0.3 Station Mall

The train dropped Keith off at the station's travel and tourist mall, the place where crews and captains hung out while cargo was loaded onto their ships. Presumably, voluntary permanent residents also had access to this place, but according to the Feed, the mall was mostly intended for passing travelers. 

Some of the advertisements still clung to their displays or else hung limply above closed shops and kiosks. The Consortium's logos loomed large across walls and tables (and many other surfaces). The stone floor had been cleaned and practically gleamed, but there were signs of use and abuse all around the construct.

The whole place was empty, deserted in a way that just didn't make sense. Keith wondered where everyone had vanished off to. Then a maintenance bot scurried past him, and he had a sneaking suspicion that local bots had maybe cleaned up the place in a way that made identifying what happened difficult, if not impossible.

Can you check maintenance logs? he asked San. Maybe that will shed some clue on what's going on around here?

The shipboard AI sent back an acknowledgment ping. I'm picking up some life signs not far from your location. Mostly stationary. It might be the local brig or holding facility.

Can you send me a map of the area?

San didn't answer directly, but a moment later, a three-dimensional map of the mall and surrounding facilities popped into his augment's inbox. He stopped walking long enough to check it for any pertinent details.

There was a large hotel at the far end of the mall, available only to transients, while a corridor wove its way deeper into the rock, toward the facility's administrative areas. The mining authority building lay down this path, among a cluster of admin buildings. San's scans weren't picking up any life signs, but the facility was listing someone's vitals out there.

Keith decided he needed more information, which meant going into the authority's systems directly. They were connected to the Feed — most systems had to be, to function properly — and walled off using a complicated security protocol.

Face Danger (Hacking) - [Weak Hit: 5 + 2 + 2 = 9 vs 2 | 9]

Keith pushed through the security measures with the help of his augments. The incursion triggered an alarm somewhere down the corridor, but the walls keeping the authority's information hidden fell. Thousands of lines of logging lay on the other side along with failing systems and other indecipherable information. It would take too long for Keith to scan through them all, and he really needed more information bout his target.

He did a quick search for recently incarcerated locals and hit a possible match.

The human's exact location was listed on his profile, along with an ID (Shiro), and a designation (miner). The man's profile contained no other information, which meant that some employee somewhere hadn't bothered to fill in any relevant details before tossing the man into the brig. Not an uncommon procedure where mining operations — or really any forced hard labor installations — were concerned.

Keith gathered himself and started moving again. Time to find out what the fuck was going on around here.