Selective Memory

[Hira Mitsae]

[member="Elias Truden"]

Three times Irani had used the world experimental, it had been important to hit home how iffy all of this was, it was fringe science- not the nation, the act of being at the edge of science where everything was a but and a maybe, and only few things were reasonably certain for the enterprising individual.

But once you hit that maybe and turn it into a definitely, you know you took the proverbial jackpot of the Galaxy. It was no different with this particular reactor, if they managed to create it and make it workable?

Many parties and cash fountains would be had.

‘Zero-Point Energy, also known as null point energy.’ Irani reaffirmed, again patiently. ‘I am not an expert by any stretch of the imagination, but it seems that matter is in perpetual motion, a wave-form.’

‘Motion needs energy, power. As I understand it… we are tapping energy straight from that fundamental movement of the ether. Which presents it’s own problems, instability for one, as you have already seen.’

‘It’s not quantifiable, some of the ZPM’s worked for weeks and nothing happened to them. Others exploded without even being active. Dangerous affairs, but oh so profitable, if we make it work.’

There were theories, of course. How to fix it.

All tying back to the exploits of Jared Ovmar and Rave Merrill. The former owners of respectively Ty’rel Holdings (or as it had been known then, Neuro-Saav Corporation) and Iron Crown Enterpises, through AEI.

But before Irani would get into that, he waited for more questions or perhaps Eli would decide (very much as Irani had done) that this sort of thing went beyond him, and that it really didn’t matter all that much.

Perhaps he would just ask for the possible solutions immediately.

 

[Asher]

I couldn’t help but slowly nod as the man practically had to school me. I tried my best to wrap my mind around the way it worked to no avail. I could find some solace in the fact that it didn’t take much to realize exactly how revolutionary a successful and marketable prototype would be worth.

My mind went back to the old times when the skip from hard drive to solid state happened. Gone was the scraping reading noises as the needles teared at the magnetic drives and in it’s place came quick and calm silence. To further the similarities, if there was one thing you could be certain of it was that whoever released it could amp up the prices based off of simply just that; the efficiency.

“It’s like looking at the next big step in the reactor tech sector.” I turned my head to look at the eccentric businessman. “I’ll try have the geek-... Engineers fill me in on the actual details later, for now we have other issues to attend.”

“Rather than going into the how, perhaps we could tackle the why-and-whats? Do they have any kind of solutions in mind to fix this explosion problem it’s having?”

[member="Darell Irani"]

 

[Hira Mitsae]

[member="Elias Truden"]

It was more akin to the jump from using sleeper ships to the very long advancement that eventually ended with the discovery of rakatan tech, which enabled civilization to install hyperdrives onto their ships directly. All of a sudden the entirety of the Galaxy was ready to be explored- with several caveats here and there, but when has technological advancement ever been easy to the sentients struggling?

Making it easy would have defeated the entire point.

Struggle for life had always been the first steps of evolution and why would it be any different for technological evolution? In the end Eli decided to leave the truly mind boggling stuff to his scientists, a good choice, because at the end of the day they were CEOs and business entrepreneurs.

Simply stated… they didn’t need to know how a gun worked to be able to sell it to a blood hungry Warlord.

‘A variety of theories.’ he responded, pondering.

He still had his memories of Ovmar’s experimenting with different dimensions. Otherspace, Hyperspace, Subspace, all the other spaces that existed next to them without them ever really realizing it.

And more and more Irani and his scientists thought that the missing key, and the reason for all the problems was the fact that the ZPM was trying to draw energy from realspace. Their realspace, there must be some kind of repercussions for trying to draw away power from a perpetual moving atom, no?

It would make sense at least.

‘The Theory of Universal Referencehttp://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Theory_of_Universal_Reference states that time and space are unified and as a consequence objects cannot travel at or above the speed of light.’ Irani looked over to Kimberly. ‘What did we do? Find a whole new dimension where those rules did not apply.’

‘Hyperspace was born.’

A shrug.

‘We are theorizing that whilst the ZPM might be barely functional here, what if it tried to siphon off energy from a different space, away from realspace? Would it make the problem go away, or… would it make it worse? We don’t know yet.’

 

[Asher]

For a man who wasn’t part of the techies he had a pretty decent grasp of things. Perhaps it was simply what came with the role, not a total grasp but a loose overarching grip. The ‘Theory of Universal Reference’, finding new dimensions and the birth of hyperspace. It was times like these that solidified the idea of me being an idiot, but just this once I fully expected to be let off the hook because the sheer volume of news that I had received during the day.

Once more I found my head bobbing back and forth in feigned understanding. I felt a bit like a crook, but that was just part of the game, wasn’t it? I was interested, problem being that the information simply phased right by me. The gist I could gather was that it was something big as if the point hadn’t been stated more plainly already.

“You want to harness the power of a galaxy -- no wait, dimension -- beyond ours?” It sounded like a techno fairy tale, but I was not one to argue. “You want to move a physical item outside of our ‘realm of existence’ to feed off of somewhere completely else? That’s, quite the undertaking.”

I chuckled. “You know, for each passing moment I'm just happy to know I won't be doing the actual work on this thing myself.”

[member="Darell Irani"]

 

[Hira Mitsae]

[member="Elias Truden"]

In truth civilization at large has been making use of other dimensions to solve problems for a very long time now, the first example was the usage of Hyperspace to bypass the limitations of psychics our own plane puts onto us.

But there were more examples, think of subspace and how the Galaxy uses it as a medium to send long range transmissions across the Galaxy. No, the usage of other dimensions wasn’t an entirely new thing. It was simply a way of thinking that wasn’t all that prevalent across the Galaxy.

Most people did not like to consider Hyperspace and Subspace as separate mediums from Realspace, it made them worried about what it all really meant. Nobody likes to be worried and ponder the complications of other dimensions existing next to theirs.

At least… most didn’t like that.

It was different for Ty’rel Holdings, they loved new developments in things like this.

Irani chuckled, yeah Eli was starting to get this.

‘Trust me when I say that men in our positions… they just have to accept that there will always be the smarter guy underneath us.’ he patted Eli on the shoulder, almost fatherly, the first sign of familiarity. Perhaps Eli was doing some good right now. ‘So, do you understand the responsibility of overseeing all of this?’

This was one of many projects ICE had been and was working on, some were more dangerous, others were just strange and exotic. But that was the thing about the Unknown Regions, you always found something new.

Would Eli be able to handle that?

 

[Asher]

The man patted my shoulder. I held back the growing smile but before long I cracked and broke out into a grin. In that moment I felt good, everything felt good and at a snail’s pace I found myself coming to terms with my new responsibilities.

“True enough.” I nodded at the man’s advice. “I wouldn’t be working on things as much as organize the workflow, keep things going and signing papers. I mean, it’s a very short and simplified idea of what our roles include, but you get the idea.”

In a move to show interest I decided to move onto another topic: Security.

“So about the project’s secrecy. On the way here we passed more security clearances than I’ve ever seen in one room. Are the plans safely stored somewhere, and does the workers have to pass the same kinds of security?”

It felt like a very jinx-like question to ask. Kind of like asking ‘What could go wrong?’ or stating ‘At least the weather is nice.’ It simply wasn’t one of those things you asked, but as the man who would be taking charge soon enough it was one of the questions that had to be asked.

“I take it we’ve only hired people we can trust?”

[member="Darell Irani"]

 

[Hira Mitsae]

[member="Elias Truden"]

‘Ah, yes. Good you ask-’ Irani started to respond, but then halted himself as a ping in his earpiece alerted him to an incoming transmission. He raised his finger to Kimberly, indicating he needed a moment to handle the call, followed by him walking into the corner of the room and starting to discuss some matters.

It was spoken in hushed words, many gestures of the hand and a certain fury radiated from the morally ambiguous businessman.

Kimberly would hear something like this.

‘What do--- -yes, I se---dding me. Whe--- -kay. Handle it, I will send him with you.’

Finally Irani walked back over and settled a look on Eli, he seemed to be fairly unamused right now. Before the lad could ask anything, he settled into story-mode already.

‘Well, seems you jinxed it, Kimberly. Just got off from a conversation, it seems one of the leading scientists involved in this project got… flustered.’ Darell scratched his chin and then shrugged.

‘I have put one of my better contacts onto this.’ eyes sharpened as a grin started playing on the lips. Seemed the man had an idea, which might not spell much good for Eli.

‘You are going with him. We might be businessman, but we aren’t ordinary 9 ‘til 5 showboats, my boy. If you want to own ICE, you need to be prepared to get your hands dirty.’

It probably wouldn’t be a good idea to argue with Irani right now, suddenly the fact how tall he was, the fact that his hand could literally grab Eli’s head and crush it… all those facts were suddenly much more real.

‘Go upstairs, the detail will lead ya to the spot ya gotta be. My associate will meet you there.’

 

[Asher]

I had to do a mental check on the sheer amounts of jinxing on that. What could possibly happen, nice weather, calling it all a jinx to begin with. The count took a sharp downhill turn simply from the first item off the list. What could happen? Well apparently the lead scientist could get silly ideas of defection and double dealing. Getting hands dirty, now that was not exactly a new thing to a resourceful fellow like me.

“You got it.” It was all I needed to say. “Back in twenty.”

I turned on my heel and made way for this associate of his. This was another work order, a task to be done and turned in after class. Perhaps some would have argued it was a bit immoral but there was a time for morals and there was a time for profits and unfortunately they didn’t always walk hand in hand. I found no measure of joy in doing ‘the right thing’ but in the end doing the right thing and doing what’d keep you alive was two very different things.

In this case my livelihood was threatened before I had even gotten the opportunity to touch it. This man may have been the Lead Scientist, but unless he saw ‘reason’ the only research he would be performing anytime soon would be performed from six feet under.

That was of course unless he could see reason, but people rarely did.

[member="Darell Irani"]

 

[Arage Bao]

[member="Elias Truden"]

Some asshat decided that it would be a good idea to defect in the middle of the project, ya know what that means. It means that the guy finally got a breakthrough in his research, finally figured out the million dollar equation and was now trying to flee with the profits in hand without paying his dues.

I hate people who break contracts, just ain’t kosher if ya ask me. Once you sign a deal ya gotta walk it through to the end, it was the only thing that kept us separated from the beasts and monsters of this world. The capability of seeing a deal through to the end, what else did we have signatures for?

Anyway, the boss told me to go and fix it, so I am gonna go and fix it. He assigned me some corporate douchebag, nitwit that just got assigned to the company and had to be taught the ropes of the biz.

Fine by me, as long as he didn’t walk into my crosshair when the time came. Because that is one thing we all had to realize.

This scientist didn’t become the leading scientist by being an idiot, he wouldn’t have walked if he wasn’t sure to have a buyer at the end. Which means… he is probably already hauled up somewhere with big protection.

Doesn’t matter to me, I get paid to shoot things, that’s where the contracts begins and ends, and ya know me.

The contract is holy.

At this point I am in the hangar of the shipyards facility, cleaning up my assault rifle while waiting on the corporate douche to show up. From there we would go the RZ and see where we stand then.

 

[Asher]

My every step echoed around the hallways by the clacking sounds of my charcoal oxfords hitting the ground at a hurried pace. For each second wasted on getting there the smug bastard of lead scientist would be getting closer to screwing me over and I was not about to let the opportunity of a lifetime be wasted because of some egghead on the run. If ever there was a time to lay down the law on how management was to be handled it was now.

For all it was worth I was still well-aware that this was all bravado on my part. The acts I was willing to do was not necessarily what I actually wanted to do, but actions spoke louder than words. A missing scientist who had clever ideas spoke a lot more for the consequences of betrayal on the project. Morale could be dented and more workers could get even more stranger ideas but the risks of having the project run into the wrong hands was worse than having to find replacements.

There was a big guy in the hangar. Well, for me anyway.

“You the guy Mister Irani sent my way?” I approached [member="Caden Cadell"]. “Traitors to bust, projects to save. We gotta go now and we gotta act fast.”

No point in wasting time. I made way for the ship and got myself ready for wherever the trip would be taking me.

 

[Arage Bao]

[member="Elias Truden"]

It would have been more appropriate to say that the boy had been sent my way, but that was the way of the corporate schuttas of this Galaxy. Always thinking the world revolved around ‘em and only them.

I had been fixing problems for Irani for a while now, pay was good- royally so. Guy wasn’t a pompous ass (most of the time) and in the grand scheme of things it was always an interesting experience. The defection of a leading scientist was the most boring assignment I have received in a while from him, and even this would promise to be more entertaining than any of us would assume at first glance.

Anyway, I followed the guy into the transporter, Sekairo-class Stealth Transporter. Fringe Military Grade, I didn’t even bother asking anymore how Irani got his toys anymore. Settled the assault rifle down on the ground, leaning against the seat next to Eli.

Then walked out again to grab a portable canon made by Blas-Tech, yeah the same the boss loved to use wherever he went, and a shotgun. Walked back in and clicked them into the weapon shelf, before walking back out for the knives.

Can’t ever have enough knives, stuck ‘em all around my body in the compartments and then finally walked back in. This time to stay.

Settled one glance at Eli, silencing him for whatever he was going to say.

‘Boy, whatever happens you stick close to me and follow my lead.’ I said scratching the chin, before continuing. ‘Keep your head down and at the end of the day I won’t have to explain the boss why I let his new prized pebble get gruesomely killed.’

‘Got it?’

 

[Asher]

Sticking close, following the lead, staying out of the crosshairs but still be there. I was almost willing to believe he was describing my old job as an assistant but considering where we were, what we was going to do it felt unlikely. I nodded at his question, it was hard not to ‘get it’ when there was only so few things to understand. I just hoped that the man was willing to do whatever it took to not let the new ‘pebble’ go away before it’s time.

It would seem we were going into the Coruscanti no-mans-land by the look of all the guns the man was carrying. I didn’t have the mindset to think of what would be coming next, part of me had expected to show up with blaster at hand at the scientist’s home. Perhaps the simple ways were a bit too much to ask in situations like this. I would find out soon enough, but hey you couldn’t blame a man for dreaming a little.

I let the engine’s hum calm any remaining doubt. We’d see how this all played out, but the underlying worry that the project could be compromised was hard to rid of. It was as much in [member="Caden Cadell"]’s hands as it was in my own.

But he seemed a good type. For a hired killer.

 

[Arage Bao]

[member="Elias Truden"]

I finally sat down across the guy I was supposed to babysit, leaned into the hard leather of the seat and finally shut my eyes. Could almost feel the angst and worry radiating from the boy, was pretty annoying really- only thing I wanted to do was get some shut eye and relax before all hell would break down around us.

That was one of the handy things you learn as a merc. Take the time when you can get some sleep and use it wisely, because you will find yourself in a war soon enough and there ain’t no sleeping when bullets are flying all around you.

So I didn’t want to spend my time giving him a lecture or a pat on the back, but more and more I was starting to realize that few people were actually… reasonable human beings when money was involved, or blood, or loyalty. Or a bunch of other factoids that kept churning through our veins and disallowing us from keeping our heads straight.

One eye opened itself and settled on Kimberly.

‘Lad, brooding won’t help us get the doctor back.’ I said to him, a bit of boredom edging between the vocal cavities. ‘This ain’t my first run and this definitely ain’t the most difficult one. Sit back, relax and let the professionals handle this.’

Maybe it was a lesson from Irani, to realize that ya can’t influence everything all around, or maybe there wasn’t a lesson and Irani just wanted to see how Kimberly would behave.

You never knew until it was all over already.

I closed my eye again and soon after was deep in dreamland.

 

[Asher]

“Not brooding,” I put thought into my next few words. How much did he know? “Just contemplating how to go about this.”

“One side of the coin says a good move would be to outright silence him, but the kind of effect that would have on the team could be catastrophic. If I take him back I appear soft, and risk having him try to run away again. I could pay him more, but that would be exactly what he wants and I can’t let the others think I am a pushover.”

It would serve as the only glimpse that the soldier would see of my line of thought. The weighing of the positives and negatives continued in silence as my eyes jittered around the ship’s interior like a firebug. Somehow I should have known the second I made a move to get ahead in life something would come and try to knock me down. Not that I truly expected the coming days, weeks, months and/or years to be any different.

“I’ll let you do the talking to any with his associates.” I looked over at [member="Caden Cadell"]. “Do with them as you wish, all I ask is that you leave the egghead to me.”

 

[Arage Bao]

[member="Elias Truden"]

‘Mhmmm.’ the merc replied, half asleep by this point. That was the beauty of the mercenary life, not only did you know the value of a good night sleep, but you could practically fall asleep anywhere and everywhere. No matter the scene, no matter the time, just shut your eyes and fall down to the land of merry.

Sleep was important and Eli should try it out, but he was probably so on edge that he would be shetting bricks for a few more months to come. Which was all the same to me. The trip would take a while, a few hours at the least until they arrived at the scene proper.

Irani’s agents had already ransacked the doc’s home and hadn’t been able to find him, which only made the suggestion he had an outside backer more likely. He was probably hauled up somewhere, a compound, fortress, space station. Something that would be hella difficult to get into, but that was always the interesting part of the job anyway.

They were currently en route to the doctor’s office, hopefully they would be able to find a snippet of a trail. Something that would make his location more obvious, in the meanwhile Irani’s intelligence would do a search on their own.

It was mostly a race at this point, either numnits and me would get a clue, or Irani would tip us off when his fellas had done it the hard and dirty way.

I don’t like losing races.

 

[Asher]

The rest of the trip was spent in silence and it wasn’t long before I dozed off. The hum rang oddly in my dream as if the subconscious was unwilling to let go of reality. Perhaps it was my mind smarting up, keeping dreams from influencing what came ahead or cloud my mind. The last thing I needed in this moment was the contemptuous, pleading looks of a poltergeist to remind me of the past.

It seemed like a long time even for me, but the loss of ‘blood’ was hard to let go of. Doubly so when your mind never remained quiet about your involvement in it. I cleared my head as best I could. I may not have been one of them force users but that don’t mean I couldn’t appreciate putting myself in a state in which my mind offered me the most clarity. I would need it for what was to come, you didn’t need the force to tell you that.

In the end I hoped that the man would see reason. His involvement wouldn’t just be until the contract was void but until the reactor was no longer up-to-date. If he indeed held the key to the project, the final piece in the puzzle, then the riches and fame that would wash over him would have been tremendous.

Then again, that was probably what his other bidder had realized as well. It seemed like no matter how I spun the story I’d be forced into a scenario where I couldn’t eat the cookie and have it too.

The signal chimed. It would seem the amounts of sleep I got compared to what I’d need wasn’t even nearly enough. I guess I should have expected that much.

[member="Caden Cadell"]

 

[Arage Bao]

[member="Elias Truden"]

The shuttle finally settled down in the hangar bay of a different facility, one of the deep space stations that Ty’rel employed to keep most if not all of their research reasonably secure. This particular one, the Dignity, was close located to a cash of ZPMs that hadn’t gone boom just yet. It was all about efficiency and swiftness in response.

I opened my eyes, no bleariness or grog. Just stretched the limbs of the body, cracked my neck a few times and yawned. Yeah, that was a good nap. It was probably the difference between dear ol’ Eli and me, the one worried too much, the other didn’t worry at all.

And I just knew how to have pretty fecking good naps, I stood up and walked outta the shuttle once it opened the doors to let us through. Gestured to the pilot, telling him we would be back in a hour tops, hopefully.

We all knew that we hadn’t had a clue how long this could take.

‘We are first visiting the ol’ offices of our dear doc.’ I explained over my shoulder, best to make sure the guy knew what this was all about. ‘His home was cleaned out when we got there, means he has a different place to hold up.’

‘No clue where it is, no family for pressure or leverage. Means we gotta do this the old fashion way and see if we can find some clues in the office.’

It was a long-shot, but it was better than nothing and besides. Maybe he overlooked something in the euphory of finally cracking the metaphorical code.

 

[Asher]

There we were. Grogginess kicked in as a neck strain slowly reminded me of the comforts of an actual bed. My eyelids slowly tried to close themselves as the eye watering stillness of a mind begging for more rest kicked in. Half-asleep half-awake I rose from my metal throne-bed and glanced over at the merc. The briefest shot of jealousy soared through my system but the realization that he had slept like a baby was not one to dwell over.

Our first stop was the office to snoop for clues. I held no expectations but it was the least we could do to catch the man holding my very position as CEO in his hands. Or perhaps to call it his pockets were more accurate depending on how it all went. The noise at the back of my head spoke of the ticking of time as second for second wasted away. There was nothing I could do about it but let an urgent sense of stress kick in.

“The man better have forgot something.” My feet tapped at the ground as my hand rapidly began scratching away at my beard. “I am not letting one man ruin everything for me.”

I stepped into the turbolift that would take us to the offices. The urge to murder grew for each passing second. It was the easy solution, but ICE had proven itself to be anything but easy at this point. My mind began an attempt to pass out blame, but who else was to blame but the scientist?

I patted at the blaster inside of my coat. I never left home without it, and maybe just this once in a very long time it would have been with a good reason.

[member="Caden Cadell"]

 

[Arage Bao]

[member="Elias Truden"]

We stepped outta the turbolift, him thinking about the little pee-shooter in his pocket and me pondering if it was possible to win from Irani’s intelligence and get to the fether first. It seemed increasingly less likely as the second passed.

The door was guarded by a detachment of Tionese Whiteguard, they only left the Tion Cluster when someone important needed them too. Irani was one of few important people who would be able to get them to relocate to wherever he needed them to.

I nodded to one of ‘em and they nodded back, stepping aside to let us through. No postering in this joint, we all knew that disappointing Irani was the least thing we should do if we wanted to stay alive for a very long and gray life.

Stepping through the office I immediately realized why nobody had managed to find a trace of a hint yet. It was a mess here, papers laying all around the place, computers blearily blinking in and out, generally the epitome of a place ransacked.

Which was strange in itself, I pondered that thought for a while and then waved Eli in.

‘Look around and see if ya can find something.’ I myself went to the computer screen, might be there was something there to find.

 

[Asher]

The turbolift came to a halt and we were let into the man’s home. A neatly organized apartment that spoke of a man who favored the color white. Perhaps sterility didn’t just stay at home for this man, or perhaps work never stayed in one place. The sound of my oxfords clacked around the home as the acoustics created a familiar echo I hadn’t heard since I was a kid at my friends’ home. I called it the rich man’s choir, the echoes of sounds that spoke of people who had bought a house too big for their fortunes to decorate. A good reminder of why a smaller but comfortable estate spoke a lot more about a person than a big and expensive one.

It was like going to a showing. The windows were sparkling, the beds were neatly made and the furniture eerily glossing from the results of what I could only imagine was a freak addiction to cleanliness or a maid who was too good at her job.

We entered the office at the hunch of an educated guess. “You take that part of the room and I’ll cover this one.”

I pointed [member="Caden Cadell"] over to a row of bookcases. The fool might have kept physical copies of his work, I was not one to guess or even understand the work of eggheads so any guess was as good as mine. Moving swiftly through his belongings I quickly found myself throwing everything around me.

A quick look over my shoulder set my eyes on the desk. My heart began beating like a drum setting course for the battlefield. Paper for paper found it’s way to the floor as cupboard for cupboard was torn open.

At least until I reached the bottom cupboard.

My pull found itself hindered and my arm stretched itself thin as every bone cried out in surprise. There was a lock. A few more stressed out pulls garnered no better of a result than before and I threw the merc another look.

“The bottom drawer is locked, I need help.” I was just one man after all. “Seen a key nearby?”