Fox Hunt (Fox Meridian Book 1) by Niall Teasdale

have a secure box brought up for it. We’ll run it through the Cube and see what falls out.’
    ‘How long?’ she asked, even though she thought she knew what the answer was going to be.
    ‘Depends. If it’s military-grade encryption… Ah… Well, obviously it depends on whether he used one of the latest encoding systems or something older. If he’s got one of the new ones, it could easily be days rather than hours.’
    Fox raised an eyebrow. ‘That’s still pretty good.’
    ‘The Cube is fairly new. Two hundred and sixty-two thousand, one hundred and forty-four quantum processors. Five kilotons of cooling systems and optical interconnects. It’s over in the new tower. I built it, but I’m still not entirely sure what to do with it. Teresa wants to put an AI on it, which might be interesting, but I suspect we’ll keep it for other things. It’s very good at decryption, database searches, that kind of thing.’ He grinned. ‘You know Kit’s server has one of those cores in it. Just in case you need a lot of data processed quickly.’
    ‘I don’t think I want to know how much someone’s going to pay to have the commercial version of Kit in their home. You and Terri… You don’t have to–’
    ‘You know damn well why we do it, Fox.’ His voice was calm and easy, light, but with just a hint of tension in it. Still, there was the tightness after two and a half years.
    ‘I was just doing my job.’
    ‘Doing your job cost you too much and stopped me losing everything.’ His firm, insistent tone dissolved as quickly as it had come as he said, ‘Besides which you are an excellent product tester. I’m sure Teresa never thought of using a Kitsune model for police evidence analysis, and the data you got me on the Gauss pistol’s performance has improved the design considerably. And I haven’t had a speeding ticket since I met you.’
    ‘Jackson… you haven’t driven a ground vehicle in twenty years. No one drives ground vehicles anymore.’
    ‘Actually I have, on the Moon, but that’s beside the point. It’s a shame. Driving is a lost art except in low gravity, and we have huge open areas in the protectorates which could be used for off-roading.’
    ‘I’m happier knowing people don’t kill themselves on the roads now. You can fly a vertol, can’t you?’
    ‘I can, and occasionally my safety people let me. I think Teresa gets away with it more often. You have basic flight training, don’t you?’
    ‘It was part of the training for insertion teams. They wanted to be sure that if anyone survived they could fly out, assuming the ship was functional.’
    ‘If you want to take one of the company ships out…’ He was grinning.
    ‘Stop doing that.’ She grinned back. ‘Though I may have to go up to Boston soon. I’ll think about it.’ She glanced around as a tall man in a white coat appeared in the doorway. He was holding a box and looking hesitant. ‘I think your tech’s here with the box.’
    Jackson turned, sitting up on his lounger and dismissing whatever was occupying his attention. ‘Bring that over here, Travis. We’ll need to get the evidence tag officially signed over and then we can see about disentangling whatever web Sanderson Hunt has spun.’
    ~~~
    ‘Alan Justin Roberts is one of three producers working on Murder is My Business ,’ Kit intoned as she paced in front of the window in Fox’s apartment. Behind her was a grid of photographs, presumably of IB-19 employees, and one of those had animated out to show a larger picture of Roberts. ‘Cross-referencing his work against Julianne Trent’s, it appears that he produces a higher percentage of her scripts than the other producers, but not an exceptionally high proportion. The percentage has not significantly changed since their break-up. I judge that their working relationship has remained solid despite their personal problems.’
    Fox’s lips curled as she watched the virtual kitsune pacing back and forth, arms behind her