Path: NebulaRunner:CentralComputer:PersonalFiles:Journals

Verify Name: Night

Auth Code: xxxxxxxxxxx

Encryption Level: Bioscan

Override: Disabled

File: ReplacementJournal

Entry: I am officially scared. I'm in my ship, in the middle of nowhere, and the computer says two days have passed since the last day I made an entry.

I don't remember any of it.

Worse yet, I can't access my secure files. The password has been changed on all of them. No one could have known it but me . . . unless something very serious happened. And two days of blackout indicates something very, very serious.

Unless my ship's clock is wrong, but it was right last time I checked. And that still leaves me with the question of how I got here.

Another thing: the evidence I had packed to give the Tallest is gone. I don't know why or who would have taken it. But then again, I don't know who would have done any of this.

Idiot, check your messages!

Memory download: message center check

I open the main message folder, and I find a flood of new items. Well, items I don't recognize. Most of them are marked as already read. Whoever did this knows all my passwords. The older ones are mainly from people I supervise who want to suck up to me, wishing me luck at my meeting with the Tallest. Then a few wanting to know how it went. But most of the messages are in an entirely different category.

"I heard what they said about you. I couldn't believe it. Tell me it's not true."

"Night, are you okay? I've been hearing rumors, but I haven't gotten to look at the news yet to see if what I heard is accurate."

"I never thought anyone would go that far, even a bitch like you. I hope they catch you soon."

Catch me? What's going on here? I look at the dates on the messages and realize something interesting. I was supposed to meet with the Tallest at two yesterday, and the time on the first of the . . . unnerving messages is shortly before three. Whatever's going on here, it has something to do with that meeting. Did I miss it?

No, a lot of the people who sent these messages hadn't even heard about it. No one would have told them. And there are other things here, things like, "How on Irk did you get to be a Master when you have so little self-control?" That seems to suggest I did something. But what did I do?

I decide to access the news network to find out. I enter the command and wait. Minutes pass before the computer gives up and displays an "out of range" message.

Great. Not only am I apparently now considered a criminal, but I'm not even anywhere in the Irken Empire anymore.

So where am I?

I check the guidance systems, and the autopilot display comes up. It says the course plotted will land me on . . . Earth. Why Earth?

I don't understand this at all. It doesn't look like I'm going to any time soon, either. Whoever did all this also locked the autopilot. I have no choice but to sit here and wait for the ship to get where it's going.

I'm just gonna knock myself out for a while, I think.

File: Journal

Entry: Uhh, thank God emo-bug-girl is out of the way for now. I get so annoyed with her sometimes. No, wait, a lot of the time. Everything's going to plan so far; I don't think she'll figure out the passwords for the files, which should keep her pretty well under my control. As long as she's got nothing to do, she'll just mope around and sleep a lot, which is excellent for me. It gives me time to get things done.

I'm rather disappointed that I couldn't stick around the Empire, but I'll be back after I've gotten a few things done. I need a new look, a new PAK (either that or modify the old one), and then, when no one will know who I was, I can return. From that point, I can rebuild what I've lost and make myself greater than I was before.

Perhaps I'll even take advantage of my unwilling hostess's exceptional skills in genetics. "Tallest Shade" does sound rather nice . . .

. . . curious yet? I'm not answering questions, except for a few very specific ones. You'd probably be better off to not ask, but if your curiosity is uncontrollable . . . .