I wake up on day three feeling strangely refreshed, despite the less-than comfortable cot. Maybe I've shaken off the torpor. Maybe I'm getting the hang of spin-gravity. Maybe it's meeting a nice... Ok, you know what? Screw it, I feel good and I'm not going to question it.

After bathing and munching down the last fossilized protein pack for breakfast, I decide I'm going to tackle the toll-skimming case. It's a bit tricky, because I'm pretty sure the culprit is a synth. The way the toll system was hacked, without outside access, makes me think someone injected code from within. How hard this is going to be depends on whether the hacker has a body. Or chassis.

I need a close look at the active code, in realtime. Ugh. I'll have to 'drop in' on this one.

I'm not a big fan of visiting virts in the first-person. I'm not synth, so I'm not really 'there'. There's a digital avatar of me, sure, but that's just my node projecting a facade. I suppose it's kind of the digital version of a hologram? To the synths, anyway. I'm sure it comes across as really uncanny... but then, the synths seem that way to us in meatspace. Something to ponder.

Of course, the virt isn't truly a virtual reality. All a virt is, essentially, is a computational substrate with a system capable of processing Synths and Avatars in real-time. The perception of physical distances or directions, the subjective perception of the environment as physical matter? It's just a sort of lie that the human brain tell itself. I mean, when it interprets data from the node. The visual cortex evolved to process input in a certain way. Use what’s already there, no re-inventing the wheel, paths of least resistance, and so forth.

Visualizing the links between subsystems as paths and gateways is probably the least trippy part of it. I'm not sure exactly how the AIs and Synths perceive it. For me, it's a disorienting tangle of angles, of visual perceptions splayed in a 360-degree arc around my avatar.

Yeah, seeing in every direction at once. No blind spot, right? If that sounds awesome, I promise you it isn't. It's disorienting, it's draining, it's fucking frightening. Luddites think it's akin to stepping onto, like, a holodeck. It's not. It's like replacing your vision with a drone-camera set to panorama mode that's being dipped directly into the datastream. Except you can't close your eyes, you can’t fucking blink, because the input skips your eyes. It's beamed directly into your brain. No motion blur, no saccades, no ability to visually focus directionally, no 'peripheral vision'.

The virts are the same systems I interact with daily through the exonet. The difference is, when I 'drop in', my node hacks my brain to make me interpret the data in a... somewhat understandable way, so that I can access it without a medium. It’s like the difference between programming instructions into a robot versus inhabiting the robot's chassis

But virts aren't designed for human brains and aren't created with our comfort in mind. It's really hard to have a first-person perspective in-system. There are no sensations from the virt, no sensory feedback the body is accustomed to. No gravity, no inertia, no fixed or cardinal directions, no feeling of motion or temperature or touch. But with the right training, it's bearable. Like hiking through a blizzard is bearable. With luck and good equipment, you might not freeze or get terribly lost.

And of course, you're not alone out there. Some virts are tightly regulated. Some are lawless chaos. And everything in between. It depends on who owns the computational substrate, who programmed the virt, who makes the rules. The law, in theory, applies across all virts on the station, same as everywhere else in the Sol system. In practice? Well, if nobody learns... was there ever a crime?

Thankfully, the toll station is on a public virt, so it’s safe. Well, no less safe than the station in meatspace. There’s a decent amount of traffic, but it looks mostly automated. Well, no sense putting it off. I take a deep breathe as I drop into the network.

My awareness of meatspace drops significantly. I'll probably be able to tell if someone shouts in my ear or touches me, but not much else. Another reason I don't like this very much.

I drop my avatar directly in the network where the toll system is running, which I regret immediately. I should have dropped in a less active system first; the flurry of traffic adds to the diorientation. I can see ghostly afterimages flaring along around me, beside me. Even through me, passing in a number of directions. I move forward, avatar jumping through a link to the toll station. Ugh, there's no motion! I just appear there, like the intervening space didn't exist. It makes me feel like there should be inertia. I'll never get used to this.

I peel back the code, examining it with a critical eye. The station appears to be functioning correctly, except... there. It looks like any fraction of a credit earned on interest is being diverted. Hmm, and to an unregistered account. Looking at the base-code, it's untouched. If I had to guess, the change is injected into the active code while the station is running. Probably gets cleared out with the cache on reset, and the perp comes back to reinfect it. Probably gets them past the diagnostic scan on start-up, too.

This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.

I smile at that. Well, I would have if I had a mouth here, but I'm sure my meatsuit smiled. I reset the toll-station. I set all twelve of the hunter-killer programs loose into the computational substrate. "Here boys," I call out, unnecessarily. I watch the biters form a perimeter.

I tag the toll station. The next time someone touches this code, they're gonna be painting themselves. I toss the tag code out to the sniffers, who scatter through the substrate. The biters hunker down around the tolling station, inert. For now. Well, no need to stick around.

I jump out, blinking my real eyes. Could be worse. The sniffers wait for the right, or wrong, handshake protocol and then call in the biters. Simple as pie.

***

I spent another hour trying to find something on Lemming. I'd posted a few requests for information about him on some message boards, and did a fresh scan for his ID. Nothing, not that I expected anything. I'm pretty sure I've hit a dead end on this case, and I'm getting ready to close the file. About then, I get a ping.

Ah, the sniffers. The perp had been tagged and identified. I link in, not dropping in this time. The toll station shows the corrupted code. I reset it and call the sniffers back. I take a moment to scan the logs I'm getting back from them. Hmm, looks like it was an AI after all. Probably sentient, maybe when overclocked. I call the biters, and I'm a bit disappointed when they arrive empty-handed. Not that they have hands.

I read through their logs. A bot-net, huh? Looks like the biters broke the connection between the units. The AI may have been dissolved by the sanitizing programs; of course, it might still have backups out there. I write a report, appending the logs from the hunter-killers. Eh, might as well copy Rabi on it; forensics is going to want the logs to ID the perp if possible. I also see a couple flags for other hostile D-life the biters encountered and munched on. Looks like spam-bots mostly. Never hurts to clear the underbrush of rogue programs.

I manage to wrangle the hunter-killers up with minimal fuss. Overall, could have gone worse. The report is the dullest part, though I might go mad if I have to keep looking at the wall of my quarters.

***

By the time I get a ping from the Chimera, I’m grateful for the distraction. A direct link this time; looks like Sparrow doesn’t mind me in her mind. Heh. I put up a standard filter and open the link, grinning.

“Bet you weren’t expecting a ping so soon, huh Melody?” I hear in my mind.

“I wouldn’t say that; I’m always grateful to a concerned citizen who wants to help the authorities,” I tease back. I freeze for a moment, realizing that could be taken a couple of ways, but that musical laugh comes through.

“Oh, grateful?” I can hear the coyness in her voice. “It’s always good to have a Cop owe you a favor. It can come in handy.” I can’t help but smile at that.

“Well, not that I don’t enjoy talking to you, but are you going to keep teasing me, or share some intel?” I bite my bottom lip. I wonder what she's wearing.

“Well, I pinged some of the other AIs I had work-connections with. A few put out feelers for Lemming.”

“And got something?” I ask, leaning forward.

“One, sorta. I got a ping from a sentient Indy that worked with him on his last project. They were two of about six hundred Indy contractors hired to parse and analyze datasets off the Tachi telescope array. According to Peekaboo, and please don’t ask for the backstory for that name, Lemming bailed about three-quarters of the way through the project.”

I sigh at that. “Yeah, I know that, unfortunately. He didn’t even pick up his pay.”

“Well, he can’t anymore. The payment is going to be rescinded. According to Peekaboo, Lemming’s analyses are filled with errors and junk data, and some of it popped hot as malware.”

I ponder that for a moment. An AI, spitting bad outputs? Clearly something wonky in the programming. “So, you think he was degrading? Maybe an error propagating in his code from a malware attack, and he decompiled?”

“Maybe, could be a dozen different things. But the strange thing is the junk data in the analyses appeared to be random bits of code from a few hundred different sources; like, completely unrelated to astronomy. Random.”

I scratch my head at that. “I… dunno what that means.”

“Me either, but I thought it might help,” she offers.

I nod slowly, though she can’t see it. “Couldn’t hurt. I’ll get it to Rabi and let forensics pour over it. I’ll see about getting the data from Astronomy Division, with a subpoena if I need it.”

I hear a giggle. “I could do you one better! Peekaboo can get a copy. Want me to drop it off when she pings me?”

I feel a tingle at the base of my spine. “If you’re not too busy… sure.”

***

After speaking with Sparrow, I decide to talk a walk. Change of scenery, and I need to pick up some more food. The walk along the thoroughfare isn't long, and there's perhaps a dozen others walking too. Most look like admin workers, blind to the beauty of Jupiter rising in the distance. Ok, I admit, even I am starting to get accustomed to it. Still, while pinging an order for protein packs and some assorted ramens and MREs, it beats staring at the bulkhead.

I'm not much of a cook, so fresh ingredients aren't on my list. Besides, even lab-grown meat and non-frozen or dried vegetables will cost through the nose out this far. Maybe I could see about linking up a hydroponics setup? Not much of a green thumb, but I could probably grow some tomatoes.

But guess what?

They do sell coffee! It's the crystals, that crappy instant-coffee, and the can of it costs me almost two-days' pay, but of course I bought it. As I walk back to my quarters, I just spend a few minutes sniffing it.

And maybe skipping. Don't judge me!

One thing's for sure; I'm eager to get to sleep, just to make a cup in the morning.

My day went well. Maybe I had to pay that balance. Maybe that's why the night was hell.

***