The Man From God Only Knows

He shook his head as he watched them. "Blasphemers!" he bellowed, then he picked up Tarkusson's file and flipped through it once again: the boy had seemed most promising during his interviews but over the past year his faith had waned, his judgment had matured too quickly for the indoctrinations to take hold. The boy's father had been a teacher, a professor of philosophy, before disappearing when the lad was just six, but even that brief exposure to the virus of reason had been enough to pollute the poor boy's soul. Still, he had tested well; the psych-profile had raised no serious issues. Most accepted their training without reservation; somehow young Greggor had slipped their clutching fingers and now he was drifting from their reach.

Pity, he thought, the boy would end up this way. A pawn in a much greater game.

The dilemma Bergtorson faced was simple: while he had known for some time something like this would eventually take shape, should he simply watch as events unfolded, allow The Commandant's plan to be carried out unfettered, or should he take this as a serious threat to his authority and intervene now? Save the boy, or sacrifice him? The implications...

"What!" Bergtorson sat up in his chair, looked at the written transcript of the women's conversation as it flowed onto an adjacent screen.

"I see you have chosen," The Commandant said. "It is a nice ring."

"I am getting old. I can put it off no longer."

"Why Krul-son? DNA?"

"Yes. We will make good children, and he seems interested in me. He will mate enthusiastically."

"I dare say; perhaps too enthusiastically! Perhaps he will want to remain as the child's father? Have you chosen yet?"

"Yes. I have chosen Bergtorson."

The Commandant smiled.

"Ah. Yes, that would neutralize him completely, wouldn't it? He would not be allowed to testify against you."

"Yes..."

Tribonian Bergtorson sat back in awe and laughed for a very long time, then reached for the encrypted telephone on another desktop monitor. His fingers danced across the screen as he dialed a classified seven digit number on the computer and waited for the connection to be made.

He did not wait long.

"Yes?" a voice far-away answered.

"It is Bergtorson."

"Yes, Tribonian. We have seen it."

"Any projections yet?"

"Yes, Tribonian."

"Recommendation?"

"Implementing as planned, Tribonian."

"Very well." Bergtorson closed the connection and sat back in his chair, then steepled his fingers just under his chin while he quietly regarded The Commandant and August-dottir. He watched for quite some time, lost in their passion, and he quietly reflected on his own youth, his own stirrings long ago, before government surgeons had removed them so efficiently. He remembered Tarkusson's file and flipped through it to the boy's photograph.

"A pity," he said quietly as he shut the file.

+++++

Thorsten Weblenson sat behind a white duraplast desk in the squad briefing-room reading through yesterday's incident reports. As usual, all offenses had happened during hours of maximum darkness; it had simply been too hot for sustained human activity during daylight hours for over a year. Evening temperatures rarely fell into the 90s, and daytime highs for the three "summer" months had averaged f/142 degrees. Now, in mid-December, daytime temperatures hovered in the high-120s.

The greatest problem facing the region now was, oddly enough, water temperature. Currents off the coast were warming much faster than modeled and operating efficiencies at the regions desalinization plants were falling dramatically as a result. Pipelines from the plants to regional distribution centers were being hacked into, people were stealing water and damaging infrastructure. Weblenson's precinct was now in charge of interdiction efforts; over three hundred liters had been lost in the past week, and over ten meters of pipeline would need repair.

"Oh, great!" Weblenson moaned when he read he had four rookies from the Institute scheduled for ride-alongs this weekend. Then he got to the part where Sinn-Justinian asked that he take Cadet Tarkusson in tow the next two weekends. "Shit! Just what I need!" He was, he read further, free to assign two as he saw fit, but Cadet Krul-son would be riding with the Justinian. He whistled when he read that.

"Hey Sarge, wassup?" a patrolman asked as he walked in and took his seat at one of the briefing tables.

Weblenson looked over the man's sparkling uniform and nodded before speaking. "Rookies again tonight. Tomorrow, too."

"Fuck."

"Want one?"

"Fuck, uh, no."

"You know, Zimmerson, we need to work on your speaking skills."

"Fuckin'-A."

Weblenson shook his head and groaned, examined the uniform of each officer as they filed into the room while he continued to flip through the previous watch commander's notes. He called roll at 1720 hours, then asked for volunteers to handle the two unassigned cadets: Deirdre Gravvis-dottir took Pol Dienison and Avi-Shmoll Peres-son put his hand up to take Aerrik Aerriksonn. That settled, he called the dispatch room and had the rookies sent-in for the rest of the briefing.

What really gave them away as rookies, Weblenson thought as they entered, were the pristine attaché cases; old-timer's cases were scuffed and dinged, corners had long ago been worn smooth by years of neglect. Some were adorned with stickers and cartoon characters, others were clean and orderly; all had been beaten down by exigent time and high speed chases. The rookie's cases, in sharp contrast, gleamed.

"Dienison! You're in C-79 with Gravvis," Weblenson called out as the cadets took a seat. "Aerriksonn! In C-82 with Avi. Greggor! You're riding with me tonight," and when he consciously omitted calling out Krul-son's assigned partner a few of the old, old timer's faces bunched-up, their eyes narrowed to razor-thin slits. Something, they knew, was amiss...

Weblenson read out the offenses that had occurred the night before – a handful of burglaries, two water mains tapped, the usual crap – before handing out the night's patrol patterns and call signs...

"Can any of you slimeball rookies tell me why we shift them?"

Greggor Tarkusson's hand shot up.

"Go ahead, rook."

"Frequencies are monitored, patrol patterns are analyzed and exploited."

"And who are you, rook?"

"Tarkusson, Greggor, sir."

"Okay, relax Greggor. Good answer. You feel up to keeping the shift log tonight?"

"Yes, sir!"

Weblenson laughed: "Rook, you need to chill."

"Sir!"

The old sergeant shook his head while he passed out SD cards with updated codes that would be fed into each officer's patrol computer; these would in turn be fed into patrol car computers and each officer's helmet-radio.

Sinn August-dottir walked into the room; Weblenson ignored the instant hush that fell over the room and kept on passing out the cards, and he barely made eye-contact with her while she passed on her way to Krul-son.

"Alright, maggots!" the shift commander bellowed, "Let's hit it and keep it clean!"

Chairs scraped back, sixty black-uniformed officers and four grey-suited cadets stood and walked from the room.

He watched Sinn August-dottir closely as she walked by, rather the way a woodsman might keep an eye on a rattlesnake sliding by just out of striking distance; she looked his way just once and they made eye contact. She held him there for a moment, paused, then smiled and walked from the room.

A cold hand ran down Weblenson's spine; he tried to shake off the feeling off but dark forces lingered in the air.

+++++

She had one of the new patrol cars; the thing ran on pressurized hydrogen and was rumored to be very fast indeed – speeds of thirty five kph on the ground and almost twice that in the air had been reported and Krul-son didn't doubt that for a moment as he took in the car's stealthy black lines. Of course that was nothing compared to the hydro-carbon fueled vehicles of the First Republic, but those vehicles lived now only in museums and prohibited holos.

"Do you want to drive tonight?" Sinn August-dottir said.

Aurie tried to keep his excitement under control. "May I?"

She tossed him the keys and he dropped in behind the stick. "You're flight qualified now, aren't you?" she asked as she settled-in behind him.

"Yes, Justinian. I passed the exam three weeks ago."

"Very well. Let's head to Westside."

"Surface streets, Justinian?"

"For now."

His arm on the center console, he pushed forward on the stick; the patrol car accelerated smoothly away from the station while Sinn slid the SD card into the computer and checked into service. He could see the Westside Dome far away across the valley, the ocean glittering behind it. The sun was still out, the car's canopy and windows deeply polarized to protect them; no one stirred on the blistering streets.

Yet.

But that would change in about an hour.

+++++

A dark room. Hundreds of large glass tables, the surface of each alive with images and data flowing in a non-stop stream of information. Behind each table, a man, each identical to the next, each dressed in black fatigues, metal sensors grafted to the sides of their bald heads.

They no longer consider themselves strictly human; they hold themselves apart from the rest of humanity as if their origin and purpose is a closely held secret – which of course it is. No one outside the room knows when or where or how these men were created, and no one dares ask. No one outside the facility completely understands what it is these men do, or why.

They have no names, precious little identity, yet for all intents and purposes they are human. Even if just barely so. They understand human emotion as well as the data that streams into their minds, yet they have no practical experience with other humans.

Few have ever left this facility; those that have never return. Those so lost are almost instantly replaced by another nearly identical man.

The men monitor all human communication, all the time. Screens filled with data highlight suspicious or otherwise noteworthy activity, but the men are engaged at all times sifting through data for patterns that might reveal a beginning, and an end.

They are known by the rest of humanity as The Blackwatch.

One is intently watching the video feed inside a police car, listening to the conversation between a young man and an older woman. His grey eyes dance across the screen looking for other relevant information, his brain processing information a million times faster than the most powerful computers of the First Republic. His brain discards irrelevant information as quickly as new information appears. When something particularly noteworthy registers his eyes blink, but he is unaware of this and would not understand what it meant even had he been aware.

He pulls up another screen by the first and monitors the data stream from another police car, then video surveillance cameras appear on the screen from around the area where these two units are patrolling. Images of a broken city begin flashing across the screen until a scene with three well-armed men fills a small sub-screen. He focuses on this image and it enlarges instantly. He compares the faces in the image he watches to known criminals and identifies them within seconds. With barely a conscious thought this information appears in a screen displayed on Tribonian Bergtorson's desk – or one of the other Tribonia elsewhere in the republic.

A new set of images flashes of the Watcher's screen; the men are inserting clips into automatic weapons common in the First Republic; these weapons have been illegal for decades but somehow there are still thousands in private hands. The Watcher senses danger; he displays a map of the city on a large screen on a far wall and overlays the armed men and all police cars in the area. Other watchers lift their eyes and look at the central display for a moment; several blink and return to their tabletop screens. Data streams into the room at a furious pace now, eyes dart from image to image, from page to page, at surreal speeds.

Many of the Watchers are smiling now, though they know not why.

End Part I