Nyle pouted. “I kind of wanted to try them, but they only do wholesale... Great.” He clicked through a few moremenus, then leaned into his own chair. He straightened the collar of his orange jumpsuit. Unlike Darren’s, it was a perfect fit as if it had been custom-made, and the inmate number printed on the sleeve was 404. “Whatever. I’ll get a box for me on top of your extra cigarettes,” he mumbled to himself, frowning. “Okay. That’s my part done then. Shipment will be here next week, same guards shift as last time. I’ll leave the rest to you.”
Darren nodded, excitement stirring in his gut. It had taken him two years to set things up and get friendly with the right guards so he could pull something like this off, but until Nyle’s arrival a couple of months ago, he’d not had that last missing piece to put it all together. They’d only done small-scale test runs so far, but this next one was going to be bigger, and he couldn’t wait to reap the benefits.
After a few more clicks, Nyle closed the browser and opened the diagram depicting the post-space revolution developments in economy Aiden had drawn in last week’s lesson. He scoffed at it but didn’t say anything and so Darren didn’t either. They studied in silence for a while, but eventually, Darren got a little bored.
“Is there any point in me asking how you did what you did earlier?” he said, tilting his chin at the holographic computer screen.
Amusement swam in Nyle’s blue eyes. “Let’s say I’m very good at what I do, but I can’t give you any specifics,” he said, licking his lips. “It’s part of the hacker code. We don’t share our secrets. But… for the right incentive, I can probably be persuaded.”
Darren’s cock jumped in his pants, totally on board with that. He closed his textbook, leaned in, and whispered, “Oh? Consider me intrigued.” He slid his hand upNyle’s thigh, tracing the inner side. “Perhaps studyingcanwait for a bit. I suddenly feel like doing something fun.”
Chapter 7
It was Saturday, Aiden’sfirst day off since he’d started working at Horizons. Running the prison and teaching the business class kept him busy, leaving him with virtually no free time and only a few hours of sleep a night. Today was the day he’d planned to clear that accumulated debt, but his body had other ideas, pulling him out of dreams he didn’t remember before artificial sunlight even touched Sinhle.
His mind kept replaying his encounter with Darren Howe in the corridor, the way those indigo eyes crinkled in the corners when he’d laughed at something Nyle had said, and no matter how hard Aiden tried not to think about them or the glances he kept intercepting during class, he simply couldn’t chase away the thoughts.
Darren Howe surprised him. He’d expected someone more unhinged, someone violent and aggressive, yet what he’d stumbled upon was a charismatic man with animpish smile and a playboy attitude. He smiled, he chatted with the rest. The mismatch between reality and expectation threw Aiden off and that wasn’t even counting the intelligence Darren Howe seemed to possess if his answers in class were any indication. His file, which Aiden had finally gotten his hands on yesterday, supported that too, revealing Darren had undertaken the Special Forces training in Intelligence. Wherein lay the problem. Despite the strenuous psychological checks and evaluation in place prior to enlisting, the system hadn’t even flagged him for any mental deviations.
Aiden already felt the beginnings of a headache. He groaned, curling in a ball on one side of the bed. It was way too early for this at 6 a.m, the morning still hours away. At least here on Europa and on some part of Earth, because the Standard Solar Time ensured everyone everywhere followed the same twenty-four-hour format. The moment humans had spread beyond Earth, the time zones had been abolished for a single one that disregarded whether it was actually day or night. Overall, it had made things easier and removed the need to work out what time it was on every station or planet, even if people had, allegedly, struggled at first.
Rolling to his other side, Aiden tried again to fall asleep. But his mind didn’t cooperate, didn’t let him off the hook, circling back to the other thing that was urging him to get up.
The video from Claudia’s autopsy.
Aiden’s stomach filled with nerves, squeezing in on itself. After that first night, he’d had no time to watch the recording again. He was too tired when he came back from work to do more than grab a bite, shower and collapse in bed, and the few times he’d tried to sit down and study thevideo, his anxiety had spiked, preventing him from being able to focus. Part of the reason was the long hours, but worse was the amount of work he actually had to do while trying to figure out the best way to approach Darren Howe. He had to be careful and not make it too obvious, because one wrong step could raise red flags with Management he simply couldn’t afford.
Aiden tried to fall back asleep for another fifteen minutes, but eventually gave up altogether. Despite the clock showing just before six thirty on his first day off, he got up and took a shower. Once he’d woken himself up with lukewarm water, he fished out the yellow pack of prescription supplements and anxiety meds that he kept on the second shelf in the compartment above the sink. He popped two pills in his mouth. They helped with the lightheadedness almost immediately, though he continued frowning as he realized he’d been getting it daily since his last meeting with PI Deverson.
Sighing, Aiden padded out of his bathroom and tossed some clothes on. The flaring anxiety he was experiencing lately was at fault for his increased need for meds. While he’d gotten decent at dealing with it over the years, the discovery of the autopsy recording and his proximity to Claudia’s murderer seemed to ignore that progress. They’d revived some part of him still capable of experiencing emotions and feelings the way normal people did, and that was the last thing he needed right now when he should be focusing on his goal and nothing else.
Dejection spreading through him, Aiden settled in the lounge with his laptop and a mug of coffee. Ten minutes later, he finally cleared his mind, loaded up the autopsy, and pressed play. He did his best not to give into the anger, the one he always had to deal with whenever hethought about Claudia’s untimely death, and this time it was a little harder to rein it in because he knew what he was about to see. But he managed anyway, driven by the need for answers two years overdue.
Like before, he noticed nothing amiss during the first and second playbacks. From the third one onward, he began examining every frame in isolation, but when that didn’t yield any results either, he took a step back and refocused on the bigger picture again.
“The coroner’s assistant starts the recording,” Aiden narrated to himself as he played the video again. He watched the assistant walk in, then the exchange between him and the coroner as the interactive controls popped up on the screen.
Shifting to dynamic 3D view of the room, he inspected it and the procedure from all angles while listening to the examination. He tried not to think about Claudia’s body too much, though every time his eyes veered to her face, his heart broke. His chest hurt, feeling as if it had been stabbed by a dozen knives, but he ignored that too as best as he could and narrowed his focus to the room. Nothing stood out yet again, no clue anywhere to be found. The police and the coroner hadn’t missed anything.
“Bag the body. I’ll go sort out the report,” the coroner told his assistant at the end of the video, just before it stopped, leaving Aiden alone in the interactive 3D lab space.
The coroner’s name was Nicolas Smith as per the signature on the medical report and Aiden vaguely remembered a conversation between the two of them on that day he had stormed the morgue only to find out from Marcus that Claudia had already been cremated. Smith had calmly explained to Aiden that he couldn’t see therecording or the full report without prior approval from the authorities… which he had never gotten.
Aiden stared blankly at the familiar room, recounting his conversation with Marcus from that day.
“What were you thinking?” Claudia’s father said, his tone chiding.
Aiden shivered, the current of cool air from the vents raising his hackles. “Why didn’t you say you had her cremated?”
Marcus sighed in the same way Claudia did when she was exasperated. “I was going to. Later today, in fact. As soon as I had the funeral arrangements done. I know it hurts, Aiden. But what you are doing… doesn’t help anyone. What happened to her, to both of you, is not something anyone should ever have to go through, but, for your own sake, you need to start thinking about moving on. The way you have been these past weeks… I’m worried about you. It pains me to se—”
Marcus’ phone rang with a notification then, cutting him off, and a second later Aiden’s one followed. They both looked at each other and then Aiden shifted his attention to the message he’d received from the police.
His world spun and he had to hold onto the edge of the examination table as his breathing turned frantic and shallow. Hot and cold warred inside his bones.
“Marcus…” he said, his voice shaky and breathless.
Marcus’ eyes cut to Aiden, his expression showing a hint of a reaction Aiden couldn’t quite read.
