Taken at Toronto

[Manticore]

Planet Los Angeles
Friday, March 13th, 822 AS

A rain squall was blowing in from the coast, gradually darkening the Los Angeles afternoon sky as it approached. The planet was known for its beaches, sun, and high-class living, but none were in evidence here. This was, if not a slum, certainly far from the nicest neighborhood Los Angeles had to offer. Not terribly far from one of Ageira’s major optical chip factories, the area was home to a lot of blue-collar workers and their families.

The skyline was dominated by a white apartment building, sixty stories high and roughly the same number of years old. The building had never been luxurious, even in its heyday, but it was still functional as living space. Since it was the middle of the workday, the halls of the building were quiet.

The forty-second floor, in particular, was no different - aside from a hooded figure, large enough to definitely be male, huddled over one of the doors. His hands - encased in thin black gloves, placed a small device into the side of the door’s simple electronic lock, and a moment later there was an audible click as the lock released. With practiced silence, the hooded figure reclaimed his device and slipped inside the apartment.

Even compared to apartments on space stations, the interior was cramped. It was a studio, with a small kitchen tucked into the back wall and a plush-looking bed to the right. The whole place managed to strike a strange balance between clean and messy, where things were spread around haphazardly yet the space itself didn’t seem cluttered or dirty. It maintained a sense of vague femininity.

The figure scanned the room, searching for something in particular. Stepping over to the bed, he picked up a large photo album, the size of one of those doorstopper old-school books that were still so loved by lawyers and admirals. Flipping through it, the figure scanned the pictures and souvenirs, outlining much of the life of a particular person.

Dupuis, Ontario, frequent visits to family, Liberty Navy…

Reaching the end of the album, he carefully returned it to the exact position it had been originally and then picked up a small datapad.

Logging in was easy - the resident foolishly saved all of her passwords and credentials locally. The figure scanned through her infonet account in the same meticulous manner that they had just scanned the album. Messages from a number of friends - mostly fellow Navy officers. A few names he recognized, in fact.

He examined the last conversation, between the resident and her sister. The sister was studying law at the University of Toronto, on Toronto Station in Ontario. She had invited the resident to visit her there on the weekend, and the resident had accepted.

Next, he carefully prepared a message from her account, taking great pains to duplicate her writing style and format. He queued it in the system for upload to the Liberty Navy Reporting Center at a precise time in the future, and then hid the message from appearing anywhere she might look.

The figure carefully restored the datapad to the exact state he had found it, and then returned it to the nightstand. Silently, he slipped back out of the apartment, re-locking the door as he exited.

Two blocks away from the building, he lowered his hood, revealing a handsome face, sharp blue eyes, and carefully groomed facial hair. He stripped the gloves from his hands and deposited them surreptitiously into a public wastebin, then resumed walking at a brisk pace. Once the resident of the apartment finished her eight hour patrol, she’d be off to Ontario. He would be there first, waiting for her.

---