Flash Fiction: All Crimes Are Equal

All Crimes Are Equal

By Tyler Withrow
QuailBellMagazine.com

A slight figure wearing baggy jeans and a T-shirt flattened herself against the cold brick wall, attempting to melt into it as wailing sirens passed her by. Spotlights lit up on the ground near her feet, dancing in serpentine patterns across the wall of the apartment building she was hiding behind. For some reason, each of them passed her by. She held her breath, covering her mouth, her eyes wide with fear. 

After five minutes of abject terror, the spotlights shut off, and the two-story tall spiderlike android they were attached to turned towards the next street, walking awkwardly towards the next block. The girl removed her hand from her mouth, peering around the corner of the building, placing her hand delicately on the brick. The instant she saw that the android had left, she pushed off from the building, dashing off in the opposite direction. She rushed through the gaping maw of the alleyway directly in front of her, taking turns at random in her panic. 

After several minutes she stopped, panting, and caught her breath, pressing her back to the wall and slowly sliding down it to sit, her arms crossed and resting on her knees, curled into a ball. She reached into her pocket, retrieving the cheap digital watch she had stolen and looking at it. In a quarter of the screen a constant message played, displaying an older man in a dark suit speaking to a crowd of onlookers. A quiet message played from the speakers on the side of the watch. 

“All crime is to be punished capitally! Our city will be a clean city, a new city, and I will purge the criminals from its streets!” 

The crowd cheered, and the message ceased for a few seconds, the small screen turning black. It began to play again, but the girl pressed a button on the watch, cutting off its power as she placed it carefully back into her pocket. She whispered quietly to herself, rocking back and forth, 

“I just picked it up…that’s all I did, I wasn’t even paying attention…” Tears welled up in her eyes, but she quickly raised her hands to wipe them away. 

A deep bass sound played in the distance, a metallic trombone that echoed through the alleyways, reverberating. It was quickly followed by an unintelligible skittering sound. The girl sat bolt upright, startled, and began running from the sound. She turned a corner and almost ran into the chain link fence standing directly in front of her. 

Without pause, she backed up a few steps, ran, and jumped, vaulting over the fence, her baggy jeans barely grazing the top of it. She hit the ground running, and quickly turned another corner into a dead end. She looked back the way she came, just as a large, shining spider-like leg planted itself firmly in her path. The leg turned, and it was quickly followed by three others. The head of the android leaned down towards the girl, who quickly backed up against the wall, pressing herself flat against it, her eyes wide. 

As the android moved in closer, four shining red eyes scanning the trembling figure in front of it, the brick wall cracked open behind the girl, a division forming cleanly in the bricks and swallowing her up before the android could react. It closed as quickly as it had opened, a grinding sound the only thing remaining to suggest that anything had happened at all. 

The android turned its head, emitting a whirring, clicking noise, and scanned the surrounding area, attempting to process what had just happened. It twisted slightly, emitting a bass noise, and quickly stepped back onto the main street, off in search of one of its partners. The girl awoke in darkness, to the sound of a voice:

“In trouble with the law? I think we can help you.”