EMPIRE: Imperial Detective

by Stephanie Osborn

  “Not good,” Mott replied. “Alan, get a move on, there, kiddo. The worst storm yet is headed this way, it looks like. At least if the darkness of the cloud is anything to judge by. It’s got a shit-ton of lightning in it, too. And the radar-sat map agrees.”

  “Hurryin’ as fast as I can,” Compton replied. “I’ve only got about two more–”

  Suddenly the room lit up in a blue-white glow as the house shook. No one heard the thunder or any other report from the strike, but it was as if a small explosion had detonated in their midst, as the car charger in Compton’s hand blew apart, and every outlet in the area shot fire, even as all the light fixtures in the house lit up brilliantly from induced currents. Even the little, self-contained lights they were using in the garage flared brightly. Smith fell from his stool near Compton onto the epoxycrete floor, barely conscious; Armbrand staggered backward hard into the side of the van and slid to the floor, stunned. Mott, farthest from the effect, stumbled back, tripped over the threshold into the house proper, and fell onto the carpeted flooring.

  But Compton was blown across the garage and into the cinder-block wall.

  Disaster

  Mott and Armbrand were the first to get back on their feet, a scant few seconds after the lightning strike. They immediately ran to Smith, who was still stunned, but starting to sit up.

  “Damn,” he murmured, mildly confused and disoriented, as they helped him ease to a sitting position. “What the hell just happened?”

  “Lightning strike came in through the power line, according to the house telemetry,” Mott said. “The systems are back online and getting it under control; fire detection and suppression are active, but not showing anything. I think we’re good, as far as that’s concerned.”

  “Oh shit,” Smith said then, glancing to his side. “Where’s Alan?”

  They looked around...

  ...And spotted the familiar body lying against the far wall.

  “OH, DAMN!” Armbrand cried, and ran to their fallen comrade. Mott, supporting a wobbly Smith, was close behind. Armbrand dropped to his knees beside a very still, pale Compton, and reached for his throat, looking for a pulse. “Shit shit shit! He’s flatlined on pulse and respiration, both! Adrian, call the paramedics, then help me start CPR. Johnny, sit tight – literally, just sit down and stay put – but see if you can reach Alan in VR and activate his nanites. Otherwise, we may lose him.”

  “Done,” Smith and Mott replied in unison.

  Across the yard and in the adjacent lot, Pete Brandt watched in amazement as the Carter house seemed to abruptly and briefly light up from within, just as a titanic thunderbolt shook the very ground on which he stood. Brandt flinched badly and instinctively ducked down, crouching as low as he could get between the cubes of brick.

  “Shit,” he murmured. “That hit awful damn close! And ran in on some of the systems, by the look of things. Damn, I hope the place don’t burn down and ruin all our hard work.”

  Within a couple of minutes, several emergency units arrived at the Carters’ gate. These included police, an ambulance, and a paramedic truck, but did not include a fire suppression truck, somewhat to Brandt’s relief.

  He eased over between the cubes of brick until he was as close as he could manage to the front of the targeted house without being seen, and listened closely to the voices drifting on the breeze.

  “...So yeah,” the Harcourt Plumbing repair man told the cop, as the emergency medical attendants brought out a gurney through the front door; another man was strapped to it. “My partner was in the back of the van when I drove in, preppin’ our tools an’ shit like usual. So we went in through the garage and headed to the second floor, where th’ problem was, and started in. House owner already knew where th’ leak was, pretty close anyhow, so we were able to zero in on it quick. Then we turned off the water for th’ bathroom an’ set to work. It was all goin’ fine, an’ we were gettin’ the leak under control when that damn lightning strike hit, an’ ran in on everything in the house! Alan there got caught in it, ‘cause he was all wet from sloppin’ around in the leakin’ area, an’ it nailed him but good.”

  “Damn,” the cop said, seeming shocked. “You s’pose he’ll make it?”

  “Dunno,” the repair man said, becoming morose. “I sure as hell hope so. He’s a buddy, ya know?”

  “Yup, I totally understand,” the cop replied, then turned to the nearest paramedic, who was right behind her patient. “How’s it look?”

  “Hard to say yet,” the paramedic replied. “His partner got him rebooted, and he’s breathing, with a heartbeat, but it’s pretty irregular. We’ll get him to the nearest hospital as fast as we can go.”

  “So he’s not… you know, dead?”

  “Not yet.”

  Brandt watched the ambulance leave with its patient, along with the paramedic truck, right behind. The cop, unsurprisingly, went back into the house with the plumber; from long association with various cops, Brandt knew he’d have to see the scene of the accident, make sure it really was an accident, and file a report on it.

  That’s not good, he thought. I hope he doesn’t go out into the garage and look around. But chances are, he wouldn’t see anything if he did. Me an’ Joe did a damn good job tuckin’ those packages outta sight. I’m just bein’ antsy.

  He settled down under the nearest tree as the rain started up again, intent on waiting to see what happened when the police officer emerged from the Carter house.

  The cop followed the repair man into the house. Once out of sight from the outside, the repair man – Mott, still in disguise – promptly turned and headed through the garage door. The cop followed.

  When they reached the garage, the police officer knelt beside Smith, who was now sitting on the floor again – after having hidden in the back of the van, alongside Armbrand, while the paramedics worked – and still a little too pale.

  “Hey, Johnny,” he said familiarly. “You doing okay? Adrian told me you got zapped a little bit, too.”

  “I’m not too bad, Nick,” Smith said, voice weak. “I was just sitting too close. I’ll be okay in a little while.” He pointed at the overturned stool on which he’d been sitting; the adjacent stool, also overturned, had a few mild scorch marks. He waved at it. “That one’s where Alan was sitting.”

  “Damn,” Ashton said, concerned.

  “Listen, Nick, I’m sure glad you were handy and close,” Mott said. “That enabled us to get Alan to medical help and still keep the guy out there believing what we want him to believe.”

  “Sure, and no problem, guys,” Ashton – who was the ‘beat cop on the scene’ – said. “I deliberately spent most of the day at the precinct nearby, in case you guys needed help of some sort. It was a piece of cake to throw on my uniform, remove a pip on each side of my collar, and come straight out. I coded the precinct car and hit emergency speeds on the way, so it didn’t take long. Listen, did Alan manage to get the thing finished before the storm zapped things?”

  “No, not quite, but I think that’s a moot point right now, Nick,” Armbrand said. “Lookit the replacement charger.”

  The box of said charger had slagged; it was now nothing more than a semi-molten blob of plastics, metals, and various other formerly electronic components. What it was not any longer was a functional charger. Nearby, the old charger lay completely unconnected except for the timer that was in it...which had, somehow, avoided any effects of the strike, in the freakish way such things tended to happen.

  “Huh,” Ashton grunted. “That’s not good.”

  “It didn’t feel good, either,” Smith vouched.

  “I’ll bet, pal. Why are both of ‘em sorta attached to the power?” Ashton wondered.

  “Oh, that,” Armbrand said, pointing at the various components. “Alan thought it would be easier and faster to detach everything but the timer part of the package, then install a new charger around it. Since the timer had to stay connected, the system wasn’t quite as modular as it oughta be, so
...”

  “Oh, okay, I see now,” Ashton decided, studying the setup as Armbrand explained. “Well, shit. Hang on.”

  Ashton ‘checked out,’ developing a blank expression, and the others realized he was in VR. After a few moments he came back to reality.

  “Okay, I’ve notified Lee what’s happened,” he said. “He’s going to come rushing over here like any concerned homeowner would, to see what’s going on – but he’ll swing by the car dealership and pick up another charger first, and once he gets here with it, we’ll install it...but we’ll keep a closer eye on the radar-sat weather maps, and allow a little more leeway for the lightning. According to what I’ve been seeing, the meteorologists have been expecting this storm system to die back for the last three days as it swept inland, but the feeder bands just keep on developing new storms.”

  “That matches what I’ve been seeing,” Mott agreed. “I’ve been trying to watch out for alla that shit in VR, but I can only handle so many channels at once.”

  “It’s okay, Adrian. You done good, and kept us from having this happen sooner. How long you think it’ll take to put in a new charger, Nick?” Armbrand wondered.

  “Shouldn’t take too long; the charger itself looks to be the only thing damaged.” Ashton shrugged.

  “Other than Alan and Johnny,” Armbrand sighed.

  “Yeah,” Ashton agreed, as they all slumped in discouragement and worry for their friend and colleague.

  Director Carter showed up at his house fifteen minutes later, agitated and upset. And he didn’t have to act much to do it, either. Fortunately the ‘sentry’ couldn’t tell that.

  Brandt watched as he parked in the driveway before the front door, and entered through the front of the house, carrying some sort of small attaché. By this time, the latest rain shower had finally stopped and Brandt was soaked to the skin and dripping as if he’d just emerged from a pool, but he doggedly stuck it out, surveilling the premises.

  Inside the house and out of sight of Brandt, Carter detoured into the garage.

  “How’s Smith?” he wondered immediately.

  “I’m okay, Director Carter,” Smith said. The others had righted his stool, and Smith now rested on it in the corner, leaning back against the wall. He still looked a little too pale, and his voice was slightly shaky and weak, but he held a bottle of water from which he was sipping, and seemed reasonably alert to Carter.

  “Good,” Carter said, a bit gruff. “I sent Maia over to the hospital to see about Alan. She was pretty upset. It didn’t do me any favors, for that matter.”

  “I can imagine,” Ashton said. “None of us is too happy, either. Any word?”

  “No, not yet.”

  “All right, I guess we wait on that. Did you grab another charger, Lee?”

  “Right here.” Carter held up the small valise he carried. “I went by the parts store on my way. I gather Alan was the electronics guru?”

  “Yup,” Armbrand sighed. “I’m not sure what to do now.”

  “I do. Okay, Nick, sit down here with me and let’s you and me finish this.”

  “No, no, no,” Armbrand protested. “You two are the main guys these jerks are after. We’re not letting you two get zapped trying to undo what they did.”

  “Look, son,” Carter said, turning to the younger man. “First off, I checked the weather readings while I was headed up the driveway, and I even pinged the local weather office, using my authority as the Imperial Police Director to get a bit of info. They estimate we have a break of around forty-five minutes, give or take, before the next line of storms arrives, maybe a little more. That’s time enough to do this, even with the way Nick told me you were doing it – and I understand why you were doing it that way, and it makes sense. Two, I know how to install one of these. Three, if we don’t have a way to charge our car overnight, it’s a dead giveaway to the ‘oldies’ who are after us that we’ve uninstalled the charger they booby-trapped, and they’ll just come in and do it to something else...or worse, go off on another plan that we might not know about, next time. At least, not in time.”

  “C’mon, Lee, let’s go,” Nick said. “Guys, if you’re worried, just stay back and let us use the tools. We can have this done pretty quick, I think.”

  “It’s not ourselves we’re worried about, Nick!” Armbrand pointed out.

  “I know, but if we go now, we have a chance to get this done,” Carter argued.

  “Alan said it was a slow go,” Mott noted.

  “It may be,” Carter responded. “But it has to be done. So let’s get to it.”

  “I’m here,” Smith said, scooting the stool over to the workspace. “Let’s finish, guys.”

  “That’s the spirit!” Carter said, encouraging. “Smith, son, if you’ll get the tools organized for us – Armbrand, you help him, so he doesn’t overdo – while Nick and I have a look at the situation...”

  It was nearly an hour later when they finally got the new charger installed...around the timer on the old charger, the way Compton had wanted. Right as they laid down their tools, a distant rumble of thunder announced itself.

  “Just in time,” Mott determined. “I’ve been watching the southwestern skies darken again, but it’s still a ways off, according to the radar-sat imagery. Even the lightning is a good piece away yet.”

  “Good,” Armbrand said. “That actually timed out right, for a change. Now, is that,” he gestured at the kluged charger, “gonna be a pain in the ass to fix once we get our crooked cops in custody? I mean, do we need to go get yet another one?”

  “Nah, it won’t be a problem, once this is all over,” Carter determined. “Not with that idea Nick had for hooking it up. I’ll just yank everything, including the package timer on the old charger, close the covers, and plug the new charger back in, the usual modular way.”

  “Wow,” Smith said. “You really know what you’re doing with that shit, Director.”

  “Comes of being my age, with lots and lots of experience sneaking around the old Headquarters,” Carter said with a grin. “When you’re used to hacking and rewiring security systems to get around being watched, you learn a whole lotta shit. Like tricks for wiring only certain parts of things… while making it look like the whole thing is hooked up.”

  “Any word on Alan?” Ashton asked then.

  “Not from Maia,” Carter said. “Anybody else?”

  Mott, Smith, and Armbrand all shook their heads. Faces fell all around.

  “Well, maybe that’s good news,” Ashton tried.

  “Hopefully,” Carter agreed. “Okay, now let’s get everybody outta here with nobody else the wiser. Mott, you drove, right?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Which means,” Armbrand said, “I need to help Johnny get into the back of the van, then climb up with him, and we’ll go ahead and leave.”

  “I can manage,” Smith protested.

  “No, buddy, you’re still a little weak and wobbly,” Armbrand noted. “We can all see it. And it was all you could do to get in and out of the van earlier, when the paramedics were here.”

  “Rog, that was over an hour ago,” Smith protested. “I’m better now.”

  “Yeah, you are, but I’d still rather help you than have you fall and klonk your head or something. We already got one of our number in the hospital; we don’t need another pal in bad shape.”

  “Never mind explaining another,” Mott added.

  “Okay,” Smith sighed, capitulating.

  “And I want you to go see the staff physician as soon as you get back to the precinct, young man,” Carter said, stern. “You hear me? We don’t need the effects of getting sideswiped by lightning sneaking up on you. And I’m speaking for Maia on this, as well as myself. ‘Cause she just messaged me on it.”

  “Yes, sir,” Smith agreed. “To be honest, I was already thinking about doing that very thing, anyway.”

  “Good,” Ashton averred. “We’ll help you get Johnny into the van, Rog. Then I can walk you out, Lee, a
bout five minutes after they leave, and ‘reassure’ you that it was all just a bad accident, just loud enough for our spy to hear. Then meet you back at ‘Temporary New Headquarters.’ With the second pip back in my collar.”

  “This works,” Carter decreed, moving to Smith’s side. “Let’s get moving, guys.”

  Nobody else left the Carter residence for over an hour, and Brandt began to tense with worry. Finally Brandt saw the garage door open, and the Harcourt Plumbing van backed out. It turned on its own axis, then headed down the drive and out the front gate.

  “One gone,” Brandt murmured to himself, in some mild relief. “But the cops are still inside.”

  Between five and ten minutes later, however, both police officers emerged from the front door. Brandt listened carefully, and could hear just enough of the conversation to determine what was being discussed.

  “...And I promise you, Director Carter, sir, I looked over the scene very carefully before you got here,” the beat cop noted. “It was just a terrible accident, caused by the powerful storms we’ve been having. You saw yourself, there was no sign of foul play. And the rest of the house looks fine.”

  “True,” Carter agreed. “Our basic telemetry agrees with you, by the way. And I can’t imagine who would want to do such a thing anyhow. Thank you for your prompt response, and thank you for notifying me of the incident. How sad. I hope the man survives.”

  “Me too, sir.”

  And the two police officers climbed into their respective vehicles and departed, the automatic gate closing and locking audibly behind them.

  Brandt let out a long – and very intensely relieved – sigh.

  Planning

  “Thank you for meeting with me, Your Majesty,” Carter said in the simulacrum of the Emperor’s office in VR channel 22. “I know you’re very busy.”

  “The whole point of the restructure is to enable you to report directly to me, and avoid any intervening layers that might corrupt the relationship, Director Carter,” Dunham said with a smile. “I’m happy to meet with you. What can I do for you today?”