10/04/2023 Snippet, SELECTIVE.

The title needs work, yes.

2150 AD

Louisiana

In the old days, we’d have done this at 3 AM.

Not that broad daylight had made the raid harder. Special Agent Norm Baker and the rest of his Federal Security Bureau squad had come in too fast for any kind of real defense; suborbital shuttle quick-landings covered a multitude of sins, especially when you didn’t give a damn about sonic booms. There’d been the usual thirty seconds of screaming knife-wielding maniacs, but that was what concussion rounds were for. Norm was pretty sure that there hadn’t been any deaths on the other side. For sure there hadn’t been any on his, which was exactly how he liked it.

Even the compound they had raided wasn’t in too bad a shape, all things considered. None of it was on fire, at least. Part of the New System the higher-ups in the USNA were pushing, these days. You couldn’t ganger your way through ops anymore like a proper F-SOB. The Bureau wanted to know what you were doing, who you were doing it to, and why you were doing it. There had even been a warrant. A real, actual warrant. From a judge! And the squad had to wait for it, too, because the judge didn’t sign it the first time.

He snorted to himself. Once upon a time, we’d have swept up whoever was left after we flattened the place with rods, and gotten them to talk. Nobody would have said ‘boo,’ either. The FSB ain’t what it used to be. Now, teams had to secure ‘untainted’ evidence at these sites.

Which was another laugh. Everything’s tainted here.