Chapter 34

Geraldo grunted and slowly opened his eyes. The pain in his face and ribs were almost overwhelming, and for a brief moment he had forgotten where he was, but the moment ended, and he pulled his jacket away and sat up on the lumpy couch.

He had stayed at the station, choosing to sleep on the couch in the breakroom when he couldn’t find a comfortable position to sleep in his office. The couch was familiar to him, like an old friend, always there for him, and he slept on it more often than he should.

An officer took a step back when Geraldo righted himself. “What is it?”

“You told us to wake you as soon as we found her.” The officer held out a tablet.

Geraldo snatched the thin glass tablet from the officers’ hands. “Gabriela?” He asked excitedly.

“No, sir.” The officer shook his head. “The woman you pulled from the deep fake.”

“Right.” Geraldo flipped the tablet around and quickly glanced over the report.

“Her name is Mia Salonika. A Russian immigrant.”

Geraldo nodded. “Nothing but petty crimes. Theft, prostitution without a license. Nothing major.” Not the sort of woman that would be responsible for conspiratorial cover up. He thought bitterly.

“Is she here?” Geraldo handed the tablet back to the officer.

“Yes, sir. Interrogation room nine.”

Geraldo stood up and tried to smooth out his wrinkled shirt and pants. “Have you alerted Detective Elis?”

“No, would you like me to?”

“No. I’ll call him myself.” Geraldo said as he left the room, and quickly made his way to the interrogation room. He didn’t know how much time he had before word of Mia’s arrest made its way to Brian. It was doubtful that a record of her apprehension wouldn’t make its way to Tanya’s desk.

The officer followed him to the interrogation room and opened the door for him.

Mia jumped when Geraldo threw open the door. Her resemblance to Gabriela was uncanny. Whoever put the deepfake together had spared no expense.

“Mia?” Geraldo asked as he pulled his chair away from the table, it scraped along the smooth floor, filling the small room with an abrupt abundance of noise, followed by the silence that accompanied every interrogation room.

“Who’s asking?”

This novel is published on a different platform. Support the original author by finding the official source.

“Detective Montes.”

“You got a badge?”

Geraldo was stunned by how brazen the young woman was. “This entire fucking building is my badge.”

“Why am I here?” She demanded. “No one will tell me, and I have rights.”

“No, you don’t. You are a Russian immigrant, which means you are void of UN Charter rights until you are processed as a UN citizen, which you are not. So-” Geraldo leaned back. “You should probably keep what little you learned from cop dramas on vids to yourself, and keep your mouth shut.”

Silence once again filled the room.

“A few days ago, someone broke into a corporation mainframe, took enough information to set themselves up nice and pretty for a few lifetimes. We tracked the perp to a small shop, pulled the surveillance footage. You know what we found?”

Mia sat stoned faced with her arms crossed.

“A deep fake. But those are hard to do right, impossible to make them perfect.” Geraldo pulled out his terminal and cast a file to the vid screen. The captured photo of the woman’s face from the shop vid popped up. “Is this you?”

The bravado Mia possessed just seconds before was gone. “I want a lawyer.” Her voice cracked.

“I don’t think you are grasping the magnitude of shit you are involved in, Mia. There isn’t a lawyer that will take you because you violated corporation law. Corporate espionage is handled within the corporation. There isn’t a legal system in the world that can save you from them.”

Tears welled up in Mia’s bright, large eyes. Finally, Geraldo thought. We are getting somewhere.

“I am the only one standing between you and a corporate enforcer.” Geraldo stressed. “And I can help you, but first you need to cut the shit. Stop playing games and start talking.”

“You can keep me from the corpos?”

“No,” Geraldo sighed. “But I can give you a head start. A chance to get the fuck out of town, but you need to tell me everything.”

“I don’t know much. I was hired to go into the store, buy a few things and give the rest of the vouchers to the first bum I saw. I don’t know anymore than that. I swear, I didn’t know that we were breaking corporate law.”

“Who hired you?”

“Boris Ivanov.”

Geraldo quickly entered the name into the taurus database, but it returned nothing meaningful.

“I told you not to fuck with me.” Geraldo growled.

“That’s his name, I swear. He paid for me to come to New Madrid, he paid for a lot of girls to come here.”

“I’m not interested in human trafficking; I want to know who hired you.”

“He’s a brain hacker.” She sobbed. “He has me stay over every few nights, and he goes on and on about it. Please I don’t know any more than that.”

“Where can I find this brain hacker?”

“Vixen, a shop on Wet Street. Tell the girl at the front counter that you ‘want to forget yourself for a while’ and she will take you to him.”

Geraldo stood up and opened the door. “You stay here. If you are jerking me around the fist thing I do when I get back is call Cy-Tech. Let them deal with you.”

“Please, I’m telling the truth, you can’t leave me here.” She cried. “You got to let me go!” Her cries cut off the moment Geraldo closed the door.

The officer was still waiting by the door.

“Don’t let her leave, and no one is to talk to her until I get back. Got it?”

The officer nodded.

Geraldo pulled out a cigarette. “And if anyone asks where I am, tell them I went to Wet Street.”