Lost Boys and Golden Girls

                            By:

                         Fox Cutter

    Chapter 2

Rachel lead me through a series of hallways and backrooms,
doing her best not to be seen. "Where you briefed?"

"Yes," I said, navigating though a storage room.

"Good," she said, moving though the door, and into a small
office, where she stopped.

Turning to me, she looked me over. "Listen, Sothia and her
new aid are across the hall, waiting for you. They have no
idea what you look like, and really can't conceive of any
species lacking fur."

I gave a nod. "So you don't want me to freak them out to
badly."

"Yes, don't go barging in there. I will tell them your
coming in first. After you meet them her aid will give you
any help you need."

I nodded again, tapping my watch. "And the use of the
Matrix?"

"I do want you to keep a low profile, but it's in your paws,
so I can't control your use of it."

"Ok, and that's hands."

She shrugged, pulling on her blouse a bit. "Whatever. Now
wait here for a minute, the come over. It's the door marked
private." Saying that, she slipped out of the main door to
the office.

Glancing at my watch (which was always set to my home time)
I counted of one minute, then I left the office. Walking
across the hall, I gripped the door handle. Then, taking a
deep breath, I stepped inside.

Inside where two skunk-morphs, though in a constant grayish
colour, and no white strip. The older of the two was wearing
a light dress that came halfway down her humanism looking
legs.

The other was a teenageish looking male, wearing a simple
pair of pants and shirt. His tail was dyed in places, and a
bit ruffled. Nether of them had any head fur to speak off,
it was all of a constant length, at least what I could see.

The female, who I guessed was Sothia had a bit of a puzzled
look on her face. Her aid looked me over, then burst out
laughing.

"That has to be the most ridiculous thing I have ever seen!"
He stutter out between his laughter.

Sothia gave him a stern look, and he did his best to stop.

"I'm sorry," she said, "Rethin has only been my aid for a
day, and still has much to learn about diplomacy."

I shrugged, "It's ok. I happen to agree with him."

Rethin let out another small laugh, but did his best to
suppress it.

Sothia shook her head a bit, then looked at Rachel. "So, how
exactly is he going to be able to find your killer. It's not
as if he just vanishes into a crowd."

I raised a finger. "You'd be surprised."

Grinning at me, Rachel said. "Fox, show them the Matrix."

"Oh-kay." I said, then raising my arm a bit, I spoke into my
watch. "Matrix on."

The second I said it my vision filled with glaring white
light. In a few seconds it was gone, and I was left blinking
a bit. Instantly I noticed two things: one, there was a
short muzzle blocking a small part of my vision and two, I
had the feeling of carrying something behind me, which I
gather was how the Matrix made me feel the tail.

"Wow." Rethin said.

I shrugged, "Your tell me. This is the first time I've used
this thing. It will definitely take some getting used to."

Rachel poked at the illusionary tail, and I felt a twinge in
my mind right about the same place.

"Actually Fox, your the first one to ever use it." She said.

I shook my head, "Fun..." I muttered.

Turing to Rethin, Sothia said, "Take Mr. Cutter here
upstairs and show him what we have."

He nodded, "Follow me." Then started for the door.

"One more thing," Rachel said, handing me a card. "Take this
with you, and have him explain it."

I glanced at the card, finding it to be a typical picture
ID, with a bit more information, and a picture of my self
with the Matrix on. At least I assume it looked like I did.

"Come on," Rethin said, and headed out the door. I pocketed
the card and followed.

* * *

Dusting my fur off, I moved out of my bedroom. Walking
passed the kitchen I entered Fox's bedroom.

Kicking some of his junk out of the way, I moved over to the
back wall. Setting my hand on it, I said, "Now where would
that be."

Looking over the wall, I saw that there was only one thing
hanging on it that was large enough to hide another panel.
Pulling out the thumb tacks I took it down. I grinned when I
found it.

I pushed the panel in, and found that it was harder to do
then with the others. After a few seconds of work it finally
clicked, causing part of the wall next to me to side into
the rest of the wall.

Turning my flashlight back on, I ran the beam over the
landing for the stairs. I found that it was covered in a
thick layer of dust, which was totally undisturbed.

"Strange," I said to myself. Steeping inside, my feet kick
the dust up. Slowly I headed down the stairs, which where
set out the same my the set leading to my room did.
Eventually I found my self back in the little room under the
house.

Humming to myself, I bushed the dust off the large rock,
and sat down on it. I pulled my tail in my lap to keep it
out of the dust.

"Strange," I said to myself, "Who would go to all this to link
the bedrooms and the main room. It just doesn't make sense."

Moving my the flashlight beam around I noticed that the
ceiling had a few stalactites on it. "Old cave." I muttered,
referring the fact that it was entirely dry in the small
room.

Looking closer at the floor I saw the places where the
stalagmites had been removed. Rubbing my chin a bit, I
though out loud. "Someone went to a lot of trouble to make
it easy to get down here. Why though?"

I glanced over at the stairs to my room. "If that set is
that's been used the most maybe there's something off the
stairs that I missed."

I knew it was a long shot, but I decided to try it out. So I
started back up the stairs, making sure to look over every
each of the walls.

An hour later I was back in my room, even dustier, and still
having found nothing. Well nothing expect the doors
automatically close after some unknown about of time.

Brushing myself off I headed to the kitchen to get something
to drink, and to do some series thinking.

* * *

Rethin lead me to a small office on the second floor. As we
entered, he motioned for me to take the chair behind the
desk. Moving behind me, he reached over my shoulder and
turned on a computer.

Slipping a small crystal into a slot on the side, he said.
"Ok, the file on the murder is in, and should load up in a
minute."

I nodded, "Thanks."

He pulled over a chair that was to the side, and sat down
next to me. "So, you ever done this before?"

"Once, well over a year ago. Of course I was the prime
suspect at the time, so I had some motivation." I said,
leaning forward as the file opened. For a second the
language looked extremely strange, but after a second the
translator kicked in the new information, and I could read it
like english.

"Have you worked for her long?"

"Sense my exile was revoked, about two months ago." I
skimmed over the file, getting the jist of it. Sothia's old
aid had been killed in the time period between 9:57am and
10:00am. He was killed by a single shot from a gun in the
back of the head. The killer had shot from a standing
position, and the aid had been sitting in his chair,
apparently bending down to get into a file cabinet.

Leaning over my shoulder, Rethin asked, "Find anything
interesting?"

I shrugged, "Nothing new. The victim was getting something
for the killer. So that implies that he had to have a reason
to be there."

"Killing him I would have to say."

I looked over my shoulder at him. "Well something the victim
would find a good reason."

He nodded.

Leaning back a bit, I pondered. "According to this he was
going through a drawer when he was shot. You know what was
in the drawer?"

He shook his head. "No, but we can go look. It's only a few
doors down."

I stood. "Lets go then."

Rethin lead me out of the office, down the hall, and to
another one. The door was blocked by that worlds equivalent
of police tape.

Slipping inside I looked around. The office was pretty
normal, though behind the desk was a ghastly sight. The chair
faced back towards some file cabinets, the bottom of which
was open. There was dried blood on the metal of the
cabinets and over some of the open drawer.

I forced down some bile, "Why haven't they cleaned this up
by now?"

"Sothia requested it not be cleaned until she said so."
Rethin explained.

I nodded. "I don't suppose you have some rubber gloves?"

He nodded himself, and handed me a pair that he pulled from
a pocket someplace. "I figured you would want to see the
office when Sothia told me I was to escort you. So I grabbed
a pair."

I pulled them on, being careful not to snap them. Then I
looked over the file tabs, they where all labeled,
"Barsetine." Then with two dates on them.

"What's Barsetine?" I asked.

"The next country over. About 2000 klicks away from here."

I nodded, "Well these are all records about there. Hardcopy
too."

This caused him to blink, "Hardcopy? Are you sure?"

I chuckled, "Ya, pretty much."

"The only thing put on hardcopy anymore is something to
sensitive to be on the computer." He said.

I stood, "Meaning there classified."

"Yes."

I pulled the gloves off, and threw them in a waste basket.
"That's all I need from here. Come on back to the office."
As I said this I head out the door.

A few minutes later I was sitting back behind the desk,
though I was turned to face Rethin. "Ok, I just bet you need
special clearance to access those files, right?"

He nodded. "Yes, that's why he had them in his office.
Sothia is the chief diplomat." The word came accost a bit
ragged, I guess the translator was trying to squeeze the real
word into the closest thing in english. "It was his job to
keep track of all them."

I leaned back a bit. "Ok then. I have a scenario for you.
Assume I walked into the office and requested some of
those documents. What exactly would happen?"

He though for a second. "He would scan your code in, and see
if you had clearance for them."

"How long would that take?"

He though for a second, "If the network wasn't in a slow
down..." he paused, doing some mental calculations. "Two and
a half minutes."

I nodded. "And if it was in a slow down?"

"Four minutes, at least."

I moved back from the computer, "Can you check to see if
there was a slow down at the time of death?"

He didn't answer, but just moved over to the computer. After
a few minutes of some fast typing he said. "Yes, there was
a major transfer on the main lines."

"Which means checking his clearance would have taken one
minute to many."

Moving away from the computer, he gave me a perplexed look.

"That means he knew whoever it was well enough, that he
didn't need to check to know that he or she had clearance."

Rethin's eyes widened a bit. "Of course! The killer came in,
asked for the file. He knew who it was so didn't bother to
check, and while he was bent over, bang!"

"Right! So the question now becomes, who had clearance."

He nodded, then motioned for me to move away from the
computer again. Moving over to it, he put his left paw under
an a small light like attachment, palm down. The light
flashed for a second, and the computer popped up a box that
said, "Processing".

This time I looked over his shoulder. "What did you do?"

"I scanned my code into the computer."

I gave him a bit of a strange look.

He explained. "The code is tattooed under the fur at birth.
It's how we sign in and out, and how we pay for things. The
light does a flash of some kind of radiation which causes it
to glow for a split second."

I let out a small grunt, "Nice way to control the
population."

He was about to respond when the computer beeped. Turning
he typed some stuff in, and it put up another "Processing"
screen. "I'm getting a list of everyone who has my clearance
or higher in a days distance from here."

I looked at him, "You have that kind of clearance? How old
are you?"

"43." He said.

I blinked, "Compared to?"

"Um... I think the oldest person was two-hundred thirteen."

I whistled, "Long lifespan."

"Really? How long is yours?"

"Oh well... 80 years is the average."

He reached over and patted me on the back, "That's short.
How old are you, 50 60?"

I laughed, "I've been mistaken for being older, but not by
that much. I'm 18."

His face suddenly contorted. "Your telling me I'm working
with a _CHILD_?" He yelled out the last of the sentence.

I took a step back, "Whow! I'm an adult by my society's
standards."

He grumbled, definitely angry. "Well here you should still
be in scholl, let alone working."

"Well to bad. I'm here, and I'm doing the job I was given."

He turned and looked me right in the eyes. "Listen, this
puts everything you've though of into a different light.
I'll have to go over it all before we continue and--"

I cut him off, hard. "Damn it listen! I have more experience
at this then you ever will. So maybe by your thinking I
should still be in school. I just have one thing to say
about that, *get over it*. I'm here, and with your help have
gotten farther then anyone else."

He growled, and started to say something, then stopped.
"You do have a point." He voices was very strained, it
sounded like he was doing his best not to lash out at me.

"Fine, then lets try and continue. Your search has
finished."

He turn back to the computer, and made a few keystrokes. "The
system found a total of 27 people with kind of access." He
did some more keystrokes. "And only 5 where in the building
when he was killed."

"So we have 5 suspects, unless then came in though the alley
like I did."

He shook his head, "No. That door is always guarded unless
ordered not to, and that kind of order is logged. If you read
all of the file I gave you would have seen that that has
already been checked."

I nodded, really getting annoyed at the tone he had taken.
"Ok... Is there any way to check to see if any of them got
any of the documents?"

He shook his head, "That's not logged."

I 'hummed' thinking. "This guy loved order didn't he?"

Rethin nodded, "Yes. So?"

"Well, you would think he would keep his own records about
who did what."

He ran this over in his mind for a second. "Maybe..."

"Do you have access to his files?"

He nodded, "I've taken over his position, I have full access
to his system. I'll look." With that he started back on the
keyboard again.

After only a few minutes he said, "I found it."

"Good. Now cross-reference that with the list of 5 people."

He hit a few more keys. "Ok, only one is on the list at all,
a Natarn Jorcim."

I grinned, "We have a prime suspect."

He stood, shutting off the computer. "Yes, come on, lets go
talk to him." With that he stormed out of the office.

I followed, quickly moving up next to him, "Rethin, I have a
question."

"What?" He spat out, still clearly angry.

"Well, if Sothia is killed, will you replace her?"

He shook his head, "No. The government will decided on someone
to take her place."

"And she will become the Council member?"

"Yes."

I stopped in my tracks. "I have a motive!"

He stopped as well, and looked back at me. "What?"

"I know why the aid was killed."

He walked back to me, "Why then?"

I grinned. "Because he would have been a liability when she
was killed. Most likely he saw something he wasn't suppose to
see, but didn't know it at the time. What ever it was, he
would have figured it out when she was killed."

He looked me over, "One of the gas mains was tampered with
so gas was feed into Sothia's office."

"Right, and where was that tampering done?"

He though for a second, "In the maintenance room, right down
the hall from conference room 12. The same room the victim
was in half the time!"

"Yes. So some time he was working late or something, and was
going to or from the conference room when he saw the killer
duck into the maintenance room."

He grinned, "That's an impressive leap there."

I shrugged, "I do it more often then you think."

He shook his head, turned and headed down the hall.

A few minutes later we where outside of Natarn's office. I
gave a quick knock on the door. Inside a voice called out,
"Come in."

Opening the door I steeped inside. I quickly noticed Natarn,
as he was standing in front of his desk, a gun in his paws.
I barely had time to move before he fired.