Jane 2.0

"Your sensors are off again." Officer Michaels giggled to him self as he moved throughout the crime scene finishing up his

report. It would have to be filed before he got to go home and see his wife before she went off to work at five in the

morning so he like to keep the paperwork running at a steady pace throughout his shift rather than spend the last hour in

front of the computer.

Britt didn't respond. Instead he blipped out, just like that, leaving an active murder investigation under his command like

the popping of a soap bubble.

Back in his office Britt stared at a network of honeycomb sensors and electric sinew lines connecting one another surrounding

him in the round chamber.

"Deke, how do I generate an internal simulation again?" Britt looked at where the door would appear in the now seamless room,

and moments later a tall redhead with close cropped short hear wearing jeans and a black tank top strolled in sliding an old

fashioned yellow pencil behind her ear.

"Your rig doesn't have one yet, sorry." She smiled slightly.

"What about a voice prompt?"

"Did you try one?" She scowled this time.

"Yes." Britt lied, he hated coming up short, regardless of the scenario.

"Then why ask me stupid questions Britt? I'm working overtime here."

Deke pulled a small hatch open in the floor and brought out an older laptop computer. Walking over close to the door she

plugged it into the wall interface. The laptop screen showed the windows logo floating in the middle of the screen as a blue

bar crept across beneath it.

"The laptop runs pretty good voice recog software that the chamber will pick up. Just give it a minute, it will auto load."

She turned, half in and half out of the chamber door.

"Thanks." Britt gave a little bow.

"Don't mention it detective. I'm going home now, so please, don't break anything."

"Sleep well." Britt was sorry he said it even sooner than the comment left his lips. Would she think it was flirting?

"Don't work all night." Deke closed the door.

Britt remembered that the holo-chambers didn't have a clock built into them. The techs said it had to do with something they

called mental displacement theory. The holo grid was working hard enough to make things look and feel real in real time that

even a clock could throw some users enough that they can't function in the grid.

He didn't seem to have that problem.

"Map."

The hologrid exploded in a star field of lights as it worked to create a map of North America.

"Atlantica, Eastern Block. Residence of one Jane Summer."

[Active] The computer chimed.

Within an instant, as before, Britt was standing in the living room of the apartment of Jane Summers. The first thing he

noted, Jane Summers body lying in a pool of blood on the small kitchen floor.