Glitch in the God Complex (AmpCore #1)

14 - Jurisdiction by Decree

"Says we need to get down to evidence."

"Why?"

"Dunno." Doser paused. A message on the visor blinked insistently. "Just says we should hurry."

A jolt of fear launched Delgado out of her chair in a flash. She grabbed Doser by his shirt as she passed, and wrenched the big man to his feet.

"C'mon," she snarled.

"Hey, what-,"

"Codewraiths killing some gangster's kid right here in the city?" She took off at a jog through the bullpen. "I'm not letting some spiv slam the book on this cos they screwed up and somehow one of those things got across the river. Move your ass, will you?!"

She left Doser stumbling, cursing and swearing in her wake as she bolted for the stairs leading down to the station's evidence processing labs. Moving so fast she almost went headlong down them, catching the stair rail in the nick of time and flinging herself back into balance again. She crashed into a junior detective, sending the kid flying along with his coffee, but she ignored him.

All she could think about was the evidence.

Careening around two more bends in the precinct's basement level, she found the Evi-Tech Naismith standing outside the glass door, his spindly frame swallowed up by his navy blue overalls, neatly manicured hands fidgeting in front of him.

"Detective-,"

"What – what?!"

"I couldn't stop them – they came in a few minutes ago." Naismith pointed back through the door and she saw a dozen dark silhouettes moving through the smoke-glass of the window.

Anger churned up in her gut and she shoved him aside, ripping her access card through the reader built in to the door frame just as Doser caught up to them, panting for breath.

"Delgado, what's-,"

"Just come on." She stepped over the threshold and her eyes went wide at the sight that they beheld.

She discovered a whole squadron of goons sheathed in the heavy black armour normally reserved for private corp security detachments, and they were meticulously ransacking the place.

The shards of wraith disappeared into glowing containers before being sealed. The two bodies were in the process of being zipped up in neat, unmarked bags, and one of the goons was standing at the room's computer console. The screen flickered and flashed under his directions.

Deleting her god-damned case right in front of her. For a moment she was so shocked by the sheer boldness of it that she couldn't move. A man in a long black jacket walked serenely through the raid, issuing gentle orders to the corporate soldiers as he went. She knew Hadrian's corps ran roughshod over their own laws when it suited them, but even by that standard this was blatant.

"What the hell?"

Doser's bemused words finally snapped her out of it. Her face crumpled with fury.

"Hold on – just hold on!" Delgado roared, moving to bar the doorway and raising her badge. "Who the fuck are you people? And where the hell are you going with my evidence?!"

The hulking corporate bruisers didn't even look her way, but the man in the black jacket detached himself and strolled over, his expression mild save for the sharpness of his smile. His bald head shone, his shaven face ghost-pale. He stopped in front of them, extending one perfectly manicured hand to shake. She saw the logo on his shoulder – dark blue, with a depiction of Hadrian's skyline nestled within a white V-shape.