Chapter 7
An Officer, and A Gentleman
"Sir! Take a look at this!!"
PC Ding is a policeman. He isn't the sharpest knife on the block, and one supposes if one was to refer to him in culinary terms he'd probably be a meat tenderiser. If he was English, his surname would be Plod. What he lacks in brains, he makes up for in sheer persistence. Right now, he's persistently badgering his immediate superior, Inspector Sum.
To be absolutely frank, their names really don't matter since it's always the lot in all narratives and movies of industrious flatfoots and other figures of civil authority to unglamourously become cannon fodder to gun-toting / dai-katana-wielding heroes and heroines. Nonetheless, in reverence to their parents' dedication, perseverence, and in Singaland, sheer ingenuity in creating them, we'll call them Ding and Sum.
"What is it now?" sighs Inspector Sum, cradling his head in his hands. PC Ding has the manic enthusiasm of a child in a candy shop, and half again as many wits. Add to that the propensity to take flying leaps of logic that would do an American President with an obsession for Weapons of Mass Destruction proud and you have the most trying person on the force to work with. Maybe a transfer to nice quite departments like the Anti-Terrorist department, or the Narcotics buereau...
Squeeglesqueeglesqueegle. The video footage PC Ding's been poring over for the last eight hours rewinds yet again. The CCTV image is small and grainy but a fairly ordinary view of a street and the occasional car taken from a high vantage point, probably a streetlamp.
"Watch this, Sir".
An unimpressive young man and a rather impressive young woman appear and stop partially out of view of the camera, standing immediately under the lamp. From this bird's eye view, Sum has a pretty nice view of...
"Sir! Watch the road!!!"
A black minivan swerves into the edge of the screen, then out again, as the girl falls out the picture.
"F**K! Don't we have any audio on this thing?? Play it back again!"
Squeegle...
Girl Falls.
"Play it back!"
Girl Fa...
"Pause!"
..lls.
"Did you see that??"
"Yes Sir, I wasn't sure but..."
"He pushed her."
"Yes, he must have - there's no reason she would have fallen into the path of the van like that otherwise, is there Sir?"
"The bastard! She had such nice..." Insp Sum trails off thoughtfully. "Hmm. Play the rest of it."
The unimpressive guy kneels down out and vanishes out the corner of the screen. An instant later, he stands again. He's holding something in his hand. And then he swivels around and disappears out the corner of the screen.
"He stole something from her too."
"Yes Sir."
"The poor girl. Any news of the body?"
"Not yet Sir."
"Shame. I'd like to know who she was."
pause.
"Well, what are you waiting for! Let's reel him in!"
"Sir, yes Sir!"
"And Ding..."
"Sir?"
"When will you stop calling me Sir? You make me sound like a bloody schoolteacher!"
"Sorry, Sir!"
*****
They call him The Iron Patrician, because he rules with an iron hand.
Right now, he's demonstrating the finer principals of this to one of his subservient staff.
PIAK.
"I said a diet coke with ice! This is pepsi!! Any moron can tell the difference!"
PiAK.
"Well?? And bring me a cheeseburger, extra cheese, hold the beef, lettuce, mayo and ketchup!"
The snivelling manservent flees the room, his rifle rattling tremulously as he runs.
"Good help is so hard to find nowadays." he mutters, shaking his head.
BG Lea Sing Longandstrong is the strongman of the empire, and Steward to his people.
Stewardship is hungry business.
BG Lea believes in leading with a firm hand. His people are like sheep: soft, fluffy and clueless - just the way The Empire likes them. He's the man to lead them into the next millenium, the eighty-year technicalities of which, with the steady progess his human-augmentation project is making, will be a mere and insignificant speedbump on his route to immortality.
He settles back into his gilt-lined high chair to resume the duties of his God-Given birthright, administering to the mundane running of The Empire.
*****
Life moves on.
Kit's sitting on the train again on his way to work.
The events of yesterday, and last night in particular feel slightly surreal in the harsh light of everyday - did they even happen? Maybe it was all a dream. Kit's feeling slightly depersonalised - which was that again? When you feel unreal or when the world around you feels unreal?
My mind's running around in circles. It's probably a coping mechanism...
Stop. Enough.
He runs his hands through his dishevelled hair and looks up dully , straight into the headlines of a copy of The Straight Times which a decidedly un-straight male in a shiny purple dress shirt is poring over across from him.
The Straight Times, August 9, 2020.
HIT AND RUN ON GARDEN ROAD! the headlines blare.
And underneath them, an image... of Jean.
Craning his head and straining his eyes he just makes out the words : "hit and run accident... black minivan... critical condition... intensive care... Singalander General... police."
His heart leaps.
She's still alive! She didn't die!
His feels himself stand and leave the train even as his mind struggles to comprehend this new reality. He was wrong... and suddenly he can see clearly again.
He has to see her again.
*****
"Target acquired. Close to range."
Ah yes, Insp. Sum's in his element, another few seconds and...
"Sir?"
... alt-tab. Command and Conquer Generals vanishes obligingly and turns back into innocent old Windows XP.
"Yes, Ding. What is it now."
"Take a look at this."
It's another CCTV video clip of John Doe. This one shows him walking into a disused polyclinic, and then walking back out a half hour later.
A short while afterwards, a shady character in a trenchcoat and fedora steps out the building and glides away with cat-like grace.
"Hmm. This is very suspicious."
"Why's that Sir?"
"How many people have you ever seen wearing a trenchcoat in this country?"
"Good point Sir."
"We'd better tell the commissioner."
"Yes Sir!"
"And Ding... nevermind."
*****
Kit's footsteps echo eerily after him as he traverses the faintly antiseptic-smelling corridors of the hospital. It's strangely empty, and with every step he feels a little more uneasy. Any second now a man in a black suit is going to appear... He rounds the corner.
A small group of senior doctors with their glassy-eyed students firmly in tow (and bearing a passing resembalce to ducklings) glides past.
"...definitely had symptoms consitent with polymyalgia rheumatica... Spiral CT scan showed..." Their voices fade away into incomprehensibility as they round the corner. Not that they were particularly comprehensible beforehand.
Maybe I'm just being paranoid. It's going to be okay. Jean's still alive!
Ah at last. Intensive Care Unit.
A pint-sized nurse at the desk with the countenance of an irate and extremely constipated pit-bull glares at him for an instant before glancing dismissively away at the computer screen before her, no doubt monitoring all her patient's vital signs.
"Hello... Sister?"
She looks back up and frowns.
"Is there a... Jean.. here? Road Traffic Accident?"
"Cubicle Seven. Over there." she barks, pointing cursarily at one of the doors and returning her concentration Solitaire for Windows.
Kits heart claws its way up his throat into the back of his mouth and sits there waiting in anticipation as he opens the door.
She's lying in bed facing away from him, bundled up under the bedcovers.
All around her, various pieces of monitoring equipment beep callously to their own internal rhythms, a macabre orchestra of near-death.
Step.
She looks... so small. And so still.
Step.
"Jean?"
She's asleep, or at least her eyes are closed. And She's ... not Jean!
It's that girl from the train. With the big head. Pink.
She opens her eyes and smiles evilly. "hello, we've been expecting you."
He backs away. "What's going on? I don't understand!!"
Bump. There's someone standing behind him. Two someones actually. He turns around slowly. Two BIG someones to be precise. Two big, muscley police-someones with jaws the size of shovels.
"Uh... hello officers..."
Oww! There's a sharp pain in the back of his knee. Then, as he falls to the floor someone thumps him hard in the back of his head. Fade to black.
"Was that really necessary ma'am?"
Pink glares at the men towering head, neck, and upper-torso over her.
"Don't tell me how to do my job! Two thousand superiors can't be wrong!"
"But ma'am, we don't have..." Big policeman #1 trails away into silence under the force of Pink's glare.
"Go with the flow, Joe." Big policeman #2 mumbles, as they pick the limp and extremely unconscious Kit off the floor.
*****
BG Lea's inspecting his body-double delivering His national day speech on television from the comfort of his high-chair inside the Seat of All Parliament, the Angsana. "He's getting a little bit chubby, doesn't look at all like me." He thinks as he chews down thoughtfully on his cheeseburger. "Must make him exercise more, and if dares to object, I'll sla..."
The lights go out.
WTF?A power failure? NOW?? During the Parade?! BG Lea glances out the window - as far as the eye can see - pitch-black. An island-wide blackout. It's only ever happened once before.
Ohboy... someone's head is really going to roll for this.
"SINGGGGGGH! SONGGGGGG!!" BG Lea screams for his two stoic and stalwart bodyguards standing just outside the door.
The door opens and a figure stands sillhouetted cast by the half-light of the moon through a window behind him.
"CALL THE POWER DEPARTMENT! TELL THEM I'M GOING TO FIRE THE"
The lights come back on.
"WHAT IS THE MEANING OF THIS?? WHERE ARE SING AND SONG?"
The figure stands impassively still before him.
"HOW DARE YOU INTRUDE ON ME? And WHAT are you WEARING??! IS THAT A FEDORA??"
piak.
"GUARDS! GUARDS!!"
piAK!
"ARE YOU TRYING TO INTIMIDATE ME??"
PiAK PIAK
"TALK DAMN YOU! TALK!!!"
PIAKKKKK
"Are you quite done yet?" the figure asks quietly as BG Lea hyperventilates and quivers in an unbridled apoplectic rage.
"SO! YOU SPEAK! WELL I'LL HAVE YOUR HEAD FOR THIS! DO YOU KNOW WHO MY DADDY IS???"
"Yes. May I be so bold as to ask you a question? Why do you keep slapping yourself while you're talking?"
"I try to keep my hands off strangers. My daddy says it's not hygenic."
"Ah. Yes, quite. Do you know who I am?"
"NO! WHO THE F*** DO YOU THINK YOU ARE?"
"Oh, good. Well I have a message for you, from the Resistance."
There's a faint "snk" sound, and then BG Lea's gaze travels slowly and uncomprehendingly down towards the sword handle protruding from his breastbone. It's the last thing he ever sees.
Humming softly to himself, the Architect draws his sword out of the body and wipes it clean of blood with some kleenex procured off ex-BG Lea's desk.
He turns around and steps over the unconscious bodies of Sing and Song on his way out.
There're two policemen waiting at the front door for him with their pistols drawn. Their nametags read Ding and Sum.
"FREEZE! DON'T MOVE"
Ah, Bummer.
