Free Guardian of Night by Tony Daniel Page A

adrenaline to be had. That was good, because he still jonesed for it. All the time. Kept his mind off things.
    Like his mom and dad turned to curd by sceeve churn. His brothers. His sister. Cousins. Friends. Grandparents, greats, great-greats—beaten into the Oklahoma red earth by metal rain.
    A fucking lot of things.
    Nearby a Peepsie crowd lining the north side of Elm was shouting encouragement and cries of sympathy for the teens. Somewhere an incomprehensible bullhorn blared agitation. Coalbridge rose on tiptoes to his full height—a good six foot two—and surveyed the crowd. A sea of dazzed T-shirts scrolling through preassigned messages. A few homemade signs. And a score of placards, most of them on display-changing dazz paper, the signs featuring similar messages to their T-shirts.
    “The Real Parasites Are in Dallas!”
    “Make Our Solar System a Salt-free Zone!”
    “The Sceeve Were Right: We ARE an Unjust Species!” And the even more direct: “Humans: We Got What We Deserved!”
    There were even a few vintage signs strewn about. A yellowed “Condi = War-Criminal-in-Chief!” And was that . . . yes, it was: “Stop Global Warming!” Well, that problem was taken care of, thank you very much. Humanity’s carbon footprint was about the size of a three-week old fetus’s these days.
    A few clumps of Peepsies had signs he agreed with: “Reformat Act = Jim Crow!” “Repeal all Expiration Codes!” “Free the servants!” Generally the civil-rights folks stood a bit away from the others and were clustered around their own tables of literature and bumper stickers, the material weighed down with rocks and bits of brick against the Texas wind. Servant rights were controversial. The enormous shortage of workers to keep up the basics of civilization had been solved by the introduction of artificial agents, but at a price. Servants had performed too well. They had all but eliminated manufacturing jobs for regular people and had taken over many of the service jobs, as well.
    Suddenly: BAM! A stinging blow against his chest and an explosion on the dark black wool of his coat. He looked down.
    Red, red, red!
    I’m hit. Something somehow got through my shirt.
    Coalbridge’s reflexes took over, and he was instantly on his hands and knees scrambling for cover.
    He reached into his inner coat pocket for the Extry officer’s weapon, his service truncheon—a nasty device that looked like a police baton but was oh-so-much-more. Coalbridge was an expert with it. In fact, he’d personally taken out fifteen sceeve and counting with this very trunch.
    He glanced down to survey the damage to himself.
    Should be okay, he thought.
    He’d taken the hit in his chest, so the crunch, the embedded smart fiber woven into his uniform shirt, probably stopped the main impact of the bullet. But there was blood, and sometimes a lucky shot got through the nano activators, so—
    Hold on. Don’t shit your pants quite yet, little Jimbo.
    Paint. It was red paint.
    Christ.
    He stood up, dusted himself off.
    “The sceeves should kill you for real !” someone screamed nearby.
    He looked over. Dungarees and checkered Vans. A tight Chavez T-shirt topped by a flowing, hand-crocheted sweater vest left open. A red bandana holding back a bundle of curly brown hair. Distressed jeans that looked like they’d been water-boarded multiple times.
    She was hot. Total retro-hippie vogue, like Joan Placid in that viral that was going around, the one that every red-blooded exper male had set to permanent repeat on his Palace.
    A look which he had to admit he found kind of attractive.
    And now he was going to pull off the seduction of the century? Turn his enemy into his lover on the mean streets of Dallas?
    God, two months without a woman, Coalbridge thought. It was beginning to tell on him.
    Forget all that. On this day of all days, he had to get to work! This situation was ridiculous. He had to find a way through these buses and get into the Capitol