Author: J Dark

Hack the Future part 2 (Steven Schaufler & J Dark)

Despite the annoyed retort on the cusp of exploding into his microphone, it was the doors finally opening which made him pull it back only to be forgotten with the countless others she’d more than deserved, but never heard, over the course of their working relationship. And it had been one that was not only mutually beneficial but, also, quite lucrative. If that meant he had to take her sass along with her skills, then so be it.

Now he winced. Not only because ninety seconds was cutting things way closer than he would have liked, especially with his paunch not allowing him to slip sideways through the door before it fully opened like he would have a few years ago, but because Blade’s last impatient urging was cut off by a gunshot. Cursing a string of expletives under his breath that would make even the hardiest sailors blush, he wasted precious seconds by considering whether to prioritize the job or his partner… Then he moved, and he hated himself for it.

„Blade, I’m going for the prize. Don’t get your pretty little ass shot!“ He all but cried into the headset, not knowing whether she heard him or not.

It wasn’t nearly enough to clear his conscience if she did get herself killed but, it would have to do for now. He had reached the display case at the end of the cavernous and mirror paneled room and, while under normal circumstances he would’ve checked for any secondary alarms, he neither had the time for it, nor really the need for secrecy anymore. The glass case shattered after just one quick and precise application of his P7’s grip, and the polished aluminum cube which had been on display beneath it found itself in his free hand. He would’ve worn a self-satisfied smile, if not for the fact the door was beginning to close a good fifteen seconds before it should have.

Acting on pure instinct and trusting luck more than skill, he didn’t even tuck the newly liberated container into his satchel but merely took three long strides, before taking a leaping dive onto the mirrored floor and letting his momentum carry him forward like a skater on ice. And it was that momentum, along with a generous helping of luck, that saved his hide. He’d slid across the smooth surface so fast, that when his shoulders touched the carpet outside, it was almost like hitting a wall. His legs had nowhere to go but up, so he barely managed to clear the door before it shut and, whoever it was that fired at him didn’t factor in the sudden stop either, for the projectile which was no doubt meant to pop his head like a melon, buried itself into the carpeted, concrete floor a few centimeters in front of him.

„I’m getting too old for this shit!“ He yelled into his headset. Though the ways things were going, it likely was a futile gesture. Ever since he heard that initial gunshot on Blade’s end, all he’d gotten from the damned thing was static. Rolling over and zig-zagging along the narrow hall in a crouched run to avoid getting hit by whomever was shooting at him he somehow managed to make it to the stairwell unharmed.

Unlike his partner, who had to hack into the system several stories up, his objective had been on the sub-level. As such, he decided that if he was going to even to try to attempt getting to Blade, he had to first grab something better than his P7 from the car. Though once he opened the door to the garage, that became a moot point. Directly across from him, albeit separated by a good thirty or more meters, Blade was already hobbling towards the car. Grinning wickedly, he called out to her „I think we…“ and whatever else he’d meant to say was lost to the thunderous echo of a single gunshot tearing through the garage as violently as the projectile tore through his shoulder.

Hack the Future part 1 ( Steven Schaufler & J Dark )

She flipped her straight black hair back with a light toss of her head, then grunted in annoyance as strands floated like black silk back in front of her eyes. Grumbling, she took an alligator clip from her open kit with her right hand, and used it as an impromptu barrette to hold her hair. “Come on Blade, where’s that hack?” She muttered something low and scathing as the wires leading from her left hand continued to send signals, attempting to finesse the security login. “Hey! What’d you….”, the voice growled. She snapped back, “Shut it, spud. It’s hard enough hacking with a dog yapping.” The angry growl at the other end of her earbud promised a long talk when they got done. The last electron pattern for the security code dropped into place, the yellow ‘query’ going to a green ‘proceed’.

“I got it, I’m in. Doors opening now. We got ninety seconds before Dayner’s pet ‘runners find the hack.” She started feeding spoofers, small programs designed to randomly look, and act like a virus attempting to hack a program. Spoofers used a random algorithm to choose targets, then attached themselves to the program, and replicated, attempting to absorb all available memory. It was a slight variation on a distributed denial of service attack, but one that was internal rather than the archaic method of overwhelming the link to the ‘net.

Blade watched the spoofers take off, and watched the speed that the ‘watchdogs’, the company’s personal security runners isolated the spoofer swarm and began to deny them expansion. “It doesn’t look good, these guys are sharp. Pick up the pace. I…”, she started to say then dropped flat on her back as a soft scrape reached her ears. Three impacts hit just above her, the bullets pockmarking the wall and spalling ceramic dust into her eyes and nose. She brought her foot up, aiming the heel at the security guards in dark brown uniforms. Both carried silenced StGS Wasps, the stubby assault pistol with a silencer longer than the snub barrel. The guard to her left dropped to a knee to brace, the right guard leaned against the corner, only his head and right shoulder seen.

She lifted her left leg, tightened her toes a certain way, and the heel-mounted pulse laser fired, obliterating her boot, and the kneeling guard from the sternum up. The cauterized remains flopped and twitched as the body began to realize it had died. The other guard had ducked back around the corner as she’d fired. I got to get out of here. They found me way too fast. “They found me, I have to bail. Abort. Abort abort abort!” Dammit, there goes our payday. Angry at the shift in fortune, she pulled her father’s old Smith&Wesson Model 29 from the shoulder holster, and snapped a quick shot at the corner where the other security guard had slipped behind. The thunderous boom of the old .44 magnum raised the settling ceramic dust and she sneezed. The bullet tore a fist-sized chunk of cement and ceramic from the wall. She smiled grimly as she heard choking and coughing from around the corner.

She hobbled to her feet and ran clumsily, reaching the stairwell door, and yanking it open. It was second nature to slap the big D-ring around the steel railing and leap over the edge, using the rappelling wire brake to slow her descent. Landing at the bottom o the stairwell, she slapped the rappelling rig’s quick-release and sprinted out the doorway into the underground parking garage. Where is he?! I’m screwed if he gets caught. He’s got the keys.

Interviewing the Father of ‘Building Baby Brother’ part 2

Here is the second half of my interview with Steven Radecki, the author of ‘Building Baby Brother’.

Here’s a question about choosing a topic to write about. Do you feel that a story needs to have relevance in society?

I think that having some kind of social relevance helps to deepen a story. The trick, though, is to do it in such a way that it doesn’t feel preachy or pedantic to the reader. That can turn them off to the message (and story!) very quickly.

Comics are used at times to offer controversial subjects in stories. In ‘Civil War’, the idea of registration comes up. Do you feel ‘Building Baby Brother’ has touched a subject that could become more important as robotics and Artificial Intelligence become more sophisticated?

I think it raises the point that we probably need to re-examine our preconceptions about AI, much of which is driven by popular science fiction films, television, and literature.

It’s been said that all great stories like BBB are built on previous works the writer had read. In that vein, who, influenced your vision of the story?

There are several influences to this story, some of which are even subtly referenced during the course of the story. One of the inspirations that kept coming to my mind as I wrote and edited it was David Gerrold’s When Harlie was One. (I still prefer the original edition. Sorry, David.) Other conscious influences were the movie A.I. and, of course, Data from Star Trek: The Next Generation. I’m certain that there were many, many unconscious influences as well, such as Mycroft Holmes from The Moon is a Harsh Mistress, but none I specifically set out to emulate.

Were there any books that helped solidify your idea, or an author you enjoyed reading that might have given you ideas on style and presentation?

As mentioned in my answer to your previous question, I think David Gerrold with When Harlie was One was a major influence, both thematically and stylistically. Finding the right voice for this story was definitely a challenge—and one of the reasons that I very rarely tell a story from a first-person point-of-view. I felt that this story, though, demanded a first-person narrative perspective. Other than that, I can’t say that any specific storytelling style influenced the one used in this story. I’m not saying that it isn’t there, just like that I don’t recall using any other author’s particular style as an inspiration or template.

Interviewing the Father of ‘Building Baby Brother’

Hello all!

I’m J Dark, author of ‘Best Intentions’, book one of a series I’ve come to call ‘Glass Bottles’.

I’m here to interview the author of a story I really have wanted to see in print since I first critiqued it. That story is ‘Building Baby Brother’ ( BBB ), by Steven Radecki. What we’re going to do today is a little Q&A about his story.  This is a two-part series, with the second portion tomorrow.

I’m really honored to be the one to do this interview. So to jump right in, thank you Steven for sharing your time with the readers.

My first question is probably the one all authors get at least once every time your promoting a book. That question is: Where did you get the idea for BBB?

To be honest, I don’t remember where the actual idea for the plot came from. The story itself started as part of an exercise that, well, kind of got out hand. My son’s charter had planned to sponsor an event to help foster reading and writing skills by asking students and willing family members to write a short story and then read it out loud at this event. Always willing to write, particularly for a good cause such as that one, I started pondering possible story ideas. I knew I wanted something kind of “Twilight Zone”-ish—something short, entertaining, but with a fun twist at the end. From there, the basic concept of the story was born.

Every author develops their stories differently. In your case, did you create an outline first, or just choose a direction, or something else?

I rarely work from an outline for a short story. They are usually based on some concept I want to explore and I kind of see where the characters involved take it. In case, since it was originally only supposed to be 2,000 words, I felt a full-fledged outline might be overkill. As a result, though, the last third or so of the story went a direction that surprised even me.

No story ever flows smoothly as it’s created. What parts, or scenes were the hardest to develop?

I always have trouble with the middle. They say that maintaining the story and pace in the second book of a trilogy is often difficult, and I think the same thing is true about the middle of any story. I usually know how to start my stories and have a pretty good idea how it will end either when I start it or before I get a quarter of the way through it. In this story, probably the most difficult scene was scene with the police because I needed something that would transition the story from its setup to exploring the implications of the actions performed in its first half. I had a really tough time coming up with a scene that would work that would get me to where I wanted the story to go.

Another question I’m sure authors get asked all the time is, what made you decide to be a writer? With all the professions around, why get into writing?

Why not? I’ve always wanted to create—whether it be writing or filmmaking. There’s immensely satisfying about “putting on a show” and presenting it to an audience. With writing, perhaps even more than with filmmaking, you can have full control over your production: all the way from set design, costuming, and casting. Of course, when you sell the movie rights, you tend to lose those.

My last question for this series is, where and when do you like to write? I know that David Weber has said that he prefers the evenings, as it allows him to relax and concentrate. What are your favorite conditions for writing?

Peace and quiet—and good luck getting that! My preferred writing environment is where were I’m unlikely to be interrupted. I prefer to be able to get mentally lost in the world that I’m writing about. I find that the characters tend to be more vivid in my mind and are more to behave as they should so that mostly all I have to do is transcribe as they take whatever action the story requires of them. I’ve written in a lot of places: home, work, coffee shops, libraries, airports, hotel rooms…I’m pretty good at tuning out external distractions. Still, a quiet environment is my preference. Also, I don’t write with music on in the background; I find it too distracting.

Skid Style part 7

The dark-skinned man groaned as he rolled to his hands and knees, laying flat and spreading his arms out spread-eagle on the wooden pier as the heavyset woman waited for backup. It got to the pier in five minutes, along with a police cruiser. The two men were handed over to the police while both Skid and the security guard’s statements were recorded. “How’d you find them?”, the officer asked Skid.

“Uh, I saw the crates out of alignment, when I went down the pier I saw they were twisted. It looked like they’d been looking for something.” The officer looked at the heavy gouges in the pier, down towards the end, then back up near the front of the row of pallets. “Any idea how that happened? Did the two suspects cause this?”

“Um, I never saw it happen. It looks like a big something was drug along. I don’t think they could have done that.” The officer wrote down Skid’s statement in his notebook. He looked at Skid, then down at his feet. The combat boots he wore were abraded down to almost nothing, the soles thin, the heels worn flat. The officer, raised his gaze slowly, then arched an eyebrow. “You’re certain you didn’t notice anything that might have caused this?”

Skid gulped. If I say yes, then I’m gonna get in trouble again. But if I say no, I’m lying to the man. I don’t know what to do! “That came from one of the forklifts today”, Ms Menendez said. “Some dumbass tried to lift more than the fork could handle, and lost control of it. The officer stared hard at the woman, who returned his gaze with her own, challenging him. The officer straightened up, eyes narrowing. “If you say so ma’am.” He started to put the notebook in his shirt pocket.

“Uh, sir, umm” Skid fumbled, sounding a lot like his seventeen years of age. “I uh, did that. I ran too fast and tried to stop too fast. That’s what happened.” He looked down, face reddening in embarrassment, then looked up at the officer. “I overran where I wanted to stop, and when I turned around, there they were one guy on the crates, the other on the ground.”

The officer, jotted notes into his book. “I’m glad you came clean. I can put this down as collateral damage pursuant to capture.” Skid blinked at the officer, as did Mendez. “Say what?”, Skid said incredulously. “It means it happened during the arrest, so the crooks will be charged with the damage, not the person seeking to legally arrest them.” The officer smiled faintly, then stuck his notebook back into his pocket. “Good work you two. Makes my job easier. But stay out of the habit. Getting involved is all well and good, but this could have gone down a lot different.

Geez, I’m a hero, after all, cut me a break. “Yes, sir”, was what Skid said politely. The other officers had finished putting the two men in the police cruiser, and the two cars drove off, leaving the dock much more subdued and quiet, it seemed to Skid.

“So, now that you got lucky, and caught ’em. What are you going to do?” Skid looked at Menendez for a moment before answering. “Go looking for trouble, I guess. Kinda what I’m supposed to do, you know?” Menendez smiled. “Yeah, that suit makes it hard not to.” She turned back to her car. “See you around, kid.” “It’s Skid.” “Yeah, Skid.” She waved her hand at him and sat down in the car. There was a slight breeze. When she looked up, Skid had vanished. She chuckled, shaking her head. “See you around.” She started the car and went back to her rounds on the docks.

Skid Style part 6

His braking had torn huge chunks and splinters from the wooden pier. It looked like someone had drug a crane scoop along the wood. Some of the crates had been spun sideways by the shockwave of his passage. About twenty feet back towards the crates, a man in a black shirt and blue jeans slowly pushed himself off the ground with a pained groan. Where the heck did he come from? Skid looked back towards the crates, and at the top was a second man, partly covered by crates to his back and left. The other crates had been knocked away by Skid’s shockwave.

“Dammit!”, the second man, who’s dark skin was still lighter than his dark blue shirt and faded blue jeans. He saw Skid looking at him. He paled, then reached behind him with both hands. Skid didn’t wait, and accelerated again. The shockwave picked up the first man and knocked him into the crates. The second was hit and flew off at an angle as skid put on the brakes, sending splinters and chunks of wood flying past him as he came to a stop. He trotted back quickly to the where the second man had been. Finding the crates shifted, he trotted around to the other side of the huge pallets, looking for the man. He found him dazedly trying to push himself up off the ground. The first man was lying prone at the front of the pallets, laying sideways his face upturned, in a partly crushed wooden crate.

Skid ignored the man and trotted over to the dark-skinned man, who groggily tried to take a swing at him, and fell face first on the wooden surface of the pier. Skid quickly flipped the man over, and took his belt off, then looped the belt over the man’s hands and tied the end of the belt to one of the man’s legs, keeping his back arched so he couldn’t loosen the belt and wiggle free. Once he was confident the man wouldn’t escape easily, he went to check on the first man. He found him still passed out, his face and clothes scratched and torn by flying wood splinters. I got to find a better way. This sucks. He gingerly checked for any visible broken bones, and seeing none, sped off the dock and looked for Ms Menendez to report what he’d found.

It took him a couple minutes to search the docks and found her on the second pier south of the one he’d encountered the two men. “Hey! Follow me! I caught ’em!” He waved his hands under the large lamp at the edge of the pier. The guard did a slow run to the car, and stared it up. Skid watched the lights flip on and ran in front of the car to direct her to the scene. When they got back, Skid saw the man he’d tied up, just starting to put his belt back around his pants. His eyes got wide as he heard the car, then he turned to run, only to trip over a foot Skid had stuck in front of him. He stumbled, and Skid body blocked him into the crates. “Freeze! I mean it! You don’t move! Don’t Move!” Ms Menendez was out of the car, a pistol drawn in one hand as she keyed the shoulder comm with the other. “I got two men, broken crates. Seven-one. I repeat Seven one.”

Skid Style Part 5

Ms. Menendez stepped closer to Skid, who stood a whole head taller. “Yeah, I suppose you could take it like that.” She shrugged, then adjusted her jacket and web belt. “I’m sure you might think crooks would come back to the scene of the crime to rob it again since it was so easy the first time. Trust me. They’re going to go look elsewhere. Too much attention down here for them to be comfortable with a second try. You’re not inconspicuous in that costume. A super like yourself is bad news for bad guys. Since you’ve decided to stake this place out, they won’t come back. There’s plenty of other docks to lift stuff from.”

Skid felt his heart sink a little. He’d hoped to catch them in the act here. He looked around the parking lot and back to the warehouse once more. “I guess you might be right. Maybe they know I’m out here looking for trouble.” He looked at Ms Menendez, who bent over and slowly maneuvered herself back into her car. She put her seat belt back on and closed the door. The car started with a soft roar. She smiled at Skid, then said, “I know it ain’t easy bein’ a super. Just let me say I like you out here. It makes my job a little easier.” “I think I’ll stick around then. See what happens. I’m fast enough to cover the whole yard.” Ms Menendez chuckled. “Yeah, you do that.”

Skid grinned, then sped off to the south, and made a quick stop-and-go circuit of the quiet docks short of the new modern cement piers. He took a quick look around, then sped off the dock to the pile of crates waiting for pickup in the morning. A quick glance showed no activity at the near end. He carfe gauged the distance for a few moments, then looked around for any potential witnesses. Satisfied he was alone, he concentrated, then accelerated. His speed, his actual top speed was in the mach numbers. He been tested on a treadmill, and burned it out with little effort. The top listed speed before it tore itself apart and nearly launched him into a wall, was three hundred fifty miles an hour. That had been the only test as well, despite the scientists repeated entreaties to ‘come back for more tests’. You’d think once was enough. It sure was for me.

With his first step, the world blurred around him. He might achieve mach, but his eyes were still normal, and still operated at roughly sixteen images per second. This seems like a lot, but in truth, much of the brain’s attempts at following things, such as a ninety-mile-an-hour baseball are as much estimation as actual tracking. After closing to a certain distance, the ball itself blurs out of focus due to the change of position. It was this way for Charlie. As he ran, the sharpest part of his vision was straight ahead, and only at a distance away from him. The faster he ran, the tighter the tunnel vision, and the further away from him things blurred out of focus.

It didn’t stop him from tyring to experiment, like now. But it produced some spectacular results, not all of them good. Like the time he ran down Plum avenue, and burst all the windows on the houses due to the air pressure. The sonic boom had the neighborhood convinced they were under alien invasion. The second time was while learning to judge distance. The brick wall had shattered under impact, so he didn’t, but the bruises were vivid, taking weeks to completely fade.

He started decelerating immediately after his first step, skidding to a stop way down near the end of the pier. Wood chips and chunks bounded past him, bouncing along the pier, until they came to the end, and disappeared, falling with tiny splashes into the water. He looked the last ten feet to the end of the pier, and it’s flimsy wooden fence. From there it was a good twenty feet to the rocky water. I wonder if I’d skip across the water at that speed? He heard a gasp behind him and turned.

Skid Style Part 4

Skid blinked in the light as a voice said, “Jesus Christ! What the hell are you doing, kid! Trying ta give me a heart attack?!” The voice was familiar somehow. He decided to ignore it and confront them like the hero he was supposed to be. He ran quickly to the driver-side door, and gave it a hard yank. The interior light came on to illuminate the gate guard, sitting in the driver seat. Her face was pale in the glare of the harsh mercury lighting from the parking lot lamps. Skid felt his cheeks flush in embarassment.

“Uh, sorry. I didn’t think…I just didn’t think.” The stammered apology seemed to calm the guard, who managed a thin smile. She shifted in her seat. The door clicked as she pulled the inner lever and opened it, shifting her heavyset bulk out the door and into the muggy night air.

“I understand. It’s no big deal. I scared myself on my first evening doing guard work.” She paused a moment, then took a breath as she seemed to gather her thoughts. “It was six years ago I got hired. I’d just gotten out of college with a degree in Biology, only to find no one wanted a biologist without a masters, or a doctorate. I jumped on the job. The lead out here gave me the route to drive, what to check, and where to stamp the clock to prove I covered my route.”

Her eyes lit up with the remembered first night. “One thing that they forgot to tell me was that pier eight was a twenty-four hour pickup for priority loads. I drove past the gate, and found it open. At night, all the gates are supposed to be locked. This one was wide open and a pickup was sitting just inside. People were scurrying around flashing lights at the crates, then loading them onto the pickup. There were seven of them and just me with a mag lite and walkie talkie.”

“I called it in quietly, and you know what my lead said?” She chuckled. “He said ‘go check it out, rookie. Oh, and don’t get shot’, which didn’t help my paranoia at all. I walked in and announced myself, at which point there were a couple of screams. The guys dropped the small crate they were moving and seven flashlight swiveled onto me. ‘Jesus ma’am! What the hell are you giving us a heart attack for!? We called it in and I’ve got the papers for the pick up right here.”

I could hear frigging laughing coming over the walkie. I’d been so tense I’d held the transmit button on. My lead had set me up.” She chuckled again, then turned what was supposed to be a stern face at Skid, but her smile ruined the whole stern thing. He found himself grinning at the story. “So, did you get him back?”, he asked her. The guard, whose name was ‘Menendez’ according to her name badge just above her left chest pocket, smiled, and shook her head. “No, it doesn’t work that way. Though, I do seem to remember someone replace his sugar packets with salt once.” Skid chuckled, then looked around the parking lot again. “Is this you trying to tell me that I’m wasting my time?

Skid Style part 3

Stumbling over a generator cable, he caught his balance, then was in the clear once again, until a few docks later when the process repeated. Four minutes and a good deal of dodging later, Charlie came to the north end of the dockyard. This was where the burglaries had happened. Skid slowed to a stop. The docks here were thinner than the south end, and older. The wooden planking was grey from weathering. The planks had cement poured next to them, building the dock area outwards to hold the larger loading equipment. The warehouses abutted the edge of the docks. Their wood and red brick walls and single story construction seemed to Skid like huge turtles that came ashore and died in place.

The break-in happened on the dock side of the northernmost building. The yellow police tape on the front door and huge loading dock next to it was a big clue. Charlie took a long look at the building as the sun baked the asphalt and concrete. And the air carried the smell of salt water and decaying fish to his nostrils. He looked towards the docks, which was no help. The last two piers had no ships, and no workers around to talk to. He turned to look back south. The nearest potential witness was about a hundred yards away, and there were a couple hundred servicing a pair of freighters. He could see the cranes on the pier moving large pallets of crates. The grey, blue, and yellow forklifts picked up smaller pallets off the large pallet, and like ants in a line, rolled back towards the warehouses to drop off their cargo.

He turned back towards the south. The sunlight glinting off the forklifts scuttling back and forth was mesmerizing. He blinked, then sighed, “What do I do now?”

Night settled down over the dockyard. While the sounds of traffic had slowly dissipated, the cacophony of the cranes and workers was still at full roar, and carried faintly to Skid, who had moved to the end of the old, weather-worn pier to watch for thieves coming back to break into the warehouse. They gotta return to the scene of the crime. This place is too easy not to pick over. Skid crossed his fingers, hoping he was right. All those comics and mysteries he loved so much said that bad guys always came back for more. I just have to wait, and I’ll catch them red-handed. He settled in for a night of watching, only to find out the rule every other cop has been on a stakeout figured out. The crooks will never appear when you’re awake or ready, if they show at all. This was Skid’s new experience. He kept himself awake by running down to the first active dock, then back again to the end of the old pier, with the predictable results of letting people know he was around.

It was eleven thirty at night when a heavyset figure drove up in a dark car. The vehivles lights were out as it purred to a stop next to the warehouse. This has got to be it! Skid thought excitedly. It was just like the comics. The crooks came back for more! He didn’t wait, but dashed up to the car, shouting “Freeze! You’re under arrest!” The car’s floodlight mounted on the right side of the car came on immediately and spun to illuminate him.

Skid Style Part 2

He turned off Belcher, then slowed and turned on Collier. The street ran north and fronted the warehouses that stored goods from the ships being serviced at the docks. The pace on the docks and warehouses was frantic. It looked to Charlie like a ant nest that had been kicked open. Cranes were moving cargo off the freighters in large pallets. Another freighter was sliding containers down a ramp to waiting eighteen wheel tractor-trailer flatbeds. The line of trucks stretched over a quarter mile by his estimate.

He looked back forward just in time to avoid drifting into the curb at forty miles and hour. He over-corrected and moved into the oncoming lane. He grunted as he planted his foot and shifted back into the proper lane. I gotta pay more attention. I can handle a wipeout, but not a oncoming car. Where is the turnoff to the dockyard? Charlie’s thought was answered a moment later as the road ended at a ‘T’ intersection. He slowed then slewed right, skidding on the loose gravel, then straightened out, slowing to avoid a tumble, and approached the gate. The gate was a railroad crossing re-purposed to be a traffic control. It was currently down as the gate guard was checking the papers on a white and blue UPS truck.

The outbound lane had a tractor trailer slowly moving forward to leave the docks. At his speed he’d bee there before the truck could clear the gate, and with four others behind it, there was no way to use the oncoming lane to bypass the guard. ‘Skid’ slowed as he approached the gate, raising his hand to his pullover mask to make certain it was still in place. The heavyset gate guard stopped talking as the bright red and blue stocky superhero trotted up to the gate.

“Whatta ya want, uh, kid? I’m kinda busy here”, the guard said with a surprisingly soft voice. ‘Skid’ took a moment to realize that the guard was a woman. He could feel himself blush as he tried to sound authoritative.

“Sorry, ma’am. I’d heard that some stuff was stolen last night. I came by to look the, uh, scene over and see if there is something that, umm, would help find the crooks.” He tried to puff his chest out, and got the mental image of a cartoon mouse trying to look tough while facing a cat. The man the guard was talking to had also turned to look over at ‘Skid’, then turned back the guard with a small chuckle, making Charlie blush even redder.

“I suppose I could let you look around. Heck, seeing you prowling might make them guys with sticky fingers decide not to try anything if a costume’s poking around.” She pressed a button, raising the gate, then waved her clipboard at ‘Skid’. “G’wan through. Place that got hit’s on the north side up there.” ‘Skid’ nodded, then trotted around the van, accelerating back to a somewhat leisurely thirty miles an hour. He slowed again as he dodged a swarm of fork lifts moving pallets of crates and boxes to the white concrete warehouse to his left. The traffic was incessant, with two men shouting orders to the stream of men, and equipment coming from a docked freighter. The noise was near deafening and ‘Skid’ dodged awkwardly between the moving vehicles and people.