Gus shook herself.You don’t know anything yet.
This could have nothing to do with her or the kid.The pirate clans and station gangs regularly launched attacks on each other.Sometimes they got out of hand, resulting in parts of the station being shut down until the situation could be brought back under control.
Gus scanned the rest of the bulletins.
There wasn’t much more of note.The powers that be had framed what happened in the government district with Titan’s Lord as a freak accident.No surprise there.In their place, she would have done the same.No one wanted to freak out the tourists or risk people outside the station realizing there’d been some kind of attack.The shipping conglomerates and mining companies might decide Titan was too dangerous to send their cargo through.That could cripple the station’s economy.
She was more interested in the information coming out of deck 16—or rather the lack of it.
Officially, the bulletin claimed the level had been closed off due to an issue with life support.Total bullshit, of course.There was nothing wrong with the deck’s life support systems.If there had been, Titan would have had to evacuate and close off the entire slums since the systems for those four decks were interconnected.
Since the rest of the slums had maintained business as usual, she had to believe someone was lying.
A day after the first bulletin announced the sealing of deck 16, a second notification went out proclaiming the situation under control and citizens could resume their normal business.
Giving up on learning anything of use from the official channels, Gus switched over to the message boards and gossip sites.
Unfortunately, there was nothing of note to find there either.Not that Gus had held much hope.
Next, she brought up a whisper site.Technically, they were considered gray.Not part of the criminal underbelly, but also not quite on the right side of the law.
Here was where you went to find gossip regarding the major players in the gangs and pirate clans.It was where you’d go to commission one of the local information guilds.People also posted job announcements that weren’t quite on the right side of the law.
Most threads were written in code so as to prevent prying eyes from realizing the truths hidden in plain sight.
Gus had become a bit of a savant at navigating these whisper sites.The secret was that they weren’t too different from any other biome.The trick was filtering out the noise; Gus had a lot of practice with that.
Except this time, there wasn’t much to find.
No one was talking about deck 16.Nothing so much as a murmur.
Strange.
Normally, the site would have been abuzz with job postings.This gang needed a safe cracker for a little gig.This group wanted someone with experience salvaging Tsavitee tech.On and on.Little things and big.Sometimes assassination requests were couched as rodent extermination.Then, there were the endless requests for information from the guilds.
However, there was only suspicious silence where there should have been rumors and half-baked conspiracy theories.
“It’s been scrubbed,” Gus murmured.
Quite thoroughly, from the looks of it.
Odd as it was, that thoroughness was the very reason Gus doubted she was dealing with a professional.
“So—someone with the skills but not the experience.”
Someone experienced in controlling the narrative would have known not to take everything.The very absence was telling.
Gus accessed the cameras on sixteen.
“Blank.”
Someone familiar with the terrain then.Definitely not an outsider.
Those from Titan would have known not to mess withallof the cameras.They would have known that security might be willing to overlook a few strategic blank spots—especially if you greased their palms—but blacking out an entire level would have drawn a massive response.
“I’m going to have to go down there, aren’t I?”
There was no helping it.Caius and the question of whether he was still alive and in need of rescue would have to wait.Anandra took priority.
