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Case Day 1

Saturday, 2/13/2096

A few miles north of Midland

Nation of Texas, Outside

Outsider detective Shelby Darnell made his way across the sage flats north of Midland in the Nation of Texas. His long-legged stride ate up the dusty five-mile hike to his cabin in less than an hour. At thirty-nine he could still out-walk most twenty-year-olds and reveled in it. Not all of his long “commute” from Ranger HQ in San Antonio was by foot. The first leg of it forced him to use a gwenny, one of those “damned Insider inventions.” Once he’d stepped through the portal into Midland, however, the second leg — the hike from town to his cabin — felt more like relaxation. He never tired of it.

He’d come to love the semiarid landscape brought to this area by climate change. He took an extra breath of the dry air, despite its load of dust, just to get a better whiff of the sage. Today’s path home varied quite a bit from yesterday’s. There were a couple of tire ruts leading to his cabin but he never followed them, preferring to wind through the rabbit bush and Mormon tea, occasionally zigzagging around a dry-land scrub oak or juniper.

Strange, he reflected, how that instantaneous step from San Antonio to Midland felt more effortful than the walk to his home.

Pausing for a moment to catch the vista from a slight rise, he took off his Stetson and wiped his forehead, sweaty despite the February cool. From this vantage point he could see the sun glinting off his cabin’s solar panels a quarter of a mile off to his left. Taking off his Levi jacket, he slung it over one shoulder and started down the slope in that direction, smiling as he startled a prairie dog standing guard over its burrow.

Work had gone well this morning. He’d wrapped up a robbery over in the west side of town and gotten a solid lead on a break-in at Manuel Torado’s Tienda. With a sigh he had to admit that working robberies was a real comedown for a homicide detective.

I know it’s a good thing when people don’t get murdered, but — damn! Not a single homicide case in the last two years.

The tracy strapped to his left wrist chimed for an incoming call. He raised his arm to eye level. “TRACY, ACCEPT CALL.”

An image blossomed from the instrument’s holo port, growing into a nine-inch high hologram of his wife, Elizabeth. “Shelby,” she smiled, worriedly. “Did you remember that formal Inside affair we’re supposed to attend this afternoon?”

Shelby winced at the implication that he might have deliberately forgotten. “Sure did, Liz. Got the afternoon off for it. Where do I meet you?”

“At the post office gwenny in San Antonio. Be there at 1:30 sharp.”

“I’ll make it. Don’t you worry. Won’t be like last time. Mercer’s got two other Rangers coverin’ robberies and the chance they’ll need me for a murder is right down there near zero. Did Merritt ever tell us what this occasion was?”

Even in the slight blur of the holo image, he could tell his wife’s eyes were sparkling. “Yes, he finally told me. Said he was waiting until it was a sure thing. He passed his final exams for AL17.”

“Great!” Never breaking his stride, Shelby grinned back at his wife, giving her most of his attention even as he traversed the broken ground under his boots. “That’s 17 Achievement Levels in only 10 years of education. Good for him. Most kids need a year for each level.”

The excitement now on Liz’s face suggested that “Good for him” wasn’t quite enough. “This is a huge milestone for your youngest, Shel. It’s a real change in lifestyle for a fifteen-year-old.  When he enrolls for Level 18 he’s going to leave that awful unigend commune and move to multigend LC.” 

“I forget these Inside terms, Liz. Multigend is …?”

“Oh, Shel … I think you deliberately avoid learning these things just because they’re Inside stuff. Multigend Learning Communes take all genders: Male, female, LGBTQ — everybody. That will provide Merritt an opportunity to start dating girls.”

“’Bout time,” Shelby muttered.

“Oh, come on Shel. You’re the one who wanted him to choose that unigend boy’s school.”

“Yeah. Their sports program beat all the other LCs.”

Shel decided the time for chatting was over. A serious problem might lurk behind this good news. “So which multigend is he applying to?”

Liz’s hesitation was noticeable. “It’s one that’s really good for him, Shel. I told him it was a perfect choice.”

Shelby glowered into the holo. “I hope it’s got a name.”

She answered after an audible sigh. “Britannica.”

“Liz,” he sputtered, “that’s about the most expensive choice he could have made. What got into the boy?”

“A desire for the best educational environment available, Shelburn Darnell,” she snapped. “Are you really going to deny your only son that advantage?”

“He could pass all those ALs right here at home … a home we wouldn’t have to mortgage just so’s he could have own-age company while he learns.”

“Must I remind you, Shel, you could be making twice the salary if you’d just get a job at an Inside law enforcement agency.”

He gritted his teeth as the age-old argument arose yet again. Liz had never been happy living Outside. She only stayed because he refused to leave.

“None of those fancy VGE Security agencies are gonna want a 39-year-old cop with no Inside experience.”

Choosing not to bicker, she waved her hand dismissively. “We can handle the cost, Shel. I can contribute more of my salary from The Sun. And don’t forget, Darcy already passed her AL20 exams. We’ve only got a few more years on tight budget.”

He snorted. “Darcy may only be seventeen but she’s got the ambition and maturity of someone twice her age. She’ll go for AL30 — top of the line. She’ll only stop when she runs out of levels.”

“Possibly.” Liz drew in a deep breath. “We can’t short-change our kids, Shel.”

“Yeah” he admitted. “I’m with you on that. But there goes the house addition you wanted. Any chance The San Antonio Sun could put together a raise for you?”

A sharp laugh from her. “Seen any flying pigs lately, Shel?”

“Okay, okay. Just a thought. I guess we can do it somehow.” He’d reached his cabin, all six small rooms of it. He saw right away that Liz must still be at work. Their old second-hand ORV wasn’t parked in front of the weather-worn porch.

“The reason I called,” Liz continued, “was to explain the clothes I left on the bed for you.”

“Clothes? I don’t need any …”

Listen, Shel. Your son’s graduation from AL17 is a big thing. There’s a formal ceremony with a huge party afterward. We’re going to both functions. Merritt would be devastated if we’re not there. And you’re not going to embarrass me with one of your grungy old plaid shirt and jeans.”

“Liz …”

“Got to go. You be at the gwenny by 1:30, Texas time, Shel. Darcy will meet us at the gwenny on Merritt’s LC campus. Do NOT be late.” She disconnected.

“Campus!” he snorted at the Insiders who thought they had anything resembling a campus. Climbing the cabin’s front steps, he shook his head at the memory of what the Texas Tech campus had looked like before its abandonment: broad green lawns between tall brick buildings; colonnades sheathing the library; streets and parking lots for automobiles. He’d seen it on a childhood trip with his father and wished he could attend school there. It had already shut down by the time he reached high school age — the victim of population loss to the Inside world.

Merritt’s Learning Commune didn’t deserve the term, “campus.” No lawns, no streets, not even a building. Shelby had been Inside only once or twice but he understood the place. They didn’t have buildings Inside, just spaces connected by portals. Buildings had outsides to them. An Insider never saw the outside of a space they stood in. Only people who lived Outside saw the bare, ugly concrete stacks that formed the walls of Inside spaces. Insiders lived within civilized, refined inner surfaces, never giving a moment’s thought to what lay on the other side. Merritt’s LC probably had dozens of rooms but they might be scattered across the globe in ten or more stacks — whatever was cheapest for the LC. And not a one of them had windows. For Insiders, the entire world lay within those walls.

Shelby rushed through his cabin’s pint-sized living room and down the hall to the master bedroom. Sure enough. Spread out on the bed was a brand new Insider dinner jacket — his size, of course. He stared at the wide-collared, ginger spruce horror. My God, Liz. Did you pay money for that thing? He resisted the urge to wad it up and toss it in the trash. “If she thinks I’m gonna wear that,” he mumbled, shaking his head.

He yanked a clean Levi jacket from a hook in the closet and tossed it over the colorful atrocity. After a quick shower, he donned a freshly laundered white shirt and a pair of brand new jeans, his first new pair in four years. He shoved one arm into the Levi’s jacket and stopped.

Oh, hell, Shelby. Are you such a piss-poor husband you can’t do one little favor for your wife?

Gritting his teeth, he pulled his arm out of the Levi jacket and hung it back on its hook. The plaid jacket fit perfectly. He had no doubt the damned thing would be considered “fashion fabulous” Inside but Liz knew he put Insider fashion in the same bin as moldy garbage. Still, she and Merritt would be embarrassed for him if he didn’t wear it. Embarrassed didn’t begin to cover what his daughter would feel.

Darcy’s years at her LC had stolen all her Texas values and stuffed her full of Insider claptrap. If he showed up wearing jeans and Levi jacket, fulfilling the expectations that the Insider guests had for Outsider “barbarians,” she’d be mortified. When Liz bought these Insider clothes for him, she’d been trying to cut off a nasty argument that might ruin Merritt’s celebration.

Slipping into the sissy, tight-legged stretch pants that matched the jacket, Shelby realized Liz hadn’t provided a belt. He grinned with a hint of malice as he went to the closet for his best, the one with the ornate three-inch silver buckle with its carved relief of longhorn cattle. That would get more than one corner-of-the-eye glance and shocked whisper. He sort of looked forward to stirring the crowd but winced inwardly when he thought how it would set Darcy’s teeth on edge.

“Dad,” she would whisper furiously, “did you really have to wear that … thing?”

“Gotta hold up my pants,” he would whisper back. “Thought your friends would rather see that than my drawers.”

He didn’t know how to respond to her constant disappointment in him, other than with levity.

Even greeting Darcy was not going to be easy. A picture came to mind – Darcy with a couple of her new Insider friends. He would ease through the circle to give her a hug, which she would stoically accept with her body all rigid with embarrassment while her friends traded elbow nudges and snickers.

If Liz just hadn’t insisted on sending Darcy to that Inside LC instead of letting her home-school from the offerings on the net like most other Texas kids, Darcy wouldn’t have met all those nose-in-the-air Insider girls. In his eyes they just didn’t measure up to the kids who grew up proud of their citizenship in the Nation of Texas.

Shelby slipped a bolo tie under his collar and — thinking of how those girls had changed Darcy — angrily wrenched the slide upward with such force it left frayed threads sprouting from the cord. Darcy had spent her first Inside year as an object of her classmates’ derisive humor. Only gutsy persistence had allowed her to finally overcome their prejudice against all things “Outside” and claim the more mature of them as true friends.

Standing before the aging dresser mirror, he straightened his bolo with another vicious yank then shifted back and forth, trying to put his reflection on a spot where the silvering hadn’t peeled off. His lanky frame and thin-faced visage didn’t bother him — but the clothes! On him they were as out-of-place as royal robes on a street fighter. They wouldn’t fool anyone in that crowd of tuxoid glitter suits and luxurious pseudopelt Nehru jackets. And where was his trendy left-face half-mask? This drew another snort.

He decided that asking him to wear crap like that was just going too damned far – even to keep his family happy. Anyway, Liz knew he couldn’t afford party clothes and half-masks. Texas Rangers didn’t make high salaries these days. The impoverished Nation of Texas had cut the Ranger budget to the bone.

Every year since those damned portals were invented we lose more folks to Inside. Their tax money goes with them. One of these days, we’re gonna be wipin’ our asses with grass and leaves.

His ranger pay was enough for one man to live on but not a whole family. It gnawed at Shelby’s guts that Liz’s salary from her reporter’s job at the Sun had made up the difference. She never berated him for that but she never stopped asking him to resign from the Rangers and find employment Inside where she wanted to live.

Even if he gave in and became an Inside cop, it wouldn’t really satisfy her. Liz hated law enforcement. Hated the irregular hours, the fact that she could never count on him being where he’d promised to be. A crime always took precedence with his time.

When Merritt’s invitation came, she’d made Shelby swear twice over that he wouldn’t let anything — anything in the universe — keep him from actually showing up.

In the past, promises like that had been nearly impossible to keep. As the Ranger’s Chief of Homicide — actually, now the sole homicide detective — Shelby couldn’t let anything stand between him and duty. When a murder occurred, he had to be on duty — right then.

Fortunately, there hadn’t been a murder in two years, so this time — by God and all his little green Gila monsters!! — Shelby Darnell vowed he would keep his promise to Liz and show up at the appointed time.

With a glance at the clouds gathering on the horizon, he pulled his front door shut and set out to walk the five miles of West Texas scrubland to the Midland public portal that would take him Inside. He had plenty of time to get to the gwenny before the rain hit and in the meanwhile he could enjoy the rising breeze that brought the scent of sage and juniper.

He had reached the crumbling outskirts of what had once been a city of thousands when his tracy trilled. He glowered at the instrument banding his left wrist, fearing the worst. It held a growing list of unanswered calls from the Texas Bureau of the Budget that he wished would just evaporate into a cloud of loose electrons. He had no idea what they were so anxious to tell him but the way they’d been cutting the Rangers’ budget a little more each year suggested they wouldn’t say anything he wanted to hear.

Bringing the tracy up to his face, he sighed, “Tracy play message.”

He smiled to see this call wasn’t from the Bureau. It was a text message from Sergeant Maria Portula, front desk at Ranger Headquarters. Pablo Cruz, Head of Security at the big Kitchens4U stack on the North side of Midland, had called for help after finding human body parts in one of the kitchens. Shelby read the rest of it with a quickly-suppressed sense of relief and a twinge of guilt, then messaged a promise to get right on it. It would make him only a few minutes late meeting Liz at the gwenny but surely she could cut him that much slack. He sent her a brief text message warning her he might be a half-hour late. I won’t really be that long, he assured his conscience. I’ll just get the case started then get right over to that gwenny where she’ll be waiting.

For the first time in two years, he had a homicide. Mercer would be relieved, the budget cuts would go on the shelf, and most of all, Shelby Darnell would once again be in his own element.

Next Chapter: INTERIM