Chapter 27

***This part of the story takes place during the jumps, and in Tessa’s timeline.***

Tessa’s eyes flew open at 5:45 am on the dot. She sat up, letting the covers drop off her naked body. She looked around her quarters, which was very barren, very surgical. She pulled herself off the bed, and made her way to the showers. The showers were more like misters in her time, and would clean quickly and easily. It wasn’t water, it was some sort of chemical that would build up on the dirt and debris on the body and then simply evaporate. After her shower, she got dressed in her uniform. Tessa was a lt. detective in her department. Though murder and violence were semi unheard of in Tessa’s time, though as stated before, the chemicals leaving the body of people made their thought erratic. A person might ask why they took them.

Well, besides controlling emotions and the population, to keep from anomalies from building in the population, it kept them healthy, and young. Tessa was young for her role, in her early 20s in our terms, but most of her coworkers were 50 or older. She only got into her role by hard work and determination.

After getting dressed and ready, she headed out to her precinct. After arriving she heard the call. Murder in sector 147. The eyes of everyone in the room went wide. A murder was rare, and very very bad. It meant a number of things could be possible. Someone had been off the supplements, which meant black market ingestible. It could’ve been a defect in the person, or as they’d now call them, the suspect.

“Ma’am.” One officer said after rushing over to her.

“Officer?” She said.

“Permissions to set search patrols for the suspect.” the officer said.

“Granted.” She said.

The officer rushed off, gathering who they needed to begin the hunt. Now it was just a waiting game. Tessa moved to her desk and sat down. She sat wondering what could cause this sort of thing, and what the perp was thinking. Maybe it wasn’t thinking, maybe it was a passion of the moment thing. But what could cause that. Spouses and the like no longer existed. Population was fully controlled. So something else? An angry worker at a boss perhaps? That still happened when chemical deprivation happened. In fact a good number of things happened when chemical deprivation happened. She wished there was a way to curtail that sort of thing, but that wasn’t her job to fix. Her job was to investigate cases and write up reports.

Another announcement came through.

“Suspect spotted in sector 744.” The announcement said.

The seven hundred sector block? That was as far form sector 147 as she could imagine. How was that possible?

“I’m heading there myself.” She said standing up.

She rushed out the door, ignoring her captain, wanting to see this perp with her own eyes. She hadn’t made it more than a handful of sectors before another report came through.

“Suspect spotted in sector 372.” The announcement said.

This one was closer to the original, but she still wanted to see what was at 744. Something was off, and she needed to understand all the aspects. Once at sector 744, she saw a man being held at gunpoint. He was caught, and her officers looked a bit worse for the wear. He wasn’t wearing a standard uniform, instead what looked like armor.

“What the hell?” Tessa asked while an officer rushed over to her.

“Ma’am, we’ve apprehended this suspect.” The officer said.

“Good, get him back to the station. I want him I.D.ed and processed.” She said as she stared at the sword that had been confiscated. Something super odd was going on. Who exactly was this guy? He was armed! How would he even find something like that? Weapons were restricted to security, and only officers or above at that.

Once back at the station, Tessa quickly got thru the paperwork she had to do to get things. She had to talk to this suspect. She had to know who he was and how he had what he had. They had already scanned his tech. The sword taken could’ve killed her officers in one blow, but she was told that he specifically swung it incorrectly, so he wouldn’t cut them. The gun taken was similar to her own, except it used special cartridges, and better yet, it was alien tech that was considered outdated centuries ago. Finally there was the manacle. It was damaged, but functional, she just wasn’t sure of the function, and the scanners weren’t being specific, just stating the tech was classified long ago by a Doctor Insan Nitty. Finally she picked up the folder with the paper work and made her way into the questioning area. She sat down opposite the suspect. She slammed the paper work down.