Story code: ST-000706
Part 3: The Collection Quota
The tiny steel latch vanished into the plastic housing. A heavy, coiled spring uncompressed with a violent snap. Marcus didn’t have time for tools. He simply reacted, driving his bare left hand directly into the cracked 3D-printed casing on Tommy’s leg. Sharp edges of fractured plastic sheared his knuckles, but Marcus pushed deeper, wedging his thumb and index finger just beneath the metal plunger head right as the spring drove it downward.
The pneumatic pressure slammed the plunger into his flesh. The pain was immediate and blinding. The heavy-gauge needle buried in Tommy’s calf didn’t budge, but the immense mechanical force trying to depress the lethal fentanyl dose was agonizing.
Tommy wailed, thrashing his head wildly against the concrete pillar.
“Stop moving!” Marcus roared. His teeth gritted together as the spring’s relentless tension threatened to snap his thumb against the glass barrel. Warm blood ran down his wrist, pooling against the matte-black surface of the GPS unit. His forearm muscles cramped, trembling under the sustained effort of holding back a machine designed to execute a human being.
Heavy tires crunched on gravel as the two matte-black SUVs parked, boxing in the idling ambulance with casual precision.
Marcus braced himself, expecting heavily armed gang enforcers or cartel hitters to swarm the perimeter. Instead, the driver’s side door of the lead SUV popped open, and a heavy-set man in his late forties climbed out. He wore a crisp navy polo shirt, beige tactical pants, and a corporate ID lanyard dangling freely around his neck. He looked exactly like an aggressive mid-level manager showing up to dispute a logistics error.
The man strolled over, his boots crunching methodically over the broken glass and dead weeds. He completely ignored the bleeding paramedic holding a lethal plunger at bay. Instead, he pulled a small, gray electronic key fob from his pocket, aimed it lazily at Tommy’s leg, and pressed a rubberized button.
The angry crimson strobe vanished, replaced by a docile, blinking green light. The tiny servo motor whined in reverse. The crushing pressure on Marcus’s thumb evaporated in a split second as the heavy spring retracted, locking itself back into the housing with a sharp metallic click.
Marcus pulled his hand out of the device, gasping for breath, clutching his deeply lacerated fingers against his chest.
“You’re voiding his warranty, buddy,” the man said. His voice was bored, steeped in bureaucratic indifference. He finally looked down at Tommy, who was hyperventilating, his eyes rolling back in terror. “You’re late, Tommy. And now my dashboard says I’ve got a tamper alert. That’s a Class Three violation.”
“I didn’t!” Tommy sobbed, scrambling onto his hands and knees in the dirt. “He jumped me! He hit the casing with his arm! I swear to God, Davis, I was right here in the zone!”
Davis, the man in the polo, pulled a ruggedized tablet from his cargo pocket and tapped the screen with a thick finger. “I don’t really care about your excuses. You know the terms of your supervised release. SecurePath Corrections requires the weekly premium, the out-of-bounds surcharge, and the equipment rental fee in full. Seven hundred and fifty dollars. Today.”
Marcus stared, his bleeding hand momentarily forgotten. *SecurePath Corrections.* They weren’t a cartel. They were private probation. The county had outsourced its misdemeanor and non-violent monitoring to a publicly traded contractor three years ago.
Tommy frantically dug his shaking hands into his oversized letterman jacket. He pulled out the thick stack of crumpled bills he had been counting when Marcus first drove up. The cash was stained with the sweat of desperate addicts, directly funded by the lethal Blue Devil stamped baggies moving through the high school. Tommy held it up in a trembling, desperate fist.
Davis reached for the money with a practiced, indifferent motion. He didn’t care that it was blood money. He didn’t care that it was sourced by poisoning teenagers. He just needed to scan the payment to meet his regional corporate quota.
Marcus didn’t let him take it.
Pivoting on his heel, Marcus lashed out with his heavy work boot, kicking Tommy’s forearm hard enough to send the wad of crumpled bills exploding into the air. Cash rained down around them, fluttering uselessly into the tall brown weeds.
Davis froze, his thick hand still extended in mid-air. The bored corporate apathy melted off his face instantly, replaced by a sudden, rigid hostility. He slowly turned his head, locking his pale eyes with the paramedic.
“What the hell is your problem?” Davis snapped.
“He’s a hostage,” Marcus said, his voice dropping into a dangerous, ragged octave. He gestured sharply at the monstrous, improvised device strapped to Tommy’s weeping leg. “You bolted a lethal injection system to a county GPS tether. You’re forcing him to push fentanyl in broad daylight to pay your extortion fees.”
“He’s a delinquent account,” Davis corrected flatly, stepping over the scattered money. “He owes court-ordered restitution and electronic monitoring fees. How he sources his liquid capital isn’t my department.”
“It’s a dead-man’s switch!” Marcus shouted, stepping up to close the distance between him and the probation officer. “You’re killing kids! I’ve revived four teenagers this month on this exact product. I’m bagging this rig up as evidence, I’m taking this kid to the ER, and I’m calling the state Attorney General.”
Davis didn’t flinch. He didn’t panic at the mention of the state AG, nor did he look over his shoulder. Instead, he let out a short, incredibly tired sigh, like a man forced to deal with a broken vending machine. He reached casually to the back of his tactical belt.
With a sharp flick of his wrist, a segmented steel ASP baton expanded with a vicious metallic crack.
Davis swung without a single word of warning. The heavy steel ball at the tip of the baton blurred directly toward Marcus’s temple. Marcus only had a fraction of a second to react, throwing up his uninjured right arm to block the strike. The steel struck his radius bone with a sickening, heavy thud. The brutal impact sent a shockwave of white-hot agony up to Marcus’s shoulder, dropping him to one knee in the dirt.
“The state AG?” Davis chuckled. He stepped forward, his boots crushing the scattered drug money as he raised the baton for a second, decisive strike. “Who do you think gave us the exclusive contract, hero? Who do you think writes the collection quotas?”
Marcus knelt in the dead grass, his arm completely numb. He stared up past the raised steel baton, his eyes locking onto the smiling corporate logo printed across Davis’s lanyard. The official state seal was stamped in ink right next to it.