"Thud, THUD!"

R4 took a deep breath before examining the punching bag she had been exerting her frustration upon. To her right Jun was practicing with his own. Hon was taking it easy and doing stretches. The fact his entire back was one big bruise from when the officer sent him flying was of minor concern, as was the ice pack he currently had tied to his head.

“Good, let out your aggression.” Coach announced looking on. The gym was particularly full today. R4 noted most of the gym goers wore shirts with the Gentek logo on them in various colors, and a unitard beneath. R4 noted they uniformly wore blue, save for an older man who seemed to be commanding the others in their exercises. He wore a black unitard beneath a white gi, which R4 felt fit with his Asian-Earth appearance. “Looking good over there, maybe time for a water break.”

“No breaks!” One of the other gym goers announced. R4 noticed he was leading a group of men and women in some sort of aerobic exercise, consisting of jumping jacks and pushups and some other exercieses. The leader was as pale as a ghost, and looked to be in his late 60’s, yet he was by far the least tired. Several of the other men and women looked as if they were about to pass out. “Johnson, I know you have two hearts, stop sputtering like dehydrated walrus. Finn, Ty, stop staring at Yir’s behind.” Two men flinched, while the woman before them struck a pose. “Yir, stop flirting. Go put on shorts.” R4 noticed that while the men’s unitards had very short shorts, the woman called Yir’s was more of a leotard. A quick glance around told her the other women in the group wore shorts over their outfits, and many of the men did too.

“Sure thing Odo-kun.”

“Stop making fun of my culture woman, go. Everyone else, five minutes. Within 5 seconds everyone was on their phones.

“Hey cutie.” R4 blinked when the woman approached her, before striking a pose. “Haven’t seen you before.” The woman fluffed her curly blonde hair and R4 couldn’t help but think of a 60’s or 70’s era fitness commercial. “You like what you see?” R4 heard a tiny motor whirr and she could swear the woman’s bust got bigger.

“Go easy on the remote Yir, and turn off those pheromones. I can smell them from here.” Coach chided. The woman pouted, but R4 did note her body shape reverted to more slim build, and the air quality changed slightly.

“What cyberware is that?” R4 asked. “I’ve never heard of an implant that alters your scent. What’s it do?”

“Why don’t you stop by my apartment and I’ll show you?” The woman smiled, her eyes flickering slightly.

“Harlot, shorts. Flirt with little girl later.”

R4 watched as the woman sauntered towards her bag, before her head cleared. It was like turning on a light switch, one moment she could barely keep her eyes off the woman, the next she remembered she wasn’t into girls.

“Hon, what was that?” Hon continued to watch the woman. “Hello?”

“That’s Yir Mako, she’s one of the scientists at Gentek.” Jun supplied. “She’s also 60 and inhabiting an artificial body”

“59!” She shot back. “And still killing it.”

“Artificial body?” R4 asked.

“Don’t ask me how it works, but they basically scoop your brain and spine out of your body and grow you a new one. You have to be Tier 1 to survive it, but the new body ages extremely slowly and is a bit tougher.”

“Depending on the model it increases your force or reflexes by 2, or increase both by 1. It also gives a point of armor.” Hon provided. He took out his phone and showed R4 an add for it.

“1,000,000 credits?” R4 asked. “That’s a lot.”

“And that’s without the options. I know Yir has the EZ-hair, Lunar Lady body morph, and the Butterfly’s Grace pheromones. Hey Yir, R4 wants to see your hair.”

Yir was currently doing a stretch which her two coworkers behind her were paying more attention to than their own. With a flick of her head her hair went from fluffy and blonde to a straight and black, before fanning out and then curling itself into a hat, and then returning to how it was.

“That, that’s something else.” R4 replied. “Sure don’t get that kind of thing back home.” She ran her hands through her own hair. R4 eyed the punching bag she was working on, she didn’t feel like going at it anymore. “So, what’s next?”

After another half hour R4 was beginning to feel tired, not physically but mentally. Her stomach let out a growl.

“Are you hungry again?” Hon asked.

“It’s been a few hours, and I’ve got a high metabolism.” There was a low buzzing sound, and a SNAP. “That’s not a good sound.

“Chrome, Get it off him!”

R4 quickly arrived, seeing Odo struggling with some sort of weight. His coworkers watched, though none moved to help him. There had been an emergency cable to ensure it wouldn’t fall on him, but a vibroknife sat next to the now cut cable

“What are you doing?” R4 exclaimed.

“I have this.” Odo exclaimed, his arms opening up to reveal cybernetics beneath. He continued to push, his muscles beginning to buzz. R4 saw it first, his right arm was beginning to turn red as warning lights lit up under the skin. A twitch she shouldn’t have noticed stuck out to her. A tiny mark that could have been mistaken for a mole was revealed to be a tiny burn from a blown out fuse. “Anyone step forward, demotion. You scream, demotion. You film, believe it or not, demotion.” He pushed the weight back up, before allowing it to descend. “This is why we work out, the machines are strong, but weakness remains. It is weakness of the flesh, it is not the machine that tires, it is the mind. Only by pushing,”

R4 saw the moment his arm failed. The weight fell, and the feedback caused his other arm to drop. His other arm began to glow, the circuits heating up as they tried to compensate, and failed.

“Someone grab him!” R4 exclaimed, running up and grabbing the weight. She pulled, trying to leverage the weight off him, before her eyes saw the numbers. The weight was 300 kilograms, four times her weight. “Come on, someone get him!”

No one moved, R4 winced, sweat pouring off of her as she heaved. She felt her fingers slipping, she started praying.

“Forget this!” R4 saw Yir step forwards and yank Odo off the bench. R4 let go and the dumbells crashed to the floor.

“You’re fired!” Odo exclaimed turning and trying to point at R4. His arms jerked like fish pulled from the water. “Yir, you are on suspension.”

“What?” R4 asked.

“You dishonor me. It is noble to succeed, but better to die in the attempt than survive. To fade away in obscurity, that is humiliation. Now Mia, assist me to my ripper.” One of the other women, a woman who looked as if she could be the man’s daughter, quickly helped him up and out of the gym. “Exercise are over. You have the rest of the day off.”

“Crazy old coot.” Yir yelled at the man. Maybe it was a twitch, but R4 could swear he flipped her off, though from the way his hands were spasming it could have been a reflex.

“What jus’ happened?” R4 asked.

“I think that old samurai just tried to make us witnesses to his suicide. That idiot, he’d have corporate loss prevention lock us all up over this.”

“Why?”

“Same reason he made us all come out here to exercise until we dropped, some project got botched and made our team look bad. He blamed our lack of discipline.” Her hair turned red and spikey, “You B******, you could have gotten us all fired for this.” She gritted her teeth, before taking a deep breath. Her hair darkened, and went limp. R4 wasn’t sure what to say to the woman, but Yir broke the silence on her own. “Well, I’m on suspension, so are you free?”

“Um,” R4 eyed the support cable. “I should probably fix this.” She opened up her tool arm and the osteoblast welding assembly jumped to hand.

“Hey, R4, you can’t just weld out here.” Coach stepped up to stop her. “You’ll blind someone and rack up my insurance even higher. Bad enough that man just tried to commit suicide in my gym.”

“Right, I’ll move it to the back first.” R4 took some of the weights apart. “Seriously, this guy was benching six hundred kilograms, what was he thinking?”

“Wait, you were lifting 300 kilograms, just how high is your Force?” Yir asked.

“It’s maxed at 5, can’t get it to six until I get to tier 1.” R4 replied, earning a look from both Coach and Yir. “So I’ve got work, then I’ve got a gig to prepare for.”

It took R4 a while to get the equipment off to the workshop. She broke out some tools of her trade and got to work. Fusing the cable back to the weights did not take long, though as an experiment R4 took similar cables and attached a hook to each. One hook she welded on, the other she used bone. Next she started adding weights. She started with 50 kilograms, and to give it some time to settle she began working on another piece of equipment. There were a few things in the junk room, and she had a per job gig with Coach to fix them up, with no real rush as they weren’t going anywhere.

“Hey R4, you busy?” Jun asked. R4 looked up from the hooks where she had attached 400 kg of weights to each. “What are you doing?”

“Testing a new bonding agent I got my hands on.” R4 replied, adding the eighth 50 kg weight to the bone hook. She fished out her structural analysis handheld and scanned both. The device gave her some readings, and she scratched her head before referring to a reference book on her phone. “You know, in my home country they have a device like this that has a dumb AI that can spit out the answers you want with ease. There’s currently an eight month wait time. I tried looking it up online, there’s a store three blocks from here that sells them and has three in stock. I could have one delivered in under 4 hours or walk there and pick it up in 15 minutes, assumin’ I don’t get mugged.”

“The magic of capitalism.”

“They also cost 400,000 credits, back home you can get ‘em for 20 grand if you’re willing to wait and have the proper permits.” R4 replied. “Yet, if you need it NOW, it’s sittin’ right there. They also have a payment plan.” R4 huffed. “I’m still not sure what to think of this place.”

“It’s an acquired taste, but it’s all most of us have ever known.” Jun replied. R4 went back to work, checking a few other pieces. Jun watched as she worked, eyeing the fact that despite using several measuring tools the tools she used the most were her hands. On R4’s part she wasn’t exactly touching the wires, but instead projecting a permeable telekinetic field through them, which gave her a wealth of information on the composition of what she was touching. It also gave her a rough voltage on wires, though the electricity seemed to interfere with the field. “So, I hope you don’t think it’s rude, but why haven’t you ascended yet, and why force?”

“What do you mean?”

“You’ve got your force maxed out at 5, which means you can’t get your aptitude to five which for a tech I’d think you’d want. I mean, you could still ascend using an aptitude based method, but it’s not as easy. On top of that, most folks ascend once they get everything to 2 and their main to 4. Do you just not have enough money, or do you just not want to?”

“Oh, I want to ascend.” R4 replied. “That officer would think twice taking me on if I was tier 2 as well, right?”

“Oh, definitely. The Silver Masks only punch down. He’d probably avoid you at tier 1. I know some folks who could probably whip you up a tier 1 ascension. It would be expensive, but so long as you leaned into your force you could do it. Aptitude would be a bit harder, but I think I know a guy who could swing it.”

R4 looked up from where she was mid disassembly of a treadmill with an auto hurdle feature. Based on the note Coach had pinned to it the device had an uncanny knack for smacking the runner in the face, regardless of how high it was supposed to put the hurdles or if that feature was even on. “I kind of wanted to ask about that. How does ascension work?”

“Depends on which way you go. I’m going for an empathy build, Hon is going for a pure force build. You can go for a build that focuses on a favored skill, but those are both more expensive and less versatile.”

“How would that work?”

“Not really sure, I don’t know anyone who has done it, just heard rumors. There’s supposed to be a guy who rebuilt himself around medicine. They say he can unfold his body to produce six arms equipped with tiny hands and he has a micro forge to create his own tools so he’s never without. If you believe the rumors he can bring back the dead so long as it’s within an hour, but that might be hype. How the pamphlets describe it ascension involves using nanites to break you down and build you back around the concept you embody. AI use this weird dice based concept, but the gist is by focusing on one concept you can increase that concept faster. Whatever attribute you favor will always have a maximum one step above the rest, or so I hear. I don’t know how that would work if you chose a different attribute than what you’ve got.”

“My contact mentioned rolling the bones.” R4 replied, swapping out some components, and replacing a few with bone versions. “She described it as guaranteeing a bit more success, but once you gain enough your confidence can become overconfidence and you can fail even worse than if you hadn’t.”

This story originates from a different website. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.

“Pretty much. Once you get to your fourth bump you have to choose if you want to advance to another die, or stay where you are. If your ascension favors one attribute you get to 3 then gain another die.” He shrugged. “Or that’s what I hear. Some of it you can bypass with chrome, but you still have to get used to using the chrome. Allegedly you can use AI processing power to speed it up, but that’s assuming you want to let one of them in your chrome.”

R4 was about to ask a question, but Jun’s phone interrupted her. “Hello?” He listened, his eyes squinting shut in frustration. “Seriously Yir? This better not be a trick, I’ve already got a girlfriend and she is the jealous type.” He listened a bit more. “Sure, I’ll ask.” He looked to R4, “How good are you at picking locks?”

“I kin’ get most stuff open in time, why?”

“After leaving here Yir and her coworkers went drinking, one lost his keys. Easy 50 credits.”

“I guess I could go fer’ a snack.” R4 replied, quickly recapping the cover onto the machine she was working on. She glanced at her test. “Ya’ think that’ll hold ‘til we get back?” Just in case she moved a few workout mats beneath it.

“Hold up, I’m going to ask Hon if he wants to come.” Jun stepped into a room marked pool and R4 saw there were four tanks worked into the floor. Jun stood in one, bubbling and steaming water surrounding him. “Hey Hon, you up for a bit of guard duty?”

Now that he didn’t have his shirt on R4 could see his entire upper back was the color of a peach, and as he turned she saw a distinct imprint of where the officer struck him on his chest. His tatoos had also changed color, changing from the black accents around silver scars to a burning red. “Hon, my brother in the streets, I look like I’ve been through a washing machine. This is AFTER you stuck me from a speed heal. I’m good.”

“How are the reinforced bones?”

“Best advice you ever gave. They’re a little cracked, but healing.”

“How are you on resin?” Hon gave him a blank look that made Jun facepalm. “You gonk, if you run out of resin your bones will get brittle. Don’t forget to reup your resin supplies.” Hon shot him a thumbs up, which he almost succeeded in pretending didn’t hurt. “I worry about that man sometimes.” Jun said after they were out of the pool room. “I love him like a brother, but often I feel like he’d get himself killed if I didn’t keep an eye on him.”

“I know the type, my brother would experiment night and day if my Ma’ or I didn’t stop ‘im...” R4 replied, smiling sadly.

“I didn’t know you had a brother.”

“He’s gone now, a cyberpsycho attack.” R4 paused, taking a moment to center herself.

“You need a moment?”

“I’m good, He died protecting something he cared about, and his killer received just retribution.” R4 lied. “Come on, work will take my mind off it.”

The building they arrived at was at least twenty floors, the entire thing made from gleaming metal and glass. They approached the door, only to be stopped by a man in black armor with a handgun in his holster. “Stop, present your identification.”

R4 looked to Jun who shot her a casual smile before taking out his ID. “Jun Kaziki and Rachel Smith, we got a call about a broken lock.”

“I didn’t hear nothing.” The guard replied.

“Well obviously, the intranet used to report a broken lock would only be accessible by an internal computer using a four factor pseudo-encryption using the local Firewall/icefield protocols. If the tenant, One James H Howard, were to be locked out of his home he couldn’t exactly file such a report. As an up-and-coming Executive of Gentek he would still have his phone, and would be able to call an outside contractor like myself and my partner and pay at his own expense rather than place the burden on your employer. Of course, if you wish to turn us away then under clause 106 subsection B you are well within your rights and duties to do so.” Jun whipped out his phone which was already open to an app and swiped a file to the man. “Just sign here acknowledging the fact you did so and relieving us of all relevant responsibilities and taking them on yourself.”

The man took out his phone, “What the chrome, this is fifteen pages long. I’m not signing this.”

“Very well, I will simply denote your refusal and mark it as another black mark against your building. Given the large number of marks I’m sure you will soon no longer have to worry about such issues, as your building’s metrics will soon be low enough that it will close down. Have a nice day sir.”

“Hold it, hold it.” He took his phone and took a picture of each. He waited for a moment, “Ok, go on up, but if anything happens you’re on the hook.”

“Then it’s a good thing we are above board. Come on Ms. Smith.” R4 followed quickly. “Shoot, we don’t have an elevator pass.”

“Stairs it is.” R4 replied, turning to the stairs and taking them two at a time. “Are guards always like that?”

“Depends. Most buildings have automated security, but Gentek owns this building and has some important people living here, so they spring for a human guard.”

“Didn’t stop us.”

“Well that’s because we have a clean record. He ran our faces through the NGPD database and got nothing.” He saw R4’s hesitant look. “Silver masks are notorious about not filing paperwork, even when they do it often gets lost. Besides, the NGPD app has several versions. The free version, which most people use, only looks for open warrants.” He took out his phone and took a picture of her face. “You have a closed warrant for resisting arrest, which was opened and closed within 5 minutes.” He showed her the record, taking a moment to catch his breath.

[[Keys to the kingdom has gained access to NGPD database. Innate human mimicry has altered host information]] Before her eyes R4 watched as her record went blank, and was replaced with a short phrase. “No information at your subscriber level.”

“Let me see that.” Jun took a second look. “How’d you do that?”

“Not the foggiest, I think th’ fact I’m remote an’ some a’ my MESH messed with the search.” R4 shrugged. “Not goin’ ta’ push. We almost there?”

“Almost.”

R4 came to the proper floor a bit before Jun, who was practically panting after the run. R4 spotted Yir and one of her coworkers standing outside one of the doors. She noted that this high up the floors were carpeted in a stylish black with red hexagons that hid any blood shed, and a warm brown wallpaper. Security cameras lined the hallway.

“Hey Jun, and… new girl. Glad you could make it.” Yir spoke up, her words faltering a bit. She hadn’t changed out of her gym attire so much as thrown a knee length red skirt and unzipped red jacket with the Gentek logo on it over top. The man she was with had worn a white business shirt and pants, and looked like he was going to fall over in a minute. Yir seemed only slightly tipsy.

“It’s R4, you guys ok? It’s about 2 and you’re drunk.”

“I’ve just had a few, Tomo had a few more, we have tomorrow off anyhow. Word is we’re getting shuffled around again, new ideas and breaking up old teams, got to keep recombining.” Yir said, tipping dangerously. R4 quickly moved forwards and helped her into a sitting position. “Thanks Doll,” And before R4 could react Yir gave her a kiss on the cheek.

“Um, no problem.” R4 replied, taking out her tools. “This is your place, and your landlord isn’t going to get ticked if I pick the lock right?”

“At this point, I don’t care. My kids locked me out, and the landlord company won’t send anyone unless I make a ticket from my terminal, which is inside. Neither of them are answering their cell phones either.”

“I can vouch for him, this is his home.” Yir replied.

R4 opened her carry all and got to work. The lock was Tier 0, but it was a good tier 0. “Ok, so this should take no more than five minutes,” Exactly 18 seconds later it was open. “Huh, guess those AI lessons really paid off.”

“AI lessons, you have to be careful with those.” Yir commented.

“What do you mean, do they,” R4 froze, her tongue slipping out of her mouth for just a moment before darting back in. “You smell that?”

“Smell what?”

“What’s wrong, I’m going in.” Tomo said, pushing his way through. “Tini, Omoto,” He froze. “Oh no.”

“What is it?” Yir asked. The sound that came from her coworker was all the answer she needed. As he fell to the floor the source was revealed.

Three skulls, still slick with blood, sat facing them. Three spines were organized next to them, R4 made it to the ribs before she had to look away. Somewhere in her mind the programmed medicine skill informed her the name of every bone, and she could see exactly where they should have gone in a human body. Immediately she had her phone out and was dialing 999.

“999 emergency, please hold.” A recorded voice spoke. “You are 23rd in line. Your estimated hold time is 8 minutes. There is a 5 credit per minute charge while on hold and a 15 credit per minute charge with a live person.” R4 looked at her phone in confusion before hanging up and trying again.

“Forget 999, use the app.” Jun instructed, taking out his own phone. “Costs 10 credits to report a crime, but they usually send a response within 15 minutes with instructions, an actual officer might take an hour.”

An officer was there in 5 minutes, and two more within 10. R4, Jun, and Yir were quickly sequestered in a corner for questioning.

“You pick a lot of locks?” The officer asked.

“I have the required credentials.” R4 replied, pulling up her proper certificates.

“These are Solarian Theocracy credentials.” The officer replied. “You a remote?” R4 nodded. “You have the proper paperwork for the gig?”

“It was an oral agreement, I got the job through a fixer I know, and confirmed this was the proper address. I was previously working at The Pain Train gym, and the guard at the front gate can confirm my time of arrival.”

“Yeah, he said you were here for 10 minutes before the call came.” The officer shot her a look. “Quite a while.”

“R4, stop talking. These are NGPD officers, not Solarian Truth Keepers. You don’t want to say more than you have to.” Jun spoke up, earning a dirty look form the officer. R4 winced and rubbed her jaw, where her teeth had fully grown back.

“So you have a history of interaction with the police?” The officer asked, his right eye lighting up from blue to red behind his visor. He squinted. “Ah, a run in with Officer Smiley. That was recent too.”

“Smiley’s got a new video?” One of the other officers asked. “Can’t wait to check it out.” His eyes fell on R4 and she saw his visor light up as a grin crossed his face.

“And look at the lead actress. Definitely going to be one for the whole gang.” The first officer replied, before going back to his duties. R4 felt an emotion she wasn’t sure how to interpret.

“They’re chatting like they’re paper pushers waiting to get off shift.” R4 whispered. “Three people are dead and they’re talking about watching me getting beaten up like it’s a sporting event.”

“Nu’Grav’s finest.” Jun replied. “I’m surprised they made it here this fast, something must have the algorithm acting up.

Within half an hour the officers were gone, and Tomo had an estimate from the cleaning company that would be removing the three bodies from his home.

“I feel like it would be in bad taste to ask for the credits now.” R4 whispered.

“I mean, you can, but I’m going to go for the “drop an invoice in a few days” approach. I’ll bill him 60, send you fifty, take the 10 as my cut.” R4 shot Jun a surprised look. “That’s Nu’Grav, city of tears. If you gave someone a discount every time there was a tragedy you’d go broke in a week.”

R4 considered. She had been kidnapped, forced into a death game, kicked out of her apartment, hassled by two gangs, attacked by four gangsters trying to profit off her corpse, and had an officer record her beatdown and strip search, which two cops were already discussing wanting to watch while she was within earshot. “And it hasn’t even been a week.”

“Happy pill?” Jun offered, R4 shook her head. “So, you want to investigate?”

“Not exactly my field of expertise.” R4 replied. “Shouldn’t that be the PD’s job?”

“I mean, they might bring in a detective, but that’s just for high profile jobs like serial killers or if someone important gets got. You could pay a fee, but you’ll probably just get a half interested beat cop looking to pad his hours. Down in Tier 0 town you hire a gumshoe and a solo, one to find the scum and one to put a bullet in them. I think Rain could take a look at this, she’s been working on her gumshoe skills. The first step is to look over the crime scene. You have your phone right?”

“Yeah, shouldn’t we leave this to the police? We’re not going to get in trouble for interfering are we?”

“They already took what they want and left, the cleaning company will be here in about an hour, probably longer since they’re usually late.” He approached Yir’s friend, who Yir was currently sitting beside. “Mr. Fataro, do you mind if my associate and I take a look and get some pictures. I have a gumshoe acquaintance who may be able to help figure out who did this, but we would need images from before the cleanup crew arrives.”

The man didn’t react, just looking stunned.

“Probably better.” Yir replied. “I don’t think Jaun is going to be up to much for a few days, poor guy. His wife, son, and daughter taken like that. Whatever you see, don’t show him.”

R4 tuned out the conversation, her mind flooded by the strangeness of the situation. A moment later Jun entered, and R4 followed. Jun took pictures, while R4 took a video going over the scene. The scene was surprisingly bloodless. Three skeletons, the bones sorted as if to compare them. Three skulls lined up, three spinal columns arranged, three left hands here, three right hands there, three pelvises, three pair of legs organized into left and right. The bones were expertly cleaned, not a drop of blood or a shred of muscle on any of them nor on the green carpet. Only the skulls were bloody, and even there it was as if they had been painted with blood with not a drop going to waste. No cyberware either, though there were signs of where some had been attached. R4 moved to the master bed room to find it undisturbed save for a single drop of rapidly drying blood on one of the pillows. She made sure to take a picture of that too. In the back of her mind she supposed she should be paying attention to something else about the room, maybe potential hiding places such as the small closet, or under the bed. A shudder went through her as she checked under the bed. No hiding villains, no monsters. There was a fireproof security box which she called over with telekinesis but did not touch. It was locked, and she didn’t see a key.

Standing up she looked at the headboard, which had a digital alarm clock, a few anime models she couldn’t name and two she could, and a wallet. Using telekinesis she opened it and saw it belonged to Arabella Fataro. There was a picture of her and Jaun, and another picture of her son and daughter. Her daughter had long brown hair, while her son had short black hair. Thinking back, Jaun had the same short black hair though a bit thinning. In the image his daughter was resting her elbow on her brother’s head in a classic big sibling way R4 remembered her own brother doing. To his credit, the younger boy didn’t look too put out about it. “Poor family.”

Stepping out she walked to the children’s room. It was small, barely big enough for both children. The bunkbeds took up most of the space, and a pair of gaming consoles sat upon their chargers. A small TV shone on the wall, still in sleep mode. A thought occurred and R4 woke it to see a medical program on surgery through the ages was on. “Someone had dreams of being a doctor.” She said sadly. Something ate at her though. She looked at both beds, noting there was no blood on either of them. “So the mother was in her room maybe? Where were the kids?”

She heard retching and quickly stepped out to see Jun desperately trying to hold in his breakfast. He took some sort of bottle from his coat pocket and shoved it into his nose. A moment later he took a deep breath. “Don’t look in the food disposal. Whoever did this tried to dispose of, well, everything else in there. They jammed it, otherwise it would already be gone.” He sighed. “Wish Rain was here, she’d know how to do this better than us.”

Something itched at R4. “Hey Jun, Yir said that Mr. Fataro had a wife a son and a daughter, right?”

“Yeah, why?”

“Because these bodies are all female.” Jun gave her a look. “You can tell by the pelvis. Also these two spines are about the same height and this one a bit longer. Are his kids the same height? There’s a picture in the master bed room and in it his daughter is about 40 centimeters taller, though it might be an old picture.”

“I’ll text Rain, she’ll be here in about 15 minutes.” He tapped a few things into his phone. “So what do you think, kidnapping? Someone grabbed the boy and left a decoy skeleton?”

“Something strange is going on. There’s a single drop of blood in the master bedroom, maybe someone was pinned there or was sleeping?” She replied. “There’s a security box under the bed, but I can’t tell if it’s been emptied or not. The mom’s wallet was untouched, so I don’t think this was a robbery.”

“Cyberpsycho.” Jun replied. “I don’t know if that’s better or worse. They killed the wife and daughter, and whoever the third body is, and took the boy.”

“That or he was just out.”

Jun left the room to find Yir still consoling Jaun. “Jaun, did you have a tracker placed in your children?”

“Yes, but, the bodies,”

“My associate believes all the bodies are female. He may still be alive.”

What followed was a rapid rush of calls and texts. Within 5 minutes Jun had assembled a team and all members were on their way. Yet R4 felt a sense of anxiety. Something that wasn’t adding up, or wasn’t adding up correctly.

“You should leave.”

“What, I can’t just leave Red.” She trilled back quietly.

“The gig I told you about has been moved up, and it is an important source of exp. This gig may bring credits, and some exp, but as it is informal results will be limited.” R4 checked her phone, and saw that the gig had already been accepted for her. The meeting was scheduled for that very night

“Um, Jun?” Jun turned from his phone, where he was currently discussing something with someone, R4 wasn’t sure who. He made a gesture for her to wait, before turning to her. “I just remembered I signed on for a gig, and it’s starting soon.”

“Then go. I’ve got Rain on her way, with Skinner as her solo. She has a tech by the name of Visor who she works with, and a Medic named Syringe. Once I brief them on what’s happening I’m going home anyhow. Your job here is done.”

As she descended the steps R4 couldn’t help but think how odd the whole situation was. “Three dead in their own home, the police drop by for 10 minutes, and then it’s on private citizens to deal with the matter.” She paused as other tenants pushed past her, hurrying to get to their own homes. “I’m definitely not in Kansas anymore.”