Superego by Frank J. Fleming Page A

detective seemed to have a bit of a love-hate relationship with her peers.
    â€œI’ll take ‘not being stupid’ under advisement.” She motioned me to follow, and I waved a short goodbye to the two police officers. I had a slight urge to shoot them. I don’t like cops.
    â€œWe need to meet with the chief quickly.” I could tell by her tone that this was not her favorite thing.
    â€œYou and he have a problem?”
    She smiled at me. A devious smile. It was kind of pretty on her. “I don’t have a problem. I’m comfortable with the fact that he’s a corrupt bureaucrat.”
    We entered an office where a slightly overweight and age-worn Corridian male was seated behind a desk. “Good morning, Chief Rudle.”
    â€œThompson, I really wanted to keep him out of here. It would make the illegal weapons charge easier to sweep under the rug,” he said. And hello, Rico. Nice to meet you. Thank you for your heroic actions. And I’m the sociopath.
    â€œI’m sorry if I caused you any trouble.” I think Corridians can pick up on human sarcasm. Little things like that are the reason they and humans can somewhat get along.
    He ignored me. “I know you’re going to make a big mess, and I’d rather have fewer witnesses.”
    Diane said, “Feds aren’t looking in the right places. They have too many regulations to follow. I know where we should look and I’m the best chance to find the terrorists right now. You know it.”
    Rudle did not like the detective at all. He didn’t even bother to hold back his look of contempt. “You do what you want, but if people complain later, there will be a reckoning.”
    â€œI firmly believe that a person always has to answer for her actions,” she said.
    He growled a bit. “Just have him fill out the liability waiver and get his DNA and photo into the system.”
    This is where a rookie would probably panic, but the fact is I probably have my DNA and photo in tons of different law enforcement databases throughout the universe. As do billions of other criminals. Nystrom has probably accessed and scrubbed some of those databases, but even if not, trying to share databases between planets causes information overload, and keeping records only works if a criminal is dumb enough to commit a crime and stay on planet. I assumed that within the week I’d be gone from here one way or another.
    Anyway, panicking is never, ever helpful.
    â€œThanks, Chief. We’ll find these people,” the detective said, not looking particularly thankful.
    â€œYou’d better…or it will probably be the end of you, knowing what you’re likely to do. I’ve got to get back to work. On top of all this, we have word there’s going to be an assassination attempt on Senator Gredler.”
    â€œIf someone shoots Gredler, let me head the investigation so I can be the first to shake the killer’s hand.” Diane left the office, and I followed.
    This latest piece of information had my attention. “Who is Gredler?”
    â€œOur senator in the Galactic Alliance. People say he’s a big candidate to head this new stronger Alliance they’re talking about. That’s why I don’t have much faith in it. I’m pretty sure Gredler is in bed with the Randatti crime syndicate. I assume you’ve heard of them.”
    One of Nystrom’s biggest rivals. Now things were starting to fall into place. But that also made me wonder if I was the assassin they were talking about. That really would seem to be sloppy work by whoever was running things if the police knew about the hit before I did. “That’s a big charge to make,” I said.
    â€œThe government is corrupt. That I know. Now, let’s get that form and get your picture and whatnot and get to this.”
    Of course, I didn’t know for certain that there would be more to my job than hunting down