\hypertarget{dr-carter-ramirez-2112}{%
\chapter*{Dr. Carter Ramirez — 2112}\label{dr-carter-ramirez-2112}}

The morning's alarm startled Carter awake.

Disorientation — when had she fallen asleep? There seemed to be no line delineating squirming under the covers and the buzz of her phone and faint tingle along her implants.

And here she had thought that the end of grad school had meant the end of six-hour nights of sleep.

Blearily, she pawed at her phone to swipe the alarm off. It was tempting to go back to sleep — \emph{after all,} she mused, \emph{the lost weren't going anywhere} — but she managed to at least kick her feet out from under the covers and sit up. Frizzed hair hung down around her face, shielding her from the world for just a little bit longer.

It was her phone, as always, that brought her back to reality. It's mere presence, even silent, was enough to draw her forth.

\begin{quote}
Ramirez

New case, this time with scans from before the incident. Another furry, you don't think that's got to do with it, do you :p

S
\end{quote}

The brief, ungrammatical message from Sanders left her nonplussed until she pieced together that he was talking about one of the other subjects' histories, something about them being part of some subculture. Sanders didn't honestly believe that people who pretended to be animals on the 'net were somehow more predisposed to get lost than everyone else. And, to be honest, neither did she.

All the same, the thought stuck with her through her morning routine. Through the shower, the blank dissociation of standing in the kitchen. Through two cups of coffee, the first there in the kitchen and the second out of a travel mug on the tube as she headed out towards the UCL campus.

\emph{Another furry, you don't think that's got to do with it}.

She felt sluggish. Craved another cup of coffee even after she'd reached the bottom of the mug she had with her. Sluggish and slow, like thinking through mud. Too many late nights. Too many long days with too little to show for them.

The thought nagged at her, caught like some spinning shape against the threads of her mind in a way that the rattle and screech of the train couldn't displace. It tugged those threads free. Unraveled stitch by stitch, until it reached\ldots{}what?

Until it reached the hem, and then the same thing over again.

``Holy\ldots{}holy shit. Holy shit,'' Carter said, startling the elderly lady next to her. She murmured an apology and fished her phone out, thumbing in a quick message to the team.
