Day 3

The assignment

Turning the wheel on the door another turn I spotted the vapour trail of air flowing out. I carefully tried the handle but it was still blocked. Too much pressure still on the inside, I waited.
Another pull at the handle softly swung open the door, blowing the last trinket of air into space. I stepped inside the airlock while closing the door behind me. There was a light burning, like there had been in the tunnels below. Equally careful I started turning the wheels on the inside to avoid making any noise, first the one on the outside door to close the vent to the outside. I then tried the wheel on the inside door of the airlock. After a few turns I could feel the air streaming into the room. I was in. After the room had pressurized I disconnected my helmet, pulling it upward until it just cleared my mouth. I started breathing carefully paying attention to every sensation of my body. My breathing was still regular after half a minute so I took the helmet of completely and stuffed it in the top of my backpack, leaving the air hose connected. Now for the real challenge.
There would be numerous persons in this building and I would need to find some way to find out who they were without them ever seeing me. I opened the door.
A certain unimpeded calmness and relaxedness was the best way to trespass into heavily restricted and hostile areas. My opinion of course. Some others in my profession were sure to disagree, or so I think, I’ve never met any. Those first few steps were always a little angsty, but it would pass. Carefully I peered out of the door. It was dusty. Some spacesuits hung against the walls in front and to the right. They were of the large oversized type. The wall on the left featured a large map. I stepped out in front of it, proceeded to take a few steps back to gain a better view, and saw it depicted the outside area. The door towards the next room was open. On closer inspection the doorpost didn’t have a door. It gave way into another room. Against one wall there stood a row of lockers, all of them open. Perpendicular to them a number of low benches were place in front of the lockers. Walking inside I could feel that first spike of tension already easing. It wouldn’t be long now. I went through the lockers. I didn’t expect to find anything but it would get me in the mood. Inside one of them hung a orange overall, I held up the sleeve. I could be a maintenance worker! Finally doing that long overdue maintenance on the base! I mean it had been over two years. I needed to check everything out especially since the last crew apparently had left the lights on in half the facility. Where was my helmet? Current workplace safety standards mandate that a helmet be worn at all times.
The suit was a few sizes too big, but it made it puffed and fluffy, better concealing the space suit underneath. The backpack was a little off, more than I liked, and I couldn’t find a helmet.

I took a tool belt of one of the spacesuits though. It only had a flashlight and some flares in it but it was a nice touch.
I was sure being a maintenance worker wouldn’t allow me to barge through the base, but if I would be spotted it was so much less threatening. It’s someone who you would capture, at least to interrogate, instead of shooting on sight. He could tell you how many other workers there were and more importantly it wouldn’t mean anybody was on to your operation. You might even decide to leave the worker and keep out of sight to avoid detection altogether.
‘He you there, this is a restricted area! How did you get in here?’ ‘This is no place for civilians.’ ‘Is that a gun?’ ‘Are you with security?’ ‘You must be one of the prospective buyers. Thought you’d come in tomorrow.’

I stepped out of the locker room into a long hallway. By the looks of it, it spanned the length of the building. Taking a left at the first intersection I reached one of the staircases. It would take you two levels down and two levels up. I needed to head for the second basement storey, which is where the tunnel system connects to this building. This is where the people I heard should have been at the time. They could still be there. But first I waited, five minutes, maybe more, listening.
Hearing nothing I started moving. Softly, one step at the time, sneaking down two flights of stairs. Waiting again after reaching the lowest basement, I could hear something faint: activity. I couldn’t make out anything specific. I navigated the hallways to the place were the tunnel entered the building while staying away from the center of the building as much as possible. According to the blueprints the tunnel would run upward in a stairs emerging out of the floor into a large central room which spanned two storeys. It was exactly the kind of chokepoint I had circumvented by entering this building from the outside. From the room ran a larger square tunnel straight through building eighteen, which lay completely underground, and from there on to the docks. Years ago, when the refinery was still active, huge vessels would depart from here, dive into the Duna atmosphere, soak it up and return it to the refinery for processing.
Each step I took made the sound clearer. They were voices. Similar to the ones I’d heard in the tunnel below. It was a group of people, chatting. Checking the blueprint I knew I was close to the tunnel. The hallway I was now peering in from around a corner lay parallel to the central room. The next intersection featured a hallway to the left which would allow me to look into the room and all the way through the tunnel to the docks. I kneeled down, freed one strap from my backpack and brought it to the front. Somewhere in it was a small remote camera Wolf had supplied me with. I had used it before, it was excellent for surveillance. I couldn’t exactly locate the voices but the sound seemed to originate from somewhere in the central room but maybe further beyond it. No, it was both. There was a very loud group further away, they were laughing and screaming having a rough but good time and a smaller group closer by inside the central room. I had to be careful. With extreme care I slowly sneaked towards the next hallway on the left. Both this hallway as the one going left were well lit so the lights didn’t throw a visible shadow forward and allowed me to safely move up to the corner. I could make out the voices close by.

“…what the hell is the boss waiting for? The longer we sit…”
“Oh shut up. He knows what he’s doing.” A second voice intervened
“Oh yeah?” The first voice asked challenging.
“Just do your job. That’s what we pay you for. Right Mike.”
“Yeah. What he said. Shut the fuck up man.”
“See, Mike agrees.”
“I just don’t understand why we don’t take the stuff out of here right now.”
“You sound scared.”
“You scared?” Mike asked.
“I’m not scared.”
“You’ve been here like what, a month? Me and Mike have been here over a year. Nobody’s going to find this place and they’re not gonna find it now.”
“Well maybe now they’re looking.”
“Who the fuck are you talking about?”
“Everybody.”
“Everybody? That’s a whole lot of people. Nobody cares a fuck about this thing and the ones who do can’t do a fuck about it. Trust me.”
“What do you know?”
“Well I just know, okay. Stop being so curious.”
“Whatever.”

This was more than enough information to satisfy Wolf I guessed. I wasn’t going to risk placing the camera. These guys were really close by.
I was about to move away to make a long call when the first voice suddenly spoke again.

“I heard…”
“Oh for fuck sake.” The second voice said annoyed.
“Yeah man. Shut the fuck up.”
“I heard Bozers dead.”
“Bullshit.” Mike.
“Who told you that?” The second voice said annoyed but also interested.
“The boss. He was on the phone and I walked by. He said something like: ‘They got fucking killed, you moron,’ and he was angry too.”
This little revelation got my sudden undivided attention because it was very similar to what Cleamen had said when I had him on the phone a day ago.
“Doesn’t make bozer dead,” Mike said
“He said he lost his main man.” There was no more denying it now. I felt a shiver running down my back.
“When was this?” The second voice wanted to know.
“Yesterday. I helped Dopeman loading the Methryx.”
“Fuck that shit man,” Mike said, “Doesn’t mean fuck. You got that ‘shit’?”
“Stop calling me that.”
“You guys stay here,” the second voice said suddenly, “I’m going to tell these guys to pipe it down or take their party somewhere else.”
“Fucked up man,” the first voice yelled surprised at someone moving away from them. “What do you care? Place is safe as ever, right.” he said sarcastic.
“Just doing my job,” the second voice yelled back. “Stay here.”

This didn’t look good. I slowly sneaked back the way I came from. This would be a very long phone call indeed. Maybe I shouldn’t make a phone call at all. Or…of course…I could just tell Wolf what I heard, but it would seriously complicate things for me in the long run.

There was no need rush things, I figured I just needed some time to think. Just focus on the job for now. I navigated the hallways to some place where I could hide for a moment. I hadn’t slept in over a day. I had to clear my head.

Elize

I couldn’t sleep. I turned on the light on above the bed. Jar-tel’s appartment was huge, a bit to big maybe. I just couldn’t sleep in a bedroom the size of a gym. I decided to get something to drink. I hadn’t slept in over a day. After the attack I spend a couple hours on the bureau answering questions. I spend the rest of the night calling with Katina and Jar-tel and reading up what little I could on Duna 5 criminal law to try and get Max out of custody. I managed to force a preliminary judgement meeting and got the security company who was holding her to let her go. They didn’t have anything but they clearly thought the might get something later, though in the end they were too scared to face charges for wrongful detention. They tried the stall by not giving the information on the bail which tied me up the whole afternoon. Then I had retrieve our belongings from the hotel and file a suit against the security company on behave of Trinity for taking possession of my laptop which they had taken from my hotel room. All data was encrypted but Katina was furious. I’d never seen her like that. Normally she was always so friendly. At times she could be a little short when she was under stress, but not like this. Luckily the company immediately rolled over and giving some vague excuse. I could have sued anyway, but I was more than happy to just get it back and put Katina at ease. I picked up the laptop from the station on my way back from the bank after transferring Max’s bail, which was ridiculously high by the way. I had busier days but only now and then with so little sleep which made it all the more silly I couldn’t sleep now. I kept thinking about Max.

The Assignment

The small office had two desks opposite to each other. I tried the phones but they were dead. I called wolf. The office hadn’t been entered in years and it lay far enough from the area I knew Cleamen’s men were occupying. The phone rang four or five times before it was picked up.
“Who’s this?” Wolf’s sleepy voice barked.
“Anthony. I got some intel.”
“Great! Give me a moment to get to my desk.”
I heard doors opening, Wolf walking.
“You’re at work?”
“Yes. No sleep for the wicked. What have you got?”
“I’m made it in. Building sixteen. There are a number of people occupying at least this building, definitely criminals, expect them to be armed. First I overheard a couple of guys. One of them was pretty jumpy about some ‘stuff’ which is here on the base. They…”
“Did they tell what?”
“No they didn’t. When people have conversations with each other they don’t refer to everything in full. You probably do this as well. They said, or one guy said, he didn’t understand why they didn’t take ‘the stuff’ out of here right now. They could be talking about Methryx; they’re apparently shipping it. However another guy called it the thing. He said almost nobody knew the thing was here and the ones who did know couldn’t do anything. So to me it didn’t seem they where talking about the Methryx. You wouldn’t call Methryx a thing. You might of course talk about the container of Methryx as the thing, but it seemed it was something else than the Methryx.”

“Got it. Any indication it is still there?”
“It is. They did make that clear.”
“We can certainly work with this. Anthony, great job. How many are there?”
“Hard to tell. At least ten, I’d say. Could be many more, I don’t know.”
“Any idea who these guys are?”
“It looks like a gang to me. They said they’re working for someone named Cleamen,” and that’s where my performance started.
“Cleamen? He’s a fucking nobody!”
“Wolf, I’m just reporting what I’m hearing.”
“No it’s good. I believe you. What did they say?”
“They talked about the boss and this Cleamen and it was clear this was the same person. I’ve also got the names Mike and Dopeman, both of them are gangmembers…I’m assuming for the moment it’s a gang...”
“…understood...”
“…don’t know how useful this is. Mike’s definitely here now, Dopeman maybe.”
“Anything else?”
“Well this is where it got interesting. Some lieutenant figure stepped into one of the groups I managed to get close to and he started spilling All. Kinds. of Shit. You’ve got a pen?”
“Go.”
“At this point the boss, this Cleamen, is at odds with Jar-tel for some reason. Now I do know this guy. Jar-tel is an owner of a trading and shipping company. But, and you didn’t get this from me, rumour has it he’s also involved in some questionable activities. Ask around.” Maybe not Wolf himself but I knew they already knew this. “Anyway they want Jar-tel dead.”
“Do you know why?”
“No, but they are in a hurry. Do you want to hear the rest?”
“Absolutely.”
“There three other people they need dead fast. He said these people work for Trinity.”
“Trinity.” Wolf repeated.
“Never heard of it, but it’s clear more people work for Trinity. Apparently these three need to be taken care of. They said these three individuals are on Duna 5 and they had been with Jar-tel. It’s all bits and pieces, I’m sorry for that, but here’s the thing you need to here. Cleamen has a contact with JDSI.”
“What?!”
“Yes. They tried to kill these three people but they failed. These three people got arrested by some security company as a consequence. I don’t know how that makes sense. But they knew this because ‘Cleamen has a contact with JDSI.’ It’s what this guy said.”
“Did they say who?” Wolf asked concerned.
“No, of course not. Look Wolf, this is a lot of information, I took me high risk of risk to get it: If some of it checks out…”
“Anthony, you’re getting a bonus on the system and Cleamen alone. I swear to you. Let me think for a minute.”
I only needed to erase my tracks with Cleamen. I would take a short vacation after completing this assignment, just in case something leads back to me. I could get a new identity.
“Listen up,” Wolf said after a few moments, “Do you know if Cleamen is at the refinery?”

“I don’t know. If you send me a good photo of him I could find out, no guarantees of course.”
“I will. For now, stay where you are. I need to make some phone calls. I’ll get back to you in a few minutes.”
“Will do.”
I needed to make a quick phone call myself.

### voice pattern 1

“Hello? It’s me.”
~
“Did I wake you?”
~
“No sleep for the wicked.”
~
“It’s a saying. Never mind. I have something to tell you…”
~
“No, I still can’t help you. Cleamen. Here’s the thing: In our last conversation you said you’d turn me in. I don’t like those kinds of threats.”
~
“My thoughts exactly. First I didn’t mind but then I realised you might actually do it. So you listen to me! If you’ll turn me in, I’ll turn you in.”
~
“I thought you would say that. To prove my determination I’ve given this phone number to Duna security. Just a taste of what’s to come if you do decide to turn me in.”
~
“They’re probably trying to gain access to your records while we speak.”
~
“You said you had a contact in JDSI, maybe you should give him or her a call if you don’t believe me, Cleamen.”
~
“Goodbye.”
###


The assignment

“Wolf.”
“Anthony. Did you receive the photo?”
“Yes.”
“Good. I talked this through with finance. We’re giving you a fifty percent bonus for what you got us so far on the system and Cleamen. Does that sound good?”
“It sounds reasonable.”
“I’ve been given permission to double the total amount for the rest of the intel supplied that checks out and everything else you can find.”
“What do you need?”
“Our priorities are the location of Cleamen. Anything you can get on the JDSI contact…
“I can’t just get…”
“We understand, but if you do come across anything. I think you get it. We also need tactical intel on the refinery: location of the system, numbers and disposition on the gang and so on.”
“That I can do. Like I tried to say, for those other thing you’ll have to understand I’m in a way dependent on what is handed to me.”
“I understand.”
“If there is a mole on JDSI you’ll have to be careful.”
“I’m on this. We’re bringing in another team. I’ve informed internal affairs.”
“There’s no need to share such information with me. I just wanted to make sure you would take this into account.”
“I have.”
“Very well. I’ll keep you posted.”
The short nap before Wolf called hadn’t done me any good. Wolf played it smart with the promise to double my pay if I brought in more. It was tempting enough. Planting the camera where I had wanted to plant it earlier would be too risky. But I could plant a microphone. I sneaked back to where I had wanted to plant it earlier near the central room. There were no more voices now. There was some weird slow ticking sound coming from the central room. When I got near the corner I did hear the sound of some muffled voices but it came from farther away. The device was the size of as small matchbox. There were much smaller microphones but this on had incredible performance. I removed the sticker of the side the box which exposed and adhesive surface. I stretched out and carefully placed it against the ceiling halfway under the edge of a lamp. The device was configured to transmit both to me and Wolf. I had contemplated disabling the transmission to Wolf, which he had preconfigured, but I had decided to play things fair from now on. There was a small chance someone would say something which would complicate me, but integrity was important especially in my line of work, my customers relied on it. I didn’t like this intrigue, even betraying Cleamen like that, made me feel uncomfortable. I could not have done it and simply told Wolf what I had discovered and nothing more. It would certainly have been the more principal thing to do. I was angry for the way Cleamen had behaved towards me, but I could still have just walked away from him, like I had planned to do when I had deleted his number. Luckily the phone had only deleted the contact and not the missed calls otherwise I couldn’t have called him.

While thinking about this I suddenly realised the missed calls. I had of course known of their existence when I used them to retrieve his number half an hour ago, but I hadn’t given it any real thought. I was sleep deprived. But now it did realise. It indicated Cleamen had tried to call me after our last call. Apparently he had still tried to acquire my help, which also meant he wasn’t, yet, planning to turn me in. I had given him up before he had me. I’d broken some serious rules I had set myself. While it all came to me I noticed I was still standing in the hallway.
Focus on the job. I sneaked away slowly and pushed it away to concentrate on my surroundings, but this lingered.

### system log

The system was located in an unknown location. The reported IP address of a connected system suggested a location on the Duna 5 colony. The internet routing table labelled the prefix as Duna 5 Aquarius but is was extremely likely the regional internet registries on Duna 5 did not correspond with the geographical area their names implied and in addition featured likely overlap due to Duna 5 ISP’s, allocated with the an IP block for one geographical area, servicing end users in many of the other geographical areas in and around Duna 5 from the allocated IP block. The connected system ran a Gensoft operating system suggesting it most likely to be a low quality Gensoft personal computer. The physical connection to the personal computer gave the system no access.
The personal computer did actively advertise a wireless network of which a brute force hacking attempt had revealed the password. Connecting to the network presented a connection to a router. Gensoft personal computer came installed with virtual router connecting the wireless network advertised by the personal computer to other networks the personal computer was connected to. It was believed the router presented was most likely such a virtual router. The primary function of the virtual router was to allow wireless devices to gain access to the internet via the personal computer. Unfortunately the personal computer was currently not connected to the internet.
The wireless network Gensoft personal computers presented also gave access to a share folder. Every device connected was given its own subfolder within the share folder and did not have access to the subfolders of other devices. In a fatal flaw however the Gensoft operating system firstly gave connected devices access to navigate to the share folder, in which all the other subfolders were visible although not accessible, and secondly it named the folders with the IP address with which the devices owning the subfolder connected to the personal computer. This gave any connected system the IP addresses of all systems once connected to the personal computer via the wireless network it advertised.
Initially the system did not the probe the wireless network for these IP addresses in order to prevent the detection of its activities by possibly more capable devices. When however the efforts to access the system in the following days indicated an almost low to non existing skill by the users, it was determined the users trying to gain illicit access to the system would likely not detect and/or not adequately understand more aggressive actions taken by the system. This notion was somewhat reinforced by the fact the users were using a Gensoft computer to carry out their efforts.

The system started probing the network it was connected to on a regular basis for the IP addresses found in the share folder. After one hour and fifty one minutes a device replied on several ports but no access could be gained. The system’s own wireless hardware also directly detected encrypted transmissions from two sources. Since these transmissions had started at the same time as the new device was detected it was most likely these transmissions embodied the connection between the newly detected device and the personal computer.
The system itself started advertising the exact same network the personal computer had been advertising while at the same time launching a multi vectored denial of service attack against the personal computer advertising the original network. Breaking the connection between the newly detected device and the personal computer and leaving the mimicked but otherwise identical network advertised by the system as the only accessible network for the newly detected device.
Only several milliseconds after the denial of service had started targeting the original network, an automatic connection attempt was made into the mimicked network, in all probability by the newly detected device. Upon allowing the connection attempt, which used the correct password, to progress, the system received MAC960 code from the connecting device, which identified itself as AZUKIPhone156. The system ended the denial of service attack and used the retrieved MAC960 to make its own second connection to the original network. Gaining access on the personal computer to the subfolder in the share folder associated with the IP address the newly detected device had had on the network, confirmed GENSOFTPhone156 was likely the newly detected device. Based on information gained from the connected device, to which the system had now limited access, it was established the device was indeed, like its name suggested, an AZUKI phone, which uses the ORNIX3 operating system.
Since the system was now connected to the personal computer using the MAC960 of the phone and the phone was connected to a network which mimicked the network of the personal computer, processes on both the phone and the personal computer attempted to communicate with each other with. The system facilitated this by sending the various packets it received from the phone to the personal computer and vice versa. The disconnection had lasted effectively 5 milliseconds.
Besides limited access to the phone, the connection to the personal computer using the MAC960 of the phone also had more extensive access than the original connection. The system had started an immediate full system scan of both systems and started the aggregation of all files it had access to.
The subfolder in the share folder allocated to the phone contained, amongst others, a number of hidden configuration files. One of these hidden files contained settings which translated to the privileges the phone, or any system connected using the phone’s MAC960, would enjoy on the personal computer. The file was freely editable and allowed the system to gain administrator privileges on the personal computer after another reconnect. It immediately used its administrator role to create a new account which also had administrator privileges and was accessible via both the wireless and physical connection.

After verifying the functionality of this new setup, by accessing the personal computer via the physical connection and logged in to the new account, the system reset the rights of the phone and then dropped all wireless connections to the personal computer and phone and ended the existence of the mimicked network. After the phone automatically reconnected to the original network advertised by the personal computer, the situation was reverted to the original state for any outside observers.
The administrator control over the Gensoft operating system afforded the system some additional functionality over the reconnected phone, but access was still very limited. Although it was evident the phone had an internet connection, it offered no possibility to access the internet through it. This functionality was common in most phones, but it was often disabled by default.
The personal computer did have hardware to allow it to connect to a mobile network but no account was associated with it and the system currently did not have any active mobile accounts on file to install into it.
The hardware, which in essence was an antenna, could of course be used as a radio transmitter. The driver for the antenna on the Gensoft operating system was a proprietary one, also the hardware was unknown to the system. Since no other options existed the system started a task of reverse engineering the driver, using the knowledge gained to create its own driver which would be able to operate the antenna in a more apprehensible manner. This process would take considerable time.
The personal computer was a large laptop model. It came equipped with a camera and microphone. The microphone was already active. Currently a program part of the user interface was monitoring the microphone input stream to facilitate voice operation. After disabling both onscreen indicators as well as lights placed around the camera which would indicate the camera was on, the system also activated the camera.
In addition to files on the personal computer, the system acquired valuable information from the surroundings of the personal computer through the camera and microphone. For as long as the phone was in range it relayed any phone calls through to an application installed on the personal computer. The application, specific to AZUKI phones but made by Gensoft, allowed a user among other things to use the personal computer as a remote speaker and microphone for the phone. The user did not use this feature but the complementary application on the phone still relayed the incoming side of phone calls to the application whenever the phone was in range of the personal computer. The first suggestion why this occurred would be because the user had enabled a setting on the phone, however looking at the overall construction of the Gensoft system it was also a distinct possibility this was the chosen design of the application. Whatever the reason, it allowed the system to record the raw incoming audio stream.

The assignment

According to the blueprint the refinery dock lay a kilometre from building 16. I considered leaving building 16 the way I came in and walking there across the surface, but only because I felt I was not able to move around here freely, which I knew from experience was something which needed to be addressed instead of avoided. Otherwise you ended up going wide circles around the target, moving away again every time you met the first resistance. It didn’t mean you had to blindly move forward when there was a clear risk but you did need a certain determination to try and look for ways to overcome obstacles.
So I decided to instead move around to the other side of the building, trying to roughly get to where I had heard the bigger, louder rowdier group of voices somewhere on the other side of the central room. The microphone had been placed and was transmitting, which would give me some idea what was going on in the area. Through my headphone I heard the ticking which had been present for a while stop, leaving only the muffled voices in the distant. The second voice I overheard could have managed to quiet the party or send them to a more remote location. Listening to the sound of the voices continuously while I navigated through the hallways farther from the central room, I became convinced it was the latter. They could be in an enclosed room with the doors shut, no too far away. It would sound exactly like that. I would hear it, directly that is, when I neared it. I took a moment to check the blueprints for any clues. There was a mess hall right next to central hall. If I would have known the first time I heard them, I would have bet it was where they were at the time. They must be farther away. Suddenly the voices fell silent. Not entirely there was still some talking. A single person. The microphone could barely pick it up. If this was the sound of a single person, it meant there had been a whole lot of them before.
The sound picked up again and then it seemed the enclosure disappeared altogether. I realised the door suddenly being opened must have been a heavy one. The sounds grew louder, more dispersed. There was yelling all over the place. I quickly entered the nearest room.

“You guys stay here, guard the tunnel,” a new voice commanded. “Allers, Corey! You and Bird, that way. Move it.”
This was quickly taking the shape of what I feared it would be.
“Fucks going one, Duke?” Mike asked.
“Boss called: possible intruder. Stay on your toes.”
I grabbed my phone.

“Wolf,” I said as soon as he picked up the phone.
“Anthony?”
“There is a search going on for an intruder,” I could hear the excitement in my own voice.
“We are hearing this as well.”
Of course they were.
“Are you sure everybody…”

“How the boss knows this?” the first voice asked. “How the fuck should I know,” the second one responded.

“…on your side can be trusted?”
“Ehm. This could be a something else,” Wolf said.
“It isn’t.”
“You don’t know. Maybe you tripped an alarm.”
“Think about this. I’ve been inside for almost two hours. The building isn’t secured, you told me so yourself. Why would this be happening now?”
“Maybe…” Wolf started. “Hang on.” “Make a list of everybody who knows we have a man at location,” Wolf ordered someone.
The room I was in was another office. On the wall next to only desk in the room hang a whiteboard. It showed a partly erased diagram of crossed and connected lines with numbers placed above thicker dots at certain intersection. Would they check every room?
“I’m aborting,” I told wolf, “You’re not in control of the operation.”
“Stay calm Anthony. We’re going to get to the bottom of this. I need to know if you found any more information on the JDSI contact.”
Focus on the job. “No I didn’t.” I told wolf, not sure how Wolf thought this could possibly help me now, “Wolf, they’re looking for me…”
It took a few seconds before it all fell into place. Wolf had sold me out.
“Anthony. Are you still there?”
“Yes, I am,” I suddenly said cool.
“Good. Don’t worry. We’re going to get you out of there.”
“I don’t think you will.”
“What?”
“I said, I don’t think you will.”
There was a momentary silence on the other side. I opened the door and walked into the hallway. I had already assumed they would check every room.
“I’m not following you, Anthony. Just hold tight. We’re with you on this one.”
“Did you get your agent?” I asked.
“What agent?”
“Cleamen’s JDSI contact,” I said plain.
“Anthony calm down.” Wolf tried to sound soothing.
“I am calm,” I said and cut him off.
I guess this was my punishment for breaking the rules. I’d learned my lesson, this would be the last time. That is if I’d somehow made it out of here alive.

### voice pattern 2

“Cleamens, it’s me. New development.”
~
“What number?”
~
“This number… Yes, of course I have you’re number. This is important! We’ve got a someone inside Morlock 4.”
~
“Yes. I don’t know.”
~
“I don’t know.”
~
“I don’t know.”
~
“No.”
~
“If I find out more I’ll call you.”
~
“I don’t…Doesn’t ring a bell. You’re saying a phone number. Who would have given us this number?”
~
“Wait, you don’t mean this number, do you?”
~
“Oh, no, no, no, this is not happening. Get rid of it. Bye.”
###

The assignment

With a quick pace I hurried my way through the hallways. In various directions I heard the sound of footsteps and voices of men combing the building. I had to try to somehow pass a search party into an area they had already cleared.

“What the fuck is going on?” the first voice said.

There were footsteps up ahead. I could hear doors being slammed open and shut. I ran back to the last intersection I passed.

“Get on your feet and keep your eyes open,” the second voice ordered.
“How many are there?” the first voice asked.
“Shut the fuck up man!” Mike said.

I tried to go for a nearby staircase but there were too many in the area. Moving off in yet another direction I got my first visual on Cleamen‘s men when I turned a corner. I jumped back and instinctively pressed my back against the wall. There were two of them moving away from me. I listened. They were still moving so they hadn’t noticed me. Slowly I peered around the corned. If their clothing was representative, black was the gang colour. I looked down at my orange overall. My suit underneath would match the color, but they wore jeans and sweaters.
The two men neared a T-intersection. This was a place were people would make a turn or briefly glance back. I moved my head back around the corner. The good news was I had managed to pass a search party, but it forced me to the inside of the building which meant fewer rooms to hide in than the outer sections.

“Maybe it’s Duna security,” the first voice said.
“It’s probably nothing,” Mike said.
“Maybe they found us.”
“We’ve got sixty men here, seventy if you count the Rokers. They better bring an army.”

It was nice intel. I bet Wolf would have liked to know this. I took another peak around the corner. The two men had disappeared into another hallway. I decided to follow and moved up to the next intersection. Approaching it I heard they had taken a right. Taking a left would lead me to the central room. I knew there were three guys there. After a small zigzag the hallway would enter the central room perpendicular to the one where I had planted the microphone.

“Where is everybody?” the first voice asked worried.
“Searching,” the second voice said annoyed. “Man up, Tobin.”
“Fucking rooky,” Mike added.

After kneeling down and taking of my backpack, I unzipped the overall, worked my arms out of the sleeves and rolled the top part down to my hips. I used the sleeves to tie a knot in front of my waist. From my backpack I retrieved a T-MP-9. It was crude machinery, I carried some more refined equipment in another compartment, but it was exactly what I needed.

The weird ticking started again.
“Stop it,” the second voice ordered.
It stopped.

I moved in. There would be three of them. One was inexperienced, Tobin. He would be jumpy. There was Mike: not too bright, at least not in the sense of education. He had some experience with violence, maybe a lot. Then there was third one. He was cool headed, talked in complete sentences, no nonsense. I’d say military background. He gave orders but it was unclear where he stood. It didn’t matter. He would be the biggest threat. It was just a few more steps.

I marched into the central room. The three of them were standing around a hole in the floor where the smaller tunnel emerged. One of them was turned halfway in my direction and spotted me first. He turned his head towards me, while he brought up his rifle a little and then hesitated. He would be Tobin. The other two responded to him and quickly looked back.
“Calm down rooky,” I said, my weapon slouching in front of me.
“Who the fuck are you?” Mike said. He was shorter, smaller and younger than I had expected.
The other one looked exactly like I thought he did, which was strange. He looked suddenly familiar. I must have met him sometime and filled in his face from memory when I heard his voice. Would he know me? I decided to ignore Mike’s question and I turned to this guy instead.
“What’s up?” I said as if we indeed knew each other.
He looked me over.
“Martin,” I said.
There was a sudden expression of recognition on his face.
“False alarm guys. I was the intruder,” I was already sorry I said it before I finished the sentence. It was a relieve to them to know it was a false alarm and an appealing idea for the intruder to be a friendly, but it had the potential to quickly fall apart. Unfortunately there was no going back. “Where’s Duke?” I asked the guy.
“He’s searching,” the guy said. By now he and mike had turned around. He still sounded surprised.
He looked away for a moment to the side and cleansed his lips momentarily. I could tell he had some doubts.
“What’s up man?” I asked confused but empathically.
“Since when are you here?” he asked, trying to sound just interested.
“Just got here. One of your guys almost killed me. What’s his name?” I said looking at Tobin so he could involve himself in the conversation. “Bird.” I suddenly said as if I just remembered. “You guys are jumpy,” I continued while shaking my head. “What’s the status?” I asked to prevent a silence.
“Going as planned,” the guy said. I saw he was slowly transferring to a more relaxed stance. All three of them were.
“Who are you?” Tobin asked curious.
The other guy looked annoyed to the side and then back at me. I gave him understanding nod.
“I’m Martin. It’s all you need to know,” I told Tobin.
“Yeah man, shut the fuck up!” Mike said.
They were all convinced for now. My story had some major discrepancies with reality, although I did feel the guy who recognised me, might have been a lot more suspicious if I had tried to be one of the guys, which had been my initial plan.
The guy touched his earpiece. I had already noticed the other two didn’t have one. Just relax, I said to myself.
“Duke, it’s Josh.”

Josh, of course! He was on of the guys who picked up mister Toublaux. Cleamen had wanted him alive. Normally I didn’t take such assignments, but Cleamen had been persistent, he really needed me. I and Josh had exchanged only a few words. We switched cars and that had been it. Sometimes I wished I was a little better at paying attention to detail.

“Duke, come in,” Josh said, “False alarm. It’s Martin. I have him here.”
Josh listened to a response, then looked surprised up to me. His pupils dilated.
Pressing down with my left hand on top of the T-MP-9 to control the recoil, I mowed through the room on full auto, holding the weapon just above my waist. The three of them had no time to respond.

I snatched Josh’s earpiece from his head and started running into the big square tunnel towards building 18.
The whole issue with Cleamen the last few days, wolf sacrificing me to get his JDSI mole, it was getting all a bit too much after such a long day, almost two. I would need to get a new identity. Martin and Anthony would be over. I could always start out somewhere else. Maybe even outside of Duna 5. I had been on vacation to Perusa once, I was sure I could live there. It was a long run through the tunnel.
I was already twenty meters in when my phone rang. It was wolf. As I opened the channel, I suddenly realised I should take the other tunnel to get out of this place instead of going further inside. This sleep deprivation was really effecting my judgement.
“Anthony,” Wolf said, “Guardian mercs are on their way. ETA three minutes. Can you hold out that long?”
I was already running back to the central room when, in front me, two men entered it from the side. They ran towards the bodies but one did look round and spotted me. I opened fire. They both scattered. I might have gotten one. While spraying bullets around the room, I dashed on towards the hole in the ground.
“Anthony, are you alright?!” Wolf screamed through the phone.
Moving down the stairs, I reached the tunnel below.
“I’m alright,” I heard myself say while I ran through the round tunnel away from the building.
“What happened?”
“I don’t know. I’m out. I’m in the tunnels. There are seventy guys inside.”
“Yes, we know.”
Of course they did. They would have heard everything.
“For a minute we thought you had them fooled,” Wolf said.
“Me too.”
“Who’s this Martin?”
“Some guy they were expecting. I don’t know,” I said as I slowed my pace after turning the first corner. “I panicked, Wolf. I thought you had sold me out or something.”
“Me?” Wolf said angry and surprised.
It didn’t make any sense for Wolf to sell me out. If he wanted to leak information, he could have leaked anything. It didn’t have to be true. If somehow word would come out they sacrificed an employee, even if it was a freelancer, they could lose their whole contract. I needed sleep.


It was seven o’clock in the morning. I was standing across from the Guardian commander in the refinery dock. He wore a heavy combat suit. The dock had repressurized. The narrow door of the shuttle, which had just arrived, broke in an upper and lower part. Fully opened the lower part formed a three step stair to the ground. A middle aged man stepped in front of the opening and carefully moved down the stairs onto the dock and started walking our way.

I had stayed hidden while the Guardian mercs had secured the refinery, making some small contribution by relaying what intel I received on the enemy’s movement through the earpiece I took from Josh.
The Guardian commander gave me a small shove. I woke up and looked around.
“You alright?” Wolf asked. He had already joined the two of us.
“Yes,” I said. We were standing in the dock of the refinery.
“What do we got?” Wolf asked the commander.
“Got most of them,” the commander said. “Oh. For the record: this is a preliminary in the field brief based on the information available to me at this moment.”
“Understood,” Wolf said.
“We’ve secured this part of the facility. My personnel are currently combing the rest of the refinery. Some of the hostiles might be hiding in the outlying buildings. We found none yet. We believe we’ve got most of them. Hostiles were heavily armed. Current count says thirty three dead, another twenty nine taken in custody, with fourteen of those injured. We moved the injured to a hospital. Transferred the rest to JDSI. We took one casualties, five injured, one heavily. What else?” the commander paused a moment, “High explosives were used by Guardian personnel to gain entry to the facility and to take out hostile defensive positions after entry.”
“Any damage to the refinery?”
“I’m not going to answer that question,” the commander said, “I’ll wait for legal.”
“Any structural weaknesses we should know about? You know, safety wise,” Wolf tried.
“Besides the entry points, all sealed, external structure is intact. In the building opposite to this one we blew out some of the floors and internal walls. Hostiles had bunkered down in a sealed part of the facility. As for the rest of the facility: I’ve seen worse.”
“What about the military equipment?”
“Nothing matching JDSI’s description.”
Wolf looked to me.
I shook my head. After Guardian got to me, I had searched the entire area the gang had used.
“Duna 5 traffic control reported a ship leaving from the planet from this location eight minutes before Guardian arrived,” Wolf explained. “We requested several ships to make an intercept but none were able.”
“Any indication where they were going?” I asked.
“The ship was last spotted by a large mercenary vessel moving into the system, they tried for an intercept but lost it. Unless they were stupid enough to leave the system in the direction of their destination, we have no idea. I was hoping to pick up some clues here.”
“Cleamen is not among the dead or the prisoners,” I said to Wolf. I had checked both, making sure I had my helmet on so none of the prisoners would recognize me. I didn’t recognize any of them, which was promising.
“Do you think he was here?” Wolf asked.
It felt like my mind was falling apart. Duke said the boss had called them. Which could mean Cleamen was somewhere else, but he could also have been in another building in the refinery. “Don’t know,” I said.

“Allright,” Wolf said to me, “I’m going to join the detectives. The shuttle is going back to the office. You can hitch a ride.”
Without saying anything I started walking to the shuttle.

Max Hayes

A strange melody suddenly filled the room. I sat up and reached for the phone.
“Max.”
“This is Katina. Max, I need you to meet me at Jar-tel’s office in one hour. I called Elize. She told me you had wanted to stay somewhere else.”
“Got it.” I would find out what it was all about when I got there.
I had been awake for some time thinking about what happened the last two days. R was just a machine. Its human likeness, the many times it saved my live, I’d gotten emotional attached to it. On a rational level I of course understood he was a thing, but for other parts of me R actually was another person, a friend. It was normal human behaviour, or so I figured, and even if it wasn’t I would still need to deal with it. I would miss him.
For a moment I had pondered whether I could try to get him back, maybe ask Elize for help, have Katina pull some strings but I realized I only wanted it to get rid of this feeling of loss. It was pathetic in a way. Even if we could get him back it would be better for me not to rely on it to make me feel better. Not because of the chance I wouldn’t get him back, which was also substantial, but because I knew it was the bigger person who would take this as an opportunity to live through it.
I remembered I had similar feelings when Kevin contacted me out of the blue to tell me he would go his own way. I hadn’t seen it coming, but I wasn’t completely surprised when he broke the news. He had had his mind made up. We split the pay we had accumulated over the years, like we had always agreed we would if something would happen, and both went our separate ways. He had joined the Tallarian navy. It made sense. He’d always wanted to be part of something bigger: the Dania rebellion, our part in eliminating the Sconiva syndicate, he had really come to his own. In some of our other projects it sometimes seemed as if he was just along for the ride, which was okay with me because I liked having him along.
I turned of the shower. After drying myself with a hotel towel, I heaved myself back in the same cloths I had worn the last three days. I fed a magazine into my new gun and holstered it, made a last check for any of my belongings and left the room. Downstairs there was a buffet. After drinking a few glasses of orange juice, I grabbed some bread from a plate and headed for the reception.
“I would like to check out. Room twenty eight.”
The receptionist stared for a moment at the four small leaves of bread under my arm.
“I’m in a hurry,” I explained.
“Hmm?” the receptionist said as if she had no idea I was talking about. “Which room?”
“Room twenty eight.”
“You arrived last evening,” the receptionist informed.

“That’s correct.”
“That’ll be…”
I handed her my card before she could finish.
“Thank you.” She said as she took it from my hand.
She fiddled around with the computer for a long time.
“There you are. Have a nice day,” She said animated.
“Bye.”

The doors of the hotel closed behind me. I took a bite of bread of one of the leaves. I decided to start walking. Based on my experience so far, I figured I would run into a taxi in no time, which I did.

“Do you mind if I eat in your car,” I said as I opened the taxi door.
“It depends,” the driver said, “do you want me to take you somewhere in the meantime.”
I smiled and stepped inside. “City center. Please.”
“Anywhere particular?” he asked.
“The Whinton building.”
“No problem.”
“Doesn’t sound like you’re from around here, am I right?
“You got me. What gave it away?”
“City center, Whinton building.”
“I see,” I said clueless.
“It’s not a city,” the driver said joking as he warningly raising his finger.
“Excuse me.”
“And it’s the Inton building.”
“I’ll try to remember.”
“Do you have to be on time?”
“Eh, Yes. I’m a bit in a hurry,” I said gesturing at the bread, “I’ve got forty minutes.”
“You can forget about that.”
“Really? It’s not so far.”
“It’s rush hour.”
“Right. What’s the ETA. I mean estimated time of arrival.”
“An hour plus.”
“No problem.” I didn’t mind being late for this get together.
“Do you mind if I turn on the radio?” the driver asked as he turned up one of the main arteries.
“Go ahead,” I said. “Doesn’t seem so busy here.”
“Wait till we reach the center,” the driver said ominous.

He was right. Just short of the exit near the center the road was filled with vehicles.

“I don’t want to sound critical, but have you guys ever considered switching to flying cars,” I asked. On Therra there were now more people owning a flying car than a regular one, I once read. The vehicles had existed for decades, but only recently had they come into reach of the average consumer.
“Not enough airspace.” The driver pointed upwards.
I looked towards the ceiling of the crater. “Seems like high enough to me.”
“Imagine every car in the city up in the air speeding at hundred fifty kilometres an hour.”
“If there all on autopilot.”
“Well they say there isn’t enough space so at this point you need to be a pilot and to buy an expensive license but I’ve thought about it myself. They’re thinking of running a trial in Gemini.”
“Who’s they?”
“I don’t know. Owners of the crater,” the driver said uncaring.
“Who owns all the craters?”
“It varies, most are owned by one or more corporations, you have a couple in which every resident has an equal stake.”

Many stations were owned by a corporation, but somehow it seemed weird for a corporation to own a city or a planet. It was not entirely uncommon though. Duna was a prime example. Things seemed to be going well here. You did hear about other places where people were becoming effectively slaves to a corporation. The stories were often the same, poor settlers, mostly remote locations on uninhabitable planets or in space, where the settlers, without the means to leave at some point, became indebted to the corporation, were forced to sign contracts and so on.
It all came down to choice, I thought. The choice to leave and live somewhere else, the choice to replace the ones in power, to an extend it kept everyone on the straight. Of course, government or not, everybody in Duna probably paid rent to someone and at the end of the line the owners must use some of the rent to operate and maintain the crater and more important pay off the massive construction cost of the thing.
The taxi’s radio switched to the news. I hadn’t been paying attention the radio as it had been going through an endless line of pop songs since the driver turned it on.

An hour later the taxi dropped me of in front of the Inton building, the same place I had visited Jartel on my first day here. I took the elevator up to the same floor and walked into the lobby in front of Jar-tel’s office. First thing I noticed was they had repaired the door. Two guards in suits stood on either side of it.
“I’m here for the meeting. Max,” I said.
The guard on the left opened the door just enough to put his head through. “Max.” he said while nodding his head back in my direction. After a reply from inside the room the guard stepped aside and opened the door wide. On a number of couches arranged in a square on the far end of the room sat Elize, Katina, Wilhelm and Jar-tel. I walked on in.

“Hello Max,” Katina said as I approached.
“Commander. I got stuck in traffic. My apologies.”
“We just started. How are you?” Wilhelm asked.
“Doing alright.”
“Jar-tel just explained to us he knows where our equipment is.”
“Really?”
“To a certain extend,” Jar-tel explained, “It’s currently located aboard a ship in interstellar space. JDSI did a raid in one of the abandoned refineries this morning, where your goods were held up, so to speak. I know for a fact at least some of your goods were brought aboard a vessel and this vessel is currently lying motionless in interstellar space.”
I had heard of some big Duna security action on the radio this morning but the report didn’t have any details.
“So,” Katina started with a threatening calm, “our goods, or most of our goods, are in a ship which, for the moment, is not moving and is located somewhere in interstellar space. Do you now where this ship is located?”
“Yes I do. I placed a number of long range beacons on your goods as a precaution for exactly this type of eventuality. These would of course be removed before transferring the goods to you.”

“I get that. Why didn’t you tell us this sooner instead having us first come down to the planet?”
“I would have done this if only I did not found out less than an hour ago, hence my late arrival. When I spoke to you this morning I feared I would have to tell you JDSI appropriated the shipment, but luckily, this does not appear to be the case anymore. The possibility exists some of the goods are indeed lost, and if so I will of course recuperate the costs of these items, but it appears at least the more expensive items are still… outside their reach and less so out of ours.”
“Who has them?” I asked.
“This is a little less clear at the moment. But they are in the hands of the ones who have been trying to steal them.”
“I heard enough,” Katina said as she stood up, “You lost the goods. Do you have the signal specifications of these beacons? Of course you do. Please send them to my ship.”
“My employees told me the beacons are operating on a very specific frequency pattern and have a weak signal.”
“We’re familiar with this type of thing. The Canary has equipment to track it,” Wilhelm, who had stood up shortly after Katina had, explained.
“Send us the data,” Katina ordered.
“I have a personal aircraft. It can take you to the nearest space port.”
“Please Jar-tel,” Katina said annoyed.
Jar-tel immediately stood up. “If you’ll follow me.”
Elize looked up to me as the three of them paced me by.
“The two of you are coming with us,” Katina said without looking back.
Elize picked up her briefcase and together we followed the rest towards the nearest elevator.

“Some of the people I hired to transport your goods to Duna 5 took part in the theft. I still had a line of communication open with them, although I have come to know there are others involved as well. They were trying to extort me so I maintained good hopes of recovering your goods without any incidents or unwelcome attention. More so because it became known to me JDSI picked up a trail,” Jar-tel explained while we waited for the elevator to arrive.
“Who are the people you hired?” Katina demanded.
She couldn’t stand Jar-tel’s woolly exposition. She wanted intel. Now.
“They have proven themselves to be enormously reliable in the past which is why I selected them specifically for this particular shipment. You must understand if I had the utmost trust in them.”
Katina was visibly getting more frustrated so I decided to intervene.
“Just like we trusted you. Right now this isn’t important. We want information so we can bring this to a good end.”

“I understand.” Jar-tel said as the elevator arrived, the five of us got in along with two of Jartel’s guard who had followed us to the elevator, “You’re goods were supposed to be transported to Duna 5 by a small transportation company called the Rokers. They’re very familiar with these types of assignments. They would bring the goods in, which they, as you know, did. However a day later they left the dock with the goods still on board. We quickly determined the ship did not leave Duna 5. If they wanted had wanted to steal it from start there would have been no reason to first come here.”

“So they changed their minds,” Katina concluded.
“Maybe they looked inside the box,” Wilhelm suggested.
“They did. After I contacted them, they told me they wanted a bigger payment. After some negotiations, we had come to an agreement. All seemed well but then, and this was only a few days ago, it became clear they had some problems of their own. They however assured me they would come through.”
“And you believed them,” Katina said wry.
“I basically agreed to give them what they wanted. I also thoroughly convinced them their action weren’t a very good long term decision.”
“Guess you weren’t convincing enough,” Katina said.
“I’m completely positive they understood. I even confirmed this with their friends and family living here and other places and they all agreed. Since I was sure they hadn’t left Duna and I trusted they were motivated enough to uphold their side of the agreement, I decided to wait. Besides, there was little else I could do without attracting more unwanted attention or risk damage to your precious goods. I would also like to point out the same would go for you if you had known.”
By now the elevator had arrived at its destination and the doors opened. I had expected to go to the roof, but the elevator panel indicated we were still nine floors short of the top. As the door opened and I stepped out of the elevator I noticed the hallway was a lot wider and higher here and lacked carpet and wall decorations the rest of the building had.
“How exactly did you place the beacons on our equipment?” Wilhelm asked as Jar-tel took the lead again.
“Preferably somewhere hidden inside the goods themselves, alternatively it’s integrated in the packaging,” Jar-tel explained.
“And what if they lose the packaging?” Katina asked critically.
“All packaging is sealed…”
“You said they looked inside,” Katina interrupted.
“I indeed did. The size of the DAVIS system made us decide to let the original packaging suffice. In hindsight this was of course an unfortunate decision but you have to understand I never expected the current turn of events.”
“So except for possibly the DAVIS system,” Katina said with a raging sarcasm, “you believe the most expensive equipment is on board this ship.”
“I’m not in any way proud of what happened, Katina, and I beg you to believe me. I will go to any length to have all your goods returned safely, but there’s little I can do to change what happened.”
We were heading towards a broad door with another guard standing next to it. It slid open as we approached and gave way to a large hangar. The craft was a small shuttle, maybe a little larger than the one I had arrived on.
“My pilot will fly you to the main Libra spaceport. I will have all relevant data send to your ship. I presume the Rokers to be in control of the ship and they will be more than happy to transfer the goods peacefully. If not, I have high hopes your ship will be able to compel whoever is on the ship to do so either way. Please contact me when you’re in position and then I’ll talk to them. I would have done all this myself if your ship wasn’t so much more powerful and faster than anything I have at my disposal.”

There was a sense of relief on Katina’s face. “Let’s just hope this goes according plan. We’ll talk later.”
We all boarded the shuttle, took a seat in the luxurious passenger compartment while the hangar door opened. As the shuttle took off and sped towards the side of the crater I surveyed the city. It had been three crazy days. I wondered what it had all been for but I wasn’t in the mood to ask.

Everything ended up going according to plan. Katina decided to let the Rokers run after we got all of our stuff, which was against Jar-tel’s request, who we also omitted to pay.
In the following days I gathered the Joint Duna Security Initiative had managed to unravel much of the business between Jar-tel and the company. Unlike the company Jar-tel didn’t have the Therra connections to smooth things over with JDSI and he was subsequently arrested.