Bradly gaped at them in horror, as he suddenly understood what had happened to Carr.
“Shit,” he murmured.
“That is possible, as well,” Mercer said, voice very dry… and hard as adamant. “Do you understand the circumstances in which you find yourself?”
“I… I do.”
“Are you going to cooperate?”
“May… I have a few minutes to collect my thoughts?”
Mercer nodded and rose, leaving the room.
Bradly was left to his thoughts… which were not good company at the moment.
It was fully five minutes before Mercer returned to the room. He sat down and composed himself, then simply looked at Bradly, saying nothing.
Bradly still had no real answer to give. If I refuse, they’re gonna kill me. If I cooperate, I ran a conspiracy to assassinate the Emperor’s chosen IPD director, and they’re gonna kill me. I got one shot to get out of this alive.
“Is there any leeway for plea-bargaining?” he asked then.
Mercer paused, and adopted a vacant look, as he sent a query in VR.
Bobby and Amanda had replicated the Imperial Residence sitting room in VR so that they could relax as they watched the interrogation, so he was expecting the query from Mercer when it arrived. He bit his lip.
“What are you going to do, honey?” Amanda asked.
“I’m thinking,” he replied.
“Every last one of the others nailed him as the conspiracy’s leader,” she pointed out, “testified with and without drugs. He’s committed all of the crimes he’s charged with. How can he possibly expect to plea-bargain out of any of it?”
“I think he’s just trying to avoid dying,” Bobby noted. “I’m sure that Carr’s gurney got wheeled right past his cell on the way to the padded lockup. He saw what the drugs can do. He’s looking for a way out that doesn’t involve… that.”
“Short of life imprisonment at hard labor without parole, there’s nothing I’d offer him,” she replied with disgust.
“Which is what I was just thinking.”
It took some few minutes for the response, but after about ten minutes, Mercer’s gaze went distant once more. When he came back from VR, he met Bradly’s eyes.
“The evidence is stacked hard against you, Mr. Bradly,” he noted. “We have VR recordings from Mr. Peabody of the two principal planning meetings, as well as recordings of conspiracy conversations from within the temporary IPD headquarters, provided by Director Carter and Detective Ashton, and drugged and undrugged testimony from your fellow conspirators…”
“Then why are you interrogating me at all? Why bother?” Bradly asked bitterly. “We both know you’re going to execute me.”
“If you have mitigating circumstances, Mr. Bradly, the Throne will take them into account when issuing a ruling,” Mercer explained. “If you were coerced, if you were blackmailed, if you had a temporary mental aberration, now is when this would come out.”
Bradly sighed.
“He’s not willing to plea-bargain with me, is he?” he asked.
“On the contrary. He has offered you one choice.”
“He has?” Bradly sat up straight. “What’s that?”
“Rather than execution, should you plead guilty, His Majesty offers your life… in prison, at hard labor. On the mining planet of Galena.”
Bradly winced; Galena was an airless rock, where the mines were supplied with breathable air by artificial means. It was rich in metal ores, true, but many of those were radioactive. Its only inhabitants were prisoners too dangerous to be sent to a standard lockup, and therefore used as miners. Some people considered it a slow death sentence – and Bradly was one of those. “Parole?”
“No possibility of parole.”
“Quick death or slow death, huh?” Bradly said then, and it was almost a snarl, as his anger toward this Emperor surged once more. “No thank you, and you can go to hell.”
“Dr. Martin,” Mercer said aloud, “your assistance, please.”
It only took the yellow-flagged ampoule to force Bradly to open up. When he did, he was still surly and ill-tempered, but he could no longer restrain the answers from flowing from his brain to his mouth and out. Even so, certain things, the absolute convictions of his being, refused to be swayed.
“What is your full name?” Mercer began.
“Theodore Armstrong Bradly.”
“Were you a former IPD Headquarters staffer?”
“Yes.”
“What was your rank?”
“Captain.”
“What is your current rank?”
“It should be Chief, but it’s only Captain.”
“The IPD no longer uses military-style ranks, Mr. Bradly. What is your current rank?”
“I told you – Captain.”
“Do you refuse the new ranking system?”
“Hell, yes.”
“How did you survive the destruction of the original Headquarters?”
“I was on a case with Carr and… it was an inspector, but I can’t remember who it was. We were away from the building.”
“Why did you come back to the building?”
“It was the end of shift. We’d seen something go down in that direction, but didn’t know it was a strike on HQ until we got there.”
“Were you challenged by the Imperial Marines?”
“Yes.”
“What did they ask you?”
“What we were doing there.”
“What did you tell them?”
“That we’d come back to report in.”
“Did they ask if you
