Falling Stars Rising 24

As they hauled him across the hall, the prisoner had the look of a wet puppy whose favorite toy has just been taken away. About 15 years of age, the boy kept his head down as the guards took him to holding.

“What’s his story?” Nikki said, entering Anna’s office and closing the door behind her.

“Oh you know, same ole story,” said Anna opening up his profile. “Girl meets boy, boy alters girl’s neural matrix, girl falls in love with boy, and now boy is in big trouble. ‘Tis a tale of woe and star-crossed lovers.”

“Sounds romantic. But what’s the big deal? They probably just used an m-decoder. I hear there’s been an uptick in black sales. Popular in the academies. The scanner should detect its trace.”

“That’s just it,” said Anna bringing up the results of the latest scan. “Look, not a single correlation.”

Nikki spun through several simulations, analytic data abstracted from the prisoner’s neural scan. Nothing. “That’s impossible. We got every variation. If not at the offspring level, we should be able to detect it at its root.”

“We should but can’t,” said Anna, hesitating before delivering the next sentence, “…which is why I called you.” She lowered her gaze coyly.

Comprehension dawned on Nikki’s face. “You can’t be serious?” She stared at Anna with wide eyes. “A manual scan?”

Anna looked up and lowered her brows in sympathy but then quickly shrugged her shoulders. “Orders came from upstairs,” she said cheerfully.

“Here I thought you just wanted to have a nice chat over coffee,” said Nikki. “Look, I don't know. It’s been five years since my last scan. It might as well be witchcraft compared to modern methods. Why in heavens is the Tower interested in the low-level affairs of misguided teenagers? And why pick me?”

Anna sat back on the chair and stared at the hazy rings in the sky above Jezebel city. “As they used to say in the olden days, the answers to those questions are above my pay grade. Just think of it as solving the greatest mystery of all, why do fools fall in love?”

“Yea, sure.”

After leaving Anna’s office, Nikki stood in front of the elevator and looked down the hall. Why do fools fall in love? Darn you, Anna. It’s going to be a long night, she thought, and decided to take the stairs instead.

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