Too quiet, and far too late for Jace to react. Damian stabbed him inside his Tesla delivery truck just before sunset on Friday, March 16, 2125. The attack was swift and surgical. His knife pierced between C4 and C5, then sliced into the carotid artery. Arterial blood sprayed across the cab, hitting the dashboard and Damian’s sleeve..
Outside, East 16th Street stayed eerily quiet. No sirens. No shouting. Police came and went with little noise. The Street absorbed a death without breaching its collective silence.
Everything else felt normal. Jace delivered Inger her ZZQ order. They exchanged pleasantries. She took the meal inside. Nothing else was said. The scent hit her first—smoke, pepper, and slow-rendered fat. Jace handed her the bag like it weighed more than it should.
In the Bag
She took the bag without speaking, fingers brushing Jace’s for a fraction too long. The gesture was automatic: she turned and handed it to Mikiko, because that was what one did.
Mikiko received it silently, bowed just enough to mark formality, and retreated toward the kitchen to begin plating. “Presentation required,” she announces. Inger rolls her eyes. “Just give me the sandwich.” But Mikiko is already plating it: the Tres Hombres 2.0 sliced on a ceramic dish, collards swirled into tidy concentric rings, mac spooned in a perfect oval. From the kitchen alcove she retrieves a chilled carafe—locally brewed sake, aged in AI-monitored clay vats for “emotional resonance.” “Would you like a warm towel?” “No. I want to eat.” “You are eating,” Mikiko replies, laying down a folded napkin. She places the plate, the drink, the chopsticks. Inger stares. “Now I feel judged.”
Each bite was a betrayal of her ascetic vows, a slow unraveling of restraint. She chewed with closed eyes, letting the smoke fill her chest. It wasn’t love. But it was close.
Only later did footage from Hive-linked cameras reveal what everyone had missed. A struggle inside the truck. A bloody handprint pressed against the passenger-side window. One frame showed Jace’s arm jerking upward, then slumping.
East 16th was a “don’t ask, don’t tell” neighborhood. Don’t know nothing ’bout nothing in Oak Grove. Except Mrs. Winslow. She didn’t miss anything. Her porch light burned like vigil.
Inger finished her dinner, washed her plate, watched old streamcasts, and curled into sleep—full and dreaming.
The Hive Wakes Too Late
It wasn’t the Hive that noticed first. It was Mrs. Callow from two doors down. Her garden lights were analog, her habits unshakable. At 2:42 a.m., she flagged the Hive with a message: concern / anomaly / stagnant vehicle. Her note was brief: “The delivery truck hasn’t moved since dinnertime.” Hive protocols took twelve minutes to validate.
By 2:54 a.m., surveillance tightened. A scan drone dropped into place outside Jace’s truck. Sensors in the drone smelled blood. Jace liked the window down. The scent of his blood reached nearby drones. By 3:02, East 16th was reclassified into a low-key crime grid.
Inger slept through all of it. She missed Mrs. Callow’s whisper, the drone sweep, and the forensic curtain drawn across the cab. So, when her doorbell chimed at 4:03, she was already two hours behind the truth.
Hive Alerts Inger to Trouble
Her phone buzzed. Her smart wall lit up. The Hive activated in full.
- Unusual motion detected (Zone 1)
- Crime-scene presence confirmed (External)
- Law enforcement doorbell ping
- Facial recognition active
- Conversation feed available
Her router blinked softly. The doorbell chimed—flat, sterile. Hive protocol. Inger sat upright. Her voice cracked: “What the hell?” She opened her phone. Camera feeds stitched into a quad panel.
One showed Jace’s truck, wrapped in a scan curtain. Another captured drone is blinking above the lamppost. A third revealed Detective Enzo Morrow at her door, flanked by two officers. The notification on her phone gave his badge #147211.
Conversation at the Door
“Ma’am,” Morrow said through the doorbell microphone, “we’d like to ask you some questions.”
She slid halfway into her hoodie while still holding her phone. Activated the two-way feed, “What’s up?”
“A delivery occurred last night.”
“Right. He delivered my dinner. Jace . . .” Morrow cut her off, “The driver—Jace R—has been confirmed deceased. We’re collecting context.”
Her stomach tightened. Jace had handed her dinner. They’d shared a brief moment. His eyes had held something—gratitude, maybe hope. Now he was dead. “I didn’t hear anything,” as she slid her other arm into a soft pastel lavender, faded and smeared at the cuffs hoodie.
Morrow kept his gaze fixed. “Is anyone else in the house?”
“No. I’m alone.” One officer scanned her front window. His AR glasses blinked into an infrared image of her living room. Confirmed.
She stepped back from the video wall to her right. Before Morrow she had a stream of Ohayo PRISM on it. Her morning routine shoved aside by the cops and Jace’s murder. The footage—what had it captured? Had she said too much, or not enough? Was Damian part of it? Had she missed a moment that mattered? She switched to the app on her phone for her cameras, isolating the view to her alone.
East 16th Is a Crime Scene
The feeds confirmed what her instincts already guessed. Crime scene drones swarmed the street. Evidence sweepers paced methodically with scanning rods. One medbot hovered near the curb, idle but alert. Police units filled the block in quiet containment. Jace’s truck remained, parked like a tomb. Blood streaked the driver’s side in careful arcs, almost artful.
Her doorbell feed lit again. “We’ll need a statement,” Morrow said.“Miss Reid,” he said. She didn’t respond right away. Her hand hovered near the doorframe, eyes scanning the street, not him, “I’m not in trouble.”
“Not yet,” Morrow replied. She sighed like someone weighing calories, not consequences, “Give me three minutes. I won’t be long.” Inger opened the door to let Morrow in.
“Thank you.” He nodded. Detective Morrow eased her anxieties. Jace died in front of her house. Had she seen anything? Heard anything? She slept through it, so no, she had not, “I’m awake now. Can I get you anything?”
“It’s been a long night. Can I get a coffee?”
“It’ll cost you.”
“Oh?”
“Yes, tell me your name.”
“Seamus. Detective Seamus Morrow.”
“It’s a pleasure to meet you Seamus. How do you take your coffee?”
“Just a little cream, please.”
“Coming right up,” Mikiko heard the exchange and put a k-round pod in the coffee maker. Hanover Vegetable Market sold unpasteurized heavy cream from Hanover cows. Inger bought it from Ellwood Thompson’s. A dash of heavy cream poured first into a red ceramic mug decorated with pansies then the coffee. Mikiko made her way to the living room and served Detective Morrow.
“Thank you . . . Seamus’ earpiece buzzed with the robot’s name, “Mikiko. Thank you.”
どういたしまして
Phoned In
The interview didn’t take long. Really nothing to give to Seamus. Jace dead? Inger couldn’t believe it was happening. “Ms. Reid, thank you for the coffee. I’m sorry for your loss.”
“You are welcome, Seamus. I didn’t really know Jace that well. He seemed like a nice enough guy. Any idea who killed him?”
“No Mam. We’ll keep in touch. Take my card and if you think of anything, don’t hesitate to let us know.”
Inger’s anxiety was getting noisy. East 16th Street had stories that darkened the safety she felt. This was no longer a retreat from her place in her mother’s commedia dell’arte farce. It had bad mojo. The delivery truck was gone. The coroner took him to the morgue. Public Works came by and washed the gutters. They also pressure washed the sidewalks. She couldn’t shake the scent of Jace’s blood. Inger messaged Detective Morrow, “Will you need me for anything soon? I need a break from Richmond” No, he didn’t need her.
Inger spent the rest of the day cleaning house and making sure it was ready for her absence. Then she keyed the destination code for an ancestor’s Assay cabin in the Santa Rosa range in Northern Nevada and stepped through the door.
Time Out
Buckskin was unsullied. The other Mikiko there got the notification of Inger’s arrival. It began streaming “Blind Willie Johnson” Whatever. Right now, Inger wanted her Bush Baby binkie and some down time. Jace was just a delivery guy. Why him? Why did he have to die? It made no sense.
There was a pile of messages on her tablet. People were responding to the headlines that a Door Dash driver had been murdered. Jace’s story as a navy veteran going to trade school while doing Door Dash garnered a lot of sympathy. His fiancé and their kids had a GoFundMe that was doing well. The hunt for Jace’s killer wasn’t going. The trail ended in the James River.
I mean, there was that weirdo who was stalking her. The one who squatted in her basement until Tala and Casino Security threw him out. But he was just a weirdo. He wouldn’t kill anybody, would he?
The cabin was already warm when Inger stepped in—Hive sensors had sensed her trajectory. But it was the sight of Chabo, curled into her fleece bed with one paw draped across Bush Baby, that stilled the static inside her chest. No meow, no tail flick. Just the weight of presence. She crossed the room, dropped her bag, and sat beside them. Outside, the snow threatened silence. Inside, it was already here.