White Space Season 2

wicked grin.
    “Brock Houser? You’re under arrest.”

    TO BE CONTINUED …

::EPISODE 10::
    CHAPTER 1 — Brock Houser

    Houser wasn’t about to be intimidated by some macho military wannabe like Carl Kaiser.
    He sat in the wooden chair, hands cuffed behind him, trapped in the interrogation room at Paladin Headquarters — a room not too different from, though fancier than, “the box” where Houser questioned suspects back when he was a cop. While his interrogation room had been a dirty, old, claustrophobic room worthy of its nickname, with a single, two-way mirrored wall, this box was large, almost spacious, with mirrors on all sides, save for the wall with the doorway. The room was new — shiny, white floor and ceiling, and almost painfully bright. In many ways, the room was a reflection of Paladin, an armed private police force overcompensating, and full of flash, excess, arrogance, and pride.
    As private police forces became increasingly common in America — a natural wave in the aftermath of government budget cuts, growing larger by the year — these private armies attracted the kind of officers who would never have made it in “real” law enforcement. Every private rent-a-cop Houser ever met had a chip on their shoulder, resented legitimate authority, and was eager to prove what a Billy Jack Bad Ass he (and sometimes she) was.
    Like Carl Kaiser, circling Houser, clicking his boots loudly on the shiny, white floors, clearly enjoying the echo of his steps against the mirrored walls. Hell, the bastard even stole glances thanks to vanity, looking at himself in the mirrors, enjoying the moment too much for Houser’s comfort.
    Kaiser had come into the room five minutes earlier, introducing himself in his crisp, black uniform with flashy patches that made him look more like an over-decorated boy scout than the military badass he was obviously aspiring to. He had since spent most of the time circling Houser as if performing a show.
    Houser wondered if Kaiser was stalling to give the rest of the rent-a-cops a few extra minutes to grab their seats for the coming show from the mirror’s more comfortable side.
    Houser wasn’t the star of anyone’s freak show.
    Fuck that noise.
    He smirked, “So, you gonna ask me something, or do you prefer to keep prancing, maybe do a Broadway number or something in your tap shoes?”
    Kaiser turned his nose at Houser’s bait.
    Houser wanted to get under the asshole’s skin, draw a reaction, take control of the interrogation early, but apparently Kaiser was more experienced than his promenade suggested.
    Kaiser waited a full minute before turning his eyes to Houser. The man’s artificial eye intensified its blue glow, causing Houser to wonder if he could control the robotic eye’s brightness and color, or whether those things were tied to Kaiser’s emotions and he had no control over them. Perhaps the flare was a sign that Houser was getting to him, after all.
    Kaiser spoke, calmly, “So, tell me, Mr. Houser, why did you light one of our patrol cars on fire?”
    Houser said nothing. The asshole asked a question; that didn’t mean he had to answer.
    Let Kaiser stew in his shit for a bit.
    Kaiser pressed a button on a black, digital band circling his left wrist. One of the mirrored walls, the one directly in front of Houser, then showed surveillance footage of Houser lighting a Molotov cocktail and tossing it into the Paladin truck. Houser thought he had parked far enough from the security camera, and had approached the truck from the side of the house where he should’ve been out of view. The screen’s display meant there must’ve been more cameras than he realized, hidden of course.
    What the hell? They have thousands of obvious cameras; how many hidden ones are there? How many do they need? What the hell are they up to that they need to turn the island into a police state?
    “That is you, isn’t it? I don’t think there are too many other giant, black guys with robotic legs hobbling around Hamilton,” Kaiser said.
    Houser met his eyes, “I want my lawyer.”
    “And I want answers,” he said. “You give me answers, you can call your lawyer.”
    “No,” Houser said. “Now I do get your boner for police work, seeing as how badly you probably want to be a real cop when you grow up, but you see, we have these little things called laws, and they always apply, even to you and your fake-ass army. I don’t need to say shit to you or anyone else without my