Day: 35

Year of event: 22+ 10^(10.1395)

Notes: n/a

The bureau was small, grey, and dull. It wasn’t even a capital ‘B’ bureau, but a simple room that served as a refuge and get-away space. It had no wall, floor, or ceiling ornaments. Just a simple wooden desk, which was worth roughly as much as the space station it resided on, if the merchant who’d sold it was to be believed.

The grey, bulletproof, door that led to the bureau creaked open. The creaking was intentional, as it added character to this otherwise lifeless place. Fingers snapped together, and the old-fashioned halogen lamp that stood on the overpriced desk turned on. It shone its ever so slightly flickering yellow light over an old paperback book which laid open on the desk.

A man slowly approached his desk, pulled out an equally overpriced chair made form a wood the name of which he could not, and would not be bothered to, pronounce. He silently sat in that chair, his light-pink eyes fixed on something in the distance, as he himself was lost in thought. With another snap of his fingers, the door creaked again, and shut out the white neon light coming from the hallway.

The man sat back in his chair, and ran a hand through his short and well-kept salt and pepper hair. He had spent most of his life trying to get exactly where he was now, but now that this goal had been achieved, he felt empty. This affliction was by no means recent, mind you. But it had been getting worse and worse with each passing day of emptiness and lack of excitement. The power that came with controlling the central ring, the notoriety in the two other regions, it no longer felt as fulfilling as it should have. He was now starting to understand that power was useless, once there was nothing and no one it use it against.

He looked down at his hands. The same hands that could move objects at will, and create or destroy small amounts of energy. His lamp wasn’t even plugged in, and hadn’t been for many years.

He wasn’t born of this world.

Over the years he had learned to blend in, mostly thanks to his parents who spent quite the pretty penny on keeping his strange powers and pinks eyes swept far, far, under the rug. But he’d known. When he was a child, he’d regularly get visions of a burning planet. Rocks turned to glass, forests turned to ash. He would see impossible things, cities built underwater, huge dome-like ships slowly drifting through turbulent seas of orange clouds. He’d see time and space warp itself around himself as he flew through endless skies. He had hated those last dreams the most, as those endless skies were often filled with nightmarish monsters who seems to know of his presence, despite being guests in his own mind.

Once he turned old enough to leave his overbearing aristocratic family, he’d never bothered to figure out how he ended up in their hands. He looked like his father, with the same broad and muscular build, olive skin, and curly black hair, which he’d keep short and tidy. But he knew he wasn’t theirs. And once he’d entered the UE, once he’d received that fancy ‘unhackable’ B-ID implant, nothing of his previous life mattered anymore.

The United Empire was an endless sea of opportunities for someone with his skill and ambition. But where had it led him?

He closed the book that was laying on his desk, and ran a hand over its leather cover. It wasn’t any of that fake stuff, or even cow leather, he reminded himself and smirked. It had cost him a fortune to get the book rebound (it had come in an ugly, plexiglass thing), but even back then he had had more money than he knew what to do with. Silver lettering painted into burned crevasses on the cover told anyone who could read that the book was called ‘the last firefly’ and was written by a certain A.R. Cook. The setting and the characters of the book weren’t important. What mattered to its owner were its themes; which resonated in an uncanny way with the internal politics of the UE. Perhaps that’s why this book had been banned, and its author sent on a one way cruise to the Kingdoms.

And yet, not matter how hard the UE had tried to silence growing ideas of equity and social equality, ‘the last firefly’ laid still in its spot, like a lonely testament, or perhaps prophecy, of what was to come.

“Oh well… Shouldn’t dwell on that.” The man suddenly said and got up from his chair.

He’d spent enough time at this unwarranted pity-party and nihilistic one-man debates. He had duties to attend to. He flipped his wrist and a sub-dermal implant told him that it was currently too late for lunch, but too early for dinner. There weren’t many things he could do on this chunk of metal while the Pit was closed, so he decided to pay a visit to a special friend of his.

[The following 880 words were redacted for violation of Proper Workplace Conduct Code [PWCC] §2.1

To access the following section please fill in the PWCC T14-b form attached below (equivalent of 55332.004 form which is print only, and can be found at your nearest HR office)]

“Sir, I’m sorry to have disturbed you sir, but he made it seem as if his message was quite urgent.” A Vimlen man said as soon as his boss had left his lover’s bedroom.

The Vimlen was short for a human, but tall for his species. From a distance he could have been mistaken for a construction worker, due the cargo-type trousers and the bright orange with neon green highlights vest he wore. His utility belt, on which he had clipped on several analogue com-device onlyadded to the ‘do-it-all’ look.

In this age of space colonies and FTL travel, most people did not bother with more than an earring or clip-on transmitter or receiver. Grish Egil Vaze was not one of those people. He believed that information was power, and this belief had eventually landed him by the side of the most powerful man in the middle ring. But nowadays Grish did feel more and more like his work was underappreciated and undervalued.

“What did he say?” The human asked, as he readjusted his plain brown jacket.

Grish nodded towards the hallway and began walking as he recapped what he knew:

“He said that he made contact with an Outsider. He said that he had a way of tracking hir movements, but did not elaborate on that.”

“And what about my Falkar?” The Human asked.

Grish tilted his head backwards in annoyance. His boss only ever cared about the things he personally wanted. And it seemed that his craze for Outsider tech had died out after discovering that ship, and realised he could not operate it.

“Nothing. It’s as if ze vanished through thin air.”

“Did they check the ventilation filters?” The Human smiled, and gave Grish a light bump with his elbow.

To that, the Vimlen only thew his head backwards again.

“Oh come on, don’t be like that. You are in the centre of the known world, listening in on every whispered conversation. Cheer up.” The human turned to face him and said with a smile.

“Sir. I appreciate that you’re in a good mood, but I’ve had to deal with that Human-wannabe freak instead of having lunch, so I appreciate if you kept your pleasantries for later.” Grish replied in a sour tone. Perhaps he wasn’t mad at his boss, but simply hungry.

“Alright, alright.” The other man raised both hands up in defeat, as his joyfull expression quickly returned to a more serious one. “I will call him. And I’ll ask him to pull some stings or push some dirt around those three other leaderheads. Shall we meet in the Pit after dinner?”

“Yes sir.” Grish replied, smiling at the prospect of food, and hoping that none of other key contacts of the Doberman would reach out to him today.

Notes:

I have basis to believe that some of our readers are not fully caught up on the current, let’s say etiquette, when it comes to gender identity and pronoun usage. I would like to remind you that due to the way these reports are translated and exchanged between different linguistic groups, we have used binary pronouns whenever possible. However, the original language of this report is British English, hence no translation is needed.

As we do not have a linguistics consultant, dealing with any remarks or complaints in terms of “misused” pronouns falls under my jurisdiction. Although I have the time, I do not have the desire to deal with these issues. So, I would recommend you consult any of out ETCH approved crash courses on gender or evolving language instead.

Current year: 22+e^(23.347)

Redactor signature: E.E. Shwartz