The Summons

Chapter 19

The video I had watched over breakfast was actually just another Interview. A job Interview—with the Agency. Ernie had dressed nicely for the occasion, and had been allowed to shed his normal sky-blue coveralls in favor of nice dark-green dress slacks and a gray, albeit wrinkled, button-up. His hair was combed and his face was clean of the warehouse grime it usually carried.

"What makes you think you're qualified for this line of work?" After the pair of them sat down across from one another at a desk inside a small multi-use office, the interviewing Agent's first question was harsh but meant to catch the interviewee off guard.

I expected Ernie to stumble over his words—I hadn't been able to see or hear much of him or how he was—but his answer was confident, concise, and unrehearsed. "I know the difference between what's right and what's wrong. I learned that the hard way."

The Agent nodded his head and punched a selection into the viewing screen that sat on a tripod on the desk. "I see you paid restitutions to SuperMart back...is that ten years ago?"

"Yes."

"For vandalism."

"Yes."

The Agent took a moment to read the details of Ernie's indiscretion. "Oh. Well, I was thinking you had done some damage to the property itself when the system pinged against your name. But it was a Marked?"

"Yes, sir."

"Well then. That's different, isn't it?" The Agent laughed and swiped the file away with a casual gesture. "It's not like you burned the warehouse down. I'm surprised they made you pay for that."

"It was more of what my mom...mother wanted, not what the law said. She wanted me to have a clean record."

"Because of your old man?"

"Exactly."

"And because of that, you're not District-born, are you?"

Ernie pulled his mouth into a sideways frown and shook his head.

I scanned through another half-hour of interview questions and learned a bit about the young man who'd been so violently Rendered just a few weeks after this meeting. He started the interview as hopeful, but as the questions went on, his face slackened and his shoulders began to droop. The Agent's biggest point of contention was that he'd lived in another District, clear across the country, and couldn't be as connected to the community as was necessary.

"I moved with my mom when I was two," Ernie said with a tone that was lacking in respect. "I don't remember anything about where I was born."

His interviewer wasn't annoyed with his response and actually laughed. I imagined he had tried to set some kind of little trap for Ernie in order to evaluate his response.

They chatted casually about Ernie's previous jobs—fulfilling parts orders for automaton repairs, day-shift stock assistance at the SuperMart, and a brief stint in auto-fork repair with his friend Gerald—and the conversation paused at the mention of his friends.

"Real friends are hard to come by, these days, aren't they?"

Ernie agreed.

"Speaking of Gerry...he's another Agent's kid. Surprised he's not a legacy applicant," the Agent said with a click of his tongue.

"I think he might apply someday," Ernie said with a rising inflection. "But he likes his trade. I think his Dads don't want him in the Agency. Maybe."

"Hmm, that's interesting."

"But I don't know for sure. That's just...what I...what I get from him," Ernie frantically added.

The Agent smiled knowingly and pressed on with a few more questions about Ernie's personal life. I scanned forward and back a few times while I ripped through my breakfast but nothing, outside of learning a little bit more about the victim of this horrible crime, stood out to me and certainly didn't explain why he'd been a part of a plan to drug and kill Gerald.

As the interview was coming to a close, according to the time stamp, The Agent pulled up another file on the screen and scrolled through dozens of text passages and appeared to be speed-reading through some kind of article. He clicked his tongue in disappointment.

"I'm just not seeing anything here that would indicate you're the type of kid who could make life-or-death decisions," he said.

Ernie's expression contorted into that of worry and his arched brows and widened eyes made him look younger—the child-like face of a young man who'd already lost his life's ambition.

"I don't want to work in the trades like my mom and...dad," he pleaded. Beads of sweat had appeared on his clean forehead and the gray shirt was darkening under his arms. "I want something...important."

"Trades are important," the Agent argued, looking a bit offended. "Where would we be without our engineers and mechanics? Nothing runs by itself, thank God, so don't discount a good job in the trades."

He pushed an icon on the screen and a virtual keyboard appeared on the desk, glowing red. It overlapped a stack of degradable boxes that likely still smelled of dim sum or General Tso's, and the Agent had to clear them away before he could begin to type.

"Listen, I don't think you're cut out for it, kid," he said as he typed a lengthy paragraph into a form on the screen. "But..." He held up a hand briefly to quell what looked like a prepared outburst. "I'm recommending you for the training program anyway. It's not a glowing recommendation and I have doubts that you'll get past the first week of intense trial reviews. But...there's something about your essay, here." He gestured his eyes back toward the screen."

Hopeful again, Ernie couldn't help but smile but he asked what about his essay was so interesting.

"You say in here that, after what happened with your Dad, his Mark, his eventual Cleansing, that you have no preconceptions that anyone is Innocent. That's a pretty harsh thing to say for a nineteen-year-old kid."

"Yeah," Ernie said bitterly. "Anyone is capable of anything."

"And if it came down to it, where your mother, your sister...one of your best friends was Controlled, you'd treat anyone of them as if they were guilty?"

"Absolutely. If they've been Controlled, they're already guilty."

"And if someone close to you had been Accused, would you uphold the Proceedings and ensure justice is carried out?"

"Absolutely."