Coded ambition

Fragment 9: Predicament, Part 2

On Friday, one of Christopher Ferrow's many tasks was to pick up Mark Arsted from his home to take him to the police station. The visit was designed to be spontaneous for the Arsteds, to prevent them from preparing the child directly in advance in case Dean Arsted or L-35 were not trustworthy. Thanks to the GPS trackers, they could be sure that Mark was at home.

The plan was simple and not unusual for kids involved in murder cases, and he was glad to get such an easy assignment from Ryker Dubs for once. However, Christopher Ferrow was stuck in traffic on his way to Steel Avenue in his civilian car and was annoyed even before the task had begun.

Ruffling his blond hair, he leaned back in the driver's seat, annoyed. According to the advanced navigation system that was installed even in the civilian cars of the police officers, this road should be driven normally. No incidents, no alerts, no warnings.

Christopher yawned and made his way slowly forwards. After a while, there was no movement at all. He got out of his car and took a look further down the road, only to find an illegal demonstration of Love Justice. A lot of people had gathered and blocked the road with their own bodies and giant flags of their movement, clogging the entire street as a result. The marchers were holding signs with messages like 'Free your mind', 'It's never too late' and 'Don't believe the norm, believe your heart'.

Since there was already quite a commotion, but no police had arrived yet, Christopher called Iris at headquarters to send some people to take care of it. The police officer waited patiently for his colleagues to arrive. Fortunately, it took them only a few minutes to show up and he joined them to deal with the situation.

Even though the protest was illegal, the people were quite compliant. It was really strange. The crowd dispersed very quickly and there was no aggression. His colleagues held the line and everyone else was able to continue on the road.

After receiving no further orders, he picked up Mark Arsted at his home. His father encouraged him to go with the nice policeman, so his behavior was not suspicious at all.

Only after dropping Mark off at the police station did Chris find out that this Love Justice activity had only been a diversionary tactic to fool the police. Throughout the city, smaller groups of people had joined together to block major roads in the city, while another huge group had appeared in the city center. The associated riots and greatest resistance took place mainly in said center.

As the whole event was unannounced and well-visited, the police had a hard time arresting people because there were just too many demonstrators and far too few officers. Some police staff from another county assisted the Cading Police Department for this case. Love Justice had grown to a size that was not easy to handle. And that was not all. Whoever was leading the group had to be very smart and skillful. The Cading Police rarely had to deal with such large diversionary actions. Most protest groups were much smaller.

Well, Christopher thought, this was gonna be interesting in the future.

The boy in front of Ryker Dubs looked pale and terrified. His fair blond hair and light blue eyes only added to his white skin tone which looked ghostly under the interrogation room lamp in particular.

Today, there were four people in total in the interrogation room: inspector Ryker Dubs, interrogation Duty android Jade, Mark Arsted and a female psychological assistant android of the Clarity model, going by the name of Lilly.

Jade and Ryker had taken their usual spots in the room while Lilly was assigned another chair on Mark's side of the interrogation room table.

"Mark", Lilly smiled at the child. She was speaking with a modulated voice in the medium to higher vocal range that most people associated with the voice of a mother. "If you don't feel good about answering something, you can tell me. I will guarantee that you're being treated well here. Ok?"