The Cost of a Misunderstanding

[Ultimatum]

"I told you he didn't do it!"​

"We are aware, however, all of the evidence proves otherwise."​

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"But he didn't do it! He's a good kid, he hasn't stolen anything before, and he hasn't now!"​

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"If that were true then we would be most happy for you and Mr. Kren to leave. In fact, we would want you both to go. We do not wish to punish an innocent person, ho-"​

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"Then let him go!"​

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"We are sorry, but there is no possibility of releasing him at this point. The current evidence incriminates him."​

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"How can you prove that? There isn't any evidence!"​

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"The replusorlift coils in the vehicle have part stamps that correlate to a stolen car, the vehicle's make and model match that of the stolen vehicle. As the only prints and DNA evidence in the vehicle were Mr. Kren's, he is the only one who has any possibility of having stolen it."​

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"What if-"​

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"What if the stolen vehicle had been scrapped for parts and its coils sold to a manufacturer, or a repair shop, and then placed in Mr. Kren's vehicle? Thereby making him innocent of the theft?"​

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"YES!"​

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"That stretches the line of creduility. And if the parts had been salvaged from an older vehicle, then it would have behooved the workers to alter or remove the part numbers. Since these numbers were not changed, yet most of the other part numbers have been, it follows that Mr. Kren stole the vehicle and attempted to remove the identifying numbers. We are sorry Mrs. Kren, but your husband has no alibi for this theft, and until the investigation is complete there will be no further consultations on the matter. We request that you leave the building without causing a scene and please take a week to reconsider the situation before returning."​

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Maxine was not pleased with that, not one bit. She had not spent the last three hours with various "officers" to finally reach the head of this police division, only to be shot down within five minutes. What made matters worse was that it wasn't even a person in charge. It was some stinking, cold droid. This was preposterous, a branch of a police organization could not be commanded by a heartless, soulless robot. A person could think and feel emotions. They could sympathize with the situation and perhaps be more lenient. A droid couldn't do that. It couldn't look her in the eyes and help her. Instead, in its cold metal frame, it followed stupid calculations that had no place in a leadership role. Maxine would know, she was a leader in her own way. She talked, and people listened, her people listened. Yet here, in the confines of this stubby building, she suddenly had no authority. The arrogance!

"Kark you! I'm not leaving without him! Kark! Kark! Kark you!"

The machine didn't seem to respond in the least, angering her all the more. It should have flinched at the outburst, at the very least. Two guards came in, and Maxine quickly turned on them screeching, "I demand he be let go! He didn't do it!" They were people, but the two officers were as outwardly cold as droids. They didn't respond to her demand, didn't even acknowledge it.

"Please escort Mrs. Kren to the exit. She will not be allowed another visitation until next week."

"WHAT?! NO! YOU CAN'T DO THIS! THERE ARE LAWS!"

The droid continued to reply in the calm and collected manner of a fax machine, which did not make any friend of Maxine, "And according to those laws, section 5 of the Associate's rules: 'An associate of a suspect may have visiting rights revoked at the behest of the officer in charge, if the officer believes that the associate's presence is or will soon be a detriment to the investigation and/or execution of justice. This length of the revocation is to be no greater than three months and must allow for medical visits.' According to our medical technicians, Mr. Kren is in excellent health and has no outstanding medical conditions. Therefore there is no need for a medical related visit. Thank you."

With that, the droid motioned to the guards, who firmly, but gently, grabbed Maxine by the arms and pulled her out of the questioning room. Kicking and screaming, Maxine found no way of stopping these brutes. The pristine corridors and rooms echoed with her exclamations, "KARK YOU ALL! YOU'RE WRONG AND IT'LL KARK YOU OVER!"

When at last she was outdoors, the two officers stood by the doors, ensuring that she did not step back in. Maxine threw some more choice insults at the two before stalking off down the street. She hated those people, those new cops. They were wrong, Gerald hadn't stolen that hover car. He wouldn't do that sort of thing, always telling Maxine to get out before something bad happened. Her little brother had always liked that car; the company had been a favorite of his since he had collected the models as a young child. His birthday had been coming up, and Maxine had hoped that this would put an end to the attempts to convert her to the lawful life. She had ordered it stolen and then ordered it be rendered untraceable. Her people had failed and there would be consequences. Starting with the mechanic who hadn't scratched those numbers off. Perhaps she would hang him upside down from one of Bonadan's skyscrapers, naked. Lock him in an engine compartment of some shuttle heading off-world, let him roast. Maxine wasn't certain at this point. What she was certain about was that she had to break her baby brother out of prison, and wipe this little police station off the face of the planet. They were gonna pay, every karking one of them.

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Harold was one of the trillion or so businessmen who did not exactly enjoy their job. He had spent ten years in the business, starting as one of those faceless file pushers and had worked his way up to overseer. He had a shot at Section Overseer, which would put him in a higher pay grade and get him that new house he had been eyeing off for a few months. The only problem was that in order to get the approval for the promotion, he had to work his backside off since the board was going to begin its promotion meeting next week. He had to look like a star overseer, make himself look as good as possible and make certain that the employees beneath him sung his praises. After all, in this modern world, the lowest employee's voice did affect the policymaking. Sometimes Harold wished for the 'union dark ages' where the employees had been forced to fight for any say in the company beyond their little realm of control that was their desk if even that. But, it was okay now, he had made some friends before being promoted to overseer, and they still hung out at the local canteen and, when they were feeling adventurous, the bar. They were on his side and were talking to their friends.

Today was the first day in a month that he had taken a proper lunch break. He remembered that he used to take a walk on his break, stroll through the urban jungle and just absorb the atmosphere of the outside world. Now he rarely got to see a window, much less actually step outside. He even had a couch moved into his office so that he could sleep there and keep working. He'd made a deal with the coffee boy to bring him a box of food, usually pasteries, as well as the coffee for a 'tip'. Would that have been looked down on by his superiors? Maybe, thought Harold knew for a fact that the Sector Overseer, the job that Harold hoped to reach in the next five years, had set up a private lounge and was catered by a local delicatesant.

So on this day, he decided that not only would he take a proper lunch break, he would step out into the wilderness of the outside; beyond the air-conditioned environment of the massive corporate building. It had been ten minutes, and things still seemed similar to what he remembered, though there was a new police building on his route. Interstellar Civil Law Enforcement, it struck Harold as a mouthful, even shortened to ICLE. "Icel." Nope, couldn't be spoken like a word. That was a mistake a lot of amateur businesses made, and government businesses largely fell into that category from Harold's point of view. In order to make the company memorable, the name needed to be easily spoken, full, acronym, or spoken as a single word. It needed to roll off the tongue, with just enough flair to catch interest, so that people saying the name would remember it for being different and unique.

The building did sit on prime real estate though. That was for certain. Harold always yearned for a higher position in his corporation, because the higher the floor, the higher the position in the company. He wanted to be able to see above the stocky building surrounding it and see the small nature park that had been grown almost fifty years ago. The ICLE building was sitting right in front of the entrance to the park, which meant it had the best possible view. Harold wondered what strings had to have been pulled in the government to get that spot of honor.

As he passed by, Harold could see a few people coming and going, police at the entrance and police vehicles moving from the parking lot nearby. He felt safer because of it, even though he didn't remember hearing about the change from local police to this new name. The businessman decided that he would have his packed lunch in the park, facing towards the building.

Ten minutes passed, and Harold was finished with his break. Slowly standing up, he stretched and began to walk towards the entrance of the park. It was then that he saw two grav sleds float to the ICLE building. The two guards appeared surprised and started yelling something, Harold was too far away to hear. The Grav sleds opened their side doors and men jumped out. The two police raised their rifles and yelled again, this time their message self-evident. Harold realized a moment too late that this was not some bizarre exercise. Plasma poured from the machine guns in the grav sleds, in a single second the two police were reduced to crumpled corpses. The guns then began hosing the lobby of the building, randomly shooting through the glass and transparisteel. The people outside then tossed grenades through the doorway, and the explosions could be heard from where Harold sat, dumbfounded.

The armed men then rushed the build, about a dozen men strong, armed with blaster rifles and similar military weapons. The police, with their nonlethal stun weaponry, were outgunned and the results showed themselves three minutes later when eight men exited the building and jumped into the sleds. A few final shots from the machine guns blasted the last guards to step into the lobby. The sleds then closed their doors and floated away from the build, smashing another car and breaking a light pole in so doing. For a moment they sat there silently and Harold wondered what they were playing at. Then it became apparent why they waited. The echoing thunder and bright lights heralded the deafening crash as the building caved in. Some of the outer structure remained standing, but none of the interior.

Harold belatedly heard the sirens of police vehicles and saw their bright lights before they rounded a corner and reached the building, but by that time the sleds had picked up and run. They had disappeared before the first officer had been able to reach the destruction. From the pile of rubble with the front of the building still standing, a muffled roar like an untamed beast could be heard. Far too loud to be anything short of a rancor sized animal, yet such an animal could not have been housed in that building, as big as the ICLE headquarters were.

Standing in shock, Harold began to walk towards the desolation. He heard screaming and groaning, and he saw people running away in any direction, but all away from this spot. The businessman of less than half a century had never been put into a situation of crisis like this. His mind knew what should be done, but he hesitated. Before him lay the remains of a building that stood for an organization that was supposed to protect people. If they could not protect themselves. How could they protect him? Harold stood there staring at the wreckage, as police around him began calling in emergency services and tring to clear what rubble they could. It would be a long day for those poor souls, and an exciting day for the news people who would no doubt be transmitting this across the galaxy on some small channel.

 

[Ultimatum]

The reservist militia had been called into action acting as military police, taking over for the actual police who were now falling back to their command center and the nearby smaller police station. The militia had sent out armed vehicles and had taken up the usual positions, along with borrowing equipment from the ICLE stockpiles to fill out their inventory. The media had taken advantage of the situation to send holo crews to the wrecked building to film it for live distribution. The galaxy would soon have a picture of what was going on. Unfortunately, the other emergency services were slow arriving at the scene; the surrounding traffic had become chaotic from all the civilians fleeing to safety. The military also sent out a team of EOD's to comb through the wreckage before the ICLE officers began moving the rubble.

What remained of the ICLE command structure had relocated to the other building and were coordinating with the various officers to get a perimeter established to ensure that civilians could not get too close. This proved to be partly ineffective, as some people had already raced into the devastation. Most of these were people trained in emergency situations, some with past military experience, and were moving to save lives. The civilians, having created their own small command center in front of where the ICLE Headquarters only half stood, were hunting for survivors and the bodies. Unfortunately, there were more of the latter than the former. Some civilians stepped up to the task of identifying the people found in the rubble while others worked to save those who had survived. Harold had taken on the work of cataloging the bodies that could be identified.

It surprised him that some of the other people he had met or seen on the street were so adept at these various tasks. Across the way, a woman who brought fresh bread to the cafe every morning was elbows deep in an officer's gut, obviously trying to stem the tide of bleeding that flowed from the that ripped an almost clean wound across his abdomen. In the crumbling building, Harold could just see one of his coworkers who worked several floors beneath him. He had not proven a very hard worker, spending more time tossing plasteel disks around the office than going over the policy papers; but here, that man was pushing over rocks and duracrete as if his life depended on it.

"Or another's life," Harold corrected himself.

Medical vehicles began arriving, alongside the fire department, and the EOD squad. The squad was yelling for everyone to step out of the building, much to the chagrin of the firemen and medics. There was a minor conversation between the three groups before groups of each began joining up and heading into the building. The civilians who had now exited the destruction were at a loss as what to for only a few moments. They began helping the medics who were focusing on the people already outside the building.

Harold looked back to his job. At this point, there was a long row of bodies, all in various stages of dismemberment and gore. He had never really thought about the dangers of a building. They were death traps in a way, he realized. A tomb just waiting to be dropped on the doomed. The datapad he held had a growing list of the names of the deceased officers and other people who had been in the building. He looked to the body in front of him, which had a plasteel tab stuck to the remained of its jacket, written by the men who had tried to identify the bodies before him. His face was a mess of shredded flesh, and he could see the holes in his chest where blaster fire had lanced through his inadequate armor. The man's name had been Derek Lowitz, and Harold wrote that into the datapad. The next body almost made him lose his lunch, all that remained was the upper torso and a crushed head. The jagged end of the chest suggested a grenade or some equally explosive end to this unfortunate person. Sammy Laurence, a civilian by the look of the remains of the clothes. He looked ahead to see how many he had to do.

The businessman stepped away, tapping wildly on the datapad before dropping it. He fell to his knees and tried to force the memory out of his mind. There were children amongst those who had been killed. One of the medics who just arrived raced to him with a kit, but Harold didn't even notice as the person looked him over briefly and continued by.

A few minutes passed, during which Harold had sat himself on the grass and tried to settle his stomach, forcing himself to look away from the line of dead, a number steadily growing. He heard shouts from within the destroyed building, and two people came running panic-stricken from the building. An ICLE officer, armed with a rifle borrowed from the EOD military truck, stepped up the half-demolished steps when the rumbling from within became loud enough to hear. In an explosion of duracrete and pebbles, a hulking mass pushed through a collapsed wall and out into the open. The dust it brought up shrouded it for a moment, as it halted and settled on the pavement. As the dust fell from it, the metallic nature became apparent. It was a large droid, easily two or three people tall. It was gazing up towards the sky, seemingly calmed by the sunlight. As Harold watched it sat back and relaxed for a moment, and the human wondered if it would shut down or something. However what he saw was perhaps even stranger, the back, or maybe it was the front, of the large droid, broke open, and it dumped out what looked like a corpse mangled by metal wiring and plating.

Before Harold could act, the large droid pulled itself upright and began walking slowly back into the building. Harold took a few tentative steps towards the strange thing left behind, and he soon noticed that it was a droid. At least, what remained of a droid. It had large rocks sticking in it and a number of broken segments. It didn't look like it was long for the world, but it showed signs of life as its head slowly turned towards Harold. Instinctively the human backed off, even as a doctor walked towards the droid. The doctor shook his head, voicing his concern, "Don't know whether to make heads or tails of this. You know any robotics?"

Harold shook his head in reply, and the doctor shrugged before rushing towards the injured, leaving the robot where it was. A Rodian wandered over and gazed at it intently. It made some unintelligible noise before two then three appeared and began toying with the robot, apparently trying to repair it.