A Fraudulent Death, Draft 02, CH 36 (Patreon)

Marlot sat up, startling awake. He looked around the room. Not his bedroom. What was he doing in his home office? What had woken him up? Stalker 3.0 had an error code on the screen and Marlot cursed, before stopping himself from calling up the command screen. He couldn’t have come home to work on it. He had too much to do.

It came back slowly.

The plan had been to work at the office to ensure he wasn’t distracted, but once his stomach began growling, Marlot realized he had a problem. Without Trembor, he’d never bothered refilling the coolers, so there was nothing to eat. He could order in, but both his finances and a day of drinking flavored blood told him he wanted something simple, and that he could only get that at home.

He looked at the papers spread on his desk and the data screen of his older computer. At least 3.0 hadn’t been a total distraction. He was confident a quarter of the pages were people whose tax had been paid. The list was alphabetical and included Grift Stripes and Hardir Mixcoat. That meant a hundred ninety-two people walking around when the system thought they were dead. More than those in Grift’s housing building, which implied that for as extensive as this list was, it might not be complete.

The number attached to each name still confounded him. It looked like an ID, but it was built in such a way it didn’t register as one in the RB systems. Marlot had never known there was a structure to those numbers. He’d just expected they went up by one each time one was assigned to a new cub.

The businesses were easier to work out once he found Karlix’s Housing supplies. Now that he was behind the protection his security programs offered him, he’d done an extensive search, found the permits, which was what the number attached to the businesses were. He couldn’t do a deep search on each of them, or even looked at the details of Karlix’s business dealings since it had nothing to do with a body, so he noted the information, and Vlein could deal with that.

That left him a few pages of names with ID-looking numbers attached to them. To be certain they weren’t IDs, he ran one, and it returned the name attached to it, a teacher. The next one was a clerk in an accounting firm, the one after a bailiff, then a store clerk, then a croupier, then—

His pad buzzed. “Hello,” he answered, looking at the next name, a server in a restaurant.

“Registered Investigator Blackclaw?” an official-sounding male asked.

“Yes.” He looked at his pad’s display. Enforcer Central.

“This is enforcer Longjump. I need you to come to your office. There’s been a break-in and—”

“Is Hela’han okay?” he asked before even checking the time. Yes, she was at the office now. If the break-in had just happened, if she’d been hurt, whoever had done this wouldn’t have to worry about being charged for breaking and entering.

“Your secretary is fine. They both are. It seems they surprised the intruders. There was a scuffle, but the thieves were chased off without causing serious injuries. I mainly need you to come and look the place over. Tell us if anything but the obvious has been taken.”

Marlot had difficulty parsing the information. They? Both of them? Jesdan was the only one Marlot could think of, which meant he’d saved Hela’han’s life. As imposing as the elephant was, she radiated prey.

“I’m on my way.”

He was at the door when the most likely reason for the break-in occurred to him and he returned to his office. Did they know he had them? He’d been sure they didn’t, since they had regained the package Hardir sent to his mate. Maybe he’d been wrong. He looked at his pad. In all this, he still hadn’t cleaned it. Had they listened in on his conversation with Jareth? He shut it down. He didn’t have the time to clean it now.

He grabbed all the papers, initiated a secure shutdown of his old computer, and… what did he do with 3.0? As buggy as it was, he wasn’t letting it fall into criminal hands. He trusted his security, but only to a point. He pulled the drive. He’d keep everything with him until this was resolved. The break-in at the office could be to get him out of his house, but now they wouldn’t get everything even if they took both computers.

He put the papers in his jacket and did his best to smooth it down to hide the extra weight. Maybe he needed to travel with a briefcase so he’d have a place to put papers. Like he thought he’d ever go through something like this.

He was outside before he remembered his car was in the shop. He took his pad out, glared at it for the possibility it was infected, then turned it on. It wasn’t like he’d say anything revealing.

“Ukely, it’s Marlot. Can you give me a ride to my office?”

“Of course, I’ll be there in a few minutes,” the zebra replied.

“Thanks.” He turned his pad off. He wished he’d thought to keep one of the pads Nikal had left behind home with him. He headed inside to wait and have a quick breakfast.

* * * * *

“Running late?” The zebra asked, and she drove away from his house.

“Worked late.” He looked around for any car out of place. Unfortunately, he didn’t know his neighbors that well.

“That new program?”

Marlot shook his head, taking his pad to confirm it was still off. “Work research. I would have kept working at home, but there’s been a break-in at the office.”

“Is anything important missing?”

Other than the obvious, was what the officer said. What could be obviously missing? The computer. He had little else of importance to anyone.

“I don’t know.” He unbuttoned his jacket as the heat of the car became too much, and he caught Ukely staring at him. A stack of the papers was visible. He pointed to the road and shook his head when she opened her muzzle.

A pad looking turned off wasn’t as secure as most people believed. There were plenty of invasive apps written to give that impression while broadcasting everything they said. He could have put an electronic cage around it, but he didn’t want to warn the people spying on him he knew.

He took her pad off the dashboard, it was locked so he handed it to her and she unlocked it. He typed a message for her. Pretty sure I’m in trouble and being spied on. He thought about the rest. It was the only safe thing he could think of. I’m leaving the evidence with you. You’re going to be watched from now on. Don’t assume your pad is safe after this. As safely as you can, take everything to the others. We need to figure out what this is about.

He placed the pad back on the dash and slowly removed the papers from his jacket and let them fall to the floor. He did his best to avoid stepping on them, but the important thing was that no one looking at him from outside the car knew what he’d done.

Ukely placed the pad back on the dash and nodded, before turning the radio on to a news station.

* * * * *

The office wasn’t the chaotic scene he expected. One enforcer car was in the lot, and only a handful of gawkers stood around. Marlot did his best to appear casual as he looked around, trying to spot who among them might be the one here to spy on him. Unable to find anyone by the time Ukely drove away, he headed for the office.

Inside, the scene was again different from what he’d expected. Jesdan stood between an enforcer and Hela’han, his chest puffed out. “I told you, you aren’t touching her,” he said, with a surprising amount of threat in his voice.

“And I’ve told you before,” the panther in uniform replied, sounding exasperated, “I’m not trying to touch her, I just need to take her statement.”

There was no fear in the bull elephant’s scent. It was pure determination and anger. In her chair, Hela’han sat, holding her trunk, eyes glazed over. Her gray hide was paler than usual.

“She’s going to need more time to settle,” Marlot said, drawing the attention of both males. The fierceness in Jesdan’s eyes faded to relief. That the elephant had stood up to the panther this long impressed Marlot. Not that he’d doubted how he felt about Hela’han, but he had still considered him only prey.

“Marlot Blackclaw,” he told the panther as the officer looked him over. “Are you officer Longjump?”

“Officer Augor,” he replied. “My partner is checking outside the building for how they broke in.”

“They probably bypassed the lock. Those things are easy to beat with just apps off the network.” He looked at Jesdan, his ripped jacket with shallow bloody lines. “How are you? It looked like you stood your ground.”

“They scared Hela,” the bull elephant replied, touching one of the cuts. “I wasn’t going to let them hurt her.” He glared at the panther again.

Marlot motioned to his inner office. “Why don’t we talk there. It’ll let Hela’han and Jesdan calm down.” The reception looked untouched. “Officer Longjump implied they took something, so it’s going to be there.”

He opened the door and clenched his teeth at the mess. The drawers of both desks were on the floor. RB forms, notes on old cases were spread everywhere. His computer was ripped open, and when he checked the inside, the drive was gone. At least all the important business stuff was on the network. What did he have on the drive that criminals could cause problems with? Copies of his report, a mirrored version of Stalked 1.0. And a lot of security features he hoped would give anyone trying to crack it indigestion.

At least he had his old computer at home he could transfer here to avoid delays in his work and rebuilding this he could do with parts from the stores around here, and it would give him something to distract him from the mess this was turning into.

“So,” the panther said, “is there anything missing I wouldn’t expect?”

Marlot looked around. “It would have been easier if they’d just taken everything with them, instead of leaving this mess for me to clean up.” With a sigh, he set about cleaning things and determining if they’d taken anything else.

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