"So, today's the big day."

"Yeah. I'll have to get used to responding to that name you have given me. Reinhardt Weissman really, Farin?"

"You have to thank me that the name is easy to remember. At least you'll less likely forget your 'temporary name' since it sounds closer. 'Reinhardt' and 'Rinvar' - hear that? "

"Point taken. Time to look the part."

Rinvar started unbuttoning his shirt when he entered a well-lit room with a gleaming brown tube at the center. At the right of the machine was a constable whose green and blue uniform was covered by a white laboratory gown. The captain then removed the rest of his clothes as drew closer to the masked attendant. Rinvar stopped at the cylinder, where he slowly lifted his right leg and began immersing his body on the open portion of the glass apparatus. What awaited him was actually a pool of brown liquid that had the consistency of something between oil and jelly. It felt slippery to the touch, but it soon started to take a grip on his skin. The investigator did not mind the liquid beginning to wrap around his body; the last strand of his hair disappeared quietly into the tub.

The attendant pressed down a lever of a machine almost his size. A current of energy surged out of three large wires on the floor, which traveled to the base of the tub. This became a field of weak white light that wrapped around the vessel. Smoke rose out of the tub's opening; a soft, fizzling sound could be heard as the brown liquid started losing its aqueous properties. A screen at the top of the attendant's console seemed to be keeping track of things in the form of several displays that were labeled "heart rate", "pressure" and "muscle tension", among seven more indicators. He stood there, watching the tub gradually reveal a human form that looked a lot less than the imperial officer's lean musculature.

Rinvar felt that he had been asleep during the procedure for three hours. His body felt heavier; his joints and bones seemed to have difficulty in working with his muscles on the rather simple task of getting out of the now-transparent tub. He almost slipped, if not for the fast response of the attendant who guided him out of the apparatus. The mirrored surface of the room's wall revealed a largish man whose fat bulged a little around his torso. His face had an odd, almost unnoticeable sag around the cheek and chin areas.

"Oh, yes. This is supposed to be Reinhardt Weissman. At least, he's a little whiter than me."

Rinvar couldn't help but think Farin picked up this form to not only give him a bit of a challenge but find something to nitpick on him once the task was said and done. It looked unassuming after all, given that this was the kind of form a regular office worker who did nothing but eats half his day and sits around would have. He turned around to check if something was out of line with this "new skin" of his. Good thing there was none of the "fat" that would get in the way should he need to run faster than he should. Rinvar was given a pair of shorts four sizes larger than what he actually wore. He reached out for a shirt from one of the coat hangers when the screeching whistle of the facility door signaled the entry of Director Farin Arinas.

"Getting used to your new look, Reinhardt Weismann?"

"More like struggling to get used to it." Rinvar started to button up and fix his cuffs. "I'd imagine I'd be in a lot worse case had this copied even the weight of the subject."

"You're not exactly a small man, and it's hard to create an identity for you and convince the head of the Sanitation Committee to put you in."

"Looks like the allure of Director Farin was not enough back then."

"More like 'I'm not the type to throw myself towards married men'." Farin let out a short chuckle that started high and was cut short; her lips shrunk back to her typical stern face before asking, "Ready for your big day, Captain?"

"Let's get this over with Farin."

†

Rinvar was dropped off at the Office of the Sanitation Bureau. His means of travel was a rounded, almost comically-looking vehicle that resembled a badly-shaped workman's helmet sped away the moment he disembarked. The Imperial investigator had to choose a back alley route to prevent people from seeing him sneak into the compound. It was a forty-minute drive from the Imperial Constabulary composed of several turns and detours to get to the destination without inviting curious eyes. Rinvar saw a small gathering - around five or six men were waiting on something, tersely looking at their watches and shifting their focus to the surrounding roads.

"This is the group I'm supposed to be with..."

Rinvar waved at the group; there was very little attention given to him - most in the form of slight waving from some of the team members before gazing back at their watches. They were four, rather five, when a thin, tall man who sported rounded spectacles approach the disguised Imperial officer.

"So you must be Reinhardt, the new trainee." He said to Rinvar before the man looked at the other sanitation inspectors. "Forgive our rather cold approach, but I'm sure that we will all get used to each other later, if not sooner."

"That's all right." This Reinhardt name certainly needed a little time to get used to. "I'm not very good with introductions either."

"Not a problem. That can be solved by a trip to the beerhouse after the shift." The man's spectacles slightly slid to the middle part of his nose before he pushed the frame back up before saying, "where are my manners? I am Sepp."

"Thanks. I'm Ri-Reinhardt. Wait, you know that much by now."

"Let me introduce you to the rest of the team. The plumper guy is Hans, while Johann wears the mono lens. Gottlieb is the shortest one and Andreas is the other new guy with us."

"I'll take that to mind - if I can remember all of them." Rinvar's gaze at each of them broke when he heard the low sound taking over the silence. "Thanks."

A larger, boxy automobile came to view. It was more than twice the length and height of the common, citizen-owned machines found in the capital, and it could hold more people no doubt. Rinvar went aboard the boxy machine after his five other companions got inside. The door slid shut with a soft whistle before the long buzz of the engine took over.

"Remember your designations later." This man wearing square-framed lenses was the lead inspector, Johann Glick "Nobody should be asking me where they should be doing their jobs. Neue Schwalwerk is quite the place."

Of course. Reinhardt Weissman should be looking into employee accommodations and kitchen safety.

It was a short, barely memorable journey where Rinvar could recall taking a left from the long, winding Kulturstrasse and straight into the imperial main road. He forgot six or so smaller streets the vehicle had to take before he caught sight of Neue Schwalwerk's main gate.

The place was unassuming; a large swathe of the area was allotted as a flat concrete area where metal boxes the size of small houses stood in stacks of three. The buildings were quite low - only three floors tall at most, but the structures took quite a lot of space, only maximized by giving them shapes that resembled sideways-mounted staircases in Rinvar's mind. Wheeled machines that had implements made for lifting the boxes moved in and out of a curved roof building from the near western section of the compound. Rinvar saw the company logo reserved for the lined warehouses and the main building; a hand holding a thunderbolt gleaned against the afternoon sun.

One of the facility guards left two of his colleagues to inspect the inspectors' vehicle to come aboard and handed them brown cards held by straps; the word "Visitor" was seen in large black lettering. The sanitation inspectors wore these tags like necklaces before standing up to start their work for the day.

†

"Welcome to Neue Schwalwerk." A lanky man wearing a pair of thick goggles on his forehead approached the entering group of inspectors. "My name is Klaus. I'll be showing you around our production and storage facilities, we can also take a tour of our workers' resting places."

Six other Neue Schwalwerk staff received the gentlemen's coats. Bright yellow helmets were handed to the guests. Klaus walked in front of the trailing group, pointing at the towering storage bins that were filled with crates and boxes of different sizes and make.

"As you can see, we take utmost care handling the many materials we pack." Klaus stopped in front of a yet-to-be-stored crate with pallet. A small wheeled vehicle with angled, horizontal fangs approached the container, holding the cargo from the bottom before it was lifted midair. The machine backed away and moved out of sight.

Rinvar was glad, somehow, that he didn't land this kind of work. It had more to do with trying to focus on what you need to check amidst active attempts to be distracted by a person attempting to persuade you into looking at what seemed to be good points of something. It would have been hard trying to look for issues with what you're supposed to look for flaws (he didn't know any better than the people in the entire work area. Rinvar was only set out to act like he knew what he was doing). He looked at his clipboard and found a section of items under "containers/shipping facilities". He was glad that the checklist didn't have too many technical terms and other complexities.

He moved a few meters away from the rest of the inspectors to examine the containers used in the hazardous parts sector of the warehouse. Rinvar looked at the tough, dense-looking metal boxes where a document-sized paper was plastered onto its sections.

"Caution: Extremely flammable. No smoke or flame up to 15 meters"

He proceeded farther into the sector and didn't realize immediately that his other colleagues just caught up with him. Rinvar continued to probe the other containers, where the same stickers were seen on them. He did take note of one of the shipping vans having loose rivets that revealed a sizable gap leading to the interior. Rinvar took something out of his coat; three black orbs were thrown inside the container. He looked at the ceiling and saw a glimmer concealed by the darkness resting at the vertex of the roof.

"Looks like Neue Schwalwerk is no ordinary company. I suppose that crystal eye didn't capture me dropping those. Well, the balls will be my safeguard, just in case."

Those devices were introduced less than a year ago to the market, with only the most affluent of companies - or those with the deepest pockets - being able to acquire them. The contraptions were deceptively simple: electric-powered boxes sporting round, crystal lenses. These were made to assist security personnel in monitoring areas where an actual person might not be available at all times. While this made Neue Schwalwerk a very safe working space for its employees, Rinvar's task of getting through their records section to achieve his objective may prove to be more difficult than expected.

Rinvar was about to proceed to inspect the second container when he saw his auburn colleague going ahead of him; he was then reminded that the team had individual assignments, and this section was not the sector where Reinhardt Weissmann was supposed to look into. He saw Johannes signaling the rest of the team to proceed to a hallway. Large sheets of glass allowed light to come from both left and right; Rinvar could see that the hallways were intersecting paths that merged at a central building.

"As you can see, our production and logistics sectors are connected to our worker lodges. We make sure that someone will always be working to keep our business in line and also our customers satisfied..."

Klaus' voice trailed off inside the captain's mind; he assumed that nothing of important note will be missed.

The inspection team was greeted by a mechanical door with a green lens-like apparatus at the top center. It made three flashes on the awaiting party before the doorway opened to the entranceway filled with workers who were on break. At the right side was a marble bar counter designed in fleurs and spires - a fashion only seen two decades ago, or even older. In front of it were four tables where one of them was occupied with a couple of workers playing a game of chess. There were other leisure devices located across the side of the entrance; one that caught Rinvar's attention was a table covered in glass, where a worker was seen trying to make a moving metal ball stay in the table area while making it hit an assortment of obstacles scattered all over.

"I forgot what that ball machine was called, but I remember them being imported from the Federated States..."

On the left side of the area was an assortment of exercise machines - this was the busier side of the site; many of the workers were lifting weights, stretching and, moving their limbs with the help of the equipment. Rinvar scanned the corners of the ceiling in search of the same devices he saw hidden in the logistics facilities.

As he expected, the glimmer of those devices resting at the corners was seen. While it was not evident in the sparse number of guards moving around the compound, Neue Schwalwerk had several extra eyes that did just as good in keeping watch, if not better. Rinvar was then led to the workers' quarters. It resembled a standard military barracks where rows of white steel beds separated by small tables were seen. The design was as bare as a skeletal frame with a mattress, a blanket and a pillow were placed on it; there were a lot fewer signs that people actually bothered to add personal touches to each bed. It could have been part of company policy not to do so in the first place. Rinvar had to do his part of the inspection by checking the sides and under regions of the mattresses. He then scribbled:

"No signs of lice infestation found on any of the beds. Bedding material is well-maintained and was recently replaced."

Rinvar managed to capture a glimmer coming from a sign at the above right of the staff accommodations:

Records: Authorized Personnel Only

It was time for Captain De Melvich's real work to begin.

"Say, what do you keep inside that room?"

"That's where our delivery logs and ledgers are kept, Inspector Sir." The Neue Schwalwerk guide answered.

"Do you have a toilet, or a kitchen inside?"

"Of course, Inspector." Only a glance was offered to the door by the guide - a message to dissuade Rinvar from proceeding further. "It is not as commonly used as the other parts of the workers' area. Some of the records staff wanted a little privacy with their meals. You know how far we are from the main canteen here."

"I imagine that half of the short breaks are spent getting food and going back here. I'd like to see how the work their kitchens there."

Rinvar was led to the room, but there was an ill attempt at trying to make him look the other way. He was guided to a place of file cabinets and a machine that had four metal discs rotating in different directions. There was a small kitchen installed at the corner; the smell of onions and pork hung almost still in the place. It seemed to be fairly new, seeing that the screws and other fixtures still kept a noticeable sheen in them. Neue Schwalwerk no doubt took care of its workers to a fault. A little farther from the right of the kitchen was the restroom.

"So they turned off air conditioning in this place. Weird folks for sure." Rinvar then caught sight of an interesting machine to his right. "Now what do we have here...?"

A records device. How convenient.

An orb to the right of an inactive monitor was glowing.

"Looks like the records have been updated. I may just be in luck..." Rinvar kept looking at the machine right before turning back to the restroom. He turned the knob but the door refused to open.

"Looks like you're right about this not being used all the time." The false inspector pointed to the knob. You've got the keys?

"Uhm, well, Inspector. I'll go fetch it for you."

"I'll come with you, if you're fine with that."Rinvar walked towards the guide; his right arm stretched out to swipe the white orb. From his sleeve rolled out another ball that rested on the cradle. Now that he has what he needed, all that had to be done was to finish his sanitation inspection task and return to the bureau.