Evolution
Special
Chapter 9:
Cocky

---

When I finally woke up, it must have been hours later, with kids groaning all around me, starting off with Lara kicking me in the knee when I sat up, blinking, barely remembering the scene at The Warehouse in the first place.

“Where are we?” I asked groggily, glancing around for anyone over the age of ten. By the looks of it, only the older kids had made it in the mad stampede for The Junker, with few exceptions like Jerrod, Seth, and Paulina, at ages sixteen, fourteen, and fourteen.

The other kids were all under the age of ten and either still sleeping or huddled in groups around Seth or Paulina, or by themselves, while Jerrod was just sitting up from where he had been lying on the floor, his forehead covered in a thin transparent electronic bandage, the nanos inside clearing what looked like a nasty gash on his temple.

I was squeezed onto a cot with at least three other kids who were still asleep, while the others were huddled in their groups on the floor. All of them were my kids from The Warehouse, I was mentally begging more of them weren’t in other cells, before I even shook my head, rubbed the sleep from my eyes, and saw how bad of shape we were in.

My chest and shoulder and back were sore from the stun-rod lag, but I was probably in the best shape in comparison to most of the other kids.

In addition to Jerrod’s electronic bandage, Tessa’s arm was in a heavy looking plastic cast with blinking green lights, and two girls around nine or ten both had angry red scabs over their arms where they had been stung by Stun-rods without any clothing protection thanks to their short-sleeved shirts and the high settings on the rods. Seth had a black eyes underneath his layers of red-brown hair, and Paulina could barely speak since she had apparently been strangled when she tried to steal a Stun-rod before she would have escaped.

Apart from me, there were nine other kids in the cell, with its white walls, hard floor, and glass wall to separate us from the marshals huddled around a floating counter outside. Unless more kids were in another cell, only six could have escaped on the roof via the Junker or the ancient rusting fire escapes that ran down the side of the building.

The marshals huddled around the floating counter were scanning several portable terminal screens flickering with files I couldn’t read from the distance, but when I saw a picture of Misty flash across the screen, I guessed they had gotten DNA scans while we were out, which was very, very bad…

While most of us were orphans at the Warehouse, a good thirty or forty percent of the kids were runaways.

Take Ashlyn and Lara, for example: they ran away from home when Lara was four and their father had died. After their mother got depressed, and got hooked on Stimulant drugs, Ash took matters into her own hands and brought Lara and herself here three years ago. Hard to believe Ash was only ten, huh?

Either way, several kids had nowhere to go, and orphanages and shelters could be a real drag on our lifestyle.

A guard looked up from the counter, his terminal still flashing with Misty’s picture. It was outdated by at least two years, around when Izzy and I found her hiding in her old house, waiting for her mother to come home, but her mother, we found out, had been killed in a hovercar accident, and Misty’s father had left them years ago. We had gone to Misty’s house for a raid, since we take everything we can get, but we found Misty instead, and convinced her to come back to the Warehouse.

“Watson, Misty.” The guard said loudly, and I looked from the guard to Misty, who was huddled against Paulina, her blue eyes wide and terrified, and I guessed that Lara and Ashlyn had escaped in the Junker.

The marshal walked towards the glass wall containing us and pressed a thumb in the scanner besides our glass wall, and a panel slid open in the glass, just as I slid in front of Misty, and Paulina slid a protective arm around her shoulder.

“Erika,” Jerrod muttered, “How are we gonna –“

“Where are we?” I demanded at the marshal, pretending not to hear Jerrod, “What did you do?”

“We evacuated a hazardous building, that’s what we did.” The marshal said sardonically, “And you’re in a holding cell at the Department of Security. I would’ve thought that was obvious.” He snickered to himself, apparently thinking he was funny.

“Why?” I asked, playing for time while I eyed a swipe card at his belt, It shook slightly before he closed a fist on it, feeling it wiggle over the folds of his stomach, which I was sure had been quite a bit larger before he became a marshal. Ordinary wardens are free to keep their blubber, but marshals have to be in top shape to earn their rank.

“Watch it Gage,” The marshal growled, giving me an angry look before shoving the swipe card into his breast pocket.

A female marshal looked up, her dark brown hair twisted into a tight bun on her head. “Gage is awake?” The marshal asked, “Bring her out. She’s wanted for questioning on the C.D.C. Tower.”

“Fine, fine.” The marshal stuck his thumb in the scanner again, and before he could pull his thumb out again, there were three people in front of me, two of which were taller than me.

“We’re all one group,” Seth said determinedly, red-brown hair brushed back by his freckled hands and out of his green eyes, “You can’t take Erika.”

This was new. I’d never had bodyguards before, but then again, I hadn’t exactly been in jail with these guys before either. Maybe it was Standard. Came with feeding them every night or something…

The marshal groaned exaggeratedly, drawing a Stun-rod from the holster on his belt look, and twisting the key to a minimum setting.

“Step three paces back before I can count to ten,” the marshal droned, “Or I am entitled to use force.”

I felt Jerrod tense, and Paulina rubbed underneath her throat self-consciously. She and Seth had been cat burglars before, and found us at the Warehouse while searching for shelter. I had a feeling they knew how lousy a Stun-rod shock was.

That was too far. My gang was going under the lightning jolt of a Stun-rod now. We needed to save our energy for a breakout when Izzy came to save us with the rest of the gang. Then, I was positive Izzy would save us. Later, I wouldn’t be so sure.

“You have three seconds,” The Marshal said, raising his rod.

“Get back,” I muttered, shouldering through Paulina and Seth. “Keep up a rebellion,” I hissed between my teeth as I started to step through the panel in the glass, “Make their jobs hell, got it?”

They nodded, and finally, I left the cell, as Misty gave me a shaky thumbs up and mouthed, ‘Good luck.’

Returning the favor, I followed the female marshal down the hall after she threaded steel cables around my wrists.

I didn’t know it then, but I wouldn’t get to see my adopted family again for quite a while after that moment, and I never even got to say goodbye.

---

“Erika V. Gage, you are hence charged with theft, assault to an officer, assault to a civilian, vandalism to government property, harboring many, many fugitives, and kidnapping. Need I go on?”

Across the floating counter, the marshal glared at me with beady black eyes, and I realized he wasn’t a Standard Marshal. No, he was way nastier than that. (If the buffoons called marshals are necessarily ‘nasty.’ They’re more like pesky little insects.)

In the dark of the room, his features were more natural, unsurged, with thinning dark hair and beady black eyes. His mouth was thin and his lips so pale it was like they were hardly even there, and he was extremely close to having a uni-brow.

The interrogation room was dark and cold, with hard plastic chairs for me and lounging swivel chairs for the other man in the room. The walls were gray and the floors hard plastic, probably the same material as the chairs, and the only light on was from a power cell twitching and buzzing over our heads.

I was facing an J.D.S.S.A., a.k.a. Judicial Department Special Security Agent, also known as JDs.

“I asked a question, Miss Gage.” The JD said, “How do you plead to that?”

“Innocent.” I said. I definitely wasn’t about to justify myself to a guy who had just ordered all of my friends plus me taken away from our home.

Besides, I wasn’t a criminal. I was like that man from hundreds of years ago, pre-TN. Pre-technology. I was like Robin Hood. I stole from the semi-rich to feed the semi-extremely-poor.

The JD raised an eyebrow as I tugged at the cables around my wrists, which had been threaded through a hole in the floating counter.

“Erika Gage,” He said, rolling the thumb ball on his terminal, “You are in for one hell of a ride, kid.”

“Funny,” I replied, “I was just thinking the same thing about you.”

“I don’t knock down radio towers, Gage.” The JD growling, glaring at him. “Which reminds me, care to explain that trick?”

“Not in particular,” I said coolly, “Care to explain the virtue of stealing a bunch of kids out of their home?”

“The building was condemned, Gage.” The JD said tiredly, still scanning the screen of his terminal, “You were lucky it didn’t crash down around your precious little family’s heads in the middle of the night.”

“It wouldn’t have. The radio tower, geez, why didn’t you evacuate all of its people?” I asked, shaking my head at him disappointedly.

“Cocky, huh?” JD’s eyes narrowed agitatedly, “Do you even have a clue who you’re talking to?”

“Nope.” I said, sitting up in my chair and shaking my head at him again, “How rude is that as a host? Not introducing yourself to moi.”

“Gage, I’m a top ranking J.D.S.S.A. I really don’t have to worry about my manners with a runaway Amity kid.”

I frowned, “That’s great and all, but what am I supposed to call you now? JD, or Mean-Government-Man?”

“My name is Agent Evan Fine,” The JD scowled, “And that was Agent-Mean-Government Man to you, Gage.”

I rolled my eyes. God knows the world’s about to end when adults start trying to be funny.

“I think we should be friends, Evan,” I said, tilting back my head and shaking my bangs out of my eyes, “But for that, we’d have to go on a first-name basis. Call me Erika. Gage sounds like some sort of weird mechanic name or something.”

“Hilarious, Gage.” Agent Fun-Sucker said sardonically, “Let’s get on with it. How did you escape Amity?”

“Easily, Fine.” I said, “But what’s that have to do with it? I thought I was here for theft.”

Fine opened his mouth to speak, just as the door-panel slid open at the other side of the room.

“Agent Fine,” The female marshal said from the doorway, “We need to wrap it up on Gage. Donahue and Robins want to speak to you about the Dersion boy.”

“Fine,” Agent Fine stood up from his chair, “Get Gage into his room. The rest of her friends are to be scanned for DNA once more and sent home or to shelters to be sorted out in the orphanages.”

My jaw dropped. “Wait a minute –“

“Gage, I wouldn’t argue now.” Agent Fine said dryly, “Cockiness, as you can see, only gets you so far.” He folded his terminal shut and pushed it into his pocket, “Until then, I suggest you get a few manners for our next chat. By then your roommates will probably have filled you in a bit.” He got up to leave as the female marshal began to unscrew the steel cables around the floating counter, “Good luck, Gage. You’ll need it.”

I would have thought of a witty comeback, but there wasn’t much I could do other than wave my left fist in the air just as the female marshal let out a shriek, and with a loud crunching sound, the door-panel slammed shut on Agent Fine’s leg with a loud crack.

I laughed hazily before the marshal shot me with a Stun-rod, and yet again, everything was black as I giggled deliriously while Fine was swearing at the top of his lungs that I’d never see the light of day again.