An Appointment

While working on the Student Aid Fund with Miss Christine Teresa, "Empress," Audrey had noticed her unusual interest in a young woman.

Using a Spectator's powers of observation, she had quickly memorized the features of that woman and the brother and sister beside her, then reproduced them in sketches.

Even so, finding three people with nothing but a few portraits in Backlund, a city of five million where most residents still had no photograph in the upgraded identity management system, was next to impossible.

Fortunately, Audrey could start with Backlund Technical University, where they had been that day. From their microexpressions, movements, and the route they took out of the campus, she could establish that the black-haired girl had been taking the entrance examination, while the blonde woman with purple eyes was most likely a student.

She therefore commissioned her financial steward, Howard, to conduct some discreet inquiries. He soon confirmed Lily Granger's identity. She had originally attended Backlund Technical College, but after its upgrade and merger, she had become a second-year student in the Technical University's Department of Mechanical Engineering.

Through her social circle, Howard also established the identities of the black-haired siblings: Benson and Melissa Moretti. They had moved to Backlund only that year. The former had passed the standardized government employment examination and become a permanent employee of the Ministry of Finance, while the latter was working toward the Technical University's entrance examination.

What caught Audrey's attention was that Benson and Lily each had a large deposit in their Backlund Bank accounts. These were enormous sums they could never have saved given their jobs and social standing, and both had arrived in single transfers in September 1349.

*Six thousand pounds and eight thousand pounds, respectively, transferred from an anonymous account... Even an anonymous account would leave some