Reality Hack Read online

  ‘Uh… Well… Yeah, I guess,’ Nisa replied, grimacing. ‘That makes it sound–’

  ‘Good,’ Spike said. There was a squawk of surprise from Jenna. Nisa would have joined her, but she was too busy feeling shocked.

  ‘I was, uh, expecting a bit more… reaction,’ Nisa said finally.

  ‘Well, I always thought your talents were wasted in that crappy fast-food joint,’ Spike told her. ‘At least you’ll be using your degree. What is it they’ve got you doing, exactly?’

  ‘Something to do with analysing crime statistics. I’m not a statistician, but they seemed to think I’d be good enough.’

  ‘You are.’ He leaned forward. ‘There’s also the other aspect. You’ll be on the inside. You’ll be the perfect spy.’

  Nisa grinned at him. ‘I’d kind of like to keep this job. It pays real money.’

  ‘You just, y’know, keep your eyes open.’

  ‘Sure, Spike, I can do that.’

  ‘Because they’ll leave all their secrets lying around to be seen by the new girl,’ Wallace commented wryly.

  ‘She’ll have access to the PND,’ Spike replied, ‘maybe HOLMES. Well, they replaced that with the second version, but that’s the crime scene management system. They input data on anything serious to that to handle major crime scenes. It does disaster planning stuff too. And the PND…’

  ‘Police National Database,’ Nisa said. ‘It’s their Big Brother system of data on people and cars, stuff like that.’

  ‘You do listen to me sometimes.’

  ‘Occasionally I even try to remember what you said. I’ve no idea what they’re actually going to give me access to. Don’t get your hopes up.’

  ‘I’m not hoping, but… Well, you never know what you might see. You’re looking at crime statistics? Maybe you should see if you can detect any anomalies in the data.’

  Nisa tried to keep the frown off her face. She was going to have to look into the statistics anyway; Spike was going to ask her about them and she probably needed to be able to bore everyone rigid to keep her cover. What if there was something about the crime statistics that could help detect the stuff XC was interested in?

  ‘I’m not sure I’m that good a statistician,’ she said.

  ‘Maybe it’s time to brush up then,’ Spike suggested.

  Tower Hamlets, June 22nd.

  There was a cat watching her as she walked past the new flats on St Paul’s Way. Nisa had let herself drink more than usual, given that she did not need to work until Monday, and the pair of green eyes staring at her from behind the temporary barriers almost went unseen.

  When she did see them, she giggled, came to a stop, and bent down. ‘Hey, Puss. Shouldn’t you be at home? Curled up somewhere?’

  The cat stared back at her, unmoving. It was black, almost invisible since the nearest working street lamp was across the road. Nisa was fairly sure it was a female, just from the way it looked at her, and maybe the rather sleek, slim body. It was not large, maybe even a little on the small side for a domestic cat. The eyes though, the eyes were a really vibrant green, and she could have sworn the thing was smiling.

  ‘Well, I’m going home,’ Nisa told it. ‘Night, Cat.’

  She straightened up and started walking again. She had made it to the corner with Baythorne Street when she caught a movement out of the corner of her eye. The cat was sitting on a litter bin there, cleaning a paw.

  ‘Can’t be the same cat,’ Nisa muttered to herself and kept on walking.

  Except that the same green eyes were watching her from the low wall around the car park below her building. It would have had to have cut across the grounds of the school to get there, but it could have beaten her, maybe. If it had run very fast, or cut through the building somehow…

  ‘Are you following me?’ she asked the cat. All she got in reply was a stare and a slight tilt of the head, but it dropped off the wall on silent paws as she walked past and hurried along beside her as she walked toward the tower. ‘You can’t come in, you know?’ she told it.

  This time there was a soft mewl from the region of her feet and she glanced down. It did look a little skinny and there was no collar.

  Nisa sighed. ‘Look, I don’t have any cat food. I’ve got a tin of tuna that must be near its use-by date, but in the morning you’re going to have to go. I’ve got enough on my plate without a cat owning me.’

  There was a satisfied sort of prrt sound from below and she let it dart through the door ahead of her when she opened it. To her surprise, it headed for the lift and waited there patiently while she hit the call button. It was certainly a well-behaved sort of moggy.

  ‘Moggy’ seemed an inappropriate term, Nisa thought, as the lift went up and the cat sat there near her feet, apparently quite happy with the weird, travelling box. It held itself up straight, like a proper lady, and it looked like it had a pedigree of some sort.

  ‘You an escapee or something?’ Nisa asked. ‘Did you run away? Or was it some fiendish tom that lured you from home with promises of rampant sex and then dumped you on the street?’ The cat gave her what could only be described as a long-suffering look. ‘Maybe not then.’

  The tuna was not out of date. Nisa picked through it to make sure there were no bones hidden among the grey-pink flesh, forked the fish out onto a saucer, and put it down on the floor in the tiny space she had as a kitchen. The cat give the fish a sniff, almost seemed to nod, and then looked up at Nisa and gave her a meow before starting to eat. It was almost like she was saying ‘thank you.’

  ‘Well, you’re a polite sort of cat,’ Nisa said. Then she headed out to the bedroom to strip and take her make-up off. The animal had been hungry, that was for sure. The tuna had been vanishing at a rapid rate. Obviously it had been on the street, and going hungry, for a while. Well, it could not stay. Definitely. It looked like it had breeding so maybe someone was looking for it. She would check with the local police station in the morning.

  Feeling tired, she collapsed onto the bed and closed her eyes, intending to cover herself after a while. Then she heard the bed springs give a soft protest and something furry brushed her arm. Opening her eyes and turning her head, she found the cat staring at her from near her shoulder.

  ‘There is no way you’re sleeping on the bed,’ she said.

  Ignoring her, the cat settled against her arm and began to purr. Nisa gave a sigh and prepared herself to move. Except that it was really pleasant lying there with the cat purring happily against her arm. She closed her eyes again. It was weird how relaxing that purr was. Kind of soporific. Kind of… nice. Warm. Pleasant. Really kind of…

  ~~~

  Nisa opened her eyes. At some point she must have got under the covers, because they were on top of her. She could not really remember doing so, but there it was.

  The cat was nowhere to be seen, but it could not have got out of the flat. She rolled out of bed and found herself something to wear, shorts and a camisole top, before padding out of the bedroom. She checked the lounge and kitchen, but there was no black feline snoozing anywhere. Neither was the cat in the bathroom when she went to brush her teeth and do a proper job of washing away last night’s make-up.

  ‘Where’ve you got to?’ Nisa mused aloud, but there was no answering meow and late breakfast was beckoning.

  With a bowl of cereal in her stomach and her first coffee of the day on its way there, Nisa settled down in the front room to practise her light spell. Kellog had said she should work on that one and not try anything else for a while. It would teach her the basic form of spells dealing with the summoning of energy. Summoning energy, he had said, would come in use, and she had got the distinct impression that he was not talking about lighting up dark rooms.

  She was busy repeatedly attempting to summon up her little ball of light, and discovering she could make it work a little more than half the times she tried, when she realised she was being watched.

  ‘You’re back,’ she said to the cat.

  The ca
t looked back at her as if to say, ‘I was never gone.’ It was sitting on the carpet a couple of feet away and seemed entirely unconcerned about the ball of glowing energy floating above Nisa’s palm.

  ‘It’s okay. I mean, I’m not great at this, but it’s safe. I haven’t set light to the carpet or anything.’

  The cat stood up, padded calmly over, and gave Nisa’s index finger a lick. It had a softer tongue than most of the cats she had been licked by, but it still rasped.

  ‘Okay, so magic obviously doesn’t bother you,’ Nisa said. ‘You do look like you should be sitting on a broom behind an old woman in a pointy hat.’ That got her a meow, though what the sound meant was cat-inscrutable. ‘Okay, well I have one more tin of tuna. Then I’m going out to see if I can find out where you came from. You must belong to someone.’

  The cat curled under her arm, rubbing its back across her hand, and then curled around her leg before giving her elbow a head-rub.

  ‘No, you don’t belong to me,’ Nisa told it, though she had the weird feeling she was kidding herself.

  ~~~

  Limehouse Police Station was a fairly typical, yellow-brown brick blockhouse structure with an unhelpful desk sergeant. To be fair to the middle-aged man behind the counter, he was not being unhelpful on purpose. No one, however, considered a lost cat, even one which looked like it should have a pedigree, a matter for the police. Maybe she should consider checking local shop windows, or calling the RSPCA, or Battersea Dogs and Cats Home.

  Well, Nisa had tried Battersea before walking to the station. Of course they had had missing cats reported, but they thought the distinctive eyes would have been mentioned, and no one had reported a lost cat with vibrant green eyes to them.

  Well, Cat was clearly going to be staying longer. Nisa figured she could check some windows as she walked back via the shops on St Paul’s Way. She was going to need cat food… Oh God, was she going to have to buy a litter tray?!

  ‘How come the damn cat has to fixate on me?’ she muttered as she marched toward home. ‘She couldn’t find a nice old lady to leech off. Oh no, gotta go for the tall blonde on the top floor of a tower block.’ She got an odd look from someone walking past and frowned. ‘And now she’s got me talking to myself. Great.’

  The mini supermarket she got a bag of dry food from did indeed have a couple of notices about lost cats in the window. There was a missing ginger tom who answered to the name of Sparkles. Nisa imagined she knew why he had bolted: what cat wanted to be known as Sparkles? The other cats probably made fun of him when he went out looking for girl cats. ‘Oh look, it’s Sparkles,’ they would say, and then do little kitty snickers behind their paws. There was also a white female named Duchess, which brought on the suggestion that Sparkles had run off to Paris with her. They were probably in a rooftop garret playing jazz piano as Nisa read their wanted posters.

  What there was not was a black cat with green eyes, pedigree optional. So Nisa tried asking the shopkeeper whose name was Jones even though she was pretty sure he was Indian.

  ‘Black cat with green eyes?’ Mister Jones mused. ‘No, not had anyone looking for anything like that.’ He tapped his index finger against his lip, the note Nisa was using to pay for the cat food waving in his other hand. ‘Mrs Carew has a cat, because she buys food here. Haven’t seen her for a couple of weeks. Maybe she’s lost her cat.’

  ‘I don’t suppose you know where she lives?’

  Jones shook his head. ‘Always pays cash, like you. If she paid by card I might know, but she always pays cash. Must live around here though. Not much point in using your local supermarket if you’re not local.’

  ‘Carew?’ Nisa asked.

  ‘Jenny, I think,’ Jones said with a nod and rang up the purchase.

  Well, she had a potential name, even if it was a long shot. And tomorrow she would have access to the Police National Database. Somehow she doubted that Kellog would consider hunting for the owner of a lost cat to be correct use of police systems, but she could ask.

  ~~~

  The cat eyed the bowl of dry food and then looked up at Nisa. The question was apparent: ‘Where’s my tuna?’

  ‘This is good for you,’ Nisa told the cat. ‘And I can’t afford to feed you tuna every day. Well, not yet anyway. Maybe when I get my first pay in, but right now this is what I’ve got. I’ll spring for some Sheba or something and dance through the lounge in bare feet when I get paid, okay?’

  Apparently mollified, the cat began munching the biscuits. Even to Nisa they sounded dry and she thought to put down a saucer of water, which got her a meow and made her feel unaccountably appreciated. Heading back into the lounge, she curled up on the sofa with her new laptop and began going through websites on statistical analysis.

  After about fifteen minutes the cat walked in, but Nisa did not notice until the animal was curling up against her legs as though this was the natural place to sit. Nisa looked down at the cat, and the cat peered at the computer screen before turning green eyes on Nisa.

  ‘Have you got a name?’ Nisa asked. She got a meow back. ‘Yeah, but I can’t call you that. I mean, I’d probably pronounce it wrong. I mean, your last owner had to call you something.’ Which got her another meow, about the same as the first one. ‘Thanks. Well, I’m not giving you another name. You’re Cat until I get you back where you belong, okay?’

  Cat rubbed her head against Nisa’s leg and then settled her chin on her paws. Nisa decided that that was an instruction to get back to work, so she did.

  Westminster, June 23rd.

  ‘What has Mrs Carew done to attract your attention?’ Kellog asked as they sat in the small lounge reserved for lunch in the Rabbit Hole. They had spent the last four hours in something which Nisa took to be a conference room since it came with a huge, wall-mounted TV and a long table. They had studied police procedures. It had been boring, but Nisa had felt she should concentrate because she did not want to screw up in the future.

  ‘I think I’ve got her cat,’ Nisa replied.

  ‘Explain.’

  The man gave a new meaning to terse. ‘A cat followed me home Saturday night. Black cat, bright green eyes. I think it’s a pedigree one, but no collar and no name tag. Must be someone’s. So I checked Battersea and Limehouse Station, and then I checked the local supermarket and the guy there said that a woman named Jenny Carew used to buy cat food there and hadn’t for a couple of weeks. It’s a long shot and I know it’s not exactly what the PND is for, but–’

  ‘We need you to help investigate supernatural crimes and incidents,’ Kellog interrupted. ‘Starting with something mundane is good training. You’ve begun well, and I’ll let you look up Mrs Carew to continue that line, but you’ve missed an option which is worth considering if this lead doesn’t pan out.’

  ‘What option?’ Kellog just looked at her, which obviously meant she was supposed to work it out for herself. She frowned. The woman on the phone at Battersea had said something… She might find the owner if the cat had been… ‘A chip! The cat might have been chipped.’

  Kellog gave her a nod. ‘Any vet should be willing to scan for it if you take the cat in. If there is a chip, they should be able to get you the owner’s address. We’ll check the Carew woman after lunch. Hanson would skin you alive if she caught you eating in the computer room.’

  Somehow Nisa did not think he was being figurative. ‘What’s on the menu after that? More procedures?’

  ‘Something more esoteric. You’ll be learning about Bugs. And when your lunch is firmly settled, we’ll be doing judo.’

  ‘You’re going to teach me to fight?!’

  ‘I’m going to teach you how to avoid getting killed,’ Kellog replied flatly.

  ~~~

  Jennifer Anne Carew had no criminal record, but she was in the PND, specifically, the record of her death was in there since she had lived alone, died in her home, and it had been three days before the body was discovered. There had been a routine investigation, but the autopsy had co
ncluded the death was natural causes. She had been eighty-three and her heart had given out.

  ‘So, she’s dead,’ Kellog said. ‘What now?’

  ‘Well… It could still be her cat, but if it is, she’s not going to tell me. I’ll… go over there and talk to her neighbours. Maybe they’ll recognise the description.’

  Kellog gave a nod. ‘I’d suggest getting the ID chip checked as well.’ As far as Nisa could tell, that was about as high as praise got from the man. ‘Right, back to the conference room. It’s time to introduce you to esoteric zoology.’

  The TV screen was there for presentations, not watching the football at weekends. Kellog even had a little remote control gizmo which seemed to drive a computer somewhere, and that had been set up with a slide presentation on the basic types of entities XC had to deal with. The first slide showed an upside-down tree structure with ‘Bugs’ written above it, branching down to five types: Daath Beings/Glitches, Fairies, Skinchangers, Spirits, and Vampires. Spirits was further divided into Demons, Elementals, Ghosts, and Other.

  ‘Daath Beings?’ Nisa asked.

  ‘All in good time,’ Kellog replied.

  ‘Okay… Fairies? Seriously?’

  Kellog clicked a button and the slide changed to one headed ‘Fairies.’ ‘Actually, most of them dislike the term. Don’t use it to their faces.’

  There were, apparently, a number of subdivisions. Trooping fairies liked company, but others were solitary. There were Seelie and Unseelie, which was not the same as good and evil, but the Unseelie were generally more malign.

  ‘The ones we see these days are almost universally small,’ Kellog told her. ‘They still get the odd Redcap in the Scottish border regions, but you won’t normally see anything bigger than a cat.’

  ‘Are there any in London?’ Nisa asked.

  ‘We get fairies around the parks. What you’d think of as fairies: small, winged. If you get acorns thrown at you from a tree, it probably isn’t squirrels.’

  The next slide skipped on to Skinchangers which were generally not, as Nisa had expected, werewolves. Werewolves and other such legends tended to be the result of magicians using charmed animal pelts to change shape. The practice went back so far no one knew when it had started. It was one of the primary indications that, while magic was not normal to The System, it was also not entirely unplanned. People had to have been doing ritualised magic when The System began, likely a holdover from previous iterations where it had featured more strongly.