Deep in a lofty high-desert river canyon replete with oak and scrub, there beds a stream that tumbles and slips and plays amongst water-smoothed boulders of large-grained red sandstone.
Minnow-shaped shadows swim lazy eddies, sniping floating larvae and water-insects, investigating the undersides of golden-hued flotsam delivered down stream-wrought sluices, where the curled leaves relax into exhausted pirouettes upon reaching slower water.
Above the tumbles of blackberry lining the banks, wood smoke rises from a glass-walled cabin, its black steel truss-angles soaring over warm oak decks. Inside, a cantilevered slab roof dangles orbs of warm light above autumn-colored furniture, made of dark steel and wide-woven linen textile.
Through tall glazed portals, the oak canyon gives way to pine forest - close and dense and brown and green; needle-drifts and vanilla-bark̃ disappear into fading forest dusk.
Warm bright lux spills through the intensely tall wooden door opposite the creek, open against the brisk woodstove-tinged evening air. ̃A thin dagger of light slices across the threshold, across the sisal mat and flagstone stoop, before sliding over carefully-groomed boxwood topiary and darting across the white pea-gravel drive. It climbs the hunter-green and chrome gloss of her ride and lays warm across her emerald velvet lap and the creamy strip of skin where her dress is delicately slit.
She releases the sticks and the craft settles with a sighing whine. A slender finger slowly teases the throttle down; a switch and buttons cut power. She raises her gaze from the controls, which bathe her face in amber glow under the dark brown canopy-glass. For a fleeting second, the muscles around her eyes constrict in a micro-expression of grief, far too subtle to be seen from outside the luxurious hovercraft.
He makes a small wave from crossed arms and shifts his relaxed lean against the doorjam.
The words come quietly from across the drive, and form in her ears, amplified and relayed via bone-conduction communicator.
"Welcome home," he says softly, as she steps from the Oft-Lux.
Cricket-dark, the creek burbles, starlight filtered by scrub plays across her slick-stained fingers, held nose-close. The cabin looms dark above the blackberry bramble, blood runs black across the sandstone. It seeps into the rough surface and dissolves into tendrils in the slow current. His body lies on the day-warm red sandstone, lifeless. Her sheer nightgown has been ripped by brambles, tinted pink by his diluted blood, and wet from crossing the stream as she came to verify he was dead. "It's done," she whispers.
Somewhere in the ether two worlds away, a message-alert pings.
Investigator Warnas yawned as he banked into a turn around a large thunderhead, turning his head to watch the lightning roil and flash.
"News" he said aloud to the empty cabin.
"Here's the latest from the Federated Continuum: " His fedcomm responded via the bone-conduction speaker implanted behind his ear.
"Yulia Obreskeyva filed a report via the node 'Extinction Moment' two hours ago that seems to be most relevant to your current assignment."
The fedcomm voice shifted into an artificial approximation of the author's voice, informed by her public identmodel.
"There hasn't been an assassination in the whole of the federation's thirty-seven years, since the beginning of the Interregnum following the Queen's death. Today, that streak is ended. It has been reported that executive Ian Ward was found murdered at his dacha in the mountains of Sedo mere minutes ago."
A streak of lightning rose from the thundercloud directly under his ride, immediately followed by quiet, electronically-suppressed thunder. Warnas calmly slid the vehicle away from the danger as it continued flying along.
The computer with Yulia's voice continued in a mocking tone.
"The 'noble' classes of businessmen, politicians, oligarchs, madames and playboys have enjoyed a period of relative stability in the corrupt order brought about by the AI revolution, but could that now be changing?"
The identmodel continued, "When the workforce was automated and the undeserving masses were placated or removed to the off-world colonies, there was little reason for the priviledged former-working-class remainers to fight amongst themselves."
Warnas rolled his eyes at the vitriol and pushed forward on his right stick, sending the chrome ride gliding downward into the rain under the thunderstorm.
'Yulia' kept talking inside his skull from his implanted fedcomm.
"Post-scarcity gave the have-nots all the superficial trappings of wealth, and satiated their needs. They were content to spend the last of their decades engaged as socialites in relative luxury; permanent tourists and vacationers amongst the old world cities that are effectively their open-air retirement homes."
"The Nobles live amongst us, but invisibly - united and elevated by private information networks, encrypted and federated and accessed as easily as thought via subdermal interconnect. These federations give them access to private retreat-palaces in far-flung locations reachable only by personal transports - true freedom of movement - the only luxury denied to the rest of us who, by design, want for nothing else."
Warnas twirled his fingers in a gesture that said "get on with it!"
Yulia's ai-powered indentmodel voice clone continued with a snark. "But with this startling murder, could the Noble class be waking up to a new world of paranoia?"
The voice ratcheted up to an accusatory tone.
"Could this be the first salvo in a war against the casual genocide by attrition visited upon the lower classes? A first strike against the Nobles, and their instrument of oppression, the Steward? Or was it just an accident that ended an entitled playboy in his secluded lovenest, and we're just meant to go back to sleep? Stay tuned, dear friends, and let us see how they spin their next move."
Investigator Warnas waved his left hand dismissively and the communicator fell silent. His craft slid through the oak canyon, tall rocky walls looming above him. When the rising elevation of the canyon changed the oak leaves to pinetops, he settled the craft onto the white pea-gravel drive, beside the local coroner's autovan.
The old man began talking before Warnas popped his door.
"Man, I'd love to be able to fly out to places like this, being driven takes all day." the coroner remarked. He was a man in his seventies with a shock of white hair, dressed in a white overcoat and grey slacks. Beside him was a gurney with an empty bodybag.
"It's not too bad, perk of the office." Warnas replied as he stepped out of the cab. "But they track us pretty heavily. Too many deviations and you're back down where you belong, no access to personal transport." He pressed a small silver button recessed into a large panel in the side of the angular craft. The panel hissed as it adjusted to the elevation and slid open with a shunk.
Warnas, in his forties, always felt a little off around much older people. They were relics of another time, before the federation's founding when he was but a toddler. He was a child of the new system of post-scarcity, a native to the new order of things - they invariably liked to compare the before and after. Best case scenario, they were comfortably assimilated to the attrition strategy. Worst case, they were incessently obsessed with freedom and self-determination and were going to make sure you knew it.
The old coroner shook his head and replied. "Still, it's better than having to ask the Steward for permission to travel. And this stupid autovan is so slow. I used to be able to get up the canyon in an hour back when I was allowed to drive."
Warnas grunted assent as he lifted his duffel from deep inside the ride's interior. "Where's the body?"
The coroner sighed when Warnas didn't take the bait. "Down the creek, out back. I saw it from the deck but I haven't been down there yet. Looks like he fell from the loft window, maybe hit his head on the railing of the ground-floor deck, and then fell the twenty feet to the sandstone."
"Maybe hit his head on the rail?" Warnas asked.
"There's some smudging on the deck rail but it's not conclusive without more testing." Ramirez, the coroner, said.
"How do you know he fell from the loft?"
"The bed up there is unmade, it stinks like sex, and there's an empty champagne bottle on the windowsill."
"So who's the other one?" Warnas tapped his temple to command his visor's camera to take a picture of the trampled boxwood at the front door. It emulated an old-school mechanical shutter sound as confirmation.
Ramirez glanced down at the small boxwood shrub as if seeing it for the first time. "We don't know yet. Female for sure, there's some... feminine hygeine items upstairs. We can pull DNA from those, so we'll have her pretty quick. Probably a Noble; there's an impression in the gravel out front from a private ride. Too long for a public go'fer. His ride's in the garage down the hill."
Warnas nudged a fiber of white cotton stuck to the boxwood with his pencil. "Was this female the one that called it in?"
"Nope, she disappeared sometime in the night, probably right after he fell. When the decedent kicked it his lack of vitals triggered MedSec, but they were unable to get out here in time and cancelled their response. They called my office in the morning, probably same time they called yours." He followed Warnas into the living room. "Only bad thing about living way out in the boonies, you're a long way from help."
Warnas looked around the room. No signs of a struggle, just the sparse luxury of an ultramodern mountain chalet.
"What about his implants, did they record anything leading up to the death?"
Ramirez frowned. "They show normal sleep until the impact. Almost like he was sleeping on the windowsill, but that's.. not likely. No audio recording of the last moments, it's either been wiped or wasn't working. I'll need to have my lab check for tampering. We should see some activity if he got out of bed or was roused."
"Do we know how the media's got it already? MedSec is normally pretty good at staying discrete. Did you..."
Ramirez cut him off. "God no, sir. My office didn't tip them off, it's just me on the weekends down in Sedo. I jumped in the autovan and was doin' my sudoku and sleeping 'til it got me here." He fidgeted awkwardly. "You can check the logs. So, we thinking the missing female tipped 'em?"
"Lookin' that way." Warnas answered as he began climbing down the bank of the creek, pushing thorny blackberry branches aside as he went.
Ian Ward's body lay broken, splayed on the red rocks, the stream lapping at his hands. A dark stain filled the little basins in the sandstone, mixing with streamwater and the iron-rich redrock.