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"Well, Investigator Hathaway. What d'you think?"
I smiled to myself, the word 'Investigator' must really be choking Justice Todd. He was one of the elite, a Gedei (genetically designed human) I was just a Nodei (non designed). I was currently in the holographic crime scene lab staring at a murdered body. Or rather the image of one, the crime scene was surrounded by holo cameras and they projected images back to the station.
"Somebody wants to slow us up. They've burned out his eyes, palm id and fingerprints but all the mutilations are post-mortem."
Todd sniffed,
"Won't slow us that much. Dna sample matching will give us his identity."
My partner, Jack Hudson said,
"He's obviously from the area. Look at the state of him."
Now Hudson was stepping on toes - mine. The area was East Stafford Street and the nearest we got to a ghetto in this marvellous 22nd century Stoke. Basically all the Nodeis had gathered there and this particular geezer had been found in a public toilet in the same district. I'd grown up just around the corner although I'd been educated at a Primary Student School rather than the more local Secondary Student place.
Primary students were almost exclusively Gedeis and my presence there outraged their parents. I had bucked the odds by scoring high in the IQ tests and the school couldn't refuse me a place. It was no easier at home, the street decided I was a snob because I went to a different school. I had to learn boxing at school (a gentleman's sport dontcha know?) and dirty fighting at home in order to survive.
Law enforcement was no different but I stuck at it anyway and worked my way from Konstable to Investigator in ten years. A Gedei would have done it in half the time.
I said mildly,
"I'm looking Jacko, what's the prob?"
"He's naked and flabby, not a Gedei for certain."
I walked through the corpse's chest - some people still step over, weird huh? Bending down I muttered into my lip phone,
"Charlie? Focus in on the hand please. That's great, thanks. Hold it there."
I had to reluctantly take Hudson's point - Gedei's genetic design made it almost impossible for them to be out of shape. It would take a really decadent lifestyle for that to happen. Decadence didn't cost much, the state was still trying to eradicate those of us who refused to join the master race. so they made booze and drugs easy to access and cheap to buy while making medical treatment as expensive as they could get away with.
"Wonder how he afforded the manicure?" I had finished scrutinising the fingers of his left hand.
"Manicure?"
"Yeah Jack, manicure - think he stole it?"
Hudson flushed, money no longer existed, our palm id's held all our bank details. He spluttered,
"Might have illegally accessed someone's bank account."
I stared,
"For a bloody manicure - are you serious?"
"Some Noddy's will do anything to emulate their betters." he said sanctimoniously. Well that did it really, I slammed him up against a filing screen.
"Try thinking, Hudson, get your brains out of your dick for a change. The banks have firewalls, virus, worm and trojan guards. If he was clever enough to jig past all of those, how come he....."
Todd intervened,
"That's enough, both of you."
I blinked, Todd wasn't taking sides, that was a switch. He continued,
"Jeff, go home, see what you can find out from your cubenet."
I nodded and walked dazedly out of the room. He called me by my first name, he didn't take Hudson's side. What the fuck was going on here?
Back in my living quarters I sat in my bedchair and touched a switch in its armrest. I was surrounded by four projected screens that comprised my cubenet. From here I could access all sorts of goodies including law-enforcement files. The net was also an entertainment, communication and general information centre. I rolled over to East wall and placed my hand at a square entitled 'Missing Persons'. This would be a very short list. Our palm ids acted as door-keys, transport passes, credit cards, work passes and so on. Nobody could move without using them at some point during the day. Therefore it was almost impossible to go missing without Criminal Intelligence screens lighting up like a frigging Christmas tree. I leafed through the files by order of date, whistling 'Sixteen Tons' through my teeth.
Nothing, nada, a couple of cold cases from about fifty years ago and that was that. I wondered how the dna matching had gone. I spun around, activated the virtual conferencing facility and called up Justice Todd and Secondary Investigator Hudson. Their faces appeared floating in mid wall and I said,
"Dna done?"
"Done." replied Todd,
"And?"
"And nothing. The victim isn't registered with any state and is therefore not within our jurisdiction - not our problem."
"But he's been murdered."
"Like I said, not our problem."
Both faces snapped off and I was left to fume on my own. Like hell it wasn't our problem. Who was John Smith? (Our usual term for an unidentified corpse). Why was Todd determined to bury this case? Basically - what the bloody hell was going on?
------
In five hundred years time, most of us will be forgotten dust. But Hitler will still be remembered, God loves irony.
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Incident at Treber part 6
