Story code: ST-001201
Part 2: The Blue Laser
Vance leaned further over Desk Counter Three, his shadow blocking the light from my desk lamp. “Well, Nate? Clear the screen, reject their submission, and call the station marshal. Let’s not waste any more of the colony’s time on these thieves.”
Behind him, the crowd in the lobby began to nod. Several miners in the back shuffled their boots against the metal floorplates, their murmurs growing into a steady drone of disapproval directed at the family. The public judgment was solidifying rapidly.
“Sterling’s got the digital filing,” a miner near the water dispenser muttered. “No way the Hendersons came by that sector honestly if the broker already registered the coordinates.”
“They’ve been struggling to pay their docking fees for months,” another bystander added, shaking his head. “Desperate times make people do desperate things.”
Mark Henderson did not look back at the crowd. He kept his eyes fixed on the scratched brass token, his jaw muscles twitching as the whispers grew louder. Elena stood rigid, her lips pressed into a hard line, her eyes locked on Vance’s face. Neither of them spoke to the onlookers; they simply stood their ground, enduring the shifting mood of the room.
“Put the token under the physical scanner,” Elena said, her voice dropping to a steady, quiet pitch that cut through the noise of the lobby. “Let the registry database read the actual engraving, Nate.”
Vance let out a dry laugh. “That is a waste of time. The digital filing is already in the queue. The physical token is just a formality once the theft is recorded.”
He tapped the screen of my terminal with a manicured finger. “Process the corporate claim, Nate. My organization finances the utility grid on this entire sector. We don’t need to delay transactions for independent miners who can’t even pay their dockage.”
“Just scan it,” Elena repeated, looking directly at me.
I did not clear the screen. Instead, I picked up the heavy brass disk and slid it into the cradle of the physical scanner. The blue laser light flickered to life, tracing the deep scratches and the hand-struck numbers along the rim of the token. The system hummed, processing the physical data to match it against the historical registry database.
“This is absurd,” Vance said, his voice dropping to a low, warning tone. “You are stalling a corporate transaction, Nate. Think about your position here.”
The terminal beeped, and the high-resolution image of the scanned engraving populated the left side of my screen. The system highlighted the hand-punched date code in green.
I compared the scan results to Vance’s digital filing. Vance’s paperwork claimed the token was part of a new batch minted for his corporation just two weeks ago. But the physical date stamp etched into the brass was from three years past.
I pointed to the green highlighted data on the monitor. “Mr. Sterling, your digital filing lists this token as part of the new corporate batch from this month. But the physical engraving date on this brass token shows it was stamped three years ago.”
Vance’s gaze dropped to the screen, his eyebrows drawing together as he stared at the glowing numbers.
How could Vance have filed a valid digital registration for a token that physically existed years before his corporate batch was even manufactured?