Lie Of Omission
Posted on Thu Dec 29th, 2016 @ 1:54pm by Commander Jordan Gunning & Warrant Officer Marcus Lazlo
Mission:
Lie Of Omission
Location: Jordan Gunning's Shuttle [Archa IV]
The sound of Jordan Gunning swearing could be heard on Cestus III, many hundreds of lightyears away. Over the comm, his assistant Velda did her best to calm him with rugged Bostonian charm.
"Listen Boss, it could be worse." She began, ignoring the scowl of her employer on the screen. "All publicity is good publicity."
"Rogue element, disgraced officer, shady background!" Gunning protested, reading some of the catchier keywords from the front page article of the local newspaper. Somehow the murder of Cha Ep had become a witch hunt in which Gunning and his supposed paymaster, the High Rise conglomerate were complicit, either in the murder itself or in the removal of evidence.
The reporter Gunning had given short shrift to outside the apartment block had taken a dislike to him and it looked like his snout inside the Archan police force had managed to get a lot further than he thought he would. Gunning was described as having low morals and a poor reputation in the community, all things which mattered little to him but the title: Lie Of Omission, and the implication throughout that Gunning knew something about the identity of the killer irked him no end.
The sound of the doors hissing open in front of Velda were muffled by Gunning's protestations, but he heard it. "Lazlo - is that you?" The monitor's camera was turned round to face the stoic face of the Starfleet Security Detective. "They came to you and you didn't shut it down? You didn't shut it down, Laz!"
"The hell was I supposed to shut down, Gunning," Laz said angrily, slapping a hand into the desk. "You said you were going to keep this damn thing quiet, now I've got reporters so far up my rear I can't crap straight!" He said, then looked up at Velda and blushed, "Sorry ma'am..." He said, his voice deep with embarrassment.
"I told you that slimey little scumbag was going to get up in my case about this and here you are, just letting him have whatever little snippet he wants to twist!" Gunning and Lazlo were now eye-to-eye across a subspace channel but it was obvious that both of them wanted five minutes alone in a room with a certain reporter. "How am I supposed to get near that apartment now?"
"You?! What about me? I got the chief so far up my rear for being involved in this, I'm a desk jockey for the next eon or so," He grumped back. "How are you getting our bacon out of this? Where the hell are you, anyway?" He said, unceremoniously smacking the side of the monitor.
"I'm keeping an eye on Ep's apartment." He replied, all the hostility suddenly gone from his voice. "If that reporter thinks that someone's going to try and remove something from the place then it might get me a step closer to whoever killed him. There's something more to this than the police are letting on."
"You're tellin' me. You got anything new? My access is all revoked right now," Lazlo said, grumpily, but losing his heat as well.
"Not a sausage." Gunning replied. "There's been no boots on the ground but the local PD are watching the apartment block too - means they probably found something when they were searching the place. Something someone wants. That's where it all falls down to me though. If I was going to go as far as killing someone to get something they had in their possession, there's no way I'd be leaving that place without it. Makes me wonder if our man Ep might have been into more than one dung heap."
Lazlo grumbled, "They usually are," He said. "Well, what the hell do you want me to do? Am I the ring leader in this mad house right now?" He asked.
"Just try to calm things down with the Archans, the more they look at me, the more they'll miss." He leaned forward as if to shut off the screen. "I appreciate it, Lazlo. I really do."
Jordan Gunning
Marcus Lazlo [NPC: Austin]
