Logan sat looking at the terminal, the blinking input request gently lighting up the darkness around him. He had been staring at it for a few hours now, his mind twirling around the possible search parameters seeking the best solution. The pale sky of the evening had given way to the black of night. A bright-colored sign flared to life, sending neon yellow light shining into his room.
"Fucking damn it!" He blurted, the blinding light shaking him out of his concentration. "Blinds... Blinds!.... Close Blinds!!" he repeated, getting slightly agitated. There was a slow whirr as blinds began to stem the invading light. "Damn, VIs never listen when you need them," he thought.
Virtual Intelligence had been around for centuries, an offshoot of research into true AIs. They were capable of simple tasks or complex processing and problem-solving given a specific data set to work with. They were specifically labeled and marketed as unable to learn or develop beyond the particular fields of data provided. The United Colonial Government closely monitored their manufacturing and development; no one wanted another AI uprising. VIs were everywhere and used in just about every avenue of life, including the crappy VI that refused to close the blinds when he asked. You get what you pay for, though, and he didn't think this was the best model, probably not, considering where he was staying.
Logan got up and headed toward the fridge for a drink. He had been on Bendraar for three weeks without finding his target. Logan was usually able to wrap things up in a week or two and submit a report to get payment. Being paid per job was certainly not ideal, especially since he was meant to be a government employee. Funds were getting a little tight
Being an auditor, at least one at his level, was not glamorous work; but there were upsides. Auditors got to travel and see quite a few different worlds, free transport on any naval vessel going in the direction they needed, access to relatively decent health care, and a permit to carry a weapon even in usually restricted areas if needed. They had an extensive job description. There were auditors for almost everything one could think of, but most jobs fell into two general categories: death and taxes.
If a medical drug harmed or killed people, an auditor would probably eventually show up at the company's headquarters to review their files. If they were also dodging taxes, they could expect a handful of less friendly auditors to help figure out the problem and fix it. Usually forcefully. It's fair to say the UCG cared more about tax dodging than medical malpractice, but it would probably depend on who got hurt and how influential they were.
Auditors functioned like investigators with some enforcement duties depending on the level and type of case they were working on. Local law enforcement and auditors usually didn't get along; almost anything involving government funds or activities fell into an auditor's jurisdiction.
Logan grabbed a Vortex seltzer from the fridge, opened it, and walked back to the terminal. The gentle fizzing of the cold drink made him realize his thirst.
He had been searching for one individual, a construction foreman named George Kraz, who had been skimming credits here and there from planetary government construction jobs. His activity was quickly noticed but buried under a list of higher-profile cases.
The UCG was huge compared to the severity of the infraction; in fact, the Government's budget was padded to account for small levels of corruption and pocket-lining. There wasn't any time or resources for the USG to go after everyone guilty of corruption, so it tended to look the other way for minor infractions and hoped an auditor would eventually get to it.
The Colonial Audit Service was created during a time of turmoil. The scars of the AI uprising were still healing, and there were constant skirmishes with the Stex as Earth struggled to form colonies beyond the core worlds. Government oversight was stretched thin as it struggled to control the corporations, widespread corruption and crime on distant planets. That was almost 500 years ago.
In the last few months, George had seemingly been desperate for credits. The amounts he had taken and tried to hide rose sharply, bumping him up in the proverbial auditor queue as soon as the discrepancies were noticed. Subsequently, the file landed in Logan's hands.
Logan's problem was that he couldn't find him. He was confident George hadn't made it off-world. None of his credit accounts had been touched in over two weeks. No prior payments or transfers led back to anything shady. At least not shady enough to indicate he was smuggled off the planet.
The blinking input request still gently flashed, waiting for the string of words that would lead Logan to his target. He drank his seltzer, the carbonated water swirling into a vortex as he lifted the bottle. An interesting branding trick that worked; people loved a gimmick.
He had visited George's office, apartment, known hangouts, and the past ten construction projects he had either worked on or been involved with, even slightly. It's like he vanished and decided he didn't need the credits anymore. Or he was dead, and Logan was chasing a ghost.
Logan sighed and sat, pulling up George's recent communications and going over them the third time. They were a little disjointed and showed an onset of paranoia and fear as the date of his disappearance approached. Mentions of 'hearing them' and 'they are coming for us' became more common. George was afraid of something, but it wasn't clear what.
A general search showed a slew of new missing person reports across the planet in the last 30 days, probably raising an eyebrow somewhere, but George wasn't one of them. Looking at the communications again didn't spark anything. Logan hoped to notice something he missed, but nothing was popping out. The input request blinked calmly at him.
Foundation repair, ventilation system installation, mag-lev tunnel construction, and lift repair were on the list of the last projects George had overseen. These were unimportant except for the extension of a mag-lev train track section and the corresponding tunnel on Level eight of the tower block Logan was currently in. He typed a few phrases into his terminal, and after a moment of searching, it returned the pre-construction diagrams of the tunnel and the current technical readouts. Taking both, he tossed them in the air, materializing as a 3D representation overlaid on each other.
A conveniently small device, the terminal was an auditor's best friend. It was Logan's link to the Colonial Audit Service database anywhere in Colonial space, providing access to specific local systems and services if required. It was capable of projecting information and 3D data manipulation.
He had looked at the schematics before, searching for inconsistencies or additional sections that may have been added as a hideout, but everything lined up perfectly. The tunnel ran through a pre-planned section on Level eight to house a mag-lev track when this block was built. Temporary supports were placed in the tunnel's location until construction began, but the surrounding walls were almost three thousand feet of solid Durasteel to support the tower spire above. There was nowhere to hide; Logan was sure of it. He looked them over again for a few minutes before pinching the bridge of his nose in frustration. Where the hell had George gone?
A light chime from the Glass on his wrist pulled him from his thoughts. At first, he thought it must have been Mera, his Colonial Audit Service handler asking for another update since he was running behind schedule. He was surprised to see Lilith's name on the call.
The Universal Glass Door Communications Device or 'Glass' sat comfortably in a special holder on his wrist. It could also be conveniently held in hand and was about as thin as a piece of glass, if not a smidge thicker.
Logan accepted the call and was immediately treated to the lovely, if a little gaunt, face of Lilith smiling at him from the communications window projected in front of him. The window allowed the viewer to see above the collarbones of the person they were talking to.
"Good timing! I was about to rip my hair out," he joked. "To what do I owe the pleasure?"
Lilith smiled back at him. "I concluded some business and noticed you were available for a direct connection. I thought I would see what you were up to. It's been a while."
