Hollow Point Happiness

Case 1: New Horizons

Chris woke up groggy and slowly made his way to sit at the kitchen table to eat his breakfast. He flicked on the news.

"Information is finally emerging about last night's tragic events! Mark Claimton, the highly anticipated man expected to be the new CEO of AutoSYNC Dynamics was killed in his office, it is believed his family was with him at the time. Further, 3 of his personal bodyguards were found dead on the 27th floor of an adjacent building as well as a civilian found dead in their room on the 40th floor. Excluding Claimton, each of the bodies was found with a slit throat and at least 1 gunshot to the head. Claimton himself was shot 3 times, once in the thigh, once in the chests, and once in the head."

Chris turned the screen off, "Damn, what did I miss last night." Continuing to chew his cereal.

Finishing his cereal he went to his room to get dressed. He had to go into the police station for a meeting with the chief according to the message he had gotten on his phone, he guesses it was probably about what the news was talking about.

"Hey AVA."
A hologram appeared in the room with him.
"Yes, Mister Cartwin."
"Ready the car, I have to be at headquarters by 1 pm so set the route accordingly."
"Right away Mister Cartwin, the route will include a gate jump though."
"What the hell? Why? It's only the moon we should have plenty of time."
"Mister Cartwin it is currently 12:14 pm."
His eyes flew open, "SHIT! We gotta go!" He sprinted out the door.

He walked into the police station with his stomach still in a knot, the gate jumps always made him feel like garbage. He stumbled into his meeting at 1 on the dot.

"Ah, Agent Cartwin, you decided to show up," The chief checked his watch, "and look at that! On-time what a pleasant surprise. Which is it this time, bad time management or a hangover?"
"Screw you Chuck, you know the gates make me sick." Chris collapsed into a chair, "Well, get it over with, blame me for all the worlds' problems."
The chief gave a hearty laugh, "Not this time Chris," He handed Chris a small pill bottle, "Today is serious."

The chief started to tap away at a keyboard as Chris took a pill. Giving a grunt he finishes typing.

The chief started, "So, the reason I called you in today is because I have an easy case for you."
"Glad to see your confidence in me grows every day." Chris snapped back,
"Is what I would like to say to you."
Chris raised an eyebrow, "What do you mean?",
The chief turned his monitor to face Chris, "We got multiple videos last night. The hit on AutoSYNC to be exact. We got the hitman's face, we got their fingerprints, we got their DNA, I mean literally evidence everywhere. This was a sloppy crime at best."
"Then why isn't it easy?"
The chief sat upright and cleared his throat, "Chris, did you know that as of last week it has been 110 years since there was an unregistered birth, person, or DNA strand."
"I didn't know that. Why?"

The chief hit a few buttons on his keyboard and the screen flashed with numbers, pictures of faces, models of DNA, pages of fingerprints, and much more. Then the screen returned back to the video with 2 words flashing on the screen. "No Matches"

Chris let out a long whistle, "Well damn. That's what you mean when you said it isn't easy."
Rubbing his forehead the chief continued, "What makes it worse still is that based on evidence and some info we pried from some SCI Corpos we can guess that the person in question has access to interplanetary flight. They could be anywhere in the galaxy by now."
"SCI? Why did you talk to them?"
"Because at almost the exact time of death of the main target, you know Mark Claimton, there was a sudden transfer of a large sum of funds from SCI to an unlisted account called 'Mystic'. And, after offering SCI some... generous tax cuts we got them to admit they had in-fact placed a hit on Mr. Claimton."
"Hmm, I've got to admit chief, you've got my attention. I'm a tad out of practice but I'd be happy to help if you'd have me."
The chief smiled and offered a handshake, "It's good to have you back Chris."
Chris shook the hand, "Its good to be back."

Chris climb back in his car around 3:30 pm. He was going back to Earth to see if he could get anything more out of the SCI Corpos. He flipped the badge over-and-over in his hand.

"AVA drop me off at SCI Territories Headquarters."
"Of course Agent Cartwin."
Chris laughed to himself, "Wow, that's weird to hear again. Anyway, this will be fun. Like finding a needle in a pile 87 billion strands of hay. Or was it 88 billion."
Ava spoke again, "The current galactic population is 87.358 billion Agent Cartwin."
Chris clapped his hands together, "Then let's get started."