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under the table. He started to reach for them when he saw something out of place in the corner of his vision. He stood back up and looked over the table, but didn’t know exactly what he was looking for. He turned his head slightly, hoping his peripheral vision would pick it out again. There.  
    He picked up the water bottle. Behind it was a round red mark, in stark contrast to the spotless white lab table. He peered closer. Blood?  
    The hairs on the back of his neck stood straight up, and his neuretics threat assessment algorithms kicked in automatically. Passive scans searched the room without orders from him, all returning negative. The room was empty.  
    He set the water bottle back down, a few inches further from the blood drop than it was before, and again something caught his peripheral vision. On the floor, to his right, another drop. A few feet past that, another. And another. Leading to a large storage locker mounted to the bulkhead next to a computer workstation.
    He glanced back under the table. His gear bag, with all of his extra clothing, personal belongings, and perhaps most importantly his weapons, was missing.
    Now the hair on his arms stood up. Something was definitely wrong. His passive scans showed nothing amiss, but the blood and missing gear told him differently.
    He walked slowly over to the locker in sock feet, trying to get used to the disorientation and different musculature. His head moved as if on a swivel, and he felt all of his old combat techniques come back to him. He reached the locker and sent a low-level active scan into it, but the heavy steel construction blocked most of it. A small corner of his mind noted the vastly increased power and detail of the Level Seven active-scanning package, even on the exterior of the locker, but his attention was focused in front of him.
    The locker was approximately nine feet tall, six feet wide, and two feet deep, with two wide doors on the front, each with a small handle. It had a slot for a scan pad, but the slot was empty. By design or otherwise, he wasn’t sure. Either way, the door wasn’t locked, and the blood trail stopped right in front of it.
    With one last passive scan of his surroundings, he reached out and turned a handle, stepping quickly off to one side.  
    The door slowly swung open with a metallic squeak, and he sent the same low-level active scan inside. Empty. Shelves, bottles, cases, nothing more.  
    He peered around the edge of the door. At the bottom of the locker, under the lowest shelf, was a crumpled pile of light blue fabric. The same shade of blue Knowles was wearing when he met her the day before. And it was stained with blood.
    His neuretics howled a protest in his mind as they detected a threat just outside the main door.

Chapter 6

    Gabriel padded softly over to the only door to the lab, scanning left and right for anything resembling a weapon. Nothing. The lab was bare. He flattened himself against the wall next to the door and reached out with a passive scan.
    Two bodies were in the corridor outside the lab, and both were armed. Judging by the power signature and the heavy EM leakage, the weapons were cheaply made Chinese knockoffs of M-74 pulse rifles. Neither was stealth shielded, and neither broadcasted any type of signal via neuretics or other means. They were quiet, but not invisible. And with the types of rifles they carried, Gabriel ruled out the possibility of friendlies.
    His neuretics linked into Cielo’s security system. It was secure, but his new Level Seven had no issues burning through the NAF firewall. The security system showed no breach or alert; the station was operating as normal. Then who the hell were these guys?
    His Mindseye showed the ghostly passive scan image of a body stepping close to the door and reaching out, while the other stayed a step behind, rifle at the ready. Gabriel didn’t dare go active to pin down their armament or equipment; if they had the most rudimentary of neuretics,