"Introducing Kangaroo"

INTRODUCING KANGAROO
By Curtis C. Chen

"Come on, DAD would be a great code name for you."

He gave me the look that said he wasn't in the mood for jokes. Actually, he was almost never in the mood for jokes—unless he was making them—but this was the look that really meant business. This was the look that threatened physical harm if I continued down this path.

So, of course, I kept pushing.

"You know," I said, "because you're such a father figure to me. Right? Except nobody else would know that. So it's super easy for us to remember, but completely opaque to anybody else."

He stared at me for another long moment, then said, "Are you planning to be this idiotic during the meeting?"

"That is my plan, yes."

"You do understand what's at stake here."

I could hear his voice switching into lecture mode. "Yeah, I do, but why don't you remind me again, in excruciating detail."

He touched the controls on the back of the driver's seat, and the clear partition between us and the vehicle's front compartment darkened. At the same time, the outside road noise became muffled as the active suppression systems engaged. Even in a secure agency vehicle, one could never be too careful about eavesdroppers.

"This meeting is going to decide the disposition of your entire future," he said. "After today, you're either going to be a lab rat or a field agent. And only one of those occupations offers a halfway normal life."

"I have no chance at a normal life," I said. "I have a superpower, remember?"

"I said halfway normal," he said. "Science Division will not blink at locking you away for weeks of testing at a time. They won't even think of you as a human being. All they want is to figure out how to replicate your ability, either technologically or biologically. And if they have to trade your life for that knowledge, they will feel absolutely no remorse about it."

"Okay, yeah, I get it," I said. "But how does doing field missions at your beck and call improve my life expectancy?"

"I'm not saying you'll live any longer. It's quite possible you'll make a rookie mistake your first time out and get killed within minutes of infiltration."

I studied his face to see if he was attempting to make a joke. He wasn't.

"Thanks for the vote of confidence," I said.

"Even the best agents can be brought down by stupid mistakes or plain old bad luck. It's nothing personal, KANGAROO," he said.

"And another thing," I said. "Can we talk about changing my stupid code name?"

"What's wrong with KANGAROO?"

I squinted at him. "You do realize that only female kangaroos have pouches, right?"

He stared back at me. "What's your point?"

I was certain he was joking now, but his face betrayed nothing.



Image: Rude kangaroo! by Tambako The Jaguar, July, 2010

"Interview Prep"

INTERVIEW PREP
By Curtis C. Chen

"Mrs. Conover, Kari to her friends, reported her husband missing at about nine o'clock last night," Lahane says. "Of course, police don't file an official missing persons report until thirty-six hours after last verified contact, but the dispatcher on duty had to log the call and was meticulous enough to include a note about the name of the caller and her husband. Once we got confirmation on the identity of the dead runner this morning, Buffalo PD paid her a visit."

"And how did that go?" I ask.

"About as well as you'd expect," Lahane says. "A lot of crying, a lot of screaming kids who didn't understand what was going on. More of a notification visit than an actual interview. We're supposed to share whatever we find with BPD."

"How many children?" Oliver asks. He's sitting in the backseat with me, behind Lahane on the passenger side.

"Two," she says. "Eleven-year-old boy and a nine-year-old girl. That's not going to be a problem, is it?"

"Not for me," Oliver says. "But Harvey doesn't like children."

"Actually," I start to say.

"Why not?" Westmark asks, peering at my reflection in her rearview mirror. I see her eyes boring into me, and I shake my head.

"I'm not really the parental type," I say.

"I guess you don't have to deal with a lot of young'uns down in DC," Lahane says. "You don't need to feel parental. Just pretend you're the weird uncle or something. Or a cousin; you look young enough for that."

"How old are you?" Westmark asks. It's the first time she's spoken more than two words in a row since we met her, and it's jarring enough that I don't recognize her utterance as a question for a brief moment.

"I look young for my age," I say.

"And what age is that?" Lahane asks. I can tell they're not going to leave this alone. Dammit.

"Twenty-six."

"Jesus Christ." Lahane leans back to look at Oliver. "Please tell me you're over thirty."

"I am two hundred and thirty-eight years old," Oliver says with a straight face.

Lahane chuckles, and I even see Westmark's face crinkle in a smile. "Okay, so here's what we're going to do. Let me make the introductions, Westie here will play the muscle, Harvey, you'll be the somewhat awkward but relatable older cousin, and Johnson, you're the weird old uncle who asks unusual questions. Got that?"

"You're going to feed me these questions?" Oliver asks.

"I'm going to trust your intuition," Lahane says. "And if you miss anything, I'll follow it up."

"Why am I supposed to be awkward?" I ask.

Lahane smirks at me. "I'm trying not to play you against type, Harvey."

"That's hilarious," I say. "I'm not good with kids. They annoy me and I don't know how to talk to them."

"Just let them do all the talking," Lahane says. "Trust me, make a few funny faces and they'll want to tell you their life story."

"Yeah, I'm really looking forward to that."



Image: FBI Police Chevy Tahoe by Jason Lawrence, May, 2008

"Police Duality"

POLICE DUALITY
By Curtis C. Chen

"There's good news and bad news," Lahane says to the assembled federal agents. "The good news is, we've recovered the murder weapon from Todd Mason's apartment." She touches the display board to her right, and an enlarged photograph of a black semi-automatic pistol appears.

"Sig Sauer P326," Oliver says quietly, probably to himself, though I'm standing close enough to hear. "Nine millimeter, modified barrel."

"The bad news," Lahane continues, "is that we still have no idea who's running this show. Mason and Garcia were just cutouts. They were both hired over the Internet, through anonymized e-mail and forum accounts, but we've been able to backtrace the IP addresses to rough physical locations."

She touches both boards at once, and they flash to two different street maps of Buffalo. "The account used to hire Garcia was accessed here, using wireless from a public library. We're pulling security footage now, but coverage in that part of town is spotty. Thank you, privacy laws." She points to the other board. "This location, on the other hand, also a wireless access point, leased to the Pissing Pony Saloon, a dive bar frequented by one Todd Mason—and this man."

She touches the screen again, and a mugshot appears. I know who it is before Lahane says the name out loud.

***

"Donnie Reynolds?"

The man at the bar swivels around on his stool, and the smile on his face fades as soon as he sees the FBI badge and ID card that Lahane is holding up. Westmark has come up on the other side of Reynolds' stool, casually leaning against the bar, and Oliver and I stand behind Lahane, arms crossed.

"Can I finish my drink before we go?" Reynolds asks, holding up a lowball glass of amber liquid and partly melted ice cubes. His eyes are bloodshot and gleaming with just a hint of wetness.

"Sure," Lahane says. "You're not driving."

Reynolds nods and raises the glass toward his lips. Before it makes contact, he jerks his arm to the side and throws the drink in Lahane's face. She staggers backward, cursing loudly, and Oliver and I catch her.

Reynolds leaps off his stool and makes a break for the door. He runs straight into Westmark, who pulled away from the bar as soon as he moved on her partner. Westmark grabs Reynolds' shoulders, spins him like a rag doll, and shoves him up against the bar.

"Ow! What the fuck!" he screams.

"FBI," Westmark says, slapping her badge down on the bar. Reynolds groans.

"So," I say to Oliver, "would you say that glass was half full... or half empty?"

He shakes his head at me. My best material is wasted.

Lahane finishes wiping the whiskey from her face and pulls a pair of handcuffs out from under her jacket. The bartender and other patrons have all moved away, minding their own business.

"Let's hope that's the worst decision you make today, Reynolds," Lahane says as she cuffs him. "Otherwise it's going to be a real bad day for you."



Image: great scot! by IntangibleArts, May, 2008

"Want You Gone"

WANT YOU GONE
By Curtis C. Chen

On Tuesday, Cletus and LeeAnn Savier went missing.

"What do you mean, missing?" said Pauline Deschanel, Chief of Security aboard the Princess of Mars cruise ship Dejah Thoris. "We're half a million kilometers from the nearest planet or spacecraft. Where the hell could they go?"

"I'm just telling you what the cabin stewards told me." Jefferson Logan, the ship's cruise director, shrugged his broad shoulders. In addition to overseeing the cruise activity schedule, he also kept track of the associated statistics: how many passengers attended each show, how many booked which tours or excursions, who ate at which restaurant for which meal. The data helped him plan for future demand, and also alerted him to any unusual activity patterns. Like two passengers suddenly going unaccounted for.

"They booked a Royal Banquet at Mortimer's tonight, but didn't show up," Jeff continued. "Two stewards checked the room after calling. No sign of them."

Deschanel raised an eyebrow. Mortimer's was the ship's most high-class restaurant, with a standing dress code and entrée prices that ran into the thousands. Nobody stood up a reservation at Mortimer's. "Newlyweds?"

"There's no notation in their booking." Jeff brought up the passenger records on his tabletop display.

Deschanel saw the ID photos and said, "Wait a minute. That's Cletus Savier?"

"You recognize him?"

"His name's not Cletus. And I think I know where to find him."

***

Deschanel stepped out of the airlock and engaged her magnetic boots on the exterior hull. She took a moment to look around the blackness, just to make sure there wasn't something funny going on inside the effective range of the ship's navigational sensors, then walked forward.

She found the missing couple standing just behind the avionics section, looking through a telescope on a tripod attached to the hull and aimed at Dejah Thoris' destination: Mars. They were wearing the two spacesuits which she'd found still checked into the amidships excursion lounge but physically missing from inventory. Deschanel switched her suit radio to the common EVA frequency.

"I hope that tripod has magnetic feet, Cletus," she said, "otherwise you're getting billed for the hull repairs."

The spacesuited figure on the left turned, and a familiar brown face smiled at her through the helmet. "Good to see you, too, Chief."

Deschanel nodded at the other person. "You going to introduce me to the wife?"

The second figure rotated around, and Deschanel saw a pink face with twinkling blue eyes. The woman smiled and shook Deschanel's gloved hand. "Hi! I'm LeeAnn. Cletus said we might run into one of his friends on board, but I didn't think he meant the crew."

"Oh, we go way back." Deschanel squinted at "Cletus." "I remember the first time I caught him breaking half a dozen ship's regulations and interstellar laws."

"Oh, we can afford to pay the fines," LeeAnn said. "It's less hassle than chartering a private spacecraft, anyway."

Something occurred to Deschanel. "Is 'LeeAnn' even your real name?"

The other woman winked. "It is this week."

Deschanel grumbled. "Congratulations. You two are perfect for each other."



Image: Planet Mars by Paul T., April, 2010

"Phobos Cruise Crazy"

PREVIOUSLY: "To Cruise Or Not To Cruise"

PHOBOS CRUISE CRAZY
By Curtis C. Chen

"You handled that well," Barrett said as Liz pulled off her nitrile gloves.

"Good thing we're out of zero-gravity," Liz said. "There'd be blood everywhere—seriously, can you put the camera away for one second?"

Barrett snapped another picture. "You'll want to remember this later."

"I doubt that."

Liz stuffed her gloves into the biohazard bag being held by a uniformed crewman. She had to admit, there was no shortage of service personnel on board the Dejah Thoris. She could hardly turn around without someone offering to get her a drink or find her an activity.

Princess of Mars Cruises wanted none of its passengers to be bored. They did their best to reduce interplanetary travel time: the spacecraft accelerated for the first half of each voyage, then spun around and decelerated for the rest. That also meant a full day of zero-gravity at midway, which was the highlight of the trip for many people. Unfortunately, some less sober passengers forgot when they were back in gravity and continued moving as if they were still weightless.

This particular man, whose head wound Liz had just sewn up, had attempted to fly down a circular staircase. He was very definitely drunk.

"You're too young to be a doctor," the man slurred, failing to grope Liz with one hand.

She moved out of his reach. "I'm an ICU nurse."

"That's hot. Wanna have dinner with me?"

Barrett leaned forward. "No, she doesn't."

Liz heard a commotion. Another crewman, this one with stripes on his uniform, made his way through the crowd holding a red-and-white plastic case. He stopped next to Liz.

"I'm Doctor Sawhney," he said. "Are you the nurse?"

Liz nodded. "Pulse and respiration normal. Probable concussion, but the bleeding's stopped."

Doctor Sawhney knelt down to examine the drunkard's skull. "Excellent work, Miss—?"

"Chartier."

"Do you always carry a sewing kit?"

"No." Liz nodded at Barrett. "My boyfriend lost a button on his shirt, and we needed to fix it for the formal dinner tonight. We were on our way back to our room when we saw this idiot fall down the stairs."

"Get him to Sickbay. I'll be there in a minute," Sawhney said to the crewmen who were helping the drunkard to his feet. "Thank you, Miss Chartier. I'm sorry I was delayed, but we had a situation in the excursion area."

"What kind of situation?" Barrett asked.

"I'll tell you all about it," Sawhney said, "tonight during dinner at the Captain's Table."

Liz knew exactly how much one of those seats cost. "Oh, we couldn't possibly—"

"It's complimentary," Sawhney said. "For both of you. Who knows what kind of diseases Mr. Midlife Crisis back there is carrying, and how many people he might have infected if you hadn't been here. Please, I insist."

"We'll be there," Barrett said. "Thank you!"

Sawhney walked back to the elevators. Liz glared at Barrett. He shrugged.

"It's the Captain's Table! We might never have the opportunity to do this again."

Liz shook her head. "I sure hope not."

CONTINUED IN "Dinner Conversation"...



Image: Crossing the November Sky by Luis Argerich, November, 2008

"Kangaroo Fails"

KANGAROO FAILS
By Curtis C. Chen

I step into the lounge and go blind. I think I make a noise as I close my eyes, and then I notice the overload indicator in the corner of my vision. I move my eyes around until the night vision enhancement switches off. All this I do instinctively, so I don't even feel nervous until I open my eyes and see the three security guards standing in front of me, stunners raised.

The one in the middle and closest to me is a tall woman with cold, pale blue eyes. I wonder if they always look like that, or if it's only when she catches a trespasser. The two men flanking her seem just as unhappy to see me.

"Hands where I can see them," the woman says. Her finger just touching the trigger. She really wants an excuse to shoot me.

I raise my arms slowly. They're much too concerned about a mere trespasser. They were looking for someone. Someone dangerous. The woman is holding her stunner too firmly, and her arms are braced against a nonexistent recoil. She's wishing she had an actual firearm, so she can drop me if I make a move. What the hell is going on?

"Mike, pat him down," she says. The man to her right holsters his weapon and gives me a very thorough frisking. I decide not to make the obvious joke. These guys aren't in the mood.

"He's clean," Mike says.

"Look, I'm sorry," I say, doing my best to sound pathetic. "I—I didn't think anybody would—"

"Shut up," the woman says.

I shut up. She's actually thinking about whether she should shoot first and ask questions later.

"Danny, scan him," she says.

I wonder what kind of scanner a cruise ship's security personnel would have access to. I stop wondering when Danny grabs my head and flashes a penlight in my left eye. The retinal imager strobes for a second, then beeps. Danny looks at it and frowns.

"It's giving me an error," he says.

"Try the right eye," I offer. "I've had surgery." It's not a lie.

"Do it," the woman says.

Danny blinds my right eye for a second, then reads off the result. "Evan Rogers. Passenger list says he's a researcher for the State Department."

The woman seems disappointed, but doesn't lower her stunner.

"What were you doing outside the ship, Mister Rogers?" she asks.

"I just wanted to do another excursion. By myself," I say. "I did a spacewalk yesterday, and it was so amazing, I just wanted to enjoy that—that freedom without a bunch of noisy people all around me. I'm sorry if I caused any trouble."

She mulls this over for a moment, probably trying to decide if I'm lying or not. I'm pretty sure she can't tell. I'm good at my job.

Then she takes one step foward and jams the tip of her stunner up under my chin.

"What the hell were you doing outside the ship?"

Apparently I'm not that good.



Image: Mooki FAIL by Chuck Olsen, February, 2010

"Kangaroo in the Field"

KANGAROO IN THE FIELD
By Curtis C. Chen

"He's not breathing!" I drop the pressure suit helmet onto the washroom floor, grab the ambassador's shoulders with both hands, and shake him while shouting his name. He doesn't respond.

"Check his pulse," says the female voice in my left ear.

I don't know how Jessica can remain so calm. It probably helps that she only hears me, and can't see the ambassador's face turning bright pink. I decide not to mention it and press two fingers against the side of his neck.

"Pulse is weak. But fast," I say, doing some quick math. "Gotta be at least a hundred, maybe one-twenty."

"Anaphylactic shock," Jessica says. "Did he eat or drink anything in the last few minutes?"

"I don't know. Maybe?" This was supposed to be a simple extraction: meet Ambassador Fisher at an embassy reception, get him into a spacesuit, put him in my pocket, walk out the front door. Another team was transporting his family, but with local security watching Fisher so closely, I was the only one who could smuggle him out.

"You weren't watching him?"

"Nobody said he had food allergies!"

"He doesn't," Jessica mutters.

"Just tell me what to do!" I say.

"Does he have an epi pen?" Jessica asks. She's not talking to me.

A male voice buzzes in my right ear. "Yes. It's in your pocket, Kay," Oliver says. "Chimpanzee with an orange popsicle."

I envision the primate with the frozen treat and open my pocket to the associated location. A one-meter-wide, glowing white disk appears in midair in front of me—the barrier keeps atmosphere from leaking into the pocket, like a pressure curtain. I reach inside, close my hand around a vinyl pouch, and pull it into our universe. Then I close the pocket again.

Three plastic cylinders are secured inside the pouch. I remove one, pop off the black cap covering the tip, and jab it hard against Fisher's thigh. "Nothing's happening!" I try it twice more, making creases in the ambassador's trouser leg. "Damn, this thing is cold."

"Cold?" Jessica says. "How cold?"

"That pouch should have been insulated," Oliver says. "Check the temperature—"

"You're storing medication in hard vacuum without thermal controls?" Jessica says.

"Later!" Oliver says.

"Forty degrees," I say, reading the colored strip on the side of the pen. "The epi's still liquid. And clear."

"The cold could have affected the auto-injector mechanism," Oliver says. "Try the other two."

I do, with the same results. "They're not working either! Is he going to die?"

"No," Jessica says. "I'm looking at the ambassador's medical records. He had a vagus nerve stimulator implanted recently to treat a partial seizure disorder. Kangaroo, I'm going to use your implants to trigger a signal from Fisher's VNS. That should get him breathing again."

"Hang on," Oliver says.

"Put your left hand on the back of his neck," Jessica says.

"You're going to shock his brain?" Oliver says.

"We're going to save his life," Jessica says. "Kangaroo! Are you ready?"

I take a deep breath and place my palm under Fisher's skull. "Clear."



Image: My collection of passport stamps by Ho John Lee, February, 2006

"Kangaroo's First Day with the Eye"

KANGAROO'S FIRST DAY WITH THE EYE
By Curtis C. Chen

It was almost noon before Kangaroo came back to Jessica's office to complain.

"There's a lot of pixelation down the left side," he said. "Is that normal?"

Jessica tapped her scanpad on his shoulder and looked over the data feed from his body sensors.

"Reads normal," she said. "Describe the pixelation."

"It's like a white dotted line. And it flickers." He raised his left hand and rubbed his eye with one knuckle.

"Please tell me you haven't been doing that all morning," Jessica said.

"What?" Kangaroo said, still rubbing. "It's itchy."

She grabbed his wrist and pulled it down. "It takes a full day for the display film to completely bond to your cornea. If you rub it off, we'll have to start all over."

"Can you do anything about the itching?" he asked. "Give me some eyedrops or something?"

Jessica sighed and put away the scanpad to prevent herself from smacking it against Kangaroo's head. "All the drugs you need are already being manufactured in your bloodstream by the nanobots we injected last week. Remember them?"

Kangaroo folded his arms and pouted. Jessica noticed something.

"Ow!" he said as she yanked his right arm straight. He was wearing a short-sleeved shirt, and there was a small lump under the skin on the inside of his elbow—like a cyst, except it was a bluish color and located right above the vein.

"How long has this been here?" she asked.

"What? I don't know. What is that?"

Jessica dragged Kangaroo to the other side of the room and pushed him down into the exam chair. "Sit." She pointed to an eye chart on the wall. "Read the third line down, please."

While Kangaroo squinted at the chart, Jessica pulled on sterile gloves and selected a scalpel. She had removed the mass from his arm before he even noticed the pain.

"Apply pressure," Jessica said, handing him a gauze pad.

She ignored his screeching and took a thin slice off the blue lump. Under the microscope, she saw the spherical cross-sections of countless dead nanobots, shimmering with the telltale proteins that collected their corpses into canary clusters.

She whirled to face Kangaroo. "Have you had anything to eat or drink since the procedure this morning?"

He looked up from the wet gauze on his arm. "Just some coffee."

"Where?"

"Paul's office."

Jessica cursed and pressed a finger to her jaw, activating her communicator. "Security, this is Surge."

Her implant buzzed. "Surgery, Security, go ahead."

"I need an immediate local division lockdown. Suspected intruder with chemical or biological weapons."

After a brief pause, the Security voice said, "Please confirm, ma'am. You want us to lock down the offices of Director, Intelligence, Non-Territorial?"

"Yes!" Jessica hated repeating herself. "This is Commander Jessica Chu, day code gamma five one two. Seal this section now!"

"Authorization confirmed," Security said.

Jessica heard the rumbling of airtight bulkheads in the corridor outside. She dogged her office door, then saw Kangaroo looking at her with a sheepish expression.

"I also had a muffin," he said.

Audio: "Kangaroo's First Day with the Eye"

Before you ask: yes, "Kangaroo" is just his code name.

Music: instrumental stems from "Mr. Fancy Pants" by Jonathan Coulton, licensed under Creative Commons.