by David Archer
A rescue squad in a hover-van marked as an ambulance stopped beside the stricken woman and began emergency treatment. Charlotte could hear them talking to the hospital by radio, but couldn’t make out what they were saying. Her attention was still focused primarily on the arrest that was taking place right in front of her.
The two patrol officers quickly clapped filtering masks over their faces and moved in on their suspect, who had fallen to the ground on all fours. He was gasping for breath, coughing and spitting in an effort to clear his breathing passages, but when they grabbed his arms, he put up only token resistance. He was pushed flat on his belly as his hands were cuffed behind his back, continuing to cough and choke and gasp. A moment later, an electric hover-van with “Chicago District Police Authority” emblazoned on the side pulled up, and the man was loaded inside and taken away.
The dusty cloud took a couple of minutes to disperse, and a small whiff of it reached Charlotte. It didn't have the same devastating effect that disabled the woman's attacker, but she still felt the burning in her nostrils and throat. She raised the back of her hand to her face in an attempt to ward off any further effects, but the fans blew the rest of it away.
It was the first time Charlotte had ever seen the SALT guns in action, other than by Cloudcast, and she breathed a silent prayer of thanks to whatever deities might be listening that the world had finally become sane enough to outlaw firearms for any use other than emergency or military applications. Old movies still showed the devastating effects of bullets on the human body, but apart from a few isolated events that involved soldiers who lost their sanity or the rare black market gun that surfaced, very few civilians had been killed by a firearm in almost forty years.
SALT guns, the first nonlethal guns ever invented that were truly capable of disabling and incapacitating a person without doing any lasting harm, had been invented shortly before the Great Disaster and had rapidly become the darlings of the anti-gun movement. When legislation was passed by the Global Union that required most police officers to use nonlethal weapons, SALT guns were chosen quickly as being far superior to tasers in subduing criminals. Originally available only in pistol form, the company behind them quickly turned their R-and-D department to the development of rifles, rapid-fire automatics and grenades that could be used when necessary to control even large mobs.
SWAT teams and other special units still had access to firearms, because sometimes they were just necessary; but private possession of firearms required a special permit, and those firearms could only be used for hunting in specific areas. Armories within those areas stored privately owned rifles and shotguns for the owners so that they were available when needed, but they could not be taken home. Only the independents who lived in rural areas were allowed to keep their own guns, and then only if they owned more than a minimum of forty acres, designated as a private hunting preserve.
Handguns, however, were specifically outlawed for anyone other than military or tactical police personnel, but SALT guns and other nonlethal weapons were freely available to all citizens. The Global Union held fast to the ideal that everyone had a right to self-defense, but that didn't necessarily mean a right to kill. The world was a far saner place with these rules in force.
“Ma'am?”
Charlotte turned quickly to see who had addressed her that way, and found herself looking at a tall man in a police inspector's uniform.
“I'm Detective Inspector Martin James, with CDPA. I believe you just witnessed the altercation that took place a few moments ago?”
Charlotte looked confused for just a moment, then nodded her head. “Yes, yes, I did,” she said quickly. “That woman, is she…”
“Rescue Paramedics are with her now. I took a quick look, and I don't think the wound is life threatening, but that's up to the experts to decide. What I've got to do is be sure I know exactly what happened so that I can make my report to the District Attorney. Can you tell me what you actually saw?”
Charlotte glanced over to where paramedics were kneeling beside the victim, one of them holding her hand and talking to her while the other was applying a bandage to the wound. She shook her head as if to clear it and looked back at Inspector James.
“I—I was sitting on the bench, there, and I heard a scream so I looked around,” she said. “That man, he was holding her throat and shaking her and hitting her in the face with his fist. I got up, I think I was actually going to try to stop him, but I never got a chance. He shoved his hand in his pocket and then suddenly he had a knife, and he stabbed her—oh my God, he stabbed her! It all happened so fast, I just—I didn't know what to do. After he stabbed her, he just sort of threw her on the ground, and then he turned around and started running. People were screaming and yelling, but he just kept running, and then the speakers said everybody should hold still and then I saw the two policemen on their scooters, and then they shot him and he went down. That's—that's all I saw, Inspector.”
The inspector smiled at her and nodded, and she realized he was recording everything she said on his body cam. “Just Martin is good, Ma'am,” he said. “I'll need you to make a formal statement later, and you might be called to testify at some point. I need your name, address designation and comm number, please.”
She couldn't help herself, she smiled back. “Oh, yes, I'm Charlotte Reynolds. My address is 86-1640-27B, Kankakee Arcology. My number is 491-837-55294.”
The inspector nodded again. “Well, Charlotte, thank you for your help in this matter. And by the way, while it's commendable that you wanted to try to help, we don't recommend that citizens ever intervene in a crime, particularly an assault. A beautiful woman like you, out here all alone? Most likely, all you would've done is gotten yourself hurt along with that lady. It's best to leave such things to the police.” He glanced back at the paramedics, then looked to Charlotte again. “Are you—connected?” There was a different kind of smile on his face again as he asked.
Charlotte blushed, and nodded. “Yes, my DP is Carson Pace. He's a professor of history at the University.”
Martin shrugged, but didn't lose his smile. “Well, that's usually my luck,” he said. “I meet a beautiful woman, and she's already taken. I'll be in touch about getting your statement. You have a great day.”
“You too, and I look forward to it,” she said, and then wished she could swallow the words back. The grin that he gave her made her wonder if he misinterpreted what she meant, but he was already gone. She watched as the paramedics lifted the victim onto a stretcher and loaded her into the back of the hover-ambulance, and then returned to the bench to wait for Carson and the boat.
SEVEN
It was another fifteen minutes before Carson arrived, and Charlotte spotted him before he pulled up at the tiny little dock near the bench. She hurried down and was waiting when he drew up to it.
“Carson, you won't believe it!” Charlotte said, as she got into the boat. “A man stabbed this woman, right behind where I was sitting, and I saw it all! The police got him, but I had to talk to a detective inspector, and he said I have to go give a statement and maybe testify. Oh my gosh, it was exciting!”
“A woman got stabbed?” Carson asked, his eyes wide. “Is she alright?”
Charlotte nodded excitedly. “Yeah, they said she's going to be okay, I guess it wasn't a dangerous thing, wound, I mean. Paramedics came and took her in an ambulance, but the inspector said he thought she was going to be fine. Oh, it was incredible! Two of the police officers shot him, and he just fell right down, coughing and gagging, and they took him away.”
“But how close were you? I mean, were you in any danger?”
“No, not really,” she said. “At first, he was just hitting her, and I got up and started to go toward them, but then he stabbed her and I just froze! I guess I was the closest one to it, so I'm their best witness, but they probably talked to some of the other people who were around there, too.”
Carson reached over and caressed her face with the back of his
fingers. “Just as long as you're okay,” he said. “I don't know what I'd do if anything happened to you.”
Charlotte smiled and reached up to clasp his hand in hers. “Oh, that's so sweet,” she said. “I'm fine, honey, don't worry.” She put her feet on the pedals on her side of the boat and began pedaling backward. “Come on, let's not let this ruin our nice day. Let's go have some fun on the river.”
Carson frowned for another second, then smiled and nodded. He put his own feet on the pedals and backed it up with her, then turned the rudder as they began pedaling forward.
For the next two hours, they pedaled the boat along the river, chatting about many things, and occasionally waving at the people walking by or sitting on the bank. It was a wonderful day, one that Charlotte in particular felt they had needed for a long time. It wasn't that they weren't happy together, and they weren't having any kind of problems, but they had fallen into a rut. Many couples fall into such a rut when they'd been together for more than a couple of years, but Charlotte had always believed in the fairytale. “Happily ever after,” that was what she wanted, and what she had been certain she had found when she and Carson had decided to move from dating to living together. She was so sure of it that they had even toyed with the idea of a traditional marriage, but that was only common among the religious remnants of their society, so they had decided against it.
“Have you ever wondered if we should have gotten married?” Charlotte asked suddenly, as they were walking up the dock after turning in the boat.
Carson looked at her, surprised at the question. “Married? I don't know, I know we talked about it once. As I recall, though, you weren’t really all that in favor of it.”
She reached out and twined her fingers into his. “No, I wasn't,” she said. “It just seems old-fashioned, like we'd be taking a step backward. We live in this incredible new age, so different from what our parents grew up in. It just seemed like we should accept and embrace the way things are now, instead of trying to do things the way they used to.” She smiled and let out a sigh. “But do you ever wonder if maybe we made a mistake?”
Carson grinned as he shrugged his shoulders. “Seems to me that things are going pretty well between us,” he said. “My mom used to ask me if we were ever going to tie the knot, but she finally quit. I think she got tired of my noncommittal answers, to be honest.” He chuckled.
Charlotte was quiet for a minute as they strolled along, turning on to the main walkway back toward the elevators. Finally, she asked, “If I wanted it, would you be willing to consider it?”
Carson stopped and tugged on her hand to make her face him. “Is that what you want? To get married?”
Charlotte looked into his eyes for a moment, then lowered her gaze to their hands. She shrugged her shoulders. “I don't know,” she said. “I'm probably just being hormonal, I'm about due. It just sort of crossed my mind all of a sudden, and I thought I'd ask.”
She felt his free hand touch her cheek and looked up at him again. “Charlotte,” Carson said softly, “the answer to your question is yes. If it's what you want, then I'd certainly be willing to consider it.” He leaned forward and gently kissed her lips, and then turned and they began walking again.
It was getting close to four in the afternoon, and Carson nodded toward one of the restaurants as they walked. “Hungry?”
“Are you stupid?” Charlotte shot back with a laugh. “I ate enough at lunch to keep me going for two or three days, I think. Maybe a week, even.”
Carson laughed, and they continued on their way. The elevator was even busier than before, and it took them almost an hour to get home.
* * * * *
Martin James spent the afternoon writing up his report on the attack on the walkway. The couple involved turned out to be Domestic Partners who had a history of domestic violence. Wallace Cooper had been warned a couple of times previously about bruises that appeared on Cassandra Miller's face, but she had always declined to testify against him. Without her testimony, CDPA couldn't charge him, even though neighbors reported hearing numerous altercations from their apartment.
This time was different. Rather than simply hitting Cassie, he had gone completely berserk and stabbed her. Luckily, the knife had missed any vital organs or blood vessels, but Cassie had finally had enough. This time she willingly made a statement from her hospital room.
“Wally was acting fine when we left home,” she had said, “but he saw some guy look at me on the walk and it pissed him off. I didn't even know who the guy was, but all of a sudden Wally starts accusing me of having an affair with him, and then I told him he was crazy. That's all it took to set him off, and he started hitting me like he's done before…” She let out a sob, as tears began flowing steadily down her face. “He's made threats before, said he'd kill me and stuff like that, but I never believed—I never thought he'd really try. I didn't even see the knife, it all happened too fast.”
Cooper worked at the Northwest freight depot as a shuttle driver, moving containers from one place to another as they were emptied out. He had no medical knowledge or training of any kind, so it wasn't likely that he knew the stabbing would not be fatal. That made the charge against him attempted murder, rather than assault. He was looking at a hefty sentence, potentially as much as the max of seventy bouts. It was a safe bet this guy would never be free to harm another innocent person.
In addition to Cassie's statement, there had been several witnesses. Only three of them had actually seen what happened, but with their testimonies added in, there was no doubt Cooper would be convicted. Martin made sure to include their contact information in his report, even though he knew that he would be the one to get in touch with them when the time came for them to speak to a Grand Jury.
Martin had studied the history of jurisprudence, and was personally glad that the Justice System had been completely overhauled from the ground up after the Great Disaster. The old jury system was antiquated, especially in light of all of the law enforcement technology that existed today. The attack had been caught on video from four different angles, and it was possible to zoom in and see clearly what had happened. Unfortunately, many defense attorneys of the past had become skilled at convincing juries they weren't seeing what they obviously saw on those videos, and guilty parties had walked free.
Today, however, juries had been replaced by a small panel, three trained judges who would listen to the evidence and vote on the verdict. Despite this fact, it still took eyewitness testimony along with physical evidence to make a conviction stick. The more convincing those eyewitnesses could be, the better.
“Are you done with me, Inspector?” The question came from one of the two officers who had apprehended Cooper. Martin had called each of them in to get their statements into the file, but this one had been unavailable until late in the afternoon.
He looked up and smiled. “I guess so, Officer Morgan,” he said. “If I need anything else, I know how to reach you.”
Morgan got to his feet and started to turn toward the door, but then paused and looked back. “Hey, just curious, but did you have any luck with that sweet piece that saw it all? It looked like the two of you were hitting it off from where I stood.”
Martin didn't even have to guess which of the two female witnesses Morgan was referring to. “Don't I wish,” he said. “Unfortunately, she's connected. Got a DP who's some history professor at the University.”
Morgan made a pained expression. “That sucks,” he said. “Why is it all the hotties are taken before we ever get there?”
Martin grinned, but shook his head. “I think it's because hot girls are taught by their mothers to avoid trolls like us. Maybe they think it's still the bad old days, when policemen were more likely to get killed on duty than soldiers.”
Morgan shrugged and shook his head, but went on out the door. Martin finished typing the paragraph he was working on, and then leaned back in his chair. Charlotte Reynolds: he remembered her name clearly without bothering to loo
k at the file. Morgan was right, she was definitely a hottie. Too bad she was taken.
Being a detective inspector, however, gave a man certain advantages over the average guy hoping to hook up. It was almost impossible for anyone to do much more than breathe without a report ending up in the District's computers, so it was possible for him to keep tabs on anyone that interested him. He sat forward again and entered her DP's name into the search engine.
Professor Carson Pace, the screen displayed, along with a photo. A summary of his life appeared just below, along with a couple of dozen links to other entries about him. He read quickly through the brief.
Professor Carson Pace is a contract, non-tenured professor of history at the University of America, Chicago District, Kankakee Arcology Campus. He is twenty-nine years old and connected to novelist Charlotte Reynolds.
There was more, but it was obvious that the professor had never been in any kind of trouble. It seemed that he and Charlotte had been together for a little over three years, and had no children. Martin coupled that with the fact that Charlotte seemed rather pleased at his flirtation, and concluded that their relationship might not be a permanent one.
He glanced around to make sure no one was watching him, then poked an icon on his holoterminal. A program called Trackmaster opened up, and he quickly entered both Charlotte and Carson's names. From that moment forward, any reference to them that was entered into the computer system would be flagged for his attention. The program was ostensibly for use in keeping track of suspects, but there was no oversight on its use. Martin wasn't the only policeman to use it to keep track of someone for personal reasons. All it required was for him to tick the box that listed them as persons of interest in an unspecified, ongoing investigation