Chapter 9: Chapter 8: Dirty Hands

June 26h 2038, Cheektowaga NY

As I stand here looking at knocked out Jump Suit tied to a chair while standing in the basement of one of Duce’s traps, I just think about how much weirder this would be if it was just his arm I was staring at. I start chuckling softly to myself because after committing kidnapping, assault, and treason in the past 24 hours I’m focused on this man’s arm. I should get upstairs for the meeting.

Walking into the living room I try to ignore the small stacks of weed and other drugs sitting in the corner of the room and the pistols on a side table. I’ve never been in a trap before and as much as I’d like to think I’m hood or whatever this is...a lot. Onyeka doesn’t seem as bothered as she sits at the table looking bored but clearly tired with deep bags under her eyes. Terrance sits next to her staring across the table at Duce who still looks mad about me bringing dude here. I really wanna know what happened between them but this ain’t the time. Rome is leaning against the wall talking on his HUD, I assume to Flip. None of us have left the place since we brought Jump Suit in the house yesterday, and we’ve haven’t changed or showered as evidenced by the mustiness in the air.

As I sit in a chair at the head of the table, the others begin stirring, pulling themselves from whatever stray thoughts they were caught up in.

“Aight babe. Don’t worry about me though. I’ll be home hopefully later today after I finish this thing with T and Duce. Love ya.” Rome hangs up and comes off the wall and walks to the space at the opposite end of the table from me where there is no chair, he slaps both hands on the table.

“So have y’all decided who will be doing to torturing?” Rome asks straight. Trying to move things along quickly I see.

The others sharply turn their heads towards him with their eyebrows raised as if they’re surprised at someone mentioning the obvious like that.

“Don’t look at me like that y’all. I stood in front of a possible fireball to get the motherfucker. I did my part so…yea…whose gonna torture him?” Rome gives us a shrug as he waits for someone to retort.

“But like isn’t torture proven not to really work though? And I would think that’s doubly true when you’re trying to get someone to tell you where to cut off their arm at so we can get our hands on a super weapon,” Onyeka says.

“I mean yea but we gonna cut off his arm anyways so it’s not like he can avoid it if he doesn’t talk. If he refuses it’ll be out of spite unless we have something else to bargain with,” Terrance adds in.

“Like what Terrance?” Duce asks annoyingly. “I know you’re not considering letting him go after this…right?” he says.

We all look at each other to see who is actually thinking about letting him go. And of course, all eyes eventually end up on me cause yeah, I originally planned to let him go...cause why wouldn’t I.

“Yeah, I would,” I volunteer before anyone says anything while holding my hands up. I should have lied, but my brain doesn’t do that well.

“We’ll cross that bridge when we get there,” Onyeka adds in trying to get folks off my back.

“Amina, you know when we took him that was gonna be the plan, right?” Terrance asks worryingly.

“Yea ole boy gotta go. Should have let me just cut his arm and we could have left him,” Duce says almost spitefully.

“Well, she was right in that we could have cut wrong making the whole me risking taking a fireball to the face thing a waste,” Rome retorts.

They’re all right, we had to take him because of the uncertainty of the implant’s extent but I also didn’t wanna hurt dude as irrational as that is considering his job description and the current state of things. But like I said before, I’m committed and if we gotta do it...I guess I don’t have a choice.

“I’ll do it,” I pipe up silencing everyone else at the table. I brought dude here, it’s my problem to deal with.

“Wait what?!” Duce responds with confusion.

“Yea I brought him here, so I’ll do it. Hand me a knife and a gun,” I say back to him. I don’t know why I asked for the knife and gun because I don’t know what the fuck I’m doing...or how to use a gun.

“Umm yea…” Rome trails off as he slides a pocketknife and his pistol across the table to me. As they stop under my hand I look up and see Onyeka and Terrance looking at me with these faces that look almost sad.

“Don’t look at me like that. I said I was committed to this when we started and I meant it,” I snip at them. They say nothing back to me but both sighs as if they are disappointed that they don’t have a retort. Truth is nobody wants to do this, but how else do we get a magic wielding fascist agent to talk?

I stand up at the table sharply and look at everyone one more time. I kinda want someone to tell me that I don’t have to do it, but I know that’s not happening. I tie a purple bandana sitting on the table across my face and walk quickly to the basement door. As I walk down the stairs, I close the door behind me imagining that they won’t wanna hear what’s about to happen.

As I enter the basement and turn to the left around the bend of the concrete wall, I jump back at what I see.

As I turn the corner Jump Suit looks up at me with bold green eyes and scruffy brown eyebrows. He’s shaken the bag off his head somehow.

I stare back at him trying to turn off the instinctual fear I get looking at anyone in that uniform especially since I know intimately what they ca…what he has probably done to our people in the city. I can’t hesitate now. I gotta get the info we need and get this over with. Fuck him.

I avert my eyes to avoid his gaze while gripping tightly the knife in my left hand. Just do it Amina, he probably already deserves to die given all of the people they’ve already killed. I don’t think I believe that but if it’ll get me through this then that’s what I’ll tell myself. I start walking fast towards him ready to stab him in the leg when his scream stops me in my path.

“I’ll tell you everything!” He yells.

“Everything like what?” I say without thinking. I anticipated this going very differently. I stare at him confusingly after asking the question.

Jump Suit begins hyperventilating. “What you confused about!? I don’t wanna get tortured and you clearly want info from me. Fuck DHIS if we’re being honest. I just wanna get home.” His voice breaks a bit while saying all of that to me. I stare on as he drops his head.

“Fuck…ok,” I respond looking down at the knife in my hand and his leg as I stand over him. Fuck I was really about to do that shit.

I step back and squint at him from behind the bandana for a second. Let’s see what he has to say.

“Everyone come down here!” I yell up the basement stairs.

As everyone rushes down with bandanas over their faces, they all look at Jump Suit with raised eyebrows I’m assuming expecting a lot of blood or something. Terrance is the last to come as he settles himself at the bottom of the stairs behind us.

“Ok you said you’ll tell me everything. Go,” I say to Jump Suit as he looks up and scans the rest of the group. I instinctively follow his eyes and turn to them too. I catch Onyeka smiling at me like she’s telling me good job. I like that face much better than the one she gave me upstairs.

As I turn back to our captive, he lets out a deep sigh and meets my eyes.

“So, you wanna know how the weapon works right?” He asks with a lot more calm in his voice than before.

“Not the first question I wanted to ask, but ok” I answer as I cross my arms.

“The tech is called Quantum Entanglement Induction and the device on my arm is called an Entanglement Inducer.”

“How does it work?”

“To be honest I’m not 100% on all the details. The tech was pushed into service quickly. We were doing basic testing when your people committed that terrorist attack and we were pushed into service.” He glares at me with resentment on his face.

“First of all, we didn’t do that shit!” Onyeka snaps at him.

“Sis, chill dude. He doesn’t need to know nothing about us.” Terrance quietly says from behind us.

As Onyeka scoffs and settles I try to get us back on track.

“So, from what I can see there is no control mechanism except for a few buttons on the top of that oval part on your arm. Since it’s an implant I assume you somehow control the device with your mind, right?” I lean in expecting him to say no because it can’t be true. People making fireballs with their mind.

“Yup.” He says flatly. Everyone looks at each other in disbelief even though most of us have seen DHIS officers use this tech on multiple occasions. Not to mention we all have HUD tech behind our ears which is a mainstream technology. I guess we should have expected someone to directly weaponize it in something beyond just military HUDs.

“So how does it work?”

“The oval is a fuel chamber and the thing that generates what I think they called an entanglement field. We use diamonds as fuel. It lasts for a few minutes at a time and while it’s active I can feel the heat energy around me and manipulate it with my mind. There is a range outside of which I can’t affect anything. It’s hard as hell to control and if you aren’t trained, you’ll more likely kill yourself than someone else.” He says that last line as if he knows this from experience not an instruction booklet.

“Wow…that’s a lot.” I stop for a minute to just take in everything. This technology shouldn’t exist at all. We shouldn’t have it any more than the government but here we are. Now I just need to know how to take it off ole boy. Hope he gives me a way that doesn’t involve limb chopping.

“How do I take it off you? I ask.

“Well as you can see it’s surgically installed but you can detach the main device from the implanted plate and wires. The rest of it, I think, runs all the way up to my brain. So, you’ll never be able to actually use it as is.”

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“So, this was still a waste of our time. Might as well kill him now then,” Duce says matter of factly and begins walking towards dude while drawing his pistol.

Everyone else starts yelling with Rome and Onyeka grabbing his arms. Jump Suit jumps at the sight of the gun and starts hyperventilating again. He looks like he’s trying to stamper out something.

“Hey! Hey y’all! Calm the fuck down and put the gun away!” I scream. Everyone stops for a second as I walk closer to Jump Suit and bend down, so my face is level with his.

“What did you wanna say,” I whisper to him as I feel his labored breath hitting my face.

“I…I know a way you can use it without the implant interface,” he barely says as he looks at us with anticipation.

“Well tell us before we let dude pew pew,” Terrance replies from the back quietly.

“Ok, ok. So, you can just wire it into your HUDs. It’s what we did before they figured out that they needed to hardwire it for adequate control. I didn’t say anything before because we lost a guy who couldn’t keep focus using the old system and set himself on fire.” He looks down again after saying this.

“Well shit,” Duce says. He has a look that is almost apologetic.

“Thank you for sharing,” I say not really knowing what else to ask about after that. I’m kind of trying to avoid the part where we have to talk about killing the guy again. I silently unclip the two sides of the plate that the device is sitting on, detach the wire from the back and lift the black device up. It’s lighter than I imagined but then again, we just learned most of the volume is a fuel chamber.

“Anything else you wanna know?” Jump Suit asks eagerly as he looks up at me holding the device.

“Yep” Onyeka says as she steps forward. “You make it sound like a small group of you were testing the device before you were deployed here. Who was the Coota from your unit that attacked the police at the waterfront?”

Jump Suit starts to look confused. “What Blac- err Coota do you mean?” he says.

“What you mean ‘what Coota’!? I mean the asshole obviously from your unit who killed dozens of cops with an earthquake and let all the rest of us take the blame for it! If y’all and that person hadn’t pulled that shit we wouldn’t be here right now.” Onyeka shouts this with the same deep-seated anger I’ve been carrying since this whole thing started.

“There are no Black people in our unit,” he says back fearfully. “Everyone is White in our unit. We were briefed that a rival nation developed a similar piece of tech and gave it to one of you to use against the government. We were sent here to hunt that person down.”

That…doesn’t make sense. I distinctly remember seeing a device that looked just like the one that’s in my hand right now.

“The guy at the waterfront had y’all same tech. The white flash when activated and everything. Why are you lying to us?” I say to him angrily.

“I swear I’m not lying!” he yells.

“Well, if that person definitely had the same device but weren’t in your unit then who the fuck was that?” Onyeka says as she turns to us for answers that none of us have.

“Did you hear anything about someone stealing the tech before the attack happened?” Rome asks.

“No…I don’t think I heard about any of the prototypes going missing,” Jump Suit replies.

“Well shit. This ain’t good. Someone’s out there causing earthquakes and we have no idea who they are. Could the government be right though?” I sigh trying to compose myself because this is entirely too much.

“Ok y’all we have enough info for now. Let’s go upstairs and regroup,” Terrance says as he lifts himself up off the stairs.

“Wait, why you get to pull the plug?” Duce asks with a mildly disgusted face.

“Because I’m right. We all tired as fuck, and we need a break. Also, we really do have some decisions to make.” Terrance replies without looking at Duce.

The rest of us start to funnel upstairs with Duce turning back to Jump Suit and brandishing the gun one more time just to be a dick.

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Sitting back at the table we all silently stare at each other. I don’t think anyone knows what to do with either the device, the info on our rouge magic user, or whether we should kill the cop or not.

Terrance breaks the silence.

“I know there’s some spare AR cables around here somewhere. Who’s going to be the first to test the device?”

“Not me,” Duce immediately replies.

“I thought you was the one who was all gun ho about getting their hands on this shit. Like enough to threaten to kill all of us the first time we met,” Onyeka chimes in with a side eye.

“Listen I know when to not do reckless shit. You heard what he said. The last dude set himself on fire. Nope. I’m good.” Duce shakes his head and leans back in his seat a bit.

“Well, I probably shouldn’t since I got other implants this might fuck with,” Terrance replies.

“Rome, Onyeka?” I ask. I certainly not trying to mess with that thing.

“It doesn’t matter,” Rome replies while leaning against the same wall as before arms crossed. “Remember him saying that it uses diamonds as fuel? Does anyone have I assume high quality diamonds around here?” Rome looks around with his hands out.

“Nope,” I say defeated. I have an idea though. “Wait! Does it have to be diamonds? I assume it’s using diamonds because they are carbon since they don’t survive the process. Maybe charcoal or other carbon-based materials might work too.”

“Maybe,” Rome replies with an intrigued shrug.

“Anyways we can figure that out later. What we gonna do with ole boy?” Duce interjects.

We all look around at each other. I remember our discussion about torture earlier and how that went.

“Y’all sure we’re ready to do that?” Rome asks.

“Longer he’s alive, more of a liability he is to all of us,” Duce retorts.

“He gotta point thought, what if he has a secret track--” Onyeka’s voice fades to the background as I begin zoning out. I feel detached from myself and this situation. I’m so tired.

I decide to turn on my HUD and see what’s going on since I don’t think any of us have checked it since we got back. As the HUD boots, the familiar logos and notifications pop up as it connects back to the internet. Just as I’m about to hit a notification, a public safety alert opens itself…a DHIS one.

As the alert loads, I assume it’s going to be them talking about their missing cop, but nothing shows up. Instead, I see red in the periphery of my eye. No….

I look down and the entire floor of the house is zone alert red…but there’s no warning meaning…

It’s a raid!

“Y’all there’s a zone warning on the house!” I scream as I jump up from my seat knocking my chair down. The others jump up immediately with the same scared as shit faces. I look forward through the living room to the front windows hoping the cops are going after someone…anyone else—as fucked up as that is. Instead, all I see is red. Not zone warning red this time, but fireball red.

Just as I realize what’s happening the entire living room explodes in noise and flame with the same deafening noise as the earthquake that started all of this. I get thrown back and hit the side table that had all the guns on it. As I fall to the floor in pain and with glass, wood, and everything else still flying I look down. I see one of the pistols that used to be on the table now next to my hand along with the Entanglement Inducer.

I instinctually grab for the Inducer.

“Fuck me,” I mutter to myself.

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