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Chapter Seven

“Well, look who finally decided to show up!”

Isaac ignored the comment as he followed the LifeBeam receptionist into the meeting room with Susan and his LENS not far behind. Three physical state troopers lounged in high-backed chairs around the long, oval table, distinct in their dark green uniforms and caps, so dark they were almost black. The lone uniformed avatar for an abstract trooper leaned against the wall, and a LifeBeam employee in a light gray business suit sat at the head of the table, a mixture of worry and frustration on his face.

“Thank you,” Isaac said to the receptionist. “That will be all.”

The receptionist glanced to the seated employee.

“It’s all right.” He nodded to the receptionist. “I’ll take it from here.”

“Please let me know if you need anything, sir.” She left, and the door sealed shut behind her.

“Took you long enough.” The trooper who’d spoken earlier—a big man with a hooked nose—made a show of propping his boots up on the table. “Thought I’d have to transition by the time you got here.”

“Thank you for waiting,” Isaac said with practiced patience. “I’m Detective Isaac Cho. This is my deputy, Agent Susan Cantrell, and my IC, Encephalon. Who’s the ranking trooper here?”

“What’s up with you?” the troublemaker asked of Susan. “Kronos run out of uniforms or something?”

“I’m an exchange officer from the Admin’s Department of Temporal Investigation,” Susan replied levelly.

“Well, good for you! Ain’t you special!” The trooper nudged the woman next to him. “Don’t you think she’s special?”

“She’s special, all right.”

To Susan’s credit, she showed no signs of rising to the jabs or even acknowledging them. Isaac had expected her to conduct herself in a competent manner, but seeing her composure while on duty helped put him at ease. The last thing he needed was a deputy with enough killing power to slaughter everyone in the room in a matter of seconds who took offense at every stupid insult thrown at them.

“Which one of you is in charge?” Isaac let a hint of weariness leak out.

“I am.” The third physical trooper stood. “Sergeant Nakayama, Twelfth Precinct.”

“And you are?” Isaac gave the LifeBeam employee a curt nod.

“Lee Silas, senior engineering manager for this tower. I was on duty when the incident occurred.”

“Is this going to take a while?” the mouthy trooper asked. “I was supposed to go off duty an hour ago.”

“Sergeant”—Isaac turned to Nakayama—“if your subordinate has nothing productive to add to this meeting, I suggest he keep his mouth shut.”

“Johan, zip it.”

“All I’m saying is—”

Zip it!

Johan grimaced like a man chewing the inside of his cheek. He put his hands behind his head and leaned back farther, but he didn’t say another word.

“Thank you.” Isaac opened a virtual copy of the accident report. “Sergeant, I reviewed your report on the way down, and I have a few questions I hope you can help me with.”

“Fire away.”

“First, I see the infostructure was inspected by a Trooper Fleming, but your team’s physical inspection of the transceiver equipment seems to be missing. Can you provide me with that part of the report?”

“There isn’t one.”

“Oh?” Isaac made a note on his copy of the virtual report. “And why is that?”

“I saw no need for a physical inspection. Fleming’s review of the infostructure found no sign of malicious intrusion. Everything looked clean, so the only reasonable conclusion is a glitch in the system.”

“This was no software glitch!” Silas stormed, face turning red. “That’s what I’ve been trying to tell you, but you won’t listen! The backups don’t run the same software as the primary for this very reason! It’s inconceivable for them to all fail at the same time!”

“Mister Silas, I’ll get to you in a moment. You can either wait quietly or wait outside.”

Silas took a deep breath and settled deeper into his seat.

“Now,” Isaac continued, “is Trooper Fleming present?”

The abstract trooper raised her hand.

“Good. And are you an expert on connectome transmission technology?”

“I…well, no.”

“Do you have any hands-on experience with said technology?”

“You mean besides using it to get around?”

“Yes. Besides that.”

“Well, umm”—Fleming’s gaze flicked to Nakayama then back to Isaac—“I once worked for Verified Destinations.”

“The LifeBeam competitor? In what capacity?”

“As a traffic monitoring tech.”

“And your job functions were?”

“I would make predictions of upcoming peak traffic periods and line up reroutes ahead of time.”

“Data analysis, then. And that’s all?”

“Yeah,” Fleming admitted. “Guess so.”

“Then you have no direct experience with transceiver software before today?”

“I…” She shrugged. “No, not really.”

“Not really, or not at all?”

She sighed. “Not at all.”

“Then on what grounds did you conclude this was a software glitch when at least one LifeBeam employee”—he indicated Silas—“who probably has more experience than you with the software, claims it couldn’t be?”

“Like I said,” Nakayama cut in, “she found no signs of intrusion.”

“Yeah, that’s right,” Fleming added, regaining some of her composure. “All the normal viral attack paths were spotless.”

“All the normal attack paths.” Isaac jotted down another note. “Interesting.”

“Fleming is very good at this kind of work,” Nakayama said.

“I’m sure she is.”

An awkward silence fell over the room as he scribbled in the report’s margins.

“Sergeant, besides the missing physical inspection, your report also seems to lack any LifeBeam employee interviews. Would you mind providing me with those?”

Nakayama frowned and crossed his arms.

“Sergeant?”

“We didn’t conduct any.”

“Then, Sergeant, let me see if I understand the situation. Your team, which doesn’t include an expert on this type of equipment, declared the deaths accidents. That declaration was made without performing a physical inspection of the equipment or conducting any interviews with people responsible for said equipment. In fact, it’s based solely on an abstract review of the infostructure, which was the least time-consuming option available to your team.”

“Accidents happen.”

“Indeed, they do. Though I somehow doubt this to be the case here.”

“If you’re trying to imply—”

“Thank you, Sergeant.” Isaac closed the SSP report. “As always, Themis Division appreciates the support SSP provides. Please accept my apologies for any inconvenience we may have caused. Your team may return to their regular duties.”

Nakayama’s mouth cracked open, as if he wanted to share a few more choice words with Isaac, but then he thought better of it and started out the door.

“Let’s get out of here,” he growled.

Fleming’s avatar vanished, and the other troopers filed out.

“Called us out here and had us sit on our asses for hours just for that shit?” Johan griped under his breath.

The conference room door closed, and they were alone with Lee Silas.

“You don’t believe it was an accident, do you?” the LifeBeam manager asked.

“I believe their report is incomplete,” Isaac replied simply. “Everything else remains to be seen. Can we start with a visual inspection of the equipment?”

“Oh, yes. Of course.” Silas rose eagerly. “This way.”

He led them to a nearby counter-grav tube reserved for company employees. He entered his credentials into the abstract interface, then stepped in. Isaac and Susan followed, and gravitons whisked them upward two hundred stories to the highest reaches of the LifeBeam tower.

The tube dropped them off into a corridor barely wide enough for two people to pass each other if they pressed themselves against the walls and sucked in their guts. Infostructure nodes and cabling covered the walls and ceiling, and thick trunks of heavier cables ran underneath the floor grating. Waste heat radiated off the walls, and cooling air blew down on their heads.

“Sorry about the tight squeeze,” Silas said. “This part of the tower rarely sees foot traffic, but it’ll widen at the end.”

He led them to a cramped circle of space at the end of the corridor.

“This is it,” Silas declared. “Transceiver 27. That third of the wall is the primary infosystem, and then the two backups are to either side of it.”

He opened an interface and pressed a few buttons. Shields along the ceiling parted, providing a direct view of the transceiver itself. Isaac craned his neck at the wide dish receiver and the narrow, focused laser emitter mounted on a pair of heavy gimbals.

“And that’s the transceiver itself.”

Isaac gestured around the room. “Anything out of the ordinary here?”

“Umm.” Silas turned in a circle. “No, nothing. We have dozens just like it. Plus, we keep strict logs of who comes in here. We’re the first people here in months.”

“Cephalie, have the LENS perform a basic sweep.”

“On it.”

“How soon do you intend to return the transceiver to service?” Isaac asked.

“Actually, it’s running right now. The system was only down for three seconds.”

As if in response, the gimbals actuated, and the dish and laser aligned on a new target.

“Do you feel that’s wise?” Isaac asked.

“The software was restored to default during those three seconds. After that, we finished processing all pending transits and then closed the transceiver to new ones so we could run our diagnostics.”

“And what did you find?”

“The system passed every hardware and software check we threw at it. We couldn’t see any reason not to return it to service, so we did.”

“Then a hardware failure of some kind seems unlikely?” Isaac asked.

“Yes, I’d tend to agree. We think it was software-related, and the problem was cleared out when the systems were restored to default.”

“I’m not seeing any signs of physical intervention,” Cephalie reported. “All these surfaces are spotless.”

“Good to know,” Isaac said. “Mister Silas, do you have a record of the infosystem’s contents before you purged them?”

“We do. That’s automatic when a fault occurs. We save the entire subsystem state at the moment of failure.”

“Can you provide a copy to my LENS?”

“I sure can. One moment.”

Silas worked his virtual interface, then Cephalie gave Isaac a thumbs-up from atop the LENS.

“Thank you,” Isaac said. “Have your people had a chance to review the fault state?”

“We have, but what we found puzzles us. There’s a timestamp error and a few lines of code that are different from what each of the three systems should have contained. The transceiver shouldn’t have been able to operate in that state.”

“Then it must have been changed recently?”

“More like moments before the Gordian officers tried to transmit.”

“Who could make a change like that?”

“Software updates are very strictly controlled,” Silas said. “Normally, updates are validated by headquarters back on Earth before being sent to us for implementation. Even then, it requires the approval of all three senior engineering managers before we go live with the update.”

“Then this mysterious code change, if done through the proper channels, would have required assistance from your HQ?”

“Not quite. We’re also allowed to make updates in case of emergencies, though again all three managers need to sign off on it.”

“Who can make such approvals for this tower?”

“Easy.” Silas tapped his chest. “That would be myself and the other two senior managers. They’re a pair of ACs that go by the names of Infinity-Plus-One and Hikari-no-Kage. They both joined at the same time, been with the company for decades. Real pleasures to work with.”

“I’ll need contact strings for all three of you.”

“Sure. Sure.” Silas raised his fingers to the interface, then paused and looked up. “Wait a second. You don’t think we did it, do you?”

“It’s my job to consider all possibilities,” Isaac said, keeping his voice level. “For the time being, all three of you will need to register any travel plans with SysPol.”

“But we wouldn’t!” Silas exclaimed, his face twisting in dread. “The three of us are all company lifers! I’ve gotten awards for how well we run this tower! We’d never throw our careers away by trying to kill someone, let alone two cops!”

“Then you have nothing to fear from our investigation.”

* * *

“Do you really think Silas could have done it?” Susan asked once they left LifeBeam’s mid-tower reception foyer. She’d spoken in SysPol security chat, which showed Isaac she knew when to be discreet in public. Another good sign. Foot traffic was light in the pedestrian tunnel connecting LifeBeam to a nearby transportation hub, but the ubiquitous nature of SysGov infostructure meant the walls literally had ears.

“No, but we can’t ignore the possibility.” Isaac stopped with his back against the wall. “That said, LifeBeam runs its employees through strict psychological evaluations. All the connectome transmission companies do, as required by law. The people reviewing the evaluations are just as vulnerable to errors as the rest of us, but to miss problems with three managers?” He shook his head. “A lot of low-chance events need to line up for this to be an internal job.”

“Then you agree it’s not an accident?”

“I do, but I also admit that’s still a remote possibility. For instance, the three managers could have botched a code change and are trying to cover their tracks. Unlikely, but still something we have to consider.”

“Seems like a rather dubious way to travel, if you ask me.” Susan looked back at the tower. “Here’s a question. Why didn’t LifeBeam try to resend the connectomes?”

“They can’t,” Cephalie said.

“Why not?”

“Because it’s illegal to copy a connectome,” Isaac pointed out. “With a few exceptions, of course, such as saving a copy at a mindbank. Travel companies like LifeBeam generally aren’t allowed to retain copies of the people they transmit.”

“There were a lot of shenanigans back when the tech was new,” Cephalie added. “A few centuries back, a lot of people ended up being copied illegally, and SysGov clamped down hard on the industry as a result.”

“It’s not much of an issue nowadays,” Isaac continued, “but the legal restrictions remain in place.”

“So, the transmission lasers are fire and forget?” Susan asked.

“Basically.”

Very dubious.”

“Connectome transmission is incredibly safe. Safer than physical travel.”

“You sure about that?” Susan asked doubtfully.

“Yes, by a healthy margin. Plus, anyone who travels this way can also back themselves up at a mindbank. Accidents do happen, as Nakayama said, but they’re rare and typically have a higher body count than this.”

“Why’s that?”

“Most accidents relate to hardware failure,” Cephalie said. “If a transceiver goes down hard, they need time to shift a working unit into place to receive the incoming stream.”

“This failure feels…too specific,” Isaac added. “The transceiver’s off for three seconds, and two Gordian officers just happen to transmit in during that window?”

“Safe or not,” Susan began, “you’ll never get me to fire my brain photons across the solar system.”

“That’s just because you’re not used to it,” Cephalie said. “Think about it. You can travel from Saturn to Earth in nine days or an hour and a half. A lot of people travel this way after going meatless by keeping a spare synthoid stashed in every port.”

“I’ll keep my connectome right where it is”—Susan knuckled her upper chest—“thank you very much.”

“You were quiet in there, by the way,” Isaac noted.

“Is that typically how SSP treats a detective?” she asked, some agitation evident in her tone.

“Sometimes.” He shrugged. “Sometimes not. It all depends on who we get. A lot of SSP troopers don’t like us. Some are of the opinion we fly in, screw everything up, declare victory, then fly out, leaving them with the cleanup. Others resent the authority we can exercise over them. Honestly, I’m used to their drama by now. I do my best to ignore it.” He looked up. “By the way, you didn’t answer my question.”

“Sorry. I prefer to observe how you handle things for now, that’s all. To get a feel for the job.” She raised an eyebrow. “If that’s all right with you.”

“Sure, I understand. But know you’re welcome to chime in whenever you want. We’re partners in this. I’ll take the lead, but that doesn’t mean you should stay passive.” Isaac glanced across the Ballast Heights skyline, its towers gleaming in the sunlight. “And on that subject, what do you think of this case so far?”

“Any technical analysis is better left to experts, but the big hole I see right now is motive. A connectome tower is a high-traffic area, so there’s a vast pool of people with potential access to it. The question is, why would any of them want to kill the two Gordian officers?”

Isaac turned back to her and flashed a slim smile.

“What?” she asked. “Did I say something wrong?”

“No. Quite the contrary.” He tapped his temple. “It seems we’re thinking along the same lines. Yes, I’m wondering about the motive, too. And as you said, we’ll leave the technical side of matters to the experts.” He opened a comm window to Kronos Station. “Dispatch.”

“Themis Dispatch here. How may we be of assistance, Detective Cho?”

“I need data forensics performed on a connectome transceiver fault state.” He nodded to Cephalie. “Sending the file now.”

“File received, and I see you’ve already attached your case number. What priority level should I flag this as?”

“Standard. I’ll update you if that changes.”

“Understood, Detective. Your request is in the queue. Anything else?”

“Not right now.”

“Then have a pleasant day, Detective. Dispatch out.”

Isaac closed the window.

“Now we wait?” Susan asked.

“Now we hunt for the motive,” he corrected. “And we need to remember it’s possible only one of them was the target. The other may be collateral damage.”

“You mean Delacroix, since he’s the permadeath?” Susan asked.

“Most likely, though another possibility is Andover-Chen learned something in the past six months our supposed murderer didn’t want him to remember. We don’t know enough yet for even an educated guess, so that’s what we’re going to remedy. Cephalie, what were Andover-Chen and Delacroix transmitting in for?”

“TTV impeller testing.” Cephalie conjured a see-through schematic of an elliptical spacecraft with a long spike protruding out of the rear. Brackets highlighted the spike. “Gordian Division has been working to replace the time machines they lost during the Dynasty Crisis. With the recent destruction of several major producers near Earth, Gordian’s been looking elsewhere for their time drive needs. Those two were to perform final inspections before one of Gordian’s TTVs—the Kleio—puts each impeller through its paces.”

“And someone might have wanted to prevent or delay those inspections?” Susan theorized.

“It’s a possibility,” Isaac said. “Where were the inspections to take place?”

“Down at the bottom of the Shark Fin in an industrial town called New Frontier. Gordian has a nine-unit order with Negation Industries and one more being produced by the Trinh Syndicate. Both men have apartments in the city, and temporary offices at the manufacturing facilities.”

“Sounds as good a place to start as any.” Isaac pushed off the wall. “We’ll head there next. Mind ordering our train tickets?”

“Not a problem.”

“Time for another trip,” Isaac sighed.

“On a train?” Susan asked.

* * *

“I’m on a train,” Susan said, staring out the window as another city rose past them.

“Yes?” Isaac asked from his seat along the opposite wall of their private cabin in Pillar Six. His virtual sight identified the area as the Rosman Divide, a stalactite city with its towers hanging off one of Janus-Epimetheus’ major horizonal divisions. The trains of the Pillar Line ran along the primary structural support pillar extending one hundred kilometers from the center of the crown all the way down to the tip of the fin. Fifteen tracks lined the pillar for most of its height, with trains zipping up or down or along sloping paths that led to major cities farther away.

“I’m on a train”—Susan’s eyes narrowed—“on Saturn.”

“Actually, in Saturn’s atmosphere.”

“I’m on a train. In Saturn’s atmosphere.” She shook her head. “That didn’t help.”

“Maybe focus on the Shark Fin instead?” He shoved the inert LENS over to give himself more room.

“No, I don’t think that’ll help either.” She closed her eyes and pressed the back of her head against the wall. “Where are we heading again?”

“New Frontier. It’s an industrial city at the bottom tip of the lowest Epimethean Expansion.” Isaac ran a search and perused the results. “It’s a fairly small shelf city. About fifty thousand inhabitants. Only one SSP precinct. Large immigrant populations of Lunarians, Terrans, and Jovians living alongside the local Saturnites. Negation Industries put in the original expansion request, and they still have the largest exotic matter factory beneath the city. They’re Lunar-based, so I suspect most of the immigrant families work for them. Sounds like a factory town melting pot to me.”

“And your Luna isn’t full of violent political extremists, right?” Susan asked.

“Oh, heavens no!” He chuckled. “Lunarians have a reputation for being a bit…eccentric, though.”

“Eccentric by SysGov standards?” she asked with a hint of concern.

“Now, Susan. Be nice.”

“Sorry.”

“A lot of SysGov’s wealth is concentrated on Earth’s moon, and it’s no secret Earth and Luna enjoy a special relationship. Like a mother doting on her firstborn. I expect the Lunarians and Terrans form the city’s upper class.”

“That’s so different from the Admin.” Susan risked another look out the window. “Back home, Lunar violence is as regular as rain on Earth. Most of it stems from their various secessionist movements, fueled by generations of fomenting hatred.”

The train descended past a vast parkland full of citizens enjoying themselves under a bright artificial sun. People took leisurely strolls through its rolling hills or swam in the shimmering waters of its central lake. The view went dark as they entered another divide, and then lit up with a glimmering view of the Pillar Palaces, massive estates extending outward from secondary support pillars, each trying to outdo the other in ostentatious opulence.

“Well, I don’t think you have anything to worry about,” Isaac said. “No Lunar secessionists over here.”

“That’s good. I’m not in the mood to have my arm blown off again.”

“Your arm?” He raised an eyebrow. “Again?”

“It’s a long story.”

“I thought you said it was your legs.”

“What?” She looked perplexed for a moment, but then her face lit up with understanding. “Oh! You mean what I said back when we met? Sorry. Different long story.”

“How many times have you lost limbs in the line of duty?”

“Too many!” She let a smile slip out.

Isaac frowned and wondered at the violence in her past but decided not to press her. A zone of darkness flashed by, then Susan turned to watch the crossbeam city of Eighty Bridges rise upward. Buildings extended above and below the intersection of two thick crossbeams that joined secondary support pillars, and lesser structures spread outward from the center in all four directions. Dozens of thin bridges connected the major crossbeams at diagonals and in a radial pattern, making the city’s thoroughfares resemble a spider’s web of bridges built around a central residential clump.

“Glad I’m not bothered by heights.” She leaned toward the window and looked down at the next divide far, far below. “Ever have problems with jumpers?”

“More often than you’d think.”

“Oh?”

“A city like Eighty Bridges will have mechs on standby to catch anyone who falls, so a common rite of passage for gang members is to jump off the side of whatever tall structure is available. SSP does their best to discourage jumpers, and some cities have instituted heavier penalties, but the practice is still commonplace. And there are some who do it just for the thrill, knowing they’ll survive”—his eyes darkened—“most of the time.”

“What do you mean? The mechs don’t always catch them in time?”

“Not exactly,” Isaac explained. “They’re reliable, at least in most cities. Just thinking about a case Raviv and I worked on.”

“Who’s Raviv?”

“Oh, sorry.” He leaned toward her seat. “Chief Inspector Omar Raviv, recently promoted to the post. He’s my boss. Our boss, now, actually. He was the senior detective I mentored under during my probationary period. He’s a solid investigator and a great teacher. I learned a lot from him. Tightly wound, but solid. Very dependable.

“Anyway, he and I were on a jumper case in the Second Engine Block. This poor teenager jumped after being pressured by his ‘friends,’ but someone sabotaged the mechs.”

“Oh, no,” Susan gasped. “What happened?”

Isaac smacked his hands together, and Susan winced.

“The mech covering that zone was stuck in a diagnostic cycle at the time. The perp tried to make it look like an accident, but he didn’t do a very good job of it. The two were after the same girl, and this idiot thought he could get away with murder.”

“But you and Raviv caught him?”

“Yeah. Case ended in the death penalty.” He shook his head. “Sometimes, I don’t know what these people are thinking. Other times, I don’t want to know.”

Susan nodded, and they both stared out the window for a few quiet minutes.

“What’s our first stop when we reach New Frontier?” she asked after a while.

“Their apartments,” Isaac said. “We’ll check those out first, see what pops up. After that, we’ll stop by the impeller manufacturers.”

“Hey, kiddos!” Cephalie materialized above the LENS. “I got something good for you.”

“Let’s see it,” Isaac said, then smiled as the files opened in his virtual sight. “Wonderful! Gordian got back to us.”

“Records for their deceased officers?” Susan asked as she opened her own copies.

“Yep. Let’s see what we have here.”

He started with Doctor Andover-Chen’s file. He’d come across most of the man’s biographical info before, since the physicist had been in the public eye for some time, so he focused on the parts specific to the Gordian Division.

Andover-Chen’s research had been instrumental in resolving the Dynasty Crisis. Specifically, his work on the chronoton bomb had allowed the allied Gordian and DTI attack force to…disconnect the Dynasty universe from the SysGov universe. This was the first Isaac had seen about exactly how they’d managed that not-so-minor feat, though, and he felt his eyebrows rising. They’d created more transdimensional space between the two to prevent the Dynasty universe’s temporal implosion from destroying SysGov?

His eyebrows came down and he frowned as he read on. The notes contained a lot of “chronometric” this and “transdimensional” that as well as a heavy dose of seven-dimension math.

“Ever get the impression you’re not speaking the same language as someone else?” he asked.

Yes,” Susan groaned. “How does a universe’s timeline implode, anyhow? Nobody’s ever been able to explain that to me.”

“I haven’t got a clue, either. Cephalie?”

“Don’t look at me. I’m just the messenger.”

Isaac read on for several minutes, but the throbbing in his temples only grew worse. He pushed the file aside with a sigh.

“I think I’ll come back to the doctor later.”

“Already ahead of you.” Susan adjusted the angle of her interface. “Some interesting stuff in Delacroix’s past. He transitioned to a synthoid at the age of fifty-four. Isn’t that early for SysGov citizens?”

“It is, though not entirely unheard of. Does it say why?”

“Umm.” She scrolled down. “Ah! Here we go. He was involved in an accident at ART. He’d been inspecting a faulty impeller when one of the safety systems failed and the impeller doused him with hard radiation. His organic body was a mess, almost unrecoverable, and first responders performed an emergency extraction of his connectome.” She looked up. “They’re allowed to do that?”

“If you preapprove the procedure, they can.” Isaac tapped the side of his head. “I’m preapproved, but only if my organic body can’t be revived. I’m in no rush to go synthetic.”

“The transition’s not so bad. And it has its perks.”

“Anything else stand out to you?”

“A few things.” She scrolled down. “His wife, Selene Delacroix, died recently. She was killed during the Dynasty nuclear attack on a factory cluster at the Earth-Luna L5 Lagrange point. Says she worked for the Mitchell Group, specializing in exotic matter engineering.”

“Wait a second. That sounds familiar.” Isaac pulled Andover-Chen’s profile closer and scrolled up. “Yeah, here it is. The Mitchell Group was Gordian’s biggest exotic matter supplier during the c-bomb’s construction.” He grimaced and shook his head. “I remember how shocked everyone was at the news, myself included. A nuke going off in the L5 Hub.”

“Doesn’t happen too often over here?”

“No, thankfully!”

“Here’s another intriguing bit,” Susan continued. “About a month ago, Delacroix separated from his integrated companion, an AC named Komuso, whom he’d been with most of his adult life.”

“Sounds like he was going through rough times.”

“No indication it affected his job performance, though,” Susan noted. “More like the opposite. He buried himself in his work to cope. Hasn’t taken a single day off since his wife died.”

“Interesting.”

“Any thoughts?”

“Not yet.” Isaac leaned back. “We’ll see what we find in their apartments.”


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