Voss nodded, taking a bite of a glazed donut. "All right, bring him up. Let's get it over with." Kendrick stood up, stretching. He grabbed the keys and walked back to the cells.
He opened the door to cell three. Darius was doing push-ups. One-handed push-ups. He was moving with rhythmic, terrifying precision. He stopped when the door opened, standing up smoothly despite the heat.
"Morning, sunshine," Kendrick sneered. "Judge is ready for you." Darius walked out, hands behind his back. He looked Kendrick in the eye. "Is my uniform ready?"
"It's in the trash bag where it belongs," Kendrick said. "You're going to court in orange."
They brought Darius to the booking area. Sheriff Voss looked him over. He saw the posture, the dead-calm eyes, the physical fitness that was clearly not the product of a gym membership, but of functional, lethal training. A seed of doubt planted itself in Voss's gut.
"What's your name, son?" Voss asked. "Commander Darius Kane, United States Navy," Darius replied. Voss frowned. "Kendrick, you ran his prints, right?"
Kendrick froze. "Uh, the machine was acting up last night, Sheriff. I was going to do it now." Voss's face turned purple. "You put a man in a cell overnight without running his prints?
Are you an idiot?"
"He's a fake, Sheriff. Look at him." "Run them now!" Voss roared. Kendrick sulked over to the scanner.
He grabbed Darius's hand and pressed his fingers onto the glass. The machine beeped, processing the data. They waited.
Then the computer screen flashed red. A siren noise, one that neither Kendrick nor Voss had ever heard before, began to blare from the PC speakers. A large dialogue box popped up on the screen. It didn't show a criminal record. It showed a single flashing message: WARNING: CLASSIFIED IDENTITY.
LEVEL FIVE CLEARANCE. DO NOT DETAIN. CONTACT DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE IMMEDIATELY.
Kendrick stared at the screen, his mouth open. "What the hell is this? A glitch?" Voss shoved Kendrick aside and stared at the monitor. His face went pale.
"That ain't a glitch, Kendrick." Suddenly, the phone on Voss's desk rang, not the public line, but the red emergency line that connected directly to the state police and federal agencies. It had never rung in Voss's years as sheriff.
Voss stared at the phone. He looked at Darius. Darius just tilted his head slightly. "You should answer that, Sheriff." Voss picked up the phone with a trembling hand.
"Sheriff Voss."