“Data retrieval protocol acknowledged. Initiating Network interface.”
It made sense. If in fact the person Crux had previously run into was a contractor, someone had to be issuing the contract. Those people did not do anything for free, after all, and it seemed extremely unlikely that this Uno would intercept a target first and find someplace to sell her later. That was not unheard of, exactly, but such operations were usually already conducted with a buyer in mind, and only at great risk. “Affirmative,” she replied, moving her left arm from its spot on the dog’s head. She turned her palm upwards to face the roof of the car, and looked at it for a moment.
Something flickered, like a light underneath her skin, and then it dimmed again, but not without leaving behind a holographic projection. Blue-white light was shaped into the various components of what looked like a very complex HUD, and these spread out around her, the initial command from her own engines picked up on by the advanced technology in the vehicle. She was soon surrounded by screens, which wrapped nearly all the way around the seat she was in. To her right was the image Crux had earlier captured of the target and the extra. Already labeled clearly was the name Iaret, Stella R., as her facial structure had been easily recognized by the Network.
The man was a little less clear, and she tapped the blank spot where his full name would be if they had it, swiping her right hand in an arc over the insubstantial “screen” in front of her as though running it along a solid surface. Doing so spread several documents, associated photos, and other information across the rest of the HUD, and Darcia’s violet eyes flickered over all of it more quickly than any human could read, another flick of her wrist banishing the information back from when it had appeared. Old case files, a few grainy photographs… with a career as apparently prolific as this “Uno” had, it was a mark of his skill that he Network possessed so little information on him. The oldest document was one from a City orphanage, indicating the check-in of an unidentified child, believed to be the same person. If it was, it marked his age as twenty-four years, and his hair color not naturally purple, but that was about it as far as useful information went. Apparently, he was a mystery before he could so much as speak.
Thoughtfully, Darcia pursed her lips, scanning her own memory for other incidents, currently unlinked to Uno, that nevertheless followed his modus operandi. Perhaps ones where witnesses, scarce as they might be, would remember someone with odd coloration or exceptional facial symmetry and height. It was not every day that one encountered someone who looked like that, and his apparent inability to blend in visually may be the biggest clue they had. She chewed her lip as she searched, a strangely-human gesture she had developed independently of her programming. The bluish light of her displays reflected in her eyes, giving them an uncanny sheen, and for a moment, she was completely still as her own data storage interacted with the screen, causing her visual memories—of documents, of crime scenes, of people, even, to flicker over the surface, many too fast to be properly processed by anything but a computer or something like it.
Now, if some of these were linked, what were the suspicions as far as contractor went? If she could narrow the field a little, she could start looking for incidents linked or suspected to be linked to the same person or group of people, and that would give the most likely result for Uno’s padrone, his patron. Most mercenaries had more than one, but she was willing to suppose, psychologically, that someone would not hire a mercenary for a job with this kind of priority without first being personally assured of their capability, which suggested a history, however short. Add to that the very short list of people who knew enough about what Stella was to bother targeting her, and a picture began to emerge, of the most likely suspects.
“Subject identified,” Darcia said into the silence of the car, the slightest of smiles on her face indicative of her success. A motion from both her hands rotated the screen in question for Crux’s perusal. There wasn’t a lot of information, just a blurry photograph in profile and a last known address, along with a designation. It might be a name, but more likely it was only an alias. One did not survive very long acting against Government interests unless one was very, very careful. Unfortunately for this person, they had chosen to hire a man to deal with a Government mark, and that was definitely a way of drawing too much attention. Nevertheless, the evidence that it was this person was quite conclusive, though putting it all together had not been a simple task. It had taken even something as efficient as Darcia a full two minutes of dedicated concentration to connect the dots, and she had direct cognitive access to the Network.
Something flickered, like a light underneath her skin, and then it dimmed again, but not without leaving behind a holographic projection. Blue-white light was shaped into the various components of what looked like a very complex HUD, and these spread out around her, the initial command from her own engines picked up on by the advanced technology in the vehicle. She was soon surrounded by screens, which wrapped nearly all the way around the seat she was in. To her right was the image Crux had earlier captured of the target and the extra. Already labeled clearly was the name Iaret, Stella R., as her facial structure had been easily recognized by the Network.
The man was a little less clear, and she tapped the blank spot where his full name would be if they had it, swiping her right hand in an arc over the insubstantial “screen” in front of her as though running it along a solid surface. Doing so spread several documents, associated photos, and other information across the rest of the HUD, and Darcia’s violet eyes flickered over all of it more quickly than any human could read, another flick of her wrist banishing the information back from when it had appeared. Old case files, a few grainy photographs… with a career as apparently prolific as this “Uno” had, it was a mark of his skill that he Network possessed so little information on him. The oldest document was one from a City orphanage, indicating the check-in of an unidentified child, believed to be the same person. If it was, it marked his age as twenty-four years, and his hair color not naturally purple, but that was about it as far as useful information went. Apparently, he was a mystery before he could so much as speak.
Thoughtfully, Darcia pursed her lips, scanning her own memory for other incidents, currently unlinked to Uno, that nevertheless followed his modus operandi. Perhaps ones where witnesses, scarce as they might be, would remember someone with odd coloration or exceptional facial symmetry and height. It was not every day that one encountered someone who looked like that, and his apparent inability to blend in visually may be the biggest clue they had. She chewed her lip as she searched, a strangely-human gesture she had developed independently of her programming. The bluish light of her displays reflected in her eyes, giving them an uncanny sheen, and for a moment, she was completely still as her own data storage interacted with the screen, causing her visual memories—of documents, of crime scenes, of people, even, to flicker over the surface, many too fast to be properly processed by anything but a computer or something like it.
Now, if some of these were linked, what were the suspicions as far as contractor went? If she could narrow the field a little, she could start looking for incidents linked or suspected to be linked to the same person or group of people, and that would give the most likely result for Uno’s padrone, his patron. Most mercenaries had more than one, but she was willing to suppose, psychologically, that someone would not hire a mercenary for a job with this kind of priority without first being personally assured of their capability, which suggested a history, however short. Add to that the very short list of people who knew enough about what Stella was to bother targeting her, and a picture began to emerge, of the most likely suspects.
“Subject identified,” Darcia said into the silence of the car, the slightest of smiles on her face indicative of her success. A motion from both her hands rotated the screen in question for Crux’s perusal. There wasn’t a lot of information, just a blurry photograph in profile and a last known address, along with a designation. It might be a name, but more likely it was only an alias. One did not survive very long acting against Government interests unless one was very, very careful. Unfortunately for this person, they had chosen to hire a man to deal with a Government mark, and that was definitely a way of drawing too much attention. Nevertheless, the evidence that it was this person was quite conclusive, though putting it all together had not been a simple task. It had taken even something as efficient as Darcia a full two minutes of dedicated concentration to connect the dots, and she had direct cognitive access to the Network.