The top floor housed Investigations and the rest of the Special Teams, including Forensics, which always worked closely with Investigations. In addition, it housed all of the leads for those groups.
Director Carter had the north corner of this top floor of the building, which was set diagonally in its block. On either side of him were offices for the section directors, and in the south corner was the Field Assistant, flanked by the leads for Special Teams and Investigations, as well as several extra offices for offworld ranking officers visiting Imp City. Since Ashton was currently at once the Investigations lead and the Field Assistant, he had the south corner office, and Peabody and Stone shared the Investigations Lead office.
In the center of the floor was a large open bullpen area, divided in half. The south half comprised the investigators – Ashton’s Gang – and the north half the special teams, with Forensics placed in the middle near the investigators.
Most of the move into the Fields floor had been completed, and the various denizens were starting to settle in, when a minor catastrophe took place.
Abruptly the whole floor heard a double thud, followed by a “Whoop!” and then a “WHOA!” and everyone in the bullpen and opposing offices looked up, just in time to see Lee Carter literally ass over head, as he somersaulted over a low credenza someone had left in his doorway – which had been closed moments before.
Carter caught lightly with his outstretched hands, but then allowed his arms to collapse as he tucked his head and rolled, coming up on his buttocks, wide-eyed with surprise. He grunted once, then rolled backward and released his tuck, ending up sprawled on the floor, spread-eagled on his back.
“Oof,” was all he said.
The room – which had frozen in shock at the sight – animated, and everyone came running, Ashton in the lead, vaulting over two chairs and a desk to reach him. He knelt beside his supervisor, friend, and father figure, and put a hand lightly on Carter’s chest to prevent him from rising too soon.
“Stay put! Lee, are you okay?” he asked.
“I dunno yet,” came the reply. “I’m still taking inventory. Is everything attached?”
Ashton snorted, and a chuckle went around the room. He looked up at Stone, who stood nearby.
“Call Dr. Withers,” he ordered, “and let’s have him check out Lee. He seems okay, but he might have still injured something.”
“On it,” Stone said, dropping into VR.
“Fine,” Carter said, looking over his head at the obstacle which had caused this incident. “While you’re at it, you investigations types find out why the hell that thing,” he jabbed a finger over his head at the credenza, “was parked right in front of my office door, please! And what idiot did it! Because it damn sure wasn’t there when I closed the door!”
“On it, Lee,” Peabody said, likewise dropping into VR.
Brandon Elliott knelt on Carter’s other side, and together he and Ashton helped Carter sit up slowly.
“Mmph,” the Director grunted, rubbing various body parts. “I’m gonna know about this tomorrow, for damn sure.”
“You sure you’re okay?” a concerned Ashton asked again. “It looked to me like you tucked properly, but you didn’t hit your head anyway, did you?”
“No, that’s the one thing I know for sure did not hit,” Carter averred. “Everything else, shit hellfire damnation, did it hit.”
Just then, Withers hurried up, having apparently taken the elevator in emergency express mode.
“I know all about it,” he said, crouching in front of Carter. “Pete Stone filled me in as I came up. What hurts?”
“It would be easier to tell you what doesn’t,” Carter fired back.
“Okay, what doesn’t?”
“My head. Everything else, forget it.”
“So you didn’t hit your head when you flipped over the shelving?”
“Nope. Way too much martial arts training for that. Just not enough to remember to go splat and distribute the impact.”
“Never mind the lack of dojo pads,” Ashton added.
“Whole damn lotta that,” Carter agreed.
“Does anything feel broken or badly torn?”
“No, I don’t think so. Just bruised. As in, to hell and back.”
“All right. Gentlemen, help me get him upright, and I’ll escort him down to my infirmary and take a look. We don’t need bone chips, green breaks, or torn anything from this little incident.”
Withers, Ashton, and Elliott helped Carter stand up, then Elliott served as a walking aid, with one arm around Carter’s back. Withers took the other side, and the trio headed for the corridor, moving slowly and carefully.
“Nick, you’re in charge until I get back,” Carter called over his shoulder.
“All over it, Lee.” Ashton turned, to see Peabody exit VR. “Whatcha got, Win? Did somebody do that deliberately, or was it a big-ass screw-up?”
“It was a huge-ass screw-up, Nick,” Peabody said then, shaking his head. “The moving company has a couple new kids, on break from the University and looking to make some cash for tuition, and evidently they’re not the brightest lights in the fixture. The job supervisor has narrowed the problem down to them, and he’s reaming ‘em a new one right now. They’ll send someone with some sense up here to move that credenza to where it’s supposed to be.”
“That’s good,” Ashton said with a sigh, raking a hand through his hair. “For a second there, I wasn’t sure if we needed an ambulance or a circus tent.”
Another low laugh went around the room, but it sounded rueful. Suddenly Jim Carson piped up.
“Hey, Win, those wouldn’t be the same guys that left the file cabinet in the fifth-floor men’s room, would it?”
“The what?!” Ashton expostulated.
“Yeah, I heard about that, and yeah, it was,” Peabody confirmed. “And hosed up the corner stall so badly, the plumbing fixtures people are gonna have to come back out and redo it, toilet, stall walls, and all.”
“Well, that probably explains why the Evidence Room can’t find half their catalogued evidence,” someone grumbled.
“Damn,” Ashton murmured. “Is it really going this badly?”
“Worse,” someone else said. “I didn’t have all of my case notes written into a report yet, and I can’t find the folders with all my notes.”
“My forensics tools have gone missing.”
“The special desk chair for my disabled hip hasn’t shown up yet, either.”
“Shit,” Ashton cursed. “All right, I get this picture. Lemme go talk to the moving company supervisor.”
In short order, Ashton discovered that Carter had been trying to sort it out, and was headed to talk to the movers’ supervisor when his little inadvertent acrobatics demonstration occurred. A quick, gentle discussion between the supervisor and the two errant young movers had them apologizing profusely. It was then that Ashton and the supervisor discovered that no one had shown the two young men how to read movers’ layouts for something as complex as a high-rise building, and they were totally confused and tended to get lost inside the New Headquarters building as a result.
“Well, that explains everything,” the supervisor said, eyes growing wide. “C’mon, guys. Come with me and I’ll give you a hand in sorting things out, and I’ll teach you how to read this shit on the way.”
By the end of the day, missing items were starting to turn up.
“I think we got this now,” Peabody told Ashton at the end of the shift. “By the time the night shift finishes unpacking and putting away, we’ll be in great shape.”
“I think you’re right,” Ashton agreed.
That night, Cally and Nick called the Carters. Maia answered, and promptly invited the young couple into a VR simulation of their den.
“Hey, Maia,” Nick said. “How’s Lee after his aerobatics demo today?”
“Grumpy, ‘bout like you’d think,” Maia noted, shaking her head. “You might wind up temporary Director fill-in tomorrow,
honey, because I dunno if he’s gonna make it outta the bed without a hoist. He is stiff.”
“I can imagine,” Nick noted. “I saw him do his flip, and shit, Maia. That scared me. And I probably wouldn’t be any better than he is right now, if it had been me.”
“Well, I’mma take good care of my man,” Maia said, her cinnamon face taking on a soft smile. “I called his doctor as soon as you pinged me, Nicky-son, and he came over as soon as I got Lee home. Your staff physician Withers took a shit-ton of x-rays and scans and determined it was all just some pulls and bruising, and his personal physician added to the prescriptions Withers gave him, then sent the lot to our pharmacy in VR, and they delivered about an hour ago.”
“So he’s gonna be okay?” Cally asked.
“Yeah, baby, he’s gonna be okay. I got some dinner in him, then the pills, and I’m gonna rub him down with a couple different tubes of prescription cream before we go to bed tonight. He’s got ice packs all over him right now, though. And damn, am I hearin’ about that, child! You’d think he was on a glacier someplace. Naked.”
They laughed.
“Quit talking about me,” came a distant voice from somewhere, though Nick had no idea how Carter had tapped into the VR channel without knowing which one it was, and they laughed again.
“It’s fine, baby, it’s just Nick and Cally,” Maia responded, calling over her shoulder. “They called to make sure you were okay.”
“Oh. That’s all right, then.” The voice sounded closer, almost on par with Maia’s.
“You just rest and get better,” Cally called.
“Yeah, we got this,” Nick added.
“There was some problem with the damn movers, and I was going to get that straightened out,” Lee replied, sounding normal by that point… but still out of sight, rather as if he were only on an audio call. “How much of the move actually got finished today?”
“All of it,” Nick said. “I figured out pretty fast after you’d gone that there was a problem, though it took a little longer to determine what the problem was. And then I had a little come-to-Jesus meeting with the supervisor and the two college kids he had working for him. Turns out they didn’t know how to read a building layout – at least not one as complex as ours – and they were apparently getting lost and having to leave whatever they had wherever they could, while they went off and figured out where they even were.”
“Oh shit. That makes sense out of a whole lotta stuff.”
“Yeah, ain’t that the truth? Once the supervisor realized the problem, he started going with ‘em, and training ‘em on the job, and that pretty much took care of things,” Nick elaborated. “We got everything where it needs to be, and the night shift was gonna finish unpacking and stowing things, and by tomorrow we should be good.”
“So I don’t have to crawl in tomorrow?”
“Nope!”
“And baby, we can get this taken care of without you having to go in tomorrow at all, given how much you hurt,” Maia said. “I can stay home and help you; as the ICPD section lead, Harry Quan can go over to New Headquarters and help Nick, while Win Peabody and Pete Stone run IPD Investigations. Gene Demetrius can head ICPD Investigations, and Stefan Gorski can help him. It’s all good.”
“This system we developed,” Lee murmured then, “it works, doesn’t it?”
“It sure does,” Cally vouched.
“Really well,” Nick agreed.
“Good. Y’all keep on talkin’, then. I’m gonna take a nap, I think.”
“You’ve earned it, and then some,” Nick asserted. “We got this, I swear.”
Multiplication
Well inside a week, Carter was back in the office, and so was Peterson.
Which was good, because two days later, Ashton got a priority call.
“Nick, it’s Maia. Cally’s gone into labor a little earlier than she’d worked out with her doctor, and her water broke. Pete, Rog, and Rich are carting her to the hospital, hell bent for leather, as the ancient saying goes.”
“Erp! Which one?”
“Uhh, the one over here close to us.”
“Our Lady of the Universe Hospital. Right. Ping ‘em and tell ‘em I’m on my way.”
“Wilco.”
Ashton grabbed his jacket and shrugged into it, then headed out into the bullpen.
“Win! Pete! Lee! Where are you guys?” he called.
All three men stepped out of their offices, concerned expressions on their faces. Everyone else in the bullpen looked up.
“What’s wrong, Nick?” Carter asked.
“It’s Cal! It’s time!” Ashton said, grinning. “Evidently the baby took charge!”
“Hallelujah and pass the ammunition!” Peabody exclaimed, as soft, elated cries and a smattering of clapping sounded in the big room. “So one of us needs to get you to – what hospital?”
“Our Lady of the Universe. Over near ICPD.”
“Right. One of us carts you over there, and the other stays here to run things, and Lee needs to–”
“File that parental leave as active, immediately,” Carter finished for Peabody.
“I’ve got the street car,” Peabody said. “Pete, can you handle the Gang?”
“Sure thing,” Stone agreed. “Keep us posted.”
It all went smoothly. By that time, Cally’s parents were housed in a hotel near the Ashton condo, with their house sold and closed, and Nick summoned them to the hospital as Peabody drove. Weyand, Rassmussen, and Armbrand met Ashton and Peabody in the maternity waiting room, and Alexandre and Laura Ames showed up moments later.
“Come on, Nick,” Laura said. “You, Alex, and I need to get in there with her.”
“The rest of us will wait out here to hear,” Peabody said.
“Right. I’ll ping you in VR with any news,” Ashton agreed.
The trio headed for the nurse’s station.
The doctors and nurses were all on top of their game, assisting Cally in the delivery with every means at their disposal, and it only took about seven hours and forty-eight minutes for little Paul to be delivered.
“Mother and baby are doing just fine,” an elated Ashton told his colleagues in the waiting room a bit later. “The daddy is a bit wobbly, and a whole lot excited, but will be okay.”
They laughed.
“And now,” Alexandre Ames said, coming up behind Nick, “we need to get Cally and little Paul settled in at home and everything going well within the next couple days.”
“The baby doesn’t have to stay in neonatal ICU?” Rassmussen asked.
“Nope,” Ashton said. “Cal has a big enough frame that the doctor decided it was safe to ride it out a little farther in the pregnancy. They were gonna deliver first part of next week anyway, and she’s almost to natural term as it is.”
When Peabody set up a channel for the announcement, everybody in Ashton’s Gang and The Team, as well as Forensics, Director Carter, Colonel Peterson, and General Quan, came into the simulated room to find out how things were progressing. An older couple also VRed in from Flanders; they had been invited at Ashton’s specific request. Peabody moved to the front of the room and invited everyone to be seated.
“Don’t take all day, Win,” Carter declared once everyone was in a chair. “Tell us already.”
“It’s a boy – no surprise there – nineteen inches long, and seven and a half pounds,” Peabody said with a grin. “His name is Paul Hans Ashton. Mother and son are doing fine, and father, by his own admission, is a little wobbly, an’ awfully excited, but good. And happier than I think I’ve ever seen him.”
Laughter and applause mingled.
The couple from Flanders simply smiled. The woman – Nick’s Aunt Bea – dashed a tear from her eye.
By the time Cally and little Paul left the hospital a couple of days later, Cally’s parents had moved from the hotel into the spare bedroom in the Ashton condo, and a couple of weeks later, the condo they’d optioned – immediately adjacent to the Ashton condo, an
d on the bedroom side – became available. A quick modification by building contractors put a doorway between the condominiums, opening from the master bedroom in the Ames’ condo directly into the nursery in the Ashtons’ condo. A quick VR call had the movers bringing the furniture that had been in storage, and the older couple was comfortably ensconced in their new place within days.
The extended family settled in nicely, and Paul turned out to be a good, well-mannered baby – quickly he learned to sleep for long blocks of time at night, only waking when a feeding was needed, and seeming to time feedings to diaper changes. Most of the time, anyway.
Whenever it was Nick’s turn to care for little Paul, even in the middle of the night, he would fish out a bottle of milk that Cally had pumped and set it in a warmer while he checked the baby’s diaper. By the time he had the diaper changed – and he got good at it, pretty fast, not even minding the more unpleasant smells, so much did he love his tiny son – the milk was warm, and he settled down in the rocking armchair in the corner of the nursery to hold Paul while he drank the bottle. Then Nick gently burped the baby and cradled him while the little fellow fell asleep. Nick gently eased the infant back into the crib, and depending upon the time, headed to the den or off to bed.
He didn’t realize that his wife and her parents often watched in secret while he cared for the baby, delighted at his strength combined with tenderness.
By the time parental leave ended, Cally had healed from childbirth, and the extended family had fallen into an easy, loving routine. Paul was growing like the proverbial weed, and his maternal grandparents doted on him.
Cally and Nick hated to leave and return to work.
But Ashton found that, even there, things were moving along well. Everyone had settled into New Headquarters, and all of the bells and whistles they’d added into the function of the space made for much easier work.
Winston Peabody and Emily Walton had taken a page out of the Ashtons’ book; since she was some years younger than he, and he wasn’t that old to begin with, all things considered, they had decided to start a family. Emily was roughly a trimester into her pregnancy when Ashton and Ames returned to work.
EMPIRE: Imperial Detective Page 23
