Inspector Rames

Chapter 1

27 December 2185

Murder.

It's the reason I know the people I do. It's the reason I work. My life revolves around murder.

Murder was what had me on a train at five o'clock in the morning a few days after Christmas, straining to see the faces of the other passengers. No seatbelts were allowed off until the train had finished accelerating to four hundred miles per hour, and we were currently standing dead still at the station.

"Can you see him yet?" Sebastian asked.

"No." I turned my face away from the aisle, checking my hair was covering the earpiece. "I can't see anyone from here."

"Stand up, then."

"Do you want me to die?"

The train's engine finally rumbled to life, and the doors slid shut. The safety announcements began. I stared out the window, and darkness stared back at me.

"He might be armed," Sebastian warned.

"I know. You shouldn't have sent me."

The train lurched forward.

Trains tended to crawl for a few seconds, lulling their passengers into a false sense of security, before suddenly taking off at the maximum level of acceleration possible without killing everyone. They also climbed upwards at the same time. Someone's child started screaming.

Once the train had levelled off and was passing over the city at a steady four hundred miles per hour, the seatbelts unclipped. I stood up and stared down the carriage. All the seats were turned away from me.

I strolled down the aisle in the direction of the bathroom, glancing behind me as I stepped inside. When the automatic door had slid shut, I murmured, "Found him again."

It wasn't luck that I was in the same carriage as the suspect. I'd identified him on the platform using my ilenz, and when the train had pulled in before I could make the arrest, I'd followed him on board. If he thought he'd managed to get away from Socrico safely, he was wrong.

I flushed the toilet, ran the tap, and pressed the button to open the sliding door again. Sticking my hands in my pockets, I left the bathroom and sat down beside the man I was going to arrest.

He looked up from his tabphone, wondering where I'd come from and why I'd taken up the seat. Five o'clock in the morning two days after Christmas was not a popular time to be travelling, and half the carriage was empty.

I watched him from the corner of my eye until he'd returned his attention to his tabphone. Then I said, "Nick Jones, you're under arrest on suspicion of murder."

Trains are not the easiest places to detain someone.

His tabphone came at me so fast that I didn't understand what was happening until it hit me in the face. The force of his punch knocked me out of my seat, and he stepped over me while I was still seeing stars.

I hooked my foot around his ankle just as he cleared me, tripping him. The carriage shook as he crashed down, and heads turned in our direction. Rolling to my feet, I tackled him as he tried to get up, then struggled to restrain him as he thrashed, kicked, and spat in the aisle.

Three minutes later, I'd finally got the handcuffs on, and the carriage was empty. Thank you so much for your help, chivalrous gentlemen of the general public.

"Bloody hell," I said into my earpiece.

"That sounded like fun."

"It wasn't. Why didn't you just send a couple of PRBs with metal fucking faces?"