Boss King and the Blade

Police Auxiliary Headquarters, Spitfield

Trixie

Trixie was back in her usual blue Guard uniform, striding confidently across the main floor to the elevators. It was quieter in here now, the bulk of the day shift having already headed home. She passed the door that led into the front desk, seeing crowds of early evening offenders being wrestled up to the processing booths, protesting their innocence with every reluctant step.

Harried officers were checking Idents and registering their offences, while armed Guards patrolled the chaos like blue giants. There were a couple of Sentinels in there too, the tall mechanicals looming over humans and clones alike with their metal bodies.

“Glad you aren’t working for the Police Auxiliary anymore?” asked a deep voice at her side. Trixie controlled her startlement and turned to face the speaker. He was slightly taller than her, his tanned face covered by a jet black beard that was closely cropped and a pair of dark glasses. He wore a casual black jacket, jeans and a white shirt; with long braided locks running down his back making him look like an Asian Reggae singer.

“Hi Jimmy” she greeted the fellow ex-Guard. He had been the first one like her that she met, on the day she had been rescued by Jericho-Three. “I’m here to see the Boss. Is he still in his office?”

“Yep” Jimmy confirmed. “He’s been monitoring the mess you caused this morning in the Records Hall. The Board of Governors have been giving him hell over why you sent out an alert to arrest all the Jills”

“Ah, yeah, I kind of realised too late that might happen” she admitted sheepishly. “Is he angry with me?”

“Nah, although I heard him say something about having you shot for desertion” Jimmy gave her a wide, toothy grin and slapped her encouragingly on the back. “Don’t worry. If the worst happens, at least you got to live a couple more years before being Retired”

“Thanks, Jimmy” she grinned back at him. “I feel so much more relieved now”

He laughed and strode off, giving her a cheery wave over his shoulder.

“No worries!” he declared. “I live to bring joy to sad sacks like you”

Trixie continued walking, reaching the elevators and punching the button to summon a car. A human Officer came and stood next to her, also waiting for the elevator. She turned and smiled at the shorter man, her Enhanced eye gleaming as brightly as her smile.

The car arrived and the doors slid open with a cheerful ping. She gestured to the Officer to enter, who looked at her with confused alarm written across his face.

“Ah, that’s Okay, Guard Unit” he said nervously. “I’ll wait for the next one!”

=====

Office of the Senior Guard Commander

There were two grey armoured Guards, both Jacks, standing sentry outside of the Boss’s office. They stepped aside when she flashed her Ident, this one proclaiming she was Guard Operative B-Zero-Three of the Central Brigade. If they wondered why she had no signature in the Quantum Network, they kept such speculations to themselves.

She wasn’t worried about the Guards anyway. There was an even more formidable obstacle to be overcome before she could enter the final chamber. Trixie threw back her shoulders, walking tall and powerfully as only a Jill of the Guard could and came face to face with her Nemesis.

“B-Zero-Three!” snapped the elegant Chinese woman seated at the reception desk. “Where have you been all day? The Master has been fielding complaints and queries on your behalf since noon!”

“Then he should have called me, Hi-Ling” Trixie answered calmly. “I had my phone with me all of the time”

The woman stood and circled around her desk, the beautifully crafted Cheongsam of vibrant blue she wore only outclassed by her immaculate makeup and carefully styled dark hair. Hi-Ling had been in service to the Boss longer than any of the clones, her personal life a hidden mystery to them all.

Trixie had no idea how old she was, where she came from, even if she was Enhanced or Awakened or something else altogether. That wasn’t from a lack of snooping either, as Trixie had searched quite diligently for any dirt on this woman. Hi-Ling didn’t even have a family name that Trixie could locate, like she had sprung into existence from some hidden world without parents or past.

“He did call you, as did I” Hi-Ling chastised her. “It all went to your voicemail”

“Really?” Trixie answered as if this was news to her. “I did spend some time under Pan City, so the messages wouldn’t have been able to reach me” She smiled brightly and went to step past. “I’m here now, so I’ll talk directly to the Boss”

Her foe moved quickly, her soft shoes making no sound at all on the carpeted floor. She barred the final doorway with her body, looking at Trixie with a shrewd expression.

“You may think you are his favourite, B-Zero-Three” she said coyly. “But you will never take my place”

“If it’s all the same to you, Hi-Ling, I don’t want to be his secretary” she responded. “I’m his best field agent and that is far more important to his work!”

They were locked in this battle of wills when the door behind Hi-Ling swung open, revealing the short blonde haired Avatar that was Jericho-Three.

“Ladies, can you fight about this some other time?” he asked in resignation. “I need to talk to Trixie right now”

“Of course, Master” Hi-Ling said graciously, managing to bow and glide sideways like she was on roller skates. “Please enter, B-Zero-Three”

“My name is Trixie!” she insisted and stepped past her rival, following the Boss into his office.

=====

“I am sorry about Officer Jackson” her boss said as she closed the door. “I know you liked him” Jericho went to his large desk and sat on the edge, facing her.

He was a clone like Trixie but of an earlier design, fashioned to resemble a handsome young man in his mid-twenties. His genetics came from Norwegian researchers, giving him straight blonde hair, pale skin and piercing blue-green eyes.

Jericho-Three was also heavily Enhanced, carrying many of the same upgrades in his body that the Guard clones were given. The one major difference was that he had a degree of free will, never being conditioned by training and drugged food to obey orders without question.

“Yeah, he was a good guy” she replied flatly. “He always spoke to me like I was a somebody and not a thing” She moved across the carpeted floor and sat in a chair in front of her boss, dragging her cap from her head and tucking it under one arm. “My apologies for sending out the alert on the intruder. I hadn’t figured on it registering all the Jills”

“Not your fault, Trixie” Jericho consoled her. “An incident like this was bound to happen eventually. There are a lot more people running around the Zone with your face than you realise”

Trixie locked eyes with her boss in sudden understanding. He gazed back at her with a rueful expression, like he was about to tell her Santa Claus wasn’t real.

“You knew there were other clones out there!” Trixie gasped in disbelief. “Are they part of some secret project for Archimedes or the Board?”

“The existence of clones using Guard genetics has been suspected by me for some time” Jericho admitted. “Exactly who created them and what purpose they serve is unknown to me at the moment. It’s one of the reasons I let you continue your private investigation for so long, since I knew the girl you targeted was a younger version of yourself”

Trixie sat in stunned silence for nearly a full minute, her mind trying to sort out what this meant. Finally she spoke.

“You wanted me to find out where the first Trixie came from” she said aloud. “I was conducting my investigation for you all along without realising it” She glared at him in anger, wishing he had told her from the very beginning.

“I needed you to pursue this on your own initiative, Trixie” he stated calmly, reading her thoughts with accustomed ease. “It had to be your desire to find the truth, not because of an order from me”

“But why, Boss?” she rasped, the anger making her voice harsh. “Didn’t you trust me?”

Jericho stood up and took two slow steps forward, laying his palm gently on her head. He tousled her close cropped hair affectionately, something she knew he only ever did with her. It soothed her, calming her raging heart exactly as he intended.

“I trust you more than you can ever know, Trixie” he replied. “Yet there are forces at work in this matter that I can’t identify. Powerful enemies hiding in the shadows, using Artificial Intelligences to conceal their actions in the data streams. You sit outside of the network, Trixie, able to run your investigation without being over-written”

“Okay, I accept that” she responded. “I’ll keep digging into this matter. What about that alert I sent into the network, the one you got in trouble for?”

Jericho’s expression clouded over as he moved back to his desk, resting his spine against the wooden top.

“That’s already been dealt with” he answered unhappily. “The alert is still in the system, but the image file was corrupted somehow. The Police Auxiliary are unable to use facial recognition software anymore to find the suspect”

“They hacked the Police database?” Trixie asked in amazement. “That would take a seriously talented Net Diver”

“Or one AI” Jericho reminded her. “Anyway, the point is our mysterious enemy are very keen to eliminate any images or records of their agents. So whatever you discover, you need to keep it locked up tight in your head, got that?”

“Copy that” Trixie affirmed with a sigh. “I guess that makes finding any new leads a lot harder too, if they are deleting data from the Network”

Jericho nodded his head in agreement, then gave her a sly grin.

“Unless you copy the data to an offline crystal before it can be deleted”

“Have you got a lead for me?” she wondered.

“A tentative one, but it looks like it might tie into this matter” he agreed. Jericho drew a data crystal from his jacket pocket and leaned forward, placing it into her eager hands. “That contains details I was sent by a friend out in the Hole. It’s a mission file for an Unsanctioned Freelancer job that was advertised to a very few teams out there”

Trixie held the crystal up to the light, as if she could see the data it contained that way.

“What was the job?”

“To kill a young girl” Jericho answered in distaste. “There is an attached image file that is uncorrupted and she is definitely a young clone”

“I see” she said. “What was the girl’s name?”

“Melody”