“I can’t see Delovoa, only you can. Convenient.”
“Why would I lie? I could just tell you I killed him because I felt like it. That’s not why you’re here. Delovoa made this device,” I said, indicating the machine on the floor. “It can detect Messahn battlesuit. 19-10’s armor. I think he might be hiding in Deadsouth. It would be easy to come and go.”
“How does it work?” he asked, picking it up.
“I don’t know. I don’t even know if does work. We didn’t have any chrodite-399 to try it out. It’s supposed to make some high-pitched squeal when you’re near where some has been used.”
“Is it safe?”
“Um. You probably want to put on your body armor. It’s Delovoa.”
“Why are you suddenly interested in 19-10?”
“I’ve always been interested in him. I just didn’t have anything I could do except blubber into my porridge.”
“Do you know anything more about him?”
“I’m guessing he isn’t here to kill me. Those little guns wouldn’t hurt me. I think he’s here for the election.”
“I thought you said Governor doesn’t matter.”
“Yeah, but what do I know? Everyone thinks it matters, so it matters. We’re as powerful as people think. I told you that before,” I said.
“So if no one thought that Therezian was powerful he’d be weak?”
“Don’t be an ass, you know what I mean.”
“Who hired 19-10?” MTB asked.
“I don’t think Garm did. At first I had my doubts. But she’s not that subtle. If she wants a judge gone she fires him, right in front of the whole city, during a trial. If she wanted Hobardi gone she’d just kill him. She created a list of candidates of dead people! That’s Garm. When you can turn off all our oxygen you don’t need to be sneaky. 19-10 has been totally discreet.”
“So who hired him? Hong isn’t sneaky. Most gang bosses aren’t sneaky,” MTB said.
“No. But Peush of the Olmarr Republic is. He’s got money. He’s got an agenda of some kind. He’s probably going to win the election, or at least some council seats.”
“What will you do?”
“Ask him,” I said.
“Do you think he’ll tell you? ‘Hey, have you been hiring assassins and murdering people’?” MTB asked skeptically.
“No. But I’m sure he won’t if I don’t ask him. It’s better than sitting here.”
“Have you reformed the Royal Wing yet?”
I sighed.
“Their first set of laws was one page and I told them it was no good. They just finished their next set and it’s about a thousand pages. I don’t even know where they got that much paper. I read maybe an inch. They must have a bunch of adjudicators over there because I couldn’t make sense of any of it.”
“They do have some adjudicators over there. We arrested them.”
“I know, but I wasn’t sure if they were dead yet.”
“So who hired the clones?”
“Clones are built. I don’t know who could make them. Not even Delovoa could. They might be left over from the war, but we can’t figure out why there would be clones of Hobardi and Two Clem.”
“Are there other clones? How can I spot them and train my teams to spot them?”
“You have to scan their brains.”
“I’m in Deadsouth. I don’t know if anyone has a brain.”
“Delovoa is working on a new gadget, but it’s not ready. Don’t worry about them, though. Look for 19-10.”
There was a pause.
“I hired ten new Kommilaire,” MTB said.
This was a bit surprising. He had never hired anyone without my say-so.
“Alright. How are they doing?”
“We’ve started to make some minor forays into the feral kid zones. But it’s dark over there.”
“Where are you getting equipment from?”
“We confiscate guns and ammunition and supplies from criminals instead of fining them,” he said.
“Heh. That’s like something I would do.”
“Yeah, I guess it is.”
“Have you all killed anyone yet?”
“Twelve.”
“Wow. That was fast.”
“It’s Deadsouth. People shoot at the latticework because they think it is a flying monster. And without a twelve-ton Stair Boy, people aren’t quite as frightened of us.”
“You’re welcome back with me whenever you want,” I said.
“I like it down there. I feel like I’m making a difference. I’m a street cop. It’s what I’m good at. You’re Supreme Kommilaire. You have to make decisions and compromises and take actions that I don’t really get. But I understand you have to do them.”
“Well, thanks for that,” I said.
“Besides, we cover a lot more ground without you.”
CHAPTER 48
“Huh,” I said, standing next to a partially-squashed apartment building.
A crowd of a few hundred curious onlookers stood with about a dozen of my Kommilaire.
Some kind of large machine had fallen off the latticework above the city and landed on this building. We weren’t sure how many people were inside the apartment when it hit and we’d probably never know because we didn’t have any means of un-squashing a steel alloy structure.
But what had happened was clear. Secured to the machine were the remnants of two men. It was evident they used to be Colmarians, though the fall had made them less recognizable as such.
“Are they maintenance workers?” one of my Kommilaire asked.
“No. They must have been trying to steal something. Metal or components. They strapped themselves to it so they wouldn’t fall off. But then the whole machine broke loose. A maintenance worker would have secured himself to the railing,” I said.
“There might be more up there,” a Stair Boy said, his eyes excited at the prospect.
I had been on the latticework before. It’s thousands of feet up with only a single walkway about six inches wide and a railing on one side. It was pretty terrifying.
I looked up at the “sky.”
“There’s only two ways up and down for each section. Post two guards at the elevators and wait. Their choices are to jump or starve. But I’m not sending Kommilaire up to try and arrest people on the latticework. It’s too dangerous,” I said.
My dumber Stair Boys seemed disappointed.
“And make sure all the other elevators are secured. We can’t be dodging a hail storm of debris. Especially since buildings aren’t good at dodging. Help me move this,” I said.
I attached my cables and magnet to the fallen apparatus and started pulling to try and get it out of the road. It was far heavier than I thought and I had to lean over and struggle mightily to scrape it along even a short distance. I had it about halfway up the sidewalk when my back began to hurt enough that my brain kicked into action.
This thing was too big to get back up to the latticework. I’m not sure how they had gotten it up in the first place, but it was long ago, probably during the construction of the station. If those thieves had been clamoring over it at that height, presumably it had some value.
“Free scrap metal!” I yelled to the crowd.
I disconnected all my cables and my magnet and moved away. When I was far enough removed, and I had ushered my Stair Boys to a safe distance, the crowd descended on the machine. I figured it would get picked apart in a few days, leaving only the frame which was too big to cut or carry.
I took a breather, eating some of my green paste, and hoped the machine wasn’t some vital piece of equipment that kept Belvaille alive.
Peush wasn’t hard to find, he was having a fundraiser.
I only had five Kommilaire with me at this point, the rest taking care of our ceiling looters and securing any other access points. I didn’t expect much would happen. I would ask Peush. He would deny everything and talk about the cool Olmarr Republic. Then he would flash that odd grin and I’d feel like I knew less than when I started.