Brett nodded. Having recently had near-total freedom to conduct his first investigation, it felt odd being on the receiving end of instructions again. He was beginning to understand why Alana was the way she was. The task he was assigned would be long, tedious, and perhaps fruitless, but if the roles were reversed, he would have to assign someone to do it, and a dispassionate order was probably preferable to a sympathetic request.
Alana added, “If you don’t turn up anything, let me know immediately, and I’ll try to get hold of some additional footage from Sports Central. That may require a warrant or a subpoena, depending on whether they want to cooperate.”
Rhys interjected, “The reporter who found the bodies, Jenkins, might be a good place to start.”
Annoyed at the situation that she had created by first accepting, and then backing away from, Jenkins’ dinner invitation, Alana said, “I’m aware of that, Detective. But thank you for the input.”
Rhys raised an eyebrow at the curt rebuff, but he neither said nor did anything to betray what he might have been thinking.
Alana looked at the Hispanic detective, “I want DI Alvarez and his team to keep identifying the kidnap victims. I’m afraid that I’m going to need to peel DI Washington away from you, at least for now.”
Alvarez nodded, clearly as disappointed as he was exhausted from double-shifts.
Inspector Washington asked, “What do you want me to do instead, ma’am?”
Alana said, “I need you to monitor the surveillance resources we have in place at Louis Chu’s home. So far, it doesn’t look as if he’s been there since we set up the stakeout. He might have already fled the area, and there is evidence to support that. If he has gone, I want to find out where so we can pick him up for questioning. His sister is living in the same household, so be sure to review her phone logs in case he calls her. If you want to use a big board for that, you can work in here. Everything is already linked to the whiteboard.” She gestured behind her at the dozen-odd open video and audio monitor windows on the video wall.
Rhys asked, “What about me?”
“I want you to issue an all-ports detention bulletin on Louis Chu. He’s not to leave the country, assuming he hasn’t already. Then try to find out where he is so we can bring him in.”
Brett asked, “What will you be doing, ma’am?”
Alana looked at Chief Bennett, who was nodding expectantly. She said, “I’ll be attending a well-deserved refresher course in basic SWAT team employment.” She looked around the room, making eye contact with each of the other detectives before finishing, “After that, I’ll return to my office. Ping my Vira if any news breaks before then. Keep up the good work.”
Alana walked out of the situation room and down the hall to Conference Room Two, which was where she was scheduled to have her remedial and punitive class on the basic procedures she had neglected to follow at the dockyards. She was not the only one to be on the receiving end of Bennett’s ire. Kyeong, the SWAT team leader, was already there, with a notepad and stylus in hand. Alana took her seat and the lesson began. Adding insult to injury, the instructor was a Joebot. Two hours of monotone instruction and condescendingly trite videos later, the pair emerged from the room. They both paused momentarily as the door slid shut behind them.
Alana said, “I don’t think I’ve ever seen you without your tactical gear.”
Kyeong asked, “Are you going to the service?”
Alana nodded, “Least I can do.”
“It wasn’t your fault. Nobody in SWAT blames you. If anyone’s responsible, it’s me. I should have issued at least one anti-material rifle in case there were any Joebots, but I figured standard firepower would be enough to deal with them. I never expected a mech.”
“Who could have? It’s not as if you can buy one at retail. I did want to thank you for busting up the other warehouse, their hideout. Despite going in light, if you hadn’t acted quickly, like you and MacGruder did, they might have slipped away. They could have driven across the Mexican or Canadian border in that diplomatic limo and no one would have stopped them.”
Kyeong asked, “Why didn’t they? It was several days before Detective Rhys tracked them down to that building.”
Alana said, “I can only ascribe that to human error. It’s ironic, though; that when you were getting into the elevator with Maggie, he mentioned ‘payback,’ and that was exactly what those men were working on. Instead of fleeing, they went after the man who tipped us off. Is that a male thing? A male fight-or-flight reflex?”
Kyeong shrugged, “Depends on the male, I guess. No matter what, I guess we’ll both be calling for adequate backup before we do anything like those two raids again. See you at fourteen-hundred, ma’am?”
Alana nodded and turned right as the troop commander turned left. She had entertained the possibility of taking a lunch break, of trying to find something close to the police station that she had not tried yet, of attempting to get into an almost human routine of eating regular meals, even though she did not need them. The ability to dine, to taste again, had led to some profound changes in her behavior. Not only did she frequently gorge on the widest variety of dishes possible, she also made certain that the detectives and officers working under her supervision had opportunities to eat as well. Before she had been resurrected with a food-processing unit, she would often neglect to provide her charges with the chance to partake of food, even during long shifts. Today, however, with her mandatory, remedial class having run longer than she expected, it was already one-thirty in the afternoon, and any window of opportunity had been broken. She merely returned to her office.
Alana found Brett Crabtree sitting behind his desk, watching two surveillance videos simultaneously on a split screen. He appeared frustrated, frowning as he swapped the left-most video of a ticket turnstile out with a different one of a crowded ramp. She asked, “Any luck yet?”
Brett said, “No. The computer’s flagging a goodly number of possible matches, and I’m wading through them, but so far, they’re all false-positives. Why am I doing this again?”
Alana said, realizing that her briefing may have been short on critical details, “If Chu hacked Greg Veedock, and was using him as a puppet to kill Phil Robertson, as you theorize, there was a technical problem. When Veedock was below ground, his transponder signal was too weak to register. It disappeared from tracking. It was also too far underground for the satellite broadcast to reach, because if it did, it could have maintained a ping and tracked that. So, for Louis Chu to puppet Veedock’s chassis, he would have to be nearby with a powerful transmitter to maintain a link. Therefore, he might be in the crowd.”
Brett looked even more annoyed, “Which means he would have to get his ticket months beforehand in a lottery—”
“Or bought them from a scalper?”
Brett shook his head, “Nope. I can tell you aren’t a sports fan. It doesn’t work that way anymore. To get rid of scalping, sports franchises came up with a secure system. There are no physical tickets anymore. The ticket is keyed to the electronic payment method used to buy it. When you enter the venue, a scanner reads the device used to make the purchase.”
Alana asked, “So, there should be a record tying the purchase to one of his bank accounts?”
Brett sighed, “There isn’t. I already looked into that. I’ve been operating on the theory that he could have used a prepaid credit card, or one belonging to one of his relatives.”
“Any leads from that?”
Brett discarded the video record on the right side of his screen and replaced it with another, “A big goose egg. I’ve been thinking that if Chu did somehow make Veedock a puppet, he would have been at the stadium early to make sure he behaved normally, and not like a robot. Is there any chance that you might have footage from Sports Central?”
“Do you think it’s critical?”
Brett ran his left index finger around his inside of his collar, just below his ear, as if his neck were itching, “It might be. Rhys
said that the networks will set up and test their cameras early, before the game starts, to make sure...” Brett looked up from his desktop and his words trailed off. He hadn’t paid attention when Alana opened her locker, removed her mackintosh, and hung it on a hook. When she removed her blouse, he noticed. He squeaked, “Ma’am...?”
Alana said, “Don’t mind me, Inspector. I’m just changing for the funeral service.”
Brett said as he redirected his gaze to his desktop, “Should I leave, or—”
“My body’s not real. Besides, you’ve seen a woman before, haven’t you?”
Brett took pains to look away, “Yes, but not my boss.”
“Technically, I’m not your boss anymore, now that you’re a full inspector. I’m now only your temporary supervisor,” Alana said as she buttoned up her white, dress uniform blouse.
As Chief Inspector Graves reached for her dress skirt, Brett stood and walked to the door, “I’m taking a lunch break.”
Alana smirked. When Detective Rhys was her assistant, she had changed clothes before him on several occasions. She had not known modesty for decades, another learned response cultivated after years of synthetic existence. For the first few years, she had been shier about body issues, but at age seventy, it was something that no longer concerned her. She would never peel in public, but she didn’t think there was anything wrong with doing so in front of others as long as the door was closed and there was no ulterior intent. Having a perpetually perfect body had removed any lingering body image issues from her youth. She tweaked her wall monitor until the screen acted as a mirror, and used it to brush her hair into a better-kempt arrangement.
Alana’s Vira pinged, “Chief Inspector Graves, you have a new text message from Robert Smith.”
Alana said, “Read it to me.”
Her Vira spoke in its feminine voice, “Chief Inspector. Implemented your life-support order. Gabriel still in coma. Prognosis is fifty-fifty, but his brain is undamaged. Good news. His social worker says he can be moved from intensive care to a long-term care facility tomorrow. This would save you a lot of money. I am attaching a file with a list of homes closer to your area. If you approve the transfer, select a home and I’ll pass it along to the social worker. She’ll take care of everything else. Let me know before six PM today if you can, otherwise the hospital will hold him another full day at full price. Hoping you are coping. -- Bob.”
Smith was certainly going to extraordinary lengths to help Alana on this matter. Against her intuition, her inner detective had to wonder whether the attorney had any hidden agendas.
Thursday, 13 July, 13:55
Brett had not returned by the time Alana departed the office, smartly dressed in her perfectly tailored, navy-blue dress coat and skirt, with her bulletin board of medals being thrust to prominence by her natural form. She noticed that she attracted looks from several police officers on the way down to the courtyard. Again, she smirked, mostly at the irony of looking an attractive thirty-five and being unable to do anything about it; any money she had been saving for a deluxe chassis upgrade was now being depleted to keep her inherited son on life support. She walked out into the courtyard with a minute to spare before the service was scheduled to commence.
A large, granite slab rested at the foot of the courtyard, facing the center. Upon it were chiseled the names of police officers who had fallen since the station was established in the year 2052. Alana’s name was third from the top. The recently slain officers’ names had been added near the bottom. A third of the names, including Alana’s, had the word ‘(Retired)’ appended to the end, indicating that they had been resurrected. In many cases, they were still serving. The flat, polished stone face was running out of room to add more names.
There were four easel-mounted displays of the slain SWAT troopers set out at the head of the courtyard, wreathed in flowers, with their names writ large below their photos, all of which were taken earlier in their lives. Separate posters described their service, including expressions of endorsement from their superior officers and peers. One pair of parents, two widows, one ex-boyfriend, and three children were seated in the front row, along with SWAT leader Kyeong and Chief Bennett. Three additional rows of seats were filled with police officers of both genders, both living and retired. Alana took the last seat at the back corner.
The Reverend Micah Harlow, the middle-aged precinct chaplain, stood between the gathering and the displays honoring the fallen, wearing his specially designed, non-denominational robes, which consisted primarily of a police dress uniform with a long, white sash draped over his shoulders and a black clerical collar with a white prominence in the front. At two o’clock sharp, he began speaking. It was the same speech Alana had heard before, mainly geared toward the families of the deceased, as the officers were mainly there to show support for the survivors.
Between Harlow’s opening speech and the select readings from various holy books that would have followed, the door leading from the courtyard to the cafeteria flew open, striking the concrete wall with a bang. It drew the attention of the entire gathering. Standing just beyond the door as it swung shut was one of the SWAT troopers who had been killed during the Harbor raid. He had clearly been recently resurrected and he was sporting a new, android body. He looked on, both surprised and embarrassed. He croaked, “Am I late?”
Several of the policemen and women simultaneously clapped, whistled, and said with slight variations, “Just like Sanders to be late for his own funeral!” which drew forth chuckles, snickers, and outright laughs from some of the assembled officers. Even Alana was amused by the irony.
The levity was cut short when one of the widows leapt out of her chair and screamed, “Stop it! My husband is dead! How can you possibly...” She collapsed to her knees, weeping uncontrollably. She grabbed the nearest male child and hugging him tightly as she cried.
The gathering was unable to recover from Sanders’ ill-timed and inconsiderate arrival. A deathly silence descended, broken only by the sobs and sniffles of the family and a few of the officers, along with the remainder of the speech by the chaplain. After the service was concluded, trooper Sanders sheepishly approached the woman who took such offense to his accidental joke, as if to apologize, but she slapped him across the face, grabbed her son by the hand and stormed out of the courtyard. The other victims’ relatives were more conciliatory.
When the drama had lessened, Alana approached the adults among the survivors, explaining to each one that she was their commanding officer that night, that she was the one responsible for the safety of their loved ones, and that she had let them all down. No one slapped her. The remaining children were probably too young to fully comprehend what was happening; their parents seemed to understand. One of the kids, a young girl, no more than eight years old, in pigtails and a pink-and-white dress with some of her deciduous teeth missing, half-gummed, “Can I be a policeman when I grow up?” Her mother started crying. She took her daughter by the hand, wiping her cheeks dry with her sleeve as she said in between sniffles, “Pumpkin, you can be anything you want to be.”
The combination of sadness and sappiness was more than Alana could withstand. She took her leave. She returned to her office to find Brett still sifting through video records, and she could tell immediately from his dour disposition and loosened necktie that he was having no more luck than he was earlier. Brett didn’t wait for Alana to close the door before beginning, “I think you’re going to need to get the footage from Sports Central, if it exists. The computer’s already run through the possible matches, and I’ve less than a dozen more to go. Unless it just turns out to be the very last thing I look at, I think he’s slipped past.”
Alana seated herself at her desk, “Chu spent a long time in Boston. Did you narrow down the search results based on their team’s baseball caps?”
“Yes. LA’s as well. That turned up about a dozen possible matches, and five that could be him, but the video’s too poor to be definitive.”
“Were any of the five carrying an oversized notepad or other, big electronic device? Something large enough to have a powerful transceiver?”
Brett shunted the two videos he was looking at off his desktop and replaced them with two more, “Yes. I’ll show you my one long-shot once I finish reviewing these last ten matches.”
Alana said, “Good. In the meantime, I need to talk to my lawyer, so just ignore anything I say for a few minutes.”
Brett continued working and tried to ignore Alana’s half of her cordial conversation with someone she called Bob, with the focus being on someone named Gabriel and some place called, ‘Summer Village.’ He was growing frustrated over the seeming pointlessness of his search through security camera footage. He wanted to go directly to the district attorney and ask for an arrest warrant for Louis Chu, but he also knew that his evidence was circumstantial. Alana would be correct, yet again, if Chu turned up in the audience at the All-Star Game, in that it would probably be enough evidence to detain his prime suspect.
Alana completed her call, saying, “Vira, end,” seconds before Brett eliminated the last of the flagged video segments from consideration. Before he could say anything, Alana asked, “Have you considered the possibility that Victoria Chu might be your perpetrator? Or that she might be working with her brother?”
Brett leaned back in his chair, took a deep breath, and exhaled as he interlaced his fingers and began squeezing his palms together, as if he was trying to squash an invisible gerbil. He said, “No, I have not considered that possibility yet. But you are correct in pointing out that I should not eliminate her from my investigation prematurely, given that she has an even stronger motive than her brother.”
Alana nodded and then stood, walking over to Brett’s desk, “Keep an open mind. Now, show me the video you think might be a match.”
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