Nighttime Interlude

He finally agreed to turn the auto-driver on at the insistence of the Good Doctor. He loved it that she didn't require him to be a great talker, which he wasn't. Calley sat in rapt attention of Olan Chang and nothing and no one was going to take his attention so long as she had it.

It wasn't until she smiled and nodded that he realized they were at the CPB. Calley wasn't quite sure how to end their, engagement, for want of a better word but she even had an intelligent response to his unspoken question when she gave him a gentle kiss just to the right of his lips. Calley felt his pulse begin to race and his face flush as she decided to give another kiss only full on the lips.

James Calley, one of the few survivors of the Turey massacre on Singapore found himself at a loss for words. He could only respond in kind to her kiss with one of his own that felt like it had a similar effect on her as hers did on him. Blue eyes locked with brown as both leaned in for a fourth, more passionate kiss.

From far away, Calley heard a dull tapping and a voice tinged with humor. At first, he thought he could ignore it and just stay in this blissful existence inside his transport with Doctor Chang, or rather Olan because if this moment didn't rank a first name basis relationship, he wasn't sure what would. The tapping came again, louder and with more urgency.

"There are laws against that you know Olan!" A raucous male voice said from outside the drivers' side door. Calley smiled as he saw how Olan blushed at the fact that she had lost control in so public an arena. Both Calley and Olan smiled when they realized that it was Morales making the crass comments to draw the attention of half if not all of the CPB still in the garage to their transport. 'He must not have recognized me from behind.' Calley thought to himself with a smile. "This is going to be fun, huh?" He asked Olan as she smiled and nodded, still too lost in the depths of his eyes to offer a verbal jab at Morales' behavior.

"Come on out Olan. Who do you have in there with you? I ought to have you both arrested for public indecency and treacherous teasing of the people with no sex life. Not that I'm speaking from experience. Shame on you both!" Morales said humorously reproachful of the two occupants of the transport vehicle. It wasn't until the door to the transport slid open and Calley stepped out that Morales' chin dropped to his chest in shock.

"Is there a problem, Detective?" Calley asked coldly. Morales managed to stammer out a 'No, sir' before walking on to the squad room.

"Olan?" Calley said breathing her name like a prayer. "May I accompany you to your Lab?" he asked, giving Olan a pleasant shock. She had the look on her face that questioned the notion of chivalry being dead. Offering his arm to the beautiful ephemeral creature next to him, he watched with joy as she accepted the invitation of his arm.

Walking arm in arm in the CPB was an interesting experience, to say the least. Calley guessed that if it had been Olan and some other guy, people wouldn't have had such a shocked look on their faces. The mere thought of him being human and in possession of emotions was alien to them. He would tense up when someone would gasp at the sight of the two of them together but would calm down when Olan stroked his hand reassuringly. This act would elicit his rare smile only causing further stares from people they passed in the hallways that knew who he was, either by work or reputation.

He watched as Olan pulled out her card key, only to once again have to deal with the previous days' problems.

A loud buzz.

Olan Chang looked back at him, sweetly imploring his aid against the door and lock that kept her from her office. Whipping out his e-skeleton apparatus, he made quick work of the e-lock. Olan walked into her office and grinned as he followed her in.

"Don't you have a job to get to Jimmy?" She said smiling and blushing from his attention.

"I'm already here," he said, pointing to the file on her desk. Pulling over a chair, he sat down and slid close to the Doctor. "Are you that anxious to make me leave?" Calley asked, giving her the saddest puppy dog look in his arsenal.

He watched as she melted at the sight of him and leaned over to kiss his pouting lower lip in apology. They spent the rest of the morning reviewing the records of the two suspects currently in lockup in the CPB's Yellow level.

Olan watched as he walked out, like Death himself, stalking the halls of the CPB and leaving every living thing quaking in his path. She sighed to herself and wondered about all the animosity they'd both leveled at each other over the past few years.

"E-comm. Display: Chang, Olan." She asked of the small black computer terminal as it showed up all her incoming electronic communications. Apparently, she may be a one million credit winner. Provided of course if she forwarded the e-mail to seven people within five minutes of receiving it. Her finger rapidly went through each e-mail with the Delete key. She almost jumped when one that looked familiar flashed briefly past her eyes before going to the Illustrious land of the Trash Bin.

"E-comm. Retrieve Five Previous Messages," she said as her eyes scanned the writing until she found the one that caught her attention.

:: A Short Note::

O - Orbs; your eyes like two deep pools of water reflecting the moonlight.

L - Laughter: Yours ringing softly in my ears even now, my mind starved to hear it again.

A - Answers; You always have the right ones when it comes to making sense of the world.

N - Never mind; I won't tell that one until we're somewhere we can explore it further. >:)

:: End of Short Note::

The message had no sender but she guessed who it was from and smiled as she read the words. Olan hadn't felt like this since she was in college. What was it about that man that took away all her carefully reigned self-control? A small smile came to her lips as she brought the memory back up of them in the transport earlier that morning. Both Calley and she was unable to pull away from each other, not quite losing control but not exactly keeping everything calm and together either. Her lips remembered his gentle way of kissing as she turned back to cleaning her inbox out.

Sitting in his office, Calley smiled as he sent the note off. He knew she wouldn't be able to respond right back and hoped she'd accept the not so subtle invitation back to his place. He didn't expect her to be ready to trust him in a relationship on that level of intimacy yet. Calley wasn't sure himself if he was ready to let someone into his heart after so long without accepting emotion as a part of his mental makeup. Sighing softly, he watched as his e-comms piled up in his inbox. Several were from higher-ups in the conglomerate of Consortium companies. One stood out from the rest causing Calley to lurch.

"E-comm, Display: Message 13." He said with a hint of anger in his voice. Reading the contents, his eyes glowed bright blue as they reflected the light from the monitor. Lines of anger crisscrossed his face as he reached the end of the letter. Mumbling to himself, he pressed the call button on his vid-phone, bringing up the face of his secretary.

"May I help you, Lieutenant Calley?" The younger man said a bit anxiously. It wasn't often that Calley actually gave him orders and he was just getting used to being a silent worker in the office.

"I would like you to contact all top-level Assessors Officers and have them meet me in Conference Room 7 at 13:00 hours. Tell them its urgent." Calley ordered before breaking off communications.

Alone in his office, he sat back and watched as the dim rays of sunlight struggled to shine through layer upon layer of the smog generated in the 200-storied city. His gaze flickered from the hazy light outside his window and his reflection in the glass. Switching his thoughts, he brought Olan's face to his mind as he had done several times earlier that day.

Calley smiled as he remembered their behavior in the transport that morning and how hard it was to pull away from her lips. Everything about her deeply affected his mind. Her scent, her smile, her way of movement all contributed to his devotion to her for as long as she would have him. Even if she said she didn't want to be with him, he wasn't fully sure he could let her go quite so easily.

The ringing of the vid-phone jarred him from his thoughts.

"Calley here," he said authoritatively.

"Good morning Lieutenant." A computerized voice said pleasantly enough.

"Who is this?" He asked, defensive. Calley hated crank calls.

"I assure you, Lieutenant, I am not a 'crank call' as you would call it." The voice said as a blurry blue image darted across the screen. "I have pertinent information you may be interested in. It involved the e-comm you received this morning from the ever 'helpful' Mr. Nagle." The voice continued with sarcasm about the extent of Nagle's helpfulness.

"Go on, I'm listening," Calley said, watching as the trace he put on the call traveled through the communications net that ran most of the city. Whoever this person was would pay for hacking his system.

"Lieutenant, it might interest you to know that the Consortium companies are working on an Alpha prototype. They are doing this independently of one another, hence Mr. Nagle's sudden interest in acquiring your services. He means to glean whatever information he can by hacking into your system with the aid of a virus he has developed. He will give this to you on a disk he will ask you to review. whatever you do, don't use it on any computers within the IPC network.

Calley was skeptical but knew better than to dismiss a dire warning. He thanked the faceless voice for the information and signed off. At 10:00 hours Calley met with Nagle. The man was predisposed to dark, dank, slimy places judging by all the previous meetings he had with him.

This time was no different. The directions he gave were to a seedy sex shop masquerading as a restaurant on Tier 122. The stench would have been overpowering to anyone else but Calley had seen and contributed to thousands of dead androids baking in the Singapore sun. Tier 122 was a cakewalk compared to that.

"Lieutenant, how are you this morning?" Nagle said as he offered his hand to shake. He appeared almost hurt that the offer wasn't accepted.

"Do you have the information you promised?" Calley said, uncharacteristically jovial.

"Patience Lieutenant. All in good time. I would just like to go over the offer and the payment again for clarification. I get 100,000 in Mexican credits in exchange for this information, correct?" Nagle asked, greedily.

"Yes, if the information proves to be accurate, that is. If it isn't there won't be a sewer deep enough for you to slither in when I come after you for double-crossing me." Calley said, an angelic smile belying the threat ringing on the air. He watched as Nagle shifted nervously and recovered himself.

"Certainly Lieutenant, you don't mean to say that after all our good business dealings that you have lost your capacity to trust me?" Nagle said, feigning shock.

"Where's the information?" Calley replied, deflecting the question.

"I have it all right here on this disk for your perusal." Nagle offered, smiling wickedly. Calley stared at the other man, finding it hard to believe that this was the same wet behind the ears kid he was friends with when he first joined the Assessor's Office.

"Thank you, Nagle," Calley said as he took the disk. Turning, he walked back to his transport. As he sat in his seat and prepared to close the door, he heard Nagle shout after him. "So, I hear you've got a new love interest! We've got to double one of these evenings James, I've got a lovely creature of my own I want you to meet." Against the sound of Nagle's voice, Calley shut the door and drove off.

Vincent Nagle's death was a certainty from that moment on.