Just on the outskirts of the city, I can quietly hear the FM radio fading back in, some random pop song begins to play. It’s as hot as ever outside and I’m running the AC at full blast. As we slowly move closer to the city limits, my feelings of both fear and excitement begin to increase and mix together into a gross stew of pure discomfort. I look at my phone to see how much longer I must sit still in a hot car...
Sigh,
Twenty-five more minutes. I slowly close my eyes as I hope to gain back the sleep I had lost last night...
As I wake up, my eyes feel exceptionally groggy, but I notice we’ve entered the downtown area of the city, and excitedly prepare myself to be able to leave this movement-restricting hell of a vehicle.
“So... Where is the hotel, exactly?” Allison asks I check my phone...
“It’s along this road, just a bit further down,” I respond I tried not to find a reasonable hotel that was both high-quality while also being somewhat low-profile. I was in some luck with the one I had booked, as it was a four-star - but didn’t show off the fact that only rich snobs stayed there. My phone pings, it’s the notification that I received my tickets for the concert.
“So, I know it was definitely kind of last minute to just hop in a car to drive all the way down to LA, but I hope we can still have a good time this weekend.” I wish I could be upfront about the real situation, but if she gets mixed up in this, I am screwed.
“It’s fine, I can definitely understand the need to get away from your regular life for a while. Besides, I have been dying to see Panama live for years now.” She says,
“Awesome,” I spot the hotel, down the road, “This is the hotel, right up here” I point towards the building.
She pulls up to the valet service. We both step out of the car, Allison hands the valet the keys while I grab the suitcases out of the trunk. The hotel is relatively high-end, the hotel has an extremely minimalistic look to it. Our shoes are exceptionally loud on the marble floors as we walk through the revolving doors towards reception.
While walking, a bellman approaches me, offering to take our bags and suitcases. I oblige and we hand our luggage over to him. When we reach reception, A young man at the desk waves me over to him.
“Hi, I’m looking to check-in? We made a reservation.” I say, to the man.
“Last name?” He asks me, in a relatively upbeat voice.
“Miller,” I respond, he types on his keyboard for a few seconds,
“Ah, yes, George and Allison Miller. Great to have you here! So, your room with us today will be on the seventh floor, room #713. Check out is Sunday at noon! Do you have a credit card, to pun on file?” He says,
“Oh, yes! Right here,” I hand him my credit card, which he swipes in the machine and returns to me. He grabs two room keys from his desk drawer and scans them.
“Ok, great! Here are your room keys, if you lose them, we will charge you five dollars per key lost. Here is your valet card, return it to the valet when you wish to use your car. Anything else I can assist you with today?” He asks,
“No, that should be everything, for now, thank you.” I turn around and walk towards Allison. She’s staring at her phone.
“Hey,” I wave in front of her face, “I got us checked in, room number seven-one-three,” I say,
“Awesome, I am dying to just hop into a bed and lay down. My feet are so stiff from driving for five hours.” She responds.
We arrive in the room, it’s weirdly warmer than the rest of the hotel. The room has massive floor-to-ceiling windows and a king-sized bed opposite to the windows with LEDs behind the frame. There’s a massive flat-screen on the wall hung up next to a mini-fridge and a coffee machine, which, no doubt, has terrible coffee.
“So... This is the room, I suppose,” I say, in a somewhat awkward tone,
“Yeah, what else would it be?” She laughs, and takes her clothes out of her suitcase and hangs them up in the closet, “So, I saw this restaurant near here that looked promising and up-scale, want to check it out for dinner tonight?” She says,
“Did it look like it’s any good?” I ask,
“I have no idea, It looked somewhat fancy... We can just walk around the area and look at their menu? If it doesn’t look like it’s any good then we could just eat at the hotel restaurant.” She responds,
“Sure, I’m not familiar with downtown LA, so it’s not like I’ve got any better suggestions.” I chuckle,
“So what do you want to do until then?” She asks,
“We could go find a café or something? Or just watch TV until dinner,” She says,
“A café sounds good, I would love an iced coffee right about now,” I respond. I open up my suitcase and place my clothes in the closet. We grab our coats and head out the door.
The sound of my phone notification startles me at my desk.
I know where he is.
...
How?
I called his cell over VOIP and it gave me his account info, which I used to sign in to his account on Find My Phone.
Send me the account info, I’ll get to him.
Seems like he’s heading south towards Los Angeles.
Los Angeles? What could he possibly want from that place?
Idk, my best bet is that he’s in hiding, but why wouldn’t he have his phone’s tracking turned off?
I stop to think for a moment. He’s doing god knows what six-hundred kilometres away from his entire company... for what? He could be trying to lure me somewhere away, but he barely knows who I am, and he has no known contacts in L.A.
My phone pings again, with the login details of George’s phone. I go back into my messages, to contact
Hey, Chris, so are you in or out? Because I’m going to need you extremely soon.
I have no fucking idea, dude. You’ve been extremely cryptic with me thus far, and I have absolutely no reason to trust you or your motives, of which I have no knowledge of any.
It’s George, meet me in Los Angeles, at the boardwalk.
...George? What the fuck are you trying to do in LA, man?
I don’t know. If you’re not interested, that’s fine. But just know that I need you for this to work, if I don’t see you there Saturday at 10PM, I’ll assume you’re not interested.
Fucking shit. I guess I’ll see what you’re going on about, but ONE sign of bullshit or something extremely illegal, and I am OUT!
I turn off my phone and schedule a flight for two days from now.
We stopped at a diner on our way towards Los Angeles. Allison left to get some snacks and drinks from the convenience store next door while I was waiting for the bill. The condensation on the window beside me is slowly fading away as the day gets warmer. The waiter walks up to me and hands me the bill. I pay it and leave to start packing my things back into the car. Suddenly, my phone begins to vibrate in my pocket, a phone call.
“Hello?” I say,
“Hello there, George.”
“Who is this?” I ask,
“That’s not important, what is important is that you need to tell me where that little iPad you stole currently is. I noticed that you disabled its networking and removed the SIM card.” He responds,
“Why would I give you any of that information? Let me guess, an associate of Sean? There were so many better ways you could have handled this, but you decided to let me know ahead of time that you’re looking for it, so thank you.” I hang up and block the number before the man has a chance to call me back.
That couldn’t have been Sean, could it?
It isn’t probable that he was the one calling. I’ve yet to understand what his plans are. Whatever it is, I can’t be handling this right now, not with Allison still oblivious to the situation, with us travelling to Los Angeles. She already seems suspicious of me---
“Hey, I bought a load of snacks for the rest of the drive,” Allison says, sneaking up on me and practically giving me a heart attack.
“Oh! Hey, awesome! Ready to go back on the road?” I respond,
“Yeah, totally,” She says,
We get back in the car, Allison taking the driver's seat, and we continue our journey.
I’ve arrived at the meeting spot. Nothing but darkness in an empty parking lot with one lone floodlight covering but a tiny spot. I wait in the car, listening to the static-filled songs on the radio while I wait for him to arrive.
He should have arrived by now.
I try to keep the dark thoughts at bay, but they engulf me, like waves crashing against the sand, time and time again.
I see a blurry light source behind all of the rain, appearing to be headlights.
It must be him.
I get out of the car, the rain slowly drenching my clothes.
Glad I didn’t wear anything expensive.
I stand underneath the only floodlight in the parking lot, the silhouette of him slowly walking towards me. Oddly frightening, in a way.
“Now, what did you want to talk to me about?” He asks. He stands just before the light, I can barely make out his face.
“There is something going on with METACO and I need your help,” I say, trying not to give too much information away.
“Really. You called me, asked me to come ALL the way out here just so you can ask for my help? There were better ways to do this that would have been far more efficient.” He replies sarcastically.
“No. I brought you out here because this isn’t something that we can just talk about over the phone. This is bigger than you and me, and I will not let dumb decisions ruin it. Realize that nothing technological is private anymore, we are under a constant state of surveillance and even one dumb move will blow this entire operation.” My blood boils, the absolute unprofessional attitude of this man is astounding to me... But nonetheless, he is my only option right now.
He stands there, completely silent for a moment.
“Look, I don’t know if I’m the right person for this job of yours. I don’t even know what you want me to do yet I can tell that this is way out of my skill level.” He seems like he wants to leave, like this is too much for him.
"Here's the thing, I know you, I know your business, and I know everyone that works for and with you. I know for a fact that you can handle this, and even worse, I know for a fact that you're the only person that can handle this,” I pause for a moment, “Unfortunate, for you and us." A hint of anger hides within my voice, I just hope he cannot tell.
“Listen, I do not think that I am the person you should be asking, after everything that has happened, I am not the person you should be asking for help. Hell, I don’t believe I even want to work with you.” He says. This almost seems hopeless, almost.
“I know what has happened, believe me. But if you assist me with this job... I’ll give you fifty million, and then you’ll never have to see me, or him, again.
“Fifty million? What the fuck kind of operation is this! I don’t want to be on a fucking FBI most-wanted list!” He’s practically shouting at this point.
“I’ll give you the details as necessary, just keep me updated on whether or not you want to do this. But remember to leave the details out of the messages, please.” I turn around and begin to walk away. Back in the dark, empty lot.
He remains standing under the light, as I enter the car and slowly drive away as the rain hits even harder.
I wake up to the agonizing sound of my phone’s alarm clock, I immediately wack the power button on the phone to snooze it.
“What time is it?” Allison asks. I turn on my phone and am instantly blinded by the brightness of my phone but can barely make out the time.
“It’s about 6:30″ I say.
“Ugh... so you really aren’t going to work on a Friday? Why not just work, and then we leave tonight?” She asks
“Friday’s are rarely important, it’s mostly just going over the financials of that week and confirming deliveries with clients.”
“Whatever you say...” She responds. I get out of bed and put on some clothes for the day, just a light t-shirt and some jeans. Allison puts on a white t-shirt with a black cardigan and some yoga pants. I go downstairs and make some breakfast to prepare myself for the road trip today. I hear a doorbell ring. It must be Matt. I walk over to the door and to no surprise...
It’s Matt.
“Morning Mr Miller, I knew you were leaving for your trip this morning so I came a little early to make sure I wouldn’t miss you,” He says,
“Great, we just woke up about ten minutes ago so pretty good timing there,” I respond
“Ok, well here’s the iPad you wanted me to decrypt. The conversation is unlocked. Nothing in the conversation seems like anything of value.” He says,
“Hmm... Well, thanks anyway Matt,” I say,
“No problem, I’ll see you on Monday,” I close the door and run upstairs to put the iPad in my suitcase, I don’t want Allison to see it, so I don’t plan on looking at it until we get to Los Angeles.
“What should I make for breakfast?” I ask,
“I don’t know, something simple... Eggs and toast?” She says. I go back downstairs, grab the toast and plop it into the toaster and set it for two minutes. I grab the eggs out of the fridge, crack them, and pour them into the pan. The sizzling sound of the eggs is loud but pleasant. The toast pops up and I grab them and set them on separate plates. I check the eggs and they’re perfectly cooked with still runny yolks, just how I like them. I separate each egg from each other with the spatula and place them onto their own plates.
“Breakfast is ready!” I yell upstairs. Allison comes walking downstairs with her suitcase still half-open. I realise that I forgot to bring my suitcase down before I made breakfast, whatever “Your food is on the table,” I say, I quickly run upstairs and grab my suitcase. I notice the zipper on my suitcase has been unzipped almost halfway, I open it and find that the iPad was left on. Hmm. “Did you go through my suitcase?” I ask Allison, just a bit quieter than yelling so she can hear me.
“What? No??? I’ve been packing since we woke up this morning!” Allison yells from downstairs.
“Oh! Ok then,” I say. I must’ve forgotten to close it when I put the iPad away... I go back downstairs with my suitcase and set it by the front door. I walk over to the dining room and begin to eat the breakfast I made. Allison dishes up and sits down at the table.
“So the hotel called while you were upstairs confirming the reservation, we have to check in by five this evening,” Allison said,
“Ok, great,” I said, I finished my breakfast and started packing the car, it’s a dark grey SUV, probably one of the most futuristic styled cars I’ve ever driven. I don’t know if I actually like it, but I know that Allison loves it, so of course, I had to get it for her.
All of the staff have left. While working on my desktop, my desk phone starts ringing.
“Hello?”
“An Allison is here to see you?”
“Oh, great. Bring her up.”
I hang up and go over to the meeting room, where I’ve prepped the food from a local Italian restaurant to look fancy romantic. I place down some of the plastic utensils that came with the food to hear a buzzing at the door to the office. We keep the doors locked after hours so you can only come in if someone already in the office grants access or if you have a keycard.
I open the door to the office to see Allison standing there in a black overcoat, she wears black jeans and some brown boots with blackish-brown hair with blue eyes, her hair long and tucked behind her ears.
“You finally made it,” I say
“Yeah, that rain is making everyone drive like they’ll die if they go the speed limit.” She and I laughed.
“I set up everything in the meeting room,” I say. We make our way to the meeting room where I set up the styrofoam containers of our food all along the table. We both sit down and eat. I ordered pasta primavera for Allison, one of her favourite foods, and ordered alfredo gnocchi for myself with various side dishes for both of us.
“So, I was wondering... If you’d be interested in a weekend trip to Los Angeles?” I asked her.
“Los Angeles? Why there?” She asked.
“I don’t know, I think we both could use a little time away from our jobs, even if it is just two days. Also, Panama has a concert there on Saturday night!” I replied, excitedly.
“Panama? We haven’t listened to them in years...” She said.
“It’s honestly up to you, Allison. If you don’t want to go we can just spend the weekend here, like every week.” I responded.
“You know what? Fuck it, let’s go.” She said joyfully.
“Awesome! After dinner, we can go home and start packing to leave tomorrow morning,” I say.
We both finish up our dinner and throw the packaging into the garbage.
“Ready to go?” I ask Allison.
“Yeah let me just grab my coat,” She replies. I make my way to Matt’s desk at reception before we go so I can grab the iPad...
But it’s gone... I think that Matt probably just took it home to keep working on decrypting the passcode... Hopefully, that’s the case. Allison walks over to me, zipping up her coat.
“Ok let’s go,” I say. I push the elevator button and wait for the elevator. When it arrives, it takes us to the lobby. At this hour, everyone has gone home including the building’s receptionist. We make our way to the staircase to head to the parkade.
“Where did you park your car?” I ask.
“I didn’t drive here, I used a taxi,” She replies.
“Why?” I say
“I knew you drove here, and I didn’t want us to have to take two cars home after dinner.” She said.
“I didn’t drive my car here either!” I frustratedly respond.
“Well, I didn’t know that!” She says. We both make our way back up the stairs back to the lobby to call a taxi. I dial the number on my phone.
Hello?
Hi, I’d like a taxi, please.
Ok, great! Where are you located?
1205 Vista Ave.
Great, a driver will be there shortly, should be about five minutes.
Thank you.
I end the call.
“They said it’d be five minutes until it can get here,” I said. We both step outside of the building an sit on a nearby bench while we wait for the taxi. We both gaze upon the buildings of downtown San Fransisco, shining upon the starry sky.
“So where were you last night?” Allison asks me. I freeze for a second, what do I tell her? I think to myself, Allison looks at me waiting for an answer.
“Nick from my office invited everyone to get drinks for his birthday” It isn’t technically a lie, although it wasn’t the most important part of the night.
“And you didn’t think to invite me? I keep telling you I want to meet your employees! They sound like nice people,” Allison responds.
“By the time I thought of inviting you, I had lost my phone and was too drunk to find it,” I said.
“Still kind of a dick move.” She says.
“I am with you on that,” I respond. If she was there, I probably would’ve never gotten myself into this situation in the first place.
The taxi pulls up to the building, Allison and I both enter the back of the taxi. The driver wears a black leather jacket with some jeans and black and white sneakers.
“Where to?” The taxi driver asks,
“1100 Autumn Drive” Allison replies.
We arrive at home, Allison hands the driver a five-dollar bill and we walk up to the house. It’s a semi-large house about two stories high with about four-thousand square feet total. We haven’t decorated it that much since we’ve only moved into it about a month ago. I open the door and smell one of those Febreze wall plug-ins, I hate them but leave it because Allison likes the scent of them.
“I’ll grab the suitcases from the basement and then we can start packing,” I say.
“Ok, thanks” Allison responds. I make my way to the basement to grab the suitcases. We keep them in our furnace room, for some reason. Before I grab them and head back upstairs, I call the salesperson who talked to me about his products to see if I could get a phone.
Hello! George, right?
Yeah.
Are you interested in my offer?
No, I’m still thinking about it.
Oh, then why are you calling me?
I was wondering if you had any untraceable iPhones available?
Of course, it’ll set you back about seven-hundred plus three-hundred for us to make it hidden.
Ok, sounds good. Bring it to my house around nine tomorrow morning, our address is 1100 Autumn Drive.
Great, I’ll be there.
I hang up and get a text message from the same number I just called with the info needed to send him a wire transfer. I wire the money to him on my phone and grab the suitcases. I close the door behind me and make my way upstairs.
“What took you so long? Are those suitcases too heavy for your scrawny arms?” Allison laughed.
“They were buried under a bunch of still-not-unpacked moving boxes so it took me a while to move the boxes off of them,” I say.
“We really have to finish unpacking everything one of these days, we have way too many boxes that still aren’t unpacked,” I nod and we both head upstairs to start packing a few outfits for the weekend getaway. I grab a grey button-up t-shirt to wear over a black and white t-shirt with dark-blue jeans. I also pack a pair of white sneakers for the concert. I pick another outfit of a brown leather jacket over a black t-shirt with blue jeans with a pair of bright-brown lincolnns.
I pack my hygienic items and socks and then go to check on Allison.
“Almost done packing?” I ask,
“Almost, can’t seem to find my laptop,” she says,
“I think I know where it is,” I say,
“Did you use it?” She asks me,
“No, I saw it yesterday morning on the couch downstairs,” I respond,
“Oh, thanks.” She says. She exits the bedroom and goes downstairs to grab her laptop. My phone pings with a text from Matt,
I decrypted the conversation, I can drop off the iPad at your house tomorrow if you’d like.
Sounds good.
I turn off my phone and walk over to my bedside table to grab my laptop, I throw it in my suitcase and zip it shut. Right as I close it and set the suitcase upright, Allison opens the door with her laptop and sets it in her suitcase.
“Ok, NOW I’m done packing” She exclaims,
“Great,” I look at my watch and notice the time, 10:53 PM, “I should probably go to bed, I don’t want to drive to Los Angeles on three hours of sleep.
“Yeah me too,” Allison says. She hops into bed and I turn off the main light in the room, I walk over to my side of the bed and turn off the bedside lamp.
(All of the ‘Sean’ chapters will be significantly shorter than the main chapters)
I look up from my computer, to see the same office I’ve been working in for six years. My phone lights up with a text from a disguised phone number.
I did the job. Expecting the rest of the payment in the next five minutes.
I didn’t expect him to complete the job so quickly or even complete it at all. Sean was the kind of guy to always have top security in his home and office.
‘Send a picture’ I reply, I don’t trust him since I’ve never had hired help complete the job before. My phone lights up again, with a picture of George, unconscious in my storage room. I don’t know how he did it, but he did... I wire the money to his bank account and send a text message notifying him of it. I hear a door open and shut and footsteps proceed to the exit of my warehouse.
My phone lights up with a notification detecting movement in the room George was in. Another reminder telling me of a meeting with Nick Trudule in five minutes. I head to the entrance of my warehouse to find him just about to knock for the meeting.
“Hello, Nick Trudule, right?” I ask.
“That’s correct. I’m here to do the job you requested.” He responds.
“Great, so we confirmed you would take ten-thousand, right?” I ask
“Yeah, that’s the price for my work. We already discussed the details so tell me where to go and I’ll be on my way.” He says. I glance over my shoulder to see Sean sneaking out to the emergency exit.
“1205 Vista Ave, wait an hour or so before you walk in though,” I say
I’ve been studying the surveillance drone in the safe room for a few days now, at least I think it’s been a few days. I found a tracker inside the drone, When I tried to scan the Code Signature of the drone, no ship information came up, just the words “They’re coming”. What does that mean? I’m driving myself insane thinking about the possibilities of what’s going to happen to me...
The door’s getting ripped open, they’ve found me. I have to sign off, if anyone’s listening to this, I’m in a star system a few light years from Colonia, please...
Save me.
End of log
July 14th, 2754
4:13 PM
Allison and I can’t believe what we’re hearing.
“You can’t just fire us! We worked hard to get our jobs here and we will not let you take this away from us!” Allison exclaimed
“Well, you don’t have much of a say in this, especially since you don’t work for the Ares Republic anymore. Now please, get out of my office.”
We exited the room and walked back down the hallway, which leads to the elevator, we walked in and Allison scanned her card and pressed the floor -7.
“You have access to floor -7? Not even I have that kind of security clearance.”
“We’re going down there while I still have security clearance, plus I’m a higher rank than you,” Allison said
“How are you, a higher rank than me?”
“I’ve been working here way longer than you.”
“I don’t think that means you’re more deserving of a promotion.”
“Well that doesn’t matter anymore because we’re fired, what are we going to do?” Allison spoke with such worry in her voice, I knew there was something we could do because if we didn’t, we probably would be dead within the month.
“We can do freelance missions for various companies and factions, and it’s not like they won’t hire us, we have plenty of experience, We can do that!”
“We don’t have a ship! Our current one is owned by Ares and I don’t think they want us to have it.”
“I have a bank account that I had been saving for occasions just like this! It should be worth a few hundred thousand dollars!”.
“Ok fine, we can try this out, how about 50/50 split of all profits?” Allison asked.
“Deal. Before we worry about any of that, why are we going to the sub-basement?”
“I figured that if they fire us, we should take something of theirs to get back at them.”
“You’re insane.”
The elevator doors opened, the sub-basement was a medium sized room, dimly lit with a couple desks with computers and research. It made me question what was so special about this floor. When we made it to the desks area, Allison began to look on the computers and in drawers for something, But eventually, I think she found what she was looking for, she took out her phone and set it down on the table. I’m sure the table has one of those wireless surfaces, where if you set a device or memory stick or such, it connects the device to the local network, which in this case, was a small computer set upon the table.
“What are you doing?” I asked
“Stealing some files.” Her phone connected to the wireless link and she began to scroll through the files, I didn’t know what to do so I began looking on other computers for anything that might be worth stealing, to no avail.
“Hey, I found something!” Allison exclaimed.
“What is it?” I looked at the computer, and to my surprise, she had found a file labelled Project Cesium, upon closer examination of the file, the document had a huge amount of metadata, the real information was encrypted with a password that neither of us knew. Allison began to upload the file to her phone and we ran back to the elevator. I knew that what we were doing was illegal, but at this point, I didn’t care.
We were on our way to our ship, trying not to look suspicious, we did receive weird looks from some of the citizens, but nothing too serious. When we got to the ship, Allison turned on the engines of the ship and I ran to the co-pilot seat, as we started taking off, we both noticed some security guards running to our ship, shouting something we couldn’t comprehend due to the sound-proof glass.
Allison began to input some coordinates into the command console. “Where are we going?” I tried to shout over the sounds of the engines engaging.
“We’re going anywhere but here.” The ship reaches hyper-speed and I have no idea where it’s taking us, the predicted time on the console says forty-five minutes so I’d think it’s somewhere very far from here.
I give Allison a confused look, but she doesn’t respond.
About forty-five minutes later…
We made it to the destination that Allison had entered. Still unknowing of the destination, we had arrived. I glance at the ship’s navigational console… and I instantly recognize, we’ve just arrived at Upsilon Andromedae…
“You took us to Upsilon Andromedae?!? do you know how messed up these people are? What the hell!” I said, Ever since the war of Upsilon Andromedae, the place has always been completely insane about its security and thus the system has been in a constant lockdown. Even the smallest breaking of any rule can lead to a death sentence, and if you even think about going there without permission, you can basically kiss your life goodbye.
“What? This isn’t my fault! We were being chased down by security forces and I panicked and just selected a random star system! We were in a hurry!” Allison shouted with an uncomfortable look on her face.
“Just get out of here!”
“I’m trying!” Allison shouted, just before she could initiate hyperspace engines, four ships appeared, we noticed our comms channel opening to which we received a horrifying auditorial message.
Attention entitled spacecraft, you have entered Upsilon Andromedae and are now trespassing, and as we can tell by your ship’s code signature, you do not have the required permission to be in this system, please turn off your engine and allow us to board your ship so you can be incarcerated. If you do not listen, you will be eliminated.
“Well shit, now we’re completely screwed because it took us too long to fix your mistake!” I said, I instantly regretted it, but it was too late.
“My mistake? You were the one who decided to leave the mission early and get us fired!” Allison shouted.
“That was your suggestion! Don’t blame me for your bad idea!” I said
“Well, it’s too late to change this. I’ll turn off the engines.”
Again, entitled ship if you do not turn off your engines, you will be destroyed, this is your final warning.
“Okay!” Allison said
Engines disengaged. Unknown ship attempting to board: do you wish to allow this? Allison pushed yes, and we could hear the ship boarding us. I was filled with worry and I could tell that Allison was as worried as I was.
Before we could argue any longer, the boarding door opened and a half-dozen soldiers ran into the room armed with automatic weapons that I could not recall. The soldiers were wearing white camouflage and cargo pants of the same colour.
“Well, well, well. What do we have here?” I believe the person speaking to me was their Commanding Officer.
“I read their ship’s code signature, It’s owned by the Ares Republic.” One of the soldiers responded.
“Are they affiliated with the Ares Republic?” The C.O asked.
“We were, but we were just recently fir--” Before Allison could finish, the soldier interrupted her.
“Ah- no talking.” The C.O said.
“It didn’t say anything about their affiliation on the code signature, let me see your ID cards.” The soldier said. Allison and I handed over our cards from our pockets, the soldier took out the scanner. He proceeded to hover the item over each of our cards, I heard a faint beeping sound from the device scanning my card, then again for Allison.
“Nope looks here like they were just recently fired, this ship is clearly not theirs. What do you want to do?” The soldier asked.
“Arrest them, we’ll keep them in jail until we figure out what to do with them. You guys are coming with us.” The C.O pointed to us. I had just realised that they actually had a legal reason to imprison us than just trespassing into the system. We had stolen top secret files and a ship, and we were trespassing into a system that we didn’t have legal right to enter, luckily they hadn’t found the files yet.
Two of the soldiers grabbed Allison and I, she tried to struggle to no avail. They pulled us into a little holding cell on their ship and locked us in. Before the soldiers left the room, Allison started speaking.
“What are you guys going to do with our ship?” Allison asked worryingly.
“We’re going to take it to our hangar so we can remove the code signature and keep it as our own.”
“That’s a felony!” I told the soldier
“It may be a felony in other star systems, but not this one.” The soldier smirked and chuckled lightly as he left the room. Sadly, he was right, all the stuff that had just happened to us was legal in this messed up system, and we couldn’t do anything about it. I didn’t even know you could remove code signatures without affecting the internal compartments in the ship.
I heard quiet talking from the next room over. Search the ship for any more evidence we can use to lock those two up for good. Check the living quarters, cockpit, kitchen, bathroom and the storage room for anything.
“Dammit! They’re going to find my device with all the files we stole of Ares Republic! We’re in so much trouble” Allison said. For a second I thought that all was lost, that we were doomed to be locked up in prison for the rest of our lives over stolen files and a ship. This might be the end for us.
A ship has been landed a few clicks from my outpost for a few days now, that’s why I haven’t been able to make a log recently, but now, it’s getting worse, a few deployable surface vehicles have been released from the ship’s vehicle bay and a few soldiers have left the vehicle, I have no further information because once the soldiers slammed open the door, I snuck away to the solar flare safe room. What do they want? Why are they here? I’m starting to question why Syndicate sent me out on an empty, rocky moon in the middle of nowhere, by myself. What’s happening?
End of log
July 14th, 2754
3:45 PM
“This is Stephen Kimball, requesting a landing pad.”
“Stephen? You weren’t expected to be back for another week.” This is the person who controls the communications and docking requests, I’m not a big fan of the guy.
“We ran into an issue, I’m here to talk with the Commander about something”
“That’s quite ominous for a guy like you, what happened?”
“I’m afraid that information is above your pay grade.”
“Whatever, proceed to the landing pad.” I know Nafrora is a beautiful world of forestry and oceans and amazing mountain ranges, but the best part is the story of how The Crimson Confederation took hold of it.
The Crimson Confederation launched a full-fledged attack against all seven of Syndicate’s outposts in the system, Syndicate didn’t stand a chance against the bombs that were planted in each outpost. There are even popular tourist sites around the craters that were left, since then the Crimson Confederation and Syndicate have not been in good standing.
Engines disengaged, I love seeing those words on the command log, it either means I get to sleep, or I’m not on a mission. Allison and I exited the ship through the door on the side, the hangar is fairly small with grey walls and a few computers to handle the hanger doors and security, it makes me think how the docking request handler must dislike me as much as I dislike him. We walked up to a security guard who is blocking the entrance to the HQ’s centre room
“Let me see your ID card. I need it to grant you access to Headquarters.” The security guard is wearing a dark blue hat, a bulletproof vest and black cargo pants, I find the bulletproof vest to be unnecessary since Nafrora hasn’t been attacked in years.
“Here” I show my ID card to the guard and he pulls out a device and scans my card
“Ok, you’re good. What about the girl?” Allison starts to search her pockets but can’t find anything.
“I think I left it on the ship, you go ahead Stephan, I’ll go find it and meet you in a couple of minutes, ok?
“Ok, meet me at the Commander’s office”
She starts to walk back to the ship, shutting the ship door behind her.
“You’re meeting with the Commander? What’s the occasion?” The security guard asks.
“I just got back from a mission, but something happened that I need to brief the Commander about.”
“Cool, go through those doors and if you keep going straight you’ll find an elevator, use that and it’ll take you to his office”
“Thanks.” I walked through the doors, the doors are covered in armour plating... Past that is a long hallway, extremely plain concrete walls, the floor is just some kind of metal that I can’t identify first-hand. But when I make it to the end of the hall, it’s another set of armour-plated doors, but luckily no security guard that I have to sit and talk to again. The doors open immediately, probably with some weight or movement sensor, When I get to the centre room of HQ... Marble floors, white walls, the room alone is 5,000 square feet, the reception is in the centre of the room, There’s even a café against one wall. They must of renovated it while I’ve been out on the mission.
There’s the elevator I think, it’s on the other side of the room. When I get to the elevator... There’s no buttons, just a black screen with the words Present card, I take out my security card and scan it, then the screen shows up with all the buttons to the floors I have access to, -3, -1, P, L, M, 3, 15, 74, 115, 265, 354. Most of the floors are missing. But since the building is undergoing some renovations, I don’t have access to some floors. What’s the Commanders floor? I’m sure it’s 354. As soon as I press it, the elevator starts rising, surprisingly fast.
When I exit the elevator, I’m met with, yet another security guard.
“Who are you?”
“Stephen Kimball, here to meet the Commander” I scan my security card and the door opens.
“Did you talk to someone about the meeting first?”
“I don’t need to, I just got back from a mission, and protocol states that to immediately brief your superior upon mission completion/failure.” I walk through the doors and they close behind me. I’m met with a hall, at the end of this hall is two wooden doors with a aluminum doorknob, I twist the knob and here I am the Commander’s office.
“What are you doing here, Stephen Kimball?” the Commander has brown hair with blue eyes, wearing a black suit jacket with a white shirt underneath, a blue tie and even a pair of black square glasses upon his eyes.
“I’m back from the mission.”
“You weren’t expected to be back for at least three more days.”
“We were following protocol, it states to immediately brief your superior upon mission completion or failure.”
“I highly doubt you completed the mission in, so what went wrong?”
“Our ship got scanned by an unknown spacecraft, and when we tried to use the code signature to look up the ship, we found that the ship wasn’t registered.”
“So why did you feel the need to abort the mission, just to tell me about this?”
“Allison discovered that the ship had a far more advanced scanner than ours, which meant that if they were also looking for the asset, they would have found it by then.”
“How much of the designated area did you actually scan before leaving?”
“About one-third of the area.”
“One-third? You’ve got to be kidding me.”
“We would have searched further, but we were just following protoc--.”
“No, you were not! Protocol states to report upon mission failure or completion, and clearly... Neither happened in this situation!” The Commander shouting is not a situation I’m familiar with, which means he must be extremely angry with us.
“Did I miss anything?” Allison walks through the door right after the Commander finishes his sentence,
“Good, now you’re both here, which means you both get to hear the good news!”
“What good news?” Allison asks.
“The news, that your both being fired!” As soon as I hear those words, my heart sinks. I’ve been working there for years! But all they do in return is fire me?
“What are you talking about?” Allison asks with a touch of worry in her voice.
“I’m talking about you two, not working here anymore! Your last few missions have all gone terribly! And you, Allison, you don’t even care about your job! I saw your mission logs, relying on others to do your work! I can’t have you two working here any longer! You’re. Fired.”
After a couple of days of trying to run diagnostics on this device, I’ve potentially figured out what this is. I’ve confirmed that it is one of Syndicate’s surveillance systems, but it’s been tampered with, but in a way that no ordinary person could’ve done. I think it’s been modified to act as a scanner with a surveillance system. But who could’ve done this?
End of log
July 14th, 2754
7:53 AM
I wake up in a sweat, having the same dream five days in a row, it’s always the same situation. I’m on a ship, and then we discover the ship is being attacked, and then suddenly I hear an explosion, and then... Nothing, just sitting there waiting for me to die, or for something, anything to happen, but then I wake up.
I make my way to the Galley to have a quick breakfast, the room surprisingly looks better than the rest of the ship, bigger, brighter and more colourful. One wall is completely covered in kitchen appliances, a square table with four chairs on each side and a nice vase in the centre of the table with a few tiger lilies. I take a few eggs to cook and make some toast, but before I put the eggs in the pan, I remember...
“Allison! Wake up, you need to pilot the ship!” I shouted, realizing that she probably has her door closed.
“Why don’t you pilot!”
“I’ve been piloting for the last three days! You accepted this job too, You have to do at least some of the work or I’ll tell the Commander and you won’t get any pay!” I know she doesn’t respond well to blackmail, but it's worked well in the past, well, as good as blackmail can work I guess.
“Whatever” I see her walking down the hallway to the door that leads to the control room, slamming the door shut behind her. I finish my eggs and toast, thinking I should go help co-pilot the ship with Allison.
“Brought you some coffee, figured you could use some energy after all of that work you’ve been doing--”
“Wait shut up a second, check this out...”
“What is this?” Allison showed me something from the ship’s log, with the words Code Signature: SH$#&
“Apparently we got scanned last night at... 3:54 AM” Allison Said
“What kind of company is sending ships to police systems ten thousand light years away from any kind of civilization?” I said
“I have no idea because most code signatures have information embedded that shows a description of the ship, but this one doesn’t, and usually following the code signature is a set of numbers which shows it's registered number, this just says $#&,” Allison Said
“That means the ship isn’t registered, which is illegal, okay maybe they were trying to find the asset we’re looking for?” I said
“If they were, they already found it, clearly this ship has a far more advanced scanner than us because according to the log, it only took them four seconds to scan us,” Allison said
“Should we head back? We need to notify Command about the situation.” Technically, I was following protocol, but in reality, I just wanted to leave.
“Just a couple of more hours, I’m starting to get a routine of first rock, scan, second rock, scan, and so on”
“We need to follow protocol, plus, if we leave now we can get our payment faster.”
“Not as big of a payment if we don’t find the asset.”
“What happened to you saying the other ship found it?”
“I said it might have found it.”
“Still, we should leave, I don’t want to continue searching if the chances of finding it are even lower than it was before.”
“You’re starting to sound like me now-- You know what, fine, I don’t even really care about this mission anyway.”
“What a surprise”
We booted up the jump drive to head back to Ursae Majoris also known for having the headquarters of a faction known as “Ares Republic” on a planet called Nafrora, which is known for being one of the first factions to stand against Syndicate, since then many other factions have left Syndicate to join what is now known as “The Crimson Confederation” Led by a council of 5 members who get re-elected every six years, surprisingly governments work better if there isn’t one sole leader.
About four hours after we started the jump, we made it to Nafrora, it’s a terrifyingly oversized planet, but still beautiful. It’s winter almost always here as the planet is further away from its parent star, the planet’s summer lasts about one month before returning to the cold, minus 15-40 degree weather.
“We’re approaching the exosphere, are you ready to tell the Commander the good news?” Allison asked
I found something a few kilometres from my outpost, It looked like a ship, but not big enough fit a human, maybe a drone? I’ll have to run some diagnostics, and check the command log to be accurate, but I’m sure it’s just one of Syndicate’s surveillance drones. Still, though, anything is possible.
End of log
July 13th, 2754
10:47 PM
“You find anything yet?”
“Nope, just endless amounts of rock and dust”
“We’ve been searching for days, should we go back? The Commander will understand, he told us nothing’s definite.”
“Give it at least one more day, we’ve only searched one-third of the area.”
“One-third is a lot if the area is five thousand kilometres”
“Let’s at least get to half”
“That’s 850 more kilometres!”
“Three-eighths?”
“Fine!” Allison proceeded to walk back to her cabin aboard the ship. I could hear the frustration in her voice, but I couldn’t disobey the orders. I’ve never understood our Commander, especially since he’s been so vague about missions, and when I ask, he always tells me that the info is classified.
Just one more day I think, knowing the probability of finding “This”, is low, but I hold on to the one bit of hope, the money. I would’ve never accepted this job if it weren’t for the payout because nobody would be doing this job for the experience.
A few hours later...
“Allison... ALLISON!” I doubt she heard me, probably asleep already.
“What!”
“Can you pilot the ship? I’ve been flying for eight hours and I need to sleep”
“Just go to bed, land the ship on some flat terrain and go to bed”
“I don’t think the Commander will appreciate us wasting valuable time”
“It’s fine, just say that the ship was getting low on fuel and we had to go to a nearby station to refill it”
“Are you really that lazy?”
“Are you really that stupid?”
“Whatever”
I landed the ship and walked over to my cabin, it’s dimly lit with grey walls, a desk with a computer, I’m sure it has nothing on it except a camera to record captains logs. Finally, a bed, skinny with a thin blanket, a rough pillow, I’m fine with the small blanket because it rarely gets cold on this planet, being so close to its star. I lay in the bed and try to fall asleep, which shouldn’t be hard since this mattress is surprisingly comfy, Instead of sleeping I’m thinking about how vulnerable the ship is with no pilot, but it should be fine... Should be.
The year is 2739, The galactic frontier consists of about 300-400 light years of populated star systems, we call it “The Bubble”. Most of The Bubble is controlled by Syndicate, a ruthless government, if you can even call it a government, the leaders are all CEOs or landowners, usually owning planets and sometimes even owning entire star systems. Their main source of revenue is purely taxing the hell out of the residents of their star systems and keeping all the money for themselves.
I (Stephen Kimball) used to be employed by Syndicate’s military force, I was the commander of an old haul named The Prometheus. Since then it’s been decommissioned and sold for parts. I was born in Proxima Centauri, you’ve probably heard of it for containing the closest exoplanet to Sol. I lived there for the first two years of my life, after that my parents moved us to a small planet in a star system known as “Colonia”. It was terrible, we lived in a small settlement in the middle of nowhere, on a planet in the middle of nowhere, in a star system in the middle of nowhere, fifty thousand light years from The Bubble.
My story truly began when I got a license to pilot from the Ares Republic. I was mostly a cartographer, I had a device that would scan the astronomical bodies and give a detailed report of each astronomical body. Which I would then sell to companies so they could go take all of the planet's resources, It was exhausting, but I made quite a profit.
But nothing compared to what was going to happen fifteen years later...
I wake up in a sweat, unfamiliar to my surroundings. The room is cold, dark and mysterious. The only noticeable feature is a table in the corner, nothing on it but smudges and fingerprints. I stand up and adjust my eyes to the dark lighting. There aren’t any windows or means of escape other than a single door. I open the door open quietly and slowly yet the door still creaks, luckily there is no one in the hall outside the room to hear it.
I make my way towards the end of the hall where I see some metal stairs leading down. I have no idea whether it leads to a main floor of the building or if it just takes me into a basement, although it’s the only staircase in the area so it must lead somewhere.
As I slowly creep down the rusty metal staircase, I see an expansive warehouse-type area. The warehouse is bland with grey walls, floors and a grey roof. The windows are dirty and can’t quite let light in. The only significant lighting in the warehouse comes from blinding fluorescent lighting. The warehouse is mysteriously empty and cryptic with only one person in the entire warehouse. I can’t make out the face of the mysterious person, only his silhouette. He stands near the largest exit which appears to be the loading area. I notice a door much closer to me where he probably wouldn’t see me if I went through it, I’m completely unknowledgeable to whether the door is actually an exit or not, but I’m not risking going anywhere near that man.
I quickly and quietly hurry towards the door, slowly turning the door handle and pushing the door open. I open it as slowly as possible to prevent the door from creaking. The door still manages to be loudly creaking but I don’t think the silhouette notices. I enter the room and close the door behind me as quietly as possible. The room appears to be an office, more vibrant and vividly coloured than the rest of the warehouse. The desk is rather empty and minimalist other than a nameplate labelled SEAN ADDAMS, I’ve never heard of that name before but I would rather not meet him, he might’ve been the one who knocked me out but I wouldn’t confront him about that. I have no idea where this warehouse is located and no idea what his motivation was. Money, power, revenge? Revenge wouldn’t make sense if I hadn’t met the man before. I sneak through the drawers in the desk, not much of interest... Folders, tax-related documents and job applications, I look through the tax documents and notice them directed towards a company titled “Metroname”, I’ve never heard of the company before but I can say that the name isn’t very good nor creative.
I open a drawer and find an iPad meticulously placed... No passcode, standard background and not any different apps other than the standard ones. I look through the notes to no avail other than a grocery list. I check the contacts app, nothing. The messages app is fairly empty other than one conversation between Sean Addams and a private phone number. This Sean person managed to find a way to lock the conversation with the device’s fingerprint identification so it has no help for me. I hear some voices speaking faintly through the doors of the office. I creak open the door slightly to listen in.
“We have our shipment coming in eighteen hours sharp, we will be able to deliver the product exactly one and a half hours after that” One of the figures exclaimed.
“The deal was for the product to come exactly fifteen minutes ago” The other figure replied.
“It was stated in the contract you signed that we are not responsible for any delays in the delivery of the product purchased,” The first figure said.
“Fucking shit, if that’s true, you have nineteen and a half hours to deliver the product, otherwise, the deal is off. Deliver the product to our backup location, the original address has been comprised, police or something. One of my workers snitched so let’s say, he won’t snitch anymore.” The other figure replied.
“Deal, we’ll see you then.” The first figure said.
I closed the door, it appeared as though a deal was going down tomorrow, to who and what was being delivered, I don’t know. This didn’t pertain to me so I wasn’t too invested in the delivery. What I was still wondering about was who the fuck kidnapped me and brought me here in the first place, I assume it was this Sean Addams person, but it could honestly be anyone who saw an old warehouse and just wanted my things so he knocked me out. I took the iPad just in case. As I was grabbing the iPad, I heard the sound of someone jiggling the door handle, I locked the door when I came inside but I assume he has a key. I opened the window and leapt out to hide. The man came inside the office, sounding frustrated. I peaked over slightly and saw him opening the drawer where I took the iPad from, noticing it was gone. He took out his phone, looking at some kind of security camera footage, it appeared to be the room I woke up in.
He glanced up “Shit, he fucking escaped.” He exclaimed. He dialled a number on his cell phone.
“Hey, George fucking escaped, I thought you were watching him from another room? Well, where the fuck did you go? Well now he’s gone, you better fucking find him or you’re dead.” He hung up abruptly and angrily.
I slowly walked away from the window, low to ground as to not let him see me. As soon as I turn the corner away from the window, I run for it. I barely recognize the area which appears to be the industrial district of San Fransisco. I don’t have my car with me, obviously nor my phone. I run a few blocks down the street, not much to see other than bland smoke-emitting factories and warehouses blooming with noise pollution. I finally start to exit the industrial area and come up upon a coffee shop. I enter the shop to use their free Wi-Fi on the iPad I stole from the office. I can’t contact anyone from the iPad but I can install a ride-share app to get to my own office. I would go home but considering that Sean guy has someone looking for me, I feel as though it wouldn’t be safe to go there.
After about fifteen minutes, the taxi arrives at the coffee shop.
“Where to?” The driver asked.
“My office, 1205 Vista Ave” I replied.
I arrive at the office building, the building is massive, about eighty-six floors with every outside wall being glass. It’s a very fancy office space yet I only own one floor of the building. As I walk inside the building, the iPad vibrates, it was on silent for some odd reason. It was a text from a private number
I know you stole the iPad, George. I have a team looking for you and we will find you once again.
My heart nearly stops, I know that was that Sean Addams person from the nameplate, yet he still chose to hide the phone number, probably to prevent it from being traced. He knows I took the iPad. The iPad is the least of my worries at the moment, I need to know who Sean Addams is and what he wants me for. Luckily my staff are trained with combat, you have to be in our line of work, arms deals with third world countries and private armies is definitely a profession you would need a gun in and know how to use it.
The elevators require a special magnetized card to take you to the floor you work on, mine was stolen when I was knocked out. The only way I would be able to get to my office would be to get the receptionist to let me up.
“Hello, I lost my office card so I can’t get to my floor. Would you be able to assist me with that?” I asked the receptionist.
“Do you have some ID I can use to confirm your identity?” He replied.
“Not on me, no. Don’t you have my info in your database? Just look up my name.” I said
“Okay then... Name?” He replied in a bored manner.
“George Miller.”
He types a bunch of incomprehensible things into his computer.
“You look like your photo, I’m going to need you to look into this camera, it’s some new gimmicky Facial ID to confirm your resemblance to the photo in our database,” I look into the camera until I hear a faint beep. “Yep, it checks out. Would you like a replacement card?” The receptionist said.
“Sure, also could you deactivate the old card?” I ask.
“I can try but our system doesn’t always work when we try to remotely deactivate a card, it’s best to have it in person so we can directly deactivate it.” He replied.
“Doesn’t that defeat the purpose then? If someone needed a replacement card it would usually because it was lost, so how would that work?” I ask.
“It doesn’t, but that’s not my problem,” He scans a new card and hands it to me. “Here’s your replacement card, next time you lose or destroy it, it will cost thirty dollars per replacement.” He said.
I make my way to the elevator and try not to burn this place to the ground, thirty dollars for one replacement card? I try to not let it get to me and scan my new card on the scanner inside the elevator. The doors close and I feel the elevator slowly but surely taking me to my floor, as the elevator doors open again, I see the front desk to the office with the company name on a large sign behind the desk “METACO”. We usually handle weapons deals to private armies and third world countries but we will sell anything we can get our hands on if people want to buy it. We exclusively work in large deals with governments and other companies rather than directly to consumers, we found that we make more money that way. It doesn’t make it easier though, we have to deal with sketchy criminal companies as well who love to steal the product or kill my staff to avoid paying.
As I walk up to the front desk, I see the company receptionist, Matt. He’s a fairly new hire. He handles contacting our buyers and suppliers and setting up new partnerships with other companies in similar fields to us. I can’t say I fully trust him yet, but he’s been doing good so far.
“Hey, Matt. Would there be a way to bypass a passcode on this iPad?” I take the iPad out of my bag and place it on the desk, “It’s not on the lock screen, but there’s a conversation on the messaging app that I want to access, but the conversation is locked behind a passcode.” I say.
“I can try, let me check out the device first,” He takes the iPad and taps on the screen a few times, no idea what he’s actually doing, “It looks like the device was jailbroken, he set up an encryption on the device’s files so it might take a while to decrypt it. I’ll do my best and report back to you.” Matt replies.
“Thanks,” I say.
I make my way to my office, our floor has a minimalist design to it, sleek and brightly coloured walls, furniture and art. We don’t have our customers come into the office too often so the design is mostly because I wanted it, rather than to impress customers. My staff’s desks are all in the same room, although the room is fairly large despite only having a team of five employees.
I enter my office and close the door behind me, the office has a similar design to the rest of our floor with a desk in the back of the room and with some desks along the walls where I keep my classified files and items I like. I sit at my desk and phone my wife to get out of the house. I’ve been talking calmly but I’m mentally freaking out right now given the circumstances. The phone rings a few times and she finally answers.
“Hey Allison,” I say
“Why didn’t you come home last night? I was worried sick about you. This town is full of criminals, I had thought you were killed or something.” Allison replied.
“I stayed late last night and ended up falling asleep at my desk, sorry for not telling you last night,” I say, hoping she actually believes that. If she were to find out I was knocked out and kidnapped, she would freak out and I can’t have that right now.
“Okay, okay. That’s fine, but you have to tell me when you’re going to stay late! Who knows what you could’ve been doing.” Allison says.
“I promise I will tell you from now on. Why don’t you come by the office tonight, I’ll order some food up to the office, everyone will be gone so I can tell you a surprise.” I replied.
I was thinking about telling her about my situation at the dinner, but I think it would be better if we were just out of town for a while, maybe by then he’ll have forgotten about us and we could go back to our normal lives... As normal as it was, anyway.
“That sounds like an attempt to make me forgive you. I’ll take a bribe when I see it, but don’t expect any forgiveness.” Allison said.
“Don’t worry, I don’t expect anything,” I replied.
“See you tonight, love you.” She said.
“Love you too.” I ended the phone call, only to hear a knocking on the door to my office.
“There’s a rep from ZamCo who wants to speak with you? Seems like just some annoying sales person but insists to speak with you.” Matt says.
“Um... Sure, bring him in,” I reply. “Wait, before you leave, any luck with decrypting the device yet?” I ask.
“Not any luck yet but I’m still working on that. Anything else?” Matt says.
“No that’s all, thanks,” I reply.
After a minute or so, the representative my office and closes the door behind him. He wears a leather cinnamon coloured jacket and a pair of blue/white jeans. He wears dark sunglasses indoors, kind of a douche thing to do but he seems professional... Well, as professional as someone dressed like that can actually be.
“So, I hear you want to speak to me, what for?” I ask.
“Our company, ZamCo, has been hearing a lot about your company, and we were thinking about setting up some sort of deal.” The rep said.
“What, do you supply arms?” I ask.
“We supply military-grade vehicles and technology, military weapons you could never get from your current suppliers and we can prove that. We know your suppliers and know their pricing. We can get you everything you get right now at almost half of the cost that you’re paying.” The rep said.
“That sounds like bullshit, I don’t believe a word of that,” I reply,
“It’s not because you don’t believe it, it’s because you don’t understand it. You probably don’t know a single thing about the resources your suppliers are using to get the arms that you buy from them. You don’t know where they come from, how they get them, or how they use them. If you know any of that, you’d have already switched to a better supplier. They get their resources from first world countries where the price to mine is marked up into oblivion by the governments, they use inefficient tools to retrieve those resources and use workers to make the arms you sell rather than automated machinery. I think if you had known that before this, you’d have come to us a long time ago, if not us then any supplier other than your current one.” The rep said. I still doubted everything he was saying, but if what he was saying was true, it could mean something great for this company in terms of expenses and increased profit.
“I’ll look into this claim but let me tell you, I’m still very doubtful of what you’re saying. Do you have a business card of some sort?” I ask.
“Here,” He hands me a business card with the name Nick Trudule on it. “If you’re interested, give us a call, we’d love to be your new supplier.” The rep says, he turns and leaves the office, closing the door behind him.
His offer sounded amazing, but way too good to be true. No matter if I was going to switch suppliers or not, this was not at the top of my to-do list right now, I have way more pressing matters to attend to.
