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The Fifteenth Article

By Linda Wood Rondeau

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Chapter One
Sector Four/New Edinburgh

Bridget Cavanaugh sniffed the air like a deer before the fatal shot.
Plasma bursts shred the door to splinters seconds before Interprovincial Equalization Authority stormed the domicile, their faces hid behind visor-hinged helmets. Someone had tipped them off.
“IEA! On the floor. Now!”
Ian darted in front of her, a reckless attempt to protect. A white stream ripped the air, and he fell to the floor. If only she’d told him about the baby … maybe he’d have been more cautious. Blood oozed from his side—a bad wound—very bad. She fought the urge to rush to him, to kiss his brow and join him among the martyred. There was an unborn life she must shield, just as Ian had tried to cover her.
The female officer pointed her weapon chest high as she shouted orders toward her partner. “Perez, check your target’s pulse. If he’s not dead, neutralize him. We can’t take a chance he’ll get feisty again.”
Bridget forced her tears behind a façade of calm—a skill learned from IEA days—while Perez placed a large thumb on Ian’s wrist then pricked his neck with a hypo. “Should keep him under control.”
Bridget glanced toward Ian, the hypo a mixed blessing—though it might slow the bleeding, he’d be of no help. She calculated the chances for escape. Slim was better than none. They’d been trained for such a raid in tangent. Ian’s wound was most likely mortal. Should she attempt an escape on her own? No. As long as he breathed, she’d not leave her baby’s father behind.
She strained her focus on the officers to find something to exploit. Only one button presented over Perez’s globe insignia, a common rank, whereas the female officer’s uniform showed two, a team leader.
The woman officer cocked her head toward the table. “Perez, over there.”
A familiar quality edged her voice … from a previous encounter, perhaps. When? For Bridget, the past was a haze, only her life with Ian worth remembering.
Perez recorded the requisite evidence image of the smuggled books. With one short plasma burst, charred debris filled the air like volcanic ash.
Bridget scanned the full height of the female, two inches taller than her partner. The woman sidled up next to him and stroked his back. “Nice work.”
Something else about the woman echoed in Bridget’s distant memory. Her walk. Like a lioness about to pounce. Yes, of course, Angelina Bartelli.
Perez swung in Bridget’s direction then poised his question to his superior. “Want me to neutralize her, too?”
Bartelli lifted her visor and confirmed her identity, her hot breath an insult as she leaned in near Bridget’s ear. “What do you think, Cavanaugh? Are you going to cooperate?”
Say nothing.
A deeper fear than neutralization consumed her—Da might be implicated. If the IEA proved the Highland governor’s daughter and her intimate belonged to the resistance, Congress would not hesitate to authorize a province-wide purge. Since Da’s position was already shaky, the scandal would topple him for sure.
“Nothing to say in your defense?”
“You fired at a citizen without warning, Bartelli. Typical.”
“Careful, Bridget, or I might let Perez have at you.”
“I have not resisted.”
“Perez, didn’t you see this target pull a blade when I shot McCormick?”
Perez lifted his visor and snapped his head in her direction. His brown face twitched as he leered toward his target. “Say, the word, Bartelli.”
“I suppose we’d better not damage the goods. Governor Cavanaugh would be outraged.”
“What?”
“Don’t you recognize our governor’s daughter?”
He holstered his weapon. “Now you tell me.”
Bartelli patted Ian’s cheek. “As for our immobilized friend, the governor would probably look the other way if we finished him off. An act of mercy. I doubt he’ll live to see morning.”
“Da knows about this raid?”
“Don’t be so naïve, Bridget. He signed the warrant himself.”
“On what grounds?”
“Conspiracy.”
Da would have no part of this. Either the warrant was forged, or Da had been forced to act.
Bartelli placed her foot under Ian’s arm. “Perez, help me raise this lump so I can begin the arrest protocols.”
Perez raised Ian to a stand and propped him against the wall. He moaned, perhaps the hypo hadn’t been strong enough. If she and Ian were to escape, she’d have to act quickly.
She remembered an impulsive Officer Bartelli, a new recruit assigned to Bridget’s IEA team, hopefully, as hot-headed now as she was then. Bartelli’s temper was the Achilles Heel upon which Bridget could depend. She hazarded a puny laugh. “Go on. Terminate us. The Reformation won’t be stopped by our deaths. Bring us down, and more will rise to take our place. Your lover boy, Jimmy Kinnear, said the same thing the day he defected.”
As if scripted, Bartelli drew an open hand across Bridget’s cheek. “Enough!”
Bridget positioned her body so the next baited slap would be in full view of the scanner. “So, you still love your darlin’ Jimmy? Why didn’t you defect with him?”
The jibe worked. Bartelli’s complexion turned to crimson. “Don’t be ridiculous. That was four years ago. Jimmy’s a traitor—like you.”
“Jimmy fights for truth.”
Bartelli punched Bridget’s jaw with her P-74 and nausea threatened her composure. At least the abuse had been caught by the monitor. Hope rose.
After retrieving a micro from her pouch, Bartelli clicked a sequence of codes. By the sound of her entries, Bartelli had never changed her permissions. The scantily clad EVE, the Mainframe’s external virtual educator, projected. “Officer Bartelli, how may I assist you?”
“Arrest Protocols.”
EVE minimized and the visor-helmeted icon, ADAM, projected.
“Quite the pair, don’t you think, Bartelli?”
“A necessary evil.”
“They’re holographic robots who dictate every move you make. The IEA is as controlled as the whole of Citizenry.”
“Not control, Bridget … order. You never could accept the concept of order. Why you quit the IEA. Too bad. You could have become the next Chief of the Highland Precinct.”
She squared her shoulders while ADAM continued citing article subsections and legal statutes. “Ian McCormick, you have been found guilty of treason against the Constitutional Government …”
Ian slumped. Perez jabbed his target in the stomach then pulled him back up against the wall. “Stay awake, you fool.”
Bridget steeled herself to prepare for life without Ian, a fate worse than death. To what cause would she align herself then? The Reformation Party, Ian’s cover for his resistance work, had been his passion, not hers, his mantra, “Let every man choose his own path.” She had served as Ian’s partner for the thrill, not the mission. What did she care for the preservation of antiquities? Smuggling artifacts to the Treasure Keepers defied the Constitutional Government. That was Bridget Cavanaugh’s mission—to bring down all of Da’s enemies.
Angelina minimized ADAM as she shouted at Ian’s prone form. “Do you understand these charges?”
He chose discreet silence.
Obscenities flowed from Angelina’s rage. Bridget recalled the tactic, to incite rather than subdue targets, an excuse to terminate on the spot. Processing a dead target was much less tedious—a simple click of a button, a complete delete of a life once lived, obliterated by a blip on a screen.
Bartelli lifted Ian’s chin with the tip of her P-74. “I asked you if you understood the charges against you.
He rolled to face Bridget then shot her his secret smile, a signal he understood her plan. He met Bartelli’s sneer with one of his own. In full view of the scanner, she smashed a purloined porcelain statue of St. Peter against the wall. The shards landed inches from Ian’s head. “Well, Mr. McCormick, indication is immaterial. Carlos … I mean Officer Perez … will verify.”
Bartelli turned toward Bridget and re-sequenced ADAM, who then spouted out the new set of arrest protocols. “Bridget Cavanaugh, you have been found guilty of conspiracy.”
“The name is Bridget McCormick.”
Bartelli snorted.
ADAM’s hologram hiccupped before he scanned Bridget from head to toe. “Subject’s identity confirmed.” He beeped and chimed through the remaining protocols. When finished, Bartelli minimized him. “Bridget Cavanaugh, do you understand these charges?”
Silence, her best defense.
Bartelli put her thumbprint on the projected arrest document then hit FILE. “Doesn’t matter—your guilt has already been established.” She stuffed the micro into her satchel and repositioned her P-74. “Perez, wipe the blood, remove the scanner, and let’s take these two to booking so we can log out for the night.” She winked. “Maybe find more enjoyable things to do.”
Bridget stole a quick, deep breath. “Not so fast, Perez. Haven’t you forgotten something, Officer Bartelli?
“Do you think I’m incompetent?”
Bridget turned a welted face directly into the scanner. “It’s all on record. How you shot an unarmed target without warning … the physical abuse … your unprofessional conduct with your partner. Or did you forget you have to submit the target’s domicile security images along with the arrest history—including our wee chat about Jimmy Kinnear?”
“I don’t—”
Perez glanced toward the scanners. “You crossed the line, Bartelli. These two aren’t worth losing our careers over. Let’s blast the domicile scanner and say they escaped.”
Bartelli paled with awareness. “It’s too late to stop the dump into the Mainframe even if we did destroy it.”
Bridget wet her lips. “If you let us go, we can fix that detail.”
“Shut up Bridget, before I decorate the walls with your brain matter. I should have known you’d pull a stunt like this.”
Ian moaned his proposal. “We … have insiders … can alter both our scanner and ADAM’s feed. Or … didn’t you notice his hiccup? Our sources … already know… what you did.”
“Why am I not surprised?” Bartelli holstered her P-74. “All right. I’ll give you an hour’s head start. Then I’ll report you as fugitives. I’ll say you must have been warned, and we found the domicile on fire when we arrived. You’d better make sure the Mainframe is doctored to corroborate our story, or you’ll be terminated before you leave the sector.”
As Bridget moved to Ian’s side, he mouthed his devotion. “I love you, Mrs. McCormick.”
Bartelli cackled. "You know, of course, every IEA officer in the province will be looking for you. You won’t get far, Mr. Reformist.”
Ian shrugged his shoulders. “Perhaps not.”
“Perez, ignite. Bridget, your time starts now.”

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