Chapter 16: The Youth Are Revolting, Part 1

Joe sat at his desk studying reports from the local police. One of them was from the crew who had shown up at an old underpass in response to a very faint nano signal. Several dogbots had seen Trey, but without definite orders to apprehend him, they had flagged the location and continued with their patrol.

Joe had dispatched the patrol when a sniffer detected the possible presence of nanos. The sniffers were supremely more sensitive than the dogbots, but were so small a patrol had to follow up to make the arrest. Only this time, there was no arrest. The report said there might have been movement in the underpass, and it looked like the access cover had been moved. They found no other sign. Because of jurisdictional issues they couldn't enter the tunnels to investigate until several hours had passed. There was nothing there.

Joe added it to the pile of almost evidence and innuendo that pointed to an organized resistance.

He'd mentioned it to the Council, once. Half the Council thought he was losing his touch and should be retired, the other half wanted to call in the army. It had taken hours of careful mediation and coloring the truth to get them to relax again and trust him with the continuing investigation. Through the following years he had gleaned bits and pieces - enough to convince him he was dealing with a serious group. After Maggie had commented about computer glitches, he had moved all his files to paper files in the locked drawer of his desk. He sighed and rubbed his eyes. He closed the report and placed it with the others at the back of the drawer.

He pulled out another file. This one held information from the police investigating the latest slaying of a retiree. Once again he'd turned out to be an abuser of children according to a folder of evidence left at the scene.

Joe pulled out the other files and spread their contents across his desk, double checking the facts of each one, making notes on a yellow pad. He'd done this before, but each time he learned a little more. The weapons were exceptionally sharp daggers or a similar blade. They weren't very long, but the wounds were placed with deadly purpose. There was never much blood, suggesting the blades weren't removed until after the victim's heart stopped beating.

The scenes were immaculately cleaned, which meant one person who had nerves of steel, or a team who came in to do a quick and thorough cleaning. Also there was the evidence left to point to the victims' illicit activities. It suggested more than a single person's resources. The two files were linked. He would bet anything on it.

Joe got up and walked around the office. He thought better on his feet. What if the resistance was deliberately targeting people in responsibility who had abusive relationships with children? How would they find their targets? People had died in states across the country. Such action needed a widespread and well-organized network. Their weakness was that, by their very nature, it would be difficult to place agents in government offices. Almost all government employees were chosen from the ranks of the near retirement-aged.

But they could have people from a broad cross section of the rest of society. The young were treated badly, and it was getting worse. An unhappy population would be a breeding ground for the kind of agents they needed. What better way to train killers than to start them off with people who deserved to die?

He sat down and buzzed for Maggie.

"I need the officers on these murders to go back through their interviews and check for the presence of children."

"Children?"

"I think the perpetrators are using children to gain access to their victims."

"Oh dear."

"Exactly."

Joe sat at his desk and reluctantly pulled out the keyboard and activated the screen. If the resistance was finding pedophiles; he should be able to follow their tracks. He typed in a random search then meandered through the morass of the internet.

It was still as unmanageable as it had been two centuries ago when it was first introduced. After eliminating all the sites hosted outside of the U.S. he still had more garbage than he wanted to wade through. The victims so far were actively involved in trafficking children. So he could screen out the sites "just" showing other sites' pictures. He set search bots on the remainder with commands to find people who showed up in more sites than the median. They would sift through the chat rooms as well. It wouldn't matter what the sign-in name was. The bots were programmed to look at the user's IP address. He requested the victim's IP addresses to add to the search.

Disgusted at the pictures on his screen, Joe pushed the keyboard away, and the screen retracted. Every time he thought he had a handle on human depravity, he was surprised again. He needed a change of view. Perhaps it was time to visit a Deputy Chancellor on his own turf. Joe was still curious about what the man was hiding. Picking up his cane, he left his office and let Maggie know where he was going.

***