It's a great life if you can afford it.

He sent Gorby the vid message once the Aero-car was a float and placed the call to Jewels.

“Star Corporation, detectives’ offices.”

Jewels must not be answering her calls today. “Hey, Sarah can I speak to Jewels?”

Sarah squinted into the vidfone. “Mr. O’Neil, you’ve got some nerve.” He probably deserved that when he left Star Corp he left every part of that life behind him.

“Yeah, I suppose I do. Is Jewels in?”

“Miss Devonshire is on a case. And if she wasn’t I still wouldn’t patch you in.”

“Look this is business, I need the professional courtesy of a closed case file.”

“I’ll see if I can find a cock roach.”

He was beginning to think Jewels took their break up harder than he thought. “Funny, I need a copy of the Jordan case faxed to me if it’s not too much trouble.”

She began clicking at her keyboard. “The Jordan case, no trouble at all…”

“Thank you for doing this.” O’Neil interrupted.

“The records are sealed at the family's request.” She smiled big into the vidfone.

She was pressing the disconnect button as he stopped her.

“Can you tell Jewels I called?”

“No.” She said as the call ended.

The Aero-car sat down gently in front of his office and he was back inside within a few moments.

The light on his vidfone was flashing; he pressed the button and rolled a cigarette.

“Hey man.” It was Gorby. ”Looks like you have a case.” O’Neil wasn’t looking at the vid screen because he was busy exhaling into a bag. Tobacco was strictly illegal so you had to hide the smoke as well as everything else.

“The message is legit. So the way I see it either SallyBell has started placing calls from the other side or he wasn’t dead when Jewels found the body.” He pointed again at something on his computer screen, which would have made sense to O’Neil even if he had been looking.“ The message is short though, see right here. Maybe they got cut off, I don’t know, but this wasn’t everything.”

“Can you check with SallyBell, and see how long the call was?”

“Yeah I guess but it’s going to cost me, I know a little hack who works there who’ll do anything after enough bourbon, and a weekend in the mountains.”

“Start her with the bourbon, I’ll see what I can do about the escape.” He placed the cigarette but in a jar of water and closed the lid tight. “Go easy on me I only got my fee plus half so we can’t run the expenses to high.”

“I know you got double.” He ad already hacked O’Neil’s files before he checked the call out.

“Don’t you trust me, Gorby?”

“Of course Darien, but I also know you. So make the weekend first class, ya cheap bastard.” O’Neil closed the vidfone and started planning his next move.

Things weren’t making a lot of sense to O’Neil right at the moment. Apparently Chandler had faked his own death, and the successfully disappeared, not a small feat in the chipped world. After doing this for some reason he chose to make contact with his sister.

It was clear from their meeting that there wasn’t any love lost when Chandler disappeared. From the way he saw it Ms. Jordan barely tolerated her twin and was probably more worried about the scandal this might cause than his safety. She made sense, in a Machiavellian way, but why did he come back. That’s what O’Neil couldn’t figure.

The place to start would be Jor-Tech; maybe the family fortune wasn’t what it appeared, at least that was as good a place as any.

“Thank you for seeing me on such short notice, Mr. Murty.” O’Neil extended his hand to the balding 70 something Indian man behind the mahogany desk.

“Not at all, but I must confess I’m not sure why you are here.” They both sat down.

“Ms. Jordan has asked me to investigate Mr. Jordan’s unfortunate circumstances.”

“Yes I’m aware of the details, but you see I’m not sure why you are here. Mr. Jordan’s role here was merely symbolic.” O’Neil smiled and nodded at his host.

“I gathered from my research that he didn’t have a head for business.”

“That would be putting it mildly, I honestly can’t remember the last time he used his office. Ms. Jordan controlled the family's interest in Jor-tech.”

“What exactly is the family's interest?”

“Jor-tech is the world’s leader in universal tissue donation, genetic modification, as well as the owner of hundreds of other companies,” Slid a digital reader towards O’Neil. ”Here’s record of all of our holdings as a corporate entity.” O’Neil pretended to scan the document.

“So it’s mostly tech stuff?”

“Primarily yes, but not only we own several vidfone companies and security firms like Star corp.”

O’Neil nodded, nodded politely.

“We purchase any company that would appear to be able to benefit our interest.”

“And Chandler wasn’t interested in this I’m surprised.’

“As you said he didn’t have a head for business. Personally I think if he couldn’t swallow, smoke, or insert it he wasn’t interested.”

“That would agree with the press reports” O’Neil thought.

“In fact Chandler even signed his shares over to his sister in exchange for an allowance, so he had more time to find himself.”

He slid another reader towards O’Neil.  Who glanced down at the reader, it was a standard deed issuing all control of the family interest to Chase. The paper work looked proper and it had been signed and duly witnessed.

“Could I get a print out of this for my records?” He slid the reader back.

Murty plugged it into a port on his desk, as a printer behind him started humming.

“I’d like to see his office if that would be alright.” He stood up moving away from the desk.

“I’ll have Sachi show you the way.” His assistant came in and escorted O’Neil to a spacious office with a beautiful view of the lake.

“Will there be anything else?” Sachi asked.

“When was the last time Mr. Jordan was here? He asked starting to appraise the office. It might as well have been a new suite since it was clear it had almost never been used.

“They both were here for the documents, I notarized them. That was eight months ago.” He scratched his head. ‘Outside of that I can’t say.” He left O’Neil to investigate the office.

He ran a tiny probe along the desk; time dating of the Dna showed that no one had been at the desk for over a year. Even with the high tech robo-cleaners it was pretty rare that all of the stray human particles would be gone unless of course, the desk had just been unwrapped, or the scan was right.  The only part of the office that showed any human contact was the wet bar, and although it was clear it had been used frequently, the dates said not recently.

“Interesting...” O’Neil thought. “For a while he was here every night drinking Manhattans, but that was a year ago.” He moved to the central computer and saw that it was clean as the desk, not even an entry to the drive in over a year. Gorby could tell him if it had been erased, so he scanned an imprint of the drive.

He walked past Sachi’s desk as he was leaving.

“When Mr. Jordan used to come in…” Sachi looked up from his computer screen. “Where did he go when he left?”

“Fred's new life temple.” Sachi said distractedly.

“So he wasn’t that absent,” O’Neil thought. “And he liked raw food and drag shows.”

“I’m thinking about getting into corporate security, I hear the pay is better.” O’Neil paused to look around they foyer. ”How secure is the private Ethernet here? I’d like to know what I’m up against.”

“Sachi smiled, “We have the latest linus357 secure system. It’s completely impenetrable, and we own the company that makes it.  There’s no work here for you, you might want to see if Star Corp is hiring. I hear they still have benefits.”

“So I’ve been told.” O'Neil said as the elevator doors opened.

Most people new Fred’s new life temple by reputation only, O’Neil had planned to keep it that way for himself, but you have to follow the trail to catch game. He sat down on an oversized cushion in the back of the room and glanced down at the menu.

A young woman, or so he thought, you could never be sure at Fred’s, approached the table.

“What’ll you have?” She said in an ethereal voice.

He looked a little closer at the menu; nothing on it was cooked to protect the live enzymes. The theory was the overly processed food everyone else ate was killing them slowly.

“I’m partial to a mock beef and rye.” He looked back down at the menu. “I guess I’ll just have a water.”

“Would you like to see the water menu?”

“The water menu,” he said cautiously. ” No I’ll just have whatever’s cheapest.”

“Here for the show, are you. You didn’t seem the type.”

“The show and I’m looking for a friend.” A drag queen was on center stage singing a poorly mixed version of a classic oldies song called, Dancing Queen.

“Most people here can be really friendly for a price. Tell me what your looking for and I’ll see if I can find the type.” The waitress knelt down next to him and whispered in his ear. “Or maybe I’m your type.”

“Flattered as I am,” he said removing her hand from his lap.“An old friend of mine, Chandler Jordan, told me I could find what I was looking for here.” The waitress furrowed her brow looking at O’Neil.

“I just didn’t have much time to come in, and then with his death I felt a little odd.” Her brow relaxed.

“Chandie had a special room behind those doors, “It’ll cost you to get in.” She slipped a credit reader onto O’Neil’s lap. After the transaction was done they walked to the private room.

He wasn’t sure what to expect after having read what he did about Chandie, but this wasn’t it. In the center of the room was a large overstuffed chair, surrounded by computer scanners and VR goggles.

“Have a seat and I’ll tell it to run Chandie’s program.” He sat in the chair looking at the monitor in front of him.

“Once the imaging stops you put on the goggles. You’ve paid for thirty minutes when that times up tell it to restart and we’ll bill your chip,”

“Uh thanks, I think thirty minutes will be enough.”

“It is for most men, but I’d had hopes for you cutie.”

The waitress dimmed the lights as she left.

“Imaging beginning, please look straight ahead;” said a dislocated computer voice. A light shot out of one of the machined and began tracing O’Neil’s face.

“Turn to the left please.” So he did. The light traced the side of his face.

“Now to the right.” The lights turned off.

“Imaging complete. Relax and enjoy your experience.” He placed the goggles on and prepared himself to experience Chandler’s fantasy.

A handsome man in his mid-forties walked into the VR room. “You’ve been a naughty girl haven’t you?”

O’Neil felt himself nod as the woman in virtual reality did the same.

“Yes I have daddy,” the VR woman said as she started undressing. “Yes I have.” O’Neil was puzzled, with Jordan’s money, he could have paid for live shows, he didn’t have to come here to watch badly written VR porn. O’Neil felt his body start to tingle as the couple engaged in the erotic drama.

Even if he was afraid to act it out with a real person he had his own VR studios. “It just didn’t make any sense...” O’Neil thought, “Why go to all this trouble, and with an ugly babe?” She was truly the ugliest woman he had ever seen, and yet somehow familiar. He sat back to watch the film and try to figure it out, which was difficult with the distractions of the electrodes, then it came to him. The woman was him.

“Oh my God, he wanted to be a woman.” I guess there was more to it than the x y switch. He took off the goggles and left the room.

The waitress was standing by the door to greet him on the way out. ”Ten minutes, I figured you’d last longer than that.” She looked down and snickered.

“I know a good therapist, if you need her.” He smiled at O’Neil as she moved closer and whispered in his ear again, “I also know a temporary transdermist if you’d like to try this for real.”

O’Neil moved closer placing his arm around the waitress. “I thought I was a disappointment.” He whispered.

“I could always use a quick buck,” she said licking at O’Neil’s ear. He slipped his hand into the front pocket of the waitress’s apron pulling out her personal credit pad. He held his hand just above the reader.

He typed five hundred on the pad. “Was that Chandie’s thing?”

Eager to make 500 standing she answered. “No, he only watched in the booth.” O’Neil pressed firmly on the pad as he ran his other hand down the front of the apron.

“Can I have a copy?” He whispered

“No after he died some guy from star corp. came and subpoenaed it, took the whole hard drive.” She exhaled quickly.

“That’s too bad.” O’Neil said as he pulled away.

“What about us?” Breathed the waitress.

“Sorry you’re not my type.”

Straightening the apron he said, in a male voice “Then that’ll be 20 bucks for the water.”

“I knew she had balls,” he thought. He left Fred’s hoping that when he got home he would have a call from Jewels, if not a relaxing evening at home to ponder the new information probably couldn’t hurt.