Hooper stared at Drick for a few moments, “going to get my rear in a bind for this. You know I could have given that sweet triple to any other investigator and they’d feel like they owed me a favour. You, you make it sound like you are doing me the favour and you want me to stick my face into a nest of stinging crap for the pleasure. You’re a piece of work, Drick.”
Drick smiled but not coldly, “still ain’t fessing up on those details Hooper.”
A world weary sigh and then Hooper nodded in resignation. Drick watched as they looked into the near distance obviously reading from a retinal screen. “Well there isn’t much to tell. Perp has no previous priors, not unusual as they have no identity to link anything to. We are waiting the trace from biologicals which should at least give us their closest genome types and that way we have some route to trace their origins.”
“Sure all that’s sweet,” said Drick impatiently, “but tell me about the killing.”
“Well at this point it is only a presumed manslaughter charge that’s being held. They are still investigating the case and so I don’t have much except the scene of the arrest.”
“And…”
“Pulled out of a hover vehicle in the Yee On Kline District on lower lane six, looks like the vehicle lost stability and flight capabilities after a collision, or potentially multiple collisions, with other vehicles or structures. The vehicle hit the barriers and then the ground at enough force to mangle it. Luckily for our perp the vehicle had full safety foam and impact deflection but not well maintained and the side ejector on one of the seats didn’t trigger. The other occupant of the vehicle suffered massive injuries and died in the incident. That’ll be why your perp has a K-tag as they were sole survivor and the investigation teams haven’t worked out who was driving.”
“So they pulled someone out of a vehicle and then instantly sprayed them. Doesn’t seem friendly even for justice bots.”
“Well they were holding a weapon, tight stream beam ejector, and were screaming incoherently. So the bots pacified them for their own protection, and until exact circumstances could be ascertained.”
“That’s a nice official line. We nuked them for their own good. Same old bull Hooper.” Drick sucked on a lip, “there’s a lot wrong with that. How and why did it crash. Why did only one side fail on the foam ejectors, they’re pretty tight systems, well integrated to vehicle controls preventing usage in failure at start, even the older models have that. They also emit a warning if they don’t work or become unstable and restrict vehicle speeds. Any chance it was damaged during the final crash? Or maybe disabled? You said several other collisions? Who is the stiff?”
“The other occupant,” Hooper over emphasised the words, “hasn’t yet been listed, like the events leading up to the crash as that’s what is being investigated.”
“It’s been a few hours Hooper, what is taking them so long? Surely there is vid footage. I know the lower lanes have fewer monitors but they do have some. We have any anything I can look at? Oh, and surely the other occupant had a skin-dent? Or do we have two of them as total unknowns?”
Drick waited as Hooper did a retinal search and raised a speculative eyebrow as that turned into a search on their hand pad. Hooper breathed in thoughtfully and muttered to themselves.
“Problem Hooper?”
“Just a couple of small ones. They had an ident but it isn’t listed on the system as to who they are. The second problem is that it looks like the monitoring for that section was down the entire time so there is no footage or sensor readings.”
“The whole section?” Drick asked with eyebrows reaching for their hairline.
“Yes, the whole thirty blocks.”
