by H J Peterson
Hiro slowed down as the streets grew more crowded, signaling the fact that she’d entered the Keitel quarter. This neighborhood was nicer than Scharff quarter, and much more lively at night. People walked along the streets, talking and laughing with one another as they enjoyed their night off. The roads were filled with other steam bikes and automobiles, filling the air with warm steam, which turned the bright chemical lights into swirling shades of yellow. It was rather beautiful in a surreal sort of way, but she didn’t stop to look at any of it: she was already running a little late to the banquet, and she doubted that her new boss, Chief Berkowitz, would like fending off the press for so much as a second longer than he needed to.
After a few minutes of driving through the streets of the Keitel neighborhood, she reached her destination: the palace of justice, where she’d spend a lot of time in the coming years. It was a grand building, with big pillars, a carved relief in the eaves of an old pagan myth about the goddess of justice, and a green copper statue of Chief Paolicci, the first chief of police in Königstadt. The building mainly served as the courthouse that tried the biggest cases in Vorbereich, but it also had a ballroom on the top level for state events and the basement held criminals that were being tried in the courthouse. Of course, the steps leading up to the building were swarmed with reporters with cameras that night, waiting for the press’ darling to show up.
Hiro sighed as she pulled up to the curb of the academy, where a valet waited to take her bike down to the parking garage. She hated dealing with the press; she really hoped that they would step back and leave her alone after this little banquet was done.
“Good luck,” the valet said as she gave him her bike. It seemed like he knew that she was about to give herself up to vultures.
“Thanks,” Hiro said as she gave him a few marks and her helmet. He put on the helmet and rode down to the parking garage as she began walking up the steps.
Just one more night of this, Hiro told herself as the press began to come towards her, cameras flashing as they all tried to get that perfect shot of the city’s favorite graduate.
“Hiro Ikeda! Hiro Ikeda!” She heard her name all around her, trying to get her to stop for an interview. “How does it feel to be the first woman to become a police inspector? How do you think your graduation will affect the nation’s perspective on Hanjans? Do you think we’ll be seeing more women stepping up to do civic duties once only left to men?”
“I’m not taking comments at this time,” Hiro said as she pushed her way through the reporters. “However, if you were to call my office on Monday morning and set up an appointment, I would be glad to offer an interview with all of you individually.”
Of course, the thought of actually making an appointment made them even more frenzied, but Hiro ignored them all. Instead, she pushed her way through the crowd of reporters to the top of the steps, where one of the aids that managed to pull the graveyard shift at the palace of justice that night was standing. He was dressed in a simple black suit, and heaven knew that he didn’t look very happy to be there: he was leaning against the doorway, taking a bit of a smoke break until he saw her coming.
He threw the cigarette to the ground and smashed it with his foot as she walked up to the doorway. “Good evening, Miss Ikeda. Is it safe to assume that you already know your way up to the ballroom?”
“Very safe,” Hiro said as she walked in.
A sigh of relief went through her once she was in the building. Thank heavens, they only let in a few reporters to events like this: she didn’t think she would be able to handle very many of them for very long if they were to let all those people in.
She went up the stairs and to the ballroom.
As far as ballrooms in Königstadt went, this one was very utilitarian: in fact, the only decorations were a chandelier and a few marble pillars at the sides of the room. There was a small string trio playing in one corner, while a small bar was serving some alcoholic drinks in another. Nothing too alcoholic, of course: certainly no absinthe of whiskey, despite the fact that those were the drinks of choice for most cops. The grand majority of the people there were wearing a blue uniform similar to Hiro’s, signifying that they were regular beat cops, while only a few wore the black of the inspectors. Those who weren’t wearing either were either young ladies accompanying an officer to the banquet or reporters getting statements. Commissioner Bouchard was currently talking to one of them, while another was talking to…
That couldn’t be…
“Is that Manfred II and Lady von Braun?” Hiro asked one of her fellow graduates who happened to be standing by her. She didn’t know him that well (they didn’t really talk to each other all that much in school), but she was pretty sure his name was Hanke.
Hanke looked a little closer at the man in question, then his eyes grew wide with surprise. “I think it is. I assumed that he would be off at the opera tonight, but I guess not.” He looked up at her, a smirk on his face. “Maybe he’s here to meet you: I hear he thinks Hanjans are easy on the eyes.”
Hiro rolled her eyes at that as she continued to watch the emperor of Vorbereich be interviewed by a reporter, while his wife hung on his arm with a smile on her face. It was insane, to think that the emperor, himself, thought it was important enough to attend this banquet. Was all this really just for her? Surely he had more important things to worry about than a Hanjan girl graduating from the police academy.
Perhaps that was a good sign; maybe it meant that things were finally starting to look up after that war all those years back if this was part of his business.
“Glad to see that you’ve managed to show up.” Someone put their hands on her shoulders, but the second she heard that voice, she knew who it was: Enrico Zanetti, one of the few fellow graduates that she could truly say she’d become friends with. “I swear, the reporters were about ready to revolt when you weren’t here right at seven.”
Hiro turned around to see Enrico’s boyish face. He’d managed to somewhat comb out his unruly brown hair, but that was the closest he got to really “cleaning up”. Good heavens, were his pants wrinkled? He really didn’t care all that much about his appearance, did he?
“Enrico, you know your pants are wrinkled, don’t you?” she asked, folding her arms over her chest as she looked up at him. He wasn’t the tallest of graduates, but he still managed to be a full head taller than she was. “What if you end up face to face with the emperor and his wife with pants that you couldn’t even bother to iron?”
“Why would he care about my pants?” he asked. “He’s the emperor, for heaven’s sake; I think he’s got something else to worry about other than the fact that my pants are wrinkled.”
“Well, what do you know?” someone said behind them before she could respond. When Hiro looked over her shoulder, she saw her boss, Chief Berkowitz, standing there with an unamused look on his face. Well, then again, he always looked that way: she didn’t think she’d ever seen the old Borusali smile in the years since she first enrolled at the police academy. “It looks like the press’ darling finally managed to get her ass here. The reporters were about to have a little hissy fit when you weren’t here on time; I was starting to wonder whether or not I was going to have to quell a damned riot.”
Hiro stood up a little taller when she saw his face. She wouldn’t technically be under his command until the next day, but that didn’t matter to her: the last thing she needed was to get on his bad side. It would already be an uphill battle, since she brought the press into his life. She’d have to mend the rift, unless she wanted to be stuck on crap assignments until he retired.
“Good evening, sir,” Enrico said. He, too, was standing a little taller. “We were just talking about-“
“I heard exactly what you two were talking about,” Chief Berkowitz interrupted. He looked down at his pants. “Ikeda’s right, by the way. You’re in the presence of royalty, Zanetti; the least you can do is take an iron to those bloody pants of yours. You’re not even a cop, yet,
and you’re already well on your way to embarrassing the entire damned force.”
Enrico’s cheeks burned bright red, as did Hiro’s. How long had he been standing there? Did he always do this?
Before Hiro or Enrico could respond, one of Berkowitz’s aids came up to him and whispered something in his ear. Judging by the look on the aid’s face (and the look on Berkowitz’s face during the exchange) it was pretty urgent.
“That is rather bad news, isn’t it?” Chief Berkowitz said to himself. “We’ll have to send a few men right away.”
Hiro got excited when he said that. Maybe this was her chance to separate herself from the positive scandal she’d set off when she enrolled at the police academy; maybe she could actually get people to see the fact that she was something more than an effort to get some good press.
“I’ll go, sir,” she said a little more forward than she would’ve liked.
Chief Berkowitz raised an eyebrow, though whether or not it was because he was surprised by the outburst or because he was annoyed at it, she wasn’t sure. Either way, the look made her cheeks burn even redder.
“No,” he said, his voice flat. Hiro could feel herself deflate a little. “I have a feeling that you’re going to get a little… personally involved, considering who’s involved in it.”
What the hell was that supposed to mean? Apparently, he didn’t believe in the stereotype that Hanjans didn’t get personally invested in anything.
“I swear I won’t, sir,” she said. “Who does it involve?”
“A young man you had a relationship with awhile back, if that tabloid reporter that came in a while back is to be believed,” Chief Berkowitz said. She didn’t remember seeing anything about her relations in the papers: he must have scared the right people to keep her out of those particular stories. “Apparently, a lordling by the name of Friedrich Eltz found a rather grizzly sight at the Überhaus, tonight, and we’re to send inspectors over immediately.”
Friedrich Eltz?
You’ve got to be kidding me, she thought, annoyed. She suddenly understood why Chief Berkowitz was worried about her getting personally involved.
“I haven’t had feelings for him in a long time, sir,” Hiro said, hoping Chief Berkowitz wouldn’t catch her in the lie.
He didn’t seem to. He simply nodded and looked over at his aid, who was waiting expectantly for his orders.
“Go find Inspector Brooks and tell him about his new case,” he said. He looked back over at Hiro. “Maybe paring him with our press’s darling will get all these damned reporters away from me.”
IV. FRIEDRICH
Friedrich sat next to the door to Lord Saaltz’s box, hugging his knees to his chest as some of the police officers stationed at the Überhaus that night defended the hallway leading to the box from concerned onlookers. When he woke up, Otto had been standing above him and someone had dragged him out of the box and put a scratchy blanket over him. Otto had since left to grab him some tea to calm him down, leaving him alone with thoughts that he didn’t exactly want. All those thoughts revolved around the image of Lord Saaltz’s slashed throat and the pool of blood around the body. It made him sick, and not just because he passed out at the sight of blood.
“Friedrich!”
Friedrich looked up. It was Katalin, looking over the shoulder of the officer keeping people out of the hallway. Her eyes were wide, her face pale. He couldn’t help but wonder what she’d thought had happened to him when she found out about Lord Saaltz. Judging by the look on her face, it hadn’t been very good.
He stood up and began to walk over to her. “Let her through; that’s my fiancée.”
The police officer nodded and let Katalin through his small barricade.
The second she was through, she rushed towards him and wrapped her arms around him.
“Almighty heaven, Friedrich; you scared me to death!” Katalin whispered as Friedrich wrapped his arms around her. She looked up at him, her eyes somewhat filled with tears. “Are you hurt?”
And that was why: she thought that he’d been hurt.
“There was a lot of blood and I passed out,” Friedrich said as he held her out from himself. That seemed to satisfy her: after having to help drag him out of the Magyaran class after someone got a nosebleed, she knew full well how much seeing blood affected him. “Where’re my parents? Did they leave, already?”
“Much to your mother’s chagrin, yes,” Katalin said. “Your father decided that it was best that he left before he got involved in some sort of scandal with all this.”
Of course, he did. As far as he knew, his son had gotten seriously hurt in this little incident, and what did he do? He ran back home and hid before he could get involved in a scandal.
And what was even sadder was the fact that it didn’t even surprise him that much.
It was right about then that Otto came back, some tea on a tray in his hands.
He stopped when he saw Katalin, his cheeks beginning to burn bright red.
“I have some tea for you, Lord Eltz,” he said. He looked over at Katalin, a sheepish look on his face. “Sorry miss; I would’ve gotten you some if I’d known you’d be joining us.”
“It’s quite alright; I don’t mind,” Katalin said as Friedrich took the teacup off of the platter to discover it already had tea in it. He could barely taste it: his mind was too far gone for that.
“I hate to be very pushy, but is it necessary for us to stay here anymore, constable?” Katalin asked. “I think it’s very safe to say that we’d all benefit from a good night’s rest.”
“I’m afraid that you’ll have to stay a little longer, my lady,” Otto said. “There’s some police inspectors on their way here that want to talk to you; once they’re done with you, they’ll send you home. I don’t think they’ll take too much of your time, but they might be stuck in traffic with all these people trying to leave the opera house, so I certainly wouldn’t hold your breath or anything.”
Police inspector? Could that mean…
“Do you know which inspectors are coming?” Friedrich asked, a little more frantic than he would’ve liked. Both Katalin and Otto looked at him with confused looks on their faces.
“I’m not sure, sir,” Otto said. “We didn’t request anyone: we just asked them to send some people over here and they said that they would send someone over. Is there a particular inspector that you want to talk with, or is there an inspector that you specifically don’t want to come here?”
“Of course not,” Friedrich said. Katalin didn’t believe him (her frown deepened after he said it) but she didn’t ask about it. It didn’t take a genius to know that she was going to talk to him about it later, though. “I don’t really know much about any of the inspectors other than what I’ve read in the papers.”
Before Otto could respond, Friedrich saw two people pushing their way through the crowd. He recognized both of them immediately for what they were: police inspectors, dressed in their black formal uniforms. One of them was the infamous Inspector Robert Brooks, the police inspector with the highest case closure rate in Vorbereich. The other one was…
Oh, almighty heaven!
Inspector Brooks and Hiro Ikeda, the commoner he’d had a relationship with five years before, got through the crowd and approached them. While Katalin focused mostly on Inspector Brooks (who was very attractive according to the ladies of Königstadt), Friedrich found himself staring at Hiro. It looked like she’d finally achieved her dream of becoming a police inspector; he’d followed her progress all the way through via the papers, but he’d doubted they’d actually let her graduate: discrimination against women and Hanjans in the force had seemed too ingrained in their culture to allow that before Hiro came along.
“Is it safe to say that you’re Friedrich Eltz?” Inspector Brooks’ voice pulled Friedrich out of his thoughts. When he looked over at Brooks, he saw that the inspector was looking at him expectantly, almost impatient as he waited for him to answer.
Friedrich
stood up a little taller.
“Yes, I am,” Friedrich said, holding out a hand. Brooks took it and gave it a firm shake. “You’re Inspector Brooks, correct? I recognize you from the papers.”
“That’s correct, my lord,” Brooks said. He motioned towards Hiro. “This is Inspector Ikeda, though I’m sure you recognize her from the papers, as well.”
Oh, I knew her long before she was all over the papers, Friedrich thought, thinking back to the time they’d spent together. Of course, he didn’t mention any of that: instead, he shook Hiro’s hand, trying to not seem as uncomfortable as he was.
“Of course,” he said stiffly. “Congratulations on your recent graduation, inspector; I’m sure you’ll serve Vorbereich very well in the coming years.”
“I plan to, my lord,” Hiro said flatly, just as stiffly as he did.
“Now, Lord Eltz, I know that you must have a lot on your mind right now and that you wish to return home, but I’m afraid that we must keep you here a little while longer,” Brooks said. “You’re the only witness we have to what happened to Lord Saaltz tonight, and the chief of police wants us to see if you know anything about it.”
“Not to worry; I understand completely,” Friedrich said.
“And I thank you for that understanding, my lord,” Brooks said with a slight bow. He looked over at Hiro. “Inspector Ikeda, would you please interview Lord Eltz so he and his fiancée can go home? I’ll inspect the box.”
“Yes sir,” Hiro said.
Friedrich gulped.
Hiro walked over to one of the boxes a little ways down the hall and opened the door to it, motioning inward.
“Lord Eltz, if you would,” she said.
Friedrich took a deep breath, trying to calm himself down, then walked into the box, Hiro walking in and shutting the door behind them.
“So, you’re getting married.” Hiro said quietly. “Funny; I would think that that sort of news would show up in the papers.”
“It isn’t official,” Friedrich admitted. “I have to get my father’s permission, first.”