[Felix - 6] The Resistance of Memory

"Congratulations Felix, you've struck uranium." Phirenaius said, as soon as I opened the line. His words, always with a little weight, were obvious to me after all the jobs with him. It was effectively 'good job, bitbodger, you found something that may get you killed if you're not careful.'

"Yeah, I just saw the notice. So one of our splatters is kinetic. Well, was. You think that may be what flash ignited? Maybe he detonated the other guy and used too much?"

Phirenaius cringed a little, and pinched his nose. "This is one of those things you don't quite grasp, nube. Kinetics are banned. Meaning that not only was something strange happening here, but one of the few actual ordinances of Novost, of Epsilon... Hells, of the burning Federacies actually require is no Kinetics. It's the only addendum to the Propagation Treaty!"

Now that one I knew was important. The Propagation Treaty was the foundation of the Federacies. It outlines the ordinances that keeps all the Federacies linked, ensures the ports and railyards connect, and keeps our sprawl unified. Take that away, and Novost would be no different than a fragmented settlement in the wilds. The Propagation Treaty kept certain experiments from being repeated, most specifically anything pertaining to the Glazing. If there was even a risk of another hypercritical event, it was banned. It was designed to keep some structured civilization around on our new horror-formed Earth.

But I had no idea that Kinetics fell under that treaty. From what little I read of it, most kinetics had either so little sensitivity to ambient energy that it never manifested, and if it did, they usually ended up killing themselves. Not intentionally, I'm sure, but if you don't know how to wield ambient energy and quantum forces, there's a very high chance you'll kill yourself before you ever get to learn. So, yeah, most of them died.

Phirenaius continued. "Kinetics are feared because they're instability is classified as potentially hypercritical in the addendum. Which means that all large population centers are terrified that one of these time bomb humans will detonate and glaze them and everyone they've cared about before they know what happened. So when I tell you that you need to stop your work on this investigation, as much as you want to argue, you should instead agree and take a break while further investigation is done by the teams allocated to that work."

My mouth had already opened to argue when I processed his response. I shut my mouth, and tried to work through it a bit more. This whole classification of kinetics as possible hypercriticals seemed like a big jump. From what little understanding I had, it was more like they acted like an energy vacuum than an energy eruption. But since most of the data had been classified and restricted on them, the only data available was part of the untrusted noise of the data vaults. The rants of conspiracy theorists, propaganda from the frags, Markov chain history generations, and some eyewitness accounts added up to a lot of conflicting and untrustworthy information. About the only reliable data I could suss from it was that the kinetic traits appeared during the twenty years following the glazing. So something in that rearrangement of the planet ecosystem opened up this new mutation for humans.

Taking my contemplative silence for assent, Phirenaius elaborated. "There is a protocol for reacting to indications of kinetic traits present inside of the sprawl, and we will defer to the organization that handles that. If they contact you for information, you are to yield data to them as requested, and comply with their needs. Understood?"

"Understood, sir. I will stand down unless requested." Begrudgingly.

Checking the clock, it was growing close to when I needed to meet with Vanessa, and now I was shelved while some new group took over. I certainly didn't want to be sidelined, but until something changed, there wasn't much I could do. Plus the prospect of impressing Vanessa by getting to the restaurant early was inviting.

~~~

Sitting inside of NuRaMin was a visual assault I was unprepared for. The trend with noodle bars had mostly been to approximate traditional settings as closely as possible, fabbing old materials and archaic lighting elements. But this place rejected the premise, and seemed to be trying it's best to duplicate a stimshow. Flickering neon elements were recessed behind metallic shapes all across the room. The tables were extruded metallic mushrooms with iridescent highlights. Near-field projections added non-augmented flair to the already exciting room. Automated arms transferred meals from a kitchen to the tables, depositing them into geometric nightmares that vaguely resembled bowls. Vanessa was more intrigued by the explosions of colors and shapes happening here, but we were both a bit overwhelmed by the ambiance.

"So you are shelved for now." Vanessa recapped, mulling it over while idly twisting noodles onto her chopsticks as though she were knitting.

"Yeah." I sighed, taking a sip of my synthohol. This sweet one was chilled and milky, something to accompany the meal. "As soon as it flagged for the DNA match, I was pulled, and I guess they've handed it over to this new group."

"I've only been on one investigation where that happened." Vanessa offered. "It was strange. They're called Propagation Adherence Teams, and aren't even part of the corp. Thom in my division had worked with them before, and referred to them as 'PATs.' I suspect they're all funded by some transit pool or something, but they definitely act like they own the place. The group I worked work wasn't even based out of Epsilon. They were from Gamma I think? I don't remember. They waltzed in, reviewed all materials, and then in 36 hours they handed it back to us."

"Wow. Was that also a kinetic incident?"

Vanessa shivered. "No, thankfully. It was just for a science experiment. Someone was running an illegal energy shop on the east edge of town. Mostly using it for powering illicit tech and some stim generators, but we found a microcollider there, which triggered an immediate call to the PATs. I'd rather deal with a machine than a human any day."

Again, the same worried reaction Phirenaius had when Kinetics came up. "What is it about kinetics that panics people so much around here?" I ventured.

Vanessa stared at me, wide eyed, like I'd just suggested we try and procreate in the middle of the noodle bar. She started to reply with something caustic, but I think realized that I was in fact born yesterday. "Sorry, it's hard to remember sometimes that... well, you didn't grow up here. Kinetics are the monsters under the bed here. We grew up with the threat that someone may spontaneously combust, turning us to glass if we weren't careful and didn't take precautions. I now realize it was a technique the sprawl used to have peer pressure ensure all people were treated and genetically tagged, but it's hard to get past that ingrained panic when I hear the term."

"So what happened when someone was found?"

"Well, honestly, it never happened for me. I can't think of any instance where the markers came back and they were kinetically active. New people would get marked, and were labeled safe, so everything was fine. This is the first instance I've even heard of it. and I suspect you aren't suppose to tell anyone."

Well, she was probably right on that part. I wasn't given explicit orders not to talk about the results, but I had to find out what the big deal was, and Vanessa was someone who I could trust. Though, maybe a crowded noodle bar was not the right place. I picked up another bunch of noodles while that thought lingered.

Alright, so, if I were sidelined, I could go back to other work. I could also poke more at the side issue of what brought Travis back to Epsilon, or what he was doing in the intervening years. But that also seemed a little too close to the investigation. Maybe it was best to take the break and revisit it once the PATs were done. Hopefully it would be a short delay.

"Changing subjects because we should," Vanessa started, "I think we should do that stimshow tonight. You're shelved, I'm free, and you've blown it off for days. Plus Conrad's working tonight at one of the synesthesia clubs. It'll be good."

I wanted to have a reason not to. But honestly, I couldn't think of any good points. I just had this nagging, longing that maybe something about me would tumble loose if I worked on the case more. But Vanessa grabbed my hand on the table, and between her smile and the hand, I couldn't think of anywhere I'd rather be than by her side for the night. Wherever that may take us.

[Karlos - 2] Open Sesame

I walked out into the garden. It was tiered, a few decimeters in height separated the grass slabs. Whatever engineered grass it was seemed fully content to grow along whatever surface it was adhered to, making for strange walls of manicured grass. ShinKyo didn't skimp on this park. It was lavish, as far as parks went. I had never seen an open park this well maintained. Most of the sprawl parks were concrete or other high durability solids, designed for basic meeting space or synthetic plant life. Real agriculture took time and infrastructure their didn't want to spend. A fairly well kept woman in her late years stood leaning on a cane in the middle of the large grass expanse before me. At the edges of the area bodyguards circled. They were indistinguishable in their riot gear, the masks and large build making it hard to differentiate. I then realized they were also wearing active camouflage ripplesuits. So I couldn't place genders even if I cared. But I didn't. I was more preoccupied by the woman. She was obviously my “Anon” contact. And this meant she was not concerned with recognition right now. Moreover, she picked a very popular park for this meeting. It was to make sure I was completely off balance. No comfort, no position to bargain, just at her mercy. It was brilliant, though I didn't appreciate being the trapped one.

Of course, were I truly trapped there would be no way I would walk in placidly, like I just did. On my way, I contacted Hyathi, who I’ve run with a few times, who could surveil for me while I traveled across the sprawl. Hyathi was good, maybe the best delver I’d ever worked with. They could pull off miracles in minutes, and seemed to always be tapped into city infrastructure. Honestly, I had never met them, it could be a team of people for all I knew. They always spoke like a collective, ungendered, and in terse phrases. If I were superstitious, I’d almost believe the stories that Hyathi was an AI, but I’m not that much of a sucker, contrary to the current situation.

So on the way over, I had Hyathi pull all the feeds from the area. I saw this woman arrive, my new “Anon” who I am pretty sure from digital biometrics and environmental readings was not comfortable with this, but I didn't know why. Yet. Hyathi was still running the DNA markers on Carolyn Aduu, to find out why she was involved in this. If they were going to use my sprawl name, then I was going to use hers. It was mostly to regain some bargaining power. Hyathi gave me great information on this meeting, but there was no way to know what this meeting was about.

I stepped up to her. I’d put my mask back on, a black vulpine motif with red contour lines running from the chin up. My now proper outfit was a tough gray tailcoat, with red trim, and a black pair of sleek trousers with concealed pockets. My boots, top of the line style with every traction option you could imagine, left virtually no imprint in the grass, despite my mass. I wasn’t fat, but I was tall, and stood 38 centimeters above my contact. The boots however worked to redistribute all of the force through modular connectors at the base of the shoes, allowing it to form and distribute against most surfaces, even adhering to some materials. I enjoyed being like a ghost as I approached her. I was still nothing like the active camo bruisers around me though, probably wielding percussion weapons too. She maintained the appearance of calmness, though biometrics showed elevation in heart rate. We were a meter apart now. The park empty save us, but no guarantee who was watching.

“Though I could call you Carol, I would prefer we stick to you being Anon and me being Canisaureus. If you cannot abide, then we should end this contract now.” Like it ought to have ended, I glowered under my mask. Voice modulation controlled my output, removing as many identifiable traits as I could.

“Certainly, Canisaureus. I wouldn’t want to be seen as careless.” The accented voice was surprising, but the rhyming of ‘careless’ echoed my name ‘Karlos’ enough to drive home the point. ‘You having information doesn’t remove our control.’ But I did make it more even.

“The purpose of this meeting is that you've passed the first trial, and we need your expertise for a more pressing matter.” She said, and I was still unable to place the accent. It was another thing that made this whole scenario weird. Accents were rare. There was enough common communication between sprawls that it just didn't vary much anymore. Wastelanders and fraggers would sometimes speak with some slang or accent, but that was rare. This was almost like a generational gap, like she hadn't kept up with the transitions. I made a note to try and place the speech with my recording later. “Consider it as an interview to ensure you had the skills needed. We are now hiring you to track down a different shipment, inside the Sprawl.”

She started walking north from the park, heading northwest. She used the cane to walk, favoring her left leg. I assumed it was part of the theater happening here. No way she wasn't rich enough to afford reconstruction if it were a legitimate injury. I stayed motionless as she started walking, as did the guards. Finally she turned and motioned me to follow. “Reactions like that are why we want you, specifically. I'm sure you've been studying the park too, based off the countermeasures we had on the park surveillance. However it was done was clever, we have no other traces of it, but we know it was accessed. It shows creativity. We'll talk more when we arrive elsewhere.”

She was still walking with the same limp, so even with her seemingly hurried pace, the rest of us were gliding slowly behind her. Guessing from the park design and schematics of the surroundings, I think we were walking towards a larger structure where transit vehicles were stored when out of service. Most of it was automated, so it was an idea place to have a private talk, or to dump a body. Hopefully it wasn't my body they planned to dump. The guards cycled positions, alternating where they were and how they crossed over. They were very tactical, and clearly well trained. I'd venture this was a group that went to the frags, so maybe that was her accent.

The stepped grass gave way to sloped greens, then to flat concrete with a few hedge boxes. Finally it spilled out into the normal digitally-augmented streets. Demarcation guides noted it was safe to cross, as no traffic was routing through here currently. Optimization probably ignored this path when possible, given the routes it connected. I tried pinging Hyathi for schematics of the lot and cameras, but I suspect they picked up that they were tagged. I had a small packed file, which decompressed into a basic map of a few possible buildings and some listening reverse shells. Looks like Hyathi planned ahead and didn't leave me high and dry, but didn't want to keep a line open while I was being monitored.

My Anon stepped up to a flat edge of the support structure. It was fused metal panels, but small notches in the side indicated a maintenance panel. She pressed her left hand to the deeper indentation. Faint light traces occurred in the panel, then the outline of a doorway appeared. The metal door recessed and slid into the wall. Interior lights flicked on, diodes flaring to life and casting a bluish light into the half-sterile room, which abruptly opened into a larger mechanical maw. A complex array of mechanical limbs lay motionless under the half-spilled light. As the first of the guards stepped in ahead of Anon, they fanned out into the open space. Lights bloomed in step with them, always casting illumination as they walked, giving more visibility to the immediate machines and giving hazy shape to hundreds more. I followed in, and we stepped between repair arms and diagnostic probes, around large vehicles in various states, to come to an empty working bay. The large open space was probably 12 meters on each side. The slab floor had divots for equipment, and permanent stains from.various mechanical materials and fluids, though none obviously blood.

Anon went glassy-eyed for a moment, likely giving or receiving commands. Once satisfied with the answer her vision returned tk the lrwn, and she manifest an identifier on the cloth on her arm. “I have critical and confidential information to share with you, and I want you to accept the connection, Canisaureus” Good. She was following protocols now.

“Accepted.” I said as I let my visual AugR interpreter run the sequence and establish connection. Now that the digital handshake was accomplished,. She spoke directly to my channel. She obviously had some good derms, because I saw no obvious uplinks, and yet she was in full language transmission mode without moving any of her body. Again, weird.

“Our client has selected you based off your resoursefulness and the unique importance of this mission. The previous assignment was a test, and an information gathering session. You are our preferred candidate, which is why we are offering you the job, with… certain incentives.”

“Selling my Sprawl name to people who I've crossed before, you mean.” her eyes narrowed, the only indicator that I was taking to her and no someone puppeting the connection.

“it is leverage and insurance, yes.  You will be reimbursed well for your work, but there is equal consequence if you fail.”

“So what could possibly be so important you were going to such great lengths that this was a reasonable course of action in hiring a runner?”

She tapped her cane with her finger, and a blueprint file appeared in our channel. Upon opening it, I was greeted by schematics for something nearly incomprehensible. She guided me to a specific focal area, now more obviously a map of some topographical feature. Based off the data, I'd wager SK was bankrolling this whole thing, but obviously nothing provable. At first I thought it was some subsection of our sprawl, but I’d never seen those strange curving tubes before. They dominated much of the structures, like vines grown around a pillar in some greco-roman fantasy building. But they weren’t just growing, they were distributed. There was mathematical precision to the layout. As Anon guided the display, I finally grasped a sense of the scale, and yet again on this nightmarish day my stomach knotted itself.

Anon must have caught the change. “Ah. So now you recognise the schematics, do you? Now does it make sense why I didn’t establish the normal broker chain? I dare not let any third parties in on this plan. Even their neutrality may be questioned on this sort of job.”

I tried to remain calm. It took all my strength not to put my head in my hands while trying to wrap my brain around this task.

“Can you continue?” The Anon prodded, looking at me in the same dull fashion she did when I first arrived, like she hadn’t just proposed the impossible to me. “As you’ve not rejected the plan yet, I will continue.”

She zoomed more in, showing what now I realized was a long, fat building, maybe 20 meters square on the front, and nearly 100 meters long. Several tubes terminated in the top of it, and latticework cables fanned out from the terminators into various sockets on the building. Several faint cutouts on the building were then highlighted.

“What we are hiring you to do is to find a way to infiltrate those panels. Whether you use a surveillance drone, affix something to the normal couriers, or do it yourself is inconsequential to us. If you can get even a glimpse inside, we will reward you handsomely. And if you can get us a data uplink inside it… well, I assure you that credit will never be a problem for you again.”

That promise snapped me out of the fear. Unlimited credit? If it were SK on the role, it may only apply to this sprawl, but even that is a rather tall promise, and one not to be lightly dismissed. But this, this was the impossible. This was the stuff of rumors, whispered legend. Unsubstantiated lore told of runners who made it inside, finding abandoned cities of wealth, or computing clusters beyond comprehension. They described it like fantasy castles of old, protected by mechanical dragons, wielding biomechanical magic. But when faced with remarkably detailed blueprints, well, maybe it was time for me to try my hand as stealing treasure.

“Well…” I cleared my throat. “Well, if we’re going to break into an Arcology, you’ll need to give me a lot more than a blueprint.”

[Felix - 5] The Resistance of Memory

“You've got quite the setup here, Felix.” Vanessa purred over the music. Snapping me out from my focus, I flinched and shuddered strong enough to slosh coffee on my hand. I looked around, worried my reverie had been in the office, but I was still at home, except somehow Vanessa slipped into the apartment, wearing full work garb. Probably easy to do over the music I'd been blaring. Complex synthesized chord progressions helped me focus on these kinds of problems. It helped me get into the mindset of too many concurrent things.

I muted the music and willed the ripplesuit to clean off my hand. She stepped back and looked around the room, amused. "You do recall ACL’ing me here, right? When you hadn't been in the office for a while I got worried. And then you missed the stimshow you suggested we go to last night." She turned back to me, with a frown now. "You've also been ignoring your display."

When I noticed her eyeing the screens, I blanked them all. She was even more shocked at that, looking to me with questioning, indignant eyes. I preempted the next question. 

"Before you ask, just think about under what circumstances I would not be in the office, I would be hiding theoretical case files from you, and would be unable to discuss what was happening, if that were what I was doing." She paused at that, pulling her hands back to her side.

"I understand," she said slowly, meaningfully, "and I hope you are able to work at the office again soon. If you're not too busy with... things, we should do dinner tonight." Her eyes flitted towards the bed. "Or perhaps just meet elsewhere."

I stood up, leaving the treacherous coffee at rest. This was something Phirenaius hinted at, was that it may cause strain. Whether he knew Vanessa was a friend or an occasional bedfellow, I'm not sure. But seeing the hurt in her eyes when I had to hide something, that started to make me realize just what I had signed up for.

"That sounds great, Vanessa. I'd love to do that. You give me a time and I will meet you there. Or maybe we can meet at your place, if you're so inclined. But for now, I have to... " I trailed off, at a loss for words.

"Yes, I can see you're busy. I'll see you tonight at local 7. We'll go to the new noodle bar." She nodded, then turned to leave. It was a formal tone. I knew the tone, she was annoyed that I was hiding things, but she also picked up that I couldn't say anything. At least her being familiar with our policies she understood why I couldn't. But I know that feeling. I've been on the other side, and it's frustrating.

After she left, I set a timer for an hour before or meeting time, to make sure I broke away and prepared for a meal out. Noodle bars were popular this cycle. Several new food locales switched to it and provided some spectrum of crafted foods. Some specialized in long, thin kinds in a salty broth, and others in heavy thick sheets in a variety of sauces and toppings. This one advertised plenty of odd shapes and custom cooking. I think she chose it just because it wasn't Novost-owned. Independent restaurateurs still started up from time to time, sometimes franchised from a bigger group, other times just a new Sprawl denizen trying to make a living outside of the Novost control. Besides trendy, I think it was high value this round for nutrition scores. Vanessa had been scoring well on her meals lately.

Pulling back up the work screens, I felt a bit guilty. I was looking at this case primarily from how I could learn about me. It's why I sank so many hours and nights into it. But the primary objective was to find out why Travis died now, not five years ago. Vanessa gave me a wake-up call, which was probably her intention. She was also a good investigator, after all. Not answering my messages and such a few days after getting called in, from a party I was distant at? She made the right call.

I cleared my digital workspace, and pulled up the relevant notes from the current case. Travis has been reported dead, along with some unknown number of other people, in the polar south of the city. There were only scattered body fragments left, which was gruesome in its own right, but I had to review it. Preliminary ballistics calculated it was around 12 cubic centimeters of a high-grade chemical explosive. It was enough to carbonize most materials in close proximity, and the rest were charred remnants. From the bio screen we isolated at least two other DNA patterns.

But this is where things get weird. The area where it was found was an unallocated maintenance corridor in a dense residential sector. Most schematics of the area show it as utility space, but it didn't have the normal piping or conduits expected for it. It was also suppose to be walled, and there were no apparent indicators that the previous walls has been removed recently. It looked like the whole corridor has been rebuilt to act as a meeting space. The blast ripped through the walls around the center, blistering out into adjacent units. There was one other bystander who had a limb mangled by it, but he was full resident and was having his leg regenerated. For pain management, they induced a comatose state, and he'd be out for at least 36 hours. So he wouldn't be of help for an interview until then.

The blast pattern and carbon makes it look like the explosive detonated between two of the people, Travis and one of the others. The third was nearby, but not as close. Based off the spread, looks like it was a targeted charge. I queued up some additional blast pattern calculations to see what shape the charge may have been, maybe give a better understanding of what was happening. But there was only so much I could learn from a blast, especially in an effectively sterile room, so I needed to expand the scope.

I tried to pull all the local monitoring segments, see if I could re-create the pedestrian traffic. It was a tight residential corridor, no autocab traffic directly to it, and only winding service halls leading to it. The building wasn't even freestanding anymore, from the densification of the adjacent shops and housing. Most walls were connected, or reinforcing each other. I opened a few of the maintenance notifications for these, but a handful out of thousands wouldn't tell me much. And there wasn't any easily indexable materials on them for this building alone, so I'd need some other pivot point.

Bio scanners were frequent in the area, but none of them were tied to cameras or geotags, so apart from a general vicinity, I had no idea who went where. Taking all of the scanners within a 4 block radius yielded 4,682 distinct genetic markers over the 24 hour window surrounding the detonation, which at least included the hour prior to the detonation when Travis arrived. Still too much volume, and apart from spot checks, I'd need something better to refine it with. I'd filter tenants, but maybe they did live there. It would explain how they knew the corridor was available. But still, that seemed tenuous.

I leaned back in my chair, stretching my hands above my head, getting all sorts of pops from joints. "Huh." I looked at my hands blocking the ceiling, something felt like it was at the edge of reach. "There were no other marker hits for the two other strands."

Genetic markers were odd, they weren't a full genomic sequences, but just a few base pairs that are distinct enough to tag a person. These get categorized and mapped, like a serial number for humans, and stored in the respective federated databank. It was sort of like a hash, collisions were possible, but unlikely. Lots of DNA was repeated sequences, but those didn't make sufficient markers, so the markers were just the distinct portions. Travis was tagged from the remnants found, and reviewing the scanners found the marker presence. 

So maybe the problem was not that they weren't on record, though that was part of it, but that they weren't even marked. Markers were an active thing on a person. They mapped to a system, but they still had to have some physical representation. These two may have blocked their markers, or never even had them. I queried to see where the common marker injection points were for humans in Novost, and other Feds. Hands and shoulders looked like the predictable spots. I requested what they communicated with, but that was flagged as sensitive and Phirenaius would have to approve access. Maybe this is what he meant when the medical results were odd.

In the mean time, if something were blocking more than just theirs, there should be a noticeable dip in the scanner results during that window. I kicked off another job to populate each scanner with active markers by 10 second intervals to see what patterns would emerge. Outliers could be quickly calculated, but those were still prone to error. Math was exact, people weren't.

I stood up and stretched while several screens monitored progress. Usually these were blazingly fast operations, but sometimes they needed to fetch archived data, or go through approval chains. I think those chains were intentionally delayed, but I couldn't prove it. Or wouldn't, since it gave time for a bit of pacing and another cup of coffee, and a quick meal. While the fabbing box prepared a nutrient bar for me, this one flavored and textured like a beef steak and mild cheese wrapped in a pastry, I paced the room.

Vanessa's comment about my setup made me contemplate it again. The room was modest. I didn't find much in the way of furniture to adorn it, but I had plenty of shelves littered with objects. Some from past investigations, others trinkets from parties and trips around Novost. Little things to remind me of events that I remembered. But there was one shelf, on the other side of the room, that held items from the other Felix, or whoever. Those were pieces I had momentary recognition of, where something called to me from it, some cross amnesia synesthesia. Food was my primary trigger, pulling in smells and tastes from something I couldn't place. This steak and cheese thing was one of them. It didn't count for many dietary points, and Im sure Vanessa would criticize me for it, but it felt good. Those liquors did too, but I didn't need that right now.

Some data trickled in, showing me more strange results. But one bit of interest was that there was a noticeable gap where the number of active markers dipped. This was a usable pattern. I expanded the field of search for other intervals with a noticeable drop, to see if I could get some associated camera spots or other trackers. Now that I knew there was some way the bio scanners were being avoided, there was something to work with. Dense housing like this lacked most other visual processors, so proximity scanners were the common solution. It also meant if someone found a way to defeat, or at least mask those, then picking a meeting spot where the scanners could be blinded made for an idea locale.

I added some annotations to the case file. This gave strong evidence that the room was used for unsanctioned trades within the Epsilon Sprawl. In the middle of typing some theories and pulling financial transaction records for Travis to try and correlate things, a new query returned, with a high priority notice. The DNA for the other two humans showed neither were marked, as I suspected, but that one was kinetically-active. That just changed things dramatically, and before I could even review it, Phirenaius was already trying to contact me.

Knight to C6

The room was just a giant steel box. All the tables were fabbed plates, carefully rounded edges, resilient but safe. The bar was different. It dominated the back wall, improvised materials welded together to make a contiguous half wall. The man behind the bar was fit, stocking vials, decanters, and bottles of hundreds of colors. Each affixed with a chip he spun forward. Any augmented vision could conjure up detail from just that label. The man had long greying facial hair, and a vague thin wisp of hair near the temples before it gave way to his bald head. A pair of smoked glasses rested in front of his eyes, like they should obscure vision but he acted unhindered. His outfit showed technology, environmental compensators and health regulators, but some spots were torn and patched with other materials.

The other patrons around the bar were covered, most of them head to toe, in varying degrees of in tact  environmental gear. Most had masks or helmets that completely obscured their heads and faces. The vials the bartender served up had some connector affixed to it that let them interface into the array of helmets. Most had straws or angled for gravity, but some advanced ones used other technology to draw the liquid out into the wearer's body. The mismatched masks, some vaguely human shaped, others geometric or animalian, combined with different hued liquids from attached vials made for a strange scene. Conversations were rare here, as most of the figures would be tapped into digital feeds, conversing with people around the globe and ignoring those seated just a meter away.

The room was part of a waypoint, a refueling place in the frags, where people needed to stop and get liquids or supplies before heading onward. Yincent, the barkeep, had been manning this outpost for a while. His shop was some 120 kiloms from the closest federated outpost, a small waystation on the maglev lines used for barter. Certainly some of the better vehicles could get to the waystation quickly, but he had never gone. His mother had run the bar prior to him, and he grown into the role. He had also grown up around the travelers, used to their need for privacy. Occasionally someone would travel with form-fitting clothes and you could discern a sex, but that was rare. He and most of the staff at the waypoint made a game out of it. Now he was more preoccupied with determining where on the globe they may have come from based on their ways of phrasing orders, if they even spoke. They used synthesized voices if they had to, modulated in ever changing patterns to deter listeners from figuring out who they were. Most favored digital displays at their tables or other automated systems provided by the waypoint, and Yincent would get a little notification on his smoked glass about the new customer and order. As soon as the order was placed and drink proffered, they sat in silence, motionless when possible. Yincent adapted to it, now well acquainted with the quiet, and he focused on keeping the vials ordered chromatically and straight. It made him feel better when they were neatly arranged.

The airlock on the far side of the bar cycled. It connected the upper level of the waypoint to the bar. A new patron stepped in, decked out in layers of cloth and armor. All of it was tattered and mended, like a patchwork quilt that made Yincent's look fairly well maintained. The amalgamated outfit was billowy, providing lots of storage spots. His mask was just a facial one, locking into some parts of his mantle. It was a cleanroom white, all geometric angles that made a rough face shape. But across the eyes and bridge of the nose were just a solid blue stripe. It was a deep blue, almost metallic. The colors of the mask didn't match anything else on him. Slung over one shoulder was a giant drab black rucksack, over a meter in length and covered in straps and locks. Usually that would be of sufficient note as most travelers left their bags in their transports. But then there were his metallic gauntlets. As he walked towards the bar, he flexed his fingers and the metal uncoupled, pulled away from his fingers like a ghost leaving a corpse, and folded into metal cuffs further up the arms. What they revealed were worn, tanned hands covered in concentric circle tattoos. The rings and shapes were overlapping in spots, and looked like they may have been dermtech. Some of the other patrons seemed to turn at this, seeing skin being an unexpected surprise. He approached the bar, waved over Yincent, and asked though a less modulated voice than Yincent was expecting for "One hydration, one Yeoman's whiskey. In glasses."

The rest who hadn't looked now turned to look. Yincent could guess some of the thoughts: "Glasses?No connector? How is he going to drink from a glass? How is he going to pay for a glass of Yeoman's? Who does he represent?" Yincent suspected some even thought about tailing the newcomer out of the waypoint to see what other valuables he might have on him.

Then the stranger reached up to his mask, and several small locking pins unscrewed automatically, letting the mask pull away from the face. The inside was a latticework of sensors and connectors, and underneath the polished veneer of the mask there were layers of circuitry and couplings. He put the mask down to rest on the bar, facing it so it made eye contact with him, a face now protruding from the bar.  His own face was pale, but worn. Metal connectors protruded from the skin, anchored to bones. Metallic contact points on traced skin. But here too were some dermal tattoo implants. A few more circles, and then the eyes. Dermal traces ran on the corners of the eye, and the irises had telltale signs of tampering. They were a flat blue color. Not the normal speckled texture, but a dull blue circle around a hollow black pupil, likely augmented. No facial hair, even his eyebrows were gone. Whether it was radiation or the replaced body, it was hard to tell. Derm tats mimicked eyebrows, and two heavy anchor bolts obscuring the rest.

Yincent placed the two mismatched glasses down, poured the larger one full of a slightly cloudy liquid, which was the hydration mixture used for wastewalkers. He knew that term, "hydration" meant someone had just be traveling a far distance and needed to replenish more than just h2o in their body. The stuff had some long technical name when you fabbed it, but those who knew it called it "hydration." The strangers chapped lips parted for a contented sigh, and he brought the water to his mouth while Yincent turned to grab the whiskey. This was a rare vial, front and center in the display. He'd only seen it ordered a few times, but always taken to go. Yeoman's was a trade whiskey. It meant it wasn't fabbed here, like the hydration, or any other synthohol that most people drank. It meant someone spent time distilling this stuff. And for that, it fetched a heavy premium. He grabbed a small vial, affixed a drain top, and poured it into the glass.

By time Yincent poured the remainder in the glass, the stranger put his first down, now empty, and waited as Yincent passed the tumbler over, moving it well clear of the mask. The man tapped the empty glass, noting a refill, while he picked up the whiskey like a precious gem and inspected it with his dull eyes. The glass clouded slightly, his circular tattoos dancing where they touched.

Most of the room had now lost interest. It was weird, but it was of no gain to them to stare. Two seemed to take this as an omen to leave. They unhooked their drinks, transferred credits, and left. One had a vulpine mask, and the other a smooth helmet. No obvious trade signs, so maybe independent, Yincent speculated. Or just cautious. He shrugged, and went around to get the discarded vials. 

As Yincent came back around to the bar, the stranger held out a hand. He cleared his throat, trying to regain his voice. "You.. uh... you see lots of transit here lately?" He asked. Curiosity kindled in the bar again.

Yincent paused, thinking. "Nothing unusual. More west transit, out towards Dennen."

"Have you seen another person with glyph... uh.. circle tattoos?" A few others turned back to the conversation. This was information. Everyone wanted information.

"No one has, uh, displayed any I've seen." He paused, then added. "Sir." It seemed right. A faint smile creased the chapped lips of the stranger. He coughed out a dusty laugh.

"Oh, 'sir' huh? I guess... well, I guess that's how life progresses." He nursed his whiskey, drinking some more hydration as well. Blissful silence returned to Yincent, even if there was this still this stranger at the bar. If not for an unmasked person, it may have been a normal day.  The stranger put down the now empty whiskey glass, and made motion to leave.

"How much do I owe for the drinks?"

"2750, standard. I can calculate for other currencies too, we take pretty much anything." Yincent replied. Resuming his normal bartender voice.

"Huh. Well, in that case..." The stranger trailed off, and held his hand palm-down a few centimeters off the counter. Yincent was about to tell him the finger readers were to the left of where he had his hand, when the pockets on his arm started to wiggle. The sealed flaps opened, and tiny threads of metal streamed from them. Under his splayed hand, the thin wires wrapped themselves together into a cylinder of pure metal, and from the color and tint, it looked like copper. After the threats finished, he grabbed it with two fingers and a thumb, and flipped it up to Yincent. The room was dead silent. At this point, people stopped and turned. No attempts at masking the intrigue. The stranger just extruded a pure metal as payment. This placed him in a very small category of people. A very dangerous category of people. Yincent froze.

"It's copper. Refined to pure, approximately 1.2 kilos. Should be equivalent, plus conversion fee." He said, matter of fact. Yincent stared, still unsure what to do. Pure copper was indeed valuable, but he'd never tried to convert it before. presumably it could be done, and likely with conversion fee. He'd have to ask someone else in the waypoint to assess it and trade it up. Raw materials like copper were very rare, but it was sometimes trivial for Kinetics to make it, which is what he suspected this man was. A shiver shot down Yincent's spine. If he was uncomfortable before, realizing this guy probably was kinetic made everything worse. And with that though, the pit in his stomach deepened, and he realized he didn't care if the copper were worth it, he just wanted the stranger to leave.

"Yea- yeah... Yes. Yes, this is sufficient payment. Thank you and have a good day." Yincent replied, willing himself to remain composed.

"Right. Well." The stranger muttered, and picked up his mask. Putting it back on, the studs re-attached and sealed, thin lights reigniting as he stood. He re-donned his gloves, pulled his giant rucksack up to his shoulders, and turned to leave the bar. Everyone stayed locked in place until he left. Shoulders relaxed once he outer airlock door shut, most notably on Yincent.

After a few minutes and taking care of a few customers in silence, Yincent pulled his own mask out from under the bar, grabbed his jacket, and walked to the supply door. He donned the mask, opened a open channel for the patrons, and left a simple message for them to check, then switched the bar into lockdown, sliding safely panels between the half-height bar and ceiling, separating the guests from the drinks. The translucent material had a notice running across it that the proprietor was temporarily unavailable, and would be back as soon as possible. He called a secondary on the station to come down and take over the bar for a bit, and stepped out into the supply hall, fully clad, and decided to have a stimpack to forget about anything he could.

[Felix - 4] The Resistance of Memory

The ship, a sleek matte grey arrowhead with recessed engine ports all along its form, streaked out from the night sky. Retro thrust aglow, with faint blue-white fire flaring close to the point. It's descent was slowing as it neared the monolith. The black tower loomed in the fading light. Adorned with twinkling lights, it stood upright amid a low rolling landscape. It was the central transit hub for the city. The lights were docking platforms and hangars, guides and control modules. Each important, but just a piece of the dazzling structure. The ship slowed, but not enough. It lazily crashed into a docking bay on the monolith and blossomed into smoke.

Then time stopped, it reformed from the smoke and fire and jettisoned backwards, before it cycled again. Every time it pulled back, there was something different. A new person stuck to the front, or strapped to the adjustable wings. People I didn't recognize, then Vanessa, then Conrad, then Travis, then someone else I couldn't place, but she was tall and old, weathered in a way I hadn't seen before. In my gut, something told me she was from the wastes. Then it paused, and I realized she wasn't strapped to it, but was holding on to the ship.

Then the ship was buried in sand. It was the glass desert, harsh and reflective, ozone hole pouring in lethal cosmic rays. It hurt to stand by the damaged ship, now looming large over me. The old woman was there, her dark skin chapped by the harsh, dry wind. Permanent creases in her face from glaring and frowning. She was holding out a helmet to me, or some sort of head cover. She may have had a similar one, it looked like she did before, but she was definitely handing me someone else's. Her clothing was strange. It was real hide, not just synthetics like the stuff I wore. The clothing on me recoiled from her reach, trying to stretch away from the proffered helmet. My left hand was paused, reaching out, but not quite sure what to do. I tried to make it move, either towards or away, but it wouldn't budge. My clothing came alive, pulling away from the left arm like molting skin, and flailing up into my face. My panic started as I feared the clothing was really going to strangle me this time.

I shot awake, norepinephrine compensators pushing a slight dose into my blood, detecting the heightened state as part of a nightmare. That was another thing my past self added, Endocrine modulators, which tapped into part of the neural framework and could counteract instinctual reactions. Having my body naturally compensate for a bad dream was an incredible perk. Though with my proclivity towards dreams, I wonder if it added to the problem, or that was why he added them. Well, I added them, I guess. I sighed, I was probably never going to get past referring to the pre-crash version of me as "him."

Getting up, I walked back to the display walls. Suspended in the screen was the same arrowhead ship from my dream, though this one was bulkier, better defined, and traced with records of parts and trajectories. The monolith was pretty much the same looming central tower of Novost Sprawl as in my dream. Though my version of the accident didn't include dream specters adorning the prow.

I'd been working on recreating this disaster from what records I could find for years. I never really told anyone at work, but I'm sure they all suspected. I'd query related data when I had down time, I even visited a records vault where they kept some physical evidence in case future material analysis was needed. In that time, I was able to piece together some interesting details about the passengers and crew of GT-022-9A3QL. The 022-series inter-atmospheric shuttles were common transports, but not for large volumes, usually more climate sensitive things, such as people or plants. The hangar was booked for inter-sprawl travel, but the 022 was the ship of record. But now that I had this case, I had access to new Novost records that were inaccessible prior. now I could almost place Travis in that ship, wondering if he was steering or just sleeping.

The most interesting things I found from it were partial manifests and crews. There were 7 people accounted for, like Travis, who I ruled out as being me. The other names and designations were difficult to work with. There wasn't any directly linked data, and even tenuous connections had already been made previously and dismissed. There were at least 3 passengers from the frags. and based off incidental evidence, all records presume I was as well. But I at least must have been fairly well off, as I didn't have any telltale signs of organic decomposition. Usually fraggers show all sorts of degenerative diseases, being exposed to cosmic radiation, as well as the less hospitable atmosphere.

A chime went off in my ear. Subtle, but noticeable. Put my display gear back on, overlay recalibrating for my vision, and augmented panels shimmered back into place. The chime linked to the corner of my eye, a notice from Novost:

+ Felix

# Phirenaius

$ < new case data available

It was simple. That's usually how the notifications from Phirenaius usually went. It was the default text of a notice. He didn't add any additional details. I wonder if that's just his way of getting me to message him directly. Before I contacted him, I ought to have a shower. I put the display back down on the table.

I went to the bathroom portion, a sterilized laminate room with bathroom fixtures. The ripplesuit was convenient, but I didn't want to shower with it, so it retracted to a minimal undergarment, and loosened the binding to take it off. The minimal shape and binding were in case it failed. No one liked standing naked someplace if it failed. Heh, well, most people dont, I should say. I slipped the ripplesuit off, dropped it in a quick cleaner while I grabbed a showerhead and stepped into a fast flow of water. Reclamation ports in the ground collected the excess, and sent it off to whatever destination it had for returning to the system. The shower was smart, it cycled the water temperature, reading my impulses for desires, adding cleansers and scanning for harmful materials. It checked the reclamation water for any other contaminates and gave me a clear bill of health. 

I remembered in that rushing water when I first discovered all the subdermal implants I had. Some were damaged or only partially restored, but I still carried a few meatsinks in my back. From the restoration, my health checks after the shower always took a bit, because the non-human parts of me caused the system problems. Maybe remnants from the previous me, maybe just it couldn't calibrate for derms. Sometimes I found myself prodding a few medal nodules on my body, wondering if there were still pieces there the doctors didn't catch. Previous me spent a good amount of credit on body mods, and I doubt all of them would show up. The endocrine modulators were ones they didn't catch, so who knows what else I had.

A rush of air from the ceiling knocked most of the water off, then a set of soft absorptive towels were present, already at my body temperature, for me to finish with. I swapped the towel I used for my now clean ripplesuit, and put it back on. It stretched and crawled across me, wrapping limbs and forming into my preferred jumpsuit as I left the bathroom.

The humidity lingered in the air as I stepped out, then ambient sensors picked up, cycled the air, and dried it again. I picked up my display, and made sure I looked reasonably awake. A coffee was brewed from the synthetic dispenser while I checked, machine learning picking up the obvious next steps. A circular dietary cake formed as well, hints of steam trailing from it. The flavor was supposedly a butter pastry. But I don't know anyone who told me that had consumed real butter or pastries to verify. But it was nice, warm, and went well with the coffee. It wasn't like that came fro real coffee beans, so what did I care.

After call handshakes occurred, I was connected to Phirenaius. He looked his usual self: composed, tired, and a little bored. He gave me a quick once-over.

"Felix. You spent all night reading the case." It wasn't a question. It was a statement of fact. Phirenaius could have pulled my activity logs to figure that out. But he was an analyst, and had been for years, I'm sure he pulled that just from sight.

"Yeah. I did. What's the data?" 

"This just gets weirder. It's a dossier from GT. It's pretty much all noise, but I found a few bits of interest. Particularly the medical records."

With Phirenaius, "interest" may mean the digital equivalent of a smoking gun. He was terse, but if he said anything, it typically proved worthwhile to check. I saw the files begin transferring over. There was substantially more than I expected. Not particularly relevant to how Travis died, but it was a lot more data from GT than I think I had ever received from a separate corp in the few years I had done this job.

"So now data suddenly exists? How convenient! Now that we're investigating it I'm sure it ties everything together nicely."

Phirenaius laughed his dry, rasping laugh. "I've taught you well, kid. But you've got your work cut out for you now. This isn't just noise. I think they gave you disinformation. I think this is getting buried, and they want us to find the easy answer." He paused a moment. "What do you derive from this?"

I paused. There was weight to that last part. I recognized it, and he knew it when he said it. "Uh, I'm not sure yet, let me look at the files." I muttered, and ended the connection.

For now the second time this day, I slumped into my chair, and conjured up some synthohol. "Derive" was not exactly code, but it usually meant something bigger lay just below the surface. And taking in a few details of what he did and did not say, I was going to need a drink.

[Felix - 3] The Resistance of Memory

I slumped down into my chair, exhausted, but finally home. I hadn't slept in far too long. I'd worked two shifts with a brief birthday reprieve followed by the surprise document from Phirenaius.  I wish I had slept before cracking open the case file, instead of peering into it on the ride back. Instead of succumbing to exhaustion, I let curiosity reign and peered into pandora's box. My display gave me some file titles on the ride back, and the moment the first dates and names came up, I realized my mistake, and why Phirenaius was so hesitant to assign me.

The case file was tied to my rebirth, the shuttle crash in Novost, where my half-dead self was found. I exhaled again, massaging the knots in my neck. It was approaching midday, but I was seriously contemplating generating some synthohol. I knew I ought to sleep, as I massaged the right side of my neck, as it connected above the shoulder blade, that was the worst spot when I was stressed. I could feel the stiffness in my jaw too, from clenching my teeth while focusing.

Now that I was home, I could really read through the documents on my full wallscreens. There were no windows in my unit, so it made it an ideal spot for secondary investigations. The studio unit had partitions that could be rearranged, but I liked the open area, aside from one corner dedicated to a bathroom, those walls could stay. I stayed slumped in my chair while my inner monologue warred, reasons to walk across the jumbled room and crash into my bed, and reasons to turn on all the data processors and start work on this case now, before anything might have a chance to slip away.

I drummed the table with my fingers, tapping out rhythms of songs I heard, pieces from the club or something I streamed while working. All of it blurred together, one song starting from the lull in another, vague note similarities building new mashups of music. My head shifted, and the longer finger tap triggered a menu in my display. Prompts for commands for my apartment. I hovered for a heartbeat, and then selected the wallscreens to power on.

Before me on the wall was a new grid. Replacing the bland paint colors prior, this was a thrumming screen ready for action. My display was integrated to all this, it tapped into my storage, my screens, my gestures, and my thoughts. Flicking my hand up, I opened my case files, pulled this new one, and then swiped over to another filestore. In this one, I had three unnamed files. I opened the first one, queued up all of its notes, and started to work.

Spreading across the walls were articles, notes about the crash of five years prior, and my own notes of the event The sparse bits allocated to me from the Travis file were augmented by my own research. I took my normal collage of articles and started to add in these new pieces. Details of medical reports, flight paths, impact zones, transcripts, and eyewitness reports were anchored. Paused video captures helped recreate a three-dimensional model of the wreck in motion, and calculated trajectories to better understand where things behaved as expected and where they failed. Speculative theories listed, blue traces of what they would mean or alter.

I had to set aside some reports that were either intentionally wrong or erroneous. It's part of why investigators like me were in such high demand. Our interconnected systems allowed for an overabundance of information, and not everyone wanted to provide accurate accounts. Sussing out the truth from the noise was part of my job. And probably why this was sent to me.

I reread the purpose of the investigation: "Determine why Travis Araxamundi was truekilled while in Novost. Is this related to previous travel incidents incurred? Does this indicate a trade infraction?" It was so simple, so bland in its statement. A man was murdered, or destroyed, so completely that we couldn't regenerate him under the laws. He has twice been involved in lethal events in Novost, at near the same time of solar position five years apart. That event five years hence is what made me, well, the Felix part of me. 

I couldn't help but be drawn to recreating the whole event, especially since I'd been doing it off record since I was let out of rehabilitation. Playing it out like I were a giant observing Novost transit tower be bombarded by a wayward transport. The actual investigation was about a death, surprisingly enough, but the death of a passenger in the ship. Travis was in record, and enough of him was left that he was recreated and sent back on his way to Gennessey-Tachyoma Sprawl.

Maybe it was jealousy. Here was a person who was more injured than I was, but he had his backups on file with Gennessey-Tachyoma corporations, the joint owners of Rho terminal and federacy, almost clear across the globe from us, at the edge of the glass desert. Not exactly common trade neighbors, but it being the Rho station, it was a travel hub and trade between Epsilon and Rho was to be expected. So why did this guy, dead again 5 years later, get to have his memories when I was still fumbling in the darkness to piece together my old self? And then he goes off and dies! The nerve of some people.

I mentally nudged a command to fab some synthohol into a nigh-indestructible plastic mug I had under the spigot. Made it something tolerable, a good malty flavoring that lingered. I wanted something noticeable on the tongue and nose. I also liked this because it conjured up some memories from the past, some taste association. It felt helpful with this new case.

I looked through the data for Travis' witness accounts or useful data. Expecting to see a note as to whether he was revived, what his last brain snapshot was, etc. There was nothing. That was surprising. Actually, no, that was shocking. I took a long draw of the drink. Travis was full dead now, they didn't have enough left of his cognitive process to rebuild, and they weren't going to try resurrecting him from a clone. That has notoriously low success rates, even if it weren't banned for all practical purposes.

But no data? Usually we suffered from an abundance of data. We usually had overwhelming, conflicting, distracting amounts of data. But this? Nothing? Nothing meant something. And it was a Something that Travis, the undeserving memory-having corpse, was truedead over. That was a mystery worth solving in its own right, and I had the added incentive to learn about what they were doing with a transport that I was onboard.

I took another drink, plunking the mug down on a table afterwards and queued up some new data processing commands. I blinked a few times, trying to pull everything back into focus and failing miserably. Eyeing the clocks, I took note of just how long it had been since I slept, and decided to sleep while the digital work compensated for my weak organs. Pulling myself to my feet, I shuffled across the room to my bed, still elevated from the recessed floor section when I woke up yesterday. Spindly threads running through the single sheet had worked it back into a neatly folded position, like some octopus. I'd watched it once, do its little dance from disheveled heap to neatly laid, and it honestly made me shudder. Thankfully none of it has enough force to choke me in my sleep, but irrational fears like that are hard to be dissuaded of.

My clothing retreated as I flopped onto the bed. The ripplesuit I was wearing was like the bedding, just more customized and adjustable, and slid back into a minimal garmet suitable for sleeping. The bed recoiled and dampened the movement of me dropping in. The thin sheet easily pulled over me, no automated tendrils fighting my movements. Another feature of it was temperature control, as it was cheaper to perform microclimate changes on the sheet than to the whole apartment. The bed sunk towards the floor once I was settled, lights dimming, and leaving me in a half-awake stupor as I tried to get my brain distracted enough to sleep.

[Karlos - 1] A Domino

Everyone thinks the rain will stop after a cataclysm. That's not true at all. Rain happens, it's just not something you want to experience. You don't know what chemicals might linger in it. We run purifiers constantly before consuming water, air purifiers to ensure we aren't killing ourselves faster each breath, and rad shielding to help compensate for the ozone we lost. Rain is harsh now. It's dangerous, but it stirs up memories of previous eras.

I stood on the nJuku walking bridge. It sat atop the mag-lev yard, one of the massive rail yards to aggregate intra-sprawl travel. Aggregator station nJuku was massive. It followed in the pattern of stations before it. An amalgamation of shops, floors, tech advanced growing skyward and old cruft crushed underneath.

Harsh LEDs shine down from each building. Illuminated signs, plexi-holo displays refracted and hovering to maximize visibility. If I were to call up my AugR, out would have thousands of solicitations from everything in broadcast radius. And probably some ignoring spec and broadcasting further.

But for now, I tried to ignore the electric onslaught and see the night sky. It was deep grey clouds, reflecting the brilliance of the city, and heavy, hard rain pelting the unshielded surfaces. The atmosphere dispersal field above the bridge kept me mostly dry, creating a moist wind as rain was shunted to the sides or outright vaporized. My habwear filtered the air before I inhaled, but my skin got the mist. Some biomonitors were giving me reminders that the moisture content couldn't be verified, but if I had cared, I could have had a full habwear cover. Even in the cold night, it was nice to feel something like what old generations knew. Lovers in the rain. Broken hearts soaked, singing under umbrellas, clinging close to stay warm. Conspiracies played out in shadows with dead drops under benches. Memetics people knew as 3 second clips, summaries who lost most of their power, distilled into simple catchphrases.

I shut my eyes, wiped the moisture away before it stung, and sighed deeply, my breath condensing with the cold air and stirring up curling foggy eddies in the moisture. Usually  I'd wear a face mask, but for this job, it would ruin the appearance.

Flexing my right hand, I summoned up my AugR. All those ads were suppressed, the lights dimmed as my overlay highlights the bridge, the structure, details about the dispersal layer. Important notifications were easily accessible, and I called up the latest intel. I guess waxing poetic about clandestine meetings in rain was ironic, considering that's exactly what I was here to do. In 119.27 seconds and counting, a supply train would pass under this bridge. The insides of it were inconsequential to me, the job didn't call for that. All the job called for was for me to affix a tracker to the right car. The details were sparse. They always were with these jobs. But I had a microtracker, an air-guide, and a decent vantage point of the rail yard.

You would think if it were sensitive, they may run additional security or lock down the bridge. But let's assess it: There's a dispersal field between me and the rain, a train traveling near the speed of sound which probably won't stop at this station, and its own likely host of dispersals to mitigate rain affecting the operation of the train.

So why, with all of these factors, would I be here? Well, I'm glad you asked, internal narrative. The reason is that our microtracker implant is about the size of crystallized salt. Or, under heavy rain, the particulate size of rain passing through a dispersal field. Now the complicated part, which my expertise was called for, was the rain trajectory and the location. Dispersal fields cover the railways as they approach stations. And either fully walled protective sections or active defenses covered the rest. But this little path was a short bump that was accessible by people and not subject to the active defenses. And when the train passed underneath, a falling object embedded in liquid tumbling out of a carelessly knocked over cup on a pedestrian footbridge while someone fumbled through pulling on a jacket in the rain was not an interesting event. One that wouldn't even register on the transit notes any more than stray debris on the platforms would.

And that is why the little second counter told me when to set my open glass of beer on the handrail, after taking a swig. A swig that transferred some backwash with the tracking device into it. And gave me a timer for struggling to pull a folding jacket from my pack, then turn idly in a wide arc as other pedestrians made sure to hug the other side. Any cameras just watching the drunk would be no more interested in me later than they would the brooding figure on the other side of the bridge. In some ways, he's probably more interesting than me. On the second spin, I fished my first hand out of the sleeve, and tried to throw my second arm in. The off-balance arc of the coat tipped the glass, and my slowed reactions made me knock the glass off instead. The slow fall downward looked like it would nail the magnetic center line, if uninhibited.

A rippling motion started away from the station, growing closer than was easy to follow with the naked eye. I only had some warning of it from the countdown, and a vague estimate the AugR tried to overlay. The matte gray train roared under the bridge, the sound hitting just as it crossed underneath, and was gone. It was only a few cars long. The cup was nowhere to be found. I sighed again, mumbling about the beer, and stumbled off down the path.

Replaying the fall, in slow motion, I watched the cup fall right into the path of the train, intercepting the roof of the first car. Eagerly, I waited for the chime from the buyer after uploading the vid. A few seconds later, the sound came, with a single word: “Online.” I smiled, and that smile grew when I saw the bank account reflect a successful mission.

My smile waned a bit when I heard a second chime in my AugR. The same account from which "online" came responded with "new job for Karlos" and a location tag. That wiped my smile away completely.

In the 12 years I'd been running jobs like these for less than upstanding individuals, neither asking questions nor giving answers, once the credits went through, the job was done. The Anon who tasked me disappeared, the accounts all burned, I'd know nothing of who they were or how to contact them, and I may get their next job without ever knowing I did the last one. That was the deal. It protected them, and in some ways, it protected us. I should have been just as opaque to the buyer. An obscure identifier, with some notes of expertise, and nothing more. The Anons would contact Gateway, make a request for what they wanted, Gateway would assign some of us the job, establish the terms, all that contract stuff except it was all technically illegal inside the federates, but unlikely a corp would ever care. If we actually crossed them, then their internal teams would clean us out.

So in all this wonderful anonymous, discrete task world, it was terrifying in a way to receive a request for a follow-up task, but more so that they used my sprawl name. I had no idea how they found it out, but it was clear they used it to tell me I needed to be there, or there would be consequences. This was not how it was suppose to go.

Felix - 2] The Resistance of Memory

I stepped off the glass conveyor to our investigation offices. Vanessa worked with another team so we had already split. Her team did more interaction work, while my division was primarily postmortem oriented. The irony of the work is not lost on me.

The offices were well polished, clean and neatly rounded edges everywhere, like everything was carved out of one solid block of aluminum or plastic. It looks like a fire could go through here, burning us all, and they'd just have to hose down the room to put it back to normal. Not sure why I always jump to the worst, but I couldn't shake that image. The half-tables people worked at were covered with displays, showing various outputs of charges, events, locations, or whatever was relevant to the investigation at hand. That so many people were already in the office, I figured I got pinged because we were short staffed and they needed some eyes on it quick. Usually that meant monetary fraud. Money was primarily the important thing to Novost. Corpses were pretty low down, unless it was someone like me and qualified as an investment. Nothing like the cold analytical valuation that a company provides to give you that warm and fuzzy feeling.

I hadn't had time to change since the bar with the others, but my ripplesuit had already swapped from leisure to business apparel. My uniform white with gray trim, and name stenciled along the back and shoulders, like a walking advertisement. I'm surprised we didn't have other logos swimming across us beyond Novost's. But I wasn't a field agent, so maybe they did. At least Vanessa's was the same as mine, and she went out occasionally to assess. Maybe it just displayed when she was out on business.

Approaching my desk, my display synced up with the terminals, bringing everything into my augmented view. Seamless displayed now wrapped around me, some controlled by my nerve endings, other by physical gestures on my hands. I poured through the digital file which provided the latest on this case. Case adJjche45Hn. The unique identifier was some hash of the initial investigation and some other important identifiers they chose to store, and tagged with an obscenely-long creation timestamp. Logging for everything, I suppose. It does make my job easier.

Case "adjective," which was now my shorthand for the identifier, was as I suspected related to money. It seems there had been several identical charges against the same billing account from several locations at nearly the same time. Likely trying to exploit some race condition by hitting local transaction clusters in hopes it would be passed successfully before it was caught. Well, they were half right. We caught it after it succeeded. Now the question was if this was intentional or accidental.

Pulling up everything I could from the account used and the destinations, as well as the transactional systems it interacted with, I put together a quick timeline of the events. It showed nearly concurrent requests, but with a few oddities. Digging further in, they were nearly identical save for a few odd fields, which may have been tampered with. I requested additional resources for comparing related transactions, and even to nanoseconds everything else was uniform aside from these requests.

I grinned, and stretched my arms. This was the part of the job I loved. Time to figure out the motivations and the cause. See what the person hoped to gain from this transaction and where they all exfiled to. The first tier accounts were usually pointers to some other bank, that were dropped as soon as the credits cleared.

A few hours later and after some rounds of information requisition, I had a good fix on the terminus account and who was behind the attempt. It was well structured, and the suspect was former finance worker for Novost, before accepting a new role with ShinKyo, a megacorp bank in a different federacy. Considering the heavy trading between nJuku and Novost, I would hate to be him when the enforcement teams come knocking. I closed and locked the case file, hashed with my identifier and submitted "adjective" for review and enforcement, then powered down my workstation. First shift was about to start, but I'd worked nearly all of third shift, and needed a break. They could adrenal me if they really needed me back, but for now, I was going to crash hard after a very long day.

Dragging my tired self back to the glass conveyor, Phirenaius intersected me. He was the manager for our department, and my overseer. "Felix. A word." He was terse, with a faint hint of displeasure. In some, that may be concerning, but I'd grown numb to Phirenaius' tone. He was a hulking mass of human, who somehow looked like he was flexing and bored at the same time. His jaw was wide, atop a thick neck, like someone made a caricature of a body-builder. He squeezed his shoulders through his narrow doorway to his half-office, and little divider panels slid in place over the frames, sealing us in.

"Yes, sir?" It always helped to give difference to Phirenaius. He may be here to tell me I'm totally debt free, or that I was to be executed. His bored face was inscrutable.

"Felix. Good work on the case just now. I know you need sleep, so I'll keep this short. You've done great work since joining, but it's mostly been single-instance investigations. I have a lower priority task that could use your expertise, but I feel you ought to know a bit more about the situation before you accept it."

Huh. This was new. I've never been asked my opinion about a case before. In the almost 5 years I've been working here, I have just been assigned work to do, and either critiqued afterwards or commended on a good job. Sometimes I'd get new access, sometimes I'd get collaborative investigators. But never in that time have I ever had a choice. This was... well, strange.

"Uh, sir, I'm unsure what to say. I guess give me the information and I'll see whether I can handle the task."

He sighed, and pushed his hefty frame up from the table. "It's not a matter of handling the task, Felix. It's managing yourself during the investigation. Even reviewing the material requires your NDA. No one can know you've read this, nor that you're working on it. Even Jason and Vanessa." I blinked. I was surprised he even knew I interacted with other people. "I know it sounds ominous, but I want to put the severity forward first. You should know how thorough we are in case it leaks." He gestured with his knuckles to the other investigators outside the walls. "So. Do you want to open it?" He swiped the terminal desk open, a thumbprint signature box rotated around to me with all the legally binding information first. I had no sense of the depth of the files, but one thing stuck out to me from my reconstructive report. I could see it in my head, as fresh as the terminal view, as my thumb hovered above the box.

Subject Novost_Unknown_5096_jjKeRnn7djfhna8o
Mental assessment of subject:

• Shows high cognitive prowess and pattern recognition, recommended for investigation work.
• High proclivity towards curiosity and questioning, likely unable to resist puzzles or riddles.