[Felix - 8] The Resistance of Memory

This was probably not the smartest idea I'd ever had. I tried to think of which things I'd done that were dumber than this, but I was drawing a blank. Admittedly that was only about 5 years of time to draw from, but in that time I think I acted mostly logically.

I hadn't been able to shake Daphne's interview and questions since it occurred this morning, and after working some other cases on higher priority, I had an idea. Now I was looking at the building where Travis truedied. And by that, I mean I physically went to the spot.

I am not a field investigator. Vanessa and Jason were, and even they usually didn't do this sort of thing. But I was suppose to keep quiet about the investigation, and get more details. So, in my infinite wisdom, I decided that meant I should go and check out the building in meatspace. I requisitioned one of the travel auditing kits. They came in a large metallic tube, maybe 13 centimeters in diameter and nearly a meter tall. It had a carrying handle I used when walking, as that was more comfortable than the weird shoulder sling. I think a package magnet grip would be better, but I guessed since the kit was sensitive they didn't want to use that.

The autocab dropped me off a few buildings away, since there were no traversable paths to the entrance. They were just the narrow winding corridors between the residential buildings. Presumably days before, Travis had walked this same corridor. It was a cluttered area, one that didn't get the same amount of cleaning drones as my sector, and was hubward and low, with little air current to move things. Container boxes piled up outside of brushed metal doors, codelocked to keep people out, but not worth enough to put inside the cramped living environments. These were as close to slums as the sprawl had, to my knowledge.

It was a place where less Corp interaction occurred, so less Federation happened. Most of the people living here were probably transplants from another sprawl who got the short stick, or they were non-corp citizens in need of housing or on long work rotations without Corp backing. Some were non-federation integrants, people from the frags who wanted to be brought back into the fold, but had to fight through bureaucracy first.

Since they were low value and low priority areas, it was little shock that they only had DNA marker scanners active in this area. No imaging devices or disturbance trackers. These trackers weren't even aligned to triangulate, either. It was more for tallying up the people who traversed the area. More like a bare minimum appeasement of some regulation than part of the normal sprawl monitoring systems.

Tracking my own movements from the Autocab to the building helped me assess what sensors would have been seen. After wandering a few of the corridors, I found that there was only one path from the last sensor tagged by Travis to the place of death.

I finally walked into the building and found, as I feared, they had already restored and replaced everything inside. The hidden room had been removed for storage. A cursory scan with the device yielded nothing useful. Some residents passed me and gave me a wary eye, but most ignored me once they saw the investigation badge and equipment. After the initial battery of tests, I packed up the instrument. There was nothing to be found here that wasn't already noted.

But I had another thought. I walked back to where I could hail the autocab, and spent a few minutes tapped into Novost resources scouring for similar floor plans. These fabricated buildings hubward weren't likely to be unique architectures. There may be dozens of this exact same model. At least 3 of them came up as being the same build type, but much like this one, no current floor layout was recorded. I checked if any had minimal sensors, and set my destination as the closest that met my criteria.

~~~

86-12 NNW sector held a dingy apartment block called The Heavenly Greens. Dust and debris cluttered the edges of the walkways and door frames, and there were signs of disrepair on the buildings. This was clearly a worse area than where Travis was meeting, and I decided to start recording my surroundings, in case something unfortunate happened. I'd never found a place of Epsilon sprawl that was disconcerting until stepping into this alley. I'd heard rumors of gangs and other syndicates within the sprawl, but this was the stereotyped area it would be in, if movies meant anything.

Of course, I was also standing here in Novost gear, holding an investigation kit. So I was also hoping I was right. I set my head unit to record what I saw, and tapped into the sensors in the nearby radius. Just DNA and a few movement trackers. At least if a battalion of armed mercenaries descended on me, I'd have a few minutes to react. I found the building shape I was looking for, and used my investigation override to get in the door. It was all audited, but there was at least a 48 hour window before anyone came asking me questions.

My breath caught a little. Ahead of me was a thin corridor, which then turned to go down the main hallway of the unit. Based off this layout, it may still have that service closet behind the wall. I set up the investigation kit, and scanned for the entry pad. I hadn't realized how nervous I would be while I waited to see if this was the same or not. The glasses showed me the progress, and provided the overlay of the foyer and architecture. Initial sensor sweeps were highlighting the walls and frames, then surface penetrating scans swept the room, a soft hum grew from inside the tube, which was now splayed open on a tripod base. Visual queues updated, and I saw the outline of a door, hidden in the wall. My breath caught in my throat. If this was another deal room, there could be something happening right now. I looked about nervously, but the area was empty. It was the middle of first shift for the city, and I guessed most of the people here didn't linger about unless they had to. I changed the scan order and called up thermal imaging next, to see if there were any bodies in the room.

Various service pipes illuminated in the walls and floors, but nothing humanoid appeared in the room. From the scans, it looked like the only thing in the room was a table. Not even chairs to go along with it. Whether it was bravery or curiosity, I'm not sure, but I decided I had to see inside that room. There could be information there invisible to the scans that would shed much needed light on this case. So I called up the scans, pieced together the data, and found a likely spot for the controller interface. Just next to the door outline was a pressure pad, with some key entry system. Thermals showed nothing useful about the pad, so I decided to give in and tap the pad. Nothing happened at first, nothing to show it wasn't just a piece of the wall. I tapped a few more times, and then a faint numeric keypad appeared. Zero through nine, in a 2x5 horizontal grid. There was a large number of permutations if it was a 4 key combination, and even more if it was arbitrary length.

But the good news is that humans are lazy creatures, so I tried the simple patterns.
0-1-2-3-4? Nothing. 5-6-7-8-9? Nothing. 9-8-7-6-5-4... and with a click, the edges of the door revealed themselves and recessed faintly. I cautiously pushed it opened, expecting sirens or explosions, or any number of horrible events. But the door swung noiselessly inward. Not even a pocket door, but a hinged door! A rarity around here.

I folded up the scanner, and stepped into the room, checking the back of the door and found a simple metal rail on the back side that looked to act as the opening mechanism. If I got trapped, at least there was signal and I could call for backup. I'd have to explain how I got in such a ridiculous predicament, but I suspected if I said it was for the PATs all would be forgiven. That was my hope, anyway.

I pushed the door shut, gingerly. Waiting again for explosions or Klaxon horns. When nothing happened, I surveyed the room. It was empty, save for a simple fabricated table. Nothing on the walls of interest, no signs of contraband or illegal items. Just some basic lighting along the ceiling.

No, that's not true, I thought. There was clearly some sound dampening in this room. Something here prevented external sound from bleeding in. I'd guess it was a dampener material in the walls. Maybe the previous report had something about that, but it didn't strike me as familiar. Now I wondered if it was shielded by something. maybe my IR scan was a false readout.

I propped up the field kit again, this time next to the table. I didn't trust the table just yet, so I avoided touching it. I'd let the scan tell me if it was safe or not. After extending the tripod and initiating scans, I found the room was a little less spartan than I thought. The table had embedded electronics, and the walls contained extra sensors and equipment for scrambling external readings. I saw now that the room was warmer than external scans showed, and now everything beyond this room was opaque to me.

I'm starting to think these aren't transaction rooms, but interrogation rooms. I tried my comms, and found that I was still able to reach the outside world. Maybe it required something be activated to get it into full lockdown mode? I checked the handle on the door. It didn't immediately open, and I started to panic. The door shimmered, and a vague outline of the exterior hall appeared. A hunched figured was walking down the corridor, headed for the exit. There was a red light near the handle, where my hand rested. I watched, and after he stepped outside and the door behind him shut, the light went green, and the exterior feed died. The door clicked open smoothly. I checked the hall, found it empty, and shut the door again.

At least now I had an explanation for why these weren't located before. It's not perfect secrecy, but it's a lot more effort than most people would put into units in this area.

I tapped back into the kit, to check it's scans. Nothing in here stood out as specifically dangerous. Even the small implants in the walls were just for deflection and hiding. Nothing analyzed as explosive. I tapped the table, but nothing happened. Unlike the door, it looked like this required some type of near-field authentication. The kit didn't provide anything interesting. It did it's initial scan of the connections but found nothing open. The table was locked. This would be the point where some more specific teams could start to dig in and assess it.

Though this building wasn't Novost property, to my knowledge. So maybe the PATs would have to be the ones to assess and bag it. I folded up the kit, and labeled some of my review of the room. I should probably send it to Daphne now, but I wanted to take it back to my workstation and review it first. See if there was anything of interest before the PAT stepped in and took away my data.

I folded up the gear and had just put my hand on the kit when the door swung open. A gangly man, with subdermal piercings resembling horns above his eyes stepped in. He and I exchanged bewildered looks, assessing each other. While he looked at my Novost uniform, I looked over his pleather bouncer suit, white tie with shifting symbols flowing across it, and dermal tattoos lining his jaw and leading up to the horns, before disappearing beneath his neon purple dreadlocks.

When the shock wore off, his expression darkened, and he twisted his right arm behind his jacked to grab the handle of some weapon. Adrenaline kicked in, and I rushed forward, pinching him in the doorway. It pinned his arm long enough for me to swap my grip on the kit, now wielding it like a club. He pushed the door open, bringing out a deep grey pistol shape, simplistic outer cowling that hid whatever type it was. I cracked the kit into his gun elbow, making him wince. He was already grabbing for my arm with his free hand, and I felt him clamp on to my upper right shoulder.

I replanted my foot, spinning my shoulder away from him which pulled him off balance and over my center of gravity. Using the kit as leverage, I put my other hand at the bottom and pushed across his chest, checking him into the other side of the doorway. This time his head made solid contact with the metal frame, jarring him enough to knock the gun loose. I kicked it away, and dropped just slightly downward before punching him in the kidney. The quick reflex took me out of his recovering grip and attempted bear hug. Sensing an opening, I pushed the kit against the side of his jaw and quickly kneed it from below, sending a sharp impact into the hinge and knocking him out. I dropped his lump body to the ground, breathing heavily.

My enhanced endocrine system providing the energy and adrenaline for me to check the hall for others, pulling up scans of how this guy could have gotten so close without me noticing, when I realized he wasn't appearing on any of the DNA tagging machines either. I scooped up the pistol and pulled the body into the room. This was a untagged person! My adrenaline flood stopped, and I wobbled on my legs, shooting out a hand to grab the wall and steady myself.

There lay a person who knew about these rooms, still alive, if bruised and unconscious, and I had just somehow managed to defeat him in hand-to-hand combat. How did I know how to do that? Was he-I combat trained?

I looked over the gun. I'd never seen one of these before, that I remembered. Aside from some basic training at Novost, weapons were new to me. I looked at the pistol, the unconscious man, and the room.

It was time to call Daphne.

[Felix - 7] The Resistance of Memory

The night after a stimshow, especially a synesthesia one, is hard to recover from. Limbs don't move right, neurons firing randomly, and time doesn't feel like it flows in one direction, or at a consistent speed. By time I mastered enough limb coordination to get out of bed, Vanessa was gone. She might have been called for all I knew. Nothing paged for me though.

I had some impressive chemical compensators inside me, but the stims used in those shows circumvented a lot of them. Guess he wasn't worried about being poisoned. Or hells, maybe he was a stimshow addict, and made sure it would not be affected. Or maybe he'd never even been to a stimshow. If he– If I came from the wastes, maybe I'd never experienced one.

Though I still didn't think I was a wastewalker. I didn't have the tanned skin that was common. Unless that's just the stereotype, or something removed during my rebuild. Maybe more people have normal skin, they probably have some contained cities. I ought to look that up. Or maybe I had and the stims were just affecting me that much right now. It was hard to remember what happened before. I sighed, and started at the blank ceiling. No visual augments were on, so instead of a false sky or unnatural ceiling, I had a drab plastic expanse over my head.

The boring ceiling wasn't the cause of the sigh though. Waking up with slight amnesia after a stimshow was unnerving to me some days. It was like that first time waking up after being reconstructed. Waking up as Felix. And every time I did I wondered if when the memories came back, would even more return? It was an unanswered wish so far. I've walked this mental street before. It hasn't changed, and it's not helping. I needed to snap out of it.

With the PATs stepping in, I was back on routine investigations. Which meant I was also going back the office. I did my normal morning routine, shrugged off the lethargy and cleaned up, then summoned an autocab to take me to work. From my housing unit, it was a 45 minute cab to the Novost Insurance wing. It was just west of the central transit tower. The autocab sped easily through the city. Even in heavy commuter congestion the streamlined transit network optimized routes to ensure nearly perfect transport times. I think the longest commute I'd ever had sent me though the north outer wall line, and only added maybe 7 minutes to my commute time. The traveling salesman would have been pleased, if he still existed.

It was peak times, and I was on a popular line. Instead of a two-seater efficiency cab, I met a multidecker at the stop, with 5 other people there as well. I never looked up their names, but I'd seen them all before. Some had been here since I arrived, and had fairly predictable transit schedules. They were also Novost workers but no one in my department. Occasionally I'd see tall blonde talk with stout grey, and they were cordial, so I assumed they were peers. Close enough to acknowledge but not close enough to befriend. We embarked quickly, guided to designated seats for optimal positioning. Transit was the most efficient tech in the sprawls. It's part of why the federacies functioned. If they hadn't provided infrastructure, we'd probably all be out in the wastes still. 

My normal routine getting to the office was fine, until I approached my workstation. There was an unfamiliar person sitting there. Sometimes they shared out our workspace but this woman was dressed differently. In fact, she didn't even have Novost attire on. And the few others around the cubes were on edge. I guessed she was a PAT.

"Hello Felix" she said, not taking her eyes away from the screen. Now that I was closer, I could see she was wearing overlay contacts too. I had no idea what could be projected on her retinas, so maybe she had camera feeds, or maybe just great senses.

"Hello.. uh.. PAT?" I inquired, unsure how else to reply. She gave me a dry, mirthful smile. She was older than me, maybe late fifties if I had to guess based on normal aging. A little out of shape, based on her sitting posture, but still looked capable of a sprint in a pinch. Her hair was dyed a metallic white, either to hide age or provide false age. Her clothing looked like an older version of the Novost field suit, but with a long skirt and matching leggings, with a fitted top and jacket. The collar of the jacket was thicker than normal, laden with some perception tech was my guess. Maybe that's where the camera feeds came from. 

"Yes, though Daphne is my name. But if you prefer the term, you can just stick with PAT. I'm here regarding your investigation. We have most of the information we need already, but I want to ask you about some of these assessments, and to get your perspective on it." She stood up, with an air of authority, and turned to leave the room. There was some strange note in her voice with the word "perspective," but I couldn't quite sense what. "Follow me, please, so we can have privacy for this debrief."

The back of her coat was the insignia I expected to see at some point, but as a small lapel. Instead, it was the majority of the jacket back, a set of six interlocked hands with ribbon around them, stylized with equations and an outline of the planet. Across the top read "Propagation Adherence Team" with the initial capitals strangely prominent. All the eyes in the room followed her out, including me, trailing like a chastised pet.

Novost had an impressive investigation wing, with some modular rooms that would adapt to however many occupants you needed, within reason. But we passed all those. I had always used those rooms. Even if they were rarely the same shape, they were familiar. Instead we went to the lift, rode up three stories to a floor of never been on before, and I was greeted by a field research wing. Vanessa had never mentioned this, so I'm guessing it didn't get used as much. We would through some hallways, Daphne being tagged for access and approving a visitor. I heard her speak a few times to that end, but I never saw what prompted it.

Finally, we came to a conference room. It was one in a line of four or five, I thought. With a clear glass pane on the door revealing a cozy room inside. Daphne gestured me in, and when she shut the door behind her, the glass frosted over and became opaque. That was the first sign. My data feeds cut off afterwards, a slow whine of white noise spun up until nothing outside the room was perceptible. A tingling feeling swept my skin as a mild electric current was run through the air. If there were any listening devices on me, they were useless now. This was a lot more precaution than I expected.

"Alright Felix, now that it's clean, what do you know of the deceased in this case?" She was more animated in asking than I had seen her so far. The change in demeanor was unexpected, and this isolation room made me suddenly aware of how different this was. What I was afraid would be an interrogation was a discussion, and I didn't know how to react.

"Uh, sorry. What do you mean? You want me to replay my case notes?"

"No, I want your insights into these notes. There were three bodies in an unknown room. This is a fascinating case, and I'm sure you've collected some observations that go beyond the case work. I want to hear your thoughts. I want to see what small details you've thought of. Those are the things that make investigations."

This was not at all what I expected this to go like. The descriptions of PATs I had gotten made me think it was a black bag job. They'd step in an the problem would disappear. But they wanted my feelings? Was this some psychological warfare to see if I was in league with the dead people? That's possible, there were strange connections here with me. Certainly PAT wouldn't pass those up.

"I think they may have been brokering a trade. Meeting in an undocumented room, with what we assume is non-sprawl humans, means it was an unsanctioned trade. But I also think there's something specific to the area, like Travis favored this place or something. If they're non-sprawl, it would be much easier to meet off-sprawl. From the profile of Travis, it seems odd that he would put himself into a dangerous place like this, especially for an illicit trade.

"To what I know if them, this goes for the unions as well, I think they found a way around the DNA markers. Marker tracking was the only thing nearby here, and those two didn't show up. Maybe that's what Travis was selling, and it was a functional display?"

Daphne interjected at that. "Interesting. You mentioned the tracking, but not that it would be a sales tactic. I also saw your request for marker tech. That's classified data, but what were you looking to know?"

That tingling feeling returned. Was this an interrogation now? Daphne sensed my hesitation. She sighed, and adjusted her posture to a more relaxed form, before continuing softly.

"Agent Felix, this is not a meeting for self-incrimination. It is not illegal to query. I am offering that I can approve requests if I deem them relevant to this investigation. We need to know how a kinetically active person was able to get inside of the sprawl. I'm sure you've heard a great deal of whispers about the PATs and what villains we are, but I am just here for the same thing you want: answers. The difference is that my position allows me to open doors yours can't. So work with me here, help me find answers." She looked at me, imploring visually now too.

"Alright. My theory is that Travis had some extensive biotherapy, and was no longer showing up to DNA markers like he used to. I know, I know, I've been told that it's impossible to fake the markers, but I'm thinking there's some other possibility, like providing an alternate set of markers, or notifying the system to ignore certain patterns. We didn't recover any functional marker equipment from the splatters, but if they lacked sequencers, how would they have gotten through the building gates? I think there's something that lets them drop off the grid when desired, which is why I queried."

Daphne leaned back, steepling her fingers, which were well worn by time, bony and wrinkled, looking much older than she did. "Ah. Yes. That is a difficult question. As a primary identity system, asking how to bypass it raises some red flags. This line of inquiry has some strong merit. I also see why you left it out of your report. What else?"

I blinked. 'What else'? I was already surprised she even cared about this much, let alone my other musings. "At this point... well, at this point that was my next step. Without knowing more of the building, the residents, any of that, it's hard to posit much else."

She motioned to me to stand up as she also leaned forward to get up. "Unless you have other thoughts, I want to address this concern about the markers with my team. You should find out whatever else you can about the building and residents, if you think that path will yield anything fruitful. I am not your Lead, so need to work out with Phirenaius what your prioritization is. I will follow up with you in two days to see if you have more for me."

I stood up, trying not to rush, but ready to be out of the room. "I will review my notes and get back to you. And..." I hesitated for a moment,  "maybe this is overstepping, but will you let me know what you find?"

She smiled ruefully, and gave a mirthful snort. "I think you know enough about the PAT reputation to answer that question yourself, agent."

[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.

[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.

[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.

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. 

[Felix - 1] The Resistance of Memory

Today is my second fifth birthday. the five year anniversary of not staying a John Doe in a body bag. Well, I'm still a John Doe, though. I guess if one takes severe head trauma in a fatal event but doesn't die, suffering retrograde amnesia isn't the worst side effect. We have the tech to regenerate virtually every part of me, and you'd never know part of my head was missing save for the regrowth coloring. But I lost something irreplaceable, and knowing it's gone is infuriating.

Glasses clinked together into mine, and I popped back into reality as they finished some cheers. I'm at a bar with some friends after working today. We're celebrating my birthday. No one else calls it a second-fifth like I do in my head, we've decided to leave it at "birthday" so I don't remember. I snorted. Like having a birthday celebration on an arbitrary day isn't going to remind me.

"C'mon Felix! Isslike you're not even drinkin' witus! Your headzoff sommer else, mate!" Jason slurred, clearly pulling down shots of whatever synthohol he had in that glass faster than I was. Though I'd never tell him, turns out the previous me had liver dampeners installed, so no matter what, I was always gonna win.

"Just mellow, Jason, I'm letting it breathe" I drawled, mocking his slow slur, sloshing around the cheap drink in my polymer tumbler. "I need to savor every drop of this top shelf... something." Vanessa grinned, Jason looked puzzled, and Serra and Conrad were too caught up with some flicker-ad in their displays. Probably something Serra was sharing. She's always the net-trawler, finding those viral memes to infect us with.

I took another gulp of the clear whatever I had ordered. At this price, the only real distinction between the chemicals was the coloring agent they added and whatever other flavors you might get it layered with. One of those occasional memories from the past tells me I've had some better alcohol, maybe even legitimately distilled stuff. Maybe that's why I had the filter. I rubbed my temple, where the discolored part started. I really wish I could just get those pieces back.

Well, I guess if I had a duplicate somewhere I may be able to sync the differences. At least among the Federacies they share info as part of their normal population control trades, but apparently whoever I was wasn't from another sprawl. The disaster I suffered head trauma from was an orbital shuttle crashing into Novost Sprawl. The Sprawls are the real cities, what make up the Federacies. Novost NLC owns all the buildings, the majority of the goods, and half the people south of the Epsilon terminus. And since the Novost sprawl is where they found me, Novost now owns me, too.

I'm not a slave, mind you, as that would be illegal per the Federacy Mandates. So clever conglomerates resurrected the old wage slave system and used indenture policies to give us contractual systems by which to work off our cost. Considering I was part of a disaster but not a resident of the sprawl, they got no compensation for my regeneration, and I'm on the hook for the entire bill. In fact, to even leave I'd have to pay 20% of my skull, one way or another. Not a pleasant fact.

"You're going distant on us again, Felix." Vanessa purred in my ear, running a few fingertips across my neck and sending shivers down my spine. "One might almost get the impression you don't want to spend time with us."

I grabbed her wrist with my free hand, pulling it to my mouth to kiss her arm. After the third kiss, I licked it and she yanked her arm away with a disgusted scoff. "What? You wanted me to be more engaged, right?" I grinned mischievously.

"Ugh, yeah, but not like that!" She playfully slapped my arm, then smirked and followed with. "Not yet, at least."

"You keep saying that and I'm gonna take you up on it." I tossed.

"And if he doesn't, I will!" Conrad said, rejoining the conversation. Or well, I was zoned, so maybe he was already part of it.

"OK you bitbodgers, last round is on me, then I need to get to my third shift." Serra sighed, putting her spiked collar back on. "I have to thrum a crowd for the next 4 hours."

"Just take your top off and that'll have 'em all strung." Conrad poked. "See if they can name all your inks." He earned a less-playful slap from Serra. "But don't let 'em see your derms, they might think you're faking more than just the instruments." That got a full punch.

"No drink for you!" She shouted in his ear, sliding the cup away before one of the automated pouring arms came back through. She tapped her thumb to the bar bot when it came for the rest of us, and grabbed a caffeine shot for herself, and downed it in one swift pull, and returning the glass upsidedown to the bar, and pushed off. Conrad frowned, and watched as she sauntered out of the bar to catch an autocab to the broadcast club.

The three of us with drinks returned to them while Conrad sulked. Multicolor liquids swirling in fabricated glasses, mismatched appearances, but did the same job. Felt pretty spot on to me for what we all were. Serra was an emotion thrummer; Conrad an automator for some other club, watching all the automatons to ensure no one tampered; Jason, Vanessa and I were Novost "Insurance Verification Agents" which was a broad term for anyone who made sure the corp never got the short side of the deal.

For me, especially, they found I had some major aptitude with pattern recognition and exception detection, so I became an active case auditor. Like an old detective back when police were a neutral party, before the world got glazed. A bit of me still thinks they just put any rebuild person in this role to show how puny we were compared to the machine that kept our debt.

Conrad cracked the heavy silence in Serra's wake, asking if I had any plans for the night.

"Honestly, I would probably go back home and stream a book or something, if left to my own devices." I was being mostly sincere.

Vanessa scoffed. "Felix. I swear you are the most boring investigator we've ever had. You would think after seeing disasters daily you'd want something to take your mind off it, like something heavier than nursing synthohol."

"Yeah man, sherrsusly." Jason managed to slur. Conrad propped an arm under him.

"I'm off shift tonight, and apart from tossing Jason's wasted form into his own autocab, I think we should catch a stimshow. Get you totally out of your head –" Vanessa laughed, and Conrad glared back. "– before you fall so deep you don't come back. I don't wanna have to adrenal you if I don't have to. That happens at clubs enough these days."

"Fret not, Conrad. You don't need to adrenal me." I straightened up and dropped into a recited phrase. 

"I am of sound mind and body, unhindered by any intoxicants detrimental to my well-being or of my surroundings." I grinned, dropping the façade. "I just don't like stimshows after drinking. Let's do tomorrow night instead."

We closed our tabs, vacated the bar and stepped into the illuminated street. LED lights flickered harshly from every window. Ads assaulted us from every near field display. Dismissing the notifications was such a chore most people removed their displays or coded up some silencer app. To which the marketers just made bypasses. The endless war of marketing. Us Novost agents were required to keep displays up at all time.

Just as we rounded the corner to get to the rails, Vanessa and I received urgent pings. Jason, now passed out on Conrad's shoulder, would have if his tox level were lower. Or if it were really bad, may have adrenaled him. Though, I don't know if Jason was the sort of agent with an adrenal tap. I know I was. Perks of the job.

Vanessa and I exchanged glances, and called a different rail cab. Time to go to work.