by Jaxon Reed
Cole said, “It’s important the Republic retains the value of minimal interference as possible in the lives of our citizens, as enshrined in our Consitution. Thus, our party remains committed to holding the reins of power for as long as we can . . . so we can limit the expression of power by other parties. We think, naturally, that we’re the best at leaving people alone.”
Cole paused for another sip.
She put the cup down on its saucer resting them both on the coffee table.
“Our government is messy, no doubt. It’s imperfect. Bad people sometimes take office. Corruption, left unchecked, can cause problems.
“But despite all that, a representative democracy is still the best form of government ever devised. A system of checks and balances and the ability for the population to hold a mini-revolution every few years by way of regularly scheduled elections, makes representative democracies the most stable and secure form of government ever devised.”
Fonteneaux smiled and said, “But . . .”
“But there are problems. People are always prone to the baser side of human nature. With freedom comes responsibility, and some choose to use their freedoms to pursue less than wholesome activities.”
Severs spoke up and said, “What the Chancellor means to say is, crime has spiked since the war ended.”
“Crime has spiked,” Cole said, nodding. “And, as it turns out, your predecessor was a dirty cop.”
Fonteneaux made no comment, but she had suspected this to be true even before the Chancellor mentioned it.
Cole said, “While I can appoint leadership at the top of AOJ and offer my successor, Admiral Severs here, someone he trusts and has personally recommended for that position, I cannot clean house. And I suspect the agency is full of dirty cops. Part of your job will be rooting out corruption and restoring the Republic’s full faith and confidence in the highest civilian law enforcement branch we have.”
Severs said, “At the same time, you’ll be performing typical duties as Director, and helping to tamp down this crime wave we’re experiencing.”
Cole nodded and said, “That about sums it up, Ms. Fonteneaux. It’s a big role you’re taking on. Maybe bigger than you expected.”
Fonteneaux said, “Thank you for entrusting me with this role, Madame Chancellor. I won’t let you or Admiral Severs down.”
“We know you won’t,” Cole said. “That’s why you’re here.”
8
The Sex Workers Union building on 49th and Mathers stood in the heart of the Old Industrial District.
Now more of a tourist attraction, the area housed shops, clubs and a museum as well as the headquarters for licensed prostitutes plying their trade.
In this day and age, with virtual gratification remaining a highly realistic option, as well as the use of androids (authorized use as well as unauthorized), real humans now comprised a minority of those in “the business,” as the sex trade was called by insiders.
But, they were there. Women as well as men, although the men were outnumbered. They hit the streets and the clubs and private residences, entertaining clients. Then, invariably, they showed up in person at the SWU to pay their union dues.
These dues were almost always paid via the means prostitutes themselves were reimbursed for their services: via credit tokens.
The SWU building shared a block next to Fishmonger’s Square with two other storefronts. Across the street, the McCoy Building served as headquarters for the Chamber of Commerce and several other organizations willing to rent office space. One of these was the Coalition of Independent Restaurant Owners on the fourth floor.
Here, on the exterior of this particular suite of offices, a bribed window washer had been coerced to place a small sensor.
Most sensors were tied to a global AI system and used by PLAIR, LuteNet or StarCen to gather data from the surroundings to feed into decision matrices.
This one was not tied to the local AI, but rather sent an encrypted signal back to Octavia’s Eastside borough.
Most places that still gathered physical currency, such as the SWU and casinos, kept the tokens locked up in a secure area. Once full, the credits could be transported by guard bots back to a central bank. Or, for a fee, PLAIR could simply port the tokens and credit the organization’s account accordingly.
The powers that be at the Sex Workers Union preferred having PLAIR teleport their money. On this particular day, the “vault,” as SWU’s secure area was known, filled close to capacity. Within a matter of hours, PLAIR would determine the vault to be full enough to warrant a port.
The little sensor on the wall of the McCoy Building took note of the vault’s decreased capacity, and relayed that information back to a certain Eastside warehouse.
At 14:45 local time, with several hours left to go before the vault reached full capacity, three sleek black sports cars approached the SWU building’s rooftop.
They landed lightly, legs extending as the vehicles settled on the flat rooftop.
Stormy stepped out of the lead car in a black cat suit with matching helmet and dark round goggles. She pulled a heavy blaster out of the car and slung it over her back.
Behind her, Marx and Edge stepped out of the other two vehicles, also dressed in black.
An old guard bot positioned on the roof approached them.
Its round head had two round eyes and a slit for a mouth where the speakers resided.
It clanked toward them with a hand up and said, “Parking here is not allowed. Please leave and—”
Thupp!
Edge fired a single bolt from his heavy gun, obliterating the bot’s head. It collapsed into a useless pile of metal parts.
He turned and locked eyes with Marx.
“Don’t mess up this time.”
“It wasn’t my fault last time. I couldn’t get into a place where they couldn’t see me before activating the . . .”
“Zip it,” Stormy said.
Both men grew quiet as they followed her to the roof’s access point.
The pad to the right of the door glowed red.
Stormy pulled the heavy gun off her back and aimed at the lock.
ThuppaThuppaThuppa!
Smoke drifted up from the now broken door.
“Kick it,” she said to Edge.
Cautiously, remembering what happened to Chuckles the last time someone kicked in a door, he approached and forced it open with his foot.
Edge went down first since he knew Stormy would ask him to, but he kept his gun out and his finger on the trigger while racing to the basement.
Halfway down the stairs, an alarm went off and the lights flashed on and off.
“Keep going,” Stormy said. “They noticed the guard bot. We’ve got seven minutes.”
Edge shot and kicked open the door to the basement.
Thoop! Thoopah!
They ducked back out of the way.
Edge took a quick peek around the corner of the busted door.
Thoop!
“Two guard bots. Old models, again.”
Stormy nodded and said, “You know what to do. Do it.”
He pulled out an egg grenade and lobbed it down the basement hall without looking.
KABLOOM!
A fire alarm clanged, and the lights turned red.
PLAIR’s voice came from the ceiling.
“Fire . . . Fire . . . Fire . . . Evacuate the building . . . Fire . . .”
Edge jumped out into the hallway, heavy gun ready. The bots were in pieces, no longer posing a threat.
All three hurried down to the end of the hall where a secure door stood waiting. This one looked much more solid than the stairwell entrances.
“Six minutes,” Stormy said.
Marx nodded and shouldered past Edge. He slapped plastic explosives on the door and set a 15 second timer.
Then he turned and ran to the opposite end of the hall, followed by Stormy and Edge.
They covered their ears and squatted, waiting for the explosion.
A man stuck his head through the broken stairwell entry and looked first at the bots then back at the three on the opposite end of the hallway.
He had the look of a union representative. Or a pimp. He wore an extremely expensive suit with multiple gold rings and gaudy necklaces.
“What’s going—”
KABLUMPH!
The explosives on the door blew it open and the pressure wave caught the man’s head, slamming him back. He fell down, unconscious.
Stormy stood and ran down the hall, followed by the two men. She stepped over the pimp, but Edge gave the man’s head a vicious kick as he passed.
Inside the vault, stacks of credit tokens waited, sorted in sleeves of 250 each.
She pointed to the left, at the many piles of 100 credit tokens. All three pulled out large bags and began throwing in sleeves.
Stormy said, “Five minutes.”
9
“We’re not gonna make it,” McNeese said.
He sat in the squad car’s passenger seat, gripping the armrest as Xie sped through the air, recklessly flying the vehicle under manual control.
Red and blue lights flashed as they streaked through the sky, accelerating much faster than normal.
She zipped in and out of aerial traffic, swooping down to avoid a long cargo train floating slowly in a straight line heading north.
Xie snapped, “Why can’t we just teleport there? I don’t understand why PLAIR can’t just zap us where we need to be in an emergency.”
“I’m sure there’s political reasons and such. Besides,” McNeese gulped as she swept past a bus, narrowly avoiding collision. Everyone onboard gawped as they flew by.
“Besides, what would we do once we popped in? We’d be disoriented. We’d have to figure out where the bad guys are and all that. They could shoot us while we’re trying to get situated. Terrestrial teleportation under stress is not my idea of fun.”
“The Marines did it during the war.”
For that, he had no rejoinder.
She zoomed past another cross-stream of flying traffic and risked a glance at her partner. He was taking her high-speed effort to get to the robbery in progress at the Sex Workers Union very well, all things considered.
He probably doesn’t want to look chicken in front of a woman, she thought.
Then she took it back. McNeese had a wife who adored him, and he seemed considerably less misogynistic than many other men on the force.
“There, on the roof,” he said, pointing. “They’re the same models as yesterday at the bank.”
They watched three black-clad figures carrying large bags run from the rooftop exit to the cars. Each person climbed into a separate vehicle, throwing in the bags and unstrapping their heavy guns before jumping inside and closing the tops.
“I see them,” She aimed the nose of the squad car down and flicked a virtual switch with her finger.
“PLAIR, this is OPD Officer Seana Xie, badge number 02991, requesting access to this car’s blasters. Emergency situation 131.”
Emergency situation 131 indicated robbery in progress, suspects considered armed and dangerous. If an officer could not recall the exact number for a particular situation, they could just call out for a generic emergency. But Xie had expected, had hoped, she would be able to have an opportunity to stop these criminals. She had therefore recently looked up the numbers.
What were the odds that the same gang who robbed a bank yesterday, then shot up the station to retrieve their man, would be the ones robbing the SWU today? The odds were pretty good, she thought.
“Permission granted, Officer Xie. Proceed with caution. Civilian safety protocols for your weapons are in place.”
The three cars levitated off the roof as the squad car neared.
Two green circles began tracing a pattern on Xie’s windscreen.
She did not wait for the holo sights to line up. She pulled the trigger, aiming by eye.
Thwup! Thwup!
Green bolts sailed down at the car the woman climbed into. At least, Xie figured the smaller person climbing in was a female. The same female who came close to shooting her in the head yesterday, if Xie was correct.
The bolts grazed the hood and slammed into the roof.
The three getaway cars scattered in different directions.
“Trace those vehicles, PLAIR!”
“I am on it, Officer McNeese.”
Xie banked and followed the female’s car.
“Civilian safety protocol engaged, Office Xie,” PLAIR said. “You will not be able to fire if a stray bolt might hurt a bystander.”
“Understood. Just let me lock on target.”
The holo sights in her windshield connected. They joined together and flashed green.
Thwup!
The black car dipped and the bolt sailed over its canopy, missing by centimeters.
Xie cursed and lined up for another shot. The sights flashed green.
Beep.
“Dang it, I had her!”
“Do it again,” McNeese said. “Maybe this time there won’t be any pedestrians below us.”
The getaway car swooped and zagged, taking a sharp left before cutting back to the right. Xie followed, imitating the pattern.
The holo sights flashed.
Xie pulled the trigger again, a microsecond too late.
Thwup!
The black car jerked up at the last moment and the bolt sailed under it.
Xie snarled in frustration.
“She’s flying too randomly!”
The getaway car barrel rolled then spiraled down beside a tall skyscraper.
Xie struggled to keep up, watching the holo sights as they danced around her windscreen, waiting for another shot.
McNeese said, “She’s going for the river!”
Xie watched the car dive toward a street filled with ground traffic and pedestrians.
The sights flashed green and she squeezed the trigger.
Beep!
“Dang it!”
“Too many people at this angle, Seana!”
The black car swooped in low toward the ground. People on the street looked up to see it flying straight toward them. They scattered to get out of the way.
At the last second the car pulled up and sailed out over the Puxatawny River.
Xie followed, close behind.
“She’s going straighter, you got this,” McNeese said.
But the getaway car dipped even lower, until it skimmed just over the surface.
A huge rooster tail of water spewed up in the air as the car rushed over it.
The water slammed into the squad car’s windscreen, and Xie lost control.
An alarm sounded.
WahWahWahWah!
The squad car turned upside down.
Xie struggled to straighten it up again.
They hit the river’s surface at an angle, with a loud Thumph!
10
Jodi Fonteneaux decided to walk in through the front door for her first day as the new Director at the Agency of Justice. She flew her car to work this morning instead of using her new terrestrial teleportation perk.
She asked PLAIR to park her wherever appropriate, and the AI guided her vehicle to a garage near the AOJ building that could be accessed by both ground and air vehicles.
PLAIR guided the Fonteneaux family sedan to a space marked “Director.” It was on the ground floor, nearest the elevator pods. One waited for her as she climbed out.
She grabbed a box of personal belongings from the backseat then entered the pod.
The door swished shut before anyone else could get in. Instead of going up, it dropped down a couple of stories then moved under the street to the building next door.
Jodi found herself wondering why these conveyances were still called elevators when they went all over the place in buildings and ships.
And why weren’t British terms more prevalent, like “lift” and “lorry?” She had a British ancestor from Old Earth
and had been studying up on them lately.
Fonteneaux felt the elevator going to the top floor of the ten story building. It dinged open and she walked out into a large receptionist’s lobby.
Three doors stood on the left, three on the right, and an elaborate wooden set of double doors opened off the far wall from the elevator.
A very attractive android receptionist stood up from her workstation, smiling. She had a light complexion, long blond hair down to the waist and blue eyes.
Probably picked out by Farthingale, Jodi thought.
The bot said, “Hi, Director Fonteneaux. I am a Verberger RB 1300 belonging to the Department of Justice. I am your personal receptionist and can perform a variety of other duties as assigned.”
Fonteneaux acknowledged the bot with a nod, noting that she was the latest model. The 1300 came out last month, replacing the 1200.
“Do you have a name?”
“No, ma’am. At least, no one has assigned me one yet.”
“Okay. How about Molly?”
The bot smiled, as if actually pleased with the suggestion.
“Thank you, ma’am. I like it.”
Yeah, her programming is very good, Fonteneaux thought. She would have smiled had I named her anything, like . . .
A slew of dirty words ran through her mind.
Two doors slid open on the left. A man stepped out of one office, and a woman followed out of the other.
“Hi! I’m Jake Applegate, Assistant Director. At least, I’m one of the remaining ones. Most resigned along with Director Farthingale.”
Jodi shifted the box, stuck out a hand and shook Applegate’s. He stood a hair under six feet at 182 centimeters. Late 40s, Fonteneaux guessed. Some age lines creased a rugged, handsome face below salt and pepper hair.
“I’m the other AD still here,” the woman said. “Marley Montoya.”
She seemed a little older, in her 50s, although she had kept the gray at bay and looked like she had a youth injection recently. She had a beautiful brown complexion, with shoulder length hair and sparkling, intelligent eyes.
