EMPIRE: Imperial Police

by Stephanie Osborn

  “Yes, sir. Shall I use Stash? He doesn’t have a badge now…”

  “Contact him, at least. The badge makes no difference. He ought to know someone suited to handle Carter; he’s been retired how many years now? It shouldn’t be difficult.”

  “That was excellent work, Lieutenant Investigator Ashton; excellent work! You not only scoped out the perp, you set up an effective sting and took the perp into custody,” Deputy Chief of Investigations Colonel Maia Peterson told Ashton in her office. The Imperial City Police Chief, Brigadier General Harold Quan, stood beside her, looking on in approbation. “And you trained our new investigators while you were at it! Very well done, sir. Very well done.”

  “Thank you, ma’am,” Ashton said with a cheerful smile. “I appreciate your and General Quan’s approval. But you know I’m doing it because people deserve to be safe.”

  “Of course we do, Lieutenant Investigator Ashton,” Peterson said. “And that’s all the more reason to approve.”

  “Oh, it’s more than approval, Ashton,” Quan added. “You’re coming up on the end of your time in grade, and that just demonstrated to us that you’re ready. You’re now officially Captain Investigator Dominick Ashton. Congratulations.”

  “Oh! Thank you, sir, ma’am!” Ashton said in pleased surprise. He took General Quan’s proffered hand and shook it, followed by Colonel Peterson’s.

  “You’re more than welcome, Nick,” Peterson said with a smile, reverting to informality now that the official moment had passed. “You’ve been a great investigator for us so far, and if you keep this up, I think you’re going to wind up topping out things, one of these days, not too terribly far in the future.”

  “Now, get with your team and the lot of you go out and celebrate,” Quan urged with a smile of his own.

  But it turned out that none of “the guys” were available.

  Except one.

  “Terrific! Congratulations!” Cally Ames declared. “Sure, I’d love to go out and celebrate with everybody! Sounds like fun!”

  “Nah, I gotta go home and see about laundry, or I won’t have any clean clothes to wear tomorrow. And you do not want me to show up buck naked!” Jones said with a smirk, shooting knowing glances at Smith, Weaver, and Compton. “Nor yet in already-worn clothes!”

  “Um, I promised my mom last weekend that I’d come over for dinner tonight,” Compton tried. “I haven’t seen her in almost a month, and she only lives a couple blocks from me. Maybe tomorrow?”

  “I’m meeting friends after work today,” Weaver declared. “We’ve got tickets to see a play. Yeah, tomorrow might work.”

  Everyone looked at Smith, who winced.

  “I had a glitch in my kitchen system this morning,” he explained, “and had to swing by and grab breakfast in the arcade, ‘cause nothing was working. I pinged the super in my apartment building, and he was sending a maintenance person by after work for repairs. I’m hoping none of the fresh stuff has spoiled, ‘cause I’d just done my bi-weekly grocery shopping...”

  “Oh geez, man,” Jones said, as the others all groaned. “That sucks.”

  “Yeah. I’m not sure what happened; I wonder if the thunderstorm last night threw a breaker or something.”

  “Could be,” Ashton agreed. “I hope it’s an easy fix, Johnny.”

  “Me too, Nick.”

  “Anyway, why don’t you an’ Cally go on out and grab a brew or two, an’ the rest of us will try to do something later in the week?” Jones suggested, clapping Ashton on the back. “An’ congrats, pal.”

  “Yeah, way to go! Congratulations!” the others chorused.

  Then they cleared out, and Ashton was left standing with a happy-looking Ames, silently cursing to himself.

  Nick decided to get through it by treating Cally like ‘one of the guys.’ Which, he considered, she was, after all. They headed out to the Laughing Cat Pub, going in the back door as usual. The ICPD’s favorite waiter George, spotting the two and recognizing Nick, promptly led them to the backmost back room, seated them in a corner booth, then pulled a movable wall across the opening, effectively creating a small private room just for them.

  That works, I guess, Nick decided. This way, at least we stay well out of sight.

  “So, what’s good here?” Cally wondered, picking up a menu and glancing over it.

  “Most of it, I’ve found,” Nick said. “I usually get a stout and the bacon double cheeseburger, extra fries, extra bacon.”

  “Heart attack on a plate? Sounds delish!” she laughed. “We’ll make it two.”

  The food was as good as Nick’s word, George was discreet and unobtrusive, and soon they were relaxed and chatting amiably. The burgers were large and juicy and filling, the stout hearty, cool and foamy, and when they were finished, both wanted dessert, but didn’t have room.

  “I got an idea,” Cally said. “Wanna split a piece of key lime pie? I love that stuff.”

  “So do I,” Nick agreed. “Let’s do it.”

  When they were finished, Cally insisted on paying.

  “No, no, it won’t do, Nick,” she said with a grin. “This is a celebration of your promotion! I’m not letting you pay for it! That’s my treat!”

  “All right, on one condition,” Nick decided.

  “What?”

  “You let me pay tomorrow night.”

  “Why, Nick Ashton, that almost sounds like you asked me on a date.”

  “…Almost.”

  “Then I accept.”

  He walked her home, before heading home himself.

  Reprisals

  Lee Carter and Maia Peterson were an established couple by this time, though they had not made things permanent as yet. In point of fact, Lee’s old-fashioned pride prevented him from formalizing their relationship – the fact that he had stagnated at the rank of captain while Maia made colonel meant that her income would always be significantly larger than his, when he wanted nothing more than to pamper and care for this woman he loved. When Maia even brought up the idea of adding him to her apartment’s security system, Lee balked rather decidedly. She therefore hesitated to bring up anything more official. And yet, she recognized, it didn’t seem to indicate the end of their relationship; he still wanted to be with her.

  Most nights found them together, in fact, either at his apartment or hers, though occasionally, when first-thing-in-the-morning schedules conflicted, they spent the night alone in their respective apartments. She supposed she needed to sit down and try to discuss the issue with him, to at least find out why he knee-jerked every time she brought it up. But she had yet to find the right opportunity to do so.

  Meanwhile, they had kept their relationship, if not completely secret, then intensely private and tightly under wraps. “Because I have a feeling we don’t need to draw attention to it,” Lee had told Maia, who had agreed; her own gut spoke to the same response – in Imperial City, retired IPD cops did well to keep their heads down, especially with shiny records like Carter’s.

  This night had been one of the “separate” nights, due to the fact that Maia had an early shift start for a meeting, and Lee had a dental appointment, followed by a sparring session at the dojo where he trained. They’d had dinner together at her place, caught up on each other’s days, then Lee had gone home.

  Now, after a very basic breakfast of the ubiquitous and ancient recipe for cold cereal and milk – though he had his specialties, in general Lee wasn’t as good a cook as Maia, so he kept it simple – he departed for that appointment.

  He never made it.

  After going along the hall and down the elevator to the lobby, Carter headed out the door of his apartment building and turned left, headed for the ramp down to the medical arcade level. He stepped aside, into the mouth of an alley, to allow his tired neighbor, loaded with shopping bags after getting off shift an hour earlier, to pass…

  …And felt an arm go around his throat from behind, from the alley to his rear.

  “Gotcha, Carter,” the ass
ailant murmured in his ear in a deep, smirking, male voice, as he pulled him deeper into the alley, out of sight from the street. “You’re done.”

  Lee Carter went into action.

  He slipped his left hand inside the arm around his throat, turned his head and bit the inner, upper arm as hard as he could until he tasted blood, and simultaneously drove his right heel down on his assailant’s instep. This was immediately followed by driving his right elbow back with all his strength, into his assailant’s floating ribs; he felt several snap.

  The man cried out, nearly screaming, as teeth penetrated skin, and tried to jerk back. Keeping his jaws tensed as tightly closed as he could, Carter forced the arm away from him, grabbing the wrist as he spun about, and spat torn cloth, raw flesh, and blood from his mouth. This time the other man did scream, but they were by this time deep in the alley and thanks to echoes off the masonry, any would-be witnesses would be uncertain of the sound’s direction.

  Besides, Carter thought, I don’t really want anybody seeing me do this. Not if I want to survive.

  A couple of solid punches with his right fist to his attacker’s face made a series of satisfying crunches, followed by a truly nasty-sounding pop, as the abused nose of Carter’s assailant broke in a gush of blood. Only then did the man drop the knife he had in his free hand in order to clutch his face, instinctively attempting to protect his nose. Carter kicked the knife aside, twisted, and threw the attempted murderer over his shoulder and into a nearby trash dumpster – there was a restaurant on the ground floor of his apartment building, and ordinances required exterior waste disposal and daily pick-up. He had no doubt but that it had been his intended resting place, but he slammed the open lid down and latched it without qualms. If his superiors or a passer-by happens to find him, fine, Carter thought. If not, I’m sure the trash compactor will take care of matters during pickup.

  He fumbled in his jacket pocket, pulling out an old pair of exam gloves and an evidence bag he used to keep there for crime scenes and had never remembered to remove, then walked over to the knife as he donned one of the gloves. He picked it up in the gloved hand, stowed it gingerly in the bag and the bag equally gingerly in his jacket pocket, removed the glove, then headed for the maintenance passage into the arcade below, effectively disappearing to all and sundry.

  Five minutes later, one of the restaurant workers came out to dispose of some waste, and was shocked to find someone inside the closed and latched dumpster, yelling and banging on it from within. He quickly opened the lid, and a man crawled out, cursing, his nose smashed to one side, blood streaming down his face and off the fingertips of one hand.

  “What in the name of all that is holy happened to you?” the restaurant worker asked, horrified at the look of him.

  “Damn mugger,” he grumbled, eyes darting to and fro. “Name’s Anton Davis. I just came from shopping and he took everything.”

  “Shall I call the police?”

  “…Yeah, you better.”

  Half an hour later, and finally out of her bureaucratic meeting, Maia Peterson got an emergency call on the private VR channel she’d reserved exclusively for Lee Carter. She closed the door to her office and locked it, then sat back down and “checked out,” as she entered the channel. His avatar waited for her in the classic nondescript room adorned with two leather wing chairs, and which they’d discussed upgrading and had yet to get around to it…

  …But Lee was pacing.

  And trembling. Avatars aren’t supposed to shake, are they? she thought briefly.

  “Lee! What’s wrong?”

  His avatar came to hers and grabbed it by the shoulders.

  “Forget all that guff I was giving you about adding me to your apartment security system the other night, Maia. Thank you, sweetheart. Twenty million times over.”

  “Huh?”

  “I’m in your apartment right now, and awfully damn glad to be here. Oh, and I used your mouthwash. Three times. Ieucch.”

  “What the hell are you talking about, Lee, and why did you send me an emergency call?”

  His avatar let go of her shoulders and began to pace again. She watched him, worried.

  “Well, either the IPD made Nick Ashton at some point in the last day or so, or they dug up something on me they don’t like, I’m not sure yet which,” he told her. “Somebody just accosted me right outside my apartment building, and given he had one arm around my throat, and the other hand held a big-ass knife, I don’t think he expected me to survive the encounter.”

  “WHAT?!” she almost screamed. “Are you okay?”

  “More or less, yeah,” Lee told her. “A little shaken – okay, a lot shaken – and maybe a few bruises on my knuckles. But he’s probably gonna need stitches where I took a bite outta his arm, not to mention having his busted nose set.”

  “So you got free and belted him a good one?”

  “Oh HELL yes! Then threw him into the restaurant dumpster for good measure.”

  “And now you’re at my place?” she confirmed. “Oh, now I get the mouthwash remark…”

  “Yeah, I am, and I might need to stay here, out of sight. Or, well, someplace other than my apartment. For a little while, at least.”

  “You took one of the clandestine routes, right?” she verified.

  “Hell yes.”

  “Okay, good. Lemme get hold of Adrian, who’s our disguise expert, and some of my trusted people, and we’ll just see about getting you moved in with me. I was gonna invite you anyway, at least until you got so bent out of shape about the security thing.” She shrugged. “I was still gonna bring up the subject and see how you reacted. And we need to talk about that, I guess. Are…are you okay with that? Moving in with me, I mean?”

  “Yeah, honey, I am. And yeah, we need to talk…because my reticence is, well, foolish, I guess. And I guess I need to make sure you understand it. But right now, I think you’re not just my lover, you’re my lifeline.”

  “And that’s fine. All of that. But you need to lay low while we work this, otherwise they’ll be after both of us. And I’ll give Nick a heads-up to watch his back, too.”

  “Sounds like a plan, Maia,” Lee agreed, finally slumping into the armchair in the VR room. Maia’s avatar wandered over and put a comforting hand on his shoulder. “Damn.”

  “Yeah. Stay put, right here, honey,” she told him, “and be compiling a list of what needs to be swiped out of your place and moved to mine. Meanwhile, I’m gonna contact my buddies.”

  “Okay.”

  In short order, Adrian Mott – who had impersonated Nick Ashton some years earlier, when he purportedly left Sintar for “training” – met with Peterson and Inspector Eugene Demetrius in her office; she’d also called Detective Stefan Gorski, but he’d been out at a robbery scene. She’d filled them in on what had happened in VR when she notified them to come to her office; while she was waiting for them to arrive, she’d likewise notified Nick Ashton of the attempt on Carter… without telling him where Carter was hiding. Because he’s a target, too, and he doesn’t need to know, or he could accidentally give away both of us if they get to him, she considered. But Gene’s an old pal who can get into the apartment, and he knows Lee, so that should work.

  Twenty minutes later, Mott and Demetrius were thoroughly disguised and on their way to Peterson’s apartment to make sure Carter was indeed all right, then assist in covertly transporting his essential belongings to Peterson’s place.

  “…No, I’m afraid not, Cally,” Ashton told Ames in the break room in private, fifteen minutes later. “Something bad almost went down early this morning, and my old bosses might be after me. I need to lay low for a while, and I need to stay away from my friends, at least in public. One almost got hurt, maybe killed, as it was. I don’t want to get anybody else in a bad place, let alone hurt.”

  “I could come over to your place, and bring dinner…”

  “No, I was supposed to pay, remember?” Never mind the fact that I’m not ready to have a girl over
to my home, he thought. Not after Tabby. Not yet. I gotta get past some trust issues, first.

  “Well, then you could come over…no, you’re supposed to be staying out of sight…”

  “Right. So let’s just put it on hold, and see what’s going down. If it doesn’t actually have to do with me, we can try again later. It may only be a few days; try to be patient.”

  “All right,” Cally said with a sigh.

  “Yeah, I saw him,” Carter told the disguised Demetrius as he and Mott verified Carter’s condition at Maia’s apartment shortly thereafter. “Full-on face, after which I busted his nose pretty thoroughly. And yeah, I know him. It was Switch Sykes.”

  “Mm,” Demetrius murmured. “Definite Imperial Police ties, there. He’s been suspected of being used for several assassinations, but because of his connections, we haven’t been able to nail him.”

  “Yup, don’t I know it,” Carter sighed. “Which means I need to stay out of sight for a while.”

  “You broke his nose?” Mott verified.

  “Oh hell yes. And took a significant plug outta his arm, into the bargain. If you go back to that alley, you can probably find the piece I bit out of him, complete with teeth marks, by way of some DNA evidence. I also managed to bust some of the floating ribs – I heard and felt ‘em crunch – and might have done a number on his foot, too.”

  “What the hell did you do?!” Demetrius wanted to know, and Carter laughed grimly.

  “I refused to turn into a couch potato just because I retired,” he replied. “I’ve got belts going all the way up to black in a couple of different martial arts, and a dojo where I keep in shape and form. Picked up at least two belts since I retired.”

  “I’ll bet Maia helped with a little of that,” Demetrius murmured, a sly grin on his face. Carter snorted.

  “Hey, she didn’t hurt. But yeah, sometimes she spars with me. She’s not somebody to mess with, either.”