Waking up next to Sparrow is a special treat. We started on the couch, but we did eventually make our way into her shuttle. Her bedroom gave us a little more room to spread out. And let me tell you...

Her decor is fucking phenomenal. And the soft pad is way nicer than a cot.

What, you want all the vulgar details? Yeah, I bet you do.

I bet want to hear every dirty, juicy, messy word of it. You sick puppy. Well, Lieutenant Melody Cygnus Cruz is the classy sort. I don't kiss and tell. This isn't holo-porn.

Alright, fine, just to shut you up, I'll say one thing.

Yes, the tattoo does go everywhere.

Now get your mind out of the spam-filter. Go take a cold shower and come back when you're ready to behave.

***

Another special treat is that Sparrow has coffee. Not fake crystals, but real, actual beans! We shared two delicious cups, wrapped in the blanket together. I never want this morning to end. The steam from my mug smells better than anything since I've come out to the Jovian. I'm a little surprised and overwhelmed when she offers me some to take back to my quarters.

"You can't just give me a whole can of this," I say, as she holds it out a little silver cylinder. "That coffee has to be worth more than a week's pay out here," I protest weakly.

She tosses her head and scoffs, rolling her eyes. "Please. They were a trade from an old friend, didn't cost me a credit. Besides, I'm not giving them to you. You're just holding onto them for me, to save me paying the reaction mass transporting them around. Free storage," she says with a wink.

I blush at that. "I guess you'll always have something better than the instant crystals to drink, if you swing by my quarters," I say, biting my lip.

She tosses the can to me, laughing as I fumble for it. "That's the idea. And you're cute when you blush, Lieutenant," she says, leaning close and wrapping her arms around me.

I hug her back, pressing my chain against her blue hair. Damn, she smells nice too. Like clean sweat and coffee. "Well, I'm glad we straightened that out. After all, bribing a Code Enforcement Officer is a serious offense. I might have had to take you in, Captain," I tease back.

Sparrow stiffens in my arms.

Shit. "Wait, I didn't mean..." I start, but she puts a finger to my lips.

"I know. It's just...." she shakes her head. A few heartbeats go by in silence.

"Sorry... I have a bit of a foot-in-mouth habit. It's hard to break. Mind if we forget I said it?" I ask.

"Already wiped the hard drive," she says with a smile. "But unfortunately, I do have to meet one of the mining reps in a few hours. Gotta be in top form to negotiate a transport contract, so I'll have to freshen up," she says, standing and guiding me to the hatch.

"Ah yes, I have to report for my shift in... ten minutes ago." I blink a few times. Oh, crap, I turned my alerts off. Right. "Damnit." I rush to dress, stumbling as Sparrow giggles.

"Don't forget about Lemming's datachip," she adds, laughing as I slide to a halt, slap my forehead and turn back for it.

Oof. Ok, I'm not at the top of my game right now, but I swear: I really am good at my job.

***

Heading back to my quarters, I'm practically floating. I barely remember the walk. Fresh coffee in one hand and a fresh lead in another. Could the day start any better?

I consider pinging Brent to coordinate. Hmm, on second thought, he'll probably have all sorts of awkward question or off-color jokes. Nah, I'll have to deal with that soon enough. Let's see how far I can get with the data on my own. Might be nice to show off a bit.

As I arrive to my beige, dull quarters, I sniff. Hmm, could probably use a bath first. But sorry, you aren't getting those juicy details either.

In any event, by the time I'm sitting on my couch and linking into the exonet, I'm nearly half an hour late for my shift. Hopefully Captain Cartwright isn't a clock watcher. Well, if I work late and the full shift time, the worst he can do is rake me over the coals. It's my first week; this'll be my only time to plausibly get away with it, after all.

No sense putting it off; let's analyze. I plug the chip into the port on the wall and link in my overlay. The datasets appear in my mind. I don't recognize anything; it's all output from the radio-telescope array and shorthand analyses appended to them. Not my specialty. But you know, that's what tech is for.

Enjoying this book? Seek out the original to ensure the author gets credit.

I pull the latest malware filters around my connection and tap my secondary node, letting some pre-programmed macros scan the code.

The security macro begins to flag about two dozen different pieces of code as hostile. Well that's a great start. It looks largely like adverts, spambots, and trojans. Nothing top-tier, almost an assortment of random junk you'd find in any virt. Huh. I haven't seen anything like this before. Looks like someone tossed a hundred different programs in a blender, then spat them out in the analysis. I'd say it was random, but it's hard to tell.

I shrug. A bit out of my wheelhouse. I upload the file, properly quarantined, and flag it for forensics. Rabi's going to have some fun with this one, I'm sure. Hopefully she can get something useful out of it. Or at least give me some indication if he spontaneously dissolved into a pile of scrapcode. Well, nothing more to do there at the moment.

Moving on to the cases I can do something about, I pull up the file on the medical nanos. Looks like the canisters were blanks; none had been pre-programed. That doesn't really make them any more valuable. Hmm, it was a standard cargo bay. No special security. But looks like... huh, the system log show an Earth admin ID unlocked the bay. What in the wet hell? That would be obvious to anyone looking for suspicious logins! If a high-ranking Earth admin was on the station, I'd know. Hell, I'd probably hear if they were in the Jovian at all.

I scratch my head. At least that explains why First Precinct wants this. I hate that whole jurisdictional nightmare. It's because of the three district lines established by the Colonial Charter. A void-spawned mess of half-measures and faulty compromises if you ask me. The whole fucking system is a holdover of the colonial wars, and the merger of three distinct governments into pseudo-stable districts all vying for supremacy. Since people drag hurt feelings over generations, it means the Precincts each follow suit.

First Precinct has jurisdiction within Earth, period. Nobody even calls it 'First District', it's always and forever the cradle of humankind, the home-world; Earth. Second Precinct has Code Enforcement jurisdiction moving sunward; mostly Venus, Mercury, and the many statite habitats floating close to the solar power. The Solar District. Third Precinct has jurisdiction within Luna and everything rimward; Mars, the Belt and Jovian stations, and the Kuiper outposts. The Dark District.

Earth has the most money, influence, and population, so Earth basically dictates policy across the Sol system. Except the Solar Mining Collective and their massive solar energy consortium falls within Second Precinct's jurisdiction and can leverage that in local or regional matters. Third Precinct gets the short end of the stick, since everything past mars is mostly automated, AI, or sparsely populated. Luna holds its own sometimes, by virtue of their helium mining and position up the gravity well, but nobody cares about anything past Mars.

And nobody cooperates. So, no way some Earth admin official is sneaking aboard and stealing nanos on my station. So, it's gotta be a false-flag or red herring, right? I chew on my bottom lip. Flicking through the security feed, there's no clipping, no looping, no evidence the recording is fake. It's done very well, so it must be a very competent coder. Maybe a pre-loaded subroutine. Someone set it up in advance? But if you planned it in advance, why not do it right and use a dark district ID?

So... whoever did it must not have had time and did it on the fly? Maybe worried about getting caught. It's not super careful planning, and of course an Earth ID would pop up in the system on review. Exonet security can be lax sometimes, but not that lax. I should know; I am security.

Hmm... If someone spoofed the eyesbot outside the cargo bay without being seen, then they must have interacted with it. There are no physical or digital prints, but that just means someone cleans up after themselves. Hmm... I'm spinning in circles.

I sit back on my couch, hearing it creak. It really is too small. Like everything in these quarters.

Ok, change tactics. No leads on who took the nanos. So, work backwards. Why take them? I pull up the schematics and code for the nanites and pour through them again.

The captain is right, the nanos can kill. But for the amount of effort to weaponize them, it really doesn't seem worth it. You could weaponize almost anything else faster and cheaper. I could turn an aerosol can into a deadlier weapon, in a pressurized station.

So why use nanos specifically to kill? I mean, you could spike a drink and kill without line of sight. Covertly? It would only buy you a little time. It would be pretty obviously a murder. Nanos would show up in an autopsy. In fact, nanos have serial numbers; most criminals pay for weapons without identifying information. And it doesn't work for a false-flag op if the nanos are unowned.

Well, the Sergeant brought up a point. Someone trying to cure something? But why not go to medical? Even without insurance, medical nanos aren't that expensive. They're not exactly over-the-counter, but not worth stealing for their value. Keeping an illness confidential? That's what privacy laws are for.

Alright, so maybe it's not some hired killer or someone with the flu. I mean, they're unprogrammed, so it's nothing exotic...

I'm missing something. Wait, hang on. Medical grade nanos... could be used for hacking. Program and inject them into a computer system or into a synth? You could spread a lot of havoc.

I chew on my bottom lip. Well, even industrial grade nanos could be used for that, and they'd be way easier to get, and in larger quantities. Cheaper, too. No, the benefit of medical grade nanos is that they're safe and effective on living tissue-

The hair rises on the back of my neck.

Oh shit. They're probably implant-compatible. Most medical manufacturers want their gear to work on everyone, so they can sell to anyone. I pull the nano specifications up in my overlay, scanning them with growing dread. If you programmed them to interface with an augment's implants? You could jack implants signals if you injected someone with corrupted nanos. The nanos as a layer of interference between wetware and hardware? If someone was good enough with code, processing that input and output...

Oh fuck. If the person is a synth or augmented enough, you could body-jack someone. If a coder, a hacker, really knew what they were doing?

I break out in goosebumps. Holy void-spawned fuck. You could body-jack a number of synths or augments with two canisters worth of nanos. Did the Captain consider this? Oh, of course, that's why he wants my attention on it. Way to undersell it, Cartwright.

I take a deep breath, licking my lips and cracking my knuckles. Chill, Mel. Don't assume the worst. Right. Obviously, someone's up to something naughty. Doesn't mean the world is ending.

Damnit. I just jinxed it, didn't I?