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M. K. Borri Appx 1750 words

mkb@robots-everywhere.com

Deja Vu

"This the house?"

"I'm not sure, the street numbers are all jumbled up."

"Old part of town, it happens. So... The NAVCOM says-"

"This is the house. Ricco, Ciccone, behind me, I'm breaching." Lance-corporal Giambino figured that it was roughly in the right neighborhood, enough for any mix-ups to be plausibly deniable. If they actually found any drugs, all the better.

The other two Special Tactics squaddies saw this particular dynamic entry with a bit of annoyance; their usual lead element had been replaced by someone from Central, someone they didn't know and with whom they only had one session of training. Still, he seemed to know his stuff. As far as they knew, this was a standard drug raid.

"...Breach!" Giambino heaved the battering ram with one expert motion and brought it to bear against where he figured the deadbolt would be. A loud crash - and a rebound shock against his forearms when the breaching tool came to a halt against the door, with no more than peeled paint to show for it.

"It's open!" an elderly voice came from inside.

"...and... breach!" Using the rebound, Giambino repeated the procedure. Another loud noise.

"It's open!" the voice replied, a little louder.

Giambino looked behind him to find his troopers impassible at the stubborn door, and turned the ram around, preparing to strike the deadbolt with the axe blade. This time, he stepped back two.

"And! Breach!"

This time the noise was steel on iron, a finger-width mark having been made into the frame.

"Oi! I said it's open! Turn the handle and come in already! I'm frying garlic, can't leave the kitchen!"

Ricco pushed past Giambino as the squad leader prepared to get another step start, and turned the handle; the lock mechanism had been bumped around by the ram enough to require some strength, but the door opened with a polite creak.

The townhouse looked more spacious than it actually was, despite the thick walls - sparse wooden furniture that would have counted as antique if it hadn't been repaired with more love than skill multiple times, the few knick-knacks safely out of the way on high ledges, a clearly temporary absence of cat given the hair on a narrow sofa that could've run a pillow fight circuit all by itself, an old telescreen. "This is the police! Nobody move!"

"I'm Marcia, nice to meet you! Come in!"

Nobody moved; nobody was there to move. Ricco and Ciccone professionally sliced the pie to reveal a similarly sparse bedroom with two twin beds. The latter pointed towards the kitchen, from where the unmistakable noise and smell of frying garlic warmed the place. The voice had come from there, and so there they went, once again calling for compliance.

The old woman didn't react, save for answering in a quiet but clear tone, "I told you I can't move, I've got to keep an eye on the garlic! Sit down, I was just getting bruschette ready for tomorrow."

Giambino motioned for his two squaddies to look around for anything obviously out of the ordinary, and didn't see them do so trying to be quiet. Giambino quickly judged that the woman had no silent alarm to trip - the kitchen had no electricals save for a refrigerator - and repeated the injunction. This time, the woman turned off the heat, and turned, brandishing a steel pan with the strength of someone who's been doing that for seventy years. He took aim. The old woman looked right through him.

"Well, sit down! I suppose you can have a bruschetta to try."

"Uh... thanks..." Giambino turned his drill-sargeant voice inward, on himself. Never lose authority over the situation! He'd have to give Ciccone a dressing-down later. Still, the bread was fresh and the garlic smelled just right... Giambino decided to tick over to a different mode. He tried to sound conciliatory, but didn't lower the gun. "Ma'am, have you seen anything strange lately?"

"Why, I dare say so! I've only seen folk so hungry in my house once before. Looked quite a bit like you, too. Kind of handsome but not quite, all dressed in black, with a lot of iron on them and the kind of helmet that really should go with a motorcycle. How long's it been since I went on a motorcycle ride..."

Giambino was puzzled. The place had been inspected before? Did someone at XALT mess up again? He held out a hand, stopping Ciccone from jumping on the bruschette as the woman expertly covered them in garlic oil.

"That actually helps, tell me more."

"Oh, it was a long while ago" Granny Marcia said "I was just a little girl. It was during the Big War, you see. After the surrender. Men from the Master State came in, same through our door, and - thay didn't have that big hammer of yours, they had their weapons out and said they'd shoot through the window if we didn't open - so Daddy Franko comes out of the workshop, and slams the door open in front of them, damn near knocks one out, and he's standing in the doorway so that if they had to shoot anybody, it'd be him. So they push him aside, and Mommy Gianna had the whole table apparated up, big smoking bowl of thick soup with... oh gods, I don't want to think about what we put in soup during these days... but it smelled something fantastic, most things do if you got used to one meal a day."

"... And?"

"Why, and they sat down and et the whole thing, just like you just did! And thanked Mommy Gianna, and chatted up my friend Anna a little, and left, and even apologized after Anna gave then just that certain smile. Which was good for us, for you see, we had two Geeps hidden in the coal chute! That's what, who they were looking for, you see. To take them to the underforts, with them, to work in the mines, or so they said at the time... But that was a long time ago, I bet your mother was barely a girl, and that sort of thing doesn't happen any more, so I reckon, be polite, guests is guests, until they stop behavin'."

The old woman sat down with a big sigh, looking suddenly fragile after the adrenaline-induced burst of activity and talkativeness. Ricco and Ciccone looked at each other, uneasy. Giambino continued.

"I see your point. So, you don't happen to be hiding... anything, do you?"

"Oh no, dear. It's just something I was reminded of, the way you came in and the way you're dressed. After all, the Master State's long gone, yes? And you said you're police, not soldiers. That's a big difference."

Giambino looked at his colleagues, flustered faces and shame under the helmets and black body armors. "No, we were uh... looking for drugs. A lotus dealer, actually. Very bad person. To tell you the truth, I think we got the wrong house, ma'am." There was the other thing, the reason for this mistake, but the squad leader couldn't mention that, of course.

"The medicine cabinet is in the bathroom, dear. But if you're jittery, let me make you some Valerian tea instead. Stay away from that lotus junk."

Giambino decided that the old woman hadn't quite understood him, and after being pointed to the bathroom rifled perfunctorily through the ancient wooden cabinet, eyes darting around for the real objective as he walked back. Pixelated music came through from a closed door. "Ma'am, who else is here?"

"Oh, my nephew. If'n you could get him into leaving the room, actually, you'd do me a kindness - he's been glued to that computer game ever since the breakup with his girl, poor dear. Maybe show him some of your equipment? Looks like the sort of toy a boy would look away from the telescreen for... Actually, maybe he could look at the door with you. I think you knocked a bit loud, it didn't use to creak."

"... No, can't do that. Sorry."

Ricco and Ciccone looked downright uncomfortable even as they finished their crepes. "Boss, if it helps, I know a fantastic carpenter that also does ironwork, maybe we can-"

"Squad, let's move out."

"But the door-"

"I said move out! Ma'am, thank you for your cooperation."

"Next time call ahead, dear! Do close the door." The three policemen left, Giambino slamming the door by way of having the last word.

"Like I said, boss, wrong house."

"All right, wrong house. Back to the van and let's double-check the address."

"Francesko, are you done playing with your computer?"

"One second, Grandma!"

The old woman quickly polished the plates with a rag. By the time her nephew emerged from his cave, the only clue to the policemen's presence was the dent on the door and a noticeable penury of crepes or bruschette. They'd have to split one, so she cut it in half and put it on the plate. Without making a show for it, Granny Marcia muttered a small prayer to her small gods, that it'd been so long since the last time she'd had to cut portions.

When he showed up, the boy picked the smaller half of the crepe, pulling it towards his side with a butter knife; the two exchanged a smile, and she turned the plate around. "You're still growing. So, did you win at your game? Is it still that leaky pipe game?"

"It's not really a game, well, kind of, it's this really popular augmented reality... Anyway, yeah, I put the unedited protest video up as a quest item. This means enough people will see it that the government will have a hell of a time finding jurors that won't know how it really went!"

The old woman nodded. She didn't really understand the ins and outs of it, but as far as she could tell, it was this century's version of a phone tree. Always good if the neighbors know who to watch for.

"Grandma, was the story you told the policemen true? You never told me that one."

"Oh no, dear. I was the one hiding in the coal chute."