“Yup, there will be no record of us coming or going.”
“Alright, let’s get to it.”
A short while later, Simon and Lyn stepped off of the teleport station and quickly exited the incoming area, joining the rest of the crowd at street level. They took a minute to look around and get their bearings and then proceeded to a food eatery where they took a booth and got lunch. They had gone over the floor plan of the general area and had picked this spot in advance based on Ellie’s recommendation. She had also provided a list of foods for them to try.
After eating, they checked into a hotel frequented by Jon. Their plan consisted of visiting Jon’s favorite spots while Ellie attempted to hack into the establishment’s computer to see if he’s been around recently. Lyn explained that this is what is known as leg work in the investigation business. Simon didn’t argue, he’s seen Lyn’s legs and whatever she’s been doing, it’s been working.
They spent the afternoon checking out a handful of different places with no results. After dinner they went to a lounge that was in the lower rent part of town.
“Hello, I’m getting something interesting here,” said Ellie.
“Something about Jon?” asked Simon. “Is he here?”
“See those two guys at the table over there?” asked Ellie.
“Yes,” said Simon and Lyn as they casually glanced in that general direction.
“Well, for starters, before they sat down, the one on the left scanned the area for listening devices. Now he has a sound deadener running which is supposed to stop their voices from traveling past a two foot radius. Naturally, having all that gear got me interested.”
“Naturally,” agreed Lyn, nodding.
“I can hear bits and pieces and I’m lip reading to fill in the gaps and it turns out they’re talking about Jon’s sister. You’ll never guess what I learned.”
“What?” said Lyn and Simon, simultaneously.
“Her name is Ellie, too.”
“Okay…” said Simon.
“I get it,” said Lyn. “Look, Simon, one of the first things I learned as a private investigator is that there are no coincidences.”
“Sorry, but the law of probability says that sooner or later there will be a coincidence,” said Simon.
“Okay, sure,” said Lyn, “but when you apply it to an investigation the odds against it being a coincidence becomes almost impossible to calculate. Watch, I’ll prove it. Ellie, who named you?”
“Jon.”
“You see,” said Lyn, “by naming her after his sister Ellie, Jon was leaving us a clue.”
“I don’t think Jon was leaving us a clue,” said Simon. “Jon set Ellie up to take care of Gil and he booby trapped the teleport so I couldn’t follow. If anything, Jon was setting Gil up to recognize the name Ellie.”
“Hmm, you may just be onto something there,” said Lyn. “That could be where he sent Gilbert. All the more reason to try to find his sister Ellie. How do you know they’re talking about Jon’s sister?”
“They were talking about Jon kidnapping the daughter of the Burdast royal family,” said Ellie, “and they were wondering if it had anything to do with the run-in they had with his sister. They’re trying to find a connection, but they can’t come up with one.”
“So they think it’s a coincidence?” asked Simon, a little too eagerly.
“Here’s a coincidence for you,” said Lyn. “It’s a coincidence that your face looks like a monkey’s butt.”
“Now children, play nice,” interrupted Ellie.
“What else are they saying?” asked Lyn.
“Jon’s sister is the captain of a spaceship, a freighter. The guy on the left hired the guy on the right to steal something that she had in her cargo bay. He was planning to go in with guns blazing and grab it, but she had some type of weapon on board that disabled his ship and knocked out him and his crew. She got away and they limped back here for repairs.”
“Tough girl, I like her already,” said Lyn.
“Any idea what they were trying to steal?” asked Simon.
“No and I’m beginning to suspect that Ellie didn’t know what she was carrying either. They’re talking about how the attempt to raid the ship must have made her realize that her cargo had something special in with it. Our space pirate here is going to try to find her and get this, ‘no more Mr. Nice Guy’ he says. Now they’re arguing over money and now they’re done. Quick Lyn, you and I must follow him to his ship.”
“See you back at the room,” Lyn said to Simon as she got up and left. Lyn followed PJ to the docking section of the city.
“All we need to do is identify his ship and the dock number,” Ellie said to Lyn. “Then I can hack into the master computer and set up a tracking signal.”
“You’re very good at that sort of thing,” remarked Lyn.
“The ICC is designed to out think anything imaginable. I have some of the strongest encryption breaking algorithms known to man or machine stored inside me. Most of the security we’ve come up against is designed to keep out the average hacker and I am so far above the average hacker that I’d have to fall off a ten thousand foot cliff just to get them in my sights.”
“Now don’t take this personal,” said Lyn, “but if you’re so good, how were Jon and those mobsters able to get under your skin?”
“I know, that didn’t make me look very good,” said Ellie, “but remember, Jon was stationed at the ICC and he had a certain level of clearance to start with. As with most systems, I’m designed to keep people out and Jon started pretty far in. And by the way, Jon’s a master programmer which is what got him in trouble in the first place. By the time the mob showed up, my systems were already compromised and it was just a matter of time before they could find a way in. Don’t worry, I’m in good enough shape to handle this.”
“I hope so,” said Lyn.
“I just implanted a worm in his ship’s computer. Let’s get back to the room.”
Lyn was surprised to see Simon on the causeway. For some reason, she had expected him to head immediately back to the room after they had split up.
“Are you kidding?” said Simon to Lyn’s query. “I’m on a space station in a different galaxy with an unlimited credit card. No way I’m sitting in the room, waiting for you guys to show up. I was just hanging out with a freighter crew from Orion and then we’re meeting up later tonight at a place called the Funnel Head. You in?”
13.
“Hey, boss, our boy just popped back up on the grid.”
“You got a handle on him?”
“No, he disappeared as quickly as he showed up, but he has a high profile tag-along with him now that will slow him down, probably cause him to get sloppy. It’s just a matter of time till we pick them up.”
“Stay on it.”
If nothing else, mobsters were persistent. Jon was well aware of this fact and knew he needed to stay below their radar. He briefly thought about going to his sister’s ship, but she probably had her hands full with Gilbert and two more additions would likely put her over the edge. So it was with much trepidation and very little fanfare that he and Alicia stepped off the teleport and into Simon and Gilbert’s lab.
“Where are we?” asked Alicia.
“Oh, we’re on a nice little world called Earth,” said Jon.
“Never heard of it.”
“That’s because it’s brand new. I just discovered it a few weeks ago.”
“Anyone else here?”
“Close to seven billion.”
“Too bad, I wanted you all to myself.”
“Don’t worry, there’s enough of me to go around.”
“That’s what I’m afraid of.” Alicia looked at the lab. “Seems small.”
Jon knew where this was heading, “We need to be inconspicuous while we’re here. There’s always the chance that someone else might show up and we don’t want to make it too easy for them to find us, do we?”
“I suppose not.”
“That’s my girl.”
“I suppose it’s too much to assume you had a coach waiting?”
“A tiny bit, but a car is on the way.”
The night was warm and it was a short ride to the hotel. Alicia had resigned herself to the fact that they would be slumming it. “How long do we have to stay here?” she asked.
“I’m not sure yet,” said Jon. “I need to do some poking around just to see what’s up in the real world. You can kill some time by telling me why it was so important for you to get away without anyone knowing where you were going. You can make up more stories and I’ll rate them on a scale of one to ten.”
“Really, you want to start rating things?” she gave Jon that universal ‘believe me, you don’t want to go there’ look.
“Maybe later, then. But at some point we’ll need to put all our cards on the table.”
“Hey, look,” said Alicia as she pointed at some hotel art hanging on the wall. “I found this screen with a picture on it. How do I get it to project into the room?”
This is going to be a long trip, Jon thought to himself.
Agent Tomas materialized on Alicia’s home world and was met by the king’s assistant, Jamal. Agent Tomas had sent word ahead and was expected. He had already downloaded and reviewed all the security videos for the period in question. None of them showed Jon’s arrival or departure.
“What do you think?” he had asked the ICC computer before leaving.
“Nice bit of work, nothing in the video points directly to tampering. If they’ve been doctored, it was done by a professional.”
“Strange that there aren’t any records of Jon’s arrival,” he said to Jamal.
“We’re still looking into that. We suspect he came by ship since there are dozens arriving every day, both tourist and freight.” Tomas thought that was a dead end. Jon had a history here and probably got help from the inside. Tomas kept his opinion to himself, he strongly doubted that they were actually checking on anything. He requested either to speak with the sovereign or be taken to what was left of the teleport room so he could begin his investigation. He was in luck, both were together.
“I should caution you,” said Jamal as they walked along the corridor. “The king is in a foul mood, you see he’s had a dream that foretells ominous tidings.”
“You’re kidding, right?” said Tomas.
“Not at all. The king’s dreams are considered to be warnings of things to come.”
“Exactly what did the king dream?”
“He dreamt that he was sleeping,” began Jamal.
“He dreamed he was asleep? Come on, even I have better dreams than that and I’m considered dull and boring.”
“He dreamt that he was sleeping,” continued Jamal, “in a large expanse with wild animals roaming the plains.”
“Better, still not anything to be that proud of.”
“Four great beasts broke from the herd and circled his bed four times. Then the greatest of the four beasts trampled down the other three and climbed into the bed, pulling on the sheets and exposing the king’s toes.”
“That’s it?”
“Yup.”
“The one that got in the bed, was it all weird? Did it have breasts or a penis?”
“I imagine it was anatomically correct for its species and gender.”
“I’m mean human parts. You know, did it have the top part of a woman or the bottom part of a guy or some combination thereof.”
“No. It was just a regular animal.”
“Come on! That’s nothing to get all excited about.”
“You don’t understand. You see, the king has weird sex dreams all the time. In fact, he’s under contract with a major movie company that uses his dreams as the basis for most of their hyper-porn features. He’s a very creative man, a true artist. That’s why his non-sex dreams are such a big deal.”
“And people are actually trying to interpret this dream?”
“Oh yes, the king has a staff of psychologists and mystics analyzing it at this very moment.”
“Psychologists and mystics?
“The king likes to cover all his bases.”
Tomas and Jamal arrived at the teleport station as the king was giving final instructions to the palace team investigating his daughter’s disappearance.
“I want to know exactly where they went,” he was saying. “And let me be clear, if you do not find the location of my daughter your next job will put you in direct contact with raw sewerage. Do you understand?”
“Yes, Sire.”
“Just to be extra clear, by ‘next job’ I mean hung upside down and dipped into. Believe me, you don’t want that on your résumé.” The king noticed Agent Tomas. He turned and said, “Who the hell are you and why do I care?”
Jamal answered, “This is Agent Tomas and he is investigating this case for the Fed Council.”
“Okay, so you’re a policeman. Big deal, got lots of them here. What are you going to do that they can’t?”
Tomas knew he had to come off tough here or the king would eat him for supper.
“I’ve had the suspect under surveillance prior to this for his involvement in other crimes and that gives me jurisdiction over all local proceedings. This planet is a member of the Federal Council and you must recognize my authority. This is my case and your men now report to me.”
“So you were watching this guy and you allowed him to come here and kidnap my daughter?” asked the king.
“I have reason to believe that this was not a kidnapping,” said Agent Tomas.
“How nice for you,” said the king. “We, on the other hand, do believe this to be a kidnapping. Let me tell you what I think is going on - you screwed up, let this guy get away and now you’re trying to get him back without letting too many folks know exactly how incompetent you really are. Look, you’re here, nothing I can do about that, but you’re not in charge of anything. You can follow my guys around and play the home edition of the game, but that’s it. Everyone understand?” Everyone there nodded except for Tomas and the king left the room
“Quite the character,” said Tomas, wondering what would have happened if he had tried to reason with him.
“That’s part of his job description,” said Jamal.
“I’ll just look around a bit, if you don’t mind.”
“Be my guest. We’ve already taken this room apart. Nothing new to be learned here.”
Tomas looked over the teleport. True, it was damaged beyond repair and there was no way to obtain the destination codes. The teleport signal itself contained a program layer that made it invisible once it joined the rest of the network traffic. The monitors saw it flash for a nanosecond and then it was gone.
Tomas spent a bit of time analyzing the equipment used to modify the teleport. Interesting stuff, he thought. Not like Jon at all. Jon’s a software guy and would have hacked into a teleport already set up to go off world instead of hot wiring this one. Not his style at all.
Agent Tomas had seen enough. For whatever reason, a cover-up was in full swing and Jon was being labeled as a kidnapper. So be it. He might even be able to use that to his advantage later on. He came here right away hoping the trail was hot, but he wasn’t fast enough. He’d been to the ICC, now he needed to go to the other location that involved Jon. He needed to go to Earth.
Tomas returned to the ICC, loaded up with the latest in Earth pop culture as well as the high points of the past 100 years. He had the ICC computer issue him a driver’s license and a few credit cards. As it had done with Jon, the ICC computer hacked into the corresponding Earth computers and added Tomas into all the databases so everything was legit. That is until the first month’s bills go unpaid.
The ICC computer reported that the lab was unoccupied and Agent Tomas teleported to Earth. He spent time searching the lab, but found nothing of interest. He had a nagging feeling that he was missing something obvious. He left through the back door and reentered from the front. He hoped that underpayin
g security guards was a universal truth.
“Hello. I’m here to see the gentlemen in suite 51,” he said.
The guard checked the register. “I’m afraid they’re not in.”
Agent Tomas took a twenty out of his wallet, “Can you tell me how long they’ve been leasing space here?” he asked.
“Just over a month,” said the guard, accepting the money.
“Thanks,” said Tomas. He walked away feeling more at ease. He had just discovered the obvious something that was missing in the lab - clutter. This wasn’t their regular lab. There weren’t any calendars or pictures, nothing that gave it that slobbered in look. And the teleport system itself was pretty standard, nothing out of the ordinary that gave it ‘that Jon was here’ look. Certainly no water damage like the last one he saw.
It was early evening as Agent Tomas checked into his hotel room. Like Jon, he had his multipurpose, smart phone-like device with him and could access practically every computer network on Earth. It didn’t take long for him to pull up Simon’s bank account and discover the rent payments for their original lab and a bit more digging provided him with the address.
The next morning found Agent Tomas at the location of Simon and Gilbert’s original lab. No need to arouse suspicion by going in the front door, it was easy enough to interrupt the video feed for a minute or two while he slipped in the back. Locked doors didn’t pose much of a problem, Tomas’ device sent out electromagnetic fields that made lock tumblers tumble and pulled back dead bolts. Once inside, Tomas knew this was the real deal. All the junk you would expect to make a place looked lived in plus a teleport in the back. It didn’t take him long to discover the loop back circuit from the emitters that would fry the control consol, the unmistakable ‘Jon was here’ signature. He made a mental note to open the doors and windows before trying to access the system, just in case he needed to move a large amount of water in a hurry.
He took out his device, display screens appeared and he began the hacking process. It took him the better part of the day to get through it, but through it he got and without the need to go snorkeling. This was the station Gilbert and Jon both used and more importantly, he discovered that Jon was back on Earth.
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