Empire of the One (Wine of the Gods Book 14)

by Pam Uphoff

The local police chief nodded. "We questioned a local we suspected of reprogramming. He's got a nightmare nest of electronics in his 'repair shop' and he's been flashing more money than usual, the last two months. Your student may be his customer, but we can certainly see the advisability of following that whole household, not to mention our suspected reprogrammer, to locate the manufacturers of the blanks."

  Izzo looked over. "Perhaps we should backtrack them, and find out if any of them have nanoassembly training."

  Or could Efge have set up the forgers with government blanks? Then he’ll make sure the case gets publicity. Then he’ll solve it and take the credit?

  And why did he bring me down here? To familiarize me with the region, as he said? Or to be the one who takes the blame, if his gambit fails?

  Or is there a way to embarrass the President here? Could any of the suspects have Ottoman Clan connections?

  Senior Investigator Oscw looked disgruntled. "Apart from the one ID that tripped a check, we haven't even got cause to demand their IDs, which we could then check in greater detail for authenticity. The local judge is a stickler for hard evidence."

  How very convenient!

  The criminal investigation people must hate the rights the One put in place.

  "And the College wouldn't give out any information; they didn't detect the forgery, it raised a flag because of some often repeated background data we were deliberately looking for. Do you have pictures of the people? And what about their speech? Local accents or not?" Izzo knew all about the hazing people with accents received. He’d worked on his and beaten it into compliance with Oner standard decades ago.

  "They're not locals. We figured Middle East, as they're a bit heavy on the Arabic." The detective angled his minicomp to transfer files to Izzo's. "But definitely Oners; that pale girl, I wouldn't have blinked if she'd stuck a 'princess' in front of her name." He bit his lip. "The big one you're interested in is dumb as an ox. I wondered about brain damage, an accident or illness."

  "Fascinating. Would we find these people around, this time of day?" Efge started making departing motions.

  "One of them will be at the shop, probably the youngest girl. She's taking a lighter course load than the others. The rest will start showing up in a couple of hours."

  Izzo followed Efge out. "Talk to the girl now, and the others as they show up?"

  "Let's start out casually. Browse through the shop." Efge glanced back at the squad. "Just the two of us. I want the rest of you to familiarize yourselves with the neighborhood. As they show up, we'll check them out and start a watch on their shop."

  Oscw turned back to his men. Izzo rather thought he was looking more than a bit put out by the interference from above.

  Izzo hadn’t mentioned the two agents he already had in place. Staking out my territory, collecting my own personal errand runners. Ydro and Inre are both trained investigators, but low level. Am I playing the game? Maybe I ought to pick a side—if I can figure out what they are—before I get in too deep thinking I’m playing for myself, but mainly annoying the older players.

  The shop was small, shelves on two and half walls, three round tables with stacked center displays. Glass, metal and ceramics. Vases, bowls of all sizes, plates, glasses. Brilliant colors with the light coming through the windows to augment the interior lighting. A faint scent of burning.

  Izzo studied a set of wine glasses, clear glass swirled with red. Bet they'd clash with any red wine. "Do you make these yourselves?"

  "Last year. We don't have a permit for glassworks here, just for the ceramic kilns. The glass was an experiment." The girl put aside a thick physics text and came out from behind the counter. She looked about fourteen, despite being nearly his height. Fluffy, curly light brown hair, eyes so dark they were nearly black, a blue fleck here and there in the iris, and a rim of blue around the outside. "Do you like them? I couldn't get the same exact shape each time. Irritating."

  Izzo had to look to see that they were all just slightly different. "The swirls trick the eye into not noticing the shape. Now these are interesting too."

  "They were my first try. Since they were so lopsided, I tried to make it look like it was deliberate."

  "Umm, they might be a bit messy to drink from, with the irregular rim."

  He wound up buying a huge glass vase exploding with colors.

  "Well that'll liven up your bachelor flat." Efge glanced at the door as it opened, then back at the vase.

  The big man who entered grinned at the vase as he walked around behind the counter. "Gonna miss that one. We named it the monstrosity." He walked through the door to the back of the premises. Izzo caught a glimpse of a large table, big cylinders with knobs and thick lids that were probably kilns, and stairs leading up.

  The girl looked up indignantly from taping a box together. "It's not a monstrosity. It's vivacious."

  Izzo laughed. "Exactly. You should get something for your wife, E. A lesser flower vase perhaps."

  Efge rolled his eyes, but wandered back to the displays. "I’m delighted to say I’m not currently married. Where do you get the ideas for these?"

  "TV and magazines, mostly. All those outrageously decorated homes. In practice they all come out differently than what I was thinking of."

  The big man came down stairs, and helped pack the vase. Izzo noted his dull blank stare, and careful, precise movements. Dumb as a brick? Or just looks like it? The man had sandy brown hair and grey eyes. Very little glow. Nothing leaking out, either emotions or thoughts. Internal shields, or messed up brain circuitry that can't be read?

  Izzo carried the box carefully down to one of the fleet cars and left it there. He joined the troops in prowling the neighborhood.

  Efge nodded at a small rundown house with a "for rent" sign in the front window. "Perfectly located to keep an eye on them. Call and rent it, in your own name, no mention of the Directorate."

  Umm, he really is trying to take the credit for breaking the ID forgery ring, isn't he? Then why have me do the renting . . . oh, right. If it all blows up in our faces, I get the blame for a blown investigation, bad job reviews and so forth. If I protest, it's not just the new boy's word versus the Boss's; the documentary evidence will point at me.

  I had a nasty suspicion I wasn't going to like working in Paris. But I thought it would be the job, not the office politics. Is everyone a backstabbing. . . or do they form cliques? One! I hope not to the point of actual real world conspiracies.

  Maybe I'd better cultivate some paranoia.

  Even slum landlords took g-money here in the City. By the time he'd walked two more blocks to meet the landlady, she had confirmed everything on the grid and had the keys ready for him. He handed the keys off to Efge, checked out the local bus routes and the distance to the College. He finally made himself stop. This was going to be a long slow watch, run by the Criminal Investigations Department. He was just here to be aware of it, to factor it into anything else that came around.

  He spotted Ydro and Inre casually loitering and wandered over. They knew about half the others already, but as underlings, were probably not known themselves.

  Ydro agreed that they ought to stay apart. "More fun if we can beat the Criminal Investigation people to the supplier."

  Inre rolled his eyes. "Yid will do anything to stay near the Purple Princess."

  Izzo grinned and drifted away.

  Efge finished up conferring with his investigators, waved Izzo in and they took one of the cars back to the Directorate.

  The vase looked terrific in front of his south facing window. It turned his neutral walls into a giant kaleidoscope. He shifted a small table to the center of the window and placed the vase. Turned it to get the best color combinations through it.

  Then he swabbed it down and dropped the swab in the small DNA field reader. He went over the box carefully and got a few fingerprints from the tape where the girl had caught her fingers. He sent those off for official comparisons. He wrote up notes, cooked and ate dinn
er, and picked up his current book before the DNA reader dinged. It wasn't a detailed analysis, but it claimed to have detected three individuals. The first sample he recognized as his own. Ought to have worn gloves! The next one was a Clostuone male, with a hundred and sixty-nine of the Prophets' genes, on ten insertions. The last sample was a woman, a Clostuone. With two hundred and ten of the Prophets' genes, she had all twelve insertions, just six individual genes dropped. Unfortunately, the same three in both sets of insertions. But her power genes were flagged as genetically abnormal.

  Very unusual, for a genetically abnormal fetus to have not been detected and aborted. Very unusual for a person to have so many Prophets' genes, but not a single complete set. In fact . . . He brought up details. The abnormality was of the power genes on her X chromosomes. Both flagged. Yes, she had a double set of insertions. Insertions four, five, and six were short one gene each, the same ones on both sets. Very odd. Inbreeding, perhaps? Incest? None of his business, really.

  He kicked back in his favorite chair and admired how the light through the vase colored the whole neutral toned apartment. Minimal furniture and decorations. What he'd accumulated with value, he'd sold when he returned to school the last time, and had never replaced. The apartment was bare and neat. And now suddenly colorful.

  "So. Some really high Withione family somehow managed to not get a prenatal test, or bribed a lab to conceal it. But they raised the kid, despite knowing there was a problem with her power genes. Maybe they hoped there was still functionality? Is there functionality? And then the girl ran away from home? Or was kicked out, ordered to never use the Clan designation, or identify the parents? And the man, this Este who claims to be just a Halfer, but who's got the One gene, and two other women. If one is genetically abnormal, and Este's got brain damage. . . Maybe I need to check custodial homes, see if anyone is missing between two and five abnormal youngsters."

  ***

  Ydro managed to get a seat where he could at least see Heil. He sighed. Ojku was glued to her side. The agent revved up a nice subtle directional-hearing spell and eavesdropped.

  "And while you’re picking up all the tech and history, don’t neglect your social life. There’s a lot going on, on campus, that can influence your career."

  Heil nodded. "From what I’ve read on the board around here, all the political parties are recruiting on campus. I’ve been meaning to look into them."

  "You should come and meet some of the Isolationists. We’re the largest party—just beating out the War Party. The Modernists are a tiny group."

  "The War Party and the Isolationists got into a shouting match at lunch. I was, accidentally, sitting with the Isolationists and met some of them." Heil wrinkled her nose in distaste. "The mainstream ones weren’t bad, the fringe was nasty."

  "Oh, you can’t judge by emotional exchanges. You need to look at the facts. What people think of as the fringe is really the foundation of the parties. Take the Fire and Sword society. They can clearly see that Oners are smarter, healthier, even better looking, than Natives, the Multitude and even most Halfers. We need to promote ourselves, for the good of all, and stop interbreeding with the lesser sorts. Speaking of which, we need to do something about their out-of-control reproduction. It’s only common sense. Want me to introduce you to some of the leading lights of the Party?"

  Heil eyed him uncertainly.

  "Not in a private place, public, strictly public." Ojku babbled. "I know you would never enter a man’s abode, very dangerous unless you know him well."

  Damn straight, you little proto-rapist. Ydro tried to keep his face straight, to not glare and possibly attract attention.

  "Perhaps Deep and I will attend one of the public forums." Heil turned away from Ojku as the professor walked out to the podium.

  Ydro ground his teeth and vowed to go with them. Even though the Fire and Swords probably have no connection with ID forgeries. Pity Izzo hasn’t moved on that poisoning case and got this ass off the street.

  I could hand him over to the law enforcement types that are all over. Get a few directorate atta boys and start moving up. He winced. Get Izzo in a pot load of trouble. Sure, Izzo’s using us, but no more than any boss would. He was the man to work for at P and D, and three steps ahead of the worst fakers.

  I think I’ll trust him to play this right.

  ***

  "The One is supreme. The One is above all. The One should not dilute itself by breeding with the lesser races."

  Izzo looked at the man across the table, hoping he was concealing his repugnance. "The Prophets felt that spreading the One was a good idea."

  The man slammed his handcuffed hands down on the table, denting the much abused surface. "Only to three generations! Three! Then they shut down the outbreeding and began to segregate themselves from the subject races."

  "None the less, the One has spread far and wide. There are more Halfers than Oners now, and the Prophets genes will continue to disseminate through the Empire."

  "That's why the government has to stop interfering with the Action Teams on Target worlds! They should be killing natives, not breeding with them!"

  "Umm, I don't think you understand the situation. In any case, Ojku Withione, you are accused of poisoning fifty-three people. Fortunately for you, none of them died, so your life is not at risk. In Equal Effect for your interference with their fertility . . . well, let's just say that you probably won't have to worry about being tempted to spread the One genes around, for a very long time."

  "What! What are you talking about?"

  "Since no one died, your case is being shifted to the local courts."

  "Multitude Courts?" His voice was disbelieving. "I’m With The One. You can’t throw me to the Multitude, they’ll find me guilty without bothering to look at the evidence."

  "But you are guilty, so why fuss about it? The pretrial discussions have found that a penalty of fifty-three doses of long term sterility drugs would be appropriate. But they have also collectively decided that castration will work for Equal Effect." Izzo watched, his expression mild as the man paled to a sallow green color. He was an ideal Oner, tall, blond and handsome. Arrogant shithead. If he had a brain inside the thick skull, he'd have been perfect for an Action Team. I suspect he's got the worst possible combination of the rape genes.

  "Of course, fifty-three doses of Anteste, administered sequentially with a four year affect per dose . . . well, you might live long enough to manage a child in your dotage. Of course the side effects are a bit . . . I wonder how that immune repression will work, over such a long period. I understand the nausea mostly goes away after a couple of months. I mean, there’s a reason it was never licensed."

  The man was sweating and looked like he was ready to faint.

  "Physical castration is probably the best alternative." Izzo tried hard to not enjoy the effect. "Or, perhaps . . . " He poked at his hand comp, frowning.

  The man looked pathetically eager, leaning forward. "What, what? Anything!"

  "Anything?" Izzo looked from the comp to the man. "Public service, perhaps?"

  He smiled at the man's dawning understanding. Horrified withdrawal.

  "Your records say you have a good memory. So, tell me about the last meeting you had with the Fire and Sword Society." The locals had been delighted to scoop the man up quietly, no one would know he’d been suborned. Until I report it. How many isolationists work in IR? Maybe my report had better be very, very late on this fellow.

  The man went even paler, and slid limply down to the floor. "They'll kill me."

  "The local courts will only kill two little bits of you." Izzo fished out a toothpick and started chewing on it. "Take all the time you need. The Courts will be closed tomorrow, you can spend your time in your cell having a farewell session with your privates."

  The man's mindset was at odds with all the other political parties. Even most Isolationists wouldn’t agree with this creep’s ideas. The War Party wanted to take over worlds, and any Natives co
uld serve the One as cannon fodder, if in no other way. The Modernists were trying diplomacy abroad, and domestically trying to eliminate the barriers between Multitude and Oner, as technology narrowed the range of jobs the Multitude could not perform.

  Izzo agreed with that last, but in his mind the safety of the Empire came first. He eyed the man as he pulled himself shakily back into his chair. He was antithetical to everything Izzo believed in.

  "Where do you meet?"

  The man swallowed, and started talking.

  ***

  Urfa quickly flipped through reports on his comp while his slowly developing in-group chatted.

  "Archetypical Teams?" Rael grinned at the others. "That's such a silly theory. It can be stretched to fit any group. Check the report on the ID forgers that Internal Relations is getting cozy with. They've got a Girl Genius, a Pretty Princess, a Dangerous Princess, and a Country Bumpkin. All that means is that everyone is a blend of multiple types, but one type tends to be dominant."

  Nice analysis, Pink Princess. As usual the men around her were looking utterly stunned. Abba and Idlo were finally starting to show some resistance. They've realized it's a tool she uses—and that dreams are all they'll ever get from her.

  Xiat rolled her eyes. "Unfortunately for your theory, people change, grow, mature. We aren't stuck in a single role all our lives."

  "Ice princess morphs into hard boiled cop?" Rael giggled. "I'm over thirty, I hope that doesn't mean that I should stop chasing Pretty Boys." She nibbled a fingernail and gazed speculatively at the array of men present. She'd just come off duty and was still in uniform, her short red hair smooth. Usually she dressed in a way that eclipsed Ahba's current fashion, and gelled her hair into spikes.

  Xiat glared. "I haven't melted yet."

  "Just as well." Urfa pushed his comp aside. "Any chance of you and Idlo infiltrating the Governor of Britain's daughter's birthday party?"

  They both bristled. Unbelievable. Xiat is so iced no one even wants to date her.