and more slowly shown the labs. He was allowed to look in open doors, see their equipment, and hear their arguments about things he couldn't understand.
He presumed the large spaces and high-tech equipment were supposed impress him, but only his mission sense kept him from falling asleep on his feet. He just had to keep thinking: what would an inspector do. He had to be professional, awake, interested in such things.
The last became too hard to muster by the time half an hour went by -- until one building got him interested. The factory floor outside of materials engineering had a sealed door twice the thickness of the others, no window, and was actually warm.
"What's that?" he asked as casually as he could.
"That's the foundry. We can't go in, but I can show you the control room."
"Shielded?" he asked.
"Very," she answered.
He put a big red mental X on that room. He would have to get in there; his heart raced briefly just thinking about how.
They went up two floors, down a hall, through a door with a keycard, and into the control room. It was a narrow room, only twice the width of the hallway, with clear glass that screened out infrared letting two operators look down on the floor below. The left operator watched black rock get turned into white-hot liquid fire, which was pumped to the right operator. He turned that glowing goo into a cool black sheet.
It was enough to get a sigh of contemplation out of Rianna as she stared. That made a fox on the left turn to look at them.
"Can I help you, Dr. Mathers?"
"Just admiring the view, Pat. This, by the way, is Inspector Garrett."
The fox turned around bowed briefly in his chair. The bird next to him didn't seem to hear them, engrossed in making a continuous string of minute adjustments to his display.
"Isn't it amazing?" she whispered to Garrett, muzzle coming quite close to his ear. "Carbon is the secret to our success. Nanotubes to polymers, this company is where we rediscovered material science once forgotten."
The bobcat, however, felt very little sentiment about anything. "Amazing," he answered slowly, dynamic voice not matching his emotionless face.
"You think I'm overselling it?" she asked.
"It's just hard for me to be sentimental about -- equipment," he replied truthfully, biting on the last word without meaning to.
He turned to her to see nervousness on her face. He was about to lose her, so tried to double down.
"You, on the other hand," he added with a smile, "maybe I could."
She smiled. It worked.
"Let's go," she whispered.
"Where to?" asked Garrett, innuendo still in his voice.
"Sleeping quarters," she purred.
Act or not, he thought, the game would soon change. And as he was about to enter the room she had selected, seemingly getting a keycard off the wall at random, the mission began.
***
He had just walked into the room, and was looking over the cozy wallpaper, two lockers, and large bed, when his earpiece talked to him again.
"Alright Agent K," it announced, "we're starting. Turn on your equipment."
The bobcat just walked into the room, closed the door, and forcefully wrapped her in his arms and merged their muzzles together.
He didn't particularly like it, but her body posture told him she did. He used the opportunity to press a few important buttons on his palmtop to turn on his hidden mic. Mission accomplished, he broke off.
"Why don't you go -- get undressed?" he purred.
She smiled and nodded, perhaps with a little hesitation, before going around the corner to what Garrett presumed was the bathroom.
Garrett got ready in no time. His GDF uniform came off for more quickly than it had been put on, revealing his black latex suit, covered with electronics cables, scales of bullet-resistant metal, and half a dozen pockets of equipment. It was the suit that Agent K always lived in on missions like this one.
"Just a couple quick things," he asked, "any cameras in here?"
"No, silly," she answered.
"No mics?" he insisted.
"Of course not."
"How soundproof?" he dared push.
"Quite," she sighed, and rolled her eyes audibly, "relationships are what a room this size is for."
"I see. Ouch!" he yelled without hurting himself. "Damn zipper. Could you bring a small bandage out?"
"Hmm... all I have is this huge roll of stuff."
"That's okay, bring it. I'll deal with it."
He drew his favorite weapon from its holder between his shoulder blades: a six inch razor knife. Touching the steel made his heart accelerate, as his focus sharpened up his reflexes.
"I've got a surprise waiting," he said with his first genuine smile of the day.
He hid by the wall, and the moment she appeared, grabbed her naked body in a choke hold.
She gagged on his arm, and then, when she saw his head lean over her neck, started to struggle.
"Don't try anything," he purred into her ear, using the same seductive voice, "I've got better reflexes than you."
He gave her chin a tiny hairline cut with the tip of his blade, just to make her flinch and squeak in pain.
"I'm not here to fuck you," he continued coldly, "I just want some information."
"Who-who are you!?" she demanded breathlessly.
"All you need to know is that I lied about being an inspector," he stated matter-of-factly, sadism leaking into his voice, "and I lied about being interested in you."
He paused to let this sink in a moment before he continued to unravel her. "Don't be so shocked," he growled, "everyone lies. All the time. You really thought I was trustworthy? How silly. But your time for lying is over. I want the truth. Understand?"
She nodded, but only when he touched the razor sharp steel against her skin again.
"So, what are your degrees in?"
Her voice got quiet. "A-c-counting and M-m-materials engineering," she whispered, trembling in terror as he shifted the knife to let her swallow.
"Does materials engineering include the structure of the atom?"
"Yes."
"How about breaking them apart?"
"N-no, please!" she begged.
He scraped her neck again and made her yell, just to stop her begging.
"You don't know how they come apart. Fine. Who does?"
"Um, uh," she swallowed as he began to dig slowly in, "Dr. Yarl! Yarl!"
"He or she?"
"He! He's a he!"
"What hours does he work?"
"Just normal."
"During the day?"
"Yes."
"How about at night?"
"Uh, I don't know! I saw him here late once, maybe!"
He eased up a little on the knife to reward her. She breathed more easily -- for the moment.
"What does he look like?"
"Shunk. Tall. Wide shoulders. Uh, don't remember the color of his eyes. Don't hurt me, I don't remember!"
Agent K's glare was just his way of checking. He let it go.
"Now, how would I get into the foundry?"
"What? Aah!"
He gave her another tiny cut. "Answer," he demanded.
"Uh, key, you need a passkey. The door is impossible to break into."
"Any outside doors?"
"One. In the corner."
"Good. Very good," reassured Agent K, putting the knife away -- but not letting her go.
"Just one more thing," he stated, putting the knife back and getting his next item, "I'd like you to do some math for me. You can do math in your head, right?"
"Yeah," she answered, voice nervous but no longer strained.
"Good. Answer this hypothetical for me. Suppose that the government wanted to tax fat people. To compute the tax, take your weight in dollars, double it, and multiply by one point six three percent. What do you get?"
She was silent for a long moment. He let her do the math, as he got out the top needle from the kit on his left pectoral muscle pocket.
"Uh, a dollar seventy nine."
"Excellent work."
He brought the needle around front of her, making her start struggling again. She tried to kick his knee, but it was absorbed by his scaled armor. "If I measure this wrong," he threatened calmly, "you're dead. I get it right, you wake up. Keep struggling if you want to die."
This threat made her stop kicking, and tears start running down her cheeks.
"Now, you said one dollar seventy nine," he repeated, aiming the 500-full needle at her chest and squirting the clear liquid on her fur. He got down to 179, and stopped. "There. Now, it's sleepy time. I suggest you don't struggle, so this will be as painless as possible."
He walked her over to the bed, needle touching her skin but not injecting, and made her lay down on her stomach.
"Good girl. Sweet dreams."
Since it was convenient, he selected an artery on her neck, since it had to go into the bloodstream directly. In and out the needle went via his careful dexterity.
As she started to relax, he took the bandage from her hand, and more than covered her needle and neck wounds with the long strip. He waited several seconds until the tension in her face started to fade before he let her go.
"It was nice meeting you," he said -- his final, reassuring lie. He helped her get under the blanket before he went over to the door.
"Mission start," he said into his computer, as the screen went to a status display much more complex that a series of forms. "Lance, do you read?"
"It's about time, K, what was all that?"
"Just getting some information," he replied sarcastically, "I know where it is."
"So do we. The data collected by your suit says you walked by a source of radiation on your way to your current position."
"How far?"
"About 500 east of you."
"The foundry. It's the only thing to justify enough shielding not to see the damn thing from space. Alright, I'm on it."
"Good luck, K. I'll be here."
He opened the door -- far too loudly for his taste. He was now completely different, after all. With his change of clothes, he had gone from a guest into an intruder. Every sound, every reflection, and every smell was now a signal to anyone paying attention that something was wrong. But more than that, his mental state had completely changed.
His first task was one of the most impossible: spot a camera before it spotted him. He did not remember seeing a camera in front of the room doors, but one might be a short distance away in the adjoining hall. If he could get to the fire exit, then he could evade the rest of the cameras and enter through the fire exit on the foundry floor.
"Lance," he whispered into thin air, "how much time on your computers do I get?"
"What did you have in mind, K?" loudly replied the voice into the speaker in his ear. Though K knew only he could hear it, the noise still made him flinch.
He turned on the wireless radio on his palm-top, and saw the junk data he expected. "I need a shared network key broken. I'll send some data now." Several buttons on his computer, and it was done.
"You're in luck," Lance replied, "we've already crunched three old keys during the last inspection a month ago, and they didn't change since then."
"Excellent," he growled quietly.
Lance sent it immediately, and his palmtop suddenly received a key for network access. Ready with his new weapon, he went down the halls, looking for cameras.
The first one Agent K encountered was where the wing of private rooms intersected the hallway leading up to the next floor. The camera stared unblinkingly in the doorway above him, watching anyone passing through it on the other side. Since it was aimed at an angle down the hall, and he was standing directly below it, it was ideal for tampering.
Deciding no one seemed to be around, he reached up, and sliced the rubber sheath to its cables with his razor knife. He then added a sharp needle attachment to his computer, and pressed its sharp tip right into the wire he guessed was data. Flatline. Instead, the other wire was data.
Having the camera on the network was the most logical thing to do -- but also the most hackable. K had his computer run a simple attack: read a couple of image frames that went by, showing an empty hallway. Then store them, along with the network address they came from. Then, begin corrupting the data traveling down the wire, and at the same time, began sending valid frames over and over again with new timestamps on the wireless.
Once his computer had sent several hundred loops, and kept getting acknowledgements, he clipped the data wire entirely with wirecutters from another pocket. Only someone watching a digital switch in the back room would ever know that wire was cut. If his computer never stopped sending frames, the security guard would see nothing but an empty hallway for the rest of the evening.
He stepped past the camera, and snuck quietly down the hall until he found the fire stairs, which were alarmed. One loosened screw and one snipped pair of wires later, it no longer was. He stepped outside of the building onto a pile of landscaping gravel.
"Lance," he said, "I'm going to walk around outside. I want you to tell me what that counter says."
"Got it, K."
Now outside, he stuck close to the walls, which went from glass to concrete as he approached the manufacturing section.
"You're getting warmer," Lance volunteered.
"You think?" asked K sarcastically.
"The peak must be huge if you can pick it up from there. Still getting warmer... Keep going..."
When Lance finally declared, "that's it. Stop," K found himself in front of the fire door to the foundry floor. Given that it was less shielded than the surrounding walls, it was probably the source of the detectable radiation.
"It must be underground," he concluded aloud. "Mark my current coordinates, Lance. I think it's time to call up the Hawks."
"Not yet," cautioned Lance, "you have to lay eyes on it first. Position noted, anyway."
"This is where I give the whole if-I-don't-come-out speech," dryly remarked K, "because if it's radiation shielded, it's radio silence."
"Definitely."
"Set the clock for 15 minutes."
"Got it, K. 15 minutes. Good luck."
He didn't need his computer to give him a timer. He knew how long any time to mission failure was when he declared it.
He had his computer fight unlock the fire door by confusing it, thanks to its disabled temperature sensors. He opened the door to find the room that seemed much larger than from the balcony two stories above, with giant tools running at this very moment, forging carbon into any shape desired.
Agent K knew not to look at the blinding light, and so was not able to take in the majesty even from this angle. The dry heat of a day in the desert made him not want to, either, given what he was wearing. He walked around the corners of the room, quite pleased to see that the figures in the balcony seemed to be looking in some other direction by their head orientation. But still, he was quiet out of habit.
He dashed quickly behind each piece of equipment, skilfully making his way over to the far end of the floor, where he saw something. Sure enough, as he got within 10 feet of it, it was clearly a trap door. He smiled; it was so easy. All he had to do was dash over to it, and lift the --
BUZZZZZZZZZZZZ...
Agent K saw the pressure switch on the door too late, and saw a shadow in the hallway beneath it stepping toward him. He waited until he could see the head of the wolf, allowing him to kick the guard in the face, jump down, and grab his knife before the guard could get up.
Agent K pulled the wolf to his feet, and shoved into the wall.
"Greetings," he growled in the guard's ear as he placed the long razor blade upon the guard's neck, "you've got two options. One, die. Two, show me the reactor control panel. Decide now."
It took the wolf a moment of rubbing his head to get up from the wall, and begin walking down the hall, quite slowly, arms at his sides, and his shoulders shaking.
"Why?" he asked loudly over the continued buzzing, that got quieter, but was trapped by the concrete and metal walls of the corridor.
"I'm an inspector with the GDF," he replied sarcastically, "I'm inspecting it."
"Sure you are," the wolf nervously replied as they turned a corner, and arrived in a control room quite similar to the one Agent K had visited earlier.
"Don't do it!" demanded the wolf as two more guards on each end of the small room drew illegal pistols.
"What do you want?" demanded the rather tall skunk between them, managing a large control panel alone. He glared at Agent K -- but still trembled little bit.
"First thing is," K answered, slowly switching his razor knife for the wolf's pistol, "is you two to drop those, and slide them over here."
The bear and the tiger did manage to get their guns down the diagonal of the room with low throws, but just barely.
"Good. Now, the fun starts!" K snarled.
Without provocation, he shot the bear in his forearm. He screamed in pain.
When he took a breath, K shouted sadistically, "you're hurt! Run to the medic!"
Without really thinking, the bear stumbled back toward the door, as K laughed. One down, two to go.
The skunk, however, found nothing funny about it. "You're insane!" he shouted.
"Not yet," growled K, returning the gun to the head of his victim, "but unless you do as I say, I might get there."
"Then by Shakallah, what do you want!?"
His voice, as K wanted, had gone from control to pleading. But it was still not enough -- and it was too boring.
"You're last in line, Dr. Yarl," he snapped, changing the wolf to a choke hold, and walking toward the tiger, "you, punch this joker in the stomach."
The tiger looked back at him with a mixture of fear and suspicion. K just cocked the hammer, and the tiger didn't need to be told twice.
The tiger punched him, not very hard, and the wolf braced for it. It had little effect.
"I meant hard!" yelled Agent K. "Hard!"
Pow. It knocked the wind out of the wolf -- which is just what K wanted.
Before the wolf could recover his breath, Agent K threw the gun away behind him, and closed his wrists around the neck of his victim.
"Let's see how quick you can answer, Doctor," he demanded, enjoying the look of terror on both face he could see, and imagining the one on his victim, whose ears showed panic. "Tell me about this reactor. How many megawatts does it produce?"
"350!"
"Where do you get your fuel?"
"It's flown in, I don't know!"
"Near here?"
"Probably not!"
"What kind?"
"Uranium 238!"
"Not enriched?"
"No!"
K could feel the guard starting to squirm more. He talked faster.
"Meltdown-protection?"
"Yes!"
"Active-temp?"
"Uh, 350! Maybe 400!"
"Who-makes-the-heavy-water?"
"A plant here!!" he shouted.
K felt the wolf go limp a second later, obviously the cause of the skunk's voice. He dragged the corpse over into a corner, and dropped it.
"You killed him!!" screamed the skunk.
The tiger also took this opportunity to grab a gun from the floor, in the corner Garrett had left unprotected. But before the tiger could even bring it to his waist, Agent K had used his superior reflexes and speed to punch him in the face. Once stunned, K put a long slash through the striped hand to make him drop the gun.
"Go get medical attention!" K demanded over the yelling. His voice was full of mocking levity, in spite of the small trail of blood this patient made on his way out.
"Hurry! You're bleeding!" he added, making the tiger start stumbling in a jog, nearly tripping on the gun he tried to grab. That blood was why K chose his weapon long ago.
The skunk, in more desperation than anything, went for the other gun. Agent K stopped him easily by just reaching over and pushing him into the glass, and then bringing his knife to the skunk's neck.
"You know, for someone with a PhD, you sure are stupid," Garrett said in a perfectly calm voice. "You really think you could do better against a GDF Agent than a trained security guard?"
The skunk just started crying. "Please," he sobbed, "please don't hurt me..."
"Oh you've given me plenty of reasons, Doctor," K continued. "There's attacking me, running an illegal reactor, knowing things about physics best forgotten -- but I will give you a chance to redeem yourself of your crimes. I can forgive, and then, I won't have to hurt you."
He paused a moment to let the thought sink in, moving his head as close to the skunk as he could, and making their eyes able to see nothing but one another's faces. Their noses almost touched.
"You want redemption, don't you?" Garrett stated coldly.
Dr. Yarl nodded his head, just half an inch.
"Then," he continued calmly, "make the reactor believe it's about to overload. Whatever panic will ensue, I want. Right now."
He let the skunk up from the glass, but kept the knife hovering in front of his neck, easily within view, and reflexes tuned to strike. K wanted him to remember it was there when he took his next action.
As Agent K expected, Dr. Yarl manipulated the temperature sensors in software, and told them it had tripled in the past ten seconds.
Immediately, a loudspeaker came on in the corner. "Code Red. Fire in building 25D. All occupants evacuate buildings 25A through 27A. This is not a drill. Code red. Fire in building 25D. All occupants..."
"Was it really worth his life?" Dr. Yarl demanded, looking at the corpse in the corner.
K rolled his eyes. "Oh, he's not dead. His brain will figure that out in just a moment that he can breathe again. There," he concluded, as the lifeless body twitched and drew a slow, shuddering breath. "Now, let's go. There's apparently a fire in building 25D."
Even then, the skunk did not show a hint of humor. Instead, he started dragging the wolf along the floor toward the exit.
K just watched, but more than that, he had his computer count his steps to pinpoint the exact location of the large room full of water he could see filling with long control rods at this very moment. Once its exact location was computed, he also set his computer to transmit that location continuously, so that the message would go out without his intervention. He suspected it would be necessary.
"I'll go first, Doctor," he suddenly said, stepping in front, "I suspect they will want to see me."
On his way, he took out another needle, and gave himself an injection through a permanent tube under a flap on his right forearm. It was the least potent, to help ease the pain he expected to face momentarily. It would dull his reflexes considerably, but he didn't expect he'd be needing them anymore.
Slowly -- just keeping pace with the doctor -- he walked toward his fate. When he saw the open hatch, unable to see anyone above it, he shouted, "I surrender!"
His heart was slowing, making him a little light headed as the analgesic kicked in. He waited until after it faded to climb the ladder, and see his fate. He got to the top, and looked at three security guards with rifles. He raised his hands, but could see his immediate fate.
BANG, BANG, BANG, BANG, BANG, BANG, BANG, BANG.
Between the drug and his armor, he could barely feel the bullets hitting his chest and stomach. He didn't know how badly they hurt him, but fell backwards onto the concrete and feigned unconsciousness.
"K! Report!" shouted his earpiece. "K? ... Okay, good," said the voice more quietly. "We've got it, K. If you can still hear me, it was worth it. Just hang in there. 5 minutes and the hawks are there... C'mon K! Answer me! The suit says you're not dead! ..."
But Agent K could not answer. He was playing dead, as his body was being dragged, feet first, through the halls. At least he landed on his back, he thought, or he would have a much harder time of his act.
He heard the loudspeaker announcements stop, and the "all clear" be given -- which meant that apparently Dr. Yarl had reset it. There could be casualties when the hawks arrived, which was bad for K's credibility.
He was eventually dragged through a cramped elevator, to an office which was very familiar, and dropped on the floor. The voice was even more familiar.
"You can stop faking now," said a familiar black panther rather sharply, "I made that body armor. I know how good it is."
It took a moment for K to realize this was directed to him, and he got up from the floor -- leaving several respectable dots of blood on the carpet.
When he sat up in the chair, however, he found another gun -- this time, a pistol pointed at his unprotected nose.
"Start talking!" Herman barked, "who are you!?"
"I am an inspector for the GDF," he replied monotonously.
"You lie!!" Hermann shouted.
"I speak the truth," he retorted calmly, "I was sent to inspect your facilities, and then find and disable an illegal reactor."
"A spy!!" Caulfield roared, the gun shaking in rage, "you're a government spy!! You violate the GDF's charter!! You human bastard!!"
"Call me human all you like," Garrett continued, wishing now that he hadn't dulled his reflexes as he watched the gun, "but if I die, your factory will be the victim of an airstrike. Maybe, just maybe, I can be persuaded to change my mind."
The cat responded by punching Garrett in the nose. He felt it, but it barely hurt. Deciding his face probably reflected this supernatural lack of pain, and the cat would be surprised by this, he plainly stated, "that approach is not going to work. I said persuade me."
Indeed, this was a surprise to Mr. Caulfield. "Forget it!!" he yelled, and pressed a button on his desk. "Rianna!"
"I'm sorry sir," stated the voice on the on the other end of a speaker, "she's not avail--"
"Find her!!" he screamed, "This is an emergency!!"
"Yes sir!"
He then picked up the phone, and pressed more buttons. "Nicholas! Drop whatever you're doing, and come up to my office! It's a matter of life and death!!"
Agent K could feel the precious time ticking away. It was hard to suppress a smile at the discombobulating fear of his adversary -- a smile which seemed enhanced slightly by the anaesthetic. But if K couldn't suppress it, he suspected his life might come to an end.
Before that end, fortunately, a rather young fox arrived, not wearing a white coat, and barely of age. He was shocked by the scene to say the least.
"Nicholas," demanded Herman, "this spy was caught stealing our computer files! I need you to see what you can get off his computer before the police arrive!"
Knowing he would get them both killed by resisting, Garrett let him take it, even though it had the "secret" status display up at the moment.
"Thief?" he asked in surprise as he looked at the screen, "this looks like that military gadget we made for GCOM about 2 years ago."
"A military computer?" he asked, so stressed that he was a very bad liar, "who would have thought! Why do you say that?"
"If I may ask, sir, who is this?" nervously asked the fox.
"Shut up!" demanded Caulfield to Garrett, when the bobcat had no intention of speaking, "don't worry about that! Just see what you can get. Figure out who this is, maybe -- or some secret keys!"
"If he's got keys, they're all encrypted on this thing. Probably voice encrypted, with a long passphrase."
"At least try," he growled, trying not to be angry at his employee.
"Okay," he said to the computer, "access keyring."
Garrett heard his earpeiece ask for the passphrase -- and because it was an audio prompt, nothing on the screen changed.
"Show commands."
Garrett bit his tongue, possibly too hard, as he heard his earpiece say, "invalid voiceprint, try again or say 'Cancel'."
The fox was looking at it like it was a friend ignoring him. "Can you hear me?"
"Invalid voiceprint, try again or say 'Cancel'."
But then, Garret's earpiece said something else after that through a lot of static. "-- you lead in and scare 'em human! K's heard this before. Mach 2.7, cruising altitude 5K."
"It seems like it won't do anything at all, sir," said the fox in disgust.
"Well then!!" Hermann roared, before taking a deep breath and regaining his composure, "Well, then, forget it. The police will be here soon. Get out."
The fox put the computer down, and left without comment.
"Alright!" threatened Caulfield, cocking the hammer, "call off the airstrike! Now!!"
But it was too late. The first wave arrived -- with a sonic bang.
A blast shook the ground of the building, and shattered every window Agent K could see with the force of an explosion. He ducked out of the way of the flying glass of Caulfield's office as his ears went deaf, and the panther dove under his desk -- leaving the gun sitting on it.
Agent K grabbed it before Caulfield got up, but Caulfield realized what he had done. When he blindly reached for it, K shot the hand on the table.
Caulfield screamed as loud as he could, barely enough for K to hear over the ringing in his ears. K then made it worse by using that hand to yank him to his feet.
"That was the warning!" he demanded over Caulfield's yelling, throwing the gun out the shattered windows, "Get out before the real damage starts!"
Garrett watched him wrap his hand in his handkerchief, run out the door, and heard him yell for everyone to get out.
The loudspeakers began their monotonous direction to evacuate, but Garrett heard laughter from his radio. "Haha! That was great! Watch 'em run! What's your ETA?"
"2.5 minutes. Then start the fireworks, we've got the coordinates."
Garrett said to Lance with a quiet sigh, "you can thank those pilots for saving my life."
"Will do, K. You'd better leave."
"Not quite. One thing first."
"K?"
"Consider it mission accomplished, Lance, but I have my reputation to protect."
He then grabbed his computer and turned his microphone off.
He ran down the deserted hall of the 10th floor, and started down the fire stairs. He found himself winded by the 4th flight, becoming a little lightheaded. He did his best to focus on the goal: the bottom. He had to stop running and start walking, as he ignored Lance's demands for him to turn the mic back on. He set off the fire alarm by pushing the door open, but figured everyone was evacuating from the sonic bang, anyway.
He made his way around to the other building's back entrance, and made his way back to the room where he had left Rianna. It was as he barely managed to get her onto his back -- pulling a muscle that made him consider more anesthetic -- that the building shook, and he was dropped to his knees as his ears rang once again. That, he decided, was a missile.
He crawled with the unconscious cheetress on his back, thinking only about his own survival as he got to the hall door. By the time he got outside, he was crawling, and dragging her with him. He knew not what wound had done this, but got the sense of light-headedness again. He barely managed to punch in a request for evac, as he heard the hawks swoop by with a sub-sonic roar for another pass.
Another gleeful shout on his radio, one more missile flying into the building 100 feet away, and his head was bashed into the ground. Feeling his wits leave him, he blacked out.
***
After several days in a private hospital room -- he knew not where -- Agent K was awake again. He immediately asked for morphine instead of whatever anesthetic they gave him, and got it. He could feel his body relaxing -- the only time in his life he could really relax.
But it wasn't long before he heard a familiar voice in his left ear. "You shouldn't give him that, Doc, he's an addict."
"Lance, you idiot," K groaned with a smile, "he can't hear you."
"I'm standing right here, Mr. Garrett."
The bobcat opened his eyes slowly to see a young dalmatian in addition to the otter in the labcoat he had seen go in and out of the room countless times.
"In that case," Agent K said with a wry smirk, "don't listen to him, Doc. Something hurts. Somewhere. A lot."
"I don't like it any more than you do," replied the doctor to Lance with a cold look, "but I have been instructed to give him whatever he wants."
"I've been an addict longer than you've been alive," he offered to Lance, "and you're not the first to try."
"Fine. If you don't mind, Doctor, I'd like to talk to Mr. Garrett alone -- official business."
After the otter stepped out, and Lance peeked through the door to make sure he was really gone, he just sat down in the guest's chair, and began.
"I thought you'd like to know, K, that the girl you saved is alright. She did do the math correctly. The three guards will live, and Dr. Yarl will need psychological counseling after what you did to him."
"So," he murmured happily, "no fatalities, as usual."
"Officially, you did a good job."
"And unofficially?"
Lance's jaw clenched. "Unofficially," he snarled, "I think they ought to put you down, you sick sadist. What do you have to say for yourself!?"
K, fortunately, was too doped up to get mad. "You knew what you were getting into watching me."
Lance let out a disgruntled sigh. "That's it? I knew what I was getting into? No remorse? No shame? No sense of --"
"May I remind you," interrupted K drowsily but loudly, "that I risked my life to save that young girl."
"But gave her a few souvenir scars with that knife of yours. That's the problem!"
"Shhh! This is a hospital," reminded K, in a much quieter voice. "And you know, I feel good enough that I'm going to tell you the truth. Mind you, you might not like it, but you need it."
Lance crossed his arms. "Oh, this should be good," he replied bitterly.
"First, pup, do you know how old I am?"
"40."
"Actually, 35. But that's not really how old I am. You can't forget the 300 years I've spent alseep on top of that. I've met the last ten people to sit at that comm link. All of them are the same. Just like you. Fair. High-minded. Believers in democracy and our government.
"But make no mistake," he slurred, his eyes drifting shut, "about what you all really are. You wake me up about three or four times a century. You need work done. Get it done, you say. And I do. No deaths, I keep getting called."
K's voice got weaker as the morphine got to work, but he worked hard to make himself heard.
"When you call, I can work as I want. And you will keep your morality. Your high-minded beliefs. And you will wash your hands of it all. If I break it, you buy it. If I mutilate someone, you pay hospital bills. Because you know what I do, don't you. You know about democracy.
"You know that it can only work, across millions of miles of land, if everyone believes in it. Every... single... one. Must believe in it. But if they believe they are better. Or should be richer. Or think differently than your master the Council about nuclear power... Whatever their crime of belief, then you call me. You," he emphasized with a weak gesture, "call me."
"You made me who I am. You took away my fear. And my empathy. And my remorse. You keep me in a jar asleep for the safety of everyone else. My work is my life. The only thing I have to enjoy. And you unleash me on your enemies. Enemies of democracy. And you and the council all vote to do it. Two thirds of you. Every time.
"Now you understand that," he weakly demanded. "Understand what a monster you are. And your commander. And his commander. All the way up. Understand that. Then tell me how horrible I am. Everything I did. And how it is wrong... to enjoy every minute of it."
Lance did not answer for a long moment. Then, without a word, he stood up to leave.
"Lance," murmured K, "if you want, you can order them to pull the plug on me. I authorize it. I'll sign that paper. If you ever get the guts, and the stripes, then maybe then I will have some faith in democracy. And if you ever amount to something," he added with a weak smile, "make them give me a better name next time."
Still saying nothing, the dalmatian walked out.
The End.