When it was my turn, I pulled the handful of loose change from my pocket and placed it into the scratched plastic tray. I reached into my heavy canvas jacket and withdrew the single USB drive I held in my right hand, setting it next to the coins. The other two drives remained perfectly concealed—one tucked inside my left boot, the other sitting flat behind my veteran’s ID in my shirt pocket.
The security guard didn't even glance at the thumb drive. It wasn't a weapon. He tapped the side of the tray, signaling me to walk through the archway. The magnetometer stayed silent. I collected my items, slipping the flash drive into my palm, and walked toward the heavy mahogany doors of the primary council chambers.
The room was vast, lined with polished oak paneling and illuminated by bright, sterile lighting designed for television cameras. The seating cascaded downward in semi-circular tiers toward a central well. At the front, the seven city council members sat behind an elevated wooden dais. To their right, a civilian technician sat in a sunken AV booth, surrounded by soundboards and a master computer terminal. Above the dais, two massive eighty-inch display screens flanked the city seal. Three broadcast cameras were mounted on the walls, their red tally lights glowing steadily.
I walked straight down the center aisle and approached the civilian technician in the booth.
"I'm registered for the public comment period regarding district property disputes," I said, keeping my voice flat and professional. I held out the encrypted flash drive. "I have a digital exhibit. Three standard MP4 video files and one JPEG image."
The technician, a young man with heavy headphones resting around his neck, took the drive without looking up. "I have to scan it for malware first. Protocol."
"Understood," I said.
He plugged it into a secondary port, ran a quick diagnostic, and nodded. "It's clean. When the council president calls your name, just tell me which file to run."
"Thank you."
I walked back up the shallow carpeted stairs and took a seat in the third row of the public gallery. I scanned the room. Three local journalists were seated in the designated press box to my left, their laptops already open. A dozen citizens were scattered throughout the pews. At the front of the room, seated at a small witness table below the dais, was a Deputy Chief of Police. He was shuffling through a stack of printed budget proposals.
Then, the heavy doors at the back of the chamber swung open.
Officer Cole walked in.
He had changed out of the tactical pants he wore in the alley and was now dressed in a pressed Class A uniform. He looked sharp, professional, and entirely at ease. He wasn't there by accident. The agenda for tonight’s meeting included the annual budget review for the district's specialized asset recovery team. Cole was there as a polished prop, a representative of the task force’s "success."
He stood by the rear exit, his arms crossed over his chest, scanning the room with casual arrogance.
It took him less than thirty seconds to find me.
I didn't look away. I held his gaze. From fifty feet away, I watched the smug confidence completely vanish from his face. It was replaced instantly by a tight, predatory calculation. He recognized the heavy canvas jacket. He knew I was the man he had robbed in the alley, the man whose apartment he had illegally torn apart just over an hour ago. And he knew I had no business being in a televised public forum.
Cole uncrossed his arms. He rested his right hand casually on his duty belt, directly over the radio, and began to walk down the aisle toward me.
He moved with practiced, quiet intimidation, sliding into the empty pew directly behind mine. He leaned forward, closing the distance until I could feel the heat of his breath against the back of my neck.
"You're making a catastrophic mistake, old man," Cole whispered. His voice was a low, vibrating hum beneath the ambient noise of the chamber. "I don't know how you slipped the tracker, and I don't know what you think you're going to accomplish here. But you are flagged in the system as a 10-56. You are legally designated as a danger to yourself."
I didn't turn around. I stared straight ahead at the glowing red tally light of the primary broadcast camera.
"Stand up," Cole commanded softly. "Walk up the aisle and go out the back doors with me right now. We'll take a quiet ride to the hospital for a psychiatric hold. If you open your mouth in this room, I will put you in handcuffs in front of these cameras for fleeing a welfare check, and then I will personally drive out to your granddaughter’s friend’s apartment and tear her life apart."