by Jaxon Reed
“That is correct. Under Section 14 of the regulatory statutes, permission to enter a residence or other structure is not required if an officer of the law believes someone inside is in need of assistance.”
The droid smiled at Applegate and turned back to the camera over the door.
“Is Mr. Goodman in need of assistance?”
“What? No. Mr. Goodman is not here.”
“How do we know you are not holding him captive?”
“Holding him . . .? No, I’m telling you, he’s not here.”
“If he is being held captive, he wouldn’t be able to tell us he’s okay.”
“What? What?”
The droid’s tone grew more threatening.
“Let Mr. Goodman speak right now, or I will presume his life is in danger!”
“Now, wait a minute . . .”
“Mr. Goodman! Are you alright? I’m coming in, Mr. Goodman!”
“Wait! Stop!”
The droid stepped back and lifted her leg.
BAM!
The door flew open.
She drew her gun and walked inside.
The agents outside stared at each other in confusion.
“Do not follow her,” Applegate said, holding his hand up to the others.
“Mr. Goodman!”
An armed guard ran into the living room and shot at her.
The bolt glanced off her shoulder.
She dove to the floor and shot back.
Thip! Thip!
The two little bolts seared into the guard’s face and he went down.
Four more ran into the room, guns blazing.
Thoop! Thoop! Thoop! Thoopah!
This was too much even for Applegate. The other agents rushed through the door and shot back.
The AOJ standard issue weapon fired a smaller bolt, but with 20 guns they were able to take out the four guards without too many problems. Three agents suffered injuries.
Two of the gunmen died, mainly because those were the two the droid shot. Her precise aiming compensated for the gun’s weak power.
The droid stood, smoke coming from her shoulder where she covered it with her hand.
She said, “Search the premises. Locate Griff Goodman and bring him here.”
The agents nodded and spread out, guns ready, as they began systematically searching the mansion.
Applegate sighed, but did not try and stop them.
“That was a dirty trick,” he said to the droid.
She shrugged and said, “I’m going to get this shoulder looked at.”
The droid walked out, heading back to the cars.
-+-
It turned out Goodman was at home. Agents found him in a safe room, hidden and locked away behind the main bedroom.
Assistant Director Wilcox showed back up with a bandage on her shoulder just in time to help them with the locks. She yanked open the control panel and rerouted the wires to hook into the house’s main circuits, where they could be accessed by PLAIR. Then she ordered PLAIR to open the safe room’s door.
A heavy metal panel slowly swished back, revealing a tiny room stocked with food and water.
An older man stared at her in horror, dressed only in his bathrobe. Evidently he had hurried inside the safe room when they broke in, before he could get proper clothes on.
The droid said, “Griff Goodman? You’re under arrest.”
-+-
Goodman’s detention led to a treasure trove of data. Most of the Meister’s books were found unencrypted on the mansion’s servers. Those who saw it suspected it would take a small army of agents months to go through them all.
Back at HQ, now properly dressed in a dark suit imported from Italia, Goodman sat unrestrained in an interrogation room with his human lawyer and two lawyer bots owned by the firm representing him.
Outside, Montoya, Applegate and the droid looked at the holo showing them sitting and waiting.
“I’m not going in there,” Applegate said, turning to the droid. “You did this. You are responsible for all of this. You go in there and deal with his legal team.”
She smiled at him and patted him on the cheek, making him turn red again.
Then she went in the door and sat down at the table across from the men and the bots.
The human lawyer, a stately man of about 50 years of age wearing a pair of purely decorative square glasses on his face, said, “You will be releasing my client immediately.”
She ignored him and stared at Goodman.
“Tell me who called the hit on the AD. The one you sent Wilco to carry out.”
“Don’t answer that,” the lawyer said. He turned to the droid and said, “You have illegally invaded my client’s domicile. You have shot and killed and seriously injured his employees. You are in a lot of trouble, young lady.”
The droid continued ignoring the lawyer.
She said, “I have details on every financial transaction your organization has made the last 20 years, Mr. Goodman. I know that nearly a quarter of all the city’s prostitutes work for you. I know that you coerced many of them into the sex business, and that you’re keeping some of them at work against their will.”
The lawyer’s face dropped at these remarks but she did not look at him, reserving her glare only for Goodman.
“I know that every credit for one checkout center at Harry’s Commemorative Store on 43rd goes straight to you. I know that you pay seven out of eight city council members 100,000 credits every year, supposedly as a campaign donation, and that’s been going on for at least two decades.
“I also know about the anonymous ‘donations’ to the Kruger campaign. Or, are they really bribes?”
No one said anything now, the lawyer staring at her along with Goodman.
“I know about all that. I’m your worse nightmare, Mr. Goodman. You never expected anyone to come inside your house and raid your private servers, did you? They are air gapped and completely off the grid. Nobody had a legal leg to stand on to come inside and grab them. You felt pretty safe. But it was pretty foolish, if you ask me.
“Because I’ve got you in a vise. And I like to squeeze . . . hard.”
Goodman swallowed, his Adam’s apple bobbing nervously in his throat.
The droid said, “Now . . . tell me who called for the hit on me, and all this knowledge I have goes away. Server records . . . everything. Nothing from this data will be used to prosecute you in the future.”
The law bots both protested at once, citing statutes on undue coercion, inadmissibility of statements under duress and questionable evidence. The human lawyer nodded, agreeing with them.
Goodman held up a hand, and they stopped.
He said, “Do I have your word on that?”
“You have my word as the Assistant Director of AOJ. Tell me what I want to know and you can walk out of here a free man.”
Goodman sat back in his chair, ignoring the pointed stare his lawyer gave him.
Finally he turned to the attorney and said, “Is this viable?”
His lawyer nodded, reluctantly, and said, “Well . . . yes. If PLAIR agrees to keep the recording, we will have proof that a non-prosecutorial agreement was made. That needs to with an upper-level administrator, of which she is one.”
“PLAIR, will you keep the recording of this conversation?”
The AI’s voice came down from the ceiling.
“Yes I will, Mr. Goodman.”
He stared at the droid in silence for a long moment.
Finally Goodman sighed and said, “Dermot Kruger called for your hit. He’s been tampering with AOJ for years. You won’t find a recording of him discussing it with me, nor will you find a direct trail leading to him. But, if you get ahold of the Progressive Party’s unredacted financial records you’ll find a lot of cash flowing to certain companies I own. That’s how he paid for it.”
The droid smiled and said, “So you’re telling me who is responsible, but with no proof to back it up.”
“That�
�s right. That’s the way it works in this business. You don’t survive long otherwise.”
“Says the man with unencrypted servers at his house.”
He shrugged and said, “No one’s perfect. I believe I’m allowed to go now, am I not?”
She nodded and everybody stood up.
The door to the interrogation room opened and they all walked out.
Applegate said, “What’s going on?”
The lawyer and Goodman ignored him, walking out to the hall and the elevators followed by the law bots.
Gina’s droid came out and Applegate said, “Where are they going?”
“They’re leaving.”
The elevator dinged and everybody moved to enter a pod.
Goodman turned and said, “Remember our arrangement, Ms. Wilcox.”
The bot waved at him and said, “I gave my word as Assistant Director.”
He nodded and the door shut.
The droid left, saying nothing to Applegate who stared at her.
Up in her office on the tenth floor with the door closed, she said, “PLAIR, you understand I am not really an Assistant Director, do you not?”
“I do indeed. The arrangement with Mr. Goodman is not binding on the AOJ.”
“Good. So long as we understand each other.”
33
“Idiot!”
Stormy walked into the spacious garage lounge of her building and found Evan Edge splayed out on a sofa in the same clothes he wore yesterday.
He had evidently climbed out of the sports car, which was parked crookedly and off its pad apart from the other vehicles, then crawled to the couch where he passed out still wearing Severs’s face.
“You freaking idiot!”
She kicked the sofa hard, waking him up with a jolt.
Edge fluttered his eyes open, and quickly shielded them from the light with his arm.
“Wha . . .? What’s going on?”
“You were supposed to make him look bad, not paint him in a positive light!”
“I did, I did.”
Edge sat up on the couch, his head swimming. He rubbed his eyes and yawned. Then he covered his face to block out the light.
“I grabbed a couple of prostitutes and made him look like a fool dancing in the streets.”
Stormy made a motion with her hand, turning on the lounge’s holo showing the news. The artificial announcer’s voice drifted over video taken from pedestrians the night before.
“. . . and we are being told that several eye witnesses place the real Admiral Severs at a fundraising dinner last night. The voiceprint on this impersonator also does not match with the real person. So once again, this not the actual Admiral Severs, just somebody made to look like him.”
On the screen, Edge lurched into a drunken dance move, the scantily clad prostitutes beside him joining in the fun. Together they danced down the street, drawing stares.
He stopped and pointed at the person making the recording. His eyes met the camera.
“Gitcha some!”
The announcer’s voice came back on as the dancing resumed.
“‘Gitcha some!’ has become a popular new catchphrase on social media. Overnight polls are showing a sharp spike in Admiral Severs’ popularity, especially among younger voters . . .”
Stormy made another gesture and the holo switched off.
“You moron! You were supposed to damage his reputation, not make him look good!”
“I thought I was!” Edge said, waking up more. “I had those hookers with me and I grabbed some boobs and made a fool of myself. Of him, I mean. Come on, that should wreck his chances. How was I to know that all that could be turned into something positive?”
“You couldn’t know, because you were drunk. You didn’t think about it, you just acted.”
“Well who’s going to vote for a drunk who dances in the street with whores?”
“Evidently enough people to get him elected Chancellor unless we can do something about it. Idiot!”
She turned and marched out of the room, the door swishing shut behind her.
Edge followed her with his eyes, a huge ache starting to throb in his forehead.
He rubbed above his eyes and said, “Why’s it gotta be our job to tilt the election?”
-+-
The holo had the news on when Collier walked into Wilcox’s place, bringing back lunch for everybody. She and Boggs were taking turns to go fetch meals rather than have a drone deliver them. Today was her turn.
As she walked in, the announcer summed up the top story of the moment.
“And ‘Gitcha some!’ has become the unofficial catchphrase for the Severs campaign, spreading rapidly to every planet in the Republic as his popularity surges in the polls . . .”
“That is so stupid,” Collier said, handing a box lunch to Wilcox and another one to Boggs. Both were watching the holo. “How can polls go up based on a catchphrase? A stupid little catchphrase. And the guy who said it wasn’t even Severs!”
Wilcox said, “I know. Conspiracy theorists are suggesting Admiral Severs’ campaign is actually behind it all, that they paid the impersonator to act like him to help his chances.”
“How would that help?” Boggs said.
Wilcox shrugged.
She said, “All most people have seen of the Admiral is his pronouncements about the war, or maybe a speech given while he was standing beside Cole. To watch him having fun, literally dancing in the streets after a few drinks and spouting off nonsense, has humanized him for lack of a better term.”
“If getting drunk and dancing with prostitutes gets him elected, you’ll see every politician from now on doing that,” Collier said.
Wilcox nodded, watching a different video taken from another angle.
She said, “Personally, I think this is the same guy who shot up Isaac Newton’s. I suspect he’s out there trying to make Severs look bad. But he got drunk and failed. This stunt backfired on the Black Goggle Gang, presuming they’re the same people doing this.”
“If he failed,” Collier said, “That means he’ll try something else, right? Or the gang will.”
Wilcox said, “Probably. And they’ll try to act quickly, if they can. They’ll attempt to stem the damage done to their mission objective, if they’re trying to swing the tide against Severs.”
Collier said, “Could they be trying to swing it against Kruger instead? I mean, this really made Severs’ poll numbers spike.”
“No. If that were the case, they would not have used Severs’ and Cole’s faces to go on those crime sprees. This was an accident. I’m sure he really is drunk in that video. He probably thought this was a good idea. And because of that, I think Boggs is right. They’re going to strike again to try and correct their error. And they’ll strike soon.”
“What are we going to do about it?” Boggs said.
“Let’s keep trying to find them. There’s only 20 buildings or so that I haven’t gotten a good look at. Eat up. Let’s get out there and hit the streets.”
34
That afternoon, Wilcox gave up on her plan of finding the Black Goggle Gang by scanning all buildings in the area. Nothing stuck out to her, as far as she could tell. All were being used for legitimate purposes from her vantage point down on the street.
Back at the Phantom’s old hideout as the sun sank lower in the sky, she sat down with Collier and Boggs to commiserate.
“Are we sure they’re even in this neighborhood?” Collier said.
Wilcox nodded and said, “It makes too much sense. Why go to all the trouble to disguise this whole area and hide entire city blocks from observation, then never use it? No, they’re here. Somewhere.”
Boggs said, “So, how are they coming and going undetected? They’re using vehicles equipped with camo units, right?”
Wilcox nodded.
Collier said, “Those cars are probably parked on a rooftop somewhere. Why don’t we fly around under the field and see if there’s some black sports cars
out there?”
“That’s a great idea!” Boggs said.
“I thought of it already,” Wilcox said. “I flew out yesterday after you two left and went over the entire area. There’s only a couple of buildings with vehicles on them. One is the meat packer plant. The other is the customization shop. Neither one has what we’re looking for.”
“Maybe they’re parked with the camo units left on,” Boggs said, raising his eyebrows with the idea.
“No. I have some classified tech to check for that,” Wilcox said. “I did, and there’s no camo units active on all the rooftops. I wish there were, that’d make it easier.”
Boggs and Collier shared a glance. They had discussed in private how the AD seemed to know certain things that she had not bothered sharing with them. Her statement about classified technology backed up those suspicions.
Collier refocused on the problem at hand.
She said, “If their cars are not parked on the roof, and they’re not parked on the street . . . they’re inside somewhere. How are we going to look inside all those buildings?”
Boggs snapped his fingers.
He said, “They probably are using rooftop doors. I bet their top floor is a garage.”
Collier said, “So, we just need to examine the top floors of all the buildings?”
“There’s a faster way,” Wilcox said. She touched her implant and brought up a holo showing a three dimensional map of the entire area.
“The meat packer plant is the tallest building around at seven stories. That’s under the reflection field. We’ll put a 360-degree camera up there and watch and see what happens. If some rooftop doors open and close mysteriously, or we see black cars flying in and out, we’ll narrow our search.”
Collier nodded in approval.
Boggs said, “That’ll work.”
After a speedy trip to AOJ HQ and back, Boggs brought in a 360-degree surveillance camera on loan from the Technology Department.
“I still don’t see why we can’t ask PLAIR who’s going in and out,” he said, handing over the pie-sized unit to Wilcox.
“Because they are bypassing PLAIR somehow. Part of it has to do with those black market implants they’re using. And part of it has to do with the fact that if they are League citizens, PLAIR has to go to StarCen to get their biographical details. And StarCen was corrupted in the war, especially in the final days. So, PLAIR either gets erroneous info from her or none at all when looking at their DNA, irises, and fingerprints.”