Something holding onto his face—
Something holding him down—
Down in this big beautiful hell of our own making.
Something cutting his eyes open and shining into each. A Desiderata stone—Deserata, as some cop somewhere had filed it—only mined on one planet and two asteroids in the Mid Rim—
"He's coming to."
Something grabbing him—
Something holding him down.
"Sergeant Kiodd, can you hear me?"
Something cutting his mouth open.
Words—
"Am I in hell?"
"No such luck. Balosar."
Words dull, dim. Something holding onto his face.
Light cutting his eyes open.
The world was made of plastech.
Plastech IV inside of a plastech IV flowing into a plastech Kiodd via plastech tubes and by plastech gravity.
It was morning on Balosar, heavy clouds bearing their own shadows and the sun spilling from under them.
A heavily balding middle-aged Balosar in an orange uniform stood by him.
"Feeling better?"
"No."
"You are feeling, at least."
Something holding onto his face—
Kiodd tried to raise his arms. The left one obeyed.
"Woah, easy there, Sergeant! Save some energy for the celebration."
Kiodd squinted at his right hand. He was half-sat in a portable bed, but he could hardly see it.
"Don't worry if you have no feeling in your right arm," said the medic. "It's in a bacta capsule. The surgimodule pulled a ten-centimeter-long colat splinter out of your bicep."
He left and left Kiodd scratching at the breathing mask with his left hand, with his good hand.
Smoke was rising from a long incline in the ground some two hundred meters away from where Kiodd's bed stood by an ambulance. Several more cars were nearby—ambulances and patrol cars and civilian cars, people walking between them, from one to another, sniffing at the smoke.
"Don't even dare to give me this shit!" one of them shouted. A big man. Kiodd recognized him—Lieutenant Derek Miles, drugs.
Lieutenant Derek Miles, drugs—
Lieutenant Derek fucking Miles—
"I lost two men too!"
"What, they threatened to go to Internal Affairs?"
The other man was too short for Kiodd to see from the angle he was stuck at, but he knew his voice too.
You fucking baller—
Lieutenant Derek fucking Miles, out of the view: "You try me. You fucking try me, you little clown, and you'll see."
Some more men in to break their fight.
Kiodd struggling to keep his eyes open, struggling to keep his wounds open—
A medical droid bringing another gravibed near. No IVs on that one.
More plastech, though—
Shroud-worth of it.
Kiodd catching a glimpse of what was inside before the droid seals it—
A man with half his head gone.
A big man.
Eddie Gor'Navato with half his big head gone.
.
.
.
"I'm resigning," said Nochel.
To look at his face, one might think he'd been through the tunnels last night.
"I'm resigning."
"Don't be ridiculous, Tobey," the commissioner told him. "None of it is your fault."
"That's right, sir," said Vilondri, "it's all that cocksucker Miles."
Commissioner, hands raised: "Gentlemen, let's not—"
"But it is, sir. It's all on him. Otten'Tove dead, Khushritz dead, Etherby dead, Willow and Vengi in intensive care… Sergeant Kiodd here."
Never anywhere but here—
"How did it happen, Lieutenant?" Kiodd asked from his bed. Beyond the three antennaed heads, a holovid was running on mute on the wall.
A shiver ran through Nochel's shoulders.
"Fuck me, I'm resigning. I got to."
Kiodd, from his bed: "How did it happen, Lieutenant?"
One more shiver. Antennapalps quivering, feeling for relief—some relief, any relief.
"It's all my fucking fault. I don't wanna… I should've kept him in the interrogation room. Under cameras… With someone to watch—"
"There, there, Tobey." The commissioner's hand on Nochel's shoulder. "It's standard procedure. We don't fucking keep suspects in interrogation rooms all night. It's regulations."
Kiodd, from his bed: Is it also regulations that tell us which jumper goes to which nut?
"I fucked up. Good people are dead because of me. Good police."
"No, it's not your fault," said the commissioner. "You just passed the message."
Vilondri, in his face: "Exactly. It's that cocksucker Miles—"
"Let's cut down on that kind of talk, shall we?"
"He led us there, sir—"
"Lieutenant Miles made a blunder, that much is clear. However, it's not up to you to investigate him—"
"Investigate? I was there, dammit!"
"—and, if you let me finish, detective, not up to me neither. Thank you."
"So what, we're just gonna let him—"
"Detective Vilondri, take your outbursts elsewhere. Sergeant Kiodd needs—"
Kiodd, from his bed: "Respectfully, sir, what I need is a thorough investigation into Lieutenant Miles's integrity."
'Well, the fuck did I just say? You'll have your investigation. But it won't be conducted by anyone in this room."
On the holovid: a swimming competition, bodies entering the water in utter silence, like entering—
Darkness.
Hell.
"He said," —Kiodd from his bed— "they had our boys, plural, inside the tunnel system. When Piater Sumwali was already in our custody."
Was still in our custody.
Nochel, head down: "That's what he said. That's what he fucking said on the comlink. I just… I just thought I misheard, or that he meant they had one, or—"
The commissioner: "Well, I'm sure they will question him about it… if you bother to mention that in your reports instead of yapping at me about it."
Nochel, head sinking down, down, down; down and downer: "I'll take the fall. I mean, I have to, don't I?"
Vilondri, arms crossed, thumbs sticking out the armpits: "It's fucking Miles—"
"I mean, for Sumwali."
"It's bullshit," —Vilondri again. "If not for that cocksucking piece of shit Miles, there'd be someone in the station to watch over—"
To watch over Sumwali—
To watch over Piater Sumwali, D.O.B. 2/10/14 BrS—
To watch over Piater Sumwali, D.O.D. 23/3/26—
To watch over Piater Sumwali, found with his veins cut in his cell in the police HQ of Quadrant 30.
.
.
.
Eighty square kilometers on the edge of Quadrant 30.
Eighty square kilometers of headstones, an occasional tree or mausoleum breaking up their monotony.
The graveyard, neatly divided—
Police and thieves.
Eighty square kilometers on the edge of Quadrant 30—
Four graves on the edge of the graveyard—
Eighty wouldn't cut it soon.
The sky looked sick. The sky looked shot, maimed, crippled, ready to topple over.
Skyscrapers in the distance.
Kiodd adjusted his tie.
Kiodd felt sick. Kiodd felt shot, maimed, crippled, ready to topple over. His right arm was still bandaged in bactabinds, still numb.
Sixteen low-intensity rifles were raised and angled and fired, shooting the sky that already looked shot.
This was for Otten'Tove and Khushritz and the two narcs who had died. Etherby had had family over in 95 and there was to be interred.
Eighty square kilometers—
About a thousand cops paying their last respects.
About a thousand cops starting to trickle out already—down the hill and out of the gates; out of the gates and into one of the many pubs and bars littering the edge of the quadrant where the business was the best, one of the countless Drown Its and Big Bill'ses and The Old Badges, one of the countless Good Friendses and The Charms and Balostars, one of the countless The Old Roads and The Pickles and The Barrels.
Kiodd was beginning to trickle too. Never stopped, truth be told. His right arm always—always—felt wet and he couldn't tell what wetness was bacta and what wetness was his own ichor and puss and it drove him nuts: plus to the left one, minus to the right one, or vice versa, 'cause it worked just as well, and screw the regulations.
He went down to the exit, his head full of thoughts that crawled like snakes but felt like bandages.
Police and thieves—
There she stood by a big headstone, the biggest of big headstones. Kiodd remembered Eddie Gor'Navato with half his head gone. Kiodd remembered Gerry Otten'Tove with half his head gone. Kiodd remembered Gerry Otten'Tove with his hands tied behind his back and wondered if Eddie Gor'Navato's had been tied too.
There she stood alone by the biggest of big headstones, dressed in black and eyes hidden behind black sunglasses and hair and antennae hidden under a black shawl, and the smoke rising from her cigarette was black like the smoke that had been rising from the maw of the tunnel.
"Ms. Seihen," he spoke, and when she made no sign of recognizing him, he spoke again: "Sergeant Kiodd with the homicide department. We've—"
"Course. I remember."
"Been long since..?"
"Two days."
He nodded, thinking: The body—returned so quickly, quicker than the cops were buried—
"So," she spoke now, "is this how it ends? All blamed on him?"
Him, beneath the ground—
Him, beneath the poor Balosar soil.
"The stones they found," he said—
The five Desiderata stones they found in the tunnels before they collapsed them, the five Desiderata stones appraised at nine hundred fifty-five thousand credit.
"And you believe that?"
I'll tell you what I don't believe: I don't believe he was an angel, he wanted to say but he took himself under CONTROL—
"Not up to me to decide." He looked away, above the hill and its two unara trees and its many headstones. "Not many things damn are, turns out."
"So this is it? You all just let the real murderers get away? Let them stay on the streets?"
There are too damned many of them, he wanted to say. Too damned many to arrest, too damn many to kill, too many to not be one of them.
"I guess this is it."
"Good day to you then, Sergeant Kiodd."
"And to you, Ms. Seihen. Norve."
And he went on to the exit, to the weather-pissed plasteel gate in the weather-pissed plasteel fence, and his thoughts were of plasteel, of plasteel edges, of rough plasteel edges, of rough plasteel edges of water taps, of rough plasteel edges of water taps and veins—
There was surely blood under the bactabinds.