Deep Yellow (22 page)

"Takes me back a bit,
chasing offenders. How was the evidence and processing side of
things?"

"Marvelle helped me
with filling out the various forms and organising the first holo
court hearing. I was nervous, but it went okay."

"Good, we can cross
that one off your list. How about dwelling searches or raids?"

"Tomorrow, early
start, ha ha, I'm going on a raid. Local criminal into cloning and
unauthorised DNA sampling. Should be fun."

Brell made an effort
not to reveal any emotion. Lulu was young, and not long ago lived
with her family, who were all weavers. She resided in the Weaver
Farm area, where the local trees, bushes, and organic plants were
processed into distinctive blue weaving thread. Lulu’s uncle, going
against family convention, had joined Police Corps. On one of his
yearly family visits, he filled Lulu’s head with stories of
excitement and glory, the life of a weaver's wife was not for
her.

Brell remembered the
time when she conversed with a Police Corpswoman who was
investigating a series of thefts at the docks. Brell had left
school early and took on a boring job, logging the movements of
haulage road transporters out of the dock area. The conversation
had triggered feelings of needing to get off planet and do
something useful.

"Fun, indeed. In time,
things may seem mundane; you know, after you have dealt with the
same thing a few times," Brell said.

"Well, it is exciting
at the moment."

"Everything okay
otherwise, no problems with colleagues?"

"No, everyone is
treating me fine. We are a mixed group of skin colours; red, black,
white, blue, obviously, and green. It's great, really
Associational."

"Any other
Celestians?"

"Yes, a male. He's on
another team, doesn't talk much."

"Okay, well, I'll beam
you over another task list until we speak again."

"Thank you
captain."

Brell closed the beam
stream and sat back. Was she like that? No, she was a bit more
street smart, having come from the manufacture and cargo district.
Since leaving Celeste, she had never returned there. It was all
plas-concrete factories, tall laser chimney stacks, and landing
pads. That's where her drunken mother and her equally drunken
father had met. He picked up weaved materials and hauled them
across the Association, and her mother checked cargo manifests.
Well, her father checked her mother's manifest, all right and when
she declared she was pregnant, he suddenly had a “big job” hauling
stuff on the other side of the star system. That was that, single
mother on Celeste with a light blue child, not exactly a great
start in life.

***

Brell read the stream
message twice, before she could believe it. Lulu was found dead in
her living quarters, having ingested Terminal Spray, a drug used by
care homes. Last week, Lulu had celebrated her first year in the
Corps. The death, reported on news channels, showed images of her
parents standing near a landing pad on Celeste wearing their blue
national costumes waiting for the unloading of the coffin.

Brell couldn’t spend
much time reflecting on the incident, as she had been booked to
give a speech at a Women's Society lunch and in the afternoon
serving a warning notice on the owner of a rowdy intox house.
Police Corps work never stopped. It wasn’t until later
that evening in her living quarters that she was able to read
more on the incident. Lulu's workplace was on Sabor, an
unremarkable planet that most people travelled past on way to
somewhere else. The place created plenty of work for Police Corps;
the high rise dwelling estates had become a dumping ground for
poorly paid citizens. Many of the huge machinery manufacturers had
moved off planet, leaving a specialism in second or third hand
machine parts and junk yards.

Brell asked Lulu's
captain for a copy of the investigation record. It transpired that
Lulu had celebrated her first year in the Corps by buying her team
a drink after work one evening in a rear function room of a hotel
that was Police Corps friendly.

Police Corpsman
Hallette statement:

When I arrived, Police
Corpswoman Malm-ert was standing by the bar, talking with other
officers. She appeared in good spirits, relaxed, and was laughing
and joking. She did not appear drunk, and I did not see her
drinking to excess or taking any other substances.

Brell swigged some
intox and skimmed down to the last paragraph.

When she re-appeared
later, at about two o'clock in the morning, her dress was
dishevelled, hair was messy, and her lipstick smudged. I asked her
if she was okay, she said everything was fine, nothing to worry
about, she had felt sick and had gone to the privy. I could smell
intox on her breath; she was not drunk, but appeared under the
influence of something. I left the party not long afterwards and
went home.

Brell read some other
statements. It seems that Lulu went out towards the privy and came
back about forty to fifty minutes later looking scruffy. Brell
replayed the last mentor interview.

"So, first year coming
up, it's gone quickly hasn't it?"

"Yes, captain." Lulu
smiled as always, but there was a harder edge. Her eyes were
narrower, suspicious. She had also changed her hair back to natural
black, like Brell's. "I spent some time undercover yesterday,
basically hiding in a doorway with a colleague acting as a couple
of homeless people. As you know, the blue skin shows out, so I
toned it down with skin changers and wore a hat. We observed a
suspicious man walking back and forth, then after talking to him,
we found a rogue laser device in his back pocket."

"I read the report
from your sergeant. Good job."

"Captain, can I ask
you a personal question?"

"Well, yes, depends on
what it is. I have to have some secrets, you know." Brell
laughed.

"I'm comfortable in my
blue skin, it's just that as there aren't many of us in the Corps,
I stick out a bit. How did you deal with that?"

"Well, first of all
undercover work is sometimes problematic. I often used skin
changing tabs, like you, but I just got on with it, basically. I
fended off a lot of men and women who were fascinated by my blue
skin, though as you can see I am a lighter shade of blue. Anyway,
Celeste is a small planet, and there are few blue skinned
communities around the Associated Planets; people get curious. Of
course, I had to put up with various derogatory comments, both on
and off duty. But I've reached captain rank."

"I'm certainly aware
of the fascination people have with blue skin; never occurred to me
before on Celeste. Appreciate it, captain."

"Okay, speak to you
soon. Keep up the good work."

She was upbeat,
tougher, and growing in experience. What had happened?

***

Over the next couple
of days, Brell read the complete investigation file without
throwing any light on the event; until she made a simple check on
who stayed in the hotel that evening. Carac Montil. Though booked
in under a pseudonym, his image file confirmed his real identity.
He occupied an expensive room on a private corridor linked by
stairs to the rear hotel area near to the ground floor privies. In
her mind, she did not need to investigate any further. Something
happened that made Lulu so embarrassed that she had taken her life
a few days later. She became too unwell for work the day before she
took her life, so she must have spent her last hours in panic and
desperation, worried that her parents would find out or image
streams appear on social stream symposiums. Had he threatened her
that much?

Her soft shell of
excitement a year ago had slowly changed as she became street
hardened. Was she unable to put up a fight? Brell had a lot of
experience of dealing with assault crimes, especially against
women. Sprays, psyche tablets, and remote bot injections were just
some of the methods used for incapacitating people to make them
more compliant. Brell did not need reminding about this. The
victims invariably remembered nothing about the assault or had
false memories planted. Had Carac sent her images of the assault as
well?

Using diplomacy with
Lulu's commander, she got Carac named as a person of interest,
which at the very least meant he would be interviewed. A few days
later, she received a copy stream of his interview.

"Mr. Montil, did you
ever meet up with this woman?" The detective displayed an image of
Lulu.

Carac sat upright and
smiled as he craned his head over towards his solicitor, who
whispered something in his ear. "I would have remembered a woman
with blue skin. I saw a few groups of people in the hotel that
evening, when I walked through to my private suite. She could have
been amongst them, I suppose."

"Did you see the woman
on her own by the privy area at the back of the hotel? It's near
the stairs that went up to your private suite,” the detective said,
over- pronouncing “private suite.”

"No, I would have
remembered."

"Did you take her up
to your room?"

"Detective. I am a
First Executive for Grab, I run the mining businesses there. What
on earth would I be doing with this blue skinned woman?"

The detectives
shuffled their feet; the interview was not going anywhere.

"My client is being
very helpful and clearly does not have any involvement with the
matter. It is very sad, of course, but my client has work
commitments; unless you have any more questions, we are leaving,"
the solicitor said.

Carac smiled whilst
turning his head slightly to one side and looking at the lead
detective.

The detectives
exchanged glances.

"One last question.
What did you do to her in your hotel room?"

Good question. Just as
the detective sitting opposite Carac had done, Brell examined the
body language. For a split second, Carac's eyes glared and he
swallowed hard; was that stress?

"I have no idea what
you are talking about. Your commander is a personal friend of mine,
by the way, I'll recommend your efforts to him next week at the
Miners’ Ball."

The interview
ended.

Forensically, there
was nothing. Lulu had burnt her clothes and washed several times.
Hotel security streams covering the corridors had been erased.
Nothing. Brell had purposely not examined the images and room scan
of Lulu's room. She wanted to remember her alive and smiling, not
sprawled across a bed with half closed eyelids. Case closed.
Suicide through work related stress.

A couple of mouthfuls
of intox later, Brell viewed an official image of Lulu in full
Corps uniform. A beautiful girl with a promising career ahead of
her. Untouchable Carac, a man of power and influence. She finished
the intox container and opened another.

***

Brell awoke very early
in the morning, got up and drank some water whilst pacing around
her cell. It was the “Lulu” dream again.

Williams remained upbeat and relieved in the
days following the first challenge. Both deaths had gone well and
viewer ratings were increasing significantly. Just like that, death
equals profits. At least the method of death was fairly quick and
painless. When it was all over, he would take a break and work on
some ideas of a family-based version of the Challenge.

Flip and Argenta were
doing a great job interviewing guests, experts, and family members.
The streams of people's reactions to the last moments of Grock and
Brookko were a hit, and surround holos of Rome world had sold well.
Williams fiddled with his weed smoke before lighting it. He had
just sent the Twins an encrypted message with the location of the
exit doors for Challenge 2. He mentioned at the end of the message
that clues could be tweaked the day before the challenge, in case
of any technical difficulties. He did this just to keep some
control. Call it a hunch.

***

"Thank you, Brell.
Great interview," Argenta said and turned to the audience. "Brell,
everyone." She raised her hands and the audience clapped. The first
thing Brell did on returning to her cell was to order a cool fruit
drink. Answering the audience's questions was draining, let alone
watching excruciating interviews with so-called experts on the
challengers’ survival tactics.

"I think that Brell's
instincts kicked in best when she was under pressure with five
minutes left and found the exit almost by intuition."

Fragging idiots, they
didn't notice that she had seen Carac running into the exit. Carac
of all people! She had been lucky, fortunate, whatever, but she was
here sitting in her cell, eating ice cream.

"I still remember
Brell's first day at the education centre; she locked herself
inside my transporter and wouldn't come out. I had to find a
teacher to help me. Now look at her," Brell's mother had said.

Look at her? Your
daughter is a convicted criminal, busting herself to stay alive on
a crappy game show.

"I remember when Brell
punched one of the ladies during an altercation in the common room.
Got a good right hook on her. You go, girl."

It was one of her old
“friends” on Wing 90, which thankfully lightened the atmosphere,
and Brell had laughed. Hopefully, that was the end of all the
personal interviews, the raking over of the intox and Deep Yellow
years. More importantly, the second challenge approached.

***

Ooma rubbed his legs,
which still ached from all the running around in the challenge; had
he lost any weight? He sat back on the bed and reflected on his
latest studio interview.

“Ooma, a question from
the audience.”

“Yes, hello Ooma, I
enjoyed following you in the first challenge. How are you preparing
for the next one?”