Read Nemesis for Free Online

reconcile any decisions you make with those findings and register them with the War Crimes Court. Do you accept responsibility for the case?’
    Bak peered at her, trying to comprehend her sudden U-turn. The risk of professional entrapment clearly scared him. Ann could tell she was going to have to make it easy for him.
    ‘It would benefit our organisation if you were to resolve this locally and let me get on my way,’ she said.
    Bak’s eyes lit up. ‘Of course! I see what you mean – clearly this matter must be taken seriously.’
    ‘I need to be able to trust you on this,’ she said, knowing full well she could not. ‘ Our organisation cannot afford for the rule of law to be seen to weaken. Do you understand?’
    ‘You can rely on me,’ said Bak earnestly. ‘I won’t let you down.’ With the twin prospects of career disaster and jail apparently indefinitely postponed, his smile broadened. ‘Those responsible will be dealt with most severely.’
    ‘River,’ said Ann, ‘please send the report codes for the case to Commissioner Bak.’
    ‘Done.’
    ‘Darrel, how fast can you get here?’
    Darrel blinked. ‘Er, how fast do you need?’
    ‘Can you be here in five minutes?’
    Darrel glanced back at something or someone in the pool, looking uncomfortable.
    ‘I can,’ he croaked.
    ‘Good. Please do.’ She swapped channels again. ‘Carol, please assemble some of the building’s guardbots. Swap out their SAPs for Fleet enforcement standard and bring them up here.’
    ‘On it,’ said her roboteer uncertainly. She clearly did not understand what had just happened, but Ann’s crew was nothing if not loyal.
    She walked back to where her heavies stood grinning at the president.
    ‘Something came up,’ she said. ‘We’re leaving.’
    Mimi looked disappointed. ‘What about them?’
    Three standard-issue guardbots clad in wasp-striped tact-fur clumped around the corner, their camera-lights winking.
    Mimi’s face fell. ‘You’re kidding.’
    Krotokin’s shoulders sagged in relief.
    Ann regarded the president coldly. ‘Don’t think you’re off the hook,’ she said.
    She gestured for her heavies to follow, then turned and walked away. It chafed to be leaving the scene of an arrest like this, but what else could she do? Events had overtaken them, which meant that petty Frontier conflicts like this one would soon be fodder for the history books. There was some relief to be had in that, along with a healthy serving of fear.
    ‘Ara,’ she told her pilot, ‘please prepare for immediate departure. Destination is New Panama HQ. We’ll be coming up via shuttle within the hour.’
    1.3: WILL
    Will Kuno-Monet stood alone at the window filling one wall of the IPSO senatorial lounge and struggled for calm. Beyond the glass, the city of Bradbury stretched under a dusty lavender sky. Ranks of fin-shaped supertowers marched to the low horizon, each proudly displaying some architectural quirk intended to make it look somehow more important than the others. At least half of them were still unfinished – webbed over with support fibre and crawling with construction spiders.
    Dense traffic flowed between the buildings through a sprawl of glassy tunnels that made the vehicles look like blood cells racing through a network of capillaries. To Will’s mind, the whole city resembled a farm of giant, interconnected lungs – which wasn’t far from the truth. Bradbury produced so much atmospheric leakage these days that you could see real clouds over the city.
    A lot had changed since his first visit after the war. Back then, Bradbury was a scatter of neo-deco palaces left over from the Martian Renaissance, pockmarked with bullet holes and mingled with ugly Truist block-architecture. All the original buildings were gone now – vanished under the tide of change along with his optimism.
    Will breathed deep and tried to sweep the worry and the anger to the corners of his mind. Ira was counting on him. This next senate