Day: 2

Year of event: 22+ 10^(10.1395)

Notes: n/a

Illia angrily stomped away from the commissioners’ office. The one time he needed that damn lazy bastard, he was nowhere to be found. Of course, Illia had a pretty good idea of the next best place to look for the overpaid incompetent douchebag. The man hastily walked down the ‘East District’, where most of the not-so-reputable bars of Cosmos 6 were found.

On his way there, two cargo workers dared to bump into him. Had he worn his usual ‘plague doctor wanna be’ leather outfit, they probably would have avoided him like the plague, pun intended. Illia was an average human in many ways; height, weight, hair and eye colour. He did not stand out from the masses, which was one of the reasons why his profession came so naturally to him. Today, however, his civilian outfit caused him to threaten some underpaid brickheads with a knife. They must have recognised the weapon, as the emblem of this station’s illegal trafficking ring, and backed out right away.

With a satisfied smile, Illia sheathed his white titanium (pun intended) blade, and carried on hastily and angrily walking down the station.

The first bar he’d entered was the Dry Dock. He exchanged a look with the bartender who shook his head, telling him that Tully Junior was not here this afternoon.

Thankfully the commissioner did not go further than the second bar along that same street. Illia found him engaged in an argument about wine quality with the owner of the Green Faery.

“Tully!” Illia yelled, as soon as he spotted the man.

“Who-” The commissioner turned around and took a second too long to recognise the other man. He must have had a few drinks at this point, but it was impossible to tell just how many since the clever bartender was sneakily putting away the empty glasses to encourage him to drink more.

Illia didn’t wait for the other man to come to his senses. He approached him, and pulling up the collar of his red vest with one hand, whispered into his ear.

“There’s a buyer for the Faklar female.”

“Yeah, yeah.” Tully pushed the man away. “Those fuckers from the outskirts. Didn’t you say that you raised the price so they couldn’t afford it?”

The commissioner made no effort to lower his voice, which only further aggravated the trader.

“No, you moron.” He hissed. “We need to talk in private. You’ll get a cut. Where is she?”

Tully raised his head to meet the brown eyes of the other man. His mind was taking longer than usual to process information, and for once he didn’t have to fake being stupid.

“My office. Locked it there.” He finally answered.

Then, he pushed himself up from the barstool and wacked his wrist in the general direction of the till. Thankfully his Wireless Banking implant had not been affected by alcohol, and the payment went through with no issue.

“We’ll talk there.” Tully said, before heading towards the door.

He briefly lost balance just as he was about to leave the bar, and had to grab a random customer’s shoulder to stay upright. That customer, an older Gromlind woman, turned around and was about to complain. But she quickly changed her mind when she saw who this man, and his companion, were.

“So who’s this buyer of yours?” Tully asked as soon as they’d left the Green Faery.

“Keep your voice down, for fuck’s sake.” Illia hissed again, as he grabbed the commissioner’s shoulder to prevent him from walking face-first into a wall.

“Fine.” Tully whispered, as he grabbed Illia by the waist to stabilise himself even further. “Who’s the buyer?”

Illia looked around, to make sure there was no one listening. Thankfully Tully was well known around the station, and any tourists knew to keep away from the guards in red uniform if they didn’t want trouble.

“Does the name Doberman ring a bell?” Illia whispered.

“No, but Pavlov does ring a bell. Get it?” Tully giggled to himself.

Under normal circumstances, Illia would have found the pun funny. He himself was quite a fan of such play on words. But right now, over sixty million UE credits were involved, and so his mind was slightly preoccupied.

“No, you idiot. Yan Lo Zito, the man who runs the central Ring.”

Tully stopped in his tracks. Illia could almost see the gears turning inside his head, metaphorically speaking of course.

“Isn’t that kid dead?” Tully finally asked.

“I envy your blissful ignorance sometimes.” Illia replied. “Yes and no, the Doberman is who replaced him. I’m not high enough in the hierarchy to know who or what he was before killing the first Lo Zito, all I know is that he took his name, reputation, and place at the head of all illegal trade within the central ring.” He explained in terms even a drunk man would understand.

The trader then paused, pondering if he should tell this next part to his partner in crime. Against his better judgment, he leaned even closer, and whispered as quietly as he humanly could:

“Between you and me, I’ve heard that the Doberman is planning to expand to the outskirts. So we should use this opportunity to get off the right foot.”

Tully nodded, processing the information.

“Alright. Let’s hurry up then. How much did he offer you?”

Illia raised six fingers, then formed a zero with his left hand.

“Thousands?” Tully asked.

“No millions you dipshit.” Illia snarled. “Now let’s go.”

“Where the fuck did it go?” Tully yelled.

He was frantically looking through his office lockers, as if any of them could hide an adult Faklar.

“Could not have left the station. All of our emergency shuttles and escape pods are still in position.” Illia replied.

He had taken the more reasonable approach of going through recent security reports on Tully’s computer.

“But how did it leave the room?” Tully asked as he checked under his desk for the third time.

“Probably through the door.” Illia calmly replied as he carried on skimming through incident logs.

“I told my boys to be on the lookout for it, just in case, you know.”

Tully had resigned his search. He fell into a chair on the opposite side of the desk, as he tried to come to terms with losing such a big profit margin.

“Well, a team of three did go missing two hours ago in the maintenance tunnels by the grey block. Floor 5, section Sigma 13.” Ilia noted. “They’re likely all dead by now.”

“Oh yeah, that shit is hunted.” Tully agreed. “Reminds me of my first ‘below-deck’ report I had to write. I ended up making up some bullshit about a gas leak. We don’t even have gas down there.”

“Fuck.”

Illia pulled away from the computer and ran his hand through his hair.

“Sixty millions. Just under our fucking noses.” He said.

“I’m sorry.” Tully apologised. “You were right, I should have left it with you…”

Illia waved his hand dismissively. It was his way of saying that he had already moved on.

“Hey, do you want me to put a proximity alert on the shuttles? You know, just in case it somehow sneaked out?” Tully asked, in an attempt to comfort his partner in illegal affairs.

He didn’t get a verbal answer, but Illia did type something into the computer, probably putting the said alert in place.

“What if it got to the docking bay, and onto a ship?” Tully asked as that idea suddenly popped into his head.

“Yeah, right.” Illia muttered.

Although that sounded highly implausible, he did open the security footage of the first docking bay nonetheless. It showed three ships neatly parked in their designated spots. Illia started clicking through the different camera angles. His neutral, if not bored, facial expression told Tully just how little that man believed in Tully’s idea.

“Oh, that human-wannabe fucker is hustling with some tourist.” Illia said, as the screen showed a top-down view of a posh Falcon cruiser, the kind of ship Illia could easily afford but didn’t in order not to expose his main source of income.

“Great. It’s good to know that at least the Silver Snow business is bringing us money.” Tully sigh.

“You know you can kick Lozzo off the station if you hate him so much.” Illia reminded the commissioner.

“It’s not that I hate him…”

Tully lost his train of thought as he noticed the intensity with which the other man was staring at the screen.

“You see something?” He asked.

Illia shook his head. It didn’t look like the Human and the Gromlind were discussing silver snow. The human was holding a thick envelope, and there were no pouches or “cleverly disguised containers” in sight. But at the end of the day that was none of Illia’s business.

“Let’s go to my lab, I have a better surveillance set-up.” The trader finally said. “And I have some disposable manpower to send below deck to search for remains.”

“Alright.” Tully agreed. “What are you going to tell the Doberman?”

“What is there to tell?” Illia’s mouth twitched in a contempt smirk. “I’ll tell him the deal is off, and that it’s not a question of money. And I’ll promise to keep him posted if any Faklar remains appear on the market.”

Tully nodded. There was nothing more he could say or do in this situation.

Notes:

I have been doing some reading in my off-time, and I decided to share some of my favourite finds. You might wonder what any of these have to do with the report, well worry not, I have asked my colleagues to help me find links between there stories and this report (this part will get redacted anyway, but I will say it for the sake of posterity; the true reason why I am including recommendations for my favourite books anywhere I can is to try and build a fandom of likeminded people whom I can interact with. You could come to my office under the pretext of wanting a second opinion on your neutron stars paper, and we can actually discuss about out theories and predictions for the upcoming chapters of these stories).

My first coup de cœur is a fantasy classic Corpse Hunter which follows the trials of an undertaker in an apocalyptic setting. The sun has gone out in a world of sword and magic, people took refuge in giant obelisks. Their only hope of seeing sunlight ever again is to climb through a maze at the centre of the obelisk.

This story stroke a cord with me because one time, back when I was still just a student of theoretical physics, the lights went out in my lab, and in an attempt to find the door, I accidentally found a dead mouse. Turns out I had somehow left the physics lab, and crawled all the way to the pathology lab across the hall. I had to be put in quarantine after that, and this experience made me reflect on my own mortality.

Yes, Humans are indeed mortal. They tend to die, one day or the other, and death is a very likely prospect for the protagonists of this report, if they keep getting involved with the interplanetary mafia and human traffickers. (Sorry Vera, that’s the best I can do. That story doesn’t have much in the exobiology aspect, and I can’t really say anything on the philosophical ideas it tackles).

Pour les quelques français parmi nos rangs, je vous présente Kitty Kitty le Futur qui ne Fut Jamais. Le protagoniste principal est un chat, qui par je ne sais quel miracle a appris à piloter un vaisseau spatial. Avec sa coéquipière chasseuse de primes, il parcourt le système solaire a la recherche de bonne nourriture, et Homo-Sapiens à insulter.

This one I can say a little bit more on. The Future That Never Was has a cat as its Maine protagonist (get it? It’s a pun because the cat is a Maine Coon) who likes to smoke and thinks we humans are inferior to him. Studies have shown that this is actually common behavior for small felines, even those not capable of human speech.

It has a hot chick.

The last gem I have stumbled upon during these past few months is called Frozen Waste. It also explores a post-nuclear fallout world, where a lone wolf, and her human companion, need to survive. The twist is that the protagonist has gained magical powers, due to some genetic mutations, and now has to watch out not only for the creatures that lurk in the frozen wilderness, but also those that walk on two legs and hide behind castle walls.

It also has a hot chick.

Current year: 22+e^(23.347)

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