The Thin Blue Line (The Empire's Corps Book 9) (v5.1) (12 page)

“I don’t like the crowds here,” she said, by way of introduction. “How about yourself?”

“I don’t like them either,” he said. He looked up at her, allowing her to see his face clearly. It would have been handsome if he’d taken proper care of himself. “But ...”

He looked back down at the table, trying to avoid staring at Belinda’s chest. She could practically read his thoughts; lust, a desire for her, and yet a fear that she would reject him in a manner so crushing that it would destroy whatever was left of his pride. Such a man feared humiliation because he’d been humiliated so often. Belinda had a feeling that he wouldn't advance in the Civil Service, if only because he couldn't make the connections his fellows could by chatting to their superiors. But at least he wouldn’t be kissing their buttocks in public.

“My name is Benny,” Belinda said. It was close to her real name without being too close for comfort. Her target wouldn't have any clear memories of her after she was done, but there was no point in taking chances. “I’m new here.”

“Welcome to Terra Nova,” the man said. “My name is Julius. Julius Stevenson.”

Belinda smiled at him, then ran his name and face through the datanet, wondering what it would turn up. Moments later, she had her answer. Julius Stevenson was listed as a low-level Civil Service official, a data-entry officer. He was a suitable target for a first attempt at gaining government-issue codes, she decided. At the very least, he might be able to tell her who to target next.

She chatted about nothing for long moments, wondering absently when he would find the nerve to buy her a drink. It was nearly ten minutes before Julius offered, so quietly that it was clear that he expected rejection. Belinda smiled, accepted the offer, then kept chatting to him as he drank several more glasses in quick succession. She had a feeling he was nerving himself up to ask her if she wanted to go somewhere more private.

“This place is getting too loud,” Julius said, as someone turned on a jukebox and heavy metal music started to play. “Do you want to go elsewhere?”

“Yes, please,” Belinda said. She took his hand, noting with some amusement that he was swaying slightly on his feet. This was not a man who drank heavily, she deduced, from how quickly the alcohol had affected him. Her presence had affected him more than he’d realised. “I’d like to go elsewhere.”

His nerves clearly grew worse the further they moved from the pub. Belinda, feeling an odd moment of sympathy, made it easier for him by kissing him as soon as they were alone, then smiled inwardly as he tried to kiss her back. He was either out of practice, part of her mind noted, or he had never been
in
practice. Moments later, his hand was groping her bottom through the skirt. Belinda pushed herself against him, then pulled back. He made no attempt to keep her close to him.

“Not here,” she said. “How close is your apartment?”

Julius’s apartment turned out to be a single-room compartment in a towering block that looked like a smaller version of Earth’s cityblocks. Belinda allowed him to lead her inside, his hands roaming her body as though he had never touched a woman before, then pushed her fingertips against the back of his neck. The hidden injector didn't even hiss as it shot a light sedative into his body, sending him staggering to his knees. He was out before his body hit the ground. Belinda picked him up effortlessly, then carried him to his bed and laid him out on the sheets. There was a grin on his sleeping face that seemed remarkably out of place.

She smiled back, then started to search the apartment for anything useful. Julius, like most civil servants, had kept copies of all of his personal documents, stashing them in a hidden safe behind a painting on the wall. Belinda snorted to herself – hiding a safe behind a painting was so old that it was the first place anyone would look – then started to work on the combination lock. It clicked open within seconds, allowing her to open the metal hatch and bring out the paperwork. A glance at each page, using her implants, allowed her to record what she saw for later study. And then she found the access datachip.

“Twit,” she said, out loud. Julius would be in deep trouble if his superior found out just how easily she’d stolen his access codes. “You’re lucky I’m going to blur your memory.”

She used her implants to access the chip, then copied the codes over into her neural link. It was easy enough to test them, although she was careful not to try to actually hack into the sections outside Julius’s authorisations.
That
would have to wait until later, once she’d parsed out enough of the system to be fairly sure she could hack into it without immediate repercussions. If she had been designing the system, she would have made sure it was capable of tracking any access, even if it seemed to have the right codes. Hell, she would have ensured the system was inaccessible outside heavily guarded and secure locations.

Julius moaned in his sleep. Belinda looked up from where she was carefully replacing everything where she’d found it, then frowned. She knew what she had to do, now; she had to inject him with something to blur his memories, then walk away and leave him alone. His imagination would give him an encounter that had ended well for both of them. She'd seen it done before. And yet ... part of her didn't want to simply walk away. She felt a strange pity for Julius, someone so out of place and yet trying to do his job.

And someone who will be blamed for giving me the codes if I’m caught
, Belinda thought, as she rose to her feet.
He won’t have a chance
.

She looked down at him, torn between two conflicting emotions. The cold dispassion she’d been taught to embrace told her to drug him, then go; the other feelings she’d felt welling up inside her said otherwise. She could have stayed with him, reassured him that she was real, even made love to him. But she knew she couldn't risk it. Julius wouldn't be content with a one-night stand, not really. He’d want to see her again and again until he saw through her cover or she had to do something more drastic to cover her tracks.

“I’m sorry,” she muttered, as she pressed her fingertips against him for the second time. His body twitched against hers, then subsided. “But I don’t have a choice.”

Julius moaned, again. Belinda watched him fall into deeper slumber, then kissed his forehead and turned to walk out the door, feeling oddly unclean. She’d done worse than drug someone for information before, ever since she’d become a Pathfinder. But why did she feel remorse now?

You’re not quite a Pathfinder any longer
, a voice said,
and you’re no longer stable. How long will it be before you go completely mad – and rogue?

“Shut up, Doug,” she growled, as she closed the door behind her. “You’re dead.”

Furthermore, prejudice will have its say when laws are written. There are no shortages of past legal structures that denied women equal rights to men (or vice versa), gave rights to parents denied to their children or made judgements based on such oddities as skin colour or age.

- Professor Leo Caesius.
The Decline of Law and Order and the Rise of Anarchy.

“You know, you should get yourself a head-com,” Patty said, as soon as Glen answered the call. “You’d be woken in a flash.”

“I always thought they were sinister,” Glen said. He glanced at his watch, then swore under his breath. It was five o’clock in the morning, an hour before curfew was due to be lifted. “And I didn't want
more
voices in my head.”

“How very reassuring,” Patty said. His boss snorted, rudely. She’d called him out of the blue, which meant trouble. Unlike some of his superiors in the past, she’d
been
a Marshal and understood the value of a good night’s sleep for her men. “I’m afraid your suspension has been suspended. I need you back at the station.”

“Wonderful,” Glen said, dryly. He would have been more enthusiastic if he hadn't been woken far too early in the morning. Spending time watching movies with Helen had been curiously enjoyable, to the point they’d both stayed up too late. “And my charge?”

“Leave her in your apartment,” Patty said. “Does she have enough sense to stay there?”

“I think so,” Glen said. He hastily ran through a mental checklist of everything that would have to be locked away, out of reach. “I can lock the door, if necessary, but if there was a fire ...”

“Take the risk,” Patty said. “Unless you’d like to bring her to the station for the day?”

“I think that would bring bad memories back to her,” Glen admitted. “She’s told me a few things, but I’ve been reluctant to press her too far.”

“Then leave her at your apartment,” Patty ordered. “I’m sending Isabel to pick you up, so I’ll expect the both of you here in sixty minutes.”

The connection broke. Glen swore to himself, then climbed out of bed and hastily jumped into the shower. The cold water snapped him awake, but he still felt too tired for comfort as he returned to his room and dressed, then pulled his pistol and terminal onto his belt. He’d made enough notes from what Helen had said over the last couple of days to help push the investigation forward, if he had time. He had a feeling that Patty wouldn't have called him back into work, risking the wrath of the Civil Guard, if she hadn't thought she needed him. It didn't bode well.

As soon as he was ready, he tapped on Helen’s door and waited for her to call out. He opened the door and smiled at her, noting that she was wearing the new nightgown he’d purchased her. She looked adorable and terrifyingly young, far too young for the outfits she'd been offered at the shop. The surge of protectiveness he felt at the thought was terrifyingly strong. He'd only known Helen for a couple of days and he was already prepared to walk through fire for her.

“I have to go into work,” he said, when she was awake. “Stay in the apartment, ok? Don’t try to leave.”

Helen nodded, wordlessly. Glen gave her a reassuring smile, then walked out of her room. Helen wouldn't be bored – she had flicks and games and even the educational programs – but he knew how tempted he would have been to explore the apartment block on his own, once his parents had gone out for the day. He hoped she wouldn't try the door, no matter what else she did. She might not respond well to being locked in like a prisoner.

Which she is
, a voice at the back of his head reminded him.
To all intents and purposes, she is a prisoner. And you have no idea what will happen to her in the future
.

His wristcom buzzed. Pushing the disturbing thought aside, he stepped through the door, checked the lock, then took the elevator down to the garage. Isabel had already parked the cruiser near the elevator doors, blatantly ignoring the signs ordering guests not to park anywhere near the spaces reserved for the wealthiest residents. Glen doubted anyone would complain, not when they saw the cruiser. The Marshals might be a shadow of the force they’d been in the glory days of the Empire, but they could still cause trouble for anyone who got in their way.

“I hear you’ve become a dad,” Isabel said, as he clambered into the cruiser and closed the door. “Congratulations.”

“Thank you,” Glen said, sourly. “What progress has been made on the investigation?”

“We spoke to the families of the dead terrorists,” Isabel said, as she guided the cruiser back onto the exit ramp. “None of them knew a thing, of course. They’re shocked and outraged that
anyone
could believe their little darlings capable of such a shitty act. It won’t be long before they start calling for an independent investigation.”

Glen nodded, ruefully. It was unlikely the families would get anywhere, but there were always ambitious populist politicians who might take their grief and turn it into a weapon for their campaigns. He couldn't blame the families for wanting to think the best of the dead, yet it was hard to give anyone the benefit of the doubt when he’d seen the aftermath of too many Nihilist attacks.

“They all fit the standard patterns,” Isabel added. “Had poor grades and big debts – a couple actually had debts to loan sharks as well as the standard loan companies. I’ve had teams going through their possessions, but unless we get very lucky we won’t find any leads there. The data-crunching might turn up a more promising angle of attack.”

“True,” Glen agreed. The electronic trails of the dead terrorists would converge, he was sure, if they’d been fool enough to leave a trail. And where they’d been together, they might well have been planning their operations. “What else did they have in common?”

“They took a number of classes,” Isabel said. “The only one they had in common was Ethical Treatment of Minority Communities.”

Glen snorted in amused disbelief. He had never been opposed to allowing people to find their own ways to live, no matter how crazy they sounded to his ears, but he had never believed that such independent communities were exempt from the law. If a religion happened to demand something from its believers that was against Imperial Law, that religion couldn't be used as a shield for the believers to hide behind. It wasn’t an attitude that was shared by idealistic students, who thought that minorities were picked on simply for being minorities. They never seemed to realise that some minorities included a number of very unpleasant human beings.

“That class is probably worth investigating,” he said, instead. “Do we have anything on the staff?”

“A few minor citations for being public nuisances,” Isabel said. She turned the cruiser, then headed into the underground garage below the station. “One of them was arrested at a demonstration twenty years ago and managed to parley it into a successful academic career. I think she was actually accused of plagiarising at some point, but it was settled in-house, with no need for police involvement.”

“Lucky for us,” Glen muttered. The various law enforcement agencies had quite enough problems without trying to tackle academic plagiarism as well. “What’s got the boss so steamed up?”

“There have been attacks,” Isabel said, as she parked the cruiser. “But you’ll hear about them at the briefing.”

The station didn't seem any less busy, Glen discovered, although it was the early hours of the morning. Crime never slept, he had been told when he joined the service, and the Marshals couldn't really sleep either. He yawned openly as he followed Isabel into the briefing room, then poured himself a mug of black coffee and took a seat at the front of the rows. Behind him, a number of other Marshals and Civil Guard personnel filled the remaining seats. Glen drank his coffee and waited, impatiently, for Patty to appear. It was nearly ten minutes before she hurried in and took her place in front of the podium.