The hair on my forearm stood up at the hissing sound of the automated door closing as my new bride slipped out of our stateroom accommodations to satisfy her inexplicable, to me at least, need to fulfill her wanderlust. As much as I didn’t like Sarah wandering about by herself to deal with the assorted dangers and idiots hunting her, I’d gotten used to the idea as much as is possible and even come to accept there was not one thing I could do about it.

Sarah tells me it’s nothing more than my genetic male neanderthal, she actually used that word, pushing its way into my thinking. What she means is I have an intense need to protect her. So, just like I don’t like it that she goes off wandering, Sarah puts up with my overprotective nature when it comes to her.

You see, Sarah doesn’t need my protection as much as she used to. When we first really encountered each other, Sarah was a naïve young clone being hunted by a serial killer. Not just any clone, but the most illegal of all types of clones, a military grade clone. Sarah can withstand extremes in temperatures, heals with incredible speed, and her most valuable genetically engineered trait, shift cellular frequencies, the effect of which is for her to become invisible to the human eye.

Bored, Sarah wandered about the Alliance Starliner Firefly, named after some ancient telestory the owners were fond of, to help pass the time.

I spent the time going through the myriad possessions we thrown together when we’d departed quickly from Beta Prime after our wedding ceremony. In the process, I’d found a bundle of evidence from the last case I worked, the murder of a reporter named Bagley.

Bagley and I went way back, both of us knocking around Alliance worlds, me as a journeyman IAPF Inspector and Bagley as an investigative reporter. We weren’t friends, in fact, I don’t trust reporters, making it impossible for me to have one as a friend. But Bagley wasn’t too bad, and he was good at his job.

As such, we had an understanding. Bagley provided me with information. I did the same and if he ever printed or broadcast something I didn’t want in the public domain, I would hurt him. Badly. It was my propensity to slap reporters around that moved me to the top of the suspect list when Bagley was found murdered, beaten to death.

The result of which was I was now married to my beautiful partner and had to leave the city we’d made our home, Capital City on the planet Beta Prime. It was for the best, our leaving that is, but it was a painful thing. Sarah and I left behind dear friends, people who meant a great deal to both of us. Add to the fact neither of us makes friends, it is understandable why leaving the frozen world was so painful.

To pass the time and alleviate my boredom, I dumped out the contents of the evidence bag on the countertop of the kitchenette in our suite. There was a total of fourteen data strips that had belonged to Bagley. None of them were labeled nor had they been watched by investigators.

I fiddled with them, visually examining each with my cybernetic right eye. Nothing seemed amiss with any of the data strips, so I randomly picked one and inserted it into my tablet. After a few seconds, the player opened up and displayed a frozen digital image of myself sitting across from the dead Bagley at one of the awful coffee shops he so liked to frequent.

Not recalling this particular meeting, I touched the screen to start playing the recording and got comfortable to see what Bagley was up to.

“You have to admit it’s suspicious.”

I heard my voice growl in response. It’s always a bit jarring to hear myself speak. My voice sounds too deep to my way of thinking and there is a gruffness to its quality that I don’t like. “Nothing of the sort. The Governor was corrupt as they come, loved power, and the wielding and acquiring of power. He was going to lose the election. It’s as simple as that, Bagley. Rankin couldn’t face defeat, and to a woman like Vanzetti no less. So, he took one final flight out of his office window.”

Bagley shook his head. I remembered the conversation now in great detail. Like any good investigative reporter, of which Bagley was one of the few, and I mean few, I had ever met in my life, Bagley shook his head in disagreement.

“Markeson is on the CCTV recordings leaving just before the Governor jumped.”

I was going to have to watch every word I said.

“There’s your proof the Chief had nothing to do with it then. He wasn’t there when Rankin jumped.”

A familiar frown appeared on Bagley’s countenance. He could smell a like two kilometers away.

“So. The Chief plays hardball, we both know that, Sully. With everything that went down, somebody had to take the fall. No way does Markeson volunteer for that job.”

I scowled back at Bagley, causing the man to lean back warily.

“Bagley, Markeson was not there. He didn’t toss the Governor out the window. The records clearly show Markeson was the last visitor to see the Governor that day.”

“Have you ever heard of the power of suggestion, Sully?”

Bagley was not going to let this go. I had no love for Markeson as he was as bent as they come. There was little doubt in my mind though that Bagley was on to something. Markeson has a charisma, a presence about him, that I could see working on a weak-minded person like the Governor. If Markeson wanted the Governor dead, an actual suicide would be the best way to go about getting the job done.

None of this changed the fact that now was not the time for Markeson to take a fall. Not when I had to worry about Sarah’s secret being kept. My partner was starting to make progress in a lot of ways since she’d started working as my assistant. She’d make a good detective in her own right one day.

If she lived long enough.

There was the little matter of Sarah being an illegal, military grade clone. Her very existence broke so many intergalactic laws it wasn’t funny. Sarah had a price on her head and a standing death sentence like all clones, either by being euthanized as required by the laws of most planets and intergalactic governments or at the hands of some scientist in a lab who wanted to reverse engineer many of her more unique traits.

Either way, if Bagley got the slightest sniff of the fact that Sarah might be a clone it was over. He’d never rest until he ferreted out the truth and once Bagley had it there would be no stopping him from running story after story about Sarah.

Markeson needed to be dealt with.

If it weren’t for Sarah, I would be happy to tip Bagley off on quite a few things I knew about the Chief. But the same could be true with the Chief. He might be more than happy to respond with a few intriguing facts about Sarah to keep Bagley at bay.

As I watched the images in the video run past and listened to the poor-quality audio, I could feel the same cold sweat running down my spine, just like when the reporter recorded our conversation. At the same time, I was furious with myself for not picking up on the fact Bagley was recording our conversation.

It was illegal and he’d never have been able to introduce it as evidence in any kind of a trial but that didn’t matter. It mattered that I’d not picked up on the fact the little Primian rat had so easily deceived me and recorded the meeting.

“So, what? Markeson makes a living as a cop. We threaten people all the time, Bagley.” I scowled at the much smaller man and rubbed the scar on my face at the same time. He swallowed and scooted further back on the bench seat on the opposite side of the booth we sat at.

“It’s murder, thought, Sully, not suicide, if Markeson used the power of suggestion to get the Governor to kill himself.”

“Good luck proving that,” I mumbled, pushing the booth table away from me and pinning Bagley against the wall in the process. I stood up and leaned over, putting both hands on the table as I drew my face to within inches of the reporter.

With a face as white as the snow that covered nearly everything on Beta Prime, Bagley swallowed while he blinked a couple of times before speaking.

“You know I’m right, Sully.”

“What I know is you like to dig things up that need to be left buried deep.”

Fear vanished from the man’s face as Bagley’s eyebrows shot up in surprise.

“I can’t believe I just heard the infamous Inspector Thomas Sullivan just say that!”

“Say what? That digging into the death of a corrupt politician will cause more trouble than if we just let that animal lie sleeping?”

“But it would allow you to clean up Capital City, Sully,” Bagley pointed out. “Markeson would never know it was you who gave me the information I needed to bring him down.”

I had to get Bagley to see reason without making him clamp down on this juicy, meaty idea floating around in his mind.

“Let’s say you’re right, Bagley.” I stared at the man for a moment. I stood up straight to my full two meters in height, deliberately reminding Bagley how small he was physically compared to me. That I could break him in half without trying that hard.

“Let’s say for the sake of the argument that Beta Prime would be much better off with Rankin dead and buried and Markeson behind bars in Graham Correctional. As much as I would like to see Markeson locked up, locked up for anything, sometimes you have to weigh the cost of what bringing Markeson down would do to a lot of innocent people who had nothing to do with the corruption of either man or the Governor’s death.”

Bagley gave me a puzzled look as I tossed a couple of hard credits down on the table to pay for the coffee.

“You don’t care about the fact murder is illegal? That Markeson breaks more laws in a single day than most professional criminals do in a lifetime?”

“I care about justice, Bagley. When Markeson goes down, lots of people will go down with him and deservedly so and that will be justice. But if Markeson goes down and has a way to beat the rap by taking a lot of innocent people down in the process,” I paused and glared at the reporter. “Then that’s exactly what he will do. The man has no real conscience to speak of Bagley.”

I leaned over suddenly and jabbed Bagley in the chest hard with the index finger of my cybernetic right hand.

“I have no qualms about the Chief going down. That’s justice. What I won’t stand for is people who have done nothing I consider to be wrong having their lives destroyed in the process. That, Bagley, is not my idea of justice.”

My image vanished from the digital image. I watched as Bagley sat and followed me with his eyes until I was out of his line of sight. He scooted over close to the camera and looked directly into the lens.

“Sullivan knows something,” he whispered. “He’s not protecting Markeson just to protect the Chief. He’s protecting someone else. Maybe several someone’s.”

I watched with interest as Bagley pulled out one of his old-fashioned paper notepads and began flipping through the pages of notes he’d made. He stopped suddenly and read the page not once, but twice.

Bagley stared at the notepad, thinking. He’d likely forgotten he was even in a public place, and he’d certainly forgotten about the camera recording him. His eyebrows suddenly shot up and he started nodding as if something suddenly made sense.

“I don’t blame you, Sully,” he whispered. “Sometimes justice isn’t about the law.”

The recording ended, just as it started, with a frozen digital with streaks in it. I hurriedly extracted the data chip from my tablet and returned it to the evidence bag with the other chips. As fast as I could I returned the bag to the suitcase I had taken it from.

I never noticed the fact the door to our quarters had opened and closed and just as quickly opened and closed again without anyone entering or leaving.

One thing I was certain of as I put my suitcase back exactly as it was when Sarah had left to wander. The last thing I wanted was for my bride to find those data strips of Bagley’s.

Based on the characters and events of the An Inspector Thomas Sullivan Scifi Crime Noir Thriller (9 book series).