Day 1

Max Hayes

It had been a long day at the Canary and not much had been done. I walked through the corridors of the ship in search of Katina. She’d been busy with preparations in the operations room all day, but when I got there she was gone. I was told she was heading to the bridge. The operation we had been preparing for was still for the most part unknown to me, but however annoying, this wasn’t the reason I wanted to talk to her.
My reasons were much more personal.
As I arrived on the bridge of our ship, which in the last six months had become my home, I finally found Katina. She was however caught up in what appeared to be a heated discussion with Wilhelm, which was not uncommon. I could make out bits and pieces: He appeared to be making excuses for something while at the same time attempting to explain things weren’t that simple. “I don’t have it yet nor do I know where it is, but when I get word from Elize I will let you know immediately,” I heard Wilhelm say. “You call her right now and ask her what the current status is, then report back to me!” Katina bit back. “I just talked to her. This is the current status.”
Witnessing their get together, I turned around and proceeded to retreat from the bridge.
“Max!” Katina yelled.
I slowly turned around and returned to the location I had been standing before.
“Commander.”
“Max. What brings you to the bridge? Is there anything we can do for you? Have you lost something, maybe?”
“No.”
“No?”
“I was looking for you, but I can come back later.”
“Max, I want you to grab a shuttle, take your stupid robot with you, go to Duna 5 and assist Elize in her dealings with Jar-tel.”
“Very well. Anything else?”
“Jar-tel is a trader of sorts. He has promised to deliver us some equipment we urgently need and I need to know where we are right now and if this process, in any way, can be sped up. Elize is sweet girl, all praise to her, but Jar-tel can be difficult. Since you are more persuasive then her, and I don’t want any violence Max, but you can be a little bit more…assertive.”
“I got it.”
“Jar-tel is a good contact of ours.”
“I got it, Katina.”
“Good. You wanted to see me for something?”
“It can wait. I’ll be on my way.”


Duna 5 was the fifth planet in the Duna system. Of the gas planets multiple moons one had been colonized. It currently stood in the shadow of the gas planet and from space only the lights of the colony surface structures were visible. The company had a dock at its disposal. I had been given entry codes and was told it had room left for another small company shuttle.
Elize was waiting for me outside the docking centre. She walked up to me and reached out her hand.
“Hello, I’m Elize.”
“Max. We briefly met about two months ago on the Beagle.”

“Ah yes, I remember. How was your trip?”
“It was fine.”
“Okay great!” she said beaming.
She was so warm and welcoming. I understood why Katina might want me here. “And you are?” she said looking around my shoulder at R, “Don’t believe I’ve met you before.”
“It’s a robot,” I said plain.
“Oh. Cool.”
“Yeah. So what’s the situation?”
“I’ll explain in the car. It’s parked two blocks away. If you wait here, I’ll go get it.”
“We can walk along with you.”
“It’s easier. You can wait here with your luggage and just throw it in the back.”
“It’s not a problem. It’s just one bag Elize.”
“Okay,” Elize said amused but a bit taken aback. “Right this way then.”
Civilians. They never stopped to amaze me. Imagine walking two hundred meters with a twenty kilo backpack.
“First time to Duna 5?”
“Yes, but I have been on places like it though.” I said as I gazed around me.
About ten meters above my head there was a light blue ceiling. It was featureless and shiny and reflected the white light emanated by intermittent placed light sources. As such it resembled a bright clear blue sky. The buildings on this location spanned several storeys up to the ceiling and might well further progress into it, just like the docking centre. On the ground the square buildings were surrounded by light grey walkways, which itself were elevated a few centimeters above the roads which surrounded blocks of buildings. These blocks were often of a similar size, hence the custom, in this place and population centres with similar outlay, to express distances in blocks like Elize had done.
We crossed the road which ran in front of the docking centre. The metallic handrails separating the walkways from the roads, which were primarily designated for vehicles, were at places left out, allowing people walking over the walkways to cross the roads to the walkway on the other side. Beneath me I could see the black road had been given a fine texture which ended up giving the plastic material a rougher, more tarmac like look.
“Are these buildings part of the original rock?”
“No. I don’t think so.”
I could tell Elize was somehow uncomfortable so I decided to start a conversation.
“So where are we going, Elize?”
“My hotel. Booked you a room as well as soon as I knew you were coming.”
“How long have you been here?”
“Duna 5? Three weeks this time. We use Duna more often. Usually I can arrange everything from the office. You will just love the hotel. I booked you a normal suite, but it’s excellent: roomservice, there is a pool, massage parlor, sauna.”
We turned a corner. The walkway was much wider here and intermittently it had a recess of road cut out in it in which cars were parked.
“Sounds great,” I said with all the enthousiasm I could muster, “Don’t know how long I’ll be staying though. Katina wants this rapped up as fast as possible.”

“Tell me about it.” Elize threw me what might amount to a troubled look on a different person.
As we approached a red car the doors on either side opened upwards. Elize casually walked around to the other side and stepped into the vehicle.


The car pulled up into traffic and traversed several blocks before ending up on a much broader road which led to the center of city. Elize quickly gained speed. This broader road ran almost level, so as the surrounding area slowly declined, we actually rose up above the city. With the distance between the city ceiling and the ground quickly increasing as we moved away from the edge of the crater, an ever increasing proportion the surrounding buildings stopped short of the ceiling and not soon after we rose above most of the buildings itself. At regular intervals we started to pass enormous cables running from either side of the road up towards the ceiling.
“How do we get down from here?”
Elize laughed. “We don’t. This road runs straight across Gemini towards the tunnel to Libra.”
“Okay. How long is this thing?”
“Another twelve kilometer to the tunnel. Tunnel to Libra is about eighty. It’s going to take about twenty five minutes and then another half hour to the hotel, so plenty of time to get you up to date.”

“So normally we’re moving supplies through Duna. A Therra, or Tallarian company sells the goods to Duna 5…”
“To who?” I interrupted, “To Duna 5 itself?”
“Well yes. It’s formally being sold to the Duna 5 government if you’ll believe it. If nessecary, complete with an export permission. It’s all legal supplied all the documentation is in order, which is my job.”
“If never heard of a Duna 5 government.”
“Few people have. It’s sort of a holding company owned by the big insurance and security companies on Duna. See, Therra isn’t willing to allow the sale of high grade military equipment to some Duna based company, because you know, who knows where it ends up, right? So a construction was made in which a single Duna company would buy these goods.”
“The Duna government.”
“Exactly. And this company would then move these goods into the care of the company which required it, while formally keeping possession itself.”
“How would that change things? I mean how would this prevent somebody selling the stuff anyway?”
“Well an agreement was made in which any assets sold to this company would be used solely for the defence of Duna. The continuation of the agreement depends on the overall adherence to the agreement. So even though the Duna 5 company can do little to prevent another Duna company from selling equipment, which such a company would own in all but name, to a third party, there is an incentive for the Duna security and insurance companies actually concerned with Duna defence to insure the continuation of this contract. And since they own the Duna 5 company, they can prevent anyone who might jeopardize the agreement from making use of the construction.”

“Right. And how do we fit in?”
“Well as I was saying, a Therra company sells the equipment to Duna 5. After it’s transferred to Duna it basically disappears from the radar of any outside agency. So this construction allows for example Therra to supply organizations such as ours with high grade military equipment while still giving them complete deniability.”
“So they know it ends up with us.”
“Sure they do. We ask them.”
“Oh. And you arrange this?”
“The legal part. It’s only paperwork, nothing exiting. So you’re like a mercenary?” Elize asked suddenly.
“Yes, I am.”
“Well that’s certainly interesting, isn’t it. I mean…”
“It’s a job.”
“’It’s a job’ that sounds so tough! But it’s exciting in some way, right? I mean doing what you want, standing above the law, unless you have to do something really bad, I guess. But I don’t think we do.”
I always felt uncomfortable talking about the subject. First and foremost most people had no actual understanding of what it really meant and instead tried to fill it with these one-dimensional ideas about what you did and what kind of person you was.
“It’s different than what most people think. About what you said about moving goods through Duna. You made it seem it was different this time.”
“Yes partly,” Elize said, she seemed taken aback by my sudden change of topic. “Now we’re going through this Jar-tel. Katina knows him, he’s very charming. We use him if it involves goods which need a little more cover.”
This got my interest. “Like?”
“Apparently we’re importing some high tech weapons guidance system.”
“So what’s the problem?”
“That’s it: we don’t know. There’s something clearly wrong. Jar-tel isn’t talking, he claims that he doesn’t have it yet.”
“Right.” I thought about this. Katina had left me pretty much in the dark. “Let’s pay this Jar-tel a visit.” I said as we drove into the tunnel.


Several hours later I stood on the eighteenth floor of one of the taller buildings near the center of the Libra crater. Jar-tel’s so called office looked more like a giant lounge. A number of men and women in tuxedos sat and stood throughout it.
“I never fail to deliver!”
“What about delivering on time?” I asked critical.
“What’s your deal here missy? Do you think I’m intimidated by you?!”
“We’re not the kind of people you want to upset.”
“Like what?” Jar-tel exclaimed surprised and frustrated, “Do you think I’m trying to deceive you? Why would I do that?”
“No I don’t. I actually made no such accusation at all.”
There was a small uncomfortable pause.
“So Jar-tel, are you?”
“No.”
“You’re lying,” I said with a broad smile.
“This is ridicules.” Jar-tel said as he turned away and started to walk towards the window.

“I don’t think it is,” I said threatening as I stayed close.
“So,” Jar-tel started, after looking out of the window for a few seconds, “what are you going to do Max? That’s your name, isn’t it? Are you going to shoot up this place, put a bullet through my head?”
“I don’t see why not.” I said confident. There were over a dozen armed guards standing around and I had left R in the lobby of Jar-tel’s office. “You’re not really helpful.”
Elize looked worried.
“Helpful?”
“I want to know where it is.”

There was a heavy thump on the window in front of Jartel. A circle of glass directly in front of his head had turned from transparent to white.
“Bulletproof glass?” I asked.
“Yes.”
“Nice.” I was peering outside for a sign of the shooter, but my view was similarly obstructed when another thump hit the window right in front of my face.
Behind me, while Jar-tel’s guards where in the process of bringing up their weapons, the door was being kicked out of its hinges. Jar-tel and I both looked around. R swung inside the room, pistol raised.
“R hold your fire!” I yelled at the same time as Jar-tel screamed a quick “Weapons down,” to his men.
“R, we’ve got incoming sniper fire.” I said as I strafed sideways along the window to clear my view. “Locate shooter.”

“Boss, are you alright?” One of the guards asked.
“I’m alright.”

I meticulously scanned all the buildings opposite to this one.
“No visuals,” R, who had moved up to the window, reported.
“Our security cameras might have picked something up,” Jar-tel said to me. “Jeremy, see what you can make out of the security footage.”
“On it, sir.”
The guard rushed outside.

“I don’t have the system.” Jar-tel said as the commotion in the room subsided.
“Do you know where it is?”
“I do not, but I’m working on it!” Jar-tel said angry.
“Tell me what you know.”
“Why should I do so?”
“Maybe we can help.”
“Thanks for they offer, but at this point I really have no use for an impatient gunman loose on Duna because as you may or may not understand, this is a delicate situation.”
“Delicate,” I repeated, looking at the bullets ingrained in the glass. “Katina is pretty pissed. I want information.”
“Unless, Max, you indeed plan to shoot up this place, which I don’t think you will, I see no reason why I would do as you say, and I won’t. If I have information about your delivery I think you need to know about, I will be sure to contact you as soon as possible. But at this point I’m going to have to ask you to leave.” He looked extremely serious.
“Very well.”
I turned around. “Elize let’s go.”
Together we walked out through the now empty doorpost, the door itself lying some distance from it. Some new guards had appeared in the lobby in front of Jar-tel’s office. As we passed and walked into the hallway towards the elevators, Jeremy came pacing towards us from the other side.

“Jeremy,” I said as friendly and familiar as I could, “did you find anything?”
He was holding what looked like a small data pad in his hands.
“We got something,” he said while holding up the data pad in the air as he approached us.
“What did you find?” I asked. I softly reached out and put my left hand on his right arm as he was about to pace by us, gently forcing him to stop.
“We’ve got a picture of the shooter,” he quickly slipped, he seemed anxious to get going.
“Can you show me?” I asked him sweetly.
“I have to report to Jar-tel,” He said excusing but determined.
“I understand,” I said as he started to push past me. After grabbing his upper arm more firmly I grabbed his lower arm with my right hand and pulled him down and to the right, breaking his balance and allowing me to knee him in his abdomen. I hit him under the jaw with an elbow strike and he fell to the floor. After grabbing the data pad from his hands, I continued on towards the elevators. “Let’s go Elize.”
The elevator took a long time to arrive.

Moving a shaken Elize along with me and R following behind, we left the building through the main lobby. “What about my car?” Elize asked.
I had decided to leave the car behind in the car storage area of this building, both to safe time in getting away and because in my mind I foresaw the possibility of it, for example, being planted with a car bomb, since the shooter had not gone solely for Jar-tel. It may have seemed paranoid, but sometimes this is what kept you safe.
“We’re leaving the car. Do you have any personal items in it?”
“Everything is in it, my laptop, documents.”
“Give R the keys.” As Elize was grabbling in her purse for the car’s key, I looked back over my shoulder. “R, go get the car. Be decent. Call me when you’ve left the building.”
There was a brief pause before R responded. “Understood.” R then took the key card from Elize’s hand and rushed back through the lobby while Elize and I moved outside.




10:45 (presentation)

The unit was located on the ground floor of a structure. It had been implicitly ordered to follow Max. ‘Max’ referring to the only registered authorised personnel member to the unit at the time. “Give R the keys,” Max had spoken. In this sentence the word “R,” which was the chosen designator for the unit by Max, was the object, which made it unlikely this sentence on itself constituted a verbal command to the unit. Before this sentence was spoken, the unit had established Max could possibly be in a conversation with another person, earlier designated by both Max and the person itself as “Elize”, who was currently in their presence. The unit determined this verbal communication might be part of this possible conversation. In addition it made it more likely there was indeed a conversation. After having spoken this sentence Max had slanted her head further back, indicating to the unit what would follow might be directed at someone behind Max, potentially the unit itself. “R, go get the car. Be decent. Call me when you’ve left the building.” Max spoke. After the first processing steps of this particular audio input it became clear this sentence could likely constitute or contain a command to the unit. I at this point don’t feel the need to explain in detail the analysis. It is probably obvious to you and I feel it’s already clear from earlier scenarios we discussed today how extremely complex even the most basic analysis is. And as I mentioned earlier even in those detailed examination of the units’ decision making are condensed to make sure you stay awake during this talk and we can have lunch at twelve. In this particular scenario, which is more complex, we want to first focus on the more complex decision making our units are capable off. To complicate things, after Max gave this order and the unit finished up its initial processing, the other person ‘Elize’ moves her hand towards the unit holding a car key which this person has just taken from her purse. Now…

Laughter from the audience.
From the sentence “R go get the car” the unit established it possibly has to get ‘the car’. There are many cars visible on the street outside of the structure, but Max had made no reference to any of these vehicles by pointing during the command itself or in earlier verbal communication. The unit knows ‘the car’ can also refer to the current vehicle used by personnel, which is a programmed concept. It knows what it deems the current vehicle used by personnel is located nearby in the structure and is indeed a car. Since no other objects possibly referred to by ‘the car’ are known to the unit, it assumes this particular car is the most likely object to which Max refers to in the verbal command. Saving the ‘getting’ of a car for later let’s move on to the car keys. Elize is holding out a car key towards the unit. The unit recognizes the object in two ways. First is independently identifies its dimension and print match those of a remote car key of a certain brand. Secondly the unit matches the print and scratches on the card to a card it had seen earlier. The unit had seen this card was used to activate a particular car. The unit had stored this information since you never know when it might come in hand. Furthermore the unit knows the card has at times been held on Elize’s person, but we’ll come back to this later. If you remember earlier Max had uttered, possibly to Elize, “Give R the keys.” Although it had not been a command to R, it was processed but with a lower priority. The sentence stood out because it referred to the unit, but at the time it was spoken the unit did not know what or if it meant something relevant to its operation. It did however store the results of its analysis besides the raw audio input.
The way in which Elize held out the card made it a possibility Elize wanted to give, or allow the unit to take the card. In the earlier stored analysis it was deemed a possibility Max had communicated to others, possibly Elize, about an act of giving to the unit an object referred to as “the keys”. Because we’re racing through it in this scenario I feel I have to make it clear the unit does not understand in any way why Elize is giving it the key nor could it in hindsight explain what sentence “Give R the keys,” meant. It merely sees authorized personnel mentioning a keys being given to the unit soon followed by an event were a key is being held out to him. To make a long story short the unit concludes it’s likely Max wanted it to take this key. So the unit has established how to deal with this situation and it will take this key from this person.
So why does the unit have to take the keys?
Several remarks from the crowd, suggesting the card is needed to get the car.
No. The unit is simply following a rather indirect implicit command from authorized personnel. It has however indeed been given another command to get a car a few moments ago which it has processed.

Let’s move back to this. We’ve established which car and we’ll assume ‘getting’ in this context is understood by the unit as something along the lines of retrieving the vehicle and bringing it to the personnel, and not for example ‘getting it’ with a rocket launcher, an important distinction. What distinguishes our units from others, or better said, one of the many things which distinguish our models, is the ability to plan these types of actions in advance. In this case the action would involve navigating to the vehicle, and then operating the vehicle in such a way the vehicle is moved to a location near the authorized personnel giving the command. The operation of the vehicle would involve the unit accessing the vehicle. The unit has extensive pre-programmed knowledge of vehicle operation, which Lucie has showed us more spectacular this morning. It knows this particular vehicle can be accessed in several ways. One way involves breaking the window and the subsequent hotwiring of the car, more about that later. Another way would be using a remote key to open the vehicle. The latter of course has some innate preferences over the former. It happens the unit has stored some information on a key which it has seen being used to access this vehicle. The unit thinks it is plausible this key is currently on Elize’s person and it plans to compel this civilian, verbally, to give the key to it.
By having decided on a basic plan of action for its execution, it determines it’s likely to have correctly interpreted the command. While the unit is in the process of exclaiming the word “Understood,” to Max to indicate this, a certain individual called Elize reaches out a remote key to him. Like I explained earlier, it subsequently determined it has to respond and takes the key from this individual. After doing so it updated the stored information on this key. Realizing the information relating to the car’s key had been updated the unit then changed its original planned action where necessary and initiated its execution.
I say we take a five minute break. Then lieutenant Gerraughty will take over. He will continue with the current scenario but focus on the actual operational performance of these units.

11: 00 Marcel Gerraughty (presentation)

Good morning ladies and gentlemen. I’m Marcel Gerraughty, former lieutenant in the army. I served in a special forces capacity for eight years. After I was injured I’ve been involved in the development of a curriculum for individual tactics for the army. Left the army, after serving for twenty one years and been working here ever since. We’ll continue with the previous scenario.
The bot is on the first floor, the car in the parking garage. Based on what it knows about buildings, the outside look of this building, its visual observations inside the building, internal gyroscopes, floor plans in the building, which it can read, it has a pretty good idea where to go. It’s peacetime, it’s been told it moved into a friendly and civilian area, this is not an area of combat, so why not take the elevator? It moves to the elevator, as you can see here. Enters it. It knows how an elevators operates, how it can move to different floors in buildings. It’s currently in a very polite mode so it doesn’t mind individuals joining him in the elevator. Here it becomes clear the individuals, unlike our observant friend, did not check whether this elevator went up or down. It doesn’t feel the need to make any comments. We reached the correct floor. Elevator is departed and the unit moves to the last known location of the vehicle. Vehicle is entered. Door closed. Now it knows the operation of most commercial vehicles. With new models or unknown vehicles it can use a little guessing based on brand, the visual appearance of controls in combination with a general driving package. We spoke about breaking into the vehicle by force and hotwiring it. From the perspective of the unit it’s just an alternative way of operating the vehicle. In contrast to common belief most vehicles can still be hotwired. As you can imagine, it is a very lock specific process though. If it’s even a somewhat different lock it’s pretty unlikely the unit will be able to perform the action. The process also sets of alarms, calls the police. This feature currently doesn’t come standard on all units, but why would you want it?

Several responses from the audience
Exactly. To commandeer vehicles. How many soldiers, police officers, security personnel do you have in your organization which can hotwire a vehicle these days. Imagine your team is in an abandoned urban area, you need transportation, there may be civilian vehicles in the street, but you can’t use them. This is why we elaborate on the hotwiring: these units bring pre-programmed expert skills which your own personnel doesn’t have. Think about technical systems, medical skills, engineering tasks. We always focus on the combat skills, strength, infrared vision, and that stuff is all important, but you shouldn’t forget about the support skills. Maybe your men can make a fire, but can they track, do they know what plants are edible, can they fish, what about basic language skills. I feel we’re coming at a level were you’re no longer should be looking for some expandable system which can run and shoot. We’re already at a point were you have to start asking how and where this unit can complement your force.
So our unit has just entered the car. It starts the vehicle, drives out of the parking lot. It contacts its commander as instructed, “I have left the building.” The commander gives the unit the following instruction, “R drive back to the hotel.” The unit responds with an, “I do not understand the order.” You can hear some signs of exasperation from the commander and I’m sure this is recognizable for any of you who have worked with these units. The commander repeats, “R, drive the car back to the hotel. Get back to the Bellevore hotel.” The unit does remember a building with the name Bellevore on the outside, a hotel is a building, this building is a location, this location is within driving distance, since it has been at this location it can go ‘back’ to it, henceforth it drives back to the hotel. We do see some major traffic violations along the route. This particular unit hasn’t had any updates for quite some time. It also doesn’t have a package for peacetime driving. In the end it parks the vehicle in front of the hotel, steps out of the vehicle and locks it. End of scenario.

Elize

Max did not take half measures. She had us move to another hotel. Some obscure third class place way outside the center. She seemed to be really worried after the attack on Jar-tel. We had dinner that evening, just me and Max. She seemed genuinely concerned how I had taken the events of the day. Not in very direct or overt way, but she was looking into it.
“Elize, how’s the spinach salad?” She asked. She herself was packing away a plate of pasta.
“It’s okay. How’s yours?”
“It’s good.”
“Lot’s of carbs.”
“You got it. Can’t do without fuel.”
“Especially if you have to kick guys in the stomach.”
“Is that a problem?” Max asked cheerful.
“No. I kind of liked it. It depends I guess.”

“On what?”
“Well you know. Who you do it to,” I said, “and how you do it. If you don’t enjoy it.”
“I do enjoy it in some way. Would that be bad?” Max asked interested.
“I don’t know. Maybe. It didn’t feel bad to me. He’s like going to be alright, right?”
“Probably. I’m sorry about your car.”
“Whatever. It was a rental. I don’t understand they made such a fuss about it, especially mister bald.”
“Security officer Leekam. He was definitely taking his work seriously.”
“But I mean calling the rental company to pick up the car.”
“I don’t know.”
“No seriously. When you were talking with that other one, from the hotel…”
“…yeah…”
“…I was standing by the car and I could hear ‘Meekam’ on the phone. He was like, ‘well there’s a car here from you, and you should pick it up.’ So then he was explaining why, ‘the individuals who rented it,’ – like ‘the individuals’, are we terrorists are something – but anyway, he explained how we had left the car in the middle of the street for half an hour, which was not true by the way, it never was a half hour. So the rental said something like that he needed to find the people who rented it first because next thing he was like, ‘oh no, they are standing right here.’ Then the rental didn’t want to take it.”
“They didn’t want to take it?”
“No they didn’t, because then he got into a discussion. I couldn’t hear what the rental said, but from what I heard him say, I completely agreed with them.”
Max laughed.
“I’m serious. Why couldn’t we just drive my car away? ‘Sorry, we’ll never do it again.’ I can’t stand those people.”
“Well it’s probably better we lost the car,” Max said reassuring.
“In don’t know. Why?”
“Because…”
“What?”
“Well, because maybe the person who shot at us knew what car we drive.”
“I thought he tried to shoot Jar-tel.” I said surprised.
“Yes, but he also fired at me,” Max said plain.
“At you? I thought he just missed Jar-tel!”
“It’s a possibily,” Max said careful, “but not likely. It’s more likely he aimed for me.”
“But why would he shoot at you?”
“Why would he shoot at Jar-tel?” Max asked rhetorically, “We don’t know who he is.”
Jar-tel was a mobster. But the guy who shot him would be a criminal too. While I thought about the idea that we could be targets as well, I was going to say that it was a probably a good thing we went to another hotel as well, but luckily I stopped myself just in time.
“It could be he didn’t know who you were or confused you with someone else, right?”
“That’s a possibility of course. Let’s hope so. Don’t worry about it too much. We’re probably safe for now.”
I did feel safe. Max was nice.

“Maybe he thought you were Jartel’s girlfriend or something.”
“Wouldn’t mind it. If the shooter thought so I mean, not being Jartel’s girlfriend.”
“I don’t know.”
“You don’t know if you wouldn’t rather have someone think you’re Jar-tel’s girlfriend than someone wanting you dead?”
“No, that’s not what I meant,” I said thinking. “But you have to watch your reputation,” I joked.
“Right,” Max said laughing.

“Don’t know if we can discuss it here, but I would like to know how exactly this piece of equipment is being shipped,” Max asked suddenly after we had been eating in silence for a while.
I looked back to the diners on the table behind me. “Maybe not, especially this particular shipment.”
“Got it,” Max said understanding, “We’ll talk about it later.”
“Shouldn’t you let Jar-tel handle this, Max? Don’t think Katina would mind if you did.”
Max smiled heartily.
“I’m serious. Don’t you think this is a little bit dangerous?”
“It might be.”
“So?”
“Lot’s of things a dangerous, Elize, but someone has to do them. It’s the excitement of being a mercenary”
I thought about this.
“See, this is what it is. Remember when you asked about it earlier. We were in the car.”
I nodded.
“You said it was interesting, exciting. And it is! to me. How about you?”
“I don’t know. Maybe I’m not the kind of person.”
“Are you scared?”
“A little, I guess. I’m not really worried now, but I think it might actually get dangerous if we try to get involved with it.”
“Let’s make one thing clear. I don’t know exactly what your job description is, but I’m sure Katina honestly wouldn’t mind if you would let me handle this, and neither would I. If you want to I’ll put you on a transport.”
I didn’t know what to say.
“Think about it.”

“When the shipment does turn up, we would need to get to file some paperwork and that is part of my job description. I’ll stay. If it gets dangerous, I’ll just move to some other crappy hotel in Gemini.”
“Sounds good to me.”
“This guy was an amateur, right?”
Max shrugged.

### voice pattern 1

“Don’t talk to me about air pressure. I didn’t miss or anything.”
~
“Never mind, you have no idea what you’re talking about.”
~
“Just look at the specified muzzle velocity with an unmodified barrel. This is a high end anti material rifle. This was not bullet proof glass, it’s transparent steel.”
~
“Yes I know.”
~
“I know.”
~
“They left their hotel.”
~
“No I didn’t ask.”
~
“Why not?”
~
“They left the hotel one hour after the incident. It’s pretty obvious why they left so I don’t expect them to leave a message at the reception.”

~
“Oh for god’s sake!”
~
“No, I don’t know were they are.”
~
“How? This is not… There are millions of people here.”
~
“Yes, I failed. But…”
~
“And it is as you say. If I fail an assignment then it is up to me to set it straight. Not because I
can’t walk away, but because I think it’s important to think about my reputation. But – and ~
this is where you interrupted me before – there are always extends…”
~
“If you’ll let me…”
~
“It’s a relevant argument, like I just acknowledged myself, and it would certainly be true if I hadn’t said from the start I couldn’t guarantee to make the hit and if you hadn’t pressured me to do my best. Your own words.”
~
“Look, you do see how me telling you up ahead, ‘this might not work,’ makes these arguments about my sense of responsibility a bit immaterial.”
~
“I didn’t want to do it. I’d advised you to look for someone else.”
~
“Someone more qualified than me, which I told you. Do you see how transparent I tried to be?”
~
“No, I don’t know someone more qualified.”
~
“That’s not an argument.”
~
“The fact I, personally, don’t know someone more qualified, doesn’t in any way obligate me to take on responsibilities.”
~
“Which would be true if this was some kind of moral act, in this context it doesn’t make any sense. Also I don’t really feel it’s your place to make these types of arguments. I mean come on.”
~
“I’ve been threatened before. It seems unlikely this would impress me.”
~
“And you can be as angry as you like. I understand that. I would like things to be different as well.”
~
“No. I’m sorry man. Look, Jar-tel’s security it tight and that’s a euphemism, so it’s not going to happen.”
~
“What about them?”
~
“That’s possible, but you don’t know where they are.”
~
“I’m not a detective!”
~
“I’m not going to run around the city. If you find out where they are, then you can call…”
~
“If you think your boys can do it.”
~
“I’m just trying to help, Cleamen.”
~
“…Look, I’m going to hang up now.”
Unfortunately only the one side of the conversation could be recorded

###

Max Hayes

“Commander, Wilhelm.”
“Max. What’s the status?”
“Jar-tel is not talking. He claims he doesn’t know where it is, and I believe him, but he definitely knows allot which he’s not telling. It’s clear there’s some kind of complication. During the conversation somebody tried to assassinate him. I was also targeted. I feel this might be related to your missing equipment.”
“Our missing equipment, Max. You’re always putting yourself outside of the group,” Wilhelm said.

“Right, our equipment. I’m alright by the way.”
“Any idea who tried to assassinate Jar-tel?” Katina asked.
“No. I do have a hazy picture of the shooter, I mean the person who tried to assassinate us.” “Does Jar-tel know?”
“Maybe. As I said, it’s clear he knows more. He himself said he knew more.
“Do you think you can get Jar-tel to talk?” Katina asked.
“I honestly don’t think so. He’s difficult, like you said. Maybe if I’m a little more ‘assertive’, but right now…”
“We don’t want to go there. He’s an ally. What else do you have?”
“Elize has explained to me the equipment would be delivered to Duna 5 by freighter. This freighter has arrived here a few days ago in a dock owned by Jar-tel, but we don’t even know if the equipment was on board because this is Jar-tel’s part of the operation. That’s all I have.”
“Send this picture to us.”
“Sending it right now.”
“Got it,” Katina said, “We’ll see if we can find anything on this guy.” The footage was a small clip from a security camera, with a very high resolution, zoomed in it displayed two shots being fired from a darkened room. The flash from the shots briefly illuminates the shooter in several frames. The resolution was to low to clearly make out a face however.
“Have you checked this building out, Max?” Katina asked. I could detect a little irritation in her voice.
“No, I haven’t.” It hadn’t occurred to me.
“Get to it then. Report if you find anything.”
“Copy.”
The screen went blank.
“I need to check something out,” I said to Elize, who had been sitting across the room during the conversation. “I’ll leave R here to keep an eye out. What time do you have?”
“It’s ten o’clock,” Elize explained.
“Really?” it was still fairly bright outside, not bright as day but dusk like. “When do the lights go out?”
“They don’t. Not in Libra.”
“So no artificial night? Isn’t that unhealthy?”
“You get used to it.”
“Do you know what building this is?” I asked Elize pointing at the screen.
“No. But I can probably find out,” Elize said eager.
“Do so. Call me when you’ve got anything. I’ll leave R in the other room. Just yell if you need help.”
“Got it.”
“Okay bye. Call me,” I said as closed the hotel room door behind me.

I took the stairs down. I felt stupid for not checking out the building earlier as I left the hotel and walked to our new rental, which I had purposeful parked a few blocks away. I did had other priorities I told myself, but couldn’t shake the feeling this was an excuse. When I was about halfway to the building I got to the point, where I figured I should just accept I had been sloppy and leave it be. Katina had acted irritated which, I realized, bothered me the most. I always felt Katina could be a bit to demanding of people. Maybe sometimes a little bit to controlling. It was something I had wanted to talk to her about just before I left for Duna. Not about how it bothered me personally of course, but how it affected the tactical level of operations. To be clear, being a control-freak was obviously a good characteristic for someone in her position. There are however limits of how much control you can eventually have over a situation and combat is probably one of the better examples. In an earlier operation I had been clear to me her attitude had been hampering the operation. I’d tried to discuss this, but she mistook it as an excuse for my actions during the operation. Due to the nature of the problem this was difficult to get across because from her point of view it all made perfect sense. So I had decided to try and have a more open talk with her outside of any past or future operation.

In a nutshell, we are just limited beings, running across the battlefield. There was so much we didn’t know. It was only understandable, in a situation one would like to have maximum control such as war, to focus on everything what we did now and forget about what we didn’t. I say understandable because it’s certainly not natural to do so. Our minds functions best when it’s open, like some dead guy once said. Just as open to what’s not known as it’s focused on what is known.
Because this is more realistic view is therefore more in accordance with the reality of combat and in addition the mind of the combatant is more in tune with this way of thinking, combat effectiveness is increased. Or so goes the theory, I liked it though and I always felt constrained when I was forced to act in the mind of someone like Katina.
Like I was doing right now, I realized. We had no idea what was going on. And here I was racing for a building to look for clues on the identity of a shooter. What made this all so hard to convey to Katina, is because investigating this building could indeed lead to something and it was actually a very astute idea. I only wished she could at least understand the other side of the argument, and maybe even appreciate what my mindset brought, but this was rarely the case. If something went well, exactly because of my more laissez fair attitude, I was ‘lucky’ and I certainly shouldn’t depend on it again.
What would I find in this building? Jar-tel’s security, I just realized, would have already gone through it. And this, I also presumed, would, aside from the fact it also hadn’t occurred to me at all, have prevented me from doing so earlier this day.
I switched the car to fully automatic, which immediately braked to bring down the speed to two hundred, the maximum limit on this road. I called Elize.
“Hi Max,”
“This is Max.”
“Hi. This is Elize”
“Yes. Have you found anything on the building?” I asked.
“It’s owned by Ventmais. I looked it up on their site. It’s mainly apartments. Ventmais is a company focused on the exploitation of real estate, mainly residential. Was just trying to see if I could find anything on the specific apartment. There’s like a blue print on the site for prospective tenants, it has the apartment numbers on it. From the video, I think it’s apartment four sixteen and that’s how far I got when you called me.”
“Great. See what you can find. Do you have Jar-tel’s number?”
“I’ve got several.”
“Could you send them to me?”
“Sure.”
“Thanks Elize. Talk to you later.”
“Bye.”

“Yes. Who’s this?” An annoyed voice asked.
“Hi Jar-tel. It’s me Max.”
“And?”
“Katina has me driving to the building the shooter fired from. I’m halfway there, but I figured your men might have already cleaned it out.”
“They have, Max. Could you please leave this to me, perhaps?”

“I feel we got off one a wrong foot, this afternoon.”
“You beat up my son.”
“Oh.” This was awkward. My response took a few seconds to form itself. “I’m sorry. I thought about asking for the footage, but I figured you wouldn’t give it to me. The shooter went for me too, Jar-tel.”
“I’m sure you have your reasons to do as you did. Everyone does, don’t they? And like you and everybody else I also have my reasons for doing what I do. Take for instance your equipment. I’m making every effort to have it delivered as agreed. But, how much I may appreciate you as a customer, I do not feel your meddling will contribute in any way. It’s actually quite frustrating to think I have to put in effort, to prevent you from adding to any existing concerns regarding your equipment.”
“Maybe if you explained to us what those concerns are, we might be more at ease. You’re keeping us in the dark and now you’re surprised we mistrust you?”
“I would think I would have earned some trust over the years, but I guess not.”
“Can I take it, there’s nothing left for me to find at the apartment?”
“I’ll do you even better, Max: wé didn’t find anything.”
“Thanks, I’ll take your word for it. No need to waste my time just to satisfy Katina.”
“She can be difficult.”
“I know. I work for her.”
“Look Max,” Jar-tel said, suddenly a little less tense. “This is a very delicate situation and a bit more complicated than your people think. It’s all I can say for now.”
“Got it. How’s Jeremy doing?”
“He’s doing…alright, a little bruised on the outside and you know how men get.”
“Tell him I’m sorry.”
“I’m sure patronizing sentiments from the women who beat him up won’t raise his spirit.”
“I guess it won’t. I hope you understand you can’t expect me to get shot at and then just walk away, trusting everything will be fine.”
“You assume too much, Max,” Jar-tel said before breaking the connection.

It seemed I had managed to make some minor repairs to the relationship with the one contact I had who did know what was going on. It was still unclear to me though whether this contact was actually helping us.

The assignment

The current assignment wasn’t entirely up my alley. Wolf had led me to a small round hatch. In the distance several tall structures towered above the surface. They were adorned with a precious few red and yellow lights. The refinery had not been active for some time. Wolf was busy unlocking the hatch, so I waited and watched giant, green Duna inching across the night sky. It would be late in the evening in Libra now. Wolf signalled me to pull upwards before placing himself on one side of the hatch and grabbing it under the edge. I did the same on the other side and together we opened it. The walls of the hole beneath it were metallic. I had laid down with my head over the edge while Wolf was still on his knees looking down over my shoulder. We both looked down into the darkness. It was deep, but what bothered mere more where it’s small dimensions and the lack of a ladder. It would be hard if not impossible to climb back up it. From the blueprints it was clear it ended up in a tunnel, but the thought of being stuck in some dark underground tunnel, or even worse this hole itself being a dead end and being stuck underground, gave me a distinct choking sensation. Not a very rational fear, I admit, but it did curb my enthusiasm in a euphemistic way. Wolf signalled I could go first. We had discussed at least attaching a rope to the top, or rather than discussing it I had made a proposition do so, but Wolf had of course seen no reason.

Slowly I lowered my legs and torso into the hole. In order to brace myself against the walls I tried to pull my knee up, but there was not enough room to do so. This unsettled me. Slowly bringing in my one arm, I did discover there was enough room to bring my elbow down along my body. Wolf made a circle with his thumb and forefinger. I couldn’t see his face through his mask. I gave him a thumbs up and lowered my other arm into the hole. Pressing my back to the wall of the metallic cylinder with both of my arms, the sole of my right foot pressed flat against the back as well and the front part of the sole of my left foot partly pressed against the other side of the cylinder, I figured I could control my descent. When I released pressure of my right foot to move it downward, this ended up not being true. I started sliding downward, a movement which I could not stop no matter how hard I braced myself again. Since I was able to keep my speed down and the hole being very deep, I had time to think. At some point I figured this wasn’t so bad. Even if I somehow got stuck because for example someone had put a grating somewhere midway the hole, I felt it would be manageable. I would potentially be stuck until my oxygen ran out, but that would be it.
At some point the walls ran out and I fell a short distance to the floor of a small tunnel. Above me I could see the little light from the stars be obscured by another by Wolff standing above the hole before it died out completely as he closed the hatch. I did bring a flashlight.


Max Hayes

Contemplating the conversation with Jar-tel I briefly thought about inspecting the apartment either way but I finally decided not to bother and took the next exit off the main artery, only to return to it shortly, driving in the opposite direction. The car was now on semi automatic again. I enjoyed driving, especially since I didn’t do it so often. The road was mostly empty with only a handful of cars over several kilometres. I watched the analog needle slowly creep up to three fifty. It was possible to drive completely manual but it was ill advised at these speeds and would require considerable concentration. I overtook two vehicles which seemed to be driving up together. As far as I could see the road ahead was clear. I took my foot of the pedal and allowed the car to decelerate to a more manageable two hundred kilometer per hour, before switching the car to manual. As I pulled slowly on the steering wheel, I immediately felt the change, the more direct control. I could imagine someone in an unguarded moment propelling the vehicle into the sides of the maybe six meter wide road or colliding with another vehicle. Increasing the speed beyond this point seemed irresponsible. Instead I chose to maintain the current speed for as long as there were no other vehicles to take over or to take over me. Although it was exiting to have a real sense of speed, it did strain me. In addition it caused me to miss my exit. I took the first one available and navigated my way back to the hotel.

The upended vehicle in front of the hotel immediately caught my eye as I turned the corner. I reached for my comm and called Elize.
“Max,” she whispered, which raised my alarm even further.
“What’s up?”
“I don’t know. There was a car crash and I heard shots. I looked out of the window and I saw men entering the hotel.”
“Where are you?”
“I’m still in the hotel. Sorry max, I wanted to leave. I tried to convince R to come with me, but he refused.” Elize explained panicky while I brought the car to a stop and proceeded to the hotel entrance on foot. “I couldn’t find an exit so fast and was and I was scared they might spot me if I headed for the lobby. I called the police immediately of course. I didn’t know what to do, so I decided to go to another floor. I explained what was happening to two men...other guests,” Elize continued in a single stream, “They let me hide in the closet on their room so I think I’m fine, but,” and this is where Elize broke out into tears, “I don’t know what’s going to happen to R.”
“It’s just a machine,” I said almost laughing. Police on their way and Elize herself hiding in a closet in a random room in the hotel. “You did good, Elize. This is gonna be fine.”
When I was about to call R, I heard gunfire erupt from, what I guessed to be, the second storey of the hotel where our rooms were located. Listening to the gunshots I noticed some erratic fire, but it was mostly dominated by some concise and familiar intermediate length bursts and it all quickly fell silent. I had moved up to along a row of cars parked in these recesses of the road along the walkway. Behind the upended car, which was blocking the road, stood a somewhat larger vehicle. It had no windows in its bulky back section, but I figured it could hold plenty of men. “R, status.”
“Engaging hostiles five, hostiles down. Two unknown armed individuals moving, away, towards building center.”
“R, hold position.”
After carefully sneaked up to the back of the large vehicle, I made a short dash along the right side of the vehicle up to the driver’s seat. The driver was leaning forward over the steering wheel and was looking upwards towards the hotel. Noticing something beside her, she suddenly turned her head around towards me. The glass was not bullet proof. Looking over the body of the driver out of the window on the passenger side I had a good view of the hotel entrance.
Maybe a quarter minute later two armed men came running from the front of the hotel. As they reached the vehicle, I could hear them opening a door on the other side. They both jumped in. I took a couple of steps back from the vehicle. After hearing the door closing, I opened fire and hammered the back section of the vehicle.
When I stopped firing a silence fell over the area. I could hear sirens in the background.
I kneeled down next to the upended car and looked inside through a broken window. There where two people in the front seats. I reached inside for the neck of the one closest to me to check for a pulse, but as I did so I noticed the bullet hole in his head. I looked alongside the vehicle. It was riddled with bullets. For a moment I had feared I might have some part in the dead of two civilians. The two might still be civilians of course, but the bullet holes indicated their deaths were intentional, which made it less likely. I felt some sense of relieve. There could have been plenty of innocent casualties in the hotel of course – the hotel security guard ended up being the only one injured and he survived as far as I know – but at that moment as I sat up against the side of the car and holstered my gun in my jacket, I did feel grateful.