Inspector Rames

Chapter 34

"Okay, great. I suppose you'll have to go to the station first to speak with Sten, but when you get here, you'll find us in the research labs at the rear of the campus."

"Right." I lifted my hand to end the call. A second before I tapped my earpiece, her words finally registered. "Oh, shit, you're right!"

Not long after Alex and I had decided to enter the Trials, we'd met Doctor Sten Grey, the man who oversaw them. He'd explained to us that as our speciality was homicide, our Trial would take place during a murder inquiry. Ordinarily, it would have been the next murder inquiry, but I'd been recovering from a broken ankle.

"You're going to be fine," Cassia said. "This is just like every other investigation you've led."

"Except I'll be observed by someone who holds my future in his hands."

"Everyone's always observing you. Clyde tracks your movements like a hound when you're working, and the rest of Socrico's journalists are never too far behind him."

I smiled faintly, but my stomach was knotting again. "True."

"Stop thinking about it. Just go and get ready so that you'll arrive before the victim decomposes on his office floor." She ended the call.

"Thanks a lot," I muttered.

"Murder?" Alex asked.

"Yes. We need to --" I turned on my heel and almost walked into the person behind us. "Oh! Sorry, sir."

Detective Chief Superintendent Ky Dixon folded his burly arms across his chest. "Are you two planning on standing around all morning?"

I blinked. "Sir --"

"I heard about the murder. Doctor Grey is on his way to the station, so I think we'd better go and meet him."

***

The three of us were escorted from the crime scene by PRBs. Their sleek black bodies and the rifles slung across their torsos created an unmistakably authoritative image, and the journalists parted before us. By the time they realised Amber Rames and Alex Sullivan were among the escort, we were out of the crowd.

Life on the streets further away from the tram crash was business as usual. Shops were starting to open their doors and switch on their buzzing neon signs. Students were walking to school and university, and high heels clacked against the road as shoppers steered clear of the tram tracks. Commuters were queueing all around for caffeine, and there was a hint of fresh coffee in the air whichever way we turned. The most notorious shop for a morning hit, Coffee Glitch, already had a line spilling out of the doors when we reached the high street. I looked away. Ever since I'd almost been poisoned there, I'd stopped visiting.

We turned down the road that housed our police station, the black building shining like a fat beetle under the lights in the concrete sky. Dixon used the facial recognition scanner, and the electric door lifted into the air. I curbed my usual desire to duck under it before it was stationary.

Once it had stopped moving, we followed Dixon through the touchglass partition and the city of cubes to his office. Long before we arrived at the door, I saw who was waiting inside for us. Sten.

Doctor Sten Grey was in his late fifties, his hair silver and his face wrinkled. Bushy brows sat above laughing, brown eyes that clashed with lips kept straight and stern. He was wearing a white lab coat, and it made me break out in a cold sweat.

He stood up as we entered the office, his mouth moulding into a controlled smile. "Good morning."

Two national profiles were displayed on the glass behind him, and my throat closed up. On the first, a younger version of myself stared into the camera with hard eyes, my hair cut to my jawline. On the second, Alex looked equally as grim but devastatingly sexy.

My knees turned weak. This was far, far too real.

"Have a seat," Sten said. "I'll run through the rules for you one last time and explain how your new equipment works. I'm aware you have a crime scene waiting for you, so I'll try to be quick."

Two chairs had been pulled up to our side of the desk. I lowered myself into one. Alex settled next to me, stretching out his long legs so that his knee brushed against mine, steady and reassuring. Dixon stood off to the side, watching.

Sten sat down in my governor's chair and waved his hand over the equipment littered in front of him: two metal bracelets, two small tins, two boxes of contact lenses, and two lavalier microphones. "Welcome to the Trials, your opportunity to escape punishment for your superior-subordinate relationship and secure a future together. Due to the nature of your professions, you will be judged on the success of your next murder inquiry. Your efficiency in the investigation, your reactions to the situations you face, and your interactions with each other will all contribute to your outcome. Just solving the case alone is not enough; but equally, if it turns cold, you will automatically fail the process.

"The success rate is twenty percent. If you pass, you will receive a government blessing and your relationship will become legal. You will then have to marry within a year. But if you fail, you will be charged and sentenced for the crime of conducting a sexual or romantic relationship with your subordinate or superior. Do you understand?"

I locked eyes with Alex and found my voice. "Yes."

"Excellent," Sten said. "I'm going to give you four things in order to monitor you during your inquiry. You must wear them at all times during your working day and return them whenever you are no longer pursuing the investigation." He picked up a metal bracelet. "These devices will monitor your heart rates and your blood pressure, and these tins contain electrodes to monitor your brain activity. This is in the interest of gaining objective indicators of your feelings towards each other and your situation. You will also need to wear microphones under your clothing, and video-recording contact lenses in your eyes. Inspector Rames, do you have your glasses?"

He'd explained these devices in lesser detail when we'd first met him, and I'd taken to carrying my glasses around ever since in preparation. "Yes. They're in my bag."

"Excellent. Once you're equipped, you'll be free to begin your investigation."

"Good luck," Dixon added gruffly.

Sten handed me a bracelet, and I looked at it reproachfully. All my life, electronics and I had rubbed the wrong way.

Now my fate was dependent on it.