She went for the sushi bar, and lurked in it. Of all plausible venues this was the most automated, the most private. A tray of three cucumber maki slid off the conveyor belt and landed on her table. Kasia had only seen these rolls of rice online before - photoed by parading influencers - and couldn’t even name the accompanying pink slivers and green paste. Pressing both against her tongue, she knew she’d be trying neither again. Almost sneezing on the green paste, she had to dive for one of the maki. One bite of the seaweed, alien in taste and texture, had her spitting it out.

  It wasn’t necessary anyway. The food was her cover; an excuse to be here. She had a perfect view over the atrium, across the chasm of waterfalls and dancing jinn. Her target, the gold-skinned attendant, remained on Hadayiq Babil’s entryway, nattering with staff. Kasia burned with belittled inferiority. All her recent struggles and successes felt unrecognised. And now her daughter’s class had been used against her, embarrassing them both, in a shop beyond their station if only for its label.

  Evie. Kasia would have set the world on fire to keep her warm, if she could. She couldn’t, but the offending woman needed a lesson fast. Kasia could tell she would hate herself for not trying, haunted by another unresolved trauma until some bitter future end. She argued with her anxiety, as it protested against her path. But she was firm: if stabbing someone was within her capabilities, so too must this be.

  The risky part came first, dragging her into the impossible ether of deepfake, avatar, and real image. Kasia's hunch told her the attendant would prefer the latter. Increasingly over the years, the conventionally attractive could use their looks to earn a better living, or decline, and be to blame for harder times. Declining brought added stigma: you weren’t meant to need an avatar if gifted with beauty, and you were meant to simply buy anti-deepfake software - if you had a problem with porn based on your likeness.

  Kasia had to move fast. Such was the ongoing deepfake problem that many now covered their phone cameras with orange stickers, a symbolic stand against sexual harassment. Kasia’s gender was, for once, her advantage; a mask of presumed innocence.

  She snapped the attendants face and immediately hid her phone. Her heart thumped. She skittered off to the toilet, locking herself in a cubicle. Breathing in deep, pausing, unlocking her phone, she wove her fingers through the cloud and traced the attendant’s face to a profile.

  It was so predictable Kasia needn’t have bothered. Perfect, to the most boring of degrees. Good looking to the point of being insipid. She wore her true face in timeless stock photos that, for never going out of fashion, were never ahead of it. Her bare legs stretched under the camera on sandy beaches. Her body flaunted yoga, to the backdrop of famous locales. Lifetime milestones emblazoned her profile, always chalked up to hard work, and never to fortune. There was no partner, but there were parents, and they looked smug.

  Kasia squeezed her phone. She could spin this profile into a deepfake with her eyes shut, turning the woman’s vain selfies against her, cutting her pretty face off and pasting it over the most disgusting of scenes.

  She couldn’t bring herself to do it. Not that she cared for the woman’s fate, but she and her family would surely have the money and means to track a deepfake back to Kasia. And since Kasia’s landlord already loomed over her head, a second sin against her betters would be tempting fate too far.

  She opted to raise a complaint instead, pushing her limits to make a phone call. She rang Hadayiq Babil, selecting 'complaints', muttering into the phone with a perfect Polish accent her complaint pertained to their Mayfair Branch.

  “Hello and thank you for call-”

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  A real person. Kasia could tell in a millisecond. She gasped and hung up. She phoned again, trying options that might send her to an AI agent. Another human scared her off.

  She lost a few minutes grounding herself, preparing at last to manage a real phone call. Before she could, the toilet door opened. Someone sat in the cubicle next to her, still and silent, as if waiting for Kasia to leave. Kasia wanted to jump over the cubicle and screech in her neighbour's ear, thrusting with a knife she now regretted leaving at home.

  She left before she could fully meltdown, and found her seat taken. She stomped outside, searching for somewhere to make a private call. Every inch of the Bazaar was infected with other humans. Too many eyes would see her emote; too many ears would hear her complain.

  She descended to a floor with a club on it, and sighed in defeat. A quarter hour later she left it, ticking the box of desire with an undemanding match, distracting her from her problems for a brief and uninspired moment.

  And any confidence she had mustered against her rival had gone. The department store loomed on high. The cacophony of 75 floors filled her ears. She just couldn’t bare the idea of speaking to another person.

  Kasia headed home, acknowledging that, in doing so, another trauma had formed.

  * * *

  No wonder Ali Hogarth’s residents kicked off. This supposed victim was vindictive and unhelpful during her statement, sticking to idle threats and claims of her importance. The police, she said, needed to deal with this case severely.

  Gemma learnt her type early on - the privileged elite, fooled into seeing life as controllable. When fortune shattered this narrative, someone suffered. Presumably Ali saw the police as her enforcers, or else would take matters into her own hands later.

  The footage from the house showed three guests entering and exiting, at first awkward, then hurried. she identified the assailants instantly. Imany Eshun, the confident matriarch, and two bumbling figures that had Gemma rolling her eyes. Apparently her last date with Kasia hadn't convinced the viral mother to protect her neck. Kasia had to be the one who assaulted the child, though no solid proof existed.

  She turned to the street cameras and zeroed in on their ride - none other than the taxi involved in a separate assault streets away. She saw two drunk girls force their way inside; the driver must have panicked and dumped them somewhere discreet. She followed its path through Islington, hopping from camera to camera, until it swerved into a back alley. Both girls tumbled out. A fist flew out of the drivers window and whacked one of them square in the nose, flinging her against a wall. Gemma spluttered a laugh through her fingers and called her partner.

  “Detective Alderton!”

  “Assistant Detective Schulz! Are you at the desk?”

  “Just been watering your plant, as promised. What you got?”

  “Suspects on the case you gave me. Catch.”

  She shared the casefile and waited for Luis to peruse the contents. He figured the suspects out as fast as she did, laughing cruelly.

  “They did well to get into Islington, if only those drunk tarts hadn’t poached their lift. Why’re they after their landlord?”

  “After those vagrants attacks their estate, when our... when the two residents were killed, a certain Ms Ali Hogarth upped their service charge to cover the damage, refusing to claim on the insurance the residents already pay for.”

  “...what an absolute fucking cunt. Did they convince her to drop it?”

  “Apparently so. I’m also certain she’s exaggerating what happened to her girl, Tiffany Hogarth.”

  “Tiffahneeh? So it seems... not a bruise on her. I see my Sermon Mkenda is with the invaders. Want me to string him out?”

  “Not yet but let’s watch him; of the three he’s a probable revolution lead.”

  “Could leave him to incubate... but how much is he likely to ever know? That Imany bird is the type to be in something deep, as for Kasia? Surely the runt of the litter.”

  “I thought so too but she’s a dark horse, and she could radicalise quickly if tempted well. Notice that her behaviour online has cleaned up after she met that revolution captain.”

  “But again: what can she offer them besides devotion? None of these guys are gonna end up in anyone's inner circle detective.”

  “Perhaps you’re right,” Gemma swiped the case away and exhaled, “I’ll deal with Ms Hogarth tomorrow. Do me a favour and dismiss the girls from the taxi case? Don’t need them hanging around. Speak soon.”