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The location for the meeting was a virtual security room with so many anti-hacking programs running through it, Trevor expected it would take him a few hours to make his way through them without setting off any alarms. He was impressed. Not every precinct took virtual security this seriously.

"Inspector Pakesh?" a female Mandrill monkey greeted him, materializing before him. "I'm detective Ansoleaga, I'll be supervising the meeting, please don't move while I scan you."

Trevor didn't react to the scan. His Pakesh overlay was solid enough to pass all but his and Uncle's level of scrutiny. It was basically him, but with any connection to the Orrs removed.

The monkey offered him her hand. "Welcome to the Wichita Secure Meeting Room. I believe you are here to see the Power prisoner?"

"Logan Power, yes."

"And that is," she consulted a paper, and Trevor smiled as it reminded him of Bobby and having every system message represented by some physical object or another instead of just appearing in his field of vision. "In relation to a series of consent crimes committed in Vegas fifteen years ago." She tilted an ear, looking at him.

Trevor shrugged. "The guy's been really good at remaining unnoticed until you caught him. I was going through the file archive, seeing if any new information had been filed that no one had noticed. I'm sure you have someone doing that in Wichita too. When I took one of his old crimes, the notification he'd been arrested was linked, so I pulled the others and contacted you." The fib was minor enough, and he had had to go through the archives to find all of Logan's crimes.

She nodded, and a table appeared. "I'm sure you're familiar with the procedures, but I still have to say it." A chair appeared on Trevor's side. "Do not touch the prisoner. Do not leave anything within the construct upon departure. Do not accept anything from the prisoner. The construct is programmed to filter anything spoken that comes across as code, so if the prisoner's speech is garbled, know he's trying to get into your head, literally. The prisoner is classed as a consent criminal with hacking knowledge, so do not let your guard down. We haven't had anyone bypass the filter, but that doesn't mean it can't be bypassed. Do you understand the rules?"

"I do."

"Then, once I leave, the prisoner will appear on his side of the table. Do you have any questions?"

"What kind of overlay does Logan have on for the meeting?"

She consulted her paper. "Nothing more than the standard first and last-ditch security to keep a prisoner from passing or receiving programs that would let him escape custody. Basically, who you see is who the prisoner is."

"Thank you." Trevor sat on the chair to indicate he was ready. The Mandrill turned and vanished.

A raccoon materialized on the other side of the table. He looked old, was the first thing Trevor noted. Every picture he'd seen had Logan looking in his forties, looking a lot like Bobby, but the man before him looked to be close to two hundred, with his lackluster paling fur. If the virtual was accurate, he might also be developing eye problems. There was a milkiness to the iris that spoke of--Trevor did a quick search--the onset of cataract.

"When's the last time you saw a medical table?" Trevor asked, the surprise at seeing someone with something so simple to fix being too much.

The raccoon shrugged. "I've been busy." He also sounded old, and Trevor noted his hands trembled slightly.

Trevor consulted the list of crimes Logan had engaged in to see if this might have been part of a setup for a con. He did find a few instances of him being older, but nothing to this extent. And he'd been quiet for the last two years. Or rather, Trevor amended, nothing he'd done had been reported.

"Do you know why I'm here?" Trevor asked. As much as he wanted to jump right into asking about Bobby he had to go through the motions of why he was here.

The raccoon let out a breath that had a hint of a wheeze to it, and Trevor stopped his concern. This guy was a master at manipulating people. He had to be careful not to be swept into his act.

"You disagree with how I live my life," Logan said, sounding bored.

"You took millions from others without their consent," Trevor replied, not having any problem sounding offended.

The raccoon rolled his eyes. "They consented." He smiled. "In fact, they were more than happy to give me their money, and I never promised them I'd be able to make them richer. I just told them I had a lot of experience with riches, which I do."

"Consent given without full disclosure or as the result of falsehood isn't consent. As per the Orr regulatory status of--"

"Oh please don't start with status this, status that. I know what they are." Another smile. "I probably know them better than you do."

"Then you know how you broke the laws."

"Skirted. Let's say it's more skirting that actually breaking, okay? I mean, it's not like I hurt anyone."

Trevor narrowed his eyes. "You seem to think taking what someone earned doesn't cause them hardship."

The raccoon snorted. "Like they know what hardship is. Did any of them grow up not able to feed themselves of their sister? Do they know what it's like to have to look for a place warm enough so you won't freeze to death overnight in winter?" He paused, looked down. "Do they know what it feels like to have your baby sister not wake up one morning?" He looked at Trevor, eyes hard. "No, they don't so don't come and tell me how me taking a bit of their easily earned money cause them hardships." The man was good. Trevor had felt empathy for him as he told of his hardships growing up.

"But you don't," Trevor said. "Logan Power, born September nineteenth, 2494 to Jerome Power, another conman." Trevor looked over the information displayed. "Something of a family business. I can go back to almost as far as the cataclysm and every one of your ancestors did the same thing. But to get back on track, you're an only child, and you had a roof over your head and food on your plate the entire time growing up. So that story might work on people who don't know you, but I have access to your file. I won't say you had it easy, but I wouldn't describe your youth as hardship either."

The look Logan gave Trevor was almost amused. The smirk had too much satisfaction in it, so Trevor looked the file over again. Had he missed something? The information was there, but was it correct? Had the system missed signs it had been altered. Unfortunately, he couldn't check that here, what he had were copies and only the originals would have traces of tampering.

"At least your son isn't following in your footsteps," Trevor said, bringing up the last case Logan was wanted for in Vegas.

The snort stopped the search and Trevor stared at the raccoon. It had been a mocking snort, he was sure of that. And the smirk was back, before being wiped away. No. There was no way Bobby was a conman. Trevor itched to leave and go back through the system, to double-check his research. He didn't want to believe Bobby was a criminal. But that was what conmen counted on, wasn't it? That he'd dismiss evidence because he didn't want to believe it.

Still, he knew Bobby, saw him in an environment where there was no need for a con of any sort. Unless Bobby knew the truth about Trevor? No. No, even if... Fuck.

He glared at the raccoon. "I'm not playing your game. You're not going to make me question who Bobby is."

"Oh, like you know my son," Logan said mockingly. "Let me guess, the bastard had you convinced he's all meek, did he give you the infirm act?" the raccoon snapped his finger. "Or is he pulling the business hopeful on you. He loves that one. I taught it to him, you know, and now, here I am. The asshole just dumped me in here. You'd think he'd have some consideration for his old man."

Trevor almost told the raccoon Bobby was a successful businessman, not hoping to be, to shut him up. But that had been a lie. One Trevor had accidentally exposed when Bobby vanished on his way to meet his father in Wichita. Fuck. Had that been a setup?

He dismissed the construct, breaking three protocols he knew of without even searching, and stood in the dark, trying to breathe. It couldn't be.

No, it could be, but he didn't want it to. Bobby was his friend. But wasn't that what consent abuser did? Insinuate themselves in the lives of others, become friends, then talk them into...something.

Fuck, he hated this. He didn't know how to deal with the betrayal. Trevor didn't think of himself as naïve. He saw too many crimes for that, so he should know if Bobby was pulling a con on him, right? Okay, what he needed to do was start at the beginning.

A notification informed him the Wichita detective wanted to meet. He accepted it.

"Inspector Pakesh, you--" she looked at him. "Are you okay?"

"That guy." Trevor indicated the empty space where the table had been. "Is a menace. He shouldn't be allowed to open his mouth."

She looked at the paper that appeared in her hand. "There's no indication he attempted to hack you."

Trevor let out a bark of laughter that had her staring at him. "He didn't need code to get in my head." He took a couple of breaths to calm himself. "That guy is good. How did you guys even catch him?"

She consulted her paper. "We received a tip telling us where to find him and gave us a list of crimes he was wanted for. Or rather that had happened, but we didn't know he'd done until we could match details once he had him in custody. The initial ID tag didn't come up as him, but as a Bobby Power."

"His son. He mentioned how his dad had managed to copy it when he was a kid and has been using it in his crimes ever since. He had to get a new ID assigned, and even then, Bobby keeps getting called in because he can't get it entirely cut away from him."

"You know his son?"

Trevor sighed, there went any excuses he had to have spoken with Logan. "I do. He went missing a while back, and I've been trying to find him. I've exhausted all other avenues and Bobby went missing on his way, or right after meeting with his father. So I decided to speak to him."

"There's no recorded visit for the prisoner by a family member," she said. "And you should have mentioned you had a connection with the prisoner through his son."

"You wouldn't have authorized the meeting if I had."

"The crimes you 'found'?" she asked, looking at him suspiciously.

"They're real, you can check. But I found them after knowing you had Logan in your custody."

She nodded, made a note on her paper. "I'm going to have to advise your superior of this breach."

"Oh, he's going to love this."

She tilted an ear.

"I'm supposed to be on vacation, with strict orders not to do any work." He rubbed the back of his head. "I might have a habit of overworking myself, or so I'm told."

She hid a smile. "Well, I guess I don't have to tell anyone about this, since nothing went wrong. Did you at least learn anything?"

"That it's possible Bobby is a conman like his father and that I was the mark."

She raised an eyebrow.

"I know I can't trust one word he says, but turns out I don't know Bobby as well as I thought I did and it probably doesn't mean anything like what his father implied."

"But you can't help wondering that it might."

"Yeah, and that's what got me out of there before he could plant the doubt any deeper. Fuck, I hate this. Can I get a copy of every report about his arrest?"

"We already have him, what do you hope to get from them?"

"I don't know, I just... I need to figure this out and more information is always better than less." And if she gave it to him, it meant he wouldn't have to sneak his way into their system for it. Uncle wouldn't like it if he did that. A file transfer notification appeared.

"I don't see that it's going to be a problem. As I said, we have him and this time, he isn't getting out of it."

"This time?" Trevor took the file and stored it.

"Yeah, this isn't the first time he's been arrested, twice it happened in the middle of a crime, but he always managed to get out of it."

"How? I mean, if he was caught red-handed, how did he manage to avoid prison time? Or the work details? Considering the number of crimes he's wanted for, he's definitely looking at a work detail on one of the asteroids."

"Do you real legalese?"

Trevor shook his head, but Terry did. "These reports are full access on the servers?"

"As far as I know. Those the prisoner will be prosecuted for will probably be taken off, but that should leave plenty."

"Thanks, and thanks for not mentioning my visit to my boss. I don't need the aggravation." And Trevor didn't need him talking to his dad. Eric might decide he was due for another trip on the Mercury. Trevor wouldn't survive that boredom.

He stepped into his lobby and took the file out, sitting at his desk. The tip had come from... unknown? How was that even possible? A tip could be sent anonymously, but that just meant the police were under contract not to release the information. For it to be unknown, someone had managed to bypass the Implant ID protocol, and while that was doable, the modifications required to allow it was dangerous. It took someone desperate for it, and you didn't usually find those among the law-abiding corporate citizens.

If Logan had pissed off the wrong criminal element, it could explain the situation he was in. It would certainly explain the tip of unknown provenance. He compared the crimes listed in the tip with those on the server and they matched well enough he made a note to look over the security there. Someone had gotten in.

The arrest report showed Logan had been eating at Attraction, in Wichita with two wealthy businesswomen. They were paying, and the notes indicated that at least for one of them, the meeting was more than business-related. Unknown to her partner, she and Logan had visited before, were intimate, and were discussing him moving in with her. Another phase of the con; or had Logan decided he was too old for it and wanted to retire? Living as a companion to a wealthy woman was certainly better than spending the rest of his years mining an asteroid with minimal tools.

The ID Logan registered as was one Logan Powel, the back story was good enough the officer had to do a biometric check. Logan objected to the full DNA check, but the number of crimes the tip had given was just enough his objections were overruled. Yeah, the tip giver didn't want any chances Logan would walk away this time.

Enough common points were found he was brought in, and under a medical bed examination, six ID tags were found in his DNA, each with a protein trigger to make that one dominant. How long had Logan been at this to be so sophisticated in how he went about impersonating other people. Or was this a family tradition? Something his father or grandfather had come up with and had been perfected over the years? He'd have to look into that.

Having the six ID tags Logan used as a starting point. He programmed them into a search algorithm and immediately got results over the last year. Too many for all of them to be Logan. He added the biometric information. He couldn't use the full DNA, since public systems weren't designed to record more than the tag, but they did record visuals, and putting what Logan looked like, and an allowance for cosmetic differences, let Trevor filter out most anyone else. The one the system had difficulty with was Bobby since Logan had made sure Bobby had many similar physical characteristics. Had that been on purpose? Or because he'd wanted a family resemblance?

With that, he found close to two hundred residence buildings Logan frequented. Many, but not all, were high-end apartments. It seemed that Logan couldn't always afford to live it large. Restaurants were the same, most were the kind of places news shows like to claim was only for the elites, and some were so bottom rung Trevor thought people would be better off eating from a corporate food printer instead, at least then it was just bland, instead of outright unappealing.

As he filed each restaurant to one of Logan's ID tag, looking for a pattern, one came up as an hour old. One of those the filter had missed, obviously, and he'd dismissed it entirely when it registered the reason the filter had missed it was because it was Bobby who had triggered it.

He brought the readout back. Yes, Bobby. Finally, wherever he'd been hiding, he was out now. He called his friend and got an avatar telling him Bobby wasn't currently accepting calls. He told the avatar it was important, but it wouldn't change its mind.

Looking at where Bobby had been seen, he brought up the visuals and his friend was walking into a restaurant called the Peaceful Oasis. He contacted the restaurant and got a polite gopher who informed him that it was policy not to disturb the customers since they came to the Oasis to get away from the hubbub of the outside world with all its connections to the network and other people. She recommended he contact his friend directly and leave a message. She was certain his friend would contact him as soon as he felt like rejoining the world.

She'd been so sweet Trevor found it sickening. The Peaceful Oasis was in Salt City, which was barely an hour north of Vegas, so not quite two from the islands if he didn't want to use his name to override the flight speed limits. Bobby might be done with whatever took him there, but he wouldn't be far.

Trevor was back in the real world, grabbing his belt and running for the door when he caught scent of himself and decided he needed to shower first.