In the Shadow of the Starships

Chapter 2 An Unexpected Call

As I opened the front door, the landlady's orange tabby meowed at me.

"Hey, Chuck." I gave him a few pets before strolling down the hall to my suite, one of six on this level. The cat zoomed past me and tackled the broom. As the handle started falling, his feet churned against the tile floor before he finally got enough traction to speed away so he could pretend he had nothing to do with the clattering that was about to occur.

I shook my head and slipped into my room, closing the door before the nutcase feline tried to slip inside. I slid into my computer chair and connected my bracelet to the port. It took a mere four seconds for a single file to upload.

I opened it and frowned at the lines of gibberish. I scrolled through countless lines before giving up and creating a quick script to compare it to online files in hopes of figuring out what it was.

After disconnecting my bracelet, I checked my email, not finding a single reply to any offers I'd tendered nor any replies to the hundreds of resumes I'd sent out. That wasn't too surprising with my inability to go through security scanners, which were common in most large companies nowadays, especially in the tech field.

Even the item scanners at the checkout tills didn't like how much metal was in my body, as I had found out when I got a job as a cashier, which had ended the same day since I kept setting off the security alarms. My lack of a fancy degree squashed most of my other options despite the fact that I had the knowledge and knew more about coding than was probably wise to admit.

A quick search of the new job posts revealed nothing other tech gremlins weren't already working on. While I could code, I wasn't as fast as some who haunted these sites. With a sigh, I opened the script that scoured the lists of fugitives and compared them to social media images. Two I had been tracking had been arrested today, so there went all that work. Still nothing on the mysterious duo I had met today, which was rather odd considering I had their email address and several other details.

My script had pulled a post off social media with a criminal in the background and matched it to the profile on the Wanted List. I focused on it as I checked the account, noting the location and time. With a bit more work, I found a bakery with a poorly protected recording system and watched the playbacks until I found the criminal.

Three hours later, I bundled up all the evidence I'd found and filled out the submission form on the Enforcement Group's Tips webpage. I flagged it in my notes for follow-up; Enforcement was very good about paying if the tips led to an arrest, but every once in a while they had to be reminded. If the person was arrested this week and I didn't receive anything, I'd be poking them.

I dug around a bit more, particularly focusing on fugitives who had killed or intentionally harmed children. There was no way to replace family members, and I knew the pain of that loss far too well.

After a long search and some script tweaking, I had no new leads, so I gave up for the time being and flopped onto my bed. I linked my hands behind my head and closed my eyes.

Making my thoughts purposefully loud to activate the Bluetooth implant in my brain, I thought, "Resume playlist Stardust."

Quiet music filtered directly into my auditory nerve, almost as if I had an earpiece on without blocking any of the external sounds. Bluetooth implants had been all the rage two decades ago, before people realized that the inserted devices couldn't keep up with the pace of technology.

Within a decade, most were so outdated that they were obsolete—and getting them removed had proven to be far more challenging than the companies had originally claimed. After hundreds of deaths due to internal bleeding, most people had given up and just deactivated them since the updates for older models had stopped years ago.