Spindly alien plants with nearly black needle leaves strained upwards into a twilight fading from orange to black. Where darkness fell, the ground was a barren zone of detritus and rock. Low, dark lichen eked out an existence in the small, lit clearings. The red dwarf sun never moved here. Every tree that grew cast an eternal shadow behind it, precluding further tree growth for a long stretch of soil. Over eons of growth and decay, a narrow treeline emerged perpendicular to the direction of the star.
A surveillance drone whirled silently above the treeline, hovering like a black specter in the dim twilight. Visual gradients between the dark forest and the ochre sky led to the camera being almost blind to fine features below the branches. The temperature gradient between permanent light and permanent shadow led to complex convection currents that buffeted the small robot. Chemical sensors indicated that if she was on site, Luo Xixi would have smelled a faint hint of rot from fallen lumber decaying in the darkness.
>Anomalous volatile organic compound detection. m/z = 102.18. Fragmentation fit: cadaverine.
Animal decay.
In the real world, Luo Xixi was following the drone from her home. A jumble of maps and static data displays overlay the digital window’s nature themed background even as her vision was engulfed by a transparent video feed. Her bed-desk’s scratchy sheets were neatly folded and placed atop her pillow as she sat down at the desk portion.
>Alert: turbulence exceeding flight envelope.
Shit, she thought. Just a little more. She had already viewed several dozen kilometers of the border region several times at high resolution. The tangle of tree branches and the shadow of this region’s permanent evening made visual identification of anything on the forest floor almost impossible.
>Thermal imaging, she commanded the drone with a single thought.
The visual feed in her mind was overlaid by a thermal image in high contrast false color. Fractal patterns of hot and cold spots appeared on the first floor, results of differential heating from zones of permanent light and permanent shadow on rocky soil. Occasional amorphous forms prowled through the dark underbrush. Maybe just some local fauna, she thought.
As the drone moved, she noticed that the moving shapes were all slowly cooling and oscillating, as if they were swaying from a pole carried by invisible hands.
>Increase contrast.
The background darkened away as faint shapes slowly phased into recognition. They were roughly bipedal and moved with a deliberate slowness. Humans carrying some sort of hunted animal?
Faint outlines of the border were projected onto the map. However, the human shaped heat sources casually walked past where the border should have been.
>Reduce altitude to 51 m.
The drone slowly descended to a hovering height grazing the treetops. Leaves and branches swayed under the wind from its rotors.
>High res. Night vision overlay, maximize signal for shape resolution.
Colors morphed in Luo Xixi’s vision as the computer overlaid the thermal and optical pictures together. The walking shapes became sharper, more clearly human.
>Zoom 10x.
The faint outline of a gun barrel slung over their shoulders became visible on the camera feed. Faces and specific figures became resolvable. As Luo Xixi looked around with the drone’s sensor eyes, a group of humans emerged from the thermal background of what appeared to be a flat wall.
The wall began warming up. It was a vehicle, cooled to the background temperature of the surrounding forest and covered in camouflage, now warming up. A puff of warm air drifted from a vent at the top of what looked like a container section.
Metal slats swung open at its rear. The crowd began lifting some of the swinging shapes, now cooled to nearly the background temperature of the forest, into a hold. Some were gesturing casually. Luo Xixi focused intently on the shapes being loaded into the vehicle hold. They were too indistinct. With her instinct, she maneuvered the drone to attempt a better angle. The shape of the hold was obvious now, a standardized freight container, but the silhouettes of the organisms being loaded was defying characterization.
One of the figures was almost recognizable, with a rotund body and stubby legs. Their legs faded into darkness on both the thermal and night vision feeds in splotches, like they had stepped through mud.
Suddenly, one of the shapes raised its hand and pointed towards Luo Xixi’s camera. Within seconds, another figure raised a cylindrical shape to their shoulder. Flashes of static began appearing on the remote feed. Random pixels began flickering in bright solid colors as the image began dissolving away into noise. It was the typical signature of broadband microwave jamming.
>Vector motion (-1,0,1), local basis, maximum speed, Luo Xixi commanded.
The drone gave a halting response as the video frame alternatively froze and skipped images. The few images that did get through showed the treetops receding, but then grew taller as the drone began losing altitude. Long streaks of solid color appeared before the drone feed completely froze. The last signal sent was of the drone tumbling, random colors mixed with the spiraling reds and gray of the rotating sky.
>Query: drone nav coordinates? Luo Xixi asked.
>Signal unavailable. Last known coordinates: (41.402, 2.174).
>Drone feed off, she commanded.
The blank video dissolved away, replaced by Luo Xixi’s chaotic room. Candy wrappers and hand written notes were strewn around the tabletop in a haphazard fashion. A cup of warm water, formerly boiling hot, was still emitting a faint stream of residual vapor. Daylight white LED lamps lit the room with harsh contrasts.
Luo Xixi had been here for days, hardly stepping outside even for food. The air was stale and smelled of grime. Thanks to the generosity of the Ministry, her job at the repair depot was put on temporary leave. She took a sip of her water.
Someone had shot down the drone with electronic warfare. But it was too late for whoever did this. The northwestern border fence near compound 3 was now a site of interest for the Ministry of Internal Affairs.
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Though the work was incomplete, it was already a major step forward in the case. No guesswork was needed, only rigorous analysis. A smile of accomplishment finally appeared on Luo Xixi’s face, even as her eyes felt heavier and heavier.
Exhaustion overtook her as she fell asleep at her desk.
>Good morning, Luo Xixi! Time to end sleep sequence! It is now local time 0600!
A blaring loud alarm directly intruded Luo Xixi’s cerebral cortex, forcibly prying her from her troubled sleep. Shit, I thought I muted that damn thing, she cursed to herself.
She stumbled into the shower and tossed her dirty clothes aside. Warm water mixed with blasts of hot air slithered into every crevice of her body. Steam intruded her nostrils. The humid air loosened the mucous that built up in her throat and relaxed every muscle. But her mind could not relax.
Outside, the din of human activity continued. Crowds walked past in an unknowing flow of people. She finally felt safe enough to walk to her fake job again. The line of marines had mostly disappeared by now, replaced by a second chain link fence patrolled by cameras and drones. A redundant manual checkpoint was set up in front of the older automated one. The crowd walking past had thinned by now, as many job sites formerly in the border zone had closed in the wake of the riots. The synth depot was one of the few that were still open.
Another day at the depot. Ever since she did not need to do repair work anymore, Luo Xixi had lost all sense of time. Despite no more physical work, she hardly fast forwarded through her day anymore. Social and political analysis took up more than enough mental energy to avoid boredom.
The Hyoron break room was still a racket of grunts and clicks emanating from both the display screen and the workers themselves.
As expected, the plump overseer named Jackson Edward appeared at the door to yell at the Hyoron indentured laborers. The shock prod was still displayed prominently on his waist.
“Break’s over you savages! Back to work!” he yelled.
Luo Xixi stood in the hall and confronted him again.
“They’d work better if you stopped calling them that.”
Jackson laughed bitterly in defiance.
“What? You mean the savages?” he sneered. “You soft xeno loving bastards just don’t get it, do you?”
She examined Jackson with a glance. There was something more familiar about him that she hadn’t noticed before. His weight distribution seemed unusual. She instinctively looked down at his boots. They were mostly clean, but she noticed a dim ring of dried brownish-black mud at the bottom rim of the sole.
Interesting, she mused. This was an urban region. All the ground was concrete for kilometers around. He likely lived in the worker zone. Where would dried mud come from?
The Hyoron reluctantly shuffled past them back to their work posts. The trotting sound of their limbs on concrete grew dim as they left their vicinity and headed for their various work assignments.
“I’m not here to talk to you about your management style,” she said sharply. Let’s try a small experiment, she mused. “I actually have a special request.”
He looked at her again with an arrogant dismissal.
“What do you want to talk to me about, boss?”
“I need you to get me something special. A favor,” Luo Xixi said cryptically.
Jackson snickered.
“Boss, I’m just a worker. I’m not involved in management politics.”
“This is not for work,” she said with a faint smile. “This is personal.”
He looked around. The hall was devoid of people, filled with only the faint echoes of power tools, human yelling and Hyoron grunting.
“Favors are difficult in these troubled times,” he said. Luo Xixi quietly flashed a few credit cards hidden in the folds of her work jacket. The Ministry was generous.
“And yet what would we not do for our esteemed colleagues?” Jackson finished. “What exactly did you have in mind?”
Luo Xixi’s smile grew bigger.
“A food delivery. Nothing more.”
Jackson shook his head. “Get synths for that. I don’t do butler work.”
“Synths don’t deliver real food. The specialty.”
Jackson immediately paused. Sweat began wetting his brow.
“I don’t know what you are talking about,” he sputtered.
“Forget what I said then,” Luo Xixi replied. “Absolutely no pressure.”
The portly man began backing away from her. “I’m going back to work. The Hyoron workers need supervision.”
Receding human footsteps echoed through the hall. Luo Xixi walked over and looked at the ground where he walked. There were no traces of mud, but his reaction had already given Luo Xixi cause to confirm her suspicions.
She walked back to her desk, now relocated to a quiet corner of the workshop hidden behind a large shelf. Offset LED lamps cast a dim shadow onto the work surface. A tablet emerged from her jacket and was placed down at a strategic angle to ensure the screen would be dark for anyone eavesdropping at the entrance.
>Travel surveillance file access. Jackson Edward.
A complex tangle of data appeared on the tablet. It was too complex. But it will be clear soon.
>Focus on hab block 7 metro records.
The list thinned out, but it was still a complex list of dates, times and surveillance photos.
>AI assistant. Please propose processing method for data reduction.
The AI assistant responded quickly.
>Have you considered differential measurements?
>Illicit activity is unlikely to follow work schedules.
>Some key things to look for are: Entry or exit not balanced by a corresponding exit or entry. >Entry or exit at non-peak hours.
>Entry or exit from different stations than typical.
A new insight burst forth from the dark recesses of her mind, born of a mix of AI suggestion and her own suspicion.
>Assign value of +1 to entry and -1 to exit from hab block 7 metro station.
>Sum entry and exit values for all travelers.
>Remove all travelers with net value 0.
>Repeat analysis, same parameters.
A simple, clean dataset replaced the previously overwhelming clutter. Commutes vanished entirely from the data visualization, leaving only a much shorter list of unmatched trips. Outbound exceeds inbound. Luo Xixi examined the data carefully. The pattern was clear. On unmatched trips, Jackson always took the eastbound metro, moving away from the border zone, and then disappeared from surveillance after reaching the end of the line. His next reappearance would always be around hab block 7.
The outside world’s sounds felt so distant now, as if a veil of noise had fallen away. There was more work to be done, but this was a promising lead. It would be foolish to ignore it.
>Note: Jackson Edward displayed uncooperative behavior.
>Suspected sighting at border forest region.
>Showed threat response when asked to purchase real food samples.
>Person of interest due to travel data flag.
>Interrogation requested. Judicial resources recommended for assisted compliance.
She stepped outside. The air was as chilly as before, with permanent winds whistling through the buildings and fences. The border zone was quiet for now.
