B12 Envelope (Patreon)

Most of the second part of this scene are the same as the first time I did it for Executioner's Gambit, but the first part is all new.

———

Tori and Sese wandered endlessly through a maze of offices and corridors until they stumbled across an electrician. He was sitting atop a ladder with a smashed light fixture in his lap, wires snaking from it up into the ceiling. “That you, Thojy?”

The white geroo looked up from his work, ears grinning. “Sure is,” he said. “It’s your lucky day!”

Tori’s ruined ears smiled, and she paused before the door opposite the one she’d exited. “We need to speak with Nija,” explained Tori, gesturing to the door she’d been about to open. “Is this the right way to the computer operations center?”

“Depends why you want to talk to my boss," he said with a smile. “If it’s about how I’m a slacker and doing a terrible job, then yes, go out that door, across the corridor, through the airlock, and out into space.”

Tori covered a laugh. Oh! So, Nija is the boss you’re hoping will be on the killer’s list, she thought. Now, I’m looking forward to this meeting even less! She asked, “And if it’s because I want to tell her what a great job you’re doing?”

“Then no, you’re going the completely wrong direction.”

Sese yarped loudly, making the electrician grin.

The rusty red geroo sighed. “We’re completely lost. Can you tell me how to get there?”

“No, not really,” admitted Thojy. “But I could lead you there if you’d like.”

“Oh, yes, please,” said Tori.

Thojy balanced the light fixture atop the ladder and climbed carefully down, pausing for a moment to touch Sese’s paw. His eyes sparkled, and his ears spread wide. “I’m Thojy, but you can call me Thojy.”

“I’m Sese,” she said with a sweet smile.

Thojy led the pair back through the door they’d come in. “The craziest thing happened to me this morning,” he announced as they walked.

Tori rolled her eyes, well aware of the sorts of stories the white geroo wove, but her curiosity prompted her to say, “Oh? What sort of thing would that be?”

“Well,” said Thojy, “I was headed to lunch when I crossed paths with a delivery guy who was running a sandwich out to the docking bay. His strand rings, and when he put it to his ear, he got all excited, yelling, ‘Really? Oh, ancestors! Oh, ancestors!’”

Thojy paused before turning a corner and explained, “He hung up the strand, and he’s in a panic, looking back and forth between where he was headed and where he came from. He shouted—and I mean shouted—‘My mate…! My mate…! I’m about to become a father!’

“Then, he shoves the lunch into my paws and runs off,” said Thojy.

“Oh, that is unexpected, I guess,” said Tori, “but free lunch—?”

“So, I walked to the docking bay to deliver the food.”

“Well, that was very kind of you, Thojy,” said Tori.

“It seemed too rude to take a guy’s lunch, and delivering the food turned out to be simple enough. The guy’s name was written on the bag, and I found him working as a marshaller, y’know, standing behind the commissioner’s shuttle and signaling the tug operator to bring it back a little farther, a little farther.” Thojy gestured with his paws as if directing a heavy load.

“Without even offering me a tip, he tears open the paper and shoves a huge bite into his muzzle. Almost immediately, the insides of his ears turned bright red, he dropped the sandwich to the deck, and so many tears streamed from his eyes that it looked like his head had sprung a couple leaks!”

Sese’s eyes went wide.

“He screams, ‘Hot!’ and runs off after a water fountain. I’m just left standing there, wondering what the heck this guy did to piss off the sandwich shop.”

Tori blinked. “Wow, that was a strange turn of events—”

“But now, the commissioner’s ship is backing up at an angle,” the electrician explained, “with no one there to straighten it out. So, I start shouting and waving at the tug operator, telling him to turn the wheel before he smashes the ship into the wall.”

The gals shared a look, but the pink-eyed geroo ignored them, barreling on, “I’m jumping up and down and waving my arms. I’m so distracted, that I didn’t even notice this scrawny guy with a strand in his paw running across the bay. Everyone else is diving out of the way, and some big guy is chasing after him, yelling, ‘Stop! Thief!’”

“Chief Tipohee?” asked Sese.

Thojy perked his ears, pulled from storytelling mode. “What’s that, lovely lady?”

The insides of Sese’s ears blushed slightly. “The guy chasing him—was it Security Chief Tipohee?”

“Uh, maybe?” said Thojy. “Uh, yes actually, I’m certain it must have been! So, Chief Tipohee is yelling his head off, and he chases the guy right into me. Kaboom! We fly up in the air and land in a pile, the scrawny guy sprawled across the deck and me sitting right atop him.”

Sese glanced over to Tori, but she just shrugged. “Chief Tipohee runs up to me and helps me to my paws. He’s slapping my back, calling me brave and civic-minded, but I’m still trying to regain my balance while he’s dragging the suspect away.”

Sese started to ask a question, but Thojy plowed ahead. “Now, I’m looking around, asking what just happened, but then I realized that everyone was gone. It was just me and the captain in the shuttle bay, and he was beating on the commissioner’s shuttle with this long length of pipe.”

“Wait!” said Tori, holding up both of her palms. “Do you really expect me to believe that Captain Gutassi hit the commissioner’s shuttle with a pipe?”

“Yeah, he’s really laying into the thing, whacking it just as hard as he’s able,” claimed Thojy, “and all the while, he’s shouting stuff like, ‘Open up, you stupid piece of junk!’ Until finally, he pries the pipe in under the shuttle’s ramp, and he’s laying all his weight into the thing.”

Sese stared at him in silence.

“Then, the captain’s yelling at me to help, so I put my shoulder into it, and between the two of us, we got the ramp unstuck.”

Tori pursed her lips and stood in silence a moment before managing, “Well, I’m sure the captain really appreciated your help.”

But Thojy shook his head. “Sadly, I don’t think he did … or will in this case.”

“Will…?” asked Sese.

“Yeah, you see when the ramp finally came loose, it crashed down on the captain, knocking him out cold, laying there under the ramp. I was just about to call zero-zero-zero to get some help, but Commissioner Daskatoma tromped down the ramp and stares at me.”

Tori opened her muzzle, but no words came out.

“And Daskatoma was all, ‘Hey, Thojy, so cool of you to come down here and meet my shuttle. Usually, it’s just the captain.” Thojy pointed straight ahead with both index fingers. “And so, I said, ‘No problem, Dask. I got you.’”

“Ah,” said Tori, then she fell silent, not sure what to say. Eventually, she added, “Naturally, right, I mean he would, with you being a close, personal friend of the commissioner and all.”

Thojy smiled and shook his head. “I like to think of the commissioner as being a close, personal friend of mine.”

Stepping around the corner, he gestured to a glass door and the racks of computers beyond it. “Nija’s probably in there. She’s been trying to diagnose some sort of network issue.”

The gals continued on their way, but Tori turned back when she noticed that Thojy hadn’t moved. “Not coming with us?”

He shook his head. “Nah, Nija is mated to her work and lately they’ve been having…”—he cupped a paw around his muzzle as if sharing a secret—“marital problems. And when Nija is fighting with computers, krakun find other places to be.”

Grinning, Tori waved goodbye and watched as Thojy headed back to his broken light fixture. Sese leaned in closer and whispered, “Well, he’s a charming one.”

“Among other things, yeah,” agreed Tori. Then, worried about her friend, she added, “He’s also got a family and an obsession to spend beyond his means.”

Sese’s eyes opened wide. Almost defensively, she stammered, “I didn’t… I wasn’t…”

“No, I didn’t mean that you would,” Tori assured her, despite wondering if that was really the case. After all, she did have an affair with the chief… “He’s just … the sort that merits a little caution around, and I thought you ought’a know.”

Through the glass door, they found Nija huddled in front of a computer screen, but with the roar of the forced air conditioning and computer fans, she clearly hadn’t heard the pair approach. She sat hunched forward, her eyes just centimeters away from a screen, a green knitted blanket wrapped around her shoulders to shield her from the room’s chill.

“Nija?” called Tori, startling the older gal.

Nija’s paw slid quickly from the keyboard, stopping atop a paper envelope lying beside it. “What do you want, now?” she demanded when she recognized the two. “And if I hear one more lie about Asui being The Executioner, I’m going straight to the captain and demanding he has you hung by the tail and flogged!”

Tori gasped. Who would say such a horrible thing? Taking strength from Sese’s presence, she said, “No, I just need to ask some feasibility questions.”

“Bah!” the older gal huffed before turning back to the screen. “I don’t have time for that.”

“Well, make time,” said Sese, stepping closer. “Tori has questions about computer tampering.”

Nija’s glare slid over Tori like a shadow. Slowly, “Who tampered with what?”

“I’ve got door logs, and I noticed there’s no unexpected access entries into one of the victim’s apartments,” Tori explained, “but the evidence shows that someone got in. I wanted to know how hard it would have been to erase those log entries.”

Nija sat back in her chair and crossed her arms. She fixed Tori with her golden eyes. “No one can erase log entries,” she said.

“I don’t buy that for a moment,” laughed Sese. “Maybe no one’s allowed to, but it’s just data in a computer, right? If it can be written, can’t it be overwritten?”

With a glare, “You think someone tampered with the logs?”

Tori sighed and wished she had a chair, but the computer chief sat in the only one in sight, and once again, she didn’t offer it up. Tori looked up at Sese for a moment before returning her attention to the chief. “I don’t know, but like I said, no suspicious entries, someone got in, and we’ve got no reason to think the victim let the killer in unaware. So, either someone changed the logs or entered without leaving a computer trace. I’d love to eliminate one of those two possibilities so I can narrow my search.”

“Well, despite your tiny microbrain, you’re actually right,” Nija finally admitted. “It wouldn’t be simple because there’s lots of systems in place to prevent record tampering, but yeah, the records could be changed.”

Sese smiled, looking smug. “And who could change them?”

“Well, I have access,” the older gal admitted, “but I can’t be the serial killer because I’m not stupid!”

Tori’s eyes opened wider. “You don’t think the killer is very smart?”

“I don’t know that!” Nija barked. Her ears pulled back in rage. “Stop putting words in my mouth. But obviously, the killer isn’t someone in power, is it? Look at me. I’ve worked my way to the top of the ladder. My boss is the captain himself, and I’d rather jump out an airlock than take his job, so how could I possibly benefit by knocking someone off? There’s nobody I could kill to get a promotion. I’ve already got the position I want.”

Tori decided to share that someone had hired the killer. “Well, sure, but—”

“So, no upside, and a huge downside,” Nija interrupted. “Someone in power killing those in power? That’s just begging someone to bump you off!”

Sese frowned. “How do you figure? If you were the killer … it’s not like you’d murder yourself.”

Nija gasped in exasperation, pointing as Sese with both index fingers. “See? This is why The Executioner is still running loose. How can you expect to catch him when you’re so damned dim?”

Sese scowled, and internally, Tori was growling, but she somehow managed to keep her patchy fur down. “We’d love to hear your analysis.”

“I bet.” Nija folded her paws in her lap. “The killer has normalized killing those in power. How long will it be before other crew start doing it too?”

“A copycat?” asked Tori.

“Ugh, no! Why are you so stupid?” Nija groaned. “I’m thinking more like a mob.”

Tori gulped and thought back on Runo’oa’s story once more—a mob that prevented Subcommander Kimoa from getting help, from puking the poison back up. How far was that from a mob murdering someone who hadn’t even been poisoned first?

Not far, she reasoned.

Tori lowered her eyes and stared at the cold deck chilling her paws. “So, who else could tamper with logs?”

“Impossible for me to answer that,” she said. “No one else has legitimate access, but despite all our security measures, computers can be hacked. With the proper skillset, it’s conceivable that a user could elevate his access authority up to my level. And if he knew how to do that, he’d probably know enough to bypass the security measures that prevent log tampering too.”

Sese scowled. “And who on board has that level of knowledge?”

“Hopefully? No one,” said Nija. “The krakun go out of their way to make sure that none of us ever learn how to hack. We’re forbidden from doing any research, they’ve laced our systems with daemons that watch for anyone who might be dabbling in it, and the penalties for getting caught with malware of any sort are downright draconian. The ancestors-be-damned krakun are so paranoid about computer hackers, that they won’t even let us study it in a defensive way.”

“And if your systems did get hacked?” asked Tori. “How could you respond?”

“Our protocol is simple,” said Nija. “If we suspect that a hacker has compromised our systems beyond our ability to repair them, then we call the company for help. They will send a team of gleaming white knight hackers to rescue us, and they won’t allow us to witness any of what they do. Planetary Acquisitions keeps their hackers on a very short leash.”

“What about using the central computer to gain access to the victim’s quarters?” asked Sese. “Landlords can access their tenant’s apartments and Chief Tipohee can remotely grant us access to crime scenes. Does that sort of thing always end up in the log?”

Nija sat back in her seat with a curious look, somewhere between a grin and a glare. Eventually, she said, “A couple years ago, I would have said, ‘Yes.’”

Sese and Tori shared a look. “But not now,” offered Tori when the computer chief didn’t elaborate.

“There’s not just a single override priority. There’s actually a bunch organized by urgency,” said Nija. “Landlords have a low priority, and other levels include investigation, welfare checks, medical emergencies, ship emergencies, and then the top priority of all—something we call root access. Up until a couple years ago, the system logged any access, regardless of priority.”

Tori glanced over at the big officer for only a moment before suggesting, “Would this change have led to the shouting match you had with Chief Tipohee in the security station?”

Nija raised an ear in surprise. After a moment, she sneered, “Well, look at you, Investigator Tori. Perhaps you’re not as thick as you look.” She grinned at her own jab. “Chief Tipohee decided that root access didn’t need to be logged.”

“Why?” asked Sese.

This made Nija smile wide. “I’m not sure.” She shrugged, and in a tone that spoke volumes, she said, “Perhaps, it could have been the list I was compiling about all the young gals he visited, but he didn’t say. I suppose we’ll never know.”

Tori resisted the urge to look over at her friend, but still, she could feel the way Sese stiffened and shook. “And how many geroo have root access?”

“Just two,” said Nija. “The captain and Security Chief Tipohee. The computer will let them through any door, and it won’t log where they’ve gone.”

Silence stretched and Tori’s ruined ears rumbled with only the sound of air conditioning.

“So, what’s in the envelope?” asked Sese, her voice surprisingly calm, all things considered. Tori perked up, glad that she hadn’t been the only one to notice it.

Nija scowled and plucked the unsealed envelope from the desk. She opened it up and with two fingers, pulled a kitchen knife from inside. Though not the most threatening knife one might find in a typical kitchen, it was certainly big enough to be dangerous—just barely fitting completely inside the envelope. “Just a little bit of protection, Officer,” she said. “With enough camouflage that an attacker might not stop me from sticking them with it, paper fragile enough that the blade would push right through on the first jab.”

Tori swallowed. How many others were walking around the corridors with an envelope right now? How long until the ship boiled over into a full revolt, and the company decided to purge the crew?

“Honestly, you two should get one as well,” Nija said. Then looking up at Sese, she added, “The screwdriver is a good start, but it’s stupid not to keep it hidden. At least, allow yourself a hit in that no one tries to block. You may not be anyone’s boss, but the crew hates the security officers as much as they do their bosses—maybe more. You should be careful if you don’t wish to be discarded … like a Boot.”

Tori looked up at the naked concern on Sese’s ears. Was she worried, merely irritated by Nija’s abrasive manner, or was she regretting that they hadn’t been back to the security office so she could grab her nightstick once more?

“And you, cripple,” Nija said to Tori, “do you think the crew wants you to find The Executioner? To stop him? You’re in just as much danger as I am—probably more!”

Tori stared, stunned at the foulness that poured from the computer chief’s mouth. “Cheerful thought,” sighed Tori as she pushed it from her mind. If someone wanted to kill her, she was in no position to stop them. A concealed knife would be little help.

———

Reviewer's link: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1hXWTB4PUg_o11Y2OZoRZHDEjehu96MGjbu5-ZhS-tLg/edit?usp=sharing

Thoughts?