Else, Part I

Not quite as meaty as it should be, but this bit leads into the next, much more intriguing one quite well. I would post the two together but that would be a very long update to read in one sitting.

******

Else woke with a jerk, nearly collapsing his cot. Sweat had seeped into his cotton sheets, making them cling like plastic wrap as he struggled to sit up. Everyone always told him he should buy some normal genilythene bedspread; more comfort and it didn't wrap you up like a mummy. Then they cooed sympathetically when he told them about his rare allergy.

Checking the clock, it read ten minutes past five in the evening, almost a half hour before his alarm set roused him. Else had been having trouble readjusting his sleep schedule to the night patrol shift, and he supposed that having his partner viciously stabbed in the throat with a stylus might not have helped either. He shook his head. There was not much to be done for Dack; the little bastard was safely ensconced in MSS Infirmary, and would not be moving for a week or more. He was lucky to even have that chance though. Else had barely been able restrain Champlain Tourval – the man had been utterly psychotic. So well-dressed and bred, yet he fought like a trained pit bull, nasty and without regard for his own safety. Else had managed to pull him off Dack, but amazingly his stun stick – at full charge – had had no visible effect on the man. They were supposed to incapacitate via the nervous system, but apparently the only way Champlain’s nervous system could be shorted out was bludgeoning his head with a steel baton.

The coffee machine briefly bubbled as its motion sensor picked up Else extricating himself, and a stream of amber liquid squirted out. Fine beans from South America made the aroma wafting towards Else a rich, intoxicating one. No time for coffee though, despite the early hour. He quickly relieved himself in the tiny bathroom branching off his home’s single room, then got his street clothes on and headed out, checking one last time if everything was in its place. There was not too much to be out of place though, honestly; the apartment was where he slept, not where he lived, and its austere furnishings spoke to that.

However, he was satisfied things were in order, so Else departed with a traveling mug of coffee in hand. There was enough time to drink it on the move, at least. The building he exited into was a cramped one; skyscrapers of skinny hallways and low ceilings so more domiciles could be jammed in were typical to Sector Z-12, and this one was no different. It was cheap though, no doubt about it, and Else could just about afford cheap on his MSS salary. Night patrol paid shit.

The lift was working, that was something at this hour. Half the time when Else got up for work power was off, necessitating pounding on the floor manager’s door for ten minutes before the crotchety old man got up from his armchair, grumbling, and activated the elevator. He had meant to contact the owners about that; there was no other way down besides emergency fire exits or grav-jumping, and Else was not going to strap on a harness and leap from the thirtieth floor no matter how badly these people wanted to save on energy.

Ride to ground level lasted a toe-tapping two minutes, twenty seconds passed crossing the tiny lobby and exiting the complex. Four minutes while the Korean street vendor made up some fresh egg rolls for him, ten minutes before Else could find a trolley floating towards his destination, and then fifteen minutes until it got there. Else kept his head down the whole way, eating his egg roll and drinking coffee, ignoring his surroundings. Not because Z-12 was an eyesore – it looked much like the rest of the Zone, and was ten times nicer than Z-26. Prefab edifices painted over in muted hues pushed right up to the limits of concrete streets packed tight with hoverers and wheelers and the garish yellow trolleys like what Else rode. There were no sidewalks, only bridges between high buildings casting shadows over the streets below. Despite that, hawkers and hobos packed into every alcove or free space where a hoverer would not bowl them over, and there were plenty of customers. Every now and then there would be a pair of MSS Officers in blue and grey, most often their tinted visors covering stern faces while they nerve rayed or stun sticked various troublemakers. The Zone, even outside of Sector Z-26, was a tough place.

No, the reason Else never looked up was because he was thinking. Captain Derling had promised an IU would be on the case, but he could not guarantee that honestly. Zone Central dispatched Investigatory Units, not Sector commanders. So Else was cogitating. Thinking that he would be the IU, since, after all, it was his partner who had been stabbed. That was ran like an Olympic athlete through his head when he stepped off the bright trolley, and finally looked up.

To be greeted by a huge wall; the Z-12/26 Sector Partition. Every Sector had its own area defined by these Partitions, which served to reulate travel between. They stretched from ground level all the way up to connect at the huge dome ceiling, more than a thousand feet at some places, serving a threefold purpose. One; to act as checkpoints. Two; to act as supports for the Mall roof. And three; to house government services such as MSS, emergency rooms, fire departments and community centers within their honeycombed interior. Else was stationed at this particular section of the Partition; Section 808, SecCon for Z-26.

Approaching the blank face of it, he slid his ID card through a concealed reader. A section of steel depressed, then folded inwards to reveal a brightly lit corridor beyond. The plainclothes guard always standing nearby nodded him past; MSS went to a great deal of trouble keeping the many side entrances to the Partitions secret, but could never help but making them obvious as brighty glowsticks.

Once inside, the floors and walls left off with plain grey metal, and instead became bright white polymer; headquarters was hard on the eyes, not to mention much more confined than a man of Else’s great size would have liked. Standing at over six feet, his head was shy of the ceiling by about a foot of space, and his muscled frame took up nearly half the width of the hallway. He hastily navigated through what seemed to be a maze of crisscrossing passages and rooms to casual visitors, but was in fact carefully laid out to ensure maximum structural integrity for the dome and Partition while not skimping on useable space. As a result, locations in Section 808 – and every other station Else had ever been in – were wildly spread out and difficult to get to. Fortunately, Else knew where he was going. Not where everything was, certainly, but he knew the one route he needed to take well enough.

Very shortly he came to a room which at first glance looked like an extension of corridor, but that was because blue lockers took up any extra space there was. Else went midway down – the worst area, since everyone had to go through there – and opened up nine nine two. He tossed his travel mug in, along with the now-consumed egg roll’s wrapper, and set about undressing and then redressing into his uniform; strong, high-topped combat boots, baggy jumpsuit fatigue and thick grey Kevlar with ‘MSS’ stamped across the chest in audacious black lettering. The vest bore little similarity to the ballistic armor eulogized in Hollywood treatments of old-time police, however; the company producing had merely capitalized on expired trademarks to give its own products resonance in the marketplace. The result had been wildy successful, but naming rights were secondary to the armor itself; it consisted of microthreaded ceramic, able to absorb a pistol slug from ten feet or a knife thrust at considerably less distance.

Else made sure his badge was securely pinned onto the shoulder strap – “Kind, Courteous, Discreet” was its slogan – and picked his way through the locker room to find Captain Derling. The Captain's office was located directly across from the primary cargo lift, MSS's statement on how proud they were of his accomplishments, to allow constant streams of heavy, expensive equipment be routed just outside his door. Else found it hard to believe the man could even sum up the dignity to come to the station, let alone an hour before the night shift went on the clock as he always did.

When Else entered he found Derling poring over various reports, marking their nanofiber surfaces with his stylus. He was an ample man, filling up his oversized chair, and bags under his eyes made him look horribly tired. The door made a small alerting sound as it opened, and he looked up briefly, frowned, then went back to marking. Else came to attention before his desk, keeping his eyes front. That was tough. The office was hexagonally shaped, and on every wall face monitors blinked; uplinks to the SecCon room, Zone Central, National Police, Mall Supervision, and the Database were all present, if inactive. Sector captains had to stay in touch.

A few moments passed before Derling spoke, and he did not look up as he did. Just kept scratching at reports.“I thought I told you to take the week off, Else? Seeing your partner stabbed is a pretty traumatizing piece of shit. You ought to be resting.”

“Couldn’t sleep, sir,” Else said, and that got a flash of Derling’s eyes.

“Perhaps Puckerly could take a look at you then.” Puckerly was the resident psychologist. Rumor was, he had singlehandedly driven Brock Jordan into retirement after seeing Brok for his divorce. “Maybe it’s PTSD or something like that.”

Else shook his head, causing his dreadlocks to toss about like Medusa. “No, Captain, I mean I couldn’t sleep not knowing about the case. Sergeant Dackory smelled something, sir, and the way things played out, I think he might have smelled something real.”

The stylus slammed down, and Derling folded his hands in front of him, attention fully on Else now. His amber eyes were so deep-set, they seemed black at times. Combined with the bags under his eyes, it made for a freakish sight. “Dack…smells a lot of things. He has an exceptional olfactory sense; in fact, it's overdeveloped. The reason why he’s in Z-26, instead of investigating Senate corruption with the National Police, is because he never smells anything real. The man’s paranoid, Corporal. Besides, this case is pretty open and shut. Tourval attacked him outright.”

“Not that, sir. I meant Ellen Dietrich. She’s still missing according to the Database; I want to investigate. There’s gotta be something more to all this.” Else tried to shut the comment on Dack out of his mind. He had been onto something. Why else would Tourval have leaped like that?

Derling shook his head exasperatedly. “Listen, I’ve got less than a hundred officers on call per night, in a Sector with almost ten thousand people per square kilometer-”

“And a total area of fifteen square kilometers,” finished Else, “but you were going to give me the week off anyway, Captain. So why not just let me go, since you weren’t going to miss me?”

“-and besides,” continued Derling unabated, “I told you an IU would be on Dietrich’s case.”

“Is one?”

“Not yet,” Derling began, disconcerted, “Zone told me they’d be on it soon though. I’m telling you Else, those guys would be pissed if you fiddled around with their evidence.”

“I’m not going to fiddle!” Else said incredulously, “Just have a look around Champlain Tourval’s home, see what I can see.”

“His home?” asked Derling, nonplussed. “That’s in C-Zone, Else. You know we’re in Z-Zone, right? We’ve got no jurisdiction there.”

“Only if I get caught,” Else said with a grin. “Just give me a couple days, Captain, and I can get it done. You know my record.”

“I do,” said Derling doubtfully. “It’s chock full of commendations, which doesn’t make any sense because you’re assigned here and a still a corporal. You must have really gotten on somebody’s wrong side.” The Captain sighed, sliding out a luminescent keyboard and punching in. “There’s your authorization to go dome-top; the Mainway’s are all jammed with construction.” A note-sized blue tablet ejected from a nondescript slot in Derling’s desk, and he quickly signed off.

Else reached out to grab it from his outstretched hand, but Derling pulled it back a fraction. “One more thing, Else. Do not ever nerve ray anybody again, unless there is a clear and present danger. Got me? There's enough pressure on this station without you heaping more on.”

Else nodded. “Understood sir.” He’d expected that. Nerve rays were for riot control; any interrogation extracted after using one was not valid in a court of law. Too close to torture and coerced confession. A good lawyer could tear apart a case if one had been deployed, and if there was one thing the MSS hated, it was a civil rights case.

Derling nodded and let Else take the tablet. But…the Mainways were jammed? From construction? Else wondered at that; infrastructure improvements for Z-Zone had come to a halt thirteen years ago. No problem though, he’d be dome-top and in C-Zone pronto.

******

“Hey there, partner!”

Else inclined his head. Jep was the pilot for the station’s transit vehicle; a huge flyvan meant to ferry accountants, VIPs and anyone else with special business in Z-26 in from other Zones or Sectors. And its pilot was a grinning fool who could not seem to stop ogling Else’s dreads as he talked. “What’re you in need of, Corp?”

“Going to C-06 Jep,” Else said brusquely. “Not long to talk, I’m on limited time.”

“Ain’t we all though,” mused Jep, still beaming and staring. “Alright, hop on in. Not much call to fly this late, I’m looking forward to maybe seeing some stars.”

Else doubted that – it was still July, the stars wouldn’t be out until nine – but kept his silence while Jep opened up the hulking flier. It was painted dark blue, although not the MSS’s shade, and bore the New England Mall’s official sigil on the hood. Two huge, detached hands cradled what appeared to be a rural town olden days America. A creepy image, Else decided as he climbed aboard and strapped down. Very creepy.

There was a hum and a jolt as Jep powered up the grav thrusters and they achieved liftoff. From where Else sat in the passenger cabin he could see the hangar door swing outward, then they were rocketing forward. There was no acceleration pressing him into the seat; fliers could get up to ten thousand miles per hour inside of three seconds, so they had anti-grav buffers all over to keep people from jellying. Over ten thousand of course they couldn’t compensate and you would be crushed instantly, but fortunately all grav engines of a certain class came with limiters so dumbass pilots like Jep wouldn’t kill whole planes full of folk.

They weren’t going close to ten thousand anyway, not in this heap of junk and not in the middle of a dome. Else took one look, seven hundred feet straight down, before pressing himself firmly back into the pleather seat. Traffic just looked like streams of color from up here, and buildings like fat obstructions forcing the flow to part and then rejoin further downstream. He might have puked, if it were not for Jep’s idiot face glancing back at him every few seconds. That monkey would never see him weak.

“Okay, we’re coming up on the sky hatch now. We’ll be outside inside of twenty seconds.” Jep’s voice sounded tinny to Else. Must be the altitude, he thought, his stomach still roiling. The dome ceiling was real close now – one of the huge lights illuminating the Sector nearly burned out his retinas when they flew by. Then, just as abruptly as they had accelerated, the flycan turned vertically. Again, no gravity force them back into their seats, but the whole world flipped ninety degrees and they were heading straight up towards a gaping hole in the dome.

Two seconds later, they were outside the Mall.

“That sight always gets me, no matter how many times I come out here.” Else had to agree with Jep.

Nothing but sky overhead, darkening sky. No stars yet, no moon, but where the sun’s waning light did not reach it resembled the darkness from Else’s wildest nightmares as a child. He had to look away. He had not been born in a dome, but most of his life had been spent in one. The outside – the real outside – made him more than a little nervous. So instead he looked at the Mall, stretching off in every direction except the ocean’s.

The greatest feat of man, it was called, despite there being a few dozen just like it on each continent. Twenty-six titanic sized domes one thousand five hundred feet at their apex, twelve and a half miles in diameter. A dome was its own Zone, and was further subdivided into twenty-six Sectors. Average population density was twenty thousand per kilometer, total area was three hundred and fourteen square kilometers per dome. Over one hundred sixty three million people called the New England Mall their home in one way or another. Else’s in depth knowledge of census data and other trivia got him plenty of funny looks, but it sure put the world in perspective sometimes.

An incessant beep from the cockpit interrupted his reverie. Jep faced the passenger cabin, arching an eyebrow at Else. “Hey, Corp, you got any friends with the National Police?”

“National Police?” They were a bunch of bastards who stole all of MSS’s hard-earned credit, in his opinion. “Not at all.”

“Well, that doesn’t bode well,” said Jep, stealing a glance at Else's hair. “They want us to put down so’s they can talk to you.”