As soon as we reached Bark’s surface, our very first priority was to check the public records for a certain Alex Fuller. M7, M5, M1 and I were letting our Maxes use our bodies while they searched through the network for relevant information using our tablets. There was just too much risk of contracting malware if we connected directly, so it was better to handle these things at a remove.

Of course, we’d all pretty much unanimously decided that waiting around in the middle of the street while the Maxes took care of it was incredibly overrated, so we’d found a place to get lunch while we checked the public records. The place we found was a nice hobby restaurant run by a small group of creatively-inclined chefs.

Anyway, they were running a stir fry special today, so we all ordered the noodle dish they were experimenting with. While we waited, Max 3 noted “Got a bunch of search hits, as expected. There have been well over fifty million people named Alex Fuller living here on Bark since the moon was settled, of which around 30% have left for other places since, immediately disqualifying them. Accounting for our man growing up here the old-fashioned way, that narrows it down to just a few million people.”

There was a fair bit more talking about the matter, and then our food was delivered by the waitstaff drones. As we looked at the dark brown plate of stir-fried noodles, meat, vegetables, and seasonings Max asked “So, want to take front for the meal itself, or can I keep driving the body?”

I thought for a moment from my position in the cozy back seat of our mind, before noting “I haven’t been giving you enough fronting time lately. Go ahead and eat that meal.”

Max perked up even as he replied “While having to do all the maintenance for my own body was more than I really wanted to deal with back before I moved in with you, I do appreciate the offer. Thank you.”

And with that, Max set about consuming our lunch, artfully twirling the noodles using the chopsticks and spoon we had been provided. Then he brought the first bite to our mouth, and it was amazing. There was spiciness, a distinct savory flavor, a kick of Atmerial, and a faint aftertaste of Runji, possibly from Arsenic if we had to guess about what was actually in the food.

I could feel Max being fairly conflicted about whether to eat it all really fast because it was so good, or savor it for the same exact reason. After couple moments of indecision, I told him “Why not eat it slowly and try narrowing down our search criteria more between bites? That way we’ll get more done before we finish and have to find a new venue.”

Max replied “Excellent point Madeline.” and we settled into a routine of data gathering and analysis while taking our sweet sweet time with the noodles.

It was another few minutes before M5 announced using their Max voice “Good news, we’ve narrowed down the pool of people we need to ask about to ten. Furthermore we’ve got confirmation that there are other teams who’ll be asking about the other nine, so we only have to concern ourselves with one: Alex Fuller, notable for shipping off on the newly-constructed freighter Bark’s Finest about fifty years ago; he had an interest in both astronomy and astrology, made regular visits to the surface of Blackwood, and several of his acquaintances are still in residence. Our first such acquaintance to talk to is one Doctor Sagi Brose; they knew Alex during his childhood, and are currently teaching bio-engineering at one of Bark’s millions of universities. Specifically Cthonic Mare Institute.”

I felt my Max nod in acknowledgment, before noting “In that case we’d best finish our meal promptly. If we can’t call Doctor Brose for whatever reason, we’ll have to get there by train.”

We tried calling Doctor Bose immediately after that, but our call got screened by a spam filter and Max successfully argued that if we wanted to speak with them on friendly terms, hacking our way past their spam filter was not in fact a good idea. Which meant that we would need to go there in person.

And so we quickly finished up our noodles, complimented the chefs of the restaurant profusely, switched all the Madelines into being the primary drivers of their respective bodies again, and got on our way.

Within minutes we were already at the train station where we needed to be for our ride to the Cthonic Mare, and its local Institute. Soon the maglev train pulled up to the station, opened its doors, and we climbed aboard. The train gradually accelerated up to speed, causing us to get noticeably lighter as it approached Bark’s orbital velocity.

Still, we didn’t hit full microgravity before the train started slowing down again, arriving at the Cthonic Mare Arcology with a cheerful automated announcement informing us of that fact. I will admit that I was inordinately proud of the way our group turned a few heads when we got off the train, but we were on a mission right now; teasing the locals with our morph preferences could wait.

Either way, once we were off the long-distance maglev line it was a matter of using the local public transport system to get within walking distance of the Institute. Unlike Bouccan they’d opted for steel-on-steel electric trains with high-capacity elevator lanes for local transport, but that was fine. A bit boring compared to Tide’s pod system, but fine.

When we got to the Institute, the local security teams ordered that we check our weapons before entering. Considering that we were equipped with a large number of blatantly military-grade long arms, that made an awful lot of sense. We removed the weapons’ activator chips before handing them over, meaning they wouldn’t be usable before we got back without a lot of time and effort spent on fabricating a replacement or bypassing the authentication system.

Anyway, we quickly reached the Bioengineering wing of the university. Their secretary was wearing a six-armed biomorph, and as we entered she asked “Hello, do you have an appointment?”. On the desk, a sign identified her as Gal Hazard.

M1 answered honestly “No, but if Doctor Sagi Brose is available for a walk-in we would like to speak with them please. Though they aren’t a suspect in our investigation, they might have information that is extremely important.”

Gal looked distinctly unimpressed “An investigation you say? What exactly would you be investigating, madames Zargosty?”

Entirely unphased, M1 answered “We’re hunting a pirate by the name of Alex Fuller who successfully stole several Non-Orientable Wormholes. We know he grew up on Bark and narrowed down the list of possible Alex Fullers to ten possible candidates, one of whom was acquainted with Doctor Brose before he left Bark.”

Gal tsked, saying “I should have known you lot were from the Frontier, coming in here armed to the teeth like you did. What backwater dump of a system are you from anyway?”

I couldn’t help it. “We’re from the Red Star Union, a federalized parliamentary republic of eight systems and a total population of nine trillion people. Though we might be far from the Old Core, rest assured that a backwater dump we are not.”

With one pair of her hands, Gal clapped slowly and sarcastically, remarking “Wow, I’m so impressed. Just the lack of manners I’d expect from a bunch of yokels like you.” Though Gal didn’t notice, a bulky synthmorph had silently walked up behind her and crossed their arms disapprovingly, their video screen representation of a mouth curved into a frown as Gal continued to speak “Come back when your capitol is a Megasystem, then we’ll talk.”

Then the synthmorph spoke up with a smooth, but tense sounding voice “No, we will talk NOW, Gal.”

Immediately, Gal whirled around in her chair and gaped “Dean Qualron!-”

The apparent Dean simply raised his voice and talked over Gal Hazard “This is the fourth time this Megasecond I’ve caught you being bigoted, and it’s a persistent pattern of behavior that you have maintained since you were hired. I told you last time that it was your last chance to shape up, and that remains true. Get out, and take your personal effects when you leave. I’ve already had IT revoke your permissions to the University’s systems.”

Gal gaped silently before sagging in defeat and starting to clean out her belongings from the desk. As she did so, Dean Qualron greeted us “Hello. I am Soya Qualron, dean of the Bioengineering department here at CMI. You wished to speak with Doctor Sagi Brose about one of his old students, correct?”

We all nodded in affirmation. Dean Qualron hummed understandingly, before noting “Doctor Brose is currently being re-morphed after an expedition to Bark’s surface. They aren’t expected to finish printing for another few minutes, but I can certainly ask them if they’d be willing to talk to you after they’re up and moving around.”

I agreed “That’s perfectly fine. We can wait here until they’re ready.”

And with that, Dean Qualron left for the Mindcast office at roughly the same time as Gal finished packing her things and stormed out the door. We sat down in the lobby’s comfortable armchairs, the sheer squishiness of the upholstery making it very easy on our tails.

Sure enough, a few minutes later Dean Qualron came back, bringing along Doctor Brose. They were wearing a scaled lizard-ish biomorph, with an eye-like organ in the center of their forehead that was almost certainly a bio-laser. They were also wearing a long white jacket covered in pockets, as well as a pair of heavy-duty cargo pants.

The Doctor greeted us “Hello, I am Doctor Sagi Brose. I was told you wanted to speak with me about one of my former students?”

We all stood up as I noted “Yes, we want to ask you about one Alex Fuller. Evidence suggests he’s one of ten plausible candidates for having become the pirate known as Captain Fuller, who is wanted for having stolen four Non-Orientable Wormholes.”

Doctor Brose raised one of his eyelids in imitation of an eyebrow, before asking “Question; why is it so important to talk to me about this? Tracking down a pirate ship seems more like a job for a fleet of Voidskippers checking all the plausible locations they could have gone, rather than a job that calls for a bunch of people to ask questions of a professor.”

Huh, that was actually a really good point. Still, we had an answer “We have intelligence from a former member of the same pirate crew as Captain Fuller. According to her, Fuller believes in divination and came up with some sort of equation for what stars to go to in order to change his fate. If we can get a copy of that equation we can predict his movements and save an awful lot of work tracking him down; we were hoping you knew where to find some old backups of Alex Fuller we could interrogate about that equation.”

Doctor Brose rubbed one hand under his chin for a moment, before saying “Very clever indeed, though it does sadden me to be reminded of my former student’s persistence at magical thinking. I have a few ideas where you could go to find a backup of my apparently piratical pupil, but that is not a topic of conversation for a lobby like this. Instead, we should discuss this in my office. Please, follow me.”

Doctor Brose turned and led us through the hallways of the University’s bio-engineering department, passing the Mindcast bay he’d recently been printed in en route. We passed a few other professor’s offices on the way before arriving at a synthwood door with a simple sign reading “Dr. Sagi Brose, Dr. Theren Zuun”

When we entered the office itself, there were indeed two desks present, though apparently Dr. Zuun was out at the moment. Either way, Dr. Brose sat down on his chair and turned to face us. Behind us, some of the currently unused shelving units reconfigured into basic stools. Ah, smart matter.

We sat down, and the first thing that Dr. Brose said was “While Alex did delete almost all of his backups before his departure from Bark, for a Gigasecond prior he had been using archival tapes to store backups of himself as a form of diary.”

We all blinked, and M2 asked “Magtape? Who stores a mind on magtape? And why would those backups be more likely to have survived?”

Dr. Brose looked distinctly bemused, before saying “Alex stored minds on magtape, obviously. As for why the archival tapes would have survived when his other backups would not, he had a habit of hiding them in interesting places once they filled up. There were a few on Bark that I know about, but at least half of them were cached on Blackwood’s surface. We will of course be checking the cache locations on Bark first due to ease of access.”

With that, Dr. Brose got up and started walking, noting “I will of course be accompanying you, but I must also print a second instance to attend to my duties here. We will re-integrate once we are done assisting you.” before he turned into the Mindcast bay. We caught a brief glimpse of him headbutting the external scanning probe, and one of the pods spun into motion as he noted “Anyway, now that there will shortly be a second me to help out around here, it is time for us to go and check the first of the cache locations. Follow me please, we are going to Iridescent Crater Park, a theme park relatively close to here. Please leave your weaponry here at the university; the security there will not present you the opportunity to check it, no matter what your justification is. They have sniper turrets guarding the entrance, just in case.”

And with that, we were off. It was a quick trip to the train station, and from there it only took a few minutes of waiting to reach Iridescent Crater Park, much of which I spent petting M6 after she slumped into my personal space. She purred happily in response, making good use of that purr emulator we’d spent ages tinkering with back when we initially designed our morph to have superficially feline traits. A few more scritches behind the ears, and M6 practically melted into my lap. Looking up, I could see that all the other mes were clearly jealous, but also too enthralled by the scene to do much about it.

Of course, that didn’t last long, since this was still a very short train ride. As we arrived at our stop, Dr. Brose got up and said “Follow me, please. The archival tape we wish to retrieve was located in a position that guests are generally not allowed to enter. As such, we will need to acquire special authorization in order to reach it.”

What followed was a dizzying whirlwind of bureaucracy that Dr. Brose navigated like an expert to such a degree that it almost seemed like a performance. We bounced from Customer Service to Facilities Maintenance, to a storage shed to grab a ladder, and ultimately to the station building for the Victorian Steamer, a launched roller coaster done up with a steampunk theme and flashy brass finish.

As we levered the ladder into position to climb up onto the roof of the station and access the clocktower on top of the station building, M1 commented “Any idea how Alex got the archival tape in there in the first place?”

I shrugged as I climbed the ladder after the facilities maintenance person, remarking “Not important. Anyway, let’s see if that archival tape is still there.”

Anyway, the theme park member in question quickly scrambled up to the clock tower and opened one of the clock faces, noting “Take a look, just don’t break anything.”

I don’t know why I was surprised to see that they were using a simple micro-controller, a speaker, and a set of stepper motors instead of an actual mechanical timekeeping mechanism, but I didn’t let it bother me too much. Anyway, the bottom part of the clock tower was empty aside from the timekeeping mechanism, but I could see a synthwood platform directly above.

Anyway, there was no obvious way to climb up there without getting a ladder and it was just a little bit too tall for me to see over it anyway. So I popped my head off (prompting a “huh” from the maintenance person) and lifted it up to get a look at what was up there.

I immediately got cawed at by an iridescent bird that had made her nest in the cranny up there, which actually startled me into dropping my head. Fortunately it was made with properly durable soft tissue and bones so there wasn’t any serious damage; after putting my head back on, I replied to the maintenance person “Sorry for the interruption.”

Once we were back outside the theme park, Doctor Brose noted “There are two other possible locations on Bark that are worth checking. One in an amphitheater at a rival university, and another in a hydroponic farm facility.”

Of course both of those also came up as a bust, prompting M2 to ask when we got back to his office “Alright, we’ve checked every location on Bark you knew about. So, I guess that means our next stop is the surface of Blackwood?”

Doctor Brose nodded somberly “Yes, an expedition will be required. You were wise to bring those battle lasers and mag rifles, but without detailed knowledge of Blackwood’s highly dangerous biosphere they will not be sufficient. I only just got back from an expedition and acting as mission control is not my forte; as such you can either accept a knowledge implant, or I can attempt to find another guide for you.”

There was a rapid, brief deliberation between us, before M7 said “I’ll take the knowledge implant, then the rest of us will check me over for issues before I share it with the rest.”

Doctor Brose nodded, before saying “In that case, allow me to forward the files to your tablet.” and entering a few commands on his desktop computer console.

M7’s tablet rang, and I could immediately tell by the subtle shift in expression that Max was using her body right now, applying his expertise as a cyberwar specialist to ensuring the encyclopedia files weren’t full of malware. After a few minutes of poking and prodding, Max 7 proclaimed “The encyclopedia files are clean. Going to internalize them now.”

A couple moments later, M7 nodded. Max 5 and 4 took that as their cue to perform a double check on M7, interfacing their tablets with M7’s brain and blackboxes in limited connectivity mode to check through every single scrap of cognitive processing for malware. In the background, Sagi was looking rather bemused at the production we were making of this whole thing, rolling his eyes when Max 4 noted “OK, it’s clean.”

Doctor Brose replied with a distinctly unamused tone “Of course it’s clean, I’m a professor, not some kind of mind criminal. Why in the world would I want to hurt my students?”

We all blinked at that, before M2 asked “We won’t have to pay for tuition, will we?”

Doctor Brose deadpanned “I wouldn’t have normally asked, but after that display of unwarranted paranoia I am strongly considering demanding a consultation fee.”

A few minutes later we had all assimilated the knowledge implant, and were on our way to one of the orbital ring stations used for deploying new and hideously dangerous lifeforms onto Bark’s surface. En route, Doctor Brose was talking to us over the network, noting “Fortunately for you Alex had a particular fondness for a single region of Blackwood, known as the Corundum Plateau. As such, you are unlikely to need to explore the entire planetary surface. On the other hand, it is still a large enough area that a vehicle is recommended. As such you are being provided with a drop copter, which will both provide you with versatile air transport and function as a mobile Mindcast bay for when you return.”

I nodded as I replied “Right, because the laser satellite grid is primed to shoot first, ask questions never in the case of things leaving Blackwood’s atmosphere.”

Doctor Brose hummed appreciatively “Exactly. While there’s never been a case of an experimental organism escaping Blackwood’s surface, no-one on Bark wants to take any chances. Anyway, the list of locations has been loaded into the navigation computer for your helicopter. Still, it’s been almost two Gigaseconds, so it’s possible the archival tapes have been moved somewhat; they were each encased in a thick carbon nanotube protective layer with plenty of additional fireproofing, so they should probably still be intact.”

I replied “Got it, thanks for all the help Doctor Brose.”

The professor smiled ever so slightly, before replying “You are quite welcome. I will have to maintain correspondence with you when your investigation is complete.”

Anyway, the mag train we were riding in arrived at the orbital ring in good time, and we swiftly reached one of the transfer stations. Sure enough, a fairing was waiting for us containing a folded up ducted fan helicopter with seats for seven people. An announcement came over the intercom “Greetings Expedition 271-666-704-525-623-320. You will be deployed to the Corundum Plateau shortly, please enter the pod.”

We all shared a glance before we stepped forward and climbed into the helicopter’s passenger cabin. We made sure our weapons and equipment were properly secured so they wouldn’t go flying around the cabin, then we closed the door to the cabin, sealed it properly, and strapped ourselves in. A few moments later, the top half of the payload faring lowered around us, and the helicopter’s display lit up with a simplified diagram of Blackwood’s orbital space even as the computer announced “All passengers and cargo are now properly stowed. Readying for launch.”

Then we were pressed back into our seats as the magnetic launch rail of the orbital ring started accelerating our pod around Bark. Gradually we noticed that the downwards force from gravity was getting weaker and weaker as we approached orbital speeds, with a brief period of microgravity before we started getting pulled upwards into our seats. Our speed had now exceeded the orbital velocity for our current altitude over Bark, and before much longer could pass the forces abruptly dropped to zero as our pod detached from the magnetic rail.

Then we were in microgravity, the console showing our transfer trajectory with a countdown to our arrival time. While it would take a little while to cross the forty five thousand kilometers between Bark and Blackwood, we were all far too focused on the mission to be much worried about passing the time. What followed was an agonizing wait as gravity brought us closer and closer to the insanely deadly deathworld below.

Then our pod hit the atmosphere, the aeroshell passively orienting in the correct direction even as we plunged through the skies and were shoved into our seats even harder than the orbital ring had done. Then the faring blew off with the distinctive crack of explosive bolts, and with several loud clunks our helicopter unfolded into its flight configuration, the ducted fans extending from their position folded flat against the fuselage and the tail telescoping to its full length. With a whine of motors the propellers blurred into motion and our descent through the skies halted.

Then and only then did our helicopter’s navigation computer announce in a mildly distressing chipper tone of voice “Welcome to Blackwood.”

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