by Clay Moore
He buttoned up his suit coat. He checked all of his pockets to make sure that he had everything that he wanted. Then he walked out of the hotel. He was well versed in the directions to get to station S. He still had it on his slate in case he needed to look at it. There was one trouble to doing even that.
The ground-level of Snake Eyes was similar to the ground level of any city world. Typically the destitute and undesirables ended up on the ground floor. It Alphacent these people are called groundlings. The person who gave these people that name was a professional historian. For the ordinary person in Alphacent groundlings was a perfect name for those people who lived on the ground floor.
Snake eyes had the same situation. Even though there was much more traffic on the ground floor that was not groundlings, people who did not make enough money or who perpetually gambled away fortunes ended up sleeping on the ground floor. Snake eyes resisted calling these people groundlings, but that resistance was crumbling. Even as John walked into the Starport from his ship, he saw a newscast refer to the indigent population on the ground floor as groundlings.
What this meant is that John did not want to stay in one location for very long while on the ground floor. That would invite someone to try his chance with the expensively dressed man. So, he had to memorize the entire directions to station S.
John did not want to run. In the wild, there were some predators that are turned on when the prey runs. Humans are one of those animals. If John started to run that would only make that pack want to run after him. There had to be a reason that he was trying to run away. So, John walked at a fast clip. The leather soles of his shoes made a clip-clop sound. On the sidewalks and the pavements of the streets that remain he could see water. It still rained on Snake Eyes, or there was an intense dew.
As he passed some of the more populated warrens, he could see the people shying away from him. He understood them. Since John was walking alone in the street, he either was a fighter, or he had access to a soldier. There was no reason to get involved with someone that could either kill you outright or had people who could kill you outright.
He noticed that the space between the sidewalks got wider apart as he got closer to the station house. He was coming up to a neighborhood that was younger than the one he was leaving. Snake eyes megacities were following the same developmental pattern as all of the city worlds. Eridani was preserving more outdoor space, that made all of their cities megacities within a few years. Snake eyes, without a central government, found itself building a planet-wide single town. A centralized management would have immediately designed a transport system that could get people from the other side the world to the left side of the world quickly. Instead, it was left up to a conglomeration of gangs to fund said transport system. No one had a choice but to use this transport system. That meant that that band had an influx of cash which it turned into blasters and bodies. They were able to hire the people to shoot the blasters.
That gain no longer runs the world transport system. It was taken over by a real businessman. Because he was on Snake Eyes, this businessman had to adopt specific business techniques. Anybody who tried to design a new world transport system found their computer, files, and even their life was gone. The only reason this businessman was not considered a gangster is that he was only concerned with his business. He was not looking to branch out. What it looks like to John was that he was collecting money until he had all that he needed. Then he would move to a different location, probably Alphacent.
The buildings in this location were less than three stories tall. The station-house what's a building over five stories tall. Scanning the skies John look for the stationhouse. He still followed the directions that he got from the satellites. It always was right to find a landmark that you could follow. After about three blocks he found the five-story stationhouse.
The exterior of the station S looked just as dilapidated as all the other buildings in the location. There was one difference however on the first and second floors the windows were covered with starship hull metal bars. The door looked like a traditional business door, but the Glass was about an inch thick. The frame of the door sounds like something in a vault.
John didn't worry about running anymore. He jogged to that front door and press the doorbell. He knew that someone was looking at him through an electronic camera. John took a guess at where the camera was and smiled for it. The interior door behind the glass protected door had an open slide window. Someone slid open the window and looked out.
"Unless you have an appointment you are not wanted here.”
"Hot apple pie."
"Hello, what you say?"
"I said, 'hot.'"
"Hey Franky, there's a bloke out here who are saying hot Apple pie."
Franky pushed the door guard aside. He looked through the box at John. It took him a few moments to match the picture that he received with the man that he was looking at. "Mom makes…”
"Hot apple pie."
"Okay step on it."
The door into the station opened. There was no one visible through the open door, but John knew that there were at least two others that would be ready for strife if John wanted it. John stepped through the door, looked left and looked right. The two other people were on either side of the door. The stationmaster stood away by the other side of the wall.
“What goes on here?"
"There's been some odd goings on in front of that door." Said the stationmaster.
“Do you know who is doing this?”
"No, it's like the gangs in this area change affiliations at the drop of a hat."
"I'm here now. I guarantee you that I will be what people pay attention to. That will give you a necessary break to do whatever it is that you need to do."
"I need to move some new people and some of the old people out. I tried taking a couple people out a few days ago, but the gangs were there waiting for us. Both of the agents were women, and they were dead."
John took better than a few more minutes take a look at the ragtag group that greeted him. Most stations only had three or four people in them. This will look like you had about five or six. The extra manpower would be useful had they had permission to use all of the weapons they had on board. John had looked at their loadout at the service headquarters on Eridani. They had submachine blasters, some straight blaster rifles, and hand grenades. They didn't have any of the explosives that John was used to using, but hand grenades could be used to put the fear of God into those people. John wondered just what it was that the gangs were doing to them other than threatening. It was one thing to threaten and another to actually do.
"Something of a plan of action comes to my head," said John. "Here's what I have a plan to do."
Anton Hecton swore at the doctor who told him that he had to wear these godforsaken glasses. None of the new techniques could correct his eyesight enough to allow him to have a clear vision. It did have its advantages, however. Whenever one of his minions came up to him to make a report, as soon as Anton looked up at him there was instant respect in those eyes. He was working feverishly on a skiing that would allow him to transfer cash through 100 different computers on 100 different planets until it could get to him without the intelligence services knowing about it.
He knew he was a hunted man. A man who insists on running illegal businesses always seems to attract his share of people who wanted him dead, especially if they happen to be from Eridani. He hated those people about as much as Alphacent hated Eridani. Well, as it is said, living well is the best revenge.
According to the reports that he was reading and signing off on his slate, he had over 50 billion credits in pure cash. If you counted all of the capital equipment that number went over 100 million credits.
In the last three years, he had to move five times. Most of those reasons were that damned Eridani. Lately, however, something new seemed to come out of Eridani. They were no longer chasing him with just a team. They were chasing him down with one man assa
ssins. These men were highly trained, and a couple of them nearly got to him. One came close that he could feel the blaster bolt going by his nose. If the plaster both had been moving slower, it could have burnt him. If he knew the Eridani as well as he did, their next move was to send the best. Anton had no illusions about his survival at the hands of the best.
These so-called "agents" were the best. In his organization, there was a rumor that one of the most powerful of these agents with someone that he knew. He was told that this man was called John Hardesty, and his wife died at the hands of a sniper that Hecton also knew. The Navy could place, but the face he just could not remember. When he had been told of this fact, he tried very hard to dredge up the image from his memory. The face never came to light.
Anton threw down the stylus on his desk made from a single quartz crystal. It always seemed to him that every time he was working with his money the subject of John Hardesty came to mind. All he needed now was to have more trouble heaped on him.
Falstaff, his personal secretary, burst into his room. Reflexively Anton put his hand on the blaster under the desktop. Falstaff saw the motion and stopped in his tracks. He knew that the boss was under pressure and that it had to do with those damned Eridani. Well, this news was going to make his boss even angrier.
"Falstaff you know you are supposed to call me and get permission to enter. I almost blasted you, and I am not through with you yet.”
Falstaff made no move to his shoulder holster. To do that would be to court death. "I have some bad news, sir”
"What is it now?" Anton rested his head on his right hand covering his forehead.
"I know why we don't have those five luxury grav-cars.”
“If you know, then spill it."
“They are here, but they are in hock to pay off the freighter pilot that brought them."
"Did you not tell that gang, as they style themselves, not to do that."
"They thought that they would be saving you money. Because our funds are in escrow, or so they thought."
"The Eridani do not do business with escrow accounts. I sent the money via Hypercom, as they always demand. Why did they not do as they were told?"
“I was led to believe that this gang was reliable. I did tell the gang to sign for the cars and load them on their grav-trucks. Had they done that we would've had them now."
Anton considered the possibility that this gang wanted to do more business with him. So, they showed him their initiative. That was the worst thing they could have done. For years the Starport was in violent. No one would endanger the shipping. Snake eyes produced very little food. They depended upon food from other planets, as well as food base from faraway worlds. If it got out that the gangs were preying on the freighters and the freighter pilots, there might be a un-spoken embargo on snake eyes.
If the world found out that the man in charge of the Snake paid these idiots to retrieve those grav-cars, he might likely be lynched and not killed by Eridani's agent.
"What happened at the Starport?"
"I'm getting conflicting reports on that. It appears that the five-man team was destroyed in its entirety."
"Did they have anything incriminating on them?"
“They had nothing, sir. If this was the agent, He did not pursue these idiots as you call him, sir."
Anton released his back muscles, and with a whoosh of air from his lungs, he fell back into the executive chair. It looked like he dodged a bullet. Whoever was following him, would've pursued the leaders of the gang participation in the theft.
Anton's mind moved to a darker place. This was such a minor thing. Why did this agent, if that is what he is, destroy the gang? If the freighter pilot was not the agent, then the defense of his cargo was understandable. If the freighter pilot was indeed the Eridani agent, then there had to be a secondary purpose. What with the agent gain by announcing his presence to all of the worlds by killing five gang members with just his one blaster pistol.
"Did anyone get a good look at the weapon he used."
"No one really got a perfect look. Only some of the average groundlings heard large explosions. That might be indicative of a large bore blaster pistol."
"Then there it is. Did anyone see if this pilot left his ship?"
"Yes, they remarked seeing someone wearing a very fancy gray suit."
"Gray suit?" Anton took from his top right desk drawer a special slicked. This was his Slate. He had some extra unique things put into it. The one thing that he liked the best was encryption in place. He t tipped the slate up to prevent Falstaff from reading it, or seeing his passcode. He entered a fake passcode and touched his ring on his right hand to the slate. The ring containing the passcode and transmitted it to the slate. The slate now unencrypted the files within the electronic vault.
He queried a database on the term gray suit. Anton knew that his mind did not have the eidetic memory. If he did not write things down and then later enter them into a database, he would lose precious information. He had an underworld programmer create this database for him. When Hecton was sure, Hecton shot the computer programmer. Then began a lifelong entering of data. He didn't know this information would be useful later, but he always believed in backing up his chances. He did not expect to see the amount of data that had to do with gray suits.
The data flowed through the screen. Anton saw all sorts of tailors listed in his database. Some he remembered, and some he did not. Then where the eating establishments and nightclubs named the gray suit. These were not franchises just people who had the same idea of a name for a club or restaurant. Then he noticed a sequence of news articles from the grid. Each of these news articles mentioned a man in a gray suit had shot someone, some underworld big shot. There was article after article about these men in gray suits. They appeared in every world of human space but seemed heavily on Eridani. Some of the items had pictures, but none of them contained a face. Just men and women in gray suits.
Could there be a new criminal organization coming online? That was one theory. It could also be a paramilitary organization designed to destroy the undesirables in the galaxy. That did not seem right. This paramilitary group had to pan planetary. Just about every world would have to sign on to some sort of agreement to allow these agents to work. It could be a single organization of a Giga world that specialized in covert operations and data gathering. Anton had run into these kinds of agencies before. The agents were always sent into the wild unprepared. There would be more information about these men in gray suits if that were the situation. No, these agents were highly trained and highly skilled. When he thought that his mind came to Vivana.
She had been a thorn in his side for several years. It was too bad that he had to order her death. At least he had a willing sniper who actually gave Hecton a break on the price. That was that sniper's downfall. He was too eager to take on the job. He didn't plan well, and the sniper completely forgot about her husband. Was this that circumstance being replayed and aimed at him.
Anton turned off his slate which re-encrypted all the information. Anton put this dark slate into his top right desk drawer. He put his right hand on his forehead and massaged it. Oh, how Anton missed the days of Planetary Interests. Then he had the veneer of respectability. The high and mighty would call him up to ask him for a favor. Sometimes he didn't even charge them because the effect was what he wanted for the Corporation. The Corporation may have been run by that bitch on paper, but it was he who actually ran the Corporation. The proudest moment of his life was when his Corporation made a profit of over 1 billion credits. At the death of Vivana, it all started to crumble around him. Now, he wanted revenge above all. Andy had a plan.