Chapter 10: Lady Wilson’s Interview
Cleo, an emancipated biowoman, was a columnist for the Trenaport Ledger. Her beat was the clone and bioengineered community. She wrote about how they got to Trena. She also wrote about issues concerning bios. She was well respected in the biopeople community, and by the public. Although she knew of Lady Wilson, she had never interviewed her. Up until about four months before, Lady Wilson was more or less a private person. She was a nonentity on Trena for the most part. She was known by the medical community as a physical therapist. People knew Mrs. Wilson; but as the spouse of Mike Wilson, an instructor at the police academy, or the lady who had helped them or their kids. Cleo had known of Lady Wilson ever since she had arrived on Trena. Word got out though, that Lady Wilson wasn’t to be bothered. Kellogg had made a point of talking to her about it one night when she got too pushy three or four years before. Now as she looked at the invitation to interview Lady Wilson she was floored. As soon as she was done reading the invitation, she went to the window of her down town office, pondering the invitation.
It was a great honor to be able to interview Lady Wilson. Not only because she was most likely the most well know escaped clone in the empire, she was also the wife of the man who was moving heaven and earth to get all of them off Trena. She was conflicted though because she had been contacted by Hozenbur. She was supposed to call her if she found out anything about Lisa and what she was up to. She didn’t want to have anything to do with Hozenbur. She suspected that Hozenbur wanted to kill Lady Wilson. Rumor had it that the Republic had agents on the planet trying to thwart the evacuation. She suspected the Hozenbur might be involved with them. She had done extensive research on the notorious closer. It would not surprise her to find out that she had been a Republic agent for years. She picked up the invitation pondering what to do. Deciding to clear her head she left her office.
She had just left the Ledger building when a car pulled up beside her. The curb side window lowered and Cleo saw Hozenbur. She tried to walk by but the car’s horn sounded. She tried to ignore it but Hozenbur called, “can you help me?"
Trapped Cleo approached the car. Cleo looked around to see if anyone was watching.
“I hear you have been invited to hold an interview with the halfwit,” Hozenbur said through the open window when she approached the car. “When is it?”
“I have to call the palace and set it up yet” Cleo responded wanting to run away from the closer.
“Why haven’t you,” Hozenbur asked.
“Trying to make up my mind how to do it,” Cleo responded half truthfully.
“Why don’t you do it as a day in the life.” the woman in car offered. “Like the day she goes to evacuation hospital for her prenatal checkup.”
“Do you want it known that we can be made pregnant?” Cleo asked. “I know that clones are not sterile at least not the p models. But do you want the empire to know this? Maxwell is just waiting for a chance to bring the wraith of the empire down on Ebio.”
“Well the bitch of a CEO is spilling the beans. Besides this one is for me.” The woman said with venom in her voice.
“Margaret,” Cleo asked, “You ever think it might be better if you become a live outlaw queen on one of the frontier planets, than to be a dead company closer on Trena.”
“Let me know when you set it up.” Hozenbur ignored the question, “I want to be part of your team. Oh and Cleo if you betray us there isn’t a place on Trena that you can hide. If you try to get off world we’ll find you and kill you. Deliver her, vat or I’ll recycle you.”
Hozenbur closed the car’s window and pulled off.
She looked at the departing car, and cursed silently at herself for her situation. She had only herself to blame. Hozenbur had the goods on her. She had killed her owner when she escaped. She had been designed and trained as a companion. When she was thirteen she was sold to a brothel on Pleasure. A world devoted to fulfilling every sexual fantasy imaginable. When she had turned eighteen she had killed her pimp. On Pleasure pimps ran the world. The laws were written in such a way that when a clone escaped if she killed anyone, even in self-defense, she was guilty of murder. There was no self-defense clause for clones in the laws concerning homicide. Her pimp had rented her out to a couple who were into violent sex. They had raped her for a week, broke her hands and arms, had cut up her face, and done things to her that still gave her nightmares. Her pimp had just collected her got her injuries taken care of her as he cursed her for the expense of the hospital bill and the loss of income from her. He acted like it was her fault. Companion clones were trained from the beginning to believe that anything their owners did was okay. Whatever their owner or the person their owner gave them to did to them was of no consequence. That they were expected to provide whatever pleasure to whoever they were with even it killed them. Many Gamma biopeople were killed. On Terran Imperial worlds, where imperial law gave the clones limited rights; what the couple did to her would have sent them to jail for a year and fined them the cost of the clone’s hospitalization. On Pleasure they were asked on exit if there was anything else the pimp could do for them.
Something happened when Cleo had been so abused, she no longer believed what happened to her at the hands of her pimp or the pimp’s clients were okay or proper. When Cleo left pleasure she had killed her pimp and the couple who had brutalized her. Cleo had changed her name, and immigrated to Trena. Hozenbur knew her real identity and threatened to tell the Mounties. If the Mounties knew she had killed those people they would have no other recourse but to return her to Pleasure to be executed. Somehow Hozenbur had found out she had done that. Hozenbur had played a hunch that the most famous reporter on Trena, an escaped biowoman herself, might interview the most famous escaped biowoman in the galaxy.
Now as she walked the nearly deserted streets of Trenaport, she thought about the consequence of her actions. Over the years she had made a point to be nonviolent. She had also remained alone. After that rape she no longer enjoyed sex. She lived alone by choice, not even a pet. She was tempted to call the Mounties and come clean. But she was just as afraid of them as of Pleasure’s cops. The Mounties would not be pleased about her activities. She knew of the hunting license that the Marshal issued and knew how Lady Wilson was the target of this woman and if she did nothing to turn Hozenbur in to the authorities and Lady Wilson was harmed she would be charged with accomplice to murder. She would be sent to the Rock, and would mostly likely become a prostitute again. Resignedly she came to the conclusion that she was dead either way. Either Hozenbur would kill her, or she would be captured and executed on Home, or she would be arrested as a coconspirator to harm Lady Wilson. She made a decision. She was near her apartment and went home.
Once home she went to her medicine cabinet where she kept some pain killers for those days when the pain of her badly treated injuries bothered her. The beatings she had taken on Pleasure had never healed right and she sometimes had to take painkillers to get through the day. She took the remainder of the bottle. No one found her in time.
Her photographer found her the next morning.
Two Thonian Companions had been dispatched to Cleo’s apartment in place of a Mounty homicide investigator. The Trena Mounted Patrol had gotten so thin with the evacuations that the homicide division was virtually nonexistent. Many of the homicide cops were either walking a beat where patrol cops were thin, or had been transferred to Home, or had taken a job off world. So the Companions were doing a lot more than patrolling areas, guarding facilities, and investigating the crimes related to the military working on Trena. They were conducting civilian criminal investigations. Some of the Companions were grumbling. But others like Investigator Grenlin and her lifemate in the Companions CID platoon enjoyed it. They were both getting bored busting dumb soldiers who were pulling the same scams they had investigated when they had first joined the MP’s five crimens ago before.
The body was still sitting i
n the chair where the woman had died when they got there. The crime scene unit hadn’t arrived yet so she gingerly began checking things out. The first thing that got her attention was that there was not a note. Her lifemate also keyed on it. Although it wasn’t too unusual for a note not to be found with a suicide, it was just as common to find one. Lying on the table by the overstuffed chair was a parchment with the royal seal on it. It was an invitation to interview Lady Wilson. They did find a note of sorts. In red marker on the invitation to interview Lady Wilson, Cleo had written, “I’m so sorry!”
They approached the photographer to begin their interviews.
“Her name was Cleo?” the investigator asked, the stunned photographer who had found the body just nodded.
“Was she having any problems?” Grenlin asked.
“No,” the man who was lounging against the wall spoke up.
“Who are you,” Her lifemate asked going to the man starting his recorder.
“Roger Franks,” The man said, “I’m Cleo’s or was Cleo’s photographer.”
“What are you doing here?” M’lan asked.
“We were supposed to interview a Major Rather of the 10th of the 16th Heavy Space lift wing,” the photographer replied, “When she didn’t meet me at the Ledger, or answer the phone I thought I would come by and check up on her?”
“What was going on with her,” the investigator asked.
“What do you mean,” the photographer asked.
“Was she despondent over the evacuation,” he asked, there had been a steady increase in suicides concerning the evacuation. When people found out they were not going to be evacuated until almost the very end; or when a job fell through. Or just the sheer weight of the event had caused many souls to commit suicide.
“No she was acting like it was the break of a career!” Frank said, “And it was. She was getting access to people that no one did! Hell you saw we had an invitation to interview Lady Wilson. They keep Lady Wilson and the Wilson kids under wraps. Even Admiral Wilson hasn’t spoken to the press. I know with those Ebio agents on world that the Marshal and the palace have good reason to keep the Wilson family under tight security. But we were invited to interview her.”
“I see,” Grenlin commented.
“No! I don’t think you do,” the photographer said, “She was chasing stories, setting up the interviews we needed to do. She was on the Jazz.”
“The Jazz,” Grenlin asked.
“Yeah,” The photographer replied, “it’s hard to explain, but it’s that high you get from doing your job at the peak of your ability and knowing you are causing the things to fall into place you needed. Sort of like saying ‘I love it when a plan comes together.’ and then seeing the plan work. Cleo was right there. There wasn’t a reporter on the planet that did what she did and could get the doors open when she needed them to be opened. Especially in the cloning community.”
“Was she a clone?” Grenlin asked.
“Yes.” The photographer said, “I don’t know much about her past; but she was an escapee. From where I don’t know, and how I don’t know. But she escaped from somewhere. Most of her stories centered around the biopeople on Trena. She was well respected.”
“Did she have a lifemate?” Grenlin asked as her lifemate’s thoughts intruded asking. “Does she have a family?”
“No she lives alone.” The photographer replied. “There’s no one to notify. In the ten years I worked for her I have never seen her with a man, or any one. I think it has something to do with her past.”
“Investigators,” the lead technician came out, “it’s all preliminary but we can’t find any hint of foul play. It is for all intents and purposes a suicide.”
“Thank you,” her lifemate replied, “Okay, get her down to the morgue. I’d like to be there when they do her.”
“Okay,” the woman replied.
Hours later Grenlin was sitting at the desk she had been given by the Mounties at the tenth precinct pondering what she knew. She and her lifemate kept batting the thing around. It didn’t make any sense. They kept musing. It wasn’t quite words, and not quite thought. It was closer to emotion than words. No one was quite certain how the aqaut worked. It had been studied by the best of Thonian medicine and psychology. They only knew that somehow the aqaut virus tuned two person’s brains so that they were nearly empathic to each other. A bit telepathic also, but mostly empathic among themselves. Somehow they shared each other’s brains. It had been uncanny to watch the lifemate of a spouse come into a test lab and watch them complete a task that she had never seen done before. The Thonian people had learned to make the best of it. M’lan, Grenlin’s lifemate, was more disturbed by the suicide than her. He was very disturbed by the clone’s suicide. It didn’t fit into the typical suicide.
“Investigator,” Benton Frazier the Mounty AI spoke up, “we got the DNA back from that suicide. She’s not who she says she is.”
“Oh,” Grenlin said, “Who is she.”
“She’s Margie, Clone C 078981 A” The AI replied, “She killed three people on Pleasure.”
“How did she get here?” Grenlin asked, “The kingdom doesn’t allow indicted murders on world.”
“We hold them for extradition to the planet holding the arrest warrant.” Benton said. “She didn’t enter through customs.”
“But how did she live on Trena. All of your ID process is based on the DNA swatch on your IDs.” M’lan asked.
“Once she got past customs,” Benton replied, “As long as she didn’t violate any of our laws her DNA was never checked against the master database. Mostly if someone hasn’t complained about a stolen ID then usually the ID isn’t checked that hard.”
“How long has she been on Trena?” Grenlin asked.
“Fifteen years.” Frazier answered.
“She had been here for fifteen years; she was at the top of her profession. She wasn’t despondent about the evacuation. She just ups and commits suicide. This doesn’t make sense.” Grenlin commented. Her lifemate’s thoughts were furious; but they both came to the same conclusion at the same time. What was going on in her life to cause her to commit suicide?
“All right it’s all dependent on what was going on before she committed suicide. I wonder if any of the surveillance cameras caught anything.” Grenlin wondered aloud. But that turned out to be a dead end. There was nothing on any the many cameras that Cleo would been seen by. Finding nothing to confirm it was anything, but a suicide, as curious as they were of what had caused Cleo’s suicide they had to let it drop.
Every Last Mother's Child Page 169
