Whatever delusions JP had, it was clear they were heading toward a dead end. The system of arbitrary rules that governed this planet’s bureaucracy was the glove on her fist—or maybe the pair of handcuffs binding her wrists behind her back; if she wasn’t willing to fight without them, she might as well admit defeat now. Had the stakes been lower, she would have considered doing so—for JP’s sake, if nothing else—but to give up now was to be the captain who sacrificed the IES on the altar of bureaucratic procedure.
And that was not Captain Jareyn Brook.
“You’re right.” She stood. “Time is not on our side. But I have a plan.” Brook took the personal screen with the offending document and strode out of Arriet’s office.
Maybe “plan” was a bit of an exaggeration.
Brook knew she needed to prove Griffin had paid for the document to be distributed, and she figured the first step toward that was to trace its delivery to the other representatives.
Arriet’s office was close to the front of the complex in which it resided, so Brook first made her way to the reception desk, attended to by a woman whose nametag identified her as Abigail Igoru.
“Hi!” Brook extended her arm to shake Igoru’s hand. “I’m supposed to bring a copy of this document to Representative Divar’s office, but I think he may have already received a copy. Can you message ahead and check? The title is: ‘The IES: Irresponsible and Unaccountable.’”
“Certainly, Ma’am,” Igoru said. “Or you could deliver it to them yourself. Divar’s office is number... five twenty-four.”
Brook smiled. “Why don’t we do both? If no one’s there, maybe one of his aides will still respond to his Interplanetary Network Address.”
“Of course, Ma’am,” Igoru said.
“Also,” Brook said, “do you have a coat check?”
Five minutes later, wearing a gray overcoat from the coat check’s lost and found, Brook arrived at office number five twenty-four.
A single male aide sat behind what she assumed was Divar’s desk. He looked up as she entered. “How can I help you, Ma’am?”
“Abigail Igoru.” The name spilled out of Brook’s mouth as she shook the aide’s hand. “From the reception desk,” she hastily followed up. “I was wondering if you got my message?”
The aide gave her a scrutinizing look. Brook froze—impersonating a government official was probably something that was frowned upon in Telahmir. In fact, it might be a misdemeanor.
“Did you... get a new haircut, Abigail?” the aide asked.
There was still time to claim a slip of the tongue—but Brook did not. Surely borrowing the name of a receptionist paled in comparison to Griffin’s outright bribery, and if she wanted to win this bureaucratic tussle, she could not afford to be squeamish about such small things. At any rate, this man clearly did not interact closely with Igoru if he was tempted to confuse her with an IES captain twenty years her senior. Brook dialed up the intensity of her smile. “I did—thanks for noticing!”
The aide returned the smile before looking back at the computer workstation embedded in Divar’s desk. “Ah, I have your message here. Yeah, turns out we did get a copy of that document a few days ago.”
A few days ago. That would place it just a day or two before her hearing. The other representatives must have deeply trusted the Telahmir Report’s impartiality to not recognize such an obvious attempt to undermine Brook. Perhaps if her investigation disabused them of that trust, this sort of thing would not happen again.
“For our records,” Brook said, “I need the time, date, and manner of delivery, to the best of your memory.”
The aide scratched his head. “Well, I remember it was hand-delivered—that was odd—and it was... I don’t know, about 3:00 ST, two days ago? Actually, now that I think about it, it’s probably on security footage downstairs.”
Brook constrained her excitement—security footage would be excellent, but a Meltian bureaucrat would not be excited to do more legwork in pursuit of trivial records.
“I’ll check that out, but...” Brook let her face fall into a frown. “Could you call ahead for me? Last time I tried to get something from them, they didn’t seem to want me around at all.”
The aide gave her a sympathetic smile. “They’re like that to everyone. I’ll let them know you’re coming.”
Brook grinned. “Thanks!”
Brook took an elevator to the basement of the complex. Upon exiting the elevator car, she was stopped by a bored-looking security guard.
“This is a restricted area, Ma’am. May I please see your identification?”
Identification? Brook made a show of patting her pockets before coming up empty. She shrugged apologetically. “Must have left it somewhere, sorry—but I’m Abigail Igoru. Representative Divar’s office should have told you I was coming.”
The guard pulled a small personal screen out of his pocket. Brook clasped her hands behind her back, masking her uncertainty.
“Huh.” He regarded her again. “I guess you’re okay. Says you’re here to look at video records.”
“That’s right,” Brook said. “Can you help me with that? I need the security video of Representative Divar’s office starting 2:30 ST two days ago.”
The guard grabbed a transceiver from his belt. “Yeah, hey, this is Roth, I need someone to relieve me out here. Yes, really. No, I need to escort someone to the camera room.”
Roth led her down the hall—a bare concrete and metal affair that seemed far removed from the offices above—until they reached a dark doorway. Inside, three floor-to-ceiling screens dominated the wall space, each split into sections with views from various cameras and attended by a guard dressed similarly to Roth.
“Hey, Roth,” one of them said. “Who’s this?”
“Name’s Abigail Igoru,” Roth said. “One of the Reps sent her down to look at the record from two days ago at 2:30.”
“Office five twenty-four,” Brook said. “Also, if we do find something, is there any way we could pull the image off this system and send it over the network—or store it on a datacard?”
The next step, Brook figured, was to run facial recognition on whoever delivered the document. The Emergency Service had some powerful video analysis software they used on footage of terror attacks.
The wall screen officer gave her a funny look. “That’s an unusual request.”
This one wasn’t quite as gullible as the others.
“Is it?” Brook asked innocently. “Representative Divar wants to know for sure who was in his office at that time.”
“He does, does he?” the wall screen officer asked. “What did you say your name was?”
“Abigail Igoru,” Brook said.
She noticed too late that the security cameras monitoring the building tagged by name the government employees that walked in front of their view—and one camera was pointed directly at the reception desk.
The guard pointed at that camera view. “That Abigail Igoru?”
Out of the corner of her eye, Brook saw Roth reach for the stun baton on his belt.
“Oh!” Brook said. “That’s my daughter, Abigail Igoru Jr.”
The age difference was a little too small, but Brook figured it was at least plausible.
“You don’t even resemble each other,” Roth said.
“She has her father’s hair,” Brook said.
The wall screen officer tapped the reception desk view and scrolled backward in time to when Brook approached the desk. “She doesn’t seem to recognize you.”
“My husband and I divorced when Abigail was two. She lives with her father now.”