The Jovian Manifesto (The Formist Series Book 2)

by Matthew S Williams

  Gallego was happy she wasn’t looking at Cheboi, because this comment made her smile modestly.

  TWENTY-FOUR

  THEY CAME AT LAST TO the end of the labyrinth. A doorway sat next to a panel window, which looked onto a sizable office. On the door, there was a placard with the name of the occupant.

  Chief Superintendent Gerard Messier.

  Najafi paused outside the door and took a deep breath. If there had been any doubt that he was feeling tense about this meeting beforehand, it was now dispelled. Producing a pass card from his pocket, he held it to the small panel located next to the door. The panel beeped, opening the door and alerting Messier to their presence.

  Messier was engaged in a call. He held an archaic receiver to the side of his head, listening to whoever was on the other end and occasionally barking something in return.

  “I could care less about the extent of the warrant. All of that property is now evidence in an ongoing investigation.”

  The Chief Superintendent looked up momentarily to wave them in. Najafi stepped in first, followed closely behind by Gallego and Cheboi. The conversation continued.

  “You let me worry about that. You just make sure every item in that storeroom is tagged and accounted for. The Magistrate’s office won’t be making a fuss about the paperwork, I can guarantee you that. Not when they’ve got the entire public breathing down their neck about public safety. Understand?” Messier nodded as the person on the other end said something more, then finished the call. “Good. Keep me apprised.”

  Najafi straightened and snapped a salute to his superior. Messier placed the receiver back in its cradle on top of his desk and waved his hand casually. The Chief Superintendent then proceeded to look the new arrivals over as the inspector introduced everyone.

  “You’re here, good!” he said once the introductions were complete. “How was the trip?”

  “Uneventful,” replied Gallego, assuming a diplomatic tone. “Thank you for sending the Inspector to meet us. I doubt we would have found our way otherwise.”

  “It was his idea,” grumbled Messier. “He suggested that you might not be safe otherwise. In any case, I wish I could say your timing is good. But in truth, you’re far too late.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I mean, this case is pretty much squared away. I’m sorry you had to come so far to hear that, but that’s the way things stand.”

  Gallego looked at Najafi, who also looked confused.

  “Chief, I was told that this visit was cleared. We were going to allow the Cytherean representatives access to the case files and -”

  Messier raised his hand to interrupt. “That hasn’t changed. I’m simply letting you know that it’s pointless. That call I just got, it was from Rosario. They just finished their raid down at the docks.”

  “Rosario?” said Najafi. The name clearly was significant to him. “What did they find?”

  Messier looked at Gallego and Cheboi before clearing his throat.

  “Pardon me, I realize you two just got here and aren’t exactly aware of what’s been going on. You see, ever since that bloody business took place here, we’ve been under a great deal of pressure to locate evidence that the CoJ had access to the hardware that was used.”

  “Ah, Children of Jove,” said Najafi, clarifying.

  “Yeah, CoJ we call them,” added Messier. “In any case, some of our officers just conducted a raid on a warehouse the CoJ were suspected of using to run contraband. Turns out we were right. The place had some crates with weapons that were destined for off-world. Some of them happened to match the ones used in the terrorist attack. Forensics are looking at them now, but based on what he told me, the weapons were used.”

  “But, sir... surely that’s circumstantial. Even if those weapons are of the same make, they’re hardly that uncommon. And they could have been used anywhere -”

  Messier once again raised his hand for quiet. “You best leave the counter-arguments to the Advocates, Inspector. The point is, with this cache of evidence, and the recording now in hand, the Chief Advocate has already indicated that they’ll be asking for the strictest penalty under law, pending agreement of the High Court.”

  Gallego didn’t need to be told what that entailed. She knew enough about Jovian legal system to recognize what this meant.

  “Decompression,” she said quietly. Messier tapped his finger to his nose.

  “Correct, Ms. Gallego. Once they’re found guilty by a jury of their peers, the five guys identified as the shooters will be sealed in a private airlock and be forced to watch as the other end is opened to near-vacuum.”

  Messier winced. The thought of it alone made him uneasy. After a moment, he continued.

  “Given the public outcry, and how desperate the Council is to see that justice is done for those fine officers who were butchered, there’s really no point in looking over the details of this case. Those poor bastards will soon be nothing but floating space debris.”

  “Sir, we can’t -” Najafi bit off his words and glanced in Gallego’s direction. The things he wanted to say were obviously not things he could say in their presence. Gallego already had an idea of what he would say if she and Cheboi weren’t standing there. Judging by the Chief Superintendent’s response, he did as well.

  “Not much we can do about it at this point,” he said, mournfully. “The evidence against them is damning, regardless of any... misgivings we might have. You can let the special envoy here look over the evidence, but our hands were tied the moment that footage became public. Short of a miracle, this case is already closed.”

  Gallego noted the way Messier emphasized the word. More proof they were aware of things they couldn’t openly share. She suppressed the urge to sigh. They had barely arrived on Ganymede and already they were being handed roadblocks. Fortunately, Najafi didn’t appear daunted just yet. Gallego supposed that if she could get him alone, she could learn more about what they knew and what they suspected, as opposed to what they were being forced to do.

  “I assume the evidence has all been set aside?”

  Messier gave him a curt nod. “It has. You’re also clear to do a walkthrough of the lab with our guests. Rosario’s team won’t be needing it until tomorrow. So, you’ve got the day to acquaint these ladies with the known facts.”

  “Thank you, sir.”

  Najafi snapped out another salute and Messier waved him away. Gallego noted how the Chief Superintendent once again placed special emphasis on one of his chosen words. She suspected she was going to enjoy picking Najafi’s brain once they were able to go over the case. Once again, she fell in line behind him as he left the office, Cheboi taking up the rear.

  THEIR FIRST STOP WAS to the forensics lab. It was spacious, as quarters on a moon like Ganymede went. By Inner World standards, it was rather modest. At one end, there were a series of nooks with metal tables. Each had the same apparatus hanging from the ceiling, consisting of surgical tools, a multi-wavelength scanner, and a pressure hose. All indications pointed towards these nooks being set aside for autopsies and dissections. Gallego also noticed that each room was sealable. Though somewhat primitive, the local authorities were clearly conscientious about keeping things sterile.

  The rest of the room was taken up by extended tables, equipment lockers, storage cabinets, and the occasional table with a terminal on it. Najafi made his way to one of them and punched in a code. He then directed their attention to the nooks. “I hope you don’t mind a minor visual display. I know it’s probably a little old-fashioned by your standards.”

  Najafi punched in a few more commands, and the lights all turned low. In the nooks, holographic recreations of four bodies were now stretched out upon the tables.

  “This is quite impressive,” said Gallego, once again playing the role of diplomat. “I wasn’t aware your department had three-dimensional holoemitters.”

  “We just had them installed, specifically for this purpose.”

  Gallego looked at
the bodies that were simulated before them. Each had been stripped down, exposing their pale, sickly skin and a series of sucking wounds. The two to the right had several open wounds in their chests and stomachs. The two on the left had been struck mainly in the lower torso or face. All had bled out several hours before, from the looks of them. Their faces all had the same look of eerie calm to them.

  It was a look Gallego remembered well. You didn’t typically see such things when growing up on Venus or the other Inner Worlds. In the rare instances where death occurred, the Survey would know instantly, and the person would be retrieved. Even in the most severe cases, death could be reversed in a matter of minutes or hours. Where permanent death was unavoidable, you could expect a facsimile of the person to be up and about before too long.

  To look upon a lifeless body, knowing that it would never be otherwise, that was something few Extros would ever know. But Gallego had seen much, thanks to her ventures beyond the Inner Worlds. In the darker place that lay between worlds and in the Belt, death was something far more real. Beyond the reach of the Survey, it was all too real.

  Gallego would never forget the first time she had seen the face of a deceased individual. That strange look of peace they had, the kind that came in the last seconds before their life slipped away, it still made her feel a terrible sense of disquiet. Something rare and unique had been snuffed out, never to return. She recalled how at the time, she wondered if some trace of that life was still alive somewhere, like the wave function of particles being preserved within a black hole. For the first time in her existence, she began to understand why certain humans made a point of clinging to antiquated faiths.

  “These are Constables Mathis, Ortiz, Andros, and Caerphilly. Apart from Ortiz, all of them were junior ranking officers. As you can see from their wounds, they were all wearing body armor when the attack went down. However, the sheer volume of projectiles overwhelmed them. They took hits in several vital areas and bled out at the scene.”

  Gallego walked towards the holoprojections. They looked somewhat translucent, being the product of simple light projection and not reconstituted elementary particles. But the wounds were discernible and told a story. From the size of the wounds and the raw edges of the flesh, the caliber of the slugs was also evident, and it was clear they were hit at close range. But of course, those details were in the report and already known to Gallego.

  However, there was one key detail from the report that appeared to be missing.”

  “There was a fifth shooting victim, a Sergeant Miller. Where is he?”

  Najafi sighed heavily and placed his hands behind his back. “Miller was rather badly mutilated. He too was wearing armor, but unfortunately, he caught several rounds to the face.”

  Gallego nodded appreciatively. She didn’t need any further explanation. But she was here to do a job and needed all the details. “I’d still like to see.”

  Najafi hesitated for a second, then punched in new commands on the terminal. The four bodies displayed before her disappeared, replaced by a single body in the alcove directly ahead of her. From behind, Gallego heard Cheboi emit a quiet groan. She knew how she felt. It was all she could do to avoid gagging at the sight.

  “As you can see, Miller got the worst of it. The coroner believes the first few rounds impacted on the left side of his skull, shattering his cheek and penetrating out the back of his head. Another shattered his nose and ripped clean through. The last two struck his jaw and completely removed it. In his case, death would have been instantaneous.”

  It took some effort for Gallego to speak again. “Thank you, that’s enough.” Najafi tapped at the terminal again. The body disappeared, and the lights returned to normal. “May we look at the UAV recording next?”

  “Certainly,” said Najafi, sounding strangely sympathetic. “I have the video file on my desk computer. We can use my office.”

  “That’s not necessary,” said Cheboi. “If you’ll let us have the file, we can do a walkthrough of it ourselves.”

  “A walkthrough?” Najafi looked at Cheboi and Gallego in turn, looking understandably confused. “Is that some kind of Extro thing I don’t know about?”

  Gallego smiled. As expected, they had reached a point of cultural misunderstanding. She was amazed it had taken this long for it to happen.

  TWENTY-FIVE

  IT WAS LIKE STARING at a puzzle where the key pieces were missing. No matter how many times Gallego watched the footage and looked over the scene, there was simply nothing more to be gleaned from it. All that could be said was that it was disjointed, inexplicable, and damning. After watching it for the fifth, sixth and seventh time, she began to sympathize with the Chief Superintendent.

  She sighed, turning to Cheboi. “What are we missing here?”

  “Nothing,” Cheboi said with a shrug. “We’ve been over the drone’s footage. We’ve combed the crime scene too, several times. There’s really nothing more to see.”

  Gallego turned back to the checkpoint. It was as it had appeared when the constables had finished processing it. The bodies had been removed and their outlines had been marked out with fluorescent borders. There were extensive pools of crimson in and around these borders, and some additional splatter on the nearby wall. Behind Gallego, right where Cheboi was standing, spent shell casings littered the floor.

  With a raise of her hand, the scene changed. Now they were looking at the scene as it had been when the constables had first shown up. Within the confines of the checkpoint, five bodies now appeared, right where the markers were a second before. The blood spatter looked fresher, and there was still some oozing from the open wounds.

  Gallego sighed. She couldn’t help but reflect on the irony of their situation. She had been certain that by taking the information gathered by the Constabulary and rendering it as an immersive environment, they would have found something more. But after looking at it for hours, they had made absolutely no progress, and all clues indicated that there was no more to be had.

  “He was right,” Gallego admitted. “There’s really nothing we can do for those poor bastards. Not unless there’s some more evidence to be found.”

  “No such luck,” said Cheboi, crossing her arms. “The scene has already been released. Countless people have passed through there by now.”

  Gallego looked around again. She imagined what the rendering would look like with the addition of a few thousand footprints. Any trace of DNA, hair, synthetic fibers or otherwise would have been trampled by now. And according to Najafi, the forensics team had found nothing at the scene that had been sourced to the suspects.

  Beyond the recording, and a tenuous connection involving the firearms, there was nothing to connect the shooters to the scene. To the local authorities, that was an irrelevance. But to Gallego and Cheboi, it was an indication that professionals had been involved. It certainly explained how the attack had been so immaculately prepared and some locals set up to take the blame.

  “The UAV,” she said, pointing to a spot perpendicular to them. “It was capturing the whole thing from up there, right?”

  Cheboi looked to where she was pointing and motioned vaguely with her left hand. An image of the UAV appeared in the same spot. She smiled and looked at Gallego.

  “There. Now you don’t have to imagine it.”

  “Thanks, that really helps,” Gallego said with a chuckle. “How long was the gap between its last transmission and the point where it was recording this?”

  Cheboi’s eyes became distant. She consulted that detail from the case file, then replied, “Five-hundred and thirteen seconds, give or take a microsecond.”

  Gallego placed her hand over her mouth and looked to the nearest passageway. She began emitting thoughtful noises, too. To an external observer, she was exhibiting all the signs that a theory was forming, even the ones she herself found annoying. Cheboi noticed and asked about it before long.

  “What is it? How is this new info?”

  “It’s not...
per se,” said Gallego. “But it occurs to me that the time interval could be useful.”

  Gallego walked to the passageway. Beyond it, nothing was visible. The UAV’s own footage could only provide a rendering of the scene it witnessed. Anything beyond the checkpoint area was therefore non-existent, as far as their immersive construct was concerned. Still, she didn’t need the districts of Selket to be simulated for her theory to be tested.

  In fact, all she needed was some basic math and a map.

  “If we take the interval and assume that the UAV was traveling from its last known location to this one at a constant speed...” Gallego quickly performed the calculations herself. “Then we can assume it was traveling at a speed of slightly less than five thousand meters per hour.”

  Cheboi checked her math with the known facts in the case file.

  “That would be just enough time for it to travel from its last known location, the Kēndarī plaza. The speed itself is consistent with pedestrian traffic.”

  “Right!” Gallego’s thumb shot up involuntarily. The fact that Cheboi was anticipating her line of thought was quite encouraging. If nothing else, it meant that her theory wasn’t completely farfetched. “Which would indicate that whoever was controlling it acquired it in Kēndarī, then made it follow them here.”

  Gallego paused there. For the next part, she would need some visual information on the adjoining plazas. She began sorting through the case file, looking for a diagram of this section of the city. She was sure she had seen some 2-D maps in the file.

  “Aha, here it is!” Grabbing hold of the image file in her mind, she added it to their environment. The wiry diagram appeared in front of them, the walls outlined in jade green and the empty spaces denoted in black. Gallego’s hands moved quickly, adding the data she had just processed and turning it into a crude representation.

  The security checkpoint was indicated at the far right of the picture. A red reticle formed there, indicating the location of the attack. The adjoining plazas, each one a hexagon, extended outward towards the left side of the diagram. From the attack, a red line began to form, leading back to the UAVs last known location in the Kēndarī plaza. Where it stopped, a blinking red dot formed.