HERMES FILES - Winner of the 2025 Minotauro Award

A luxury space cruise. A murdered celebrity.
A lovebot with secrets. In a future where AI
may be more than machines, solving this
crime means questioning what it truly means
to be alive

In the 22nd century, luxury space cruises between Earth, Mars,
and Jupiter have become the ultimate getaway. Aboard the
SC Schettino, the pride of Starliner Cruises, Chief of Security
Durga Deckett faces a high-profile case: the murder of the
extravagant, incredible, and famously arrogant Countess
Planck—celebrity, billionaire, and social media icon known
across every Network Node.
Her best lead is also her prime suspect: Hermes Lagrange, the
Countess’s lovebot, a state-of-the-art artificial companion
designed for pleasure by Bionic Entertainment, the dominant
force in bionics and artificial intelligence.
What starts as just another routine voyage soon turns into
something far more personal for Durga. As she unravels
the mystery surrounding the death of the most famous
woman in the Solar System, the investigation forces her to
question everything she has ever believed—about identity,
consciousness, and the very foundations of her own existence.

Blending noir intrigue with hard science fiction, Hermes
Dossier explores the blurred lines between human and
artificial, love and programming, truth and illusion, in a
future where AI may be more than just machines—and
murder may be more than just a crime.