"So today on the morning show, we have a special guest." Hernandez squawks from my radio while I chow down on some scrambled eggs for breakfast, "Professor Cook from the Academy."

"Glad to be here." an elderly woman's voice responds. Huh. Eggs are still tasting a little bland. I sprinkle some pepper on top of my meal and resume eating. Let it not be said that Olivia Duma is a bad cook. Or has bad taste in food. 

"Societies. That's your area of study, isn't it Professor?" Hernandez asks, "Sounds very general and wishy-washy to be honest."

"My area of specialization is actually the beast folk question," Cook says, "and how it impacts society. It has become something of a policy matter, now that the Citadel is seeing beast people roaming about thanks to all the displacement due to Fallen and Coalition incursions."

"Beast folk even from all the way up north?" Hernandez exclaims, "How do they make the journey here?"

Its obvious, I think to myself while sipping my cup of instant coffee. Not that anyone asks for my opinion on this sort of things anyway. 

"We believe the beast people track a route through the few independent stations that dot the concrete desert." Cook explains, "At each station they pray to Iros for her blessing. Those that survive the experience are provided with enough bread and water to make the next step of the journey. The beast people that go insane contribute as meat for the caravan's diet."

"Cannibalism? How terrible." Hernandez sighs, "But to be expected from animals at the end of the day."

"Subhumans." Cook clarifies, "And that's why we are having the beast folk question in the first place. If they were animals, the Citadel could deal with them like such."

I roll my eyes at the Professor's pronouncement. I'm willing to bet next month's allocation of bacon that her solution to the so-called 'question' would be no different from treating the beast people like animals in the first place. 

"To understand the Question," I can hear the capitalized Q over the radio just from Cook's voice, "you need to know about the three categories societies fall into."

"Three?" Hernandez parrots, "I thought that society was society."

"An oversimplification of a complex issue." Cook answers patronizingly, "Societies can be defined into three types. Creators, inheritors and parasites."

Oh boy, here it comes. I rub my forehead in consternation. This bullshit is fed to every Yellow Rose who attends the political science training course that we are required to pass. And that's not all. We need to take refreshers every now and again. So I'm pretty familiar with the nonsense that's about to be served up. 

"Creator Societies are societies that build upwards." Cook warms to her subject, "They develop laws, culture and cities. They innovate and experiment with new ideas. Our ancestors were part of a creator society. Under the leadership of the, ha ha, no pun intended, the Leader, we have also regained our status as creators."

"Building the Citadel and clearing away the wreckage left behind from the War of the Fallen." Hernandez agrees, "And not living like savages in the concrete desert. All that's fairly obvious even to a layman like me."

"Then we have the Inheritor Societies." Cook continues, "These people lack the creative spark that drives the creators, but they have the technical skill to maintain and use technologies as well as methods of governance left behind for them. The Coalition is a textbook example of an Inheritor Society."

"Well, those rebels are certainly good at using weapons and hiding behind walls built by someone else." Hernandez comments.

"The Coalition maintains their society at the level as of the time of their rebellion." Cook continues, "But without any ability to truly innovate, the Citadel will eventually surpass them and bring those usurpers to justice."

"That day can't come soon enough." Hernandez grunts affirmatively. 

"Finally we have the Parasites." Cook's disapproval is palpable even over the radio, "Neither building nor contributing, all these people do is take. Like their namesakes, they latch on to more productive polities and extract as much benefit as possible for themselves, producing only waste and harmful byproducts in return."

"Just to be clear, we are talking about beast people here?" Hernandez asks. 

"Oh most certainly." Cook sighs dramatically, "In the desert, beast people scavenge the ruins of the old world like vultures and engage in occasional banditry. While in the Citadel, they become thieves and purveyors of vice. Like I said, parasites."

"Beasts are strong though." Hernandez cuts in, "How about putting them to work as militia or Auxilia?"

Cook clucks her tongue disapprovingly, "Subhumans don't make good soldiers. Beast people can't be expected to hold the line unlike steadfast and disciplined humans. I heard some units tried conscripting beast people as Auxilia during the war, but they just couldn't be trained. The beast recruits would keep burning out their deployment rings before the bulwark even deploys."

I nod to myself while taking the dishes to the kitchen for a good scrubbing. All the propaganda aside, that little tit bit of information is true. Beast folk have a high affinity with bulwarks. Almost all females are rated power level A while the males are a very solid C. When the brass found out about this fact during the war, there was a huge push to conscript as many beast people as possible. We would snatch up as many of these clueless sods that we could get our hands on and pack them off to hastily set up training camps. 

The first part of training would be learning to activate the deployment trigger within the deployment ring. You let a small bit of soul energy into the ring and the bulwark's systems would do the rest automatically. But the beast people could not even manage that. They would always short circuit their deployment rings whenever the instructors ordered them to deploy. The entire class would be washed out with a hundred percent failure rate. It was determined that beast people were incompatible with bulwark technology and after the fiasco, the beast folk went back to what they always were. 

Subhumans. 

"So here's the Question." Cook asks rhetorically, "What are we supposed to do with the beast people?"

Thankfully, my phone rings at this moment, giving me the opportunity to switch off the radio and take my attention off reheated, regurgitated propaganda. 

"Olivia Duma speaking." I say.  

"Lieutenant Duma." Highest Scorer Ever rattles back on the other end of the line, "I just got an update from the Militia. The coroner wants to meet you about the deceased citizen."

"Alright. I'll meet you there." I reply but before I can hang up, I hear Holt making an uncomfortable noise. 

"I, uh, take the mass rapid shuttle to get around the Citadel." Holt says hesitantly, "My apartment is on a completely separate line from the Militia's HQ."

"And?" I query, somewhat confused at the tangent Holt has taken the conversation in. 

"It would take me more than an hour to reach the Militia's HQ from where I am now." Holt finally manages to say. 

"Just take a cab." I answer while rolling my eyes, "Write it up as an investigation expense later. I'll sign as confirmation."

With that said, I don't bother waiting for Highest Scorer's reply and hang up straight away. Still need to clean the plates and get dressed before heading out. 

.....

Holt and I stalk into the Milita's HQ and descend into the basement by way of an old freight elevator. The basement is where the medical facilities are located, most likely being buried underground makes it easier to preserve samples. In the name of convenience, the coroner has his office in the basement as well, though he actually is not a full time employee of the Militia. There aren't enough cases going around in the Citadel to warrant the Militia splashing out on a full time post, so they share the coroner with the General Hospital. That means all meetings with the coroner are by appointment only. 

I open the door to the coroner's office and see a man sitting by a desk disinterestedly surfing the Citadel's intranet. The moment Holt and I enter the office however, the coroner pulls himself up to his feet and approaches us with a file tucked under his armpit. 

"Ladies. This way please." the coroner, a middle aged man with wispy hair and a slight beer belly, pulls out a ring of keys from his trouser pocket and unlocks the door to the examination room. We follow the coroner until he leads us to a shelf of refrigerated drawers. Pulling one of the drawers open, a chilled black body bag is presented for our inspection. 

"Body is in there." the coroner says, "We managed to piece together most of the fleshy bits. You want to do an identification now, or later?"

"Don't we have a name already?" I ask, "Why do we need to ID the corpse again?"

The coroner smirks, "We have an ID alright. Laver. There's a problem though. I don't think that this guy is a citizen."

"The database confirmed the deceased as a citizen." Holt frowns, "We have records of his citizen ID and everything."

"That's what we thought as well." the coroner blows at his nose and apologizes, "Sorry about that. The Laver ID is genuine as far as we can tell. Its just that this body is a complete fraud."

"An impersonator?" I hazard a guess. This is good news. If there's no citizen killed, I can just close the file on Kuat and call it a day. 

"Yes and no." the coroner hums, "Once we pieced together the corpse's face, it matches the ID perfectly. The interesting stuff was in the blood work that just came back. It was the reason why I was delayed reporting in to you guys."

I smile knowingly, "Let me guess. The corpse has a different blood type than the actual Laver. We are dealing with an infiltrator who splashed out on plastic surgery."

Yes. Thank the Divines. As promised I will make a big donation to the Cathedral. And strangle Kuat the next time I see him. 

"Even better." the coroner adjusts his trouser belt that's beginning to slip under his belly, "Same blood type, same DNA even. Except our corpse suffers from all kinds of genetic defects that are not present in the actual Laver's records. Not minor stuff either. Heart defects, kidney defects. All guaranteed to be entered as part of Laver's citizenship file."

"That's not possible." Holt protests, "The database can't be wrong. Your lab must have made the mistake."

"Did you check the telomeres?" I ask, my heart beating rapidly. I might have celebrated a bit too soon. Holt stares at me as if I have grown a second head, completely unaware of what the coroner and I are talking about. 

"You know it." the coroner grins, "The corpse's telomeres are half the length they should be at. I think that's pretty conclusive proof."

"Damn it." I mutter while face palming, "I need to report this immediately. This case just got a whole lot more complicated."

"Proof of what?" Holt blurts out, "Can someone tells me what is going on?"

"Premature aging." the coroner nods sagaciously, as if those two words explain everything. Holt just turns to me with pleading eyes, begging for some kind of explanation. 

"Premature aging and genetic defects." I explain to Holt, "It all proves that it wasn't a citizen that was killed. The corpse in that body bag is not even actually human."

"Its an abomination. A clone."