Shadow of Freedom

“Point taken,” she said after a moment, because Indiana was right.

The Cherubim Police didn’t give a damn how many muggers managed to get themselves killed, and if the one Indiana had dropped was found dead on the landing from blunt force trauma, there probably wouldn’t be any investigation at all. Those cops who weren’t on the take were too overwhelmed trying to look out for law-abiding citizens to worry about what happened to the capital city’s predators, and the ones who were on the take had more profitable things to worry about. But they stood up and took notice when firearms were used, and any case involving them was automatically flagged to Tillman O’Sullivan’s Seraphim System Security Police. Not because the scags cared how many proles slaughtered each other, but because the possession of firearms by private citizens was illegal. That hadn’t always been the case, but one of President McCready’s first acts in office had been to amend the System Constitution to delete its guarantee of a citizen’s right to be armed.

After all, they couldn’t have all those weapons floating around contributing to the unacceptably high crime rate, now could they?

“I’m glad you agree,” Indiana said with a grin as the two of them stepped out onto the slushy sidewalk. More snow was drifting down, and the east wind felt raw and cutting. “Mind you, I’m a little concerned. It’s not like you to give up so easily, especially when I’m right.”

“Don’t push it, Indy,” she said severely, and he chuckled.

They walked down the sidewalk to the tram station in the middle of the next block. The public transit system looked as worn out as anything else in Cherubim, and the often-vandalized tram cars’ broken windows made gaping punctuation marks in the colorful, usually obscene graffiti that caparisoned their sides. Despite that, the trams were mechanically reliable and, unlike a great many other things in the Seraphim System, they actually ran on a reliable schedule. Primarily, Indiana and Mackenzie knew, because they were the only means of transportation available to most of the capital’s population, and the system’s transstellar masters wanted their serfs to get to work on time.

The tram was just pulling to a stop as they arrived, and Indiana followed Mackenzie aboard. They presented their Transit Authority passes for scanning, and managed to find seats that weren’t in a direct draft from one of the broken windows.

The tram moved off through the snow and slush, and the brother and sister gazed out at the crowds of poorly dressed, shivering, head-bent pedestrians. There was a lot of foot traffic in Cherubim, even this late and in weather like this. They passed an occasional ground car, but those were few and far between, and the parking spaces which had once been filled to capacity and beyond stood mostly empty. Downtown Cherubim had once been home to a bustling, thriving district composed of privately owned small businesses—restaurants, bookstores, art galleries, boutiques, jewelers, pawnshops, clothiers, and electronics stores. Their owners and operators hadn’t been wealthy, perhaps, but they’d made ends meet and they’d worked for themselves. Now every other storefront stood empty. Most of those which remained looked rundown, worn out, tattered around the edges. Yet here and there an oasis of well-lit, clean crystoplast display windows offered gleaming goods for sale.

Indiana’s eyes hardened as he saw those thriving windows, because there was a reason for their prosperity. They were the ones that belonged to the mayor’s friends, or even the president’s. The ones whose owners had connections, who didn’t have to pay protection to corrupt cops and city councilmembers, or to one of the transstellars’ local managers. Hell, two thirds of them didn’t even pay city taxes!

There’s always someone willing to play jackal, he thought bitterly. Always someone willing to “go along to get along.” They may not be the ones who decided to rape Seraphim in the first place, but they sure as hell don’t have any problem squabbling over the scraps and grabbing whatever they can get on the side! And not one of them would dream of raising a hand to do anything about McCready and her bottom feeders.