“Sorry,” Willow said. Sampson reported the takedown to the CEC and first team leader. They tried to lift the woman but she struggled again. Willow pulled out more tack cord and pinned her arms to her body. In their ears CEC said, “All three levels searched. One out the roof, takedown by team three. Eight suspects secured and three victims. Calling in therapists and meds.”
“We’re crossing this bridge,” Mary said to the woman, who squirmed violently against the tack cords. “Do you want to make us all fall off?”
The woman became still. “We’re just doing your job, damn you,” she said, split lip swelling.
“Oh.” Mary nodded emphatic gratitude. “My apologies.”
Willow lifted the woman’s feet and Mary her shoulders. They carried her over the narrow bridge and dropped her beside Sampson. Sampson smiled broadly ironically at Mary.
“You lysing lobe sod,” Mary told him in a tone of pure syrup.
He lifted his arm and showed her a torn sleeve. Blood trickled down his wrist and dripped from his finger.
“Just a flesh wound, ma’am,” he said. Flechette darts were designed to change shape and burrow if given a purchase of more than a centimeter. Sampson was very lucky.
“Could have taken your arm off,” Willow said admiringly.
Mary pulled back, looked Sampson over critically, then held out her arms and hugged him. “Glad you’re still with us, Robert,” she said into his ear.
“Fine job, Mary,” he responded.
“Hey,” Willow said. “How about me?”
“Show me your blood,” Mary told him. He looked abashed and then she hugged him as well. “Let’s get Robert looked at.”
“Should be worth at least a day off,” Sampson said. He shook his arm flinging more blood from his fingertips and clutched it at the elbow. “Christ. It’s beginning to hurt.”
Mary stood before the recorders taking down officer testimony on the jiltz. A pd legal advisor and metro certified public witness stood behind the officer in charge of the vid.
“Did you incur or cause any injuries in this action?” the pd advisor asked her.
“No injuries to myself. I slightly injured an unidentified female suspect when she attempted to flee and used a weapon.”
“Nature of that weapon?” the advisor asked.
“Flechette pistol.”
The evidence processor, a young assistant sergeant, removed the pistol in its protective translucent bag from a tray atop a pd arbeiter and dangled it in the scanning lines of the testimony vid’s secondary recorder. Already officers and technicians were preparing to fasten ceiling tracks throughout the house and mount assayers and sniffers.
The suspects were being kept in another room pending onsite arraignment; therapists had not yet arrived to remove the clamps from three victims. All pd was authorized to do was shut down the active elements of the hellcrowns. Mary had not yet seen the room where the victims were kept. She was restless to do so although she feared it would give her nightmares.
Out of the corner of her eye she spotted three metro therapists entering through the wide front door. They crossed the marble tile floor to the stairs leading to the second level, two men and a woman in pale gray midsuits. She knew two of them; they had given first therapy treatment to Joseph Khamsang Phung during her last Selector jiltz, her only prior witnessing of an active clamp.
“Were you with another officer at the time?” the advisor continued.
“Yes. LAPD Junior Lieutenant Terence Willow.”
“Did he help you inflict injury to the suspect?”
“He struck her in the face to distract her.”
“Describe the nature of the injuries.”
“Suspect fired a volley from her pistol as she emerged from a third level arbeiter service elevator. I had jinked to the surface in front of her, and I…” She closed her eyes to aid complete recall and described her actions in breaking the woman’s wrist and two fingers. She hated on site testimonies but they saved much time later in trials.
When her turn was done and T Willow was in the line of vid, she walked off and looked around the house, staying out of the path of the technicians. The dominium was a wonder—even fancier than she had imagined. Everything appeared either antique or human made. She suspected everything had authenticity stamps. Ceramics wooden furniture custom equipment arrays, all the very best. A Japanese made home manager with at least ten dedicated French and Ukrainian arbeiters now assembled as if for military inspection in the first floor kitchen, being checked by a pd tech. They were probably all illegally altered for surveillance and guard duty.
For a minute she paused in the first level room where the eight suspects were being held. All well dressed comblooking citizens between twenty five and sixty years, not a one she would have specked as a potential rad or deviant. They stood with hands tack corded in front of them wearing LAPD remote headsets for access to their chosen attorneys.
Mary’s takedown had been treated by a metro physician and now slumped pale, wrapped in nano bandage in an office chair to the left of the grim-faced lineup. She was the only one sitting. She saw but did not see M Choy standing in the doorway. Mary surveyed the seven others looking for the Selectors known to have been involved in the Phung case. Double naughts. Not a one.
A technician begged her pardon and pushed past her, rigging more ceiling track.
With a deep sigh Mary turned and walked up the wide stairs to the second level. She might have avoided all this; still, Reeve had done her a genuine pd courtesy allowing her on this jiltz.
The Comb Environs Commander, a tall narrow faced blond man, stood with the comb civil attorney. Both nodded to her as she passed. They were deep in discussion of litigation and repercussions. She heard the commander reassuring the comb metro attorney that all permissions had been received and that fed and state court orders were on record for every action taken this morning.
Morning. Through a second level picture window, peeking between the outer comb mirrors she saw the northern limb of what looked like an attractive morning. Fog burning off. Pleasant day. Steadying herself she stepped into the doorway to the windowless cylindrical room at the center of the second level. The three metro therapists kneeled around the clamped victims on their cots. Low murmurs passed between them as they examined their patients. The single hellcrown resembled a hospital arbeiter, about a meter tall, three stacked spheroids with a connecting ridge up one side, the control panel like a remote keyboard. One of the therapists held that panel now, slowly bringing the victims back to consciousness. The hellcrown was not an expendable Hispaniolan import; it was custom fine machinery, perhaps Chinese. Capable of delivering hours of retribution in minutes.
“They set him for high-ramp dream of five minutes. Five minutes,” the eldest therapist, a woman in her fifties, told her colleagues. “Who was he?”
“Representative of marketing for Sky Private,” said another. “Lon Joyce.”
The man moaned and tried to sit up, eyes still closed. His face was wizened with fear and pain. The therapist restrained him with her arm. Mary entered the room and stood out of the way arms crossed, biting her lower lip. She could feel the contortion of discomfort on her own face, empathy for the three on the cots.
One of the therapists she had met before noticed her standing there, blinked, ignored her. None of the victims not even the unclamped patient had yet recovered consciousness.
“Sky Private. Airplane manufacturers?” the third therapist asked. “What did he do?”
“Sold defective airframes to an Indian company,” said a voice behind Mary. She turned and saw the CEC.
“Hardly seems worth five minutes,” the female therapist said in an undertone, administering a metabolism control patch.