Mirabelle removes Sam’s Global Locator … surgically.
Mirabelle took a small business-like pistol from her brassiere and laid it on the table before me.
“We citizens still find a few black market weapons when we need them.”
Her expression was thoughtful.
“I think we had better remove that sensor on your body.”
“What are you talking about?” I asked her. “What sensor?”
Matters were becoming less clear with every moment.
“You should know what I’m talking about, Sam. It’s common knowledge that all security men have a transmitter receiver implanted under their skin. That’s how their superiors always know where they are at all times. Its range is limited and they may not have found you yet … at least I hope they haven’t or they would be breaking down my door by now.”
“Take off your shirt.”
I did it without protest. Candel’s memories told me she was correct. I was still puzzled, swept along by events.
“Any lumps anywhere that don’t seem normal, Sam?”
I thought about her question and Sam Candel’s memory supplied the answer.
“Yes. On my upper back. Near the left shoulder.”
I felt her hands touching my skin and it was quite a pleasant feeling. I heard her sigh of discovery.
“Ahhh. Here it is.”
She went into the bathroom and returned a minute later with a spray device, a scalpel and some bandages. I felt coldness on my skin and then she was cutting into my back. The spray had deadened the nerves and I felt no pain. When the tiny electronic bug popped into her hand a few minutes later she gave a grunt of satisfaction and taped a bandage on the cut.
“There. That will stop the bleeding. You will mend quickly.”
She showed it to me … a small silver capsule.
“Here’s the bugger. Now, at least, they can’t track you from this any longer. Still, we can’t count on that. I may not have got it out in time.”
She placed the tiny transmitter on the kitchen counter, took out a mallet from a drawer and brought it down on the capsule smashing it into bits. Then she wrapped the shattered remains in a napkin.
“Let’s go.”
“Where?”
“No questions. Just come. I’ll explain everything later.”
She looked around the room making sure that she was not leaving anything behind suspicious. Then she put her operating tools back where she had found them and placed the napkin with its broken capsule carefully in her purse.
“We don’t want to leave anything behind. When they come to search my apartment, I don’t want to give away any information that will help the Secmen track you … or me. They will come, probably, within the next hour or two. I was the last person with whom you were seen.”
“Can they do that, come in to your apartment without a search warrant?”
“Search warrant?” she sneered. “What’s that? Since the 2025 Constitutional revisions there are no more search warrants. The Fourth Amendment is ancient history.”
She shook her head impatiently.
“Save the questions for later. We better move. Let’s go … out the back way.”
I followed her through dirty alleys, along empty streets and past darkened buildings that reflected the misery and hopelessness of its people. We walked fast for several blocks until we reached a three-story building that stood alone in a junk infested vacant lot. I don’t think we passed a single person. This was a bleak world. In the front of the boarded entrance to the two-story structure there was a faded 10-foot metal sign.
Condemned Building
Do Not Enter
The windows were broken and some of the bricks had fallen from the upper second story. It was ready to collapse and it should have been demolished. The two of us stepped gingerly over broken glass and litter through the weed-grown lot to the back of the building. A small wooden storage shed stood in the center of overgrowth and tangled grass. Without a moment’s hesitation Mirabelle went to the side of the shed and pushed aside a loose-fitting board and I followed her in. The shed was empty and dusty. The only furniture on the dust-covered floor was a tattered sofa sitting in the corner.
“Help me with this,” she said, lifting a corner of the sofa.
Together, we pulled it away from the wall. Beneath where the couch had been there was a small square trapdoor cut neatly into the floor. She lifted the door, climbed down a short wooden ladder and disappeared in the darkness.
From somewhere down below she called up, “Make sure you pull the sofa back into place before you come down.”
I closed the trapdoor and followed her into the blackness. When I reached the bottom to feel the wall she turned on a small flashlight. We stood close together in a tunnel that had been hacked out of the earth. The ceiling was low and I had to crouch to keep from hitting my head. Beams at the side, every foot or so, and crossbeams on the ceiling kept the tunnel from collapsing. The far end of the excavation disappeared into inky blackness.
I heard her muffled voice call.
“Follow me,” she ordered.
Next episode: Sam meets the Underground.
Gene Paleno is an author and illustrator living in Witter Springs.
