Greg and Shirra, NY

1. Big Apple

Adam navigated the traffic, cursing the badly balanced front tires. He could feel the rumble in the steering wheel. "Crappy Japanese cars!" he cursed, hitting the brand name on his steering wheel.

A sliver of sunshine pierced the clouds and reached his eye between the flipped up visors. "Damn!" he muttered, squinting against the intensity, "I hate New York!"

The car in front of him stopped for a yellow. "It's yellow, you stupid socialist!" he screamed against his windshield, without any effect of course. Shaking on its suspension, his little car halted behind the big Lincoln that had stopped. Adam checked his wristwatch. "I'm gonna be late!" he said again.

People walked on the crosswalk. He noticed one of the dogfaces crossing. "They should drive over those mutts," he hoped fervently. Nothing good would ever come of those types. Blacks were one thing, but these 'dog humans' should have stayed in China. It was no wonder the Chinese wanted them to move out. Who could blame them?

"They work so hard," some people said. "For almost nothing!" Adam cursed. The dog people didn't fall under any legislation pertaining to humans. Their status in the USA was as uncertain as the missing information on their kind in the constitution.

"We'll see!" Adam hoped the new president would make short work of those mongrels.

The light shone green and the luscious town car in front of him moved smoothly on. Adam's car jerkily followed. His father had owned a very nice Buick once. Oh, those were the days. "And I'm stuck in a world without jobs and dog-faced fake people!"

At the train station he took the metro to his job and Adam reached the building with the novel execution program for detainees on death row five minutes late. He sighed, as he went in through the revolving doors, collected his badge at the counter and, like a war-victim, trudged with a heavy feeling down the stairs to the basement where 'the setup' was housed. He didn't agree with the program he worked for at all. Yet it was his only source of income. Not that he minded executing criminals, it was just the free ride offered to the refugees they got in return.

"Bah," he said angry, almost bumping into the head honcho of the scientists.

"Professor Badger!" Adam said, looking up, "I'm so sorry!"

She looked at him for a moment, over her glasses, nodded with a forced smile and walked on. Withering under that gaze, part of him felt like a speck of dirt.

When she was out of earshot, Adam walked on muttering a hearty set of profanities ending in 'nut case'. Professor Badger was a weird woman, he'd heard her described as 'ascetic' but until now he had not remembered to look it up in the dictionary. Actually, he had not remembered to look up the dictionary. And so, thinking about the meaning of that expensive word, walked on, looking at the floor.

"Hi Adam," he looked up to see Ilse standing there. The blonde woman was luscious, friendly, well dressed and would make a great secretary for someone, somewhere, sometime. Adam accepted her ruefully, Ilse should be under the guide of a man but instead she was his coworker. There were simply too many women working in this whole thing! Moreover, they were all self-confessed socialists. In short, Adam concluded, he was working with a bunch of bloody commies and he wasn't sure if it was an act of treason to work with commies.

"Hi Ilse," Adam nodded mechanically, "what's up? Seen the paper?" he asked, feeling unpleasant and in need to take it out on someone.

"Ah?" Ilse stopped her normal happiness and prepared for the bad news that was undoubtedly going to follow with a frown.

Adam threw the paper on the console, narrowly missing dials and buttons.

"Hey!" Ilse scolded him, picking the paper up and frowning darkly at him.

"What?" he asked, challenging with his arms wide.

"I'm not telling on you for being late. You could be a little more forthcoming, Adam!"

"Touché," he agreed.

Ilse read the headline aloud. "Dog man attacks human."

Adam let her read on and started preparing the system per the latest information from the techies and scientists. The settings didn't make any sense, but then again he admitted he didn't understand the first thing about this infernal machine. It was the result of the previous administration: a human execution second chance sort of thing. A convict went in and you got a 'second-chancer' back. According to professor Badger it meant the people that you got in return weren't bad and saved from worse and as such refugees who needed a matching status in the US.

That was what Adam disliked the most, the "official refugee status". It meant people got a permanent residential status from the get-go. For free. So, that infernal machine was a leak in the US borders, that's what it was.

After an hour, when all was set, Ilse picked up the paper. "You should read carefully, Adam. It's not at all clear that this dog person attacked."

Annoyed at her use of the term 'dog person' Adam bit back, "The mongrel did! Every dog is a dog. Give me a genuine type on a leash and I'm your man."

Ilse flashed him a nice smile at that last statement but Adam could only think 'commie'.

"Adam, I really don't like it when you call our dog faced co-humans a mongrel."

"Dogface?" Adam tried, annoying her.

"Adam! That's derogatory too, and well you know it!"

"Ilse, honey, twenty years ago they all lived in China. Look where we stand now? They're multiplying in our city. We haven't jobs for them; they're stupid and can only do the simplest things. Stealing jobs, I say."

Ilse looked away in disgust but couldn't stop a peek at his muscular chest. Adam knew he looked the part. The good Lord had given him looks but no big brain. Ilse was smarter than him and that irked him a lot. People like Madame Professor Badger were another league, he didn't care about her. Even if it was weird she was a woman. And on top of that she was a weird woman. Kind of like a weird weirdo woman, Adam chuckled almost silently.

"Right," Ilse announced, "first order of business. We've a test with a pair of bank robbers."

Ilse kept calling the executions 'tests'. Weird. He was surrounded by weirdo women. But then he recalled the news show.

"Oh! The ones that shot all those people?"

"The very same."

Adam smiled. "Great, I hope they turn to dog food."

"They're still people, Adam."

He frowned at her. "As far as I'm concerned: no. They lost their civil rights when they did that."

"Really?" she asked with a hint of play, "less rights than a dog man?"

Adam thought about that. "I guess," he agreed reluctantly.

Ilse pressed the button next to the phone and picked up the receiver. "This is operations, we're ready."

She waited for the reply, adjusted a few dials and read the meters. "OK" she said in the receiver and put it down.

"There they come," she said and nodded to the room with the setup.

The crooks were ushered in at gun point and made to sit on the slide through the huge tetrahedron machine, also known to everyone as the setup.

"See how big they are?" Adam asked Ilse while shaping his hands around his body to indicate their girth and feeling safe behind the bullet proof glass.

"They seem like four people!" Ilse looked aghast.

"Geez," Adam agreed.

"Action!" Ilse yelled loudly in the microphone. The security force professionally verified the cage placement and set it down over the new arrivals. "Hut!" the sergeant called out and the security folks retreated behind their protective walls and a lamp on the console lit up. An impressive array of steel muzzles pointed at the arrival point. A fist went up, signaling they were ready and silence reigned.

"Showtime," Adam said, "can I?" he asked.

Ilse nodded.

Adam turned his key at the same time as Ilse and lifted the hatch to reach the red main energizing button. He held it down and a siren sounded while orange flashing lights in the ceiling lit up.

"OK, Go!" Adam said in the speaker that was amplified in the room in front of them, with the tetrahedron shaped setup. The pair of murders were moved down the smooth ramp with some force, they slid down and they screamed like little babies. Adam felt his bile rise, thinking he heard the same cries these bastards ignored when they shot people in the bank. Prisoner '41' and '45' were on their way to an unknown destination. Adam knew the numbers were meant to keep any personal feelings to a minimum but these guys… their case had been nationwide on the news. They needed to burn! Right now, he hoped that weird professor Badger knew what she was doing. He didn't understand it, but according to her there were 'mathematical certainties' that these murders would be executed. Perhaps painfully. He really hoped Miss Badger was right and that a 'mathematical certainty' meant 'for sure'.

Electrical power surged through high voltage vacuum tubes in arcs and through relays accompanied with flashes and sparks while the setup came alive. The pair moved through, a loud pang sounded, and they were gone. In their trajectory a huddle of refugees appeared.