Read Reality Hack for Free Online Page A

around to be seen by the new girl,’ Wallace commented wryly.
    ‘She’ll have access to the PND,’ Spike replied, ‘maybe HOLMES. Well, they replaced that with the second version, but that’s the crime scene management system. They input data on anything serious to that to handle major crime scenes. It does disaster planning stuff too. And the PND…’
    ‘Police National Database,’ Nisa said. ‘It’s their Big Brother system of data on people and cars, stuff like that.’
    ‘You do listen to me sometimes.’
    ‘Occasionally I even try to remember what you said. I’ve no idea what they’re actually going to give me access to. Don’t get your hopes up.’
    ‘I’m not hoping, but… Well, you never know what you might see. You’re looking at crime statistics? Maybe you should see if you can detect any anomalies in the data.’
    Nisa tried to keep the frown off her face. She was going to have to look into the statistics anyway; Spike was going to ask her about them and she probably needed to be able to bore everyone rigid to keep her cover. What if there was something about the crime statistics that could help detect the stuff XC was interested in?
    ‘I’m not sure I’m that good a statistician,’ she said.
    ‘Maybe it’s time to brush up then,’ Spike suggested.
    Tower Hamlets, June 22 nd .
    There was a cat watching her as she walked past the new flats on St Paul’s Way. Nisa had let herself drink more than usual, given that she did not need to work until Monday, and the pair of green eyes staring at her from behind the temporary barriers almost went unseen.
    When she did see them, she giggled, came to a stop, and bent down. ‘Hey, Puss. Shouldn’t you be at home? Curled up somewhere?’
    The cat stared back at her, unmoving. It was black, almost invisible since the nearest working street lamp was across the road. Nisa was fairly sure it was a female, just from the way it looked at her, and maybe the rather sleek, slim body. It was not large, maybe even a little on the small side for a domestic cat. The eyes though, the eyes were a really vibrant green, and she could have sworn the thing was smiling.
    ‘Well, I’m going home,’ Nisa told it. ‘Night, Cat.’
    She straightened up and started walking again. She had made it to the corner with Baythorne Street when she caught a movement out of the corner of her eye. The cat was sitting on a litter bin there, cleaning a paw.
    ‘Can’t be the same cat,’ Nisa muttered to herself and kept on walking.
    Except that the same green eyes were watching her from the low wall around the car park below her building. It would have had to have cut across the grounds of the school to get there, but it could have beaten her, maybe. If it had run very fast, or cut through the building somehow…
    ‘Are you following me?’ she asked the cat. All she got in reply was a stare and a slight tilt of the head, but it dropped off the wall on silent paws as she walked past and hurried along beside her as she walked toward the tower. ‘You can’t come in, you know?’ she told it.
    This time there was a soft mewl from the region of her feet and she glanced down. It did look a little skinny and there was no collar.
    Nisa sighed. ‘Look, I don’t have any cat food. I’ve got a tin of tuna that must be near its use-by date, but in the morning you’re going to have to go. I’ve got enough on my plate without a cat owning me.’
    There was a satisfied sort of prrt sound from below and she let it dart through the door ahead of her when she opened it. To her surprise, it headed for the lift and waited there patiently while she hit the call button. It was certainly a well-behaved sort of moggy.
    ‘Moggy’ seemed an inappropriate term, Nisa thought, as the lift went up and the cat sat there near her feet, apparently quite happy with the weird, travelling box. It held itself up straight, like a proper lady, and it looked like it had a pedigree of some sort.
    ‘You an