RBC

The meeting room's double doors exploded into splinters, making the executives inside nearly fall off their seats. The CEO was the only one that didn't move, but then again, very little semeed to move her at all. Instead, she simply narrowed her eyes a little as officer Colette emerged from the dust. Her fifty thousand dollar uniform was in tatters, and what little pieces of nanofiber that remained were covered in grime and blood. Stepping in with those trademark thumps of her, she scanned the room and finally raised one massive metal arm to point at John Dikk.

"Dead or alive, you're coming with me, Dikk."

The balding executive director of community outreach programs sank into his chair, then rolled his eyes around the room as if looking for support. But the CEO only interlocked her fingers and looked at the cyborg woman with a cold stare.

"Officer Robolette, you of all people should know that blasting your way through EVE corporate headquarters just to air your greviances with my staff is not proper procedure."

"Neither is paying a gang of criminals, including Clarisse Boudicca, to savagely murder a police officer."

"Whaddya talkin' about, tin can?" Dikk stammered out, steadying himself on the sound of his voice.

Colette didn't dignify his question with an answer. Instead, she just walked up to the wall of monitors next to her and plugged her middle finger USB port into the nearest one. Soon, all the screens came to life, all displaying the same image: John Dikk, sweating like a stuck pig, talking directly to the viewer. A slight curve to the corners of the image and some letters on the side confirmed it to be a recording made through an Eye-Cam(tm) nearly one year ago.

"There's a steel mill near the north access. I'll make sure the cameras go down between two an' eight PM. Call it a system glitch. So you got six hours to grab her, take her there, an' then do whatever."

"Whatever?" a husky female voice said, in a tone filled with bad intentions.

"Beat her, stab her, shoot her... I don't give a damn. Just make sure her head's still in one piece when y're done. I got plans for Officer Colette. An' step one is gettin' her killed."

The screens flickered wildly, then rewinded back to the last ten seconds and plaid Dikk's last two sentences again. And then again. And then again. Soon, there was no other sound in the room but those two last, damning sentences.

"John Dikk, I am charging you with conspiracy to murder an officer of the law. Come quietly, or there will be trouble."

Her point made, the cyborg officer removed her finger from the monitor and the playback ended. A throaty whimper squeaked out of Dikk's mouth as he turned to look at the CEO, who was still busy staring at Colette.

"B-boss, c'mon, ya can't let her just--"

"Everyone leave," she suddenly called out. Without a word, the executives all got up their seats and made a calm, steady beeline for the door, their eyes firmly fixated on their shoes. "Not you, Dikk."