Callum’s other companion was Jessika Mye, the greatest political flip-flopper of us all. A Hong Kong native who at twenty went all radical and aligned herself with the Utopial ethic so she could train as an exobiologist on Akitha, only to flip back politically, enabling her to earn those dirty capitalist big bucks available in the Universal culture. I knew she was seventy-four; my altme was spraying the data up as my glance swept across her. She didn’t look it. Interesting fact: She worked for Connexion security back in the day, which is where she got the money for telomere therapy in her early thirties. Then, after one volatile case, she upped and moved back to Akitha where her experience dropped her right into their Olyix Alien Observation Bureau. Five years ago she was promoted to Callum’s senior assistant—an appointment that clearly gave her plenty of time off to work out in the gym. If I was the cynical sort, I’d say Callum appreciated that.

And finally we had Alik Monday. Access “corrupt” in the dictionary, and it’ll likely give you his name. A genuine made-in-America bastard. Occupation: FBI Senior Special Detective, operating out of DC. Believe it or not, when I tried a data mine, his age was classified. He’s a walking, talking federal secret, all personal data restricted. Connexion’s Security G8Turing could have hacked his profile easily enough, but cracking an FBI core would be a huge deal, and not just for the feds. I’d have pattern sniffers all over my ass, and Yuri would be asking questions I could do without. I needed him to keep thinking this was his mission. Some things you just have to let go.

Anyway, I guessed Alik at about 110; he wasn’t so much an undying as a reanimated corpse. Easy tells. That plastic smooth skin comes from so many therapies you’d have to use electric shocks to get his facial muscles to express an emotion. I suspected the color was gened-up, too. Most African Americans are a light brown, but Alik was black like he’d been sunbathing on the equator for a decade; you can’t get any darker. Full bodywork, too. Take his shirt off, and you’ll see the physique of a twenty-year-old Olympian, with every replacement muscle designed and bioprinted in a top San Francisco clinic. I’d give good odds there are some aggressive peripherals lurking in among all those perfect tendons and muscle bands, too.

But…all that time and money, wasted. Anyone looking at him knew he was old, and terribly calculating.