“Mark! The man of the hour! Come in, come in.”

  Cominski was outwardly happy as he welcomed his cousin into his home, though this happiness seemed mildly forced. Conversely, Mark was stoic and unruffled: “This success was due to our collaboration. You are as much the man of the hour as I.”

  Strangely, Cominski winced slightly at the praise, rubbing his hands together before covering his discomfort with a mild chuckle. He continued to be self-effacing and ingratiating as he introduced Amrine to his wife and children. They sat in the living room and made some small talk as Mrs. Cominski finished making dinner. Lucy noted that Mark said little, with the conversation being primarily driven by jittery John. Eventually, the full Cominski family and their guest sat down to eat.

  She fast-forwarded through their small talk and dinner, inferring that nothing of interest would happen with the rest of the family around. As she’d suspected, it was after dinner that John said, “Emma, could you put the kids to bed?”

  Once the others were cleared out, Mark got right to the point: “We have a problem.”

  Cominski’s response lacked any of the false cheer from before. Lucy heard only anger and stress in his voice as he responded: “What else do you want from me? I’ve done what you asked.”

  Mark’s voice was snide and mocking, becoming slightly nasally as he rebuked his cousin: “I said ‘we’ have a problem. I’m here to offer you a solution to an issue that affects both of us. Word around the office is that a little cat has been sticking her nose where it doesn’t belong.”

  “A cat? What do you-“

  Lucy watched as Amrine interrupted his cousin, pulling something from his jacket pocket and holding it up for Cominski to see. Lucy could only see the heat signatures of their figures from above, but she thought Amrine was holding something flat. A picture? Lucy heard Cominski’s surprised reaction: “Her?”

  “Yes, John. This cat could cause us a bit of trouble. You know how mischievous they can be. If she finds something she’s not supposed to…”

  He trailed off, letting the idea set in and waiting for John to respond: “What do you want to do?”

  “This kind of problem is simple, John. Just follow the instructions written here.”

  Amrine pulled out another item and handed it to Cominski. He took it, paused for a moment, then hissed in anger: “You savage! Are you planning to-“

  “My friends are the ones who came up with this one, not me. You should be grateful they’re willing to help you out.”

  “Help me? They’re just protecting an investment.”

  There was a hint of bitterness in Cominski’s voice, yet Amrine mercilessly shut him down: “Spare me the self-pity. You need our help whether you like it or not. Your wife and kids need you, John. The only way you’ll get to stay with them is if you handle this issue well.”

  There was an ongoing pause, as Cominski seemed to struggle with himself. Amrine drove the knife further: “It’s just putting something in a tomcat’s drink, John. My buddies will handle the rest. Nothing dirty for you.”

  Cominski paused again, then Lucy saw him nod. Amrine pulled out something else, handing it over and saying, “You’ll need this. It’s tasty, so you’ll need to keep it away from prying eyes.”

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  Cominski nodded again, responding with a dull, despairing voice: “I just wish it didn’t come to this.”

  To Lucy’s mounting fury, she detected amusement in Amrine’s response: “Well, you know what they say about cats and curiosity, right? In some ways, it was inevitable.”

  On that note, Amrine got up and left, leaving Cominski to his thoughts. Lucy watched until she couldn’t bear it anymore. She turned off the video and sat back in her chair, emotions churning in her gut. Anger, disgust, and even surprise all ran rampant through her system. She’d been right. There really had been a plan to kill her parents. These guys had spoken about it in code, but it was obvious that the cat was her mother. The tomcat must be her father: “It’s just giving a nice drink to a tomcat, John.”

  Amrine had been a drug dealer. He’d given something to Cominski. Quaela. It had to be Quaela. There had been Quaela in her father’s system that night: “…you know what they say about cats and curiosity, right?”

  The emotions had been building up in Lucy’s chest for too long. She brought her knees up to her chest. Shuddering, she began to cry. There, alone in the darkness, tears of sadness and rage poured out as she mourned her parents’ deaths again.

  This time, there was someone to blame.

  …

  Far away, in a basement apartment in downtown Buulon, a gloomy-faced, brown haired young man with baggy eyes stared at an array of monitors. He typed away in a sequence of rapid clicks, eyes flickering around at high speed. He’d been up for more than 5 days straight now. In theory, he could keep going, but he was starting to feel his efficiency drop.

  The young hacker was contemplating taking a short break when something pinged on his corner monitor. It was the alert system he’d set up to keep tabs on the Imperium’s satellite database. No matter how powerful the Khazari were, they couldn’t alter the Imperium’s satellite data with impunity. That would be far too risky. Instead, they had used their connections to install a software that tracked the routes of the satellites and the queries of their central database. This was an overwhelming amount of information, but the foot soldiers of the crime family scheduled their activity carefully. They would remember the times and places where they’d had important meetings and submit them to their local bosses. The bosses would then distribute this data to their stable of hackers and data monitors. They could use the software to figure out which satellites had been nearby when important plans were being made and attach an alarm to that info. The alarm would go off if anyone came looking for that specific footage.

  It was far from foolproof. There were tons of things that could and did go wrong, but it was better than constantly being in the dark. With this system, they often had advanced warning of any Imperial investigations into their activities. Lazily, the young man brought up the query’s information and muttered: “Let’s see…plan formed on the 9th of Eightmonth, 196 ISC. 6:15-8:00 PM. And someone came looking for nearly the entire timeframe exactly. Interesting…”

  He kept muttering as he tapped away. This slot had been listed as High Importance. If the authorities were looking into this one, he’d have to inform the boss immediately. What the hacker found surprised him: “The query was made by…Markos Grier. A professor? Of computer science?”

  What was someone like that doing looking into a crime? According to his info, Grier had been given access to the data due to his role in programming the Imperium’s satellites. He helped maintain the devices and fix any bugs that might crop up in their functioning. Looking at his history of queries, that made sense. Grier had only extracted large tracts of the footage to test for any issues with the recordings and data. Why would he pull up this specific footage? Was this a coincidence? He didn’t even live on Tryptar.

  The young man shook his head. It didn’t matter. This info request targeted a matter of High Importance. He’d escalate it and see what the boss had to say about it.

  …

  It was late afternoon when Vincenzo Marcovi saw the message.

  The tan-skinned, dark-haired man was scrolling through his notification log from his penthouse apartment, examining his message backlog from the day. His aquiline features narrowed in disgust, making him look like a hawk who was disappointed in the failures of its offspring. Most of these messages were from the same standard litany of ass kissers and idiots, clamoring for his attention and favor. There were some key updates from the few genuinely competent underlings, and he skimmed over these more carefully. No notable emergencies there. It was the most recent notification in particular that caught his eye.

  It was from one of his best hackers, a young up-and-comer who had provided some valuable tidbits of information during his short tenure with the Family. Marcovi’s rubellite eyes narrowed as he read the man’s report, mulling over the strange situation. He knew something the hacker didn’t, and it troubled him. Marcovi remembered that this meeting was connected to the Family’s plans to protect Cominski. The man was still valuable to them, so anyone poking into his case could be a problem.

  Marcovi clicked his tongue as he tried to remember what this meeting had been about. It’d been labeled High Importance but had also transpired two years ago. Hadn’t they needed to ‘handle’ someone for Cominski around two years ago? What was their name again? Hardball? Clicking his tongue again, he decided to call the man who’d set up the meeting. On the third ring, Mark Amrine picked up: “Hello?”

  “Who is the most fearsome in all the animal kingdom?”

  Marvcovi heard the man on the other line give a surprised cough when he heard the security question. Still, Amrine was smart enough to answer quickly: “Man is feared most among all the predators.”

  “Why?”

  “Only man can betray.”

  Marcovi nodded in satisfaction. This was his favorite amongst all the security questions, and Amrine had verified his identity by answering correctly. Marcovi continued: “Two years ago, you handled a ‘situation’ for a friend of ours on the inside. Who was caught up in an accident that day?”

  “…Hardgrave.”

  Marcovi looked up the name and found the news article associated with their deaths, reading it as he further inquired: “The reason for the situation?”

  “Curiosity.”

  Marcovi hung up immediately. That was all he needed to know. The Hardgraves had been killed because they were snooping into Cominski’s activities. But why would Grier be looking into the meeting where their deaths had been planned? What did he know? What did he care?

  No, better question. Who alive would be interested in the deaths of a bureaucrat and a washed-up Pioneer? Who but a still-living relative? A quick search pulled up another name: Lucille Mary Hardgrave. The couple’s surviving daughter was living in Ankara and going to a prep school connected to the Professor’s college. Summer classes were open, the Professor was teaching a course, and little miss Lucille was on that class roster.

  It didn’t take a genius to figure out what was happening here. Yet another Hardgrave had gotten too curious for her own good.

  Marcovi had given this matter his personal attention due to Cominski’s value as an asset, and he was glad that he had. This could have been a problem if left to fester. Dialing a new number, he prepared to give his men in Ankara some simple instructions.

  It was time to pay Ms. Lucille a visit.