Cain rode the autocar back to the Telepersona offices, reading reports on Althea Thompson’s performance up to the day she hijacked the Alpha implant. Her supervisor routinely complained about minor mistakes or oversights on her part, blowing them far out of proportion. Most corporate employees in her grade would have raised holy hell over a low evaluation like that.

  But Althea Thompson just seemed to take her knocks.

  Then Cain submitted a formal request for her Persona and Wetware evals.

  Bernie appeared,

  “Not to interfere, Master. But academic curiosity must be sated: why order those historical evaluations if she can currently modify her Persona freely?”

  Cain sat back as the request received expedited approval from the Telepersona managing AI.

  “Because Bernie, people are not really random. They always lead to point C through points B and A. No one skips a landmark. No one.”

  As if to prove his point, Cain opened the report to show how her supervisor, Steve, had systematically adjusted her assertiveness down while cranking up her suggestibility.

  He said,

  “For example, this line right here. Almost a month after starting her job, Mr Clark began influencing her Persona to the point of extreme suggestibility. This is low enough that she might have been victimized on the street, but high enough to avoid corporate Persona flags.”

  Bernie’s sun widened and shrank to an even smaller size,

  “Explain why this matters?”

  Cain poked the report, closing her Persona history and opening the Wetware report for Althea Thompson, noting that Steve Clark had also reviewed these records multiple times. Once or twice might have made sense as her supervisor, but multiple times suggested something else.

  You might be reading a stolen copy. Visit Royal Road for the authentic version.

  Cain pointed to her memory capacity and the other three big immutables.

  “See these? Her memory is top class, almost twice as high as exec min. But her intuition and spatial reasoning are off the charts. Top one tenth of one percent - not that it means anything. That’s the designation people receive when they test too high to be measured. What are the chances…”

  Bernie started speak,

  “Well…”

  But Cain raised his hand in the car and said,

  “Rhetorical…” he touched her psychological profile report and read through it, “follow me a moment, Bernie.

  Let’s say you want to steal or compromise the biggest experimental jump in Persona tech in the last five years. How would you do it?”

  Bernie flashed a moment and said,

  “I would create a diversion in one of the lower floors, likely a fire or explosion of some kind depending on what would provoke the optimal response. Then I would arrange for a maintenance drone to “clean” the secret facility and bring the required creche to the roof where one of my autonomous freight drones waited with a hunter-killer escort.”

  Cain listened to Bernie’s answer and laughed,

  “Write up that plan as a formal proposal and submit it to TP CorpSec, would you?”

  Bernie glowed and said,

  “Of course, Master. But I am afraid I don’t understand the connection to the present case.”

  “That’s okay. It fits really well. A human would have no way of freeing the creche, no way of shutting down security. And moreover, they might be unwilling to risk their position in TP as a result of the theft.”

  Bernie nodded at Cain and said,

  “Are you saying that Steve arranged for the theft?”

  “Possibly. Or the friend, Maxwell, was involved. Regardless, I don’t think this was a simple accident. Do you have that list of system operators logged in during the theft?”

  “I do, CorpSec interviewed all but two of them. One is on vacation in Swaziland and the other is missing.”

  “Name?”

  “Ezekiel Giadda.”

  Cain nodded and said,

  “Then that is our man. Other than Althea, he’s the only connection we have to our real thieves.”

  Bernie said,

  “Real thieves?”

  Cain nodded,

  “If Althea knew what she was doing, why didn’t she arrange for the supporting implants first? Why run back to Steve’s apartment? Why use the Alpha credit line? She’s acting too erratic and odd for a real thief. I think she may be a victim in all of this. Or at best a hapless accomplice.”

  Bernie said,

  “That does not change our response, does it?”

  Cain said,

  “It may, but it does not change our plan for dealing with her: death. But it does mean that she won’t behave like a professional or amateur, but rather like a civilian. I hate that.”