His body was running cold. He should not have gone there like that. What did he have in his head, heading straight to the apartment like that? No, wait, that’s not it. What was that robot?

He had just arrived home. He could finally relax. He sure wasn’t going back to Terania Gates any time soon.

He had to sort his mind. Make sense. He pulled out a notepad from thin air and started taking notes. It was just an exercise. A tick. A sort of way to settle his mind.

“First: There was someone who disappeared there. Second: But they were back? What does this mean in the end? Was that robot even telling the truth? No, wait, that was not it. This is the wrong way of sorting things.”

He threw the notepad into the air and it began vanishing as soon as it left his hands. He took a sit on his table instead.

“Who was the boy who disappeared? Also, why was that robot following me from the beginning? These are the questions I should be answering…”

That’s better! He felt relieved. A higher position really did make his mind clear, forget about taking notes from now on. Better note that down so he does not forget it.

“No. Forget second question. I won’t mess up with any robots. Especially when they're already looking for me. If they wanted anything with me, they would have come after me…”

Play it safe. Don’t get into more trouble than he already was getting into. That’s it.

All he needed to know was the first question. What really happened there? Everything else had already been confirmed.

When was the last time that he heard of people disappearing connected to persistence intelligence again?

“The last case you have made a note was four years ago. It happened on Earth. Would you like to recover the details?”

Hmm. That long ago, huh? He wondered why it was that it had been so long since the last case.

“Give me a list of the last five cases, including this one.”

He prompted for his personal assistant to refresh his memory, just in case. Listening to its voice was soothing for a change.

“Terania Gates, T-5 days ago; Earth, Azerbaijan, T-3250 days ago; Moon, Luna, T-3290 days ago; Earth, E.U., T-3327 days ago; Earth, India, T-3350 days ago.”

Indeed, things had gone quiet for quite a while. Why did someone disappear this time? Actually, he would not even be sure it was related to it if it were not for his tip. The place and occasion had nothing in common.

Also, he had already forgotten about these things. They never brought him any income, on the contrary. His recent misadventure in a rich’s land proved that.

Who would have thought that a simple consciousness transference these days could be so expensive?! Also, what’s up with all these nonsensical taxes they were laying one atop each other?

All he had wanted to do was a short jump from Mars to the Oort Cloud with his Avatar, not move his domicile! Yet he had to pay so many server transfers that it would have been easier to buy storage for himself on Terania Gates’ Server… right?

“Check how much is the Terania Gates’ storage price these days.”

“Terania Gates’ Server sided storage comes as cheap as —”

‘Shut up, now’

Nope, he did correctly. Whoever thought that it was a good idea to buy a new virtual home at a privately owned piece of rock in space can go and die.

No wonder they still used human labour over there. It would cost him as much as three years of his income, sans taxes, to buy just a small room!

His looked around. His “home” had 5 m³, which he could set however he liked. The walls were covered in bookshelves these days, but all he had to do was buy some new templates and it would look great again!

Why bother with buying, though? He had always been a man of action. Too much money spent at home and he would not have enough for doing the things he really wanted. He never really spent that much time at home anyway!

But he needed to make money. That short trip of his had cost two thirds of his savings, and he was not going to fare for long like that. It was time for his “side job”, or actually, these days, it was his main jig, unfortunately.

It was time to search for famous people and dis them. Or rather, to find out more about their private life they did not like sharing so much.

With a heavy sigh, the room turned dark.

(24-02-23: Minor English Edit.)