Written in 365 Parts: 26: Level of Warning

Drick sat in the comfort of the executive gravity vehicle studying the police reports of the crime scene and nearby roads when there was an incoming comm. Looking at the wrist display Drick noted that it was a call from Hooper.

Drick flicked the comm to the main display of the vehicle and turned the screen to visible. If anyone wanted to hack the call they would be less likely to be able to get into the vehicle’s systems than Drick’s own.

“Hey Hooper,” Drick said as Hooper’s face filled the windscreen and a display started giving Drick call statistics including the active protection systems which displayed any threats to the communication.

“Drick,” Hooper looked more tired than a few hours would warrant.

“What’s the problem?”

“I have a bit more information for you but there is a level of warning with it.” Drick nodded and noted that the active threat systems had detected someone attempting to trace the call and to break into the communication. It was a large attack and it was coming from the source of the call, Hooper’s end, which was justice central.

“Are you in a good place to talk?” Drick knew that the conversation wasn’t yet being monitored but that didn’t mean that there wasn’t someone sat behind Hooper or with a boom mic trained on the officer. Drick hoped the phrasing would leave Hooper an ability to manipulate any possible outcome while giving precise meaning to Hooper that there was an issue.

“I’m at my desk. I have the privacy screens on.” Hooper paused and stared into Drick’s eyes for a long moment. “This is probably related to the fact that I am still unable to get any information about the dead driver.”

Drick raised eyebrows but didn’t make any comment. Drick tasked the active defenses on the communications system to do a counter-sweep to try and gain as much information as possible about who was trying to track Drick and listen into the call.

“The ident was damaged and they do not appear on any justice department records. They are also not on any corporate registers that we have access to and no corporation is claiming knowledge.”

Drick dropped their head to one side and pursed their lips still keeping silent.

“It gets more interesting if you add the fact that the data gathered about the crash from the bots at the scene has recently become corrupted. Some kind of issue at the time of collection caused the information to regress to unusable data. There is also little information from the scene despite their being full sweeps by justice and the corporate security teams.”

“Well, that’s unfortunate,” Drick’s tone was neutral but their mind was racing. So whomever wanted this covered up was willing to access and distort justice department records and to post-fix the truth. The case became more interesting and dangerous by the moment.

“You sure you don’t want to give this case up? The offer to transfer has been sent again, they upped the credit bonus to do so.”

“I will consider it.” Said Drick, “meanwhile can you ensure that Krennar gets a place to operate from?” Again a neutral sounding request that Drick hoped Hooper would interpret correctly. “I have a few things to do and then I am going to rest with a cold drink. Later. Thanks for the information Hooper.”

Drick cancelled the call but kept the systems in their search, hopefully someone would make an error. This was becoming more twisty a case, and Drick was even more intrigued. With each turn a new avenue opened up and another player became involved. Who was being paid at justice central to hack evidence, breach privacy and attempt to illegally track private citizens?

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