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.
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.
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.
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.
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