"I have two Mark VIs approaching the anomaly location, touching down in approximately thirty seconds, Chief."
Operator Pasternak looked pleased. Smug. His arms were folded over the jacket of his uniform white suit, his stance was easy, cocky. The uplink behind his left ear pulsed blue light, in sync with the pulses from the uplink device attached to the figure restrained on the Operations table behind him and the uplink indicator on the screen attached to the same table.
The Chief Operator nodded. It was only six months ago that she was promoted to her position, promoted out of wearing the uplink to the HIT Coordinators. There was a pang of loneliness from time to time, but more often she felt relieved to no longer be part of that chain. "Bushes aren't hands, Op Three - let me know when we have a signal to the other side of the anomaly."
Pasternak grinned hard, pushing his glasses up a millimeter or two. "We will soon have the location of the secret rebel base!"
The Chief Operator grinned back and nodded enthusiastically, the uplink at the base of her spinal cord pulsing the same easy rhythm in blue.
~~~
The lights turned red, and three people entered the crosswalk. They were wearing faded, worn, ill-fitting clothing - homeless, the drivers and other pedestrians recognize, and with that recognition the three people are gone from their thoughts. The three step across the crosswalk, feet skipping, shuttering, bouncing in seemingly no discernible pattern - it's a dance, people would think (if they didn't cease to think about them immediately after seeing them), but a dance that had no context, no rules, no coordination.
A satellite might see differently, if the satellites could recognize them. It might look down on the city of Portland, Oregon, and see this dance performed in crosswalks, in parks, in parking lots, and across bridges, a thin mandala of people and dance, an unseen flash mob of the unknown and unwanted.
At a wooden table outside a red train car where you can buy tea and tea accessories, the Murshid - an aging man, cord-thin underneath layers of shirts and a tweed jacket - hoarsely says, "Now we shield them." The pronouncement is recognizably special, sacred somehow, and is answered by Murid Vincente, sitting next to the Murshid - a more fully-framed, middle-aged latinx man with a bushy salt-and-pepper mustache - "Now we blind them." Across from them a pale, frail-looking woman in a full, lacy white dress, nods, concern clear on her face, her eyes shimmering with the barest hint of tears. Next to her, Vera Friedman stands resolute, muttering "Fuck those fascists" with eyes closed in concentration.
And the dancers, the homeless invisibles are muttering, too. Not in one voice, not in unison, they mutter "Now we shield them," and "now we blind them." One, in the industrial north-west section of the city, yells out "Fuck those fascists!" and giggles as they cross the road - but no one cares. It's ignored and soon forgotten.
~~~
Operator Pasternak nods sharply, his grin only slightly faded. "Mercury 7843 and Mercury 7846 are down from the chopper, and...they're entering the anomaly, Chief." He turns to the Chief Operator with a look of anticipation and triumph on his face - the look you have when your team is up 9-2 in the top of the 9th. "We've found them. Repeat - we've foun..." the reference falters and confusion and mild panic takes over. The other team hit a home run and somehow scoring 11 goals, shattering his expectations and the metaphor.
"What is it, Operator?" The Chief Operator's eyes narrow, and her questions is easily understood not as "What's happening?" but "How could this happen?" She looks past Pasternak to the HIT Coordinator on the table, its uplink flashing red. Almost as soon as she notices this, she recognizes something else out of the ordinary - Pasternak's uplink, too, is flashing red. There's just a moment of hesitation, a sigh not in her breath but in her eyes before she turns to a computer wall terminal near the door and orders clearly, "Sam, call Director Daley."
Operator Pasternak looked pleased. Smug. His arms were folded over the jacket of his uniform white suit, his stance was easy, cocky. The uplink behind his left ear pulsed blue light, in sync with the pulses from the uplink device attached to the figure restrained on the Operations table behind him and the uplink indicator on the screen attached to the same table.
The Chief Operator nodded. It was only six months ago that she was promoted to her position, promoted out of wearing the uplink to the HIT Coordinators. There was a pang of loneliness from time to time, but more often she felt relieved to no longer be part of that chain. "Bushes aren't hands, Op Three - let me know when we have a signal to the other side of the anomaly."
Pasternak grinned hard, pushing his glasses up a millimeter or two. "We will soon have the location of the secret rebel base!"
The Chief Operator grinned back and nodded enthusiastically, the uplink at the base of her spinal cord pulsing the same easy rhythm in blue.
~~~
The lights turned red, and three people entered the crosswalk. They were wearing faded, worn, ill-fitting clothing - homeless, the drivers and other pedestrians recognize, and with that recognition the three people are gone from their thoughts. The three step across the crosswalk, feet skipping, shuttering, bouncing in seemingly no discernible pattern - it's a dance, people would think (if they didn't cease to think about them immediately after seeing them), but a dance that had no context, no rules, no coordination.
A satellite might see differently, if the satellites could recognize them. It might look down on the city of Portland, Oregon, and see this dance performed in crosswalks, in parks, in parking lots, and across bridges, a thin mandala of people and dance, an unseen flash mob of the unknown and unwanted.
At a wooden table outside a red train car where you can buy tea and tea accessories, the Murshid - an aging man, cord-thin underneath layers of shirts and a tweed jacket - hoarsely says, "Now we shield them." The pronouncement is recognizably special, sacred somehow, and is answered by Murid Vincente, sitting next to the Murshid - a more fully-framed, middle-aged latinx man with a bushy salt-and-pepper mustache - "Now we blind them." Across from them a pale, frail-looking woman in a full, lacy white dress, nods, concern clear on her face, her eyes shimmering with the barest hint of tears. Next to her, Vera Friedman stands resolute, muttering "Fuck those fascists" with eyes closed in concentration.
And the dancers, the homeless invisibles are muttering, too. Not in one voice, not in unison, they mutter "Now we shield them," and "now we blind them." One, in the industrial north-west section of the city, yells out "Fuck those fascists!" and giggles as they cross the road - but no one cares. It's ignored and soon forgotten.
~~~
Operator Pasternak nods sharply, his grin only slightly faded. "Mercury 7843 and Mercury 7846 are down from the chopper, and...they're entering the anomaly, Chief." He turns to the Chief Operator with a look of anticipation and triumph on his face - the look you have when your team is up 9-2 in the top of the 9th. "We've found them. Repeat - we've foun..." the reference falters and confusion and mild panic takes over. The other team hit a home run and somehow scoring 11 goals, shattering his expectations and the metaphor.
"What is it, Operator?" The Chief Operator's eyes narrow, and her questions is easily understood not as "What's happening?" but "How could this happen?" She looks past Pasternak to the HIT Coordinator on the table, its uplink flashing red. Almost as soon as she notices this, she recognizes something else out of the ordinary - Pasternak's uplink, too, is flashing red. There's just a moment of hesitation, a sigh not in her breath but in her eyes before she turns to a computer wall terminal near the door and orders clearly, "Sam, call Director Daley."
