Humble Beginnings

by Greg Alldredge

  “Eum-Yusin’s, it crudely translates to ‘The Entertainer.’ We were all drawn to it. We hole up in a private backroom where we can meet, dress, rehearse, or just hang out,” Alliji explained as hesh took his hand, leading deeper into the bowels of the joint.

  Captain Hack was mesmerized. They passed a small dark stage, barely one full step above the house floor, but it was still a stage. His mind came alive with what he could do in a space like this.

  “Most of the others are probably asleep. We take turns sleeping, eating, and performing. We take turns at just about everything.” Alliji pushed open another swinging door. This one led, by space station standards, to a spacious room, four meters square. No furniture, just some mats thrown about the edges, some presently occupied.

  “And you live and perform here?” Hack asked.

  “Here, on the streets, in someone’s home. People even go into the mines to entertain the workers between shifts,” Alliji explained.

  “Imagine if we could get together and broadcast to the whole station. It would save us so much time and energy.”

  “I don’t think those in charge would be happy if we started taking people’s minds off work. Most people here keep two things on their minds: earning enough merits to escape this place and sleep. People work so hard they’ve little time for anything else.”

  <=OO=>

  The old man shifted accents again, this one moving slowly, almost deliberately with a slight drawl as he spoke. “You have to remember, this was before many of the conveniences we now take for granted. This was before citizenship. Everyone had to work or scramble for every merit they earned. The translation implants had been around some time, but they were still slightly flaky. They didn’t always translate as well as they do now. Proxy units have been around for a long time. Did you know that they were initially developed by a race called the Skoonlin? There is some discussion about them, but that is a story for another time. The proxy units back then were outrageously expensive, and very few workers got to wear them. Mostly supervisors. When down in the mines, the work was still done by hand and was extremely dangerous. But I digress, I should continue telling my story.”

  <=OO=>

  Captain Hack found at least a temporary home in the bar. Back then it was still called a bar and not a dispersal unit. Hack performed, slept, and became friends with Alliji and the other residents that crashed in the backroom flophouse. All manner of races came and went. Stays ranged from a cycle to twenty cycles or more. There was no rent. The Owner, whoever it was, made money from the people who came to watch the shows and ordered his booze, among other distractions.

  Hack had been there about five days, or twenty cycles, before a Dylier child came to the back room seeking him and Alliji.

  “Who wants us?” Alliji asked.

  “The Owner wishes to speak with the both of you,” the Dylier messenger said.

  “We would love to meet with him. When does he want to see us?” Hack asked.

  “If you prepare yourself, he is now free and willing to meet with you,” the Dylier said.

  “What does he want?” Alliji asked.

  “What does it matter? We will meet with him in one hour. Tell him we are honored at the request,” Hack jumped in before the messenger replied to Alliji’s question.

  The Dylier messenger made a quick motion with his hand, which struck Hack as a salute, did a crisp about-face, and walked out of the back room.

  Once the messenger had gone, Alliji laid into Hack. “What the hell are you doing? You’ve no idea who even owns this place. I don’t know of anyone who’s ever been summoned to meet the Owner.”

  “Then don’t you think it is in our best interest to find out whose largesse we’ve been living off? At least we can be polite and thank them for their generosity. If we are rude, we might be thrown out on our ears,” Hack explained.

  “And if the Owner happens to be a Reaper, we might be absorbed into its body before we have a chance to say thank you.”

  “Now why did you even bring them up?” Hack spun around once and spit to his right before continuing. “Don’t even joke about those that shall not be named. You may think they are simply a story to scare children to sleep, but they are real and not to be messed around with—or joked about.” The typically easygoing Hack lost all sense of humor when it came to the Reapers.

  The Reapers were scavengers. The universe contained a multitude of spacefaring scrounger races, but the Reapers were different, in that they not only scavenged ships, but they also salvaged the dead. Little was understood about the species. The few people who had seen them described walking nightmares. Their bodies the color of dead flesh, faces and limbs melded into a torso that shambled along using the absorbed meat as a body. No one understood how, but it seemed they used any dead creature, incorporated them, and reanimated them. The few people who’d seen them found words unable to described them. The horror, they would never get out their dreams.

  “The next time we’re invited to meet some mysterious person, I would appreciate it if you would at least ask me if I wanted to join you. Right now, I am half tempted to walk out on you and let you face this one on your own.” Alliji turned their back on Hack, undoubtedly angry at his taking control of the situation.

  “I’m sorry, I should’ve consulted you. I’ve always been of the mind that when opportunity knocks, you should open the door.” Hack walked up behind Alliji and placed his hands on their shoulders. He still wasn’t sure if Alliji was currently male or female, but hesh was his friend, and he should have thought about their feelings before he spoke up.

  “Great, thanks for thinking of me. Now we have less than an hour to meet the mysterious Owner of Eum-Yusin’s. It sounds like a bad melodrama.” Alliji gave Hack a quick elbow to the ribs. “I don’t like melodrama.”

  Hack wasn’t quick enough, so he caught the elbow right above his bellybutton. He squawked out a weak “Ouch,” as he was forced to exhale.

  The hour went by rapidly. The pair did their best to dress appropriately before leaving the backroom. Hack had never told a soul, but there was a time he ran with a small group of Thaumaturges, modern day wizards. They used advanced technology to replicate magic many people believed to be miracles. To many races, the Thaumaturges were shunned and feared almost as much as the Reapers or the Yeu Tinh. While associated with the Warlocks, Hack learned more than a few tricks he would use in a pinch. Unfortunately, he didn’t leave the group under the best of circumstances. That was one of the reasons why he continually moved.

  They left the backroom and ran into the messenger waiting right outside the door. At a meter tall, with a bulbous head and enormous eyes, the entire race of Dyliers appeared to be childlike dolls. Ruthless traders, they used their innocent looks to deceive others while winning lucrative contracts for themselves. The messenger waved a quick hand at the bartender as he passed, walking towards a blank wall. Just before running into the wall, it opened with a swish sound, allowing the messenger and two performers to walk into a hidden passage.

  “Did you know that was here?” Hack asked.

  “I’d no idea, and I’ve been here for over four hundred cycles,” Alliji replied.

  They stepped into a small cubicle. Hack was expecting the back wall to slide open once the outer door closed, but it didn’t. Instead, the wall they walked through slid open behind them almost as quickly as it closed. The messenger was the first to turn around, directing the other two to turn about as well.

  They were met with a vision of a great room, low-hung ceilings at two meters for humans became spacious for the Dylier. The messenger pushed between them, leading them towards a back corner that contained a pile of stacked pillows. On top of which lay a rather rotund male Dylier and six nude females. Hack could tell Alliji was uneasy with the display, so he reached for their hand as they stood there waiting for the Owner to speak.

  “I have been watching you two for some time. I have also done extensive research on both of you.” As the mal
e spoke with a childlike voice, the walls of the corner began to project pictures of the couple. “I chose you two for two reasons: one, you both work well together as a team, two, you both are easy to blackmail.”

  Hack and Alliji both flinched at the word blackmail, but neither one of them spoke. Hack knew this was going to get a lot worse before it got better.

  “By your silence, I take it to mean you both understand the information I have over you.” The slides on the walls continued to display both Hack and Alliji, going back through time. Photographs Hack would’ve thought impossible to find. “In this day and age, information is more powerful than force. With the right information, no force is ever needed. I once thought, what I was about to offer, you would jump at the chance to find. I wouldn’t need to blackmail you into searching for it, but then I decided, why take the chance? Better to force you to do what I needed rather than risk you saying no or accepting my offer and then double-crossing me. Now all the cards are on the table before we begin discussion of the job.”

  “You have our attention. Now what do you require?” Alliji asked.

  Hack thought how strange, calm, and collected Alliji had become. What Hack saw on the wall concerning himself was not as devastating as what the Owner must’ve had on Alliji. Hack always had the option of catching a ship to safety.

  “It is simple enough. I have a task you are both uniquely situated to handle. A delivery of mine went missing. The ship carrying my cargo arrived. On that ship was a special courier by the name of Jacob Thursday and a cargo, my cargo. I want two experts to investigate.”

  “I am sure you think you know the both of us, but what could we conceivably know about anything that would rank us as experts on anything?” Hack was honestly surprised he was being hired for this type of job. It was not his forte at all.

  “When you discover the name of the artifact the courier carried, you might change your mind. The item was a mask, a special mask called the Mask of Dionysus.” The Owner said the name like it should mean something to the pair.

  Hack could not help but laugh. “I thought you were serious for a moment. You want us to go after a myth, a fable, a hoax!”

  Alliji looked first at Hack then at the Dylier lying on the cushions. “What is so funny? What’s the joke?”

  “The Mask of Dionysus is a myth the Thaumaturges use to dupe tourists or to coax merits out of rich marks in a confidence game. Dionysus was an old, old Earth Greek god, the god of altered states, including theater, drugs, sex, and wine. The story goes that the mask would give whoever wears it the power to take on any role,” Hack explained.

  “You know your history well, but Dionysus was much older than Greek history. Many think he was an ancient traveler from another dimension. His cult lasted until his death. He was worshiped over millennia, and the mask disappeared with the cult long before humans found their way into space,” the Owner continued.

  “And you think this messenger stole the mask?” Alliji asked.

  “I know he arrived with the mask that has been rumored to be the true mask, but the courier and mask came up missing.”

  “Maybe the go-between took the mask. Why not bring in the peacekeepers to track him down?” Hack did not like where this was leading.

  “The mask was well hidden. It has an unassuming look about it. The courier didn’t know what he was carrying. It was in a locked case, and the ownership of the artifact might be in question. The last thing I want is the authorities involved. However, I am not completely heartless. I will pay you one thousand merits in advance to pay for your expenses to locate the object and another thousand on its return.”

  “So you only want us to find this Thursday and/or bring back your stolen property?” Alliji asked.

  “Precisely!” The Owner clapped his hands together in joy.

  “And if we don’t, you release the information you have on us?” Hack asked.

  “Precisely,” The Owner answered in a menacing tone.

  “Then release it. There is nothing I’ve done I don’t mind everyone knowing.” Hack felt a sudden tug on his hand. He glanced down to see he still held Alliji’s hand.

  “Can we talk for a moment before you make a decision that might affect both of us?” Alliji spoke gently to Hack.

  Hack had one of those feelings. This should be a time in his life when he said hell no. This might get very complicated on a space station with a questionable legal system and the gods only knew how many races involved. But he looked deep into Alliji’s silver eyes, still not sure what sex they concealed. The two had become friends. He never truly had friends, generally customers or patrons. “What could he have on you that you would be willing to risk your freedom, or life, to keep hidden?”

  “I will tell you after we finish this. Will you please help me?” Alliji whispered, unused to asking for help.

  Rolling his eyes, Hack said, “Deckra, we’ll do it.”

  <=OO=>

  Hack was eager to leave the company of the Owner. Odd, they never were told his name, but now it mattered little since he had hitched his wagon to Alliji. Still not sure if they were friends or soon to be lovers, it made his head hurt. He followed behind Alliji as they walked down the narrow halls, seemingly at random to an area identified as the stalls. He didn’t need to check the time on his smart glasses, it was time to eat. A Plebian wrap sounded great about then.

  Alliji stopped at a counter, knowing Hack liked and ordered two protein wraps. After bringing them to the table hesh finally said, “Thanks for backing me up back there.”

  “It’s not like I had much of a choice.”

  “You had all the choice in the world. You could have left me there alone. I won’t forget that.”

  “Do you have any idea how we are going to find this guy, Thursday?”

  Alliji looked at their hands before answering, “I have an idea how we can track some of his travels, you have to promise not to be shocked.”

  “I just promised to help you find a needle in a stack of needles, what could I possibly be shocked about?” Perturbed, Hack took a massive bite of the spicy Plebian wrap.

  “My ex-wife works with the Prodian Intel.”

  Hack was wrong. Between the effect of the spices and the news, he almost choked.

  Alliji hissed at him, “You are drawing attention to us!”

  Desperately trying to clear his throat, Hack croaked out, “What the hell do you expect?”

  “Look I don’t ask too many questions about your past. Don’t be so surprised to learn I have one as well!”

  “So that means you are a male?” Hack had to ask the question.

  “No, we became incompatible. I thought I could maintain for her, but I am just too strong-willed. Before we had been married a year... let’s just say the fights became too intense for the two of us. Two Prod females should never try to share the same house.”

  Hack began to rub his forehead, the news was what he wanted to hear, but it came at the most inopportune time. “So now what?” he asked.

  Before Alliji answered, a dark stranger approached the table. He was dark because his skin had the texture of black granite or old lava. The KaMen race had never been known for their beauty. Jet black scales covered with golden spikes might be all the rage for other KaMen, but most species found them plainly abrasive. He stood over them, waiting for the couple to acknowledge his presence. Alliji and Hack couldn’t take the dark shape leering over them any longer.

  “What?” Alliji abruptly asked.

  “Good day, I would introduce myself in my native tongue, but the translator device has a hard time with our clicks. Please call me Mister Wonderwho. It is my understanding you two are seeking an individual who has gone missing. Without going into greater detail, let’s say I would be willing to take care of any problems you might have if any information you found on this missing person came to me before your other employer.” Mister Wonderwho then slipped a piece of paper onto the table with a number written on it before leaving as mysteriou
sly as he arrived.

  Hack grabbed the piece of paper, palmed it, and glanced over it. “What the hell was that? What the hell is this?” Hack asked Alliji.

  “It seems the Owner’s private spaces are either bugged, or he’s a spy in his midst. Either way, we have no idea what we’ve gotten into. What was on the paper?”

  “Just a bunch of numbers.” Hack flashed his palm so she might grab a glimpse.

  “Those are station coordinates, some space in the five thirties, fourth deck. Not too far from here. It must be where it wants us to report if we find anything,” Alliji explained.

  “We haven’t even started yet, and it has gotten more complicated.”

  “Let me contact someone and see if I get some information.”

  Hack leaned back and crossed his arms. “Is that someone your ex-wife?”

  “I would rather not say. Just sit there silently and eat. This might take a moment.”

  Hack did as he was told, though he did keep a close eye on Alliji as she closed her eyes and slipped into a trance. Her eyes flicked around behind her closed lids as if in REM sleep. Hack continued to nosh on his delicious spicy Plebian wrap while he quietly watched her. Time went on, Hack finished his wraps, and Alliji’s eyes were still closed, a growing frown of concern covering her face. On the verge of shaking her arm, he reached for her when her eyes sprung open, causing him to recoil in surprise.

  “That takes care of that.”

  “I have two questions. What happened? And what’s taken care of?”

  “While I was married, I was required to get a new communication implant. I don’t like using it, it is very disconcerting. I contacted someone with more reach than we have. They are going to search the station recordings to find Thursday leaving the ship, and they will be able to track him to where he is now. I will get a call when Thursday is found.”

  “You don’t have to use smart glasses any longer?”