by K. C. Sivils
A lone man stood waiting on the platform. I didn’t need my cybernetic eye to recognize him as the train approached. I'd know the man anywhere, the posture, the way his mere stance conveyed his sense of superiority. The Space Marine uniform didn't hurt either.
“Hey, you two,” I growled softly, turning to see if Josephson and Sarah had heard me.
Their silent looks of expectation told me they had.
“See that Marine?”
They both glanced through the window and then back at me, nodding they had.
"Don't talk to him. If he asks a question, give a non-answer. If he presses you, refer the matter to me. Have I made myself clear?"
Again, the pair nodded.
“Sarah, you stay with me when we get off the coach. Josephson, you get our equipment and then find me.”
Sarah remained silent. Josephson just nodded, not wanting to irritate me further. The other passengers began standing up and collecting their possessions as the train smoothly rolled to a stop. The door in the vestibule at the end of the coach opened automatically, extending steps down to the platform. I stood still, letting the other passengers in our coach bound for Brownstown get off first.
I watched my old CO scan the passengers as they hurried to the waiting room door. He stood still with his hands in the pockets of his greatcoat, moving only his head slightly as he surveyed the individuals passing by. He waited patiently, glancing down the platform.
I descended the steps and marched over to my old CO. I noted the oak clusters on his collar designating he’d made major since we’d last seen each other.
“Major,” I snapped brusquely.
He turned slowly to look at me.
“Inspector I believe,” he replied evenly, holding his gaze as he examined my face. His own showed signs of having aged, which was to be expected I suppose. What I hadn’t expected was the lines around his eyes, the sadness that seemed to emanate from his arrogant blue eyes.
“You requested my presence.”
“You haven’t changed Sullivan,” he sighed. “Which was exactly what I was hoping for.”
CHAPTER THREE
Silence blanketed our walk to the crime scene. There wasn't anything I wanted to say, and the Major wasn't talking. Sarah followed in total silence. When I turned to sneak a glance at her, I wasn't surprised by what I saw. She moved gracefully, carefully leaving the least noticeable trail in the snow blown on the sidewalk by the constant, bone chilling wind from the west. Sarah was also taking in every detail as she moved, no doubt planning her escape if necessary.
I was still irritated with Josephson for booking passage by train when we could have flown. So I let him struggle with his suitcase and the several boxes of forensic tools we’d brought with us.
Our path followed a rail siding traveling due west. After nearly a kilometer's walk, I began to wonder why the Major had arrived alone and without a hovercar. He must have read my mind.
“I wanted to meet you alone Sullivan,” Kilgore said evenly. “Don’t worry about covering for me, because in case you’re wondering, that’s not why I insisted you be assigned to the case.”
“Don’t worry, Major,” I replied with my best sarcastic tone and smile. “It will be my pleasure to see you escorted to the brig if at all possible.”
I was disappointed when he didn’t even flinch at my response. In the past, any snarky, disrespectful comment would have rated a ten-minute tongue-lashing.
"Sullivan, I need to keep a lid on this," he replied in his monotone. "Something's going on, and it scares me."
He stopped and turned to stare at me, pausing for a few seconds before speaking again.
"I'm not the same officer. Let's leave it at that. This isn't a simple murder. I need an outsider to find out what happened. I don't want a military cover up. Both of us know how those work."
---
Father Nathan watched as the assorted street urchins ate their hot breakfast. In the past few months, their number had grown to nearly two dozen. The faces changed from day to day, but the number remained steady. A warm place to sleep and a hot breakfast had a way of doing that.
In minutes they would make their way out into the cold, mean streets of Capital City. Away from the warmth and safety of the dormitory on the grounds of the Anglican Church where he served as vicar.
“It’s one way to grow a parish.”
He turned to see Alice, the waitress who usually waited on him and his friend Inspector Sullivan when they ate their evening meal together at Joe’s, the local tavern and restaurant.
“Yes, Alice. It is. Though I don’t think this approach is what the Archbishop had in mind when he installed me here.”
“People are noticing, Father. Give them time. It’s not like the people in this city are a religious bunch.”
Alice’s kind words made him laugh.
“They’d notice more if I could get the little hoodlums to stop picking their pockets.
---
Grimacing from the cold, the engineer pulled his head back in and closed the cab window. Slapping his hands together repeatedly, he raised them to his mouth to blow into them in a vain effort to warm them.
“If you’d quit opening that blasted window, we’d be warm.”
Turning to look at the brakeman, the engineer laughed.
“You want to be wandering around out in that? Be my guest. It’s your job, not mine.”
“Okay, you got me there” the brakeman complained. “When we get back, I’m booking off this run. This military stuff gives me the willies. No using comm devices and having to pass hand signals. If the union knew about this, they’d red flag this branch.”
"Naw, you know how it is. Union boss got his from whomever, so we got to do the run. Never mind how dangerous this is. Snow, ice, no comm, passing hand signals. That stuff was outlawed, what, four, maybe five hundred years ago?”
The sound of boots clambering up the ladder to the door of the locomotive silenced the pair. Freezing cold air with a flurry of snowflakes exploded into the cab as the conductor opened the door and hurried in, shutting it behind him. Covered with tiny specks of ice and snow, he stomped his feet to loosen the snow. Rubbing his gloved hands together he finally extended his arms and gave his entire body one big shake.
“We got the all clear. Time to go. Remember, no lights and no horn till we reach the mainline.”
---
Rumbling sounds filled the air as a powerful diesel-electric engine revved up. I stopped and looked in the direction of the sound as did Sarah and Josephson.
“This is part of what is strange,” the Major said softly. “That’s a freight train. The siding over there runs to the military base where my Marine unit is attached. Look, tell me what you see that’s strange.”
I looked in the general direction Kilgore pointed. In the distance my right eye detected a huge, dark mass moving at a walking pace. Without gaining speed, more of the short freight train appeared from behind buildings in the distance, moving across what seemed to be a snow-covered field. The locomotives plow tossing the powdery snow aside like the bow of a boat cutting through water.
“No running lights,” I said aloud without realizing I’d even thought of the answer to his question.
“Highly illegal,” Josephson blurted out. “All trains in motion must…”
The quickly raised hand of the Major silenced Josephson’s outburst. Kilgore motioned for us to follow as the rumble of the train grew distant.
In a few minutes, we approached an out building located close to the now visible track. Lights a few hundred meters away pierced the growing darkness, indicating the location of the military base.
Crunching snow alerted us to the presence of a lone Marine guard. He came to attention and saluted the Major.
“Has anyone been here in my absence Private Alphonse?”
“No sir, Major.”
“Very well. You are relieved. Make sure Sergeant Maxwell has another sentry posted by 1900 hours. I w
ill remain on location until then.”
The private nodded, happy to be relieved of guard duty early. As he secured his weapon, he gave me a quick once-over and then Josephson. Like all Marines, he took his time examining Sarah, giving her a smile and a wave, which she ignored, as he departed in the direction of the base.
“Where’s the crime scene?”
“It starts inside. I didn’t touch anything. There have been two guards posted. The one you just saw and another private before him. Punishment detail of sorts.”
“Who found the body?”
“I did,” Kilgore answered. “A private went missing at roll call yesterday morning. I have a small detachment of SPs. I sent two of them looking. Within an hour one of the SPs was back with the private who is now in the brig for going AWOL.”
“How long before you noticed your SP was missing?” I asked.
“I got worried after another two hours passed. Couldn’t raise him on his comm. We have great comm gear. I got worried and went looking for him myself. The door was open. I found him and then I requested you.”
“Does the base commander know?”
“She does now. I gave you a six-hour lead before I informed her. I didn’t realize you’d be traveling by train.”
“Yeah, well, about that…”
“I know Sullivan. Bureaucracies everywhere try to pinch pennies.”
I let it go at that, noting Josephson’s look of relief.
“Is the body inside?”
"No, the door got my attention, but when I looked, there was nobody inside. The snow had been disturbed, not that you can tell now with this insufferable wind blowing. The body is over here. I put up a wind screen to force the wind around the body.”
I nodded in response to the Major and walked with him along the side of the building toward the now obvious windscreen.
“Sure enough, one bona fide dead Shore Patrol officer,” I muttered to no one in particular.
“Two shots center mass and one to the head,” I noted. “He was dead before he hit the ground.”
I stood over the corpse and turned the body on its side. “How long have you known this SP?”
“Not long,” the Major answered. “He appeared with papers less than a week ago. I hadn’t requested any additional SPs. We didn’t need him. I thought at first it was a punitive assignment for screwing up, you know, sending him to this frozen hell. But his record was blank.”
My mental paranoia kicked off into overdrive as I stepped away from the body, gently lowering it back to the ground as I did so.
“Sarah!”
I turned to see my mysterious female assistant running away. Josephson, who had called her name, chased after the surprisingly fleet woman.
“She’s never seen a dead body before?”
“She’s seen plenty, Major. She’s seen plenty,” I said grimly.
“Something spooked her.”
I looked at the Major, trying to get a read on his thoughts. "Probably the same thing that frightened you."
From a distance, we could hear Josephson pleading with Sarah to return. With both arms folded across her chest and a determined side-to-side shaking of the head, it was evident I was going to have to find out what had spooked my already jittery assistant personally.
I left the major with the body and took my time walking in the ice-crusted snow. The sun had gone down for the evening, and the temperature was plummeting. If I was going to get anything out of Sarah, I had to keep my temper and control my tongue.
Not the easiest of tasks for me.
“I’m not going back over there,” Sarah said with firm defiance.
“You don’t have to,” I replied. “But you are going to tell me just what spooked you so bad.”
“Nope. Am not. Sully, you promised me this job would be pretty safe.”
“Sarah, the guy’s dead,” I answered; annoyed Sarah had picked this moment to have one of her sometimes bizarre displays of stubbornness.
“I can see that,” she declared, her body language that of a defiant teenager.
Josephson stepped back, giving the two of us more space. The expression on his face indicated he clearly did not want to become collateral damage.
“Look, Sarah, I have a job to do.”
“I know you do. But this was not what I signed on for when I agreed to work for you.”
I had to count to ten. I don't do well with women in general, and stubborn ones really get under my skin.
“Just tell me what spooked you. Then I will have Josephson escort you to the hotel we’re staying in.”
“Nope. I’m going back to Capital City on the next train or hoverplane. Whichever leaves the soonest.”
“Uh, Sarah, unless you plan to walk back, you’re going to have to stay with us tonight,” Josephson said in an apologetic tone of voice. “Nothing leaving until mid-morning, either way.”
If Sarah was scared before, she became more so at Josephson's announcement. Shaking from fear, not cold, Sarah ran to me and clutched my great coat with both hands.
I watched as Sarah frantically looked all around, looking for the source of her sudden terror. Still gripping my great coat in both of her hands Sarah looked up at me, eyes pleading.
“There will be a hunter here,” she whispered.
“A hunter?”
I thought back to her ramblings the first time we’d ever talked. Fear was Sarah’s constant companion.
“You mean?”
“Sully, the dead man’s a clone. Just like me.”
CHAPTER FOUR
Dead bodies generally don’t bother me. I’ve seen enough of them. But some of them stick with you. Can’t be helped I suppose. You just can’t unsee some of the horrors I’ve seen. The helpless victims always bother me. So do children.
There was nothing particularly gruesome about the dead SP. He’d died almost instantly, limiting the amount of blood loss. Beta Prime’s frigid temperatures had frozen the dead SPs body quickly enough. We’d have to get the corpse back to Capital City for Bones to give an accurate time of death.
I was taking the good Major’s word for the approximate time of death.
What troubled me was Sarah’s reaction to seeing the body. She was hardly a stranger to death and violence. Major Kilgore didn’t raise an eyebrow when I informed him of Sarah’s suspicions. He just stood silently in the cold, scanning the area near the crime scene.
“Sarah, please come here,” I shouted, motioning vigorously for her to return. She responded like a spoiled child, not the adult she physically appeared to be. By stomping her right foot, folding her arms across her chest again and providing another stubborn display of head shaking from side to side, Sarah did a fantastic impression of being an overgrown five-year old.
“That tears it,” I muttered.
I used every centimeter of my long strides to move quickly to where Sarah, still accompanied by Josephson, was throwing her tantrum.
“I don’t believe you.”
“Believe what you want, Sully.”
“There is no hunter. That SP just stumbled across a drug deal he shouldn’t have or maybe a black market dealer buying weapons from someone at the base.”
I wanted to take the words back as soon as they left my troublesome tongue. Sarah looked away, trying to disguise the hurt in her eyes. With just a few words, what trust I had built with her evaporated into the frozen air.
"Just prove it to me, and I'll believe you," I snarled, trying to bail myself out.
“About the hunter?”
“About all of it. Prove to me our victim is a clone. Because Sarah, I can’t tell.”
Casting her glance at Josephson for support, Sarah only received a noncommittal shrug from my official partner.
“Okay, but you have to draw your weapon. And Josephson has to draw his and keep a look out while I show you. The Major too,” Sarah answered, oozing petulance.
It seemed like a fair enough compromise. I was cold, angry and growing more paranoid
by the minute. Sarah spooked easily. But given her crazy claim, I had to give her a chance to prove it.
Looking around, I adjusted my right eye for the weather and light conditions and did a 360-degree sweep, searching for movement, texture variation, and heat signature. I made a show of doing so, hoping it would calm Sarah enough to get her back to the corpse. All I got for my troubles was a hateful glare.
“Draw your weapon,” she demanded. “The hunter won’t be in the open and will be wearing shielded clothes.”
I pulled my .50 caliber chemically powered kinesthetic energy weapon, an old school revolver. Nothing like a large lead projectile slamming into a human body to do massive damage to anyone I felt like doing extensive damage to.
Josephson hurriedly pulled his phase pistol, to which I shook my head. Losing his hip and going through the painful replacement, skin grafts and physical therapy hadn't been enough for him to realize a lead projectile didn't just kill the bad guy; it knocked him down in the process. Phase weapons just burned away tissue and bone till somebody fell.
Appeased for the moment, Sarah grabbed me by my left elbow and hurriedly pulled me toward the waiting, frozen corpse.
---
As the rumble of the locomotive’s engine lowered, the brakeman opened the door and peered out into the cold. Without speaking to the other two crewmen, he turned and climbed down the ladder from the cab. A few minutes passed before the door to the cab opened again.
“What’s the problem?”
The brakeman shot a nasty look at the conductor. “Frozen switch.”
“Should have taken the de-icer with you.”
Responding with the centuries old universal gesture informing the conductor to reproduce with himself, the brakeman pulled the heavy device from its storage locker and pulled the thick straps over his shoulders, allowing him to carry it like a pack.