Krev suspects he's been staring at Vygo Alnam and his friends longer than he ever stared at the only smut journal he had when he was thirteen.
It's a good thing he's saved the picture to the same Holonet box as Brate's resources. Otherwise, he'd have to fantasize again: when he enters "Alnam Artesia" into the search bar, it's no longer the second result. He looks through five or ten pages and still can't find it. He's pretty sure it's just the Holosearch doing its arcane stuff based on how many middle managers from the Mid Rim look up cookie recipes as opposed to weather forecasts or something like that. It still creeps him out.
The facial search — when it doesn't recognize the Ulmis Systems logo as a Hutt face — is positive Vygo Alnam is Vygo Alnam. Yields a bunch of other pictures: Vygo Alnam in his office. Vygo Alnam at the races. Vygo Alnam exits an Everything for a Credit store on Alderaan — ooh, look at how bloated he is in this one! Vygo Alnam is very popular for the least popular man in the Republic.
It gets harder with his companions. When told to focus on one of them, the search first says it's Dalerom Vetabi. Vetabi used to be the CHB of Ulmis Systems — until 5.3.21. Krev opens a better-resolution picture of him. Looks at it from every angle. No similarity. He runs the search again. Now it thinks it's some second-rate Corellian actor standing next to Alnam. The third attempt supports the second one. The man keeps looking like no one to Krev.
The second Human companion: the system shits itself and can't find anything save for stock holopics of men shaking hands or pretending to be doctors. Krev opens the list of Alnam RoboTech higher-ups — their site graciously has a history section. He zooms on the man on Artesia and scrolls down the pictures of Alnam's goons. A few look similar. He repeats the procedure with the first man. The results are also repeated.
But it's not the Humans who are important. Xenophobic as it may be, Humans are mostly a Republic thing. Muuns are mostly CIS.
The Artesia picture is so small, and the facial search is notoriously bad at recognizing aliens — at least, according to the people who get upset when you say "aliens".
Krev calls it a day here. Of course it's cheating — but he has done some work today, right? It would be too presumptuous to ask a drug addict to exert himself more than this on the first day of work in a long while.
Finishing early gnaws at him, but he shoos the thought away. A viewscreen dinner warms up his stomach and the viewscreen warms up his mind. He watches some nutjob in military apparel talk for two hours straight about the struggle between the corners of the Supreme Chancellor's office, something he calls "project Dead Liquid", and the conspiracy to degeneratize art. The nutjob makes Krev smile fondly: if only he knew how things really are!
Somehow, the break continues the next day. Krev goes on another bus trip: after all, the first one was a good influence. Then, before he notices, it's the Fete.
He doesn't expect it, but the celebratory rhythm of the Galaxy's heart finds him in his little sunless apartment and shakes him out of it. He crosses four airbridges, carried by the crowd. Goes down in a public elevator. It's full. Someone's blasting music out of his wrist player.
A few blocks away, Krev starts noticing how heavy the police presence is. One patrol squad in four, maybe five, is reinforced by two clones. Krev is grateful they are wearing their helmets.
His mood is still not the same. He knows the cops have nothing on him here, but just being around this many policemen makes the hair on his neck stand up.
The wise thing would be to go home — but with the holiday smell in the air? There ain't no going home. He dives deeper.
He is in a nightclub. Someone slips some pills into his palm. This act of altruism makes him so happy he forgets he just paid for them. They dance to some experimental stuff here: each note electrocutes your brain, causing a different response each time. Krev goes to the bathroom — to throw up and to make out with a girl whose face and even species elude him as if they were painted on the music, and the music is muffled by the bathroom walls.
New year's first day: Krev wakes up on the ground level. No sky seen — but the place isn't dark. Hard to believe it gets so much light — more than his flat. Mirrors cling to every wall, leading the sunrays down.
Krev is alone. Alone — but sure he wasn't the last night. No details no matter how hard he scratches the bottom of his memory. It's probably for the best.
What happened to Coruscant? Last Krev's been here, waking up in the street in the underlevels was as likely as waking up in space without a spacesuit. Now — get a load of this! — he's even got some money left in his back pocket. No way to tell if any has been stolen — he can't remember how much there was left yesterday's night — but it doesn't matter: if he was robbed while he was sleeping, the robbers left him some change.
His tongue feels like it's made of bone. Headache switches on and off as he walks. He could do with less light.
Not a bad neighborhood — as far as the underlevels go. Fat chance all of them look like this. They probably did this one up to throw dust into some inspector's eyes.
The streets are empty — both down here and up there when Krev goes up to 409. Not the Coruscant he remembers — that one partied all the way through the Fete Week. This one has retreated home after one night.
But who is Krev to judge? He's doing the same thing.
No work for the rest of the day. Seems more appropriate to just lie watching holovision.
Later that week: some more attempts to identify the Humans. Krev knows they're not going to work from the start. Just doesn't want to proceed to the Muuns — can't tell why.
The Fete Week is over. The first month of the new year starts. Time to get to work, Krev thinks — for a couple of days.
He gets to it eventually. Checks the usual Holonet places: the ConCare discussion is dying down, slowly but surely. Citizens of the Republic want to discuss the new star destroyer model fielded by the Navy. They want to find out who is the best planetary commander. They want to know how much of their taxes are going towards the war effort. The lobotomized clones are losing their novelty.
ConCare itself: nothing. The suckers are applying the no-comment policy. Krev knows jack about corporate ass-wiggling, but he feels like this is the right call. Don't attract any more attention than there already is.
He goes through the ConCare site — the /News_2 page is gone, but the forum people have made plenty of archive copies of it, so no big deal. The New Heights Reached in Lobotomy Field page — which now can account for half of the site's visitors — is still up, though. Nobody's getting to it without a link, it seems, or it is thousands of pages of search results down, but Krev has a link and — he hopes — several million people have it, too.
A nagging feeling wins. He has to keep the fire alive.
Muun-searching: goes as poorly as any socially-acute fag or hag would tell you. At first, the search says one of the Muuns is San Hill — the InterGalactic Banking Clan San Hill. Krev has about twenty seconds to enjoy the sense he's getting somewhere — then the search tells him the second Muun is also San Hill.
He runs the process some more times. Same results. He looks up the pictures of some famous Muun opera singer and asks the facial search to recognize his face. It's San Hill.
Who could've known socially-aware people were so fucking right?
Two dozen queries later, Krev finds the explanation. He has no idea how correct it is, but the people on the forum seem knowledgeable and even post bits of code to illustrate their point. Must be the real deal, huh? Turns out, the Republic propaganda machine has been bringing San Hill up endlessly over the past year. Hill's flamboyance is probably to blame: not that hard to imagine why he was targeted out of all the Separatist leaders when he is prone to talking about the measures the Banking Clan takes to prevent their employees from spending too much time in restrooms. At least if you listen to the Republic sources, he talks about it on every occasion — on the evil Shadowfeed programs that the brave Republic journalists look at so that the humble Republic masses don't have to. Three months ago: every tabloid started to question Hill's sexuality — he's not married? At his age? All Muuns have ten wives, every child knows that! Very rich coming from people whose Supreme Chancellor isn't married, either — but the citizens of the Republic consume this kind of rumors whether or not they make sense. Anyway, that's when billions of pictures of San Hill started to be poured into the Holonet — and now the Holonet search thinks any Muun it sees is San Hill.
Visual comparison doesn't help — Krev is no better at telling Muuns apart than the Holonet.
Queries: Muuns Ulmis Systems. Muuns Artesia. Muuns Vygo Alnam. Muuns Alnam RoboTech.
Nothing relevant comes up. Small surprise — it's not like any sensible periodical is going to focus on their species.
He looks through Ulmis's board. Humans make most of it, sans a Gran and two Ortleans. No Muuns in sight related to Ulmis in any way.
Krev begins to doubt his reasoning. Alnam was on Artesia. Presumably in Ulmis's office. But it could be just a five-minute visit.
And then Ulmis just materializes twelve years later as one of the organizations funding Forakk? The same Forakk whose engineers are really from Dangor Industries? The same Dangor Industries as the one owned by the sister of the guy who is — ultimately — in control of ConCare and another guy who is Chancellor Palpatine's aide?
He looks through Brate's files again. Rereads some of the choice parts. Remembers his own time in the military. It doesn't hold his attention as it usually does.
He goes back to the main archive. There — Geon. project stares at him.
Some cryptic shit, this one. Was Brate drunk when he created this file? He was able to articulate his thoughts on his desertion pretty well. Krev can only imagine how hard that must've been. Would've been hard for him, had he deserted — and he wasn't brought up from infancy with only war in mind.
So why does the Geon. project file only contain these two notes?
"About the project... these maniacs are actually going with it."
And: "I don't get it. Can somebody... can somebody explain it to me?"
Brate didn't write what he was thinking about the contingency orders. Hard to tell how conflicted he was over them — if he was conflicted at all. Krev suspects — wants to — that they were a part of why Brate deserted, but Brate never clarified if it they were. Still — didn't hesitate to put them down.
Mass executions didn't warrant any evaluation from him. Geon. project did.
They carried Order 37 out on Geonosis? Doubtful. Brate hardly referred to Geonosians as anything but bugs. Doesn't sound like much of a project, either.
He asks the Holonet for any mentions of Dangor Industries combined with Geonosis. The only one that's somewhat relevant is an article about the conflict between Dangor Industries and the Techno Union — eight years ago — and Geonosis is only mentioned in passing as one of the newest members of the Union.
Change Dangor Industries for Forakk: nothing at all. Change Forakk for Ulmis Systems: nothing. Change Ulmis Systems for Ordulann: a social media account of one Harris Clovled, a senior Mid Rim research manager of Ordulann Conglomerate. Mr. Senior Manager really shows his support for the troops off: half of his posts from a year back are holopictures of Republic soldiers and vehicles with some profound quotes. Naturally, Geonosis comes up quite a lot. Other than Clovled, Ordulann doesn't seem to care about Geonosis.
Krev tries looking up Republic engineering projects on Geonosis. Zero concreteness. Notice the name of Brate's battalion — on the list of engineer battalions deployed on Geonosis. The GAR official site. Obviously, no mentions of any projects they did there — that's classified stuff, if Krev knows his military.
Especially if it scarred Brate so much.
Not much hope, but he looks for the battalion's name: together with Geonosis and apart from it. The Holonet returns no new info.
Funny: what did you expect to find on the public Holonet?
But there was some stuff on it, after all. The ConCare stuff. The Alnam picture. Not much — but enough to see something is not what they want it to seem. They — whoever they are — are sloppy. Rely on outsourcing. There might be something else.
Krev goes through forums: flag-wavers. Middle-aged dudes who like to wank to tanks and all-terrain vehicles. Some ex-military — to listen to them. He looks up Geonosis on every forum. A lot of discussion about the course of both battles — the Senate should've hired these strategists and tacticians, and it would have been just one battle. Or the CIS — then the Republic would've fallen right there on Geonosis. Lots of hate towards bugs — way more than Krev saw in Brate's journal. You'd get the impression it was the Geonosians who started the war. Lots of pleas to bomb the planet into hell — most date back to the time when the Second Battle of Geonosis was still raging, but a few more recent. Lots of pictures of clones — each in a black border, with some text to accompany it. Names — official ones and the monikers. Descriptions — often so ungrammatical that even Krev's eyes hurt to look at them — of what each trooper achieved and how heroically each one died.
Now that's something weird. How do civilians get access to such info? A news broadcast can only contain so many messages about lost clones. And look at these — some were privates.
Krev follows the trail. Some holo obituaries have marks with the site name on them. Some have a few. He visits each one. Looks for the source.
He's not sure he finds the source of pictures — but he finds the source of info.
Several replies to different epitaphs on different forums. "Thanks 221st." "221 for life." "221st's job will not be forgotten!"
None of the clones in the pictures served in anything 221st — so the pictures themselves say.
Look up "221st GAR". Jackpot: it was all over the news eight months ago. Krev hasn't seen it — but he only has himself to blame. Wasn't much of a news type back then.
The 221st: an artillery brigade stationed on Geonosis. Started their own stringer gig: got a holocamera somewhere. Repurposed a comm tower to browse the Net and began uploading dispatches, some with pics, some gory. Right up the quasi-military forum dwellers' alley. Were going strong for several months. Then the command finally caught drift of it, shut the news station down, and court-martialed the newsclones. There was some outcry online about their fate — the Department of Defense even had to issue a statement saying the brigade was disbanded and the perps sent to different planets. The last article Krev finds is about one of them reporting from the Saleucami orbital station. Didn't reach his past popularity: the consensus is it was said station command's PR stunt. Pictures of clones repairing the station and posing with admirals didn't titillate the public enough.
Krev feels like a prospector who just knows there's a deposit right behind this very wall — and the spiders might just not be home.
The account the 221st used to post from was banned as soon as they got discovered — but their materials are all over the Holonet. Krev combs through the forums for the mentions of the brigade. Tons of them — but not every post works. Some were embedded holovids — these were gone with the account itself. But there are others — those who posted them were savvy enough to upload the stuff to the forum directly.
Krev watches everything he can find. The news weren't being sensational when they called the 221st's reports gory. Krev would lie if he said this stuff makes his skin crawl — he's seen such stuff and similar snuff stuff first-hand. What troubles him is how many people — people without Atnakis, people without Kessel — have watched these vids and images and didn't throw up on the first second.
The vid that does it for Krev: feed from the inside of a fighter tank. The cam shakes — mostly since it's handheld. The tank hovers smoothly. Zoom onto the frontview screen. More tanks glide over a barren plain several kilometers in front of the one they're filming from. The cam shakes harder. When it focuses on the screen again, there are dust clouds rising from where the other tanks used to be. Smoke rises through the dust.
"That's it for the guys," one clone says lazily.
"Yeah," another one answers. "They've ridden their share."
Krev's skin still doesn't crawl. He does feel a bit sick, though.
He downloads everything he can — just to be safe. Maybe something comes up later on, like some clue or some codename — he'd better have the materials to look for it in.
In case he misses anything with his bare ear, he runs a search for every video he finds: Geonosis project. Lots of results: the troopers are talking about Geonosis a lot. No mention of any specific project — more in the vein of generally cursing the place.
Dozens of corpses later, Krev gets a shaky picture of what he's missing. Some holovids reference others — some of those are nowhere to be found. It's frustrating: he realizes it's all a wild bantha chase. Doesn't feel like he's getting anywhere — but at least, it feels like he's moving. More than he can say about identifying Muuns.
He creates topics on the only two forums that let him do it without entering his ID number: "Does anyone here have the full 221st archive?" Doesn't check them for a couple of days. Tells himself it's to boost his chances of coming back to a reply.
The replies he comes to: a few wish-I-did's. One link to another page on the same forum that Krev has seen: nowhere near the full archive.
Sorval calls him to tell him he's leaving Telos. Krev already starts missing his days when the only benchmark for his idleness was his own conscience.
The incoming demonman makes him do some work, though. Can't present him only with clone troopers' banter and stories of Muuns being oppressed by the Holosearch algorithms. He doesn't want to be put on any lists — asking more forums ain't an option. It's safer to go out sometimes.
So Krev goes out. The trip takes him an entire day — he has to plan his route with more precision than they planned their embassy job. Still almost misses the monorail from Quadrant 915 to Gabokla District — if he did, he wouldn't get into the Gabokla subway until 4:19 AM when it closes for two hours.
Mirror-paneled stations take over from marble-paneled ones — to be replaced with plain duracrete walls of the newest platforms. Krev feels like he's traversing a cobweb chart of wealth distribution.
4:06 AM: he resurfaces. Didn't catch any sleep in the trains and airbuses he rode. Hadn't slept well the past night, either. Been thinking about the task too hard.
Gabokla is a shithole. Several hundred thousand square kilometers of warehouses and cargo spaceports. Some abandoned housing projects. Krev muses how many Atruba's grandson has taken part building.
No wonder they stuck the GAR barracks here.
Ain't no buses flying there — it's a military installation, after all. Doesn't mean clones don't venture out: they got more freedom than Krev used to have on Atnakis. Good for them, being stationed on Coruscant. Krev bets those on Geonosis wished for some Atnakis experience.
Krev finds a checkpoint. Watches it from across an air corridor. The dome of the force field above the territory is almost invisible in the daylight.
No chance of getting inside — obviously. Thing is, he's never hoped for one.
Instead: watch the traffic. Look if there is a pattern to where the clones go to spend their leave. Think if any are going to desert today like Brate did. Probably not: they don't have it as bad here. Also: Coruscant isn't Denon. Hiding can be simpler — but they will look for you harder to compensate for it. An armed deserter in the Republic capital is bad news.
Krev watches the checkpoint. Vehicles come and go. Looks like they have a more restricted system of leave-spending than on Denon. Ship the clones in and out in packs in military trucks. Or: nobody goes on his leave through this checkpoint.
A police droid near the metro station upper-level exit grows nervous. It doesn't come close — but Krev takes a hint nonetheless. He remembers seeing two more in the vestibule. Time to go.
He follows airbridges where possible. Goes up or down when it's not. Thinking about what he's going to tell the living clones isn't nice. His thoughts go back to the dead one.
There was that one part of Brate's story, wasn't it? About how he entered Alnam's custody, for all the good it did him. He mentioned some guy he met on Denon — what was it? Krev can't remember. Gotta look it up when he gets home — get used to calling the level 409 apartment home, by the way.
That guy — he was working for Alnam, or close enough. Wonder if he found Brate by chance or desertion was expected. Not the statistics you'd find on the GAR official site.
Krev hits clone bars. Every bar around the barracks is a clone one. They're empty for now — life will come back to them in the evening.
Not everybody's got until evening, though — that's what Krev is hoping for. No need for extra attention.
It's eleven in the morning. Krev walks into a bar and finds the day's first clones.
He praises himself for coming to Gabokla so early: five pairs of Brate's eyes glancing at him are way, way, way too many. He fights the force pulling him back out of the bar.
They only look at him for a second or two, but that's enough. He recalls that thing they say about twins — how they read each other's minds and so on.
Clones are twins, aren't they? Closer even. The five in front of him don't react to him — not as much so that he notices, anyway.
He still is sure they recognize him.
Go to the counter. A bartender — an actual living one — pours him a glass of beer. Water they wash the glasses around here must smell more like beer than this beer. Krev's not complaining, though. Anything to keep him occupied — if not for this glass, he knows, he would be in full retreat.
Krev overhears the clones. They're playing simplified pazaak — what you draw is what you get — no side cards. So simplified it was considered boorish on Kessel.
The game is done. One of the clones stands before Krev, staring at him with the dead man's eyes.
"Will you drink with us for Sergeant Herder, stranger?"
"Beg your pardon?"
"Sergeant Herder. Our batchmate."
No further explanation.
None is needed.
"I will," Krev says. "It's on me."
"No."
And no explanation is needed now either.
Krev walks to the clone table. The other four rise before the one who fetched Krev ten-huts at them.
"Sergeant Herder was a tough-ass son of a bitch," that one says after the barkeep brings them each a shot of whiskey. "For that, we'll forever be grateful."
"And for the time we got to spend with him," another one says.
They serve better whiskey than beer in this bar.
"Where did he die?" Krev asks.
"Quockra," one clone says.
"Quockra-fucking-IV," another one nods.
"Landmine," the first says.
The third one wrinkles his forehead. "I didn't even hear it. Such a small sound. I was right behind him, and I didn't hear it."
"A fucking landmine," the second clone says.
Krev has another shot with them and leaves the bar and Gabokla. He hasn't asked them about the 221st. For some reason, he feels like his trip wasn't for nothing.
He passes days until Sorval's arrival trying to get the facial search to work. It still doesn't believe there is more than one Muun in the Galaxy.
Sorval's ship lands four weeks into the first month. Krev goes to Eastport to meet and greet him.
"Now I can just drop down and die and I won't care," Sorval says as they grab a cab.
Krev splutters with laughter watching how Sorval gazes around. "You're in Manarai. Ma-na-rai. It's the Telos IV of Coruscant."
"I don't care," says the demonman. "I'm a happy man now."
"How are the things back home?" Krev asks in the cab.
"Nothing outrageous when I left."
"What about our friends?"
"You know, they're both really pissed off at you."
"At me? What gives?"
"You sound awfully surprised. Well, they two blame you for fucking up their jobs."
"Are they serious? It was one of them who fucked it all up!"
"I get it, but they don't."
They ride in silence for a moment. Sorval's face is flat against the window.
"Are we gonna hire more help here?" he asks when the cab flies into a tunnel.
"I don't think we are."
"Man, I won't be able to do it all day. I've gotta study."
"We don't have to do it all day long. We'll be smarter this time."
"Smarter than the old man? It was his plan to keep the thing alive at all times."
"His general strategy was smart, not the implementation. No need to shit the entire Holonet with it. We can't do it anyway. No matter how many people we hire. We need to work in a way regular people will join us on their own volition. You know these funny pictures they have on the Holonet?"
Sorval burst laughing.
"Oh, what the fuck is it now?" Krev grunts.
"It's nothing, man, it's nothing. Yes, I know about funny pictures on the Net."
"I'm talking ones with text on them."
"Yeah, I know about those, too," Sorval says through laughter. "They are called memes, grandpa."
"Call them whatever you want. This is the shit people share all over the place. If you just feed them facts, it's not gonna fly, right? It's just text. It's not memorable. What we did worked mostly for those soldier wannabes. But we want the larger public, so we're gotta be memorable."
"If you were born a thousand years ago, they'd call you a visionary, I'm telling you."
"What, am I wrong? Tell me where I'm wrong."
"No, you're not. It's a decent idea. I'm just amazed by how you out-oldmanned the old man. He's very fond of coming up with hundred-year-old ideas completely on his own. It's a commendable quality."
The guy whom Sorval rents his flat from gets jumpy when he sees Sorval didn't come alone. Krev tries to stand as far back in the corridor as he can, but it just looks like he's cutting the guy's way out. When the guy leaves, Krev can tell what he's thinking: now these two are going to knock over his apartment.
The apartment is nicer than Krev's. Krev puts it down to the benefits of having job prospects. A nice large window: up to five hours of nonreflected light per day! A separate kitchen — small, but still separate. Overall nice.
"We got a problem," he says while Sorval is unpacking his bags. "The sort of equipment we need is illegal here. You knew people on Telos we could trust, but we have no idea whom to buy it from on Coruscant."
Sorval straightens his back. "Don't take me for a fool, old man. I know people on Telos who know people on Coruscant. And it means," he bends to pick up a stack of t-shirts, "I know somebody who can sell us an HB for maybe fifteen grand."
"Someone we can trust?"
"Don't trust no one. Not even me," Sorval smiles. "Seriously, though, it's as trustworthy as it gets. What we should worry about is Alnam."
Krev chews on his lip. "Which one?"
"I thought you said the younger one was okay?"
"I thought you didn't believe me when I did."
"Let's say I did. The older one."
"What about him?"
"Do you think he's twiddling his thumbs right as we speak? I, for one, don't. It's odd he hasn't found more people to spread his propaganda."
"And you're sure of that?"
"Yeah. I've been keeping my eyes peeled."
"Me too. But what about the Shadowfeed?"
"Watched over that too."
"Without an HB?"
"Looking is fine with the authorities. It's posting something like we're about to that makes them all vigilant. Nothing on the Feed, either. If the old man isn't doing anything, it can only mean one thing: all is going according to his plan. Maybe he foresees what we're going to do and he waits for it."
Krev shakes his head. "He knows I'll be shooting at him as well this time. I pretty much told him I would."
"Maybe it's a price he's willing to pay," Sorval says.
"Get the fuck outta here. He's not the type to go down with the ship."
"Alright. You're the boss. But think about it: what if we're going to be doing what Alnam wants us to?"
Not something Krev wants to think about.
"Better tell me," he says, "do you know anything about his Denon operation?"
"Denon operation? What do you mean?"
"That's where Brate got into the picture."
"No idea, man."
"The name Theodane ring any bell?"
"Theodane from Denon?"
"Exactly."
"Well, one sure comes to mind. Theodane Nogolle."
"He might be working for Alnam?"
Sorval chuckles. "No fucking way, man. Nogolle is big. Used to be a senator, I think."
"Never stopped anybody from being a corporate puppet."
"He's big money himself. Nearly as big as Alnam. You heard of Salaria Investments? Well, trust me, it's big. Nogolle is one of the executives."
"Doesn't mean a thing."
"They got a history with Alnam RoboTech, the Salaria guys. A huge conflict. Many trials. Still ongoing, I think. Look, it's not like Nogolle is the only Theodane on Denon."
Sounds logical — but Krev remains unconvinced.
The HB guy lives in Moso, far from Quadrant D-156. Krev doesn't mind: that's a way to relive some good memories.
They go there two days later. The meeting place: The Orion. Krev feels his endorphin level rising: he remembers The Orion. An old downed cruiser — ancient, if you listen to the proprietor — houses the restaurant. He wonders if the holosign is still up.
It actually fucking is: YES, THIS IS *THAT* ORION. Krev has no idea which Orion is *that*. Doesn't care: just happy to see the old pile of metal. The sun reflects off its discolored sides — just like the day he left Moso the last time. Back then, dark-purple clouds were gathering on the horizon. Symbolic fucking shit, man. Today, the sky is clear.
Krev hopes it's symbolic as well.
The HB guy is seedy. Nervous. Doesn't talk much. Krev misses his blaster. Maybe the guy's nervousness is contagious.
They leave through the backdoor. The unloading platform got a nice view of the RJCDC towering above. The guy has a cigarette before getting into his speeder parked right here in the back.
"It's not far," the guy says.
"Just let's not fuck everything up," Krev tells him.
"What's your problem? You seem tense."
"Let's not fuck everything up and you won't have to see what my problem is."
The guy lives in a tall light-filled monad which looks like it was new ten years ago. The elevator doors close and open with a satisfying mechanical clunk.
The guy stores his transmitter in two separate boxes he takes from the top shelves in his entrance room.
"No way is that eyesore going to fit in these boxes," Krev says. He waits for Sorval to tell him otherwise. Sorval doesn't.
The guy gets some cables from the same shelf. "The carcass isn't included. It takes less space this way. Don't worry, it works alright."
"We're gonna test it," Sorval says.
They do — Sorval and the guy. Krev can only wait and smoke out of the open kitchen window while they assemble the transmitter. Sorval asks the guy a tech question from time to time. Krev doesn't understand a word, but Sorval seems to like the guy's answers.
"It works," Sorval says looking into his portable computer.
It's already past midday. The HB transmitter lies around on the floor: three clusters of circuits and wires loosely connected together.
"Okay," Krev says. "How much do you want?"
"Fifteen."
Sorval makes a little nod.
"Okay," Krev says.
It takes the guy and Sorval until evening to take the transmitter back apart.
Sorval and Krev leave, each carrying a box. Krev's is a computer box. Sorval's originally contained a pair of gigantic boots.
"Those belong to Mrs. HB?" Krev asks as they wait for the elevator.
"Are we going to split up? We look like low-life, low-luck burglars together."
"That's good. Nobody will suspect we have an HB with us."
"Right, but a cop might just check what we have in there."
They don't split up. Even Krev is tired — and Sorval has to put the transmitter together again, so they forego spy games.
They get to Krev's place no problem. It's still dusk here, since it's farther to the west from Moso. Krev wonders how many more security things they'll forego in the future and which one will become their last.
"You sure we don't rent another place for it?" Sorval asks.
Krev looks at the HB-890, the invertebrate variant.
"It's supposed to make it impossible to see where I'm connecting from, isn't it?"
"Well, yeah. But it can shit itself. Like on Telos, remember?"
"I'll make sure not to delete any posts I forget to send bouncing. We can't rent or buy anything no questions asked like we did on Telos. We don't know the local market."
"I strongly suspect that no-questions-asked real estate fucker was the one who gave you up to Alnam Junior." Sorval scratches his nose violently. "You plan on meeting him?"
"Matter of fact, I am. Just need some good stuff to give him first."
"You think this," Sorval nods at the transmitter, "is going to help?"
"I don't know. It better."
He'd offer Sorval to stay, but there's nowhere for the demonman to sleep — especially with half the floor being taken up by the HB. Sorval tells Krev to watch the power consumption and goes home.
And Krev really wonders if the HB is going to help.
He gets no sleep that night — he's fucking with the manuals. He knows how to secure the connection, but going on the Shadowfeed is trickier than that.
In the end, he gets it to work — well, he hopes he does. Lagging like hell, but the Shadowfeed interface appears on the screen of his computer. Krev double-checks the connection: it should appear as if it's someone from the other hemisphere of the planet is going to the dark side of the Net, or even from a space station behind the other hemisphere.
That leaves an important question: does it look like that to a bystander?
Alright, Krev thinks, no way to check it. Even if you had another computer, where'd you get a decryptor or whatever you need to see through it? Sorval said they don't care if you just look things up on the Feed.
Are you planning to just look forever?
No, but it'll do for tonight.
Some time is spent figuring out where the facial search is located. Looks like whoever designed the Shadowfeed, his first priority was to make it as different from the Holonet as possible — even if it had to come at the price of convenience and intuitiveness.
Krev tells the search to find out the name of the first Muun. It takes the Feed three attempts to even get any results — the first two crash the program. Krev has to admire the patience of Republic citizens who go here just to argue with the CIS citizens.
The third time's the charm. Or not: the Feed also thinks it's San Hill.
Krev curses at the Shadowfeed, the Holonet, and all the cocksucking motherfucking shithead journalists who empty their journalistic bowels into crappy propaganda pieces. The only thing stopping him from smashing the HB is the fond memory of his fifteen grand.
He looks up the other Muun in the picture just to put a full stop to this quote-unquote lead. What he sees on the screen makes his heart go faster like the mind of a junkie trying to charm a dose out of his pusher.
The Muun's name: Bakar Tum.
Maybe it's another glitch, Krev tries to rein himself in as he searches for the first Muun simultaneously with requesting information on Tum.
The first one: still Hill. Give the second one another go...
... Bakar Tum is a former personal aide to Chairman Hill...
... the search system is still sure it is Tum with a reported Hill in the holopic...
... retiring in 8, Tum decided to enter the holofeature business on Muunilinst...
Krev laughs. The Holonet search was right, after all. What's the chance?
He shuts the Feed connection down. Runs the Holonet search on both Muuns: both are San Hill as far as this engine is concerned. He remembers to check if the Shadowfeed can identify Muuns. Three movie stars and a last-century philosopher later, he thinks it's beyond doubt it can.
He goes to the IGBC site. Tries to keep power utilization down — but on the Holonet, the Banking Clan is considered extremist and their site is blocked.
He looks up Ulmis Systems on the site. It crashes only once before finding him a news article.
Expanding into Expansion Region: Promises and Prospects, the name goes. The gist is, the IGBC is starting a business relationship with the Artesian firm Ulmis Systems.
It really feels like catching the enemy in your crosshairs.
What happens next, Krev can only describe as the fucker hugging the ground the last moment.
Look at the date of the article: 10.4.15. Eight years after the picture was taken — that was 2.11.11, some weird 12-month variation of the standard calendar.
But no matter how you count your months, when you operate within the SC, the number of days per year stays the same. The IGBC article makes it clear this is the first contact with Ulmis Systems. Phrases like "our new partner", "after seven months of negotiations", "the newest addition to the ever-growing family of the Clan's affiliates" are used. No other mentions of Ulmis on their site.
Shit. Krev looks at the picture again. Alnam looks quite a bit younger than now. Could he have aged this much in the past five years? Maybe, with all the giving-the-finger-to-the-government and pushing-for-his-own-agenda shticks he's been doing.
Krev looks Alnam's pictures from a couple of years ago. As he does it, he remembers what Tum's encyclopedia page said: he retired in 8. Can't be him in the picture — if it's taken in 10 and the other Muun is San Hill.
Here's Alnam before his speech, talking to the economics students on Alderaan, the year is 7. Looks younger than today, sure — but closer to today than to the Artesia meeting shot. Here's another one, from the year 10: way more gray-haired than on Artesia. And here's Alnam with Chancellor Valorum — back when Valorum was the chancellor. No date, so can be way before 2 — but this Alnam looks almost the same as the Artesia one.
So what's going on here?
Ulmis Systems cooperated with the IGBC — now you know it for sure. But it doesn't prove anything: you don't know if Alnam was involved in Ulmis. For sure he was — otherwise, he wouldn't cave in to your demands as soon as you mentioned Ulmis. Well, in his case, caving in also meant sending hitmen to ice you, but that's just how old Alnam rolls. But this isn't proof. You need something better to make sure Alnam goes down with the rest of them.
You need evidence Ulmis was Alnam's thing — and that he still holds some interest in it, which he wants to promote by getting rid of the current government and the war. You also need to implicate him in the ConCare business — as well as to rouse the crowds against the lobotomy doctors so much they won't listen to anything Alnam has to say from the moment he admits he knew about lobotomies or, better, was involved in the research.
And your arguments will have to be blaster-proof: Alnam is trying to stop the war — or he can present what he's doing as such.
Krev goes to sleep — finally. He dreams that he is trapped in a large spaceport he sees for the first time in his life — though he knows it's Kessel-1. He needs to find the gate to the ship flying to Muunilinst at first, but then he is after a Coruscant ship. He knows he's got to leave — but he also knows his mother is somewhere around, and he should find her before going. There isn't time for it — he knows that, too.
He wakes up before finding either the ship or his mother. The last thing he remembers is that the spaceport turned into a living block for some reason. It makes him glad he woke up before anything else could happen.
It's 1:04 PM. Krev's missed his daily sunlight. He thinks about his mother while he smokes out of the window. Nobody who grew up on Telos would call him a bad son — he has visited her, twice during his first stay on Coruscant and then some months after Atnakis. She died some time while he was on Manaan. He didn't go to the funeral — nobody would hold it off until his arrival.
She'd been a typical Kesselian ex-con: nowhere to go and nothing to do after the release. Stayed on Kessel. Probably boozed away all the money they'd given her to get off it. Krev takes a puff. He can't complain — not too much, at least. She didn't drink too heavily once she got him.
And he was a good son. Brought her electronics from Coruscant. Hoped she wouldn't sell them to get money for liquor and spice. Was too damn tired to talk to her about it. Knew it would do jack. But nobody has any right to call him a bad son.
Krev does it himself.
After breakfast — the remnants of the yesterday's viewscreen dinner — he starts the transmitter up again.
Alright. All points to the fact: Alnam, Hill, and Tum were on Artesia at Ulmis Systems' headquarters. He's looked at the picture for ages: the Ulmis logo doesn't resemble an ad in a spaceport. The setting is definitely a company building.
Fact number two: they were at Ulmis twelve years ago, not five as the article on the IGBC would have you believe. Alnam's too young. Tum didn't work in the IGBC in 10. It's 2 — ninety-nine percent.
But why would the Clan lie in their article?
Because the visit wasn't meant to be public. This doesn't sound right — nobody would pose for a holopic during a nonpublic visit. Of course, you never know with people who have more credits than brain cells — but it's so unlikely they would pose like this that you can disregard it for now.
Or: because whoever was writing the article eight years later didn't know about the meeting on Artesia. Too small a fish to be told about it. It could be not really clandestine — just not really common knowledge.
So uncommon, in fact, that the IGBC employees don't know about it.
Krev checks the Alnam RoboTech site for 10.4. No mentions of Ulmis. Can mean anything.
He digs into the IGBC for hours — both on the Holonet and Shadowfeed. Goes through their publicized acquisitions from 2 and 10. Then goes through their acquisitions from all the in-between years. Tries to figure out their interests in the Expansion Region: there are too many to make sense of them.
Krev thinks of buying an accounting droid.
After midnight, it strikes him: he's digging the wrong way. The Banking Clan may have not been on it back in 2 — what if Hill and Tum visited Artesia in some other capacity?
He looks at Hill's biography. Hill became the Chairman in 4. Doesn't mean much: he had been a co-chairman before that and a regional representative before that.
Krev makes himself go to bed, telling himself the mystery won't get anywhere — not now that he's on a good trace. Come morning, though, the first thing he does is boot up the computer and continue the search.
A few hours in, he is on a Muun forum. Pages load slowly thanks to a translator program.
Posts from eleven years ago: lots and lots of dissatisfaction with the new chairman. The general consensus: Hill was fine as a co-chairman, but his rise to the supreme position is too quick. Some smartass says he has warned everybody it will come to this. Krev follows the link he provides.
A post from 2 BrS: "Little San will be the single head authority in five years, remember in the future my past word."
Someone asks the smartass why. He replies, "You do not have to feed the plankton. San Little Hill is with Damask Capitals."
Krev writes the plankton off as a translation oddity. Damask Capitals is interesting.
Somebody argues that Damask Capitals doesn't exist anymore, but: "Your word is true. Hill *is* a protégé of Damask, however. Maybe it will work out for him, maybe not."
Krev looks up Damask Capitals. The translator program should be ashamed: it's actually Damask Holdings. Not many results from the recent times. Most date back at least to twenty-five years before the Great ReSynch.
It was a Muun thing. Seems to have gone out of business about forty years ago — but as the smartass Muun tells his opponents, "It doesn't matter; Damask is immortal." On a very old page, Krev finds a report about its activities. A lot of empty phrases, but he gets the idea: some lobbying outfit.
It does list some of its members. Look: San's daddy Larsh Hill is here. Bakar Tum is listed as an associate.
And the captain of the operation himself: Magister Hego Damask.
"And who are you?" Krev asks the text on his screen.
Somehow, he's got a feeling he is not going to like the answer.