Delilah dumped her stuff and went into the living room, and stopped mid-stride when she saw who was there.
'Oh, I'm sorry...' she said, voice trailing off as she noticed the uniforms. 'Didn't know you had visitors...'
'Well actually Delilah -' her father took a deep breath and lowered his head - 'They're here to see you.'
'Oh?' she said slowly. 'What about?'
'Please, sit down.' the head drone said politely, indicating a chair which one of his minions pulled out. 'Now, Delilah, I'll come straight to the point. We've read the song your father sent us, and we couldn't find an exact match to anything in the Ga Ga hits database. Perhaps you would like to explain that, hmm?'
'You mean my song?'
'Did you do it yourself?'
'Well... yes, is there a problem with it...?' she trailed off, looking for some sign of emotion in any of the faces surrounding her, but the only one she found was unhideable guilt in her father's. She looked at him questioningly, trying to work out why he would be looking so wretched, but he just shook his head and dropped it into his hands.
'What did you mean by the words 'Coz when you look my way it's like a dream come true?'' the austere looking inspector asked. 'To whom were you referring?'
'No-one.' Delilah replied, slightly mystified. 'But there's always a 'you' in songs, so I thought...'
'You thought you'd copy them?' he just about gave her time to nod her head before ploughing on 'What about these dreams? They must be pretty intense if you're comparing them to a mythical person.'
'What dreams?' Delilah asked, still confused by the whole confrontation. 'I didn't have any sort of... Oh. No, that's just a phrase they use a lot.'
'Who? Where?'
'In songs. It's in most of them, they say 'like a dream come true'. I don't know what it means.'
'Mm hmm. And you had no help at all with this little... creation?'
'No, I did it myself.' The inspector leant forward and rested on his arm, placed right next to her on the table not quite invading her personal space, but nearly.
'Delilah - You are aware that music other than that programmed by the Globalsoft(c) corporation is illegal, aren't you?'
Delilah's eyes grew round and her mouth slowly dropped open.
'No...' she whispered 'No, I had absolutely no idea...' She turned round to her father and asked imploringly
'Dad, am I in trouble?' It almost broke his heart to hear her innocent plea. His little girl, who'd had no idea what she was doing when she typed in those words. He was still trying to think of a way to break the confirmation to her when the inspector surprised them both.
'No, not necessarily.'
'What?' he asked, shocked at the unexpected reprieve.
'Well, Mr Forbes, it would appear that your daughter acted without full appreciation of what she was doing. If that is the case -' he stood up straight again '- then we can let her off with a warning.'
'C-can you?' her father stuttered in his relief. 'That would be incredibly generous of you, and I'm sure she won't do it again, will you Delilah?'
'No, I didn't know it was illegal. I really had no idea.' Inspector Ajax opened up his wristWAP and tapped in an access code. It bleeped quietly. He frowned, and tried again. The same insistent little bleep made the lines on his forehead deeper, and he held it closer to his face as he typed - no, punched - the number in again. His face lit up faintly red with the warning that appeared on the screen.
'Hm. Network congested.' He closed the flap and stood straight. 'No matter. I'll process it in person when we return to the station.'
Delilah sat in a bit of a daze. There were thousands of questions spinning around inside her head, trying to get her attention. Why were they there? Why was this so important? What had happened to that boy at the arcade? But most of all, why was writing music illegal? That made no sense. Surely it didn't hurt anyone?
As the police officers prepared to leave, the inspector bent down to Delilah, putting his hand on her shoulder, saying
'Now, I can trust you not to do anything silly like that again, can't I, Delilah?' His hand stayed there slightly too long for comfort, then slid down her shoulder blade as he stepped away. From her vantage point, Delilah couldn't see her father bunching his fist below the table. There was definately something about this man that made her uncomfortable, but her inquisitive mind overrode the feeling.
'I'll email you tomorrow, Mr Forbes, just to let you know if any punishment' he seemed to pause on the word, enjoying it too much, 'is required.'.
'Why?' Delilah's quiet, thoughtful voice interrupted his train of thought.
'Why what, my dear?' Delilah's father clenched his jaw, then forced it to relax again. He must not give them any unusual behavior to analyse and twist into evidence. But that man was far too close to his daughter, in his opinion.
'Why is it illegal to write music? I mean, it doesn't hurt anyone.' The drones turned round, synchronised, and raised their lasers to shoot. The inspector waved them down. No, he'd much rather take this girl into custody conscious. Interrogation could prove... enjoyable. But he would need an official warrant to arrest her, and he couldn't get one because of the network... damn, damn, damn. Oh well. No matter. The father was a good citizen. Nice and easy to manipulate.
'Oh dear.' he replied softly, remorse completely absent from his voice. 'It would appear that we underestimated you, Delilah.' He was starting to enjoy the feel of her name. 'What on Mall are we to do with you? Mr Forbes, you will keep your daughter here overnight, won't you? I fear I shall have to take her in for questioning.' The prospect of the helpless schoolgirl under his control brought the ghost of a smile to his face. 'I know you will be careful not to let her run off before I return, won't you? After all, the penalty for perverting the course of justice...' he allowed himself a slight smirk as he saw the man grow pale before him. 'You'll take good care of her. Before she is turned over to my... custody, in the morning.'
'Yes.' he said morosely. 'I'll... keep a close eye on her.'
.'Good man.' the inspector said patronisingly. 'I'll see you tomorrow, my dear.' he directed at Delilah, before sweeping out of the small apartment, robots in tow.
'Computer.' Mr Forbes said in a strained, close to cracking voice. 'Exit programme HoloWife '02.'
'Are you sure you want to exit this programme?' the hologramme asked pleasantly.
'Yes.' he hissed. As soon as the hologramme winked out of existance, and to his daughter's extreme surprise, he smashed his fist into the nearest wall and screamed.
'Dad!' she rose to her feet, knocking her chair over backwards in her haste to reach him and prevent him from any further self-injury.
'You stupid, stupid, STUPID girl!' he howled, then sank into the chair she hastily grabbed for him with a sob. 'I'm sorry. I'm so sorry my darling, it's not your fault.'
'Dad, what the hell is going on?' For the first time Delilah displayed her mother's temper. 'I didn't go out today expecting to come home to a flat full of policemen trying to touch me up and arrest me for a song! Will you just tell me what's going on?'
'You're so like your mother. You have no idea...' Delilah slumped slightly. Taking her father's bruised hand in hers, she asked
'What does any of this have to do with her?' he laughed hollowly.
'More than you can possibly imagine.' He noticed the damage to his hand for the first time. 'Please forgive me Delilah. I had to do it.' Delilah stood up and went to get the medical kit from the bathroom. As she came back she asked
'Do what?' but all he replied was
'I'm sorry. I'm so, so sorry. I didn't want to.' until she shook him and said sharply
'Dad! Tell me!'
Finally, he did. He told her everything he'd done, including everything he had done to try to help her, while she bandaged his hand. He finished saying
'But it's better this way. They don't suspect me and I can help you.'
'Help? What can you possibly do? Give me a good reference? Ask them to be nice when they're interrogating me?' her voice rose to a scared shriek. 'Dad, what are they going to do to me?' The final sneer of the inspector's face filled his head, and his mind was made up.
'Nothing.' his determination was back, with his courage, in full strength. 'They aren't going to do anything to you. They won't have the chance.' He turned slightly blood-shot eyes to her. 'You're getting out. Escape. Now. Before they have a chance to lock down the doors.' She scrambled to her feet, grabbing at her bag, and managed to say
'But dad, what about the conse-'
'Fuck the consequences! You're my daughter and I'm not letting that cop get his filthy hands on you! Find the Bohemians. They'll help you. Now GET OUT!' he rose to his feet, dragged her down the corridor and shoved her out the door.
'Now - run!' he hissed.
She did. Delilah ran faster than she had ever thought she could, to escape the robocops she felt certain would have been dispatched to track her down at the slightest trigger. For how could she have known that the corrupt policeman hadn't filed his report yet? The unlikely delay was small, but just enough to count. Because of it, no sensors reported a sprinting girl as sinister, no health monitors acknowledged her ragged, unfit breath and her locator chip was not activated. She had to stop on the edge of the town to catch her breath and try to control her pounding heart. She semi-collapsed against a wall, which turned out to be very lucky for her - a patrolling policeman assumed she was just high on some party drug and ignored her. She stumbled over some fallen concrete posts where the neat, clean, square civilisation she knew ended, and the wasteland began. She picked herself up, and kept running. More than once she considered throwing away her bag, as it seemed to only weight her down, but it was the only posession she actually had, and she was reluctant to lose it. The road she had been on before was still there, but was now only a dirt track between piles of un-processed junk and waste banks. She kept running. The night air was painfully cold in her lungs, sharp against her raw throat. She ignored it, and kept running. The road disappeared into a mess of paths, the one she took leading to a chain-link fence. This was no problem, as it had almost completely fallen. She pulled herself over it and kept running into what was now quite obviously a dump. The night was overcast, and rain started to fall. When she could run no further, and was a couple of miles away from home - much further than they would ever expect her to be able to go - she allowed herself to collapse, dragging herself inside the first space she could see that was large enough to hide her. Inside, she curled up as small as she could, and shivering, fell into a very uneasy sleep.
Not so her father. As soon as the team had managed to contact Globalsoft(c) security, the sensors had been switched on at the Forbes0772 residence. The absense of the female teenager was instantly reported, and agents sent to investigate. The same team as before, as they already had knowledge of the case.
'You just couldn't follow a simple order, could you?' the chief inspector snarled as he and his minions burst through the door. 'You couldn't keep that girl here for one night!'
'You're not getting my little girl!' Mr Forbes snarled right back at him. He was surprised. The cyber minions surrounded the unfortunate man as he continued 'I know your type. Just couldn't wait to have a little schoolgirl at your mercy, could you? You're a filthy, stinking-'
'Arrest him!' Ajax barked. The green lasers encapsulated and paralysed his victim. 'You broke the law, Mr Forbes. Now it's time to pay the price.' two identical robots entered the laser cage with a luminous orange helmet held high. At his command, Ajax's officers brought it down around Delilah's father's head. He slumped unconscious, unaware of being taken from his home to police cells.
Once more Delilah had had an incredible stroke of luck. The surface which she happened to rest the back of her neck against was the remains of a discarded industrial computer, with a very strong magnet still attatched. At police headquarters, they could not locate her microchip. It refused to respond to their signals. Weather conditions meant that they couldn't search for her until the morning. Although she didn't realise it, lost in nightmares of evil computers and perverted men of justice, Delilah was safe for the night.
TBC. Ok, it's short, but it serves it's purpose.
'Oh, I'm sorry...' she said, voice trailing off as she noticed the uniforms. 'Didn't know you had visitors...'
'Well actually Delilah -' her father took a deep breath and lowered his head - 'They're here to see you.'
'Oh?' she said slowly. 'What about?'
'Please, sit down.' the head drone said politely, indicating a chair which one of his minions pulled out. 'Now, Delilah, I'll come straight to the point. We've read the song your father sent us, and we couldn't find an exact match to anything in the Ga Ga hits database. Perhaps you would like to explain that, hmm?'
'You mean my song?'
'Did you do it yourself?'
'Well... yes, is there a problem with it...?' she trailed off, looking for some sign of emotion in any of the faces surrounding her, but the only one she found was unhideable guilt in her father's. She looked at him questioningly, trying to work out why he would be looking so wretched, but he just shook his head and dropped it into his hands.
'What did you mean by the words 'Coz when you look my way it's like a dream come true?'' the austere looking inspector asked. 'To whom were you referring?'
'No-one.' Delilah replied, slightly mystified. 'But there's always a 'you' in songs, so I thought...'
'You thought you'd copy them?' he just about gave her time to nod her head before ploughing on 'What about these dreams? They must be pretty intense if you're comparing them to a mythical person.'
'What dreams?' Delilah asked, still confused by the whole confrontation. 'I didn't have any sort of... Oh. No, that's just a phrase they use a lot.'
'Who? Where?'
'In songs. It's in most of them, they say 'like a dream come true'. I don't know what it means.'
'Mm hmm. And you had no help at all with this little... creation?'
'No, I did it myself.' The inspector leant forward and rested on his arm, placed right next to her on the table not quite invading her personal space, but nearly.
'Delilah - You are aware that music other than that programmed by the Globalsoft(c) corporation is illegal, aren't you?'
Delilah's eyes grew round and her mouth slowly dropped open.
'No...' she whispered 'No, I had absolutely no idea...' She turned round to her father and asked imploringly
'Dad, am I in trouble?' It almost broke his heart to hear her innocent plea. His little girl, who'd had no idea what she was doing when she typed in those words. He was still trying to think of a way to break the confirmation to her when the inspector surprised them both.
'No, not necessarily.'
'What?' he asked, shocked at the unexpected reprieve.
'Well, Mr Forbes, it would appear that your daughter acted without full appreciation of what she was doing. If that is the case -' he stood up straight again '- then we can let her off with a warning.'
'C-can you?' her father stuttered in his relief. 'That would be incredibly generous of you, and I'm sure she won't do it again, will you Delilah?'
'No, I didn't know it was illegal. I really had no idea.' Inspector Ajax opened up his wristWAP and tapped in an access code. It bleeped quietly. He frowned, and tried again. The same insistent little bleep made the lines on his forehead deeper, and he held it closer to his face as he typed - no, punched - the number in again. His face lit up faintly red with the warning that appeared on the screen.
'Hm. Network congested.' He closed the flap and stood straight. 'No matter. I'll process it in person when we return to the station.'
Delilah sat in a bit of a daze. There were thousands of questions spinning around inside her head, trying to get her attention. Why were they there? Why was this so important? What had happened to that boy at the arcade? But most of all, why was writing music illegal? That made no sense. Surely it didn't hurt anyone?
As the police officers prepared to leave, the inspector bent down to Delilah, putting his hand on her shoulder, saying
'Now, I can trust you not to do anything silly like that again, can't I, Delilah?' His hand stayed there slightly too long for comfort, then slid down her shoulder blade as he stepped away. From her vantage point, Delilah couldn't see her father bunching his fist below the table. There was definately something about this man that made her uncomfortable, but her inquisitive mind overrode the feeling.
'I'll email you tomorrow, Mr Forbes, just to let you know if any punishment' he seemed to pause on the word, enjoying it too much, 'is required.'.
'Why?' Delilah's quiet, thoughtful voice interrupted his train of thought.
'Why what, my dear?' Delilah's father clenched his jaw, then forced it to relax again. He must not give them any unusual behavior to analyse and twist into evidence. But that man was far too close to his daughter, in his opinion.
'Why is it illegal to write music? I mean, it doesn't hurt anyone.' The drones turned round, synchronised, and raised their lasers to shoot. The inspector waved them down. No, he'd much rather take this girl into custody conscious. Interrogation could prove... enjoyable. But he would need an official warrant to arrest her, and he couldn't get one because of the network... damn, damn, damn. Oh well. No matter. The father was a good citizen. Nice and easy to manipulate.
'Oh dear.' he replied softly, remorse completely absent from his voice. 'It would appear that we underestimated you, Delilah.' He was starting to enjoy the feel of her name. 'What on Mall are we to do with you? Mr Forbes, you will keep your daughter here overnight, won't you? I fear I shall have to take her in for questioning.' The prospect of the helpless schoolgirl under his control brought the ghost of a smile to his face. 'I know you will be careful not to let her run off before I return, won't you? After all, the penalty for perverting the course of justice...' he allowed himself a slight smirk as he saw the man grow pale before him. 'You'll take good care of her. Before she is turned over to my... custody, in the morning.'
'Yes.' he said morosely. 'I'll... keep a close eye on her.'
.'Good man.' the inspector said patronisingly. 'I'll see you tomorrow, my dear.' he directed at Delilah, before sweeping out of the small apartment, robots in tow.
'Computer.' Mr Forbes said in a strained, close to cracking voice. 'Exit programme HoloWife '02.'
'Are you sure you want to exit this programme?' the hologramme asked pleasantly.
'Yes.' he hissed. As soon as the hologramme winked out of existance, and to his daughter's extreme surprise, he smashed his fist into the nearest wall and screamed.
'Dad!' she rose to her feet, knocking her chair over backwards in her haste to reach him and prevent him from any further self-injury.
'You stupid, stupid, STUPID girl!' he howled, then sank into the chair she hastily grabbed for him with a sob. 'I'm sorry. I'm so sorry my darling, it's not your fault.'
'Dad, what the hell is going on?' For the first time Delilah displayed her mother's temper. 'I didn't go out today expecting to come home to a flat full of policemen trying to touch me up and arrest me for a song! Will you just tell me what's going on?'
'You're so like your mother. You have no idea...' Delilah slumped slightly. Taking her father's bruised hand in hers, she asked
'What does any of this have to do with her?' he laughed hollowly.
'More than you can possibly imagine.' He noticed the damage to his hand for the first time. 'Please forgive me Delilah. I had to do it.' Delilah stood up and went to get the medical kit from the bathroom. As she came back she asked
'Do what?' but all he replied was
'I'm sorry. I'm so, so sorry. I didn't want to.' until she shook him and said sharply
'Dad! Tell me!'
Finally, he did. He told her everything he'd done, including everything he had done to try to help her, while she bandaged his hand. He finished saying
'But it's better this way. They don't suspect me and I can help you.'
'Help? What can you possibly do? Give me a good reference? Ask them to be nice when they're interrogating me?' her voice rose to a scared shriek. 'Dad, what are they going to do to me?' The final sneer of the inspector's face filled his head, and his mind was made up.
'Nothing.' his determination was back, with his courage, in full strength. 'They aren't going to do anything to you. They won't have the chance.' He turned slightly blood-shot eyes to her. 'You're getting out. Escape. Now. Before they have a chance to lock down the doors.' She scrambled to her feet, grabbing at her bag, and managed to say
'But dad, what about the conse-'
'Fuck the consequences! You're my daughter and I'm not letting that cop get his filthy hands on you! Find the Bohemians. They'll help you. Now GET OUT!' he rose to his feet, dragged her down the corridor and shoved her out the door.
'Now - run!' he hissed.
She did. Delilah ran faster than she had ever thought she could, to escape the robocops she felt certain would have been dispatched to track her down at the slightest trigger. For how could she have known that the corrupt policeman hadn't filed his report yet? The unlikely delay was small, but just enough to count. Because of it, no sensors reported a sprinting girl as sinister, no health monitors acknowledged her ragged, unfit breath and her locator chip was not activated. She had to stop on the edge of the town to catch her breath and try to control her pounding heart. She semi-collapsed against a wall, which turned out to be very lucky for her - a patrolling policeman assumed she was just high on some party drug and ignored her. She stumbled over some fallen concrete posts where the neat, clean, square civilisation she knew ended, and the wasteland began. She picked herself up, and kept running. More than once she considered throwing away her bag, as it seemed to only weight her down, but it was the only posession she actually had, and she was reluctant to lose it. The road she had been on before was still there, but was now only a dirt track between piles of un-processed junk and waste banks. She kept running. The night air was painfully cold in her lungs, sharp against her raw throat. She ignored it, and kept running. The road disappeared into a mess of paths, the one she took leading to a chain-link fence. This was no problem, as it had almost completely fallen. She pulled herself over it and kept running into what was now quite obviously a dump. The night was overcast, and rain started to fall. When she could run no further, and was a couple of miles away from home - much further than they would ever expect her to be able to go - she allowed herself to collapse, dragging herself inside the first space she could see that was large enough to hide her. Inside, she curled up as small as she could, and shivering, fell into a very uneasy sleep.
Not so her father. As soon as the team had managed to contact Globalsoft(c) security, the sensors had been switched on at the Forbes0772 residence. The absense of the female teenager was instantly reported, and agents sent to investigate. The same team as before, as they already had knowledge of the case.
'You just couldn't follow a simple order, could you?' the chief inspector snarled as he and his minions burst through the door. 'You couldn't keep that girl here for one night!'
'You're not getting my little girl!' Mr Forbes snarled right back at him. He was surprised. The cyber minions surrounded the unfortunate man as he continued 'I know your type. Just couldn't wait to have a little schoolgirl at your mercy, could you? You're a filthy, stinking-'
'Arrest him!' Ajax barked. The green lasers encapsulated and paralysed his victim. 'You broke the law, Mr Forbes. Now it's time to pay the price.' two identical robots entered the laser cage with a luminous orange helmet held high. At his command, Ajax's officers brought it down around Delilah's father's head. He slumped unconscious, unaware of being taken from his home to police cells.
Once more Delilah had had an incredible stroke of luck. The surface which she happened to rest the back of her neck against was the remains of a discarded industrial computer, with a very strong magnet still attatched. At police headquarters, they could not locate her microchip. It refused to respond to their signals. Weather conditions meant that they couldn't search for her until the morning. Although she didn't realise it, lost in nightmares of evil computers and perverted men of justice, Delilah was safe for the night.
TBC. Ok, it's short, but it serves it's purpose.