The Suggestion Box, Vol. 4: A to Z Challenge

Letter W: "Whitaker's Weapon"

*This excerpt is from an unpublished draft of a cyberpunk thriller.

The wheeling whitejays around his window were the only signs Whitaker had of the heavy winds outside. The towers of Cardiff were designed to withstand hurricanes and tidal waves—what would a little windstorm do?

The secure line warbled. Whitaker opened the connection and took a deep whiff. His mind filled with data in that single breath, and he immediately set about filtering through it, exporting all irrelevant information to his comp unit to review at a later time.

So much of it was extraneous data, but the concentration was definitely much less than it might have been, if he did not already have several layers of filters attached to the line before it ever reached him. What little news he could detect worried him deeply.

The WRAITHS in Wrexham had failed; whispers on the Street had indicated that Drake's identified Faces had been reporting to a certain building near the Wall in that sector. Forthwith, he had dispatched a team to that area, instructing them to wait and watch for any activity before orchestrating a sting. A week passed, without so much as a whistle to show for it.

In Welshpool, the WRAITHS stationed there faced the opposite problem: the area was awash with Street-level activity. It seemed as though every moment a WRAITH spared to pursue a suspicion allowed multiple others to slip away when their backs were turned. They were spread too thin, worn out, and Whitaker was no closer to unmasking the identity of the wily Drake Ross, the mysterious entity who emerged shortly after Whitaker became Chief of Security for all of Wales—and the source of the most trouble for the Welsh Representative Assembly Information Tech Hit Squad ever since.

Whitaker waved the scent stream away. He hated the smell of failure. He turned his attention on something more pleasant: his wife, vacationing in Worcester. "Windy?" he called over his shoulder. The small, spherical bot blinked to life on her coaster-sized charger and wandered over to hover just above his shoulder.

"Take a message to my wife," he instructed.

Windy gave a small hum as she prepared to record the message.

"Dearest Maeve," Whitaker dictated, "I hope the weather is clear enough for you in Worcester. It's positively wretched over here. I miss you a lot, and I have good news, at least. My darling, I have reason to believe that I am closer than ever before to wringing the necks of the worthless wights who plague the Streets with their open wallets and subversive swamping. All the rumor-milling and the conspiracy-grinding will come to an end very soon, and the citizens of Wales will be able to breathe easy without the stench of lies and scandal cluttering up the air. You see, my darling, I have a secret weapon the likes of which the world has never seen. I cannot say much about it, for your sake, darling, but I will tell you this: the Cat has new Whiskers, and she'll catch the mice just the way she ought. I am counting the days until I see you again. All my love, George" >>>>>

Far below, even farther down than the Streets of Cardiff, a wispy young girl charged into a tiny room with barely slits for windows. A small family had just sat down to supper.

"Where's Drake?" she gasped breathlessly.

The older of the two young men sitting at the table gave her a wry glance. "Usual spot," he muttered.