Hero Unit (17 page)

Chapter 18

“I don’t have time for this,
sir
. I’ve got to
get back to my patrol.” The older officer’s voice held nothing but
contempt for Ace. From the outset she had known he was going to be
her biggest problem officer.

Skyline was one of the longest standing
members of the E.E.D in New Davenport, with almost as much
seniority as Bulldog. He’d always played things by the book and he
was notoriously antagonistic towards people he saw as ladder
climbers. Emily had told her that he considered Ace part of that
group, using unfair means to get ahead. That antagonism had spilled
over into his regular duties and he’d made some pretty serious
errors in judgment. Now Ace had to call him to task for it.

Something about this doesn’t make any sense.
I just can’t tell what, yet.

They were in her office accompanied by Vague,
the E.E.D’s official Mental Class in charge of determining
motivation before discipline was assigned. The E.E.D didn’t have an
Internal Affairs office as such. Mostly it relied on the Mental
Class to keep everyone in line.

“Officer Skyline, need I remind you that you
have been charged with intentional negligence in your duties as an
officer of the E.E.D? It is very much in your best interests to
cooperate,” Ace remind him. She hated doing this, but she couldn’t
let behavior like Skyline’s continue.

“Screw you. The worst you can do is
administrative leave, even with this pencil-neck here,” Skyline
replied. That was not the smartest of things to say. Despite
Vague’s name she was anything but and she did not like people who
openly flaunted the law.

“Actually, Officer Skyline, since the city is
on Exceptionals Lockdown the charges against you and your current
behavior could be grounds for immediate termination, without
appeal,” Vague said. Her voice was soft, but her eyes were
angry.

“She’s right, Skyline. If she, not me,
determines that your behavior was in direct defiance of orders then
you can and will be terminated. There is nothing I can do about
it,” Ace added to Skyline’s look of surprise.

“You wouldn’t…” he said. He trailed off when
he met Ace’s eyes. “I wouldn’t, but I follow the rules, Skyline, no
matter how distasteful I find them. Those rules are what keep the
E.E.D running and safe from suspicion. Your recent actions have
seriously violated that trust and placed your entire precinct in
jeopardy to the point that even your partner was forced to report
you. Now tell me in your own words what you were thinking by
passing that drug deal over.”

Skyline started to shake, first with rage and
then with frustration. It didn’t take mind powers to see what was
going through his head. He had no friends here. “You,” he said.

“Me?” she asked.

Oh hell.

“It’s your damn fault! I had to see you fall
somehow and I thought if I just let a few things slide then it
would come back to bite you. I can’t stand you damn ladder
climbers, always looking for ways to get to the top, no matter who
you have to step on to get there!” he yelled.

Ace controlled her own frustration. It was as
she had suspected. It didn’t make the news any easier to
swallow.

“Lieutenant, I’m afraid there is more he is
trying to hide,” Vague spoke up and she did not sound happy.

“What?” Ace asked.

She’s good. Whatever it is, it’s subtle.

“That’s just it sir, he is deliberately
putting up a wall to keep me from the memory,” Vague replied.

Damn it! Something is off. He would never do
that deliberately.

“Officer Skyline, you will allow Officer
Vague in or I will put you in suppressors,” Ace ordered. She fully
expected Skyline to ignore her. She did not expect him to lunge at
Vague. In the air Skyline was fast, but unluckily for him Ace was
much faster. She caught him mid leap, ending his attack before it
could even start.

Ace slapped suppressors on Skyline and gently
threw him back into his chair. As Vague regained her composure Ace
called for backup. The situation was bad enough. The last thing she
wanted was to have to injure a fellow officer. Let that fall to one
of the Fourths.

It didn’t take long for Bulldog and the only
other Fortress Class, Blitz, to show up. Ace nodded towards the
still struggling Skyline. The two massive Fortress Class picked him
up and kept him still while Vague read his mind. It didn’t take
long for her to finish. She sat down in her chair, hard. “This is
very bad. We are going to want Ms. Carpenter to confirm the
details, but Skyline is working with the HSO. I don’t know if he’s
aware of it,” Vague said.

“Damn it!” Ace snapped. Resisting the urge to
hit something, she called up Torment, Captain Angel and Emily on
her device. Their three faces appeared on the screen. “I need all
three of you up here ASAP. We’ve got a problem.”

“Be right there,” Emily replied.

“Same here,” the Captain and Torment said
simultaneously. Ace then stuck her head out the door and shouted,
“Maniac, come here!” She forgot to regulate her strength so the
shout rattled the windows in their casings.

Her partner came down the hall at a run. “I
need you check Skyline for a kill switch,” Ace said, as Maniac gave
her a raised eyebrow.

Maniac didn’t bother with any questions. She
came in and placed a hand on Skyline’s forehead. “He’s clean of a
kill switch, but there’s something else in there. Hell. They jacked
into his basic motor and memory control centers. Just give me a
minute.”

That’s why Vague was having such a hard time
with him.

While Maniac was working the three Mental
Class came in. Ace locked her door behind them and then filled them
in on the situation. “This is bad. Skyline is a senior officer,
he’s got a lot of influence with his fellow Heroes,” Captain Angel
said.

“I’ve got him in seniority, sir. Makes me
wonder if they got to me too,” Bulldog said. There was a look of
deep concern on his normally jovial face.

“Emily, look through Bulldog’s mind, see if
you can find anything. Vague, help her out,” the Captain said and
Ace felt Emily and Vague do their thing. There weren’t many
Exceptionals that couldn’t tell when another one was using his or
her power. The disturbance in the natural laws was fairly easy to
pick up on.

“There’s nothing unusual that I can find,”
Emily said after about five minutes.

“I think he is in the clear,” Vague
confirmed.

“Blitz, your turn,” Captain Angel ordered.
The Fortress Class shrugged. Blitz wasn’t one to use words when a
shrug would suffice.

Vague checked him as well and let out a sigh
of relief after about five minutes. “I’ve got it!” Maniac exclaimed
and stepped away from Skyline. The older officer had a vacant
expression on his face. His body spasmed and then went limp. They
waited for a heartbeat then he opened his eyes and said, “What have
I done?’

Chapter 19

“Vague, put in a call to Bones. We need to order an
immediate scan of all E.E.D personnel. There’s no telling who else
the HSO has got to,” Captain Angel ordered. Vague started towards
the door, but paused and said, “I haven’t been checked.”

“Emily,” the Captain said. There was a snap
to his voice, but Emily complied. She understood the situation.
They were all tense. It was clear that Skyline’s memory had been
tampered with, either by the device that Maniac had disabled, or an
HSO Mental Class. There was a possibility that any one of them
could have the same device.

It only took a moment for Emily to check
Vague. “I’m pretty sure she’s clean, along with the rest of us. I
did a comparison to what I saw in Skyline to what I see in each of
us. There is a…disharmony… in Skyline’s thought patterns. None of
us share that same disharmony. I know,” she held up a hand to quiet
the potential arguments, “It’s not perfect, but we have to start
trusting some time. I think this is where it starts.”

“I agree. Vague, call Bones. Emily see if you
can find something in Skyline’s memories. Ace, call in any one else
from the Aerial Patrol that you’ve had to discipline. Torment, you
and I are going to double check everyone here,” the Captain
ordered. They all moved to comply with their orders. Bulldog and
Blitz sat Skyline down in one of the few chairs in Ace’s office.
The older officer sat with his face in his hands.

Ace went through her recent reports and
started sorting them out. There weren’t very many reports on
disciplinary action. There was the possibility that some people
hadn’t been reported, so she had to check all of them to look for
any inconsistencies in the behavior of any of her officers.

“What do you want me to do, sir?” It was
Hawk, Skyline’s partner. He looked depressed. Ace had nearly
forgotten he was there while dealing with Skyline. She did not envy
the position he was in. On the one hand he’d reported his partner,
something that was considered a violation of trust among officers.
On the other because he’d had the guts to make the report they’d
been able to find a massive security breach that might well extend
to all levels of the E.E.D.

He’s really conflicted. You need to be
gentle with him.

“You just wait here. I might need you to
check on some of the other officers,” Ace said.

He nodded and sat off to one side, his face
showing his mood clearly. Ace could figure what he was thinking. He
was going to be labeled a nark as soon as word got out that he
ratted out his partner. That kind of thing wasn’t looked on
favorably by any officer. “You worried?” Ace asked him.

“Me, sir, why would I be worried?” he
replied. The sarcasm was clear in his voice.

“Look I can’t promise you that there won’t be
fallout for this. It is going to be hell for a while for you. But
once we get this HSO disaster dealt with people will know that you
were the one with the balls to do something about it,” Ace
said.

Hawk shook his head. “Is there a cop out
there who’d want to be my partner after this?”

“Sure. I can name a handful off the top of my
head, but you won’t have to change partners. Once Moses takes that
thing out of Skyline’s head he’ll be back on active duty. Well,
unless he did it willingly. And if that’s the case I know a couple
of rookies that will need a good trainer. We need people like you
who are willing to follow the rules regardless of personal cost.
Yes we want to encourage loyalty to the department, but not at the
expense of the law. An entire war was fought by Exceptionals
because some of them wanted to be above the law. To me, this is no
different. You’ve chosen your side, Officer Hawk, and I hope you
are willing to stick with it. Like I said we need good solid
officers right now,” Ace said. She watched Hawk’s reaction out of
the corner of her eye. He seemed to relax somewhat at her words.
She hoped it was enough.

He’s loyal alright. Loyal to you.

The next few hours were tense around the
office. Emily did find the memory of when Skyline had been
implanted and they were relieved to see that it had not been
willingly. It had also happened over a month prior to the Technosis
incident. “They’ve been planning this for a long time, just waiting
for the right moment,” Emily said as she wrote her report. She’d
borrowed a laptop and was sitting in Ace’s office. Skyline had been
sent to Moses for removal of the HSO implant. Hawk was out rounding
up another suspicious officer.

“It makes me wonder what they are after. It
all just seems so random,” Ace said as she looked over the last of
her reports. So far Torment and Angel hadn’t found anything
suspicious in any of the on duty E.E.D officers. They were
currently speaking with the normal Captain to see if he wanted them
to scan the non-Hero personnel.

“I think I’m starting to get a vague idea of
what they are after,” Emily said.

“Really?” Ace asked. “You think you could
give me a clue?”

Emily came and placed her laptop on Ace’s
desk and said, “Read this.”

Ace looked it over. It was Emily’s report on
what little she’d been able to get from Technosis. “Okay, I’ve read
it,” Ace said.

“Right, now read this,” Emily continued,
flipping to another document. This one Ace was also familiar with.
It was the report on the group they had apprehended at the
corporate headquarters of Tenth Avenue National. She took her time
reading it over. There was something that Emily was seeing in these
reports and Ace was determined to figure it out. Once she was
finished Emily flipped to another report. It was Skyline’s.

“They’re stirring the pot,” Ace said as she
finished reading. It was as she feared.

“Just like you thought. Someone is trying to
cause chaos in New Davenport. My only question is why? I mean the
E.E.D would be the perfect way for them to start exerting control
over the normals. If they could get their influence in far enough,”
Emily said.

That would never happen, not with the old
man around.

“That’s just it, they’ll never be able to. I
know the higher ups in the E.E.D and every last one of them is
safeguarded against any kind of tampering. There’s a system of
checks and balances to prevent it. They would have to hit every
last member of the E.E.D Advisory Council at the same time in order
to corrupt our very core, so instead they’re trying to undermine
us,” Ace said. The old man had done a good job with that particular
system.

“So maybe instead they are trying to drive a
rift between the Exceptionals and normals, like before the war. New
Davenport would be the best place for it. If they can manage it
here, the City of Unity, then they can manage it anywhere,” Emily
said.

That’s got to be it.

“We need to let Captain Angel know so he can
get word up the line,” Ace said and stood. Just then Torment burst
into the office and said, “They’ve taken Einstein!”