Chapter 8 - Backtracking

Alleyway behind Sirius Jewel and Crystal Works

Old Capitol District, Novaterra, Union of Federated Systems

Sunday, 16 September 3488

            Javyar loomed over the prone Quorthwar, the being’s short white hair having come back in full. The being stared at the barrel of Javyar’s pistol from behind artificially orange eyes, an over-the-top look of fear morphing his features.

            “Careful with that,” Brex chirped from somewhere behind. “You and I were both there when Captain Rigby said…”

            “Captain Rigby ain’t here,” Javyar hissed, keeping his eyes locked on the sniveling pink form. He bent down, pressing the barrel of the gun up against the being’s cheek. The Quorthwar seemed to hold his breath. “But I am feeling a bit generous this evening, all things considering. I’ll give you one more shot at telling me why the hell you look like my Freelysh friend Pendrood, or else I’ll blow your face off. Try shapeshifting your way out of that one.”

            The Quorthwar’s mouth trembled. “I-I-I didn’t know the guy’s name, s-some Freelysh just came up to me the bar a-and offered six hundred! H-he told me to take his form and walk out the front door. That’s all I k-know, I swear! Please, please don’t kill me!” He gasped a few breaths, before adding: “I really needed the m-money, I…I have a lot of debts, and I’ll never be able to pay them off without a little extra…” He clammed up when Javyar pushed the gun barrel further into his cheek.

            “Stop your whining. I don’t care about your personal issues; I just want to find my Freelysh. If you went out the front, where did he go?”

            “N-no idea! Honest!” The Quorthwar replied. “I assume he went out the back or something. H-he was still in the club when I left.”

            Javyar removed the gun from the Quorthwar’s face and stood. He appraised Brex, who was staring at him with that vacant Proximan look. “Pendrood knew someone was looking for him. He sent a decoy out the front, hoping that if there was any surveillance on the entrances and exits to the bar, that they’d stop watching if they thought they had eyes on him. He’s either still back at Stark’s, or he left the same time our friend here did.” He internally cursed himself for falling for such a neophyte trick.

            “What is your plan?” Brex asked.

            Javyar thought. That would depend on whether Pendrood sent the Quorthwenne out because he knew Javyar was out there, or if he had pissed off some other group of sapients out for his hide. “Well, if he went out the back, then he’d still have gotten picked up by the cameras. We just need to go back and see when he left, and where he went.”

            Brex’s eyes fell to the Quorthwenne. “And what about him? The Captain said that we should let everyone go, especially if they help us.”

            Javyar purred his dissatisfaction. “I know what the Captain said.” He scratched his forehead. Things were much easier when you could just put a lowlife out of his misery. “Hey, you!” He called, casually waving the pistol in the Quorthwenne’s direction. “What’s your name?”

            The being stared up at him, flinching at the sight of the gun. “D-Dexios.” He muttered.

            Javyar holstered his pistol. “Alright Dexios, here’s what we’re going to do. You’re going to take out your six hundred credit prize, and you’re going to give it to me. Then you’re going to walk out of this alleyway, and if I ever so much as hear your name again, we’ll have a problem. Do you understand that?”

            Dexios was quick to scramble to his feet, fishing through his pockets for the money. He handed Javyar what he had. “You’ll never see me again…I promise!” With that, he turned and sprinted out of the alleyway as fast as his quavering legs would take him.

            Javyar watched him go, then looked down to the money in his hand. “It’s not nearly enough compensation for the trouble and frustration that little shapeshifting gurbax put us through, but I agreed not to hurt him, and it won’t be said that I’m not a Parfful of my word.”

            “I do not think robbing is quite the alternative Captain Rigby had in mind.”

            Javyar pocketed the money. “It’s not my fault that she didn’t specify that. And she won’t know; this’ll be our little secret, agreed?”

            Brex let out a strange high-pitched squeal that was a Proximan sigh. “It is not right.”

            Javyar huffed, pushing past him and back towards the road. “Don’t tell me you’re buying into all of that religious nonsense too.”

            “You do not have to be religious to have a code of ethics.” Brex called after him.

            Javyar snorted. “Sure kid, but what happens when the guy you’re trying to nab doesn’t play by any code of ethics? The stuff’s all relative. Easy situations with morals and all may make good campfire stories for your weffel to tell you before bed, but the real galaxy is a lot more complicated than that.”

            “With that line of thinking, you can do whatever you want, whenever the situation calls for it.”

            Javyar turned back a wry grin. “Now you’re getting it.”

            The two retraced their steps back in the direction of Stark’s Cantina, arriving back nearly an hour after they had initially left. The crowds seemed to have increased in the intervening period, now spilling out even onto the narrow street. Javyar stopped outside the establishment, did a once-over of the assorted groups of beings just in case Pendrood had decided to stick around, but predictably came up empty. Brextallor sauntered up to his side some minutes later, walking in an uneven gait and nearly getting bowled over by several pedestrians much taller than him. From the slight glow to his goggles, Javyar knew he was paying more attention to the computer displays in his face, not where he was going.

            “You’re a walking hazard, you know that?” Javyar quipped.

            “I can see very well, thank you.” Brex responded, nearly hitting another man’s leg. Javyar yanked him out of the way of the flow of sidewalk traffic, and against the stone wall of the cantina.

            “Sure, whatever you say. You catch sight of our friend, yet?”

            “I have run back the footage to earlier when we noticed the decoy. So far, I do not see another identical Freelysh.” Brex answered.

            “Check any back or side exits, too.” Javyar reminded him.

            Blue light danced across Brex’s dark orbs as he watched the footage. “I think I got him!” He cried, after a few quick minutes. “This your guy?” Javyar called up his own personal uplink, mounted to his wrist. The small holographic screen which popped up contained one message from Brex, with a single image attachment. It was a poor angled shot of the rear side of Stark’s, a single yellow Freelysh visible. Checking for the number of tentacles dangling from his face, Javyar counted nine, the one on the end cut at the halfway point.

            “That looks like him, alright. Hopefully it’s not another pinkie decoy.”

            “He left approximately five minutes after our friend Dexios left, heading north; towards the Tamerwan District.”

            “Ah,” Javyar nodded. The Tamerwan District was a well-known residential district on this slice of Novaterra. “That must be where our squid lives.”

            “Tracking him across the district through street cameras…” Brex announced. “And he went into a building on the border of the two districts; it is about two kilometers away.”

            Javyar grinned wolfishly. “Lead on.”

            They made their way to the rear of the cantina, starting right at the source. It took some effort for Javyar to slow his pace to an acceptable speed to follow the ever-slow Brex, and it seemed to take hours as he led them across the district. The farther they went from the middle of the Old Capital District the livelier the streets became, as they neared the more middle-class Tamerwan District. High above, even this far down in the Novaterra sprawl, tall skyscrapers reached to the metal roof of the level. Speeders flitted in and out of the narrow canyons between the buildings, a reminder of that this had once been as bustling as the surface several levels above.

            After what felt like an eternity of walking, Brextallor finally came to a halt outside of a particularly run-down apartment building, perhaps a block shy from where the demarcation line between the Old Capital and Tamerwan Districts lie.

            “He went in there,” Brex said, indicating the structure.

            Javyar looked up at it. The place looked condemned, old stone walls well-crumbled in places where the cheap plaster composite used to bond them was withering. “You sure?” He asked. “This place looks like nobody’s been in there in years.”

            Brex nodded. “You can check the holo footage if you would like to confirm it.”

            Javyar shook his head. “I trust you. No indication that he left?”

            “Not at all,” Brex replied, quickly adding: “Unless he pulled another trick on us.”

            “Not this time,” Javyar replied, approaching the door of the structure. “When Pendrood tries playing tricks like the big boys, he’s only ever good for one. His creativity doesn’t extend that far.” More reason why Javyar knew he should have seen this coming.

            When they stepped through the rotted door and into the apartment structure, they were immediately shown that despite the awful exterior, the interior was both in better shape, and more populated than expected. Around what had once been the spacious lobby of an upper-class apartment building in the style of centuries ancient Novaterra, groups of other beings now stood cluttered around small fires and camp setups. It looked like this building was in use as a homeless encampment of sorts, the eyes of an assortment of beings falling on them, then turning away when their interest was lost.

            “Do you see him?” Brex asked, softly.

            Javyar looked but didn’t. “Not down here. Pendrood is presumably upstairs, somewhere.”

            “That’ll be a lot of space to check.” Brex replied. Javyar concurred, and instead came up with an alternative plan that would cut down their search time dramatically.

            Javyar approached the nearest of the occupants of this building, a small, ragged-looking Human woman, who – unlike most of the other residents – had kept her eyes keenly trained on them. She had a creased face and beaten-down expression telling Javyar that she had spent many years living in conditions like this. All the while, he fished in his pocket for the credits he had received from their Quorthwenne.

            “Hey!” Javyar hissed at the woman, who shuddered with astonishment, eyes shifting to make it seem like she had just noticed them, a ruse Javyar could see right through. A look of half surprise, half suspicion appeared in her face. “Have you seen a Freelysh come through here? Yellow skin, missing half a tentacle?” The woman didn’t respond, instead holding that gaze. Pulling out the money, Javyar presented it to her. “Three hundred credits if you tell me what I want to know.” At the presentation of the money, the woman’s expression changed. She eyed the cash greedily, and even went to take it, but Javyar pulled it away. “Oh no,” He said. “Information, first. Have you seen my Freelysh?”

            The woman’s head slowly began to nod, imperceptibly at first, before becoming more pronounced. She pointed up. “Upstairs,” Came a creaky voice from between her weathered lips.  

            “Which floor?”

            She hesitated another moment, then seemed to remember the money. “Third. First room on the right.”

            Javyar handed her the money. “Much obliged.” She greedily snatched it, her interest instantly shifted from them to her new payday.

            “How did you know she knew where to go?” Brex asked once they began to ascend the stairs.

            “Vagrants can make good sentries, in the right circumstances. Nobody pays them any attention, and they’re usually all over places like this. The other side is that if you don’t pay them well enough, they’re not going to think twice before singing.”

            Brex swayed back and forth, in a strange Proximan way to communicate a nod. “Pendrood told her to keep an eye out for any trouble.”

            “Without payment, I presume.”

            “What’s stopping her from taking our money and telling him anyway?” Brex asked.

            Javyar began to pick up the pace. “Nothing, which is why we need to hurry before he disappears again.” They hopped up the next several steps, coming onto the second-floor landing. This floor was in about the same shape as the previous, many of the apartment rooms open, assorted vagrants flitting in and out of them. From the smell of smoke, the makeshift campfires were set up in these rooms too, a clear fire hazard that no fire marshal was going to bother themselves with investigating.

            The third floor was a bit less populated, and the state of the building more closely matched the exterior. Large gaps of the floor were missing here, along with crumbling plaster which covered the walls. “Watch your step,” Javyar whispered to Brex. “Or it may be your last.”

            “Then it would be helpful if I could see,” Brex complained. “It is very dark!”

            Javyar, whose Parfful eyes had well-adjusted to the darkness, could see perfectly fine. “Just keep close and follow my lead.”

            They made their way down the hallway slowly and as quietly as possible, Javyar never taking his eyes off the third door on the left – their intended destination. A weak light, almost candle-like due to how it unsteadily flickered, filled the doorway. As they approached the door Javyar unholstered his pistol, bringing the black ShinTech 77 to rest against his left thigh.

            Coming to a halt just outside, they could see that the dim light came from an old-style handheld light, battery powered and clearly nearing the end of its life. It illuminated a small apartment room containing mostly broken furniture. At the one corner – just beyond the radius of the light – lay a pile of tattered sheets on a mattress, where the unmistakable form of a being lay intertwined with them. From the sudden watery mist which assailed them upon stepping through the threshold of the room, Javyar knew they had found the right place.

            As silently as possible, Javyar approached the being splayed out on the mattress, getting a good look at the figure as they rolled over. From the half-tentacle on the right side of the Freelysh’s face, he knew this was their target. Bending down over the sleeping figure, Javyar raised his gun and tapped Pendrood’s arm with it.

            “Wakey, wakey.” He said. The Freelysh slowly came back to consciousness, the look of terror immediately filling his face when he saw Javyar. He tried to shift away, but the wall came to greet him. From the look of recognition next to the terror, Javyar knew this was truly whom they had been looking for. “Good evening, Pendrood. Quite the slip you gave us, earlier.”

            “H-hey, Jav!” Pendrood exclaimed, his voice quavering. “It’s been a while; how’ve you been?”

            Javyar held the gun steady. “I was well until I wanted to go looking for you at Stark’s earlier and ended up chasing a Quorthwenne halfway across the district.”

            Pendrood’s orange eyes flicked left and right, looking for some sort of solution. “I-I’m terribly sorry about that but…you know how things are. I got people out looking for me; I need to take precautions. I-if I had known it was you though, I wouldn’t have…”

            “Uh-huh, right. You would have come out and greeted me like an old buddy, is that it?” Javyar interrupted. “From how you tried to rip me off on J’naiah, I really don’t think that’s true.”

            Pendrood’s tentacles quivered. “J’naiah was five years ago; you’re still mad about that?”

            “I don’t remember an apology.”

            “I-I’m sorry, okay? That good enough?” The Freelysh asked.

            “It’s a start,” Javyar replied. “Now, I’d like to ask you a few questions if that’s okay. Answer me truthfully, and we can call it even on the J’naiah thing. Lie to me and, well…” He looked at the pistol, which was insinuation enough. Javyar caught Brex tense up at the corner of his vision. He really hoped the Proximan wasn’t about to go on about Captain Rigby, again.

            Pendrood’s tentacles quivered again, as his shoulders dropped. The large sack of skin at the base of his neck expanded and retracted. “You’re looking for information?” A squishy sound emanated from his mouth flaps. “Why didn’t you just tell me that? What does Gruntherson need from me now?”

            Javyar grinned. “I don’t work for Sleyvar Gruntherson, anymore. He and I…let’s just say we don’t see eye-to-eye anymore.” That was one way to express what Javyar had done to Grutherson’s lieutenant at their last meeting.

            “I never liked him, anyway,” Pendrood said quickly. “Vorrishi always gross me out.”

            Javyar tapped the gun against the Freelysh’s arm. “I didn’t come to discuss that fat pig with you.”

            “T-then what is it you want from me?”

            “The Senate,” Javyar began, conversationally. “Word is that a couple of the children of certain pro-Entente senators have gone missing in recent weeks. What might you know about that?”

            “Congressional intrigues, who says I know anything about that?” Pendrood tried to keep his expression straight, but the shift in his eyes gave it away.

            “Don’t play dumb with me,” Javyar replied. “One of your primary fields of knowledge is what goes on between the Horizon District and us lowlifes down here. I know that if anything untoward is going on up there, you’ve at least heard about it, if not helped facilitate some of it.”

            Pendrood hesitated, seeming to carefully weigh his options. “I…may have heard a thing or two.” He said, after a while. “But I don’t know if I can recall all that well. Some money might help me remember, though.” He let this last part out slowly and with hope in his eyes.

            Javyar hissed annoyedly. He shook the gun. “How about I put a bullet in you and move on? You’re not the only one who may be able to help, and I doubt anyone would miss you.”

            “Jav!” Brex whispered firmly.

            Javyar’s grip tightened on his gun. Without removing his eyes from Pendrood, he addressed the Proximan. “By all of the stars in the sky, if you remind me one more time what the Captain said, I’ll put one in you, too.” That got Brextallor’s attention, and no further retort came from him.

            “Anyway,” Javyar said, returning to Pendrood. “How about fifty credits, and I don’t shoot you. That enough?” He took a step closer, bringing the barrel of the gun within mere centimeters from the being’s face. “I’ll give you one hint as to the answer.”

            “Okay, f-fine!” Pendrood exclaimed, his face tentacles wriggling wildly. “Which senator was it?”

            “There are two that we know of.” Javyar replied. “Sethell’s daughter and Korgwesh’s son. You hear anyone talking about that?”

            “Not that I can remember,” Pendrood thought for a long, hard moment. Then, as if a stab of insight had struck his mind, his face lit up. “I do think I heard about someone wanting to facilitate some work up in the Horizon District.”

            “Who?”

            “No idea,” Pendrood replied. “I never caught a name; I heard he was trying to rustle up some contacts up that way, but that was a while ago.”

            “That’s conveniently vague,” Javyar said. “Care to tell us where you heard this information?”

            “Up on 986. Sammy Fisk was going on about it a few months ago.”

            Javyar purred annoyedly, immediately recalling the small rat of a Human with a penchant for tall tales. “This is coming from Sammy Fisk? You may as well have told me that you heard it from the Antares Phantom. I don’t have any time for innuendo and hearsay.” That legend may have been more believable, Javyar considered.   

            A sudden intransigence took over the Freelysh. “The Antares Phantom is real!”

            Javyar’s discontent only grew. “Sammy Fisk tell you that one, too?”

            “I’ve seen him; with my own eyes, I’ve seen his ship and everything!” Pendrood insisted.

            “Whatever,” Javyar replied. “I didn’t come down here to argue about ghost ships. What did Fisk say?”

            “He said that someone paid him a hundred thousand credits to put them in touch with someone in the Horizon District.”

            “A hundred thousand credits?” Brextallor’s mystified voice asked.

            “Yes!” Pendrood exclaimed, suddenly turning an excitable expression on the second being in the room. “Suspicious, right? This must be what you’re looking for!”

            Javyar’s surprise was only tempered by his immediate skepticism. “Sounds like typical Fisk storytelling, if you ask me. I’ll be the judge of whether its related to our current job.” 

            “Oh no!” Pendrood insisted. “He didn’t just tell me. I saw it! Every last credit!”

            Javyar narrowed his eyes. “He showed you a hundred-thousand credit payout? That would have to mean…”

            “The man paid him in physical money, that’s right.” Pendrood interrupted, completing Javyar’s thought. “I only saw one of what Fisk said were two sacks, but it was legit. He had nearly fifty-thousand credits in that bag. I’ve seen fakes, and these were no fakes.”

            Javyar kept his gun handy but took it away from proximity to Pendrood’s face. With his free hand, he stroked his whiskers. “Okay then, keep talking. What else did Fisk say?” He had to admit that even Sammy Fisk couldn’t conjure up fifty-thousand credits, so there may have been something to this, after all.

            The quivering of Pendrood’s face tentacles and contractions of his throat sack slowed, as he began to breathe easier. “He said that this guy was asking around for someone who could find him a potential contact up in the Horizon District. Someone local, who could ingratiate themselves with the regular socialites up there. Someone…” He paused, dramatically looking left and right as if for any eavesdroppers in the room barely big enough for the three of them. When Pendrood spoke again, his voice was low. “Someone who could get in with some Congress circles.”

            “And he did it?”

            Pendrood gave an affirmative. “I suppose so, if he got paid so well for it.”

            “One hundred thousand for a simple contact, it must have been pretty important.”

            “It was,” Pendrood agreed. “At least, Sammy said the man seemed very eager to find someone.”

            “What did Fisk say was the man’s name?” Javyar persisted.

            “He didn’t,” Pendrood replied. “Sammy said the man wanted to keep things as anonymous as possible. Said the man was a go-between for a powerful client, and valued anonymity.”

            Javyar squinted. That was plausible enough in this world, especially if the man in question was affiliated with politics and the use of his name would have raised too many red-flags. “Well then what did he look like?”

            Pendrood’s tentacle beard quivered a few times as the being thought. “Human, middle-aged. Sammy said he wasn’t too tall, and he had…” The Freelysh thought, seeming to be trying to remember the identifying detail his friend had told him. Suddenly he sprang to life, running one thick, membraned hand down the side of his face. “The man had a massive scar and facial burns running down the side of his face. Sammy said he was blind in the one eye.”

            Javyar considered that. It was some identifying mark, but not quite one all that rare. That description applied to any number of wounded veterans – Human and otherwise – of both the Union and Talosian armies, let alone the survivor of any number of accidents. “Okay then, what was the name of the man whom Fisk found for him?”

            Pendrood suddenly became very uncomfortable. “I…don’t know.”

            In that instant, Javyar felt his temper rise. “What do you mean you don’t know?”

            “We were swapping stories, I wasn’t exactly interviewing him for the morning holocasts,” Pendrood insisted, quickly. “He told me about that, and I was telling him about this gig I had working down on 722…”

            Javyar suddenly raised his weapon again, and Pendrood clammed up. “I don’t give a damn about 722, I want to know about the person whose name Fisk gave to his mystery man. You said you’d give me some information.”

            “And I did,” Pendrood offered, his large eyes tracking to the weapon, as if trying to decide how much he wanted to press his luck. “If you want to know more, than go talk to Fisk!”

            “Where is he?” Javyar grunted.

            “I don’t think…” Pendrood stopped when the gun was at his temple. He started to shake again.

            “Wrong answer.”

            “O-okay, okay!” He cried. “Fine! He’s up a few levels, staying at some fancy hotel or such near the surface.” The Freelysh stammered. Javyar held the gun in place and held Pendrood’s fear in control, before he moved it away and stood.  

            Javyar stole a glance at Brex, then back at Pendrood. “Well, it looks like you’ve been a major help for us.” He waved the gun at the Freelysh. “Now, stand up.”

            The color began to drain from the Freelysh’s face. “What are you doing?”

            “Yes,” Brex added. “What are you doing?”

            Javyar waved for Pendrood to follow. “You’re going to come with us, at least until we have a nice chat with Sammy Fisk. It wouldn’t do to have you go blabbing this information to him before we get there.”

            “Jav, I do not know about this,” Brex added.

            Pendrood looked from Javyar to Brex. “What’s this about? I-I helped you, didn’t I?”

            Javyar went to grab Pendrood’s shoulder, but his hand slipped off and instead held a palmful of slime. Wiping the Freelysh goop off on his clothing, He then grabbed the Freelysh again, getting a decent hold this time. “This is just until we talk to Fisk, then we can discuss next steps. Besides, I’m sure it’ll be better for you to be stuck with us for a little while than down here, where I’m sure someone is out looking to cave your little squid skull in. At least I have orders not to.”