She was woken up by a notification about a bonus for yesterday's mission. Instead of just saving herself, she had ensured that the new security division employee, Jimmy, also made it out unscathed. The company encouraged such behavior. She wasn’t planning to tell him that his life had been valued at a thousand credits—the equivalent of a dinner at a really nice restaurant, as long as you didn’t order too many drinks.

  The first data about the hair strands found in the deceased's apartment had also come in. The blonde strands belonged to a young woman captured on one of the recordings; based on her profile, she seemed to be a hired companion. Meanwhile, the red strands belonged to an intern from the holding where he worked. From the one-third of the data they’d managed to download, there was nothing inappropriate or suggestive of a private relationship between them. However, if she had been to his apartment, she might be willing to share something about the ongoing internal investigation or at least the general atmosphere among the employees.

  As Tex headed for breakfast at the dumpling shop on the tenth floor of the residential hub, she also skimmed through the conclusions of her fellow analysts working on the case. There was consensus that it wasn’t a suicide—the tone of the farewell video strongly suggested as much. Even if it were, it seemed coerced, and the most obvious leverage for such a scenario would have been the safety of his daughter.

  At this hour, she had to wait in line for a bit. She ordered steamed vegetarian dumplings to balance out the instant ramen from the previous day. Tex agreed with the preliminary findings, so she added her thoughts to the shared report draft. She also noted that her analysis of the metadata from the farewell video with his daughter indicated it had been recorded in his apartment three days before his death. He must have known or sensed the danger closing in on him even then.

  She sent a request for more data on the intern, intending to visit her today. Before she finished her meal, the central office had provided all available information. She got enough to arrange a meeting. Melinda Horton, 21 years old, a laboratory technician by training with a degree from a low-cost urban institute. She had worked with Alex for six months. Tex decided to catch her off guard for an unannounced lunch.

  Most of the journey was via metro. Along the way, she fine-tuned her facial recognition system to a high alert for spotting Horton. Once she arrived, she settled on a bench with a clear view of the entrance to the Sorghum NP Holding building, hoping the intern would stick to her usual routine of eating lunch at a cheap diner two streets away. Tex remained resigned to the fact that such personal data was absurdly inexpensive to buy from providers of navigation services or banks handling remote transactions. The average resident of New Polis was helpless when it came to maintaining anonymity. Without the right know-how, tech, and a stash of credits, people were at the mercy of corporations eager to trade in any kind of data. Checking the invoice, she noted that learning where Horton typically ate lunch had cost the company the equivalent of a cheap synthetic sandwich on sale.

  She didn’t have to wait long. After about half an hour of observation, her system identified the target. Melinda emerged from the building briskly, turning left, which pointed toward her usual diner or at least its vicinity. Tex crossed the street with the crowd and discreetly followed the girl. She waited a moment before entering the old Thai food joint behind her. Inside, it was bustling, serving about two dozen patrons seated at a long U-shaped counter. Melinda sat down and began selecting her meal on the panel, looking distracted. The man beside her finished his meal, and as he got up, Tex slipped into his spot. She quickly ordered a banana Thai roti and coffee—the girl’s favorite dessert—and stared at her boldly.

  This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

  The girl must have felt her gaze because, after placing her order, she looked over shyly and asked, “Excuse me, do we know each other?”

  “Hi, Melinda. I know you. I have a few questions about our mutual friend,” Tex replied in a completely neutral tone.

  The intern frowned and said, “I don’t think we have any mutual friends.”

  “Our dear friend Alex might have a different opinion on that,” Tex said with a slight edge, fixing her gaze on the girl even more intensely.

  Melinda looked uneasy and turned her back on Tex, swiveling on her round stool, intending to leave. Tex gently grabbed her arm—not squeezing, just holding her firmly enough to prevent her from moving even an inch. The tech in her arm had immense power, rendering the intern’s resistance futile.

  “We have your tapes, you know, the ones with the ropes,” Tex said quietly yet suggestively, pausing for effect. It was a bluff, but one that could work.

  The girl stopped struggling and, after a few tense heartbeats, turned back to Tex with a slightly flushed face and a frustrated tone. “Fine, ask your questions.”

  “Can you think of any reason why someone would want Alex dead?” Tex asked, sliding over the Pad Thai that had just arrived. She also opened the wrapper with the chopsticks, pulling them out slightly to make them easy to grab. Melinda took them hesitantly and began eating slowly as she answered, slightly bothered by the directness of the question.

  “Sometimes, after everything, he’d suggest he was close to climbing higher, but in our company, that didn’t seem likely at all,” she said, trailing off.

  “Go on,” Tex encouraged her.

  The girl sighed before continuing, “Our department, under his leadership, was very close to introducing a new, slightly more efficient method of sorghum synthesis, but all the credit went to his boss. Maybe it wasn’t going to be revolutionary, but it would have given us a temporary edge over the competition—maybe even let us compete with the really big players,” she paused to eat a few bites.

  “And what went wrong?” Tex asked. Her own food and coffee had arrived, but she didn’t touch them.

  “Four days ago, Future Plants Incorporated launched a very similar solution on the market,” she said, finishing her noodles.

  Tex slid over the coffee and dessert, then triggered a contactless payment with fake routing for both meals. Leaning in, she said, “You can consider your tapes destroyed now.”

  She stood up, brushed the girl’s shoulder with her hand, and when Melinda looked at her, Tex winked, turned on her heel, and left the diner with her hands in her jacket pockets.

  The girl’s story made sense and warranted further investigation, but it didn’t settle the case. Tex decided to head to the office, reviewing messages from the analysis department and double-checking the available footage at high speed along the way. Her thoughts drifted as she sat in the metro, staring absently at an ad display. The narrator spoke confidentially, “She doesn’t have to know you’re recording. Colorless, thin, and invisible lenses—Observer GX 120, now just 9,999 credits. Don’t wait!”

  Tex snorted, then muttered, “Actually…” She adjusted herself on the seat, focused, and created a new script in her system. It would filter out recordings likely made with such lenses or similar devices. It took her a few moments. Running the script, it excluded 217 of the 218 recordings, leaving one. She checked it personally, and there was no doubt. The metadata indicated it was relatively new—recorded a week before the incident.

  She jumped off the metro at her stop and almost sprinted to the office, requesting a personal meeting with her supervisor on the way. They would need to organize access to the morgue, and that would require his approval.