The Embark Center was a master class in bland government green. Not just the doors, walls, and cracked floors, but also the waiting area seats and the armrests with their shallow cup holders. Even the little bits of hardware like doorknobs, power switches, and the metal grating covering the surveillance cameras blended together in a dull wash. Management liked the contrast of the drab against the flashing rainbow of lights and glitzy clangs and chimes from the bank of gaming machines along the east wall.
The fanciest one featured a holo squirrel hopping around, picking up bright golden acorns and stuffing them into a basket. A taste of what the Tribe’s space business, the Orbital Casino, offered when they arrived. From Embark it was straight hop, Earth to atmosphere. The guests crammed into a heavy transport and six hours later de-boarded into luxury.
I haven’t seen it myself.
Ground security and surveillance monitored the Earth facility. The bulk of the surveillance cameras observed gaming, but I could see the entire complex from the booth, even the multi-deck parking complex and the long expressway where buses and rideshares picked up and dropped off travelers.
A clip fell into my bin.
A round-faced toddler baby-stomped through the seats wearing brand new beaded moccasins from the gift shop. Little hands flailed, the kid grabbed anything to keep moving, then collided with a heavy-duty armrest and plonked down, eyes gazing up with fear and betrayal.
Keywords: kid-furniture collision, chubby cheeks, diaper change
Level: null
Outcome: No action.
File.
Management sent Auntie to work the guests today. She threaded her way through the room, hunched over and taking creaky little steps, her sad eyes cast down. Good luck charms woven from bear grass and chicken feathers dangled from her fingers. During hunting season, she packed a rig and carried out as well as anyone but for the tourists she enjoyed affecting a sorrowful shuffle. Management kept the tourists waiting longer than necessary so that boredom sent them to the machines or snapping up trinkets like this. Auntie made a sideways lurch and knocked over a fancy leather bag that clipped one of the free drinks, a frothy thing the color of baked salmon that splatted across the floor.
I hit the maintenance button and a couple gopher-trollies zipped over and cleaned it up before anyone noticed. An osprey-drone dropped off a fresh drink.
The clip appeared for review.
Keywords: tottering luggage, clumsy elders, free drinks
Level: null
Outcome: No action.
File.
A blinking orange alert flashed on the screen and I adjusted the volume on my earpiece.
“That you, Junie?” my cousin’s voice came from afar. The earpieces were designed to fit everyone and thus fit no one. I gave it a painful twist.
I brought my mic up: “I’ll remind you, this is a classified connection.”
“Yeah, yeah. We’re coming in for the count, commander.”
“Hang on.” Another clip arrived in the bin with a pinpoint red dot, a flagging system for my traps.
Young woman, face contorted. Someone tugged at her arm and she resisted. A few taps and the clip pulled back. She broke into laughter with another young woman.
Keywords: null
Level: null
Outcome: Delete.
“Junie-bafoonie?”
“I’m working. This all-seeing-eyes shop has three seats, but today, surprise! Management has only one filled, and that’s me. Give me a few secs.”
“I hear you, but got my own probs if you catch my drift.”
“Caught,” I said, repositioning my cameras. The count room was a brightly lit, highly fortified cubbyhole behind the gaming wall. “Count room clear to enter. Security personnel in position.”
Sweet Pea pushed the ponycart into the room like a stretcher going into surgery. I kept my eyes glued to the screen.
The count was well-practiced and almost pretty. Everyone took their place around the pale green table and the items rolled out for transfer, count, or digital tabulation. Scuffed metal cases opened and closed. Fobs, chips, and tokens were weighed or tallied. I ticked off boxes and called for the next item. When done, they transferred everything to the security truck where it went through another process the security at embark wasn’t privy to. We were done with the count.
“Clear the room,” I said.
Sweet Pea’s big round face smiled and waved at the camera, which was completely not allowed. The clip filed into the bin already tagged for Human Resources, but I did what I had to do to delete it.
Minutes later, a pneumatic tube arrived and inside: a jar of huckleberry jam from Sweet Pea. I ran my thumb over the lid, the month and year scratched in my writing. A tiny scrap of paper said: visit home. A feathery ache tickled my throat. The jam came from last time with Jasmine. We’d spent a day running around in the woods picking and later we sang side-by-side, fishing out leaves and cooking the fruit. Then she conveniently disappeared for the clean-up. I set the jar next to my keyboard.
I returned to the screens: people falling from chairs, bickering over carry-ons on the seats, a minor scuffle with an actual punch thrown. Over by the restrooms someone stumbled over a stretch of buckled flooring that caused trouble daily. I convinced security to lay down a strip of neon-yellow tape that did nothing to enhance safety but made me feel like we were trying. After every shift I filed a notice with maintenance, just to see how long the problem went with no action. So far we were on day 92.
Keywords: brawl, punch (singular), drunk before noon
Level: two
Outcome: Security broke up.
File.
A message from Management slid into my bin, announced with a dissonant twang, as if designed to irritate upon receipt.
The subject line, in all caps: AUDIT.
Before I could open it, another red dot from my flagging system. It showed me the same young women, happy and safe with their whole lives ahead of them.
Null.
Null.
Delete.
I returned to the audit message.
In order for Management to assure us of the necessity of their existence, they were always coming up with training modules, review schemes, forms to fill out, and quick surveys that were never quick and weren’t surveys so much as invasive questionnaires.
“Not my usual shift. Reschedule,” I sent back.
If an electronic message could snicker, this one did. The reply: Imminent.
A crackle, like stiff foil being crumpled. The camera showed a young man at the door to surveillance.
Sasquatch on a stick.
“Identify?” My voice was brisk and clipped like a recording.
“Archie Crooked Pine,” he said into the com, calm and confident. He smiled when he held his ID up to the reader.
While the reader processed him, I read Management’s message:
On-site audit.
Open all systems.
Full cooperation required.
I fumbled in my pocket for an AWAKE-aid tablet, the thing we all took and pretended we didn’t. I slid it under my tongue. The chalky-cherry flavor masked the bitterness.
“Stand by for secondary scan.” I swept away trash and put the photos of my daughter into a drawer. Never know what they’re looking for.
He stared straight ahead into the glass eye.
Identified: Archie Crooked Pine.
Level: Team Leader.
Status: Pending.
Outcome: Pending.
The door scraped halfway open. Archie muscled it wide enough to get through and shut it with a screak.
“Maintenance know about that?” He was young, impossibly young, tall and still hadn’t grown into it like one of my nephews. His uniform didn’t fit right; his face was wrong for his head, nose too sharp, eyes too close together, his glasses the cheap, heavy frames that came from Indian Health Service. He had a pale pink stain around his mouth, like a kid drinking punch at a birthday party.
“What do you think?”
“Figures.” He set down a mammoth-sized coffee and moved chairs around to settle into place. He grinned. “You been audited before?”
“Not like this.” I returned to the messages stacked up in the bin.
A passenger’s dog was loose. A black and white short-hair more wiggle than anything else darted around, delighted to play, while security helped with the chase.
While I watched this circus unfold, Archie unpacked his gear from a cheap canvas bag that said “Rolling Thunder Casino” which was the Earth-side casino down the road. It featured the only lodgings within thirty miles of the Orbital Casino shuttle launch site.
Archie pulled out electronic tablets and portable drives, absorbed in the task, humming to himself as he set out each item.
In the Embark, the dog parent studiously ignored security’s lecture while nuzzling the recovered dog.
Keywords: dog chase, unapologetic passengers, lecture experts
Level: one
Outcome: Dog secured.
File.
I cleared the bin before offering Archie my attention.
He gulped his coffee, then smiled into the cup. “Have you tried the coffee at that shop just off the highway, building shaped like a mug, the handle has a swing in it? Good cup, nice balance, bright but also creamy—”
“I don’t leave the premises,” I said.
Archie looked shocked and then embarrassed. “Would you like to taste it?”
“No, I don’t want to try your coffee.”
Archie peered at one of his tablets. “Prep-packet says you’ve worked here for two years.” Everything about him screamed harmless, from his wilted uniform to the measured, faintly accented way he spoke. Now that I had time to study him, the stain around his mouth looked like painfully chapped skin.
“Is this the audit?” I’d missed the photo of Jasmine taped to the corner of my desk. I slid my keyboard to cover it.
“Nope,” he said cheerfully. “Trying to make conversation.”
I gestured at my bank of screens and made an impatient sound at the back of my throat. “Hands full.”
“Right. That’s why I’m here,” he agreed, smile vanished. He picked up one of his devices. “How do you archive the bin?”
“Per policy, back up every hour. Uploaded every eight. Once to tribal cloud and once to that local co-op computer farm. Additional is up to Management.”
“Sounds about right,” Archie said.
“You new to this?” I asked.
He smiled with a half-nod. “First time at the Embark Center. I have extensive audit experience.”
What was extensive for a kid his age?
“Rolling Thunder?” I asked.
He laughed. “Nope. That bag was swag from a training session.” He gave me a knowing look. “You ever do surveillance elsewhere?”
“I’m up-to-date on all training modules, although I have no bag to show for it.” I intended it to sound like a joke, but it came out like an accusation.
Archie barely blinked. “Understood. I have a checklist. I’ll spot check from the last ten archives.”
“Ten? Is that policy or just the way you like to do it?”
“Is there a problem going that far back?”
We stared at each other for a long moment. Accurate records are not my priority. I tend to do whatever I have to do and not a tiny bit more and if I can get away with it, a tiny bit less.
If he sampled going back ten archives, that covered lots of shifts and would produce a consistent record of my shortcomings. “Do what you have to do.”
I returned my attention to the bin. A dropped purse. A decent sized-winner at the machines.
Archie went to work, fingers springing across a keyboard one minute, a stylus tapping on another device the next. All the screens at his station were lit up. We worked like that for a couple hours, not speaking unless Archie asked about a directory or a procedure. Few sounds except the beeps and pings and squawks to show me what needed attention. Embark Center emptied when the early shuttle launched. A short time later it filled again for the evening departure.
Another red pinpoint caught my attention. A young woman, expression flat, standing alone, glancing around before slipping into the restroom. I tagged the clip and set it aside and kept my eyes out for her.
The young woman came back out, hair in her eyes.
“I have questions to go over—” Archie said.
“Hang on!”
I followed her as she threaded her way through the seats and sat down, still alone. She had a small bag over her shoulder.
“There’s something—”
“Not now,” I said.
No one approached her. Unfortunately, Archie came to look over my shoulder. I tagged the system to keep watching her and closed the window.
“Yes?” I said, looking at Archie.
“Do you call security?” he asked.
“For what?”
“For whatever you’re looking at?”
I shook my head. “What’s your question?”
“I’m finding a lot of irregularities,” he said.
“Surveillance is understaffed,” I agreed.
Archie twitched his shoulders and returned to his seat. “These irregularities can’t be excused by staffing.”
The tickle of dread that started with his arrival widened and gained speed.
“Give me a list of the findings and I’ll fix it,” I said, my eyes back on my screen.
“If only,” Archie said.
I filed clips: a fender bender on the sixth level of the parking structure, someone selling foil-wrapped snacks without a permit, a pair of young men in T-shirts and jeans collecting signatures for who knows what. Between each action, I went back to my girl, still alone, trembling hands covering and uncovering her face.
My eyes slid over to Archie, hunched over his work, one hand propping his head up, the other tapping on whatever creative interpretations of the rules he had spotted. He was focused like a dog digging after something.
“How did you get this job?” I asked.
He blushed and shifted in his chair. “Long story. Been trying to get into the administrator program for up there.” He tilted his head as he glanced up. “But not the right family. Not the right connections. I’ve made it to the top of the selection pool several times, but always get passed over.”
“That seems to be the way of things,” I said.
“Yeah,” he rubbed his hands. “It was suggested this would be a path to working my way up.”
“Lots of jobs up there.”
“Flight deck is crazy competitive,” Archie said. “You need engineering for the fun maintenance positions, and I’m not smart enough. Housekeeping and kitchen jobs, you’re behind the scenes. I want to be in the middle of things.”
“Like this?” I swept a hand around the dingy observation booth packed with screens and computers, always a little too warm with weak fans stirring the air that smelled of overheated food packs, sweat, and defeat.
Archie grinned. “Just like this.”
We sat in silence, me surveilling and Archie squinting into his terminal. He stopped long enough to pull an enormous sandwich from his bag. As soon as he peeled back the foil the room filled with the most amazing smell of savory meat and cheese. He didn’t even ask, just set a wedge on my workstation, right on the edge of my daughter’s photo.
“Your mom make this for you?” I asked.
He gave me a warm smile. “I made one for her.” He was charming for such a homely kid.
The sandwich was a miracle of chewy bread, spicy meat, and melted cheese. It was the first homemade food since I’d moved to this place and something shifted in my tight and well-guarded chest.
“This is interesting,” he said, pausing from his meal.
The surveillance booth is a slog anyway, but I do off books things to keep myself occupied. I could only imagine which things he was finding.
Archie wagged a finger at the screen. “There’s something going on here.”
We weren’t supposed to be friends, which I remembered the second he pointed at his screens.
“The cameras have odd subroutines for tagging items that aren’t part of the normal protocol, but I can’t identify the catch.”
“The catch?”
“The scam.”
If he found my traps that fast, he was more clever than both of us gave him credit for. He watched my reaction.
I formed a blank face. “Okay?”
“You don’t know what I’m talking about?”
I feigned a deep wracking of my own brain. “Not certain, no.”
“I’m going to need to go back through and document all the discrepancies.”
Sweat broke out on my back and thighs. “Why don’t you pull out a few and we’ll go over and see if there’s an explanation.”
He made a non-committal sound.
I chugged through the bin, tagging a crying baby, a heated argument, two kids trying to play a machine. Then back to my traps. The young woman I was following had moved twice. She wasn’t crying, but she didn’t appear happy. She kept shifting in her seat and fiddling with her phone, then her eyes would dart around the room.
“It’s happening now,” Archie said, looking right through me.
“What do you mean?” I kept my fingers moving calmly across the keyboard, doing my best to cover the traps while my heart leapt in panicky bursts.
He nodded at his terminal. “I can mirror what you’re doing.”
My gut sunk into my non-regulation work shoes. My mind flicked through excuses or lies that might save me.
“They give us your bios before we come in,” he said, his voice quiet.
My bio would include a photo of Jasmine, probably the one on my desk, the two of us on her graduation day clipped from her social media, and a note about what happened.
I kept my eyes on my screen, processing the items as they dropped into my bin, checking my traps, wondering who would do this when they got rid of me.
Archie’s voice fell to a whisper. “Is that what this is about?”
This kid and Management were going to derail everything I had set up. The automatic tags and recognized patterns.
Archie cleared his throat and wiped his glasses with his sleeve, no doubt dreaming about his promotion and his future life in space.
The pain came in a flash, a place in my heart so raw and wounded it would never heal. I gasped a raggedy breath.
“Okay,” Archie said, his voice back to business. “I’m going to log these discrepancies. We’ll go over them later.”
I didn’t react. The camera doesn’t lie and my duty was to follow its eye. I lost track of my young woman and adjusted the cameras with the widest sweep.
Over at his computer, Archie made concerning murmurs of discovery. I contemplated means of distracting him but the way I’d set my system up, this could only be the beginning of the end.
Archie’s bearing changed and his typing became louder along with his breathing. He had to be thrilled to be reporting his findings to Management. This would probably become a training module.
He stopped and scooted his chair closer to mine. I banged my knee, pushing back in the tight quarters. He motioned for me to come close.
“Knock it off,” I said, with as much force as I dared.
He sighed. “I disabled the surveillance surveillance but it will reboot in about three minutes.”
“Surveillance surveillance?” Everything inside me trembled in alarm. It wasn’t just my traps but the copious use of AWAKE-aid, the many, many deleted files, all the zany back and forth with Sweet Pea. Working with family was prohibited and non-negotiable (unless, of course, you were Management). We fibbed to get these jobs.
“Who?” I said, without moving my lips.
“Management,” Archie said, in a ‘who else’ voice, “But no one monitors it. Too many irregularities sent up a flag, so Management sent someone onsite to investigate. Someone is me.”
I made a small croak of regret.
“They think it’s resource skimming,” he said.
“It’s not,” I said.
“All your pointed cameras and erased clips are in the record. What are you doing?”
I gripped the edge of the desk, light-headed with fear and self-reproach. No one knew about this. No one. I shook my head.
“They want to hear something,” he said.
“So you can get promoted?”
Archie’s eyes darted to the ceiling. “We work for the same people. I have to report what I find.”
“What have you found?”
“I’m not sure. If it’s not bad, tell me. We only have another minute.”
My blood pulsed in my wrists and fingers. There had been months of phone calls and meetings with law enforcement and concerned officials who had nothing to say but the repeated, “Sorry, ma’am.” All the risks had netted few payoffs and here was Archie with hungry puppy eyes asking for the truth. I faced him.
“How much can you hide? Misinterpret?”
“There’s no way to cover all of this.”
“Can you take some things out?” The pitch of my voice rose.
“What am I looking for?” He glanced at a spinning glyph on his screen, watching the time.
“Trying to teach the system to spot people in distress. Runaways, trafficking.” The last word came out a whisper.
Archie sat back. The skin around his mouth was raw-red and cracked.
He noticed my stare and lightly brushed along the side of his mouth with his index finger.
“On and off since I was a teen. Health Service has tried every ointment, cream, med in the book. Nothing works. Don’t we monitor for trafficking?”
“We do observationally, but not within the system,” I said. “Management reassures surveillance of its strategies, but nothing changes. We need more.”
The young woman’s frightened face came up. The system found her again, like I’d been teaching it. Camera to camera it followed her as she worked her way around the room.
“And you have a lead?” Archie tapped on the photo on my desk.
Jasmine at nineteen. She kept her hair short then, brown eyes, not conventionally pretty but striking. She had soft features on a round face that liked to smile. Just another night out partying on the rez with friends. They said she left for home. No one knew anything. No one saw anything. Purse and phone disappeared with her.
“She’s not here,” I said.
“But all these—”
“I call them traps. Set up to find a runaway or distressed or abducted ... anyone.”
Archie's eyes widened. “What do you do with what you find?”
“Tag for security, but there’s no guidance for handling it. I can’t see the outcome, so I don’t know if I’ve helped anyone.”
Archie’s plans weren’t visible in his face, but I imagined what he was thinking. This had nothing to do with him. I’d abused the system and he’d figured it out. Time for his promotion and a shiny new job in the stars, living his dream.
“Not sure I can help,” he said.
“But you can try?” I said, frantic at the idea of losing all this. “Hide it? Some of it? Can it keep learning in the background? If it works, maybe Management would use it.”
Archie tapped his temple, his eyes lost in thought. “Maybe. I can’t ... not on the spot like this.”
The hum of the electronics throbbed deep in my chest.
Archie sighed. “Aren’t there better ways to do this? Instead of behind of a computer?”
I slumped over my keyboard. He was right. My one-woman operation wasn’t just hopeless, it was pointless.
Archie made a motion with his head that I understood to mean our window was up. Regular surveillance items slid into my bin. A young man tripping and jumping into a forward roll and then laughing.
Keywords: buckled floor, fix it already
Level: one
Outcome: No action.
File.
Archie spotted the huckleberry jam. “You make that?”
“I used to make all kinds of things.”
The employee dorm didn’t have kitchens. We had three ancient vending machines and a row of sauce-spattered microwaves. The common areas had no storage or work spaces and because of the round-the-clock workforce, all hours were quiet hours. We didn’t weave or bead or make music. We barely spoke to each other. Ten years from now I’d be gray and tired and staring at screens.
“I’m going to go find her,” I said.
Archie made a puzzled face.
“The girl on the camera.” I pulled my bag from the drawer.
“Policy prohibits surveillance personnel in any area with passengers,” Archie said.
“Is that so?” Hiding was exhausting. An unexpected surge of relief made me chuckle.
“Instant dismissal. Non-negotiable.”
I used a metal ruler to scrape Jasmine’s photo off the desk and stuffed my things away.
“This wasn’t what I meant,” Archie said.
“No, you’re right.”
“You're doing great work here. Management thinks so.”
I choked back a snort. “You are doing great work here. I hope things work out.”
From the depths of my bag, I pulled out a little plastic pot and wiped it with the tail of my shirt.
I held it up and pointed to his mouth.
“Don’t leave,” Archie whispered. “I need time to work it out.”
“Everything is going to be fine.” I urged him to take the salve.
Archie shook his head. “I’ve tried it all. Medical, not medical. Things you find in the kitchen. Things you find in the garage. Things you find in the woods.”
“Not this,” I said. “My daughter has rashes on her elbows. I make it for her.”
Archie took it and unscrewed the lid and smelled it. “Must be good,” he said with a grimace. “Should I put it on now?”
“Before you go to bed. Takes a week or two. Stick with it.”
“Okay.” He sniffed it again.
The floor vibrated and the automated announcement about the next shuttle buzzed over the speakers. It was time to check on the girl.
