Jacob’s sensors picked up the unusual heat signature right before the BB gun exploded. This warning, despite being only a fraction of a second before the event, gave Jacob enough time to evade much of the blast. Nevertheless, he was engulfed in superheated flames and sprayed with a fine sheet of molten metal that fused into his nanofiber-constructed shell.
Many of his systems were knocked out. Of course, his most important ones were redundant, particularly his sensory and communication systems. Jacob reallocated his available power to his scanners to take a good “look” at the scene and, upon taking this final snapshot, uploaded the data to a secure location in the Cloud.
After completing these momentary tasks, he shut down. Somewhere hardwired on a chip at the center of his body, sheathed in layers of additional armor, was his most primitive programming. It was here that his emergency shutoff routine was housed. An angel that had withstood massive injury but was still operational was a potential liability, an unknown quantity. Such a complex machine was difficult enough to test when it was fully operational, much less when it was damaged. A compromised angel that incorrectly processed input could be a lethal instrument, and so its designers had enough foresight to give their creation less than a second of life, enough time to “phone home,” before it went to sleep.
Bitch, we would be so made, stompin’ into Rudy’s with matching Moon Booties™! Katria sent the blink with as much enthusiasm as she could summon.
I dunno, I think we might look like a couple of nOOblet showoffs. Example, I watched this archive of one fool wearing those booties that thought he was the meow, but ended up pinging his brother in the head as he jumped over ’im, OffDaLeash responded.
Katria did not bother to assimilate the archive. She was well aware of the dangers of using the gravity-defying boots. In her own experience of using them, she had sprained her ankle several times already and nearly brained herself when she nicked the ceiling in her apartment. All of that was beside the point. If she could convince OffDaLeash, her sister and longtime friend, to buy a pair, she would get herself a handsome shot of points from OwnYoAss™.
Katria decided to drop it. She knew OffDaLeash hated it when she tried to milk her. She was old-fashioned that way. Any scene player knew that a conversation could be more than just fun; it could be profitable. Yeah, I guess Moon Booties™ can freak some players, she replied. Next time you’re at my pad you can try ’em on though. Speaking of, it’s been a while since we hung. What are you playing tonight?
Oh, I have to patch up some hard feelings between a few locals, but then I was thinking of taking a real break, said OffDaLeash.
Who? asked Katria.
Who what?
Who all needs to kiss up? Anyone interesting? Katria asked.
You know I’m not at liberty to say. OffDaLeash’s thought signature was amused, but Katria knew her sister was not kidding.
OffDaLeash practically specialized in mediator games, which was a good choice in a family as competitive and yet interdependent as theirs. Pretty much any family, even the hippie ones, always generated a good supply of emotional flare-ups and long-held grudges.
Issues like that were often not handled well by computer agents; rather, they required a human touch. OffDaLeash had that down since she could be as practical and objective as AI, but she also brought the empathy and social graces needed for a good long-term outcome. And the points! When it came to rev time, her clients showered her with them. Even when they remained pissed off at each other, which was most of the time, they did not take it out on her.
As such, Katria did not blame her longtime friend for refusing to spill on her clients. After all, her reputation was part and parcel of her livelihood. Still, she was no fun when Katria was in the mood for some good smack talk.
You need to play something that we can at least gab about, Katria said, followed with a Whinicon™ featuring a bawling baby in an old-fashioned diaper.
You should talk, Sis! OffDaLeash flashed back. You with your high-security shenanigans. When’s the last time you talked about your grind?
True, Katria admitted. I guess neither of us is much in a conversation. Ya know, since we can’t talk about what we do, maybe we should just make stuff up.
Sure, why don’t you start by telling me if you and Jerkle are fast-tracking, or what? OffDaLeash sent this with a howling, humping puppy emoticon.
His name is Dirk! And as far as our intimacy status, I’ll say — Katria dropped the blink with her friend, midsentence. There was some serious shit going down in her game.
The angel she had been monitoring, the one she simply referred to as “the Tool,” had a live one. Some crazy demon was burning down an apartment mound with some kind of flamethrower! And no sooner had she realized this than the demon blew himself up, taking down the angel with him. It’s a shit storm! she thought. The impact of the blast was nothing special, but the heat signatures that streamed in before the angel shut down were way higher than typical demon weaponry.
Rhemus sent her a blink. Flip! The Tool just got melted! Rhemus was a game ally of Katria’s. They both were into law enforcement games and typically played closely together.
Katria could barely respond. Despite what the data was feeding her, she could not believe it. It was inconceivable. No angel she had ever monitored had gone down. It was time for the two of them to get to work.
Looks like the demon’s completely gone, Katria sent.
No way there’s anything left of him. Not enough brain to get any intel, Rhemus replied.
The girl-the one screaming to warn him-she’s our intel! Katria sent the message along with a two-second clip from a dance song to emphasize her point.
Right, the Tool was going to apprehend her, but he sure as hell isn’t going to now. I’ll scramble a sky eye on the area, Rhemus said.
It was standard protocol when hunting someone outdoors to immediately get a satellite on the area.
Katria cursed herself for not being more vigilant in her monitoring. It had seemed like a routine mission. The target was pretty low level, and there was a positive ID on him when entering his apartment. An angel was overkill for such a job, but since one was available nearby, it was deployed.
Missions like that never really required human help. The onboard AI of an angel was top-tier and therefore far faster and more reliable than a human when it came to rote work like this. Humans were occasionally useful for adding an assist here or there, but for the most part, they just watched the show. Even for more complex missions it was hard to be of much help to a fully decked-out angel. Nevertheless, when Katria was on top of her game, she could get in a contribution or two. And working with premium Authority agents like angels was high-stakes grinding. Any help you gave was big points, which kept her logging in. Besides, it had taken her a long time to get the security clearances required to play these types of games, so she felt invested.
But this had seemed like a cakewalk, so she had felt free to shoot the breeze with OffDaLeash while she casually monitored. Even when that bitch started raising the alarm with her “Todget, run!” routine, Katria didn’t bother to end the blink with her friend. A couple of ghetto demons could not stand a chance against an angel, or so she had thought six seconds ago.
Now the unthinkable had happened, and Katria was elated-one demon out and one little bitch still on the run, but no angel to catch her. That left Katria, Rhemus, and anyone else who was willing and able to log into the game and finish the job-something they never got to do. DNA samples that the Tool found in the apartment shortly before he got fried confirmed the runner’s identity. As was protocol, Katria sent a request to the Authority, asking to upgrade the priority of the demon girl. Within a second the Authority sent back confirmation upgrading her from low priority to medium; the status change was only because, in light of recent events, the girl might know something useful, not because she was estimated to be dangerous.
This rating was good for Katria. It meant that the stakes of the game just went up, and with it, potentially the reward. However, the priority was not so high that another angel would step in and relegate her back to the sidelines. Fortunately for Katria, the Authority was very reticent about spreading their top resources too thin.
Okay, Rhemus, you handle the air surveillance. I’ll see if there are any nearby sniffers I can snag, Katria ordered.
Katria’s familiar, a black Labrador puppy she called Snazz, was scanning for the closest sniffer bots available. Sniffers were Frisbee-sized robots used to ID suspects and, if necessary, detain them. Snazz found two bots within a fifty-mile radius and six more within two hundred miles.
Katria decided to rent all the available bots. It would be expensive at ten thousand points each per hour, but she figured she would need them. This demon had a head start, and it was running in a highly populated field. There were bound to be a ton of suspects to filter through.
Nothing ventured, nothing gained, she told herself.
It would be a few minutes before her sniffers got to the scene, so she decided to take some time to do analysis. She thought about leasing some hard-core AI for the job, but she decided that would be too expensive. Every player had an expense cap (which depended on the game) to keep a single rich player from dominating every time. Having caps in place encouraged more thoughtful use of resources versus brute-force methods for solving problems, which tended to strain infrastructure. Katria had already burned well into her cap by renting eight sniffers.
She messaged her familiar. It’s going to be just you and me, Snazz. The dog cocked his head adoringly and got to work analyzing the data the Tool had uploaded before shutting down.
Rhemus sent another blink. I got an eye on the area. No surprise our girl is no longer in her last estimated location. By the way, there’s some heavy cloud cover. Grokking suspects is going to be a little slow.
Satellites could still be used in heavy cloud cover, but their effective sight radius decreased due to the need of focusing in more for greater penetration.
Get another satellite then, Katria responded.
Soul, that’s gonna tax, Rhemus whined over the blink.
We’ll get paid. We underestimated the first demon. Let’s not make the same mistake on this bitch, Katria shot back.
Okay, I’ll work it out. Rhemus had learned by now to trust Katria’s instincts, which was the main reason Katria continued to play with him over the years.
Snazz returned with an analysis of the data. Katria skimmed it and highlighted a few points she found interesting:
• Spanker ghetto (from Cloud statistics)
• The two demons were living together (DNA traces found on the scene)
• Voice of demon was likely female and in distress (voice analysis done by the angel)
Despite the fact that satellites and sniffers would arrive soon, there were thousands of potential suspects in the search radius, so Katria knew she needed to narrow down her suspect list. Of course, she would start with the most obvious, a direct match. That would be what the satellites would look for first, but it was difficult to get a positive ID from overhead. If that did not work, then they would look for female runners in the radial zone in which the demon could theoretically be. The demon already had over a minute head start and, according to her profile, was a very swift runner. This would make for a rather large search area.
I have another sat online, Rhemus reported. How about those sniffers?
The first one will be here in ’bout twenty secs, Katria replied. Your sats catch any candidates?
A couple of running girls, but nothing definite. Body type on all of ’em seem a little off.
Probably just spankers, Katria responded. But we should check them anyway. Our girl might have customized.
The term “customized” referred to the common practice of demons changing their appearance using various illegal means, such as gene therapy or old-fashioned plastic surgery.
It took less than a minute for the first sniffer that arrived to check the candidates, which all came back negative. Katria scowled and blinked a message to Rhemus. Have sats feed my sniffers all the women in the area, starting with the ones farthest out in the search zone. She might not be running; she might be smarter than that.
Rhemus pinged confirmation.
As the first sniffer widened its search to include all women, the next sniffer arrived, to which she assigned the task of picking up the girl’s trail from her estimated last location.
You can either run or you can hide, Katria thought. If you run, we’ll see you run and get you faster. If you hide, we’ll sniff you out and find you later.
But there was a third option, one employed by the more clever demons she had hunted. The demon could be trying to blend in. Perhaps this one thinks she can simply walk away, Katria mused.
Only minutes later Katria started having doubts, discovering that all the women came back negative.
Damn, maybe our demon isn’t a woman. Maybe it’s a man who used a voice disrupter. Katria felt her stomach wrench as the thought came to her. No, the DNA in the apartment could not lie. The demon is female. But maybe she’s disguised, using an illusionary veil or something.
Yeah, I already thought of that, Rhemus chimed in. Katria was startled, as she had not realized she was broadcasting her thoughts through the blink. The sats aren’t just watching for chicks. I’m tagging anyone hauling ass out of the area.
What if she’s disguised and just walks out? Katria countered.
Yeah, that would suck, Rhemus replied. We need to sniff everyone who leaves. Do you have the bots for that?
Katria inspected the foot traffic patterns. Most people were leaving the area using designated paths, but some went off trail.
Looks like I’ve got enough to handle it, Katria sent. You just have the sats mark ’em, and the sniffers will check ’em.
There was a brief pause and then Katria continued. Anyway, my bet is the bitch isn’t on the surface. She’s probably holed up in one of those mounds-that’s what rats do.
Rats have tunnels, Rhemus sent. You see on the map?
Rhemus displayed the subterranean map of the ghetto. This particular map was not public for some reason, but law enforcement spankers like Rhemus and Katria had access. Wherever there were nanosites, software could map surfaces. All SkinWare maps were accessible to law enforcement with a permit, an electronic permit that took Rhemus only a few seconds to request and obtain.
Katria said, I’m seeing three subterranean tunnels out of the ghetto. Since we don’t have sats to help out under there, I’m going to have to assign a bot to guard each tunnel. Damn!
Yeah, it’s going to cost you some resources, but securing the perimeter is priority one. Rhemus stated the obvious.
Just then, Katria got a ping that the scent trail had been found. Finally, some good news, she thought.
Now that the trail was picked up and the exits secured, Katria knew the noose was tightening. In less than a minute, she learned that the demon had indeed gone into one of the mounds. That explained why the satellites had not found her. No problem, she thought. The underground exits are covered.
Still, Katria was not comfortable just sitting back and watching events unfold. Because it was still early in the morning, there was not a lot of traffic on the surface, and so only three bots were busy up top. Three more bots were covering the underground exits, which left two more with nothing to do. All this hardware was costing her points by the second, and there was no benefit in sending the idle ones home since she had already paid for the minimum rental and still had over fifteen minutes left on them. She needed to find the demon sooner rather than later if she was going to come out ahead in this game.
Katria asked herself, How do I find the demon quickly if she’s hiding?
A demon inside a mound could not be observed as easily as one outside. Privacy rules prohibited nanosites-the invisibly small chips used by SkinWare-to be equipped with observation instruments such as cameras; rather, they were designed to simply announce themselves, to be observed, but not to observe back. Outside one’s home was public domain, so satellites could be used on evildoers, but indoor areas were a different matter.
Katria had obtained a search permit for the mounds and therefore could have her extra sniffers check everyone systematically, but that was woefully inefficient, even for machines as fast as these. The tunnels and chambers of the apartment mounds of Anywhere were extensive, to say the least. Worse yet, many of the chambers and tunnels were sealed by doors, hatches, or more exotic impediments, slowing down the sniffers considerably. When a flying Frisbee-shaped sniffer encountered such a portal, usually the most expedient way past was to slice a small slit in the surrounding dro-vine and slip through. If this was not feasible (for example, in classic buildings that did not use dro-vine), the sniffer would extend a set of mechanical arms and picks out from its smooth, shiny hull, but sniffers were not adept at manipulating knobs, handles, and locks designed for human use.
All these factors added up to the fact that the simpleminded tactic of systematically sniffing every resident in Anywhere would be disastrously slow and therefore expensive. Katria decided she needed to filter candidates somehow.
She knew the apartment mound complex was primarily populated with gamers. Certainly the demon was not a gamer since Katria had never heard of such a thing. That single fact separated their demon from just about everyone else in the area.
Rhemus had already obtained a permit to tap into SkinWare, so Katria decided to run a query on all the active games in Anywhere, looking for anyone who was a ghost to all games-that is, a person not logged into any game. Certainly our demon will fall into this category, thought Katria.
Her familiar connected to the games MyLife, Grokstania, Samurai on Top, Lust Bunnies, NeverWorld, Golden Age, Treasure Island, Mission Flipp’n Ridiculous, and Covert Ops V. Only 23.6 % of the population were hits, but that was still 668 people! However, when she narrowed it down to the region to which the sniffer had tracked the demon, it was less than two hundred. Katria immediately dispatched her two idle sniffers to check them.