Haul

Hidden Agenda

sPectre stared at the data he had collected. He wasn't really surprised. In fact, he had known all along. Only he found that it was one thing to whine and another to have hard, solid proof. A long time passed, while he got used to the fact that his greatest nightmares were actually not even half the truth.

If the facts in front of his face were true, anyone knowing this was as good as dead. 'Or would be dead if they were stupid enough to tell anyone. Not that anyone would believe this unless they had my background.'

So the question was how to spread this information without calling any unwanted attention on himself. He needed someone, someone who would look like a plausible candidate to unearth the same information but without any connection to himself. His fingers danced over the keyboard as he formed the search query. Voice recognition had never appealed to him. He could think and type faster than he could talk.

Names started to appear on his screen. Just by focusing, he moved the pointer over the screen and opened the respective files. The eye tracker was his only "concession to degeneration" as he called it. Also, it allowed him to move the pointer on the screen without having to take the fingers off the keyboard.

One name caught his attention. 'Perfect,' he thought and started to create a deadly web of information in which he intended to catch his prey.

Freddy Cones passed his suitcase to the cute flight attendant and dropped into a chair next to a window. The shuttle would get them to the FTL[1] jumpship outside the asteroid field. From a military base, he would leave with a commercial flight on to Vera Cura, the most famous spot to spend some quality time and a lot of money. He looked forward to it. This job had left him with a small fortune, so he could afford to waste quite a bit of it without thinking twice. His mind was already there, the perfect burrows, the great sex he'll have for days. A grin on his face, he took a drink pack out of the offered basket and pulled the plug from the straw. 'Artificial gravity would be really nice. I wonder how far Steven got with his research while I was grounded here. Maybe he finally had the breakthrough, he's expecting for the last ten years.' Several others took the same trip. Soon, they were happily chatting, boasting with their plans for the next few weeks.

Outside, the big vault doors opened, giving the naked eye access to the disguised launch tube that lead through many kilometers of solid rock to the surface of the asteroid. The stress and the exhaustion was taking his toll. Freddy felt very tired. The straw fell from the corner of his mouth and his eyes closed.

A minute later, he stopped breathing. The doors of the shuttle opened and several Dexters walked in, gas masks on their faces, to add the dead bodies and their possessions to the recycle systems of the base. Not half an hour later, no trace that anything might have happened here was left. The shuttle was moved back into parking position, its system were shut down, ready for the next batch of personnel with shore leave.