He jumped into the arcade cart, released the brake, and slammed his foot onto the accelerator, headed back the way he had come, as fast as he could go.
“...And he already captured and arrested the perp?” Inspector Thomas asked Anne Roberts an hour later.
“Yes, and returned the Sigil into our custody,” Roberts said, delighted. “It was on the burglar when he was captured – he hadn’t had time to get rid of it yet. And the problem with the alarm was at the security company; they accepted this month’s payment, then shut off our service anyway! We’ve already changed companies, and that won’t be happening again!”
“What about your guard? He loyal?”
“Oh, he and his family have been with us for years,” Roberts said. “Ever since my ancestor worked for the Empress. The Anders always make sure they have at least two children, and one goes into the Marines, then into the Imperial Guard, and the other works security for the museum.”
“That’s...good, then,” Thomas said, throwing a grim glance at Gorecki. “I’ll just go see about things back at Headquarters, I suppose.”
“Thank you so much for your time, though. You need to promote that young officer! He knew exactly what he was doing!”
Outside the museum, the pair piled into a police cart and headed for the main street level.
“That don’t sound good, Ron,” Gorecki said then.
“It’s not, Stash,” Thomas said, intensely annoyed. “One of our top superiors just got set back to pretty much the beginning. That Imperial Sigil is still functional; it would be accepted anywhere in the Empire. It was supposed to be collected in order to be used strategically by certain persons not in the Palace, if you know what I mean.”
“I do. You want me to, ah, go see about this Ashton kid?”
“That might be a good idea.”
Later that morning, right after he’d come on shift and before he’d even finished his first cup of coffee – he’d had a dental appointment, so someone else did the morning brief – Captain Carter took a look at the incoming reports in VR and sighed; it was going to be another long shift, he decided. Then a particular report caught his eye and he sat up straight in his desk chair.
Oh shit, he thought, shocked and worried. Tell me he didn’t do that.
He read a little farther, then smeared a tired hand over his face and up into his grizzled, salt-with-a-little-pepper hair. Of course he did. That’s who he is. And that’s not going to make the powers that be happy at all. I can see that handwriting on the wall – I know why that got stolen! All I have to know to figure it is how the politics work around here. Hellfire damnation. I better meet with Maia pronto, or he won’t survive the week. In any sense of the word. Shit, he might not even survive the day.
He laid down as many secure protocols as he could on the communication, then initiated the private, and decidedly unofficial, connection.
“Hey, Maia,” Carter said, as she appeared in the classic nondescript meeting room of virtual reality, where he awaited her. “How ya doin’, honey?”
“Pretty good, Lee; how ‘bout you?” the attractive woman with bronze-toned skin and vivid green eyes replied. “Oh, and congratulations; I saw where one of your up-and-comers solved the Museum of the Throne burglary case.” She smiled at Carter, then studied his face for a moment, her smile disappearing. “Uh-oh. I see that expression. He wasn’t supposed to solve the case, was he?”
“No,” Carter said with a sigh. “And now I’ve got a problem. A big problem, if my instincts are right.”
“All right. Lemme hear the details, if you can.”
“Yeah, I think I can help out, here,” Colonel Maia Peterson, the Deputy Chief of Investigations in the Imperial City Police, decided, some half an hour later, after a full explanation and a brainstorming session. They were old friends and colleagues, though very few knew the fact, because this was not the first time Carter had called her on a similar errand. “I’ll get things set up on this end, as fast as I can. You know what to do on that end.”
“I do,” Carter replied. “And yeah, I’ll move fast too. Thanks, Maia. You won’t regret this. He’s a good kid, and shows a damn lot of promise. This one’s one of the best I’ve sent you, I think. Maybe the best.”
“Wow. Investigations, then?”
“I haven’t had a chance to talk to him about it yet, at least not in depth, but if I had to guess based on what I already know of him, and the paperwork he filled out when he came on, I’d say in a big way. But because of the way things work around here, and the way his innate moral stance is in counterpoint, it just ain’t gonna happen here.”
“Right. I understand. I’ll wait to hear from you on it, and discuss it with him when I see him.”
“Roger that. And again, thank you!”
“Eh,” Peterson said with a wave of her hand. “Bring me another big tin of your special-blend chili powder and we’ll call it paid. I’ll even make some of those chili chocolates you like so much.”
“You know, if I was only a decade younger, Maia…”
“And I’ve told you, Lee, I’m not bothered by your age. I’m not that young these days, either.”
“Lemme get to a place where I’m out of this damn mine field, then we’ll talk.”
“I can’t wait.”
“Me neither.”
And she blinked out of the virtual room.
Carter sighed in mingled regret and concern, and dropped the link.
He spent the next few hours getting his
