Chapter 4

March 12th

McGinty's Diner, Kevilston

Suk II

The diner was packed for lunch, the majority of people on their way back north to the big city of Mach 'Beh after a nice little warm vacation to round out their winter. The bell on the door continued to jingle periodically. Why the seven hells was there a bell on a diner door? thought Harvey, or at least Harvey Crenshaw for the next week or so, anyway. I'm taking it off when I leave. A long pause. Naaaaaah. But I'm never having a meeting here ever again.

His guest meeting him for lunch was his Draconis contact. He came in with a camera case over his shoulder and the most nondescript, average-looking outfit any "tourist" would ever be caught wearing. Almost brown drab everything, smudged with dried mud and chlorophyll. He smiled at Harvey and sat across from him. The "old friends showing each other their recent adventures" routine began to kick in as he showed Harvey the pictures on his camera. Lots of landscapes, rivers, and various large lizards, including the unofficial planetary mascot, "Jinxy," who was said to bring bad luck if you got too close to one.

With a big, roundish head, big eyes, webbed toes, scales that changed color, and being almost the exact size to make huggable, soft and squishy replicas for the kids, the old fable quickly lost the battle with commercialism, and almost every kid had some random color of Jinxy in their bedroom. Easily fifty million bedrooms across the planet had a Jinxy for "good luck." And because it was cute.

"My niece has a blue one. Dark blue. You saw one in the wild?" He looked more intensely at the picture, paying particular attention to the bottom left corner of the frame, where the date and time the picture was taken would be displayed. It typically blended in with the photo until it was printed with nothing there at all.

Except this date was way out of order. The other dates were early in February (actual photos taken for real authenticity) but this one said April 20th of this year.

The date the revolt was set to begin. After the election, in which House Member Orsula Alvarez lost by a narrow margin in her bid for Prime Minister (or Planetary Minister as they like to call it on Suk), she acted on longer-standing backup plans with local superpowers in a bid to hand them the planet via civil unrest and dissention. The Draconis Combine had a few people willing to take that several steps further, but it generally happened under the table until they could potentially gift-wrap the planet to hand to their masters for their own personal gain.

"You can go down there. They won't come at you. Just bring looooots of water. I must have lost two or three kilos in water weight down there." The conversation then droned on about family, the next "big score" of pictures for Interstellar Imaging, and so on. Drac agents will hit water plants before the 29th. Most of the fresh water not already being consumed by the civilians in and around the capitol was further out, in the mountains to the west of the mining districts, so there would be shortages.

Civil unrest. Minor panic. Nothing major, just enough to start polarizing them against whoever was "responsible" at the time. Frankly the PM had almost nothing to do with the way the water was cleaned and distributed around here, but when a mob wants someone to hang, they usually go for the person with the highest-ranking neck.

And hanging was still a thing on this planet. It was a hotbed of culture clashes, with people looking to get into the political game on the ground-level waging their own personal wars of style, fashion, and art.

"My dropship is due tomorrow, so I've got to get into town to get in line at the spaceport," said nondescript tourist number two hundred seventeen. "I'll have to settle for next time." He stood and patted the Combine agent on the shoulder. "I missed you! We'll have to see each other again. My best to your daughter, Saloru," he said over his shoulder, walking out. An anagram for Orsula. Harvey finished his tea, paid his bill, and walked out the jingly diner door. And drove to the capitol to pass the news.