"You're in my house now," Miller whispered, his breath smelling of stale coffee. "Out on the street, you didn't want to show me ID. You didn't want to tell me what you were doing near the warehouse district. So now, you're going to sit in this room until I decide you're ready to speak. And if you give me any attitude, things will get much worse for you."
Vance chuckled from the doorway. "He thinks his silence is going to save him, Miller."
The man in the chair didn't blink. He took a slow, deep breath through his nose, letting the silence stretch between them until the air in the room felt thick enough to suffocate. When he finally spoke, his tone was so calm, so devoid of fear, that both detectives froze.
"Detective Miller," the man said, his voice quiet yet carrying an undeniable resonance. "Detective Vance."
Miller frowned, his eyes narrowing. "I didn't give you my name."
"You wear your badges on your belts, and your reputations proceed you," the man replied smoothly. He leaned forward as much as his restrained posture would allow. "You have stripped me of my mobility aids. You have used unlawful physical force. You have failed to state the charges against me, and you have bypassed basic intake procedures."
Miller laughed, though it sounded slightly forced this time. "Oh, we got a jailhouse lawyer here! You think anyone out there gives a damn about your rights?"
"No," the man said, his eyes darkening to a cold, icy black. "I don't expect you to care about my rights. But by morning, Detective... you will be begging me to let you put those braces back on my legs. And you will be begging for your life on this force."
For a fraction of a second, a shiver ran down Miller’s spine. The sheer intensity in the man's gaze was unlike anything he had ever encountered in twenty years on the police force. There was no bluff in those eyes. There was only absolute certainty.
Miller snapped out of his momentary shock, his face flushing red with embarrassment and anger. "Lock him in. Let him rot in the dark until shift change."
They slammed the door and locked it from the outside, leaving the man sitting in total darkness.
Out in the main bullpen, the atmosphere had shifted.
I was still sitting at my desk, but I couldn't focus on my terminal. I kept looking back toward the hallway leading to Interrogation Room B. Officer Higgins was leaning over the booking counter, tapping his pen rhythmically against a stack of arrest forms.
"Hey, Miller," Higgins called out as the two detectives walked back into the bullpen. "Did you get a name on him yet? I need to enter his intake log before the sergeant reviews the midnight shift."
"Put him down as John Doe," Miller snapped, walking over to the coffee maker and pouring himself a dark, sludge-like cup. "Vagrant. Resisting arrest. Suspicious activity."
"John Doe?" Higgins raised an eyebrow. "Miller, he was wearing a thousand-dollar tailored coat over those leg braces. He doesn't look like any vagrant I've ever seen on 4th Street."
"I don't care if he's wearing a tuxedo," Miller barked, turning around with his mug in hand. "He was lurking around a crime scene area, he refused a lawful order to identify himself, and he gave us lip. He stays in the box until he talks."
"Did you run his prints at the car terminal?" I asked, unable to keep quiet any longer.
Miller glared at me. "Focus on your traffic reports, rookie. Don't worry about how real detectives handle police work."
"I'm just saying," I replied, standing up from my chair, "protocol dictates all field arrests must have finger scans completed within thirty minutes of arrival. If Sergeant Reynolds comes in and sees an unregistered hold in Room B, it's our heads on the block."
Vance tossed a small leather wallet onto my desk. It had been taken from the prisoner's coat pocket. "Fine. You want to be useful? Take his cards and run his prints off the portable scanner. But don't expect to find anything. Guys like him usually have three alias records."
I picked up the leather wallet. It was made of high-grade black calfskin, unadorned except for a small metallic emblem tucked into the inner fold. When I opened it, there was no driver's license, no credit cards, and no cash.
There was only a single, encrypted metallic smart-card with a gold microchip.
My fingers trembled slightly as I slid the metallic smart-card into the reader beside my terminal.
The screen flickered. A blue progress bar appeared: READING ENCRYPTED DATA...
Five seconds passed. Ten seconds. Suddenly, the screen flashed bright red.
[ERROR: CODE 99 - ACCESS RESTRICTED]
[AUTHORIZATION LEVEL 5 REQUIRED]
[WARNING: SYSTEM AUDIT INITIATED]
I blinked, staring at the flashing text. Code 99? In six years of working desktop logistics for the department, I had never seen a Code 99. That code was reserved for federal agencies, active intelligence operations, or top-tier executive security protocol.
"What's taking so long?" Miller called out from across the room, lighting a cigarette despite the indoor ban.
"The card... it won't read," I said, my voice barely above a whisper. "It triggered a level-five security lockout on my workstation."
Vance walked over, frowning as he looked over my shoulder. "You probably typed the bypass code wrong. Use the master precinct code."
"I didn't type anything!" I protested. "As soon as I inserted the card, it locked the terminal."
"Move over," Vance grunted, shoving me aside. He grabbed the fingerprint scanner—a handheld optical device used for quick suspect identification—and pulled up the manual override screen. "I'll take the scanner into Room B, force his thumb onto the glass, and run it directly through the state database."
Vance grabbed the scanner and headed back down the hallway.
Meanwhile, my monitor screen began to glitch. The red error message disappeared, replaced by a series of rapid command lines executing themselves automatically. Lines of green text scrolled at lightning speed:
CONNECTING TO STATE JUSTICE NETWORK...
OVERRIDING LOCAL PRECINCT DATABASE...
LOCATION CONFIRMED: 4TH PRECINCT - DISTRICT 8
ALERT SENT TO CENTRAL COMMAND.
My heart plummeted into my stomach. I looked up at Miller. "Miller... something is very wrong. The system isn't just locked. It just transmitted our precinct location to Central Command."
Miller scoffed, taking a drag from his cigarette. "Relax, kid. The server is probably just glitching again like it did last Tuesday."
Before I could reply, the main dispatch console on the wall let out a sharp, piercing screech.