Day 2

### voice pattern 1

“Hello. I’m a little preoccupied at the moment, so I don’t know how long I can talk, but what can I do for you?”
~
“You found them. Congratulations.”
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“It’s always good to have contacts. There’s of course no need to share such information with me.”
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“Never heard of the hotel. And on what sort of timescale would you like this to happen?”
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“Now? That won’t be possible. Like I said I’m preoccupied at the moment with other business and I might be for some time.”
~
“It could be a day, it could be more.”
~
“From your reaction I gather you’re in a hurry. If this is the case you should arrange for someone else to take care of things.”
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“Yes, I did. You in fact then told me you would have your own men handle it. Either way: other things have come up and I won’t be able to assist you.”
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“I see. If I understand correctly, you did send in your own men but they weren’t able to complete the assignment…”
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“They got killed, yes, I understood. When was this?”
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“Don’t you think the targets might by now have left this hotel as well?”
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“They are in custody with Duna security?”
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“Two of them. Well, as you may or may not understand, their being in custody might complicate things even if I would be able to take on the assignment, which I’m not.”
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“I said she was military looking. It’s a mercenary company.”
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“Yes I knew this.”
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“I did tell you. In our second phone call yesterday around eleven hundred hours, I indicated the male was in all probability an android.”
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“I don’t recall whether I explicitly mentioned the android was armed, but I do remember saying both new arrivals were armed…”
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“Look, I can only report what I observe.”
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“Possibly yes, but there’s no reason to dwell on this. I can’t help you.”
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“Look, you’re not being reasonable. In this previous conversation you, just like you do now, behave hostile. You’re angry, you make it clear you don’t need my help or advice and now it’s my fault? I’m sorry if I sound irritated, but I am.”
~
“I really don’t feel I have to respond to this.”
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“And this, I admit, is at your discretion. You do as you please.”
~
“You’ve made your position clear. Goodbye.”

###

Max Hayes

After the incident at the hotel some Duna security company brought us in for questioning and soon after arriving at their base I was taken into custody. We were sitting in a small well lit room. The white plastered walls and ceiling were only broken by a single door and a security camera in every top corner of the room. There was a small two by one table. The security officer sat across from me.

“Miss Hayes, I hope you’ve had a good night sleep,” the security officer said. The bags under her eyes made it clear she had not.
“It was okay.”
My cell had had a mattress and everything, but I had only slept a couple of hours.
“I understand you have been questioned yesterday evening.”
There had been multiple sessions actually. It took a while for the security agency to determine what had happened in the first place. When they did they had had some additional questions.
“That’s correct.”
“We’ve got ten dead. Two of them were JDSI agents. I understand from my colleges, you haven’t been very cooperative.”
During the interrogations tonight, they had accidentally dropped to me, the two dead men in the vehicle were Joint Duna Security Initiative employees. A big mistake to be sure, but it also raised the question why these officers were at the hotel. It seemed unlikely it was a coincidence. I had asked my interrogators about this but they had been equally uncooperative as I had been on other points.
“So noted.”
“You claimed you do not know who attacked you or why.”
“That’s correct.” I confirmed. “It’s actually true.”
“Really?” the security officer asked sarcastic.
I was about to say yes when Elize raised her hand briefly while looking at both me and the security officer. “If I may interrupt. I believe this meeting was not supposed to be another interrogation. My client has already answered all your questions. We’re here to discuss my client’s ongoing custody.”
“You’re wrong,” The security officer said terse, “Miss Hayes has left many questions unanswered and we might have more questions still.”
“I am sure my client has answered all your questions to the best of her ability. My client understands you might have further questions later on as you continue your investigation, but I do not see why this would necessitate her further detention.”
“Your client has, by her own account, intentionally killed a person who at the moment did not present an immediate threat to her or anyone else. In addition there are the murdered JDSI agents, who’s attacker has not yet been positively identified. So as you see we have every reason to further detain Miss Hayes.”
Elize was thinking hard. I had to admit the way the security officer put it, it did sound pretty bad.
“Are you charging me with murder?” I asked to give Elize some more time to think.
At this point it was the security officer who was suddenly thinking hard.
“Yes,” Elize asked after a few seconds, “Are you charging my client with murder?”
“We’re treating her as a suspect. We’re not pressing charges yet.”
“A suspect of what crime to whom?”
The security officer hesitated.
“My client has the right to know why she’s being held in custody,” Elize explained. “Is she being held as a suspect for the murder of the two alleged JDSI agents or are you seeking to press murder charges for the killing of the driver accompanying the attackers? Or possibly both?”

“At this point…” the security officer started but she squeezed her lips halfway into the sentence. She closed her eyes for a moment. It had obviously been a long night for her and although I wasn’t really able to understand the discussion, there was clearly some complex legal issue.
“My client has already confessed she killed the driver,” Elize mentioned while the security officer stared at me. “If, at some later point in time, it becomes clear to my client’s corporation, your organisation has detained her without a clear pursuit, you can rest assure they will press charges and file complaints for doing so.”
“I’ll release her on bail,” the security officer said unhappy.
“Great,” I said, smiling at her.
“What would be…” Elize started.
“The height of the bail will still have to be determined.” The security officer seemed to receive some gratification from telling us this. “While we do so, Miss Hayes will have to wait in her cell.”
It would take another eight hours before I could leave the base, which gave me plenty of time to think. Too much time, it turned out, because there were just too many strange dots and no way to connect them. Someone had tried to kill us, or of course kidnap us or steal something, and I guessed this had something to do with why we were here on Duna and our missing equipment. It seemed appealing to think this attack was carried out by the same people who tried to assassinate Jar-tel, and me, but there was no way to know. It could even be Jar-tel for all I knew, but it seemed unlikely from the feel of the conversation I had with him just under half an hour before the attack. He had said something ominous at the end of the conversation along the lines ‘there’s more than you know’, but I couldn’t remember the exact phrase. The two dead JDSI agents made it clear there was definitely more going on. They had been wearing civilian clothing and there had been no markings on their vehicle, as far as I could tell, so even though I wouldn’t entirely discount the possibility, it didn’t seem their presence at the shootout was coincidental. Had they already been at the hotel? Had we been under surveillance? It seemed plausible, but there were other possibilities. I spent a good time going over everything which had happened, but there just wasn’t enough to get any meaning out of.
I assumed Elize had already contacted Katina. I wondered whether she would have a course of action in the current situation. It seemed unlikely to me, but then I wasn’t her, maybe she had it all figured out already. In each case I had another pleasant conversation with her to look forward to.

13:00 Marcel Gerraughty (presentation)

Welcome back. For those who’ve just joined us I’m Marcel Gerraughty. As an introduction to our next topic we’re now going to look at a CQB scenario. The unit involved is the same one we saw in one of the scenarios we presented this morning, the one with the car keys and the driving.

In this particular scenario the unit is located in a room with the instruction to guard this room and the room on the opposite side of the hallway. This is still a friendly and civilian area according to the unit. The unit is armed with a pistol in a shoulder harness. The pistol has semi and fully automatic and several burst settings. The order to guard the rooms was more of a precaution in this particular scenario, no opposition was expected. At some point a group of seven armed hostiles move into the building. One of them takes position at the end of the hallway, while two three man teams prepare to enter the two opposite rooms simultaneously. This is of course not known to the unit. At some point it sees six heat signatures walking down the hallway and it also hears footsteps from multiple persons, it guesses six. From the perspective of the unit you can see the heat signatures outside stacking up in front of the door. For most of us this would be a clear sign of alarm. The same goes for all units who got the latest update. An update we can make because our customers supply us with their feedback and logs of these real live scenarios, which allows us to analyse and to continually improve our product.
A member of the audience asks what kind of customers the people in the scenario are. The member of the audience points out the building looks like a hotel and wonders what kind of operation this was. Another member of the audience joins in and explains it has seen the commander of this unit before in another presentation of ours. Another asks whether we are selling these units to civilians.
I can see there are a lot of questions. Let me start with the shortest answer: We are not selling this equipment to civilians. It is military equipment and as such it falls under very strict laws for sale and export.
An audience member interrupts and points out the earlier scenario with this particular unit, which they witnessed this morning and the current scenario, based on a painting in the hotel room, are taking place on Duna. The audience member suggests we are exporting them to Duna and subsequently asks how we can guarantee these units do not end up with the wrong people if we do so.
Absolutely not. I do see your point, but this is absolutely not the case. First our company does export some products to Duna, which we only do in full agreement with our own government and those of other nations in the alliance, so I’m a bit sceptic to the notion which suggests exporting to Duna would automatically lead to material falling in the wrong hands. Furthermore we have never exported these units to any agency outside the alliance.
The real story behind the current unit is actually quite interesting. The unit was originally sold to the Therra Army. It served on Custodian and it’s one of the older types of this new generation. As most of you know, Custodian was really the place were these new units made their mark, at least in the public perception. It did prove our units were effective and reliable killing machines, but I’m not always happy with the one dimensional image it created. I realise I already elaborated on this topic several times, but I think it’s important. I digress.

This unit was used on Custodian and as such it killed many reeches. At some point its squad, consisting solely out of these bots, got overrun by reeches. They held their own until ammo started to run out, and I’m sure most of you have seen this leaked video of these units killing scores of reeches in hand to hand combat, but unfortunately at some point there is an end to such engagements. They take bites and slashes and over time the damage accumulates. So reeches do, at times, take these units down. Even units with ammo were in some cases piled upon by reeches.
A brief interruption by one of our own employees attending the presentation
Yes indeed. I’m reminded by my colleague our units did an outstanding job on Custodian and I’m sure you all know. Like I told you: everybody knows this. This unit is one of the unlucky few which got puckered. It was recovered and it got send back to us. We repaired it and put it in storage to be sent back to the Army at a later date. Unfortunately the unit got stolen from our storage. And I have to stress the responsibility for this theft occurring, lies solely with us. The unit ended up with two mercenaries, who in fact stole it from the people who stole it from us.
The fact this unit got in the hands of mercenaries is of course terrible, but it did supply us with invaluable data. These individuals had no formal training in the operation of the unit. All they had was a basic Operational Manual and we know for a fact they lost it within a day after acquiring the unit and after only reading it partly. So these individuals had almost no idea how to operate the unit and had to learn how to do so by experience. This is one reason it makes such an excellent case for us. Just to give you an idea, this unit was left on twenty-four seven for several years on end, in this time it was never reset on any level. These people also didn’t bother with briefings, ROE’s and all orders were given verbally, no uploaded mission plans.
These mercenaries were very active and because of this the unit saw a lot of action, very varied action, if I might add. It was placed in situations these units would never be placed in under normal circumstances, often with the most minimal of instruction. This really stretched the capacities of the unit to the max, which, as you can imagine, is really interesting for us. In addition our real customers don’t always allow us to use the logs they supply in these presentations, which is another reason why you might see this unit a little more often in presentations. Luckily we did recover the unit eventually. If I remember correctly, the current scenario actually occurred only a few hours before it was deactivated. It was in fact Duna security who recovered it, this scenario is indeed occurring on Duna 5, and who returned it to us. Does this answer most of your questions?
There were numerous requests for follow up questions from the audience.

Max Hayes

The door of my cell opened.
“Miss Hayes?” a security officer, standing in the doorway, asked polite as he slowly scanned the entirety of the cell.
“Yes,” I said as I looked up to him, sitting on the edge of my bed.”
“Your bail has been paid so we can release you from custody.”
“Great.”
I stood up from the bed and, after the security officer stepping aside, stepped out of the cell.
“If you’ll follow me.”
“Lead the way.”
From what I knew, there was someone who owned this crater. Or maybe they owned the entirety of Duna 5, I don’t know. This person, or company, hired these security firms to supply security, which meant patrolling the streets, arresting criminals. Many companies also had their own security. Somehow insurance companies were also involved in this because they want to protect the individuals or assets which were covered by them, but the details of all these arrangements elude me. In addition to the internal security there also had to be some sort of external security, a military. To facilitate this some companies or people set up JDSI, the, Joint Duna Security Initiative, to protect Duna 5. Apparently this agency had taken some interest in us or whatever it was we where involved in, so it didn’t look good. How close the cooperation was between the security company, through which’s base I was now being guided, and JDSI, was not known to me.
“Please sign this form while I retrieve your personal belongings.” The woman behind thick glass of the security counter said before walking away from her desk to a room in the back.
The security officer who had walked me here was closely looking over my shoulder. I signed the paper after skimming it.
The woman returned with a plethora of items I apparently had had on my person: my comm, wallet, a company phone I never used, a strip of contraception pills, wallet, two non identical passports, dog tacks, combat knife, my shades. I was missing my gun.
“We’re keeping your firearm.”
“Right. What about R?”
“R?”
“My robot.”
“Yes,” the security officer behind me intervened, “We ran a check on the robot. It appears to be stolen. The legitimate owners wanted it to be returned.”
This shocked me. “This is my robot!”
“According to our research it was stolen. It has a unique serial number. And we also checked…”
“Yes of course it was stolen,” I said annoyed, “but it wasn’t stolen by me.”
The woman behind the counter looked puzzled, while the security officer had a very patient look on his face as he prepared himself explain something to me. I recomposed myself.
“I understand R will be taken away, is this correct?” I asked. It would be, obviously.
“Yes,” the security officer said.
“Very well,” I said accepting, but somehow it was hard to take in.
I wondered where Elize was. Last night, after security arrived and secured the hotel, they had ordered me to deactivate R, which was quite easy as I found out. Going on the security officer’s attitude, the fact R was stolen somehow didn’t imply any trouble for me. This I found strange, but it was convenient.

“Can I go?”
“Yes.” the woman behind the counter said as she. “You’ll have to sign this paper for the return of your belongings. Under the conditions of the bail you are not allowed to leave Libra without our explicit written permission. Please read this folder carefully.”
She placed the paper and the folder on top of my items, which she had already put in a shallow drawer in the counter, before moving the drawer to my side of the glass.
I took al my stuff and the folder, signed the paper and turned to the security officer. “Where’s the exit?”
“Please follow me.”

The security officer escorted me to and though the lobby of the building. He held the door to the street open, “Good day, Miss Hayes.”
Elize was nowhere to be seen.
I activated my comm. It reported two failed login attempts and showed the time as eighteen forty three. A logo on the building read ‘VS - Vengeance Security’. How nice. Further down the street in one direction I saw what seemed like a big intersection with traffic lights. Since I had no idea where to go I started heading towards it.
I wondered if it would be safe to make a call with my comm, the device should be relatively tamper proof. Going through the menu’s I checked the main log for activity. Besides the activity less than one minute ago and two failed login attempts this morning, there was no registered activity after I deactivated the device last night, but I decided not to risk it.
It was a few minutes walk to the intersection. I imagined I would be able to find a taxi or public transportation there to take me back to the hotel. There were a couple of people walking further ahead and now and then a car would pass me by, but altogether it was a quiet street. It wasn’t really clear what I was supposed to do now. Hopefully I could make a call from the hotel to Elize or back to the Canary. Tell them what happened. I didn’t expect Elize would still be in the hotel. Katina might well have pulled her from the planet after the attack yesterday evening. There was a soft breeze blowing through the city. I wondered if there was some kind of system circulating the air through the crater. I figured there probably had to be. I felt a tear running down from my eye, then both my eyes watered up and the tears started flowing down my face. I sat down on some nearby steps of a building and buried my face in my hands. My body shook as I sobbed intensely. I just let the tears flow. It subsided after two minutes or so and I took a couple of deep breaths. Things come and go. I waited on the steps for a while before I got going again.

After arriving at the intersection, a car, driving out of the same street I came from, pulled up next to me. The windows in the car were darkened. There wasn’t any cover on the walkway nearby and I was standing near passenger door so it would probably be best to try and jump on and over the hood of the vehicle in case of any trouble. It would certainly be original and unexpected which has tactical value of its own. The window on the passenger side slid down. I recognised Jeremy’s face.

“Hello Jeremy. How are you?” I said friendly.
“Max. My father wants to talk to you.”
“I see,” I said bland as I kept standing on the spot I had been standing.
An exasperated sigh escaped Jeremy. “Would you come with us?”
“JDSI might be following me this very moment. I don’t think your father would like them to follow me back to him.”
Jeremy turned and signalled to the driver. “Go.” The window slid back up as the car sped off. This was not very professional. Jar-tel, or Jeremy, should have thought about this. Maybe they had, I thought, but I didn’t see how it would make sense to try and pick me up right after leaving the security building. They must have been waiting here for some time.
After walking down the road for a couple of minutes I spotted a taxi and hailed it. ‘Transcity’ it said on the side. It was the same brand which had brought me and Elize back to the hotel yesterday. The taxi halted next to me and I stepped inside.
“Where to?” the driver asked.
As I looked towards her and opened my mouth to answer I realised I had no idea how the hotel was called. “My hotel. It’s just off the main artery running south.”
“The main artery?”
“I don’t know how it’s called, but if you have a map I can tell you where to go.”
“Sure,” she said as she started driving. The two lanes of the road were separated by a lawn. Apparently it wasn’t allowed to drive across the lawn because already three cars had been held up behind us in the short time the taxi had stood still. After the woman pushed some buttons on the steering wheel a map appeared on the screen in the desk in front of me.
“This road.” I said as I pointed at the screen. “Just drive there. I’ll recognize the exit.”
“You’re not from around here, are you?”
“No, just got here yesterday.”
“Business or pleasure?” she asked somewhat jokingly.
“Business.” I was not in the mood to talk.
“Where are you from?”
“MEC. I grew up there at least.”
“Really?”
“Yeah.”
“So you’re like mentally conditioned.”
“Something like that, yes. I can recommend it to anyone though.”
I could see she was about to say something but didn’t.
“It’s less scary than it sounds,” I said as I looked outside.
“Oh, I’m okay with it,” she said, not wanting to offend a customer.
At the next intersection she we made a turnaround and drove off into the other direction. In the rear view mirror I could see a plain white vehicle make the exact same manoeuvre. This was just like in the movies!
“Where are we now?” I asked.
“Here.” In the screen in front of me the whole route appeared.
“I see.”
“What’s your name?”
“Ehm, Marie.”
“Marie, do you know a place where I can buy a gun?”
“Sure, I guess. There’s a huge shopping centre a couple of blocks from here. I can look up a gun store for you.”

“Shall I wait here?” Marie asked as I stepped out of the vehicle a few minutes later.
“No thanks, it might be a while.” I might also be able to shake off my pursuers while I did some shopping. “Have a nice day.”
“You too, thank you for using Transcity.”
The huge multi storey glass building was bustling. Dozens of people were pouring in and out of the building through a row of arched openings in front of me. As I headed for the closest entrance I could see the white car stop behind me in the reflection of the glass. This was going great. Nobody stepped out of the vehicle before I entered the building. Looking around would arouse suspicion. I followed the crisp directions Marie had given me, making my way through the various storeys and hallways of the building. The place was different compared to the outside. Only pedestrians, no cars, much like the commercial district on a station. There were plants and fountains placed throughout the structure, several large squares which progressed through multiple storeys of the building, all dominated by the screens and billboards of the countless shops.
‘Gunz Unlimited,’ it read in bright pink and yellow on the sign. Didn’t sound like a place where I would usually buy, but the other one Marie had found was on the other side of the district, so I decided to at least take a look inside. Unlike most other shops it had no windows beside a long rectangular one in the only door leading inside. There were five other people inside. Two of them wore black shirts with something scribbled in the similar screaming colours like the sign outside. The rest of the shop bore a soft grey tone and luckily was sleeker and more professionally looking than what apparently was the company’s logo.
I slowly walked around the place. The collection wasn’t especially big. Most pistols were the small compact self defence types most relatively low quality. Then there was the wide selection of tasers and non-lethal firearms, all not what I needed. I could go through the whole shop in search in search of the cabinet with a somewhat different class of firearm, but unlike many of my colleagues I had few inhibitions to just ask for directions. It would save plenty of time.
A somewhat old store clerk was busy cleaning the glass of one of the cabinets.
“Can I help you?” He asked with a loud but friendly voice as he saw me approach.
“Maybe. Do you have any military grade handguns on sale? I’m looking for something along the lines of a Drent 180 or a 67-RT.”
“Just follow me lady.”
He walked to the other end of the store, stopping next to a large cabinet.
“This is more your section.” He said as he gestured to the area around him. The various cabinets held rifles, submachine guns and the sort. “These are your handguns. We don’t sell Drents and sixty sevens are not being made no more. I can’t sell you any of this without some kind of legit permit, company policy. Just so you know.”

“Won’t be a problem.”
“Good to know. Do you want to look around or…”
There were a couple of RT’s, all in the same vertical row. Prices went up from bottom to top. The top one looked like a standard enough model. I pointed at it. “What about this one?”
“The 83-RT. High end model. Part of their new line. They brought it to the market last year. The same basic design as the sixty seven, same calibre, but it’s more like a continuation of the sixty three than a sixty seven. This model is top of the line though. I can take it out for you.”
“Please.”
After fumbling a key from his pocket pants he opened the cabinet.
“Unfortunately this is the only model I have in the store, so if you want another coating I need to order it,” He said as he handed me the weapon.
“If I don’t take it of your hands nobody will.” The black white checker pattern was indeed awkward, especially for a weapon of this class. “I’ll take it.”
The weapon was a little lighter than my own, but otherwise the feel was almost similar.
“I work for a security firm it has an office registered on Duna 5. I’m a security employee. Here’s my card.” I handed him my employee card. He would be able to check it, I assumed. This had been the case in other places.
“I need to check this.”
“No problem.”
He was about to step away so I held out the gun to him so he could take it back for the time being.
“You better hold on to it or else you might change your mind,” he said with a brief smile as he started to walk back to the front of the store.
He was about halfway through the store when he suddenly yelled, but without looking back at me, “It doesn’t have any ammo and I’m a fast runner.”
The other customers looked up.
“Me too!” I yelled back.
“Wanna race!”
“No, I’ll pay!” I said wavering.
“Good call!”

I had walked over to the rifles while my permit was being verified. Another man walked into the store behind me. He was wearing sunglasses above a formal attire and he briefly looked over the store. As his gaze passed over me there was very short pause, but I spotted it.
“Can we help you?” I could hear the clerk say.
The man said something along the line of “No, I’m just looking,” as he closed the door behind him and walked into the shop. From the corner of my eye I could see the new arrival had some bandages wound around one side of his neck. From there they ran underneath his suit.
The clerk momentarily stared at the back of the man as the man proceeded further into his store before looking down upon a small monitor on his counter. He then looked up in my direction, saw me already looking at him and gave me a thumbs up. I figured I cleared.
The man in the suit had walked over to one of the cabinets and was intensely looking at its contents. It was all so artificial. I headed over to the counter.

“I would like some ammo to go with it,” I said as I placed the gun on the counter. The monitor on the counter displayed a large photo of my face.
The clerk handed me back the card I had given him. “Can do. What do you want? I have various standard magazines in this calibre.”
“Anything which comes recommended with this firearm?”
“We’ve got these ENSEF ones, there on sale: three for the price of two. Nothing wrong with them, consisted unless you’re going long range, say over fifty.”
“I’ll take nine for the price of six.”
I briefly looked over my shoulder towards the undercover JDSI agent, or whatever he was, before smoothly looking back at the clerk, who shrugged his shoulders. I dug a credit card from my wallet and handed it to the clerk, who passed it over a red surface on the counter. The words ‘payment completed’ appeared under a sizeable four digit figure on the monitor.
“Thank you,” I said formal.
“The same. Have a nice day.”
After holstering the gun and spreading the magazines over some of my pockets I stepped outside. There was a toy store next door. Spotting no other out of place individuals around, I immediately entered it. Spending about half an hour there would be enough.


“…so he’s a dinosaur and he has to protect mammals from the reptiles,” the kid said with wide eyes.
It was an interesting premise to be sure. I always wondered how much thought was placed in coming up with such a format for a kids show.
“Isn’t a dinosaur himself a reptile. Why doesn’t he help the reptiles?”
“Because the reptiles are bad and he’s not!”
“I see. Are there other good reptiles?”
“No. Well there is Kizond. He’s really cool. He was ones bad but now he helps the defenders.”
“Who else is in the defenders?”
“Rofert, he’s a dog. Then you have Emily who is scientist.” The picture on the box the kid was holding depicted a female rabbit with a lab coat, anthropomorphized of course.
“Who’s this?” I pointed at what looked like a praying mantis.
“That’s Saam he’s a priest and this on is Eleanor.”
“Okay and together they fight the reptiles.”
“Yes.”
“Awesome!”
“Yeah. Last time the reptiles had kidnapped…”
There was a beep from my earpiece
“Excuse me. I have a phone call.”
“Okay,” the kid said dissapointed.

“This is Max,” I said after opening the channel.
“Katina. Max, where are you?”
“I’m one my way to the hotel.” I figured telling her I was hanging out in a toy store would not be appreciated. “This line might not be secure Katina. I’ll contact you as soon as possible.”
“Understood. No need to go to the hotel, Max. We retrieved everything from there.”
“Got it.”
It was seven fifty. I had been here for twenty five minutes now. I should try to pick up a new phone somewhere. I waved to the kid as I headed for the exit. “Bye.”

I remembered passing by a number of phone shops on my way here so I decided to walk back the way I had come in.

The assignment

The refinery had seemed abandoned. I had spent the whole day carefully exploring the facility, but I had not found any activity I was asked to find. Until now that is. I was again moving through lower lying network of tube shaped tunnels which connected the different refinery structures. Other than the tunnel I had taken to get into the refinery these were pressurized and well lit. There were voices ahead. They were faint and distant, echoing softly on the metal walls. I slowly sneaked forward towards the sound. The refinery had been closed down many years ago, made obsolete by the new refineries orbiting inside or just above the atmosphere of Duna. Periodically there should have been maintenance crews going through all structures to supply the minimum upkeep to keep the refinery intact, but we knew from reliable sources these had been entirely skipped by the current owner for at least the last two years, so any presence in the refinery was surely suspect. My current assignment was purely reconnaissance. Establish if and who’s here and what their doing. The sound of voices was getting louder now but still too deformed to make out clearly. With my back to the wall I peered around the corner of tunnel running perpendicular from the one I had been progressing to. The voices clearly emanated from here. The small pad located on top of my lower arm showed my coordinates on Duna 5 overlaid with three dimensional blueprint of the refinery. This particular junction led to building sixteen. Time to make a phone call. This suit didn’t have a functional communication system so I had to use my own phone. It showed two missed calls from Cleamen. I had given the whole issue with Cleamen much thought while exploring the refinery and had come to the conclusion I would no longer work for him. Sure, it paid the bills, and much more handsomely so than did Wolf but I always felt used in some way. This was unnecessary of course, it was just a job and despite his sad attempts he had little real control over me, but I came to the conclusion it was really affecting the joy I experienced in my work, which was more important to me than the income his irregular assignments supplied. Seeing his missed calls I chose now as the moment to delete this contact from my phone.
Wolf. Calling.
“Anthony, what’s up?” Wolf’s deep rasping voice gnawed.
“I’ve infiltrated the refinery, located an unknown presence in building sixteen. Buildings fourteen, eight, nine, ten and eleven and twenty through twenty five are empty.
“Let me bring up the blueprint,” Wolf said. His voice made it sound like a dangerous and impressive action, like it did virtually everything. “Any ID.”
“Not yet. I though I inform you immediately upon detecting the presence.”
“Building sixteen,” Wolf said mostly to himself. “Got it. I like this. It has access to the refinery dock. Tunnel one eight five. Copy?”

“Yes, I’m seeing this. According to the blueprint something drops down from building eighteen to around the Libra-Virgo tunnel.”
“Just pipes. They run along tunnel back to Virgo. Saved the company some digging.”
“How big are these pipes?”
There was a short silence.
“Motherfuckers. I’ll send a team out there. You try to get some ID on these people.”
“I’ll see what I can do. The tunnels are the only connection, easy to guard, so it might be hard to get close undetected.”
“You’ll find a way.”
“Will do. I’ll keep you posted.”

Max Hayes

“I need to speak to Katina. This is Max.”
“Standby.” There was a click followed by a high beep a few seconds after.
“Max?”
“Yes.”
“Report.”
“I was released this evening. Apparantly there were some Joint Duna Sucurity Initiative agents outside of the hotel when it got hit. They got killed in the attack although it was clearly aimed for us. I’m sure Elize told you but is seems we might have been under surveillance. There are people following me right now but I think I shook them off. This is really all I have to report. Duna security took R. I don’t think I’ll be getting him back.”
“What about the apartment?”
“Jar-tel’s men had already cleaned it out. There was nothing for me to find.”
“Anything on the attackers.”
“Nothing. I only really saw one of them. How’s Elize?”
“She’s fine. She’s staying at Jar-tel’s place for the time being.”
“Sounds good.”
“Look Katina, there’s stuff going on that we don’t know about. I’ve got nothing to go on at the moment.”
“Neither do I. Head over to Jar-tel’s office and wait for orders.”
“Copy. Max out.”
The waiter approached with my sandwich.
“Here you are, and one cola.”
“Thank you.”
“Have a nice meal.”
Maybe I should give Jar-tel a call as well. After copying the number from my comm to my brand new phone I called him.
“Yes. Who’s this?” Jartel asked annoyed.
“It’s Max.”
“Max. Jeremy told me you thought you had a tail.”
“Yes. I’ve shaken them off for now. At least I think. Might be JDSI. Two JDSI agents were outside of the hotel. They got killed by the group who attacked us. So we might have already been under surveillance. Maybe something you should know. Have you talked to Elize yet?”
“Briefly. She’s staying at one of my apartments. It’s well guarded. You’re welcome there as well.”
“Fine, send me the address. Is there any progress on our delivery you can and want to report?”
“I’ve spoken both frequently and extensively with your employer today and I’ve got nothing to add at this time.”
“Very well. Did you know JDSI is one this case?”
“Max, do you know what it is I’m supposed to deliver to you?”

“No.”
“I think we’re done here.”
“Goodnight then.” This was getting embarrassing.
“I’ll send you the address.”
“Thank you.”
I felt any influence I could have on the situation was now coming to an end. There was nothing more to do than sit back and wait for Jar-tel to come through, or not, or for Katina to give me something to do. This had of course been the way from the start, but somehow I had thought I might or should be able to resolve whatever was going on.
After finishing my sandwich I headed out of the shopping district. Jar-tel had sent me an address, but I didn’t feel like sheepishly waiting at Jar-tel’s place until this whole thing played out. Maybe it was pride but I also believed I could be more useful if I could take some individual action at a later point in time, something which might be harder to do, depending on what it might entail, if I resided under the protection of Jar-tel so I decided to find a hotel once more. After taking out the memory card out of my comm I dumped both it and the company phone in a trashcan. If I wanted to be really thorough I realised I had to dump my knife and shades as well but I felt I might already be overdoing it.
The streets were emptying a little, it was getting late. I decided to call Elize just to see how she was doing after tonight. I hadn’t really had the chance to speak to her today.
“Elize, Trinity holding.”
“He Elize, it’s Max. How are you doing?”
“Fine, how are you? Where are you?” She said concerned.
“I’m alright. Just got released. I’m now looking for a hotel.”
“Don’t bother, Jar-tel arranged for an apartment. You can come here. I’ll send you the address. It’s lovely. I’m sure I can ask Quinton to send a car to pick you up.”
“I know. I talked to Jar-tel. It’s better if I stay out here. It’s hard to explain. Do you have anything new on the situation?”
“Jar-tel says he’s in the process of recovering our equipment.”
“Sounds good. I guess. But you’re doing okay?”
“Yes, really. I was a little shaken at first, but now it’s okay. You?” she said composed.
“You did good, Elize. Great thinking.”
“I didn’t know what to do!” Elize exclaimed suddenly panicked.
“That’s why I’m telling you.”
“I was scared. I thought that if I would stay with R we would get killed!”
“Well, that’s true: you might have been killed if you had stayed. So you made the right choice to leave. Even if they would have gotten past R, they would have had to search the entire hotel. This really was an excellent response to the situation.”
“Okay,” Elize said somewhat convinced.
“We’ll have dinner together later.”
“I’d like that,” Elize said warm.
“I’ll call you tomorrow.”
“Bye.”
“Take care.”
After walking around the area for maybe half an hour I found a hotel nearby. I fell asleep the moment my head hit the pillow.

The assignment

Neither Wolf nor I would want me to be compromised in any way. Otherwise he wouldn’t have picked me for the job. The group suspected to operate here was thought to be in the act of smuggling some high value technology. If they would find out their cover was blown, the technology, which wolf suspected still to be here, would be moved to another location. According to the blueprint building sixteen was offices, control centers and personnel quarters. Taking the tunnel in was too risky so I backtracked to one of the refinery towers to see if I could make an entry across the surface. The sun was up, Duna itself was down. Casting long shadows over the dark brown surface I ran the distance to building 16.