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                         Underground eXperts United

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         [  Sweet Celebration  ]                       [  By Hedge  ]


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                           **SWEET CELEBRATION**

                                 By Hedge.


/* Si Vis Pacem, Para Bellum!  */

  It  was  a  normal  slow  day at work.  He had just finished some reports
concerning  citizens  disturbing  the  order.   Naturally they hadn't had a
chance   in   court.    Not   when  he,  Leipzig,  and  his  department  of
CitizenMonitor  had  placed  their  devices  inside their houses.  He liked
these  machines.   They  stopped  the  guilty  from walking from an obvious
crime, just because lack of evidence.  If they weren't guilty, how come the
Police  had  got their eyes on them in the first place?  He knew the answer
to  that  question  just  as  well  as  the citizens did, when a person had
attracted  attention from the Police he might as well buy his own ticket to
the Facility Of Corrections up north.

  This  day had been better than ordinary days though.  The usual afternoon
quarrel  with the Boss didn't take place for some strange reason.  He liked
his  Boss,  but  they  didn't  agree  on  several  matters  concerning  the
Monitoring  of  citizens.   He felt that his Boss was somewhat weak when it
came to these issues.  Normally when they came together in the afternoon to
discuss  the  procedures  used  during  the day's Monitoring, the arguments
began. Often loud arguments, when his Boss claimed that he used too much of
his  paranoia  at  work.  Oh, well, he thought, not everyone can be as hard
working as me...

  The  Monitoring,  by the way, was an activity that the Police put in when
some suspicion came in against a citizen.  The department of CitizenMonitor
drove  off to the suspect's house, and after checking that there was nobody
home,  they  planted  his  house full of monitoring devices.  These devices
could  detect  if there were illegal substances in the air of the apartment
for  example,  and of course detect any sound made therein.  If any illegal
activity was detected, the suspect was brought to trial, and convicted.  He
then  had  to serve a minimum of five years at the Facility Of Corrections,
and  when he came back from that he sure as hell wasn't capable of planning
anything illegal.

  The  silence  in  the office began to bother him.  He had detected during
these  last  few  days an atmosphere of secrets around himself.  Colleagues
talking  at  a  table  with  low  voices  suddenly  stopped  when  he  came
in...Perhaps  the  Boss  has  grown  tired of me, he thought.  Perhaps he'd
rather  see me up north instead of having me here bothering him?  What else
could  it be?  A chilling  fear  began  to  rise  inside  of him.  If  they
already have begun to keep secrets from him,  they would soon enough decide
that he was a prime target for Monitoring...  He quickly found his way down
to the technical facility, where he took out a Sweep System,  made  to make
places safe from monitoring.  We shall soon see, he thought.   On  the  way
towards home, he started to laugh hysterically at his  own  paranoia.  This
must be the most common health risk at this department he said out loud  to
the booming car stereo.

  When  arriving at home he immediately started to sweep the apartment, but
nothing showed on the SweepSystem's display.  "Strange", he thought.  While
heading  towards  the center of the apartment, he turned up the sensitivity
on  the machine and began another sweep.  Suddenly a loud beep sounded from
the machine, accompanied by the terrifying text:

"*Presence Locator Detected*

 *At position:  Present*

 *Index:  -1.5in.  Deep*

 **EndSweep**".

(A  presence  locator  checked  if  a  suspect was home, and the Department
usually placed it at someone's apartment a few days before an arrest was to
be made.)

  He stood there for almost two minutes, as if he had seen a ghost, when he
suddenly  started  to  cry.   He  screamed out loud and smashed the Sweeper
against  the  wall.   After  regaining  control over himself, he started to
think.   "How  long  has  it been there, how many days, or hours, do I have
left?", he thought.  After taking everything into account, he said:  "Well,
there  can  be  more  than one contender in this game!", and ran out to his
car.  He left his home with screeching tires, heading for the nearby weapon
store.   At  the  store he used up his last money on the latest in personal
defense, and then  he  went  back to the Department and required a Monitor,
which was used to read the signals from different spy devices, like the one
in  his house.  After returning home, he carefully tuned the Monitor to the
frequency used by the bug under the floor.  Then he went out to his car and
drove away a couple of blocks, so he wouldn't be spotted.

  Several  days  went  by without even the slightest beep from the monitor.
He hadn't eaten anything during this time, and there hadn't been much sleep
either.   Hungry,  tired and desperate he entered the fifth day in his car.
He  stepped  out  of  the  car  just  as the sun began to rise and began to
stretch  his  limbs.  Standing there in the early morning light, he started
to  think about his colleagues.  "They must be wondering where I have gone"
he  thought.   He was interrupted by a shrill noise from the monitor inside
the car.   He quickly got back inside, and read the message on the display:

" *Human Presence Detected!*

  *Number:  15 Persons*

  *Of which armed:  7 Persons*

  *Male/Female:  6/9*

  *Status:  Moving*

  **Illegal substances detected:  None**

  **EndMonitor**

  **Do you wish to Monitor all out/incoming calls?(Y/N)**"

"So  they  even  bugged my phone" he though as he slowly pressed 'N' on the
small keyboard.

"**CallMonitor DeActivated**!"

the  machine  replied.  After the last message the monitor stayed quiet for
almost ten minutes, and then beeped again flashing a message:

"*Speech Detected!*

 *No.sources:  4*

 **Do you wish to listen in?(Y/N)**".

  He  again  pressed 'N' on the keyboard as he looked at the last sentence.
He had formulated this meaning to the technicians when they were developing
the  monitor.   To add a little fun to the boring work of staking a suspect
he had said...

The Monitor flashed a confirmation on the display, and then beeped again:

"*Illegal Substance Detected!*

 *Of Type:  THC*

 *Scientific/Street Label:  Cannabis Sativa/ Grass, Haschisch*"

 **EndMonitor**

  "Well,  well, they are smoking grass right in the middle of a bust...This
is  it",  he thought. He started to load his weapons, and preparing for the
fight  mentally.   "In  and out quickly" he said repeatedly in a low voice.
When  he was done, he drove away, heading for home.  He parked the car just
outside  the stairs, and jumped out running towards them.  Rushing upwards,
two  steps  at  a  time, he arrived at his door breathing heavily.  "It's a
good thing my windows are on the other side of the building, otherwise they
may  have  had spotted me coming up", he thought as he kicked the door wide
open.

  Inside  he  opened  up fire.  He had stopped thinking now and acted in an
robotic fashion.  Where ever the red laser beam hit, a burst of hollowpoint
slugs joined it.  People were screaming, but he heard nothing.  "In and out
quickly"  was the only thought in his mind.  His walk through the apartment
blazing  at  everything  that  moved,  created a horrifying scene of skulls
exploding,  bodies  being  torn  in  two  and  the  shocking  color  of red
blood. After  approximately  35  seconds he realized that he had ran out of
targets.   Not a sound could be heard there in the living room as the smoke
began  to  clear.   He  looked at his feet, and realized he was standing in
something  which  appeared  to  be ice cream mixed with blood.  As his mind
began  to  settle, he could also read the text of the bullet-pierced banner
which stretched from wall to wall...:

  "Happy 30'th Birthday Leipzig!!!"



 /* Hedge -94 */

 /* Please send me your views of the world:  s93glo@ida.csd.uu.se */


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