“Uh-huh. How much of that feed is backed up?”

“64.3 terabytes.”

“I mean how many days, hours.”

“The maximum storage for this camera is seventy-two hours, Detective.”

“Wonderful. Mail that file to Los Angeles Police Department, Fourteenth Precinct, media services division. Include my badge number in the Subject, please.”

Blink…blink…blink…blink…steady.

“Message sent from Maytime servers.”

I grin. Nothing makes my day like cooperation. “That’s jake. You’re all right, Beximo. Five stars.”

“Thank you, detective. Feedback noted.”

“Don’t let it go to your head,” I mumble, turning to the blue suit with the green face. “Call precinct and confirm that file arrived. And do it from the hall, will ya? You look like Lincoln on a fin.”

“Yes, sir.”

He leaves and I turn back once more to survey the scene.

Studio apartment. Spartan and tidy. Bed. Small dining table. One painting hung above a frayed couch. A bookcase crammed with paperbacks, which makes me think the guy is some sort of Luddite, paper being a novelty these days. Older guy, then. They’d get his file from the net soon enough. The floor is thin gray carpet. Renter’s carpet. The body is everywhere, but if the victim had been hit by a meteor, the epicenter of his remains would be just past the foot of the bed.

Guy might have been tying his shoes, then… what? He explodes?

A crispy white suit enters the room, stands patiently behind me. I turn my head and see a halo of face, a young woman behind a plastic shield, the rest of her covered in a paper-thin hazmat suit. Our eyes lock a moment, long enough for her to arch a brow in response, then I look shamedly down at my loafers, sans footies.

“My bad, Rose. For what it’s worth, I didn’t jump in the red sea over here.” I nod toward the room, freshly drenched in blood.

“That’s fine, detective. Are you finished? My team would like to start.”

I am, but I give the space one last scan before my grand exit, checking for anything that might seem important. Reflexively, my eye falls on the steady green dot of the A.I., its white cylindrical body—the size of a pint glass—sprayed red. “I’m done for now. I look forward to your report. My assumption is that mess is all one guy, but when you’re looking at soup it’s hard to say what the ingredients are.”

“You’ll have it this afternoon, detective.” She waves a white mitt, indicating for her three similarly suited assistants to enter.

It’s like someone spilled a bag of marshmallows.

“And for the millionth time,” I say, “call me Dixie, will ya?”

“WHAT DO YOU MEAN THERE’s a gap?”

“Check the file I sent you, detective.” The tech—a kid we call Shake on account of he always looks like someone just grabbed him and shook the hell out of him, and who I’d worked with before and trusted wholeheartedly—stares at me from the comm screen, hair mussed, glasses uneven. Typical cop geek, but one who’s good at his job. “You’ll see it. About three seconds. One moment, our guy is walking and talking and one-hundred percent not exploded, then three seconds of nothing, then, you know…”

“Oil spill.”

“Gazpacho.”

“Alright, thanks… hey, wait. Who could tamper with that video file?”

Shake gives a shrug that comes off like a tic. “Assuming it’s not a glitch, it’d have to be someone with access to the Maytime servers. It’s the primary place those A.I. unit feeds get stored. Local servers are in the city, backup servers are redundantly placed all over the world.”

“Uh-huh, so the global company who makes the gizmos has the only access? Gee, thanks. You just added three-thousand suspects to my list, all of them employees of Maytime.”

“Not necessarily. If someone accessed those files, and modified them, they’d want to cover it up, right?”

Smart boy. I nod. “A good assumption. So?”

“So… you’re talking about someone with access, and the authority or clearance to erase their digital fingerprints. I think your perp wears a tie, detective.”

“You could sell the Brooklyn Bridge, kid. Thanks.” I click off and the screen goes dark. I slide my finger over the activity glass on the desk and tap the Inbox icon, double-tap the email, locate the file, double-tap again. I flick my finger upward and the comm screen lights up with a full-color visual of the vic’s apartment. I check the time code as I watch our guy—middle-aged and average as a winter sunset—dig in his pockets for who knows what, apparently not finding what he’s looking for, then start walking toward the bathroom. When he reaches the foot of the bed, the screen goes dark.

The time stamp clicks away three seconds. When the apartment comes back into view, my guy’s an abstract painting.

Neat trick. I grunt and sigh, a bad habit when I’m perplexed, and lift my tablet. I scroll until I find the address I’m looking for. And wouldn’t you know it? Maytime Corporation’s world headquarters are half a mile away. Walking distance.

Sometimes things just work out.

Looks like I’m in for a pleasant, late-morning stroll, which reminds me of one of Mother’s favorite idioms: A brisk walk is good for the heart, good for the soul.

Humming an old tune I can’t tag the name of, I grab my sport coat off the chair and throw it on. The weather doesn’t call for it, but the gun clipped to my hip cries out for anonymity. I pocket my tablet and head for the sunshine.

A few moments later I step into the exhaust-scented embrace of the city, warm and sooty as dragon breath. Traffic is light. I turn south, replaying the video in my head. Think about that mysterious gap.

Three seconds.

Just enough time for a murder.

THE MAYTIME OFFICES ARE GENERIC as white paint. The building is nice, though. Modern and four stories. All the bells and whistles: wall screens, facial I.D. scan, self-sustaining planters popping with exotic flora, the bright colors a contrast to the gray concrete floors and glass dividers that constitute the open-plan first floor. Young people sit at pristine desks talking to the air, the mics in their ears picking up every syllable; youthful fingers flow across the activity glass set into each desk with fluid speed. The receptionist, pushed out into the lobby like a bulwark, is some sort of fashion model, all pouty lips and doe eyes. I could have used her dress for a glove.

I open my badge, try not to be hurt by her unimpressed stare. “Good morning. I’m looking for whoever’s in charge of your media storage, specifically the video captured by your home-based A.I. units.”

“You mean Beximo?”

I nod, put away the tin. “Yeah, that’s the one. Who do I talk to?”

She frowns as if thinking over my question, or perhaps going over what she wants to eat for lunch. I assume salad. Maybe a couple rabbit pellets on the side. “That would be Gemini Harris,” she says, sounding bored.

“Great. Where is she right now?”

“He. And he’s most likely at his desk.”

She turns and my eyes track with her toward the far corner of the bullpen, where there’s some enclosed offices for higher-ups. Still, the walls are glass so I can see the blurry image of a wide-eyed face watching us.