CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE – “FOOLS RUSH IN”

Norlin, walking the corkscrew streets of dawn... exhausted but preternaturally alert, faithfully inserting his ID at intersections to wait for lights to turn green... nodded sleepily to the Trouble Factory's surveillance cameras on every corner. Tendrils of hydrosmog snaked through the crevices of sleeve and collar, chilling him, scouring his soul like the stiff bristles of a metal brush as the elevator descended... basement, sub-basement, sub-sub. C-squad seemed different at 0538 hours, the Frank-less refrigerator somehow subdued, scraps of duct tape raw and mysterious. An unpleasant, viscous slime remained on the floor, too, and, while Homer boiled water for decaffa, the lights blew out...

"Get another kebbin' bulb..." Norlin cursed, rubbing his frozen hands together to restore some circulation.

"Ain't the bulb, Corpse, it's the kebbin' fixtures, Eric shot back. "I paid for batteries, for the clock, you pay for lights. I'm sweatin' my Bond/Lewis combo bid and everything in this dump's broken..."

He opened the refrigerator for its light... the fridge (providentially) being on a different grid than the overhead fixtures, and, drawn to the weak luminescence like a biting insect, an officious little Process Server in a dark suit slithered into the dark room, without knocking.

"Is there a Sack here... Homer Sack?" he chirred... if a doop-eatin' scarab beetle could talk, Norlin reckoned, he was what it'd sound like.

"That would be me," Homes admitted, the carafe of hot water sagging in his fist.

"This is a notice of the complaint of Frank Desperate to the Courts of Flux, copied to Compliance," said the little man behind his big, bug-glasses, pressing a document into Homer's fist. "If you have any questions, you may contact Solomon Mutter at the Law Firm. Eric Ice?"

"Yo! Over here," the fex trader waved. His pleader had expired with the C-Squad lights.

"And you must be Norlin. This is yours."

Norlin skimmed the notice onto his desk and pointed to the door, not even bothering to ask how the official cockroach knew he'd be in so early.

"Every kebbin' little keb has a k'ballin' lawyer..." he sighed, once the freak had gone, "...they're all innocent, and they've all been abused."

"You alright, Corpse?" Eric worried.

"Something wrong with me?"

"You're talking like a cop again. Hope the kebbin’ elevator’s workin…"

It wasn’t, so they trudged upstairs to the morning’s ritual, sliding into the Hall of Trouble precisely at the instant that the digital clock overhanging the Trouble Factory Auditorium turned 0600 hours and Captain Modesty entered to brief the troops. There were half a hundred tired cops... uniforms and plainclothes... sipping decaffa or Integral from glastic bottles, most yawning at the un-Jatesly hour, a few restless with anticipation.

"Good morning... sorry to have pulled you out of bed so early, but this operation requires our massive presence at this hour and no other," the Captain smiled wickedly. "Gentlemen, you have perhaps heard of the special intelligence that Departmental Intelligence has developed..." Norlin, dutifully seated behind the Captain, between Clem Clarke and John Crum, had not been acknowledged, nor did he much wish to be. "A confidential informant has gained access to information on crimes before they occur. The agent of transmission... innocent, or maybe not..." Modesty raised an eyebrow to help the Trouble Factory deduce his sympathies, "...appears to be an early morning paperboy working for the Jatesville Journal. Why the morning rag for this informant shows tomorrow's news after charging remains mysterious, but I'm sure Ray's boys in Wire will be able to provide answers, once we've acquired that charger, and interrogated various suspicious persons. For the rest... I'm going to let Corporal Norlin of C-Squad... our liaison with this confidential informant... provide you a summary and answer your questions..."

Restless, angry voices rose above auditorium hum and the Corporal's whispered "Keb!"...

"Not Norlin..."

"Traitor!"

"Kebbin' rat..."

Captain Modesty lowered his gavel in a rare display of temper.

"Norlin developed this asset, and he will be leading this operation..." said the Captain, lowering the gavel and crossing his arms. Owing to the nature of the mission, the Journal's digiographers were notably absent, as were KJAD's minions; not even a stringer for the Police Gazette lurked in the auditorium shadows, but his habit of striking magisterial poses for the media was hard to break.

"Hell no!" one of Clem Clark's best stood up, a stout, red-faced Senior Detective. "We want Henry Hat!"

"Henry Hat is elsewhere... on confidential assignment," the Captain responded. "You'll take orders from Norlin and you'll like it!" he announced, but then turned his back on his men and whispered, to Norlin: "This is your one shot at redemption - don't keb up!"

When Norlin took the podium, the undiminished hostile rumblings of the Trouble Factory abated only minimally, if at all...

"Thank you, Captain Modesty. I'll be brief - we have to be out on the street to surround the subject lozenge by 0700 hours in order to intercept this newspaperboy, thus executing a plan prepared, in detail, by the Captain, Clem Clarke and Patrols." Only a handful of cops realized that Norlin had, at once, laid off responsibility for the endeavor on the brass while assuring the ranks that a more trustworthy hand than his guided the operation. "My confidential informant... his identity need be revealed only to the team actually entering the building... has had his Journal faithfully recharged for years but, over the last few days, has received updates reporting events occurring sixteen to twenty-four hours into the future. This intelligence has been critical in solving the Blue City burglaries and those homi... well, crimes… committed at the Tulane Hotel..."

"Th' Mellow Bank, Third-Fift' Bank... them crimes case don't make sense..." a Patrolman said, rising unsteadily... as certainly a posterboy for lifestyle crime as Norlin could imagine.

"Well, if they did, we'd have solved those cases by now, wouldn't we?" the Corporal shot back. "Nonetheless, we have made important discoveries, we know... (he hesitated, thinking of the previous night's vision)... we know our perpetrator to be organized, obsessively so, haunted by mathematics and geometry, obsessed by certain principles as include rectangularity and centrality. Probably considers Picasso and Diego Rivera to have sold out to the baroque," he added, directing his comment to the auditorium's sole Mex-American inhabitant, a small, plainclothes officer nearly buried under an immense black derby hat. "A bitter, near-fanatical opposition to Jatesology and no scruples against using others... even clones... as pawns in his insidious but yet-unknown agenda. The Captain's finest, by the way, continue to question the Comte de Mazzolo, or whatever it is, that is, that has taken his place..."

"Kebbin' foreigners..." somebody objected but, at least, from the anonymity of the crowd.

The recalcitrance of the Trouble Factory rank and file was beginning to unnerve Norlin, worming its way into his confidence like those Tulane University research scarabs burrowing into clone corpses. "Yeah... uh, movin' along," he encouraged the police, "we are going to have surveillance teams cover all approaches to the lozenge at 452 Ninth, Southwest, disguised as typical early-morning workers. Sanitation men, delivery drivers, pedestrians. We've also secured co-operation from Journal management, who have informed us that the boy in question... Butch, let’s call him... is leaving the Media Center, probably as I speak, taking the Krsna Mag to South Node, then back via the Buddha Mag to Abraham." Norlin looked over his shoulder to wiry Ray Angenieux on a chair next to Clem, wireless muffs over his big, jug ears transmitting the latest developments to his devices. Ray gave him... and the troops... a thumbs-up.

"His route is Ninth Street... curving to the Hamorite Strip on the south side, then back on the north; 452's the thirty-second of thirty-eight lozenges he's authorized to enter. This should occur at 0730 hours, give or take five minutes. Surveillance will monitor his progress and report any extraordinary incidences; Butch, however, is not to be interdicted except by Alpha Team members, positioned in 452 Ninth itself. Through the building manager, we've obtained a vacant unit on the target eleventh floor, and there will be roving observers throughout. We will observe and record the charging of... anyway, and then we make our pickup. On-street routes have been designated by your Chiefs... is anyone unclear as to his territory?"

Captain Modesty cut off the grumbling and impending inquiries, even as Dr. Skark and his entourage entered the auditorium and guided their rattling teatray down the aisle...

"They're all ready..." Modesty said, pointing upwards towards the ceiling, and nothing in particular, there, "...synchronize watches on my gesture at 0609.00 now! and let's get this circus on the kebbin’ road...."

"Just one moment! One moment... nobody leave!" Skark commanded. "This is a random urinalysis, conducted under the auspices of Compliance... Section 36, Paragraph Eight, regarding Departmental mobilizations of over fifty officers..."

"Captain, this is a time-critical operation," Norlin appealed, feebly.

Modesty glared at him with ill-disguised contempt, turned to Germany and the Corporal's immediate superior shook his head, placing his palms on his knees in a gesture of indifference. "Well, Operational Commanders do have authority to countermand Compliance," the Captain smirked, "if they feel time pressures supersede the risk of a dirty test compromising the authority of officers before Compliance, or the Courts of Flux and Flow..."

Norlin took a deep breath. "Consider yourself and your team countermanded..." he called out to the milkman.

There was furtive applause, quickly exhausted. As Clive Snipe rushed the podium from the wings, Dr. Skark straightened to his full five foot two, shaking a bony fist at the brass...

"Doctors… let alone common policemen… have been prosecuted for failing to interdict persons who threaten public safety while under the influence of contraband. You may have cause to regret this..."

"My call!" Norlin said, having done a quick headcount in the interim. "But, just to carry out this op by the book, you four officers in the back, right side... yeah, you, and you... you're off this takedown. Report to your superiors for reassignment... by my count, that takes us down to forty-nine men, Skark, unless you want to try counting the superior officers in on this job.

"You'll get yours," the milkman promised, but the Blue Man was already wheeling the teatray back up the aisle, the Gray Man following.

Norlin had no illusion that the troops had forgotten Max Bend but, from the covert smiles, realized that he just might make this op work.

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