It just wasn’t what she had hoped for the evening.
Nick Ashton sat at his dining table at home, having slapped together a cold cut sandwich with plenty of condiments. But the lettuce in his fridge was wilted and the tomatoes old and half-dried-out, and both had gone into the kitchen waste chute, which was collected, composted, and used for fertilizer on the various green spaces within the city. So there were no veggies on the sandwich, and it left the texture and flavor somewhat bland. He sighed, thinking of the nice hibachi restaurant he had planned for the evening.
He picked up his bottle of beer and slugged it, wondering what sort of entertainment might be available that night in VR, and if he could possibly manage to find something he hadn’t already seen.
This is gonna get old fast, he decided.
It took about two hours for Mott and Demetrius to slip over to Carter’s apartment, find all the items on Carter’s list, and stuff them into the special, oversized, ship’s duffels Mott had brought, carefully folded into the hidden pockets of his jacket.
Then they slung them over their shoulders and snuck back out, taking maintenance corridors and tunnels.
Twenty minutes later, they were back in Peterson’s apartment, and Carter was unpacking the items and stowing them, Maia having pinged him in VR to tell him where he could put various things.
“And while you’re doing that,” Demetrius said, “I’m going to put out an all-points for one Dwight ‘Switch’ Sykes.”
“Works for me,” Carter said, glancing up from folding undershorts and stuffing them into the dresser drawer.
“Oh, and by the way, congratulations,” Demetrius added. “Maia is a great catch, and you’re a good man.”
“What he said,” Mott agreed.
Carter flushed, then grinned.
“We’ve known each other for years – met on a case, way, way back when, and clicked – but because of who and what she is, I kind of kept that friendship secret from my, er, colleagues,” he admitted. “It’s been smoldering the whole time. When I finally got sick of the shit and took early retirement, it kind of…ignited.”
“Good,” Demetrius said. “About damn time. She’s been waiting for you long enough. Now lemme go see about Switch.”
With Mott’s help, Carter had finished putting the appropriate hygiene items in the bath, and was nearly finished stashing clothing in the closet and dresser, when Demetrius came up for air, out of VR.
“Got ‘im yet, Gene?” Mott wondered.
“Somebody did, Adrian,” a solemn Demetrius said in a grave, mildly perturbed tone, and the other two men stopped what they were doing to pay attention.
“Whatcha mean, Gene?” Carter asked.
“He was in the hospital getting some remedial work done on everything you did to him, Lee – stitches in the arm, the nose set and splinted, the ribs strapped, a boot cast – but somebody was apparently waiting for him when he came out. He was found, alone, on the floor of a car in the nearest low-capacity people-mover to the hospital. Two taps to the back of the head; .25 caliber, probably from an airgun. Dead.”
“Shit,” Carter said, shocked.
“It was Bronze, I swear it was Joey Bronze,” Ashton told the rest of the team, as soon as word reached them of what had happened.
“What makes you think that, Nick?” Stefan Gorski asked.
“The double-tap to the head by a .25 caliber airgun. I did a case study on Bronze, my last year at the Academy,” Ashton explained. “And I’ve been following him ever since, adding to that case study. I’ve got a whole profile on him, now. There’s at least four, maybe five other hits he’s done in Imp City alone. There was this guy, a lawyer, over in Imperial Park East, who was working with the Empress – boom. Double-tap to the head, airgun, .25 caliber. And a prostitute who was blackmailing one of the assistants of a Council member. Double-tap to the head, airgun, .25 caliber. And two whistleblowers for the previous Empress, one in education, one in the pharmaceutical industry. Both double-taps from a .25 caliber airgun. There’s a couple others in nearby cities I’ve suspected, too.”
“But can you prove it?” Demetrius asked. “Just on the basis of the double-tap to the back of the head? Because right now, that’s all the clues we have. Yeah, it’s a known M.O. for a regular executioner, but we’ve never been able to tie it to Bronze. Or anybody else, for that matter.”
“What about the monitor in the people-mover car? In the station? There would be video…”
“Disabled. Both.” Demetrius shrugged.
“And Switch never saw Bronze disable it?!”
“No. It was disabled from outside,” Demetrius explained. “Apparently from the control center.”
“Shit. That means it was a sanctioned hit.”
“Almost certainly, yes. The nature of Sykes’ injuries would have meant Carter saw him, and that, in turn, made him a liability.”
“What about latents?”
“None found. The crutch Sykes was using was carefully laid beside the body, apparently to prevent breaking any of the windows or causing a lot of noise. We checked it, the car doors, the seats, the railings…nothing. No hairs, no body oils that were recoverable, no fingerprints.”
“Shit.”
Well, Nick?” Demetrius pressed. “Do you have anything else to give us?”
Ashton’s shoulders slumped.
“No, sir. It’s a distinctive style, but I know we need more, to take it to court.”
“Hell, we need more to get a warrant to pick him up,” Demetrius pointed out.
“Exactly. I’m afraid,” Gorski sighed, “that unless
