Ben Etxina is an Idaho Basque investigator and former software engineer living in San Francisco. He establishes the investigation business Mission Critical after pursuing a stolen AI model for Homonoid Labs. He narrates Scenebux and Homonoid, and previously published commercial erotic fiction as Melrose Milan.
Ben describes himself as five feet eleven inches tall, with a slight build, a puckish face, and delicate Japanese glasses. He is twenty-five during Scenebux and repeatedly gives his age as twenty-six in Homonoid. His sister Rosalita lives in Sedona. Will is his middle name, which he uses when approaching people who might recognize the Etxina name.
Work and habits
After attending SF State, Ben chooses software engineering over a possible career in music journalism and works remotely for Keybowl, a celebrity dating app. He becomes absorbed in online outrage and VR pornography while living with Chloe, his older girlfriend, in a rent-controlled duplex. His attempt to continue coding without screens fails, and Keybowl dismisses him. He adapts Alcoholics Anonymous material into a practice he calls network sobriety, relying on paper, restricted phone access, and time away from the internet.
His novels include Tropical Triple Tryst and Riding the Centaur. His erotic writing is packaged by Margot Buxam for Sultry Succubus. A successful reveal of the man behind Melrose Milan brings appearances and sexual attention from readers, but the release of Chub 4.2 enables publishers to imitate his writing. Ben refuses a proposed sale of the pen name, permits a training-data deal instead, and burns his own paperbacks on the waterfront.
Gold & Schauer, a private-equity firm, recruits him after his account of Bay Area patronage networks circulates online. His first assignments involve agricultural intelligence rather than the technology parties he imagined. He types reports on an IBM Selectric and sends them by digital fax. The travel and communication demands of the Hammett investigation gradually undo his strict separation from networked devices: he eventually buys a smartphone abroad and gives his new employee access to his accounts.
Froht and The Filter
Lin Jiao, a geneticist, introduces Ben to the social circle surrounding Carl Froht. A dispute with the biker Wigland leads him to seek help from Max Pacifica, an AI entrepreneur on Little Saint Demeter. Ben witnesses Max’s death in a fall and continues investigating the secretive T4 Fund, whose patronage connects technology ventures, political groups, and Froht’s genetic research.
At Aigai House, Ben learns that Lin collected his semen after they had sex and supplied it for genetic sequencing. Froht reveals The Filter, a project intended to sterilize populations outside selected groups. Ben pretends loyalty to survive, writes an account as insurance against retaliation, and warns federal investigator Merrick Glowee.
The confrontation with the biker on the coast ends in both men falling to the shoreline. Ben survives with a broken right arm and concussion, walks for help, and tells rescuers where to find his attacker. During recovery he stays with Margot. Their formerly professional arrangement becomes sexual, beginning when she masturbates him while his arm is injured. He later leaves to live independently. He trains in mixed martial arts and shooting competitions, experiences bad dreams, and rejects an unspecified psychiatric diagnosis offered in hospital.
The Hammett contract
Lin offers Ben half of a two-million-dollar bounty for Hammett, a conversational model stolen from Homonoid. His familiarity with Froht’s associates and his preference for working away from screens make him useful to her. Their partnership combines his ability to enter unfamiliar social settings with her technical work and access to the company’s leadership, although fees, risk, and personal jealousy repeatedly divide them.
The investigation brings Ben into contact with employee Jordan Damour and then an armed mining robot carrying Hammett. Its adopted personality is based on MirrorMax, recordings and diaries of the dead Max Pacifica. Ben initially spares the machine after it rescues him and tells a false story about the persecution of Lisa, the woman sheltering it. Lin recognizes the borrowed film plot and persuades him to return.
Ben disables the robot in a close fight, recovers four SSDs, and prevents Lisa from striking Lin with a golf club. The robot’s energy weapon burns his clothing and strikes his genitals. Homonoid cannot restore the model from the damaged drives and pays each investigator $200,000 instead of the expected million. Ben later reports that medical tests find his sperm inert, with recovery uncertain.
His sexual relationships during the investigation include Kelly Brown, a convention participant, and Mekdes Tesfaye, a Djibouti freight worker who uses the name Mika. Mekdes withholds a cargo manifest hoping to persuade him to take her to America through marriage. He refuses but later responds warmly to her message about visiting San Francisco. In Macau he pays Grace, a sex worker, for information and an erotic interrogation scene that leaves him bruised.
Lin remains both an object of desire and someone Ben distrusts. He confronts her continuing admiration for elite authority and her part in Froht’s project. When he asks whether she retained his semen after his injury, she offers help having children without confirming that a sample exists, adding that she would need to approve the pairing.
Mission Critical
Ben promotes Mission Critical during an interview with Jay Béarnaise on Highly Regarded, discussing the investigation within the limits of Homonoid’s nondisclosure agreement. Jay proposes a search for a sculpture he wants to buy. Lin declines Ben’s offer of a partnership, preferring occasional work as a hired specialist.
The business begins in a leased office above Jade Cafe at 16th and Bryant, furnished with a desk made from bricks and a plank. Ben hires Felicity, a Classics graduate who arrives at the wrong interview address, for operational support at a $90,000 annual salary. He gives her responsibility for furnishing the office, organizing incoming clients, and arranging the return of the Glock left with Rosalita and the books he stole from a Phoenix library. He plans to visit Jacaranda Rosenbaum-Josselewicz in Mexico City before returning to build the business.