EMPIRE: Imperial Police

by Stephanie Osborn

  “Which we need somebody to do, anyway,” Gorski decided.

  “I’ll go take care of the back room,” Rassmussen offered. “You want the one near the back entrance, right? The ‘backmost back room’?”

  “That’s the one,” Demetrius confirmed. “How about the rest of you? Going with us, or to the pub?”

  It turned out they were game to go to Ashton’s apartment and help move him.

  So the rest, led by Gorski, followed Ashton to his old apartment, where they helped him load and grab the last few boxes, and transfer them to his new place; with all of them working, it took only about forty-five minutes.

  As Carter had instructed him, he didn’t leave a forwarding address with the old apartment superintendent.

  And he applied for, and was approved, to change his VR contact channels.

  Once they left the boxes in Ashton’s new den, they headed for the pub…covertly. Demetrius led the way through a series of back alleys, private arcades, maintenance tunnels, and mews, to the back door of the Laughing Cat Pub. Slipping inside, they found that Rassmussen awaited the group, and he promptly led them into the pub’s “backmost back room,” as he termed it; Ashton found from the conversation that this sort of thing was not necessarily unusual, when the detectives wanted to gather during an active undercover investigation or the like. In short order, a waiter – their usual, it appeared, named George – came in and took orders for food and drink.

  The gathering at the local pub was fun, full of jokes and laughter, and Ashton was glad to get to know the people with whom he’d be working in the immediate future. When it was over, Gorski and Demetrius personally escorted Ashton back to his new apartment.

  “Stay put tonight,” Gorski told him at the door of his flat. “Crash early, if you can. We want to make sure everyone thinks you’re not on Sintar any longer.”

  “Right,” Ashton agreed.

  More than an hour after the two experienced detectives left Ashton at his new apartment, a figure dressed in head-to-toe black, gloves on hands, face hidden under a balaclava, small kit tucked under one arm, slipped from the shadows on the street and into a particular apartment building. It headed up the fire escape to the correct floor for his apartment, then headed for the apartment door, rapidly hacking the lock and entering the darkened apartment.

  There, it headed straight for the kitchen. The kit came out, and a device was pulled from it, the timer on it set, then it was fastened into the interior of the oven.

  The mysterious stranger left the way it had come.

  Late that night, a maintenance man let himself into the now-empty apartment that Ashton and Stone had once occupied, to check out the flat for any needed updates or repairs, as well as strip certain amenities that needed replacing before a new tenant could be installed.

  He planned to be there all night, working on the apartment.

  In the end, he never went home.

  In the wee small hours the next morning, in Imperial Park West a few blocks south of the Imperial University, an explosion rocked the building that had been Ashton’s old home, an explosion within the very apartment in which he had lived.

  Maia Peterson’s apartment was only a couple of blocks away, and the concussion was loud enough to rattle windows and loose items in her bedroom.

  “SHIT!” Lee Carter exclaimed, lunging into a sitting position and dislodging a startled little Siamese who had been snuggling against him, even as Maia also sat up, pulling the covers to her bare chest. “What the hell was that?!”

  “Dunno,” Maia said, puzzled. “Whatever happened, it was a mighty big boom.”

  “It sounded fairly close,” Lee noted. “Let’s see what we can find in the news feed.”

  The police assistant chief and the retired police assistant chief sat still, expressions blank, as they entered immersive VR together.

  “This oughta do it,” Maia said, as she and Lee sat down in virtual armchairs in front of a wall screen of sorts. “I need to get a screen for the bedroom, especially if you’re going to be over often. At least this way, we can watch together.”

  “Yeah. But I’m betting nobody knows yet. It only just happened,” Lee pointed out.

  “Probably, but we can have a look.”

  It did take a while, but eventually reports began to come in about the incident. As soon as the news media reached the area and set up video crews, Lee gasped.

  “Oh dear Lord,” he all but groaned. “They got him, despite my best efforts.”

  “Huh?” Maia asked in alarm, turning. “Got who?”

  “Nick. Nick Ashton. The kid I sent you toda– er, yesterday, now.”

  “Shit,” Maia said, wincing. “He struck me as a good kid. Is that his new place?”

  “No...oh, that’s right, he was moving, wasn’t he? I told him to finish up, get clear, and not to tell anybody over at IPD about it. I sure as hell hope he followed my instructions.”

  “Gorski an’ the rest of his team were gonna go take care of that after the socializing at the pub,” Maia explained. “If they actually did, then he was probably in the new apartment, not the old one. So he should be safe, Lee.”

  “Um,” Lee said, raking a hand over his face, “Maia, at the risk of sounding like an old softie, you wouldn’t mind checking, would you? As soon as I left Headquarters at the end of my shift, they took down all my links, ‘cause I’m retired now...”

  “You can’t call the kid?”

  “Nope. I don’t have access. And I never got his personal info, ‘cause I didn’t want to risk being accused of something...”

  “Okay, lemme see. Huh. He’s changed his VR contact info; that’s promising. But this might take me a bit…”

  Ashton woke to an urgent notification in his VR, and saw that it was from Colonel Peterson. He sat up, groggy, and glanced at the clock: 3:12am. Shit, he thought. What’s this all about? I’m supposed to be off duty. And how the hell did she get my new VR contact info… well, she is the assistant chief, after all.

  He was also nude, mildly disoriented, sitting in the dark and unable to remember where the light switches were in his new apartment – in or out of VR – and too out of it to select an appropriate avatar, so he simply used an audio link.

  “Officer Ashton.”

  “Oh, thank God, Nick!” Maia Peterson’s voice came through to him. “I’m so sorry to wake you, but Lee and I – er, Captain Carter and I – have been dreadfully worried about you.”

  “Um, okay, yeah, I’m fine...what’s happened?”

  “I take it, you’re in your new place?”

  “Uh, yeah...”

  “Good. Because your old place was blown to dust bunnies about half an hour, maybe forty-five minutes ago.”

  Ashton sat up straight, suddenly wide awake.

  “SHIT!” he declared.

  “Yes, and according to the news feeds, one Inspector Thomas has decreed it was ‘an accident by the inhabitant, who was apparently killed in the blast. Most likely a failure to switch off certain cooking appliances or the like,’ given the video clip that’s running in the newsfeed.”

  “You’re kidding,” Ashton said, voice flat with surprise and dismay. “That was the detective I was supposed to be assigned to, over at IPD, the one that didn’t want me to do anything but what he said.”

  “Aha. The one Lee – um, Captain Carter – says you hacked off?”

  “That’s the one, yeah. And then he never used me again.”

  “All right. I want you to lay low for a few days, then. Stefan Gorski and I will help keep you out of sight, while still getting you up to speed with our department. We don’t need these rotten cops finding out they killed the wrong guy and coming back after you until we get you a little better settled. And not even then, if we can help it.”

  “I won’t argue that,” Ashton said, perturbed, raking his fingers through his hair and disarranging it further.

  “Good. I’m sorry I woke you, but I’m sure you can see why I did.”

>   “Yes ma’am, and thanks for being worried about me. Can you call Captain Carter back and tell him I’m okay?”

  “I’ll do that, Nick,” Peterson said in an amused tone. “See you in the morning. Keep your head down. Wear street clothes to come in, though; whatever you do, don’t come in uniform. Bring your uniform in to the locker room in a garment bag and change there, and wear a hooded jacket or ball cap or something, to minimize recognition. All right?”

  “Yes ma’am.”

  “See you then.”

  “Good night, ma’am.”

  And the VR link broke.

  Ashton pulled up the news feed to see what had happened to his old apartment, thankful he was no longer in it, and wondering who had been.

  “It’s all right, Lee; he’s fine,” Maia told her lover. “He was in the new place. Whoever they nailed, it was the wrong guy. Might have been the super, or a maintenance worker, or maybe a cleaning person.”

  “Good,” Lee said, deeply relieved. “And yeah, you’re probably right…though I feel bad for whoever it was, and their family. You told the boy to lay low?”

  “Yeah. We’re gonna try to keep him out of sight for as long as we can. You think they’ll check to see that they got the right person?”

  “No idea. I guess it depends on how cocky they are, and how good they think their hit man is. But if Ashton goes out with your people, they’ll find out, sooner or later.”

  “I know. But better later, when we can get a bit more experience under his belt, and some buddies watching his back, than sooner, without all that.”

  “No argument there.” Lee drew a deep breath, and let it out in a shaky sigh.

  “Aw. You’re really fond of the kid.”

  “Well...yeah. He’s...he’s smart, and he’s good, and he has a good heart, Maia.” He shrugged. “He…sorta reminds me of me, when I started. I...”

  “You’ve been keeping an eye on him since he arrived.”

  “Yeah.”

  “And you thought you’d failed.”

  Lee dropped his gaze to the bedclothes in his lap. Elvis was already settling back down, across his ankles. “...Yeah.”

  “C’mere, baby,” she said, pulling him close. “He’s safe. Everything’s okay now. Just relax.”

  And she kissed him thoroughly.

  Hitting the Ground One Way or Another

  The next morning, Ashton arrived at ICPD headquarters in a hooded jacket and casual wear, his uniform in a garment bag which he carefully rolled and placed in a small duffel to disguise it as much as possible. He changed in the locker room, then headed for his superior’s office, where he gave his new address to Colonel Peterson.

  “And if you wouldn’t mind, could you pass it on to Captain Carter when it’s appropriate, since I’m…well, I guess I’m officially offworld, but unofficially on loan to you guys?”

  “I can, when I see him tonight,” Maia agreed, “but he’s not ‘Captain’ anybody now, you know. He retired as soon as you got your ass outta that place, Nick.”

  “He did?!”

  “He did. Like, within an hour. And glad of it, to judge by what he told me last night.” She studied the young officer for a long moment. “You know what? I’m gonna just hang on to this. Oh, I’ll enter it into the formal records for Imp City, but I’ll ensure it’s buried deep, and has a restriction on it so nobody can see it that I don’t want seeing. Lee won’t have a replacement yet, and when they do replace him, it’ll be somebody who kowtows to Stanier or Kershaw, you can be sure of that. And by the time they do, or by the time you’ve ‘come back from training,’ whichever comes first…well, I’ll have conveniently ‘lost’ it.”

  “Oh,” Ashton said, trying not to grin.

  “Oh, go ahead and laugh,” Peterson said, grinning herself. “You’re going to find out, Nick, that this department runs a lot differently – and a lot less formally – than the one you were just in. And I’ll bet you wind up liking it, when all’s said and done.”

  “I’m sure liking it so far, ma’am. I’d never have thought of somebody over at IPD headquarters calling me in the middle of the night ‘cause they were worried about me. Well, maybe Captain Carter…”

  “Definitely Captain Carter. He was waiting on tenterhooks for me to let him know if you were okay.”

  “Why didn’t he call me himself?”

  “He couldn’t. As soon as he was out of the building – probably before – they cut his comms to all you guys, and he’d deliberately not gotten your personal contact info to prevent either of you being accused of collusion or something.”

  “Oh. Aw. Well, yeah, then. I definitely am liking this department better.”

  “Good.”

  Starting that very morning, Peterson kept Ashton at his desk for more than three weeks, waiting for the hullaballoo over the bombing to die down – it had to have been a bomb, given nobody was living in the apartment, and per ICPD’s official unofficial assessment by their explosives experts, it was too big to have been a gas explosion, anyway. This was all done with the help of Stefan Gorski and his team, during which time they accepted Ashton as one of their own. They were, one and all, concerned for his safety, especially after the blast; as a general rule, someone walked home with him at the end of shift, and pretty soon, at least one and often more were meeting him near his new flat to come in with him in the mornings, as well.

  “What’s the word, George?” Chief Stanier asked General Kershaw. “Did we get ‘im?”

  “Not according to the forensics guys, George,” Kershaw responded. “Apparently it was just a maintenance guy.”

  “But that was Ashton’s apartment, right, Bill?”

  “It was. It was a furnished apartment, so all the furniture and décor was there, but there were no personal items there. After the fact, we went in and found out that he’d given up the lease on it, packed up, and headed out. Evidently Ashton really did leave Sintar. And some of my people actually saw him departing from an interstellar gate, on a flight to Pritani, like Carter said.”

  “Really? That’s good, then. Maybe he’ll come back with some street smarts to add to the book smarts.”

  “Hopefully. We might even want to consider moving him from the beat cop line org into the investigation line, if his training pans out.”

  “It’s an idea. We’ll wait and see what happens when he gets back.” Stanier paused, then delicately changed the subject. “How’s your niece doing with her assignments?”

  “She’s doing great, George,” Kershaw replied with a chuckle. “Coming right along. Already got her first promotion.”

  “Great! Oh, and have you heard about that new boyfriend? Some actor from a VR drama. She caught a looker, from the scuttlebutt I heard.”

  “Yeah,” Kershaw laughed. “That one’s going hot and heavy. He’s even slept over a few times already.”

  “Do tell…”

  When the news became public that the deceased had been a maintenance man prepping the apartment for a new renter, Carter, Peterson, and Gorski realized that their “laying low” subterfuge might have run its course.

  “Because they know now, it wasn’t Ashton,” Gorski told Peterson in her office.

  “Yeah,” she sighed. “I’d hoped for a little longer, but there it is.” She paused. “Maybe it’ll work in our favor, though.”

  “How’s that?”

  “He’s not supposed to be on Sintar, remember? He’s on Pritani, getting trained.”

  “Ooo, good point. You might be right, then.”

  “So maybe it’s time to take advantage of that notion.”

  “Yeah. Let’s start getting him some street experience,” Gorski suggested. “Might as well get as much training under his belt as we can, as fast as we can, while they think he’s not here. It stands him a better chance to survive. Especially if one of us is with him.”

  “Go for it,” Peterson agreed. “But…”

  “But?”

  “You think we can get him into an Imp Ci
ty uniform?”

  “I think we’re gonna try,” Gorski agreed. “Or…”

  “Or?”

  “Or that might be too close to how they’re used to seeing him. It might not be a big enough difference. A police uniform is a police uniform, after all. And they’re all part of the same pattern.”

  “Mmph. Good point. What do you suggest, then?”

  “Simple. We can put him in plainclothes, since he’s on the investigatory team. Then, if and only if we have a need for him to be formally in uniform, we’ll slap his ass in an Imp City one. Maybe even a high-ranking one. Because ‘undercover.’ And,” he added, considering, “we might ought to gin up a fake police I.D. for him, just in case. Something that we can put into the system and therefore looks real, but is an alias for him, in case he has to face off against an IPD officer while on a case. That way he doesn’t give away who he really is.”

  “Even better. Do it.”

  “Yes, sir?” Ashton said, reporting to Detective Gorski in his office. “What do you need, sir?”

  “It’s what you need, Nick,” Gorski said, gesturing to the visitor’s chair. “The IPD – meaning Stanier, Kershaw and Company – now knows you weren’t in your old apartment, and have probably realized you moved out, so we’re going to play off the notion that you’re offworld for as long as possible.”

  “Okay…”

  “How many suits do you have?”

  “Suits? Um, one, maybe two…”

  “What about a sport coat?”

  “I have a tweed jacket…” Ashton noted, thinking hard.

  “Dress trousers?”

  “Just my uniforms and what goes with my suits, sir.”

  “Casual dress slacks?”

  “Uh, yeah, I got around four or five of those.”