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Original Fiction

"Probing Questions"
by Geoffrey Michaels

Miguel trudged his way to the top of the stairs. Each step an exercise in will over his tired, aching body. He leaned his shoulder against the dingy, cream-colored wall. Dock work was rough, especially for someone who had pushed edocs most of his life. But this wasn't about dock work. This was business. He had just gotten his investigator's license nine days earlier. This was his first case, and it had proven more exhausting than he anticipated. But, he knew he would just have to endure it for now.

He glanced down the stairs, looking for any sign of the person who had been following him earlier. Maybe he had asked the other dock workers too many questions. Nothing there. Nothing except the ever-present stench of sweat, desperation, and alcohol that permeated every floor of this low rent tenement nears the docks. Maybe he was imagining things. It could have tiredness, but he was sure someone had followed him for several blocks to the lift station. He shrugged and continued his ragged ascent of the stairs.

Miguel reached the top of the stairs and winced. A new, pungent scent assaulted his nostrils - fresh urine. A streetless vino had passed out in the hallway, an empty bottle of Don Diego's Synthequila dangling from his fingertips. The man wore generic whites, clothes provided free of charge to all citizens as long as they recycled them. A growing yellow stain filled the crotch of the man's white pants.

Miguel shook his head in disgust, as he walked down the hallway to his one-room apartment. He pressed his thumb to the black, metallic alloy face plate of the ID scanner, located next to the door, and waited for the door to open. A confirmation beep sounded, and the door slid open.

He walked in darkness over to the desk, and ran his fingers along it's smooth surface. The glowing image of a keyboard appeared, floating a few inches above the desktop. His fingers tapped at air, and the holographic keyboard lit up keys in response to his typing. The main user interface, a one-foot high by two-foot wide glowing holographic screen suspended several inches above the desktop, appeared. It's light bathed Miguel's upper body in soft bluish light.

He checked his email for any messages. Nothing. He slid calloused fingers underneath his shirt and slowly peeled it upward and off. The soreness in his muscles prevented him from just pulling it off in one quick movement, like he was so used to doing. Although he had been a sedentary edoc jockey, before this case. He knew the ladies liked muscles, and he diligently maintained his physique, but dock work was a killer. His strained muscles constantly ached from the demanding nature of the job. Maybe the case would end soon, he hoped.

He stretched his arms above him, flexing his back, and rotated his left arm in a circle, trying to work the stiffness out of it.

"Hard work," the voice from the darkness said. "But nice results."

Adrenaline flowed through Miguel like a case of cheap wine down a vino's throat. His exhausted muscles spasmed and twitched, anticipating a fight for which they were not capable of defending against.

The shrill lock-on beep of a TacOps collar gun convinced Miguel that a fight was out of the question. He turned and looked across the room at the thin man in Core Guard uniform, sitting very casually in one of the apartment's cushioned chairs. The light was too dim to make out the man's features, but the man had every right to be relaxed. No one could outrun a collar gun. The disc-shaped bullets were too smart. Once locked-on, they maneuvered around any and all obstacles. They were capable of hitting any selected person within 200 yards with perfect accuracy.

"What do you want," Miguel asked. He heard the crinkle of a candy wrapper being opened, the contents being extracted, and the soft thud of the wrapper being thrown on the floor.

"You've been asking questions," the man said, the candy in his mouth muddling the words. "At the docks."

Miguel knew where the conversation was headed - with him ending up very injured, or very dead. He leaned back against the desktop, one hand behind his back. "At the ducks," he asked.

"Docks," the man corrected, the hard candy clicking against his front teeth.

"No ducks in the bays," Miguel said. "Plenty of lizards, but no ducks."

"Docks," the man yelled. The candy rocketed out his mouth, landing with a plop somewhere unseen. He stood and waved the gun wildly in the air, and walked over to pistol-whip Miguel. "Docks, you freaking dock monkey. Docks."

Miguel tapped a single key on the floating keyboard behind his back. The entire display, including the keyboard, vanished, leaving both men in darkness. Miguel lunged forward, attempting to wrestle the gun from the stranger.

A millisecond flash of light accompanied the collar gun discharge.

*****

"Lights," a man's voice said.

The overhead light panels came on. Core Guard Lieutenant Leonello looked at the shirtless man on all fours in front of him. He held the small, bulky collar gun at the side of his leg and let go. The gun fell sideways across the intervening distance, locking itself with a contented beep snugly against a red, leathery piece of material on his pants leg.

"Very stupid, dock monkey," Leonello said, his boot prodding the man's ribs.

Miguel did not move, or even flinch. He remained motionless, crouched down on all fours. Leonello squatted down beside him, grabbing Miguel's jaw roughly with his hand.

"Look at me." he said. "Tell me you're a stupid dock monkey."

Miguel stared with dull, unblinking eyes at Lt. Leonello and repeated the words. Leonello licked the corner of his own mouth, with satisfaction. Thank the saints for collar guns, they made difficult perps easy to handle, and man-handle if no one was watching. A perp would do anything he was told when collared. But getting any information would be pointless, the collar kept perps from thinking straight.

Leonello pulled out his commpad and glanced at the time. Terididos expect him back shortly. He rocked back and forth on his boot heels, nibbling on his thumbnail, thinking about his CO. The Capt was handsome and sadistic, and on occasion could be beautifully sadistic. But why did the Captain always ignore him? Personal attention from the Captain was either cold and business-like, or hot and violent. Why wasn't this superior officer abusing his position? Rumors circulated all over the compound about him coercing subordinates. zleonello waondered why it wasn't happening to him. He could already feel the stress and tension building inside of him. What he could not receive there, he would take here.

He jerked his head, and snapped back to reality. He had a job to finish. Leonello ran his hand across Miguel's dark skin, following the delicious curves over and around the shoulder blades, and down the back. His hand explored underneath, caressing the firmness of Miguel's chest, sliding down the rippled abs, stopping to gently knead the prone man's crotch.

"Playtime, dock monkey," Leonello said, gazing hungrily into Miguel's eyes. "Then you fly."

*****

Lt. Leonello felt the cool, dryness of the service shaft winds whip past him, beating and slapping at his face, the way Captain Terididos did after another of Leonello's greek-ups. The winds never died. They flowed like a mighty river of air, unhindered on their journey to reach the bottom of the shaft several miles below the city. This shaft was one of hundreds of identical shafts spread throughout the asteroid. It was monstrously huge, as wide as a dozen cathedrals put end to end, but without a visible top or bottom. It was said the shaft spanned over 30 miles from top to bottom, connecting all 12000 levels of the city together.

He looked over the edge of the platform, lights along the vertical shaft stretched downward, fading into pitch blackness after only a few hundred feet. Strong gusts pulled at Leonello, urging him to just let go. He grasped the railing even harder, his knuckles turning white from the strain. He remembered stories of worker's becoming so unnerved by the gaping mouth of the shaft, they would just let go and be pulled to their deaths. A hell of a way to die - falling in darkness, never knowing when you will finally reach the bottom. Your life snuffed out in an instant. He shivered and walked cautiously away from the edge, back towards a worker's access tunnel.

He hated being here, but what the Captain wanted, the Captain got. Getting rid of loose ends was one of the few pleasures permitted by the Captain. He looked upward at a balcony several stories above him. He waved his arms, motioning the lone figure waiting there to jump.

The silhouetted figure fumbled slightly, and became airborne. Leonello watched with enthusiasm as the figure fell towards the shaft. But a sudden and unexpected side-draft grabbed the body and yanked it sideways, away from the mouth of the shaft.

Leonello leapt out the way, as the body slammed with a mushy thud where he had been standing. He cautiously crawled over to the body. The face was a shattered, unrecognizable pulp. One of the legs twisted at an odd angle, upward and to the side. He stood and kicked the body as hard as he could several times. "Why did you do this? Why?"

"Hear me," Leonello said, bending over and yelling at the dead man. "Why? Stupid dock monkey. Why?" He gave a final kick to the midsection for emphasis.

A disgruntled Leonello grabbed the legs of the body and dragged it toward the edge of the platform. Stopping for a moment to catch his breath, he saw that he was just making more of a mess on the metal decking. The faint warning sound of an approaching service trolley, with Blue Mother knows how many potential witnesses, convinced him that it was time to cut his losses.

"Frag," he said through clinched teeth.

Leonello ran toward an access tunnel. But he skidded to a stop, his face full of dread. He ran back to the body, and frantically searched what remained of the neck, trying to find the collar. When a perp died, the collar deactivated and detached itself. It had to be here somewhere.

A biting, salty, moist wind swept across Leonello. He glanced around, searching for the source.

The service trolley warning grew louder.

Seeing nothing and no one around him, he continued his search. In the midst of goo and stickiness, his fingers found the round, coin-sized object. He threw it over the edge of the platform's safety railing and ran into the nearest access tunnel.

An old man dressed in dark blue, billowing robes stood on the balcony where Miguel had jumped. The wind nipped at his weathered features. The crisp scent of salt water hung in the air around him. He watched the final events with silent interest. His bony, almost skeletal hands, clutched a rosary, as he said a short prayer for the young man's soul. His form wavered, and collapsed onto the metal floor of the balcony, like sea spray onto a desolate, rocky beach. The smell of a non-existent ocean faded, and only the unending wail of the tunnel winds remained.

*****

Stephan Cambelli rubbed his thumbs against the edge of the datapad, as though trying to wipe off a smudge that wouldn't go away. A by-the-book executive, with wavy, sandy-blonde hair, he was one of the few caucasians to hold the position of Public Investigations Field Agent in the bustling city of Porta Bonita. With it came the burden of watching the less qualified being promoted, while he had remained in the same job for over 5 years.

"Miguel Mortoni," he said, anger lingering underneath his words. He handed the datapad across the oak desk to Darmani Pilano, the top performer in Cambelli's stable of Public Investigators, who stood there with a puzzled expression on his face.

"Look," Cambelli said. "I rarely call you guys in on such short notice like this, but he was a P.I., my newest acquisition, and just out of training."

Darm rubbed his tired, bloodshot eyes, and tried to focus. "Accident?"

Cambelli shifted nervously in his chair. "Murder. Flying lessons, yesterday morning, in one of the main underground service tunnels. There wasn't much left to ID."

Darm skimmed over the Forensics report, looking for anything out of the ordinary. "It says here he was -"

"Abruised," Cambelli said. "That is why I know it wasn't an accident."

Darm knew that most men, regardless of whether they had a wife or just a girlfriend, usually had a few ladies and at least one man on the side. It was not about being attracted to another man - no self-respecting man would ever admit that anyway. It was just men being men. And sometimes that required being physically intimate with another man, to make you feel like a man. In this instance, Mortoni was an unwilling victim of someone else's lust.

"So," Darm said. "You're saying he wasn't into..."

Cambelli shook his head.

"I'm his - was his - Field Agent," Cambelli said. "When word of what happened gets out, There's going to be a very large, gaping hole in my revenue stream.'

He rolled the bitterness around in his mouth. "This makes three P.I.s that I have lost in the past fiscal quarter." Realizing how that sounded, he added. "Well. Not murdered. The other two signed up with another agent."

He reached for the comforting cup of lukewarm chamomile tea, sitting half-empty on his desk. "I have enough problems managing my stable, without my supervisor riding my ass for low profit margins and high employee turn-overs."

He buried his face in the tea cup, taking a long sip of the fragrant apple-smelling tea. He glanced up and stared a second longer than he should have at Darm, and quickly averted his eyes. Even though the two men had worked together for almost 5 months, something about the eyes, still unsettled Cambelli. It wasn't the expression on the face, it was literally the eyes, like they could look into your soul, see when you were lying, and what you might be hiding. That was a dangerous thing in Cambelli's profession, where half-truths, manipulation, and ass-kissing were standard business practice.

Darm's eyes were an odd color, too. Almost every man Cambelli had ever seen on the street had brown eyes, and maybe a select few had blue eyes. But Darm was one of those extremely rare, almost non-existent latino men with green eyes. And not just the standard shade of green that all caucasians, like Cambelli, possessed. Darm's eyes were a living emerald green, set in a dark tanned complexion, and framed by long, wavy black hair tied in a ponytail. The effect was striking regardless of your gender preference, and Cambelli figured it must have caused much grief for Darm as a child, with cruel taunts of mixed ethnic parentage, and numerous fights. Grief that Cambelli had similarly endured growing up as the only minority caucasian, in an upper middle-class all latino neighborhood.

Cambelli held the tea cup in his hands, turning and turning it in a circle with his fingers. He looked up at Darm, with a questioning smile. "You going to take the case? It is right up your alley."

Darm raised an eyebrow. Right up your alley? That had to be one of the lamest remarks about gender preference that Cambelli had uttered. But, the worse things were, the unfunnier his humor became. Darm already knew where the conversation was about to herd him, and he wasn't interested. Any case with same gender shenanigans was always thrown in his lap. Not that he minded that - he preferred men after all. But right now, a nice comfy bed was beckoning to him.

He shook his head. "I'm taking time off. Three weeks of non-stop cases. Constant surveillance and everything. I just want to go home and sleep for a two days straight."

Cambelli sat his monogrammed ceramic cup on the desk with a loud thud, his eyes staring off at some point beyond Darm and the office walls.

"You can have plenty of time off after this case," he said. "This would really help me out."

Darm laid the datapad on the desk. "Offer this to one of the other P.I's in your stable. I'm going to get some sleep."

Darm smiled, and straightened his bright floral motif tie, turned and walked towards the door.

"Darm," Cambelli said, blurting out the words. He walked from behind the desk, and gently grabbed Darm's arm.

"What's it gonna take to get you on this case. Do I have to beg on this one?"

Waves of sympathetic need flowed out from Cambelli, tugging at Darm's guilt strings. Darm knew that Cambelli was an agent at heart. His stable contained P.I.s instead of celebrities, but his motivational methods were no different.

Darm locked his gaze on Cambelli. "Just stop the 'manipulate the P.I. to take the case' act."

"Old habit," Cambelli said, apologetically.

He led Darm back to a hard leather seat in front of the desk.

"All right," Darm said, regretting the words as he said them. "I'll look into it. Just a quick look."

"Black? Chamomile," Cambelli said, motioning towards a self-heating teapot, and a nearby tray of assorted synthetic tea flavor sticks.

Darm shook his head - he only drank the real thing.

Cambelli nodded. "Still have those expensive tastes in tea, I see."

He handed the datapad back to Darm, and eased himself into the cushioned leather executive's chair behind the desk.

"Miguel was working on a minor contraband case," he said. "One of the Agencies - Aboriginal Affairs, I think - was the client. He only reported in twice, so I just thought he was having a rough time scavenging up some leads."

Darm thumbed the clear surface of the datapad, scrolling through the data Mortoni had compiled. Nothing of any value, except the address of the room near the docks in the Old City, which he had rented under an assumed name. Further on, was a single word - Namiko. Either a place or a contact.

"What's the commission," Darm said, his face still buried in the data, and trying to feign indifference.

Cambelli smiled slyly, his agent instincts humming. Darm was hooked. He never asked about the commission unless he was taking a case. "Standard inter-departmental fee."

"Which Mortoni seems to have already spent," Darm said, with a sour expression. "Closing fee?"

"Timed bonus of 2500. The sooner you finish, the more you collect."

"Namiko ?"

"No idea. But that shouldn't be a problem for my top P.I."

Darm looked up from the datapad, and gave Cambelli a cynical look.

Cambelli held his hands up in front of himself in a submissive, apologetic gesture.

Darm laid the pad on the desk and headed for the red mahogany door to Cambelli's office.

"They will be contacting you," Cambelli said. "Aboriginal Affairs, or whoever."

Darm grabbed the polished brass knob and opened the door. "It's the whoever that worries me," he said as he closed the door behind him.

"Darm," Cambelli said "The forensic lab fees. They come out of your commission."

Cambelli could hear the sound of muffled grumbling, as Darm's silhouette moved across the door's multiple panes of opaque glass.

*****

Darm paused in the stairwell, to initiate several searches for the word or name "Namiko" on the InfoNet. This was one of the few places where peace and quiet reigned. The Transit Authority's lift system could deliver passengers to almost any destination in the city, as long as there was a lift stop there, and could even travel to every floor inside most buildings. The majority of people opted for that option, so stairwells were deserted in most buildings. No one ever used them except in emergencies.

The latest of many annoying authorization screens popped up on Darm's commpad. He spoke the words without thinking. He had said them so many times that they had lost all meaning to him, but this was a necessary nuisance when dealing with high-level corporate and government databases.

Results appeared a few seconds later. All searches for a location with the name Namiko had failed. He hoped that corporate and government employee service records would be more fruitful.

A solid black cat, with a white tip on the end of its' tail, meowed at Darm. Darm didn't bother to look up from his work.

"Evening, Spot."

Spot meowed.

"No," Darm said. "A murder this time. One of Cambelli's P.I.s."

Spot hmmm'd a nasal meow without opening his mouth.

Darm chuckled. "Yeah, Cambelli's stable of P.I.s is getting a little thinned out." He gestured at his commpad. "There's more to this contraband case. And the commission is too high. Something is very wrong here."

Spot grunted in agreement, and looked up at Darm with emerald green eyes.

Darm pocketed the commpad into his black neo-leather jacket. He adjusted his red and blue floral print tie, and strolled down several flights of stairs, into the tastefully expensive, and tactfully decorated main lobby.

Tall, potted plants with large green leaves stood between the various colorful paintings on the wall. He passed an agent, chatting with two well-dressed men, doing his best to motivate them into being his clients. Considering the decor, the rent for suites in this building was very likely more than Cambelli could comfortably afford, but it did provide one thing that every successful agent needed - an impressive, and expensive-looking, facade.

Darm walked out the automatic sliding glass doors, and onto the street. Spot stayed behind, watching him through the lobby's full-length tinted windows.

Artificial sunlight streamed down on the multitude of passersby, while shadows from car traffic flying far overhead, danced across the crowd.

The sunlight was too bright.

Darm bent down, looked through the lobby window at Spot, and wiped his empty hands across his face. He was now wearing stylish, black, mirrored sunglasses, that contoured closely to the shape of the head.

Spot shook his head. He couldn't believe Darm would do something so blatant in public.

Darm smiled at Spot and walked off into the crowd.

*****

Miguel Mortoni's rented room was the next order of business. Darm had been waiting in line several minutes at the liftstop, his lightweight neo-leather jacket hanging on his arm. Even though it wasn't rush-hour, the streets of this upscale section of Porta Bonita overflowed with expensively dressed, pleasant-smelling people. It occurred to him that he could have used the lifts in the building, after he went to see Cambelli. But today was especially beautiful outside, and he wanted to feel the simulated sunlight on his skin.

A gentle breeze had started, but the almost-sunlight still beat down with unrelenting intensity on him. Others may have perspired, but Darm was sweating. He glanced at the time on the panel above the lift booths. Less than 15 minutes until evening. He watched the small above-ground booths in front of him, waiting for the doors of the next available one to open.

With a barely audible hiss, the white metal doors opened, inviting Darm into cool, temperature-regulated comfort. A quick touch of his thumb on the ID verification panel near the doors, and they closed.

He said the destination, Mortoni's place in the Old City, and felt the lift move downward and then sideways into the maze of lift tunnels beneath Porta Bonita. He leaned against one of the walls and relaxed, his body soaking up the refreshing coolness. The lift slowed occasionally, as it routed itself around other lift traffic. He wiped the beads of sweat from his forehead, and ran a hand over his moustache to get the salty taste of sweat off his lip.

Something beeped.

Darm fumbled through the jacket resting on his arm, and pulled the commpad from one of the pockets. He looked through the search results. Nothing, except several thousand civilian matches for 'Namiko', mostly in the Old City. The corporate and government searches had also come up with nothing. Oddly, the Bureau of Aboriginal Affairs database had not responded to the query. He pocketed the commpad, and leaned against the wall.

He opened his eyes. Something about the lift felt wrong. He also realized he had slept for most of the roughly 15 minute journey. Darm checked the destination on the screen just above the ID panel. The lift was headed to a different destination, somewhere away from the docks of the Old City, back towards a less prosperous and more secluded section.

He tried manually setting the destination on the control panel near the door, without success. Someone else had control of the lift. Darm felt a presence and looked down at his feet. A dark blur materialized into a black cat.

"You," Darm asked, motioning towards the lift controls.

The cat shook its' head. Thoughts became words in Darm's mind, as Spot communicated with him. "You seem to have a problem."

*****

Darm's hands plunged deep into the mass of optical cabling inside the lift's control panel. When his attempts to manually change the destination had failed, he decided that a more hands-on approach was needed.

Spot hmm'd at Darm.

"No," Darm said, irritation evident in his voice. "I'll do this myself."

Spot huffed. He understood Darm's reasons for wanting to do everything on his own, especially with what was going to happen to Darm in the upcoming months, but it was still no excuse for talking to Spot in that tone of voice. He curled up on the floor, and turned his head to face one of the walls, his tail slapping against the floor of the lift.

Probing fingers found what they were looking for. "Greeking A," Darm said with enthusiasm.

The lift responded by displaying the new destination on what was left of its' panel. Darm crammed all of the cabling back into the hole, and snapped the panel facing back into place. It promptly fell to the floor. A mass of optical cabling dangled from the opening, reminiscent of some robotic beast that had been disemboweled.

A startled Spot stood against the far wall, keeping a safe distance from Darm's clumsy repair attempts.

Darm gave it another try. He pushed all the cabling back into the opening, and securely fastened the panel facing back into place. He gave it a final tap, and smiled at Spot. This time he knew it would stay fixed.

The panel landed with a whack on Darm's boot.

Spot rolled his eyes, deciding that this was a lost cause - both Darm and the panel. The cat became fuzzy around the edges and walked through the wall.

"I don't blame you for leaving," Darm said to the wall where Spot had been.

Instead of trying the same thing again, he propped the panel facing up against the wall. Let the Transit Authority fix it. He was too tired to care anymore.

A few moments passed before Darm felt the lift ascending back toward Ground Level. The streets were almost deserted in this run-down part of the Old City, with a few blancos dressed in generic whites, heading into and out of decaying, abandoned-looking buildings. The streets were meticulously clean, thanks to automated city services, but the buildings themselves were beginning to show their age. This was one of the older parts of New Porta Bonita, known as the Old City by locals.

When engineers had excavated deeper into the asteroid to house the growing population of the settlement, this section near the docks had been one of the first built. Now, with the growth of Porta Bonita even deeper into the asteroid, many of the businesses in this area had long ago closed their doors.

Most buildings had been converted into low-rent apartments, to house the growing underclass of blancos, caucasian workers. Although the antiquated docks and small passenger terminal handled only a small percentage of the total cargoes moving into and out of Porta Bonita, they were the lifeblood of the Old City.

Darm looked over he shoulder as he walked towards Miguel Mortoni's apartment, located a few blocks ahead. Someone was watching him. He could feel it. He headed down one of the alleys, trying to you lose whoever might be following him. Turning a corner, he stopped and waited. The sound of approaching footsteps grew louder.

He didn't bother to look around the corner, not wanting whoever was to be able to get a weapons lock on him. He ran as silently as he could through the maze of alleys. The footsteps followed, keeping pace with him.

The artificial sunlight, provided by thousands of variable light panels, dimmed rapidly as night descended on the residents within the asteroid. In a matter of minutes, the warmth of day changed into the coldness of night. Icy fingers of air penetrated Darm's thin shirt, wicking away precious body heat. He slung his jacket around, ramming first one arm and then the other through the arm holes, clumsily trying to run and put the jacket on at the same time.

He dashed down a side alley, felt his foot hit something solid, and went tumbling towards the ground.

"Frag it," he said, cursing his luck.

He pulled himself up from the pavement, removed his sunglasses with a swipe of his hands, and looked to see what he had tripped over. A vino stirred. The man must have been laying there asleep, and Darm tripped over him.

Darm dusted himself off.

The echo of approaching footsteps grew louder.

He ran to the end of the alley and skidded to a stop. It was a dead end. He looked behind him. His pursuers would be here any second. He looked upward, trying to figure out how high the wall was. Maybe 40 feet. He took another look at the vino, and knew what he had to do. It was already after dark, and after all, who would believe the word of a vino.

Darm jumped.

He felt the brisk night air rush past his face as his body sailed upward, the coattail of his jacket whipped against his calves. It had been too long. He had almost forgotten how exhilarating it was to do this. His boots slipped with a gritty sound, as he came to a stop on top of the wall. From his perch, he waited to see who was following him.

The simulated stars twinkled in the great cavern that housed the city of Porta Bonita. The darkness of night was now complete. Darm extended his vision to compensate. His pupils dilated, as he adjusted and zoomed his vision to get a better look at his pursuers. He knew they would be at a disadvantage in the darkness.

Two men in conservative business suits came around the corner at high-speed, one of them tripping over the vino, the other tripping and falling over the first man.

Darm chuckled silently to himself.

As they untangled themselves from each other, one of the men said something in a harsh tone to the other man. Both men pulled out a pair of glasses from inside their jacket, and put them on. They easily located the vino, and looked around for where Darm might be hiding.

Realizing that the men were probably wearing infrared-enabled night-vision glasses, Darm jumped down the other side of the wall.

His jacket billowed outward as he fell. The material around the arm holes yanked on him, as though trying to slow his deadly fall. Darm quieted his mind, and focused on floating like a feather to the ground, which was rapidly approaching below him. He landed in a crouch, his boots making an loud thunk on the pavement. The jacket came to rest, enshrouding his body with a weighty slap, which knocked him off balance and sent him face forward into the pavement.

"Frag it," he said in a low whisper. He was seriously out of practice. He stood, rubbed the grit and pebbles from his palms, and hobbled to the end of the alley.

As he entered the street, he was greeted by the shrill beep of a weapons lock-on.

*****

"So now you're sending hit men after me," Darm said, peering inside the opened lift doors at Elah Torres.

She pondered the idea for a moment, a smile of satisfied contentment at the prospect of it, spreading across her face.

"I should," she said. "Considering how you stole the Consicari case out from under me." Her expression was sugar, with vinegar underneath - gallons of vinegar.

"Hey," Darm said, stepping toward the lift doors, until the massive arm of one of the suited bodyguards stopped him. "I got that case on my own. First to solve it got the commission. Rules. You do remember the rules, don't you?" His face was an expression of wide-eyed innocence.

Her mouth drew up into a sour pucker, which seemed out of place with her cool, controlled businesslike manner, and her expensive, yet tastefully stylish, charcoal and white corporate attire. She adjusted her jacket, and started to say something, but was interrupted by the woman next to her.

"Mr. Pilano," the woman said, conducting herself in a manner even more controlled and anally-retentive than Elah. She was short with dark features, but her skin was too pale - she really needed to get out into the artificial sunlight more. She meant business, and had no time for things such as petty business rivalries to get in the way of her work.

"Am I correct to understand the you have taken over the former Mortoni case," she said.

Darm conducted himself in his usual pleasant, businesslike manner. "Who wants to know?"

The edge of the woman's mouth curled. She was not amused.

"Bureau of Aboriginal Affairs, Agent Angelina Namiko," she said.

Namiko. The name in Mortoni's file.

"Your the one-," Darm said. He cut himself off in mid-sentence when he noticed Elah's sudden interest in the conversation.

Agent Namiko glanced back and forth between the two. "Public Investigator Torres has already been briefed on the situation. You may speak freely."

Darm looked suspiciously at Elah. "And the commission?"

"Is yours," Agent Namiko said. "Investigator Torres is pursuing the matter along different lines."

Something about this didn't feel right to Darm. He decided to test the waters by pushing in a large boulder. "Mortoni used up the commission. So, what does that leave me?"

She corrected him. "Used most of the commission. However, considering the immediacy with which this case needs to be resolved, and your professional reputation, we are willing to reinstate the commission and timed bonus."

Darm swallowed the facts. That was it. Something was seriously out of whack with this case. But what it was would have to be sorted out later. Right now, He needed the commission. He nodded, accepting the terms.

"What have you found," she said.

Darm was not eager to give any information, even what he didn't know, in front of Elah. Government agencies were notorious for not offering information, especially when it was most needed. Darm thought it would be a good idea to follow that example.

"I just started," he said. "All I know for sure was he might have been working down at the docks."

Agent Namiko stared at him for a second, before she spoke. "Keep me informed."

She walked out of the lift and across into one of the adjacent ones, the men in suits following her. The lift doors closed.

Darm was glad they were gone. He faced Elah, who was still standing inside the lift.

"Watch yourself with that one," he said, as he turned and walked down the street.

Elah eyed him suspiciously as the doors of the lift she was standing in closed .

*****

Darm's commpad beeped several times in rapid succession. He pulled it from inside of his jacket and activated it. The face on the screen was Wadi Hernandez. They had officially separated, with a Divestiture, about five years ago, but the two men still called each other occasionally. Mostly, Darm wanting some inside information from his former husband, who now headed his own Enforcer Specials unit in the Old City.

Although small, Wadi's unit came complete with a small office building to serve as a police station, and ten dedicated employee patrolmen. Unlike other Ops branches, which received funding from taxes, Enforcer Specials were paid by local businesses and private citizens to provide protection. Wadi always claimed that he had won it in a poker game, but Darm seriously doubted that. Enforcer Specials were usually handed down within families, from generation to generation.

From the expression on Wadi's face, this was not a social call.

"Problem," Darm asked.

"Juan," Wadi said. "He was just brought in for soliciting without a license."

Juan was one of Darm's informants. He rarely resorted to hustling, preferring instead to use it as a ruse to pick-pocket. Fortunately, for Darm's debit account, Juan was rarely caught. But, this time he had been caught, and that meant restitution fees. The legal system had long ago foregone court appearances for victimless and non-violent crimes - the expense ate into the profits. Anymore, the accused simply paid a restitution fee to the civil authorities.

One of the patrolmen walked up to Wadi, put a hand on his shoulder, and whispered something to him. Wadi nodded, and the patrolman walked off screen. Darm read the gesture as more than friendly.

"Who was that," Darm said.

Wadi scratched behind his ear. "Just a rookie."

Darm nodded. He knew Wadi was withholding info about the rookie. But the time was getting late, he needed sleep, and he didn't feel like pressing the issue.

"How much is restitution?"

"650 debits," Wadi said.

Darm grimaced. It's a business expense, he kept telling himself.

"Let's do it."

Wadi nodded. His face was replaced by a transaction screen. A few finger taps later, the debit transfer was complete. An annoyingly pleasant voice said "Thank you for your business. Have a nice day."

Darm grumbled and put the commpad back in his jacket pocket. He shook his head. "Juan, sometimes you're more expensive than you're worth."

He walked back towards the lift stop.

*****

Lt. Leonello stood at attention in front of Capt. Terididos desk, waiting patiently for the Capt. to finish his vidcall.

Leonello gazed upon the Captain, his eyes attempting to soak up every last detail - the aquiline nose, the strong jaw line, and the way his eyes squinted when he was angry.

Terididos looked up, his gaze meeting Leonello's probing eyes. The Captain squinted. He hated to be stared at, especially by the one underling who had the annoying habit of doing that on every occasion he got, and for no apparent reason. The Captain twirled his finger, motioning the skinny Lieutenant with blonde buzzcut to face in some other direction.

Leonello turned to face the door of the office, and nibbled on his lip.

Ouch.

The taste of warm saltiness greeted his tongue. His lower lip was still tender and swollen from the reprimand that the Capt. had given him for the recent greeked-up handling of the curious dock worker.

Captain Terididos had picked one of the bladed weapons, from his collection of Aboriginal daggers, out of the display case. The words were icy and controlled, as he ran the edge of the dagger along Leonello's face, tracing the line of Leonello's jaw. At the end of the reprimand speech, the dagger came to rest upon Leonello's lip. The cold tip of the blade pressed against warm, tender flesh. A quick flick, and blood flowed freely, the better to re-emphasize the underlying meaning of the conversation. Don't fail me.

"Lieutenant," the Captain said to Leonello's back.

"Sir," Leonello said, tension riding in his voice. " The transport -"

"Face me, Lieutenant," Terididos said. "And stop staring. It's insubordinate." Actually, the word creepy came to mind.

"Sir," Leonello said. "The transport will be docking at 23: 50 hours tonight. The merchandise you're expecting will be on it."

Terididos smiled. Leonello smiled for an instant, but quickly changed his expression. He didn't want to anger his Captain. He didn't want his Captain to know that he wasn't smiling with him, he was smiling to him.

"Be there," Terididos said. "And no greek-ups."

Terididos motioned toward the display case of Aboriginal daggers, resting on a small wooden table, against the wall across from his desk. He smiled like a reptile at Leonello, and tapped a finger against his lip, reminding Leonello what happens when you make a mistake.

*****

Juan walked out of the sliding glass doors of the CivOps Special Enforcers, District 19 station. He looked out into the street and saw a friendly face. He smiled as he strolled down the steps to meet Darm. He was streetless, with no place to call home. But could always "find" enough debits to buy colors for his clothes. Tonight, he wore a bold orange and pale green, floral patterned shirt, with navy blue pants.

"You paid," Juan said, closing the distance between them to mere inches.

Darm nodded.

Juan nuzzled close to him, pulling him into a friendly embrace. "Thanks, man."

It was times like this, that it was really hard to stay mad at Juan when he pulled an expensive greek-up.

Juan always smelled like loud cologne and generic soap, another of the free social services provided by the city to its' citizens. Darm shut his eyes and let his sense of smell extend below the range of normal perception. He could smell the thick, distinct musk of testosterone-enriched masculinity that hovered around Juan. The same way it hovered around every male, and was especially heavy from teenager to late 20s. One of the first things that Darm had learned with his senses was that every men's scent was as unique as a fingerprint. It may be hidden by colognes and other scents, but it is there if you go deep enough.

The heady scent was beginning to stir his own hormones, and the bright lights outside the station were beginning to make his eyes water. He turned down his senses, and pulled free of Juan.

Darm wiped the water from his eyes. The sensitivity to bright light always happened whenever he used his senses. It was a fact of life.

Juan noticed the wiping. "Nothing broken. Nothing abruised." He put a hand on Darm's shoulder to comfort him.

"Let's walk," Darm said, putting his arm around the short, twenty-something man at his side, as they strolled off into semi-lit darkness.

Darm turned the conversation towards a neutral topic."You've grown a mustache since I last saw you. It looks good." Darm had to admit that it made Juan's dark, masculine good looks even more striking.

They walked for several minutes exchanging light chit-chat, before Darm finally broached the subject.

"Will you do it," Darm said. "There's fifty in it for you."

Juan nodded. "OK. but don't expect me to put my neck out. Not for fifty."

Juan handed over his debit card. Darm pressed both of the cards back-to-back, and tapped in the amount on the front of his card. The two cards chirped, confirming the completion of the transaction.

Juan hid his card inside his shoe.

"Just info," Darm said. "On anything odd going down at the docks. Nothing else. Understand?"

Juan nodded, and headed off alone into the darkness.

Darm glanced at his commpad. It was only a few minutes after 8:00, but it felt much later than that. There was still time to check out Miguel Mortoni's apartment. And maybe to get some sleep tonight.

*****

"Hey, you," a woman's voice said.

Juan stopped, and eyed her suspiciously. She was dressed in a charcoal and white outfit, like some type of government worker. She acted like one of them too - hard as steel and tight-assed enough to crimp a steel girder in two if she sat on it.

"I saw the two of you talking," she said. "Whatever he offered, I'll pay you more."

Juan walked towards her. "What you have in mind?"

"I want to know what he knows. Two hundred. Half now. Half later."

He raised an eyebrow. Debits were debits. And he might as well get paid twice for chatting up surly, smelly dock monkeys.

"OK Lady," Juan said, pulling off his expensive designer shoe to retrieve his debit card.

She grimaced. Reluctantly, her fingers reached out to take the damp card. The transaction completed, she wiped her hands on a spare tissue, and gave him one of her business cards.

"Just use the link at the bottom to contact me," she said. "It's toll free."

Juan glanced at the name on the card, "Elah Torres." Something about this women spoke of trouble. He took a final look at her, and walked off into the darkness.

*****

Miguel Mortoni's apartment was clean. The state-mandated forensics investigation, required in all suspicious deaths, had already thoroughly searched the apartment and found nothing of importance.

Darm knew it was probably pointless, but he activated the desktop, navigating through the holographic menus, searching for anything that might offer a clue.

The forensics team had already made a molecular-level copy of the desktop's memory core, but due to the lengthy time required for reconstruction of erased data, it would still be another couple of days before they had any results.

Darm knew that there was a quicker way to get the data, and it wouldn't actually be cheating. It was something that was possible here and now, but just speeded up a little bit. It just required a little finesse.

"Spot," Darm said to the air.

A cat materialized in mid-air, and dropped with a plop onto the desktop. Spot surmised that this was another one of those "special occasions" when Darm required Spot's unique talents.

"It's going to take the forensics team some time to reconstruct the desktop's memory," Darm said, gesturing towards it.

Spot cocked his head to one side, and acted as intelligent as a regular cat. His eyes followed Darm's hand movements, instead of what Darm was gesturing at. He was determined not to make this easy. The only thing worse than a cat with an ego, was a cat that knew someone needed it's help.

"Would you... ," Darm asked.

The cat gave him a blank, mindless stare.

"Spot !"

"Why do you need me, " the cat communicated. "These people are capable of doing it."

"But not as fast as you."

"Flattery will get you nowhere." Spot yawned, exposing his miniature white fangs. He laid down on the desktop and closed his eyes. "First you don't need me. Then you do. If you are going to play at being human, at least be consistent." He shifted his body slightly, and went off to sleep.

"I need this done," Darm said, his tone of voice becoming serious.

The cat didn't move.

"People are dying here. Over something stupid." He took a deep breath. "Look. I could do this the normal way. But bodies are going to be piling up if I don't solve this case soon. That, and I haven't had any sleep in two days. Two. Days. Your really pushing your luck here, fleabag."

The cat opened one eye, and looked up at Darm. "You have a very distorted sense of priorities for a Kieron."

"That was several lifetimes ago... The messages, if you don't mind."

The cat reached out its front leg, and placed its paw on a slightly raised portion of the desktop. "It has been erased on the molecular level. This will take some time."

"Time," Darm said, seeing a chance to smack the cat's ego. "You can solve billions of multi-dimensional sub-quanta field equations in a fraction of a second. But this. This will take some time?"

Spot ignored him, and went back to sleep. His mind was deep in concentration, trying to reconstruct the data through the meta-associations among quark probabilities in crystalline storage media. Very messy work, but he was the only being in this planetary system, or even this patchwork that passed for a universe, that was knowledgeable enough to perform the calculations. It was never easy being a Familiar. Someone, somewhere always wanted you to do something for them. Something that they were either too lazy, or to brain deficient to do themselves.

Spot's work to reconstruct the messages in Morton's desktop was taking longer than Darm had expected. But Darm used the time to his advantage, by catching up on missing sleep.

Getting into a dead man's bed seemed sacrilegious, somehow. So, Darm slept as best he could in the rented room's gaudy, striped loveseat, which had too little padding, and too much exposed hardwood.

*****

The docks of the Old City buzzed with activity, even at this late time of night. The dock workers scurried around like ants - well-muscled and sweaty ants - trying to finish a job that was never-ending. The use of anti-grav units eased the burden of moving heavy cargo containers, but the quantity of cargo moving in and out of the docks was still immense.

Lt. Leonello leaned against an over-sized cargo container, massaging his tender lip. It was still more than two hours before the transport arrived, but better to be safe than sorry, especially considering Captain Terididos' attitude toward failure.

One of the dock workers walked over to Leonello. The man's body was all muscle. Sweat ran in small streams down his swarthy chest, staining the skin-tight, white flannel tank top he was wearing. His sweat carried the faint scent of sweet onions, probably from something he had eaten for dinner.

The worker motioned towards the far end of the cargo bay, where a suspicious-looking young man was heading out one of the side doorways. Leonello's expression turned sour. Why did life always have to complicate things, especially during his shift. If this was going to be another problem, he knew he might as well get it over with.

*****

Juan held Elah's business card up to the front panel of the vidcall booth. He was about to touch the link at the bottom of the card and initiate the toll-free call, when heard someone walk up behind him.

"Sorry about that," the skinny man with blond buzzcut said.

Juan jumped in surprise. He tried bravado, putting up a calm, brave masculine front to hide what he was really feeling.

"You want something," he said, the words cracking as he uttered them.

The man backed down.

"You were looking for information back there," he said, motioning back up the street, towards a large building that served as the entrance to the Old City's cargo bays.

"I might know something," the man said. He pulled a piece of hard candy from his pocket, threw the wrapper to the ground, and popped the candy into his mouth.

"Leonello," he said, extending his hand in friendship. His fingers tickling Juan's palm, as they shook hands.

Juan knew that everything usually comes down to either hot debits, or cold sex. Besides, he liked the look of a man in uniform.

Leonello smiled. Juan smiled back nervously.

*****

The familiar sound of a soft body, hitting hard pavement from a great height, greeted Leonello's ears. No doubt about it, metal decking gave a much more resounding thud, whereas stony pavement made more of a muffled thud. He preferred the sound of the metal decking, but it was much more problematic disposing of "problems" down in the service tunnels below the city. Besides, time was short, and he needed to get back to the cargo bay in time for the transport to arrive.

The height of this building was only three stories, so there was very little visible damage to the body. This was the tallest building that Leonello could find in the area, in such a short time. No vinos slept in the alley, where the body had fallen. He had made sure there would be no witnesses to the event.

Leonello removed the collar disk from the body, and walked away. He stopped momentarily, as the crisp smell of salt water whispered past his nostrils. Once again, he looked around for the unseen source, but did not see anything out of the ordinary.

The "problem" solved, he headed up the street to the cargo bays.

A lone figure stood atop one of the nearby buildings, his dark robes billowed in the chilly night breeze. The air around him smelling of salt water. He said no Last Rights for this young man. Instead, he walked toward the edge of the roof, and faded away.

*****

Spot's snoring woke Darm. He checked the time on his commpad - he had slept almost three hours. He stood up and tried to stretch the kinks out of his back. It seemed that loveseats didn't live up to their name. You couldn't do anything horizontal in them, especially sleep, without being in pain afterwards.

He took a deep breath to clear his lungs. Something smelled out of place. The forensics team had already swept the apartment, so even Darm's enhanced senses had difficulty finding anything that might be a clue. He thoroughly searched the rest of the apartment, and found nothing.

There it was again. He crawled over to the corner, near the door. Something sweet, like candy, had rested on top of the ceramic floor tiles very recently.

He didn't remember reading anything about it in the forensics report, so it may have been something unique to whoever killed Miguel Mortoni. Darm took a deep stiff, mentally filing the scent away for future reference.

Spot awoke from his faux slumber, stretched his back, and clawed at the surface of the desktop. He yawned, and looked over to see what Darm was doing. When he saw Darm down on all fours sniffing the floor, like some kind of animal, Spot shook his head and sighed.

"Find something, Pooch," Spot mentally communicated to Darm.

Darm ignored insult number one hundred twenty-seven million and one, got to his feet, and walked over to Spot.

"So," he said, "you got something?"

Spot nodded.

"Mostly deleted messages from previous tenants," the cat communicated.

Darm crossed his arms. "And Mortoni?"

"Fragments of a message in his outbox. Addressed to Cambelli. It contains many series of four numerical values."

"Like what?"

"03-20-22-35. 02-27-11-15. And the most recent, 04-19-23-50."

Spot washed his paw.

Darm rolled the facts over and over in his mind, trying to piece together what the numbers could mean in relation to Miguel Mortoni's case. Then he remembered Cambelli's words from earlier this afternoon.

"Contraband," Darm said, his tired mind finally fitting the pieces together. "Cross-check the numbers as arrival dates and times for passengers, cargo transports, military transports, whatever."

"Why me," the cat communicated out loud to himself.

"Just do it," Darm said. "We may not have much time. The closest systems are about three days away by SlipGate. If I'm right, what we are looking for should be arriving later tonight."

Spot closed his eyes, and initiated multiple data links with the Port Authority's computer system. He bypassed what they laughingly called "security measures," and examined the data for all arrivals within the past month, that correlated with the numerical values he had pulled from Miguel Mortoni's messages. A few seconds later, he opened his eyes.

"1,975 passenger transports. 4,133 cargo transports. 138 military transports. 289 local prisoner transports."

Darm chewed on his thumbnail. "Any of them got the same people, passengers, crew ?"

"497 passengers. 542 cargo transport crewmen. 73 local prisoner transport crewmen."

Darm rubbed his forehead, trying to think of some way to narrow down the search results. "Think Darm. Think," he said out loud to himself.

"Okay. Contraband valuable enough to get someone killed. Bureau of Aboriginal Affairs as client. That's it. They've got to be smuggling in something from the aboriginal worlds."

Spot sat and watched Darm with rapt attention, leisurely moving his tail from side to side. Moments like this were priceless - nothing was quite as entertaining as watching a human when it suddenly realized that it can add one plus one together and come up with two. It made the job of being a Familiar almost bearable.

"Any ships coming from the inner system match those times," Darm said.

Spot blinked. "None."

"One of the other systems," Darm said, asking himself. "Try that. And match it to passengers and crew."

"Multiple matches," Spot communicated. "This is odd. A Bureau of Social Improvements prisoner transport vessel. It is registered to an inner system Rehab facility, in colony system 27."

"It's been here? In this system?"

"Different crewmen and hailing from different systems, but the same ship arrived here at all the dates and times indicated in Miguel Mortoni's message."

"But prisoner transports never leave the system they're registered in. Unless they're being scrapped, or sold as surplus. The transport's registration is still active and valid?"

Spot nodded. "It also appears to be due in tonight at 23: 50 hours."

"That's less than a half-hour," Darm said, as he walked to the bedroom, and opened the closet. "Maybe Mortoni can help out."

He winced at the man's concept of what the locals wore. As Darm undressed, it dawned on him that whoever was smuggling the stuff through, was going to need help to get it through Customs.

"Oh, greek," he said. "What you wanna bet that the Core Guard are involved."

*****

Darm thought his job would be easier because prisoners were always transported away from public view via the cargo bays. It was safer for civilians in the main terminal, and required less security measures. But getting to the transport would be the big problem, there were only three ways to get to it unnoticed - as a dock worker, a Core Guard enlistee, or as a dock lizard. He wasn't muscled enough to be a dock worker. So that left options 2 and 3, if he juggled things properly.

Darm waited patiently in one of the corridors just outside the cargo bay. He leaned back against the wall, with one leg up, the sole of his boot resting on the wall. He wore tight black neo-leather pants and boots. His colorful floral motif shirt was unbuttoned, the sides of it hanging loose, exposing his lean, not quite athletic torso. He adjusted his mirror sunglasses to convey the proper attitude to passersby - he was open for business. He only hoped that no one wanted free samples.

Darm watched as a few Core Guard enlisted men herded about a half-dozen colorfully dressed dock lizards, prostitutes of both genders, from the cargo bay. Darm knew that he was a few years older than your typical male dock lizard, but judging by the looks of them, attractiveness was not part of the job description. Considering that most of the clientele were dock workers, who were too exhausted and horny to actually care about anything like that, it was no wonder that breathing and a pulse were the only requirements.

He noticed one of the enlisted men, about his size, glance over in his direction. The man must like lizards with "tails" - dock lingo for a male hustler. Darm slowly ran his hand down across his furry abs, to show off the merchandise. The man's gaze lingered for few seconds longer than normal, before turning his attention back to his duties. As he and his fellows walked back towards the cargo bay, the man glanced back at Darm one last time.

One of the other lizards with a tail, seeing competition, glared at Darm. Not getting any response, the skinny man stuck out his tongue, and pranced off with the other lizards to discuss shop talk over a cup of tea.

Darm walked to one of the cargo bay entrances, and waited for the enlisted man's friends to be somewhere else. Once the man was alone, Darm made his move. He applied a fresh coat of Ever-Moist lip gloss to his lips, and walked along the edge of the cargo bay, trying to stay out of sight. He stopped behind a stack of cargo containers, and whispered as low as he could to get the man's attention.

"This area is off limits," the man said, his expression unchanging as he glanced around to see if any of his fellow Core Guard enlistees had noticed him talking to the dock lizard.

Darm slowly licked the corner of his mouth. "You don't want me to be here?"

The man didn't move, he just stood there motionless. Darm wasn't sure if this was working. The man was either the strong and silent type, or the big, dumb, and muscled type. Right now it was really hard to tell which.

The man grabbed Darm by the arm and pushed him behind the containers. "I'm on duty," the man said, taking another look around to make sure no one saw him.

Something sparked Darm's senses. He brushed by the man, and peered around the corner of the containers. He extended his hearing, to catch whatever was going on. He overheard some of the dock workers, talking about the prisoner transport docking at the upper end of the cargo bay. A deafening voice screamed in his ear, and a hand gripped his shoulder. He lowered his senses back to normal as quickly as he could.

"What," Darm said, still squinting as he rubbed his aching ears.

"My shift is over at 0600 hours."

"That's good," Darm said, only half listening.

Thinking, from the lizard's tone of voice, that he had just been blown off, the enlistee huffed through his nose, and walked off.

Realization dawned on Darm, as option number two for getting to the prisoner transport, angrily walked away. Darm wrestled with the words, but finally got them out.

"Big guy," he said, trying to keep a straight face as he uttered what was surely the lamest pickup line ever to cross his lips. "Just hoping for something sooner."

The enlistee turned, and pondered the words for a few moments. "Break time in a couple of hours," he said.

Darm knew that would be too late. He placed the enlistee's hand underneath the vibrant, flowery shirt, and pressed it against a firm, furry pec. The enlistee's jaw muscles tightened, and he swallowed hard.

"How about a inspection," Darm said, his voice deep, masculine and seductive. "I might have contraband hidden somewhere. Maybe a strip search?"

The man looked around, and shook his head.

Darm pressed his body firmly against the man's muscled bulk, and whispered those four words that no man can resist. "I want you. Now!"

The enlistee hesitated for a moment, but boredom, frustration, and the ever-present scent of dock worker sweat in the air convinced him that this was an excellent thing to do - now!

Darm led him by the hand between several rows of cargo containers, until they found a very secluded area, where they would not be disturbed.

The man experienced a sensation unlike what he had expected.

*****

Darm massaged his aching knuckles. This Core Guard enlistee had proven to be short of brains, and hard of jaw.

"He's gonna feel that in the morning, " Darm said to himself.

He picked the man's jacket up off the floor and put in on. The man's shoulders were a few inches wider than Darm's, and it showed in the way that the material drooped around his shoulders.

Darm strolled out through the maze of cargo containers, and headed toward the prisoner transport. Two CivOps patrolmen were on guard at the entrance to the ship, waiting for someone to come along and take possession of the prisoners.

The Collar gun on the thigh of Darm's uniform would be useless, because it only responded to it's owner touch. So Darm would have to use his wits.

He walked up to the two patrolmen and used the Core Guard reputation, hoping it would get him past the two of them. Uneasiness showed in their eyes. He dismissed them with an authoritarian tone. They hesitated, but a prolonged stare moved them on their way. Nobody messes with the Core Guard, it would seem.

Someone would be along very soon to collect the prisoners. Darm searched as quickly as possible through the ship, but found nothing. He headed towards the aft part of the ship, hoping he could find something back there with the prisoners.

The room was dark and empty, except for a few dozen prisoners, mostly men and some of them caucasian. They wore government supplied generic white shirts, pants and shoes. The long-sleeved shirts had yellow and black stripes, identifying them as violent offenders. The prisoners sat motionless on long metal benches that lined the walls. From the mindless expressions on their faces, and the way they stared at the walls, they were obviously collared. This was another reason why so little security was needed, even for violent criminals.

Darm went down the row of prisoners, examining each one for some type of contraband. He looked in their mouths, under their clothes, even down the front of their pants. No one moved, objected, or even looked at him during the search. They were not capable of doing anything on their own, only what someone else told them to do.

He did a double-take on one of the male prisoners. The man seemed somehow familiar, but he couldn't place the face, because it was difficult to see anything distinct in the low lighting conditions.

He ran his hands under the man's shirt, and felt something familiar. There was a three inch long scar just below the left collarbone. Adrenaline surged through Darm, stirring his senses. His pupils dilated, giving him a bright-as-full-daylight view of the scene. He grabbed the man's jaw, holding up the head so he could get a better look. The beard was something new, but he recognized the face.

"Keef," he said, uncertainty trembling in his voice. "But your dead."

*** end ***

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