Case - 2 : A new case.

Within minutes I received an email from Lazarus in response to my question about Prometheus signing an NDA, I opened the email and began to read through.

'Hopefully, there's something I can use as a warrant.'

```

RE: dave@IpCp.com

CC: olivia@IpCp.com

Greetings Sergeant Dave,

I understand you wish to know if other companies in the field were trying to poach Prometheus our lead engineer. The answer is a yes and this problem has only been accentuated in recent times as we moved closer to the launch day.

None of the founders, me, Evelyn, and Prometheus have signed any NDAs. This is because we need to explain things to our investors and show them our progress to reassure them that investing in us is the right choice. We don't have a separate communications department and only I or Evelyn spoke to other people about the project. Prometheus was usually busy by himself.

Please let me know if you have any other questions, I will make myself available to answer them.

Thanking you,

Lazarus.

```

'Phew that was lucky~!'

Waking up Althea, Inception City's general-purpose AI I asked her a question.

"Althea, what's in my schedule for today?"

"You have zero appointments scheduled for today, but you have one tomorrow late in the afternoon."

"What would that be?"

"Revanche the lead suspect you arrested for your previous case stands trial tomorrow."

"What about Vera?"

"Vera, the person that you alleged killed Larkin, a new Cadet, also stands to trial tomorrow immediately after the court case against Revanche."

"Why hasn't that been added to my schedule?"

"Because the Judge's Association has deemed you to be extremely emotionally involved in the case for you to be capable of objective reasoning."

"...."

*sigh*

'I guess the Judge's Association will stop getting any donations from me anytime soon.'

I got up from my chair and was on my way to an Atomic Explosion chain restaurant.

Wandering around the floor I eventually reached an elevator that had logos for buttons.

The most peculiar one was the topmost button which held the image of an eye inside a triangle, the eye of providence, or in my case, it was the eye that surveiled all, the floor where the Inception City's central AI system was kept. Or at least the most important copy of it.

I selected the one that looked like an exploding atom where the electrons were all tiny burgers and began to listen to the calm and soothing instrumental elevator music.

With a smooth stop, the elevator doors opened up as I walked onto the floor that was a restaurant for the Atomic Explosion chain.

Moving to the self-service counter, I allowed the scanner to scan my wavelength ID to connect to my bank account.

It was a grade 0 scanner, that is, it scanned my entire body, so no tricks like the one Revanche used would work here. It would detect exactly how and where each wavelength was being produced.

Sometimes they were even used to detect abnormalities in the brain and other organs of the body.

A notification appeared on my AR glasses that asked if I would like to order privately, which I agreed to, prompting a blob that worked like an eye tracker popping up and allowing me to select my usual order.

A burger along with a bucket of tendies and a naturally sweetened drink.

The total was still U109.98.

The order soon arrived at the counter, dropped by a hovering tray carrier. A method of delivery that was only used in the richer areas of the city and never in the outskirts.

I picked up my tray and moved to a seat in the back where I began to feast on my meal as I activated the AI once again by calling it out.

"Althea."

"Yes, Sergeant."

"Could you make me a warrant based on the data of shortlisted judges Anneliese has sent me and the email I received from Lazarus?"

"This will need you to give me permission to read your emails, would you like to give me the permission to do so?"

"Yes, you can for this time read those two particular emails, I've tagged them 'current warrant' so you should be able to find them."

"I will be with you shortly."

"Have you gone crazy?" a raspy velvety tone that I recognized filled my ears, except I wasn't expecting it.

My eyes snapped open as I looked at the person sitting across from me.

"Gracewell…" I mumbled getting a responses in return.

"Yes, it's me. Or did talking to yourself make you forget everyone else?"

'Why is she annoying me? Shouldn't she know that I'm talking to the Inception City's general AI and not her?'

I was about to pick up my tray and leave along with my half-eaten food when I heard something that stopped me in my tracks.

"I can get you a seat in Vera's hearing."

The sentence gave me a pause as hundreds of scenarios ran through my mind.

'Did she block me from getting the seat in the first place? No, she isn't that powerful politically. Maybe a friend of hers did it? No not possible, no one would risk blocking me for fear of retaliation. Then if it was the AI that blocked me from appearing how is she going to allow me back inside?'

"How?" I asked confused.

"That's my problem to worry about. So do you want in or not?" Gracewell asked me once again.

"What do you want me to pay you?"

"Stay away from Anneliese."

"...?"

'What relation does Anneliese have with Gracewell? Is it some sort of catfight?'

"Why?"

"I can't say."

"So you want me to give up speaking to the one person I speak to for no other reason than, 'Because Gracewell told me so?'"

"You used to listen to me right? Why not once more?"

"I used to listen to you because you were my wife. Now that you no longer are, I don't need to. I will be taking my leave, and if you don't have anything better to do than talk behind the backs of your colleagues I suggest you pick up any unsolved cases lying around and try to solve them. Please don't annoy or emotionally blackmail me into doing what you want. Goodbye."

I was about to toss my drink on her head but held back when I heard the familiar *DING* *DING* of a notification ringing in my AR glasses.

'Damn it, even this mod doesn't work.'

Trashing my tray in the dustbin I quickly left to go to my office where I crashed into the old brown cloth sofa that was tucked away neatly into a corner.

With my face pressed against the cushions, I began counting the number of flowers on the border designs and reached twelve before remembering that I had just received a notification.

Opening the notifications tab on my AR glasses I spotted the notification the Althea, Inception City's general purpose AI had sent me.

'A warrant request to search the personal communications of Prometheus has been drafted according to your requirements. Please verify the details before it can be sent out to the Judge's Association to be signed.'

I quickly glanced over the warrant and signed roughly by pressing my finger against the signature spot on the floating window which caused a digital scan of my thumbprint to appear inside the signature box.

Pressing send, I sent away the warrant request and then went back to counting flowers.

'Why is this happening?'

'Why does she care about me all of a sudden?'

'Does this mean something?'

'No, she probably has something to gain from this which is why she did that.'

'But how did she block my appearance in the courtroom? Does she have a backdoor key or something?'

'No. Even if her family was the one to make the general-purpose AI it would be a far stretch to be able to secretly insert a back door when its source code has been verified by over a dozen different publicly funded institutions.'

'Then what exactly is it that she did?'

'It's not like the AI has any reason to give her words any importance, so how did she ban me from entering? Is it the judge after all? The AI did say the Judge's association had blocked my presence.'

'*sigh* what a messed up world. You can rarely trust the people closest to you.'

'Anneliese...'

I looked at the ceiling of my office as I thought about what Gracewell had said.

'Should I take a look at her activity after she connected to the office network?'

'No...I'm sure there's nothing wrong that I have to be worried about.'

*DING* *DING*

Hearing another notification ringing, I sat upright and began to look through all the permissions the court had granted me for this warrant.

```

RE: dave@IpCp.com

CC: olivia@IpCp.com

Greetings Officer,

Given the nature of the case and the lack of any clear supporting evidence, I cannot give you a Total Warrant. I hope you can agree with the compromise of being able to search through Prometheus's social conversations both public and private.

Thanking you,

16120189311101145 

```

'Huh. At least I have something to begin with.'

Lying down on the sofa once again I began to use my credentials to request access to Prometheus's socials from Althea the AI.

*DING* *DING*

A new message from Novie appeared on my glasses, 'Anneliese is moving towards your office.'

I glanced at the message and wondered how I should behave when she would see me again.

*knock* *knock*

"Come in."

As Anneliese stepped through the door I felt her glance at me in confusion.

"What happened? Why're you lying down on the sofa?" Anneliese asked in a curious tone.

"I was thinking."

"Thinking? What does that have to do wi-"

"I have your next job for you Anneliese!"

"Oh! What is it?"

"You need to prepare all the documents required for tomorrow's court case. Once you're done with that you can go back to learning from Hawthorne from tomorrow."

"Can't I come to the case as well?"

"Oh?" I lifted my hand from over my eyes to look at her.

"Because interesting might happen there and I don't want to miss them!"

"...the case will happen late in the afternoon, you should be finished with your classes by then."

"That's alright then, I'll be there later."

"What did you come here for?"

"You got a new case assigned!"

"Huh?" I sat up straight and tried to understand if Anneliese was joking with me but she didn't seem to be joking.

"Who assigned me a case? I didn't even know I had a boss, what the heck."

"It was a request."

"Who requested it?"

"Althea."

"What? You mean the general purpose AI?"

"Yes, it is an emergency. You need to solve a case within the next twenty-four hours or someone might die."

"Why didn't I get the message directly!? And why the hell did you wait for this long then!?"

"Oh, I don't have the case. You have to receive it from the AI room in the office. As for why you weren't given the case directly, eh, I don't know."

"Damn." I stood up and picked up the coat that was hanging on the coat hanger by the door.

"Let's go."

"Okie!" Anneliese rushed ahead of me as I locked the door to my office.

Giving one last look at the bobblehead that resembled me in my office.

'I will be back.'

Rushing behind Anneliese, I stepped into the elevator where for a few seconds I stared at the Eye of Providence and then lightly pressed it until it inset into the panel.

The symbol then spun around for a few seconds before opening as a cylindrical tray that held a complicated key within it.

I used the key as per protocol and unlocked the elevator panel.

The back of the panel was different. A normal panel would be flushed with wiring and circuits, but this one was empty. The buttons were never really connected to anything, it was the General Purpose AI that scanned our movements from the single camera behind the one-way glass panel and decided which floor we would go to.

A nice hidden way to keep criminals stuck inside the elevator if they ever happened to enter here.

"Very few people know about this, I guess you're a part of the few now." I spoke out loud as Anneliese smiled with pride.

"Ha! I one-upped Gracewell without even being an officer officially."

"She knows."

"But she didn't know when she wasn't a part of the police force right!?"

I nodded, but I did remember I'd told her about it one day after getting back home from work, but she probably doesn't remember it anymore.

I pulled out the camera and held it up to my right eye after removing my AR glasses so that it could scan my iris and we could move ahead.