The Background check
10 Jul 2018Ouberos
His high rise office was stifling. In one corner an overworked fan creaked as it turned towards him at a frustrating pace. Eventually the breeze passed over him. It was a welcome breath but it was reedy and all too brief. Occasionally he would catch a note of fragrance from the fluttering air fresheners tied to the caged fan. The Ocean scent tugged at old memories of happier days on the coast.
Despite the heavy burden of the heatwave he had been working methodically for several hours. He felt he was getting somewhere at last. As always there was a rush of excitement when he could see the end of a case and he could feel that sensation building now. This had been a hard one, perhaps the hardest he had worked on for a long time but Orville Dante never doubted he would get his man.
When he eventually looked up from the report, he checked the time and was surprised to see he had missed his evening meal by a wide margin. Wide enough for his wife to have put it in the dog by now.
She had changed these last few years and their once heated arguments over missed meals had now faded to a background silence of disapproval and long standing grudges. Now he came to think of it, he couldn't recall the last time she said he should retire either.
She had a point about that one though. He was getting too old for this game. Especially the dangerous bits.
He sighed and pulled open the bottom drawer of the desk. He came out with a battered tin mug and half empty whiskey bottle. His gaze lingered on the blaster that had stayed in there for many years and he wondered if he should quit now while he was ahead. It's not like he was chasing some Mostly Harmless Yahoo for 400 credit chump change.
Maybe his wife was right to worry.
He shut the drawer angrily on that thought and poured himself a three fingered measure so he wouldn't keep thinking it.
Nobody could track a crook across the Bubble like him. Nobody but Sam maybe. He looked over at the image on the corner of his desk, the one with Sam and he standing either side of the massive fish they had caught off the reef. A happier day than many since. Forever frozen in the pixelated photons of the hololith.
Nobody alive could track a crook like him.
He raised his mug to the smiling hologram.
“Here's to you old buddy,” he smiled and sank the whiskey with the ease of a well practiced borderline alcoholic.
He was reaching for the bottle again when he finally realised he wasn't alone and a brief second later, from somewhere behind him came the unmistakable whine of a blaster being charged which sent a cold shock racing through his spine.
He slowly raised his hands in the air.
“You don't look much like a Bounty Hunter,” a woman’s voice said from way back by the window. She must have got in that way but he had heard nothing. His office was a high rise.
Without turning his head he picked up she was young and from offworld somewhere. The accent was nowhere he could place.
“I guess that's because I'm an accountant,” he lied and wondered why he wasn't dead already.
She didn't reply and he wondered if he was alone again but she startled him again by rubbing the muzzle up against his ear.
“Ok, ok, easy now. You got me. You got me just where you want me. No need for this to get serious,” he jabbered and swore he hadn't heard any sound as she closed up on him.
Then he felt her breath on the side of his face.
“Don't turn around,” she told him in a forceful whisper and clocked him with the barrel of the gun to get her point across.
“So what you working on?” She asked, looking at his screens over his shoulder. He caught fragments of her broken reflection here and there. Short white hair and dark clothes. Some markings on her neck and cheek. She smelled warm. Like a person would if they had just scaled the outside of a ten storey office block.
“Just a case, a missing person case,” he lied again and this time she sighed loudly . The gun found its way into the back of his skull and he was smart enough to keep perfectly still. Then she turned her face to his ear and whispered again. Her warm skin felt soft and young against his three day stubble.
“Let's assume I'm not necessarily here to kill you, but let's not pretend it isn't an option. Let's also assume, for the purposes of expediency that I am not an idiot. Tell me a lie again and that crappy fan over there will be flipping brains across this room until midnight,” she said calmly.
“Ok,” he replied and she moved away. He figured he might as well spill it. He had a feeling she knew anyway. Which made him wonder about who she was and he didn't like what his gut told him.
“A Pirate, I'm looking for a Pirate. A good one too. Been looking for him for nearly a year now. Searched the bubble for him and his ship. He's a slippery sucker this one,” he said.
“That's funny, your flight log says you haven't been off world for five years,” she replied quickly and a copy of the logs tumbled into his screen. Which told him she knew a lot about him already.
“Yeah, I don't actually go looking for people you know,” he said and turned his head, except she wasn't standing where her voice placed her.
She tutted.
“No peeking. So how do you find people?” She asked and he could tell she had moved but he hadn't heard anything. Not a footfall.
“The old fashioned way, I look on Galnet. I search traffic reports, study crime data and trawl the ship spotters forums. You know, I do it the clever way,” he replied and decided he really wanted another drink.
“Rumours?” She asked “You track people with rumours?”
“I have my methods” he shrugged. “Every time he gets a bounty I pick the news up. Nav beacons log flight destination and origin data. A good navigator can make assumptions based on those sort of things. It gets easier when you know a bit about the guy you are tracking,” he finished and his gaze rested on his mug.
“So you think you know this Pirate then?” She said
“I've been working the guy for almost a year. Wouldn't be much of a Bounty hunter if I didn't,” he replied.
“Why don't you tell me about him,” she asked which started Dante off with a feeling he hadn't had for a while. Started him off with that angry boil in his stomach that had got him into more trouble than he cared to remember.
“Look lady, I’m not an idiot either. I figure I know who you are and that means you've worked out I was tracking the pair of you. Good for you. Now don’t shine me on with this game. If you are going to shoot me, do it,” he said and then reached for the scotch, pouring another thick measure in defiance.
He made sure to grip the mug tightly to stop his hand from shaking as he drank.
Another image tumbled onto the screen.
“Commander Ouberos the Pirate, alias Commander John Dee, Intelligence Director of a shell corporation with shady links, alias Commander Arquebus, mouthpiece of a mysterious organisation called the Cabal,” the woman reeled off the names he had been piecing together for a year now.
“You could of saved me some time and had this conversation six months ago,” he said but then a selfie of a pretty young woman flicked onto the screen. She was making a peace sign and sticking out her tongue. It was night, in the background was some kind of serious gun fight. Tracer rounds slashing across the image. A man was on fire.
“What is this person’s name?” the woman asked and Orville knew his gut had been right.
“I don’t know,” he replied honestly. “She goes by the name of Kara Walden but she is to all intents and purposes a ghost. I’ve heard rumours, but maybe you could tell me. Kara,” he said and slowly rolled his chair round.
Halfway round the castors got jammed and he had to wiggle a bit to get them moving again.
She sniggered and then laughed out loud.
“I’m sorry, you looked like a tubby little baby in a stroller,” she said and mimicked his movements but the blaster didn’t move an inch.
Orville didn’t respond but took a good look at her. She was taller than he had thought. Clearly athletic but not pumped up with muscle. More tattoos than his reports suggested. Probably not permanent. She was wearing a light version of a combat suit. Looked military tech. No doubt packing a few surprises. The reports said she had a thing for knives and he could see three attached to the suit. Pretty heavy gear for an interrogation.
“Fifty credits grandad,” she said with a leer as he continued checking her over. When he had satisfied himself he casually looked at his whiskey and made very sure to not look at the drawer with the gun in the bottom.
“You aint all that,” he said and emptied the cup.
Dante figured he had a couple of options. She was the real deal, no doubt about it. His first option was the gun. She had the drop on him, her blaster was charged and she was displaying poor trigger discipline. The first option wasn’t a good one. The second option was to let her talk and buy time. Roll with it and see what came up. Not much of an option either. Sometimes you just had to play the hand you were dealt.
“So what do you want?” he asked with as much indifference as he could muster.
“No need to be so grumpy about it,” she said “I told you, I want to know who that person in the selfie is. I want to know who I am,”
Which set him back a bit.
“You want to know,” he started to ask and she made a face then scratched her neck with the barrel of the blaster before training it back on him.
“Yes, I do. The rumours, the things that might be true. I want you to find out if they are. You're a Bounty hunter right? You find people and you’re the best there is right? You nearly found me and Ouberos. Until I found you first, but aside from that you are the best around, or you used to be, before you got all washed up with drink,” she said and waved the gun around as she spoke.
He kept his eyes on hers and didn’t once look at the gun in her hand.
“You want to hire me?” he asked incredulously and she nodded quickly, pleased he had finally figured it out.
“It’s either that or I kill you right now,” she offered.
Orville nodded slowly.
“Let me think it over,” he said and leaned over to look at the selfie again. He took a long look at the man on fire.
“I have some information already of course,” he said. “I’ve been studying you pair for a while now. Ouberos was hard enough to figure out but there is at least some form of record. I’m not certain about everything he got up to in Yembo but I found an archived interview he gave to a news org in Valda. I also know he ran clandestine agents into different groups. Fifth column stuff with at least one of the powers. I have intel reports from some of his Pilot Operators. Oub, I mean, John Dee, seems to have been the one that hired the Commercial Director who would eventually go on to found that group out of Kehperi. You don’t appear in any of the intel about that period,”
Kara unzipped a thin pocket with her free hand and took out a stick of gum. She offered him one but he declined.
“Go on,” she said.
“When it fell apart in Yembo he seems to have not followed the others to Kehperi but there might have been fall out from that thing in Orrerre,” he said and she nodded.
“Did you know he spent a long time exploring Lave 2,” she asked.
“I thought it was permit locked?” he replied but she shook her head.
“Before the lock out. He was there for some time. Shortly before he found me on Triamarusa,” she explained.
Which was news to Orville. He sat back in his chair and put a few things together.
“He’s always had a thing for antiques. Was he looking for something he could sell on the Black market. Something from before the revolution?” he mused out loud.
“Maybe, all I know is pretty soon after that I was popped out of my pod in the cabin of his Python and I nearly strangled him,” Kara replied.
“With my thighs,” she added proudly and remembered how disorientated she had been. Ouberos had managed to convince her not to kill him. He always seemed to have a way with words. When he wasn’t trying to tell her what to do he could be quite charming.
“How long had you been under?” Orville asked and she had to shrug.
“We don’t know. The pod is just over two hundred years old. Anytime since then,” she replied and Orville whistled.
“That is a long stretch. You know there are people that think you are one of them, one of Walden’s,” he hesitated before saying the word but Kara said it for him
“Clones,” and he nodded at the word. Kara blew a bubble while it sank in. It popped and she started chewing again.
Her eyes never left his.
“So, you want the case or not?” she asked and he became aware of the blaster again.
“Sure, why not. Sounds hard but I’m the best there is,” he smiled warmly then and remembered some of the times that had actually meant something. He remembered when Spade and Dante had been the biggest names in the business. Back in the day when things were always better.
“Hey, you want a drink to celebrate?” he asked and flipped his cup over and caught it again.
“Reckon I can find another mug as beat up as this one somewhere round here,” he said enthusiastically and looked around the desk as sincere as he could muster. He opened the top drawer and closed it again.
“Sure,” said Kara, she smiled and lowered the blaster. Then she powered it down and slid it back into a holster.
“I’m glad we’re friends now,” she said but Orville missed the tone of her voice. She rested her hand on the handle of one her knives.
Orville opened the middle drawer and closed it again, he was happy now, giddy almost, he seemed really keen on the idea of working for Kara. He paused and took a last look up at her before he committed to it.
“You know, there was this time me and Sam, my old partner were working out of Lave, we had some adventures back in those days. It will be good to go back but the weather out there is murder, it's not the heat so much as the humidity you know? It gets hot here this time of year but it's a dry heat. Makes it more bearable” he said and then he opened the bottom drawer.
“Ah, there it is,” he said and took a long look at the gun he hadn’t fired in years. “I knew I had another mug round here somewhere,” he said happily. But inside he was thinking that maybe his wife had been right all along.
He should have retired a long time ago.
Then he reached into the drawer.