Writers of the Future Volume 31
He went to college in Florida and soon after moved to Ohio to work with a small indie game development team. Then he returned to Michigan where he currently works as a freelance illustrator.
Most of his early inspiration came from immersing himself in video games and card games with his brother Ryan, as well as his oldest brother Christopher, who was the initial influence as they would draw together often while they grew up.
As Quinlan grew older, he sought deeper, more meaningful inspiration, which he found in the old master painters. Their work helped him to better understand technique and purpose in his own art and satiated his interest in the philosophical aspects of art and illustration.
Quinlan is honored to be a part of the Illustrators of the Future Contest and is looking forward to his next big step as an artist and illustrator.
Twelve Minutes to Vinh Quang
The restaurant smelled of anchovies and cigarettes. Lynn hated both, but still, it reminded her of home. Comforting and familiar. The anchovies in the sauce wouldn’t be real of course, and the tobacco almost certainly illegal.
It was three in the afternoon, but the room was still pretty much full. Patrons sipped glasses of tea, shrouded in the smoke and dusk, mumbling to each other in low-pitched conversation. Blinds were down against the windows, the only light emanating from shaded red lanterns hanging from the ceiling, casting the faces around her in crimson twilight.
The only light, that is, bar a government advertisement on the far wall. The picture of a decaying wooden boat on the high seas, the inhabitants of which were anonymous splotches of yellow staring over a thin railing. The holotype glow of the deep blue ocean was overwhelmed by the intensity of the red block letters stamped over the picture:
ILLEGAL
Everyday, middle-of-the-road fascism: it just had no imagination.
A small bell above the door tinkled as it opened, spearing an unwelcome slat of white sunlight into the room. Heat, too, gusting in to swirl the smoke and swing the lanterns. A shadow filled the doorframe, pausing perhaps to adjust its eyes to the gloom within. Maybe just pausing for effect.
An ancient Vietnamese woman behind the back counter came to life, pointing a gnarled finger at the new customer. “Má Măy. Dóng Cưả Lai đi.” [“Close that door. Your mother!”]
The silhouette shut the door, emerging from the light into a broad-shouldered man wearing an immaculate tailored suit, deep-blue necktie, and an air of contempt for the room he’d just stepped into. He removed the black homburg from his head and ran a hand over his gleaming, jet-black hair, combed straight back. As he did so, Lynn glimpsed a tattoo snaking up under his sleeve.
The man walked to the back counter. Lynn turned to watch as he did, adjusting her silver nose ring with thumb and forefinger. He spoke in hushed tones with the old woman, glanced back at Lynn, then turned and started speaking again rapidly. The grandmother waved him away before disappearing through a beaded doorway to the kitchen beyond.
He walked back to her table, hat in hand, face set. “Mister Vu?”
“Vu Thi Lynn.” She paused. “And that’s a Miz, Mister Nguyen.”
He made a show of looking her over. Her hair in particular came in for close inspection, dyed, as it was, the hue of a fresh-pressed silver bar and molded into a spiked Mohawk. She sported a tiny black leather jacket and a pair of thin eyebrows that could fire withering disdain at fifty paces.
His shoulders were hunched, like a boxer’s. “Is this a joke?”
“What are you having difficulty processing, Mister Nguyen? That I’m young, a woman, or,” she waved at hand at his suit, “that I don’t walk around with the word ‘gangster’ tattooed on my damn forehead?”
His eyes narrowed, lips pressed together. Then the flicker of anger was gone. “Perhaps you don’t know who I am.”
“All I know is you’re late.”
Mister Nguyen placed his hat on the table and played with the large gold ring on his index finger, looking down at her with a studied grimness.
Lynn stifled a sigh at the posturing. “Look, we have business to attend to, and I was led to believe you were a businessman.” She indicated the seat opposite her. “Let’s get to work.”
He nodded, as though to himself, scanning the room as he took his seat. Appeals to business usually worked with these people, imagining, as they did, that they were part of some traditional brand of professional criminality stretching back through time to the Binh Xuyen of Saigon or the Painters and Dockers Union of Melbourne.
“We doing this here?”
She nodded. “I’ve never been here before. There are a hundred places like this in Cabramatta. Neither of us need return here again.”
He looked around the room once more and took a palmscreen out of his pocket. He mumbled into it, pressed his thumb against a pad on the front, and then pulled a thin tube from the top. It unrolled into a translucent, wafer-thin flexiscreen. Soft green icons glowed across its surface. He looked at her. “So, what’s the rush?”
“No questions, Mister Nguyen.”
He clenched his jaw. He knew he couldn’t argue with this statement of professionalism either. “The transaction will take thirty minutes to complete.”
“Thirty minutes?”
Nguyen drew a cigar from the inner pocket of his jacket, and set about clipping the end with a steel cigar cutter. “The government tracks every freewave signal going into Vietnam. Our transaction can’t be direct.” He put the cigar in his mouth, took his time lighting it with a heavy gold lighter. He snapped it shut and puffed out a thick cloud of smoke. “We relay through a few different countries first before ending up at a front factory in Laos, right near the Vietnamese border. My contact there gets word across the border to a small town on the other side: Vinh Quang.” He pointed down at the flexiscreen with the end of his cigar. “The money for the equipment—that’s easy, will only take a few minutes. Unofficially, the Australians don’t give a shit about private funds going to buy weapons for the Viet Minh. The money for people is tougher to get through clean. You know—the whole refugee thing.”
Lynn nodded. She glanced over at the government ad on the wall, red letters glowing fierce and eternal. Yeah. She knew.
Money, of course, was always an exception. Five million dollars and you and your family would be granted a “business residency” in Australia. The government funneled the arrivals into Cabramatta and the nearby suburbs, very quietly, so the general public wouldn’t get too heated up about it.
The rest who arrived by boat were thrown into internment camps for a few months before being returned to Vietnam, where inevitably they ended up in Chinese prisoner-of-war camps.
Nguyen placed the cigar cutter and lighter on the scratched tabletop. “You insisted on being here when the money went through. It takes thirty minutes.”
“You know the saying,” she said, “trust everyone, but cut the cards.”
He shrugged. “Sure. I need to keep the line open, verify who I am, confirm we’re not a part of some Chinese sting operation. If we miss a call, I fail to enter a pass code, they burn the link.”
She nodded.
He puffed on his cigar like a man who believed he was in charge. “You said you wanted to move twenty million. Minus, of course, fifteen percent for my fee.”
“You told me the fee was ten percent.”
“That was before you criticized my clothes.”
“You look like a cross between a pimp and a wet echidna. I think I went easy on you.”
His eyes went hard. He glanced at her hair, opened his mouth to retort, then shook his head. “I did some asking around. Everyone has heard about you. High profile means a higher risk.”
“You didn’t even know whether I was a man or a woman before today.”
“The authorities could be observing you.”
“They’re not.”
> He inhaled deeply on the cigar, blew the smoke directly into her face. She closed her eyes for a moment, felt her hand clench into a fist.
Nguyen was oblivious. “Your regular guy got done for tax evasion. I have the contacts. And you’re in a hurry.” He opened his hands and smiled. “The fee is fifteen percent.”
Lynn glanced around the room. A couple of faces were turned in her direction. She shook her head, a small shake—one that could be mistaken for Lynn trying to get the smoke out of her eyes.
She looked back at him. “I want a business residency for two families. That’s ten million. The rest goes to weapons.”
“I assume these families are on an Australian government watch list. They’ll need new identities?”
She raised an eyebrow in the universal signal for obviously.
“You know these people?” he asked.
“No.”
“Then why are you getting them out?”
“You appear to be asking questions again. Now what did I say about that?”
He brought his hand down hard on the plastic tabletop, causing the condiments to chatter. He took a deep breath. “No respect.”
Lynn sipped her tea, watching him over the lip of the glass.
He took a long drag on his cigar and returned the stare. Then he blinked away whatever he wanted to say and began manipulating the glowing symbols on the flexiscreen, whispering into it from time to time.
Unobserved, Lynn allowed herself a small smile.
Through the nanos attached to her optic nerves, the c-glyph could broadcast data and images that only she could see. Some people would have multiple freewave screens open all hours of the day. Watching the betting markets or reality television or point-of-view pornography. As a general rule, if you were in conversation with someone and their eyes glazed over, or even closed, they were finding some facile freewave feed more interesting than your company.
Lynn tended to keep her visuals uncluttered. At the moment all she had loaded up was the timestamp in glowing green numerals that appeared, to her brain, about a foot away in the top left corner of her vision.
15:33
She marked the time. Thirty minutes to Vinh Quang.
They waited. She turned and signaled the grandmother, ordered a late lunch. A soft chime sounded a few minutes later. Nguyen closed his eyes and put a finger to the c-glyph behind his left ear, listening as it whispered directly into his eardrum. He murmured a response, paused, and then mumbled again.
He opened his eyes a few seconds later. “The money for the equipment is through.”
She nodded, touched her own c-glyph, fingers against the small circle of cool steel. “Anh Dung?” She listened to the reply, nodded once.
“Everything check out?” Nguyen asked.
“Don’t worry, you’ll know if it doesn’t.”
Nguyen slurped his tea and settled into his chair, content to watch the slow burn of his cigar. The minutes stretched out. Nguyen didn’t try to engage her in conversation; the first transaction had gone through smoothly: things were going well.
Until the bell above the door tinkled again.
Two men entered. As the blinding light returned to the dusk of the room, she could see that they weren’t from around here. White men with cheap fedoras, crumpled suits, and the empty gaze of detached professionalism. Government men. They scanned the room, their eyes stopping when they found Lynn.
She held her breath, moved her hand to her belt buckle.
They walked right up to the table, removing their hats as they approached. “Mister Nguyen Van Cam?” Lynn’s hand stopped, hovering above the lip of her jeans, she breathed out slowly.
Mister Nguyen looked up. “Who wants to know?”
“I’m Agent Taylor, Immigration Enforcement Agency.” He flipped out a badge featuring an Australian crest, emu and kangaroo glinting chrome in the red haze. He pointed to the man next to him. “This is Agent Baker.”
Nguyen was silent, his cigar trailing an idle string of smoke to the ceiling.
The time glowed softly at the edge of her vision.
15:51
Twelve minutes.
Nguyen was struggling to conjugate a response when the grandmother appeared between the two agents. The top of her head didn’t even reach their shoulders. She looked down at Lynn when she spoke. “Hai thằng chó đẻ này làm gi`ở đây vậy?” [“What are these two sons-of-bitches doing here?”]
Lynn’s spoken Vietnamese was close to fluent, but she kept her translator on when she was working. Though less frequent, this part of town also echoed with Laotian, Burmese, and a hundred Chinese dialects. Smart to be tuned in to those wavelengths.
So the c-glyph whispered the old woman’s sentence into her ear, coming through in English a couple of seconds later. It made it look like the grandmother was speaking in a badly dubbed old movie.
“They won’t be here long. Can you get them tea?” Lynn asked.
“Bác bỏ thuôć độc vô luôn đựỏc nha?” [“Shall I poison it?”]
Lynn smiled a small smile. “No. Just tea.” The men were moving their hands to their c-glyphs. Apparently they’d entered the restaurant without their translators turned on.
Lynn indicated a couple of seats nearby. “Gentlemen, why don’t you sit down? Drink some tea with us.”
One of the agents answered. “No thank you, Miss. We are here to take Mister Nguyen in for questioning.”
“Now?”
“Now.”
Lynn leaned back in her chair, used her eyes to indicate the room they were standing in. “Here’s the thing. You’re deep in the heart of Cabramatta. Not the safest place in the world for an immigration enforcement agent.”
They looked around the restaurant. Perhaps noticing for the first time the quiet that had descended on it. All eyes in the room focused on them, the atmosphere turning like a corpse in the noonday sun.
“Gentlemen,” she said.
They looked back at her.
“Just smile, grab a seat, and conduct your business politely. You’ll be out of here in a few minutes, no trouble.”
The agents exchanged glances. One nodded. They dragged chairs with faded red seat cushions over to the table, smiling strained smiles as they sat down.
Nguyen cleared his throat, a sheen of sweat on his forehead. “What’s the charge?”
The official looked across at him with dead eyes. “People smuggling.”
“Do you have a warrant?” asked Lynn.
He turned back to her. “Are you his lawyer?”
“No.” She indicated Nguyen with an open palm. “He’s my pimp. Can’t you tell?”
Agent Taylor didn’t seem keen on smiling. “People smuggling is a very serious offense.”
Lynn nodded. “Yes, I’ve seen the advertisements. Very, very serious—imagine trying to help Vietnamese civilians flee cluster bombing and nerve warfare? China would be livid. And we couldn’t have that.”
The agents suddenly seemed a lot more interested in her. Taylor looked her over and then held out his hand to Agent Baker, who removed a palmscreen from his pocket and passed it to his partner. It looked a bit larger than a regular model, maybe four inches across by six long. The retina scanner he flipped up from the end must have been specially fitted. Lynn cursed inwardly.
“Would you mind if I did an identity check, Miss?”
She pointed. “What is that?”
“The retina scanner?”
“That model. That’s official immigration issue isn’t it? An expensive unit, I believe. ”
“Miss. The scan please.” The agent had one of those voices trained to convey authority. Imbued with one extra notch each of volume, aggression, and confidence.
“I’m afraid I can’t agree to that.”
His gaze rose from the adju
stments he was making to the scanner. “It’s the law. We’re making an arrest. You appear to be an associate of Mister Nguyen.”
“I’m Australian. You have no jurisdiction over me.”
“Sorry Miss, but we don’t know that until we test it.”
“That seems a conveniently circular argument.”
“If you’ve done nothing wrong, then you have nothing to worry about.”
Lynn raised an eyebrow. “Ah, the mantra of secret police and peeping Toms everywhere.”
The agent’s professional patina didn’t drop. Not surprising, a person in his position would be subject to a wide range of creative abuse on a daily basis. “Like I said—it’s the law.”
“I read an article about this once. If you run my retina prints, I’ll be listed as present during one of your arrests.”
He responded with a shrug that indicated that while she was right, he didn’t really care.
“And I’ll be flagged as a person of interest for immigration.”
“I didn’t design the system, Miss.”
“Of course not. An empty suit couldn’t design a system so diabolical; your only function is to implement it.”
Still no response. Not a flicker. She sighed and pulled out an unmarked silver cigarette case from her jacket pocket. “Do you gentlemen smoke?”
Agent Baker let out a humorless laugh. “You think we can afford to smoke on a government salary?” He glanced around the room, at Nguyen. “In fact, I doubt anyone here can afford to smoke. Legally, anyway.” He looked back at Lynn. “Do you have a license for those?”
Her fingers lingered in the open case. “I thought you were in immigration, Agent Baker, not drug enforcement. Haven’t you gentlemen got enough on your plate for today?”
The man pointed at his partner. “He’s Baker, I’m Taylor.”
“You people all look the same to me.”
He raised his eyebrows. “White people?”
“Bureaucrats.”
The one on the right planted his elbow on the table, holding the palm screen up at about her head height. The other agent turned to watch the room, hand slipping under his jacket. The patrons, seeing a hated ID check underway, watched him right back. Lynn snapped shut her case, sans cigarette, and placed it on the table.