by Piers Platt
Dasi took a sip of water as Lizelle shook yet another wealthy patron by the hand.
Orturo Kleins, District Judge, her datascroll showed her, recognizing his face. Widowed, two children.
“Orturo! My friend, how is your daughter? Doing well at her new job?”
Dasi smiled and shook her head. He’s good.
Orturo returned the hand shake, but his face was creased with a frown. “She is doing well, thank you. But I’m afraid we have a problem.”
“Oh?” Lizelle asked.
“There’s a federal law that’s set to expire next month – I contacted your office about it, and several other senators, but I haven’t gotten a response.”
“What law?” Lizelle probed.
“An ancient one – at the time, the Senate put a hundred-year expiration clause on it, I’m not sure why, and we’re just about at that limit. A physician friend of mine brought it to my attention. The law governs the status of unconscious patients while in the care of a medical facility. The essence is this: if it is allowed to expire, hospitals will no longer be allowed to attempt to revive patients under certain conditions. At the time, it made sense, but medical technology has advanced to the point … well, it could result in the unnecessary deaths of hundreds of thousands of people.”
“You’re kidding!” Lizelle said, aghast.
“I’m afraid not,” the judge shook his head. “Now whether hospitals and patients are even aware of this, or decide to take action on it, I’m not sure. But all it would take is one civil suit against a hospital ….”
“… and they might have to take action,” Lizelle agreed. “Thank you for bringing this to my attention.”
“I have to warn you, you may face some opposition to this from religious elements,” Orturo warned. “Some of the fundamentalists disagree with the notion of medical interventions of this nature. And they make up a fairly large voting bloc here, as you know.”
Lizelle shrugged. “There are a number of them here tonight. But this can’t stand, Orturo.” He turned to Dasi. “Can you duck out for a minute and get hold of Senator Tranh on the Medical Committee? Tell him it’s urgent.”
It took nearly ten minutes for Dasi to get through to Tranh, who turned out to be in a different time zone, and fast asleep. His staff proved exceptionally reluctant to wake him, but she persisted, and once she had his senior aide on the phone, all it took was Lizelle’s name to sway him.
“Charl’s asking for him?” the aide asked. “Shit. Well, I better get him then, or I’ll never hear the end of it. Give me a minute.”
Dasi took the opportunity to step back into the ballroom and signal Garces, who herded Lizelle out into the corridor moments later.
“Senator Tranh will be on in a minute,” she told him. “They’re just waking him up.”
“Are they?” Lizelle smirked. “I’m impressed, Dasi. Good work.” He took the phone from her. “Vin? It’s Charl. Listen, I didn’t realize you were asleep, I’ll give my staff a slap on the wrist for waking you up,” he apologized, winking at Dasi. “But since you’re up, we’ve got a serious problem ….” Lizelle headed up the hall, wandering as he talked.
“Eat yet?” Garces asked Dasi.
“No,” she admitted.
“Go grab something, he’ll be a few minutes at least. I’d eat in the kitchen, if I were you – that way all the vultures back in the ballroom can’t pester you about getting a chance to see Charl.”
Dasi grinned. “Thanks for the tip.”
The last group of guests left well after midnight, and Dasi had to stifle a yawn as she shook hands with a drunk councilman and his wife.
I don’t even know what time zone my body thinks it’s in right now.
She had limited her alcohol during the evening, on the advice of one of her coworkers, so on a whim, she swung back through the ballroom, and headed for the bar.
One more drink should give me a nice buzz before bed.
The bartender was nowhere to be seen, so she poured herself a glass of wine and then slipped out of her high heels, tucking them under one arm. Around the room, the staff still worked to clear up, and Dasi decided to leave them to it – she wound her way through the tables, and then out the large windows at the back of the stage, into the cool night air. To her surprise, Lizelle was sipping a lowball at the railing of the balcony, enjoying the breeze.
“Oh! Sorry, sir. I didn’t know you were out here,” she said, caught by surprise.
“There you go again,” he said, wagging a finger at her.
“Shit. I did, didn’t I?” She laughed. “Well, sorry for being sorry, I guess. I’ll let you have a moment,” she said, turning to leave.
“No, stay,” he told her, patting the railing. “I don’t mind.”
She hesitated.
“Really. Stay, please,” he insisted. “I may spend every day talking to people, but … it’s a lonely life,” he admitted.
Dasi felt a pang of sympathy for him. She walked over, set her shoes on the floor, and leaned on the balcony next to him, sipping her wine. “How did the call with Senator Tranh go?”
He turned and looked at her. “It went well. His staff are drafting a quick extension bill. Tomorrow I start drumming up support for it, but I think it should pass without much bickering. We did some good today,” he said.
“We did,” she agreed. “It’s a good feeling.”
“How’s your boyfriend doing with his AI research?” Lizelle asked.
Dasi felt a flash of guilt, but she brushed it away.
You just feel guilty because you haven’t called him since arriving on Emerist, like you said you would. He’s probably heads-down in code right now, anyway.
“He’s doing well, thanks,” Dasi said. “Before we left, he had just gotten the Senate databases connected. So FiveSight should have begun analyses already.”
“Good,” Lizelle said. “I’m fascinated to see what he finds.”
In the distance, a bright flash lit the interior of one of the massive cloud formations, then several more followed it in quick succession. The silent lightning lit the clouds from within, but each cloud was a different shade of yellow, green, or orange, and Dasi found the effect mesmerizing.
“Sheet lightning,” Lizelle told her. “Static electricity builds up within the clouds.”
“It’s beautiful,” she murmured.
“Mmm,” Lizelle agreed. “My mother used to say it was ‘God’s pinball machine.’ ” He smiled. “As if there was a giant ball bouncing between the clouds, lighting them up as it hit each one.”
“It’s an apt description.”
“Dasi, why did you join my staff?” he asked.
She was caught off guard by the question. “I want to make a difference to the galaxy. I want to make an impact,” she told him.
He smiled sadly. “That’s how I felt when I started. Hold on to that for as long as you can.”
“You don’t feel that way anymore?”
Lizelle took a sip of his drink. “You start an idealist,” he said, after a moment’s thought. “But every compromise you make shifts you one step closer to being a realist. And then one day you start questioning whether you’re still upholding those ideals, or just undermining them.”
Dasi frowned, and put her hand on top of his. “You’re still upholding your ideals. You may have saved thousands of lives tonight,” she pointed out.
Lizelle grinned, and Dasi saw his eyes twinkling in the twilight.
“What?” she asked.
“Do you know why I held the dinner tonight?” he asked her.
“To thank your biggest campaign donors.”
“Ostensibly, yes,” he agreed. “But that’s not the real reason.”
Dasi rolled it over in her head for a moment, and took another sip of wine. “Okay, I give up,” she confessed.
“I held it as an excuse to force two people to get to know each other better,” he said.
Dasi’s heart skipped a beat.
; “I happen to know,” Lizelle continued, “that one of my donors has a great deal of cash freeing up in the next year, from several investments that are maturing. We just happened to seat her at a table with a young man who is starting a company focused on improving education opportunities in low-income neighborhoods. I think he may have found a serious investor tonight, if I’m not mistaken,” Lizelle said. He finished his drink and then sighed. “Inuye would kill me if he knew, as that money should have gone to my next election campaign. But somehow, I think it will do more good elsewhere.”
“Your secret’s safe with me,” Dasi promised.
“My fiancée used to say that,” Lizelle said wistfully, staring out at the clouds, “whenever I told her I loved her. But that was a long time ago.”
“I didn’t know you were married,” Dasi said.
“I wasn’t,” Lizelle said. “We got engaged just before my first election campaign, and by the time it was over, she had left. Told me there wasn’t enough room in my life for both her and politics.”
Dasi bit her lip, at a loss for what to say.
“You remind me of her, actually. She was an idealist, too.” Lizelle finished his drink with a swig. “Anyway, she was probably right. I didn’t deserve her.”
Dasi studied his face, and he returned her stare.
“What?” he asked.
She leaned in and kissed him, slowly at first, then with increasing passion.
“I’m sorry,” he said, when they broke apart.
“Don’t you start now,” she told him.
He laughed, and then took her in his arms for another kiss.
* * *
Oh my god. What have I done? Dasi collapsed into the shuttle seat and grimaced, shielding her eyes against the bright morning sun. One of the senator’s bodyguards sat across the aisle from her, and Inuye boarded next. She met Inuye’s eyes for a second, then looked away.
He must know. He always knows everything.
But if the Chief of Staff was aware of what had happened the night prior, he gave no sign, calmly taking his seat and opening his datascroll. Lizelle boarded next, gave her a quick smile, and then sat down next to Garces.
“What’s happening in the galaxy this morning, Inuye?” he asked.
The shuttle took off moments later, rising out of the clearing before lighting its deep-space thrusters and heading for the ionosphere. Dasi covered her embarrassment by pretending to be hung over, while her mind raced.
Am I going to lose my job? Oh, god. What am I going to tell Khyron?
13
“Go over it again,” Beauceron insisted.
“Relax. I did this kind of thing all the time when I was a contractor.” And just a few weeks ago, when I was looking for you.
“You’ve infiltrated police stations before?” Beauceron asked.
“And exfiltrated,” Rath admitted. “And before you ask, no, I didn’t kill any cops in the process.”
Beauceron crossed his arms, waiting. Rath sighed. “Colonel Rozhkov will meet me at Reception, on the ground floor. We’ll ride the elevator up to the fifth floor – Homicide Division. He’ll set me up with a data terminal in one of the empty interrogation rooms. You’ll be watching my feed, and will talk me through how to use it. We’ll do our searches, and I’ll get out of there.”
“And if someone asks what you’re doing?”
“I’m a detective from a different district, and you’ll call my phone before I can go into much detail, and I’ll pretend I have to leave to take the call.”
“And if they detain you?”
“They won’t,” Rath told him bluntly. Not again.
“But if they try to,” Beauceron prodded.
“I don’t mention Rozhkov at all, I let them arrest me, and you turn yourself in, too.” Rath rolled his eyes. “Which is the worst backup plan ever, by the way.”
But Beauceron ignored the remark, concentrating instead on flying the car down to ground level. Rath took another look at the floor plan layout Beauceron had sketched for him, taking note of the fire exits near the center of the building, by the elevator shafts.
“Turn your feed on,” Beauceron said. “Alexei will be down in five minutes, I don’t want to keep him waiting.”
Rath made a wireless connection with the air car’s audio-visual system, and on the console viewscreen, his video feed appeared – the car’s microphone pickup squealed for a second with feedback, before he turned the volume down. “I’m hooked up,” he told the detective. “Say something.”
“Radio check,” Beauceron replied. Rath heard Beauceron’s voice on his internal speakers, and gave him a thumbs-up.
The car settled onto its wheels, rolling to a gentle stop.
Rath took a deep breath and tucked his Forge into the back seat, patting it for luck.
“Take good care of that pack,” he told Beauceron. He got out of the car, and strode purposefully up the familiar steps of the police station. Behind him, Beauceron started the air car up and then pulled away from the sidewalk.
Rozhkov was not waiting in the lobby as Beauceron had promised. After he passed through the security gate, Rath took a seat on a bench, trying to remain unobtrusive as both plainclothes and uniformed officers passed him by. He wore a different cover identity than the one he had used as a reporter during his last visit, but the knowledge did little to improve his sense of security.
“Where is he?” Rath muttered, seemingly to himself.
“He’ll be there,” he heard Beauceron’s voice come in on his internal speakers. “He probably just had a meeting before this.”
Finally, a tall, gray-haired man in dress uniform walked out of one of the elevators.
“Colonel Rozhkov.” Rath smiled, standing up and holding out his hand. “Nice to meet you, sir,”
Rozhkov shook Rath’s hand, and peered over his shoulder. “Our mutual friend didn’t want to come in?” he asked Rath.
“Ah, no,” Rath said. “He didn’t want you to be seen associating with him. He was worried what other people might think of you.”
Rozhkov scoffed. “I’m past the point of caring about that,” he told Rath. “Never mind, come – I’ll show you upstairs.”
A uniformed patrolman got on the elevator with them, but got off on the third floor. As the doors closed, Rozhkov said, “Martin didn’t tell me how you two met?”
“I posted a classified ad,” Rath lied. “After I retired from the force, I was looking for a partner to help grow my private investigation business.”
“You’re too young to have retired,” Beauceron corrected him over the audio connection.
But Rozhkov just smiled. “Good, I’m glad Martin’s found something to keep himself occupied.”
The elevator doors opened onto a busy office floor, with suit-jacketed detectives bustling between cubes. At one end, a massive display board showed open cases and their status – a uniformed woman was deftly editing the board using a holographic keyboard. Rath felt his pulse start to speed up.
I wish I still had my hemobots in – could have used them to calm me down right about now. Of course, if they were still in, I’d be dead …
“This way,” Rozhkov said.
Rath had been expecting to use the part of the interrogation room behind the glass – the viewing area – but Rozhkov led him into the interviewing room itself, where a small computer was set up on the metal interviewing table.
“Okay, here you are,” Rozhkov said. He glanced out into the main office. “This is somewhat … outside typical protocol, shall we say. But Martin is a good friend, and if he vouches for you, then I trust him. But if anyone starts asking questions, just come find me. My office is back by the case board.”
“Got it, thanks,” Rath told him. “We appreciate you bending the rules a bit.”
Rozhkov nodded and pulled the door shut behind him. Rath glanced nervously at an electro-magnet mounted in the steel tabletop.
They attach suspects’ handcuffs to that thing when they
need to interrogate them.
“Let’s get started,” Beauceron said.
Rath took his seat and booted up the terminal.
“Okay, go to the database menu – there,” Beauceron directed. “Hospital records are under ‘External Sources,’ on the left.”
Rath clicked on the button, and a search query form appeared. He filled in fields, editing per Beauceron’s guidance, then let the computer run the query.
“No records found,” the computer reported.
“Let’s try broadening the search,” Beauceron said.
They spent thirty minutes sorting through the hospital database, looking for people admitted to medical facilities in the past four years with different combinations of cybernetic implants. At last, Rath sat back in the chair.
“That’s not her, either,” he said, gesturing to a picture of a moderately obese woman admitted for chest pains on a planet called Prudhoe.
“People can gain weight,” Beauceron reminded him. “She might have done so intentionally, as a way to hide her identity.”
“Not that much weight,” Rath said, grimacing. He glanced at the interrogation room door, subconsciously. “Let’s move on – I think we’ve disproved the hospitalization theory.”
“Okay, close out ‘External Sources,’ let’s go to the ‘Arrests’ section. Same query, from the top.”
That search took them an additional forty-five minutes. Beauceron insisted searching both genders, and widening the net to include people questioned on murder-related charges, but not arrested. Finally, Rath heard him sigh over the radio net.
“No, we’re out of options. She’s not here,” he admitted. “On the plus side, she’s not in a morgue, injured, or incarcerated ….”
“That leaves us with dead, captured by the Group, or still alive, but on any of the hundreds of habitable worlds,” Rath noted. “Hell, she could be sitting on a bench in the park outside, for all we know.”
