Chapter 4, part 2
“And you didn’t realize that she was an enforcer until she actually pulled her blade at you?” Alexandra asked.
“No I didn’t.” The ganger replied, her expression and body language betraying her anxiety and tension. “Do I have to keep wearing this contraption?”
“Yes.”
“Can I at least take it off when I am sleeping?”
“No.”
Full spectrum suppressors weren’t a new design; the first ones were produced right after the Mezan expedition more than a millennium ago but they never saw much use, not because they didn’t work as intended but because they worked exactly as intended by directly interfering and suppressing the telepathic abilities of whoever wore one.
The design was simple enough, comprised by three pieces that connected with each other when worn. The forehead piece was very much like an amplifier, worn as a crown and held in place with straps, the second piece was worn at the base of the skull, covering it whole while it connected with the forehead piece with wires that run from behind the ears and up to the forehead. The final piece was worn under the clothes and over the spine, flexible enough in order not to hinder the wearer’s movements and held in place by suction force while it directly connected itself with the piece worn at the base of the skull.
The suppression method was simple enough but disconcerting to all Loroi who wore one. It didn’t minimize the telepathic potential like a regular suppressor would; instead it caused the wearer’s telepathic potential to create a self-contained jamming field by amplifying and suppressing their powers at the same time, creating an out of control telepathic noise that almost matched the human Lotai in its effects.
These suppressors were at first intended to be used on extremely dangerous prisoners but the problem was that the artificial Lotai made handling such prisoners difficult since the vast majority of guards couldn’t be counted to watch over their prisoners without relying on their innate telepathic talents.
The Reforged had been extensively trained while wearing such suppressors and Alexandra still remembered how mind numbing the telepathic noise was the first few weeks.
“One thing I would like to know is how you got the access codes necessary to roam this ship freely.” Alexandra asked as she tapped the small evidence bag that contained the data card they took out of the ganger’s provided for tablet.
“I was given the card by the gang that arranged my passage. They told me that it contained codes to access most areas on any human civilian ship.” The ganger replied.
“A gang arranged for your passage?”
“Yes, they came to me when I was hiding. They told me that they could arrange for passage to human space provided that I could make it worth their while.”
“The semen…” Alexandra said out loud.
“Yes, that was the only thing they were interested in. I told them that I wasn’t sure that I could get to the samples with most of the gang captured, dead or in hiding but they wouldn’t help me otherwise. I knew that our storage room and its vault hadn’t been raided yet but I thought that they were just waiting for someone to show up. No one was waiting; I took what I could and started a fire to destroy the rest.” The ganger said.
“The Mizol had yet to break the ones they captured.” Alexandra commented.
“That’s what they thought as well.” The ganger begun. “They arranged for my passage and for the means to preserve my cargo. It worked well at first by the cryo container stopped charging two days before we reached Mirror, the connection wasn’t stable and I had to check it regularly after that.”
“Your regular visits to the cargo bay, you had to make sure that your cargo was still intact.”
“Yes, the cargo would self-destruct if the container run out of power. I had to make sure that it was properly powered but someone triggered a silent alarm that was planted on the Miros container by opening it.” The ganger continued.
“That was us trying to find your cargo, I had you under watch since the moment I first laid my eyes on you.” The ganger’s eyes grew wide at that. “My gang specialized in transportation, I knew what to look out for.”
“…I had to check the cargo but I knew that someone was on to me. I waited for days before deciding to go for it, either I would be caught or I would keep going as I was.”
“And then the enforcer made herself known…” Alexandra added.
“Yes… the gang was caught and the enforcers were called to destroy the evidence left behind and silence all witnesses according to the pact. She was about to kill me but they didn’t know about the cargo, she realized this and had me bring her to it.”
“All evidence would be destroyed and all witnesses silenced…” Alexandra said out loud before realizing something. “Did you notice any Mizol surveillance on the way to Mirror?”
“…Yes… I thought that they were on to me and that I would be grabbed at any solon but they were just observing all of us without bothering anyone.” The ganger replied after a few moments of thinking about it.
“Bait…” Alexandra said at that. “You were bait! Did the Mizol give any hints of them suspecting you of having a cargo?”
“No, I know that they never checked the container but I had to check on the cargo every few days. I was certain that I wasn’t followed or witnessed but…”
“But they are Mizols… Were you told to whom you would deliver your cargo to?” Alexandra asked.
“No, they told me that someone would approach me soon after we would arrive at Atlantis. They would ask if I had ever read the works of William Shakespeare and I would reply with ‘Yes but I have yet to start reading a Dream of Spring’.” The ganger replied.
“William Shakespeare?”
“Yes, is he an important person?”
“He was an important person, long before humans reached the stars but…” Alexandra made to reply but she remembered something in mid-sentence which made her take out her personal tablet and look into some random notes she had written down after her briefing about the acclimation routing.
Potential keywords… Recent top chart singers and unrelated songs, Recent Olympian tournaments and old champions, Ancient writers and unrelated literary works… Alexandra read and her eyes froze in place at the last part.
“Is something the matter?” The ganger asked after a long silent moments.
Beyond the fact that this is well and truly above my pay grade? Alexandra thought before replying.
“The Confederation has an underground network in place to help persons of interest fleet the Union. The greeting and your response match the general outline of the keywords this underground currently uses.” Alexandra replied as she hid her tablet away. “The gang that sent you were probably Confederation agents and the one who would approach you would probably be one of my superiors.” The ganger’s eyes went wide again at that.
“I had thought that you would be the one who would approach me because of the attention you and your warriors put on me and the two Mizols that followed me but no one said the greeting.”
“I and my warriors got interested because you and the two Mizols drew our attention to you and information about the underground and the code phrases is strictly need to know. I am a low level officer, I wouldn’t have been loosely briefed about this if I wasn’t in command of this acclimation mission and I was told that a special officer would be attached to us if such a passenger was expected.” Alexandra replied before deciding to change the subject. “In any case this is something that I will have to look into on our way to Earth. What I want to know revolves around your cargo and how you secured it without the caretakers realizing anything.”
“Our gang specialized in ensuring an impregnation after an approved of mating encounter, we didn’t just impregnate anyone who could afford us. They had to have mated before we could help them. We would extract the stored sperm from them a day or two after the encounter and we would trigger the reproductive system to ovulate with a hormonal treatment. Once the client was ready we would extract an ovum from them, inseminate it with the recovered sperm and then implant it. As far as the caretakers and the system were concerned our clients got impregnated in their mating encounter without outside interference.” The ganger explained.
“Sounds simple enough…” Alexandra replied as she took everything in. “Why save the recovered sperm?”
“The viability of the recovered sperm isn’t always certain for a variety of reasons. If we couldn’t use the sperm extracted from our client then we would use the sperm in our vault, provided that we had a sample from the same male our client had mated with.”
“Makes sense, did you also allow them to select the sex of the child?” Alexandra asked.
“Guaranteeing the insemination of a male was a premium service that we sold to our more influential clients. Our regular clients had to draw a lottery with the same odds as a natural insemination.” The ganger replied, drawing a nod of understanding our of Alexandra.
“I see… Do you believe that the Mizol weren’t even aware of your vault?”
“I don’t know. I know for a fact that the first ones who were caught were our two client hunters. They knew how our gang was structured and that we had a storage room with a vault but they didn’t know the medical details or the inventory. The doctor of our gang who was also our leader took her last resort when the Mizol tried to capture her and she knew everything there was to know. Her assistants went to ground and I hadn’t heard from them after the warning came out.” The ganger explained as best as she could.
“How many gangs did you cooperate with?” Alexandra asked.
“Several… We had to launder our earnings and secure our equipment in an untraceable way. These kinds of gangs were the ones I worked with. I hadn’t ever met any of our clients but some of them must have been gangers themselves.”
“No wonder that the enforcers would come this far to ensure that the pact would be upheld…” Alexandra connected. “A well connected gang caught and dismantled. Pact or not the other gangs and the richest of your clients would pay good money to ensure that any traces of their involvement would be gone.”
“The others must be dead then…” The ganger commented dejectedly.
“Yes, the pact isn’t ambiguous when it comes with the safe guarding of the entire underworld.” Alexandra said at that. “However you are still alive and we have your would be assassins in the brig, you are safe from here on out.”
“What will happen to me?”
“I don’t know, normally you would be processed and given a new identity but the enforcers and the mizol have complicated things. I will make sure that you and your cargo are delivered to the proper authorities and they will be the ones who decide.”
Chapter 4, Part 3:
http://www.well-of-souls.com/forums/vie ... 803#p32803