Brad Taylor - The Polaris Protocol

The Mexican above him said, “Gringo. Where you go?”

Booth stared at the floor. The man poked him with a shoe. “Gringo. I talking to you.”

Booth said, “I’m meeting a friend. Please, leave me alone.”

The man pulled out a knife and said, “Pay tax. Gringo tax.”

At the sight of the knife, Booth recoiled, blubbering. The man leaned in, his stench flushing what little fresh air there was on the train. He said again, “Pay tax.”

Booth stabbed his hand into his pants, pulling out his wallet. He looked about, waiting on someone to stop the mugging, but nobody seemed to notice. He withdrew all of his cash and handed it over, his hands shaking.

The Mexican said, “Computer.”

Booth hugged his laptop to his chest and shook his head. The man lowered the knife until it was level with his eyes and repeated, “Computer.”

Booth looked left and right, hoping someone would help but seeing that nobody was paying them the least bit of attention. In fact, all were studiously looking away. The train pulled into the next station, and the mass began to ebb and flow. The two men closed off their corner, preventing anyone from interfering with the mugging.

People packed into the car, the brief emptiness filled with soiled shirts and dirty feet as the riders crammed together. The man traced Booth’s ear with the knife, and that was enough.

Booth flung the laptop at him, shouting, “Take it, and leave me alone!”

The man grinned, showing a jack-o’-lantern mouth with the front teeth missing. He turned, saying something in Spanish to his compadres, then grunted. Magically, a knife had grown out of his stomach, the area around the hilt growing black with liquid. He sat down heavily, and Booth saw the laptop jerked from his hands. He followed the arm and recognized Carlos standing above the downed mugger.

Carlos hissed at the mugger’s two friends and they disappeared through the open door. He grabbed Booth’s arm, jerked him to his feet, and followed suit, exiting just before the train left for the next stop.

Carlos said, “You’re two hours late and you took the wrong train. Idiot.”

As he walked up the stairs, gasping for air, it was almost too much for Booth to absorb. He said, “I’m late because of a plane crash at the Denver airport. Didn’t you see the news? Every damn flight is late coming out of Denver because of it. Why did you change the instructions? Why aren’t I meeting you at the hotel?”

“No. I didn’t see the news.” Getting to street level, Carlos grinned. “I thought maybe you were working for the US Federales, but I think it’s safe to say your stupidity proves otherwise. Either way, we aren’t going to the hotel I sent you. You’re just lucky my people kept an eye out for you.”

“Federales? What are you talking about?”

“Nothing. You have the protocol?”

“Yes, I have it. Of course.”

They walked down an alley toward a dented sedan with the trunk held in place by a rope. Carlos motioned for him to get in.

Driving west, Carlos said, “I’m going to want you to show me how it functions.”

“I don’t think that’s smart. I’ve already tested it with my own GPS and it works. Every time you do that, you give them a chance to plug the holes. Trust me, it worked. Better than I expected. I think I caused the plane crash in Denver. You pay me for it, and then you can launch it after I leave. After I’m back in the US.”

Carlos slammed the brakes and threw the car into park on the side of the road. He turned to Booth, baring his teeth. “You need to understand something. You belong to me now. You will do what I say, or I’ll turn you loose right here. You’ll last about an hour after I make some calls.”

Booth recoiled, nodding his head over and over again, the fear of this newfound world making him wish he’d never boarded the plane. Making him wonder if Bradley Manning or Edward Snowden had ever put himself in danger like this. The thought brought a small tendril of pride at his audacity. Small, but large enough to give him the courage to continue. He might not make any money on POLARIS, but he’d at least get it released. Others could talk the talk, but he was walking the walk. Snowden and Manning had garnered a legion of people preaching their hero status. What Booth was doing would be exponentially better.

Carlos started driving again, saying, “I really don’t care what happens to you after I get POLARIS, but you’ll care a great deal if the thing you brought doesn’t work. You’ll care for hours, I promise.”

The words sucked the courage out of Booth like a dental vacuum rooting around a mouth.

They drove in silence for another twenty minutes. Then Carlos pulled against the curb next to a run-down building of crumbling brick surrounding two roll-up doors.

He said, “Follow me,” and walked up a narrow stairway on the side. At the top, he held the door open, letting Booth enter. Inside was a one-room flat with a sofa bed and a corner kitchenette, the toilet in the back competing with the rest of the space with its odor alone.

Carlos said, “Put the computer on the table and turn it on. Show me how it works.”

Booth did as he was told, then said, “Do you have Wi-Fi? Internet here?”

Carlos looked bewildered for a moment, then said, “No.”

“It won’t work without a connection to the Internet.” When he saw Carlos’s face grow dark, he whined, “I’m telling the truth! Think about it, I have to connect to the satellites somehow. I can show you how it works, but I can’t prove it does without Internet.”

Carlos stared at him, and Booth was sure he was considering putting a bullet in his head. Eventually, he sat down in front of the laptop and said, “Show me.”

Booth pulled up his stereo interface and began to explain, detailing how to control the protocol. He was discussing the equalizer tabs and how they corresponded to sections of the earth when someone knocked on the door.

Carlos jerked his head at the noise and drew his pistol. He held a finger to his lips and crept to the door. He leaned in, putting his eye against the peephole.

Booth heard a cough, no louder than a hand clap, then saw Carlos’s head snap back. He felt a spray of liquid like someone had popped a wet towel near his face, then watched Carlos crumple straight down.

In shock, Booth touched his face, and his hand came away with a viscous fluid tinged in red. His mouth opened and closed like that of a fish gasping on a dock, and the door exploded inward. What entered was something out of the Brothers Grimm. A man of normal height, wearing normal clothes. Normal ended at the neck. The man had no hair on his head, and his forehead was smudged, as if someone had sculpted a bust and then scraped the forehead in anger before it was set.

In his hand was a large pistol, pointed directly at Booth’s head. The barrel didn’t register at all because of the death above the sights. A hypnotic stare coming from beyond the world Booth lived within.

The golem said, “Close the computer.”

Booth did so without hesitation, waiting on a further command, the sweat spreading on his body like a rash. The man said, “Make any indication you do not want to comply and you will be dead. Do you understand?”

Booth nodded furiously.

“Follow me.”

Booth stood, and for the first time noticed another man on the landing, crouching down and holding his arms over his head.

The man looked up, and he saw it was a gringo.

43

I did a double take in my rearview, noticing that the statue behind the cross was a skeleton. “What the hell is that?”

Jennifer set her smartphone down and glanced backward. “It’s a church for Santa Muerte, the patron saint of death. It’s a bastardization of Catholicism, and pretty popular with those on the illegal side of things.”