HARVEST MOON - Harvest on Pandera

[Amazee Dayzee]

I have a feeling that Harvest was hoping for a lot more from her when he tried to invite her back to his room. Looks like that isn't happening. XD

[Welsh Halfwit]

MIDNIGHT CALLER


Well, OK. I say ‘meeting’ but, of course, Judge General Wharrick isn’t here. The Wolven’s on Celica, where she heads up the Judicial side of things for the Council. The structure’s split so no-one’s really left out. The Military wing is based on Cana, Finance on Felis, Distribution is on Lapparra, the health service is based on Mica and non specified maintenance is on Earth. At least the command sections for each division is on those planets. Each of them has sub offices throughout the worlds as it’s stupid to have Cana calling Earth every time they need a few extra bricks put in. Plus Humans can work anywhere. Same as most of the other races. Except Celicans. They can’t work in places there are mirrors. Heh. I kid but only slightly. Seriously, vanity is too mild a word for Dakrin in the morning. At least he wears underwear when on the bed now. I wish he was here. And I’ll never tell him that. His head would expand.

“Stop reminiscing,” Wharrick tells me through the link. “You’re certain it was Vice-President Sunderland you heard?”

Oh, like they’ve not run this through various voice recognition protocols. The Judge General does NOT get involved in what amounts to interplanetary court-martials. They’re freewheeling on this right at the moment. It got bigger than they were prepared for as soon as the recording turned up and…

“STOP reminiscing, I said!”

Dang, she’s good. “It’s him,” I state. “I’ve heard the voice often enough. There’s the possibility it could have been dubbed but the person who gave it to me would know that you’d subject it to all manner of of tests to see if it’s a fake…” (Why, when saying that, do I have the flash image of a Starred Trek Rumulan in my head?) “...or not. “

“Ah, yes,” she muses. “The spymaster. If anything taints that evidence it’s where you got it from. It makes me dubious about using this as evidence…”

“I don’t think you have much of a choice,” I say, feeling brave in the face of a Wolf billions of miles away. I take a swallow of coffee that hasn’t improved since yesterday. And I say that because it’s oh two thirty – otherwise known as oh god, it’s time to sleep – on Pandera right now. “The universes worst kept secret is that Harriet Thurso isn’t to be trifled with. She’s provided me with this evidence and sent me scurrying across Pandera to deliver it rather than send it via the net for a reason, doesn’t she?” I put a finger to the mouse cage on the table so Wheat can put her nose against it and threaten to nibble it. She’s so going to want that fish.

“You think she’s got copies?”

“Of course she has,” I reply. “Elements in the Mican Intelligence community are trying to elbow her out. She’s fighting back. She’s not going to trust this to just me. This is option one. The Council embarrasses the guilty and gets them to step down or otherwise remove them. Or someone puts bounties on their heads if I’m getting fanciful. In short, her position improves.” I gently tap Wheat on the nose with a clawtip and she grasps my fingertip. “And theirs weakens. What she’s trying to judge now is what the Council will do with the evidence. If you use it?” I shrug. “She doesn’t release it to half the news outlets across the Council worlds. Imagine if Rai 1 got hold of it? Or C-star? Felis News Network?”

Wharrick holds up her hands. “I get it, I get it.” She sighed. “To be honest, I figured that. But I’m always open to hope. I have to consider this. What are your plans?”

“I’m staying close,” I say, looking to make it a noble reason rather than ‘I need a lift’. “See if I can help out around here.”

“You’ll not be allowed close to the prisoner,” she tells me in a way that makes me think that, if I was thinking about it, I shouldn’t be thinking about it. I get it. I’m connected to someone like Thurso and, even though she appears to be on the Council side in this, there’s also kudos to having her totally deniable agent – me - kill the Admiral to save the Mican government any embarrassment. It’s a valid concern. It’s why they’re keeping him in a cell in the only place on Pandera that doesn’t have Micans thronging the halls and scampering up buildings. As far as I know, Wheat and I are the only mouses… Mice… in the place and, if she knows any, Wheat’s not saying. Was I now operating on IOC’s dime? I’d have to ask. The line cuts off and I’m left alone with my thoughts and Wheat’s squeaks.


I make my way to my sealed little room and get ready for bed, letting Wheat out of her prison as I lie there, clothing free, on the bed. She conducts a full physical examination of my frame, from toes to tailtip to… yeep… to chest to face to ears before settling on my chest and going to sleep. I stroke her with a finger and she looks indignantly at me before stretching out and sleeping again. So I just lie there, in the nuddy, with a hand acting as a duvet for a tiny guest. Hopefully she’ll be awake again in a few minutes so I can put her back in the cage.


Four hours she slept. I didn’t think that was actually possible for one of the non sentient types but she stayed there all night so I’m stiff the next morning as I get breakfast for the two of us and bring it back. There’s a knock at my door. It’s Adriette and I’m thankful I’ve gotten trousers on. I normally do my shirt first but that’s still on the bed.


Apparently Adriette thinks I’m worth being called a consultant and being paid for that. And charged for the flight back to Pandera City. After that’s paid off, I can keep any credits over. And, if I know her, she’ll probably claim I’d be travelling business class in the shuttle she’s not going to be paying anything for. If you ever make a deal with a Raitchian, try to skew it seventy thirty in your favour from the outset. That way the resultant forty-five fifty-five split will still seem like a victory. So I’m seconded to her team, as opposed to being first choice or third rate.


I get to see the trial venue. I have to try to break in. Oh, JOY.

[Amazee Dayzee]

He better have a good plan to break into the venue then. I can't even imagine what would happen if he gets caught if the plan doesn't work out.

[Welsh Halfwit]

Now, I'm sure you all know the theme...

SPIDER-MOUSE


How is it I always end up in the air vents? Adriette’s using me to test out the schematics of the courthouse by usage of the hologram room in the Council Base and I’m currently on the fifth floor of the building, in the crawlspaces. I’m wearing a black stealth suit with white eyes as I crouch around the corner from a security bot and I’m cursing my own stupidity that made me remind Agent Beran, when she said that no-one used ventilation ducting for this sort of thing anymore, that I’d recently saved a weapons convention from an attack a Mican had laid in the air vents. It’s true, I had, so they decided to test me against the system. I’ve done the run five times. First time I had a simulated electric shock from touching the vent and I’m sure the controller was laughing to himself as he said that was an error in the system and it wasn’t allowed to electroshock air vent covers any more. I complimented him to his face whilst adding salt to his coffee with my tail. Adriette slapped the tail after a moment so I put the shaker back and got back to work after removing my underwear. The second time I came out of the wrong vent and dropped in on a trooper going to the toilet. I don’t want to know what’s going to happen to that after they turn the hologram off. I’m on first name terms with the guard commander’s shokprod after he introduced us in a close combat situation skewed his way by the fact I don’t have a weapon in this suit. He calls it ‘Betty’. It’s not supposed to be on high setting. A fact I reminded him of after my teeth stopped sparking. He shrugged and told me it ws going to be when he was on patrol.

The next time I stole it from him with my tail and stunned him somewhere no-one wants to be receiving high doses of electricity. “Never keep it on high,” I told him. “Makes it too dangerous if you lose it.” I flipped it back, close to his hand and legged it shortly before someone beanbagged me. I found a micromine in the vents the last time. It’s beginning to get annoying. But I persevere. I think I’ve noted a weakness. I want to check it out but it’ll need to wait for the next time.


The automated defence system bot has gone by. This suit hides my heat signature but you have to be careful about breathing or movement and I’ll find out why one of the people called me Spider-Mouse (and insisted the hyphen was important) at some point. It’s probably not relevant. I use the adhesive properties of the suit to climb, upside down, to the lower level and scurry along the ceiling, keeping my tail looped around my leg to stop it dangling on the… A second security bot. It’s on the floor below me as I lie flat on the ceiling. If I move, it’ll sense me. They’re using a mark 8 scanner bot. It’s got an excellent movement sensor but no visual acuity at all. It tracks by sensing the shift in the air as you move and sending out a general area shock charge. Then the send in the reclamation devices to take what’s fried back for identification. It has its own, special, weak point though. There’s an off switch on the top. It’s underneath me now. I’m stuck to the ceiling. Hit anything but the button on the top and you’re going to get a shock. I whip the button with my tail and take off at best speed as I’ve just told the rest of them where I am. I use the little device I have to unlock the vents from this side to… uh, unlock a vent from this side and exit into a simulated office, sticking to the wall to reattach the vent and stick side as a probe examines the area behind the vent. It moves away. A second bot comes through. I have to move. There’s no chance that security’s not coming. The element of fair play means that they don’t know what I have or can do or what I look like but they do know what an intruder looks like so I decide not to be found and enjoy myself almost too much scurrying across the ceiling and thinking I could have used this a few nights ago. The door opens and a pair hurry in and don’t notice me scurry through the door behind them. I’m doing a lot of scurrying today. Wheat would be impressed. But I have to change the game. I drop into someone elses office and appreciate the quality of the holographic simulation of a Mican before I punch her unconscious (Hey, she’s only a hologram!), hide her under the table and swap our clothes. They almost fit. I don’t indulge in looking out of decency (this coming from the person who just ko’ed her and stripped her down to her underwear?). I just put her clothes on, enjoying the feeling of air on my face after that stealth suit mask, take the devices I need and think they need to keep an eye on the programmer of this particular model…


I trip out on moderately tall heels and wonder how they walk in these types of shoes and I’m thankful she wasn’t wearing scents or pink clothes as I wander through the actual holograms, picking someone’s pocket to get a small padd to add to the illusion. They react well to the presence of security, looking away as though it was natural and I join with them, trying to avoid the look of people who might think ‘look, there’s a cross-dressing mouse’ and shoot it just to make sure. I’ll apologise to her later. Hang about? Apologise to a hologram? I’m possibly going nuts. Too many shok-prods to the head. I still need to get to courtroom three.


There’s a guard on duty, watching and scanning everyone that’s going in. How to get past? I walk past and tell him I have some information for the judge. He tells me that no-one’s allowed in without a pass. I look around and note that the holographic cameras are watching me. I huff and move away. Wilt wouldn’t let someone like that stop him. Then again, I think to myself, nothing of how I’ve gone about this would be how Wilt would have done anything. He’d just shoot the prosecutor. Something I’ll have to remind Adriette of later. Of course, just to be obtuse, he could shoot the defence lawyer! But either way, there’s no way he’s scrambling through ducts. It’s not his style. Bluejay might.


Bluejay…


A moment later I’m back to the guard and ask him if he could, without letting me in, get the vital information to the judge and I hand him the padd. He comments that the programmer’s really gone overboard with the realism on this program as others request their entry. He hands it to the person inside the door and I thank him profusely, nearly grovelling before heading away and falling over the heels.


When I look up, I’m facing several weapons and a tearful female Mican accusing me of assaulting her. Her foot in my face feels all too real as one of the guards pulls her back. “Got you again, Rodent,” the squad leader tells me.

“Too late this time,” I tell him as the alarms start sounding.

“What,” he asks, looking around.

“Sorry I had to hurt you ma’am,” I tell the female as the other holograms panic. “But I needed to get a message to the judge.” I stand up. “A padd I had taken to him. With the message ‘this is a bomb’ set to appear after ten seconds of use.” I dust myself down. “If he can’t kill the defendant, Wilt will settle for causing chaos.” I look back to the Mican as she tries to kick out at me. “You have excellent taste in clothing.”

The guard leader looks furious that I’ve beaten him. He looks confusedly between myself and the holoMican. He grins and I know what’s coming next. “End simulation!”


And I’m standing nude in front of twelve armed people.

[Amazee Dayzee]

That's gonna be a blow to his dignity. But I think he would rather have that then actually be blown away.

[Welsh Halfwit]

Harvest has Wilt on his mind.


DRONING AROUND


Who is this guy, Dartington? No, apparently that’s some sort of crystal manufacturer. Can you manufacture that? Mostly it occurs naturally, doesn’t it? Never mind. I got the name wrong. Darlington. From what I’m able to find out the loony is the second in command to Sector Commander Norwen in the Mican province just outside the patch. Uh, to explain. Each colony has it’s own ruler, usually a colonial president but they only speak for their own colonies. They run their own militias and manage their own budgets under the consumerism aspect of commerce and capitalism. But things like monetary support from home world, Mican military movements and some arbitration of intercolonial affairs are dealt with by a sector commander, getting their hands dirty so higher ups have deniability. Above them is the Species President and the U.S.C. Council member. Where it involves other species at that level, the Council member and the President work together and one of them usually ends up in a bit of a tizzee. Where it’s just ours? The President rules. If he – or she – comes to visit a colony, they liaise with the Colonial President. If it’s a tour, they liaise with the Sector Command and THEY liaise with the Colony Presidents. Mostly on a ‘do it this way’ basis. It’s all wonderfully complex when you can see the bigger picture. Like a jigsaw of a surrealist painting, it makes less sense the more pieces you have. But, essentially, though he’s an Admiral, Darlington’s essentially the sector Vice-President. It’s quite a senior position.


But not senior enough to pull off something like this. Fleet acquisition on such a grand scale would be out of a Vice-president’s reach at the sector level. Even if he is connected to the long term ruling families. Seems he got ‘shuffled quietly away’ from his controlling post in a distant sector because of his expansionist views and his connections to the founders of several colonies. Normal officers would get fired. Connected Officers get transferred to remote, insignificant, sectors like they’re the mad grandfather in the attic that they hope won’t remember how to bang his stick on the ceiling for attention. Unfortunately, a similarly opinionated senior official in the ACTUAL Vice President became aware. You know, it’s hard to imagine Controller Norwen and President Dumfries never actually noted what was going on under their whiskers as their deputies colluded with the military and the Intelligence services. It’s either collusion or staggering incompetence on their parts. Provided Harriet’s information is accurate. After all, it’s been subjected to the most intense analysis. The problem is she’s usually the one telling others to DO the analysis so, if anyone knows how to fake something to pass analysis… Yeah, I need shut eye.


And Wheat’s fed up of listening to me. She’s gone into that little house I put in the cage and, if there had of been a door on that thing, she’d have shut it.


I’m on active drone surveillance the next day, doing high range scans of a lot of people in the city and making all the conspiracy theorists squirm with excitement. We’re not keeping it on databases, though. It’s just so Agent Beran can use her excellent memory for faces and my natural suspicious nature to identify people we need to identify. She’s looking for the local crims and I’m looking for people I’ve met recently and, possibly, kicked in the face. I, of course, am also up to something else. I’m looking to see if I can find the building they’re holding the inquest and trial in. I know the site from the inside but not from the outside. I can identify every office in the building now, after yesterday, but I don’t know what the front door looks like. Everything outside the building was a blank, natural, light that enveloped the world, rendering it invisible. But I knew certain things from my time. There were, for example, only windows in certain rooms in the lowest two levels and they were showing a fake outside, full of street scenes and foliage. How do I know it’s fake? I just told you. The programmer slipped up. Every real window was showing nothing. Every real window was showing nothing. All windows on the lower two levels were showing the streets. In fact, two of them were showing the same scene. And there’s a room that didn’t seem right on the third floor. It had a reception desk and a space where a door should be and, on one occasion that I assume was a glitch, someone walked right through the wall. So the courthouse is five storeys tall but two of them are underground. It can’t be a place that’s often used of I’d have heard about it. I do have my suspicions, based on the layout. I also went back in there this morning with flowers and chocolates and apologies that I was testing security for a certain Mican hologram. I really hate having to harm females. Perhaps I should get a female associate so she can handle that when it happens? Anyhow, I’m thinking convention centre now so I get… ah. I have to adjust my plans, I think. Wilt’s back in my thoughts.


I have feelers out on this guy, with messages to a couple of friends of my mentor. People who showed, from how they treated me, exactly how much they thought of Micans. I’m asking them because it’s less likely to get back to him. I included a snap taken from the security video Adriette got from the diner and I’m hoping they can tell me things about him but there’s a much more prescient reason I’m wondering about him now.


I’m looking at the park outside the U.S.C. base right now, trying not to look too closely at the couple hiding behind the wall, doing what people who hide behind a wall do when they’re behind a wall. I’m looking at the noble Wilt as he sits on a bench, watching the base entrance through digital binoculars until something makes him look into his pocket.

“I’ve located Wilt,” I tell Adriette. She looks over. “He’s in the park outside the base.”

She puts the base on alert before looking again as he sat there, inclining his head. “You think we can catch him,” she asked.

“I doubt it,” I reply. “He knows we’re watching.”

“Why do you say that,” she asks.

Wilt looks up and does a discrete wave to the drone. “That answer the question,” I ask.

She has to agree that it does.


Where’s Bluejay?

[Amazee Dayzee]

This was a very interesting chapter that you posted! Glad he managed to move on from being naked in front of armed guards. XD

[Welsh Halfwit]

FOOD FOR THOUGHT


And I’m running.


I hear Adriette tell a small squad to assemble to try and catch Wilt but I know he’ll be gone by the time I get there but I haven’t exactly had time to tell her why I’m running to a place I’ve not quite been before but here we are. They know I’m attached to the case now so they’re less absolutely resistant to letting me into secure areas after they’ve contacted Adriette to make sure I’m allowed into secure areas and I feel she’s confused about why I’m trying to get into secure areas but knows that, if I’m trying to get into secure areas, there’s a reason for me to get into secure areas. And that might be the most ridiculous sentence I’ve ever thought. It’d take at least fifteen takes to say it right. And I don’t have time. I need to check on the prisoner. Whom I’ve not met yet. Access to the cell block is authorised officers and rota’d cadets only. It takes me about five minutes to get down there and I find a cadet about to deliver the prisoners food. I stop him at the block door. “Want… want me to take that in, Bluejay,” I ask.

The boy, wearing a cadet’s uniform and cap, jumps and almost drops the platter. “I.. don’t…”

I grin slightly, leaning against the wall as the door closes behind me. I lock it and the one in front of Bluejay. “Come on, pal,” I implore, “we spoke for some time on the train. I know it’s you.”

His eyes flick to the door. “I’m not… I have to deliver the food to the prisoner. Can you please unlock the door?”

I lean against the door. “Nope. Why are you in this business, ‘Jay? You don’t seem like you want to be.”

“I...um...I...I don’t know what you’re on about, Mister Moon. I…” He cursed as he realises he’s given himself away. “Can I put this down?” I flick out my weapon and warn him to do it carefully. Sight of a weapon gets him stunned and he’ll wake up in a cell some distance from the rest of them. Kid’s not dumb. He doesn’t draw anything. I don’t know if he HAS anything to draw. “What… what now,” he asks with a sigh.

“We secure the situation,” I tell him, unlocking the door so troops can come in. “Anyone got any cuffs,” I ask, indicating a deflated Bluejay.

“Put him in the cells,” Adriette orders, taking his cap to expose his dyed headfur. “For questioning.”

“Oh,” I say, putting on an imploring tone, “I think we can do better than that.”


Five minutes later, we’re sat in the general mess hall and Bluejay’s eating a sloppy joe and drinking a coffee, which he states is worse than he’s ever thought his first coffee could be.

“They get better, kid,” Adriette states. “So, what’s this about? What can you tell us about Wilt that will help you out?”

He ignores her and I roll my eyes. “’Jay,” I ask, using his ‘name’ rather than talking down to him, “I asked how you ended up in this mess?”

“Needed to serve m’people, di’n’t I,” he says, spitting a bit of meat onto the table. “Too shy f’r the army so ‘tell’gence seem’d the way to go. Plus there’s Uncle H...uh, Wilt.” He swallowed. “I’m in first year here,” he admitted, a little embarrassed. “My Uncle figured I could help him.”

“Not everyone’s born to be a liar and deceive,” I assure him. He looks alarmed. “Hey, that’s a good thing, Bluejay… Do you mind me calling you that? Is there something you’d prefer?”

It gets a flicker of a smile on his lips as he still looks totally unsure and frightened for his future. He should be. There’s much about this that means he’s talking for his future here, even if he doesn’t know it. “Deathwalker Blue,” he says, “but I don’t think I could pull it off?”

“Kill Rangers Cryoforce,” Adriette says, about a second before I can say anything. We both look at her. When did she learn about teen vidshows? “What,” she asks, “I’m down with the kids.”

“Kids would never say that,” he tells her. “Bluejay’s fine. I’m told your prisoner’s dangerous. Uncle Wilt said we needed to deal with him.”

“You’re being quite honest with us,” Adriette muses.

“First year,” I remind her. “Haven’t gotten all the decency out of him yet.” A sly smile to him. We’re surrounded by troops having food, by the way. He might still be wearing a cadets uniform but, make no mistake, there’s a good dozen in here ready to jump him if he does anything off. Not that he’s doing anything off. Which is making me think that something here is… off.

“Lookin’ for a better deal, inn’i,” he states before taking another bite of the low ranking soldiers favourite and dripping a mess onto his plate. I’m pretty sure he’s telling the truth. He’s probably one of the only ones in this lunacy who is. Which tells me the lie is elsewhere but…

“I’m realising he’s not really broken any laws here, Adriette,” I venture, before ignoring her protestations that he was about to poison a prisoner and turning back to him. “When you’re not trying to poison a prisoner,” I ask, “what is it you like doing, ‘Jay?”

He swallows his piece this time. “I showed you,” he protests. “The Galnet site? I made that up on the fly, Mister Moon.”

I nod. “He’s quite good. You might find some use for him in a computer department?”

Adriette looks at me, her face showing complete exasperation. Even Bluejay’s looking shocked. “I can’t go giving jobs to attempted assassins,” she declares.

“Yeah,” I say, “about that… I’m having suspicions…” I stop as Adriette gets a comm call. She makes a few declarations then looks at me as though I have two heads. “I’m right, aren’t I,” I ask as she turns it off.

“Nothing more added than too much capsaicin,” she breaths. Bluejay looks confused. “Pepper,” she tells him. “It’s a seasoning he’s not allergic to.”

I facepalm. “He’s the diversion,” I tell Adriette, making Bluejay look offended. “Wilt made sure we saw him so we’d know ‘Jay here was sneaking in. We catch Jay doing what he thinks is right and…”

“We don’t look elsewhere.” Adriette pulls up security monitors on her padds display and runs through as Bluejay grumbles about being set up to fail. Adriette scrolls through the feeds, looking for anything until I tell her to stop and focus in on a bandaged Mican leaving the base. “Who..?”

“I call him ‘smashmouth,” I told her. “My boot accidentally smashed his mouth a couple of nights back.” My brow puckers. “What was HE doing here?”

[Amazee Dayzee]

He better hope that the nickname doesn't stick with him because he could be really humiliated with a name like that. Or try to give Harvest a nickname of his own like "Busted Balls". XD

[Welsh Halfwit]

Must admit I enjoyed writing the bit where he took flowers and choccies to apologise to a hologram in the previous part.

[Amazee Dayzee]

I feel like that part got overshadowed just a bit with him being naked in front of people though. I honestly couldn't focus on anything after that. LOL

[Welsh Halfwit]

TRACKING.


Adriette’s tracing Smashmouth – who she’s chosen to call Plaster as she doesn’t like Smashmouth as a name – on the computer systems as Bluejay’s taken to a private cell somewhere down block from the gentleman he came here to not kill. I’m not exactly needed to help them trace Smashmouth – who I choose not to call Plaster as I prefer Smashmouth so I go to a different location. She’s looking over the internal cameras to track him but I’ve told her to expect a call and she asked me from whom. I tell her in the spirit of openness before I head off in my little bubblecar.


Off-base, in a city I’ve never been to on a planet I don’t really know. I’m uncomfortable with how uncomfortable this makes me seeing as it was the story of my life for much of my life Perhaps I’ve gotten settled in my late middle age? Still, pretty much every planet that follows Mican rules has the same traffic laws so I do know them and it’s fairly easy to find the local Police Station and Adriette’s called ahead to tell them I’m coming so a Detective Sergeant Malton’s ready to meet me as I park in the Chief of Detective’s slot as I can’t see anywhere else available. I write a “H/K ON CALL” sign and put it in the windscreen so the offending Officer knows exactly who not to blame and lock the car up after I’m out.


The interior of the Police Station is pretty much the same as any Police Station anywhere in the cosmos – except, perhaps – for Celican and Wolven ones. There’s no smell of blood in the air – and the scent of grains and wheat in the air is painfully artificial as I make my way to reception and announce myself. The DorMican on the desk looks up at me and wrinkles his whiskers. “You sure you want to park there,” he asks.

“Is the Chief likely to be here soon?”

“Dunno,” he drawls, making me wonder if he’s a bit nocturnal. “Not due in but can drop in anytime.”

I tell him to let me know if they turn up and he replies that he’ll let Chief Ullswater do that and buzzes me in to see Malton, who appears to be an Apodican type Mican, with sand coloured head and the hint of a grey underside behind his tie and shirt. He’s got a very similar coat to mine and a similar type shuffle walk that has people giggling as we go past as we appear to be synchronising. He tells me he’s quite happy to be helping the IOC and his DI is quite happy to assign him. I’m reckoning he likes being underestimated. It’s why I do it.


He shows me into a CCTV room flanked with monitor banks and microphones and computer banks. I ask him to start from the park. I don’t tell him why but I point at Wilt when he arrives. Him, I say, we need to track him. So we do. We track him back through time, from camera to camera with gaps inbetween as no-one tends to surveil common streets, just major through fares and public areas and, co-incidentally, we come on the spot where he split from a younger Mican with blue headfur, wearing a cadets outfit. Malton suggests we track his contact but I tell him we know where the contact went. We need to know more about where they… Wilt waits on screen for a few moments until Smashmouth turns up. Of course they’d not told Bluejay of the plans. The less he knew, the less he could tell us. I’m really against abuse of the young in this fashion. Even if I’ve done it to Dakrin a couple of times that he’s forgiven me for. Probably. We split our attention and hit rewind again, watching to see where both of them came from.


I get a couple of addresses and resolve to check them later. I’m not going there alone. It’d be tantamount to slapping a label on my forehead saying ‘shoot me here’ and I’m not that keen on labels or making myself out to be a target.


How I have the nerve to say that when I’m walking into the park we last saw Wilt in I have no idea. The U.S.C. troops searched here discretely earlier. I can see the bootprints in the flower beds. I’m not going to find much here. They’ve examined the area with the finesse of an army searching for someone, not a Detective looking for something. OK. After the drone saw him, and he saw the drone, he walked off. I cast my eye in the direction he went and follow the path around a grassed plain where Canine children are playing ballgames and decide there’s no point asking them if they saw a Mican of average size, build and height in a Mican park on a Mican colony two hours ago. I’m glancing around to see if there’s anything not in its right place. I squat by where it looks like a plant has been pulled up and replanted close to a rubbish bin and give it an experimental tug, only to be disturbed by a gardener telling me to go away in significantly less polite terms than that. I have to apologise and agree to leave and the gardener tells me to take whatever’s stuck to the bottom of the bin with me and he’d wondered who’d come looking for it after the gentlemican left it there.


It’s a comm number and a CV for Bluejay. It gives his real name – probably – and I reckon he’d prefer Bluejay. I slip it into a pocket and get back to town for a disposal comm. I’m not totally sure why as he has my comm number but it might make him think I’ve switched numbers and it’s harder to track two at once. Or something. Anyhow I pick one up, add it to the links my installed earpiece can access with the thirty digit passcode that I can send across from my active comm after passing security there. Wilt obviously wasn’t sure about how long it would take us, which is why he didn’t comm me at some point. He’s waiting on us. Or, more arrogantly, for me. I’m sure he knows I’m the one who would find it. I call the number.

“It’s about time you called, Agent Beran,” he says, deflating my ego somewhat.

“It’s Moon, ‘Wilt’,” I reply. “Agent Beran’s busy.”

He chuckles politely. “You were to be my second guess, Harvest,” he says, slightly irritating me by using my first name before I realise that I might have just done the same with him. “I take it my nephew is safe in IOC custody?”

“Yeah, Sheffield’s safe,” I reply. “It’s a very complex way of offloading him.”

“He wants to serve. He’s never going to make it in intelligence. He only got in because of me. I wanted him out without being killed. This will do it.”

“Whilst Smashmouth enacted the real plan?”

“I’ll have to tell him you call him that,” Wilt admonished. “I’m sure he’ll want to thank you. And it did seem like a way to kill two felines with one piece of wood, as the Raitchians say. I accomplished two goals today, Mister Moon. One you helped with, for which I can, graciously, thank you. The other one you’ll find out about if you stay in this, Mister Moon. Then there won’t be time to thank you. I have to say this has been engaging but this is your last chance, Harvest. Back away.”

And he closed the line.

[Amazee Dayzee]

That last part does sound really ominous and spooky however so Harvest better watch himself. Looking forward to seeing what's next!

[Welsh Halfwit]

COMMUNICATIONS

I’m not totally sure Adriette can’t read minds so I’m going to give her all the credit for tracking Smashmouth through the base and discovering what he was up to in his sneaky little way. She’d tracked him through the base to the computer section where, after conning the officer on duty at the time, he’d downloaded all the holoroom programs stored in it, including the times of use. Adriette leans against the console and mutters something arcane in Docker Raitchian that I *ahem* don’t understand despite being fluent in the dialect following an intensive course in the first year of my mentorship. She mutters that they’ll have to change the location of the trial and I, fearlessly, ask her why. She gestures to the computer console and remarks, bitterly, that they know where the trial’s going to be held.

“How many locations down here could handle a trial like this,” I ask her. I’m a little curious despite doing research on the local area on Galnet. I could tell you about the Diamond mine where they get the basic materials for the finest honed medical devices in case of loss of energy systems. There’s a Theatre here that’s envied more than the central theatre on Cana – which isn’t such a great thing as Canine theatre operates on smells as much as what’s on the stage so the airflow around the seats has to be the primary working of the architectural configuration. Ventilation is also important but that’s not important right now. What’s important is she knows more about the layout than I do.

“Five,” she tells me. “Maybe the Tantarra Compound..?”

“Don’t bother changing it then,” I advise. She thinks about it, then exhales and nods so it’s the Computer guy who asks the question of why we shouldn’t change the location.

“Because,” Adriette explains, “he’s suggesting Wilt… our opponent – already knows all the locations we’ve been considering. This just confirms the exact one.”

“But,” I muse, “if we make it LOOK like we’re shifting the attention to one of the back ups – or even two..?”

Adriette grins politely. “He can’t watch everything equally.”

“Can’t he,” the Computer guy asks.

I really can’t argue with that question. Can’t answer it either.


“I don’t know who this ‘Wilt’ is, Harriet says on the secure line. She’s using her best ‘I’m just a harmless old landlady’ voice as this is an official line that she’s well aware is probably being recorded but, as it’s the only truly secure line in the base what can you do? “He does remind me of someone who once stayed with a cousin of mine on Gallacia, though,” she says. “I never saw much of him. He stayed in his room whilst I was visiting. Very quiet.”

For those not fluent in Thursoese, she’s telling me that she knows he operates for her ‘cousin’ – as in, fellow Intelligence chief – and he was important – or high enough – to have his own office that he actually operated from. Gallacia is the main city in the Mican sector, by the way. Another hint at his rank. Only the best operatives work in the sector capital city. Just look at Adriette here. She’s better than Harmony – no offence to Harmony – and she’s in Pandera City whereas Harmony’s out on Vallonia II, one of the backwaters. “I am gratified to see you are well, Harvest,” she says and I actually think she means it. “Dakrin sends his regards.” He’s probably not given me too many thoughts beyond the ladies he’s been seeing now my back is not only turned but several planets away. “He has asked after you whist bringing his dates to his room.” Aha. I know my Dakrins.

“Any of them come up twice?”

“I don’t pry, Harvest. Do you have a timeframe for any return?”

“Working on it, Miss Thurso,” I tell her. “I’m anxious to get back.” She nods and closes the line.

Adriette looks at me and I’m fully aware of the fact she understood most of what Thurso just said. She disconnects the call from our end to make sure the call is really disconnected and goes over to make sure the initial movements of committee members and press is in place. They’re currently safe aboard the mad Rabbit’s ship, waiting to be beamed directly to the trial site to maximise its isolation and secrecy. They’re being scanned for transmitting devices before being beamed down to reception points inside the building with guards now set up, following the test runs I did, to stop them leaving or seeing the outer doors. The communications will be routed from the local galnet control to the universe via the Loper (not that they’re going to censor anything, the good guys don’t do that, hem, hem) but we have to send them down to set up. Hark at me, using ‘we’ when I really mean ‘them’. Is this what the Humans call Helsinki syndrome? No, no. It’s something Norsican, I’m sure. So it’s seven judges, two lawyers (one for each side – what the guy did is pretty indefensible but legally he has to be defended) and fifty journalists for openness.


I start as something beeps. In fact we all jump as something beeps and I realise it’s me. It’s on my private comm and it’s come from an old associate. One of the ones I contacted after I found out Wilt seems to know my old boss. I link the comm to the main computer after the tech guy indicates he’s checked my system to make sure there’s nothing naughty on the comm or on the communication. I’m a bit insulted after he adds the words ‘bar a cheap fur dye’ but I have to let it pass. Never argue with your geek. It’s not a message, as such, but a stack of digital clippings that talk of bounties brought in and people taken out. The ‘snippets’ come from around Council space over the last few decades. He’s a cold one, this Mican. If it is him, of course. Most of the information Adriette can gather from more ‘official’ sources have the running theme of a Mican male of Wilt’s type being around when avowed opponents of the Mican Government came to untimely ends. Some look like accidents. Some don’t. Some look like random incidents of street violence. But they all involve prominent types. He’s a bag-Mican. And there’s a name attached in a file marked as ‘associates’. I look at Adriette. I see she knows it. So do I. It explains how Wilt got to the safe house in Teabury so fast. It probably helps to have the local administrator of the H/K as a friend. He doesn’t supply Wilt’s name though. There’s no point. He’s probably got a dozen different aliases set up, most of them using Wilt as a basis. Less chance of a reaction to your real name if you keep it – or a variation of it – as your fake first name.


Anyhow, it’s late. The preparations are near done. Tomorrow the pre-trial.

[Amazee Dayzee]

This was a really cool chapter once again that you wrote! Nice work on it!

[Welsh Halfwit]

OPENING DAY


Dakrin’s going to be so jealous. So, so, jealous. It’s the first day here and I’ve been noticed. By Vulpara Feeny, chief Vixen correspondent for Celica Prime news and she’s thanking me for my actions on Darena Core and I’m a little confused as I return the hug, knowing that I’m going to get precisely one chance to hug a news celebrity like her but wondering how she knew I had anything to do with the spectacle on Darena Core when the hotel security chief had taken pretty much all the credit. (That’s a long sentence to think when someone’s hugging the air out of you) It turns out she’s dating one of the exhibitors there and he told her all about the Mouse with the hat he saw around the edges of the investigation. She did her own investigations as she’s, you know, an investigative journalist and more evidence of fieldmice with mighty headgear came up. Enough to put my name to them. Great. The hat’s famous. And this isn’t even the same hat! But she’s warm and smells of cinnamon and dead wildfowl. A top selling Celican perfume as I recall. I thank her for her thanks and she looks a bit concerned, letting me see her earpiece as she henhouse her head. That looks a bit different to usual.... She asks me what I’m doing here and I tell her I’m just being used as an independent security check. I’m not sure she believes me. I’m not sure I believe me. The only truth about this situation is I’m kinda glad it’s not her occasional co-host Garva hugging me. He could pop me like a grape. I have to let go and thank her for thanking me as I think about the chest I was pretty much intimate with right now. I shake my head to clear the cobwebs and head on up to the observation booth.


We don’t reckon he has any chance of success now but, we’ve found, Wilt isn’t one to give up. Or he IS and he’s smart enough to know the smartest way to do that is make us think that he’s not the sort to give up. And then there’s Smashmouth. That fellow’s going to pop up sooner or later. My foot’s tingling at the thought of it. I can’t tell you if my boot is tingling as I’ve changed my footwear since then. Bluejay doesn’t know what his Uncle’s plan is. That doesn’t surprise me. Thanks to a certain chaos driven imbecile – me – the only one of his plans that’s actually worked is “Operation get rid of my nephew.” His chances of promotion are even slimmer than his chances of survival if he doesn’t win the main game now. He must be…


...well, I don’t know what he ‘must be’, that’s the trouble. He knows about this location, I’m sure of it. I’m here. The evidence is with the prosecutors and… What if no-one got to see it, I ponder to myself as Adriette approaches.

“I think you should go check on the media relay station,” she says before I’ve opened my mouth. “Take Finlay with you,” she adds, indicating the little Celican computer tech from earlier.

“W...why,” I ask, thinking I know the answer.

“Well, if Wilt can’t disrupt the proceedings, he might try to disrupt the signals from here? Edit them in some ways? They all have to go through a relay point in Candlewick so he might have sabotaged that somehow.”

“You’re right,” I say, making out like I’d never thought of it. “I’m sure I’d have come to it but you got there faster,” I profess. I can’t cross my fingers She’s a trained pro. She’d spot it. Give her credit. She’s smart. She’s on her own turf. She’s bigger than me.


The Celican is driving as he knows the area and has the satnav that he’s just turned on. He seems to be a pleasant enough fellow, even if his taste in music is mouse deafeningly bad and I have to turn it down or go insane. “So,” he asks as he turns a corner at 90kph, “when did you figure out they might his the relay point? I’ll bet it was before Agent Beran told you?”

“Being fair,” I say, holding on to my hat, “it was only a moment or so before. We’re more or less on the same – was that a person – wavelength.”

“Nah,” he replies, “just a bag in the wind. And I doubt it, Mister Moon. Agent Beran likes you but thinks of her team first. And I don’t mean us, I mean the ones back in Pandera City.”

I ask him if he’s on that team and he replies tech nerds don’t get onto active investigation teams much, no matter how it looks on the vids. They get pulled in when needed. We officially decide that, in this, he’s going to be examining their computers and computer security and I’m going to be watching the people. As though it was going to be any other way? I mean, I’m pretty decent with tech but this guy is ACTUALLY paid for this.


We park up outside the galnet relay office in the city and hope that Beran’s called ahead and cleared us for this. They’ve been quietly strengthening to station since no-one officially told them the trial was going to be going on down here and it’s just a routine ‘boost the capabilities in the lesser cities’ thing so much of their stuff is new or, as Finlay puts it, active open doors until closed. We get out of the car and slam the doors to let them know that we’ve arrived. It has the required effect as a Ratty looking (sorry, Adriette but his shabbiness has no other word for it) Mican shambles out and looks at us with resigned resignation. “We were told you were coming,” he tells us redundantly. “Not that it’s welcome.”

“Official visits never are, I’m sure,” I tell him as Finlay mouths at me that he’s the official and has the badge. I’m unofficial.

“He seems to doubt that,” the manager says, indicating Finlay.

“Well,” I confess, I’m the investigator. He’s the one with the badge. We’re a package deal.” I’m the one shaking his hand before Finlay does. “We’re here for a double style security check is all. Shall we proceed in?”

“Sooner you’re done,” he replies, “sooner you’re gone.” He leads the way inside to what is, almost basically, a charged environment. We can’t see the energy coming in but we can feel the electricity in the air – or, at least, I can – and my fur’s on end and it feels like my whiskers are bolt straight. A bitter chuckle from Shabby. “Yeah, hits most like that for a while,” he tells me. I wonder how he knows I was feeling that. Why not Finlay? “I don’t know what’s going on,” he protests. “We have people in and out at all times lately, doing work that’s only been scheduled the day before with barely any reason…”

“Any of them around today,” I ask conversationally, looking down the hallway at the other workers here.

“Yeah,” he grumps. “That one for one.”


Aaaand he points at Smashmouth.

[Amazee Dayzee]

At some point he is gonna have to start referring to him by his real name. I am sure he can actually figure it out if he doesn't volunteer it to him since he is the type to learn things about people. LOL

[Welsh Halfwit]

Obligatory fight scene!

STAIRWAY TO FIGHT CLUB


I duck back around the corner as I don’t know if he’s seen me. I might have the power of surprise right now and I don’t want to give it up. My new Celican friend seems to have noticed my absence and he looks around for me, alighting on my face around the corner and he approaches me. “What.,” he asks.

“Smashmouth is here,” I tell him quietly. “The last guy to come out of that room tried to kill me a few nights back.”

He double glances like an amateur. “I see him. You want I should deal with him?”

Celican versus Mican. Normally I’d take him up on the offer but I know how trained the opponent is in combat and Finlay’s a computer tech. It’s not worth the risk. “No,” I tell him, “you go see what he’s been up to. I’ll take Smashy.”

“He just went through the door opposite,” Finlay tells me and I head straight for the doors as the Co-ordinator gripes that that’s not the way he was planning on taking our tour. Finlay grabs his attention and lays it out for him and I hear the slight gasp of fear inherent in people who’ve just found themselves involved in conspiracy and murder plots when they were just in for work.


I hurry through the doors and I can see him in the distance, some twenty feet ahead of me and he’s about to head through another door. I speed up, dodging around technicians who all insist on trying to get in my way as it takes longer to open a closed door than it does to re-open one and someone calls out that I should watch where I’m going and what was I thinking, running through the office and Smashy’s hearing all this and, out of interest, he’s turning around in the doorway. I’m not close enough to shoulder charge him – or, really, big enough – but I am close enough to see the shock and surprise on his face as he sees me coming before he takes to his heels. He’s leading me away from what he’s done – I hope. Finlay’s found it. I hope. This guy’s not armed, I hope. We crash through into a stairwell and I’m about five seconds behind him. Now which way did he go? Up or..?


Ah, he did neither, he hid behind the door and is now trying to throw me down the stairs. I’ve got my hand on the railing and it means his shove doesn’t quite work and I manage to turn and face him. He swings for me and brings a foot up towards my face as I duck the punch. I pull back and almost topple backwards down the stairs as I grab at the underside of his rising foot with my spare hand. I definitely feel the pain of impact but I’m the hero. I’m not going to admit to blinding pain as my teeth bite my lips am I? It’s probably revenge for him but it’ll cost him as I have his foot and I push it up sharply to take him off his feet. He falls backwards but manages to catch the door handle with a trailing hand so doesn’t go completely onto his tail as I hoped. I let go of the railing and my arm practically throbs back into position as it’s just been twisted about eighty degrees. I run forward, charging him like a Bullock, and he slams into the rear wall before doing some slamming of his own that involves elbows into my back. I flip him by standing up swiftly and I attempt to wrench his arm off but it’s too firmly attached to disengage and he kicks my feet out from under me. It works poorly for him as it makes me fall on his arm, wrenching a cry out of him as I forget to apologise and try to put him in a headlock. He backbutts me to loosen my grip as I hear people heading up the stairs from below. There’s the smell of blood in my nose. It’s probably connected to the nosebleed. I stamp on his back and he cries out again as I try to haul him away from the stairs by grabbing his tail and hauling. As the tail’s connected to the spine, it hurts but he manages to use the impetus to spring back to his feet and puts an elbow into the back of my head to have me seeing stars. I swing my tail around one of his legs as a distraction before using it to whip him before I turn around. My vision’s swimming. There’s three of four people halfway down the flight of stairs, wondering about the fist fight going on in front of them as I shove Smashmouth down towards them. He goes head over heels but not far enough as the onlookers help him up as I stagger to the top of the stairs. They’ve let him go, of course, before I can call out ‘he’s a saboteur’ and ‘stop him’ and he’s away on his toes down the stairs. At least he’s limping badly and holding his arm. My vision’s swimming as two of the people go after him… No, wait. It’s one of them. I can barely stand up straight right now. I’ll have to leave it to the lovely security people who are turning up, even now. Is now a good time for a lie down? There’s blood on the stairs. I think it’s blood. It’s not mine, is it? Oh, look, a security guard.


The medical room is pretty sparse and the nurse is sparsely pretty as it’s the burly security Mican who just caught me doing double duty as the health and safety officer following cutbacks the include bedside manner. He tells me there’s no concussion evident, although he advises I get myself checked out soon as I can and gives me a couple of painkillers to deal with the growing pain in the back of my nut and the base of my tail where I landed on it when Smash took my feet out. And the other aches and pains. Wondering why I didn’t pull a weapon? Pulling a weapon in a chase through a populated area is nearly always going to result in bystanders screaming and rushing around and getting in the way as you chase the bad guy down. If you go for a weapon in a fight, you’re not attacking and you’re distracted from defending for the time you’re going for that weapon. See all those vids where the two are matched in hand to hand but one keeps trying to go for the weapon that’s just out of reach? That. Security nurse here insists I wash out my mouth with some sort of disinfectant. It practically puts me out and not through anaesthetics.


Finlay asks me over to his place as soon as I can stand upright and my thoughts aren’t wearing pink, frilly, things that would make a vixen jealous. He takes a look at me as I avoid walking into a door and asks if I’m all right. I tell him I’m fine and don’t call me Shirley. He says he didn’t and asks how many fingers he’s holding up. I get it right, apparently.

Oh, Smashmouth escaped, by the way. I’m not surprised. I only wounded him and made him leave a blood trail. I should have reasoned he’d evade the security here in that form. Not that I’ll say that aloud, of course.

Things are a little clearer when we get to where Finlay and I are going and I can sit by myself as he shows the courtroom in the full first day glory on the screen. So that’s Darlington. I ask if Finlay found the relay cutout. I ask it again after he can’t quite make out what I was saying. He shrugs. “Wasn’t a communications cut-out,” he explains. “It was this.” He plonks a small device on the desk. I ask what it is. “Rough guess,” he admits, “It’s a teleport relay.”

But, I ask him, isn’t there a teleport jammer in place?

“This thing,” he tells me as I do my best to pay attention, “sends the signal down the squillox signal and bypathses the jamper so peeple kan gleaming.”


I may have gotten that last bit wrong.

[Amazee Dayzee]

At least Harvest can hold his own in a battle. I guess he needs to if he is gonna investigate all of the craziness.

[Welsh Halfwit]

And, for his next attempt...

SLEEPYTIME


OK, so Adriette doesn’t talk to me until after I’ve been checked out by the medical professionals in the city hospital and I’ve undergone two hours of probing and prodding and finger waving and lights shining in my eyes to convince her that I’m compos mentis and not totally off my trolley. I thought it would take longer. There’s several people who would insist it would never be proven but, after about five minutes, they’re no longer standing in front of me and dancing the Batusi. I swing my feet off the bed and land far too heavily on my feet and sway. She steadies me. “You safe to go,” she asks. Safe and hungry, I reply. I haven’t eaten since breakfast. She accepts the diagnosis and drives far too noisily towards a pancake house for late night pancakes. She tells me that the device was, indeed, a teleport boondoggle that was designed to get someone or something in through the block and we managed to stop them sending a device through to the courtroom. Apparently they diverted it through to a secure room with forcefields that was a now entirely unusable secure room with barely functioning forcefields. Of course they weren’t going to tell the massed press and she wonders what Wilt night be planning next as I eat Panderan Waffles. They’re a bit too salted for my tastes but I’m pretty sure the tea’s from Teabury so that’s something. I believe in eating local if I can. I probably should have ordered fish. Of course, it does give me something of an inkling as to what Wilt will try next.

“Hasn’t the prosecution used that video yet,” I ask, a little confused.

“Nope,” Adriette confesses, “he didn’t feel it right just yet. Not on the first day.”

“He needs…” I realise my voice is too loud for my own skull . “He needs to do it soon. Harriet’s not going to wait long. Her patience is far from… infinite.”

Adriette looks concerned. I think she’s going to ask me if I’m all right. I’m partway through saying ‘no, I’m fine’ when I realise she asks how bad I think it’ll be when she releases. I shake my head slightly (ow) when she actually does ask it after realising that she should have asked it. “I’m fine. They ex...excluded her because she’d not have… gone along with it. They’re trying… to force her out. It’s operation ‘annihilate’ as far as she’s concerned. She wants to see what the Council plans to do… Have… have you considered poison?”

“On Harriet Thurso,” Adriette jokes. “Many times. But that’d be a crime.”

I smile in appreciation of the allusion, if not the humour. “I mean here. Wilt could poison any of them, yeah? Doesn’t even have… have to be fatal…”

“That’s a thought,” she says as I feel the stickiness of the syrup going down. “Something we can discuss tomorrow. You’re going to bed now. No arguing.”

“Is that the answer to my dreams,” I ask, thinking I’m funny.

“You’re spoken for, remember?”


I lie on the bed, my head throbbing, as Wheat sniffs around my head, smelling the liniment and medication. She sneezes and climbs up on my chest for a nap. I have to put her back in her cage before pulling the duvet up over me and clapping the lights off. Out I go for a bit. About two to three hours, I think, because it’s still pitch black when I wake up and my head has cleared because it only takes me about twenty seconds to realise I have a room with no windows and the squeaky alarm bell is Wheat, not an alarm bell. There’s a sweet smell in the room that has her fur on end. Nylar gas. I know of it. If you want to knock someone out for several hours, it’s the gas of choice. It’s one they never tested on non-sentients and they found out later it has a different effect on them. It has a soporific effect on us but an enervating effect on them. I can feel my feet tingling as I get up and grab the cage before heading to the door. It’s locked. Yay. I take my gun up, make sure it’s set to beam, hope there’s no-one outside and cut through the lock area to open the door before I fall over again. I push myself out and shut it behind me to keep the gas in before checking the other doors. My pulse is racing. The gas is probably reacting with some of todays’ medication. I check the next door. Adriettes. It’s also locked. I thump the commpanel and she doesn’t answer. I’m pretty sure I’m about to set off all the alarms when I shoot the lock until I remember the alarms should have gone off when I shot my own lock. I put the pistol under the lock and point diagonally upwards. It’s on half power. I’m really trying to avoid putting holes in people I like. If she’s in there and out cold, it’s less likely that she’ll be on the ceiling than the floor.


The door opens and I pull her out as she tries crawling for the door as this stuff smells into the room. She’s halfway to being out of it as we clear the door and shut it. We’re both coughing. I’m the one breaking the fire alert panel and the alarm helps clear our heads as the others start trying to get… Oh, wait. My ears are playing tricks on me. No fire alarm going off. My imagination hates me. There’s no-one coming until I comm the QM and… the comm’s in my room. I’m not going in there. My arms feel like rubber. I start pulling Adriette up to her feet. It helps to walk off narcoleptic gases and I cough out a ‘help’ and realise I need water as my vocal cords are a bit dried. We stagger towards the area where people are still awake at this time and I hand her off to a Canine who appears from a computer room where he’s been looking at things he definitely shouldn’t look at on a public computer if my eyes can be believed.


They find the gas in the air ducts to the entire dorm section and there’s a Feline officer asking some questions at another IOC office after they found him going on an impromptu holiday without clearing it with base command first. I think he was planning to be absent before we were discovered having a moderately deep sleep in the morning. He hadn’t reckoned on my alarm clock. I give her some extra grains and water. I add some pieces of an artisan carrot the night chef found. Adriette’s going to be fine. In light doses the gas can be counteracted easily. I’ve taken the antidote in its tablet form. Being unable to take it that way as Adriette passed out shortly after being sat down so she’s taking the inhalable version via facemask and that has to be set deliberately lower for a medical reason.


At least we know what Wilt’s next plan was. Or, at least, what part of it is. Take us out.

[Amazee Dayzee]

You are sticking your beak into the guys business Harvest even if its to stop him. Of course he is gonna want to take you out.

[Welsh Halfwit]

INSIDE


Day two of the trial and I wonder how the news agencies are selling this across the spectrum. I’m not going to look, though. I’m an experienced bounty hunter and Private Eye who’s seen all sorts of depravities and hatred and evil visited on one side by another. I might not have the stomach for the Galnet chat forums on this one. I’m also far too connected to my side – that is, the side that’s not trying to kill me or prevent the message getting out – to be unbiased when confronted by the opinion of ‘Nitwit from Cana’ who thinks it’s all the government trying to keep an entrepreneur down and he knows this because ‘Flimflam from Felis’ say so. ‘Knowitall from Raithce’ might argue the point but that’s just because he’s a government stooge working for the lizards. Which will bring the Osirans in. Social media. Making it easier for idiots to argue for three hundred years.


It’s morning. Considering last night, they let me sleep in until oh seven hundred or, as I put it ‘oh gods, you call that a lie in’ o’clock. I’m running the roost myself for a bit as Adriette is still recovering from the attack, which is probably the intent. Wilt’s being smart. He’d never have got the Officer to smuggle a lethal gas in – or I HOPE he wouldn’t have agreed – and he has no coin in killing us as, being frank, he’s exposed enough already. I have no trouble believing he could run – dye jobs, minor cosmetic alterations, even a full gene treatment – which, I’m told, are really expensive and REALLY hurt as they adjust your DNA so it doesn’t quite match the one on record – exist to help people who need it. But he’s not running. He still has something planned. I commed Harriet on the last attempt and she advised she’d be careful but still wanted to see if this prosecutor was worth his salt. I don’t know what that means. I’m not sure she does either. What I’m pretty sure it means is she’s not going to take action until either the prosecutor doesn’t or I turn up dead. Once it’s out, so am I. I fancy I should ask the prosecutor to hurry up but I’m not allowed in to see them. I hear they’re planning to ask him about how he managed to get the fleet together for this mission. There’s going to be a few local level heads on the block I reckon. The real meat starts in the next day or so. You know this strikes me as more of an enquiry than a trial, just one where the judge presiding’s going to put him in prison for decades at the end. How many decades depends on how many he takes with him. They’re going to try again.


I scan the lists of journalists allowed into the courtroom, just in case. I’ve linked up to the Hunter/Killer database and I’m running things through that out of paranoid reasoning. I bring the security chief’s attention to one of them. There’s a bounty out for the CameraRaitchian that could indicate he’s trouble. It’s only fifteen k for illegal documents but it’s an indicator that bribery is possible with this individual so the chief nods and gets him taken in for questioning, despite the protestations of his reporter, who accosts me after Finlay relayed her my way. He gives me a fingerwave as the black death stare thunders across to me. “You,” she calls as I try to feign total innocence. “Why has my Camera operator been taken in for questioning? I need him!”

I assure her it’s just precautionary and advise her of the situation regarding security and her Camera Operators’ possible weakness.

She slams a hand down on the console, strikingly close to my left side. Her earrings jangle as her eyes flash in anger. “I gave him credits to pay off that fine,” she spits, putting spittle on my hat and, possibly, tooth chips. “I will personally strangle him for this!”

“Please don’t, ma’am,” I advise, understanding the anger radiating off her like a two bar fire. “I’d have to tell them about this conversation.”

She smiles a fraction. “Oh, I’ll just make him wish he was dead then. What’s a Bounty Hunter doing working with IOC and security?”

“Ah,” I tell her, “I’m just an extra layer, Miss Tranga.”

She apprises me. “You know who I am then?”

I spread my arms. “Have travel, see news programmes. It pays to know the journalists.”

She turns her eyes to steel again. “I… need a camera operative,” she intones.


I’m in.


Adriette permitted it because I’ve done this before, back in the day, and still have an accreditation from the Camera Operators union on Cedara, my home world. I’s not for this type of camera but it’s close enough that ten minutes with a manual and instructions from the voice in my ear from the producer will cover it but I’m in the courtroom. This camera’s heavy. They’ve put in a counter agent to the Nylar gas, just in case. It smells of flowers in here as the noise grows. A certain Vixen’s noted me and Miss Tranga’s explained that I’m a stand in as I had her usual one arrested. Vulpara looks at me curiously. “Are we in any danger, Mister Moon,” she asks. I reply that there’s none known but I’ll be better able to react to it if there is. She sniffs. “Is that why you smell like Nylar gas,” she asks. I just nod this time. She doesn’t look entirely happy, but goes back to her operative and sits as Tranga leans over. “I wasn’t going to mention it,” she tells me.

“Your job,” the voice in my ear tells me, “is to get as many shots of the court as you can. Focus on the trial itself, lots of time on the defendant and the lawyers as they do their bit, love. You know, like in all those courtroom dramas you’ve watched?” I couldn’t help but think he was being a bit snarky about this sudden replacement for an established news operator. I suppose it’s only to be expected. Hey, I wonder if I get paid for this.


An hour passes and the camera’s getting heavy, even though it’s a clip on on my shirt and it’s directed by head movements via the camera cap (trademarked) that I’m wearing. The prosecution’s laid out all the charges and the defence, suh as it is, has argued that he was only doing what needed to be done and what’s it to do with the USC anyhow? Oh, he did plead guilty to firing on U.S.C. ships. He’s not dumb enough to think he’d get away with that one. The prosecution is going to argue he knew it was an illegal operation – it does discuss that on the evidence I brought and they’d be idiots to ignore that – but they’re keeping that to themselves for a bit. This is boring. It’s why court vid channels never have more than a hundred… thousand viewers if I get this right. Someone I’ve just seen. I tell the producer I’m going to do a pan shot for a moment and I turn around to see fully what I could only see from the corner of my eye. Wilt’s had the same idea as me.


I met the Canine camera operator a few nights back. In Scourie’s office.

[Amazee Dayzee]

This chapter has come out very nice and incredibly written! Great job!

[Welsh Halfwit]

ORDER, DISORDER!


Right. So that’s part of Wilt’s plan. The interesting part is what’s next? The Canine’s like me, in the observation area. There’s no way for him to get to Darlington. The teleport systems are in full jammed mode and no-one can be beamed in or out so what’s he up to? I whisper to the unseen voice in my head that they need to identify him and a very frazzled sounding Adriette agrees as the producer grumps about this being HIS line and would I PLEASE take some footage of the defendant and the court? I comply and it’s a few minutes before Adriette tells me that the camera operator for the Canine News team is currently in the hospital after contracting food poisoning after eating something that disagreed with him. They’d picked this guy up off a local affiliate they’d contacted. There was nothing in his record that warranted further examination. There wouldn’t be. Wilt would ensure it. Betcha anything the local affiliate never received the contact from the network. The thought of Wilt playing receptionist was faintly amusing. The prosecutor is talking about the fact that the operation being discussed was inherently illegal had been discussed several times with Former Captain Dunbeath, now acting President of the new colony of Yarkatan or something. She’d supplied a copious recording, alluding to people behind Darlington, making the decisions for him. We’re about thirty minutes in at the moment and even Miss Tranga’s looking bored, listening in but filing her clawtips rather than taking notes.

“What’s the issue with the mutt,” she asks me quietly. Is she interested or just alleviating the tedium? I tell her and she favours me with a glittering eye. “It’d be something to make the news, wouldn’t it? He’ll be calling a recess soon,” she adds, talking of the judge.


Something occurs to me. Wilt’s not trying to kill anybody. Well, the courier I replaced is dead but I don’t know what happened to him. He might have tripped in the shower. But Wilt has had the opportunity to make his life considerably easier at the cafe or on the train. Places where he’d been within inches of me. He knew poisons that could be absorbed through a simple touch and he’d not used them. Just things to disrupt the trial and events. All time gaining moves. What was going on? I push around to the Canines again as the Judge declares a fifteen minute recess so he can get a coffee or something. He probably just wants to stick his head in water and relieve the tedium. The camera operator is reluctant to stop filming the Former Admiral but pulls it around to his reporter as I do to mine. She does her piece and then suggests we do it again. From a different angle. Closer to the Canines, perhaps. I give her a grin and we close in on the distinguished competition.


He’s concentrating on his fake job as we move past Vulpana to get our better angle and I note she looks around to see where we’re going. She’s a smart one. I think she’ll be out to deny Tranga a total exclusive if we’re not careful. My lead takes up her position and starts rerecording her lines as the canine journo looks at her.

“Malta,” the Salukan says, “what are you doing? This is my spot.”

“It just seemed better than mine,” Miss Tranga replies. “My camera operator thought the light was better.”

At this, all three of them look at me and I see the target’s eyes go WIDE as he recognises me. I grin. “Hello, again,” I say. “It seems ages since we met!” I laugh as he visibly shakes. “At least half a week.” I offer a hand. He can’t take it. He has something in his. The director is shouting in my ear. It counteracts some of the effect of the sonic beam device that he’s just turned from low range beam assault to ‘deafen everyone.’ When on a narrow, focussed beam at low power it can affect the target over a few hours, doing irreversible damage to their inner ear and causing seizures. When on this setting? It’s far more dangerous.


I’m still seeing treble as everyone else is holding their ears. I swipe at the opponent but only hit the one to the right as he makes for the door. I don’t know what he’s planning to do as the place is sealed but he’s had the schematics of this place for a day or so and, if anyone could think of a way out, it’s Wilt. I certainly can’t think of anything at the moment as my thoughts are barely coherent. “Keep shouting,” I tell the producer. Or is he a director? He did tell me but I’ve forgotten. Rock music comes through the earpiece at full volume, interfering with the sonic screech as one of Dakrin’s favourite tunes – The Red running River by StarClouders – comes through. I’m used to this tune. I can move. He must be wearing plugs. He’s almost to the edge of the press area as he runs towards the Judge’s door. I stagger after him, gaining speed as I avoid downed reporters. Even the Human’s having trouble. The Canine must be wearing plugs. He looks back as it tackle him and bounce off his Russellian frame. He makes to kick me and I grab his leg the same as I did Smashies and I flip him. It’s not going to stop him but I’m not really trying to. I’m trying to smash the sonic device or dislodge his ear protectors. There’s only a few minutes until the sonic damage becomes permanent for most of the people here. It could even cause aneurysms. It could be fatal. My nose is bleeding. I punch him in the crown jewels as my camera keeps recording and Sever Lycettica sings about slaughtering the harem to prove his love for the one he just took out of the room. See? Celicans can do romance.

He doubles up but it’s a feint so he can bring a fist up into my jaw and send me flying so he has time to open the door and…


...Be grabbed by a Celican newsreader who’s moving in such an effort free way that I decide she has to be wearing implants for hearing. It’s almost impressive, watching the three of her lift the four of him over her head and throw him back into the centre. Something falls away and, after she steps over me, I make for it. The pain is almost blinding now and my scrabbling hand swats the device further away and I dive after it before I lose it completely. I grab the device. It’s so blurry I can barely make anything out now and it’s hard to use my memory to turn this thing off. But I get lucky and used to it and feel the lack of pressure from the sonics as the thing turns off. Something shiny appears in the middle of the room and Vulpana stands back. I manage to focus for a few seconds. I think it’s U.S.C. combat armour. Sealed. I have a headache.


I wake up and the world’s still screaming in my head but my vision’s clearing and I can hear voices behind the drums. It seems there’s a joint exclusive going on. Tranga’s interviewing Vulpana about her part in averting the attack. My camera’s gone. Figure they liked the footage. I fight my way to my feet and wnder if they mentioned me at all?

[Amazee Dayzee]

If that is the way Celicans do romance then they need to become aromantic fast then. Nobody likes being a part of a harem that gets slaughtered because they weren't chose as a partner for somebody. LOL

[Welsh Halfwit]

DINNER DATE


It’s over.


It’s done.


Apparently they can’t stop Darlington talking now someone’s tried to kill him. He figured he’d be safe as long as he kept schtumm but the attack on the trial room had loosened that so it was spill all, save skin. He tells how the V.P. wanted it done so that the President would have deniability and a near guarantee of success in the upcoming polls. He tells how he consulted with Mican Intelligence and the Jestavanian envoy from the Divison – whoever they are – on viable targets. He told how they’d planned and plotted and how they’d almost left ahead of schedule after the Savval and the Fallir – whoever they are – came far too close. He’s talking up a total storm and the defence has thrown it’s hands up and surrendered, they’ve decided that the best defence is the truth, the whole truth and every single truth he can think of to drag down everyone else so they don’t consider they have the time to kill him and I’m filming it all and I’m, frankly, bored out of my skull right this moment. I’ve been interviewed by the local press as the person who attempted to save the day and, finally, had to be rescued by a news anchor vixen. I’m credited as her assistant and they make copious comments on how I’m affiliated with Rai-1 news (which I suppose I am at the moment.) and the day passes as quickly as a lead weight dragged along underwater if the lead weight was Osmium and the water was Golden syrup. Slowly, in case you’re wondering.

At first, I enjoyed the slowness as it enabled everyone to get their inner ears and headaches under control but, now I’d been a paparatzzi substitute for most of the day I wanted to switch back to the other guy but Rai-1 pays by the day and, as they’re not paying me, it saves them a wage.


At quarter to eight in the evening, local time, the prosecution used the recording I’d brought to enhance the fact that the Vice President was involved up to his ear tufts and, at roughly twelve minutes to eight, local time, the file had been put up in several locations on Galnet that were quite easy to find and all probably started on Caldera. I almost had to admire her restraint. She’d picked her moment to perfection. She could have released it at any time and stopped people trying to kill me but she’d waited until I was safe before putting it out to the public. Love her. Punch her? Possibly. Die horribly? Soon after. But love her? A smidge. The Canine newsh… nah, can’t use that joke, it irritates them… managed to get a new camera operator, by the way. I think it’s his director from how he keeps threatening to brain him with the camera if he doesn’t concentrate.


Now it’s done, Miss Tranga wants to take me out to dinner. Apparently she’s already discussing helming a joint show with Vulpana and her stock has never been higher and, as her help, she figures I should share in her good fortune. I remind myself I’m in love with Salara and it’s just dinner. I wonder who invited Wilt?


He’s over there, in the corner of the restaurant, nodding towards me and raising a glass. I beg my hosts pardon and tell her I’ll be back in a few minutes and head across to my opponent. I ask him if he’s unarmed and he assures me he is so I sit opposite and ask him why he seems to be in a good mood. He smiles genially. “I have my reasons, Mister Moon. Playing two or three games at the same time, with the same pieces but with different objectives. I was assigned by my superior to ensure Darlington was kept silent. To ‘remind him’ that we could get to him wherever he was put. I knew it was going to be impossible but I needed to be seen to do my bosses bidding. There were… extenuating circumstances that necessitated drawing things out.” A wry grin. “You proved quite effective at that. But my nephew is out of the dangerous game and into a new one where he might be a success. His family is secure…” He took a sip of his sparkly drink. “And my position has enhanced.” He lifted his drink to me.

“You’ve taken an anti-toxin, I take it?”

“I have a stash of them,” he tells me. “My ‘landlord’ is in a lot of trouble,” he confides. “Might even have to be fined for… irregularities. Which leaves me in charge for the moment, until someone better comes along. Would you appreciate a job, Mister Moon?”

I cough on my drink, which is interesting as my drink is several tables over. “I have no intention of calling you an enemy,” I tell ‘Wilt’, “but I have no trust in calling you boss either.”

“It’s good to know we’re not enemies, Mister Moon,” he replies. “We both have enough of those.” He slides a small envelope over the table. “If you need a hand, open the envelope. Not now. Maybe not even soon. But you’ll find it handy. Oh, and thank you for making me go to Panteknika. I never thought I’d see a place with less taste than Harperton but there it is.”

I let the words roll over my head before they roll onto my tongue. “So you’ve been where I grew up.”

“Hmm. I understand why you and your sister left. Although the others were doing quite well last I heard.”

Implicit threat heard. “You don’t involve them,” I tell him as I stand up, “and I don’t get myself embroiled in your business.” I head back to my table, envelope in pocket.

“What was that,” Miss Tranga asks as I slot myself back into my seat.

“Parting words with an opponent,” I tell her simply.

“Is he responsible for all the trouble?”

“Pretty sure that was the Admiral,” I respond before conceding that he was behind much of the intrigue on this side of the sector. She nods and I wonder if she’s taken pictures. I say nothing.


A day later and Bluejay’s on the IOC registered shuttle with Adriette, Wheat, myself and a fish in a cold box that Adriette’s going to take and cook as I’d never get permission to bring it in to Caldera. Bluejay’s playing boopnose with Wheat on the table as Adriette tells me she’s cleared the micro-me for customs as payment for my work for IOC and I sadly acknowledge that means I’m not getting paid for this. A vet will give her an inoculant when we get to Pandera and I’ll get the attitude from her in response.


I think she’s forgiven me after the trip home. Fourteen hours in cargo class is a long time to hold a grudge, especially when I wouldn’t let them store her in the hold and kept her in her cage on the laptray table so she had to look at me the whole way. She eventually looks at me. And she’s kinda terrified of Dakrin as he picks me up at the port. He does lick his lips at her until I ask him not to. She’ll get used to him. Harriet, he tells me, is talking about breaking my feet for the number of cars I destroyed. He leaves me as I head up to my apartment and I see why the moment I open the door. My lovely Afgar girlfriend’s there, waiting to put her arms around me and invite me in for a drink and other things. She’s wearing her best perfume and that’s it.


I put my bag and the cage down. If you need me to describe what happens next, you’re too innocent to know.

[Amazee Dayzee]

I still want a description because I am a sucker for romance scenes even if they are a bit too carnal. Hope it is nothing too crazy the two of them do!

[Harry Johnathan]

I love the almost ADD, somehow both hyper-focused and scatterbrained, stream-of-concisouness style you use for Harvest. It gives his stories a unique feel, it's more humorous and tells you about his character.

[Amazee Dayzee]

Hopefully his ADD doesn't kick in during the more erotic parts of the story that come up. Like the recent last scene for example. LOL

[Harry Johnathan]

Hopefully his ADD doesn't kick in during the more erotic parts of the story that come up. Like the recent last scene for example. LOL

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[Welsh Halfwit]

He'll introduce Salara and Wheat later...

[Harry Johnathan]

Wheat is adorable, lol.

[Amazee Dayzee]

That he (Wheat) is and Michael Jordan I am completely disappointed in YOU for refusing to go and do Space Jam 2. So HA!

[Harry Johnathan]

“I call him ‘smashmouth.”

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[Amazee Dayzee]

I was gonna make a joke about it but I thought it would be too soon since their frontman Steve Harwell died. Even if the band wasn't that big they still shaped so many people's childhoods.

[Welsh Halfwit]

Harvest is a fun narrator. His lack of focus often helps explain the universe. Such as his explaining the governmental situation.

[Amazee Dayzee]

I wonder how a certain bunny would narrate things? That could be very interesting.

[Welsh Halfwit]

You may have noticed the lack of bodies in this story.

That's the comedic aspect.

It doesn't hold true for the IOC Pandera one I'm currently writing...

[Harry Johnathan]

You may have noticed the lack of bodies in this story.

That's the comedic aspect.

It doesn't hold true for the IOC Pandera one I'm currently writing...

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[Amazee Dayzee]

The way that you just stated that makes me worry that the next one is gonna have a whole city killed off. That would be said and a massive tone shift.