Manhattan in Reverse (25 page)

‘Is she going for some kind of technicality?’ Paula whispered to Stephan Dorge, the Directorate’s prosecutor.

‘I don’t see how,’ he whispered back. ‘They didn’t ask for a deal.’

‘What about the memory deposition?’

‘Nah, we can prove it’s an implant.’

When Paula looked at Ms Toi, she thought the lawyer seemed uncomfortable.

Prosecution opened with the forensics evidence from the launch site. The DNA match between Dimitros Fiech and the urine sample. Skin analysis taken at the Directorate’s Sydney office immediately after the arrest revealed traces of the missile’s chemical rocket booster exhaust on his arms and face; there were also plume traces on his yellow shirt. The jury was shown camera pictures from the Larsie marina and Ridgeview’s CST station. Additional corroboration was skin cell DNA taken from the boat.

‘The evidence which places Dimitros Fiech at the launch site is incontrovertible,’ Stephan Dorge concluded. ‘He fired the missile which killed a hundred and thirty-eight people. And for what? To push his perverted ideological platform.’

In the docks, Dimitros Fiech shook his head in disbelief.

Defence called Paula Myo. ‘I’d like to concentrate on the deposition of Dimitros Fiech’s memory on the day concerned?’ Ms Toi asked. ‘You ran the memory read yourself, did you not?’

‘I did,’ Paula said. ‘They contained no recollection of the missile launch. We believe false memories of his day on Ormal were inserted at the same time his true memory of the attack was erased.’

‘False memories? You mean someone created them in a studio like a Full Sensory drama?’

‘No. An accomplice went to Ormal in his place to provide an alibi. That experience was recorded, then loaded into Fiech’s brain.’

‘You believe someone like the defendant went to Ormal. How do you know it wasn’t him?’

‘Because he was on Nova Zealand firing the missile.’

‘But the person, the
personality
, sitting here in this courtroom today did not fire the missile, did he?’

Paula gave the defence lawyer a small smile. ‘Nice try. The defendant’s personality arranged for the current memory to be implanted, therefore he is what he wants to be.’

‘But what he is now is not the original personality?’

‘Who knows? There is no test that I’m aware of for identifying personality; in any case as any first-year psychology student will tell you, personality is fluid, it changes as you age, some say it matures. Just because you don’t remember committing a crime, doesn’t mean you’re innocent of it. That precedent was established when the first memory erasure techniques were developed. The Justice Directorate suspension chambers are full of criminals who removed inconvenient incriminating memories. I’d point out that Fiech has erased his entire life prior to joining the Colliac Fak company; which has very neatly blocked our investigation into the Free Merioneth Movement, and we all know what that’s led to in the last six months. To me such behaviour is the personality trait of a real fanatic.’

‘Objection,’ Ms Toi exclaimed. ‘Speculation. I want that struck from the record.’

‘You asked for my opinion on his personality,’ Paula countered.

‘I’ll allow it to stand for the moment,’ Judge Jeroen said. ‘It was a legitimate answer to your line of questioning, defence.’

‘Your honour,’ Ms Toi bowed to the judge. ‘Investigator, you said that memory erasure is common when a crime has been committed.’

‘That is correct.’

‘Have you ever known alternative memory for the time of the crime to be implanted?’

‘I haven’t come across it before, although the technique is relatively straightforward. You just need a colleague like the one Fiech had to record his day.’

‘So if I implanted the memory of firing the missile into your brain, would that make you guilty?’

‘No. Because I didn’t do it. The rest of the physical evidence would support that.’

‘So in fact, Investigator, this boils down to two sets of opposing evidence. Both equally valid.’

‘Valid but not of equal credibility. That is correct.’

‘Please describe to the court the efforts which you undertook to establish that the person on Ormal was not Dimitros Fiech.’

‘I retraced the route myself, and interviewed everyone he remembered encountering. Security camera images were recovered and analysed.’

‘What did they show?’

‘A man with similar facial features to Dimitros Fiech travelled to Ormal. We assumed he underwent a cellular reprofiling treatment.’

‘But you can’t prove it. The man sitting here in the dock could have been the one on Ormal, and his made-up doppelgänger could have fired the missile on Nova Zealand. Am I right?’

‘No. Under my instruction, a Directorate forensics officer analysed the seat cover on the plane which flew from Essendyne back to Harwood’s Hill. It had been cleaned, but we found large traces of vomit containing DNA. It did not correspond to Dimitros Fiech’s DNA, yet it was the seat he remembers using and being sick on. It wasn’t him on Ormal.’

Ms Toi gave Paula a startled look. ‘I see. Thank you, Investigator.’

‘No!’ Dimitros Fiech yelled. ‘No, you can’t believe that. I didn’t do it. Damn you, I didn’t.’ He turned to the jury and gave them a wild stare. ‘It wasn’t me. I wasn’t there. I know I wasn’t.’

Judge Jeroen banged his gavel. ‘Be seated Mr Fiech.’

‘I’m being framed.’ He turned to Ms Toi. ‘Do something!’

She winced.

Paula quietly left the witness stand as Fiech continued his tirade. Two large court officers moved forwards into the dock as the judge banged his gavel repeatedly.

*

After another day and a half of evidence the jury retired. They took an hour to reach their verdict of guilty. Judge Jeroen sentenced Dimitros Fiech to two-thousand-seven-hundred-and-sixty years life suspension, twenty years for each of the people who suffered bodyloss in the crash.

*

Paula was packing her bag when Aidan Winkal rapped his knuckles on the office door. ‘Hello,’ she said.

He grinned. ‘I just came to say goodbye.’

‘That’s very kind of you, Aidan. You’ve handled yourself well while we were putting this case together, and I know this hasn’t been easy. I expect your Chief will be promoting you.’

‘Probably. I gather Christabel got her promotion.’

‘Yes. Chief Investigator at last. I’ll miss her. There’ll be a party in Paris tonight when we get back. You’re welcome to join us.’

He scratched at his short hair. ‘Go to Paris just for a party. That’s a real city dweller thing. An Earth city.’

‘Come on, you’re not such a small-town boy. I’d dance with you.’

‘I can’t believe how thorough you were. I really thought the defence was going to nail you with that question about evidence from Ormal. I guess she didn’t realize how methodical you are.’

Paula shrugged and dropped her spare jacket into the bag. ‘It’s what I do. I have to be certain for myself. And Ms Toi should have known. I’m notorious enough for my diligence. He was badly represented.’

‘So you’re convinced he did it?’

‘The Dimitros Fiech sitting in the dock this morning was the physical person who launched the missile, I have no doubt of that.’

‘Now there you go, see: a real lawyer’s answer.’

‘I concede defence did have a point about what constitutes a whole person. Body and memory are the two halves of being human.’

‘But Fiech’s memory of the attack has been wiped. It’s over. We got what we could of him.’

She smiled reassuringly. ‘Yes, we did. And he got the sentence he deserved.’

Christabel and Nelson appeared behind Aidan. Neither looked as jubilant as they should have done. Aidan gave Paula an uncomfortable smile. ‘I’ll leave you guys to it.’

‘Try and get there tonight,’ Paula told him. ‘I meant it about that dance.’

A sheepish Aidan shuffled out past Christabel who did her best not to laugh at his schoolboyish delight.

‘Is he really your type?’ Christabel asked.

‘I don’t have a type,’ Paula said. ‘But he is an honest policeman. I value that.’

Nelson looked at Christabel then Paula. Took a breath. ‘Anyway . . . I’m also here to deliver my Dynasty’s thanks. We appreciate the effort involved in securing the verdict.’

‘You’re welcome,’ Paula said. ‘It’s a shame we couldn’t use Fiech to uncover his co-conspirators, but that memory wipe was very efficient. There is nothing left of his life prior to his arrival in Sydney for that job. Until we finally arrest the entire Free Merioneth Forces we’re not going to find out who he is.’

‘Was,’ Christabel corrected.

Nelson’s expression turned bitter. He made a show of closing the door. ‘That’s unlikely to happen. Not now.’

‘What do you mean?’ Christabel asked.

‘Confidentially: my Dynasty along with several others has agreed Merioneth will become an Isolated world.’

Paula let out a hiss of exasperation. She’d suspected something like this would happen. The last few months while they’d assembled the case against Dimitros Fiech had seen the Free Merioneth campaign expand to alarming proportions. After the Nova Zealand plane, the movement had been steadily refining their operations, developing into more sophisticated assassins. The results were dramatic. Their targets were now dispatched with cool efficiency, and the number of collateral casualties was significantly reduced. In the last twelve attacks, thirty-nine Dynasty members had suffered complete bodyloss. The new generations were now running very scared, with few of them leaving their mansions on the private family worlds. ‘You gave in,’ she said in frustration.

‘We couldn’t afford it,’ Nelson said with equal chagrin. ‘The cost of providing upgraded security for every member of every Dynasty was completely unrealistic. Far beyond writing off the investment costs in Merioneth.’

‘There’s more at stake here than money,’ an annoyed Christabel snapped.

‘I know that,’ Nelson said. ‘Of course, it won’t appear to be any kind of climb down. We wouldn’t allow that. We negotiated the terms of Isolation with the new Nationalist Party that sprung up on Merioneth. The terrorists stop their attacks, and in a couple of years we close the wormhole. They’ll be on their own. Forever.’

‘It’ll come back to bite you,’ Paula said. ‘You’ve shown your opponents a weakness. It can be used every time someone wants a concession out of a Dynasty.’

‘That was one of the reasons we agreed,’ Nelson said.

‘I don’t understand.’

‘We don’t have other opponents, not in this category. The Intersolar Commonwealth is a relatively civilized place. Sure we can all disagree with each other; politicians on half of the planets we’ve got aren’t speaking to the other half; but there’s only a tiny minority who want to leave, and an even smaller number who resort to violence to obtain their ends. This whole succession notion is ridiculous. An Isolated planet will never benefit from the advances the rest of us make. Their social and economic development will be stunted. Hell, Merioneth will probably regress. When we announce the wormhole is to be closed we’re expecting a lot of its ordinary residents will rush back to the Commonwealth before Isolation begins. Our analysts have reviewed this; they’re not sure Merioneth will even be able to maintain basic rejuvenation technology levels, not in the short-to-medium term. I sure as hell wouldn’t want to live there. Bodyloss will become death again.’

‘And the Dynasties consider that a big plus point,’ Christabel reasoned. ‘Anyone who doesn’t like the Dynasties and what they represent will be free to emigrate to Merioneth.’

‘Then we slam the door shut behind them,’ Nelson said. ‘It’s a bolt-hole for malcontents the Commonwealth over. Everyone is better off afterwards.’

‘An old-fashioned pressure valve for hotheads,’ Paula muttered.

‘So the Dynasty leaders decided,’ he admitted. ‘It still galls me that the real culprits behind the attacks won’t be brought to justice. But that’s a political price, and it gets set far above our heads.’

The club was underneath a twenty-second-century retro-Napoleonic building on the Left Bank. It was chic enough, though there were far more expensive places in Paris, but aside from Christabel herself no one from the Serious Crimes Directorate office could afford an evening partying with the truly wealthy Grand Family members who colonized such establishments – and Christabel never pushed her heritage on anyone. Until tonight.

It was dark inside the annular vault, a gloom punctured by holographic blobs oscillating with naughty subliminal vibrations. Paula flinched as she walked down the stairs to the floor. The sound system was like a de-rated sonic weapon. Glass galleries enlivened by violet light ran round the high stone walls at two levels, linked by curving glass stairs. People thronged along them, Paris’s eternal clique of bohemians, wearing clothes of semi-organic fabric embossed with elaborate patterns that merged seamlessly into the vivid OCtattoos on their skin. It was hard to tell what was fabric and what was flesh. Feathers were the current merging trend, curving fronds longer than ostrich quills that sprouted from the spine. Six months ago it had been membrane petals. Several men displayed their plumage as Paula walked by, having it fan out on either side of their shoulders like wings. One was pure angel white, with a divine body to match. She smiled modestly and walked on, immune to such raffish peacocks.