Rick: “He may have already recovered some memories of why he really took off his band. What then?”
Abby: "Without the brain-band to dampen all of his emotions, he’ll have normal male sexual urges. I’ll do what I do best. I'll have my tight white sheaths on. Unfortunately, they’ll have been ripped from trekking through the woods and some naughty pieces will be visible. Perhaps, I’ll even let him see my bare anklies while I’m washing my feet in a stream. I’ll let him kiss me. I’ll get him so confused, he won’t know what hit him. In the end, he’ll walk into the Calgary office to please me.”
Rick: “And then?”
Gary: “We’ll get as much information from him as we can from a soft interrogation. If we’re lucky, he took the band off as a fling to celebrate his graduation. If so, he won’t object to having it re-installed. We’ll hire him, he‘ll enjoy his work, and everybody will be happy.”
Rick: “And if he doesn’t want to report to the Calgary office?”
Gary: “Abby will immobilize him and send me the coordinates. I will copter him into the office and there’ll be a hard interrogation. We’ll find out why he decided to bolt. If he received help from dissidents, we’ll give you their names and you can do what you do best. Restoring the brain-band will erase the memories of his little excursion. He’ll wake up in his new job and the doctor will tell him that an accident in his lab had zapped his band and damaged some of his memories. He’ll enjoy his work and everyone will be happy.”
Rick: “I’m concerned about the pick-up.”
Gary: “Rick, you know that no matter how old they are, men who find themselves suddenly without their brain-band are unable to handle normal sexual urges. How could they? Other than Grad'bration, they’ve never been allowed to experience them before. Abby has done this hundreds of times. She’s never failed to bring her man in – whether he was willing or not.”
Rick: “She has never failed when her targets hide in the cities. She hasn’t worked in the woods before. Plus, I’m not sure that your pick-up plan will work with a Z. They don’t like being around people and Zurt will avoid Abby as much as he can. Any form of aggression may scare him off. It will certainly worry him. If Abby uses a sexual approach, he will wonder why she is acting so immodestly. The slightest hole in your cover story will also raise questions in his mind. When a Z starts to wonder about something, he won’t stop wondering until he has an answer that explains everything perfectly. Zs are very perceptive. They notice everything, even if it doesn’t register consciously. If Zurt’s curiosity is piqued by something that doesn’t make sense to him, he will pick and pick and pick at that problem until he solves it. I’ve seen that often enough with my superior."
Gary: “The cover story is solid.”
Rick: “No, it’s not. Zurt is an expert in the woods. Abby has never worked in the woods. He’s a Z; she’s an A. The two personality types conflict on many dimensions. Zurt will know that he could never get along with an A for more than a week and he’s going to wonder what kind of manager would require the two of them to work together. He’ll know that something isn’t right."
Gary: “We’ll refine the story. Or, do you have something better to suggest?”
There was a long silence.
Rick: “Zs don’t like being around people, but I’ve always thought that they would respond to an appeal for help. I haven’t had the chance to prove it yet.”
Gary: “A chivalrous hero saving a damsel in distress?”
Abby: “I’ve imitated women from H to M before. They all tend to be swooning maidens. I could play that part.”
Rick: “No offense, Abby, but you’d never pull it off with a Z. We’d need a real swooning maiden.”
Gary: “Well, since we don’t have one of those available right now, we’ll go with the first plan but with a better cover story. Abby, you’ll go back to Zurt’s camp tomorrow. You can get a few hours of sleep in my tent.”
Rick: “No. Not tomorrow. If Abby spooks him, then he’ll run. If he disappears, we may never find him again.”
Gary: “How could he get away? You know as much about the woods as he does.”
Rick: “Perhaps, but first I’m going to bring in some other problem-fixers to establish a net around him. If we're lucky, we'll discover his trail and catch him tomorrow. If not, we’ll put Abby in place. I can have three of my colleagues here early tomorrow; the other four soon afterwards.”
Abby: “Why the caution? You can find him wherever he is. Gary put me within one hundred meters of his camp and, as we all know, I’m a klutz in the woods.”
Rick: “You weren’t carrying the signal reader with you, were you Abby?”
Abby: “No, we’re not stupid. Gary was doing the monitoring and communicating with me by pinky computer.”
Gary: “Abby is right. With the bug locator, we can put a helicopter on his head any time we want.”
Rick: “Unless he figures out that he’s been bugged. Or, unless he accidentally becomes bug-free. If so, it will take professional trackers and dogs to find him again. I’m going to get them in place first. Just in case. You better be as good as Gary says you are, Abby. I’m not allowed to make Zurt disappear.”
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Chapter 4
Zurt the First was right. Something definitely was wrong. I had found an answer to the question – “How had they discovered me so quickly?” But I still didn’t know why the DPS was so concerned that I might escape. I certainly wasn’t going to hang around to find out! I knew that the winter backpack in my copter was bug-free – otherwise Gary's instruments would have seen it. I snatched it out of the copter and had sky-trekked deep into the woods within half an hour.
By that time, I had calmed down. Fear. I had experienced fear. And stupidity. I had been stupid. I couldn't leave the brain-band in my summer pack for the DPS to find. And, I needed that pack if I was to survive in the woods for more than a month. Nobody was watching my camp right now, so I hid my winter pack and went back. An extra hour to find the bug wouldn’t hurt. Along the way, I had time to think. Which is what I should have done first! Rick’s comment that I might become bug-free suggested that I could accidentally lose the bug. That meant it was either in the clothes I was wearing now or it was somewhere in my summer backpack.
The extra hour stretched into two. I couldn’t find the bug! I had ruled out my consumables, soft clothing, and any gear that was too hard or thin to conceal a device. That left three possibilities – my boots, my brain-band, and the material of my summer backpack. I was pretty sure the bug was in the brain-band, but what if they had planted two tracking devices on me? I probably would have done that – redundancy is something physicists think about. The Z in charge would have too. I could do without an extra set of boots, but I needed the backpack if at all possible. A simple plan came to mind.
I managed to store all of my unbugged supplies inside my sleeping hammock and then hid that in the woods partway to my winter backpack. Back in camp, I grabbed my brain-band, hiked about thirty-minutes north, hid it in a tree, and then returned to camp. I repeated the process twice more but in different directions – once to hide my boots and then again to hide my empty summer backpack. All I had to do was wait until Gary's men came to my camp. They’d follow the bug to where they thought I was hiding and then I'd know what to leave behind. I'd wait invisibly for them leave, collect my backpack (hopefully) and then collect the rest of my gear and be out of the area before Rick’s trackers could converge. I found a good vantage point that gave me a view of the trail the trackers would take from the ‘bration fields into my camp, and settled down to wait.
Of the three agents I had seen, Rick was the most dangerous. In a physical fight, a fifteen-year old kid like me would give him no contest. But, I did have my filament and he didn’t know anything about that. As long as I remained hidden, I might survive. However, the most dangerous person was Rick’s boss. The un-named Z. He would know how my mind worked; he’d be ab
le to predict what I was going to do. I had to be far away before he became directly involved.
# # # # # # # #
I had stared at an empty trail for over twelve hours. By now, the DPS would know that I had two packs. They’d know that I had moved camp but yet they still hadn’t appeared. Were they waiting until Rick’s trap was ready? They didn’t need light to track me; were they just waiting for nightfall? Would they investigate my first camp? Or, would they go directly to where they thought I was? I could be sitting here while they were finding all of my supplies.
A food bar later, and another bout of obsessive worrying later, I realized that I was losing control of my emotions again. Since I was in my second day without sleep, the swings were worse than they had been before. I needed something to keep my mind occupied while I watched an empty trail. Homing beacons in brain-bands! That would do it. I was already stressing out about homing beacons – but what if I thought about them more productively?
I’m the anonymous Z in charge of the DPS. I have found a way to put homing beacons inside brain-bands. Now, what would I do? Would I put a homing beacon in Abby’s brain-band, for example?
? ? ? ? ?
Yes, I would. She was an agent. If she got into trouble, I’d want to be able to locate her. What about the other DPS agents? Would I give all of them homing beacons too? Sure, why not? Once I had designed a brain-band that held a homing beacon, it would be easy to produce one for every DPS agent.
Then, I got lost for an hour or two in the electronic details of how that could actually be done, but eventually resurfaced to examine the larger problem.
OK. I’m the Z in charge of the DPS. I have invented a transmitting device that can be installed inside a brain-band. What else would a scientist do with that device?
? ? ? ? ?
I would look for other potential uses for that transmitter. What might those applications be? I have all these agents; I know where they are at all times; I’m able to communicate with them via pinky-ring computers, but what if they entered a wireless dead zone? What if they got into trouble? I’d still know their location because the brain-band’s transmitting device would be on a radio frequency; but the pinky-ring requires wireless towers. How could they call for help?
? ? ? ? ?
When I was on Catch me if you can woodcraft assignments, I’d use a trip wire to alert me if an intruder approached my camp. If I was the Z in charge of the DPS, I could use a trip wire to send an alert that an agent was in trouble. I’d wire the brain-band so that it would transmit an alarm if the connection to the brain were lost. Then, I’d fasten agent brain-bands lightly to their skulls so that they could rip them off without the pain that I experienced when I pried my band off.
! ! ! ! !
That’s how they knew that I had ripped off my brain-band! As soon I interrupted the connection between my brain-band and my brain, the homing device transmitter began sending out an alarm. The Z didn’t give his brain-band transmitters only to his agents; he had given me one of his bugged brain-bands too.
? ? ? ? ?
Why would the Z give me one of his bugged brain-bands? According to Gary, Zs were relatively rare. But, we’re still normal, average people. I had never gotten a grade higher than a C+; I had no special physical abilities; nor did I have any great skills or aptitudes. According to Rick, I was a loner who perceived things and didn’t like to quit on a problem. Big deal! Why would they bugs someone like me unless…
? ? ? ? ?
…unless they bugged everybody! They wouldn’t have two kinds of brain-bands – those with transmitters and those without. They’d mass-produce the same band. If any citizen in the IOF took off his brain-band, the DPS would know that immediately. Then, people like Abby would hunt them down and turn them over to people like Rick who would make them disappear. I couldn't believe this! I got extremely mad! I could remember getting mad once before. Back when I was in infant-care, some kid had snatched a toy sailing ship out of my hands and I had hauled off and hit him flush in the nose. This time, I wanted to do more than that.
It took me some time to cool off. When I got back to thinking scientifically again, I realized that taking off a brain-band didn't necessarily have to end with a disappearance. Even if the DPS had inserted a combined alarm/homing beacon into everyone’s brain-band, it wouldn’t be very effective for tracking them. I had kept my band with me but what if I had thrown it away? Our cities are big enough to hide in – it would be easy to grow your hair, or wear a fake band, and get away with it so long as you didn’t do something to reveal you couldn’t control your emotions. The DPS must have some other way to track fugitives. Something that allowed them to put people like Abby onto their trail.
I knew that in olden days the Unfair Society could listen in to cell phone conversations and track emails. Electronic tracking had probably improved a lot since then. I looked down at my right hand and suddenly realized where the bug was. A pinky-ring computer would be a perfect tracking device. Like everybody else, I wore it constantly.
Then, the implications of their perfect bug hit me. I could leave my pinky ring computer here and flee into the deep woods. But, without my computer to control my filament, I couldn’t sky-trek! Without the ability to sky-trek, I’d leave a scent. The dogs were already on their way. I would be caught, perhaps not this minute, but inevitably. The DPS would take me back to Calgary. I already knew what they'd do to me there.
# # # # # # # #
I was lying flat on my back when I woke. I sensed the scrapes and dried blood covering my knuckles first. Both hands were sore and I couldn’t make them into fists. I could feel dried-blood scratches on my face as well. My pinky computer was on the ground. I couldn’t remember taking it off.
I slipped into a bout of depression that I’d just as soon not talk about. It ended because I couldn’t stand being so pathetic. I told myself that I wouldn’t quit without a fight. I would leave my computer buried in the ground. That would give me a head start and I could put dogs off my trail if I could find a deep stream. I started digging a hole and then stopped.
Abandoning my pinky ring computer didn’t make sense without confirming that it actually held a tracking device. What if I had only one bug and it was in my brain-band? All I had to do was hide my pinky-ring like I had done with the items that I suspected might be carrying bugs. I turned my pinky-computer on, but even with its expandable band, I couldn’t get it over my swollen knuckle. I put it in my pocket instead, hiked north, and hid it in a tree close to the tree holding my brain-band. I put near-invisible trip wires on both trees. If there were indeed two bugs, they’d see them in the same general location and assume that was my new camp. There was a good possibility that Rick and his trackers might come directly to this new camp and I'd miss them, but I knew where they were bound to start their search. I got there before dawn. A propane light was burning brightly inside Gary’s command tent.
# # # # # # # #
Rick and three burly men arrived just after dawn. They were in civilian clothes as they emerged from the park-and-plug and joined Gary who was waiting for them by his tent. It took a scant ten-minutes for them to get into camouflage clothes, don communications headgear, unpack four collapsible bows with four quivers full of arrows, and strap on four rifles with scopes. Rick moved two hand-held devices in a wide arc until both were facing in the general direction of my lures. Bug meters, I assumed. Each calibrated to home in on a particular signal. I had been carrying two bugs after all.
From a position well inside the woods, I stayed even with them as they walked easily beside the ‘bration site fields. They were in loose formation with no obvious concern about being seen so early in the morning. That changed when they arrived at the most natural spot to head into the forest towards my original base camp. They spread out into a two hundred-meter wide band and began a slow, switch-backed advance that would discover any trail I might have made or flush out any stakeout position I might have taken in front of them.
I left them sneaking up on my camp and moved more quickly ahead. I didn’t care if they found evidence of my tracks in and out of the camp, but if they maintained the two hundred-meter wide search pattern, they might discover where I had hidden to watch Abby. I found some of the litter that Abby had buried in her observation post – some food bars, sunflower seed shells, and gum wrappers – and relocated half of it to the observation post where I had watched her. The signs would suggest that Abby had changed stakeout locations partway through the day. Then, I took up a position three-hundred meters northeast of my camp and dug in behind and below a fallen log. I too was in full camouflage gear with dead leaves pasted to my face with mud. So long as I didn’t make any sudden movements, I would be invisible to them.
It was half an hour before I got my first glimpse of a camouflage suit and that was only because I knew they were coming. These guys were good! I glimpsed two others approaching from two other quadrants at about the same time. I never saw Rick until all four trackers stood up simultaneously and walked into the camp. One of them took Rick to where Abby’s stakeout had been while the other two sat against a tree, sipping occasionally from their canteens.
Rick formed a sit-down conference when he returned. They shared some negative head shaking – nothing of any substance to report, I assumed. Rick then stood up, moved into the center of the clearing, produced his two bug meters, gave one to another man, presumably his second-in-command, and began the search for the bug signals. They conversed for a bit and then stood side-by-side, each pointing his hand in the direction of a signal. They were pointing in two entirely different directions.
I watched as Rick sent his second-in-command and another man in the direction of my hidden boots. Rick and the remaining tracker set off for either my brain-band or for my pinky computer. It was too early to say which held the second bug. I was free to collect my backpack, but I was reluctant to go anywhere near the brain-band and pinky-ring hiding places until I was sure that all four men were out of the woods. An hour wait by my former base camp wasn’t going to make any difference.