EMPIRE: Imperial Police Page 3

  Ashton had to acknowledge the wisdom of that.

  The next morning, he managed to avoid running into her by dint of being late to work. He slipped into the back of the morning briefing under Carter’s shift opposite, and stood in the rear of the room, where he could slip out just as quickly.

  As soon as Carter ended the shift briefing, Ashton ducked out the door and headed for his assigned beat, hoping to stay on the far side of the arcade from Tabby’s beat.

  Then the emergency call came in.

  It was very early in the morning, before any of the shops or businesses had opened. Since Ashton was already out on his general patrol in the arcade level, with an experienced beat cop only a few blocks away on the street level above, dispatch contacted him – he was less than a block from the site of the emergency, just around the corner – and he hit the pedal on his arcade cart, zipped around to the location, and entered the building.

  “I’m Officer Ashton, from the Imperial Police,” he barked as soon as he passed the – surprisingly – unlocked door. In the corner, several people were crouched next to a security guard, who sat on the floor, seeming a bit confused. Then he noticed the trickle of blood running down the side of the guard’s face. Uh-oh, he thought. “Who’s in charge, and what’s going down?” he continued aloud.

  “I am,” an older woman said, rising from the guard’s side and stepping forward. “I’m Anne Roberts. I run the museum; I’m the direct descendant of George Roberts, Personal Secretary to Empress Kolbesdeka, over four centuries ago.” She pointed. “Our security guard, Michael Anders, was patrolling around the Sigil, and just as he turned, someone knocked him on the head. We’re not sure how long he’s been out.”

  “Not long,” Anders said. “I never blacked out. It just stunned me.”

  “What’s the Sigil?” Ashton wondered.

  Roberts and Anders stared at him.

  The building, as it turned out, was a tiny museum dedicated to the Throne – The Museum of the Throne, it was called, lack of imagination notwithstanding – and run by the family of a former Personal Secretary to the Empress in one of the earlier reigns of Empresses, when matters were a bit more feudal. Kolbesdeka had been one of the more famous of her era, responsible for consolidating the holdings of the Empire, and more importantly, more formally codifying the rule of law under the Throne. Most of the exhibits were memorabilia, heirlooms the family had kept over the years, passing them down from generation to generation as treasures.

  Of those treasures, none was more precious or more revered than the Empress’ Sigil, a signet ring from Empress Kolbesdeka, dating from the days before everything was done – before it could be done – in virtual reality, and given to the Personal Secretary. It was a sign of his authority on her behalf, established by no less than an Imperial Decree. It was not only a sign of her favor, but could be used as an ink seal denoting her authority on documentation, or in wax seals on formal documents or envelopes. The mark of that Sigil on anything was the same as the Empress’ signature, at least in that era.

  The system had been superseded eventually by ever more sophisticated electronic means, but the Empress’ Sigil was still looked upon as a legitimate means of conveying authority, and no Empress had ever contravened that original Imperial Decree, but it was no longer used. Which, Ashton decided, was likely why he had never heard of it before.

  “What about security alarms?” Ashton wondered.

  “We’re not sure,” Roberts said, puzzled. “It didn’t go off. I have a call in to the security company to see if there was a glitch or something. It was pure luck that several of us came in early to work on the design for a new exhibit.”

  “Mm. So if you were hit on the head,” he said to the guard, “I guess you never saw the guy who hit you?”

  “Well, just as I hit the floor, I did,” Anders admitted. “I guess he expected to knock me out, because he wasn’t careful to stay out of my line of sight. It wasn’t really clear, but I got a decent look at his profile as he turned.”

  “So it was a he.”

  “Yeah. Tall, moderately muscular, lean. He just walked over to the display case, paused and looked like he was in VR for a moment, the lock clicked, and he reached in and grabbed the Sigil and sauntered out. Wasn’t more than five, ten minutes before the others came in.”

  “He sauntered out?! He didn’t run?”

  “No, sir.”

  “Can you pass me an image of his face in VR? Meet me in channel 621.”

  Anders entered the VR channel and produced a “photo” of his assailant. He held it up for the young policeman to see. Moments later, Ashton found himself looking at a familiar face.

  “Shit!” he exclaimed, exiting VR, then he turned and ran out of the museum.

  That face had been familiar from Ashton’s youth. It was the head of the gang that had burglarized the house of his playmate Andrew, one Bill Jakes, according to his old detective mentor. What Jakes was doing on Sintar, Ashton wasn’t sure, let alone why he was after something so valuable and historic; that hadn’t been the Jakes Gang’s modus operandi. But it was a fact that Detective Waterford had not been able to capture him, out of the entire gang.

  More, Ashton was sure he had seen a certain familiar face –familiar from mug sheets Waterford had shown him – if considerably older, on the side street of the arcade only moments before. A face that matched the one he’d just been shown in VR.

  He jumped into the arcade cart, released the brake, and slammed his foot onto the accelerator, headed back the way he had come, as fast as he could go.

  “...And he already captured and arrested the perp?” Inspector Thomas asked Anne Roberts an hour later.

  “Yes, and returned the Sigil into our custody,” Roberts said, delighted. “It was on the burglar when he was captured – he hadn’t had time to get rid of it yet. And the problem with the alarm was at the security company; they accepted this month’s payment, then shut off our service anyway! We’ve already changed companies, and that won’t be happening again!”

  “What about your guard? He loyal?”

  “Oh, he and his family have been with us for years,” Roberts said. “Ever since my ancestor worked for the Empress. The Anders always make sure they have at least two children, and one goes into the Marines, then into the Imperial Guard, and the other works security for the museum.”

  “That’s...good, then,” Thomas said, throwing a grim glance at Gorecki. “I’ll just go see about things back at Headquarters, I suppose.”

  “Thank you so much for your time, though. You need to promote that young officer! He knew exactly what he was doing!”

  Outside the museum, the pair piled into a police cart and headed for the main street level.

  “That don’t sound good, Ron,” Gorecki said then.

  “It’s not, Stash,” Thomas said, intensely annoyed. “One of our top superiors just got set back to pretty much the beginning. That Imperial Sigil is still functional; it would be accepted anywhere in the Empire. It was supposed to be collected in order to be used strategically by certain persons not in the Palace, if you know what I mean.”

  “I do. You want me to, ah, go see about this Ashton kid?”

  “That might be a good idea.”

  Later that morning, right after he’d come on shift and before he’d even finished his first cup of coffee – he’d had a dental appointment, so someone else did the morning brief – Captain Carter took a look at the incoming reports in VR and sighed; it was going to be another long shift, he decided. Then a particular report caught his eye and he sat up straight in his desk chair.

  Oh shit, he thought, shocked and worried. Tell me he didn’t do that.

  He read a little farther, then smeared a tired hand over his face and up into his grizzled, salt-with-a-little-pepper hair. Of course he did. That’s who he is. And that’s not going to make the powers that be happy at all. I can see that handwriting on the wall – I know why that got stolen! All I have to know to figure i
t is how the politics work around here. Hellfire damnation. I better meet with Maia pronto, or he won’t survive the week. In any sense of the word. Shit, he might not even survive the day.

  He laid down as many secure protocols as he could on the communication, then initiated the private, and decidedly unofficial, connection.

  “Hey, Maia,” Carter said, as she appeared in the classic nondescript meeting room of virtual reality, where he awaited her. “How ya doin’, honey?”

  “Pretty good, Lee; how ‘bout you?” the attractive woman with bronze-toned skin and vivid green eyes replied. “Oh, and congratulations; I saw where one of your up-and-comers solved the Museum of the Throne burglary case.” She smiled at Carter, then studied his face for a moment, her smile disappearing. “Uh-oh. I see that expression. He wasn’t supposed to solve the case, was he?”

  “No,” Carter said with a sigh. “And now I’ve got a problem. A big problem, if my instincts are right.”

  “All right. Lemme hear the details, if you can.”

  “Yeah, I think I can help out, here,” Colonel Maia Peterson, the Deputy Chief of Investigations in the Imperial City Police, decided, some half an hour later, after a full explanation and a brainstorming session. They were old friends and colleagues, though very few knew the fact, because this was not the first time Carter had called her on a similar errand. “I’ll get things set up on this end, as fast as I can. You know what to do on that end.”

  “I do,” Carter replied. “And yeah, I’ll move fast too. Thanks, Maia. You won’t regret this. He’s a good kid, and shows a damn lot of promise. This one’s one of the best I’ve sent you, I think. Maybe the best.”

  “Wow. Investigations, then?”

  “I haven’t had a chance to talk to him about it yet, at least not in depth, but if I had to guess based on what I already know of him, and the paperwork he filled out when he came on, I’d say in a big way. But because of the way things work around here, and the way his innate moral stance is in counterpoint, it just ain’t gonna happen here.”

  “Right. I understand. I’ll wait to hear from you on it, and discuss it with him when I see him.”

  “Roger that. And again, thank you!”

  “Eh,” Peterson said with a wave of her hand. “Bring me another big tin of your special-blend chili powder and we’ll call it paid. I’ll even make some of those chili chocolates you like so much.”

  “You know, if I was only a decade younger, Maia…”

  “And I’ve told you, Lee, I’m not bothered by your age. I’m not that young these days, either.”

  “Lemme get to a place where I’m out of this damn mine field, then we’ll talk.”

  “I can’t wait.”

  “Me neither.”

  And she blinked out of the virtual room.

  Carter sighed in mingled regret and concern, and dropped the link.

  He spent the next few hours getting his ducks in a row. It was only a matter of time before a certain enforcer arrived, looking for young Ashton, and ready to take on Carter if he got in the way.

  So he hacked into the security system on his office – after all these years, it was a skill that had been honed by long practice – and set it up to pick up, not what was really happening in his office, but a nondescript paperwork sequence. Even his VR telemetry was faked, so that he could tend his unblemished rookies as needed, and keep them out of harm’s way.

  Once that was arranged, he began setting up the paperwork to get Ashton safely out of IPD headquarters and into Maia’s care…while looking like he went elsewhere. When that was finished, he sent a message to Ashton through VR, directing him to go off on a wild snipe hunt, to keep him out of harm’s way until it could all go through. It wasn’t a useless mission; he directed him to carry a piece of evidence to a city office on the other end of the continent. It was needed for a case being prosecuted there, by a perp from Imp City, and it would serve the purpose of diverting Ashton out of reach of those who would want his hide.

  Then he began tweaking the report on the burglary…just a little bit.

  Scrambling for Position

  “Where’s Dominick Ashton?” Gorecki demanded, as soon as he entered Carter’s office.

  Right. No greeting, no, “How ya doin’, Lee,” no nothin’, Carter thought, hiding his disgust carefully.

  “Uh, lemme think,” Carter said, pretending to rack his brain. “Oh! That’s right. That murder case on the far side of the continent – what city was that? Was it Hobarth? Anyway, they wanted some pieces of hard evidence, since the perp is from Imp City, and Ashton was free, so I sent him on a shuttle with it in a case. He won’t be back until…” Carter checked the time in VR, “wow, until close on my getting off shift.”

  Gorecki glared at him.

  “What did you want to see him for?” Carter asked casually. “I can see about handling any matters, seeing as how I’m his shift supervisor…”

  “He undercut Inspector Thomas this morning,” Gorecki noted, “and Ron ain’t real happy about it.”

  “Ohh, that thing. Yes, I saw that in the reports when I came on duty this morning,” Carter said, tsking appropriately. “Don’t worry. I’ll have a little talk with him. He’s not picking up on some things like he should; I’m thinking about sending him for some remedial training. There’s this retired detective on Pritani that should do well for our purpose; he used to work at Headquarters and knows the ropes around here. But you know what? I started looking, and there were no messages sent down to the beat cops’ line management about that situation. Kid had no idea that anything else needed to be done but what he did, because nobody in our department had a clue.”

  “What?! You’re shittin’ me!”

  Carter shrugged. He’d double-checked on that aspect about as soon as he’d ended the meeting with Maia. There had, in fact, been nothing obvious, though there had been a slight hint in a message…which he’d promptly hacked so he could delete the hint. Fortunately, no one else seemed to have seen it either. Which, he considered, really only supported what he was telling Stash.

  “Nope. Not a word. I dunno if somebody forgot, or if they just thought we didn’t need to know, or what, Stash,” Carter said, helpful, friendly and familiar, when he really wanted to vomit. Preferably in Gorecki’s shoes. “Granted, Ashton didn’t handle it the way you might expect, but I really don’t think the fault was his. Somebody didn’t pass the word. It wouldn’t have mattered if it was Ashton or any other of the rookies – remember, he hasn’t even been here a full year yet!“ That was a flat-out lie, he thought. “– Or hell, it coulda been some of our experienced beat cops. They’d probably have done the very same thing.”

  “That so?”

  “Without any heads-up? Sure,” Carter said, shrugging again. “If I was in your shoes, I’d be looking to see who flubbed the dub on the communications end of things. Not passing on essential information to the appropriate shifts is a great way to get somebody blown to dust bunnies on the street. Somebody you don’t want blown to dust bunnies.” Carter glanced around, then leaned forward and murmured conspiratorially, “And I don’t mean somebody on the obvious side of the force.”

  “Hm. You got a point,” Gorecki decided. “Maybe I need to dig into this a little further, make sure where things went wrong, so it don’t happen again.”

  “Sounds like a plan to me,” Carter agreed. “Meanwhile, I can promise you, you won’t be having any more trouble out of Ashton. I’ll see to that personally. He’ll be gone for a while, here, and if and when he comes back, oughta be a little more…in line.”

  “Right,” Gorecki all but snarled. “See to it. Or I will.”

  Carter drew a deep breath and let it out in surreptitious relief as Gorecki stalked out of his office.

  “…I’m sorry, Nick,” Lee Carter, the Imperial City office captain over the local Imperial Police beat cops, told the young police officer when he finally returned, toward the end of his shift. “You’re a good kid, and a good cop. Idealist
ic. What some call a ‘boy scout,’ though I’m not sure where that old term comes from. Unfortunately, this is the wrong organization for that.”

  “So…what? I was supposed to let a thief – of a valuable, historic heirloom – go free?” Ashton said in shock.

  “Keep your voice down, son,” Carter murmured, glancing at his closed office door and hoping it was sufficiently soundproofed…especially when added to the surreptitious hack he’d performed on the surveillance equipment in his office. “I’m trying my damnedest to keep you alive, right now. No, but yes, is your answer. You’ve already seen it; you’re too observant not to have done. You know the answer to that question. Or at least, the expected answer around here.”

  “Yeah,” Ashton grumbled, face closing in a scowl. “I just thought you were different.”

  “I am. Look at me, son,” Carter demanded, pointing at his hair, as Ashton continued to mutter under his breath. “See all this white on top? See the crow’s feet, the frown lines? Where do you think I got all that white hair, dammit? I’m not that old! Why do you think, at my age, I haven’t gone farther up the ranks? Why do you think I choose this job over some fancier one, with a more important-sounding title? It’s so I can keep the newbies, the ones like you, safe! I’m not so far from retirement, Nick; maybe a decade, decade an’ a half, out. I could go ahead and take early retirement and be done. And as sick as I am of this shit, if I can get you safely where you need to be, I probably will. Listen: do you know who Stash Gorecki is, Nick?”

  “Oh damn. Yeah,” Ashton said, growing quiet.

  “Do you know he came to see me this afternoon, to find out why you solved the case? Asking for you by name?”

  “Uh. No, I hadn’t heard. That’s…not good news.”