Changeling
By Harris, Mitch, Shaine, and Shatterclaw. Individual rating:
PG.
"So the suit's pilot wasn't human," Mitch said thoughtfully. "He was a police Boomer... There was a round device around the core, some sort of remote feed. That controlled the battle suit until it went rogue. It appeared to use a magnetic disk to boost the carrier signal but the disk melted."
"Could that have been remotely triggered?" Shaine asked.
"Yes. And the Boomer they used was easy to come by - used as a doormat, lab assistant, file clerk... Also, the suit never got over the temperature instability issue. It runs hot after a while, like our heavy suits used to."
Belladonna walked in. "What'd I miss?"
Mitch smiled.
"Uh oh...what'd I just..." She looked at Shaine nervously.
"Don't look at me!"
"...Step in?"
Harris caught himself just as he was about to fall asleep leaning on the counter. He looked at Bell.
"Well, Belladonna, I was just explaining what we learned from the analysis of the battle suit."
Harris shook his head. "Damn near put me to sleep in the process..."
"Harris, there's a coffee maker over there if you're interested."
"Naw...but save your breath for tonight, just in case I can't fall asleep right away..."
Shaine smiled.
"Do you have any questions, Bell?"
"Please, no, Bell..."
"Well, a few...but none I want to ask right now."
Harris smiled. "Thank you."
"But do we know who made the Boomer do this or did it do it on its own?"
"Not yet. It's assumed it went rogue."
"Okay, so it went rogue...why does a rogue Boomer need a battlesuit?"
"Um...to get to the other side?" Shaine suggested.
"Well sure, there's that, but Boomers don't go rogue and get into suits, they just smash them or fuse with them..."
"This has happened before?"
"Yes," Mitch said.
Harris looked at Shaine. "Maybe it got a look at Mitch over there and was trying to hide in the new suit..."
"It's just strange," Belladonna continued. "See, Boomers don't just stop and think, hm, I'll go rogue and hop in a battlesuit; it's more of a, Hulk smash battlesuit make it my own... Why stop and steal a suit? And why an ADP Boomer? Aren't they, like, the good guys?"
"Yes." Mitch repeated. "But there is someone adding something to the programming."
"Let me see the code," Shaine said. "I might be able to recognize the style."
"There were these odd chips I found attached to the Boomer's mainframe, too." He set the three chips down on the table in front of them.
"Yeah, I think I saw those same ones in the Genom labs back in Rochester... Motorola makes the name brand, but Genom's gotten good at knocking them off. See, it's one of their ID numbers on the top. But that doesn't mean much."
"Well, if you want better answers...if this is a police Boomer...check the records on it. Everything should have been documented about it from the day of purchase til the day we shot it to hell."
"Fried it to hell..." Bell whispered, getting a distant look in her eyes.
"That won't tell us anything about the person who put this crap in its head," Shaine countered.
"No, but it will tell you who it was."
"Every major corp and hacking cadre has its own programming style. And I know how to tell them apart."
"Whoever did the maintenance..." Harris continued.
"Just give me the code and I'll have it for you."
Belladonna started looking for a back door. Uh oh...not those two fighting again!
Shaine snorted. "Some pawn. I'd rather go straight to the top."
"Well, then. Go straight to the top instead of talking about it."
"Well, then. I'll need a copy of the code." She glared at Mitch.
"Back doors are like fingerprints, kind of, each hacker puts them there so they can get back in right?" Bell said.
"Yeah. Hackers and suits both. ...Well?" Mitch still wasn't doing anything.
"Something happened last night while I was at Murphy's," he said slowly.
"Yeah, you got drunk. What else is new?"
Shaine sighed, walked over to Mitch's console and cracked the password. She burned the Boomer code onto a hypercard and sat back down.
"Have any of you heard of a man called Albert Oliver?"
"No."
"I met him at Murphy's yesterday and he was talking about that Boomer."
"Okay, so who is this Al guy?"
Harris looked at Mitch. "Oliver, eh?" He pulled out the book of names that Tony had given him. "Yeah, think I've heard of him..."
"I'm sure he has something to do with this!"
"Yup, Mr. Fixit," Harris said.
"Ugh...this is some strange shit! Totally kluged..." Shaine muttered. "But it's solid..."
"Mr. Fixit?"
"Apparently while some of us are out doing read work we get ahold of certain information...here's his address." He held the book up; Mitch leaned over the table to read it.
Harris snapped it closed and returned it to his coat pocket. "Anyways...this is for Crim when he gets here."
"Got anything on his employment history?" Shaine asked.
"I'll check for that at the department. ADP's in my realm."
"Right...that might help me slice through this baby. It looks like it came out of ten different software labs..."
Harris sighed and grabbed a chair, taking a seat.
"I can't tell whether this is a professional playing dumb, or a really lucky lamer..."
///
The light from above the hospital table shone a dusky white. Two hours had passed, and the team working to free Amster was back where it started. Every time they'd cut a piece of the Boomer away, new tendrils had snaked out to reclaim what it had lost.
Hugo helped, and Sprocket held the EMP gun, as Crimson and Branks continued to cut through the mess of hardsuit and Boomer.
"How could this have happened? What did you do to this kid?" Branks said between sections of armor and flesh.
"This is not our doing," Crimson shot back, holding up another piece to be cut. "The Army was trying to do something, possibly remake a hardsuit, or to take it to the next level."
"I don't believe that," she sighed. "But I never seen anything like this. His lung and legs are med grade Boomer parts, but they been changed, see, they're compressed." She pointed to a small, grey-pink part lying within Amster's chest. "And his legs, they more like Boomer's. Rockets, boosters, even parts I don't know about."
"You're a doctor, not an engineer." Hugo said. "There are things you're not allowed to know."
"Yes, but after my glory days here I ought to know!" she huffed.
"Not possible. You can't know everything every time." Crimson pried a panel from Amster's arm, revealing a large lens set deeply into the layer below. "How many weapons did they cram in here?"
"Heat cannon?" Hugo mused. "No, too big...possibly beam cannon, or even a beam missile projector... Either way, that's too powerful for a suit or a Boomer. Even if the two fused the placement is wrong!"
"Boomer? This thing was fused with a Boomer?" Branks suddenly looked alarmed.
"Yes, and possibly some other unknown matrix. As we told you, he had Boomer legs and a lung to begin with, and possibly some wetwear to hook to the suit." Crimson finished removing the weapon, placing it on a cart.
"You never said anything about a Boomer! What if it wakes up? It could kill us!"
"When did he become an it?"
"When he fused with a monster!" Branks threw her scalpel onto the tray next to her. It clattered down amongst the other tools.
"Doctor, if you were in any danger, you wouldn't be here. You would be safe and sound at home." Crimson picked up her scalpel and offered it to her. She snatched it from his hand and held it over Amster.
"What is this, Crimson, really?" Her tone was pleading.
"I'm not sure. It has far too many weapons to be a hardsuit, and not enough battery power. It has no fusion-proof armor, nor a fully operational system..."
"Crimson! Look at this." Hugo something up under the light. "A synchronization system; it's unlike any design I've ever seen."
"Synchronization system?" Branks asked, puzzled.
"A kind of autopilot, an advanced form of AI, that uses previously recorded actions to perform new actions if the pilot is incapacitated. That means that the suit and the Boomer here were calling the shots when it fused." Hugo shot Crimson a worried look.
"Hugo, find the black box, the Boomer's head, and the system's hard point. Now!" Crimson moved back to the side of the table. "Okay... I'm going to lift Amster's head. At the base of his skull is the connection point. Branks, I want you to cut it."
"I thought you said it would kill him," she screeched. "Most likely it, him, or us...and I want to live!"
Crimson lifted Amster's head, sending blood trickling from the still-open chest. Branks reached underneath and started cutting, muttering under her breath. The back of the suit fell to the table with a thud, small round plugs popping out along the spine.
"What are those things?" Branks leaned in closer.
"Neural plugs, like the kind used to interface with computers."
"You know about them?"
"No, there were rumors out of some Genom factory, same for the US...cyberpunks have used some form or another for years," Crimson said grimly. "Hugo, help me lift him."
Sprocked pulled the lower armor backing out from Amster as they lifted him. "He's bleeding again! Get him back onto the table!" They lay him back down quickly. "We're never going to fix this mess in one night, Crimson. Not him, not the suit."
"I don't expect you to. But I do expect to have Amster at one end of this table and the rest at the other."
The night wore on.
"...I think we can clone his lung here; that way, infection is limited to what you have here." Branks clipped the last wire feeding into Amster's leg. "It'll take a few days, but for once I think you may have a whole human left over."
"We should, after the last time we rebuilt this place for you."
"Hah! I'm sure you missed something." She lifted part of his once-Boomer leg. "Any idea what this does?"
"No idea, ma'am, but if you don't mind I'd like to make sure it doesn't blow us up." Hugo took the piece from her and placed it into a freezer cart. "Gonna go lock the last of this down, Boss."
"Get going." Crimson turned to Branks. "How long before Amster's back among the living?"
"He should be able to speak within a few days, and by then I'll have a new lung for him. We can do the transplant then...at the hospital."
"I understand your concerns, Doctor, but I can't let you move him until he know what's in the suit...and until we know he's safe."
"His safety? You call this safe? I need a team of trained doctors to perform this operation or he will die."
"You'll have your team. Give me names and I'll bring them here."
"You're insane. No one can do that. It's against the Constitution!"
"Funny...if I offered you a bonus, would the Constitution matter anymore?"
"How dare you!"
"No, Branks. How dare you think that I don't care about any of this. If I release Amster now, the entire world will jump on him, lock him up, and leave him there to rot. Here, he at least has a chance to recover. We don't know what he's been through, and we're still not clear on what he's done, but I still feel he deserves that chance. ...As for your team, they will be treated with the utmost care, as you have always been treated, unless you can figure out a way of finding teams with doctors we can borrow."
"You've checked, haven't you..." Branks looked quite surprised.
"Yes. I have checked, and planned, and paid for others' medical schooling. I have made certain that their lives have been left out of most of this craziness, that they have had fame, money...and now, when asked to pay for it, they turn their backs on me."
"I expect to at least have help when I need it."
Crimson turned his back on her and walked out of the medbay. Down the hall he could hear Shaine and Harris, then Mitch.
They were his hope for the future, the ones who would make all of the old wrongs right.
He just wished he knew how he kept dragging people into this.
///
Crimson walked into the room, looking haggard.
"What's up, Crimson?"
"We think Amster's going to make it. We got the suit off for examination..."
"That's good to hear!"
"Jinks is also doing fine...but will be confined to her room for a few weeks.
"The Boomer that fused with Amster was still active, or at least part of it was. It put up a hell of a fight. ...So what did I miss?"
Harris pulled the book out of his pocket, then tossed it to Crimson.
"The biggest fucking kluge I've ever seen. I'm wondering if it's not a Chinese Army solution, it's so spaghettified..."
Crimson skimmed through the book as he listened. "Shaine, in English: what is a Chinese Army?"
She sighed. "You ever heard of a..well, no. It's when you get a whole shitload of lamers to do the job of a few pros. Usually when way behind deadline. This code is..." She shook her head.
"Okay, and what did they do such a bad job on?"
"Not bad, just seriously hard to follow. It was in that ADP Boomer's head."
"Harris, this book. Where did you get it from?"
"Tony. One of Luna's men. And the fat ass was taken care of as well."
"I think you hit the jackpot."
"Huh?" Shaine looked up from her laptop.
"Watch the news if you want details."
"Luna! Isn't that the cat from Sailormoon?"
"Only if you're stupid..." He shook his head.
"First Bunny, now Luna..." she muttered.
"What is Sailormoon?" Mitch asked innocently. Shaine glared back at him as if he had just admitted to being a brain donor. "Well, Shaine?"
Harris stared at Mitch. "Mitch, tell me..is it ignorance or stupidity that keeps you alive?"
Shaine shook her head.
"I mean seriously...you have no idea what Sailormoon is..."
"Yeah!" Shaine said.
"No," Mitch admitted.
"Were you dropped on the head at a young age or something? I mean, hell, you can watch reruns of that shit..."
"When you're finished with your immature name-calling, would you tell me what Sailormoon is?"
"Immature, eh?"
"Don't you get the Anime Channel?" From her tone of voice, Shaine clearly regarded this as a Constitutional right.
"Anime? You mean, like cartoons?"
Harris shook his head. "Tell, me, Mitch: did you even have a childhood? Or have you always had this board stuck up your ass?"
"Yes, the cat finally figured the ditzy blonde was dead weight, and decided to take over the Chicago crime families instead," Crimson said, never looking up from Tony's book.
"Man!" Mitch shook his head.
"Well, that was before the Rabbit got her new synthetic legs...they look much nicer under that skimpy skirt of hers." Shaine smiled darkly.
"Luna's a mob boss, one of the biggest for this day and age."
"Right now, Luna is out of town," Harris added.
"He's helped Genom in the past, in return for favors..."
Mitch smiled and said, "I don't watch cartoons."
"That is something to be proud of. Really." Harris sighed, and muttered, "Pathetic..."
"...and his...family is wide open. So we're doing a little clean-up. In the long run, it will make our lives easier."
"Eh? Cleaning up is what's happening at Tony's place." Harris smiled.
"Do I want to know how bad it was?"
Shaine raised an eyebrow curiously, looking almost...proud.
"Watch the news tonight."
"I'll take the Fifth..."
"I made sure the cops and media got there."
"I never watch the news," Shaine said. "It's bad for my blood pressure. And my nerves."
"Naw, it'll be worth it tonight."
Shaine shook her head. Damned cowboy...
"Of course, I do feel sorry for the carpet cleaners."
"Do we get a cut of the cleaning cost?"
"Eh...he might be billing me actually..."
"And that brings us back to last night. Boomers, ADP, and a round disk...what are we looking at, people?"
"Who would've thought that fat fuck would've made such a mess..."
"I would. He packs food away, and even fat Boomers can hold a lot of stuff." Crimson mused.
"IC, for one. It's all here in my report."
" 'IC?' A chip of some kind, I take it?"
Shaine frowned. "Not quite all, Labcoat. That's where I got this code from. I'm still going over it to see who put this together."
"Break it back down to English. What do we have that could be useful?"
"Hell, I don't even know yet all of what it can do..."
"How much time would you need?"
"I don't know. This looks like an all-nighter, at least."
"It made an average Boomer reprogram a battlesuit to go rogue," Mitch summarized.
"Why?"
"Something's up with the ADP, maybe?" Harris said.
"I think it's deeper than that."
"It smells like Genom to me," Shaine said
"Genom might be pushing for control of the police force."
"Exactly!"
"Crooked cops?" Crimson asked.
"Yup."
"They've got enough Boomers on the Force already..." Shaine sounded disgusted.
"Looks too sloppy for Genom. And higher-ups tend to get paid off."
"Maybe, maybe not... Not everyone is for Boomers in the police."
"There are plenty of people lower on the food chain who are sloppy and ambitious," Shaine pointed out.
"They get money from Genom..."
"Take it gradually...hide their tracks and lay the blame elsewhere..."
"Do we have an idea as to who planted the chip?"
"Could it have always been there? But only recently activated?"
"Don't know, Harris. Was it inside the Boomer or outside?"
"Every police Boomer out there could have this chip. They could send a transmission and activate them all at a certain time..."
"Maybe a rogue street tech?" Mitch suggested.
"Aren't techs usually poor?"
"That's true, Shaine."
"I'm seeing styles of programming identified with some major corporations...a tech wouldn't be a tech if he had the skills to work for Symantec or Microsoft..."
"Unless they were fired."
"True. But I kept getting jobs, didn't I?"
"Think about it," Harris continued. "Once they got these chips into every major precinct in the country, all they'd have to do is give a signal and that's it..."
"What if we're looking at this the wrong way?" Crimson suggested. "The Boomer wasn't the problem; all it did was take a suit. What if the suit was the problem?"
"Maybe. Or it was trying to take the suit somewhere."
"Some sort of trigger mechanism inside the suit?"
Crimson nodded. "They wanted the suit."
"They're worth a heavy chunk of change, I can tell you that, Crim!"
"Okay, that' the what. We still need the who."
"Who as in? Who put the chip there? Gave the orders to the Boomer?" Harris frowned.
"Mitch, get us a list of all of the police officers on duty that day who might have come in contact with the Boomer."
"I'll get right on it!" Mitch went to the computer console and brought up the ADP databases.
"Right." Crimson sank deep into thought. "The Boomer program wouldn't cover stealing. That's a human thing to do. The chip must be some sort of override..."
"Even if Shaine can find out who may have made the chip and the programming...it doesn't mean we'll have solid proof. They could be shifting the blame to someone else..."
Mitch looked up from the console. "Yes, the way it's configured it can be used as an override. And four people came into contact with the suit."
"That kind of override is illegal...and doesn't come cheap... Okay, who do we have?"
"Jenkins and Oliver on the day shift, and Roberto and his partner Corbin who were at the airport."
"When you found the Boomer, Mitch, where was the chip?"
"It was placed on the Boomer with a an enzyme-based 'magnet.' to keep it there."
"So it could have been done by anyone?"
"No, it has to be placed near the core."
"So we have a chip that can be placed on any Boomer at any time, that overrides everything..."
"Its structure is similar to that of the human brain," Mitch added.
"What would you do if you could override a Boomer? Opinions, people."
"I said it once already," Harris muttered.
"Crimson, it needs a simple program like a basic Boomer. The more complex the Boomer, the longer it takes. That's why they used this one."
Crimson nodded. "So Genom might be pushing for control of the police force...which means we need to find out just how many Boomers have this chip."
"The whole Force hated the fact that they had to allow Boomers among their ranks." Mitch pointed out.
"Yeah, but as time goes by it's more and more accepted. That's what Genom is looking for."
Mitch held the chip up. "So who created this?"
"Okay...Harris, find out if Genom currently makes these chips or any similar to them. Shaine, go ahead and start working on the code."
Shaine left as Mitch tossed a chip to Harris. "Where are the police Boomers manufactured?"
"South side, was once the Pullman factory. Now a Genom complex. ...Mitch, is there any way you can check all of the police Boomers? Mass cleaning, power recharge?"
"I'll try tomorrow."
Crimson nodded. "As for the Boomers..."
"That's where all of the police Boomers for the country are made? Anywhere else they're sent before being used?"
"From what I know, it's one of three plants, but the only one serving the Midwest."
Harris nodded. "What about after completion?"
"Unknown factor. See what you can find out."
"Well, there is a storage warehouse..." Mitch ventured. "But it's underground, and under lock and key. Surveillance camera, the works."
"A storage warehouse wouldn't have the facilities to do these modifications anyway. If it's being done, it's at Genom."
"Mitch...I hate to break this to you, but I have broken in there before. It's not too hard, just annoying."
"Knowing you, Crim, I'm not surprised."
"That was back when I was part of the ADP, mind you."
Harris shook his head. "Here, Mitch. Do something useful. ADP should have a copy of the Boomer schematics; see if you can't find that chip - or if there's another with dual functions. This chip could be standard, and no one knows about it..."
"I know every chip in those Boomers and this isn't one of them."
"Just like you know about Sailormoon, right?"
"Thanks, but I'm not into cartoons."
Crimson grinned.
"Doesn't matter. Just because you see it doesn't mean it isn't there. As far as you know, this chip's other purpose could be power regulation."
"Right, James." He smiled. "I'm going to pick up a few things at the store. See you later."
"Find out for sure," Harris called after him.
"So we broaden our search... What would use an override system?"
"Depends. The police programming could be secondary...if this programming is good enough."
"Yes..."
"The chip would only need to turn on the primaries."
"Some sort of sleeper program, right."
"Yes and no. The sleeper program is the police programming, only backwards. Doesn't take much to tell a computer to follow orders."
"That's still a lot of work for one battlesuit."
"Not really, if you think about it. The effort put into the few battlesuits going into the police force is worth it when you look at the possible outcome if they all turn rogue."
"Hm...feel up for some recon?"
"Of course."
"We'll check out the plant first, then the ADP warehouse. Suits or no suits?"
"This is just recon."
"Sure it is. Famous last words."
"Unless you think we'll be needing them once we get to the Boomer factory?"
Crimson nodded. "We'll take my Cuda."
"For you, maybe...?"
"Hah. I'm not that old."
"I'm a lot harder to kill. Just ask the US military."
"I did. They claim they just never saw the need; said you'd get youself killed soon enough."
"Of course they would."
Crimson pulled out two DE's, a Raven gun, and four clips.
"Meet you in ten minutes. Going to get ready."
"See you then."
///
Harris went back to his room. Throwing on his duster, he pulled out his SOCOM, Glock, and DE, filling his pockets with armor-piercing clips. He also grabbed the laser sword and its battery backups...and a pack of cigarettes.
Crimson was leaning against the side of his car when Harris arrived, dressed in a black leather trench, porkpie hat, and sunglasses.
He pulled the car into a lot across from the factory, pulling out night vision binoculars. After a while, he said, "I see one human guard...two Boomers."
"That's it? ...Well, it is after hours..."
"Seems to be all. There must have been some kind of movement alarm. --Or they're foolish and think no one in their right minds would try to rob this place. There is that."
"You never know...but either way, let's get going."
Crimson grabbed a black duffle from the back seat as he got out. "West side has a service door. We'll try there, then the roof."
"Why not the front door?"
"That's where our lone human guard sits, looking at his little TV screens..."
"Who said go in guns blazing."
"No one. Okay, Harris, what's your plan?"
"There's only one guard and two Boomers, right?"
"Right..."
"Well...first off, a silencer is man's best friend." He smiled.
"He's just a rent-a-cop; killing him is pointless."
"It's your call...make this as easy or as hard as you like."
"Oh, it will be easy." Crimson took a metal tube out of the duffle. "We'll use gas to knock him out; from there you can shoot as many Boomers as you want to.
"Let's go," Crim called as he walked away.
When they arrived at the door, Crimson opened the tube and slid it through the mail slot. He counted to ten as the gas flared and faded. Taking an electronic lockpick, he opened the door. "After you."
There was one large main hall, and the desk sat dead center in front of the doors. The guard sat behind it, snoring soundly. To the left was a metal door, and to the right a metal door. Harris picked up his pace and headed for the metal door. Crimson closed the front door and followed close behind.
The second door was unlocked. Harris stepped to the side of it and opened it slowly, with Crimson covering him. It opened with a low, creaking sound to reveal a railing leading down into an immense room.
As Harris stepped through the door he could see rows of conveyor belts on the floor of the main room. "Well, then. This is it...let's make this quick."
Nearly-assembled Boomers lay on the conveyor belts and in the center of the room were five rows of police-model Boomers.
"Careful," Crimson warned. "Some may be on standby mode."
"If so, they are still police Boomers and it should be all right."
"Should've, could've...they're still Boomers. Anything is possible."
Harris shook his head. He took a closer look at one of the unfinished Boomers; there was a hole in its back where the core ought to be and the back of its head was opened. "Well, then. Let's see if we can't find a friend for our lonely chip..."
"Over here. This one looks like a good choice." Crimson stood next to a fully-assembled Boomer. "Hand me the chip."
Once he had it, Crimson placed the chip in the Boomer and turned it on.
"Greetings! I am Boomer twelve-dash-seven-kay, how may I help you?"
Crimson looked at Harris, then at the Boomer. "What is your function?"
"To protect mankind."
"List all protocols."
The Boomer repeated all ten of them perfectly.
"Well, seems fine...any ideas?"
"Sure the chip wasn't damaged? Magnet Boy can't seem to handle much."
"Didn't look like it. ...Here, let me try something." Crimson took the chip out and placed it on the Boomer's forehead.
"May I help you?" the Boomer asked.
"Okay...something's not right..."
"What is that chip on your forehead?" The Boomer's head tilted back as it tried to look. "Yeah, to say the least! Ideas?"
"Maybe something is missing? A remote device?"
"Maybe it needs a carrier wave to be activated."
"Yeah, that might be it, there..."
"So we have Mitch look for carrier waves." Crimson turned the Boomer off and removed the chip.
"I guess so."
"Someone is controlling the Boomers... Come on. Let's get out of here; I have another idea.
"We've tried a new Boomer; let's see if we can get a reaction out of one that's been around for a while..."
///
The two Ravens stood outside the ADP Tower, watching the traffic in and out of the building.
"Okay...that unit over there, by the door. I'm going to slap this on him on my way in. See if he does anything strange."
"All right."
"Oh," Crimson added casually, "And if it goes rogue, shoot it..."
"Of course."
Crimson left Harris and approached the Boomer. He talked to it for a minute or so, then slapped it on the back and walked into the Tower. The Boomer stood in its place for about ten minutes more, then walked away from its post. It punched out the window of a car and started trying to get it. A few officers standing outside noticed, and started talking nervously.
Before they could do anything, Harris pulled out his DE and shot out the car's tires. The Boomer looked at him...then at the tires... Harris fired again, this time into the Boomer's chest.
"Freeeezzzzzzzzz.... Stooooooppppp in the nammmmee of the lllllllllawww..." It slowly brought its hand up, trying to aim at Harris.
Out of the corner of his eye, he could see Crimson walking back out of the building. About time... Harris fired another shot at the Boomer, whose chest gave way.
Light could be seen through the hole in the Boomer's body. Harris shook his head, looking at it, then unloaded the DE into the body. It went stiff.
"I think you've got it, Deputy." A faint smile tugged at one corner of Crimson's mouth. He held up a US Marshall's badge and calmly spun a web of lies for the assembled ADP officers to explain his presence.
Harris saw him take some sort of odd disk from the body and pocket it before the officers saw it. "May I have the body?"
"Sorry, sir, but we'd better hold on to it for now...at least until we've finished our investigation of...this..."
Crimson nodded and led Harris back to the car. "We'll have some more information in the morning - after we get that body. For now, though, let's go home."