The rain clouds reached Josh and Jenn at the DanariTek facility the second they arrived, beginning to pour down a torrent of water just as Josh parked the car and shut off its engine. He grunted. At least it was a short walk from the car to the main en-trance, but he still cursed the fact that he hadn’t prepared for this sort of weather today. “Rain wasn’t in the forecast for to-day,” he commented.

“It’ll probably pass quick,” Jenn predicted. “Either way, I’m not sitting here waiting.” She opened the door.

“Yeah. Business is business.” Josh followed suit, and the two of them stepped out. The rain was heavy enough to soak Josh’s trenchcoat in the few seconds it took them to walk up to the main entrance. A series of radiators, alerted to their presence by some scanners Josh couldn’t immediately see, turned on and dried off their clothing as they entered.

“Afternoon,” said a young-looking Asian woman behind the reception desk in Jangl. Josh didn’t think she was quite native – the nuances of her particular facial features more gave him the impression of her being of Chinese descent. Her accent didn’t carry the characteristic rhythm of Jangl-speaking Japa-nese people either. “How can I help you?”

“Josh Heynes, Neo-Tokyo police,” Josh introduced him-self, then extended an arm to his side where Jenn was standing and introduced her: “Jenn Walters.” He moved on to state their business: “Who at your company knows the most about neural glitches? We’d like to talk to them.”

The receptionist nodded and performed a series of mo-tions on something hidden from the view of the officers. Likely a telecomm device of some sort. Josh listened intently to the side of the conversation he could hear as the woman spoke, translating the Jangl in his head. “Hi, it’s Ling from reception. I have some police officers here wanting to talk to someone who knows about neural glitches. Know anyone? Is he free at the moment? Okay, great. I’ll tell them to meet him in his office. Thanks. Bye.”

“Who are we meeting?” Jenn inquired as the receptionist ended the call.

“Deren Falk,” she responded. “He’s one of the cyber-surgeons in the neural link development division. One of our most well-studied, knows a lot about the risks involved. He’s free for the next fifteen minutes or so. You’ll find him in his office. Second floor, section C.”

“Thank you,” said Josh and set one foot in front of the other, leading the way towards Deren Falk’s office.

Deren Falk… The name haunted Josh suddenly. And he knew why. Related to Steve Falk, though Josh didn’t know which one was the father and which one the son. What he did know was that Steve had also been a cybersurgeon employed by DanariTek, until Josh shot him in the head only a few days ago. No matter how much he thought about it, Josh couldn’t think of a single justification for eliminating a witness beyond an im-pulse he knew he should be able to control. He hoped Deren would cooperate despite one of the officers coming to meet him being the one who shot someone close to him. Or, better yet, that he wouldn’t recognize Josh.

“Thinking about Steve?” Jenn asked him as they as-cended a staircase to the second floor.

“Yeah,” Josh mumbled regretfully.

Jenn gave him a pat on the shoulder. “Regret is the thing that counts. Let’s just hope Deren cooperates.”

They came up to his office door a couple of minutes later. Jenn rang the doorbell, and the door slid open. Deren wasn’t exactly cheerful in his demeanor, but he welcomed the officers into his office with the kind of careful affability carried by someone who had dealt with law enforcement before and knew the drill. “Officers,” he muttered and extended an arm. Josh and Jenn took turns shaking it.

Josh looked for the flash of recognition in Deren’s eyes but didn’t catch it.

“So,” Deren began as the three of them took their seats at his office desk, “I was told you came here to inquire about neural glitches.”

“That is correct,” Josh replied. “Specifically, we’d like to know what the chances of very specific corruption in the neu-ral logs are.”

Deren’s brow furrowed. “How specific?” came a clarify-ing question from him.

“Two neural log entries timed exactly twelve hours apart getting corrupted specific,” said Jenn.

Deren brought a finger up to his chin. His gaze drifted off to the side. “I wanna say it’s not entirely unlikely, but the chances of corruption that specific border on the infinitesimal. Less than .001%.”

“What if the corruption was caused by a neural link hack?” Josh asked.

“Well, that would increase the likelihood considerably. But corrupting one specific neural log entry is involved enough, let alone several.”

Jenn’s turn. “How involved? What does the process look like?”

“I can’t describe it in detail because I frankly don’t know, but it involves going through multiple levels of security. There’s a reason we design our neural links to encrypt the logs as hard as we do. Even when an entry gets corrupted, it’s usual-ly after at least a year of digital decay. My best guess as to how a specific entry can get corrupted is a virus that screws with the encryption of the log while it’s being written.”

“How hard would it be to develop such a virus?”

“Very. Our encryption algorithm is the best-kept secret in the business. Our own AI has been working on cracking it for thirty years and it’s still not even close. The only way someone would know how to get through it is if they were one of the develop—”

Deren froze, realization dawning on him like a sunrise in the Caribbean. Josh caught on immediately.

“Fuck,” Deren grunted. “The algorithm’s been leaked.” He dug out his phone and started tapping on it, shaking with panic. “I gotta call my boss. Let him know about this.”

“Put him on speaker if you can,” Josh requested.

“Sure.”

Deren’s phone beeped once, twice, three times, then an agitated, mosquito-like voice sounded from the other end. “Yeah?”

“Hey, boss,” Deren said, trying and failing to contain himself, then continued: “I just realized something big while talking to the cops here. I think our encryption algorithm has been leaked.”

“…Fuck. You sure?”

“Positive. How else do you figure someone would be able to corrupt specific neural log entries?”

“Why are you asking me? You’re the expert in that field.”

“I’m just saying neural log corruption is usually random. And the layers we put into our encryption are supposed to be impenetrable. But the cops are saying they’ve come across spe-cific entries being corrupted. And the way I see it, that can only mean one thing.”

Silence permeated the space for a moment as Deren’s boss pondered the implications. “Okay, yeah. I see what you mean. This calls for an internal investigation. The cops still there with you?”

Josh piped in: “If you’re thinking about hiring us spe-cifically for the job, I’m afraid we’re preoccupied. What we can do is relay your request to another team and have them work with you.”

“Whatever works,” the DanariTek boss commented, sounding very frustrated. “I just want it underway as soon as possible.”

“As do we. Another officer will get in touch with you soon.”

“Yeah. Thanks.” And the man hung up.

Josh and Jenn got up and thanked Deren for his time, leaving the building and getting back into their car. The rain had passed while they were inside.

“This starting to feel like an organized criminal oper-ation to you too?” Jenn aired a thought as they climbed in the car.

Josh nodded in agreement. “This is no longer a simple murder case. Someone wanted to sabotage Harashima from within. And we have a solid candidate back in the infirmary.”

For a moment, Jenn looked at him like she wanted to protest, but she eventually nodded, as if conceding that he had a point.