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CHAPTER NINE



The counter-grav tube from the Gentle Rain Hotel in Petal Four deposited Isaac and Susan on the circumference of a wide, circular plaza. The thin, green core of Pistil Tower sprouted from its center and ballooned outward as it rose. Dozens of spindly, paler supports arched upward from the plaza’s edge to meet it overhead, and sunlight shone through the transparent gaps between them.

A polished expanse of prog-steel stylized as crimson stonework stretched out before them, veined with clear platforms built over pathways for flowing water. The area bustled with foot traffic as guests partook of the many shops, restaurants, and entertainment venues ringing the Pistil Plaza.

Isaac and Susan followed navigational arrows to a dark gray, many-leveled structure pressed into the plaza’s outer wall below the glowing virtual letters “CFPD.” A waterfall next to the station produced a soft mist that kissed and cooled their skins as they approached.

They walked in and stepped up to one of the waiting desk sergeants, an abstract uniformed woman with a blue-skinned avatar and golden glowing eyes.

“Hello, Sergeant,” Isaac began. “We’re looking for Specialist Nina Cho.”

“Detective Cho and Agent Cantrell, I presume?”

“That’d be us.”

“Specialist Cho arrived a few minutes ago. She’s in waiting room 105.” A blue pulsing trail appeared, leading into the station. “Just back and around the corner. Can’t miss it.”

“Thank you.”

They followed the guide arrows inside, turned a corner, and stepped through the opening prog-steel door. Nina reclined in a chair with her boots propped up on the table and three separate screens hovering around her. She swiped the screens closed and sat up when they entered.

“Hey, Nina.” Isaac dropped into one of the chairs with a sigh.

“Hey, yourself. How’d the interviews go?”

“They went,” he sighed. “Nothing unusual so far. Just a love triangle that may or may not be relevant. How about you? Got anything good for us?”

“Cephalie brought these.”

A spherical drone slightly larger than Nina’s head floated up into view beside her. Its outer shell resembled a silver lidless eyeball, encapsulating its internal systems within fast-reacting prog-steel.

“Hey, kiddos.” Cephalie’s avatar appeared atop the drone and waved at them daintily.

“My new LENS.” Isaac nodded. “Good to have one again. Thanks, Cephalie.”

“No problem.”

“Anything for me?” Susan asked.

“Why, as a matter of fact…” Nina reached down beside her chair and retrieved a huge pistol and magazine belt. She placed them on the table and slid them over to Susan. “One anti-synthoid hand cannon and accessories for the lady.”

“Nice!”

“How about you?” Isaac asked. “Find anything?”

“Maybe. Probably.” Nina transmitted copies of her report, which all four of them opened. “This is a preliminary version, mind you. No complaining to Raviv about how I haven’t dotted my t’s or cross my i’s.”

“Don’t you have that backwards?”

“I know what I said.”

“You sure about that?”

“I’ll clean it up later, but this should get you moving in the right direction.” She expanded the first table. “Okay, let’s start with the printer and the surrounding area. Tons of different DNA all over the place.” She shrugged. “No surprise there. It’s a hotel. Still, I ran it through the criminal database and got a few hits. Some people with minor offenses in their history. Nothing that stands out to me, but I’ve attached the full list anyway.”

Isaac opened the file and skimmed down the names. Wong Fei’s name wasn’t on the list, but his synthoid wouldn’t show up in a DNA search.

“Thanks,” he said. “Always worth a check.”

“Right. Moving on to the printer itself, I sifted through its infostructure and found remnants of malicious code. You can find the breakdown in tab two.”

Isaac expanded the tab, and technical data unfolded in his virtual sight.

“I can’t be a hundred percent sure,” Nina cautioned, “but I think we’re looking at a common piece of prankware.”

“Prankware?” Susan asked.

“A program people use to disable the limits on a printer,” Cephalie explained, “in order to produce something it normally wouldn’t, such as an obscene shape or disgusting flavors.”

“We’re not talking about strict, secure settings to begin with,” Nina added. “After all, sometimes a guy really wants his birthday cake shaped like a pair of boobies, you know? It doesn’t take much to open up a food printer’s limits, even in a legit manner.”

“Then this prankware,” Susan asked, “disabled certain limits on the printer and allowed it to produce the head?”

“That’s what I suspect happened, yes. Also, if I’m right, the hacked pattern was queued up in such a way that it replaced whatever was ordered next.”

“Why aren’t you sure it’s prankware?” Isaac asked.

“Because I can’t confirm when the printer was infected,” Nina admitted. “There’s a chance I’m looking at junk code from an older, unreported incident. I checked with LSP to see if they had any related complaints from the hotel or its guests for this suite, but I didn’t turn up anything. Ergo, that leaves us with either an unreported incident or the severed head. I can’t be certain, but my Esteem’s on the severed head.”

“Makes sense to me,” Isaac said. “What about an infection vector?”

“That’s where it gets tricky,” Nina said. “The printer, a DynaFood model Delta-7, isn’t doing us any favors. Lots of high-end features, as you’d expect from a hotel in the Crimson Flower, but these models have security holes from here to Saturn. Anyone who was within the printer’s command range could have hacked it.”

“How far is its command range?” Susan asked.

“Typically, it’ll be limited to the hotel suite,” Isaac said.

“Which this one is,” Nina confirmed.

“What about someone standing in the doorway?” Susan asked. “Like when Lacan and Sako were arguing.”

“That would work, too,” Nina said.

“Could the hack have originated from an Admin wearable?” Isaac asked.

“I don’t see why not. If they can order food at the printer, they can hack it, provided they have a copy of the prankware.”

“Doesn’t sound like it’d be hard for someone to get ahold of, either,” Susan noted.

“Correct,” Nina affirmed with a nod.

“Which means the threat could have been sent by anyone in the suite recently,” Isaac sighed. “Players, security agents, hotel staff, previous guests, you name it.”

“Sorry.” Nina shrugged her arms in a genuine apology. “I wish I had something more solid for you.”

“At least it gives us a starting point,” Isaac said. “I’ll take it.”

“What about the head itself?” Susan asked.

“Nothing remarkable about it,” Nina said. “Just customized food from a food printer. Colored meat inside an edible waxy skin. Sugar strands for hair. Syrup with food coloring for blood. It’s all perfectly edible, if unappetizing.”

Isaac cringed. “You didn’t taste it, did you?”

“No way!” Nina shooed the idea aside. “Come on! I’m a professional!”

“Right.”

“Got one more thing to add.” Cephalie’s avatar walked to the center of the table and pushed her glasses up the bridge of her nose. “I received feedback from the Ministry of Transportation.”

“And?”

“Nezha’s been on Earth for the past month.”

“Then that’s one name we can check off the list.” Isaac turned to Susan. “I think we have our next stop.”

“Which is?” Susan asked.

“Whoever sent the message was in the room recently. Let’s go have a chat with Pérez. He should be able to provide us with a list of people who’ve been in the suite since his security took over.”

* * *

“Susan?” Isaac asked as they crossed the Admin hangar, heading toward the Cutlass transport docked under the chronoport’s delta wing. Cephalie guided the LENS a few paces behind them.

“Yes?”

“What’s your opinion of Pérez?”

“I’d trust him with my life. We kept each other safe on plenty of missions together. Also”—she leaned toward him and spoke softer—“he may not look it, but he’s a big softy at heart. He just has this tough Peacekeeper exterior you need to break through first.”

“You think highly of him, don’t you?”

“He taught me what it means to be a Peacekeeper and pounded some important lessons into my head. I owe a lot to him.”

“Sounds like it.”

“That said, he’s a bit old-school in his beliefs. A lot of the older STANDs are.”

“How so?”

“Very much against the chief executor’s push for reforms, such as the outreach to terrorist havens like Luna. He considers it a sign of weakness.”

“He prefers a strong, centralized Admin?”

“Exactly. One that tells the states what to do rather than asks them.” Susan shrugged. “It’s a frequent topic of debate back home.”

“What’s your take on those reforms?”

“Well, I’m of two minds when it comes to them. On the one hand, I’m not a big fan of being nice to terrorists and their sympathizers.”

“Naturally. And on the other hand?”

“What we’ve been doing so far doesn’t seem to have worked all that well, so maybe it’s time to try a different approach.”

They stepped through the transport’s open back and saw Pérez hunched over two synthoids at the transport’s controls. He looked over his shoulder and nodded to them.

“We’re putting together the full list for you now. Just double-checking to make sure we’re not missing any names.”

“How long is it?” Isaac asked.

“Fairly short, to be honest.” Pérez stepped away from the other synthoids and joined them by the transport’s docked Wolverine drones. “From the players, there’s Sako and Lacan, of course, and also Wong Fei. He visited her room shortly after we arrived, though he was gone before Lacan visited to have his little chat. A few other agents were in there as well as a few housekeeping drones. And me, of course. I had to perform one last inspection of her suite, since she opened the door to talk with Lacan.” He shook his head. “Didn’t spot anything unusual.”

“Checked and double-checked, sir.” Agent Arlot swiveled in his chair.

Cephalie saved the file to the LENS then provided links to Susan and Isaac. They both opened the list.

“No surprises here,” Isaac remarked, glancing over the names.

“Where do you want to start?” Susan asked.

“With Lacan and Wong Fei. Their rooms and wearables. We’ll search for any evidence that might tie them to the death threat. If we don’t get any hits there, we’ll go through the DTI agents on the list.”

“That won’t be a problem, sir,” Pérez said, clasping his hands in the small of his back. “You’ll have our full cooperation.”

“Cephalie,” Isaac said, “put in requests for the search warrants we’ll need for Wong Fei and for Lacan’s room.”

“Already one step ahead of you.”

“Great.” Isaac grimaced and turned to Susan. “That leaves Lacan’s wearables. I’ve been concerned about this, so we might as well deal with it now.”

“Concerned about what?” Susan asked.

“Getting a search warrant valid for an Admin citizen. Is there someone currently in SysGov who can legally issue one, or do we need to contact the Admin directly? If so, when’s the next chronoport depart, and how long will it take for us to get an answer?”

“Oh, right!” Susan turned to Pérez. “Miguel, do you have a copy? I didn’t bring the file with me when I started over here three months ago.”

“Sure. Give me a sec.” Pérez opened a virtual interface.

“A copy of what?” Isaac asked.

“The search warrant, of course.”

“You mean a warrant request form, don’t you?”

“No.” Susan shook her head. “I mean the actual warrant.”

Isaac’s brow furrowed. “That can’t be right.”

“Here you go.” Pérez offered the file, which Isaac pulled over to his palm and read once his Admin English translator kicked in. The document was surprisingly short and direct.

“Am I reading this right?” he asked.

“I don’t see why not,” Susan said. “Is there a translation error?”

“It’s not that. I mean is this how search warrants work in the Admin? As a simple fill-in-the-blanks form any Peacekeeper can copy?”

“Not quite,” Susan clarified. “Miguel and I would only use a warrant like this under very specific circumstances. Typically, when trying to collect information on a suspected terrorist. And even then, we can get audited.”

“Then we do need higher approval to search Lacan’s wearables?”

“Well…” She smiled guiltily. “Not really.”

“You’ve lost me.”

“I said Miguel and I can’t on our own,” she added carefully. “That’s because we’re just agents. However, that’s not true for all positions.”

She gave Isaac a meaningful look. He squinted at her with a confused expression, but then realization dawned on him, and his eyes widened.

“Oh, no,” he breathed.

“Because DTI investigators can make all the copies they want,” she finished.

“You mean to tell me I’ll be filling out my own search warrants on this case?”

“It is simpler this way.”

“That’s not the issue!” Isaac looked over the form. “Does it really have to be me who does this?”

“Yes,” she said firmly. “Unless you want me to be audited and then reprimanded. Possibly even discharged from the Peacekeepers.”

“Well, we don’t want that.” He huffed out a breath and shook his head. “Fine, I’ll take care of it.”

“Then I think we’re done here?” Susan asked more than stated.

Isaac closed the search warrant and nodded to her.

“Thanks for the help, Miguel.”

“My pleasure.”

Susan followed Isaac out.

“Is it really that shocking a difference?” she asked him with genuine curiosity.

“I suppose not.”

They exited the hangar and nodded to the sentries as they passed. Isaac opened a comm window to Nina.

“Need something?” Nina answered.

“Got some more work for you. Cephalie is in the process of rounding up search warrants for Wong Fei’s and GW Lacan’s rooms as well as any wearables Wong Fei’s might have.”

“But not Lacan’s wearables?”

“I…already have that one covered.”

“How’d you manage that?”

“I’ll explain later. In the meantime, would you mind getting in touch with a Lieutenant Cameron Lotz? Once all the documentation is in order, we’ll want LSP to help us sift through those rooms.”

“Good idea. I’ll get the cavalry lined up.”

“We’re heading your way next. See you in a few.”

* * *

Isaac and Susan stepped through the open threshold into Wong Fei’s room to find several LSP troopers tearing the walls apart, literally. Decorative panels lay in uneven stacks while state troopers ran hardwired cables to the infosystem nodes underneath.

A pair of drones roughly the size of Isaac’s LENS floated nearby with a rack of infosystem nodes suspended from their pseudopods. The rack resembled an enlarged metal honeycomb, and they set it in one of several piles of hardware, then floated back to another room.

Lieutenant Lotz spotted the detectives as they entered and hurried over.

“Looks like you’re making good progress, Lieutenant,” Isaac remarked, surveying the activity.

“That we are. I’ve got a dozen troopers and their support drones working through this suite and I placed another dozen under Specialist Cho’s command in the other room. We’re finishing up this floor, and the other two should go faster now that all the paneling is off.”

“That’s good to hear. Find anything so far?”

“Not yet,” Lotz said. “At least nothing malicious, but we have a lot of nodes to check. We’re going to be at this all night.”

“What about Wong Fei’s synthoid and wearables?”

“We checked him over before he left. He didn’t have any wearables, which made sense since his synthoid is set up with plenty of internal storage.”

“And his synthoid itself?”

“Clean. Nothing beyond his UAM gaming collection.”

“He own any other synthoids besides the primary?”

“Not that we’ve seen, and not anywhere in the suite,” Lotz said. “He only has registration for the one body, so if there’s another, it’s not legit.”

“Did he give you any problems?”

“Not a one. He was perfectly behaved the whole time.”

Isaac looked around. “Where is he now?”

“At some gala near the top of Pistil Tower that ActionStream is putting on before the tournament starts. The other players are there, too.”

“It’s where you’d be,” Cephalie commented, materializing on his shoulder, “if you hadn’t been dragged into this case.”

“What a shame,” Isaac said dryly.

“I’ve got several troopers up there as well, keeping an eye on things in case someone tries to bolt or do something equally stupid.” Lotz shrugged. “Not that they’d get far, but…”

“No, that’s good thinking. Best to play it safe.”

“Also, I have an update for you on the Evons murder. We pulled the most recent contacts from his wetware, which led us to a lot of explicit material being sent back and forth with another League member. A young lady named Miyuki Saga. We reached out to her for an interview, and she came in without a fuss. Everything was playing out like you’d expect until all of a sudden she starts blubbering like crazy, going on about how his death was her fault. Turns out her husband is another League member named Togashi Saga, and she hasn’t seen or heard from him since the murder. We’re trying to track him down now.”

“Sounds like you have the matter well in hand.”

Isaac had worked with a variety of state troopers over the years, and they ran the gamut from superstars to incompetent walking disasters. He was pleased to see Lotz leaned toward the former category. He could tell the man took his job seriously and had an instinct for how to tackle problems and keep his team pushing forward.

Isaac turned in a slow circle, looking around the partially disassembled suite.

“Everything appears to be in order over here, as well,” Isaac said. “Lieutenant, if there’s nothing you need from us, we’re going to check on Lacan’s room next.”

“Sure thing, Detective. I’ll give you a call once we’re finished.”

Isaac glanced up at Susan. “Shall we?”

“Let’s.”

They headed out, took a grav tube to the Admin floor, and walked down a curved corridor until they reached Lacan’s room. A pair of DTI agents checked their IDs before letting them in.

Lacan’s room was in a state similar to Wong Fei’s, with troopers and drones pulling panels, running cables, and stacking infosystem nodes. He spotted Nina in the kitchen staring at something on the counter. One of her forensics drones floated nearby, thin tendrils of prog-steel connecting it to a trio of objects on the counter.

“Nina?” he said, walking over.

She looked up and, when she saw him, started to grin ear to ear.

“Now that’s a good sign,” Susan commented.

“Oh, it is!” Nina pushed a blue wristband forward.

“What’s this?” Isaac asked.

“One of Lacan’s wearables. Guess what I found on it?”

“Suspicious prankware?”

“Yup! He tried to delete the program, but that won’t cut it when you’re up against me.”

“You sure this is the one he was wearing when he confronted Sako?” Susan asked.

“I am.” Nina tapped the wristband. “I checked its styling against the DTI’s security video. This is the one he had on this morning, and he was still wearing it when the troopers issued the warrant.”

“Did he give you any trouble when you asked for the wristband?” Isaac asked.

“No. He must believe deleting the prankware is enough.” She shook her head. “Ah, the poor, naive mind of a criminal. Thinking he can delete his sins away. So blissfully ignorant.”

“Then, that’s it.” Susan turned to Isaac. “Looks like we have means, motive, and opportunity.”

“Indeed,” Isaac agreed. “The prankware, the ugly breakup, and him stepping just far enough into the room to connect with the printer. It all fits.”

“He even said he wants Sako to leave,” Susan noted. “And if she did, he’d have no romantic competition.”

“For what little good that’d do him.” Isaac opened a comm window to Lotz.

“Yes, Detective?”

“We have the evidence we need. We found it in Lacan’s room.”

“And?”

“Lacan was the one threatening her. Your troopers can move in to arrest him on charges of unlawful coercion whenever you like, but you might want to wait until the gala quiets down. No need to make a scene.”

“Understood. We’ll take care of it, Detective.”


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