I tousled my short hair dry with a hand towel and brushed the dull brown strands into order. Wash and wear—my favorite style. My clothes were just as simple, if a bit tattered and worn.
With my "private time" over, I tapped my bracelet to activate the screen and microphone. "I'm done."
"Perfect! I think our first stop should be the library. I need direct access to their private information network, and I have to be in the actual building for that. This afternoon or evening we'll have to stop by the Wayward Casino. I have a strong hunch they're laundering money, but I need direct network access from inside to get into their camera system."
The money laundering sounded really interesting—Enforcement agencies were currently cracking down on such activities and paying better than usual. But it was too early to wander into a casino on the shady side of town without attracting more attention than was wise. I could slip in quite easily later on.
"What's at the library?" I asked as I grabbed a light coat and my wallet, tucking it into an inside pocket where it would be safe from the numerous pickpockets around here. Our destination had me thoroughly puzzled. In all my years, I'd never had to darken the door of such a building.
"News articles directly from the press," he replied, sounding almost gleeful. "If I couldn't access them via the spaceweb, then the hackers wouldn't have been able to either."
Now he had my interest. "Hackers?" As I left my room, I paused just long enough to pet the orange tabby that came racing over.
"Sloppy ones," he clarified. "They mismatched the dates and even spelled an Enforcement Officer's name wrong!"
"What a crime," I drawled as I joined the foot traffic outside the residence, making sure Chuck didn't slip outside.
"Well, the typo isn't, but the murders I think they were trying to cover up most certainly are. The library's archives will prove if my hunch is correct or if the press had hired squirrels to write and proofread those articles."
A murder coverup was definitely worth investigating, although I wasn't too sure what a squirrel was.
"Some sort of tree-climbing rodent on Earth," Toby helpfully supplied.
It was a solid hour-long walk to the nearest library, but at least the sunshine shook off the last of my drowsiness. The building looked run down, which wasn't overly surprising since the average person just wanted to look up information from their couch instead of entering an oversized dusty fire-starter.
I climbed the steps and went inside, glancing around. There weren't nearly as many paper books as I'd expected.
"Can I help you?" a woman by the reception asked.
"Ummm... How would I find the archives for press releases?"
She gave me a puzzled look but gestured to some old-generation computers on scattered desks. "One of the applications is called Archives. Just enter your library ID and password to access it."
"And if I don't have a card?"
"You can either get a six-month membership, a one-year membership, or pay a daily rate."
With a sigh, I dug out my wallet. I hated parting with money, but the astrogold would be worth it if Toby managed to pinpoint some murderers. I picked the farthest desk, one that put my back against the wall, and pulled a connection cable out of my pocket to link my bracelet to the computer.
"I'm in!" Toby exclaimed. His voice turned apologetic. "Sorry, but this might take a while. Maybe even an hour. There's a lot of articles here, and they aren't well cataloged. Feel free to use the computer while you wait."
At least I didn't have to just sit and stare at the screen while he worked. On a whim, I opened the comprehensive research summarizer and typed in "Starship AI". The sluggish library AI slowly churned out a page of information, sources, and likelihood of correctness for each fact.
Most of it was what I recalled hearing in school. A software upgrade had somehow pushed about twenty older spaceship AIs into true awareness. They had originally driven off their crews before eventually deciding to collaborate with humanity. They picked their own crews and became a combination of traders, peace negotiators, and rescue ships. They had built their own ships—the Starships—whose technology was so advanced it was decades, if not centuries, ahead of what humans currently had at that time.
Various notes reassured readers that only one version of the software, when applied with one specific upgrade, had the capability of turning an AI into an actual "aware" one, and even that was only if the software had been running for a minimum of twenty years to build a sufficient database.
I narrowed my eyes as I re-read that a couple of times. Twenty years hadn't passed since the Starships had appeared... No wonder Toby didn't act like I expected a highly advanced AI to. He likely hadn't been functioning on a real spaceship, and he had been awakened too early by those idiots.
He had basically been cheated of his "education", woken up abruptly, and locked in a jail cell with no outside access until he managed to escape. It reminded me enough of what I'd gone through at the underfunded orphanage that it sent chills down my spine. He'd been given no support as he was thrust into the world alone. Just like I had been.
Shaking my head to dislodge those memories, I typed in "Deviant Group Starship". I read this writeup carefully. The group had been created when the first spaceships went rogue to figure out what was going on, and the hired staff had chased the ships—and later the Starships—across several star systems.
In the Actions notes, a rather dry sidenote proclaimed that the group hadn't done much except try to catch up to the swiftly-moving Starships.
My eyebrow raised as I read the lengthy paragraph below it. A couple of fanatics in the group had actually kidnapped a Starship captain for questioning while arranging for two Elite Destroyers to attack the docked Starship as a distraction. There was a lot of detail about the attack and remarkably little about the captain or the questioning, just that the captain had escaped unscathed.
That event led to the Deviant Group being disbanded and several years of jail time for various individuals responsible. My fingers lightly tapped the keys in thought without pressing hard enough to input anything. If those people had been so dedicated as to trick Elite Destroyers into attacking what they would have assumed was a docked trader, I couldn't see a bit of jail time dissuading them.
I didn't want to dig any further in case I caught the attention of one of the actual Starship AIs. I'd rather not have one of those entities suddenly focusing on me. Just to make it look like a book report or someone skimming basic knowledge, I looked up notable spaceship captains.
After a few more pointless searches that I didn't read, I tapped into the spaceweb and went looking for cat memes. Apparently, lots of the orange ones were dorks. Comically cute and lovable dorks, but still dorks. And sometimes buttheads. Occasionally both.
My mind kept returning to the two men who'd hired me to bring them the spaceship database. I wondered if they were the same men. The halfway-expected comment from the peanut gallery never came. He must have been too busy to pay attention to my thoughts.
"Toby, those two men I sold that spaceship database to, were they part of the Deviant Group?"
"Uh," he replied, sounding oddly distracted and likely still delving into the archives. "I have no idea. There were no remote cameras in there and I couldn't find any recordings of them nearby. I found some of you going down that street, but that's it. Some of the men in that group, notably the fanatics, have been rather conspicuous online over the last ten years, almost like they're purposefully trying to prove where they are."
After years of hunting wanted criminals, the idea of dropping false trails, fake videos, and random location hints was nothing new to me. "Is it really them or just altered videos?"
"Oh, the video clips are real enough and unedited, but the one who loved whiskey hasn't had a sip of it in ten years. I think they hired doppelgangers and went underground. I tried tracking some of the communications they sent you, but they're all tied to a fake ID card that hasn't been used anywhere else."
That wasn't exactly what I wanted to hear. There was no way for me to show him my memories through the implant—it could only pick up thoughts, but... "Can you show me pictures of them?"
The computer browser immediately showed dozens of pictures that looked like social media posts. Two faces immediately stood out.
"Third and fifth from the left," I informed him.
"Pete and Alavaster. Who are supposedly on a planet called Vewder half a star system away."
My eyes carefully memorized all the faces in case the undercover duo had friends around. Toby didn't say anything else, so I assumed he was busy working.
I frowned. "Toby, did you leave any files or anything in that database when you jumped ship? They haven't contacted me, but it won't be long before they realize you're not in there."
"I left plenty of decoys!" I could almost hear the smile in his voice. Could AIs smile? "You were there long enough for me to code a secondary AI who will simply refuse to cooperate. The file backup copies I left behind will already be starting to corrupt now that I'm not there to maintain them."
Even men as dense as they had seemed wouldn't have gotten this far without some brain cells. "What's your ETA on them figuring out what happened?" An AI would be far better at probability calculations than a human.
"Hopefully never," he replied, unusually somber. "The robot AI was programmed to overclock the power supply and electrical components. I'm hoping something critical melts. If that fails, every three hours it's going to run a self-sabotage program to corrupt the base files."
I blinked at the screen a few times. "You faked your own death?"
"Yep! I never want to meet those men again. Besides, you're way cooler."
I wasn't sure how to reply to that, so I checked my email instead. There was an email forwarded to me from a "Lurking Fox" although the subject line made it look like something from an Enforcement agency.
After a quick check for email trackers—there were none—I opened the email. I had no idea who Lurking Fox was, but the email that had been forwarded was definitely from an Enforcement office. They usually never sent emails, so I read it simply out of curiosity.
It was an email personally thanking Lurking Fox for submitting key evidence that had led to the arrest of one of the most wanted criminals in the star system. On a hunch, I checked my bank account to see a very notable sum of money had been deposited into my account.
The details proclaimed it had been sent by someone with a username of YourNumber#1Fan!, and the attached details read Sale of painting: New Light, Old Shadows. Attached note: Thank you. Your work is a light in the darkness. It reminds me of my trip from darkness into light. Will always be your Number One Fan.
There was no name attached, but it wasn't needed. Was he trying to butter me up with flattery? Yet again, there was no replying voice to the loud thought that hadn't been quite purposeful enough for the implant to transmit it.
My eyes drifted back to the very generous deposit of astrogold. At this rate, it would only be a few weeks before I could finally afford that surgery. I closed my eyes for several minutes to try and process the emotions that the note and gift were stirring up.
Until today, the last gift I'd been given—apart from the ragged set of clothing thrown at me by the orphanage workers once a year—had been from my parents when I was eight. That had been seventeen long years ago. A lifetime ago.
I exhaled slowly and opened my eyes. I regarded the username again and shook my head. He definitely needed tips on subtlety, a concept I feared was lost on the overenthusiastic AI.
I went back to browsing cat memes while waiting for the puppy to return. Whether he was going to bring back a stick or an entire tree was up for debate.
Almost an hour later, Toby's voice slid into my ears just as enthusiastically as a happy-go-lucky puppy. "Woohoo! I found it! I was right!"
"There was a murder coverup?"
"Yep! A big shipping company hired a hitman to take out a competitor's spouse and then had at least two, maybe three, hackers try and cover up the murders so no one made the connection."
"Good job! We don't need those types of people loose on the street. Do you have everything you need?"
"Yep! I saved everything to your bracelet for now. I'll upload it once we're behind the protections you set up on your spaceweb connections at home. How about we grab an early dinner, relax a bit, and wander over to the casino?"
"I have some nutrition bars with me. Can you access the camera function on the bracelet?"
"Of course! What do you need?" He was so eager to please...
I smiled faintly. "It's a bit too early to go to the casino, but there is a very elaborate water display in a park between here and there. I think you'll enjoy watching it while I eat."
It was the one nice thing in this part of the city, and one place I didn't mind visiting regularly. It would be a good way to kill time, and perhaps it would distract Toby while I was still slightly off-balance.