Salvo snaps off his awareness from the task of assembling mutilated bodies. A fraction of him prepares to review his previous contact with Rasheed Fin.

Six years ago, they met, Salvo a shining new construct off the assembly line, Fin a talented rookie. Five years ago, they worked their first case: Grey haze. Dozens of people reporting a dust storm in the north. Grey dust, as if from a desert, visibility down to two inches or so. The trouble was, none of the cameras or Artificials saw any problem. There was no haze, but the humans were seeing one. They gave the case to Fin not because it was an easy case to cut his teeth on, but because nobody wanted it. Fin had smiled throughout. He had six thousand people tested for infections, especially encephalitis. When that turned up nothing, he interviewed them and gained permission for IFC dives. He perused five and came out prematurely.

“I know where it is.”

He led Salvo right to the Lamber and repatriated it without fuss. In two days, the fog had cleared from all but the most chronic associates of the alien. In a year, nobody remembered the incident.

A year after everyone forgot, there were house fires in Feline Oracle. Nobody thought anything of it – as in, nobody thought they were arson jobs. And they weren’t. Not really. Apathy fires, where the house owners just left stoves and lanterns and electrical appliances on for too long; whenever the owners were found alive, they were always in a catatonic stupor. Most of them choked to death on fumes, their corpses burned. Salvo could not work out Fin’s algorithm. He plotted the fires on a map, stared at it, and said, “Let’s take a ride.” They drove straight to a nest of four Lambers linked to a “queen” and repatriated them all. Fin’s reputation grew.

Then, the serial killer in Ciscoburg and the choreomania in Dolapo’s Pass. Fin solved them all and made it look easy; he had just enough intuition mixed with his logic. Six years they have known each other, five of those working cases together. Fin’s last case, the one that got him into trouble… Salvo was not involved. He had a human partner.

Salvo wants to believe that if he had been there, Fin would not have been suspended.

Looking at him now, Salvo can tell that Fin has lost a softness, a light-heartedness. Time will tell whether this will help or hurt matters… time will tell.

Salvo replaces a liver…

Chapter Six

Space Station Lagos: Lawrence

Lawrence Biz appends his digital signature to seventeen documents before taking a break by throwing food to carp in the outdoor rock pool from his bench. They slip towards the bits of nourishment lazily, like courtesans unimpressed with a suitor’s gift. He’s overfed them. Lawrence smiles. He’s indulgent to fish like he is to his daughter.