Red Herring

Aw, c’mon! Not again!

Why do I always get the call at dinner?

Well, I know the answer to that one, at least. Because I’ll go. Because I’m damn good at my second job, and my first job agrees and approves. Even my spouse and kids agree.

How do you think I met them all?

Grab the bag, out the door. Take the specially kitted out vehicle, because we’ll be going through some hairy territory. And pick up my partner while I’m at it, because she would be pissed beyond recall if I tried this alone.

She’s as invested as I am.

But, of course, there would be complications…

“No! I need to go with you! This is my grandmother! I’m the one who called in this run! I-”

“Whoa, whoa, slow down, kid.” I bent down. Surprisingly, when I finally got on T, the hormones shot me up tall. All these years, I’m still not used to it, even after all the training I’ve gotten. “You think I don’t know what this means to you? What’s at stake? You think I don’t get it?”

His own implanted, integrated T therapy had given him a thin fuzzy coating of beard quickly. I was jealous. He was coming into his own, and he was getting stellar grades in his pick of top-tier college. And studying with us a bit on the side, because he was rather heavily invested in our second profession.

But I figured what would be next, and wanted to head it off. “Look, kid, I know. I know. But this involves getting a lot closer to Red ‘Murica than either of us is comfortable with, and you’re not fully trained yet. Nor have you done any runs with us, except your own while getting out. You haven’t changed enough to be unrecognizable. And this is your family. The same family you destroyed on the way out. They will murder you if they find you. Didn’t know we’ve already taken out a few bounty hunters, hunh?”

The look on his face showed he didn’t know.

“Well, now you do. So, you stay put. With a headset on. And you help take care of the other fosters here, and you sneaky-listen, and you do your regular routine from home. Do not set foot outside. Because I think this is a trap.”

Kid’s eye got wide; partner looked at me narrowly. “So why are we doing a run?”

I grinned. Nastily. “Because, we’re going to nail them good.”

And we were on the run quickly.

Trunk full of serious contraband, on our way to the Purple States Belt that separates Blue States United from what we sneeringly call Red ‘Murica. The result of some spectacularly sucky politics, but stable borders – for now. We were taking a different route than we normally take. And another team was taking our “normal” crossover point, with our regular SUV, and another trunkful of goodies to make it look good.

There’s always a lucrative profit that can be made in smuggling tech and meds across the borders, and we share with the whole network. It covers for our real smuggling, getting the whole spectrum of misfit kids out of danger and into safety.

Kid was safely tucked away back home, and not in either car. We checked. Twice.

Because this one would be dicey, and we’d have to move fast.

The network was warned. They knew who, and what, was behind this trip.

Partner looked at me worriedly. “Did we bite off more than we can chew?”

“Maybe. That’s why I didn’t tell anyone about our personal change of plans.”

She bit her lip. “I don’t like surprises, or unsupported forays into a killing zone.”

“And normally I’m with you. But, the kid. It’s his grandma. She was the only one who supported him in Red, and smuggled him across the border where we could pick him up. Did he tell you?”

“He spends more time with you. Birds of a feather, you two. I’ve got the others to help raise. Me, a mother type. My egg donor would die of shame.”

“My birth family and yours can both self-sacrifice their beliefs in a handy volcano. Anyway, Grandma hates her son and everything he stands for, voted against him when he became the worst Gubbnah Red’s ever seen. Would have become king for life, but then the scandal exploded, thanks to the kid’s bringing Dad-o’s papers with him. Dad’s in disgrace now, and though Grandma was crowing about it, he still tries to make her life a living hell. He finally just cut off the cancer-fighting drugs, and the cancer’s been eating her alive since. Fuck cancer.”

We both lost good people to that disease, before the cancer-blockers were developed by the same college’s amazing chemistry research center that the kid was going to. Hunh, funny, that. The full cancer cure is in beta testing, and will be rolled out to citizens soon, but the blocker gives even a compromised body another twenty-thirty years of full remission. Enough time for new cure rollout. But we can only run the really old cancer-fighting drugs into Red. Purple states? Well, their people can come over to Blue, and get their own treatment. They’re treated like full Blue citizens if they’ve kept their records clean. And our tech’s better than theirs by a long kilometer, and we check them out before they can cross. Besides, Reddies aren’t really quiet about their beliefs. Childishly easy to figure out the moles.

That’s where the kid excels – he’s like a ferret, digging out and sharing that information. Amazing, really.

I heard that.

No digging any further, kiddo, I need privacy in my own mind. I could feel kiddo’s nod though the texting sensors recently implanted in my head. Safer, sure, but a little too close to telepathy for my personal taste. No one needs to know what I think about, it’s rather ugly sometimes.

But, safety. We take it seriously.

Even on unsanctioned runs, when they think we’re running a legit one.

I didn’t know if Grandma was up for this, but she was willing to try, and I was willing to risk my neck with our tech. Partner wasn’t as sanguine, but I didn’t blame her.

I get feelings. My feeling was telling me they wouldn’t expect something like this. But it was no cake run either.

They knew the kid would try to save Grandma.

But… this way?

Grandma was under watch, but a light one. They were more interested in getting the kid back, and forcibly un-transitioning him. Publicly. As an example to the others. With what rusty equipment they had lying around, and old synthetic drugs that would mess him up badly, now that he was on the good stuff.

We had a smooth run, going deeper into the Red-Purple zone than we ever wanted to. As far as we can tell, they haven’t gotten a good pic of us to blacklist us, but why take chances? They know a few of our aliases. We promptly made up new ones, and had a touch of surgery, each time.

It was quiet when we pulled up at our meeting area.

Well, near it. We’re not dumb enough to compromise our real network on a high risk mission.

The guy who lived here was definitely incel, spouting his crap on what passed for their internet down here. This SUV had special bonded paint, to make us a bit more invisible than normal. Or reflective in the way we programmed it to be. He had cameras, but they would only show two or three deer slipping by, instead of a car gliding into camouflage. And, if he shot anyway, our SUV’s bulletproof.

Satellites showed a back road down to the river.

A big border river.

There weren’t that many alligators showing, but they were there. Global warming was good for some creatures. Reddies liked to shoot them to prove their fragile masculinity, so they let ‘em breed. But gators are smart and don’t show when they know hunters are around. Besides, they like ‘em in the river as an added layer of natural, international security. Better than dogs, for sure. When Blue went high tech, Red went low. But I knew gators; grew up with them. I know the drill, and I coached my partner.

It was full night when I heard the call.

Granny’s on her way.

How the kid smuggled a communication device back to his grandma, I don’t know. Sneaky kid.

We suited up. Mech suits; really good ones. Which we weren’t supposed to have. Like the jacked SUV. But, hey, Blue owed the kid a few favors for the info about his father, and kiddo didn’t ask for any favors – till it was Grandma’s life on the line.

We slid out of the car’s back hatch and into the river.

We could see our competition through the visor, but they stayed away. I hoped that sentiment held through the night.

When people arrived, they didn’t come quietly.

“Ma’am, please, you’re delirious-”

“Get outta my way, you brown-nosed toad! I know my pissant twerp of a son sent you to ‘protect’ me, and you’re as incompetent at the job as he is! I know I’m dying, I know my son is killing me, and I’m-a gonna do some old-fashioned fishing before I croak!”

Ah, a gal after my own heart.

She’s something, isn’t she?

Magnificent, kiddo. We watched from under water as two boats entered the water, both protesting furiously at each other. One, screaming about scaring the fish, the other, uselessly pleading for her to return to shore. Because they knew she might take a runner, but her son would murder them if they so much as bruised his mama. Ah, the love-hate relationship of the true nutjobs.

She’s in the one on the left, in case you can’t tell.

Partner’s voice whispered in my audio pickup. “I’ll take the right. You’re set for the pickup, I’ll take out the guards.”

We crawled across the bottom of the river. We didn’t want any ripple alerting the trigger-happy crew above.

She’s ready.

Time to punt, use real punts!

Suddenly, uproar! The second boat launched into the air, spilling guards and dropped rifles into the water. I pushed up hard from the bottom and hit the second boat dead center. A little too hard – it broke, but launched Grandma one way, and another guard the other way.

Awkward, but still retrievable. I spun, mech smoothly twirling in the froth, and saw her shape through the murk with my visor. Push the button, the belly opens, gentle graspers reach out, grab Grandma, pull her in, line her up, hatch closed. Water pumping out, re-breather on face, perfect catch, right?

Yeah, nope.

I didn’t count on the gators moving that fast.

I heard the alarms go off as they swam in looking for a tasty guard meal. Just because we were in mech suits that looked like gators, doesn’t mean we’re immune.

And a second higher pitch in the alarms coincided with a really big shadow moving our way.

Ah, hell. A bull that could well be king of the whole Mizzip.

Go! Get out!

Easier said than done! Partner had peeled away from the feeding frenzy, but I was in between her mech and some broken boat. I didn’t want to make waves (hah), but the bull was aiming for me. Crap.

He decided I was a threat, being bigger, in a mech made for two.

He caught me right in the armpit, and went into the classic barrel roll. I spun with him. But for a mech suit that was bulletproof within reason, the testers didn’t do thorough bite checks. I heard the suit crack open, and my compartment was filling with water.

Go!

I was pumping the back legs for all I was worth, twisting and spinning but propelling forward. The bull came with me, I could hear the rumbling through the shorting systems. Crap, I’d forgotten to factor in the aggression of mating season.

“I’m clear, I’m on bank, come on partner! What about your secret weapon?”

Oh, right, yeah.

I ripped the re-breather from my mouth, took a deep breath, and let out a high pitched “ERP!”

The rumbling stopped. Water gushed in.

Didn’t have much time. Legs were still churning for shore. “Erp! Erp! Eeerp!”

The sound a baby gator makes. The one thing that can stop gator aggression cold.

I didn’t have much air left. I had to use the re-breather soon. “Erp! Erp! Eeerp! Eeerp!”

Systems down, but the back legs were still working. I jammed the re-breather in my mouth, and kept going. That’s all I had left.

Crunch. I hope that was the far bank?

And then the pain hit.

No!

I lost consciousness.

I woke to a gentle rocking. A small cackle made me want to sit up, but I was held down. “Easy, boy. You’re still alive, but you don’t want to move much, or that patch that young lady plastered on you will move, and I’m not cleaning up that much blood twice. You’ve got quite a rip in your shoulder.”

“Mmph.” I wasn’t going to argue.

I heard my partner’s voice. “I’m driving, and we’re heading for the nearest border as fast as possible without drawing attention. I started meeping at that huge monster gator, and he finally let go and went after the others for some food. I cracked Granny out of her pod, and we got you stable. Got both mech suits back in the trunk, didn’t want to leave any evidence. We’ve got nutrition bars, and my only stops are going to be for gas. And Granny’s got her first dose, in case you’re wondering.”

You’re stable. And drugged. Surgery’s ready for you when you return.

"Mmph mmph?"

Partner knows me very well. "Other team's fine, had a lively dustup with ex-Gubbnah's boys, on their way home too."

"Mmm, mmph."

“That was too close. You’ve got an extra unit or five of blood in you, so stay put. Tore something big, likely the brachial artery. My paramedic training’s paid off again.”

“Mmph.”

“You’re welcome. Granny will tell you when you can move, and Heaven help you if you rile her.”

“Mmph!”

Granny cackled. “That’s right, you just lay there and look pretty. If you need to pee, I’ve got the job johnny available. I’ve cleaned up uglier butts that yours, so you just let me know when you need a break.”

“Mmph.”

“Just so we understand each other.” Granny nodded and sat back.

She’s something, ain’t she?

I was too tired. Mmph.