VANTAG galeria: LEXECUTION

Monday, July 13, 2026

LEXECUTION

https://x.com/CV_Dalcher/status/2012958485508395251?s=20

LEXECUTION

CHAPTER ONE
“Kids!” Nicole Mathewson screamed the single word in the middle of Heathrow’s Terminal 5. Inside her head, seven words, two of them forbidden, beat a steady rhythm. Christ in heaven, give me a break. Below that, something else—a kinder, gentler mantra. A mother’s mantra. Kids, come on. I’d die if anything happened to you.
And anything could happen in one of the world’s busiest hubs. Anything. Even with the drones flying above, watching with their electronic eyes, listening with their hypersensitive computer ears. The ears and eyes were integrated, each drone fitted with a miniature proboscis that acted as both seer and listener. Although a drone in surveillance mode seemed immobile, if one looked closely, its ear-eye movement was detectable. But nobody looked closely anymore; the drones were at once familiar and forgotten, which, Nicole thought, might possibly be the intent.
A public service announcement leered at her from a few feet away, the girl in the picture a natural beauty with heavy lashes and kohl outlining a pair of almond eyes, the bearded young man in the background handsome. The girl’s looks weren’t far off from her daughter Delilah’s; behind the movie-star features of the young man was a sinister undercurrent. It was one more of the sickening warnings about human trafficking and modern-day slavery, ubiquitous in the larger of the international airports. No, the kidnapping of women was not limited to the third world. It could be going on in Wiltshire, for all Nicole knew. She might have walked along a footpath and come within a hair’s breadth of a barn housing a foreign mother’s missing daughter, a man’s wife, a runaway. A lorry, the kind with the enclosed back, humming past her on the high street could have been carrying a load of—what? Children, that’s what. Young boys and girls on their way to an auction where rich old men, no, filthy rich old men with weird sexual proclivities, would bid on doped-up underage kids dressed to stimulate drooling. It was too awful to think about. Nicole looked away, the words Can You See Me? from the image still visible, unerased, a permanent warning.
Human bloody trafficking, she thought, and automatically reached for Simon, feeling for the metaphorical rock of her husband. She wanted to reach out and touch him, feel the strength of his bicep under her fingers. She settled for a light tap before letting her arm fall straight to her side.
“I thought you swore they were weaned off the breast nearly seventeen years ago, love,” Simon whispered in a voice much too low for the drones to hear.
“Sixteen isn’t too old to get into trouble,” Nicole said, nodding at the poster.
“Relax. She and Jude are attached at the hip. And the knees, and the head, and the feet. What Jude does, Delilah does.” He shifted around, maneuvering their bodies into a position that partially obscured them from the drones, and squeezed her hand briefly, warming it under his own.
“Right. Okay. Deep breath.” It was silly to be concerned, after all. The twins were her children, but no longer children. Jude was now entering his second year of the International Baccalaureate Diploma Program with aspirations of being a modern Jacques Cousteau while simultaneously perfecting his surfing skills in the waves of Cornwall’s Perranporth or Sennen Cove. ‘Beefcake’ came to mind when you watched him stride out into the rough seas with his board. In the same year as her brother in school and more social than cerebral, Delilah hadn’t a clue what she wanted to study, causing more than a bit of eye-rolling from Simon.
Nicole realized it wasn’t the prospect of kidnapping and abuse that worried her, but the possibility of permanent separation, of never seeing Jude and Delilah again. She had waited so long to have the children, to turn another page in the book that was her life with Simon, and she couldn’t bear the idea of that page ripping itself out, or worse, of all the pages turning in reverse order and going back to the beginning. University, even if it had to be thousands of miles away, was a reality Nicole had come to terms with. Still, university wasn’t the same thing as gone forever. She shook off the paranoia and took another deep breath.
Here came Jude now, broad-shouldered and tanned from a fortnight in Florida where the Mathewson family of four had traded days between sightseeing, surfing, and visiting college campuses. A drone hovered several feet above his head of dark, long curls that reminded Nicole of her own before age streaked them with shocks of grey.
Delilah was not with him.
“Where’s your sister?” Nicole asked, not thinking.
Jude rolled his eyes. “Par, chill. They got struck by the Belgian chocolate Frostino thunderbolt at Costa. Again.” He checked over his shoulder. “Here they come.”
Par. With Jude’s clipped British, it came out as an r-less ‘pair,’ an annoying syllable that, even after a year, hung uncomfortably in the air. Nicole would never get used to the truncation. It was only slightly more tolerable than its full version, ‘parent,’ which Jude and Delilah reserved for those infrequent testy parent-teenager conversations when tempers ran high in the Mathewson household. And it was worlds better than ‘they,’ which seemed a grammatical silliness when referring to anything fewer than two people. Nicole had set the rule early on. In public, they would refer to each other as Nic, Si, Del, and Jude—Jude being the sole androgynous name and therefore safe in its complete form. Her sixty-year-old brain simply could not—would not—allow ‘they.’
Delilah bounced toward the rest of the family, long coltish legs looking as if they were on springs. She thrust the Frostino forward. “Try this, Par. Chocolate and banana. It’s better than you-know-what. No, wait. It’s better than you-know-what on the beach.” Simon shot her a look. “Not that I actually know, Par. Chill.”
A drone insinuated its spidery shell between Nicole and the coffee, the mechanical eye shifting from right to left and back in smooth arcs. Nicole winced.
Open your eyes, please. Look directly forward and do not blink, the voice said in its pleasant Mind-the-Gap tones.
Nicole blinked.
Open your eyes, please. Look directly forward and do not blink. This is the second request.
Nothing seemed more impossible than not blinking now, but Nicole struggled to keep her eyes wide. She fixed them on two men quarreling at the entrance to WH Smith. The younger of the two wore a dark grey suit that screamed a City job; the older man was dressed in khakis and a turtleneck, an academic maybe, or one of those perennially relaxed infotech guys going for the Steve Jobs look. A beep resonated from the drone in front of Nicole.
Thank you, N Mathewson. You may relax your eyes. This is a warning from WordWatch. Your use of a non-neutral lexical item to describe a familial relationship violates Section 6.2 of the Public Comfort and Safety Act. This will be recorded in your files. If no further violations occur within 365 calendar days, the record will automatically self-delete.
“Jesus on a pony,” Nicole breathed.
N Mathewson, this is a warning from WordWatch. Your use of a deistic lexical item violates Section 3.5 of the Public Comfort and Safety Act. This will be recorded in your files. If no further violations occur within 365 calendar days, the record will automatically self-delete. As this is your second violation within one week, you are invited to join a group social awareness session at…
The drone paused, and a series of soft clicks and whirs were audible from inside its silver shell. Nicole waited with her mouth halfway open, not daring to say what she wanted to say.
…the Teaching and Seminar Room at the University of Bristol’s School of Education on Monday the 22nd of August from nine-thirty in the morning to five-thirty in the afternoon. It is advisable to bring a bag lunch. No tree nuts, peanuts, pork products, or wheat items may be included in your lunch bag. Please confirm by speaking ‘I will attend’ after the tone.
Three seconds passed. The drone beeped once. Outside the coffee shop on the other side of the corridor, the argument between the two men continued to escalate.
“I have an appointment tomorrow,” Nicole said.
N Mathewson, this invitation is mandatory. Please confirm by speaking ‘I will attend’ after the tone. This is the second request.
Mandatory invitation, she thought. How beautifully oxymoronic. “Yes, okay, whatever. I will attend.”
Thank you, and have a lovely day.
Nicole swore, but only in her head. “I need a…cigarette,” she told Simon, reminding herself to avoid using the colloquial and obsolete, ‘fag.’ It didn't matter. Within a microsecond, the drone’s monotone voice spoke again.
We remind all residents and visitors that smoking is not permitted in the United Kingdom. This restriction now includes private residences. Thank you for your cooperation.
“Super,” Nicole said, and together the Mathewsons watched the drone silently float up and away from them, returning to its observation position high overhead.
End of Chapter One
If you enjoyed this peek at a yet-unpublished (but finished) work by me, let me know. Feel free to share, but the copyright remains with me. 😊