Shattered Truth

Chapter 4

Chapter Four

September 3, 2228, Neo Southern California Metroplex, Police Enforcement Zone 122 Station, Break Room

Jia walked down the hall past the bullpen and stepped into the break room, then headed over to the counter, coffee cup in hand.

It was time to acquire the morning fuel the police gods required.

Halil leaned against the wall, sipping a cup of coffee. Another detective, Jared Thompson, stood next to him. Both glanced at her, Jared frowning slightly when he realized who it was.

The two of them had a professional relationship. He had never liked her, and in return, she had never cared.

Professional.

“Hey, Jia.” Halil held up his coffee cup in greeting. Not all of her old enemies kept to their previous opinions. She couldn’t claim to be true friends with Halil, but at least he was pleasant toward her.

Jia offered a smile. “How is everything going with that case? I meant to ask you the other day before all the…” she made a few abrupt movements with her hands, “chase nonsense.”

“Damn.” Halil grimaced. “You had to ask about that.” He ran a hand over his closely-shaven scalp. “This is the part where I look like a dumbass.”

“Why?” Jia blinked. “Is something wrong?” She looked at both of them, focusing on Halil. “I thought you guys had a suspect already?”

Jared’s frown deepened, and Jia ignored him.

“Yeah, you could say something’s wrong,” Halil replied with a shrug. “You’re right. I thought we had the bastard dead to rights, but the witness suddenly recanted, claims he can’t be certain. Not sure if he’s being pressured or honestly doesn’t know, and without direct surveillance evidence, it’s going to be hard to place the suspect there. Especially since his PNIU was pinging from a different tower and the suspect managed to be in the one place that was directly covered by the cameras. A man can’t be two places at once.” He growled. “I know he did it, and Forensics combed the place, but what good is finding his DNA there when he already works at the tower? Especially since there’s the DNA of thousands of others, too?” He sucked air through his gritted teeth. “Leaning on the guy’s doing nothing. I think he spent enough time planning the theft that he thought of everything.”

Jared waved a hand, catching her attention. “Let it go, then. It’s not worth the trouble. Just wait until the guy does it again and catch him then.”

Jia narrowed her eyes. “Are you going to tell the victims that? If we have a suspect and we have evidence, we need to keep pursuing the case until we can prove he did it.”

He frowned. “Monahan would have pushed that case on already. What good is a case we can’t clear? It’s just going to lower our stats and make the 1-2-2 look bad. It doesn’t help anyone, Lin. Stubbornly clinging to a case you’ll never solve also gives the victims false hope that they’ll get justice. That’s just cruel. The police should lift the citizens up, not screw with their emotions.”

Halil averted his eyes and took a long drink of coffee. Bravery was apparently situational.

Jia took a deep breath and slowly let it out, keeping her gaze locked on Jared. All the excitement of the last couple of months and some people clung to the old ways like a man hanging from the edge of a tower, afraid to fall into the Shadow Zone.

It was both infuriating and sad.

“We have IDed the suspect, and we have evidence that points to his involvement. That’s the beginning of a case.” Jia glanced at Halil, but despite it being his case, he was now more concerned about hiding behind his coffee cup than defending it, so it was back to Jared. “Since the witness recanted, it’s all circumstantial, but that doesn’t mean we can’t find something more direct. Maybe we’ll get a lucky drone feed.”

“’We?’” Jared replied. He sneered. “It’s not your case, Lin. You shouldn’t get so uppity about it. You and the Obsidian Detective should stay away from it. This isn’t something you’re going to solve by blowing things up.”

Jia eyed him. “The last time I checked, we were all on the same side, Detective Thompson. If I can do anything to help a fellow police officer, I will, and I would hope it would be the same for you. For all the crap you just peddled, Erik and I have been bringing in suspects and solving cases. A little overzealousness by Erik doesn’t negate the results.”

Jared marched up to her and squared his shoulders. “I thought you were annoying before, but now you got Soldier Boy filling your head with stupid crap.”

Jia scoffed. “Like how police should actually solve crimes and not just ignore them? How we shouldn’t just wait for our pensions?”

Jared offered a feral grin. “Just because Monahan is gone doesn’t mean he was wrong. You ran off two partners, and that wasn’t good enough, so you turned around and ran off a captain, too. I bet you feel special, don’t you?”

“I feel satisfied, yes.” Jia refused to move an inch despite the larger man looming over her. “And I’ll never apologize for doing my job, Detective. You seemed to not have learned anything from Captain Monahan’s retirement.”

“What was I supposed to learn?” Jared demanded.

Halil continued sipping his coffee, discomfort written all over his face.

Jia lifted her chin defiantly. “In the end, the captain did the right thing and supported us.”

“Because you boxed him into the corner.” Jared stepped away, his face still contorted in disgust. “And everyone knows he did that because he was afraid of Erik.”

“Oh, please. Erik’s fine, and he’s a good cop in his own way. He’s a little blunt and still adjusting to things, but that’s something we can use around here. If you don’t like it,” Jia nodded toward the door, “there’s always the exit that starts right there. I mean, if you don’t want to solve crimes, you might be happier not being a cop.”

Jared let out a mocking laugh. “I’ll give you credit, Lin. You’ve always had a backbone, but I think you need a brain to go with it.”

Jared wasn’t the only detective left in the 1-2-2 who liked things the way they used to be, but Jia didn’t care. That wasn’t her problem anymore, now that she had a partner who supported her.

“I think my brain’s just fine,” Jia offered. “But thanks for your concern.”

“You don’t get me at all.” Jared shook his head, his lips pursed. “I’m trying to help you. I’m trying to do you a favor, and you are doing nothing but spitting in my face.”

Jia barked out a laugh. “Help how? By insulting me? By insulting my partner, the first cop who actually supported me? Maybe a new career in comedy would suit you, Detective Thompson.”

Jared frowned at Halil and nodded toward Jia as if to ask for backup. To Halil’s small credit, he didn’t join in on the attack, but that didn’t change the fact that the normally talkative man was suddenly observing a vow of silence.

“Yeah, I’m trying to help you,” Jared continued. He took a few steps back, glowering at both Halil and Jia. “Soldier Boy isn’t just blunt, he’s dangerous. What about that stunt the other day with the disruptor bullets? You telling me that you think that’s okay? You hadn’t even fired at a suspect before Soldier Boy showed up, and now you’re running around acting like you’re in the Army. And that gun he has! You telling me you’re okay with that?”

Jia winced. “He would have used EMP if the department had approved it. He’s trying to come up with appropriate non-lethal solutions while still taking advantage of a high-performance vehicle.”

She shrugged as if it were the most obvious solution in the world, even if she did harbor a few concerns about high-speed pursuits, take-downs, and the necessity of the TR-7.

“You think you’re always going to be lucky. That’s it, isn’t it? He’s convinced you that you two can never lose. I’ve talked to him. I know he thinks he’s better than us. I can smell it.” Jared gestured widely around the room. “But he’s just some half-crazy exoskeleton jockey who thinks he’s still out on the frontier taking on terrorists. He doesn’t care about us. He doesn’t care about this city. He doesn’t care about the citizens of this city. Don’t you get that, Lin?”

The man’s words stung, if only because they were far too close to things she had said not all that long ago to Erik. Realizing how myopic and rude her words had been to her new partner stung too.

“If he doesn’t care about the citizens,” she muttered through gritted teeth, “why hasn’t he hurt anyone innocent while taking down a lot of antisocials? If he doesn’t care about us, why did he help me on my case instead of sitting around doing nothing like you?” She waved a hand dismissively. “You know what? Who cares what you think? If you don’t want to solve crimes, then continue to do nothing and contribute nothing to the metroplex. The rest of us will do our jobs. And if you think you can poison me against Erik, give it up. I’m not selling out my partner.”

“That’s a big switch. You suddenly care about your partner? What about the last two?”

“They weren’t good partners. If they had been, I would have had their backs.”

The two detectives stared at each other. The tense silence stretched for several seconds before Jared snorted and stomped past her to the door.

“Don’t blame me if you end up getting shot in some alley in the Shadow Zone,” he grumbled. He stormed out of the room, his face red.

Jia stared as he passed, her heart thumping. There was a man who needed a stun pistol up his ass.

“Fun.” Halil cleared his throat. “You see it, don’t you, Jia? You’re too smart not to see it.”

She turned to face him. “See what? You have something to say about Erik, too?” She gestured with her fingers for him to continue. “We might as well get it over with.”

Halil shook his head and chuckled, putting up a defensive hand. “Erik’s as stubborn as you are, and I don’t want to be on the bad side of two bulls who’ll charge forward even if they have a cliff in front of them.” He took a moment to sip his coffee. “All I’m saying is that Jared’s not the only one still loyal to Monahan. I liked the captain too, but I also get that Monohan understood we’d been doing things the wrong way and changes were needed. Unfortunately, not everyone agrees. I’m not telling you to not do your job, but you should keep in mind there are a lot of people who aren’t happy about either you or Erik. A lot of people who think you are still a naïve corp princess and he’s nothing more than a glory hound.”

“Maybe we are exactly what they think.” Jia shrugged. “But it doesn’t matter as long as we do our…” She gasped as inspiration blasted into her consciousness. “The fountain!”

Halil blinked, realizing their conversation had just been derailed. “Huh? What are you talking about? The fountain? What fountain?”

“You showed me some of the surveillance footage last week,” Jia explained, her eyes wide and her voice filled with excitement. “For your case, remember?”

“Wait, what? Yeah. What’s that got to do with you and Erik?” Halil’s face scrunched in confusion.

“Nothing.” Jia pointed at him. “But I just remembered something. The fountain. The surveillance cameras didn’t have a good angle on the suspect, but you can easily use a back-tracing algorithm on the surface of the water. It won’t get you enough to generate an image with a single camera, but there are multiple cameras in the area. It’s like you said. There was one small area not covered, but the rest were, and I would be surprised if you can’t reconstruct the suspect’s face from that.”

Halil’s mouth stayed open, and he blinked several times as he processed the suggestion. He raised his finger, his forehead crinkled. He shut his mouth, and after a few seconds, he offered, “It would have been nice if Forensics had mentioned that possibility.”

“It’s difficult to pull off that kind of enhancement and reconstruction under most circumstances, but it’s rare to get that overlap of camera feed angles without directly getting the desired image,” Jia explained.

Halil chuckled. “Thanks. You may have just helped me catch a thief.” He headed toward the door, coffee cup still in hand. “I better get on it right now. The suspect thinks he’s in the clear, but now we’ve got him. We can’t have you and Erik solving all the big crimes in the 1-2-2.”

He departed, mumbling under his breath about reflections and imaging processing.

Jared and others might long for Captain Monahan and his old policy of speak, hear, and see no evil, but Erik’s and Jia’s efforts had broken the stranglehold of apathy that had smothered the entire enforcement zone.

Now they just had to maintain the momentum.

Jia had heard rumors suggesting a new permanent captain would be appointed soon, but no one knew if it would be an internal promotion or someone brought in from the outside. With all the scandal that had rocked the department, she refused to believe they would bring in anyone who would force them back to the old status quo.

Regression to the mean defined so much of life and nature. The worst-case scenario was possible, but it didn’t matter. For now, all she needed to do was get her coffee and do her job.

At least for one day, she’d helped solve one more crime.