Warning: You are under attack.

The message continued to blink furiously at him, flashing brighter in a rhythmic heartbeat, its urgency punctuated with the thunderous cracking of gunshots and the reddening of the edges of his visor. Suddenly the Rinvestigator buckled, and it took it a second to right itself once more.

Warning: Vulnerabilities under attack.

Laith looked around frantically, trying to find the culprit, but the raucous sounds of gunfire continued relentlessly, and though he couldn’t feel it, he knew his Rinvestigator was going to take heavy damage if he stayed put any longer. The bullets were being aimed the vulnerable areas of the robot – mainly the joints – and if he lost the Rinvestigator to the Ruins, he’d lose the Slate, too. He considered for only a second before he made his decision. He had his Slate; there was nothing more for him here, anyway.

He started to run.

Weaving his way through the old cars in the parking lot, he set his jaw and tried to focus on getting his Rinvestigator back inside Heliopolis, where it would be secured and external threats could not penetrate. Small pieces of debris were crushed under the robotic legs of the Rinvestigator, its automatic stabilizing system keeping it balanced in an uneven terrain. “Calculate shortest distance back to the city,” he ordered the system.

PATET responded with a readjustment of the route on the map, and he followed it through streets new to him and alleys that made his stomach twist with anxiety at the thought he might find himself at a dead end. Behind him, the sounds of gunfire followed, and with them the resulting noises of glass shattering, bullets digging themselves into bricks and cement, and ricocheting off of the metallic lampposts of old. Every few seconds, it seemed one of the bullets reached him, and the same message would come up on his screen:

You have been shot.

Adrenaline pumped through his veins, and even though Laith couldn’t see who was behind the onslaught of firepower aimed at him, he had the feeling that it was only one person. He engaged his retrovisor and finally saw the culprit: a man clad in all black, his head hidden underneath a helmet, a large gun in his arms. He was – surprisingly – following him on foot, and seemed very familiar with the terrain, jumping over hurdles and avoiding obstacles as he aimed the gun and kept firing. But he was only on foot.

Laith sped up, pushing the Rinvestigator to its third speed setting, and began to extend the distance between himself and his attacker. It wasn’t long, as he went down this road and that, until the mysterious man was lost to him altogether. And it wasn’t long until he was back at the outskirts of Heliopolis, coming up on the checkpoint he had come out of. He made for it without stopping, hoping that whatever damage had been done to the Rinvestigator could be fixed – and that the Slate would be alright.

By that time, his visor had returned to its usual state, the red highlights around the edges long gone, and the man – whoever he was – left behind in the jumbled up rubble of a city that once was.

☀️ ☀️ ☀️

“Perhaps it was a trap,” Captain Olivia Fox said, her chin resting on her entwined fingers. “Seems like they might have been waiting for you – or whoever – to show up for the Slate.”

Laith shifted in the armchair across her desk and run his hands through his hair, smoothing it back. “I don’t know,” he sighed. “This case becomes increasingly complex the more I dig into it, and despite everything I have learned, I am still not any closer to identifying Cassia Grove’s killer. And now we have another potential suspect.”

“The gunman,” Fox agreed, nodding. “Yes, it would seem he might be related to the case. But, to take a page from your book, there is also the slim chance that he might have simply been there and decided to take advantage of an opportunity. A Rinvestigator can be taken apart and sold for a great deal of money in the unofficial markets of the Ruins. I can imagine it would tempt any common bandit or thief with the kind of firepower that man had. And you didn’t see his face at all?”

“No, he was wearing a helmet,” Laith said. He glanced out of the window, trying to remember if there was any other relevant information he could share about the gunman, but nothing came to mind. The sun was beginning to set, and he realized that the day had passed him by again. How many days had that been? Only two since Cassia’s murder? It felt like ages.

The tell-tale expression the Captain wore when an idea formulated in her mind came over her, and she tilted her head to the side, considering it. He waited patiently for her to speak. “Do you think he might have had something to do with Aster Lockwood’s disappearance?” Olivia Fox wondered curiously. “If the man was lying in wait in the parking lot, looking out for whoever might come after the Slate, perhaps he knew whose Slate it was all along.”

“People from the Ruins aren’t on PATET’s systems,” Laith pointed out, remembering his previous conversation with Warda. “It’s entirely possible that someone from outside of Heliopolis managed to smuggle themselves into the city, killed Cassia Grove, kidnapped Aster Lockwood, and left the city again. Possible, but extremely unlikely.”

“Yes,” she replied, rubbing her temples. “Highly unlikely. Then again, so is the complete confoundment of PATET.” She leaned back in her chair, her direct gaze boring into his eyes. “Your theories are as good as any,” she said, mild frustration working its way into her voice. “Keep them in mind for now. In the meantime, continue your investigation as you have been. Find out what’s in Aster Lockwood’s Slate when PATET finally sends its contents over. Also, you’re due back at the Nymphaeales tomorrow. The warrant came through. Search Cassia Grove’s office and find out if there’s anything of interest over there.”

“Sounds good,” Laith said, trying to force the determination back into his bones. There was still a great deal of work to be done.

☀️ ☀️ ☀️

Laith rubbed his forehead, finally winding down from his most recent and almost fruitless adventure. It was one thing to search for someone in Heliopolis, and another thing altogether to search for someone out in the lawless Ruins. Were it not for the fact that this was a matter that directly affected a citizen living under the protection of Heliopolis, he would not have ventured out to the Ruins at all. Anything that happens there stays there.

He was certain he could also attribute the expedition to the fact that this was Heliopolis’s first murder in many years, and to that end, there were many people in powerful places that wanted to see it solved successfully. If it meant sending out a Rinvestigator or two, they could live with that. It was, after all, what the Rinvestigators were made to do. At the very least, he was thankful that they existed at all. He shuddered to imagine what might have happened to him if he had been in the Ruins in person, and a vision of him lying in the decaying streets, riddled with bullets, washed over him with a creeping dread.

Anyone and everyone knew to stay away from the Ruins, unless they were crazy, had a death wish, or were criminals themselves. So what was Mr. Aster’s Slate doing out in the middle of the badlands? Did it mean the man – the business magnate at the head of one of the most successful of the Farms – had traveled there? Or had it simply been stolen by someone who had somehow gotten past PATET’s detection systems, as improbable as that was, and then taken back out to the Ruins? Or – even more improbable – had Aster Lockwood truly been kidnapped by someone who had managed to somehow sneak their way past PATET, and to what end?

Laith imagined that there were many reasons why someone would want to steal a Slate. Not only was it a valuable item, due to how difficult it was to replace, but it was also a very personal item, which also made it very difficult to replace. And if someone could get their hands on the Slate of a powerful or wealthy man and somehow bypass the biometric security measures… They might be able to ask for almost anything in return, given the sheer amount of information that was contained within.

Perhaps this had been a case of blackmail. After all, it was well-known that bandits living out in the Ruins stole and sold various items from people foolish enough to wander out that far, or travelers passing through. To get their hands on a powerful man’s Slate...

And if it was a question of kidnapping, Laith could only imagine how much more money someone could squeeze out of a man’s loved ones if they threatened his life and well-being. He opened his Slate and jotted down yet another note: Monitor Aster Lockwood’s bank and financial activities.

Then, after a small moment of hesitation, he added: Monitor Cassia Grove’s bank and financial activities.

With a sigh, he continued to massage his throbbing head. The light-footed steps of his wife approached him, and he felt her hands on his shoulders, sliding down his torso as she leaned over him. “What’s wrong?” she asked quietly. “You’re in your head again.”

He placed a hand on hers and leaned his head back. “Just thinking about this case,” he said. “Bit of a challenging one. I’m not really sure what to do next.”

She hummed, running a hand through his hair. Her perfume - jasmine this time - filled his head like smoke. “You’ll figure it out,” she told him. “You’re good at solving mysteries, Detective.”

He didn’t want to tell her that he felt remarkably out of his depth here. Instead, he closed his eyes and enjoyed the feeling of her fingers raking gently through his hair for a moment. “What about you?” he asked. “You’ve been very quiet since you got home. What’s wrong?”

“We lost a patient today,” she told him. “A lovely woman. She was in and out of the hospital these past couple of months, and even though I’m not supposed to have favourites, she was one of my favourites. I always looked forward to seeing her. And today I went in to chat with her during my lunch break and they told me she’d passed away the night before.” Her voice wavered slightly as she explained, and he squeezed her hand gently.

“Allah have mercy on her soul,” Laith said quietly, opening his eyes.

“Ameen,” Warda replied with a sigh. For a moment, there was only silence. Then she seemed to snap out of it and straightened up. “I need to call my mother back before she registers me as a missing person,” she said with a smile. “I haven’t had the chance to call her back all day. She must be worried. Have you called your mother recently?”

Laith had not. It had been a few days since he’d last spoken to her. “I’ll call her right now,” he promised, and took out his Slate. He paused before pressing the Call button next to his mother’s contact.

Grove’s mother had left things on a bit of a cold front with her daughter before the murder, if Laith had understood correctly from the messages between mother and daughter found on the victim’s Slate. And what had Ayyash said about Grove’s behaviour the day of the murder? Something about family members from back home in Novus Atlantis bothering her? Not just bothering her, Laith reminded himself. Bothering her enough to throw even a serious businesswoman like Cassia Grove off her game. It must have been something significant…

He made another quick note on his phone before calling his mother: Check into Cassia Grove’s relatives in Novus Atlantis.