Dreams of the Quill

Pedantic and quick to run.

The cell phone buzzed to life and a woman’s voice came across.

“What is it, M1A0?”

“Put me through to Frog, please,” asked the man. Marin tapped her foot impatiently. She had to get going and find the stone. She had no idea what magic the dachshund had worked on the guards but she knew she wasn’t supposed to be in City Hall.

“Please hurry,” she said as gently as she could. The guy on her phone was tall and thin, with brown eyes and thick black hair trimmed short. He was rather pale—Marin figured he was under significant stress. She couldn’t begrudge him an emergency call.

The dog growled, and Marin looked at it questioningly.

It looked away and snarled at the wall.

“What’s—” Marin stopped herself before she finished asking the dog a question in front of a stranger.

“Yeah, Frog, I’m here, with—with you-know-who,” said the man after a short while.

“I see you both on my screen.” This time it was a man speaking on the other end.

“Terrorist,” breathed the man in front of Marin. She cocked an eyebrow at him.

“Who’s a terrorist?” asked the man’s contact.

“She is, was talking about… uh, killing DHS personnel.”

“Well, well, well. This is a problem, Jason. Where are you calling from, by the way? Seems to be a citizen number.”

“You know the speakerphone setting’s on, right?” Marin asked, incredulous. She had no idea what to make of the conversation until she examined the man more closely and found that he had a name tag affixed to his chest. It read “Jason, LAW1, Department of Homeland Security” and matched a small badge on his shoulder.

The man—Jason—paled even further. He tightened his grip on the phone, turned to face the doors, and began yelling.

“Hurry up, Frog, get those ‘right people’ in here, fast! I’m not safe! Berkeley’s not safe!”

The City Hall doors burst open and three burly men in black full-body armor rushed down the hall, brandishing assault rifles. Golden “LAW3″ badges gleamed on their shoulders in the chandelier light. Jason turned back to face Marin, trembling, and smiled faintly.

“Thanks for lending me your phone.”

The gun-toters encircled Marin.

“What’s this all about?” she demanded angrily. The dachshund growled incessantly until one of the men kicked it and then it ran straight for the doors without a sound. Marin’s heart sank at the betrayal.

“She’s the enemy combatant, yes?” asked one member of the LAW3 team. The LAW1 agent grunted a confirmation. The voice of his contact—Frog, as he had called him—buzzed across the iThink.

“Jason, come back to the van. Let LAW3’s media branch clean up here.”

“That’s… it, then?” Jason sighed. He handed Marin’s phone to one of the armed men and started walking in the direction the dog had gone on shaky legs.

Marin slowly put her hands into the air.