"A warrant." She nodded thoughtfully. "Yes, I have one of those. Full search, body cavity included if necessary. I do hope I won't have to go that far. I'm sure you feel the same way."

She took his silence for agreement and continued, "You see, George, we had a major system malfunction in sector 72 yesterday. Maybe you saw it on the news grid last night?"

"I didn't watch the news last night."

"Oh." She frowned at him. "What did you do?"

"I, uh -" He hesitated. He couldn't remember the regulations that covered watching the news. Surely he could skip an occasional broadcast without risking a citation. "I did a movie."

"Oh, yes." She touched her keypad. "Else's Lover. Not very original. I presume you played the title role?"

"The lover." Damn, they were tracking him. Why?

"That's what I said." She shrugged. "Back to my story, if you don't mind. I'll just give you the highlights. A malfunction occurred at 1700 hours in the main life support and power generation interface for sector 72. Could have impacted the entire seventieth quadrant, but senior control got the problem stabilized in time."

The station's most populated area, with over 10 million citizens. At least, that's what he'd heard. Travel restrictions what they were, he'd never been there. He said, "That's terrible. Anybody hurt?"

"Concern for others. That's an admirable quality. But fortunately, we escaped with only minor injuries and a few random looting incidents." Investigator Harlin stood up. Restless energy hung over her tiny frame like static electricity waiting for discharge. She said, "The looters, of course, have already been tracked down and dealt with. My job is to find those responsible for the underlying crime."

He hesitated, then said, "You sure it wasn't an accident?"

The corners of her eyes crinkled slightly as she allowed a tiny smile to crease her face. "There are no accidents in life, George. Only consequences."

He said, "So why me? I've never even been in sector 72. Verify the transfer records if you want."

"We have." She frowned in irritation. "A memory bubble appears to have wiped out the travel records of this entire sector for the past three years."

"You're not saying I had anything to do with that," George retorted heatedly.

"Oh no." She shook her head. "In fact, we never would have suspected you as an anarchist until the incident."