Hab block 3A, unit 830. This was an even more upscale part of the human sector than the clean mall section where Luo Xixi lived. Warm white LEDs imitated a K type star’s day-night cycle, shining a cozy, afternoon light throughout the habitat. High capacity air handlers simulated an almost imperceptibly gentle breeze. Hydroponics racks were placed in a small standoff clearing and integrated with each housing block for privacy, in sharp contrast to Luo Xixi’s sterile, mall style unit that opened directly onto a main pathway.

  The invitation had been clear. It was a simple location share, combined with a brief message. She didn’t even know that this place existed before being summoned here.

  >Address and time has been forwarded to your Neuronet. District access has been preapproved. Just walk through the checkpoint.

  A wall of green from the integrated hydroponics filtered the brilliant glow of white LEDs through their slowly shifting leaves. Shadows danced on the tightly closed beige curtains as the plants outside rustled in the recycled airstream. If she didn’t know better, it would’ve looked almost like a lazy summer day on the homeworld. A warm cup of tea was already prepared and waiting at one end of the desk, with the pot positioned strategically slightly off-center. The walls were lined with a gray fabric, the same color as the carefully carpeted floor. Luo Xixi suspected it was an acoustic absorber, a tactical privacy barrier tastefully integrated into their sensory environment.

  Auditor Rosales leaned back in his chair, this time with the relaxation of a teacher in his office. Luo Xixi fidgeted like a student. One of her hands impatiently tapped at the table while her knees trembled underneath. She took a single sip of tea to calm her nerves. It was the perfect temperature for her: just a touch too hot to be drunk in a single gulp, but easily swallowed with some patience.

  “I’m glad that you could make it,” Rosales said with the same artificial, neutral smile that he had the first day they met. Luo Xixi nodded wordlessly.

  “Do you live here?” She asked timidly.

  Rosales grinned weakly. “I live where the ministry needs me to live.”

  Luo Xixi looked around. Every other door was closed. There was no way to learn more about her environment. Everything had been set up for total informational asymmetry. An awkward silence grew between them before Rosales spoke up.

  “I have reviewed your logs. Your initiative is commendable. You have been approved for the xenosociological and political databases. Just go to your local bookstore and present your ID. The uploads will be free. However, I would also like to discuss your personal insights.”

  “Why would you want to hear my unrefined thoughts?” Luo Xixi asked in surprise.

  “Your immediate thoughts would be free of any possible bias induced by database methodologies,” Rosales replied.

  Luo Xixi fell silent. Auditor Rosales grabbed a cup and poured himself some tea. “Take your time. I have all day.”

  After a few minutes of Luo Xixi quietly staring at the table, Rosales impatiently pulled out a projector tablet and placed it on the desk. With a single wordless Neuronet command, a map appeared in the common space between them.

  She looked at it with a sensation of dread settling in her stomach. That was a map of the worker’s district where Luo Xixi had gone with Le Quan. Another command pulled up a map of the entrance to hab block 7.

  “You made an analytical leap about human terrorists during an interaction with the Hyoron 15 days ago. 58 days ago, you were seen at this location for 2.1 hours. This trip, your first to this location, was conducted on the same day as your visit to a bookstore for a Hyoron database upload.”

  Cold sweat began forming on Luo Xixi’s back. Rosale’s tac glasses seemed to perceive her perspiration.

  He continued his teardown analysis of her recent life history. “31 days ago, significant Hyoron… unrest… broke out, near your workplace.”

  The sweat grew from a trickle into a torrent. She could feel the moistness wick into her clothes despite the slight coolness of the room.

  “It seems oddly coincidental, that you uploaded a Hyoron linguistics database, visited a location that you have never visited before, and then unrest breaks out among the Hyoron a few weeks later. Do you think these events are related?”

  “No,” she replied tersely with a hint of defiance in her voice.

  Rosales' cool smile didn’t falter, but his tone grew slightly annoyed, like that of a teacher impatient with a particularly slow student. “I am not accusing you of anything. This is merely a correlation. Correlation does not imply causation.”

  The map switched off with a silent neural command, leaving the space between them an empty void. His face was a practiced mask of casual condemnation.

  “Your insight on these coincidences then, please.” He leaned backwards again with the full confidence of a hunter that had lured prey into his trap and was now patiently waiting for its exhaustion.

  Despite the room’s perfect climate control, it was useless for stopping her profuse nervous sweating. The world felt like it was on fire. Her face was flush with a potent mix of fear and humiliation. Then, Luo Xixi realized something. It was like a revelation. Rosales wasn’t asking for the truth, he merely needed a plausible story. All it had to do was explain the data, exonerate the government and place the causality neatly on colonial corruption and Hyoron rage. Her guilt or innocence was irrelevant. And indeed, it was the truth!

  “I was on a date at this location,” she said flatly.

  Rosales transitioned from his lazy backward lean to a curious, forward posture.

  “With who?”

  “Le Quan,” Luo Xixi replied tersely.

  Another wordless command via Neuronet activated the tablet again. Le Quan’s full personal file was on display. All of his personal information, genetic lineage, career and education, down to his full movements in 10 minute intervals, photos, Neuronet purchases… nothing had been allowed to remain hidden from the total surveillance of the state. Even his pathetic attempts to access more stimulating entertainment from core worlds had been revealed to the state.

  Support the author by searching for the original publication of this novel.

  “This Le Quan?” Rosales said flatly. Luo Xixi said nothing. She didn’t need to say anything. Lowering her eyes was sufficient to be recognized as acquiescence.

  “So what did you do here? Neuronet coverage is spotty in the interior of the hab block,” Rosales queried.

  “Nothing. All we did was eat some food at a private kitchen, played some games at the arcade and then went our separate ways.”

  He smiled faintly, like a teacher who saw through a student’s shallow lie. “Was the food free?”

  Luo Xixi looked at him in confusion. “What do you mean?”

  “There was no Neuronet financial activity associated with your visit to the private kitchen.”

  The food. The heavy, rich oil that refused to emulsify. The primal, nitrogenous smell of burnt protein. The Hyoron chants demanding the return of their children. The riot. The smell of burning plastic. It was all beginning to make sense, but the conclusion was monstrous. Whatever the situation, that was all Le, she thought. I did nothing but try what he offered!

  “I know nothing about this. Le paid for it by card,” she said, flatly denying it.

  “So you witnessed black market activity,” Rosales noted.

  Luo Xixi immediately defended herself as if her life depended on it.

  “I did not engage in any unauthorized financial transaction. I know only that someone I was temporarily affiliated with had bought food with a prepaid credit card. I am not an expert in financial regulations,” she said in an agitated tone.

  Rosales shallowly nodded, showing his absolute domination over the situation and Luo Xixi in general.

  “So where did you guys go from there?” he queried. Luo Xixi knew that this was purely rhetorical. He undoubtedly knew of both her and Le Quan’s movements. The revelation of Le’s personal file had proven as much.

  “I haven't seen Le since,” she said earnestly. Nor do I want to, she muttered bitterly to herself. She drank from her cup, as if the hot water would clear her thoughts.

  Rosales chucked at her naive inaccuracy. “Yes you have.”

  Luo Xixi recalled her encounter with him at the cafeteria. The new girlfriend. The smug look on his face. The colonial tattoos and piercings. The cold rejection. The coffee that tasted like bitter sludge. A wave of anger and shame rose inside her.

  “That was involuntary and coincidental. I can prove it.”

  Rosales pointed at the tablet and nodded. He didn’t need to state his request or issue any commands. Luo Xixi already knew what he wanted. She briefly focused on the tablet to establish a Neuronet link before issuing her command. Though she often connects to her personal screen at home, this time the wireless link between the tablet and her Neuronet implant was nearly a tangible presence, a complex dance of data that she had no conscious control over.

  >Display text messages: Le Quan.

  Her entire history with Le Quan was laid bare for another man to see. It felt like an intimate violation, worse than if she had been stripped naked right then and there.

  >Le Quan:

  >Hey, are you OK?

  >Heard there was unrest near your workplace?

  >WTF?

  >Not cool. Whatever.

  >Wow.

  >Luo Xixi:

  >I’m OK, I just got stuck at work.

  >Le Quan:

  >You had your chance. I’m moving on.

  Rosales smiled and nodded in satisfaction, the first seemingly genuine thing he had done so far. Luo Xixi mentally shuddered with disgust at being so exposed, but retained a cool, transactional exterior in defiance.

  "There’s nothing to be ashamed of here," Rosales said, switching to a gentle voice devoid of judgment.

  "You were rejected by a man beneath your station. This says nothing about your worth. In fact, it clarifies your position."

  He leaned back. The tension left his shoulders, replaced by the posture of a consultant reviewing a satisfactory report.

  "Luo Xixi, look at the data. You have a foot in two worlds. The core world you left, and the colonial world that rejects you. The Hyoron fear and resent you, and all humans. Understandably so, based on the treatment they’ve received from colonial extremists. The colonists see you as an untrustworthy outsider. Yet you have taken the initiative to try and understand both sides.”

  The map on the tablet shifted. The glowing outline of Hab Block 7 zoomed in, overlaid with new data: heat maps, movement clusters, and small, pulsing red icons.

  "Your instincts were correct. There is a pattern of disappearances. Hyoron juveniles. The colonial administration's reports are unreliable. They have a vested interest in suppressing reports that could disrupt their status quo."

  He looked at her, and for a fleeting moment, the artificial smile was gone, replaced by something wearier, almost genuine.

  "We need eyes they won't recognize. A mind they can't predict. The Ministry doesn't just need an asset. For this, it needs a partner."

  He slid the tablet toward her. A new case file was open on the screen.

  >Case 553-12-01b-7: Demographic anomaly audit. Priority: Discreet.

  >Assigned analyst: Luo Xixi.

  "You have been granted additional access for personnel files. Review the files. Use whatever tools you need, at your discretion. Tell me not just what is happening in that block, but why. Message me at any time."

  Luo Xixi spoke up in protest.

  “I can’t go back there,” she whined. “Le was my only personal connection to the worker’s district. It’s not safe for me there.”

  Rosales nodded in agreement. “Yes, you may have personal difficulty with this specific location. Difficulty of access for outsiders is a problem for us too. But you have additional leads now, people who can go back there. You know that Le Quan has a new girlfriend. You know Le Quan himself. You have at least seen the people there.”

  “What can I do with this knowledge?” she asked as she shook her head in disbelief.

  The warmth of the tea had faded without additional heating. It was now a tepid pool of bitterly flavored water suspended in ceramic. Luo Xixi took a small sip.

  “You have been granted access to select police assets. If you need to speak to someone discretely and in person, they can make it happen. All you have to do is show up.” A Neuronet notification appeared in her mind. Her file access had been updated.

  “Why don’t you do it yourself?” she asked naively.

  Rosales chuckled. “I have higher order things to manage,” he replied. “This is an opportunity for you to build a reputation in the Ministry.”

  Rosales stood up, the meeting clearly over. He didn't wait for her answer. He didn't need to. He simply walked to the door, confident she would already be parsing the first data stream.

  “You can stay here as long as needed, but it won’t be very exciting. The other doors are locked for security purposes. You might want to go home to sleep. Cleaner synths will be coming in a few hours.”

  The door clicked shut behind him, leaving Luo Xixi alone in the acoustically dead room. Sweat stuck to the cushion of the chairs. The LED simulated afternoon had faded to a waning twilight. A phantom taste of Le Quan's "real food" rose in the back of her throat again. It was a mix of both primitive nausea and a cool, analytical curiosity about the exact identity of this food. There was an instinct, but she needed proof. She needed a sample. She needed evidence of all sorts. It all started near home.

  Luo Xixi wiped the cold sweat from her brow with a trembling hand before rising to leave.