Officer Maloney grumbled incoherently into his morning tea. He looked up from the refreshing beverage and idly scanned over the array of monitors in his cramped office. All was quiet in Dave-156, as per usual. He then stared intently at one screen in particular. Rather than report an absence of criminal activity or show some entertainment programme, it was populated with the policeman’s notes regarding a certain case. Or perhaps ‘incident’ was a more accurate word. There technically had been criminal charges pressed, but some military blokes he never even saw had thrown their weight around and forced his captain to erase all official records of the event. Which, given the heavily automated nature of the society they lived in, meant it might as well not have happened.

Maloney couldn’t let the matter go, though. He wasn’t sure why. Perhaps it was the fact that this was the first real puzzle he’d come across in his six years on the force? Maybe it was his sense of justice nagging at him that something wasn’t right. It could also have been sheer stubbornness on his part, or an unwillingness to leave a job half-finished. Most likely it was a mix of all of those. Whatever the reason was, something drove the officer to dig deeper, to uncover what was really going on with that strange girl called Maggie. Or Mags. He never found out what her actual name was nor was he likely to learn it through official channels, so nicknames and aliases were all he had to go on.

Actually, that wasn’t quite right. She did have an accomplice or boyfriend or something along those lines. There wasn’t anything immediately suspicious about Joe Mulligan, but a good old-fashioned hunch told Maloney he should look into the bloke anyway. It wasn’t as if he had anything better to do, so he used his security clearance to pull up Mr. Mulligan’s personal record. The man was twenty two years old, born and raised in Dave-156, never employed, both parents were alive and just as unremarkable as their son. By all accounts, this guy was just another drop in the sea of people that lived in the mega-city. However, his transaction history revealed some extremely suspicious activity.

Looking into Mr. Mulligan’s past expenditures revealed nothing out of the ordinary until several weeks ago, when he made a generous donation to someone named Dave Willabang. Maloney immediately looked into this individual and discovered that he had received similar gifts from dozens of people. The total sum he had received had allowed him to purchase, among other things, an old factory complex that had fallen into disuse. It was rather impressive considering Mr. Willabang was unemployed, and it seemed as though he was crowdfunding a business venture.

However, he and all but one of his financial backers, for lack of a better term, had been reported as either detained or killed in action for conspiring against the state. These were serious charges, and certainly not the sort of thing Maloney was expecting. Then again, he vaguely remembered hearing something about that from a colleague who worked in the neighboring precinct. He made a note to follow up with his fellow police officer later, but for the moment he was far more concerned with Mr. Mulligan’s involvement in that mess. More specifically, how it had gone down merely two days after his donation, and how he happened to be the only one to walk away from it.

Officer Maloney genuinely wasn’t sure what to make of that information. The only thing he could tell for certain was that Joe had gotten involved in something way over his head. Having met with and spoken to the man, it was hard to imagine him as a hardened criminal mastermind or some secret agent type sent to infiltrate this group of would-be terrorists. It wasn’t just his excessively casual and wishy-washy demeanor, but his physique as well. That twig-like constitution was without a doubt that of a civilian who’d never lifted anything heavier than a tea cup. Even the mostly idle police force mandated that their members maintain a minimum level of personal fitness. A government spy would surely be at least as fit as Officer Maloney, otherwise they’d get winded the instant anything remotely extraneous happened.

That had been the policeman’s initial judgement, but looking into Joe Mulligan’s financial situation further revealed a wholly different can of worms. His account had been involved in thousands of transactions to an incomprehensibly large number of individuals, which were then instantly refunded via requests from the sender. The volume alone was distressing, but the amounts involved were downright mind boggling. The actual funds transferred back and forth were so miniscule that Butterpond-4’s banking software treated them as effectively zero. And yet, Mr. Mulligan’s personal account had wound up with two hundred extra poundingtons even though no money should have been exchanged.

Officer Maloney had a strong hunch as to what was going on. He had received a mandatory and rather exhaustive course on the various aspects of computer science and virtual reality during his time at the academy. Such knowledge was crucial for law enforcement officials to adequately perform their duties in the excessively digitized society humanity lived in, especially that of the 3rd British Empire. Thanks to that, Maloney was able to deduce that the transactions had triggered an obscure rounding error, which resulted in money effectively appearing out of thin air.

The officer hated to admit it, but whoever had discovered and then exploited that flaw was an absolute genius. What he remembered about the banking system told him that personal finances were handled in a robust and complicated fashion. It was impossible for someone to just type in a bunch of numbers and get free money, since the system’s audit of their past transactions would instantly reveal the tampering. This distributed rounding error method not only circumvented such safeguards, but also failed to set off any automated alarms because the affected individuals’ balances weren’t technically altered.

So, was this Joe Mulligan some incredibly intelligent hacker? Absolutely not. Maloney was certain that could not have been the case, primarily because all those transactions had taken place in the span of a few seconds. No human brain could think fast enough to make so many operations in so little time, and the brain-to-machine banking interface had no room for an automated script or third party software to alter the input. The only feasible explanation Officer Maloney could think of to explain this feat of processing prowess was that an artificial mind was somehow involved, and that implication wasn't to be taken lightly. The low-level lumps of logic that controlled things like factory machinery and non-player characters in virtual reality games were one thing, but fully self-aware artificial intelligence? That was extremely illegal within 3BE space. So much so that police protocol mandated that law enforcement officers were to immediately notify the military should they catch even a hint of such things.

And so things had come full circle. Kind of. At the very least the puzzle pieces Maloney had gathered were falling into place. Best as he could tell, either the military, the government, or some megacorp with their backing were conducting extremely shady experiments involving artificial intelligence. Given how all of that suspicious banking activity had originated from Joe’s VR pod, it seemed like the most logical thing to check out next. Maloney could easily imagine a scenario where the machine had been made a host to some self-aware digital consciousness, with or without Mr. Mulligan’s consent. He was stuck in the middle of it all, and that girl called Maggie was right there with him.

In a moment of clarity, the officer pulled back from his terminal and looked down at his now cold cup of tea. Was he really going to get involved in something that was clearly way above his pay grade? Doing so was extremely ill-advised considering the implied risk to his career and possibly his life. That and, even if he were to uncover some enormous conspiracy, what could some random cop even do about it? Nothing, if the government was involved. Which, given the circumstances, it most definitely was. Even so, something drove the man to ignore his better judgement and to see for himself just how deep this rabbit hole went. It had nothing to do with duty, money, justice, or public safety. Not really.

It was the first time in Grant Maloney’s entire life that he felt so strongly about something, and the thrill of unravelling this mystery was intoxicating.

And so began the officer’s unofficial and not technically illegal inquiry into the couple’s activities. His first thought was to take a closer look at Mr. Mulligan’s VR pod. He hadn’t gotten the chance to see it when he brought the suspect into the station, nor did he think it was relevant at the time. It was a missed opportunity, as getting into that apartment without either of the residents realizing was impossible so long as they were in it, and that was pretty much all the time. Even more so than usual as of late. When Maloney first collected Mr. Mulligan two days ago, the man spoke about how he was dead tired from practicing for some big game tournament a few weeks from now. It was unlikely he’d vacate the premises until that was over.

So, the dangerously inquisitive officer took to the streets and started asking around the neighborhood. He figured that people - shop owners in particular - would remember seeing someone with a singularly unique appearance like Maggie’s. Even if they hadn’t met her firsthand, then they might have heard some rumors about her. His intuition had been spot on. Within an hour he caught wind of a so-called ‘Pale Goddess’ that had made the rounds on the neighborhood’s message boards recently. Following that trail led him to a certain variety store called Lyfe Haxx.

The policeman entered the establishment and instantly drew the attention of the four people inside, as it was extremely rare for an officer of the law to just show up like that.

“Oh! Hello, officer!” the elderly gentleman behind the counter greeted him.

“Good day, sir. I’m Officer Maloney,” he said with a tip of his hat. “Are you the owner of this establishment?”

“Indeed, I am, sir. Eugene Charles, at your service,” he bowed his head lightly. “Could I interest you in a handheld tea kettle? Or are you here on police business?”

“The latter, I’m afraid. Could I have a word with you in private?”

“Of course. Please, right this way.”

Mr. Charles excused himself to the three potential customers in his store and led Maloney into the warehouse in the back. The owner’s business-like smile instantly faded, replaced by a look of genuine concern.

“What’s this about, Officer?”

“I assure you it’s nothing to do with you, sir. I’m just following up on an incident involving an individual that visited your place of business recently.”

“I see,” he relaxed a bit. “I’m not sure how I can be of help but I’ll assist you as much as I am able. Who is it you’re asking after?”

“A pale girl. Black hair, black eyes, both with gene-mods, late teens or early twenties. Goes by Mags or sometimes Maggie. Sound familiar?”

“Very much so. Had a feeling this might be about her, actually.”

“Why do you say that?”

“Well, she’s quite the peculiar girl, to say the least. She has that exotic look and speaks in unnecessarily verbose terms. I can’t imagine who else would warrant police interest.”

“Hm. What can you tell me about her?”

“Not much, I’m afraid. Best as I could gather, she’s a tourist that arrived very recently. Seemed rather clueless about how things worked in the Empire. She was positively heartbroken when I told her she needed a PnP implant to purchase things.”

“Heartbroken? Really?”

“I… may be exaggerating. She was disappointed if nothing else. I felt bad for her so I offered her a barter instead. She agreed and, to be honest, it worked out quite well for me.”

“Could you give me the details of this barter?”

“Of course, officer. Just give me a moment…”

Mr. Charles rummaged through his desk for a minute before he found the written agreement, which he handed to Officer Maloney.

“It’s rather uncommon to have a signed hardcopy for something like a barter, isn’t it?” he raised an eyebrow.

“Oh, absolutely. However, miss Mags was rather insistent. Must have been worried I would go back on my word.”

The policeman turned his attention back to the document and skimmed through it. It would appear the suspect had performed some personal marketing services in exchange for a pet package featuring one infant orb python. Well, that certainly explained where she got that snake from, but looking at her signature raised even more questions. Rather than using her initials or writing her name in cursive script, she had instead drawn a series of bizarre and elaborate characters that looked closer to doodles than letters.

“Any idea what this is about?” he pointed to the suspicious signature.

“No, sir. It’s just as foreign to me as it is to you.”

“And it didn’t strike you as odd?”

“Oh, it absolutely did. However, it’s just a promissory note. I didn’t feel it appropriate to question the girl’s strange customs over something so minor.”

Indeed, calling that scrap of paper a legally binding document was the same as referring to water as a hydrogen-based corrosive substance. Still, that suspicious handwriting was a promising lead. Deciphering those sigils could lead Maloney to the girl’s full name, if nothing else.

“Would it be alright if I held onto this?” he asked.

“No problem on my end, officer. I’ve already digitized the agreement so I don’t need the original. Though, if I might ask, is she involved in something? You mentioned an incident earlier.”

“Nothing to concern yourself with, sir. It was just a public disturbance that ended with her smart-mouthing an officer of the law. The matter’s already settled, I’m just following up on her since we had some trouble with the background check.”

“So she isn’t in any trouble?”

“Not at present, no.”

“That’s good to hear,” the man was visibly relieved.

“You seem to care about her a good deal even though you’d barely met,” the officer remarked.

“Yes, well, she’s a sweet girl. Strange, but sweet. Also polite, collected, and surprisingly professional. Her help in getting my business off the ground was more than worth the five hundred poundington article I gave her in exchange. Why, I was so impressed I offered to employ her as my assistant. In fact, I would still very much like to do so, should she ever change her mind. And gets her PnP implant, of course.”

“That’s some glowing praise indeed, Mr. Charles. In any event, I appreciate your input and won’t take up any more of your valuable time.”

“Please, it was no bother at all, officer.”

“Oh, and, if I might ask a personal favor?”

“What would that be?”

“If you happen to see the girl, please don’t mention we spoke. I’m just filling out some gaps in my report, and I would hate for her to worry over it.”

“I understand, sir. My lips are sealed. Metaphorically speaking.”

The two men looked at each other for a few awkward moments as the policeman grasped the implication behind that unnecessary clarification.

“She’s very literal, isn’t she?” Maloney couldn’t help but smile.

“Heh. That she is, sir,” Mr. Charles chuckled.