When the squad of sleepers came up the stairs, the sergeant walked up to me and ran my ID. As the information spooled across his the green display of his minicomp, he stared for a moment before speaking. He didn't seem to be having as much of a problem with the dimmed lights, but you have to have some advantage for wearing a garbage can on your head.
"You again?" he asked.
It's impossible to recognize their voices and since the attitudes are universally crappy, you really can't tell them apart unless they've got an ID. Obviously he (or she) knew me from somewhere.
"Do I know you?" I asked.
"We arrested you for subversion and escorted you to Cloak."
Great, it had to be Those Shivers. I'd wanted to get a little payback on them, but it was against my programming. One of the other important rules they teach at Meny is don't screw with Shivers because they can ruin your career. It wasn't until I was on the streets that I began to see how much power they really have, but with the adrenaline high, my temper flared. I stepped close to the green mask and stared into the helmet's eyes. It helped that I was about an inch taller than he was.
"Did it ever occur to you that maybe I work for them and needed an extraction, asshole? "
He didn't answer but quickly ran my ID again as if he didn't believe there wasn't a "kill the pig on sight" warrant with my name on it. I slapped the side of his helmet and he snapped to meet my eyes. I was challenging him in front of his entire team and decided to go for broke. M'th'l' s'lthk't!
"Look, motherfucker. I'm on a Cloak BPN and if you do anything - anything at all that in any way impedes my progress, we'll have your nuts on a spit. Got me?" I thought the "we" was a nice touch and it seemed to have an effect.
He nodded and looked back to his display, but didn't say anything. Since you can't see their faces, you can never tell what they're thinking and I would have to push the issue to insure that I made my point clear. I grabbed the helmet lamp and pulled it forward and up. Since the helmet was held in place by a chinstrap, he went with it and came up on his toes. I was really pushing my luck, but he had it coming.
"You and your squad are at my complete disposal, so I hope you'ree caught up on your sleep. You're going to give me full forensics on the room with the markings and full photo work and documentation of everything else on this floor and the stairways. I want a complete fingerprint sweep on common surfaces and an ID check run on the John Does. I also want the transcripts of anything you get from any of the prisoners. Oh yeah, and I want it delivered to me in triplicate, understand?" I lightly jerked the helmet on each sentence and could almost imagine him trying to bite my wrist.
I jerked his helmet once straight down and heard a screech then muffled radio chatter from his onboard mike. The other Shivers stood watching us for a moment but no one intervened or spoke. I let the silence draw out without having broken my stare into his eye slits and knew I had won.
"Any questions, sergeant?"
"No sir." he said with a clipped, flat tone.
"Then we're clear. Get started and I'll be back shortly. If your squad leaves before I return or with your assignment unfinished, Cloak is going to have your ass."
I knew that I had crossed so far over the line that I couldn't see it any more, but for the moment I didn't care. K'rth and I walked out past the remaining Shivers and into the rain where I dribbled a path of pink stains on the cardboard sidewalk. For several minutes, we were silent but K'rth's disapproving look told me he had something to say.
"Was that confrontation necessary?"
"Yeah, it was. Dt'kl'dkshn need to be put in their place".
With that, he patted me on the shoulder and we made our way home in the hard rain. It had turned into a pretty good day after all and I was exhausted.
To hell with the repercussions. Cloak owned my ass anyway.
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