EMPIRE: Imperial Police

by Stephanie Osborn

  “Ashton. You sure?”

  “No! That’s why I’m in full VR! You got his picture, right?”

  “Aha. Yeah, lemme dig that out.”

  The VR depicted Gorecki patting down his pockets; in reality, he was sifting through image files.

  “Oh, here we go.”

  He held up a photo; in reality, he pushed the image file to Jeannie, who studied it.

  “Yeah! Yeah, that’s him, I’m ninety-nine percent sure! He’s mostly blond now, but the rest of it’s him!”

  “Okay. You’re where, now?”

  “The Baked Bean Café, in the Golden Street Arcade, over in Imperial Park East.”

  “Moving up with your clientele, there, eh?”

  “It pays,” Jeannie declared, offended. “Better than it used to, given the guys with no bank balance you used to send me.”

  “Right. I bet it does.” Gorecki leered. “I’ll get somebody over there as fast as I can. Maybe we can catch the son of a bitch this time.”

  But by the time Gorecki could get one of his hired guns to the location – given that most of them tended to frequent the less-affluent Imperial Park South district – Ashton and his two mentors were long gone.

  Much to Jeannie’s chagrin, so was her impatient john.

  At Rounder’s home, the investigative trio spread out and explored, periodically bagging and labeling this or that item to test for the presence of virulosin. Finally Ashton stopped, irritated.

  “There has got to be an easier way,” he declared. “We’re just guessing, here.”

  “What do you suggest, Nick?” Gorski wondered.

  “I’m not completely sure yet, but are you two game for me trying something?” he asked.

  Demetrius and Gorski looked at each other, then they both shrugged.

  “You’ve got a good head on your shoulders, son,” Demetrius, the eldest of the three, said. “If you have a hunch about something, give it a shot.”

  “All right. Hang on a few minutes, here,” Ashton said, and his face took on the blank expression of someone in VR.

  “Dr. Botha?” Ashton asked, as the forensic physician from the Empress Adannaya III Hospital appeared in the virtual meeting room in avatar form, in response to his VR summons.

  “Yes? Wait, you’re the young investigator that Stefan Gorski brought with him to the rapist case, right?” Botha asked, recognizing Ashton.

  “That’s me. Officer Nick Ashton, Captain Investigator, IP – I mean, ICPD. I used to be IPD HQ, but I…didn’t like it over there.”

  “Good to see you again, and I…understand. I take it, you have a question about something?”

  “I do. Were you around as a forensic physician when the Sandman serial killer operated?”

  “I sure was. That was a scary time.” Botha’s avatar stopped dead, and stared at Ashton’s avatar in horror. “Oh shit. Don’t tell me, he’s back?”

  “That, or it’s a copycat,” Ashton noted. “And given it’s the exact same modus operandi, and we never really figured it out the first time...”

  “Randi ka choda,” the doctor cursed in a pithy tone.

  “I’m not sure what that means,” Ashton said in a bleakly humorous tone, “but judging by the way it sounds, I think I agree with you.”

  Botha let out a wry bark of laughter.

  “It would be the rough equivalent of ‘son of a bitch,’” he translated. “What can I do to help?”

  “From what my mentors are telling me, apparently the means of death is infection of healthy people by a specialized virulosin,” Ashton explained.

  “Yes, that is apparently the case,” Botha confirmed. “I worked on that case, back when the Sandman first appeared – I tended one of the victims, trying desperately to find a way to stop the cascade – and was also involved in the forensics. We found a virulosin in the victims, targeted to Griggs-Andersen Syndrome, where the body’s organs are failing due to – well, you don’t care about that. Suffice it that, if the G.A.S.-targeted virulosin is consumed by a healthy person, it causes the reverse – it makes the organs fail in sequence, in a cascade that is, so far, impossible to stop, and fairly swift but not immediate.”

  Ashton pondered that.

  “So...once it’s been introduced into the body, the victim is gonna die?”

  “Yes. The victim will die. We never found a way to stop it, though I’m sure the research is ongoing.”

  “You said consumed. What’s the usual means of introduction to a Griggs-Andersen patient?”

  “It is usually placed into a cola-like drink – preferably one with caffeine; it helps the system by pumping up the metabolism and spreading the virulosin faster – and consumed that way. Then it is absorbed through the gastrointestinal tract, and goes systemic.”

  “Hm.”

  “Yes.”

  “All right, lemme get to the point of this visit,” Ashton decided. “Out in the field, here, us investigators are kind of grasping at straws. We don’t know where the virulosin was introduced, so we don’t even know where the crime scene is. I was kinda hoping maybe you medicos had developed a method of detecting the stuff?”

  “Well, no,” Botha said. “Since it’s a medication, normally there’s no need to detect it. It’s right where it needs to be.”

  “Shit!” Ashton cursed with feeling.

  “No, now wait, Detective,” Botha said. “I–”

  “It’s Captain Investigator, sir, or just Officer. I haven’t made detective quite yet.”

  “Ah, right,” Botha said. “So hold on, Officer. Just because the answer to that specific question is no doesn’t mean I can’t help you, here.”

  “Oh? What have you got in mind?”

  “Centuries ago, back on Earth, humans had many difficulties with viral pandemics,” Botha explained. “Hundreds of thousands to many millions of deaths, with the worst of them; economies destroyed or crippled at best, as they tried to quarantine entire segments of the population. The history is...grim.” Ashton nodded understanding, so Botha continued. “Even with more and more advanced medicines, detecting them was sometimes difficult. More, if the person had already had the virus and survived it, that meant the immune system was likely proof against it, but it was often hard to know who had already had it. Attempts were made to slow the spread, and were, at best, only partially effective...often at the cost of the nation-state’s economy. Over time – think a couple of centuries, here – the medical community began to realize that the ability to detect a given virus or its antibody in a person or in an environment was paramount in an epidemic or pandemic. It gives us a leg up on knowing where the disease is, and how bad it is, where it’s being transmitted, who needs treatment, and whose immune system is already protecting them against it.”

  “Okay. So?”

  “So,” Botha told him, “scientists developed a swift means of detecting the presence of a given virus based on its core nucleic acid structure. They also developed the means of detecting its antibody, but that’s neither here nor there for our purposes now. So. This method is especially effective for retroviruses, where the segment of RNA contained in the core of the virion is replicated and spliced into the host’s DNA, apparently in order to replicate. And this is how virulosin works. We – the medical community – use certain specific strains of retroviruses, then replace the core RNA with the segment we want replaced to cure the specific genetic disease we’re trying to fix. Then we introduce the modified retrovirus into our patient, ensure the virus reaches the specific body parts needing repair, and let it do its thing.”

  “That’s...brilliant.”

  “Well, it is, and I don’t take any credit for it; that’s not my field of expertise. But, since the viral detector system works best for retroviruses, I suspect it can be easily modified to look for your virulosin that’s being used to murder.”

  “Ooo. That would be useful!” Ashton exclaimed. “Should I ask how that works?”

  “Probably not,” Botha chuckled. “Because that
was not something I studied in depth, and while I could take a cut at an explanation, that doesn’t mean I could get it to make sense to you.”

  “Heh,” Ashton chuckled. “I get that. Why didn’t anybody use this when the Sandman first appeared?”

  “I suspect because nobody thought of it,” Botha concluded. “The technology I’m referencing was still relatively new at that time, and wasn’t in common use as yet. There were other methods before this technique was developed, but they were cruder and slower.”

  “Okay, I can understand that. So how long do you think it will take you to get hold of whoever, and get a...what do you call the shit?”

  “Epidemiological Viral Detection and Early Warning Reagent,” Botha said. “Shortened – a little – to E.V.D.E.W.R.”

  “Damn. That’s a mouthful and a half.”

  “Yes, but you should have seen the alternative name,” Botha laughed. “Anyway, I know who to call, and since it is designed to go into action early in a suspected epidemic, it’s designed and set up so they can turn it out pretty fast, and one of the principal manufacturers is here on Sintar. I can have a case of what they call ‘puff testers’ to the ICPD headquarters in...probably about an hour or two, coded to the G.A.S. virulosin. And it will not be expensive – it is designed not to be, per an Imperial decree, so that sectors in the midst of an epidemic or pandemic can afford it – so we can send the bill through to the bean counters and they won’t pass out.”

  “That’s great! Let’s do it,” Ashton ordered. “We need all the help we can get, before somebody else gets hit.”

  “Agreed. I’ll do it immediately we end this meeting.”

  “You’re kidding,” Demetrius said, once Ashton had explained. “Why didn’t they use that when the Sandman showed up the first time?”

  “I expect because nobody thought to,” Gorski said. “And they might not even have had it yet. After all, it was the last Empress who finally got the drug companies to get off their collective asses and start pumping out the various virulosins to begin with. They were sitting on ‘em because they were making more money off ongoing treatment drugs than off cures.”

  “That’s pretty much the way I understood it, yes,” Ashton confirmed. “Because I asked the same thing. The technology was brand-new at the time, and nobody was familiar with it. And older methods were too slow for an active police investigation of ongoing murders.”

  “Mmph,” Demetrius said, stifling what, judging by his expression, would have been a particularly pithy curse. “All right. So Nick, here, comes up with the item that’s going to help us locate the source of the...” he threw up his hands, “infection, for want of a better way to put it.” He patted Ashton on the back. “Hell of an idea, kiddo.”

  “Thank you, sir.”

  “So should we go back to the office and wait for the...what was it, Nick? ‘Puff testers’?” Gorski asked.

  “You two are the experienced detectives,” Ashton said, “but I don’t see the point in waiting here right now. Besides, the others might have found something in the archives.”

  “Good point,” Demetrius decreed. “Let’s go.”

  Sitting Ducks

  Jeannie’s avatar was waiting for Gorecki, and this time she was in a bad mood. As soon as he appeared, she lit in on him.

  “Do you have anybody working for you that has any patience or common sense?” she demanded. “That idiot you sent to me stayed maybe five minutes, then headed out, too bored to sit here and wait! Ashton just came back through, with two other older guys, one of which might have been the other guy you’re looking for! And numbnuts didn’t have sense enough to wait, to see if he might come back through! Even though I told him he ought to, just in case!”

  “Roger? He didn’t stay?”

  “No!”

  “Did he say why?”

  “Something about you interrupting him while he was bangin’ his girlfriend.”

  “Mmph.” Gorecki scowled. “Son of a bitch. Okay. So we missed Ashton, and maybe Carter, too. Again. Dammit. All right. I’ll take care of Roger. His girlfriend probably needs to start shopping around for a new boyfriend, though.”

  And Gorecki broke the link.

  But Roger had thought better of the matter, and circled around until he could survey the area from a secluded spot in an alcove between buildings. He patted his pocket to make sure he was properly equipped, then settled down to wait.

  He didn’t have to wait long. Ten minutes later, a trio of men in casual business wear, Ashton in the middle, rode the slidewalk through the arcade toward the commuter train station. They were on the far side of the arcade street from him, but he had a decent aim.

  Bingo, he thought. Ashton and Carter. And the other guy is probably Imp City. Triple score. Take ‘em in order, Rog.

  He smirked as he pulled his pistol from his jacket pocket. He rested it on his opposite hand, which was, in turn, pressed against the building façade, aimed at Ashton, and pulled the trigger.

  The round hit Ashton right in the chest, and he went down.

  Shocked, Demetrius and Gorski spun in the direction of the gun report, spotted the shooter, and drew down, yelling, “POLICE! EVERYONE! GET DOWN! WE HAVE A SHOOTER!” as the two detectives crouched and took aim. Pedestrians shrieked, and dove for cover.

  The shooter ducked behind the corner of the building as both detectives let loose a short burst of weapons fire, then emerged once more to take another shot, going for Gorski.

  “Get down, Stefan!” Demetrius ordered, and Gorski flattened himself on the slidewalk to present the smallest possible silhouette. Demetrius, already on one knee, steadied his weapon, aimed at the gunman – who was focusing on Gorski – and fired. Three times.

  A cry came from their assailant, and he ducked back behind the building. That shelter was quickly eluding him, however, as the slidewalk carried the Imp City officers farther down the street, opening up the alcove in which the gunman hid.

  By this time, Gorski had his own weapon brought back around and trained, as he lay flat on his belly. He took aim at the torso of the shooter, and fired three more shots.

  The gunman fell backward, dropping his weapon and disappearing behind a waste bin, even as Imperial City Police beat cops came running.

  “Sir!” one of them said, running up to Gorski. “Are you hurt?”

  “No, but my protégé may be,” Gorski said, levering himself up and turning toward Ashton, who still lay on his back on the slidewalk, apparently unconscious. “Somebody stop the slidewalk and let’s see to him.”

  “You lot! Go apprehend the shooter!” Demetrius said, pointing at a group of three beat cops.

  “Yes, sir!” They saluted and headed across the street at a run.

  The detectives turned to the fallen Ashton.

  “Nick? Son? Are you okay?” Gorski said, kneeling beside the younger man. “Damn. I’m not seeing any blood, Gene, but there’s a hole clean through…”

  “I’m…I’m okay,” Ashton panted, stirring and pushing into a seated position. “Body armor…stopped it. Hurt like hell, though. Knocked the wind outta me.”

  “Yup, thank God for body armor, but you’ll still feel it,” Gorski agreed. “Did he get you with more than one round?”

  “Nah, just the one.” Ashton poked a finger through the hole in his tweed jacket. “Damn. I liked this jacket.”

  “Don’t sweat it. I know a good tailor can re-weave that in nothing flat,” Demetrius offered, as the police officers who had gone to investigate the shooter returned. “Where is he?”

  “Gone, sir. There’s a puddle of blood, though, so you got him.”

  “We should be able to track the blood drops, then, and apprehend him,” Gorski decided. “Get some blood samples, while we’re at it.”

  “No time for that. Here come the Impies,” Demetrius said, seeing several Imperial Police coming through the archway on the far side of the arcade. “We need to get Nick out of sight.”

  “They want him, sir?”
one of the beat cops asked.

  “Yes. Preferably dead. He was the shooter’s target. And he’s one of us.”

  “We have this, then,” another beat cop said, as they all scowled. “Internal Imp City matter; we’ll hold ‘em up, you go.”

  “We’re gone, then,” Demetrius agreed.

  “Can you stand, Nick?” Gorski asked.

  “Help me up, and I’ll be okay,” Ashton averred.

  The two detectives, plus one of the beat cops, levered Ashton to his feet as the others went to delay the IPD officers.

  Then the slidewalk came on and they jogged along it for the near archway and the commuter train station beyond.

  Roger was in a bad way. The oldest cop had hit him in the arm, and Carter had hit him in the belly. He was bleeding badly, but he pulled a kerchief out of a pocket and stuffed it into the wound, trying not to scream in pain. He figured if he could get home, he could get help…but he had to avoid bleeding out along the way.

  He hobbled for the maintenance exit as fast as he could manage.

  Demetrius commandeered a car on the commuter train, ensured the security monitor was killed, and he and Gorski eased Ashton into a train seat.

  “All right, let’s see,” Gorski demanded.

  “Aw, I’m doing better now,” Ashton protested, even as Gorski and Demetrius stripped him of his jacket and tie. “It’s just gonna bruise.”

  “I want to make sure you don’t have any internal injuries,” Demetrius insisted. “The shock wave from the impact can still cause injury – even death – even if the bullet doesn’t penetrate, Nick.”

  “I know, I…” Ashton broke off, then sighed, and began stripping off his shirt and upper body armor. The other two men hissed.

  “Gonna bruise?” Gorski echoed. “More like already has. Damn, Nick.”

  There was a big purple-blue-black blotch on Ashton’s right chest, running roughly across his lower breast. Ashton wrinkled his nose in a displeased scowl.

  “Shit,” was all he said.