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CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE



Isaac checked on Kohlberg through the virtual window in front of the door. The interrogation room was one of five in the CFPD’s first and only precinct building. Kohlberg sat with a hunched head, frowning at the table and wringing his hands excessively.

“Ready?” he asked Susan, who’d returned to her standard body once more.

“Of course.”

Isaac palmed the door open and stepped in. Kohlberg’s gaze snapped up, and he bit into his lower lip while Isaac and Susan took their seats. The LENS floated around to behind Kohlberg’s back, ready in case the prisoner became…recalcitrant.

“Sven Kohlberg.” Isaac opened his notes and shifted them to the side. “We know most of your actions in support of Pérez’s conspiracy, but there are a few areas we’d like to clari—”

“I’ll cooperate!” he blurted.

“That’s good. Strictly speaking, we don’t need your cooperation, but—”

“Will I get a reduced sentence if I do?”

“Please allow me to finish.”

“Yes, sorry.” Kohlberg hunched his head and slouched in the chair.

“What I was about to say is I will take your level of cooperation—and how accurate and complete it proves—into consideration. I will then take the information you provide into consideration when I pass on a sentencing recommendation. Fortunately, in your case, you seemed to be after very different ends than your coconspirator, and I will take that into account in my recommendation as well. The decision, however, will be up to the prosecutor assigned to your case. Is all of that information clear?”

“Crystal clear.” Kohlberg nodded his head with gusto.

“Very good. Then let’s start with a point of particular interest. Your motive.”

“Ah.” Kohlberg let out a long exhale, slouching even more to the point where he resembled a deflating balloon. “That.”

“Your actions seem to run counter to the prosperity of ActionStream, and through them, your own good fortune.”

“Actually, that’s not how I thought this would play out.”

“What did you think, then?”

“ActionStream already had a distribution contract locked in with the Admin’s Department of Software. So you see, it didn’t matter how the tournament went. It could have been a complete failure. The tournament could have literally blown up in our faces and it wouldn’t have mattered. Actually, now that I think about it, it almost did blow up in our faces.”

He chuckled at the thought, but his mirth turned sour when Isaac and Susan failed to join him, and he cleared his throat before continuing.

“Anyway, that contractual framework would remain in place. We were on the path to profit from business with the Admin independent of the tournament. It was our competitors I was hoping to sabotage.”

“How so?”

“A number of them were in the process of negotiating distribution rights with the DOS, and according to my information, Titan Omni and Checksum Error were only a few weeks away from signing distribution deals. We were the ones who trailblazed through a maze of legal hurdles. We earned our contract, but then our competitors waltz in at the eleventh hour and proceed to skate right up to the finish line!”

“Threatening your profits by intruding on this new market?” Isaac asked.

“Exactly! So, this one day I’m over in the Admin on business. I think it was about two months ago.” He shrugged. “Not sure. Anyway, I’m in the DOS tower, and the crew of Defender-Prime is there, too, since they didn’t have any other passenger jobs. Pérez comes up to me, and we start talking. We hit it off, and next thing I know, I’m ranting up a storm about these other companies and how they’re taking advantage of all my hard work!

“He didn’t say a whole lot that day. Just listened, except for an encouraging word here or there to keep me talking. It wasn’t until a week later when we talked again, and he mentioned a hypothetical. What if something were to happen that made these other companies get cold feet? Wouldn’t that be great for ActionStream! It started as a theoretical exercise, at least in my mind.

“We talked some more, and eventually the conversation settled on a big scare during the Weltall Tournament. That’s what Pérez suggested. Something that would show our competitors that tensions were still too high between SysGov and the Admin. Something severe enough to frighten them off, or at least delay them until our own products gained a foothold on the market.

“That’s when Pérez hit me with it. What if we actually did it?”

“What was your response?” Isaac asked.

“I asked him if he was serious. He shrugged it off, but in a kind of nod-nod wink-wink sort of way. Like he was only saying he was all talk. But I didn’t buy that attitude from a STAND. They’re people of action, not words.” He gestured to Susan. “You know what I mean, right?”

“These conversations eventually led to a conspiracy to ‘scare’ your competitors?” Isaac asked.

“Yeah.” Kohlberg lowered his head. “Yeah, that’s right.”

“Did Pérez suggest something specific for the ‘big scare?’”

“He did. He wanted a shocking message delivered during the award ceremony. Something like an explosion of bloodlike smart-paint that spelled out a threat. Like the whole ‘leave or die’ thing I came up with.”

“How did you react to his recommendation?”

I thought it wouldn’t be enough.” Kohlberg frowned. “He seemed oddly focused on that one event. I told myself at the time it was a lack of imagination on his part. Or maybe a lack of perspective. He didn’t understand the industry like I did. Those companies weren’t going to be scared off by one splashy event. There needed to be more. Something to put a real chill on the Million Handshake Initiative. It needed to be a sustained series of bad incidents. One biggie wouldn’t cut it.”

“Did you ask Pérez about his motives?”

“Yeah, I wondered about that, and I did ask him. He gave me a line about hating ACs and not wanting any more ‘dirty AI companies’ in the Admin, but I didn’t buy it. I assumed he wanted to keep the real reason to himself, but I was fine with that. I guess I settled on the judgment he was a convenient idiot I could use.”

Isaac raised an eyebrow at the man.

“Yeah.” Kohlberg slumped his shoulders. “I know.”

“What followed after your initial agreement?”

“We put a plan together for the big scare, which would involve the trophy erupting into blood paint. That’s when things got…a little strange.”

“How so?”

“Pérez told me he needed a synthoid. One that looked like an Admin citizen. He said he needed the body to procure the payload for our trophy in secret. I told him I could handle the payload on my end. I mean, seriously, I could walk outside, chat up a member of the League, and borrow a few paint grenades. Easy, right? But he insisted we use a payload made in the Admin.”

“What reason did he give?” Isaac asked.

“League grenades would be recognized as SysGov tech, and he wanted the big anti-AC message to be from the Admin. I suppose that part of his reasoning made sense, so I went along with it. Plus, his approach came with a big advantage for me.”

“Which was?”

“It would make it harder to trace an Admin payload back to me. In the end, I went along with that part of his plan and helped him with the synthoid. He provided biometric data on a few of the players, enough to produce a passable cosmetic layer. Initially, he gave me a bunch of guys, though.” Kohlberg rolled his eyes. “I explained to him I only collect female synthoids, and I wasn’t about to buy a male one just for him. I sent him away, and he came back with a few female selections, including Elly. Ah, Elly.” He let out a dreamy sigh. “How was I going to say no to that one? I mean, damn! Am I right?”

Isaac and Susan remained straight-faced.

“Uhh, anyhow. He also wanted the synthoid to have some punch, so I bought him a used security synthoid. Got a great deal on a nice one, too. I had it modified to look like Elly and installed with an Admin case port in the spine. He provided the pattern for that last bit, which was compatible with SysGov printers. The mod shop didn’t have any issues completing my custom order.”

“He had a pattern for part of an Admin synthoid?” Isaac asked. “That was adapted for SysGov printers?”

“That’s right.”

“I have similar files, if you recall,” Susan said. “My superiors provided me with SysGov-compatible patterns for all my spare parts. They may have done the same for other synthoids who spend a lot of time over here.”

“Ah. Yes, that would make sense.” Isaac turned back to Kohlberg. “What then?”

“Pérez went and got what I suppose ended up being an explosive. We snuck it into the trophy while we had the award over at Byrgius, and I took possession of the Elly synthoid. I even made some minor configuration changes to the cosmetic layer to prevent it from looking too much like her. As far as Pérez was concerned, that was the end of our preparations. But I had other plans.”

“Go on.”

“The big scare during the award ceremony was all fine and good, and it would have handled the Admin side of things, but I felt there needed to be some SysGov-sourced animosity. That way, both sides would be hesitant to continue negotiations.”

“Which led to the severed head in Elly Sako’s room.”

“Right. I used the same data that went into the Elly-synthoid’s cosmetics to develop a food parody of her head. Even came up with the ‘leave or die’ message myself. Simple, yet effective. As for the prankware, I’m sure you know how easy it is to get hold of these days. That only left one problem.”

“How to load the prankware onto the food printer.”

“Exactly. I could have done it personally. I had enough access to the players to pay Elly a visit with the right excuse, but I didn’t want to turn myself into a suspect, so I convinced Pérez to do it for me.”

“Wait a second,” Isaac said. “You tricked your coconspirator into loading the prankware himself, and in so doing, inadvertently sabotaged his own plans to detonate a bomb at the tournament?”

“Hell, yeah!” Kohlberg gave him a toothy grin. “See? I’m not the only one who’s an idiot here! In a strange way, I saved a ton of lives today.”

“That’s…” Isaac sighed and shook his head. “Never mind.”

“How did you convince him to do that?” Susan asked.

“I told him the prankware was for a peeping program so I could watch Elly through the printer’s camera.” He giggled. “Can you believe he bought that? What an idiot!”

Isaac and Susan glanced to each other wordlessly, then turned back to the prisoner.

“I initially thought you’d finger Wong Fei, given his criminal record,” Kohlberg continued.

“Which is why you asked me about the case the first time we met,” Isaac observed. “What about the ‘leave or die’ message in the game?”

“Ah, yes! You almost had me there, but I was one step ahead of you!”

“We checked the entry chain of file transfers. From your desk, to your pendant, to the pods, and we found no discrepancies to explain the message.”

“I’m sure you did, and I’m sure whoever looked over the infosystems did a thorough job. But you missed one key piece of evidence.”

“Which was?”

“This is actually kind of funny.” He laughed and shook his head. “You were this close!” He held up his thumb and forefinger.

“And this mystery piece of evidence is what, exactly?” Isaac pressed.

“Remember when I handed you my corporate pendant? I had three of them around my neck.”

“I do.”

“I gave you the wrong one. I actually loaded two of them with the UAM. The second one had an additional script on it I used to perform the edits locally, on the pendant itself.”

“Which is where your programming background comes into play,” Isaac noted.

“The script wasn’t anything fancy. Just enough to embed my message into the UAM. I was terrified you’d ask me for all three. If you had, you would have found me out, I’m sure. But I outsmarted you that time!”

“Perhaps,” Isaac conceded, “but would you like to know one of the secrets of detective work? You had to outsmart us for the entire duration of this case.” He flashed a thin smile. “We only had to outsmart you once.”

“Huh.” Kohlberg frowned and chewed on the inside of his cheek. “Didn’t think of it like that.”

“Maybe you should consider that while you await your sentencing.”

“Maybe so.” He exhaled.

“Your testimony explains two of the three crimes before the finale,” Isaac said, continuing on. “What about the third one?”

“The League protesters?”

“Did you send them the keycode?”

“Yes, that was me. I sent them two messages. One to hopefully get them cooking up a plan so their break-in would be more organized, and another to deliver the keycode itself.” He shrugged. “I thought it’d be more dramatic that way. I made sure to send them a copy of the Admin keycode, again to deflect suspicion from me.”

“I see.” Isaac closed his virtual screen. “That’ll be all for now. Your cooperation will be noted in my report.”

“Still can’t believe it,” he muttered.

“What’s that?”

“The whole bomb thing that idiot tried to pull off.” Kohlberg shook his head. “I mean, seriously. A bomb in the trophy? Good grief! Someone could have been killed!”

“Yes,” Isaac said dryly. “I believe that was the point.”

* * *

Isaac checked the virtual window of the next room over. LSP had confiscated Pérez’s original synthoid and replaced it with a standard prisoner model. The scrawny, carrot-hued machine possessed a plain, oval face and barely enough muscles to stand and walk under its own power. LSP technicians had added a backpack to this one, which included an Admin-style connectome interface tied to the synthoid’s systems via a cable connected at the base of the neck.

He glanced to Susan, who stared through the same window intently. Her face was a stoic mask of professionalism, but through it he could detect troubled undercurrents.

“I can handle this one alone, if you like,” he offered.

“No.” She shook her head, and her eyes met his. “I’m seeing this through.”

“Of course.” He gave her a quick nod, then palmed the door open.

He and Susan may not have seen eye to eye all the time. They might have had their minor disagreements, born from the differences in their backgrounds and approaches to problem-solving, but she’d never disappointed him. Not once, and that streak continued as she filed into the room, ready to look her former friend and mentor in the eyes.

“I know how this will end,” Pérez declared, head held high, face calm and composed, eyes locked on Isaac.

“How will it end?” Isaac prompted, taking his seat. Susan sat down beside him, and the LENS floated over to Pérez’s side.

“My government will request my extradition if they haven’t already, and your government will grant the request. I’ll stand trial in an Admin court, be found guilty on all charges, and then be sentenced to life in a prison domain. Afterward, I will request the right to self-deletion, which I will execute immediately after it is granted.”

“You’re giving up, then?” Isaac asked.

“It’s not a question of giving up. It’s the fact that I have no hope of parole and also have no desire to live the rest of my ‘life’ in a digital fiction.”

“You seem to have thought this through.”

“I tend to be that way,” he replied neutrally. “You have questions, I take it?”

“We do.”

Pérez nodded. “I’ll answer them.”

“Just like that?” Isaac asked with a sweep of his hand. “No request for leniency? No bargaining at all?

“No.”

“Why not?”

“It’s simple. There’s still some small chance explanation will have a positive impact, and because of that, I’ll see this nasty business through to its end. You can have all the answers you want.”

“Very well, then.” Isaac doubted any explanation would justify his crimes, but he wasn’t going to complain about an effortless interrogation. He opened his notes and spread them out to his side. “Why don’t you begin at the beginning?”

“The beginning.” Pérez’s eyes flicked down, then back up. “I suppose you could say it started with the Dynasty Crisis. The calamity that destroyed an entire universe. I was there, serving on Hammerhead-Prime while it and the rest of the fleet battled the time machines of the Dynasty, and their time fortress, the Tesseract.

“There wasn’t a full complement of STANDs in the fleet. The chances of a boarding action were low but not zero, and our numbers reflected that situation. I saw no action that day, but I did watch the battle unfold. Watched as we deployed chronoton bombs that ripped time and space apart. Watched as the Earth was consumed by a hole in the very fabric of the universe.

“Not our Earth or your Earth, of course, but an Earth with a history and culture all its own. Now reduced to nothingness. As if all those lives had never existed. Do you know what started the Dynasty Crisis?”

“What?”

“Utter stupidity and obscene arrogance. The stupidity and arrogance of people telling themselves they possess mastery over the laws of the multiverse, when in fact they are mewling babes not fit to leave the cradle. Perhaps one day our societies will have matured enough for us to venture out from the cradles of our own universes to explore the grandness of the multiverse with wisdom and care.” He sneered at them. “But that day is a long way off. The Dynasty Crisis made that truth abundantly clear to me.”

“Which led you to take matters into your own hands,” Isaac added. “To do something about the unfitness of our societies.”

“Correct.” Pérez gave him a firm nod. “Take the Million Handshake Initiative as the latest example of our collective brainlessness. Our two societies are not fit to maintain our current levels of transdimensional travel, and yet we’re looking to expand them? For what? A little bit of extra commerce? What utter nonsense! Only a few people have absorbed the correct lesson from the Dynasty Crisis. One of the rare examples is your League, despite all its flaws.

“I struggled with my own thoughts and feelings for a time, and eventually decided to do whatever I could to harm the relationship between the Admin and SysGov. Any decrease in cooperation would be beneficial, and so I began to look for a way to realize my goal.”

“When did you decide on the Weltall Tournament?” Isaac asked.

“After I met Kohlberg and put up with his infantile rant about how unfair it was for other companies to take advantage of the groundwork he and ActionStream had laid. I approached him, cautiously at first, and eventually succeeded in recruiting his aid, even though I struggled at times to maintain the fiction concealing my true goals.

“Kohlberg was a useful idiot and nothing more. He provided me with an easy way to get the bomb where it could do the most political damage, which was right in the heart of the stadium. I wanted the explosion to have as much impact as possible, and I decided a detonation during the award ceremony would fit that goal. A powerful enough explosive would not only kill the winner—and Kohlberg, conveniently—but also maim or kill audience members in the closest rows. It would transform the emotional high of victory into a devastating, blood-soaked tragedy. That’s what I sought to achieve. It also didn’t hurt that Wong Fei, a SysGov player, was the predicted winner. Having an Admin explosive take out a famous SysGov citizen would only make the attack more impactful.”

Susan bristled at his words, jaw clenched, fists tight on the table, but she said nothing, and Pérez didn’t bother to look her way.

“Is that when you worked with Kohlberg to obtain the bomb?” Isaac asked.

“It is. I couldn’t rely on Kohlberg to provide the explosive, otherwise the trophy would have burst into a harmless shower of fake blood.” Pérez rolled his eyes. “Stealing ordnance from the DTI was equally untenable. Too many risks. Too high a chance of detection. After looking at my options, I eventually decided some of the terrorists I’d hunted over the years could provide the solution I needed, which was an undetectable, untraceable explosive that could be placed in the trophy.

“From there, I set out to contact a Free Luna demolitions specialist. I didn’t have enough information to reach one directly, but I did know a former Free Luna loser named Kurtis Slater, whom I’d personally arrested some time ago. Kohlberg provided me with a synthoid look-alike of Elly Sako, and I used it along with copies of her PIN registration to move about Luna relatively undetected. I visited the Niner Slums and met Slater.”

“Who refused to hand over his contacts.”

“His mistake,” Pérez said coldly. “I beat the information out of him and then worked my way through the list until I eventually found a terrorist named Victor Massi who, after some convincing, provided the explosive. He delivered it to an agreed dead-drop location, I picked it up, and Kohlberg installed it in the trophy. After that, all the pieces I needed were in place.”

“What went wrong?”

Everything,” Pérez growled. “My empty-headed partner decided one scare wasn’t good enough for him. We’d already moved the bomb into position undetected. No one had any reason to suspect us, let alone predict a bomb plot, but then he decided to cook up this ludicrous parade of attention grabbers!”

“Which started with the severed head in Sako’s hotel room,” Isaac said.

“I blame myself for that one,” Pérez said. “Kohlberg asked me to load a program into Sako’s hotel printer, and I didn’t ask enough questions. I decided to humor him to keep him happy, at least until I no longer needed him, but after the severed head showed up, I had to think fast. I delayed LSP for as long as possible and used the time to plant evidence on Lacan’s wearable.”

“Why Lacan?”

“Because he was one of the few people who could have loaded it. And, unlike Wong Fei, for example, his heated argument with Sako made him a more believable suspect. I already had the prankware program in my possession, so making it look like the program came from him was easy.”

“After that, we entered the picture.”

“Which complicated matters greatly,” Pérez said. “Your presence made any overt action difficult, and so I stuck to my assigned role. I did my best to act normally during your investigation, biding my time until I could detonate the bomb during the award ceremony. I was careful to maintain a veneer of cooperation and openness, such as when I told you I could have been one of the people to corrupt the printer.”

“Which proved effective,” Isaac admitted. “After all, who would expect the culprit to willingly list himself as a suspect?”

“My framing of Lacan also worked out, at least initially. In fact, I thought I’d won within the first few hours when you arrested him.”

“But then Kohlberg struck again.”

“That he did,” Pérez seethed. “And this time he didn’t need help from me. He used his own expertise with SysGov UAMs to target Masuda with a second message. It was infuriating! I’d just finished cleaning up his first mess, and he goes and makes another!”

“Which is why you were so…strangely uncomposed after Masuda was threatened,” Isaac noted.

“I’ll admit I lost my cool there. I wanted more than anything to chew Kohlberg out, but you two were right there, and I did my best to deflect attention from my outburst.”

“I should have suspected you right then and there,” Susan said. “The man I knew would never have lost his temper like that. Not for such a small setback.”

Pérez said nothing and kept his eyes on Isaac.

“Your outburst makes a lot more sense in hindsight,” Isaac said. “Kohlberg had just reopened our investigation, which put your plot at risk once more. How did you handle that?”

“I made one more attempt to redirect your investigation,” Pérez said. “It was a subtle one, but my options were limited. I was the one who brought the behavior of the League protesters to Noxon’s attention, who then brought it to your attention.”

“Which diverted us to the League branch,” Isaac said.

“I considered that a small victory. Any time you spent away from the real trail brought me that much closer to my goal. And then you left for the Admin. At that point, I thought I’d won. Noxon even placed me in charge of security once more, removing any remaining barriers between me and my goal.”

“How did you react to our telegraph about the bomb threat?” Isaac asked.

“I wasn’t sure what to make of it. I had no idea how you came about that information, but you were still over in the Admin. You knew there might be a bomb, but that was all you knew. You didn’t know I was involved, otherwise why warn me about the bomb? I set the other agents to work searching for it, confident they would fail to find the bomb in time. There was a chance they’d find it, of course, but any other action would have looked suspicious, and the risk was low. The trophy had already passed multiple inspections, and I made sure the bulk of the agents were focused on the wrong locations.

“I used a similar technique as the tournament drew to a close, even turned your message about the bomb to my advantage. I faked a bomb threat to the hangar and set every agent to work searching for it while I took over guard duty for Sako. That left me as the only DTI agent nearby, just in case the bomb failed to do its job.”

“Which it did,” Isaac noted.

“Now that’s something I’m curious about,” Pérez said. “How did you know the bomb was in the trophy? Did Kohlberg mess up again?”

“Not this time,” Isaac said. “I figured out the bomb was in the trophy.”

“How?”

“Your other synthoid,” Isaac explained. “Or rather, the schematic it held.”

“But that synthoid is still in Kohlberg’s apartment. How did you…” Pérez trailed off and stared down at the table. “Wait a second. You must have learned the bomb was in the trophy while you were still in the Admin. But that means…” His eyes widened. “Oh, I see now. You recovered the schematic from the synthoid, but the only place and time you could have done so is in the past.” He looked up. “I didn’t expect that.”

“Neither did I,” Isaac admitted, “until Agent Cantrell applied her experience in the DTI to this case and suggested that course of action.”

“But how did you learn the bomb was in the trophy?”

“I puzzled that out on our way back, based on the shape and the assumption a bomb on stage was a likely scenario. I then made the connection between the schematic’s teardrop shape and the ActionStream logo’s falling meteor. Meanwhile, Agent Cantrell deduced it was your connectome inside Kohlberg’s harem synthoid.

“Once we had those pieces, Agent Cantrell proposed a…rather daring course of action. We couldn’t risk sending a telegraph to Pathfinder-Prime, because we couldn’t guarantee who would receive it. If you did, what would prevent you from detonating the bomb remotely right then and there? We needed to neutralize the explosive first, and Agent Cantrell volunteered herself for the task.”

“I see.” Pérez turned to her for the first time since she’d entered the room. “You couldn’t have known you’d survive the blast.”

“Do you think that would have made me hesitate?”

“No.” He shook his head. “I suppose not.”

“My combat frame is a tough piece of work. The odds were in my favor, and it allowed me to reach the bomb as quickly as possible. I’m more surprised you didn’t shoot me. Or shoot up the stadium while the audience was still filing out.”

“I’m not a monster.”

“You could have fooled me.”

“Originally, I was going to detonate it as soon as Kohlberg handed the trophy to the victor, which I had hoped would be Wong Fei, but I would have settled for Sako if she’d won. Kohlberg was standing close enough to Wong Fei for me to take them both out, but then Wong Fei started his speech. I was standing next to Sako in the understage at the time, and that gave me a hint as to where this was going. I thought I had time to see how it would it all play out.

“Taking out the winner was one thing, but killing both of them in the middle of the first marriage proposal between our peoples was on a whole different scale. That’s why I waited.”

“Only you waited too long,” Susan said stiffly.

“You’re right, of course. I triggered the bomb shortly after you arrived, but you managed to contain it. Both Sako and Wong Fei were still alive, and I needed to finish the job. Sure, I could have fired at the audience, but what would that have gained me?”

“A body count?” Isaac suggested.

“To what end?” Pérez countered. “The players had transformed themselves into a symbol of unity through their actions, and I needed to destroy that symbol. No, it was the players or nothing.”

“Then why didn’t you shoot me?” Susan asked.

“I…” Pérez lowered his head. “I couldn’t. Call it hesitation. Call it losing my nerve. Call it whatever you want. I’d had time to accept the idea of killing the players, along with Kohlberg and the bunch of nobodies in the audience. Time I needed to convince myself I was doing the right thing. But I couldn’t process all that in the short moments we stood across from each other.”

“Which allowed Agent Noxon to get into position,” Isaac added.

Pérez nodded. “And now…you fools have made matters worse.”

“I don’t see it that way,” Isaac said.

“Of course not. But look at what happened. An agent of the DTI just came crashing through the ceiling to prevent a bomb from going off during a major streaming event. That’s going to bring our two peoples closer, not push them apart!”

“You should realize something by now,” Susan said stiffly.

“What’s that?”

“You’re a relic of the Admin’s past. Of militarism and xenophobia and resistance to change.” She plucked at the DTI emblem on her breast. “Maybe I’m a part of that past, too. But Elly and Wong Fei are different.”

“How so?”

“They’re our future.”

* * *

Isaac paced down the corridor in the CFPD alongside Susan.

“That about wraps up our work today,” he said. “How are you holding up?”

“Okay,” she sighed.

“Just okay?” he asked, looking over to her.

“Yeah. It’s a lot to process, though. I used to look up to the man. I learned how to be a STAND from him, but now I find myself remembering our time together, wondering if my own feelings and convictions could become twisted like his. If I could someday convince myself that wrong is right and evil is good.”

“Evil resides in every heart,” Isaac said with a shrug, “yours and mine included. We all struggle to deal with it, and most of us triumph more often than we don’t. It’s a private war in every person, but we don’t wage it alone. We have laws and morals and the society we’re a part of to aid us in distinguishing right from wrong, good from evil. We have friends and family and coworkers, too. Each contributing in their own way to help us recognize evil. Sometimes they fail, of course. Sometimes the ‘wisdom’ we’re listening to isn’t wisdom at all, and it leads us down the wrong path.”

“Sorry to say it, Isaac, but you’re not helping.”

“What I mean to say is, taking all that into account, I’m not worried about you turning into Pérez. Not tomorrow, not ever. Not in the slightest.”

“Why’s that?”

“It’s simple.” He smiled at her. “Because you’re worried you might. And those worries mean you’re working hard to keep yourself in check.”

Susan smiled back at him.

“Also,” he added with a shrug, “because I have some of those same worries myself.”

“Nah.” She gave him a doubtful look. “You?”

“Not in a set-off-explosives way. But I do fear I’ll someday commit an abuse of power. A lot of responsibility comes with being a detective. Over the past few years, I’ve seen others in SysPol bend the rules, even break them. But the fear I harbor is a good thing. It’s healthy to have it, because it means I’m keeping an eye on myself.” He gave her a quick pat on the arm. “So take comfort in your fear. It means you’re a good person.”

“Thanks.” She sighed. “Though that has got to be the weirdest way you could have phrased it.”

“Sorry. I’m not used to giving pep talks.”

“Also, what does this tell us about your pastimes?”

“What do you mean?”

“Well…” She gave him a crooked grin. “You seem to always gravitate toward the evil characters and factions in whatever game we play. Like building your deck around Excrucion in MechMaster or roleplaying the evil characters in Solar Descent.”

Lawful evil. We’ve had this discussion before.”

“Yes, yes. Lawful evil.” She chuckled. “I’m sure that makes all the difference.” They turned down a corridor and headed for the entrance. “On a different topic, what about Kohlberg?”

“What about him?”

“Any thoughts on what his sentence will be?”

“Five to ten years, I’d guess. Which might be the best thing for him since he broke up with his IC. He was clearly not as far gone as Pérez. Give the Panoptes counselors enough time, and who knows? They might turn him back into a well-adjusted, law-abiding citizen.”

“You really think so? After what we saw in his apartment?”

“Hope springs eternal,” Isaac replied in way of a nonanswer.

They reached the station lobby and were about to head out into the plaza when Elly Sako and Wong Fei stood up from a bench near the exit, flanked by a pair of DTI agents. Sako hurried in front of Isaac’s path.

“Miss Sako,” he greeted her, stopping.

“Here!” She bowed her head and extended both hands. An abstract sigil appeared before him. She then sidestepped in front of Susan and presented an identical sigil. They each resembled the ActionStream meteor logo, but the tail was elongated, looping around to form a circle.

“This is…” Isaac drew the sigil to his palm, and additional text filled the interior. His wetware took a moment to translate the Admin version of English. “This is a wedding invitation?”

“That’s right!” Sako said brightly.

“We would be honored if you two could attend,” Wong Fei said, joining them. He slipped his arm around Sako’s waist and she leaned her head against his shoulder.

“Congratulations,” Susan said.

“Thanks!” Sako replied.

Isaac frowned at the invite.

“Is something wrong?” Sako asked.

“No, I’m just thinking about the job. We’re usually not this far in-system, so attending might prove difficult depending on our caseload.”

Susan raised a meaningful eyebrow at him.

“But I’m sure we can arrange something with our superiors,” he finished, catching her look. “Also, Miss Sako, I feel I owe you an apology, in light of our last talk.”

“Oh, don’t bother.” She waved the notion aside. “I may have overreacted a tad myself, and it all worked out in the end.”

“We know it was a challenging case,” Wong Fei added. “We’re just glad you were able to figure it out in time.”

“Yeah, otherwise we’d be dead!”

“We did cut this one pretty close,” Susan admitted.

“By the way,” Sako said. “What about Lacan? What’ll happen to him?”

“He’s already been cleared of all charges and released. I also had a discussion with ActionStream management to arrange a small token of apology for him. They’ve agreed to provide him with a complimentary invite to their next Weltall tournament, in recognition of how he was unfairly excluded from this one.”

“Aww.” Sako frowned, eyes twinkling with mischief. “You sure you couldn’t have kept him in his cell a little bit longer? You know, maybe until right before we leave? Or maybe even longer than that?”

“I’m sorry, but no.” He shot a quick look over to Susan, his eyes laughing. “That would be an abuse of my authority.”


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Framed