Earth
Sector 6.
1340 hours.
The session was a home run. Boredom gnawed at him like a smudge of rust on steel. Kline hated it.
The dying embers of the session were too smooth. Too clean. Like it was rehearsed.
Thoughts scraped in his skull like two serrated cogs grinding.
Senator McReese was a good place to start. Then the deceased senator's office. Cold. Quiet. Probably sealed up with a pulse-lock.
He flicked a glance at the Grand Imperator. He was the kind of man you didn't just find. You had to chase shadows until they bled.
The cop in him kept nagging: Find Dean. Yeah. Right. But it would be a herculean task. It was like finding the Dark Emperor's ghost.
He dialed back in.
Gripp's throat cleared. Vintage keys tickled the background. Some Terran requiem piped through the dome's omni-cast. Faint. Uneasy.
"We're done," Gripp said, voice smooth as synth-oil. "Hit the Imperium log online. Or ping your Senator via the Wire. React if you've got the guts." His smile was sardonic. Kline was hardly impressed.
His eyes scanned the gallery. Mostly dead faces, dull eyes. Most didn't care. The assembly's docket was dead weight to them. The rest, those inter-planetary civil groups that bristled crazy - Planet Corr had their blood up. But could you blame them?
Gripp stood. Stepped down the dais like a man walking out of legend. His escort, of two Imperium officials and automatons steel-jawed, chrome-eyed, cloaked in black synth-fiber - flanked him like shadows.
The whole chamber rose. Gallery too. Out of respect? Maybe fear. Maybe, a habit.
The Imperium was shaky. Corr's future, murky. Damn too murky. You could feel the decay under the polish.
Gripp vanished through the arched fenestration. Gone. Just like that.
Kline got moving. No fanfare. No hesitation.
First stop: McReese.
***********
The Imperium.
Built as a politico-administrative hive. The architects thought they were brilliant. A central cathedral of order - now nothing more than rusting ambition. The auditorium, symbolic. A throne room for speeches and gestures. The rest? Bureaucratic bunkers for the Republic's clockwork machine.
Born after the Arcane Wars.
A time when Earthlings declared central rule extinct after the toppling of the Dark Emperor. Central rule was considered outdated. Dangerous. Irrelevant.
The final nail?
The Dark Emperor - iced and boxed in cryo-suspension, floating somewhere in the Seets Orb, lightyears out. Still breathing. Still dangerous.
But that's history. It's all dust in a galaxy that stopped caring.
Kline stood at the concourse. The crowd had bled out. Silence settling like ash. Only one building kept breathing. A trapezoid mass of glass and concrete. Cold and brutal.
Solar panels skinned its facade - black, sleek, mirrored like obsidian. Harvesting suns from multiple star systems.
Senators filed in through the Grand Terrace. Suits, badges, shoulder crests. Dual-role bureaucrats - politicians by day, administrators by protocol. Their gait oozed entitlement.
Kline followed. Slow. Hands in coat. Eyes cutting angles.
Inside, the place was a hive - stone floors retrofitted with motion-wave scanners, walls pulsing with retinal grids. Surveillance embedded in architecture. Every breath tagged. Every heartbeat noted.
Noise.
Swarm of people. Staffers, interns, off-world correspondents zipping on hover-boots. Reactionary groups begging entry. Flash signs, crude posters. "ACCOUNTABILITY IS A PLANETARY RIGHT" someone yelled. No one listened.
He wasn't here for drama. He was here to piece together a puzzle. One meant to solve a deadly crime.
A crime concealed in handshakes and policy briefings.
A glass desk which doubled as an aquarium spotting strange aquatic life, spanned the wall like a control panel from a star cruiser at a far end of the massive lobby. Only the fresh blue water made it all look like a joke. However, the Imperium's architects termed it "...a show of solidarity for mother nature."
But everyone classified their assertion as a joke. Stupid theatrics. Earth's aquatic life was decimated a century ago. So why the foolery? Keeping a few species in a tank was just as ridiculous as destroying the millions of flora and fauna that made the seas teem with life.
Damn earthlings. He cursed.
Across the desk, Six automatons stood guard, eyes like flashbulbs, faces static.
He stepped to one. ID glowed: T514.
"Hello," Kline muttered, voice flat.
The bot blinked. Its voice was a nasal buzz. Modulated from some long-forgotten server.
"Hello, Detective Kline. I assume you enjoyed the session?"
Kline exhaled. Slow. "Can't say. Maybe in another lifetime. I need McReese."
T514's fingers clicked on the console. Lights flared. A holo schematic sparked up. Dim. Complicated. Irrelevant.
"Senator McReese is in session with inter-planetary civil groups. Do I reschedule?"
Kline's tone turned iron. "I'm the law, T514. This ain't brunch."
The bot's digits fluttered again. Dull clicks. Screen flickered.
"You'll wait. Thirty-seven minutes."
Kline hissed. "Don't have thirty."
He turned. Coat swirling. Boots echoing on metal tiles. Eyes scanning.
He needed a scene. A disturbance. Something to burn his name into the air. Something McReese couldn't ignore.
He stepped back outside. The sun now a harsh white arc over the domes.
He had a plan. He just needed to pull the pin.
He lit a sync-cig. Blue smoke hissed out like pressurized gas from a leaky vent.
It had been a while. He didn't miss it. Never loved it. Just liked what it did to a man's image especially in sterile places like this.
Smelled like a bad rebellion. Looked like death on vacation.
The poncho helped. The smoke helped more. Fear followed.
Not many dared to smoke. Not after the '29 ban.
The Imperium's drones didn't just watch. They judged.
He felt the heat of a scan laser lock on his temple. A surveillance node focused on him.
Eyes,everywhere. Heads turned. Whispers stopped.
The hiss of boots echoed. Behind him.
Footsteps. Heavy. Even. Mechanical.They belonged to security droids.
He turned slow. Real slow.
A dozen of them. Chrome-plated, servo-humming along with pulse rifles clamped to their arms.
They flanked a kid in black. Officer class. Face like polished coal, carved by duty.
"Detective Kline," the kid said, voice clipped. "You're in violation of Section Eighteen, Public Nuisance Act of '29."
Kline let the smoke curl out of his mouth like he was blowing venom. He flicked the cigar. A sharp snap. It whiffed somewhere on the sun-drenched pavement
"Good. Got your attention."
The officer's jaw tightened.
"We're taking you in. Routine questions."
Kline's mouth twitched. Something like a smile. Maybe a threat. "I talk. But only if McReese is in the room."
The officer blinked.
"You can't see him."
"Then I light another stick," Kline said."Then you taze me.
Then it's a lawsuit. A real nasty one. Civil Rights Violation. Class A."
The kid's eyes darted.
"What rights?"
The words hit the air like rusted gears grinding.
"I made a request," Kline said.
"About a dead Senator. Madin. Big name. Bigger mess. You ignored it."
A heavy silence followed.
Just the hum of ion cores in the humanoid's armor. Clicks. Beeps. A slow pulse of red in their visors.
The officer's bluff cracked.
Kline had him. Hooked. Dragged and bleeding respect.
"Come with me," the officer muttered.
No fight left. Just protocol.
He turned.Kline followed.
Cig ghosts still hung in the air. Like rebellion never really left.