I spotted Lutran entering the Merchant Docks one minute after the refugees left the Lalow. Seventeen minutes later, he left again. He had managed to avoid any cameras while inside the docks, so there was no indication of what he had done while there. It was too bad he was dead; for a human, he had been pretty good at this.
I sent the images of the refugees to Indah and Tural, then checked the video near the Merchant Dock exits to see if we could get some idea of where the refugees had headed next.
Then it got weird.
It got so weird I took extra time running the video back and forth, checking for anomalies and edits.
The Targets had been sent to detention cells to wait, and Aylen, Matif, and Soire had joined Indah and Tural to make exclamations over what they had found out instead of anything more useful. I said, “They never left the Merchant Docks.”
“What?” Indah turned toward me.
I threw the video onto one of the display surfaces. I accelerated the speed, pausing it for two seconds when any human, augmented human, or bot left either of the two exits. “There’s no sign of any member of the refugee party leaving the Merchant Docks. They disappear somewhere between the dockside cameras and the exit cameras’ fields of view.”
The humans stared at the video, Aylen moving so she could see better. “They’ve changed their appearances—” Soire began.
“Body types don’t match.” Since the security cameras used the same calibration standards, it had been easy to include a comparison check in the search. The security system noted feed IDs of known humans and augmented humans (Security officers, Port Authority staff, the merchant crews who did regular runs to Preservation) and I’d used them to annotate my sped-up video. There were only seven unidentified humans who had wandered out of the dock exits during our time frame, none matching the body type estimates the system had taken from the refugees, and all seven unidentified humans had returned via the dock entrance. I matched them on the dockside camera returning to their ships.
Aylen shook her head and reached for a jacket slung over a chair. She had the expression of someone who wanted to curse a lot but wasn’t going to. “We need to get over there and find them.”
Because obviously, if they hadn’t left, they were still there.
Whatever, the chance that it was GrayCris activity that had caused Lutran’s death was dropping rapidly. I could leave Station Security to finish up. Go back and catch up on my media while I kept watch over Mensah. I should do that. The rest of this was Station Security’s job, I could leave. I could pretend to be the enigmatic SecUnit and just get up and walk out. Pin-Lee had written my employment contract that way, so I could just leave.
I wasn’t leaving.
I didn’t think I’d have a better time to push for this. I waited until Indah finished ordering all response teams into the Merchant Docks for a search, then said, “Has there been a diagnostic analysis of StationSec and PortAuth and all associated systems?”
Aylen, Matif, and Soire were already on the way out to get their gear and Tural was in the feed mobilizing the tech crew. Aylen stopped but Indah waved her on to keep moving.
As the door slid shut behind them, Indah said impatiently, “No, not since you asked the first time and I told you the analysts had checked for hacks and there was nothing, no alerts had been tripped.”
Alerts? She hadn’t said that the first time. “They relied on alerts?”
Tural was listening now, their face turned guarded in that very familiar “someone else is getting in trouble” way. Indah said flatly, “I don’t know. The report they sent said that in their opinion, there had been no hack.”
I said, “With the safety of the station depending on it, are you sure you don’t want a second opinion?”
There was a moment, slightly fraught. Indah said, “You want access to our systems.”
I could go into all my reasoning and my threat assessment module’s indicator that there was only a 35 percent chance there was a jamming device present on this station. (I was 86 percent certain that type of device actually existed somewhere, but I just didn’t think it would be easily available, even to a security company. Mainly because, if something like that was easy to obtain, the company would have countermeasures for its SecSystems, and I would know about it. Obviously, it could have been a casualty of one of my memory wipes, or it could be something only available outside the Corporation Rim, but still.) If someone had gotten far enough into the port’s system to tamper with the camera video, they might have done/do anything.
I could have also said that Indah had me, the best resource Station Security could have for this situation, and she was too afraid to use me. I said, “To check for hacking, yes.”
Tural shifted uneasily, but they were brave, and said, “We should make sure. If there has been interference with our camera video, we could be looking for the refugees in the wrong place.”
Indah didn’t reply. It occurred to me if she turned me down, I was going to feel… something, probably general humiliation, and basically like an idiot. Which sucked, because I had set myself up yet again. But what she said was, “How much access would you need? And how long would it take?”
Okay, huh. “Admin access, under five minutes.” I know, five minutes was a hilariously long time, but I wanted a good long look around while I was in there.
Indah didn’t reply. I figured it was about 40/60 between “it will take over the station and kill us all” and “this isn’t the worst idea I ever heard.” Then she said, “Only five minutes?”
“I’m fast,” I said. “If the dock surveillance system is hacked, then everything on the Port Authority systems could be compromised.”
Indah said, “You don’t have to spell it out quite so pointedly, I understand the consequences. But we have data protection on the security systems—”
Data protection, right. Guess what provides your data protection—another security system. I had to make her understand. “And that’s what everybody says. When I walked onto TranRollinHyfa and walked out with Dr. Mensah, that’s exactly what they said.”
(I know, very dramatic and also inaccurate. Dr. Mensah walked out barefoot and I limped out leaning on Ratthi and Gurathin. But you see my point.)
Indah’s mouth twisted in skepticism. Okay, fine then. I said, “Are the systems in the Security Station offices monitored for breach attempts?”
Her brow furrowed. “Yes.”
I’d chosen the StationSec office because it had a nested set of high security systems not connected to the Port Authority, so a demonstration there was unlikely to alert our hostile. I had several options to go with, having been in the systems and rummaged around a little when Mensah had first brought me here, before I stupidly promised not to touch anything. I decided on something showy.
I took control of the visual and audio displays in the main work space. Through the open door, we heard the humans in there make startled noises. Indah glared at me. “What did you—”
I put a camera view up on a display surface. In the main office area, the three-dimensional station safety map was now showing episode 256 of The Rise and Fall of Sanctuary Moon, the scene 32.3 minutes in when the solicitor, her bodyguard, and the personnel supervisor are having a relationship argument that is abruptly cut off when a raider ship crashes into the shuttle bay.
Tifany, Aylen, and the others getting ready for the search stared at it in bafflement. “What the balls?” somebody said.
Indah’s face was… interesting. She gestured to the display surface. “How are you getting this view of the room? There’s no camera in there.”