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Chapter 493   A Lot of Suffering, But No Lasting Damage

Moments like these would make government officials’ careers in the past. They would use them to propel themselves to fame, then use that fame as a springboard to either work their way up into a higher position in the government, or quit their low-paying government jobs and enter the high-paying public sector. And it was all on the backs of the misery of others.

“No comment for now. The investigation is ongoing, and we’ll release a statement to the press after our work is completed,” the negotiator answered. As the on-site commander had rushed into the bank behind the SWAT team and medical rescue, the negotiator was temporarily in charge. But even though he could have given out some tidbits of information to whet the public appetite, thereby gaining a reputation and fame for an inevitable climb up the pay chain, he loved his current job and had no intention of leaving it. Thus, he was very much a by-the-books kind of operator. Besides, he knew beyond the shadow of a doubt that the empire was very strict on corruption of any kind, and what they taught in the imperial police academy was essentially the word of god and must be obeyed. So even if he was willing to use those underhanded shortcuts and feed off the misery of victims, he would still refrain from doing so as the consequences would be... severe, to put it mildly.

Soon, the hubbub died down. The police packed up their cordons, the SWAT team left in their vehicle, the FRV was loaded and headed back to the cube, and everything returned to a semblance of normality. That said, it was only a semblance, as people now had proof of what they had only suspected before: super POWERS meant super VILLAINS.

With the bank’s surrounding businesses in the chung-guyok district of Pyongyang back in operation, the only thing left was for the forensics team, which had arrived after the police response was over and the scene declared “safe”, to do their investigation and recreation. The technology the empire routinely used was already enough to automate that process, but Aron had intelligently decided that duplicate effort was fine for most non-critical tasks. Had he not made that decision, unemployment would have been nearly at 90%, as pretty much every job in the empire could be easily handled by robots with upper-level VIs installed.

Ten minutes after the forensic specialists entered the bank, they finished their deep scan and packed up. Everything else would be handled in the simulation, at least on their end. The only task left to them was to set up two guards outside the bank to wait for the crime scene cleaners to arrive to mop up what Kim Ho Song had inadvertently left behind after being violently and catastrophically introduced to the business end of a bullet.

All told, the bank was able to resume normal operations thirty minutes after the failed robbery attempt began, the only sign it had ever been attacked a slight discoloration on the desktop behind which the original bank teller worked where the wood had warped from the heat of the awakener’s fire and the lacquer had needed replacement.

……

The newly appointed head of the imperial police agency, Erik Schneider, had only been in office for two real-world hours before being met with his first problem. He had been celebrating with his family in VR, intending to take the world tour they’d never been able to afford before while he was undergoing his genetic enhancements, but he’d been plucked out of his home there and sent to his office, where he was informed about the ongoing situation and left to deal with it.

Thankfully, he had already read the imperial legal code long before his appointment, so it hadn’t taken him very long to familiarize himself with the, thankfully, much thinner procedural manual for his new position. Through it, he had learned that, so long as he didn’t fuck up too badly, the emperor wouldn’t intervene and he would be left to his own discretion in most cases. And in order to not fuck up, all he had to do was follow the guidelines in his procedural manual.

It only took him about ten minutes to have a good understanding of how the entire attempted robbery had gone down, and what the police response had been. He still had yet to go through his introductory data files, which every agency head had received, but with the evidence and reports presented to him, he didn’t need it. The robbery was a slam dunk open-and-shut case through and through. He had the trifecta: means, motive, and opportunity had been identified, leaving nothing to be investigated. And even without that, he still had eyewitnesses, physical evidence, and beyond that, he had the absolute holy grail of any police investigation—a high-res security camera recording of the crime itself being committed!

If he couldn’t do his job to perfection with all of that at his fingertips, well, he might as well resign. n/ô/vel/b//jn dot c//om

“Schedule a press conference,” he said to the empty room. As an agency head, he was allocated a specialized AI assistant to act as a secretary and aide in the simulation. That was in addition to his personal AI butler, which had been transferred to his VR pod for the duration of his genetic enhancement and implant procedures. But just because this was his first time working with his official AI didn’t mean he wasn’t already accustomed to them; he had long been a user of the GAIA OS both on his home computer and his phone, so he knew that they were competent assistants even “straight out of the box” without having learned anything about him, personality-wise.

{Invitations sent, sir. The press conference is scheduled to begin in seventeen minutes public simulation time, at 3PM on the nose. That’s five hours from now, so you have time to explain why you were plucked from a family celebration,} the assistant said, reminding Erik of the time dilation difference between the government simulation and the public domain.

“No need. She’ll understand—she was a cop’s wife, and now she’s a high-level government staffer’s wife. The only difference between the two is that a government staffer is far less likely to be shot, stabbed, or otherwise injured in the line of duty. Hopefully, anyway,” he said with a wry smile. “So right now, I just need to earn our keep.”

{Understood, sir. Might I suggest, then, that you begin working your way through the introductory data dump? It’s a large file, and you should work through it in sections so you can internalize the information more efficiently.}

“Heard,” Erik said, then went over the report of the bank robbery one last time before pulling up his “Introduction to the Empire Handbook”, as his associates had named it. It contained all the information he had the security clearance to know at his level, so it was basically the same dump that Jeremy and Youssef, the new Ministers of the Interior and Exterior, had received... but it contained much less information and only that related to his job.

“What should I call you?” he asked his AI aide. “I already call my butler Alfred, so how about... Gordon. I’ll call you Gordon.”

{Understood, sir. Would you like to update my settings for initial configuration or allow me to adapt independently?} Gordon asked.

“Not right now. Put a pin in it. Run a keyword search for the word ‘awakeners’ as related to my position as the head of the imperial police agency, including the information from the handbook.”

{Yes, sir,} Gordon replied. {Prepare for data download.}

Erik leaned back in his chair and relaxed. He had already undergone a data download before, so he knew what he was in for: a whole lot of unnecessary agony and suffering, but no actual lasting damage. He had been advised to not rely on data downloading, however, and to save it for emergencies and things he needed to know like the backs of his hands as he would still need to recall the information downloaded into his brain to bring it into active memory.

Soon, the download—and the screaming—began.