"FEDERAL AGENTS! HANDS WERE WE CAN SEE THEM," yelled one of the armed men. Two men stood bracketing Jack and Madison on the couch while four more men rushed into the house. Two headed towards his kitchen and two headed towards his hallway.
As Jack and Madison stuck their hands in the air, two stern faced women, also wearing Federation Internal Security blazers with FIS in big bold white letters across the front, entered the house. In the background, Jack heard someone yell, "clear."
The two women walked towards them and each one grabbed one of Madison's arms and dragged her off him.
"Hey," Madison yelled, beginning to struggle, but Jack shook his head, then in his soul space he yelled, "Don't say anything, just cooperate. You don't want them adding resisting arrest charges just for spite."
Back in the physical world, Madison closed her mouth, nodded, then relaxed and let the two women drag her off Jack and up onto her feet. They pulled Madison's hands behind her and cuffed her, then turned her and started pushing her towards the front door.
"Are you really going to drag her out like that? Why not at least let he put on some clothes?"
"Shut it!" said the younger of two men, still pointing guns at Jack.
"What?" asked Jack. "Are you perverts or law enforcement officers? If you drag her out like that, are you going to add an indecent exposure charge just for fun?"
"I said shut it!" yelled the same younger man.
"No, he's right," said one of the woman. The two women stopped and asked Madison where she kept her clothes.
As Madison answered, the younger man said, "Stand, keep your hands where we can see them."
When Jack stood, the younger man said, "Turn around."
After Jack turned, he felt cold, hard metal contact his wrist before his hand was pulled down then behind his back. Then someone grabbed his left arm and pulled it down and behind his back before he felt the same cold, hard metal wrap around his left wrist. With a clicking sound, the metal tightened around his wrists, but not painfully tight.
"Do you feel any pain?" asked the younger man from behind him.
Jack twisted his wrists slowly. Finding that it didn't hurt, he shook his head, "No."
Compared to his encounter with the cops in the lottery sim, this encounter with the FIS was downright civil. They were also more coordinated. In the lotter sim, all the cops had been yelling conflicting commands, but here, only one person spoke to him. This is what it looks like when you encounter properly trained law enforcement officers, thought Jack. I bet cops would have a much better reputation if they were all as well trained and disciplined as these FIS. If the average cop was like the armed clown show he'd encountered during the lottery sim, then no wonder cops had such a terrible reputation now.
"You are being detained on suspicion of violating Federation code 18 dash 1030 and aiding and abetting another in the same. Anything your say can and will be used against you in a court of law, you have a right to an attorney...."
While the young man read him his rights, Jack, in his soul space, walked into Madison's "lair," her office next to the server room.
As soon as he entered, she said, "I swear I didn't do anything. I only hacked companies that have a published bug bounty program."
"Okay. I believe you." And he did. He could feel her confusion through their soul bond. She was as surprised by this as he was. "Remember, don't say anything. They have to let me contact my lawyer and as soon as I talk to Henry, I'll have him hire a lawyer for you."
"Okay," she said. Then she held her hand up. It was trembling like a leave in the wind. "Look, it's not even happening to this version of me, and I'm still like this."
He walked over and she lurched out of her chair and grabbed him, hugging him tightly. He could feel her trembling.
"I know how you feel," he said.
"I remember you telling me about your cop encounter during the first lottery sim, but I had no idea it was this bad.
"Oh, the lottery sim was way worse than this. These agents make those cops look like enraged lunatics in comparison. But, not gonna lie, I wouldn't be handling this nearly as well if I hadn't been able to 'train' during that lottery sim. I never did tell you how many times I re-ran it until I could stay calm."
"How many?" she asked.
"I don't remember," he replied. "And by that, I mean I lost count somewhere around thirty."
"Thirty!"
"More, a lot more. I just kept repeating it until I stopped trembling, and my heart stopped pounding in my chest. Those first few times were humiliating. And I just kept repeating it until I felt like I was handling it like a man."
Back in the physical world, the young man finished reading Jack his rights, then started pulling Jack towards the front door.
"Dude, shoes?" said Jack. He was barefoot.
"What?" asked the young man snidely. "Afraid we'll charge you with indecent exposure for showing your naked feet."
"Jackson!" barked the older man.
The younger man huffed. "Fine," he growled. "Where?"
"Kitchen, next to the door to the garage."
As the younger man pushed Jack back down onto the couch, Jack said, "Remember, innocent until proven guilty. Just because many of the people you arrest are guilty doesn't mean all of them are."
The younger man huffed, then as he turned and headed towards Jack's kitchen, the older man said, "So, you think you're one of the innocent ones?"
"I know I am," replied Jack. He knew Madison hadn't knowingly broken the law, but it was always possible that she had made a mistake. But he'd never done any hacking or helped her do any hacking, so he was certain that he was innocent. And, with how rich he was, he could afford "if it doesn't fit, you must acquit" levels of legal defense. So, even if Madison had made a mistake, he was fairly certain, with expert lawyers, she would avoid jail time.
"Confident, huh," said the older man.
The younger man had walked back into the living room carrying Jack's sneakers during Jack's brief conversation with the older man.
"You know," quipped the younger man, with a smirk, "everyone's guilty of something."
"Ha," Jack laughed, "If that's true then I gotta ask, what are you guilty of?"
The younger man scowled, but the older man chuckled and said, "He's got you there, Jackson."
The younger man dropped Jack's sneakers on the floor next to his feet, then stood giving Jack a "well, get on with it" look.
"What?" asked Jack. "Expecting me to tie my shoes with my teeth?"
"Jackson," warned the older man.
"Fine," muttered the younger man, then got on his knees and started putting Jack's shoes on for him.
When the younger man wasn't looking, Jack looked up and gave the older man a quick grin, before schooling his expression. The younger man glanced up at Jack's face, frowned, then returned to tie Jack's sneakers.
Finished, the younger man said, "Alright, on your feet, let's go."
Jack stood, and as they walked towards the front door, he heard people walking down the hallway approaching the living room. He turned and looked behind him to see Madison walk into the living room, wearing baggy jeans and a hoody, her arm held by the larger of the two women. She saw him and he smiled at her before turning and stepping out onto his front porch.
Across the street, he saw Harriot standing on her front porch, talking to two FIS agents. He wondered if they would get anything coherent out of her. He, Fran and Jacob avoided Harriot as much as possible because the woman was nuttier that a fruit cake, always going on about one conspiracy theory or another. Once the woman got started, the only way to shut her up was to walk away, close the door in her face and wait for her to run out of steam.
There were two black SUV's parked in Jack's driveway, two more at angles on the street blocking the driveway, a large gray van parked on the street in front of Jack's house, and two SUV's blocking the street on either side of Jack's house. The younger man and older man escorted Jack to one of the SUV's blocking his driveway and put him in the back seat. The younger man sat next to him, and the older man go into the front seat and started the vehicle.
As they backed away and headed down the street, Jack saw the two women escorting Madison across the lawn towards the other SUV that was blocking Jack's driveway. She had her shoulders back, head held high.
As they drove away, he wasn't fuming over being cock blocked by the FIS, nor was he worried about Madison. Instead, he was wondering if they could get out on bail in time to meet Abigail Wexler, his prospective real-estate lawyer. He hated the idea of this arrest scaring her off or making him look bad.
He also realized that he could have taken a snapshot when the FIS busted down his door. But, he also understood that it would not have done him much good since he only had enough EP to run the simulation for a few hours and this situation would take much longer than that to be resolved.