BlackWatch

More odd still, these men had no practical memory of dealing with other humans. Their understanding of -- and reaction to -- the interplay of complex human emotion was entirely a heuristic construct. As if they had been cut off from their humanity, their memory, their past.

The men in this room, one of seven such rooms hidden around the planet, monitored all human communication, all the time. Sensors located literally everywhere vacuumed data from the remaining people on earth, and generic computers pre-filtered the data-stream, sending only the most questionable content to them. Their minds were constantly filled with incoming data, and they evaluated the information stream, mapped responses and contemplated contingencies. Data highlighted as suspicious or threatening was instantly seen by a team of senior tacticians, yet even so, all the men were engaged, always, sifting through data for patterns that might reveal a beginning. One certain type of beginning.

These collectives were known, by the few who knew of their existence, as The BlackWatch. Few were known to have left these facilities, yet those few who did never returned. Those so lost are almost instantly replaced by another nearly identical man, yet there was no singular or collective sense of loss when this happened, indeed, there was no awareness at all.

One was intently watching the video feed from inside a police car, listening to the conversation between a young man and an older woman. His grey eyes danced through the data, 'looking' for relevant information, his brain processing information a trillion times faster than the most powerful supercomputers of the First Republic, and his brain discarded irrelevant information as quickly as new information appeared. When something particularly noteworthy registered his eyes tended to blink rapidly, but he is unaware of this activity and would not have understood what it meant even had he been aware.

He pulled in another stream and began sifting through new data from a nearby police car, then he tapped into surveillance cameras all over the area these two units were patrolling. Images of a broken city began flashing across the screen until a scene with three well-armed men filled a small sub-screen. He focused on this image and for a moment it enlarged instantly -- and all his sensors began picking the images apart. He began by comparing the faces in the image with images of known criminals and and operatives and he identified each within milliseconds. With barely a conscious thought, within seconds this information appeared in a sub-screen on Tribonian Bergtor-son's desk -- and then on the displays of every other Tribonia in the republic.

A new set of images flashed of this Watcher's screen -- he picked up new feeds of the men, the cameras he tapped into closer to the action now, and he noted they were inserting ammunition into automatic weapons common in the First Republic; those weapons had been illegal for more than a hundred years, yet somehow there are still thousands in private hands. The Watcher sensed imminent danger and he displayed a map of the city on a large screen for all to see, then he overlaid the armed men and all police cars in the area. Other watchers stopped what they were doing and paused their own streams and looked at the central display for a moment; several blinked rapidly and returned to their streams. New data streamed into and out of the room at a furious pace now, eyes darting from image to image, from page to page, at surreal speeds.

Many of the Watchers were smiling now, as new information poured out into the hive, though they did not understand why.

Just then one of the Watcher's streams arced away into the night sky, to the stars in fact, yet this Watcher's face remained as impassive as any other's.

Because, for the very first time in any Watcher's existence, he felt fear, his own fear, perhaps -- and for a time, perhaps a second, maybe less -- he simply did not understand what real fear meant.

+++++

Deirdre Gravvis-dottir and Pol Dänae-son drove through vacant streets in the city's westside, their eyes fixed on lengthening shadows left by the setting sun. People would be coming out of the shadows now, leaving their underground shelters and coming out as temperatures fell, the sun no longer considered a lethal predator. The outside temperature was still in the one-twenties, though it would probably fall close to f/110 by midnight, yet already some of the more desperate souls were gathering to begin foraging for food and water. The early worm gets the bird, or so the saying on the street went.

A heavily armed man ran across the street a hundred yards ahead and disappeared in shadow behind an old telecomm building.

People did not run in this heat unless they really had to.

"Son of a bitch!" Gravvis-dottir yelled. "Did you see the size of that gun?"

"Yah!" Pol squirmed in his seat, suddenly feeling very exposed out here on the street. The air cars were only lightly armored, not designed to withstand assault by First Republic-style M60s. "Shouldn't we call for back-up?"

Gravvis-dottir stopped the car, scanned her display.

"Something's not right," she sighed.

Pol looked down the street but some part of his mind was screaming 'danger' as he looked to his left -- he saw movement in the dissolving shadows, movement, coming his way.

"Oh shit," he said.

+++++

The Watcher looked down into his glass desktop; permutations of probable outcomes flashed across one screen while an overhead image of the street filled another. He focused on the men in the shadows, analyzed the image to determine the make and caliber weapon each possessed and began sorting records to determine who's men were moving first, if their actions and motives were a part of this plan.

And that was important. Were they simply criminals? If so he would move on. But if not...

Could it be?

He sent the large infra-red image to The Wall, and several other Watchers were now focused on there, centered on the air car stopped in the middle of Westwood Boulevard; red cross-hairs flashed where armed men were hidden, police were indicated as solid blue stars. Several 'reds' were ahead of the police car, but many more were converging in shadows from the rear and along both sides. There were now twenty armed men identified as threats by the first Watcher, and all were slowly taking up positions around the police car.

'These are not criminals,' the first Watcher thought, and this impulse burst into the network, interrupted the work of hundreds of other Watchers around the planet; within a moment all Watcher's attention, everywhere, was focused on the evolving scene.

They watched, eyes blinking rapidly now, as they processed images of hundreds of rounds being fired into the police car.

As if something or someone far away had thrown a switch in his head, the first Watcher broke his connection and stood. He blinked rapidly as the feed pouring into his mind broke off, then stopped.

Then he turned and walked from the room. This new feeling, this thing called fear, was overwhelming, and as he fell to his knees, as his breathing came in ragged gasps now, he knew he could not fail.

"Not this time," he sighed. "Not again."

+++++

Krül-son and August-dottir heard only one plaintive cry for help over the radio net, then silence. An emergency transponder activated, indicating an officer was dying, or dead, and automatically sending the location to EMS...

"Go!" Sinn shouted, pointing at the screen when the data began streaming onto her car's central monitor.

Without thinking Aurie hit the thrusters and the car shot a hundred feet into the air and arced towards what, decades ago, had been called Westwood. He looked down at the data screen and noted at least a dozen other cars en route and he smiled, felt comfort in this communal response, this 'brothers-in-arms' feeling that swept through his soul. He saw the old university ahead and cut back power; they were less than a mile out now and were by-far the closet unit to the scene.

"Do you want me to proceed, Justinian?"

"Why wouldn't you?" she replied caustically.

"It could be a trap, or an ambush, Justinian."

"Of course it is, you idiot! It is our job nonetheless, regardless of lies in wait. Follow procedure and proceed."

"Yes, Justinian."

Airborne, this newest generation air car could travel at speeds approaching a hundred miles per hour; per standard operating procedure Krül-son swept in low over the scene at maximum speed and let the car's sensors record images, then he banked the car into a hard climbing turn and studied the images that danced across his central display. These images were sent to all other responding units automatically, and simultaneously, so it was no surprise when the shift sergeant came on the patrol circuit and began ordering deployments around the scene.

Krül-son was ordered to orbit the scene at maximum altitude and protect the Justinian, unless or until she was called for. When the car reached its maximum cruising altitude of four thousand feet he flipped on the autopilot and commanded the car to orbit while he studied images that cycled across the display.

He saw the air car on the ground was almost unrecognizable: twisted metal frame, shattered carbon-fiber panels, pock-marked lexan, drifting smoke...the two bodies no longer recognizable as human, and he struggled to read the car number. He thought of Greggor's face, his expressed desire to leave the academy, then the command circuit burst into life...

"All units, area appears clear at this time. Deploy in Zone 232 and we'll walk in."

New images came in as other cars overflew the scene; soon it was confirmed who had been killed and Aurie closed his eyes for a moment, fought back tears when he thought of Pol's easy laugh and dedication to the state.

"Are you alright, Cadet?" he heard Sinn August-dottir ask.

Did he detect compassion in her voice? Was that mocking sarcasm he heard?

"Yes, Justinian. He was my friend." He directed his attention to the flight controls and increased the turn angle; as the car banked hard he looked down on the scene as the other responding officers landed and began their walk through the shadows towards the shattered police car. But... something caught his eye...

"Justinian! There, by the large building on the corner..."

"I see it! Hover and illuminate!" She switched her headset to transmit: "All units, hostiles on the ground converging on your position, transmitting coordinates -- now!"

Krül-son leveled the air-car and set the search-beam to maximum intensity, then centered it on the moving shadows. The central display revealed several men running, but just then one turned and aimed something seemingly right at his face. The display flared as brilliant light overwhelmed the sensor, and Krül-son's reaction was instantaneous: he banked hard and dove for the surface as the shoulder launched surface to air missile crossed the distance in less than the time it took his eyes to blink.

+++++

The Watcher rubbed his eyes with thumb and forefinger, then he delicately fingered the plates grafted to the sides of his skull; they hurt some days more than others, especially when he was off the grid, but now they throbbed insistently, like someone or something was trying to kick him -- inside his head. He blinked his eyes rapidly again, as if the motion itself might somehow clear the pain; when that failed he checked his flight instruments on the central screen and increased altitude another two thousand feet. His craft, a small transport salvaged from the First Republic, was leaving the airspace of a region that had once been called the Alps, from a country once known as Switzerland; the jet would take him across the deserted remnants of inland Europe and onward across the receding waters of the dying Atlantic.

Looking down, he saw a thin necklace of light delineating the coastline from exposed seabed; most all remaining human population had resettled around the world's coastlines as evaporative effects sapped the oceans, as sea levels subsided, then receded, and concentrations of light were densest around the desalinization plants that maintained civilization now. Once the planet's jet-streams drifted north -- and remained firmly anchored there, rainfall -- and, indeed, almost all variation in weather, was a conspicuous feature of extreme northern and southern latitudes, those regions 'higher' than fifty five degrees north and seventy degrees south. What agricultural production remained was centered above those latitudes, which had effectively made the countries once known as Canada and Russia the world's breadbaskets; of more immediate importance, these two regions had proven inadequate to sustain the estimated one hundred and twenty million people that remained on the planet. Then even those production levels fell as the climate inexorably warmed. Trapped on a dying planet, the population that lay below the Watcher as he arced over the coastline had perhaps another five years before it faced extinction. What other, calamitous choices would they face?

He knew of just one, and he tried not to think about it just now.

+++++

"What are you doing! Stop...this...now..."

Krül-son pulled the car out of the brutal 4g turn and leveled out, then raced between the rooftops of burned-out industrial buildings; the missile had lost lock-on and was searching for them in the dark sky above, trying to find some tell-tale infrared signature to lock-on to. He throttled back and settled onto a deserted street and turned off the car's systems, then looked up at the blazing exhaust of the missile until it went out -- and its self-destruct circuit activated.

"That was good flying, Cadet," Sinn August-dottir said, her voice just now beginning to shake. 'As good as I've ever seen,' she said to herself, impressed.

"Thank you, Justinian. I was concerned for your safety."

"Noted. I think you can reactivate power now."

Krül-son looked at the threat receiver -- it was silent now -- then he turned on a single battery and turned on the car's computer. A query instantly flashed on his screen: "Status?"

"Nominal," he typed on the tiny keypad. "Resuming flight after restart."

"10/4" flashed on the screen.

Krül-son began the engine re-start procedure and turned systems on one by one; the fuel-cell was low and they would need hydrogen soon. "We should refuel, Justinian."

"Noted. Proceed."

Shadows moved between buildings to his right, but there was not yet enough air pressure to effect a re-start.

"Justinian...?"

"I see them."

They were both focused on the shadows to their right...so focused they failed to see the men who walked up to the left side of the air-car. One of the men tapped on the window and Krül-son jumped, turned toward the noise.

One man stood there smiling at him, three others had their weapons leveled at Justinian Sinn August-dottir.

The smiling man made a cutting motion across his neck and Krül-son reached for the emergency transponder; the smiling man's pistol leveled at Aurie's face, and just then he noticed the smiling man had odd looking metal plates grafted on the side of his bald head.

"Justinian? I..."

"Open the canopy, Cadet."

Krül-son motioned to the smiling man that he was going to release the canopy; the man nodded and stepped back fractionally while motors lifted the canopy. Hot air, dense with steaming hydrocarbons, flooded the cockpit; soon the smell of unwashed humans washed over him as well.

"Your weapons," one of the other men said. "Now."

When they had handed them over Sinn and Aurie were helped from the car; one of the men came forward with a bundle of plastic explosives and began rigging a booby-trap in the cockpit. Another came up behind Krül-son and placed a black sack over his head; he felt his hands being restrained after that, then the crunching of tires on gravel and the high-pitched whirring of an electric motor. He was lifted onto, he assumed, the back of the electric car, then forced down harshly and tied to something cold and hard.

He felt the car lurch and accelerate quietly, and only then did he realize he was alone. The Justinian was not with him, his failure complete, and he wondered if backup would arrive in time to save her.

+++++

The Watcher was high over the Atlantic while he watched these events unfold and it was during this encounter that he first saw one of his brethren, another one of the Watchers that had left years ago, and he knew his intuition had been correct all along.

"Our disappearances are not random," he said aloud, and these were among the first words he had spoken in more than three decades. "Things are not," the Watcher said as he got used to the sound of his own voice again, "quite what they seem."

+++++

He felt the little electric car drop, as if they had suddenly come upon a steeply inclined ramp; his body slid painfully across a metal ridge as the car listed into a sharp left-hand curve, and the pressure did not let up for several minutes. His ears popped once, then again, the air at one point suddenly grew cool and damp and he began to shiver. He felt sure he had dropped several hundred feet on a spiral ramp when he felt the transition to level again, and whatever surface they were on was smooth as glass. The car stopped once and he heard the muffled voices of people several feet away, then the car lurched again and resumed its journey.

After what seemed like hours the car slowed, the whirring electric motor droned to a stop and he was wrapped in sudden, ringing silence. The air was, however, a little warmer now, and he heard the clatter of heavy construction somewhere not too far away.

Hands gently lifted him from the flatbed of the car, he felt someone tugging at the black cloth hood that covered his face and he winced from the sudden brightness that seared his eyes. It was bright here, wherever here was, yet it was so much cooler than the city! His eyes watered and someone gently wiped the tears from his face.

Krül-son blinked, tried to clear his eyes.

He stood within the center of a small group -- several men, one woman -- and as they regarded him quietly one of the men stepped forward and snipped off the nylon band that secured his hands behind his back. He rubbed his wrists, shook his hands to wake them from their cold sleep.

A man -- another with metal plates grafted to the side of his skull -- stepped forward and extended his right hand. Krül-son looked at the man, at the extended hand, and took the man's hand in his. Then the man handed him his sidearm.

Krül-son looked at all the people around him, and they at him; they were unarmed, he noticed, and they regarded him casually as he took the pistol in his hand. What was this? A test? He holstered the weapon and snapped it in place.

The woman stepped closer now, and she regarded him with kind eyes for a moment. It was as if she was deciding not just what to say, but how to say it. At length she held out her hand and took him in tow: "Come with me," she said, her voice full of quiet authority. In an instant it hit him: he had seen her before, yet it had been a long time ago.

Only then did Aurie Krül-son take note of his surroundings: he was in a smallish space hollowed from living rock, the "ceiling" mere inches from the top of his head, the way beneath his feet was smooth, polished stone. The walls were just roughly finished, yet still looked neat and clean, and the way ahead was lined with OLEDs that filled the space with brilliant white light.

The woman held his hand and they walked briskly down the corridor; he turned his head once and was startled to find they were alone -- the other men had remained by the electric car. He could see them talking, gesturing at the road he must have taken, but why had they had left him armed, and alone, with this woman? That made no sense! How could these people consider him friendly when they had just killed two of his comrades? When they had just tried to shoot him down?