Boss King and the Blade

Wednesday

Metro Line, between Pan City and Spitfield Central Station

Trixie

“Please have your Idents ready for inspection” the train AI called out over the intercom. “All citizens must present a valid travel pass for leaving Pan City”

Abbie shot a nervous glance at Trixie, seated against the windows. Beyond them was the darkened tunnel, only a slowing line of passing lights visible as the train decelerated to a stop at the Border Station.

“Trixie, I only have my regular Ident” Abbie whispered to her. “I was never meant to be in Pan City, or under it” she amended. “Will they arrest me?”

Trixie laid a comforting hand on the young woman’s shoulder and smiled with her perfect white teeth.

“By yourself, you would have to give a good reason for being on this train without a pass” Trixie confirmed. “If the Police Auxiliary officers are in a bad mood, there is an excellent chance you would be taken in for questioning”

The train burst into a well lit underground station, a dozen blue uniformed Guards and Police Auxiliaries waiting to board the vehicle. They did not look particularly alarmed or had their weapons ready, meaning this was just a random stop. Most of the time, it was only trains going into Pan City that were stopped and searched at the Border Station.

“Just another lucky day for me” Trixie muttered under her breath. She saw their carriage had a middle aged Police Auxiliary come aboard, shadowed by a Jack in light armour with an Assault Rifle cradled in his arms. As the pair moved slowly along the carriage checking Idents from the other passengers, Trixie leaned across and whispered in Abbie’s ear. “Let me do all the talking, Okay?”

“Uh, sure” Abbie replied, her eyes big as saucers as the blue uniformed pair moved closer. The woman made herself as small and inconspicuous as possible, hiding in the shadow of Trixie’s big frame.

“Please present your Idents, citizens” the male Officer asked in a bored tone, yet Trixie could see he had registered the guilty shuffling of her companion. Still, her obvious nervousness would play into Trixie’s bluff.

“I am Special Executive Agent Trixie Smith” she declared boldly, showing the relevant Ident on her phone screen to the Officer. “I am taking this citizen to Headquarters to assist in an investigation” She indicated the bowed figure of Abbie with a contemptuous nod of her head, daring the Officer to question her further.

“I’ll need to see her Ident as well” the Officer bravely insisted, despite the stinkeye Trixie was giving him. At this back, the Guard Unit had raised his rifle to the ready position, Enhanced eye and organic one regarding Trixie and Abbie with calm alertness.

“As a member of S.E.A. I outrank you, Officer” Trixie stated with a cold warning in her tone. “Are you under orders to detain me or my companion?” She glared at him with the full menace that only a superior officer can give to an underling.

He visibly flinched and stood to attention, telling the Jack to do the same. The Officer snapped off a parade ground salute and asked her to excuse his poor behaviour.

“You are excused, Officer” she replied and gave a perfectly executed salute in return. The poor man relaxed a little and gestured to Abbie.

“Do you need assistance in taking the suspect to Headquarters, Agent Smith?” he asked, eager to regain some favour. “Unit N-Ten and I will be happy to escort you there”

“No thank you” Trixie said after a small pause. “She is not a threat and she won’t run. You may continue checking the other passengers now, so the train doesn’t arrive late at Spitfield”

“Oh, of course” the Officer answered and they hustled away, quickly checking that the remaining commuters all had the necessary documents. Once they departed the carriage, the train began moving again.

On the platform, they could see a young couple from another carriage being escorted away by a pair of Jacks and two human Officers. The couple looked terrified and Trixie wondered what would become of them.

“Are you really an Agent of the Special Executive?” Abbie asked her quietly, still sitting huddled on the seat beside her. Trixie looked at the young woman and understood her fear. The S.E.A. had the reputation of being a kind of Secret Police, doing the dirty work of the Governors and Archimedes without fear of recrimination.

“Some days I am” Trixie admitted with a soft smile. “Other days I am a member of the Guard, or a Private Detective. I even have an Ident which shows I am a fully qualified Dancing Instructor. Would you like me to teach you how to do the Foxtrot?”

Abbie laughed at last and looked up at Trixie’s mismatched eyes.

“What are you really then?” she asked her. “Without all the disguises and fake Idents, who are you underneath all of it?”

“What am I? Who am I?” Trixie pondered aloud. “Those are very good questions, Abbie. One day I hope I can work it out”

“I reckon you will, Trixie” she assured her. “You seem like the kind of person who never gives up”

“Thanks, Abbie. I appreciate your confidence in me”

They continued on in comfortable silence, the train eventually rising up on its tracks into the late afternoon sunshine when it left the walls of Pan City behind. Lush trees and undergrowth flashed by beneath the raised tracks, soon replaced by the cheap housing of Haven that lay nestled up against the towering walls of the bigger city.

“This is where I used to live” Abbie told Trixie. “You can’t see my step-dad’s house from here, but we used to feel the vibrations from the passing trains all the time. I reckon I used to dream about the trains in my sleep”

The train slowed and stopped at the elevated station for Haven, many of the passengers disembarking and only a couple getting aboard.

“Did you want to get off here?” Trixie asked.

“Hell no” Abbie assured her firmly. “There is nobody I want to see down there. I’m coming with you, if that is still Okay?”

“Absolutely” Trixie replied. “I am glad for the company”

The doors closed and the train accelerated smoothly away, racing them towards the end of the line at Spitfield. Trixie smiled all the way there.

=====

Trixie’s Apartment, Central District

The walk from the station had been brisk, Trixie setting a demanding pace with her longer legs and untiring clone body. Abbie had to almost run at times to keep up, until finally Trixie had relented and slowed to a more sedate pace.

“Are you always in such a rush?” Abbie had demanded breathlessly. “It’s too hot to be going so fast anyway”

“Sorry Abbie” Trixie apologised. “I am not used to walking around with another person so I just go at whatever pace I want”

Abbie had regarded her from under her auburn brows, thinking hard.

“What about when you served in the Guard?” she asked. “Don’t they always patrol in pairs or with Police Auxiliaries? They never run around like you do”

“Actually, I never did any street patrols when I was Deployed” Trixie responded evenly. “I am optimised for Sniper duties, with most of my training based in native terrain. I didn’t spend much time at all in cities until after I was Retired”

“Really?” gushed Abbie. “What’s it like out in the bush? I’ve never been more than five klicks from Haven in my whole life”

Trixie had paused in the shade of a towering residential tower, the late afternoon sun still warming the concrete streets. Pedestrians passed the pair of them, only a few casting glances at her tall profile as she gazed into the past.

“It’s rugged and unforgiving out there” she said. “Parts of it are dry and dusty, yet you can find valleys filled with flowing rivers and tropical plants and trees. There are birds everywhere, and insects trying to crawl into your eyes and mouth if you stand still too long. Big animals too, native stuff like kangaroos and wallabies, plus sheep and cattle running wild from the abandoned farms”

“Sounds terrifying” Abbie ventured. “Probably lots of snakes and spiders too, I bet. We got plenty of those in Haven, living off all the rats and flies!”

“Yes, it can be terrifying out in the bush” Trixie agreed. “But if you know what to look out for and what is safe to catch and eat, it can be a paradise. The Guard trainers for wilderness survival were nearly all local Aborigines, people who had learned to survive here thousands of years ago”

“Wow! I’ve only met a few of the local people in Haven. There doesn’t seem to be many of them living in the Zone”

“No, there isn’t” Trixie replied. “When the Zone was established, the local tribes didn’t want to be ruled by the Board of Governors. They said they didn’t trust Archimedes either, so most of them moved south over the border into Australia”

“Yeah, I get that” Abbie said. “I guess that feeling still exists, doesn’t it?” Abbie was looking across the street at the side of a building. A giant billboard was there, an old style one with a printed advertisement plastered onto it rather than the electronic ones they used in Pan City.

It was a promotional advertisement for the Police Auxiliary, encouraging young men and women to join their ranks. In the forefront were a handsome man and woman, dressed in the standard blue uniforms. Behind them in support were a Jack and Jill of the Guard, their beautiful faces smiling in a way no clone in service ever had.

The tag line for the recruitment poster declared boldly: “Guiding all of us to a safer tomorrow”

Some graffiti artist had added their own spray painted addition to the message: “Whether we want it or not”

“Did you like being a Guard, Trixie?” Abbie asked her.

“I didn’t have a choice, Abbie. I was created to be a Guard and follow the orders I was given”

“I see” the young woman said softly. “So how about now? Do you like being a special agent?”

“No, I don’t” Trixie replied honestly. “But I get to make my own choices now”

“Cool!” Abbie said brightly. “Anyway, I’ve got my breath back now so we can head to your apartment building”

Trixie smiled and jerked her chin at the tower behind them.

“We’re here. Come on up and I’ll introduce you to my flatmate”

=====

“Sirius!” Trixie called out when she opened the apartment door. “Get some clothes on, we have a guest”

Trixie led Abbie down the narrow corridor, past the tiny lounge room and into the equally cramped kitchen and dining space. Her housemate was lying lanquidly on the small table tucked into a corner, his eyes opening partly to observe his owner and the guest.

“Sirius is a cat!” Abbie gushed in surprise. She moved eagerly to the dining table, reaching out a tentative hand to stroke the sleepy feline.

“Yes, a very grumpy one” Trixie warned her. “Be careful, he likes to bite fingers”

Abbie held her hand out, palm up, in front of Sirius. He sniffed her speculatively, then rolled onto his side and yawned while stretching out, showing his razor sharp teeth. Abbie patted his forehead gently, then ran her hand along his sides, ruffling the mottled grey fur to show the paler tones beneath.

Sirius meowed in appreciation and Abbie grinned in delight. Trixie went and leaned against the refrigerator, stunned that her guest hadn’t been disembowelled or even nibbled by the easily aggravated feline.

“Why did you name your cat after the Dog Star?” Abbie asked, now scratching Sirius under the chin.

“I liked the name” Trixie admitted. “And I didn’t think he would know where it came from”

“You are a very strange person, Trixie Smith” Abbie chuckled. She drew out a chair and sat beside the table, stroking Sirius with obvious affection.

“Thanks, Abbie” Trixie answered.

“Huh? For calling you strange?”

“No” Trixie replied with a chuckle of her own. “For calling me a person”

=====

They ate a dinner of microwaved noodles and vegetables, flavoured with chunks of textured protein that claimed to be “as good as real chicken”. It added a certain chewiness to the meal although Abbie was not convinced the makers of the frozen dinners had ever actually seen real chicken, let alone eaten some.

Trixie and Abbie sat at her kitchen table, facing each other, with Sirius moved onto the floor. He had not given up the table willingly, yet even a cat had to yield to the speed and strength of Trixie’s hands.

As consolation, Abbie tried to give Sirius a piece of the bogus chicken, but he sniffed it once in disdain and left with his tail in the air. Trixie had to stifle a laugh at the disappointed expression on her new friend’s face, assuring her he was like that with most of the food he was presented with. As far as Trixie could tell, it was just a cat thing.

After they finished eating, Trixie showed Abbie where the recycler chute was for the containers. The cutlery and drinking cups got hand-washed in the small sink, even though the kitchen boasted a fully automated dishwasher.

“I never use it” she explained to the young woman. “It would take me a week to fill it enough to make it worthwhile to turn on. With just Sirius and I living here, it would be wasteful. Anyway, I only have two sets of cutlery and plates so I’d run out of eating utensils!”

Abbie watched her from the kitchen table, hands folded under her chin as she leaned on the chair back.

“Two sets, hey?” she asked Trixie. “So you do have visitors sometimes!”

Trixie finished drying her hands, then turned and placed her back against the counter top.

“You’re the first person I’ve ever brought here, Abbie” she said quietly. “I tried to invite my boss here, but he’s always too busy running around the city”

Abbie regarded her solemnly. She looked about to say something, so Trixie jumped in ahead of her.

“It’s fine, Abbie” she assured her. “I live a busy life, so I spend a lot of time out in the city myself. Actually, if you would be willing to stay here for a few days, I would really appreciate it. Sirius gets lonely when I am working, so if you could keep him company it would help me out”

“Sure, I’d love to stay here” Abbie replied. “I reckon Sirius and I could become really good friends”

“He would like that” she said. “He needs more friends”

“Yeah, I think he does” Abbie agreed, meeting Trixie’s eyes with a crooked smile.