Usurper

by Richard F. Weyand

  “I worry about you.”

  “I know, Bobby. But I owe the Empire a great debt. The Empire didn’t give me Melsbach Syndrome, it cured me of it. Without that cure, I would never have matured. I would have descended into insanity and died years ago. If the Empire now faces such a crisis that the Council will strike at the Throne, then I will not walk away from it in its hour of need. I will stand with the Empire against the forces that would tear it down, and the Throne will prevail. One way or another, the Throne will always prevail.”

  “Whether you live or die?”

  “Whether I live or die is unimportant, Bobby. What is important is that the Empire survive, that the Throne prevail. That is my duty, and I will not fail in that responsibility.”

  Lord Pomeroy and Chief Stanier were also talking after dinner that evening.

  “I told you that somebody who would turn on their team like that ought to be careful, Larry. Bad things can happen.”

  “Yes, you did, George. And I appreciate it. Something worrying is going on, though.”

  “What’s that?”

  “I don’t know. I just feel it. A guy from my organization just up and disappeared this week. The boss’s boss of that woman who got killed. He left work the day after she got killed, and nobody’s seen him since.”

  “One guy? Big deal. I got eleven guys missing. Ten officers and a lieutenant colonel, no less. They responded to the murder scene and vaporized. Haven’t checked in, haven’t shown up for work, don’t respond to VR. Just poof. Gone.”

  “Eleven guys?”

  “Yeah. Their vehicles, too. Normally we can track those with homing signals. You know. But they went off the air at the murder scene and nobody’s seen them since.”

  “What about security recordings? Doesn’t Imperial City PD have security cameras around there?”

  “They do, but they’re all locked down. I can’t access them. They say they got an investigation going on, and maybe in a week or two they’ll open them up again. Meantime, I can’t even check those.”

  “George, I really don’t like the sound of all this.”

  “Relax, Larry. This is all way down the chain from you and me. Minor players. If there was anything big going on, I would know about it.”

  “You’re sure?”

  “Absolutely. We’d have picked up some indication of anything big. All we got is some guys missing. No big deal. At least, not yet.”

  Tommy Nixon came into the office Monday morning to find that the computer analysis, having been running since Saturday night, was almost completed.

  The issue was that he was trying to extract DNA sequences from very small samples. Further, the normal breakdown process of the DNA on the gun and the box had been accelerated by something, like a chemical spray. Even a simple stain remover would do terrific damage. Another couple of days and no DNA extraction and profiling would have been possible.

  Let’s say there were three perps, the shooter and two spotters, all of whom may have left trace DNA on the items. That was like taking multiple copies of the same three assembled picture puzzles, breaking them up into chunks of ten or twenty or thirty pieces apiece, and dumping half of those chunks in a pile. Throw in some random chunks of other puzzles as well.

  What Nixon was asking the computer to do is give him one complete version of each puzzle.

  The extra kink in this was the gum. That sample was likely perfect. So one copy of one of the three picture puzzles in the pile was complete. Extracting that and all the matching pieces from the pile made the job much easier. He had coded that into the computer before he left Saturday.

  But it was still a big processing job. And Nixon had no idea if he had all of either of the other two DNA sequences he was looking for. There could be some big chunks missing, even across all the samples.

  When the results came in, he pulled them up in VR. He had a complete DNA sequence from the gum, as he had expected. Matching bits of that sequence were also on the jacket, especially around the company logo embroidered on the breast. OK, so maybe she embroidered the jacket. Made sense. Her sequence did not appear on either the gun or the box.

  There were two other, partial sequences. One was only on the box, and the other was on the gun, the box, and the jacket, especially around the cuffs and collar. OK, so that second one was the shooter. The DNA that was only on the box might be the other spotter, or a fourth person, unknown.

  Nixon ran all three DNA sequences against the criminal DNA database. He got an immediate hit on the woman. Susan Kaplan, a.k.a. Suzie Q, a.k.a. Samantha Tripp, a.k.a. Sammy Tripp. Prostitute, pickpocket, con artist, computer hacker, petty thief, shoplifter. Huh. Jack of all trades there. Moving up in the biz, too, to be spotter for a shooter, but she should lose the gum habit.

  When he ran the other spotter’s partial sequence against the database, he got several potential matches. He crossed against known associates of Kaplan and got just one hit. Derek Beckham. Another long rap sheet, mostly non-violent crimes. No other aliases.

  Finally, when Nixon ran the shooter’s partial sequence against the database, he got a dozen potential matches. He crossed against known associates of Beckham and Kaplan. No hits. Hmm. He crossed against rap sheets. Every one hit – they were in the criminal DNA database, after all – but none looked like the sort of rapsheet he would expect for a professional hitter. They were minor non-violent crimes, or white-collar crimes. What were the odds a professional hitter started out as a shoplifter or an embezzling executive? And the ages on most were way off as well. He had the computer try a face match against the fuzzy imagery from the recordings analysis people in the Imperial Guard, and the computer gave him back a ‘no match’ on all of them.

  Nixon decided to back up and try again. Run a looser matching algorithm. Assume some sequences were garbled. Just his luck he might pick up a DNA lesion in the assembly of the pieces. That wouldn’t match. He ran it again with the looser matching requirement and got over three hundred hits. He crossed that with potential hitters and got two hits. When he asked the computer to run a face match against those two, he got one ‘no match’ and one ‘possible match.’

  Josip Bronsky, a.k.a. Joey Bronze, a.k.a. ‘JB’. Thirty-seven years old. From the Odessa sector. Suspect in three shootings over the past five years, never convicted. All three shootings remained unsolved. And all three shootings had been a double-tap to the head from behind with a .25 caliber airgun.

  “Investigations. Detective Gorski.”

  “Good morning, Detective. Debby Brown here, in DNA Analysis.”

  “Hi, Debby. You got any good news for me?”

  “We think so. We have the female spotter for sure. Maybe 90% on the male spotter. And we got maybe a 70% on the shooter.”

  “Who is it?”

  “Remember, 70% probability. Given that, it’s Joey Bronze.”

  “Figures. We could never get him. Maybe this time.”

  “Do you want to come down here for a full presentation, Detective?”

  “Let me check first. Couple of other people probably want to see this. Let me get back to you.”

  “Sure. Call me back after lunch.”

  “Major Dunham.”

  “Major, this is Detective Gorski.”

  “Good afternoon, Detective. Whatcha got?”

  “We have some results for you on the DNA analysis. We can present them to you this afternoon if you’d like. I was thinking a presentation by the analyst, so you know the percentage probabilities and can ask questions.”

  “Sounds good. Can we have people attend as avatars?”

  “Sure. That would solve the security problem, actually.”

  “That’s what I was thinking.”

  “How about three o’clock. I’ll send you the channel and a code to get in.”

  “Great. Thanks, Detective Gorski.”

  “No problem, Major.”

  At five minutes to three, Tom Nixon was waiting in a small presentation room in the VR. Detective Gorski w
ould be attending his presentation, as would his boss, Debra Brown. There would also be several people attending as avatars – androgynous, anonymous representations that hid their true identities. He had no idea who they might be, whether higher ups in the Imperial City Police Department or officials in some other government agency.

  He hadn’t presented to avatars before. They weren’t often used. He had seen them occasionally in VR. Sexless, with neutral voices, they nevertheless could interact with others in the VR, and, depending on how people configured their settings, they would mimic the facial expressions and intonation changes of their host.

  Detective Gorski appeared in one of the audience chairs and nodded to him, then Debra Brown. Finally three avatars appeared, in featureless gray coveralls. One had blond hair, one brown, and one red, so Nixon thought of them as Blondie, Brownie, and Red. Gorski looked over to them and Red nodded.

  “All right, Mr. Nixon. You may begin.”

  “Very well, Detective Gorski.”

  Nixon addressed himself to the avatars.

  “My plan was to explain the process I used and the results that I got, then open the floor to questions. Is that all right?”

  “That will be fine,” Red answered in a neutral voice that could be either male or female.

  Nixon explained the sampling process, the incubation process to grow a larger sample, and the sequencing that was performed. He then detailed the analysis he had performed that morning, winding up with the profiles of the people he had identified, and the probability of each being correct.

  “I will answer any questions you may have now.”

  “Mr. Nixon,” Red said. “You give the odds of the identification of Ms. Kaplan as one hundred percent, then state that that genome has one in ten trillion odds of being someone else. Does that mean there are perhaps thirty people in the Sintaran Empire who would match that sample?”

  “Yes. And then there are the odds of that person being on Sintar, in Imperial City, as opposed to one of the other one hundred fifty thousand planets of the Empire, and the further odds of that person having a police record extensive enough to indicate they might be willing to be an accomplice to murder for the right price.”

  Red nodded.

  “You said the match on Josip Bronsky was much less specific.” Blondie said. “Or I guess the right word is less probable, because of the degraded state of the sample. Could you address that, Mr. Nixon?”

  “Yes. The DNA samples of the shooter were few and far between. It is clear he was being much more careful. He probably used gloves when handling any of the objects analyzed. The DNA samples I got could have been from spittle or drops of sweat. He may have been careless putting the gloves on and transferred DNA to their outer surface, which was a secondary transfer to the object. Also, it appears he likely used an agent to degrade the DNA.”

  “An agent?”

  “Something as simple as a small spray can of stain remover or a small perfume mister of water and bleach. They will attack any DNA residue and break it up into pieces, finally dissolving it altogether. If the sample hadn’t been so fresh, I probably would have gotten nothing. Another day or two would have been enough.”

  “Thank you.”

  “Another question, Mr. Nixon,” Red said. “You said that the probability on the DNA of the shooter was seventy percent, or one in a million odds. So there are some ten thousand people on Sintar who would match to that level. Is that right?”

  “That’s correct, yes.”

  Do those odds include the possible match on the facial comparison to the security recordings, or the identical modus operandi of the criminal to the other shootings in which Mr. Bronsky was suspected?”

  “They do not.”

  The avatars all looked at each other, and Brownie nodded.

  “Thank you, Mr. Nixon, Detective Gorski,” Red said. “We have no further questions at this time. We will be in touch if we have further questions.”

  And with that, the three avatars disappeared.

  “Nicely done, Mr. Nixon,” Gorski said.

  “Thank you, Sir,” Nixon said.

  Gorski disappeared, at which Brown and Nixon signed off the VR and were back in her office.

  “Good job, Tommy,” Brown said.

  “Thanks, Debbie. That was kind of weird presenting to avatars. Never done that before. Any idea who they were?”

  “No. And I was told not to ask.”

  Signing off from Nixon’s presentation, Dee, Bobby, and General Daggert found themselves back in Dee’s office in the palace.

  “Well, that was interesting,” Dee said.

  “You didn’t ask any questions, Ma’am,” Bobby said.

  “No, Major Dunham. You and General Daggert covered the only ones I had. I was also afraid of slipping in what I said. Identifying myself.”

  “Ah,” Booby said.

  “So we think we know who it is,” Daggert said. “How do we proceed from here?”

  “Pick them all up, and then question them, starting with the woman,” Dee said.

  “Why the woman, Ma’am?” Bobby asked.

  “She’s the one we have the hardest ID on, Major Dunham. We can switch to drugs if we have to, to get her to answer questions, because her life is forfeit just on the evidence we have. But she can identify the other two, which means that we would then have all the evidence we need on the shooter as well. We can then drug him if we have to, to find out who hired him.”

  “Got it,” Bobby said. “Ma’am.”

  Dee smiled at the postscript. It was so easy to forget the protocol and just call each other Bobby and Dee. But they weren’t alone, even if it was only General Daggert.

  “That makes sense to me as well, Ma’am,” Daggert said. “Should we ask the Imperial City PD to pick them up?”

  “”I think that’s best, don’t you, General Daggert?” Dee asked.

  “Yes, Ma’am. All right, Major, I think you can handle that with Detective Gorski, if you would.”

  “Of course, Sir.”

  “Investigations. Detective Gorski.”

  “Good afternoon, Detective. Major Dunham here.”

  “Hello, Major. How did the presentation go for your people?”

  “Very well, actually, Detective. She was pleased.”

  “Excellent.”

  “What we would like now is to pick up all three suspects. We were wondering if you could take care of that for us.”

  “Of course. Any particular order?”

  “No. We would like to pick up all three. Whatever you normally do to try and get them all without someone getting away. That’s your expertise, not mine.”

  “Understood, Major. Anything else?”

  “No, Detective. That’s it for now. Thanks.”

  Interrogation and Execution

  Josip Bronsky had not changed his habits or gone to ground after the hit on the redhead last week. If anyone was watching him, a sudden change in his habits would indicate possible guilt or association with the murder, and get people looking in his direction. So he continued his normal activities and hung out in his normal haunts. He’d beaten the rap several times already, and he had no qualms about this one.

  But that night, when he walked into his favorite watering hole, his plans changed.

  “Hey, Joey,” the barman said to him when he sat down at the bar, “you been a bad boy?”

  “No more’n usual. Why do you ask, Dirk? I got a guilty look on my face?”

  “PD’s been asking around after ya.”

  “No kidding.”

  “Yeah, I told ‘em I thought you left the planet. Ain’t seen you around.”

  “OK. Thanks for the heads up, Dirk,” Joey said as he got back up from the barstool.

  He set a ten-credit coin on the bar.

  “No problem, Joey,” the bartender said, pocketing it.

  Bronsky went back outside. That’s why it paid to be a big tipper in his business. People looked out for you.

  If the cops w
ere already looking in his direction, that changed things. Interaction with the police was to be avoided if at all possible. Time to go to ground.

  Bronsky turned the corner and almost ran into two Imperial City Police officers. Shit.

  “Josip Bronsky?”

  “Yes, Officer?”

  “Come with us, please.”

  “Am I under arrest, Officer?”

  “Yes, Mr. Bronsky. Come with us, please.”

  “Of course, Officer.”

  It never paid to flee the cops, or fight with them. Fleeing them was a crime itself, which made you guilty of something right off. And you never fought with cops, because cops were like bees. When they got angry, they swarmed.

  Best to go along quietly, post bail, and then either beat the rap or disappear altogether.

  He tried to contact his attorney in VR, but they already had a local VR jammer keyed to him and operating.

  Bronsky was transported in the back of an electric arcade cart to a police transporter. Riding in the back, he couldn’t tell where they were going, but it seemed too far for police headquarters.

  When they arrived and they let him out of the back of the transporter, they were in the loading dock of a large building.

  The Imperial City Police officer in charge walked over to a pair of Imperial Marines with some sort of fancy shoulder decoration.

  “This is the last of them.”

  “Excellent. Thank you, Captain.”

  Where the hell had he seen that shoulder decoration? It was really familiar, but he couldn’t place it. Then it hit him. All the soldiers at the Empress’s coronation three years ago had been wearing just that setup. They were Imperial Guard. He wasn’t sure why the police would be turning him over to the Imperial Guard, but it didn’t sound like good news to him.

  The Guardsmen took Bronsky from the loading dock into the building to a cell block, then into an interview room. There was another Guardsman there, an officer. Maybe a captain. A prison coverall lay folded on the table.