I didn’t kly what to say to Helen as she k in front of her friend, m. After a couple minutes, she stood up, wiped her face off, and turowards me. “We o find out who did this,” she decred angrily.

  “Acc to this note,” I said, fshing the crumpled piece of paper, “he was killed f to intervene in the riots.”

  “Bullshit! First of all, riots down here are normally super rare. There are thousands of people willing to work in the surrounding districts, and those that have jobs don’t want to fug risk them; not uhey stand to gain more than they lose.”

  “Maybe…” I started.

  “And there’s no way that a bunch of fug hooligans mao storm in here without security notig,” Helen tinued. “I literally project a field that vinces people to ignore me, yet we were still stopped. Do you think a bunch of unanized, grubby bourers would have made it in here? Plus, I just checked his augs. It looks like someone scrubbed it to destroy whatever data or evidendrew found.”

  “So… who would do this, if not the rioters?” I asked.

  “We’re here to iigate whether someone is instigating the riots, remember? I told Andrew not to dig around, but if he found something…” Helen trailed off. “Do you have any squirrels in this area? We o see who came a.”

  I pinged my bot work and found two squirrels within range. One was way dowreet and had a terrible angle, but one had apparently wedged itself within the pipes hanging directly above the factory’s entrance.

  “O’s hidden above the road, so I doubt it got a look at any faces,” I admitted.

  “It’ll at least give us a clue on hoeople were here and which dire they went,” Helen growled. “Gimme a copy of the footage.”

  I gnced over at Helen, who was noticeably agitated, before shooting her a copy of the surveilnce feed. I skimmed through the footage, trating on the se between when Andrew showed up for work and we arrived, but didn’t find anything. I went over it again, more slowly the sed time, but still couldn’t see any sign of movement.

  “Nyx, you…” I started asking.

  “I’ve got it, one hour and seven minutes ago,” Helen interrupted, before shooting me a timestamp.

  I jumped to the point in the footage but didn’t see anything.

  Before I could open my mouth to ask for more info, Helen eborated. “Watch the steam in front of the gate. You may have to go frame by frame.”

  I frowned but did as she said. It actually took me a couple seds of rolling the footage bad forth to catch what she saw. A blurry human silhouette was briefly covered by the rising steam rushing around their form.

  “What the hell is that?” I asked. “No, better question, how the fuck did you notice that?”

  “Because I was watg for it,” Helen replied quietly. “I’d like to say it’s because I spent most of my adult life trying to avoid surveilnce, but the truth is it’s something I learned from our st enter. Sometimes you o look for something missing, not something there.”

  “Well, that’s great,” I mumbled, “gd I could teach you something during our st enter. Let me repeat the question. What IS it?”

  It appears to be some sort of adaptive camoufge. Either very high-end human tech, or very low-end samurai tech. If it was Css II I doubt you’d have even caught it on camera.

  Since Helen nodded as soon as Nyx was done, I assumed she was broadcasting to her as well.

  “Wonderful!” I growled, “I guess that firms your hypothesis that someone’s fug around but doesn’t help us track down the assaint.” I paced around the room for a moment. “Nyx, you access the rest of the squirrels in the area and figure out where this ghost went?”

  I’ve already cross-referehe surrounding squirrels and surveilworks and mao track the distortion back towards the lift. Unfortuhe loetworks are focused on the individual factory pounds, and the tech is impressive enough to fool the squirrels, so I lost them before the lift. I tried to look for simir distortions in a wider area, but haven’t found anything. It’s likely whomever assaulted the foreman ged to a more mundane disguise somewhere along the way.

  “Sooo… we’ve got nothing,” I grumbled.

  “No,” Helen said, standing up and suddenly heading towards the door. “lenty.”

  I had to run in order to catch up with Helen before she left the building. “You want to expin?”

  “Tech like that doesn’t just appear out of thin air, so I’ve sent a message to Zetta and asked him to track down any pahat have the capability to manufacture something like that. We also have the riots… whieone has go of their way to ehey tinue,” Helen expined without turning to look at me.

  “Okay, fair. So where are you going?” I asked, as I struggled to keep up with her long strides. “I hope you’re not pnning to run headlong into the riots, in order to iigate.”

  “Of course not!” Helen hissed. “But maybe we find some clues if we iigate the previous riot locations and see what was damaged.”

  “Sure, I guess that works. It’s not like we look it up or che the squirrel surveilnce,” I said. Helen didn’t reply. She just hopped the gate and started st back towards the lifts.

  “Are you alright?” I finally asked. “You got pretty emotional back there.”

  Helen finally stopped, but she didn’t turn around to face me. “No. No, I’m not,” she admitted quietly. “I’ve known Andrew for a long time. I met him long before I awakened as a samurai. When I asked him to iigate the situation, some part of me knew he wouldn’t be able to resist digging deeper… I’m the reason he’s dead.” She sniffled slightly and sounded like she was about to break out g again.

  “Bullshit! You couldn’t possibly have known whoever is fug around down here would see him as a threat,” I snarled. “If you had, I’m sure you would have chosen a much more subversive way of colleg information and not risked your friend’s life. It’s the agitator’s fault, not yours.”

  “Are y to e?” Helen asked, half turning so she could gn my dire.

  “No! I’m just trying to keep you focused on the objective and who is actually responsible for his death instead of wallowing in pity. I ’t go home until we solve this, remember,” I denied. “If you go stomping around without thinking about things, we’ll be here forever.”

  “Right…” Helen paused, a tiny smile on her face. “Well, I guess you had a point earlier. We don’t have to go directly to the riot locations. We take a look at them remotely and pull up the damage assessments remotely. Just not here. We o find a pce a little less spicuous than the middle of the road in a shut-down district.”

  “The’s get back to the lift. We decide where to go from there,” I suggested. Helen nodded and started turning back around, but before she started off, I broached a topic I hoped wouldn’t set her off again. “What about your friend’s corpse?” I asked quietly. “If we leave him there, not only will there be an iigation, but the ay take his death out on his family.”

  Heleated for just a moment, then started off again at a much slower rate than before. “I already took care of it. I asked Mirage to covertly take trol of the iigation and make sure he’s taken care of. It’s the least I could do.” We walked for a minute or so iive silehanks for your support,” Helen finally muttered.

  “I didn’t do it to support you,” I denied. “I did it to keep you focused and on track. But… if it did help you somehow, then you’re wele.”

  Helen just chuckled lightly. “I fot how blunt you were. It’s o work with someone who doesn’t use doublespeak or try to over-analyse my every word, looking for lies again. It feels o work with someone simple again.”

  “I take it back, and I hate you,” I grumbled as we slowly made our way back towards the poputed part of the districe again.