#rrrawrf writes

“I don't have a home,” Rafael says, and as he speaks his parents’ reflections distort and disappear. His hands are empty. 

He stands facing the door, alone, and the diagonal slice of the knife that tore his parents’ image in two and left him with nothing but their legs to lean on hisses, and begins to open.

Rafael wakes up.

“Good morning, Rafael,” Security says when Rafael sits up slowly in bed and rubs at his eyes. As part of Invierno Station’s policing force, Rafael is allowed (required, actually) to have the Security interface in his home, and though he's quietly disconnected and altered many of its automatic information feed protocols, Rafael still likes its cheerful greetings throughout the day. 

It almost makes him feel like he's living with someone who cares when he gets up, or if he has a nice day at work, or when he comes home.

Rafael sighs. 

He forces the breath out, then breathes in deeply, holds it and tells himself I will be patient with Lieutenant Quickdraw today, and then lets the breath out again. I will have a good day at work. I will learn from new experiences. I will adjust a little bit more to the new job. 

“Do you think you'll eat breakfast today?” Security asks, while her information feed sends through average readings of a very organized inspector’s morning routine. Rafael can track it in his augmented vision; according to the mandator information Security sends on to Invierno’s archives, he’s already eating breakfast. 

Leaning back against his pillows, Rafael considers his uniform options for the day--purple socks, or yellow. “Just some caffeine to get me started.”

Lieutenant Quickdraw usually makes them take a mandatory mid-morning break--which is not even step one in his grand scheme to waste as much time as possible while not doing his job, as Quickdraw arrives at work with coffee and varying degrees of lateness--so Rafael might as well use the time rather than wasting it with impatience.

Oh, the impatience is still there, but Rafael knows it's a symptom of his overall worries.

He doesn't like to think about those worries, so he asks, “Security, what kind of breakfast can I get around the station during the break?”

Security highlighted a cheap but reputedly quick and surprisingly tasty sandwich shop around the corner from the station room Rafael works at, out on the main concourse of Invierno Station’s Lower Deck. The three decks of Invierno Station were all connected to the central power core and docking stations, and pointed out in different direction. And while Lower Deck’s main concourse isn’t as well-heeled as Starside or Central, but in Rafael’s opinion, it has the best mix of home system food and the planet’s native cuisines. 

During the course of the morning, Rafael had managed to put away almost all of the quiet discontent gnawing at the back of his mind and muster interest in and excitement for the fish-esque sandwich Security had kindly briefed him on--so if course today is the day the lieutenant inspector doesn't call a mid-morning break. 

Instead, the lieutenant inspector who had the misfortune of mentoring Rafael sweeps into the office an hour late and says, “Rookie, get your things. We've got a murder, and Invierno’s feeds have been tampered with so the culprit is definitely out there somewhere.”

Rafael sits stunned for long enough that Quickdraw claps his hands loudly. “Hop, Rookie!”

Rafael startles into action, pulling on his jacket and then pressing his hand into the bottom of his desk; there's a slight beep in his ear when his credentials are read and accepted, and then he feels the handle of his non-lethal Security weapon in his grip. It comes easily away from the desk. Rafael holsters it quickly and follows Quickdraw to the door, his mind buzzing as he goes.

The lieutenant inspector eyes Rafael’s choice of arms in a potentially critical situation, and then mimes mouthing towards the nearest visual feed Goodbye, Rookie.  

Rafael ignores him. He’s too busy wondering how someone could tamper with Security feeds and think to get away with murder in doing so. It strikes him as thoughtlessly arrogant.

Then he remembers the inelegant boxes of his own design, sitting quietly in his apartment as they busily hijacked and controlled the signals Security uploaded on him movements--and begins to feel the first kernel of a new, unknown and insistent worry. 

While Quickdraw watches the holographic renderings of what can be supposed about the crime, Rafael carefully checks Security’s feeds and sends a separate bot through the house to gather data. It reports no changes in the rooms of the apartment, aside from the few Security personnel who had also walked through, so Rafael redirects the bot to record his own sweep through the house and observations.

There’s an office on the second floor of the unusually large Lower Deck apartment, and Rafael has good feelings about it. He has to cross the kitchen, and though the victim’s body has already been moved and the blood stains are almost certainly only holographic at this point, Rafael still avoids them as he heads for hall beyond and the stairs. 

The office is the first door on his right, and when Rafael opens it and steps in, the bot by his side, like Security’s proper feeds on the room, report him entering an empty office.

Rafael sees a masked and hooded figure hunched over the computer at the desk. They look up at him, features largely concealed, and then relax.

“Ah. You.” It's a woman’s voice, cool and matter of fact. Rafael doesn't hear recognition in it, but the surety of met expectations. 

He freezes by the door. “You know me?”

“Correct.”

“I don't know you.”

“Not relevant.”

“How--” and then Rafael gasps and winces at the pinch in his thigh.

A dart. 

“I didn't kill your victim,” the woman says while Rafael staggers to his knees. “I’m just taking advantage of an opportunity. I’m not the one you want. Remember that, Inspector Rafael.”