Free The Gabble and Other Stories by Neal Asher

if he was being given an annoyed look.
    Perhaps he was, only Garp’s mummified features revealed nothing.

    ‘I’m a reif,’ was all he said. And with that he took a handgun from his belt and held it up for Salind to see.

    ‘Ah.’ Salind held off from putting a call for help through Argus. Banjer being out-Polity for the present, Polity monitors could do nothing, and it would take at least ten minutes for the Tarjen staffers to get to him. Anyway, episodes like this made a story. The weapon - an old station-developed rail-gun - was the sort of thing that carried a twenty-round box and had a range measured in metres rather than kilometres. Salind thought it better suited to a museum.

    ‘What exactly is that for?’ he asked, keeping his voice level.

    ‘I’m attached to it. You know that a reif’s only protection under Banjer law is as part of the estate of the deceased? Only property laws apply.’

    ‘Yes, I knew that. Tell me, why did you choose to be reified?’

    ‘Because I needed more time than what remained to me to get her.’

    ‘Ah, I see. You refer to Deleen Soper. Why were you so determined to prosecute her?’

    ‘Because I was a detective,’ said Garp.

    ‘I note you use the past tense. You no longer work for the Banjer police?’

    ‘I do not. I no longer have to get a court order for searches and I no longer have to present cases to a corrupt judiciary. The interesting thing is that I cannot commit a crime either.
    You have to be a person to commit a crime.’

    Salind watched as Garp hooked the rail-gun back on his utility belt.

    ‘There’ve been rumours of corruption but none have yet been proven,’ he said. The presence of the gun was making him nervous and undermining his usual smooth technique. Garp pointed towards one of the far entrances of the park and began to stroll in that direction. Salind fell in beside him.

    ‘Soper has been indicted for drug trafficking four times and for murder three times. Every time the case was brought before the same judge and then thrown out. In any Polity court the evidence would have been sufficient to have her mind-wiped or executed. I checked. She has, to my knowledge, three of the five city judges and most of the Council in her pocket, and that’s only in this city.’

    ‘Those are serious accusations. What proof do you have?’

    ‘I had full sensorium recordings of conversations and bribes, documentation, and eighteen witnesses. When I . . . died, my files were dumped. Of the witnesses, four went offworld, and seven suffered fatal accidents while I was alive. Two more made official withdrawals of their statements, and the remaining five were hit while I was being reified.’

    ‘Is Soper implicated in all this?’

    Garp looked at Salind. ‘What do you think? There’s no admissible evidence and the judiciary is refusing the investigators permission to investigate.’

    ‘What then are your intentions?’

    Garp remained silent for a moment. He halted at a spill of treels before speaking. ‘I saw the look you gave this gun. It’s not what you think. It’s the only piece of hard evidence I possess.’
    He turned and gazed directly at Salind, his eye irrigators hazing the air around his face with spray. ‘You know, they wiped me out. All my files, even my personal files, were dumped from the system. It was an accident they said. I might well have not existed.’ Garp walked on, crunching treels underfoot.

    ‘This hard evidence ...?’ Salind said, moving round the treel spill.

    ‘Useless now of course. This weapon had her fingerprints and DNA traces on the handle.
    It was found by the body of Aaron Dane. She’d blown off both his legs at the knee before beating him to death with the barrel. And so confident was she in her control of the judiciary, and certain police officials, she didn’t bother to get rid of the evidence. I had it all on record . . .’

    ‘Well, it’ll all change with the arrival of Geronamid. Corruption