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Inspector Andel removed her contact screens and allowed herself a small sigh of nostalgia. She had borrowed a tablet from the archives department, and now weathered hands were flicking their way through cold case files. Hand-typed files. She'd almost forgotten that she used to deliver reports just like these.

"It's not the 20s any more, Andel. We don't use tablets."

Andel had been too absorbed to notice Dieter sneaking up on her until the overbearing git had pulled up a chair opposite. Dieter was tall, young, charismatic, and by all accounts was everything Andel was not.

"Cold cases," she said, with a lot less venom than she had intended, "It's the only way to view the reports."

Dieter leaned back and propped his feet up on her desk. "Ah yes, cold cases. Well I suppose you have to do something while your officers are out with the response teams."

She ignored the feet bouncing obtrusively at her. It was too late to say anything now – she had to pretend they never bothered her in the first place.

"I bet you've never even looked at these, have you? Never saw what a real officer did when we actually had to work for our pay cheques."

"Back in the good old days before everyone got chipped? Enlighten me."

She wouldn't have called them the good old days exactly, quite the opposite in many ways, but detective work was actually work back then. Now it was a simple matter of pulling up chip data on anyone even remotely suspected (in practice, that was the whole city), then running deduction algorithms until only one remained. The rest was politics.

Dieter swung his legs back to the floor where they belonged, betraying his interest in the sordid 'dark ages' before chip data. Andel flicked through a few more files until she found something suitably graphic.

"Here." She flipped the tablet. "Three children skinned then staked in a shopping mall of all places. Same happened to the lead detective a week later. We were chasing leads for months but never made any progress. In the end, we had nothing left we could look at."

Dieter grimaced at the sight of the crime scene photos; nothing quite so barbaric had been reported in over a decade. The chips detected violent psychological abnormalities as a preventative measure, so now most of their cases were suicides, extreme paranoia, or nervous breakdowns. Some were messy, but they didn't have that unique touch of evil.

It didn't slow him for long though. He took a deep breath to compose himself then came right back at her throat.

"I hardly see the point in showing me the failures of your generation."

She bit her tongue before suggesting that she show him the solid round pistol she still kept in her Personal Transport Vehicle, it would be far too easily mistaken for the threat that it was.

"My point was that you don't realise how easy you've got it. The worst offenders are 'prevented' before you ever have to worry about them, and for the rest you're handed a target by a computer. Just point and shoot."

Dieter smirked. "At least the computer finds the right target."

Arrogant prick. She had fought for justice using the tools she had, and she was damned if she was going to get harassed about it by a glorified thug.

"Were you here for a reason or are you wasting even more of this department's resources?"

Bad move, Andel, losing your temper. The Chief will be having words again.

Dieter took it in his stride, as usual, the prick.

"Just needed your ID on these, Inspector."

Andel put her contact screens back on to run through the documents, confirming her retina ID for each one. It was something that could have been handled by any of the lead officers, but she wanted Dieter gone without a fuss.

She ignored the mock salute he gave her as he left.

The rest of the day dragged along in tedium. Not even the cold cases interested her much after Dieter's interruption, so she spent the hours chasing up field reports on the recent spate of PIBs – Public Impact Breakdowns.

To top it all off, the evening's weather was scheduled as heavy rain across the entire city, so she spent the entire trip home staring into a splattered grey horizon.

By 20:00 Andel was at her apartment, doing what she could to put the day behind her. At her fingertips was almost every holiday destination imaginable. She could spend a few hours relaxing on the brilliant white sands of Brazil, or dining with friends on a Summer's evening in Rome.

But she didn't feel much for either. Not because they weren't real – that line was easy enough to blur if you wanted to – but because they had become so normal. She couldn't think of a single place she wanted to visit that she hadn't already been to a dozen times already.

And nothing new seemed to interest her either. She used to enjoy watching films, seeing expansive concepts, relationships, and character growth boiled down to two hours of perfectionism, but in the last decade it seemed all creativity and originality had dissolved away from the once silver lining of the screen.

By 20:15 Andel was waiting for another day's work to begin.

By 20:20 it had.

"You're going to say that one more time, slowly, because I want there to be absolutely zero chance that I've misheard you."

Andel was sure she had sounded too enthusiastic when answering the call from work, but suddenly that wasn't a concern.

"Officer Dieter is in custody," repeated the lead officer, "he's got a cold body to his name. It's... it's bad. I'm sorry, but we need you down here so we can get this filed."

"I'm on my way."

*

There was surprisingly little blood. He had intended for the rain to wash away the worst of it, but he didn't expect the rest to come away so easily as well. A quick shower and he was done, clean, untraceable.

He grabbed a bottle of red to celebrate, then thought better of it and settled for coffee – something that his mind wouldn't get mixed up about.

He felt like there was something more he should do, some way of ensuring his freedom, but he had taken all the necessary precautions: don't get seen, don't leave a murder weapon, and don't gloat about it to the net. The worst thing he could do now was draw attention to himself by acting unusually.

Tomorrow he would listen to tales of his exploits as presented by the city's media. He was looking forward to their interpretations of his work.

*

Andel hadn't spent much time in the office outside her usual working hours. It seemed strange that it should feel exactly the same as it did during the day. The artificial lighting was close enough to the real thing to be unnoticeable, and there were just as many people doing just as many jobs. The whole office churned along at the same pace 24/7. Its workers were merely removable parts that needed to be swapped around from time to time.

There was a slight difference now though, a quiet anxiety that fouled the air, but not because of the hour of day – because there was a fellow officer in custody.

Andel was greeted by the lead officer on duty. He'd already prepared a plethora of documents on Andel's contact screens: call out data, the initial response report, file images of the victim. At a glance it had Dieter cuffed for the sexually motivated murder of a young woman named Réka Tóth.

There were no details on a murder weapon, which meant he had used his bare hands. They were right, it was bad. The chips were supposed to get rid of this kind of stuff.

"Chip data has him tagged," the lead officer said, "uncertainty margin's a little high, but he's two hundred degrees from the next best fit."

"How high?"

"Still low enough to convict him."

When wasn't it?

Andel brought up some of the images that the techs had lifted from Dieter's thoughts. They matched the victim, albeit mixed in with motifs that were typical of thought patterns during a sexual assault.

It didn't make sense. She didn't like Dieter, but she had never considered him capable of something like this. He had always been so publicly disdainful of anyone they arrested. He was the kind of guy that bought in to the whole 'only the criminals have something to hide' and 'there are no shades of grey' ideas, even when he was dragging in an example to the contrary.

The lead officer was getting impatient.

"We were hoping to get this sorted out soon," he said, "If you could sign everything off we'll begin processing him for transport before the case becomes public knowledge."

The shift patterns meant Andel had never met this officer before, but a quick glance using her contact screens told her that his name was Järvinen. Handily there was a pronunciation guide written underneath. People always respond better to their name, which helped her get away with a slightly patronising tone of voice.

"Officer Järvinen, have you ever known a fellow officer to end up in custody?"

"No, Inspector."

"Then I think we ought to talk to him first. See if we can't figure out what went wrong."

She didn't want a confrontation about this, but if she had to she was prepared to pull rank to get her way. She needed to have something to say to the Chief when he started demanding answers.

Fortunately Järvinen appreciated how unusual the situation was and led her through to the holding cells with only the barest mumbles of protest.

Dieter looked haggard. He had a graze across his face and his clothes were torn around the shoulders. He had probably struggled, which didn't surprise Andel in the slightest. She stamped out the sense of retribution as soon as it surfaced – now was not the time to be petty.

"I didn't do it." His voice was strained, which could have been from a blow to the throat or fatigue. Probably both.

"That's the one thing that will never change about this job. Everyone sat in that chair says they didn't do it."

"Yeah, well maybe some of them were right, because something is seriously fucked up about this."

She was regretting coming in to see him at all. Despite the distrust she had for chip data when the Force first started to utilise it, nobody could deny the results that had followed. Now, every verified crime led to an arrest, and the automated processes were more efficient and than any human led investigation.

"Chip data has you flagged as the only possible culprit," said Andel. "We practically watched you commit the crime, so how are you going to convince me that you're innocent?"

"Try this."

Dieter tore a bracelet from his forearm and tossed it onto the table. It clattered along the surface and came to rest in front on Andel, but she didn't make any move to pick it up.

"What am I looking at here, Dieter?"

"Read the inside."

The bracelet was made from a strip of shrink-metal, a semi-permanent solution to removable jewellery. Dieter had snapped it to get it off his forearm, but Andel could still read ELECTR0TICA printed on the inside along with a playful silhouette of two girls enjoying each other's company.

It was a personal pass key for a virtual sex lounge. Andel had visited one or two herself in her time – never enough to warrant having a pass taped onto her arm, but as far as she knew Dieter was single so it was nothing out of the ordinary.

"Check their records," he said, "I was in a booth when it happened. Anything you pulled from my chip data is from the program I was running."

"So you were beating a young girl to a pulp in your program?" Unfortunately, that didn't surprise her either.

Dieter hung his head and muttered something about it staying in the program.

It wasn't much to go on, but it was worth checking the lounge's records. If Dieter was lying she had wasted an hour of her time, but if he was telling the truth someone else murdered Réka. Someone who wasn't picked up by the chip data.

She would have preferred to contact the lounge through regular channels, but if she did that she would be dealing with a manager who would stall her. The Force was entitled to any information the wanted, but lounge program details were one of the last semblances of privacy people had, and they did everything they could to keep hold of it. If she went in person she might be able to force the issue.

She avoided Järvinen on the way out. She'd rather not have to explain why she still wasn't signing off on Dieter's case. Let him go to the Chief and she'll deal with it then. She already had enough to answer for, what difference would one more make?

*

Like a waterlogged branch being snapped in two; that was the sound her neck made when he hit her for the third time.

He didn't want it to be so gruesome – not at first – but the whole idea got away from him. It had to be shocking, he told himself. It had to have the raw energy of flesh against flesh. That way they couldn't ignore it.

And also, there was a part of him needed to feel her give beneath the weight of his fists.

*

To Dieter's credit, Electr0tica was one of the classier lounges. There was nothing graphic on display, the staff uniform wouldn't have looked out of place in a restaurant, and the décor was well maintained.

The receptionist gave Andel a warm, familiar, but ultimately manufactured smile.

"May I help you, ma'am?"

Andel dropped Dieter's pass onto the counter, then laid her badge next to it. The smile vanished.

"Was this pass used last night?" Andel asked.

The receptionist was clearly flustered, unsure whether he was supposed to do as she said or turn her away.

"Take a good look at that badge," said Andel, "then bring up some details for me before I bring a full response unit down here. No delays."

It had been a long time since she had played this game. She had forgotten how much fun it could be.

The receptionist hurriedly checked the pass and confirmed that it had been in use the night before, between 18:15 and 19:30. That put Dieter mid-coitus when Réka was killed, and three miles away to boot.

"Thank-you," said Andel, returning that manufactured smile, "Now I'm going to need a copy of the program."

She had the poor kid now. If he wasn't supposed to be handing over data he was already in trouble, and making a fuss would only draw attention to that. Best to go along with it and hope he was doing the right thing. With any luck, he wouldn't even mention she had been there.

With the program data saved to her contact screens, Andel left just as an urgent message from the Chief flashed up: he wanted to speak to her urgently, in person.

She skimmed through Dieter's program on her way back to the office. It matched his chip data, but it meant that at the time Réka was battered to death in an alley, Dieter was getting his rocks off by beating her likeness in a virtual reality program. Something wasn't right.

At least she could justify not signing off on Dieter's case, even if the Chief didn't like the results. She readied all the information she had so she could refer to it and back up her claims, but it didn't stop her anxiety as she stood outside the door.

She wiped the sweat from her hands and entered.

The Chief. With his slick hair and unmarked, Mediterranean skin he looked twenty-five, but Andel knew better. In truth he was closer to sixty-five; he just never lost his vanity. It was a shame the same wasn't true for his patience.

"This is out of line, Andel! Dieter may be one of your officers, but that is not a reason to delay his prosecution. The administration will look unfavourably upon this."

"I'm not doing it because he's my officer," said Andel, ignoring the way her voice was catching in her throat, "I'm doing it because he might be innocent."

"Innocent!? You think he's innocent? Have you not even bothered to read the chip data?"

"The data's a dud. Dieter was running a program at the time."

There was no use in holding back – she was already fired if she couldn't convince the Chief to humour her theory – so Andel pushed Dieter's chip data and program onto the wall screen, showing exactly what had led to his arrest.

There was a softness to the chip data. It was something that could only be seen if you knew it was there, but it carried the suggestion of fiction, of that pretend reality that existed as a distraction from the real real world.

The Chief clung to the well-practised authority in his voice but his timing was off.

"For all we know this was fabricated after the fact," he said, "Nobody else came close to Dieter on the algorithms. He's the only suspect."

"And what if there was a blank?"

A blank – the hypothetical unchipped citizen. Not only would chip data be unavailable for them, but they would throw off any deduction algorithms relating to something they were involved in.

"There are no blanks." But the Chief didn't sound so sure of himself.

"You were there at the start, Edgmond. You had the same concerns we all did."

The Chief paced his office to a backdrop of Dieter's virtual conquest, then slammed his fist into his desk making Andel jump. The wall screen reacted to the noise with an exaggerated screen shake, as if reeling from an earthquake. The tech team had been trying for years to stop it from doing that.

"Fuck it!" said the Chief as he sunk back into his chair, "Is he even worth it?"

Andel kept quiet. She wanted to think she was a stoic figure of judgement on the Chief's conscience, but really she was afraid of screwing this up by drawing his wrath towards her instead of Dieter.

"You've got six hours," said the Chief. "In the meantime I'll spin it as interrogation time to root out any other potential weaknesses in the moral fibre of our officers. We can't look like we're offering protection to our staff."

'moral fibre of our officers', Andel was sure she would be reading that in media articles for weeks to come.

"And if I'm right?" she asked.

"I sincerely hope you're not."

Andel felt nauseous as she left the Chief's office and had to steady herself against the wall for a few moments. She had really thrown herself into the thick of it now. If she was wrong she was fired, it was as simple as that, but if she was right, well, they were probably all fucked.

She needed to go back over the data they had.

She also needed to sleep, but there wasn't time for that so she settled for a stim pack.

The initial rush felt like damp cotton wool being stuffed into her head – everything was fuzzy and her eyeballs were bulging. She had forgotten how intense the first hit was. When was the last time she had needed to use a stim pack? It seemed like years. To think that she hadn't done anything worth losing sleep over for a couples of years at least.

*

What the fuck were they talking about? Who was this Dieter fucker?

It was his achievement. He was the ghost that stunned the city and disappeared without a trace. He was the proof that their system was flawed.

They had made a mistake, or perhaps they knew what it would mean if the case went unsolved. The bastards were robbing him of his legacy, of Réka's legacy.

Despite the way she had treated him, despite the contempt she had in her eyes when he showed her what he had created, he had given her this – the opportunity to be known throughout the city as a fundamental part of the coming revolution.

But now they had sullied even that.

*

Andel retired to her office and brought up the case notes across the walls. She had surprisingly little to work with. Chip data was efficient, so much so that the Force didn't bother with much else any more. DNA evidence could be faked by anyone with a chemistry textbook, and location tracking was considered circumstantial at best.

But this was Andel's job, and she had always been damned good at it.

What she wanted to know was how the victim's image ended up in Dieter's program, so she called through to Norton – the Force's sole defender of its archives.

"Norton? It's Andel. Is that data spider still kept up to date?"

"As much as I can manage in my spare time."

Norton had been part of the Force even before Andel and the Chief. His position of employment was ambiguous at best. Technically he didn't have a job description, and was kept on the payroll because nobody else knew how to get any of the old tech to work.

He was damn crafty as well, and somewhere along the line had wrangled access to all kinds of systems – usually under false pretences.

Andel didn't actually like him much, moral integrity not being one of his stronger character traits, but he considered her an ally against the Chief and that suited her purposes from time to time.

"I need you to run it on someone for me: Réka Tóth, birth date 21/06/71. Send the data to my office, off the books."

She could see files turning up on her wall already as Norton got the spider into gear.

"Is this about that Dieter thing?" he asked.

"Yeah. The Chief's in a panic over it."

"Good. Sorry sack of shit deserves to sweat a little."

She never did find out what happened between Norton and the Chief, though she suspected it had something to do with the Chief's wife – Norton had an honest-to-god photograph of her on his office wall. Perhaps the strangest question was where he had found a working camera.

It only took Norton a few minutes to run the spider and send everything up to Andel. A spider search was supposed to be a warranted procedure, but Andel didn't want to waste time getting the authority, nor could she risk the Chief changing his mind. It was a vestigial policy anyway. In this age of chip data personal privacy didn't really exist.

Andel let her own detective scripts do their job and highlight files based on victim keyword searches, then began the arduous task of working out which were actually worth a damn.

Réka had modelled for Electr0tica recently, which explained why she was on Dieter's program, but there was nothing unusual with the transactions that might give someone cause to kill her. That was her best lead already closed.

She had to assume that Réka knew her killer, otherwise she would never track them down in time, so she began to focus on conversation logs hoping to spot something unusual.

In three hours she had identified a dozen potentials, but then began to feel the hollowness that came with working on stims and had to put her work aside for a few moments.

She switched to the media channel to watch the whole affair being pumped across news feeds citywide. The Chief seemed to be handling it fine, and Andel started to wonder if he was launching an investigation into the entire department. The public seemed keen on the idea.

Most of the city had largely forgotten, but the Force were still painfully aware of Red Monday – the day when the chip system went live and the first arrests were made. Riots had been expected and planned for, but the real damage was done in the days and weeks after when they caught up with the arrests.

In all, 3% of the population were arrested for crimes associated with the riots, and although a lot of leniency was shown it was a powerful display of strength on behalf of the Force – a message that the fight had been won before it had even started. Even Andel feared the power they had in their hands.

Data had been loaded into the systems, suspect IDs were churned out, and patrol sweeps flagged up any chips due for arrest within a 1-mile radius. It was brutally efficient, and against chip data there was no way for a defendant to tie up proceedings – they could be locked away within the day.

Two things had kept the system going after that: results and integrity.

The plummeting crime rate spoke for itself, but the Force had also handed chip data to Internal Investigations and begun what could only be described as an inquisition. Corruption was hounded down and publicly driven out of the Force – even minor infractions were given lengthy sentences in an effort to earn public confidence.

It worked. Over time the system became accepted and the Force trusted to be its enforcers, but there was always the threat that the population would find a reason to reject one or the other.

And now there was Dieter. For an officer to be charged with such a violent crime was a problem in of itself, but if it looked like they were protecting him... it could escalate into Red Monday all over again.

Andel's train of thought was interrupted by Norton calling directly through to her contact screens, which felt like a drill to the head thanks to the stims.

"I don't suppose you requested a response team as part of your investigation?" he said.

"No, why?"

"Well there's one on its way to your office, under orders of the Chief."

Crafty fucker. The Chief had already declared that internal investigations were under way, and now she was about to be arrested 'as a result of those investigations'. She didn't quite know why, not yet, but she felt it had something to do with sweeping everything under the carpet and maintaining public trust.

The Chief had always been big on public trust. It paid his wages.

Andel dumped the files she had been working from onto her contact screens. If she could reach her PTV she might still be able to wrap this up.

"Norton, I'm going to need a favour. Could you keep all of my passes open for the next ten minutes?"

"I'm just looking at the security update request now, and... oops! I've gone and deleted it by mistake."

"Thanks, Norton."

On the way to the docking bay she passed Dieter's cell. He was a sorry looking wretch. His usual glamour was gone, and what was left was oily skin and sweat stained clothes.

True to his word, the Chief had subjected Dieter to a barrage of interrogation. No doubt the media had been invited to watch.

And all this was waiting for her.

She didn't know how quickly the response team would react to her not being in her office, so she ignored several paragraphs of health and safety notices as she fired up her PTV without clearance and flew it straight out of the hangar on manual.

Once she was sure she wasn't presently crashing into a building she set it to follow a seeded holding pattern. If she stayed high above the city and kept moving she could avoid detection. The problems would come when she landed, but she was prepared to cross that bridge when she got there.

*

He had the solution. Dig in and double down.

If they were going to pretend they already had their killer he would simply prove them wrong. He had wanted to escalate things – each killing more vicious than the last until his craft became an art form – but what he needed now was a clear modus operandi.

They could arrest as many stooges as they wanted, but everyone would know that there was only one person behind it all. People would ask questions, they would connect the dots. They would learn that they couldn't trust the Force.

For all their claims he knew they were corrupt. He himself was proof of that.

*

With the city below her, Andel was narrowing down her list of potentials in an attempt to find her blank. With the limited processing power on her contact screens she was relying on Norton relaying new sets of data to her, which he was happy to do on the promise that it would piss the Chief off.

Her scripts still seemed to be working, helping her collate and output all of the data she was being fed. She had taken care to be as robust as possible when building them, targeting root identifiers instead of symptoms, and it was paying off.

The first best fit was flagging up a lot of aggression at Réka, and further investigation revealed him to be an ex-boyfriend which made it all the more plausible. However, a spider on the suspect killed the lead. Andel instantly recognised the signs of a poser – mostly a long list of empty threats posted to the net.

Besides, unless he was a lot smarter than he looked, device tracking and conversation logs suggested he was in the middle of a stadium crowd when the murder took place.

The next on her list could have easily been overlooked as 'a little weird but not our problem', but she flagged it up because the syntax was unusual – deliberately complex and obfuscating language, even during fairly routine conversations with Réka.

Delving into another set of spider files courtesy of Norton, her programs began to mark off red flag after red flag. Lack of empathy, grandiose claims becoming more elaborate in retellings, manipulative language, boasts of aggression.

The file was linked to Colton Quick who, according to records, lived at an apartment on the Eastern edge of the city.

Andel asked Norton to request his chip data files. He probably had a way to get circumvent the necessary authority, but she didn't need that. If there was an error they would be told in the first instance, and that was exactly what happened. Apparently, Colton Quick, birth date 16/03/67, didn't even have any chip data.

There could have been an exception on the mundane records, such as a misspelled name or an alias used, but with a spider file worth of data to refer to it seemed dubious that they wouldn't get a single hit. If she was right about the blank – this was it.

She was aware of how thin her evidence was. In the end it was the same principle as the chip data – run some programs at a sheet of data and see what turns up – but she wasn't trying to prosecute on it. If she could make an arrest and prove there was a blank, then the case would be wide open and some genuine detective work could begin.

This stage was about getting Dieter free.

This was assuming the Chief actually backed down when faced with proof of a blank, but she had a plan for that. She set up a case file and had Norton keep a copy on standby to be sent to every reporter he could think of if something went wrong.

No sense in delaying it now.

Andel landed in a typical residential sector. Tall buildings containing identically constructed apartments, most of which would be identically furnished. Interior design wasn't really a thing any more – people usually stuck with copy & paste furnishings designed for their apartment type. If they were daring they might select one of the three alternative colour schemes.

Colton had devices registered to an apartment seven floors up. High enough to make alternative escape routes difficult, and thus her job a lot easier.

If she was right and this was a blank, then she could be up against one of the old breed – someone who would default to aggression, especially if facing a single officer, and had enough of it to kill. What she needed was something with stopping power, and that meant her old solid-round pistol.

It was heavier than she remembered, but as far as she was concerned it was worth more than a full response team. There was something unique about pointing a firearm at someone that calmed them down instantly.

She was using her contact screens to gain access to the block when a call from the Chief flashed up. Not from his office though; this was from his personal line.

"Andel here." No use in pretending.

"Do you have any idea what you're doing?"

She had expected shouting but the Chief was calm. Perhaps he had something to fear, or perhaps he was only trying to stall her. Now she had landed they would be able to track her PTV. She decided she should take the elevator, even though their camera systems were notoriously easy to tap into, it would at least get her to the apartment before anyone else showed up.

"What I'm doing? You've got an innocent officer locked up."

"You're on stims, Andel. You've looked into this, that's great, I appreciate that, but we need a sound mind to make these kinds of decisions."

"Like the decision to march a response unit to my office?"

The Chief must have realised he wasn't getting anywhere, because there was suddenly a bite to his voice. "This is the system. It's what keeps the city stable."

She'd had enough. Andel cut the line as abruptly as she could manage then set her contact screens to divert all incoming communications to Electr0tica's enquiries line.

She took the elevator straight up to the seventh floor and set her contact screens to work disabling the locking mechanisms on Colton's apartment. Heat signatures suggested the first room was empty, but one figure was present in a room beyond.

And at the back of her mind, biting through the cotton wool of the stims, was something else she hadn't felt in years: doubt. What if she was wrong? What if she was about to barge into the room on an innocent citizen? Brandishing what was probably one of the most lethal weapons in the city.

With chip data it was easy, just point and shoot at the targets handed to you, but this was all down to her.

Too late to worry about it now.

Andel slipped into the room and the first thing she thought was, this isn't normal furniture.

Floor to ceiling canvases covered every wall. Great maws of paint twisted into one another in a visceral narrative of colour. It was like nothing she had ever seen before.

*

He stared at the feed from the block's elevator in disbelief. How?

They weren't supposed to be able to find him. He was a blank for fuck's sake how the fuck did they find him!?

He wondered if she was here for someone else, but when he heard his door slide open he knew he was in trouble.

Well he wasn't going to let them take him in. The Force were all kid gloves when it came to actually arresting people – the city's population seemed content to hand over their thoughts, just as long as nobody kicked their heads in while they were getting dragged away.

He grabbed a toasting knife and switched it on. All he had to do was cut this bitch down and flee. Surely they wouldn't be able to track him without a chip.

He walked into the front room, hands behind his head to fake submission and conceal the knife.

Then he saw the pistol.

*

Was this him? Was this her blank?

He had almost swaggered out into the front room, but now he looked like the ground had been ripped out from beneath him.

"On your knees," she demanded, but her contact screens were showing a heat source behind his head.

He threw himself at her. Andel's pistol went off the instant pain seared her shoulder and pulled her to the ground.

She was dazed, but she could see a body sprawled backwards on the floor in front of her. Only she didn't know whether it was alive or dead.

All of a sudden the whole building was in an uproar. There were heavy footsteps running down the corridor and some kind of transport hovering outside the window.

Andel dragged herself to a sitting position, and from there she could see that she had shot her supposed blank clean through the chest.

"This is response team Seven Alpha. You are under arrest."

Edgmond you bastard. No doubt you've already got your spin figured out.

She held her concentration just long enough to put her pistol aside and remove her contact screens. She didn't want either of them getting damaged. Then she fell back and tried to ignore then pain in her shoulder as she shut the world out.

She faintly recalled being moved, but she was too tired to care. The stims were wearing off and her body was demanding rest.

When she woke, she was in a cell with the Chief sat opposite her. He acknowledged her presence with a smile, then waited for her to get acquainted with her surroundings.

She went over what she could remember: encounter blank, get stabbed, shoot (or was that the other way round?), get arrested, wake up in a cell. Her shoulder was numb and bandaged, but she was still wearing the same clothes so it must have been patched up on the journey back.

Which explained why her head felt fuzzy – she hadn't nearly enough sleep to get over the stims and the trauma.

But one question was important enough to penetrate the fog:

"Was he a blank?"

The Chief leaned forward and assumed the overbearing posture of an interviewer, then shut off all recording equipment. It was going to be one of those old-fashioned interrogations then.

"You should have shot him in the head," he said.

So he was a blank. The one thing they had been assured couldn't happen. She realised there was a cup of something dark in front of her and was suddenly aware of how thirsty she was. It was cold, black coffee, which tasted vile but at least it sharpened the mind a little.

"Do the media know?" she asked.

"Why do you think I'm in here?"

That was a non-answer, which meant that the media didn't know but he would have her believe that they did. She knew this because she had been on the other side on the table often enough.

"You hung me out, Edgmond. You put your career ahead of me, ahead of the system."

"Blanks are nothing new, Andel. We've been dealing with them for years."

She couldn't absorb that quickly enough to come up with a response. What did he mean 'years'?  

"Every now and then someone slips through the system," said the Chief, "They tend to make themselves known sooner or later, so when we notice we go and find them. Some have their uses, but the rest... well as I said, we deal with them."

Andel tried to get her head around it.

"You mean the system has been flawed all this time, and you knew about it?"

"Come on, Andel, you were there at the start, none of us really believed it would work. A couple of us found a way to fix all of our concerns, and my word it's closer to perfect than we could have ever hoped for."

Andel knew that she looked dumbfounded. She could feel the slackness in her face but couldn't force herself to react properly. This was unreal. The Chief, as calm as she had ever seen him, was carefully explaining how the very system they had built upon was based on a false assumption.

"This is a job offer," said the Chief as he brought up a slew of contracts and non-disclosure agreements on the table, "You know about the system, and you've shown that not only can you track down a blank but you can stay ahead of a response team if need be. Why don't we start to work together on this?"

Then she saw it. The hint of seething rage behind the Chief's façade. He was offering her a promotion because he had to, not because he wanted to, and it infuriated him.

"Fuck you, Edgmond."

The way he struggled to contain his anger was somewhat delightful, which was probably an effect of the painkillers she was on.

"You won't get a better offer than this, Andel. As far as public records are concerned, Colton was innocent. We've got enough to put you in a cage for the rest of your life."

"Do that, and this whole thing is going to collapse around you."

She was positively giddy. Who knew an interrogation could be so much fun.

"What the fuck are you talking about, Andel."

"I've been in the habit of sending a copy of my case notes to a friend in the system. Someone who could have them sent to every reporter in the city if he or I felt the slightest bit threatened."

"Norton."

Edgmond sank back into his chair. For all his fury, he was smart enough to know when he was beaten. No doubt he would act out about it later, but not while it could cost him something.

Andel took no small delight in leaning forward. She would have asked to switch chairs if she thought she could get away with it.

"Here's my offer. You retire, immediately, and the city doesn't find out about your corruption. Prove to me that you were doing this for the city, and not for your own career."

A full minute passed without any answer, but she was far too tired to feel under pressure. In fact, she enjoyed the break. Eventually Edgmond gave up.

"Alright," he said, "but if I go so does my team, and it's going to be you who has to pick up the pieces."

"Make the arrangements. If I'm not in your office in two days those files are going live."

Edgmond didn't bother to pack up any of the equipment he had brought in for the interview. As far as he was concerned it was another one of her problems now.

"Congratulations on your promotion," he said as he left, "Let's see if you can sleep at night."

Andel was left alone, still reeling from everything that had happened in the last 24 hours. She made a mental note to order a crate of stims – she had a feeling she was going to need them.

---

Andel had been so absorbed in department reports that she had barely noticed Dieter sit down opposite.

These days his arrogance had been replaced with deference.

"So are we finally getting rid of these chips?"

And ignorance with an opinion.

"No," said Andel. Which didn't quite sum up the amount of time she had been working at the problem.

"No? With all due respect, that system almost got me locked up. Who knows how many other tags were innocent."

"We'll be reviewing past cases, and I've already revived some of the old evidence gathering techniques, but what's important is that we keep the system running."

Andel swept her reports aside to face Dieter directly. This was the first in a long line of difficult conversations.

"We take things slowly," she said, "We need to track down any other blanks that exist and find out what went wrong. From there, maybe we can scale the system back."

"We're talking years here, aren't we. What if this leaks before then."

"Whatever happens, it will be no worse than if we let the media loose on it now."

"I don't like it."

"But will you accept it?"

Dieter tried to hide his grimace but Andel saw it clearly enough – or at least she knew how to read what her contact screens told her.

That was a good sign though. It was the pain of accepting something that disgusted him. He may have experienced first-hand how ugly the system could be, but in the end he was a member of the Force and appreciated how delicate the situation really was. That's what Andel was relying on.

"Why do you need my acceptance?" said Dieter.

"Because if I can't convince you, I've already lost."