Stepping out all sweaty from a holosex cabin, Ali noisily sucked the last drops of her soda before scraping the bottom of crystallized sugar with the straw.

“The Commissioner couldn’t tell us much,” I pursued, after the end of her Diabetes Symphony in D minor. “Do you think they’re really twins? It was hard enough to apprehend one of them.”

“Dunno,” she answered, grooming her hair over her pink jacket. “But if they had caught us on the docks, we would’ve been toast.”

When we finally arrived on the brothels’ avenue half an hour later, the military police had cordoned off the alley where the Marine had been murdered. Braun’s pentarotor drones were patrolling the empty area under the artificial sun.

“I guess we won’t find any witnesses at this hour,” said my partner, knocking unsuccessfully on the door of an automated pleasure house.

From the top of a trash can filled with smelly foam clamshells, I was scrutinized the crime scene from beyond the wavering yellow holographic cords. Sadly, the MP had already cleaned everything up. “I think we should go back to the container area,” I concluded. “The other one may have dropped something during the gunfight.”

And, as always, I was right. My sapiens hadn’t only hit the suspect’s shoulder. With the usual softness of a .50 caliber, she had turned the arm, the neck and the left half of the child’s head into a gory marmalade. With no robots to do all the dirty work, the humans of the C18 forensics team were no bloodhounds. But my catlike senses didn’t miss a major detail hosed down the drain.

“Lee, that’s fucking over-mega-grody! Spit that shit out!” Ali grimaced, her tongue hanging out in disgust. “Is that a piece of the ear?”

“Bingo!” But this one was nothing more than a chunk of curled up flesh covered with hair and blood.

“God! That’s just super-gross.”

She stepped back. Yet my cat instinct made me carry on regardless. I have learned on Wild Kingdom it that was my kind’s natural behavior. “Look closer,” I said, drooling the appendix into her trembling hand. “Do you see this little part that doesn’t taste very good?”

Extracted from its thin protective shell, the implant resembled a tiny ellipsoid capsule. It was made of a shiny metal that magnetically repels blood, preventing it from clotting properly.

“I know what it is. It’s a TMC dog tag,” she explained. “They have these small electronic chunks in the pinna and under the scrotum.”

“Thank you for this useless additional information.”

“It’s like an FID,” she continued, making it roll in her palm.

I wasn’t aware. But now we knew the army was doubly involved in this story. That dubious Captain Braun didn’t show up at the police station for a tea carton. And I wasn’t surprised to see him waiting for us at the docks’ exit.

“What did you blow up this time?” the Soviet grunted as he deserted the shadow of his flying jeep. His service ribbons twinkled under the false sun.

“Hello Rasputin! I knew I was detecting some phero-morons drifting towards us,” I said before Ali imitated a silly military salute.

The Bolshevik sighed and didn’t bother us any longer. We were able to return to the Kitty, still firmly clamped in its cage of the impound yard next to the police station. There, thanks to the control computer, we discovered that the implant’s tiny data core was free of any information. Totally blank. Furthermore, the alloy and the model in question hadn’t been in circulation for years.

Typing on the keyboard, I explained my only hypothesis: “Maybe he was a ward or raised in a military camp. There are three of them around us—on C7, C9 and C13.” On the main monitor, the isometric 3D colored plan highlighted the active bases around Ceres City. There was also the old Ceres11 Customs Office and the nearby factory, but both premises had been closed for years and looked gray on the screen.

“To say it’s shady would be an understatement,” Ali admitted. “Unfortunately, with this Captain Dickhead around, our room for maneuver is greatly reduced.” She then yawned as I realized that we hadn’t slept for two days. “I suggest we take a snooze in the cockpit for the rest of the afternoon. When Ceres switches back to its night cycle, we should start hunting again.”

I agreed. But, regrettably, our nap in the cockpit didn’t last. I was awakened a few minutes later by a curious rancid smell of sweat and dirt flying through the air. Between two loud snores of my human, I heard a metallic rattling sound. A grenade had been thrown by the half-open roof window and ricocheted against the control panel.

I screamed at the same time Ali took me into her arms. The explosion shook the cockpit and spread shrapnel through most of the instruments alongside our precious cassette collection. The thick foam seats with metal frames had saved our life as none of us was badly hit.

Still stunned by the blast, I witnessed the beginning of the pursuit. Alas, my partner had barely left the hold, shoving the poor F.A.B. out of her way, that she was greeted by several bursts of small caliber machine gun. “Motherfucker!” I heard her yell with grace and restraint. Afterwards, deactivated maintenance robots behaved as a shield as she moved towards the huge coolant reservoirs.

I was back on track. On the left CRT, the computer was tracing the trajectory of the bullets. It went across the smoke dissipated by the explosion of a second grenade. The magenta lines were slowly running through the black background of the screen as calculations were being made. Between the ellipsoidal tanks hung on the walls of the private police station, the dancing tiny heat ghost of our target was visible on the external monitoring software.

“He’s behind the cisterns,” Ali confirmed. “Don’t pin him with the 40! Al-Dhedi will make our bill longer…”

“I don’t care! No one is throwing bombs in my ship! Especially when I’m sleeping inside!”

I was furious. And when a kitty is furious, don’t give him access to a starfighter. In a single continuous burst, the rotary 40 mm cut the reservoirs cleanly, just above the head of the little psychopath that sadly fled the scene. The blue radioactive liquid was pouring into the impoundment.

“Still got a visual,” my partner shouted as an incipient fire was immediately extinguished by a cone-shaped robot that had just passed between her legs. “I’m going after him in the passageway.”

“Wait for me!” I said before storming through the roof window.

I hurtled down the ship armor and quickly hit the ground before sprinting towards the tunnel. I hated running below the standard gravity. I had the feeling to be a straw doll, struggling not to fall over at every step. I envied Ali and her heavy magnetic boots.

The walkway, which turned out to be a crowded tent city, led to the docks. There, all we had to do was to follow the remaining traces of the coolant shining in the artificial darkness. As long as he didn’t plunge into a sewer or an air vent, our assailant couldn’t escape us.

The child was dashing very quickly and shoot at us repeatedly without a second thought. This tactic allowed him to take a comfortable lead even if the night dockers, witnesses of the chase, were a precious help. They knew what we were going after, two of theirs had been the victims of these tiny monsters. “Yallah! He’s rushing over there,” one of them shouted from the top of her crane. “I see him heading towards the compactor!”

“This rascal is scrupulously avoiding any source of light,” I conveyed between two puffs of recycled air. “Either he’s clever, or we have here an explanation as to why they only come out at night. Possibly both!”

I was a few meters ahead of Ali when I heard her firing. The bullets ricocheted off the compactor’s jaws and narrowly missed her target’s legs. If he’d fallen into it, it would have been the end of him in the worst way imaginable. Yet, like a true tightrope walker, the young boy finally reached the other side of the machine’s metal mandible. Tearing his back, he rushed between the barbed wire overlooking a hardened steel rampart, straight into the disused base.

“Bogus! That fellow’s ready for Double Dare,” Ali grumbled, hands as visor. The dockworkers had activated the full power of the halogen ceiling lights in the port area. The artificial night was over for the residents and the customers of the brothels.

“Certainly. But this is another proof of the army’s possible involvement,” I added while my partner was adjusting a new shooting attempt.

The child’s body suddenly collapsed, as if struck by lightning. One second later, we heard the detonation of a rifle. A sniper shot had made him fall on the other side of the rampart.

Captain Braun arrived at the foot of the giant compactor after performing this impressive firing demonstration. He had given up his elegant uniform. Instead, he was wearing an urban camouflage suit with several shades of gray. On his belt hung different types of grenades and a rifle equipped with an infrared scope. It made you wonder if he was hunting a child or a Xenomorph.

Braun had the same scowling face as last time and mumbled after readjusting his green beret: “He tried to get inside the base.”

“In your fucking base,” corrected Ali. “Otherwise… hell of a shot... for a Soviet!”

Braun’s eyes were riveted to the barbed wire that overhung the enclosure wall. After taking such a shot, coupled with the deadly fall, there was no chance of finding our target alive. Yet, the Marine seemed perplexed: “It’s been sealed off for years.”

“These children have implants in their ears. Just like your Marines,” I told him. “Unless they fled from an anchored TMC ship, they come from this shady place.”

“Impossible!” Braun declared. “The plant has been dismantled…”

“As if!” Ali pouted.

It was as the MP had just taken a cold shower. He had a blank stare, and his lips moved without him uttering a word. This story might effectively go even further.

“At least, let’s get Cannibal Junior back to Jumanji!” my human announced while already tightrope walking on the compactor.

But the Marine definitely wanted us out of the picture: “Hey! You can’t go there! It’s a restricted area!”

“I do what I goddamn like, Rasputin!” Ali yelled in response.

Unfazed, the soldier glanced at me.

“You heard the lady? We have a job to do!” I then ran after my copilot before Braun joined us.