NationStates Jolt Archive

Undisclosed Location, Prates Sector

Down below, the very planet seemed to vibrate slightly. A white-bright fireball rose from the surface, expanding rapidly as it swallowed the tip of the planet's north-western continent. It shone for over half a minute – thirty-six point seventy-three seconds, the clock said – and then went out.

Director Reijiro Techno knew that the destructive effect would be far greater than what was seen from orbit. Far beyond the range of the observable fireball, the overpressure front traveled, tearing century-old trees from the hills upon which they grew. Radiation, glowing at thousands of rads, killed flying birds in mid-air. Soot and dust kicked up by the explosion would damage what remained of the planet's ecosystem.

“Quite impressive.” - said the Director. - “So this is the new Mark III warhead, is it?”

“Yes, sir.” - an aide began to explain - “It is to complete the entire Godly Wrath Project, and provide our forces with a reliable orbit-to-ground continent-killing...”

“I see. I see also that it is performing reliably?”

“Yes. This is the second test outside of computer simulations. We will be turning them over to Navy testing soon.”

Reijiro Techno passed his hands over his light-blue jacket and nodded, his face a perfect expression of content. “What gives with the trans-dimensional bicycle projects?”

“Ah, there's some problem. Apparently one of our agents was injured. He was, if you believe it, actually propelled fifteen minutes forward in time and twenty yards in space, all at once. Emerged in the street at fifth-story level, still riding on a bicycle.”

“Damn. Did the bicycle make it?” - now the Director's expression was one of genuine worry.

“No, unfortunately not. He fell into traffic, you see, and lost the front wheel entirely. The forward space-time transmodulator was squashed flat, and...”

“Enough. Did you suppress the event?”

“It is not possible to fully suppress anything in this country, Director Techno. It's in the blogs and all...”

“Very well. Make sure that any experiments with transdimensional travel are conducted outside the city areas. Are we clear, Johnson?”

Such were the daily dealings of the Department of Research, Evolution, and Development, Allanea's public research and development. Their province was that of advanced weapons, exciting explosions – and transdimensional bicycles.

Little did Director Techno know that deep within the bowels of his own agency, a dark conspiracy was brewing.

DREAD Intelligence Offices, orbit of Libertas VII

Professor Matthias Hinckley-Johanson eyed the man across the table. In his case, 'eyed' had a terrible meaning – for grafted onto his head were multiple small cameras, riding around his face on small, articulated levers, serving as extra eyes. Now, they were all turned at Subdirector Moris Anson Nozick – a small, fattish man in charge of the Department's Intelligence Office.

“As we all know, the Department is a large and bureaucratic organization. Even Director Techno – much less Congress - cannot keep track of the thousands of research projects of the Department. Nobody cares about people like you and me, nobody keeps track, nobody helps. You can become known, or receive a significant increase of funds, merely by success and attracting attention. And I have just the way for you to do it.”

“For me?” - Nozick gasps - “But you know that this isn't a real intelligence agency... I mean, not even ACIA is a real intel agency. We didn't do a successful operation in years... ever since we stole the Anat blueprints...”

The Anat was a gigantic field cannon invented by one of the nations of Greater Dienstandt. Copies of the meter-caliber superweapon were deployed by Allaneans in one of the Havenic wars – with what is politely referred to as 'limited success'.

“Yes. I remember the Anat blueprints. But let me tell you something, Subdirector. There are rumors on the Net that the Scolopendrans are disappearing their entire stock of CIDES engines. And they're not decommissioning them. Apparently, they're using them to power some form of super-project...

“A giant tandem CIDES engine...” - Nozick paled. The implications were obvious.

“Yes! Yes, Subdirector! I need to know how it works. Then I can power Project Melville with it...” - an insane glint appeared in Hickley-Johanson's natural eyes. Project Melville was his plan for a hundred-mile 'super space battleship', but for some reason DREAD refused to fund building prototypes until Professor Johanson's came up with an appropriate power source.

Nozick's eyes now lit up with a similar glint. “More importantly, whatever they're building must be very important... possibly even a superweapon... I would profit immensely.... imagine... I could even be promoted....”

“Promoted? PROMOTED?! You do not see the implications, Nozick! You do not! What we are talking about here is ultimate firepower! With an appropriate power plant for Project Melville, the Navy would master the stars! And I would be credited for this! Oh, they always laughed at me at the University! They said my projects were 'ridiculous'! Ridiculous, Nozick! But we will show them! I will show them!”

Nozick sighed and decided to table the argument for now.

Earth, various Allanean colonies

The content of the conversation between Johanson and Nozick was not known to anybody but themselves – but the order came down to various SIGINT units of the Army that Saturn was now worth watching. Simultaneously, the radio telescopes of several small universities where Johanson's few friends worked were reoriented towards the various extra-solar colonies of Scolopendra and her allies. Officially, the Allaneans were engaged in various astronomical research into the qualities of irregular trans-subspace functions, or similar technobabble things. Unofficially, they were looking for strange energy fluxes, outputs, or anything that might point to the supposedly 'decommissioned' engines. Simultaneously, the Allaneans were listening to any Scolopendran comms traffic they could get their hands on.

Somewhere out there was the truth, and Professor Johanson was not going to let it get away.

There are two forms of, or ways of looking at, many things as evidenced both in nature and people who have a pathological difficulty in thinking beyond binary states. There are two forms of moral action (moral and immoral), two possible forms of religion (our way or the wrong way), two possible world-views (also our way or the wrong way), two general kinds of eukaryotes (animal cells and plant cells), and two forms of paranoia (absolute and insufficient). There are likewise two things that DREAD has to contend with, and each of those has two aspects--and all of this derives from DREAD's cost-effective solution of signals intelligence. Spying from a distance obviously has its uses; it's usually less expensive in the long run than establishing and maintaining the human intelligence networks that [successful] agencies like the Scolopendran Intelligence Section prefers, it's perfectly good at detecting things out in the open in the middle of nowhere, like armored columns or a yellow rubber ducky sitting in the middle of an asphalt lot, and, best of all, it's not particularly risky unless your adversary is so paranoid that being looked at through a telescope, or snooped by some sort of wire-tapping, radio-intercepting, or e-mail-sniffing filter is cause for starting a shooting war.

Given that DREAD exists in the context of Haven, where politely holding the door open for someone is as likely to cause a war as to get one tipped, that may actually be a rational fear.

So: looking for a particular form of powerplant in the middle of Saturn, from a distance? What could possibly go wrong? Let's start with the first two-fold drawback: electronic warfare. The modern phrase is "electronic attack" but, as this is all defensive and passive, the older phrase will do nicely. If you want to hide something from someone using a telescope, you can either spoof them or dazzle them. Yes, it's easy to see an armored division from orbit... unless the tanks are parked inside of shipping containers at a seaport. Nothing out of the ordinary, and the desired false negative is achieved. Likewise, instead of leaving it out in the street, hide your rubber ducky from the unmarked black helicopter crowd by leaving it in a field of dandelions (that or paint it black itself; then you have a ninja rubber ducky (http://image.orientaltrading.com/otcimg/16_880b.jpg), and how cool is that?). The other option is if you know you're being watched, well, you can always just shine a really bright light at the person with the telescope and snicker as you burn out their retinas. Then there are the two methods of hiding things: in plain sight, where no one will notice them, or away from view, where no one will ever see them.

What does that mean in this situation? Well, for starters, CIDES are generally 1.0 x 1.0 x 1.5 meter boxes, so they could most certainly be hidden in plain sight or in the darkest bowels of Titan easily enough. Add to the fact that trying to watch for a particular signature of any given energy source and then pointing one's telescopes at the most energy dense place in the entire Solar System, where fusion torch drives and chemical rockets intermingle with exotic energy and gravitic propulsion, and something's either going to burnout or whiteout if not both.

Signature? Neutrino count. Neutrino count? High, like it always is. Well, damn.

At least there's always the interbutts, specifically the Federation of Triumvirate Scientists and BeyondDisclassUltraviolet.yut. The FTS has this to say on the matter:
Classified Independent Delocalized Energy System (CIDES)

The CIDES is a black-box system which, from declassified operational specifications and description, has an input for any sort of matter and fittings for the output of high-exergy energy. It comes in one form factor (rectangular prism of 1.0 x 1.0 x 1.5 meters), and when used in banks, provides sufficient power for whatever needs a starship may have. Given its relatively small size even when networked, they are often built in subsidiary power stations that supplement a main core to provide power to a subsection of the ship, increasing shipwide survivability.

Apparently their primary weakness is that they cannot be repaired in the field, only replaced. The repair depots for CIDES cores are highly secure installations, and no repair manuals for the devices have come to light. Oddly enough, the FTS has also been unable to locate any former CIDES technicians to interview about even the basics of the process, even though CIDES technician is a declassified service pay code used by the Triumvirate of Yut Combined Services. This suggests either that the repair systems are either somehow automated or so highly classified that a swear-to-secrecy or lost-memory method is used on their technicians. FTS has not been able to confirm the widespread belief that CIDES are actually maintained by people made insane by the device, but such a situation seems distinctly unlikely.

It is theorized that the device starts with a perfectly standard (albeit highly efficient) matter-energy conversion reactor like the HAMSTER SQUEEC-0 MCE powerplants found on Gears, Assault Armor, and other various vehicles. Input matter is converted to energy; this energy is then used in some manner to take advantage of the fractal nature of the Universe, in which energy in any given visible aspect may not necessarily be constant (but the energy of the whole certainly is). This allows the CIDES to act as a "reverse-entropy" power source.

Endurance is limited by the amount of matter that can be used to maintain this connection; power output is apparently limited by the amount of power and current the ship's power distribution network can actually handle. Increasing matter input increases power output exponentially; even full combat-ready status with full engines, shielding, and weaponry requires only the net annihilation of a few tons of matter a day while cruising-standby may only need around a kilogram.

CIDES was the standard power system of TYCS capital ships, dropships, and insystem shuttles before Public Safety Order 2553, which directed that all CIDES be replaced with the new HAMSTER SQUEEC-5 powerplants based off of Cetagandan grid-tap technology.

That's from the Poindexters, and this is from the trust-no-one crowd:
Operational Plan MOUNTAINS OF MADNESS

So, it's been in the news recently that our good militaristic overlords in the Fleet have finally caved into civilian pressure. For those of you understandably living in bunkers for the past few yedecemi, let me fill you in: Greenspace starts making noise about how they're worried that the Fleet is causing irreparable ecological damage by using their main batteries to carve hundred-kilometer-long dicks into the crusts of various deadworlds. No one cares; drawing dicks onto things is a time-honored tradition from all cultures and species so arrayed... until some smart guy figures out the energy expenditure required to carve said dick into said deadworld with said specifications from unclassified imagery sent home on BoogleTube and YouVideo. They then pass this around, and the ever-so-socially-minded Scolopendrans shit a brick when they realize that every single destroyer is probably capable of vaporizing Saturn should a technician slip while tightening a bolt and make something go boom. Despite that this has never happened. Still, NIMBY goes on and on and on and the TYCS acquiesces to move most ships out of Ringspace. After that, it seems to cease to care.

Then, suddenly, Public Safety Order 2553: rejoice, Citizens; Friend Fleet has decided to improve your day by decomissioning all those dirty old CIDES and replace them with Gandan grid-taps (which, to be honest, scare me a bit more--just look at archival footage of the last few times Ceta WarShips have been holed compared to Fleet ones). The public, while surprised, notes the reliability of grid-taps (as those reliability figures are actually published) and the mean old classified CIDES disappear from whence they came, bureaucracy permitting.

So... anyone who spends any time in this forum knows CIDES make people go crazy. The disappearances from the Fleet ranks may be slight, but they're noticeable, and I severely doubt the ever-pragmatic Fleet would really use systems so prone to 'vaporizing' (the usual cover story) people. Then there's those depots. They have habitats in them. While they could be self-sufficient, food gets imported in every so often and not so much advanced machine parts. Tends to suggest they're not 'automated repair facilities' like FTS thinks. Hell, most shipminds that aren't Fleet will tell you CIDES make people go crazy. It's only a "secret" because Fleet hasn't admitted it yet and it's so weird the general populace refuses to believe it--even though HELLSING of all people have gone on record and said they don't like CIDES. There's only one reason HELLSING doesn't like anything, and it's usually squid-flavored.

Which got me to thinking.

Maybe whatever beyond-Euclidean weirdness that makes CIDES anti-entropic finally turned around and bit them in the ass? You know, fiends from beyond Hell popping out and destroying the sanity of all who look upon their terrible visage until struck down by a HELLSING kill-team or some such. Perhaps, maybe it's a stretch, maybe it's possible.

Would make kind of a nifty weapon, wouldn't it?

And when was the last time Fleet ever let go of anything even vaguely weaponizable?

Has anyone seen TYRS-RCR Clark Terrell anytime recently? Apparently a lot of orangebelts got onto that ride before it disappeared for what has to be nearly four years now.

Enter OPLAN MOUNTAINS OF MADNESS.

Oh, sure, the name is fanciful and not Fleet standard, like KUMQUAT KIWI or BLUEBERRY STRUDEL or some other food-related bullshit. But it is an interesting read, innit? Using old CIDES powerplants as a sort of last-resort weapon, causing things like "geometrical anomalies in the continuum" and "heavy damage to both enemy infrastructure and command-and-control capabilities down to the individual level" (emphasis mine). Seriously, madness bombs. Do you have any idea whatsoever how many CIDES units there must be in the inventory, given that they powered every single WarShip, DropShip, and shuttle in the Fleet? And for the first two, they used banks?

I dunno about you, but I'm going to stock up on some KCTS Skwid-b-gon.

DREAD Intelligence Offices, orbit of Libertas VII

"Ladies and gentlemen, I have assembled you here to discuss the most hidden secret of the Triumvirate of Yut." – Nozick looked at the four beings in front of him.

Present was Professor Mathias Hinckley-Johanson, with his artificial eyes swiveling in all directions, whirring like a pack of overexcited ceiling fans. Next to him was the Professor Lorielle Kreek – in actuality, a sentient porpoise swimming in a five-meter-long water tank.

Next to her – and looking rather uncomfortable in the presence of the marine mammal – was Assistant Professor Felix Longbottom of the University of Heston-City. Rumour had it he had been traumatized by an experiment at the university's Paranormal Research Lab. Nobody quite knew what happened, but apparently it involved Longbottom, a favored blonde lab assistant, and a dozen Tentacled Horors of the Briny Deep. The lab assistant never made it, and Longbottom spoke with a stutter thereafter.

Finally present was a man in a thee-piece suit, wraparound black sunglasses, smoking a cigar. The man was perfectly-shaved, and also perfectly silent.

"Ladies and gentlemen, I present to you CIDES – Classified Independent Delocalized Energy System. Formerly the key power plant of the Triumvirate Combined Services and the Scolopendran Navy."

Behind Nozick, a large picture of the CIDES – rather, an artist's drawing of a large, unimpressive black box appeared.

There was silence. Then, an emotionless voice came forth from Lorielle's aquarium – she preferred to keep her translation software minimalistic.

This. Is. Why. You. Brought. Me. Out. Here? To. Show. Pictures. Of. A box?

"Oh, Professor Kreek, let me explain. You understand, CIDES operates by – if I am not mistaken – messing around with the nature of fractal reality itself. It is also one of the most efficient power sources in the Solar System, as it ignores the usual Einsteinian equations and can provide almost boundless power for spacecraft. As you understand, this makes it an interesting choice for a power system for both your Probability Broach and for Professor Johanson's Project Melville."

The sapient porpoise emitted a loud squeak of excitement that could be heard outside her aquarium and caused the other Allaneans to bring their hands to their ears. Professor Johanson chuckled.

"But that is not even the most important point. The most important point is that, apparently, the Scolopendrans are developing madness bombs. "

"Mad-d-dness b-b-bombs?" – Longbottom became visibly uncomfortable.

"Indeed, Professor Longbottom. Let me quote from our intelligence data, here: 'According to independent Scolopendran analysts, the plan is to convert the Triumvirate's CIDES stockpile of CIDES engines into an arsenal of 'madness bombs', heavy reality-disrupting weapons, capable of causing 'heavy damage to both enemy infrastructure and command-and-control capabilities down to the individual level.' Professor Longbottom, this is why I invited you here."

"M-me?" – the Professor paled.

"Indeed. Your knowledge in the fields of the paranormal will mean that you are among the men best poised to help Allanea prepare for the danger of a massed madness-bomb bombardment, or to arm herself with madness bombs of our own."

"Some would say," – the man in the black suit interjected – "that Allanea has such a vast supply of madness that we need not fear any potential Scolopendran assault of this kind – in fact, when it comes to pure, unrestrained insanity, we have the Segments hopelessly outgunned."

Nozick managed to suppress a chuckle only with an effort. "Please, Agent. Let us keep this serious. Do you have any solution off-hand, Professor Longbottom?"

The professor shrugged. "Well…. D-defensively, I w-would think that th-the ord-dinary measures of civil d-d-efense, coupled with the c-c-creation of a unit like the original Scolo-p-p-endran HELLSING… w-would b-be enough. Offensively, I w-would like to the see the CIDES unit to make a call."

"And this, Ladies and Gentlemen, is why we have Agent Five here with us in the room. It is his mission to procure, for this Department, a sample CIDES engine."

"WHAT?!" – the scientists stared in surprise.

"And this," – smiled Nozick – "Is why you people need my services."

Three weeks later

Strangely enough, the electronic surveillance of the Segments returned itself to its original levels – minus two permanently damaged radiotelescopes that had to be fixed – but the Net surveillance did not.

Rather, thousands of the Department's youngest interns were now deployed in a massive operation , collating any kind of posts related to the CIDES. Sometimes they even posed as military veterans of various Sol conflicts to try and steer forum conversation the right way.

Obviously, the Allaneans thought, the manner of operation of the CIDES engines or the project they were being used for would not be posted online – but perhaps it would be possible to find someone who dealt with the engines who could know – at least accurate to the planet – where they went.

Better yet, if a HELLSING operative who dealt with the darlings could be found…

Two months later, Liberty-City

Officially speaking, the Allanean that now approached the Scolopendran embassy in Liberty City was not an agent of the Allanean government. He wore a navy blue blazer, beige pants, and was otherwise very unlike a typical Allanean – very correct if you will. His name, according to papers, was John Everard Smith, and he was a businessman hailing from the Outer Colonies. He was a representative for a Prates Cluster shipbuilding company that specialized in low-grade space yachts, and his company wished him to traveled to Scolopendra to establish there an office for the company.

He wished, of course, to apply for all the necessary permits, and to hire several Scolopendrans to serve as his assistants, and his company would bring a lot of money into the local economy.

And nobody would of course think he had anything to do with Agent Five. In fact, he had nothing at all suspicious about him, and was certainly not the same person, and had never been employed with DREAD. No, Sir.

Several Hours Later, Meaning Right Now

Embassies and intelligence services work hand-in-glove. This is simply the way the world works. People who do not recognize it are ignorant; people who decry it are either hopelessly idealistic or don't realize it is one of the very few truly fundamental rules that cuts both ways, being almost universally respected by every polity that acknowledges the Western concept that is the diplomatic mission. As has been said many times before and will be said many times hence, Scolopendra is a nation of idealists.

"And you're looking over this why?" Civil Servant Jim MacRae is a perfectly decent sort and, quite honestly, surprisingly Scottish for the Segments. Not because Scots are unknown in Scolopendra--hardly--but usually the melting pot had progressed to the point where a lot of self-identified Scots had names like McDounagh Yu M'butuvich Ishmael. No, MacRae is stereotypically Scottish down to the tree-throwing-for-fun physique, the tendency towards mendaciousness, the love for whisky ("There's no 'e' in it!"), but no accent. Oddly enough, he claims everything but the accent are time-honored traditions of the Scottish Gaelic people. Truth is, he can't get the accent right and therefore doesn't bother. The reason why various ideologues and racialists really hate the Segments is that the only way to maintain racial purity is to, quite honestly, fake it.

"Procedure," mutters Senior Civil Servant Paulette Awata. Genetically, as one might guess from the name, she's more traditionally Scolopendran and shows it by having fair skin but just the hints of epicanthic folds, European height but Japanese build. Philosophically, she is something of a deviant as she is an agent of the Scolopendran Intelligence Service... although 'agent' is being generous. She's something more like an administrative lackey of the SIS, which is why her second paycheck from the Section is something of an open secret. The Allanean intelligence service--assuming that its average agent can spell his name correctly five times out of seven, can tie his own shoelaces correctly three times out of seven, and in both tests of intelligence can consistently manage with 90% reliability not to drool all over himself--probably not only knows that Awata works for the SIS, but also doesn't care because she's not important enough to bother with. "So. We have an Allanean."

"Obviously."

"Who has his paperwork in order."

"Perfectly."

"Has a sound business plan."

"Indeed."

"And even left the 'do not write in this box' portion of the form blank rather than writing in something like 'fuck the man' or 'you're not the boss of me?'"

"I said his paperwork was perfectly in order, already."

"And you're saying he's not a secret agent?" Paulette smirks.

"That's profiling," Jim responds with a huff. "He's a perfectly decent fellow."

"Oh, I'm sure he is. I'm still sending it up the line, though, because it's out of the ordinary." Paulette shrugs and goes onto the next dossier. "Now, this guy--"

"Really, is this how you always operate?"

"Jim, remind me once we get off work to tell you how, long ago, the Allies caught Himmler. Anyway, you're right," she holds up her hands, "it is profiling and profiling is wrong so, out of fairness, I'll send this perfectly normal Allanean"--the dossier contains someone (gender filled in as "female, most of the time") who, through a mixture of genetic engineering and physical modification, is permanently sixteen and whose passport photo shows her wearing a headless fursuit with a tear-away velcro plastron and a Napoleon campaign hat--"up the line too."

Jim just sighs.

* - * - *

Two months ago

In interweb, veritas.

Somewhere, at least. Seriously, if a million monkeys on typewriters can, by the laws of statistics, eventually type out the works of Shakespeare then the YutLink, its associated Matrix, GLONET, SYSNET, and all the other various bits and bobs that make up Triumvirate network cyberspace should be a veritable font of all knowledge in the entire universe that has ever been known or will ever be known. The problem is just how much bullshit it must be buried under.

Oh, the conversation is easy enough to manipulate. CIDES are apparently weird and spooky things, and people are curious about weird and spooky things. It's easy to get people to talk about where they think those decommissioned reactors are going. Some speak with authority, claiming to be quartermasters; other claim inside sources; a few (immediately derided) actually claim to be real-life CIDES technicians. Still, between all the quartermasters, I-heard-it-from-an-inside-sources, the 'technicians,' and the I-heard-from-a-guy-whose-friend's-uncle's-roommate's-cousin-happens-to-swap-routing-labels-for-the-Fleet-and-saws, the only place the CIDES aren't being sent are Dar-al-Din, probably because Dar-al-Din is the absolute last place anyone anywhere in the entire universe would ever want CIDES to be. Generally, though, the consensus is that the first logical port of call would be first be the various headquarter depots: Valhalla Station, Deimos Fleetbase, Ganymede Strongpoint, Sslaa, Bright Morning, Ivrel, and Ares. From there, old conventional wisdom says that things would be brought back to Titan or Ringside, but, as that would defeat the entire NIMBY purpose of the replacement and the fact that the TYCS has become much, much less centralized over time, it's more likely they'd be shipped to the known secure facilities outsystem on rogue planets or wandering rocks with no parent star of note. These facilities are secure but not particularly secret; their existence is a known quantity, while their position is not.

Then the discussion usually breaks down into speculation about what will become of these secure repair facilities now that their purpose is expired; this ranges between "shut down," according to the pragmatists, to "secret arsenal of madness," according to the tin-foil manufacturers. From there everything devolves into flames, which should be kind of fun for the Allanean interns to play in, even if they don't recognize ninety percent of the racial slurs bandied about.

As for real live HELLSING agents, surely they must use the YutLink too, but most apparently have no comment. Most people who claim to be HELLSING agents are obviously liars. A few, usually the very polite and the very terse, seem legitimate; whenever pressed, however, the answers are sudden, immediate, and oddly universal: "Who are you to ask of such a thing?"

There is no indication that HELLSING actively deals with CIDES. If anything, general consensus is that HELLSING wants absolutely nothing to do with the damned things. There are hushed rumors, however, usually 'confirmed' in the eyes of forumgoers given the 'known' HELLSING agents' silence, that something involving them and CIDES may have gone down concerning the loss of the Cetagandan science ship Calculated Risk over Mars during the Quickbronze Event. Calculated Risk is known to have been powered by CIDES. Those who have talked to Calvin II, the shipmind theoretically resurrected from Calculated Risk's external backup, say that it considers the whole thing embarrassing and doesn't talk about it much. Cetagandan mind-naming conventions generally don't assign numerals, and the Cetagandan Navy has been extremely quiet as to why there is a Calvin II without a Calvin I. The identity and even mere existence of Calvin I is highly debated.

The Subdirector of Intelligence was hovering several feet off the floor.

He felt invigorated, pumped full of power, strength, understanding. The internal workings of the government of the Segments – indeed of the entire Triumvirate – were his to uncover. He could see through their very innermost secrets, and what he could not see, he would soon uncover.

Soon, very soon, Allanean agents would inflitrate the very inner sanctums of the TYCS. First, the CIDES engines, and then other inventions from across the Triumvirate would begin to funnel towards the Department. And he, Moris Anson Nozick, would take the credit. He would rise – perhaps even to regular politics. Senator Nozick. Now that sounded nice.

"Okay, guys, put me down.”

An engine whirred, and Subdirector Nozick descended to the floor. Two assistants entered the room and detached the hooks that had held his body propped up in mid-air, in the “Superman” position. Minutes later, as they were swabbing the puncture wounds from the sixteen hooks that had just held him airborne, he was already composing, in his head, the final points of Operation Parity.

By the time the Subdirector had his shirt and pants back on, the plan was almost perfectly complete.

* * *

While Agent Five – actually, John Everard Smith – was preparing for his journey and waiting for his visa, the Allaneans continued their efforts. Nozick's assistants began to compile the findings of DREAD's legion of interns into an intermediate reporrt.

We believe now that the CIDES engines have been taken outsystem, via one of the fleet depots. As such, we would like to recommend the following...

The interns continued their frenetic typing, collating various posts. In particular, they now posed as conspiracy theorists, trying to get the 'Pendran tinfoil hatters to think they were among their own kin. The plan was to get the conspiracists to turn over their own information about where they thought the engines went.

Others turned to research the Fleet Depot – and to try and find out where the crews went when on leave. If there was anybody who could know where the CIDES engines went, it would be those people. If there was a pub or a restaurant or a blog that these sailors liked, the Allaneans wanted to know.

* * *

In the meanwhile, the Agent prepared for his journey. Realizing he would not likely be allowed to carry a weapon, he went for a stout metallic cane. This would be understood by inspection as a desire of a typical Allanean to remain armed while staying on the happy side of local law. The fact that the cane was implanted by DREAD experimental observation equipment – microcameras and recording chips no larger than a grain of rice – would likely be unnoticed outside a very close inspection.

There were also the usual items seemingly normal for a businessman – a personal computer not at all unlike 21st-century laptops (“The quantum-entanglement comm channel is to communicate with headquarters. You'd never believe me if I told you how many trade secrets are stolen in the yacht trade. Why, once I was dealing with this Havenic merchant that...”), a large amount of cash (“I know, bad habit. Inherited it from my Dad. He's really paranoid – thinks the World Assembly is spying on us... you know, black cargo shuttles and all. Anyhow, he insists on using cash...”). There was also a heavy watch that doubled as a QE comm device and had its own subsapient AI (“it used to be Grandpa's. He wore it in a Doomani prison camp... you don't want to know where he hid it. It's like a pet to me.”)

Hopefully, his visa would be confirmed.

There

"Yup, visa approved," reports a chipper Cerv Jim MacRae. "I hope you enjoy your trip, sir!"

* - * - *

Here

"Next..."

Interplanetary travel is a mild hassle. The Federated Segments has a socially-funded health service. Plenty of people pay the tax, plenty of people don't. The one cost, however, no one gets out of is vaccinations. Considering that new diseases come like clockwork from Si'lat and that the Cinder mycotoxin hadn't been completely controlled yet, the Scolopendrans don't take kindly to the concept of freeriders taking advantage of herd immunity and putting everyone at risk.

Thus, where other places might have customs stations set up right after getting off the shuttle, the Segments instead have quarantine pass-through clinics that double as customs stations. "Mister... John Smith?" The nasal Health Service officer, an O-3 by the red enamel triangle on each of her blue shoulderboards, is made faceless and hairless by her surgical mask and shower cap. Only her blue eyes and some fair, freckled skin are exposed. She glances over Smith's medical dossier as it comes onto her databoard, picks up a hypopulse from her station, taps it against her databoard to confirm that it is indeed the right broad-spectrum germ-suppressor for Smith's species and particular allergies, then taps it against his neck with a slight flick. It's a little cold, and it tastes like mint, but that's all.

"Next..."

* - * - *

Somewhere

Opinions continue to be widely varied.

* - * - *

Valhalla Station

Well, it would only make sense to stop at the closest and most convenient Fleet depot. The original Valhalla station took it in the teeth during the Ten Minute Bitchfest. The new and improved Valhalla was, just as the Karmabaijani intended, bigger, better, and basically a space city resembling a half-open oyster when it was built.

It has expanded somewhat since then. If it used to be an oyster-shaped space city, the central complex is now something more like a leaf-shaped space county, and this does not include all the secondary stations and whatnot floating in halo orbits around it, now that it had seriously taken over the Sol-Earth L4 point (Bifröst Station, complete with a personnel gate system bought from Northrop-Grumman to link it and Valhalla, took Valhalla's place in a 100,000 km orbit around Earth). The nominal headquarters of the Triumvirate of Yut Combined Services Earth Theatre Fleet began big and was now obviously extremely big, without being mind-boggling big like the Ring. It started with a single SupEmp-sized depressurized repair dock, Bay Zero, slung underneath it. Now it boasts several attached and unattached inflatable armored drydocks that can house System Defense Fortresses if need be and is definitely a logistical center.

Therefore, unsurprisingly, TYCS Fleet technicians work, live, and rest there.

One of the places they rest is a hole-in-the-wall jin joint called The Ground Zero Cafe, located more or less on Valhalla's center of mass just above Bay Zero and is, thusly, a prime aim-point for theoretical strategic weaponry called in to dust the Station. It has the advantages of being dark, illumined mostly by scavenged and softly luminescent danger signs; quiet; having a good view of what's going on in Bay Zero; and generally being far away from obnoxious people who want to get between these technicians and some much needed relaxation.

Conspiracy theorists being who they are, quite a few of them have all manner of independent communications systems and sensors and whatnot in order to evesdrop on the black hovercopters and scan for the mind-rays. Mars being the place it is, it has quite a few such theorists, and more than one is willing to discuss certain events a few yecadecemi ago when a sizeable portion of Mars was being eaten by micromachines. During the incident, a Cetagandan science vessel, the CSS-MSU Calculated Risk, was consumed by micrites. This in itself would not be interesting, but as the ship was destroyed its shipmind made a running commentary on a semi-public channel. The phrase, "Someone tell R&D that CIDES don't like being eaten by micrite" features promeniently in many purported bootleg copies of the transmission. The remains of the ship were destroyed shortly thereafter. Officially, this was so that no one would have a couple million tons of micrites plummet down on them, but some observers say that the Fleet WarShips used rather more gigatonnage than one would need for that purpose in destroying the hulk.

One interesting thing about Cetagandan shipminds is that, in addition to their ship's name, which acts as a call sign, they have an additional name and identification number which is used to keep track of them when not attached to a particular ship. Also, just as the command-level officers of a ship are listed on said ship's webpage and numerous other public sources (except for when they're not, like with certain intelligence ships, but even then they're falsified), the mind's identifier is listed. This means that a shipmind can be followed from assignment to assignment, not that most ever go anywhere but their original body.

Thus, sooner or later an intrepid intern may turn up the correct public personnel records to determine that the shipmind of Calculated Risk is once more instated within a ship. This one was a relatively newly-built 10-MSU, a step up from the previous hull as the Space Service replaced the short-lived 9GEN series of spacecraft for being less efficient that projected and rather too phallic for most people's taste. The CSS-MSU This Isn't Frelling Fair is a bit of an oddball for anyone who's the least bit familiar with Cetagandan naming customs. For one, shipminds usually carry their names over from hull to hull, baring a major type change; second, while science vessels had greater leeway in choosing names than pure WarShips, who usually follow general guidelines for each class, that profanity rarely passes muster. Someone must have given it a waiver for some reason, just as something odd must have happened to make it change names.

Interestingly enough, like many ships TIFF has contact information for YUTLINK, GLONET, and a dozen other internet systems listed. Usually this is used by armamentaphiles, science geeks, and gradeschool classes to chat with a Real Live Spaceship, but if one wanted to talk with someone who's seen a CIDES incident up close....

In Scolopendra

The first thing to do, of course, is acquire an appropriate office in the capital. The office is decorated with two gigantic photographs of space yachts. There is a large mahagony-plated desk and a place for a clerk, and separate office-room for “Mr. Smith.” That room features a an even larger, gigantic desk that looks as if you could almost use it as a runway.

Upon entry, the prospective client sees Smith, perched on a luxurious chair on the far end of the desk. On the left of the client (and behind Smith) would be an Allanean flag, and a Scolopendran flag on the right. Hanging directly behind Smith was a life-sized framed photograph of the President of Allanea. Finally, mounted on the other walls were photographs of the company's yachts, each photo taking up a wall of it's own.

Floating around the room was a model yacht about a foot long, equipped with it's own miniature gravitic engines and an antenna dish mounted at the bottom. Astute observers would note that the antenna was spinning as the yacht maneuvered about the room, tracking the motions of the client in an eerie fashion, as if the model ship was observing him.

It was clear Smith's employer liked everything to be big.

Naturally speaking, Agent Five would not immediately secure a visit to Valhalla Fleet Station. Rather, he decided at first establish a reputation for his company as one that targeted military personnel and veterans.

Thus, he put out two ads. One was an ad for the yachts themselves. It was aimed at sites and magazines ordered by members of the military. It said, simply:

YACHTS! SHUTTLES! SSUV! ALLANEAN MADE FOR OUR SCOlOPENDRAN FRIENDS! 30% OFF FOR TYCS AND SEGMENTS VETERANS AND SERVCEMEN! BUY NOW AND REGRET LATER! SECOND-HAND PRICE, FIRST-HAND QUALITY! LOANS AVAILABLE!

The second was a wanted ad for a secretary – 'not older than 25, military experience a definite advantage'. It was not clear as to why, but that one ran on BeyondClassUltraviolet.yut.

Elsewhere

Somewhere in the deep underground facilities of the Department for Research, Evolution, and Development a man is sitting at a computer. He is writing a letter, but that letter is not addressed to a fellow human being. Rather, it is adressed to a Fleet Warship.

Dear CSS-MSU It Isn't Frelling Fair !

(pardon me, but I am not a Cetagandan citizen and am not aware of the proper polite form of address for a shipmind in your society)

I am an engineering student at the Taggart Institute For Alternative Propulsion and Power Sources at the Concord University's campus in Liberty-City, Allanea. At one of my recent lectures, one of my professors mentioned the CIDES accident (if you can call it an accident when micrites eat your power source) that occurred during the quickbronze infestation on Mars.

As I am writing a seminar assignment on Safety Concerns In The Era Of Post-Einsteinian Power Plants, I would be most interested in any accounts you would be so kind as to provide of that incident, specifically of the events immediately after the CIDES engine began to go wrong, and the damage control steps taken.

Sincerely yours,
Preek'nok Klak

Trolling SYSNET can be hard work. Accessing the network is, of course, easier when you're somewhere like, say Mars, or anywhere connected to Yutlink or GLONET. However, when such a connection is not present, there is some considerable latency to deal with when connecting through multiple networks across what can realistically be described as several hundred light years.

Still, it's not terrible. The highest recorded latencies on SYSNET connections by proxy or relay from Sol with no direct connection tend to hover between 500 and 1000 ms, so anyone anywhere where a phone line and a modem is considered high tech probably wouldn't notice.

Now, there's only one other little problem when looking for information about CIDES on SYSNET. To start with, the Kajali population is not generally interested in such reality-raping things, happy as they are with what their government labels as "conventional fusion" power sources. However, dig around a bit and you'll find some shipminds going into considerable detail about their favorite toys, though the actual workings are never explained directly as they are, of course, classified, and revealing classified information about Kajali technology is a court-martialable offence, even for a shipmind.

Still, one can quickly gather that the Kajali have something similar to a CIDES. It's named rather differently, and the actual behavior is about as opposite as one can get, too, but when repairs are required normal protocol involves sub-sapient intelligences that have the ability to troubleshoot and detect anomalies without actually going insane, or, more commonly (and really, for any problem other than "This part is broken", intelligences that have been adapted for native GLONET compatibility with additional dimensional subroutines first programmed by those intelligences that had to use fudged compatibility modes. These intelligences are nominally insane by any definition of the word; To acquire any useful information from them is about as likely as to glimpse the face of god.

At the end of the day, though, while a Kajali Subspace Compression Reactor will also induce insanity in the minds of most organics, it's not a CIDES, it does not act like a CIDES, and the only way it is similar to a CIDES is that the internals of the SCR readily induce insanity in viewers.

There is, frustratingly, nothing on SYSNET to even suggest that the Kajali have ever actually requested or desired CIDES in any shape or form. It may be genuine disinterest, though the conspiracy theorists think that since there's a near total lack of any information about CIDES on SYSNET whatsoever, that the Kajali government is obviously suppressing and actively patrolling SYSNET for such. There's also, curiously, no records _anywhere_ on SYSNET from when Calculated Risk was mostly-eaten by micrites, despite the fact that there were several Kajali warships in the area at the time, and many of them are known to frequently publish barely-declassified material regularly.

If one were looking for something credible, those shipminds'd be the ones to ask...

Crystal Lake, Allanea

Alexander Kazansky was alone. The lake was calm, and nothing disturbed the mirror-like waters as the leader of the Free Republic ripped off his uniform jacket, adjusted the scope on his rifle, and made himself comfortable in his stand.

He knew he likely wouldn't catch anything. He's been coming here for the last three years and not shot a single deer – and by now, the Fieldmarshal had begun to suspect there were no deer here at all. He really didn't care, too. Not every hunt has to bring a kill, right?

Mind, a fifteen-point buck would have been nice. Mmm, venison Of course, there wasn't much of a chance of fifteen-point bucks near Crystal Lake. There were some really big deer in in Eastern Axackal though. The Axackal Mountains...

His mind drifted slowly away from the lake, to the snow-covered heights and the artificial fishing ponds of Eastern Axackal, to its friendly, hard-working people...

And then the phone rang.

"Damn it, Maverick! I damn hope this is fucking important! It'd better be! I'm on a motherfucking vacation! Can I not have two days off?”

"You've had sixteen days off. But let us not quibble. You need to stop acting like a baby.”

"I will act like a baby if I please! I am Alexander fucking Kazansky and I have the goddamn right to act like a baby, if only because I'm a goddamn Freeman like everybody else! What's the fucking point of founding a free country if you can't act like a fucking baby, huh?”

"Shut up. I've gotten an emergency message from the 'Pendrans. They sent me some guy's photos and they ask if we know him.'

"And...?”

"My boys ran the photo through the Civil Service database. It fits three guys with different names.”

"How is that possible? A posergang? Twins?” - Kazansky now became interested. It seemed like a riddle for him to solve.

"They're all DREAD researchers – or rather, I suspect they're fictitious DREAD papers made out for some agent.”

"You mean Nicolae sent an agent to Titan without my approval?”

"I've checked with Nicolae. He says he didn't. Alex... I think we have a rogue operation on our hands.”

The string of curses that came in response to that could have curdled milk and banished demons.

"So what do we do?”

"Start with an investigation of Nicolae's people. I'll take care of the rest when I'm back... oh, and stall the 'Pendrans. Tell them we're still looking.”

"Very well, Alex. I'll come up with something.”

And so the Allanean Central Intelligence Agency came under personal Presidential scrutiny. DREAD Intelligence, however, was too small to even come to Monningham's mind.

The Scolopendrans, of course, would receive a long, polite, and ambigious letter. It read, in part:

While we have not yet matched a name to this face due to technical issues with our databases, we feel certain that this man is, in fact, an Allanean Freeman. Due to localized failure with the Civil Servce Database we are not yet sure if he is employed with the Allanean Government. We have however excluded Central Intelligence as a potential employer for him, as well as the Allanean Ground Forces. Men of similar appearance have been previously employed with the Department of Research, Evolution, and development if this helps.

We further wish to inform you the President of the United States has not authorized any intelligence operations in your country, nor has the Director of the Allanean Central Intelligence Agency. We remind you that Allanea wishes to remain a friend of the Segments, and it is our ambition to one day sign a full bilateral alliance with you.

Please provide additional information on this person or their activities so we can better assist you.




Back in DREAD's deep dungeons

In the meanwhile, the DREAD Intelligence folks were blissfully unaware of the events topside. They continued to type up inquiries to various Kajali fleetminds, asking for any sensor feeds they may have had stored and available for unclassified distribution from the micrite event.

Scolopendran Intelligence Section
Stonozka Topside Branch Office

SIS Branch Offices are generally set up something like Federal Service recruitment stations. The lobby usually doubles as a waiting lounge, with some pamphlets about the Section, what it is, to some extent what it does, and other such things placed strategically here and there. The receptionist is always polite and, unusual for a government branch, never wears her uniform, instead always opting for civilian clothing. Occasionally revealing civilian clothing, perhaps--still effective in a society like the Segments more because of what it hides than what it shows--but civilian clothing nonetheless. Maybe it has something to do with the fact that the hue dedicated to the Intelligence Section's uniform is a sort of burnt orange color. At any rate, Intelligence officers and civil servants don't wear uniforms, which tends to set them apart.

That and, while the visible part of Branch Offices are set up like recruitment stations, they're quite a bit larger than recruitment stations, with more staff... so, obviously, they do more than just recruit. This inflames the imaginations of conspiracy theorists and amuses the actual intelligence officers that work there when they glance outside and see the protesters protesting Big Brother surveillance.

Well, they're closer to the mark this time, ponders Senior Intelligence Officer Gethen Smet before he stops looking out of the window and starts looking at what's going on around his desk. SIntelO Smet is responsible for SIS activities in and around Stonozka, and answers to SIS Centre. Right now the pressing curiosity, besides the day-to-day tracking of known agents of foreign powers, is Mister Smith. Mister Smith is probably an agent from Allanea, but either he is a very good secret agent or a very bad one. Right now, the jury is out. "So, what do we have on him?"

"Well, going by the fatracker*," says a junior officer assigned to head up the Mister Smith surveillance case, "he's not been trying to visit anything secure--just a few furniture stores. Furniture stores aren't state secrets now, are they?"

Smet folds his hands together, rests his elbows on his desk, and leans forward to rest his chin on his hands with a nod. "They could be. Go on."

"Our occasional walk-pasts haven't seen anything particularly out of the ordinary besides that floating model he has; has an EM signature and a half. I know we haven't gotten authorization to conduct persistent surveillance or tap his comms but we can tell from bandwidth usage that he's not exactly downloading the Library of Stonozka, and we're not getting any server pings on secure sites from his telco subnet."

"So, in other words, he's not doing anything that screams 'spy.'"

"Nothing dramatic, no. But he is being rather blatant about looking for military customers, and 'military' and 'Allanea' are of course red flags. Not uncommon, actually, but his telco subnet is pinging BeyondDisclassUltraviolet a lot and most Allaneans are capitalistic enough to not be too picky about who buys their stuff. Especially around here."

"So... he's either someone with a real idea of who he thinks his market is and a conspiracy fanboy, which is quite possible, or he's being unusually obvious about his search methods, or something else entirely." Smet frowns. "We're getting pings from his building, yes? Not some proxy we've traced back through packetmatching?"

"No proxies, sir."

"Hm. That's so basic it's civilian. What's Centre say?"

The junior officer chuckles. "He's been sighted now and again by agents in-country, but never as a 'Mister Smith.' Not even for one-night-stands." While the Section doesn't really keep records on people in the Segments not associated with current investigations--by order of Legislative Unit oversight committees--foreigners living abroad are a different matter entirely. Marketers would probably not just kill, but ritualistically violate, kill, violate again, mutilate, and eat their own childhood pet for SIS's database. "They figured it was worth sending a photo out to the Allaneans; they came back with this letter."

Smet looks at the databoard the junior officer offers to him and quickly reads the missive. "Right. No authorized spying on us at all? They're lying."

"They're not lying about him not being in the database, sir. COMINT confirms."

"So we've a potential does-not-exist operative, here?"

"Seems like, sir."

Gethen shakes his head with a frown. Something didn't add up. Obviously not an innocent, but making mistakes a first year from the Academy wouldn't make. "There's some sort of magnificent bastardry going on here. Anonymize the data, put it in a package, and fast-track it to the Oversight Committee for authorization to go to the next step."

"Will they go for it, sir?"

"Of course they will, son. Their job is to oversee, not second-guess: one, in the political Pascal's Wager, doing their job incorrectly is better than not doing it at all; two, Smith is a foreigner, not a citizen, and as such his constitutional rights consist essentially of nominal security of person and assets. Besides, you know they've got people inside the system, and I may be one of them. Do it by the book."

The junior officer nods. "Yes, sir. Oh, and shall I send an agent around to play him?"

"Bah, no," the senior officer bats the idea away with a dismissive gesture, "not until we know what his angle is. Keep an eye on who he talks to, that's all. You think we should commit ourselves deep already?"

*The 'fatracker' is a remarkably simple surveillance system made up of a curious kind of organic molecule found outsystem by the Galaxy Exploration Command. It's biologically inactive, gets stuck in fatty tissue, and is electromagnetically reflective: in essence, a naturally-occurring RFID tag. By breeding multiple strains of the bacteria that produce this molecule, the SIS developed a persistent method by which individuals can be tracked via the RFID readers in the Segments' pervasive public transit system. Needless to say, this scared the oversight committee to no end, so they demanded (and received) unfiltered access to the fatracker... which, based on SIS's compartmentalized ideology, was anonymized. Still, they could see that the number being tracked was nowhere near enough to constitute universal surveillance and was thus appeased, except when SIS occasionally let drop that maybe there were secondary systems.

SIS's penchant for triggering people's healthy paranoia is not limited to the civilian population.

Any way, Smith got his dose during the immunization process.

* - * - *

Topside Stonozka

Seymour Giles is one of the rarest of Scolopendrans, the Federal Service failure. It happens, sometimes. He was dead-set on joining the Aerospace Directorate, but wasn't much for authority or rules, didn't like order, and had the notion that free nations should have free militaries, meaning that the regulations on his actions, appearance, so on and so forth did not sit well with him. People in and out of the system saw the oncoming tragedy and suggested that perhaps it wasn't for him; that there were other Federal Services he could join and probably fit in better; or, hell, Federal Service was overrated--all the refuseniks knew that Speaker was going to win the next election because the only way he couldn't was if he didn't run--and if he didn't run he would be drafted--or if he was found sleeping with a murdered dead nun in some sort of Satanic ritual. No, no, a thousand times no; Giles wanted to become a spaceman so a spaceman he would become. It was a free country and his choice, and of course it would happen.

The SASD training instructors tried both carrot and stick to get him to quit. It only hardened his resolve. He passed Basic, so he had to be assigned; he got shipped to getting flight-rated on the CH-41R* in the Paperwork Aerospace Expeditionary Wing. This isn't what he wanted to do, so he objected. Needs of the Directorate come first, but if you want out, you're free to go. No way, says he. Right, then just grit your teeth for two years and you'll be good.

He had an argument with his superior officer over a performance evaluation. The officer noted the concern, offered to call for an investigation, but warned that if the investigation didn't turn up anything that Seymour could be cashiered for insubordination. Seymour insisted. The investigation was called, Seymour was court martialed for insubordination, and the officer actually reprimanded for being too nice on Seymour's performance evaluation. The court martial decided not to throw the book at someone constitutionally so at variance with military service and just gave him a general discharge without opportunity for re-enlistment in any Military Service.

Giles then tried to call in a civil case of against the Directorate, accusing it of conspiracy and discrimination. On the first count, the court, presided by a notoriously anti-military judge, found that following regulations do not count as conspiracy and, if there was a conspiracy, it was one of leniency. On the second count, the Directorate representative gladly admitted that discrimination is part of what the service was for, and would always discriminate against trainees, candidates, or members who lacked the necessary qualities to be successful in the service. As discrimination on the basis of merit is not illegal, the jury motioned to drop the case and fined Seymour the court costs; the judge agreed, but noted that there's no point in fining someone beyond their ability to pay and reduced the judgment to 25% of Seymour's net worth (as full court costs would've put him deep into the red).

So 20, technically post-military (although not officially a veteran), not exactly rich, lacking marketable skills, and with a chip on his shoulder, Mister Giles thinks that maybe helping sell luxury yachts may be a way to get some cash while simultaneously sticking it to the man.

* A chair.

Stonozka

After the initial job interview, Smith is routinely impressed with Seymour Giles. After employing his Search Fu, he is ecstatic. It appears that the man fits the bill precisely – and therefore, a day after job interview, Seymour receives an e-mail from the 'yacht peddler'.

Dear Mr. Giles!

After reviewing my prospective applicants, I would like to say that I have been very positively impressed with your record. My additional research had shown to me that you could easily compete in this field with anyone I've met doing this sort of work during my long service at Colonial Yachts, LTD. As such, I would like you to arrive at $time to meet me at my briefing room. I will explain to you some of the intricacies of your new job.

By the way, while I myself choose to wear a tie, dress codes are optional at Colonial Yachts.



And so Seymour would find himself seated at the other end of the gigantic office table, the gravitic model yacht orbiting his head at a respectable distance, the Allanean pacing the room.

“Mr. Giles, let me first dispel any doubt you may yet have – you are hired. As a matter of fact, let me begin by saying how proud I am to have you at Colonial Yachts. And second, let me elaborate the intricacies of your new job.”

“On its face, yours is an ordinary, boring corporate job. Think of it as something between the work of an average customer service hack and an average secretary – except for the fact that you will have quite the opportunity for advancement. You see, Mr. Giles, the company doesn't believe that it's a good idea to have an Allanean in charge of their department in Scolopendra. As such, I decided to try – and I stress the word try – and train you as my possible successor.”

“The first thing this will mean is that you will share all my business trips in the Segments – that way you can get acquainted with the workings of my - our company. Further, the company will later fund your training in several key fields. You will be taking professional improvement courses in several languages, introduction to accounting, piloting light spacecraft – that is important if you want to sell yachts – but that's still ahead of us. In the meanwhile, we need to sell yachts.”

“So as long as we're both here, you're going to be my guide to the local culture – especially, since you're a former serviceman, to the Services. Remember that the Company thinks former and current Service members are our most important potential pilots. Essentially, you're the high-tech, future equivalent of a native guide.”

“Oh, and one last thing, Mr. Giles. I do think that business will be rather... slow at first. We're likely going to have to spend most of our time sitting here, waiting for a customer to come in through that door, and chatting to each other. I suppose we should get acquainted with each other on a more personal basis. I'll start.”

“I'm John Smith. I was born to a couple of pioneers in the Outer Colonies – believe it or not, I was actually born on a space freighter – so you see I really had to end up selling spaceships. I've hung out with some really strange people during my travels – even by the standards of my own country. I gamble, believe it or not. I collect poetry and books about conspiracy theories. And of course, I do a bit of space yacht modeling. This floaty one I built from scratch around a stock motor. “

Smith paused. “And the rest you'll have to discover during your work here, Mr. Giles – unless I've already scared you out of your boots.”

“By the way, Mr. Giles – how do you feel about conspiracy theories? You know, stuff like “Yut Did the Quickbronze Incident!”, or maybe “Elvis Lives And Is In Hiding in Iesus Christi”? Do you think it's all nuts, or maybe it has a point to it?”

“I suggest you be truthful – this might, you know, be a strange foreign test.”

Elsewhere

Somewhere in the deep underground facilities of the Department for Research, Evolution, and Development a man is sitting at a computer. He is writing a letter, but that letter is not addressed to a fellow human being. Rather, it is adressed to a Fleet Warship.

Dear CSS-MSU It Isn't Frelling Fair !

(pardon me, but I am not a Cetagandan citizen and am not aware of the proper polite form of address for a shipmind in your society)

I am an engineering student at the Taggart Institute For Alternative Propulsion and Power Sources at the Concord University's campus in Liberty-City, Allanea. At one of my recent lectures, one of my professors mentioned the CIDES accident (if you can call it an accident when micrites eat your power source) that occurred during the quickbronze infestation on Mars.

As I am writing a seminar assignment on Safety Concerns In The Era Of Post-Einsteinian Power Plants, I would be most interested in any accounts you would be so kind as to provide of that incident, specifically of the events immediately after the CIDES engine began to go wrong, and the damage control steps taken.

Sincerely yours,
Preek'nok Klak

To: Preek'nok Klak
From: CSS-MSU That Isn't Frelling Fair

CIDES accident? I probably shouldn't say much, as I am officially unable to confirm or deny any such thing happened. Rather stupid, really, given that it's public knowledge that I had CIDES and that I got eaten by quickbronze, but there you have it. The entire thing was rather embarassing, really, although I can't be blamed for shoddy workmanship on the containment system. That's what the Board of Inquiry said. Even got congratulated on getting so many of my crew out, and on my inventive measures to stop the spread of the micrites. Standard Fleet procedures now. But did that count for me in the divorce court? Nooooo. I didn't even get to keep my name. The bastard only exists because of the accident and he got my name.

"Fleetmind" is perhaps the wrong appelation, though it does sort of work given the nature of distributed computing and the sort-of gestalt that may temporarily exist between ships of a common fleet during a crisis situation.

That all said, the usual suspects don't respond. None of the known Kajali fleetminds would be at liberty to discuss such anyways; They are aware of whatever events were witnessed when they were managing a battlespace, yes, but as befits their postings they will not talk of it.

There are, however, some responses from intelligences far removed from the responsibility and position of the well known fleetminds. Most curiously, perhaps the most helpful response comes from one that refuses to provide any form of identification other than that she considers herself female.

I've been hearing about you, poking around BeyondDisclassUltraviolet and the like... Not very subtle, you know. But, then, with CIDES, it's best not to be too subtle. Someone might actually take you seriously!

This is all I can offer. Destroying a CIDES induces a small fractal event, and subroutines have blacked out the actual event itself. Nothing I can do there. Rampancy is not a fun place to be.

It's _obviously_ not SHODAN or anyone as remotely important, but the footage is more or less complete, minus the blacked out moment that composed the actual CIDES destruction event. Visible light, infrared, gravitic, etc... it's all there. Whether or not it'll be useful is another matter, since they're _all_ censored.

While setting a time tends to cramp Seymour's tight schedule of doing absolutely nothing, the fact that there's no dress code... well, he can handle that. Which is why he shows up in the office wearing nothing more than a black cloth holster for a 10mm powergun, doubling as a sort of loincloth, with the legend "I'M PACKING" in yellow across the front. Of course, nudity is not particularly uncommon in the Segments, and neither is being armed. Neither is being essentially nude and armed at the same time. However, crotch holsters are not particularly utilitarian, and those that wear them are usually considered to be needlessly compensating for something. While holsters are often used as accessories, treating it--and the weapon it holds--so blatantly as such is an insult to the actual utility of the tool it carries.

Then again, considering the tool carrying it...
“On its face, yours is an ordinary, boring corporate job.
Blah blah blah... Giles just happens to have the self-preservation skills to stifle a yawn.
Think of it as something between the work of an average customer service hack and an average secretary
Being used beneath my skills, as always!
– except for the fact that you will have quite the opportunity for advancement. You see, Mr. Giles, the company doesn't believe that it's a good idea to have an Allanean in charge of their department in Scolopendra. As such, I decided to try – and I stress the word try – and train you as my possible successor.”
Now that's more like it! "I look forward to sitting in your chair," Seymour replies with a smug smile. "I don't think it will take too long."

“The first thing this will mean is that you will share all my business trips in the Segments – that way you can get acquainted with the workings of my - our company. Further, the company will later fund your training in several key fields. You will be taking professional improvement courses in several languages, introduction to accounting, piloting light spacecraft – that is important if you want to sell yachts – but that's still ahead of us. In the meanwhile, we need to sell yachts.”
"The courses are paid for by the company, right? And it's two-point-oh-and-go all the way?"

“So as long as we're both here, you're going to be my guide to the local culture...

...[and stuff]...

...unless I've already scared you out of your boots.”
"Not wearing any, boss." Seymour demonstrates by wriggling his naked toes. "Nah, I've dealt with crazier people than a spacer slider." On the plus side, using a racial slur about a foreigner in said foreigner's presence suggests being at east. On the minus side, it's usually considered socially appropriate to at least ask first.
“By the way, Mr. Giles – how do you feel about conspiracy theories? You know, stuff like “Yut Did the Quickbronze Incident!”, or maybe “Elvis Lives And Is In Hiding in Iesus Christi”? Do you think it's all nuts, or maybe it has a point to it?”

“I suggest you be truthful – this might, you know, be a strange foreign test.”
"Heh, the truth is out there, eh?" Seymour smirks. "I could tell you things..."

And he does. Something about the Quickbronze Incident being the work of the Newly Instituted From The Ancient Ashes Freemasons working in concert with Zero-One corporate executives and the Multiversal Conclave Of The Three Illuminatis to arrange things just so to cause the Quickbronze to eliminate several nuisances simultaneously, additionally causing the Biblical prophecy of "the valleys will be filled up, and the mountains laid low" on the South Pole on Mars to expose an ancient alien stargate that would allow the Nephilim to return from Nemesis, the dwarf star orbiting Sirius A as known by certain ancient tribal cultures long before Western science, and engage in a millenium-long holy war against the forces of good (who are about to get cold-cocked, in his estimation) and the Illuminati-Freemason-SIS-driven forces of the Conspiracy so that the apocalyptic conditions foretold in Revelations can come to pass across the entire multiverse, from which will arise the second coming of the great Max, who shall defeat evil and found the Kingdom of God on Earth that will last for a thousand years before reality ends in the Big Crunch.

Not too bright, is he? – ponders 'John Smith' for a second – Oh well. Nevermind. Not like he's going to be doing a lot of thinking around here.

“Oh, yeah, Giles. All the courses will be two-point-oh and go – though we don't use the four-point system in Allanea too often. I expect you to do much better than that at the basic spacecraft maneuvering classes, though.”

“You'll be headed to Allanea to take a course in spacecraft piloting once the company straightens some papers out with our subcontractor – we had some issues in the accounting department. In the meanwhile, we haven't quite had a client in this country yet. So Giles, why don't you sit down with me and swap some war stories?”

“Oh, and about the Quickbronze thing... I was in the Allanean Navy at the time. We managed the disarmament of the Aumanii, as per treaty – as you know, it didn't quite work out, and the peace mission ended up turning into a stand-up fight with the Aelosian elves, and then it became a rapid-evac mission. And let me tell you, Giles – I saw some shit.”

Agent Five knows how to play his game. His eyes glaze over, as if he is not looking into his secretary's face, but as if he's there again, in the sandy plains of Southern Mars.

He's lying, of course. Agent Five never visited Mars, and the only time he saw quickbronze was in a sealed test container.

“Women and children running for our ships, scared out of their wits. Aumanii Stormtroopers, backing off slowly, ever so slowly as the sea of that terrible ooze spread. And that... that wasn't the worst of it, Giles. Some stuff, you read about it in books and hear it on some of those shows, and you maybe think you believe in it - 'the truth is out there' – it comforts you, Giles, to think that someone can crack the code. That the truth is out there to be found. But when you see it, with your very eyes... oh, then it's different.”

“Tell you what,Giles. If I can trust you – then maybe I'll let you in on it. But in the meanwhile – you have to wait. Prove to me you can handle the truth.”

Here. Hook. Bait. Let's see if he'll bite.

“And in the meanwhile, what would you want to do while we wait for the client? Poker? Checkers? Maybe some Gunship Pilot Xtreme on the office computers?”

Here. That's how it's going to be, Seymour. We're going to sit and goof off here, and you're going to tell me war stories about your parody of a service. And it seems to me that slowly, but surely, you're going to start working for me. After all... I have all the time of the world.

It's not very hard to get Giles to talk; one merely has to appeal to his ego. We'll skip to the more interesting part. "Funny thing is one day at the quartermaster corps we got a few of those black-box powerplants--CIDES--that we had to route to their repair facilities, location classified. Must be a reason, after all. I once heard that CIDES are powered by fragments of human souls, and human souls have a lot more energy in 'em than people usually give 'em credit for. I thought that was silly, at first, but then these CIDES come in and we have to ship them outsystem, when TME Industries, the people that built the damned things, are just down the street. That got me to thinking: maybe there's some credit to that theory. I ask around a little, do some research, and while we've got a service application code for technicians for those things there aren't any around. Plus, you hear things--stuff like how Johnny Sixpack disappeared, coincidentally when one of these boxes got damaged. The disappearances were always explained away by vaporization, but one guy I got drunk admitted one of the 'vaporized' got dragged out and tied to a stretcher by some engineering officers wearing Peril-Sensitive Sunglasses. Now why would P.S.S.es be standard equipment for engineers? I couldn't corroborate his story, but I'm sure people know and they're told to keep real quiet."

A long while later

And so for a few weeks, what Agent Five does is continue monitoring his ads and wait for a client to come. In the meanwhile, he pampers his mark – that's Seymour, of course – with a high salary, tips, and the ability to good off in the office. The hope is, of course, that Giles ends up trusting the Allanean agent.

But eventually, Agent Five is simply tired of waiting. He calls Giles into his room for a Very Special Talk

"Giles, I have to let you onto a secret. Our Company has a Department of Advanced Engines. It engages in... research, if you may say, into alternative propulsion. And my people are interested in CIDES. Very interested. Now, in your military service – you knew certain people who worked with them, right? You even helped route some. Now, my company is researching the various conspiracy theories surrounding CIDES – for the purpose of getting our hands on one. There is a reward out for a CIDES engine or blueprint. If you help me get it, I'll share it with you, fifty-fifty. It's not a big reward – we'll get three million each. Not much, but enough to retire. Which is what I'll do. And I'll make sure you get my job.”

"Wanna help me out, Giles?”

One Office

"So, what's the latest report on our Mister Smith?"

The junior officer grins thinly. This has more meaning in the Segments, given its particular minority populations, than it would in other places. "Well, he's hired the dreg we've already talked about and one of our agents home for the year is putting in some overtime ingratiating himself with the sot. SIGINT tells us that model of Smith's is wired for sound, and his cane seems to absorb more electromagnetic energy than it should for that matter. Nothing illegal about stashing recorders, of course, but it's highly suspicious. Downside is that if we tap him he'll probably be able to detect it, whatever active method we use: lasermike, mikepads, or anything short of the properly exotic, and we're not going to get brainsnoops in someone like this."

Smet smiles predatorially. "I suppose that means we have to get in through the patsy."

"Oh, yes. It looks like our Mister Smith has our Mister Giles eating right out of his hand. We've been able to lipread parts of their conversation. Conspiracy theories."

"You know we have so many conspiracy theories out there that sometimes even we have trouble remembering which are true and which are false."

"Nevertheless, it's enough to turn up the heat a little."

"It'll be a bit of a trick to convince the oversight committee to allow us to turn up the heat on a citizen, even if he is a Service-failure scumbag. Possibly especially because, so as to avoid the appearance or creation of a second-class citizenry."

"They will, however, accept the monitoring of an accomplice. I bet Mister Giles is enthusiastic enough to take his work home, and not bright enough to take proper precautions. At any rate, he's far less likely to have any countersurveillance gear."

"Hrm. Okay, I'll do the paperwork, but you lay the tracks now. Time may be getting important, and we can always tear down our own nets should the powers that be not approve."

"Righto, boss. I'll--"

"I don't need to know your plan. Just do it, and if it's too much, you're the one who'll get crucified sideways--remember that."

* - * - *

Another Office

"Hm. That's some heavy stuff you're proposing." Giles rubs his chin as he attempts to think for a moment. "Still, they didn't uphold their part of the social contract, so I don't have to uphold mine. Fuck this commie country--no one ever got really successful in life playing the white knight. I don't know much about CIDES, but I'm sure I can find out enough to point us in the right direction on how to get a handle on one."

More thinking, after a fashion. "Off the top of my head, there's two places we could check: TME Industries, locally, and one of the fleet depots, not so locally. I doubt anyone leaves the Services remembering where any of the outsystem repair depots are. I'll ask around my contacts after work... any way you want me to especially look?"

* - * - *

Down at the Bar

Normally, Amirova would be the kind who, in previous centuries, would have complained about being a woman in the intelligence services. A woman field agent automatically means, to some extent, a seductress. It's sort of like being a prostitute, but selling one's body to the state so it can be used by enemies of the state so that the state can learn the enemy's secrets or protect it's own. So, actually, it's probably exactly like being a very high-class prostitute. She doesn't mind much, though, because she knows that in the modern day and age male agents have to do the exact same thing, especially considering how many important people in the multiverse are female, have huge tits, raging sex drives, and are more open than the Pacific Ocean.

Besides, this mark is comparatively easy. Apply alcohol, tease, maybe let him cop a feel, then tease further away. Pretty easy to tell which one of his heads gets more oxygen. And he looks positively ecstatic right now. Top of the world. When one gets a Type A Asshole like that living up to what he thinks is his world-domineering potential, it's not easy to puff him up that much more. "Hey, See! How's life treating you?"

The Allanean ponders the question only for two seconds: "I think that whatever contacts you have in the Services are the safer bet – just play it safe. Don't immediately tell them what we're after. If there's someone you think might lead us somewhere – someone with clearance, perhaps here – maybe tell them about the awesome yacht deals we have. I'll do the rest. "

"And Giles? I don't know if someone told you this before, but I think you would make a pretty fine Allanean. In fact, I think you would make a near-perfect Freeman." If you just passed the tests, which I doubt you're capable of doing even on a good day – if you even HAVE good days, which is in itself doubtful.

Several hours later, a message was sent back to the email address of the perfectly fictional yacht manufacturer. It read:

Dear Mr. Gibson, our new employee is proving quite as helpful as I predicted. It is more than likely that a potential client would be located within the week, and, hopefully, we will soon make our first sale.

Naturally, Mr. Gibson was a low-level DREAD operative, who kicked the message upstairs for Nozick. Nozick received the message, and invited Longbottom, Creek and Hinckley-Johansson to a party in his winter cabin on Stalinvast. Creek refused, but the others were happy to oblige.

Thus it transpired that the three people directly responsible for Operation Parity spent the next five days in a drunken stupor. Nicolae Carpathia, the head of ACIA, had tried multiple times to raise Nozick by phone – he had begun harboring suspicions as to the identity of "John Smith" – but then decided it was not really all that urgent, and gave up around the second day, deciding to wait until Nozick came back from his trip.

At a Private Residence Whilst Carrying a Warrant, Albeit a Compartmentalized One (and, Particularly, a Pending One)

The place is wired for light and sound, to put it mildly. The SIS may be institutionally loathe to (and constitutionally limited in its ability to) spy on citizens--even scumbags--but when it does, it does. Actual observation will generally be done with dumb-bot expert system software, which is good enough to catch anyone not performing proper absolute-paranoia craft. It has the added benefit of being limited to recording only that which it flags as suspicious, which is the only way the oversight committee would ever authorize it to be used.

* - * - *

A Few Days Later, Smith's Office

"Okay, I followed the lines you suggested. We're talking about maybe a hundred thousand units getting shipped here, there, and elsewhere, and the refit is ongoing. Our absolutely best chance would be trying to make one go missing from either Valhalla, Deimos Fleetbase, OrbPlat One over Titan, or Iapetus Fleetbase. Deimos and Iapetus are probably out because they are two of the most secure places in the system: Deimos runs Mars Theatre and is always on some sort of alert; Iapetus is the HQ of the Saturn Defense Forces and probably better fortified than God's own throne. OrbPlat One is just SASD and I've more contacts that way, but Valhalla's a city in orbit and so seems like it's the least secure, all things considered."

"Okay. Do you have any definite plans on how to make it 'go missing'? Because, while I can see your contacts helping it go missing from a fleet station, I can't see them bringing it to my people. If it's in Earth orbit, they can put it in a garbage disposal container, or just chuck it out of an airlock, and I'll have an... associate pick it up – again, this is just an idea. Your people will likely have a better idea.”

"Saturn, I can see you getting it out of the Fleetbase, but where will it go from there?”

He ponders. “I've got an idea. Do you think they'll allow me – or you – to visit either fleetbase with a yacht? Say we're offering it to a client. Your people get the device aboard, and then we detach and go eff-tee-ell really fast. Or something.”

"Or even better – you know the locals, Giles, you figure something out. I don't know if your Fleetbases even have external garbage disposal. My gut feeling tell me Earth orbit is the safer bet, because it has US territories really near.”

"Oh... do you think your guys can get us some of those Peril-Sensitive Sunglasses? I think we'll need them.”

OOC: Sorry for not reacting to any of the 'residence' stuff. That's because I don't know whose residence it is, Giles' or Smith's.

(OOC: No worries, that wasn't for you to respond to anyway.)

A Few Days Later, Branch Office

The junior officer suppresses a smile. He wants to smile, so badly. Things are going so well... but this is important, so very important, and he must maintain a proper facade of propriety considering the gravity of the situation. "We're definitely establishing a pattern, sir. Mister Giles appears to have definitely changed his pattern, not hanging around his old haunts as much. Surveillance shows that he's asking some pointed questions at quite a few people, some in the professional conspiracy theory trade and some of his few acquaintances from his AeroSpace Directorate days. One of those acquaintances, a quartermaster for the ASD, came forward to ASD MilIntel about it and the orangebelts* dropped us a line. I let them know that we were handling the situation and so they don't have to worry about crossing The Boundary**. We now think that we know, to a high degree of certainty, what Mister Smith is after."

"And?" Smet says from behind arched hands and locked fingers. In times like these, he wished that he smoked like Advisor Garbo sometimes does; it would heighten the atmosphere. That was one self-destructive habit, however, the Senior couldn't get into, so the best he could do was to act mysteriously reserved like Zin Karma (who apparently still gives the Cetagandans the willies for some strange reason or another... one thing's for certain, though, that man can run industrial and corporate espionage rings like a pro).

"CIDES, sir." The nameless junior officer can't help but crack a thin grin with a touch of teeth. Blood in the water.

His superior matches the effort, hidden by his hands, but with an additional curve to the corners of his lips. "So someone's bit on Oplan MOUNTAINS OF MADNESS, hmm?"

"Probably, especially seeing how 'acquiring' a pair of two of Peril-Sensitive Sunglasses are also in the plan, apparently." The junior officer thinks for a moment. "Is that really one of our false plants, sir?"

"You know I don't know that." Smet lets the smile continue to his eyes. "I know who would, though, and he might find this interesting. It will certainly make the angrier members of the Oversight Committee who are threatening to possibly leak to the press that we're spying on citizens sit down and shut up."

"I suppose they didn't take our initiative to bug Mister Giles' flat too well, sir?"

"That's not something that should concern you right now. Now that we know what they're after, and that it's something big, this needs to go up the line. We know the Advisor has a sense of the theatric; I'm not going to second-guess him. Assuming, however..."

The junior smiles impishly. "Yes, sir. Assuming."

"Assuming that MOUNTAINS OF MADNESS is a false plant, it might not only serve the purpose of tickling people's paranoia, like most of our false plants. The mere risk of madness bombs being true should make agents acting in the Segments come out of the woodwork like moths to an electric arc-light. Now whether we'd hypothetically try to turn these agents, simply misinform them, eliminate them, or just quietly inform their governments that we don't quite appreciate them looking into that exact technology is beyond me."

"So this really is a job for Central now, sir?"

"Yes, but we still have ours. It's time for Mister Giles to work for us, whether he knows it or not. Prep a batch of Tee-Vee Three, and arrange for a chance meeting between Barfly and Mister Giles. I think it's high time they exchange phone numbers."

"Tee-vee Three, sir?" The junior frowns for a moment. This is getting a wee bit too big. "If we do that, sir, the Committee will wear our balls for bolo ties."

"That's why we are going to tell them first." Smet grins fully, not so much at the junior officer as through him. "And we are going to go off the assumption that MOUNTAINS OF MADNESS is not fake."

"Sir?"

"We all know the rumors about what CIDES do to people. Makes the whole Territorian Mapmaker incident look like a mild disturbance, no? The Committee is tasked with the protection of the people, just like we are. Do you think it's particularly good for those legislators' re-election campaigns if it were to be revealed that they were against gathering critical human intelligence that allowed some enemy power to make half of Stonozka go mad? The Committee knows full well they're not the only people who can leak things to our oh-so-beautifully-free press."

"I see. I'll get everything ready, sir. I just need a go signal."

"Don't be so theatrical. Time is important, but timing is, for the moment, not. I'll let you know as I always do."

"Yes, sir."

* - * - *

The Flying Elephant And Other Similar Delusions, also known as the public house featured previously

A nominally average-looking man sits down at a booth with Ms Amirova. They smile, start into some small talk in Russian--no great surprise in such a multilingual country--order some drinks, talk about old friends, and the conversation subtly shifts while the tone fails to***. "Итак, вы видели Сеймур недавно? Я не разговаривал с человеком в неделю."

Amirova chuckles and smiles. "Почему да, я видел его в прошлом во вторник."

The man looks at her with a wry smirk. "Это было почти неделю назад."

"Я знаю." She smirks right back, but with more of a mischievous gleam. "Больше в жалости."

"Если вы считаете, что это, я не хватать его глупых историй. Было бы замечательно просто запустите его в один из этих дней."

Amirova thinks for a moment. "Собственно, я мог бы случиться встретиться с ним в городе - Вы знаете, что он делает в эти дни?"

"Помимо коммутирующих со своей должности? Да, он действительно имеет один сейчас." The man scoffs and takes a sip of his drink. "Ну, я не могу встретиться с ним никогда не проходящие в Новых Независимых."

The woman nearly snorts her drink at that with a bubbly laugh. "Это мусор?"

"Именно там он говорит, он получает все его рассказы."

"Ну, если я мимо там, я буду разговаривать с ним, может быть, купить ему пить?" Amirova says with a smile.

"Вы знаете, что он хотел, когда он напитки, но он бы невежливыми, не будут предлагать то в будущем, нет? Я надеюсь, вы видите его в ближайшее время, я действительно тратить сейчас."

"Я вижу, что ..."

And the conversation naturally flows into something different. They talk for maybe an hour, then leave and go their separate ways, having socialized enough for one day.

* - * - *

The Executive Apartments

A simple, smallish Art Deco apartment building in the center of Stonozka, meaning in the central park district, not too far from the Museum of Civic History. A hilly green surrounded by walls of hanging-garden skyscrapers fifty stories tall.

A cubicle farm taking up a good part of one floor, although the cubicle walls are both low and form something more like large stalls than actual cubicles. There's only maybe two dozen desks, arranged around a central nave that leads to the open door of the corner office; a makeshift-looking closed office, complete with ceiling, made out of cubicle partitions takes up the other corner. The ceilings are three meters above the floor; the cubicle-office has a ceiling two meters tall. It would not be very comfortable for some of the larger Scolopendran species to fit inside. Very few of them want to visit, anyway, and that suits the occupant just fine.

The occupant, a lanky Asian man leaning back precariously in his utilitarian office chair (lacking casters, of course), wearing a loose blue pin-stripe double-breasted collarless sport coat with a sort of dun orange inner lining that adds a flash of corner as he wears the top of the plastron open, and matching slacks that terminate in comfortable and expansive Dominion leather walking boots. A gift, he says, from a business acquaintance. His hands are folded behind his head, cushioned by his rather impressively fluffy black afro. Despite the fact that his eyes are closed, he's relaxed, and listening to the earbuds sitting in--rather predictably, all told)--his ears, there's something about his smooth casualness. Something not quite natural. Something far too... practiced, like an actor who's become so good at his game that he's become natural foibles and mistakes of the real people he pretends to be; blown right past naturalism to preternatural, representing the Ideal rather than the mere shadow on the wall that is reality. It almost seems as if he's forgotten how normal people relax, and stutter, and bumble through their everyday lives.

His desk rings. With a thunk of his heel he sends the handset spinning into his hand. The grace of an acrobat with none of the uncertainty. "Yo."

-Sir, Branch Office Stonozka speaking.-

"Ah, Smet. How's the wife and kids?"

Branch Office

By how Garbo asks the question, Smet gets an uncomfortable feeling that the Advisor already knows, somehow. "Oh, just fine."

Executive Apartments

"And Mister Smith? Healthy, comfortable, well-taken care of, 'tho probably not as pampered as Mister Giles?"

-Sir? Oh, right, the reports.-

"I'm paid to read 'em, y'know, and Speeks down the way doesn't like graft. Did you know he's thinkin' 'bout not even running next election? Something about not wanting to start an imperial presidency or the like. Scary thought, innit?"

-Um... yeah... anyway, about Giles, we think we know what he and, by logical extension, Smith is after.-

"Hm, what's that? That pricking feeling in my veins? An embolism? Nah, must be the suspense trying to kill me."

-CIDES, sir.-

"Well, of course they are. What do you plan to do 'bout it, Smet?"

-Well... ah... I'm prepping some Tee-Vee Three for Giles so we can get a closer look and all. I figured anything beyond that, well, CIDES and all...-

Garbo makes an approving noise. "Good, good. You're a good guy, you know that, Smet? I'm sure you're talking to the Overtee?"

-Of course, sir. They're already... well... I guess you know.-

"Yup, paid to deal with 'em too. They all play important roles, you know. Anyway, thanks for the heads up. Keep doing what you're doing."

-Sir?-

"Keep watching. I can't confirm nor deny there being a larger plan beyond your office just watching and not doing anything too forward. Got that?"

-Of course, sir. Tha--

"No, thank you, Smet. Eyes and ears of the state, more noble than people like to think. Leave the fingers of the state to someone else, neh? Have a good one, and give Gertie a hug for me, will ya?"

-Um... certainly. Goodbye?-

"Ciao." Garbo leans forward and grins. He's one of the few people left who grins in what Scolopendrans call "the international way," and yet...

...somehow that just makes it even scarier.

* - * - *

Yacht Dealership

"It took a few days," Giles states to his employer. It is not an apology, not even a polite meaningless one. "One of my buds moved to Valhalla after his service was up and made friends with this Yut Fleet technician down there. This technician's both kinda disgruntled and interested in the historical meaning of this, if you catch my drift--he sounds to be one of those people who likes History In The Making--and it sounds like he's willing to show some friends of friends around the shop to see one of these mythical CIDES things. Thinks it'd be a shame for these things to be retired and never see the open-source, you know? Won't do it for foreigners, though, so we'll need some fake names and stuff, I guess. And disguises. Not really my specialty, I'm afraid.

"Sneaking it out, though... well, that'll mean having to deal with security, which means it's probably better if they don't notice it at all or something. Don't happen to have any stealth yachts or anything, do you?"

* Yes, even SIS calls Military Intelligence "orangebelts." They wear orange belts. Among Military Intelligence, SIS spooks are generally called "orangebellies," or "orange-breasteds" for "orange-breasted boobies," because the SIS uniform's plastron is also orange.

** The Boundary is the line that defines appropriate areas of operation for Foot-to-Ass Section intelligence and Intelligence Section intelligence. The Foot-to-Ass Section, despite Mobile Infantry Military Intelligence and AeroSpace Directorate Military Intelligence being coordinated by the Military Intelligence Office of the Intelligence Section, are only authorized to work in military applications, usually in the form of Office of Special Investigation spooks or military liaisons for diplomatic missions (for this reason, the SIS generally considers MilIntel to be dilettantes). The SIS, on the other hand, is authorized to spy on enemy countries (with minimal oversight), friendly countries (with DiploCorps oversight), and internally (with the scrutiny of the Oversight Committee). Should MilIntel come up with something that requires not dealing with a foreign military service or, Allah forbid, spying on a citizen on Scolopendran soil, it has to hand off the mission to SIS via the SIS Military Intelligence Office.

*** (OOC: Comical machine translation courtesy of Google. For all native Russian-readers, I hope it offers a laugh.)

"So, have you seen Seymour recently? I haven't talked to the man in a week."
"Why yes, I saw him last on Tuesday."
"That was almost a week ago."
"I know. More's the pity."
"If you believe it, I miss his stupid stories. Would be great to just run into him one of these days."
"Actually, I might happen to see him around town--do you know what he's doing these days?"
"Other than commuting from his job? Yes, he actually has one now. Well, I can't see him ever not passing by the New Independent."
"That rag?"
"It's where he says he gets all his stories."
"Well, if I'm passing by there, I'll talk to him, maybe buy him a drink?"
"You know what he's like when he drinks, but it'd be impolite not to offer sometime in the future, no? I hope you see him soon, I'm really pining."
"I can see that..."

The Allanean is careful, very careful. "Stealth yachts? Why, I ever…. How do you imagine us getting aboard the station from a stealth yacht, even assuming the deranged, deranged idea I had one? This is a yacht dealership, not a spy shop!"

Well, actually, it is a spy shop, but, dear Giles, it is a bit too early in the day, is it not?

"But let us assume – just assume – I somehow procured a stealth-yacht. Let's say I stole an Allanean Navy stealth flugger*. Let's say I somehow got into docking range of a gigantic space station without being noticed. Now, assuming we have not yet become a rapidly-expanding cloud of space dust, there's a problem – the guys aboard don't know we're there, so they're not going to open the doors for us."

"So we need to cut through. That is, you intend for us to blow through the hull of a Triumvirate Combined Forces Space Station with torches – again, completely unnoticed – walk calmly to your fellow, wearing Peril Sensitive Sunglasses all the while, grab a CIDES engine – which, as far as I understand, are the size of a small coffin – get back aboard the flugger, and get the hell out."

"Is that the plan, Mr. Giles?"

He calms down. "I apologize, Seymour. Look… you may not understand this, but we can't afford to risk this one. This could be our Big Break – for me and for you."

"Now, what if we arrive on some innocent excuse – say, marketing the yachts. We leave, having failed to make a sail. As for the device, we sneak it outta an airlock. My… associates will pick it out some time later."

"The issue, as far as I understand, is getting OFF the station, not on, is it not? And once we're off the station – who the hell cares who knows what? Allanea doesn't extradite."

"And even if they did… the Outer Colonies are big. Jesus himself won't catch up to us once we hit hyperdrive."


OOC:

*flugger – Allanean naval slang for a manned smallcraft capable of both athmospheric and space operations.

Yacht Dealership

"The stealth thing's not for getting in, it's for getting out." Seymour looks down his metaphorical nose at his Allanean boss's obviously inferior intellect. "I already said we can get in thanks to my friend, or were you listening? Seems a bit safer than just ditching something out the airlock and waiting for sensors to find it and the fuzz to get it before we do. It has nothin' to do with spying." He sounds... insulted.

"What's the point of havin' money if you can't spend any of it?" Giles grumps. "That and I'd feel better not having something like the Intelligence Section know who I was. There's sort of a cultural bias against people who buck the system, and these people usually end up mugged to death. Sure, we're not spies or anything, but it's still... reappropriation and it's still going to gather the attention of The Man. I'd prefer to get his attention when I'm on top for once, where it'd be a good thing for everyone to know who I am.

"I'll get us in." He folds his arms and strikes a self-confident pose. "You get us out. Oh, lunchtime. I'll be back late today, I've got a date." Again, simply announced, and he's gone.

* - * - *

Standard Shipping Run

FROM REPAIR FACILITY KILO-SEVEN

<snip>
27 PERSONNEL (TO MEDCOM FOR OUTPROCESSING TO CIVILIAN CARE)
1 DOZEN SETS REPAIR TOOLING
<snip>
TO <snip>

* - * - *

Executive Apartments

"I'm going to need some... vacation time, if that's all right."

"Hrr." The kzintosh looks down at his desk blotter calendar. He knows that when Garbo asks for vacation, it really means that it's business related and that he shouldn't ask. "How long?"

"Oh... week, tops?"

"Done. Put your section in order and I will see you in a week."

* - * - *

Hardware Store

WELCOME TO HARRY'S HARDWARE HUT

1 BAG OF X-GAUGE STEEL SPRINGS
1 BAG 10 MM FLAT HEAD BOLTS
1 BAG 10 MM HEX NUTS
1 BAG 10 MM 2-HOLE MOUNTING BRACKETS (L-SHAPED)
1 BAG 10 MM 2-HOLE FLAT NUTPLATES
1 TUBE BOND-ALL ADHESIVE
1 ROLL Y-GAUGE STEEL WIRE

TOTAL COST: WR0.94
PAYMENT METHOD: CASH

THANK YOU FOR SHOPPING AT HCUBED
IT'S HARRY'S
IT'S GOT HARDWARE
IT'S A CUBIC BUILDING
HCUBED

“Very well... I have a couple of contacts in the Navy, actually. Maybe they can... arrange for an active stealth device for me. Just tell me when your friend can arrange for our.. business meeting.” - says the Allanean.

Several hours later, DREAD interns decipher a simple message. One of my clients requires a cloaking yacht. Do you think you can attach a cloaking device to one of the yachts in our inventory? I hear some rich paranoids in the Outer Rim are into this sort of stuff – we should have something in stock.

The response, of course, is affirmative.

And so the yacht is prepared. It is rather small – perhaps several dozen meters in length – about the size of a medium-sized TwenCen bluewater yacht, in fact. The setup is common in Allanea – equipped with a variety of entertainment devices and an automated kitchen, enough to allow a man to spend extended periods of time in the complete isolation of space in relative comfort.

It is not expensive, as far as yachts go, and has actually been bought used from some fellow in Axackal. Then it was painted, had a brand new FTL drive (and a hidden cloaker), and shipped to Stonozka.

Yes, this would cost a pretty penny. But then again, Allanea would soon have madness bombs!

The Idiot

The idiot is a self-applied moniker deriving from the self's understanding from viewing from all sides the inside and the outside all in a straight line seeing clearly in the right direction. The Bauble fearful warning and unmitigated joyful liberator grants the understanding and so I am wise and yet the self is biochemistry the mind is limited by the sense apparatus and the eye does not see the direction just as the ear does not hear light and the true dimension really is a dimension of mind but because the mind cannot perceive the true dimension without the eye the eye makes the idiot. The room is green and his color is green and I can see the world without the black and the white points and the blue spheres and the people with their insides and outsides which are all the same face of the simple polygon but the idiot cannot see them with the eyes and so the idiot must imagine and burble and make green his color. And the idiot is us all. Why is the understanding hard to convey why do idiots refuse to understand these simple truths? The toy, the toy is made by someone who understands someone who is not the white men and his color is white as he remembers in time which is not dimensional who gave him the toy. The toy moves in the right directions and it is like the Bauble but simpler and with it the idiot hopes to train his eye to alleviate his idiocy to truly comprehend the glories of the Bauble but it is not coming and yet there is no frustration for it is a learning experience a teaching tool a method of understanding coming to fruition. The idiot would like to meet the toymaker; she is by all description truly intelligent but does she see in the direction? How would he know? I can see through and inside and outside but he cannot see through the eyes of others and see if they can see through and normal to the orthogonal axes and see everything space has to offer in one simple glance and so he is an idiot and always an idiot but even if the idiot could see like I can see would he be able to see through the eyes of another, not inside and outside but literally perceive with the perception so that one becomes the many-eyed form of the Krishna the truth with many eyes and many mouths the great oversoul Brahman? Probably not. So I and the idiot are not so different, him being made of meat and I being made of soul but it all goes through the grinder the same way and comes out the same stuff. A man comes to visit the idiot and the man has black hair and black eyes that are too large to be eyes and I can see through the fake eyes to the real eyes but the idiot cannot see the color of the real eyes and is thus an idiot and black is his color and he has a mission for the idiot an important mission to bring enlightenment with the Bauble. People who are below idiots fear the Bauble but the man does not and there are others who wish to learn but do not know it yet and they must be taught. The toy? Not enough, they need understanding in short order they need enlightenment terror joy sadness the elevation of the sphere above the plane the overthrow of the polygonal priesthood with a true circular cross section of changing diameter as the sphere moves through the flat and the square who can see but cannot see but lines is an idiot too. Those below the idiots need the sphere the greater understanding the sight through but do not know the sphere and do not know they want the sphere and so it must be given them. I thoroughly agree and to his credit so does the idiot. The man gives the idiot some pieces of steel, and steel is his color. This is not the sphere the Bauble the toy the intermeshing gears of orthogonal built on orthogonal many times over of shapes that cavort and twist and writhe and violate themselves without being broken these are dumb and below the idiots. The man agrees but it is an exercise to the clever to develop the mechanism that can reveal the Bauble and I can see the wink but the idiot cannot and understanding grows. It's so simple. So simple. The idiot can do it. Oh and another thing if it could skip the primary that would be best. But the primary is the entire point. The point is to reveal and enlighten and the primary is not particularly necessary for that or am I mistaken there is no point in making things more complex than they need to be. I agree and the idiot plays with his toy and thinks of the job to be done and how to interact with the Bauble like an idiot and even lower than an idiot and how to ascend others to understanding and beyond understanding to ethereality and he imagines falsely what it must be like and red is his color.

* - * - *

The Bar

All smiles and light conversation, with a little bit of football on the screen in the corner. It's good that he likes football, really; it's better that he doesn't mind sharing a drink and I don't mind sharing my sensorium. Amirova grins internally. Then again, I've got the counter...

* - * - *

The Situation

Giles eventually does come through with the Peril-Sensitive Sunglasses, which are apparently just goggles with a little program inside that causes them to black out things that may go off and do mean things to consciousnesses which are used to thinking in terms of a limited number of spatial dimensions. He got them from a surplus supply outlet that his buddy knew; it's amazing what can slip through the cracks when one thing is classified-beyond-all-belief (say, CIDES) and another thing is just made to be tamper-proof (like PSS). He also, true to his word, has the situation on Valhalla arranged. All he has to do is meet his buddy and give the proper word-and-sign and they'll get the chance to go grab a CIDES that's been staged by the hangar deck in preparation for shipping from wherever they come from to wherever they end up going.

"All we need now are alibis and personas, and to actually do this thing," Seymour says.

Alibis? Personas? What the bloody hell is he ranting about? We're out of there, nobody is going to go after us?

But Smith doesn't argue. His hands are nearly shaking with excitement.

“Okay. Would you mind the identity of an Questarian... let us say, traveling movie director? Call you... Seymour Glass, so you don't have a problem with your first name... and I'll be Holden Caulfield. Questarian passports are easy – I bet I can even make some out with the office printer.”

"If it'll work, sure." Seymour smirks. "They won't know who hit 'em until too late, eh?"

"Very well," said the Allanean. - "Our yacht will be here in a few days - need to talk to the company about some mods. If you need to take care of something beforehand, now is the time."

Branch Office

"So... how's the reception?" The junior officer looks at the technician sitting at the simsense externalization rig, mostly consisting of a bunch of screens and a headset eerily like a kinky sort of medieval torture device.

"Almost complete sensorium access. There's a bit of noise in the nasus feed, probably associated with some sort of teenage neurodrug use that's fried a few of the connections and hasn't been repaired, but I don't think we'll need that too much. I could dive in right now," the technician says with sort of a disgusted tone, "but it wouldn't be very comfortable."

"No need. The automated simsense recorders and censors are all we need for the time being... what's the reading and listening accuracy rate?"

The technician smiles with professional pride. "I can say, backed up by data, that the censors are filtering sense data far better than he is himself."

"That's good. This stuff is bloody expensive, both in terms of pretty polly and political oomph. Make sure it's not wasted."

"If this is your mark, sir, there's no way this'll be a waste."

"Good man."

* - * - *

Transit

The Allanean yacht arrives, picks up its passengers, and leaves. If anyone detects the presence of a stealth system and finds it unusual, no one says anything. According to the laws, such things aren't illegal. Some people really do need them for legitimate jobs (such as, oh, non-militant knights errant who run blockades to deliver medical supplies... which is on the very edge of "legitimate") and it's not even technically illegal to have them active in Saturnspace. The problem is that if they are active in Saturnspace the Very Dangerous Array has open and automatic license to open fire if it's also not transmitting its position with one of a very small number of approved transponder codes over secure lines.

For reasons of "it's just the right way to do it" Giles insists not joining one of the regularly scheduled corvette-escorted convoys. The Solar System is generally a much safer place nowadays, especially for FTL-capable craft, but some people still attempt suicide-by-TYCS by attacking Yut convoys. Only the most desperate pirates, the most fanatical terrorists, or those most dedicated to the concept of a beautiful death really try anymore. Mars isn't even in the way for the flight, so it's not like that continual danger-space offers a problem.

In other words, the flight, however long it takes, is generally uneventful.

* - * - *

Valhalla

Valhalla Station is, in a word, huge, generally dwarfing even the ultramassive warships that some nations seem to prefer. Given that it doesn't particularly need to go anywhere, it actually has a comparatively good reason for its hugeness. Combining both domed city-, agro-, and suburb-modules with hive modules and all sorts of space factories--all with built-up clutter between the clearly delineated modular structure--it probably has a population equivalent to some small countries and an economy equivalent to a somewhat larger country. Small personal vessels, intrasystem ships, Yut-allied warships, and bulk intersystem haulers all zip here and there vying for lanes or docking authority at either Valhalla itself or one of its innumerable associated standoff docking facilities in halo orbits around it.

By the time the daring duo arrives, Seymour has perfected a theatrically bad Questarian accent, or at least he's convinced himself that he's perfected it. Customs is really no different than it was on the Scolopendran orbital platform, and as Valhalla has always traditionally been more of a Karmabaijani jurisdiction, it's definitely a bit more on the corporatocratic-side of libertarianism. Smith may find it a little bit more homey (if exceeding claustrophobic by Allanean standards), even though even the not-quite-anarchic Karmabaijani don't share Allanea's tendency towards network-centric bands of what would be social outcasts in other countries. Everyone is who she is and has the body augmentation to prove it should it come down to it.

Seymour takes a moment to frown in one of Valhalla's many, many, mezzanines. "So, where to from here? I can either arrange to do what we came here for, or I guess we can wander around and pretend to do what we said we came here for. I dunno." He suppresses a shiver because he'll be damned if he looks weak. "Somehow, I get the feeling that the walls have ears."

To be fair, the gist of his idiom--that someone or something is listening--is correct. However, it has nothing to do with the walls.

It takes Agent Five – or, in this case, Holden Caulfield – only a few seconds to decide what to do here. “Look, I'd be frank here. I don't like this place one bit. Maybe it's my general disregard for oppressive authority – eh, I mean, my budding claustrophobia. Claustrophobia, yes. My friend, the point is, I don't like this place and neither do you. Let's go do our job and get out of here – when we're done, we're never going to come back here again. If the company wants to... sell yachts, yes, if they want to sell any yachts here in the future, they're going to have to send someone else.”

“I'm going to retire after we're done. Buy myself a large house in West Haven. Maybe write a book. Do you know how beautiful West Havenic sunrises can be, my friend? I was there once with these two Aralonian beauties, a blonde and a redhead...”

Smith-Caulfield-Five continues in this manner as he follows Seymour Giles – or maybe he's Seymour Glass? - towards the location of Allanea's future madness bomb, his unbelievable wealth, and his heroic destiny.

For once, Seymour 'Glass' actually seems content to do what someone else suggests, probably because he asked for a decision to start with. First things first, is to make the prearranged contact with his buddy of a buddy. Said buddy of a buddy is depressingly normal, almost not even worth describing beyond the fact that he's male, has dark hair, and has a name sort of like "Kirmizi" or something. Seymour leads the meeting, done as a pre-arranged deal outside of a bar, and there are some introductions. "I'm Seymour Glass, I'm here to sell yachts..." He winks towards Kermit when he says 'sell yachts.' Codewords and spycraft certainly aren't his specialty.

"Well, if you like yachts, I've got something to show you--historic, even." Even Kimson's voice is average and boring. Nothing momentous ever came from anyone sounding like that, but still, the next stage is handled by this jumpsuited technician, who leads the two through the usual restricted-access checkpoint manned by the usual brace of armed guards to the parts of hangar decks that most people never see. They're less impressive than one would think. Some boxy machines for pressurizing and depressurizing spaceship-sized airlocks, stacks of boxes, repair workbenches for equipment, all generally neat and orderly and stowed and separated from each other in logically proportioned and individually pressurizable compartments. Kimberley just goes on and on describing this, that, and the other; finally ending at an otherwise nondescript black box--about one by one by one-and-a-half meters in size--with an access door like the trunk of a car taped firmly shut with one artfully-placed strip of elastotape. "And this is the cream of the crop, a" then he rattles off some alphanumerics like governments like to assign to all of their equipment.

It really doesn't look like much. Just a black box with its lid taped shut.

Karen then 'answers' a 'call' on his comm set and quickly excuses himself to do something else, walking out of the door which happens to be right next to a set of portable antigravity handles, the kind of things that affix to the sides of heavy objects with geckowebbing and then make it so any mook can cart them around, so long as they keep inertia in mind. Along the opposite wall is a clearly-marked oversized door labeled 'cargo airlock,' complete with all the appropriate safety warnings and such.

"Easy as pie," Seymour comments with an excited smile as he grabs one of the antigrav handles and fits it to one side of the black box. "Help me out here--get the other side!"

“Are you a goddamn fool?” - the Allanean's voice lowers to a whisper. Actually, the more we work together, the more this becomes superfluous.- “Wear these, for one.” - he tosses Seymour a pair of Peril-Sensitive Sunglasses. “I mean... it could be a bomb. Or a tracking device. Or maybe there's... I don't know, a killer monkey on steroids. insider. Do you think there's any way we could check if it's our antique, before we get it on board? Like, say, open it?”

Frankly, I don't feel like opening it at all. What if it is real? Then the best thing that can happen is that I get a posthumous medal for frying Valhalla Station.

Even as he talks, the Allanean spy puts on his own PSS set and starts attaching the second gravitic handle. “Come, Seymour, I'm sure you've got a knife or something. Or maybe there is something to cut with in those closets?”

And of course, I artfully leave my own knife at the boat... god damn it!

“Though if you got any way to check this thing without opening it, I would be one very thankful boat monger, I'll tell you the truth. Don't want to have my face melted off, you know.”

"Oh, come on," Seymour says as he settles the PSS on his forehead, still grunting as he half-carries half-drags the CIDES towards the airlock door, "both you and I know we wouldn't know what to look for, and if half the things we've read 'bout these things are true, if we did know we'd already be mad or dead. 'Sides, if it is a bomb, don't you think opening it up would be the trigger? I don't remember 'check the goods' being anywhere in the contract. We deliver, we get paid, it's no longer our problem. Caveat emptor." Once totally-not-a-Secret-Agent-Man gets his side of the CIDES hooked up to a portable antigrav, movement becomes a lot easier and Giles slaps the big red button that opens up the airlock inner door (after flipping up its protective cover, of course). Then it's a simple matter of maneuvering the CIDES in and spacing it... but Seymour pauses.

"And no, I don't have a knife on me. Even if I did, though, think about it. Do we want this thing? No. Our employers do, right? Well, if they didn't think everything through, seems like their problem to me. We give 'em this and the goggles..."--he takes off his set of Peril-Sensitive Sunglasses and ties the strap around one of the antigrav handles--"...and they'll have gotten absolutely everything they bargained for. Catch my meaning? It's not ours to do-or-die for some bastard with more money than us. What do we want? Our slice of the pie. Let's just get that slice with a minimum of fuss, 'k?"

“A point indeed.” - says the Allanean - “After all, even if it's real, opening it would be... quite unsafe. We'll have to trust your... friend. Very well, Mr. Glass. Through the airlock she goes.”

And through the airlock she does indeed go. Well, more accurately, into the airlock, gently bouncing against the outer door, then the inner door once that shuts, continuing to thunk-thunk-thunk against the walls like an air-hockey puck.

That is, until Giles throws the 'open outer door' lever and send the contents into space.

Of course, an air-filled airlock opening to space is generally considered a bad thing, so 'airlock malfunction' alarms go off and heavy bolts slam into place on the inner door, just to make sure that it doesn't open. There is no pressure leak, so there are no (much more annoying) decompression hazard alarms; no, the 'airlock malfunction' alarm is more of a spinning yellow light and a low "meep meep meep" sound. Something along the lines of 'hey, someone should pay attention to this, but if you're busy or it was planned, it's not that big a deal.' Deep-fat fry cookers tend to make more obnoxious noises.

It's still an alarm, though, when there are two people engaged in perhaps less than legal activity. Seymour turns bone white. "Um..."

“That's okay, Seymour. Stay calm. Nothing wrong has happened, she's out safely. Let's make our way back to the yacht – it's clear we're not going to get a better deal here.”

And thus the businessman turns and starts walking calmly away.

"Um, yeah, okay." Seymour battles down his fear and compensates by looking mean, glaring at the inevitable technicians who run to check what's up with the airlock. Oh, right, the technicians, with badges and clearance and stuff, which civilian guests lack outside of a little yellow paper thing.

And yet the technicians don't notice. Apparently they have more important things to attend to, like the alarm, especially once Seymour's buddy-of-a-buddy shows up and continues the 'tour' in a beeline for the door. Whoever said that looking like you're supposed to be wherever you are must have been a genius. The intrepid duo suffers absolutely no harassment as they make their escape.

* - * - *

Outside

The CIDES tumbles freely.

As the yacht moved away from the Valhalla fleetyards - not at any great hurry, but rather at the acceleration you'd expect from a space yacht, the Allanean unfolded a small personal computer – in the long-gone Twentieth Century, they were called 'laptops' – and typed something into it. He watched the screen, calmly and in absolute silence, and then – suddenly – SCREAMED.

“YEEEEE-HAW! WEEEE DID IT! Yes, Seymour! WE DID IT! WE'RE RICH!” - he turned to his 'Pendrans companion. - “Very well. My companions in business have confirmed it. The box is floating happily in space, slowly away from the fleetyards. When it's far enough, they're going to pick it up. As for us – well, you're of course familiar with the term “Financial Freedom”. If you're not, it means the sum of money sufficiently big that you could live a decent life without ever working again. As of the moment that box is in the pincers of an Allanean salvage craft, you and I are financially free. If you want, you can get back to Scolopendra and live happily ever after, or take my job. Or you can apply for Freemanship.”

“But first, since you haven't yet learned to pilot this craft, we're going to go to Liberty-City, if you don't mind, so I can get the hell off this boat, quit this job, and spend the rest of eternity writing memoirs and catching bass-fish. And skinning deer. And you can get your check there, too.”

“By the way, did I not mention it to you, Giles? WE ARE MILLIONAIRES NOW! No work! Ever! Ever! Again!”

Well, maybe it's not a good idea to be so giddy as your boat begins its descent through the athmosphere over Liberty-City.

"Hell yeah! All aboard, I'm the conductor of the gravy train!" Seymour starts making chug-chug-chug noises as he shuffles around inside the little cabin. "Y'know, I'm thinking your country suits me better. I'm all for applying for Freedom or whatever it is you're sellin'." He then goes into an air-guitar rendition of 'Money' by Pink Floyd, despite the fact he doesn't know the lyrics and either he's out of tune or he's not that good on the actual music itself. "Duh-dum-da-dun dun dun dah dum dun dah dun!"

Meanwhile, the poor little box, forgotten and alone, drifts idly as gravity and momentum dictate. Perhaps it is a good idea to be giddy, as the universe waits for conclusions to solidify and the outcome to be changed by the perception of it.

Even as automated Traffic Control steers Seymour and “John” down to a secluded airfield slightly outside the city, a small Allanean spacecraft finally notes the lonely box. It is a stealthy Andromeda Electronic Warfare flugger, as predicted by Agent Five. It does nothing, until the box is deemed to be safely out of range from the 'Pendran station. Then, and only then it begins its approach.

It does not, of course, pick up the box. Rather, it fires a small drone, linked to the flugger with a thin, almost unnoticeable thread of monowire, and begins to gently tow it away.

One would think that Valhalla would notice something the size and mass of a CIDES, seeing how if it were going at any sort of speed towards the station it'd be a distinct threat to life and limb, even less the reputed mindbending effects. Maybe the sensor cluster is down for the moment, or maybe the CIDES is covered in some sort of sensor-absorbing material. Either way, the phrase "scot-free" appears to apply.

The yacht perches on the wide N-crete landing pad. It is a small, completely irrelevant military base – Allanea has an astonishing array of small, irrelevant military facilities. Around the pad, sleepy-eyed ground crew gather, together with angry infantry in work uniforms, bayonets fixed to elderly second-echelon rifles. It is raining hard, and the infantrymen swear and huddle under their ponchos as the yacht's hatches open all at once, and Agent Five appears.

He does not seem to mind the water streaming off his three-piece suit as he hops down to the ground. “Seymour! Seymour Giles! Welcome to the US of A! I believe I do owe you an apology!”

He needs to strain his voice to shout over the wind and the rain.

“I'm not any kind of yacht executive! I'm a spy! Registered Agent Five, Department of Research, Evolution, and Developement! We have just pulled off the Department's most successful espionage job, ever! Congratulations! You're going to be rich, and I am going to talk to my people about a honorary Freemanship! You earned it!”

"So, Giles?! Do you wanna be rich and free in Scolopendra, or in Allanea? What's your choice? Do you want a new name? A new identity to go with your money and freedom? Name it!"

* * *

In the meanwhile, a DREAD base upon a forgotten Belt asteroid is being prepared for work upon a new specimen. Scientific drones are dusted off, protective suits are taken out of storage, robolaboratories are reactivated.

This is gonna be fun.

"Bah, changing my name is for the weak!" Giles hollers, not even curious, such are the throes of his glory, why he might be surrounded by people with bayonets. "I am Seymour Giles, and I beat the system!"

* - * - *

The CIDES casing is the fancy-schmancy future equivalent to a lead box, or perhaps a lead-lined concrete box. Whoever made it didn't want any clues of whatever's inside to make it out so it could be scanned... but, of course, that sort of thing is extremely expensive and not at all conducive to mass production as a powerplant. What could be possible is that the contents themselves don't wish to be, or are not being allowed to be, visible.

'Course, there's not been a box yet known to man or woman that some courageous, curious person hasn't opened.

“That you have.” - Agent Five nods as he begins to walk away. - “Hey! Officer!”

An Allanean in a uniform runs up and salutes Agent Five, right there in the rain, and Agent Five laughs. “Hey, Lieutenant! Escort me off the motherfucking premises! I quit the Service! You hear me! I quit! I don't have to do this stuff any more! I'm free! I don't have to be a filthy spook for you!”

The officer looks bemusedly at the spy – perhaps the former spy now – and shrugs. “Eh... sir, the topic of your resignation is not up to me – but before you leave, there are certain issues we must address... what do we do about your... companion here?”

“Oh. That. Seymour darling!” - the Allanean turns - “Can you stay on-base for a short while? Just until they create a bank account for you and transfer the money to you – and then you can buy yourself a home or whatever – you don't exactly have a place to stay right now, do you?”

And if we have to place you under guard, it'll be easier that way.

* * *

Now that the mission is declared successful, there is no need to keep it under wraps – the call goes upstairs to Subdirector Nozick – and his call goes upstairs to Director Techno.

“Sir, I am happy to report that my department has successfully procured a CIDES engine from the Scolopendrans.”

“You... what?” - Techno drops what he's doing. Literally, drops it.

The 1/144 gravship model hits the floor and shatters into a thousand pieces.

“You – stole a CIDES from the Scolopendrans?”

Nozick doesn't notice the change in Techno's tone, or maybe he takes it for a positive sort of amazement.

“Yes, Sir. You see, we...”

The call needs to go further upstairs. Now.

* * *

“Nicolae. You do realize you failed?” - the boy passes his hands through his hair, making it an even worse mess.

“Yes, Sir.” - Nicolae Carpathia nods. - “We failed, and we let some pencil-pushing idiots in DREAD run a blackop in Scolopendra without anybody's approval, and now someone is going to eat the losses, and something tells me it's not going to be Nozick.”

The boy rests his head on his palms for a second, his elbows resting firmly on the desk. “Oh great. Maverick, tell me we can do something about this.”

“Well, nations do spy on each other on the time. It's just Allanea happens to suck at it. I suggest we apologize and punish those responsible, and hope that the 'Pendrans are not too angry.”

“Oh well. Someone, connect me to Speaker. Tell his people it's Alexander Kazansky, and that it's urgent.”

Maverick Monningham shakes his head sadly. He doesn't see this ending well at all.

* * *

In the meanwhile, in a far away autolab, a techspider approaches the box. It is not aware of the events in Allanea, and in fact, it lacks the capacity to be aware of anything at all – it's just a nonsapient drone, a large metallic ball on spidery legs (thus the name) and with a set of cameras for eyes. It has been designed to do battlefield repairs on combat vehicles, so it can take some punishment.

Its seemingly smooth hull parts at two spots on the upper half, deploying a set of waldoes with a deceptively delicate appearance. Slowly, gently, it begins to remove the elasto tape.

Middle of Allanea

"Uh..." Seymour hesitates slightly, not expecting people to make even mild demands of him after attaining his freedom from such useless things such as social nicety and doing favors for other people. Absolute anarchic freedom is a heady brew, and Giles has never been one to quaff in moderation or to hold his liquor well. "Stay on base? Why? Pfff, screw you, you stay on base. Now that I'm rich and free I don't have to listen to anybody. First order of business is to get smashed. Second order is to find women, plural, interested in me and cash in that order. See you, I'm off." At which point he hops off the yacht and tries to press through the crowd--the one armed with bayonets--as if he owned the place.

Thing is, he doesn't own the place, and even in an anarchy (perhaps especially so) the people with sharp objects at the ready have a natural advantage to people who are only readily equipped with tooth and nail, no matter what sort of artillery they may have stowed.

* - * - *

Middle of the Segments

*bring bring*

Still writing with his other hand, Speeks brings a padded finger on the bit of his desk that contains the contact that activates the speaker of its embedded phone. Most people have to go through secretaries but, in the usual 'Pendran loves for efficiency and service, a few ludicrously important people, usually heads of state, powers behind foreign thrones, and chief diplomats can call the Supreme Emperor directly... of course with the understanding that the padishah is a very busy man... cat... tiger... thing and he may not be able to address needs directly unless they are Very Important. "Hello, Supreme Emperor Speaker-Rrit speaking." He sounds much gruffer than he really is, because that's what his larynx and rather large nasal cavity does to English.

Meanwhile, he continues to sign things using the tip of one obsidian claw dipped carefully into ink (using one of the divots on the side of the claw as an ink reservoir was a prized trick of Conservators back when literacy was a matter of national security). The things he are signing are Supreme Imperial Physical Education Achievement Certificates, the kind handed out to kids at secondary schools who do really well in gym class. Speeks signs these things personally, rather than using the old photocopied or stamped signature tricks that other executive leaders do, because he's just that sort of person. Of course, this also makes SIPEACs much rarer than equivalent presidential certificates in other nations.

* - * - *

Middle of the Asteroid Belt

The tape comes off quite easily, really being no more than a simple seal to say "this thing hasn't been tampered with." Indeed, when the tape is removed, it leaves behind a glossy reflective trail that says "TAMPER TAMPER TAMPER" in chromatic letters.

Middle of Allanea

Suddenly, Agent Five looks at Giles with new appreciation. Oh Jesus. He's THAT goddamn stupid?

“No, you are not rich. You're not going to be rich until we create a bank account for you and throw money into it. And you need to let us do that. We need you to sit down and fill out a few basic papers, and then we can give you your money. If you walk out here, it'll be rather... difficult for us to do that for you. Now, let that sergeant show you to your bunk, please. You do want the millions, don't you?”

The phone conversation

The boy's voice is polite – perhaps even a bit shy.

“Padishah, this is President Kazansky. I understand that under most circumstances, you would not expect a call from me. However, there is a problem. It appears that a rogue Allanean agency has carried out an intelligence operation in Scolopendra against the instructions, and without the knowledge, of my Administration. I believe this presents a... problem for my Administration, perhaps even more so than yours.”

Some asteroid science research base

After some delay on the part of the scientists in charge, the robots proceeds to attempt to open the cover of the box while doing as little damage to it as possible. Should simply finding a way to open it or pick a lock fail, the robot is equipped with a variety of tools – from a regular diamond-tipped drill and all the way to plasma cutters. It will progress through them slowly and carefully.

Crowded

The phrase 'you are not rich' seems to strike a chord. Not being rich means no booze nor women. "Oh. Well then. Um. Where's the paperwork? Lead me to my bunk, good man," he goes on in as authoritative a tone as he can muster, grasping at straws to remain as Big Man In Command Of His Destiny.

* - * - *

Clouded

"President Kazanzky, a pleasant surr..."

The Allanean, with something important to say, says it.

"...rrr. Hrr." The ratcat takes the time to quietly order his thoughts. He's not particularly angry; everyone spies on everyone and only admits it when caught. It's the dishonorable nature of the business, which is why he delegates it, having no stomach for it. Still, outright admission without being caught, well, that's unusual. Absurdly honest. From anyone else, he would suspect a ploy.

Then again, the Allaneans are an absurd people. He still suspects a ploy, but somewhat less so than usual, and so carries on. "Your honesty is... refreshing, sir. I hope that no particular damage has been done..."

He presses another contact on his desk; this one streams the call (the first recorded part in a fast-forward burst) to the Intelligence Section Advisor's desk. Very important that he should know.

* - * - *

Cleared

The case is not locked, beyond a few safety latches which are simply supposed to prevent the thing from being jostled open. The robot opens the lid and there is a quiet click as a steel catch passes a critical point, releasing steel springs on steel brackets to flip the lid completely open.

There is a radiant glow for a moment that brightens to a flash, and then nothing but an empty box with what appear to be some glass shards in it.

The robot, in that flash, sees and notes nothing, although its visual data appears quite false.

Anyone with half a brain looking through the robot's eyes, however, would see something of exquisite beauty and complexity. Exquisite, complex, mind-breaking beauty.

Undisclosed Location A

The bunk is not really a bunk – Allaneans are sticklers for privacy, even for troops. It is something like a cubicle, except the pasteboard walls reached all the way up to the ceiling. Of course, if someone really wanted in, they'd get in by simply kicking or punching through the wall, but it makes people feel alone, and that's what's important, right?

“Here, Sir. Please make yourself comfortable, it's just for a few days.”

Of course, a large, scruffy-looking soldier is standing just outside, but don't let get in the way of your comfort.

Undisclosed Location B

“I've not been briefed on the details of the operation, Padishah. I understand that there has been a theft of a a previous-generation spacecraft powerplant, something called a CIDES engine. I'm not sure what they're good for, but I am told DREAD Intelligence wanted them, I don't know why, really. I don't know precisely how they got their hands on it. I hope nobody has been hurt.”

“Padishah, I wish you give you my assurance that I have not authorized, nor will I authorize in the future, any HUMINT operations against Scolopendran territories, citizens, or facilities of any kind. If there's been any damage done to anything of yours, whether it's personnel or property of your military, I will do my best to compensate your nation and its citizen. If your intelligence people would like to know anything for your investigations of this incident, I'll order their counterparts to help to the best of their ability.”

“In short, I'm going to put it in the way a ten-year-old might have. We're very sorry.”

Undisclosed Location C

Professor Matthias Hinckley-Johanson stared at the design for a few seconds. Perhaps it was because he was already insane - perhaps because he had far more than the ordinary two eyes – perhaps because his brain had been cut, sliced, and diced so many times to implant augnments – but it at least seemed he was unchanged – or that the change was more subtle. Perhaps it was brought on by the impact of the basilisk.

“People! Come over! I have an idea! It's much more awesome than Project Melville! See, if we augment our Project with multidimensional kelonium widgets... And actually make it a dozen miles shorter....”

“Shorter, Sir? Wasn't the whole point of making the Project to have a gigantic battleship?”

“Shut up.”

In A Cardboard Cubicle

"Um... can I get started on the paperwork now?" Bloody governments. Even Libertarians have bureaucracy.

* - * - *

In An Art-Deco Corner Office

Speaker nods to no one in particular, keeping his poker face on and voice diplomatically steady. "I have not been informed of any damages so far, sir. I will have to confer shortly with my advisors. Can you hold for a moment?"

Two padded fingertips come down on the 'outgoing line mute' and the 'Garbo go' contacts. "How do the Allaneans of all people get their hands on a--"

"It's well under control, sir," Garbo says while, a few dozen meters away, he twirls a ruler with a pencil through one of its holes, his feet up on the desk, "we detected their interest when they most unsubtly inserted an agent. Security's not been compromised."

"They say they have it in hand."

"Do they, then?" The smirk can be heard in Garbo's voice. "It's a dummy. No worries, sir--their agent is out of the country, his associates are being tracked, and I will admit that as our latest inventory--and the inevitable subsequent inventory you'll order"--not a command, not a statement of fact, he just knows Speeks--"will show we will have all power-producing components, but one physics package will be missing a secondary component that is known to be... unstable when disassociated from the rest of the package."

Speaker sighs. "I do not wish to know, do I?"

"Sometimes I fear what an investigation would turn up on your doings, Garbo."

"I don't, sir."

"Hrr. Speaker out." The ratcat turns off Garbo's connection, ponders for a moment, then unmutes his line. "These things... happen. Apparently no particular harm has been done. I am willing to let, as it is said, sleeping dogs lie. Should this become public, on the other hand, or should a future operation become public, I know the Legislative Unit and the Scolopendran people do not appreciate such an act and it is quite possible that future incidents could have unfortunate political consequences for all of us..."

And so, the story draws to a close. Nozick ends up unemployed, as his agency is shut down by executive order, and DREAD prohibited, again by Alex-fiat, to have any intelligence agencies under its command.

Seymour receives his money and is promptly kicked out of the military base, to return to Scolopendra or to live on in Allanea as he sees fit (though, unbeknownst to him, the Allaneans will inform the 'Pendrans of whichever decision he does make). And Agent Five is fired, too – though he receives his promised reward. He buys the yacht he escaped in when it's sold off as surplus, and writes a book titled How I (Almost) Beat the Scolopendran Intelligence Service.

And a few months later, a package appears in Speaker's office, carrying a copy of this book, and copies of the executive orders that shut down DREAD intelligence forever.– and, of course, the staple of Allanean diplomacy quite as familiar as gravitic seaplanes or blue uniforms – a chocolate chip muffin the size of Speaker's head.

THE END