10: The raid

"You reckon it's gonna be much longer, boss?"

"Why, you got somewhere better to be?"

"'Bout anywhere'd be better than sweating my nuts off out here. Can't we even have the fan on?"

"No, the alternator's drakked. How stupid would we look if McCarthy makes a run for it and we're stuck here without the engine starting?"

"Surely he won't run for it? Not if we catch him red handed?"

"Desperate people do dumb stuff" she replied

"That could almost be the motto of the Department" a horse laugh, cut off under the dirty look of his companion in the pick-up truck. "Sorry boss. Just try'n to lighten the mood"

"I strike you as the sort of person that needs her mood lightening?" silver eyebrow raised in the pale moonlight of the early night, deep lines at the edges of her eyes creased in a quizzical look

"No boss. Sheriff Jovial they call you"

"They call me a lot of stuff, that I know. But just Sheriff will do, so long as it's accompanied by the respect it deserves" the quizzical look hardened into something all the more menacing, moonlight picking out the furrowed wrinkles on her forehead, long silver hair scraped back into a simple pony-tail.

"Sorry boss, er Sheriff"

"That's better. Now who's that going in?" her focus departs her cowered partner and returns to the front of the tumbledown bar across the road from where they've parked up.

"Two of 'em. Big guy and a slight girl. Dreadlocks I think on the girl" he squints through the lone pair of cracked binoculars that the Department possess.

"Any chance it could be a slight guy and a well built woman?"

"Maybe, hard to tell"

"Samson and Harmony. She's just started working for him, poor thing"

"Least she lasted the day. More than can be said for some of his previous assistants. You ever investigated him bo...Sheriff?" binoculars put down, glace at his superior in the driver's seat.

"Not as closely as I'd like. He's got friends on the council. As far as they see it, he pays well for unskilled labour, and if there's folk desperate enough to take the risk then it's up to them"

"It's not right though, is it?"

The Sheriff shrugs "Would I ride him harder if it was up to me? For sure. Do I want the aggro of going against the Council's wishes again? Not really."

"So why's he got the Council sticking up for him?"

"He talks a good game. They've bought into his promise of a trade route."

"You believe it, his talk about finding a way through Sheriff?"

"Haven't really thought about it" she lied

"Cos if he's for real and can get through to Millieville, that's that last town before the Megatropolis. Imagine that"

"I'd really rather not"

It grew ever more oppressive in the pick-up truck as the night wore on. Part owing to the humidity, but more owing to the constable's incessant chatter about what he'd do with access to the Megatropolis. They'd just got to his taking ownership of one of the Towers via a series of ever more ridiculous business deals when the ancient radio squawked into life.

"Sheriff, you there? Come in" a gruff voice, accompanied by ample static on the primitive communication system.

"I'm here" relief in her voice at the opportunity to talk to someone else.

"McCarthy on route. He's carrying a large holdall. Headed your way"

"Perfect" both the promise of her ordeal with the constable being over and her operation here finally being justified. Another failure would have played badly with the Council.

"We good to go?" the constable asked, demeanor of an excited puppy

"Hold your horses. First we let him get inside and set up" this as a figure came into view walking down the street carrying a black holdall. Then, back on the radio "Jenkins, you still clear at the rear?"

"Yeah Sheriff, we're set to roll, just give the word" amid the crackle

"Stand by" she hooked the receiver back to the the main unit on the dashboard. The figure jogged up the short set of stairs to the door of the bar and disappeared inside.

"We got him boss!" the constable excitedly started fiddling with the glove box in front of him

"What are you doin....WHAT THE DRAKK IS THAT?" irritation with his fidgeting morphed into confusion and then horror. The young constable had pulled back from the glove box. Gun in hand.

"What's the matter boss? It ain't palm coded and I signed it out the armory properly, honest" he looked slightly deflated at her reaction to his initiative. First deflated, then pained as she ripped the gun from his hand and back handed him across the cheek.

"I don't run my operations like that. We go in guns pointed and we're no better than the drones"

"Sorry boss, er Sheriff" he was rubbing his cheek as he said this.

She relented a little "You've not been on one of my teams before. You'll learn. Now, give Jenkins the ok and let's go" at this she opened the door and stepped out into the night, grabbing her walking stick from the truck's dashboard and hobbling across the road.

"Sure thing Sheriff, you mad old cow" the last part muttered, before he picked up the radio "We're hot to trot" he said into the mouthpiece, then scampered out the truck.

The Sheriff paused at the door, the constable trotting up next to her. "You follow my lead in there Pederson" she addressed the constable by his name to emphasize her seriousness. "No sudden moves. We close his escape routes down, then secure him. You got that?"

"Sure thing Sheriff" the excited puppy look was back.

She pushed open the door and stepped inside, Pederson eagerly following. The bar was a cramped affair, in a previous life it had been the kitchen diner of some quaint suburban maisonette. The counter-top bar stretched about three metres down the room and ended in a small space were a band was setting up.

Pederson took the instruction of cutting off escape routes to mean theatrically leaping onto the bar, kicking drinks aside as he did so, all while yelling for compliance. The Sheriff merely rolled her eyes and headed for the band.

The sound of crashing glasses and Pederson's yelling had caused the band members to turn to look at the commotion. The drummer, at the rear, made to make a break for it, but he was too close to the rear door that Jenkins had silently emerged through, throwing beefy arms around the percussionist to restrain him.

The guitarist meekly sat on the floor with his hands in the air, causing Pederson's face to fall a little, looking forward to a struggle as he was. But the Sheriff had barely even considered him, her view firmly on the remaining band member. McCarthy. To start with he stood still, arms uncertainly raised and a sheepish grin on his face. He surveyed Jenkins and the drummer struggling to the rear, blocking the door. Then he viewed Pederson, frowned slightly at the constable's odd choice of positioning, before turning to look at the Sheriff standing between him and the main exit.

McCarthy snarled and made a break for it. To start with he dashed straight for the Sheriff, but then dropped a shoulder to faint to the right before darting to the left. It was a move that had left many an opponent on the dusty football fields flat on their backs. But the Sheriff didn't play football. Her walking stick fired out like the tongue of a lizard slapping at a cricket. It wrapped around McCarthy's shins and he came crashing to the ground. In one smooth movement she swept the stick round, up and over, then grabbed it out of the air, tip hovering just above McCarthy's exposed throat.

"Good evening" she said calmly

"It was till you came hobblin' in" McCarthy spat

"You know why I'm here?"

"Sheriff Party-Pooper come to ruin a decent's night's fun"

"It's fun to run contraband is it?"

"I ain't saying nothin'" and with that he turned his face to the side

The Sheriff turned her focus to the constable "Pederson, go check out the perp's hold all"

"Sure thing boss" he said, stepping down from the bar, onto a chair, then the floor, before heading over to the band area. He hefted up the hold all from the floor and placed it onto a nearby table, clumsily spilling more glasses as he did so. Hand hovering above the zip he looked at the Sheriff.

"Go on" she instructed. He looked back down and pulled the zip open. She tried to look disinterested in its contents, as if breaking an illegal trade ring was all in a day's work, and not the culmination of three month's of investigation. The other patrons and Department personnel had no such desire to look calm. All eyes were on Pederson as he finished with the zip and heaved out the box from inside.

"Er...?" the constable looked from the box to the Sheriff and back again. In turn, she looked from McCarthy to the box and back again.

"Grant McCarthy I am placing you under the supervision of the Doddington Department of Technology Monitoring. The charge is illegal possession of a Class 3 prohibited device, namely a..." she looked at the box again "...a Casio CTK-3400 digital keyboard. You have the right to a representative, who must be on the Doddington Council approved list. Do you have anything to say in relation to the aforementioned charges?"

"It's just a drakking keyboard" he spat

"A keyboard with 128mb of ROM, contrary to Council limits and so designated as being a public risk of attracting War-Drone reconnaissance"

"They'd attack a drakking keyboard?"

"We can't take the risk with anything digital, anything with processing power, you should know that. Take him away" this to Pederson, who moved to comply, hauling McCarthy off the floor. Jenkins followed with the drummer, while the other Department constables that had backed up behind Jenkins rounded up the remaining band members for questioning as well as carefully lifting the keyboard box and taking it to secure storage.

The Sheriff watched them depart, took one last round the bar then headed to the door. The sound of a slow clap caused her to stop, hand on the cool steel door knob.

"Bravo" came a voice accompanying the clap "Keeping the town safe one kids musical instrument at a time"

The Sheriff didn't need to turn round to know who was addressing her, "Good evening Samson" she tried to stay calm, not let him irritate her, but an icey tone had entered her voice.

"It would have been good with a little bit of music" Samson said sarcastically

"I thought you of all people would understand the drone risk. Make a habit of attracting them I heard with your little stash of smartphones."

"You know I've got the paperwork for that stash, Sheriff. Got your wrists slapped by the council last time you tried to investigate it I'm told"

Still facing the door, she bristled with anger, something Samson appeared to notice as he continued his antagonism "Yes, the council recognise the need for us not to keep living in fear of technology, how we can use it for our advantage. I've even heard that some council people are starting to get a little tired with the dinosaurs at the Department holding us back."

"You might say holding us back, I say keeping us safe" she realised how trite it sounded as she was saying it. She always struggled when Samson got her on the defensive, the little pipsqueak knowing how to push her buttons. Of course the one way to counter being on the defensive was to go on the attack. She turned round slowly, knuckles white on her tightly gripped walking stick. "It was a shame for you that my investigation of your technology use came to a premature end. As it made me start looking into your staff keeping. How many assistants have you got through now? Twenty, thirty?" she noticed that the big woman sat next to Samson took a long swig of her drink as she said this.

"You exaggerate as ever Sheriff" it was now Samson who appeared to be on the defensive.

"But we are talking double figures. Now the council seem taken in by the story that these poor kids were lost to the greater good. The so-called good of establishing a trade route south. All I see is some twisted little oik disappearing into the Wastes with some young thing on a regular basis"

"They're all adults" the defensive tone writ large "and I explain the risks to them"

"When you get to my age Samson, they all look like kids. And a lot of those kids don't come back when they spend time with you" she took slow steps towards the bar where Samson sat on a rickety looking stool. "Now I'm not the one to start rumours. I am a professional after all. But the longer you go without finding the trade route, the more likely to me it seems the council may start questioning your wider motivations" this was near whispered as she got close to him. "And when they do, I will be on you like a drone at a microchip factory" He blinked and turned away.

"You're full of drakk" he said, but the fight had gone from his voice.

She turned, headed back towards the door, head high, walking stick thumping as she made her strides "Maybe I am Samson" she turned to look back at him, then focused on the imposing form of Harmony beside him "Either way, looks to me like you've bitten off a bit more than you can chew with your current assistant. Be seeing you" she smiled, opened the door.

Back inside Samson drained his glass, banging it angrily back down on the bar top as the Sheriff headed out into the humid night. He shouted after her "And when I do discover a route through, sheriff, the Department will be disbanded quicker than you can swirl your walking stick. No more Sheriff, just a senile old technophobe called Melissa"