Case Day 1

A former post office in Midland

Nation of Texas, Outside

Shelby used the remnant sidewalks of Midland whenever possible, zigzagging to avoid trees growing through cracks. The crumbling asphalt of the streets, with their boot catching potholes, made them even worse than the sidewalks. Midland’s budget allowed for one maintenance man who managed to keep trees from growing in the streets but left no time for anything more.

He neared his destination, a former post office. When the USA disintegrated in 2071, the postal service went with it. The buildings, though deserted now, had been retrofitted with portals through which a person could access the Inside world.

Outsiders had found that portals could be used as a quick way to get from one Outside place to another, something that Shelby would take advantage of. Today, his transit would be from the Midland post office to the Kitchens4U stack, both of which were in the Nation of Texas.

The K4U stack loomed on the horizon like a distant mountain, ten miles north of town. He could have used the Rangers’ old off road vehicle to get there, but it had been purchased so long ago it had one wheel in the grave. Besides, it would take half an hour, driving across the roadless scrubland. The post office portal was the obvious way to reach the stack, so Shelby would suppress his disgust and use it. For Texans, portals were the most hated invention in the history of humankind. Invented by Lionel Kendrik in 2041, the space-fistulation portal set the foundation for the network of portal-linked spaces now called, “Inside.”

Texans, including Shelby, blamed Inside for everything from the never-fixed potholes in their roads to the lack of jobs. Shelby loved life in Texas, especially in the arid rangelands and rugged, brown mountains of west Texas. If only he didn’t have to view the creeping poverty, the abandoned houses, the ubiquitous signs of terminal economic illness — all the fault of migration to Inside.

Shelby knew he shouldn’t really blame those billions of people who emigrated, forever abandoning places like Texas. Even Liz and Darcy dreamed of doing that.

“Can’t afford to live Inside,” he argued when Darcy pleaded.

“Dad!” she gasped. “Don’t you know anything? Inside housing is way cheaper than Outside. It’s called ‘economy of scale’.”

“Yeah, I know, I know. Heard it all before.”

“But it’s true. The rooms we could rent to make our Inside home are inexpensive because a builder makes ten thousand copies of the same room and stacks them all up in one giganormous structure. Saves on all kinds of building costs — plumbing, electricity, you name it.”

“And the only way to get in and out of those rooms is by portals. That’s not for me, daughter.”

“You are sooooo backward. It’s the portals that let builders put their stacks anywhere on the planet — deserts, scrubby old rangeland like godawful Texas …”

“Hey!”

“… and they portal in the water, the electricity …”

“And you wind up with a so-called house with a bedroom in Siberia, a kitchen in Alberta and God only knows where the bathroom is.”

“Always looking down your nose just because it’s not what you grew up with. You don’t stay in this pesthole because you love Texas. You’re just afraid to leave it. It’s your security blanket.”

Shelby hadn’t said anything to that wild accusation. He’d provoked her into wanting to hurt him and it made her run off at the mouth.

It hurt to know how little regard his own daughter had for the land of her birth.

She went on to argue, “Portals kept humanity from polluting the planet. Those cars and airplanes people used to get around in stunk up the whole world. Nearly killed it with carbon dioxide and all manner of toxic nitrogen compounds. Inside has no cars, Dad. We don’t need them. No trains, no planes …”

“No plains, no mountains, no sunsets, no …”

“Oh! I give up. You’re so … so … hopeless.”

How many times had they fought through that same worn-out argument, he wondered?

Shelby had been only three when The Great Migration reached its peak in 2060. By the end of the ‘60s, more than 80% of the world’s population had vanished into the enclosed existence of portal-connected spaces, taking with them their tax dollars.

Brian Darnell, Shelby’s father, had joined the reactivated Texas Rangers in 2071 when the USA fell apart and the Nation of Texas came into being. Walking down a street in Midland with Brian, Shelby had pointed to the hulk of the newly-built Dreamlands bedrooms stack, filling a large chunk of the horizon and asked, “Aren’t all those people living here in Texas? Why aren’t they Texans like us?

“Because, Son, while their bedrooms are in Texas their kitchens might be in South America, or the Gobi Desert. Those people sleepin’ in those bedrooms right now likely don’t even know they’re doin’ it in Texas. You ever heard the word, ‘veridical’?”

“Uh-uh, no … well, maybe in school once, but …”

“But you forgot what it means. Okay, it means ‘truly’. Those bedrooms over there in that stack are located veridically in Texas. Virtually they’re in some other nation — some Inside nation.”

Shelby heard the disgust in his father’s voice when he said, ‘Inside nation.’ “So, what Inside nation do those people belong to?” he asked.

Brian grunted. “Huh. Could be any one of a dozen, Son. Maybe Vivendi VGE, Eurostadt VGE, Mohenjo Daro VGE. Every bedroom renter in that stack can be a citizen of any VGE that will take them in … and that’s most any one of them.”

“VGE?”

“Well, that’s where that ‘virtual’ thing comes in. Virtual Governmental Entity. That’s what they’re called. They own no land. They got no particular location anywhere on this here planet. They aren’t veridical, Son. They’re virtual — they don’t have any physical existence. They’re just ideas. These days, though, that’s enough to let you collect taxes and set up police departments.” Brian looked like he wanted to spit — would have if he hadn’t taught Shelby it was a bad habit.

In school, Shelby learned that VGEs had organized themselves into a confederation called the World Assembly and considered themselves to be the next evolutionary step in human society. Those who had not heeded the call of the Inside — had stayed Outside — were obviously the dregs of society … and good riddance.

Shelby shook off the memories and returned his thoughts to the coming interview with the Insider who had discovered the grisly lopped-off hands and feet. Pushing open the door of the post office he strode across the dusty floor to the portal on the far wall. It looked exactly like a last-century elevator, with double doors that parted from the center. He entered the address for the Kitchens4U maintenance building into the keypad next to the doors and stepped back to wait for Central Portal Control to make the connection. While he waited, he called HQ, leaving a message for Eduardo Ortez, his crime scene investigator, to join him.

K4U Stack Security would look up Pypher in their renter list and provide her address. He already knew she lived in Freedom City VGE and that meant he’d be disputing jurisdiction with an FC Security cop. When it came to cooperating with Outsiders, some Virtual Governmental Entities were more obliging than others; Freedom City VGE was the least obliging of all.

Shelby’s real talent lay in ferreting out the clues in a case and piecing them together into a full picture of a murder. This case involved less of that. It was more about politics. He hated politics.

He’d almost rather skip the whole thing and just go right to Merritt’s ceremony. Unfortunately, Texas had a standing policy that Rangers claimed cases occurring within any stack located in their borders. Jurisdictional conflicts between Inside and Outside law agencies had to be settled by treaty and Freedom City had never agreed to one. That anomaly put the dispute entirely in the hands of the detectives assigned to the case.

If Shelby could reach the crime scene before the FC detective, he could do the initial interview and claim the most important evidence. He’d get the salient facts from Ms. Pypher, leave Eduardo to collect the evidence, then rush to join Liz in San Antonio. It shouldn’t make him more than a few minutes late. Liz wouldn’t get upset over a few minutes.

He hoped.