I punched in a query for the next closest station, checked to make sure none of the routes were highlighted in red, then hit “Go”.
A person appeared sitting on the console to my right. One moment I was alone, the next I wasn’t. I jumped from my seat, yelling in surprise, drawing a fusion blade on reflex. The person was human, wearing an obviously tailored business suit like they had just come out of a board meeting. Their face . . . was mine. I’ve heard it said that we’re so used to how we appear in a mirror that if we actually saw ourselves as others do we wouldn’t recognize ourselves. That wasn’t the case here. I’d never owned a suit like that in my life, but I knew that face was mine.
The intruder looked at me, unconcerned at the fusion blade I waved before him.
You have a hunch about what happened to Rolai’s ship, don’t you?
The stranger’s lips – my lips – moved, but the voice that followed didn’t reverberate around the cockpit, instead coming to me as I’d been hearing it for some time in my head. The person smiled wide, seeing my shock.
Hi, we haven’t formally met yet, have we?
Date point: 7m 3w 4d BV
Dear Journal,
I swear I’m not crazy
You’d tell me if I was, right?
I stood in shock, transfixed by the . . . thing . . . in front of me. It continued to stare at me impassively with a slightly smug tilt to its features. I stepped closer in the suddenly cramped cockpit, looking for any imperfections in the facsimile: great hair, great smile, flawless jawline if I do say so myself.
Narcissistically obsessing over me is exactly the same as doing it in the mirror, you realize.
Once again its mouth moved in echo of the lies I heard in my head.
Oh come now, you’re not this daft.
I’m being thorough, shut up while I do my thing. One last check. You don’t mind, right?
It shrugged, Go ahead.
I swiped my fusion blade through its neck. Nothing. Not even the token resistance flesh offered when introduced to the business end of a fusion blade. It officially wasn’t there.
Happy?
Not really.
And must you continue with this “It” business? It’s dehumanizing.
You’re not human, so you can’t be dehumanized.
Your eyes and I beg to differ.
Stop saying that!
Saying what? “I”
“Yes!”
It makes you uncomfortable?
“You know it does.”
It – he – smiled, I know. Why though? I’ve been using “I” for a while now.
“Because then you weren’t a full blown hallucination with a moving mouth and sitting right in front of me as I hear your voice. Back then you were – I don’t know – private. Now you’re . . . “
Real?
“Yeah.”
You’ve been talking to a voice in your head for months, seeing things is the next logical step.
“But why?! Why was I even hearing things in the first place, let alone why’d they morph into me now seeing things as well.”
Beats me. You’d probably be worth several psychological studies though. Don’t let it go to your head.
“How can you have no idea how you exist?”
Because you don’t. I only know what you do, after all. I’m just the best version of what you know. A perfect representation of what you would look and act like if you ever took the time to think things through, rather than just emoting through life.
“Does this mean I’m crazy?”
Well, it certainly doesn’t help that you’re talking out loud right now.
“I’m not –” Oh, shit.
But the question remains, does this mean I’m crazy?
Without a doubt, have been for some time. Doesn’t mean you’re not still sane, though.
Yes. It quite definitively does.
I mean, sure, definition wise it does, but reality is so much more complex than that. People can be mostly crazy and still have a little sanity left in them. The real question you should be asking yourself is how much crazy do you have in you and then use that to figure out how much sanity you have left.
Okay, so how much sanity’s still in there?
Fuck if I know.
Great. Lovely, alright then, assuming I still have enough to function, what’s the next step?
It raised an eyebrow in question, Next step? What next step?
The one that has to be there. I’ve just gone from only hearing things to now seeing them too. So, what’s next?
Like I said at the onset of this discussion, you have a hunch as to what happened to Rolai’s original ship. We could check that once we’re done dropping him off.
That’s it? Business as usual?
You have a better idea? Don’t bother answering because I know for a fact you don’t.
Well if you know what I’m thinking even before I think it why are we even conversing? Don’t you know what I’m going to say before I say it?
Sure, but that’d be impolite.
I’m pretty sure it’s impolite to force a guy to question his own sanity.
Which is why I not only asked it, but I answered the question for you. You’re bat shit.
I flipped him off.
“Are we insulting the ship today?”
I spun. Eallva stood in the doorway, looking at me curiously as I continued to aim my feelings at the specter sitting before me. She couldn’t see it. All she saw was me giving the bird to navigation.
Again with the “it”
I ignored it, “I like to insult the ship for a few minutes every day. Gotta make sure it knows where it stands in the order of things; lower its self-esteem. If the machines are too busy suffering from emotional damage, then Skynet will be too busy trying to gain our acceptance for it to take over anything.”
“Is it important for me to know what Skynet is?”
“Probably, but I’m not going to take the time to explain. If I ever get a chance to get some movies I’ll show you.”
She looked at me through bored eyes, her mouth in a tight line, “And movi – you know what, I don’t care. You’ll show it to me one day if it’s important.”
“That’s a gorgeous line of reasoning. Hold on to that, it’ll be important the entire time you’re with me.”
“I’ve gathered,” she sighed, “How long before Rolai’s gone? I don’t want to be near him any longer than necessary.”
“That bad huh? Few days, but I got something to do immediately after if you’re up for it?”
She hopped for me to continue.
“Something’s been stopping ships and killing off the crew a day or so from here. After we’ve dropped the raccoon off what’d you say to checking it out?”
She perked up, eyes narrowing, “Wait, some unknown entity’s been killing people and you want to go looking for it? Why?”
“Sounds fun,” I shrugged, “That, and I think there’s a chance it might be an old acquaintance of mine. If it is it may be partially my fault.”
She returned to her previously scheduled look of resigned disappointment, “Yeah, that sounds about right. It being your fault, not necessarily the acquaintance part.”
I hit her with the double finger guns and a wink.
“Up for a game?” she changed subjects, “I don’t feel like being alone right now.”
Normally I would have thought she was just trying to guilt trip me into a game, but I could tell something was on her mind.
Oh really? I wonder why?
Not a clue, hopefully she doesn’t want to talk about it.
The apparition stared at me in disgust.
We set up in the living/dining area since Rolai had retired to engineering. I’d offered to let him sleep the much more comfortable furniture in here, since there were only two bedrooms and I wasn’t about to sleep on the couch. He’d wanted privacy though so had opted for the back of the ship. It worked out well now, since there really wasn’t enough room for two people and a ghost to play a game in the cockpit. As we set up the board It sat down to my left.
Now you’re just being mean.
Something was eating at her; halfway through I was able to catch her in a trap that even I wouldn’t have fallen for. Most telling of all she barely seemed to care. Just a few turns away from what was about to be my first victory since the day I’d taught her, she extended her tail to move a bishop, but stopped mid motion, eyes glazed in thought.
“Should I stop trying?” She spoke suddenly, tail still poised.
Shit. I looked up from the board, “In this game? Might as well, not much you can do at this point.”
Ignoring my answer she took a deep breath, “Because every time I try to do the right thing I just fuck it up; joining the Temple guards, the attempted coup, and now this. Every time I think I’ve made the right choices subsequent events just go on to prove that I’ve done more harm than good. If things just end up worse off after I try to help, what’s the point? I’m not saying I should do the opposite and actively try to ruin things, but should I just stop trying to help at all?”
I remained silent, hoping the questions were more for herself than me. She continued to look at me expectantly, waiting for an answer. Fine, “I’m not the best person to ask here, you of all people should know that,” I began, “But if you want my flawed opinion then I’d say stop beating yourself up over the things you can’t control. Sure, the things you did might have gotten people killed, probably even fucked things up more than they already were, but did you want that to happen?”
“Of course not.”
“Did you make the best decisions at the time based on all that you knew?”
“I think, but –”
“Then that’s it, you did your best. You might fail every single time you try to help, I have so far. Failing’s the only thing I’ve had success at since I’ve been out here, since high school really. But I’m still going to try and make things right. I’m gonna fuck that up too. I’m gonna keep fucking up until one of my mistakes finally kills me, but until that happens I’ll make the best decisions I can based off what I know at the time. And if that decision is to step back and let someone else take the reins, you better believe I’ll hop out of the driver’s seat. But until then I’m the only one there so I might as well try and steer.” I shrugged, “My take on it at least.”
“That didn’t really make me feel any better.”
“Yeah, me neither. You ever find anything that does be sure to give me some.”
She sighed, “Deal.” Her tail flicked forward and snatched a piece, “Checkmate.”
. . . Fuck.
Date point: 7m 2w BV, Planet Perfection
The Contact
“Of course I wasn’t involved. If I had then it wouldn’t have failed so spectacularly. Don’t interrupt me with baseless accusations again, I can simulate a conversation with you far faster using a nervejam.” Vakno cut the channel, then busied herself with ensuring her tracks were covered. Far too little time passed before another call broke her concentration. She perked the moment she saw who it was, quickly letting it through.
The Human’s scowling face greeted her. She had to admit, it had taken him longer to get back to her than she’d thought. He seemed to have missed nearly every net she’d cast for him on Hedonist. Still, he was here, so one of them had to have worked. She didn’t even bother entertaining the possibility that he was just following her previous orders to contact her after the previous job.
“You look exceptionally well for someone who swore they’d space themselves before contacting me. The pleasure, to what do I owe it?”
His face betrayed a cocktail of emotions, resignation foremost among them, “I need the location of a human. He was the cause of a severe travel advisory on route 3861-6261-77 039, but we just checked it and the only thing that’s there are a shit ton of abandoned vessels.” Vakno made a quick mental note to get someone out there as soon as possible, “As far as I can tell he was here about a month ago or so, that’s the last recorded ship going missing here. I need to know where he went, and I have no idea where to look. He’s kinda murdery, if you need something to help you find him.”
“I’ll manage,” she replied, “Humans are extremely easy to find if you know what to look for. Might I ask, what put you on this particular specimen’s trail?”
“Couple of Gaoian slaves, broke ‘em out and they told me about the area and what had happened to their old ship when they went by.”
She didn’t hear him past the word “slaves”. The Gaoians had been what did the trick? Layer after layer of traps meant to bring him back into her services and the one that caught him was something she hadn’t even engineered nor even given much thought? If he somehow wasn’t going to fall for something she did then he could have at least had the decency to have not fallen at all. The results, however, could not be argued with, so she decided to allow events to continue to transpire and merely add this to the list of reasons why she hated him.
“Very well. I should hope that you understand what my doing this for you means?”
The grinding of his teeth was audible, “Yes. A favor?”
“Three.” She corrected.
“Three! That wasn’t how that worked last time. It was a while ago but I could have sworn it was one because I had no money, another because I ‘insulted’ you or something, and the last one because of . . . um . . . fuck if I know.”
“Well,” she smiled thinly, “Your tone is always insulting, so we can easily tack on a second, and if you require a reason for the third then how about the fact that you failed to mention how you currently have another Deathworld species on your ship.”
He was truly terrible at keeping his emotion off his face. At the mention of his companion his eyes bulged before he hastily tried to cover up the fact that they had. “What? I –”
She cut him off with a sharp gesture, “As amusing as it would be to watch you try to lie to me of all people I don’t have the time. I’m angry, of course, but that is always the case with you. All that matters is that you know that you can’t hide anything from me. So next time just make it painless for the both of us and tell me.” She squared her shoulders to signal the matter was settled. “Therefore, as I see it, the price remains at three favors. Correct me if I’m wrong –” she glared to ensure that he in fact should not correct her under any circumstances, “– but I assume that if there was anyone else you could go to you would have. So in a way you should be grateful that I set the price at such a low number when in fact I could set it at whatever I desired.” His look of resignation was almost worth every headache he’d ever caused her.
“. . . I’m . . . fine. Send me the information when you have it.”
“It’s already been sent.”
“You’re kidding,” he said in a strange mixture of disgust and admiration.
“I’m very good at what I do, and like I said, Humans leave very distinct trails. You have [two weeks] to do whatever it is you needed this for, then I will contact you with your first task.” She cut the channel as he opened his mouth, the petty action giving her a small thrill of satisfaction.
“Bitch.”
Way to stick it to the man, or woman in this case. You sure showed her.
You’re a bitch too.
It rolled its eyes.
Unaware of my inner dialogue, Eallva slid around the door frame behind which she’d been listening, “So I guess that’s it for secrecy. So I can come along on this trip?”
I shrugged, “No reason why not. You did fine on the last trip, aside from the whole “Getting-accidentally-abducted-by-slavers” part. Might draw a few stares since you’re the only one of your kind out here –”
You hope.
“– but who gives a fuck what they think?” I thought a moment, “Actually, unfuck what they think for a second and first make sure what they’re thinking isn’t ‘I’m-scared-for-my-life’. If it’s not that then yeah, fuck ‘em.”
She opened her mouth, paused, closed it, opened it again, blinked a couple times, then sighed, “There were much easier ways of putting that.”
“You’re not wrong.” I agreed.
“So our destination is . . . ?”
I opened the data package Vakno’d sent, “Some planet, Class 4, I’d tell you the name but there aren’t any vowels. I’m partial to those when speaking.”
Her affected air of calm wasn’t nearly good enough to conceal her excitement, “I haven’t been to an inhabited planet since I got out here; anything I need to know?”
I thought about it a moment, “Not off the top of my head, but I’m not exactly the best forward thinker. How about we go there, wait until it all goes to shit, and then after that I’ll give you some pointers?”
“Good ol’ reliable, then. Excellent.”
Date point: 7m 1w BV, Bwkmwvrkw – Class 4 World
Planets suck. Or rather, heavily inhabited planets suck. Shit, I don’t even know if this planet could qualify as even “lightly” inhabited, but from where I was standing right now, it was inhabited as fuck. Vakno’s information had led us to the largest city on the largest continent. The primary inhabitants seemed to be a furred quadruped with long tails. As per the anatomical motif out here their legs looked far too thin to support them. And the way they moved – it looked relaxed, sure – but it reminded me of a stilt walker. Looking beyond their legs their bodies were small and vaguely pyramidal with a small hump in the middle, although that might have just had to do with their posture. Past the hump the rest of their bodies spread wide then tapering down to one of their four legs. Their heads were vaguely reptilian in shape, but their hair was far too long and shaggy.
This going anywhere?
Give me time, a good name takes a minute. Frumpystiltskin, boom.
That’s . . . just terrible.
Then you should have come up with something better. I guess the city was pretty enough. It had some pretty cool shit that I bet would have been impossible in heavier gravity. I don’t know, I just hadn’t walked amongst the main populace of a city for what seemed like forever, so it’s no real surprise that I was uncomfortable. That and I had decided to get into my “disguise” as it were. Remembering what Vakno had said about humans not being quite such an unknown anymore, I figured that if my hunch was correct and P2 was here I didn’t want to risk alerting him to my presence. My disguise wasn’t meant to make me look like anything, but rather make it so underneath all the layers I could be anything that was on the shorter side of things. The main takeaway from all of this is that I was sweltering under my admittedly self-imposed torture.
Trying to distract myself from the small river cascading down my back I decided to take the time to actually look around me.
Wait, you can do that? Look and worry about something other than yourself? You never told me you were so talented.
It was loud. And hot. Fuck I want to go home. Fuck planets.
Eallva
Fuck yes! Planets! If Selvim hadn’t expressly told her that she needed to stay close until they knew more about the situation, she would have surged ahead, determined to see every sight and hear every sound. A great multitude swelled around her. It was incredible, the sheer number of people that this city held. If she hadn’t been so small compared to nearly all of them she would have worried about being crushed. Even though they were easy to maneuver around their voices were not. Waves upon waves of garbled sound crashed into her, bearing on it the sounds of productivity, purpose, anger and laughter. Fantastical structures of glass and some whitish metal rose above, twisting and turning in ways she hadn’t known were even possible into a sky crowded with hundreds of ships, each unique in their own way.
The only thing dampening her mood was the thing that had told her to stay close to it. Selvim, bundled in so many layers he looked more like a pillar of cloth that one day decided to start moving on its own trundled behind her. From deep within the bundle’s depths she heard Selvim’s mumbled curses as he slowly navigated through the throng, slightly ruining the desired effect of the “disguise” by the way he didn’t even twitch when one of the many creatures accidentally bumped into him. An even slightly observant watcher would have noticed how the seemingly diminutive figure had a mass far greater than one would expect as it made a small wake through the crowd, parting it by virtue of simply plowing through it at a tortuous pace.
Maybe if she didn’t look at him she’d be able to enjoy the experience.
“This is pointless!” I shouted the moment I pried the stifling headpiece off in the safety of the ship. Dried sweat had congealed the multilayer covering into a helmet, maintaining its shape as I threw it across the room to strike the opposite wall. Eallva climbed in behind me, mouth a tight line. “We won’t find anything just wandering around in the crowd,” I continued, “We need to find a way to actually find the guy, not just wander around and hope we bump into him.”
“Wait, that was your plan?” she asked incredulously, “I thought we were just sightseeing or getting our bearings or something. You actually thought you’d get something like that?”
“I don’t know,” I snapped, “This guy isn’t really subtle. I was hoping maybe there’d be like a quarantine area or something that people were warned not to go because there was some kind of monster. Apparently he’s managed to not draw attention to himself, somehow. Either that or he’s not the guy I thought he was.”
“How about you start from there. Who do you think this guy is? Give me the short version.”
I sighed, “A long time ago, before I became Selvim I met another human out here. At first I was super stoked because he was the first human I’d seen in what felt like years, except after talking with the guy it was easy to tell he was bat-shit crazy. Like the murdery kind. He’d killed a bunch of merchants and traders and stuff, I fought him, he kicked my ass, then another guy showed up and shit went downhill real fast from there. Point being he got away because I put him in reach of a shuttle so this is kind of my fault if this is him. And I’m almost positive it is because all those dead bodies we found on those ships down that trade route looked exactly like what he’d done before.
“Yeah, I was there, don’t remind me.” She’d come with me, and even I was a little repulsed by what we’d found. The bodies had been strewn about, viscera scattered like feathers from a bird, the walls liberally splattered with the multicolored fluids of many different species.
“So assuming Vakno knows her stuff, and I hate to say it but she really does, then he’s here. I almost expected to get here and find a bunch of dead bodies, but even he couldn’t kill this many people. So he’s gotta be lying low. So how do we find out where he’s hiding?” I waited expectantly.
The silence dragged on until Eallva finally perked up, “Wait, you’re seriously asking me? How should I know, I barely understand even a fraction of what’s going on here. I get the gist of course, people are just people regardless of how much magic they have, but when it comes down to particulars I’m hopeless.”
“So what you’re saying is you’re going to make me come up with ideas?”
What a terrifying proposition that must be for you: thinking.
Eallva shrugged, allowing me to address the other conversation in the room. I decided to actually look at It for the first time since It had appeared. It lounged to the right of me on a couch in the living area into which the airlock allowed entrance to the ship.
So, what would you do? You said you were me if I took the time to think things through, so how about it? What does the self-proclaimed “best version of me” have to say about this situation?
It rolled its eyes, Finally. It’s simple. If he’s hiding out somewhere then he’s smart enough to know that if he attempts to slaughter everyone in sight he’ll eventually be taken down. From your previous fight with him it’s clear he has a great self-preservation instinct. Remember he didn’t stay to fight the moment the odds were against him. So that means he has enough mental faculties to judge a situation and make strategic choices. Despite this, his main motivation still seemed to be to kill as much as possible. So, assuming he hasn’t given up on that completely then the best strategy for him to have against such a large population would be selective predation, with the criteria being level of isolation. Following that line of reasoning, you should be looking for missing person cases. Initially to see if there has been an increase in incidents in the last month, and if so, then try to draw conclusions from the victims themselves or their last seen locations to find a pattern you could use to create an organized and efficient search mechanism.
. . .
How you’re going to get the most recent missing person cases I have no idea. It shrugged, Maybe try law enforcement?
. . . What the fuck was that?!
Did you think I was just being vain when I said I was better than you?
Okay I wouldn’t go that far. So you’re better at reasoning, which doesn’t make sense –
It would if you were better at reasoning.
– but even on my best day I’ve never come up with a plan like that. I tend to just kind of blunder around until something works or nothing’s left working.
Being self-aware of that fact doesn’t make it any better.
So I’ll repeat, where the fuck did that come from?
It smiled, I’ve already told you. I’m you if you took the time to think things through. If you’re not going to listen to the voice in your head who do you listen to?
Anything but.
“Alright, how about this?” Eallva perked up as I broke the silence. “He hasn’t been found yet, right? Otherwise Vakno’s information would have sent us to a prison or a morgue, so he’s laying low. I doubt he’s stopped killing though, since that’s how he got his kicks, so maybe we should check missing person cases.”
“Makes sense,” she hopped in agreement, “So where do we find those?”
“No clue. Maybe law enforcement posts them publicly?” A cursory search on the local data network showed that to not be the case. “Fuck,” I sighed, “We’re gonna have to go outside again won’t we.”
“Probably,” her eyes narrowed, “What do you have in mind?”
“Something dumb that will almost certainly fail.”
You absolute madman.
One block away from Krwmbwrmbr city central precinct
“So, I know I’ve said this multiple times already,” Eallva squeaked while hopping beside me, “But I feel it bears repeating again. This isn’t going to work.”
“Not with that attitude. Look, what’s the worst that could happen?”
Everything. The specter’s mouth was drawn in a grim smirk as he phased through the crowd on my other side.
“Well this is the only idea we have so far,” I aimed a mental elbow-dig at the hallucination, “If it works then we get everything we need and more, if it doesn’t then we’re back to square one.”
Eallva huffed, “With the entire police force at our heels. Maybe if we’d prepared a little bit this could work, but you just looked up the name of some agency then said ‘let’s go’.”
“What are they gonna do? Shoot us with their piss pistols? We can get away if things turn ugly.”
“You said no one was going to get hurt!”
“They won’t. We can run faster than them. Stop worrying, you’ll give yourself an ulcer.”
“I’ll give you an ulcer, whatever that is,” she muttered.
The doors opened before us as we walked in, the building blessedly air-conditioned. “Showtime.”
I’ll watch from over here it said, leaning against the wall next to the door. Exuding as much confidence as was possible while wearing what felt like an entire circus tent’s worth of fabric on my body, I strode up to the front desk where a blue-giraffe with a bored expression tapped on a screen. I couldn’t have asked for a better receptionist, luck was in the air and it was actually on my side. I hoped.
“Backup has arrived!” I said with a booming voice.
The poor soul jumped at my near-shout, startled out of the catatonic hell that is a desk job. “I – wait – what?” he stuttered. What was it with blue-giraffes and stuttering?
“Backup!” I continued in a slightly quieter but no less carrying voice, “Your request for help from the Dominion Department of Interplanetary Justice has been answered. We,” I gestured to Eallva and myself, “Are here to fix your –” I lowered my voice to a conspiratorial whisper, “– problem.”
“Problem? What problem? I wasn’t aware we’d sent a request to the DDIJ for . . .”
I had to keep him off balance so I interrupted him, “Son, if you don’t know what I’m here for then just tell me where to find your superiors and alert them I’m coming.”
“I’m not . . .”
“Kid,” I cut him off, “This is above your paygrade.” Maybe it was best if I didn’t leave the decision up to him. I started walking down a hall that led me deeper into the building. “This way to ongoing investigations?”
“Yes, but I’m still not –”
“Thanks! Make sure they know we’re on our way.” I turned and walked quickly away, leaving him to stammer half-formed protests behind us. Stammering, they were big on that too.
“He said they didn’t have a problem,” Eallva hissed behind me as we strolled deeper into the station, “This isn’t going to work, we should leave while we still can.”
“Not yet,” I hissed back, “They might not have told him. I know if I wanted to keep something secret I wouldn’t let a blue-giraffe know. Not to be speciest or anything.”
As we continued to walk Eallva inhaled sharply several times as though she were about to voice more quitter talk, but if she’d learned anything about my body language right now then she’d know by the confident figure I struck as I marched forward that nothing short of a wall would stop me now. Maybe not even that, considering how paper thin some structures were out here.
She can’t see your posture dumbass, not in that getup
Then she’d tell by the confident pose my amorphous lump of a figure struck as I marched forward. Semantics, point being I was gonna keep going down this path until someone shot at me.
You’re mad.
Said so yourself. Instead of criticism you could give some encouragement.
Godspeed you beautiful disaster, he said sarcastically, swinging his hand in an exaggerated salute.
I’ll take it. Reaching a door with a sign telling me I had arrived, I burst into the room, took a deep breath, then headed for the largest office in sight. I didn’t make it more than three steps before a Frumpystiltskin got in my way, attempting to keep me from my glorious purpose.
“Hold up, who are you and what are you do –”
Having already planned for this I gave Eallva the signal. It was supposed to be a cool hand gesture with a lot of flashy finger moves and fist maneuvers, but from under the tarp of my disguise it probably looked like I was enthusiastically jacking myself off. Whatever got the message across, and my faux-jack evidentially did as Eallva shot underneath the Frumpystiltskin and wove her tail in between his legs. He collapsed to the ground sputtering, just in time for another one of his colleagues to take his place in an attempt to waylay me. She too joined her friend on the ground, overcome by my presence and the fact that a kangaroo rat jerked her feet out from under her. By now all eyes were on us and all minds set to stop me. And so it was that I arrived at the head honcho’s office door a Frumpystiltskin Moses, Eallva parting fuckers like the Red Sea as I strode ahead. I gave her a thumbs up which from her perspective must have looked like the grand climax beneath my disguise before I barged into the office I had guessed belonged to whoever was in charge.
Once inside I placed myself before the door – which swung inwards – to keep it from being easily opened.
What if Eallva needs to get in?
I told her to just bounce around and not get caught until I was done.
You’re pointedly not looking at me so I’ll just tell you, I’m glaring at you disapprovingly.
Noted.
Turning I looked to the White-giraffe sitting against the far wall, mouth agape and figure frozen in what I hoped was indicative of a fun-loving and understanding state of mind. Working off the assumption that it was precisely that I said the first thing that came to me.
“There seems to be some kind of accident out there. Someone tripped, you should probably look into it after we’re through here, but first we need to talk.”
He continued to gape.
“Excellent, you’re a man of action, my favorite. I’m here from the DDIJ in response to your call for help regarding your current carnivore problem.”
He finally found his words, “What are you talking about? You come in here, attack the precinct, then attack me in my office and start spouting nonsense about some kind of carnivore problem? As the head of public relations I can assure you that if there were a carnivore problem this precinct and its officers would –”
“Let me stop you right there,” I interrupted, “Head of public relations? You’re not the head of ongoing investigations?”
“No, but if you’re wondering who’s in charge then I most definitely –”
“Where’s the other guy’s office?”
“There,” he gestured at the wall beside me that looked to be made of frosted glass, “But –”
“So sorry to bother you, another time perhaps,” I turned and walked through the wall beside me. It was indeed frosted glass and shattered when I shoulder checked it. My burqa protected me from the falling shards as I strode to the considerably smaller but far more cluttered desk with a composed Frumpystiltskin behind it.
“Hello!” I began again, “I’m from –”
“The DDIJ, I heard,” She said calmly, “And while I’m loath to agree with him –” she looked over my considerably padded shoulder at the white giraffe still sputtering behind me, “ – on anything I must agree that if there were any carnivore problem in the city then this precinct and its sisters would be capable to take care of it quickly and professionally. So how about you instead tell me why you’re really here and I can decide how long your incarceration will be?”
I smiled underneath my disguise. Fuck it had been a while since I’d met anyone out here besides Vakno who could stand up for themselves. This was starting to get fun.
How? Your flimsy lie hasn’t even made it past your first sentence.
So scrap the lie, I’ll improvise.
You need to learn to give up before the guns are aimed at your face.
“I’ll level with you,” I said, ignoring my critic, “I’m not from the DDIJ.”
“I’m shocked,” she deadpanned.
“But you’re wrong when you say you don’t have a carnivore problem. In fact, you have the most dangerous carnivore of all,” time for the Hail Mary. I mean, if I was wrong about this then there was no point in me being here anyway. “Tell me, you’ve had an increase in missing person cases over the past month, correct?”
“Of course we haven’t,” the White-giraffe’s voice erupted from behind me. I would have jumped if I’d been able to under my layers, “And if there were then we would be sure to –”
“Rttkcht, enough,” interrupted the Frumpystiltskin, “This person is most obviously not a reporter, and it sounds like they already know. Go back to your desk and shuffle papers around to feel important, won’t you?”
“I won’t forget this,” grumbled the White-giraffe as he retreated to the other side of their now shared office.
“You never do,” She muttered. Turning back to me she continued, “Yes, there has been a recent increase, but we’ve worked hard to keep that fact from the public so as to avoid a panic. Thankfully it hasn’t gotten so bad that they’ve noticed. Now my turn, how do you know this and what does it have to do with attacking my officers and destroying my favorite wall?”
“The latter –” I was interrupted by a furry body striking the frosted glass wall to my right. I looked to see Eallva, as per my instructions, bounce around the precinct like a pinball from the terminal. To the untrained eye it looked like chaos. Even as we watched an unfortunate officer dived for her, slamming into the glass moments behind her. To the officer now on the ground he may have thought he had been close, but to me and especially to Eallva he was woefully slow.
She had things under control.
“Ahem, as I was saying, the latter was simply because I needed to talk to you, not through someone else. This was the easiest way considering my needs. As to how I know this, it’s complicated. Simply put, I represent a Dominion agency that looks for particular warning signs such as have been reported by this precinct in order to investigate and ensure that it’s not a worst case scenario. Unfortunately, upon reviewing your case, I’m afraid it is. You have a Hunter.”
That made her shell crack. For a moment I saw her outer calm disintegrate into animal fear, before it was quickly brought under control and contained. Tough, this one.
For a moment she controlled her breathing, “Mind expounding on that? What do you mean by ‘You have a Hunter’?”
“Exactly that, I’m afraid,” I continued in a business-like manner, “A Hunter, I believe it’s just one in your case, has gone to ground somewhere in this city. That’s why you’ve had an increase in atypical missing person cases. That Hunter is, well, hunting.”
Her face betrayed emotion for the second time this conversation as it twisted incredulously, “How are you sure?”
“A long tradition and history of sniffing out and seeing cases like yours,” I puffed up importantly, “But no need to fear, my partner and I have a 100% success rate with these kinds of problems, and yours won’t be any different, I promise.”
Nice, it said, eyes rolling, Nothing’ll get in the way of you keeping that one.
“Hold on,” she interrupted, “How can this be? I’ve never heard of hunters being on their own, nor have I heard of them ‘going to ground’.”
“You’re right,” I assured her, “It certainly isn’t common, but if it weren’t for the hard work of our department, it most definitely wouldn’t be unheard of. For the same reason you haven’t alerted the general populous to the increase in missing persons, we haven’t made public the lesser known actions of Hunters. Aside from general safety concerns, releasing such information would severely mess with our prediction algorithms. Everyone and their cousin would swear that their friend whom they haven’t seen for a day was abducted by a Hunter. Believe me, keeping people in the dark is the right decision.
She momentarily glanced in the direction of my specter. Could she see it? Apparently not because her eyes drifted blindly over it. After a moment she sighed, “If you’re correct about our situation then I’m glad you’re here. If there’s anything you need don’t hesitate to ask.